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diff --git a/18893-0.txt b/18893-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dbf9768 --- /dev/null +++ b/18893-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,37759 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, by John Symonds + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at +www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you +will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before +using this eBook. + +Title: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece + Series I, II, and III + +Author: John Symonds + +Release Date: July 22, 2006 [eBook #18893] +[Most recently updated: October 17, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Turgut Dincer, Ted Garvin, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE *** + +[Illustration] + + + + +Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece + +by John Addington Symonds + + +Contents + + VOLUME I. + THE LOVE OF THE ALPS + WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS + BACCHUS IN GRAUBÜNDEN + OLD TOWNS OF PROVENCE + THE CORNICE + AJACCIO + MONTE GENEROSO + LOMBARD VIGNETTES + COMO AND IL MEDEGHINO + BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI + CREMA AND THE CRUCIFIX + CHERUBINO AT THE SCALA THEATRE + A VENETIAN MEDLEY + THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING + A CINQUE CENTO BRUTUS + TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY + + VOLUME II. + RAVENNA + RIMINI + MAY IN UMBRIA + THE PALACE OF URBINO + VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI + AUTUMN WANDERINGS + PARMA + CANOSSA + FORNOVO + FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI + THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE + POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY + POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE + THE ‘ORFEO’ OF POLIZIANO + EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH + + VOLUME III. + FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO + THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS + SIENA + MONTE OLIVETO + MONTEPULCIANO + PERUGIA + ORVIETO + LUCRETIUS + ANTINOUS + SPRING WANDERINGS + AMALFI, PÆSTUM, CAPRI + ETNA + PALERMO + SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI + ATHENS + INDEX FOR ALL THREE VOLUMES + + + + +PREFATORY NOTE + + +In preparing this new edition of the late J.A. Symonds's three volumes +of travels, 'Sketches in Italy and Greece,' 'Sketches and Studies in +Italy,' and 'Italian Byways,' nothing has been changed except the order +of the Essays. For the convenience of travellers a topographical +arrangement has been adopted. This implied a new title to cover the +contents of all three volumes, and 'Sketches and Studies in Italy and +Greece' has been chosen as departing least from the author's own +phraseology. + +HORATIO F. BROWN. + +Venice: _June_ 1898. + + + + +SKETCHES AND STUDIES +IN +ITALY AND GREECE + + + + +VOLUME I. + + + + +THE LOVE OF THE ALPS[1] + + +Of all the joys in life, none is greater than the joy of arriving on +the outskirts of Switzerland at the end of a long dusty day's journey +from Paris. The true epicure in refined pleasures will never travel to +Basle by night. He courts the heat of the sun and the monotony of +French plains,—their sluggish streams and never-ending poplar trees—for +the sake of the evening coolness and the gradual approach to the great +Alps, which await him at the close of the day. It is about Mulhausen +that he begins to feel a change in the landscape. The fields broaden +into rolling downs, watered by clear and running streams; the green +Swiss thistle grows by riverside and cowshed; pines begin to tuft the +slopes of gently rising hills; and now the sun has set, the stars come +2out, first Hesper, then the troop of lesser lights; and he feels—yes, +indeed, there is now no mistake—the well-known, well-loved magical +fresh air, that never fails to blow from snowy mountains and meadows +watered by perennial streams. The last hour is one of exquisite +enjoyment, and when he reaches Basle, he scarcely sleeps all night for +hearing the swift Rhine beneath the balconies, and knowing that the +moon is shining on its waters, through the town, beneath the bridges, +between pasture-lands and copses, up the still mountain-girdled valleys +to the ice-caves where the water springs. There is nothing in all +experience of travelling like this. We may greet the Mediterranean at +Marseilles with enthusiasm; on entering Rome by the Porta del Popolo, +we may reflect with pride that we have reached the goal of our +pilgrimage, and are at last among world-shaking memories. But neither +Rome nor the Riviera wins our hearts like Switzerland. We do not lie +awake in London thinking of them; we do not long so intensely, as the +year comes round, to revisit them. Our affection is less a passion than +that which we cherish for Switzerland. + + [1] This Essay was written in 1866, and published in 1867. Reprinting + it in 1879, after eighteen months spent continuously in one high + valley of the Grisons, I feel how slight it is. For some amends, I + take this opportunity of printing at the end of it a description of + Davos in winter. + +Why, then, is this? What, after all, is the love of the Alps, and when +and where did it begin? It is easier to ask these questions than to +answer them. The classic nations hated mountains. Greek and Roman poets +talk of them with disgust and dread. Nothing could have been more +depressing to a courtier of Augustus than residence at Aosta, even +though he found his theatres and triumphal arches there. Wherever +classical feeling has predominated, this has been the case. Cellini's +Memoirs, written in the height of pagan Renaissance, well express the +aversion which a Florentine or Roman felt for the inhospitable +wildernesses of Switzerland.[2] Dryden, in his dedication to 'The +Indian 3Emperor,' says, 'High objects, it is true, attract the sight; +but it looks up with pain on craggy rocks and barren mountains, and +continues not intent on any object which is wanting in shades and green +to entertain it.' Addison and Gray had no better epithets than +'rugged,' 'horrid,' and the like for Alpine landscape. The classic +spirit was adverse to enthusiasm for mere nature. Humanity was too +prominent, and city life absorbed all interests,—not to speak of what +perhaps is the weightiest reason—that solitude, indifferent +accommodation, and imperfect means of travelling, rendered mountainous +countries peculiarly disagreeable. It is impossible to enjoy art or +nature while suffering from fatigue and cold, dreading the attacks of +robbers, and wondering whether you will find food and shelter at the +end of your day's journey. Nor was it different in the Middle Ages. +Then individuals had either no leisure from war or strife with the +elements, or else they devoted themselves to the salvation of their +souls. But when the ideas of the Middle Ages had decayed, when improved +arts of life had freed men from servile subjection to daily needs, when +the bondage of religious tyranny had been thrown off and political +liberty allowed the full development of tastes and instincts, when, +moreover, the classical traditions had lost their power, and courts and +coteries became too narrow for the activity of man,—then suddenly it +was discovered that Nature in herself possessed transcendent charms. It +may seem absurd to class them all together; yet there is no doubt that +the French Revolution, the criticism of the Bible, Pantheistic forms of +religious feeling, landscape-painting, Alpine travelling, and the +poetry of Nature, are all signs of the same movement—of a new +Renaissance. Limitations of every sort have been shaken off during the +last century; all forms have been destroyed, all questions asked. The +classical spirit loved to 4arrange, model, preserve traditions, obey +laws. We are intolerant of everything that is not simple, unbiassed by +prescription, liberal as the wind, and natural as the mountain crags. +We go to feed this spirit of freedom among the Alps. What the virgin +forests of America are to the Americans, the Alps are to us. What there +is in these huge blocks and walls of granite crowned with ice that +fascinates us, it is hard to analyse. Why, seeing that we find them so +attractive, they should have repelled our ancestors of the fourth +generation and all the world before them, is another mystery. We cannot +explain what rapport there is between our human souls and these +inequalities in the surface of the earth which we call Alps. Tennyson +speaks of + +Some vague emotion of delight +In gazing up an Alpine height, + + +and its vagueness eludes definition. The interest which physical +science has created for natural objects has something to do with it. +Curiosity and the charm of novelty increase this interest. No towns, no +cultivated tracts of Europe however beautiful, form such a contrast to +our London life as Switzerland. Then there is the health and joy that +comes from exercise in open air; the senses freshened by good sleep; +the blood quickened by a lighter and rarer atmosphere. Our modes of +life, the breaking down of class privileges, the extension of +education, which contribute to make the individual greater and society +less, render the solitude of mountains refreshing. Facilities of +travelling and improved accommodation leave us free to enjoy the +natural beauty which we seek. Our minds, too, are prepared to +sympathise with the inanimate world; we have learned to look on the +universe as a whole, and ourselves as a part of it, related by close +ties of friendship to all its other members 5Shelley's, Wordsworth's, +Goethe's poetry has taught us this; we are all more or less Pantheists, +worshippers of 'God in Nature,' convinced of the omnipresence of the +informing mind. + + [2] See, however, what is said about Leo Battista Alberti in the + sketch of Rimini in the second series. + +Thus, when we admire the Alps, we are after all but children of the +century. We follow its inspiration blindly; and while we think +ourselves spontaneous in our ecstasy, perform the part for which we +have been trained from childhood by the atmosphere in which we live. It +is this very unconsciousness and universality of the impulse we obey +which makes it hard to analyse. Contemporary history is difficult to +write; to define the spirit of the age in which we live is still more +difficult; to account for 'impressions which owe all their force to +their identity with themselves' is most difficult of all. We must be +content to feel, and not to analyse. + +Rousseau has the credit of having invented the love of Nature. Perhaps +he first expressed, in literature, the pleasures of open life among the +mountains, of walking tours, of the '_école buissonnière_,' away from +courts, and schools, and cities, which it is the fashion now to love. +His bourgeois birth and tastes, his peculiar religious and social +views, his intense self-engrossment,—all favoured the development of +Nature-worship. But Rousseau was not alone, nor yet creative, in this +instance. He was but one of the earliest to seize and express a new +idea of growing humanity. For those who seem to be the most original in +their inauguration of periods are only such as have been favourably +placed by birth and education to imbibe the floating creeds of the +whole race. They resemble the first cases of an epidemic, which become +the centres of infection and propagate disease. At the time of +Rousseau's greatness the French people were initiative. In politics, in +literature, in fashions, and in 6philosophy, they had for some time led +the taste of Europe. But the sentiment which first received a clear and +powerful expression in the works of Rousseau, soon declared itself in +the arts and literature of other nations. Goethe, Wordsworth, and the +earlier landscape-painters, proved that Germany and England were not +far behind the French. In England this love of Nature for its own sake +is indigenous, and has at all times been peculiarly characteristic of +our genius. Therefore it is not surprising that our life and literature +and art have been foremost in developing the sentiment of which we are +speaking. Our poets, painters, and prose writers gave the tone to +European thought in this respect. Our travellers in search of the +adventurous and picturesque, our Alpine Club, have made of Switzerland +an English playground. + +The greatest period in our history was but a foreshadowing of this. To +return to Nature-worship was but to reassume the habits of the +Elizabethan age, altered indeed by all the changes of religion, +politics, society, and science which the last three centuries have +wrought, yet still, in its original love of free open life among the +fields and woods, and on the sea, the same. Now the French national +genius is classical. It reverts to the age of Louis XIV., and +Rousseauism in their literature is as true an innovation and +parenthesis as Pope-and-Drydenism was in ours. As in the age of the +Reformation, so in this, the German element of the modern character +predominates. During the two centuries from which we have emerged, the +Latin element had the upper hand. Our love of the Alps is a Gothic, a +Teutonic, instinct; sympathetic with all that is vague, infinite, and +insubordinate to rules, at war with all that is defined and systematic +in our genius. This we may perceive in individuals as well as in the +broader aspects of arts and literatures. The classically minded man, +the reader of Latin poets, the lover 7of brilliant conversation, the +frequenter of clubs and drawing-rooms, nice in his personal +requirements, scrupulous in his choice of words, averse to unnecessary +physical exertion, preferring town to country life, _cannot_ deeply +feel the charm of the Alps. Such a man will dislike German art, and +however much he may strive to be Catholic in his tastes, will find as +he grows older that his liking for Gothic architecture and modern +painting diminish almost to aversion before an increasing admiration +for Greek peristyles and the Medicean Venus. If in respect of +speculation all men are either Platonists or Aristotelians, in respect +of taste all men are either Greek or German. + +At present the German, the indefinite, the natural, commands; the +Greek, the finite, the cultivated, is in abeyance. We who talk so much +about the feeling of the Alps, are creatures, not creators of our +_cultus_,—a strange reflection, proving how much greater man is than +men, the common reason of the age in which we live than our own +reasons, its constituents and subjects. + +Perhaps it is our modern tendency to 'individualism' which makes the +Alps so much to us. Society is there reduced to a vanishing point—no +claims are made on human sympathies—there is no need to toil in +yoke-service with our fellows. We may be alone, dream our own dreams, +and sound the depths of personality without the reproach of +selfishness, without a restless wish to join in action or money-making +or the pursuit of fame. To habitual residents among the Alps this +absence of social duties and advantages may be barbarising, even +brutalising. But to men wearied with too much civilisation, and +deafened by the noise of great cities, it is beyond measure refreshing. +Then, again, among the mountains history finds no place. The Alps have +no past nor present nor future. The human beings who live upon their +sides are at odds 8with nature, clinging on for bare existence to the +soil, sheltering themselves beneath protecting rocks from avalanches, +damming up destructive streams, all but annihilated every spring. Man, +who is paramount in the plain, is nothing here. His arts and sciences, +and dynasties, and modes of life, and mighty works, and conquests and +decays, demand our whole attention in Italy or Egypt. But here the +mountains, immemorially the same, which were, which are, and which are +to be, present a theatre on which the soul breathes freely and feels +herself alone. Around her on all sides is God, and Nature, who is here +the face of God and not the slave of man. The spirit of the world hath +here not yet grown old. She is as young as on the first day; and the +Alps are a symbol of the self-creating, self-sufficing, self-enjoying +universe which lives for its own ends. For why do the slopes gleam with +flowers, and the hillsides deck themselves with grass, and the +inaccessible ledges of black rock bear their tufts of crimson primroses +and flaunting tiger-lilies? Why, morning after morning, does the red +dawn flush the pinnacles of Monte Rosa above cloud and mist unheeded? +Why does the torrent shout, the avalanche reply in thunder to the music +of the sun, the trees and rocks and meadows cry their 'Holy, Holy, +Holy'? Surely not for us. We are an accident here, and even the few men +whose eyes are fixed habitually upon these things are dead to them—the +peasants do not even know the names of their own flowers, and sigh with +envy when you tell them of the plains of Lincolnshire or Russian +steppes. + +But indeed there is something awful in the Alpine elevation above human +things. We do not love Switzerland merely because we associate its +thought with recollections of holidays and joyfulness. Some of the most +solemn moments of life are spent high up above among the mountains, on +the barren tops of rocky passes, where the soul has seemed to hear in +solitude 9a low controlling voice. It is almost necessary for the +development of our deepest affections that some sad and sombre moments +should be interchanged with hours of merriment and elasticity. It is +this variety in the woof of daily life which endears our home to us; +and perhaps none have fully loved the Alps who have not spent some days +of meditation, or it may be of sorrow, among their solitudes. Splendid +scenery, like music, has the power to make 'of grief itself a fiery +chariot for mounting above the sources of grief,' to ennoble and refine +our passions, and to teach us that our lives are merely moments in the +years of the eternal Being. There are many, perhaps, who, within sight +of some great scene among the Alps, upon the height of the Stelvio or +the slopes of Mürren, or at night in the valley of Courmayeur, have +felt themselves raised above cares and doubts and miseries by the mere +recognition of unchangeable magnificence; have found a deep peace in +the sense of their own nothingness. It is not granted to us everyday to +stand upon these pinnacles of rest and faith above the world. But +having once stood there, how can we forget the station? How can we +fail, amid the tumult of our common cares, to feel at times the hush of +that far-off tranquillity? When our life is most commonplace, when we +are ill or weary in city streets, we can remember the clouds upon the +mountains we have seen, the sound of innumerable waterfalls, and the +scent of countless flowers. A photograph of Bisson's or of Braun's, the +name of some well-known valley, the picture of some Alpine plant, +rouses the sacred hunger in our souls, and stirs again the faith in +beauty and in rest beyond ourselves which no man can take from us. We +owe a deep debt of gratitude to everything which enables us to rise +above depressing and enslaving circumstances, which brings us nearer in +some way or other to what is eternal in the universe, and which makes +us know 10that, whether we live or die, suffer or enjoy, life and +gladness are still strong in the world. On this account, the proper +attitude of the soul among the Alps is one of silence. It is almost +impossible without a kind of impiety to frame in words the feelings +they inspire. Yet there are some sayings, hallowed by long usage, which +throng the mind through a whole summer's day, and seem in harmony with +its emotions—some portions of the Psalms or lines of greatest poets, +inarticulate hymns of Beethoven and Mendelssohn, waifs and strays not +always apposite, but linked by strong and subtle chains of feeling with +the grandeur of the mountains. This reverential feeling for the Alps is +connected with the Pantheistic form of our religious sentiments to +which I have before alluded. It is a trite remark, that even devout men +of the present generation prefer temples _not_ made with hands to +churches, and worship God in the fields more contentedly than in their +pews. What Mr. Ruskin calls 'the instinctive sense of the divine +presence not formed into distinct belief' lies at the root of our +profound veneration for the nobler aspects of mountain scenery. This +instinctive sense has been very variously expressed by Goethe in +Faust's celebrated confession of faith, by Shelley in the stanzas of +'Adonais,' which begin 'He is made one with nature,' by Wordsworth in +the lines on Tintern Abbey, and lately by Mr. Roden Noel in his noble +poems of Pantheism. It is more or less strongly felt by all who have +recognised the indubitable fact that religious belief is undergoing a +sure process of change from the dogmatic distinctness of the past to +some at present dimly descried creed of the future. Such periods of +transition are of necessity full of discomfort, doubt, and anxiety, +vague, variable, and unsatisfying. The men in whose spirits the +fermentation of the change is felt, who have abandoned their old +moorings, and have not yet 11reached the haven for which they are +steering, cannot but be indistinct and undecided in their faith. The +universe of which they form a part becomes important to them in its +infinite immensity. The principles of beauty, goodness, order and law, +no longer connected in their minds with definite articles of faith, +find symbols in the outer world. They are glad to fly at certain +moments from mankind and its oppressive problems, for which religion no +longer provides a satisfactory solution, to Nature, where they vaguely +localise the spirit that broods over us controlling all our being. To +such men Goethe's hymn is a form of faith, and born of such a mood are +the following far humbler verses:— + +At Mürren let the morning lead thee out + To walk upon the cold and cloven hills, +To hear the congregated mountains shout + Their pæan of a thousand foaming rills. +Raimented with intolerable light + The snow-peaks stand above thee, row on row +Arising, each a seraph in his might; + An organ each of varied stop doth blow. +Heaven's azure dome trembles through all her spheres, + Feeling that music vibrate; and the sun +Raises his tenor as he upward steers, + And all the glory-coated mists that run +Below him in the valley, hear his voice, +And cry unto the dewy fields, Rejoice! + + +There is a profound sympathy between music and fine scenery: they both +affect us in the same way, stirring strong but undefined emotions, +which express themselves in 'idle tears,' or evoking thoughts 'which +lie,' as Wordsworth says, 'too deep for tears,' beyond the reach of any +words. How little we know what multitudes of mingling reminiscences, +held in solution by the mind, and colouring its fancy with the +iridescence of variable hues, go to make up the sentiments 12which +music or which mountains stir! It is the very vagueness, changefulness, +and dreamlike indistinctness of these feelings which cause their charm; +they harmonise with the haziness of our beliefs and seem to make our +very doubts melodious. For this reason it is obvious that unrestrained +indulgence in the pleasures of music or of scenery may tend to destroy +habits of clear thinking, sentimentalise the mind, and render it more +apt to entertain embryonic fancies than to bring ideas to definite +perfection. + +If hours of thoughtfulness and seclusion are necessary to the +development of a true love for the Alps, it is no less essential to a +right understanding of their beauty that we should pass some wet and +gloomy days among the mountains. The unclouded sunsets and sunrises +which often follow one another in September in the Alps, have something +terrible. They produce a satiety of splendour, and oppress the mind +with a sense of perpetuity. I remember spending such a season in one of +the Oberland valleys, high up above the pine-trees, in a little châlet. +Morning after morning I awoke to see the sunbeams glittering on the +Eiger and the Jungfrau; noon after noon the snow-fields blazed beneath +a steady fire; evening after evening they shone like beacons in the red +light of the setting sun. Then peak by peak they lost the glow; the +soul passed from them, and they stood pale yet weirdly garish against +the darkened sky. The stars came out, the moon shone, but not a cloud +sailed over the untroubled heavens. Thus day after day for several +weeks there was no change, till I was seized with an overpowering +horror of unbroken calm. I left the valley for a time; and when I +returned to it in wind and rain, I found that the partial veiling of +the mountain heights restored the charm which I had lost and made me +feel once more at home. The landscape takes a graver tone beneath the +mist that hides the higher 13peaks, and comes drifting, creeping, +feeling, through the pines upon their slopes—white, silent, blinding +vapour-wreaths around the sable spires. Sometimes the cloud descends +and blots out everything. Again it lifts a little, showing cottages and +distant Alps beneath its skirts. Then it sweeps over the whole valley +like a veil, just broken here and there above a lonely châlet or a +thread of distant dangling torrent foam. Sounds, too, beneath the mist +are more strange. The torrent seems to have a hoarser voice and grinds +the stones more passionately against its boulders. The cry of shepherds +through the fog suggests the loneliness and danger of the hills. The +bleating of penned sheep or goats, and the tinkling of the cowbells, +are mysteriously distant and yet distinct in the dull dead air. Then, +again, how immeasurably high above our heads appear the domes and peaks +of snow revealed through chasms in the drifting cloud; how desolate the +glaciers and the avalanches in gleams of light that struggle through +the mist! There is a leaden glare peculiar to clouds, which makes the +snow and ice more lurid. Not far from the house where I am writing, the +avalanche that swept away the bridge last winter is lying now, dripping +away, dank and dirty, like a rotting whale. I can see it from my +window, green beech-boughs nodding over it, forlorn larches bending +their tattered branches by its side, splinters of broken pine +protruding from its muddy caves, the boulders on its flank, and the +hoarse hungry torrent tossing up its tongues to lick the ragged edge of +snow. Close by, the meadows, spangled with yellow flowers and red and +blue, look even more brilliant than if the sun were shining on them. +Every cup and blade of grass is drinking. But the scene changes; the +mist has turned into rain-clouds, and the steady rain drips down, +incessant, blotting out the view. Then, too, what a joy it is if the +clouds break towards evening with a north wind, and a rainbow in 14the +valley gives promise of a bright to-morrow! We look up to the cliffs +above our heads, and see that they have just been powdered with the +snow that is a sign of better weather. + +Such rainy days ought to be spent in places like Seelisberg and Mürren, +at the edge of precipices, in front of mountains, or above a lake. The +cloud-masses crawl and tumble about the valleys like a brood of +dragons; now creeping along the ledges of the rock with sinuous +self-adjustment to its turns and twists; now launching out into the +deep, repelled by battling winds, or driven onward in a coil of twisted +and contorted serpent curls. In the midst of summer these wet seasons +often end in a heavy fall of snow. You wake some morning to see the +meadows which last night were gay with July flowers huddled up in snow +a foot in depth. But fair weather does not tarry long to reappear. You +put on your thickest boots and sally forth to find the great cups of +the gentians full of snow, and to watch the rising of the cloud-wreaths +under the hot sun. Bad dreams or sickly thoughts, dissipated by +returning daylight or a friend's face, do not fly away more rapidly and +pleasantly than those swift glory-coated mists that lose themselves we +know not where in the blue depths of the sky. + +In contrast with these rainy days nothing can be more perfect than +clear moonlight nights. There is a terrace upon the roof of the inn at +Courmayeur where one may spend hours in the silent watches, when all +the world has gone to sleep beneath. The Mont Chétif and the Mont de la +Saxe form a gigantic portal not unworthy of the pile that lies beyond. +For Mont Blanc resembles a vast cathedral; its countless spires are +scattered over a mass like that of the Duomo at Milan, rising into one +tower at the end. By night the glaciers glitter in the steady moon; +domes, pinnacles, and buttresses stand 15clear of clouds. Needles of +every height and most fantastic shapes rise from the central ridge, +some solitary, like sharp arrows shot against the sky, some clustering +into sheaves. On every horn of snow and bank of grassy hill stars +sparkle, rising, setting, rolling round through the long silent night. +Moonlight simplifies and softens the landscape. Colours become scarcely +distinguishable, and forms, deprived of half their detail, gain in +majesty and size. The mountains seem greater far by night than +day—higher heights and deeper depths, more snowy pyramids, more +beetling crags, softer meadows, and darker pines. The whole valley is +hushed, but for the torrent and the chirping grasshopper and the +striking of the village clocks. The black tower and the houses of +Courmayeur in the foreground gleam beneath the moon until she reaches +the edge of the Cramont, and then sinks quietly away, once more to +reappear among the pines, then finally to leave the valley dark beneath +the shadow of the mountain's bulk. Meanwhile the heights of snow still +glitter in the steady light: they, too, will soon be dark, until the +dawn breaks, tinging them with rose. + +But it is not fair to dwell exclusively upon the more sombre aspect of +Swiss beauty when there are so many lively scenes of which to speak. +The sunlight and the freshness and the flowers of Alpine meadows form +more than half the charm of Switzerland. The other day we walked to a +pasture called the Col de Checruit, high up the valley of Courmayeur, +where the spring was still in its first freshness. Gradually we +climbed, by dusty roads and through hot fields where the grass had just +been mown, beneath the fierce light of the morning sun. Not a breath of +air was stirring, and the heavy pines hung overhead upon their crags, +as if to fence the gorge from every wandering breeze. There is nothing +more oppressive than these scorching sides of narrow rifts, shut in by +woods 16and precipices. But suddenly the valley broadened, the pines +and larches disappeared, and we found ourselves upon a wide green +semicircle of the softest meadows. Little rills of water went rushing +through them, rippling over pebbles, rustling under dock leaves, and +eddying against their wooden barriers. Far and wide 'you scarce could +see the grass for flowers,' while on every side the tinkling of +cow-bells, and the voices of shepherds calling to one another from the +Alps, or singing at their work, were borne across the fields. As we +climbed we came into still fresher pastures, where the snow had +scarcely melted. There the goats and cattle were collected, and the +shepherds sat among them, fondling the kids and calling them by name. +When they called, the creatures came, expecting salt and bread. It was +pretty to see them lying near their masters, playing and butting at +them with their horns, or bleating for the sweet rye-bread. The women +knitted stockings, laughing among themselves, and singing all the +while. As soon as we reached them, they gathered round to talk. An old +herdsman, who was clearly the patriarch of this Arcadia, asked us many +questions in a slow deliberate voice. We told him who we were, and +tried to interest him in the cattle-plague, which he appeared to regard +as an evil very unreal and far away—like the murrain upon Pharaoh's +herds which one reads about in Exodus. But he was courteous and polite, +doing the honours of his pasture with simplicity and ease. He took us +to his châlet and gave us bowls of pure cold milk. It was a funny +little wooden house, clean and dark. The sky peeped through its tiles, +and if shepherds were not in the habit of sleeping soundly all night +long, they might count the setting and rising stars without lifting +their heads from the pillow. He told us how far pleasanter they found +the summer season than the long cold winter which they have to spend in +gloomy houses in Courmayeur. This, indeed, is 17the true pastoral life +which poets have described—a happy summer holiday among the flowers, +well occupied with simple cares, and harassed by 'no enemy but winter +and rough weather.' + +Very much of the charm of Switzerland belongs to simple things—to +greetings from the herdsmen, the 'Guten Morgen,' and 'Guten Abend,' +that are invariably given and taken upon mountain paths; to the tame +creatures, with their large dark eyes, who raise their heads one moment +from the pasture while you pass; and to the plants that grow beneath +your feet. The latter end of May is the time when spring begins in the +high Alps. Wherever sunlight smiles away a patch of snow, the brown +turf soon becomes green velvet, and the velvet stars itself with red +and white and gold and blue. You almost see the grass and lilies grow. +First come pale crocuses and lilac soldanellas. These break the last +dissolving clods of snow, and stand upon an island, with the cold wall +they have thawed all round them. It is the fate of these poor flowers +to spring and flourish on the very skirts of retreating winter; they +soon wither—the frilled chalice of the soldanella shrivels up and the +crocus fades away before the grass has grown; the sun, which is +bringing all the other plants to life, scorches their tender petals. +Often when summer has fairly come, you still may see their pearly cups +and lilac bells by the side of avalanches, between the chill snow and +the fiery sun, blooming and fading hour by hour. They have as it were +but a Pisgah view of the promised land, of the spring which they are +foremost to proclaim. Next come the clumsy gentians and yellow +anemones, covered with soft down like fledgling birds. These are among +the earliest and hardiest blossoms that embroider the high meadows with +a diaper of blue and gold. About the same time primroses and auriculas +begin to tuft the dripping rocks, while frail white fleur-de-lis, +18like flakes of snow forgotten by the sun, and golden-balled +ranunculuses join with forget-me-nots and cranesbill in a never-ending +dance upon the grassy floor. Happy, too, is he who finds the +lilies-of-the-valley clustering about the chestnut boles upon the +Colma, or in the beechwood by the stream at Macugnaga, mixed with +garnet-coloured columbines and fragrant white narcissus, which the +people of the villages call 'Angiolini.' There, too, is Solomon's seal, +with waxen bells and leaves expanded like the wings of hovering +butterflies. But these lists of flowers are tiresome and cold; it would +be better to draw the portrait of one which is particularly +fascinating. I think that botanists have called it _Saxifraga +cotyledon_; yet, in spite of its long name, it is beautiful and poetic. +London-pride is the commonest of all the saxifrages; but the one of +which I speak is as different from London-pride as a Plantagenet upon +his throne from that last Plantagenet who died obscure and penniless +some years ago. It is a great majestic flower, which plumes the granite +rocks of Monte Rosa in the spring. At other times of the year you see a +little tuft of fleshy leaves set like a cushion on cold ledges and dark +places of dripping cliffs. You take it for a stonecrop—one of those +weeds doomed to obscurity, and safe from being picked because they are +so uninviting—and you pass it by incuriously. But about June it puts +forth its power, and from the cushion of pale leaves there springs a +strong pink stem, which rises upward for a while, and then curves down +and breaks into a shower of snow-white blossoms. Far away the splendour +gleams, hanging like a plume of ostrich-feathers from the roof of rock, +waving to the wind, or stooping down to touch the water of the mountain +stream that dashes it with dew. The snow at evening, glowing with a +sunset flush, is not more rosy-pure than this cascade of pendent +blossoms. It loves to be alone—inaccessible ledges, chasms where winds +combat, or 19moist caverns overarched near thundering falls, are the +places that it seeks. I will not compare it to a spirit of the +mountains or to a proud lonely soul, for such comparisons desecrate the +simplicity of nature, and no simile can add a glory to the flower. It +seems to have a conscious life of its own, so large and glorious it is, +so sensitive to every breath of air, so nobly placed upon its bending +stem, so royal in its solitude. I first saw it years ago on the +Simplon, feathering the drizzling crags above Isella. Then we found it +near Baveno, in a crack of sombre cliff beneath the mines. The other +day we cut an armful opposite Varallo, by the Sesia, and then felt like +murderers; it was so sad to hold in our hands the triumph of those many +patient months, the full expansive life of the flower, the splendour +visible from valleys and hillsides, the defenceless creature which had +done its best to make the gloomy places of the Alps most beautiful. + +After passing many weeks among the high Alps it is a pleasure to +descend into the plains. The sunset, and sunrise, and the stars of +Lombardy, its level horizons and vague misty distances, are a source of +absolute relief after the narrow skies and embarrassed prospects of a +mountain valley. Nor are the Alps themselves ever more imposing than +when seen from Milan or the church-tower of Chivasso or the terrace of +Novara, with a foreground of Italian cornfields and old city towers and +rice-ground, golden-green beneath a Lombard sun. Half veiled by clouds, +the mountains rise like visionary fortress walls of a celestial +city—unapproachable, beyond the range of mortal feet. But those who +know by old experience what friendly châlets, and cool meadows, and +clear streams are hidden in their folds and valleys, send forth fond +thoughts and messages, like carrier-pigeons, from the marble parapets +of Milan, crying, 'Before another sun has set, I too shall rest beneath +the shadow of their pines!' It is in truth not more 20than a day's +journey from Milan to the brink of snow at Macugnaga. But very sad it +is to _leave_ the Alps, to stand upon the terraces of Berne and waft +ineffectual farewells. The unsympathising Aar rushes beneath; and the +snow-peaks, whom we love like friends, abide untroubled by the coming +and the going of the world. The clouds drift over them—the sunset warms +them with a fiery kiss. Night comes, and we are hurried far away to +wake beside the Seine, remembering, with a pang of jealous passion, +that the flowers on Alpine meadows are still blooming, and the rivulets +still flowing with a ceaseless song, while Paris shops are all we see, +and all we hear is the dull clatter of a Paris crowd. + +THE ALPS IN WINTER + +The gradual approach of winter is very lovely in the high Alps. The +valley of Davos, where I am writing, more than five thousand feet above +the sea, is not beautiful, as Alpine valleys go, though it has scenery +both picturesque and grand within easy reach. But when summer is +passing into autumn, even the bare slopes of the least romantic glen +are glorified. Golden lights and crimson are cast over the grey-green +world by the fading of innumerable plants. Then the larches begin to +put on sallow tints that deepen into orange, burning against the solid +blue sky like amber. The frosts are severe at night, and the meadow +grass turns dry and wan. The last lilac crocuses die upon the fields. +Icicles, hanging from watercourse or mill-wheel, glitter in the noonday +sunlight. The wind blows keenly from the north, and now the snow begins +to fall and thaw and freeze, and fall and thaw again. The seasons are +confused; wonderful days of flawless purity are 21intermingled with +storm and gloom. At last the time comes when a great snowfall has to be +expected. There is hard frost in the early morning, and at nine o'clock +the thermometer stands at 2°. The sky is clear, but it clouds rapidly +with films of cirrus and of stratus in the south and west. Soon it is +covered over with grey vapour in a level sheet, all the hill-tops +standing hard against the steely heavens. The cold wind from the west +freezes the moustache to one's pipe-stem. By noon the air is thick with +a coagulated mist; the temperature meanwhile has risen, and a little +snow falls at intervals. The valleys are filled with a curious opaque +blue, from which the peaks rise, phantom-like and pallid, into the grey +air, scarcely distinguishable from their background. The pine-forests +on the mountain-sides are of darkest indigo. There is an indescribable +stillness and a sense of incubation. The wind has fallen. Later on, the +snow-flakes flutter silently and sparely through the lifeless air. The +most distant landscape is quite blotted out. After sunset the clouds +have settled down upon the hills, and the snow comes in thick, +impenetrable fleeces. At night our hair crackles and sparkles when we +brush it. Next morning there is a foot and a half of finely powdered +snow, and still the snow is falling. Strangely loom the châlets through +the semi-solid whiteness. Yet the air is now dry and singularly +soothing. The pines are heavy with their wadded coverings; now and +again one shakes himself in silence, and his burden falls in a white +cloud, to leave a black-green patch upon the hillside, whitening again +as the imperturbable fall continues. The stakes by the roadside are +almost buried. No sound is audible. Nothing is seen but the +snow-plough, a long raft of planks with a heavy stone at its stem and a +sharp prow, drawn by four strong horses, and driven by a young man +erect upon the stem. + +So we live through two days and nights, and on the third 22a north wind +blows. The snow-clouds break and hang upon the hills in scattered +fleeces; glimpses of blue sky shine through, and sunlight glints along +the heavy masses. The blues of the shadows are everywhere intense. As +the clouds disperse, they form in moulded domes, tawny like sunburned +marble in the distant south lands. Every châlet is a miracle of +fantastic curves, built by the heavy hanging snow. Snow lies mounded on +the roads and fields, writhed into loveliest wreaths, or outspread in +the softest undulations. All the irregularities of the hills are +softened into swelling billows like the mouldings of Titanic statuary. + +It happened once or twice last winter that such a clearing after +snowfall took place at full moon. Then the moon rose in a swirl of +fleecy vapour—clouds above, beneath, and all around. The sky was blue +as steel, and infinitely deep with mist-entangled stars. The horn above +which she first appears stood carved of solid black, and through the +valley's length from end to end yawned chasms and clefts of liquid +darkness. As the moon rose, the clouds were conquered, and massed into +rolling waves upon the ridges of the hills. The spaces of open sky grew +still more blue. At last the silver light came flooding over all, and +here and there the fresh snow glistened on the crags. There is +movement, palpitation, life of light through earth and sky. To walk out +on such a night, when the perturbation of storm is over and the heavens +are free, is one of the greatest pleasures offered by this winter life. +It is so light that you can read the smallest print with ease. The +upper sky looks quite black, shading by violet and sapphire into +turquoise upon the horizon. There is the colour of ivory upon the +nearest snow-fields, and the distant peaks sparkle like silver, +crystals glitter in all directions on the surface of the snow, white, +yellow, and pale blue. The stars are exceedingly keen, but only a few +can shine in the intensity of moonlight. 23The air is perfectly still, +and though icicles may be hanging from beard and moustache to the furs +beneath one's chin, there is no sensation of extreme cold. + +During the earlier frosts of the season, after the first snows have +fallen, but when there is still plenty of moisture in the ground, the +loveliest fern-fronds of pure rime may be found in myriads on the +meadows. They are fashioned like perfect vegetable structures, opening +fan-shaped upon crystal stems, and catching the sunbeams with the +brilliancy of diamonds. Taken at certain angles, they decompose light +into iridescent colours, appearing now like emeralds, rubies, or +topazes, and now like Labrador spar, blending all hues in a wondrous +sheen. When the lake freezes for the first time, its surface is of +course quite black, and so transparent that it is easy to see the +fishes swimming in the deep beneath; but here and there, where rime has +fallen, there sparkle these fantastic flowers and ferns and mosses made +of purest frost. Nothing, indeed, can be more fascinating than the new +world revealed by frost. In shaded places of the valley you may walk +through larches and leafless alder thickets by silent farms, all +silvered over with hoar spangles—fairy forests, where the flowers and +foliage are rime. The streams are flowing half-frozen over rocks +sheeted with opaque green ice. Here it is strange to watch the swirl of +water freeing itself from these frost-shackles, and to see it eddying +beneath the overhanging eaves of frailest crystal-frosted snow. All is +so silent, still, and weird in this white world, that one marvels when +the spirit of winter will appear, or what shrill voices in the air will +make his unimaginable magic audible. Nothing happens, however, to +disturb the charm, save when a sunbeam cuts the chain of diamonds on an +alder bough, and down they drift in a thin cloud of dust. It may be +also that the air is full of floating crystals, like tiniest most +restless fire-flies 24rising and falling and passing crosswise in the +sun-illumined shade of tree or mountain-side. + +It is not easy to describe these beauties of the winter-world; and yet +one word must be said about the sunsets. Let us walk out, therefore, +towards the lake at four o'clock in mid-December. The thermometer is +standing at 3°, and there is neither breath of wind nor cloud. Venus is +just visible in rose and sapphire, and the thin young moon is beside +her. To east and south the snowy ranges burn with yellow fire, +deepening to orange and crimson hues, which die away and leave a +greenish pallor. At last, the higher snows alone are livid with a last +faint tinge of light, and all beneath is quite white. But the tide of +glory turns. While the west grows momently more pale, the eastern +heavens flush with afterglow, suffuse their spaces with pink and +violet. Daffodil and tenderest emerald intermingle; and these colours +spread until the west again has rose and primrose and sapphire +wonderfully blent, and from the burning skies a light is cast upon the +valley—a phantom light, less real, more like the hues of molten gems, +than were the stationary flames of sunset. Venus and the moon meanwhile +are silvery clear. Then the whole illumination fades like magic. + +All the charms of which I have been writing are combined in a +sledge-drive. With an arrowy gliding motion one passes through the +snow-world as through a dream. In the sunlight the snow surface +sparkles with its myriad stars of crystals. In the shadow it ceases to +glitter, and assumes a blueness scarcely less blue than the sky. So the +journey is like sailing through alternate tracts of light irradiate +heavens, and interstellar spaces of the clearest and most flawless +ether. The air is like the keen air of the highest glaciers. As we go, +the bells keep up a drowsy tinkling at the horse's head. The whole +landscape is transfigured—lifted high up out of commonplaceness. 25The +little hills are Monte Rosas and Mont Blancs. Scale is annihilated, and +nothing tells but form. There is hardly any colour except the blue of +sky and shadow. Everything is traced in vanishing tints, passing from +the almost amber of the distant sunlight through glowing white into +pale greys and brighter blues and deep ethereal azure. The pines stand +in black platoons upon the hillsides, with a tinge of red or orange on +their sable. Some carry masses of snow. Others have shaken their plumes +free. The châlets are like fairy houses or toys, waist-deep in stores +of winter fuel. With their mellow tones of madder and umber on the +weather-beaten woodwork relieved against the white, with fantastic +icicles and folds of snow depending from their eaves, or curled like +coverlids from roof and window-sill, they are far more picturesque than +in the summer. Colour, wherever it is found, whether in these cottages +or in a block of serpentine by the roadside, or in the golden bulrush +blades by the lake shore, takes more than double value. It is shed upon +the landscape like a spiritual and transparent veil. Most beautiful of +all are the sweeping lines of pure untroubled snow, fold over fold of +undulating softness, billowing along the skirts of the peaked hills. +There is no conveying the charm of immaterial, aë;rial, lucid beauty, +the feeling of purity and aloofness from sordid things, conveyed by the +fine touch on all our senses of light, colour, form, and air, and +motion, and rare tinkling sound. The magic is like a spirit mood of +Shelley's lyric verse. And, what is perhaps most wonderful, this +delicate delight may be enjoyed without fear in the coldest weather. It +does not matter how low the temperature may be, if the sun is shining, +the air dry, and the wind asleep. + +Leaving the horse-sledges on the verge of some high hill-road, and +trusting oneself to the little hand-sledge which the 26people of the +Grisons use, and which the English have christened by the Canadian term +'toboggan,' the excitement becomes far greater. The hand-sledge is +about three feet long, fifteen inches wide, and half a foot above the +ground, on runners shod with iron. Seated firmly at the back, and +guiding with the feet in front, the rider skims down precipitous slopes +and round perilous corners with a rapidity that beats a horse's pace. +Winding through sombre pine-forests, where the torrent roars fitfully +among caverns of barbed ice, and the glistening mountains tower above +in their glory of sun-smitten snow, darting round the frozen ledges at +the turnings of the road, silently gliding at a speed that seems +incredible, it is so smooth, he traverses two or three miles without +fatigue, carried onward by the mere momentum of his weight. It is a +strange and great joy. The toboggan, under these conditions, might be +compared to an enchanted boat shooting the rapids of a river; and what +adds to its fascination is the entire loneliness in which the rider +passes through those weird and ever-shifting scenes of winter radiance. +Sometimes, when the snow is drifting up the pass, and the world is +blank behind, before, and all around, it seems like plunging into +chaos. The muffled pines loom fantastically through the drift as we +rush past them, and the wind, ever and anon, detaches great masses of +snow in clouds from their bent branches. Or again at night, when the +moon is shining, and the sky is full of flaming stars, and the snow, +frozen to the hardness of marble, sparkles with innumerable crystals, a +new sense of strangeness and of joy is given to the solitude, the +swiftness, and the silence of the exercise. No other circumstances +invest the poetry of rapid motion with more fascination. Shelley, who +so loved the fancy of a boat inspired with its own instinct of life, +would have delighted in the game, and would probably have pursued it +recklessly. At the same time, 27as practised on a humbler scale nearer +home, in company, and on a run selected for convenience rather than for +picturesqueness, tobogganing is a very Bohemian amusement. No one who +indulges in it can count on avoiding hard blows and violent upsets, nor +will his efforts to maintain his equilibrium at the dangerous corners +be invariably graceful. + +Nothing, it might be imagined, could be more monotonous than an Alpine +valley covered up with snow. And yet to one who has passed many months +in that seclusion Nature herself presents no monotony; for the changes +constantly wrought by light and cloud and alternations of weather on +this landscape are infinitely various. The very simplicity of the +conditions seems to assist the supreme artist. One day is wonderful +because of its unsullied purity; not a cloud visible, and the pines +clothed in velvet of rich green beneath a faultless canopy of light. +The next presents a fretwork of fine film, wrought by the south wind +over the whole sky, iridescent with delicate rainbow tints within the +influences of the sun, and ever-changing shape. On another, when the +turbulent Föhn is blowing, streamers of snow may be seen flying from +the higher ridges against a pallid background of slaty cloud, while the +gaunt ribs of the hills glisten below with fitful gleams of lurid +light. At sunrise, one morning, stealthy and mysterious vapours clothe +the mountains from their basement to the waist, while the peaks are +glistening serenely in clear daylight. Another opens with silently +falling snow. A third is rosy through the length and breadth of the +dawn-smitten valley. It is, however, impossible to catalogue the +indescribable variety of those beauties, which those who love nature +may enjoy by simply waiting on the changes of the winter in a single +station of the Alps. + +28 + + + + +WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS + + +I + +Light, marvellously soft yet penetrating, everywhere diffused, +everywhere reflected without radiance, poured from the moon high above +our heads in a sky tinted through all shades and modulations of blue, +from turquoise on the horizon to opaque sapphire at the zenith—_dolce +color_. (It is difficult to use the word _colour_ for this scene +without suggesting an exaggeration. The blue is almost indefinable, yet +felt. But if possible, the total effect of the night landscape should +be rendered by careful exclusion of tints from the word-palette. The +art of the etcher is more needed than that of the painter.) Heaven +overhead is set with stars, shooting intensely, smouldering with dull +red in Aldeboran, sparkling diamond-like in Sirius, changing from +orange to crimson and green in the swart fire of yonder double star. On +the snow this moonlight falls tenderly, not in hard white light and +strong black shadow, but in tones of cream and ivory, rounding the +curves of drift. The mountain peaks alone glisten as though they were +built of silver burnished by an agate. Far away they rise diminished in +stature by the all-pervading dimness of bright light, that erases the +distinctions of daytime. On the path before our feet lie crystals of +many hues, the splinters of a thousand gems. In the wood there are +caverns of darkness, alternating with spaces of star-twinkled sky, or +windows opened between russet stems and solid branches for the 29moony +sheen. The green of the pines is felt, although invisible, so soft in +substance that it seems less like velvet than some materialised depth +of dark green shadow. + +II + +Snow falling noiseless and unseen. One only knows that it is falling by +the blinking of our eyes as the flakes settle on their lids and melt. +The cottage windows shine red, and moving lanterns of belated wayfarers +define the void around them. Yet the night is far from dark. The +forests and the mountain-bulk beyond the valley loom softly large and +just distinguishable through a pearly haze. The path is purest +trackless whiteness, almost dazzling though it has no light. This was +what Dante felt when he reached the lunar sphere: + +Parova a me, che nube ne coprisse +Lucida, spessa, solida e pulita. + + +Walking silent, with insensible footfall, slowly, for the snow is deep +above our ankles, we wonder what the world would be like if this were +all. Could the human race be acclimatised to this monotony (we say) +perhaps emotion would be rarer, yet more poignant, suspended brooding +on itself, and wakening by flashes to a quintessential mood. Then fancy +changes, and the thought occurs that even so must be a planet, not yet +wholly made, nor called to take her place among the sisterhood of light +and song. + +III + +Sunset was fading out upon the Rhætikon and still reflected from the +Seehorn on the lake, when we entered the gorge of the Fluela—dense +pines on either hand, a mounting drift of snow in front, and faint +peaks, paling from rose to saffron, far above, beyond. There was no +sound but a tinkling stream 30and the continual jingle of our +sledge-bells. We drove at a foot's pace, our horse finding his own +path. When we left the forest, the light had all gone except for some +almost imperceptible touches of primrose on the eastern horns. It was a +moonless night, but the sky was alive with stars, and now and then one +fell. The last house in the valley was soon passed, and we entered +those bleak gorges where the wind, fine, noiseless, penetrating like an +edge of steel, poured slantwise on us from the north. As we rose, the +stars to west seemed far beneath us, and the Great Bear sprawled upon +the ridges of the lower hills outspread. We kept slowly moving onward, +upward, into what seemed like a thin impalpable mist, but was +immeasurable tracts of snow. The last cembras were left behind, +immovable upon dark granite boulders on our right. We entered a +formless and unbillowed sea of greyness, from which there rose dim +mountain-flanks that lost themselves in air. Up, ever up, and still +below us westward sank the stars. We were now 7500 feet above +sea-level, and the December night was rigid with intensity of frost. +The cold, and movement, and solemnity of space, drowsed every sense. + +IV + +The memory of things seen and done in moonlight is like the memory of +dreams. It is as a dream that I recall the night of our tobogganing to +Klosters, though it was full enough of active energy. The moon was in +her second quarter, slightly filmed with very high thin clouds, that +disappeared as night advanced, leaving the sky and stars in all their +lustre. A sharp frost, sinking to three degrees above zero Fahrenheit, +with a fine pure wind, such wind as here they call 'the mountain +breath.' We drove to Wolfgang in a two-horse sledge, four of us inside, +and our two Christians on the box. Up 31there, where the Alps of Death +descend to join the Lakehorn Alps, above the Wolfswalk, there is a +world of whiteness—frozen ridges, engraved like cameos of aë;rial onyx +upon the dark, star-tremulous sky; sculptured buttresses of snow, +enclosing hollows filled with diaphanous shadow, and sweeping aloft +into the upland fields of pure clear drift. Then came the swift +descent, the plunge into the pines, moon-silvered on their frosted +tops. The battalions of spruce that climb those hills defined the +dazzling snow from which they sprang, like the black tufts upon an +ermine robe. At the proper moment we left our sledge, and the big +Christian took his reins in hand to follow us. Furs and greatcoats were +abandoned. Each stood forth tightly accoutred, with short coat, and +clinging cap, and gaitered legs for the toboggan. Off we started in +line, with but brief interval between, at first slowly, then glidingly, +and when the impetus was gained, with darting, bounding, almost savage +swiftness—sweeping round corners, cutting the hard snow-path with keen +runners, avoiding the deep ruts, trusting to chance, taking advantage +of smooth places, till the rush and swing and downward swoop became +mechanical. Space was devoured. Into the massy shadows of the forest, +where the pines joined overhead, we pierced without a sound, and felt +far more than saw the great rocks with their icicles; and out again, +emerging into moonlight, met the valley spread beneath our feet, the +mighty peaks of the Silvretta and the vast blue sky. On, on, hurrying, +delaying not, the woods and hills rushed by. Crystals upon the +snow-banks glittered to the stars. Our souls would fain have stayed to +drink these marvels of the moon-world, but our limbs refused. The magic +of movement was upon us, and eight minutes swallowed the varying +impressions of two musical miles. The village lights drew near and +nearer, then the sombre village huts, and soon the speed grew less, and +soon we glided to our rest into the sleeping village street. + +32 + +V + +It was just past midnight. The moon had fallen to the western horns. +Orion's belt lay bar-like on the opening of the pass, and Sirius shot +flame on the Seehorn. A more crystalline night, more full of fulgent +stars, was never seen, stars everywhere, but mostly scattered in large +sparkles on the snow. Big Christian went in front, tugging toboggans by +their strings, as Gulliver, in some old woodcut, drew the fleets of +Lilliput. Through the brown wood-châlets of Selfrangr, up to the +undulating meadows, where the snow slept pure and crisp, he led us. +There we sat awhile and drank the clear air, cooled to zero, but +innocent and mild as mother Nature's milk. Then in an instant, down, +down through the hamlet, with its châlets, stables, pumps, and logs, +the slumbrous hamlet, where one dog barked, and darkness dwelt upon the +path of ice, down with the tempest of a dreadful speed, that shot each +rider upward in the air, and made the frame of the toboggan +tremble—down over hillocks of hard frozen snow, dashing and bounding, +to the river and the bridge. No bones were broken, though the race was +thrice renewed, and men were spilt upon the roadside by some furious +plunge. This amusement has the charm of peril and the unforeseen. In no +wise else can colder, keener air be drunken at such furious speed. The +joy, too, of the engine-driver and the steeplechaser is upon us. Alas, +that it should be so short! If only roads were better made for the +purpose, there would be no end to it; for the toboggan cannot lose his +wind. But the good thing fails at last, and from the silence of the +moon we pass into the silence of the fields of sleep. + +33 + +VI + +The new stable is a huge wooden building, with raftered lofts to stow +the hay, and stalls for many cows and horses. It stands snugly in an +angle of the pine-wood, bordering upon the great horse-meadow. Here at +night the air is warm and tepid with the breath of kine. Returning from +my forest walk, I spy one window yellow in the moonlight with a lamp. I +lift the latch. The hound knows me, and does not bark. I enter the +stable, where six horses are munching their last meal. Upon the +corn-bin sits a knecht. We light our pipes and talk. He tells me of the +valley of Arosa (a hawk's flight westward over yonder hills), how deep +in grass its summer lawns, how crystal-clear its stream, how blue its +little lakes, how pure, without a taint of mist, 'too beautiful to +paint,' its sky in winter! This knecht is an Ardüser, and the valley of +Arosa lifts itself to heaven above his Langwies home. It is his duty +now to harness a sleigh for some night-work. We shake hands and part—I +to sleep, he for the snow. + +VII + +The lake has frozen late this year, and there are places in it where +the ice is not yet firm. Little snow has fallen since it froze—about +three inches at the deepest, driven by winds and wrinkled like the +ribbed sea-sand. Here and there the ice-floor is quite black and clear, +reflecting stars, and dark as heaven's own depths. Elsewhere it is of a +suspicious whiteness, blurred in surface, with jagged cracks and +chasms, treacherously mended by the hand of frost. Moving slowly, the +snow cries beneath our feet, and the big crystals tinkle. These are +shaped like fern-fronds, growing fan-wise from a point, and set at +various angles, so that the moonlight takes 34them with capricious +touch. They flash, and are quenched, and flash again, light darting to +light along the level surface, while the sailing planets and the stars +look down complacent at this mimicry of heaven. Everything above, +around, beneath, is very beautiful—the slumbrous woods, the snowy +fells, and the far distance painted in faint blue upon the tender +background of the sky. Everything is placid and beautiful; and yet the +place is terrible. For, as we walk, the lake groans, with throttled +sobs, and sudden cracklings of its joints, and sighs that shiver, +undulating from afar, and pass beneath our feet, and die away in +distance when they reach the shore. And now and then an upper crust of +ice gives way; and will the gulfs then drag us down? We are in the very +centre of the lake. There is no use in thinking or in taking heed. +Enjoy the moment, then, and march. Enjoy the contrast between this +circumambient serenity and sweetness, and the dreadful sense of +insecurity beneath. Is not, indeed, our whole life of this nature? A +passage over perilous deeps, roofed by infinity and sempiternal things, +surrounded too with evanescent forms, that like these crystals, trodden +underfoot, or melted by the Föhn-wind into dew, flash, in some lucky +moment, with a light that mimics stars! But to allegorise and sermonise +is out of place here. It is but the expedient of those who cannot etch +sensation by the burin of their art of words. + +VIII + +It is ten o'clock upon Sylvester Abend, or New Year's Eve. Herr Buol +sits with his wife at the head of his long table. His family and +serving folk are round him. There is his mother, with little Ursula, +his child, upon her knee. The old lady is the mother of four comely +daughters and nine 35stalwart sons, the eldest of whom is now a +grizzled man. Besides our host, four of the brothers are here to-night; +the handsome melancholy Georg, who is so gentle in his speech; Simeon, +with his diplomatic face; Florian, the student of medicine; and my +friend, colossal-breasted Christian. Palmy came a little later, worried +with many cares, but happy to his heart's core. No optimist was ever +more convinced of his 6philosophy than Palmy. After them, below the +salt, were ranged the knechts and porters, the marmiton from the +kitchen, and innumerable maids. The board was tesselated with plates of +birnen-brod and eier-brod, küchli and cheese and butter; and Georg +stirred grampampuli in a mighty metal bowl. For the uninitiated, it may +be needful to explain these Davos delicacies. Birnen-brod is what the +Scotch would call a 'bun,' or massive cake, composed of sliced pears, +almonds, spices, and a little flour. Eier-brod is a saffron-coloured +sweet bread, made with eggs; and küchli is a kind of pastry, crisp and +flimsy, fashioned into various devices of cross, star, and scroll. +Grampampuli is simply brandy burnt with sugar, the most unsophisticated +punch I ever drank from tumblers. The frugal people of Davos, who live +on bread and cheese and dried meat all the year, indulge themselves but +once with these unwonted dainties in the winter. + +The occasion was cheerful, and yet a little solemn. The scene was +feudal. For these Buols are the scions of a warrior race: + +A race illustrious for heroic deeds; +Humbled, but not degraded. + +During the six centuries through which they have lived nobles in Davos, +they have sent forth scores of fighting men to foreign lands, +ambassadors to France and Venice and the Milanese, governors to +Chiavenna and Bregaglia and the much-contested Valtelline. Members of +their house are 36Counts of Buol-Schauenstein in Austria, Freiherrs of +Muhlingen and Berenberg in the now German Empire. They keep the patent +of nobility conferred on them by Henri IV. Their ancient coat—parted +per pale azure and argent, with a dame of the fourteenth century +bearing in her hand a rose, all counterchanged—is carved in wood and +monumental marble on the churches and old houses hereabouts. And from +immemorial antiquity the Buol of Davos has sat thus on Sylvester Abend +with family and folk around him, summoned from alp and snowy field to +drink grampampuli and break the birnen-brod. + +These rites performed, the men and maids began to sing—brown arms +lounging on the table, and red hands folded in white aprons—serious at +first in hymn-like cadences, then breaking into wilder measures with a +jodel at the close. There is a measured solemnity in the performance, +which strikes the stranger as somewhat comic. But the singing was good; +the voices strong and clear in tone, no hesitation and no shirking of +the melody. It was clear that the singers enjoyed the music for its own +sake, with half-shut eyes, as they take dancing, solidly, with +deep-drawn breath, sustained and indefatigable. But eleven struck; and +the two Christians, my old friend, and Palmy, said we should be late +for church. They had promised to take me with them to see bell-ringing +in the tower. All the young men of the village meet, and draw lots in +the Stube of the Rathhaus. One party tolls the old year out; the other +rings the new year in. He who comes last is sconced three litres of +Veltliner for the company. This jovial fine was ours to pay to-night. + +When we came into the air, we found a bitter frost; the whole sky +clouded over; a north wind whirling snow from alp and forest through +the murky gloom. The benches and 37broad walnut tables of the Bathhaus +were crowded with men, in shaggy homespun of brown and grey frieze. Its +low wooden roof and walls enclosed an atmosphere of smoke, denser than +the external snow-drift. But our welcome was hearty, and we found a +score of friends. Titanic Fopp, whose limbs are Michelangelesque in +length; spectacled Morosani; the little tailor Kramer, with a French +horn on his knees; the puckered forehead of the Baumeister; the +Troll-shaped postman; peasants and woodmen, known on far excursions +upon pass and upland valley. Not one but carried on his face the memory +of winter strife with avalanche and snow-drift, of horses struggling +through Fluela whirlwinds, and wine-casks tugged across Bernina, and +haystacks guided down precipitous gullies at thundering speed 'twixt +pine and pine, and larches felled in distant glens beside the frozen +watercourses. Here we were, all met together for one hour from our +several homes and occupations, to welcome in the year with clinked +glasses and cries of _Prosit Neujahr!_ + +The tolling bells above us stopped. Our turn had come. Out into the +snowy air we tumbled, beneath the row of wolves' heads that adorn the +pent-house roof. A few steps brought us to the still God's acre, where +the snow lay deep and cold upon high-mounded graves of many +generations. We crossed it silently, bent our heads to the low Gothic +arch, and stood within the tower. It was thick darkness there. But far +above, the bells began again to clash and jangle confusedly, with +volleys of demonic joy. Successive flights of ladders, each ending in a +giddy platform hung across the gloom, climb to the height of some +hundred and fifty feet; and all their rungs were crusted with frozen +snow, deposited by trampling boots. For up and down these stairs, +ascending and descending, moved other than angels—the friezejacketed +38Bürschen, Grisons bears, rejoicing in their exercise, exhilarated +with the tingling noise of beaten metal. We reached the first room +safely, guided by firm-footed Christian, whose one candle just defined +the rough walls and the slippery steps. There we found a band of boys, +pulling ropes that set the bells in motion. But our destination was not +reached. One more aë;rial ladder, perpendicular in darkness, brought us +swiftly to the home of sound. It is a small square chamber, where the +bells are hung, filled with the interlacement of enormous beams, and +pierced to north and south by open windows, from whose parapets I saw +the village and the valley spread beneath. The fierce wind hurried +through it, charged with snow, and its narrow space was thronged with +men. Men on the platform, men on the window-sills, men grappling the +bells with iron arms, men brushing by to reach the stairs, crossing, +recrossing, shouldering their mates, drinking red wine from gigantic +beakers, exploding crackers, firing squibs, shouting and yelling in +corybantic chorus. They yelled and shouted, one could see it by their +open mouths and glittering eyes; but not a sound from human lungs could +reach our ears. The overwhelming incessant thunder of the bells drowned +all. It thrilled the tympanum, ran through the marrow of the spine, +vibrated in the inmost entrails. Yet the brain was only steadied and +excited by this sea of brazen noise. After a few moments I knew the +place and felt at home in it. Then I enjoyed a spectacle which +sculptors might have envied. For they ring the bells in Davos after +this fashion:—The lads below set them going with ropes. The men above +climb in pairs on ladders to the beams from which they are suspended. +Two mighty pine-trees, roughly squared and built into the walls, extend +from side to side across the belfry. Another from which the bells hang, +connects these massive trunks at right 39angles. Just where the central +beam is wedged into the two parallel supports, the ladders reach them +from each side of the belfry, so that, bending from the higher rung of +the ladder, and leaning over, stayed upon the lateral beam, each pair +of men can keep one bell in movement with their hands. Each comrade +plants one leg upon the ladder, and sets the other knee firmly athwart +the horizontal pine. Then round each other's waist they twine left arm +and right. The two have thus become one man. Right arm and left are +free to grasp the bell's horns, sprouting at its crest beneath the +beam. With a grave rhythmic motion, bending sideward in a close +embrace, swaying and returning to their centre from the well-knit +loins, they drive the force of each strong muscle into the vexed bell. +The impact is earnest at first, but soon it becomes frantic. The men +take something from each other of exalted enthusiasm. This efflux of +their combined energies inspires them and exasperates the mighty +resonance of metal which they rule. They are lost in a trance of what +approximates to dervish passion—so thrilling is the surge of sound, so +potent are the rhythms they obey. Men come and tug them by the heels. +One grasps the starting thews upon their calves. Another is impatient +for their place. But they strain still, locked together, and forgetful +of the world. At length they have enough: then slowly, clingingly +unclasp, turn round with gazing eyes, and are resumed, sedately, into +the diurnal round of common life. Another pair is in their room upon +the beam. + +The Englishman who saw these things stood looking up, enveloped in his +ulster with the grey cowl thrust upon his forehead, like a monk. One +candle cast a grotesque shadow of him on the plastered wall. And when +his chance came, though he was but a weakling, he too climbed and for +some moments hugged the beam, and felt the madness of the 40swinging +bell. Descending, he wondered long and strangely whether he ascribed +too much of feeling to the men he watched. But no, that was impossible. +There are emotions deeply seated in the joy of exercise, when the body +is brought into play, and masses move in concert, of which the subject +is but half conscious. Music and dance, and the delirium of battle or +the chase, act thus upon spontaneous natures. The mystery of rhythm and +associated energy and blood tingling in sympathy is here. It lies at +the root of man's most tyrannous instinctive impulses. + +It was past one when we reached home, and now a meditative man might +well have gone to bed. But no one thinks of sleeping on Sylvester +Abend. So there followed bowls of punch in one friend's room, where +English, French, and Germans blent together in convivial Babel; and +flasks of old Montagner in another. Palmy, at this period, wore an +archdeacon's hat, and smoked a churchwarden's pipe; and neither were +his own, nor did he derive anything ecclesiastical or Anglican from the +association. Late in the morning we must sally forth, they said, and +roam the town. For it is the custom here on New Year's night to greet +acquaintances, and ask for hospitality, and no one may deny these +self-invited guests. We turned out again into the grey snow-swept +gloom, a curious Comus—not at all like Greeks, for we had neither +torches in our hands nor rose-wreaths to suspend upon a lady's +door-posts. And yet I could not refrain, at this supreme moment of +jollity, in the zero temperature, amid my Grisons friends, from humming +to myself verses from the Greek Anthology:— + +The die is cast! Nay, light the torch! + I'll take the road! Up, courage, ho! +Why linger pondering in the porch? + Upon Love's revel we will go! + +Shake off those fumes of wine! Hang care + And caution! What has Love to do +With prudence? Let the torches flare! + Quick, drown the doubts that hampered you! + +Cast weary wisdom to the wind! + One thing, but one alone, I know: +Love bent e'en Jove and made him blind + Upon Love's revel we will go! + +41 + +And then again:— + +I've drunk sheer madness! Not with wine, + But old fantastic tales, I'll arm +My heart in heedlessness divine, + And dare the road, nor dream of harm! + +I'll join Love's rout! Let thunder break, + Let lightning blast me by the way! +Invulnerable Love shall shake + His ægis o'er my head to-day. + +This last epigram was not inappropriate to an invalid about to begin +the fifth act in a roystering night's adventure. And still once more:— + +Cold blows the winter wind; 'tis Love, + Whose sweet eyes swim with honeyed tears, +That bears me to thy doors, my love, + Tossed by the storm of hopes and fears. + +Cold blows the blast of aching Love; + But be thou for my wandering sail, +Adrift upon these waves of love, + Safe harbour from the whistling gale! + + +However, upon this occasion, though we had winter-wind enough, and cold +enough, there was not much love in the business. My arm was firmly +clenched in Christian Buol's, and Christian Palmy came behind, trolling +out songs in Italian dialect, with still recurring _canaille_ choruses, +of which the facile rhymes seemed mostly made on a prolonged +42_amu-u-u-r_. It is noticeable that Italian ditties are specially +designed for fellows shouting in the streets at night. They seem in +keeping there, and nowhere else that I could ever see. And these +Davosers took to them naturally when the time for Comus came. It was +between four and five in the morning, and nearly all the houses in the +place were dark. The tall church-tower and spire loomed up above us in +grey twilight. The tireless wind still swept thin snow from fell and +forest. But the frenzied bells had sunk into their twelvemonth's +slumber, which shall be broken only by decorous tollings at less +festive times. I wondered whether they were tingling still with the +heart-throbs and with the pressure of those many arms? Was their old +age warmed, as mine was, with that gust of life—the young men who had +clung to them like bees to lily-bells, and shaken all their locked-up +tone and shrillness into the wild winter air? Alas! how many +generations of the young have handled them; and they are still there, +frozen in their belfry; and the young grow middle-aged, and old, and +die at last; and the bells they grappled in their lust of manhood toll +them to their graves, on which the tireless wind will, winter after +winter, sprinkle snow from alps and forests which they knew. + +'There is a light,' cried Christian, 'up in Anna's window!' 'A light! a +light!' the Comus shouted. But how to get at the window, which is +pretty high above the ground, and out of reach of the most ardent +revellers? We search a neighbouring shed, extract a stable-ladder, and +in two seconds Palmy has climbed to the topmost rung, while Christian +and Georg hold it firm upon the snow beneath. Then begins a passage +from some comic opera of Mozart's or Cimarosa's—an escapade familiar to +Spanish or Italian students, which recalls the stage. It is an episode +from 'Don Giovanni,' translated to this dark-etched scene of snowy +hills, and 43Gothic tower, and mullioned windows deep embayed beneath +their eaves and icicles. _Deh vieni alla finestra!_ sings +Palmy-Leporello; the chorus answers: _Deh vieni! Perchè non vieni +ancora?_ pleads Leporello; the chorus shouts: _Perchè? Mio amu-u-u-r_, +sighs Leporello; and Echo cries, _amu-u-u-r!_ All the wooing, be it +noticed, is conducted in Italian. But the actors murmur to each other +in Davoser Deutsch, 'She won't come, Palmy! It is far too late; she is +gone to bed. Come down; you'll wake the village with your +caterwauling!' But Leporello waves his broad archdeacon's hat, and +resumes a flood of flexible Bregaglian. He has a shrewd suspicion that +the girl is peeping from behind the window curtain; and tells us, +bending down from the ladder, in a hoarse stage-whisper, that we must +have patience; 'these girls are kittle cattle, who take long to draw: +but if your lungs last out, they're sure to show.' And Leporello is +right. Faint heart ne'er won fair lady. From the summit of his ladder, +by his eloquent Italian tongue, he brings the shy bird down at last. We +hear the unbarring of the house door, and a comely maiden, in her +Sunday dress, welcomes us politely to her ground-floor sitting-room. +The Comus enters, in grave order, with set speeches, handshakes, and +inevitable _Prosits_! It is a large low chamber, with a huge stone +stove, wide benches fixed along the walls, and a great oval table. We +sit how and where we can. Red wine is produced, and eier-brod and +küchli. 44Fräulein Anna serves us sedately, holding her own with decent +self-respect against the inrush of the revellers. She is quite alone; +but are not her father and mother in bed above, and within earshot? +Besides, the Comus, even at this abnormal hour and after an abnormal +night, is well conducted. Things seem slipping into a decorous +wine-party, when Leporello readjusts the broad-brimmed hat upon his +head, and very cleverly acts a little love-scene for our benefit. +Fräulein Anna takes this as a delicate compliment, and the thing is so +prettily done in truth, that not the sternest taste could be offended. +Meanwhile another party of night-wanderers, attracted by our mirth, +break in. More _Prosits_ and clinked glasses follow; and with a fair +good-morning to our hostess, we retire. + +It is too late to think of bed. 'The quincunx of heaven,' as Sir Thomas +Browne phrased it on a dissimilar occasion, 'runs low.... The huntsmen +are up in America; and not in America only, for the huntsmen, if there +are any this night in Graubünden, have long been out upon the snow, and +the stable-lads are dragging the sledges from their sheds to carry down +the mails to Landquart. We meet the porters from the various hotels, +bringing letter-bags and luggage to the post. It is time to turn in and +take a cup of black coffee against the rising sun. + +IX + +Some nights, even in Davos, are spent, even by an invalid, in bed. A +leaflet, therefore, of 'Sleep-chasings' may not inappropriately be +flung, as envoy to so many wanderings on foot and sledge upon the +winter snows. + +The first is a confused medley of things familiar and things strange. I +have been dreaming of far-away old German towns, with gabled houses +deep in snow; dreaming of châlets in forgotten Alpine glens, where +wood-cutters come plunging into sleepy light from gloom, and sinking +down beside the stove to shake the drift from their rough shoulders; +dreaming of vast veils of icicles upon the gaunt black rocks in places +where no foot of man will pass, and where the snow is weaving eyebrows +over the ledges of grey whirlwind-beaten precipices; dreaming of +Venice, forlorn beneath the windy drip of rain, the gas lamps +flickering on the swimming piazzetta, the barche 45idle, the gondolier +wrapped in his thread-bare cloak, alone; dreaming of Apennines, with +world-old cities, brown, above the brown sea of dead chestnut boughs; +dreaming of stormy tides, and watchers aloft in lighthouses when day is +finished; dreaming of dead men and women and dead children in the +earth, far down beneath the snow-drifts, six feet deep. And then I lift +my face, awaking, from my pillow; the pallid moon is on the valley, and +the room is filled with spectral light. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. This is a hospice in an unfrequented +pass, between sad peaks, beside a little black lake, overdrifted with +soft snow. I pass into the house-room, gliding silently. An old man and +an old woman are nodding, bowed in deepest slumber, by the stove. A +young man plays the zither on a table. He lifts his head, still +modulating with his fingers on the strings. He looks right through me +with wide anxious eyes. He does not see me, but sees Italy, I know, and +some one wandering on a sandy shore. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. This is S. Stephen's Church in Wien. +Inside, the lamps are burning dimly in the choir. There is fog in the +aisles; but through the sleepy air and over the red candles flies a +wild soprano's voice, a boy's soul in its singing sent to heaven. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. From the mufflers in which his father, +the mountebank, has wrapped the child, to carry him across the heath, a +little tumbling-boy emerges in soiled tights. He is half asleep. His +father scrapes the fiddle. The boy shortens his red belt, kisses his +fingers to us, and ties himself into a knot among the glasses on the +table. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. I am on the parapet of a huge circular +tower, hollow like a well, and pierced with windows at irregular +intervals. The parapet is broad, and 46slabbed with red Verona marble. +Around me are athletic men, all naked, in the strangest attitudes of +studied rest, down-gazing, as I do, into the depths below. There comes +a confused murmur of voices, and the tower is threaded and rethreaded +with great cables. Up these there climb to us a crowd of young men, +clinging to the ropes and flinging their bodies sideways on aë;rial +trapezes. My heart trembles with keen joy and terror. For nowhere else +could plastic forms be seen more beautiful, and nowhere else is peril +more apparent. Leaning my chin upon the utmost verge, I wait. I watch +one youth, who smiles and soars to me; and when his face is almost +touching mine, he speaks, but what he says I know not. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. The whole world rocks to its +foundations. The mountain summits that I know are shaken. They bow +their bristling crests. They are falling, falling on us, and the earth +is riven. I wake in terror, shouting: INSOLITIS TREMUERUNT MOTIBUS +ALPES! An earthquake, slight but real, has stirred the ever-wakeful +Vesta of the brain to this Virgilian quotation. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. Once more at night I sledge alone upon +the Klosters road. It is the point where the woods close over it and +moonlight may not pierce the boughs. There come shrill cries of many +voices from behind, and rushings that pass by and vanish. Then on their +sledges I behold the phantoms of the dead who died in Davos, longing +for their homes; and each flies past me, shrieking in the still cold +air; and phosphorescent like long meteors, the pageant turns the +windings of the road below and disappears. + +I sleep, and change my dreaming. This is the top of some high mountain, +where the crags are cruelly tortured and cast in enormous splinters on +the ledges of cliffs grey with old-world ice. A ravine, opening at my +feet, plunges 47down immeasurably to a dim and distant sea. Above me +soars a precipice embossed with a gigantic ice-bound shape. As I gaze +thereon, I find the lineaments and limbs of a Titanic man chained and +nailed to the rock. His beard has grown for centuries, and flowed this +way and that, adown his breast and over to the stone on either side; +and the whole of him is covered with a greenish ice, ancient beyond the +memory of man. 'This is Prometheus,' I whisper to myself, 'and I am +alone on Caucasus.' + +48 + + + + +BACCHUS IN GRAUBÜNDEN + + +I + +Some years' residence in the Canton of the Grisons made me familiar +with all sorts of Valtelline wine; with masculine but rough _Inferno_, +generous _Forzato_, delicate _Sassella_, harsher _Montagner_, the +raspberry flavour of _Grumello_, the sharp invigorating twang of +_Villa_. The colour, ranging from garnet to almandine or ruby, told me +the age and quality of wine; and I could judge from the crust it forms +upon the bottle, whether it had been left long enough in wood to ripen. +I had furthermore arrived at the conclusion that the best Valtelline +can only be tasted in cellars of the Engadine or Davos, where this +vintage matures slowly in the mountain air, and takes a flavour unknown +at lower levels. In a word, it had amused my leisure to make or think +myself a connoisseur. My literary taste was tickled by the praise +bestowed in the Augustan age on Rhætic grapes by Virgil: + +Et quo te carmine dicam, +Rhætica? nec cellis ideo contende Falernis. + +I piqued myself on thinking that could the poet but have drank one +bottle at Samaden—where Stilicho, by the way, in his famous recruiting +expedition may perhaps have drank it—he would have been less chary in +his panegyric. For the point of inferiority on which he seems to +insist, namely, that Valtelline wine does not keep well in cellar, is +only proper to this vintage in Italian climate. + +49Such meditations led my fancy on the path of history. Is there truth, +then, in the dim tradition that this mountain land was colonised by +Etruscans? Is _Ras_ the root of Rhætia? The Etruscans were accomplished +wine-growers, we know. It was their Montepulciano which drew the Gauls +to Rome, if Livy can be trusted. Perhaps they first planted the vine in +Valtelline. Perhaps its superior culture in that district may be due to +ancient use surviving in a secluded Alpine valley. One thing is +certain, that the peasants of Sondrio and Tirano understand viticulture +better than the Italians of Lombardy. + +Then my thoughts ran on to the period of modern history, when the +Grisons seized the Valtelline in lieu of war-pay from the Dukes of +Milan. For some three centuries they held it as a subject province. +From the Rathhaus at Davos or Chur they sent their nobles—Von Salis and +Buol, Planta and Sprecher von Bernegg—across the hills as governors or +podestàs to Poschiavo, Sondrio, Tirano, and Morbegno. In those old days +the Valtelline wines came duly every winter over snow-deep passes to +fill the cellars of the Signori Grigioni. That quaint traveller Tom +Coryat, in his so-called 'Crudities,' notes the custom early in the +seventeenth century. And as that custom then obtained, it still +subsists with little alteration. The wine-carriers—Weinführer, as they +are called—first scaled the Bernina pass, halting then as now, perhaps +at Poschiavo and Pontresina. Afterwards, in order to reach Davos, the +pass of the Scaletta rose before them—a wilderness of untracked +snow-drifts. The country-folk still point to narrow, light +hand-sledges, on which the casks were charged before the last pitch of +the pass. Some wine came, no doubt, on pack-saddles. A meadow in front +of the Dischma-Thal, where the pass ends, still bears the name of the +Ross-Weid, or horse-pasture. It was here that the beasts 50of burden +used for this wine-service, rested after their long labours. In +favourable weather the whole journey from Tirano would have occupied at +least four days, with scanty halts at night. + +The Valtelline slipped from the hands of the Grisons early in this +century. It is rumoured that one of the Von Salis family negotiated +matters with Napoleon more for his private benefit than for the +interests of the state. However this may have been, when the Graubünden +became a Swiss Canton, after four centuries of sovereign independence, +the whole Valtelline passed to Austria, and so eventually to Italy. +According to modern and just notions of nationality, this was right. In +their period of power, the Grisons masters had treated their Italian +dependencies with harshness. The Valtelline is an Italian valley, +connected with the rest of the peninsula by ties of race and language. +It is, moreover, geographically linked to Italy by the great stream of +the Adda, which takes its rise upon the Stelvio, and after passing +through the Lake of Como, swells the volume of the Po. + +But, though politically severed from the Valtelline, the Engadiners and +Davosers have not dropped their old habit of importing its best +produce. What they formerly levied as masters, they now acquire by +purchase. The Italian revenue derives a large profit from the frontier +dues paid at the gate between Tirano and Poschiavo on the Bernina road. +Much of the same wine enters Switzerland by another route, travelling +from Sondrio to Chiavenna and across the Splügen. But until quite +recently, the wine itself could scarcely be found outside the Canton. +It was indeed quoted upon Lombard wine-lists. Yet no one drank it; and +when I tasted it at Milan, I found it quite unrecognisable. The fact +seems to be that the Graubündeners alone know how to 51deal with it; +and, as I have hinted, the wine requires a mountain climate for its +full development. + +II + +The district where the wine of Valtellina is grown extends, roughly +speaking, from Tirano to Morbegno, a distance of some fifty-four miles. +The best sorts come from the middle of this region. High up in the +valley, soil and climate are alike less favourable. Low down a coarser, +earthier quality springs from fat land where the valley broadens. The +northern hillsides to a very considerable height above the river are +covered with vineyards. The southern slopes on the left bank of the +Adda, lying more in shade, yield but little. Inferno, Grumello, and +Perla di Sassella are the names of famous vineyards. Sassella is the +general name for a large tract. Buying an Inferno, Grumello, or Perla +di Sassella wine, it would be absurd to suppose that one obtained it +precisely from the eponymous estate. But as each of these vineyards +yields a marked quality of wine, which is taken as standard-giving, the +produce of the whole district may be broadly classified as approaching +more or less nearly to one of these accepted types. The Inferno, +Grumello, and Perla di Sassella of commerce are therefore three sorts +of good Valtelline, ticketed with famous names to indicate certain +differences of quality. Montagner, as the name implies, is a somewhat +lighter wine, grown higher up in the hill-vineyards. And of this class +there are many species, some approximating to Sassella in delicacy of +flavour, others approaching the tart lightness of the Villa vintage. +This last takes its title from a village in the neighbourhood of +Tirano, where a table-wine is chiefly grown. + +Forzato is the strongest, dearest, longest-lived of this 52whole family +of wines. It is manufactured chiefly at Tirano; and, as will be +understood from its name, does not profess to belong to any one of the +famous localities. Forzato or Sforzato, forced or enforced, is in fact +a wine which has undergone a more artificial process. In German the +people call it Strohwein, which also points to the method of its +preparation. The finest grapes are selected and dried in the sun (hence +the _Stroh_) for a period of eight or nine weeks. When they have almost +become raisins, they are pressed. The must is heavily charged with +sugar, and ferments powerfully. Wine thus made requires several years +to ripen. Sweet at first, it takes at last a very fine quality and +flavour, and is rough, almost acid, on the tongue. Its colour too turns +from a deep rich crimson to the tone of tawny port, which indeed it +much resembles. + +Old Forzato, which has been long in cask, and then perhaps three years +in bottle, will fetch at least six francs, or may rise to even ten +francs a flask. The best Sassella rarely reaches more than five francs. +Good Montagner and Grumello can be had perhaps for four francs; and +Inferno of a special quality for six francs. Thus the average price of +old Valtelline wine may be taken as five francs a bottle. These, I +should observe, are hotel prices. + +Valtelline wines bought in the wood vary, of course, according to their +age and year of vintage. I have found that from 2.50 fr. to 3.50 fr. +per litre is a fair price for sorts fit to bottle. The new wine of 1881 +sold in the following winter at prices varying from 1.05 fr. to 1.80 +fr. per litre. + +It is customary for the Graubünden wine-merchants to buy up the whole +produce of a vineyard from the peasants at the end of the vintage. They +go in person or depute their agents to inspect the wine, make their +bargains, and seal the cellars where the wine is stored. Then, when the +snow has 53fallen, their own horses with sleighs and trusted servants +go across the passes to bring it home. Generally they have some local +man of confidence at Tirano, the starting-point for the homeward +journey, who takes the casks up to that place and sees them duly +charged. Merchants of old standing maintain relations with the same +peasants, taking their wine regularly; so that from Lorenz Gredig at +Pontresina or Andreas Gredig at Davos Dörfli, from Fanconi at Samaden, +or from Giacomi at Chiavenna, special qualities of wine, the produce of +certain vineyards, are to be obtained. Up to the present time this wine +trade has been conducted with simplicity and honesty by both the +dealers and the growers. One chief merit of Valtelline wine is that it +is pure. How long so desirable a state of things will survive the slow +but steady development of an export business may be questioned. + +III + +With so much practical and theoretical interest in the produce of the +Valtelline to stimulate my curiosity, I determined to visit the +district at the season when the wine was leaving it. It was the winter +of 1881-82, a winter of unparalleled beauty in the high Alps. Day +succeeded day without a cloud. Night followed night with steady stars, +gliding across clear mountain ranges and forests of dark pines +unstirred by wind. I could not hope for a more prosperous season; and +indeed I made such use of it, that between the months of January and +March I crossed six passes of the Alps in open sleighs—the Fluela +Bernina, Splügen, Julier, Maloja, and Albula—with less difficulty and +discomfort in mid-winter than the traveller may often find on them in +June. + +At the end of January, my friend Christian and I left Davos long before +the sun was up, and ascended for four 54hours through the interminable +snow-drifts of the Fluela in a cold grey shadow. The sun's light seemed +to elude us. It ran along the ravine through which we toiled; dipped +down to touch the topmost pines above our heads; rested in golden calm +upon the Schiahorn at our back; capriciously played here and there +across the Weisshorn on our left, and made the precipices of the +Schwartzhorn glitter on our right. But athwart our path it never fell +until we reached the very summit of the pass. Then we passed quietly +into the full glory of the winter morning—a tranquil flood of sunbeams, +pouring through air of crystalline purity, frozen and motionless. White +peaks and dark brown rocks soared up, cutting a sky of almost purple +blueness. A stillness that might be felt brooded over the whole world; +but in that stillness there was nothing sad, no suggestion of suspended +vitality. It was the stillness rather of untroubled health, of strength +omnipotent but unexerted. + +From the Hochspitz of the Fluela the track plunges at one bound into +the valley of the Inn, following a narrow cornice carved from the +smooth bank of snow, and hung, without break or barrier, a thousand +feet or more above the torrent. The summer road is lost in snow-drifts. +The galleries built as a protection from avalanches, which sweep in +rivers from those grim, bare fells above, are blocked with snow. Their +useless arches yawn, as we glide over or outside them, by paths which +instinct in our horse and driver traces. As a fly may creep along a +house-roof, slanting downwards we descend. One whisk from the swinged +tail of an avalanche would hurl us, like a fly, into the ruin of the +gaping gorge. But this season little snow has fallen on the higher +hills; and what still lies there, is hard frozen. Therefore we have no +fear, as we whirl fast and faster from the snow-fields into the black +forests of gnarled cembras and wind-wearied pines. Then 55Süss is +reached, where the Inn hurries its shallow waters clogged with +ice-floes through a sleepy hamlet. The stream is pure and green; for +the fountains of the glaciers are locked by winter frosts; and only +clear rills from perennial sources swell its tide. At Süss we lost the +sun, and toiled in garish gloom and silence, nipped by the +ever-deepening cold of evening, upwards for four hours to Samaden. + +The next day was spent in visiting the winter colony at San Moritz, +where the Kulm Hotel, tenanted by some twenty guests, presented in its +vastness the appearance of a country-house. One of the prettiest spots +in the world is the ice-rink, fashioned by the skill of Herr Caspar +Badrutt on a high raised terrace, commanding the valley of the Inn and +the ponderous bulwarks of Bernina. The silhouettes of skaters, defined +against that landscape of pure white, passed to and fro beneath a +cloudless sky. Ladies sat and worked or read on seats upon the ice. Not +a breath of wind was astir, and warm beneficent sunlight flooded the +immeasurable air. Only, as the day declined, some iridescent films +overspread the west; and just above Maloja the apparition of a mock +sun—a well-defined circle of opaline light, broken at regular intervals +by four globes—seemed to portend a change of weather. This forecast +fortunately proved delusive. We drove back to Samaden across the silent +snow, enjoying those delicate tints of rose and violet and saffron +which shed enchantment for one hour over the white monotony of Alpine +winter. + +At half-past eight next morning, the sun was rising from behind Pitz +Languard, as we crossed the Inn and drove through Pontresina in the +glorious light, with all its huge hotels quite empty and none but a few +country-folk abroad. Those who only know the Engadine in summer have +little conception of its beauty. Winter softens the hard details of +bare rock, and rounds the melancholy grassless mountain 56flanks, +suspending icicles to every ledge and spangling the curved surfaces of +snow with crystals. The landscape gains in purity, and, what sounds +unbelievable, in tenderness. Nor does it lose in grandeur. Looking up +the valley of the Morteratsch that morning, the glaciers were +distinguishable in hues of green and sapphire through their veil of +snow; and the highest peaks soared in a transparency of amethystine +light beneath a blue sky traced with filaments of windy cloud. Some +storm must have disturbed the atmosphere in Italy, for fan-shaped mists +frothed out around the sun, and curled themselves above the mountains +in fine feathery wreaths, melting imperceptibly into air, until, when +we had risen above the cembras, the sky was one deep solid blue. + +All that upland wilderness is lovelier now than in the summer; and on +the morning of which I write, the air itself was far more summery than +I have ever known it in the Engadine in August. We could scarcely bear +to place our hands upon the woodwork of the sleigh because of the +fierce sun's heat. And yet the atmosphere was crystalline with windless +frost. As though to increase the strangeness of these contrasts, the +pavement of beaten snow was stained with red drops spilt from +wine-casks which pass over it. + +The chief feature of the Bernina—what makes it a dreary pass enough in +summer, but infinitely beautiful in winter—is its breadth; illimitable +undulations of snow-drifts; immensity of open sky; unbroken lines of +white, descending in smooth curves from glittering ice-peaks. + +A glacier hangs in air above the frozen lakes, with all its green-blue +ice-cliffs glistening in intensest light. Pitz Palu shoots aloft like +sculptured marble, delicately veined with soft aë;rial shadows of +translucent blue. At the summit of the pass all Italy seems to burst +upon the eyes in those steep serried ranges, with their craggy crests, +violet-hued in noonday 57sunshine, as though a bloom of plum or grape +had been shed over them, enamelling their jagged precipices. + +The top of the Bernina is not always thus in winter. It has a bad +reputation for the fury of invading storms, when falling snow hurtles +together with snow scooped from the drifts in eddies, and the weltering +white sea shifts at the will of whirlwinds. The Hospice then may be +tenanted for days together by weather-bound wayfarers; and a line drawn +close beneath its roof shows how two years ago the whole building was +buried in one snow-shroud. This morning we lounged about the door, +while our horses rested and postillions and carters pledged one another +in cups of new Veltliner. + +The road takes an awful and sudden dive downwards, quite irrespective +of the carefully engineered post-track. At this season the path is +badly broken into ruts and chasms by the wine traffic. In some places +it was indubitably perilous: a narrow ledge of mere ice skirting thinly +clad hard-frozen banks of snow, which fell precipitately sideways for +hundreds of sheer feet. We did not slip over this parapet, though we +were often within an inch of doing so. Had our horse stumbled, it is +not probable that I should have been writing this. + +When we came to the galleries which defend the road from avalanches, we +saw ahead of us a train of over forty sledges ascending, all charged +with Valtelline wine. Our postillions drew up at the inner side of the +gallery, between massive columns of the purest ice dependent from the +rough-hewn roof and walls of rock. A sort of open _loggia_ on the +farther side framed vignettes of the Valtelline mountains in their hard +cerulean shadows and keen sunlight. Between us and the view defiled the +wine-sledges; and as each went by, the men made us drink out of their +_trinketti_. These are oblong, hexagonal wooden kegs, holding about +fourteen litres, 58which the carter fills with wine before he leaves +the Valtelline, to cheer him on the homeward journey. You raise it in +both hands, and when the bung has been removed, allow the liquor to +flow stream-wise down your throat. It was a most extraordinary Bacchic +procession—a pomp which, though undreamed of on the banks of the +Ilissus, proclaimed the deity of Dionysos in authentic fashion. +Struggling horses, grappling at the ice-bound floor with sharp-spiked +shoes; huge, hoarse drivers, some clad in sheepskins from Italian +valleys, some brown as bears in rough Graubünden homespun; casks, +dropping their spilth of red wine on the snow; greetings, embracings; +patois of Bergamo, Romansch, and German roaring around the low-browed +vaults and tingling ice pillars; pourings forth of libations of the new +strong Valtelline on breasts and beards;—the whole made up a scene of +stalwart jollity and manful labour such as I have nowhere else in such +wild circumstances witnessed. Many Davosers were there, the men of +Andreas Gredig, Valär, and so forth; and all of these, on greeting +Christian, forced us to drain a _Schluck_ from their unmanageable +cruses. Then on they went, crying, creaking, struggling, straining +through the corridor, which echoed deafeningly, the gleaming crystals +of those hard Italian mountains in their winter raiment building a +background of still beauty to the savage Bacchanalian riot of the team. + +How little the visitors who drink Valtelline wine at S. Moritz or Davos +reflect by what strange ways it reaches them. A sledge can scarcely be +laden with more than one cask of 300 litres on the ascent; and this +cask, according to the state of the road, has many times to be shifted +from wheels to runners and back again before the journey is +accomplished. One carter will take charge of two horses, and +consequently of two sledges and two casks, driving them both by voice +and gesture rather than by rein. When they leave the Valtelline, 59the +carters endeavour, as far as possible, to take the pass in gangs, lest +bad weather or an accident upon the road should overtake them singly. +At night they hardly rest three hours, and rarely think of sleeping, +but spend the time in drinking and conversation. The horses are fed and +littered; but for them too the night-halt is little better than a +baiting-time. In fair weather the passage of the mountain is not +difficult, though tiring. But woe to men and beasts alike if they +encounter storms! Not a few perish in the passes; and it frequently +happens that their only chance is to unyoke the horses and leave the +sledges in a snow-wreath, seeking for themselves such shelter as may +possibly be gained, frost-bitten, after hours of battling with +impermeable drifts. The wine is frozen into one solid mass of rosy ice +before it reaches Pontresina. This does not hurt the young vintage, but +it is highly injurious to wine of some years' standing. The perils of +the journey are aggravated by the savage temper of the drivers. +Jealousies between the natives of rival districts spring up; and there +are men alive who have fought the whole way down from Fluela Hospice to +Davos Platz with knives and stones, hammers and hatchets, wooden staves +and splintered cart-wheels, staining the snow with blood, and bringing +broken pates, bruised limbs, and senseless comrades home to their women +to be tended. + +Bacchus Alpinus shepherded his train away from us to northward, and we +passed forth into noonday from the gallery. It then seemed clear that +both conductor and postillion were sufficiently merry. The plunge they +took us down those frozen parapets, with shriek and _jauchzen_ and +cracked whips, was more than ever dangerous. Yet we reached La Rosa +safely. This is a lovely solitary spot, beside a rushing stream, among +grey granite boulders grown with spruce and rhododendron: a veritable +rose of Sharon 60blooming in the desert. The wastes of the Bernina +stretch above, and round about are leaguered some of the most +forbidding sharp-toothed peaks I ever saw. Onwards, across the silent +snow, we glided in immitigable sunshine, through opening valleys and +pine-woods, past the robber-huts of Pisciadella, until at evenfall we +rested in the roadside inn at Poschiavo. + +IV + +The snow-path ended at Poschiavo; and when, as usual, we started on our +journey next day at sunrise, it was in a carriage upon wheels. Yet even +here we were in full midwinter. Beyond Le Prese the lake presented one +sheet of smooth black ice, reflecting every peak and chasm of the +mountains, and showing the rocks and water-weeds in the clear green +depths below. The glittering floor stretched away for acres of +untenanted expanse, with not a skater to explore those dark mysterious +coves, or strike across the slanting sunlight poured from clefts in the +impendent hills. Inshore the substance of the ice sparkled here and +there with iridescence like the plumelets of a butterfly's wing under +the microscope, wherever light happened to catch the jagged or oblique +flaws that veined its solid crystal. + +From the lake the road descends suddenly for a considerable distance +through a narrow gorge, following a torrent which rushes among granite +boulders. Chestnut trees begin to replace the pines. The sunnier +terraces are planted with tobacco, and at a lower level vines appear at +intervals in patches. One comes at length to a great red gate across +the road, which separates Switzerland from Italy, and where the export +dues on wine are paid. The Italian custom-house is romantically perched +above the torrent. Two courteous and elegant _finanzieri_, mere boys, +were sitting wrapped in 61their military cloaks and reading novels in +the sun as we drove up. Though they made some pretence of examining the +luggage, they excused themselves with sweet smiles and apologetic +eyes—it was a disagreeable duty! + +A short time brought us to the first village in the Valtelline, where +the road bifurcates northward to Bormio and the Stelvio pass, southward +to Sondrio and Lombardy. It is a little hamlet, known by the name of La +Madonna di Tirano, having grown up round a pilgrimage church of great +beauty, with tall Lombard bell-tower, pierced with many tiers of +pilastered windows, ending in a whimsical spire, and dominating a +fantastic cupola building of the earlier Renaissance. Taken altogether, +this is a charming bit of architecture, picturesquely set beneath the +granite snow-peaks of the Valtelline. The church, they say, was raised +at Madonna's own command to stay the tide of heresy descending from the +Engadine; and in the year 1620, the bronze statue of S. Michael, which +still spreads wide its wings above the cupola, looked down upon the +massacre of six hundred Protestants and foreigners, commanded by the +patriot Jacopo Robustelli. + +From Madonna the road leads up the valley through a narrow avenue of +poplar-trees to the town of Tirano. We were now in the district where +Forzato is made, and every vineyard had a name and history. In Tirano +we betook ourself to the house of an old acquaintance of the Buol +family, Bernardo da Campo, or, as the Graubündeners call him, Bernard +Campbèll. We found him at dinner with his son and grandchildren in a +vast, dark, bare Italian chamber. It would be difficult to find a more +typical old Scotchman of the Lowlands than he looked, with his clean +close-shaven face, bright brown eyes, and snow-white hair escaping from +a broad-brimmed hat. He might have sat to a painter for 62some +Covenanter's portrait, except that there was nothing dour about him, or +for an illustration to Burns's 'Cotter's Saturday Night.' The air of +probity and canniness combined with a twinkle of dry humour was +completely Scotch; and when he tapped his snuff-box, telling stories of +old days, I could not refrain from asking him about his pedigree. It +should be said that there is a considerable family of Campèlls or +Campbèlls in the Graubünden, who are fabled to deduce their stock from +a Scotch Protestant of Zwingli's time; and this made it irresistible to +imagine that in our friend Bernardo I had chanced upon a notable +specimen of atavism. All he knew, however, was, that his first ancestor +had been a foreigner, who came across the mountains to Tirano two +centuries ago.[3] + + [3] The Grisons surname Campèll may derive from the Romansch Campo + Bello. The founder of the house was one Kaspar Campèll, who in the + first half of the sixteenth century preached the Reformed religion in + the Engadine. + +This old gentleman is a considerable wine-dealer. He sent us with his +son, Giacomo, on a long journey underground through his cellars, where +we tasted several sorts of Valtelline, especially the new Forzato, made +a few weeks since, which singularly combines sweetness with strength, +and both with a slight effervescence. It is certainly the sort of wine +wherewith to tempt a Polyphemus, and not unapt to turn a giant's head. + +Leaving Tirano, and once more passing through the poplars by Madonna, +we descended the valley all along the vineyards of Villa and the vast +district of Sassella. Here and there, at wayside inns, we stopped to +drink a glass of some particular vintage; and everywhere it seemed as +though god Bacchus were at home. The whole valley on the right side of +the Adda is one gigantic vineyard, climbing the hills in tiers 63and +terraces, which justify its Italian epithet of _Teatro di Bacco_. The +rock is a greyish granite, assuming sullen brown and orange tints where +exposed to sun and weather. The vines are grown on stakes, not +trellised over trees or carried across boulders, as is the fashion at +Chiavenna or Terlan. Yet every advantage of the mountain is adroitly +used; nooks and crannies being specially preferred, where the sun's +rays are deflected from hanging cliffs. The soil seems deep, and is of +a dull yellow tone. When the vines end, brushwood takes up the growth, +which expires at last in crag and snow. Some alps and chalets, dimly +traced against the sky, are evidences that a pastoral life prevails +above the vineyards. Pan there stretches the pine-thyrsus down to +vine-garlanded Dionysos. + +The Adda flows majestically among willows in the midst, and the valley +is nearly straight. The prettiest spot, perhaps, is at Tresenda or S. +Giacomo, where a pass from Edolo and Brescia descends from the southern +hills. But the Valtelline has no great claim to beauty of scenery. Its +chief town, Sondrio, where we supped and drank some special wine called +_il vino de' Signori Grigioni_, has been modernised in dull Italian +fashion. + +V + +The hotel at Sondrio, La Maddalena, was in carnival uproar of masquers, +topers, and musicians all night through. It was as much as we could do +to rouse the sleepy servants and get a cup of coffee ere we started in +the frozen dawn. 'Verfluchte Maddalena!' grumbled Christian as he +shouldered our portmanteaus and bore them in hot haste to the post. +Long experience only confirms the first impression, that, of all cold, +the cold of an Italian winter is most penetrating. As we lumbered out +of Sondrio in a heavy diligence, I could 64have fancied myself back +once again at Radicofani or among the Ciminian hills. The frost was +penetrating. Fur-coats would not keep it out; and we longed to be once +more in open sledges on Bernina rather than enclosed in that cold +coupé. Now we passed Grumello, the second largest of the renowned vine +districts; and always keeping the white mass of Monte di Disgrazia in +sight, rolled at last into Morbegno. Here the Valtelline vintage +properly ends, though much of the ordinary wine is probably supplied +from the inferior produce of these fields. It was past noon when we +reached Colico, and saw the Lake of Como glittering in sunlight, +dazzling cloaks of snow on all the mountains, which look as dry and +brown as dead beech-leaves at this season. Our Bacchic journey had +reached its close; and it boots not here to tell in detail how we made +our way across the Splügen, piercing its avalanches by low-arched +galleries scooped from the solid snow, and careering in our sledges +down perpendicular snow-fields, which no one who has crossed that pass +from the Italian side in winter will forget. We left the refuge station +at the top together with a train of wine-sledges, and passed them in +the midst of the wild descent. Looking back, I saw two of their horses +stumble in the plunge and roll headlong over. Unluckily in one of these +somersaults a man was injured. Flung ahead into the snow by the first +lurch, the sledge and wine-cask crossed him like a garden-roller. Had +his bed not been of snow, he must have been crushed to death; and as it +was, he presented a woeful appearance when he afterwards arrived at +Splügen. + +VI + +Though not strictly connected with the subject of this paper, I shall +conclude these notes of winter wanderings in 65the high Alps with an +episode which illustrates their curious vicissitudes. + +It was late in the month of March, and nearly all the mountain roads +were open for wheeled vehicles. A carriage and four horses came to meet +us at the termination of a railway journey in Bagalz. We spent one day +in visiting old houses of the Grisons aristocracy at Mayenfeld and +Zizers, rejoicing in the early sunshine, which had spread the fields +with spring flowers—primroses and oxlips, violets, anemones, and bright +blue squills. At Chur we slept, and early next morning started for our +homeward drive to Davos. Bad weather had declared itself in the night. +It blew violently, and the rain soon changed to snow, frozen by a +bitter north blast. Crossing the dreary heath of Lenz was both +magnificent and dreadful. By the time we reached Wiesen, all the +forests were laden with snow, the roads deep in snow-drifts, the whole +scene wintrier than it had been the winter through. + +At Wiesen we should have stayed, for evening was fast setting in. But +in ordinary weather it is only a two hours drive from Wiesen to Davos. +Our coachman made no objections to resuming the journey, and our four +horses had but a light load to drag. So we telegraphed for supper to be +prepared, and started between five and six. + +A deep gorge has to be traversed, where the torrent cleaves its way +between jaws of limestone precipices. The road is carried along ledges +and through tunnels in the rock. Avalanches, which sweep this passage +annually from the hills above, give it the name of Züge, or the +Snow-Paths. As we entered the gorge darkness fell, the horses dragged +more heavily, and it soon became evident that our Tyrolese driver was +hopelessly drunk. He nearly upset us twice by taking sharp turns in the +road, banged the carriage against telegraph 66posts and jutting rocks, +shaved the very verge of the torrent in places where there was no +parapet, and, what was worst of all, refused to leave his box without a +fight. The darkness by this time was all but total, and a blinding +snow-storm swept howling through the ravine. At length we got the +carriage to a dead-stop, and floundered out in deep wet snow toward +some wooden huts where miners in old days made their habitation. The +place, by a curious, perhaps unconscious irony, is called Hoffnungsau, +or the Meadow of Hope. Indeed, it is not ill named; for many wanderers, +escaping, as we did, from the dreadful gorge of Avalanches on a stormy +night, may have felt, as we now felt, their hope reviving when they +reached this shelter. + +There was no light; nothing above, beneath, around, on any side, but +tearing tempest and snow whirled through the ravine. The horses were +taken out of the carriage; on their way to the stable, which +fortunately in these mountain regions will be always found beside the +poorest habitation, one of them fell back across a wall and nearly +broke his spine. Hoffnungsau is inhabited all through the year. In its +dismal dark kitchen we found a knot of workmen gathered together, and +heard there were two horses on the premises besides our own. It then +occurred to us that we might accomplish the rest of the journey with +such sledges as they bring the wood on from the hills in winter, if +coal-boxes or boxes of any sort could be provided. These should be +lashed to the sledges and filled with hay. We were only four persons; +my wife and a friend should go in one, myself and my little girl in the +other. No sooner thought of than put into practice. These original +conveyances were improvised, and after two hours' halt on the Meadow of +Hope, we all set forth again at half-past eight. + +I have rarely felt anything more piercing than the grim 67cold of that +journey. We crawled at a foot's pace through changeful snow-drifts. The +road was obliterated, and it was my duty to keep a petroleum +stable-lamp swinging to illuminate the untracked wilderness. My little +girl was snugly nested in the hay, and sound asleep with a deep white +covering of snow above her. Meanwhile, the drift clave in frozen masses +to our faces, lashed by a wind so fierce and keen that it was difficult +to breathe it. My forehead-bone ached, as though with neuralgia, from +the mere mask of icy snow upon it, plastered on with frost. Nothing +could be seen but millions of white specks, whirled at us in eddying +concentric circles. Not far from the entrance to the village we met our +house-folk out with lanterns to look for us. It was past eleven at +night when at last we entered warm rooms and refreshed ourselves for +the tiring day with a jovial champagne supper. Horses, carriage, and +drunken driver reached home next morning. + +68 + + + + +OLD TOWNS OF PROVENCE + + +Travellers journeying southward from Paris first meet with olive-trees +near Montdragon or Monsélimart—little towns, with old historic names, +upon the road to Orange. It is here that we begin to feel ourselves +within the land of Provence, where the Romans found a second Italy, and +where the autumn of their antique civilisation was followed, almost +without an intermediate winter of barbarism, by the light and delicate +springtime of romance. Orange itself is full of Rome. Indeed, the ghost +of the dead empire seems there to be more real and living than the +actual flesh and blood of modern time, as represented by narrow dirty +streets and mean churches. It is the shell of the huge theatre, +hollowed from the solid hill, and fronted with a wall that seems made +rather to protect a city than to form a sounding-board for a stage, +which first tells us that we have reached the old Arausio. Of all +theatres this is the most impressive, stupendous, indestructible, the +Colosseum hardly excepted; for in Rome herself we are prepared for +something gigantic, while in the insignificant Arausio—a sort of +antique Tewkesbury—to find such magnificence, durability, and vastness, +impresses one with a nightmare sense that the old lioness of Empire can +scarcely yet be dead. Standing before the colossal, towering, amorphous +precipice which formed the background of the scena, we feel as if once +more the 'heart-shaking sound of Consul Romanus' might be heard; as if +Roman knights and deputies, arisen 69from the dead, with faces hard and +stern as those of the warriors carved on Trajan's frieze, might take +their seats beneath us in the orchestra, and, after proclamation made, +the mortmain of imperial Rome be laid upon the comforts, liberties, and +little gracefulnesses of our modern life. Nor is it unpleasant to be +startled from such reverie by the voice of the old guardian upon the +stage beneath, sonorously devolving the vacuous Alexandrines with which +he once welcomed his ephemeral French emperor from Algiers. The little +man is dim with distance, eclipsed and swallowed up by the shadows and +grotesque fragments of the ruin in the midst of which he stands. But +his voice—thanks to the inimitable constructive art of the ancient +architect, which, even in the desolation of at least thirteen +centuries, has not lost its cunning-emerges from the pigmy throat, and +fills the whole vast hollow with its clear, if tiny, sound. Thank +heaven, there is no danger of Roman resurrection here! The illusion is +completely broken, and we turn to gather the first violets of February, +and to wonder at the quaint postures of a praying mantis on the grass +grown tiers and porches fringed with fern. + +The sense of Roman greatness which is so oppressive in Orange and in +many other parts of Provence, is not felt at Avignon. Here we exchange +the ghost of Imperial for the phantom of Ecclesiastical Rome. The fixed +epithet of Avignon is Papal; and as the express train rushes over its +bleak and wind-tormented plain, the heavy dungeon-walls and +battlemented towers of its palace fortress seem to warn us off, and bid +us quickly leave the Babylon of exiled impious Antichrist. Avignon +presents the bleakest, barest, greyest scene upon a February morning, +when the incessant mistral is blowing, and far and near, upon desolate +hillside and sandy plain, the scanty trees are bent sideways, the +crumbling castle turrets shivering like bleached skeletons in the dry +ungenial air. Yet 70inside the town, all is not so dreary. The Papal +palace, with its terrible Glacière, its chapel painted by Simone Memmi, +its endless corridors and staircases, its torture-chamber, +funnel-shaped to drown and suffocate—so runs tradition—the shrieks of +wretches on the rack, is now a barrack, filled with lively little +French soldiers, whose politeness, though sorely taxed, is never +ruffled by the introduction of inquisitive visitors into their +dormitories, eating-places, and drill-grounds. And strange, indeed, it +is to see the lines of neat narrow barrack beds, between which the +red-legged little men are shaving, polishing their guns, or mending +their trousers, in those vaulted halls of popes and cardinals, those +vast presence-chambers and audience-galleries, where Urban entertained +S. Catherine, where Rienzi came, a prisoner, to be stared at. Pass by +the Glacière with a shudder, for it has still the reek of blood about +it; and do not long delay in the cheerless dungeon of Rienzi. Time and +regimental whitewash have swept these lurking-places of old crime very +bare; but the parable of the seven devils is true in more senses than +one, and the ghosts that return to haunt a deodorised, disinfected, +garnished sepulchre are almost more ghastly than those which have never +been disturbed from their old habitations. + +Little by little the eye becomes accustomed to the bareness and +greyness of this Provençal landscape; and then we find that the scenery +round Avignon is eminently picturesque. The view from Les Doms—which is +a hill above the Pope's palace, the Acropolis, as it were, of +Avignon—embraces a wide stretch of undulating champaign, bordered by +low hills, and intersected by the flashing waters of the majestic +Rhone. Across the stream stands Villeneuve, like a castle of romance, +with its round stone towers fronting the gates and battlemented walls +of the Papal city. A bridge used to connect the two towns, but it is +now broken. The remaining fragment is of 71solid build, resting on +great buttresses, one of which rises fantastically above the bridge +into a little chapel. Such, one might fancy, was the bridge which +Ariosto's Rodomonte kept on horse against the Paladins of Charlemagne, +when angered by the loss of his love. Nor is it difficult to imagine +Bradamante spurring up the slope against him with her magic lance in +rest, and tilting him into the tawny waves beneath. + +On a clear October morning, when the vineyards are taking their last +tints of gold and crimson, and the yellow foliage of the poplars by the +river mingles with the sober greys of olive-trees and willows, every +square inch of this landscape, glittering as it does with light and +with colour, the more beautiful for its subtlety and rarity, would make +a picture. Out of many such vignettes let us choose one. We are on the +shore close by the ruined bridge, the rolling muddy Rhone in front; +beyond it, by the towing-path, a tall strong cypress-tree rises beside +a little house, and next to it a crucifix twelve feet or more in +height, the Christ visible afar, stretched upon His red cross; arundo +donax is waving all around, and willows near; behind, far off, soar the +peaked hills, blue and pearled with clouds; past the cypress, on the +Rhone, comes floating a long raft, swift through the stream, its rudder +guided by a score of men: one standing erect upon the prow bends +forward to salute the cross; on flies the raft, the tall reeds rustle, +and the cypress sleeps. + +For those who have time to spare in going to or from the south it is +worth while to spend a day or two in the most comfortable and +characteristic of old French inns, the Hôtel de l'Europe, at Avignon. +Should it rain, the museum of the town is worth a visit. It contains +Horace Vernet's not uncelebrated picture of Mazeppa, and another, less +famous, but perhaps more interesting, by swollen-cheeked David, the +72'genius in convulsion,' as Carlyle has christened him. His canvas is +unfinished. Who knows what cry of the Convention made the painter fling +his palette down and leave the masterpiece he might have spoiled? For +in its way the picture is a masterpiece. There lies Jean Barrad, +drummer, aged fourteen, slain in La Vendée, a true patriot, who, while +his life-blood flowed away, pressed the tricolor cockade to his heart, +and murmured 'Liberty!' David has treated his subject classically. The +little drummer-boy, though French enough in feature and in feeling, +lies, Greek-like, naked on the sand—a very Hyacinth of the Republic, La +Vendée's Ilioneus. The tricolor cockade and the sentiment of upturned +patriotic eyes are the only indications of his being a hero in his +teens, a citizen who thought it sweet to die for France. + +In fine weather a visit to Vaucluse should by no means be omitted, not +so much, perhaps, for Petrarch's sake as for the interest of the drive, +and for the marvel of the fountain of the Sorgues. For some time after +leaving Avignon you jog along the level country between avenues of +plane-trees; then comes a hilly ridge, on which the olives, mulberries, +and vineyards join their colours and melt subtly into distant purple. +After crossing this we reach L'Isle, an island village girdled by the +gliding Sorgues, overshadowed with gigantic plane-boughs, and echoing +to the plash of water dripped from mossy fern-tufted millwheels. Those +who expect Petrarch's Sorgues to be some trickling poet's rill emerging +from a damp grotto, may well be astounded at the rush and roar of this +azure river so close upon its fountain-head. It has a volume and an +arrow-like rapidity that communicate the feeling of exuberance and +life. In passing, let it not be forgotten that it was somewhere or +other in this 'chiaro fondo di Sorga,' as Carlyle describes, that +Jourdain, the hangman-hero of the Glacière, stuck fast upon his pony +when flying from his foes, 73and had his accursed life, by some +diabolical providence, spared for future butcheries. On we go across +the austere plain, between fields of madder, the red roots of the +'garance' lying in swathes along the furrows. In front rise ash-grey +hills of barren rock, here and there crimsoned with the leaves of the +dwarf sumach. A huge cliff stands up and seems to bar all passage. Yet +the river foams in torrents at our side. Whence can it issue? What pass +or cranny in that precipice is cloven for its escape? These questions +grow in interest as we enter the narrow defile of limestone rocks which +leads to the cliff-barrier, and find ourselves among the figs and +olives of Vaucluse. Here is the village, the little church, the ugly +column to Petrarch's memory, the inn, with its caricatures of Laura, +and its excellent trout, the bridge and the many-flashing, eddying +Sorgues, lashed by millwheels, broken by weirs, divided in its course, +channelled and dyked, yet flowing irresistibly and undefiled. Blue, +purple, greened by moss and water-weeds, silvered by snow-white +pebbles, on its pure smooth bed the river runs like elemental diamond, +so clear and fresh. The rocks on either side are grey or yellow, +terraced into oliveyards, with here and there a cypress, fig, or +mulberry tree. Soon the gardens cease, and lentisk, rosemary, box, and +ilex—shrubs of Provence—with here and there a sumach out of reach, +cling to the hard stone. And so at last we are brought face to face +with the sheer impassable precipice. At its basement sleeps a pool, +perfectly untroubled; a lakelet in which the sheltering rocks and +nestling wild figs are glassed as in a mirror—a mirror of blue-black +water, like amethyst or fluor-spar—so pure, so still, that where it +laps the pebbles you can scarcely say where air begins and water ends. +This, then, is Petrarch's 'grotto;' this is the fountain of Vaucluse. +Up from its deep reservoirs, from the mysterious basements of the +mountain, wells the silent stream; pauseless 74and motionless it fills +its urn, rises unruffled, glides until the brink is reached, then +overflows, and foams, and dashes noisily, a cataract, among the +boulders of the hills. Nothing at Vaucluse is more impressive than the +contrast between the tranquil silence of the fountain and the roar of +the released impetuous river. Here we can realise the calm clear eyes +of sculptured water-gods, their brimming urns, their gushing streams, +the magic of the mountain-born and darkness-cradled flood. Or again, +looking up at the sheer steep cliff, 800 feet in height, and arching +slightly roofwise, so that no rain falls upon the cavern of the pool, +we seem to see the stroke of Neptune's trident, the hoof of Pegasus, +the force of Moses' rod, which cleft rocks and made water gush forth in +the desert. There is a strange fascination in the spot. As our eyes +follow the white pebble which cleaves the surface and falls visibly, +until the veil of azure is too thick for sight to pierce, we feel as if +some glamour were drawing us, like Hylas, to the hidden caves. At +least, we long to yield a prized and precious offering to the spring, +to grace the nymph of Vaucluse with a pearl of price as token of our +reverence and love. + +Meanwhile nothing has been said about Petrarch, who himself said much +about the spring, and complained against those very nymphs to whom we +have in wish, at least, been scattering jewels, that they broke his +banks and swallowed up his gardens every winter. At Vaucluse Petrarch +loved, and lived, and sang. He has made Vaucluse famous, and will never +be forgotten there. But for the present the fountain is even more +attractive than the memory of the poet.[4] + + [4] I have translated and printed at the end of the second volume some + sonnets of Petrarch as a kind of palinode for this impertinence. + +The change from Avignon to Nismes is very trying to the latter place; +for Nismes is not picturesquely or historically 75interesting. It is a +prosperous modern French town with two almost perfect Roman +monuments—Les Arènes and the Maison Carrée. The amphitheatre is a +complete oval, visible at one glance. Its smooth white stone, even +where it has not been restored, seems unimpaired by age; and Charles +Martel's conflagration, when he burned the Saracen hornet's nest inside +it, has only blackened the outer walls and arches venerably. Utility +and perfect adaptation of means to ends form the beauty of Roman +buildings. The science of construction and large intelligence displayed +in them, their strength, simplicity, solidity, and purpose, are their +glory. Perhaps there is only one modern edifice—Palladio's Palazzo +della Ragione at Vicenza—which approaches the dignity and loftiness of +Roman architecture; and this it does because of its absolute freedom +from ornament, the vastness of its design, and the durability of its +material. The temple, called the Maison Carrée, at Nismes, is also very +perfect, and comprehended at one glance. Light, graceful, airy, but +rather thin and narrow, it reminds one of the temple of Fortuna Virilis +at Rome. + +But if Nismes itself is not picturesque, its environs contain the +wonderful Pont du Gard. A two or three hours' drive leads through a +desolate country to the valley of the Cardon, where suddenly, at a turn +of the road, one comes upon the aqueduct. It is not within the scope of +words to describe the impression produced by those vast arches, row +above row, cutting the deep blue sky. The domed summer clouds sailing +across them are comprehended in the gigantic span of their perfect +semicircles, which seem rather to have been described by Miltonic +compasses of Deity than by merely human mathematics. Yet, standing +beneath one of the vaults and looking upward, you may read Roman +numerals in order from I. to X., which prove their human origin well +enough. 76Next to their strength, regularity, and magnitude, the most +astonishing point about this triple tier of arches, piled one above the +other to a height of 180 feet above a brawling stream between two +barren hills, is their lightness. The arches are not thick; the +causeway on the top is only just broad enough for three men to walk +abreast. So smooth and perpendicular are the supporting walls that +scarcely a shrub or tuft of grass has grown upon the aqueduct in all +these years. And yet the huge fabric is strengthened by no buttress, +has needed no repair. This lightness of structure, combined with such +prodigious durability, produces the strongest sense of science and +self-reliant power in the men who designed it. None but Romans could +have built such a monument, and have set it in such a place—a +wilderness of rock and rolling hill, scantily covered with low +brushwood, and browsed over by a few sheep—for such a purpose, too, in +order to supply Nemausus with pure water. The modern town does pretty +well without its water; but here subsists the civilisation of eighteen +centuries past intact: the human labour yet remains, the measuring, +contriving mind of man, shrinking from no obstacles, spanning the air, +and in one edifice combining gigantic strength and perfect beauty. It +is impossible not to echo Rousseau's words in such a place, and to say +with him: 'Le retentissement de mes pas dans ces immenses voûtes me +faisait croire entendre la forte voix de ceux qui les avaient bâties. +Je me perdais comme un insecte dans cette immensité. Je sentais, tout +en me faisant petit, je ne sais quoi qui m'élevait l'âme; et je me +disais en soupirant, Que ne suis-je né Romain!' + +There is nothing at Arles which produces the same deep and indelible +impression. Yet Arles is a far more interesting town than Nismes, +partly because of the Rhone delta which begins there, partly because of +its ruinous antiquity, and 77partly also because of the strong local +character of its population. The amphitheatre of Arles is vaster and +more sublime in its desolation than the tidy theatre at Nismes; the +crypts, and dens, and subterranean passages suggest all manner of +speculation as to the uses to which they may have been appropriated; +while the broken galleries outside, intricate and black and cavernous, +like Piranesi's etchings of the 'Carceri,' present the wildest pictures +of greatness in decay, fantastic dilapidation. The ruins of the smaller +theatre, again, with their picturesquely grouped fragments and their +standing columns, might be sketched for a frontispiece to some +dilettante work on classical antiquities. For the rest, perhaps the +Aliscamps, or ancient Roman burial-ground, is the most interesting +thing at Arles, not only because of Dante's celebrated lines in the +canto of 'Farinata:'— + +Si come ad Arli ove 'l Rodano stagna, +Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo; + + +but also because of the intrinsic picturesqueness of this avenue of +sepulchres beneath green trees upon a long soft grassy field. + +But as at Avignon and Nismes, so also at Arles, one of the chief +attractions of the place lies at a distance, and requires a special +expedition. The road to Les Baux crosses a true Provençal desert where +one realises the phrase, 'Vieux comme les rochers de Provence,'—a +wilderness of grey stone, here and there worn into cart-tracks, and +tufted with rosemary, box, lavender, and lentisk. On the way it passes +the Abbaye de Mont Majeur, a ruin of gigantic size, embracing all +periods of architecture; where nothing seems to flourish now but +henbane and the wild cucumber, or to breathe but a mumble-toothed and +terrible old hag. The ruin stands above a desolate marsh, its vast +Italian buildings of Palladian splendour 78looking more forlorn in +their decay than the older and austerer mediæval towers, which rise up +proud and patient and defiantly erect beneath the curse of time. When +at length what used to be the castle town of Les Baux is reached, you +find a naked mountain of yellow sandstone, worn away by nature into +bastions and buttresses and coigns of vantage, sculptured by ancient +art into palaces and chapels, battlements and dungeons. Now art and +nature are confounded in one ruin. Blocks of masonry lie cheek by jowl +with masses of the rough-hewn rock; fallen cavern vaults are heaped +round fragments of fan-shaped spandrel and clustered column-shaft; the +doors and windows of old pleasure-rooms are hung with ivy and wild fig +for tapestry; winding staircases start midway upon the cliff, and lead +to vacancy. High overhead suspended in mid-air hang chambers—lady's +bower or poet's singing-room—now inaccessible, the haunt of hawks and +swallows. Within this rocky honeycomb—'cette ville en monolithe,' as it +has been aptly called, for it is literally scooped out of one mountain +block—live about two hundred poor people, foddering their wretched +goats at carved piscina and stately sideboards, erecting mud +beplastered hovels in the halls of feudal princes. Murray is wrong in +calling the place a mediæval town in its original state, for anything +more purely ruinous, more like a decayed old cheese, cannot possibly be +conceived. The living only inhabit the tombs of the dead. At the end of +the last century, when revolutionary effervescence was beginning to +ferment, the people of Arles swept all its feudality away, defacing the +very arms upon the town gate, and trampling the palace towers to dust. + +The castle looks out across a vast extent of plain over Arles, the +stagnant Rhone, the Camargue, and the salt pools of the lingering sea. +In old days it was the eyrie of an eagle race called Seigneurs of Les +Baux; and whether they took their 79title from the rock, or whether, as +genealogists would have it, they gave the name of Oriental +Balthazar—their reputed ancestor, one of the Magi—to the rock itself, +remains a mystery not greatly worth the solving. + +Anyhow, here they lived and flourished, these feudal princes, bearing +for their ensign a silver comet of sixteen rays upon a field of +gules—themselves a comet race, baleful to the neighbouring lowlands, +blazing with lurid splendour over wide tracts of country, a burning, +raging, fiery-souled, swift-handed tribe, in whom a flame unquenchable +glowed from son to sire through twice five hundred years until, in the +sixteenth century, they were burned out, and nothing remained but +cinders—these broken ruins of their eyrie, and some outworn and dusty +titles. Very strange are the fate and history of these same titles: +King of Arles, for instance, savouring of troubadour and high romance; +Prince of Tarentum, smacking of old plays and Italian novels; Prince of +Orange, which the Nassaus, through the Châlons, seized in all its +emptiness long after the real principality had passed away, and came +therewith to sit on England's throne. + +The Les Baux in their heyday were patterns of feudal nobility. They +warred incessantly with Counts of Provence, archbishops and burghers of +Arles, Queens of Naples, Kings of Aragon. Crusading, pillaging, +betraying, spending their substance on the sword, and buying it again +by deeds of valour or imperial acts of favour, tuning troubadour harps, +presiding at courts of love,—they filled a large page in the history of +Southern France. The Les Baux were very superstitious. In the fulness +of their prosperity they restricted the number of their dependent +towns, or _places baussenques_, to seventy-nine, because these numbers +in combination were thought to be of good omen to their house. Beral +des Baux, Seigneur of Marseilles, was one day starting on a journey +80with his whole force to Avignon. He met an old woman herb-gathering +at daybreak, and said, 'Mother, hast thou seen a crow or other bird?' +'Yea,' answered the crone, 'on the trunk of a dead willow.' Beral +counted upon his fingers the day of the year, and turned bridle. With +troubadours of name and note they had dealings, but not always to their +own advantage, as the following story testifies. When the Baux and +Berengers were struggling for the countship of Provence, Raymond +Berenger, by his wife's counsel, went, attended by troubadours, to meet +the Emperor Frederick at Milan. There he sued for the investiture and +ratification of Provence. His troubadours sang and charmed Frederick; +and the Emperor, for the joy he had in them, wrote his celebrated lines +beginning— + +Plas mi cavalier Francez. + + +And when Berenger made his request he met with no refusal. Hearing +thereof, the lords of Baux came down in wrath with a clangour of armed +men. But music had already gained the day; and where the Phoebus of +Provence had shone, the Æolus of storm-shaken Les Baux was powerless. +Again, when Blacas, a knight of Provence, died, the great Sordello +chanted one of his most fiery hymns, bidding the princes of Christendom +flock round and eat the heart of the dead lord. 'Let Rambaude des +Baux,' cries the bard, with a sarcasm that is clearly meant, but at +this distance almost unintelligible, 'take also a good piece, for she +is fair and good and truly virtuous; let her keep it well who knows so +well to husband her own weal.' But the poets were not always adverse to +the house of Baux. Fouquet, the beautiful and gentle melodist whom +Dante placed in paradise, served Adelaisie, wife of Berald, with long +service of unhappy love, and wrote upon her death 'The Complaint of +Berald des Baux for Adelaisie.' Guillaume de Cabestan loved Berangère +des Baux, and was 81so loved by her that she gave him a philtre to +drink, whereof he sickened and grew mad. Many more troubadours are +cited as having frequented the castle of Les Baux, and among the +members of the princely house were several poets. + +Some of them were renowned for beauty. We hear of a Cécile, called +Passe Rose, because of her exceeding loveliness; also of an unhappy +François, who, after passing eighteen years in prison, yet won the +grace and love of Joan of Naples by his charms. But the real temper of +this fierce tribe was not shown among troubadours, or in the courts of +love and beauty. The stern and barren rock from which they sprang, and +the comet of their scutcheon, are the true symbols of their nature. +History records no end of their ravages and slaughters. It is a tedious +catalogue of blood—how one prince put to fire and sword the whole town +of Courthezon; how another was stabbed in prison by his wife; how a +third besieged the castle of his niece, and sought to undermine her +chamber, knowing her the while to be in childbed; how a fourth was +flayed alive outside the walls of Avignon. There is nothing terrible, +splendid, and savage, belonging to feudal history, of which an example +may not be found in the annals of Les Baux, as narrated by their +chronicler, Jules Canonge. + +However abrupt may seem the transition from these memories of the +ancient nobles of Les Baux to mere matters of travel and +picturesqueness, it would be impossible to take leave of the old towns +of Provence without glancing at the cathedrals of S. Trophime at Arles, +and of S. Gilles—a village on the border of the dreary flamingo-haunted +Camargue. Both of these buildings have porches splendidly encrusted +with sculptures, half classical, half mediæval, marking the transition +from ancient to modern art. But that of S. Gilles is by far the richer +and more elaborate. The whole façade of 82this church is one mass of +intricate decoration; Norman arches and carved lions, like those of +Lombard architecture, mingling fantastically with Greek scrolls of +fruit and flowers, with elegant Corinthian columns jutting out upon the +church steps, and with the old conventional wave-border that is called +Etruscan in our modern jargon. From the midst of florid fret and +foliage lean mild faces of saints and Madonnas. Symbols of evangelists +with half-human, half-animal eyes and wings, are interwoven with the +leafy bowers of cupids. Grave apostles stand erect beneath acanthus +wreaths that ought to crisp the forehead of a laughing Faun or Bacchus. +And yet so full, exuberant, and deftly chosen are these various +elements, that there remains no sense of incongruity or discord. The +mediæval spirit had much trouble to disentangle itself from classic +reminiscences; and fortunately for the picturesqueness of S. Gilles, it +did not succeed. How strangely different is the result of this +transition in the south from those severe and rigid forms which we call +Romanesque in Germany and Normandy and England! + +83 + + + + +THE CORNICE + + +It was a dull afternoon in February when we left Nice, and drove across +the mountains to Mentone. Over hill and sea hung a thick mist. Turbia's +Roman tower stood up in cheerless solitude, wreathed round with driving +vapour, and the rocky nest of Esa seemed suspended in a chaos between +sea and sky. Sometimes the fog broke and showed us Villafranca, lying +green and flat in the deep blue below: sometimes a distant view of +higher peaks swam into sight from the shifting cloud. But the whole +scene was desolate. Was it for this that we had left our English home, +and travelled from London day and night? At length we reached the edge +of the cloud, and jingled down by Roccabruna and the olive-groves, till +one by one Mentone's villas came in sight, and at last we found +ourselves at the inn door. That night, and all next day and the next +night, we heard the hoarse sea beat and thunder on the beach. The rain +and wind kept driving from the south, but we consoled ourselves with +thinking that the orange-trees and every kind of flower were drinking +in the moisture and waiting to rejoice in sunlight which would come. + +It was a Sunday morning when we woke and found that the rain had gone, +the sun was shining brightly on the sea, and a clear north wind was +blowing cloud and mist away. Out upon the hills we went, not caring +much what path we took; for everything was beautiful, and hill and vale +were 84full of garden walks. Through lemon-groves,—pale, golden-tender +trees,—and olives, stretching their grey boughs against the lonely +cottage tiles, we climbed, until we reached the pines and heath above. +Then I knew the meaning of Theocritus for the first time. We found a +well, broad, deep, and clear, with green herbs growing at the bottom, a +runlet flowing from it down the rocky steps, maidenhair, black +adiantum, and blue violets, hanging from the brink and mirrored in the +water. This was just the well in _Hylas_. Theocritus has been badly +treated. They call him a court poet, dead to Nature, artificial in his +pictures. Yet I recognised this fountain by his verse, just as if he +had showed me the very spot. Violets grow everywhere, of every shade, +from black to lilac. Their stalks are long, and the flowers 'nod' upon +them, so that I see how the Greeks could make them into chaplets—how +Lycidas wore his crown of white violets[5] lying by the fireside +elbow-deep in withered asphodel, watching the chestnuts in the embers, +and softly drinking deep healths to Ageanax far off upon the waves. It +is impossible to go wrong in these valleys. They are cultivated to the +height of about five hundred feet above the sea, in terraces +laboriously built up with walls, earthed and manured, and irrigated by +means of tanks and aqueducts. Above this level, where the virgin soil +has not been yet reclaimed, or where the winds of winter bring down +freezing currents from the mountains through a gap or gully of the +lower hills, a tangled growth of heaths and arbutus, and pines, and +rosemarys, and myrtles, continue the vegetation, till it finally ends +in bare grey rocks and peaks some thousand feet in height. Far above +all signs of cultivation 85on these arid peaks, you still may see +villages and ruined castles, built centuries ago for a protection from +the Moorish pirates. To these mountain fastnesses the people of the +coast retreated when they descried the sails of their foes on the +horizon. In Mentone, not very long ago, old men might be seen who in +their youth were said to have been taken captive by the Moors; and many +Arabic words have found their way into the patois of the people. + + [5] This begs the question whether λευκόϊον does not properly mean + snowflake, or some such flower. Violets in Greece, however, were often + used for crowns: ΐοστέφανος is the epithet of Homer for Aphrodite, + and of Aristophanes for Athens. + +There is something strangely fascinating in the sight of these ruins on +the burning rocks, with their black sentinel cypresses, immensely tall +and far away. Long years and rain and sunlight have made these +castellated eyries one with their native stone. It is hard to trace in +their foundations where Nature's workmanship ends and where man's +begins. What strange sights the mountain villagers must see! The vast +blue plain of the unfurrowed deep, the fairy range of Corsica hung +midway between the sea and sky at dawn or sunset, the stars so close +above their heads, the deep dew-sprinkled valleys, the green pines! On +penetrating into one of these hill-fortresses, you find that it is a +whole village, with a church and castle and piazza, some few feet +square, huddled together on a narrow platform. We met one day three +magnates of Gorbio taking a morning stroll backwards and forwards, up +and down their tiny square. Vehemently gesticulating, loudly +chattering, they talked as though they had not seen each other for ten +years, and were but just unloading their budgets of accumulated news. +Yet these three men probably had lived, eaten, drunk, and talked +together from the cradle to that hour: so true it is that use and +custom quicken all our powers, especially of 93gossiping and +scandal-mongering. S. Agnese is the highest and most notable of all +these villages. The cold and heat upon its absolutely barren rock must +be alike intolerable. In appearance 86it is not unlike the Etruscan +towns of Central Italy; but there is something, of course, far more +imposing in the immense antiquity and the historical associations of a +Narni, a Fiesole, a Chiusi, or an Orvieto. Sea-life and rusticity +strike a different note from that of those Apennine-girdled seats of +dead civilisation, in which nations, arts, and religions have gone by +and left but few traces,—some wrecks of giant walls, some excavated +tombs, some shrines, where monks still sing and pray above the relics +of the founders of once world-shaking, now almost forgotten, orders. +Here at Mentone there is none of this; the idyllic is the true note, +and Theocritus is still alive. + +We do not often scale these altitudes, but keep along the terraced +glades by the side of olive-shaded streams. The violets, instead of +peeping shyly from hedgerows, fall in ripples and cascades over mossy +walls among maidenhair and spleen-worts. They are very sweet, and the +sound of trickling water seems to mingle with their fragrance in a most +delicious harmony. Sound, smell, and hue make up one chord, the sense +of which is pure and perfect peace. The country-people are kind, +letting us pass everywhere, so that we make our way along their +aqueducts and through their gardens, under laden lemon-boughs, the pale +fruit dangling at our ears, and swinging showers of scented dew upon us +as we pass. Far better, however, than lemon or orange trees, are the +olives. Some of these are immensely old, numbering, it is said, five +centuries, so that Petrarch may almost have rested beneath their shade +on his way to Avignon. These veterans are cavernous with age: gnarled, +split, and twisted trunks, throwing out arms that break into a hundred +branches; every branch distinct, and feathered with innumerable sparks +and spikelets of white, wavy, greenish light. These are the leaves, and +the stems are grey with lichens. The sky and sea—two blues, one full +87of sunlight and the other purple—set these fountains of perennial +brightness like gems in lapis-lazuli. At a distance the same olives +look hoary and soft—a veil of woven light or luminous haze. When the +wind blows their branches all one way, they ripple like a sea of +silver. But underneath their covert, in the shade, grey periwinkles +wind among the snowy drift of allium. The narcissus sends its arrowy +fragrance through the air, while, far and wide, red anemones burn like +fire, with interchange of blue and lilac buds, white arums, orchises, +and pink gladiolus. Wandering there, and seeing the pale flowers, stars +white and pink and odorous, we dream of Olivet, or the grave Garden of +the Agony, and the trees seem always whispering of sacred things. How +people can blaspheme against the olives, and call them imitations of +the willow, or complain that they are shabby shrubs, I do not know.[6] + + [6] Olive-trees must be studied at Mentone or San Remo, in Corfu, at + Tivoli, on the coast between Syracuse and Catania, or on the lowlands + of Apulia. The stunted but productive trees of the Rhone valley, for + example, are no real measure of the beauty they can exhibit. + +This shore would stand for Shelley's Island of Epipsychidion, or the +golden age which Empedocles describes, when the mild nations worshipped +Aphrodite with incense and the images of beasts and yellow honey, and +no blood was spilt upon her altars—when 'the trees flourished with +perennial leaves and fruit, and ample crops adorned their boughs +through all the year.' This even now is literally true of the +lemon-groves, which do not cease to flower and ripen. Everything fits +in to complete the reproduction of Greek pastoral life. The goats eat +cytisus and myrtle on the shore; a whole flock gathered round me as I +sat beneath a tuft of golden green euphorbia the other day, and nibbled +bread from my hands. The frog still croaks by tank and 88fountain, +'whom the Muses have ordained to sing for aye,' in spite of Bion's +death. The narcissus, anemone, and hyacinth still tell their tales of +love and death. Hesper still gazes on the shepherd from the +mountain-head. The slender cypresses still vibrate, the pines murmur. +Pan sleeps in noontide heat, and goat-herds and wayfaring men lie down +to slumber by the roadside, under olive-boughs in which cicadas sing. +The little villages high up are just as white, the mountains just as +grey and shadowy when evening falls. Nothing is changed—except +ourselves. I expect to find a statue of Priapus or pastoral Pan, hung +with wreaths of flowers—the meal cake, honey, and spilt wine upon his +altar, and young boys and maidens dancing round. Surely, in some +far-off glade, by the side of lemon-grove or garden, near the village, +there must be still a pagan remnant of glad Nature-worship. Surely I +shall chance upon some Thyrsis piping in the pine-tree shade, or Daphne +flying from the arms of Phoebus. So I dream until I come upon the +Calvary set on a solitary hillock, with its prayer-steps lending a wide +prospect across the olives and the orange-trees, and the broad valleys, +to immeasurable skies and purple seas. There is the iron cross, the +wounded heart, the spear, the reed, the nails, the crown of thorns, the +cup of sacrificial blood, the title, with its superscription royal and +divine. The other day we crossed a brook and entered a lemon-field, +rich with blossoms and carpeted with red anemones. Everything basked in +sunlight and glittered with exceeding brilliancy of hue. A tiny white +chapel stood in a corner of the enclosure. Two iron-grated windows let +me see inside: it was a bare place, containing nothing but a wooden +praying-desk, black and worm-eaten, an altar with its candles and no +flowers, and above the altar a square picture brown with age. On the +floor were scattered several pence, and in a vase above the holy-water +vessel stood 89some withered hyacinths. As my sight became accustomed +to the gloom, I could see from the darkness of the picture a pale +Christ nailed to the cross with agonising upward eyes and ashy aureole +above the bleeding thorns. Thus I stepped suddenly away from the +outward pomp and bravery of nature to the inward aspirations, agonies, +and martyrdoms of man—from Greek legends of the past to the real +Christian present—and I remembered that an illimitable prospect has +been opened to the world, that in spite of ourselves we must turn our +eyes heavenward, inward, to the infinite unseen beyond us and within +our souls. Nothing can take us back to Phoebus or to Pan. Nothing can +again identify us with the simple natural earth. '_Une immense +espérance a traversé la terre_,' and these chapels, with their deep +significances, lurk in the fair landscape like the cares of real life +among our dreams of art, or like a fear of death and the hereafter in +the midst of opera music. It is a strange contrast. The worship of men +in those old times was symbolised by dances in the evening, banquets, +libations, and mirth-making. 'Euphrosyne' was alike the goddess of the +righteous mind and of the merry heart. Old withered women telling their +rosaries at dusk; belated shepherds crossing themselves beneath the +stars when they pass the chapel; maidens weighed down with Margaret's +anguish of unhappy love; youths vowing their life to contemplation in +secluded cloisters,—these are the human forms which gather round such +chapels; and the motto of the worshippers consists in this, 'Do often +violence to thy desire.' In the Tyrol we have seen whole villages +praying together at daybreak before their day's work, singing their +_Miserere_ and their _Gloria_ and their _Dies Iræ_, to the sound of +crashing organs and jangling bells; appealing in the midst of Nature's +splendour to the Spirit which is above Nature, which dwells in darkness +rather than light, 90and loves the yearnings and contentions of our +soul more than its summer gladness and peace. Even the olives here tell +more to us of Olivet and the Garden than of the oil-press and the +wrestling-ground. The lilies carry us to the Sermon on the Mount, and +teach humility, instead of summoning up some legend of a god's love for +a mortal. The hillside tanks and running streams, and water-brooks +swollen by sudden rain, speak of Palestine. We call the white flowers +stars of Bethlehem. The large sceptre-reed; the fig-tree, lingering in +barrenness when other trees are full of fruit; the locust-beans of the +Caruba:—for one suggestion of Greek idylls there is yet another, of far +deeper, dearer power. + +But who can resist the influence of Greek ideas at the Cap S. Martin? +Down to the verge of the sea stretch the tall, twisted stems of Levant +pines, and on the caverned limestone breaks the deep blue water. +Dazzling as marble are these rocks, pointed and honeycombed with +constant dashing of the restless sea, tufted with corallines and grey +and purple seaweeds in the little pools, but hard and dry and rough +above tide level. Nor does the sea always lap them quietly; for the +last few days it has come tumbling in, roaring and raging on the beach +with huge waves crystalline in their transparency, and maned with +fleecy spray. Such were the rocks and such the swell of breakers when +Ulysses grasped the shore after his long swim. Samphire, very salt and +fragrant, grows in the rocky honeycomb; then lentisk and beach-loving +myrtle, both exceeding green and bushy; then rosemary and euphorbia +above the reach of spray. Fishermen, with their long reeds, sit lazily +perched upon black rocks above blue waves, sunning themselves as much +as seeking sport. One distant tip of snow, seen far away behind the +hills, reminds us of an alien, unremembered winter. While dreaming +there, this fancy came into my 91head: Polyphemus was born yonder in +the Gorbio Valley. There he fed his sheep and goats, and on the hills +found scanty pasture for his kine. He and his mother lived in the white +house by the cypress near the stream where tulips grow. Young Galatea, +nursed in the caverns of these rocks, white as the foam, and shy as the +sea fishes, came one morning up the valley to pick mountain hyacinths, +and little Polyphemus led the way. He knew where violets and sweet +narcissus grew, as well as Galatea where pink coralline and spreading +sea-flowers with their waving arms. But Galatea, having filled her lap +with bluebells, quite forgot the leaping kids, and piping Cyclops, and +cool summer caves, and yellow honey, and black ivy, and sweet vine, and +water cold as Alpine snow. Down the swift streamlet she danced +laughingly, and made herself once more bitter with the sea. But +Polyphemus remained,—hungry, sad, gazing on the barren sea, and piping +to the mockery of its waves. + +Filled with these Greek fancies, it is strange to come upon a little +sandstone dell furrowed by trickling streams and overgrown with English +primroses; or to enter the village of Roccabruna, with its mediæval +castle and the motto on its walls, _Tempora labuntur tacitisque +senescimus annis_. A true motto for the town, where the butcher comes +but once a week, and where men and boys, and dogs, and palms, and +lemon-trees grow up and flourish and decay in the same hollow of the +sunny mountain-side. Into the hard conglomerate of the hill the town is +built; house walls and precipices mortised into one another, dovetailed +by the art of years gone by, and riveted by age. The same plants grow +from both alike—spurge, cistus, rue, and henbane, constant to the +desolation of abandoned dwellings. From the castle you look down on +roofs, brown tiles and chimney-pots, set one above the other like a big +card-castle. Each house has 92its foot on a neighbour's neck, and its +shoulder set against the native stone. The streets meander in and out, +and up and down, overarched and balconied, but very clean. They swarm +with children, healthy, happy, little monkeys, who grow fat on salt +fish and yellow polenta, with oil and sun _ad libitum_. + +At night from Roccabruna you may see the flaring gas-lamps of the +gaming-house at Monaco, that Armida's garden of the nineteenth century. +It is the sunniest and most sheltered spot of all the coast. Long ago +Lucan said of Monaco, '_Non Corus in illum jus habet aut Zephyrus_;' +winter never comes to nip its tangled cactuses, and aloes, and +geraniums. The air swoons with the scent of lemon-groves; tall +palm-trees wave their graceful branches by the shore; music of the +softest and the loudest swells from the palace; cool corridors and +sunny seats stand ready for the noontide heat or evening calm; without, +are olive-gardens, green and fresh and full of flowers. But the witch +herself holds her high court and never-ending festival of sin in the +painted banquet-halls and among the green tables. + +Let us leave this scene and turn with the country-folk of Roccabruna to +S. Michael's Church at Mentone. High above the sea it stands, and from +its open doors you look across the mountains with their olive-trees. +Inside the church is a seething mass of country-folk and townspeople, +mostly women, and these almost all old, but picturesque beyond +description; kerchiefs of every colour, wrinkles of every shape and +depth, skins of every tone of brown and yellow, voices of every +gruffness, shrillness, strength, and weakness. Wherever an empty corner +can be found, it is soon filled by tottering babies and mischievous +children. The country-women come with their large dangling earrings of +thin gold, wearing pink tulips or lemon-buds in their black hair. A low +buzz of gossiping and mutual recognition keeps the air alive. The whole +service seems a holiday—a general enjoyment of gala dresses and +friendly greetings, very different from the silence, immobility, and +_noli me tangere_ aspect of an English congregation. Over all drones, +rattles, snores, and shrieks the organ; wailing, querulous, asthmatic, +incomplete, its everlasting nasal chant—always beginning, never ending, +through a range of two or three notes ground into one monotony. The +voices of the congregation rise and sink above it. These southern +people, like the Arabs, the Apulians, and the Spaniards, seem to find +their music in a hurdy-gurdy swell of sound. The other day we met a +little girl, walking and spinning, and singing all the while, whose +song was just another version of this chant. It has a discontented +plaintive wail, as if it came from some vast age, and were a cousin of +primeval winds. + +At first sight, by the side of Mentone, San Remo is sadly prosaic. The +valleys seem to sprawl, and the universal olives are monotonously grey +upon their thick clay soil. Yet the wealth of flowers in the fat earth +is wonderful. One might fancy oneself in a weedy farm flower-bed +invaded by stray oats and beans and cabbages and garlic from the +kitchen-garden. The country does not suggest a single Greek idea. It +has no form or outline—no barren peaks, no spare and difficult +vegetation. The beauty is rich but tame—valleys green with oats and +corn, blossoming cherry-trees, and sweet bean-fields, figs coming into +leaf, and arrowy bay-trees by the side of sparkling streams: here and +there a broken aqueduct or rainbow bridge hung with maidenhair and +briar and clematis and sarsaparilla. + +In the cathedral church of San Siro on Good Friday they hang the +columns and the windows with black; they cover the pictures and deface +the altar; above the high altar they 94raise a crucifix, and below they +place a catafalque with the effigy of the dead Christ. To this sad +symbol they address their prayers and incense, chant their 'litanies +and lurries,' and clash the rattles, which commemorate their rage +against the traitor Judas. So far have we already passed away from the +Greek feeling of Mentone. As I listened to the hideous din, I could not +but remember the Theocritean burial of Adonis. Two funeral beds +prepared: two feasts recurring in the springtime of the year. What a +difference beneath this superficial similarity—καλος νέκυς οι΅α +καθεύδων—_attritus ægrâ macie_. But the fast of Good Friday is followed +by the festival of Easter. That, after all, is the chief difference. + +After leaving the cathedral we saw a pretty picture in a dull old +street of San Remo—three children leaning from a window, blowing +bubbles. The bubbles floated down the street, of every colour, round +and trembling, like the dreams of life which children dream. The town +is certainly most picturesque. It resembles a huge glacier of houses +poured over a wedge of rock, running down the sides and along the +ridge, and spreading itself into a fan between two torrents on the +shore below. House over house, with balcony and staircase, convent +turret and church tower, palm-trees and olives, roof gardens and +clinging creepers—this white cataract of buildings streams downward +from the lazar-house, and sanctuary, and sandstone quarries on the +hill. It is a mass of streets placed close above each other, and linked +together with arms and arches of solid masonry, as a protection from +the earthquakes, which are frequent at San Remo. The walls are tall, +and form a labyrinth of gloomy passages and treacherous blind alleys, +where the Moors of old might meet with a ferocious welcome. Indeed, San +Remo is a fortress as well as a dwelling-place. Over its gateways may +still be traced the pipes for molten lead, and on its walls the +eyeloops for 95arrows, with brackets for the feet of archers. Masses of +building have been shaken down by earthquakes. The ruins of what once +were houses gape with blackened chimneys and dark forlorn cellars; +mazes of fungus and unhealthy weeds among the still secure habitations. +Hardly a ray of light penetrates the streets; one learns the meaning of +the Italian word _uggia_ from their cold and gloom. During the day they +are deserted by every one but babies and witchlike old women—some +gossiping, some sitting vacant at the house door, some spinning or +weaving, or minding little children—ugly and ancient as are their own +homes, yet clean as are the streets. The younger population goes +afield; the men on mules laden for the hills, the women burdened like +mules with heavy and disgusting loads. It is an exceptionally +good-looking race; tall, well-grown, and strong.—But to the streets +again. The shops in the upper town are few, chiefly wine-booths and +stalls for the sale of salt fish, eggs, and bread, or cobblers' and +tinkers' ware. Notwithstanding the darkness of their dwellings, the +people have a love of flowers; azaleas lean from their windows, and +vines, carefully protected by a sheath of brickwork, climb the six +stories, to blossom out into a pergola upon the roof. Look at that mass +of greenery and colours, dimly seen from beneath, with a yellow cat +sunning herself upon the parapet! To reach such a garden and such +sunlight who would not mount six stories and thread a labyrinth of +passages? I should prefer a room upon the east side of the town, +looking southward to the Molo and the sea, with a sound of water +beneath, and a palm soaring up to fan my window with his feathery +leaves. + +The shrines are little spots of brightness in the gloomy streets. +Madonna with a sword; Christ holding His pierced and bleeding heart; +l'Eterno Padre pointing to the dead Son stretched upon His knee; some +souls in torment; S. Roch 96reminding us of old plagues by the spot +upon his thigh;—these are the symbols of the shrines. Before them stand +rows of pots filled with gillyflowers, placed there by pious, simple, +praying hands—by maidens come to tell their sorrows to our Lady rich in +sorrow, by old women bent and shrivelled, in hopes of paradise or +gratitude for happy days, when Madonna kept Cecchino faithful to his +home, or saved the baby from the fever. + +Lower down, between the sea and the hill, is the municipal, +aristocratic, ecclesiastical quarter of San Remo. There stands the +Palace Borea—a truly princely pile, built in the last Renaissance style +of splendour, with sea-nymphs and dolphins, and satyric heads, half +lips, half leafage, round about its doors and windows. Once it formed +the dwelling of a feudal family, but now it is a roomy anthill of a +hundred houses, shops, and offices, the Boreas of to-day retaining but +a portion of one flat, and making profit of the rest. There, too, are +the barracks and the syndic's hall; the Jesuits' school, crowded with +boys and girls; the shops for clothes, confectionery, and trinkets; the +piazza, with its fountain and tasselled planes, and flowery +chestnut-trees, a mass of greenery. Under these trees the idlers +lounge, boys play at leap-frog, men at bowls. Women in San Remo work +all day, but men and boys play for the most part at bowls or toss-penny +or leap-frog or morra. San Siro, the cathedral, stands at one end of +the square. Do not go inside; it has a sickly smell of immemorial +incense and garlic, undefinable and horrible. Far better looks San Siro +from the parapet above the torrent. There you see its irregular +half-Gothic outline across a tangle of lemon-trees and olives. The +stream rushes by through high walls, covered with creepers, spanned by +ferny bridges, feathered by one or two old tufty palms. And over all +rises the ancient turret of San Siro, like a Spanish giralda, a minaret +of pinnacles and 97pyramids and dome bubbles, with windows showing +heavy bells, old clocks, and sundials painted on the walls, and a +cupola of green and yellow tiles like serpent-scales, to crown the +whole. The sea lies beyond, and the house-roofs break it with grey +horizontal lines. Then there are convents, legions of them, large white +edifices, Jesuitical apparently for the most part, clanging importunate +bells, leaning rose-blossoms and cypress-boughs over their jealous +walls. + +Lastly, there is the port—the mole running out into the sea, the quay +planted with plane-trees, and the fishing-boats—by which San Remo is +connected with the naval glory of the past—with the Riviera that gave +birth to Columbus—with the Liguria that the Dorias ruled—with the great +name of Genoa. The port is empty enough now; but from the pier you look +back on San Remo and its circling hills, a jewelled town set in +illimitable olive greyness. The quay seems also to be the +cattle-market. There the small buff cows of North Italy repose after +their long voyage or march, kneeling on the sandy ground or rubbing +their sides against the wooden cross awry with age and shorn of all its +symbols. Lambs frisk among the boats; impudent kids nibble the drooping +ears of patient mules. Hinds in white jackets and knee-breeches made of +skins, lead shaggy rams and fiercely bearded goats, ready to butt at +every barking dog, and always seeking opportunities of flight. Farmers +and parish priests in black petticoats feel the cattle and dispute +about the price, or whet their bargains with a draught of wine. +Meanwhile the nets are brought on shore glittering with the fry of +sardines, which are cooked like whitebait, with cuttlefish—amorphous +objects stretching shiny feelers on the hot dry sand—and prickly purple +eggs of the sea-urchin. Women go about their labour through the throng, +some carrying stones upon their heads, or unloading boats and bearing +planks of wood in single file, two marching 98side by side beneath one +load of lime, others scarcely visible under a stack of oats, another +with her baby in its cradle fast asleep. + +San Remo has an elder brother among the hills, which is called San +Romolo, after one of the old bishops of Genoa. Who San Remo was is +buried in remote antiquity; but his town has prospered, while of San +Romolo nothing remains but a ruined hill-convent among pine-trees. The +old convent is worth visiting. Its road carries you into the heart of +the sierra which surrounds San Remo, a hill-country something like the +Jura, undulating and green to the very top with maritime pines and +pinasters. Riding up, you hear all manner of Alpine sounds; brawling +streams, tinkling cowbells, and herdsmen calling to each other on the +slopes. Beneath you lies San Remo, scarcely visible; and over it the +great sea rises ever so far into the sky, until the white sails hang in +air, and cloud and sea-line melt into each other indistinguishably. +Spanish chestnuts surround the monastery with bright blue gentians, +hepaticas, forget-me-nots, and primroses about their roots. The house +itself is perched on a knoll with ample prospect to the sea and to the +mountains, very near to heaven, within a theatre of noble +contemplations and soul-stirring thoughts. If Mentone spoke to me of +the poetry of Greek pastoral life, this convent speaks of mediæval +monasticism—of solitude with God, above, beneath, and all around, of +silence and repose from agitating cares, of continuity in prayer, and +changelessness of daily life. Some precepts of the _Imitatio_ came into +my mind: 'Be never wholly idle; read or write, pray or meditate, or +work with diligence for the common needs.' 'Praiseworthy is it for the +religious man to go abroad but seldom, and to seem to shun, and keep +his eyes from men.' 'Sweet is the cell when it is often sought, but if +we gad about, it wearies us by its 99seclusion.' Then I thought of the +monks so living in this solitude; their cell windows looking across the +valley to the sea, through summer and winter, under sun and stars. Then +would they read or write, what long melodious hours! or would they +pray, what stations on the pine-clad hills! or would they toil, what +terraces to build and plant with corn, what flowers to tend, what cows +to milk and pasture, what wood to cut, what fir-cones to gather for the +winter fire! or should they yearn for silence, silence from their +comrades of the solitude, what whispering galleries of God, where never +human voice breaks loudly, but winds and streams and lonely birds +disturb the awful stillness! In such a hermitage as this, only more +wild, lived S. Francis of Assisi, among the Apennines.[7] It was there +that he learned the tongues of beasts and birds, and preached them +sermons. Stretched for hours motionless on the bare rocks, coloured +like them and rough like them in his brown peasant's serge, he prayed +and meditated, saw the vision of Christ crucified, and planned his +order to regenerate a vicious age. So still he lay, so long, so like a +stone, so gentle were his eyes, so kind and low his voice, that the +mice nibbled breadcrumbs from his wallet, lizards ran over him, and +larks sang to him in the air. There, too, in those long, solitary +vigils, the Spirit of God came upon him, and the spirit of Nature was +even as God's Spirit, and he sang: 'Laudato sia Dio mio Signore, con +tutte le creature, specialmente messer lo frate sole; per suor luna, e +per le stelle; per frate vento e per l'aire, e nuvolo, e sereno e ogni +tempo.' Half the value of this hymn would be lost were we to forget how +it was written, in what solitudes and mountains far from men, or to +ticket it with some abstract word like Pantheism. Pantheism it is not; +but an acknowledgment of that brotherhood, beneath the love of God, by +which the sun 100and moon and stars, and wind and air and cloud, and +clearness and all weather, and all creatures, are bound together with +the soul of man. + + [7] Dante, Par. xi. 106. + +Few, of course, were like S. Francis. Probably no monk of San Romolo +was inspired with his enthusiasm for humanity, or had his revelation of +the Divine Spirit inherent in the world. Still fewer can have felt the +æsthetic charm of Nature but most vaguely. It was as much as they could +boast, if they kept steadily to the rule of their order, and attended +to the concerns each of his own soul. A terrible selfishness, if +rightly considered; but one which accorded with the delusion that this +world is a cave of care, the other world a place of torture or undying +bliss, death the prime object of our meditation, and lifelong +abandonment of our fellow-men the highest mode of existence. Why, then, +should monks, so persuaded of the riddle of the earth, have placed +themselves in scenes so beautiful? Why rose the Camaldolis and +Chartreuses over Europe? white convents on the brows of lofty hills, +among the rustling boughs of Vallombrosas, in the grassy meadows of +Engelbergs,—always the eyries of Nature's lovers, men smitten with the +loveliness of earth? There is surely some meaning in these poetic +stations. + +Here is a sentence of the _Imitatio_ which throws some light upon the +hymn of S. Francis and the sites of Benedictine monasteries, by +explaining the value of natural beauty for monks who spent their life +in studying death: 'If thy heart were right, then would every creature +be to thee a mirror of life, and a book of holy doctrine. There is no +creature so small and vile that does not show forth the goodness of +God.' With this sentence bound about their foreheads, walked Fra +Angelico and S. Francis. To men like them the mountain valleys and the +skies, and all that they contained, were full of deep significance. +Though they reasoned '_de conditione 101humanæ miseriæ_,' and '_de +contemptu mundi_,' yet the whole world was a pageant of God's glory, a +testimony to His goodness. Their chastened senses, pure hearts, and +simple wills were as wings by which they soared above the things of +earth, and sent the music of their souls aloft with every other +creature in the symphony of praise. To them, as to Blake, the sun was +no mere blazing disc or ball, but 'an innumerable company of the +heavenly host singing, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty."' To +them the winds were brothers, and the streams were sisters—brethren in +common dependence upon God their Father, brethren in common +consecration to His service, brethren by blood, brethren by vows of +holiness. Unquestioning faith rendered this world no puzzle; they +overlooked the things of sense because the spiritual things were ever +present, and as clear as day. Yet did they not forget that spiritual +things are symbolised by things of sense; and so the smallest herb of +grass was vital to their tranquil contemplations. We who have lost +sight of the invisible world, who set our affections more on things of +earth, fancy that because these monks despised the world, and did not +write about its landscapes, therefore they were dead to its beauty. +This is mere vanity: the mountains, stars, seas, fields, and living +things were only swallowed up in the one thought of God, and made +subordinate to the awfulness of human destinies. We to whom hills are +hills, and seas are seas, and stars are ponderable quantities, speak, +write, and reason of them as of objects interesting in themselves. The +monks were less ostensibly concerned about such things, because they +only found in them the vestibules and symbols of a hidden mystery. + +The contrast between the Greek and mediæval modes of regarding Nature +is not a little remarkable. Both Greeks and monks, judged by +nineteenth-century standards, were 102unobservant of natural beauties. +They make but brief and general remarks upon landscapes and the like. +The ποντίων τε κυμάτων άνήριθμον γέλασμα is very rare. But the Greeks +stopped at the threshold of Nature; the forces they found there, the +gods, were inherent in Nature, and distinct. They did not, like the +monks, place one spiritual power, omnipotent and omnipresent, above +all, and see in Nature lessons of Divine government. We ourselves +having somewhat overstrained the latter point of view, are now apt to +return vaguely to Greek fancies. Perhaps, too, we talk so much about +scenery because it is scenery to us, and the life has gone out of it. + +I cannot leave the Cornice without one word about a place which lies +between Mentone and San Remo. Bordighera has a beauty which is quite +distinct from both. Palms are its chief characteristics. They lean +against the garden walls, and feather the wells outside the town, where +women come with brazen pitchers to draw water. In some of the marshy +tangles of the plain, they spring from a thick undergrowth of spiky +leaves, and rear their tall aë;rial arms against the deep blue +background of the sea or darker purple of the distant hills. White +pigeons fly about among their branches, and the air is loud with +cooings and with rustlings, and the hoarser croaking of innumerable +frogs. Then, in the olive-groves that stretch along the level shore, +are labyrinths of rare and curious plants, painted tulips and white +periwinkles, flinging their light of blossoms and dark glossy leaves +down the swift channels of the brawling streams. On each side of the +rivulets they grow, like sister cataracts of flowers instead of spray. +At night fresh stars come out along the coast, beneath the stars of +heaven; for you can see the lamps of Ventimiglia and Mentone and +Monaco, and, far away, the lighthouses upon the promontories of Antibes +and the Estrelles. At dawn, a vision of Corsica grows from the sea. The +island lies eighty miles away, but 103one can trace the dark strip of +irregular peaks glowing amid the gold and purple of the rising sun. If +the air is clear and bright, the snows and overvaulting clouds which +crown its mountains shine all day, and glitter like an apparition in +the bright blue sky. 'Phantom fair,' half raised above the sea, it +stands, as unreal and transparent as the moon when seen in April +sunlight, yet not to be confounded with the shape of any cloud. If +Mentone speaks of Greek legends, and San Romolo restores the monastic +past, we feel ourselves at Bordighera transported to the East; and +lying under its tall palms can fancy ourselves at Tyre or Daphne, or in +the gardens of a Moslem prince. + +Note.—Dec. 1873. My old impressions are renewed and confirmed by a +third visit, after seven years, to this coast. For purely idyllic +loveliness, the Cornice is surpassed by nothing in the South. A very +few spots in Sicily, the road between Castellammare and Amalfi, and the +island of Corfu, are its only rivals in this style of scenery. From +Cannes to Sestri is one continuous line of exquisitely modulated +landscape beauty, which can only be fully appreciated by travellers in +carriage or on foot. + +104 + + + + +AJACCIO + + +It generally happens that visitors to Ajaccio pass over from the +Cornice coast, leaving Nice at night, and waking about sunrise to find +themselves beneath the frowning mountains of Corsica. The difference +between the scenery of the island and the shores which they have left +is very striking. Instead of the rocky mountains of the Cornice, +intolerably dry and barren at their summits, but covered at their base +with villages and ancient towns and olive-fields, Corsica presents a +scene of solitary and peculiar grandeur. The highest mountain-tops are +covered with snow, and beneath the snow-level to the sea they are as +green as Irish or as English hills, but nearly uninhabited and +uncultivated. Valleys of almost Alpine verdure are succeeded by tracts +of chestnut wood and scattered pines, or deep and flowery brushwood—the +'maquis' of Corsica, which yields shelter to its traditional outlaws +and bandits. Yet upon these hillsides there are hardly any signs of +life; the whole country seems abandoned to primeval wildness and the +majesty of desolation. Nothing can possibly be more unlike the smiling +Riviera, every square mile of which is cultivated like a garden, and +every valley and bay dotted over with white villages. After steaming +for a few hours along this savage coast, the rocks which guard the +entrance to the bay of Ajaccio, murderous-looking teeth and needles +ominously christened Sanguinari, are passed, and we enter the splendid +land-locked harbour, on the northern shore of which 105Ajaccio is +built. About three centuries ago the town, which used to occupy the +extreme or eastern end of the bay, was removed to a more healthy point +upon the northern coast, so that Ajaccio is quite a modern city. +Visitors who expect to find in it the picturesqueness of Genoa or San +Remo, or even of Mentone, will be sadly disappointed. It is simply a +healthy, well-appointed town of recent date, the chief merits of which +are, that it has wide streets, and is free, externally at least, from +the filth and rubbish of most southern seaports. + +But if Ajaccio itself is not picturesque, the scenery which it +commands, and in the heart of which it lies, is of the most +magnificent. The bay of Ajaccio resembles a vast Italian lake—a Lago +Maggiore, with greater space between the mountains and the shore. From +the snow-peaks of the interior, huge granite crystals clothed in white, +to the southern extremity of the bay, peak succeeds peak and ridge +rises behind ridge in a line of wonderful variety and beauty. The +atmospheric changes of light and shadow, cloud and colour, on this +upland country, are as subtle and as various as those which lend their +beauty to the scenery of the lakes, while the sea below is blue and +rarely troubled. One could never get tired with looking at this view. +Morning and evening add new charms to its sublimity and beauty. In the +early morning Monte d'Oro sparkles like a Monte Rosa with its fresh +snow, and the whole inferior range puts on the crystal blueness of dawn +among the Alps. In the evening, violet and purple tints and the golden +glow of Italian sunset lend a different lustre to the fairyland. In +fact, the beauties of Switzerland and Italy are curiously blended in +this landscape. + +In soil and vegetation the country round Ajaccio differs much from the +Cornice. There are very few olive-trees, nor is the cultivated ground +backed up so immediately by stony mountains; but between the seashore +and the hills there is 106plenty of space for pasture-land, and +orchards of apricot and peach-trees, and orange gardens. This +undulating champaign, green with meadows and watered with clear +streams, is very refreshing to the eyes of Northern people, who may +have wearied of the bareness and greyness of Nice or Mentone. It is +traversed by excellent roads, recently constructed on a plan of the +French Government, which intersect the country in all directions, and +offer an infinite variety of rides or drives to visitors. The broken +granite of which these roads are made is very pleasant for riding over. +Most of the hills through which they strike, after starting from +Ajaccio, are clothed with a thick brushwood of box, ilex, lentisk, +arbutus, and laurustinus, which stretches down irregularly into +vineyards, olive-gardens, and meadows. It is, indeed, the native growth +of the island; for wherever a piece of ground is left untilled, the +macchi grow up, and the scent of their multitudinous aromatic blossoms +is so strong that it may be smelt miles out at sea. Napoleon, at S. +Helena, referred to this fragrance when he said that he should know +Corsica blindfold by the smell of its soil. Occasional woods of holm +oak make darker patches on the landscape, and a few pines fringe the +side of enclosure walls or towers. The prickly pear runs riot in and +out among the hedges and upon the walls, diversifying the colours of +the landscape with its strange grey-green masses and unwieldy fans. In +spring, when peach and almond trees are in blossom, and when the +roadside is starred with asphodels, this country is most beautiful in +its gladness. The macchi blaze with cistus flowers of red and silver. +Golden broom mixes with the dark purple of the great French lavender, +and over the whole mass of blossom wave plumes of Mediterranean heath +and sweet-scented yellow coronilla. Under the stems of the ilex peep +cyclamens, pink and sweet; the hedgerows are a tangle of vetches, +convolvuluses, 107lupines, orchises, and alliums, with here and there a +purple iris. It would be difficult to describe all the rare and lovely +plants which are found here in a profusion that surpasses even the +flower-gardens of the Cornice, and reminds one of the most favoured +Alpine valleys in their early spring. + +Since the French occupied Corsica they have done much for the island by +improving its harbours and making good roads, and endeavouring to +mitigate the ferocity of the people. But they have many things to +contend against, and Corsica is still behind the other provinces of +France. The people are idle, haughty, umbrageous, fiery, quarrelsome, +fond of gipsy life, and retentive through generations of old feuds and +prejudices to an almost inconceivable extent. Then the nature of the +country itself offers serious obstacles to its proper colonisation and +cultivation. The savage state of the island and its internal feuds have +disposed the Corsicans to quit the seaboard for their mountain villages +and fortresses, so that the great plains at the foot of the hills are +unwholesome for want of tillage and drainage. Again, the mountains +themselves have in many parts been stripped of their forests, and +converted into mere wildernesses of macchi stretching up and down their +slopes for miles and miles of useless desolation. Another impediment to +proper cultivation is found in the old habit of what is called free +pasturage. The highland shepherds are allowed by the national custom to +drive down their flocks and herds to the lowlands during the winter, so +that fences are broken, young crops are browsed over and trampled down, +and agriculture becomes a mere impossibility. The last and chief +difficulty against which the French have had to contend, and up to this +time with apparent success, is brigandage. The Corsican system of +brigandage is so very different from that of the Italians, Sicilians, +and Greeks, that 108a word may be said about its peculiar character. In +the first place, it has nothing at all to do with robbery and thieving. +The Corsican bandit took to a free life among the macchi, not for the +sake of supporting himself by lawless depredation, but because he had +put himself under a legal and social ban by murdering some one in +obedience to the strict code of honour of his country. His victim may +have been the hereditary foe of his house for generations, or else the +newly made enemy of yesterday. But in either case, if he had killed him +fairly, after a due notification of his intention to do so, he was held +to have fulfilled a duty rather than to have committed a crime. He then +betook himself to the dense tangles of evergreens which I have +described, where he lived upon the charity of countryfolk and +shepherds. In the eyes of those simple people it was a sacred duty to +relieve the necessities of the outlaws, and to guard them from the +bloodhounds of justice. There was scarcely a respectable family in +Corsica who had not one or more of its members thus _alla campagna_, as +it was euphemistically styled. The Corsicans themselves have attributed +this miserable state of things to two principal causes. The first of +these was the ancient bad government of the island: under its Genoese +rulers no justice was administered, and private vengeance for homicide +or insult became a necessary consequence among the haughty and warlike +families of the mountain villages. Secondly, the Corsicans have been +from time immemorial accustomed to wear arms in everyday life. They +used to sit at their house doors and pace the streets with musket, +pistol, dagger, and cartouch-box on their persons; and on the most +trivial occasion of merriment or enthusiasm they would discharge their +firearms. This habit gave a bloody termination to many quarrels, which +might have ended more peaceably had the parties been unarmed; and so +the seeds of _vendetta_ were constantly being 109sown. Statistics +published by the French Government present a hideous picture of the +state of bloodshed in Corsica even during this century. In one period +of thirty years (between 1821 and 1850) there were 4319 murders in the +island. Almost every man was watching for his neighbour's life, or +seeking how to save his own; and agriculture and commerce were +neglected for this grisly game of hide-and-seek. In 1853 the French +began to take strong measures, and, under the Prefect Thuillier, they +hunted the bandits from the macchi, killing between 200 and 300 of +them. At the same time an edict was promulgated against bearing arms. +It is forbidden to sell the old Corsican stiletto in the shops, and no +one may carry a gun, even for sporting purposes, unless he obtains a +special licence. These licences, moreover, are only granted for short +and precisely measured periods. + +In order to appreciate the stern and gloomy character of the Corsicans, +it is necessary to leave the smiling gardens of Ajaccio, and to visit +some of the more distant mountain villages—Vico, Cavro, Bastelica, or +Bocognano, any of which may easily be reached from the capital. +Immediately after quitting the seaboard, we enter a country austere in +its simplicity, solemn without relief, yet dignified by its majesty and +by the sense of freedom it inspires. As we approach the mountains, the +macchi become taller, feathering man-high above the road, and +stretching far away upon the hills. Gigantic masses of granite, shaped +like buttresses and bastions, seem to guard the approaches to these +hills; while, looking backward over the green plain, the sea lies +smiling in a haze of blue among the rocky horns and misty headlands of +the coast. There is a stateliness about the abrupt inclination of these +granite slopes, rising from their frowning portals by sharp _arêtes_ to +the snows piled on their summits, which contrasts in a strange way with +the softness and beauty 110of the mingling sea and plain beneath. In no +landscape are more various qualities combined; in none are they so +harmonised as to produce so strong a sense of majestic freedom and +severe power. Suppose that we are on the road to Corte, and have now +reached Bocognano, the first considerable village since we left +Ajaccio. Bocognano might be chosen as typical of Corsican +hill-villages, with its narrow street, and tall tower-like houses of +five or six stories high, faced with rough granite, and pierced with +the smallest windows and very narrow doorways. These buildings have a +mournful and desolate appearance. There is none of the grandeur of +antiquity about them; no sculptured arms or castellated turrets, or +balconies or spacious staircases, such as are common in the poorest +towns of Italy. The signs of warlike occupation which they offer, and +their sinister aspect of vigilance, are thoroughly prosaic. They seem +to suggest a state of society in which feud and violence were +systematised into routine. There is no relief to the savage austerity +of their forbidding aspect; no signs of wealth or household comfort; no +trace of art, no liveliness and gracefulness of architecture. Perched +upon their coigns of vantage, these villages seem always menacing, as +if Saracen pirates, or Genoese marauders, or bandits bent on vengeance, +were still for ever on the watch. Forests of immensely old +chestnut-trees surround Bocognano on every side, so that you step from +the village streets into the shade of woods that seem to have remained +untouched for centuries. The country-people support themselves almost +entirely upon the fruit of these chestnuts; and there is a large +department of Corsica called Castagniccia, from the prevalence of these +trees and the sustenance which the inhabitants derive from them. Close +by the village brawls a torrent, such as one may see in the Monte Rosa +valleys or the Apennines, but very rarely in Switzerland. It is of a +pure green colour, 111absolutely like Indian jade, foaming round the +granite boulders, and gliding over smooth slabs of polished stone, and +eddying into still, deep pools fringed with fern. Monte d'Oro, one of +the largest mountains of Corsica, soars above, and from his snows the +purest water, undefiled by glacier mud or the _débris_ of avalanches, +melts away. Following the stream, we rise through the macchi and the +chestnut woods, which grow more sparely by degrees, until we reach the +zone of beeches. Here the scene seems suddenly transferred to the +Pyrenees; for the road is carried along abrupt slopes, thickly set with +gigantic beech-trees, overgrown with pink and silver lichens. In the +early spring their last year's leaves are still crisp with hoar-frost; +one morning's journey has brought us from the summer of Ajaccio to +winter on these heights, where no flowers are visible but the pale +hellebore and tiny lilac crocuses. Snow-drifts stretch by the roadside, +and one by one the pioneers of the vast pine-woods of the interior +appear. A great portion of the pine-forest (_Pinus larix_, or Corsican +pine, not larch) between Bocognano and Corte had recently been burned +by accident when we passed by. Nothing could be more forlorn than the +black leafless stems and branches emerging from the snow. Some of these +trees were mast-high, and some mere saplings. Corte itself is built +among the mountain fastnesses of the interior. The snows and granite +cliffs of Monte Rotondo overhang it to the north-west, while two fair +valleys lead downward from its eyrie to the eastern coast. The rock on +which it stands rises to a sharp point, sloping southward, and +commanding the valleys of the Golo and the Tavignano. Remembering that +Corte was the old capital of Corsica, and the centre of General Paoli's +government, we are led to compare the town with Innsprück, Meran, or +Grenoble. In point of scenery and situation it is hardly second to any +of these mountain-girdled cities; but its 112poverty and bareness are +scarcely less striking than those of Bocognano. + +The whole Corsican character, with its stern love of justice, its +furious revengefulness and wild passion for freedom, seems to be +illustrated by the peculiar elements of grandeur and desolation in this +landscape. When we traverse the forest of Vico or the rocky +pasture-lands of Niolo, the history of the Corsican national heroes, +Giudice della Rocca and Sampiero, becomes intelligible, nor do we fail +to understand some of the mysterious attraction which led the more +daring spirits of the island to prefer a free life among the macchi and +pine-woods to placid lawful occupations in farms and villages. The +lives of the two men whom I have mentioned are so prominent in Corsican +history, and are so often still upon the lips of the common people, +that it may be well to sketch their outlines in the foreground of the +Salvator Rosa landscape just described. Giudice was the governor of +Corsica, as lieutenant for the Pisans, at the end of the thirteenth +century. At that time the island belonged to the republic of Pisa, but +the Genoese were encroaching on them by land and sea, and the whole +life of their brave champion was spent in a desperate struggle with the +invaders, until at last he died, old, blind, and in prison, at the +command of his savage foes. Giudice was the title which the Pisans +usually conferred upon their governor, and Della Rocca deserved it by +right of his own inexorable love of justice. Indeed, justice seems to +have been with him a passion, swallowing up all other feelings of his +nature. All the stories which are told of him turn upon this point in +his character; and though they may not be strictly true, they +illustrate the stern virtues for which he was celebrated among the +Corsicans, and show what kind of men this harsh and gloomy nation loved +to celebrate as heroes. This is not the place either to criticise these +legends or to recount them at 113full length. The most famous and the +most characteristic may, however, be briefly told. On one occasion, +after a victory over the Genoese, he sent a message that the captives +in his hands should be released if their wives and sisters came to sue +for them. The Genoese ladies embarked, and arrived in Corsica, and to +Giudice's nephew was intrusted the duty of fulfilling his uncle's +promise. In the course of executing his commission, the youth was so +smitten with the beauty of one of the women that he dishonoured her. +Thereupon Giudice had him at once put to death. Another story shows the +Spartan justice of this hero in a less savage light. He was passing by +a cowherd's cottage, when he heard some young calves bleating. On +inquiring what distressed them, he was told that the calves had not +enough milk to drink after the farm people had been served. Then +Giudice made it a law that the calves throughout the land should take +their fill before the cows were milked. + +Sampiero belongs to a later period of Corsican history. After a long +course of misgovernment the Genoese rule had become unbearable. There +was no pretence of administering justice, and private vengeance had +full sway in the island. The sufferings of the nation were so great +that the time had come for a new judge or saviour to rise among them. +Sampiero was the son of obscure parents who lived at Bastelica. But his +abilities very soon declared themselves, and made a way for him in the +world. He spent his youth in the armies of the Medici and of the French +Francis, gaining great renown as a brave soldier. Bayard became his +friend, and Francis made him captain of his Corsican bands. But +Sampiero did not forget the wrongs of his native land while thus on +foreign service. He resolved, if possible, to undermine the power of +Genoa, and spent the whole of his manhood and old age in one long +struggle with their great captain, Stephen Doria. Of 114his stern +patriotism and Roman severity of virtue the following story is a +terrible illustration. Sampiero, though a man of mean birth, had +married an heiress of the noble Corsican house of the Ornani. His wife, +Vannina, was a woman of timid and flexible nature, who, though devoted +to her husband, fell into the snares of his enemies. During his absence +on an embassy to Algiers the Genoese induced her to leave her home at +Marseilles and to seek refuge in their city, persuading her that this +step would secure the safety of her child. She was starting on her +journey when a friend of Sampiero arrested her, and brought her back to +Aix, in Provence. Sampiero, when he heard of these events, hurried to +France, and was received by a relative of his, who hinted that he had +known of Vannina's projected flight. 'E tu hai taciuto?' was Sampiero's +only answer, accompanied by a stroke of his poignard that killed the +lukewarm cousin. Sampiero now brought his wife from Aix to Marseilles, +preserving the most absolute silence on the way, and there, on entering +his house, he killed her with his own hand. It is said that he loved +Vannina passionately; and when she was dead, he caused her to be buried +with magnificence in the church of S. Francis. Like Giudice, Sampiero +fell at last a prey to treachery. The murder of Vannina had made the +Ornani his deadly foes. In order to avenge her blood, they played into +the hands of the Genoese, and laid a plot by which the noblest of the +Corsicans was brought to death. First, they gained over to their scheme +a monk of Bastelica, called Ambrogio, and Sampiero's own squire and +shield-bearer, Vittolo. By means of these men, in whom he trusted, he +was drawn defenceless and unattended into a deeply wooded ravine near +Cavro, not very far from his birthplace, where the Ornani and their +Genoese troops surrounded him. Sampiero fired his pistols in vain, for +Vittolo had loaded them with the shot downwards. Then he drew 115his +sword, and began to lay about him, when the same Vittolo, the Judas, +stabbed him from behind, and the old lion fell dead by his friend's +hand. Sampiero was sixty-nine when he died, in the year 1567. It is +satisfactory to know that the Corsicans have called traitors and foes +to their country Vittoli for ever. These two examples of Corsican +patriots are enough; we need not add to theirs the history of Paoli—a +milder and more humane, but scarcely less heroic leader. Paoli, +however, in the hour of Corsica's extremest peril, retired to England, +and died in philosophic exile. Neither Giudice nor Sampiero would have +acted thus. The more forlorn the hope, the more they struggled. + +Among the old Corsican customs which are fast dying out, but which +still linger in the remote valleys of Niolo and Vico, is the _vócero_, +or funeral chant, improvised by women at funerals over the bodies of +the dead. Nothing illustrates the ferocious temper and savage passions +of the race better than these _vóceri_, many of which have been written +down and preserved. Most of them are songs of vengeance and +imprecation, mingled with hyperbolical laments and utterances of +extravagant grief, poured forth by wives and sisters at the side of +murdered husbands and brothers. The women who sing them seem to have +lost all milk of human kindness, and to have exchanged the virtues of +their sex for Spartan fortitude and the rage of furies. While we read +their turbid lines we are carried in imagination to one of the +cheerless houses of Bastelica or Bocognano, overshadowed by its +mournful chestnut-tree, on which the blood of the murdered man is yet +red. The _gridata_, or wake, is assembled in a dark room. On the wooden +board, called _tola_, the corpse lies stretched; and round it are +women, veiled in the blue-black mantle of Corsican costume, moaning and +rocking themselves upon their chairs. The _pasto_ or _conforto_, food +supplied for mourners, 116stands upon a side table, and round the room +are men with savage eyes and bristling beards, armed to the teeth, keen +for vengeance. The dead man's musket and pocket-pistol lie beside him, +and his bloody shirt is hung up at his head. Suddenly, the silence, +hitherto only disturbed by suppressed groans and muttered curses, is +broken by a sharp cry. A woman rises: it is the sister of the dead man; +she seizes his shirt, and holding it aloft with Mænad gestures and +frantic screams, gives rhythmic utterance to her grief and rage. 'I was +spinning, when I heard a great noise: it was a gunshot, which went into +my heart, and seemed a voice that cried, "Run, thy brother is dying." I +ran into the room above; I took the blow into my breast; I said, "Now +he is dead, there is nothing to give me comfort. Who will undertake thy +vengeance? When I show thy shirt, who will vow to let his beard grow +till the murderer is slain? Who is there left to do it? A mother near +her death? A sister? Of all our race there is only left a woman, +without kin, poor, orphan, and a girl. Yet, O my brother! never fear. +For thy vengeance thy sister is enough! + +'"Ma per fà la to bindetta, +Sta siguru, basta anch ella! + + +Give me the pistol; I will shoulder the gun; I will away to the hills. +My brother, heart of thy sister, thou shalt be avenged!"' A _vócero_ +declaimed upon the bier of Giammatteo and Pasquale, two cousins, by the +sister of the former, is still fiercer and more energetic in its +malediction. This Erinnys of revenge prays Christ and all the saints to +extirpate the murderer's whole race, to shrivel it up till it passes +from the earth. Then, with a sudden and vehement transition to the +pathos of her own sorrow, she exclaims:— + +'Halla mai bista nissunu +Tumbà l'omi pe li canti?' + + +117 + +It appears from these words that Giammatteo's enemies had killed him +because they were jealous of his skill in singing. Shortly after, she +curses the curate of the village, a kinsman of the murderer, for +refusing to toll the funeral bells; and at last, all other threads of +rage and sorrow being twined and knotted into one, she gives loose to +her raging thirst for blood: 'If only I had a son, to train like a +sleuth-hound, that he might track the murderer! Oh, if I had a son! Oh, +if I had a lad!' Her words seem to choke her, and she swoons, and +remains for a short time insensible. When the Bacchante of revenge +awakes, it is with milder feelings in her heart: 'O brother mine, +Matteo! art thou sleeping? Here I will rest with thee and weep till +daybreak.' It is rare to find in literature so crude and intense an +expression of fiery hatred as these untranslatable _vóceri_ present. +The emotion is so simple and so strong that it becomes sublime by mere +force, and affects us with a strange pathos when contrasted with the +tender affection conveyed in such terms of endearment as 'my dove,' 'my +flower,' 'my pheasant,' 'my bright painted orange,' addressed to the +dead. In the _vóceri_ it often happens that there are several +interlocutors: one friend questions and another answers; or a kinswoman +of the murderer attempts to justify the deed, and is overwhelmed with +deadly imprecations. Passionate appeals are made to the corpse: 'Arise! +Do you not hear the women cry? Stand up. Show your wounds, and let the +fountains of your blood flow! Alas! he is dead; he sleeps; he cannot +hear!' Then they turn again to tears and curses, feeling that no help +or comfort can come from the clay-cold form. The intensity of grief +finds strange language for its utterance. A girl, mourning over her +father, cries:— + +'Mi l'hannu crucifissatu +Cume Ghiesu Cristu in croce.' + +118 + +Once only, in Viale's collection, does any friend of the dead remember +mercy. It is an old woman, who points to the crucifix above the bier. + +But all the _vóceri_ are not so murderous. Several are composed for +girls who died unwedded and before their time, by their mothers or +companions. The language of these laments is far more tender and +ornate. They praise the gentle virtues and beauty of the girl, her +piety and helpful household ways. The most affecting of these dirges is +that which celebrates the death of Romana, daughter of Dariola Danesi. +Here is a pretty picture of the girl: 'Among the best and fairest +maidens you were like a rose among flowers, like the moon among stars; +so far more lovely were you than the loveliest. The youths in your +presence were like lighted torches, but full of reverence; you were +courteous to all, but with none familiar. In church they gazed at you, +but you looked at none of them; and after mass you said, "Mother, let +us go." Oh! who will console me for your loss? Why did the Lord so much +desire you? But now you rest in heaven, all joy and smiles; for the +world was not worthy of so fair a face. Oh, how far more beautiful will +Paradise be now!' Then follows a piteous picture of the old bereaved +mother, to whom a year will seem a thousand years, who will wander +among relatives without affection, neighbours without love; and who, +when sickness comes, will have no one to give her a drop of water, or +to wipe the sweat from her brow, or to hold her hand in death. Yet all +that is left for her is to wait and pray for the end, that she may join +again her darling. + +But it is time to return to Ajaccio itself. At present the attractions +and ornaments of the town consist of a good public library, Cardinal +Fesch's large but indifferent collection of pictures, two monuments +erected to Napoleon, and Napoleon's house. It will always be the chief +pride of Ajaccio that she 119gave birth to the great emperor. Close to +the harbour, in a public square by the sea-beach, stands an equestrian +statue of the conqueror, surrounded by his four brothers on foot. They +are all attired in Roman fashion, and are turned seaward, to the west, +as if to symbolise the emigration of this family to subdue Europe. +There is something ludicrous and forlorn in the stiffness of the +group—something even pathetic, when we think how Napoleon gazed seaward +from another island, no longer on horseback, no longer laurel-crowned, +an unthroned, unseated conqueror, on S. Helena. His father's house +stands close by. An old Italian waiting-woman, who had been long in the +service of the Murats, keeps it and shows it. She has the manners of a +lady, and can tell many stories of the various members of the +Buonaparte family. Those who fancy that Napoleon was born in a mean +dwelling of poor parents will be surprised to find so much space and +elegance in these apartments. Of course his family was not rich by +comparison with the riches of French or English nobles. But for +Corsicans they were well-to-do, and their house has an air of antique +dignity. The chairs of the entrance-saloon have been literally stripped +of their coverings by enthusiastic visitors; the horse-hair stuffing +underneath protrudes itself with a sort of comic pride, as if +protesting that it came to be so tattered in an honourable service. +Some of the furniture seems new; but many old presses, inlaid with +marbles, agates, and lapis-lazuli, such as Italian families preserve +for generations, have an air of respectable antiquity about them. Nor +is there any doubt that the young Napoleon led his minuets beneath the +stiff girandoles of the formal dancing-room. There, too, in a dark back +chamber, is the bed in which he was born. At its foot is a photograph +of the Prince Imperial sent by the Empress Eugénie, who, when she +visited the room, wept much 120_pianse molto_ (to use the old lady's +phrase)—at seeing the place where such lofty destinies began. On the +wall of the same room is a portrait of Napoleon himself as the young +general of the republic—with the citizen's unkempt hair, the fierce +fire of the Revolution in his eyes, a frown upon his forehead, lips +compressed, and quivering nostrils; also one of his mother, the +pastille of a handsome woman, with Napoleonic eyes and brows and nose, +but with a vacant simpering mouth. Perhaps the provincial artist knew +not how to seize the expression of this feature, the most difficult to +draw. For we cannot fancy that Letizia had lips without the firmness or +the fulness of a majestic nature. + +The whole first story of this house belonged to the Buonaparte family. +The windows look out partly on a little court and partly on narrow +streets. It was, no doubt, the memory of this home that made Napoleon, +when emperor, design schemes for the good of Corsica—schemes that might +have brought him more honour than many conquests, but which he had no +time or leisure to carry out. On S. Helena his mind often reverted to +them, and he would speak of the gummy odours of the macchi wafted from +the hillsides to the seashore. + +121 + + + + +MONTE GENEROSO + + +The long hot days of Italian summer were settling down on plain and +country when, in the last week of May, we travelled northward from +Florence and Bologna seeking coolness. That was very hard to find in +Lombardy. The days were long and sultry, the nights short, without a +respite from the heat. Milan seemed a furnace, though in the Duomo and +the narrow shady streets there was a twilight darkness which at least +looked cool. Long may it be before the northern spirit of improvement +has taught the Italians to despise the wisdom of their forefathers, who +built those sombre streets of palaces with overhanging eaves, that, +almost meeting, form a shelter from the fiercest sun. The lake country +was even worse than the towns; the sunlight lay all day asleep upon the +shining waters, and no breeze came to stir their surface or to lift the +tepid veil of haze, through which the stony mountains, with their yet +unmelted patches of winter snow, glared as if in mockery of coolness. + +Then we heard of a new inn, which had just been built by an +enterprising Italian doctor below the very top of Monte Generoso. There +was a picture of it in the hotel at Cadenabbia, but this gave but +little idea of any particular beauty. A big square house, with many +windows, and the usual ladies on mules, and guides with alpenstocks, +advancing towards it, and some round bushes growing near, was all it +showed. Yet there hung the real Monte Generoso above our heads, and we +122thought it must be cooler on its height than by the lake-shore. To +find coolness was the great point with us just then. Moreover, some one +talked of the wonderful plants that grew among its rocks, and of its +grassy slopes enamelled with such flowers as make our cottage gardens +at home gay in summer, not to speak of others rarer and peculiar to the +region of the Southern Alps. Indeed, the Generoso has a name for +flowers, and it deserves it, as we presently found. + +This mountain is fitted by its position for commanding one of the +finest views in the whole range of the Lombard Alps. A glance at the +map shows that. Standing out pre-eminent among the chain of lower hills +to which it belongs, the lakes of Lugano and Como with their long arms +enclose it on three sides, while on the fourth the plain of Lombardy +with its many cities, its rich pasture-lands and cornfields intersected +by winding river-courses and straight interminable roads, advances to +its very foot. No place could be better chosen for surveying that +contrasted scene of plain and mountain, which forms the great +attraction of the outlying buttresses of the central Alpine mass. The +superiority of the Monte Generoso to any of the similar eminences on +the northern outskirts of Switzerland is great. In richness of colour, +in picturesqueness of suggestion, in sublimity and breadth of prospect, +its advantages are incontestable. The reasons for this superiority are +obvious. On the Italian side the transition from mountain to plain is +far more abrupt; the atmosphere being clearer, a larger sweep of +distance is within our vision; again, the sunlight blazes all day long +upon the very front and forehead of the distant Alpine chain, instead +of merely slanting along it, as it does upon the northern side. + +From Mendrisio, the village at the foot of the mountain, an easy +mule-path leads to the hotel, winding first through 123English-looking +hollow lanes with real hedges, which are rare in this country, and +English primroses beneath them. Then comes a forest region of luxuriant +chestnut-trees, giants with pink boles just bursting into late leafage, +yellow and tender, but too thin as yet for shade. A little higher up, +the chestnuts are displaced by wild laburnums bending under their +weight of flowers. The graceful branches meet above our heads, sweeping +their long tassels against our faces as we ride beneath them, while the +air for a good mile is full of fragrance. It is strange to be reminded +in this blooming labyrinth of the dusty suburb roads and villa gardens +of London. The laburnum is pleasant enough in S. John's Wood or the +Regent's Park in May—a tame domesticated thing of brightness amid smoke +and dust. But it is another joy to see it flourishing in its own home, +clothing acres of the mountain-side in a very splendour of +spring-colour, mingling its paler blossoms with the golden broom of our +own hills, and with the silver of the hawthorn and wild cherry. Deep +beds of lilies-of-the-valley grow everywhere beneath the trees; and in +the meadows purple columbines, white asphodels, the Alpine spiræa, +tall, with feathery leaves, blue scabious, golden hawkweeds, turkscap +lilies, and, better than all, the exquisite narcissus poeticus, with +its crimson-tipped cup, and the pure pale lilies of San Bruno, are +crowded in a maze of dazzling brightness. Higher up the laburnums +disappear, and flaunting crimson peonies gleam here and there upon the +rocks, until at length the gentians and white ranunculuses of the +higher Alps displace the less hardy flowers of Italy. + +About an hour below the summit of the mountain we came upon the inn, a +large clean building, with scanty furniture and snowy wooden floors, +guiltless of carpets. It is big enough to hold about a hundred guests; +and Doctor Pasta, who built it, a native of Mendrisio, was gifted +either 124with much faith or with a real prophetic instinct.[8] Anyhow +he deserves commendation for his spirit of enterprise. As yet the house +is little known to English travellers: it is mostly frequented by +Italians from Milan, Novara, and other cities of the plain, who call it +the Italian Righi, and come to it, as cockneys go to Richmond, for +noisy picnic excursions, or at most for a few weeks' _villeggiatura_ in +the summer heats. When we were there in May the season had scarcely +begun, and the only inmates besides ourselves were a large party from +Milan, ladies and gentlemen in holiday guise, who came, stayed one +night, climbed the peak at sunrise, and departed amid jokes and +shouting and half-childish play, very unlike the doings of a similar +party in sober England. After that the stillness of nature descended on +the mountain, and the sun shone day after day upon that great view +which seemed created only for ourselves. And what a view it was! The +plain stretching up to the high horizon, where a misty range of pink +cirrus-clouds alone marked the line where earth ended and the sky +began, was islanded with cities and villages innumerable, basking in +the hazy shimmering heat. Milan, seen through the doctor's telescope, +displayed its Duomo perfect as a microscopic shell, with all its +exquisite fretwork, and Napoleon's arch of triumph surmounted by the +four tiny horses, as in a fairy's dream. Far off, long silver lines +marked the lazy course of Po and Ticino, while little lakes like Varese +and the lower end of Maggiore spread themselves out, connecting the +mountains with the plain. + + [8] It is but just to Doctor Pasta to remark that the above sentence + was written more than ten years ago. Since then he has enlarged and + improved his house in many ways, furnished it more luxuriously, made + paths through the beechwoods round it, and brought excellent water at + a great cost from a spring near the summit of the mountain. A more + charming residence from early spring to late autumn can scarcely be + discovered. + +125Five minutes' walk from the hotel brought us to a ridge where the +precipice fell suddenly and almost sheer over one arm of Lugano Lake. +Sullenly outstretched asleep it lay beneath us, coloured with the tints +of fluor-spar, or with the changeful green and azure of a peacock's +breast. The depth appeared immeasurable. San Salvadore had receded into +insignificance: the houses and churches and villas of Lugano bordered +the lake-shore with an uneven line of whiteness. And over all there +rested a blue mist of twilight and of haze, contrasting with the +clearness of the peaks above. It was sunset when we first came here; +and, wave beyond wave, the purple Italian hills tossed their crested +summits to the foot of a range of stormy clouds that shrouded the high +Alps. Behind the clouds was sunset, clear and golden; but the mountains +had put on their mantle for the night, and the hem of their garment was +all we were to see. And yet—over the edge of the topmost ridge of +cloud, what was that long hard line of black, too solid and immovable +for cloud, rising into four sharp needles clear and well defined? +Surely it must be the familiar outline of Monte Rosa itself, the form +which every one who loves the Alps knows well by heart, which +picture-lovers know from Ruskin's woodcut in the 'Modern Painters.' For +a moment only the vision stayed: then clouds swept over it again, and +from the place where the empress of the Alps had been, a pillar of mist +shaped like an angel's wing, purple and tipped with gold, shot up +against the pale green sky. That cloud-world was a pageant in itself, +as grand and more gorgeous perhaps than the mountains would have been. +Deep down through the hollows of the Simplon a thunderstorm was +driving; and we saw forked flashes once and again, as in a distant +world, lighting up the valleys for a moment, and leaving the darkness +blacker behind them as the storm blurred out the landscape forty miles +away. 126Darkness was coming to us too, though our sky was clear and +the stars were shining brightly. At our feet the earth was folding +itself to sleep; the plain was wholly lost; little islands of white +mist had formed themselves, and settled down upon the lakes and on +their marshy estuaries; the birds were hushed; the gentian-cups were +filling to the brim with dew. Night had descended on the mountain and +the plain; the show was over. + +The dawn was whitening in the east next morning, when we again +scrambled through the dwarf beechwood to the precipice above the lake. +Like an ink-blot it lay, unruffled, slumbering sadly. Broad sheets of +vapour brooded on the plain, telling of miasma and fever, of which we +on the mountain, in the pure cool air, knew nothing. The Alps were all +there now—cold, unreal, stretching like a phantom line of snowy peaks, +from the sharp pyramids of Monte Viso and the Grivola in the west to +the distant Bernina and the Ortler in the east. Supreme among them +towered Monte Rosa—queenly, triumphant, gazing down in proud +pre-eminence, as she does when seen from any point of the Italian +plain. There is no mountain like her. Mont Blanc himself is scarcely so +regal; and she seems to know it, for even the clouds sweep humbled +round her base, girdling her at most, but leaving her crown clear and +free. Now, however, there were no clouds to be seen in all the sky. The +mountains had a strange unshriven look, as if waiting to be blessed. +Above them, in the cold grey air, hung a low black arch of shadow, the +shadow of the bulk of the huge earth, which still concealed the sun. +Slowly, slowly this dark line sank lower, till, one by one, at last, +the peaks caught first a pale pink flush; then a sudden golden glory +flashed from one to the other, as they leapt joyfully into life. It is +a supreme moment this first burst of life and light over the sleeping +world, as one can 127only see it on rare days and in rare places like +the Monte Generoso. The earth—enough of it at least for us to picture +to ourselves the whole—lies at our feet; and we feel as the Saviour +might have felt, when from the top of that high mountain He beheld the +kingdoms of the world and all the glory of them. Strangely and solemnly +may we image to our fancy the lives that are being lived down in those +cities of the plain: how many are waking at this very moment to toil +and a painful weariness, to sorrow, or to 'that unrest which men +miscall delight;' while we upon our mountain buttress, suspended in +mid-heaven and for a while removed from daily cares, are drinking in +the beauty of the world that God has made so fair and wonderful. From +this same eyrie, only a few years ago, the hostile armies of France, +Italy, and Austria might have been watched moving in dim masses across +the plains, for the possession of which they were to clash in mortal +fight at Solferino and Magenta. All is peaceful now. It is hard to +picture the waving cornfields trodden down, the burning villages and +ransacked vineyards, all the horrors of real war to which that fertile +plain has been so often the prey. But now these memories of + +Old, unhappy, far-off things, +And battles long ago, + + +do but add a calm and beauty to the radiant scene that lies before us. +And the thoughts which it suggests, the images with which it stores our +mind, are not without their noblest uses. The glory of the world sinks +deeper into our shallow souls than we well know; and the spirit of its +splendour is always ready to revisit us on dark and dreary days at home +with an unspeakable refreshment. Even as I write, I seem to see the +golden glow sweeping in broad waves over the purple hills nearer and +nearer, till the lake brightens at our 128feet, and the windows of +Lugano flash with sunlight, and little boats creep forth across the +water like spiders on a pond, leaving an arrowy track of light upon the +green behind them, while Monte Salvadore with its tiny chapel and a +patch of the further landscape are still kept in darkness by the shadow +of the Generoso itself. The birds wake into song as the sun's light +comes; cuckoo answers cuckoo from ridge to ridge; dogs bark; and even +the sounds of human life rise up to us: children's voices and the +murmurs of the market-place ascending faintly from the many villages +hidden among the chestnut-trees beneath our feet; while the creaking of +a cart we can but just see slowly crawling along the straight road by +the lake, is heard at intervals. + +The full beauty of the sunrise is but brief. Already the low lakelike +mists we saw last night have risen and spread, and shaken themselves +out into masses of summer clouds, which, floating upward, threaten to +envelop us upon our vantage-ground. Meanwhile they form a changeful sea +below, blotting out the plain, surging up into the valleys with the +movement of a billowy tide, attacking the lower heights like the +advance-guard of a besieging army, but daring not as yet to invade the +cold and solemn solitudes of the snowy Alps. These, too, in time, when +the sun's heat has grown strongest, will be folded in their midday pall +of sheltering vapour. + +The very summit of Monte Generoso must not be left without a word of +notice. The path to it is as easy as the Bheep-walks on an English +down, though cut along grass-slopes descending at a perilously sharp +angle. At the top the view is much the same, as far as the grand +features go, as that which is commanded from the cliff by the hotel. +But the rocks here are crowded with rare Alpine flowers—delicate golden +auriculas with powdery leaves and 129stems, pale yellow cowslips, +imperial purple saxifrages, soldanellas at the edge of lingering +patches of the winter snow, blue gentians, crocuses, and the frail, +rosy-tipped ranunculus, called glacialis. Their blooming time is brief. +When summer comes the mountain will be bare and burned, like all +Italian hills. The Generoso is a very dry mountain, silent and solemn +from its want of streams. There is no sound of falling waters on its +crags; no musical rivulets flow down its sides, led carefully along the +slopes, as in Switzerland, by the peasants, to keep their hay-crops +green and gladden the thirsty turf throughout the heat and drought of +summer. The soil is a Jurassic limestone: the rain penetrates the +porous rock, and sinks through cracks and fissures, to reappear above +the base of the mountain in a full-grown stream. This is a defect in +the Generoso, as much to be regretted as the want of shade upon its +higher pastures. Here, as elsewhere in Piedmont, the forests are cut +for charcoal; the beech-scrub, which covers large tracts of the hills, +never having the chance of growing into trees much higher than a man. +It is this which makes an Italian mountain at a distance look woolly, +like a sheep's back. Among the brushwood, however, lilies-of-the-valley +and Solomon's seals delight to grow; and the league-long beds of wild +strawberries prove that when the laburnums have faded, the mountain +will become a garden of feasting. + +It was on the crest of Monte Generoso, late one afternoon in May, that +we saw a sight of great beauty. The sun had yet about an hour before it +sank behind the peaks of Monte Rosa, and the sky was clear, except for +a few white clouds that floated across the plain of Lombardy. Then as +we sat upon the crags, tufted with soldanellas and auriculas, we could +see a fleecy vapour gliding upward from the hollows of the mountain, +very thin and pale, yet dense enough to blot the 130landscape to the +south and east from sight. It rose 314with an imperceptible motion, as +the Oceanides might have soared from the sea to comfort Prometheus in +the tragedy of Æschylus. Already the sun had touched its upper edge +with gold, and we were expecting to be enveloped in a mist; when +suddenly upon the outspread sheet before us there appeared two forms, +larger than life, yet not gigantic, surrounded with haloes of such +tempered iridescence as the moon half hidden by a summer cloud is wont +to make. They were the glorified figures of ourselves; and what we did, +the phantoms mocked, rising or bowing, or spreading wide their arms. +Some scarce-felt breeze prevented the vapour from passing across the +ridge to westward, though it still rose from beneath, and kept fading +away into thin air above our heads. Therefore the vision lasted as long +as the sun stayed yet above the Alps; and the images with their +aureoles shrank and dilated with the undulations of the mist. I could +not but think of that old formula for an anthropomorphic Deity—'the +Brocken-spectre of the human spirit projected on the mists of the +Non-ego.' Even like those cloud-phantoms are the gods made in the image +of man, who have been worshipped through successive ages of the world, +gods dowered with like passions to those of the races who have crouched +before them, gods cruel and malignant and lustful, jealous and noble +and just, radiant or gloomy, the counterparts of men upon a vast and +shadowy scale. But here another question rose. If the gods that men +have made and ignorantly worshipped be really but glorified copies of +their own souls, where is the sun in this parallel? Without the sun's +rays the mists of Monte Generoso could have shown, no shadowy forms. +Without some other power than the mind of man, could men have fashioned +for themselves 131those ideals that they named their gods? Unseen by +Greek, or Norseman, or Hindoo, the potent force by which alone they +could externalise their image, existed outside them, independent of +their thought. Nor does the trite epigram touch the surface of the real +mystery. The sun, the human beings on the mountain, and the mists are +all parts of one material universe: the transient phenomenon we +witnessed was but the effect of a chance combination. Is, then, the +anthropomorphic God as momentary and as accidental in the system of the +world as that vapoury spectre? The God in whom we live and move and +have our being must be far more all-pervasive, more incognisable by the +souls of men, who doubt not for one moment of His presence and His +power. Except for purposes of rhetoric the metaphor that seemed so +clever fails. Nor, when once such thoughts have been stirred in us by +such a sight, can we do better than repeat Goethe's sublime profession +of a philosophic mysticism. This translation I made one morning on the +Pasterze Gletscher beneath the spires of the Gross Glockner:— + +To Him who from eternity, self-stirred, +Himself hath made by His creative word! +To Him, supreme, who causeth Faith to be, +Trust, Hope, Love, Power, and endless Energy! +To Him, who, seek to name Him as we will, +Unknown within Himself abideth still! + +Strain ear and eye, till sight and sense be dim; +Thou'lt find but faint similitudes of Him: +Yea, and thy spirit in her flight of flame +Still strives to gauge the symbol and the name: +Charmed and compelled thou climb'st from height to height, +And round thy path the world shines wondrous bright; +Time, Space, and Size, and Distance cease to be, +And every step is fresh infinity. + + +132 +What were the God who sat outside to scan +The spheres that 'neath His finger circling ran? +God dwells within, and moves the world and moulds, +Himself and Nature in one form enfolds: +Thus all that lives in Him and breathes and is, +Shall ne'er His puissance, ne'er His spirit miss. + +The soul of man, too, is an universe: +Whence follows it that race with race concurs +In naming all it knows of good and true +God,—yea, its own God; and with homage due +Surrenders to His sway both earth and heaven; +Fears Him, and loves, where place for love is given. + +133 + + + + +LOMBARD VIGNETTES + + +ON THE SUPERGA + +This is the chord of Lombard colouring in May. Lowest in the scale: +bright green of varied tints, the meadow-grasses mingling with willows +and acacias, harmonised by air and distance. Next, opaque blue—the blue +of something between amethyst and lapis-lazuli—that belongs alone to +the basements of Italian mountains. Higher, the roseate whiteness of +ridged snow on Alps or Apennines. Highest, the blue of the sky, +ascending from pale turquoise to transparent sapphire filled with +light. A mediæval mystic might have likened this chord to the spiritual +world. For the lowest region is that of natural life, of plant and bird +and beast, and unregenerate man; it is the place of faun and nymph and +satyr, the plain where wars are fought and cities built, and work is +done. Thence we climb to purified humanity, the mountains of purgation, +the solitude and simplicity of contemplative life not yet made perfect +by freedom from the flesh. Higher comes that thin white belt, where are +the resting places of angelic feet, the points whence purged souls take +their flight toward infinity. Above all is heaven, the hierarchies +ascending row on row to reach the light of God. + +This fancy occurred to me as I climbed the slope of the Superga, gazing +over acacia hedges and poplars to the mountains bare in morning light. +The occasional occurrence of 134bars across this chord—poplars +shivering in sun and breeze, stationary cypresses as black as night, +and tall campanili with the hot red shafts of glowing brick—adds just +enough of composition to the landscape. Without too much straining of +the allegory, the mystic might have recognised in these aspiring bars +the upward effort of souls rooted in the common life of earth. + +The panorama, unrolling as we ascend, is enough to overpower a lover of +beauty. There is nothing equal to it for space and breadth and majesty. +Monte Rosa, the masses of Mont Blanc blent with the Grand Paradis, the +airy pyramid of Monte Viso, these are the battlements of that vast +Alpine rampart, in which the vale of Susa opens like a gate. To west +and south sweep the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Beneath, glides +the infant Po; and where he leads our eyes, the plain is only limited +by pearly mist. + +A BRONZE BUST OF CALIGULA AT TURIN + +The Albertina bronze is one of the most precious portraits of +antiquity, not merely because it confirms the testimony of the green +basalt bust in the Capitol, but also because it supplies an even more +emphatic and impressive illustration to the narrative of Suetonius. + +Caligula is here represented as young and singularly beautiful. It is +indeed an ideal Roman head, with the powerful square modelling, the +crisp short hair, low forehead and regular firm features, proper to the +noblest Roman type. The head is thrown backward from the throat; and +there is a something of menace or defiance or suffering in the +suggestion of brusque movement given to the sinews of the neck. This +attitude, together with the tension of the forehead, and the fixed +expression of pain and strain communicated by the 135lines of the +mouth—strong muscles of the upper lip and abruptly chiselled under +lip—in relation to the small eyes, deep set beneath their cavernous and +level brows, renders the whole face a monument of spiritual anguish. I +remember that the green basalt bust of the Capitol has the same anxious +forehead, the same troubled and overburdened eyes; but the agony of +this fretful mouth, comparable to nothing but the mouth of Pandolfo +Sigismondo Malatesta, and, like that, on the verge of breaking into the +spasms of delirium, is quite peculiar to the Albertina bronze. It is +just this which tha portrait of the Capitol lacks for the completion of +Caligula. The man who could be so represented in art had nothing wholly +vulgar in him. The brutality of Caracalla, the overblown sensuality of +Nero, the effeminacy of Commodus or Heliogabalus, are all absent here. +This face idealises the torture of a morbid soul. It is withal so truly +beautiful that it might easily be made the poem of high suffering or +noble passion. If the bronze were plastic, I see how a great sculptor, +by but few strokes, could convert it into an agonising Stephen or +Sebastian. As it is, the unimaginable touch of disease, the unrest of +madness, made Caligula the genius of insatiable appetite; and his +martyrdom was the torment of lust and ennui and everlasting agitation. +The accident of empire tantalised him with vain hopes of satisfying the +Charybdis of his soul's sick cravings. From point to point he passed of +empty pleasure and unsatisfying cruelty, for ever hungry; until the +malady of his spirit, unrestrained by any limitations, and with the +right medium for its development, became unique—the tragic type of +pathological desire. What more than all things must have plagued a man +with that face was probably the unavoidable meanness of his career. +When we study the chapters of Suetonius, we are forced to feel that, +though the situation and the madness of Caligula 136were dramatically +impressive, his crimes were trivial and, small. In spite of the vast +scale on which he worked his devilish will, his life presents a total +picture of sordid vice, differing only from pot-house dissipation and +schoolboy cruelty in point of size. And this of a truth is the Nemesis +of evil. After a time, mere tyrannous caprice must become commonplace +and cloying, tedious to the tyrant, and uninteresting to the student of +humanity: nor can I believe that Caligula failed to perceive this to +his own infinite disgust. + +Suetonius asserts that he was hideously ugly. How are we to square this +testimony with the witness of the bronze before us? What changed the +face, so beautiful and terrible in youth, to ugliness that shrank from +sight in manhood? Did the murderers find it blurred in its fine +lineaments, furrowed with lines of care, hollowed with the soul's +hunger? Unless a life of vice and madness had succeeded in making +Caligula's face what the faces of some maniacs are—the bloated ruin of +what was once a living witness to the soul within—I could fancy that +death may have sanctified it with even more beauty than this bust of +the self-tormented young man shows. Have we not all seen the anguish of +thought-fretted faces smoothed out by the hands of the Deliverer? + +FERRARI AT VERCELLI + +It is possible that many visitors to the Cathedral of Como have carried +away the memory of stately women with abundant yellow hair and +draperies of green and crimson, in a picture they connect thereafter +with Gaudenzio Ferrari. And when they come to Milan, they are probably +both impressed and disappointed by a Martyrdom of S. Catherine in the +Brera, bearing the same artist's name. If they wish to understand this +painter, they must seek him at Varallo, at 137Saronno, and at Vercelli. +In the Church of S. Cristoforo in Vercelli, Gaudenzio Ferrari at the +full height of his powers ghowed what he could do to justify Lomazzo's +title chosen for him of the Eagle. He has indeed the strong wing and +the swiftness of the king of birds. And yet the works of few really +great painters—and among the really great we place Ferrari—leave upon +the mind a more distressing sense of imperfection. Extraordinary +fertility of fancy, vehement dramatic passion, sincere study of nature, +and great command of technical resources are here (as elsewhere in +Ferrari's frescoes) neutralised by an incurable defect of the combining +and harmonising faculty, so essential to a masterpiece. There is stuff +enough of thought and vigour and imagination to make a dozen artists. +And yet we turn away disappointed from the crowded, dazzling, +stupefying wilderness of forma and faces on these mighty walls. + +All that Ferrari derived from actual life—the heads of single figures, +the powerful movement of men and women in excited action, the +monumental pose of two praying nuns—is admirably rendered. His angels +too, in S. Cristoforo as elsewhere, are quite original; not only in +their type of beauty, which is terrestrial and peculiar to Ferrari, +without a touch of Correggio's sensuality; but also in the intensity of +their emotion, the realisation of their vitality. Those which hover +round the Cross in the fresco of the 'Crucifixion' are as passionate as +any angels of the Giottesque masters in Assisi. Those again which crowd +the Stable of Bethlehem in the 'Nativity' yield no point of idyllic +charm to Gozzoli's in the Riccardi Chapel. + +The 'Crucifixion' and the 'Assumption of Madonna' are very tall and +narrow compositions, audacious in their attempt to fill almost +unmanageable space with a connected action. Of the two frescoes the +'Crucifixion,' which has points of 138strong similarity to the same +subject at Varallo, is by far the best. Ferrari never painted anything +at once truer to life and nobler in tragic style than the fainting +Virgin. Her face expresses the very acme of martyrdom—not exaggerated +nor spasmodic, but real and sublime—in the suffering of a stately +matron. In points like this Ferrari cannot be surpassed. Raphael could +scarcely have done better; besides, there is an air of sincerity, a +stamp of popular truth, in this episode, which lies beyond Raphael's +sphere. It reminds us rather of Tintoretto. + +After the 'Crucifixion,' I place the 'Adoration of the Magi,' full of +fine mundane motives and gorgeous costumes; then the 'Sposalizio' +(whose marriage, I am not certain), the only grandly composed picture +of the series, and marked by noble heads; then the 'Adoration of the +Shepherds,' with two lovely angels holding the bambino. The 'Assumption +of the Magdalen'—for which fresco there is a valuable cartoon in the +Albertina Collection at Turin—must have been a fine picture; but it is +ruined now. An oil altar-piece in the choir of the same church struck +me less than the frescoes. It represents Madonna and a crowd of saints +under an orchard of apple-trees, with cherubs curiously flung about +almost at random in the air. The motive of the orchard is prettily +conceived and carried out with spirit. + +What Ferrari possessed was rapidity of movement, fulness and richness +of reality, exuberance of invention, excellent portraiture, dramatic +vehemence, and an almost unrivalled sympathy with the swift and +passionate world of angels. What he lacked was power of composition, +simplicity of total effect, harmony in colouring, control over his own +luxuriance, the sense of tranquillity. He seems to have sought grandeur +in size and multitude, richness, éclat, contrast. Being the 139disciple +of Lionardo and Raphael, his defects are truly singular. As a composer, +the old leaven of Giovenone remained in him; but he felt the dramatic +tendencies of a later age, and in occasional episodes he realised them +with a force and _furia_ granted to very few of the Italian painters. + +LANINI AT VERCELLI + +The Casa Mariano is a palace which belonged to a family of that name. +Like many houses of the sort in Italy, it fell to vile uses; and its +hall of audience was turned into a lumber-room. The Operai of Vercelli, +I was told, bought the palace a few years ago, restored the noble hall, +and devoted a smaller room to a collection of pictures valuable for +students of the early Vercellese style of painting. Of these there is +no need to speak. The great hall is the gem of the Casa Mariano. It has +a coved roof, with a large flat oblong space in the centre of the +ceiling. The whole of this vault and the lunettes beneath were painted +by Lanini; so runs the tradition of the fresco-painter's name; and +though much injured by centuries of outrage, and somewhat marred by +recent restoration, these frescoes form a precious monument of Lombard +art. The object of the painter's design seems to have been the +glorification of Music. In the central compartment of the roof is an +assembly of the gods, obviously borrowed from Raphael's 'Marriage of +Cupid and Psyche' in the Farnesina at Rome. The fusion of Roman +composition with Lombard execution constitutes the chief charm of this +singular work, and makes it, so far as I am aware, unique. Single +figures of the goddesses, and the whole movement of the scene upon +Olympus, are transcribed without attempt at concealment. And yet the +fresco is not a barefaced copy. 140The manner of feeling and of +execution is quite different from that of Raphael's school. The poetry +and sentiment are genuinely Lombard. None of Raphael's pupils could +have carried out his design with a delicacy of emotion and a technical +skill in colouring so consummate. What, we think, as we gaze upward, +would the Master have given for such a craftsman? The hardness, +coarseness, and animal crudity of the Roman School are absent: so also +is their vigour. But where the grace of form and colour is so soft and +sweet, where the high-bred calm of good company is so sympathetically +rendered, where the atmosphere of amorous languor and of melody is so +artistically diffused, we cannot miss the powerful modelling and rather +vulgar _tours de force_ of Giulio Romano. The scale of tone is silvery +golden. There are no hard blues, no coarse red flesh-tints, no black +shadows. Mellow lights, the morning hues of primrose, or of palest +amber, pervade the whole society. It is a court of gentle and +harmonious souls; and though this style of beauty might cloy, at first +sight there is something ravishing in those yellow-haired white-limbed, +blooming deities. No movement of lascivious grace as in Correggio, no +perturbation of the senses as in some of the Venetians, disturbs the +rhythm of their music; nor is the pleasure of the flesh, though felt by +the painter and communicated to the spectator, an interruption to their +divine calm. The white, saffron-haired goddesses are grouped together +like stars seen in the topaz light of evening, like daffodils half +smothered in snowdrops, and among them, Diana, with the crescent on her +forehead, is the fairest. Her dream-like beauty need fear no comparison +with the Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo. Apollo and Bacchus are +scarcely less lovely in their bloom of earliest manhood; honey-pale, as +Greeks would say; like statues of living electron; realising Simaetha's +picture of her lover and his friend:— + +141 + +Τοίς δ΄ ήν ξανθοτέρα μέν ελιχρύσοιο γενειάς +στήθεα δε στίλβοντα πολύ πλέον η΅ τυ Σελάνα.[9] + + + [9] 'The down upon their cheeks and chin was yellower than + helichrysus, and their breasts gleamed whiter far than thou, O Moon.' + + +It was thus that the almost childlike spirit of the Milanese painters +felt the antique: how differently from their Roman brethren! It was +thus that they interpreted the lines of their own poets:— + +E i tuoi capei più volte ho somigliati +Di Cerere a le paglie secche o bionde +Dintorno crespi al tuo capo legati.[10] + + + [10] 'Thy tresses have I oftentimes compared to Ceres' yellow autumn + sheaves, wreathed in curled bands around thy head.' + + +Yet the painter of this hall—whether we are to call him Lanini or +another—was not a composer. Where he has not robbed the motives and the +distribution of the figures from Raphael, he has nothing left but grace +of detail. The intellectual feebleness of his style may be seen in many +figures of women playing upon instruments of music, ranged around the +walls. One girl at the organ is graceful; another with a tambourine has +a sort of Bassarid beauty. But the group of Apollo, Pegasus, and a Muse +upon Parnassus, is a failure in its meaningless frigidity, while few of +these subordinate compositions show power of conception or vigour of +design. + +Lanini, like Sodoma, was a native of Vercelli; and though he was +Ferrari's pupil, there is more in him of Luini or of Sodoma than of his +master. He does not rise at any point to the height of these three +great masters, but he shares some of Luini's and Sodoma's fine +qualities, without having any of Ferrari's force. A visit to the +mangled remnants of his frescoes in S. Caterina will repay the student +of art. This was once, apparently, a double church, or a church with +the hall and chapel of a _confraternita_ appended to it. One 142portion +of the building was painted with the history of the Saint; and very +lovely must this work have been, to judge by the fragments which have +recently been rescued from whitewash, damp, and ruthless mutilation. +What wonderful Lombard faces, half obliterated on the broken wall and +mouldering plaster, smile upon us like drowned memories swimming up +from the depths of oblivion! Wherever three or four are grouped +together, we find an exquisite little picture—an old woman and two +young women in a doorway, for example, telling no story, but touching +us with simple harmony of form. Nothing further is needed to render +their grace intelligible. Indeed, knowing the faults of the school, we +may seek some consolation by telling ourselves that these incomplete +fragments yield Lanini's best. In the coved compartments of the roof, +above the windows, ran a row of dancing boys; and these are still most +beautifully modelled, though the pallor of recent whitewash is upon +them. All the boys have blonde hair. They are naked, with scrolls or +ribbons wreathed around them, adding to the airiness of their continual +dance. Some of the loveliest are in a room used to stow away the lumber +of the church—old boards and curtains, broken lanterns, candle-ends in +tin sconces, the musty apparatus of festival adornments, and in the +midst of all a battered, weather-beaten bier. + +THE PIAZZA OF PIACENZA + +The great feature of Piacenza is its famous piazza—romantically, +picturesquely perfect square, surpassing the most daring attempts of +the scene-painter, and realising a poet's dreams. The space is +considerable, and many streets converge upon it at irregular angles. +Its finest architectural feature is the antique Palace of the Commune: +Gothic 143arcades of stone below, surmounted by a brick building with +wonderfully delicate and varied terra-cotta work in the round-arched +windows. Before this façade, on the marble pavement, prance the bronze +equestrian statues of two Farnesi—insignificant men, exaggerated +horses, flying drapery—as _barocco_ as it is possible to be in style, +but so splendidly toned with verdigris, so superb in their _bravura_ +attitude, and so happily placed in the line of two streets lending far +vistas from the square into the town beyond, that it is difficult to +criticise them seriously. They form, indeed, an important element in +the pictorial effect, and enhance the terra-cotta work of the façade by +the contrast of their colour. + +The time to see this square is in evening twilight—that wonderful hour +after sunset—when the people are strolling on the pavement, polished to +a mirror by the pacing of successive centuries, and when the cavalry +soldiers group themselves at the angles under the lamp-posts or beneath +the dimly lighted Gothic arches of the Palace. This is the magical +mellow hour to be sought by lovers of the picturesque in all the towns +of Italy, the hour which, by its tender blendings of sallow western +lights with glimmering lamps, casts the veil of half shadow over any +crudeness and restores the injuries of Time; the hour when all the +tints of these old buildings are intensified, etherealised, and +harmonised by one pervasive glow. When I last saw Piacenza, it had been +raining all day; and ere sundown a clearing had come from the Alps, +followed by fresh threatenings of thunderstorms. The air was very +liquid. There was a tract of yellow sunset sky to westward, a faint new +moon half swathed in mist above, and over all the north a huge towered +thundercloud kept flashing distant lightnings. The pallid primrose of +the West, forced down and reflected back from that vast bank of +tempest, gave unearthly beauty to the hues of church and +144palace—tender half-tones of violet and russet paling into greys and +yellows on what in daylight seemed but dull red brick. Even the +uncompromising façade of S. Francesco helped; and the Dukes were like +statues of the 'Gran Commendatore,' waiting for Don Giovanni's +invitation. + +MASOLINO AT CASTIGLIONE D'OLONA + +Through the loveliest Arcadian scenery of woods and fields and rushing +waters the road leads downward from Varese to Castiglione. The +Collegiate Church stands on a leafy hill above the town, with fair +prospect over groves and waterfalls and distant mountains. Here in the +choir is a series of frescoes by Masolino da Panicale, the master of +Masaccio, who painted them about the year 1428. 'Masolinus de Florentia +pinxit' decides their authorship. The histories of the Virgin, S. +Stephen and S. Lawrence, are represented: but the injuries of time and +neglect have been so great that it is difficult to judge them fairly. +All we feel for certain is that Masolino had not yet escaped from the +traditional Giottesque mannerism. Only a group of Jews stoning Stephen, +and Lawrence before the tribunal, remind us by dramatic energy of the +Brancacci Chapel. + +The Baptistery frescoes, dealing with the legend of S. John, show a +remarkable advance; and they are luckily in better preservation. A +soldier lifting his two-handed sword to strike off the Baptist's head +is a vigorous figure, full of Florentine realism. Also in the Baptism +in Jordan we are reminded of Masaccio by an excellent group of +bathers—one man taking off his hose, another putting them on again, a +third standing naked with his back turned, and a fourth shivering +half-dressed with a look of curious sadness on his face. The nude has +been carefully studied and well realised. 145The finest composition of +this series is a large panel representing a double action—Salome at +Herod's table begging for the Baptist's head, and then presenting it to +her mother Herodias. The costumes are quattrocento Florentine, exactly +rendered. Salome is a graceful slender creature; the two women who +regard her offering to Herodias with mingled curiosity and horror, are +well conceived. The background consists of a mountain landscape in +Masaccio's simple manner, a rich Renaissance villa, and an open loggia. +The architecture perspective is scientifically accurate, and a frieze +of boys with garlands on the villa is in the best manner of Florentine +sculpture. On the mountain side, diminished in scale, is a group of +elders, burying the body of S. John. These are massed together and +robed in the style of Masaccio, and have his virile dignity of form and +action. Indeed this interesting wall-painting furnishes an epitome of +Florentine art, in its intentions and achievements, during the first +half of the fifteenth century. The colour is strong and brilliant, and +the execution solid. + +The margin of the Salome panel has been used for scratching the +Chronicle of Castiglione. I read one date, 1568, several of the next +century, the record of a duel between two gentlemen, and many +inscriptions to this effect, 'Erodiana Regina,' 'Omnia praetereunt,' +&c. A dirty one-eyed fellow keeps the place. In my presence he swept +the frescoes over with a scratchy broom, flaying their upper surface in +profound unconsciousness of mischief. The armour of the executioner has +had its steel colours almost rubbed off by this infernal process. Damp +and cobwebs are far kinder. + +146 + +THE CERTOSA + +The Certosa of Pavia leaves upon the mind an impression of bewildering +sumptuousness: nowhere else are costly materials so combined with a +lavish expenditure of the rarest art. Those who have only once been +driven round together with the crew of sightseers, can carry little +away but the memory of lapis-lazuli and bronze-work, inlaid agates and +labyrinthine sculpture, cloisters tenantless in silence, fair painted +faces smiling from dark corners on the senseless crowd, trim gardens +with rows of pink primroses in spring, and of begonia in autumn, +blooming beneath colonnades of glowing terra-cotta. The striking +contrast between the Gothic of the interior and the Renaissance façade, +each in its own kind perfect, will also be remembered; and thoughts of +the two great houses, Visconti and Sforza, to whose pride of power it +is a monument, may be blended with the recollection of art-treasures +alien to their spirit. + +Two great artists, Ambrogio Borgognone and Antonio Amadeo, are the +presiding genii of the Certosa. To minute criticism, based upon the +accurate investigation of records and the comparison of styles, must be +left the task of separating their work from that of numerous +collaborators. But it is none the less certain that the keynote of the +whole music is struck by them, Amadeo, the master of the Colleoni +chapel at Bergamo, was both sculptor and architect. If the façade of +the Certosa be not absolutely his creation, he had a hand in the +distribution of its masses and the detail of its ornaments. The only +fault in this otherwise faultless product of the purest quattrocento +inspiration, is that the façade is a frontispiece, with hardly any +structural relation to the church it masks: and this, though serious +from the point of view of 147architecture, is no abatement of its +sculpturesque and picturesque refinement. At first sight it seems a +wilderness of loveliest reliefs and statues—of angel faces, fluttering +raiment, flowing hair, love-laden youths, and stationary figures of +grave saints, mid wayward tangles of acanthus and wild vine and +cupid-laden foliage; but the subordination of these decorative details +to the main design, clear, rhythmical, and lucid, like a chaunt of +Pergolese or Stradella, will enrapture one who has the sense for unity +evoked from divers elements, for thought subduing all caprices to the +harmony of beauty. It is not possible elsewhere in Italy to find the +instinct of the earlier Renaissance, so amorous in its expenditure of +rare material, so lavish in its bestowal of the costliest workmanship +on ornamental episodes, brought into truer keeping with a pure and +simple structural effect. + +All the great sculptor-architects of Lombardy worked in succession on +this miracle of beauty; and this may account for the sustained +perfection of style, which nowhere suffers from the languor of +exhaustion in the artist or from repetition of motives. It remains the +triumph of North Italian genius, exhibiting qualities of tenderness and +self-abandonment to inspiration, which we lack in the severer +masterpieces of the Tuscan school. + +To Borgognone is assigned the painting of the roof in nave and +choir—exceeding rich, varied, and withal in sympathy with stately +Gothic style. Borgognone again is said to have designed the saints and +martyrs worked in _tarsia_ for the choir-stalls. His frescoes are in +some parts well preserved, as in the lovely little Madonna at the end +of the south chapel, while the great fresco above the window in the +south transept has an historical value that renders it interesting in +spite of partial decay. Borgognone's oil pictures throughout the church +prove, if such proof were needed after 148inspection of the altar-piece +in our National Gallery, that he was one of the most powerful and +original painters of Italy, blending the repose of the earlier masters +and their consummate workmanship with a profound sensibility to the +finest shades of feeling and the rarest forms of natural beauty. He +selected an exquisite type of face for his young men and women; on his +old men he bestowed singular gravity and dignity. His saints are a +society of strong, pure, restful, earnest souls, in whom the passion of +deepest emotion is transfigured by habitual calm. The brown and golden +harmonies he loved, are gained without sacrifice of lustre: there is a +self-restraint in his colouring which corresponds to the reserve of his +emotion; and though a regret sometimes rises in our mind that he should +have modelled the light and shade upon his faces with a brusque, +unpleasing hardness, their pallor dwells within our memory as something +delicately sought if not consummately attained. In a word, Borgognone +was a true Lombard of the best time. The very imperfection of his +flesh-painting repeats in colour what the greatest Lombard sculptors +sought in stone—a sharpness of relief that passes over into angularity. +This brusqueness was the counterpoise to tenderness of feeling and +intensity of fancy in these northern artists. Of all Borgognone's +pictures in the Certosa I should select the altar-piece of S. Siro with +S. Lawrence and S. Stephen and two Fathers of the Church, for its +fusion of this master's qualities. + +The Certosa is a wilderness of lovely workmanship. From Borgognone's +majesty we pass into the quiet region of Luini's Christian grace, or +mark the influence of Lionardo on that rare Assumption of Madonna by +his pupil, Andrea Solari. Like everything touched by the Lionardesque +spirit, this great picture was left unfinished: yet Northern Italy has +nothing finer to show than the landscape, outspread in its +149immeasurable purity of calm, behind the grouped Apostles and the +ascendant Mother of Heaven. The feeling of that happy region between +the Alps and Lombardy, where there are many waters—_et tacitos sine +labe laous sine murmure rivos_—and where the last spurs of the +mountains sink in undulations to the plain, has passed into this azure +vista, just as all Umbria is suggested in a twilight background of +young Raphael or Perugino. + +The portraits of the Dukes of Milan and their families carry us into a +very different realm of feeling. Medallions above the doors of sacristy +and chancel, stately figures reared aloft beneath gigantic canopies, +men and women slumbering with folded hands upon their marble biers—we +read in all those sculptured forms a strange record of human +restlessness, resolved into the quiet of the tomb. The iniquities of +Gian Galeazzo Visconti, _il gran Biscione_, the blood-thirst of Gian +Maria, the dark designs of Filippo and his secret vices, Francesco +Sforza's treason, Galeazzo Maria's vanities and lusts; their tyrants' +dread of thunder and the knife; their awful deaths by pestilence and +the assassin's poignard; their selfishness, oppression, cruelty and +fraud; the murders of their kinsmen; their labyrinthine plots and acts +of broken faith;—all is tranquil now, and we can say to each what +Bosola found for the Duchess of Malfi ere her execution:— + +Much you had of land and rent; +Your length in clay's now competent: +A long war disturbed your mind; +Here your perfect peace is signed! + + +Some of these faces are commonplace, with _bourgeois_ cunning written +on the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a +fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one +has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of +Lodovico Sforza and 150his wife, Beatrice d'Este, the palm of +excellence in art and of historical interest must be awarded. Sculpture +has rarely been more dignified and true to life than here. The woman +with her short clustering curls, the man with his strong face, are +resting after that long fever which brought woe to Italy, to Europe a +new age, and to the boasted minion of Fortune a slow death in the +prison palace of Loches. Attired in ducal robes, they lie in state; and +the sculptor has carved the lashes on their eyelids, heavy with death's +marmoreal sleep. He at least has passed no judgment on their crimes. +Let us too bow and leave their memories to the historian's pen, their +spirits to God's mercy. + +After all wanderings in this Temple of Art, we return to Antonio +Amadeo, to his long-haired seraphs playing on the lutes of Paradise, to +his angels of the Passion with their fluttering robes and arms +outspread in agony, to his saints and satyrs mingled on pilasters of +the marble doorways, his delicate _Lavabo_ decorations, and his hymns +of piety expressed in noble forms of weeping women and dead Christs. +Wherever we may pass, this master-spirit of the Lombard style enthralls +attention. His curious treatment of drapery as though it ¦were made of +crumpled paper, and his trick of enhancing relief by sharp angles and +attenuated limbs, do not detract from his peculiar charm. That is his +way, very different from Donatello's, of attaining to the maximum of +life and lightness in the stubborn vehicle of stone. Nor do all the +riches of the choir—those multitudes of singing angels, those +Ascensions and Assumptions, and innumerable basreliefs of gleaming +marble moulded into softest wax by mastery of art—distract our eyes +from the single round medallion, not larger than a common plate, +inscribed by him upon the front of the high altar. Perhaps, if one who +loved Amadeo were bidden to point out his masterpiece, he would lead +the way at 151once to this. The space is small: yet it includes the +whole tragedy of the Passion. Christ is lying dead among the women on +his mother's lap, and there are pitying angels in the air above. One +woman lifts his arm, another makes her breast a pillow for his head. +Their agony is hushed, but felt in every limb and feature; and the +extremity of suffering is seen in each articulation of the worn and +wounded form just taken from the cross. It would be too painful, were +not the harmony of art so rare, the interlacing of those many figures +in a simple round so exquisite. The noblest tranquillity and the most +passionate emotion are here fused in a manner of adorable naturalness. + +From the church it is delightful to escape into the cloisters, flooded +with sunlight, where the swallows skim, and the brown hawks circle, and +the mason bees are at work upon their cells among the carvings. The +arcades of the two cloisters are the final triumph of Lombard +terra-cotta. The memory fails before such infinite invention, such +facility and felicity of execution. Wreaths of cupids gliding round the +arches among grape-bunches and bird-haunted foliage of vine; rows of +angels, like rising and setting planets, some smiling and some grave, +ascending and descending by the Gothic curves; saints stationary on +their pedestals, and faces leaning from the rounds above; crowds of +cherubs, and courses of stars, and acanthus leaves in woven lines, and +ribands incessantly inscribed with Ave Maria! Then, over all, the rich +red light and purple shadows of the brick, than which no substance +sympathises more completely with the sky of solid blue above, the broad +plain space of waving summer grass beneath our feet. + +It is now late afternoon, and when evening comes, the train will take +us back to Milan. There is yet a little while to rest tired eyes and +strained spirits among the willows and 152the poplars by the monastery +wall. Through that grey-green leafage, young with early spring, the +pinnacles of the Certosa leap like flames into the sky. The rice-fields +are under water, far and wide, shining like burnished gold beneath the +level light now near to sun-down. Frogs are croaking; those persistent +frogs, whom the Muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion +and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy +rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat well-watered soil. +Nightingales here and there, new-comers, tune their timid April song: +but, strangest of all sounds in such a place, my comrade from the +Grisons jodels forth an Alpine cowherd's melody. _Auf den Alpen droben +ist ein herrliches Leben!_ + +Did the echoes of Gian Galeazzo's convent ever wake to such a tune as +this before? + +SAN MAURIZIO + +The student of art in Italy, after mastering the characters of +different styles and epochs, finds a final satisfaction in the +contemplation of buildings designed and decorated by one master, or by +groups of artists interpreting the spirit of a single period. Such +supreme monuments of the national genius are not very common, and they +are therefore the more precious. Giotto's Chapel at Padua; the Villa +Farnesina at Rome, built by Peruzzi and painted in fresco by Raphael +and Sodoma; the Palazzo del Te at Mantua, Giulio Romano's masterpiece; +the Scuola di San Rocco, illustrating the Venetian Renaissance at its +climax, might be cited among the most splendid of these achievements. +In the church of the Monastero Maggiore at Milan, dedicated to S. +Maurizio, Lombard architecture and fresco-painting may be studied in +this rare combination. The monastery itself, one of the 153oldest in +Milan, formed a retreat for cloistered virgins following the rule of S. +Benedict. It may have been founded as early as the tenth century; but +its church was rebuilt in the first two decades of the sixteenth, +between 1503 and 1519, and was immediately afterwards decorated with +frescoes by Luini and his pupils. Gian Giacomo Dolcebono, architect and +sculptor, called by his fellow-craftsmen _magistro di taliare pietre_, +gave the design, at once simple and harmonious, which was carried out +with hardly any deviation from his plan. The church is a long +parallelogram, divided into two unequal portions, the first and smaller +for the public, the second for the nuns. The walls are pierced with +rounded and pilastered windows, ten on each side, four of which belong +to the outer and six to the inner section. The dividing wall or septum +rises to the point from which the groinings of the roof spring; and +round three sides of the whole building, north, east, and south, runs a +gallery for the use of the convent. The altars of the inner and outer +church are placed against the septum, back to back, with certain +differences of structure that need not be described. Simple and severe, +S. Maurizio owes its architectural beauty wholly and entirely to purity +of line and perfection of proportion. There is a prevailing spirit of +repose, a sense of space, fair, lightsome, and adapted to serene moods +of the meditative fancy in this building, which is singularly at +variance with the religious mysticism and imaginative grandeur of a +Gothic edifice. The principal beauty of the church, however, is its +tone of colour. Every square inch is covered with fresco or rich +woodwork, mellowed by time into that harmony of tints which blends the +work of greater and lesser artists in one golden hue of brown. Round +the arcades of the convent-loggia run delicate arabesques with faces of +fair female saints—Catherine, Agnes, Lucy, Agatha,—gem-like or +star-like, gazing from their gallery 154upon the church below. The +Luinesque smile is on their lips and in their eyes, quiet, refined, as +though the emblems of their martyrdom brought back no thought of pain +to break the Paradise of rest in which they dwell. There are twenty-six +in all, a sisterhood of stainless souls, the lilies of Love's garden +planted round Christ's throne. Soldier saints are mingled with them in +still smaller rounds above the windows, chosen to illustrate the +virtues of an order which renounced the world. To decide whose hand +produced these masterpieces of Lombard suavity and grace, or whether +more than one, would not be easy. Near the altar we can perhaps trace +the style of Bartolommeo Suardi in an Annunciation painted on the +spandrils—that heroic style, large and noble, known to us by the +chivalrous S. Martin and the glorified Madonna of the Brera frescoes. +It is not impossible that the male saints of the loggia may be also +his, though a tenderer touch, a something more nearly Lionardesque in +its quietude, must be discerned in Lucy and her sisters. The whole of +the altar in this inner church belongs to Luini. Were it not for +darkness and decay, we should pronounce this series of the Passion in +nine great compositions, with saints and martyrs and torch-bearing +genii, to be one of his most ambitious and successful efforts. As it +is, we can but judge in part; the adolescent beauty of Sebastian, the +grave compassion of S. Rocco, the classical perfection of the cupid +with lighted tapers, the gracious majesty of women smiling on us +sideways from their Lombard eyelids—these remain to haunt our memory, +emerging from the shadows of the vault above. + +The inner church, as is fitting, excludes all worldly elements. We are +in the presence of Christ's agony, relieved and tempered by the +sunlight of those beauteous female faces. All is solemn here, still as +the convent, pure as the meditations 155of a novice. We pass the +septum, and find ourselves in the outer church appropriated to the +laity. Above the high altar the whole wall is covered with Luini's +loveliest work, in excellent light and far from ill preserved. The +space divides into eight compartments. A Pietà, an Assumption, Saints +and Founders of the church, group themselves under the influence of +Luini's harmonising colour into one symphonious whole. But the places +of distinction are reserved for two great benefactors of the convent, +Alessandro de' Bentivogli and his wife, Ippolita Sforza. When the +Bentivogli were expelled from Bologna by the Papal forces, Alessandro +settled at Milan, where he dwelt, honoured by the Sforzas and allied to +them by marriage, till his death in 1532. He was buried in the +monastery by the side of his sister Alessandra, a nun of the order. +Luini has painted the illustrious exile in his habit as he lived. He is +kneeling, as though in ever-during adoration of the altar mystery, +attired in a long black senatorial robe trimmed with furs. In his left +hand he holds a book; and above his pale, serenely noble face is a +little black berretta. Saints attend him, as though attesting to his +act of faith. Opposite kneels Ippolita, his wife, the brilliant queen +of fashion, the witty leader of society, to whom Bandello dedicated his +Novelle, and whom he praised as both incomparably beautiful and +singularly learned. Her queenly form is clothed from head to foot in +white brocade, slashed and trimmed with gold lace, and on her forehead +is a golden circlet. She has the proud port of a princess, the beauty +of a woman past her prime but stately, the indescribable dignity of +attitude which no one but Luini could have rendered so majestically +sweet. In her hand is a book; and she, like Alessandro, has her saintly +sponsors, Agnes and Catherine and S. Scolastica. + +Few pictures bring the splendid Milanese Court so vividly 156before us +as these portraits of the Bentivogli: they are, moreover, very precious +for the light they throw on what Luini could achieve in the secular +style so rarely touched by him. Great, however, as are these frescoes, +they are far surpassed both in value and interest by his paintings in +the side chapel of S. Catherine. Here more than anywhere else, more +even than at Saronno or Lugano, do we feel the true distinction of +Luini—his unrivalled excellence as a colourist, his power over pathos, +the refinement of his feeling, and the peculiar beauty of his favourite +types. The chapel was decorated at the expense of a Milanese advocate, +Francesco Besozzi, who died in 1529. It is he who is kneeling, +grey-haired and bareheaded, under the protection of S. Catherine of +Alexandria, intently gazing at Christ unbound from the scourging +pillar. On the other side stand S. Lawrence and S. Stephen, pointing to +the Christ and looking at us, as though their lips were framed to say: +'Behold and see if there be any sorrow like unto his sorrow.' Even the +soldiers who have done their cruel work, seem softened. They untie the +cords tenderly, and support the fainting form, too weak to stand alone. +What sadness in the lovely faces of S. Catherine and Lawrence! What +divine anguish in the loosened limbs and bending body of Christ; what +piety in the adoring old man! All the moods proper to this supreme +tragedy of the faith are touched as in some tenor song with low +accompaniment of viols; for it was Luini's special province to feel +profoundly and to express musically. The very depth of the Passion is +there; and yet there is no discord. + +Just in proportion to this unique faculty for yielding a melodious +representation of the most intense moments of stationary emotion, was +his inability to deal with a dramatic subject. The first episode of S. +Catherine's execution, when the wheel was broken and the executioners +struck by lightning, 157is painted in this chapel without energy and +with a lack of composition that betrays the master's indifference to +his subject. Far different is the second episode when Catherine is +about to be beheaded. The executioner has raised his sword to strike. +She, robed in brocade of black and gold, so cut as to display the curve +of neck and back, while the bosom is covered, leans her head above her +praying hands, and waits the blow in sweetest resignation. Two soldiers +stand at some distance in a landscape of hill and meadow; and far up +are seen the angels carrying her body to its tomb upon Mount Sinai. I +cannot find words or summon courage to describe the beauty of this +picture; its atmosphere of holy peace, the dignity of its composition, +the golden richness of its colouring. The most tragic situation has +here again been alchemised by Luini's magic into a pure idyll, without +the loss of power, without the sacrifice of edification. + +S. Catherine in this incomparable fresco is a portrait, the history of +which so strikingly illustrates the relation of the arts to religion on +the one hand, and to life on the other, in the age of the Renaissance, +that it cannot be omitted. At the end of his fourth Novella, having +related the life of the Contessa di Cellant, Bandello says: 'And so the +poor woman was beheaded; such was the end of her unbridled desires; and +he who would fain see her painted to the life, let him go to the Church +of the Monistero Maggiore, and there will he behold her portrait.' The +Contessa di Cellant was the only child of a rich usurer who lived at +Casal Monferrato. Her mother was a Greek; and she was a girl of such +exquisite beauty, that, in spite of her low origin, she became the wife +of the noble Ermes Visconti in her sixteenth year. He took her to live +with him at Milan, where she frequented the house of the Bentivogli, +but none other. Her husband told Bandello that he knew her temper +better than to let her visit 158with the freedom of the Milanese +ladies. Upon his death, while she was little more than twenty, she +retired to Casale and led a gay life among many lovers. One of these, +the Count of Cellant in the Val d'Aosta, became her second husband, +conquered by her extraordinary loveliness. They could not, however, +agree together. She left him, and established herself at Pavia. Rich +with her father's wealth and still of most seductive beauty, she now +abandoned herself to a life of profligacy. Three among her lovers must +be named: Ardizzino Valperga, Count of Masino; Roberto Sanseverino, of +the princely Naples family; and Don Pietro di Cardona, a Sicilian. With +each of the two first she quarrelled, and separately besought each to +murder the other. They were friends and frustrated her plans by +communicating them to one another. The third loved her with the insane +passion of a very young man. What she desired, he promised to do +blindly; and she bade him murder his two predecessors in her favour. At +this time she was living at Milan, where the Duke of Bourbon was acting +as viceroy for the Emperor. Don Pietro took twenty-five armed men of +his household, and waylaid the Count of Masino, as he was returning +with his brother and eight or nine servants, late one night from +supper. Both the brothers and the greater part of their suite were +killed: but Don Pietro was caught. He revealed the atrocity of his +mistress; and she was sent to prison. Incapable of proving her +innocence, and prevented from escaping, in spite of 15,000 golden +crowns with which she hoped to bribe her jailors, she was finally +beheaded. Thus did a vulgar and infamous Messalina, distinguished only +by rare beauty, furnish Luini with a S. Catherine for this masterpiece +of pious art! The thing seems scarcely credible. Yet Bandello lived in +Milan while the Church of S. Maurizio was being painted; nor does he +show the slightest sign of 159disgust at the discord between the +Contessa's life and her artistic presentation in the person of a royal +martyr. + +A HUMANIST'S MONUMENT + +In the Sculpture Gallery of the Brera is preserved a fair white marble +tomb, carved by that excellent Lombard sculptor, Agostino Busti. The +epitaph runs as follows:— + +En Virtutem Mortis nesciam. +Vivet Lancinus Curtius + Sæcula per omnia +Quascunque lustrans oras, +Tantum possunt Camoenæ. + +'Look here on Virtue that knows nought of Death! Lancinus Curtius shall +live through all the centuries, and visit every shore of earth. Such +power have the Muses.' The timeworn poet reclines, as though sleeping +or resting, ready to be waked; his head is covered with flowing hair, +and crowned with laurel; it leans upon his left hand. On either side of +his couch stand cupids or genii with torches turned to earth. Above is +a group of the three Graces, flanked by winged Pegasi. Higher up are +throned two Victories with palms, and at the top a naked Fame. We need +not ask who was Lancinus Curtius. He is forgotten, and his virtue has +not saved him from oblivion; though he strove in his lifetime, _pro +virili parte_, for the palm that Busti carved upon his grave. Yet his +monument teaches in short compass a deep lesson; and his epitaph sums +up the dream which lured the men of Italy in the Renaissance to their +doom. We see before us sculptured in this marble the ideal of the +humanistic poet-scholar's life: Love, Grace, the Muse, and Nakedness, +and Glory. There is not a single intrusive thought derived from +Christianity. The end for which the man lived was 160Pagan. His hope +was earthly fame. Yet his name survives, if this indeed be a survival, +not in those winged verses which were to carry him abroad across the +earth, but in the marble of a cunning craftsman, scanned now and then +by a wandering scholar's eye in the half-darkness of a vault. + +THE MONUMENT OF GASTON DE FOIX IN THE BRERA + +The hero of Ravenna lies stretched upon his back in the hollow of a +bier covered with laced drapery; and his head rests on richly +ornamented cushions. These decorative accessories, together with the +minute work of his scabbard, wrought in the fanciful mannerism of the +_cinquecento_, serve to enhance the statuesque simplicity of the young +soldier's effigy. The contrast between so much of richness in the +merely subordinate details, and this sublime severity of treatment in +the person of the hero, is truly and touchingly dramatic. There is a +smile as of content in death, upon his face; and the features are +exceedingly beautiful—with the beauty of a boy, almost of a woman. The +heavy hair is cut straight above the forehead and straight over the +shoulders, falling in massive clusters. A delicately sculptured laurel +branch is woven into a victor's crown, and laid lightly on the tresses +it scarcely seems to clasp. So fragile is this wreath that it does not +break the pure outline of the boy-conqueror's head. The armour is quite +plain. So is the surcoat. Upon the swelling bust, that seems fit +harbour for a hero's heart, there lies the collar of an order composed +of cockle-shells; and this is all the ornament given to the figure. The +hands are clasped across a sword laid flat upon the breast, and placed +between the legs. Upon the chin is a little tuft of hair, parted, and +curling either way; for the victor of Ravenna, like the Hermes of +Homer, was πρωτον ϋπμνήτμς, 'a 161youth of princely blood, whose beard +hath just begun to grow, for whom the season of bloom is in its prime +of grace.' The whole statue is the idealisation of _virtù_—that quality +so highly prized by the Italians and the ancients, so well fitted for +commemoration in the arts. It is the apotheosis of human life resolved +into undying memory because of one great deed. It is the supreme +portrait in modern times of a young hero, chiselled by artists +belonging to a race no longer heroic, but capable of comprehending and +expressing the æsthetic charm of heroism. Standing before it, we may +say of Gaston what Arrian wrote to Hadrian of Achilles:—'That he was a +hero, if hero ever lived, I cannot doubt; for his birth and blood were +noble, and he was beautiful, and his spirit was mighty, and he passed +in youth's prime away from men.' Italian sculpture, under the condition +of the _cinquecento_, had indeed no more congenial theme than this of +bravery and beauty, youth and fame, immortal honour and untimely death; +nor could any sculptor of death have poetised the theme more thoroughly +than Agostino Busti, whose simple instinct, unlike that of +Michelangelo, led him to subordinate his own imagination to the pathos +of reality. + +SARONNO + +The church of Saronno is a pretty building with a Bramantesque cupola, +standing among meadows at some distance from the little town. It is the +object of a special cult, which draws pilgrims from the neighbouring +country-side; but the concourse is not large enough to load the +sanctuary with unnecessary wealth. Everything is very quiet in the holy +place, and the offerings of the pious seem to have been only just +enough to keep the building and its treasures of art in repair. The +church consists of a nave, a 162central cupola, a vestibule leading to +the choir, the choir itself, and a small tribune behind the choir. No +other single building in North Italy can boast so much that is +first-rate of the work of Luini and Gandenzio Ferrari. + +The cupola is raised on a sort of drum composed of twelve pieces, +perforated with round windows and supported on four massive piers. On +the level of the eye are frescoes by Luini of S. Rocco, S. Sebastian, +S. Christopher, and S. Antony—by no means in his best style, and +inferior to all his other paintings in this church. The Sebastian, for +example, shows an effort to vary the traditional treatment of this +saint. He is tied in a sprawling attitude to a tree; and little of +Luini's special pathos or sense of beauty—the melody of idyllic grace +made spiritual—appears in him. These four saints are on the piers. +Above are frescoes from the early Bible history by Lanini, painted in +continuation of Ferrari's medallions from the story of Adam expelled +from Paradise, which fill the space beneath the cupola, leading the eye +upward to Ferrari's masterpiece. + +The dome itself is crowded with a host of angels singing and playing +upon instruments of music. At each of the twelve angles of the drum +stands a coryphaeus of this celestial choir, full length, with waving +drapery. Higher up, the golden-haired, broad-winged, divine creatures +are massed together, filling every square inch of the vault with +colour. Yet there is no confusion. The simplicity of the selected +motive and the necessities of the place acted like a check on Ferrari, +who, in spite of his dramatic impulse, could not tell a story +coherently or fill a canvas with harmonised variety. There is no trace +of his violence here. Though the motion of music runs through the whole +multitude like a breeze, though the joy expressed is a real _tripudio +celeste_, not one of all these angels flings his arms abroad or makes a +movement 163that disturbs the rhythm. We feel that they are keeping +time and resting quietly, each in his appointed seat, as though the +sphere was circling with them round the throne of God, who is their +centre and their source of gladness. Unlike Correggio and his +imitators, Ferrari has introduced no clouds, and has in no case made +the legs of his angels prominent. It is a mass of noble faces and +voluminously robed figures, emerging each above the other like flowers +in a vase. Bach too has specific character, while all are robust and +full of life, intent upon the service set them. Their instruments of +music are all the lutes and viols, flutes, cymbals, drums, fifes, +citherns, organs, and harps that Ferrari's day could show. The scale of +colour, as usual with Ferrari, is a little heavy; nor are the tints +satisfactorily harmonised. But the vigour and invention of the whole +work would atone for minor defects of far greater consequence. + +It is natural, beneath this dome, to turn aside and think one moment of +Correggio at Parma. Before the _macchinisti_ of the seventeenth century +had vulgarised the motive, Correggio's bold attempt to paint heaven in +flight from earth—earth left behind in the persons of the Apostles +standing round the empty tomb, heaven soaring upward with a spiral +vortex into the abyss of light above—had an originality which set at +nought all criticism. There is such ecstasy of jubilation, such +rapturous rapidity of flight, that we who strain our eyes from below, +feel we are in the darkness of the grave which Mary left. A kind of +controlling rhythm for the composition is gained by placing Gabriel, +Madonna, and Christ at three points in the swirl of angels. +Nevertheless, composition—the presiding all-controlling intellect—is +just what makes itself felt by absence; and Correggio's special +qualities of light and colour have now so far vanished from the cupola +of the Duomo that the, constructive poverty is not disguised. Here +164if anywhere in painting, we may apply Goethe's words—_Gefühl ist +Alles._ + +If then we return to Ferrari's angels at Saronno, we find that the +painter of Varallo chose a safer though a far more modest theme. Nor +did he expose himself to that most cruel of all degradations which the +ethereal genius of Correggio has suffered from incompetent imitators. +To daub a tawdry and superficial reproduction of those Parmese +frescoes, to fill the cupolas of Italy with veritable _guazzetti di +rane_, was comparatively easy; and between our intelligence and what +remains of that stupendous masterpiece of boldness, crowd a thousand +memories of such ineptitude. On the other hand, nothing but solid work +and conscientious inspiration could enable any workman, however able, +to follow Ferrari in the path struck out by him at Saronno. His cupola +has had no imitator; and its only rival is the noble pendant painted at +Varallo by his own hand, of angels in adoring anguish round the Cross. + +In the ante-choir of the sanctuary are Luini's priceless frescoes of +the 'Marriage of the Virgin,' and the 'Dispute with the Doctors.'[11] +Their execution is flawless, and they are perfectly preserved. If +criticism before such admirable examples of so excellent a master be +permissible, it may be questioned whether the figures are not too +crowded, whether the groups are sufficiently varied and connected by +rhythmic lines. Yet the concords of yellow and orange with blue in the +'Sposalizio,' and the blendings of dull violet and red in the +'Disputa,' make up for much of stiffness. Here, as in the Chapel of S. +Catherine at Milan, we feel that Luini was the greatest colourist among +_frescanti._ In the 'Sposalizio' the female heads are singularly noble +and idyllically graceful. Some of the young men too have Luini's +special grace and abundance of golden hair. In 165the 'Disputa' the +gravity and dignity of old men are above all things striking. + + [11] Both these and the large frescoes in the choir have been + chromolithographed by the Arundel Society. + +Passing into the choir, we find on either hand the 'Adoration of the +Magi' and the 'Purification of the Virgin,' two of Luini's divinest +frescoes. Above them in lunettes are four Evangelists and four Latin +Fathers, with four Sibyls. Time and neglect have done no damage here: +and here, again, perforce we notice perfect mastery of colour in +fresco. The blues detach themselves too much, perhaps, from the rest of +the colouring; and that is all a devil's advocate could say. It is +possible that the absence of blue makes the S. Catherine frescoes in +the Monastero Maggiore at Milan surpass all other works of Luini. But +nowhere else has he shown more beauty and variety in detail than here. +The group of women led by Joseph, the shepherd carrying the lamb upon +his shoulder, the girl with a basket of white doves, the child with an +apple on the altar-steps, the lovely youth in the foreground heedless +of the scene; all these are idyllic incidents treated with the purest, +the serenest, the most spontaneous, the truest, most instinctive sense +of beauty. The landscape includes a view of Saronno, and an episodical +picture of the 'Flight into Egypt' where a white-robed angel leads the +way. All these lovely things are in the 'Purification,' which is dated +_Bernardinus Lovinus pinxit_, MDXXV. + +The fresco of the 'Magi' is less notable in detail, and in general +effect is more spoiled by obtrusive blues. There is, however, one young +man of wholly Lionardesque loveliness, whose divine innocence of +adolescence, unalloyed by serious thought, unstirred by passions, +almost forces a comparison with Sodoma. The only painter who approaches +Luini in what may be called the Lombard, to distinguish it from the +Venetian idyll, is Sodoma; and the work of his which comes nearest to +Luini's masterpieces is the legend of S. Benedict, at 166Monte Oliveto, +near Siena. Yet Sodoma had not all Luini's innocence or _naïveté._ If +he added something slightly humorous which has an indefinite charm, he +lacked that freshness as of 'cool, meek-blooded flowers' and boyish +voices, which fascinates us in Luini. Sodoma was closer to the earth, +and feared not to impregnate what he saw of beauty with the fiercer +passions of his nature. If Luini had felt passion, who shall say? It +appears nowhere in his work, where life is toned to a religious +joyousness. When Shelley compared the poetry of the Theocritean +amourists to the perfume of the tuberose, and that of the earlier Greek +poets to 'a meadow-gale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the +flowers of the field,' he supplied us with critical images which may +not unfairly be used to point the distinction between Sodoma at Monte +Oliveto and Luini at Saronno. + +THE CASTELLO OF FERRARA + +Is it possible that the patron saints of cities should mould the temper +of the people to their own likeness? S. George, the chivalrous, is +champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the Cathedral porch, +so feudal in its medieval pomp. He and S. Michael are painted in fresco +over the south portcullis of the Castle. His lustrous armour gleams +with Giorgionesque brilliancy from Dossi's masterpiece in the +Pinacoteca. That Ferrara, the only place in Italy where chivalry struck +any root, should have had S. George for patron, is at any rate +significant. + +The best preserved relic of princely feudal life in Italy is this +Castello of the Este family, with its sombre moat, chained drawbridges, +doleful dungeons, and unnumbered tragedies, each one of which may be +compared with Parisina's history. I do not want to dwell on these +things now. It is enough to 167remember the Castello, built of ruddiest +brick, time-mellowed with how many centuries of sun and soft sea-air, +as it appeared upon the close of one tempestuous day. Just before +evening the rain-clouds parted and the sun flamed out across the misty +Lombard plain. The Castello burned like a hero's funeral pyre, and +round its high-built turrets swallows circled in the warm blue air. On +the moat slept shadows, mixed with flowers of sunset, tossed from +pinnacle and gable. Then the sky changed. A roof of thunder-cloud +spread overhead with the rapidity of tempest. The dying sun gathered +his last strength against it, fretting those steel-blue arches with +crimson; and all the fierce light, thrown from vault to vault of cloud, +was reflected back as from a shield, and cast in blots and patches on +the buildings. The Castle towered up rosy-red and shadowy sombre, +enshrined, embosomed in those purple clouds; and momently ran lightning +forks like rapiers through the growing mass. Everything around, +meanwhile, was quiet in the grass-grown streets. The only sound was a +high, clear boy's voice chanting an opera tune. + +PETRARCH'S TOMB AT ARQUA + +The drive from Este along the skirts of the Euganean Hills to Arqua +takes one through a country which is tenderly beautiful, because of its +contrast between little peaked mountains and the plain. It is not a +grand landscape. It lacks all that makes the skirts of Alps and +Apennines sublime. Its charm is a certain mystery and repose—an +undefined sense of the neighbouring Adriatic, a pervading consciousness +of Venice unseen, but felt from far away. From the terraces of Arqua +the eye ranges across olive-trees, laurels, and pomegranates on the +southern slopes, to the misty level land that melts into the sea, with +churches and tall campanili like 168gigantic galleys setting sail for +fairyland over 'the foam of perilous seas forlorn.' Let a blue-black +shadow from a thunder-cloud be cast upon this plain, and let one ray of +sunlight strike a solitary bell-tower;—it burns with palest flame of +rose against the steely dark, and in its slender shaft and shell-like +tint of pink all Venice is foreseen. + +The village church of Arqua stands upon one of these terraces, with a +full stream of clearest water flowing by. On the little square before +the church-door, where the peasants congregate at mass-time—open to the +skies with all their stars and storms, girdled by the hills, and within +hearing of the vocal stream—is Petrarch's sepulchre. Fit resting-place +for what remains to earth of such a poet's clay! It is as though +archangels, flying, had carried the marble chest and set it down here +on the hillside, to be a sign and sanctuary for after-men. A simple +rectilinear coffin, of smooth Verona _mandorlato_, raised on four thick +columns, and closed by a heavy cippus-cover. Without emblems, +allegories, or lamenting genii, this tomb of the great poet, the great +awakener of Europe from mental lethargy, encircled by the hills, +beneath the canopy of heaven, is impressive beyond the power of words. +Bending here, we feel that Petrarch's own winged thoughts and fancies, +eternal and aë;rial, 'forms more real than living man, nurslings of +immortality,' have congregated to be the ever-ministering and +irremovable attendants on the shrine of one who, while he lived, was +purest spirit in a veil of flesh. + +ON A MOUNTAIN + +Milan is shining in sunset on those purple fields; and a score of +cities flash back the last red light, which shows each inequality and +undulation of Lombardy outspread four thousand feet beneath. Both +ranges, Alps and Apennines, 169are clear to view; and all the silvery +lakes are over-canopied and brought into one picture by flame-litten +mists. Monte Rosa lifts her crown of peaks above a belt of clouds into +light of living fire. The Mischabelhörner and the Dom rest stationary +angel-wings upon the rampart, which at this moment is the wall of +heaven. The pyramid of distant Monte Viso burns like solid amethyst +far, far away. Mont Cervin beckons to his brother, the gigantic +Finsteraarhorn, across tracts of liquid ether. Bells are rising from +the villages, now wrapped in gloom, between me and the glimmering lake. +A hush of evening silence falls upon the ridges, cliffs, and forests of +this billowy hill, ascending into wave-like crests, and toppling with +awful chasms over the dark waters of Lugano. It is good to be alone +here at this hour. Yet I must rise and go—passing through meadows, +where white lilies sleep in silvery drifts, and asphodel is pale with +spires of faintest rose, and narcissus dreams of his own beauty, +loading the air with fragrance sweet as some love-music of Mozart. +These fields want only the white figure of Persephone to make them +poems: and in this twilight one might fancy that the queen had left her +throne by Pluto's side, to mourn for her dead youth among the flowers +uplifted between earth and heaven. Nay, they are poems now, these +fields; with that unchanging background of history, romance, and human +life—the Lombard plain, against whose violet breadth the blossoms bend +their faint heads to the evening air. Downward we hurry, on pathways +where the beeches meet, by silent farms, by meadows honey-scented, deep +in dew. The columbine stands tall and still on those green slopes of +shadowy grass. The nightingale sings now, and now is hushed again. +Streams murmur through the darkness, where the growth of trees, heavy +with honeysuckle and wild rose, is thickest. Fireflies begin to flit +above the growing 170corn. At last the plain is reached, and all the +skies are tremulous with starlight. Alas, that we should vibrate so +obscurely to these harmonies of earth and heaven! The inner finer sense +of them seems somehow unattainable—that spiritual touch of soul evoking +soul from nature, which should transfigure our dull mood of self into +impersonal delight. Man needs to be a mytho-poet at some moments, or, +better still, to be a mystic steeped through half-unconsciousness in +the vast wonder of the world. Gold and untouched to poetry or piety by +scenes that ought to blend the spirit in ourselves with spirit in the +world without, we can but wonder how this phantom show of mystery and +beauty will pass away from us—how soon—and we be where, see what, use +all our sensibilities on aught or nought? + +SIC GENIUS + +In the picture-gallery at Modena there is a masterpiece of Dosso Dossi. +The frame is old and richly carved; and the painting, bordered by its +beautiful dull gold, shines with the lustre of an emerald. In his happy +moods Dosso set colour upon canvas, as no other painter out of Venice +ever did; and here he is at his happiest. The picture is the portrait +of a jester, dressed in courtly clothes and with a feathered cap upon +his head. He holds a lamb in his arms, and carries the legend, _Sic +Genius_. Behind him is a landscape of exquisite brilliancy and depth. +His face is young and handsome. Dosso has made it one most wonderful +laugh. Even so perhaps laughed Yorick. Nowhere else have I seen a laugh +thus painted: not violent, not loud, although the lips are opened to +show teeth of dazzling whiteness;—but fine and delicate, playing over +the whole face like a ripple sent up from the depths of the soul +within. Who was he? What 171does the lamb mean? How should the legend +be interpreted? We cannot answer these questions. He may have been the +court-fool of Ferrara; and his genius, the spiritual essence of the +man, may have inclined him to laugh at all things. That at least is the +value he now has for us. He is the portrait of perpetual irony, the +spirit of the golden Sixteenth Century which delicately laughed at the +whole world of thoughts and things, the quintessence of the poetry of +Ariosto, the wit of Berni, all condensed into one incarnation and +immortalised by truthfullest art. With the Gaul, the Spaniard, and the +German at her gates, and in her cities, and encamped upon her fields, +Italy still laughed; and when the voice of conscience sounding through +Savonarola asked her why, she only smiled—_Sic Genius_. + +One evening in May we rowed from Venice to Torcello, and at sunset +broke bread and drank wine together among the rank grasses just outside +that ancient church. It was pleasant to sit in the so-called chair of +Attila and feel the placid stillness of the place. Then there came +lounging by a sturdy young fellow in brown country clothes, with a +marvellous old wide-awake upon his head, and across his shoulders a +bunch of massive church-keys. In strange contrast to his uncouth garb +he flirted a pink Japanese fan, gracefully disposing it to cool his +sunburned olive cheeks. This made us look at him. He was not ugly. Nay, +there was something of attractive in his face—the smooth-curved chin, +the shrewd yet sleepy eyes, and finely cut thin lips—a curious mixture +of audacity and meekness blent upon his features. Yet this impression +was but the prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath +of humour seeming to stir in him unbidden, the true meaning was given +to his face. Each feature helped to make a smile that was the very +soul's life of the man expressed. I broadened, showing 172brilliant +teeth, and grew into a noiseless laugh; and then I saw before me +Dosso's jester, the type of Shakspere's fools, the life of that wild +irony, now rude, now fine, which once delighted Courts. The laughter of +the whole world and of all the centuries was silent in his face. What +he said need not be repeated. The charm was less in his words than in +his personality; for Momus-philosophy lay deep in every look and +gesture of the man. The place lent itself to irony: parties of +Americans and English parsons, the former agape for any rubbishy old +things, the latter learned in the lore of obsolete Church-furniture, +had thronged Torcello; and now they were all gone, and the sun had set +behind the Alps, while an irreverent stranger drank his wine in +Attila's chair, and nature's jester smiled—_Sic Genius_. + +When I slept that night I dreamed of an altar-piece in the Temple of +Folly. The goddess sat enthroned beneath a canopy hung with bells and +corals. On her lap was a beautiful winged smiling genius, who +flourished two bright torches. On her left hand stood the man of Modena +with his white lamb, a new S. John. On her right stood the man of +Torcello with his keys, a new S. Peter. Both were laughing after their +all-absorbent, divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, +_Sic Genius_. Are not all things, even profanity, permissible in +dreams? + +173 + + + + +COMO AND IL MEDEGHINO + + +To which of the Italian lakes should the palm of beauty be accorded? +This question may not unfrequently have moved the idle minds of +travellers, wandering through that loveliest region from Orta to +Garda—from little Orta, with her gemlike island, rosy granite crags, +and chestnut-covered swards above the Colma; to Garda, bluest of all +waters, surveyed in majestic length from Desenzano or poetic Sirmione, +a silvery sleeping haze of hill and cloud and heaven and clear waves +bathed in modulated azure. And between these extreme points what varied +lovelinesses lie in broad Maggiore, winding Como, Varese with the +laughing face upturned to heaven, Lugano overshadowed by the crested +crags of Monte Generoso, and Iseo far withdrawn among the rocky Alps! +He who loves immense space, cloud shadows slowly sailing over purple +slopes, island gardens, distant glimpses of snow-capped mountains, +breadth, air, immensity, and flooding sunlight, will choose Maggiore. +But scarcely has he cast his vote for this, the Juno of the divine +rivals, when he remembers the triple lovelinesses of the Larian +Aphrodite, disclosed in all their placid grace from Villa +Serbelloni;—the green blue of the waters, clear as glass, opaque +through depth; the _millefleurs_ roses clambering into cypresses by +Cadenabbia; the laburnums hanging their yellow clusters from the clefts +of Sasso Eancio; the oleander arcades of Varenna; the wild white +limestone crags of San Martiuo, which he has climbed to feast his eyes +174with the perspective, magical, serene, Lionardesquely perfect, of +the distant gates of Adda. Then while this modern Paris is yet +doubting, perhaps a thought may cross his mind of sterner, solitary +Lake Iseo—the Pallas of the three. She offers her own attractions. The +sublimity of Monte Adamello, dominating Lovere and all the lowland like +Hesiod's hill of Virtue reared aloft above the plain of common life, +has charms to tempt heroic lovers. Nor can Varese be neglected. In some +picturesque respects, Varese is the most perfect of the lakes. Those +long lines of swelling hills that lead into the level, yield an +infinite series of placid foregrounds, pleasant to the eye by contrast +with the dominant snow-summits, from Monte Viso to Monte Leone: the sky +is limitless to southward; the low horizons are broken by bell-towers +and farmhouses; while armaments of clouds are ever rolling in the +interval of Alps and plain. + +Of a truth, to decide which is the queen of the Italian lakes, is but +an _infinita quæstio_; and the mere raising of it is folly. Still each +lover of the beautiful may give his vote; and mine, like that of +shepherd Paris, is already given to the Larian goddess. Words fail in +attempting to set forth charms which have to be enjoyed, or can at best +but lightly be touched with most consummate tact, even as great poets +have already touched on Como Lake—from Virgil with his 'Lari maxume,' +to Tennyson and the Italian Manzoni. The threshold of the shrine is, +however, less consecrated ground; and the Cathedral of Como may form a +vestibule to the temple where silence is more golden than the speech of +a describer. + +The Cathedral of Como is perhaps the most perfect building in Italy for +illustrating the fusion of Gothic and Renaissance styles, both of a +good type and exquisite in their sobriety. The Gothic ends with the +nave. The noble transepts and the choir, each terminating in a rounded +tribune of the same 175dimensions, are carried out in a simple and +decorous Bramantesque manner. The transition from the one style to the +other is managed so felicitously, and the sympathies between them are +so well developed, that there is no discord. What we here call Gothic, +is conceived in a truly southern spirit, without fantastic +efflorescence or imaginative complexity of multiplied parts; while the +Renaissance manner, as applied by Tommaso Rodari, has not yet stiffened +into the lifeless neo-Latinism of the later _cinquecento_: it is still +distinguished by delicate inventiveness, and beautiful subordination of +decorative detail to architectural effect. Under these happy conditions +we feel that the Gothic of the nave, with its superior severity and +sombreness, dilates into the lucid harmonies of choir and transepts +like a flower unfolding. In the one the mind is tuned to inner +meditation and religious awe; in the other the worshipper passes into a +temple of the clear explicit faith—as an initiated neophyte might be +received into the meaning of the mysteries. + +After the collapse of the Roman Empire the district of Como seems to +have maintained more vividly than the rest of Northern Italy some +memory of classic art. _Magistri Comacini_ is a title frequently +inscribed upon deeds and charters of the earlier middle ages, as +synonymous with sculptors and architects. This fact may help to account +for the purity and beauty of the Duomo. It is the work of a race in +which the tradition of delicate artistic invention had never been +wholly interrupted. To Tommaso Rodari and his brothers, Bernardino and +Jacopo, the world owes this sympathetic fusion of the Gothic and the +Bramantesque styles; and theirs too is the sculpture with which the +Duomo is so richly decorated. They were natives of Maroggia, a village +near Mendrisio, beneath the crests of Monte Generoso, close to +Campione, which sent so many able craftsmen out into the 176world +between the years 1300 and 1500. Indeed the name of Campionesi would +probably have been given to the Rodari, had they left their native +province for service in Eastern Lombardy. The body of the Duomo had +been finished when Tommaso Rodari was appointed master of the fabric in +1487. To complete the work by the addition of a tribune was his duty. +He prepared a wooden model and exposed it, after the fashion of those +times, for criticism in his _bottega_; and the usual difference of +opinion arose among the citizens of Como concerning its merits. +Cristoforo Solaro, surnamed Il Gobbo, was called in to advise. It may +be remembered that when Michelangelo first placed his Pietà in S. +Peter's, rumour gave it to this celebrated Lombard sculptor, and the +Florentine was constrained to set his own signature upon the marble. +The same Solaro carved the monument of Beatrice Sforza in the Certosa +of Pavia. He was indeed in all points competent to criticise or to +confirm the design of his fellow-craftsman. Il Gobbo disapproved of the +proportions chosen by Rodari, and ordered a new model to be made; but +after much discussion, and some concessions on the part of Rodari, who +is said to have increased the number of the windows and lightened the +orders of his model, the work was finally entrusted to the master of +Maroggia. + +Not less creditable than the general design of the tribune is the +sculpture executed by the brothers. The north side door is a +master-work of early Renaissance chiselling, combining mixed Christian +and classical motives with a wealth of floral ornament. Inside, over +the same door, is a procession of children seeming to represent the +Triumph of Bacchus, with perhaps some Christian symbolism. Opposite, +above the south door, is a frieze of fighting Tritons—horsed sea +deities pounding one another with bunches of fish and splashing the +water, in Mantegna's spirit. The doorways of the façade are +177decorated with the same rare workmanship; and the canopies, +supported by naked fauns and slender twisted figures, under which the +two Plinies are seated, may be reckoned among the supreme achievements +of delicate Renaissance sculpture. The Plinies are not like the work of +the same master. They are older, stiffer, and more Gothic. The chief +interest attaching to them is that they are habited and seated after +the fashion of Humanists. This consecration of the two Pagan saints +beside the portals of the Christian temple is truly characteristic of +the fifteenth century in Italy. Beneath, are little basreliefs +representing scenes from their respective lives, in the style of carved +predellas on the altars of saints. + +The whole church is peopled with detached statues, among which a +Sebastian in the Chapel of the Madonna must be mentioned as singularly +beautiful. It is a finely modelled figure, with the full life and +exuberant adolescence of Venetian inspiration. A peculiar feature of +the external architecture is the series of Atlantes, bearing on their +shoulders urns, heads of lions, and other devices, and standing on +brackets round the upper cornice just below the roof. They are of all +sorts; young and old, male and female; classically nude, and boldly +outlined. These water-conduits, the work of Bernardo Bianco and +Francesco Rusca, illustrate the departure of the earlier Renaissance +from the Gothic style. They are gargoyles; but they have lost the +grotesque element. At the same time the sculptor, while discarding +Gothic tradition, has not betaken himself yet to a servile imitation of +the antique. He has used invention, and substituted for grinning +dragons' heads something wild and bizarre of his own in harmony with +classic taste. + +The pictures in the chapels, chiefly by Luini and Ferrari—an idyllic +Nativity, with faun-like shepherds and choirs of angels—a sumptuous +adoration of the Magi—a jewelled 178Sposalizio with abundance of golden +hair flowing over draperies of green and crimson—will interest those +who are as yet unfamiliar with Lombard painting. Yet their +architectural setting, perhaps, is superior to their intrinsic merit as +works of art; and their chief value consists in adding rare dim flakes +of colour to the cool light of the lovely church. More curious, because +less easily matched, is the gilded woodwork above the altar of S. +Abondio, attributed to a German carver, but executed for the most part +in the purest Luinesque manner. The pose of the enthroned Madonna, the +type and gesture of S. Catherine, and the treatment of the Pietà above, +are thoroughly Lombard, showing how Luini's ideal of beauty could be +expressed in carving. Some of the choicest figures in the Monastero +Maggiore at Milan seem to have descended from the walls and stepped +into their tabernacles on this altar. Yet the style is not maintained +consistently. In the reliefs illustrating the life of S. Abondio we +miss Luini's childlike grace, and find instead a something that reminds +us of Donatello—a seeking after the classical in dress, carriage, and +grouping of accessory figures. It may have been that the carver, +recognising Luini's defective composition, and finding nothing in that +master's manner adapted to the spirit of relief, had the good taste to +render what was Luinesquely lovely in his female figures, and to fall +back on a severer model for his basreliefs. + +The building-fund for the Duomo was raised in Como and its districts. +Boxes were placed in all the churches to receive the alms of those who +wished to aid the work. The clergy begged in Lent, and preached the +duty of contributing on special days. Presents of lime and bricks and +other materials were thankfully received. Bishops, canons, and +municipal magistrates were expected to make costly gifts on taking +office. Notaries, under penalty of paying 100 soldi if they +179neglected their engagement, were obliged to persuade testators, _cum +bonis modis dulciter_, to inscribe the Duomo on their wills. Fines for +various offences were voted to the building by the city. Each new +burgher paid a certain sum; while guilds and farmers of the taxes +bought monopolies and privileges at the price of yearly subsidies. A +lottery was finally established for the benefit of the fabric. Of +course each payment to the good work carried with it spiritual +privileges; and so willingly did the people respond to the call of the +Church, that during the sixteenth century the sums subscribed amounted +to 200,000 golden crowns. Among the most munificent donators are +mentioned the Marchese Giacomo Gallio, who bequeathed 290,000 lire, and +a Benzi, who gave 10,000 ducats. + +While the people of Como were thus straining every nerve to complete a +pious work, which at the same time is one of the most perfect +masterpieces of Italian art, their lovely lake was turned into a +pirate's stronghold, and its green waves stained with slaughter of +conflicting navies. So curious is this episode in the history of the +Larian lake that it is worth while to treat of it at some length. +Moreover, the lives of few captains of adventure offer matter more rich +in picturesque details and more illustrative of their times than that +of Gian Giacomo de' Medici, the Larian corsair, long known and still +remembered as Il Medeghino. He was born in Milan in 1498, at the +beginning of that darkest and most disastrous period of Italian +history, when the old fabric of social and political existence went to +ruin under the impact of conflicting foreign armies. He lived on until +the year 1555, witnessing and taking part in the dismemberment of the +Milanese Duchy, playing a game of hazard at high stakes for his own +profit with the two last Sforzas, the Empire, the French, and the +Swiss. At the beginning of the century, 180while he was still a youth, +the rich valley of the Valtelline, with Bormio and Chiavenna, had been +assigned to the Grisons. The Swiss Cantons at the same time had +possessed themselves of Lugano and Bellinzona. By these two acts of +robbery the mountaineers tore a portion of its fairest territory from +the Duchy; and whoever ruled in Milan, whether a Sforza, or a Spanish +viceroy, or a French general, was impatient to recover the lost jewel +of the ducal crown. So much has to be premised, because the scene of +our hero's romantic adventures was laid upon the borderland between the +Duchy and the Cantons. Intriguing at one time with the Duke of Milan, +at another with his foes the French or Spaniards, Il Medeghino found +free scope for his peculiar genius in a guerilla warfare, carried on +with the avowed purpose of restoring the Valtelline to Milan. To steer +a plain course through that chaos of politics, in which the modern +student, aided by the calm clear lights of history and meditation, +cannot find a clue, was of course impossible for an adventurer whose +one aim was to gratify his passions and exalt himself at the expense of +others. It is therefore of little use to seek motives of statecraft or +of patriotism in the conduct of Il Medeghino. He was a man shaped +according to Machiavelli's standard of political morality—self-reliant, +using craft and force with cold indifference to moral ends, bent only +upon wringing for himself the largest share of this world's power for +men who, like himself, identified virtue with unflinching and +immitigable egotism. + +Il Medeghino's father was Bernardo de' Medici, a Lombard, who neither +claimed nor could have proved cousinship with the great Medicean family +of Florence. His mother was Cecilia Serbelloni. The boy was educated in +the fashionable humanistic studies, nourishing his young imagination +with the tales of Roman heroes. The first exploit by which he 181proved +his _virtù_, was the murder of a man he hated, at the age of sixteen. +This 'virile act of vengeance,' as it was called, brought him into +trouble, and forced him to choose the congenial profession of arms. At +a time when violence and vigour passed for manliness, a spirited +assassination formed the best of introductions to the captains of mixed +mercenary troops. Il Medeghino rose in favour with his generals, helped +to reinstate Francesco Sforza in his capital, and, returning himself to +Milan, inflicted severe vengeance on the enemies who had driven him to +exile. It was his ambition, at this early period of his life, to be +made governor of the Castle of Musso, on the Lake of Como. While +fighting in the neighbourhood, he had observed the unrivalled +capacities for defence presented by its site; and some pre-vision of +his future destinies now urged him to acquire it, as the basis for the +free marauding life he planned. The headland of Musso lies about +halfway between Gravedona and Menaggio, on the right shore of the Lake +of Como. Planted on a pedestal of rock, and surmounted by a sheer +cliff, there then stood a very ancient tower, commanding this +promontory on the side of the land. Between it and the water the +Visconti, in more recent days, had built a square fort; and the +headland had been further strengthened by the addition of connecting +walls and bastions pierced for cannon. Combining precipitous cliffs, +strong towers, and easy access from the lake below, this fortress of +Musso was exactly the fit station for a pirate. So long as he kept the +command of the lake, he had little to fear from land attacks, and had a +splendid basis for aggressive operations. Il Medeghino made his request +to the Duke of Milan; but the foxlike Sforza would not grant him a +plain answer. At length he hinted that if his suitor chose to rid him +of a troublesome subject, the noble and popular Astore Yisconti, he +should receive 182Musso for payment. Crimes of bloodshed and treason +sat lightly on the adventurer's conscience. In a short time he +compassed the young Visconti's death, and claimed his reward. The Duke +despatched him thereupon to Musso, with open letters to the governor, +commanding him to yield the castle to the bearer. Private advice, also +entrusted to Il Medeghino, bade the governor, on the contrary, cut the +bearer's throat. The young man, who had the sense to read the Duke's +letter, destroyed the secret document, and presented the other, or, as +one version of the story goes, forged a ducal order in his own +favour.[12] At any rate, the castle was placed in his hands; and +affecting to know nothing of the Duke's intended treachery, Il +Medeghino took possession of it as a trusted servant of the ducal +crown. + + [12] I cannot see clearly through these transactions, the muddy waters + of decadent Italian plot and counterplot being inscrutable to senses + assisted by nothing more luminous than mere tradition. + +As soon as he was settled in his castle, the freebooter devoted all his +energies to rendering it still more impregnable by strengthening the +walls and breaking the cliffs into more horrid precipices. In this work +he was assisted by his numerous friends and followers; for Musso +rapidly became, like ancient Rome, an asylum for the ruffians and +outlaws of neighbouring provinces. It is even said that his sisters, +Clarina and Margherita, rendered efficient aid with manual labour. The +mention of Clarina's name justifies a parenthetical side-glance at Il +Medeghino's pedigree, which will serve to illustrate the exceptional +conditions of Italian society during this age. She was married to the +Count Giberto Borromeo, and became the mother of the pious Carlo +Borromeo, whose shrine is still adored at Milan in the Duomo. Il +Medeghino's brother, Giovan Angelo, rose to the Papacy, assuming the +title of Pius IV. Thus this murderous 183marauder was the brother of a +Pope and the uncle of a Saint; and these three persons of one family +embraced the various degrees and typified the several characters which +flourished with peculiar lustre in Renaissance Italy—the captain of +adventure soaked in blood, the churchman unrivalled for intrigue, and +the saint aflame with holiest enthusiasm. Il Medeghino was short of +stature, but well made and powerful; broad-chested; with a penetrating +voice and winning countenance. He dressed simply, like one of his own +soldiers; slept but little; was insensible to carnal pleasure; and +though he knew how to win the affection of his men by jovial speech, he +maintained strict discipline in his little army. In all points he was +an ideal bandit chief, never happy unless fighting or planning +campaigns, inflexible of purpose, bold and cunning in the execution of +his schemes, cruel to his enemies, generous to his followers, +sacrificing all considerations, human and divine, to the one aim of his +life, self-aggrandisement by force and intrigue. He knew well how to +make himself both feared and respected. One instance of his dealing +will suffice. A gentleman of Bellano, Polidoro Boldoni, in return to +his advances, coldly replied that he cared for neither amity nor +relationship with thieves and robbers; whereupon Il Medeghino +extirpated his family, almost to a man. + +Soon after his settlement in Musso, Il Medeghino, wishing to secure the +gratitude of the Duke, his master, began war with the Grisons. From +Coire, from the Engadine, and from Davos, the Alpine pikemen were now +pouring down to swell the troops of Francis I.; and their road lay +through the Lake of Como. Il Medeghino burned all the boats upon the +lake, except those which he took into his own service, and thus made +himself master of the water passage. He then swept the 'length of +lordly Lario' from Colico to Lecco, harrying 184the villages upon the +shore, and cutting off the bands of journeying Switzers at his +pleasure. Not content with this guerilla, he made a descent upon the +territory of the Trepievi, and pushed far up towards Chiavenna, forcing +the Grisons to recall their troops from the Milanese. These acts of +prowess convinced the Duke that he had found a strong ally in the +pirate chief. "When Francis I. continued his attacks upon the Duchy, +and the Grisons still adhered to their French paymaster, the Sforza +formally invested Gian Giacomo de' Medici with the perpetual +governorship of Musso, the Lake of Como, and as much as he could wrest +from the Grisons above the lake. Furnished now with a just title for +his depredations, Il Medeghino undertook the siege of Chiavenna. That +town is the key to the valleys of the Splügen and Bregaglia. Strongly +fortified and well situated for defence, the burghers of the Grisons +well knew that upon its possession depended their power in the Italian +valleys. To take it by assault was impossible, Il Medeghino used craft, +entered the castle, and soon had the city at his disposition. Nor did +he lose time in sweeping Val Bregaglia. The news of this conquest +recalled the Switzers from the Duchy; and as they hurried homeward just +before the battle of Pavia, it may be affirmed that Gian Giacomo de' +Medici was instrumental in the defeat and capture of the French King. +The mountaineers had no great difficulty in dislodging their pirate +enemy from Chiavenna, the Valtelline, and Val Bregaglia. But he +retained his hold on the Trepievi, occupied the Valsassina, took +Porlezza, and established himself still more strongly in Musso as the +corsair monarch of the lake. + +The tyranny of the Sforzas in Milan was fast going to pieces between +France and Spain; and in 1526 the Marquis of Pescara occupied the +capital in the name of Charles V. The Duke, meanwhile, remained a +prisoner in his Castello. 185Il Medeghino was now without a master; for +he refused to acknowledge the Spaniards, preferring to watch events and +build his own power on the ruins of the dukedom. At the head of 4,000 +men, recruited from the lakes and neighbouring valleys, he swept the +country far and wide, and occupied the rich champaign of the Brianza. +He was now lord of the lakes of Como and Lugano, and absolute in Lecco +and the adjoining valleys. The town of Como itself alone belonged to +the Spaniards; and even Como was blockaded by the navy of the corsair. +Il Medeghino had a force of seven big ships, with three sails and +forty-eight oars, bristling with guns and carrying marines. His +flagship was a large brigantine, manned by picked rowers, from the mast +of which floated the red banner with the golden palle of the Medicean +arms. Besides these larger vessels, he commanded a flotilla of +countless small boats. It is clear that to reckon with him was a +necessity. If he could not be put down with force, he might be bought +over by concessions. The Spaniards adopted the second course, and Il +Medeghino, judging that the cause of the Sforza family was desperate, +determined in 1528 to attach himself to the Empire. Charles V. invested +him with the Castle of Musso and the larger part of Como Lake, +including the town of Lecco. He now assumed the titles of Marquis of +Musso and Count of Lecco: and in order to prove his sovereignty before +the world, he coined money with his own name and devices. + +It will be observed that Gian Giacomo de' Medici had hitherto acted +with a single-hearted view to his own interests. At the age of thirty +he had raised himself from nothing to a principality, which, though +petty, might compare with many of some name in Italy—with Carpi, for +example, or Mirandola, or Camerino. Nor did he mean to remain quiet in +the prime of life. He regarded Como Lake as the mere basis for more +186arduous undertakings. Therefore, when the whirligig of events +restored Francesco Sforza to his duchy in 1529, Il Medeghino refused to +obey his old lord. Pretending to move under the Duke's orders, but +really acting for himself alone, he proceeded to attack his ancient +enemies, the Grisons. By fraud and force he worked his way into their +territory, seized Morbegno, and overran the Valtelline. He was +destined, however, to receive a serious check. Twelve thousand Switzers +rose against him on the one hand, on the other the Duke of Milan sent a +force by land and water to subdue his rebel subject, while Alessandro +Gonzaga marched upon his castles in the Brianza. He was thus assailed +by formidable forces from three quarters, converging upon the Lake of +Como, and driving him to his chosen element, the water. Hastily +quitting the Valtelline, he fell back to the Castle of Mandello on the +lake, collected his navy, and engaged the ducal ships in a battle off +Menaggio. In this battle he was worsted. But he did not lose his +courage. From Bellagio, from Varenna, from Bellano he drove forth his +enemies, rolled the cannon of the Switzers into the lake, regained +Lecco, defeated the troops of Alessandro Gonzaga, and took the Duke of +Mantua prisoner. Had he but held Como, it is probable that he might +have obtained such terms at this time as would have consolidated his +tyranny. The town of Como, however, now belonged to the Duke of Milan, +and formed an excellent basis for operations against the pirate. +Overmatched, with an exhausted treasury and broken forces, Il Medeghino +was at last compelled to give in. Yet he retired with all the honours +of war. In exchange for Musso and the lake, the Duke agreed to give him +35,000 golden crowns, together with the feud and marquisate of +Marignano. A free pardon was promised not only to himself and his +brothers, but to all his followers; and the Duke further undertook to +transport his 187artillery and munitions of war at his own expense to +Marignano. Having concluded this treaty under the auspices of Charles +V. and his lieutenant, Il Medeghino, in March 1532, set sail from +Musso, and turned his back upon the lake for ever. The Switzers +immediately destroyed the towers, forts, walls, and bastions of the +Musso promontory, leaving in the midst of their ruins the little chapel +of S. Eufemia. + +Gian Giacomo de' Medici, henceforth known to Europe as the Marquis of +Marignano, now took service under Spain; and through the favour of +Anton de Leyva, Viceroy for the Duchy, rose to the rank of Field +Marshal. When the Marquis del Vasto succeeded to the Spanish +governorship of Milan in 1536, he determined to gratify an old grudge +against the ex-pirate, and, having invited him to a banquet, made him +prisoner. II Medeghino was not, however, destined to languish in a +dungeon. Princes and kings interested themselves in his fate. He was +released, and journeyed to the court of Charles V. in Spain. The +Emperor received him kindly, and employed him first in the Low +Countries, where he helped to repress the burghers of Ghent, and at the +siege of Landrecy commanded the Spanish artillery against other Italian +captains of adventure: for, Italy being now dismembered and enslaved, +her sons sought foreign service where they found best pay and widest +scope for martial science. Afterwards the Medici ruled Bohemia as +Spanish Viceroy; and then, as general of the league formed by the Duke +of Florence, the Emperor, and the Pope to repress the liberties of +Tuscany, distinguished himself in that cruel war of extermination, +which turned the fair Contado of Siena into a poisonous Maremma. To the +last Il Medeghino preserved the instincts and the passions of a brigand +chief. It was at this time that, acting for the Grand Duke of Tuscany, +he first claimed open kinship with the Medici of Florence. Heralds and +188genealogists produced a pedigree, which seemed to authorise this +pretension; he was recognised, together with his brother, Pius IV., as +an offshoot of the great house which had already given Dukes to +Florence, Kings to France, and two Popes to the Christian world. In the +midst of all this foreign service he never forgot his old dream of +conquering the Valtelline; and in 1547 he made proposals to the Emperor +for a new campaign against the Grisons. Charles V. did not choose to +engage in a war, the profits of which would have been inconsiderable +for the master of half the civilised world, and which might have proved +troublesome by stirring up the tameless Switzers. Il Medeghino was +obliged to abandon a project cherished from the earliest dawn of his +adventurous manhood. + +When Gian Giacomo died in 1555, his brother Battista succeeded to his +claims upon Lecco and the Trepievi. His monument, magnificent with five +bronze figures, the masterpiece of Leone Lioni, from Menaggio, +Michelangelesque in style, and of consummate workmanship, still adorns +the Duomo of Milan. It stands close by the door that leads to the roof. +This mausoleum, erected to the memory of Gian Giacomo and his brother +Gabrio, is said to have cost 7800 golden crowns. On the occasion of the +pirate's funeral the Senate of Milan put on mourning, and the whole +city followed the great robber, the hero of Renaissance _virtù_, to the +grave. + +Between the Cathedral of Como and the corsair Medeghino there is but a +slight link. Yet so extraordinary were the social circumstances of +Renaissance Italy, that almost at every turn, on her seaboard, in her +cities, from her hill-tops, we are compelled to blend our admiration +for the loveliest and purest works of art amid the choicest scenes of +nature with memories of execrable crimes and lawless characters. +Sometimes, as at Perugia, the _nexus_ is but local. At others, one +189single figure, like that of Cellini, unites both points of view in a +romance of unparalleled dramatic vividness. Or, again, beneath the +vaults of the Certosa, near Pavia, a masterpiece of the serenest beauty +carries our thoughts perforce back to the hideous cruelties and +snake-like frauds of its despotic founder. This is the excuse for +combining two such diverse subjects in one study. + +190 + + + + +BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI + + +From the new town of commerce to the old town of history upon the hill, +the road is carried along a rampart lined, with horse-chestnut +trees—clumps of massy foliage, and snowy pyramids of bloom, expanded in +the rapture of a southern spring. Each pair of trees between their +stems and arch of intermingling leaves includes a space of plain, +checkered with cloud-shadows, melting blue and green in amethystine +haze. To right and left the last spurs of the Alps descend, jutting +like promontories, heaving like islands from the misty breadth below: +and here and there are towers, half-lost in airy azure; and cities +dwarfed to blots; and silvery lines where rivers flow; and distant, +vapour-drowned, dim crests of Apennines. The city walls above us wave +with snapdragons and iris among fig-trees sprouting from the riven +stones. There are terraces over-rioted with pergolas of vine, and +houses shooting forward into balconies and balustrades, from which a +Romeo might launch himself at daybreak, warned by the lark's song. A +sudden angle in the road is turned, and we pass from airspace and +freedom into the old town, beneath walls of dark brown masonry, where +wild valerians light their torches of red bloom in immemorial shade. +Squalor and splendour live here side by side. Grand Renaissance portals +grinning with Satyr masks are flanked by tawdry frescoes shamming +stonework, or by doorways where the withered bush hangs out a promise +of bad wine. 191The Cappella Colleoni is our destination, that +masterpiece of the sculptor-architect's craft, with its variegated +marbles,—rosy and white and creamy yellow and jet-black,—in patterns, +basreliefs, pilasters, statuettes, encrusted on the fanciful domed +shrine. Upon the façade are mingled, in the true Renaissance spirit of +genial acceptance, motives Christian and Pagan with supreme +impartiality. Medallions of emperors and gods alternate with virtues, +angels and cupids in a maze of loveliest arabesque; and round the base +of the building are told two stories—the one of Adam from his creation +to his fall, the other of Hercules and his labours. Italian craftsmen +of the _quattrocento_ were not averse to setting thus together, in one +framework, the myths of our first parents and Alemena's son: partly +perhaps because both subjects gave scope to the free treatment of the +nude; but partly also, we may venture to surmise, because the heroism +of Hellas counterbalanced the sin of Eden. Here then we see how Adam +and Eve were made and tempted and expelled from Paradise and set to +labour, how Cain killed Abel, and Lamech slew a man to his hurt, and +Isaac was offered on the mountain. The tale of human sin and the +promise of redemption are epitomised in twelve of the sixteen +basreliefs. The remaining four show Hercules wrestling with Antæus, +taming the Nemean lion, extirpating the Hydra, and bending to his will +the bull of Crete. Labour, appointed for a punishment to Adam, becomes +a title to immortality for the hero. The dignity of man is reconquered +by prowess for the Greek, as it is repurchased for the Christian by +vicarious suffering. Many may think this interpretation of Amadeo's +basreliefs far-fetched; yet, such as it is, it agrees with the spirit +of Humanism, bent ever on harmonising the two great traditions of the +past. Of the workmanship little need be said, except that it is wholly +Lombard, distinguished from the similar work of Della 192Quercia at +Bologna and Siena by a more imperfect feeling for composition, and a +lack of monumental gravity, yet graceful, rich in motives, and instinct +with a certain wayward _improvvisatore_ charm. + +This Chapel was built by the great Condottiere Bartolommeo Colleoni, to +be the monument of his puissance even in the grave. It had been the +Sacristy of S. Maria Maggiore, which, when the Consiglio della +Misericordia refused it to him for his half-proud, half-pious purpose, +he took and held by force. The structure, of costliest materials, +reared by Gian Antonio Amadeo, cost him 50,000 golden florins. An +equestrian statue of gilt wood, voted to him by the town of Bergamo, +surmounts his monument inside the Chapel. This was the work of two +German masters, called 'Sisto figlio di Enrico Syri da Norimberga' and +'Leonardo Tedesco.' The tomb itself is of marble, executed for the most +part in a Lombard style resembling Amadeo's, but scarcely worthy of his +genius. The whole effect is disappointing. Five figures representing +Mars, Hercules, and three sons-in-law of Colleoni, who surround the +sarcophagus of the buried general, are indeed almost grotesque. The +angularity and crumpled draperies of the Milanese manner, when so +exaggerated, produce an impression of caricature. Yet many subordinate +details—a row of _putti_ in a _cinquecento_ frieze, for instance—and +much of the low relief work—especially the Crucifixion with its +characteristic episodes of the fainting Maries and the soldiers casting +dice—are lovely in their unaffected Lombardism. + +There is another portrait of Colleoni in a round above the great door, +executed with spirit, though in a _bravura_ style that curiously +anticipates the decline of Italian sculpture. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with +prominent cheek bones and strong jaws, this animated, half-length +statue of the hero bears the 193stamp of a good likeness; but when or +by whom it was made, I do not know. + +Far more noteworthy than Colleoni's own monument is that of his +daughter Medea. She died young in 1470, and her father caused her tomb, +carved of Carrara marble, to be placed in the Dominican Church of +Basella, which he had previously founded. It was not until 1842 that +this most precious masterpiece of Antonio Amadeo's skill was +transferred to Bergamo. _Hic jacet Medea virgo._ Her hands are clasped +across her breast. A robe of rich brocade, gathered to the waist and +girdled, lies in simple folds upon the bier. Her throat, exceedingly +long and slender, is circled with a string of pearls. Her face is not +beautiful, for the features, especially the nose, are large and +prominent; but it is pure and expressive of vivid individuality. The +hair curls in crisp short clusters, and the ear, fine and shaped almost +like a Faun's, reveals the scrupulous fidelity of the sculptor. Italian +art has, in truth, nothing more exquisite than this still sleeping +figure of the girl, who, when she lived, must certainly have been so +rare of type and lovable in personality. If Busti's Lancinus Curtius be +the portrait of a humanist, careworn with study, burdened by the laurel +leaves that were so dry and dusty—if Gaston de Foix in the Brera, +smiling at death and beautiful in the cropped bloom of youth, idealise +the hero of romance—if Michelangelo's Penseroso translate in marble the +dark broodings of a despot's soul—if Della Porta's Julia Farnese be the +Roman courtesan magnificently throned in nonchalance at a Pope's +footstool—if Verocchio's Colleoni on his horse at Venice impersonate +the pomp and circumstance of scientific war—surely this Medea exhales +the flower-like graces, the sweet sanctities of human life, that even +in that turbid age were found among high-bred Italian ladies. Such +power have mighty sculptors, even in our 194modern world, to make the +mute stone speak in poems and clasp the soul's life of a century in +some five or six transcendent forms. + +The Colleoni, or Coglioni, family were of considerable antiquity and +well-authenticated nobility in the town of Bergamo. Two lions' heads +conjoined formed one of their canting ensigns; another was borrowed +from the vulgar meaning of their name. Many members of the house held +important office during the three centuries preceding the birth of the +famous general, Bartolommeo. He was born in the year 1400 at Solza, in +the Bergamasque Contado. His father Paolo, or Pùho as he was commonly +called, was poor and exiled from the city, together with the rest of +the Guelf nobles, by the Visconti. Being a man of daring spirit, and +little inclined to languish in a foreign state as the dependent on some +patron, Pùho formed the bold design of seizing the Castle of Trezzo. +This he achieved in 1405 by fraud, and afterwards held it as his own by +force. Partly with the view of establishing himself more firmly in his +acquired lordship, and partly out of family affection, Pùho associated +four of his first-cousins in the government of Trezzo. They repaid his +kindness with an act of treason and cruelty, only too characteristic of +those times in Italy. One day while he was playing at draughts in a +room of the Castle, they assaulted him and killed him, seized his wife +and the boy Bartolommeo, and flung them into prison. The murdered Pùho +had another son, Antonio, who escaped and took refuge with Giorgio +Benzone, the tyrant of Crema. After a short time the Colleoni brothers +found means to assassinate him also; therefore Bartolommeo alone, a +child of whom no heed was taken, remained to be his father's avenger. +He and his mother lived together in great indigence at Solza, until the +lad felt strong enough to enter the service of one of the numerous +195petty Lombard princes, and to make himself if possible a captain of +adventure. His name alone was a sufficient introduction, and the Duchy +of Milan, dismembered upon the death of Gian Maria Visconti, was in +such a state that all the minor despots were increasing their forces +and preparing to defend by arms the fragments they had seized from the +Visconti heritage. Bartolommeo therefore had no difficulty in +recommending himself to Filippo d'Arcello, sometime general in the pay +of the Milanese, but now the new lord of Piacenza. With this master he +remained as page for two or three years, learning the use of arms, +riding, and training himself in the physical exercises which were +indispensable to a young Italian soldier. Meanwhile Filippo Maria +Visconti reacquired his hereditary dominions; and at the age of twenty, +Bartolommeo found it prudent to seek a patron stronger than d'Arcello. +The two great Condottieri, Sforza Attendolo and Braccio, divided the +military glories of Italy at this period; and any youth who sought to +rise in his profession, had to enrol himself under the banners of the +one or the other. Bartolommeo chose Braccio for his master, and was +enrolled among his men as a simple trooper, or _ragazzo_, with no +better prospects than he could make for himself by the help of his +talents and his borrowed horse and armour. Braccio at this time was in +Apulia, prosecuting the war of the Neapolitan Succession disputed +between Alfonso of Aragon and Louis of Anjou under the weak sovereignty +of Queen Joan. On which side of a quarrel a Condottiere fought mattered +but little: so great was the confusion of Italian politics, and so +complete was the egotism of these fraudful, violent, and treacherous +party leaders. Yet it may be mentioned that Braccio had espoused +Alfonso's cause. Bartolommeo Colleoni early distinguished himself among +the ranks of the Bracceschi. But he soon perceived that he could +196better his position by deserting to another camp. Accordingly he +offered his services to Jacopo Caldora, one of Joan's generals, and +received from him a commission of twenty men-at-arms. It may here be +parenthetically said that the rank and pay of an Italian captain varied +with the number of the men he brought into the field. His title +'Condofctiere' was derived from the circumstance that he was said to +have received a _Condotta di venti cavalli_, and so forth. Each +_cavallo_ was equal to one mounted man-at-arms and two attendants, who +were also called _ragazzi_. It was his business to provide the +stipulated number of men, to keep them in good discipline, and to +satisfy their just demands. Therefore an Italian army at this epoch +consisted of numerous small armies varying in size, each held together +by personal engagements to a captain, and all dependent on the will of +a general-in-chief, who had made a bargain with some prince or republic +for supplying a fixed contingent of fighting-men. The _Condottiere_ was +in other words a contractor or _impresario_, undertaking to do a +certain piece of work for a certain price, and to furnish the requisite +forces for the business in good working order. It will be readily seen +upon this system how important were the personal qualities of the +captain, and what great advantages those Condottieri had, who, like the +petty princes of Romagna and the March, the Montefeltri, Ordelaffi, +Malatesti, Manfredi, Orsini, and Vitelli, could rely upon a race of +hardy vassals for their recruits. It 239is not necessary to follow +Colleoni's fortunes in the Regno, at Aquila, Ancona, and Bologna. He +continued in the service of Caldora, who was now General of the Church, +and had his _Condotta_ gradually increased. Meanwhile his cousins, the +murderers of his father, began to dread his rising power, and +determined, if possible, to ruin him. He was not a man to be easily +assassinated; so they sent a hired ruffian 197to Caldora's camp to say +that Bartolommeo had taken his name by fraud, and that he was himself +the real son of Pùho Colleoni. Bartolommeo defied the liar to a duel; +and this would have taken place before the army, had not two witnesses +appeared, who knew the fathers of both Colleoni and the _bravo_, and +who gave such evidence that the captains of the army were enabled to +ascertain the truth. The impostor was stripped and drummed out of the +camp. + +At the conclusion of a peace between the Pope and the Bolognese, +Bartolommeo found himself without occupation. He now offered himself to +the Venetians, and began to fight again under the great Carmagnola +against Filippo Visconti. His engagement allowed him forty men, which, +after the judicial murder of Carmagnola at Venice in 1432, were +increased to eighty. Erasmo da Narni, better known as Gattamelata, was +now his general-in-chief—a man who had risen from the lowest fortunes +to one of the most splendid military positions in Italy. Colleoni spent +the next years of his life, until 1443, in Lombardy, manoeuvring +against Il Piccinino, and gradually rising in the Venetian service, +until his Condotta reached the number of 800 men. Upon Gattamelata's +death at Padua in 1440, Colleoni became the most important of the +generals who had fought with Caldora in the March. The lordships of +Romano in the Bergamasque and of Covo and Antegnate in the Cremonese +had been assigned to him; and he was in a position to make independent +engagements with princes. What distinguished him as a general, was a +combination of caution with audacity. He united the brilliant system of +his master Braccio with the more prudent tactics of the Sforzeschi; and +thus, though he often surprised his foes by daring stratagems and +vigorous assaults, he rarely met with any serious check. He was a +captain who could be relied upon for boldly seizing an advantage, no +less 198than for using a success with discretion. Moreover he had +acquired an almost unique reputation for honesty in dealing with his +masters, and for justice combined with humane indulgence to his men. +His company was popular, and he could always bring capital troops into +the field. + +In the year 1443 Colleoni quitted the Venetian service on account of a +quarrel with Gherardo Dandolo, the Provoditore of the Republic. He now +took a commission from Filippo Maria Visconti, who received him at +Milan with great honour, bestowed on him the Castello Adorno at Pavia, +and sent him into the March of Ancona upon a military expedition. Of +all Italian tyrants this Visconti was the most difficult to serve. +Constitutionally timid, surrounded with a crowd of spies and base +informers, shrinking from the sight of men in the recesses of his +palace, and controlling the complicated affairs of his Duchy by means +of correspondents and intelligencers, this last scion of the Milanese +despots lived like a spider in an inscrutable network of suspicion and +intrigue. His policy was one of endless plot and counterplot. He +trusted no man; his servants were paid to act as spies on one another; +his bodyguard consisted of mutually hostile mercenaries; his captains +in the field were watched and thwarted by commissioners appointed to +check them at the point of successful ambition or magnificent victory. +The historian has a hard task when he tries to fathom the Visconti's +schemes, or to understand his motives. Half the Duke's time seems to +have been spent in unravelling the webs that he had woven, in undoing +his own work, and weakening the hands of his chosen ministers. +Conscious that his power was artificial, that the least breath might +blow him back into the nothingness from which he had arisen on the +wrecks of his father's tyranny, he dreaded the personal eminence of his +generals above all things. His chief object was to establish a system +of checks, by means 199of which no one whom he employed should at any +moment be great enough to threaten him. The most formidable of these +military adventurers, Francesco Sforza, had been secured by marriage +with Bianca Maria Visconti, his master's only daughter, in 1441; but +the Duke did not even trust his son-in-law. The last six years of his +life were spent in scheming to deprive Sforza of his lordships; and the +war in the March, on which he employed Colleoni, had the object of +ruining the principality acquired by this daring captain from Pope +Eugenius IV. in 1443. + +Colleoni was by no means deficient in those foxlike qualities which +were necessary to save the lion from the toils spread for him by +Italian intriguers. He had already shown that he knew how to push his +own interests, by changing sides and taking service with the highest +bidder, as occasion prompted. Nor, though his character for probity and +loyalty stood exceptionally high among the men of his profession, was +he the slave to any questionable claims of honour or of duty. In that +age of confused politics and extinguished patriotism, there was not +indeed much scope for scrupulous honesty. But Filippo Maria Visconti +proved more than a match for him in craft. While Colleoni was engaged +in pacifying the revolted population of Bologna, the Duke yielded to +the suggestion of his parasites at Milan, who whispered that the +general was becoming dangerously powerful. He recalled him, and threw +him without trial into the dungeons of the Forni at Monza. Here +Colleoni remained a prisoner more than a year, until the Duke's death +in 1447, when he made his escape, and profited by the disturbance of +the Duchy to reacquire his lordships in the Bergamasque territory. The +true motive for his imprisonment remains still buried in obscure +conjecture. Probably it was not even known to the Visconti, who acted +on this, as on so many other occasions, 200by a mere spasm of +suspicious jealousy, for which he could have given no account. + +From the year 1447 to the year 1455, it is difficult to follow +Colleoni's movements, or to trace his policy. First, we find him +employed by the Milanese Republic, during its brief space of +independence; then he is engaged by the Venetians, with a commission +for 1500 horse; next, he is in the service of Francesco Sforza; once +more in that of the Venetians, and yet again in that of the Duke of +Milan. His biographer relates with pride that, during this period, he +was three times successful against French troops in Piedmont and +Lombardy. It appears that he made short engagements, and changed his +paymasters according to convenience. But all this time he rose in +personal importance, acquired fresh lordships in the Bergamasque, and +accumulated wealth. He reached the highest point of his prosperity in +1455, when the Republic of S. Mark elected him General-in-Chief of +their armies, with the fullest powers, and with a stipend of 100,000 +florins. For nearly twenty-one years, until the day of his death, in +1475, Colleoni held this honourable and lucrative office. In his will +he charged the Signory of Venice that they should never again commit +into the hands of a single captain such unlimited control over their +military resources. It was indeed no slight tribute to Colleoni's +reputation for integrity, that the jealous Republic, which had +signified its sense of Carmagnola's untrustworthiness by capital +punishment, should have left him so long in the undisturbed disposal of +their army. The Standard and the Bâton of S. Mark were conveyed to +Colleoni by two ambassadors, and presented to him at Brescia on June +24, 1455. Three years later he made a triumphal entry into Venice, and +received the same ensigns of military authority from the hands of the +new Doge, Pasquale Malipiero. On this occasion his staff consisted of +201some two hundred officers, splendidly armed, and followed by a train +of serving-men. Noblemen from Bergamo, Brescia, and other cities of the +Venetian territory, swelled the cortege. When they embarked on the +lagoons, they found the water covered with boats and gondolas, bearing +the population of Venice in gala attire, to greet the illustrious guest +with instruments of music. Three great galleys of the Republic, called +Bucentaurs, issued from the crowd of smaller craft. On the first was +the Doge in his state robes, attended by the government in office, or +the Signoria of S. Mark. On the second were members of the Senate and +minor magistrates. The third carried the ambassadors of foreign powers. +Colleoni was received into the first state-galley, and placed by the +side of the Doge. The oarsmen soon cleared the space between the land +and Venice, passed the small canals, and swept majestically up the +Canalozzo among the plaudits of the crowds assembled on both sides to +cheer their General. Thus they reached the piazzetta, where Colleoni +alighted between the two great pillars, and, conducted by the Doge in +person, walked to the Church of S. Mark. Here, after Mass had been +said, and a sermon had been preached, kneeling before the high altar he +received the truncheon from the Doge's hands. The words of his +commission ran as follows:— + +'By authority and decree of this most excellent City of Venice, of us +the Prince, and of the Senate, you are to be Commander and Captain +General of all our forces and armaments on terra firma. Take from our +hands this truncheon, with good augury and fortune, as sign and warrant +of your power. Be it your care and effort, with dignity and splendour +to maintain and to defend the Majesty, the Loyalty, and the Principles +of this Empire. Neither provoking, not yet provoked, unless at our +command, shall you break into open 202warfare with our enemies. Free +jurisdiction and lordship over each one of our soldiers, except in +cases of treason, we hereby commit to you.' + +After the ceremony of his reception, Colleoni was conducted with no +less pomp to his lodgings, and the next ten days were spent in +festivities of all sorts. + +The commandership-in-chief of the Venetian forces was perhaps the +highest military post in Italy. It placed Colleoni on the pinnacle of +his profession, and made his camp the favourite school of young +soldiers. Among his pupils or lieutenants we read of Ercole d'Este, the +future Duke of Ferrara; Alessandro Sforza, lord of Pesaro; Boniface, +Marquis of Montferrat; Cicco and Pino Ordelaffi, princes of Forli; +Astorre Manfredi, the lord of Faenza; three Counts of Mirandola; two +princes of Carpi; Deifobo, the Count of Anguillara; Giovanni Antonio +Caldora, lord of Jesi in the March; and many others of less name. +Honours came thick upon him. When one of the many ineffectual leagues +against the infidel was formed in 1468, during the pontificate of Paul +II., he was named Captain-General for the Crusade. Pius II. designed +him for the leader of the expedition he had planned against the impious +and savage despot, Sigismondo Malatesta. King René of Anjou, by special +patent, authorised him to bear his name and arms, and made him a member +of his family. The Duke of Burgundy, by a similar heraldic fiction, +conferred upon him his name and armorial bearings. This will explain +why Colleoni is often styled 'di Andegavia e Borgogna.' In the case of +René, the honour was but a barren show. But the patent of Charles the +Bold had more significance. In 1473 he entertained the project of +employing the great Italian General against his Swiss foes; nor does it +seem reasonable to reject a statement made by Colleoni's biographer, to +the effect that a secret compact had been 203drawn up between him and +the Duke of Burgundy, for the conquest and partition of the Duchy of +Milan. The Venetians, in whose service Colleoni still remained, when +they became aware of this project, met it with peaceful but +irresistible opposition. + +Colleoni had been engaged continually since his earliest boyhood in the +trade of war. It was not therefore possible that he should have gained +a great degree of literary culture. Yet the fashion of the times made +it necessary that a man in his position should seek the society of +scholars. Accordingly his court and camp were crowded with students, in +whose wordy disputations he is said to have delighted. It will be +remembered that his contemporaries, Alfonso the Magnanimous, Francesco +Sforza, Federigo of Urbino, and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, piqued +themselves at least as much upon their patronage of letters, as upon +their prowess in the field. + +Colleoni's court, like that of Urbino, was a model of good manners. As +became a soldier, he was temperate in food and moderate in slumber. It +was recorded of him that he had never sat more than one hour at meat in +his own house, and that he never overslept the sunrise. After dinner he +would converse with his friends, using commonly his native dialect of +Bergamo, and entertaining the company now with stories of adventure, +and now with pithy sayings. In another essential point he resembled his +illustrious contemporary, the Duke of Urbino; for he was sincerely +pious in an age which, however it preserved the decencies of ceremonial +religion, was profoundly corrupt at heart. His principal lordships in +the Bergamasque territory owed to his munificence their fairest +churches and charitable institutions. At Martinengo, for example, he +rebuilt and re-endowed two monasteries, the one dedicated to S. Chiara, +the other to S. Francis. In Bergamo itself he founded an establishment +named' La Pieta,' for 204the good purpose of dowering and marrying poor +girls. This house he endowed with a yearly income of 3000 ducats. The +Sulphur baths of Trescorio, at some distance from the city, were +improved and opened to poor patients by a hospital which he provided. +At Rumano he raised a church to S. Peter, and erected buildings of +public utility, which on his death he bequeathed to the society of the +Misericordia in that town. All the places of his jurisdiction owed to +him such benefits as good water, new walls, and irrigation works. In +addition to these munificent foundations must be mentioned the Basella, +or Monastery of Dominican friars, which he established not far from +Bergamo, upon the river Serio, in memory of his beloved daughter Medea. +Last, not least, was the Chapel of S. John the Baptist, attached to the +Church of S. Maria Maggiore, which he endowed with fitting maintenance +for two priests and deacons. + +The one defect acknowledged by his biographer was his partiality for +women. Early in life he married Tisbe, of the noble house of the +Brescian Martinenghi, who bore him one daughter, Caterina, wedded to +Gasparre Martinengo. Two illegitimate daughters, Ursina and Isotta, +were recognised and treated by him as legitimate. The first he gave in +marriage to Gherardo Martinengo, and the second to Jacopo of the same +family. Two other natural children, Doratina and Ricardona, were +mentioned in his will: he left them four thousand ducats a piece for +dowry. Medea, the child of his old age (for she was born to him when he +was sixty), died before her father, and was buried, as we have seen, in +the Chapel of Basella. + +Throughout his life he was distinguished for great physical strength +and agility. When he first joined the troop of Braccio, he could race, +with his corselet on, against the swiftest runner of the army; and when +he was stripped, few 205horses could beat him in speed. Far on into old +age he was in the habit of taking long walks every morning for the sake +of exercise, and delighted in feats of arms and jousting matches. 'He +was tall, straight, and full of flesh, well proportioned, and +excellently made in all his limbs. His complexion inclined somewhat to +brown, but was coloured with sanguine and lively carnation. His eyes +were black; in look and sharpness of light, they were vivid, piercing, +and terrible. The outlines of his nose and all his countenance +expressed a certain manly nobleness, combined with goodness and +prudence.' Such is the portrait drawn of Colleoni by his biographer; +and it well accords with the famous bronze statue of the general at +Venice. + +Colleoni lived with a magnificence that suited his rank. His favourite +place of abode was Malpaga, a castle built by him at the distance of +about an hour's drive from Bergamo. The place is worth a visit, though +its courts and gates and galleries have now been turned into a monster +farm, and the southern rooms, where Colleoni entertained his guests, +are given over to the silkworms. Half a dozen families, employed upon a +vast estate of the Martinengo family, occupy the still substantial +house and stables. The moat is planted with mulberry-trees; the upper +rooms are used as granaries for golden maize; cows, pigs, and horses +litter in the spacious yard. Yet the walls of the inner court and of +the ancient state rooms are brilliant with frescoes, executed by some +good Venetian hand, which represent the chief events of Colleoni's +life—his battles, his reception by the Signory of Venice, his +tournaments and hawking parties, and the great series of entertainments +with which he welcomed Christiern of Denmark. This king had made his +pilgrimage to Rome and was returning westward, when the fame of +Colleoni and his princely state at Malpaga induced him to turn aside +and spend 206some days as the general's guest. In order to do him +honour, Colleoni left his castle at the king's disposal and established +himself with all his staff and servants in a camp at some distance from +Malpaga. The camp was duly furnished with tents and trenches, +stockades, artillery, and all the other furniture of war. On the king's +approach, Colleoni issued with trumpets blowing and banners flying to +greet his guest, gratifying him thus with a spectacle of the pomp and +circumstance of war as carried on in Italy. The visit was further +enlivened by sham fights, feats of arms, and trials of strength. When +it ended, Colleoni presented the king with one of his own suits of +armour, and gave to each of his servants a complete livery of red and +white, his colours. Among the frescoes at Malpaga none are more +interesting, and none, thanks to the silkworms rather than to any other +cause, are fortunately in a better state of preservation, than those +which represent this episode in the history of the Castle. + +Colleoni died in the year 1475, at the age of seventy-five. Since he +left no male representative, he constituted the Republic of S. Mark his +heir-in-chief, after properly providing for his daughters and his +numerous foundations. The Venetians received under this testament a sum +of 100,000 ducats, together with all arrears of pay due to him, and +10,000 ducats owed him by the Duke of Ferrara. It set forth the +testator's intention that this money should be employed in defence of +the Christian faith against the Turk. One condition was attached to the +bequest. The legatees were to erect a statue to Colleoni on the Piazza +of S. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for the proud +Republic had never accorded a similar honour, nor did they choose to +encumber their splendid square with a monument. They evaded the +condition by assigning the Campo in front of the Scuola di S. Marco, +where also stands the Church of S. Zanipolo, 207to the purpose. Here +accordingly the finest bronze equestrian statue in Italy, if we except +the Marcus Aurelius of the Capitol, was reared upon its marble pedestal +by Andrea Verocchio and Alessandro Leopardi. + +Colleoni's liberal expenditure of wealth found its reward in the +immortality conferred by art. While the names of Braccio, his master in +the art of war, and of Piccinino, his great adversary, are familiar to +few but professed students, no one who has visited either Bergamo or +Venice can fail to have learned something about the founder of the +Chapel of S. John and the original of Leopardi's bronze. The annals of +sculpture assign to Verocchio, of Florence, the principal share in this +statue: but Verocchio died before it was cast; and even granting that +he designed the model, its execution must be attributed to his +collaborator, the Venetian Leopardi. For my own part, I am loth to +admit that the chief credit of this masterpiece belongs to a man whose +undisputed work at Florence shows but little of its living spirit and +splendour of suggested motion. That the Tuscan science of Verocchio +secured conscientious modelling for man and horse may be assumed; but I +am fain to believe that the concentrated fire which animates them both +is due in no small measure to the handling of his northern +fellow-craftsman. + +While immersed in the dreary records of crimes, treasons, cruelties, +and base ambitions, which constitute the bulk of fifteenth-century +Italian history, it is refreshing to meet with a character so frank and +manly, so simply pious and comparatively free from stain, as Colleoni. +The only general of his day who can bear comparison with him for purity +of public life and decency in conduct, was Federigo di Montefeltro. +Even here, the comparison redounds to Colleoni's credit; for he, unlike +the Duke of Urbino, rose to eminence by his own exertion in a +profession fraught with peril to men 208of ambition and energy. +Federigo started with a principality sufficient to satisfy his just +desires for power. Nothing but his own sense of right and prudence +restrained Colleoni upon the path which brought Francesco Sforza to a +duchy by dishonourable dealings, and Carmagnola to the scaffold by +questionable practice against his masters. + +209 + + + + +CREMA AND THE CRUCIFIX + + +Few people visit Crema. It is a little country town of Lombardy, +between Cremona and Treviglio, with no historic memories but very misty +ones belonging to the days of the Visconti dynasty. On every side +around the city walls stretch smiling vineyards and rich meadows, where +the elms are married to the mulberry-trees by long festoons of foliage +hiding purple grapes, where the sunflowers droop their heavy golden +heads among tall stems of millet and gigantic maize, and here and there +a rice-crop ripens in the marshy loam. In vintage time the carts, drawn +by their white oxen, come creaking townward in the evening, laden with +blue bunches. Down the long straight roads, between rows of poplars, +they creep on; and on the shafts beneath the pyramid of fruit lie +contadini stained with lees of wine. Far off across that 'waveless sea' +of Lombardy, which has been the battlefield of countless generations, +rise the dim grey Alps, or else pearled domes of thunder-clouds in +gleaming masses over some tall solitary tower. Such backgrounds, full +of peace, suggestive of almost infinite distance, and dignified with +colours of incomparable depth and breadth, the Venetian painters loved. +No landscape in Europe is more wonderful than this—thrice wonderful in +the vastness of its arching heavens, in the stillness of its level +plain, and in the bulwark of huge crested mountains, reared afar like +bastions against the northern sky. 210The little town is all alive in +this September weather. At every corner of the street, under rustling +abeles and thick-foliaged planes, at the doors of palaces and in the +yards of inns, men, naked from the thighs downward, are treading the +red must into vats and tuns; while their mild-eyed oxen lie beneath +them in the road, peaceably chewing the cud between one journey to the +vineyard and another. It must not be imagined that the scene of Alma +Tadema's 'Roman Vintage,' or what we fondly picture to our fancy of the +Athenian Lenaea, is repeated in the streets of Crema. This modern +treading of the wine-press is a very prosaic affair. The town reeks +with a sour smell of old casks and crushed grape-skins, and the men and +women at work bear no resemblance whatever to Bacchus and his crew. Yet +even as it is, the Lombard vintage, beneath floods of sunlight and a +pure blue sky, is beautiful; and he who would fain make acquaintance +with Crema, should time his entry into the old town, if possible, on +some still golden afternoon of autumn. It is then, if ever, that he +will learn to love the glowing brickwork of its churches and the quaint +terra-cotta traceries that form its chief artistic charm. + +How the unique brick architecture of the Lombard cities took its +origin—whether from the precepts of Byzantine aliens in the earliest +middle ages, or from the native instincts of a mixed race composed of +Gallic, Ligurian, Roman, and Teutonic elements, under the leadership of +Longobardic rulers—is a question for antiquarians to decide. There can, +however, be no doubt that the monuments of the Lombard style, as they +now exist, are no less genuinely local, no less characteristic of the +country they adorn, no less indigenous to the soil they sprang from, +than the Attic colonnades of Mnesicles and Ictinus. What the marble +quarries of Pentelicus were to the Athenian builders, the clay beneath +their 211feet was to those Lombard craftsmen. From it they fashioned +structures as enduring, towers as majestic, and cathedral aisles as +solemn, as were ever wrought from chiselled stone. There is a true +sympathy between those buildings and the Lombard landscape, which by +itself might suffice to prove the originality of their almost unknown +architects. The rich colour of the baked clay—finely modulated from a +purplish red, through russet, crimson, pink, and orange, to pale yellow +and dull grey—harmonises with the brilliant greenery of Lombard +vegetation and with the deep azure of the distant Alpine range. Reared +aloft above the flat expanse of plain, those square _torroni_, tapering +into octagons and crowned with slender cones, break the long sweeping +lines and infinite horizons with a contrast that affords relief, and +yields a resting-place to tired eyes; while, far away, seen haply from +some bridge above Ticino, or some high-built palace loggia, they gleam +like columns of pale rosy fire against the front of mustering +storm-clouds blue with rain. In that happy orchard of Italy, a pergola +of vines in leaf, a clump of green acacias, and a campanile soaring +above its church roof, brought into chance combination with the reaches +of the plain and the dim mountain range, make up a picture eloquent in +its suggestive beauty. + +Those ancient builders wrought cunningly with their material. The +bricks are fashioned and fixed to last for all time. Exposed to the icy +winds of a Lombard winter, to the fierce fire of a Lombard summer, and +to the moist vapours of a Lombard autumn; neglected by unheeding +generations; with flowers clustering in their crannies, and birds +nesting in their eaves, and mason-bees filling the delicate network of +their traceries—they still present angles as sharp as when they were +but finished, and joints as nice as when the mortar dried in the first +months of their building. This immunity 212from age and injury they owe +partly to the imperishable nature of baked clay; partly to the care of +the artists who selected and mingled the right sorts of earth, burned +them with scrupulous attention, and fitted them together with a +patience born of loving service. Each member of the edifice was +designed with a view to its ultimate place. The proper curve was +ascertained for cylindrical columns and for rounded arches. Larger +bricks were moulded for the supporting walls, and lesser pieces were +adapted to the airy vaults and lanterns. In the brickfield and the kiln +the whole church was planned and wrought out in its details, before the +hands that made a unity of all these scattered elements were set to the +work of raising it in air. When they came to put the puzzle together, +they laid each brick against its neighbour, filling up the almost +imperceptible interstices with liquid cement composed of quicklime and +fine sand in water. After five centuries the seams between the layers +of bricks that make the bell-tower of S. Gottardo at Milan, yield no +point of vantage to the penknife or the chisel. + +Nor was it in their welding of the bricks alone that these craftsmen +showed their science. They were wont to enrich the surface with marble, +sparingly but effectively employed—as in those slender detached +columns, which add such beauty to the octagon of S. Gottardo, or in the +string-courses of strange beasts and reptiles that adorn the church +fronts of Pavia. They called to their aid the _mandorlato_ of Verona, +supporting their porch pillars on the backs of couchant lions, +inserting polished slabs on their façades, and building huge sarcophagi +into their cloister alleys. Between terra-cotta and this marble of +Verona there exists a deep and delicate affinity. It took the name of +_mandorlato_, I suppose, from a resemblance to almond blossoms. But it +is far from having the simple beauty of a single hue. Like all noble +veined stones, 213it passes by a series of modulations and gradations +through a gamut of associated rather than contrasted tints. Not the +pink of the almond blossom only, but the creamy whiteness of the almond +kernel, and the dull yellow of the almond nut may be found in it; and +yet these colours are so blent and blurred to all-pervading mellowness, +that nowhere is there any shock of contrast or violence of a +preponderating tone. The veins which run in labyrinths of crossing, +curving, and contorted lines all over its smooth surface add, no doubt, +to this effect of unity. The polish, lastly, which it takes, makes the +_mandorlato_ shine like a smile upon the sober face of the brickwork: +for, serviceable as terra-cotta is for nearly all artistic purposes, it +cannot reflect light or gain the illumination which comes from surface +brightness. + +What the clay can do almost better than any crystalline material, may +be seen in the mouldings so characteristic of Lombard architecture. +Geometrical patterns of the rarest and most fanciful device; scrolls of +acanthus foliage, and traceries of tendrils; Cupids swinging in +festoons of vines; angels joining hands in dance, with fluttering +skirts and windy hair, and mouths that symbol singing; grave faces of +old men and beautiful profiles of maidens leaning from medallions; +wide-winged genii filling the spandrils of cloister arches, and cherubs +clustered in the rondure of rose-windows—ornaments like these, wrought +from the plastic clay, and adapted with true taste to the requirements +of the architecture, are familiar to every one who has studied the +church front of Crema, the cloisters of the Certosa, the courts of the +Ospedale Maggiore at Milan, or the public palace of Cremona. + +If the _mandorlato_ gives a smile to those majestic Lombard buildings, +the terra-cotta decorations add the element of life and movement. The +thought of the artist in its first 214freshness and vivacity is felt in +them. They have all the spontaneity of improvisation, the seductive +melody of unpremeditated music. Moulding the supple earth with 'hand +obedient to the brain,' the _plasticatore_ has impressed his most +fugitive dreams of beauty on it without effort; and what it cost him +but a few fatigueless hours to fashion, the steady heat of the furnace +has gifted with imperishable life. Such work, no doubt, has the defects +of its qualities. As there are few difficulties to overcome, it suffers +from a fatal facility—_nec pluteum coedit nec demorsos sapit ungues_. +It is therefore apt to be unequal, touching at times the highest point +of inspiration, as in the angels of Guccio at Perugia, and sinking not +unfrequently into the commonplace of easygoing triviality, as in the +common floral traceries of Milanese windows. But it is never laboured, +never pedantic, never dulled by the painful effort to subdue an +obstinate material to the artist's will. If marble is required to +develop the strength of the few supreme sculptors, terra-cotta saves +intact the fancies of a crowd of lesser men. + +When we reflect that all the force, solemnity, and beauty of the +Lombard buildings was evoked from clay, we learn from them this lesson: +that the thought of man needs neither precious material nor yet +stubborn substance for the production of enduring masterpieces. The red +earth was enough for God when He made man in His own image; and mud +dried in the sun suffices for the artist, who is next to God in his +creative faculty—since _non merita nome di creatore se non Iddio ed il +poeta_. After all, what is more everlasting than terra-cotta? The +hobnails of the boys who ran across the brickfields in the Roman town +of Silchester, may still be seen, mingled with the impress of the feet +of dogs and hoofs of goats, in the tiles discovered there. Such traces +might serve as a metaphor for the footfall of artistic genius, when +215the form-giver has stamped his thought upon the moist clay, and fire +has made that imprint permanent. + +Of all these Lombard edifices, none is more beautiful than the +Cathedral of Crema, with its delicately finished campanile, built of +choicely tinted yellow bricks, and ending in a lantern of the +gracefullest, most airily capricious fancy. This bell-tower does not +display the gigantic force of Cremona's famous torrazzo, shooting 396 +feet into blue ether from the city square; nor can it rival the octagon +of S. Gottardo for warmth of hue. Yet it has a character of elegance, +combined with boldness of invention, that justifies the citizens of +Crema in their pride. It is unique; and he who has not seen it does not +know the whole resources of the Lombard style. The façade of the +Cathedral displays that peculiar blending of Byzantine or Romanesque +round arches with Gothic details in the windows, and with the acute +angle of the central pitch, which forms the characteristic quality of +the late _trecento_ Lombard manner. In its combination of purity and +richness it corresponds to the best age of decorated work in English +Gothic. What, however, strikes a Northern observer is the strange +detachment of this elaborate façade from the main structure of the +church. Like a frontispiece cut out of cardboard and pierced with +ornamental openings, it shoots far above the low roof of the nave; so +that at night the moon, rising above the southern aisle, shines through +its topmost window, and casts the shadow of its tracery upon the +pavement of the square. This is a constructive blemish to which the +Italians in no part of the peninsula were sensitive. They seem to have +regarded their church fronts as independent of the edifice, capable of +separate treatment, and worthy in themselves of being made the subject +of decorative skill. + +In the so-called Santuario of Crema—a circular church dedicated to S. +Maria della Croce, outside the walls—the 216Lombard style has been +adapted to the manner of the Mid-Renaissance. This church was raised in +the last years of the fifteenth century by Gian Battista Battagli, an +architect of Lodi, who followed the pure rules of taste, bequeathed to +North Italian builders by Bramante. The beauty of the edifice is due +entirely to its tranquil dignity and harmony of parts, the lightness of +its circling loggia, and the just proportion maintained between the +central structure and the four projecting porticoes. The sharp angles +of these vestibules afford a contrast to the simplicity of the main +building, while their clustered cupolas assist the general effect of +roundness aimed at by the architect. Such a church as this proves how +much may be achieved by the happy distribution of architectural masses. +It was the triumph of the best Renaissance style to attain lucidity of +treatment, and to produce beauty by geometrical proportion. When Leo +Battista Alberti complained to his friend, Matteo di Bastia, that a +slight alteration of the curves in his design for S. Francesco at +Rimini would 'spoil his music,' _ciò che tu muti discorda tutta quella +musica_, this is what he meant. The melody of lines and the harmony of +parts made a symphony to his eyes no less agreeable than a concert of +tuned lutes and voices to his ears; and to this concord he was so +sensitive that any deviation was a discord. + +After visiting the churches of Crema and sauntering about the streets +awhile, there is nothing left to do but to take refuge in the old +Albergo del Pozzo. This is one of those queer Italian inns, which carry +you away at once into a scene of Goldoni. It is part of some palace, +where nobles housed their _bravi_ in the sixteenth century, and which +the lesser people of to-day have turned into a dozen habitations. Its +great stone staircase leads to a saloon upon which the various +bedchambers open; and round its courtyard runs an open 217balcony, and +from the court grows up a fig-tree poking ripe fruit against a bedroom +window. Oleanders in tubs and red salvias in pots, and kitchen herbs in +boxes, flourish on the pavement, where the ostler comes to wash his +carriages, and where the barber shaves the poodle of the house. +Visitors to the Albergo del Pozzo are invariably asked if they have +seen the Museo; and when they answer in the negative, they are +conducted with some ceremony to a large room on the ground-floor of the +inn, looking out upon the courtyard and the fig-tree. It was here that +I gained the acquaintance of Signor Folcioni, and became possessor of +an object that has made the memory of Crema doubly interesting to me +ever since. + +When we entered the Museo, we found a little old man, gentle, grave, +and unobtrusive, varnishing the ugly portrait of some Signor of the +_cinquecento_. Round the walls hung pictures, of mediocre value, in +dingy frames; but all of them bore sounding titles. Titians, Lionardos, +Guido Renis, and Luinis, looked down and waited for a purchaser. In +truth this museum was a _bric-à-brac_ shop of a sort that is common +enough in Italy, where treasures of old lace, glass, armour, furniture, +and tapestry, may still be met with. Signor Folcioni began by pointing +out the merits of his pictures; and after making due allowance for his +zeal as amateur and dealer, it was possible to join in some of his +eulogiums. A would-be Titian, for instance, bought in Verona from a +noble house in ruins, showed Venetian wealth of colour in its gemmy +greens and lucid crimsons shining from a background deep and glowing. +Then he led us to a walnut-wood bureau of late Renaissance work, +profusely carved with nymphs and Cupids, and armed men, among festoons +of fruits embossed in high relief. Deeply drilled worm-holes set a seal +of antiquity upon the blooming faces and luxuriant garlandslike 218the +touch of Time who 'delves the parallels in beauty's brow.' On the +shelves of an ebony cabinet close by he showed us a row of cups cut out +of rock-crystal and mounted in gilt silver, with heaps of engraved +gems, old snuff-boxes, coins, medals, sprays of coral, and all the +indescribable lumber that one age flings aside as worthless for the +next to pick up from the dust-heap and regard as precious. Surely the +genius of culture in our century might be compared to a chiffonnier of +Paris, who, when the night has fallen, goes into the streets, bag on +back and lantern in hand, to rake up the waifs and strays a day of +whirling life has left him. + +The next curiosity was an ivory carving of S. Anthony preaching to the +fishes, so fine and small you held it on your palm, and used a lens to +look at it. Yet there stood the Santo gesticulating, and there were the +fishes in rows—the little fishes first, and then the middle-sized, and +last of all the great big fishes almost out at sea, with their heads +above the water and their mouths wide open, just as the _Fioretti di +San Francesco_ describes them. After this came some original drawings +of doubtful interest, and then a case of fifty-two _nielli_. These were +of unquestionable value; for has not Cicognara engraved them on a page +of his classic monograph? The thin silver plates, over which once +passed the burin of Maso Finiguerra, cutting lines finer than hairs, +and setting here a shadow in dull acid-eaten grey, and there a high +light of exquisite polish, were far more delicate than any proofs +impressed from them. These frail masterpieces of Florentine art—the +first beginnings of line engraving—we held in our hands while Signor +Folcioni read out Cicognara's commentary in a slow impressive voice, +breaking off now and then to point at the originals before us. + +The sun had set, and the room was almost dark, when he laid his book +down, and said: 'I have not much left to show—yet stay! 219Here are +still some little things of interest.' He then opened the door into his +bedroom, and took down from a nail above his bed a wooden Crucifix. Few +things have fascinated me more than this Crucifix—produced without +parade, half negligently, from the dregs of his collection by a dealer +in old curiosities at Crema. The cross was, or is—for it is lying on +the table now before me—twenty-one inches in length, made of strong +wood, covered with coarse yellow parchment, and shod at the four ends +with brass. The Christ is roughly hewn in reddish wood, coloured +scarlet, where the blood streams from the five wounds. Over the head an +oval medallion, nailed into the cross, serves as framework to a +miniature of the Madonna, softly smiling with a Correggiesque simper. +The whole Crucifix is not a work of art, but such as may be found in +every convent. Its date cannot be earlier than the beginning of the +eighteenth century. As I held it in my hand, I thought—perhaps this has +been carried to the bedside of the sick and dying; preachers have +brandished it from the pulpit over conscience-stricken congregations; +monks have knelt before it on the brick floor of their cells, and +novices have kissed it in the vain desire to drown their yearnings +after the relinquished world; perhaps it has attended criminals to the +scaffold, and heard the secrets of repentant murderers; but why should +it be shown me as a thing of rarity? These thoughts passed through my +mind, while Signor Folcioni quietly remarked: 'I bought this Cross from +the Frati when their convent was dissolved in Crema.' Then he bade me +turn it round, and showed a little steel knob fixed into the back +between the arms. This was a spring. He pressed it, and the upper and +lower parts of the cross came asunder; and holding the top like a +handle, I drew out as from a scabbard a sharp steel blade, concealed in +the thickness of the wood, behind the very body of the agonising +Christ. What 220had been a crucifix became a deadly poniard in my +grasp, and the rust upon it in the twilight looked like blood. 'I have +often wondered,' said Signor Folcioni, 'that the Frati cared to sell me +this.' + +There is no need to raise the question of the genuineness of this +strange relic, though I confess to having had my doubts about it, or to +wonder for what nefarious purposes the impious weapon was +designed—whether the blade was inserted by some rascal monk who never +told the tale, or whether it was used on secret service by the friars. +On its surface the infernal engine carries a dark certainty of treason, +sacrilege, and violence. Yet it would be wrong to incriminate the Order +of S. Francis by any suspicion, and idle to seek the actual history of +this mysterious weapon. A writer of fiction could indeed produce some +dark tale in the style of De Stendhal's 'Nouvelles,' and christen it +'The Crucifix of Crema.' And how delighted would Webster have been if +he had chanced to hear of such a sword-sheath! He might have placed it +in the hands of Bosola for the keener torment of his Duchess. Flamineo +might have used it; or the disguised friars, who made the deathbed of +Bracciano hideous, might have plunged it in the Duke's heart after +mocking his eyes with the figure of the suffering Christ. To imagine +such an instrument of moral terror mingled with material violence, lay +within the scope of Webster's sinister and powerful genius. But unless +he had seen it with his eyes, what poet would have ventured to devise +the thing and display it even in the dumb show of a tragedy? Fact is +more wonderful than romance. No apocalypse of Antichrist matches what +is told of Roderigo Borgia; and the crucifix of Crema exceeds the +sombre fantasy of Webster. + +Whatever may be the truth about this cross, it has at any rate the +value of a symbol or a metaphor. The idea which it 221materialises, the +historical events of which it is a sign, may well arrest attention. A +sword concealed in the crucifix—what emblem brings more forcibly to +mind than this that two-edged glaive of persecution which Dominic +unsheathed to mow down the populations of Provence and to make Spain +destitute of men? Looking upon the crucifix of Crema, we may seem to +see pestilence-stricken multitudes of Moors and Jews dying on the +coasts of Africa and Italy. The Spaniards enter Mexico; and this is the +cross they carry in their hands. They take possession of Peru; and +while the gentle people of the Incas come to kiss the bleeding brows of +Christ, they plunge this dagger in their sides. What, again, was the +temporal power of the Papacy but a sword embedded in a cross? Each Papa +Rè, when he ascended the Holy Chair, was forced to take the crucifix of +Crema and to bear it till his death. A long procession of war-loving +Pontiffs, levying armies and paying captains with the pence of S. +Peter, in order to keep by arms the lands they had acquired by fraud, +defiles before our eyes. First goes the terrible Sixtus IV., who died +of grief when news was brought him that the Italian princes had made +peace. He it was who sanctioned the conspiracy to murder the Medici in +church, at the moment of the elevation of the Host. The brigands hired +to do this work refused at the last moment. The sacrilege appalled +them. 'Then,' says the chronicler, 'was found a priest, who, being used +to churches, had no scruple.' The poignard this priest carried was this +crucifix of Crema. After Sixtus came the blood-stained Borgia; and +after him Julius II., whom the Romans in triumphal songs proclaimed a +second Mars, and who turned, as Michelangelo expressed it, the chalices +of Rome into swords and helms. Leo X., who dismembered Italy for his +brother and nephew; and Clement VII., who broke the neck of Florence +and delivered the Eternal City to the spoiler, 222follow. Of the +antinomy between the Vicariate of Christ and an earthly kingdom, +incarnated by these and other Holy Fathers, what symbol could be found +more fitting than a dagger with a crucifix for case and covering? + +It is not easy to think or write of these matters without rhetoric. +When I laid my head upon my pillow that night in the Albergo del Pozzo +at Crema, it was full of such thoughts; and when at last sleep came, it +brought with it a dream begotten doubtless by the perturbation of my +fancy. For I thought that a brown Franciscan, with hollow cheeks, and +eyes aflame beneath his heavy cowl, sat by my bedside, and, as he +raised the crucifix in his lean quivering hands, whispered a tale of +deadly passion and of dastardly revenge. His confession carried me away +to a convent garden of Palermo; and there was love in the story, and +hate that is stronger than love, and, for the ending of the whole +matter, remorse which dies not even in the grave. Each new possessor of +the crucifix of Crema, he told me, was forced to hear from him in +dreams his dreadful history. But, since it was a dream and nothing +more, why should I repeat it? I have wandered far enough already from +the vintage and the sunny churches of the little Lombard town. + +223 + + + + +CHERUBINO AT THE SCALA THEATRE + + +I + +It was a gala night. The opera-house of Milan was one blaze of light +and colour. Royalty in field-marshal's uniform and diamonds, attended +by decorated generals and radiant ladies of the court, occupied the +great box opposite the stage. The tiers from pit to gallery were filled +with brilliantly dressed women. From the third row, where we were +fortunately placed, the curves of that most beautiful of theatres +presented to my gaze a series of retreating and approaching lines, +composed of noble faces, waving feathers, sparkling jewels, sculptured +shoulders, uniforms, robes of costly stuffs and every conceivable +bright colour. Light poured from the huge lustre in the centre of the +roof, ran along the crimson velvet cushions of the boxes, and flashed +upon the gilded frame of the proscenium—satyrs and acanthus scrolls +carved in the manner of a century ago. Pit and orchestra scarcely +contained the crowd of men who stood in lively conversation, their +backs turned to the stage, their lorgnettes raised from time to time to +sweep the boxes. This surging sea of faces and sober costumes enhanced +by contrast the glitter, variety, and luminous tranquillity of the +theatre above it. + +No one took much thought of the coming spectacle, till the conductor's +rap was heard upon his desk, and the orchestra broke into the overture +to Mozart's _Nozze_. Before they were half through, it was clear that +we should not enjoy that 224evening the delight of perfect music added +to the enchantment of so brilliant a scene. The execution of the +overture was not exactly bad. But it lacked absolute precision, the +complete subordination of all details to the whole. In rendering German +music Italians often fail through want of discipline, or through +imperfect sympathy with a style they will not take the pains to master. +Nor, when the curtain lifted and the play began, was the vocalisation +found in all parts satisfactory. The Contessa had a meagre _mezza +voce_. Susanna, though she did not sing false, hovered on the verge of +discords, owing to the weakness of an organ which had to be strained in +order to make any effect on that enormous stage. On the other hand, the +part of Almaviva was played with dramatic fire, and Figaro showed a +truly Southern sense of comic fun. The scenes were splendidly mounted, +and something of a princely grandeur—the largeness of a noble train of +life—was added to the drama by the vast proportions of the theatre. It +was a performance which, in spite of drawbacks, yielded pleasure. + +And yet it might have left me frigid but for the artist who played +Cherubino. This was no other than Pauline Lucca, in the prime of youth +and petulance. From her first appearance to the last note she sang, she +occupied the stage. The opera seemed to have been written for her. The +mediocrity of the troupe threw her commanding merits—the richness of +her voice, the purity of her intonation, her vivid conception of +character, her indescribable brusquerie of movement and emotion—into +that relief which a sapphire gains from a setting of pearls. I can see +her now, after the lapse of nearly twenty years, as she stood there +singing in blue doublet and white mantle, with the slouched Spanish hat +and plume of ostrich feathers, a tiny rapier at her side, and blue +rosettes upon her white silk shoes! 225The _Nozze di Figaro_ was +followed by a Ballo. This had for its theme the favourite legend of a +female devil sent from the infernal regions to ruin a young man. +Instead of performing the part assigned her, Satanella falls in love +with the hero, sacrifices herself, and is claimed at last by the powers +of goodness. _Quia multum amavit_, her lost soul is saved. If the opera +left much to be desired, the Ballo was perfection. That vast stage of +the Scala Theatre had almost overwhelmed the actors of the play. Now, +thrown open to its inmost depths, crowded with glittering moving +figures, it became a fairyland of fantastic loveliness. Italians +possess the art of interpreting a serious dramatic action by pantomime. +A Ballo with them is no mere affair of dancing—fine dresses, evolutions +performed by brigades of pink-legged women with a fixed smile on their +faces. It takes the rank of high expressive art. And the motive of this +Ballo was consistently worked out in an intelligible sequence of +well-ordered scenes. To moralise upon its meaning would be out of +place. It had a conflict of passions, a rhythmical progression of +emotions, a tragic climax in the triumph of good over evil. + +II + +At the end of the performance there were five persons in our box—the +beautiful Miranda, and her husband, a celebrated English man of +letters; a German professor of biology; a young Milanese gentleman, +whom we called Edoardo; and myself. Edoardo and the professor had +joined us just before the ballet. I had occupied a seat behind Miranda +and my friend the critic from the commencement. We had indeed dined +together first at their hotel, the Rebecchino; and they now proposed +that we should all adjourn together there on 226foot for supper. From +the Scala Theatre to the Rebecchino is a walk of some three minutes. + +When we were seated at the supper-table and had talked some while upon +indifferent topics, the enthusiasm roused in me by Pauline Lucca burst +out. I broke a moment's silence by exclaiming, 'What a wonder-world +music creates! I have lived this evening in a sphere of intellectual +enjoyment raised to rapture. I never lived so fast before!' 'Do you +really think so?' said Miranda. She had just finished a _beccafico_, +and seemed disposed for conversation. 'Do you really think so? For my +part, music is in a wholly different region from experience, thought, +or feeling. What does it communicate to you?' And she hummed to herself +the _motif_ of Cherubino's 'Non so più cosa son cosa faccio.'—'What +does it teach me?' I broke in upon the melody. 'Why, to-night, when I +heard the music, and saw her there, and felt the movement of the play, +it seemed to me that a new existence was revealed. For the first time I +understood what love might be in one most richly gifted for emotion.' +Miranda bent her eyes on the table-cloth and played with her wineglass. +'I don't follow you at all. I enjoyed myself to-night. The opera, +indeed, might have been better rendered. The ballet, I admit, was +splendid. But when I remember the music—even the best of it—even +Pauline Lucca's part'—here she looked up, and shot me a quick glance +across the table—'I have mere music in my ears. Nothing more. Mere +music!' The professor of biology, who was gifted with, a sense of music +and had studied it scientifically, had now crunched his last leaf of +salad. Wiping his lips with his napkin, he joined our _tête-à-tête_. +'Gracious madam, I agree with you. He who seeks from music more than +music gives, is on the quest—how shall I put it?—of the Holy Grail.' +'And what,' I struck in, 'is this minimum or maximum that 227music +gives?' 'Dear young friend,' replied the professor, 'music gives +melodies, harmonies, the many beautiful forms to which sound shall be +fashioned. Just as in the case of shells and fossils, lovely in +themselves, interesting for their history and classification, so is it +with music. You must not seek an intellectual meaning. No; there is no +_Inhalt_ in music' And he hummed contentedly the air of 'Voi che +sapete.' While he was humming, Miranda whispered to me across the +table, 'Separate the Lucca from the music.' 'But,' I answered rather +hotly, for I was nettled by Miranda's argument _ad hominem_, 'But it is +not possible in an opera to divide the music from the words, the +scenery, the play, the actor. Mozart, when he wrote the score to Da +Ponte's libretto, was excited to production by the situations. He did +not conceive his melodies out of connection with a certain cast of +characters, a given ethical environment.' 'I do not know, my dear young +friend,' responded the professor, 'whether you have read Mozart's Life +and letters. It is clearly shown in them how he composed airs at times +and seasons when he had no words to deal with. These he afterwards used +as occasion served. Whence I conclude that music was for him a free and +lovely play of tone. The words of our excellent Da Ponte were a +scaffolding to introduce his musical creations to the public. But +without that carpenter's work, the melodies of Cherubino are +_Selbst-ständig_, sufficient in themselves to vindicate their place in +art. Do I interpret your meaning, gracious lady?' This he said bending +to Miranda. 'Yes,' she replied. But she still played with her +wineglass, and did not look as though she were quite satisfied. I +meanwhile continued: 'Of course I have read Mozart's Life, and know how +he went to work. But Mozart was a man of feeling, of experience, of +ardent passions. How can you prove to me that the melodies he gave to +Cherubino had not been evolved 228from situations similar to those in +which Cherubino finds himself? How can you prove he did not feel a +natural appropriateness in the _motifs_ he selected from his memory for +Cherubino? How can you be certain that the part itself did not +stimulate his musical faculty to fresh and still more appropriate +creativeness? And if we must fall back on documents, do you remember +what he said himself about the love-music in _Die Entführung?_ I think +he tells us that he meant it to express his own feeling for the woman +who had just become his wife.' Miranda looked up as though she were +almost half-persuaded. Yet she hummed again 'Non so più,' then said to +herself, 'Yes, it is wiser to believe with the professor that these are +sequences of sounds, and nothing more.' Then she sighed. In the pause +which followed, her husband, the famous critic, filled his glass, +stretched his legs out, and began: 'You have embarked, I see, upon the +ocean of æsthetics. For my part, to-night I was thinking how much +better fitted for the stage Beaumarchais' play was than this musical +mongrel—this operatic adaptation. The wit, observe, is lost. And +Cherubino—that sparkling little _enfant terrible_—becomes a sentimental +fellow—a something I don't know what—between a girl and a boy—a medley +of romance and impudence—anyhow a being quite unlike the sharply +outlined playwright's page. I confess I am not a musician; the drama is +my business, and I judge things by their fitness for the stage. My wife +agrees with me to differ. She likes music, I like plays. To-night she +was better pleased than I was; for she got good music tolerably well +rendered, while I got nothing but a mangled comedy.' + +We bore the critic's monologue with patience. But once again the +spirit, seeking after something which neither Miranda, nor her husband, +nor the professor could be got to recognise, moved within me. I cried +out at a venture, 229'People who go to an opera must forget music pure +and simple, must forget the drama pure and simple. You must welcome a +third species of art, in which the play, the music, the singers with +their voices, the orchestra with its instruments—Pauline Lucca, if you +like, with her fascination' (and here I shot a side-glance at Miranda), +'are so blent as to create a world beyond the scope of poetry or music +or acting taken by themselves. I give Mozart credit for having had +insight into this new world, for having brought it near to us. And I +hold that every fresh representation of his work is a fresh revelation +of its possibilities.' + +To this the critic answered, 'You now seem to me to be confounding the +limits of the several arts.' 'What!' I continued, 'is the drama but +emotion presented in its most external forms as action? And what is +music but emotion, in its most genuine essence, expressed by sound? +Where then can a more complete artistic harmony be found than in the +opera?' + +'The opera,' replied our host, 'is a hybrid. You will probably learn to +dislike artistic hybrids, if you have the taste and sense I give you +credit for. My own opinion has been already expressed. In the _Nozze_, +Beaumarchais' _Mariage de Figaro_ is simply spoiled. My friend the +professor declares Mozart's music to be sufficient by itself, and the +libretto to be a sort of machinery for its display. Miranda, I think, +agrees with him. You plead eloquently for the hybrid. You have a right +to your own view. These things are matters, in the final resort, of +individual taste rather than of demonstrable principles. But I repeat +that you are very young.' The critic drained his Lambrusco, and smiled +at me. + +'Yes, he is young,' added Miranda. 'He must learn to distinguish +between music, his own imagination, and a pretty woman. At present he +mixes them all up together. It is a 230sort of transcendental omelette. +But I think the pretty woman has more to do with it than metaphysics!' + +All this while Edoardo had bestowed devout attention on his supper. But +it appeared that the drift of our discourse had not been lost by him. +'Well,' he said, 'you finely fibred people dissect and analyse. I am +content with the _spettacolo_. That pleases. What does a man want more? +The _Nozze_ is a comedy of life and manners. The music is adorable. +To-night the women were not bad to look at—the Lucca was divine; the +scenes—ingenious. I thought but little. I came away delighted. You +could have a better play, Caro Signore!' (with a bow to our host). +'That is granted. You might have better music, Cara Signora!' (with a +bow to Miranda). 'That too is granted. But when the play and the music +come together—how shall I say?—the music helps the play, and the play +helps the music; and we—well we, I suppose, must help both!' + +Edoardo's little speech was so ingenuous, and, what is more, so true to +his Italian temperament, that it made us all laugh and leave the +argument just where we found it. The bottles of Lambrusco supplied us +each with one more glass; and while we were drinking them, Miranda, +woman-like, taking the last word, but contradicting herself, softly +hummed 'Non so più cosa son,' and 'Ah!' she said, 'I shall dream of +love to-night!' + +We rose and said good-night. But when I had reached my bedroom in the +Hôtel de la Ville, I sat down, obstinate and unconvinced, and penned +this rhapsody, which I have lately found among papers of nearly twenty +years ago. I give it as it stands. + +231 + +III + +Mozart has written the two melodramas of love—the one a melo-tragedy, +the other a melo-comedy. But in really noble art, Comedy and Tragedy +have faces of equal serenity and beauty. In the Vatican there are +marble busts of the two Muses, differing chiefly in their head-dresses: +that of Tragedy is an elaborately built-up structure of fillets and +flowing hair, piled high above the forehead and descending in long +curls upon the shoulders; while Comedy wears a similar adornment, with +the addition of a wreath of vine-leaves and grape-bunches. The +expression of the sister goddesses is no less finely discriminated. +Over the mouth of Comedy plays a subtle smile, and her eyes are relaxed +in a half-merriment. A shadow rests upon the slightly heavier brows of +Tragedy, and her lips, though not compressed, are graver. So delicately +did the Greek artist indicate the division between two branches of one +dramatic art. And since all great art is classical, Mozart's two +melodramas, _Don Giovanni_ and the _Nozze di Figaro_, though the one is +tragic and the other comic, are twin-sisters, similar in form and +feature. + +The central figure of the melo-tragedy is Don Juan, the hero of +unlimited desire, pursuing the unattainable through tortuous +interminable labyrinths, eager in appetite yet never satisfied, 'for +ever following and for ever foiled.' He is the incarnation of lust that +has become a habit of the soul—rebellious, licentious, selfish, even +cruel. His nature, originally noble and brave, has assumed the +qualities peculiar to lust—rebellion, license, cruelty, defiant +egotism. Yet, such as he is, doomed to punishment and execration, Don +Juan remains a fit subject for poetry and music, because he is +complete, because he is impelled by some demonic influence, spurred on +by yearnings after an unsearchable delight. In 232his death, the spirit +of chivalry survives, metamorphosed, it is true, into the spirit of +revolt, yet still tragic, such as might animate the desperate sinner of +a haughty breed. + +The central figure of the melo-comedy is Cherubino, the genius of love, +no less insatiable, but undetermined to virtue or to vice. This is the +point of Cherubino, that the ethical capacities in him are still +potential. His passion still hovers on the borderland of good and bad. +And this undetermined passion is beautiful because of extreme +freshness; of infinite, immeasurable expansibility. Cherubino is the +epitome of all that belongs to the amorous temperament in a state of +still ascendant adolescence. He is about sixteen years of age—a boy +yesterday, a man to-morrow—to-day both and neither—something beyond +boyhood, but not yet limited by man's responsibility and man's +absorbing passions. He partakes of both ages in the primal awakening to +self-consciousness. Desire, which in Don Juan has become a fiend, +hovers before him like a fairy. His are the sixteen years, not of a +Northern climate, but of Spain or Italy, where manhood appears in a +flash, and overtakes the child with sudden sunrise of new faculties. +_Nondum amabam, sed amare amabam, quaerebam quod amarem, amans +amare_—'I loved not yet, but was in love with loving; I sought what I +should love, being in love with loving.' That sentence, penned by S. +Augustine and consecrated by Shelley, describes the mood of Cherubino. +He loves at every moment of his life, with every pulse of his being. +His object is not a beloved being, but love itself—the satisfaction of +an irresistible desire, the paradise of bliss which merely loving has +become for him. What love means he hardly knows. He only knows that he +must love. And women love him—half as a plaything to be trifled with, +half as a young god to be wounded by. This rising of the star of love +as it ascends into the heaven of youthful fancy, is revealed 233in the +melodies Mozart has written for him. How shall we describe their +potency? Who shall translate those curiously perfect words to which +tone and rhythm have been indissolubly wedded? _E pur mi piace languir +cosi.... E se non ho chi m' oda, parlo d'amor con me._ + +But if this be so, it may be asked, Who shall be found worthy to act +Cherubino on the stage? You cannot have seen and heard Pauline Lucca, +or you would not ask this question. + +Cherubino is by no means the most important person in the plot of the +_Nozze_. But he strikes the keynote of the opera. His love is the +standard by which we measure the sad, retrospective, stately love of +the Countess, who tries to win back an alienated husband. By Cherubino +we measure the libertine love of the Count, who is a kind of Don Juan +without cruelty, and the humorous love of Figaro and his sprightly +bride Susanna. Each of these characters typifies one of the many +species of love. But Cherubino anticipates and harmonises all. They are +conscious, experienced, world-worn, disillusioned, trivial. He is all +love, foreseen, foreshadowed in a dream of life to be; all love, +diffused through brain and heart and nerves like electricity; all love, +merging the moods of ecstasy, melancholy, triumph, regret, jealousy, +joy, expectation, in a hazy sheen, as of some Venetian sunrise. What +will Cherubino be after three years? A Romeo, a Lovelace, a Lothario, a +Juan? a disillusioned rake, a sentimentalist, an effete fop, a romantic +lover? He may become any one of these, for he contains the +possibilities of all. As yet, he is the dear glad angel of the May of +love, the nightingale of orient emotion. This moment in the unfolding +of character Mozart has arrested and eternalised for us in Cherubino's +melodies; for it is the privilege of art to render things most fugitive +and evanescent fixed imperishably in immortal form. + +234 + +IV + +This is indeed a rhapsodical production. Miranda was probably right. +Had it not been for Pauline Lucca, I might not have philosophised the +_Nozze_ thus. Yet, in the main, I believe that my instinct was well +grounded. Music, especially when wedded to words, more especially when +those words are dramatic, cannot separate itself from emotion. It will +not do to tell us that a melody is a certain sequence of sounds; that +the composer chose it for its beauty of rhythm, form, and tune, and +only used the words to get it vocalised. We are forced to go farther +back, and ask ourselves, What suggested it in the first place to the +composer? why did he use it precisely in connection with this dramatic +situation? How can we answer these questions except by supposing that +music was for him the utterance through art of some emotion? The final +fact of human nature is emotion, crystallising itself in thought and +language, externalising itself in action and art. 'What,' said Novalis, +'are thoughts but pale dead feelings?' Admitting this even in part, we +cannot deny to music an emotional content of some kind. I would go +farther, and assert that, while a merely mechanical musician may set +inappropriate melodies to words, and render music inexpressive of +character, what constitutes a musical dramatist is the conscious +intention of fitting to the words of his libretto such melody as shall +interpret character, and the power to do this with effect. + +That the Cherubino of Mozart's _Nozze_ is quite different from +Beaumarchais' Cherubin does not affect this question. He is a new +creation, just because Mozart could not, or would not, conceive the +character of the page in Beaumarchais' sprightly superficial spirit. He +used the part to utter something unutterable except by music about the +soul of 235the still adolescent lover. The libretto-part and the +melodies, taken together, constitute a new romantic ideal, consistent +with experience, but realised with the intensity and universality +whereby art is distinguished from life. Don Juan was a myth before +Mozart touched him with the magic wand of music. Cherubino became a +myth by the same Prospero's spell. Both characters have the +universality, the symbolic potency, which belongs to legendary beings. +That there remains a discrepancy between the boy-page and the music +made for him, can be conceded without danger to my theory; for the +music made for Cherubino is meant to interpret his psychical condition, +and is independent of his boyishness of conduct. + +This further explains why there may be so many renderings of +Cherubino's melodies. Mozart idealised an infinite emotion. The singer +is forced to define; the actor also is forced to define. Each +introduces his own limit on the feeling. When the actor and the singer +meet together in one personality, this definition of emotion becomes of +necessity doubly specific. The condition of all music is that it +depends in a great measure on the temperament of the interpreter for +its momentary shade of expression, and this dependence is of course +exaggerated when the music is dramatic. Furthermore, the subjectivity +of the audience enters into the problem as still another element of +definition. It may therefore be fairly said that, in estimating any +impression produced by Cherubino's music, the original character of the +page, transplanted from French comedy to Italian opera, Mozart's +conception of that character, Mozart's specific quality of emotion and +specific style of musical utterance, together with the contralto's +interpretation of the character and rendering of the music, according +to her intellectual capacity, artistic skill, and timbre of voice, have +236collaborated with the individuality of the hearer. Some of the +constituents of the ever-varying product—a product which is new each +time the part is played—are fixed. Da Ponte's Cherubino and Mozart's +melodies remain unalterable. All the rest is undecided; the singer and +the listener change on each occasion. + +To assert that the musician Mozart meant nothing by his music, to +assert that he only cared about it _quâ_ music, is the same as to say +that the painter Tintoretto, when he put the Crucifixion upon canvas, +the sculptor Michelangelo, when he carved Christ upon the lap of Mary, +meant nothing, and only cared about the beauty of their forms and +colours. Those who take up this position prove, not that the artist has +no meaning to convey, but that for them the artist's nature is +unintelligible, and his meaning is conveyed in an unknown tongue. It +seems superfluous to guard against misinterpretation by saying that to +expect clear definition from music—the definition which belongs to +poetry—would be absurd. The sphere of music is in sensuous perception; +the sphere of poetry is in intelligence. Music, dealing with pure +sound, must always be vaguer in significance than poetry, dealing with +words. Nevertheless, its effect upon the sentient subject may be more +intense and penetrating for this very reason. We cannot fail to +understand what words are intended to convey; we may very easily +interpret in a hundred different ways the message of sound. But this is +not because words are wider in their reach and more alive; rather +because they are more limited, more stereotyped, more dead. They +symbolise something precise and unmistakable; but this precision is +itself attenuation of the something symbolised. The exact value of the +counter is better understood when it is a word than when it is a chord, +because all that a word conveys has already become a thought, while all +that musical 237sounds convey remains within the region of emotion +which has not been intellectualised. Poetry touches emotion through the +thinking faculty. If music reaches the thinking faculty at all, it is +through fibres of emotion. But emotion, when it has become thought, has +already lost a portion of its force, and has taken to itself a +something alien to its nature. Therefore the message of music can never +rightly be translated into words. It is the very largeness and +vividness of the sphere of simple feeling which makes its symbolical +counterpart in sound so seeming vague. But in spite of this +incontestable defect of seeming vagueness, emotion expressed by music +is nearer to our sentient self, if we have ears to take it in, than the +same emotion limited by language. It is intenser, it is more immediate, +as compensation for being less intelligible, less unmistakable in +meaning. It is an infinite, an indistinct, where each consciousness +defines and sets a limitary form. + +V + +A train of thought which begins with the concrete not unfrequently +finds itself finishing, almost against its will, in abstractions. This +is the point to which the performance of Cherubino's part by Pauline +Lucca at the Scala twenty years ago has led me—that I have to settle +with myself what I mean by art in general, and what I take to be the +proper function of music as one of the fine arts. + +'Art,' said Goethe, 'is but form-giving.' We might vary this +definition, and say, 'Art is a method of expression or presentation.' +Then comes the question: If art gives form, if it is a method of +expression or presentation, to what does it give form, what does it +express or present? The answer certainly must be: Art gives form to +human consciousness; expresses or presents the feeling or the thought +of man. 238Whatever else art may do by the way, in the communication of +innocent pleasures, in the adornment of life and the softening of +manners, in the creation of beautiful shapes and sounds, this, at all +events, is its prime function. + +While investing thought, the spiritual subject-matter of all art, with +form, or finding for it proper modes of presentation, each of the arts +employs a special medium, obeying the laws of beauty proper to that +medium. The vehicles of the arts, roughly speaking, are material +substances (like stone, wood, metal), pigments, sounds, and words. The +masterly handling of these vehicles and the realisation of their +characteristic types of beauty have come to be regarded as the +craftsman's paramount concern. And in a certain sense this is a right +conclusion; for dexterity in the manipulation of the chosen vehicle and +power to create a beautiful object, distinguish the successful artist +from the man who may have had like thoughts and feelings. This +dexterity, this power, are the properties of the artist _quâ_ artist. +Yet we must not forget that the form created by the artist for the +expression of a thought or feeling is not the final end of art itself. +That form, after all, is but the mode of presentation through which the +spiritual content manifests itself. Beauty, in like manner, is not the +final end of art, but is the indispensable condition under which the +artistic manifestation of the spiritual content must he made. It is the +business of art to create an ideal world, in which perception, emotion, +understanding, action, all elements of human life sublimed by thought, +shall reappear in concrete forms as beauty. This being so, the logical +criticism of art demands that we should not only estimate the technical +skill of artists and their faculty for presenting beauty to the +æsthetic sense, but that we should also ask ourselves what portion of +the human spirit he has chosen to invest with form, and how he has +conceived his subject. It is not necessary that the ideas embodied in a +work of art should be the artist's own. They may be common to the race +and age: as, for instance, the conception of sovereign deity expressed +in the Olympian Zeus of Pheidias, or the conception of divine maternity +expressed in Raphael's 'Madonna di San Sisto.' Still the personality of +the artist, his own intellectual and moral nature, his peculiar way of +thinking and feeling, his individual attitude towards the material +given to him in ideas of human consciousness, will modify his choice of +subject and of form, and will determine his specific type of beauty. To +take an example: supposing that an idea, common to his race and age, is +given to the artist for treatment; this will be the final end of the +work of art which he produces. But his personal qualities and technical +performance determine the degree of success or failure to which he +attains in presenting that idea and in expressing it with beauty. +Signorelli fails where Perugino excels, in giving adequate and lovely +form to the religious sentiment. Michelangelo is sure of the sublime, +and Raphael of the beautiful. + +Art is thus the presentation of the human spirit by the artist to his +fellow-men. The subject-matter of the arts is commensurate with what +man thinks and feels and does. It is as deep as religion, as wide as +life. But what distinguishes art from religion or from life is, that +this subject-matter must assume beautiful form, and must be presented +directly or indirectly to the senses. Art is not the school or the +cathedral, but the playground, the paradise of humanity. It does not +teach, it does not preach. Nothing abstract enters into art's domain. +Truth and goodness are transmuted into beauty there, just as in science +beauty and goodness assume the shape of truth, and in religion truth +and beauty become goodness. The rigid definitions, the unmistakable +laws of science, are not to be found in art. Whatever art has touched +240acquires a concrete sensuous embodiment, and thus ideas presented to +the mind in art have lost a portion of their pure thought-essence. It +is on this account that the religious conceptions of the Greeks were so +admirably fitted for the art of sculpture, and certain portions of the +mediæval Christian mythology lent themselves so well to painting. For +the same reason the metaphysics of ecclesiastical dogma defy the +artist's plastic faculty. Art, in a word, is a middle term between +reason and the senses. Its secondary aim, after the prime end of +presenting the human spirit in beautiful form has been accomplished, is +to give tranquil and innocent enjoyment. + +From what has gone before it will be seen that no human being can make +or mould a beautiful form without incorporating in that form some +portion of the human mind, however crude, however elementary. In other +words, there is no work of art without a theme, without a motive, +without a subject. The presentation of that theme, that motive, that +subject, is the final end of art. The art is good or bad according as +the subject has been well or ill presented, consistently with the laws +of beauty special to the art itself. Thus we obtain two standards for +æsthetic criticism. We judge a statue, for example, both by the +sculptor's intellectual grasp upon his subject, and also by his +technical skill and sense of beauty. In a picture of the Last Judgment +by Fra Angelico we say that the bliss of the righteous has been more +successfully treated than the torments of the wicked, because the +former has been better understood, although the painter's skill in each +is equal. In the Perseus of Cellini we admire the sculptor's spirit, +finish of execution, and originality of design, while we deplore that +want of sympathy with the heroic character which makes his type of +physical beauty slightly vulgar and his facial expression vacuous. +241If the phrase 'Art for art's sake' has any meaning, this meaning is +simply that the artist, having chosen a theme, thinks exclusively in +working at it of technical dexterity or the quality of beauty. There +are many inducements for the artist thus to narrow his function, and +for the critic to assist him by applying the canons of a soulless +connoisseurship to his work; for the conception of the subject is but +the starting-point in art-production, and the artist's difficulties and +triumphs as a craftsman lie in the region of technicalities. He knows, +moreover, that, however deep or noble his idea may be, his work of art +will be worthless if it fail in skill or be devoid of beauty. What +converts a thought into a statue or a picture, is the form found for +it; and so the form itself seems all-important. The artist, therefore, +too easily imagines that he may neglect his theme; that a fine piece of +colouring, a well-balanced composition, or, as Cellini put it, 'un bel +corpo ignudo,' is enough. And this is especially easy in an age which +reflects much upon the arts, and pursues them with enthusiasm, while +its deeper thoughts and feelings are not of the kind which translate +themselves readily into artistic form. But, after all, a fine piece of +colouring, a well-balanced composition, a sonorous stanza, a learned +essay in counterpoint, are not enough. They are all excellent good +things, yielding delight to the artistic sense and instruction to the +student. Yet when we think of the really great statues, pictures, +poems, music of the world, we find that these are really great because +of something more—and that more is their theme, their presentation of a +noble portion of the human soul. Artists and art-students may be +satisfied with perfect specimens of a craftsman's skill, independent of +his theme; but the mass of men will not be satisfied; and it is as +wrong to suppose that art exists for artists and art-students, as to +talk of art for art's sake. Art exists for 242humanity. Art transmutes +thought and feeling into terms of beautiful form. Art is great and +lasting in proportion as it appeals to the human consciousness at +large, presenting to it portions of itself in adequate and lovely form. + +VI + +It was necessary in the first place firmly to apprehend the truth that +the final end of all art is the presentation of a spiritual content; it +is necessary in the next place to remove confusions by considering the +special circumstances of the several arts. + +Each art has its own vehicle of presentation. What it can present and +how it must present it, depends upon the nature of this vehicle. Thus, +though architecture, sculpture, painting, music, poetry, meet upon the +common ground of spiritualised experience—though the works of art +produced by the architect, sculptor, painter, musician, poet, emanate +from the spiritual nature of the race, are coloured by the spiritual +nature of the men who make them, and express what is spiritual in +humanity under concrete forms invented for them by the artist—yet it is +certain that all of these arts do not deal exactly with the same +portions of this common material in the same way or with the same +results. Each has its own department. Each exhibits qualities of +strength and weakness special to itself. To define these several +departments, to explain the relation of these several vehicles of +presentation to the common subject-matter, is the next step in +criticism. + +Of the fine arts, architecture alone subserves utility. We build for +use. But the geometrical proportions which the architect observes, +contain the element of beauty and powerfully influence the soul. Into +the language of arch and aisle and colonnade, of cupola and façade and +pediment, of spire 243and vault, the architect translates emotion, +vague perhaps but deep, mute but unmistakable. When we say that a +building is sublime or graceful, frivolous or stern, we mean that +sublimity or grace, frivolity or sternness, is inherent in it. The +emotions connected with these qualities are inspired in us when we +contemplate it, and are presented to us by its form. Whether the +architect deliberately aimed at the sublime or graceful—whether the +dignified serenity of the Athenian genius sought to express itself in +the Parthenon, and the mysticism of mediæval Christianity in the gloom +of Chartres Cathedral—whether it was Renaissance paganism which gave +its mundane pomp and glory to S. Peter's, and the refined selfishness +of royalty its specious splendour to the palace of Versailles—need not +be curiously questioned. The fact that we are impelled to raise these +points, that architecture more almost than any art connects itself +indissolubly with the life, the character, the moral being of a nation +and an epoch, proves that we are justified in bringing it beneath our +general definition of the arts. In a great measure because it subserves +utility, and is therefore dependent upon the necessities of life, does +architecture present to us through form the human spirit. Comparing the +palace built by Giulio Romano for the Dukes of Mantua with the +contemporary castle of a German prince, we cannot fail at once to +comprehend the difference of spiritual conditions, as these displayed +themselves in daily life, which then separated Italy from the Teutonic +nations. But this is not all. Spiritual quality in the architect +himself finds clear expression in his work. Coldness combined with +violence marks Brunelleschi's churches; a certain suavity and well-bred +taste the work of Bramante; while Michelangelo exhibits wayward energy +in his Library of S. Lorenzo, and Amadeo self-abandonment to fancy in +his Lombard chapels. I have chosen examples from 244one nation and one +epoch in order that the point I seek to make, the demonstration of a +spiritual quality in buildings, may be fairly stated. + +Sculpture and painting distinguish themselves from the other fine arts +by the imitation of concrete existences in nature. They copy the bodies +of men and animals, the aspects of the world around us, and the +handiwork of men. Yet, in so far as they are rightly arts, they do not +make imitation an object in itself. The grapes of Zeuxis at which birds +pecked, the painted dog at which a cat's hair bristles—if such grapes +or such a dog were ever put on canvas—are but evidences of the artist's +skill, not of his faculty as artist. These two plastic, or, as I prefer +to call them, figurative arts, use their imitation of the external +world for the expression, the presentation of internal, spiritual +things. The human form is for them the outward symbol of the inner +human spirit, and their power of presenting spirit is limited by the +means at their disposal. + +Sculpture employs stone, wood, clay, the precious metals, to model +forms, detached and independent, or raised upon a flat surface in +relief. Its domain is the whole range of human character and +consciousness, in so far as these can be indicated by fixed facial +expression, by physical type, and by attitude. If we dwell for an +instant on the greatest historical epoch of sculpture, we shall +understand the domain of this art in its range and limitation. At a +certain point of Greek development the Hellenic Pantheon began to be +translated by the sculptors into statues; and when the genius of the +Greeks expired in Rome, the cycle of their psychological conceptions +had been exhaustively presented through this medium. During that long +period of time, the most delicate gradations of human personality, +divinised, idealised, were 245presented to the contemplation of the +consciousness which gave them being, in appropriate types. Strength and +swiftness, massive force and airy lightness, contemplative repose and +active energy, voluptuous softness and refined grace, intellectual +sublimity and lascivious seductiveness—the whole rhythm of qualities +which can be typified by bodily form—were analysed, selected, combined +in various degrees, to incarnate the religious conceptions of Zeus, +Aphrodite, Herakles, Dionysus, Pallas, Fauns and Satyrs, Nymphs of +woods and waves, Tritons, the genius of Death, heroes and hunters, +lawgivers and poets, presiding deities of minor functions, man's +lustful appetites and sensual needs. All that men think, or do, or are, +or wish for, or imagine in this world, had found exact corporeal +equivalents. Not physiognomy alone, but all the portions of the body +upon which the habits of the animating soul are wont to stamp +themselves, were studied and employed as symbolism. Uranian Aphrodite +was distinguished from her Pandemic sister by chastened lust-repelling +loveliness. The muscles of Herakles were more ponderous than the tense +sinews of Achilles. The Hermes of the palæstra bore a torso of majestic +depth; the Hermes, who carried messages from heaven, had limbs alert +for movement. The brows of Zeus inspired awe; the breasts of Dionysus +breathed delight. + +A race accustomed, as the Greeks were, to read this symbolism, +accustomed, as the Greeks were, to note the individuality of naked +form, had no difficulty in interpreting the language of sculpture. Nor +is there now much difficulty in the task. Our surest guide to the +subject of a basrelief or statue is study of the physical type +considered as symbolical of spiritual quality. From the fragment of a +torso the true critic can say whether it belongs to the athletic or the +erotic species. A limb of Bacchus differs from a limb of Poseidon. +246The whole psychological conception of Aphrodite Pandemos enters into +every muscle, every joint, no less than into her physiognomy, her hair, +her attitude. + +There is, however, a limit to the domain of sculpture. This art deals +most successfully with personified generalities. It is also strong in +the presentation of incarnate character. But when it attempts to tell a +story, we often seek in vain its meaning. Battles of Amazons or +Centaurs upon basreliefs, indeed, are unmistakable. The subject is +indicated here by some external sign. The group of Laocoon appeals at +once to a reader of Virgil, and the divine vengeance of Leto's children +upon Niobe is manifest in the Uffizzi marbles. But who are the several +heroes of the Æginetan pediment, and what was the subject of the +Pheidian statues on the Parthenon? Do the three graceful figures of a +basrelief which exists at Naples and in the Villa Albani, represent +Orpheus, Hermes, and Eurydice, or Antiope and her two sons? Was the +winged and sworded genius upon the Ephesus column meant for a genius of +Death or a genius of Love? + +This dimness of significance indicates the limitation of sculpture, and +inclines some of those who feel its charm to assert that the sculptor +seeks to convey no intellectual meaning, that he is satisfied with the +creation of beautiful form. There is sense in this revolt against the +faith which holds that art is nothing but a mode of spiritual +presentation. Truly the artist aims at producing beauty, is satisfied +if he conveys delight. But it is impossible to escape from the +certainty that, while he is creating forms of beauty, he means +something; and that something, that theme for which he finds the form, +is part of the world's spiritual heritage. Only the crudest works of +plastic art, capricci and arabesques, have no intellectual content; and +even these are good in so far as they convey the playfulness of fancy. + +247Painting employs colours upon surfaces—walls, panels, canvas. What +has been said about sculpture will apply in a great measure to this +art. The human form, the world around us, the works of man's hands, are +represented in painting, not for their own sake merely, but with a view +to bringing thought, feeling, action, home to the consciousness of the +spectator from the artist's consciousness on which they have been +impressed. Painting can tell a story better than sculpture, can +represent more complicated feelings, can suggest thoughts of a subtler +intricacy. Through colour, it can play, like music, directly on +powerful but vague emotion. It is deficient in fulness and roundness of +concrete reality. A statue stands before us, the soul incarnate in +ideal form, fixed and frozen for eternity. The picture is a reflection +cast upon a magic glass; not less permanent, but reduced to a shadow of +reality. To follow these distinctions farther would be alien from the +present purpose. It is enough to repeat that, within their several +spheres, according to their several strengths and weaknesses, both +sculpture and painting present the spirit to us only as the spirit +shows itself immersed in things of sense. The light of a lamp enclosed +within an alabaster vase is still lamplight, though shorn of lustre and +toned to coloured softness. Even thus the spirit, immersed in things of +sense presented to us by the figurative arts, is still spirit, though +diminished in its intellectual clearness and invested with hues not its +own. To fashion that alabaster form of art with utmost skill, to make +it beautiful, to render it transparent, is the artist's function. But +he will have failed of the highest if the light within burns dim, or if +he gives the world a lamp in which no spiritual flame is lighted. + +Music transports us to a different region. It imitates nothing. It uses +pure sound, and sound of the most wholly 248artificial kind—so +artificial that the musical sounds of one race are unmusical, and +therefore unintelligible, to another. Like architecture, music relies +upon mathematical proportions. Unlike architecture, music serves no +utility. It is the purest art of pleasure—the truest paradise and +playground of the spirit. It has less power than painting, even less +power than sculpture, to tell a story or to communicate an idea. For we +must remember that when music is married to words, the words, and not +the music, reach our thinking faculty. And yet, in spite of all, music +presents man's spirit to itself through form. The domain of the spirit +over which music reigns, is emotion—not defined emotion, not feeling +even so defined as jealousy or anger—but those broad bases of man's +being out of which emotions spring, defining themselves through action +into this or that set type of feeling. Architecture, we have noticed, +is so connected with specific modes of human existence, that from its +main examples we can reconstruct the life of men who used it. Sculpture +and painting, by limiting their presentation to the imitation of +external things, have all the help which experience and, association +render. The mere artificiality of music's vehicle separates it from +life and makes its message untranslatable. Yet, as I have already +pointed out, this very disability under which it labours is the secret +of its extraordinary potency. Nothing intervenes between the musical +work of art and the fibres of the sentient being it immediately +thrills. We do not seek to say what music means. We feel the music. And +if a man should pretend that the music has not passed beyond his ears, +has communicated nothing but a musical delight, he simply tells us that +he has not felt music. The ancients on this point were wiser than some +moderns when, without pretending to assign an intellectual significance +to music, they held it for an axiom that one type of music bred one +type of character, 249another type another. A change in the music of a +state, wrote Plato, will be followed by changes in its constitution. It +is of the utmost importance, said Aristotle, to provide in education +for the use of the ennobling and the fortifying moods. These +philosophers knew that music creates a spiritual world, in which the +spirit cannot live and move without contracting habits of emotion. In +this vagueness of significance but intensity of feeling lies the magic +of music. A melody occurs to the composer, which he certainly connects +with no act of the reason, which he is probably unconscious of +connecting with any movement of his feeling, but which nevertheless is +the form in sound of an emotional mood. When he reflects upon the +melody secreted thus impromptu, he is aware, as we learn from his own +lips, that this work has correspondence with emotion. Beethoven calls +one symphony Heroic, another Pastoral; of the opening of another he +says, 'Fate knocks at the door.' Mozart sets comic words to the +mass-music of a friend, in order to mark his sense of its inaptitude +for religious sentiment. All composers use phrases like Maestoso, +Pomposo, Allegro, Lagrimoso, Con Fuoco, to express the general +complexion of the mood their music ought to represent. + +Before passing to poetry, it may be well to turn aside and consider two +subordinate arts, which deserve a place in any system of æsthetics. +These are dancing and acting. Dancing uses the living human form, and +presents feeling or action, the passions and the deeds of men, in +artificially educated movements of the body. The element of beauty it +possesses, independently of the beauty of the dancer, is rhythm. Acting +or the art of mimicry presents the same subject-matter, no longer under +the conditions of fixed rhythm but as an ideal reproduction of reality. +The actor is 250what he represents, and the element of beauty in his +art is perfection of realisation. It is his duty as an artist to show +us Orestes or Othello, not perhaps exactly as Othello and Orestes were, +but as the essence of their tragedies, ideally incorporate in action, +ought to be. The actor can do this in dumb show. Some of the greatest +actors of the ancient world were mimes. But he usually interprets a +poet's thought, and attempts to present an artistic conception in a +secondary form of art, which has for its advantage his own personality +in play. + +The last of the fine arts is literature; or, in the narrower sphere of +which it will be well to speak here only, is poetry. Poetry employs +words in fixed rhythms, which we call metres. Only a small portion of +its effect is derived from the beauty of its sound. It appeals to the +sense of hearing far less immediately than music does. It makes no +appeal to the eyesight, and takes no help from the beauty of colour. It +produces no tangible object. But language being the storehouse of all +human experience, language being the medium whereby spirit communicates +with spirit in affairs of life, the vehicle which transmits to us the +thoughts and feelings of the past, and on which we rely for continuing +our present to the future, it follows that, of all the arts, poetry +soars highest, flies widest, and is most at home in the region of the +spirit. What poetry lacks of sensuous fulness, it more than balances by +intellectual intensity. Its significance is unmistakable, because it +employs the very material men use in their exchange of thoughts and +correspondence of emotions. To the bounds of its empire there is no +end. It embraces in its own more abstract being all the arts. By words +it does the work in turn of architecture, sculpture, painting, music. +It is the metaphysic of the fine arts. Philosophy finds place in +251poetry; and life itself, refined to its last utterance, hangs +trembling on this thread which joins our earth to heaven, this bridge +between experience and the realms where unattainable and imperceptible +will have no meaning. + +If we are right in defining art as the manifestation of the human +spirit to man by man in beautiful form, poetry, more incontestably than +any other art, fulfils this definition and enables us to gauge its +accuracy. For words are the spirit, manifested to itself in symbols +with no sensual alloy. Poetry is therefore the presentation, through +words, of life and all that life implies. Perception, emotion, thought, +action, find in descriptive, lyrical, reflective, dramatic, and epical +poetry their immediate apocalypse. In poetry we are no longer puzzled +with problems as to whether art has or has not of necessity a spiritual +content. There cannot be any poetry whatsoever without a spiritual +meaning of some sort: good or bad, moral, immoral, or non-moral, +obscure or lucid, noble or ignoble, slight or weighty—such distinctions +do not signify. In poetry we are not met by questions whether the poet +intended to convey a meaning when he made it. Quite meaningless poetry +(as some critics would fain find melody quite meaningless, or a statue +meaningless, or a Venetian picture meaningless) is a contradiction in +terms. In poetry, life, or a portion of life, lives again, resuscitated +and presented to our mental faculty through art. The best poetry is +that which reproduces the most of life, or its intensest moments. +Therefore the extensive species of the drama and the epic, the +intensive species of the lyric, have been ever held in highest esteem. +Only a half-crazy critic flaunts the paradox that poetry is excellent +in so far as it assimilates the vagueness of music, or estimates a poet +by his power of translating sense upon the borderland of nonsense into +melodious words. Where poetry falls short in the comparison with other +arts, is 252in the quality of form-giving, in the quality of sensuous +concreteness. Poetry can only present forms to the mental eye and to +the intellectual sense, stimulate the physical senses by indirect +suggestion. Therefore dramatic poetry, the most complicated kind of +poetry, relies upon the actor; and lyrical poetry, the intensest kind +of poetry, seeks the aid of music. But these comparative deficiencies +are overbalanced, for all the highest purposes of art, by the width and +depth, the intelligibility and power, the flexibility and multitudinous +associations, of language. The other arts are limited in what they +utter. There is nothing which has entered into the life of man which +poetry cannot express. Poetry says everything in man's own language to +the mind. The other arts appeal imperatively, each in its own region, +to man's senses; and the mind receives art's message by the help of +symbols from the world of sense. Poetry lacks this immediate appeal to +sense. But the elixir which it offers to the mind, its quintessence +extracted from all things of sense, reacts through intellectual +perception upon all the faculties that make men what they are. + +VII + +I used a metaphor in one of the foregoing paragraphs to indicate the +presence of the vital spirit, the essential element of thought or +feeling, in the work of art. I said it radiated through the form, as +lamplight through an alabaster vase. Now the skill of the artist is +displayed in modelling that vase, in giving it shape, rich and rare, +and fashioning its curves with subtlest workmanship. In so far as he is +a craftsman, the artist's pains must be bestowed upon this precious +vessel of the animating theme. In so far as he has power over beauty, +he must exert it in this plastic act. It is here that he displays +dexterity; here that he creates; here that he 253separates himself from +other men who think and feel. The poet, more perhaps than any other +artist, needs to keep this steadily in view; for words being our daily +vehicle of utterance, it may well chance that the alabaster vase of +language should be hastily or trivially modelled. This is the true +reason why 'neither gods nor men nor the columns either suffer +mediocrity in singers.' Upon the poet it is specially incumbent to see +that he has something rare to say and some rich mode of saying it. The +figurative arts need hardly be so cautioned. They run their risk in +quite a different direction. For sculptor and for painter, the danger +is lest he should think that alabaster vase his final task. He may too +easily be satisfied with moulding a beautiful but empty form. + +The last word on the topic of the arts is given in one sentence. Let us +remember that every work of art enshrines a spiritual subject, and that +the artist's power is shown in finding for that subject a form of ideal +loveliness. Many kindred points remain to be discussed; as what we mean +by beauty, which is a condition indispensable to noble art; and what +are the relations of the arts to ethics. These questions cannot now be +raised. It is enough in one essay to have tried to vindicate the +spirituality of art in general. + +254 + + + + +A VENETIAN MEDLEY + + +I.—FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND FAMILIARITY + +It is easy to feel and to say something obvious about Venice. The +influence of this sea-city is unique, immediate, and unmistakable. But +to express the sober truth of those impressions which remain when the +first astonishment of the Venetian revelation has subsided, when the +spirit of the place has been harmonised through familiarity with our +habitual mood, is difficult. + +Venice inspires at first an almost Corybantic rapture. From our +earliest visits, if these have been measured by days rather than weeks, +we carry away with us the memory of sunsets emblazoned in gold and +crimson upon cloud and water; of violet domes and bell-towers etched +against the orange of a western sky; of moonlight silvering +breeze-rippled breadths of liquid blue; of distant islands shimmering +in sun-litten haze; of music and black gliding boats; of labyrinthine +darkness made for mysteries of love and crime; of statue-fretted palace +fronts; of brazen clangour and a moving crowd; of pictures by earth's +proudest painters, cased in gold on walls of council chambers where +Venice sat enthroned a queen, where nobles swept the floors with robes +of Tyrian brocade. These reminiscences will be attended by an +ever-present sense of loneliness and silence in the world around; the +sadness of a limitless horizon, the solemnity of an unbroken arch of +heaven, the calm and greyness of evening on the lagoons, the 255pathos +of a marble city crumbling to its grave in mud and brine. + +These first impressions of Venice are true. Indeed they are inevitable. +They abide, and form a glowing background for all subsequent pictures, +toned more austerely, and painted in more lasting hues of truth upon +the brain. Those have never felt Venice at all who have not known this +primal rapture, or who perhaps expected more of colour, more of +melodrama, from a scene which nature and the art of man have made the +richest in these qualities. Yet the mood engendered by this first +experience is not destined to be permanent. It contains an element of +unrest and unreality which vanishes upon familiarity. From the blare of +that triumphal bourdon of brass instruments emerge the delicate voices +of violin and clarinette. To the contrasted passions of our earliest +love succeed a multitude of sweet and fanciful emotions. It is my +present purpose to recapture some of the impressions made by Venice in +more tranquil moods. Memory might be compared to a kaleidoscope. Far +away from Venice I raise the wonder-working tube, allow the glittering +fragments to settle as they please, and with words attempt to render +something of the patterns I behold. + +II.—A LODGING IN SAN VIO + +I have escaped from the hotels with their bustle of tourists and +crowded _tables-d'hôte_. My garden stretches down to the Grand Canal, +closed at the end with a pavilion, where I lounge and smoke and watch +the cornice of the Prefettura fretted with gold in sunset light. My +sitting-room and bed-room face the southern sun. There is a canal +below, crowded with gondolas, and across its bridge the good folk of +San Vio come and go the whole day long—men in blue shirts with +256enormous hats, and jackets slung on their left shoulder; women in +kerchiefs of orange and crimson. Barelegged boys sit upon the parapet, +dangling their feet above the rising tide. A hawker passes, balancing a +basket full of live and crawling crabs. Barges filled with Brenta water +or Mirano wine take up their station at the neighbouring steps, and +then ensues a mighty splashing and hurrying to and fro of men with tubs +upon their heads. The brawny fellows in the wine-barge are red from +brows to breast with drippings of the vat. And now there is a bustle in +the quarter. A _barca_ has arrived from S. Erasmo, the island of the +market-gardens. It is piled with gourds and pumpkins, cabbages and +tomatoes, pomegranates and pears—a pyramid of gold and green and +scarlet. Brown men lift the fruit aloft, and women bending from the +pathway bargain for it. A clatter of chaffering tongues, a ring of +coppers, a Babel of hoarse sea-voices, proclaim the sharpness of the +struggle. When the quarter has been served, the boat sheers off +diminished in its burden. Boys and girls are left seasoning their +polenta with a slice of _zucca_, while the mothers of a score of +families go pattering up yonder courtyard with the material for their +husbands' supper in their handkerchiefs. Across the canal, or more +correctly the _Rio_, opens a wide grass-grown court. It is lined on the +right hand by a row of poor dwellings, swarming with gondoliers' +children. A garden wall runs along the other side, over which I can see +pomegranate-trees in fruit and pergolas of vines. Far beyond are more +low houses, and then the sky, swept with sea-breezes, and the masts of +an ocean-going ship against the dome and turrets of Palladio's +Redentore. + +This is my home. By day it is as lively as a scene in _Masaniello_. By +night, after nine o'clock, the whole stir of the quarter has subsided. +Far away I hear the bell of some church tell the hours. But no noise +disturbs my rest, unless 257perhaps a belated gondolier moors his boat +beneath the window. My one maid, Catina, sings at her work the whole +day through. My gondolier, Francesco, acts as valet. He wakes me in the +morning, opens the shutters, brings sea-water for my bath, and takes +his orders for the day. 'Will it do for Chioggia, Francesco?' +'Sissignore! The Signorino has set off in his _sandolo_ already with +Antonio. The Signora is to go with us in the gondola.' 'Then get three +more men, Francesco, and see that all of them can sing.' + +III.—TO CHIOGGIA WITH OAR AND SAIL + +The _sandolo_ is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller and +lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or _ferro_ +which distinguishes the gondola. The gunwale is only just raised above +the water, over which the little craft skims with a rapid bounding +motion, affording an agreeable variation from the stately swanlike +movement of the gondola. In one of these boats—called by him the +_Fisolo_ or Seamew—my friend Eustace had started with Antonio, +intending to row the whole way to Chioggia, or, if the breeze favoured, +to hoist a sail and help himself along. After breakfast, when the crew +for my gondola had been assembled, Francesco and I followed with the +Signora. It was one of those perfect mornings which occur as a respite +from broken weather, when the air is windless and the light falls soft +through haze on the horizon. As we broke into the lagoon behind the +Redentore, the islands in front of us, S. Spirito, Poveglia, Malamocco, +seemed as though they were just lifted from the sea-line. The +Euganeans, far away to westward, were bathed in mist, and almost blent +with the blue sky. Our four rowers put their backs into their work; and +soon we reached the port of Malamocco, where a breeze from the +258Adriatic caught us sideways for a while. This is the largest of the +breaches in the Lidi, or raised sand-reefs, which protect Venice from +the sea: it affords an entrance to vessels of draught like the steamers +of the Peninsular and Oriental Company. We crossed the dancing wavelets +of the port; but when we passed under the lee of Pelestrina, the breeze +failed, and the lagoon was once again a sheet of undulating glass. At +S. Pietro on this island a halt was made to give the oarsmen wine, and +here we saw the women at their cottage doorways making lace. The old +lace industry of Venice has recently been revived. From Burano and +Pelestrina cargoes of hand-made imitations of the ancient fabrics are +sent at intervals to Jesurun's magazine at S. Marco. He is the chief +_impresario_ of the trade, employing hundreds of hands, and speculating +for a handsome profit in the foreign market on the price he gives his +workwomen. + +Now we are well lost in the lagoons—Venice no longer visible behind; +the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the +mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver +silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour have +disappeared in light-irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet +instinctively we know that we are not at sea; the different quality of +the water, the piles emerging here and there above the surface, the +suggestion of coast-lines scarcely felt in this infinity of lustre, all +remind us that our voyage is confined to the charmed limits of an +inland lake. At length the jutting headland of Pelestrina was reached. +We broke across the Porto di Chioggia, and saw Chioggia itself ahead—a +huddled mass of houses low upon the water. One by one, as we rowed +steadily, the fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for +a twelve hours' cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came, +with variegated sails of orange, red, and 259saffron, curiously +chequered at the corners, and cantled with devices in contrasted tints. +A little land-breeze carried them forward. The lagoon reflected their +deep colours till they reached the port. Then, slightly swerving +eastward on their course, but still in single file, they took the sea +and scattered, like beautiful bright-plumaged birds, who from a +streamlet float into a lake, and find their way at large according as +each wills. + +The Signorino and Antonio, though want of wind obliged them to row the +whole way from Venice, had reached Chioggia an hour before, and stood +waiting to receive us on the quay. It is a quaint town this Chioggia, +which has always lived a separate life from that of Venice. Language +and race and customs have held the two populations apart from those +distant years when Genoa and the Republic of S. Mark fought their duel +to the death out in the Chioggian harbours, down to these days, when +your Venetian gondolier will tell you that the Chioggoto loves his pipe +more than his _donna_ or his wife. The main canal is lined with +substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from +Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and +traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders +of the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter. +Wandering about its wide deserted courts and _calli_, we feel the +spirit of the decadent Venetian nobility. Passages from Goldoni's and +Casanova's Memoirs occur to our memory. It seems easy to realise what +they wrote about the dishevelled gaiety and lawless license of Chioggia +in the days of powder, sword-knot, and _soprani_. Baffo walks beside us +in hypocritical composure of bag-wig and senatorial dignity, whispering +unmentionable sonnets in his dialect of _Xe_ and _Ga_. Somehow or +another that last dotage of S. Mark's decrepitude is more recoverable +by our fancy than the heroism of Pisani in the fourteenth century. +260From his prison in blockaded Venice the great admiral was sent forth +on a forlorn hope, and blocked victorious Doria here with boats on +which the nobles of the Golden Book had spent their fortunes. Pietro +Doria boasted that with his own hands he would bridle the bronze horses +of S. Mark. But now he found himself between the navy of Carlo Zeno in +the Adriatic and the flotilla led by Vittore Pisani across the lagoon. +It was in vain that the Republic of S. George strained every nerve to +send him succour from the Ligurian sea; in vain that the lords of Padua +kept opening communications with him from the mainland. From the 1st of +January 1380 till the 21st of June the Venetians pressed the blockade +ever closer, grappling their foemen in a grip that if relaxed one +moment would have hurled him at their throats. The long and breathless +struggle ended in the capitulation at Chioggia of what remained of +Doria's forty-eight galleys and fourteen thousand men. + +These great deeds are far away and hazy. The brief sentences of +mediæval annalists bring them less near to us than the _chroniques +scandaleuses_ of good-for-nothing scoundrels, whose vulgar adventures +might be revived at the present hour with scarce a change of setting. +Such is the force of _intimité_ in literature. And yet Baffo and +Casanova are as much of the past as Doria and Pisani. It is only +perhaps that the survival of decadence in all we see around us, forms a +fitting framework for our recollections of their vividly described +corruption. + +Not far from the landing-place a balustraded bridge of ample breadth +and large bravura manner spans the main canal. Like everything at +Chioggia, it is dirty and has fallen from its first estate. Yet neither +time nor injury can obliterate style or wholly degrade marble. Hard by +the bridge there are two rival inns. At one of these we ordered a +seadinner—crabs, 261cuttlefishes, soles, and turbots—which we ate at a +table in the open air. Nothing divided us from the street except a row +of Japanese privet-bushes in hooped tubs. Our banquet soon assumed a +somewhat unpleasant similitude to that of Dives; for the Chioggoti, in +all stages of decrepitude and squalor, crowded round to beg for +scraps—indescribable old women, enveloped in their own petticoats +thrown over their heads; girls hooded with sombre black mantles; old +men wrinkled beyond recognition by their nearest relatives; jabbering, +half-naked boys; slow, slouching fishermen with clay pipes in their +mouths and philosophical acceptance on their sober foreheads. + +That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side by +side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole +homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or +slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the +sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing—those at +least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had +trained voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level +water, with the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, +and mingled with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar +to Venice were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some +transcripts from classical operas were even more attractive, through +the dignity with which these men invested them. By the peculiarity of +their treatment the _recitativo_ of the stage assumed a solemn +movement, marked in rhythm, which removed it from the commonplace into +antiquity, and made me understand how cultivated music may pass back by +natural, unconscious transition into the realm of popular melody. + +The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above the +Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, 262and then in strength, +reflected on the sea. The men of the Dogana watch-boat challenged us +and let us pass. Madonna's lamp was twinkling from her shrine upon the +harbour-pile. The city grew before us. Stealing into Venice in that +calm—stealing silently and shadowlike, with scarce a ruffle of the +water, the masses of the town emerging out of darkness into twilight, +till San Giorgio's gun boomed with a flash athwart our stern, and the +gas-lamps of the Piazzetta swam into sight; all this was like a long +enchanted chapter of romance. And now the music of our men had sunk to +one faint whistling from Eustace of tunes in harmony with whispers at +the prow. + +Then came the steps of the Palazzo Venier and the deep-scented darkness +of the garden. As we passed through to supper, I plucked a spray of +yellow Banksia rose, and put it in my buttonhole. The dew was on its +burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume. + +IV.—MORNING RAMBLES + +A story is told of Poussin, the French painter, that when he was asked +why he would not stay in Venice, he replied, 'If I stay here, I shall +become a colourist!' A somewhat similar tale is reported of a +fashionable English decorator. While on a visit to friends in Venice, +he avoided every building which contains a Tintoretto, averring that +the sight of Tintoretto's pictures would injure his carefully trained +taste. It is probable that neither anecdote is strictly true. Yet there +is a certain epigrammatic point in both; and I have often speculated +whether even Venice could have so warped the genius of Poussin as to +shed one ray of splendour on his canvases, or whether even Tintoretto +could have so 263sublimed the prophet of Queen Anne as to make him add +dramatic passion to a London drawing-room. Anyhow, it is exceedingly +difficult to escape from colour in the air of Venice, or from +Tintoretto in her buildings. Long, delightful mornings may be spent in +the enjoyment of the one and the pursuit of the other by folk who have +no classical or pseudo-mediæval theories to oppress them. + +Tintoretto's house, though changed, can still be visited. It formed +part of the Fondamenta dei Mori, so called from having been the quarter +assigned to Moorish traders in Venice. A spirited carving of a turbaned +Moor leading a camel charged with merchandise, remains above the +waterline of a neighbouring building; and all about the crumbling walls +sprout flowering weeds—samphire and snapdragon and the spiked +campanula, which shoots a spire of sea-blue stars from chinks of +Istrian stone. + +The house stands opposite the Church of Santa Maria dell' Orto, where +Tintoretto was buried, and where four of his chief masterpieces are to +be seen. This church, swept and garnished, is a triumph of modern +Italian restoration. They have contrived to make it as commonplace as +human ingenuity could manage. Yet no malice of ignorant industry can +obscure the treasures it contains—the pictures of Cima, Gian Bellini, +Palma, and the four Tintorettos, which form its crowning glory. Here +the master may be studied in four of his chief moods: as the painter of +tragic passion and movement, in the huge 'Last Judgment;' as the +painter of impossibilities, in the 'Vision of Moses upon Sinai;' as the +painter of purity and tranquil pathos, in the 'Miracle of S. Agnes;' as +the painter of Biblical history brought home to daily life, in the +'Presentation of the Virgin.' Without leaving the Madonna dell' Orto, a +student can explore his genius in all its depth and breadth; comprehend +the enthusiasm he 264excites in those who seek, as the essentials of +art, imaginative boldness and sincerity; understand what is meant by +adversaries who maintain that, after all, Tintoretto was but an +inspired Gustave Doré. Between that quiet canvas of the 'Presentation,' +so modest in its cool greys and subdued gold, and the tumult of flying, +running ascending figures in the 'Judgment,' what an interval there is! +How strangely the white lamb-like maiden, kneeling beside her lamb in +the picture of S. Agnes, contrasts with the dusky gorgeousness of the +Hebrew women despoiling themselves of jewels for the golden calf! +Comparing these several manifestations of creative power, we feel +ourselves in the grasp of a painter who was essentially a poet, one for +whom his art was the medium for expressing before all things thought +and passion. Each picture is executed in the manner suited to its tone +of feeling, the key of its conception. + +Elsewhere than in the Madonna dell' Orto there are more distinguished +single examples of Tintoretto's realising faculty. The 'Last Supper' in +San Giorgio, for instance, and the 'Adoration of the Shepherds' in the +Scuola di San Rocco illustrate his unique power of presenting sacred +history in a novel, romantic framework of familiar things. The +commonplace circumstances of ordinary life have been employed to +portray in the one case a lyric of mysterious splendour; in the other, +an idyll of infinite sweetness. Divinity shines through the rafters of +that upper chamber, where round a low large table the Apostles are +assembled in a group translated from the social customs of the +painter's days. Divinity is shed upon the straw-spread manger, where +Christ lies sleeping in the loft, with shepherds crowding through the +room beneath. + +A studied contrast between the simplicity and repose of the central +figure and the tumult of passions in the multitude 265around, may be +observed in the 'Miracle of S. Agnes.' It is this which gives dramatic +vigour to the composition. But the same effect is carried to its +highest fulfilment, with even a loftier beauty, in the episode of +Christ before the judgment-seat of Pilate, at San Rocco. Of all +Tintoretto's religious pictures, that is the most profoundly felt, the +most majestic. No other artist succeeded as he has here succeeded in +presenting to us God incarnate. For this Christ is not merely the just +man, innocent, silent before his accusers. The stationary, white-draped +figure, raised high above the agitated crowd, with tranquil forehead +slightly bent, facing his perplexed and fussy judge, is more than man. +We cannot say perhaps precisely why he is divine. But Tintoretto has +made us feel that he is. In other words, his treatment of the high +theme chosen by him has been adequate. + +We must seek the Scuola di San Rocco for examples of Tintoretto's +liveliest imagination. Without ceasing to be Italian in his attention +to harmony and grace, he far exceeded the masters of his nation in the +power of suggesting what is weird, mysterious, upon the borderland of +the grotesque. And of this quality there are three remarkable instances +in the Scuola. No one but Tintoretto could have evoked the fiend in his +'Temptation of Christ.' It is an indescribable hermaphroditic genius, +the genius of carnal fascination, with outspread downy rose-plumed +wings, and flaming bracelets on the full but sinewy arms, who kneels +and lifts aloft great stones, smiling entreatingly to the sad, grey +Christ seated beneath a rugged pent-house of the desert. No one again +but Tintoretto could have dashed the hot lights of that fiery sunset in +such quivering flakes upon the golden flesh of Eve, half hidden among +laurels, as she stretches forth the fruit of the Fall to shrinking +Adam. No one but Tintoretto, till we come to Blake, could have imagined +yonder Jonah, summoned 266by the beck of God from the whale's belly. +The monstrous fish rolls over in the ocean, blowing portentous vapour +from his trump-shaped nostril. The prophet's beard descends upon his +naked breast in hoary ringlets to the girdle. He has forgotten the past +peril of the deep, although the whale's jaws yawn around him. Between +him and the outstretched finger of Jehovah calling him again to life, +there runs a spark of unseen spiritual electricity. + +To comprehend Tintoretto's touch upon the pastoral idyll we must turn +our steps to San Giorgio again, and pace those meadows by the running +river in company with his Manna-Gatherers. Or we may seek the +Accademia, and notice how he here has varied the 'Temptation of Adam by +Eve,' choosing a less tragic motive of seduction than the one so +powerfully rendered at San Rocco. Or in the Ducal Palace we may take +our station, hour by hour, before the 'Marriage of Bacchus and +Ariadne.' It is well to leave the very highest achievements of art +untouched by criticism, undescribed. And in this picture we have the +most perfect of all modern attempts to realise an antique myth—more +perfect than Raphael's 'Galatea,' or Titian's 'Meeting of Bacchus with +Ariadne,' or Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus from the Sea.' It may suffice +to marvel at the slight effect which melodies so powerful and so direct +as these produce upon the ordinary public. Sitting, as is my wont, one +Sunday morning, opposite the 'Bacchus,' four Germans with a cicerone +sauntered by. The subject was explained to them. They waited an +appreciable space of time. Then the youngest opened his lips and spake: +'Bacchus war der Wein-Gott.' And they all moved heavily away. _Bos +locutus est_. 'Bacchus was the wine-god!' This, apparently, is what a +picture tells to one man. To another it presents divine harmonies, +perceptible indeed in nature, but here by the painter-poet for the +first time brought 267together and cadenced in a work of art. For +another it is perhaps the hieroglyph of pent-up passions and desired +impossibilities. For yet another it may only mean the unapproachable +inimitable triumph of consummate craft. + +Tintoretto, to be rightly understood, must be sought all over Venice—in +the church as well as the Scuola di San Rocco; in the 'Temptation of S. +Anthony' at S. Trovaso no less than in the Temptations of Eve and +Christ; in the decorative pomp of the Sala del Senato, and in the +Paradisal vision of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. Yet, after all, there +is one of his most characteristic moods, to appreciate which fully we +return to the Madonna dell' Orto. I have called him 'the painter of +impossibilities.' At rare moments he rendered them possible by sheer +imaginative force. If we wish to realise this phase of his creative +power, and to measure our own subordination to his genius in its most +hazardous enterprise, we must spend much time in the choir of this +church. Lovers of art who mistrust this play of the audacious +fancy—aiming at sublimity in supersensual regions, sometimes attaining +to it by stupendous effort or authentic revelation, not seldom sinking +to the verge of bathos, and demanding the assistance of interpretative +sympathy in the spectator—such men will not take the point of view +required of them by Tintoretto in his boldest flights, in the 'Worship +of the Golden Calf' and in the 'Destruction of the World by Water.' It +is for them to ponder well the flying archangel with the scales of +judgment in his hand, and the seraph-charioted Jehovah enveloping Moses +upon Sinai in lightnings. + +The gondola has had a long rest. Were Francesco but a little more +impatient, he might be wondering what had become of the padrone. I bid +him turn, and we are soon gliding into the Sacca della Misericordia. +This is a protected float, where the wood which comes from Cadore and +the hills of the 268Ampezzo is stored in spring. Yonder square white +house, standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the +Oasa degli Spiriti. No one cares to inhabit it; for here, in old days, +it was the wont of the Venetians to lay their dead for a night's rest +before their final journey to the graveyard of S. Michele. So many +generations of dead folk had made that house their inn, that it is now +no fitting home for living men. San Michele is the island close before +Murano, where the Lombardi built one of their most romantically +graceful churches of pale Istrian stone, and where the Campo Santo has +for centuries received the dead into its oozy clay. The cemetery is at +present undergoing restoration. Its state of squalor and abandonment to +cynical disorder makes one feel how fitting for Italians would be the +custom of cremation. An island in the lagoons devoted to funeral pyres +is a solemn and ennobling conception. This graveyard, with its ruinous +walls, its mangy riot of unwholesome weeds, its corpses festering in +slime beneath neglected slabs in hollow chambers, and the mephitic wash +of poisoned waters that surround it, inspires the horror of disgust. + +The morning has not lost its freshness. Antelao and Tofana, guarding +the vale above Cortina, show faint streaks of snow upon their amethyst. +Little clouds hang in the still autumn sky. There are men dredging for +shrimps and crabs through shoals uncovered by the ebb. Nothing can be +lovelier, more resting to eyes tired with pictures than this tranquil, +sunny expanse of the lagoon. As we round the point of the Bersaglio, +new landscapes of island and Alp and low-lying mainland move into sight +at every slow stroke of the oar. A luggage-train comes lumbering along +the railway bridge, puffing white smoke into the placid blue. Then we +strike down Cannaregio, and I muse upon processions of kings and +generals and noble strangers, entering Venice by 269this water-path +from Mestre, before the Austrians built their causeway for the trains. +Some of the rare scraps of fresco upon house fronts, still to be seen +in Venice, are left in Cannaregio. They are chiaroscuro allegories in a +bold bravura manner of the sixteenth century. From these and from a few +rosy fragments on the Fondaco dei Tedeschi, the Fabbriche Nuove, and +precious fading figures in a certain courtyard near San Stefano, we +form some notion how Venice looked when all her palaces were painted. +Pictures by Gentile Bellini, Mansueti, and Carpaccio help the fancy in +this work of restoration. And here and there, in back canals, we come +across coloured sections of old buildings, capped by true Venetian +chimneys, which for a moment seem to realise our dream. + +A morning with Tintoretto might well be followed by a morning with +Carpaccio or Bellini. But space is wanting in these pages. Nor would it +suit the manner of this medley to hunt the Lombardi through palaces and +churches, pointing out their singularities of violet and yellow +panellings in marble, the dignity of their wide-opened arches, or the +delicacy of their shallow chiselled traceries in cream-white Istrian +stone. It is enough to indicate the goal of many a pleasant pilgrimage: +warrior angels of Vivarini and Basaiti hidden in a dark chapel of the +Frari; Fra Francesco's fantastic orchard of fruits and flowers in +distant S. Francesco della Vigna; the golden Gian Bellini in S. +Zaccaria; Palma's majestic S. Barbara in S. Maria Formosa; San Giobbe's +wealth of sculptured frieze and floral scroll; the Ponte di Paradiso, +with its Gothic arch; the painted plates in the Museo Civico; and +palace after palace, loved for some quaint piece of tracery, some +moulding full of mediæval symbolism, some fierce impossible Renaissance +freak of fancy. + +Bather than prolong this list, I will tell a story which drew 270me one +day past the Public Gardens to the metropolitan Church of Venice, San +Pietro di Castello. The novella is related by Bandello. It has, as will +be noticed, points of similarity to that of 'Romeo and Juliet.' + +V.—A VENETIAN NOVELLA + +At the time when Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini were painting those +handsome youths in tight jackets, parti-coloured hose, and little round +caps placed awry upon their shocks of well-combed hair, there lived in +Venice two noblemen, Messer Pietro and Messer Paolo, whose palaces +fronted each other on the Grand Canal. Messer Paolo was a widower, with +one married daughter, and an only son of twenty years or thereabouts, +named Gerardo. Messer Pietro's wife was still living; and this couple +had but one child, a daughter, called Elena, of exceeding beauty, aged +fourteen. Gerardo, as is the wont of gallants, was paying his addresses +to a certain lady; and nearly every day he had to cross the Grand Canal +in his gondola, and to pass beneath the house of Elena on his way to +visit his Dulcinea; for this lady lived some distance up a little canal +on which the western side of Messer Pietro's palace looked. + +Now it so happened that at the very time when the story opens, Messer +Pietro's wife fell ill and died, and Elena was left alone at home with +her father and her old nurse. Across the little canal of which I spoke +there dwelt another nobleman, with four daughters, between the years of +seventeen and twenty-one. Messer Pietro, desiring to provide amusement +for poor little Elena, besought this gentleman that his daughters might +come on feast-days to play with her. For you must know that, except on +festivals of the Church, the custom of Venice required that gentlewomen +should remain 271closely shut within the private apartments of their +dwellings. His request was readily granted; and on the next feast-day +the five girls began to play at ball together for forfeits in the great +saloon, which opened with its row of Gothic arches and balustraded +balcony upon the Grand Canal. The four sisters, meanwhile, had other +thoughts than for the game. One or other of them, and sometimes three +together, would let the ball drop, and run to the balcony to gaze upon +their gallants, passing up and down in gondolas below; and then they +would drop flowers or ribands for tokens. Which negligence of theirs +annoyed Elena much; for she thought only of the game. Wherefore she +scolded them in childish wise, and one of them made answer, 'Elena, if +you only knew how pleasant it is to play as we are playing on this +balcony, you would not care so much for ball and forfeits!' + +On one of those feast-days the four sisters were prevented from keeping +their little friend company. Elena, with nothing to do, and feeling +melancholy, leaned upon the window-sill which overlooked the narrow +canal. And it chanced that just then Gerardo, on his way to Dulcinea, +went by; and Elena looked down at him, as she had seen those sisters +look at passers-by. Gerardo caught her eye, and glances passed between +them, and Gerardo's gondolier, bending from the poop, said to his +master, 'O master! methinks that gentle maiden is better worth your +wooing than Dulcinea.' Gerardo pretended to pay no heed to these words; +but after rowing a little way, he bade the man turn, and they went +slowly back beneath the window. This time Elena, thinking to play the +game which her four friends had played, took from her hair a clove +carnation and let it fall close to Gerardo on the cushion of the +gondola. He raised the flower and put it to his lips, acknowledging the +courtesy with a grave bow. But the perfume of the clove and the beauty +of Elena in that moment 272took possession of his heart together, and +straightway he forgot Dulcinea. + +As yet he knew not who Elena was. Nor is this wonderful; for the +daughters of Venetian nobles were but rarely seen or spoken of. But the +thought of her haunted him awake and sleeping; and every feast-day, +when there was the chance of seeing her, he rowed his gondola beneath +her windows. And there she appeared to him in company with her four +friends; the five girls clustering together like sister roses beneath +the pointed windows of the Gothic balcony. Elena, on her side, had no +thought of love; for of love she had heard no one speak. But she took +pleasure in the game those friends had taught her, of leaning from the +balcony to watch Gerardo. He meanwhile grew love-sick and impatient, +wondering how he might declare his passion. Until one day it happened +that, talking through a lane or _calle_ which skirted Messer Pietro'a +palace, he caught sight of Elena's nurse, who was knocking at the door, +returning from some shopping she had made. This nurse had been his own +nurse in childhood; therefore he remembered her, and cried aloud, +'Nurse, Nurse!' But the old woman did not hear him, and passed into the +house and shut the door behind her. Whereupon Gerardo, greatly moved, +still called to her, and when he reached the door, began to knock upon +it violently. And whether it was the agitation of finding himself at +last so near the wish of his heart, or whether the pains of waiting for +his love had weakened him, I know not; but, while he knocked, his +senses left him, and he fell fainting in the doorway. Then the nurse +recognised the youth to whom she had given suck, and brought him into +the courtyard by the help of handmaidens, and Elena came down and gazed +upon him. The house was now full of bustle, and Messer Pietro heard the +noise, and seeing the son of his neighbour in so piteous a plight, he +caused Gerardo 273to be laid upon a bed. But for all they could do with +him, he recovered not from his swoon. And after a while force was that +they should place him in a gondola and ferry him across to his father's +house. The nurse went with him, and informed Messer Paolo of what had +happened. Doctors were sent for, and the whole family gathered round +Gerardo's bed. After a while he revived a little; and thinking himself +still upon the doorstep of Pietro's palace, called again, 'Nurse, +Nurse!' She was near at hand, and would have spoken to him. But while +he summoned his senses to his aid, he became gradually aware of his own +kinsfolk and dissembled the secret of his grief. They beholding him in +better cheer, departed on their several ways, and the nurse still sat +alone beside him. Then he explained to her what he had at heart, and +how he was in love with a maiden whom he had seen on feast-days in the +house of Messer Pietro. But still he knew not Elena's name; and she, +thinking it impossible that such a child had inspired this passion, +began to marvel which of the four sisters it was Gerardo loved. Then +they appointed the next Sunday, when all the five girls should be +together, for Gerardo by some sign, as he passed beneath the window, to +make known to the old nurse his lady. + +Elena, meanwhile, who had watched Gerardo lying still and pale in swoon +beneath her on the pavement of the palace, felt the stirring of a new +unknown emotion in her soul. When Sunday came, she devised excuses for +keeping her four friends away, bethinking her that she might see him +once again alone, and not betray the agitation which she dreaded. This +ill suited the schemes of the nurse, who nevertheless was forced to be +content. But after dinner, seeing how restless was the girl, and how +she came and went, and ran a thousand times to the balcony, the nurse +began to wonder whether Elena herself were not in love with some one. +So she feigned to 274sleep, but placed herself within sight of the +window. And soon Gerardo came by in his gondola; and Elena, who was +prepared, threw to him her nosegay. The watchful nurse had risen, and +peeping behind the girl's shoulder, saw at a glance how matters stood. +Thereupon she began to scold her charge, and say, 'Is this a fair and +comely thing, to stand all day at balconies and throw flowers at +passers-by? Woe to you if your father should come to know of this! He +would make you wish yourself among the dead!' Elena, sore troubled at +her nurse's rebuke, turned and threw her arms about her neck, and +called her 'Nanna!' as the wont is of Venetian children. Then she told +the old woman how she had learned that game from the four sisters, and +how she thought it was not different, but far more pleasant, than the +game of forfeits; whereupon her nurse spoke gravely, explaining what +love is, and how that love should lead to marriage, and bidding her +search her own heart if haply she could choose Gerardo for her husband. +There was no reason, as she knew, why Messer Paolo's son should not +mate with Messer Pietro's daughter. But being a romantic creature, as +many women are, she resolved to bring the match about in secret. + +Elena took little time to reflect, but told her nurse that she was +willing, if Gerardo willed it too, to have him for her husband. Then +went the nurse and made the young man know how matters stood, and +arranged with him a day, when Messer Pietro should be in the Council of +the Pregadi, and the servants of the palace otherwise employed, for him +to come and meet his Elena. A glad man was Gerardo, nor did he wait to +think how better it would be to ask the hand of Elena in marriage from +her father. But when the day arrived, he sought the nurse, and she took +him to a chamber in the palace, where there stood an image of the +Blessed Virgin. Elena was there, pale and timid; and when the lovers +clasped 275hands, neither found many words to say. But the nurse bade +them take heart, and leading them before Our Lady, joined their hands, +and made Gerardo place his ring on his bride's finger. After this +fashion were Gerardo and Elena wedded. And for some while, by the +assistance of the nurse, they dwelt together in much love and solace, +meeting often as occasion offered. + +Messer Paolo, who knew nothing of these things, took thought meanwhile +for his son's career. It was the season when the Signiory of Venice +sends a fleet of galleys to Beirut with merchandise; and the noblemen +may bid for the hiring of a ship, and charge it with wares, and send +whomsoever they list as factor in their interest. One of these galleys, +then, Messer Paolo engaged, and told his son that he had appointed him +to journey with it and increase their wealth. 'On thy return, my son,' +he said, 'we will bethink us of a wife for thee.' Gerardo, when he +heard these words, was sore troubled, and first he told his father +roundly that he would not go, and flew off in the twilight to pour out +his perplexities to Elena. But she, who was prudent and of gentle soul, +besought him to obey his father in this thing, to the end, moreover, +that, having done his will and increased his wealth, he might +afterwards unfold the story of their secret marriage. To these good +counsels, though loth, Gerardo consented. His father was overjoyed at +his son's repentance. The galley was straightway laden with +merchandise, and Gerardo set forth on his voyage. + +The trip to Beirut and back lasted usually six months or at the most +seven. Now when Gerardo had been some six months away, Messer Pietro, +noticing how fair his daughter was, and how she had grown into +womanhood, looked about him for a husband for her. When he had found a +youth suitable in birth and wealth and years, he called for Elena, +276and told her that the day had been appointed for her marriage. She, +alas! knew not what to answer. She feared to tell her father that she +was already married, for she knew not whether this would please +Gerardo. For the same reason she dreaded to throw herself upon the +kindness of Messer Paolo. Nor was her nurse of any help in counsel; for +the old woman repented her of what she had done, and had good cause to +believe that, even if the marriage with Gerardo were accepted by the +two fathers, they would punish her for her own part in the affair. +Therefore she bade Elena wait on fortune, and hinted to her that, if +the worst came to the worst, no one need know she had been wedded with +the ring to Gerardo. Such weddings, you must know, were binding; but +till they had been blessed by the Church, they had not taken the force +of a religious sacrament. And this is still the case in Italy among the +common folk, who will say of a man, 'Si, è ammogliato; ma il matrimonio +non è stato benedetto.' 'Yes, he has taken a wife, but the marriage has +not yet been blessed.' + +So the days flew by in doubt and sore distress for Elena. Then on the +night before her wedding, she felt that she could bear this life no +longer. But having no poison, and being afraid to pierce her bosom with +a knife, she lay down on her bed alone, and tried to die by holding in +her breath. A mortal swoon came over her; her senses fled; the life in +her remained suspended. And when her nurse came next morning to call +her, she found poor Elena cold as a corpse. Messer Pietro and all the +household rushed, at the nurse's cries, into the room, and they all saw +Elena stretched dead upon her bed undressed. Physicians were called, +who made theories to explain the cause of death. But all believed that +she was really dead, beyond all help of art or medicine. Nothing +remained but to carry her to church for burial instead of marriage. +Therefore, that very evening, a funeral procession 277was formed, which +moved by torchlight up the Grand Canal, along the Riva, past the blank +walls of the Arsenal, to the Campo before San Pietro in Castello. Elena +lay beneath the black felze in one gondola, with a priest beside her +praying, and other boats followed bearing mourners. Then they laid her +in a marble chest outside the church, and all departed, still with +torches burning, to their homes. + +Now it so fell out that upon that very evening Gerardo's galley had +returned from Syria, and was anchoring within the port of Lido, which +looks across to the island of Castello. It was the gentle custom of +Venice at that time that, when a ship arrived from sea, the friends of +those on board at once came out to welcome them, and take and give the +news. Therefore many noble youths and other citizens were on the deck +of Gerardo's galley, making merry with him over the safe conduct of his +voyage. Of one of these he asked, 'Whose is yonder funeral procession +returning from San Pietro?' The young man made answer, 'Alas, for poor +Elena, Messer Pietro's daughter! She should have been married this day. +But death took her, and to-night they buried her in the marble monument +outside the church.' A woeful man was Gerardo, hearing suddenly this +news, and knowing what his dear wife must have suffered ere she died. +Yet he restrained himself, daring not to disclose his anguish, and +waited till his friends had left the galley. Then he called to him the +captain of the oarsmen, who was his friend, and unfolded to him all the +story of his love and sorrow, and said that he must go that night and +see his wife once more, if even he should have to break her tomb. The +captain tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Seeing him so obstinate, he +resolved not to desert Gerardo. The two men took one of the galley's +boats, and rowed together toward San Pietro. It was past midnight when +they reached the Campo and broke the marble sepulchre 278asunder. +Pushing back its lid, Gerardo descended into the grave and abandoned +himself upon the body of his Elena. One who had seen them at that +moment could not well have said which of the two was dead and which was +living—Elena or her husband. Meantime the captain of the oarsmen, +fearing lest the watch (set by the Masters of the Night to keep the +peace of Venice) might arrive, was calling on Gerardo to come back. +Gerardo heeded him no whit. But at the last, compelled by his +entreaties, and as it were astonied, he arose, bearing his wife's +corpse in his arms, and carried her clasped against his bosom to the +boat, and laid her therein, and sat down by her side and kissed her +frequently, and suffered not his friend's remonstrances. Force was for +the captain, having brought himself into this scrape, that he should +now seek refuge by the nearest way from justice. Therefore he hoved +gently from the bank, and plied his oar, and brought the gondola apace +into the open waters. Gerardo still clasped Elena, dying husband by +dead wife. But the sea-breeze freshened towards daybreak; and the +captain, looking down upon that pair, and bringing to their faces the +light of his boat's lantern, judged their case not desperate at all. On +Elena's cheek there was a flush of life less deadly even than the +pallor of Gerardo's forehead. Thereupon the good man called aloud, and +Gerardo started from his grief; and both together they chafed the hands +and feet of Elena; and, the sea-breeze aiding with its saltness, they +awoke in her the spark of life. + +Dimly burned the spark. But Gerardo, being aware of it, became a man +again. Then, having taken counsel with the captain, both resolved to +bear her to that brave man's mother's house. A bed was soon made ready, +and food was brought; and after due time, she lifted up her face and +knew Gerardo. The peril of the grave was past, but thought had now to +be 279taken for the future. Therefore Gerardo, leaving his wife to the +captain's mother, rowed back to the galley and prepared to meet his +father. With good store of merchandise and with great gains from his +traffic, he arrived in that old palace on the Grand Canal. Then having +opened to Messer Paolo the matters of his journey, and shown him how he +had fared, and set before him tables of disbursements and receipts, he +seized the moment of his father's gladness. 'Father,' he said, and as +he spoke he knelt upon his knees, 'Father, I bring you not good store +of merchandise and bags of gold alone; I bring you also a wedded wife, +whom I have saved this night from death.' And when the old man's +surprise was quieted, he told him the whole story. Now Messer Paolo, +desiring no better than that his son should wed the heiress of his +neighbour, and knowing well that Messer Pietro would make great joy +receiving back his daughter from the grave, bade Gerardo in haste take +rich apparel and clothe Elena therewith, and fetch her home. These +things were swiftly done; and after evenfall Messer Pietro was bidden +to grave business in his neighbour's palace. With heavy heart he came, +from a house of mourning to a house of gladness. But there, at the +banquet-table's head he saw his dead child Elena alive, and at her side +a husband. And when the whole truth had been declared, he not only +kissed and embraced the pair who knelt before him, but of his goodness +forgave the nurse, who in her turn came trembling to his feet. Then +fell there joy and bliss in overmeasure that night upon both palaces of +the Canal Grande. And with the morrow the Church blessed the spousals +which long since had been on both sides vowed and consummated. + +280 + +VI.—ON THE LAGOONS + +The mornings are spent in study, sometimes among pictures, sometimes in +the Marcian Library, or again in those vast convent chambers of the +Frari, where the archives of Venice load innumerable shelves. The +afternoons invite us to a further flight upon the water. Both sandolo +and gondola await our choice, and we may sail or row, according as the +wind and inclination tempt us. + +Yonder lies San Lazzaro, with the neat red buildings of the Armenian +convent. The last oleander blossoms shine rosy pink above its walls +against the pure blue sky as we glide into the little harbour. Boats +piled with coal-black grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are +gathering their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new +wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of Byron—that +curious patron saint of the Armenian colony—or to inspect the +printing-press, which issues books of little value for our studies. It +is enough to pace the terrace, and linger half an hour beneath the low +broad arches of the alleys pleached with vines, through which the domes +and towers of Venice rise more beautiful by distance. + +Malamocco lies considerably farther, and needs a full hour of stout +rowing to reach it. Alighting there, we cross the narrow strip of land, +and find ourselves upon the huge sea-wall—block piled on block—of +Istrian stone in tiers and ranks, with cunning breathing-places for the +waves to wreak their fury on and foam their force away in fretful +waste. The very existence of Venice may be said to depend sometimes on +these _murazzi_, which were finished at an immense cost by the Republic +in the days of its decadence. The enormous monoliths which compose them +had to be brought across the 281Adriatic in sailing vessels. Of all the +Lidi, that of Malamocco is the weakest; and here, if anywhere, the sea +might effect an entrance into the lagoon. Our gondoliers told us of +some places where the _murazzi_ were broken in a gale, or _sciroccale_, +not very long ago. Lying awake in Venice, when the wind blows hard, one +hears the sea thundering upon its sandy barrier, and blesses God for +the _murazzi_. On such a night it happened once to me to dream a dream +of Venice overwhelmed by water. I saw the billows roll across the +smooth lagoon like a gigantic Eager. The Ducal Palace crumbled, and San +Marco's domes went down. The Campanile rocked and shivered like a reed. +And all along the Grand Canal the palaces swayed helpless, tottering to +their fall, while boats piled high with men and women strove to stem +the tide, and save themselves from those impending ruins. It was a mad +dream, born of the sea's roar and Tintoretto's painting. But this +afternoon no such visions are suggested. The sea sleeps, and in the +moist autumn air we break tall branches of the seeded yellowing +samphire from hollows of the rocks, and bear them homeward in a wayward +bouquet mixed with cobs of Indian-corn. + +Fusina is another point for these excursions. It lies at the mouth of +the Canal di Brenta, where the mainland ends in marsh and meadows, +intersected by broad renes. In spring the ditches bloom with +fleurs-de-lys; in autumn they take sober colouring from lilac daisies +and the delicate sea-lavender. Scores of tiny plants are turning +scarlet on the brown moist earth; and when the sun goes down behind the +Euganean hills, his crimson canopy of cloud, reflected on these +shallows, muddy shoals, and wilderness of matted weeds, converts the +common earth into a fairyland of fabulous dyes. Purple, violet, and +rose are spread around us. In front stretches the lagoon, tinted with a +pale light from the east, and beyond this 282pallid mirror shines +Venice—a long low broken line, touched with the softest roseate flush. +Ere we reach the Giudecca on our homeward way, sunset has faded. The +western skies have clad themselves in green, barred with dark +fire-rimmed clouds. The Euganean hills stand like stupendous pyramids, +Egyptian, solemn, against a lemon space on the horizon. The far reaches +of the lagoons, the Alps, and islands assume those tones of glowing +lilac which are the supreme beauty of Venetian evening. Then, at last, +we see the first lamps glitter 288on the Zattere. The quiet of the +night has come. + +Words cannot be formed to express the endless varieties of Venetian +sunset. The most magnificent follow after wet stormy days, when the +west breaks suddenly into a labyrinth of fire, when chasms of clear +turquoise heavens emerge, and horns of flame are flashed to the zenith, +and unexpected splendours scale the fretted clouds, step over step, +stealing along the purple caverns till the whole dome throbs. Or, +again, after a fair day, a change of weather approaches, and high, +infinitely high, the skies are woven over with a web of +half-transparent cirrus-clouds. These in the afterglow blush crimson, +and through their rifts the depth of heaven is of a hard and gemlike +blue, and all the water turns to rose beneath them. I remember one such +evening on the way back from Torcello. We were well out at sea between +Mazzorbo and Murano. The ruddy arches overhead were reflected without +interruption in the waveless ruddy lake below. Our black boat was the +only dark spot in this sphere of splendour. We seemed to hang +suspended; and such as this, I fancied, must be the feeling of an +insect caught in the heart of a fiery-petalled rose. Yet not these +melodramatic sunsets alone are beautiful. Even more exquisite, perhaps, +are the lagoons, painted in monochrome of greys, with just one touch of +pink upon a western cloud, scattered in ripples 283here and there on +the waves below, reminding us that day has passed and evening come. And +beautiful again are the calm settings of fair weather, when sea and sky +alike are cheerful, and the topmost blades of the lagoon grass, peeping +from the shallows, glance like emeralds upon the surface. There is no +deep stirring of the spirit in a symphony of light and colour; but +purity, peace, and freshness make their way into our hearts. + +VII.—AT THE LIDO + +Of all these afternoon excursions, that to the Lido is most frequent. +It has two points for approach. The more distant is the little station +of San Nicoletto, at the mouth of the Porto. With an ebb-tide, the +water of the lagoon runs past the mulberry gardens of this hamlet like +a river. There is here a grove of acacia-trees, shadowy and dreamy, +above deep grass, which even an Italian summer does not wither. The +Riva is fairly broad, forming a promenade, where one may conjure up the +personages of a century ago. For San Nicoletto used to be a fashionable +resort before the other points of Lido had been occupied by +pleasure-seekers. An artist even now will select its old-world quiet, +leafy shade, and prospect through the islands of Vignole and Sant' +Erasmo to snow-touched peaks of Antelao and Tofana, rather than the +glare and bustle and extended view of Venice which its rival Sant' +Elisabetta offers. + +But when we want a plunge into the Adriatic, or a stroll along smooth +sands, or a breath of genuine sea-breeze, or a handful of horned +poppies from the dunes, or a lazy half-hour's contemplation of a +limitless horizon flecked with russet sails, then we seek Sant' +Elisabetta. Our boat is left at the landing-place. We saunter across +the island and back again. 284Antonio and Francesco wait and order +wine, which we drink with them in the shade of the little _osteria's_ +wall. + +A certain afternoon in May I well remember, for this visit to the Lido +was marked by one of those apparitions which are as rare as they are +welcome to the artist's soul. I have always held that in our modern +life the only real equivalent for the antique mythopoeic sense—that +sense which enabled the Hellenic race to figure for themselves the +powers of earth and air, streams and forests, and the presiding genii +of places, under the forms of living human beings, is supplied by the +appearance at some felicitous moment of a man or woman who impersonates +for our imagination the essence of the beauty that environs us. It +seems, at such a fortunate moment, as though we had been waiting for +this revelation, although perchance the want of it had not been +previously felt. Our sensations and perceptions test themselves at the +touchstone of this living individuality. The keynote of the whole music +dimly sounding in our ears is struck. A melody emerges, clear in form +and excellent in rhythm. The landscapes we have painted on our brain, +no longer lack their central figure. The life proper to the complex +conditions we have studied is discovered, and every detail, judged by +this standard of vitality, falls into its right relations. + +I had been musing long that day and earnestly upon the mystery of the +lagoons, their opaline transparencies of air and water, their fretful +risings and sudden subsidence into calm, the treacherousness of their +shoals, the sparkle and the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked +myself how would a Greek sculptor have personified the elemental deity +of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the Ægean or +Ionian sea? What would he find distinctive of their spirit? The Tritons +of these shallows must be of other form and lineage than the +fierce-eyed youth who blows his conch upon 285the curled crest of a +wave, crying aloud to his comrades, as he bears the nymph away to +caverns where the billows plunge in tideless instability. + +We had picked up shells and looked for sea-horses on the Adriatic +shore. Then we returned to give our boatmen wine beneath the vine-clad +_pergola_. Four other men were there, drinking, and eating from a dish +of fried fish set upon the coarse white linen cloth. Two of them soon +rose and went away. Of the two who stayed, one was a large, middle-aged +man; the other was still young. He was tall and sinewy, but slender, +for these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is +equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the +muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free +sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed +these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to +its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved +with a singular brusque grace. A black broad-brimmed hat was thrown +back upon his matted _zazzera_ of dark hair tipped with dusky brown. +This shock of hair, cut in flakes, and falling wilfully, reminded me of +the lagoon grass when it darkens in autumn upon uncovered shoals, and +sunset gilds its sombre edges. Fiery grey eyes beneath it gazed +intensely, with compulsive effluence of electricity. It was the wild +glance of a Triton. Short blonde moustache, dazzling teeth, skin +bronzed, but showing white and healthful through open front and sleeves +of lilac shirt. The dashing sparkle of this animate splendour, who +looked to me as though the sea-waves and the sun had made him in some +hour of secret and unquiet rapture, was somehow emphasised by a curious +dint dividing his square chin—a cleft that harmonised with smile on lip +and steady flame in eyes. I hardly know what effect it would have upon +a reader to compare eyes to 286opals. Yet Stefano's eyes, as they met +mine, had the vitreous intensity of opals, as though the colour of +Venetian waters were vitalised in them. This noticeable being had a +rough, hoarse voice, which, to develop the parallel with a sea-god, +might have screamed in storm or whispered raucous messages from crests +of tossing billows. + +I felt, as I looked, that here, for me at least, the mythopoem of the +lagoons was humanised; the spirit of the saltwater lakes had appeared +to me; the final touch of life emergent from nature had been given. I +was satisfied; for I had seen a poem. + +Then we rose, and wandered through the Jews' cemetery. It is a quiet +place, where the flat grave-stones, inscribed in Hebrew and Italian, +lie deep in Lido sand, waved over with wild grass and poppies. I would +fain believe that no neglect, but rather the fashion of this folk, had +left the monuments of generations to be thus resumed by nature. Yet, +knowing nothing of the history of this burial-ground, I dare not affirm +so much. There is one outlying piece of the cemetery which seems to +contradict my charitable interpretation. It is not far from San +Nicoletto. No enclosure marks it from the unconsecrated dunes. +Acacia-trees sprout amid the monuments, and break the tablets with +their thorny shoots upthrusting from the soil. Where patriarchs and +rabbis sleep for centuries, the fishers of the sea now wander, and +defile these habitations of the dead: + + Corruption most abhorred +Mingling itself with their renownèd ashes. + + +Some of the grave-stones have been used to fence the towing-path; and +one I saw, well carved with letters legible of Hebrew on fair Istrian +marble, which roofed an open drain leading from the stable of a +Christian dog. + +287 + +VIII.—A VENETIAN RESTAURANT + +At the end of a long glorious day, unhappy is that mortal whom the +Hermes of a cosmopolitan hotel, white-chokered and white-waistcoated, +marshals to the Hades of the _table-d'hôte_. The world has often been +compared to an inn; but on my way down to this common meal I have, not +unfrequently, felt fain to reverse the simile. From their separate +stations, at the appointed hour, the guests like ghosts flit to a +gloomy gas-lit chamber. They are of various speech and race, +preoccupied with divers interests and cares. Necessity and the waiter +drive them all to a sepulchral syssition, whereof the cook too +frequently deserves that old Greek comic epithet—αδου μάγειρος —cook of +the Inferno. And just as we are told that in Charon's boat we shall not +be allowed to pick our society, so here we must accept what fellowship +the fates provide. An English spinster retailing paradoxes culled +to-day from Ruskin's handbooks; an American citizen describing his +jaunt in a gondóla from the railway station; a German shopkeeper +descanting in one breath on Baur's Bock and the beauties of the +Marcusplatz; an intelligent æsthete bent on working into clearness his +own views of Carpaccio's genius: all these in turn, or all together, +must be suffered gladly through well-nigh two long hours. Uncomforted +in soul we rise from the expensive banquet; and how often rise from it +unfed! + +Far other be the doom of my own friends—of pious bards and genial +companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I +desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's +window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a +bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain +humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending +little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a +cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front lies +a Mediterranean steamer, which all day long has been discharging cargo. +Gazing westward up Giudecca, masts and funnels bar the sunset and the +Paduan hills; and from a little front room of the _trattoria_ the view +is so marine that one keeps fancying oneself in some ship's cabin. +Sea-captains sit and smoke beside their glass of grog in the pavilion +and the _caffé_. But we do not seek their company at dinner-time. Our +way lies under yonder arch, and up the narrow alley into a paved court. +Here are oleanders in pots, and plants of Japanese spindle-wood in +tubs; and from the walls beneath the window hang cages of all sorts of +birds—a talking parrot, a whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries, +linnets. Athos, the fat dog, who goes to market daily in a _barchetta_ +with his master, snuffs around. 'Where are Porthos and Aramis, my +friend?' Athos does not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail +and pokes his nose into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its +bridge displays the full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. +But beneath, this muzzle is a patent sham. The frame does not even +pretend to close on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a +decoration. A little farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who has no +discoverable name, but is famous for the sprightliness and grace with +which she bears her eighteen years. Not far from the cat one is sure to +find Carlo—the bird-like, bright-faced, close-cropped Venetian urchin, +whose duty it is to trot backwards and forwards between the cellar and +the dining-tables. At the end of the court we walk into the kitchen, +where the black-capped little _padrone_ and the gigantic white-capped +chef are in close consultation. Here we have the privilege of +inspecting the larder—fish of various sorts, meat, vegetables, +289several kinds of birds, pigeons, tordi, beccafichi, geese, wild +ducks, chickens, woodcock, &c., according to the season. We select our +dinner, and retire to eat it either in the court among the birds +beneath the vines, or in the low dark room which occupies one side of +it. Artists of many nationalities and divers ages frequent this house; +and the talk arising from the several little tables, turns upon points +of interest and beauty in the life and landscape of Venice. There can +be no difference of opinion about the excellence of the _cuisine_, or +about the reasonable charges of this _trattoria_. A soup of lentils, +followed by boiled turbot or fried soles, beefsteak or mutton cutlets, +tordi or beccafichi, with a salad, the whole enlivened with good red +wine or Florio's Sicilian Marsala from the cask, costs about four +francs. Gas is unknown in the establishment. There is no noise, no +bustle, no brutality of waiters, no _ahurissement_ of tourists. And +when dinner is done, we can sit awhile over our cigarette and coffee, +talking until the night invites us to a stroll along the Zattere or a +_giro_ in the gondola. + +IX.—NIGHT IN VENICE + +Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be in +winter among the high Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of +the mountains are too different in kind to be compared. + +There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day +is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon +which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow; +ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute; +pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding +the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; +piercing 290but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of _rio_ linked +with _rio_, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once +more the level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond the +Misericordia. + +This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight; and if a single impression +of the night has to be retained from one visit to Venice, those are +fortunate who chance upon a full moon of fair weather. Yet I know not +whether some quieter and soberer effects are not more thrilling. +To-night, for example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of +_scirocco_. Over the bridges of San Cristoforo and San Gregorio, +through the deserted Calle di Mezzo, my friend and I walk in darkness, +pass the marble basements of the Salute, and push our way along its +Riva to the point of the Dogana. We are out at sea alone, between the +Canalozzo and the Giudecca. A moist wind ruffles the water and cools +our forehead. It is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the +light reflected on it from the Piazzetta. The same light climbs the +Campanile of S. Mark, and shows the golden angel in a mystery of gloom. +The only noise that reaches us is a confused hum from the Piazza. +Sitting and musing there, the blackness of the water whispers in our +ears a tale of death. And now we hear a plash of oars, and gliding +through the darkness comes a single boat. One man leaps upon the +landing-place without a word and disappears. There is another wrapped +in a military cloak asleep. I see his face beneath me, pale and quiet. +The _barcaruolo_ turns the point in silence. From the darkness they +came; into the darkness they have gone. It is only an ordinary incident +of coastguard service. But the spirit of the night has made a poem of +it. + +Even tempestuous and rainy weather, though melancholy enough, is never +sordid here. There is no noise from carriage traffic in Venice, and the +sea-wind preserves the purity and 291transparency of the atmosphere. It +had been raining all day, but at evening came a partial clearing. I +went down to the Molo, where the large reach of the lagoon was all +moon-silvered, and San Giorgio Maggiore dark against the bluish sky, +and Santa Maria della Salute domed with moon-irradiated pearl, and the +wet slabs of the Riva shimmering in moonlight, the whole misty sky, +with its clouds and stellar spaces, drenched in moonlight, nothing but +moonlight sensible except the tawny flare of gas-lamps and the orange +lights of gondolas afloat upon the waters. On such a night the very +spirit of Venice is abroad. We feel why she is called Bride of the Sea. + +Take yet another night. There had been a representation of Verdi's +'Forza del Destino' at the Teatro Malibran. After midnight we walked +homeward through the Merceria, crossed the Piazza, and dived into the +narrow _calle_ which leads to the _traghetto_ of the Salute. It was a +warm moist starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe in those +narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace called him as we +jumped into his boat, and rang our _soldi_ on the gunwale. Then he +arose and turned the _ferro_ round, and stood across towards the +Salute. Silently, insensibly, from the oppression of confinement in the +airless streets to the liberty and immensity of the water and the night +we passed. It was but two minutes ere we touched the shore and said +good-night, and went our way and left the ferryman. But in that brief +passage he had opened our souls to everlasting things—the freshness, +and the darkness, and the kindness of the brooding, all-enfolding night +above the sea. + +292 + + + + +THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING + + +The night before the wedding we had a supper-party in my rooms. We were +twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio with +fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest child. My +own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two children. Then +there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best clothes, or out +of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers, in dark blue +shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the maid Catina, +who came and went about the table, laughing and joining in the songs, +and sitting down at intervals to take her share of wine. The big room +looking across the garden to the Grand Canal had been prepared for +supper; and the company were to be received in the smaller, which has a +fine open space in front of it to southwards. But as the guests +arrived, they seemed to find the kitchen and the cooking that was going +on quite irresistible. Catina, it seems, had lost her head with so many +cuttlefishes, _orai_, cakes, and fowls, and cutlets to reduce to order. +There was, therefore, a great bustle below stairs; and I could hear +plainly that all my guests were lending their making, or their marring, +hands to the preparation of the supper. That the company should cook +their own food on the way to the dining-room, seemed a quite novel +arrangement, but one that promised well for their contentment with the +banquet. Nobody could be dissatisfied with what was everybody's affair. + +When seven o'clock struck, Eustace and I, who had been 293entertaining +the children in their mothers' absence, heard the sound of steps upon +the stairs. The guests arrived, bringing their own _risotto_ with them. +Welcome was short, if hearty. We sat down in carefully appointed order, +and fell into such conversation as the quarter of San Vio and our +several interests supplied. From time to time one of the matrons left +the table and descended to the kitchen, when a finishing stroke was +needed for roast pullet or stewed veal. The excuses they made their +host for supposed failure in the dishes, lent a certain grace and comic +charm to the commonplace of festivity. The entertainment was theirs as +much as mine; and they all seemed to enjoy what took the form by +degrees of curiously complicated hospitality. I do not think a +well-ordered supper at any _trattoria_, such as at first suggested +itself to my imagination, would have given any of us an equal pleasure +or an equal sense of freedom. The three children had become the guests +of the whole party. Little Attilio, propped upon an air-cushion, which +puzzled him exceedingly, ate through his supper and drank his wine with +solid satisfaction, opening the large brown eyes beneath those tufts of +clustering fair hair which promise much beauty for him in his manhood. +Francesco's boy, who is older and begins to know the world, sat with a +semi-suppressed grin upon his face, as though the humour of the +situation was not wholly hidden from him. Little Teresa, too, was +happy, except when her mother, a severe Pomona, with enormous earrings +and splendid _fazzoletto_ of crimson and orange dyes, pounced down upon +her for some supposed infraction of good manners—_creanza_, as they +vividly express it here. Only Luigi looked a trifle bored. But Luigi +has been a soldier, and has now attained the supercilious superiority +of young-manhood, which smokes its cigar of an evening in the piazza +and knows the merits of the different cafés. + +294The great business of the evening began when the eating was over, +and the decanters filled with new wine of Mirano circulated freely. The +four best singers of the party drew together; and the rest prepared +themselves to make suggestions, hum tunes, and join with fitful effect +in choruses. Antonio, who is a powerful young fellow, with bronzed +cheeks and a perfect tempest of coal-black hair in flakes upon his +forehead, has a most extraordinary soprano—sound as a bell, strong as a +trumpet, well trained, and true to the least shade in intonation. +Piero, whose rugged Neptunian features, sea-wrinkled, tell of a rough +water-life, boasts a bass of resonant, almost pathetic quality. +Francesco has a _mezzo voce_, which might, by a stretch of politeness, +be called baritone. Piero's comrade, whose name concerns us not, has +another of these nondescript voices. They sat together with their +glasses and cigars before them, sketching part-songs in outline, +striking the keynote—now higher and now lower—till they saw their +subject well in view. Then they burst into full singing, Antonio +leading with a metal note that thrilled one's ears, but still was +musical. Complicated contrapuntal pieces, such as we should call +madrigals, with ever-recurring refrains of 'Venezia, gemma Triatica, +sposa del mar,' descending probably from ancient days, followed each +other in quick succession. Barcaroles, serenades, love-songs, and +invitations to the water were interwoven for relief. One of these +romantic pieces had a beautiful burden, 'Dormi, o bella, o fingi di +dormir,' of which the melody was fully worthy. But the most successful +of all the tunes were two with a sad motive. The one repeated +incessantly 'Ohimé! mia madre morî;' the other was a girl's love +lament: 'Perchè tradirmi, perchè lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri +cosî!' Even the children joined in these; and Catina, who took the solo +part in the second, was inspired to a great dramatic effort. All these +were purely popular 295songs. The people of Venice, however, are +passionate for operas. Therefore we had duets and solos from 'Ernani,' +the 'Ballo in Maschera,' and the 'Forza del Destino,' and one comic +chorus from 'Boccaccio,' which seemed to make them wild with pleasure. +To my mind, the best of these more formal pieces was a duet between +Attila and Italia from some opera unknown to me, which Antonio and +Piero performed with incomparable spirit. It was noticeable how, +descending to the people, sung by them for love at sea, or on +excursions to the villages round Mestre, these operatic reminiscences +had lost something of their theatrical formality, and assumed instead +the serious gravity, the quaint movement, and marked emphasis which +belong to popular music in Northern and Central Italy. An antique +character was communicated even to the recitative of Verdi by slight, +almost indefinable, changes of rhythm and accent. There was no end to +the singing. 'Siamo appassionati per il canto,' frequently repeated, +was proved true by the profusion and variety of songs produced from +inexhaustible memories, lightly tried over, brilliantly performed, +rapidly succeeding each other. Nor were gestures wanting—lifted arms, +hands stretched to hands, flashing eyes, hair tossed from the +forehead—unconscious and appropriate action—which showed how the spirit +of the music and words alike possessed the men. One by one the children +fell asleep. Little Attilio and Teresa were tucked up beneath my Scotch +shawl at two ends of a great sofa; and not even his father's clarion +voice, in the character of Italia defying Attila to harm 'le mie +superbe città,' could wake the little boy up. The night wore on. It was +past one. Eustace and I had promised to be in the church of the Gesuati +at six next morning. We therefore gave the guests a gentle hint, which +they as gently took. With exquisite, because perfectly unaffected, +breeding they sank for a few moments into common conversation, 296then +wrapped the children up, and took their leave. It was an uncomfortable, +warm, wet night of sullen _scirocco_. + +The next day, which was Sunday, Francesco called me at five. There was +no visible sunrise that cheerless damp October morning. Grey dawn stole +somehow imperceptibly between the veil of clouds and leaden waters, as +my friend and I, well sheltered by our _felze_, passed into the +Giudecca, and took our station before the church of the Gesuati. A few +women from the neighbouring streets and courts crossed the bridges in +draggled petticoats on their way to first mass. A few men, shouldering +their jackets, lounged along the Zattere, opened the great green doors, +and entered. Then suddenly Antonio cried out that the bridal party was +on its way, not as we had expected, in boats, but on foot. We left our +gondola, and fell into the ranks, after shaking hands with Francesco, +who is the elder brother of the bride. There was nothing very +noticeable in her appearance, except her large dark eyes. Otherwise +both face and figure were of a common type; and her bridal dress of +sprigged grey silk, large veil and orange blossoms, reduced her to the +level of a _bourgeoise_. It was much the same with the bridegroom. His +features, indeed, proved him a true Venetian gondolier; for the skin +was strained over the cheekbones, and the muscles of the throat beneath +the jaws stood out like cords, and the bright blue eyes were deep-set +beneath a spare brown forehead. But he had provided a complete suit of +black for the occasion, and wore a shirt of worked cambric, which +disguised what is really splendid in the physique of these oarsmen, at +once slender and sinewy. Both bride and bridegroom looked uncomfortable +in their clothes. The light that fell upon them in the church was dull +and leaden. The ceremony, which was very hurriedly performed by an +unctuous priest, did not appear to impress either of them. Nobody in +the bridal party, 297crowding together on both sides of the altar, +looked as though the service was of the slightest interest and moment. +Indeed, this was hardly to be wondered at; for the priest, so far as I +could understand his gabble, took the larger portion for read, after +muttering the first words of the rubric. A little carven image of an +acolyte—a weird boy who seemed to move by springs, whose hair had all +the semblance of painted wood, and whose complexion was white and red +like a clown's—did not make matters more intelligible by spasmodically +clattering responses. + +After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct +offertories. Considering how much account even two _soldi_ are to these +poor people, I was really angry when I heard the copper shower. Every +member of the party had his or her pennies ready, and dropped them into +the boxes. Whether it was the effect of the bad morning, or the +ugliness of a very ill-designed _barocco_ building, or the fault of the +fat oily priest, I know not. But the _sposalizio_ struck me as tame and +cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly conducted. At the same +time there is something too impressive in the mass for any perfunctory +performance to divest its symbolism of sublimity. A Protestant +Communion Service lends itself more easily to degradation by +unworthiness in the minister. + +We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and +bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best +man—_compare_, as he is called—at a narrow _prie-dieu_ before the +altar. The _compare_ is a person of distinction at these weddings. He +has to present the bride with a great pyramid of artificial flowers, +which is placed before her at the marriage-feast, a packet of candles, +and a box of bonbons. The comfits, when the box is opened, are found to +include two magnificent sugar babies lying in their cradles. I was told +that a _compare_, who does the thing handsomely, must be 298prepared to +spend about a hundred francs upon these presents, in addition to the +wine and cigars with which he treats his friends. On this occasion the +women were agreed that he had done his duty well. He was a fat, wealthy +little man, who lived by letting market-boats for hire on the Rialto. + +From the church to the bride's house was a walk of some three minutes. +On the way we were introduced to the father of the bride—a very +magnificent personage, with points of strong resemblance to Vittorio +Emmanuele. He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green +earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son, +Francesco. Throughout the _nozze_ he took the lead in a grand imperious +fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and +was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would +have got the nickname of _Tacchin_, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the +sons and daughters call their parent briefly _Vecchio_. I heard him so +addressed with a certain amount of awe, expecting an explosion of +bubbly-jock displeasure. But he took it, as though it was natural, +without disturbance. The other _Vecchio_, father of the bridegroom, +struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his +many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen, +were gondoliers. Both the _Vecchi_, indeed, continue to ply their +trade, day and night, at the _traghetto_. + +_Traghetti_ are stations for gondolas at different points of the +canals. As their name implies, it is the first duty of the gondoliers +upon them to ferry people across. This they do for the fixed fee of +five centimes. The _traghetti_ are in fact Venetian cab-stands. And, of +course, like London cabs, the gondolas may be taken off them for trips. +The municipality, however, makes it a condition, under penalty of fine +to the _traghetto_, that each station should always be provided with +two boats for the service of the ferry. When vacancies occur 299on the +_traghetti_, a gondolier who owns or hires a boat makes application to +the municipality, receives a number, and is inscribed as plying at a +certain station. He has now entered a sort of guild, which is presided +over by a _Capo-traghetto_, elected by the rest for the protection of +their interests, the settlement of disputes, and the management of +their common funds. In the old acts of Venice this functionary is +styled _Gastaldo di traghetto_. The members have to contribute +something yearly to the guild. This payment varies upon different +stations, according to the greater or less amount of the tax levied by +the municipality on the _traghetto_. The highest subscription I have +heard of is twenty-five francs; the lowest, seven. There is one +_traghetto_, known by the name of Madonna del Giglio or Zobenigo, which +possesses near its _pergola_ of vines a nice old brown Venetian +picture. Some stranger offered a considerable sum for this. But the +guild refused to part with it. + +As may be imagined, the _traghetti_ vary greatly in the amount and +quality of their custom. By far the best are those in the neighbourhood +of the hotels upon the Grand Canal. At any one of these a gondolier +during the season is sure of picking up some foreigner or other who +will pay him handsomely for comparatively light service. A _traghetto_ +on the Giudecca, on the contrary, depends upon Venetian traffic. The +work is more monotonous, and the pay is reduced to its tariffed +minimum. So far as I can gather, an industrious gondolier, with a good +boat, belonging to a good _traghetto_, may make as much as ten or +fifteen francs in a single day. But this cannot be relied on. They +therefore prefer a fixed appointment with a private family, for which +they receive by tariff five francs a day, or by arrangement for long +periods perhaps four francs a day, with certain perquisites and small +advantages. It is great luck to get such an engagement for 300the +winter. The heaviest anxieties which beset a gondolier are then +disposed of. Having entered private service, they are not allowed to +ply their trade on the _traghetto_, except by stipulation with their +masters. Then they may take their place one night out of every six in +the rank and file. The gondoliers have two proverbs, which show how +desirable it is, while taking a fixed engagement, to keep their hold on +the _traghetto_. One is to this effect: _il traghetto è un buon +padrone_. The other satirises the meanness of the poverty-stricken +Venetian nobility: _pompa di servitù, misera insegna_. When they +combine the _traghetto_ with private service, the municipality insists +on their retaining the number painted on their gondola; and against +this their employers frequently object. It is therefore a great point +for a gondolier to make such an arrangement with his master as will +leave him free to show his number. The reason for this regulation is +obvious. Gondoliers are known more by their numbers and their +_traghetti_ than their names. They tell me that though there are +upwards of a thousand registered in Venice, each man of the trade knows +the whole confraternity by face and number. Taking all things into +consideration, I think four francs a day the whole year round are very +good earnings for a gondolier. On this he will marry and rear a family, +and put a little money by. A young unmarried man, working at two and a +half or three francs a day, is proportionately well-to-do. If he is +economical, he ought upon these wages to save enough in two or three +years to buy himself a gondola. A boy from fifteen to nineteen is +called a _mezz' uomo_, and gets about one franc a day. A new gondola +with all its fittings is worth about a thousand francs. It does not +last in good condition more than six or seven years. At the end of that +time the hull will fetch eighty francs. A new hull can be had for three +hundred francs. The old fittings—brass 301sea-horses or _cavalli_, +steel prow or _ferro_, covered cabin or _felze_, cushions and +leather-covered back-board or _stramazetto_, maybe transferred to it. +When a man wants to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one +already half past service—a _gondola da traghetto_ or _di mezza età_. +This should cost him something over two hundred francs. Little by +little, he accumulates the needful fittings; and when his first +purchase is worn out, he hopes to set up with a well-appointed +equipage. He thus gradually works his way from the rough trade which +involves hard work and poor earnings to that more profitable industry +which cannot be carried on without a smart boat. The gondola is a +source of continual expense for repairs. Its oars have to be replaced. +It has to be washed with sponges, blacked, and varnished. Its bottom +needs frequent cleaning. Weeds adhere to it in the warm brackish water, +growing rapidly through the summer months, and demanding to be scrubbed +off once in every four weeks. The gondolier has no place where he can +do this for himself. He therefore takes his boat to a wharf, or +_squero_, as the place is called. At these _squeri_ gondolas are built +as well as cleaned. The fee for a thorough setting to rights of the +boat is five francs. It must be done upon a fine day. Thus in addition +to the cost, the owner loses a good day's work. + +These details will serve to give some notion of the sort of people with +whom Eustace and I spent our day. The bride's house is in an excellent +position on an open canal leading from the Canalozzo to the Giudecca. +She had arrived before us, and received her friends in the middle of +the room. Each of us in turn kissed her cheek and murmured our +congratulations. We found the large living-room of the house arranged +with chairs all round the walls, and the company were marshalled in +some order of precedence, my friend and I taking place near the bride. +On either hand airy bedrooms opened 302out, and two large doors, wide +open, gave a view from where we sat of a good-sized kitchen. This +arrangement of the house was not only comfortable, but pretty; for the +bright copper pans and pipkins ranged on shelves along the kitchen +walls had a very cheerful effect. The walls were whitewashed, but +literally covered with all sorts of pictures. A great plaster cast from +some antique, an Atys, Adonis, or Paris, looked down from a bracket +placed between the windows. There was enough furniture, solid and well +kept, in all the rooms. Among the pictures were full-length portraits +in oils of two celebrated gondoliers—one in antique costume, the other +painted a few years since. The original of the latter soon came and +stood before it. He had won regatta prizes; and the flags of four +discordant colours were painted round him by the artist, who had +evidently cared more to commemorate the triumphs of his sitter and to +strike a likeness than to secure the tone of his own picture. This +champion turned out a fine fellow—Corradini—with one of the brightest +little gondoliers of thirteen for his son. + +After the company were seated, lemonade and cakes were handed round +amid a hubbub of chattering women. Then followed cups of black coffee +and more cakes. Then a glass of Cyprus and more cakes. Then a glass of +curaçoa and more cakes. Finally, a glass of noyau and still more cakes. +It was only a little after seven in the morning. Yet politeness +compelled us to consume these delicacies. I tried to shirk my duty; but +this discretion was taken by my hosts for well-bred modesty; and +instead of being let off, I had the richest piece of pastry and the +largest maccaroon available pressed so kindly on me, that, had they +been poisoned, I would not have refused to eat them. The conversation +grew more, and more animated, the women gathering together in their +dresses of bright blue and scarlet, the men lighting 303cigars and +puffing out a few quiet words. It struck me as a drawback that these +picturesque people had put on Sunday-clothes to look as much like +shopkeepers as possible. But they did not all of them succeed. Two +handsome women, who handed the cups round—one a brunette, the other a +blonde—wore skirts of brilliant blue, with a sort of white jacket, and +white kerchief folded heavily about their shoulders. The brunette had a +great string of coral, the blonde of amber, round her throat. Gold +earrings and the long gold chains Venetian women wear, of all patterns +and degrees of value, abounded. Nobody appeared without them; but I +could not see any of an antique make. The men seemed to be contented +with rings—huge, heavy rings of solid gold, worked with a rough flower +pattern. One young fellow had three upon his fingers. This circumstance +led me to speculate whether a certain portion at least of this display +of jewellery around me had not been borrowed for the occasion. + +Eustace and I were treated quite like friends. They called us _I +Signori_. But this was only, I think, because our English names are +quite unmanageable. The women fluttered about us and kept asking +whether we really liked it all? whether we should come to the _pranzo_? +whether it was true we danced? It seemed to give them unaffected +pleasure to be kind to us; and when we rose to go away, the whole +company crowded round, shaking hands and saying: 'Si divertirà bene +stasera!' Nobody resented our presence; what was better, no one put +himself out for us. 'Vogliono veder il nostro costume,' I heard one +woman say. + +We got home soon after eight, and, as our ancestors would have said, +settled our stomachs with a dish of tea. It makes me shudder now to +think of the mixed liquids and miscellaneous cakes we had consumed at +that unwonted hour. + +At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves 304for +action. His gondola was in attendance, covered with the _felze_, to +take us to the house of the _sposa_. We found the canal crowded with +poor people of the quarter—men, women, and children lining the walls +along its side, and clustering like bees upon the bridges. The water +itself was almost choked with gondolas. Evidently the folk of San Vio +thought our wedding procession would be a most exciting pageant. We +entered the house, and were again greeted by the bride and bridegroom, +who consigned each of us to the control of a fair tyrant. This is the +most fitting way of describing our introduction to our partners of the +evening; for we were no sooner presented, than the ladies swooped upon +us like their prey, placing their shawls upon our left arms, while they +seized and clung to what was left available of us for locomotion. There +was considerable giggling and tittering throughout the company when +Signora Fenzo, the young and comely wife of a gondolier, thus took +possession of Eustace, and Signora dell' Acqua, the widow of another +gondolier, appropriated me. The affair had been arranged beforehand, +and their friends had probably chaffed them with the difficulty of +managing two mad Englishmen. However, they proved equal to the +occasion, and the difficulties were entirely on our side. Signora Fenzo +was a handsome brunette, quiet in her manners, who meant business. I +envied Eustace his subjection to such a reasonable being. Signora dell' +Acqua, though a widow, was by no means disconsolate; and I soon +perceived that it would require all the address and diplomacy I +possessed, to make anything out of her society. She laughed +incessantly; darted in the most diverse directions, dragging me along +with her; exhibited me in triumph to her cronies; made eyes at me over +a fan, repeated my clumsiest remarks, as though they gave her +indescribable amusement; and all the while jabbered Venetian at express +rate, without the 305slightest regard for my incapacity to follow her +vagaries. The _Vecchio_ marshalled us in order. First went the _sposa_ +and _comare_ with the mothers of bride and bridegroom. Then followed +the _sposo_ and the bridesmaid. After them I was made to lead my fair +tormentor. As we descended the staircase there arose a hubbub of +excitement from the crowd on the canals. The gondolas moved turbidly +upon the face of the waters. The bridegroom kept muttering to himself, +'How we shall be criticised! They will tell each other who was decently +dressed, and who stepped awkwardly into the boats, and what the price +of my boots was!' Such exclamations, murmured at intervals, and +followed by chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With +regard to his boots, he need have had no anxiety. They were of the +shiniest patent leather, much too tight, and without a speck of dust +upon them. But his nervousness infected me with a cruel dread. All +those eyes were going to watch how we comported ourselves in jumping +from the landing-steps into the boat! If this operation, upon a +ceremonious occasion, has terrors even for a gondolier, how formidable +it ought to be to me! And here is the Signora dell' Acqua's white +cachemire shawl dangling on one arm, and the Signora herself +languishingly clinging to the other; and the gondolas are fretting in a +fury of excitement, like corks, upon the churned green water! The +moment was terrible. The _sposa_ and her three companions had been +safely stowed away beneath their _felze_. The _sposo_ had successfully +handed the bridesmaid into the second gondola. I had to perform the +same office for my partner. Off she went, like a bird, from the bank. I +seized a happy moment, followed, bowed, and found myself to my +contentment gracefully ensconced in a corner opposite the widow. Seven +more gondolas were packed. The procession moved. We glided down the +little channel, broke 306away into the Grand Canal, crossed it, and +dived into a labyrinth from which we finally emerged before our +destination, the Trattoria di San Gallo. The perils of the landing were +soon over; and, with the rest of the guests, my mercurial companion and +I slowly ascended a long flight of stairs leading to a vast upper +chamber. Here we were to dine. + +It had been the gallery of some palazzo in old days, was above one +hundred feet in length, fairly broad, with a roof of wooden rafters and +large windows opening on a courtyard garden. I could see the tops of +three cypress-trees cutting the grey sky upon a level with us. A long +table occupied the centre of this room. It had been laid for upwards of +forty persons, and we filled it. There was plenty of light from great +glass lustres blazing with gas. When the ladies had arranged their +dresses, and the gentlemen had exchanged a few polite remarks, we all +sat down to dinner—I next my inexorable widow, Eustace beside his calm +and comely partner. The first impression was one of disappointment. It +looked so like a public dinner of middle-class people. There was no +local character in costume or customs. Men and women sat politely +bored, expectant, trifling with their napkins, yawning, muttering +nothings about the weather or their neighbours. The frozen +commonplaceness of the scene was made for me still more oppressive by +Signora dell' Acqua. She was evidently satirical, and could not be +happy unless continually laughing at or with somebody. 'What a stick +the woman will think me!' I kept saying to myself. 'How shall I ever +invent jokes in this strange land? I cannot even flirt with her in +Venetian! And here I have condemned myself—and her too, poor thing—to +sit through at least three hours of mortal dulness!' Yet the widow was +by no means unattractive. Dressed in black, she had contrived by an +artful arrangement of lace and jewellery to give an air of lightness to +her 307costume. She had a pretty little pale face, a _minois +chiffonné_, with slightly turned-up nose, large laughing brown eyes, a +dazzling set of teeth, and a tempestuously frizzled mop of powdered +hair. When I managed to get a side-look at her quietly, without being +giggled at or driven half mad by unintelligible incitements to a +jocularity I could not feel, it struck me that, if we once found a +common term of communication we should become good friends. But for the +moment that _modus vivendi_ seemed unattainable. She had not recovered +from the first excitement of her capture of me. She was still showing +me off and trying to stir me up. The arrival of the soup gave me a +momentary relief; and soon the serious business of the afternoon began. +I may add that before dinner was over, the Signora dell' Acqua and I +were fast friends. I had discovered the way of making jokes, and she +had become intelligible. I found her a very nice, though flighty, +little woman; and I believe she thought me gifted with the faculty of +uttering eccentric epigrams in a grotesque tongue. Some of my remarks +were flung about the table, and had the same success as uncouth Lombard +carvings have with connoisseurs in _naïvetés_ of art. By that time we +had come to be _compare_ and _comare_ to each other—the sequel of some +clumsy piece of jocularity. + +It was a heavy entertainment, copious in quantity, excellent in +quality, plainly but well cooked. I remarked there was no fish. The +widow replied that everybody present ate fish to satiety at home. They +did not join a marriage feast at the San Gallo, and pay their nine +francs, for that! It should be observed that each guest paid for his +own entertainment. This appears to be the custom. Therefore attendance +is complimentary, and the married couple are not at ruinous charges for +the banquet. A curious feature in the whole proceeding had its origin +in this custom. I noticed that before 308each cover lay an empty plate, +and that my partner began with the first course to heap upon it what +she had not eaten. She also took large helpings, and kept advising me +to do the same. I said: 'No; I only take what I want to eat; if I fill +that plate in front of me as you are doing, it will be great waste.' +This remark elicited shrieks of laughter from all who heard it; and +when the hubbub had subsided, I perceived an apparently official +personage bearing down upon Eustace, who was in the same perplexity. It +was then circumstantially explained to us that the empty plates were +put there in order that we might lay aside what we could not +conveniently eat, and take it home with us. At the end of the dinner +the widow (whom I must now call my _comare_) had accumulated two whole +chickens, half a turkey, and a large assortment of mixed eatables. I +performed my duty and won her regard by placing delicacies at her +disposition. + +Crudely stated, this proceeding moves disgust. But that is only because +one has not thought the matter out. In the performance there was +nothing coarse or nasty. These good folk had made a contract at so much +a head—so many fowls, so many pounds of beef, &c, to be supplied; and +what they had fairly bought, they clearly had a right to. No one, so +far as I could notice, tried to take more than his proper share; +except, indeed, Eustace and myself. In our first eagerness to conform +to custom, we both overshot the mark, and grabbed at disproportionate +helpings. The waiters politely observed that we were taking what was +meant for two; and as the courses followed in interminable sequence, we +soon acquired the tact of what was due to us. + +Meanwhile the room grew warm. The gentlemen threw off their coats—a +pleasant liberty of which I availed myself, and was immediately more at +ease. The ladies divested themselves of their shoes (strange to +relate!) and sat in comfort 309with their stockinged feet upon the +_scagliola_ pavement. I observed that some cavaliers by special +permission were allowed to remove their partners' slippers. This was +not my lucky fate. My _comare_ had not advanced to that point of +intimacy. Healths began to be drunk. The conversation took a lively +turn; and women went fluttering round the table, visiting their +friends, to sip out of their glass, and ask each other how they were +getting on. It was not long before the stiff veneer of _bourgeoisie_ +which bored me had worn off. The people emerged in their true selves: +natural, gentle, sparkling with enjoyment, playful. Playful is, I +think, the best word to describe them. They played with infinite grace +and innocence, like kittens, from the old men of sixty to the little +boys of thirteen. Very little wine was drunk. Each guest had a litre +placed before him. Many did not finish theirs; and for very few was it +replenished. When at last the dessert arrived, and the bride's comfits +had been handed round, they began to sing. It was very pretty to see a +party of three or four friends gathering round some popular beauty, and +paying her compliments in verse—they grouped behind her chair, she +sitting back in it and laughing up to them, and joining in the chorus. +The words, 'Brunetta mia simpatica, ti amo sempre più,' sung after this +fashion to Eustace's handsome partner, who puffed delicate whiffs from +a Russian cigarette, and smiled her thanks, had a peculiar +appropriateness. All the ladies, it may be observed in passing, had by +this time lit their cigarettes. The men were smoking Toscani, Sellas, +or Cavours, and the little boys were dancing round the table breathing +smoke from their pert nostrils. + +The dinner, in fact, was over. Other relatives of the guests arrived, +and then we saw how some of the reserved dishes were to be bestowed. A +side-table was spread at the end of the gallery, and these late-comers +were regaled with plenty by 310their friends. Meanwhile, the big table +at which we had dined was taken to pieces and removed. The _scagliola_ +floor was swept by the waiters. Musicians came streaming in and took +their places. The ladies resumed their shoes. Every one prepared to +dance. + +My friend and I were now at liberty to chat with the men. He knew some +of them by sight, and claimed acquaintance with others. There was +plenty of talk about different boats, gondolas, and sandolos and topos, +remarks upon the past season, and inquiries as to chances of +engagements in the future. One young fellow told us how he had been +drawn for the army, and should be obliged to give up his trade just +when he had begun to make it answer. He had got a new gondola, and this +would have to be hung up during the years of his service. The +warehousing of a boat in these circumstances costs nearly one hundred +francs a year, which is a serious tax upon the pockets of a private in +the line. Many questions were put in turn to us, but all of the same +tenor. 'Had we really enjoyed the _pranzo_? Now, really, were we +amusing ourselves? And did we think the custom of the wedding _un bel +costume_?' We could give an unequivocally hearty response to all these +interrogations. The men seemed pleased. Their interest in our enjoyment +was unaffected. It is noticeable how often the word _divertimento_ is +heard upon the lips of the Italians. They have a notion that it is the +function in life of the _Signori_ to amuse themselves. + +The ball opened, and now we were much besought by the ladies. I had to +deny myself with a whole series of comical excuses. Eustace performed +his duty after a stiff English fashion—once with his pretty partner of +the _pranzo_, and once again with a fat gondolier. The band played +waltzes and polkas, chiefly upon patriotic airs—the Marcia Reale, +Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with men, women with 311women, little +boys and girls together. The gallery whirled with a laughing crowd. +There was plenty of excitement and enjoyment—not an unseemly or +extravagant word or gesture. My _comare_ careered about with a light +mænadic impetuosity, which made me regret my inability to accept her +pressing invitations. She pursued me into every corner of the room, but +when at last I dropped excuses and told her that my real reason for not +dancing was that it would hurt my health, she waived her claims at once +with an _Ah, poverino!_ + +Some time after midnight we felt that we had had enough of +_divertimento_. Francesco helped us to slip out unobserved. With many +silent good wishes we left the innocent playful people who had been so +kind to us. The stars were shining from a watery sky as we passed into +the piazza beneath the Campanile and the pinnacles of S. Mark. The Riva +was almost empty, and the little waves fretted the boats moored to the +piazzetta, as a warm moist breeze went fluttering by. We smoked a last +cigar, crossed our _traghetto_, and were soon sound asleep at the end +of a long pleasant day. The ball, we heard next morning, finished about +four. + +Since that evening I have had plenty of opportunities for seeing my +friends the gondoliers, both in their own homes and in my apartment. +Several have entertained me at their mid-day meal of fried fish and +amber-coloured polenta. These repasts were always cooked with +scrupulous cleanliness, and served upon a table covered with coarse +linen. The polenta is turned out upon a wooden platter, and cut with a +string called _lassa_. You take a large slice of it on the palm of the +left hand, and break it with the fingers of the right. Wholesome red +wine of the Paduan district and good white bread were never wanting. +The rooms in which we met to eat looked out on narrow lanes or over +pergolas of yellowing vines. Their whitewashed walls were hung with +photographs 312of friends and foreigners, many of them souvenirs from +English or American employers. The men, in broad black hats and lilac +shirts, sat round the table, girt with the red waist-wrapper, or +_fascia_, which marks the ancient faction of the Castellani. The other +faction, called Nicolotti, are distinguished by a black _assisa_. The +quarters of the town are divided unequally and irregularly into these +two parties. What was once a formidable rivalry between two sections of +the Venetian populace, still survives in challenges to trials of +strength and skill upon the water. The women, in their many-coloured +kerchiefs, stirred polenta at the smoke-blackened chimney, whose huge +pent-house roof projects two feet or more across the hearth. When they +had served the table they took their seat on low stools, knitted +stockings, or drank out of glasses handed across the shoulder to them +by their lords. Some of these women were clearly notable housewives, +and I have no reason to suppose that they do not take their full share +of the housework. Boys and girls came in and out, and got a portion of +the dinner to consume where they thought best. Children went tottering +about upon the red-brick floor, the playthings of those hulking +fellows, who handled them very gently and spoke kindly in a sort of +confidential whisper to their ears. These little ears were mostly +pierced for earrings, and the light blue eyes of the urchins peeped +maliciously beneath shocks of yellow hair. A dog was often of the +party. He ate fish like his masters, and was made to beg for it by +sitting up and rowing with his paws. _Voga, Azzò, voga!_ The Anzolo who +talked thus to his little brown Spitz-dog has the hoarse voice of a +Triton and the movement of an animated sea-wave. Azzo performed his +trick, swallowed his fish-bones, and the fiery Anzolo looked round +approvingly. + +On all these occasions I have found these gondoliers the 313same +sympathetic, industrious, cheery affectionate folk. They live in many +respects a hard and precarious life. The winter in particular is a time +of anxiety, and sometimes of privation, even to the well-to-do among +them. Work then is scarce, and what there is, is rendered disagreeable +to them by the cold. Yet they take their chance with facile temper, and +are not soured by hardships. The amenities of the Venetian sea and air, +the healthiness of the lagoons, the cheerful bustle of the poorer +quarters, the brilliancy of this Southern sunlight, and the beauty +which is everywhere apparent, must be reckoned as important factors in +the formation of their character. And of that character, as I have +said, the final note is playfulness. In spite of difficulties, their +life has never been stern enough to sadden them. Bare necessities are +marvellously cheap, and the pinch of real bad weather—such frost as +locked the lagoons in ice two years ago, or such south-western gales as +flooded the basement floors of all the houses on the Zattere—is rare +and does not last long. On the other hand, their life has never been so +lazy as to reduce them to the savagery of the traditional Neapolitan +lazzaroni. They have had to work daily for small earnings, but under +favourable conditions, and their labour has been lightened by much +good-fellowship among themselves, by the amusements of their _feste_ +and their singing clubs. + +Of course it is not easy for a stranger in a very different social +position to feel that he has been admitted to their confidence. +Italians have an ineradicable habit of making themselves externally +agreeable, of bending in all indifferent matters to the whims and +wishes of superiors, and of saying what they think _Signori_ like. This +habit, while it smoothes the surface of existence, raises up a barrier +of compliment and partial insincerity, against which the more downright +natures of us Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met +with an imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who +are bent on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very reverse of +that dour opposition which a Lowland Scot or a North English peasant +offers to familiarity; but it is hardly less insurmountable. The +treatment, again, which Venetians of the lower class have received +through centuries from their own nobility, makes attempts at +fraternisation on the part of gentlemen unintelligible to them. The +best way, here and elsewhere, of overcoming these obstacles is to have +some bond of work or interest in common—of service on the one side +rendered, and goodwill on the other honestly displayed. The men of whom +I have been speaking will, I am convinced, not shirk their share of +duty or make unreasonable claims upon the generosity of their +employers. + +315 + + + + +A CINQUE CENTO BRUTUS + + +I.—THE SESTIERE DI SAN POLO + +There is a quarter of Venice not much visited by tourists, lying as it +does outside their beat, away from the Rialto, at a considerable +distance from the Frari and San Rocco, in what might almost pass for a +city separated by a hundred miles from the Piazza. This is the quarter +of San Polo, one corner of which, somewhere between the back of the +Palazzo Foscari and the Campo di San Polo, was the scene of a memorable +act of vengeance in the year 1546. Here Lorenzino de' Medici, the +murderer of his cousin Alessandro, was at last tracked down and put to +death by paid cut-throats. How they succeeded in their purpose, we know +in every detail from the narrative dictated by the chief assassin. His +story so curiously illustrates the conditions of life in Italy three +centuries ago, that I have thought it worthy of abridgment. But, in +order to make it intelligible, and to paint the manners of the times +more fully, I must first relate the series of events which led to +Lorenzino's murder of his cousin Alessandro, and from that to his own +subsequent assassination. Lorenzino de' Medici, the Florentine Brutus +of the sixteenth century, is the hero of the tragedy. Some of his +relatives, however, must first appear upon the scene before he enters +with a patriot's knife concealed beneath a court-fool's bauble. + +316 + +II.—THE MURDER OF IPPOLITO DE' MEDICI + +After the final extinction of the Florentine Republic, the hopes of the +Medici, who now aspired to the dukedom of Tuscany, rested on three +bastards—Alessandro, the reputed child of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino; +Ippolito, the natural son of Giuliano, Duke of Nemours; and Giulio, the +offspring of an elder Giuliano, who was at this time Pope, with the +title of Clement VII. Clement had seen Rome sacked in 1527 by a horde +of freebooters fighting under the Imperial standard, and had used the +remnant of these troops, commanded by the Prince of Orange, to crush +his native city in the memorable siege of 1529-30. He now determined to +rule Florence from the Papal chair by the help of the two bastard +cousins I have named. Alessandro was created Duke of Cività di Penna, +and sent to take the first place in the city. Ippolito was made a +cardinal; since the Medici had learned that Rome was the real basis of +their power, and it was undoubtedly in Clement's policy to advance this +scion of his house to the Papacy. The sole surviving representative of +the great Lorenzo de' Medici's legitimate blood was Catherine, daughter +of the Duke of Urbino by Madeleine de la Tour d'Auvergne. She was +pledged in marriage to the Duke of Orleans, who was afterwards Henry +II. of France. A natural daughter of the Emperor Charles V. was +provided for her putative half-brother Alessandro. By means of these +alliances the succession of Ippolito to the Papal chair would have been +secured, and the strength of the Medici would have been confirmed in +Tuscany, but for the disasters which have now to be related. + +Between the cousins Alessandro and Ippolito there was no love lost. As +boys, they had both played the part of princes in Florence under the +guardianship of the Cardinal Passerini 317da Cortona. The higher rank +had then been given to Ippolito, who bore the title of Magnifico, and +seemed thus designated for the lordship of the city. Ippolito, though +only half a Medici, was of more authentic lineage than Alessandro; for +no proof positive could be adduced that the latter was even a spurious +child of the Duke of Urbino. He bore obvious witness to his mother's +blood upon his mulatto's face; but this mother was the wife of a groom, +and it was certain that in the court of Urbino she had not been chary +of her favours. The old magnificence of taste, the patronage of art and +letters, and the preference for liberal studies which distinguished +Casa Medici, survived in Ippolito; whereas Alessandro manifested only +the brutal lusts of a debauched tyrant. It was therefore with great +reluctance that, moved by reasons of state and domestic policy, +Ippolito saw himself compelled to accept the scarlet hat. Alessandro +having been recognised as a son of the Duke of Urbino, had become +half-brother to the future Queen of France. To treat him as the head of +the family was a necessity thrust, in the extremity of the Medicean +fortunes, upon Clement. Ippolito, who more entirely represented the +spirit of the house, was driven to assume the position of a cadet, with +all the uncertainties of an ecclesiastical career. + +In these circumstances Ippolito had not strength of character to +sacrifice himself for the consolidation of the Medicean power, which +could only have been effected by maintaining a close bond of union +between its members. The death of Clement in 1534 obscured his +prospects in the Church. He was still too young to intrigue for the +tiara. The new Pope, Alessandro Farnese, soon after his election, +displayed a vigour which was unexpected from his age, together with a +nepotism which his previous character had scarcely warranted. The +Cardinal de' Medici felt himself excluded and oppressed. He joined the +party of those 318numerous Florentine exiles, headed by Filippo +Strozzi, and the Cardinals Salviati and Ridolfi, all of whom were +connected by marriage with the legitimate Medici, and who unanimously +hated and were jealous of the Duke of Cività di Penna. On the score of +policy it is difficult to condemn this step. Alessandro's hold upon +Florence was still precarious, nor had he yet married Margaret of +Austria. Perhaps Ippolito was right in thinking he had less to gain +from his cousin than from the anti-Medicean faction and the princes of +the Church who favoured it. But he did not play his cards well. He +quarrelled with the new Pope, Paul III., and by his vacillations led +the Florentine exiles to suspect he might betray them. + +In the summer of 1535 Ippolito was at Itri, a little town not far from +Gaeta and Terracina, within easy reach of Fondi, where dwelt the +beautiful Giulia Gonzaga. To this lady the Cardinal paid assiduous +court, passing his time with her in the romantic scenery of that +world-famous Capuan coast. On the 5th of August his seneschal, Giovann' +Andrea, of Borgo San Sepolcro, brought him a bowl of chicken-broth, +after drinking which he exclaimed to one of his attendants, 'I have +been poisoned, and the man who did it is Giovann' Andrea.' The +seneschal was taken and tortured, and confessed that he had mixed a +poison with the broth. Four days afterwards the Cardinal died, and a +post-mortem examination showed that the omentum had been eaten by some +corrosive substance. Giovann' Andrea was sent in chains to Rome; but in +spite of his confession, more than once repeated, the court released +him. He immediately took refuge with Alessandro de' Medici in Florence, +whence he repaired to Borgo San Sepolcro, and was, at the close of a +few months, there murdered by the people of the place. From these +circumstances it was conjectured, not without good reason, that +Alessandro had procured his cousin's death; and a certain 319Captain +Pignatta, of low birth in Florence, a bravo and a coward, was believed +to have brought the poison to Itri from the Duke. The Medicean +courtiers at Florence did not disguise their satisfaction; and one of +them exclaimed, with reference to the event, 'We know how to brush +flies from our noses!' + +III.—THE MURDER OF ALESSANDRO DE' MEDICI + +Having removed his cousin and rival from the scene, Alessandro de' +Medici plunged with even greater effrontery into the cruelties and +debaucheries which made him odious in Florence. It seemed as though +fortune meant to smile on him; for in this same year (1535) Charles V. +decided at Naples in his favour against the Florentine exiles, who were +pleading their own cause and that of the city injured by his tyrannies; +and in February of the following year he married Margaret of Austria, +the Emperor's natural daughter. Francesco Guicciardini, the first +statesman and historian of his age, had undertaken his defence, and was +ready to support him by advice and countenance in the conduct of his +government. Within the lute of this prosperity, however, there was one +little rift. For some months past he had closely attached to his person +a certain kinsman, Lorenzo de' Medici, who was descended in the fourth +generation from Lorenzo, the brother of Cosimo Pater Patriæ. This +Lorenzo, or Lorenzino, or Lorenzaccio, as his most intimate +acquaintances called him, was destined to murder Alessandro; and it is +worthy of notice that the Duke had received frequent warnings of his +fate. A Perugian page, for instance, who suffered from some infirmity, +saw in a dream that Lorenzino would kill his master. Astrologers +predicted that the Duke must die by having his throat cut. One of them +is said to have named Lorenzo de' Medici 320as the assassin; and +another described him so accurately that there was no mistaking the +man. Moreover, Madonna Lucrezia Salviati wrote to the Duke from Rome +that he should beware of a certain person, indicating Lorenzino; and +her daughter, Madonna Maria, told him to his face she hated the young +man, 'because I know he means to murder you, and murder you he will.' +Nor was this all. The Duke's favourite body-servants mistrusted +Lorenzino. On one occasion, when Alessandro and Lorenzino, attended by +a certain Giomo, were escalading a wall at night, as was their wont +upon illicit love-adventures, Giomo whispered to his master: 'Ah, my +lord, do let me cut the rope, and rid ourselves of him!' To which the +Duke replied: 'No, I do not want this; but if he could, I know he'd +twist it round my neck.' + +In spite, then, of these warnings and the want of confidence he felt, +the Duke continually lived with Lorenzino, employing him as pander in +his intrigues, and preferring his society to that of simpler men. When +he rode abroad, he took this evil friend upon his crupper; although he +knew for certain that Lorenzino had stolen a tight-fitting vest of mail +he used to wear, and, while his arms were round his waist, was always +meditating how to stick a poignard in his body. He trusted, so it +seems, to his own great strength and to the other's physical weakness. + +At this point, since Lorenzino is the principal actor in the two-act +drama which follows, it will be well to introduce him to the reader in +the words of Varchi, who was personally acquainted with him. Born at +Florence in 1514, he was left early by his father's death to the sole +care of his mother, Maria Soderini, 'a lady of rare prudence and +goodness, who attended with the utmost pains and diligence to his +education. No sooner, however, had he acquired the rudiments of humane +learning, which, being of very quick parts, he imbibed 321with +incredible facility, than he began to display a restless mind, +insatiable and appetitive of vice. Soon afterwards, under the rule and +discipline of Filippo Strozzi, he made open sport of all things human +and divine; and preferring the society of low persons, who not only +flattered him but were congenial to his tastes, he gave free rein to +his desires, especially in affairs of love, without regard for sex or +age or quality, and in his secret soul, while he lavished feigned +caresses upon every one he saw, felt no esteem for any living being. He +thirsted strangely for glory, and omitted no point of deed or word that +might, he thought, procure him the reputation of a man of spirit or of +wit. He was lean of person, somewhat slightly built, and on this +account people called him Lorenzino. He never laughed, but had a +sneering smile; and although he was rather distinguished by grace than +beauty, his countenance being dark and melancholy, still in the flower +of his age he was beloved beyond all measure by Pope Clement; in spite +of which he had it in his mind (according to what he said himself after +killing the Duke Alessandro) to have murdered him. He brought Francesco +di Raffaello de' Medici, the Pope's rival, who was a young man of +excellent attainments and the highest hope, to such extremity that he +lost his wits, and became the sport of the whole court at Rome, and was +sent back, as a lesser evil, as a confirmed madman to Florence.' Varchi +proceeds to relate how Lorenzino fell into disfavour with the Pope and +the Romans by chopping the heads off statues from the arch of +Constantine and other monuments; for which act of vandalism Molsa +impeached him in the Roman Academy, and a price was set upon his head. +Having returned to Florence, he proceeded to court Duke Alessandro, +into whose confidence he wormed himself, pretending to play the spy +upon the exiles, and affecting a personal timidity which put the Prince +off his guard. 322Alessandro called him 'the philosopher,' because he +conversed in solitude with his own thoughts and seemed indifferent to +wealth and office. But all this while Lorenzino was plotting how to +murder him. + +Giovio's account of this strange intimacy may be added, since it +completes the picture I have drawn from Varchi:—'Lorenzo made himself +the accomplice and instrument of those amorous amusements for which the +Duke had an insatiable appetite, with the object of deceiving him. He +was singularly well furnished with all the scoundrelly arts and trained +devices of the pander's trade; composed fine verses to incite to lust; +wrote and represented comedies in Italian; and pretended to take +pleasure only in such tricks and studies. Therefore he never carried +arms like other courtiers, and feigned to be afraid of blood, a man who +sought tranquillity at any price. Besides, he bore a pallid countenance +and melancholy brow, walking alone, talking very little and with few +persons. He haunted solitary places apart from the city, and showed +such plain signs of hypochondria that some began covertly to pass jokes +on him. Certain others, who were more acute, suspected that he was +harbouring and devising in his mind some terrible enterprise.' The +Prologue to Lorenzino's own comedy of 'Aridosiso' brings the sardonic, +sneering, ironical man vividly before us. He calls himself 'un certo +omiciatto, che non è nessun di voi che veggendolo non l'avesse a noia, +pensando che egli abbia fatto una commedia;' and begs the audience to +damn his play to save him the tedium of writing another. Criticised by +the light of his subsequent actions, this prologue may even be +understood to contain a covert promise of the murder he was meditating. + +'In this way,' writes Varchi, 'the Duke had taken such familiarity with +Lorenzo, that, not content with making use of him as a ruffian in his +dealings with women, whether 323religious or secular, maidens or wives +or widows, noble or plebeian, young or elderly, as it might happen, he +applied to him to procure for his pleasure a half-sister of Lorenzo's +own mother, a young lady of marvellous beauty, but not less chaste than +beautiful, who was the wife of Lionardo Ginori, and lived not far from +the back entrance to the palace of the Medici.' Lorenzino undertook +this odious commission, seeing an opportunity to work his designs +against the Duke. But first he had to form an accomplice, since he +could not hope to carry out the murder without help. A bravo, called +Michele del Tavolaccino, but better known by the nickname of +Scoronconcolo, struck him as a fitting instrument. He had procured this +man's pardon for a homicide, and it appears that the fellow retained a +certain sense of gratitude. Lorenzino began by telling the man there +was a courtier who put insults upon him, and Scoronconcolo professed +his readiness to kill the knave. 'Sia chi si voglia; io l'ammazzerò, se +fosse Cristo.' Up to the last minute the name of Alessandro was not +mentioned. Having thus secured his assistant, Lorenzino chose a night +when he knew that Alessandro Vitelli, captain of the Duke's guard, +would be from home. Then, after supper, he whispered in Alessandro's +ear that at last he had seduced his aunt with an offer of money, and +that she would come to his, Lorenzo's chamber at the service of the +Duke that night. Only the Duke must appear at the rendezvous alone, and +when he had arrived, the lady should be fetched. 'Certain it is,' says +Varchi, 'that the Duke, having donned a cloak of satin in the +Neapolitan style, lined with sable, when he went to take his gloves, +and there were some of mail and some of perfumed leather, hesitated +awhile and said: "Which shall I choose, those of war, or those of +love-making?"' He took the latter and went out with only four +attendants, three of whom he dismissed upon the Piazza di San Marco, +while 324one was stationed just opposite Lorenzo's house, with strict +orders not to stir if he should see folk enter or issue thence. But +this fellow, called the Hungarian, after waiting a great while, +returned to the Duke's chamber, and there went to sleep. + +Meanwhile Lorenzino received Alessandro in his bedroom, where there was +a good fire. The Duke unbuckled his sword, which Lorenzino took, and +having entangled the belt with the hilt, so that it should not readily +be drawn, laid it on the pillow. The Duke had flung himself already on +the bed, and hid himself among the curtains—doing this, it is supposed, +to save himself from the trouble of paying compliments to the lady when +she should arrive. For Caterina Ginori had the fame of a fair speaker, +and Alessandro was aware of his own incapacity to play the part of a +respectful lover. Nothing could more strongly point the man's brutality +than this act, which contributed in no small measure to his ruin. + +Lorenzino left the Duke upon the bed, and went at once for +Scoronconcolo. He told him that the enemy was caught, and bade him only +mind the work he had to do. 'That will I do,' the bravo answered, 'even +though it were the Duke himself.' 'You've hit the mark,' said Lorenzino +with a face of joy; 'he cannot slip through our fingers. Come!' So they +mounted to the bedroom, and Lorenzino, knowing where the Duke was laid, +cried: 'Sir, are you asleep?' and therewith ran him through the back. +Alessandro was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, face downwards, and +the sword passed through his kidneys and diaphragm. But it did not kill +him. He slipped from the bed, and seized a stool to parry the next +blow. Scoronconcolo now stabbed him in the face, while Lorenzino forced +him back upon the bed; and then began a hideous struggle. In order to +prevent his cries, Lorenzino doubled his fist into the Duke's mouth. +Alessandro seized 325the thumb between his teeth, and held it in a vice +until he died. This disabled Lorenzino, who still lay upon his victim's +body, and Scoronconcolo could not strike for fear of wounding his +master. Between the writhing couple he made, however, several passes +with his sword, which only pierced the mattress. Then he drew a knife +and drove it into the Duke's throat, and bored about till he had +severed veins and windpipe. + +IV.—THE FLIGHT OF LORENZINO DE' MEDICI + +Alessandro was dead. His body fell to earth. The two murderers, +drenched with blood, lifted it up, and placed it on the bed, wrapped in +the curtains, as they had found him first. Then Lorenzino went to the +window, which looked out upon the Via Larga, and opened it to rest and +breathe a little air. After this he called for Scoronconcolo's boy, Il +Freccia, and bade him look upon the dead man. Il Freccia recognised the +Duke. But why Lorenzino did this, no one knew. It seemed, as Varchi +says, that, having planned the murder with great ability, and executed +it with daring, his good sense and good luck forsook him. He made no +use of the crime he had committed; and from that day forward till his +own assassination, nothing prospered with him. Indeed, the murder of +Alessandro appears to have been almost motiveless, considered from the +point of view of practical politics. Varchi assumes that Lorenzino's +burning desire of glory prompted the deed; and when he had acquired the +notoriety he sought, there was an end to his ambition. This view is +confirmed by the Apology he wrote and published for his act. It remains +one of the most pregnant, bold, and brilliant pieces of writing which +we possess in favour of tyrannicide from that epoch of insolent crime +and audacious rhetoric. So energetic is the style, and so biting the +invective of this masterpiece, in which the author 326stabs a second +time his victim, that both Giordani and Leopardi affirmed it to be the +only true monument of eloquence in the Italian language. If thirst for +glory was Lorenzino's principal incentive, immediate glory was his +guerdon. He escaped that same night with Scoronconcolo and Freccia to +Bologna, where he stayed to dress his thumb, and then passed forward to +Venice. Filippo Strozzi there welcomed him as the new Brutus, gave him +money, and promised to marry his two sons to the two sisters of the +tyrant-killer. Poems were written and published by the most famous men +of letters, including Benedetto Varchi and Francesco Maria Molsa, in +praise of the Tuscan Brutus, the liberator of his country from a +tyrant. A bronze medal was struck bearing his name, with a profile +copied from Michelangelo's bust of Brutus. On the obverse are two +daggers and a cup, and the date viii. id. Jan. + +The immediate consequence of Alessandro's murder was the elevation of +Cosimo, son of Giovanni delle Bande Nere, and second cousin of +Lorenzino, to the duchy. At the ceremony of his investiture with the +ducal honours, Cosimo solemnly undertook to revenge Alessandro's +murder. In the following March he buried his predecessor with pomp in +San Lorenzo. The body was placed beside the bones of the Duke of Urbino +in the marble chest of Michelangelo, and here not many years ago it was +discovered. Soon afterwards Lorenzino was declared a rebel. His +portrait was painted according to old Tuscan precedent, head downwards, +and suspended by one foot, upon the wall of the fort built by +Alessandro. His house was cut in twain from roof to pavement, and a +narrow lane was driven through it, which received the title of +Traitor's Alley, _Chiasso del Traditore_. The price of four thousand +golden florins was put upon his head, together with the further sum of +one hundred florins per 327annum in perpetuity to be paid to the +murderer and his direct heirs in succession, by the Otto di Balia. +Moreover, the man who killed Lorenzino was to enjoy all civic +privileges; exemption from all taxes, ordinary and extraordinary; the +right of carrying arms, together with two attendants, in the city and +the whole domain of Florence; and the further prerogative of restoring +ten outlaws at his choice. If Lorenzino could be captured and brought +alive to Florence, the whole of this reward would be doubled. + +This decree was promulgated in April 1537, and thenceforward Lorenzino +de' Medici lived a doomed man. The assassin, who had been proclaimed a +Brutus by Tuscan exiles and humanistic enthusiasts, was regarded as a +Judas by the common people. Ballads were written on him with the title +of the 'Piteous and sore lament made unto himself by Lorenzino de' +Medici, who murdered the most illustrious Duke Alessandro.' He had +become a wild beast, whom it was honourable to hunt down, a pest which +it was righteous to extirpate. Yet fate delayed nine years to overtake +him. What remains to be told about his story must be extracted from the +narrative of the bravo who succeeded, with the aid of an accomplice, in +despatching him at Venice.[13] So far as possible, I shall use the +man's own words, translating them literally, and omitting only +unimportant details. The narrative throws brilliant light upon the +manners and movements of professional cut-throats at that period in +Italy. It seems to have been taken down from the hero Francesco, or +Cecco, Bibboni's lips; and there is no doubt that we possess in it a +valuable historical document for the illustration of 328contemporary +customs. It offers in all points a curious parallel to Cellini's +account of his own homicides and hair-breadth escapes. Moreover, it is +confirmed in its minutest circumstances by the records of the criminal +courts of Venice in the sixteenth century. This I can attest from +recent examination of MSS. relating to the _Signori di Notte_ and the +_Esecutori contro la Bestemmia_, which are preserved among the Archives +at the Frari. + + [13] Those who are interested in such matters may profitably compare + this description of a planned murder in the sixteenth century with the + account written by Ambrogio Tremazzi of the way in which he tracked + and slew Troilo Orsini in Paris in the year 1577. It is given by Gnoli + in his _Vittoria Accoramboni_, pp. 404-414. + +V.—THE MURDER OF LORENZINO DE' MEDICI + +'When I returned from Germany,' begins Bibboni, 'where I had been in +the pay of the Emperor, I found at Vicenza Bebo da Volterra, who was +staying in the house of M. Antonio da Roma, a nobleman of that city. +This gentleman employed him because of a great feud he had; and he was +mighty pleased, moreover, at my coming, and desired that I too should +take up my quarters in his palace.' + +This paragraph strikes the keynote of the whole narrative, and +introduces us to the company we are about to keep. The noblemen of that +epoch, if they had private enemies, took into their service soldiers of +adventure, partly to protect their persons, but also to make war, when +occasion offered, on their foes. The _bravi_, as they were styled, had +quarters assigned them in the basement of the palace, where they might +be seen swaggering about the door or flaunting their gay clothes behind +the massive iron bars of the windows which opened on the streets. When +their master went abroad at night they followed him, and were always at +hand to perform secret services in love affairs, assassination, and +espial. For the rest, they haunted taverns, and kept up correspondence +with prostitutes. An Italian city had a whole population of such +fellows, the offscourings of armies, drawn from 329all nations, divided +by their allegiance of the time being into hostile camps, but united by +community of interest and occupation, and ready to combine against the +upper class, upon whose vices, enmities, and cowardice they throve. + +Bibboni proceeds to say how another gentleman of Vicenza, M. Francesco +Manente, had at this time a feud with certain of the Guazzi and the +Laschi, which had lasted several years, and cost the lives of many +members of both parties and their following. M. Francesco being a +friend of M. Antonio, besought that gentleman to lend him Bibboni and +Bebo for a season; and the two _bravi_ went together with their new +master to Celsano, a village in the neighbourhood. 'There both parties +had estates, and all of them kept armed men in their houses, so that +not a day passed without feats of arms, and always there was some one +killed or wounded. One day, soon afterwards, the leaders of our party +resolved to attack the foe in their house, where we killed two, and the +rest, numbering five men, entrenched themselves in a ground-floor +apartment; whereupon we took possession of their harquebuses and other +arms, which forced them to abandon the villa and retire to Vicenza; and +within a short space of time this great feud was terminated by an ample +peace.' After this Bebo took service with the Rector of the University +in Padua, and was transferred by his new patron to Milan. Bibboni +remained at Vicenza with M. Galeazzo della Seta, who stood in great +fear of his life, notwithstanding the peace which had been concluded +between the two factions. At the end of ten months he returned to M. +Antonio da Roma and his six brothers, 'all of whom being very much +attached to me, they proposed that I should live my life with them, for +good or ill, and be treated as one of the family; upon the +understanding that if war broke out and I wanted to take part in it, I +should always have twenty-five crowns and arms 330and horse, with +welcome home, so long as I lived; and in case I did not care to join +the troops, the same provision for my maintenance.' + +From these details we comprehend the sort of calling which a bravo of +Bibboni's species followed. Meanwhile Bebo was at Milan. 'There it +happened that M. Francesco Vinta, of Volterra, was on embassy from the +Duke of Florence. He saw Bebo, and asked him what he was doing in +Milan, and Bebo answered that he was a knight errant.' This phrase, +derived no doubt from the romantic epics then in vogue, was a pretty +euphemism for a rogue of Bebo's quality. The ambassador now began +cautiously to sound his man, who seems to have been outlawed from the +Tuscan duchy, telling him he knew a way by which he might return with +favour to his home, and at last disclosing the affair of Lorenzo. Bebo +was puzzled at first, but when he understood the matter, he professed +his willingness, took letters from the envoy to the Duke of Florence, +and, in a private audience with Cosimo, informed him that he was ready +to attempt Lorenzino's assassination. He added that 'he had a comrade +fit for such a job, whose fellow for the business could not easily be +found.' + +Bebo now travelled to Vicenza, and opened the whole matter to Bibboni, +who weighed it well, and at last, being convinced that the Duke's +commission to his comrade was _bona fide_, determined to take his share +in the undertaking. The two agreed to have no accomplices. They went to +Venice, and 'I,' says Bibboni, 'being most intimately acquainted with +all that city, and provided there with many friends, soon quietly +contrived to know where Lorenzino lodged, and took a room in the +neighbourhood, and spent some days in seeing how we best might rule our +conduct.' Bibboni soon discovered that Lorenzino never left his palace; +and he therefore remained in much perplexity, until, by good 331luck, +Ruberto Strozzi arrived from France in Venice, bringing in his train a +Navarrese servant, who had the nickname of Spagnoletto. This fellow was +a great friend of the bravo. They met, and Bibboni told him that he +should like to go and kiss the hands of Messer Ruberto, whom he had +known in Rome. Strozzi inhabited the same palace as Lorenzino. 'When we +arrived there, both Messer Ruberto and Lorenzo were leaving the house, +and there were around them so many gentlemen and other persons, that I +could not present myself, and both straightway stepped into the +gondola. Then I, not having seen Lorenzo for a long while past, and +because he was very quietly attired, could not recognise the man +exactly, but only as it were between certainty and doubt. Wherefore I +said to Spagnoletto, "I think I know that gentleman, but don't remember +where I saw him." And Messer Ruberto was giving him his right hand. +Then Spagnoletto answered, "You know him well enough; he is Messer +Lorenzo. But see you tell this to nobody. He goes by the name of Messer +Dario, because he lives in great fear for his safety, and people don't +know that he is now in Venice." I answered that I marvelled much, and +if I could have helped him, would have done so willingly. Then I asked +where they were going, and he said, to dine with Messer Giovanni della +Casa, who was the Pope's Legate. I did not leave the man till I had +drawn from him all I required.' + +Thus spoke the Italian Judas. The appearance of La Casa on the scene is +interesting. He was the celebrated author of the scandalous 'Capitolo +del Forno,' the author of many sublime and melancholy sonnets, who was +now at Venice, prosecuting a charge of heresy against Pier Paolo +Vergerio, and paying his addresses to a noble lady of the Quirini +family. It seems that on the territory of San Marco he made common +cause with the exiles from Florence, for he 332was himself by birth a +Florentine, and he had no objection to take Brutus-Lorenzino by the +hand. + +After the noblemen had rowed off in their gondola to dine with the +Legate, Bibboni and his friend entered their palace, where he found +another old acquaintance, the house-steward, or _spenditore_ of +Lorenzo. From him he gathered much useful information. Pietro Strozzi, +it seems, had allowed the tyrannicide one thousand five hundred crowns +a year, with the keep of three brave and daring companions (_tre +compagni bravi e facinorosi_), and a palace worth fifty crowns on +lease. But Lorenzo had just taken another on the Campo di San Polo at +three hundred crowns a year, for which swagger (_altura_) Pietro +Strozzi had struck a thousand crowns off his allowance. Bibboni also +learned that he was keeping house with his uncle, Alessandro Soderini, +another Florentine outlaw, and that he was ardently in love with a +certain beautiful Barozza. This woman was apparently one of the grand +courtesans of Venice. He further ascertained the date when he was going +to move into the palace at San Polo, and, 'to put it briefly, knew +everything he did, and, as it were, how many times a day he spit.' Such +were the intelligences of the servants' hall, and of such value were +they to men of Bibboni's calling. + +In the Carnival of 1546 Lorenzo meant to go masqued in the habit of a +gipsy woman to the square of San Spirito, where there was to be a +joust. Great crowds of people would assemble, and Bibboni hoped to do +his business there. The assassination, however, failed on this +occasion, and Lorenzo took up his abode in the palace he had hired upon +the Campo di San Polo. This Campo is one of the largest open places in +Venice, shaped irregularly, with a finely curving line upon the western +side, where two of the noblest private houses in the city are still +standing. Nearly opposite 333these, in the south-western angle, stands, +detached, the little old church of San Polo. One of its side entrances +opens upon the square; the other on a lane, which leads eventually to +the Frari. There is nothing in Bibboni's narrative to make it clear +where Lorenzo hired his dwelling. But it would seem from certain things +which he says later on, that in order to enter the church his victim +had to cross the square. Meanwhile Bibboni took the precaution of +making friends with a shoemaker, whose shop commanded the whole Campo, +including Lorenzo's palace. In this shop he began to spend much of his +time; 'and oftentimes I feigned to be asleep; but God knows whether I +was sleeping, for my mind, at any rate, was wide-awake.' + +A second convenient occasion for murdering Lorenzo soon seemed to +offer. He was bidden to dine with Monsignor della Casa; and Bibboni, +putting a bold face on, entered the Legate's palace, having left Bebo +below in the loggia, fully resolved to do the business. 'But we found,' +he says, 'that, they had gone to dine at Murano, so that we remained +with our tabors in their bag.' The island of Murano at that period was +a favourite resort of the Venetian nobles, especially of the more +literary and artistic, who kept country-houses there, where they +enjoyed the fresh air of the lagoons and the quiet of their gardens. + +The third occasion, after all these weeks of watching, brought success +to Bibboni's schemes. He had observed how Lorenzo occasionally so far +broke his rules of caution as to go on foot, past the church of San +Polo, to visit the beautiful Barozza; and he resolved, if possible, to +catch him on one of these journeys. 'It so chanced on the 28th of +February, which was the second Sunday of Lent, that having gone, as was +my wont, to pry out whether Lorenzo would give orders for going abroad +that day, I entered the shoemaker's 334shop, and stayed awhile, until +Lorenzo came to the window with a napkin round his neck for he was +combing his hair—and at the same moment I saw a certain Giovan Battista +Martelli, who kept his sword for the defence of Lorenzo's person, enter +and come forth again. Concluding that they would probably go abroad, I +went home to get ready and procure the necessary weapons, and there I +found Bebo asleep in bed, and made him get up at once, and we came to +our accustomed post of observation, by the church of San Polo, where +our men would have to pass.' Bibboni now retired to his friend the +shoemaker's, and Bebo took up his station at one of the side-doors of +San Polo; 'and, as good luck would have it, Giovan Battista Martelli +came forth, and walked a piece in front, and then Lorenzo came, and +then Alessandro Soderini, going the one behind the other, like storks, +and Lorenzo, on entering the church, and lifting up the curtain of the +door, was seen from the opposite door by Bebo, who at the same time +noticed how I had left the shop, and so we met upon the street as we +had agreed, and he told me that Lorenzo was inside the church.' + +To any one who knows the Campo di San Polo, it will be apparent that +Lorenzo had crossed from the western side of the piazza and entered the +church by what is technically called its northern door. Bebo, stationed +at the southern door, could see him when he pushed the heavy _stoia_ or +leather curtain aside, and at the same time could observe Bibboni's +movements in the cobbler's shop. Meanwhile Lorenzo walked across the +church and came to the same door where Bebo had been standing. 'I saw +him issue from the church and take the main street; then came +Alessandro Soderini, and I walked last of all; and when we reached the +point we had determined on, I jumped in front of Alessandro with the +poignard in my hand, crying, "Hold hard, Alessandro, and 335get along +with you in God's name, for we are not here for you!" He then threw +himself around my waist, and grasped my arms, and kept on calling out. +Seeing how wrong I had been to try to spare his life, I wrenched myself +as well as I could from his grip, and with my lifted poignard struck +him, as God willed, above the eyebrow, and a little blood trickled from +the wound. He, in high fury, gave me such a thrust that I fell +backward, and the ground besides was slippery from having rained a +little. Then Alessandro drew his sword, which he carried in its +scabbard, and thrust at me in front, and struck me on the corslet, +which for my good fortune was of double mail. Before I could get ready +I received three passes, which, had I worn a doublet instead of that +mailed corslet, would certainly have run me through. At the fourth pass +I had regained my strength and spirit, and closed with him, and stabbed +him four times in the head, and being so close he could not use his +sword, but tried to parry with his hand and hilt, and I, as God willed, +struck him at the wrist below the sleeve of mail, and cut his hand off +clean, and gave him then one last stroke on his head. Thereupon he +begged for God's sake spare his life, and I, in trouble about Bebo, +left him in the arms of a Venetian nobleman, who held him back from +jumping into the canal.' + +Who this Venetian nobleman, found unexpectedly upon the scene, was, +does not appear. Nor, what is still more curious, do we hear anything +of that Martelli, the bravo, 'who kept his sword for the defence of +Lorenzo's person.' The one had arrived accidentally, it seems. The +other must have been a coward and escaped from the scuffle. + +'When I turned,' proceeds Bibboni, 'I found Lorenzo on his knees. He +raised himself, and I, in anger, gave him a great cut across the head, +which split it in two pieces, and laid him at my feet, and he never +rose again.' + +336 + +VI.—THE ESCAPE OF THE BRAVI + +Bebo, meanwhile, had made off from the scene of action. And Bibboni, +taking to his heels, came up with him in the little square of San +Marcello. They now ran for their lives till they reached the traghetto +di San Spirito, where they threw their poignards into the water, +remembering that no man might carry these in Venice under penalty of +the galleys. Bibboni's white hose were drenched with blood. He +therefore agreed to separate from Bebo, having named a rendezvous. Left +alone, his ill luck brought him face to face with twenty constables +(_sbirri_). 'In a moment I conceived that they knew everything, and +were come to capture me, and of a truth I saw that it was over with me. +As swiftly as I could I quickened pace and got into a church, near to +which was the house of a Compagnia, and the one opened into the other, +and knelt down and prayed, commending myself with fervour to God for my +deliverance and safety. Yet while I prayed, I kept my eyes well open +and saw the whole band pass the church, except one man who entered, and +I strained my sight so that I seemed to see behind as well as in front, +and then it was I longed for my poignard, for I should not have heeded +being in a church.' But the constable, it soon appeared, was not +looking for Bibboni. So he gathered up his courage, and ran for the +Church of San Spirito, where the Padre Andrea Volterrano was preaching +to a great congregation. He hoped to go in by one door and out by the +other, but the crowd prevented him, and he had to turn back and face +the _sbirrí_. One of them followed him, having probably caught sight of +the blood upon his hose. Then Bibboni resolved to have done with the +fellow, and rushed at him, and flung him down with his head upon the +pavement, and ran like mad and came at last, all out of breath, to San +Marco. + +337It seems clear that before Bibboni separated from Bebo they had +crossed the water, for the Sestiere di San Polo is separated from the +Sestiere di San Marco by the Grand Canal. And this they must have done +at the traghetto di San Spirito. Neither the church nor the traghetto +are now in existence, and this part of the story is therefore +obscure.[14] Having reached San Marco, he took a gondola at the Ponte +della Paglia, where tourists are now wont to stand and contemplate the +Ducal Palace and the Bridge of Sighs. First, he sought the house of a +woman of the town who was his friend; then changed purpose, and rowed +to the palace of the Count Salici da Collalto. 'He was a great friend +and intimate of ours, because Bebo and I had done him many and great +services in times passed. There I knocked; and Bebo opened the door, +and when he saw me dabbled with blood, he marvelled that I had not come +to grief and fallen into the hands of justice, and, indeed, had feared +as much because I had remained so long away.' It appears, therefore, +that the Palazzo Collalto was their rendezvous. 'The Count was from +home; but being known to all his people, I played the master and went +into the kitchen to the fire, and with soap and water turned my hose, +which had been white, to a grey colour.' This is a very delicate way of +saying that he washed out the blood of Alessandro and Lorenzo! + + [14] So far as I can discover, the only church of San Spirito in + Venice was a building on the island of San Spirito, erected by + Sansavino, which belonged to the Sestiere di S. Croce, and which was + suppressed in 1656. Its plate and the fine pictures which Titian + painted there were transferred at that date to S.M. della Salute. I + cannot help inferring that either Bibboni's memory failed him, or that + his words were wrongly understood by printer or amanuensis. If for S. + Spirito we substitute S. Stefano, the account would be intelligible. + +Soon after the Count returned, and 'lavished caresses' upon Bebo and +his precious comrade. They did not tell 338him what they had achieved +that morning, but put him off with a story of having settled a _sbirro_ +in a quarrel about a girl. Then the Count invited them to dinner; and +being himself bound to entertain the first physician of Venice, +requested them to take it in an upper chamber. He and his secretary +served them with their own hands at table. When the physician arrived, +the Count went downstairs; and at this moment a messenger came from +Lorenzo's mother, begging the doctor to go at once to San Polo, for +that her son had been murdered and Soderini wounded to the death. It +was now no longer possible to conceal their doings from the Count, who +told them to pluck up courage and abide in patience. He had himself to +dine and take his siesta, and then to attend a meeting of the Council. + +About the hour of vespers, Bibboni determined to seek better refuge. +Followed at a discreet distance by Bebo, he first called at their +lodgings and ordered supper. Two priests came in and fell into +conversation with them. But something in the behaviour of one of these +good men roused his suspicions. So they left the house, took a gondola, +and told the man to row hard to S. Maria Zobenigo. On the way he bade +him put them on shore, paid him well, and ordered him to wait for them. +They landed near the palace of the Spanish embassy; and here Bibboni +meant to seek sanctuary. For it must be remembered that the houses of +ambassadors, no less than of princes of the Church, were inviolable. +They offered the most convenient harbouring-places to rascals. Charles +V., moreover, was deeply interested in the vengeance taken on +Alessandro de' Medici's murderer, for his own natural daughter was +Alessandro's widow and Duchess of Florence. In the palace they were met +with much courtesy by about forty Spaniards, who showed considerable +curiosity, and told them that Lorenzo and Alessandro Soderini had been +murdered 339that morning by two men whose description answered to their +appearance. Bibboni put their questions by and asked to see the +ambassador. He was not at home. In that case, said Bibboni, take us to +the secretary. Attended by some thirty Spaniards, 'with great joy and +gladness,' they were shown into the secretary's chamber. He sent the +rest of the folk away, 'and locked the door well, and then embraced and +kissed us before we had said a word, and afterwards bade us talk freely +without any fear.' When Bibboni had told the whole story, he was again +embraced and kissed by the secretary, who thereupon left them and went +to the private apartment of the ambassador. Shortly after he returned +and led them by a winding staircase into the presence of his master. +The ambassador greeted them with great honour, told them he would +strain all the power of the empire to hand them in safety over to Duke +Cosimo, and that he had already sent a courier to the Emperor with the +good news. + +So they remained in hiding in the Spanish embassy; and in ten days' +time commands were received from Charles himself that everything should +be done to convey them safely to Florence. The difficulty was how to +smuggle them out of Venice, where the police of the Republic were on +watch, and Florentine outlaws were mounting guard on sea and shore to +catch them. The ambassador began by spreading reports on the Rialto +every morning of their having been seen at Padua, at Verona, in Friuli. +He then hired a palace at Malghera, near Mestre, and went out daily +with fifty Spaniards, and took carriage or amused himself with horse +exercise and shooting. The Florentines, who were on watch, could only +discover from his people that he did this for amusement. When he +thought that he had put them sufficiently off their guard, the +ambassador one day took Bibboni and Bebo out by Canaregio and Mestre to +Malghera, concealed in his own gondola, with 340the whole train of +Spaniards in attendance. And though, on landing, the Florentines +challenged them, they durst not interfere with an ambassador or come to +battle with his men. So Bebo and Bibboni were hustled into a coach, and +afterwards provided with two comrades and four horses. They rode for +ninety miles without stopping to sleep, and on the day following this +long journey reached Trento, having probably threaded the mountain +valleys above Bassano, for Bibboni speaks of a certain village where +the people talked half German. The Imperial Ambassador at Trento +forwarded them next day to Mantua; from Mantua they came to Piacenza; +thence, passing through the valley of the Taro, crossing the Apennines +at Cisa, descending on Pontremoli, and reaching Pisa at night, the +fourteenth day after their escape from Venice. + +When they arrived at Pisa, Duke Cosimo was supping. So they went to an +inn, and next morning presented themselves to his Grace. Cosimo +received them kindly, assured them of his gratitude, confirmed them in +the enjoyment of their rewards and privileges, and swore that they +might rest secure of his protection in all parts of his dominion. We +may imagine how the men caroused together after this reception. As +Bibboni adds, 'We were now able for the whole time of life left us to +live splendidly, without a thought or care.' The last words of his +narrative are these: 'Bebo from Pisa, at what date I know not, went +home to Volterra, his native town, and there finished his days; while I +abode in Florence, where I have had no further wish to hear of wars, +but to live my life in holy peace.' + +So ends the story of the two _bravi_. We have reason to believe, from +some contemporary documents which Cantù has brought to light, that +Bibboni exaggerated his own part in the affair. Luca Martelli, writing +to Varchi, says that it 341was Bebo who clove Lorenzo's skull with a +cutlass. He adds this curious detail, that the weapons of both men were +poisoned, and that the wound inflicted by Bibboni on Soderini's hand +was a slight one. Yet, the poignard being poisoned, Soderini died of +it. In other respects Martelli's brief account agrees with that given +by Bibboni, who probably did no more, his comrade being dead, than +claim for himself, at some expense of truth, the lion's share of their +heroic action. + +VII.—LORENZINO BRUTUS + +It remains to ask ourselves, What opinion can be justly formed of +Lorenzino's character and motives? When he murdered his cousin, was he +really actuated by the patriotic desire to rid his country of a +monster? Did he imitate the Roman Brutus in the noble spirit of his +predecessors, Olgiati and Boscoli, martyrs to the creed of tyrannicide? +Or must this crowning action of a fretful life be explained, like his +previous mutilation of the statues on the Arch of Constantine, by a +wild thirst for notoriety? Did he hope that the exiles would return to +Florence, and that he would enjoy an honourable life, an immortality of +glorious renown? Did envy for his cousin's greatness and resentment of +his undisguised contempt—the passions of one who had been used for vile +ends—conscious of self-degradation and the loss of honour, yet mindful +of his intellectual superiority—did these emotions take fire in him and +mingle with a scholar's reminiscences of antique heroism, prompting him +to plan a deed which should at least assume the show of patriotic zeal, +and prove indubitable courage in its perpetrator? Did he, again, +perhaps imagine, being next in blood to Alessandro and direct heir to +the ducal crown by the Imperial Settlement of 1530, that the city would +elect her liberator for her ruler? + +342Alfieri and Niccolini, having taken, as it were, a brief in favour +of tyrannicide, praised Lorenzino as a hero. De Musset, who wrote a +considerable drama on his story, painted him as a _roué_ corrupted by +society, enfeebled by circumstance, soured by commerce with an +uncongenial world, who hides at the bottom of his mixed nature enough +of real nobility to make him the leader of a forlorn hope for the +liberties of Florence. This is the most favourable construction we can +put upon Lorenzo's conduct. Yet some facts of the case warn us to +suspend our judgment. He seems to have formed no plan for the +liberation of his fellow-citizens. He gave no pledge of self-devotion +by avowing his deed and abiding by its issues. He showed none of the +qualities of a leader, whether in the cause of freedom or of his own +dynastic interests, after the murder. He escaped as soon as he was +able, as secretly as he could manage, leaving the city in confusion, +and exposing himself to the obvious charge of abominable treason. So +far as the Florentines knew, his assassination of their Duke was but a +piece of private spite, executed with infernal craft. It is true that +when he seized the pen in exile, he did his best to claim the guerdon +of a patriot, and to throw the blame of failure on the Florentines. In +his Apology, and in a letter written to Francesco de' Medici, he taunts +them with lacking the spirit to extinguish tyranny when he had slain +the tyrant. He summons plausible excuses to his aid—the impossibility +of taking persons of importance into his confidence, the loss of blood +he suffered from his wound, the uselessness of rousing citizens whom +events proved over-indolent for action. He declares that he has nothing +to regret. Having proved by deeds his will to serve his country, he has +saved his life in order to spend it for her when occasion offered. But +these arguments, invented after the catastrophe, these words, so +bravely penned when action ought to have 343confirmed his resolution, +do not meet the case. It was no deed of a true hero to assassinate a +despot, knowing or half knowing that the despot's subjects would +immediately elect another. Their languor could not, except +rhetorically, be advanced in defence of his own flight. + +The historian is driven to seek both the explanation and palliation of +Lorenzo's failure in the temper of his times. There was enough daring +left in Florence to carry through a plan of brilliant treason, modelled +on an antique Roman tragedy. But there was not moral force in the +protagonist to render that act salutary, not public energy sufficient +in his fellow-citizens to accomplish his drama of deliverance. Lorenzo +was corrupt. Florence was flaccid. Evil manners had emasculated the +hero. In the state the last spark of independence had expired with +Ferrucci. + +Still I have not without forethought dubbed this man a Cinque Cento +Brutus. Like much of the art and literature of his century, his action +may be regarded as a _bizarre_ imitation of the antique manner. Without +the force and purpose of a Roman, Lorenzo set himself to copy +Plutarch's men—just as sculptors carved Neptunes and Apollos without +the dignity and serenity of the classic style. The antique faith was +wanting to both murderer and craftsman in those days. Even as +Renaissance work in art is too often aimless, decorative, vacant of +intention, so Lorenzino's Brutus tragedy seems but the snapping of a +pistol in void air. He had the audacity but not the ethical consistency +of his crime. He played the part of Brutus like a Roscius, perfect in +its histrionic details. And it doubtless gave to this skilful actor a +supreme satisfaction—salving over many wounds of vanity, quenching the +poignant thirst for things impossible and draughts of fame—that he +could play it on no mimic stage, but on the theatre of Europe. The +weakness of his conduct was the central 344weakness of his age and +country. Italy herself lacked moral purpose, sense of righteous +necessity, that consecration of self to a noble cause, which could +alone have justified Lorenzo's perfidy. Confused memories of Judith, +Jael, Brutus, and other classical tyrannicides, exalted his +imagination. Longing for violent emotions, jaded with pleasure which +had palled, discontented with his wasted life, jealous of his brutal +cousin, appetitive to the last of glory, he conceived his scheme. +Having conceived, he executed it with that which never failed in Cinque +Cento Italy—the artistic spirit of perfection. When it was over, he +shrugged his shoulders, wrote his magnificent Apology with a style of +adamant upon a plate of steel, and left it for the outlaws of Filippo +Strozzi's faction to deal with the crisis he had brought about. For +some years he dragged out an ignoble life in obscurity, and died at +last, as Varchi puts it, more by his own carelessness than by the +watchful animosity of others. Over the wild, turbid, clever, +incomprehensible, inconstant hero-artist's grave we write our +_Requiescat_. Clio, as she takes the pen in hand to record this prayer, +smiles disdainfully and turns to graver business. + +345 + + + + +TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY + + +There are few contrasts more striking than that which is presented by +the memoirs of Goldoni and Alfieri. Both of these men bore names highly +distinguished in the history of Italian literature. Both of them were +framed by nature with strongly marked characters, and fitted to perform +a special work in the world. Both have left behind them records of +their lives and literary labours, singularly illustrative of their +peculiar differences. There is no instance in which we see more clearly +the philosophical value of autobiographies, than in these vivid +pictures which the great Italian tragedian and comic author have +delineated. Some of the most interesting works of Lionardo da Vinci, +Giorgione, Albert Dürer, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Andrea del Sarto, are +their portraits painted by themselves. These pictures exhibit not only +the lineaments of the masters, but also their art. The hand which drew +them was the hand which drew the 'Last Supper,' or the 'Madonna of the +Tribune:' colour, method, chiaroscuro, all that makes up manner in +painting, may be studied on the same canvas as that which faithfully +represents the features of the man whose genius gave his style its +special character. We seem to understand the clear calm majesty of +Lionardo's manner, the silver-grey harmonies and smooth facility of +Andrea's Madonnas, the better for looking at their faces drawn by their +own hands at Florence. And if this be the case with a dumb picture, how +far higher must be the 346interest and importance of the written life +of a known author! Not only do we recognise in its composition the +style and temper and habits of thought which are familiar to us in his +other writings; but we also hear from his own lips how these were +formed, how his tastes took their peculiar direction, what +circumstances acted on his character, what hopes he had, and where he +failed. Even should his autobiography not bear the marks of uniform +candour, it probably reveals more of the actual truth, more of the +man's real nature in its height and depth, than any memoir written by +friend or foe. Its unconscious admissions, its general spirit, and the +inferences which we draw from its perusal, are far more valuable than +any mere statement of facts or external analysis, however scientific. +When we become acquainted with the series of events which led to the +conception or attended the production of some masterpiece of +literature, a new light is thrown upon its beauties, fresh life bursts +forth from every chapter, and we seem to have a nearer and more +personal interest in its success. What a powerful sensation, for +instance, is that which we experience when, after studying the 'Decline +and Fall of the Roman Empire,' Gibbon tells us how the thought of +writing it came to him upon the Capitol, among the ruins of dead Rome, +and within hearing of the mutter of the monks of Ara Coeli, and how he +finished it one night by Lake Geneva, and laid his pen down and walked +forth and saw the stars above his terrace at Lausanne! + +The memoirs of Alfieri and Goldoni are not deficient in any of the +characteristics of good autobiography. They seem to bear upon their +face the stamp of truthfulness, they illustrate their authors' lives +with marvellous lucidity, and they are full of interest as stories. But +it is to the contrast which they present that our attention should be +chiefly drawn. Other biographies may be as interesting and amusing. +None 347show in a more marked manner two distinct natures endowed with +genius for one art, and yet designed in every possible particular for +different branches of that art. Alfieri embodies Tragedy; Goldoni is +the spirit of Comedy. They are both Italians: their tragedies and +comedies are by no means cosmopolitan; but this national identity of +character only renders more remarkable the individual divergences by +which they were impelled into their different paths. Thalia seems to +have made the one, body, soul, and spirit; and Melpomene the other; +each goddess launched her favourite into circumstances suited to the +evolution of his genius, and presided over his development, so that at +his death she might exclaim,—Behold the living model of my Art! + +Goldoni was born at Venice in the year 1707; he had already reached +celebrity when Alfieri saw the light for the first time, in 1749, at +Asti. Goldoni's grandfather was a native of Modena, who had settled in +Venice, and there lived with the prodigality of a rich and ostentatious +'bourgeois.' 'Amid riot and luxury did I enter the world,' says the +poet, after enumerating the banquets and theatrical displays with which +the old Goldoni entertained his guests in his Venetian palace and +country-house. Venice at that date was certainly the proper birthplace +for a comic poet. The splendour of the Renaissance had thoroughly +habituated her nobles to pleasures of the sense, and had enervated +their proud, maritime character, while the great name of the republic +robbed them of the caution for which they used to be conspicuous. Yet +the real strength of Venice was almost spent, and nothing remained but +outward insolence and prestige. Everything was gay about Goldoni in his +earliest childhood. Puppet-shows were built to amuse him by his +grandfather. 'My mother,' he says, 'took charge of my education, and my +father of my amusements.' + +348Let us turn to the opening scene in Alfieri's life, and mark the +difference. A father above sixty, 'noble, wealthy, and respectable,' +who died before his son had reached the age of one year old. A mother +devoted to religion, the widow of one marquis, and after the death of a +second husband, Alfieri's father, married for the third time to a +nobleman of ancient birth. These were Alfieri's parents. He was born in +a solemn palazzo in the country town of Asti, and at the age of five +already longed for death as an escape from disease and other earthly +troubles. So noble and so wealthy was the youthful poet that an abbé +was engaged to carry out his education, but not to teach him more than +a count should know. Except this worthy man he had no companions +whatever. Strange ideas possessed the boy. He ruminated on his +melancholy, and when eight years old attempted suicide. At this age he +was sent to the academy at Turin, attended, as befitted a lad of his +rank, by a man-servant, who was to remain and wait on him at school. +Alfieri stayed here several years without revisiting his home, +tyrannised over by the valet who added to his grandeur, constantly +subject to sickness, and kept in almost total ignorance by his +incompetent preceptors. The gloom and pride and stoicism of his +temperament were augmented by this unnatural discipline. His spirit did +not break, but took a haughtier and more disdainful tone. He became +familiar with misfortunes. He learned to brood over and intensify his +passions. Every circumstance of his life seemed strung up to a tragic +pitch. This at least is the impression which remains upon our mind +after reading in his memoirs the narrative of what must in many of its +details have been a common schoolboy's life at that time. + +Meanwhile, what had become of young Goldoni? His boyhood was as +thoroughly plebeian, various, and comic as Alfieri's had been +patrician, monotonous, and tragical. 349Instead of one place of +residence, we read of twenty. Scrape succeeds to scrape, adventure to +adventure. Knowledge of the world, and some book learning also, flow in +upon the boy, and are eagerly caught up by him and heterogeneously +amalgamated in his mind. Alfieri learned nothing, wrote nothing, in his +youth, and heard his parents say—'A nobleman need never strive to be a +doctor of the faculties.' Goldoni had a little medicine and much law +thrust upon him. At eight he wrote a comedy, and ere long began to read +the plays of Plautus, Terence, Aristophanes, and Machiavelli. Between +the nature of the two poets there was a marked and characteristic +difference as to their mode of labour and of acquiring knowledge. Both +of them loved fame, and wrought for it; but Alfieri did so from a sense +of pride and a determination to excel; while Goldoni loved the +approbation of his fellows, sought their compliments, and basked in the +sunshine of smiles. Alfieri wrote with labour. Each tragedy he composed +went through a triple process of composition, and received frequent +polishing when finished. Goldoni dashed off his pieces with the +greatest ease on every possible subject. He once produced sixteen +comedies in one theatrical season. Alfieri's were like lion's +whelps—brought forth with difficulty, and at long intervals; Goldoni's, +like the brood of a hare—many, frequent, and as agile as their parent. +Alfieri amassed knowledge scrupulously, but with infinite toil. He +mastered Greek and Hebrew when he was past forty. Goldoni never gave +himself the least trouble to learn anything, but trusted to the ready +wit, good memory, and natural powers, which helped him in a hundred +strange emergencies. Power of will and pride sustained the one; +facility and a good-humoured vanity the other. This contrast was +apparent at a very early age. We have seen how Alfieri passed his time +at Turin, in a kind of aristocratic prison of educational ignorance. +350Goldoni's grandfather died when he was five years old, and left his +family in great embarrassment. The poet's father went off to practise +medicine at Perugia. His son followed him, acquired the rudiments of +knowledge in that town, and then proceeded to study philosophy alone at +Rimini. There was no man-servant or academy in his case. He was far too +plebeian and too free. The boy lodged with a merchant, and got some +smattering of Thomas Aquinas and the Peripatetics into his small brain, +while he contrived to form a friendship with an acting company. They +were on the wing for Venice in a coasting boat, which would touch at +Chiozza, where Goldoni's mother then resided. The boy pleased them. +Would he like the voyage? This offer seemed too tempting, and away he +rushed, concealed himself on board, and made one of a merry motley +shipload. 'Twelve persons, actors as well as actresses, a prompter, a +machinist, a storekeeper, eight domestics, four chambermaids, two +nurses, children of every age, cats, dogs, monkeys, parrots, birds, +pigeons, and a lamb; it was another Noah's ark.' The young poet felt at +home; how could a comic poet feel otherwise? They laughed, they sang, +they danced; they ate and drank, and played at cards. 'Macaroni! Every +one fell on it, and three dishes were devoured. We had also alamode +beef, cold fowl, a loin of veal, a dessert, and excellent wine. What a +charming dinner! No cheer like a good appetite.' Their harmony, +however, was disturbed. The 'première amoureuse,' who, in spite of her +rank and title, was ugly and cross, and required to be coaxed with cups +of chocolate, lost her cat. She tried to kill the whole boat-load of +beasts—cats, dogs, monkeys, parrots, pigeons, even the lamb stood in +danger of her wrath. A regular quarrel ensued, was somehow set at +peace, and all began to laugh again. This is a sample of Goldoni's +youth. Comic pleasures, comic dangers; nothing 351deep or lasting, but +light and shadow cheerfully distributed, clouds lowering with storm, a +distant growl of thunder, then a gleam of light and sunshine breaking +overhead. He gets articled to an attorney at Venice, then goes to study +law at Pavia; studies society instead, and flirts, and finally is +expelled for writing satires. Then he takes a turn at medicine with his +father in Friuli, and acts as clerk to the criminal chancellor at +Chiozza. + +Every employment seems easy to him, but he really cares for none but +literature. He spends all his spare time in reading and in amusements, +and begins to write a tragic opera. This proves, however, eminently +unsuccessful, and he burns it in a comic fit of anger. One laughable +love-affair in which he engaged at Udine exhibits his adventures in +their truly comic aspect. It reminds us of the scene in 'Don Giovanni,' +where Leporello personates the Don and deceives Donna Elvira. Goldoni +had often noticed a beautiful young lady at church and on the public +drives: she was attended by a waiting-maid, who soon perceived that her +mistress had excited the young man's admiration, and who promised to +befriend him in his suit. Goldoni was told to repair at night to the +palace of his mistress, and to pour his passion forth beneath her +window. Impatiently he waited for the trysting hour, conned his +love-sentences, and gloried in the romance of the adventure. When night +came, he found the window, and a veiled figure of a lady in the +moonlight, whom he supposed at once to be his mistress. Her he +eloquently addressed in the true style of Romeo's rapture, and she +answered him. Night after night this happened, but sometimes he was a +little troubled by a sound of ill-suppressed laughter interrupting the +_tête-à-tête_. Meanwhile Teresa, the waiting-maid, received from his +hands costly presents for her mistress, and made him promises on her +part in exchange. As she proved 352unable to fulfil them, Goldoni grew +suspicious, and at last discovered that the veiled figure to whom he +had poured out his tale of love was none other than Teresa, and that +the laughter had proceeded from her mistress, whom the faithless +waiting-maid regaled at her lover's expense. Thus ended this ridiculous +matter. Goldoni was not, however, cured by his experience. One other +love-affair rendered Udine too hot to hold him, and in consequence of a +third he had to fly from Venice just when he was beginning to flourish +there. At length he married comfortably and suitably, settling down +into a quiet life with a woman whom, if he did not love her with +passion, he at least respected and admired. Goldoni, in fact, had no +real passion in his nature. + +Alfieri, on the other hand, was given over to volcanic ebullitions of +the most ungovernable hate and affection, joy and sorrow. The chains of +love which Goldoni courted so willingly, Alfieri regarded with the +greatest shyness. But while Goldoni healed his heart of all its bruises +in a week or so, the tragic poet bore about him wounds that would not +close. He enumerates three serious passions which possessed his whole +nature, and at times deprived him almost of his reason. A Dutch lady +first won his heart, and when he had to leave her, Alfieri suffered so +intensely that he never opened his lips during the course of a long +journey through Germany, Switzerland, and Piedmont. Fevers, and +suicides attempted but interrupted, marked the termination of this +tragic amour. His second passion had for its object an English lady, +with whose injured husband he fought a duel, although his collarbone +was broken at the time. The lady proved unworthy of Alfieri as well as +of her husband, and the poet left her in a most deplorable state of +hopelessness and intellectual prostration. At last he formed a +permanent affection for the wife of Prince Charles Edward, the Countess +of Albany, in close 353friendship with whom he lived after her +husband's death. The society of this lady gave him perfect happiness; +but it was founded on her lofty beauty, the pathos of her situation, +and her intellectual qualities. Melpomene presided at this union, while +Thalia blessed the nuptials of Goldoni. How characteristic also were +the adventures which these two pairs of lovers encountered! Goldoni +once carried his wife upon his back across two rivers in their flight +from the Spanish to the Austrian camp at Rimini, laughing and groaning, +and perceiving the humour of his situation all the time. Alfieri, on an +occasion of even greater difficulty, was stopped with his illustrious +friend at the gates of Paris in 1792. They were flying in post-chaises, +with their servants and their baggage, from the devoted city, when a +troop of _sansculottes_ rushed on them, surged around the carriage, +called them aristocrats, and tried to drag them off to prison. Alfieri, +with his tall gaunt figure, pallid face, and red voluminous hair, +stormed, raged, and raised his deep bass voice above the tumult. For +half an hour he fought with them, then made his coachmen gallop through +the gates, and scarcely halted till they got to Gravelines. By this +prompt movement they escaped arrest and death at Paris. These two +scenes would make agreeable companion pictures: Goldoni staggering +beneath his wife across the muddy bed of an Italian stream—the smiling +writer of agreeable plays, with his half-tearful helpmate ludicrous in +her disasters; Alfieri mad with rage among Parisian Mænads, his +princess quaking in her carriage, the air hoarse with cries, and death +and safety trembling in the balance. It is no wonder that the one man +wrote 'La Donna di Garbo' and the 'Cortese Veneziano,' while the other +was inditing essays on Tyranny and dramas of 'Antigone,' 'Timoleon,' +and 'Brutus.' + +The difference between the men is seen no less remarkably 354in regard +to courage. Alfieri was a reckless rider, and astonished even English +huntsmen by his desperate leaps. In one of them he fell and broke his +collar-bone, but not the less he held his tryst with a fair lady, +climbed her park gates, and fought a duel with her husband. Goldoni was +a pantaloon for cowardice. In the room of an inn at Desenzano which he +occupied together with a female fellow-traveller, an attempt was made +to rob them by a thief at night. All Goldoni was able to do consisted +in crying out for help, and the lady called him 'M. l'Abbé' ever after +for his want of pluck. Goldoni must have been by far the more agreeable +of the two. In all his changes from town to town of Italy he found +amusement and brought gaiety. The sights, the theatres, the society +aroused his curiosity. He trembled with excitement at the performance +of his pieces, made friends with the actors, taught them, and wrote +parts to suit their qualities. At Pisa he attended as a stranger the +meeting of the Arcadian Academy, and at its close attracted all +attention to himself by his clever improvisation. He was in truth a +ready-witted man, pliable, full of resource, bred half a valet, half a +Roman _græculus_. Alfieri saw more of Europe than Goldoni. France, +Germany, Holland, Switzerland, England, Spain, all parts of Italy he +visited with restless haste. From land to land he flew, seeking no +society, enjoying nothing, dashing from one inn door to another with +his servants and his carriages, and thinking chiefly of the splendid +stud of horses which he took about with him upon his travels. He was a +lonely, stiff, self-engrossed, indomitable man. He could not rest at +home: he could not bear to be the vassal of a king and breathe the air +of courts. So he lived always on the wing, and ended by exiling himself +from Sardinia in order to escape the trammels of paternal government. +As for his tragedies, he wrote them to win laurels 355from posterity. +He never cared to see them acted; he bullied even his printers and +correctors; he cast a glove down in defiance of his critics. Goldoni +sought the smallest meed of approbation. It pleased him hugely in his +old age to be Italian master to a French princess. Alfieri openly +despised the public. Goldoni wrote because he liked to write; Alfieri, +for the sake of proving his superior powers. Against Alfieri's hatred +of Turin and its trivial solemnities, we have to set Goldoni's love of +Venice and its petty pleasures. He would willingly have drunk chocolate +and played at dominoes or picquet all his life on the Piazza di San +Marco, when Alfieri was crossing the sierras on his Andalusian horse, +and devouring a frugal meal of rice in solitude. Goldoni glided through +life an easy man, with genial, venial thoughts; with a clear, gay, +gentle temper; a true sense of what is good and just; and a heart that +loved diffusively, if not too warmly. Many were the checks and +obstacles thrown on his path; but round them or above them he passed +nimbly, without scar or scathe. Poverty went close behind him, but he +kept her off, and never felt the pinch of need. Alfieri strained and +strove against the barriers of fate; a sombre, rugged man, proud, +candid, and self-confident, who broke or bent all opposition; now +moving solemnly with tragic pomp, now dashing passionately forward by +the might of will. Goldoni drew his inspirations from the moment and +surrounding circumstances. Alfieri pursued an ideal, slowly formed, but +strongly fashioned and resolutely followed. Of wealth he had plenty and +to spare, but he disregarded it, and was a Stoic in his mode of life. +He was an unworldly man, and hated worldliness. Goldoni, but for his +authorship, would certainly have grown a prosperous advocate, and died +of gout in Venice. Goldoni liked smart clothes; Alfieri went always in +black. Goldoni's fits of spleen—for he _was_ melancholy now and +then—lasted 356a day or two, and disappeared before a change of place. +Alfieri dragged his discontent about with him all over Europe, and let +it interrupt his work and mar his intellect for many months together. +Alfieri was a patriot, and hated France. Goldoni never speaks of +politics, and praises Paris as a heaven on earth. The genial moralising +of the latter appears childish by the side of Alfieri's terse +philosophy and pregnant remarks on the development of character. What +suits the page of Plautus would look poor in 'Oedipus' or 'Agamemnon.' +Goldoni's memoirs are diffuse and flippant in their light French dress. +They seem written to please. Alfieri's Italian style marches with +dignity and Latin terseness. He rarely condescends to smile. He writes +to instruct the world and to satisfy himself. Grim humour sometimes +flashes out, as when he tells the story of the Order of Homer, which he +founded. How different from Goldoni's naïve account of his little +ovation in the theatre at Paris! + +But it would be idle to carry on this comparison, already tedious. The +life of Goldoni was one long scene of shifts and jests, of frequent +triumphs and some failures, of lessons hard at times, but kindly. +Passions and _ennui_, flashes of heroic patriotism, constant suffering +and stoical endurance, art and love idealised, fill up the life of +Alfieri. Goldoni clung much to his fellow-men, and shared their pains +and pleasures. Alfieri spent many of his years in almost absolute +solitude. On the whole character and deeds of the one man was stamped +Comedy: the other was own son of Tragedy. + +If, after reading the autobiographies of Alfieri and Goldoni, we turn +to the perusal of their plays, we shall perceive that there is no +better commentary on the works of an artist than his life, and no +better life than one written by himself. The old style of criticism, +which strove to separate an author's productions from his life, and +even from the age in 357which he lived, to set up an arbitrary canon of +taste, and to select one or two great painters or poets as ideals +because they seemed to illustrate that canon, has passed away. We are +beginning to feel that art is a part of history and of physiology. That +is to say, the artist's work can only be rightly understood by studying +his age and temperament. Goldoni's versatility and want of depth +induced him to write sparkling comedies. The merry life men passed at +Venice in its years of decadence proved favourable to his genius. +Alfieri's melancholy and passionate qualities, fostered in solitude, +and aggravated by a tyranny he could not bear, led him irresistibly to +tragic composition. Though a noble, his nobility only added to his +pride, and insensibly his intellect had been imbued with the democratic +sentiments which were destined to shake Europe in his lifetime. This, +in itself, was a tragic circumstance, bringing him into close sympathy +with the Brutus, the Prometheus, the Timoleon of ancient history. +Goldoni's _bourgeoisie_, in the atmosphere of which he was born and +bred, was essentially comic. The true comedy of manners, which is quite +distinct from Shakspere's fancy or from Aristophanic satire, is always +laid in middle life. Though Goldoni tried to write tragedies, they were +unimpassioned, dull, and tame. He lacked altogether the fire, +high-wrought nobility of sentiment, and sense of form essential for +tragic art. On the other hand, Alfieri composed some comedies before +his death which were devoid of humour, grace, and lightness. A strange +elephantine eccentricity is their utmost claim to comic character. +Indeed, the temper of Alfieri, ever in extremes, led him even to +exaggerate the qualities of tragedy. He carried its severity to a pitch +of dulness and monotony. His chiaroscuro was too strong; virtue and +villany appearing in pure black and white upon his pages. His hatred of +tyrants induced him to transgress 358the rules of probability, so that +it has been well said that if his wicked kings had really had such +words of scorn and hatred thrown at them by their victims, they were +greatly to be pitied. On the other hand, his pithy laconisms have often +a splendidly tragical effect. There is nothing in the modern drama more +rhetorically impressive, though spasmodic, than the well-known dialogue +between Antigone and Creon:— + +'_Cr_. Scegliesti? +'_Ant_. Ho scelto. +'_Cr_. Emon? +'_Ant_. Morte. +'_Cr_. L'avrai!' + + +Goldoni's comedies, again, have not enough of serious thought or of +true creative imagination to be works of high art. They lean too much +to the side of farce; they have none of the tragic salt which gives a +dignity to Tartuffe. They are, in a word, almost too enethistically +comic. + +The contrast between these authors might lead us to raise the question +long ago discussed by Socrates at Agathon's banquet—Can the same man +write both comedies and tragedies? We in England are accustomed to read +the serious and comic plays of Shakspere, Fletcher, Jonson, and to +think that one poet could excel in either branch. The custom of the +Elizabethan theatre obliged this double authorship; yet it must be +confessed that Shakspere's comedies are not such comedies as Greek or +Romnan or French critics would admit. They are works of the purest +imagination, wholly free from the laws of this world; while the +tragedies of Fletcher have a melodramatic air equally at variance with +the classical Melpomene. It may very seriously be doubted whether the +same mind could produce, with equal power, a comedy like the +359'Cortese Veneziano' and a tragedy like Alfieri's 'Brutus.' At any +rate, returning to our old position, we find in these two men the very +opposite conditions of dramatic genius. They are, as it were, specimens +prepared by Nature for the instruction of those who analyse genius in +its relations to temperament, to life, and to external circumstances. + + + + +VOLUME II. + + +1 + + + + +RAVENNA + + +The Emperor Augustus chose Ravenna for one of his two naval stations, +and in course of time a new city arose by the sea-shore, which received +the name of Portus Classis. Between this harbour and the mother city a +third town sprang up, and was called Cæsarea. Time and neglect, the +ravages of war, and the encroaching powers of Nature have destroyed +these settlements, and nothing now remains of the three cities but +Ravenna. It would seem that in classical times Ravenna stood, like +modern Venice, in the centre of a huge lagune, the fresh waters of the +Ronco and the Po mixing with the salt waves of the Adriatic round its +very walls. The houses of the city were built on piles; canals instead +of streets formed the means of communication, and these were always +filled with water artificially conducted from the southern estuary of +the Po. Round Ravenna extended a vast morass, for the most part under +shallow water, but rising at intervals into low islands like the Lido +or Murano or Torcello which surround Venice. These islands were +celebrated for their fertility: the 2vines and fig-trees and +pomegranates, springing from a fat and fruitful soil, watered with +constant moisture, and fostered by a mild sea-wind and liberal +sunshine, yielded crops that for luxuriance and quality surpassed the +harvests of any orchards on the mainland. All the conditions of life in +old Ravenna seem to have resembled those of modern Venice; the people +went about in gondolas, and in the early morning barges laden with +fresh fruit or meat and vegetables flocked from all quarters to the +city of the sea.[15] Water also had to be procured from the +neighbouring shore, for, as Martial says, a well at Ravenna was more +valuable than a vineyard. Again, between the city and the mainland ran +a long low causeway all across the lagune like that on which the trains +now glide into Venice. Strange to say, the air of Ravenna was +remarkably salubrious: this fact, and the ease of life that prevailed +there, and the security afforded by the situation of the town, rendered +it a most desirable retreat for the monarchs of Italy during those +troublous times in which the empire nodded to its fall. Honorius +retired to its lagunes for safety; Odoacer, who dethroned the last +Cæsar of the West, succeeded him; and was in turn, supplanted by +Theodoric the Ostrogoth. Ravenna, as we see it now, recalls the +peaceful and half-Roman rule of the great Gothic king. His palace, his +churches, and the mausoleums in which his daughter Amalasuntha laid the +hero's bones, have survived the sieges of Belisarius and Astolphus, the +conquest of Pepin, the bloody quarrels of Iconoclasts with the children +of the Roman Church, the mediæval wars of Italy, the victory of Gaston +de Foix, and still stand gorgeous with marbles and mosaics in spite of +time and the decay of all around them. + + [15] We may compare with Venice what is known about the ancient + Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna were the Greek and Roman + Venice of antiquity. + +3As early as the sixth century, the sea had already retreated to such a +distance from Ravenna that orchards and gardens were cultivated on the +spot where once the galleys of the Cæsars rode at anchor. Groves of +pines sprang up along the shore, and in their lofty tops the music of +the wind moved like the ghost of waves and breakers plunging upon +distant sands. This Pinetum stretches along the shore of the Adriatic +for about forty miles, forming a belt of variable width between the +great marsh and the tumbling sea. From a distance the bare stems and +velvet crowns of the pine-trees stand up like palms that cover an oasis +on Arabian sands; but at a nearer view the trunks detach themselves +from an inferior forest-growth of juniper and thorn and ash and oak, +the tall roofs of the stately firs shooting their breadth of sheltering +greenery above the lower and less sturdy brushwood. It is hardly +possible to imagine a more beautiful and impressive scene than that +presented by these long alleys of imperial pines. They grow so thickly +one behind another, that we might compare them to the pipes of a great +organ, or the pillars of a Gothic church, or the basaltic columns of +the Giant's Causeway. Their tops are evergreen and laden with the heavy +cones, from which Ravenna draws considerable wealth. Scores of peasants +are quartered on the outskirts of the forest, whose business it is to +scale the pines and rob them of their fruit at certain seasons of the +year. Afterwards they dry the fir-cones in the sun, until the nuts +which they contain fall out. The empty husks are sold for firewood, and +the kernels in their stony shells reserved for exportation. You may see +the peasants, men, women, and boys, sorting them by millions, drying +and sifting them upon the open spaces of the wood, and packing them in +sacks to send abroad through Italy. The _pinocchi_ or kernels of the +stone-pine are largely used in cookery, and those of Ravenna are prized +for their good 4quality and aromatic flavour. When roasted or pounded, +they taste like a softer and more mealy kind of almonds. The task of +gathering this harvest is not a little dangerous. Men have to cut +notches in the straight shafts, and having climbed, often to the height +of eighty feet, to lean upon the branches, and detach the fir-cones +with a pole—and this for every tree. Some lives, they say, are yearly +lost in the business. + +As may be imagined, the spaces of this great forest form the haunt of +innumerable living creatures. Lizards run about by myriads in the +grass. Doves coo among the branches of the pines, and nightingales pour +their full-throated music all day and night from thickets of +white-thorn and acacia. The air is sweet with aromatic scents: the +resin of the pine and juniper, the mayflowers and acacia-blossoms, the +violets that spring by thousands in the moss, the wild roses and faint +honeysuckles which throw fragrant arms from bough to bough of ash or +maple, join to make one most delicious perfume. And though the air upon +the neighbouring marsh is poisonous, here it is dry, and spreads a +genial health. The sea-wind murmuring through these thickets at +nightfall or misty sunrise, conveys no fever to the peasants stretched +among their flowers. They watch the red rays of sunset flaming through +the columns of the leafy hall, and flaring on its fretted rafters of +entangled boughs; they see the stars come out, and Hesper gleam, an eye +of brightness, among dewy branches; the moon walks silver-footed on the +velvet tree-tops, while they sleep beside the camp-fires; fresh morning +wakes them to the sound of birds and scent of thyme and twinkling of +dewdrops on the grass around. Meanwhile ague, fever, and death have +been stalking all night long about the plain, within a few yards of +their couch, and not one pestilential breath has reached the charmed +precincts of the forest. + +You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between 5the pines +in perfect solitude; and yet the creatures of the wood, the sunlight +and the birds, the flowers and tall majestic columns at your side, +prevent all sense of loneliness or fear. Huge oxen haunt the +wilderness—grey creatures, with mild eyes and spreading horns and +stealthy tread. Some are patriarchs of the forest, the fathers and the +mothers of many generations who have been carried from their sides to +serve in ploughs or waggons on the Lombard plain. Others are yearling +calves, intractable and ignorant of labour. In order to subdue them to +the yoke, it is requisite to take them very early from their native +glades, or else they chafe and pine away with weariness. Then there is +a sullen canal, which flows through the forest from the marshes to the +sea; it is alive with frogs and newts and snakes. You may see these +serpents basking on the surface among thickets of the flowering rush, +or coiled about the lily leaves and flowers—lithe monsters, slippery +and speckled, the tyrants of the fen. + +It is said that when Dante was living at Ravenna he would spend whole +days alone among the forest glades, thinking of Florence and her civil +wars, and meditating cantos of his poem. Nor have the influences of the +pine-wood failed to leave their trace upon his verse. The charm of its +summer solitude seems to have sunk into his soul; for when he describes +the whispering of winds and singing birds among the boughs of his +terrestrial paradise, he says:— + +Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte + Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime + Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte: +Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime, + Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie, + Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime +Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie + Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi + Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. + +6With these verses in our minds, while wandering down the grassy +aisles, beside the waters of the solitary place, we seem to meet that +lady singing as she went, and plucking flower by flower, 'like +Proserpine when Ceres lost a daughter, and she lost her spring.' There, +too, the vision of the griffin and the car, of singing maidens, and of +Beatrice descending to the sound of Benedictus and of falling flowers, +her flaming robe and mantle green as grass, and veil of white, and +olive crown, all flashed upon the poet's inner eye, and he remembered +how he bowed before her when a boy. There is yet another passage in +which it is difficult to believe that Dante had not the pine-forest in +his mind. When Virgil and the poet were waiting in anxiety before the +gates of Dis, when the Furies on the wall were tearing their breasts +and crying, 'Venga Medusa, e si 'l farem di smalto,' suddenly across +the hideous river came a sound like that which whirlwinds make among +the shattered branches and bruised stems of forest-trees; and Dante, +looking out with fear upon the foam and spray and vapour of the flood, +saw thousands of the damned flying before the face of one who forded +Styx with feet unwet. 'Like frogs,' he says, 'they fled, who scurry +through the water at the sight of their foe, the serpent, till each +squats and hides himself close to the ground.' The picture of the storm +among the trees might well have occurred to Dante's mind beneath the +roof of pine-boughs. Nor is there any place in which the simile of the +frogs and water-snake attains such dignity and grandeur. I must confess +that till I saw the ponds and marshes of Ravenna, I used to fancy that +the comparison was somewhat below the greatness of the subject; but +there so grave a note of solemnity and desolation is struck, the scale +of Nature is so large, and the serpents coiling in and out among the +lily leaves and flowers are so much in their right place, that they +suggest a scene by no means unworthy of Dante's conception. + +7Nor is Dante the only singer who has invested this wood with poetical +associations. It is well known that Boccaccio laid his story of +'Honoria' in the pine-forest, and every student of English literature +must be familiar with the noble tale in verse which Dryden has founded +on this part of the 'Decameron.' We all of us have followed Theodore, +and watched with him the tempest swelling in the grove, and seen the +hapless ghost pursued by demon hounds and hunter down the glades. This +story should be read while storms are gathering upon the distant sea, +or thunderclouds descending from the Apennines, and when the pines +begin to rock and surge beneath the stress of labouring winds. Then +runs the sudden flash of lightning like a rapier through the boughs, +the rain streams hissing down, and the thunder 'breaks like a whole sea +overhead.' + +With the Pinetum the name of Byron will be for ever associated. During +his two years' residence in Ravenna he used to haunt its wilderness, +riding alone or in the company of friends. The inscription placed above +the entrance to the house he occupied alludes to it as one of the +objects which principally attracted the poet to the neighbourhood of +Ravenna: 'Impaziente di visitare l' antica selva, che inspirò già il +Divino e Giovanni Boccaccio.' We know, however, that a more powerful +attraction, in the person of the Countess Guiccioli, maintained his +fidelity to 'that place of old renown, once in the Adrian Sea, +Ravenna.' + +Between the Bosco, as the people of Ravenna call this pine-wood, and +the city, the marsh stretches for a distance of about three miles. It +is a plain intersected by dykes and ditches, and mapped out into +innumerable rice-fields. For more than half a year it lies under water, +and during the other months exhales a pestilential vapour, which +renders it as uninhabitable as the Roman Campagna; yet in springtime +8this dreary flat is even beautiful. The young blades of the rice shoot +up above the water, delicately green and tender. The ditches are lined +with flowering rush and golden flags, while white and yellow lilies +sleep in myriads upon the silent pools. Tamarisks wave their pink and +silver tresses by the road, and wherever a plot of mossy earth emerges +from the marsh, it gleams with purple orchises and flaming marigolds; +but the soil beneath is so treacherous and spongy, that these splendid +blossoms grow like flowers in dreams or fairy stories. You try in vain +to pick them; they elude your grasp, and flourish in security beyond +the reach of arm or stick. + +Such is the sight of the old town of Classis. Not a vestige of the +Roman city remains, not a dwelling or a ruined tower, nothing but the +ancient church of S. Apollinare in Classe. Of all desolate buildings +this is the most desolate. Not even the deserted grandeur of S. Paolo +beyond the walls of Rome can equal it. Its bare round campanile gazes +at the sky, which here vaults only sea and plain—a perfect dome, +star-spangled like the roof of Galla Placidia's tomb. Ravenna lies low +to west, the pine-wood stretches away in long monotony to east. There +is nothing else to be seen except the spreading marsh, bounded by dim +snowy Alps and purple Apennines, so very far away that the level rack +of summer clouds seem more attainable and real. What sunsets and +sunrises that tower must see; what glaring lurid afterglows in August, +when the red light scowls upon the pestilential fen; what sheets of +sullen vapour rolling over it in autumn; what breathless heats, and +rainclouds big with thunder; what silences; what unimpeded blasts of +winter winds! One old monk tends this deserted spot. He has the huge +church, with its echoing aisles and marble columns and giddy bell-tower +and cloistered corridors, all to himself. At rare intervals, priests +from Ravenna come to sing some special mass at these 9cold altars; +pious folk make vows to pray upon their mouldy steps and kiss the +relics which are shown on great occasions. But no one stays; they +hurry, after muttering their prayers, from the fever-stricken spot, +reserving their domestic pieties and customary devotions for the +brighter and newer chapels of the fashionable churches in Ravenna. So +the old monk is left alone to sweep the marsh water from his church +floor, and to keep the green moss from growing too thickly on its +monuments. A clammy conferva covers everything except the mosaics upon +tribune, roof, and clerestory, which defy the course of age. Christ on +His throne _sedet aternumque sedebit: _ the saints around him glitter +with their pitiless uncompromising eyes and wooden gestures, as if +twelve centuries had not passed over them, and they were nightmares +only dreamed last night, and rooted in a sick man's memory. For those +gaunt and solemn forms there is no change of life or end of days. No +fever touches them; no dampness of the wind and rain loosens their firm +cement. They stare with senseless faces in bitter mockery of men who +live and die and moulder away beneath. Their poor old guardian told us +it was a weary life. He has had the fever three times, and does not +hope to survive many more Septembers. The very water that he drinks is +brought him from Ravenna; for the vast fen, though it pours its +overflow upon the church floor, and spreads like a lake around, is +death to drink. The monk had a gentle woman's voice and mild brown +eyes. What terrible crime had consigned him to this living tomb? For +what past sorrow is he weary of his life? What anguish of remorse has +driven him to such a solitude? Yet he looked simple and placid; his +melancholy was subdued and calm, as if life were over for him, and he +were waiting for death to come with a friend's greeting upon noiseless +wings some summer night across the fen-lands in a cloud of soft +destructive fever-mist. + +10Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a _cinquecento_ pillar of Ionic design, +erected on the spot where Gaston de Foix expired victorious after one +of the bloodiest battles ever fought. The Ronco, a straight sluggish +stream, flows by the lonely spot; mason bees have covered with +laborious stucco-work the scrolls and leafage of its ornaments, +confounding epitaphs and trophies under their mud houses. A few +cypress-trees stand round it, and the dogs and chickens of a +neighbouring farmyard make it their rendezvous. Those mason bees are +like posterity, which settles down upon the ruins of a Baalbec or a +Luxor, setting up its tents, and filling the fair spaces of Hellenic or +Egyptian temples with clay hovels. Nothing differs but the scale; and +while the bees content themselves with filling up and covering, man +destroys the silent places of the past which he appropriates. + +In Ravenna itself, perhaps what strikes us most is the abrupt +transition everywhere discernible from monuments of vast antiquity to +buildings of quite modern date. There seems to be no interval between +the marbles and mosaics of Justinian or Theodoric and the insignificant +frippery of the last century. The churches of Ravenna—S. Vitale, S. +Apollinare, and the rest—are too well known, and have been too often +described by enthusiastic antiquaries, to need a detailed notice in +this place. Every one is aware that the ecclesiastical customs and +architecture of the early Church can be studied in greater perfection +here than elsewhere. Not even the basilicas and mosaics of Rome, nor +those of Palermo and Monreale, are equal for historical interest to +those of Ravenna. Yet there is not one single church which remains +entirely unaltered and unspoiled. The imagination has to supply the +atrium or outer portico from one building, the vaulted baptistery with +its marble font from another, the pulpits and ambones from a 11third +the tribune from a fourth, the round brick bell-tower from a fifth, and +then to cover all the concave roofs and chapel walls with grave and +glittering mosaics. + +There is nothing more beautiful in decorative art than the mosaics of +such tiny buildings as the tomb of Galla Placidia or the chapel of the +Bishop's Palace. They are like jewelled and enamelled cases; not an +inch of wall can be seen which is not covered with elaborate patterns +of the brightest colours. Tall date-palms spring from the floor with +fruit and birds among their branches, and between them stand the +pillars and apostles of the Church. In the spandrels and lunettes above +the arches and the windows angels fly with white extended wings. On +every vacant place are scrolls and arabesques of foliage,—birds and +beasts, doves drinking from the vase, and peacocks spreading gorgeous +plumes—a maze of green and gold and blue. Overhead, the vault is +powdered with stars gleaming upon the deepest azure, and in the midst +is set an aureole embracing the majestic head of Christ, or else the +symbol of the sacred fish, or the hand of the Creator pointing from a +cloud. In Galla Placidia's tomb these storied vaults spring above the +sarcophagi of empresses and emperors, each lying in the place where he +was laid more than twelve centuries ago. The light which struggles +through the narrow windows serves to harmonise the brilliant hues and +make a gorgeous gloom. + +Besides these more general and decorative subjects, many of the +churches are adorned with historical mosaics, setting forth the Bible +narrative or incidents from the life of Christian emperors and kings. +In S. Apollinare Nuovo there is a most interesting treble series of +such mosaics extending over both walls of the nave. On the left hand, +as we enter, we see the town of Classis; on the right the palace of +Theodoric, its doors and loggie rich with curtains, and its friezes +blazing with 12coloured ornaments. From the city gate of Classis +virgins issue, and proceed in a long line until they reach Madonna +seated on a throne, with Christ upon her knees, and the three kings in +adoration at her feet. From Theodoric's palace door a similar +procession of saints and martyrs carry us to Christ surrounded by +archangels. Above this double row of saints and virgins stand the +fathers and prophets of the Church, and highest underneath the roof are +pictures from the life of our Lord. It will be remembered in connection +with these subjects that the women sat upon the left and the men upon +the right side of the church. Above the tribune, at the east end of the +church, it was customary to represent the Creative Hand, or the +monogram of the Saviour, or the head of Christ with the letters A and +[Greek Ô]. Moses and Elijah frequently stand on either side to +symbolise the transfiguration, while the saints and bishops specially +connected with the church appeared upon a lower row. Then on the side +walls were depicted such subjects as Justinian and Theodora among their +courtiers, or the grant of the privileges of the church to its first +founder from imperial patrons, with symbols of the old Hebraic +ritual—Abel's lamb, the sacrifice of Isaac, Melchisedec's offering of +bread and wine,—which were regarded as the types of Christian +ceremonies. The baptistery was adorned with appropriate mosaics +representing Christ's baptism in Jordan. + +Generally speaking, one is struck with the dignity of these designs, +and especially with the combined majesty and sweetness of the face of +Christ. The sense for harmony of hue displayed in their composition is +marvellous. It would be curious to trace in detail the remnants of +classical treatment which may be discerned—Jordan, for instance, pours +his water from an urn like a river-god crowned with sedge—or to show +what points of ecclesiastical tradition are established these ancient +monuments. We find Mariolatry already imminent, 13the names of the +three kings, Kaspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, the four evangelists as +we now recognise them, and many of the rites and vestments which +Ritualists of all denominations regard with superstitious reverence. + +There are two sepulchral monuments in Ravenna which cannot be passed +over unnoticed. The one is that of Theodoric the Goth, crowned by its +semisphere of solid stone, a mighty tomb, well worthy of the conqueror +and king. It stands in a green field, surrounded by acacias, where the +nightingales sing ceaselessly in May. The mason bees have covered it, +and the water has invaded its sepulchral vaults. In spite of many +trials, it seems that human art is unable to pump out the pond and +clear the frogs and efts from the chamber where the great Goth was laid +by Amalasuntha. + +The other is Dante's temple, with its basrelief and withered garlands. +The story of his burial, and of the discovery of his real tomb, is +fresh in the memory of every one. But the 'little cupola, more neat +than solemn,' of which Lord Byron speaks, will continue to be the goal +of many a pilgrimage. For myself—though I remember Chateaubriand's +bareheaded genuflection on its threshold, Alfieri's passionate +prostration at the altar-tomb, and Byron's offering of poems on the +poet's shrine—I confess that a single canto of the 'Inferno,' a single +passage of the 'Vita Nuova,' seems more full of soul-stirring +associations than the place where, centuries ago, the mighty dust was +laid. It is the spirit that lives and makes alive. And Dante's spirit +seems more present with us under the pine-branches of the Bosco than +beside his real or fancied tomb. 'He is risen,'—'Lo, I am with you +alway'—these are the words that ought to haunt us in a burying-ground. +There is something affected and self-conscious in overpowering grief or +enthusiasm or humiliation at a tomb. + +14 + + + + +RIMINI + + +SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI + +Rimini is a city of about 18,000 souls, famous for its Stabilmento de' +Bagni and its antiquities, seated upon the coast of the Adriatic, a +little to the south-east of the world-historical Rubicon. It is our +duty to mention the baths first among its claims to distinction, since +the prosperity and cheerfulness of the little town depend on them in a +great measure. But visitors from the north will fly from these, to +marvel at the bridge which Augustus built and Tiberius completed, and +which still spans the Marecchia with five gigantic arches of white +Istrian limestone, as solidly as if it had not borne the tramplings of +at least three conquests. The triumphal arch, too, erected in honour of +Augustus, is a notable monument of Roman architecture. Broad, +ponderous, substantial, tufted here and there with flowering weeds, and +surmounted with mediaeval machicolations, proving it to have sometimes +stood for city gate or fortress, it contrasts most favourably with the +slight and somewhat gimcrack arch of Trajan in the sister city of +Ancona. Yet these remains of the imperial pontifices, mighty and +interesting as they are, sink into comparative insignificance beside +the one great wonder of Rimini, the cathedral remodelled for Sigismondo +Pandolfo Malatesta by Leo Battista Alberti in 1450. This strange +church, one of 15the earliest extant buildings in which the Neopaganism +of the Renaissance showed itself in full force, brings together before +our memory two men who might be chosen as typical in their contrasted +characters of the transitional age which gave them birth. + +No one with any tincture of literary knowledge is ignorant of the fame +at least of the great Malatesta family—the house of the Wrongheads, as +they were rightly called by some prevision of their future part in +Lombard history. The readers of the twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth +cantos of the 'Inferno' have all heard of + +E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio + Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo, + + +while the story of Francesca da Polenta, who was wedded to the +hunchback Giovanni Malatesta and murdered by him with her lover Paolo, +is known not merely to students of Dante, but to readers of Byron and +Leigh Hunt, to admirers of Flaxman, Ary Scheffer, Doré—to all, in fact, +who have of art and letters any love. + +The history of these Malatesti, from their first establishment under +Otho III. as lieutenants for the Empire in the Marches of Ancona, down +to their final subjugation by the Papacy in the age of the Renaissance, +is made up of all the vicissitudes which could befall a mediaeval +Italian despotism. Acquiring an unlawful right over the towns of +Rimini, Cesena, Sogliano, Ghiacciuolo, they ruled their petty +principalities like tyrants by the help of the Guelf and Ghibelline +factions, inclining to the one or the other as it suited their humour +or their interest, wrangling among themselves, transmitting the +succession of their dynasty through bastards and by deeds of force, +quarrelling with their neighbours the Counts of Urbino, alternately +defying and submitting to the 16Papal legates in Romagna, serving as +condottieri in the wars of the Visconti and the state of Venice, and by +their restlessness and genius for military intrigues contributing in no +slight measure to the general disturbance of Italy. The Malatesti were +a race of strongly marked character: more, perhaps, than any other +house of Italian tyrants, they combined for generations those qualities +of the fox and the lion, which Machiavelli thought indispensable to a +successful despot. Son after son, brother with brother, they continued +to be fierce and valiant soldiers, cruel in peace, hardy in war, but +treasonable and suspicious in all transactions that could not be +settled by the sword. Want of union, with them as with the Baglioni and +many other of the minor noble families in Italy, prevented their +founding a substantial dynasty. Their power, based on force, was +maintained by craft and crime, and transmitted through tortuous +channels by intrigue. While false in their dealings with the world at +large, they were diabolical in the perfidy with which they treated one +another. No feudal custom, no standard of hereditary right, ruled the +succession in their family. Therefore the ablest Malatesta for the +moment clutched what he could of the domains that owned his house for +masters. Partitions among sons or brothers, mutually hostile and +suspicious, weakened the whole stock. Yet they were great enough to +hold their own for centuries among the many tyrants who infested +Lombardy. That the other princely families of Romagna, Emilia, and the +March were in the same state of internal discord and dismemberment, was +probably one reason why the Malatesti stood their ground so firmly as +they did. + +So far as Rimini is concerned, the house of Malatesta culminated in +Sigismondo Pandolfo, son of Gian Galeazzo Visconti's general, the +perfidious Pandolfo. It was he who built the Rocca, or castle of the +despots, which stands a little 17way outside the town, commanding a +fair view of Apennine tossed hill-tops and broad Lombard plain, and who +remodelled the Cathedral of S. Francis on a plan suggested by the +greatest genius of the age. Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta was one of +the strangest products of the earlier Renaissance. To enumerate the +crimes which he committed within the sphere of his own family, +mysterious and inhuman outrages which render the tale of the Cenci +credible, would violate the decencies of literature. A thoroughly +bestial nature gains thus much with posterity that its worst qualities +must be passed by in silence. It is enough to mention that he murdered +three wives in succession,[16] Bussoni di Carmagnuola, Guinipera +d'Este, and Polissena Sforza, on various pretexts of infidelity, and +carved horns upon his own tomb with this fantastic legend underneath:— + +Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede, +E tal le porta che non se lo crede. + + + [16] His first wife was a daughter of the great general of the + Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether Sigismondo murdered her, + as Sansovino seems to imply in his _Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he + only repudiated her after her father's execution on the Piazza di San + Marco, admits of doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage + with Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had been + some time his mistress before she became his wife. + +He died in wedlock with the beautiful and learned Isotta degli Atti, +who had for some time been his mistress. But, like most of the +Malatesti, he left no legitimate offspring. Throughout his life he was +distinguished for bravery and cunning, for endurance of fatigue and +rapidity of action, for an almost fretful rashness in the execution of +his schemes, and for a character terrible in its violence. He was +acknowledged as a great general; yet nothing succeeded with him. The +long warfare which he carried on against the Duke of 18Montefeltro +ended in his discomfiture. Having begun by defying the Holy See, he was +impeached at Rome for heresy, parricide, incest, adultery, rape, and +sacrilege, burned in effigy by Pope Pius II., and finally restored to +the bosom of the Church, after suffering the despoliation of almost all +his territories, in 1463. The occasion on which this fierce and +turbulent despiser of laws human and divine was forced to kneel as a +penitent before the Papal legate in the gorgeous temple dedicated to +his own pride, in order that the ban of excommunication might be +removed from Rimini, was one of those petty triumphs, interesting +chiefly for their picturesqueness, by which the Popes confirmed their +questionable rights over the cities of Romagna. Sigismondo, shorn of +his sovereignty, took the command of the Venetian troops against the +Turks in the Morea, and returned in 1465, crowned with laurels, to die +at Rimini in the scene of his old splendour. + +A very characteristic incident belongs to this last act of his life. +Dissolute, treacherous, and inhuman as he was, the tyrant of Rimini had +always encouraged literature, and delighted in the society of artists. +He who could brook no contradiction from a prince or soldier, allowed +the pedantic scholars of the sixteenth century to dictate to him in +matters of taste, and sat with exemplary humility at the feet of +Latinists like Porcellio, Basinio, and Trebanio. Valturio, the +engineer, and Alberti, the architect, were his familiar friends; and +the best hours of his life were spent in conversation with these men. +Now that he found himself upon the sacred soil of Greece, he was +determined not to return to Italy empty-handed. Should he bring +manuscripts or marbles, precious vases or inscriptions in half-legible +Greek character? These relics were greedily sought for by the +potentates of Italian cities; and no doubt Sigismondo enriched his +library with some such treasures. But he obtained 19a nobler +prize—nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.[17] These he +exhumed from their Greek grave and caused them to be deposited in a +stone sarcophagus outside the cathedral of his building in Rimini. The +Venetians, when they stole the body of S. Mark from Alexandria, were +scarcely more pleased than was Sigismondo with the acquisition of this +Father of the Neopagan faith. Upon the tomb we still may read this +legend: 'Jemisthii Bizantii philosopher sua temp principis reliquum +Sig. Pan. Mal. Pan. F. belli Pelop adversus Turcor regem Imp ob +ingentem eruditorum quo flagrat amorem huc afferendum introque +mittendum curavit MCCCCLXVI.' Of the Latinity of the inscription much +cannot be said; but it means that 'Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +having served as general against the Turks in the Morea, induced by the +great love with which he burns for all learned men, brought and placed +here the remains of Gemisthus of Byzantium, the prince of the +philosophers of his day.' + + [17] For the place occupied in the evolution of Italian scholarship by + this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of Learning,' _Renaissance in Italy_, + part 2. + +Sigismondo's portrait, engraved on medals, and sculptured upon every +frieze and point of vantage in the Cathedral of Rimini, well denotes +the man. His face is seen in profile. The head, which is low and flat +above the forehead, rising swiftly backward from the crown, carries a +thick bushy shock of hair curling at the ends, such as the Italians +call a _zazzera_. The eye is deeply sunk, with long venomous flat +eyelids, like those which Leonardo gives to his most wicked faces. The +nose is long and crooked, curved like a vulture's over a petulant +mouth, with lips deliberately pressed together, as though it were +necessary to control some nervous twitching. The 20cheek is broad, and +its bone is strongly marked. Looking at these features in repose, we +cannot but picture to our fancy what expression they might assume under +a sudden fit of fury, when the sinews of the face were contracted with +quivering spasms, and the lips writhed in sympathy with knit forehead +and wrinkled eyelids. + +Allusion has been made to the Cathedral of S. Francis at Rimini, as the +great ornament of the town, and the chief monument of Sigismondo's +fame. It is here that all the Malatesti lie. Here too is the chapel +consecrated to Isotta, 'Divæ Isottæ Sacrum;' and the tombs of the +Malatesta ladies, 'Malatestorum domûs heroidum sepulchrum;' and +Sigismondo's own grave with the cuckold's horns and scornful epitaph. +Nothing but the fact that the church is duly dedicated to S. Francis, +and that its outer shell of classic marble encases an old Gothic +edifice, remains to remind us that it is a Christian place of +worship.[18] It has no sanctity, no spirit of piety. The pride of the +tyrant whose legend—'Sigismundus Pandulphus Malatesta Pan. F. Fecit +Anno Gratiæ MCCCCL'—occupies every arch and stringcourse of the +architecture, and whose coat-of-arms and portrait in medallion, with +his cipher and his emblems of an elephant and a rose, are wrought in +every piece of sculptured work throughout the building, seems so to +fill this house of prayer that there is no room left for God. Yet the +Cathedral of Rimini remains a monument of first-rate importance for all +students who seek to penetrate the revived Paganism of the fifteenth +century. It serves also to bring a far more interesting 21Italian of +that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our notice. + + [18] The account of this church given by Æneas Sylvius Piccolomini + (Pii Secundi, Comment., ii. 92) deserves quotation: 'Ædificavit tamen + nobile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus + operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium dæmones + adorantium templum esse videatur.' + +In the execution of his design, Sigismondo received the assistance of +one of the most remarkable men of this or any other age. Leo Battista +Alberti, a scion of the noble Florentine house of that name, born +during the exile of his parents, and educated in the Venetian +territory, was endowed by nature with aptitudes, faculties, and +sensibilities so varied, as to deserve the name of universal genius. +Italy in the Renaissance period was rich in natures of this sort, to +whom nothing that is strange or beautiful seemed unfamiliar, and who, +gifted with a kind of divination, penetrated the secrets of the world +by sympathy. To Pico della Mirandola, Lionardo da Vinci, and Michel +Agnolo Buonarroti may be added Leo Battista Alberti. That he achieved +less than his great compeers, and that he now exists as the shadow of a +mighty name, was the effect of circumstances. He came half a century +too early into the world, and worked as a pioneer rather than a settler +of the realm which Lionardo ruled as his demesne. Very early in his +boyhood Alberti showed the versatility of his talents. The use of arms, +the management of horses, music, painting, modelling for sculpture, +mathematics, classical and modern literature, physical science as then +comprehended, and all the bodily exercises proper to the estate of a +young nobleman, were at his command. His biographer asserts that he was +never idle, never subject to ennui or fatigue. He used to say that +books at times gave him the same pleasure as brilliant jewels or +perfumed flowers: hunger and sleep could not keep him from them then. +At other times the letters on the page appeared to him like twining and +contorted scorpions, so that he preferred to gaze on anything but +written scrolls. He would then turn to music or painting, or to the +physical sports in which he excelled. The 22language in which this +alternation of passion and disgust for study is expressed, bears on it +the stamp of Alberti's peculiar temperament, his fervid and imaginative +genius, instinct with subtle sympathies and strange repugnances. Flying +from his study, he would then betake himself to the open air. No one +surpassed him in running, in wrestling, in the force with which he cast +his javelin or discharged his arrows. So sure was his aim and so +skilful his cast, that he could fling a farthing from the pavement of +the square, and make it ring against a church roof far above. When he +chose to jump, he put his feet together and bounded over the shoulders +of men standing erect upon the ground. On horseback he maintained +perfect equilibrium, and seemed incapable of fatigue. The most restive +and vicious animals trembled under him and became like lambs. There was +a kind of magnetism in the man. We read, besides these feats of +strength and skill, that he took pleasure in climbing mountains, for no +other purpose apparently than for the joy of being close to nature. + +In this, as in many other of his instincts, Alberti was before his age. +To care for the beauties of landscape unadorned by art, and to +sympathise with sublime or rugged scenery, was not in the spirit of the +Renaissance. Humanity occupied the attention of poets and painters; and +the age was yet far distant when the pantheistic feeling for the world +should produce the art of Wordsworth and of Turner. Yet a few great +natures even then began to comprehend the charm and mystery which the +Greeks had imaged in their Pan, the sense of an all-pervasive spirit in +wild places, the feeling of a hidden want, the invisible tie which +makes man a part of rocks and woods and streams around him. Petrarch +had already ascended the summit of Mont Ventoux, to meditate, with an +exaltation of the soul he scarcely understood, upon the scene spread at +his feet and above his head. Æneas 23Sylvius Piccolomini delighted in +wild places for no mere pleasure of the chase, but for the joy he took +in communing with nature. How S. Francis found God in the sun and the +air, the water and the stars, we know by his celebrated hymn; and of +Dante's acute observation, every canto of the 'Divine Comedy' is +witness. + +Leo Alberti was touched in spirit by even a deeper and a stranger +pathos than any of these men: 'In the early spring, when he beheld the +meadows and hills covered with flowers, and saw the trees and plants of +all kinds bearing promise of fruit, his heart became exceeding +sorrowful; and when in autumn he looked on fields heavy with harvest +and orchards apple-laden, he felt such grief that many even saw him +weep for the sadness of his soul.' It would seem that he scarcely +understood the source of this sweet trouble: for at such times he +compared the sloth and inutility of men with the industry and fertility +of nature; as though this were the secret of his melancholy. A poet of +our century has noted the same stirring of the spirit, and has striven +to account for it:— + +Tears from the depth of some divine despair +Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes, +In looking on the happy autumn fields, +And thinking of the days that are no more. + +Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the _mal du pays_ of the human +soul for that ancient country of its birth, the mild Saturnian earth +from which we sprang, with a sense of loss. It is the waste of human +energy that affects Alberti; the waste of human life touches the modern +poet. Yet both perhaps have scarcely interpreted their own spirit; for +is not the true source of tears deeper and more secret? Man is a child +of nature in the simplest sense; and the stirrings of the secular +breasts that gave him suck, and on which he even now must hang, have +potent influences over his emotions. 24Of Alberti's extraordinary +sensitiveness to all such impressions many curious tales are told. The +sight of refulgent jewels, of flowers, and of fair landscapes, had the +same effect upon his nerves as the sound of the Dorian mood upon the +youths whom Pythagoras cured of passion by music. He found in them an +anodyne for pain, a restoration from sickness. Like Walt Whitman, who +adheres to nature by closer and more vital sympathy than any other poet +of the modern world, Alberti felt the charm of excellent old age no +less than that of florid youth. 'On old men gifted with a noble +presence and hale and vigorous, he gazed again and again, and said that +he revered in them the delights of nature (_naturæ delitias_).' Beasts +and birds and all living creatures moved him to admiration for the +grace with which they had been gifted, each in his own kind. It is even +said that he composed a funeral oration for a dog which he had loved +and which died. + +To this sensibility for all fair things in nature, Alberti added the +charm of a singularly sweet temper and graceful conversation. The +activity of his mind, which was always being exercised on subjects of +grave speculation, removed him from the noise and bustle of commonplace +society. He was somewhat silent, inclined to solitude, and of a pensive +countenance; yet no man found him difficult of access: his courtesy was +exquisite, and among familiar friends he was noted for the flashes of a +delicate and subtle wit. Collections were made of his apophthegms by +friends, and some are recorded by his anonymous biographer.[19] Their +finer perfume, as almost always happens with good sayings which do not +certain the 25full pith of a proverb, but owe their force, in part at +least, to the personality of their author, and to the happy moment of +their production, has evanesced. Here, however, is one which seems +still to bear the impress of Alberti's genius: 'Gold is the soul of +labour, and labour the slave of pleasure.' Of women he used to say that +their inconstancy was an antidote to their falseness; for if a woman +could but persevere in what she undertook, all the fair works of men +would be ruined. One of his strongest moral sentences is aimed at envy, +from which he suffered much in his own life, and against which he +guarded with a curious amount of caution. His own family grudged the +distinction which his talents gained for him, and a dark story is told +of a secret attempt made by them to assassinate him through his +servants. Alberti met these ignoble jealousies with a stately calm and +a sweet dignity of demeanour, never condescending to accuse his +relatives, never seeking to retaliate, but acting always for the honour +of his illustrious house. In the same spirit of generosity he refused +to enter into wordy warfare with detractors and calumniators, sparing +the reputation even of his worst enemy when chance had placed him in +his power. This moderation both of speech and conduct was especially +distinguished in an age which tolerated the fierce invectives of +Filelfo, and applauded the vindictive courage of Cellini. To money +Alberti showed a calm indifference. He committed his property to his +friends and shared with them in common. Nor was he less careless about +vulgar fame, spending far more pains in the invention of machinery and +the discovery of laws, than in their publication to the world. His +service was to knowledge, not to glory. Self-control was another of his +eminent qualities. With the natural impetuosity of a large heart, and +the vivacity of a trained athlete, he yet never allowed himself to be +subdued by anger or by sensual impulses, but took pains 26to preserve +his character unstained and dignified before the eyes of men. A story +is told of him which may remind us of Goethe's determination to +overcome his giddiness. In his youth his head was singularly sensitive +to changes of temperature; but by gradual habituation he brought +himself at last to endure the extremes of heat and cold bareheaded. In +like manner he had a constitutional disgust for onions and honey; so +powerful, that the very sight of these things made him sick. Yet by +constantly viewing and touching what was disagreeable, he conquered +these dislikes; and proved that men have a complete mastery over what +is merely instinctive in their nature. His courage corresponded to his +splendid physical development. When a boy of fifteen, he severely +wounded himself in the foot. The gash had to be probed and then sewn +up. Alberti not only bore the pain of this operation without a groan, +but helped the surgeon with his own hands; and effected a cure of the +fever which succeeded by the solace of singing to his cithern. For +music he had a genius of the rarest order; and in painting he is said +to have achieved success. Nothing, however, remains of his work and +from what Vasari says of it, we may fairly conclude that he gave less +care to the execution of finished pictures, than to drawings subsidiary +to architectural and mechanical designs. His biographer relates that +when he had completed a painting, he called children and asked them +what it meant. If they did not know, he reckoned it a failure. He was +also in the habit of painting from memory. While at Venice, he put on +canvas the faces of friends at Florence whom he had not seen for +months. That the art of painting was subservient in his estimation to +mechanics, is indicated by what we hear about the camera, in which he +showed landscapes by day and the revolutions of the stars by night, so +lively drawn that the spectators were affected with amazement. The +semi-scientific 27impulse to extend man's mastery over nature, the +magician's desire to penetrate secrets, which so powerfully influenced +the development of Lionardo's genius, seems to have overcome the purely +æsthetic instincts of Alberti, so that he became in the end neither a +great artist like Raphael, nor a great discoverer like Galileo, but +rather a clairvoyant to whom the miracles of nature and of art lie +open. + + [19] Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to be found in the + Latin biography included in Muratori. It has been conjectured, and not + without plausibility, by the last editor of Alberti's complete works, + Bonucci, that this Latin life was penned by Alberti himself. + + +After the first period of youth was over, Leo Battista Alberti devoted +his great faculties and all his wealth of genius to the study of the +law—then, as now, the quicksand of the noblest natures. The industry +with which he applied himself to the civil and ecclesiastical codes +broke his health. For recreation he composed a Latin comedy called +'Philodoxeos,' which imposed upon the judgment of scholars, and was +ascribed as a genuine antique to Lepidus, the comic poet. Feeling +stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, and +pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still +uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. +It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his +Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the +clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial disturbances, +which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous illness is not +dissimilar to that which Rousseau describes in the confessions of his +youth. In vain, however, his physicians warned Alberti of impending +peril. A man of so much stanchness, accustomed to control his nature +with an iron will, is not ready to accept advice. Alberti persevered in +his studies, until at last the very seat of intellect was invaded. His +memory began to fail him for names, while he still retained with +wonderful accuracy whatever he had seen with his eyes. It was now +impossible to think of law as a profession. Yet since he could not live +without severe mental exercise, he had 28recourse to studies which tax +the verbal memory less than the intuitive faculties of the reason. +Physics and mathematics became his chief resource; and he devoted his +energies to literature. His 'Treatise on the Family' may be numbered +among the best of those compositions on social and speculative subjects +in which the Italians of the Renaissance sought to rival Cicero. His +essays on the arts are mentioned by Vasari with sincere approbation. +Comedies, interludes, orations, dialogues, and poems flowed with +abundance from his facile pen. Some were written in Latin, which he +commanded more than fairly; some in the Tuscan tongue, of which owing +to the long exile of his family in Lombardy, he is said to have been +less a master. It was owing to this youthful illness, from which +apparently his constitution never wholly recovered, that Alberti's +genius was directed to architecture. + +Through his friendship with Flavio Biondo, the famous Roman antiquary, +Alberti received an introduction to Nicholas V. at the time when this, +the first great Pope of the Renaissance, was engaged in rebuilding the +palaces and fortifications of Rome. Nicholas discerned the genius of +the man, and employed him as his chief counsellor in all matters of +architecture. When the Pope died, he was able, while reciting his long +Latin will upon his deathbed, to boast that he had restored the Holy +See to its due dignity, and the Eternal City to the splendour worthy of +the seat of Christendom. The accomplishment of the second part of his +work he owed to the genius of Alberti. After doing thus much for Rome +under Thomas of Sarzana, and before beginning to beautify Florence at +the instance of the Rucellai family, Alberti entered the service of the +Malatesta, and undertook to remodel the Cathedral of S. Francis at +Rimini. He found it a plain Gothic structure with apse and side +chapels. Such churches are common enough in Italy, where pointed +architecture never 29developed its true character of complexity and +richness, but was doomed to the vast vacuity exemplified in S. Petronio +of Bologna. He left it a strange medley of mediæval and Renaissance +work, a symbol of that dissolving scene in the world's pantomime, when +the spirit of classic art, as yet but little comprehended, was +encroaching on the early Christian taste. Perhaps the mixture of styles +so startling in S. Francesco ought not to be laid to the charge of +Alberti, who had to execute the task of turning a Gothic into a classic +building. All that he could do was to alter the whole exterior of the +church, by affixing a screen-work of Roman arches and Corinthian +pilasters, so as to hide the old design and yet to leave the main +features of the fabric, the windows and doors especially, _in statu +quo_. With the interior he dealt upon the same general principle, by +not disturbing its structure, while he covered every available square +inch of surface with decorations alien to the Gothic manner. +Externally, S. Francesco is perhaps the most original and graceful of +the many attempts made by Italian builders to fuse the mediæval and the +classic styles. For Alberti attempted nothing less. A century elapsed +before Palladio, approaching the problem from a different point of +view, restored the antique in its purity, and erected in the Palazzo +della Ragione of Vicenza an almost unique specimen of resuscitated +Roman art. + +Internally, the beauty of the church is wholly due to its exquisite +wall-ornaments. These consist for the most part of low reliefs in a +soft white stone, many of them thrown out upon a blue ground in the +style of Della Robbia. Allegorical figures designed with the purity of +outline we admire in Botticelli, draperies that Burne-Jones might copy, +troops of singing boys in the manner of Donatello, great angels traced +upon the stone so delicately that they seem to be rather drawn than +sculptured, statuettes in niches, personifications of all arts and +30sciences alternating with half-bestial shapes of satyrs and +sea-children:—such are the forms which fill the spaces of the chapel +walls, and climb the pilasters, and fret the arches, in such abundance +that had the whole church been finished as it was designed, it would +have presented one splendid though bizarre effect of incrustation. +Heavy screens of Verona marble, emblazoned in open arabesques with the +ciphers of Sigismondo and Isotta, with coats-of-arms, emblems, and +medallion portraits, shut the chapels from the nave. Who produced all +this sculpture it is difficult to say. Some of it is very good: much is +indifferent. We may hazard the opinion that, besides Bernardo +Ciuffagni, of whom Vasari speaks, some pupils of Donatello and +Benedetto da Majano worked at it. The influence of the sculptors of +Florence is everywhere perceptible. + +Whatever be the merit of these reliefs, there is no doubt that they +fairly represent one of the most interesting moments in the history of +modern art. Gothic inspiration had failed; the early Tuscan style of +the Pisani had been worked out; Michelangelo was yet far distant, and +the abundance of classic models had not overwhelmed originality. The +sculptors of the school of Ghiberti and Donatello, who are represented +in this church, were essentially pictorial, preferring low to high +relief, and relief in general to detached figures. Their style, like +the style of Boiardo in poetry, of Botticelli in painting, is specific +to Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century. Mediæval standards of +taste were giving way to classical, Christian sentiment to Pagan; yet +the imitation of the antique had not been carried so far as to efface +the spontaneity of the artist, and enough remained of Christian feeling +to tinge the fancy with a grave and sweet romance. The sculptor had the +skill and mastery to express his slightest shade of thought with +freedom, spirit, and precision. Yet 31his work showed no sign of +conventionality, no adherence to prescribed rules. Every outline, every +fold of drapery, every attitude was pregnant, to the artist's own mind +at any rate, with meaning. In spite of its symbolism, what he wrought +was never mechanically figurative, but gifted with the independence of +its own beauty, vital with an inbreathed spirit of life. It was a happy +moment, when art had reached consciousness, and the artist had not yet +become self-conscious. The hand and the brain then really worked +together for the procreation of new forms of grace, not for the +repetition of old models, or for the invention of the strange and +startling. 'Delicate, sweet, and captivating,' are good adjectives to +express the effect produced upon the mind by the contemplation even of +the average work of this period. + +To study the flowing lines of the great angels traced upon the walls of +the Chapel of S. Sigismund in the Cathedral of Rimini, to follow the +undulations of their drapery that seems to float, to feel the dignified +urbanity of all their gestures, is like listening to one of those clear +early Italian compositions for the voice, which surpasses in suavity of +tone and grace of movement all that Music in her full-grown vigour has +produced. There is indeed something infinitely charming in the +crepuscular moments of the human mind. Whether it be the rathe +loveliness of an art still immature, or the beauty of art upon the +wane—whether, in fact, the twilight be of morning or of evening, we +find in the masterpieces of such periods a placid calm and chastened +pathos, as of a spirit self-withdrawn from vulgar cares, which in the +full light of meridian splendour is lacking. In the Church of S. +Francesco at Rimini the tempered clearness of the dawn is just about to +broaden into day. + +32 + + + + +MAY IN UMBRIA + + +FROM ROME TO TERNI + +We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine +Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunderclouds, +casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. +To westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz, +flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been +called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus +and thistle, embroider it with patterns infinite and intricate beyond +the power of art. They have already mown the hay in part; and the +billowy tracts of greyish green, where no flowers are now in bloom, +supply a restful groundwork to those brilliant patches of diapered +_fioriture_. These are like praying-carpets spread for devotees upon +the pavement of a mosque whose roof is heaven. In the level light the +scythes of the mowers flash as we move past. From their bronzed +foreheads the men toss masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and +shoulders sway sideways from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, +fronting the sunset, there stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, +feeding and raising their heads to look at us, with just a flush of +crimson on their horns and dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and +33of Costa's colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome. + +Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber +and S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine +Hills, we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames +where he had perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, +grew slowly into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, +turbid river, in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This +changeful mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to +valley, hill, and lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, +and a green ocean above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the +clouds are floating. Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride +upon a sea-horse, and followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery +waves. The orange deepens into dying red. The green divides into +daffodil and beryl. The blue above grows fainter, and the moon and +stars shine stronger. + +Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting +water. The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this scene. +No painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both luminaries +tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. Sometimes +they sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. And here +and there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft of shrubs +upon the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor of the +West. The last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey monochrome, +faintly silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and woods, 34all +floating in aë;rial twilight. There is no definition of outline now. +The daffodil of the horizon has faded into scarcely perceptible pale +greenish yellow. + +We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. + +THE CASCADES OF TERNI + +The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the highest +region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged with +particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends continually to +choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which the torrent +thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, carried on the wind +in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the falls with fine white +dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the most sublime and +beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is worthy of so +great a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble mid-Italian +landscape, where the mountain forms are austere and boldly modelled, +but the vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something of the +South-Italian richness. The hillsides are a labyrinth of box and +arbutus, with coronilla in golden bloom. The turf is starred with +cyclamens and orchises. Climbing the staircase paths beside the falls +in morning sunlight, or stationed on the points of vantage that command +their successive cataracts, we enjoyed a spectacle which might be +compared in its effect upon the mind to the impression left by a +symphony or a tumultuous lyric. The turbulence and splendour, the +swiftness and resonance, the veiling of the scene in smoke of shattered +water-masses, the withdrawal of these veils according as the 35volume +of the river slightly shifted in its fall, the rainbows shimmering on +the silver spray, the shivering of poplars hung above impendent +precipices, the stationary grandeur of the mountains keeping watch +around, the hurry and the incoherence of the cataracts, the immobility +of force and changeful changelessness in nature, were all for me the +elements of one stupendous poem. It was like an ode of Shelley +translated into symbolism, more vivid through inarticulate appeal to +primitive emotion than any words could be. + +MONTEFALCO + +The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. Through +this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one of those +long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities of the +Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, Perugia on +its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the Tiber +valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the +kind of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, +so beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain +contrasts with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and +the name of each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. + +The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside 36the church of S. Chiara, asked +whether we should not like to view the body of the saint. This +privilege could be purchased at the price of a small fee. It was only +necessary to call the guardian of her shrine at the high altar. +Indolent, and in compliant mood, with languid curiosity and half an +hour to spare, we assented. A handsome young man appeared, who +conducted us with decent gravity into a little darkened chamber behind +the altar. There he lighted wax tapers, opened sliding doors in what +looked like a long coffin, and drew curtains. Before us in the dim +light there lay a woman covered with a black nun's dress. Only her +hands, and the exquisitely beautiful pale contour of her face +(forehead, nose, mouth, and chin, modelled in purest outline, as though +the injury of death had never touched her) were visible. Her closed +eyes seemed to sleep. She had the perfect peace of Luini's S. Catherine +borne by the angels to her grave on Sinai. I have rarely seen anything +which surprised and touched me more. The religious earnestness of the +young custode, the hushed adoration of the country-folk who had +silently assembled round us, intensified the sympathy-inspiring beauty +of the slumbering girl. Could Julia, daughter of Claudius, have been +fairer than this maiden, when the Lombard workmen found her in her +Latin tomb, and brought her to be worshipped on the Capitol? S. +Chiara's shrine was hung round with her relics; and among these the +heart extracted from her body was suspended. Upon it, apparently +wrought into the very substance of the mummied flesh, were impressed a +figure of the crucified Christ, the scourge, and the five stigmata. The +guardian's faith in this miraculous witness to her sainthood, the +gentle piety of the men and women who knelt before it, checked all +expressions of incredulity. We abandoned ourselves to the genius of the +place; forgot even to ask what Santa Chiara was sleeping 37here; and +withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The world-famous S. +Clair, the spiritual sister of S. Francis, lies in Assisi. I have often +asked myself, Who, then, was this nun? What history had she? And I +think now of this girl as of a damsel of romance, a Sleeping Beauty in +the wood of time, secluded from intrusive elements of fact, and folded +in the love and faith of her own simple worshippers. Among the hollows +of Arcadia, how many rustic shrines in ancient days held saints of +Hellas, apocryphal, perhaps, like this, but hallowed by tradition and +enduring homage![20] + + [20] There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint Clair. + She was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, dying + young, in 1308, as Abbess of her convent. Continual and impassioned + meditation on the Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the + signs of His suffering which have been described above. I owe this + note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here thank. + +FOLIGNO + +In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain +at the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to details +which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of +subordinate importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The +place has not materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth +century. Indeed, relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is still +the same as in the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station of +commanding interest between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great +Flaminian Way. At Foligno the passes of the Apennines debouch into the +Umbrian plain, which slopes gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, +and from it the valley of the Nera is reached by an 38easy ascent +beneath the walls of Spoleto. An army advancing from the north by the +Metaurus and the Furlo Pass must find itself at Foligno; and the level +champaign round the city is well adapted to the maintenance and +exercises of a garrison. In the days of the Republic and the Empire, +the value of this position was well understood; but Foligno's +importance, as the key to the Flaminian Way, was eclipsed by two +flourishing cities in its immediate vicinity, Hispellum and Mevania, +the modern Spello and Bevagna. We might hazard a conjecture that the +Lombards, when they ruled the Duchy of Spoleto, following their usual +policy of opposing new military centres to the ancient Roman municipia, +encouraged Fulginium at the expense of her two neighbours. But of this +there is no certainty to build upon. All that can be affirmed with +accuracy is that in the Middle Ages, while Spello and Bevagna declined +into the inferiority of dependent burghs, Foligno grew in power and +became the chief commune of this part of Umbria. It was famous during +the last centuries of struggle between the Italian burghers and their +native despots, for peculiar ferocity in civil strife. Some of the +bloodiest pages in mediæval Italian history are those which relate the +vicissitudes of the Trinci family, the exhaustion of Foligno by +internal discord, and its final submission to the Papal power. Since +railways have been carried from Rome through Narni and Spoleto to +Ancona and Perugia, Foligno has gained considerably in commercial and +military status. It is the point of intersection for three lines; the +Italian government has made it a great cavalry depôt, and there are +signs of reviving traffic in its decayed streets. Whether the presence +of a large garrison has already modified the population, or whether we +may ascribe something to the absence of Roman municipal institutions in +the far past, and to the savagery of the mediæval period, it is +difficult to say. Yet 39the impression left by Foligno upon the mind is +different from that of Assisi, Spello, and Montefalco, which are +distinguished for a certain grace and gentleness in their inhabitants. + +My window in the city wall looks southward across the plain to Spoleto, +with Montefalco perched aloft upon the right, and Trevi on its +mountain-bracket to the left. From the topmost peaks of the Sabine +Apennines, gradual tender sloping lines descend to find their quiet in +the valley of Clitumnus. The space between me and that distance is +infinitely rich with every sort of greenery, dotted here and there with +towers and relics of baronial houses. The little town is in commotion; +for the working men of Foligno and its neighbourhood have resolved to +spend their earnings on a splendid festa—horse-races, and two nights of +fireworks. The acacias and paulownias on the ramparts are in full bloom +of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal lights these trees, +with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the most fantastic of +artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into the sky amid that +solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony with nature. I +never sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion of fireworks +upon scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up at so much per +head on stated evenings, with a band playing and a crowd of cockneys +staring, presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. But where, as here +at Foligno, a whole city has made itself a festival, where there are +multitudes of citizens and soldiers and country-people slowly moving +and gravely admiring, with the decency and order characteristic of an +Italian crowd, I have nothing but a sense of satisfaction. + +It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though 40his own subjectivity +will assuredly play a considerable part in such an encounter, +transferring to his chance acquaintance qualities he may not possess, +and connecting this personality in some purely imaginative manner with +thoughts derived from study, or impressions made by nature; yet the +stranger will henceforth become the meeting-point of many memories, the +central figure in a composition which derives from him its vividness. +Unconsciously and innocently he has lent himself to the creation of a +picture, and round him, as around the hero of a myth, have gathered +thoughts and sentiments of which he had himself no knowledge. On one of +these nights I had been threading the aisles of acacia-trees, now +glaring red, now azure, as the Bengal lights kept changing. My mind +instinctively went back to scenes of treachery and bloodshed in the +olden time, when Gorrado Trinci paraded the mangled remnants of three +hundred of his victims, heaped on mule-back, through Foligno, for a +warning to the citizens. As the procession moved along the ramparts, I +found myself in contest with a young man, who readily fell into +conversation. He was very tall, with enormous breadth of shoulders, and +long sinewy arms, like Michelangelo's favourite models. His head was +small, curled over with crisp black hair. Low forehead, and thick level +eyebrows absolutely meeting over intensely bright fierce eyes. The nose +descending straight from the brows, as in a statue of Hadrian's age. +The mouth full-lipped, petulant, and passionate above a firm round +chin. He was dressed in the shirt, white trousers, and loose white +jacket of a contadino; but he did not move with a peasant's slouch, +rather with the elasticity and alertness of an untamed panther. He told +me that he was just about to join a cavalry regiment; and I could well +imagine, when military dignity was added to that gait, how grandly he +would go. This young man, of whom I heard nothing more after 41our +half-hour's conversation among the crackling fireworks and roaring +cannon, left upon my mind an indescribable impression of +dangerousness—of 'something fierce and terrible, eligible to burst +forth.' Of men like this, then, were formed the Companies of Adventure +who flooded Italy with villany, ambition, and lawlessness in the +fifteenth century. Gattamelata, who began life as a baker's boy at +Narni and ended it with a bronze statue by Donatello on the public +square in Padua, was of this breed. Like this were the Trinci and their +bands of murderers. Like this were the bravi who hunted Lorenzaccio to +death at Venice. Like this was Pietro Paolo Baglioni, whose fault, in +the eyes of Machiavelli, was that he could not succeed in being +'perfettamente tristo.' Beautiful, but inhuman; passionate, but cold; +powerful, but rendered impotent for firm and lofty deeds by immorality +and treason; how many centuries of men like this once wasted Italy and +plunged her into servitude! Yet what material is here, under sterner +discipline, and with a nobler national ideal, for the formation of +heroic armies. Of such stuff, doubtless, were the Roman legionaries. +When will the Italians learn to use these men as Fabius or as Cæsar, +not as the Vitelli and the Trinci used them? In such meditations, +deeply stirred by the meeting of my own reflections with one who seemed +to represent for me in life and blood the spirit of the place which had +provoked them, I said farewell to Cavallucci, and returned to my +bedroom on the city wall. The last rockets had whizzed and the last +cannons had thundered ere I fell asleep. + +SPELLO + +Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities—the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments 42of Roman sculpture scattered +through its buildings. The churches, especially those of S.M. Maggiore +and S. Francesco, are worth a visit for the sake of Pinturicchio. +Nowhere, except in the Piccolomini Library at Siena, can that master's +work in fresco be better studied than here. The satisfaction with which +he executed the wall paintings in S. Maria Maggiore is testified by his +own portrait introduced upon a panel in the decoration of the Virgin's +chamber. The scrupulously rendered details of books, chairs, window +seats, &c., which he here has copied, remind one of Carpaccio's study +of S. Benedict at Venice. It is all sweet, tender, delicate, and +carefully finished; but without depth, not even the depth of Perugino's +feeling. In S. Francesco, Pinturicchio, with the same meticulous +refinement, painted a letter addressed to him by Gentile Baglioni. It +lies on a stool before Madonna and her court of saints. Nicety of +execution, technical mastery of fresco as a medium for Dutch +detail-painting, prettiness of composition, and cheerfulness of +colouring, are noticeable throughout his work here rather than either +thought or sentiment. S. Maria Maggiore can boast a fresco of Madonna +between a young episcopal saint and Catherine of Alexandria from the +hand of Perugino. The rich yellow harmony of its tones, and the +graceful dignity of its emotion, conveyed no less by a certain +Raphaelesque pose and outline than by suavity of facial expression, +enable us to measure the distance between this painter and his +quasi-pupil Pinturicchio. + +We did not, however, drive to Spello to inspect either Roman +antiquities or frescoes, but to see an inscription on the city walls +about Orlando. It is a rude Latin elegiac couplet, saying that, 'from +the sign below, men may conjecture the mighty members of Roland, nephew +of Charles; his deeds are written in history.' Three agreeable old +gentlemen of Spello, 43who attended us with much politeness, and were +greatly interested in my researches, pointed out a mark waist-high upon +the wall, where Orlando's knee is reported to have reached. But I could +not learn anything about a phallic monolith, which is said by Guerin or +Panizzi to have been identified with the Roland myth at Spello. Such a +column either never existed here, or had been removed before the memory +of the present generation. + +EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI + +We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are +lighted on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the +low southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the +many-coloured gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women +in bright kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the +mountains stand or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving +from point to point. Where we have taken our station, at the +north-western angle of the transept, there we stay till mass be over. +The whole low-vaulted building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the +stained windows, the figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but +subdued colours, like hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like a +deep-toned rainbow mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such +tapestry as Eastern queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion +of an empress. Forth from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in +shade and sunbeams, lean earnest, saintly faces—ineffably pure—adoring, +pitying, pleading; raising their eyes in ecstasy to heaven, or turning +them in ruth toward earth. Men and women of whom the world was not +worthy—at the hands of those old painters they have received 44the +divine grace, the dovelike simplicity, whereof Italians in the +fourteenth century possessed the irrecoverable secret. Each face is a +poem; the counterpart in painting to a chapter from the Fioretti di San +Francesco. Over the whole scene—in the architecture, in the frescoes, +in the coloured windows, in the gloom, on the people, in the incense, +from the chiming bells, through the music—broods one spirit: the spirit +of him who was 'the co-espoused, co-transforate with Christ;' the +ardent, the radiant, the beautiful in soul; the suffering, the strong, +the simple, the victorious over self and sin; the celestial who +trampled upon earth and rose on wings of ecstasy to heaven; the +Christ-inebriated saint of visions supersensual and life beyond the +grave. Far down below the feet of those who worship God through him, S. +Francis sleeps; but his soul, the incorruptible part of him, the +message he gave the world, is in the spaces round us. This is his +temple. He fills it like an unseen god. Not as Phoebus or Athene, from +their marble pedestals; but as an abiding spirit, felt everywhere, +nowhere seized, absorbing in itself all mysteries, all myths, all +burning exaltations, all abasements, all love, self-sacrifice, pain, +yearning, which the thought of Christ, sweeping the centuries, hath +wrought for men. Let, therefore, choir and congregation raise their +voices on the tide of prayers and praises; for this is Easter +morning—Christ is risen! Our sister, Death of the Body, for whom S. +Francis thanked God in his hymn, is reconciled to us this day, and +takes us by the hand, and leads us to the gate whence floods of +heavenly glory issue from the faces of a multitude of saints. Pray, ye +poor people; chant and pray. If all be but a dream, to wake from this +were loss for you indeed! + +45 + +PERUSIA AUGUSTA + +The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy 'Pennacchio di Perugia,' jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise +shadowy Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, +Montefalco, and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of +breezes, very slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they +pass from Apennine to plain. The slowly moving population—women in +veils, men winter-mantled—pass to and fro between the buildings and the +grey immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow +retreat in convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets +beneath, singing May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through +the vitreous moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed +castelli smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas +vies with moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; +Etruscan mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban +world-old dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. + +Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy +masses of thundercloud hang every day; 46but the plain and +hill-buttresses are clear in transparent blueness. First comes Assisi, +with S.M. degli Angeli below; then Spello; then Foligno; then Trevi; +and, far away, Spoleto; with, reared against those misty battlements, +the village height of Montefalco—the 'ringhiera dell' Umbria,' as they +call it in this country. By daylight, the snow on yonder peaks is +clearly visible, where the Monti della Sibilla tower up above the +sources of the Nera and Velino from frigid wastes of Norcia. The lower +ranges seem as though painted, in films of airiest and palest azure, +upon china; and then comes the broad green champaign, flecked with +villages and farms. Just at the basement of Perugia winds Tiber, +through sallows and grey poplar-trees, spanned by ancient arches of red +brick, and guarded here and there by castellated towers. The mills +beneath their dams and weirs are just as Raphael drew them; and the +feeling of air and space reminds one, on each coign of vantage, of some +Umbrian picture. Every hedgerow is hoary with May-bloom and +honeysuckle. The oaks hang out their golden-dusted tassels. Wayside +shrines are decked with laburnum boughs and iris blossoms plucked from +the copse-woods, where spires of purple and pink orchis variegate the +thin, fine grass. The land waves far and wide with young corn, emerald +green beneath the olive-trees, which take upon their under-foliage +tints reflected from this verdure or red tones from the naked earth. A +fine race of _contadini_, with large, heroically graceful forms, and +beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move about this garden, intent on +ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian soil. + +LA MAGIONE + +On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La +Magione, a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian +champaign to the lake of Thrasymene. 47It has a grim square fortalice +above it, now in ruins, and a stately castle to the south-east, built +about the time of Braccio. Here took place that famous diet of Cesare +Borgia's enemies, when the son of Alexander VI. was threatening Bologna +with his arms, and bidding fair to make himself supreme tyrant of Italy +in 1502. It was the policy of Cesare to fortify himself by reducing the +fiefs of the Church to submission, and by rooting out the dynasties +which had acquired a sort of tyranny in Papal cities. The Varani of +Camerino and the Manfredi of Faenza had been already extirpated. There +was only too good reason to believe that the turn of the Vitelli at +Città di Castello, of the Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at +Bologna would come next. Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all +sides by Cesare's conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification +of Piombino, felt himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who +swayed a large part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely +allied to the Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was +the system of Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families +lived by the profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of +Cesare. When, therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were +plotting against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had +hitherto aided in his career of fraud and spoliation. + +The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; Vitellozzo +Vitelli, lord of Città di Castello; Gian-Paolo Baglioni, made +undisputed master of Perugia by the recent failure of his cousin +Grifonetto's treason; Oliverotto, who had just acquired the March of +Fermo by the murder of his uncle Giovanni da Fogliani; Ermes +Bentivoglio, the heir of Bologna; and Antonio da Venafro, the secretary +of Pandolfo Petrueci. These men vowed hostility on the basis of +48common injuries and common fear against the Borgia. But they were for +the most part stained themselves with crime, and dared not trust each +other, and could not gain the confidence of any respectable power in +Italy except the exiled Duke of Urbino. Procrastination was the first +weapon used by the wily Cesare, who trusted that time would sow among +his rebel captains suspicion and dissension. He next made overtures to +the leaders separately, and so far succeeded in his perfidious policy +as to draw Vitellozzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Paolo Orsini, and +Francesco Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at Sinigaglia. Under +pretext of fair conference and equitable settlement of disputed claims, +he possessed himself of their persons, and had them strangled—two upon +December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. Of all Cesare's actions, +this was the most splendid for its successful combination of sagacity +and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive diplomacy, and of +ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow arrived. + +CORTONA + +After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the lake of Thrasymene +through oak-woods full of nightingales. The lake lay basking, +leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, rain-charged, +sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its shore, we stopped +for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of very poor people, who +live entirely by labour on the waters. They showed us huge eels coiled +in tanks, and some fine specimens of the silver carp—Reina del Lago. It +was off one of the eels that we made our lunch; and taken, as he was, +alive from his cool lodging, he furnished a series of dishes fit for a +king. + +Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable 49business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses were tired, and one lean donkey, who, after +much trouble, was produced from a farmhouse and yoked in front of them, +rendered but little assistance. + +Next day we duly saw the Muse and Lamp in the Museo, the Fra Angelicos, +and all the Signorellis. One cannot help thinking that too much fuss is +made nowadays about works of art—running after them for their own +sakes, exaggerating their importance, and detaching them as objects of +study, instead of taking them with sympathy and carelessness as +pleasant or instructive adjuncts to our actual life. Artists, +historians of art, and critics are forced to isolate pictures; and it +is of profit to their souls to do so. But simple folk, who have no +aesthetic vocation, whether creative or critical, suffer more than is +good for them by compliance with mere fashion. Sooner or later we shall +return to the spirit of the ages which produced these pictures, and +which regarded them with less of an industrious bewilderment than they +evoke at present. + +I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of art-study +while traveling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is only on +reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive that the +most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual and +unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, art, and +life are happily blent. + +The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, +and inserted in its outer walls—Peruzzi, 50Albizzi, Strozzi, Salviati, +among the more ancient—de' Medici at a later epoch. The revolutions in +the Republic of Florence may be read by a herald from these +coats-of-arms and the dates beneath them. + +The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild—up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities of +Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is Trasimeno, +a silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon one corner of +the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for separate +contemplation. There is something in the singularity and circumscribed +completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by distance, which +would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had he seen it. + +Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining 'Signore +Padrone!' It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. Sitting +later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the same blind +boy taken by his brother to play. The game consists, in the little +creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, and running +round and round it, clasping it. This seemed to make him quite +inexpressibly happy. His face lit up and beamed with that inner +beatitude blind people show—a kind of rapture shining over it, as +though nothing could be more altogether delightful. This little boy had +the smallpox at eight months, and has never been able to see since. He +looks sturdy, and may 51live to be of any age—doomed always, is that +possible, to beg? + +CHIUSI + +What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded +hills of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley +goes stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain +mass, distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The +near country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine olives +and oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its crowning +villages, is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. The breadth +and depth and quiet which those painters loved, the space of lucid sky, +the suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all are here. The +evening is beautiful—golden light streaming softly from behind us on +this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue with stars +above. + +At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and +black scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed vault +of stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out of the +living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent in +walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens and +cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo +and Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways +winding among 52hedgerows like some bit of England in June, but not so +full of flowers. It means all this, I fear, for me far more than +theories about Lars Porsenna and Etruscan ethnology. + +GUBBIO + +Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its +back set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house +over house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth and +independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural defences; +and Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity and +isolation. Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; and +the brown mediæval walls with square towers which protected them upon +the mountain side, following the inequalities of the ground, are still +a marked feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets and +staircases, with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas opening +at every turn across the lowland. One of these views might be selected +for especial notice. In front, irregular buildings losing themselves in +country as they straggle by the roadside; then the open post-road with +a cypress to the right; afterwards, the rich green fields, and on a bit +of rising ground an ancient farmhouse with its brown dependencies; +lastly, the blue hills above Fossato, and far away a wrack of tumbling +clouds. All this enclosed by the heavy archway of the Porta Romana, +where sunlight and shadow chequer the mellow tones of a dim fresco, +indistinct with age, but beautiful. + +Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair 53arched windows and slender +portals of the ancient dwellers, spoiling the beauty of the streets +without materially changing the architectural masses. In that witching +hour when the Italian sunset has faded, and a solemn grey replaces the +glowing tones of daffodil and rose, it is not difficult, here dreaming +by oneself alone, to picture the old noble life—the ladies moving along +those open loggias, the young men in plumed caps and curling hair with +one foot on those doorsteps, the knights in armour and the sumpter +mules and red-robed Cardinals defiling through those gates into the +courts within. The modern bricks and mortar with which that picturesque +scene has been overlaid, the ugly oblong windows and bright green +shutters which now interrupt the flowing lines of arch and gallery; +these disappear beneath the fine remembered touch of a sonnet sung by +Folgore, when still the Parties had their day, and this deserted city +was the centre of great aims and throbbing aspirations. + +The names of the chief buildings in Gubbio are strongly suggestive of +the middle ages. They abut upon a Piazza de' Signori. One of them, the +Palazzo del Municipio, is a shapeless unfinished block of masonry. It +is here that the Eugubine tables, plates of brass with Umbrian and +Roman incised characters, are shown. The Palazzo de' Consoli has higher +architectural qualities, and is indeed unique among Italian palaces for +the combination of massiveness with lightness in a situation of +unprecedented boldness. Rising from enormous substructures mortised +into the solid hillside, it rears its vast rectangular bulk to a giddy +height above the town; airy loggias imposed on great forbidding masses +of brown stone, shooting aloft into a light aë;rial tower. The empty +halls inside are of fair proportions and a noble size, and the views +from the open colonnades in all directions fascinate. But the final +impression made by the building is one of square, 54tranquil, massive +strength—perpetuity embodied in masonry—force suggesting facility by +daring and successful addition of elegance to hugeness. Vast as it is, +this pile is not forbidding, as a similarly weighty structure in the +North would be. The fine quality of the stone and the delicate though +simple mouldings of the windows give it an Italian grace. + +These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio was +a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to play in +the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and Ghibelline. The +ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us of the advent of +the despots. It has been stripped of all its tarsia-work and sculpture. +Only here and there a Fe.D., with the cupping-glass of Federigo di +Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio once became the fairest fief +of the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave his name to this duke's son, +was the patron of Gubbio, and to him the cathedral is dedicated—one low +enormous vault, like a cellar or feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a +succession of solid Gothic arches. This strange old church, and the +House of Canons, buttressed on the hill beside it, have suffered less +from modernisation than most buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in +particular, helps one to understand what this city of grave palazzi +must have been, and how the mere opening of old doors and windows would +restore it to its primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in +fact, not yet been given over to the use of middle-class and +proletariate. + +At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its +specific blending 55of tawny hues with rose. They serve the table +still, at Gubbio, after the antique Italian fashion, covering it with a +cream-coloured linen cloth bordered with coarse lace—the creases of the +press, the scent of old herbs from the wardrobe, are still upon it—and +the board is set with shallow dishes of warm, white earthenware, +basket-worked in open lattice at the edge, which contain little +separate messes of meat, vegetables, cheese, and comfits. The wine +stands in strange, slender phials of smooth glass, with stoppers; and +the amber-coloured bread lies in fair round loaves upon the cloth. +Dining thus is like sitting down to the supper at Emmaus, in some +picture of Gian Bellini or of Masolino. The very bareness of the +room—its open rafters, plastered walls, primitive settees, and +red-brick floor, on which a dog sits waiting for a bone—enhances the +impression of artistic delicacy in the table. + +FROM GUBBIO TO FANO + +The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills—gaunt masses +of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short turf and +scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of Scheggia, +and is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At Scheggia, it joins +the great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman armies. At the top +there is a fine view over the conical hills that dominate Gubbio, and, +far away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and the Foligno line of +railway to Ancona. Range rises over range, crossing 56at unexpected +angles, breaking into sudden precipices, and stretching out long, +exquisitely modelled outlines, as only Apennines can do, in silvery +sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every square piece of this +austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, whereof the composition +is due to subtle arrangements of lines always delicate; and these lines +seem somehow to have been determined in their beauty by the vast +antiquity of the mountain system, as though they all had taken time to +choose their place and wear down into harmony. The effect of tempered +sadness was heightened for us by stormy lights and dun clouds, high in +air, rolling vapours and flying shadows, over all the prospect, tinted +in ethereal grisaille. + +After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane— + + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes +Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae + + +—once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little pass +leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian watershed, +and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the sea. The valley +is fairly green with woods, where mistletoe may here and there be seen +on boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is the chief town of +the district, and here they show one of the best pictures left to us by +Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a Madonna, attended by S. +Peter, S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and two angels. One of the +angels is traditionally supposed to have been painted from the boy +Raphael, and the face has something which reminds us of his portraits. +The whole composition, excellent in modelling, harmonious in grouping, +soberly but strongly coloured, with a peculiar blending of dignity and +sweetness, grace and vigour, makes one wonder 57why Santi thought it +necessary to send his son from his own workshop to study under +Perugino. He was himself a master of his art, and this, perhaps the +most agreeable of his paintings, has a masculine sincerity which is +absent from at least the later works of Perugino. + +Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes its +name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, where +limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this gallery +Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, whence comes +the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old Flaminian Way are +still well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli is the ancient +Calles, and Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano the Fanum Fortunæ. +Vespasian commemorated this early achievement in engineering by an +inscription carved on the living stone, which still remains; and +Claudian, when he sang the journey of his Emperor Honorius from Rimini +to Rome, speaks thus of what was even then an object of astonishment to +travellers:— + +Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, +Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus, +Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu +Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. + +The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position at +the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, +without too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on the +scale of the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either hand +above the gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and solemn, +like a succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous flanking +obelisks and pyramids. Some of these 58crag-masses rival the fantastic +cliffs of Capri, and all consist of that southern mountain limestone +which changes from pale yellow to blue grey and dusky orange. A river +roars precipitately through the pass, and the roadsides wave with many +sorts of campanulas—a profusion of azure and purple bells upon the hard +white stone. Of Roman remains there is still enough (in the way of +Roman bridges and bits of broken masonry) to please an antiquary's eye. +But the lover of nature will dwell chiefly on the picturesque qualities +of this historic gorge, so alien to the general character of Italian +scenery, and yet so remote from anything to which Swiss travelling +accustoms one. + +The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of far-away +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that +I feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage windows +as we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, and +cytisus, and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and sainfoin. +There were orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches +of all hues, red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. In +the rougher hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia made a +network of white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright and tender +tints combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, crimson clover, +thyme, red snap-dragon, golden asters, and dreamy love-in-a-mist, to +weave a marvellous carpet such as the looms of Shiraz or of Cashmere +never spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in such riot, 59such +luxuriance, such self-abandonment to joy. The air was filled with +fragrances. Songs of cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on +the hillsides. The sun was out, and dancing over all the landscape. + +After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries an +English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. In +colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. + +The sea-shore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many +churches, and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. +Giovanni Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of +Perugino there is one truly magnificent altar-piece—lunette, great +centre panel, and predella—dusty in its present condition, but +splendidly painted, and happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is +worth journeying to Fano to see this. Still better would the journey be +worth the traveller's while if he could be sure to witness such a game +of _Pallone_ as we chanced upon in the Via dell' Arco di Augusto—lads +and grown-men, tightly girt, in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball +aloft into the air with cunning bias and calculation of projecting +house-eaves. I do not understand the game; but it was clearly played +something after the manner of our football, that is to say; with sides, +and front and back players so arranged as to cover the greatest number +of angles of incidence on either wall. + +Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain in +the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering her +veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity upon +the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint! + +60 + + + + +THE PALACE OF URBINO + + +I + +At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make our +way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called apocryphally +after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a good carriage +and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, and bore a +great historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was completed. +'What are you called?' I asked him. '_Filippo Visconti, per servirla!_' +was the prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest memories of the +Italian Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this answer. The +associations seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself was so +attractive—tall, stalwart, and well looking—no feature of his face or +limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who concealed +worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret chambers—that I +shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo +Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. +On a long and trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet +ferocious tempers; nor, at the end of it, did he attempt by any +master-stroke of craft to wheedle from me more than his fair pay; but +took the meerschaum pipe I gave him for a keepsake, with the frank +goodwill of an accomplished gentleman. The only exhibition of his hot +Italian blood which I remember did his humanity credit. 61While we were +ascending a steep hillside, he jumped from his box to thrash a ruffian +by the roadside for brutal treatment to a little boy. He broke his +whip, it is true, in this encounter; risked a dangerous quarrel; and +left his carriage, with myself and wife inside it, to the mercy of his +horses in a somewhat perilous position. But when he came back, hot and +glowing, from this deed of justice, I could only applaud his zeal. + +An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial +sayings, the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. When +emotion fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, or +suggest the motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. + +For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between +quickset hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep hill +which ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, and +we toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red anemones +and sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges replaced 62the +May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_ brought us to the +Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further ascent of seven hundred +feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis of the republic. These we +climbed on foot, watching the view expand around us and beneath. Crags +of limestone here break down abruptly to the rolling hills, which go to +lose themselves in field and shore. Misty reaches of the Adriatic close +the world to eastward. Cesena, Rimini, Verucchio, and countless +hill-set villages, each isolated on its tract of verdure conquered from +the stern grey soil, define the points where Montefeltri wrestled with +Malatestas in long bygone years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in +wrinkles and gnarled convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by +rivers crawling through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable +ranges of gaunt Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all +this landscape, a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged +oak-trees lies like a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. + +Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological antiquity +than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of innumerable ages, +wrought by slow persistent action of weather and water on an upheaved +mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave in that vast sea of +hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells its tale of a +continuous corrosion still in progress. The dominant impression is one +of melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching Carthaginians, +trod the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, retaining +independence through the drums and tramplings of the last seven +centuries, is swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn +instinctively in thought to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war +with unknown nature-forces and malignant rulers of the universe. + +63 + + Omai disprezza +Te, la natura, il brutto +Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, +E l' infinita vanità del tutto. + + +And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. + +The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque hill-cities +with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of S. Marino in +the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the stone bed and +pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow window near the +saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy landscape of distant +hills and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing charm of San Marino, +our eyes instinctively, recurrently, take flight. It is a landscape +which by variety and beauty thralls attention, but which by its +interminable sameness might grow almost overpowering. There is no +relief. The gladness shed upon far humbler Northern lands in May is +ever absent here. The German word _Gemüthlichkeit_, the English phrase +'a home of ancient peace,' are here alike by art and nature +untranslated into visibilities. And yet (as we who gaze upon it thus +are fain to think) if peradventure the intolerable _ennui_ of this +panorama should drive a citizen of San Marino into out-lands, the same +view would haunt him whithersoever he went—the swallows of his native +eyrie would shrill through his sleep—he would yearn to breathe its fine +keen air in winter, and to watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with +blue in spring;—like Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San +Marino: _Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even 64a +passing stranger may feel the mingled fascination and oppression of +this prospect—the monotony which maddens, the charm which at a distance +grows upon the mind, environing it with memories. + +Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the best +red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills +deceived my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its +statutes, in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess +to having learned from these pages little else than this: first, that +the survival of the Commonwealth through all phases of European +politics had been semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San +Marinesi had been lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from +these two propositions (to which, however, I am far from wishing to +commit myself), that the latter is a sufficient explanation of the +former. + +From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in +the true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued in +the twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key of +entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred years +ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress looks as +though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo was taken +and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, Borgia, +Malatesta, Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. Yonder is +Sta. Agata, the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night when +Valentino drove him from his dukedom. A little farther towers Carpegna, +where one branch of the Montefeltro house maintained a countship +through seven centuries, and only sold their fief to Rome in 1815. +Monte Coppiolo lies behind, Pietra Rubia in front: two other eagles' +nests of the same brood. What a road it is! 65It beats the tracks on +Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire scorns compromise or +mitigation by _détour_ and zigzag. But here geography is on a scale so +far more vast, and the roadway is so far worse metalled than with us in +England—knotty masses of talc and nodes of sandstone cropping up at +dangerous turnings—that only Dante's words describe the journey:— + +Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, +Montasi su Bismantova in cacume +Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli. + + +Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the +brave spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help +of hand and voice at need. + +We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine; winding round +ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high above their +grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign girdling their +bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the blue lights across +the distance, and the ever-present sea, these earthy Apennines would be +too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil of spring-tide greenery on +field and forest soothe their sternness. Two rivers, swollen by late +rains, had to be forded. Through one of these, the Foglia, bare-legged +peasants led the way. The horses waded to their bellies in the tawny +water. Then more hills and vales; green nooks with rippling corn-crops; +secular oaks attired in golden leafage. The clear afternoon air rang +with the voices of a thousand larks overhead. The whole world seemed +quivering with light and delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind +turned irresistibly to thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How +often has this intermediate 66land been fought over by Montefeltro and +Brancaleoni, by Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its +_contadini_ are robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful +of feature. No wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials +to draw from, sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. +Mark, and Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and +proud. Yet they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose +habits of life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there +as here, are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the +folk descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge oxen. +As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to +southward. The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove +into sight. At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the +neighbouring ridge, a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. +Urbino stood before us. Our long day's march was at an end. + +The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or +palace sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where +shall we find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed +battlemented bulk of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, +suspended gardens, and fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? +This unique blending of the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of +the time when it was built, connects it with the art of Ariosto—or more +exactly with Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at Urbino +just at the 67moment when the Count of Scandiano had began to chaunt +his lays of Roland in the Castle of Ferrara. Chivalry, transmuted by +the Italian genius into something fanciful and quaint, survived as a +frail work of art. The men-at-arms of the Condottieri still glittered +in gilded hauberks. Their helmets waved with plumes and bizarre crests. +Their surcoats blazed with heraldries; their velvet caps with medals +bearing legendary emblems. The pomp and circumstance of feudal war had +not yet yielded to the cannon of the Gascon or the Switzer's pike. The +fatal age of foreign invasions had not begun for Italy. Within a few +years Charles VIII.'s holiday excursion would reveal the internal +rottenness and weakness of her rival states, and the peninsula for half +a century to come would be drenched in the blood of Frenchmen, Germans, +Spaniards, fighting for her cities as their prey. But now Lorenzo de' +Medici was still alive. The famous policy which bears his name held +Italy suspended for a golden time in false tranquillity and +independence. The princes who shared his culture and his love of art +were gradually passing into modern noblemen, abandoning the savage +feuds and passions of more virile centuries, yielding to luxury and +scholarly enjoyments. The castles were becoming courts, and despotisms +won by force were settling into dynasties. + +It was just at this epoch that Duke Federigo built his castle at +Urbino. One of the ablest and wealthiest Condottieri of his time, one +of the best instructed and humanest of Italian princes, he combined in +himself the qualities which mark that period of transition. And these +he impressed upon his dwelling-house, which looks backward to the +mediæval fortalice and forward to the modern palace. This makes it the +just embodiment in architecture of Italian romance, the perfect +analogue of the 'Orlando Innamorato.' By comparing 68it with the castle +of the Estes at Ferrara and the Palazzo del Te of the Gonzagas at +Mantua, we place it in its right position between mediæval and +Renaissance Italy, between the age when principalities arose upon the +ruins of commercial independence and the age when they became dynastic +under Spain. + +The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed +_loggie_ and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city +ramparts for its due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine +which separates it from a lower quarter of the town, and take our +station near the Oratory of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can +appreciate the beauty of its design, or the boldness of the group it +forms with the cathedral dome and tower and the square masses of +numerous out-buildings. Yet this peculiar position of the palace, +though baffling to a close observer of its details, is one of singular +advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the verge of Urbino's towering +eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of vales and mountain summits +toward the rising and the setting sun. There is nothing but illimitable +air between the terraces and loggias of the Duchess's apartments and +the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. + +A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +'Cortegiano.' To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring +back the antique life, and link the present with the past—a hint, +perhaps, for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies of +the court had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising to +the height of mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when one +of them exclaimed, 'The day has broken!' 'He 69pointed to the light +which was beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon +we flung the casements wide upon that side of the palace which looks +toward the high peak of Monte Catria, and saw that a fair dawn of rosy +hue was born already in the eastern skies, and all the stars had +vanished except the sweet regent of the heaven of Venus, who holds the +borderlands of day and night; and from her sphere it seemed as though a +gentle wind were breathing, filling the air with eager freshness, and +waking among the numerous woods upon the neighbouring hills the +sweet-toned symphonies of joyous birds.' + +II + +The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in 1160. +Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an undefined +authority over the district, which they afterwards converted into a +duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the Montefeltri +were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free themselves from +ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they sought and obtained +the title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino acknowledged them as +semi-despots in their double capacity of Imperial and Papal deputies. +Cagli and Gubbio followed in the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth, +Castel Durante was acquired from the Brancaleoni by warfare, and +Fossombrone from the Malatestas by purchase. Numerous fiefs and +villages fell into their hands upon the borders of Rimini in the course +of a continued struggle with the House of Malatesta: and when Fano and +Pesaro were added at the opening of the sixteenth century, the domain +over which they ruled was a compact territory, some forty miles square, +between the 70Adriatic and the Apennines. From the close of the +thirteenth century they bore the title of Counts of Urbino. The famous +Conte Guido, whom Dante placed among the fraudulent in hell, supported +the honours of the house and increased its power by his political +action, at this epoch. But it was not until the year 1443 that the +Montefeltri acquired their ducal title. This was conferred by Eugenius +IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose alleged crimes and indubitable +assassination a veil of mystery still hangs. He was the son of Count +Guidantonio, and at his death the Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in +the legitimate line. A natural son of Guidantonio had been, however, +recognised in his father's lifetime, and married to Gentile, heiress of +Mercatello. This was Federigo, a youth of great promise, who succeeded +his half-brother in 1444 as Count of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that +the ducal title was revived for him. + +Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for +private virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his +youth at Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where +the sons and daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model +education in humanities, good manners, and gentle physical +accomplishments. More than any of his fellow-students Frederick +profited by this rare scholar's discipline. On leaving school he +adopted the profession of arms, as it was then practised, and joined +the troop of the Condottiere Niccolò Piccinino. Young men of his own +rank, especially the younger sons and bastards of ruling families, +sought military service under captains of adventure. If they succeeded +they were sure to make money. The coffers of the Church and the +republics lay open to their not too scrupulous hands; the wealth of +Milan and Naples was squandered on them in retaining-fees and salaries +for active service. There was always the further possibility of +71placing a coronet upon their brows before they died, if haply they +should wrest a town from their employers, or obtain the cession of a +province from a needy Pope. The neighbours of the Montefeltri in +Umbria, Romagna, and the Marches of Ancona were all of them +Condottieri. Malatestas of Rimini and Pesaro, Vitelli of Città di +Castello, Varani of Camerino, Baglioni of Perugia, to mention only a +few of the most eminent nobles, enrolled themselves under the banners +of plebeian adventurers like Piccinino and Sforza Attendolo. Though +their family connections gave them a certain advantage, the system was +essentially democratic. Gattamelata and Carmagnola sprang from +obscurity by personal address and courage to the command of armies. +Colleoni fought his way up from the grooms to princely station and the +_bâton_ of S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a +tiller of the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a +house which ranked among the first in Europe. + +It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the goodwill of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependents. Men flocked to his standards +willingly, and he was able to bring an important contingent into any +army. These advantages secured for him alliances with Francesco Sforza, +and brought him successively into connection with Milan, Venice, +Florence, the Church of Naples. As a tactician in the field he held +high rank among the generals of the age, and so considerable were his +engagements that he acquired great 72wealth in the exercise of his +profession. We find him at one time receiving 8000 ducats a month as +war-pay from Naples, with a peace pension of 6000. While +Captain-General of the League, he drew for his own use in war 45,000 +ducats of annual pay. Retaining-fees and pensions in the name of past +services swelled his income, the exact extent of which has not, so far +as I am aware, been estimated, but which must have made him one of the +richest of Italian princes. All this wealth he spent upon his duchy, +fortifying and beautifying its cities, drawing youths of promise to his +court, maintaining a great train of life, and keeping his vassals in +good-humour by the lightness of a rule which contrasted favourably with +the exactions of needier despots. + +While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, +the bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal +error of embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, +and who died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. Urbino +profited by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this long +desultory strife with Rimini is a history of gradual aggrandisement and +consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. + +In 1459 Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi at Florence. Some years +earlier, Frederick lost his right eye and had the bridge of his nose +broken in a jousting match outside the town-gate of Urbino. After this +accident, he preferred to be represented in profile—the profile so well +known to students of Italian art on medals and basreliefs. It 73was not +without medical aid and vows fulfilled by a mother's self-sacrifice to +death, if we may trust the diarists of Urbino, that the ducal couple +got an heir. In 1472, however, a son was born to them, whom they +christened Guido Paolo Ubaldo. He proved a youth of excellent parts and +noble nature—apt at study, perfect in all chivalrous accomplishments. +But he inherited some fatal physical debility, and his life was marred +with a constitutional disease, which then received the name of gout, +and which deprived him of the free use of his limbs. After his father's +death in 1482, Naples, Florence, and Milan continued Frederick's war +engagements to Guidobaldo. The prince was but a boy of ten. Therefore +these important _condotte_ must be regarded as compliments and pledges +for the future. They prove to what a pitch Duke Frederick had raised +the credit of his state and war establishment. Seven years later, +Guidobaldo married Elisabetta, daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis +of Mantua. This union, though a happy one, was never blessed with +children; and in the certainty of barrenness, the young Duke thought it +prudent to adopt a nephew as heir to his dominions. He had several +sisters, one of whom, Giovanna, had been married to a nephew of Sixtus +IV., Giovanni della Rovere, Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. +They had a son, Francesco Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, +spent his boyhood at Urbino. + +The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the petty +tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His next move +was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, having lulled +Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous professions of goodwill. +Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that 74the Borgia was marching +on him over Cagli. This was in the middle of June 1502. It is difficult +to comprehend the state of weakness in which Guidobaldo was surprised, +or the panic which then seized him. He made no efforts to rouse his +subjects to resistance, but fled by night with his nephew through rough +mountain roads, leaving his capital and palace to the marauder. Cesare +Borgia took possession without striking a blow, and removed the +treasures of Urbino to the Vatican. His occupation of the duchy was not +undisturbed, however; for the people rose in several places against +him, proving that Guidobaldo had yielded too hastily to alarm. By this +time the fugitive was safe in Mantua, whence he returned, and for a +short time succeeded in establishing himself again at Urbino. But he +could not hold his own against the Borgias, and in December, by a +treaty, he resigned his claims and retired to Venice, where he lived +upon the bounty of S. Mark. It must be said, in justice to the Duke, +that his constitutional debility rendered him unfit for active +operations in the field. Perhaps he could not have done better than +thus to bend beneath the storm. + +The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere to +the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was the +sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. It was +therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on the hill, +and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so recently +been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement of his +court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest gentlemen of +Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active pleasures and +employments of his station, was borne with uniform sweetness of temper +and philosophy. + +When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della 75Rovere, +succeeded to the duchy, and once more made the palace of Urbino the +resort of men-at-arms and captains. He was a prince of very violent +temper: of its extravagance history has recorded three remarkable +examples. He murdered the Cardinal of Pavia with his own hand in the +streets of Ravenna; stabbed a lover of his sister to death at Urbino; +and in a council of war knocked Francesco Guicciardini down with a blow +of his fist. When the history of Italy came to be written, Guicciardini +was probably mindful of that insult, for he painted Francesco Maria's +character and conduct in dark colours. At the same time this Duke of +Urbino passed for one of the first generals of the age. The greatest +stain upon his memory is his behaviour in the year 1527, when, by +dilatory conduct of the campaign in Lombardy, he suffered the passage +of Frundsberg's army unopposed, and afterwards hesitated to relieve +Rome from the horrors of the sack. He was the last Italian Condottiere +of the antique type; and the vices which Machiavelli exposed in that +bad system of mercenary warfare were illustrated on these occasions. +During his lifetime, the conditions of Italy were so changed by Charles +V.'s imperial settlement in 1530, that the occupation of Condottiere +ceased to have any meaning. Strozzi and Farnesi, who afterwards +followed this profession, enlisted in the ranks of France or Spain, and +won their laurels in Northern Europe. + +While Leo X. held the Papal chair, the duchy of Urbino was for a while +wrested from the house of Della Rovere, and conferred upon Lorenzo de' +Medici. Francesco Maria made a better fight for his heritage than +Guidobaldo had done. Yet he could not successfully resist the power of +Rome. The Pope was ready to spend enormous sums of money on this petty +war; the Duke's purse was shorter, and the mercenary troops he was +obliged to use, proved worthless in the field. Spaniards, for the most +part, pitted against Spaniards, they 76suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. + +This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the House of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was +twice married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of +Camerino; secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma. +Guidobaldo spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his subjects, whom +he treated badly, attempting to draw from their pockets the wealth +which his father and the Montefeltri had won in military service. He +intervened at an awkward period of Italian politics. The old Italy of +despots, commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his predecessors +played substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of Popes and +Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. Between these +epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy presentation on +the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen flat. As a sign of +altered circumstances, he removed his court to Pesaro, and built the +great palace of the Della Roveres upon the public square. + +Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, 77which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of +homicide, and which had helped to win his bad name for Guidobaldaccio, +took the form of sullenness in the last Duke. The finest episode in his +life was the part he played in the battle of Lepanto, under his old +comrade, Don John of Austria. His father forced him to an uncongenial +marriage with Lucrezia d'Este, Princess of Ferrara. She left him, and +took refuge in her native city, then honoured by the presence of Tasso +and Guarini. He bore her departure with philosophical composure, +recording the event in his diary as something to be dryly grateful for. +Left alone, the Duke abandoned himself to solitude, religious +exercises, hunting, and the economy of his impoverished dominions. He +became that curious creature, a man of narrow nature and mediocre +capacity, who, dedicated to the cult of self, is fain to pass for saint +and sage in easy circumstances. He married, for the second time, a +lady, Livia della Rovere, who belonged to his own family, but had been +born in private station. She brought him one son, the Prince +Federigo-Ubaldo. This youth might have sustained the ducal honours of +Urbino, but for his sage-saint father's want of wisdom. The boy was a +spoiled child in infancy. Inflated with Spanish vanity from the cradle, +taught to regard his subjects as dependents on a despot's will, +abandoned to the caprices of his own ungovernable temper, without +substantial aid from the paternal piety or stoicism, he rapidly became +a most intolerable princeling. His father married him, while yet a boy, +to Claudia de' Medici, and virtually abdicated in his favour. Left to +his own devices, Federigo chose companions from the troupes of players +whom he drew from Venice. He filled his palaces with harlots, and +degraded himself upon the stage in parts of mean buffoonery. The +resources of the duchy were racked to support these parasites. Spanish +rules of etiquette and ceremony were outraged by 78their orgies. His +bride brought him one daughter, Vittoria, who afterwards became the +wife of Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Then in the midst of his low +dissipation and offences against ducal dignity, he died of apoplexy at +the early age of eighteen—the victim, in the severe judgment of +history, of his father's selfishness and want of practical ability. + +This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. +The life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, +petty studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A +powerful and grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this +juncture pressed Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of +Urbino devolved his lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal +act of abdication seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his +duchy to the Papal States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to +the bounds of Venice on the Po. + +III + +Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and the +beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the construction, +was brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian +stone of Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel mark with +wonderful precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must have had +the pliancy of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in scroll or +foliage scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves each cusp and +angle of the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and the +sharpness of a crystal. 79When wrought by a clever craftsman, its +surface has neither the waxiness of Parian, nor the brittle edge of +Carrara marble; and it resists weather better than marble of the +choicest quality. This may be observed in many monuments of Venice, +where the stone has been long exposed to sea-air. These qualities of +the Dalmatian limestone, no less than its agreeable creamy hue and +smooth dull polish, adapt it to decoration in low relief. The most +attractive details in the palace at Urbino are friezes carved of this +material in choice designs of early Renaissance dignity and grace. One +chimney-piece in the Sala degli Angeli deserves especial comment. A +frieze of dancing Cupids, with gilt hair and wings, their naked bodies +left white on a ground of ultramarine, is supported by broad flat +pilasters. These are engraved with children holding pots of flowers; +roses on one side, carnations on the other. Above the frieze another +pair of angels, one at each end, hold lighted torches; and the +pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved with two more, flying, and +supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a raised medallion. +Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to the Houses of +Montefeltro and Della Rovere: their arms, three golden bends upon a +field of azure: the Imperial eagle, granted when Montefeltro was made a +fief of the Empire: the Garter of England, worn by the Dukes Federigo +and Guidobaldo: the ermine of Naples: the _ventosa_, or cupping-glass, +adopted for a private badge by Frederick: the golden oak-tree on an +azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, bent beneath a block of +stone, with its accompanying motto, _Inclinata Resurgam_: the cipher, +FE DX. Profile medallions of Federigo and Guidobaldo, wrought in the +lowest possible relief, adorn the staircases. Round the great courtyard +runs a frieze of military engines and ensigns, trophies, machines, and +implements of war, alluding to Duke Frederick's 80profession of +Condottiere. The doorways are enriched with scrolls of heavy-headed +flowers, acanthus foliage, honeysuckles, ivy-berries, birds and boys +and sphinxes, in all the riot of Renaissance fancy. + +This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that 'in the opinion of many it is the +fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with all +things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace than +a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels of +silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, and +suchlike furniture, but he added multitudes of bronze and marble +statues, exquisite pictures, and instruments of music of all sorts. +There was nothing but was of the finest and most excellent quality to +be seen there. Moreover, he gathered together at a vast cost a large +number of the best and rarest books in Greek, Latin, and Hebrew, all of +which he adorned with gold and silver, esteeming them the chiefest +treasure of his spacious palace.' When Cesare Borgia entered Urbino as +conqueror in 1502, he is said to have carried off loot to the value of +150,000 ducats, or perhaps about a quarter of a million sterling. +Vespasiano, the Florentine bookseller, has left us a minute account of +the formation of the famous library of manuscripts, which he valued at +considerably over 30,000 ducats. Yet wandering now through these +deserted halls, we seek in vain for furniture or tapestry or works of +art. The books have been removed to Rome. The pictures are gone, no man +knows whither. The plate has long been melted down. The instruments of +music are broken. If frescoes adorned the corridors, they have been +whitewashed; the ladies' chambers have been stripped of their rich +arras. Only here and there we find a raftered ceiling, painted in +fading 81colours, which, taken with the stonework of the chimney, and +some fragments of inlaid panel-work on door or window, enables us to +reconstruct the former richness of these princely rooms. + +Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of +the Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find a +little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; friezes +of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief of +Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a small +study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet connecting +these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion here dwells +near the temple of the liberal arts: + +Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. + +On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, _bâtons_ of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth 82great panel; and the whole of this elaborate +composition is harmonised by emblems, badges, and occasional devices of +birds, articles of furniture, and so forth. The tarsia, or inlaid wood +of different kinds and colours, is among the best in this kind of art +to be found in Italy, though perhaps it hardly deserves to rank with +the celebrated choir-stalls of Bergamo and Monte Oliveto. Hard by is a +chapel, adorned, like the lower one, with excellent reliefs. The loggia +to which these rooms have access looks across the Apennines, and down +on what was once a private garden. It is now enclosed and paved for the +exercise of prisoners who are confined in one part of the desecrated +palace! + +A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness +of scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. + +The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall we +reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, the +splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? It is +not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes from +tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's 83witticisms and Fra Serafino's pranks raised smiles on +courtly lips; where Bernardo Accolti, 'the Unique,' declaimed his +verses to applauding crowds? Is it possible that into yonder hall, +where now the lion of S. Mark looks down alone on staring desolation, +strode the Borgia in all his panoply of war, a gilded glittering +dragon, and from the dais tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the +arras stripped their ensigns, replacing these with his own Bull and +Valentinus Dux? Here Tasso tuned his lyre for Francesco Maria's +wedding-feast, and read 'Aminta' to Lucrezia d'Este. Here Guidobaldo +listened to the jests and whispered scandals of the Aretine. Here +Titian set his easel up to paint; here the boy Raphael, cap in hand, +took signed and sealed credentials from his Duchess to the Gonfalonier +of Florence. Somewhere in these huge chambers, the courtiers sat before +a torch-lit stage, when Bibbiena's 'Calandria' and Caetiglione's +'Tirsi,' with their miracles of masques and mummers, whiled the night +away. Somewhere, we know not where, Giuliano de' Medici made love in +these bare rooms to that mysterious mother of ill-fated Cardinal +Ippolito; somewhere, in some darker nook, the bastard Alessandro sprang +to his strange-fortuned life of tyranny and license, which +Brutus-Lorenzino cut short with a traitor's poignard-thrust in Via +Larga. How many men, illustrious for arts and letters, memorable by +their virtues or their crimes, have trod these silent corridors, from +the great Pope Julius down to James III., self-titled King of England, +who tarried here with Clementina Sobieski through some twelve months of +his ex-royal exile! The memories of all this folk, flown guests and +masters of the still-abiding palace-chambers, haunt us as we hurry +through. They are but filmy shadows. We cannot grasp them, localise +them, people surrounding emptiness with more than withering cobweb +forms. + +84Death takes a stronger hold on us than bygone life. Therefore, +returning to the vast Throne-room, we animate it with one scene it +witnessed on an April night in 1508. Duke Guidobaldo had died at +Fossombrone, repeating to his friends around his bed these lines of +Virgil: + +Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo +Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda +Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet. + + +His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring +flambeaux. Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the +throne are draped in black. The arms and _bâtons_ of his father hang +about the doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and +trophies, with the banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and the +cross keys of S. Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the +high-reared catafalque of sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded with +wax candles burning steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream of +people, coming and going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in +crimson hose and doublet of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on +his feet, and his ducal cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the +Garter, made of dark-blue Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, +lined with white silk damask, and embroidered with the badge, drapes +the stiff sleeping form. + +It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and +the life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into +harmony with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted +balconies and flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, and +lends itself as a fit stage for 85puppets of the musing mind. Once more +imagination plants trim orange-trees in giant jars of Gubbio ware upon +the pavement where the garden of the Duchess lay—the pavement paced in +these bad days by convicts in grey canvas jackets—that pavement where +Monsignor Bombo courted 'dear dead women' with Platonic phrase, +smothering the Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from Academe +and thyme of Mount Hymettus. In yonder loggia, lifted above the garden +and the court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They lean beneath +the coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering +his dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove +carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, +broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's favourite and +carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome's Prefect, +widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse +a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's boldness—Camerino's +Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart charms. And more will +follow, when that lady's brother, furious Francesco Maria della Rovere, +shall stab the bravo in torch-litten palace rooms with twenty poignard +strokes 'twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent down +to his account by a varlet's _coltellata_ through the midriff. +Imagination shifts the scene, and shows in that same loggia Rome's +warlike Pope, attended by his cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The +snowy beard of Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp +the crimson mantle, as in Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with +wine; for he has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and +to watch the line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace +cornice in his honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope +returns, a conqueror, to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A +gaunt, bald man, close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, 86fine +features carved in purest ivory, leans from that balcony. Gazing with +hollow eyes, he tracks the swallows in their flight, and notes that +winter is at hand. This is the last Duke of Urbino, Francesco Maria +II., he whose young wife deserted him, who made for himself alone a +hermit-pedant's round of petty cares and niggard avarice and +mean-brained superstition. He drew a second consort from the convent, +and raised up seed unto his line by forethought, but beheld his +princeling fade untimely in the bloom of boyhood. Nothing is left but +solitude. To the mortmain of the Church reverts Urbino's lordship, and +even now he meditates the terms of devolution. Jesuits cluster in the +rooms behind, with comfort for the ducal soul and calculations for the +interests of Holy See. + +A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in the +crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, +buried his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely +solemn. Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +_Pietà_ by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and +crowds the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late +Renaissance art, nor has the afterglow of Guido Reni's hectic piety yet +overflushed it. Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct race +here entombed in its last representative, we gladly emerge from the +sepulchral vault into the air of day. + +Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are halfway on the road to Fossombrone in a cloud of dust and whirr +of wheels before we think of looking back to greet Urbino. There is +just time. The last decisive turning lies in front. We stand +87bareheaded to salute the grey mass of buildings ridged along the sky. +Then the open road invites us with its varied scenery and movement. +From the shadowy past we drive into the world of human things, for ever +changefully unchanged, unrestfully the same. This interchange between +dead memories and present life is the delight of travel. + +88 + + + + +VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI + + +AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER + +I + +During the pontificate of Gregory XIII. (1572-85), Papal authority in +Rome reached its lowest point of weakness, and the ancient splendour of +the Papal court was well-nigh eclipsed. Art and learning had died out. +The traditions of the days of Leo, Julius, and Paul III. were +forgotten. It seemed as though the genius of the Renaissance had +migrated across the Alps. All the powers of the Papacy were directed to +the suppression of heresies and to the re-establishment of spiritual +supremacy over the intellect of Europe. Meanwhile society in Rome +returned to mediæval barbarism. The veneer of classical refinement and +humanistic urbanity, which for a time had hidden the natural savagery +of the Roman nobles, wore away. The Holy City became a den of bandits; +the territory of the Church supplied a battle-ground for senseless +party strife, which the weak old man who wore the triple crown was +quite unable to control. It is related how a robber chieftain, +Marianazzo, refused the offer of a general pardon from the Pope, +alleging that the profession of brigand was far more lucrative, and +offered greater security of life, than any trade within the walls of +Rome. The Campagna, the ruined citadels about the basements of the +Sabine and Ciminian hills, the 89quarters of the aristocracy within the +city, swarmed with bravos, who were protected by great nobles and fed +by decent citizens for the advantages to be derived from the assistance +of abandoned and courageous ruffians. Life, indeed, had become +impossible without fixed compact with the powers of lawlessness. There +was hardly a family in Rome which did not number some notorious +criminal among the outlaws. Murder, sacrilege, the love of adventure, +thirst for plunder, poverty, hostility to the ascendant faction of the +moment, were common causes of voluntary or involuntary outlawry; nor +did public opinion regard a bandit's calling as other than honourable. + +It may readily be imagined that in such a state of society the +grisliest tragedies were common enough in Rome. The history of some of +these has been preserved to us in documents digested from public trials +and personal observation by contemporary writers. That of the Cenci, in +which a notorious act of parricide furnished the plot of a popular +novella, is well known. And such a tragedy, even more rife in +characteristic incidents, and more distinguished by the quality of its +_dramatis personæ_, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni. + +Vittoria was born in 1557, of a noble but impoverished family, at +Gubbio, among the hills of Umbria. Her biographers are rapturous in +their praises of her beauty, grace, and exceeding charm of manner. Not +only was her person most lovely, but her mind shone at first with all +the amiable lustre of a modest, innocent, and winning youth. Her +father, Claudio Accoramboni, removed to Rome, where his numerous +children were brought up under the care of their mother, Tarquinia, an +ambitious and unscrupulous woman, bent on rehabilitating the decayed +honours of their house. Here Vittoria in early girlhood soon became the +fashion. She exercised an irresistible influence over all who saw her, +and many were the 90offers of marriage she refused. At length a suitor +appeared whose condition and connection with the Roman ecclesiastical +nobility rendered him acceptable in the eyes of the Accoramboni. +Francesco Peretti was welcomed as the successful candidate for +Vittoria's hand. His mother, Camilla, was sister to Felice, Cardinal of +Montalto; and her son, Francesco Mignucci, had changed his surname in +compliment to this illustrious relative. The Peretti were of humble +origin. The cardinal himself had tended swine in his native village; +but, supported by an invincible belief in his own destinies, and gifted +with a powerful intellect and determined character, he passed through +all grades of the Franciscan Order to its generalship, received the +bishoprics of Fermo and S. Agata, and lastly, in the year 1570, assumed +the scarlet with the title of Cardinal Montalto. He was now upon the +high way to the Papacy, amassing money by incessant care, studying the +humours of surrounding factions, effacing his own personality, and by +mixing but little in the intrigues of the court, winning the reputation +of a prudent, inoffensive old man. These were his tactics for securing +the Papal throne; nor were his expectations frustrated; for in 1585 he +was chosen Pope, the parties of the Medici and the Farnesi agreeing to +accept him as a compromise. When Sixtus V. was once firmly seated on S. +Peter's chair, he showed himself in his true colours. An implacable +administrator of severest justice, a rigorous economist, an +iconoclastic foe to paganism, the first act of his reign was to declare +a war of extirpation against the bandits who had reduced Rome in his +predecessor's rule to anarchy. + +It was the nephew, then, of this man, whom historians have judged the +greatest personage of his own times, that Vittoria Accoramboni married +on the 28th of June 1573. For a short while the young couple lived +happily together. According to some accounts of their married life, the +bride secured 91the favour of her powerful uncle-in-law, who indulged +her costly fancies to the full. It is, however, more probable that the +Cardinal Montalto treated her follies with a grudging parsimony; for we +soon find the Peretti household hopelessly involved in debt. Discord, +too, arose between Vittoria and her husband on the score of a certain +levity in her behaviour; and it was rumoured that even during the brief +space of their union she had proved a faithless wife. Yet she contrived +to keep Francesco's confidence, and it is certain that her family +profited by their connection with the Peretti. Of her six brothers, +Mario, the eldest, was a favourite courtier of the great Cardinal +d'Este. Ottavio was in orders, and through Montalto's influence +obtained the See of Fossombrone. The same eminent protector placed +Scipione in the service of the Cardinal Sforza. Camillo, famous for his +beauty and his courage, followed the fortunes of Filibert of Savoy, and +died in France. Flaminio was still a boy, dependent, as the sequel of +this story shows, upon his sister's destiny. Of Marcello, the second in +age and most important in the action of this tragedy, it is needful to +speak with more particularity. He was young, and, like the rest of his +breed, singularly handsome—so handsome, indeed, that he is said to have +gained an infamous ascendency over the great Duke of Bracciano, whose +privy chamberlain he had become. Marcello was an outlaw for the murder +of Matteo Pallavicino, the brother of the Cardinal of that name. This +did not, however, prevent the chief of the Orsini house from making him +his favourite and confidential friend. Marcello, who seems to have +realised in actual life the worst vices of those Roman courtiers +described for us by Aretino, very soon conceived the plan of exalting +his own fortunes by trading on his sister's beauty. He worked upon the +Duke of Bracciano's mind so cleverly, that he brought this haughty +prince to the point of an 92insane passion for Peretti's young wife; +and meanwhile so contrived to inflame the ambition of Vittoria and her +mother, Tarquinia, that both were prepared to dare the worst of crimes +in expectation of a dukedom. The game was a difficult one to play. Not +only had Francesco Peretti first to be murdered, but the inequality of +birth and wealth and station between Vittoria and the Duke of Bracciano +rendered a marriage almost impossible. It was also an affair of +delicacy to stimulate without satisfying the Duke's passion. Yet +Marcello did not despair. The stakes were high enough to justify great +risks; and all he put in peril was his sister's honour, the fame of the +Accoramboni, and the favour of Montalto. Vittoria, for her part, +trusted in her power to ensnare and secure the noble prey both had in +view. + +Paolo Giordano Orsini, born about the year 1537, was reigning Duke of +Bracciano. Among Italian princes he ranked at least upon a par with the +Dukes of Urbino, and his family, by its alliances, was more illustrious +than any of that time in Italy. He was a man of gigantic stature, +prodigious corpulence, and marked personal daring; agreeable in +manners, but subject to uncontrollable fits of passion, and incapable +of self-restraint when crossed in any whim or fancy. Upon the habit of +his body it is needful to insist, in order that the part he played in +this tragedy of intrigue, crime, and passion may be well defined. He +found it difficult to procure a charger equal to his weight, and he was +so fat that a special dispensation relieved him from the duty of +genuflexion in the Papal presence. Though lord of a large territory, +yielding princely revenues, he laboured under heavy debts; for no great +noble of the period lived more splendidly, with less regard for his +finances. In the politics of that age and country, Paolo Giordano +leaned toward France. Yet he was 93a grandee of Spain, and had played a +distinguished part in the battle of Lepanto. Now the Duke of Bracciano +was a widower. He had been married in 1553 to Isabella de' Medici, +daughter of the Grand Duke Cosimo, sister of Francesco, Bianca +Capello's lover, and of the Cardinal Ferdinando. Suspicion of adultery +with Troilo Orsini had fallen on Isabella, and her husband, with the +full concurrence of her brothers, removed her in 1576 from this +world.[21] No one thought the worse of Bracciano for this murder of his +wife. In those days of abandoned vice and intricate villany, certain +points of honour were maintained with scrupulous fidelity. A wife's +adultery was enough to justify the most savage and licentious husband +in an act of semi-judicial vengeance; and the shame she brought upon +his head was shared by the members of her own house, so that they stood +by, consenting to her death. Isabella, it may be said, left one son, +Virginio, who became in due time Duke of Bracciano. + + [21] The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this affair. + At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with unpardonable + freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself assassinated in Paris by + Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards. + + +It appears that in the year 1581, four years after Vittoria's marriage, +the Duke of Bracciano had satisfied Marcello of his intention to make +her his wife, and of his willingness to countenance Francesco Peretti's +murder. Marcello, feeling sure of his game, introduced the Duke in +private to his sister, and induced her to overcome any natural +repugnance she may have felt for the unwieldy and gross lover. Having +reached this point, it was imperative to push matters quickly on toward +matrimony. + +But how should the unfortunate Francesco be entrapped? They caught him +in a snare of peculiar atrocity, by working on the kindly feelings +which his love for Vittoria had caused 94him to extend to all the +Acooramboni. Marcello, the outlaw, was her favourite brother, and +Marcello at that time lay in hiding, under the suspicion of more than +ordinary crime, beyond the walls of Rome. Late in the evening of the +18th of April, while the Peretti family were retiring to bed, a +messenger from Marcello arrived, entreating Francesco to repair at once +to Monte Cavallo. Marcello had affairs of the utmost importance to +communicate, and begged his brother-in-law not to fail him at a +grievous pinch. The letter containing this request was borne by one +Dominico d'Aquaviva, _alias_ Il Mancino, a confederate of Vittoria's +waiting-maid. This fellow, like Marcello, was an outlaw; but when he +ventured into Rome he frequented Peretti's house, and had made himself +familiar with its master as a trusty bravo. Neither in the message, +therefore, nor in the messenger was there much to rouse suspicion. The +time, indeed, was oddly chosen, and Marcello had never made a similar +appeal on any previous occasion. Yet his necessities might surely have +obliged him to demand some more than ordinary favour from a brother. +Francesco immediately made himself ready to set out, armed only with +his sword and attended by a single servant. It was in vain that his +wife and his mother reminded him of the dangers of the night, the +loneliness of Monte Cavallo, its ruinous palaces and robber-haunted +caves. He was resolved to undertake the adventure, and went forth, +never to return. As he ascended the hill, he fell to earth, shot with +three harquebuses. His body was afterwards found on Monte Cavallo, +stabbed through and through, without a trace that could identify the +murderers. Only, in the course of subsequent investigations, Il Mancino +(on the 24th of February 1582) made the following statements:—That +Vittoria's mother, assisted by the waiting woman, had planned the trap; +that Marchionne of Gubbio and Paolo Barca of Bracciano, 95two of the +Duke's men, had despatched the victim. Marcello himself, it seems, had +come from Bracciano to conduct the whole affair. Suspicion fell +immediately upon Vittoria and her kindred, together with the Duke of +Bracciano; nor was this diminished when the Accoramboni, fearing the +pursuit of justice, took refuge in a villa of the Duke's at Magnanapoli +a few days after the murder. + +A cardinal's nephew, even in those troublous times, was not killed +without some noise being made about the matter. Accordingly Pope +Gregory XIII. began to take measures for discovering the authors of the +crime. Strange to say, however, the Cardinal Montalto, notwithstanding +the great love he was known to bear his nephew, begged that the +investigation might be dropped. The coolness with which he first +received the news of Francesco Peretti's death, the dissimulation with +which he met the Pope's expression of sympathy in a full consistory, +his reserve in greeting friends on ceremonial visits of condolence, +and, more than all, the self-restraint he showed in the presence of the +Duke of Bracciano, impressed the society of Rome with the belief that +he was of a singularly moderate and patient temper. It was thought that +the man who could so tamely submit to his nephew's murder, and suspend +the arm of justice when already raised for vengeance, must prove a mild +and indulgent ruler. When, therefore, in the fifth year after this +event, Montalto was elected Pope, men ascribed his elevation in no +small measure to his conduct at the present crisis. Some, indeed, +attributed his extraordinary moderation and self-control to the right +cause. _'Veramente costui è un gran frate!_' was Gregory's remark at +the close of the consistory when Montalto begged him to let the matter +of Peretti's murder rest. '_Of a truth, that fellow is a consummate +hypocrite!_' How accurate this judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. +assumed the reins of 96power. The same man who, as monk and cardinal, +had smiled on Bracciano, though he knew him to be his nephew's +assassin, now, as Pontiff and sovereign, bade the chief of the Orsini +purge his palace and dominions of the scoundrels he was wont to +harbour, adding significantly, that if Felice Peretti forgave what had +been done against him in a private station, he would exact uttermost +vengeance for disobedience to the will of Sixtus. The Duke of Bracciano +judged it best, after that warning, to withdraw from Rome. + +Francesco Peretti had been murdered on the 16th of April 1581. Sixtus +V. was proclaimed on the 24th of April 1585. In this interval Vittoria +underwent a series of extraordinary perils and adventures. First of +all, she had been secretly married to the Duke in his gardens of +Magnanapoli at the end of April 1581. That is to say, Marcello and she +secured their prize, as well as they were able, the moment after +Francesco had been removed by murder. But no sooner had the marriage +become known, than the Pope, moved by the scandal it created, no less +than by the urgent instance of the Orsini and Medici, declared it void. +After some while spent in vain resistance, Bracciano submitted, and +sent Vittoria back to her father's house. By an order issued under +Gregory's own hand, she was next removed to the prison of Corte +Savella, thence to the monastery of S. Cecilia in Trastevere, and +finally to the Castle of S. Angelo. Here, at the end of December 1581, +she was put on trial for the murder of her first husband. In prison she +seems to have borne herself bravely, arraying her beautiful person in +delicate attire, entertaining visitors, exacting from her friends the +honours due to a duchess, and sustaining the frequent examinations to +which she was submitted with a bold, proud front. In the middle of the +month of July her constancy was sorely tried by the receipt of a letter +in the Duke's own handwriting, formally renouncing 97his marriage. It +was only by a lucky accident that she was prevented on this occasion +from committing suicide. The Papal court meanwhile kept urging her +either to retire to a monastery or to accept another husband. She +firmly refused to embrace the religious life, and declared that she was +already lawfully united to a living husband, the Duke of Bracciano. It +seemed impossible to deal with her; and at last, on the 8th of +November, she was released from prison under the condition of +retirement to Gubbio. The Duke had lulled his enemies to rest by the +pretence of yielding to their wishes. But Marcello was continually +beside him at Bracciano, where we read of a mysterious Greek +enchantress whom he hired to brew love-philters for the furtherance of +his ambitious plots. Whether Bracciano was stimulated by the brother's +arguments or by the witch's potions need not be too curiously +questioned. But it seems in any case certain that absence inflamed his +passion instead of cooling it. + +Accordingly, in September 1583, under the excuse of a pilgrimage to +Loreto, he contrived to meet Vittoria at Trevi, whence he carried her +in triumph to Bracciano. Here he openly acknowledged her as his wife, +installing her with all the splendour due to a sovereign duchess. On +the 10th of October following, he once more performed the marriage +ceremony in the principal church of his fief; and in the January of +1584 he brought her openly to Rome. This act of contumacy to the Pope, +both as feudal superior and as supreme Pontiff, roused all the former +opposition to his marriage. Once more it was declared invalid. Once +more the Duke pretended to give way. But at this juncture Gregory died; +and while the conclave was sitting for the election of the new Pope, he +resolved to take the law into his own hands, and to ratify his union +with Vittoria by a third and public marriage in Rome. On the morning of +the 9824th of April 1585, their nuptials were accordingly once more +solemnised in the Orsini palace. Just one hour after the ceremony, as +appears from the marriage register, the news arrived of Cardinal +Montalto's election to the Papacy, Vittoria lost no time in paying her +respects to Camilla, sister of the new Pope, her former mother-in-law. +The Duke visited Sixtus V. in state to compliment him on his elevation. +But the reception which both received proved that Rome was no safe +place for them to live in. They consequently made up their minds for +flight. + +A chronic illness from which Bracciano had lately suffered furnished a +sufficient pretext. This seems to have been something of the nature of +a cancerous ulcer, which had to be treated by the application of raw +meat to open sores. Such details are only excusable in the present +narrative on the ground that Bracciano's disease considerably affects +our moral judgment of the woman who could marry a man thus physically +tainted, and with her husband's blood upon his hands. At any rate, the +Duke's _lupa_ justified his trying what change of air, together with +the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him. + +The Duke and Duchess arrived in safety at Venice, where they had +engaged the Dandolo palace on the Zuecca. There they only stayed a few +days, removing to Padua, where they had hired palaces of the Foscari in +the Arena and a house called De' Cavalli. At Salò, also, on the Lake of +Garda, they provided themselves with fit dwellings for their princely +state and their large retinues, intending to divide their time between +the pleasures which the capital of luxury afforded and the simpler +enjoyments of the most beautiful of the Italian lakes. But _la gioia +dei profani è un fumo passaggier_. Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of +Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, leaving +the young and beautiful 99Vittoria helpless among enemies. What was the +cause of his death? It is not possible to give a clear and certain +answer. We have seen that he suffered from a horrible and voracious +disease, which after his removal from Rome seems to have made progress. +Yet though this malady may well have cut his life short, suspicion of +poison was not, in the circumstances, quite unreasonable. The Grand +Duke of Tuscany, the Pope, and the Orsini family were all interested in +his death. Anyhow, he had time to make a will in Vittoria's favour, +leaving her large sums of money, jewels, goods, and houses—enough, in +fact, to support her ducal dignity with splendour. His hereditary fiefs +and honours passed by right to his only son, Virginio. + +Vittoria, accompanied by her brother, Marcello, and the whole court of +Bracciano, repaired at once to Padua, where she was soon after joined +by Flaminio, and by the Prince Lodovico Orsini. Lodovico Orsini assumed +the duty of settling Vittoria's affairs under her dead husband's will. +In life he had been the Duke's ally as well as relative. His family +pride was deeply wounded by what seemed to him an ignoble, as it was +certainly an unequal, marriage. He now showed himself the relentless +enemy of the Duchess. Disputes arose between them as to certain +details, which seem to have been legally decided in the widow's favour. +On the night of the 22nd of December, however, forty men disguised in +black and fantastically tricked out to elude detection, surrounded her +palace. Through the long galleries and chambers hung with arras, eight +of them went, bearing torches, in search of Vittoria and her brothers. +Marcello escaped, having fled the house under suspicion of the murder +of one of his own followers. Flaminio, the innocent and young, was +playing on his lute and singing _Miserere_ in the great hall of the +palace. The murderers surprised him with a shot from one of their +100harquebuses. He ran, wounded in the shoulder, to his sister's room. +She, it is said, was telling her beads before retiring for the night. +When three of the assassins entered, she knelt before the crucifix, and +there they stabbed her in the left breast, turning the poignard in the +wound, and asking her with savage insults if her heart was pierced. Her +last words were, 'Jesus, I pardon you.' Then they turned to Flaminio, +and left him pierced with seventy-four stiletto wounds. + +The authorities of Padua identified the bodies of Vittoria and +Flaminio, and sent at once for further instructions to Venice. +Meanwhile it appears that both corpses were laid out in one open coffin +for the people to contemplate. The palace and the church of the +Eremitani, to which they had been removed, were crowded all through the +following day with a vast concourse of the Paduans. Vittoria's +wonderful dead body, pale yet sweet to look upon, the golden hair +flowing around her marble shoulders, the red wound in her breast +uncovered, the stately limbs arrayed in satin as she died, maddened the +populace with its surpassing loveliness. '_Dentibus fremebant_,' says +the chronicler, when they beheld that gracious lady stiff in death. And +of a truth, if her corpse was actually exposed in the chapel of the +Eremitani, as we have some right to assume, the spectacle must have +been impressive. Those grim gaunt frescoes of Mantegna looked down on +her as she lay stretched upon her bier, solemn and calm, and, but for +pallor, beautiful as though in life. No wonder that the folk forgot her +first husband's murder, her less than comely marriage to the second. It +was enough for them that this flower of surpassing loveliness had been +cropped by villains in its bloom. Gathering in knots around the torches +placed beside the corpse, they vowed vengeance against the Orsini; for +suspicion, not unnaturally, fell on Prince Lodovico. + +101The Prince was arrested and interrogated before the court of Padua. +He entered their hall attended by forty armed men, responded haughtily +to their questions, and demanded free passage for his courier to +Virginio Orsini, then at Florence. To this demand the court acceded; +but the precaution of waylaying the courier and searching his person +was very wisely taken. Besides some formal dispatches which announced +Vittoria's assassination, they found in this man's boot a compromising +letter, declaring Virginio a party to the crime, and asserting that +Lodovico had with his own poignard killed their victim. Padua placed +itself in a state of defence, and prepared to besiege the palace of +Prince Lodovico, who also got himself in readiness for battle. Engines, +culverins, and firebrands were directed against the barricades which he +had raised. The militia was called out and the Brenta was strongly +guarded. Meanwhile the Senate of S. Mark had dispatched the Avogadore, +Aloisio Bragadin, with full power to the scene of action. Lodovico +Orsini, it may be mentioned, was in their service; and had not this +affair intervened, he would in a few weeks have entered on his duties +as Governor for Venice of Corfu. + +The bombardment of Orsini's palace began on Christmas Day. Three of the +Prince's men were killed in the first assault; and since the artillery +brought to bear upon him threatened speedy ruin to the house and its +inhabitants, he made up his mind to surrender. 'The Prince Luigi,' +writes one-chronicler of these events, 'walked attired in brown, his +poignard at his side, and his cloak slung elegantly under his arm. The +weapon being taken from him, he leaned upon a balustrade, and began to +trim his nails with a little pair of scissors he happened to find +there.' On the 27th he was strangled in prison by order of the Venetian +Republic. His body was carried to be buried, according to his own will, +in 102the church of S. Maria dell' Orto at Venice. Two of his followers +were hung next day. Fifteen were executed on the following Monday; two +of these were quartered alive; one of them, the Conte Paganello, who +confessed to having slain Vittoria, had his left side probed with his +own cruel dagger. Eight were condemned to the galleys, six to prison, +and eleven were acquitted. Thus ended this terrible affair, which +brought, it is said, good credit and renown to the lords of Venice +through all nations of the civilised world. It only remains to be added +that Marcello Accoramboni was surrendered to the Pope's vengeance and +beheaded at Ancona, where also his mysterious accomplice, the Greek +sorceress, perished. + +II + +This story of Vittoria Accoramboni's life and tragic ending is drawn, +in its main details, from a narrative published by Henri Beyle in his +'Chroniques et Novelles.'[22] He professes to have translated it +literally from a manuscript communicated to him by a nobleman of +Mantua; and there are strong internal evidences of the truth of this +assertion. Such compositions are frequent in Italian libraries, nor is +it rare for one of them to pass into the common market—as Mr. +Browning's famous purchase of the tale on which he based his 'Ring and +the Book' sufficiently proves. These pamphlets were produced, in the +first instance, to gratify the curiosity of the educated public in an +age which had no newspapers, and also to preserve the memory of famous +trials. How far the strict truth was represented, or whether, as in the +case of Beatrice Cenci, the pathetic aspect of the tragedy was unduly +dwelt on, depended, 103of course, upon the mental bias of the scribe, +upon his opportunities of obtaining exact information, and upon the +taste of the audience for whom he wrote. Therefore, in treating such +documents as historical data, we must be upon our guard. Professor +Gnoli, who has recently investigated the whole of Vittoria's eventful +story by the light of contemporary documents, informs us that several +narratives exist in manuscript, all dealing more or less accurately +with the details of the tragedy. One of these was published in Italian +at Brescia in 1586. A Frenchman, De Rosset, printed the same story in +its main outlines at Lyons in 1621. Our own dramatist, John Webster, +made it the subject of a tragedy, which he gave to the press in 1612. +What were his sources of information we do not know for certain. But it +is clear that he was well acquainted with the history. He has changed +some of the names and redistributed some of the chief parts. Vittoria's +first husband, for example, becomes Camillo; her mother, named Cornelia +instead of Tarquinia, is so far from abetting Peretti's murder and +countenancing her daughter's shame, that she acts the _rôle_ of a +domestic Cassandra. Flaminio and not Marcello is made the main +instrument of Vittoria's crime and elevation. The Cardinal Montalto is +called Monticelso, and his papal title is Paul IV. instead of Sixtus V. +These are details of comparative indifference, in which a playwright +may fairly use his liberty of art. On the other hand, Webster shows a +curious knowledge of the picturesque circumstances of the tale. The +garden in which Vittoria meets Bracciano is the villa of Magnanapoli; +Zanche, the Moorish slave, combines Vittoria's waiting-woman, Caterina, +and the Greek sorceress who so mysteriously dogged Marcello's footsteps +to the death. The suspicion of Bracciano's murder is used to introduce +a quaint episode of Italian poisoning. + + [22] I have amplified and corrected this chronicle by the light of + Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria Accoramboni_, published by Le + Monnier at Florence in 1870. + +104Webster exercised the dramatist's privilege of connecting various +threads of action in one plot, disregarding chronology, and hazarding +an ethical solution of motives which mere fidelity to fact hardly +warrants. He shows us Vittoria married to Camillo, a low-born and +witless fool, whose only merit consists in being nephew to the Cardinal +Monticelso, afterwards Pope Paul IV.[23] Paulo Giordano Ursini, Duke of +Brachiano, loves Vittoria, and she suggests to him that, for the +furtherance of their amours, his wife, the Duchess Isabella, sister to +Francesco de' Medici, Grand Duke of Florence, should be murdered at the +same time as her own husband, Camillo. Brachiano is struck by this +plan, and with the help of Vittoria's brother, Flamineo, he puts it at +once into execution. Flamineo hires a doctor who poisons Brachiano's +portrait, so that Isabella dies after kissing it. He also with his own +hands twists Camillo's neck during a vaulting-match, making it appear +that he came by his death accidentally. Suspicion of the murder +attaches, however, to Vittoria. She is tried for her life before +Monticelso and De' Medici; acquitted, and relegated to a house of +Convertites or female reformatory. Brachiano, on the accession of +Monticelso to the Papal throne, resolves to leave Rome with Vittoria. +They escape, together with her mother Cornelia, and her brothers +Flamineo and Marcello, to Padua; and it is here that the last scenes of +the tragedy are laid. + + [23] In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have adhered to his use and + spelling of names. + + +The use Webster made of Lodovico Orsini deserves particular attention. +He introduces this personage in the very first scene as a spendthrift, +who, having run through his fortune, has been outlawed. Count Lodovico, +as he is always called, has no relationship with the Orsini, but is +attached to the service of Francesco de' Medici, and is an old lover of +the 105Duchess Isabella. When, therefore, the Grand Duke meditates +vengeance on Brachiano, he finds a fitting instrument in the desperate +Lodovico. Together, in disguise, they repair to Padua. Lodovico poisons +the Duke of Brachiano's helmet, and has the satisfaction of ending his +last struggles by the halter. Afterwards, with companions, habited as a +masquer, he enters Vittoria's palace and puts her to death together +with her brother Flamineo. Just when the deed of vengeance has been +completed, young Giovanni Orsini, heir of Brachiano, enters and orders +the summary execution of Lodovico for this deed of violence. Webster's +invention in this plot is confined to the fantastic incidents attending +on the deaths of Isabella, Camillo, and Brachiano, and to the murder of +Marcello by his brother Flamineo, with the further consequence of +Cornelia's madness and death. He has heightened our interest in +Isabella, at the expense of Brachiano's character, by making her an +innocent and loving wife instead of an adulteress. He has ascribed +different motives from the real ones to Lodovico in order to bring this +personage into rank with the chief actors, though this has been +achieved with only moderate success. Vittoria is abandoned to the +darkest interpretation. She is a woman who rises to eminence by crime, +as an unfaithful wife, the murderess of her husband, and an impudent +defier of justice. Her brother, Flamineo, becomes under Webster's +treatment one of those worst human infamies—a court dependent; ruffian, +buffoon, pimp, murderer by turns. Furthermore, and without any adequate +object beyond that of completing this study of a type he loved, Webster +makes him murder his own brother Marcello by treason. The part assigned +to Marcello, it should be said, is a genial and happy one; and +Cornelia, the mother of the Accoramboni, is a dignified character, +pathetic in her suffering. Webster, it may be added, treats the +Cardinal Monticelso as 106allied in some special way to the Medici. Yet +certain traits in his character, especially his avoidance of bloodshed +and the tameness of his temper after Camillo has been murdered, seem to +have been studied from the historical Sixtus. + +III + +The character of the 'White Devil, or Vittoria Corombona,' is perhaps +the most masterly creation of Webster's genius. Though her history is a +true one in its leading incidents, the poet, while portraying a real +personage, has conceived an original individuality. It is impossible to +know for certain how far the actual Vittoria was guilty of her first +husband's murder. Her personality fails to detach itself from the +romance of her biography by any salient qualities. But Webster, with +true playwright's instinct, casts aside historical doubts, and +delineates in his heroine a woman of a very marked and terrible nature. +Hard as adamant, uncompromising, ruthless, Vittoria follows ambition as +the loadstar of her life. It is the ambition to reign as Duchess, far +more than any passion for a paramour, which makes her plot Camillo's +and Isabella's murders, and throws her before marriage into Brachiano's +arms. Added to this ambition, she is possessed with the cold demon of +her own imperial and victorious beauty. She has the courage of her +criminality in the fullest sense; and much of the fascination with +which Webster has invested her, depends upon her dreadful daring. Her +portrait is drawn with full and firm touches. Although she appears but +five times on the scene, she fills it from the first line of the drama +to the last. Each appearance adds effectively to the total impression. +We see her first during a criminal interview with Brachiano, contrived +by her brother 107Flamineo. The plot of the tragedy is developed in +this scene; Vittoria suggesting, under the metaphor of a dream, that +her lover should compass the deaths of his duchess and her husband. The +dream is told with deadly energy and ghastly picturesqueness. The cruel +sneer at its conclusion, murmured by a voluptuous woman in the ears of +an impassioned paramour, chills us with the sense of concentrated vice. +Her next appearance is before the court, on trial for her husband's +murder. The scene is celebrated, and has been much disputed by critics. +Relying on her own dauntlessness, on her beauty, and on the protection +of Brachiano, Vittoria hardly takes the trouble to plead innocence or +to rebut charges. She stands defiant, arrogant, vigilant, on guard; +flinging the lie in the teeth of her arraigners; quick to seize the +slightest sign of feebleness in their attack; protesting her +guiltlessness so loudly that she shouts truth down by brazen strength +of lung; retiring at the close with taunts; blazing throughout with the +intolerable lustre of some baleful planet. When she enters for the +third time, it is to quarrel with her paramour. He has been stung to +jealousy by a feigned love-letter. She knows that she has given him no +cause; it is her game to lure him by fidelity to marriage. Therefore +she resolves to make his mistake the instrument of her exaltation. +Beginning with torrents of abuse, hurling reproaches at him for her own +dishonour and the murder of his wife, working herself by studied +degrees into a tempest of ungovernable rage, she flings herself upon +the bed, refuses his caresses, spurns and tramples on him, till she has +brought Brachiano, terrified, humbled, fascinated, to her feet. Then +she gradually relents beneath his passionate protestations and repeated +promises of marriage. At this point she speaks but little. We only feel +her melting humour in the air, and long to see the scene played by such +an actress as Madame 108Bernhardt. When Vittoria next appears, it is as +Duchess by the deathbed of the Duke, her husband. Her attendance here +is necessary, but it contributes little to the development of her +character. We have learned to know her, and expect neither womanish +tears nor signs of affection at a crisis which touches her heart less +than her self-love. Webster, among his other excellent qualities, knew +how to support character by reticence. Vittoria's silence in this act +is significant; and when she retires exclaiming, 'O me! this place is +hell!' we know that it is the outcry, not of a woman who has lost what +made life dear, but of one who sees the fruits of crime imperilled by a +fatal accident. The last scene of the play is devoted to Vittoria. It +begins with a notable altercation between her and Flamineo. She calls +him 'ruffian' and 'villain,' refusing him the reward of his vile +service. This quarrel emerges in one of Webster's grotesque +contrivances to prolong a poignant situation. Flamineo quits the stage +and reappears with pistols. He affects a kind of madness; and after +threatening Vittoria, who never flinches, he proposes they should end +their lives by suicide. She humours him, but manages to get the first +shot. Flamineo falls, wounded apparently to death. Then Vittoria turns +and tramples on him with her feet and tongue, taunting him in his death +agony with the enumeration of his crimes. Her malice and her energy are +equally infernal. Soon, however, it appears that the whole device was +but a trick of Flamineo's to test his sister. The pistol was not +loaded. He now produces a pair which are properly charged, and proceeds +in good earnest to the assassination of Vittoria. But at this critical +moment Lodovico and his masquers appear; brother and sister both die +unrepentant, defiant to the end. Vittoria's customary pride and her +familiar sneers impress her speech in these last moments with a 109 +trenchant truth to nature: + + _You_ my death's-man! +Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough, +Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman: +If thou be, do thy office in right form; +Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness! + +I will be waited on in death; my servant +Shall never go before me. + + Yes, I shall welcome death +As princes do some great ambassadors: +I'll meet thy weapon half-way. + + 'Twas a manly blow! +The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant; +And then thou wilt be famous. + +So firmly has Webster wrought the character of this white devil, that +we seem to see her before us as in a picture. 'Beautiful as the +leprosy, dazzling as the lightning,' to use a phrase of her +enthusiastic admirer Hazlitt, she takes her station like a lady in some +portrait by Paris Bordone, with gleaming golden hair twisted into +snakelike braids about her temples, with skin white as cream, bright +cheeks, dark dauntless eyes, and on her bosom, where it has been chafed +by jewelled chains, a flush of rose. She is luxurious, but not so +abandoned to the pleasures of the sense as to forget the purpose of her +will and brain. Crime and peril add zest to her enjoyment. When +arraigned in open court before the judgment-seat of deadly and +unscrupulous foes, she conceals the consciousness of guilt, and stands +erect, with fierce front, unabashed, relying on the splendour of her +irresistible beauty and the subtlety of her piercing wit. Chafing with +rage, the blood mounts and adds a lustre to her cheek. It is no flush +of modesty, but of rebellious indignation. The Cardinal, who hates her, +brands her emotion with the name of shame. She 110rebukes him, hurling +a jibe at his own mother. And when they point with spiteful eagerness +to the jewels blazing on her breast, to the silks and satins that she +rustles in, her husband lying murdered, she retorts: + +Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest, +I would have bespoke my mourning. + + +She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites: + +_V.C_. A house of Convertites! what's that? +_M_. A house of penitent whores. +_V.C_. Do the noblemen of Rome +Erect it for their wives, that I am sent +To lodge there? + +Charles Lamb was certainly in error? when he described Vittoria's +attitude as one of 'innocence-resembling boldness.' In the trial scene, +no less than in the scenes of altercation with Brachiano and Flamineo, +Webster clearly intended her to pass for a magnificent vixen, a +beautiful and queenly termagant. Her boldness is the audacity of +impudence, which does not condescend to entertain the thought of guilt. +Her egotism is so hard and so profound that the very victims whom she +sacrifices to ambition seem in her sight justly punished. Of Camillo +and Isabella, her husband and his wife, she says to Brachiano: + +And both were struck dead by that sacred yew, +In that base shallow grave that was their due. + +IV + +It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, 111especially in a book +dedicated to Italian byways. For that mysterious man of genius had +explored the dark and devious paths of Renaissance vice, and had +penetrated the secrets of Italian wickedness with truly appalling +lucidity. His tragedies, though worthless as historical documents, have +singular value as commentaries upon history, as revelations to us of +the spirit of the sixteenth century in its deepest gloom. + +Webster's plays, owing to the condensation of their thought and the +compression of their style, are not easy to read for the first time. He +crowds so many fantastic incidents into one action, and burdens his +discourse with so much profoundly studied matter, that we rise from the +perusal of his works with a blurred impression of the fables, a deep +sense of the poet's power and personality, and an ineffaceable +recollection of one or two resplendent scenes. His Roman history-play +of 'Appius and Virginia' proves that he understood the value of a +simple plot, and that he was able, when he chose, to work one out with +conscientious calmness. But the two Italian dramas upon which his fame +is justly founded, by right of which he stands alone among the +playwrights of all literatures, are marked by a peculiar and wayward +mannerism. Each part is etched with equal effort after luminous effect +upon a background of lurid darkness; and the whole play is made up of +these parts, without due concentration on a master-motive. The +characters are definite in outline, but, taken together in the conduct +of a single plot, they seem to stand apart, like figures in a _tableau +vivant_; nor do they act and react each upon the other in the play of +interpenetrative passions. That this mannerism was deliberately chosen, +we have a right to believe. 'Willingly, and not ignorantly, in this +kind have I faulted,' is the answer Webster gives to such as may object +that he has not constructed his plays upon the classic model. He seems +to have had a certain sombre richness of tone and 112intricacy of +design in view, combining sensational effect and sententious pregnancy +of diction in works of laboured art, which, when adequately represented +to the ear and eye upon the stage, might at a touch obtain the +animation they now lack for chamber-students. + +When familiarity has brought us acquainted with his style, when we have +disentangled the main characters and circumstances from their adjuncts, +we perceive that he treats poignant and tremendous situations with a +concentrated vigour special to his genius; that he has studied each +word and trait of character, and that he has prepared by gradual +approaches and degrees of horror for the culmination of his tragedies. +The sentences which seem at first sight copied from a commonplace book, +are found to be appropriate. Brief lightning flashes of acute +perception illuminate the midnight darkness of his all but unimaginably +depraved characters. Sharp unexpected touches evoke humanity in the +_fantoccini_ of his wayward art. No dramatist has shown more consummate +ability in heightening terrific effects, in laying bare the innermost +mysteries of crime, remorse, and pain, combined to make men miserable. +It has been said of Webster that, feeling himself deficient in the +first poetic qualities, he concentrated his powers upon one point, and +achieved success by sheer force of self-cultivation. There is perhaps +some truth in this. At any rate, his genius was of a narrow and +peculiar order, and he knew well how to make the most of its +limitations. Yet we must not forget that he felt a natural bias toward +the dreadful stuff with which he deals. The mystery of iniquity had an +irresistible attraction for his mind. He was drawn to comprehend and +reproduce abnormal elements of spiritual anguish. The materials with +which he builds his tragedies are sought for in the ruined places of +lost souls, in the agonies of madness and despair, 113in the sarcasms +of criminal and reckless atheism, in slow tortures, griefs beyond +endurance, the tempests of remorseful death, the spasms of fratricidal +bloodshed. He is often melodramatic in the means employed to bring +these psychological conditions home to us. He makes too free use of +poisoned engines, daggers, pistols, disguised murderers, and so forth. +Yet his firm grasp upon the essential qualities of diseased and guilty +human nature saves him, even at his wildest, from the unrealities and +extravagances into which less potent artists of the _drame +sanglant_—Marston, for example—blundered. + +With Webster, the tendency to brood on horrors was no result of +calculation. It belonged to his idiosyncrasy. He seems to have been +suckled from birth at the breast of that _Mater Tenebrarum_, our Lady +of Darkness, whom De Quincey in one of his 'Suspiria de Profundis' +describes among the Semnai Theai, the august goddesses, the mysterious +foster-nurses of suffering humanity. He cannot say the simplest thing +without giving it a ghastly or sinister turn. If one of his characters +draws a metaphor from pie-crust, he must needs use language of the +churchyard: + + You speak as if a man +Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat +Afore you cut it open. + + +Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances: + +Places at court are but like beds in the hospital, where this man's +head lies at that man's foot, and so lower and lower. +When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are raised in +the Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders. +I would sooner eat a dead pigeon taken from the soles of the feet of +one sick of the plague than kiss one of you fasting. + +114 + +A soldier is twitted with serving his master: + +As witches do their serviceable spirits, +Even with thy prodigal blood. + + +An adulterous couple get this curse: + +Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather, +Let him cleave to her, and both rot together. + + +A bravo is asked: + +Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood, +And not be tainted with a shameful fall? +Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree, +Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves, +And yet to prosper? + +It is dangerous to extract philosophy of life from any dramatist. Yet +Webster so often returns to dark and doleful meditations, that we may +fairly class him among constitutional pessimists. Men, according to the +grimness of his melancholy, are: + + Only like dead walls or vaulted graves, +That, ruined, yield no echo. + O this gloomy world! +In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness +Doth womanish and fearful mankind live! + +We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded +Which way please them. + +Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague. + + +A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration: + +Thou art a box of worm-seed, at best but a salvatory of green mummy. +What's this flesh? A little crudded milk, fantastical puff-paste, &c. +&c. + +115 + +Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in these +lyric verses: + +Of what is't fools make such vain keeping? +Sin their conception, their birth weeping, +Their life a general mist of error, +Their death a hideous storm of terror. + + +The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory: + +Vain the ambition of kings, +Who seek by trophies and dead things +To leave a living name behind, +And weave but nets to catch the wind. + +It would be easy to surfeit criticism with similar examples; where +Webster is writing in sarcastic, meditative, or deliberately +terror-stirring moods. The same dark dye of his imagination shows +itself even more significantly in circumstances where, in the work of +any other artist, it would inevitably mar the harmony of the picture. A +lady, to select one instance, encourages her lover to embrace her at +the moment of his happiness. She cries: + + Sir, be confident! +What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir; +'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster, +Kneels at my husband's tomb. + + +Yet so sustained is Webster's symphony of sombre tints, that we do not +feel this sepulchral language, this 'talk fit for a charnel' (to use +one of his own phrases), to be out of keeping. It sounds like a +presentiment of coming woes, which, as the drama grows to its +conclusion, gather and darken on the wretched victims of his bloody +plot. + +It was with profound sagacity, or led by some deep-rooted instinct, +that Webster sought the fables of his two great tragedies, 'The White +Devil' and 'The Duchess of Malfi,' in 116Italian annals. Whether he had +visited Italy in his youth, we cannot say; for next to nothing is known +about Webster's life. But that he had gazed long and earnestly into the +mirror held up by that enchantress of the nations in his age, is +certain. Aghast and fascinated by the sins he saw there flaunting in +the light of day—sins on whose pernicious glamour Ascham, Greene, and +Howell have insisted with impressive vehemence—Webster discerned in +them the stuff he needed for philosophy and art. Withdrawing from that +contemplation, he was like a spirit 'loosed out of hell to speak of +horrors.' Deeper than any poet of the time, deeper than any even of the +Italians, he read the riddle of the sphinx of crime. He found there +something akin to his own imaginative mood, something which he alone +could fully comprehend and interpret. From the superficial narratives +of writers like Bandello he extracted a spiritual essence which was, if +not the literal, at least the ideal, truth involved in them. + +The enormous and unnatural vices, the domestic crimes of cruelty, +adultery, and bloodshed, the political scheming and the subtle arts of +vengeance, the ecclesiastical tyranny and craft, the cynical scepticism +and lustre of luxurious godlessness, which made Italy in the midst of +her refinement blaze like 'a bright and ominous star' before the +nations; these were the very elements in which the genius of +Webster—salamander-like in flame—could live and flourish. Only the +incidents of Italian history, or of French history in its Italianated +epoch, were capable of supplying him with the proper type of plot. It +was in Italy alone, or in an Italianated country, such as England for a +brief space in the reign of the first Stuart threatened to become, that +the well-nigh diabolical wickedness of his characters might have been +realised. An audience familiar with Italian novels through Belleforest +117and Painter, inflamed by the long struggle of the Reformation +against the scarlet abominations of the Papal See, outraged in their +moral sense by the political paradoxes of Machiavelli, horror-stricken +at the still recent misdoings of Borgias and Medici and Farnesi, +alarmed by that Italian policy which had conceived the massacre of S. +Bartholomew in France, and infuriated by that ecclesiastical hypocrisy +which triumphed in the same; such an audience were at the right point +of sympathy with a poet who undertook to lay the springs of Southern +villany before them bare in a dramatic action. But, as the old proverb +puts it, 'Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato.' 'An Englishman +assuming the Italian habit is a devil in the flesh.' The Italians were +depraved, but spiritually feeble. The English playwright, when he +brought them on the stage, arrayed with intellectual power and gleaming +with the lurid splendour of a Northern fancy, made them tenfold darker +and more terrible. To the subtlety and vices of the South he added the +melancholy, meditation, and sinister insanity of his own climate. He +deepened the complexion of crime and intensified lawlessness by robbing +the Italian character of levity. Sin, in his conception of that +character, was complicated with the sense of sin, as it never had been +in a Florentine or a Neapolitan. He had not grasped the meaning of the +Machiavellian conscience, in its cold serenity and disengagement from +the dread of moral consequence. Not only are his villains stealthy, +frigid, quick to evil, merciless, and void of honour; but they brood +upon their crimes and analyse their motives. In the midst of their +audacity they are dogged by dread of coming retribution. At the crisis +of their destiny they look back upon their better days with +intellectual remorse. In the execution of their bloodiest schemes they +groan beneath the chains of guilt they wear, and quake before the +phantoms of their haunted brains. 118Thus passion and reflection, +superstition and profanity, deliberate atrocity and fear of judgment, +are united in the same nature; and to make the complex still more +strange, the play-wright has gifted these tremendous personalities with +his own wild humour and imaginative irony. The result is almost +monstrous, such an ideal of character as makes earth hell. And yet it +is not without justification. To the Italian text has been added the +Teutonic commentary, and both are fused by a dramatic genius into one +living whole. + +One of these men is Flamineo, the brother of Vittoria Corombona, upon +whose part the action of the 'White Devil' depends. He has been bred in +arts and letters at the university of Padua; but being poor and of +luxurious appetites, he chooses the path of crime in courts for his +advancement. A duke adopts him for his minion, and Flamineo acts the +pander to this great man's lust. He contrives the death of his +brother-in-law, suborns a doctor to poison the Duke's wife, and +arranges secret meetings between his sister and the paramour who is to +make her fortune and his own. His mother appears like a warning Até to +prevent her daughter's crime. In his rage he cries: + +What fury raised _thee_ up? Away, away! + + +And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers: + + Shall I, +Having a path so open and so free +To my preferment, still retain your milk +In my pale forehead? + + +Later on, when it is necessary to remove another victim, he runs his +own brother through the body and drives his mother to madness. Yet, in +the midst of these crimes, we are unable to regard him as a simple +cut-throat. His irony and reckless 119courting of damnation open-eyed +to get his gust of life in this world, make him no common villain. He +can be brave as well as fierce. When the Duke insults him he bandies +taunt for taunt: + +_Brach_. No, you pander? +_Flam_. What, me, my lord? +Am I your dog? +_B_. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me? +_F_. Stand you! let those that have diseases run; +I need no plasters. +_B_. Would you be kicked? +_F_. Would you have your neck broke? +I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia; +My shins must be kept whole. +_B_. Do you know me? +_F_. Oh, my lord, methodically: +As in this world there are degrees of evils, +So in this world there are degrees of devils. +You're a great duke, I your poor secretary. + + +When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of disappointment +breaks into this fierce apostrophe: + +I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths. +Will get the speech of him, though forty devils +Wait on him in his livery of flames, +I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand, +Though I be blasted. + + +As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes: + + I have lived +Riotously ill, like some that live in court, +And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the +maze of conscience in my breast. + + +The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death: + +120 + +Whither shall I go now? O Lucian, thy ridiculous purgatory! to find +Alexander the Great cobbling shoes, Pompey tagging points, and Julius +Cæsar making hair-buttons! + Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the elements + by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care. + + +At the last moment he yet can say: + +We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves, +Nay, cease to die, by dying. + + +And again, with the very yielding of his spirit: + +My life was a black charnel. + +It will be seen that in no sense does Flamineo resemble Iago. He is not +a traitor working by craft and calculating ability to well-considered +ends. He is the desperado frantically clutching at an uncertain and +impossible satisfaction. Webster conceives him as a self-abandoned +atheist, who, maddened by poverty and tainted by vicious living, takes +a fury to his heart, and, because the goodness of the world has been +for ever lost to him, recklessly seeks the bad. + +Bosola, in the 'Duchess of Malfi,' is of the same stamp. He too has +been a scholar. He is sent to the galleys 'for a notorious murder,' and +on his release he enters the service of two brothers, the Duke of +Calabria and the Cardinal of Aragon, who place him as their +intelligencer at the court of their sister. + +_Bos_. It seems you would create me +One of your familiars. +_Ferd_. Familiar! what's that? +_Bos_. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh, +An intelligencer. +_Ferd_. Such a kind of thriving thing +I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive +At a higher place by it. + +121 + +Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For: + + Discontent and want +Is the best clay to mould a villain of. + +But his true self, though subdued to be what he quaintly styles 'the +devil's quilted anvil,' on which 'all sins are fashioned and the blows +never heard,' continually rebels against this destiny. Compared with +Flamineo, he is less unnaturally criminal. His melancholy is more +fantastic, his despair more noble. Throughout the course of craft and +cruelty on which he is goaded by a relentless taskmaster, his nature, +hardened as it is, revolts. + +At the end, when Bosola presents the body of the murdered Duchess to +her brother, Webster has wrought a scene of tragic savagery that +surpasses almost any other that the English stage can show. The sight, +of his dead sister maddens Ferdinand, who, feeling the eclipse of +reason gradually absorb his faculties, turns round with frenzied hatred +on the accomplice of his fratricide. Bosola demands the price of guilt. +Ferdinand spurns him with the concentrated eloquence of despair and the +extravagance of approaching insanity. The murderer taunts his master +coldly and laconically, like a man whose life is wrecked, who has waded +through blood to his reward, and who at the last moment discovers the +sacrifice of his conscience and masculine freedom to be fruitless. +Remorse, frustrated hopes, and thirst for vengeance convert Bosola from +this hour forward into an instrument of retribution. The Duke and his +brother the Cardinal are both brought to bloody deaths by the hand +which they had used to assassinate their sister. + +It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, 122the employers of +Flamineo and Bosola, are tyrants such as Savonarola described, and as +we read of in the chronicles of petty Southern cities. Nothing is +suffered to stand between their lust and its accomplishment. They +override the law by violence, or pervert its action to their own +advantage: + + The law to him +Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider; +He makes it his dwelling and a prison +To entangle those shall feed him. + + +They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures of +their crimes: + +He and his brother are like plum-trees that grow crooked over standing +pools; they are rich and over-laden with fruit, but none but crows, +pies, and caterpillars feed on them. + + +In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness: + +Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright; +But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. + + +Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them: + +There's but three furies found in spacious hell; +But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell. + + +Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising: + + For these many years +None of our family dies, but there is seen +The shape of an old woman; which is given +By tradition to us to have been murdered +By her nephews for her riches. + + +Apparitions haunt them: + + How tedious is a guilty conscience! +When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden, +Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake +That seems to strike at me. + +123Continually scheming against the objects of their avarice and +hatred, preparing poisons or suborning bravoes, they know that these +same arts will be employed against them. The wine-cup hides arsenic; +the headpiece is smeared with antimony; there is a dagger behind every +arras, and each shadow is a murderer's. When death comes, they meet it +trembling. What irony Webster has condensed in Brachiano's outcry: + +On pain of death, let no man name death to me; +It is a word infinitely horrible. + +And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes: + +O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin +To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet +Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl +Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf +Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse, +Whilst horror waits on princes. + + +After their death, this is their epitaph: + + These wretched eminent things +Leave no more fame behind'em than should one +Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow. + +Of Webster's despots, the finest in conception and the firmest in +execution is Ferdinand of Aragon. Jealousy of his sister and avarice +take possession of him and torment him like furies. The flash of +repentance over her strangled body is also the first flash of insanity. +He survives to present the spectacle of a crazed lunatic, and to be run +through the body by his paid assassin. In the Cardinal of Aragon, +Webster paints a profligate Churchman, no less voluptuous, +blood-guilty, and the rest of it, than his brother the Duke of +Calabria. It seems to have been the poet's purpose in each 124of his +Italian tragedies to unmask Rome as the Papal city really was. In the +lawless desperado, the intemperate tyrant, and the godless +ecclesiastic, he portrayed the three curses from which Italian society +was actually suffering. + +It has been needful to dwell upon the gloomy and fantastic side of +Webster's genius. But it must not be thought that he could touch no +finer chord. Indeed, it might be said that in the domain of pathos he +is even more powerful than in that of horror. His mastery in this +region is displayed in the creation of that dignified and beautiful +woman, the Duchess of Malfi, who, with nothing in her nature, had she +but lived prosperously, to divide her from the sisterhood of gentle +ladies, walks, shrined in love and purity and conscious rectitude, amid +the snares and pitfalls of her persecutors, to die at last the victim +of a brother's fevered avarice and a desperado's egotistical ambition. +The apparatus of infernal cruelty, the dead man's hand, the semblances +of murdered sons and husband, the masque of madmen, the dirge and +doleful emblems of the tomb with which she is environed in her prison +by the torturers who seek to goad her into lunacy, are insufficient to +disturb the tranquillity and tenderness of her nature. When the rope is +being fastened to her throat, she does not spend her breath in +recriminations, but turns to the waiting-woman and says: + + Farewell, Cariola! +I pray thee look thou givest my little boy +Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl +Say her prayers ere she sleep. + +In the preceding scenes we have had enough, nay, over-much, of madness, +despair, and wrestling with doom. This is the calm that comes when +death is present, when the tortured soul lays down its burden of the +flesh with gladness. But Webster has not spared another touch of +thrilling pathos. 125The death-struggle is over; the fratricide has +rushed away, a maddened man; the murderer is gazing with remorse upon +the beautiful dead body of his lady, wishing he had the world wherewith +to buy her back to life again; when suddenly she murmurs 'Mercy!' Our +interest, already overstrained, revives with momentary hope. But the +guardians of the grave will not be exorcised; and 'Mercy!' is the last +groan of the injured Duchess. + +Webster showed great skill in his delineation of the Duchess. He had to +paint a woman in a hazardous situation: a sovereign stooping in her +widowhood to wed a servant; a lady living with the mystery of this +unequal marriage round her like a veil. He dowered her with no salient +qualities of intellect or heart or will; but he sustained our sympathy +with her, and made us comprehend her. To the last she is a Duchess; and +when she has divested state and bowed her head to enter the low gate of +heaven—too low for coronets—her poet shows us, in the lines already +quoted, that the woman still survives. + +The same pathos surrounds the melancholy portrait of Isabella in +'Vittoria Corombona.' But Isabella, in that play, serves chiefly to +enhance the tyranny of her triumphant rival. The main difficulty under +which these scenes of rarest pathos would labour, were they brought +upon the stage, is their simplicity in contrast with the ghastly and +contorted horrors that envelop them. A dialogue abounding in the +passages I have already quoted—a dialogue which bandies 'O you +screech-owl!' and 'Thou foul black cloud!'—in which a sister's +admonition to her brother to think twice of suicide assumes a form so +weird as this: + + I prithee, yet remember, +Millions are now in graves, which at last day +Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.— + +126 + +such a dialogue could not be rendered save by actors strung up to a +pitch of almost frenzied tension. To do full justice to what in +Webster's style would be spasmodic were it not so weighty, and at the +same time to maintain the purity of outline and melodious rhythm of +such characters as Isabella, demands no common histrionic power. + +In attempting to define Webster's touch upon Italian tragic story, I +have been led perforce to concentrate attention on what is painful and +shocking to our sense of harmony in art. He was a vigorous and +profoundly imaginative playwright. But his most enthusiastic admirers +will hardly contend that good taste or moderation determined the +movement of his genius. Nor, though his insight into the essential +dreadfulness of Italian tragedy was so deep, is it possible to maintain +that his portraiture of Italian life was true to its more superficial +aspects. What place would there be for a Correggio or a Raphael in such +a world as Webster's? Yet we know that the art of Raphael and Correggio +is in exact harmony with the Italian temperament of the same epoch +which gave birth to Cesare Borgia and Bianca Gapello. The comparatively +slighter sketch of Iachimo in 'Cymbeline' represents the Italian as he +felt and lived, better than the laboured portrait of Flamineo. +Webster's Italian tragedies are consequently true, not so much to the +actual conditions of Italy, as to the moral impression made by those +conditions on a Northern imagination. + +127 + + + + +AUTUMN WANDERINGS + + +I.—ITALIAM PETIMUS + +_Italiam Petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows +with rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. +Men and women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine +scythes; and as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost tinkling +sound. Down into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses plunged; +and there we lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's Walk, opening +upon the vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up above, shone +morning light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven slopes +reddening with a hundred fading plants; now and then it caught the +grey-green icicles that hung from cliffs where summer streams had +dripped. There is no colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in +the high Alps, defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting +imperceptibly downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the +crimson of the bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aë;rial +ranges of the hills that separate Albula from Julier soared +crystal-clear above their forests; and for a foreground, on the green +fields starred with lilac crocuses, careered a group of children on +their sledges. Then came the row of giant peaks—Pitz d'Aela, +Tinzenhorn, and Michelhorn, above the deep ravine 128of Albula—all seen +across wide undulating golden swards, close-shaven and awaiting winter. +Carnations hung from cottage windows in full bloom, casting sharp +angular black shadows on white walls. + +_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. +The stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up +through the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing +far-off snowy ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, +soundless waste of rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence +and fade suddenly into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, +with its forests of larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a +ground of grey, and in front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and +here and there a glimpse of emerald lake at turnings of the road. +Autumn is the season for this landscape. Through the fading of +innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of larches, and something vaporous +in the low sun, it gains a colour not unlike that of the lands we seek. +By the side of the lake at Silvaplana the light was strong and warm, +but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the Maloja, and floating overhead +cast shadows on the opaque water, which may literally be compared to +chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, and russet tints upon the +valley at this moment adds softness to its lines of level strength. +Devotees of the Engadine contend that it possesses an austere charm +beyond the common beauty of Swiss landscape; but this charm is only +perfected in autumn. The fresh snow on the heights that guard it helps. +And then there are the forests of dark pines upon those many knolls and +undulating mountain-flanks beside the lakes. Sitting and dreaming there +in noonday sun, I kept repeating to myself _Italiam petimus!_ + +129A hurricane blew upward from the pass as we left Silvaplana, +ruffling the lake with gusts of the Italian wind. By Silz Maria we came +in sight of a dozen Italian workmen, arm linked in arm in two rows, +tramping in rhythmic stride, and singing as they went. Two of them were +such nobly built young men, that for a moment the beauty of the +landscape faded from my sight, and I was saddened. They moved to their +singing, like some of Mason's or Frederick Walker's figures, with the +free grace of living statues, and laughed as we drove by. And yet, with +all their beauty, industry, sobriety, intelligence, these Italians of +the northern valleys serve the sterner people of the Grisons like +negroes, doing their roughest work at scanty wages. + +So we came to the vast Alpine wall, and stood on a bare granite slab, +and looked over into Italy, as men might lean from the battlements of a +fortress. Behind lies the Alpine valley, grim, declining slowly +northward, with wind-lashed lakes and glaciers sprawling from +storm-broken pyramids of gneiss. Below spread the unfathomable depths +that lead to Lombardy, flooded with sunlight, filled with swirling +vapour, but never wholly hidden from our sight. For the blast kept +shifting the cloud-masses, and the sun streamed through in spears and +bands of sheeny rays. Over the parapet our horses dropped, down through +sable spruce and amber larch, down between tangles of rowan and +autumnal underwood. Ever as we sank, the mountains rose—those sharp +embattled precipices, toppling spires, impendent chasms blurred with +mist, that make the entrance into Italy sublime. Nowhere do the Alps +exhibit their full stature, their commanding puissance, with such +majesty as in the gates of Italy; and of all those gates I think there +is none to compare with Maloja, none certainly to rival it in +abruptness of initiation into the Italian secret. Below Vico Soprano we +pass 130already into the violets and blues of Titian's landscape. Then +come the purple boulders among chestnut trees; then the double +dolomite-like peak of Pitz Badin and Promontogno. + +It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring this +window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just +frames it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously +planted with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow +cast upon the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down +between black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings +of a rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape +soars the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; +and there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, shooting +into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar the double +peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal not unlike +the Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by a snowy +saddle, and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in powdery +drifts. Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green and +golden forests now join from either side, and now recede, according as +the sinuous valley brings their lines together or disparts them. There +is a sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the roar of the stream is +dulled or quickened as the gusts of this October wind sweep by or +slacken. _Italiam petimus!_ + +_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate +Italian. We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral +cloister—white, smoothly curving, well-proportioned loggie, enclosing a +green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had +sunk, but her 131light still silvered the mountains that stand at watch +round Chiavenna; and the castle rock was flat and black against that +dreamy background. Jupiter, who walked so lately for us on the long +ridge of the Jacobshorn above our pines, had now an ample space of sky +over Lombardy to light his lamp in. Why is it, we asked each other, as +we smoked our pipes and strolled, my friend and I;—why is it that +Italian beauty does not leave the spirit so untroubled as an Alpine +scene? Why do we here desire the flower of some emergent feeling to +grow from the air, or from the soil, or from humanity to greet us? This +sense of want evoked by Southern beauty is perhaps the antique +mythopœic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another form, +and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, unrealised, +unreal, insatiable. + +II.—OVER THE APENNINES + +At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-à-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk of +Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all night +in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 A.M., +for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a right +Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, and +arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine of +Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan Luna. I +had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; +therefore we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, quick +relays, obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual movement. The +road itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all things but +accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the 132summit of the +pass, we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldy hen and six +eggs; but that was all the halt we made. + +As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at +home had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the +box to call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the +plain of Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the +village of Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting +Charles VIII. upon that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes +suddenly aside, gains a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps +this vantage till the pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are +occasioned by thus adhering to arêtes, but the total result is a +gradual ascent with free prospect over plain and mountain. The +Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale than the Alps, perplexed in +detail and entangled with cross sections and convergent systems, lend +themselves to this plan of carrying highroads along their ridges +instead of following the valley. + +What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern watershed is the +subtlety, delicacy, variety, and intricacy of the mountain outlines. +There is drawing wherever the eye falls. Each section of the vast +expanse is a picture of tossed crests and complicated undulations. And +over the whole sea of stationary billows, light is shed like an +ethereal raiment, with spare colour—blue and grey, and parsimonious +green—in the near foreground. The detail is somewhat dry and +monotonous; for these so finely moulded hills are made up of washed +earth, the immemorial wrecks of earlier mountain ranges. Brown +villages, not unlike those of Midland England, low houses built of +stone and tiled with stone, and 133square-towered churches, occur at +rare intervals in cultivated hollows, where there are fields and fruit +trees. Water is nowhere visible except in the wasteful river-beds. As +we rise, we break into a wilder country, forested with oak, where oxen +and goats are browsing. The turf is starred with lilac gentian and +crocus bells, but sparely. Then comes the highest village, Berceto, +with keen Alpine air. After that, broad rolling downs of yellowing +grass and russet beech-scrub lead onward to the pass La Cisa. The sense +of breadth in composition is continually satisfied through this ascent +by the fine-drawn lines, faint tints, and immense air-spaces of Italian +landscape. Each little piece reminds one of England; but the +geographical scale is enormously more grandiose, and the effect of +majesty proportionately greater. + +From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment of +the Apennine, as of the Alpine, barrier is pitched at a far steeper +angle than the northern. Yet there is no view of the sea. That is +excluded by the lower hills which hem the Magra. The upper valley is +beautiful, with verdant lawns and purple hillsides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for nearly +an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but the +fruit was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the still +October air the husks above our heads would loosen, and the brown nuts +rustle through the foliage, and with a dull short thud, like drops of +thunder-rain, break down upon the sod. At the foot of this rich forest, +wedged in between huge buttresses, we found Pontremoli, and changed our +horses here for the last time. It was Sunday, and the little town was +alive with country-folk; tall stalwart fellows wearing peacock's +feathers in their black slouched hats, and nut-brown maids. + +From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich 134with fruit +trees, vines, and olives. The tendrils of the vine are yellow now, and +in some places hued like generous wine; through their thick leaves the +sun shot crimson. In one cool garden, as the day grew dusk, I noticed +quince trees laden with pale fruit entangled with pomegranates—green +spheres and ruddy amid burnished leaves. By the roadside too were many +berries of bright hues; the glowing red of haws and hips, the amber of +the pyracanthus, the rose tints of the spindle-wood. These make autumn +even lovelier than spring. And then there was a wood of chestnuts +carpeted with pale pinkling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline in +shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which they +were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to +south-east, and seem as though they belonged to another and more +celestial region. + +Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There was +a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. + +III.—FOSDINOVO + +The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur above +Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of Luni. +This is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and is still in the +possession of the Marquis of that name. + +The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It 135then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +hand, where grapes are hanging to the vines. The country-folk allow +their vines to climb into the olives, and these golden festoons are a +great ornament to the grey branches. The berries on the trees are still +quite green, and it is a good olive season. Leaving the main road, we +pass a villa of the Malaspini, shrouded in immense thickets of sweet +bay and ilex, forming a grove for the Nymphs or Pan. Here may you see +just such clean stems and lucid foliage as Gian Bellini painted, inch +by inch, in his Peter Martyr picture. The place is neglected now; the +semicircular seats of white Carrara marble are stained with green +mosses, the altars chipped, the fountains choked with bay leaves; and +the rose trees, escaped from what were once trim garden alleys, have +gone wandering a-riot into country hedges. There is no demarcation +between the great man's villa and the neighbouring farms. From this +point the path rises, and the barren hillside is a-bloom with +late-flowering myrtles. Why did the Greeks consecrate these myrtle-rods +to Death as well as Love? Electra complained that her father's tomb had +not received the honour of the myrtle branch; and the Athenians +wreathed their swords with myrtle in memory of Harmodius. Thinking of +these matters, I cannot but remember lines of Greek, which have +themselves the rectitude and elasticity of myrtle wands: + +καί προσπεσών εκλυσ΄ ε΄ρημίας τυχών +σπονδάς τε λύσας ασκόν ον Φέρω ξένοις + +εσπεισα τύμβω δ΄άμφεθηκα μυρσίνας + +As we approach Fosdinovo, the hills above us gain sublimity; the +prospect over plain and sea—the fields where Luna was, the widening bay +of Spezzia—grows ever grander. The castle is a ruin, still capable of +partial habitation, and now undergoing repair—the state in which a ruin +looks most sordid and forlorn. How strange it is, too, that, to enforce +136this sense of desolation, sad dishevelled weeds cling ever to such +antique masonry! Here are the henbane, the sow-thistle, the wild +cucumber. At Avignon, at Orvieto, at Dolce Acqua, at Les Baux, we never +missed them. And they have the dusty courtyards, the massive portals, +where portcullises still threaten, of Fosdinovo to themselves. Over the +gate, and here and there on corbels, are carved the arms of Malaspina—a +barren thorn-tree, gnarled with the geometrical precision of heraldic +irony. + +Leaning from the narrow windows of this castle, with the spacious view +to westward, I thought of Dante. For Dante in this castle was the guest +of Moroello Malaspina, what time he was yet finishing the 'Inferno.' +There is a little old neglected garden, full to south, enclosed upon a +rampart which commands the Borgo, where we found frail canker-roses and +yellow amaryllis. Here, perhaps, he may have sat with ladies—for this +was the Marchesa's pleasaunce; or may have watched through a short +summer's night, until he saw that _tremolar della marina_, portending +dawn, which afterwards he painted in the 'Purgatory.' + +From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunae_ flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back +the southern arm of the Spezzian gulf. At the extreme end of that +promontory, called Del Corvo, stood the Benedictine convent of S. +Croce; and it was here in 1309, if we may trust to tradition, that +Dante, before his projected journey into France, appeared and left the +first part of his poem with the Prior. Fra Ilario, such was the good +father's name, received commission to transmit the 'Inferno' to +Uguccione della Faggiuola; and he subsequently recorded the fact of +Dante's visit in a letter which, though its genuineness has been called +in question, is far too interesting 137to be left without allusion. The +writer says that on occasion of a journey into lands beyond the +Riviera, Dante visited this convent, appearing silent and unknown among +the monks. To the Prior's question what he wanted, he gazed upon the +brotherhood, and only answered, 'Peace!' Afterwards, in private +conversation, he communicated his name and spoke about his poem. A +portion of the 'Divine Comedy' composed in the Italian tongue aroused +Ilario's wonder, and led him to inquire why his guest had not followed +the usual course of learned poets by committing his thoughts to Latin. +Dante replied that he had first intended to write in that language, and +that he had gone so far as to begin the poem in Virgilian hexameters. +Reflection upon the altered conditions of society in that age led him, +however, to reconsider the matter; and he was resolved to tune another +lyre, 'suited to the sense of modern men.' 'For,' said he, 'it is idle +to set solid food before the lips of sucklings.' + +If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the +poet's apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of peace, +but also an interesting record of the destiny which presided over the +first great work of literary art in a distinctly modern language. + +IV.—LA SPEZZIA + +While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall they +have lately built 138along the Rada. The moon was up, but overdriven +with dry smoky clouds, now thickening to blackness over the whole bay, +now leaving intervals through which the light poured fitfully and +fretfully upon the wrinkled waves; and ever and anon they shuddered +with electric gleams which were not actual lightning. Heaven seemed to +be descending on the sea; one might have fancied that some powerful +charms were drawing down the moon with influence malign upon those +still resisting billows. For not as yet the gulf was troubled to its +depth, and not as yet the breakers dashed in foam against the +moonlight-smitten promontories. There was but an uneasy murmuring of +wave to wave; a whispering of wind, that stooped its wing and hissed +along the surface, and withdrew into the mystery of clouds again; a +momentary chafing of churned water round the harbour piers, subsiding +into silence petulant and sullen. I leaned against an iron stanchion +and longed for the sea's message. But nothing came to me, and the +drowned secret of Shelley's death those waves which were his grave +revealed not. + +Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! + +Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note of +time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic influence, +how sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with each other +complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest within them. A +touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and saw a boy beside +me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol that night; but +my English accent soon assured him that I was no _contrabbandiere_, and +he too leaned against the stanchion and told me his short story. He was +in his nineteenth year, and came from Florence, where his people live +in the 139Borgo Ognissanti. He had all the brightness of the Tuscan +folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed with _espieglerie_. It was +diverting to see the airs he gave himself on the strength of his new +military dignity, his gun, and uniform, and night duty on the shore. I +could not help humming to myself _Non più andrai_; for Francesco was a +sort of Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about picture galleries and +libraries in Florence, and I had to hear his favourite passages from +the Italian poets. And then there came the plots of Jules Verne's +stories and marvellous narrations about _l' uomo cavallo, l' uomo +volante, l' uomo pesce_. The last of these personages turned out to be +Paolo Boÿnton (so pronounced), who had swam the Arno in his diving +dress, passing the several bridges, and when he came to the great weir +'allora tutti stare con bocca aperta.' Meanwhile the storm grew +serious, and our conversation changed. Francesco told me about the +terrible sun-stricken sand shores of the Riviera, burning in summer +noon, over which the coast-guard has to tramp, their perils from +falling stones in storm, and the trains that come rushing from those +narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. It is a hard life; and +the thirst for adventure which drove this boy—'il più matto di tutta la +famiglia'—to adopt it, seems well-nigh quenched. And still, with a +return to Giulio Verne, he talked enthusiastically of deserting, of +getting on board a merchant ship, and working his way to southern +islands where wonders are. + +A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came 140rain; +lightning deluged the expanse of surf, and showed the windy trees bent +landward by the squall. It was long past midnight now, and the storm +was on us for the space of three days. + +V.—PORTO VENERE + +For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary. + +At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and +lightning poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. Is +he out in it, and where? + +At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the sky +was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm—the air as soft and tepid as +boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the face +of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so rich +in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the winds +from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore in +many places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up for +this lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession of +tiny harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are many +villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval stations, +hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the _Smilax +Sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its creamy +odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. + +A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey walls +flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one long +narrow street, the houses on the left side 141hanging sheer above the +sea. Their doors at the back open on to cliffs which drop about fifty +feet upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with mediaeval +battlements and shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and +sky, runs up the rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a +deep gateway above which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room +opening upon the town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch +enclosing images and frescoes—a curious episode in a place devoted to +the jollity of smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such +as Tintoretto loved to paint—huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with +pent-house canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of +chestnut; rude low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the +edges, and laden with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, +big-bellied jugs of earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people +of the place were lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd +nooks and corners everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows +slanting through the thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; +high-zoned serving women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral beads; +smoke-blackened roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. The house +was inexhaustible in motives for pictures. + +We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys—_diavoli +scatenati_—clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, 'Soldo, soldo!' I do not know why these sea-urchins are so +far more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus +in Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere +annoyance. I shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with that +shrill obligate, 'Soldo, soldo, soldo!' rattling like a dropping fire +from lungs of brass. + +At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland 142stands the ruined +church, built by Pisans with alternate rows of white and black marble, +upon the site of an old temple of Venus. This is a modest and pure +piece of Gothic architecture, fair in desolation, refined and +dignified, and not unworthy in its grace of the dead Cyprian goddess. +Through its broken lancets the sea-wind whistles and the vast reaches +of the Tyrrhene gulf are seen. Samphire sprouts between the blocks of +marble, and in sheltered nooks the caper hangs her beautiful purpureal +snowy bloom. + +The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It +has the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as +one looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's +amethystine promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace the +Riviera mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling in +with tawny breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and the +cloud-shadows over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been seen, +soared banks of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. + +This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter—both, be it +remembered, fishers of men—is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has +long been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto +Venere remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, +where an inscription tells us that Byron once 'tempted the Ligurian +waves.' It is just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired +Euripides when he described the refuge of Orestes in 'Iphigenia.' + +143 + +VI.—LERICI + +Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. + +After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent +views across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with olives—a +genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are hoary, and +spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle against a blue +sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently adorned with +basreliefs of Carrara marble—saints and madonnas very delicately +wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who had passed a +summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low upon the +sands to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then the +high-built castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across, the bay to +Porto Venere—one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam between. +The village is piled around its cove with tall and picturesquely +coloured houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just beneath the +castle. There is one point of the descending carriage road where all +this gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive branches, +swaying, wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of ocean back +from their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. And, as we +stayed to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women from the bay +below—barefooted, straight as willow wands, with 144burnished copper +bowls upon their heads. These women have the port of goddesses, +deep-bosomed, with the length of thigh and springing ankles that +betoken strength no less than elasticity and grace. The hair of some of +them was golden, rippling in little curls around brown brows and +glowing eyes. Pale lilac blent with orange on their dress, and coral +beads hung from their ears. + +At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. +Christian now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This was +rather a rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it seemed, +at will with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to reach the +shore. Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa Magni. It is not +at Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south side of the +village. Looking across the bay from the molo, one could clearly see +its square white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on rude arcades +with a broad orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly prepares one +for so considerable a place. I think the English exiles of that period +must have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to them no better than +a bathing-house. + +We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, who, +when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: 'It is not so bad now as it +used to be.' The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's 'Recollections' have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees +round the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we +sat talking, I laughed to think of 145that luncheon party, when Shelley +lost his clothes, and came naked, dripping with sea-water, into the +room, protected by the skirts of the sympathising waiting-maid. And +then I wondered where they found him on the night when he stood +screaming in his sleep, after the vision of his veiled self, with its +question, '_Siete soddisfatto_?' + +There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +'Triumph of Life.' Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning +has been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on +this terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea +was fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the Don +Juan disappeared. + +From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, +attended by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the +place to sadness. + +VII.—VIAREGGIO + +The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where Shelley's +body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts of +a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. +There is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of +waves, foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded +into the grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There +is a feeling of 'immensity, liberty, action' here, which is not common +in Italy. It 146reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean +had the rough force of a tidal sea. + +Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. +It is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman +Costa has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this landscape +of the Carrarese his own. The space between sand and pine-wood was +covered with faint, yellow, evening primroses. They flickered like +little harmless flames in sun and shadow, and the spires of the Carrara +range were giant flames transformed to marble. The memory of that day +described by Trelawny in a passage of immortal English prose, when he +and Byron and Leigh Hunt stood beside the funeral pyre, and libations +were poured, and the 'Cor Cordium' was found inviolate among the ashes, +turned all my thoughts to flame beneath the gentle autumn sky. + +Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, +over which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last +days. It passes an immense forest of stone-pines—aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. + +147 + + + + +PARMA + + +Parma is perhaps the brightest _Residenzstadt_ of the second class in +Italy. Built on a sunny and fertile tract of the Lombard plain, within +view of the Alps, and close beneath the shelter of the Apennines, it +shines like a well-set gem with stately towers and cheerful squares in +the midst of verdure. The cities of Lombardy are all like large country +houses: walking out of their gates, you seem to be stepping from a door +or window that opens on a trim and beautiful garden, where +mulberry-tree is married to mulberry by festoons of vines, and where +the maize and sunflower stand together in rows between patches of flax +and hemp. But it is not in order to survey the union of well-ordered +husbandry with the civilities of ancient city-life that we break the +journey at Parma between Milan and Bologna. We are attracted rather by +the fame of one great painter, whose work, though it may be studied +piecemeal in many galleries of Europe, in Parma has a fulness, +largeness, and mastery that can nowhere else be found. In Parma alone +Correggio challenges comparison with Raphael, with Tintoret, with all +the supreme decorative painters who have deigned to make their art the +handmaid of architecture. Yet even in the cathedral and the church of +S. Giovanni, where Correggio's frescoes cover cupola and chapel wall, +we could scarcely comprehend his greatness now—so cruelly have time and +neglect dealt with those delicate dream-shadows of celestial +fairyland—were it not for an interpreter, who consecrated a lifetime to +the task of translating 148his master's poetry of fresco into the prose +of engraving. That man was Paolo Toschi—a name to be ever venerated by +all lovers of the arts; since without his guidance we should hardly +know what to seek for in the ruined splendours of the domes of Parma, +or even seeking, how to find the object of our search. Toschi's labour +was more effectual than that of a restorer however skilful, more loving +than that of a follower however faithful. He respected Correggio's +handiwork with religious scrupulousness, adding not a line or tone or +touch of colour to the fading frescoes; but he lived among them, aloft +on scaffoldings, and face to face with the originals which he designed +to reproduce. By long and close familiarity, by obstinate and patient +interrogation, he divined Correggio's secret, and was able at last to +see clearly through the mist of cobweb and mildew and altar smoke, and +through the still more cruel travesty of so-called restoration. What he +discovered, he faithfully committed first to paper in water colours, +and then to copperplate with the burin, so that we enjoy the privilege +of seeing Correggio's masterpieces as Toschi saw them, with the eyes of +genius and of love and of long scientific study. It is not too much to +say that some of Correggio's most charming compositions—for example, +the dispute of S. Augustine and S. John—have been resuscitated from the +grave by Toschi's skill. The original offers nothing but a mouldering +surface from which the painter's work has dropped in scales. The +engraving presents a design which we doubt not was Correggio's, for it +corresponds in all particulars to the style and spirit of the master. +To be critical in dealing with so successful an achievement of +restoration and translation is difficult. Yet it may be admitted once +and for all that Toschi has not unfrequently enfeebled his original. +Under his touch Correggio loses somewhat of his sensuous audacity, his +dithyrambic ecstasy, and approaches 149the ordinary standard of +prettiness and graceful beauty. The Diana of the Camera di S. Paolo, +for instance, has the strong calm splendour of a goddess: the same +Diana in Toschi's engraving seems about to smile with girlish joy. In a +word, the engraver was a man of a more common stamp—more timid and more +conventional than the painter. But this is after all a trifling +deduction from the value of his work. + +Our debt to Paolo Toschi is such that it would be ungrateful not to +seek some details of his life. The few that can be gathered even at +Parma are brief and bald enough. The newspaper articles and funeral +panegyrics which refer to him are as barren as all such occasional +notices in Italy have always been; the panegyrist seeming more anxious +about his own style than eager to communicate information. Yet a bare +outline of Toschi's biography may be supplied. He was born at Parma in +1788. His father was cashier of the post-office, and his mother's name +was Anna Maria Brest. Early in his youth he studied painting at Parma +under Biagio Martini; and in 1809 he went to Paris, where he learned +the art of engraving from Bervic and of etching from Oortman. In Paris +he contracted an intimate friendship with the painter Gérard. But after +ten years he returned to Parma, where he established a company and +school of engravers in concert with his friend Antonio Isac. Maria +Louisa, the then Duchess, under whose patronage the arts flourished at +Parma (witness Bodoni's exquisite typography), soon recognised his +merit, and appointed him Director of the Ducal Academy. He then formed +the project of engraving a series of the whole of Correggio's frescoes. +The undertaking was a vast one. Both the cupolas of S. John and the +cathedral, together with the vault of the apse of S. Giovanni[24] and +various portions of the 150side aisles, and the so-called Camera di S. +Paolo, are covered by frescoes of Correggio and his pupil Parmegiano. +These frescoes have suffered so much from neglect and time, and from +unintelligent restoration, that it is difficult in many cases to +determine their true character. Yet Toschi did not content himself with +selections, or shrink from the task of deciphering and engraving the +whole. He formed a school of disciples, among whom were Carlo Raimondi +of Milan, Antonio Costa of Venice, Edward Eichens of Berlin, Aloisio +Juvara of Naples, Antonio Dalcò, Giuseppe Magnani, and Lodovico Bisola +of Parma, and employed them as assistants in his work. Death overtook +him in 1854, before it was finished, and now the water-colour drawings +which are exhibited in the Gallery of Parma prove to what extent the +achievement fell short of his design. Enough, however, was accomplished +to place the chief masterpieces of Correggio beyond the possibility of +utter oblivion. + + [24] The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin upon the semi-dome of + S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, Cesare Aretusi. But part of the + original fresco, which was removed in 1684, exists in a good state of + preservation at the end of the long gallery of the library. + +To the piety of his pupil Carlo Raimondi, the bearer of a name +illustrious in the annals of engraving, we owe a striking portrait of +Toschi. The master is represented on his seat upon the scaffold in the +dizzy half-light of the dome. The shadowy forms of saints and angels +are around him. He has raised his eyes from his cartoon to study one of +these. In his right hand is the opera-glass with which he scrutinises +the details of distant groups. The upturned face, with its expression +of contemplative intelligence, is like that of an astronomer accustomed +to commerce with things above the sphere of common life, and ready to +give account of all that he has gathered from his observation of a +world not ours. In truth the world created by Correggio and interpreted +by Toschi is very far removed from that of actual existence. No painter +151has infused a more distinct individuality into his work, realising +by imaginative force and powerful projection an order of beauty +peculiar to himself, before which it is impossible to remain quite +indifferent. We must either admire the manner of Correggio, or else +shrink from it with the distaste which sensual art is apt to stir in +natures of a severe or simple type. + +What, then, is the Correggiosity of Correggio? In other words, what is +the characteristic which, proceeding from the personality of the +artist, is impressed on all his work? The answer to this question, +though by no means simple, may perhaps be won by a process of gradual +analysis. The first thing that strikes us in the art of Correggio is, +that he has aimed at the realistic representation of pure unrealities. +His saints and angels are beings the like of whom we have hardly seen +upon the earth. Yet they are displayed before us with all the movement +and the vivid truth of nature. Next we feel that what constitutes the +superhuman, visionary quality of these creatures, is their uniform +beauty of a merely sensuous type. They are all created for pleasure, +not for thought or passion or activity or heroism. The uses of their +brains, their limbs, their every feature, end in enjoyment; innocent +and radiant wantonness is the condition of their whole existence. +Correggio conceived the universe under the one mood of sensuous joy: +his world was bathed in luxurious light; its inhabitants were capable +of little beyond a soft voluptuousness. Over the domain of tragedy he +had no sway, and very rarely did he attempt to enter on it: nothing, +for example, can be feebler than his endeavour to express anguish in +the distorted features of Madonna, S. John, and the Magdalen, who are +bending over the dead body of a Christ extended in the attitude of +languid repose. In like manner he could not deal with subjects which +demand a pregnancy of intellectual meaning. He paints the three Fates +like young and joyous Bacchantes, 152places rose-garlands and thyrsi in +their hands instead of the distaff and the thread of human destinies, +and they might figure appropriately upon the panels of a +banquet-chamber in Pompeii. In this respect Correggio might be termed +the Rossini of painting. The melodies of the 'Stabat Mater'—_Fac ut +portem_ or _Quis est homo_—are the exact analogues in music of +Correggio's voluptuous renderings of grave or mysterious motives. Nor, +again, did he possess that severe and lofty art of composition which +subordinates the fancy to the reason, and which seeks for the highest +intellectual beauty in a kind of architectural harmony supreme above +the melodies of gracefulness in detail. The Florentines and those who +shared their spirit—Michelangelo and Lionardo and Raphael—deriving this +principle of design from the geometrical art of the Middle Ages, +converted it to the noblest uses in their vast well-ordered +compositions. But Correggio ignored the laws of scientific +construction. It was enough for him to produce a splendid and brilliant +effect by the life and movement of his figures, and by the intoxicating +beauty of his forms. His type of beauty, too, is by no means elevated. +Lionardo painted souls whereof the features and the limbs are but an +index. The charm of Michelangelo's ideal is like a flower upon a tree +of rugged strength. Raphael aims at the loveliness which cannot be +disjoined from goodness. But Correggio is contented with bodies +'delicate and desirable.' His angels are genii disimprisoned from the +perfumed chalices of flowers, houris of an erotic paradise, elemental +spirits of nature wantoning in Eden in her prime. To accuse the painter +of conscious immorality or of what is stigmatised as sensuality, would +be as ridiculous as to class his seraphic beings among the products of +the Christian imagination. They belong to the generation of the fauns; +like fauns, they combine a certain savage wildness, a dithyrambic +ecstasy of inspiration, a delight in rapid movement 153as they revel +amid clouds or flowers, with the permanent and all-pervading sweetness +of the master's style. When infantine or childlike, these celestial +sylphs are scarcely to be distinguished for any noble quality of beauty +from Murillo's cherubs, and are far less divine than the choir of +children who attend Madonna in Titian's 'Assumption.' But in their +boyhood and their prime of youth, they acquire a fulness of sensuous +vitality and a radiance that are peculiar to Correggio. The lily-bearer +who helps to support S. Thomas beneath the dome of the cathedral at +Parma, the groups of seraphs who crowd behind the Incoronata of S. +Giovanni, and the two wild-eyed open-mouthed S. Johns stationed at each +side of the celestial throne, are among the most splendid instances of +the adolescent loveliness conceived by Correggio. Where the painter +found their models may be questioned but not answered; for he has made +them of a different fashion from the race of mortals: no court of Roman +emperor or Turkish sultan, though stocked with the flowers of Bithynian +and Circassian youth, have seen their like. Mozart's Cherubino seems to +have sat for all of them. At any rate they incarnate the very spirit of +the songs he sings. + +As a consequence of this predilection for sensuous and voluptuous +forms, Correggio had no power of imagining grandly or severely. +Satisfied with material realism in his treatment even of sublime +mysteries, he converts the hosts of heaven into a 'fricassee of frogs,' +according to the old epigram. His apostles, gazing after the Virgin who +has left the earth, are thrown into attitudes so violent and so +dramatically foreshortened, that seen from below upon the pavement of +the cathedral, little of their form is distinguishable except legs and +arms in vehement commotion. Very different is Titian's conception of +this scene. To express the spiritual meaning, the emotion of Madonna's +transit, with all the pomp which 154colour and splendid composition can +convey, is Titian's sole care; whereas Correggio appears to have been +satisfied with realising the tumult of heaven rushing to meet earth, +and earth straining upwards to ascend to heaven in violent commotion—a +very orgasm of frenetic rapture. The essence of the event is forgotten: +its external manifestation alone is presented to the eye; and only the +accessories of beardless angels and cloud-encumbered cherubs are really +beautiful amid a surge of limbs in restless movement. More dignified, +because designed with more repose, is the Apocalypse of S. John painted +upon the cupola of S. Giovanni. The apostles throned on clouds, with +which the dome is filled, gaze upward to one point. Their attitudes are +noble; their form is heroic; in their eyes there is the strange +ecstatic look by which Correggio interpreted his sense of supernatural +vision: it is a gaze not of contemplation or deep thought, but of wild +half-savage joy, as if these saints also had become the elemental genii +of cloud and air, spirits emergent from ether, the salamanders of an +empyrean intolerable to mortal sense. The point on which their eyes +converge, the culmination of their vision, is the figure of Christ. +Here all the weakness of Correggio's method is revealed. He had +undertaken to realise by no ideal allegorical suggestion, by no +symbolism of architectural grouping, but by actual prosaic measurement, +by corporeal form in subjection to the laws of perspective and +foreshortening, things which in their very essence admit of only a +figurative revelation. Therefore his Christ, the centre of all those +earnest eyes, is contracted to a shape in which humanity itself is +mean, a sprawling figure which irresistibly reminds one of a frog. The +clouds on which the saints repose are opaque and solid; cherubs in +countless multitudes, a swarm of merry children, crawl about upon these +feather-beds of vapour, creep between the legs of the apostles, and +155play at bopeep behind their shoulders. There is no propriety in +their appearance there. They take no interest in the beatific vision. +They play no part in the celestial symphony; nor are they capable of +more than merely infantine enjoyment. Correggio has sprinkled them +lavishly like living flowers about his cloudland, because he could not +sustain a grave and solemn strain of music, but was forced by his +temperament to overlay the melody with roulades. Gazing at these +frescoes, the thought came to me that Correggio was like a man +listening to sweetest flute-playing, and translating phrase after +phrase as they passed through his fancy into laughing faces, breezy +tresses, and rolling mists. Sometimes a grander cadence reached his +ear; and then S. Peter with the keys, or S. Augustine of the mighty +brow, or the inspired eyes of S. John, took form beneath his pencil. +But the light airs returned, and rose and lily faces bloomed again for +him among the clouds. It is not therefore in dignity or sublimity that +Correggio excels, but in artless grace and melodious tenderness. The +Madonna della Scala clasping her baby with a caress which the little +child returns, S. Catherine leaning in a rapture of ecstatic love to +wed the infant Christ, S. Sebastian in the bloom of almost boyish +beauty, are the so-called sacred subjects to which the painter was +adequate, and which he has treated with the voluptuous tenderness we +find in his pictures of Leda and Danae and Io. Could these saints and +martyrs descend from Correggio's canvas, and take flesh, and breathe, +and begin to live; of what high action, of what grave passion, of what +exemplary conduct in any walk of life would they be capable? That is +the question which they irresistibly suggest; and we are forced to +answer, None! The moral and religious world did not exist for +Correggio. His art was but a way of seeing carnal beauty in a dream +that had no true relation to reality. + +156Correggio's sensibility to light and colour was exactly on a par +with his feeling for form. He belongs to the poets of chiaroscuro and +the poets of colouring; but in both regions he maintains the +individuality so strongly expressed in his choice of purely sensuous +beauty. Tintoretto makes use of light and shade for investing his great +compositions with dramatic intensity. Rembrandt interprets sombre and +fantastic moods of the mind by golden gloom and silvery irradiation, +translating thought into the language of penumbral mystery. Lionardo +studies the laws of light scientifically, so that the proper roundness +and effect of distance should be accurately rendered, and all the +subtleties of nature's smiles be mimicked. Correggio is content with +fixing on his canvas the ανη΄ριθμον γέλασμα, the many-twinkling +laughter of light in motion, rained down through fleecy clouds or +trembling foliage, melting into half-shadows, bathing and illuminating +every object with a soft caress. There are no tragic contrasts of +splendour sharply defined on blackness, no mysteries of half-felt and +pervasive twilight, no studied accuracies of noonday clearness in his +work. Light and shadow are woven together on his figures like an +impalpable Coan gauze, aë;rial and transparent, enhancing the +palpitations of voluptuous movement which he loved. His colouring, in +like manner, has none of the superb and mundane pomp which the +Venetians affected; it does not glow or burn or beat the fire of gems +into our brain; joyous and wanton, it seems to be exactly such a +beauty-bloom as sense requires for its satiety. There is nothing in his +hues to provoke deep passion or to stimulate the yearnings of the soul: +the pure blushes of the dawn and the crimson pyres of sunset are +nowhere in the world that he has painted. But that chord of jocund +colour which may fitly be married to the smiles of light, the blues +which are found in laughing eyes, the pinks that tinge the 157cheeks of +early youth, and the warm yet silvery tones of healthy flesh, mingle as +in a marvellous pearl-shell on his pictures. Both chiaroscuro and +colouring have this supreme purpose in art, to effect the sense like +music, and like music to create a mood in the soul of the spectator. +Now the mood which Correggio stimulates is one of natural and +thoughtless pleasure. To feel his influence, and at the same moment to +be the subject of strong passion, or fierce lust, or heroic resolve, or +profound contemplation, or pensive melancholy, is impossible. +Wantonness, innocent because unconscious of sin, immoral because +incapable of any serious purpose, is the quality which prevails in all +that he has painted. The pantomimes of a Mohammedan paradise might be +put upon the stage after patterns supplied by this least spiritual of +painters. + +It follows from this analysis that the Correggiosity of Correggio, that +which sharply distinguished him from all previous artists, was the +faculty of painting a purely voluptuous dream of beautiful beings in +perpetual movement, beneath the laughter of morning light, in a world +of never-failing April hues. When he attempts to depart from the +fairyland of which he was the Prospero, and to match himself with the +masters of sublime thought or earnest passion, he proves his weakness. +But within his own magic circle he reigns supreme, no other artist +having blended the witcheries of colouring, chiaroscuro, and faunlike +loveliness of form into a harmony so perfect in its sensuous charm. +Bewitched by the strains of the siren, we pardon affectations of +expression, emptiness of meaning, feebleness of composition, +exaggerated and melodramatic attitudes. There is what Goethe called a +demonic influence in the art of Correggio: 'In poetry,' said Goethe to +Eckermann, 'especially in that which is unconscious, before which +reason and understanding fall short, and 158which therefore produces +effects so far surpassing all conception, there is always something +demonic.' It is not to be wondered that Correggio, possessed of this +demonic power in the highest degree, and working to a purely sensuous +end, should have exercised a fatal influence over art. His successors, +attracted by an intoxicating loveliness which they could not analyse, +which had nothing in common with the reason or the understanding, but +was like a glamour cast upon the soul in its most secret sensibilities, +threw themselves blindly into the imitation of Correggio's faults. His +affectation, his want of earnest thought, his neglect of composition, +his sensuous realism, his all-pervading sweetness, his infantine +prettiness, his substitution of thaumaturgical effects for +conscientious labour, admitted only too easy imitation, and were but +too congenial with the spirit of the late Renaissance. Cupolas through +the length and breadth of Italy began to be covered with clouds and +simpering cherubs in the convulsions of artificial ecstasy. The +attenuated elegance of Parmigiano, the attitudinising of Anselmi's +saints and angels, and a general sacrifice of what is solid and +enduring to sentimental gewgaws on the part of all painters who had +submitted to the magic of Correggio, proved how easy it was to go +astray with the great master. Meanwhile no one could approach him in +that which was truly his own—the delineation of a transient moment in +the life of sensuous beauty, the painting of a smile on Nature's face, +when light and colour tremble in harmony with the movement of joyous +living creatures. Another demonic nature of a far more powerful type +contributed his share to the ruin of art in Italy. Michelangelo's +constrained attitudes and muscular anatomy were imitated by painters +and sculptors, who thought that the grand style lay in the presentation +of theatrical athletes, but who could not seize the secret whereby the +great master made even the bodies of men 159and women—colossal trunks +and writhen limbs—interpret the meanings of his deep and melancholy +soul. + +It is a sad law of progress in art, that when the æsthetic impulse is +on the wane, artists should perforce select to follow the weakness +rather than the vigour, of their predecessors. While painting was in +the ascendant, Raphael could take the best of Perugino and discard the +worst; in its decadence Parmigiano reproduces the affectations of +Correggio, and Bernini carries the exaggerations of Michelangelo to +absurdity. All arts describe a parabola. The force which produces them +causes them to rise throughout their growth up to a certain point, and +then to descend more gradually in a long and slanting line of regular +declension. There is no real break of continuity. The end is the result +of simple exhaustion. Thus the last of our Elizabethan dramatists, +Shirley and Crowne and Killigrew, pushed to its ultimate conclusion the +principle inherent in Marlowe, not attempting to break new ground, nor +imitating the excellences so much as the defects of their forerunners. +Thus too the Pointed style of architecture in England gave birth first +to what is called the Decorated, next to the Perpendicular, and finally +expired in the Tudor. Each step was a step of progress—at first for the +better—at last for the worse—but logical, continuous, necessitated.[25] + + [25] See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of Greek Poets_, + First Series, for a further development of this view of artistic + evolution. + +It is difficult to leave Correggio without at least posing the question +of the difference between moralised and merely sensual art. Is all art +excellent in itself and good in its effect that is beautiful and +earnest? There is no doubt that Correggio's work is in a way most +beautiful; and it bears unmistakable signs of the master having given +himself with single-hearted devotion to the expression of that phase of +160loveliness which he could apprehend. In so far we must admit that +his art is both excellent and solid. Yet we are unable to conceive that +any human being could be made better—stronger for endurance, more +fitted for the uses of the world, more sensitive to what is noble in +nature—by its contemplation. At the best Correggio does but please us +in our lighter moments, and we are apt to feel that the pleasure he has +given is of an enervating kind. To expect obvious morality of any +artist is confessedly absurd. It is not the artist's province to +preach, or even to teach, except by remote suggestion. Yet the mind of +the artist may be highly moralised, and then he takes rank not merely +with the ministers to refined pleasure, but also with the educators of +the world. He may, for example, be penetrated with a just sense of +humanity like Shakspere, or with a sublime temperance like Sophocles, +instinct with prophetic intuition like Michelangelo, or with passionate +experience like Beethoven. The mere sight of the work of Pheidias is +like breathing pure health-giving air. Milton and Dante were steeped in +religious patriotism; Goethe was pervaded with philosophy, and Balzac +with scientific curiosity. Ariosto, Cervantes, and even Boccaccio are +masters in the mysteries of common life. In all these cases the tone of +the artist's mind is felt throughout his work: what he paints, or +sings, or writes, conveys a lesson while it pleases. On the other hand, +depravity in an artist or a poet percolates through work which has in +it nothing positive of evil, and a very miasma of poisonous influence +may rise from the apparently innocuous creations of a tainted soul. Now +Correggio is moralised in neither way—neither as a good nor as a bad +man, neither as an acute thinker nor as a deliberate voluptuary. He is +simply sensuous. On his own ground he is even very fresh and healthy: +his delineation of youthful 161maternity, for example, is as true as it +is beautiful; and his sympathy with the gleefulness of children is +devoid of affectation. We have then only to ask ourselves whether the +defect in him of all thought and feeling which is not at once capable +of graceful fleshly incarnation, be sufficient to lower him in the +scale of artists. This question must of course be answered according to +our definition of the purposes of art. There is no doubt that the most +highly organised art—that which absorbs the most numerous human +qualities and effects a harmony between the most complex elements—is +the noblest. Therefore the artist who combines moral elevation and +power of thought with a due appreciation of sensual beauty, is more +elevated and more beneficial than one whose domain is simply that of +carnal loveliness. Correggio, if this be so, must take a comparatively +low rank. Just as we welcome the beautiful athlete for the radiant life +that is in him, but bow before the personality of Sophocles, whose +perfect form enshrined a noble and highly educated soul, so we +gratefully accept Correggio for his grace, while we approach the +consummate art of Michelangelo with reverent awe. It is necessary in +æsthetics as elsewhere to recognise a hierarchy of excellence, the +grades of which are determined by the greater or less comprehensiveness +of the artist's nature expressed in his work. At the same time, the +calibre of the artist's genius must be estimated; for eminent greatness +even of a narrow kind will always command our admiration: and the +amount of his originality has also to be taken into account. What is +unique has, for that reason alone, a claim on our consideration. Judged +in this way, Correggio deserves a place, say, in the sweet planet +Venus, above the moon and above Mercury, among the artists who have not +advanced beyond the contemplations which find their proper outcome in +love. Yet, 162even thus, he aids the culture of humanity. 'We should +take care,' said Goethe, apropos of Byron, to Eckermann, 'not to be +always looking for culture in the decidedly pure and moral. Everything +that is great promotes cultivation as soon as we are aware of it.' + +163 + + + + +CANOSSA + + +Italy is less the land of what is venerable in antiquity, than of +beauty, by divine right young eternally in spite of age. This is due +partly to her history and art and literature, partly to the temper of +the races who have made her what she is, and partly to her natural +advantages. Her oldest architectural remains, the temples of Paestum +and Girgenti, or the gates of Perugia and Volterra, are so adapted to +Italian landscape and so graceful in their massive strength, that we +forget the centuries which have passed over them. We leap as by a +single bound from the times of Roman greatness to the new birth of +humanity in the fourteenth century, forgetting the many years during +which Italy, like the rest of Europe, was buried in what our ancestors +called Gothic barbarism. The illumination cast upon the classic period +by the literature of Rome and by the memory of her great men is so +vivid, that we feel the days of the Republic and the Empire to be near +us; while the Italian Renaissance is so truly a revival of that former +splendour, a resumption of the music interrupted for a season, that it +is extremely difficult to form any conception of the five long +centuries which elapsed between the Lombard invasion in 568 and the +accession of Hildebrand to the Pontificate in 1073. So true is it that +nothing lives and has reality for us but what is spiritual, +intellectual, self-possessed in personality and consciousness. When the +Egyptian priest said to Solon, 'You Greeks are always children,' he +intended a gentle sarcasm, but he implied a compliment; for the +164quality of imperishable youth belonged to the Hellenic spirit, and +has become the heritage of every race which partook of it. And this +spirit in no common degree has been shared by the Italians of the +earlier and the later classic epoch. The land is full of monuments +pertaining to those two brilliant periods; and whenever the voice of +poet has spoken or the hand of artist has been at work, that spirit, as +distinguished from the spirit of mediaevalism, has found expression. + +Yet it must be remembered that during the five centuries above +mentioned Italy was given over to Lombards, Franks, and Germans. Feudal +institutions, alien to the social and political ideals of the classic +world, took a tolerably firm hold on the country. The Latin element +remained silent, passive, in abeyance, undergoing an important +transformation. It was in the course of those five hundred years that +the Italians as a modern people, separable from their Roman ancestors, +were formed. At the close of this obscure passage in Italian history, +their communes, the foundation of Italy's future independence, and the +source of her peculiar national development, appeared in all the vigour +and audacity of youth. At its close the Italian genius presented Europe +with its greatest triumph of constructive ability, the Papacy. At its +close again the series of supreme artistic achievements, starting with +the architecture of churches and public palaces, passing on to +sculpture and painting, and culminating in music, which only ended with +the temporary extinction of national vitality in the seventeenth +century, was simultaneously begun in all the provinces of the +peninsula. + +So important were these five centuries of incubation for Italy, and so +little is there left of them to arrest the attention of the student, +dazzled as he is by the ever-living glories of Greece, Rome, and the +Renaissance, that a visit to the ruins of Canossa is almost a duty. +There, in spite of himself, by 165the very isolation and forlorn +abandonment of what was once so formidable a seat of feudal despotism +and ecclesiastical tyranny, he is forced to confront the obscure but +mighty spirit of the middle ages. There, if anywhere, the men of those +iron-hearted times anterior to the Crusades will acquire distinctness +for his imagination, when he recalls the three main actors in the drama +enacted on the summit of Canossa's rock in the bitter winter of 1077. + +Canossa lies almost due south of Reggio d'Emilia, upon the slopes of +the Apennines. Starting from Reggio, the carriage-road keeps to the +plain for some while in a westerly direction, and then bends away +towards the mountains. As we approach their spurs, the ground begins to +rise. The rich Lombard tilth of maize and vine gives place to +English-looking hedgerows, lined with oaks, and studded with handsome +dark tufts of green hellebore. The hills descend in melancholy +earth-heaps on the plain, crowned here and there with ruined castles. +Four of these mediaeval strongholds, called Bianello, Montevetro, +Monteluzzo, and Montezano, give the name of Quattro Castelli to the +commune. The most important of them, Bianello, which, next to Canossa, +was the strongest fortress possessed by the Countess Matilda and her +ancestors, still presents a considerable mass of masonry, roofed and +habitable. The group formed a kind of advance-guard for Canossa against +attack from Lombardy. After passing Quattro Castelli we enter the +hills, climbing gently upwards between barren slopes of ashy grey +earth—the _débris_ of most ancient Apennines—crested at favourable +points with lonely towers. In truth the whole country bristles with +ruined forts, making it clear that during the middle ages Canossa was +but the centre of a great military system, the core and kernel of a +fortified position which covered an area to be measured by scores of +square miles, 166reaching far into the mountains, and buttressed on the +plain. As yet, however, after nearly two hours' driving, Canossa has +not come in sight. At last a turn in the road discloses an opening in +the valley of the Enza to the left: up this lateral gorge we see first +the Castle of Rossena on its knoll of solid red rock, flaming in the +sunlight; and then, further withdrawn, detached from all surrounding +objects, and reared aloft as though to sweep the sea of waved and +broken hills around it, a sharp horn of hard white stone. That is +Canossa—the _alba Canossa_, the _candida petra_ of its rhyming +chronicler. There is no mistaking the commanding value of its +situation. At the same time the brilliant whiteness of Canossa's rocky +hill, contrasted with the red gleam of Rossena, and outlined against +the prevailing dulness of these earthy Apennines, secures a picturesque +individuality concordant with its unique history and unrivalled +strength. + +There is still a journey of two hours before the castle can be reached: +and this may be performed on foot or horseback. The path winds upward +over broken ground; following the _arête_ of curiously jumbled and +thwarted hill-slopes; passing beneath the battlements of Rossena, +whence the unfortunate Everelina threw herself in order to escape the +savage love of her lord and jailor; and then skirting those horrid +earthen _balze_ which are so common and so unattractive a feature of +Apennine scenery. The most hideous _balze_ to be found in the length +and breadth of Italy are probably those of Volterra, from which the +citizens themselves recoil with a kind of terror, and which lure +melancholy men by intolerable fascination on to suicide. For ever +crumbling, altering with frost and rain, discharging gloomy glaciers of +slow-crawling mud, and scarring the hillside with tracts of barrenness, +these earth-precipices are among the most ruinous and discomfortable +failures of nature. They have not even so much of 167wildness or +grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful things in +the world, and can only be classed with the desolate _ghiare_ of +Italian river-beds. + +Such as they are, these _balze_ form an appropriate preface to the +gloomy and repellent isolation of Canossa. The rock towers from a +narrow platform to the height of rather more than 160 feet from its +base. The top is fairly level, forming an irregular triangle, of which +the greatest length is about 260 feet, and the width about 100 feet. +Scarcely a vestige of any building can be traced either upon the +platform or the summit, with the exception of a broken wall and windows +supposed to belong to the end of the sixteenth century. The ancient +castle, with its triple circuit of walls, enclosing barracks for the +garrison, lodgings for the lord and his retainers, a stately church, a +sumptuous monastery, storehouses, stables, workshops, and all the +various buildings of a fortified stronghold, have utterly disappeared. +The very passage of approach cannot be ascertained; for it is doubtful +whether the present irregular path that scales the western face of the +rock be really the remains of some old staircase, corresponding to that +by which Mont S. Michel in Normandy is ascended. One thing is tolerably +certain—that the three walls of which we hear so much from the +chroniclers, and which played so picturesque a part in the drama of +Henry IV.'s penance, surrounded the cliff at its base, and embraced a +large acreage of ground. The citadel itself must have been but the +acropolis or keep of an extensive fortress. + +There has been plenty of time since the year 1255, when the people of +Reggio sacked and destroyed Canossa, for Nature to resume her +undisputed sway by obliterating the handiwork of men; and at present +Nature forms the chief charm of Canossa. Lying one afternoon of May on +the crisp short grass at the edge of a precipice purple with iris in +full 168blossom, I surveyed, from what were once the battlements of +Matilda's castle, a prospect than which there is none more +spirit-stirring by reason of its beauty and its manifold associations +in Europe. The lower castle-crowded hills have sunk. Reggio lies at our +feet, shut in between the crests of Monte Carboniano and Monte delle +Celle. Beyond Reggio stretches Lombardy—the fairest and most memorable +battlefield of nations, the richest and most highly cultivated garden +of civilised industry. Nearly all the Lombard cities may be seen, some +of them faint like bluish films of vapour, some clear with dome and +spire. There is Modena and her Ghirlandina. Carpi, Parma, Mirandola, +Verona, Mantua, lie well defined and russet on the flat green map; and +there flashes a bend of lordly Po; and there the Euganeans rise like +islands, telling us where Padua and Ferrara nestle in the amethystine +haze Beyond and above all to the northward sweep the Alps, tossing +their silvery crests up into the cloudless sky from the violet mist +that girds their flanks and drowns their basements. Monte Adamello and +the Ortler, the cleft of the Brenner, and the sharp peaks of the +Venetian Alps are all distinctly visible. An eagle flying straight from +our eyrie might traverse Lombardy and light among the snow-fields of +the Valtelline between sunrise and sundown. Nor is the prospect tame to +southward. Here the Apennines roll, billow above billow, in majestic +desolation, soaring to snow summits in the Pellegrino region. As our +eye attempts to thread that labyrinth of hill and vale, we tell +ourselves that those roads wind to Tuscany, and yonder stretches +Garfagnana, where Ariosto lived and mused in honourable exile from the +world he loved. + +It was by one of the mountain passes that lead from Lucca northward +that the first founder of Canossa is said to have travelled early in +the tenth century. Sigifredo, if the tradition may be trusted, was very +wealthy; and with his money he 169bought lands and signorial rights at +Reggio, bequeathing to his children, when he died about 945, a +patrimony which they developed into a petty kingdom. Azzo, his second +son, fortified Canossa, and made it his principal place of residence. +When Lothair, King of Italy, died in 950, leaving his beautiful widow +to the ill-treatment of his successor, Berenger, Adelaide found a +protector in this Azzo. She had been imprisoned on the Lake of Garda; +but managing to escape in man's clothes to Mantua, she thence sent news +of her misfortunes to Canossa. Azzo lost no time in riding with his +knights to her relief, and brought her back in safety to his mountain +fastness. It is related that Azzo was afterwards instrumental in +calling Otho into Italy and procuring his marriage with Adelaide, in +consequence of which events Italy became a fief of the Empire. Owing to +the part he played at this time, the Lord of Canossa was recognised as +one of the most powerful vassals of the German Emperor in Lombardy. +Honours were heaped upon him; and he grew so rich and formidable that +Berenger, the titular King of Italy, laid siege to his fortress of +Canossa. The memory of this siege, which lasted for three years and a +half, is said still to linger in the popular traditions of the place. +When Azzo died at the end of the tenth century, he left to his son +Tedaldo the title of Count of Reggio and Modena; and this title was +soon after raised to that of Marquis. The Marches governed as Vicar of +the Empire by Tedaldo included Reggio, Modena, Ferrara, Brescia, and +probably Mantua. They stretched, in fact, across the north of Italy, +forming a quadrilateral between the Alps and Apennines. Like his +father, Tedaldo adhered consistently to the Imperial party; and when he +died and was buried at Canossa, he in his turn bequeathed to his son +Bonifazio a power and jurisdiction increased by his own abilities. +Bonifazio held the state of a sovereign at Canossa, adding the duchy of +Tuscany to his 170father's fiefs, and meeting the allied forces of the +Lombard barons in the field of Coviolo like an independent potentate. +His power and splendour were great enough to rouse the jealousy of the +Emperor; but Henry III. seems to have thought it more prudent to +propitiate this proud vassal, and to secure his kindness, than to +attempt his humiliation. Bonifazio married Beatrice, daughter of +Frederick, Duke of Lorraine—her whose marble sarcophagus in the Campo +Santo at Pisa is said to have inspired Niccola Pisano with his new +style of sculpture. Their only child, Matilda, was born, probably at +Lucca, in 1046; and six years after her birth, Bonifazio, who had +swayed his subjects like an iron-handed tyrant, was murdered. To the +great House of Canossa, the rulers of one-third of Italy, there now +remained only two women, Bonifazio's widow Beatrice, and his daughter +Matilda. Beatrice married Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, who was recognised +by Henry IV. as her husband and as feudatory of the Empire in the full +place of Boniface. He died about 1070; and in this year Matilda was +married by proxy to his son, Godfrey the Hunchback, whom, however, she +did not see till the year 1072. The marriage was not a happy one; and +the question has even been disputed among Matilda's biographers whether +it was ever consummated. At any rate it did not last long; for Godfrey +was killed at Antwerp in 1076. In this year Matilda also lost her +mother, Beatrice, who died at Pisa, and was buried in the cathedral. + +By this rapid enumeration of events it will be seen how the power and +honours of the House of Canossa, including Tuscany, Spoleto, and the +fairest portions of Lombardy, had devolved upon a single woman of the +age of thirty at the moment when the fierce quarrel between Pope and +Emperor began in the year 1076. Matilda was destined to play a great, a +striking, and a tragic part in the opening drama of Italian 171history. +Her decided character and uncompromising course of action have won for +her the name of 'la gran donna d'Italia,' and have caused her memory to +be blessed or execrated, according as the temporal pretensions and +spiritual tyranny of the Papacy may have found supporters or opponents +in posterity. She was reared from childhood in habits of austerity and +unquestioning piety. Submission to the Church became for her not merely +a rule of conduct, but a passionate enthusiasm. She identified herself +with the cause of four successive Popes, protected her idol, the +terrible and iron-hearted Hildebrand, in the time of his adversity; +remained faithful to his principles after his death; and having served +the Holy See with all her force and all that she possessed through all +her lifetime, she bequeathed her vast dominions to it on her deathbed. +Like some of the greatest mediaeval characters—like Hildebrand +himself—Matilda was so thoroughly of one piece, that she towers above +the mists of ages with the massive grandeur of an incarnated idea. She +is for us the living statue of a single thought, an undivided impulse, +the more than woman born to represent her age. Nor was it without +reason that Dante symbolised in her the love of Holy Church; though +students of the 'Purgatory' will hardly recognise the lovely maiden, +singing and plucking flowers beside the stream of Lethe, in the stern +and warlike chatelaine of Canossa. Unfortunately we know but little of +Matilda's personal appearance. Her health was not strong; and it is +said to have been weakened, especially in her last illness, by ascetic +observances. Yet she headed her own troops, armed with sword and +cuirass, avoiding neither peril nor fatigue in the quarrels of her +master Gregory. Up to the year 1622 two strong suits of mail were +preserved at Quattro Castelli, which were said to have been worn by her +in battle, and which were afterwards sold on the market-place at +Reggio. This habit of 172donning armour does not, however, prove that +Matilda was exceptionally vigorous; for in those savage times she could +hardly have played the part of heroine without participating personally +in the dangers of warfare. + +No less monumental in the plastic unity of his character was the monk +Hildebrand, who for twenty years before his elevation to the Papacy had +been the maker of Popes and the creator of the policy of Rome. When he +was himself elected in the year 1073, and had assumed the name of +Gregory VII., he immediately began to put in practice the plans for +Church aggrandisement he had slowly matured during the previous quarter +of a century. To free the Church from its subservience to the Empire, +to assert the Pope's right to ratify the election of the Emperor and to +exercise the right of jurisdiction over him, to place ecclesiastical +appointments in the sole power of the Roman See, and to render the +celibacy of the clergy obligatory, were the points he had resolved to +carry. Taken singly and together, these chief aims of Hildebrand's +policy had but one object—the magnification of the Church at the +expense both of the people and of secular authorities, and the further +separation of the Church from the ties and sympathies of common life +that bound it to humanity. To accuse Hildebrand of personal ambition +would be but shallow criticism, though it is clear that his inflexible +and puissant nature found a savage selfish pleasure in trampling upon +power and humbling pride at warfare with his own. Yet his was in no +sense an egotistic purpose like that which moved the Popes of the +Renaissance to dismember Italy for their bastards. Hildebrand, like +Matilda, was himself the creature of a great idea. These two potent +personalities completely understood each other, and worked towards a +single end. Tho mythopoeic fancy might conceive of them as the male and +female manifestations of one dominant faculty, the spirit of +ecclesiastical 173dominion incarnate in a man and woman of almost +super-human mould. + +Opposed to them, as the third actor in the drama of Canossa, was a man +of feebler mould. Henry IV., King of Italy, but not yet crowned +Emperor, had none of his opponents' unity of purpose or monumental +dignity of character. At war with his German feudatories, browbeaten by +rebellious sons, unfaithful and cruel to his wife, vacillating in the +measures he adopted to meet his divers difficulties, at one time +tormented by his conscience into cowardly submission, and at another +treasonably neglectful of the most solemn obligations, Henry was no +match for the stern wills against which he was destined to break in +unavailing passion. Early disagreements with Gregory had culminated in +his excommunication. The German nobles abandoned his cause; and Henry +found it expedient to summon a council in Augsburg for the settlement +of matters in dispute between the Empire and the Papacy. Gregory +expressed his willingness to attend this council, and set forth from +Rome accompanied by the Countess Matilda in December 1076. He did not, +however, travel further than Vercelli, for news here reached him that +Henry was about to enter Italy at the head of a powerful army. Matilda +hereupon persuaded the Holy Father to place himself in safety among her +strongholds of Canossa. Thither accordingly Gregory retired before the +ending of that year; and bitter were the sarcasms uttered by the +imperial partisans in Italy upon this protection offered by a fair +countess to the monk who had been made a Pope. The foul calumnies of +that bygone age would be unworthy of even so much as this notice, if we +did not trace in them the ineradicable Italian tendency to cynical +insinuation—a tendency which has involved the history of the +Renaissance Popes in an almost impenetrable mist of lies and +exaggerations. 173Henry was in truth upon his road to Italy, but with a +very different attendance from that which Gregory expected. Accompanied +by Bertha, his wife, and his boy son Conrad, the Emperor elect left +Spires in the condition of a fugitive, crossed Burgundy, spent +Christmas at Besançon, and journeyed to the foot of Mont Cenis. It is +said that he was followed by a single male servant of mean birth; and +if the tale of his adventures during the passage of the Alps can be +credited, history presents fewer spectacles more picturesque than the +straits to which this representative of the Cæsars, this supreme chief +of feudal civility, this ruler destined still to be the leader of +mighty armies and the father of a line of monarchs, was exposed. +Concealing his real name and state, he induced some shepherds to lead +him and his escort through the thick snows to the summit of Mont Cenis; +and by the help of these men the imperial party were afterwards let +down the snow-slopes on the further side by means of ropes. Bertha and +her women were sewn up in hides and dragged across the frozen surface +of the winter drifts. It was a year memorable for its severity. Heavy +snow had fallen in October, which continued ice-bound and unyielding +till the following April. + +No sooner had Henry reached Turin, than he set forward again in the +direction of Canossa. The fame of his arrival had preceded him, and he +found that his party was far stronger in Italy than he had ventured to +expect. Proximity to the Church of Rome divests its fulminations of +half their terrors. The Italian bishops and barons, less superstitious +than the Germans, and with greater reason to resent the domineering +graspingness of Gregory, were ready to espouse the Emperor's cause. +Henry gathered a formidable force as he marched onward across Lombardy; +and some of the most illustrious prelates and nobles of the South were +in his suite. 175A more determined leader than Henry proved himself to +be, might possibly have forced Gregory to some accommodation, in spite +of the strength of Canossa and the Pope's invincible obstinacy, by +proper use of these supporters. Meanwhile the adherents of the Church +were mustered in Matilda's fortress; among whom may be mentioned Azzo, +the progenitor of Este and Brunswick; Hugh, Abbot of Clugny; and the +princely family of Piedmont. 'I am become a second Rome,' exclaims +Canossa, in the language of Matilda's rhyming chronicler; 'all honours +are mine; I hold at once both Pope and King, the princes of Italy and +those of Gaul, those of Rome, and those from far beyond the Alps.' The +stage was ready; the audience had assembled; and now the three great +actors were about to meet. Immediately upon his arrival at Canossa, +Henry sent for his cousin, the Countess Matilda, and besought her to +intercede for him with Gregory. He was prepared to make any concessions +or to undergo any humiliations, if only the ban of excommunication +might be removed; nor, cowed as he was by his own superstitious +conscience, and by the memory of the opposition he had met with from +his German vassals, does he seem to have once thought of meeting force +with force, and of returning to his northern kingdom triumphant in the +overthrow of Gregory's pride. Matilda undertook to plead his cause +before the Pontiff. But Gregory was not to be moved so soon to mercy. +'If Henry has in truth repented,' he replied, 'let him lay down crown +and sceptre, and declare himself unworthy of the name of king.' The +only point conceded to the suppliant was that he should be admitted in +the garb of a penitent within the precincts of the castle. Leaving his +retinue outside the walls, Henry entered the first series of outworks, +and was thence conducted to the second, so that between him and the +citadel itself there still remained the third of the surrounding +bastions. Here he was bidden to 176wait the Pope's pleasure; and here, +in the midst of that bitter winter weather, while the fierce winds of +the Apennines were sweeping sleet upon him in their passage from Monte +Pellegrino to the plain, he knelt barefoot, clothed in sackcloth, +fasting from dawn till eve, for three whole days. On the morning of the +fourth day, judging that Gregory was inexorable, and that his suit +would not be granted, Henry retired to the Chapel of S. Nicholas, which +stood within this second precinct. There he called to his aid the Abbot +of Clugny and the Countess, both of whom were his relations, and who, +much as they might sympathise with Gregory, could hardly be supposed to +look with satisfaction on their royal kinsman's outrage. The Abbot told +Henry that nothing in the world could move the Pope; but Matilda, when +in turn he fell before her knees and wept, engaged to do for him the +utmost. She probably knew that the moment for unbending had arrived, +and that her imperious guest could not with either decency or prudence +prolong the outrage offered to the civil chief of Christendom. It was +the 25th of January when the Emperor elect was brought, half dead with +cold and misery, into the Pope's presence. There he prostrated himself +in the dust, crying aloud for pardon. It is said that Gregory first +placed his foot upon Henry's neck, uttering these words of Scripture: +'Super aspidem et basiliscum ambulabis, et conculcabis leonem et +draconem,' and that then he raised him from the earth and formally +pronounced his pardon. The prelates and nobles who took part in this +scene were compelled to guarantee with their own oaths the vows of +obedience pronounced by Henry; so that in the very act of +reconciliation a new insult was offered to him. After this Gregory said +mass, and permitted Henry to communicate; and at the close of the day a +banquet was served, at which the King sat down to meat with the Pope +and the Countess. + +177It is probable that, while Henry's penance was performed in the +castle courts beneath the rock, his reception by the Pope, and all that +subsequently happened, took place in the citadel itself. But of this we +have no positive information. Indeed the silence of the chronicles as +to the topography of Canossa is peculiarly unfortunate for lovers of +the picturesque in historic detail, now that there is no possibility of +tracing the outlines of the ancient building. Had the author of the +'Vita Mathildis' (Muratori, vol. v.) foreseen that his beloved Canossa +would one day be nothing but a mass of native rock, he would +undoubtedly have been more explicit on these points; and much that is +vague about an event only paralleled by our Henry II.'s penance before +Becket's shrine at Canterbury, might now be clear. + +Very little remains to be told about Canossa. During the same year, +1077, Matilda made the celebrated donation of her fiefs to Holy Church. +This was accepted by Gregory in the name of S. Peter, and it was +confirmed by a second deed during the pontificate of Urban IV. in 1102. +Though Matilda subsequently married Guelfo d'Este, son of the Duke of +Bavaria, she was speedily divorced from him; nor was there any heir to +a marriage ridiculous by reason of disparity of age, the bridegroom +being but eighteen, while the bride was forty-three in the year of her +second nuptials. During one of Henry's descents into Italy, he made an +unsuccessful attack upon Canossa, assailing it at the head of a +considerable force one October morning in 1092. Matilda's biographer +informs us that the mists of autumn veiled his beloved fortress from +the eyes of the beleaguerers. They had not even the satisfaction of +beholding the unvanquished citadel; and, what was more, the banner of +the Emperor was seized and dedicated as a trophy in the Church of S. +Apollonio. In the following year the Countess opened her gates of +Canossa to an illustrious 178fugitive, Adelaide, the wife of her old +foeman, Henry, who had escaped with difficulty from the insults and the +cruelty of her husband. After Henry's death, his son, the Emperor Henry +V., paid Matilda a visit in her castle of Bianello, addressed her by +the name of mother, and conferred upon her the vice-regency of Liguria. +At the age of sixty-nine she died, in 1115, at Bondeno de' Roncori, and +was buried, not among her kinsmen at Canossa, but in an abbey of S. +Benedict near Mantua. With her expired the main line of the noble house +she represented; though Canossa, now made a fief of the Empire in spite +of Matilda's donation, was given to a family which claimed descent from +Bonifazio's brother Conrad—a young man killed in the battle of Coviolo. +This family, in its turn, was extinguished in the year 1570; but a +junior branch still exists at Verona. It will be remembered that +Michelangelo Buonarroti claimed kinship with the Count of Canossa; and +a letter from the Count is extant acknowledging the validity of his +pretension. + +As far back as 1255 the people of Reggio destroyed the castle; nor did +the nobles of Canossa distinguish themselves in subsequent history +among those families who based their despotisms on the _débris_ of the +Imperial power in Lombardy. It seemed destined that Canossa and all +belonging to it should remain as a mere name and memory of the outgrown +middle ages. Estensi, Carraresi, Visconti, Bentivogli, and Gonzaghi +belong to a later period of Lombard history, and mark the dawn of the +Renaissance. + +As I lay and mused that afternoon of May upon the short grass, cropped +by two grey goats, whom a little boy was tending, it occurred to me to +ask the woman who had served me as guide, whether any legend remained +in the country concerning the Countess Matilda. She had often, +probably, been asked this question by other travellers. Therefore she +179was more than usually ready with an answer, which, as far as I could +understand her dialect, was this. Matilda was a great and potent witch, +whose summons the devil was bound to obey. One day she aspired, alone +of all her sex, to say mass; but when the moment came for sacring the +elements, a thunderbolt fell from the clear sky, and reduced her to +ashes.[26] That the most single-hearted handmaid of the Holy Church, +whose life was one long devotion to its ordinances, should survive in +this grotesque myth, might serve to point a satire upon the vanity of +earthly fame. The legend in its very extravagance is a fanciful +distortion of the truth. + + [26] I find that this story is common in the country round Canossa. It + is mentioned by Professor A. Ferretti in his monograph entitled + _Canossa, Studi e Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am + indebted, and which will repay careful study. + +180 + + + + +FORNOVO + + +In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor +of this grey-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the +palace of the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in it +now that only vague memory survives of its former uses. The princely +_sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of these unfinished +courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendour of their purfled silks +and the glitter of their torchlight pageantry, has yielded to sullen +cynicism—the cynicism of arrested ruin and unreverend age. All that was +satisfying to the senses and distracting to the eyesight in their +transitory pomp has passed away, leaving a sinister and naked shell. +Remembrance can but summon up the crimes, the madness, the trivialities +of those dead palace-builders. An atmosphere of evil clings to the +dilapidated walls, as though the tainted spirit of the infamous Pier +Luigi still possessed the spot, on which his toadstool brood of +princelings sprouted in the mud of their misdeeds. Enclosed in this +huge labyrinth of brickwork is the relic of which I spoke. It is the +once world-famous Teatro Farnese, raised in the year 1618 by Ranunzio +Farnese for the marriage of Odoardo Farnese with Margaret of Austria. +Giambattista Aleotti, a native of pageant-loving Ferrara, traced the +stately curves and noble orders of 181the galleries, designed the +columns that support the raftered roof, marked out the orchestra, +arranged the stage, and breathed into the whole the spirit of +Palladio's most heroic neo-Latin style. Vast, built of wood, +dishevelled, with broken statues and blurred coats of arms, with its +empty scene, its uncurling frescoes, its hangings all in rags, its +cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and mildew and discoloured gold—this +theatre, a sham in its best days, and now that ugliest of things, a +sham unmasked and naked to the light of day, is yet sublime, because of +its proportioned harmony, because of its grand Roman manner. The sight +and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and abide in the memory like a +nightmare,—like one of Piranesi's weirdest and most passion-haunted +etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there at noon in the twilight of the +dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers of those high galleries with +ladies, the space below with grooms and pages; the stage is ablaze with +torches, and an Italian Masque, such as our Marlowe dreamed of, fills +the scene. But it is impossible to dower these fancies with even such +life as in healthier, happier ruins phantasy may lend to imagination's +figments. This theatre is like a maniac's skull, empty of all but +unrealities and mockeries of things that are. The ghosts we raise here +could never have been living men and women: _questi sciaurati non fur +mai vivi._ So clinging is the sense of instability that appertains to +every fragment of that dry-rot tyranny which seized by evil fortune in +the sunset of her golden day on Italy. + +In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a symbol +of those hollow principalities which the despot and the stranger built +in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national enthusiasm and +political energy 182were expiring in a blaze of art, and when the +Italians as a people had ceased to be; but when the phantom of their +former life, surviving in high works of beauty, was still superb by +reason of imperishable style! How much in Italy of the Renaissance was, +like this plank-built plastered theatre, a glorious sham! The sham was +seen through then; and now it stands unmasked: and yet, strange to say, +so perfect is its form that we respect the sham and yield our spirits +to the incantation of its music. + +The battle of Fornovo, as modern battles go, was a paltry affair; and +even at the time it seemed sufficiently without result. Yet the +trumpets which rang on July 6, 1495, for the onset, sounded the +_réveil_ of the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of +the struggle of that day, the Italians were already judged and +sentenced as a nation. The armies who met that morning represented +Italy and France,—Italy, the Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl of +Revolution. At the fall of evening Europe was already looking +northward; and the last years of the fifteenth century were opening an +act which closed in blood at Paris on the ending of the eighteenth. + +If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village +of Fornovo—a score of bare grey hovels on the margin of a pebbly +river-bed beneath the Apennines. The fields on either side, as far as +eye can see, are beautiful indeed in May sunlight, painted here with +flax, like shallow sheets of water reflecting a pale sky, and there +with clover red as blood. Scarce unfolded leaves sparkle like flamelets +of bright green upon the knotted vines, and the young corn is bending +all one way beneath a western breeze. But not less beautiful than this +is the whole broad plain of Lombardy; nor are the nightingales louder +here than in the acacia trees around Pavia. As we drive, the fields +become less fertile, and the hills 183encroach upon the level, sending +down their spurs upon that waveless plain like blunt rocks jutting out +into a tranquil sea. When we reach the bed of the Taro, these hills +begin to narrow on either hand, and the road rises. Soon they open out +again with gradual curving lines, forming a kind of amphitheatre filled +up from flank to flank with the _ghiara_ or pebbly bottom of the Taro. +The Taro is not less wasteful than any other of the brotherhood of +streams that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the Po. It wanders, an +impatient rivulet, through a wilderness of boulders, uncertain of its +aim, shifting its course with the season of the year, unless the jaws +of some deep-cloven gully hold it tight and show how insignificant it +is. As we advance, the hills approach again; between their skirts there +is nothing but the river-bed; and now on rising ground above the +stream, at the point of juncture between the Ceno and the Taro, we find +Fornovo. Beyond the village the valley broadens out once more, +disclosing Apennines capped with winter snow. To the right descends the +Ceno. To the left foams the Taro, following whose rocky channel we +should come at last to Pontremoli and the Tyrrhenian sea beside +Sarzana. On a May-day of sunshine like the present, the Taro is a +gentle stream. A waggon drawn by two white oxen has just entered its +channel, guided by a contadino with goat-skin leggings, wielding a long +goad. The patient creatures stem the water, which rises to the +peasant's thighs and ripples round the creaking wheels. Swaying to and +fro, as the shingles shift upon the river-bed, they make their way +across; and now they have emerged upon the stones; and now we lose them +in a flood of sunlight. + +It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and crush +him in the mousetrap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles and his +troops but 184the rocky bed of the Taro, running, as I have described +it, between the spurs of steep hills. It is true that the valley of the +Baganza leads, from a little higher up among the mountains, into +Lombardy. But this pass runs straight to Parma; and to follow it would +have brought the French upon the walls of a strong city. Charles could +not do otherwise than descend upon the village of Fornovo, and cut his +way thence in the teeth of the Italian army over stream and boulder +between the gorges of throttling mountain. The failure of the Italians +to achieve what here upon the ground appears so simple, delivered Italy +hand-bound to strangers. Had they but succeeded in arresting Charles +and destroying his forces at Fornovo, it is just possible that +then—even then, at the eleventh hour—Italy might have gained the sense +of national coherence, or at least have proved herself capable of +holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. As it was, the battle of +Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and Mantuan Madonnas of Victory, +made her conscious of incompetence and convicted her of cowardice. +After Fornovo, her sons scarcely dared to hold their heads up in the +field against invaders; and the battles fought upon her soil were duels +among aliens for the prize of Italy. + +In order to comprehend the battle of Fornovo in its bearings on Italian +history, we must go back to the year 1492, and understand the +conditions of the various States of Italy at that date. On April 8 in +that year, Lorenzo de' Medici, who had succeeded in maintaining a +political equilibrium in the peninsula, expired, and was succeeded by +his son Piero, a vain and foolhardy young man, from whom no guidance +could be expected. On July 25, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded +by the very worst Pope who has ever occupied S. Peter's chair, Roderigo +Borgia, Alexander VI. It was felt at once that the old order of things +had somehow ended, and that a new era, 185the destinies of which as yet +remained incalculable, was opening for Italy. The chief Italian powers, +hitherto kept in equipoise by the diplomacy of Lorenzo de' Medici, were +these—the Duchy of Milan, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of +Florence, the Papacy, and the kingdom of Naples. Minor States, such as +the Republics of Genoa and Siena, the Duchies of Urbino and Ferrara, +the Marquisate of Mantua, the petty tyrannies of Romagna, and the +wealthy city of Bologna, were sufficiently important to affect the +balance of power, and to produce new combinations. For the present +purpose it is, however, enough to consider the five great Powers. + +After the peace of Constance, which freed the Lombard Communes from +Imperial interference in the year 1183, Milan, by her geographical +position, rose rapidly to be the first city of North Italy. Without +narrating the changes by which she lost her freedom as a Commune, it is +enough to state that, earliest of all Italian cities, Milan passed into +the hands of a single family. The Visconti managed to convert this +flourishing commonwealth, with all its dependencies, into their private +property, ruling it exclusively for their own profit, using its +municipal institutions as the machinery of administration, and +employing the taxes which they raised upon its wealth for purely +selfish ends. When the line of the Visconti ended in the year 1447, +their tyranny was continued by Francesco Sforza, the son of a poor +soldier of adventure, who had raised himself by his military genius, +and had married Bianca, the illegitimate daughter of the last Visconti. +On the death of Francesco Sforza in 1466, he left two sons, Galeazzo +Maria and Lodovico, surnamed Il Moro, both of whom were destined to +play a prominent part in history. Galeazzo Maria, dissolute, vicious, +and cruel to the core, was murdered by his injured subjects in the year +1476. His son, Giovanni Galeazzo, aged eight, would in course of time +have succeeded to the Duchy, 186had it not been for the ambition of his +uncle Lodovico. Lodovico contrived to name himself as Regent for his +nephew, whom he kept, long after he had come of age, in a kind of +honourable prison. Virtual master in Milan, but without a legal title +to the throne, unrecognised in his authority by the Italian powers, and +holding it from day to day by craft and fraud, Lodovico at last found +his situation untenable; and it was this difficulty of an usurper to +maintain himself in his despotism which, as we shall see, brought the +French into Italy. + +Venice, the neighbour and constant foe of Milan, had become a close +oligarchy by a process of gradual constitutional development, which +threw her government into the hands of a few nobles. She was +practically ruled by the hereditary members of the Grand Council. Ever +since the year 1453, when Constantinople fell beneath the Turk, the +Venetians had been more and more straitened in their Oriental commerce, +and were thrown back upon the policy of territorial aggrandisement in +Italy, from which they had hitherto refrained as alien to the +temperament of the Republic. At the end of the fifteenth century Venice +therefore became an object of envy and terror to the Italian States. +They envied her because she alone was tranquil, wealthy, powerful, and +free. They feared her because they had good reason to suspect her of +encroachment; and it was foreseen that if she got the upper hand in +Italy, all Italy would be the property of the families inscribed upon +the Golden Book. It was thus alone that the Italians comprehended +government. The principle of representation being utterly unknown, and +the privileged burghers in each city being regarded as absolute and +lawful owners of the city and of everything belonging to it, the +conquest of a town by a republic implied the political extinction of +that town and the disfranchisement of its inhabitants in favour of the +conquerors. + +187Florence at this epoch still called itself a Republic; and of all +Italian commonwealths it was by far the most democratic. Its history, +unlike that of Venice, had been the history of continual and brusque +changes, resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalisation of the burghers, and in the formation of a new aristocracy +of wealth. Prom this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprang the Medici, +who, by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by the creation of +a powerful party devoted to their interests, by flattery of the people, +by corruption, by taxation, and by constant scheming, raised themselves +to the first place in the commonwealth, and became its virtual masters. +In the year 1492 Lorenzo de' Medici, the most remarkable chief of this +despotic family, died, bequeathing his supremacy in the Republic to a +son of marked incompetence. + +Since the Pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon a +new period of existence. The Popes no longer dreaded to reside in Rome, +but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both splendid +as a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital of a +secular kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were still +held but loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty despots who +defied the Papal authority, and though the princely Roman houses of +Colonna and Orsini were still strong enough to terrorise the Holy +Father in the Vatican, it was now clear that the Papal See must in the +end get the better of its adversaries, and consolidate itself into a +first-rate Power. The internal spirit of the Papacy at this time +corresponded to its external policy. It was thoroughly secularised by a +series of worldly and vicious pontiffs, who had clean forgotten what +their title, Vicar of Christ, implied. They consistently used their +religious prestige to enforce their secular authority, while by their +temporal power they 188caused their religious claims to be respected. +Corrupt and shameless, they indulged themselves in every vice, openly +acknowledged their children, and turned Italy upside down in order to +establish favourites and bastards in the principalities they seized as +spoils of war. + +The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the +House of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence, or the free +institutions, of the northern provinces; nor had it been Italianised in +the same sense as the rest of the peninsula. Despotism, which assumed +so many forms in Italy, was here neither the tyranny of a noble house, +nor the masked autocracy of a burgher, nor yet the forceful sway of a +condottiere. It had a dynastic character, resembling the monarchy of +one of the great European nations, but modified by the peculiar +conditions of Italian statecraft. Owing to this dynastic and +monarchical complexion of the Neapolitan kingdom, semi-feudal customs +flourished in the south far more than in the north of Italy. The barons +were more powerful; and the destinies of the Regno often turned upon +their feuds and quarrels with the Crown. At the same time the +Neapolitan despots shared the uneasy circumstances of all Italian +potentates, owing to the uncertainty of their tenure, both as +conquerors and aliens, and also as the nominal vassals of the Holy See. +The rights of suzerainty which the Normans had yielded to the Papacy +over their southern conquests, and which the Popes had arbitrarily +exercised in favour of the Angevine princes, proved a constant source +of peril to the rest of Italy by rendering the succession to the crown +of Naples doubtful. On the extinction of the Angevine line, however, +the throne was occupied by a prince who had no valid title but that of +the 189sword to its possession. Alfonso of Aragon conquered Naples in +1442, and neglecting his hereditary dominion, settled in his Italian +capital. Possessed with the enthusiasm for literature which was then +the ruling passion of the Italians, and very liberal to men of +learning, Alfonso won for himself the surname of Magnanimous. On his +death, in 1458, he bequeathed his Spanish kingdom, together with Sicily +and Sardinia, to his brother, and left the fruits of his Italian +conquest to his bastard, Ferdinand. This Ferdinand, whose birth was +buried in profound obscurity, was the reigning sovereign in the year +1492. Of a cruel and sombre temperament, traitorous and tyrannical, +Ferdinand was hated by his subjects as much as Alfonso had been loved. +He possessed, however, to a remarkable degree, the qualities which at +that epoch constituted a consummate statesman; and though the history +of his reign is the history of plots and conspiracies, of judicial +murders and forcible assassinations, of famines produced by iniquitous +taxation, and of every kind of diabolical tyranny, Ferdinand contrived +to hold his own, in the teeth of a rebellious baronage or a maddened +population. His political sagacity amounted almost to a prophetic +instinct in the last years of his life, when he became aware that the +old order was breaking up in Italy, and had cause to dread that Charles +VIII. of France would prove his title to the kingdom of Naples by force +of arms.[27] + + [27] Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in turn + claimed under the will of Joan II. + +Such were the component parts of the Italian body politic, with the +addition of numerous petty principalities and powers, adhering more or +less consistently to one or other of the greater States. The whole +complex machine was bound together by no sense of common interest, +animated by no common purpose, amenable to no central authority. Even +190such community of feeling as one spoken language gives, was lacking. +And yet Italy distinguished herself clearly from the rest of Europe, +not merely as a geographical fact, but also as a people intellectually +and spiritually one. The rapid rise of humanism had aided in producing +this national self-consciousness. Every State and every city was +absorbed in the recovery of culture and in the development of art and +literature. Far in advance of the other European nations, the Italians +regarded the rest of the world as barbarous, priding themselves the +while, in spite of mutual jealousies and hatreds, on their Italic +civilisation. They were enormously wealthy. The resources of the Papal +treasury, the private fortunes of the Florentine bankers, the riches of +the Venetian merchants might have purchased all that France or Germany +possessed of value. The single Duchy of Milan yielded to its masters +700,000 golden florins of revenue, according to the computation of De +Comines. In default of a confederative system, the several States were +held in equilibrium by diplomacy. By far the most important people, +next to the despots and the captains of adventure, were ambassadors and +orators. War itself had become a matter of arrangement, bargain, and +diplomacy. The game of stratagem was played by generals who had been +friends yesterday and might be friends again to-morrow, with troops who +felt no loyalty whatever for the standards under which they listed. To +avoid slaughter and to achieve the ends of warfare by parade and +demonstration was the interest of every one concerned. Looking back +upon Italy of the fifteenth century, taking account of her religious +deadness and moral corruption, estimating the absence of political +vigour in the republics and the noxious tyranny of the despots, +analysing her lack of national spirit, and comparing her splendid life +of cultivated ease with the want of martial energy, we can see but too +plainly that 191contact with a simpler and stronger people could not +but produce a terrible catastrophe. The Italians themselves, however, +were far from comprehending this. Centuries of undisturbed internal +intrigue had accustomed them to play the game of forfeits with each +other, and nothing warned them that the time was come at which +diplomacy, finesse, and craft would stand them in ill stead against +rapacious conquerors. + +The storm which began to gather over Italy in the year 1492 had its +first beginning in the North. Lodovico Sforza's position in the Duchy +of Milan was becoming every day more difficult, when a slight and to +all appearances insignificant incident converted his apprehension of +danger into panic. It was customary for the States of Italy to +congratulate a new Pope on his election by their ambassadors; and this +ceremony had now to be performed for Roderigo Borgia. Lodovico proposed +that his envoys should go to Rome together with those of Venice, +Naples, and Florence; but Piero de' Medici, whose vanity made him wish +to send an embassy in his own name, contrived that Lodovico's proposal +should be rejected both by Florence and the King of Naples. So strained +was the situation of Italian affairs that Lodovico saw in this repulse +a menace to his own usurped authority. Feeling himself isolated among +the princes of his country, rebuffed by the Medici, and coldly treated +by the King of Naples, he turned in his anxiety to France, and advised +the young king, Charles VIII., to make good his claim upon the Regno. +It was a bold move to bring the foreigner thus into Italy; and even +Lodovico, who prided himself upon his sagacity, could not see how +things would end. He thought his situation so hazardous, however, that +any change must be for the better. Moreover, a French invasion of +Naples would tie the hands of his natural foe, King Ferdinand, whose +granddaughter, 192Isabella of Aragon, had married Giovanni Galeazzo +Sforza, and was now the rightful Duchess of Milan. When the Florentine +ambassador at Milan asked him how he had the courage to expose Italy to +such peril, his reply betrayed the egotism of his policy: 'You talk to +me of Italy; but when have I looked Italy in the face? No one ever gave +a thought to my affairs. I have, therefore, had to give them such +security as I could.' + +Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +_parvenus_, who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as +this was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed +all the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on +disadvantageous terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that +he might be able to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian +expedition. At the end of the year 1493, it was known that the invasion +was resolved upon. Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at the Court of +France, wrote to Piero de' Medici: 'If the King succeeds, it is all +over with Italy—_tutta a bordello._' The extraordinary selfishness of +the several Italian States at this critical moment deserves to be +noticed. The Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini described them to +Piero de' Medici, 'are of opinion that to keep quiet, and to see other +potentates of Italy spending and suffering, cannot but be to their +advantage. They trust no one, and feel sure they have enough money to +be able at any moment to raise sufficient troops, and so to guide +events according to their inclinations.' As the invasion was directed +against Naples, Ferdinand of Aragon displayed the acutest sense of the +situation. 'Frenchmen,' he exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic +passion when contrasted with the cold indifference of others no less +193really menaced, 'have never come into Italy without inflicting ruin; +and this invasion, if rightly considered, cannot but bring universal +ruin, although it seems to menace us alone.' In his agony Ferdinand +applied to Alexander VI. But the Pope looked coldly upon him, because +the King of Naples, with rare perspicacity, had predicted that his +elevation to the Papacy would prove disastrous to Christendom. +Alexander preferred to ally himself with Venice and Milan. Upon this +Ferdinand wrote as follows: 'It seems fated that the Popes should leave +no peace in Italy. We are compelled to fight; but the Duke of Bari +(_i.e._ Lodovico Sforza) should think what may ensue from the tumult he +is stirring up. He who raises this wind will not be able to lay the +tempest when he likes. Let him look to the past, and he will see how +every time that our internal quarrels have brought Powers from beyond +the Alps into Italy, these have oppressed and lorded over her.' + +Terribly verified as these words were destined to be,—and they were no +less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's prediction +of the Sword and bloody Scourge,—it was now too late to avert the +coming ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at Lyons. +Early in September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and taken up +his quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to describe in +detail the holiday march of the French troops through Lombardy, +Tuscany, and Rome, until, without having struck a blow of consequence, +the gates of Naples opened to receive the conqueror upon February 22, +1495. Philippe de Comines, who parted from the King at Asti and passed +the winter as his envoy at Venice, has more than once recorded his +belief that nothing but the direct interposition of Providence could +have brought so mad an expedition to so successful a conclusion. 'Dieu +monstroit conduire l'entreprise,' 194No sooner, however, was Charles +installed in Naples than the States of Italy began to combine against +him. Lodovico Sforza had availed himself of the general confusion +consequent upon the first appearance of the French, to poison his +nephew. He was, therefore, now the titular, as well as virtual, Lord of +Milan. So far, he had achieved what he desired, and had no further need +of Charles. The overtures he now made to the Venetians and the Pope +terminated in a League between these Powers for the expulsion of the +French from Italy. Germany and Spain entered into the same alliance; +and De Comines, finding himself treated with marked coldness by the +Signory of Venice, despatched a courier to warn Charles in Naples of +the coming danger. After a stay of only fifty days in his new capital, +the French King hurried northward. Moving quickly through the Papal +States and Tuscany, he engaged his troops in the passes of the +Apennines near Pontremoli, and on July 5, 1495, took up his quarters in +the village of Fornovo. De Comines reckons that his whole fighting +force at this time did not exceed 9,000 men, with fourteen pieces of +artillery. Against him at the opening of the valley was the army of the +League, numbering some 35,000 men, of whom three-fourths were supplied +by Venice, the rest by Lodovico Sforza and the German Emperor. +Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua, was the general of the Venetian +forces; and on him, therefore, fell the real responsibility of the +battle. + +De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed Charles +to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy to have +established themselves in the village and so have caught the French +troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down upon +Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it the +white crests of the Alps. 'We were,' says De Comines, 195'in a valley +between two little mountain flanks, and in that valley ran a river +which could easily be forded on foot, except when it is swelled with +sudden rains. The whole valley was a bed of gravel and big stones, very +difficult for horses, about a quarter of a league in breadth, and on +the right bank lodged our enemies.' Any one who has visited Fornovo can +understand the situation of the two armies. Charles occupied the +village on the right bank of the Taro. On the same bank, extending +downward toward the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order +that Charles should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross +the Taro, just below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by +marching in a parallel line with his foes. + +All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; so +that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At seven +o'clock the King sent for De Comines, who found him already armed and +mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of this charger +was _Savoy_. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his +great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The +French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the +Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a quarter of a league +from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the light cavalry of their +enemies entered the village and began to attack the baggage. At the +same time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower of his men-at-arms, +crossed the Taro and harassed the rear of the French host; while raids +from the right bank to the left were constantly being made by +sharpshooters and flying squadrons. 'At this moment,' says De Comines, +'not a single man of us could have escaped if our ranks had once been +broken.' The French army was divided into three main bodies. The +vanguard consisted of some 350 men-at-arms, 1963000 Switzers, 300 +archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, and the artillery. +Next came the Battle, and after this the rearguard. At the time when +the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French rearguard had not yet +crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put himself at the head of +his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, driving them back, some +to the village and others to their camp. De Comines observes, that had +the Italian knights been supported in this passage of arms by the light +cavalry of the Venetian force, called Stradiots, the French must have +been outnumbered, thrown into confusion, and defeated. As it was, these +Stradiots were engaged in plundering the baggage of the French; and the +Italians, accustomed to bloodless encounters, did not venture, in spite +of their immense superiority of numbers, to renew the charge. In the +pursuit of Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his staff, and was +left almost alone to grapple with a little band of mounted foemen. It +was here that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his person by plunging and +charging till assistance came up from the French, and enabled the King +to regain his van. + +It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number +of the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians three +quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they threw +away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So +complete was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the +want of military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead +of advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the 197night, Charles had recrossed the stream and pursued +the army of the allies, he would have had the whole of Lombardy at his +discretion. As it was, the French army encamped not far from the scene +of the action in great discomfort and anxiety. De Comines had to +bivouac in a vineyard, without even a mantle to wrap round him, having +lent his cloak to the King in the morning; and as it had been pouring +all day, the ground could not have afforded very luxurious quarters. +The same extraordinary luck which had attended the French in their +whole expedition, now favoured their retreat; and the same +pusillanimity which the allies had shown at Fornovo, prevented them +from re-forming and engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. +One hour before daybreak on Tuesday morning, the French broke up their +camp and succeeded in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at +Fiorenzuola, the next at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day +they arrived at Asti without having been so much as incommoded by the +army of the allies in their rear. + +Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of S. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame. + +A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the middle ages, +and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of 198Italy +had fought light-armed on foot. Merchant and artisan left the +counting-house and the workshop, took shield and pike, and sallied +forth to attack the barons in their castles, or to meet the Emperor's +troops upon the field. It was with this national militia that the +citizens of Florence freed their _Contado_ of the nobles, and the +burghers of Lombardy gained the battle of Legnano. In course of time, +by a process of change which it is not very easy to trace, heavily +armed cavalry began to take the place of infantry in mediæval warfare. +Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased from head to foot in iron, +and mounted upon chargers no less solidly caparisoned, drove the +foot-soldiers before them at the points of their long lances. Nowhere +in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce resistance which the +bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri offered to the knights +of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried clasped a dozen lances to +his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus be broken at the cost of +his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian burghers to meet the +charge of the horsemen with squares protected by bristling spears. They +seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military service with the +readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed in the affairs of +peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms required long +training and a life's devotion. So much time the burghers of the free +towns could not spare to military service, while the petty nobles were +only too glad to devote themselves to so honourable a calling. Thus it +came to pass that a class of professional fighting-men was gradually +formed in Italy, whose services the burghers and the princes bought, +and by whom the wars of the peninsula were regularly farmed by +contract. Wealth and luxury in the great cities continued to increase; +and as the burghers grew more comfortable, they 199were less inclined +to take the field in their own persons, and more disposed to vote large +sums of money for the purchase of necessary aid. At the same time this +system suited the despots, since it spared them the peril of arming +their own subjects, while they taxed them to pay the services of +foreign captains. War thus became a commerce. Romagna, the Marches of +Ancona, and other parts of the Papal dominions, supplied a number of +petty nobles whose whole business in life it was to form companies of +trained horsemen, and with these bands to hire themselves out to the +republics and the despots. Gain was the sole purpose of these captains. +They sold their service to the highest bidder, fighting irrespectively +of principle or patriotism, and passing with the coldest equanimity +from the camp of one master to that of his worst foe. It was impossible +that true military spirit should survive this prostitution of the art +of war. A species of mock warfare prevailed in Italy. Battles were +fought with a view to booty more than victory; prisoners were taken for +the sake of ransom; bloodshed was carefully avoided, for the men who +fought on either side in any pitched field had been comrades with their +present foemen in the last encounter, and who could tell how soon the +general of the one host might not need his rival's troops to recruit +his own ranks? Like every genuine institution of the Italian +Renaissance, warfare was thus a work of fine art, a masterpiece of +intellectual subtlety; and like the Renaissance itself, this peculiar +form of warfare was essentially transitional. The cannon and the musket +were already in use; and it only required one blast of gunpowder to +turn the sham-fight of courtly, traitorous, finessing captains of +adventure into something terribly more real. To men like the Marquis of +Mantua war had been a highly profitable game of skill; to men like the +Maréchal de Gié it 200was a murderous horseplay; and this difference +the Italians were not slow to perceive. When they cast away their +lances at Fornovo, and fled—in spite of their superior numbers—never to +return, one fair-seeming sham of the fifteenth century became a vision +of the past. + +201 + + + + +FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI + + +Di Firenze in prima si divisono intra loro i nobili, dipoi i nobili e +il popolo, e in ultimo il popolo e la plebe; e molte volte occorse che +una di queste parti rimasa superiore, si divise in due.—MACHIAVELLI. + +I + +Florence, like all Italian cities, owed her independence to the duel of +the Papacy and Empire. The transference of the imperial authority +beyond the Alps had enabled the burghs of Lombardy and Tuscany to +establish a form of self-government. This government was based upon the +old municipal organisation of duumvirs and decemvirs. It was, in fact, +nothing more or less than a survival from the ancient Roman system. The +proof of this was, that while vindicating their rights as towns, the +free cities never questioned the validity of the imperial title. Even +after the peace of Constance in 1183, when Frederick Barbarossa +acknowledged their autonomy, they received within their walls a supreme +magistrate, with power of life and death and ultimate appeal in all +decisive questions, whose title of Potestà indicated that he +represented the imperial power—Potestas. It was not by the assertion of +any right, so much as by the growth of custom, and by the weakness of +the Emperors, that in course of time each city became a sovereign +State. The theoretical supremacy of the Empire prevented any other +authority from taking the first place in Italy. On the other hand, the +202practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part encouraged +the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no controlling +discipline. + +The free cities derived their strength from industry, and had nothing +in common with the nobles of the surrounding country. Broadly speaking, +the population of the towns included what remained in Italy of the old +Roman people. This Roman stock was nowhere stronger than in Florence +and Venice—Florence defended from barbarian incursions by her mountains +and marshes, Venice by the isolation of her lagoons. The nobles, on the +contrary, were mostly of foreign origin—Germans, Franks, and Lombards, +who had established themselves as feudal lords in castles apart from +the cities. The force which the burghs acquired as industrial +communities was soon turned against these nobles. The larger cities, +like Milan and Florence, began to make war upon the lords of castles, +and to absorb into their own territory the small towns and villages +around them. Thus in the social economy of the Italians there were two +antagonistic elements ready to range themselves beneath any banners +that should give the form of legitimate warfare to their mutual +hostility. It was the policy of the Church in the twelfth century to +support the cause of the cities, using them as a weapon against the +Empire, and stimulating the growing ambition of the burghers. In this +way Italy came to be divided into the two world-famous factions known +as Guelf and Ghibelline. The struggle between Guelf and Ghibelline was +the struggle of the Papacy for the depression of the Empire, the +struggle of the great burghs face to face with feudalism, the struggle +of the old Italie stock enclosed in cities with the foreign nobles +established in fortresses. When the Church had finally triumphed by the +extirpation of the House of Hohenstaufen, this conflict of Guelf and +Ghibelline was really ended. Until 203the reign of Charles V. no +Emperor interfered to any purpose in Italian affairs. At the same time +the Popes ceased to wield a formidable power. Having won the battle by +calling in the French, they suffered the consequences of this policy by +losing their hold on Italy during the long period of their exile at +Avignon. The Italians, left without either Pope or Emperor, were free +to pursue their course of internal development, and to prosecute their +quarrels among themselves. But though the names of Guelf and Ghibelline +lost their old significance after the year 1266 (the date of King +Manfred's death), these two factions had so divided Italy that they +continued to play a prominent part in her annals. Guelf still meant +constitutional autonomy, meant the burgher as against the noble, meant +industry as opposed to feudal lordship. Ghibelline meant the rule of +the few over the many, meant tyranny, meant the interest of the noble +as against the merchant and the citizen. These broad distinctions must +be borne in mind, if we seek to understand how it was that a city like +Florence continued to be governed by parties, the European force of +which had passed away. + +II + +Florence first rose into importance during the papacy of Innocent III. +Up to this date she had been a town of second-rate distinction even in +Tuscany. Pisa was more powerful by arms and commerce. Lucca was the old +seat of the dukes and marquises of Tuscany. But between the years 1200 +and 1250 Florence assumed the place she was to hold thenceforward, by +heading the league of Tuscan cities formed to support the Guelf party +against the Ghibellines. Formally adopting the Guelf cause, the +Florentines made themselves the champions of municipal liberty in +Central 204Italy; and while they declared war against the Ghibelline +cities, they endeavoured to stamp out the very name of noble in their +State. It is not needful to describe the varying fortunes of the Guelfs +and Ghibellines, the burghers and the nobles, during the thirteenth and +the first half of the fourteenth centuries. Suffice it to say that +through all the vicissitudes of that stormy period the name Guelf +became more and more associated with republican freedom in Florence. At +last, after the final triumph of that party in 1253, the Guelfs +remained victors in the city. Associating the glory of their +independence with Guelf principles, the citizens of Florence +perpetuated within their State a faction that, in its turn, was +destined to prove perilous to liberty. + +When it became clear that the republic was to rule itself henceforth +untrammelled by imperial interference, the people divided themselves +into six districts, and chose for each district two Ancients, who +administered the government in concert with the Potestà and the Captain +of the People. The Ancients were a relic of the old Roman municipal +organisation. The Potestà who was invariably a noble foreigner selected +by the people, represented the extinct imperial right, and exercised +the power of life and death within the city. The Captain of the People, +who was also a foreigner, headed the burghers in their military +capacity, for at that period the troops were levied from the citizens +themselves in twenty companies. The body of the citizens, or the +_popolo_, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. Assembled under the +banners of their several companies, they formed a _parlamento_ for +delegating their own power to each successive government. Their +representatives, again, arranged in two councils, called the Council of +the People and the Council of the Commune, under the presidency of the +Captain of the People and the Potestà, ratified the measures which had +previously been proposed and carried by 205the executive authority or +Signoria. Under this simple State system the Florentines placed +themselves at the head of the Tuscan League, fought the battles of the +Church, asserted their sovereignty by issuing the golden florin of the +republic, and flourished until 1266. + +III + +In that year an important change was effected in the Constitution. The +whole population of Florence consisted, on the one hand, of nobles or +Grandi, as they were called in Tuscany, and on the other hand of +working people. The latter, divided into traders and handicraftsmen, +were distributed in guilds called Arti; and at that time there were +seven Greater and five Lesser Arti, the most influential of all being +the Guild of the Wool Merchants. These guilds had their halls for +meeting, their colleges of chief officers, their heads, called Consoli +or Priors, and their flags. In 1266 it was decided that the +administration of the commonwealth should be placed simply and wholly +in the hands of the Arti, and the Priors of these industrial companies +became the lords or Signory of Florence. No inhabitant of the city who +had not enrolled himself as a craftsman in one of the guilds could +exercise any function of burghership. To be _scioperato_, or without +industry, was to be without power, without rank or place of honour in +the State. The revolution which placed the Arts at the head of the +republic had the practical effect of excluding the Grandi altogether +from the government. Violent efforts were made by these noble families, +potent through their territorial possessions and foreign connections, +and trained from boyhood in the use of arms, to recover the place from +which the new laws thrust them: but their menacing attitude, instead of +intimidating the burghers, roused their anger and drove them to the +passing of still more stringent laws. In 1293, after the 206Ghibellines +had been defeated in the great battle of Campaldino, a series of severe +enactments, called the Ordinances of Justice, were decreed against the +unruly Grandi. All civic rights were taken from them; the severest +penalties were attached to their slightest infringement of municipal +law; their titles to land were limited; the privilege of living within +the city walls was allowed them only under galling restrictions; and, +last not least, a supreme magistrate, named the Gonfalonier of Justice, +was created for the special purpose of watching them and carrying out +the penal code against them. Henceforward Florence was governed +exclusively by merchants and artisans. The Grandi hastened to enrol +themselves in the guilds, exchanging their former titles and dignities +for the solid privilege of burghership. The exact parallel to this +industrial constitution for a commonwealth, carrying on wars with +emperors and princes, holding haughty captains in its pay, and +dictating laws to subject cities, cannot, I think, be elsewhere found +in history. It is as unique as the Florence of Dante and Giotto is +unique. While the people was guarding itself thus stringently against +the Grandi, a separate body was created for the special purpose of +extirpating the Ghibellines. A permanent committee of vigilance, called +the College or the Captains of the Guelf Party, was established. It was +their function to administer the forfeited possessions of Ghibelline +rebels, to hunt out suspected citizens, to prosecute them for +Ghibellinism, to judge them, and to punish them as traitors to the +commonwealth. This body, like a little State within the State, proved +formidable to the republic itself through the unlimited and undefined +sway it exercised over burghers whom it chose to tax with treason. In +course of time it became the oligarchical element within the Florentine +democracy, and threatened to change the free constitution of the city +into a government conducted by a few powerful families. + +207 There is no need to dwell in detail on the internal difficulties of +Florence during the first half of the fourteenth century. Two main +circumstances, however, require to be briefly noticed. These are (i) +the contest of the Blacks and Whites, so famous through the part played +in it by Dante; and (ii) the tyranny of the Duke of Athens, Walter de +Brienne. The feuds of the Blacks and Whites broke up the city into +factions, and produced such anarchy that at last it was found necessary +to place the republic under the protection of foreign potentates. +Charles of Valois was first chosen, and after him the Duke of Athens, +who took up his residence in the city. Entrusted with dictatorial +authority, he used his power to form a military despotism. Though his +reign of violence lasted rather less than a year, it bore important +fruits; for the tyrant, seeking to support himself upon the favour of +the common people, gave political power to the Lesser Arts at the +expense of the Greater, and confused the old State-system by enlarging +the democracy. The net result of these events for Florence was, first, +that the city became habituated to rancorous party-strife, involving +exiles and proscriptions; and, secondly, that it lost its primitive +social hierarchy of classes. + +IV + +After the Guelfs had conquered the Ghibellines, and the people had +absorbed the Grandi in their guilds, the next chapter in the troubled +history of Florence was the division of the Popolo against itself. +Civil strife now declared itself as a conflict between labour and +capital. The members of the Lesser Arts, craftsmen who plied trades +subordinate to those of the Greater Arts, rose up against their social +and political superiors, demanding a larger share in the government, a +more equal distribution of profits, higher wages, and privileges +208that should place them on an absolute equality with the wealthy +merchants. It was in the year 1378 that the proletariate broke out into +rebellion. Previous events had prepared the way for this revolt. First +of all, the republic had been democratised through the destruction of +the Grandi and through the popular policy pursued to gain his own ends +by the Duke of Athens. Secondly, society had been shaken to its very +foundation by the great plague of 1348. Both Boccaccio and Matteo +Villani draw lively pictures of the relaxed morality and loss of order +consequent upon this terrible disaster; nor had thirty years sufficed +to restore their relative position to grades and ranks confounded by an +overwhelming calamity. We may therefore reckon the great plague of 1348 +among the causes which produced the anarchy of 1378. Rising in a mass +to claim their privileges, the artisans ejected the Signory from the +Public Palace, and for awhile Florence was at the mercy of the mob. It +is worthy of notice that the Medici, whose name is scarcely known +before this epoch, now came for one moment to the front. Salvestro de' +Medici was Gonfalonier of Justice at the time when the tumult first +broke out. He followed the faction of the handicraftsmen, and became +the hero of the day. I cannot discover that he did more than extend a +sort of passive protection to their cause. Yet there is no doubt that +the attachment of the working classes to the House of Medici dates from +this period. The rebellion of 1378 is known in Florentine history as +the Tumult of the Ciompi. The name Ciompi strictly means the +Wool-Carders. One set of operatives in the city, and that the largest, +gave its title to the whole body of the labourers. For some months +these craftsmen governed the republic, appointing their own Signory and +passing laws in their own interest; but, as is usual, the proletariate +found itself incapable of sustained government. The ambition and +209discontent of the Ciompi foamed themselves away, and industrious +working men began to see that trade was languishing and credit on the +wane. By their own act at last they restored the government to the +Priors of the Greater Arti. Still the movement had not been without +grave consequences. It completed the levelling of classes, which had +been steadily advancing from the first in Florence. After the Ciompi +riot there was no longer not only any distinction between noble and +burgher, but the distinction between greater and lesser guilds was +practically swept away. The classes, parties, and degrees in the +republic were so broken up, ground down, and mingled, that thenceforth +the true source of power in the State was wealth combined with personal +ability. In other words, the proper political conditions had been +formed for unscrupulous adventurers. Florence had become a democracy +without social organisation, which might fall a prey to oligarchs or +despots. What remained of deeply rooted feuds or factions—animosities +against the Grandi, hatred for the Ghibellines, jealousy of labour and +capital—offered so many points of leverage for stirring the passions of +the people and for covering personal ambition with a cloak of public +zeal. The time was come for the Albizzi to attempt an oligarchy, and +for the Medici to begin the enslavement of the State. + +V + +The Constitution of Florence offered many points of weakness to the +attacks of such intriguers. In the first place it was in its origin not +a political but an industrial organisation—a simple group of guilds +invested with the sovereign authority. Its two most powerful engines, +the Gonfalonier of Justice and the Guelf College, had been formed, not +with a view to the preservation of the government, but with the +210purpose of quelling the nobles and excluding a detested faction. It +had no permanent head, like the Doge of Venice; no fixed senate like +the Venetian Grand Council; its chief magistrates, the Signory, were +elected for short periods of two months, and their mode of election was +open to the gravest criticism. Supposed to be chosen by lot, they were +really selected from lists drawn up by the factions in power from time +to time. These factions contrived to exclude the names of all but their +adherents from the bags, or _borse_, in which the burghers eligible for +election had to be inscribed. Furthermore, it was not possible for this +shifting Signory to conduct affairs requiring sustained effort and +secret deliberation; therefore recourse was being continually had to +dictatorial Commissions. The people, summoned in parliament upon the +Great Square, were asked to confer plenipotentiary authority upon a +committee called _Balia_, who proceeded to do what they chose in the +State, and who retained power after the emergency for which they were +created passed away. The same instability in the supreme magistracy led +to the appointment of special commissioners for war, and special +councils, or _Pratiche_, for the management of each department. Such +supplementary commissions not only proved the weakness of the central +authority, but they were always liable to be made the instruments of +party warfare. The Guelf College was another and a different source of +danger to the State. Not acting under the control of the Signory, but +using its own initiative, this powerful body could proscribe and punish +burghers on the mere suspicion of Ghibellinism. Though the Ghibelline +faction had become an empty name, the Guelf College excluded from the +franchise all and every whom they chose on any pretext to admonish. +Under this mild phrase, _to admonish_, was concealed a cruel exercise +of tyranny—it meant to warn a man that he was suspected of treason, and +that he had better relinquish the 211exercise of his burghership. By +free use of this engine of Admonition, the Guelf College rendered their +enemies voiceless in the State, and were able to pack the Signory and +the councils with their own creatures. Another important defect in the +Florentine Constitution was the method of imposing taxes. This was done +by no regular system. The party in power made what estimate it chose of +a man's capacity to bear taxation, and called upon him for +extraordinary loans. In this way citizens were frequently driven into +bankruptcy and exile; and since to be a debtor to the State deprived a +burgher of his civic rights, severe taxation was one of the best ways +of silencing and neutralising a dissentient. + +I have enumerated these several causes of weakness in the Florentine +State-system, partly because they show how irregularly the Constitution +had been formed by the patching and extension of a simple industrial +machine to suit the needs of a great commonwealth; partly because it +was through these defects that the democracy merged gradually into a +despotism. The art of the Medici consisted in a scientific +comprehension of these very imperfections, a methodic use of them for +their own purposes, and a steady opposition to any attempts made to +substitute a stricter system. The Florentines had determined to be an +industrial community, governing themselves on the co-operative +principle, dividing profits, sharing losses, and exposing their +magistrates to rigid scrutiny. All this in theory was excellent. Had +they remained an unambitious and peaceful commonwealth, engaged in the +wool and silk trade, it might have answered. Modern Europe might have +admired the model of a communistic and commercial democracy. But when +they engaged in aggressive wars, and sought to enslave sister-cities +like Pisa and Lucca, it was soon found that their simple trading +constitution would not serve. They 212had to piece it out with +subordinate machinery, cumbrous, difficult to manage, ill-adapted to +the original structure. Each limb of this subordinate machinery, +moreover, was a _point d'appui_ for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders. + +Florence, in the middle of the fourteenth century, was a vast beehive +of industry. Distinctions of rank among burghers, qualified to vote and +hold office, were theoretically unknown. Highly educated men, of more +than princely wealth, spent their time in shops and counting-houses, +and trained their sons to follow trades. Military service at this +period was abandoned by the citizens; they preferred to pay mercenary +troops for the conduct of their wars. Nor was there, as in Venice, any +outlet for their energies upon the seas. Florence had no navy, no great +port—she only kept a small fleet for the protection of her commerce. +Thus the vigour of the commonwealth was concentrated on itself; while +the influence of the citizens, through their affiliated trading-houses, +correspondents, and agents, extended like a network over Europe. In a +community of this kind it was natural that wealth—rank and titles being +absent—should alone confer distinction. Accordingly we find that out of +the very bosom of the people a new plutocratic aristocracy begins to +rise. The Grandi are no more; but certain families achieve distinction +by their riches, their numbers, their high spirit, and their ancient +place of honour in the State. These nobles of the purse obtained the +name of _Popolani Nobili_; and it was they who now began to play at +high stakes for the supreme power. In all the subsequent vicissitudes +of Florence every change takes place by intrigue and by clever +manipulation of the political machine. Recourse is rarely had to +violence of any kind, and the leaders of revolutions are men of the +yard-measure, never of the sword. The despotism to which the republic +eventually succumbed was no less commercial than the democracy had +213been. Florence in the days of her slavery remained a _Popolo_. + +VI + +The opening of the second half of the fourteenth century had been +signalised by the feuds of two great houses, both risen from the +people. These were the Albizzi and the Ricci. At this epoch there had +been a formal closing of the lists of burghers;—henceforth no new +families who might settle in the city could claim the franchise, vote +in the assemblies, or hold magistracies. The Guelf College used their +old engine of admonition to persecute _novi homines_, whom they dreaded +as opponents. At the head of this formidable organisation the Albizzi +placed themselves, and worked it with such skill that they succeeded in +driving the Ricci out of all participation in the government. The +tumult of the Ciompi formed but an episode in their career toward +oligarchy; indeed, that revolution only rendered the political material +of the Florentine republic more plastic in the hands of intriguers, by +removing the last vestiges of class distinctions and by confusing the +old parties of the State. + +When the Florentines in 1387 engaged in their long duel with Gian +Galeazzo Visconti, the difficulty of conducting this war without some +permanent central authority still further confirmed the power of the +rising oligarchs. The Albizzi became daily more autocratic, until in +1393 their chief, Maso degli Albizzi, a man of strong will and prudent +policy, was chosen Gonfalonier of Justice. Assuming the sway of a +dictator he revised the list of burghers capable of holding office, +struck out the private opponents of his house, and excluded all names +but those of powerful families who were well affected towards an +aristocratic government. The great house of the Alberti were exiled in +a body, declared rebels, and 214deprived of their possessions, for no +reason except that they seemed dangerous to the Albizzi. It was in vain +that the people murmured against these arbitrary acts. The new rulers +were omnipotent in the Signory, which they packed with their own men, +in the great guilds, and in the Guelf College. All the machinery +invented by the industrial community for its self-management and +self-defence was controlled and manipulated by a close body of +aristocrats, with the Albizzi at their head. It seemed as though +Florence, without any visible alteration in her forms of government, +was rapidly becoming an oligarchy even less open than the Venetian +republic. Meanwhile the affairs of the State were most flourishing. The +strong-handed masters of the city not only held the Duke of Milan in +check, and prevented him from turning Italy into a kingdom; they +furthermore acquired the cities of Pisa, Livorno, Arezzo, +Montepulciano, and Cortona, for Florence, making her the mistress of +all Tuscany, with the exception of Siena, Lucca, and Volterra. Maso +degli Albizzi was the ruling spirit of the commonwealth, spending the +enormous sum of 11,500,000 golden florins on war, raising sumptuous +edifices, protecting the arts, and acting in general like a powerful +and irresponsible prince. + +In spite of public prosperity there were signs, however, that this rule +of a few families could not last. Their government was only maintained +by continual revision of the lists of burghers, by elimination of the +disaffected, and by unremitting personal industry. They introduced no +new machinery into the Constitution whereby the people might be +deprived of its titular sovereignty, or their own dictatorship might be +continued with a semblance of legality. Again, they neglected to win +over the new nobles (_nobili popolani_) in a body to their cause; and +thus they were surrounded by rivals ready to spring upon them when a +false step should be made. The 215Albizzi oligarchy was a masterpiece +of art, without any force to sustain it but the craft and energy of its +constructors. It had not grown up, like the Venetian oligarchy, by the +gradual assimilation to itself of all the vigour in the State. It was +bound, sooner or later, to yield to the renascent impulse of democracy +inherent in Florentine institutions. + +VII + +Maso degli Albizzi died in 1417. He was succeeded in the government by +his old friend, Niccolo da Uzzano, a man of great eloquence and wisdom, +whose single word swayed the councils of the people as he listed. +Together with him acted Maso's son, Rinaldo, a youth of even more +brilliant talents than his father, frank, noble, and high-spirited, but +far less cautious. + +The oligarchy, which these two men undertook to manage, had accumulated +against itself the discontent of overtaxed, disfranchised, jealous +burghers. The times, too, were bad. Pursuing the policy of Maso, the +Albizzi engaged the city in a tedious and unsuccessful war with Filippo +Maria Visconti, which cost 350,000 golden florins, and brought no +credit. In order to meet extraordinary expenses they raised new public +loans, thereby depreciating the value of the old Florentine funds. What +was worse, they imposed forced subsidies with grievous inequality upon +the burghers, passing over their friends and adherents, and burdening +their opponents with more than could be borne. This imprudent financial +policy began the ruin of the Albizzi. It caused a clamour in the city +for a new system of more just taxation, which was too powerful to be +resisted. The voice of the people made itself loudly heard; and with +the people on this occasion sided Giovanni de' Medici. This was in +1427. + +216It is here that the Medici appear upon that memorable scene where in +the future they are to play the first part. Giovanni de' Medici did not +belong to the same branch of his family as the Salvestro who favoured +the people at the time of the Ciompi Tumult. But he adopted the same +popular policy. To his sons Cosimo and Lorenzo he bequeathed on his +deathbed the rule that they should invariably adhere to the cause of +the multitude, found their influence on that, and avoid the arts of +factious and ambitious leaders. In his own life he had pursued this +course of conduct, acquiring a reputation for civic moderation and +impartiality that endeared him to the people and stood his children in +good stead. Early in his youth Giovanni found himself almost destitute +by reason of the imposts charged upon him by the oligarchs. He +possessed, however, the genius for money-making to a rare degree, and +passed his manhood as a banker, amassing the largest fortune of any +private citizen in Italy. In his old age he devoted himself to the +organisation of his colossal trading business, and abstained, as far as +possible, from political intrigues. Men observed that they rarely met +him in the Public Palace or on the Great Square. + +Cosimo de' Medici was thirty years old when his father Giovanni died, +in 1429. During his youth he had devoted all his time and energy to +business, mastering the complicated affairs of Giovanni's +banking-house, and travelling far and wide through Europe to extend its +connections. This education made him a consummate financier; and those +who knew him best were convinced that his ambition was set on great +things. However quietly he might begin, it was clear that he intended +to match himself, as a leader of the plebeians, against the Albizzi. +The foundations he prepared for future action were equally +characteristic of the man, of Florence, and of the age. Commanding the +enormous capital of the Medicean bank he 217contrived, at any sacrifice +of temporary convenience, to lend money to the State for war expenses, +engrossing in his own hands a large portion of the public debt of +Florence. At the same time his agencies in various European capitals +enabled him to keep his own wealth floating far beyond the reach of +foes within the city. A few years of this system ended in so complete a +confusion between Cosimo's trade and the finances of Florence that the +bankruptcy of the Medici, however caused, would have compromised the +credit of the State and the fortunes of the fund-holders. Cosimo, in a +word, made himself necessary to Florence by the wise use of his riches. +Furthermore, he kept his eye upon the list of burghers, lending money +to needy citizens, putting good things in the way of struggling +traders, building up the fortunes of men who were disposed to favour +his party in the State, ruining his opponents by the legitimate process +of commercial competition, and, when occasion offered, introducing new +voters into the Florentine Council by paying off the debts of those who +were disqualified by poverty from using the franchise. While his +capital was continually increasing he lived frugally, and employed his +wealth solely for the consolidation of his political influence. By +these arts Cosimo became formidable to the oligarchs and beloved by the +people. His supporters were numerous, and held together by the bonds of +immediate necessity or personal cupidity. The plebeians and the +merchants were all on his side. The Grandi and the Ammoniti, excluded +from the State by the practices of the Albizzi, had more to hope from +the Medicean party than from the few families who still contrived to +hold the reins of government. It was clear that a conflict to the death +must soon commence between the oligarchy and this new faction. + +218 + +VIII + +At last, in 1433, war was declared. The first blow was struck by +Rinaldo degli Albizzi, who put himself in the wrong by attacking a +citizen indispensable to the people at large, and guilty of no +unconstitutional act. On September 7th of that year, a year decisive +for the future destinies of Florence, he summoned Cosimo to the Public +Palace, which he had previously occupied with troops at his command. +There he declared him a rebel to the State, and had him imprisoned in a +little square room in the central tower. The tocsin was sounded; the +people were assembled in parliament upon the piazza. The Albizzi held +the main streets with armed men, and forced the Florentines to place +plenipotentiary power for the administration of the commonwealth at +this crisis in the hands of a Balia, or committee selected by +themselves. It was always thus that acts of high tyranny were effected +in Florence. A show of legality was secured by gaining the compulsory +sanction of the people, driven by soldiery into the public square, and +hastily ordered to recognise the authority of their oppressors. + +The bill of indictment against the Medici accused them of sedition in +the year 1378—that is, in the year of the Ciompi Tumult—and of +treasonable practice during the whole course of the Albizzi +administration. It also strove to fix upon them the odium of the +unsuccessful war against the town of Lucca. As soon as the Albizzi had +unmasked their batteries, Lorenzo de' Medici managed to escape from the +city, and took with him his brother Cosimo's children to Venice. Cosimo +remained shut up within the little room called Barberia in Arnolfo's +tower. From that high eagle's nest the sight can range Valdarno far and +wide. Florence with her towers and domes lies below; and the blue peaks +of Carrara close a prospect 219westward than which, with its +villa-jewelled slopes and fertile gardens, there is nought more +beautiful upon the face of earth. The prisoner can have paid but little +heed to this fair landscape. He heard the frequent ringing of the great +bell that called the Florentines to council, the tramp of armed men on +the piazza, the coming and going of the burghers in the palace halls +beneath. On all sides lurked anxiety and fear of death. Each mouthful +he tasted might be poisoned. For many days he partook of only bread and +water, till his gaoler restored his confidence by sharing all his +meals. In this peril he abode twenty-four days. The Albizzi, in concert +with the Balia they had formed, were consulting what they might venture +to do with him. Some voted for his execution. Others feared the popular +favour, and thought that if they killed Cosimo this act would ruin +their own power. The nobler natures among them determined to proceed by +constitutional measures. At last, upon September 29th, it was settled +that Cosimo should be exiled to Padua for ten years. The Medici were +declared Grandi, by way of excluding them from political rights. But +their property remained untouched; and on October 3rd, Cosimo was +released. + +On the same day Cosimo took his departure. His journey northward +resembled a triumphant progress. He left Florence a simple burgher; he +entered Venice a powerful prince. Though the Albizzi seemed to have +gained the day, they had really cut away the ground beneath their feet. +They committed the fatal mistake of doing both too much and too +little—too much because they declared war against an innocent man, and +roused the sympathies of the whole people in his behalf; too little, +because they had not the nerve to complete their act by killing him +outright and extirpating his party. Machiavelli, in one of his +profoundest and most cynical critiques, remarks that few men know how +to be thoroughly 220bad with honour to themselves. Their will is evil; +but the grain of good in them—some fear of public opinion, some +repugnance to committing a signal crime—paralyses their arm at the +moment when it ought to have been raised to strike. He instances Gian +Paolo Baglioni's omission to murder Julius II., when that Pope placed +himself within his clutches at Perugia. He might also have instanced +Rinaldo degli Albizzi's refusal to push things to extremities by +murdering Cosimo. It was the combination of despotic violence in the +exile of Cosimo with constitutional moderation in the preservation of +his life, that betrayed the weakness of the oligarchs and restored +confidence to the Medicean party. + +IX + +In the course of the year 1434 this party began to hold up its head. +Powerful as the Albizzi were, they only retained the government by +artifice; and now they had done a deed which put at nought their former +arts and intrigues. A Signory favourable to the Medici came into +office, and on September 26th, 1434, Rinaldo in his turn was summoned +to the palace and declared a rebel. He strove to raise the forces of +his party, and entered the piazza at the head of eight hundred men. The +menacing attitude of the people, however, made resistance perilous. +Rinaldo disbanded his troops, and placed himself under the protection +of Pope Eugenius IV., who was then resident in Florence. This act of +submission proved that Rinaldo had not the courage or the cruelty to +try the chance of civil war. Whatever his motives may have been, he +lost his hold upon the State beyond recovery. On September 29th, a new +parliament was summoned; on October 2nd, Cosimo was recalled from exile +and the Albizzi were banished. The intercession of the Pope procured +for 221them nothing but the liberty to leave Florence unmolested. +Einaldo turned his back upon the city he had governed, never to set +foot in it again. On October 6th, Cosimo, having passed through Padua, +Ferrara, and Modena like a conqueror, reentered the town amid the +plaudits of the people, and took up his dwelling as an honoured guest +in the Palace of the Republic. The subsequent history of Florence is +the history of his family. In after years the Medici loved to remember +this return of Cosimo. His triumphal reception was painted in fresco on +the walls of their villa at Cajano under the transparent allegory of +Cicero's entrance into Rome. + +X + +By their brief exile the Medici had gained the credit of injured +innocence, the fame of martyrdom in the popular cause. Their foes had +struck the first blow, and in striking at them had seemed to aim +against the liberties of the republic. The mere failure of their +adversaries to hold the power they had acquired, handed over this power +to the Medici; and the reprisals which the Medici began to take had the +show of justice, not of personal hatred, or petty vengeance. Cosimo was +a true Florentine. He disliked violence, because he knew that blood +spilt cries for blood. His passions, too, were cool and temperate. No +gust of anger, no intoxication of success, destroyed his balance. His +one object, the consolidation of power for his family on the basis of +popular favour, was kept steadily in view; and he would do nothing that +might compromise that end. Yet he was neither generous nor merciful. We +therefore find that from the first moment of his return to Florence he +instituted a system of pitiless and unforgiving persecution against his +old opponents. The Albizzi were banished, root and branch, 222with all +their followers, consigned to lonely and often to unwholesome stations +through the length and breadth of Italy. If they broke the bonds +assigned them, they were forthwith declared traitors and their property +was confiscated. After a long series of years, by merely keeping in +force the first sentence pronounced upon them, Cosimo had the cruel +satisfaction of seeing the whole of that proud oligarchy die out by +slow degrees in the insufferable tedium of solitude and exile. Even the +high-souled Palla degli Strozzi, who had striven to remain neutral, and +whose wealth and talents were devoted to the revival of classical +studies, was proscribed because to Cosimo he seemed too powerful. +Separated from his children, he died in banishment at Padua. In this +way the return of the Medici involved the loss to Florence of some +noble citizens, who might perchance have checked the Medicean tyranny +if they had stayed to guide the State. The plebeians, raised to wealth +and influence by Cosimo before his exile, now took the lead in the +republic. He used these men as catspaws, rarely putting himself forward +or allowing his own name to appear, but pulling the wires of government +in privacy by means of intermediate agents. The Medicean party was +called at first _Puccini_ from a certain Puccio, whose name was better +known in caucus or committee than that of his real master. + +To rule through these creatures of his own making taxed all the +ingenuity of Cosimo; but his profound and subtle intellect was suited +to the task, and he found unlimited pleasure in the exercise of his +consummate craft. We have already seen to what extent he used his +riches for the acquisition of political influence. Now that he had come +to power, he continued the same method, packing the Signory and the +Councils with men whom he could hold by debt between his thumb and +finger. His command of the public moneys 223enabled him to wink at +peculation in State offices; it was part of his system to bind +magistrates and secretaries to his interest by their consciousness of +guilt condoned but not forgotten. Not a few, moreover, owed their +living to the appointments he procured for them. While he thus +controlled the wheel-work of the commonwealth by means of organised +corruption, he borrowed the arts of his old enemies to oppress +dissentient citizens. If a man took an independent line in voting, and +refused allegiance to the Medicean party, he was marked out for +persecution. No violence was used; but he found himself hampered in his +commerce—money, plentiful for others, became scarce for him; his +competitors in trade were subsidised to undersell him. And while the +avenues of industry were closed, his fortune was taxed above its value, +until he had to sell at a loss in order to discharge his public +obligations. In the first twenty years of the Medicean rule, seventy +families had to pay 4,875,000 golden florins of extraordinary imposts, +fixed by arbitrary assessment. + +The more patriotic members of his party looked with dread and loathing +on this system of corruption and exclusion. To their remonstrances +Cosimo replied in four memorable sayings: 'Better the State spoiled +than the State not ours.' 'Governments cannot be carried on with +paternosters.' 'An ell of scarlet makes a burgher.' 'I aim at finite +ends.' These maxims represent the whole man,—first, in his egotism, +eager to gain Florence for his family, at any risk of her ruin; +secondly, in his cynical acceptance of base means to selfish ends; +thirdly, in his bourgeois belief that money makes a man, and fine +clothes suffice for a citizen; fourthly, in his worldly ambition bent +on positive success. It was, in fact, his policy to reduce Florence to +the condition of a rotten borough: nor did this policy fail. One +notable sign of the influence he exercised was the change which now +came over the foreign 224relations of the republic. Up to the date of +his dictatorship Florence had uniformly fought the battle of freedom in +Italy. It was the chief merit of the Albizzi oligarchy that they +continued the traditions of the mediæval State, and by their vigorous +action checked the growth of the Visconti. Though they engrossed the +government they never forgot that they were first of all things +Florentines, and only in the second place men who owed their power and +influence to office. In a word, they acted like patriotic Tories, like +republican patricians. Therefore they would not ally themselves with +tyrants or countenance the enslavement of free cities by armed despots. +Their subjugation of the Tuscan burghs to Florence was itself part of a +grand republican policy. Cosimo changed all this. When the Visconti +dynasty ended by the death of Filippo Maria in 1447, there was a chance +of restoring the independence of Lombardy. Milan in effect declared +herself a republic, and by the aid of Florence she might at this moment +have maintained her liberty. Cosimo, however, entered into treaty with +Francesco Sforza, supplied him with money, guaranteed him against +Florentine interference, and saw with satisfaction how he reduced the +duchy to his military tyranny. The Medici were conscious that they, +selfishly, had most to gain by supporting despots who in time of need +might help them to confirm their own authority. With the same end in +view, when the legitimate line of the Bentivogli was extinguished, +Cosimo hunted out a bastard pretender of that family, presented him to +the chiefs of the Bentivogli faction, and had him placed upon the seat +of his supposed ancestors at Bologna. This young man, a certain Santi +da Cascese, presumed to be the son of Ercole de' Bentivogli, was an +artisan in a wool factory when Cosimo set eyes upon him. At first Santi +refused the dangerous honour of governing a proud republic; but the +intrigues of Cosimo prevailed, 225and the obscure craftsman ended his +days a powerful prince. + +By the arts I have attempted to describe, Cosimo in the course of his +long life absorbed the forces of the republic into himself. While he +shunned the external signs of despotic power he made himself the master +of the State. His complexion was of a pale olive; his stature short; +abstemious and simple in his habits, affable in conversation, sparing +of speech, he knew how to combine that burgher-like civility for which +the Romans praised Augustus, with the reality of a despotism all the +more difficult to combat because it seemed nowhere and was everywhere. +When he died, at the age of seventy-five, in 1464, the people whom he +had enslaved, but whom he had neither injured nor insulted, honoured +him with the title of _Pater Patriæ_. This was inscribed upon his tomb +in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame of a great and generous +patron,[28] the infamy of a cynical, self-seeking, bourgeois tyrant. +Such combinations of contradictory qualities were common enough at the +time of the Renaissance. Did not Machiavelli spend his days in +tavern-brawls and low amours, his nights among the mighty spirits of +the dead, with whom, when he had changed his country suit of homespun +for the habit of the Court, he found himself an honoured equal? + + [28] For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art and literature, his + collection of libraries, his great buildings, his generosity to + scholars, and his promotion of Greek studies, I may refer to my + _Renaissance in Italy_: 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. iv. + +XI + +Cosimo had shown consummate skill by governing Florence through a party +created and raised to influence by himself. The jealousy of these +adherents formed the chief 226difficulty with which his son Piero had +to contend. Unless the Medici could manage to kick down the ladder +whereby they had risen, they ran the risk of losing all. As on a former +occasion, so now they profited by the mistakes of their antagonists. +Three chief men of their own party, Diotisalvi Neroni, Agnolo +Acciaiuoli, and Luca Pitti, determined to shake off the yoke of their +masters, and to repay the Medici for what they owed by leading them to +ruin. Niccolo Soderini, a patriot, indignant at the slow enslavement of +his country, joined them. At first they strove to undermine the credit +of the Medici with the Florentines by inducing Piero to call in the +moneys placed at interest by his father in the hands of private +citizens. This act was unpopular; but it did not suffice to move a +revolution. To proceed by constitutional measures against the Medici +was judged impolitic. Therefore the conspirators decided to take, if +possible, Piero's life. The plot failed, chiefly owing to the coolness +and the cunning of the young Lorenzo, Piero's eldest son. Public +sympathy was strongly excited against the aggressors. Neroni, +Acciaiuoli, and Soderini were exiled. Pitti was allowed to stay, +dishonoured, powerless, and penniless, in Florence. Meanwhile, the +failure of their foes had only served to strengthen the position of the +Medici. The ladder had saved them the trouble of kicking it down. + +The congratulations addressed on this occasion to Piero and Lorenzo by +the ruling powers of Italy show that the Medici were already regarded +as princes outside Florence. Lorenzo and Giuliano, the two sons of +Piero, travelled abroad to the Courts of Milan and Ferrara with the +style and state of more than simple citizens. At home they occupied the +first place on all occasions of public ceremony, receiving royal +visitors on terms of equality, and performing the hospitalities of the +republic like men who had been born to represent its 227dignities. +Lorenzo's marriage to Clarice Orsini, of the noble Roman house, was +another sign that the Medici were advancing on the way toward +despotism. Cosimo had avoided foreign alliances for his children. His +descendants now judged themselves firmly planted enough to risk the +odium of a princely match for the sake of the support outside the city +they might win. + +XII + +Piero de' Medici died in December 1469. His son Lorenzo was then barely +twenty-two years of age. The chiefs of the Medicean party, all-powerful +in the State, held a council, in which they resolved to place him in +the same position as his father and grandfather. This resolve seems to +have been formed after mature deliberation, on the ground that the +existing conditions of Italian politics rendered it impossible to +conduct the government without a presidential head. Florence, though +still a democracy, required a permanent chief to treat on an equality +with the princes of the leading cities. Here we may note the prudence +of Cosimo's foreign policy. When he helped to establish despots in +Milan and Bologna he was rendering the presidency of his own family in +Florence necessary. + +Lorenzo, having received this invitation, called attention to his youth +and inexperience. Yet he did not refuse it; and, after a graceful +display of diffidence, he accepted the charge, entering thus upon that +famous political career, in the course of which he not only established +and maintained a balance of power in Italy, with Florence for the +central city, but also contrived to remodel the government of the +republic in the interest of his own family and to strengthen the Medici +by relations with the Papal See. + +The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual 228and social +gifts, his participation in all the literary and philosophical +interests of his century, his large and liberal patronage of art, and +the gaiety with which he joined the people of Florence in their +pastimes—Mayday games and Carnival festivities—strengthened his hold +upon the city in an age devoted to culture and refined pleasure. +Whatever was most brilliant in the spirit of the Italian Benaissance +seemed to be incarnate in Lorenzo. Not merely as a patron and a +dilettante, but as a poet and a critic, a philosopher and scholar, he +proved himself adequate to the varied intellectual ambitions of his +country. Penetrated with the passion for erudition which distinguished +Florence in the fifteenth century, familiar with her painters and her +sculptors, deeply read in the works of her great poets, he conceived +the ideal of infusing the spirit of antique civility into modern life, +and of effecting for society what the artists were performing in their +own sphere. To preserve the native character of the Florentine genius, +while he added the grace of classic form, was the aim to which his +tastes and instincts led him. At the same time, while he made himself +the master of Florentine revels and the Augustus of Renaissance +literature, he took care that beneath his carnival masks and ball-dress +should be concealed the chains which he was forging for the republic. + +What he lacked, with so much mental brilliancy, was moral greatness. +The age he lived in was an age of selfish despots, treacherous +generals, godless priests. It was an age of intellectual vigour and +artistic creativeness; but it was also an age of mean ambition, sordid +policy, and vitiated principles. Lorenzo remained true in all respects +to the genius of this age: true to its enthusiasm for antique culture, +true to its passion for art, true to its refined love of pleasure; but +true also to its petty political intrigues, to its 229cynical +selfishness, to its lack of heroism. For Florence he looked no higher +and saw no further than Cosimo had done. If culture was his pastime, +the enslavement of the city by bribery and corruption was the hard work +of his manhood. As is the case with much Renaissance art, his life was +worth more for its decorative detail than for its constructive design. +In richness, versatility, variety, and exquisiteness of execution, it +left little to be desired; yet, viewed at a distance, and as a whole, +it does not inspire us with a sense of architectonic majesty. + +XIII + +Lorenzo's chief difficulties arose from the necessity under which, like +Cosimo, he laboured of governing the city through its old institutions +by means of a party. To keep the members of this party in good temper, +and to gain their approval for the alterations he effected in the State +machinery of Florence, was the problem of his life. The successful +solution of this problem was easier now, after two generations of the +Medicean ascendency, than it had been at first. Meanwhile the people +were maintained in good humour by public shows, ease, plenty, and a +general laxity of discipline. The splendour of Lorenzo's foreign +alliances and the consideration he received from all the Courts of +Italy contributed in no small measure to his popularity and security at +home. By using his authority over Florence to inspire respect abroad, +and by using his foreign credit to impose upon the burghers, Lorenzo +displayed the tact of a true Italian diplomatist. His genius for +statecraft, as then understood, was indeed of a rare order, equally +adapted to the conduct of a complicated foreign policy and to the +control of a suspicious and variable Commonwealth. In one point alone +he was inferior to his grandfather. He neglected 230commerce, and +allowed his banking business to fall into disorder so hopeless that in +course of time he ceased to be solvent. Meanwhile his personal +expenses, both as a prince in his own palace, and as the representative +of majesty in Florence, continually increased. The bankruptcy of the +Medici, it had long been foreseen, would involve the public finances in +serious confusion. And now, in order to retrieve his fortunes, Lorenzo +was not only obliged to repudiate his debts to the exchequer, but had +also to gain complete disposal of the State purse. It was this +necessity that drove him to effect the constitutional revolution of +1480, by which he substituted a Privy Council of seventy members for +the old Councils of the State, absorbing the chief functions of the +commonwealth into this single body, whom he practically nominated at +pleasure. The same want of money led to the great scandal of his +reign—the plundering of the Monte delle Doti, or State Insurance Office +Fund for securing dowers to the children of its creditors. + +XIV + +While tracing the salient points of Lorenzo de' Medici's administration +I have omitted to mention the important events which followed shortly +after his accession to power in 1469. What happened between that date +and 1480 was not only decisive for the future fortunes of the Casa +Medici, but it was also eminently characteristic of the perils and the +difficulties which beset Italian despots. The year 1471 was signalised +by a visit by the Duke Galeazzo Maria Sforza of Milan, and his wife +Bona of Savoy, to the Medici in Florence. They came attended by their +whole Court—body guards on horse and foot, ushers, pages, falconers, +grooms, kennel-varlets, and huntsmen. Omitting the mere baggage +service, 231their train counted two thousand horses. To mention this +incident would be superfluous, had not so acute an observer as +Machiavelli marked it out as a turning-point in Florentine history. +Now, for the first time, the democratic commonwealth saw its streets +filled with a mob of courtiers. Masques, balls, and tournaments +succeeded each other with magnificent variety; and all the arts of +Florence were pressed into the service of these festivals. Machiavelli +says that the burghers lost the last remnant of their old austerity of +manners, and became, like the degenerate Romans, ready to obey the +masters who provided them with brilliant spectacles. They gazed with +admiration on the pomp of Italian princes, their dissolute and godless +living, their luxury and prodigal expenditure; and when the Medici +affected similar habits in the next generation, the people had no +courage to resist the invasion of their pleasant vices. + +In the same year, 1471, Volterra was reconquered for the Florentines by +Frederick of Urbino. The honours of this victory, disgraced by a brutal +sack of the conquered city, in violation of its articles of +capitulation, were reserved for Lorenzo, who returned in triumph to +Florence. More than ever he assumed the prince, and in his person +undertook to represent the State. + +In the same year, 1471, Francesco della Rovere was raised to the Papacy +with the memorable name of Sixtus IV. Sixtus was a man of violent +temper and fierce passions, restless and impatiently ambitious, bent on +the aggrandisement of the beautiful and wanton youths, his nephews. Of +these the most aspiring was Girolamo Riario, for whom Sixtus bought the +town of Imola from Taddeo Manfredi, in order that he might possess the +title of count and the nucleus of a tyranny in the Romagna. This +purchase thwarted the plans of Lorenzo, who wished to secure the same +advantages for 232Florence. Smarting with the sense of disappointment, +he forbade the Roman banker, Francesco Pazzi, to guarantee the +purchase-money. By this act Lorenzo made two mortal foes—the Pope and +Francesco Pazzi. Francesco was a thin, pale, atrabilious fanatic, all +nerve and passion, with a monomaniac intensity of purpose, and a will +inflamed and guided by imagination—a man formed by nature for +conspiracy, such a man, in fact, as Shakspere drew in Cassius. Maddened +by Lorenzo's prohibition, he conceived the notion of overthrowing the +Medici in Florence by a violent blow. Girolamo Riario entered into his +views. So did Francesco Salviati, Archbishop of Pisa, who had private +reasons for hostility. These men found no difficulty in winning over +Sixtus to their plot; nor is it possible to purge the Pope of +participation in what followed. I need not describe by what means +Francesco drew the other members of his family into the scheme, and how +he secured the assistance of armed cut-throats. Suffice it to say that +the chief conspirators, with the exception of the Count Girolamo, +betook themselves to Florence, and there, after the failure of other +attempts, decided to murder Lorenzo and his brother Giuliano in the +cathedral on Sunday, April 26th, 1478. The moment when the priest at +the high altar finished the mass, was fixed for the assassination. +Everything was ready. The conspirators, by Judas kisses and +embracements, had discovered that the young men wore no protective +armour under their silken doublets. Pacing the aisle behind the choir, +they feared no treason. And now the lives of both might easily have +been secured, if at the last moment the courage of the hired assassins +had not failed them. Murder, they said, was well enough; but they could +not bring themselves to stab men before the newly consecrated body of +Christ. In this extremity a priest was found who, 'being accustomed to +233churches,' had no scruples. He and another reprobate were told off +to Lorenzo. Francesco de' Pazzi himself undertook Giuliano. The moment +for attack arrived. Francesco plunged his dagger into the heart of +Giuliano. Then, not satisfied with this death-blow, he struck again, +and in his heat of passion wounded his own thigh. Lorenzo escaped with +a flesh-wound from the poniard of the priest, and rushed into the +sacristy, where his friend Poliziano shut and held the brazen door. The +plot had failed; for Giuliano, of the two brothers, was the one whom +the conspirators would the more willingly have spared. The whole church +was in an uproar. The city rose in tumult. Rage and horror took +possession of the people. They flew to the Palazzo Pubblico and to the +houses of the Pazzi, hunted the conspirators from place to place, hung +the archbishop by the neck from the palace windows, and, as they found +fresh victims for their fury, strung them one by one in a ghastly row +at his side above the Square. About one hundred in all were killed. +None who had joined in the plot escaped; for Lorenzo had long arms, and +one man, who fled to Constantinople, was delivered over to his agents +by the Sultan. Out of the whole Pazzi family only Guglielmo, the +husband of Bianca de' Medici, was spared. When the tumult was over, +Andrea del Castagno painted the portraits of the traitors +head-downwards upon the walls of the Bargello Palace, in order that all +men might know what fate awaited the foes of the Medici and of the +State of Florence.[29] Meanwhile a bastard son of Giuliano's was +received into the Medicean household, to perpetuate his lineage. This +child, named Giulio, was destined to be famous in the annals of Italy +and Florence under the title of Pope Clement VII. + + [29] Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in like manner, on the + same walls. + +234 + +XV + +As is usual when such plots miss their mark, the passions excited +redounded to the profit of the injured party. The commonwealth felt +that the blow struck at Lorenzo had been aimed at their majesty. +Sixtus, on the other hand, could not contain his rage at the failure of +so ably planned a _coup de main_. Ignoring that he had sanctioned the +treason, that a priest had put his hand to the dagger, that the impious +deed had been attempted in a church before the very Sacrament of +Christ, whose vicar on earth he was, the Pope now excommunicated the +republic. The reason he alleged was, that the Florentines had dared to +hang an archbishop. + +Thus began a war to the death between Sixtus and Florence. The Pope +inflamed the whole of Italy, and carried on a ruinous campaign in +Tuscany. It seemed as though the republic might lose her subject +cities, always ready to revolt when danger threatened the sovereign +State. Lorenzo's position became critical. Sixtus made no secret of the +hatred he bore him personally, declaring that he fought less with +Florence than with the Medici. To support the odium of this long war +and this heavy interdict alone, was more than he could do. His allies +forsook him. Naples was enlisted on the Pope's side. Milan and the +other States of Lombardy were occupied with their own affairs, and held +aloof. In this extremity he saw that nothing but a bold step could save +him. The league formed by Sixtus must be broken up at any risk, and, if +possible, by his own ability. On December 6th, 1479, Lorenzo left +Florence, unarmed and unattended, took ship at Leghorn, and proceeded +to the court of the enemy, King Ferdinand, at Naples. Ferdinand was a +cruel and treacherous sovereign, who had murdered his guest, Jacopo +Piccinino, at a banquet given in 235his honour. But Ferdinand was the +son of Alfonso, who, by address and eloquence, had gained a kingdom +from his foe and jailor, Filippo Maria Visconti. Lorenzo calculated +that he too, following Alfonso's policy, might prove to Ferdinand how +little there was to gain from an alliance with Rome, how much Naples +and Florence, firmly united together for offence and defence, might +effect in Italy. + +Only a student of those perilous times can appreciate the courage and +the genius, the audacity combined with diplomatic penetration, +displayed by Lorenzo at this crisis. He calmly walked into the lion's +den, trusting he could tame the lion and teach it, and all in a few +days. Nor did his expectation fail. Though Lorenzo was rather ugly than +handsome, with a dark skin, heavy brows, powerful jaws, and nose sharp +in the bridge and broad at the nostrils, without grace of carriage or +melody of voice, he possessed what makes up for personal defects—the +winning charm of eloquence in conversation, a subtle wit, profound +knowledge of men, and tact allied to sympathy, which placed him always +at the centre of the situation. Ferdinand received him kindly. The +Neapolitan nobles admired his courage and were fascinated by his social +talents. On March 1st, 1480, he left Naples again, having won over the +King by his arguments. When he reached Florence he was able to declare +that he brought home a treaty of peace and alliance signed by the most +powerful foe of the republic. The success of this bold enterprise +endeared Lorenzo more than ever to his countrymen. In the same year +they concluded a treaty with Sixtus, who was forced against his will to +lay down arms by the capture of Otranto and the extreme peril of +Turkish invasion. After the year 1480 Lorenzo remained sole master in +Florence, the arbiter and peacemaker of the rest of Italy. + +236 + +XVI + +The conjuration of the Pazzi was only one in a long series of similar +conspiracies. Italian despots gained their power by violence and +wielded it with craft. Violence and craft were therefore used against +them. When the study of the classics had penetrated the nation with +antique ideas of heroism, tyrannicide became a virtue. Princes were +murdered with frightful frequency. Thus Gian Maria Visconti was put to +death at Milan in 1412; Galeazzo Maria Sforza in 1484; the Chiarelli of +Fabriano were massacred in 1435; the Baglioni of Perugia in 1500; +Girolamo Gentile planned the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza at Genoa +in 1476; Niccolo d'Este conspired against his uncle Ercole in 1476; +Stefano Porcari attempted the life of Nicholas V. at Rome in 1453; +Lodovico Sforza narrowly escaped a violent death in 1453. I might +multiply these instances beyond satiety. As it is, I have selected but +a few examples falling, all but one, within the second half of the +fifteenth century. Nearly all these attempts upon the lives of princes +were made in church during the celebration of sacred offices. There was +no superfluity of naughtiness, no wilful sacrilege, in this choice of +an occasion. It only testified to the continual suspicion and guarded +watchfulness maintained by tyrants. To strike at them except in church +was almost impossible. Meanwhile the fate of the tyrannicides was +uniform. Successful or not, they perished. Yet so grievous was the +pressure of Italian despotism, so glorious was the ideal of Greek and +Roman heroism, so passionate the temper of the people, that to kill a +prince at any cost to self appeared the crown of manliness. This +bloodshed exercised a delirious fascination: pure and base, personal +and patriotic motives combined to add intensity of fixed and fiery +purpose to the murderous impulse. Those 237then who, like the Medici, +aspired to tyranny and sought to found a dynasty of princes, entered +the arena against a host of unknown and unseen gladiators. + +XVII + +On his deathbed, in 1492, Lorenzo lay between two men—Angelo Poliziano +and Girolamo Savonarola. Poliziano incarnated the genial, radiant, +godless spirit of fifteenth-century humanism. Savonarola represented +the conscience of Italy, self-convicted, amid all her greatness, of +crimes that called for punishment. It is said that when Lorenzo asked +the monk for absolution, Savonarola bade him first restore freedom to +Florence. Lorenzo, turned his face to the wall and was silent. How +indeed could he make this city in a moment free, after sixty years of +slow and systematic corruption? Savonarola left him, and he died +unshriven. This legend is doubtful, though it rests on excellent if +somewhat partial authority. It has, at any rate, the value of a mythus, +since it epitomises the attitude assumed by the great preacher to the +prince. Florence enslaved, the soul of Lorenzo cannot lay its burden +down, but must go with all its sins upon it to the throne of God. + +The year 1492 was a memorable year for Italy. In this year Lorenzo's +death removed the keystone of the arch that had sustained the fabric of +Italian federation. In this year Roderigo Borgia was elected Pope. In +this year Columbus discovered America; Vasco de Gama soon after opened +a new way to the Indies, and thus the commerce of the world passed from +Italy to other nations. In this year the conquest of Granada gave unity +to the Spanish nation. In this year France, through the lifelong craft +of Louis XI., was for the first time united under a young hot-headed +sovereign. On 238every side of the political horizon storms threatened. +It was clear that a new chapter of European history had been opened. +Then Savonarola raised his voice, and cried that the crimes of Italy, +the abominations of the Church, would speedily be punished. Events led +rapidly to the fulfilment of this prophecy. Lorenzo's successor, Piero +de' Medici, was a vain, irresolute, and hasty princeling, fond of +display, proud of his skill in fencing and football-playing, with too +much of the Orsini blood in his hot veins, with too little of the +Medicean craft in his weak head. The Italian despots felt they could +not trust Piero, and this want of confidence was probably the first +motive that impelled Lodovico Sforza to call Charles VIII. into Italy +in 1494. + +It will not be necessary to dwell upon this invasion of the French, +except in so far as it affected Florence. Charles passed rapidly +through Lombardy, engaged his army in the passes of the Apennines, and +debouched upon the coast where the Magra divided Tuscany from Liguria. +Here the fortresses of Sarzana and Pietra Santa, between the marble +bulwark of Carrara and the Tuscan sea, stopped his further progress. +The keys were held by the Florentines. To force these strong positions +and to pass beyond them seemed impossible. It might have been +impossible if Piero de' Medici had possessed a firmer will. As it was, +he rode off to the French camp, delivered up the forts to Charles, +bound the King by no engagements, and returned not otherwise than proud +of his folly to Florence. A terrible reception awaited him. The +Florentines, in their fury, had risen and sacked the Medicean palace. +It was as much as Piero, with his brothers, could do to escape beyond +the hills to Venice. The despotism of the Medici, so carefully built +up, so artfully sustained and strengthened, was overthrown in a single +day. + +239 + +XVIII + +Before considering what happened in Florence after the expulsion of the +Medici, it will be well to pause a moment and review the state in which +Lorenzo had left his family. Piero, his eldest son, recognised as chief +of the republic after his father's death, was married to Alfonsina +Orsini, and was in his twenty-second year. Giovanni, his second son, a +youth of seventeen, had just been made cardinal. This honour, of vast +importance for the Casa Medici in the future, he owed to his sister +Maddalena's marriage to Franceschetto Cybo, son of Innocent VIII. The +third of Lorenzo's sons, named Giuliano, was a boy of thirteen. Giulio, +the bastard son of the elder Giuliano, was fourteen. These four princes +formed the efficient strength of the Medici, the hope of the house; and +for each of them, with the exception of Piero, who died in exile, and +of whom no more notice need be taken, a brilliant destiny was still in +store. In the year 1495, however, they now wandered, homeless and +helpless, through the cities of Italy, each of which was shaken to its +foundations by the French invasion. + +XIX + +Florence, left without the Medici, deprived of Pisa and other subject +cities by the passage of the French army, with no leader but the monk +Savonarola, now sought to reconstitute her liberties. During the +domination of the Albizzi and the Medici the old order of the +commonwealth had been completely broken up. The Arti had lost their +primitive importance. The distinctions between the Grandi and the +Popolani had practically passed away. In a democracy that has submitted +to a lengthened course of tyranny, such extinction of its old life is +inevitable. Yet the passion for liberty was still 240powerful; and the +busy brains of the Florentines were stored with experience gained from +their previous vicissitudes, from \ the study of antique history, and +from the observation of existing constitutions in the towns of Italy. +They now determined to reorganise the State upon the model of the +Venetian republic. The Signory was to remain, with its old institution +of Priors, Gonfalonier, and College, elected for brief periods. These +magistrates were to take the initiative in debate, to propose measures, +and to consider plans of action. The real power of the State, for +voting supplies and ratifying the measures of the Signory, was vested +in a senate of one thousand members, called the Grand Council, from +whom a smaller body of forty, acting as intermediates between the +Council and the Signory, were elected. It is said that the plan of this +constitution originated with Savonarola; nor is there any doubt that he +used all his influence in the pulpit of the Duomo to render it +acceptable to the people. Whoever may have been responsible for its +formation, the new government was carried in 1495, and a large hall for +the assembly of the Grand Council was opened in the Public Palace. + +Savonarola, meanwhile, had become the ruling spirit of Florence. He +gained his great power as a preacher: he used it like a monk. The +motive principle of his action was the passion for reform. To bring the +Church back to its pristine state of purity, without altering its +doctrine or suggesting any new form of creed; to purge Italy of ungodly +customs; to overthrow the tyrants who encouraged evil living, and to +place the power of the State in the hands of sober citizens: these were +his objects. Though he set himself in bold opposition to the reigning +Pope, he had no desire to destroy the spiritual supremacy of S. Peter's +see. Though he burned with an enthusiastic zeal for liberty, and +displayed rare genius for administration, he had no ambition to rule +Florence like a 241dictator. Savonarola was neither a reformer in the +northern sense of the word, nor yet a political demagogue. His sole +wish was to see purity of manners and freedom of self-government +re-established. With this end in view he bade the Florentines elect +Christ as their supreme chief; and they did so. For the same end he +abstained from appearing in the State Councils, and left the +Constitution to work by its own laws. His personal influence he +reserved for the pulpit; and here he was omnipotent. The people +believed in him as a prophet. They turned to him as the man who knew +what he wanted—as the voice of liberty, the soul of the new régime, the +genius who could breathe into the commonwealth a breath of fresh +vitality. When, therefore, Savonarola preached a reform of manners, he +was at once obeyed. Strict laws were passed enforcing sobriety, +condemning trades of pleasure, reducing the gay customs of Florence to +puritanical austerity. + +Great stress has been laid upon this reaction of the monk-led populace +against the vices of the past. Yet the historian is bound to pronounce +that the reform effected by Savonarola was rather picturesque than +vital. Like all violent revivals of pietism, it produced a no less +violent reaction. The parties within the city who resented the +interference of a preaching friar, joined with the Pope in Rome, who +hated a contumacious schismatic in Savonarola. Assailed by these two +forces at the same moment, and driven upon perilous ground by his own +febrile enthusiasm, Savonarola succumbed. He was imprisoned, tortured, +and burned upon the public square in 1498. + +What Savonarola really achieved for Florence was not a permanent reform +of morality, but a resuscitation of the spirit of freedom. His +followers, called in contempt _I Piagnoni_, or the Weepers, formed the +path of the commonwealth in future; and the memory of their martyr +served as a common bond of sympathy to unite them in times of trial. It +was a necessary 242consequence of the peculiar part he played that the +city was henceforth divided into factions representing mutually +antagonistic principles. These factions were not created by Savonarola; +but his extraordinary influence accentuated, as it were, the humours +that lay dormant in the State. Families favourable to the Medici took +the name of _Palleschi_. Men who chafed against puritanical reform, and +who were eager for any government that should secure them their old +licence, were known as _Compagnacci_. Meanwhile the oligarchs, who +disliked a democratic Constitution, and thought it possible to found an +aristocracy without the intervention of the Medici, came to be known as +_Gli Ottimati_. Florence held within itself, from this epoch forward to +the final extinction of liberty, four great parties: the _Piagnoni_, +passionate for political freedom and austerity of life; the +_Palleschi_, favourable to the Medicean cause, and regretful of +Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the _Compagnacci_, intolerant of the reformed +republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the Medici, but desirous of +personal licence; the _Ottimati_, astute and selfish, watching their +own advantage, ever-mindful to form a narrow government of privileged +families, disinclined to the Medici, except when they thought the +Medici might be employed as instruments in their intrigues. + +XX + +During the short period of Savonarola's ascendency, Florence was in +form at least a Theocracy, without any titular head but Christ; and as +long as the enthusiasm inspired by the monk lasted, as long as his +personal influence endured, the Constitution of the Grand Council +worked well. After his death it was found that the machinery was too +cumbrous. While adopting the Venetian form of government, the +Florentines had omitted one essential element—the Doge. By 243referring +measures of immediate necessity to the Grand Council, the republic lost +precious time. Dangerous publicity, moreover, was incurred; and so +large a body often came to no firm resolution. There was no permanent +authority in the State; no security that what had been deliberated +would be carried out with energy; no titular chief, who could transact +affairs with foreign potentates and their ambassadors. Accordingly, in +1502, it was decreed that the Gonfalonier should hold office for +life—should be in fact a Doge. To this important post of permanent +president Piero Soderini was appointed; and in his hands were placed +the chief affairs of the republic. + +At this point Florence, after all her vicissitudes, had won her way to +something really similar to the Venetian Constitution. Yet the +similarity existed more in form than in fact. The government of +burghers in a Grand Council, with a Senate of forty, and a Gonfalonier +for life, had not grown up gradually and absorbed into itself the vital +forces of the commonwealth. It was a creation of inventive +intelligence, not of national development, in Florence. It had against +it the jealousy of the Ottimati, who felt themselves overshadowed by +the Gonfalonier; the hatred of the Palleschi, who yearned for the +Medici; the discontent of the working classes, who thought the presence +of a Court in Florence would improve trade; last, but not least, the +disaffection of the Compagnacci, who felt they could not flourish to +their heart's content in a free commonwealth. Moreover, though the name +of liberty was on every lip, though the Florentines talked, wrote, and +speculated more about constitutional independence than they had ever +done, the true energy of free institutions had passed from the city. +The corrupt government of Cosimo and Lorenzo bore its natural fruit +now. Egotistic ambition and avarice supplanted patriotism and industry. +It is necessary 244to comprehend these circumstances, in order that the +next revolution may be clearly understood. + +XXI + +During the ten years which elapsed between 1502 and 1512, Piero +Soderini administered Florence with an outward show of great +prosperity. He regained Pisa, and maintained an honourable foreign +policy in the midst of the wars stirred up by the League of Cambray. +Meanwhile the young princes of the House of Medici had grown to manhood +in exile. The Cardinal Giovanni was thirty-seven in 1512. His brother +Giuliano was thirty-three. Both of these men were better fitted than +their brother Piero to fight the battles of the family. Giovanni, in +particular, had inherited no small portion of the Medicean craft. +During the troubled reign of Julius II. he kept very quiet, cementing +his connections with powerful men in Rome, but making no effort to +regain his hold on Florence. Now the moment for striking a decisive +blow had come. After the battle of Ravenna in 1512, the French were +driven out of Italy, and the Sforzas returned to Milan; the Spanish +troops, under the Viceroy Cardona, remained masters of the country. +Following the camp of these Spaniards, Giovanni de' Medici entered +Tuscany in August, and caused the restoration of the Medici to be +announced in Florence. The people, assembled by Soderini, resolved to +resist to the uttermost. No foreign army should force them to receive +the masters whom they had expelled. Yet their courage failed on August +29th, when news reached them of the capture and the sack of Prato. +Prato is a sunny little city a few miles distant from the walls of +Florence, famous for the beauty of its women, the richness of its +gardens, and the grace of its buildings. Into this gem of cities the +savage soldiery of Spain marched in the bright 245autumnal weather, and +turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now impossible to read of +what they did in Prato without shuddering.[30] Cruelty and lust, sordid +greed for gold, and cold delight in bloodshed, could go no further. +Giovanni de' Medici, by nature mild and voluptuous, averse to violence +of all kinds, had to smile approval, while the Spanish Viceroy knocked +thus with mailed hand for him at the door of Florence. The Florentines +were paralysed with terror. They deposed Soderini and received the +Medici. Giovanni and Giuliano entered their devastated palace in the +Via Larga, abolished the Grand Council, and dealt with the republic as +they listed. + + [30] See _Archivio Storico_. + +XXII + +There was no longer any medium in Florence possible between either +tyranny or some such government as the Medici had now destroyed. The +State was too rotten to recover even the modified despotism of +Lorenzo's days. Each transformation had impaired some portion of its +framework, broken down some of its traditions, and sowed new seeds of +egotism in citizens who saw all things round them change but +self-advantage. Therefore Giovanni and Giuliano felt themselves secure +in flattering the popular vanity by an empty parade of the old +institutions. They restored the Signory and the Gonfalonier, elected +for intervals of two months by officers appointed for this purpose by +the Medici. Florence had the show of a free government. But the Medici +managed all things; and soldiers, commanded by their creature, Paolo +Vettori, held the Palace and the Public Square. The tyranny thus +established was less secure, inasmuch as it openly rested upon +violence, than Lorenzo's power had been; nor were there signs wanting +that the burghers could ill brook their 246servitude. The conspiracy of +Pietro Paolo Boscoli and Agostino Capponi proved that the Medicean +brothers ran daily risk of life. Indeed, it is not likely that they +would have succeeded in maintaining their authority—for they were poor +and ill-supported by friends outside the city—except for one most lucky +circumstance: that was the election of Giovanni de' Medici to the +Papacy in 1513. + +The creation of Leo X. spread satisfaction throughout Italy. +Politicians trusted that he would display some portion of his father's +ability, and restore peace to the nation. Men of arts and letters +expected everything from a Medicean Pope, who had already acquired the +reputation of polite culture and open-handed generosity. They at any +rate were not deceived. Leo's first words on taking his place in the +Vatican were addressed to his brother Giuliano: 'Let us enjoy the +Papacy, now that God has given it to us;' and his notion of enjoyment +was to surround himself with court-poets, jesters, and musicians, to +adorn his Roman palaces with frescoes, to collect statues and +inscriptions, to listen to Latin speeches, and to pass judgment upon +scholarly compositions. Any one and every one who gave him sensual or +intellectual pleasure, found his purse always open. He lived in the +utmost magnificence, and made Rome the Paris of the Renaissance for +brilliance, immorality, and self-indulgent ease. The politicians had +less reason to be satisfied. Instead of uniting the Italians and +keeping the great Powers of Europe in check, Leo carried on a series of +disastrous petty wars, chiefly with the purpose of establishing the +Medici as princes. He squandered the revenues of the Church, and left +enormous debts behind him—an exchequer ruined and a foreign policy so +confused that peace for Italy could only be obtained by servitude. + +Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine 247citizen who had received +the tiara, and the popular vanity was flattered by this honour to the +republic. Political theorists, meanwhile, began to speculate what +greatness Florence, in combination with Rome, might rise to. The Pope +was young; he ruled a large territory, reduced to order by his warlike +predecessors. It seemed as though the republic, swayed by him, might +make herself the first city in Italy, and restore the glories of her +Guelf ascendency upon the platform of Renaissance statecraft. There was +now no overt opposition to the Medici in Florence. How to govern the +city from Rome, and how to advance the fortunes of his brother Giuliano +and his nephew Lorenzo (Piero's son, a young man of twenty-one), +occupied the Pope's most serious attention. For Lorenzo Leo obtained +the Duchy of Urbino and the hand of a French princess. Giuliano was +named Gonfalonier of the Church. He also received the French title of +Duke of Nemours and the hand of Filiberta, Princess of Savoy. Leo +entertained a further project of acquiring the crown of Southern Italy +for his brother, and thus of uniting Rome, Florence, and Naples under +the headship of his house. Nor were the Medicean interests neglected in +the Church. Giulio, the Pope's bastard cousin, was made cardinal. He +remained in Rome, acting as vice-chancellor and doing the hard work of +the Papal Government for the pleasure-loving pontiff. + +To Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino, the titular head of the family, was +committed the government of Florence. During their exile, wandering +from court to court in Italy, the Medici had forgotten what it was to +be burghers, and had acquired the manners of princes. Leo alone +retained enough of caution to warn his nephew that the Florentines must +still be treated as free people. He confirmed the constitution of the +Signory and the Privy Council of seventy established by his father, +bidding Lorenzo, while he ruled this sham republic, to avoid 248the +outer signs of tyranny. The young duke at first behaved with +moderation, but he could not cast aside his habits of a great lord. +Florence now for the first time saw a regular court established in her +midst, with a prince, who, though he bore a foreign title, was in fact +her master. The joyous days of Lorenzo the Magnificent returned. +Masquerades and triumphs filled the public squares. Two clubs of +pleasure, called the Diamond and the Branch—badges adopted by the +Medici to signify their firmness in disaster and their power of +self-recovery—were formed to lead the revels. The best sculptors and +painters devoted their genius to the invention of costumes and cars. +The city affected to believe that the age of gold had come again. + +XXIII + +Fortune had been very favourable to the Medici. They had returned as +princes to Florence. Giovanni was Pope. Giuliano was Gonfalonier of the +Church. Giulio was Cardinal and Archbishop of Florence. Lorenzo ruled +the city like a sovereign. But this prosperity was no less brief than +it was brilliant. A few years sufficed to sweep off all the chiefs of +the great house. Giuliano died in 1516, leaving only a bastard son +Ippolito. Lorenzo died in 1519, leaving a bastard son Alessandro, and a +daughter, six days old, who lived to be the Queen of France. Leo died +in 1521. There remained now no legitimate male descendants from the +stock of Cosimo. The honours and pretensions of the Medici devolved +upon three bastards—on the Cardinal Giulio, and the two boys, +Alessandro and Ippolito. Of these, Alessandro was a mulatto, his mother +having been a Moorish slave in the Palace of Urbino; and whether his +father was Giulio, or Giuliano, or a base groom, was not known for +certain. To such extremities were the Medici 249reduced. In order to +keep their house alive, they were obliged to adopt this foundling. It +is true that the younger branch of the family, descended from Lorenzo, +the brother of Cosimo, still flourished. At this epoch it was +represented by Giovanni, the great general known as the Invincible, +whose bust so strikingly resembles that of Napoleon. But between this +line of the Medici and the elder branch there had never been true +cordiality. The Cardinal mistrusted Giovanni. It may, moreover, be +added, that Giovanni was himself doomed to death in the year 1526. + +Giulio de' Medici was left in 1521 to administer the State of Florence +single-handed. He was archbishop, and he resided in the city, holding +it with the grasp of an absolute ruler. Yet he felt his position +insecure. The republic had no longer any forms of self-government; nor +was there a magistracy to whom the despot could delegate his power in +his absence. Giulio's ambition was fixed upon the Papal crown. The +bastards he was rearing were but children. Florence had therefore to be +furnished with some political machinery that should work of itself. The +Cardinal did not wish to give freedom to the city, but clockwork. He +was in the perilous situation of having to rule a commonwealth without +life, without elasticity, without capacity of self-movement, yet full +of such material as, left alone, might ferment, and breed a revolution. +In this perplexity, he had recourse to advisers. The most experienced +politicians, philosophical theorists, practical diplomatists, and +students of antique history were requested to furnish him with plans +for a new constitution, just as you ask an architect to give you the +plan of a new house. This was the field-day of the doctrinaires. Now +was seen how much political sagacity the Florentines had gained while +they were losing liberty. We possess these several drafts of +constitutions. Some recommend tyranny; some 250incline to aristocracy, +or what Italians called _Governo Stretto_; some to democracy, or +_Governo Largo_; some to an eclectic compound of the other forms, or +_Governo Misto_. More consummate masterpieces of constructive ingenuity +can hardly be imagined. What is omitted in all, is just what no +doctrinaire, no nostrum can communicate—the breath of life, the +principle of organic growth. Things had come, indeed, to a melancholy +pass for Florence when her tyrant, in order to confirm his hold upon +her, had to devise these springs and irons to support her tottering +limbs. + +XXIV + +While the archbishop and the doctors were debating, a plot was hatching +in the Rucellai Gardens. It was here that the Florentine Academy now +held their meetings. For this society Machiavelli wrote his 'Treatise +on the Art of War,' and his 'Discourses upon Livy.' The former was an +exposition of Machiavelli's scheme for creating a national militia, as +the only safeguard for Italy, exposed at this period to the invasions +of great foreign armies. The latter is one of the three or four +masterpieces produced by the Florentine school of critical historians. +Stimulated by the daring speculations of Machiavelli, and fired to +enthusiasm by their study of antiquity, the younger academicians formed +a conspiracy for murdering Giulio de' Medici, and restoring the +republic on a Roman model. An intercepted letter betrayed their plans. +Two of the conspirators were taken and beheaded. Others escaped. But +the discovery of this conjuration put a stop to Giulio's scheme of +reforming the State. Henceforth he ruled Florence like a despot, mild +in manners, cautious in the exercise of arbitrary power, but firm in +his autocracy. The Condottiere. Alessandro Vitelli, with a company of +soldiers, was 251taken into service for the protection of his person +and the intimidation of the citizens. + +In 1523, the Pope, Adrian VI., expired after a short papacy, from which +he gained no honour and Italy no profit. Giulio hurried to Rome, and, +by the clever use of his large influence, caused himself to be elected +with the title of Clement VII. In Florence he left Silvio Passerini, +Cardinal of Cortona, as his vicegerent and the guardian of the two boys +Alessandro and Ippolito. The discipline of many years had accustomed +the Florentines to a government of priests. Still the burghers, mindful +of their ancient liberties, were galled by the yoke of a Cortonese, +sprung up from one of their subject cities; nor could they bear the +bastards who were being reared to rule them. Foreigners threw it in +their teeth that Florence, the city glorious of art and freedom, was +become a stable for mules—_stalla da muli_, in the expressive language +of popular sarcasm. Bastardy, it may be said in passing, carried with +it small dishonour among the Italians. The Estensi were all +illegitimate; the Aragonese house in Naples sprang from Alfonso's +natural son; and children of Popes ranked among the princes. Yet the +uncertainty of Alessandro's birth and the base condition of his mother +made the prospect of this tyrant peculiarly odious; while the primacy +of a foreign cardinal in the midst of citizens whose spirit was still +unbroken, embittered the cup of humiliation. The Casa Medici held its +authority by a slender thread, and depended more upon the disunion of +the burghers than on any power of its own. It could always reckon on +the favour of the lower populace, who gained profit and amusement from +the presence of a court. The Ottimati again hoped more from a weak +despotism than from a commonwealth, where their privileges would have +been merged in the mass of the Grand Council. Thus the sympathies of +the plebeians and the selfishness of 252the rich patricians prevented +the republic from asserting itself. On this meagre basis of personal +cupidity the Medici sustained themselves. What made the situation still +more delicate, and at the same time protracted the feeble rule of +Clement, was that neither the Florentines nor the Medici had any army. +Face to face with a potentate so considerable as the Pope, a free State +could not be established without military force. On the other hand, the +Medici, supported by a mere handful of mercenaries, had no power to +resist a popular rising if any external event should inspire the middle +classes with a hope of liberty. + +XXV + +Clement assumed the tiara at a moment of great difficulty. Leo had +ruined the finance of Rome. France and Spain were still contending for +the possession of Italy. While acting as Vice-Chancellor, Giulio de' +Medici had seemed to hold the reins with a firm grasp, and men expected +that he would prove a powerful Pope; but in those days he had Leo to +help him; and Leo, though indolent, was an abler man than his cousin. +He planned, and Giulio executed. Obliged to act now for himself, +Clement revealed the weakness of his nature. That weakness was +irresolution, craft without wisdom, diplomacy without knowledge of men. +He raised the storm, and showed himself incapable of guiding it. This +is not the place to tell by what a series of crooked schemes and cross +purposes he brought upon himself the ruin of the Church and Rome, to +relate his disagreement with the Emperor, or to describe again the sack +of the Eternal City by the rabble of the Constable de Bourbon's army. +That wreck of Rome in 1527 was the closing scene of the Italian +Renaissance—the 253last of the Apocalyptic tragedies foretold by +Savonarola—the death of the old age. + +When the Florentines knew what was happening in Rome, they rose and +forced the Cardinal Passerini to depart with the Medicean bastards from +the city. The youth demanded arms for the defence of the town, and they +received them. The whole male population was enrolled in a militia. The +Grand Council was reformed, and the republic was restored upon the +basis of 1495. Niccolo Capponi was elected Gonfalonier. The name of +Christ was again registered as chief of the commonwealth—to such an +extent did the memory of Savonarola still sway the popular imagination. +The new State hastened to form an alliance with France, and Malatesta +Baglioni was chosen as military Commander-in-Chief. Meanwhile the city +armed itself for siege—Michel Angelo Buonarroti and Francesco da San +Gallo undertaking the construction of new forts and ramparts. These +measures were adopted with sudden decision, because it was soon known +that Clement had made peace with the Emperor, and that the army which +had sacked Rome was going to be marched on Florence. + +XXVI + +In the month of August 1529 the Prince of Orange assembled his forces +at Terni, and thence advanced by easy stages into Tuscany. As he +approached, the Florentines laid waste their suburbs, and threw down +their wreath of towers, in order that the enemy might have no +harbourage or points of vantage for attack. Their troops were +concentrated within the city, where a new Gonfalonier, Francesco +Carducci, furiously opposed to the Medici, and attached to the Piagnoni +party, now ruled. On September 4th the Prince of Orange appeared before +the walls, and opened the memorable siege. 254It lasted eight months, +at the end of which time, betrayed by their generals, divided among +themselves, and worn out with delays, the Florentines capitulated. +Florence was paid as compensation for the insult offered to the pontiff +in the sack of Rome. + +The long yoke of the Medici had undermined the character of the +Florentines. This, their last glorious struggle for liberty, was but a +flash in the pan—a final flare-up of the dying lamp. The city was not +satisfied with slavery; but it had no capacity for united action. The +Ottimati were egotistic and jealous of the people. The Palleschi +desired to restore the Medici at any price—some of them frankly wishing +for a principality, others trusting that the old quasi-republican +government might still be reinstated. The Red Republicans, styled +Libertini and Arrabbiati, clung together in blind hatred of the +Medicean party; but they had no further policy to guide them. The +Piagnoni, or Frateschi, stuck to the memory of Savonarola, and believed +that angels would descend to guard the battlements when human help had +failed. These enthusiasts still formed the true nerve of the nation—the +class that might have saved the State, if salvation had been possible. +Even as it was, the energy of their fanaticism prolonged the siege +until resistance seemed no longer physically possible. The hero +developed by the crisis was Francesco Ferrucci, a plebeian who had +passed his youth in manual labour, and who now displayed rare military +genius. He fell fighting outside the walls of Florence. Had he +commanded the troops from the beginning, and remained inside the city, +it is just possible that the fate of the war might have been less +disastrous. As it was, Malatesta Baglioni, the Commander-in-Chief, +turned out an arrant scoundrel. He held secret correspondence with +Clement and the Prince of Orange. It was he who finally sold Florence +255to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge of Venice said +before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon record.' + +XXVII + +What remains of Florentine history may be briefly told. Clement, now +the undisputed arbiter of power and honour in the city, chose +Alessandro de' Medici to be prince. Alessandro was created Duke of +Cività di Penna, and married to a natural daughter of Charles V. +Ippolito was made a cardinal. Ippolito would have preferred a secular +to a priestly kingdom; nor did he conceal his jealousy for his cousin. +Therefore Alessandro had him poisoned. Alessandro in his turn was +murdered by his kinsman, Lorenzino de' Medici. Lorenzino paid the usual +penalty of tyrannicide some years later. When Alessandro was killed in +1539, Clement had himself been dead five years. Thus the whole +posterity of Cosimo de' Medici, with the exception of Catherine, Queen +of France, was utterly extinguished. But the Medici had struck root so +firmly in the State, and had so remodelled it upon the type of tyranny, +that the Florentines were no longer able to do without them. The chiefs +of the Ottimati selected Cosimo, the representative of Giovanni the +Invincible, for their prince, and thus the line of the elder Lorenzo +came at last to power. This Cosimo was a boy of eighteen, fond of +field-sports, and unused to party intrigues. When Francesco +Guicciardini offered him a privy purse of one hundred and twenty +thousand ducats annually, together with the presidency of Florence, +this wily politician hoped that he would rule the State through Cosimo, +and realise at last that dream of the Ottimati, a _Governo Stretto_ or +_di Pochi_. He was notably mistaken in his calculations. The first days +of Cosimo's administration showed that he possessed the craft of his +family and the vigour of his 256immediate progenitors, and that he +meant to be sole master in Florence. He it was who obtained the title +of Grand Duke of Tuscany from the Pope—a title confirmed by the +Emperor, fortified by Austrian alliances, and transmitted through his +heirs to the present century. + +XXVIII + +In this sketch of Florentine history, I have purposely omitted all +details that did not bear upon the constitutional history of the +republic, or on the growth of the Medici as despots; because I wanted +to present a picture of the process whereby that family contrived to +fasten itself upon the freest and most cultivated State in Italy. This +success the Medici owed mainly to their own obstinacy, and to the +weakness of republican institutions in Florence. Their power was +founded upon wealth in the first instance, and upon the ingenuity with +which they turned the favour of the proletariate to use. It was +confirmed by the mistakes and failures of their enemies, by Rinaldo +degli Albizzi's attack on Cosimo, by the conspiracy of Neroni and Pitti +against Piero, and by Francesco de' Pazzi's attempt to assassinate +Lorenzo. It was still further strengthened by the Medicean sympathy for +arts and letters—a sympathy which placed both Cosimo and Lorenzo at the +head of the Renaissance movement, and made them worthy to represent +Florence, the city of genius, in the fifteenth century. While thus +founding and cementing their dynastic influence upon the basis of a +widespread popularity, the Medici employed persistent cunning in the +enfeeblement of the Republic. It was their policy not to plant +themselves by force or acts of overt tyranny, but to corrupt ambitious +citizens, to secure the patronage of public officers, and to render the +spontaneous working of the State machinery impossible. By 257pursuing +this policy over a long series of years they made the revival of +liberty in 1494, and again in 1527, ineffectual. While exiled from +Florence, they never lost the hope of returning as masters, so long as +the passions they had excited, and they alone could gratify, remained +in full activity. These passions were avarice and egotism, the greed of +the grasping Ottimati, the jealousy of the nobles, the self-indulgence +of the proletariate. Yet it is probable they might have failed to +recover Florence, on one or other of these two occasions, but for the +accident which placed Giovanni de' Medici on the Papal chair, and +enabled him to put Giulio in the way of the same dignity. From the +accession of Leo in 1513 to the year 1527 the Medici ruled Florence +from Rome, and brought the power of the Church into the service of +their despotism. After that date they were still further aided by the +imperial policy of Charles V., who chose to govern Italy through +subject princes, bound to himself by domestic alliances and powerful +interests. One of these was Cosimo, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany. + +258 + + + + +THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE + + +To an Englishman one of the chief interests of the study of Italian +literature is derived from the fact that, between England and Italy, an +almost uninterrupted current of intellectual intercourse has been +maintained throughout the last five centuries. The English have never, +indeed, at any time been slavish imitators of the Italians; but Italy +has formed the dreamland of the English fancy, inspiring poets with +their most delightful thoughts, supplying them with subjects, and +implanting in their minds that sentiment of Southern beauty which, +engrafted on our more passionately imaginative Northern nature, has +borne rich fruit in the works of Chaucer, Spenser, Marlowe, Shakspere, +Milton, and the poets of this century. + +It is not strange that Italy should thus in matters of culture have +been the guide and mistress of England. Italy, of all the European +nations, was the first to produce high art and literature in the dawn +of modern civilisation. Italy was the first to display refinement in +domestic life, polish of manners, civilities of intercourse. In Italy +the commerce of courts first developed a society of men and women, +educated by the same traditions of humanistic culture. In Italy the +principles of government were first discussed and reduced to theory. In +Italy the zeal for the classics took its origin; and 259scholarship, to +which we owe our mental training, was at first the possession of none +almost but Italians. It therefore followed that during the age of the +Renaissance any man of taste or genius, who desired to share the newly +discovered privileges of learning, had to seek Italy. Every one who +wished to be initiated into the secrets of science or philosophy, had +to converse with Italians in person or through books. Every one who was +eager to polish his native language, and to render it the proper +vehicle of poetic thought, had to consult the masterpieces of Italian +literature. To Italians the courtier, the diplomatist, the artist, the +student of statecraft and of military tactics, the political theorist, +the merchant, the man of laws, the man of arms, and the churchman +turned for precedents and precepts. The nations of the North, still +torpid and somnolent in their semi-barbarism, needed the magnetic touch +of Italy before they could awake to intellectual life. Nor was this +all. Long before the thirst for culture possessed the English mind, +Italy had appropriated and assimilated all that Latin literature +contained of strong or splendid to arouse the thought and fancy of the +modern world; Greek, too, was rapidly becoming the possession of the +scholars of Florence and Rome; so that English men of letters found the +spirit of the ancients infused into a modern literature; models of +correct and elegant composition existed for them in a language easy, +harmonious, and not dissimilar in usage to their own. + +The importance of this service, rendered by Italians to the rest of +Europe, cannot be exaggerated. By exploring, digesting, and reproducing +the classics, Italy made the labour of scholarship comparatively light +for the Northern nations, and extended to us the privilege of culture +without the peril of losing originality in the enthusiasm for +erudition. Our great poets could handle lightly, and yet profitably, +those 260masterpieces of Greece and Rome, beneath the weight of which, +when first discovered, the genius of the Italians had wavered. To the +originality of Shakspere an accession of wealth without weakness was +brought by the perusal of Italian works, in which the spirit of the +antique was seen as in a modern mirror. Then, in addition to this +benefit of instruction, Italy gave to England a gift of pure beauty, +the influence of which, in refining our national taste, harmonising the +roughness of our manners and our language, and stimulating our +imagination, has been incalculable. It was a not unfrequent custom for +young men of ability to study at the Italian universities, or at least +to undertake a journey to the principal Italian cities. From their +sojourn in that land of loveliness and intellectual life they returned +with their Northern brains most powerfully stimulated. To produce, by +masterpieces of the imagination, some work of style that should remain +as a memento of that glorious country, and should vie on English soil +with the art of Italy, was their generous ambition. Consequently the +substance of the stories versified by our poets, the forms of our +metres, and the cadences of our prose periods reveal a close attention +to Italian originals. + +This debt of England to Italy in the matter of our literature began +with Chaucer. Truly original and national as was the framework of the +'Canterbury Tales,' we can hardly doubt but that Chaucer was determined +in the form adopted for his poem by the example of Boccaccio. The +subject-matter, also, of many of his tales was taken from Boccaccio's +prose or verse. For example, the story of Patient Grizzel is founded +upon one of the legends of the 'Decameron,' while the Knight's Tale is +almost translated from the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, and Troilus and +Creseide is derived from the 'Filostrato' of the same author. The +Franklin's Tale and the Reeve's Tale 261are also based either on +stories of Boccaccio or else on French 'Fabliaux,' to which Chaucer, as +well as Boccaccio, had access. I do not wish to lay too much stress +upon Chaucer's direct obligations to Boccaccio, because it is +incontestable that the French 'Fabliaux,' which supplied them both with +subjects, were the common property of the mediæval nations. But his +indirect debt in all that concerns elegant handling of material, and in +the fusion of the romantic with the classic spirit, which forms the +chief charm of such tales as the Palamon and Arcite, can hardly be +exaggerated. Lastly, the seven-lined stanza, called _rime royal_, which +Chaucer used with so much effect in narrative poetry, was probably +borrowed from the earlier Florentine 'Ballata,' the last line rhyming +with its predecessor being substituted for the recurrent refrain. +Indeed, the stanza itself, as used by our earliest poets, may be found +in Guido Cavalcanti's 'Ballatetta,' beginning, _Posso degli occhi +miei_. + +Between Chaucer and Surrey the Muse of England fell asleep; but when in +the latter half of the reign of Henry VIII. she awoke again, it was as +a conscious pupil of the Italian that she attempted new strains and +essayed fresh metres. 'In the latter end of Henry VIII.'s reign,' says +Puttenham, 'sprang up a new company of courtly makers, of whom Sir T. +Wyatt the elder, and Henry Earl of Surrey, were the two chieftains, +who, having travelled into Italy, and there tasted the sweet and +stately measures and style of the Italian poesy, as novices newly crept +out of the schools of Dante, Ariosto, and Petrarch, they greatly +polished our rude and homely manner of vulgar poesy, from that it had +been before, and for that cause may justly be said the first reformers +of our English metre and style.' The chief point in which Surrey +imitated his 'master, Francis Petrarcha,' was in the use of the sonnet. +He introduced this elaborate form of poetry into 262our literature; and +how it has thriven with us, the masterpieces of Spenser, Shakspere, +Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, Rossetti attest. As practised by Dante and +Petrarch, the sonnet is a poem of fourteen lines, divided into two +quatrains and two triplets, so arranged that the two quatrains repeat +one pair of rhymes, while the two triplets repeat another pair. Thus an +Italian sonnet of the strictest form is composed upon four rhymes, +interlaced with great art. But much divergence from this rigid scheme +of rhyming was admitted even by Petrarch, who not unfrequently divided +the six final lines of the sonnet into three couplets, interwoven in +such a way that the two last lines never rhymed.[31] + + [31] The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, c, + d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c, d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, + e_, and so forth. + +It has been necessary to say thus much about the structure of the +Italian sonnet, in order to make clear the task which lay before Surrey +and Wyatt, when they sought to transplant it into English. Surrey did +not adhere to the strict fashion of Petrarch: his sonnets consist +either of three regular quatrains concluded with a couplet, or else of +twelve lines rhyming alternately and concluded with a couplet. Wyatt +attempted to follow the order and interlacement of the Italian rhymes +more closely, but he too concluded his sonnet with a couplet. This +introduction of the final couplet was a violation of the Italian rule, +which may be fairly considered as prejudicial to the harmony of the +whole structure, and which has insensibly caused the English sonnet to +terminate in an epigram. The famous sonnet of Surrey on his love, +Geraldine, is an excellent example of the metrical structure as adapted +to the supposed necessities of English rhyming, and as afterwards +adhered to by Shakspere in his long series of love-poems. Surrey, while +adopting the form of the sonnet, kept quite clear of the Petrarchist's +mannerism. His language is simple and direct: 263there is no +subtilising upon far-fetched conceits, no wire-drawing of exquisite +sentimentalism, although he celebrates in this, as in his other +sonnets, a lady for whom he appears to have entertained no more than a +Platonic or imaginary passion. Surrey was a great experimentalist in +metre. Besides the sonnet, he introduced into England blank verse, +which he borrowed from the Italian _versi sciolti_, fixing that +decasyllable iambic rhythm for English versification in which our +greatest poetical triumphs have been achieved. + +Before quitting the subject of the sonnet it would, however, be well to +mention the changes which were wrought in its structure by early poets +desirous of emulating the Italians. Shakspere, as already hinted, +adhered to the simple form introduced by Surrey: his stanzas invariably +consist of three separate quatrains followed by a couplet. But Sir +Philip Sidney, whose familiarity with Italian literature was intimate, +and who had resided long in Italy, perceived that without a greater +complexity and interweaving of rhymes the beauty of the poem was +considerably impaired. He therefore combined the rhymes of the two +quatrains, as the Italians had done, leaving himself free to follow the +Italian fashion in the conclusion, or else to wind up after English +usage with a couplet. Spenser and Drummond follow the rule of Sidney; +Drayton and Daniel, that of Surrey and Shakspere. It was not until +Milton that an English poet preserved the form of the Italian sonnet in +its strictness; but, after Milton, the greatest +sonnet-writers—Wordsworth, Keats, and Rossetti—have aimed at producing +stanzas as regular as those of Petrarch. + +The great age of our literature—the age of Elizabeth—was essentially +one of Italian influence. In Italy the Renaissance had reached its +height: England, feeling the new life which had been infused into arts +and letters, turned instinctively to 264Italy, and adopted her canons +of taste. 'Euphues' has a distinct connection with the Italian +discourses of polite culture. Sidney's 'Arcadia' is a copy of what +Boccaccio had attempted in his classical romances, and Sanazzaro in his +pastorals.[32] Spenser approached the subject of the 'Faery Queen' with +his head full of Ariosto and the romantic poets of Italy. His sonnets +are Italian; his odes embody the Platonic philosophy of the +Italians.[33] The extent of Spenser's deference to the Italians in +matters of poetic art may be gathered from this passage in the +dedication to Sir Walter Raleigh of the 'Faery Queen:' + +I have followed all the antique poets historical: first Homer, who in +the persons of Agamemnon and Ulysses hath ensampled a good governor and +a virtuous man, the one in his Ilias, the other in his Odysseis; then +Virgil, whose like intention was to do in the person of Æneas; after +him Ariosto comprised them both in his Orlando; and lately Tasso +dissevered them again, and formed both parts in two persons, namely, +that part which they in Philosophy call Ethice, or virtues of a private +man, coloured in his Rinaldo, the other named Politico in his Goffredo. + + + [32] It has extraordinary interest for the student of our literary + development, inasmuch as it is full of experiments in metres, which + have never thriven on English soil. Not to mention the attempt to + write in asclepiads and other classical rhythms, we might point to + Sidney's _terza rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This + peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and Sanazzaro; but + even in Italian it cannot be handled without sacrifice of variety, + without impeding the metrical movement and marring the sense. + + + [33] The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_ and _Epithalamion_ is + a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. His Eclogues, with their + allegories, repeat the manner of Petrarch's minor Latin poems. + +From this it is clear that, to the mind of Spenser, both Ariosto and +Tasso were authorities of hardly less gravity than Homer and Virgil. +Raleigh, in the splendid sonnet with which he responds to this +dedication, enhances the fame of Spenser by affecting to believe that +the great Italian, Petrarch, will be 265jealous of him in the grave. To +such an extent were the thoughts of the English poets occupied with +their Italian masters in the art of song. + +It was at this time, again, that English literature was enriched by +translations of Ariosto and Tasso—the one from the pen of Sir John +Harrington, the other from that of Fairfax. Both were produced in the +metre of the original—the octave stanza, which, however, did not at +that period take root in England. At the same period the works of many +of the Italian novelists, especially Bandello and Cinthio and +Boccaccio, were translated into English; Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure' +being a treasure-house of Italian works of fiction. Thomas Hoby +translated Castiglione's 'Courtier' in 1561. As a proof of the extent +to which Italian books were read in England at the end of the sixteenth +century, we may take a stray sentence from a letter of Harvey, in which +he disparages the works of Robert Greene:—'Even Guicciardine's silver +histories and Ariosto's golden cantos grow out of request: and the +Countess of Pembroke's "Arcadia" is not green enough for queasy +stomachs; but they must have seen Greene's "Arcadia," and I believe +most eagerly longed for Greene's "Faery Queen."' + +Still more may be gathered on the same topic from the indignant protest +uttered by Roger Ascham in his 'Schoolmaster' (pp. 78-91, date 1570) +against the prevalence of Italian customs, the habit of Italian travel, +and the reading of Italian books translated into English. Selections of +Italian stories rendered into English were extremely popular; and +Greene's tales, which had such vogue that Nash says of them, 'glad was +that printer that might be so blest to pay him dear for the very dregs +of his wit,' were all modelled on the Italian. The education of a young +man of good family was not thought complete unless he had spent some +time in Italy, studied its 266literature, admired its arts, and caught +at least some tincture of its manners. Our rude ancestors brought back +with them from these journeys many Southern vices, together with the +culture they had gone to seek. The contrast between the plain dealing +of the North and the refined Machiavellism of the South, between +Protestant earnestness in religion and Popish scepticism, between the +homely virtues of England and the courtly libertinism of Venice or +Florence, blunted the moral sense, while it stimulated the intellectual +activity of the English travellers, and too often communicated a fatal +shock to their principles. _Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato_ +passed into a proverb: we find it on the lips of Parker, of Howell, of +Sidney, of Greene, and of Ascham; while Italy itself was styled by +severe moralists the court of Circe. In James Howell's 'Instructions +for forreine travell' we find this pregnant sentence: 'And being now in +Italy, that great limbique of working braines, he must be very +circumspect in his carriage, for she is able to turne a Saint into a +devill, and deprave the best natures, if one will abandon himselfe, and +become a prey to dissolut courses and wantonesse.' Italy, in truth, had +already become corrupt, and the fruit of her contact with the nations +of the North was seen in the lives of such scholars as Robert Greene, +who confessed that he returned from his travels instructed 'in all the +villanies under the sun.' Many of the scandals of the Court of James +might be ascribed to this aping of Southern manners. + +Yet, together with the evil of depraved morality, the advantage of +improved culture was imported from Italy into England; and the +constitution of the English genius was young and healthy enough to +purge off the mischief, while it assimilated what was beneficial. This +is very manifest in the history of our drama, which, taking it +altogether, is at the same time the purest and the most varied that +exists in literature; 267while it may be affirmed without exaggeration +that one of the main impulses to free dramatic composition in England +was communicated by the attraction everything Italian possessed for the +English fancy. It was in the drama that the English displayed the +richness and the splendour of the Renaissance, which had blazed so +gorgeously and at times so balefully below the Alps. The Italy of the +Renaissance fascinated our dramatists with a strange wild glamour—the +contrast of external pageant and internal tragedy, the alternations of +radiance and gloom, the terrible examples of bloodshed, treason, and +heroism emergent from ghastly crimes. Our drama began with a +translation of Ariosto's 'Suppositi' and ended with Davenant's 'Just +Italian.' In the very dawn of tragic composition Greene versified a +portion of the 'Orlando Furioso,' and Marlowe devoted one of his most +brilliant studies to the villanies of a Maltese Jew. Of Shakspere's +plays five are incontestably Italian: several of the rest are furnished +with Italian names to suit the popular taste. Ben Jonson laid the scene +of his most subtle comedy of manners, 'Volpone,' in Venice, and +sketched the first cast of 'Every Man in his Humour' for Italian +characters. Tourneur, Ford, and Webster were so dazzled by the tragic +lustre of the wickedness of Italy that their finest dramas, without +exception, are minute and carefully studied psychological analyses of +great Italian tales of crime. The same, in a less degree, is true of +Middleton and Dekker. Massinger makes a story of the Sforza family the +subject of one of his best plays. Beaumont and Fletcher draw the +subjects of comedies and tragedies alike from the Italian novelists. +Fletcher in his 'Faithful Shepherdess' transfers the pastoral style of +Tasso and Guarini to the North. So close is the connection between our +tragedy and Italian novels that Marston and Ford think fit to introduce +passages of Italian dialogue into the plays of 'Giovanni 268and +Annabella' and 'Antonio and Mellida.' But the best proof of the extent +to which Italian life and literature had influenced our dramatists, may +be easily obtained by taking down Halliwell's 'Dictionary of Old +Plays,' and noticing that about every third drama has an Italian title. +Meanwhile the poems composed by the chief dramatists—Shakspere's 'Venus +and Adonis,' Marlowe's 'Hero and Leander,' Marston's 'Pygmalion,' and +Beaumont's 'Hermaphrodite'—are all of them conceived in the Italian +style, by men who had either studied Southern literature, or had +submitted to its powerful æsthetic influences. The Masques, moreover, +of Jonson, of Lyly, of Fletcher, and of Chapman are exact reproductions +upon the English court theatres of such festival pageants as were +presented to the Medici at Florence or to the Este family at +Ferrara.[34] Throughout our drama the influence of Italy, direct or +indirect, either as supplying our playwrights with subjects or as +stimulating their imagination, may thus be traced. Yet the Elizabethan +drama is in the highest sense original. As a work of art pregnant with +deepest wisdom, and splendidly illustrative of the age which gave it +birth, it far transcends anything that Italy produced in the same +department. Our poets have a more masculine judgment, more fiery fancy, +nobler sentiment, than the Italians of any age but that of Dante. What +Italy gave, was the impulse toward creation, not patterns to be +imitated—the excitement of the imagination by a spectacle of so much +grandeur, not rules and precepts for production—the keen sense of +tragic beauty, not any tradition of accomplished art. + + [34] Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian masques.' At the same + time, in the prologue to _Tamburlaine_, he shows that he was conscious + of the new and nobler direction followed by the drama in England. + +The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation. + +269The study of the Italian language went hand in hand with the study +of Greek and Latin, so that the three together contributed to form the +English taste. Between us and the ancient world stood the genius of +Italy as an interpreter. Nor was this connection broken until far on +into the reign of Charles II. What Milton owed to Italy is clear not +only from his Italian sonnets, but also from the frequent mention of +Dante and Petrarch in his prose works, from his allusions to Boiardo +and Ariosto in the 'Paradise Lost,' and from the hints which he +probably derived from Pulci, Tasso and Andreini. It would, indeed, be +easy throughout his works to trace a continuous vein of Italian +influence in detail. But, more than this, Milton's poetical taste in +general seems to have been formed and ripened by familiarity with the +harmonies of the Italian language. In his Tractate on Education +addressed to Mr. Hartlib, he recommends that boys should be instructed +in the Italian pronunciation of vowel sounds, in order to give +sonorousness and dignity to elocution. This slight indication supplies +us with a key to the method of melodious structure employed by Milton +in his blank verse. Those who have carefully studied the harmonies of +the 'Paradise Lost,' know how all-important are the assonances of the +vowel sounds of _o_ and _a_ in its most musical passages. It is just +this attention to the liquid and sonorous recurrences of open vowels +that we should expect from a poet who proposed to assimilate his +diction to that of the Italians. + +After the age of Milton the connection between Italy and England is +interrupted. In the seventeenth century Italy herself had sunk into +comparative stupor, and her literature was trivial. France not only +swayed the political destinies of Europe, but also took the lead in +intellectual culture. Consequently, our poets turned from Italy to +France, and the French spirit pervaded English literature throughout +the 270period of the Restoration and the reigns of William and Queen +Anne. Yet during this prolonged reaction against the earlier movement +of English literature, as manifested in Elizabethanism, the influence +of Italy was not wholly extinct. Dryden's 'Tales from Boccaccio' are no +insignificant contribution to our poetry, and his 'Palamon and Arcite,' +through Chaucer, returns to the same source. But when, at the beginning +of this century, the Elizabethan tradition was revived, then the +Italian influence reappeared more vigorous than ever. The metre of 'Don +Juan,' first practised by Frere and then adopted by Lord Byron, is +Pulci's octave stanza; the manner is that of Berni, Folengo, and the +Abbé Casti, fused and heightened by the brilliance of Byron's genius +into a new form. The subject of Shelley's strongest work of art is +Beatrice Cenci. Rogers's poem is styled 'Italy.' Byron's dramas are +chiefly Italian. Leigh Hunt repeats the tale of Francesca da Rimini. +Keats versifies Boccaccio's 'Isabella.' Passing to contemporary poets, +Rossetti has acclimatised in English the metres and the manner of the +earliest Italian lyrists. Swinburne dedicates his noblest song to the +spirit of liberty in Italy. Even George Eliot and Tennyson have each of +them turned stories of Boccaccio into verse. The best of Mrs. +Browning's poems, 'Casa Guidi Windows' and 'Aurora Leigh,' are steeped +in Italian thought and Italian imagery. Browning's longest poem is a +tale of Italian crime; his finest studies in the 'Men and Women' are +portraits of Italian character of the Renaissance period. But there is +more than any mere enumeration of poets and their work can set forth, +in the connection between Italy and England. That connection, so far as +the poetical imagination is concerned, is vital. As poets in the truest +sense of the word, we English live and breathe through sympathy with +the Italians. The magnetic touch which is required to inflame the +imagination of the 271North, is derived from Italy. The nightingales of +English song who make our oak and beech copses resonant in spring with +purest melody, are migratory birds, who have charged their souls in the +South with the spirit of beauty, and who return to warble native +wood-notes in a tongue which is their own. + +What has hitherto been said about the debt of the English poets to +Italy, may seem to imply that our literature can be regarded as to some +extent a parasite on that of the Italians. Against such a conclusion no +protest too energetic could be uttered. What we have derived directly +from the Italian poets are, first, some metres—especially the sonnet +and the octave stanza, though the latter has never taken firm root in +England. 'Terza rima,' attempted by Shelley, Byron, Morris, and Mrs. +Browning, has not yet become acclimatised. Blank verse, although +originally remodelled by Surrey upon the _versi sciolti_ of the +Italians, has departed widely from Italian precedent, first by its +decasyllabic structure, whereas Italian verse consists of +hendecasyllables; and, secondly, by its greater force, plasticity, and +freedom. The Spenserian stanza, again, is a new and original metre +peculiar to our literature; though it is possible that but for the +complex structures of Italian lyric verse, it might not have been +fashioned for the 'Faery Queen.' Lastly, the so-called heroic couplet +is native to England; at any rate, it is in no way related to Italian +metre. Therefore the only true Italian exotic adopted without +modification into our literature is the sonnet. + +In the next place, we owe to the Italians the subject-matter of many of +our most famous dramas and our most delightful tales in verse. But the +English treatment of these histories and fables has been uniformly +independent and original. Comparing Shakspere's 'Romeo and Juliet' with +Bandello's tale, Webster's 'Duchess of Malfy' with the version 272given +from the Italian in Painter's 'Palace of Pleasure,' and Chaucer's +Knight's Tale with the 'Teseide' of Boccaccio, we perceive at once that +the English poets have used their Italian models merely as outlines to +be filled in with freedom, as the canvas to be embroidered with a +tapestry of vivid groups. Nothing is more manifest than the superiority +of the English genius over the Italian in all dramatic qualities of +intense passion, profound analysis, and living portrayal of character +in action. The mere rough detail of Shakspere's 'Othello' is to be +found in Cinthio's Collection of Novelle; but let an unprejudiced +reader peruse the original, and he will be no more deeply affected by +it than by any touching story of treachery, jealousy, and hapless +innocence. The wily subtleties of Iago, the soldierly frankness of +Cassio, the turbulent and volcanic passions of Othello, the charm of +Desdemona, and the whole tissue of vivid incidents which make 'Othello' +one of the most tremendous extant tragedies of characters in combat, +are Shakspere's, and only Shakspere's. This instance, indeed, enables +us exactly to indicate what the English owed to Italy and what was +essentially their own. From that Southern land of Circe about which +they dreamed, and which now and then they visited, came to their +imaginations a spirit-stirring breath of inspiration. It was to them +the country of marvels, of mysterious crimes, of luxurious gardens and +splendid skies, where love was more passionate and life more +picturesque, and hate more bloody and treachery more black, than in our +Northern climes. Italy was a spacious grove of wizardry, which mighty +poets, on the quest of fanciful adventure, trod with fascinated senses +and quickened pulses. But the strong brain which converted what they +heard and read and saw of that charmed land into the stuff of golden +romance or sable tragedy, was their own. + +English literature has been defined a literature of genius. + +273Our greatest work in art has been achieved not so much by +inspiration, subordinate to sentiments of exquisite good taste or +guided by observance of classical models, as by audacious sallies of +pure inventive power. This is true as a judgment of that constellation +which we call our drama, of the meteor Byron, of Milton and Dryden, who +are the Jupiter and Mars of our poetic system, and of the stars which +stud our literary firmament under the names of Shelley, Keats, +Wordsworth, Chatterton, Scott, Coleridge, Clough, Blake, Browning, +Swinburne, Tennyson. There are only a very few of the English poets, +Pope and Gray, for example, in whom the free instincts of genius are +kept systematically in check by the laws of the reflective +understanding. Now Italian literature is in this respect all unlike our +own. It began, indeed, with Dante, as a literature pre-eminently of +genius; but the spirit of scholarship assumed the sway as early as the +days of Petrarch and Boccaccio, and after them Italian has been +consistently a literature of taste. By this I mean that even the +greatest Italian poets have sought to render their style correct, have +endeavoured to subordinate their inspiration to what they considered +the rules of sound criticism, and have paid serious attention to their +manner as independent of the matter they wished to express. The passion +for antiquity, so early developed in Italy, delivered the later Italian +poets bound hand and foot into the hands of Horace. Poliziano was +content to reproduce the classic authors in a mosaic work of exquisite +translations. Tasso was essentially a man of talent, producing work of +chastened beauty by diligent attention to the rule and method of his +art. Even Ariosto submitted the liberty of his swift spirit to canons +of prescribed elegance. While our English poets have conceived and +executed without regard for the opinion of the learned and without +obedience to the usages of language—Shakspere, for example, +274producing tragedies which set Aristotle at defiance, and Milton +engrafting Latinisms on the native idiom—the Italian poets thought and +wrote with the fear of Academies before their eyes, and studied before +all things to maintain the purity of the Tuscan tongue. The consequence +is that the Italian and English literatures are eminent for very +different excellences. All that is forcible in the dramatic +presentation of life and character and action, all that is audacious in +imagination and capricious in fancy, whatever strength style can gain +from the sallies of original and untrammelled eloquence, whatever +beauty is derived from spontaneity and native grace, belong in abundant +richness to the English. On the other hand, the Italian poets present +us with masterpieces of correct and studied diction, with carefully +elaborated machinery, and with a style maintained at a uniform level of +dignified correctness. The weakness of the English proceeds from +inequality and extravagance; it is the weakness of self-confident +vigour, intolerant of rule, rejoicing in its own exuberant resources. +The weakness of the Italian is due to timidity and moderation; it is +the weakness that springs not so much from a lack of native strength as +from the over-anxious expenditure of strength upon the attainment of +finish, polish, and correctness. Hence the two nations have everything +to learn from one another. Modern Italian poets may seek by contact +with Shakspere and Milton to gain a freedom from the trammels imposed +upon them by the slavish followers of Petrarch; while the attentive +perusal of Tasso should be recommended to all English people who have +no ready access to the masterpieces of Greek and Latin literature. + +Another point of view may be gained by noticing the pre-dominant tone +of the two literatures. Whenever English poetry is really great, it +approximates to the tragic and the stately; whereas the Italians are +peculiarly felicitous in the 275smooth and pleasant style, which +combines pathos with amusement, and which does not trespass beyond the +region of beauty into the domain of sublimity or terror. Italian poetry +is analogous to Italian painting and Italian music: it bathes the soul +in a plenitude of charms, investing even the most solemn subjects with +loveliness. Rembrandt and Albert Dürer depict the tragedies of the +Sacred History with a serious and awful reality: Italian painters, with +a few rare but illustrious exceptions, shrink from approaching them +from any point of view but that of harmonious melancholy. Even so the +English poets stir the soul to its very depths by their profound and +earnest delineations of the stern and bitter truths of the world: +Italian poets environ all things with the golden haze of an artistic +harmony; so that the soul is agitated by no pain at strife with the +persuasions of pure beauty. + +276 + + + + +POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY + + +It is a noticeable fact about the popular songs of Tuscany that they +are almost exclusively devoted to love. The Italians in general have no +ballad literature resembling that of our Border or that of Spain. The +tragic histories of their noble families, the great deeds of their +national heroes, and the sufferings of their country during centuries +of warfare, have left but few traces in their rustic poetry. It is true +that some districts are less utterly barren than others in these +records of the past. The Sicilian people's poetry, for example, +preserves a memory of the famous Vespers; and one or two terrible +stories of domestic tragedy, like the tale of Rosmunda in 'La Donna +Lombarda,' the romance of the Baronessa di Carini, and the so-called +Caso di Sciacca, may still be heard upon the lips of the people. But +these exceptions are insignificant in comparison with the vast mass of +songs which deal with love; and I cannot find that Tuscany, where the +language of this minstrelsy is purest, and where the artistic instincts +of the race are strongest, has anything at all approaching to our +ballads.[35] Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it rarely +happens that + +277 + + The plaintive numbers flow +For old, unhappy, far-off things, + And battles long ago. + + +On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting + + Some more humble lay, +Familiar matter of to-day,— +Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain, +That has been, and may be again; + + +or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some ditty +of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love. + + [35] This sentence requires some qualification. In his _Poesia + Popolare Italiana_, 1878, Professor d'Ancona prints a Pisan, a + Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our Border ballad 'Where hae ye + been, Lord Randal, my son,' so close in general type and minor details + to the English, German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this + Volkslied as to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains + as yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian popular + poetry. + +This defect of anything corresponding to our ballads of 'Chevy Chase,' +or 'Sir Patrick Spens,' or 'Gil Morrice,' in a poetry which is still so +vital with the life of past centuries, is all the more remarkable +because Italian history is distinguished above that of other nations by +tragic episodes peculiarly suited to poetic treatment. Many of these +received commemoration in the fourteenth century from Dante; others +were embodied in the _novelle_ of Boccaccio and Cinthio and Bandello, +whence they passed into the dramas of Shakspere, Webster, Ford, and +their contemporaries. But scarcely an echo can be traced through all +the volumes of the recently collected popular songs. We must seek for +an explanation of this fact partly in the conditions of Italian life, +and partly in the nature of the Italian imagination. Nowhere in Italy +do we observe that intimate connection between the people at large and +the great nobles which generates the sympathy of clanship. Politics in +most parts of the peninsula fell at a very early period into the hands +either of irresponsible princes, 278who ruled like despots, or else of +burghers, who administered the state within the walls of their Palazzo +Pubblico. The people remained passive spectators of contemporary +history. The loyalty of subjects to their sovereign which animates the +Spanish ballads, the loyalty of retainers to their chief which gives +life to the tragic ballads of the Border, did not exist in Italy. +Country-folk felt no interest in the doings of Visconti or Medici or +Malatesti sufficient to arouse the enthusiasm of local bards or to call +forth the celebration of their princely tragedies in verse. Amid the +miseries of foreign wars and home oppression, it seemed better to +demand from verse and song some mitigation of the woes of life, some +expression of personal emotion, than to record the disasters which to +us at a distance appear poetic in their grandeur. + +These conditions of popular life, although unfavourable to the +production of ballad poetry, would not, however, have been sufficient +by themselves to check its growth, if the Italians had been strongly +impelled to literature of this type by their nature. The real reason +why their _Volkslieder_ are amorous and personal is to be found in the +quality of their imagination. The Italian genius is not creatively +imaginative in the highest sense. The Italians have never, either in +the ancient or the modern age, produced a great drama or a national +epic, the 'Æneid' and the 'Divine Comedy' being obviously of different +species from the 'Iliad' or the 'Nibelungen Lied.' Modern Italians, +again, are distinguished from the French, the Germans, and the English +in being the conscious inheritors of an older, august, and strictly +classical civilisation. The great memories of Rome weigh down their +faculties of invention. It would also seem as though they shrank in +their poetry from the representation of what is tragic and +spirit-stirring. They incline to what is cheerful, brilliant, or +pathetic. The dramatic element in 279human life, external to the +personality of the poet, which exercised so strong a fascination over +our ballad-bards and playwrights, has but little attraction for the +Italian. When he sings, he seeks to express his own individual +emotions—his love, his joy, his jealousy, his anger, his despair. The +language which he uses is at the same time direct in its intensity, and +hyperbolical in its display of fancy; but it lacks those imaginative +touches which exalt the poetry of personal passion into a sublimer +region. Again, the Italians are deficient in a sense of the +supernatural. The wraiths that cannot rest because their love is still +unsatisfied, the voices which cry by night over field and fell, the +water-spirits and forest fairies, the second-sight of coming woes, the +presentiment of death, the warnings and the charms and spells, which +fill the popular poetry of all Northern nations, are absent in Italian +songs. In the whole of Tigri's collection I only remember one mention +of a ghost. It is not that the Italians are deficient in superstitions +of all kinds. Every one has heard of their belief in the evil eye, for +instance. But they do not connect this kind of fetichism with their +poetry; and even their greatest poets, with the exception of Dante, +have shown no capacity or no inclination for enhancing the imaginative +effect of their creations by an appeal to the instinct of mysterious +awe. + +The truth is that the Italians as a race are distinguished as much by a +firm grasp upon the practical realities of existence as by powerful +emotions. They have but little of that dreamy _Schwärmerei_ with which +the people of the North are largely gifted. The true sphere of their +genius is painting. What appeals to the imagination through the eyes, +they have expressed far better than any other modern nation. But their +poetry, like their music, is deficient in tragic sublimity and in the +higher qualities of imaginative creation. + +280It may seem paradoxical to say this of the nation which produced +Dante. But we must remember not to judge races by single and +exceptional men of genius. Petrarch, the Troubadour of exquisite +emotions, Boccaccio, who touches all the keys of life so lightly, +Ariosto, with the smile of everlasting April on his lips, and Tasso, +excellent alone when he confines himself to pathos or the picturesque, +are no exceptions to what I have just said. Yet these poets pursued +their art with conscious purpose. The tragic splendour of Greece, the +majesty of Rome, were not unknown to them. Far more is it true that +popular poetry in Italy, proceeding from the hearts of uncultivated +peasants and expressing the national character in its simplicity, +displays none of the stuff from which the greatest works of art in +verse, epics and dramas, can be wrought. But within its own sphere of +personal emotion, this popular poetry is exquisitely melodious, +inexhaustibly rich, unique in modern literature for the direct +expression which it has given to every shade of passion. + +Signor Tigri's collection,[36] to which I shall confine my attention in +this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five _rispetti_, with +the addition of four hundred and sixty-one _stornelli_. Rispetto, it +may be said in passing, is the name commonly given throughout Italy to +short poems, varying from six to twelve lines, constructed on the +principle of the octave stanza. That is to say, the first part of the +rispetto consists of four or six lines with alternate rhymes, while one +or more couplets, called the _ripresa_, complete the poem.[37] The +281stornello, or ritournelle, never exceeds three lines, and owes its +name to the return which it makes at the end of the last line to the +rhyme given by the emphatic word of the first. Browning, in his poem of +'Fra Lippo Lippi,' has accustomed English ears to one common species of +the stornello,[38] which sets out with the name of a flower, and rhymes +with it, as thus: + + Fior di narciso. +Prigionero d'amore mi son reso, +Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso. + + + [36] _Canti Popolari Toscani_, raccolti e annotati da Giuseppe Tigri. + Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869. + + + [37] This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto. In Sicily the + stanza generally consists of eight lines rhyming alternately + throughout, while in the North of Italy it is normally a simple + quatrain. The same poetical material assumes in Northern, Central, and + Southern Italy these diverge but associated forms. + + + [38] This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for _fiore_) in Sicily, is said + by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there. He once asked an old dame of + Palermo to repeat him some of these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must + get them from light women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad + houses and prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been.' In + Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction between + the flower song and the rispetto. + +The divisions of those two sorts of songs, to which Tigri gives names +like The Beauty of Women, The Beauty of Men, Falling in Love, +Serenades, Happy Love, Unhappy Love, Parting, Absence, Letters, Return +to Home, Anger and Jealousy, Promises, Entreaties and Reproaches, +Indifference, Treachery and Abandonment, prove with what fulness the +various phases of the tender passion are treated. Through the whole +fifteen hundred the one theme of Love is never relinquished. Only two +persons, 'I' and 'thou,' appear upon the scene; yet so fresh and so +various are the moods of feeling, that one can read them from first to +last without too much satiety. + +To seek for the authors of these ditties would be useless. Some of them +may be as old as the fourteenth century; others may have been made +yesterday. Some are the native product of the Tuscan mountain villages, +especially of the regions round Pistoja and Siena, where on the spurs +of the 282Apennines the purest Italian is vernacular. Some, again, are +importations from other provinces, especially from Sicily and Naples, +caught up by the peasants of Tuscany and adapted to their taste and +style; for nothing travels faster than a _Volkslied_. Born some morning +in a noisy street of Naples, or on the solitary slopes of Radicofani, +before the week is out, a hundred voices are repeating it. Waggoners +and pedlars carry it across the hills to distant towns. It floats with +the fishermen from bay to bay, and marches with the conscript to his +barrack in a far-off province. Who was the first to give it shape and +form? No one asks, and no one cares. A student well acquainted with the +habits of the people in these matters says, 'If they knew the author of +a ditty, they would not learn it, far less if they discovered that it +was a scholar's.' If the cadence takes their ear, they consecrate the +song at once by placing it upon the honoured list of 'ancient lays.' +Passing from lip to lip and from district to district, it receives +additions and alterations, and becomes the property of a score of +provinces. Meanwhile the poet from whose soul it blossomed that first +morning like a flower, remains contented with obscurity. The wind has +carried from his lips the thistledown of song, and sown it on a hundred +hills and meadows, far and wide. After such wise is the birth of all +truly popular compositions. Who knows, for instance, the veritable +author of many of those mighty German chorals which sprang into being +at the period of the Reformation? The first inspiration was given, +probably, to a single mind; but the melody, as it has reached us, is +the product of a thousand. This accounts for the variations which in +different dialects and districts the same song presents. Meanwhile, it +is sometimes possible to trace the authorship of a ballad with marked +local character to an improvisatore famous in his village, or to one of +those professional 283rhymesters whom the country-folk employ in the +composition of love-letters to their sweethearts at a distance.[39] +Tommaseo, in the preface to his 'Canti Popolari,' mentions in +particular a Beatrice di Pian degli Ontani, whose poetry was famous +through the mountains of Pistoja; and Tigri records by name a little +girl called Cherubina, who made rispetti by the dozen as she watched +her sheep upon the hills. One of the songs in his collection (p. 181) +contains a direct reference to the village letter-writer:— + +Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; +Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. +A me mi pare un poeta sovrano, +Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia.[40] + + + [39] Much light has lately been thrown on the popular poetry of Italy; + and it appears that contemporary improvisatori trust more to their + richly stocked memories and to their power of recombination than to + original or novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly + creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and most + copiously at the present time. + + + [40] 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do not know him or + who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign poet, so cunning is he in + his use of verse.' + +While I am writing thus about the production and dissemination of these +love-songs, I cannot help remembering three days and nights which I +once spent at sea between Genoa and Palermo, in the company of some +conscripts who were going to join their regiment in Sicily. They were +lads from the Milanese and Liguria, and they spent a great portion of +their time in composing and singing poetry. One of them had a fine +baritone voice; and when the sun had set, his comrades gathered round +him and begged him to sing to them 'Con quella patetica tua voce.' Then +followed hours of singing, the low monotonous melodies of his ditties +harmonising wonderfully with the tranquillity of night, so clear 284and +calm that the sky and all its stars were mirrored on the sea, through +which we moved as if in a dream. Sometimes the songs provoked +conversation, which, as is usual in Italy, turned mostly upon 'le +bellezze delle donne.' I remember that once an animated discussion +about the relative merits of blondes and brunettes nearly ended in a +quarrel, when the youngest of the whole band, a boy of about seventeen, +put a stop to the dispute by theatrically raising his eyes and arms to +heaven and crying, 'Tu sei innamorato d' una grande Diana cacciatrice +nera, ed io d' una bella Venere bionda.' Though they were but village +lads, they supported their several opinions with arguments not unworthy +of Firenzuola, and showed the greatest delicacy of feeling in the +treatment of a subject which could scarcely have failed to reveal any +latent coarseness. + +The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.[41] Although the passion expressed in them is Oriental in +its vehemence, not a word falls which could offend a virgin's ear. The +one desire of lovers is lifelong union in marriage. The _damo_—for so a +sweetheart is termed in Tuscany—trembles until he has gained the +approval of his future mother-in-law, and forbids the girl he is +courting to leave her house to talk to him at night:— + +Dice che tu tî affacci alia finestra; +Ma non tî dice che tu vada fuora, +Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta. + +285 + +All the language of his love is respectful. _Signore_, or master of my +soul, _madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,_ are the terms +of adoration with which he approaches his mistress. The elevation of +feeling and perfect breeding which Manzoni has so well delineated in +the loves of Renzo and Lucia are traditional among Italian +country-folk. They are conscious that true gentleness is no matter of +birth or fortune:— + +E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza, +Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza.[42] + + +This in itself constitutes an important element of culture, and +explains to some extent the high romantic qualities of their +impassioned poetry. The beauty of their land reveals still more. 'O +fortunatos nimium sua si bona norint!' Virgil's exclamation is as true +now as it was when he sang the labours of Italian country-folk some +nineteen centuries ago. To a traveller from the north there is a pathos +even in the contrast between the country in which these children of a +happier climate toil, and those bleak, winter-beaten fields where our +own peasants pass their lives. The cold nights and warm days of Tuscan +springtime are like a Swiss summer. They make rich pasture and a hardy +race of men. Tracts of corn and oats and rye alternate with patches of +flax 286in full flower, with meadows yellow with buttercups or pink +with ragged robin; the young vines, running from bough to bough of elm +and mulberry, are just coming into leaf. The poplars are fresh with +bright green foliage. On the verge of this blooming plain stand ancient +cities ringed with hills, some rising to snowy Apennines, some covered +with white convents and sparkling with villas. Cypresses shoot, black +and spirelike, amid grey clouds of olive-boughs upon the slopes; and +above, where vegetation borders on the barren rock, are masses of ilex +and arbutus interspersed with chestnut-trees not yet in leaf. Men and +women are everywhere at work, ploughing with great white oxen, or +tilling the soil with spades six feet in length—Sabellian ligones. The +songs of nightingales among acacia-trees, and the sharp scream of +swallows wheeling in air, mingle with the monotonous chant that always +rises from the country-people at their toil. Here and there on points +of vantage, where the hill-slopes sink into the plain, cluster white +villages with flower-like campanili. It is there that the veglia, or +evening rendezvous of lovers, the serenades and balls and feste, of +which one hears so much in the popular minstrelsy, take place. Of +course it would not be difficult to paint the darker shades of this +picture. Autumn comes, when the contadini of Lucca and Siena and +Pistoja go forth to work in the unwholesome marshes of the Maremma, or +of Corsica and Sardinia. Dismal superstitions and hereditary hatreds +cast their blight over a life externally so fair. The bad government of +centuries has perverted in many ways the instincts of a people +naturally mild and cheerful and peace-loving. But as far as nature can +make men happy, these husbandmen are surely to be reckoned fortunate, +and in their songs we find little to remind us of what is otherwise +than sunny in their lot. + + [41] It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong contrast in this + respect between the songs of the mountain districts which he has + printed and those of the towns, and that Pitrè, in his edition of + Sicilian _Volkslieder_, expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole + class which he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs, + dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair proportion + of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact stated above is + integrally correct. When acclimatised in the large towns, the rustic + Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb of grossness. At home, among the + fields and on the mountains, she remains chaste and romantic. + + + [42] In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a translation, sung by a poor + lad to a mistress of higher rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign + of a gentle soul:— + + +My state is poor: I am not meet + To court so nobly born a love; +For poverty hath tied my feet, + Trying to climb too far above. +Yet am I gentle, loving thee; +Nor need thou shun my poverty. + +A translator of these _Volkslieder_ has to contend with difficulties +287of no ordinary kind. The freshness of their phrases, the spontaneity +of their sentiments, and the melody of their unstudied cadences, are +inimitable. So again is the peculiar effect of their frequent +transitions from the most fanciful imagery to the language of prose. No +mere student can hope to rival, far less to reproduce, in a foreign +tongue, the charm of verse which sprang untaught from the hearts of +simple folk, which lives unwritten on the lips of lovers, and which +should never be dissociated from singing.[43] There are, besides, +peculiarities in the very structure of the popular rispetto. The +constant repetition of the same phrase with slight variations, +especially in the closing lines of the _ripresa_ of the Tuscan +rispetto, gives an antique force and flavour to these ditties, like +that which we appreciate in our own ballads, but which may easily, in +the translation, degenerate into weakness and insipidity. The Tuscan +rhymester, again, allows himself the utmost licence. It is usual to +find mere assonances like _bene_ and _piacere, oro_ and _volo, ala_ and +_alata_, in the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of +sound as _colli_ and _poggi_, _lascia_ and _piazza_, are far from +uncommon. To match these rhymes by joining 'home' and 'alone,' 'time' +and 'shine,' &c, would of course be a matter of no difficulty; but it +has seemed to me on the whole best to preserve, with some exceptions, +such accuracy as the English ear requires. I fear, however, that, after +all, these wild-flowers of song, transplanted to another climate and +placed in a hothouse, will appear but pale and hectic by the side of +their robuster brethren of the Tuscan hills. + + [43] When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been made above, was + asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her rispetti, she answered, + 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li canto! . . . ma ora . . . + bisognerebbe averli tutti in visione; se no, proprio non vengono.' + +In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which 288I have +just noticed occur. I have also adhered to the irregularity of rhyme +which may be usually observed about the middle of the poem (p. 103):— + +Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face, +Lift up thy fair and tender brow: +List to thy love in this still place; +He calls thee to thy window now: +But bids thee not the house to quit, +Since in the night this were not meet. +Come to thy window, stay within; +I stand without, and sing and sing: +Come to thy window, stay at home; +I stand without, and make my moan. + + +Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):— + +I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen, +Thee and the house where thou art harboured: +All the long way upon my knees, my queen, +I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread. +I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall, +Whereby thou goest, maid imperial! +I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house, +Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous! + + +In the next the lover, who has passed the whole night beneath his +sweetheart's window, takes leave at the break of day. The feeling of +the half-hour before dawn, when the sound of bells rises to meet the +growing light, and both form a prelude to the glare and noise of day, +is expressed with much unconscious poetry (p. 105):— + +I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer: +Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing, +See how the windows open far and near, +And hear the bells of morning, how they ring! +Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell; +Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell! +Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes; +Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose! + +289 + +The next is more quaint (p. 99):— + +I come by night, I come, my soul aflame; +I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep; +And should I wake you up, it were a shame. +I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep. +To wake you were a shame from your deep rest; +Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest. + + +A very great many rispetti are simple panegyrics of the beloved, to +find similitude for whose beauty heaven and earth are ransacked. The +compliment of the first line in the following song is perfect (p. 23):— + +Beauty was born with you, fair maid: +The sun and moon inclined to you; +On you the snow her whiteness laid +The rose her rich and radiant hue: +Saint Magdalen her hair unbound, +And Cupid taught you how to wound— +How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught: +Your beauty drives me love-distraught. + + +The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):— + +O beauty, born in winter's night, +Born in the month of spotless snow: +Your face is like a rose so bright; +Your mother may be proud of you! +She may be proud, lady of love, +Such sunlight shines her house above: +She may be proud, lady of heaven, +Such sunlight to her home is given. + + +The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):— + +Nay, marvel not you are so fair; +For you beside the sea were born: +The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair, +Like roses on their leafy thorn. + +290 If roses grow on the rose-bush, +Your roses through midwinter blush; +If roses bloom on the rose-bed, +Your face can show both white and red. + + +The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):— + +The moon hath risen her plaint to lay +Before the face of Love Divine. +Saying in heaven she will not stay, +Since you have stolen what made her shine: +Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,— +She told her stars and two are gone: +They are not there; you have them now; +They are the eyes in your bright brow. + + +Nor are girls less ready to praise their lovers, but that they do not +dwell so much on physical perfection. Here is a pleasant greeting (p. +124):— + +O welcome, welcome, lily white, +Thou fairest youth of all the valley! +When I'm with you, my soul is light; +I chase away dull melancholy. +I chase all sadness from my heart: +Then welcome, dearest that thou art! +I chase all sadness from my side: +Then welcome, O my love, my pride! +I chase all sadness far away: +Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day! + + +The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):— + +I planted a lily yestreen at my window; +I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up: +When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window, +It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup. +O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown! +Remember how dearly I loved you, my own. +O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky! +Remember I love you for ever and aye. + +291 + +The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):— + +On yonder hill I saw a flower; +And, could it thence be hither borne, +I'd plant it here within my bower, +And water it both eve and morn. +Small water wants the stem so straight; +'Tis a love-lily stout as fate. +Small water wants the root so strong: +'Tis a love-lily lasting long. +Small water wants the flower so sheen: +'Tis a love-lily ever green. + + +Envious tongues have told a girl that her complexion is not good. She +replies, with imagery like that of Virgil's 'Alba ligustra cadunt, +vaccinia nigra leguntur' (p. 31):— + +Think it no grief that I am brown, +For all brunettes are born to reign: +White is the snow, yet trodden down; +Black pepper kings need not disdain: +White snow lies mounded on the vales +Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales. + + +Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):— + +The whole world tells me that I'm brown, +The brown earth gives us goodly corn: +The clove-pink too, however brown, +Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne. +They say my love is black, but he +Shines like an angel-form to me: +They say my love is dark as night; +To me he seems a shape of light. + + +The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):— + +It was the morning of the first of May, +Into the close I went to pluck a flower; +And there I found a bird of woodland gay, +Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour. + +292 O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how +Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!— +Love it begins with music and with song, +And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long. + + +Love at first sight is described (p. 79):— + +The very moment that we met, +That moment love began to beat: +One glance of love we gave, and swore +Never to part for evermore; +We swore together, sighing deep, +Never to part till Death's long sleep. + + +Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):— + +If I remember, it was May +When love began between us two: +The roses in the close were gay, +The cherries blackened on the bough. +O cherries black and pears so green! +Of maidens fair you are the queen. +Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear! +Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. + + +The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):— + +Or ere I leave you, love divine, +Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech, +And running rivers flow with wine, +And fishes swim upon the beach; +Or ere I leave or shun you, these +Lemons shall grow on orange-trees. + + +The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):— + +Passing across the billowy sea, +I let, alas, my poor heart fall; +I bade the sailors bring it me; +They said they had not seen it fall. +I asked the sailors, one and two; +They said that I had given it you. +I asked the sailors, two and three; +They said that I had given it thee. + +293 + +It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):— + +Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho! +Lend me awhile that bark of thine; +For on the billows I will go, +To find my love who once was mine: +And if I find her, she shall wear +A chain around her neck so fair, +Around her neck a glittering bond, +Four stars, a lily, a diamond. + + +It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):— + +Beneath the earth I'll make a way +To pass the sea and come to you. +People will think I'm gone away; +But, dear, I shall be seeing you. +People will say that I am dead; +But we'll pluck roses white and red: +People will think I'm lost for aye; +But we'll pluck roses, you and I. + + +All the little daily incidents are beautified by love. Here is a lover +who thanks the mason for making his window so close upon the road that +he can see his sweetheart as she passes (p. 118):— + +Blest be the mason's hand who built +This house of mine by the roadside, +And made my window low and wide +For me to watch my love go by. +And if I knew when she went by, +My window should be fairly gilt; +And if I knew what time she went, +My window should be flower-besprent. + + +Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +_ερηρεισμένα Φιλήματα_ (p. 117):— + +294 What time I see you passing by; +I sit and count the steps you take: +You take the steps; I sit and sigh: +Step after step, my sighs awake. +Tell me, dear love, which more abound, +My sighs or your steps on the ground? +Tell me, dear love, which are the most, +Your light steps or the sighs they cost? + + +A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):— + +I lean upon the lattice, and look forth +To see the house where my lover dwells. +There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth: +Cursed be the man who set it on these hills! +But when those jealous boughs are all unclad, +I then shall see the cottage of my lad: +When once that tree is rooted from the hills, +I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells. + + +In the same mood a girl who has just parted from her sweetheart is +angry with the hill beyond which he is travelling (p. 167):— + +I see and see, yet see not what I would: +I see the leaves atremble on the tree: +I saw my love where on the hill he stood, +Yet see him not drop downward to the lea. + O traitor hill, what will you do? + I ask him, live or dead, from you. + O traitor hill, what shall it be? + I ask him, live or dead, from thee. + + +All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):— + +I would I were a bird so free, +That I had wings to fly away: +Unto that window I would flee, +Where stands my love and grinds all day. +295 Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep! +I cannot grind; love makes me weep. +Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow! +I cannot grind; love wastes me so. + + +The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):— + +Would God I were a swallow free, +That I had wings to fly away: +Upon the miller's door I'd be, +Where stands my love and grinds all day: +Upon the door, upon the sill, +Where stays my love;—God bless him still! +God bless my love, and blessed be +His house, and bless my house for me; +Yea, blest be both, and ever blest +My lover's house, and all the rest! + + +The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):— + +O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill, +Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest, +Let me a feather from thy pinion pull, +For I will write to him who loves me best. +And when I've written it and made it clear, +I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear: +And when I've written it and sealed it, then +I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden. + + +A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):— + +O swallow, swallow, flying through the air, +Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above! +Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, +For I will write a letter to my love. +When I have written it and made it clear, +I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear; +When I have written it on paper white, +I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; +When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold, +I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold. + +296 + +Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that +swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I +translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is +full of character (p. 178):— + +O swallow, flying over hill and plain, +If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come! +And tell him, on these mountains I remain +Even as a lamb who cannot find her home: +And tell him, I am left all, all alone, +Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown: +And tell him, I am left without a mate +Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate: +And tell him, I am left uncomforted +Even as the grass upon the meadows dead. + + +The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of the +village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and whose +damo comes the last of all (p. 240):— + +O dear my love, you come too late! +What found you by the way to do? +I saw your comrades pass the gate, +But yet not you, dear heart, not you! +If but a little more you'd stayed, +With sighs you would have found me dead; +If but a while you'd keep me crying, +With sighs you would have found me dying. + + +The _amantium iræ_ find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):— + +'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true, +Your kin are wroth as wroth can be; +For loving me they swear at you, +They swear at you because of me; +Your father, mother, all your folk, +Because you love me, chafe and choke! +Then set your kith and kin at ease; +Set them at ease and let me die: +Set the whole clan of them at ease; +Set them at ease and see me die! + +297 + +Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. 200):— + +On Sunday morning well I knew +Where gaily dressed you turned your feet; +And there were many saw it too, +And came to tell me through the street: +And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me! +But in my room wept privately; +And when they spoke, I sang for pride, +But in my room alone I sighed. + + +Then come reconciliations (p. 223):— + +Let us make peace, my love, my bliss! +For cruel strife can last no more. +If you say nay, yet I say yes: +'Twixt me and you there is no war. +Princes and mighty lords make peace; +And so may lovers twain, I wis: +Princes and soldiers sign a truce; +And so may two sweethearts like us: +Princes and potentates agree; +And so may friends like you and me. + + +There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):— + +As yonder mountain height I trod, +I chanced to think of your dear name; +I knelt with clasped hands on the sod, +And thought of my neglect with shame: +I knelt upon the stone, and swore +Our love should bloom as heretofore. + + +Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):— + +Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above, +I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart: +You to your breast shall clasp me full of love, +And I will lead you to our Lord apart. + +298 Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known, +Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone; +One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest +In heaven amid the splendours of the blest. + + +This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):— + +If I were master of all loveliness, +I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art: +If I were master of all wealthiness, +Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart: +If I were master of the house of hell, +I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face; +Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell, +I'd free thee from that punishment apace. +Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come, +I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room; +Were I in paradise, well seated there, +I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair! + + +Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):— + +Down into hell I went and thence returned: +Ah me! alas! the people that were there! +I found a room where many candles burned, +And saw within my love that languished there. +When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, +And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; +Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, +When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine? +Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; +Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine! +So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, +That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine! +Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, +Look not to leave this place again for aye. + + +Or again in this (p. 232):— + +Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: +Beyond the hill it floats upon the air. +It is my lover come to bid me rise, +If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare. + +299 But I have answered him, and said him No! +I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: +Till we together go to paradise, +I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes. + + +But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse +of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following +half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):— + +Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh! +Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: +Sighing at table when to eat I try, +Sighing within my little room apart, +Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, +Sighing with her and her who know my heart: +I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; +'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: +I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; +And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so. + + +The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to have +been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the +sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in +with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the lovers +(p. 123):— + +Ah, when will dawn that glorious day +When you will softly mount my stair? +My kin shall bring you on the way; +I shall be first to greet you there. +Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss +When we before the priest say Yes? + +Ah, when will dawn that blissful day +When I shall softly mount your stair, +Your brothers meet me on the way, +And one by one I greet them there? +When comes the day, my staff, my strength, +To call your mother mine at length? +When will the day come, love of mine, +I shall be yours and you be mine? + +300Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love +returned. Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for +instance, steeped in gloom (p. 142):— + +They have this custom in fair Naples town; +They never mourn a man when he is dead: +The mother weeps when she has reared a son +To be a serf and slave by love misled; +The mother weeps when she a son hath born +To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; +The mother weeps when she a son gives suck +To be the serf and slave of city luck. + + +The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):— + +I'll spread a table brave for revelry, +And to the feast will bid sad lovers all. +For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; +For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall. +Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, +To serve the lovers at this festival: +The table shall be death, black death profound; +Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around! +The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; +Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth! + + +Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):— + +High up, high up, a house I'll rear, +High up, high up, on yonder height; +At every window set a snare, +With treason, to betray the night; +With treason, to betray the stars, +Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; +With treason, to betray the day, +Since Love betrayed me, well away! + + +The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):— + +301 + +I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, +Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: +I've had it tempered in the streams of hell +By masters mighty in the mystic rede: +I've had it tempered by the light of stars; +Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; +I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; +Then let him come who stole from me my maid. + + +More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole +world has become but ashes in the death of love, is tho following +lament (p. 143):— + +Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, +But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair. +If there be wretched women, sure I think +I too may rank among the most forlorn. +I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: +Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne. +What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross? +Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross. +How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth? +Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth. +What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk? +Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke. + + +Here is pathos (p. 172):— + +The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, +She lives a dolorous life, I ween; +She seeks a stream and bathes in it, +And drinks that water foul and green: +With other birds she will not mate, +Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; +She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; +Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest! + + +And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):— + +I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, + With tears the lime I'll slack; +And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes + Until my love come back: +302 And there I'll stay with eyes that burn +Until I see my love return. + + +The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):— + +Dark house and window desolate! +Where is the sun which shone so fair? +'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: +Now the stones weep; I see them there. +They weep, and feel a grievous chill: +Dark house and widowed window-sill! + + +And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):— + +Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, +And lay me there the earth beneath; +After a year, come see my bones, +And make them dice to play therewith. +But when you're tired of that game, +Then throw those dice into the flame; +But when you're tired of gaming free, +Then throw those dice into the sea. + + +The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):— + +Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain? +The cross before my bier will go; +And thou wilt hear the bells complain, +The _Misereres_ loud and low. +Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie +With folded hands and frozen eye; +Then say at last, I do repent!— +Nought else remains when fires are spent. + + +Here is a rustic Œnone (p. 307):— + +Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe! +Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: +Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; +But when we call, thou wilt not hear. +Fell death, false death of treachery, +Thou makest all content but me. + +303 + +Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):— + +Strew me with blossoms when I die, +Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; +Beyond those walls, there let me lie, +Where oftentimes we used to go. +There lay me to the wind and rain; +Dying for you, I feel no pain: +There lay me to the sun above; +Dying for you, I die of love. + + +Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):— + +I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: +I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: +Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, +Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. +Now am I ware, and know my own mistake— +How false are all the promises you make; +Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! +That who confides in you, deceived will be. + + +It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. +Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his +way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought +as Bion (p. 85):— + + Yestreen I went my love to greet, + By yonder village path below: + Night in a coppice found my feet; + I called the moon her light to show— +O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face, +Look forth and lend me light a little space! + + +Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan +popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the +canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They +are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of +art. Herein lies, perhaps, 304their chief importance. As in our ballad +literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama +undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude +form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It is +also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the Idylls +of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of thought +and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious study of +the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great value for +the student of literature: it enables him to trace those forms of fancy +and of feeling which are native to the people, and which must +ultimately determine the character of national art, however much that +may be modified by culture. + +305 + + + + +POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE + + +The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century formed +an important branch of their national literature, and flourished +independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which gave a +special character to the golden age of the revival. While the latter +tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the former +established a new link of connection between them, different indeed +from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the Canzoni of +Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still sufficiently real +to exercise a weighty influence over the national development. Scholars +like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' Medici, men of letters +like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from the people forms of +poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and appropriated to the +uses of polite literature. The most important of these forms, native to +the people but assimilated by the learned classes, were the Miracle +Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the 'Ballata' or lyric to be sung +while dancing; the 'Canto Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the +'Rispetto' or short love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or +May-song; and the 'Madrigale' or little part-song. + +At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of +republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements of +carnival and spring time; and 306this poetry of the dance, the pageant, +and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious efforts of +the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to inquire into +the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the alterations they may +have undergone at the hands of educated versifiers, or to define their +several characteristics; but only to offer translations of such as seem +to me best suited to represent the genius of the people and the age. + +In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was +indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled the +lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose +critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of +scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. +Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, +and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their +'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. The +peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also +serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The +stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the couplet +in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so graceful and +is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot content myself +with fewer than four of his _Ballate_.[44] The first is written on the +world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.' + +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, +In a green garden in mid month of May. + +Violets and lilies grew on every side + Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, +Golden and white and red and azure-eyed; +307 Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull + Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, +To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay. + +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, +In a green garden in mid month of May. + +But when my lap was full of flowers I spied + Roses at last, roses of every hue; +Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride, + Because their perfume was so sweet and true + That all my soul went forth with pleasure new, +With yearning and desire too soft to say. + +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, +In a green garden in mid month of May. + +I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell + How lovely were the roses in that hour: +One was but peeping from her verdant shell, + And some were faded, some were scarce in flower: + Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower +Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray. + +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, +In a green garden in mid month of May. + +For when the full rose quits her tender sheath, + When she is sweetest and most fair to see, +Then is the time to place her in thy wreath, + Before her beauty and her freshness flee. + Gather ye therefore roses with great glee, +Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away. + +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, +In a green garden in mid month of May. + + + [44] I need hardly guard myself against being supposed to mean that + the form of _Ballata_ in question was the only one of its kind in + Italy. + + +The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same +intention. It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly +poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented +a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit of +his art. It was in fact a conventional 308feature of this species of +verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, +on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who +captivates his eyes and heart. Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated +Ballata, 'In un boschetto trovai pastorella,' struck the keynote of +this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into +Italy through Provençal literature from the pastorals of Northern +France. The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata +of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of Prato, +white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk. + +I found myself one day all, all alone, +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +I do not think the world a field could show + With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare; +But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row, + A thousand flowers around me flourished fair, + White, pied and crimson, in the summer air; +Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone. + +I found myself one day all, all alone, +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +Her song it was so tender and so clear + That all the world listened with love; then I +With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near, + Her golden head and golden wings could spy, + Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky, +Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone. + +I found myself one day all, all alone, +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love; + But arrow-like she soared, and through the air +Fled to her nest upon the boughs above; +309 Wherefore to follow her is all my care, + For haply I might lure her by some snare +Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown. + +I found myself one day all, all alone, +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile; + But since of singing she doth take such pleasure, +Without or other art or other guile + I seek to win her with a tuneful measure; + Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure, +To make by singing this sweet bird my own. + +I found myself one day all, all alone, +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. + +The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where +Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita. I have taken the liberty of +substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word. + +He who knows not what thing is Paradise, +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire, + An angel of our lord, a laughing boy, +Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre, + And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy, + That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy; +Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise! + +He who knows not what thing is Paradise, +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move, + So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight, +That it is like the lightning of high Jove, + Riving of iron and adamant the might; + Nathless the wound doth carry such delight +That he who suffers dwells in Paradise. + +He who knows not what thing is Paradise, +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +310 From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger + Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee, +That all proud souls are bound to bend to her; + So sweet her countenance, it turns the key + Of hard hearts locked in cold security: +Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise. + +He who knows not what thing is Paradise, +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne, + And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind: +Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known + As in the whole wide world he scarce may find: + Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind, +He lives again beneath her gazing eyes. + +He who knows not what thing is Paradise, +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. + +The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of +love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity from +the high ideal of the trecentisti poets. + +I ask no pardon if I follow Love; +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +From those who feel the fire I feel, what use + Is there in asking pardon? These are so +Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous, + That they will have compassion, well I know. + From such as never felt that honeyed woe, +I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love. + +I ask no pardon if I follow Love; +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness, + Weighed in the scales of equity refined, +Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less, +311 Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind. + Who can rebuke me then if I am kind +So far as honesty comports and Love? + +I ask no pardon if I follow Love; +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone + Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein! +I pray to Love that who hath never known + Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain; + But he who serves our lord with might and main, +May dwell for ever in the fire of Love! + +I ask no pardon if I follow Love; +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +Let him rebuke me without cause who will; + For if he be not gentle, I fear nought: +My heart obedient to the same love still + Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught: + So long as life remains, it is my thought +To keep the laws of this so gentle Love. + +I ask no pardon if I follow Love; +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. + +This Ballata is put into a woman's mouth. Another, ascribed to Lorenzo +de' Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of +his lady. It illustrates the well-known use of the word _Signore_ for +mistress in Florentine poetry. + +312 How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave + To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay; +Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave + That only doleful tears are mine for aye: + Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play +While I am fain to weep continually. + +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed, + When my lord loved me with love strong and great: +But envious fortune my life's music stilled, + And turned to sadness all my gleeful state. + Ah me! Death surely were less desolate +Than thus to live and love-neglected be! + +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +One only comfort soothes my heart's despair, + And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer; +Unto my lord I ever yielded fair + Service of faith untainted pure and clear; + If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier +It may be she will shed one tear for me. + +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free, +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? + +The Florentine _Rispetto_ was written for the most part in octave +stanzas, detached or continuous. The octave stanza in Italian +literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely +used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of +emotion.[45] Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own facility, +sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to literary +elegance. + + [45] See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p. 114. + +Here are a few of these detached stanzas or _Rispetti Spicciolati_:— + +Upon that day when first I saw thy face, + I vowed with loyal love to worship thee. +Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place: + Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally. + +313 In joy of thine I find most perfect grace, + And in thy sadness dwells my misery: +Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep. +Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep. + +Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace, + Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine. +White will he turn those golden curls, that lace + Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine. +Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace, + Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine. +Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night + Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite. + +Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire! + Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! +See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! + He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry. +Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher. + Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die. +Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I +My heart's a cinder if you do but stay. + +Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade, + And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary; +Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid, + If ere for aught I shall abandon thee: +Before all-seeing God this prayer be made— + When I desert thee, may death feed on me: +Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure +That without faith none may abide secure. + +I ask not, Love, for any other pain + To make thy cruel foe and mine repent, +Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain + Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement; +Then would I clasp her so with might and main, + That she should learn to pity and relent, +And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite, +A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white. + +314 Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea, + Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky; +Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee, + Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie; +The saints each one doth wait his day to see, + And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I +Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say, +That who subdues himself, deserves to sway. + +It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor +elevated. Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, was +neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic mysteries +or chivalrous enthusiasms. When the octave stanzas, written with this +amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous poem, this +form of verse took the title of _Rispetto Gontinuato_. In the +collection of Poliziano's poems there are several examples of the long +Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the +recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems. All repeat the old +arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love. The one +which I have chosen for translation, styled _Serenata ovvero Lettera in +Istrambotti_, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine convention +in the matter of love-making. + +O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen, + Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame, +Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean, + Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame; +For thou his shining planet still hast been, + And day and night he calls on thy fair name: +First wishing thee all good the world can give, +Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live. + +He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind + To think upon his pure and perfect faith, +And that such mercy in thy heart and mind + Should reign, as so much beauty argueth: +315 A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind, + Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth: +Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue +Such guerdon only as shall prove them true. + +He knows himself unmeet for love from thee, + Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes; +Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be, + That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs: +Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery, + Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize, +And since he strives to honour thee alway, +He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day. + +Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen, + Still findeth none to love or value it; +Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been, + Not being known, can profit him no whit: +He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween, + If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it; +The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze; +Him only faith above the crowd doth raise. + +Suppose that he might meet thee once alone, + Face unto face, without or jealousy, +Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown, + And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee, +Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan. + And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously: +Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show, +He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe. + +Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour; + Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime: +Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower, + Or look to find it paled by envious time: +For none to stay the flight of years hath power, + And who culls roses caught by frosty rime? +Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they +Too late repent who act not while they may. + +316 Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly: + There is not in the world a thing more dear; +And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by, + Where find'st thou roses in the later year? +He never can, who lets occasion die: + Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear; +But by the forelock take the flying hour, +Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower. + +Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung; + Whether he sleep or wake he little knows, +Or free or in the bands of bondage strung: + Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose! +What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung? + Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose: +No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part: +Either relax the bow, or speed the dart. + +Thou feedest him on words and windiness, + On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air; +Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress, + But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair, +All things are possible beneath the stress + Of will, that flames above the soul's despair! +Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand; +Or see his love unclothed and naked stand. + +For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide, + E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour, +To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried, + Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever: +And, though he still would spare thy honest pride, + The knot that binds him he must loose or sever; +Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife, +If thou art fain to end this amorous strife. + +Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread, + Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty, +Here hast thou need of wile and warihead, + To test thy lover's strength in screening thee; +317 Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead, + Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly: +Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way; + Keep not the steed too long at idle play. + +Or if thou heedest what those friars teach, + I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool: +Well may they blame our private sins and preach; + But ill their acts match with their spoken rule; +The same pitch clings to all men, one and each. + There, I have spoken: set the world to school +With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted +The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted. + +Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee + That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast, +But to reward thy servant's constancy, + Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed: +Think it no sin to be some trifle free, + Because thou livest at a lord's behest; +For if he take enough to feed his fill, +To cast the rest away were surely ill. + +They find most favour in the sight of heaven + Who to the poor and hungry are most kind; +A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given + By God, who loves the free and generous mind; +Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven, + Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!— +He wants not much: enough if he be able +To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table. + +Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length; + Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers: +When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength, + Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours; +Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length, + Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours: +Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee: +If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee. + +318 What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth; + I have told all my mind, withholding nought: +And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth, + And through the riddle read the hidden thought: +Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth, + Some good effect for me may yet be wrought: +Then fare thee well; too many words offend: +She who is wise is quick to comprehend. + +The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows +show them to be 'false as dicers' oaths,' mere verses of the moment, +made to please a facile mistress. One long poem, which cannot be styled +a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, stands out +with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano's love-verses. It was +written by him for Giuliano de' Medici, in praise of the fair +Simonetta. The following version attempts to repeat its metrical +effects in some measure:— + +My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains + And forces all the world beneath his sway, + In lowly verse to say +The great delight that in my bosom reigns. +For if perchance I took but little pains + To tell some part of all the joy I find, + I might be deem'd unkind +By one who knew my heart's deep happiness. +He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss; + Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung; + And he who curbs his tongue +Through cowardice, knows but of love the name. +Wherefore to succour and augment the fame + Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may, + Who like the star of day +Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun, +Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. + Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear, + With discord dark and drear, +And all the choir that is of love the foe.— +The season had returned when soft winds blow, +319 The season friendly to young lovers coy, + Which bids them clothe their joy +In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. +Then I to track the game 'neath April skies + Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd, + And by kind fate was led +Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire. +The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire, + I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood, + In graceful attitude, +Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. +So sweet, so tender was her face divine, + So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes + Shone perfect paradise, +Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. +Around her was a band so nobly brave + Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these + Methought heaven's goddesses +That day for once had deigned to visit earth. +But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth, + Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face + Venus; for every grace +And beauty of the world in her combined. +Merely to think, far more to tell my mind + Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me, + For mid the maidens she +Who most resembled her was found most rare. +Call ye another first among the fair; + Not first, but sole before my lady set: + Lily and violet +And all the flowers below the rose must bow. +Down from her royal head and lustrous brow + The golden curls fell sportively unpent, + While through the choir she went +With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. +Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground, + Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair; + But still her jealous hair +Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. +She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise, +320 No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew, + With hand of purest hue, +Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. +Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen, + So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine, + That scarce can I divine +How then I 'scaped from burning utterly. +These are the first fair signs of love to be, + That bound my heart with adamant, and these + The matchless courtesies +Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover. +This is the honeyed food she gave her lover, + To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine; + Nectar is not so fine, +Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove. +Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love, + As though to show the faith within her heart, + She moved, with subtle art, +Her feet accordant to the amorous air. +But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er + Might cease that happy dance angelical, + O harsh, unkind recall! +Back to the banquet was she beckonèd. +She, with her face at first with pallor spread, + Then tinted with a blush of coral dye, + 'The ball is best!' did cry, +Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake. +But from her eyes celestial forth did break + Favour at parting; and I well could see + Young love confusedly +Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze, +Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays, + For war with Pallas and with Dian cold. + Fairer than mortal mould, +She moved majestic with celestial gait; +And with her hand her robe in royal state + Raised, as she went with pride ineffable. + Of me I cannot tell, +Whether alive or dead I there was left. +Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft, +321 Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive— + Such virtue to revive +My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face, +But if that powerful charm of thy great grace + Could then thy loyal lover so sustain, + Why comes there not again +More often or more soon the sweet delight? +Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light + Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn, + Nor yet hath fortune borne +Me on the way to so much bliss again. +Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: + The grass and every shrub once more is green; + The amorous birds begin, +From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. +See how in loving pairs the cattle throng; + The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: + Thou maiden, I a boy, +Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye? +Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? + Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? + Or with thy beauty choose +To make him blest who loves thee best of all? +Haply I am some hind who guards the stall, + Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn, + Poor, or a cripple born, +Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? +Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow + With honour to our land, with pomp and power; + My youth is yet in flower, +And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. +My lot it is to deal right royally + With all the goods that fortune spreads around, + For still they more abound, +Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. +My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste; + Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: + Yet though I rank so high +Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss, +Still without thee, my hope, my happiness, +322 It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! + Then stint me not, but give +That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. +Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone! + +With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this old-fashioned +love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness which commends it +to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the profile portrait of +Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca in the Pitti Palace at +Florence. + +It is worth comparing Poliziano's treatment of popular or semi-popular +verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch's manner. For this purpose +I have chosen a _Canzone_, clearly written in competition with the +celebrated 'Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,' of Laura's lover. While +closely modelled upon Petrarch's form and similar in motive, this +Canzone preserves Poliziano's special qualities of fluency and +emptiness of content. + +Hills, valleys, caves and fells, + With flowers and leaves and herbage spread; + Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low; + Lawns watered with the rills + That cruel Love hath made me shed, + Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe; + Thou stream that still dost know + What fell pangs pierce my heart, + So dost thou murmur back my moan; + Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone, + While in our descant drear Love sings his part: + Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air; + List to the sound out-poured from my despair! +Seven times and once more seven + The roseate dawn her beauteous brow + Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed; + Cynthia once more in heaven + Hath orbed her horns with silver now; + While in sea waves her brother's light was laid; + Since this high mountain glade +323 Felt the white footsteps fall + Of that proud lady, who to spring + Converts whatever woodland thing + She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all. + Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring + From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. +Yea, nourished with my tears + Is every little leaf I see, + And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. + Ah me! through what long years + Will she withhold her face from me, + Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave? + Speak! or in grove or cave + If one hath seen her stray, + Plucking amid those grasses green + Wreaths for her royal brows serene, + Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! + Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell + Among these woods, within this leafy dell! +O Love! 'twas here we saw, + Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring + From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:— + The thought renews my awe! + How sweetly did her tresses fling + Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed + Fire, frost within me played, + While I beheld the bloom + Of laughing flowers—O day of bliss!— + Around those tresses meet and kiss, + And roses in her lap of Love the home! + Her grace, her port divinely fair, + Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare. +In mute intent surprise + I gazed, as when a hind is seen + To dote upon its image in a rill; + Drinking those love-lit eyes, + Those hands, that face, those words serene, + That song which with delight the heaven did fill, + That smile which thralls me still, + Which melteth stones unkind, +324 Which in this woodland wilderness + Tames every beast and stills the stress + Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find + Her footprints upon field or grove! + I should not then be envious of Jove. +Thou cool stream rippling by, + Where oft it pleased her to dip + Her naked foot, how blest art thou! + Ye branching trees on high, + That spread your gnarled roots on the lip + Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew! + She often leaned on you, + She who is my life's bliss! + Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown, + How do I envy thee thy throne, + Found worthy to receive such happiness! + Ye winds, how blissful must ye be, + Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony! +The winds that music bore, + And wafted it to God on high, + That Paradise might have the joy thereof. + Flowers here she plucked, and wore + Wild roses from the thorn hard by: + This air she lightened with her look of love: + This running stream above, + She bent her face!—Ah me! + Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon? + What calm is in the kiss of noon? + Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody? + Whence came pure peace into my soul? + What joy hath rapt me from my own control? + +Poliziano's refrain is always: 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may. It is +spring-time now and youth. Winter and old age are coming!' A _Maggio_, +or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of +the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses +this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick. +It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on +the same system as Poliziano's Ballata. It has considerable +325historical interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido +Cavalcanti's, while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de' +Medici, and by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano. + + Welcome in the May + And the woodland garland gay! + +Welcome in the jocund spring + Which bids all men lovers be! +Maidens, up with carolling, + With your sweethearts stout and free, + With roses and with blossoms ye +Who deck yourselves this first of May! + +Up, and forth into the pure + Meadows, mid the trees and flowers! +Every beauty is secure + With so many bachelors: + Beasts and birds amid the bowers +Burn with love this first of May. + +Maidens, who are young and fair, + Be not harsh, I counsel you; +For your youth cannot repair + Her prime of spring, as meadows do: + None be proud, but all be true +To men who love, this first of May. + +Dance and carol every one + Of our band so bright and gay! +See your sweethearts how they run + Through the jousts for you to-day! + She who saith her lover nay, +Will deflower the sweets of May, + +Lads in love take sword and shield + To make pretty girls their prize: +Yield ye, merry maidens, yield + To your lovers' vows and sighs: + Give his heart back ere it dies: +Wage not war this first of May. + +326 He who steals another's heart, + Let him give his own heart too: +Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart + Little cherub Cupid, who + Homage comes to pay with you, +Damsels, to the first of May. + +Love comes smiling; round his head + Lilies white and roses meet: +'Tis for you his flight is sped. + Fair one, haste our king to greet: + Who will fling him blossoms sweet +Soonest on this first of May? + +Welcome, stranger! welcome, king! + Love, what hast thou to command? +That each girl with wreaths should ring + Her lover's hair with loving hand, + That girls small and great should band +In Love's ranks this first of May. + +The _Canto Carnascialesco_, for the final development if not for the +invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de' Medici, does +not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure. It admitted, however, +of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its interweaving +of rhymes. Yet the essential principle of an exordium which should also +serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed from. Two specimens +of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into close contrast two very +different aspects of Florentine history. The earlier was composed by +Lorenzo de' Medici at the height of his power and in the summer of +Italian independence. It was sung by masquers attired in classical +costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew. + +Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away.— + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +327 This is Bacchus and the bright + Ariadne, lovers true! +They, in flying time's despite, + Each with each find pleasure new; +These their Nymphs, and all their crew + Keep perpetual holiday.— + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, + Of the Nymphs are paramours: +Through the caves and forests wide + They have snared them mid the flowers; +Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, + Now they dance and leap alway.— + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +These fair Nymphs, they are not loth + To entice their lovers' wiles. +None but thankless folk and rough + Can resist when Love beguiles. +Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles, + All together dance and play.— + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +See this load behind them plodding + On the ass! Silenus he, +Old and drunken, merry, nodding, + Full of years and jollity; +Though he goes so swayingly, + Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.— + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +Midas treads a wearier measure: + All he touches turns to gold: +If there be no taste of pleasure, + What's the use of wealth untold? +328 What's the joy his fingers hold, + When he's forced to thirst for aye?— + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +Listen well to what we're saying; + Of to-morrow have no care! +Young and old together playing, + Boys and girls, be blithe as air! +Every sorry thought forswear! + Keep perpetual holiday.—- + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +Ladies and gay lovers young! + Long live Bacchus, live Desire! +Dance and play; let songs be sung; + Let sweet love your bosoms fire; +In the future come what may!—- +Youths and maids, enjoy to-day! +Nought ye know about to-morrow. + +Fair is youth and void of sorrow; + But it hourly flies away. + +The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the +ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as +skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero +di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days +of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless +refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a +cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless +past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of Alamanni's +chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real moral of his +subject to the customary mood of the Carnival. + +329 + +Sorrow, tears, and penitence +Are our doom of pain for aye; +This dead concourse riding by +Hath no cry but penitence! + +E'en as you are, once were we: +You shall be as now we are: +We are dead men, as you see: +We shall see you dead men, where +Nought avails to take great care, +After sins, of penitence. + +We too in the Carnival +Sang our love-songs through the town; +Thus from sin to sin we all +Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:— +Now we cry, the world around, +Penitence! oh, Penitence! + +Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! +Time steals all things as he rides: +Honours, glories, states, and schools, +Pass away, and nought abides; +Till the tomb our carcase hides, +And compels this penitence. + +This sharp scythe you see us bear, +Brings the world at length to woe: +But from life to life we fare; +And that life is joy or woe: +All heaven's bliss on him doth flow +Who on earth does penitence. + +Living here, we all must die; +Dying, every soul shall live: +For the King of kings on high +This fixed ordinance doth give: +Lo, you all are fugitive! +Penitence! Cry Penitence! + +Torment great and grievous dole +Hath the thankless heart mid you; +But the man of piteous soul +330 Finds much honour in our crew: +Love for loving is the due +That prevents this penitence. + +Sorrow, tears, and penitence +Are our doom of pain for aye: +This dead concourse riding by +Hath no cry but Penitence! + +One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than +on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in +illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but +also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This poem +in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but +probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of +female street gossips. + +Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + +Courteously on you I call; + Listen well to what I sing: + For my roundelay to all + May perchance instruction bring, + And of life good lessoning.— + When in company you meet, + Or sit spinning, all the street + Clamours like a market-place. + +Thirty of you there may be; + Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, + And the single silent she + Racks her brains about her coz:— + Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, + Mind your work, my ditty saith; + Do not gossip till your breath + Fails and leaves you black of face! + +331 Governments go out and in:— + You the truth must needs discover. + Is a girl about to win + A brave husband in her lover?— + Straight you set to talk him over: + 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat + Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?' + 'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?' + +Out of window one head pokes; + Twenty others do the same:— + Chatter, clatter!—creaks and croaks + All the year the same old game!— + 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, + 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!' + Cries another, 'Mine must go, + Drat it, to the bleaching base!' + +'Devil take the fowl!' says one: + 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; + Cocks and hens with vermin run, + Mangy, filthy, featherless.' + Says another: 'I confess + Every hair I drop, I keep— + Plague upon it, in a heap + Falling off to my disgrace!' + +If you see a fellow walk + Up or down the street and back, + How you nod and wink and talk, + Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!— + 'What, I wonder, does he lack + Here about?'—'There's something wrong!' + Till the poor man's made a song + For the female populace. + +It were well you gave no thought + To such idle company; + Shun these gossips, care for nought + But the business that you ply. +332 You who chatter, you who cry, + Heed my words; be wise, I pray: + Fewer, shorter stories say: + Bide at home, and mind your place. + +Since you beg with such a grace, + How can I refuse a song, + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, + On the follies of the place? + +The _Madrigale_, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of +popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without +seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, who +used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a few +Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and more +immediately intended for music.[46] The similarity both of manner and +matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious. There +is the same affectation of rusticity in both. + + [46] The originals will be found in Carducci's _Studi Letterari_, p. + 273 _et seq._ I have preserved their rhyming structure. + + +_Cogliendo per un prato._ + + +Plucking white lilies in a field I saw + Fair women, laden with young Love's delight: + Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright. +Then by the margin of a fount they leaned, + And of those flowers made garlands for their hair— + Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare. +Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon +Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one. + + +_Togliendo l' una all' altra._ + + +One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers, + I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees, + Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties. +Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest +333 Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!' + Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake. +My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: +Therefore I am her servant to the grave. + + +_Appress' un fiume chiaro_. + + +Hard by a crystal stream + Girls and maids were dancing round + A lilac with fair blossoms crowned. +Mid these I spied out one + So tender-sweet, so love-laden, + She stole my heart with singing then: +Love in her face so lovely-kind +And eyes and hands my soul did bind. + + +_Di riva in riva_. + + +From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley, + Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill + I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill. +Lina was there all loveliness excelling; + The pleasure of her beauty made me sad, + And yet at sight of her my soul was glad. +Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming, + And all a tremble from the fountain fled: + For each was naked as her maidenhead. +Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain, +Where bye and bye I found my hawk again! + + +_Nel chiaro fiume_. + + +Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant + I went a fishing all alone one day, + And spied three maidens bathing there at play. +Of love they told each other honeyed stories, + While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet + Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. +Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage, + Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, + Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, +And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: + 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.' + + +334 + +_Quel sole che nutrica._ + + +The sun which makes a lily bloom, + Leans down at times on her to gaze— + Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: +Then, having looked a little while, + He turns and tells the saints in bliss + How marvellous her beauty is. +Thus up in heaven with flute and string +Thy loveliness the angels sing. + + +_Di novo è giunt'._ + + +Lo: here hath come an errant knight + On a barbed charger clothed in mail: +His archers scatter iron hail. +At brow and breast his mace he aims; + Who therefore hath not arms of proof, + Let him live locked by door and roof; +Until Dame Summer on a day +That grisly knight return to slay. + +Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was +comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to +commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to +celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre +which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and +uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for +Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, +might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in +alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, beautiful +with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as it were, in +solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the riches of +his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and mythologies +and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously preserved, so +thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject he had +335chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the _spolia opima_ +of scholarship and taste. What mattered it that the theme was slight? +The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 stanzas +describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life among the +woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be ensnared by +Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of Venus, these +are the three subjects of a book as long as the first Iliad. The second +canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to be won by Giuliano +in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The tragic catastrophe of the +Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's panegyric by the murder of his +hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved his purpose. His torso presented +to Italy a model of style, a piece of written art adequate to the great +painting of the Renaissance period, a double star of poetry which blent +the splendours of the ancient and the modern world. To render into +worthy English the harmonies of Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this +must be attempted if an English reader is to gain any notion of the +scope and substance of the Italian poet's art. In the first part of the +poem we are placed, as it were, at the mid point between the +'Hippolytus' of Euripides and Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold +hunter Giuliano is to see Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This +is how he first discovers the triumphant beauty:[47] + +White is the maid, and white the robe around her, + With buds and roses and thin grasses pied; +Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her, +Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: + +336 The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her, + To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: +Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, +And with her brow tempers the tempests wild. + + + [47] Stanza XLIII. All references are made to Carducci's excellent + edition, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Angelo Ambrogini + Poliziano._ Firenze: G. Barbéra. 1863. + +After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:— + +Reclined he found her on the swarded grass + In jocund mood; and garlands she had made +Of every flower that in the meadow was, + Or on her robe of many hues displayed; +But when she saw the youth before her pass, + Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; +Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, + And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness. + +Then through the dewy field with footstep slow + The lingering maid began to take her way, +Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, + For now he longs for nought but her alway: +The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, + Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; +And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, +In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire: + +'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen, + Goddess, or nymph—nay, goddess seems most clear— +If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen; + If mortal, let thy proper self appear! +Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien; + I have no merit that I should be here! +What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign +Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?' + +A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, +and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace +stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say +how much of Ariosto's 337Alcina and Tasso's Armida is contained? Cupid +arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's +conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are +chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, +for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following +description of a country life:— + +BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21. + + +How far more safe it is, how far more fair, + To chase the flying deer along the lea; +Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair, + Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: +To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air, + The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free; +To hear the birds wake from their winter trance, +The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance. + +How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung + From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot, +While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung + His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute; +To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung, + And every bough thick set with ripening fruit, +The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea, +And cornfields waving like the windy sea. + +Lo! how the rugged master of the herd + Before his flock unbars the wattled cote; +Then with his rod and many a rustic word + He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note +The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred + The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote; +Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone, +Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone. + +After such happy wise, in ancient years, + Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; +Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears + For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; +338 Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers, + Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; +Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store +Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore. + +Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst + Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: +Joyous in liberty they lived at first; + Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; +Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst + The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; +Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage +Which men call love in our degenerate age. + +We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from +Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and +combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them +with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot +deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting +more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a +basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:— + +STANZAS 99-107. + + +In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, + The seed deific from Olympus sown, +Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean + Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; +Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, + Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; +Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her; + She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter + +Seeing the carved work you would cry that real + Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow; +The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel, + The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: +339 White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, + With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; +Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, +E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces. + +Well might you swear that on those waves were riding + The goddess with her right hand on her hair, +And with the other the sweet apple hiding; + And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, +Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; + Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, +The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, +Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer. + +The one, with hands above her head upraised, + Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, +With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; + The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; +The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed + Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe +Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing +Among the gods with dance and carolling. + +Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres, + Seated upon a cloud of silvery white; +The trembling of the cloven air appears + Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright; +The gods drink in with open eyes and ears + Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight; +Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze— +Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze. + +The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:— + +STANZAS 122—124. + + +Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid, + Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace; +He, lying back within her bosom, fed + His eager eyes on nought but her fair face; + +340 Roses above them like a cloud were shed, + To reinforce them in the amorous chace; +While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed, + A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed. + +Above, around, young Loves on every side + Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro; +And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed, + Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow; +One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied + To pour them on the couch that lay below; +Another, poised upon his pinions, through +The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew: + +For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing, + The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;— +Thus none was weary of glad gambolling; + Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed, +Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling + His languid arms, and with his winnowing made +Her heart burn:—very glad and bright of face, +But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace. + +These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. +Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with +bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. +Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became +possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has +painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. +Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the +vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two +next extracts:— + +STANZAS 104—107. + + +In the last square the great artificer + Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm; +Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her, + Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm: +341 Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir, + Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm; +Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly + Than those which heat his forge in Sicily. + +Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull, + Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears +His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: + She turns toward the shore that disappears, +With frightened gesture; and the wonderful + Gold curls about her bosom and her ears +Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; +This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn. + +With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress, + She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: +So, imaged in a shape of drear distress, + In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries; +They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less + For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: +Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss +But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss. + +Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, + Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, +To work his amorous will in secret hour; + Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, +Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower + Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; +The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, +Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around. + + +STANZAS 110—112. + + +Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies, + And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. +And of the air and slumber's treacheries; + Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. +And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: + Her very speechless attitude complains— +No beast there is so cruel as thou art, +No beast less loyal to my broken heart. + +342 Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine, + Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: +Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine + Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven +With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine + From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, +Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, +Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements. + +Upon his ass Silenus, never sated, + With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking, +Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated; + His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking: +Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted, + With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking +The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him, +E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him. + +We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine +palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters. The +description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat artificial +elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in the earlier +Renaissance work:— + +The leafy tresses of that timeless garden + Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten; +Frore winter never comes the rills to harden, + Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten; +Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden; + Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten; +Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding, +With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding. + +Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano's most eminent faculty +as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the +painters of his day. To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance +colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of +his art, not to 343express profound thought or dramatic situations. +This remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and +Boiardo. The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were not +dramatists; nor were their poems epics: their forte lay in the +inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures. + +Of Poliziano's plagiarism—if this be the right word to apply to the +process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the +poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of +the ancient languages and their own literature—here are some specimens. +In stanza 42 of the 'Giostra' he says of Simonetta:— + +E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. + + +Dante has the line:— + +Vostri risplende un non so che divino. + + +In the 44th he speaks about the birds:— + +E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. + + +This comes from Cavalcanti's:— + +E cantinne gli augelli. +Ciascuno in suo latino. + + +Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti. It +would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and +medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the +Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style. +A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original:— + +E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala. + + +It comes straight from Virgil:— + +Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. + +344 + +In the next stanza the line— + +Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno, + + +is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar celeste.' +In stanza 57— + +Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, + + +belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:— + +La notte che le cose ci nasconde, + + +together with its rhyme, 'sotto le amate fronde,' is borrowed from the +23rd canto of the 'Paradiso.' In the second line, 'Stellato ammanto' is +Claudian's 'stellantes sinus' applied to the heaven. When we reach the +garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian's +'Marriage of Honorius,' and from the 'Metamorphoses' of Ovid. + +Poliziano's second poem of importance, which indeed may historically be +said to take precedence of 'La Giostra,' was the so-called tragedy of +'Orfeo.' The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved for +a separate study: yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch as +the 'Orfeo' is a classical legend treated in a form already familiar to +the Italian people. Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry of which +specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found combined +in its six short scenes. + +345 + + + + +ORFEO + + +The 'Orfeo' of Messer Angelo Poliziano ranks amongst the most important +poems of the fifteenth century. It was composed at Mantua in the short +space of two days, on the occasion of Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga's +visit to his native town in 1472. But, though so hastily put together, +the 'Orfeo' marks an epoch in the evolution of Italian poetry. It is +the earliest example of a secular drama, containing within the compass +of its brief scenes the germ of the opera, the tragedy, and the +pastoral play. In form it does not greatly differ from the 'Sacre +Rappresentazioni' of the fifteenth century, as those miracle plays were +handled by popular poets of the earlier Renaissance. But while the +traditional octave stanza is used for the main movement of the piece, +Poliziano has introduced episodes of _terza rima_, madrigals, a +carnival song, a _ballata_, and, above all, choral passages which have +in them the future melodrama of the musical Italian stage. The lyrical +treatment of the fable, its capacity for brilliant and varied scenic +effects, its combination of singing with action, and the whole artistic +keeping of the piece, which never passes into genuine tragedy, but +stays within the limits of romantic pathos, distinguish the 'Orfeo' as +a typical production of Italian genius. Thus, though little better than +an improvisation, it combines the many forms of verse developed by the +Tuscans at the close of the Middle Ages, and fixes the limits beyond +which their dramatic poets, with a few 346exceptions, were not destined +to advance. Nor was the choice of the fable without significance. +Quitting the Bible stories and the Legends of Saints, which supplied +the mediaeval playwright with material, Poliziano selects a classic +story: and this story might pass for an allegory of Italy, whose +intellectual development the scholar-poet ruled. Orpheus is the power +of poetry and art, softening stubborn nature, civilising men, and +prevailing over Hades for a season. He is the right hero of humanism, +the genius of the Renaissance, the tutelary god of Italy, who thought +she could resist the laws of fate by verse and elegant accomplishments. +To press this kind of allegory is unwise; for at a certain moment it +breaks in our hands. And yet in Eurydice the fancy might discover +Freedom, the true spouse of poetry and art; Orfeo's last resolve too +vividly depicts the vice of the Renaissance; and the Mænads are those +barbarous armies destined to lay waste the plains of Italy, inebriate +with wine and blood, obeying a new lord of life on whom the poet's harp +exerts no charm. But a truce to this spinning of pedantic cobwebs. Let +Mercury appear, and let the play begin. + +_THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS_ + +MERCURY _announces the show_. + + +Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind, + Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight, + Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind + Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight, + That chasing her one day with will unkind + He wrought her cruel death in love's despite; + For, as she fled toward the mere hard by, + A serpent stung her, and she had to die. + +347 Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell, + But could not keep the law the fates ordain: + Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell; + So that once more from him his love was ta'en. + Therefore he would no more with women dwell, + And in the end by women he was slain. + + +_Enter_ A SHEPHERD, _who says_— + + +Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given, +Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven. + + +SCENE I + + +MOPSUS, _an old shepherd_. + + +Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white + Save for a spot of black upon her front, + Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright? + + +ARISTAEUS, _a young shepherd_. + + +Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount + No herds have come to drink since break of day; +Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount. + Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray! +Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide; + For I would have thee listen to my lay. + + [_Exit_ THYRSIS. + +'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide, + I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who + Had a young lusty lover at her side: +But when that more than woman met my view, + The heart within my bosom leapt outright, + And straight the madness of wild Love I knew. +Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight; + But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire, + And without slumber pass the weary night. + + +MOPSUS. + + +348 Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire + Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be, + Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire. +Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me: + I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain: + Cure it at once, or hope no remedy; +For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain, + Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind, + Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain + + +ARISTAEUS. + + +Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind: + Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray, + Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind, +I love, and cannot wish to say love nay; + Nor seek to cure so charming a disease: + They praise Love best who most against him say. +Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease, + Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we + Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees; +For well my nymph is pleased with melody. + + +THE SONG. + + +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + +The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament, + Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed; +Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content, + Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed, + Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead; +So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they. + +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + +The herds are sorry for their master's moan; + The nymph heeds not her lover though he die, +349 The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone— + Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly + Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh, +Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away. + +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + +Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee + Beauty together with our years amain; +Tell her how time destroys all rarity, + Nor youth once lost can be renewed again; + Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain: +Roses and violets blossom not alway. + +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + +Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears, + Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell +How many tears I shed, what bitter tears! + Beg her to pity one who loves so well: + Say that my life is frail and mutable, +And melts like rime before the rising day. + +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay; +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray. + + +MOPSUS. + + +Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling + From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song; + Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling + Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long; + Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling, + Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along: +If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.— +Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn! + + [_Re-enters_ THYRSIS. + + +350 + +ARISTAEUS. + + +What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now? + + +THYRSIS, _the cowherd_. + + +I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut! +She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow, +Running amuck with horns well set to butt: +Nathless I've locked her in the stall below: +She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut! + + +ARISTAEUS. + + +Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay +So long upon the upland lawns away? + + +THYRSIS. + + +Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there, + Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side: + I scarcely think that Venus is more fair, + Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride: + She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare, + That listening streams would backward roll their tide: + Her face is snow and roses; gold her head; + All, all alone she goes, white-raimented, + + +ARISTAEUS. + + +Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she + Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell! + + +MOPSUS. + + +Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee +Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell! + + +ARISTAEUS. + + +Nay, death this day must be my destiny, +Unless I try my fate and break the spell. +Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay! +I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way. + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS. + + +351 + +MOPSUS. + + +Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord? + See'st thou that all his senses are distraught? + Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word, + Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought? + + +THYRSIS. + + +Free speech and servitude but ill accord, +Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught +Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I. +To tend these kine is all my mastery. + + +SCENE II + + +ARISTAEUS, _in pursuit of_ EURYDICE. + + +Flee not from me, maiden! + Lo, I am thy friend! + Dearer far than life I hold thee. + List, thou beauty-laden, + To these prayers attend: + Flee not, let my arms enfold thee! + Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee: + That I am thy friend I've told thee: + Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!— + Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me, + Since thou'rt still before me flying, + While I follow panting, dying, + Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me! + + [_Exit_ ARISTAEUS, _pursuing_ EURYDICE. + + +SCENE III + + +A DRYAD. + + +Sad news of lamentation and of pain, + Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you: + I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain. +352 Eurydice by yonder stream lies low; + The flowers are fading round her stricken head, + And the complaining waters weep their woe. +The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled; + And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom + Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead. +Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom! + A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly. + I am so burdened with this weight of gloom +That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me! + + +CHORUS OF DRYADS. + + +Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + For all heaven's light is spent. + Let rivers break their bound, + Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament! + +Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies: + The stars are sunk in gloom. + Stern death hath plucked the bloom + Of nymphs:—Eurydice down-trodden lies. +Weep, Love! The woodland cries. + Weep, groves and founts; + Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell, + Beneath whose boughs she fell, + Bend every branch in time with this sad sound. + +Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + +Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake! + Ah, luckless doom of woes! + Like a cropped summer rose, + Or lily cut, she withers on the brake. +Her face, which once did make + Our age so bright + With beauty's light, is faint and pale; + And the clear lamp doth fail, + Which shed pure splendour all the world around + +Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + +353 Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone? + Her gentle voice to hear, + The wild winds dared not stir; + And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan: +So many joys are flown, + Such jocund days + Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes! + Bid earth's lament arise, + And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound! + +Let the wide air with our complaint resound! + + +A DRYAD. + + +'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill, + With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart! + He thinks that his dear love is living still. +My news will stab him with a sudden smart: + An unforeseen and unexpected blow + Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part. +Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know, + That nature yet to this low world revealed, + And quenched the flame in its most charming glow. +Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field, + Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice; + Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield +This man the measure of his misery. + + [_Exeunt_ DRYADS. _Enter_ ORPHEUS, _singing_. + + +ORPHEUS. + + +_Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus_ + _Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu;_ +_Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues,_ + _Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer._ + + +A DRYAD. + + +Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas! + Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain! + flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass, + What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain, + +354 A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass, + Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane: + So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she + Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be! + + [ORPHEUS _turns to go in silence._ + + +MNESILLUS, _the satyr_. + + +Mark ye how sunk in woe + The poor wretch forth doth pass, + And may not answer, for his grief, one word? + On some lone shore, unheard, + Far, far away, he'll go, + And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas! + I'll follow and observe if he + Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy. + + [_Follows_ ORPHEUS. + + +ORPHEUS. + + +Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate! + Our wonted music is in tune no more. + Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let + The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! + O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! + How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? + Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! + On earth I will no more without thee pine! +I will go down unto the doors of Hell, + And see if mercy may be found below: + Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell + With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe: + Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well + With singing have we turned the streams that flow; + Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn, + And made trees dance upon the forest lawn. + + [_Passes from sight on his way to Hades._ + + +MNESILLUS. + + +The staff of Fate is strong + And will not lightly bend, + Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. + Nay, I can see full well +355 His life will not be long: + Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. + What marvel if they lose the light, + Who make blind Love their guide by day and night! + + +SCENE IV + + +ORPHEUS, _at the gate of Hell._ + + +Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan! + Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you! + To your dark regions led me Love alone: + Downward upon his wings of light I flew. + Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne! + For when you hear my tale of misery, you, + Nor you alone, but all who here abide + In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide. +There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage; + To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine: + Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage, + Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine. + Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage + With heaven, the elements, the powers divine! + I beg for pity or for death. No more! + But open, ope Hell's adamantine door! + + [ORPHEUS _enters Hell._ + + +PLUTO. + + +What man is he who with his golden lyre + Hath moved the gates that never move, + While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love? +The rolling stone no more doth tire + Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill; + And Tantalus with water slakes his fire; +The groans of mangled Tityos are still; + Ixion's wheel forgets to fly; + The Danaids their urns can fill: +I hear no more the tortured spirits cry; +But all find rest in that sweet harmony. + + +356 + +PROSERPINE. + + +Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee, + I left the light of heaven serene, + And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen; +The charm of tenderest sympathy + Hath never yet had power to turn + My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me. +Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn; + Nor is there aught so dear + As that delight. Nay, be not stern +To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe, +And rest awhile with me that song to hear! + + [ORPHEUS _stands before the throne._ + + +ORPHEUS. + + + Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom, + Who see no more the jocund light of day! + Ye who inherit all things that the womb + Of Nature and the elements display! + Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb! + Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way: + Not to chain Cerberus I hither come, + But to bring back my mistress to her home. + A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves + Stole my fair mistress—nay, my heart—from me: + Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves, + Nor can I stand against this agony. + Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves + Of your famed love unto your memory, + If of that ancient rape you think at all, + Give back Eurydice!—On you I call. + All things ere long unto this bourne descend: + All mortal lives to you return at last: + Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end + Must fade and perish in your empire vast: + Some sooner and some later hither wend; + Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: + This of our footsteps is the final goal; + And then we dwell for aye in your control. +357 Therefore the nymph I love is left for you + When nature leads her deathward in due time: + But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew, + The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: + Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew, + Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime? + Give back, give back my hope one little day!— + Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. + I pray not to you by the waves forlorn + Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, + By Chaos where the mighty world was born, + Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon; + But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn + When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! + O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath, + I will no more return, but ask for death! + + +PROSERPINE. + + + Husband, I never guessed + That in our realm oppressed + Pity could find a home to dwell: + But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. + I see Death weep; her breast + Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. + Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed + By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed! + + +PLUTO. + + +She's thine, but at this price: + Bend not on her thine eyes, + Till mid the souls that live she stay. + See that thou turn not back upon the way! + Check all fond thoughts that rise! + Else will thy love be torn from thee away. + I am well pleased that song so rare as thine + The might of my dread sceptre should incline. + + +358 + +SCENE V + + +ORPHEUS, _sings._ + + +_Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri._ + _Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est,_ +_Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ._ + _Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?_ + + +EURYDICE. + + +All me! Thy love too great + Hath lost not thee alone! + I am torn from thee by strong Fate. + No more I am thine own. + In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell + I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well! + + [EURYDICE _disappears._ + + +ORPHEUS. + + +Who hath laid laws on Love? + Will pity not be given + For one short look so full thereof? + Since I am robbed of heaven, + Since all my joy so great is turned to pain, + I will go back and plead with Death again! + + [TISIPHONE _blocks his way._ + + +TISIPHONE. + + +Nay, seek not back to turn! + Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain. + Eurydice may not complain + Of aught but thee—albeit her grief is great. + Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate! + How vain thy song! For Death is stern! + Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain! + The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain. + + +359 + +SCENE VI + + +ORPHEUS. + + +What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found + To match the burden of my matchless woe? + How shall I make the fount of tears abound, + To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow? + Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground, + So long as life delays me here below; + And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore, + I swear I'll never love a woman more! +Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring, + The bloom of youth when life is loveliest, + Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring: + This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best! + Of female charms let no one speak or sing; + Since she is slain who ruled within my breast. + He who would seek my converse, let him see + That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me! +How pitiful is he who changes mind + For woman! for her love laments or grieves! + Who suffers her in chains his will to bind, + Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves, + Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind! + A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves: + Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees; + And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas! +High Jove confirms the truth of what I said, + Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare, + Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed: + Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair: + Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led + Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.— + Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly + Far, far away from female company! + +[_Enter a_ MAENAD _leading a train of_ BACCHANTES. + + +A MAENAD. + + +Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive! + See him who doth our sex deride! +360 Hunt him to death, the slave! +Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive! + Cast down this doeskin and that hide! + We'll wreak our fury on the knave! +Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave! + He shall yield up his hide + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive! + No power his life can save; + Since women he hath dared deride! + Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive! + +[ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS +_then return._ + + +A MAENAD. + + +Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this! + Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: + So that each root is slaked with blood of his: + Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn + Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: + His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!— + Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling! + Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring! + + +CHORUS OF MAENADS. + + + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, + Crown we our heads to worship thee! +Thou hast bidden us to make merry + Day and night with jollity! +Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, +And hand ye the drinking-cup to me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +See, I have emptied my horn already: + Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: +Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? + Or is it my brain that reels away? +361 Let every one run to and fro through the hay, +As ye see me run! Ho! after me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: + Am I drunken or sober, yes or no? +What are these weights my feet encumber? + You too are tipsy, well I know! +Let every one do as ye see me do, +Let every one drink and quaff like me! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, + Tossing wine down your throats away! +Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: + Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! +Dancing is over for me to-day. +Let every one cry aloud Evohé! + Bacchus! we all must follow thee! + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! + +Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the facile +graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which it has +been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the 'Orfeo' +as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic power, +of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which +distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's plays, +there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to the +characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the +rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's +lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender +sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited +presentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Mænads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +362sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief +dramatic features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical +personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything +marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage +where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and the +throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right outpouring +of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last stanza with +a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that recalls the +passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. +To this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. +That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be +reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the +part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the +viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a _tondo_ in monochrome, +painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at Orvieto, shows Orpheus at +the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with the laurel crown and +playing on a violin of antique form. It would be interesting to know +whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the +Cortonese painter. + +If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the +same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really +fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only to +turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, in +order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero in a +situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made us +sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to +madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is +difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor +creature, and that 363the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates +the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to +dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, +Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so +brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to +the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and +made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may +indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where +the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest +passage—the scene in Hades—was fortunately for its author one in which +the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this respect, as +in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits of the +Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the wheel +is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one would +have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the thought +of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after the +occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to oblivion. + +_NOTE_ + +Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband +of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to +Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time +to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di +Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions +sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for +the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the 'Orfeo' +the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical speeches +of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads are either +omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the year 1776 +the Padre Ireneo Affò 364printed at Venice a new version of 'Orfeo, +Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two MSS. +This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled 'Pastoricus,' +'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and 'Bacchanalis.' The +stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly in Italian; and +instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, a prologue +consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin Sapphic ode in +praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated in the first +version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the last soliloquy +of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the second version, +first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was Poliziano's own +recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore followed it in +the main, except that I have not thought it necessary to observe the +somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have preferred to use the +original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which proves the integral +connection between this ancient secular play and the Florentine Mystery +or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy of Orpheus, again, has +been freely translated by me from both versions for reasons which will +be obvious to students of the original. I have yet to make a remark +upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 (part of the first lyric +of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:— + +Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza. + + +This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or boulter.' +Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced with holes; +and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I have, +however, preferred to translate thus:— + +Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive, + + +instead of giving:— + +Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive, + + +because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers. + +365 + + + + +EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH + + +ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON + + +Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire! + Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! + Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, + That maddenest men with fears and fell desire! +O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, + Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! + Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease + If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. +Founded in chaste and humble poverty, + Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, + Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? +Even from foul and loathed adultery, + The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! + Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. + + +TO STEFANO COLONNA +WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE + + +Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head + Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, + Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame + The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: +Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; + But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill + Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, + Where musing oft I climb by fancy led. +These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, + While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers + Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, +Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; + But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, + Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. + +366 + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI +ON LEAVING AVIGNON + + +Backward at every weary step and slow + These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; + Then take I comfort from the fragrant air + That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go. +But when I think how joy is turned to woe, + Remembering my short life and whence I fare, + I stay my feet for anguish and despair, + And cast my tearful eyes on earth below. +At times amid the storm of misery + This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor + Can severed from their spirit hope to live. +Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory + How I to lovers this great guerdon give, + Free from all human bondage to endure? + + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII +THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE + + +The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow + Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years, + Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, + To see their father's tottering steps and slow. +Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe, + In these last days of life he nothing fears, + But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers, + And spent and wayworn forward still doth go; +Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire, + To gaze upon the portraiture of Him + Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: +Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, + Lady, to find in other features dim + The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. + +367 + +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII +OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE! + + +I am so tired beneath the ancient load + Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny, + That much I fear to fail upon the road + And yield my soul unto mine enemy. +'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed, + To save me came with matchless courtesy: + Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode, + So that I strive in vain his face to see. +Yet still his voice reverberates here below: + Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here; + Come unto me if none your going stay! +What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear + Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow, + That I may rest and raise me from the clay? + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV + + +The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song, + The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign, + Which severed me from what was rightly mine, + And made me sole and strange amid the throng, +The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful, + And those angelic smiles which once did shine + Imparadising earth with joy divine, + Are now a little dust—dumb, deaf, and dull. +And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail, + Left alone without the light I loved so long, + Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail. +Then let me here give o'er my amorous song; + The fountains of old inspiration fail, + And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong. + +368 + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV + + +In thought I raised me to the place where she + Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines; + There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines, + More fair I found her and less proud to me. +She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be + With me ensphered, unless desires mislead; + Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed, + Whose day ere eve was ended utterly: +My bliss no mortal heart can understand; + Thee only do I lack, and that which thou + So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil. +Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand? + For at the sound of that celestial tale + I all but stayed in paradise till now. + + +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV + + +The flower of angels and the spirits blest, + Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she + Who is my lady died, around her pressed + Fulfilled with wonder and with piety. +What light is this? What beauty manifest? + Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy + Of splendour in this age to our high rest + Hath never soared from earth's obscurity. +She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place, + Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed; + At times the while she backward turns her face +To see me follow—seems to wait and plead: + Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise, + Because I hear her praying me to speed. + + + + +VOLUME III. + + + + +FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO + + +Students of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translations from the early +Italian poets (_Dante and his Circle_. Ellis & White, 1874) will not +fail to have noticed the striking figure made among those jejune +imitators of Provençal mannerism by two rhymesters, Cecco Angiolieri +and Folgore da San Gemignano. Both belong to the school of Siena, and +both detach themselves from the metaphysical fashion of their epoch by +clearness of intention and directness of style. The sonnets of both are +remarkable for what in the critical jargon of to-day might be termed +realism. Cecco is even savage and brutal. He anticipates Villon from +afar, and is happily described by Mr. Rossetti as the prodigal, or +'scamp' of the Dantesque circle. The case is different with Folgore. +There is no poet who breathes a fresher air of gentleness. He writes in +images, dealing but little with ideas. Every line presents a picture, +and each picture has the charm of a miniature fancifully drawn and +brightly coloured on a missal-margin. Cecco and Folgore alike have +abandoned the 2 mediæval mysticism which sounds unreal on almost all +Italian lips but Dante's. True Italians, they are content to live for +life's sake, and to take the world as it presents itself to natural +senses. But Cecco is perverse and impious. His love has nothing +delicate; his hatred is a morbid passion. At his worst or best (for his +best writing is his worst feeling) we find him all but rabid. If +Caligula, for instance, had written poetry, he might have piqued +himself upon the following sonnet; only we must do Cecco the justice of +remembering that his rage is more than half ironical and humorous:— + +An I were fire, I would burn up the world; + An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break; + An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake; + An I were God, to hell I'd have it hurled; +An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled + O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take; + An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make + All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled; +An I were death, I'd to my father go; + An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly; + And with my mother I'd deal even so; +An I were Cecco, as I am but I, + Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold, + But let my neighbours take the plain and old. + + +Of all this there is no trace in Folgore. The worst a moralist could +say of him is that he sought out for himself a life of pure enjoyment. +The famous Sonnets on the Months give particular directions for pastime +in a round of pleasure suited to each season. The Sonnets on the Days +are conceived in a like hedonistic spirit. But these series are +specially addressed to members of the Glad Brigades and Spending +Companies, which were common in the great mercantile cities of mediæval +Italy. Their tone is doubtless due to the occasion of their +composition, as compliments to Messer Nicholò di Nisi and Messer Guerra +Cavicciuoli. + +3 The mention of these names reminds me that a word need be said about +the date of Folgore. Mr. Rossetti does not dispute the commonly +assigned date of 1260, and takes for granted that the Messer Nicolò of +the Sonnets on the Months was the Sienese gentleman referred to by +Dante in a certain passage of the 'Inferno':[48]— + +And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever + So vain a people as the Sienese? + Not for a certainty the French by far.' +Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, + Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca, + Who knew the art of moderate expenses, +And Nicolò, who the luxurious use + Of cloves discovered earliest of all + Within that garden where such seed takes root. +And taking out the band, among whom squandered + Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, + And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.' + + +Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the years 1314 +and 1315; and the correct reading of a line in his last sonnet on the +Months gives the name of Nicholò di Nisi to the leader of Folgore's +'blithe and lordly Fellowship.' The first of these facts leads us to +the conclusion that Folgore flourished in the first quarter of the +fourteenth, instead of in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. +The second prevents our identifying Nicholò di Nisi with the Niccolò +de' Salimbeni, who is thought to have been the founder of the +Fellowship of the Carnation. Furthermore, documents have recently been +brought to light which mention at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and +1306, a certain Folgore. There is no sufficient reason to identify this +Folgore with the poet; but the name, to say the least, is so peculiar +that its occurrence in the records of so small a town as San Gemignano +gives some confirmation to the hypothesis of the 4 poet's later date. +Taking these several considerations together, I think we must abandon +the old view that Folgore was one of the earliest Tuscan poets, a view +which is, moreover, contradicted by his style. Those critics, at any +rate, who still believe him to have been a predecessor of Dante's, are +forced to reject as spurious the political sonnets referring to Monte +Catini and the plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della Faggiuola. Yet these +sonnets rest on the same manuscript authority as the Months and Days, +and are distinguished by the same qualities.[49] + + [48] _Inferno_, xxix. 121.—_Longfellow_. + + + [49] The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio Navone, in + his recent edition of _Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene + da la Chitarra d' Arezzo_. Bologna: Romagnoli, 1880. I may further + mention that in the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which + belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own name. + +Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we assign his period to +the middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of the fourteenth +century, there is no doubt but that he presents us with a very lively +picture of Italian manners, drawn from the point of view of the high +bourgeoisie. It is on this account that I have thought it worth while +to translate five of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which form the fragment +that remains to us from a series of seventeen. Few poems better +illustrate the temper of Italian aristocracy when the civil wars of two +centuries had forced the nobles to enroll themselves among the +burghers, and when what little chivalry had taken root in Italy was +fast decaying in a gorgeous over-bloom of luxury. The institutions of +feudal knighthood had lost their sterner meaning for our poet. He uses +them for the suggestion of delicate allegories fancifully painted. +Their mysterious significance is turned to gaiety, their piety to +amorous delight, their grimness to refined enjoyment. Still these +changes are effected with perfect good taste and in perfect good faith. +Something of the perfume of true 5 chivalry still lingered in a society +which was fast becoming mercantile and diplomatic. And this perfume is +exhaled by the petals of Folgore's song-blossom. He has no conception +that to readers of Mort Arthur, or to Founders of the Garter, to Sir +Miles Stapleton, Sir Richard Fitz-Simon, or Sir James Audley, his ideal +knight would have seemed but little better than a scented civet-cat. +Such knights as his were all that Italy possessed, and the poet-painter +was justly proud of them, since they served for finished pictures of +the beautiful in life. + +The Italians were not a feudal race. During the successive reigns of +Lombard, Frankish, and German masters, they had passively accepted, +stubbornly resisted feudalism, remaining true to the conviction that +they themselves were Roman. In Roman memories they sought the +traditions which give consistency to national consciousness. And when +the Italian communes triumphed finally over Empire, counts, bishops, +and rural aristocracy; then Roman law was speedily substituted for the +'asinine code' of the barbarians, and Roman civility gave its tone to +social customs in the place of Teutonic chivalry. Yet just as the +Italians borrowed, modified, and misconceived Gothic architecture, so +they took a feudal tincture from the nations of the North with whom +they came in contact. Their noble families, those especially who +followed the Imperial party, sought the honour of knighthood; and even +the free cities arrogated to themselves the right of conferring this +distinction by diploma on their burghers. The chivalry thus formed in +Italy was a decorative institution. It might be compared to the +ornamental frontispiece which masks the structural poverty of such +Gothic buildings as the Cathedral of Orvieto. + +On the descent of the German Emperor into Lombardy, the great vassals +who acknowledged him, made knighthood, 6 among titles of more solid +import, the price of their allegiance.[50] Thus the chronicle of the +Cortusi for the year 1354 tells us that when Charles IV. 'was advancing +through the March, and had crossed the Oglio, and was at the borders of +Cremona, in his camp upon the snow, he, sitting upon his horse, did +knight the doughty and noble man, Francesco da Carrara, who had +constantly attended him with a great train, and smiting him upon the +neck with his palm, said: "Be thou a good knight, and loyal to the +Empire." Thereupon the noble German peers dismounted, and forthwith +buckled on Francesco's spurs. To them the Lord Francesco gave chargers +and horses of the best he had.' Immediately afterwards Francesco dubbed +several of his own retainers knights. And this was the customary +fashion of these Lombard lords. For we read how in the year 1328 Can +Grande della Scala, after the capture of Padua, 'returned to Verona, +and for the further celebration of his victory upon the last day of +October held a court, and made thirty-eight knights with his own hand +of the divers districts of Lombardy.' And in 1294 Azzo d'Este 'was +knighted by Gerardo da Camino, who then was Lord of Treviso, upon the +piazza of Ferrara, before the gate of the Bishop's palace. And on the +same day at the same hour the said Lord Marquis Azzo made fifty-two +knights with his own hand, namely, the Lord Francesco, his brother, and +others of Ferrara, Modena, Bologna, Florence, Padua, and Lombardy; and +on this occasion was a great court held in Ferrara.' Another chronicle, +referring to the same event, says that the whole expenses of the +ceremony, including the rich dresses of the new knights, were at the +charge of the Marquis. It was customary, when a noble house had risen +to great wealth and 7 had abundance of fighting men, to increase its +prestige and spread abroad its glory by a wholesale creation of +knights. Thus the Chronicle of Rimini records a high court held by +Pandolfo Malatesta in the May of 1324, when he and his two sons, with +two of his near relatives and certain strangers from Florence, Bologna, +and Perugia, received this honour. At Siena, in like manner, in the +year 1284, 'thirteen of the house of Salimbeni were knighted with great +pomp.' + + [50] The passages used in the text are chiefly drawn from Muratori's + fifty-third Dissertation. + +It was not on the battlefield that the Italians sought this honour. +They regarded knighthood as a part of their signorial parade. Therefore +Republics, in whom perhaps, according to strict feudal notions, there +was no fount of honour, presumed to appoint procurators for the special +purpose of making knights. Florence, Siena, and Arezzo, after this +fashion gave the golden spurs to men who were enrolled in the arts of +trade or commerce. The usage was severely criticised by Germans who +visited Italy in the Imperial train. Otto Frisingensis, writing the +deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, speaks with bitterness thereof: 'To the +end that they may not lack means of subduing their neighbours, they +think it no shame to gird as knights young men of low birth, or even +handicraftsmen in despised mechanic arts, the which folk other nations +banish like the plague from honourable and liberal pursuits.' Such +knights, amid the chivalry of Europe, were not held in much esteem; nor +is it easy to see what the cities, which had formally excluded nobles +from their government, thought to gain by aping institutions which had +their true value only in a feudal society. We must suppose that the +Italians were not firmly set enough in their own type to resist an +enthusiasm which inflamed all Christendom. At the same time they were +too Italian to comprehend the spirit of the thing they borrowed. The +knights thus made already contained within themselves the germ of those +Condottieri 8who reduced the service of arms to a commercial +speculation. But they lent splendour to the Commonwealth, as may be +seen in the grave line of mounted warriors, steel-clad, with open +visors, who guard the commune of Siena in Ambrogio Lorenzetti's fresco. +Giovanni Villani, in a passage of his Chronicle which deals with the +fair state of Florence just before the outbreak of the Black and White +parties, says the city at that epoch numbered 'three hundred Cavalieri +di Corredo, with many clubs of knights and squires, who morning and +evening went to meat with many men of the court, and gave away on high +festivals many robes of vair.' It is clear that these citizen knights +were leaders of society, and did their duty to the commonwealth by +adding to its joyous cheer. Upon the battlefields of the civil wars, +moreover, they sustained at their expense the charges of the cavalry. + +Siena was a city much given to parade and devoted to the Imperial +cause, in which the institution of chivalry flourished. Not only did +the burghers take knighthood from their procurators, but the more +influential sought it by a special dispensation from the Emperor. Thus +we hear how Nino Tolomei obtained a Cæsarean diploma of knighthood for +his son Giovanni, and published it with great pomp to the people in his +palace. This Giovanni, when he afterwards entered religion, took the +name of Bernard, and founded the Order of Monte Oliveto. + +Owing to the special conditions of Italian chivalry, it followed that +the new knight, having won his spurs by no feat of arms upon the +battlefield, was bounden to display peculiar magnificence in the +ceremonies of his investiture. His honour was held to be less the +reward of courage than of liberality. And this feeling is strongly +expressed in a curious passage of Matteo Villani's Chronicle. 'When the +Emperor Charles had received the crown in Rome, as we have said, he +9turned towards Siena, and on the 19th day of April arrived at that +city; and before he entered the same, there met him people of the +commonwealth with great festivity upon the hour of vespers; in the +which reception eight burghers, given to display but miserly, to the +end they might avoid the charges due to knighthood, did cause +themselves then and there to be made knights by him. And no sooner had +he passed the gates than many ran to meet him without order in their +going or provision for the ceremony, and he, being aware of the vain +and light impulse of that folk, enjoined upon the Patriarch to knight +them in his name. The Patriarch could not withstay from knighting as +many as offered themselves; and seeing the thing so cheap, very many +took the honour, who before that hour had never thought of being +knighted, nor had made provision of what is required from him who +seeketh knighthood, but with light impulse did cause themselves to be +borne upon the arms of those who were around the Patriarch; and when +they were in the path before him, these raised such an one on high, and +took his customary cap off, and after he had had the cheek-blow which +is used in knighting, put a gold-fringed cap upon his head, and drew +him from the press, and so he was a knight. And after this wise were +made four-and-thirty on that evening, of the noble and lesser folk. And +when the Emperor had been attended to his lodging, night fell, and all +returned home; and the new knights without preparation or expense +celebrated their reception into chivalry with their families forthwith. +He who reflects with a mind not subject to base avarice upon the coming +of a new-crowned Emperor into so famous a city, and bethinks him how so +many noble and rich burghers were promoted to the honour of knighthood +in their native land, men too by nature fond of pomp, without having +made any solemn festival in common or in private to the fame of +chivalry, 10may judge this people little worthy of the distinction they +received.' + +This passage is interesting partly as an instance of Florentine spite +against Siena, partly as showing that in Italy great munificence was +expected from the carpet-knights who had not won their spurs with toil, +and partly as proving how the German Emperors, on their parade +expeditions through Italy, debased the institutions they were bound to +hold in respect. Enfeebled by the extirpation of the last great German +house which really reigned in Italy, the Empire was now no better than +a cause of corruption and demoralisation to Italian society. The +conduct of a man like Charles disgusted even the most fervent +Ghibellines; and we find Fazio degli Uberti flinging scorn upon his +avarice and baseness in such lines as these:— + +Sappi ch' i' son Italia che ti parlo, +Di Lusimburgo _ignominioso Carlo_ ... +Veggendo te aver tese tue arti +_A tór danari e gir con essi a casa_ ... +Tu dunque, Giove, perche 'l Santo uccello +Da questo Carlo quarto +Imperador non togli e dalle mani +_Degli altri, lurchi moderni Germani_ +_Che d' aquila un allocco n' hanno fatto_? + + +From a passage in a Sienese chronicle we learn what ceremonies of +bravery were usual in that city when the new knights understood their +duty. It was the year 1326. Messer Francesco Bandinelli was about to be +knighted on the morning of Christmas Day. The friends of his house sent +peacocks and pheasants by the dozen, and huge pies of marchpane, and +game in quantities. Wine, meat, and bread were distributed to the +Franciscan and other convents, and a fair and noble court was opened to +all comers. Messer Sozzo, father of the novice, went, attended by his +guests, to 11hear high mass in the cathedral; and there upon the marble +pulpit, which the Pisans carved, the ceremony was completed. Tommaso di +Nello bore his sword and cap and spurs before him upon horseback. +Messer Sozzo girded the sword upon the loins of Messer Francesco, his +son aforesaid. Messer Pietro Ridolfi, of Rome, who was the first vicar +that came to Siena, and the Duke of Calabria buckled on his right spur. +The Captain of the People buckled on his left. The Count Simone da +Battifolle then undid his sword and placed it in the hands of Messer +Giovanni di Messer Bartolo de' Fibenzi da Rodi, who handed it to Messer +Sozzo, the which sword had previously been girded by the father on his +son. After this follows a list of the illustrious guests, and an +inventory of the presents made to them by Messer Francesco. We find +among these 'a robe of silken cloth and gold, skirt, and fur, and cap +lined with vair, with a silken cord.' The description of the many +costly dresses is minute; but I find no mention of armour. The singers +received golden florins, and the players upon instruments 'good store +of money.' A certain Salamone was presented with the clothes which the +novice doffed before he took the ceremonial bath. The whole catalogue +concludes with Messer Francesco's furniture and outfit. This, besides a +large wardrobe of rich clothes and furs, contains armour and the +trappings for charger and palfrey. The _Corte Bandita_, or open house +held upon this occasion, lasted for eight days, and the charges on the +Bandinelli estates must have been considerable. + +Knights so made were called in Italy _Cavalieri Addobbati_, or _di +Corredo_, probably because the expense of costly furniture was borne by +them—_addobbo_ having become a name for decorative trappings, and +_Corredo_ for equipment. The latter is still in use for a bride's +trousseau. The former has the same Teutonic root as our verb 'to dub.' +But the Italians 12recognised three other kinds of knights, the +_Cavalieri Bagati_, _Cavalieri di Scudo_, and _Cavalieri d'Arme_. Of +the four sorts Sacchetti writes in one of his novels:—'Knights of the +Bath are made with the greatest ceremonies, and it behoves them to be +bathed and washed of all impurity. Knights of Equipment are those who +take the order with a mantle of dark green and the gilded garland. +Knights of the Shield are such as are made knights by commonwealths or +princes, or go to investiture armed, and with the casque upon their +head. Knights of Arms are those who in the opening of a battle, or upon +a foughten field, are dubbed knights.' These distinctions, however, +though concordant with feudal chivalry, were not scrupulously +maintained in Italy. Messer Francesco Bandinelli, for example, was +certainly a _Cavaliere di Corredo_. Yet he took the bath, as we have +seen. Of a truth, the Italians selected those picturesque elements of +chivalry which lent themselves to pageant and parade. The sterner +intention of the institution, and the symbolic meaning of its various +ceremonies, were neglected by them. + +In the foregoing passages, which serve as a lengthy preamble to +Folgore's five sonnets, I have endeavoured to draw illustrations from +the history of Siena, because Folgore represents Sienese society at the +height of mediæval culture. In the first of the series he describes the +preparation made by the aspirant after knighthood. The noble youth is +so bent on doing honour to the order of chivalry, that he raises money +by mortgage to furnish forth the banquets and the presents due upon the +occasion of his institution. He has made provision also of equipment +for himself and all his train. It will be noticed that Folgore dwells +only on the fair and joyous aspect of the ceremony. The religious +enthusiasm of knighthood has disappeared, and already, in the first +decade of the fourteenth century, we find the spirit 13of Jehan de +Saintrè prevalent in Italy. The word _donzello_, derived from the Latin +_domicellus_, I have translated _squire_, because the donzel was a +youth of gentle birth awaiting knighthood. + +This morn a young squire shall be made a knight; + hereof he fain would be right worthy found, + And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round + To furnish all that fits a man of might. +Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight; + Capons and pheasants on his board abound, + Where serving men and pages march around; + Choice chambers, torches, and wax candle light. +Barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought, + Mailed men at arms and noble company, + Spears, pennants, housing cloths, bells richly wrought. +Musicians following with great barony + And jesters through the land his state have brought, + With dames and damsels whereso rideth he. + + +The subject having thus been introduced, Folgore treats the ceremonies +of investiture by an allegorical method, which is quite consistent with +his own preference of images to ideas. Each of the four following +sonnets presents a picture to the mind, admirably fitted for artistic +handling. We may imagine them to ourselves wrought in arras for a +sumptuous chamber. The first treats of the bath, in which, as we have +seen already from Sacchetti's note, the aspirant after knighthood puts +aside all vice, and consecrates himself anew. Prodezza, or Prowess, +must behold him nude from head to foot, in order to assure herself that +the neophyte bears no blemish; and this inspection is an allegory of +internal wholeness. + +Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway, + And saith: 'Friend, now beseems it thee to strip; + For I will see men naked, thigh and hip, + And thou my will must know and eke obey; +14 And leave what was thy wont until this day, + And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip; + This do, and thou shalt join my fellowship, + If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay.' +And when she sees his comely body bare, + Forthwith within her arms she him doth take, + And saith: 'These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer; +I do accept thee, and this gift thee make, + So that thy deeds may shine for ever fair; + My lips shall never more thy praise forsake.' + + +After courage, the next virtue of the knightly character is gentleness +or modesty, called by the Italians humility. It is this quality which +makes a strong man pleasing to the world, and wins him favour. +Folgore's sonnet enables us to understand the motto of the great +Borromeo family—_Humilitas_, in Gothic letters underneath the coronet +upon their princely palace fronts. + +Humility to him doth gently go, + And saith: 'I would in no wise weary thee; + Yet must I cleanse and wash thee thoroughly, + And I will make thee whiter than the snow. +Hear what I tell thee in few words, for so + Fain am I of thy heart to hold the key; + Now must thou sail henceforward after me; + And I will guide thee as myself do go. +But one thing would I have thee straightway leave; + Well knowest thou mine enemy is pride; + Let her no more unto thy spirit cleave: +So leal a friend with thee will I abide + That favour from all folk thou shalt receive; + This grace hath he who keepeth on my side.' + + +The novice has now bathed, approved himself to the searching eyes of +Prowess, and been accepted by Humility. After the bath, it was +customary for him to spend a night in vigil; and this among the Teutons +should have taken place in church, alone before the altar. But the +Italian poet, after his custom, 15gives a suave turn to the severe +discipline. His donzel passes the night in bed, attended by Discretion, +or the virtue of reflection. She provides fair entertainment for the +hours of vigil, and leaves him at the morning with good counsel. It is +not for nothing that he seeks knighthood, and it behoves him to be +careful of his goings. The last three lines of the sonnet are the +gravest of the series, showing that something of true chivalrous +feeling survived even among the Cavalieri di Corredo of Tuscany. + +Then did Discretion to the squire draw near, + And drieth him with a fair cloth and clean, + And straightway putteth him the sheets between, + Silk, linen, counterpane, and minevere. +Think now of this! Until the day was clear, + With songs and music and delight the queen, + And with new knights, fair fellows well-beseen, + To make him perfect, gave him goodly cheer. +Then saith she: 'Rise forthwith, for now 'tis due, + Thou shouldst be born into the world again; + Keep well the order thou dost take in view.' +Unfathomable thoughts with him remain + Of that great bond he may no more eschew, + Nor can he say, 'I'll hide me from this chain.' + + +The vigil is over. The mind of the novice is prepared for his new +duties. The morning of his reception into chivalry has arrived. It is +therefore fitting that grave thoughts should be abandoned; and seeing +that not only prowess, humility, and discretion are the virtues of a +knight, but that he should also be blithe and debonair, Gladness comes +to raise him from his bed and equip him for the ceremony of +institution. + +Comes Blithesomeness with mirth and merriment, + All decked in flowers she seemeth a rose-tree; + Of linen, silk, cloth, fur, now beareth she + 16 the new knight a rich habiliment; +Head-gear and cap and garland flower-besprent, + So brave they were May-bloom he seemed to be; + With such a rout, so many and such glee, + That the floor shook. Then to her work she went; +And stood him on his feet in hose and shoon; + And purse and gilded girdle 'neath the fur + That drapes his goodly limbs, she buckles on; +Then bids the singers and sweet music stir, + And showeth him to ladies for a boon + And all who in that following went with her. + + +At this point the poem is abruptly broken. The manuscript from which +these sonnets are taken states they are a fragment. Had the remaining +twelve been preserved to us, we should probably have possessed a series +of pictures in which the procession to church would have been +portrayed, the investiture with the sword, the accolade, the buckling +on of the spurs, and the concluding sports and banquets. It is very +much to be regretted that so interesting, so beautiful, and so unique a +monument of Italian chivalry survives thus mutilated. But students of +art have to arm themselves continually with patience, repressing the +sad thoughts engendered in them by the spectacle of time's unconscious +injuries. + +It is certain that Folgore would have written at least one sonnet on +the quality of courtesy, which in that age, as we have learned from +Matteo Villani, identified itself in the Italian mind with liberality. +This identification marks a certain degradation of the chivalrous +ideal, which is characteristic of Italian manners. One of Folgore's +miscellaneous sonnets shows how sorely he felt the disappearance of +this quality from the midst of a society bent daily more and more upon +material aims. It reminds us of the lamentable outcries uttered by the +later poets of the fourteenth century, Sacchetti, Boccaccio, Uberti, +and others of less fame, over the decline of their age. + +17 Courtesy! Courtesy! Courtesy! I call: + But from no quarter comes there a reply. + And whoso needs her, ill must us befall. +Greed with his hook hath ta'en men one and all, + And murdered every grace that dumb doth lie: + Whence, if I grieve, I know the reason why; + From you, great men, to God I make my call: +For you my mother Courtesy have cast + So low beneath your feet she there must bleed; + Your gold remains, but you're not made to last: +Of Eve and Adam we are all the seed: + Able to give and spend, you hold wealth fast: + Ill is the nature that rears such a breed! + + +Folgore was not only a poet of occasion and compliment, but a political +writer, who fully entertained the bitter feeling of the Guelphs against +their Ghibelline opponents. + +Two of his sonnets addressed to the Guelphs have been translated by Mr. +Rossetti. In order to complete the list I have made free versions of +two others in which he criticised the weakness of his own friends. The +first is addressed, in the insolent impiety of rage, to God:— + +I praise thee not, O God, nor give thee glory, + Nor yield thee any thanks, nor bow the knee, + Nor pay thee service; for this irketh me + More than the souls to stand in purgatory; +Since thou hast made us Guelphs a jest and story + Unto the Ghibellines for all to see: + And if Uguccion claimed tax of thee, + Thou'dst pay it without interrogatory. +Ah, well I wot they know thee! and have stolen + St. Martin from thee, Altopascio, + St. Michael, and the treasure thou hast lost; +And thou that rotten rabble so hast swollen + That pride now counts for tribute; even so + Thou'st made their heart stone-hard to thine own cost. + + +18About the meaning of some lines in this sonnet I am not clear. But +the feeling and the general drift of it are manifest. The second is a +satire on the feebleness and effeminacy of the Pisans. + +Ye are more silky-sleek than ermines are, + Ye Pisan counts, knights, damozels, and squires, + Who think by combing out your hair like wires + To drive the men of Florence from their car. +Ye make the Ghibellines free near and far, + Here, there, in cities, castles, huts, and byres, + Seeing how gallant in your brave attires, + How bold you look, true paladins of war. +Stout-hearted are ye as a hare in chase, + To meet the sails of Genoa on the sea; + And men of Lucca never saw your face. +Dogs with a bone for courtesy are ye: + Could Folgore but gain a special grace, + He'd have you banded 'gainst all men that be. + + +Among the sonnets not translated by Mr. Rossetti two by Folgore remain, +which may be classified with the not least considerable contributions +to Italian gnomic poetry in an age when literature easily assumed a +didactic tone. The first has for its subject the importance of +discernment and discrimination. It is written on the wisdom of what the +ancient Greeks called Καιρός, or the right occasion in all human +conduct. + +Dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower; + Nor every flower that blossoms fruit doth bear; + Nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare; + Nor every stone in earth its healing power: +This thing is good when mellow, that when sour; + One seems to grieve, within doth rest from care; + Not every torch is brave that flaunts in air; + There is what dead doth seem, yet flame doth shower. +Wherefore it ill behoveth a wise man + His truss of every grass that grows to bind, + Or pile his back with every stone he can, +19 Or counsel from each word to seek to find, + Or take his walks abroad with Dick and Dan: + Not without cause I'm moved to speak my mind. + + +The second condemns those men of light impulse who, as Dante put it, +discoursing on the same theme, 'subject reason to inclination.'[51] + +What time desire hath o'er the soul such sway + That reason finds nor place nor puissance here, + Men oft do laugh at what should claim a tear, + And over grievous dole are seeming gay. +He sure would travel far from sense astray + Who should take frigid ice for fire; and near + Unto this plight are those who make glad cheer + For what should rather cause their soul dismay. +But more at heart might he feel heavy pain + Who made his reason subject to mere will, + And followed wandering impulse without rein; +Seeing no lordship is so rich as still + One's upright self unswerving to sustain, + To follow worth, to flee things vain and ill. + + +The sonnets translated by me in this essay, taken together with those +already published by Mr. Rossetti, put the English reader in possession +of all that passes for the work of Folgore da San Gemignano. + + [51] The line in Dante runs: + + +'Che la ragion sommettono al talento.' + + +In Folgore's sonnet we read: + + +'Chi sommette rason a volontade.' + + +On the supposition that Folgore wrote in the second decade of the +fourteenth century, it is not impossible that he may have had knowledge +of this line from the fifth canto of the _Inferno_. + +Since these words were written, England has lost the poet-painter, to +complete whose work upon the sonnet-writer of 20mediæval Siena I +attempted the translations in this essay. One who has trodden the same +path as Rossetti, at however a noticeable interval, and has attempted +to present in English verse the works of great Italian singers, doing +inadequately for Michelangelo and Campanella what he did supremely well +for Dante, may here perhaps be allowed to lay the tribute of reverent +recognition at his tomb. + +21 + + + + +THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS + + +What is the meaning of our English Christmas? What makes it seem so +truly Northern, national, and homely, that we do not like to keep the +feast upon a foreign shore? These questions grew upon me as I stood one +Advent afternoon beneath the Dome of Florence. A priest was thundering +from the pulpit against French scepticism, and exalting the miracle of +the Incarnation. Through the whole dim church blazed altar candles. +Crowds of men and women knelt or sat about the transepts, murmuring +their prayers of preparation for the festival. At the door were pedlars +selling little books, in which were printed the offices for +Christmas-tide, with stories of S. Felix and S. Catherine, whose +devotion to the infant Christ had wrought them weal, and promises of +the remission of four purgatorial centuries to those who zealously +observed the service of the Church at this most holy time. I knew that +the people of Florence were preparing for Christmas in their own way. +But it was not our way. It happened that outside the church the climate +seemed as wintry as our own—snowstorms and ice, and wind and chilling +fog, suggesting Northern cold. But as the palaces of Florence lacked +our comfortable firesides, and the greetings of friends lacked our +hearty handshakes and loud good wishes, so there seemed to be a want of +the home feeling in those Christmas services and customs. Again I asked +myself, 'What do we mean by Christmas?' + +22The same thought pursued me as I drove to Rome: by Siena, still and +brown, uplifted, mid her russet hills and wilderness of rolling plain; +by Chiusi, with its sepulchral city of a dead and unknown people; +through the chestnut forests of the Apennines; by Orvieto's rock, +Viterbo's fountains, and the oak-grown solitudes of the Ciminian +heights, from which one looks across the broad lake of Bolsena and the +Roman plain. Brilliant sunlight, like that of a day in late September, +shone upon the landscape, and I thought—Can this be Christmas? Are they +bringing mistletoe and holly on the country carts into the towns in +far-off England? Is it clear and frosty there, with the tramp of heels +upon the flag, or snowing silently, or foggy with a round red sun and +cries of warning at the corners of the streets? + +I reached Rome on Christmas Eve, in time to hear midnight services in +the Sistine Chapel and S. John Lateran, to breathe the dust of decayed +shrines, to wonder at doting cardinals begrimed with snuff, and to +resent the open-mouthed bad taste of my countrymen who made a mockery +of these palsy-stricken ceremonies. Nine cardinals going to sleep, nine +train-bearers talking scandal, twenty huge, handsome Switzers in the +dress devised by Michelangelo, some ushers, a choir caged off by gilded +railings, the insolence and eagerness of polyglot tourists, plenty of +wax candles dripping on people's heads, and a continual nasal drone +proceeding from the gilded cage, out of which were caught at intervals +these words, and these only,—'Sæcula sæculorum, amen.' Such was the +celebrated Sistine service. The chapel blazed with light, and very +strange did Michelangelo's Last Judgment, his Sibyls, and his Prophets, +appear upon the roof and wall above this motley and unmeaning crowd. + +Next morning I put on my dress-clothes and white tie, and repaired, +with groups of Englishmen similarly attired, and of Englishwomen in +black crape—the regulation costume —to 23S. Peter's. It was a glorious +and cloudless morning; sunbeams streamed in columns from the southern +windows, falling on the vast space full of soldiers and a mingled mass +of every kind of people. Up the nave stood double files of the +Pontifical guard. Monks and nuns mixed with the Swiss cuirassiers and +halberds. Contadini crowded round the sacred images, and especially +round the toe of S. Peter. I saw many mothers lift their swaddled +babies up to kiss it. Valets of cardinals, with the invariable red +umbrellas, hung about side chapels and sacristies. Purple-mantled +monsignori, like emperor butterflies, floated down the aisles from +sunlight into shadow. Movement, colour, and the stir of expectation, +made the church alive. We showed our dress-clothes to the guard, were +admitted within their ranks, and solemnly walked up toward the dome. +There under its broad canopy stood the altar, glittering with gold and +candles. The choir was carpeted and hung with scarlet. Two magnificent +thrones rose ready for the Pope: guards of honour, soldiers, attachés, +and the élite of the residents and visitors in Rome, were scattered in +groups picturesquely varied by ecclesiastics of all orders and degrees. +At ten a stirring took place near the great west door. It opened, and +we saw the procession of the Pope and his cardinals. Before him marched +the singers and the blowers of the silver trumpets, making the most +liquid melody. Then came his Cap of Maintenance, and three tiaras; then +a company of mitred priests; next the cardinals in scarlet; and last, +aloft beneath a canopy, upon the shoulders of men, and flanked by the +mystic fans, advanced the Pope himself, swaying to and fro like a Lama, +or an Aztec king. Still the trumpets blew most silverly, and still the +people knelt; and as he came, we knelt and had his blessing. Then he +took his state and received homage. After this the choir began to sing +a mass of Palestrina's, and the 24deacons robed the Pope. Marvellous +putting on and taking off of robes and tiaras and mitres ensued, during +which there was much bowing and praying and burning of incense. At +last, when he had reached the highest stage of sacrificial sanctity, he +proceeded to the altar, waited on by cardinals and bishops. Having +censed it carefully, he took a higher throne and divested himself of +part of his robes. Then the mass went on in earnest, till the moment of +consecration, when it paused, the Pope descended from his throne, +passed down the choir, and reached the altar. Every one knelt; the +shrill bell tinkled; the silver trumpets blew; the air became sick and +heavy with incense, so that sun and candle light swooned in an +atmosphere of odorous cloud-wreaths. The whole church trembled, hearing +the strange subtle music vibrate in the dome, and seeing the Pope with +his own hands lift Christ's body from the altar and present it to the +people. An old parish priest, pilgrim from some valley of the +Apennines, who knelt beside me, cried and quivered with excess of +adoration. The great tombs around, the sculptured saints and angels, +the dome, the volumes of light and incense and unfamiliar melody, the +hierarchy ministrant, the white and central figure of the Pope, the +multitude—made up an overpowering scene. What followed was +comparatively tedious. My mind again went back to England, and I +thought of Christmas services beginning in all village churches and all +cathedrals throughout the land—their old familiar hymn, their anthem of +Handel, their trite and sleepy sermons. How different the two feasts +are—Christmas in Rome, Christmas in England—Italy and the North—the +spirit of Latin and the spirit of Teutonic Christianity. + +What, then, constitutes the essence of our Christmas as different from +that of more Southern nations? In their origin they are the same. The +stable of Bethlehem, the 25star-led kings, the shepherds, and the +angels—all the beautiful story, in fact, which S. Luke alone of the +Evangelists has preserved for us—are what the whole Christian world +owes to the religious feeling of the Hebrews. The first and second +chapters of S. Luke are most important in the history of Christian +mythology and art. They are far from containing the whole of what we +mean by Christmas; but the religious poetry which gathers round that +season must be sought upon their pages. Angels, ever since the Exodus, +played a first part in the visions of the Hebrew prophets and in the +lives of their heroes. We know not what reminiscences of old Egyptian +genii, what strange shadows of the winged beasts of Persia, flitted +through their dreams. In the desert, or under the boundless sky of +Babylon, these shapes became no less distinct than the precise outlines +of Oriental scenery. They incarnated the vivid thoughts and intense +longings of the prophets, who gradually came to give them human forms +and titles. We hear of them by name, as servants and attendants upon +God, as guardians of nations, and patrons of great men. To the Hebrew +mind the whole unseen world was full of spirits, active, strong, and +swift of flight, of various aspect, and with power of speech. It is +hard to imagine what the first Jewish disciples and the early Greek and +Roman converts thought of these great beings. To us, the hierarchies of +Dionysius, the services of the Church, the poetry of Dante and Milton, +and the forms of art, have made them quite familiar. Northern nations +have appropriated the Angels, and invested them with attributes alien +to their Oriental origin. They fly through our pine-forests, and the +gloom of cloud or storm; they ride upon our clanging bells, and gather +in swift squadrons among the arches of Gothic cathedrals; we see them +making light in the cavernous depth of woods, where sun or moon beams +rarely pierce, and ministering 26to the wounded or the weary; they bear +aloft the censers of the mass; they sing in the anthems of choristers, +and live in strains of poetry and music; our churches bear their names; +we call our children by their titles; we love them as our guardians, +and the whole unseen world is made a home to us by their imagined +presence. All these things are the growth of time and the work of races +whose myth-making imagination is more artistic than that of the +Hebrews. Yet this rich legacy of romance is bound up in the second +chapter of S. Luke; and it is to him we must give thanks when at +Christmas-tide we read of the shepherds and the angels in English words +more beautiful than his own Greek. + +The angels in the stable of Bethlehem, the kings who came from the far +East, and the adoring shepherds, are the gift of Hebrew legend and of +the Greek physician Luke to Christmas. How these strange and splendid +incidents affect modern fancy remains for us to examine; at present we +must ask, What did the Romans give to Christmas? The customs of the +Christian religion, like everything that belongs to the modern world, +have nothing pure and simple in their nature. They are the growth of +long ages, and of widely different systems, parts of which have been +fused into one living whole. In this respect they resemble our +language, our blood, our literature, and our modes of thought and +feeling. We find Christianity in one sense wholly original; in another +sense composed of old materials; in both senses universal and +cosmopolitan. The Roman element in Christmas is a remarkable instance +of this acquisitive power of Christianity. The celebration of the +festival takes place at the same time as that of the Pagan Saturnalia; +and from the old customs of that holiday, Christmas absorbed much that +was consistent with the spirit of the new religion. During the +Saturnalia the world enjoyed, in thought at least, a perfect freedom. +Men who had gone to bed as 27slaves, rose their own masters. From the +_ergastula_ and dismal sunless cages they went forth to ramble in the +streets and fields. Liberty of speech was given them, and they might +satirise those vices of their lords to which, on other days, they had +to minister. Rome on this day, by a strange negation of logic, which we +might almost call a prompting of blind conscience, negatived the +philosophic dictum that barbarians were by law of nature slaves, and +acknowledged the higher principle of equality. The Saturnalia stood out +from the whole year as a protest in favour of universal brotherhood, +and the right that all men share alike to enjoy life after their own +fashion, within the bounds that nature has assigned them. We do not +know how far the Stoic school, which was so strong in Rome, and had so +many points of contact with the Christians, may have connected its own +theories of equality with this old custom of the Saturnalia. But it is +possible that the fellowship of human beings, and the temporary +abandonment of class prerogatives, became a part of Christmas through +the habit of the Saturnalia. We are perhaps practising a Roman virtue +to this day when at Christmas-time our hand is liberal, and we think it +wrong that the poorest wretch should fail to feel the pleasure of the +day. + +Of course Christianity inspired the freedom of the Saturnalia with a +higher meaning. The mystery of the Incarnation, or the deification of +human nature, put an end to slavery through all the year, as well as on +this single day. What had been a kind of aimless licence became the +most ennobling principle by which men are exalted to a state of +self-respect and mutual reverence. Still in the Saturnalia was found, +ready-made, an easy symbol of unselfish enjoyment. It is, however, +dangerous to push speculations of this kind to the very verge of +possibility. + +The early Roman Christians probably kept Christmas with 28no special +ceremonies. Christ was as yet too close to them. He had not become the +glorious creature of their fancy, but was partly an historic being, +partly confused in their imagination with reminiscences of Pagan +deities. As the Good Shepherd, and as Orpheus, we find him painted in +the Catacombs; and those who thought of him as God, loved to dwell upon +his risen greatness more than on the idyll of his birth. To them his +entry upon earth seemed less a subject of rejoicing than his opening of +the heavens; they suffered, and looked forward to a future happiness; +they would not seem to make this world permanent by sharing its +gladness with the Heathens. Theirs, in truth, was a religion of hope +and patience, not of triumphant recollection or of present joyfulness. + +The Northern converts of the early Church added more to the peculiar +character of our Christmas. Who can tell what Pagan rites were half +sanctified by their association with that season, or how much of our +cheerfulness belonged to Heathen orgies and the banquets of grim +warlike gods? Certainly nothing strikes one more in reading +Scandinavian poetry, than the strange mixture of Pagan and Christian +sentiments which it presents. For though the missionaries of the Church +did all they could to wean away the minds of men from their old +superstitions; yet, wiser than their modern followers, they saw that +some things might remain untouched, and that even the great outlines of +the Christian faith might be adapted to the habits of the people whom +they studied to convert. Thus, on the one hand, they destroyed the old +temples one by one, and called the idols by the name of devils, and +strove to obliterate the songs which sang great deeds of bloody gods +and heroes; while, on the other, they taught the Northern sea-kings +that Jesus was a Prince surrounded by twelve dukes, who conquered all +the world. 29Besides, they left the days of the week to their old +patrons. It is certain that the imagination of the people preserved +more of heathendom than even such missionaries could approve; mixing up +the deeds of the Christian saints with old heroic legends; seeing +Balder's beauty in Christ and the strength of Thor in Samson; +attributing magic to S. John; swearing, as of old, bloody oaths in +God's name, over the gilded boar's-head; burning the yule-log, and +cutting sacred boughs to grace their new-built churches. + +The songs of choirs and sound of holy bells, and superstitious +reverence for the mass, began to tell upon the people; and soon the +echo of their old religion only swelled upon the ear at intervals, +attaching itself to times of more than usual sanctity. Christmas was +one of these times, and the old faith threw around its celebration a +fantastic light. Many customs of the genial Pagan life remained; they +seemed harmless when the sense of joy was Christian. The Druid's +mistletoe graced the church porches of England and of France, and no +blood lingered on its berries. Christmas thus became a time of +extraordinary mystery. The people loved it as connecting their old life +with the new religion, perhaps unconsciously, though every one might +feel that Christmas was no common Christian feast. On its eve strange +wonders happened: the thorn that sprang at Glastonbury from the sacred +crown which Joseph brought with him from Palestine, when Avalon was +still an island, blossomed on that day. The Cornish miners seemed to +hear the sound of singing men arise from submerged churches by the +shore, and others said that bells, beneath the ground where villages +had been, chimed yearly on that eve. No evil thing had power, as +Marcellus in 'Hamlet' tells us, and the bird of dawning crowed the +whole night through. One might multiply folklore about the sanctity of +Christmas, but enough has been said 30to show that round it lingered +long the legendary spirit of old Paganism. It is not to Jews, or +Greeks, or Romans only that we owe our ancient Christmas fancies, but +also to those half-heathen ancestors who lovingly looked back to Odin's +days, and held the old while they embraced the new. + +Let us imagine Christmas Day in a mediæval town of Northern England. +The cathedral is only partly finished. Its nave and transepts are the +work of Norman architects, but the choir has been destroyed in order to +be rebuilt by more graceful designers and more skilful hands. The old +city is full of craftsmen, assembled to complete the church. Some have +come as a religious duty, to work off their tale of sins by bodily +labour. Some are animated by a love of art—simple men, who might have +rivalled with the Greeks in ages of more cultivation. Others, again, +are well-known carvers, brought for hire from distant towns and +countries beyond the sea. But to-day, and for some days past, the sound +of hammer and chisel has been silent in the choir. Monks have bustled +about the nave, dressing it up with holly-boughs and bushes of yew, and +preparing a stage for the sacred play they are going to exhibit on the +feast day. Christmas is not like Corpus Christi, and now the +market-place stands inches deep in snow, so that the Miracles must be +enacted beneath a roof instead of in the open air. And what place so +appropriate as the cathedral, where poor people may have warmth and +shelter while they see the show? Besides, the gloomy old church, with +its windows darkened by the falling snow, lends itself to candlelight +effects that will enhance the splendour of the scene. Everything is +ready. The incense of morning mass yet lingers round the altar. The +voice of the friar who told the people from the pulpit the story of +Christ's birth, has hardly ceased to echo. Time has just been given for +a mid-day dinner, and for the shepherds and 31 farm lads to troop in +from the country-side. The monks are ready at the wooden stage to draw +its curtain, and all the nave is full of eager faces. There you may see +the smith and carpenter, the butcher's wife, the country priest, and +the grey cowled friar. Scores of workmen, whose home the cathedral for +the time is made, are also here, and you may know the artists by their +thoughtful foreheads and keen eyes. That young monk carved Madonna and +her Son above the southern porch. Beside him stands the master mason, +whose strong arms have hewn gigantic images of prophets and apostles +for the pinnacles outside the choir; and the little man with cunning +eyes between the two is he who cuts such quaint hobgoblins for the +gargoyles. He has a vein of satire in him, and his humour overflows +into the stone. Many and many a grim beast and hideous head has he +hidden among vine-leaves and trellis-work upon the porches. Those who +know him well are loth to anger him, for fear their sons and sons' sons +should laugh at them for ever caricatured in solid stone. + +Hark! there sounds the bell. The curtain is drawn, and the candles +blaze brightly round the wooden stage. What is this first scene? We +have God in Heaven, dressed like a Pope with triple crown, and attended +by his court of angels. They sing and toss up censers till he lifts his +hand and speaks. In a long Latin speech he unfolds the order of +creation and his will concerning man. At the end of it up leaps an ugly +buffoon, in goatskin, with rams' horns upon his head. Some children +begin to cry; but the older people laugh, for this is the Devil, the +clown and comic character, who talks their common tongue, and has no +reverence before the very throne of Heaven. He asks leave to plague +men, and receives it; then, with many a curious caper, he goes down to +Hell, beneath the stage. The angels sing and toss their censers as +before, and the first scene closes to a sound of 32 organs. The next is +more conventional, in spite of some grotesque incidents. It represents +the Fall; the monks hurry over it quickly, as a tedious but necessary +prelude to the birth of Christ. That is the true Christmas part of the +ceremony, and it is understood that the best actors and most beautiful +dresses are to be reserved for it. The builders of the choir in +particular are interested in the coming scenes, since one of their +number has been chosen, for his handsome face and tenor voice, to sing +the angel's part. He is a young fellow of nineteen, but his beard is +not yet grown, and long hair hangs down upon his shoulders. A chorister +of the cathedral, his younger brother, will act the Virgin Mary. At +last the curtain is drawn. + +We see a cottage-room, dimly lighted by a lamp, and Mary spinning near +her bedside. She sings a country air, and goes on working, till a +rustling noise is heard, more light is thrown upon the stage, and a +glorious creature, in white raiment, with broad golden wings, appears. +He bears a lily, and cries,—'Ave Maria, Gratia Plena!' She does not +answer, but stands confused, with down-dropped eyes and timid mien. +Gabriel rises from the ground and comforts her, and sings aloud his +message of glad tidings. Then Mary gathers courage, and, kneeling in +her turn, thanks God; and when the angel and his radiance disappears, +she sings the song of the Magnificat clearly and simply, in the +darkened room. Very soft and silver sounds this hymn through the great +church. The women kneel, and children are hushed as by a lullaby. But +some of the hinds and 'prentice lads begin to think it rather dull. +They are not sorry when the next scene opens with a sheepfold and a +little camp-fire. Unmistakable bleatings issue from the fold, and five +or six common fellows are sitting round the blazing wood. One might +fancy they had stepped straight from the church floor to the stage, so +natural 33 do they look. Besides, they call themselves by common +names—Colin, and Tom Lie-a-bed, and nimble Dick. Many a round laugh +wakes echoes in the church when these shepherds stand up, and hold +debate about a stolen sheep. Tom Lie-a-bed has nothing to remark but +that he is very sleepy, and does not want to go in search of it +to-night; Colin cuts jokes, and throws out shrewd suspicions that Dick +knows something of the matter; but Dick is sly, and keeps them off the +scent, although a few of his asides reveal to the audience that he is +the real thief. While they are thus talking, silence falls upon the +shepherds. Soft music from the church organ breathes, and they appear +to fall asleep. + +The stage is now quite dark, and for a few moments the aisles echo only +to the dying melody. When, behold, a ray of light is seen, and +splendour grows around the stage from hidden candles, and in the glory +Gabriel appears upon a higher platform made to look like clouds. The +shepherds wake in confusion, striving to shelter their eyes from this +unwonted brilliancy. But Gabriel waves his lily, spreads his great gold +wings, and bids good cheer with clarion voice. The shepherds fall to +worship, and suddenly round Gabriel there gathers a choir of angels, +and a song of 'Gloria in Excelsis' to the sound of a deep organ is +heard far off. From distant aisles it swells, and seems to come from +heaven. Through a long resonant fugue the glory flies, and as it ceases +with complex conclusion, the lights die out, the angels disappear, and +Gabriel fades into the darkness. Still the shepherds kneel, rustically +chanting a carol half in Latin, half in English, which begins 'In dulci +Jubilo.' The people know it well, and when the chorus rises with 'Ubi +sunt gaudia?' its wild melody is caught by voices up and down the nave. +This scene makes deep impression upon many hearts; for the beauty of +Gabriel is rare, and few who see him in his angel's dress 34 would know +him for the lad who daily carves his lilies and broad water-flags about +the pillars of the choir. To that simple audience he interprets Heaven, +and little children will see him in their dreams. Dark winter nights +and awful forests will be trodden by his feet, made musical by his +melodious voice, and parted by the rustling of his wings. The youth +himself may return to-morrow to the workman's blouse and chisel, but +his memory lives in many minds and may form a part of Christmas for the +fancy of men as yet unborn. + +The next drawing of the curtain shows us the stable of Bethlehem +crowned by its star. There kneels Mary, and Joseph leans upon his +staff. The ox and ass are close at hand, and Jesus lies in jewelled +robes on straw within the manger. To right and left bow the shepherds, +worshipping in dumb show, while voices from behind chant a solemn hymn. +In the midst of the melody is heard a flourish of trumpets, and heralds +step upon the stage, followed by the three crowned kings. They have +come from the far East, led by the star. The song ceases, while drums +and fifes and trumpets play a stately march. The kings pass by, and do +obeisance one by one. Each gives some costly gift; each doffs his crown +and leaves it at the Saviour's feet. Then they retire to a distance and +worship in silence like the shepherds. Again the angel's song is heard, +and while it dies away the curtain closes, and the lights are put out. + +The play is over, and evening has come. The people must go from the +warm church into the frozen snow, and crunch their homeward way beneath +the moon. But in their minds they carry a sense of light and music and +unearthly loveliness. Not a scene of this day's pageant will be lost. +It grows within them and creates the poetry of Christmas. Nor must we +forget the sculptors who listen to the play. We spoke of them minutely, +because these mysteries sank deep into their 35 souls and found a way +into their carvings on the cathedral walls. The monk who made Madonna +by the southern porch, will remember Gabriel, and place him bending low +in lordly salutation by her side. The painted glass of the +chapter-house will glow with fiery choirs of angels learned by heart +that night. And who does not know the mocking devils and quaint satyrs +that the humorous sculptor will carve among his fruits and flowers? +Some of the misereres of the stalls still bear portraits of the +shepherd thief, and of the ox and ass who blinked so blindly when the +kings, by torchlight, brought their dazzling gifts. Truly these old +miracle-plays, and the carved work of cunning hands that they inspired, +are worth to us more than all the delicate creations of Italian +pencils. Our homely Northern churches still retain, for the child who +reads their bosses and their sculptured fronts, more Christmas poetry +than we can find in Fra Angelico's devoutness or the liveliness of +Giotto. Not that Southern artists have done nothing for our Christmas. +Cimabue's gigantic angels at Assisi, and the radiant seraphs of Raphael +or of Signorelli, were seen by Milton in his Italian journey. He gazed +in Romish churches on graceful Nativities, into which Angelico and +Credi threw their simple souls. How much they tinged his fancy we +cannot say. But what we know of heavenly hierarchies we later men have +learned from Milton; and what he saw he spoke, and what he spoke in +sounding verse lives for us now and sways our reason, and controls our +fancy, and makes fine art of high theology. + +Thus have I attempted rudely to recall a scene of mediæval Christmas. +To understand the domestic habits of that age is not so easy, though +one can fancy how the barons in their halls held Christmas, with the +boar's head and the jester and the great yule-log. On the daïs sat lord +and lady, waited on by knight and squire and page; but down the long 36 +hall feasted yeomen and hinds and men-at-arms. Little remains to us of +those days, and we have outworn their jollity. It is really from the +Elizabethan poets that our sense of old-fashioned festivity arises. +They lived at the end of one age and the beginning of another. Though +born to inaugurate the new era, they belonged by right of association +and sympathy to the period that was fleeting fast away. This enabled +them to represent the poetry of past and present. Old customs and old +states of feeling, when they are about to perish, pass into the realm +of art. For art is like a flower, which consummates the plant and ends +its growth, while it translates its nature into loveliness. Thus Dante +and Lorenzetti and Orcagna enshrined mediæval theology in works of +imperishable beauty, and Shakspere and his fellows made immortal the +life and manners that were decaying in their own time. Men do not +reflect upon their mode of living till they are passing from one state +to another, and the consciousness of art implies a beginning of new +things. Let one who wishes to appreciate the ideal of an English +Christmas read Shakspere's song, 'When icicles hang by the wall;' and +if he knows some old grey grange, far from the high-road, among +pastures, with a river flowing near, and cawing rooks in elm-trees by +the garden-wall, let him place Dick and Joan and Marian there. + +We have heard so much of pensioners, and barons of beef, and yule-logs, +and bay, and rosemary, and holly boughs cut upon the hillside, and +crab-apples bobbing in the wassail bowl, and masques and mummers, and +dancers on the rushes, that we need not here describe a Christmas Eve +in olden times. Indeed, this last half of the nineteenth century is +weary of the worn-out theme. But one characteristic of the age of +Elizabeth may be mentioned: that is its love of music. Fugued melodies, +sung by voices without instruments, were 37 much in vogue. We call them +madrigals, and their half-merry, half-melancholy music yet recalls the +time when England had her gift of art, when she needed not to borrow of +Marenzio and Palestrina, when her Wilbyes and her Morlands and her +Dowlands won the praise of Shakspere and the court. We hear the echo of +those songs; and in some towns at Christmas or the New Year old +madrigals still sound in praise of Oriana and of Phyllis and the +country life. What are called 'waits' are but a poor travesty of those +well-sung Elizabethan carols. We turn in our beds half pitying, half +angered by harsh voices that quaver senseless ditties in the fog, or by +tuneless fiddles playing popular airs without propriety or interest. + +It is a strange mixture of picturesquely blended elements which the +Elizabethan age presents. We see it afar off like the meeting of a +hundred streams that grow into a river. We are sailing on the flood +long after it has shrunk into a single tide, and the banks are dull and +tame, and the all-absorbing ocean is before us. Yet sometimes we hear a +murmur of the distant fountains, and Christmas is a day on which for +some the many waters of the age of great Elizabeth sound clearest. + +The age which followed was not poetical. The Puritans restrained +festivity and art, and hated music. Yet from this period stands out the +hymn of Milton, written when he was a youth, but bearing promise of his +later muse. At one time, as we read it, we seem to be looking on a +picture by some old Italian artist. But no picture can give Milton's +music or make the 'base of heaven's deep organ blow.' Here he touches +new associations, and reveals the realm of poetry which it remains for +later times to traverse. Milton felt the true sentiment of Northern +Christmas when he opened his poem with the 'winter wild,' in defiance +of historical probability 38 and what the French call local colouring. +Nothing shows how wholly we people of the North have appropriated +Christmas, and made it a creature of our own imagination, more than +this dwelling on winds and snows and bitter frosts, so alien from the +fragrant nights of Palestine. But Milton's hymn is like a symphony, +embracing many thoughts and periods of varying melody. The music of the +seraphim brings to his mind the age of gold, and that suggests the +judgment and the redemption of the world. Satan's kingdom fails, the +false gods go forth, Apollo leaves his rocky throne, and all the dim +Phoenician and Egyptian deities, with those that classic fancy fabled, +troop away like ghosts into the darkness. What a swell of stormy sound +is in those lines! It recalls the very voice of Pan, which went abroad +upon the waters when Christ died, and all the utterances of God on +earth, feigned in Delphian shrines, or truly spoken on the sacred +hills, were mute for ever. + +After Milton came the age which, of all others, is the prosiest in our +history. We cannot find much novelty of interest added to Christmas at +this time. But there is one piece of poetry that somehow or another +seems to belong to the reign of Anne and of the Georges—the poetry of +bells. Great civic corporations reigned in those days; churchwardens +tyrannised and were rich; and many a goodly chime of bells they hung in +our old church-steeples. Let us go into the square room of the belfry, +where the clock ticks all day, and the long ropes hang dangling down, +with fur upon their hemp for ringers' hands above the socket set for +ringers' feet. There we may read long lists of gilded names, recording +mountainous bob-majors, rung a century ago, with special praise to him +who pulled the tenor-bell, year after year, until he died, and left it +to his son. The art of bell-ringing is profound, and requires a long +apprenticeship. Even now, in some old cities, 39 the ringers form a +guild and mystery. Suppose it to be Christmas Eve in the year 1772. It +is now a quarter before twelve, and the sexton has unlocked the +church-gates and set the belfry door ajar. Candles are lighted in the +room above, and jugs of beer stand ready for the ringers. Up they +bustle one by one, and listen to the tickings of the clock that tells +the passing minutes. At last it gives a click; and now they throw off +coat and waistcoat, strap their girdles tighter round the waist, and +each holds his rope in readiness. Twelve o'clock strikes, and forth +across the silent city go the clamorous chimes. The steeple rocks and +reels, and far away the night is startled. Damp turbulent west winds, +rushing from the distant sea, and swirling up the inland valleys, catch +the sound, and toss it to and fro, and bear it by gusts and snatches to +watchers far away, upon bleak moorlands and the brows of woody hills. +Is there not something dim and strange in the thought of these eight +men meeting, in the heart of a great city, in the narrow belfry-room, +to stir a mighty sound that shall announce to listening ears miles, +miles away, the birth of a new day, and tell to dancers, mourners, +students, sleepers, and perhaps to dying men, that Christ is born? + +Let this association suffice for the time. And of our own Christmas so +much has been said and sung by better voices, that we may leave it to +the feelings and the memories of those who read the fireside tales of +Dickens, and are happy in their homes. The many elements which I have +endeavoured to recall, mix all of them in the Christmas of the present, +partly, no doubt, under the form of vague and obscure sentiment; partly +as time-honoured reminiscences, partly as a portion of our own life. +But there is one phase of poetry which we enjoy more fully than any +previous age. That is music. Music is of all the arts the youngest, and +of all can free herself 40 most readily from symbols. A fine piece of +music moves before us like a living passion, which needs no form or +colour, no interpreting associations, to convey its strong but +indistinct significance. Each man there finds his soul revealed to him, +and enabled to assume a cast of feeling in obedience to the changeful +sound. In this manner all our Christmas thoughts and emotions have been +gathered up for us by Handel in his drama of the 'Messiah.' To +Englishmen it is almost as well known and necessary as the Bible. But +only one who has heard its pastoral episode performed year after year +from childhood in the hushed cathedral, where pendent lamps or sconces +make the gloom of aisle and choir and airy column half intelligible, +can invest this music with long associations of accumulated awe. To his +mind it brings a scene at midnight of hills clear in the starlight of +the East, with white flocks scattered on the down. The breath of winds +that come and go, the bleating of the sheep, with now and then a +tinkling bell, and now and then the voice of an awakened shepherd, is +all that breaks the deep repose. Overhead shimmer the bright stars, and +low to west lies the moon, not pale and sickly (he dreams) as in our +North, but golden, full, and bathing distant towers and tall aë;rial +palms with floods of light. Such is a child's vision, begotten by the +music of the symphony; and when he wakes from trance at its low silver +close, the dark cathedral seems glowing with a thousand angel faces, +and all the air is tremulous with angel wings. Then follow the solitary +treble voice and the swift chorus. + +41 + + + + +SIENA + + +After leaving the valley of the Arno at Empoli, the railway enters a +country which rises into earthy hills of no great height, and spreads +out at intervals into broad tracts of cultivated lowland. Geologically +speaking, this portion of Tuscany consists of loam and sandy deposits, +forming the basin between two mountain-ranges—the Apennines and the +chalk hills of the western coast of Central Italy. Seen from the +eminence of some old Tuscan turret, this champaign country has a stern +and arid aspect. The earth is grey and dusty, the forms of hill and +valley are austere and monotonous; even the vegetation seems to +sympathise with the uninteresting soil from which it springs. A few +spare olives cast their shadows on the lower slopes; here and there a +copse of oakwood and acacia marks the course of some small rivulet; +rye-fields, grey beneath the wind, clothe the hillsides with scanty +verdure. Every knoll is crowned with a village—brown roofs and white +house-fronts clustered together on the edge of cliffs, and rising into +the campanile or antique tower, which tells so many stories of bygone +wars and decayed civilisations. + +Beneath these villages stand groups of stone pines clearly visible upon +the naked country, cypresses like spires beside the square white walls +of convent or of villa, patches of dark foliage, showing where the ilex +and the laurel and the myrtle hide thick tangles of rose-trees and +jessamines in ancient gardens. Nothing can exceed the barren aspect of +this 42 country in midwinter: it resembles an exaggerated Sussex, +without verdure to relieve the rolling lines of down, and hill, and +valley; beautiful yet, by reason of its frequent villages and lucid air +and infinitely subtle curves of mountain-ridges. But when spring comes, +a light and beauty break upon this gloomy soil; the whole is covered +with a delicate green veil of rising crops and fresh foliage, and the +immense distances which may be seen from every height are blue with +cloud-shadows, or rosy in the light of sunset. + +Of all the towns of Lower Tuscany, none is more celebrated than Siena. +It stands in the very centre of the district which I have attempted to +describe, crowning one of its most considerable heights, and commanding +one of its most extensive plains. As a city it is a typical +representative of those numerous Italian towns, whose origin is buried +in remote antiquity, which have formed the seat of three civilisations, +and which still maintain a vigorous vitality upon their ancient soil. +Its site is Etruscan, its name is Roman, but the town itself owes all +its interest and beauty to the artists and the statesmen and the +warriors of the middle ages. A single glance at Siena from one of the +slopes on the northern side, will show how truly mediæval is its +character. A city wall follows the outline of the hill, from which the +towers of the cathedral and the palace, with other cupolas and +red-brick campanili, spring; while cypresses and olive-gardens stretch +downwards to the plain. There is not a single Palladian façade or +Renaissance portico to interrupt the unity of the effect. Over all, in +the distance, rises Monte Amiata melting imperceptibly into sky and +plain. + +The three most striking objects of interest in Siena maintain the +character of mediæval individuality by which the town is marked. They +are the public palace, the cathedral, and the house of S. Catherine. +The civil life, the arts, and 43 the religious tendencies of Italy +during the ascendency of mediæval ideas, are strongly set before us +here. High above every other building in the town soars the straight +brick tower of the Palazzo Pubblico, the house of the republic, the +hearth of civil life within the State. It guards an irregular Gothic +building in which the old government of Siena used to be assembled, but +which has now for a long time been converted into prisons, courts of +law, and showrooms. Let us enter one chamber of the Palazzo—the Sala +della Pace, where Ambrogio Lorenzetti, the greatest, perhaps, of +Sienese painters, represented the evils of lawlessness and tyranny, and +the benefits of peace and justice, in three noble allegories. They were +executed early in the fourteenth century, in the age of allegories and +symbolism, when poets and painters strove to personify in human shape +all thoughts and sentiments. The first great fresco represents +Peace—the peace of the Republic of Siena. Ambrogio has painted the +twenty-four councillors who formed the Government, standing beneath the +thrones of Concord, Justice, and Wisdom. From these controlling powers +they stretch in a long double line to a seated figure, gigantic in +size, and robed with the ensigns of baronial sovereignty. This figure +is the State and Majesty of Siena.[52] Around him sit Peace, Fortitude, +and Prudence, 44 Temperance, Magnanimity, and Justice, inalienable +assessors of a powerful and righteous lord. Faith, Hope, and Charity, +the Christian virtues, float like angels in the air above. Armed +horsemen guard his throne, and captives show that he has laid his enemy +beneath his feet. Thus the mediæval artist expressed, by painting, his +theory of government. The rulers of the State are subordinate to the +State itself; they stand between the State and the great animating +principles of wisdom, justice, and concord, incarnating the one, and +receiving inspiration from the others. The pagan qualities of prudence, +magnanimity, and courage give stability and greatness to good +government, while the spirit of Christianity must harmonise and rule +the whole. Arms, too, are needful to maintain by force what right and +law demand, and victory in a just quarrel proclaims the power and +vigour of the commonwealth. On another wall Ambrogio has depicted the +prosperous city of Siena, girt by battlements and moat, with tower and +barbican and drawbridge, to insure its peace. Through the gates stream +country-people, bringing the produce of their farms into the town. The +streets are crowded with men and women intent on business or pleasure; +craftsmen at their trade, merchants with laden mules, a hawking party, +hunters scouring the plain, girls dancing, and children playing in the +open square. A school-master watching his class, together with the +sculptured figures of Geometry, Astronomy, and Philosophy, remind us +that education and science flourish under the dominion of well-balanced +laws. The third fresco exhibits the reverse of this fair spectacle. +Here Tyranny presides over a scene of anarchy and wrong. He is a +hideous monster, compounded of all the bestial attributes which +indicate force, treason, lechery, and fear. Avarice and Fraud and +Cruelty and War and Fury sit around him. At his feet lies Justice, and +45 above are the effigies of Nero, Caracalla, and like monsters of +ill-regulated power. Not far from the castle of Tyranny we see the same +town as in the other fresco; but its streets are filled with scenes of +quarrel, theft, and bloodshed. Nor are these allegories merely +fanciful. In the middle ages the same city might more than once during +one lifetime present in the vivid colours of reality the two contrasted +pictures.[53] + + [52] It is probable that the firm Ghibelline sympathies of the Sienese + people for the Empire were allegorised in this figure; so that the + fresco represented by form and colour what Dante had expressed in his + treatise 'De Monarchiâ.' Among the virtues who attend him, Peace + distinguishes herself by rare and very remarkable beauty. She is + dressed in white and crowned with olive; the folds of her drapery, + clinging to the delicately modelled limbs beneath, irresistibly + suggest a classic statue. So again does the monumental pose of her + dignified, reclining, and yet languid figure. It seems not + unreasonable to believe that Lorenzetti copied Peace from the antique + Venus which belonged to the Sienese, and which in a fit of + superstitious malice they subsequently destroyed and buried in + Florentine soil. + + + [53] Siena, of all Italian cities, was most subject to revolutions. + Comines describes it as a city which 'se gouverne plus follement que + ville d'Italie.' Varchi calls it 'un guazzabuglio ed una confusione di + repubbliche piuttosto che bene ordinata e instituta repubblica.' See + my 'Age of the Despots' (_Renaissance in Italy_, Part I.), pp. 141, + 554, for some account of the Sienese constitution, and of the feuds + and reconciliations of the burghers. + +Quitting the Palazzo, and threading narrow streets, paved with brick +and overshadowed with huge empty palaces, we reach the highest of the +three hills on which Siena stands, and see before us the Duomo. This +church is the most purely Gothic of all Italian cathedrals designed by +national architects. Together with that of Orvieto, it stands to show +what the unassisted genius of the Italians could produce, when under +the empire of mediæval Christianity and before the advent of the +neopagan spirit. It is built wholly of marble, and overlaid, inside and +out, with florid ornaments of exquisite beauty. There are no flying +buttresses, no pinnacles, no deep and fretted doorways, such as form +the charm of French and English architecture; but instead of this, the +lines of parti-coloured marbles, the scrolls and wreaths of foliage, +the mosaics and the frescoes which meet the eye in every direction, +satisfy our sense of variety, producing most agreeable combinations of +blending hues and harmoniously connected forms. The chief fault which +offends against our Northern taste is the predominance of horizontal +lines, both in the 46 construction of the façade, and also in the +internal decoration. This single fact sufficiently proves that the +Italians had never seized the true idea of Gothic or aspiring +architecture. But, allowing for this original defect, we feel that the +Cathedral of Siena combines solemnity and splendour to a degree almost +unrivalled. Its dome is another point in which the instinct of Italian +architects has led them to adhere to the genius of their ancestral art +rather than to follow the principles of Gothic design. The dome is +Etruscan and Roman, native to the soil, and only by a kind of violence +adapted to the character of pointed architecture. Yet the builders of +Siena have shown what a glorious element of beauty might have been +added to our Northern cathedrals, had the idea of infinity which our +ancestors expressed by long continuous lines, by complexities of +interwoven aisles, and by multitudinous aspiring pinnacles, been +carried out into vast spaces of aë;rial cupolas, completing and +embracing and covering the whole like heaven. The Duomo, as it now +stands, forms only part of a vast design. On entering we are amazed to +hear that this church, which looks so large, from the beauty of its +proportions, the intricacy of its ornaments, and the interlacing of its +columns, is but the transept of the intended building lengthened a +little, and surmounted by a cupola and campanile.[54] Yet such is the +fact. Soon after its commencement a plague swept over Italy, nearly +depopulated Siena, and reduced the town to penury for want of men. The +cathedral, which, had it been accomplished, would have surpassed all +Gothic churches south of the Alps, remained a ruin. A fragment of the +nave still stands, enabling us to judge of its extent. The eastern wall +47 joins what was to have been the transept, measuring the mighty space +which would have been enclosed by marble vaults and columns delicately +wrought. The sculpture on the eastern door shows with what magnificence +the Sienese designed to ornament this portion of their temple; while +the southern façade rears itself aloft above the town, like those high +arches which testify to the past splendour of Glastonbury Abbey; but +the sun streams through the broken windows, and the walls are +encumbered with hovels and stables and the refuse of surrounding +streets. + + [54] The present church was begun about 1229. In 1321 the burghers + fancied it was too small for the fame and splendour of their city. So + they decreed a new _ecclesia pulcra, magna, et magnifica_, for which + the older but as yet unfinished building was to be the transept. + +One most remarkable feature of the internal decoration is a line of +heads of the Popes carried all round the church above the lower arches. +Larger than life, white solemn faces they lean, each from his separate +niche, crowned with the triple tiara, and labelled with the name he +bore. Their accumulated majesty brings the whole past history of the +Church into the presence of its living members. A bishop walking up the +nave of Siena must feel as a Roman felt among the waxen images of +ancestors renowned in council or in war. Of course these portraits are +imaginary for the most part; but the artists have contrived to vary +their features and expression with great skill. + +Not less peculiar to Siena is the pavement of the cathedral. It is +inlaid with a kind of _tarsia_ work in stone, setting forth a variety +of pictures in simple but eminently effective mosaic. Some of these +compositions are as old as the cathedral; others are the work of +Beccafumi and his scholars. They represent, in the liberal spirit of +mediæval Christianity, the history of the Church before the +Incarnation. Hermes Trismegistus and the Sibyls meet us at the doorway: +in the body of the church we find the mighty deeds of the old Jewish +heroes—of Moses and Samson and Joshua and Judith. Independently of the +artistic beauty of the designs, of the skill 48 with which men and +horses are drawn in the most difficult attitudes, of the dignity of +some single figures, and of the vigour and simplicity of the larger +compositions, a special interest attaches to this pavement in +connection with the twelfth canto of the 'Purgatorio.' Dante cannot +have trodden these stones and meditated upon their sculptured +histories. Yet when we read how he journeyed through the plain of +Purgatory with eyes intent upon its storied floor, how 'morti i morti, +e i vivi parean vivi,' how he saw 'Nimrod at the foot of his great +work, confounded, gazing at the people who were proud with him,' we are +irresistibly led to think of the Divine comedy. The strong and simple +outlines of the pavement correspond to the few words of the poet. +Bending over these pictures and trying to learn their lesson, with the +thought of Dante in our mind, the tones of an organ, singularly sweet +and mellow, fall upon our ears, and we remember how he heard _Te Deum_ +sung within the gateway of repentance. + +Continuing our walk, we descend the hill on which the Duomo stands, and +reach a valley lying between the ancient city of Siena and a western +eminence crowned by the church of San Domenico. In this depression +there has existed from old time a kind of suburb or separate district +of the poorer people known by the name of the Contrada d' Oca. To the +Sienese it has especial interest, for here is the birthplace of S. +Catherine, the very house in which she lived, her father's workshop, +and the chapel which has been erected in commemoration of her saintly +life. Over the doorway is written in letters of gold 'Sponsa Christi +Katherinæ domus.' Inside they show the room she occupied, and the stone +on which she placed her head to sleep; they keep her veil and staff and +lantern and enamelled vinaigrette, the bag in which her alms were +placed, the sackcloth that she wore beneath her dress, the crucifix +from which she took the wounds of Christ. It is impossible 49 to +conceive, even after the lapse of several centuries, that any of these +relics are fictitious. Every particular of her life was remembered and +recorded with scrupulous attention by devoted followers. Her fame was +universal throughout Italy before her death; and the house from which +she went forth to preach and heal the sick and comfort plague-stricken +wretches whom kith and kin had left alone to die, was known and well +beloved by all her citizens. From the moment of her death it became, +and has continued to be, the object of superstitious veneration to +thousands. From the little loggia which runs along one portion of its +exterior may be seen the campanile and the dome of the cathedral; on +the other side rises the huge brick church of San Domenico, in which +she spent the long ecstatic hours that won for her the title of +Christ's spouse. In a chapel attached to the church she watched and +prayed, fasting and wrestling with the fiends of a disordered fancy. +There Christ appeared to her and gave her His own heart, there He +administered to her the sacrament with His own hands, there she assumed +the robe of poverty, and gave her Lord the silver cross and took from +Him the crown of thorns. + +To some of us these legends may appear the flimsiest web of fiction: to +others they may seem quite explicable by the laws of semi-morbid +psychology; but to Catherine herself, her biographers, and her +contemporaries, they were not so. The enthusiastic saint and reverent +people believed firmly in these things; and, after the lapse of five +centuries, her votaries still kiss the floor and steps on which she +trod, still say, 'This was the wall on which she leant when Christ +appeared; this was the corner where she clothed Him, naked and +shivering like a beggar-boy; here He sustained her with angels' food.' + +S. Catherine was one of twenty-five children born in 50 wedlock to +Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa, citizens of Siena. Her father exercised the +trade of dyer and fuller. In the year of her birth, 1347, Siena reached +the climax of its power and splendour. It was then that the plague of +Boccaccio began to rage, which swept off 80,000 citizens, and +interrupted the building of the great Duomo. In the midst of so large a +family, and during these troubled times, Catherine grew almost +unnoticed; but it was not long before she manifested her peculiar +disposition. At six years old she already saw visions and longed for a +monastic life: about the same time she used to collect her childish +companions together and preach to them. As she grew, her wishes became +stronger; she refused the proposals which her parents made that she +should marry, and so vexed them by her obstinacy that they imposed on +her the most servile duties in their household. These she patiently +fulfilled, pursuing at the same time her own vocation with unwearied +ardour. She scarcely slept at all, and ate no food but vegetables and a +little bread, scourged herself, wore sackcloth, and became emaciated, +weak, and half delirious. At length the firmness of her character and +the force of her hallucinations won the day. Her parents consented to +her assuming the Dominican robe, and at the age of thirteen she entered +the monastic life. From this moment till her death we see in her the +ecstatic, the philanthropist, and the politician combined to a +remarkable degree. For three whole years she never left her cell except +to go to church, maintaining an almost unbroken silence. Yet when she +returned to the world, convinced at last of having won by prayer and +pain the favour of her Lord, it was to preach to infuriated mobs, to +toil among men dying of the plague, to execute diplomatic negotiations, +to harangue the republic of Florence, to correspond with queens, and to +interpose between kings and popes. In the midst of this varied and 51 +distracting career she continued to see visions and to fast and scourge +herself. The domestic virtues and the personal wants and wishes of a +woman were annihilated in her: she lived for the Church, for the poor, +and for Christ, whom she imagined to be constantly supporting her. At +length she died, worn out by inward conflicts, by the tension of +religious ecstasy, by want of food and sleep, and by the excitement of +political life. To follow her in her public career is not my purpose. +It is well known how, by the power of her eloquence and the ardour of +her piety, she succeeded as a mediator between Florence and her native +city, and between Florence and the Pope; that she travelled to Avignon, +and there induced Gregory XI. to put an end to the Babylonian captivity +of the Church by returning to Rome; that she narrowly escaped political +martyrdom during one of her embassies from Gregory to the Florentine +republic; that she preached a crusade against the Turks; that her last +days were clouded with sorrow for the schism which then rent the +Papacy; and that she aided by her dying words to keep Pope Urban on the +Papal throne. When we consider her private and spiritual life more +narrowly, it may well move our amazement to think that the intricate +politics of Central Italy, the counsels of licentious princes and +ambitious Popes, were in any measure guided and controlled by such a +woman. Alone, and aided by nothing but a reputation for sanctity, she +dared to tell the greatest men in Europe of their faults; she wrote in +words of well-assured command, and they, demoralised, worldly, +sceptical, or indifferent as they might be, were yet so bound by +superstition that they could not treat with scorn the voice of an +enthusiastic girl. + +Absolute disinterestedness, the belief in her own spiritual mission, +natural genius, and that vast power which then belonged to all +energetic members of the monastic orders, 52 enabled her to play this +part. She had no advantages to begin with. The daughter of a tradesman +overwhelmed with an almost fabulously numerous progeny, Catherine grew +up uneducated. When her genius had attained maturity, she could not +even read or write. Her biographer asserts that she learned to do so by +a miracle. Anyhow, writing became a most potent instrument in her +hands; and we possess several volumes of her epistles, as well as a +treatise of mystical theology. To conquer self-love as the root of all +evil, and to live wholly for others, was the cardinal axiom of her +morality. She pressed this principle to its most rigorous conclusions +in practice; never resting day or night from some kind of service, and +winning by her unselfish love the enthusiastic admiration of the +people. In the same spirit of exalted self-annihilation, she longed for +martyrdom, and courted death. There was not the smallest personal tie +or afterthought of interest to restrain her in the course of action +which she had marked out. Her personal influence seems to have been +immense. When she began her career of public peacemaker and preacher in +Siena, Raymond, her biographer, says that whole families devoted to +_vendetta_ were reconciled, and that civil strifes were quelled by her +letters and addresses. He had seen more than a thousand people flock to +hear her speak; the confessionals crowded with penitents, smitten by +the force of her appeals; and multitudes, unable to catch the words +which fell from her lips, sustained and animated by the light of +holiness which beamed from her inspired countenance.[55] She was not +beautiful, but her face so shone with love, and her eloquence was so +pathetic in its tenderness, that none could hear or look on her without +emotion. Her writings contain 53 abundant proofs of this peculiar +suavity. They are too sweet and unctuous in style to suit our modern +taste. When dwelling on the mystic love of Christ she cries, 'O blood! +O fire! O ineffable love!' When interceding before the Pope, she prays +for 'Pace, pace, pace, babbo mio dolce; pace, e non più guerra.' Yet +clear and simple thoughts, profound convictions, and stern moral +teaching underlie her ecstatic exclamations. One prayer which she +wrote, and which the people of Siena still use, expresses the +prevailing spirit of her creed: 'O Spirito Santo, o Deità eterna Cristo +Amore! vieni nel mio cuore; per la tua potenza trailo a Te, mio Dio, e +concedemi carità con timore. Liberami, o Amore ineffabile, da ogni mal +pensiero; riscaldami ed infiammami del tuo dolcissimo amore, sicchè +ogni pena mi sembri leggiera. Santo mio Padre e dolce mio Signore, ora +aiutami in ogni mio ministero. Cristo amore. Cristo amore.' The +reiteration of the word 'love' is most significant. It was the key-note +of her whole theology, the mainspring of her life. In no merely +figurative sense did she regard herself as the spouse of Christ, but +dwelt upon the bliss, beyond all mortal happiness, which she enjoyed in +supersensual communion with her Lord. It is easy to understand how such +ideas might be, and have been, corrupted, when impressed on natures no +less susceptible, but weaker and less gifted than S. Catherine's. + + [55] The part played in Italy by preachers of repentance and peace is + among the most characteristic features of Italian history. On this + subject see the Appendix to my 'Age of the Despots,' _Renaissance in + Italy_, Part I. + +One incident related by Catherine in a letter to Raymond, her confessor +and biographer, exhibits the peculiar character of her influence in the +most striking light. Nicola Tuldo, a citizen of Perugia, had been +condemned to death for treason in the flower of his age. So terribly +did the man rebel against his sentence, that he cursed God, and refused +the consolations of religion. Priests visited him in vain; his heart +was shut and sealed by the despair of leaving life in all 54 the vigour +of its prime. Then Catherine came and spoke to him: 'whence,' she says, +'he received such comfort that he confessed, and made me promise, by +the love of God, to stand at the block beside him on the day of his +execution.' By a few words, by the tenderness of her manner, and by the +charm which women have, she had already touched the heart no priest +could soften, and no threat of death or judgment terrify into +contrition. Nor was this strange. In our own days we have seen men open +the secrets of their hearts to women, after repelling the advances of +less touching sympathy. Youths, cold and cynical enough among their +brethren, have stood subdued like little children before her who spoke +to them of love and faith and penitence and hope. The world has not +lost its ladies of the race of S. Catherine, beautiful and pure and +holy, who have suffered and sought peace with tears, and who have been +appointed ministers of mercy for the worst and hardest of their +fellow-men. Such saints possess an efficacy even in the imposition of +their hands; many a devotee, like Tuldo, would more willingly greet +death if his S. Catherine were by to smile and lay her hands upon his +head, and cry, 'Go forth, my servant, and fear not!' The chivalrous +admiration for women mixes with religious awe to form the reverence +which these saints inspire. Human and heavenly love, chaste and +ecstatic, constitute the secret of their power. Catherine then subdued +the spirit of Tuldo and led him to the altar, where he received the +communion for the first time in his life. His only remaining fear was +that he might not have strength to face death bravely. Therefore he +prayed Catherine, 'Stay with me, do not leave me; so it shall be well +with me, and I shall die contented;' 'and,' says the saint, 'he laid +his head in the prison on my breast, and I said, "Comfort thee, my +brother, the block shall soon become thy marriage altar, the blood of +Christ 55 shall bathe thy sins away, and I will stand beside thee."' +When the hour came, she went and waited for him by the scaffold, +meditating on Madonna and Catherine the saint of Alexandria. She laid +her own neck on the block, and tried to picture to herself the pains +and ecstasies of martyrdom. In her deep thought, time and place became +annihilated; she forgot the eager crowd, and only prayed for Tuldo's +soul and for herself. At length he came, walking 'like a gentle lamb,' +and Catherine received him with the salutation of 'sweet brother.' She +placed his head upon the block, and laid her hands upon him, and told +him of the Lamb of God. The last words he uttered were the names of +Jesus and of Catherine. Then the axe fell, and Catherine beheld his +soul borne by angels into the regions of eternal love. When she +recovered from her trance, she held his head within her hands; her +dress was saturated with his blood, which she could scarcely bear to +wash away, so deeply did she triumph in the death of him whom she had +saved. The words of S. Catherine herself deserve to be read. The +simplicity, freedom from self-consciousness, and fervent faith in the +reality of all she did and said and saw, which they exhibit, convince +us of her entire sincerity. + +The supernatural element in the life of S. Catherine may be explained +partly by the mythologising adoration of the people ready to find a +miracle in every act of her they worshipped—partly by her own +temperament and modes of life, which inclined her to ecstasy and +fostered the faculty of seeing visions—partly by a pious misconception +of the words of Christ and Bible phraseology. + +To the first kind belong the wonders which are related of her early +years, the story of the candle which burnt her veil without injuring +her person, and the miracles performed by her body after death. Many +childish incidents were 56 treasured up which, had her life proved +different, would have been forgotten, or have found their proper place +among the catalogue of common things. Thus on one occasion, after +hearing of the hermits of the Thebaïd, she took it into her head to +retire into the wilderness, and chose for her dwelling one of the +caverns in the sandstone rock which abound in Siena near the quarter +where her father lived. We merely see in this event a sign of her +monastic disposition, and a more than usual aptitude for realising the +ideas presented to her mind. But the old biographers relate how one +celestial vision urged the childish hermit to forsake the world, and +another bade her return to the duties of her home. + +To the second kind we may refer the frequent communings with Christ and +with the fathers of the Church, together with the other visions to +which she frequently laid claim: nor must we omit the stigmata which +she believed she had received from Christ. Catherine was +constitutionally inclined to hallucinations. At the age of six, before +it was probable that a child should have laid claim to spiritual gifts +which she did not possess, she burst into loud weeping because her +little brother rudely distracted her attention from the brilliant forms +of saints and angels which she traced among the clouds. Almost all +children of a vivid imagination are apt to transfer the objects of +their fancy to the world without them. Goethe walked for hours in his +enchanted gardens as a boy, and Alfieri tells us how he saw a company +of angels in the choristers at Asti. Nor did S. Catherine omit any +means of cultivating this faculty, and of preventing her splendid +visions from fading away, as they almost always do, beneath the +discipline of intellectual education and among the distractions of +daily life. Believing simply in their heavenly origin, and receiving no +secular training whatsoever, she walked surrounded by a spiritual +world, environed, as her legend says, by angels. Her 57 habits were +calculated to foster this disposition: it is related that she took but +little sleep, scarcely more than two hours at night, and that too on +the bare ground; she ate nothing but vegetables and the sacred wafer of +the host, entirely abjuring the use of wine and meat. This diet, +combined with frequent fasts and severe ascetic discipline, depressed +her physical forces, and her nervous system was thrown into a state of +the highest exaltation. Thoughts became things, and ideas were +projected from her vivid fancy upon the empty air around her. It was +therefore no wonder that, after spending long hours in vigils and +meditating always on the thought of Christ, she should have seemed to +take the sacrament from His hands, to pace the chapel in communion with +Him, to meet Him in the form of priest and beggar, to hear Him speaking +to her as a friend. Once when the anguish of sin had plagued her with +disturbing dreams, Christ came and gave her His own heart in exchange +for hers. When lost in admiration before the cross at Pisa, she saw His +five wounds stream with blood—five crimson rays smote her, passed into +her soul, and left their marks upon her hands and feet and side. The +light of Christ's glory shone round about her, she partook of His +martyrdom, and awaking from her trance she cried to Raymond, 'Behold! I +bear in my body the marks of the Lord Jesus!' + +This miracle had happened to S. Francis. It was regarded as the sign of +fellowship with Christ, of worthiness to drink His cup, and to be +baptised with His baptism. We find the same idea at least in the old +Latin hymns: + +Fac me plagis vulnerari— +Cruce hac inebriari— +Fac ut portem Christi mortem, +Passionis fac consortem, +Et plagas recolere. + + +58 These are words from the 'Stabat Mater;' nor did S. Francis and S. +Catherine do more than carry into the vividness of actual hallucination +what had been the poetic rapture of many less ecstatic, but not less +ardent, souls. They desired to be _literally_ 'crucified with Christ;' +they were not satisfied with metaphor or sentiment, and it seemed to +them that their Lord had really vouchsafed to them the yearning of +their heart. We need not here raise the question whether the stigmata +had ever been actually self-inflicted by delirious saint or hermit: it +was not pretended that the wounds of S. Catherine were visible during +her lifetime. After her death the faithful thought that they had seen +them on her corpse, and they actually appeared in the relics of her +hands and feet. The pious fraud, if fraud there must have been, should +be ascribed, not to the saint herself, but to devotees and +relic-mongers.[56] The order of S. Dominic would not be behind that of +S. Francis. If the latter boasted of their stigmata, the former would +be ready to perforate the hand or foot of their dead saint. Thus the +ecstasies of genius or devotion are brought to earth, and rendered +vulgar by mistaken piety and the rivalry of sects. The people put the +most material construction on all tropes and metaphors: above the door +of S. Catherine's chapel at Siena, for example, it is written— + +Hæc tenet ara caput Catharinæ; corda requiris? + Hæc imo Christus pectore clausa tenet. + +The frequent conversations which she held with S. Dominic and other +patrons of the Church, and her supernatural marriage, must be referred +to the same category. Strong faith, 59 and constant familiarity with +one order of ideas, joined with a creative power of fancy, and fostered +by physical debility, produced these miraculous colloquies. Early in +her career, her injured constitution, resenting the violence with which +it had been forced to serve the ardours of her piety, troubled her with +foul phantoms, haunting images of sin and seductive whisperings, which +clearly revealed a morbid condition of the nervous system. She was on +the verge of insanity. The reality of her inspiration and her genius +are proved by the force with which her human sympathies, and moral +dignity, and intellectual vigour triumphed over these diseased +hallucinations of the cloister, and converted them into the instruments +for effecting patriotic and philanthropic designs. There was nothing +savouring of mean pretension or imposture in her claim to supernatural +enlightenment. Whatever we may think of the wisdom of her public policy +with regard to the Crusades and to the Papal Sovereignty, it is +impossible to deny that a holy and high object possessed her from the +earliest to the latest of her life—that she lived for ideas greater +than self-aggrandisement or the saving of her soul, for the greatest, +perhaps, which her age presented to an earnest Catholic. + + [56] It is not impossible that the stigmata may have been naturally + produced in the person of S. Francis or S. Catherine. There are cases + on record in which grave nervous disturbances have resulted in such + modifications of the flesh as may have left the traces of wounds in + scars and blisters. + +The abuses to which the indulgence of temperaments like that of S. +Catherine must in many cases have given rise, are obvious. Hysterical +women and half-witted men, without possessing her abilities and +understanding her objects, beheld unmeaning visions, and dreamed +childish dreams. Others won the reputation of sanctity by obstinate +neglect of all the duties of life and of all the decencies of personal +cleanliness. Every little town in Italy could show its saints like the +Santa Fina of whom San Gemignano boasts—a girl who lay for seven years +on a back-board till her mortified flesh clung to the wood; or the San +Bartolo, who, for hideous leprosy, received 60 the title of the Job of +Tuscany. Children were encouraged in blasphemous pretensions to the +special power of Heaven, and the nerves of weak women were shaken by +revelations in which they only half believed. We have ample evidence to +prove how the trade of miracles is still carried on, and how in the +France of our days, when intellectual vigour has been separated from +old forms of faith, such vision-mongering undermines morality, +encourages ignorance, and saps the force of individuals. But S. +Catherine must not be confounded with those sickly shams and +make-believes. Her enthusiasms were real; they were proper to her age; +they inspired her with unrivalled self-devotion and unwearied energy; +they connected her with the political and social movements of her +country. + +Many of the supernatural events in S. Catherine's life were founded on +a too literal acceptation of biblical metaphors. The Canticles, +perhaps, inspired her with the belief in a mystical marriage. An +enigmatical sentence of S. Paul's suggested the stigmata. When the +saint bestowed her garment upon Christ in the form of a beggar and gave +Him the silver cross of her rosary, she was but realising His own +words: 'Inasmuch as ye shall do it unto the least of these little ones, +ye shall do it unto Me.' Charity, according to her conception, +consisted in giving to Christ. He had first taught this duty; He would +make it the test of all duty at the last day. Catherine was charitable +for the love of Christ. She thought less of the beggar than of her +Lord. How could she do otherwise than see the aureole about His +forehead, and hear the voice of Him who had declared, 'Behold, I am +with you, even to the end of the world.' Those were times of childlike +simplicity when the eye of love was still unclouded, when men could see +beyond the phantoms of this world, and stripping off the accidents of +matter, gaze upon the spiritual and eternal truths 61 that lie beneath. +Heaven lay around them in that infancy of faith; nor did they greatly +differ from the saints and founders of the Church—from Paul, who saw +the vision of the Lord, or Magdalen, who cried, 'He is risen!' An age +accustomed to veil thought in symbols, easily reversed the process and +discerned essential qualities beneath the common or indifferent objects +of the outer world. It was therefore Christ whom S. Christopher carried +in the shape of a child; Christ whom Fra Angelico's Dominicans received +in pilgrim's garb at their convent gate; Christ with whom, under a +leper's loathsome form, the flower of Spanish chivalry was said to have +shared his couch. + +In all her miracles it will be noticed that S. Catherine showed no +originality. Her namesake of Alexandria had already been proclaimed the +spouse of Christ. S. Francis had already received the stigmata; her +other visions were such as had been granted to all fervent mystics; +they were the growth of current religious ideas and unbounded faith. It +is not as an innovator in religious ecstasy, or as the creator of a new +kind of spiritual poetry, that we admire S. Catherine. Her inner life +was simply the foundation of her character, her visions were a source +of strength to her in times of trial, or the expression of a more than +usually exalted mood; but the means by which she moved the hearts of +men belonged to that which she possessed in common with all leaders of +mankind—enthusiasm, eloquence, the charm of a gracious nature, and the +will to do what she designed. She founded no religious order, like S. +Francis or S. Dominic, her predecessors, or Loyola, her successor. Her +work was a woman's work—to make peace, to succour the afflicted, to +strengthen the Church, to purify the hearts of those around her; not to +rule or organise. When she died she left behind her a memory of love +more than of power, the fragrance of an unselfish and 62 gentle life, +the echo of sweet and earnest words. Her place is in the heart of the +humble; children belong to her sisterhood, and the poor crowd her +shrine on festivals. + +Catherine died at Rome on the 29th of April 1380, in her thirty-third +year, surrounded by the most faithful of her friends and followers; but +it was not until 1461 that she received the last honour of canonisation +from the hands of Pius II., Æneas Sylvius, her countryman. Æeneas +Sylvius Piccolomini was perhaps the most remarkable man that Siena has +produced. Like S. Catherine, he was one of a large family; twenty of +his brothers and sisters perished in a plague. The licentiousness of +his early life, the astuteness of his intellect, and the worldliness of +his aims, contrast with the singularly disinterested character of the +saint on whom he conferred the highest honours of the Church. But he +accomplished by diplomacy and skill what Catherine had begun. If she +was instrumental in restoring the Popes to Rome, he ended the schism +which had clouded her last days. She had preached a crusade; he lived +to assemble the armies of Christendom against the Turks, and died at +Ancona, while it was still uncertain whether the authority and +enthusiasm of a pope could steady the wavering counsels and vacillating +wills of kings and princes. The middle ages were still vital in S. +Catherine; Pius II. belonged by taste and genius to the new period of +Renaissance. The hundreds of the poorer Sienese who kneel before S. +Catherine's shrine prove that her memory is still alive in the hearts +of her fellow-citizens; while the gorgeous library of the cathedral, +painted by the hand of Pinturicchio, the sumptuous palace and the +Loggia del Papa designed by Bernardo Rossellino and Antonio Federighi, +record the pride and splendour of the greatest of the Piccolomini. But +honourable as it was for Pius to fill so high a place in the annals of +his city; to have left it as a poor adventurer, to return to it first +as bishop, then 63 as pope: to have a chamber in its mother church +adorned with the pictured history of his achievements for a monument, +and a triumph of Renaissance architecture dedicated to his family, +_gentilibus suis_—yet we cannot but feel that the better part remains +with S. Catherine, whose prayer is still whispered by children on their +mother's knee, and whose relics are kissed daily by the simple and +devout. + +Some of the chief Italian painters have represented the incidents of S. +Catherine's life and of her mystical experience. All the pathos and +beauty which we admire in Sodoma's S. Sebastian at Florence, are +surpassed by his fresco of S. Catherine receiving the stigmata. This is +one of several subjects painted by him on the walls of her chapel in +San Domenico. The tender unction, the sweetness, the languor, and the +grace which he commanded with such admirable mastery, are all combined +in the figure of the saint falling exhausted into the arms of her +attendant nuns. Soft undulating lines rule the composition; yet dignity +of attitude and feature prevails over mere loveliness. Another of +Siena's greatest masters, Beccafumi, has treated the same subject with +less pictorial skill and dramatic effect, but with an earnestness and +simplicity that are very touching. Colourists always liked to introduce +the sweeping lines of her white robes into their compositions. Fra +Bartolommeo, who showed consummate art by tempering the masses of white +drapery with mellow tones of brown or amber, painted one splendid +picture of the marriage of S. Catherine, and another in which he +represents her prostrate in adoration before the mystery of the +Trinity. His gentle and devout soul sympathised with the spirit of the +saint. The fervour of her devotion belonged to him more truly than the +leonine power which he unsuccessfully attempted to express in his large +figure of S. Mark. Other artists have painted the two Catherines 64 +together—the princess of Alexandria, crowned and robed in purple, +bearing her palm of martyrdom, beside the nun of Siena, holding in her +hand the lantern with which she went about by night among the sick. +Ambrogio Borgognone makes them stand one on each side of Madonna's +throne, while the infant Christ upon her lap extends His hands to both, +in token of their marriage. + +The traditional type of countenance which may be traced in all these +pictures is not without a real foundation. Not only does there exist at +Siena, in the Church of San Domenico, a contemporary portrait of S. +Catherine, but her head also, which was embalmed immediately after +death, is still preserved. The skin of the face is fair and white, like +parchment, and the features have more the air of sleep than death. We +find in them the breadth and squareness of general outline, and the +long, even eyebrows which give peculiar calm to the expression of her +pictures. This relic is shown publicly once a year on the 6th of May. +That is the Festa of the saint, when a procession of priests and +acolytes, and pious people holding tapers, and little girls dressed out +in white, carry a splendid silver image of their patroness about the +city. Banners and crosses and censers go in front; then follows the +shrine beneath a canopy: roses and leaves of box are scattered on the +path. The whole Contrada d'Oca is decked out with such finery as the +people can muster: red cloths hung from the windows, branches and +garlands strewn about the doorsteps, with brackets for torches on the +walls, and altars erected in the middle of the street. Troops of +country-folk and townspeople and priests go in and out to visit the +cell of S. Catherine; the upper and the lower chapel, built upon its +site, and the hall of the _confraternità_ blaze with lighted tapers. +The faithful, full of wonder, kneel or stand about the 'santi luoghi,' +marvelling at the relics, and 65 repeating to one another the miracles +of the saint. The same bustle pervades the Church of San Domenico. +Masses are being said at one or other chapel all the morning, while +women in their flapping Tuscan hats crowd round the silver image of S. +Catherine, and say their prayers with a continual undercurrent of +responses to the nasal voice of priest or choir. Others gain entrance +to the chapel of the saint, and kneel before her altar. There, in the +blaze of sunlight and of tapers, far away behind the gloss and gilding +of a tawdry shrine, is seen the pale, white face which spoke and +suffered so much, years ago. The contrast of its rigid stillness and +half-concealed corruption with the noise and life and light outside is +very touching. Even so the remnant of a dead idea still stirs the souls +of thousands, and many ages may roll by before time and oblivion assert +their inevitable sway. + +66 + + + + +MONTE OLIVETO + + +I + +In former days the traveller had choice of two old hostelries in the +chief street of Siena. Here, if he was fortunate, he might secure a +prophet's chamber, with a view across tiled houseroofs to the distant +Tuscan champaign—glimpses of russet field and olive-garden framed by +jutting city walls, which in some measure compensated for much +discomfort. He now betakes himself to the more modern Albergo di Siena, +overlooking the public promenade La Lizza. Horse-chestnuts and acacias +make a pleasant foreground to a prospect of considerable extent. The +front of the house is turned toward Belcaro and the mountains between +Grosseto and Volterra. Sideways its windows command the brown bulk of +San Domenico, and the Duomo, set like a marble coronet upon the +forehead of the town. When we arrived there one October afternoon the +sun was setting amid flying clouds and watery yellow spaces of pure +sky, with a wind blowing soft and humid from the sea. Long after he had +sunk below the hills, a fading chord of golden and rose-coloured tints +burned on the city. The cathedral bell tower was glistening with recent +rain, and we could see right through its lancet windows to the clear +blue heavens beyond. Then, as the day descended into evening, the +autumn trees assumed that wonderful effect of luminousness +self-evolved, 67 and the red brick walls that crimson afterglow, which +Tuscan twilight takes from singular transparency of atmosphere. + +It is hardly possible to define the specific character of each Italian +city, assigning its proper share to natural circumstances, to the +temper of the population, and to the monuments of art in which these +elements of nature and of human qualities are blended. The fusion is +too delicate and subtle for complete analysis; and the total effect in +each particular case may best be compared to that impressed on us by a +strong personality, making itself felt in the minutest details. +Climate, situation, ethnological conditions, the political vicissitudes +of past ages, the bias of the people to certain industries and +occupations, the emergence of distinguished men at critical epochs, +have all contributed their quota to the composition of an individuality +which abides long after the locality has lost its ancient vigour. + +Since the year 1557, when Gian Giacomo de' Medici laid the country of +Siena waste, levelled her luxurious suburbs, and delivered her +famine-stricken citizens to the tyranny of the Grand Duke Cosimo, this +town has gone on dreaming in suspended decadence. Yet the epithet which +was given to her in her days of glory, the title of 'Fair Soft Siena,' +still describes the city. She claims it by right of the gentle manners, +joyous but sedate, of her inhabitants, by the grace of their pure +Tuscan speech, and by the unique delicacy of her architecture. Those +palaces of brick, with finely moulded lancet windows, and the lovely +use of sculptured marbles in pilastered colonnades, are fit abodes for +the nobles who reared them five centuries ago, of whose refined and +costly living we read in the pages of Dante or of Folgore da San +Gemignano. And though the necessities of modern life, the decay of +wealth, the dwindling of old aristocracy, and the absorption of what +was once an independent state in the Italian nation, 68 have +obliterated that large signorial splendour of the Middle Ages, we feel +that the modern Sienese are not unworthy of their courteous ancestry. + +Superficially, much of the present charm of Siena consists in the soft +opening valleys, the glimpses of long blue hills and fertile +country-side, framed by irregular brown houses stretching along the +slopes on which the town is built, and losing themselves abruptly in +olive fields and orchards. This element of beauty, which brings the +city into immediate relation with the country, is indeed not peculiar +to Siena. We find it in Perugia, in Assisi, in Montepulciano, in nearly +all the hill towns of Umbria and Tuscany. But their landscape is often +tragic and austere, while this is always suave. City and country blend +here in delightful amity. Neither yields that sense of aloofness which +stirs melancholy. + +The most charming district in the immediate neighbourhood of Siena lies +westward, near Belcaro, a villa high up on a hill. It is a region of +deep lanes and golden-green oak-woods, with cypresses and stone-pines, +and little streams in all directions flowing over the brown sandstone. +The country is like some parts of rural England—Devonshire or Sussex. +Not only is the sandstone here, as there, broken into deep gullies; but +the vegetation is much the same. Tufted spleenwort, primroses, and +broom tangle the hedges under boughs of hornbeam and sweet-chestnut. +This is the landscape which the two sixteenth-century novelists of +Siena, Fortini and Sermini, so lovingly depicted in their tales. Of +literature absorbing in itself the specific character of a country, and +conveying it to the reader less by description than by sustained +quality of style, I know none to surpass Fortini's sketches. The +prospect from Belcaro is one of the finest to be seen in Tuscany. The +villa stands at a considerable elevation, and commands an immense +extent of hill and dale. 69 Nowhere, except Maremma-wards, a level +plain. The Tuscan mountains, from Monte Amiata westward to Volterra, +round Valdelsa, down to Montepulciano and Radicofani, with their +innumerable windings and intricacies of descending valleys, are dappled +with light and shade from flying storm-clouds, sunshine here, and there +cloud-shadows. Girdling the villa stands a grove of ilex-trees, cut so +as to embrace its high-built walls with dark continuous green. In the +courtyard are lemon-trees and pomegranates laden with fruit. From a +terrace on the roof the whole wide view is seen; and here upon a +parapet, from which we leaned one autumn afternoon, my friend +discovered this _graffito_: '_E vidi e piansi il fato amaro!_'—'I +gazed, and gazing, wept the bitterness of fate.' + +II + +The prevailing note of Siena and the Sienese seems, as I have said, to +be a soft and tranquil grace; yet this people had one of the stormiest +and maddest of Italian histories. They were passionate in love and +hate, vehement in their popular amusements, almost frantic in their +political conduct of affairs. The luxury, for which Dante blamed them, +the levity De Comines noticed in their government, found counter-poise +in more than usual piety and fervour. S. Bernardino, the great preacher +and peacemaker of the Middle Ages; S. Catherine, the worthiest of all +women to be canonised; the blessed Colombini, who founded the Order of +the Gesuati or Brothers of the Poor in Christ; the blessed Bernardo, +who founded that of Monte Oliveto; were all Sienese. Few cities have +given four such saints to modern Christendom. The biography of one of +these may serve as prelude to an account of the Sienese monastery of +Oliveto Maggiore. + +The family of Tolomei was among the noblest of the 70 Sienese +aristocracy. On May 10, 1272, Mino Tolomei and his wife Fulvia, of the +Tancredi, had a son whom they christened Giovanni, but who, when he +entered the religious life, assumed the name of Bernard, in memory of +the great Abbot of Clairvaux. Of this child, Fulvia is said to have +dreamed, long before his birth, that he assumed the form of a white +swan, and sang melodiously, and settled in the boughs of an olive-tree, +whence afterwards he winged his way to heaven amid a flock of swans as +dazzling white as he. The boy was educated in the Dominican Cloister at +Siena, under the care of his uncle Cristoforo Tolomei. There, and +afterwards in the fraternity of S. Ansano, he felt that impulse towards +a life of piety, which after a short but brilliant episode of secular +ambition, was destined to return with overwhelming force upon his +nature. He was a youth of promise, and at the age of sixteen he +obtained the doctorate in philosophy and both laws, civil and +canonical. The Tolomei upon this occasion adorned their palaces and +threw them open to the people of Siena. The Republic hailed with +acclamation the early honours of a noble, born to be one of their chief +leaders. Soon after this event Mino obtained for his son from the +Emperor the title of Cæsarian Knight; and when the diploma arrived, new +festivities proclaimed the fortunate youth to his fellow-citizens. +Bernardo cased his limbs in steel, and rode in procession with ladies +and young nobles through the streets. The ceremonies of a knight's +reception in Siena at that period were magnificent. From contemporary +chronicles and from the sonnets written by Folgore da San Gemignano for +a similar occasion, we gather that the whole resources of a wealthy +family and all their friends were strained to the utmost to do honour +to the order of chivalry. Open house was held for several days. Rich +presents of jewels, armour, dresses, chargers were freely 71 +distributed. Tournaments alternated with dances. But the climax of the +pageant was the novice's investiture with sword and spurs and belt in +the cathedral. This, as it appears from a record of the year 1326, +actually took place in the great marble pulpit carved by the Pisani; +and the most illustrious knights of his acquaintance were summoned by +the squire to act as sponsors for his fealty. + +It is said that young Bernardo Tolomei's head was turned to vanity by +these honours showered upon him in his earliest manhood. Yet, after a +short period of aberration, he rejoined his confraternity and mortified +his flesh by discipline and strict attendance on the poor. The time had +come, however, when he should choose a career suitable to his high +rank. He devoted himself to jurisprudence, and began to lecture +publicly on law. Already at the age of twenty-five his fellow-citizens +admitted him to the highest political offices, and in the legend of his +life it is written, not without exaggeration doubtless, that he ruled +the State. There is, however, no reason to suppose that he did not play +an important part in its government. Though a just and virtuous +statesman, Bernardo now forgot the special service of God, and gave +himself with heart and soul to mundane interests. At the age of forty, +supported by the wealth, alliances, and reputation of his semi-princely +house, he had become one of the most considerable party-leaders in that +age of faction. If we may trust his monastic biographer, he was aiming +at nothing less than the tyranny of Siena. But in that year, when he +was forty, a change, which can only be described as conversion, came +over him. He had advertised a public disputation, in which he proposed +before all comers to solve the most arduous problems of scholastic +science. The concourse was great, the assembly brilliant; but the hero +of the day, who had designed it for his glory, was stricken with sudden +blindness. In one 72 moment he comprehended the internal void he had +created for his soul, and the blindness of the body was illumination to +the spirit. The pride, power, and splendour of this world seemed to him +a smoke that passes. God, penitence, eternity appeared in all the awful +clarity of an authentic vision. He fell upon his knees and prayed to +Mary that he might receive his sight again. This boon was granted; but +the revelation which had come to him in blindness was not withdrawn. +Meanwhile the hall of disputation was crowded with an expectant +audience. Bernardo rose from his knees, made his entry, and ascended +the chair; but instead of the scholastic subtleties he had designed to +treat, he pronounced the old text, 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' + +Afterwards, attended by two noble comrades, Patrizio Patrizzi and +Ambrogio Piccolomini, he went forth into the wilderness. For the human +soul, at strife with strange experience, betakes itself instinctively +to solitude. Not only prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaïd, and +founders of religions in the mystic East have done so; even the Greek +Menander recognised, although he sneered at, the phenomenon. 'The +desert, they say, is the place for discoveries.' For the mediæval mind +it had peculiar attractions. The wilderness these comrades chose was +Accona, a doleful place, hemmed in with earthen precipices, some +fifteen miles to the south of Siena. Of his vast possessions Bernardo +retained but this— + +The lonesome lodge, + That stood so low in a lonely glen. + +The rest of his substance he abandoned to the poor. This was in 1313, +the very year of the Emperor Henry VII.'s death at Buonconvento, which +is a little walled town between Siena and the desert of Accona. Whether +Bernardo's retirement was in any way due to the extinction of immediate +hope 73 for the Ghibelline party by this event, we do not gather from +his legend. That, as is natural, refers his action wholly to the +operation of divine grace. Yet we may remember how a more illustrious +refugee, the singer of the 'Divine Comedy,' betook himself upon the +same occasion to the lonely convent of Fonte Avellana on the Alps of +Catria, and meditated there the cantos of his Purgatory. While Bernardo +Tolomei was founding the Order of Monte Oliveto, Dante penned his +letter to the cardinals of Italy: _Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena +populo: facta est quasi vidua domina gentium_. + +Bernardo and his friends hollowed with their own hands grottos in the +rock, and strewed their stone beds with withered chestnut-leaves. For +S. Scolastica, the sister of S. Benedict, they built a little chapel. +Their food was wild fruit, and their drink the water of the brook. +Through the day they delved, for it was in their mind to turn the +wilderness into a land of plenty. By night they meditated on eternal +truth. The contrast between their rude life and the delicate nurture of +Sienese nobles, in an age when Siena had become a by-word for luxury, +must have been cruel. But it fascinated the mediæval imagination, and +the three anchorites were speedily joined by recruits of a like temper. +As yet the new-born order had no rules; for Bernardo, when he renounced +the world, embraced humility. The brethren were bound together only by +the ties of charity. They lived in common; and under their sustained +efforts Accona soon became a garden. + +The society could not, however, hold together without further +organisation. It began to be ill spoken of, inasmuch as vulgar minds +can recognise no good except in what is formed upon a pattern they are +familiar with. Then Bernardo had a vision. In his sleep he saw a ladder +of light ascending to the heavens. Above sat Jesus with Our Lady in +white 74 raiment, and the celestial hierarchies around them were +attired in white. Up the ladder, led by angels, climbed men in vesture +of dazzling white; and among these Bernardo recognised his own +companions. Soon after this dream, he called Ambrogio Piccolomini, and +bade him get ready for a journey to the Pope at Avignon. + +John XXII. received the pilgrims graciously, and gave them letters to +the Bishop of Arezzo, commanding him to furnish the new brotherhood +with one of the rules authorised by Holy Church for governance of a +monastic order. Guido Tarlati, of the great Pietra-mala house, was +Bishop and despot of Arezzo at this epoch. A man less in harmony with +coenobitical enthusiasm than this warrior prelate, could scarcely have +been found. Yet attendance to such matters formed part of his business, +and the legend even credits him with an inspired dream; for Our Lady +appeared to him, and said: 'I love the valley of Accona and its pious +solitaries. Give them the rule of Benedict. But thou shalt strip them +of their mourning weeds, and clothe them in white raiment, the symbol +of my virgin purity. Their hermitage shall change its name, and +henceforth shall be called Mount Olivet, in memory of the ascension of +my divine Son, the which took place upon the Mount of Olives. I take +this family beneath my own protection; and therefore it is my will it +should be called henceforth the congregation of S. Mary of Mount +Olivet.' After this, the Blessed Virgin took forethought for the +heraldic designs of her monks, dictating to Guido Tarlati the blazon +they still bear; it is of three hills or, whereof the third and highest +is surmounted with a cross gules, and from the meeting-point of the +three hillocks upon either hand a branch of olive vert. This was in +1319. In 1324 John XXII. confirmed the order, and in 1344 it was +further approved by Clement VI. Affiliated societies sprang 75 up in +several Tuscan cities; and in 1347, Bernardo Tolomei, at that time +General of the Order, held a chapter of its several houses. The next +year was the year of the great plague or Black Death. Bernardo bade his +brethren leave their seclusion, and go forth on works of mercy among +the sick. Some went to Florence, some to Siena, others to the smaller +hill-set towns of Tuscany. All were bidden to assemble on the Feast of +the Assumption at Siena. Here the founder addressed his spiritual +children for the last time. Soon afterwards he died himself, at the age +of seventy-seven, and the place of his grave is not known. He was +beatified by the Church for his great virtues. + +III + +At noon we started, four of us, in an open waggonette with a pair of +horses, for Monte Oliveto, the luggage heaped mountain-high and tied in +a top-heavy mass above us. After leaving the gateway, with its massive +fortifications and frescoed arches, the road passes into a dull earthy +country, very much like some parts—and not the best parts—of England. +The beauty of the Sienese contado is clearly on the sandstone, not upon +the clay. Hedges, haystacks, isolated farms—all were English in their +details. Only the vines, and mulberries, and wattled waggons drawn by +oxen, most Roman in aspect, reminded us we were in Tuscany. In such +_carpenta_ may the vestal virgins have ascended the Capitol. It is the +primitive war-chariot also, capable of holding four with ease; and +Romulus may have mounted with the images of Roman gods in even such a +vehicle to Latiarian Jove upon the Alban hill. Nothing changes in +Italy. The wooden ploughs are those which Virgil knew. The sight of one +of them would 76 save an intelligent lad much trouble in mastering a +certain passage of the Georgics. + +Siena is visible behind us nearly the whole way to Buonconvento, a +little town where the Emperor Henry VII. died, as it was supposed, of +poison, in 1313. It is still circled with the wall and gates built by +the Sienese in 1366, and is a fair specimen of an intact mediæval +stronghold. Here we leave the main road, and break into a country-track +across a bed of sandstone, with the delicate volcanic lines of Monte +Amiata in front, and the aë;rial pile of Montalcino to our right. The +pyracanthus bushes in the hedge yield their clusters of bright yellow +berries, mingled with more glowing hues of red from haws and glossy +hips. On the pale grey earthen slopes men and women are plying the long +Sabellian hoes of their forefathers, and ploughmen are driving furrows +down steep hills. The labour of the husbandmen in Tuscany is very +graceful, partly, I think, because it is so primitive, but also because +the people have an eminently noble carriage, and are fashioned on the +lines of antique statues. I noticed two young contadini in one field, +whom Frederick Walker might have painted with the dignity of Pheidian +form. They were guiding their ploughs along a hedge of olive-trees, +slanting upwards, the white-horned oxen moving slowly through the marl, +and the lads bending to press the plough-shares home. It was a delicate +piece of colour—the grey mist of olive branches, the warm smoking +earth, the creamy flanks of the oxen, the brown limbs and dark eyes of +the men, who paused awhile to gaze at us, with shadows cast upon the +furrows from their tall straight figures. Then they turned to their +work again, and rhythmic movement was added to the picture. I wonder +when an Italian artist will condescend to pluck these flowers of +beauty, so abundantly offered by the simplest things in his own native +land. Each city has 77 an Accademia delle Belle Arti, and there is no +lack of students. But the painters, having learned their trade, make +copies ten times distant from the truth of famous masterpieces for the +American market. Few seem to look beyond their picture galleries. Thus +the democratic art, the art of Millet, the art of life and nature and +the people, waits. + +As we mount, the soil grows of a richer brown; and there are woods of +oak where herds of swine are feeding on the acorns. Monte Oliveto comes +in sight—a mass of red brick, backed up with cypresses, among +dishevelled earthy precipices, _balze_ as they are called—upon the hill +below the village of Chiusure. This Chiusure was once a promising town; +but the life was crushed out of it in the throes of mediæval civil +wars, and since the thirteenth century it has been dwindling to a +hamlet. The struggle for existence, from which the larger communes of +this district, Siena and Montepulciano, emerged at the expense of their +neighbours, must have been tragical. The _balze_ now grow sterner, +drier, more dreadful. We see how deluges outpoured from thunder-storms +bring down their viscous streams of loam, destroying in an hour the +terraces it took a year to build, and spreading wasteful mud upon the +scanty cornfields. The people call this soil _creta_; but it seems to +be less like a chalk than a marl, or _marna_. It is always washing away +into ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering +the tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any +vegetation has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have +the patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still +beginning, never ending, which reclaims such wildernesses. Comparing +Monte Oliveto with similar districts of cretaceous soil—with the +country, for example, between Pienza and San Quirico—we perceive how +much is owed to the perseverance of the monks whom Bernard 78 Tolomei +planted here. So far as it is clothed at all with crop and wood, this +is their service. + +At last we climb the crowning hill, emerge from a copse of oak, glide +along a terraced pathway through the broom, and find ourselves in front +of the convent gateway. A substantial tower of red brick, machicolated +at the top and pierced with small square windows, guards this portal, +reminding us that at some time or other the monks found it needful to +arm their solitude against a force descending from Chiusure. There is +an avenue of slender cypresses; and over the gate, protected by a +jutting roof, shines a fresco of Madonna and Child. Passing rapidly +downwards, we are in the courtyard of the monastery, among its stables, +barns, and out-houses, with the forlorn bulk of the huge red building, +spreading wide, and towering up above us. As good luck ruled our +arrival, we came face to face with the Abbate de Negro, who administers +the domain of Monte Oliveto for the Government of Italy, and exercises +a kindly hospitality to chance-comers. He was standing near the church, +which, with its tall square campanile, breaks the long stern outline of +the convent. The whole edifice, it may be said, is composed of a +red-brick inclining to purple in tone, which contrasts not unpleasantly +with the lustrous green of the cypresses, and the glaucous sheen of +olives. Advantage has been taken of a steep crest; and the monastery, +enlarged from time to time through the last five centuries, has here +and there been reared upon gigantic buttresses, which jut upon the +_balze_ at a sometimes giddy height. + +The Abbate received us with true courtesy, and gave us spacious rooms, +three cells apiece, facing Siena and the western mountains. There is +accommodation, he told us, for three hundred monks; but only three are +left in it. As this order was confined to members of the nobility, each +of 79 the religious had his own apartment—not a cubicle such as the +uninstructed dream of when they read of monks, but separate chambers +for sleep and study and recreation. + +In the middle of the vast sad landscape, the place is still, with a +silence that can be almost heard. The deserted state of those +innumerable cells, those echoing corridors and shadowy cloisters, +exercises overpowering tyranny over the imagination. Siena is so far +away, and Montalcino is so faintly outlined on its airy parapet, that +these cities only deepen our sense of desolation. It is a relief to +mark at no great distance on the hillside a contadino guiding his oxen, +and from a lonely farm yon column of ascending smoke. At least the +world goes on, and life is somewhere resonant with song. But here there +rests a pall of silence among the oak-groves and the cypresses and +_balze_. As I leaned and mused, while Christian (my good friend and +fellow-traveller from the Grisons) made our beds, a melancholy sunset +flamed up from a rampart of cloud, built like a city of the air above +the mountains of Volterra—fire issuing from its battlements, and +smiting the fretted roof of heaven above. It was a conflagration of +celestial rose upon the saddest purples and cavernous recesses of +intensest azure. + +We had an excellent supper in the visitors' refectory—soup, good bread +and country wine, ham, a roast chicken with potatoes, a nice white +cheese made of sheep's milk, and grapes for dessert. The kind Abbate +sat by, and watched his four guests eat, tapping his tortoiseshell +snuff-box, and telling us many interesting things about the past and +present state of the convent. Our company was completed with Lupo, the +pet cat, and Pirro, a woolly Corsican dog, very good friends, and both +enormously voracious. Lupo in particular engraved himself upon the +memory of Christian, into whose large legs he thrust his claws, when +the cheese-parings and 80 scraps were not supplied him with sufficient +promptitude. I never saw a hungrier and bolder cat. It made one fancy +that even the mice had been exiled from this solitude. And truly the +rule of the monastic order, no less than the habit of Italian +gentlemen, is frugal in the matter of the table, beyond the conception +of northern folk. + +Monte Oliveto, the Superior told us, owned thirty-two _poderi_, or +large farms, of which five have recently been sold. They are worked on +the _mezzeria_ system; whereby peasants and proprietors divide the +produce of the soil; and which he thinks inferior for developing its +resources to that of _affitto_, or leaseholding. + +The contadini live in scattered houses; and he says the estate would be +greatly improved by doubling the number of these dwellings, and letting +the subdivided farms to more energetic people. The village of Chiusure +is inhabited by labourers. The contadini are poor: a dower, for +instance, of fifty _lire_ is thought something: whereas near Genoa, +upon the leasehold system, a farmer may sometimes provide a dower of +twenty thousand _lire_. The country produces grain of different sorts, +excellent oil, and timber. It also yields a tolerable red wine. The +Government makes from eight to nine per cent. upon the value of the +land, employing him and his two religious brethren as agents. + +In such conversation the evening passed. We rested well in large hard +beds with dry rough sheets. But there was a fretful wind abroad, which +went wailing round the convent walls and rattling the doors in its +deserted corridors. One of our party had been placed by himself at the +end of a long suite of apartments, with balconies commanding the wide +sweep of hills that Monte Amiata crowns. He confessed in the morning to +having passed a restless night, tormented by the ghostly noises of the +wind, a wanderer, 'like the 81 world's rejected guest,' through those +untenanted chambers. The olives tossed their filmy boughs in twilight +underneath his windows, sighing and shuddering, with a sheen in them as +eerie as that of willows by some haunted mere. + +IV + +The great attraction to students of Italian art in the convent of Monte +Oliveto is a large square cloister, covered with wall-paintings by Luca +Signorelli and Giovannantonio Bazzi, surnamed Il Sodoma. These +represent various episodes in the life of S. Benedict; while one +picture, in some respects the best of the whole series, is devoted to +the founder of the Olivetan Order, Bernardo Tolomei, dispensing the +rule of his institution to a consistory of white-robed monks. +Signorelli, that great master of Cortona, may be studied to better +advantage elsewhere, especially at Orvieto and in his native city. His +work in this cloister, consisting of eight frescoes, has been much +spoiled by time and restoration. Yet it can be referred to a good +period of his artistic activity (the year 1497) and displays much which +is specially characteristic of his manner. In Totila's barbaric train, +he painted a crowd of fierce emphatic figures, combining all ages and +the most varied attitudes, and reproducing with singular vividness the +Italian soldiers of adventure of his day. We see before us the +long-haired followers of Braccio and the Baglioni; their handsome +savage faces; their brawny limbs clad in the particoloured hose and +jackets of that period; feathered caps stuck sideways on their heads; a +splendid swagger in their straddling legs. Female beauty lay outside +the sphere of Signorelli's sympathy; and in the Monte Oliveto cloister +he was not called upon to paint it. But none of the Italian masters +felt more keenly, or more powerfully 82 represented in their work, the +muscular vigour of young manhood. Two of the remaining frescoes, +different from these in motive, might be selected as no less +characteristic of Signorelli's manner. One represents three sturdy +monks, clad in brown, working with all their strength to stir a +boulder, which has been bewitched, and needs a miracle to move it from +its place. The square and powerfully outlined drawing of these figures +is beyond all praise for its effect of massive solidity. The other +shows us the interior of a fifteenth-century tavern, where two monks +are regaling themselves upon the sly. A country girl, with shapely arms +and shoulders, her upper skirts tucked round the ample waist to which +broad sweeping lines of back and breasts descend, is serving wine. The +exuberance of animal life, the freedom of attitude expressed in this, +the mainly interesting figure of the composition, show that Signorelli +might have been a great master of realistic painting. Nor are the +accessories less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy +leaving the room by a flight of steps which leads to the house door, +and the table at which the truant monks are seated, complete a picture +of homely Italian life. It may still be matched out of many an inn in +this hill district. + +Called to graver work at Orvieto, where he painted his gigantic series +of frescoes illustrating the coming of Anti-christ, the Destruction of +the World, the Resurrection, the Last Judgment, and the final state of +souls in Paradise and Hell, Signorelli left his work at Monte Oliveto +unaccomplished. Seven years later it was taken up by a painter of very +different genius. Sodoma was a native of Vercelli, and had received his +first training in the Lombard schools, which owed so much to Lionardo +da Vinci's influence. He was about thirty years of age when chance +brought him to Siena. Here he made acquaintance with Pandolfo Petrucci, +who had 83 recently established himself in a species of tyranny over +the Republic. The work he did for this patron and other nobles of +Siena, brought him into notice. Vasari observes that his hot Lombard +colouring, a something florid and attractive in his style, which +contrasted with the severity of the Tuscan school, rendered him no less +agreeable as an artist than his free manners made him acceptable as a +house-friend. Fra Domenico da Leccio, also a Lombard, was at that time +General of the monks of Monte Oliveto. On a visit to this compatriot in +1505, Sodoma received a commission to complete the cloister; and during +the next two years he worked there, producing in all twenty-five +frescoes. For his pains he seemed to have received but little +pay—Vasari says, only the expenses of some colour-grinders who assisted +him; but from the books of the convent it appears that 241 ducats, or +something over 60_l._ of our money, were disbursed to him. + +Sodoma was so singular a fellow, even in that age of piquant +personalities, that it may be worth while to translate a fragment of +Vasari's gossip about him. We must, however, bear in mind that, for +some unknown reason, the Aretine historian bore a rancorous grudge +against this Lombard whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did +all he could by writing to depreciate. 'He was fond,' says Vasari, 'of +keeping in his house all sorts of strange animals: badgers, squirrels, +monkeys, cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba +ponies, jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, and other creatures of this +kind, as many as he could lay his hands on. Over and above these +beasts, he had a raven, which had learned so well from him to talk, +that it could imitate its master's voice, especially in answering the +door when some one knocked, and this it did so cleverly that people +took it for Giovannantonio himself, as all the folk of Siena know quite +well. In like manner, his other pets were 84 so much at home with him +that they never left his house, but played the strangest tricks and +maddest pranks imaginable, so that his house was like nothing more than +a Noah's Ark.' He was a bold rider, it seems; for with one of his +racers, ridden by himself, he bore away the prize in that wild +horse-race they run upon the Piazza at Siena. For the rest, 'he attired +himself in pompous clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed +with gold lace, gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a +like description, fit for buffoons and mountebanks.' In one of the +frescoes of Monte Oliveto, Sodoma painted his own portrait, with some +of his curious pets around him. He there appears as a young man with +large and decidedly handsome features, a great shock of dark curled +hair escaping from a yellow cap, and flowing down over a rich mantle +which drapes his shoulders. If we may trust Vasari, he showed his +curious humours freely to the monks. 'Nobody could describe the +amusement he furnished to those good fathers, who christened him +Mattaccio (the big madman), or the insane tricks he played there.' + +In spite of Vasari's malevolence, the portrait he has given us of Bazzi +has so far nothing unpleasant about it. The man seems to have been a +madcap artist, combining with his love for his profession a taste for +fine clothes, and what was then perhaps rarer in people of his sort, a +great partiality for living creatures of all kinds. The darker shades +of Vasari's picture have been purposely omitted from these pages. We +only know for certain, about Bazzi's private life, that he was married +in 1510 to a certain Beatrice, who bore him two children, and who was +still living with him in 1541. The further suggestion that he painted +at Monte Oliveto subjects unworthy of a religious house, is wholly +disproved by the frescoes which still exist in a state of very +tolerable preservation. They represent various episodes in the legend +of S. 85 Benedict; all marked by that spirit of simple, almost childish +piety which is a special characteristic of Italian religious history. +The series forms, in fact, a painted _novella_ of monastic life; its +petty jealousies, its petty trials, its tribulations and temptations, +and its indescribably petty miracles. Bazzi was well fitted for the +execution of this task. He had a swift and facile brush, considerable +versatility in the treatment of monotonous subjects, and a +never-failing sense of humour. His white-cowled monks, some of them +with the rosy freshness of boys, some with the handsome brown faces of +middle life, others astute and crafty, others again wrinkled with old +age, have clearly been copied from real models. He puts them into +action without the slightest effort, and surrounds them with +landscapes, architecture, and furniture, appropriate to each successive +situation. The whole is done with so much grace, such simplicity of +composition, and transparency of style, corresponding to the _naïf_ and +superficial legend, that we feel a perfect harmony between the artist's +mind and the motives he was made to handle. In this respect Bazzi's +portion of the legend of S. Benedict is more successful than +Signorelli's. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the conditions of his +task confined him to uncomplicated groupings, and a scale of colour in +which white predominates. For Bazzi, as is shown by subsequent work in +the Farnesina Villa at Rome, and in the church of S. Domenico at Siena, +was no master of composition; and the tone, even of his masterpieces, +inclines to heat. Unlike Signorelli, Bazzi felt a deep artistic +sympathy with female beauty; and the most attractive fresco in the +whole series is that in which the evil monk Florentius brings a bevy of +fair damsels to the convent. There is one group, in particular, of six +women, so delicately varied in carriage of the head and suggested +movement of the body, as to be comparable only to a strain of concerted +86 music. This is perhaps the painter's masterpiece in the rendering of +pure beauty, if we except his S. Sebastian of the Uffizzi. + +We tire of studying pictures, hardly less than of reading about them! I +was glad enough, after three hours spent among the frescoes of this +cloister, to wander forth into the copses which surround the convent. +Sunlight was streaming treacherously from flying clouds; and though it +was high noon, the oak-leaves were still a-tremble with dew. Pink +cyclamens and yellow amaryllis starred the moist brown earth; and under +the cypress-trees, where alleys had been cut in former time for pious +feet, the short firm turf was soft and mossy. Before bidding the +hospitable Padre farewell, and starting in our waggonette for Asciano, +it was pleasant to meditate awhile in these green solitudes. +Generations of white-stoled monks who had sat or knelt upon the now +deserted terraces, or had slowly paced the winding paths to Calvaries +aloft and points of vantage high above the wood, rose up before me. My +mind, still full of Bazzi's frescoes, peopled the wilderness with grave +monastic forms, and gracious, young-eyed faces of boyish novices. + +87 + + + + +MONTEPULCIANO + + +I + +For the sake of intending travellers to this, the lordliest of Tuscan +hill-towns, it will be well to state at once and without circumlocution +what does not appear upon the time-tables of the line from Empoli to +Rome. Montepulciano has a station; but this railway station is at the +distance of at least an hour and a half's drive from the mountain upon +which the city stands. + +The lumbering train which brought us one October evening from Asciano +crawled into this station after dark, at the very moment when a storm, +which had been gathering from the south-west, burst in deluges of rain +and lightning. There was, however, a covered carriage going to the +town. Into this we packed ourselves, together with a polite Italian +gentleman who, in answer to our questions, consulted his watch, and +smilingly replied that a little half-hour would bring us easily to +Montepulciano. He was a native of the place. He knew perfectly well +that he would be shut up with us in that carriage for two mortal hours +of darkness and downpour. And yet, such is the irresistible impulse in +Italians to say something immediately agreeable, he fed us with false +hopes and had no fear of consequences. What did it matter to him if we +were pulling out our watches and chattering in well-contented undertone +about _vino nobile_, _biftek_, and possibly a _polio arrosto_, or a +dish of _tord_? At 88 the end of the half-hour, as he was well aware, +self-congratulations and visions of a hearty supper would turn to +discontented wailings, and the querulous complaining of defrauded +appetites. But the end of half an hour was still half an hour off; and +we meanwhile were comfortable. + +The night was pitchy dark, and blazing flashes of lightning showed a +white ascending road at intervals. Rain rushed in torrents, splashing +against the carriage wheels, which moved uneasily, as though they could +but scarcely stem the river that swept down upon them. Far away above +us to the left, was one light on a hill, which never seemed to get any +nearer. We could see nothing but a chasm of blackness below us on one +side, edged with ghostly olive-trees, and a high bank on the other. +Sometimes a star swam out of the drifting clouds; but then the rain +hissed down again, and the flashes came in floods of livid light, +illuminating the eternal olives and the cypresses which looked like +huge black spectres. It seemed almost impossible for the horses to keep +their feet, as the mountain road grew ever steeper and the torrent +swelled around them. Still they struggled on. The promised half-hour +had been doubled, trebled, quadrupled, when at last we saw the great +brown sombre walls of a city tower above us. Then we entered one of +those narrow lofty Tuscan gates, and rolled upon the pavement of a +street. + +The inn at Montepulciano is called Marzocco, after the Florentine lion +which stands upon its column in a little square before the house. The +people there are hospitable, and more than once on subsequent occasions +have they extended to us kindly welcome. But on this, our first +appearance, they had scanty room at their disposal. Seeing us arrive so +late, and march into their dining-room, laden with sealskins, +waterproofs, and ulsters, one of the party 89 hugging a complete +Euripides in Didot's huge edition, they were confounded. At last they +conducted the whole company of four into a narrow back bedroom, where +they pointed to one fair-sized and one very little bed. This was the +only room at liberty, they said; and could we not arrange to sleep +here? _S' accomodi, Signore! S' accomodi, Signora!_ These encouraging +words, uttered in various tones of cheerful and insinuating politeness +to each member of the party in succession, failed to make us comprehend +how a gentleman and his wife, with a lean but rather lengthy English +friend, and a bulky native of the Grisons, could 'accommodate +themselves' collectively and undividedly with what was barely +sufficient for their just moiety, however much it might afford a +night's rest to their worse half. Christian was sent out into the storm +to look for supplementary rooms in Montepulciano, which he failed to +get. Meanwhile we ordered supper, and had the satisfaction of seeing +set upon the board a huge red flask of _vino nobile_. In copious +draughts of this the King of Tuscan wines, we drowned our cares; and +when the cloth was drawn, our friend and Christian passed their night +upon the supper table. The good folk of the inn had recovered from +their surprise, and from the inner recesses of their house had brought +forth mattresses and blankets. So the better and larger half of the +company enjoyed sound sleep. + +It rained itself out at night, and the morning was clear, with the +transparent atmosphere of storm-clouds hurrying in broken squadrons +from the bad sea quarter. Yet this is just the weather in which Tuscan +landscape looks its loveliest. Those immense expanses of grey +undulating uplands need the luminousness of watery sunshine, the colour +added by cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to +rob them of a certain awful grimness. The main street of Montepulciano +goes straight uphill for a considerable distance 90 between brown +palaces; then mounts by a staircase-zigzag under huge impending masses +of masonry; until it ends in a piazza. On the ascent, at intervals, the +eye is fascinated by prospects to the north and east over Val di +Chiana, Cortona, Thrasymene, Chiusi; to south and west over Monte +Cetona, Radicofani, Monte Amiata, the Val d' Ombrone, and the Sienese +Contado. Grey walls overgrown with ivy, arcades of time-toned brick, +and the forbidding bulk of houses hewn from solid travertine, frame +these glimpses of aë;rial space. The piazza is the top of all things. +Here are the Duomo; the Palazzo del Comune, closely resembling that of +Florence, with the Marzocco on its front; the fountain, between two +quaintly sculptured columns; and the vast palace Del Monte, of heavy +Renaissance architecture, said to be the work of Antonio di San Gallo. + +We climbed the tower of the Palazzo del Comune, and stood at the +altitude of 2000 feet above the sea. The view is finer in its kind than +I have elsewhere seen, even in Tuscany, that land of panoramic +prospects over memorable tracts of world-historic country. Such +landscape cannot be described in words. But the worst is that, even +while we gaze, we know that nothing but the faintest memory of our +enjoyment will be carried home with us. The atmospheric conditions were +perfect that morning. The sun was still young; the sky sparkled after +the night's thunderstorm; the whole immensity of earth around lay +lucid, smiling, newly washed in baths of moisture. Masses of +storm-cloud kept rolling from the west, where we seemed to feel the sea +behind those intervening hills. But they did not form in heavy blocks +or hang upon the mountain summits. They hurried and dispersed and +changed and flung their shadows on the world below. + +91 + +II + +The charm of this view is composed of so many different elements, so +subtly blent, appealing to so many separate sensibilities; the sense of +grandeur, the sense of space, the sense of natural beauty, and the +sense of human pathos; that deep internal faculty we call historic +sense; that it cannot be defined. First comes the immense surrounding +space—a space measured in each arc of the circumference by sections of +at least fifty miles, limited by points of exquisitely picturesque +beauty, including distant cloud-like mountain ranges and crystals of +sky-blue Apennines, circumscribing landscapes of refined loveliness in +detail, always varied, always marked by objects of peculiar interest +where the eye or memory may linger. Next in importance to this +immensity of space, so powerfully affecting the imagination by its mere +extent, and by the breadth of atmosphere attuning all varieties of form +and colour to one harmony beneath illimitable heaven, may be reckoned +the episodes of rivers, lakes, hills, cities, with old historic names. +For there spreads the lordly length of Thrasymene, islanded and +citadelled, in hazy morning mist, still dreaming of the shock of Roman +hosts with Carthaginian legions. There is the lake of Chiusi, set like +a jewel underneath the copse-clad hills which hide the dust of a dead +Tuscan nation. The streams of Arno start far far away, where Arezzo +lies enfolded in bare uplands. And there at our feet rolls Tiber's +largest affluent, the Chiana. And there is the canal which joins their +fountains in the marsh that Lionardo would have drained. Monte Cetona +is yonder height which rears its bristling ridge defiantly from +neighbouring Chiusi. And there springs Radicofani, the eagle's eyrie of +a brigand brood. Next, Monte Amiata stretches the long lines of her +antique volcano; the swelling mountain flanks, 92 descending gently +from her cloud-capped top, are russet with autumnal oak and chestnut +woods. On them our eyes rest lovingly; imagination wanders for a moment +through those mossy glades, where cyclamens are growing now, and +primroses in spring will peep amid anemones from rustling foliage +strewn by winter's winds. The heights of Casentino, the Perugian +highlands, Volterra, far withdrawn amid a wilderness of rolling hills, +and solemn snow-touched ranges of the Spolentino, Sibyl-haunted +fastnesses of Norcia, form the most distant horizon-lines of this +unending panorama. And then there are the cities placed each upon a +point of vantage: Siena; olive-mantled Chiusi; Cortona, white upon her +spreading throne; poetic Montalcino, lifted aloft against the vaporous +sky; San Quirico, nestling in pastoral tranquillity; Pienza, where +Æneas Sylvius built palaces and called his birthplace after his own +Papal name. Still closer to the town itself of Montepulciano, +stretching along the irregular ridge which gave it building ground, and +trending out on spurs above deep orchards, come the lovely details of +oak-copses, blending with grey tilth and fields rich with olive and +vine. The gaze, exhausted with immensity, pierces those deeply cloven +valleys, sheltered from wind and open to the sun—undulating folds of +brown earth, where Bacchus, when he visited Tuscany, found the +grape-juice that pleased him best, and crowned the wine of +Montepulciano king. Here from our eyrie we can trace white oxen on the +furrows, guided by brown-limbed, white-shirted contadini. + +The morning glory of this view from Montepulciano, though irrecoverable +by words, abides in the memory, and draws one back by its unique +attractiveness. On a subsequent visit to the town in springtime, my +wife and I took a twilight walk, just after our arrival, through its +gloomy fortress streets, up to the piazza, where the impendent houses +93 lowered like bastions, and all the masses of their mighty +architecture stood revealed in shadow and dim lamplight. Far and wide, +the country round us gleamed with bonfires; for it was the eve of the +Ascension, when every contadino lights a beacon of chestnut logs and +straw and piled-up leaves. Each castello on the plain, each village on +the hills, each lonely farmhouse at the skirt of forest or the edge of +lake, smouldered like a red Cyclopean eye beneath the vault of stars. +The flames waxed and waned, leapt into tongues, or disappeared. As they +passed from gloom to brilliancy and died away again, they seemed almost +to move. The twilight scene was like that of a vast city, filling the +plain and climbing the heights in terraces. Is this custom, I thought, +a relic of old Pales-worship? + +III + +The early history of Montepulciano is buried in impenetrable mists of +fable. No one can assign a date to the foundation of these high-hill +cities. The eminence on which it stands belongs to the volcanic system +of Monte Amiata, and must at some time have formed a portion of the +crater which threw that mighty mass aloft. But sons have passed since +the _gran sasso di Maremma_ was a fire-vomiting monster, glaring like +Etna in eruption on the Tyrrhene sea; and through those centuries how +many races may have camped upon the summit we call Montepulciano! +Tradition assigns the first quasi-historical settlement to Lars +Porsena, who is said to have made it his summer residence, when the +lower and more marshy air of Clusium became oppressive. Certainly it +must have been a considerable town in the Etruscan period. Embedded in +the walls of palaces may still be seen numerous fragments of sculptured +basreliefs, the works of that mysterious people. Apropos of +Montepulciano's importance 94 in the early years of Roman history, I +lighted on a quaint story related by its very jejune annalist, Spinello +Benci. It will be remembered that Livy attributes the invasion of the +Gauls, who, after besieging Clusium, advanced on Rome, to the +persuasions of a certain Aruns. He was an exile from Clusium; and +wishing to revenge himself upon his country-people, he allured the +Senonian Gauls into his service by the promise of excellent wine, +samples of which he had taken with him into Lombardy. Spinello Benci +accepts the legend literally, and continues: 'These wines were so +pleasing to the palate of the barbarians, that they were induced to +quit the rich and teeming valley of the Po, to cross the Apennines, and +move in battle array against Chiusi. And it is clear that the wine +which Aruns selected for the purpose was the same as that which is +produced to this day at Montepulciano. For nowhere else in the Etruscan +district can wines of equally generous quality and fiery spirit be +found, so adapted for export and capable of such long preservation.' + +We may smile at the historian's _naïveté_. Yet the fact remains that +good wine of Montepulciano can still allure barbarians of this epoch to +the spot where it is grown. Of all Italian vintages, with the exception +of some rare qualities of Sicily and the Valtellina, it is, in my +humble opinion, the best. And when the time comes for Italy to develop +the resources of her vineyards upon scientific principles, +Montepulciano will drive Brolio from the field and take the same place +by the side of Chianti which Volnay occupies by common Macon. It will +then be quoted upon wine-lists throughout Europe, and find its place +upon the tables of rich epicures in Hyperborean regions, and add its +generous warmth to Trans-atlantic banquets. Even as it is now made, +with very little care bestowed on cultivation and none to speak of on +selection of the grape, the wine is rich and noble, slightly rough to a +95 sophisticated palate, but clean in quality and powerful and racy. It +deserves the enthusiasm attributed by Redi to Bacchus:[57] + +Fill, fill, let us all have our will! +But with _what_, with _what_, boys, shall we fill. +Sweet Ariadne—no, not _that_ one—_ah_ no; +Fill me the manna of Montepulciano: +Fill me a magnum and reach it me.—Gods! +How it glides to my heart by the sweetest of roads! +Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me! +Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears! +I'm ravished! I'm rapt! Heaven finds me admissible! +Lost in an ecstasy! blinded! invisible!— +Hearken all earth! +We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth, +To all who reverence us, are right thinkers; +Hear, all ye drinkers! +Give ear and give faith to the edict divine; +Montepulciano's the King of all wine. + + + [57] From Leigh Hunt's Translation. + +It is necessary, however, that our modern barbarian should travel to +Montepulciano itself, and there obtain a flask of _manna_ or _vino +nobile_ from some trusty cellar-master. He will not find it bottled in +the inns or restaurants upon his road. + +IV + +The landscape and the wine of Montepulciano are both well worth the +trouble of a visit to this somewhat inaccessible city. Yet more remains +to be said about the attractions of the town itself. In the Duomo, +which was spoiled by unintelligent rebuilding at a dismal epoch of +barren art, are fragments of one of the rarest monuments of Tuscan +sculpture. This is the tomb of Bartolommeo Aragazzi. He was a native of +Montepulciano, and secretary to Pope Martin V., that _Papa_ 96 _Martino +non vale un quattrino_, on whom, during his long residence in Florence, +the street-boys made their rhymes. Twelve years before his death he +commissioned Donatello and Michelozzo Michelozzi, who about that period +were working together upon the monuments of Pope John XXIII. and +Cardinal Brancacci, to erect his own tomb at the enormous cost of +twenty-four thousand scudi. That thirst for immortality of fame, which +inspired the humanists of the Renaissance, prompted Aragazzi to this +princely expenditure. Yet, having somehow won the hatred of his +fellow-students, he was immediately censured for excessive vanity. +Lionardo Bruni makes his monument the theme of a ferocious onslaught. +Writing to Poggio Bracciolini, Bruni tells a story how, while +travelling through the country of Arezzo, he met a train of oxen +dragging heavy waggons piled with marble columns, statues, and all the +necessary details of a sumptuous sepulchre. He stopped, and asked what +it all meant. Then one of the contractors for this transport, wiping +the sweat from his forehead, in utter weariness of the vexatious +labour, at the last end of his temper, answered: 'May the gods destroy +all poets, past, present, and future.' I inquired what he had to do +with poets, and how they had annoyed him. 'Just this,' he replied, +'that this poet, lately deceased, a fool and windy-pated fellow, has +ordered a monument for himself; and with a view to erecting it, these +marbles are being dragged to Montepulciano; but I doubt whether we +shall contrive to get them up there. The roads are too bad.' 'But,' +cried I, 'do you believe _that_ man was a poet—that dunce who had no +science, nay, nor knowledge either? who only rose above the heads of +men by vanity and doltishness?' 'I don't know,' he answered, 'nor did I +ever hear tell, while he was alive, about his being called a poet; but +his fellow-townsmen now decide he was one; nay, if he had but left a +few more money-bags, 97 they'd swear he was a god. Anyhow, but for his +having been a poet, I would not have cursed poets in general.' +Whereupon, the malevolent Bruni withdrew, and composed a +scorpion-tailed oration, addressed to his friend Poggio, on the +suggested theme of 'diuturnity in monuments,' and false ambition. Our +old friends of humanistic learning—Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar—meet us in +these frothy paragraphs. Cambyses, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius, are +thrown in to make the gruel of rhetoric 'thick and slab.' The whole +epistle ends in a long-drawn peroration of invective against 'that +excrement in human shape,' who had had the ill-luck, by pretence to +scholarship, by big gains from the Papal treasury, by something in his +manners alien from the easy-going customs of the Roman Court, to rouse +the rancour of his fellow-humanists. + +I have dwelt upon this episode, partly because it illustrates the +peculiar thirst for glory in the students of that time, but more +especially because it casts a thin clear thread of actual light upon +the masterpiece which, having been transported with this difficulty +from Donatello's workshop, is now to be seen by all lovers of fine art, +in part at least, at Montepulciano. In part at least: the phrase is +pathetic. Poor Aragazzi, who thirsted so for 'diuturnity in monuments,' +who had been so cruelly assaulted in the grave by humanistic jealousy, +expressing its malevolence with humanistic crudity of satire, was +destined after all to be defrauded of his well-paid tomb. The monument, +a master work of Donatello and his collaborator, was duly erected. The +oxen and the contractors, it appears, had floundered through the mud of +Valdichiana, and struggled up the mountain-slopes of Montepulciano. But +when the church, which this triumph of art adorned, came to be +repaired, the miracle of beauty was dismembered. The sculpture for +which Aragazzi spent his thousands of crowns, which Donatello touched +with his immortalising chisel, over 98 which the contractors vented +their curses and Bruni eased his bile; these marbles are now visible as +mere _disjecta membra_ in a church which, lacking them, has little to +detain a traveller's haste. + +On the left hand of the central door, as you enter, Aragazzi lies, in +senatorial robes, asleep; his head turned slightly to the right upon +the pillow, his hands folded over his breast. Very noble are the +draperies, and dignified the deep tranquillity of slumber. Here, we +say, is a good man fallen upon sleep, awaiting resurrection. The one +commanding theme of Christian sculpture, in an age of Pagan feeling, +has been adequately rendered. Bartolommeo Aragazzi, like Ilaria led +Carretto at Lucca, like the canopied doges in S. Zanipolo at Venice, +like the Acciauoli in the Florentine Certosa, like the Cardinal di +Portogallo in Samminiato, is carved for us as he had been in life, but +with that life suspended, its fever all smoothed out, its agitations +over, its pettinesses dignified by death. This marmoreal repose of the +once active man symbolises for our imagination the state into which he +passed four centuries ago, but in which, according to the creed, he +still abides, reserved for judgment and re-incarnation. The flesh, clad +with which he walked our earth, may moulder in the vaults beneath. But +it will one day rise again; and art has here presented it imperishable +to our gaze. This is how the Christian sculptors, inspired by the +majestic calm of classic art, dedicated a Christian to the genius of +repose. Among the nations of antiquity this repose of death was +eternal; and being unable to conceive of a man's body otherwise than +for ever obliterated by the flames of funeral, they were perforce led +back to actual life when they would carve his portrait on a tomb. But +for Christianity the rest of the grave has ceased to be eternal. +Centuries may pass, but in the end it must be broken. Therefore art is +justified in 99 showing us the man himself in an imagined state of +sleep. Yet this imagined state of sleep is so incalculably long, and by +the will of God withdrawn from human prophecy, that the ages sweeping +over the dead man before the trumpets of archangels wake him, shall +sooner wear away memorial stone than stir his slumber. It is a slumber, +too, unterrified, unentertained by dreams. Suspended animation finds no +fuller symbolism than the sculptor here presents to us in abstract +form. + +The boys of Montepulciano have scratched Messer Aragazzi's sleeping +figure with _graffiti_ at their own free will. Yet they have had no +power to erase the poetry of Donatello's mighty style. That, in spite +of Bruni's envy, in spite of injurious time, in spite of the still +worse insult of the modernised cathedral and the desecrated monument, +embalms him in our memory and secures for him the diuturnity for which +he paid his twenty thousand crowns. Money, methinks, beholding him, was +rarely better expended on a similar ambition. And ambition of this +sort, relying on the genius of such a master to give it wings for +perpetuity of time, is, _pace_ Lionardo Bruni, not ignoble. + +cpposite the figure of Messer Aragazzi are two square basreliefs from +the same monument, fixed against piers of the nave. One represents +Madonna enthroned among worshippers; members, it may be supposed, of +Aragazzi's household. Three angelic children, supporting the child +Christ upon her lap, complete that pyramidal form of composition which +Fra Bartolommeo was afterwards to use with such effect in painting. The +other basrelief shows a group of grave men and youths, clasping hands +with loveliest interlacement; the placid sentiment of human fellowship +translated into harmonies of sculptured form. Children below run up to +touch their knees, and reach out boyish 100 arms to welcome them. Two +young men, with half-draped busts and waving hair blown off their +foreheads, anticipate the type of adolescence which Andrea del Sarto +perfected in his S. John. We might imagine that this masterly panel was +intended to represent the arrival of Messer Aragazzi in his home. It is +a scene from the domestic life of the dead man, duly subordinated to +the recumbent figure, which, when the monument was perfect, would have +dominated the whole composition. + +Nothing in the range of Donatello's work surpasses these two basreliefs +for harmonies of line and grouping, for choice of form, for beauty of +expression, and for smoothness of surface-working. The marble is of +great delicacy, and is wrought to a wax-like surface. At the high altar +are three more fragments from the mutilated tomb. One is a long low +frieze of children bearing garlands, which probably formed the base of +Aragazzi's monument, and now serves for a predella. The remaining +pieces are detached statues of Fortitude and Faith. The former reminds +us of Donatello's S. George; the latter is twisted into a strained +attitude, full of character, but lacking grace. What the effect of +these emblematic figures would have been when harmonised by the +architectural proportions of the sepulchre, the repose of Aragazzi on +his sarcophagus, the suavity of the two square panels and the rhythmic +beauty of the frieze, it is not easy to conjecture. But rudely severed +from their surroundings, and exposed in isolation, one at each side of +the altar, they leave an impression of awkward discomfort on the +memory. A certain hardness, peculiar to the Florentine manner, is felt +in them. But this quality may have been intended by the sculptors for +the sake of contrast with what is eminently graceful, peaceful, and +melodious in the other fragments of the ruined masterpiece. + +101 + +V + +At a certain point in the main street, rather more than halfway from +the Albergo del Marzocco to the piazza, a tablet has been let into the +wall upon the left-hand side. This records the fact that here in 1454 +was born Angelo Ambrogini, the special glory of Montepulciano, the +greatest classical scholar and the greatest Italian poet of the +fifteenth century. He is better known in the history of literature as +Poliziano, or Politianus, a name he took from his native city, when he +came, a marvellous boy, at the age of ten, to Florence, and joined the +household of Lorenzo de' Medici. He had already claims upon Lorenzo's +hospitality. For his father, Benedetto, by adopting the cause of Piero +de' Medici in Montepulciano, had exposed himself to bitter feuds and +hatred of his fellow-citizens. To this animosity of party warfare he +fell a victim a few years previously. We only know that he was +murdered, and that he left a helpless widow with five children, of whom +Angelo was the eldest. The Ambrogini or Cini were a family of some +importance in Montepulciano; and their dwelling-house is a palace of +considerable size. From its eastern windows the eye can sweep that vast +expanse of country, embracing the lakes of Thrasymene and Chiusi, which +has been already described. What would have happened, we wonder, if +Messer Benedetto, the learned jurist, had not espoused the Medicean +cause and embroiled himself with murderous antagonists? Would the +little Angelo have grown up in this quiet town, and practised law, and +lived and died a citizen of Montepulciano? In that case the +lecture-rooms of Florence would never have echoed to the sonorous +hexameters of the 'Rusticus' and 'Ambra.' Italian literature would have +lacked the 'Stanze' and 'Orfeo.' European scholarship would have been +defrauded 102 of the impulse given to it by the 'Miscellanea.' The +study of Roman law would have missed those labours on the Pandects, +with which the name of Politian is honourably associated. From the +Florentine society of the fifteenth century would have disappeared the +commanding central figure of humanism, which now contrasts dramatically +with the stern monastic Prior of S. Mark. Benedetto's tragic death gave +Poliziano to Italy and to posterity. + +VI + +Those who have a day to spare at Montepulciano can scarcely spend it +better than in an excursion to Pienza and San Quirico. Leaving the city +by the road which takes a westerly direction, the first object of +interest is the Church of San Biagio, placed on a fertile plateau +immediately beneath the ancient acropolis. It was erected by Antonio di +San Gallo in 1518, and is one of the most perfect specimens existing of +the sober classical style. The Church consists of a Greek square, +continued at the east end into a semicircular tribune, surmounted by a +central cupola, and flanked by a detached bell-tower, ending in a +pyramidal spire. The whole is built of solid yellow travertine, a +material which, by its warmth of colour, is pleasing to the eye, and +mitigates the mathematical severity of the design. Upon entering, we +feel at once what Alberti called the music of this style; its large and +simple harmonies, depending for effect upon sincerity of plan and +justice of balance. The square masses of the main building, the +projecting cornices and rounded tribune, meet together and soar up into +the cupola; while the grand but austere proportions of the arches and +the piers compose a symphony of perfectly concordant lines. The music +is grave and solemn, architecturally expressed in terms of measured 103 +space and outlined symmetry. The whole effect is that of one thing +pleasant to look upon, agreeably appealing to our sense of unity, +charming us by grace and repose; not stimulative nor suggestive, not +multiform nor mysterious. We are reminded of the temples imagined by +Francesco Colonna, and figured in his _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_. One +of these shrines has, we feel, come into actual existence here; and the +religious ceremonies for which it is adapted are not those of the +Christian worship. Some more primitive, less spiritual rites, involving +less of tragic awe and deep-wrought symbolism, should be here +performed. It is better suited for Polifilo's lustration by Venus +Physizoe than for the mass on Easter morning. And in this respect, the +sentiment of the architecture is exactly faithful to that mood of +religious feeling which appeared in Italy under the influences of the +classical revival—when the essential doctrines of Christianity were +blurred with Pantheism; when Jehovah became _Jupiter Optimus Maximus_; +and Jesus was the _Heros_ of Calvary, and nuns were _Virgines +Vestales_. In literature this mood often strikes us as insincere and +artificial. But it admitted of realisation and showed itself to be +profoundly felt in architecture. + +After leaving Madonna di San Biagio, the road strikes at once into an +open country, expanding on the right towards the woody ridge of Monte +Fallonica, on the left toward Cetona and Radicofani, with Monte Amiata +full in front—its double crest and long volcanic slope recalling Etna; +the belt of embrowned forest on its flank, made luminous by sunlight. +Far away stretches the Sienese Maremma; Siena dimly visible upon her +gentle hill; and still beyond, the pyramid of Volterra, huge and +cloud-like, piled against the sky. The road, as is almost invariable in +this district, keeps to the highest line of ridges, winding much, and +following 104 the dimplings of the earthy hills. Here and there a +solitary castello, rusty with old age, and turned into a farm, juts +into picturesqueness from some point of vantage on a mound surrounded +with green tillage. But soon the dull and intolerable _creta_, ash-grey +earth, without a vestige of vegetation, furrowed by rain, and +desolately breaking into gullies, swallows up variety and charm. It is +difficult to believe that this _creta_ of Southern Tuscany, which has +all the appearance of barrenness, and is a positive deformity in the +landscape, can be really fruitful. Yet we are frequently being told +that it only needs assiduous labour to render it enormously productive. + +When we reached Pienza we were already in the middle of a country +without cultivation, abandoned to the marl. It is a little place, +perched upon the ledge of a long sliding hill, which commands the vale +of Orcia; Monte Amiata soaring in aë;rial majesty beyond. Its old name +was Cosignano. But it had the honour of giving birth to Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and had assumed the +title of Pius II., determined to transform and dignify his native +village, and to call it after his own name. From that time forward +Cosignano has been known as Pienza. + +Pius II. succeeded effectually in leaving his mark upon the town. And +this forms its main interest at the present time. We see in Pienza how +the most active-minded and intelligent man of his epoch, the +representative genius of Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century, +commanding vast wealth and the Pontifical prestige, worked out his whim +of city-building. The experiment had to be made upon a small scale; for +Pienza was then and was destined to remain a village. Yet here, upon +this miniature piazza—in modern as in ancient Italy the meeting-point +of civic life, the forum— 105 we find a cathedral, a palace of the +bishop, a palace of the feudal lord, and a palace of the commune, +arranged upon a well-considered plan, and executed after one design in +a consistent style. The religious, municipal, signorial, and +ecclesiastical functions of the little town are centralised around the +open market-place, on which the common people transacted business and +discussed affairs. Pius entrusted the realisation of his scheme to a +Florentine architect; whether Bernardo Rossellino, or a certain +Bernardo di Lorenzo, is still uncertain. The same artist, working in +the flat manner of Florentine domestic architecture, with rusticated +basements, rounded windows and bold projecting cornices—the manner +which is so nobly illustrated by the Rucellai and Strozzi palaces at +Florence—executed also for Pius the monumental Palazzo Piccolomini at +Siena. It is a great misfortune for the group of buildings he designed +at Pienza, that they are huddled together in close quarters on a square +too small for their effect. A want of space is peculiarly injurious to +the architecture of this date, 1462, which, itself geometrical and +spatial, demands a certain harmony and liberty in its surroundings, a +proportion between the room occupied by each building and the masses of +the edifice. The style is severe and prosaic. Those charming episodes +and accidents of fancy, in which the Gothic style and the style of the +earlier Lombard Renaissance abounded, are wholly wanting to the rigid, +mathematical, hard-headed genius of the Florentine quattrocento. +Pienza, therefore, disappoints us. Its heavy palace frontispieces shut +the spirit up in a tight box. We seem unable to breathe, and lack that +element of life and picturesqueness which the splendid retinues of +nobles in the age of Pinturicchio might have added to the now forlorn +Piazza. + +Yet the material is a fine warm travertine, mellowing to 106 dark red, +brightening to golden, with some details, especially the tower of the +Palazzo Comunale, in red brick. This building, by the way, is imitated +in miniature from that of Florence. The cathedral is a small church of +three aisles, equally high, ending in what the French would call a +_chevet_. Pius had observed this plan of construction somewhere in +Austria, and commanded his architect, Bernardo, to observe it in his +plan. He was attracted by the facilities for window-lighting which it +offered; and what is very singular, he provided by the Bull of his +foundation for keeping the walls of the interior free from frescoes and +other coloured decorations. The result is that, though the interior +effect is pleasing, the church presents a frigid aspect to eyes +familiarised with warmth of tone in other buildings of that period. The +details of the columns and friezes are classical; and the façade, +strictly corresponding to the structure, and very honest in its +decorative elements, is also of the earlier Renaissance style. But the +vaulting and some of the windows are pointed. + +The Palazzo Piccolomini, standing at the right hand of the Duomo, is a +vast square edifice. The walls are flat and even, pierced at regular +intervals with windows, except upon the south-west side, where the +rectangular design is broken by a noble double Loggiata, gallery rising +above gallery—serene curves of arches, grandly proportioned columns, +massive balustrades, a spacious corridor, a roomy vaulting—opening out +upon the palace garden, and offering fair prospect over the wooded +heights of Castiglione and Rocca d' Orcia, up to Radicofani and shadowy +Amiata. It was in these double tiers of galleries, in the garden +beneath and in the open inner square of the palazzo, that the great +life of Italian aristocracy displayed itself. Four centuries ago these +spaces, now so desolate in their immensity, echoed to the tread of +serving-men, the songs of pages; horse-hooves struck upon the pavement +107 of the court; spurs jingled on the staircases; the brocaded trains +of ladies sweeping from their chambers rustled on the marbles of the +loggia; knights let their hawks fly from the garden parapets; cardinals +and abbreviators gathered round the doors from which the Pope would +issue, when he rose from his siesta to take the cool of evening in +those airy colonnades. How impossible it is to realise that scene amid +this solitude! The palazzo still belongs to the Piccolomini family. But +it has fallen into something worse than ruin—the squalor of +half-starved existence, shorn of all that justified its grand +proportions. Partition-walls have been run up across its halls to meet +the requirements of our contracted modern customs. Nothing remains of +the original decorations except one carved chimney-piece, an emblazoned +shield, and a frescoed portrait of the founder. All movable treasures +have been made away with. And yet the carved heraldics of the exterior, +the coat of Piccolomini, 'argent, on a cross azure five crescents or,' +the Papal ensigns, keys, and tiara, and the monogram of Pius, prove +that this country dwelling of a Pope must once have been rich in +details befitting its magnificence. With the exception of the very +small portion reserved for the Signori, when they visit Pienza, the +palace has become a granary for country produce in a starveling land. +There was one redeeming point about it to my mind. That was the +handsome young man, with earnest Tuscan eyes and a wonderfully sweet +voice, the servant of the Piccolomini family, who lives here with his +crippled father, and who showed us over the apartments. + +We left Pienza and drove on to S. Quirico, through the same wrinkled +wilderness of marl; wasteful, uncultivated, bare to every wind that +blows. A cruel blast was sweeping from the sea, and Monte Amiata +darkened with rain-clouds. Still the pictures, which formed themselves +at intervals, as we 108 wound along these barren ridges, were very fair +to look upon, especially one not far from S. Quirico. It had for +fore-ground a stretch of tilth—olive-trees, honeysuckle hedges, and +cypresses. Beyond soared Amiata in all its breadth and blue +air-blackness, bearing on its mighty flanks the broken cliffs and +tufted woods of Castiglione and the Rocca d'Orcia; eagles' nests +emerging from a fertile valley-champaign, into which the eye was led +for rest. It so chanced that a band of sunlight, escaping from filmy +clouds, touched this picture with silvery greys and soft greens—a +suffusion of vaporous radiance, which made it for one moment a Claude +landscape. + +S. Quirico was keeping _festa_. The streets were crowded with healthy, +handsome men and women from the contado. This village lies on the edge +of a great oasis in the Sienese desert—an oasis formed by the waters of +the Orcia and Asso sweeping down to join Ombrone, and stretching on to +Montalcino. We put up at the sign of the 'Two Hares,' where a notable +housewife gave us a dinner of all we could desire; _frittata di +cervello_, good fish, roast lamb stuffed with rosemary, salad and +cheese, with excellent wine and black coffee, at the rate of three +_lire_ a head. + +The attraction of S. Quirico is its gem-like little collegiata, a +Lombard church of the ninth century, with carved portals of the +thirteenth. It is built of golden travertine; some details in brown +sandstone. The western and southern portals have pillars resting on the +backs of lions. On the western side these pillars are four slender +columns, linked by snake-like ligatures. On the southern side they +consist of two carved figures—possibly S. John and the Archangel +Michael. There is great freedom and beauty in these statues, as also in +the lions which support them, recalling the early French and German +manner. In addition, one finds the 109 usual Lombard grotesques—two +sea-monsters, biting each other; harpy-birds; a dragon with a twisted +tail; little men grinning and squatting in adaptation to coigns and +angles of the windows. The toothed and chevron patterns of the north +are quaintly blent with rude acanthus scrolls and classical +egg-mouldings. Over the western porch is a Gothic rose window. +Altogether this church must be reckoned one of the most curious +specimens of that hybrid architecture, fusing and appropriating +different manners, which perplexes the student in Central Italy. It +seems strangely out of place in Tuscany. Yet, if what one reads of +Toscanella, a village between Viterbo and Orbetello, be true, there +exist examples of a similar fantastic Lombard style even lower down. + +The interior was most disastrously gutted and 'restored' in 1731: its +open wooden roof masked by a false stucco vaulting. A few relics, +spared by the eighteenth-century Vandals, show that the church was once +rich in antique curiosities. A marble knight in armour lies on his +back, half hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in the choir are half a +dozen rarely beautiful panels of tarsia, executed in a bold style and +on a large scale. One design—a man throwing his face back, and singing, +while he plays a mandoline; with long thick hair and fanciful beretta; +behind him a fine line of cypress and other trees—struck me as +singularly lovely. In another I noticed a branch of peach, broad leaves +and ripe fruit, not only drawn with remarkable grace and power, but so +modelled as to stand out with the roundness of reality. + +The whole drive of three hours back to Montepulciano was one long +banquet of inimitable distant views. Next morning, having to take +farewell of the place, we climbed to the Castello, or _arx_ of the old +city! It is a ruined spot, outside the present walls, upon the southern +slope, where there is now a farm, and a fair space of short +sheep-cropped turf, very green and 110 grassy, and gemmed with little +pink geraniums as in England in such places. The walls of the old +castle, overgrown with ivy, are broken down to their foundations. This +may possibly have been done when Montepulciano was dismantled by the +Sienese in 1232. At that date the Commune succumbed to its more +powerful neighbours. The half of its inhabitants were murdered, and its +fortifications were destroyed. Such episodes are common enough in the +history of that internecine struggle for existence between the Italian +municipalities, which preceded the more famous strife of Guelfs and +Ghibellines. Stretched upon the smooth turf of the Castello, we bade +adieu to the divine landscape bathed in light and mountain air—to +Thrasymene and Chiusi and Cetona; to Amiata, Pienza, and S. Quirico; to +Montalcino and the mountains of Volterra; to Siena and Cortona; and, +closer, to Monte Fallonica, Madonna di Biagio, the house-roofs and the +Palazzo tower of Montepulciano. + +111 + + + + +PERUGIA + + +Perugia is the empress of hill-set Italian cities. Southward from her +high-built battlements and church towers the eye can sweep a circuit of +the Apennines unrivalled in its width. From cloudlike Radicofani, above +Siena in the west, to snow-capped Monte Catria, beneath whose summit +Dante spent those saddest months of solitude in 1313, the mountains +curve continuously in lines of austere dignity and tempered sweetness. +Assisi, Spoleto, Todi, Trevi, crown lesser heights within the range of +vision. Here and there the glimpse of distant rivers lights a silver +spark upon the plain. Those hills conceal Lake Thrasymene; and there +lies Orvieto, and Ancona there: while at our feet the Umbrian +champaign, breaking away into the valley of the Tiber, spreads in all +the largeness of majestically converging mountain-slopes. This is a +landscape which can never lose its charm. Whether it be purple golden +summer, or winter with sad tints of russet woods and faintly rosy +snows, or spring attired in tenderest green of new-fledged trees and +budding flowers, the air is always pure and light and finely tempered +here. City gates, sombre as their own antiquity, frame vistas of the +laughing fields. Terraces, flanked on either side by jutting masonry, +cut clear vignettes of olive-hoary slopes, with cypress-shadowed farms +in hollows of the hills. Each coign or point of vantage carries a +bastion or tower of Etruscan, Roman, mediæval architecture, tracing the +limits of the town upon its mountain plateau. Everywhere 112 art and +nature lie side by side in amity beneath a sky so pure and delicate, +that from its limpid depth the spirit seems to drink new life. What +air-tints of lilac, orange, and pale amethyst are shed upon those vast +ethereal hills and undulating plains! What wandering cloud-shadows sail +across this sea of olives and of vines, with here and there a fleece of +vapour or a column of blue smoke from charcoal burners on the mountain +flank! To southward, far away beyond those hills, is felt the presence +of eternal Rome, not seen, but clearly indicated by the hurrying of a +hundred streams that swell the Tiber. + +In the neighbourhood of the town itself there is plenty to attract the +student of antiquities, or art, or history. He may trace the walls of +the Etruscan city, and explore the vaults where the dust of the +Volumnii lies coffered in sarcophagi and urns. Mild faces of grave +deities lean from the living tufa above those narrow alcoves, where the +chisel-marks are still fresh, and where the vigilant lamps still hang +suspended from the roof by leaden chains. Or, in the Museum, he may +read on basreliefs and vases how gloomy and morose were the +superstitions of those obscure forerunners of majestic Rome. The piazza +offers one of the most perfect Gothic façades, in its Palazzo Pubblico, +to be found in Italy. The flight of marble steps is guarded from above +by the bronze griffin of Perugia and the Baglioni, with the bronze lion +of the Guelf faction, to which the town was ever faithful. Upon their +marble brackets they ramp in all the lean ferocity of feudal heraldry, +and from their claws hang down the chains wrested in old warfare from +some barricaded gateway of Siena. Below is the fountain, on the +many-sided curves of which Giovanni Pisano sculptured, in quaint +statuettes and basreliefs, all the learning of the middle ages, from +the Bible history down to fables of Æsop and allegories of the several +months. Facing the same piazza 113 is the Sala del Cambio, a mediæval +Bourse, with its tribunal for the settlement of mercantile disputes, +and its exquisite carved woodwork and frescoes, the masterpiece of +Perugino's school. Hard by is the University, once crowded with native +and foreign students, where the eloquence of Greek Demetrius in the +first dawn of the Renaissance withdrew the gallants of Perugia—those +slim youths with shocks of nut-brown hair beneath their tiny red caps, +whose comely legs, encased in tight-fitting hose of two different +colours, looked so strange to modern eyes upon the canvas of +Signorelli—from their dice and wine-cups, and amours and daggers, to +grave studies in the lore of Greece and Rome. + +This piazza, the scene of all the bloodiest tragedies in Perugian +annals, is closed at the north end by the Cathedral, with the open +pulpit in its wall from which S. Bernardino of Siena preached peace in +vain. The citizens wept to hear his words: a bonfire of vanities was +lighted on the flags beside Pisano's fountain: foe kissed foe: and the +same cowl of S. Francis was set in token of repentance on heads that +long had schemed destruction, each for each. But a few days passed, and +the penitents returned to cut each other's throat. Often and often have +those steps of the Duomo run with blood of Baglioni, Oddi, Arcipreti, +and La Staffa. Once the whole church had to be washed with wine and +blessed anew before the rites of Christianity could be resumed in its +desecrated aisles. It was here that within the space of two days, in +1500, the catafalque was raised for the murdered Astorre, and for his +traitorous cousin Grifonetto Baglioni. Here, too, if more ancient +tradition does not err, were stretched the corpses of twenty-seven +members of the same great house at the end of one of their grim +combats. + +No Italian city illustrates more forcibly than Perugia the violent +contrasts of the earlier Renaissance. This is perhaps 114 its most +essential characteristic—that which constitutes its chief æsthetic +interest. To many travellers the name of Perugia suggests at once the +painter who, more than any other, gave expression to devout emotions in +consummate works of pietistic art. They remember how Raphael, when a +boy, with Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna, and Adone Doni, in the workshop of +Pietro Perugino, learned the secret of that style to which he gave +sublimity and freedom in his Madonnas di San Sisto, di Foligno, and del +Cardellino. But the students of mediæval history in detail know Perugia +far better as the lion's lair of one of the most ferocious broods of +heroic ruffians Italy can boast. To them the name of Perugia suggests +at once the great house of the Baglioni, who drenched Umbria with +blood, and gave the broad fields of Assisi to the wolf, and who through +six successive generations bred captains for the armies of Venice, +Florence, Naples, and the Church.[58] That the trade of Perugino in +religious pictures should have been carried on in the city which shared +the factions of the Baglioni—that Raphael should have been painting +Pietas while Astorre and Simonetto were being murdered by the beautiful +young Grifonetto—is a paradox of the purest water in the history of +civilisation. + + [58] Most of the references in this essay are made to the Perugian + chronicles of Graziani, Matarazzo, Bontempi, and Frolliere, in the + _Archivio Storico Italiano_, vol. xvi. parts 1 and 2. Ariodante + Fabretti's _Biografie dei Capitani Venturieri dell' Umbria_ supply + some details. + +The art of Perugino implied a large number of devout and wealthy +patrons, a public not only capable of comprehending him, but also eager +to restrict his great powers within the limits of purely devotional +delineation. The feuds and passions of the Baglioni, on the other hand, +implied a society in which egregious crimes only needed success to be +accounted glorious, where force, cruelty, and cynical craft reigned 115 +supreme, and where the animal instincts attained gigantic proportions +in the persons of splendid young athletic despots. Even the names of +these Baglioni, Astorre, Lavinia, Zenobia, Atalanta, Troilo, Ercole, +Annibale, Ascanio, Penelope, Orazio, and so forth, clash with the sweet +mild forms of Perugino, whose very executioners are candidates for +Paradise, and kill their martyrs with compunction. + +In Italy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries such contradictions +subsisted in the same place and under the conditions of a common +culture, because there was no limit to the development of personality. +Character was far more absolute then than now. The force of the modern +world, working in the men of those times like powerful wine, as yet +displayed itself only as a spirit of freedom and expansion and revolt. +The strait laces of mediæval Christianity were loosened. The coercive +action of public opinion had not yet made itself dominant. That was an +age of adolescence, in which men were and dared to be _themselves_ for +good or evil. Hypocrisy, except for some solid, well-defined, selfish +purpose, was unknown: the deference to established canons of decorum +which constitutes more than half of our so-called morality, would have +been scarcely intelligible to an Italian. The outlines of individuality +were therefore strongly accentuated. Life itself was dramatic in its +incidents and motives, its catastrophes and contrasts. These +conditions, eminently favourable to the growth of arts and the pursuit +of science, were no less conducive to the hypertrophy of passions, and +to the full development of ferocious and inhuman personalities. Every +man did what seemed good in his own eyes. Far less restrained than we +are by the verdict of his neighbours, but bound by faith more blind and +fiercer superstitions, he displayed the contradictions of his character +in picturesque chiaroscuro. What he could was the limit set on what 116 +he would. Therefore, considering the infinite varieties of human +temperaments, it was not merely possible, but natural, for Pietro +Perugino and Gianpaolo Baglioni to be inhabitants at the same time of +the selfsame city, and for the pious Atalanta to mourn the bloodshed +and the treason of her Achillean son, the young and terrible Grifone. +Here, in a word, in Perugia, beneath the fierce blaze of the +Renaissance, were brought into splendid contrast both the martial +violence and the religious sentiment of mediævalism, raised for a +moment to the elevation of fine art. + +Some of Perugino's qualities can be studied better in Perugia than +elsewhere. Of his purely religious pictures—altar-pieces of Madonna and +Saints, martyrdoms of S. Sebastian, Crucifixions, Ascensions, +Annunciations, and Depositions from the Cross,—fine specimens are +exhibited in nearly all the galleries of Europe. A large number of his +works and of those of his scholars may be seen assembled in the +Pinacoteca of Perugia. Yet the student of his pietistic style finds +little here of novelty to notice. It is in the Sala del Cambio that we +gain a really new conception of his faculty. Upon the decoration of +that little hall he concentrated all his powers of invention. The +frescoes of the Transfiguration and the Nativity, which face the great +door, are the triumphs of his devotional manner. On other panels of the +chamber he has portrayed the philosophers of Greece and Rome, the kings +and generals of antiquity, the prophets and the sibyls who announced +Christ's advent. The roof is covered with arabesques of delicate design +and dainty execution—labyrinths of fanciful improvisation, in which +flowers and foliage and human forms are woven into a harmonious +framework for the medallions of the seven planets. The woodwork with +which the hall is lined below the frescoes, shows to what a point of +perfection the art of intarsiatura had 117 been carried in his school. +All these decorative masterpieces are the product of one ingenuous +style. Uninfluenced by the Roman frescoes imitated by Raphael in his +Loggie of the Vatican, they breathe the spirit of the earlier +Renaissance, which created for itself free forms of grace and +loveliness without a pattern, divining by its innate sense of beauty +what the classic artists had achieved. Take for an example the +medallion of the planet Jupiter. The king of gods and men, hoary-headed +and mild-eyed, is seated in his chariot drawn by eagles: before him +kneels Ganymede, a fair-haired, exquisite, slim page, with floating +mantle and ribbands fluttering round his tight hose and jerkin. Such +were the cup-bearers of Galeazzo Sforza and Gianpaolo Baglioni. Then +compare this fresco with the Jupiter in mosaic upon the cupola of the +Chigi chapel in S. Maria del Popolo at Rome. A new age of experience +had passed over Raphael between his execution of Perugino's design in +the one and his conception of the other. He had seen the marbles of the +Vatican, and had heard of Plato in the interval: the simple graces of +the earlier Renaissance were no longer enough for him; but he must +realise the thought of classic myths in his new manner. In the same way +we may compare this Transfiguration with Raphael's last picture, these +sibyls with those of S. Maria della Pace, these sages with the School +of Athens, these warriors with the Battle of Maxentius. What is +characteristic of the full-grown Raphael is his universal +comprehension, his royal faculty for representing past and present, +near and distant, things the most diverse, by forms ideal and yet +distinctive. Each phase of the world's history and of human activity +receives from him appropriate and elevated expression. What is +characteristic of the frescoes in the Sala del Cambio, and indeed of +the whole manner of Perugino, is that all subjects, sacred or secular, +allegorical or real, are 118 conceived in the same spirit of restrained +and well-bred piety. There is no attempt at historical propriety or +dramatic realism. Grave, ascetic, melancholy faces of saints are put on +bodies of kings, generals, sages, sibyls, and deities alike. The same +ribbands and studied draperies clothe and connect all. The same +conventional attitudes of meditative gracefulness are repeated in each +group. Yet, the whole effect, if somewhat feeble and insipid, is +harmonious and thoughtful. We see that each part has proceeded from the +same mind, in the same mood, and that the master's mind was no common +one, the mood itself was noble. Good taste is everywhere apparent: the +work throughout is a masterpiece of refined fancy. + +To Perugino the representative imagination was of less importance than +a certain delicate and adequately ideal mode of feeling and conceiving. +The consequent charm of his style is that everything is thought out and +rendered visible in one decorous key. The worst that can be said of it +is that its suavity inclines to mawkishness, and that its quietism +borders upon sleepiness. We find it difficult not to accuse him of +affectation. At the same time we are forced to allow that what he did, +and what he refrained from doing, was determined by a purpose. A fresco +of the Adoration of the Shepherds, and a picture of S. Sebastian in the +Pinacoteca, where the archer on the right hand is drawn in a natural +attitude with force and truth, show well enough what Perugino could do +when he chose. + +The best way of explaining his conventionality, in which the supreme +power of a master is always verging on the facile trick of a mannerist, +is to suppose that the people of Perugia and the Umbrian highlands +imposed on him this narrow mode of treatment. We may presume that he +was always receiving orders for pictures to be executed in his +well-known manner. 119 Celestial insipidity in art was the fashion in +that Umbria which the Baglioni and the Popes laid waste from time to +time with fire and sword.[59] + + [59] It will not be forgotten by students of Italian history that + Umbria was the cradle of the _Battuti_ or Flagellants, who overspread + Italy in the fourteenth century, and to whose devotion were due the + _Laude_, or popular hymns of the religious confraternities, which in + course of time produced the _Sacre Rappresentazioni_ of + fifteenth-century Florentine literature. Umbria, and especially + Perugia and Assisi, seems to have been inventive in piety between 1200 + and 1400. + +Therefore the painter who had made his reputation by placing devout +young faces upon twisted necks, with a back-ground of limpid twilight +and calm landscape, was forced by the fervour of his patrons, and his +own desire for money, to perpetuate pious prettinesses long after he +had ceased to feel them. It is just this widespread popularity of a +master unrivalled in one line of devotional sentimentalism which makes +the contrast between Perugino and the Baglioni family so striking. + +The Baglioni first came into notice during the wars they carried on +with the Oddi of Perugia in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.[60] +This was one of those duels to the death, like that of the Visconti +with the Torrensi of Milan, on which the fate of so many Italian cities +in the middle ages hung. The nobles fought; the townsfolk assisted like +a Greek chorus, sharing the passions of the actors, but contributing +little to the 120 catastrophe. The piazza was the theatre on which the +tragedy was played. In this contest the Baglioni proved the stronger, +and began to sway the state of Perugia after the irregular fashion of +Italian despots. They had no legal right over the city, no hereditary +magistracy, no title of princely authority.[61] The Church was reckoned +the supreme administrator of the Perugian commonwealth. But in reality +no man could set foot on the Umbrian plain without permission from the +Baglioni. They elected the officers of state. The lives and goods of +the citizens were at their discretion. When a Papal legate showed his +face, they made the town too hot to hold him. One of Innocent VIII.'s +nephews had been murdered by them.[62] Another cardinal had shut +himself up in a box, and sneaked on mule-back like a bale of +merchandise through the gates to escape their fury. It was in vain that +from time to time the people rose against them, massacring Pandolfo +Baglioni on the public square in 1393, and joining with Ridolfo and +Braccio of the dominant house to assassinate another Pandolfo with his +son Niccolo in 1460. The more they were cut down, the more they +flourished. The wealth they derived from their lordships in the duchy +of Spoleto and the Umbrian hill-cities, and the treasures they +accumulated in the service of the Italian republics, made them +omnipotent in their native town. There they built tall houses on the +site which Paul III. chose afterwards for his _castello_, and which is +now an open place above the Porta San Carlo. From the 121 balconies and +turrets of these palaces, swarming with their _bravi_, they surveyed +the splendid land that felt their force—a land which, even in +midsummer, from sunrise to sunset keeps the light of day upon its +up-turned face. And from this eyrie they issued forth to prey upon the +plain, or to take their lust of love or blood within the city streets. +The Baglioni spent but short time in the amusements of peace. From +father to son they were warriors, and we have records of few Italian +houses, except perhaps the Malatesti of Rimini, who equalled them in +hardihood and fierceness. Especially were they noted for the +remorseless _vendette_ which they carried on among themselves, cousin +tracking cousin to death with the ferocity and craft of sleuthhounds. +Had they restrained these fratricidal passions, they might, perhaps, by +following some common policy, like that of the Medici in Florence or +the Bentivogli in Bologna, have successfully resisted the Papal +authority and secured dynastic sovereignty. + + [60] The Baglioni persecuted their rivals with persistent fury to the + very last. Matarazzo tells how Morgante Baglioni gave a death-wound to + his nephew, the young Carlo de li Oddi, in 1501: 'Dielli una ferita + nella formosa faccia: el quale era in aspetto vago e bello giovane d' + anni 23 o 24, _al quale uscivano e bionde tresse sotto la bella + armadura_.' The same night his kinsman Pompeo was murdered in prison + with this last lament upon his lips: 'O infelice casa degli Oddi, + quale aveste tanta, fama di conduttieri, capitanie, cavaliere, speron + d' oro, protonotarie, e abbate; et in uno solo tempo aveste homine + quarantadue; e oggie, per me quale son ultimo, se asconde el nome de + la magnifica e famosa casa degli Oddi, che mai al mondo non serà píu + nominata' (p. 175). + + + [61] The Baglioni were lords of Spello, Bettona, Montalera, and other + Umbrian burghs, but never of Perugia. Perugia had a civic constitution + similar to that of Florence and other Guelf towns under the protection + of the Holy See. The power of the eminent house was based only on + wealth and prestige. + + + [62] See Matarazzo, p. 38. It is here that he relates the covert + threat addressed by Guido Baglioni to Alexander VI., who was seeking + to inveigle him into his clutches. + +It is not until 1495 that the history of the Baglioni becomes dramatic, +possibly because till then they lacked the pen of Matarazzo.[63] But +from this year forward to their final extinction, every detail of their +doings has a picturesque and awful interest. Domestic furies, like the +revel descried by Cassandra above the palace of Mycenæ, seem to take +possession of the fated house; and the doom which has fallen on them is +worked out with pitiless exactitude to the last generation. In 1495 the +heads of the Casa Baglioni were two brothers, Guido and Ridolfo, who +had a numerous progeny of heroic sons. From Guido sprang Astorre, +Adriano, called for his 122 great strength Morgante,[64] Gismondo, +Marcantonio, and Gentile. Ridolfo owned Troilo, Gianpaolo, and +Simonetto. The first glimpse we get of these young athletes in +Matarazzo's chronicle is on the occasion of a sudden assault upon +Perugia, made by the Oddi and the exiles of their faction in September +1495. The foes of the Baglioni entered the gates, and began breaking +the iron chains, _serragli_, which barred the streets against advancing +cavalry. None of the noble house were on the alert except young +Simonetto, a lad of eighteen, fierce and cruel, who had not yet begun +to shave his chin.[65] In spite of all dissuasion, he rushed forth +alone, bareheaded, in his shirt, with a sword in his right hand and a +buckler on his arm, and fought against a squadron. There at the barrier +of the piazza he kept his foes at bay, smiting men-at-arms to the +ground with the sweep of his tremendous sword, and receiving on his +gentle body twenty-two cruel wounds. While thus at fearful odds, the +noble Astorre mounted his charger and joined him. Upon his helmet +flashed the falcon of the Baglioni with the dragon's tail that swept +behind. Bidding Simonetto tend his wounds, he in his turn held the +square. + + [63] His chronicle is a masterpiece of naïve, unstudied narrative. Few + documents are so important for the student of the sixteenth century in + Italy. Whether it be really the work of Matarazzo or Maturanzio, the + distinguished humanist, is more than doubtful. The writer seems to me + as yet unspoiled by classic studies and the pedantries of imitation. + + + [64] This name, it may be incidentally mentioned, proves the + wide-spread popularity of Pulci's poem, the _Morgante Maggiore_. + + + [65] 'Era costui al presente di anni 18 o 19; ancora non se radeva + barba; e mostrava tanta forza e tanto ardire, e era tanto adatto nel + fatto d' arme, che era gran maraveglia; e iostrava cum tanta + gintilezza e gagliardia, che homo del mondo non l' aria mai creso; et + aria dato con la punta de la lancia in nel fondo d' uno bicchiere da + la mattina a la sera,' &c. (p. 50). + +Listen to Matarazzo's description of the scene; it is as good as any +piece of the 'Mort Arthur:'—'According to the report of one who told me +what he had seen with his own eyes, never did anvil take so many blows +as he upon his person and his steed; and they all kept striking at his +lordship in 123 such crowds that the one prevented the other. And so +many lances, partisans, and crossbow quarries, and other weapons, made +upon his body a most mighty din, that above every other noise and shout +was heard the thud of those great strokes. But he, like one who had the +mastery of war, set his charger where the press was thickest, jostling +now one, and now another; so that he ever kept at least ten men of his +foes stretched on the ground beneath his horse's hoofs; which horse was +a most fierce beast, and gave his enemies what trouble he best could. +And now that gentle lord was all fordone with sweat and toil, he and +his charger; and so weary were they that scarcely could they any longer +breathe.' + +Soon after, the Baglioni mustered in force. One by one their heroes +rushed from the palaces. The enemy were driven back with slaughter; and +a war ensued, which made the fair land between Assisi and Perugia a +wilderness for many months. It must not be forgotten that, at the time +of these great feats of Simonetto and Astorre, young Raphael was +painting in the studio of Perugino. What the whole city witnessed with +astonishment and admiration, he, the keenly sensitive artist-boy, +treasured in his memory. Therefore in the S. George of the Louvre, and +in the mounted horseman trampling upon Heliodorus in the Stanze of the +Vatican, victorious Astorre lives for ever, immortalised in all his +splendour by the painter's art. The grinning griffin on the helmet, the +resistless frown upon the forehead of the beardless knight, the +terrible right arm, and the ferocious steed,—all are there as Raphael +saw and wrote them on his brain. One characteristic of the Baglioni, as +might be plentifully illustrated from their annalist, was their eminent +beauty, which inspired beholders with an enthusiasm and a love they +were far from deserving by their virtues. It is this, in combination +with their personal heroism, which gives a peculiarly 124 dramatic +interest to their doings, and makes the chronicle of Matarazzo more +fascinating than a novel. He seems unable to write about them without +using the language of an adoring lover. + +In the affair of 1495 the Baglioni were at amity among themselves. When +they next appear upon the scene, they are engaged in deadly feud. +Cousin has set his hand to the throat of cousin, and the two heroes of +the piazza are destined to be slain by foulest treachery of their own +kin. It must be premised that besides the sons of Guido and Ridolfo +already named, the great house counted among its most distinguished +members a young Grifone, or Grifonetto, the son of Grifone and Atalanta +Baglioni. Both his father and grandfather had died violent deaths in +the prime of their youth; Galeotto, the father of Atalanta, by poison, +and Grifone by the knife at Ponte Ricciolo in 1477. Atalanta was left a +young widow with one only son, this Grifonetto, whom Matarazzo calls +'un altro Ganimede,' and who combined the wealth of two chief branches +of the Baglioni. In 1500, when the events about to be related took +place, he was quite a youth. Brave, rich, handsome, and married to a +young wife, Zenobia Sforza, he was the admiration of Perugia. He and +his wife loved each other dearly; and how, indeed, could it be +otherwise, since 'l' uno e l' altro sembravano doi angioli di +Paradiso?' At the same time he had fallen into the hands of bad and +desperate counsellors. A bastard of the house, Filippo da Braccio, his +half-uncle, was always at his side, instructing him not only in the +accomplishments of chivalry, but also in wild ways that brought his +name into disrepute. Another of his familiars was Carlo Barciglia +Baglioni, an unquiet spirit, who longed for more power than his poverty +and comparative obscurity allowed. With them associated Jeronimo della +Penna, a veritable ruffian, contaminated from his earliest 125 youth +with every form of lust and violence, and capable of any crime.[66] +These three companions, instigated partly by the Lord of Camerino and +partly by their own cupidity, conceived a scheme for massacring the +families of Guido and Ridolfo at one blow. As a consequence of this +wholesale murder, Perugia would be at their discretion. Seeing of what +use Grifonetto by his wealth and name might be to them, they did all +they could to persuade him to join their conjuration. It would appear +that the bait first offered him was the sovereignty of the city, but +that he was at last gained over by being made to believe that his wife +Zenobia had carried on an intrigue with Gianpaolo Baglioni. The +dissolute morals of the family gave plausibility to an infernal trick +which worked upon the jealousy of Grifonetto. Thirsting for revenge, he +consented to the scheme. The conspirators were further fortified by the +accession of Jeronimo della Staffa, and three members of the House of +Corgna. It is noticeable that out of the whole number only two, +Bernardo da Corgna and Filippo da Braccio, were above the age of +thirty. Of the rest, few had reached twenty-five. At so early an age +were the men of those times adepts in violence and treason. The +execution of the plot was fixed for the wedding festivities of Astorre +Baglioni with Lavinia, the daughter of Giovanni Colonna and Giustina +Orsini. At that time the whole Baglioni family were to be assembled in +Perugia, with the single exception of Marcantonio, who was taking baths +at Naples for his health. It was known that the members of the noble +house, nearly all of them condottieri by trade, and eminent for their +great strength 126 and skill in arms, took few precautions for their +safety. They occupied several houses close together between the Porta +San Carlo and the Porta Eburnea, set no regular guard over their +sleeping chambers, and trusted to their personal bravery, and to the +fidelity of their attendants.[67] It was thought that they might be +assassinated in their beds. The wedding festivities began upon the 28th +of July, and great is the particularity with which Matarazzo describes +the doings of each successive day—processions, jousts, triumphal +arches, banquets, balls, and pageants. The night of the 14th of August +was finally set apart for the consummation of _el gran tradimento_: it +is thus that Matarazzo always alludes to the crime of Grifonetto with a +solemnity of reiteration that is most impressive. A heavy stone let +fall into the courtyard of Guido Baglioni's palace was to be the +signal: each conspirator was then to run to the sleeping chamber of his +appointed prey. Two of the principals and fifteen bravi were told off +to each victim: rams and crowbars were prepared to force the doors, if +needful. All happened as had been anticipated. The crash of the falling +stone was heard. The conspirators rushed to the scene of operations. +Astorre, who was sleeping in the house of his traitorous cousin +Grifonetto, was slain in the arms of his young bride, crying, as he +vainly struggled, 'Misero Astorre che more come poltrone!' Simonetto, +who lay that night with a lad called Paolo he greatly loved, flew to +arms, exclaiming to his brother, 'Non dubitare Gismondo, mio fratello!' +He too was soon despatched, together with his bedfellow. Filippo da +Braccio, after killing him, tore from a great wound in his side the +still quivering heart, into which 127 he drove his teeth with savage +fury. Old Guido died groaning, 'Ora è gionto il ponto mio;' and +Gismondo's throat was cut while he lay holding back his face that he +might be spared the sight of his own massacre. The corpses of Astorre +and Simonetto were stripped and thrown out naked into the streets. Men +gathered round and marvelled to see such heroic forms, with faces so +proud and fierce even in death. In especial the foreign students +likened them to ancient Romans.[68] But on their fingers were rings, +and these the ruffians of the place would fain have hacked off with +their knives. From this indignity the noble limbs were spared; then the +dead Baglioni were hurriedly consigned to an unhonoured tomb. Meanwhile +the rest of the intended victims managed to escape. Gianpaolo, assailed +by Grifonetto and Gianfrancesco della Corgna, took refuge with his +squire and bedfellow, Maraglia, upon a staircase leading from his room. +While the squire held the passage with his pike against the foe, +Gianpaolo effected his flight over neighbouring house-roofs. He crept +into the attic of some foreign students, who, trembling with terror, +gave him food and shelter, clad him in a scholar's gown, and helped him +to fly in this disguise from the gates at dawn. He then joined his +brother Troilo at Marsciano, whence he returned without delay to punish +the traitors. At the same time Grifonetto's mother, Atalanta, taking +with her his wife Zenobia and the two young sons of Gianpaolo, +Malatesta and Orazio, afterwards so celebrated in Italian history for +their great feats of arms and their crimes, fled to her country-house +at Landona. Grifonetto in vain 128 sought to see her there. She drove +him from her presence with curses for the treason and the fratricide +that he had planned. It is very characteristic of these wild natures, +framed of fierce instincts and discordant passions, that his mother's +curse weighed like lead upon the unfortunate young man. Next day, when +Gianpaolo returned to try the luck of arms, Grifonetto, deserted by the +companions of his crime and paralysed by the sense of his guilt, went +out alone to meet him on the public place. The semi-failure of their +scheme had terrified the conspirators: the horrors of that night of +blood unnerved them. All had fled except the next victim of the feud. +Putting his sword to the youth's throat, Gianpaolo looked into his eyes +and said, 'Art thou here, Grifonetto? Go with God's peace: I will not +slay thee, nor plunge my hand in my own blood, as thou hast done in +thine.' Then he turned and left the lad to be hacked in pieces by his +guard. The untranslatable words which Matarazzo uses to describe his +death are touching from the strong impression they convey of +Grifonetto's goodliness: 'Qui ebbe sua signoria sopra sua nobile +persona tante ferite che suoi membra leggiadre stese in terra.'[69] +None but Greeks felt the charm of personal beauty thus. But while +Grifonetto was breathing out his life upon the pavement of the piazza, +his mother Atalanta and his wife Zenobia came to greet him through the +awe-struck city. As they approached, all men fell aside and slunk away +before their grief. None would seem to have had a share in Grifonetto's +murder. Then Atalanta knelt by her dying son, and ceased from wailing, +and prayed and exhorted him to pardon those who had caused his death. +It appears that Grifonetto was too weak to speak, but that he made a +signal of assent, and received his mother's blessing at the last: 129 +'E allora porse el nobil giovenetto la dextra mano a la sua giovenile +matre strengendo de sua matre la bianca mano; e poi incontinente spirò +l' anima dal formoso corpo, e passò cum infinite benedizioni de sua +matre in cambio de la maledictione che prima li aveva date.'[70] Here +again the style of Matarazzo, tender and full of tears, conveys the +keenest sense of the pathos of beauty and of youth in death and sorrow. +He has forgotten _el gran tradimento_. He only remembers how comely +Grifonetto was, how noble, how frank and spirited, how strong in war, +how sprightly in his pleasures and his loves. And he sees the still +young mother, delicate and nobly born, leaning over the athletic body +of her bleeding son. This scene, which is perhaps a genuine instance of +what we may call the neo-Hellenism of the Renaissance, finds its +parallel in the 'Phoenissæ' of Euripides. Jocasta and Antigone have +gone forth to the battlefield and found the brothers Polynices and +Eteocles drenched in blood:— + +From his chest +Heaving a heavy breath, King Eteocles heard +His mother, and stretched forth a cold damp hand +On hers, and nothing said, but with his eyes +Spake to her by his tears, showing kind thoughts +In symbols. + + + [66] Matarazzo's description of the ruffians who surrounded Grifonetto + (pp. 104, 105, 113) would suit Webster's Flamineo or Bosola. In one + place he likens Filippo to Achitophel and Grifonetto to Absalom. + Villano Villani, quoted by Fabretti (vol. iii. p. 125), relates the + street adventures of this clique. It is a curious picture of the + pranks of an Italian princeling in the fifteenth century. + + + [67] Jacobo Antiquari, the secretary of Lodovico Sforza, in a curious + letter, which gives an account of the massacre, says that he had often + reproved the Baglioni for 'sleeping in their beds without any guard or + watch, so that they might easily be overcome by enemies.' + + + [68] 'Quelli che li vidino, e maxime li forastiere studiante + assimigliavano el magnifico Messer Astorre cosî morto ad un antico + Romano, perchè prima era unanissimo; tanto sua figura era degnia e + magnia,' &c. This is a touch exquisitely illustrative of the + Renaissance enthusiasm for classic culture. + + + [69] Here his lordship received upon his noble person so many wounds + that he stretched his graceful limbs upon the earth. + + + [70] 'And then the noble stripling stretched his right hand to his + youthful mother, pressing the white hand of his mother; and afterwards + forthwith he breathed his soul forth from his beauteous body, and died + with numberless blessings of his mother instead of the curses she had + given him before.' + +It was Atalanta, we may remember, who commissioned Raphael to paint the +so-called Borghese Entombment. Did she perhaps feel, as she withdrew +from the piazza, soaking with young Grifonetto's blood,[71] that she +too had some portion in the sorrow of that mother who had wept for +Christ? The 130 memory of the dreadful morning must have remained with +her through life, and long communion with our Lady of Sorrows may have +sanctified the grief that had so bitter and so shameful a root of sin. + + [71] See Matarazzo, p. 134, for this detail. + +After the death of Grifonetto, and the flight of the conspirators, +Gianpaolo took possession of Perugia. All who were suspected of +complicity in the treason were massacred upon the piazza and in the +Cathedral. At the expense of more than a hundred murders, the chief of +the Baglioni found himself master of the city on the 17th of July. +First he caused the Cathedral to be washed with wine and reconsecrated. +Then he decorated the Palazzo with the heads of the traitors and with +their portraits in fresco, painted hanging head downwards, as was the +fashion in Italy.[72] Next he established himself in what remained of +the palaces of his kindred, hanging the saloons with black, and +arraying his retainers in the deepest mourning. Sad indeed was now the +aspect of Perugia. Helpless and comparatively uninterested, the +citizens had been spectators of these bloody broils. They were now +bound to share the desolation of their masters. Matarazzo's description +of the mournful palace and the silent town, and of the return of +Marcantonio from Naples, presents a picture striking for its +vividness.[73] In the true style of the Baglioni, Marcantonio sought to +vent his sorrow not so much in tears as by new violence. He prepared +and lighted torches, meaning to burn the whole quarter of Sant' Angelo; +and from this design he was with difficulty dissuaded by his 131 +brother. To such mad freaks of rage and passion were the inhabitants of +a mediæval town in Italy exposed! They make us understand the +_ordinanze di giustizia_, by which to be a noble was a crime in +Florence. + + [72] See Varchi (ed. Lemonnier, 1857), vol. ii. p. 265, vol. iii. pp. + 224, 652, and Corio (Venice, 1554), p. 326, for instances of _dipinti + per traditori_. + + + [73] P. 142. 'Pareva ogni cosa oscura e lacrimosa: tutte loro + servitore piangevano; et le camere de lo resto de li magnifici + Baglioni, e sale, e ognie cosa erano tutte intorno cum pagnie negre. E + per la città non era più alcuno che sonasse nè cantasse; e poco si + rideva,' &c. + +From this time forward the whole history of the Baglioni family is one +of crime and bloodshed. A curse had fallen on the house, and to the +last of its members the penalty was paid. Gianpaolo himself acquired +the highest reputation throughout Italy for his courage and sagacity +both as a general and a governor.[74] It was he who held Julius II. at +his discretion in 1506, and was sneered at by Machiavelli for not +consummating his enormities by killing the warlike Pope.[75] He again, +after joining the diet of La Magione against Cesare Borgia, escaped by +his acumen the massacre of Sinigaglia, which overthrew the other +conspirators. But his name was no less famous for unbridled lust and +deeds of violence. He boasted that his son Constantino was a true +Baglioni, since he was his sister's child. He once told Machiavelli +that he had it in his mind to murder four citizens of Perugia, his +enemies. He looked calmly on while his kinsmen Eusebio and Taddeo +Baglioni, who had been accused of treason, were hewn to pieces by his +guard. His wife, Ippolita de' Conti, was poignarded in her Roman farm; +on hearing the news, he ordered a festival in which he was engaged to +proceed with redoubled merriment.[76] At last the time came for him to +die 132 by fraud and violence. Leo X., anxious to remove so powerful a +rival from Perugia, lured him in 1520 to Rome under the false +protection of a papal safe-conduct. After a short imprisonment he had +him beheaded in the Castle of S. Angelo. It was thought that Gentile, +his first cousin, sometime Bishop of Orvieto, but afterwards the father +of two sons in wedlock with Giulia Vitelli—such was the discipline of +the Church at this epoch—had contributed to the capture of Gianpaolo, +and had exulted in his execution.[77] If so, he paid dear for his +treachery; for Orazio Baglioni, the second son of Gianpaolo and captain +of the Church under Clement VII., had him murdered in 1527, together +with his two nephews Fileno and Annibale.[78] This Orazio was one of +the most bloodthirsty of the whole brood. Not satisfied with the +assassination of Gentile, he stabbed Galeotto, the son of Grifonetto, +with his own hand in the same year.[79] Afterwards he died in the +kingdom of Naples while leading the Black Bands in the disastrous war +which followed the sack of Rome. He left no son. Malatesta, his elder +brother, became one of the most celebrated generals of the age, holding +the batons of the Venetian and Florentine republics, and managing to +maintain his ascendency in Perugia in spite of the persistent +opposition of successive popes. But his name is best known in history +for one of the greatest public crimes—a crime which must be ranked with +that of Marshal Bazaine. Intrusted with the defence of Florence during +the siege of 1530, he sold the city to his enemy, Pope Clement, +receiving for the price of this infamy certain privileges and +immunities which fortified his hold upon Perugia for a season. All +Italy was ringing 133 with the great deeds of the Florentines, who for +the sake of their liberty transformed themselves from merchants into +soldiers, and withstood the united powers of Pope and Emperor alone. +Meanwhile Malatesta, whose trade was war, and who was being largely +paid for his services by the beleaguered city, contrived by means of +diplomatic procrastination, secret communication with the enemy, and +all the arts that could intimidate an army of recruits, to push affairs +to a point at which Florence was forced to capitulate without +inflicting the last desperate glorious blow she longed to deal her +enemies. The universal voice of Italy condemned him. When Matteo +Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, heard what he had done, he cried before +the Pregadi in conclave, 'He has sold that people and that city, and +the blood of those poor citizens ounce by ounce, and has donned the cap +of the biggest traitor in the world.'[80] Consumed with shame, corroded +by an infamous disease, and mistrustful of Clement, to whom he had sold +his honour, Malatesta retired to Perugia, and died in 1531. He left one +son, Ridolfo, who was unable to maintain himself in the lordship of his +native city. After killing the Papal legate, Cinzio Filonardi, in 1534, +he was dislodged four years afterwards, when Paul III. took final +possession of the place as an appanage of the Church, razed the houses +of the Baglioni to the ground, and built upon their site the Rocca +Paolina. This fortress bore an inscription: 'Ad coercendam Perusinorum +audaciam.' The city was given over to the rapacity of the abominable +Pier Luigi Farnese, and so bad was this tyranny of priests and +bastards, that, strange to say, the Perugians regretted the troublous +times of the Baglioni. Malatesta in dying had exclaimed, 'Help me, if +you can; since after me you will be set to draw the cart like oxen.' +Frollieri, relating the speech, adds, 134 'And this has been fulfilled +to the last letter, for all have borne not only the yoke but the burden +and the goad.' Ridolfo Baglioni and his cousin Braccio, the eldest son +of Grifonetto, were both captains of Florence. The one died in battle +in 1554, the other in 1559. Thus ended the illustrious family. They are +now represented by descendants from females, and by contadini who +preserve their name and boast a pedigree of which they have no records. + + [74] See Frollieri, p. 437, for a very curious account of his + character. + + + [75] Fabretti (vol. iii. pp. 193-202. and notes) discusses this + circumstance in detail. Machiavelli's critique runs thus (_Discorsi_, + lib. i. cap. 27): 'Nè si poteva credere che si fosse astenuto o per + bontà, o per coscienza che lo ritenesse; perchè in un petto d'un uomo + facinoroso, che si teneva la sorella, ch' aveva morti i cugini e i + nipotí per regnare, non poteva scendere alcuno pietoso rispetto: ma si + conchiuse che gli uomini non sanno essere onorevolmente tristi, o + perfettamente buoni,' &c. + + + [76] See Fabretti, vol. iii. p. 230. He is an authority for the + details of Gianpaolo's life. The circumstance alluded to above + justifies the terrible opening scene in Shelley's tragedy, _The + Cenci_. + + + [77] Fabretti, vol. iii. p. 230, vol. iv. p. 10. + + + [78] See Varchi, _Storie Florentine_, vol. i. p. 224. + + + [79] Ibid. + + + [80] Fabretti, vol. iv. p. 206. + +The history of the Baglioni needs no commentary. They were not worse +than other Italian nobles, who by their passions and their parties +destroyed the peace of the city they infested. It is with an odd +mixture of admiration and discontent that the chroniclers of Perugia +allude to their ascendency. Matarazzo, who certainly cannot be accused +of hostility to the great house, describes the miseries of his country +under their bad government in piteous terms:[81] 'As I wish not to +swerve from the pure truth, I say that from the day the Oddi were +expelled, our city went from bad to worse. All the young men followed +the trade of arms. Their lives were disorderly; and every day divers +excesses were divulged, and the city had lost all reason and justice. +Every man administered right unto himself, _propriâ autoritate et manu +regiâ_. Meanwhile the Pope sent many legates, if so be the city could +be brought to order: but all who came returned in dread of being hewn +in pieces; for they threatened to throw some from the windows of the +palace, so that no cardinal or other legate durst approach Perugia, +unless he were a friend of the Baglioni. And the city was brought to +such misery, that the most wrongous men were most prized; and those who +had slain two or three men walked as they listed through the palace, +and went with sword or poignard to speak to the podestà and other +magistrates. Moreover, every man of 135 worth was down-trodden by bravi +whom the nobles favoured; nor could a citizen call his property his +own. The nobles robbed first one and then another of goods and land. +All offices were sold or else suppressed; and taxes and extortions were +so grievous that every one cried out. And if a man were in prison for +his head, he had no reason to fear death, provided he had some interest +with a noble.' Yet the same Matarazzo in another place finds it in his +heart to say:[82] 'Though the city suffered great pains for these +nobles, yet the illustrious house of Baglioni brought her honour +throughout Italy, by reason of the great dignity and splendour of that +house, and of their pomp and name. Wherefore through them our city was +often set above the rest, and notably above the commonwealths of +Florence and Siena.' Pride feels no pain. The gratified vanity of the +Perugian burgher, proud to see his town preferred before its +neighbours, blinds the annalist to all the violence and villany of the +magnificent Casa Baglioni. So strong was the _esprit de ville_ which +through successive centuries and amid all vicissitudes of politics +divided the Italians against themselves, and proved an insuperable +obstacle to unity. + + [81] Pp. 102, 103. + + + [82] P. 139. + +After reading the chronicle of Matarazzo at Perugia through one winter +day, I left the inn and walked at sunset to the blood-bedabbled +cathedral square; for still those steps and pavements to my strained +imagination seemed reeking with the outpoured blood of Baglioni; and on +the ragged stonework of San Lorenzo red patches slanted from the dying +day. Then by one of those strange freaks of the brain to which we are +all subject, for a moment I lost sight of untidy Gothic façades and +gaunt unfinished church walls; and as I walked, I was in the Close of +Salisbury on a perfumed summer afternoon. The drowsy scent of +lime-flowers and mignonette, 136 the cawing of elm-cradled rooks, the +hum of bees above, the velvet touch of smooth-shorn grass, and the +breathless shadow of motionless green boughs made up one potent and +absorbing mood of the charmed senses. Far overhead soared the calm grey +spire into the infinite air, and the perfection of accomplished beauty +slept beneath in those long lines of nave and choir and transepts. It +was but a momentary dream, a thought that burned itself upon a fancy +overtaxed by passionate images. Once more the puppet-scene of the brain +was shifted; once more I saw the bleak bare flags of the Perugian +piazza, the forlorn front of the Duomo, the bronze griffin, and +Pisano's fountain, with here and there a flake of that tumultuous fire +which the Italian sunset sheds. Who shall adequately compare the two +pictures? Which shall we prefer—the Close of Salisbury, with its sleepy +bells and cushioned ease of immemorial Deans—or this poor threadbare +passion of Perugia, where every stone is stained with blood, and where +genius in painters and scholars and prophets and ecstatic lovers has +throbbed itself away to nothingness? It would be foolish to seek an +answer to this question, idle to institute a comparison, for instance, +between those tall young men with their broad winter cloaks who remind +me of Grifonetto, and the vergers pottering in search of shillings +along the gravel paths of Salisbury. It is more rational, perhaps, to +reflect of what strange stuff our souls are made in this age of the +world, when æsthetic pleasures, full, genuine, and satisfying, can be +communicated alike by Perugia with its fascination of a dead +irrevocable dramatic past, and Salisbury, which finds the artistic +climax of its English comfort in the 'Angel in the House.' From +Matarazzo, smitten with a Greek love for the beautiful Grifonetto, to +Mr. Patmore, is a wide step. + +137 + + + + +ORVIETO + + +On the road from Siena to Rome, halfway between Ficulle and Viterbo, is +the town of Orvieto. Travellers often pass it in the night-time. Few +stop there, for the place is old and dirty, and its inns are said to be +indifferent. But none who see it even from a distance can fail to be +struck with its imposing aspect, as it rises from the level plain upon +that mass of rock among the Apennines. + +Orvieto is built upon the first of those huge volcanic blocks which are +found like fossils embedded in the more recent geological formations of +Central Italy, and which stretch in an irregular but unbroken line to +the Campagna of Rome. Many of them, like that on which Civita +Castellana is perched, are surrounded by rifts and chasms and ravines +and fosses, strangely furrowed and twisted by the force of fiery +convulsions. But their advanced guard, Orvieto, stands up definite and +solid, an almost perfect cube, with walls precipitous to north and +south and east, but slightly sloping to the westward. At its foot rolls +the Paglia, one of those barren streams which swell in winter with the +snows and rains of the Apennines, but which in summer-time shrink up, +and leave bare beds of sand and pestilential canebrakes to stretch +irregularly round their dwindled waters. + +The weary flatness and utter desolation of this valley present a +sinister contrast to the broad line of the Apennines, swelling tier on +tier, from their oak-girdled basements set with villages and towers, up +to the snow and cloud that crown 138 their topmost crags. The time to +see this landscape is at sunrise; and the traveller should take his +stand upon the rising ground over which the Roman road is carried from +the town—the point, in fact, which Turner has selected for his vague +and misty sketch of Orvieto in our Gallery. Thence he will command the +whole space of the plain, the Apennines, and the river creeping in a +straight line at the base; while the sun, rising to his right, will +slant along the mountain flanks, and gild the leaden stream, and flood +the castled crags of Orvieto with a haze of light. From the centre of +this glory stand out in bold relief old bastions built upon the solid +tufa, vast gaping gateways black in shadow, towers of churches shooting +up above a medley of deep-corniced tall Italian houses, and, amid them +all, the marble front of the Cathedral, calm and solemn in its +unfamiliar Gothic state. Down to the valley from these heights there is +a sudden fall; and we wonder how the few spare olive-trees that grow +there can support existence on the steep slope of the cliff. + +Our mind, in looking at this landscape, is carried by the force of old +association to Jerusalem. We could fancy ourselves to be standing on +Mount Olivet, with the valley of Jehoshaphat between us and the Sacred +City. As we approach the town, the difficulty of scaling its crags +seems insurmountable. The road, though carried skilfully along each +easy slope or ledge of quarried rock, still winds so much that nearly +an hour is spent in the ascent. Those who can walk should take a +footpath, and enter Orvieto by the mediæval road, up which many a Pope, +flying from rebellious subjects or foreign enemies, has hurried on his +mule.[83] + + [83] Clement VII., for example, escaped from Rome disguised as a + gardener after the sack in 1527, and, to quote the words of Varchi + (St. Flor., v. 17), 'Entrò agli otto di dicembre a due ore di notte in + Orvieto, terra di sito fortissimo, per lo essere ella sopra uno + scoglio pieno di tufi posta, d' ogni intorno scosceso e dirupato,' &c. + +139 To unaccustomed eyes there is something forbidding and terrible +about the dark and cindery appearance of volcanic tufa. Where it is +broken, the hard and gritty edges leave little space for vegetation; +while at intervals the surface spreads so smooth and straight that one +might take it for solid masonry erected by the architect of +Pandemonium. Rubbish and shattered bits of earthenware and ashes, +thrown from the city walls, cling to every ledge and encumber the +broken pavement of the footway. Then as we rise, the castle battlements +above appear more menacing, toppling upon the rough edge of the crag, +and guarding each turn of the road with jealous loopholes or +beetle-browed machicolations, until at last the gateway and portcullis +are in view. + +On first entering Orvieto, one's heart fails to find so terrible a +desolation, so squalid a solitude, and so vast a difference between the +present and the past, between the beauty of surrounding nature and the +misery of this home of men. A long space of unoccupied ground +intervenes between the walls and the hovels which skirt the modern +town. This, in the times of its splendour, may have served for +oliveyards, vineyards, and pasturage, in case of siege. There are still +some faint traces of dead gardens left upon its arid wilderness, among +the ruins of a castellated palace, decorated with the cross-keys and +tiara of an unremembered pope. But now it lies a mere tract of scorched +grass, insufferably hot and dry and sandy, intersected by dirty paths, +and covered with the loathliest offal of a foul Italian town. Should +you cross this ground at mid-day, under the blinding sun, when no +living thing, except perhaps some poisonous reptile, is about, you +would declare that Orvieto had been stricken for its sins by Heaven. +Your mind would dwell mechanically on all that you have read of Papal +crimes, of fratricidal wars, of Pagan abominations in the high places +of the Church, of tempestuous passions and 140 refined iniquity—of +everything, in fact, which renders Italy of the Middle Ages and the +Renaissance dark and ominous amid the splendours of her art and +civilisation. This is the natural result; this shrunken and squalid old +age of poverty and self-abandonment is the end of that strong, +prodigal, and vicious youth. Who shall restore vigour to these dead +bones? we cry. If Italy is to live again, she must quit her ruined +palace towers to build fresh dwellings elsewhere. Filth, lust, +rapacity, treason, godlessness, and violence have made their habitation +here; ghosts haunt these ruins; these streets still smell of blood and +echo to the cries of injured innocence; life cannot be pure, or calm, +or healthy, where this curse has settled. + +Occupied with such reflections, we reach the streets of Orvieto. They +are not very different from those of most Italian villages, except that +there is little gaiety about them. Like Assisi or Siena, Orvieto is too +large for its population, and merriment flows better from close +crowding than from spacious accommodation. Very dark, and big, and +dirty, and deserted, is the judgment we pronounce upon the houses; very +filthy and malodorous each passage; very long this central street; very +few and sad and sullen the inhabitants; and where, we wonder, is the +promised inn? In search of this one walks nearly through the city, +until one enters the Piazza, where there is more liveliness. Here cafés +may be found; soldiers, strong and sturdy, from the north, lounge at +the corners; the shops present more show; and a huge hotel, not bad for +such a place, and appropriately dedicated to the Belle Arti, standing +in a courtyard of its own, receives the traveller weary with his climb. +As soon as he has taken rooms, his first desire is to go forth and +visit the Cathedral. + +The great Duomo was erected at the end of the thirteenth century to +commemorate the Miracle of Bolsena. The value 141 of this miracle +consisted in its establishing unmistakably the truth of +transubstantiation. The story runs that a young Bohemian priest who +doubted the dogma was performing the office of the mass in a church at +Bolsena, when, at the moment of consecration, blood issued from five +gashes in the wafer, which resembled the five wounds of Christ. The +fact was evident to all the worshippers, who saw blood falling on the +linen of the altar; and the young priest no longer doubted, but +confessed the miracle, and journeyed straightway with the evidence +thereof to Pope Urban IV. The Pope, who was then at Orvieto, came out +with all his retinue to meet the convert and do honour to the +magic-working relics. The circumstances of this miracle are well known +to students of art through Raphael's celebrated fresco in the Stanze of +the Vatican. And it will be remembered by the readers of ecclesiastical +history that Urban had in 1264 promulgated by a bull the strict +observance of the Corpus Christi festival in connection with his strong +desire to re-establish the doctrine of Christ's presence in the +elements. Nor was it without reason that, while seeking miraculous +support for this dogma, he should have treated the affair of Bolsena so +seriously as to celebrate it by the erection of one of the most +splendid cathedrals in Italy; for the peace of the Church had recently +been troubled by the reforming ardour of the Fraticelli and by the +promulgation of Abbot Joachim's Eternal Gospel. This new evangelist had +preached the doctrine of progression in religious faith, proclaiming a +kingdom of the Spirit which should transcend the kingdom of the Son, +even as the Christian dispensation had superseded the Jewish supremacy +of the Father. Nor did he fail at the same time to attack the political +and moral abuses of the Papacy, attributing its degradation to the want +of vitality which pervaded the old Christian system, and calling on the +clergy to lead more 142 simple and regenerate lives, consistently with +the spiritual doctrine which he had received by inspiration. The +theories of Joachim were immature and crude; but they were among the +first signs of that liberal effort after self-emancipation which +eventually stirred all Europe at the time of the Renaissance. It was, +therefore, the obvious policy of the Popes to crush so dangerous an +opposition while they could; and by establishing the dogma of +transubstantiation, they were enabled to satisfy the craving mysticism +of the people, while they placed upon a firmer basis the cardinal +support of their own religious power. + +In pursuance of his plan, Urban sent for Lorenzo Maitani, the great +Sienese architect, who gave designs for a Gothic church in the same +style as the Cathedral of Siena, though projected on a smaller scale. +These two churches, in spite of numerous shortcomings manifest to an +eye trained in French or English architecture, are still the most +perfect specimens of Pointed Gothic produced by the Italian genius. The +Gottico Tedesco had never been received with favour in Italy. Remains +of Roman architecture, then far more numerous and perfect than they are +at present, controlled the minds of artists, and induced them to adopt +the rounded rather than the pointed arch. Indeed, there would seem to +be something peculiarly Northern in the spirit of Gothic architecture: +its intricacies suit the gloom of Northern skies, its massive exterior +is adapted to the severity of Northern weather, its vast windows catch +the fleeting sunlight of the North, and the pinnacles and spires which +constitute its beauty are better expressed in rugged stone than in the +marbles of the South. Northern cathedrals do not depend for their +effect upon the advantages of sunlight or picturesque situations. Many +of them are built upon broad plains, over which for more than half the +year hangs fog. But the cathedrals of Italy owe 143 their charm to +colour and brilliancy: their gilded sculpture and mosaics, the +variegated marbles and shallow portals of their façades, the light +aë;rial elegance of their campanili, are all adapted to the luminous +atmosphere of a smiling land, where changing effects of natural beauty +distract the attention from solidity of design and permanence of +grandeur in the edifice itself.[84] + + [84] In considering why Gothic architecture took so little root in + mediæval Italy, we must remember that the Italians had maintained an + unbroken connection with Pagan Rome, and that many of their finest + churches were basilicas appropriated to Christian rites. Add to this + that the commerce of their cities, which first acquired wealth in the + twelfth century, especially Pisa and Venice, kept them in + communication with the Levant, where they admired the masterpieces of + Byzantine architecture, and whence they imported Greek artists in + mosaic and stonework. Against these external circumstances, taken in + connection with the hereditary leanings of an essentially Latin race, + and with the natural conditions of landscape and climate alluded to + above, the influence of a few imported German architects could not + have had sufficient power to effect a thorough metamorphosis of the + national taste. For further treatment of this subject see my 'Fine + Arts,' _Renaissance in Italy_, Part III. chap. ii. + +The Cathedral of Orvieto will illustrate these remarks. Its design is +very simple. It consists of a parallelogram, from which three chapels +of equal size project, one at the east end, and one at the north and +south. The windows are small and narrow, the columns round, and the +roof displays none of that intricate groining we find in English +churches. The beauty of the interior depends on surface decoration, on +marble statues, woodwork, and fresco-paintings. Outside, there is the +same simplicity of design, the same elaborated local ornament. The +sides of the Cathedral are austere, their narrow windows cutting +horizontal lines of black and white marble. But the façade is a triumph +of decorative art. It is strictly what has often been described as a +'frontispiece;' for it bears no sincere relation to the construction of +the building. The three gables 144 rise high above the aisles. The +pinnacles and parapets and turrets are stuck on to look agreeable. It +is a screen such as might be completed or left unfinished at will by +the architect. Finished as it is, the façade of Orvieto presents a +wilderness of beauties. Its pure white marble has been mellowed by time +to a rich golden hue, in which are set mosaics shining like gems or +pictures of enamel. A statue stands on every pinnacle; each pillar has +a different design; round some of them are woven wreaths of vine and +ivy; acanthus leaves curl over the capitals, making nests for singing +birds or Cupids; the doorways are a labyrinth of intricate designs, in +which the utmost elegance of form is made more beautiful by +incrustations of precious agates and Alexandrine glasswork. On every +square inch of this wonderful façade have been lavished invention, +skill, and precious material. But its chief interest centres in the +sculptures executed by Giovanni and Andrea, sons and pupils of Nicola +Pisano. The names of these three men mark an era in the history of art. +They first rescued Italian sculpture from the grotesqueness of the +Lombard and the wooden monotony of the Byzantine styles. Sculpture +takes the lead of all the arts. And Nicola Pisano, before Cimabue, +before Duccio, even before Dante, opened the gates of beauty, which for +a thousand years had been shut up and overgrown with weeds. As Dante +invoked the influence of Virgil when he began to write his mediæval +poem, and made a heathen bard his hierophant in Christian mysteries, +just so did Nicola Pisano draw inspiration from a Græco-Roman +sarcophagus. He studied the basrelief of Phædra and Hippolytus, which +may still be seen upon the tomb of Countess Beatrice in the Campo +Santo, and so learned by heart the beauty of its lines and the dignity +expressed in its figures, that in all his subsequent works we trace the +elevated tranquillity of Greek sculpture. This imitation never +degenerated into servile copying; nor, on the 145 other hand, did +Nicola attain the perfect grace of an Athenian artist. He remained a +truly mediæval carver, animated with a Christian instead of a Pagan +spirit, but caring for the loveliness of form which art in the dark +ages failed to realise.[85] + + [85] I am not inclined to reject the old legend mentioned above about + Pisano's study of the antique. For a full discussion of the question + see my 'Fine Arts,' _Renaissance in Italy_, Part III. chap. iii. + +Whether it was Nicola or his scholars who designed the basreliefs at +Orvieto is of little consequence. Vasari ascribes them to the father; +but we know that he completed his pulpit at Pisa in 1230, and his death +is supposed to have taken place fifteen years before the foundation of +the cathedral. At any rate, they are imbued with his genius, and bear +the strongest affinity to his sculptures at Pisa, Siena, and Bologna. +To estimate the influence they exercised over the arts of sculpture and +painting in Italy would be a difficult task. Duccio and Giotto studied +here; Ghiberti closely followed them. Signorelli and Raphael made +drawings from their compositions. And the spirit which pervades these +sculptures may be traced in all succeeding works of art. It is not +classic; it is modern, though embodied in a form of beauty modelled on +the Greek. + +The basreliefs are carved on four marble tablets placed beside the +porches of the church, and corresponding in size and shape with the +chief doorways. They represent the course of Biblical history, +beginning with the creation of the world, and ending with the last +judgment. If it were possible here to compare them in detail with the +similar designs of Ghiberti, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, it might be +shown that the Pisani established modes of treating sacred subjects +from which those mighty masters never deviated, though each stamped +upon them his peculiar genius, making them more perfect as time added +to the power of art. It would also be 146 not without interest to show +that, in their primitive conceptions of the earliest events in history, +the works of the Pisan artists closely resemble some sculptures +executed on the walls of Northern cathedrals, as well as early mosaics +in the South of Italy. We might have noticed how all the grotesque +elements which appear in Nicola Pisano, and which may still be traced +in Ghiberti, are entirely lost in Michel Angelo, how the supernatural +is humanised, how the symbolical receives an actual expression, and how +intellectual types are substituted for mere local and individual +representations. For instance, the Pisani represent the Creator as a +young man standing on the earth, with a benign and dignified +expression, and attended by two ministering angels. He is the Christ of +the Creed, 'by whom all things were made.' In Ghiberti we find an older +man, sometimes appearing in a whirlwind of clouds and attendant +spirits, sometimes walking on the earth, but still far different in +conception from the Creative Father of Michel Angelo. The latter is +rather the Platonic Demiurgus than the Mosaic God. By every line and +feature of his face and flowing hair, by each movement of his limbs, +whether he ride on clouds between the waters and the firmament, or +stand alone creating by a glance and by a motion of his hand Eve, the +full-formed and conscious woman, he is proclaimed the Maker who from +all eternity has held the thought of the material universe within his +mind. Raphael does not depart from this conception. The profound +abstraction of Michel Angelo ruled his intellect, and received from his +genius a form of perhaps greater grace. A similar growth from the +germinal designs of the Pisani may be traced in many groups. + +But we must not linger at the gate. Let us enter the cathedral and see +some of the wonders it contains. Statues of gigantic size adorn the +nave. Of these, the most beautiful 147 are the work of Ippolito Scalza, +an artist whom Orvieto claims with pride as one of her own sons. The +long line of saints and apostles whom they represent conduct us to the +high altar, surrounded by its shadowy frescoes, and gleaming with the +work of carvers in marble and bronze and precious metals. But our steps +are drawn toward the chapel of the south transept, where now a golden +light from the autumnal sunset falls across a crowd of worshippers. +From far and near the poor people are gathered. Most of them are women. +They kneel upon the pavement and the benches, sunburnt faces from the +vineyards and the canebrakes of the valley. The old look prematurely +aged and withered—their wrinkled cheeks bound up in scarlet and +orange-coloured kerchiefs, their skinny fingers fumbling on the rosary, +and their mute lips moving in prayer. The younger women have great +listless eyes and large limbs used to labor. Some of them carry babies +trussed up in tight swaddling-clothes. One kneels beside a dark-browed +shepherd, on whose shoulder falls his shaggy hair; and little children +play about, half hushed, half heedless of the place, among old men +whose life has dwindled down into a ceaseless round of prayers. We +wonder why this chapel, alone in the empty cathedral, is so crowded +with worshippers. They surely are not turned towards that splendid +Pietà of Scalza—a work in which the marble seems to live a cold, dead, +shivering life. They do not heed Angelico's and Signorelli's frescoes +on the roof and walls. The interchange of light and gloom upon the +stalls and carved work of the canopies can scarcely rivet so intense a +gaze. All eyes seem fixed upon a curtain of red silk above the altar. +Votive pictures, and glass cases full of silver hearts, wax babies, +hands and limbs of every kind, are hung round it. A bell rings. A +jingling organ plays a little melody in triple time; and from the +sacristy comes forth the priest. With 148 much reverence, and with a +show of preparation, he and the acolytes around him mount the altar +steps and pull a string which draws the curtain. Behind the silken veil +we behold Madonna and her child—a faint, old, ugly picture, blackened +with the smoke and incense of five hundred years, a wonder-working +image, cased in gold, and guarded from the common air by glass and +draperies. Jewelled crowns are stuck upon the heads of the mother and +the infant. In the efficacy of Madonna di San Brizio to ward off agues, +to deliver from the pangs of childbirth or the fury of the storm, to +keep the lover's troth and make the husband faithful to his home, these +pious women of the marshes and the mountains put a simple trust. + +While the priest sings, and the people pray to the dance-music of the +organ, let us take a quiet seat unseen, and picture to our minds how +the chapel looked when Angelico and Signorelli stood before its +plastered walls, and thought the thoughts with which they covered them. +Four centuries have gone by since those walls were white and even to +their brushes; and now you scarce can see the golden aureoles of +saints, the vast wings of the angels, and the flowing robes of prophets +through the gloom. Angelico came first, in monk's dress, kneeling +before he climbed the scaffold to paint the angry judge, the Virgin +crowned, the white-robed army of the Martyrs, and the glorious company +of the Apostles. These he placed upon the roof, expectant of the +Judgment. Then he passed away, and Luca Signorelli, the rich man who +'lived splendidly and loved to dress himself in noble clothes,' the +liberal and courteous gentleman, took his place upon the scaffold. For +all the worldliness of his attire and the worldliness of his living, +his brain teemed with stern and terrible thoughts. He searched the +secrets of sin and of the grave, of destruction and of resurrection, of +heaven and hell. All these he has painted on the walls beneath the +saints of Fra 149 Angelico. First come the troubles of the last days, +the preaching of Antichrist, and the confusion of the wicked. In the +next compartment we see the Resurrection from the tomb; and side by +side with that is painted Hell. Paradise occupies another portion of +the chapel. On each side of the window, beneath the Christ of Fra +Angelico, are delineated scenes from the Judgment. A wilderness of +arabesques, enclosing medallion portraits of poets and chiaroscuro +episodes selected from Dante and Ovid, occupies the lower portions of +the chapel walls beneath the great subjects enumerated above; and here +Signorelli has given free vein to his fancy and his mastery over +anatomical design, accumulating naked human figures in the most +fantastic and audacious variety of pose. + +Look at the 'Fulminati'—so the group of wicked men are called whose +death precedes the Judgment. Huge naked angels, sailing upon vanlike +wings, breathe columns of red flame upon a crowd of wicked men and +women. In vain these sinners avoid the descending fire. It pursues and +fells them to the earth. As they fly, their eyes are turned towards the +dreadful faces in the air. Some hurry through a portico, huddled +together, falling men, and women clasping to their arms dead babies +scorched with flame. One old man stares straightforward, doggedly +awaiting death. One woman scowls defiance as she dies. A youth has +twisted both hands in his hair, and presses them against his ears to +drown the screams and groans and roaring thunder. They trample upon +prostrate forms already stiff. Every shape and attitude of sudden +terror and despairing guilt are here. Next comes the Resurrection. Two +angels of the Judgment—gigantic figures, with the plumeless wings that +Signorelli loves—are seen upon the clouds. They blow trumpets with all +their might, so that each naked muscle seems strained to make the +blast, which bellows through the air and shakes 150 the sepulchres +beneath the earth. Thence rise the dead. All are naked, and a few are +seen like skeletons. With painful effort they struggle from the soil +that clasps them round, as if obeying an irresistible command. Some +have their heads alone above the ground. Others wrench their limbs from +the clinging earth; and as each man rises, it closes under him. One +would think that they were being born again from solid clay, and +growing into form with labour. The fully risen spirits stand and walk +about, all occupied with the expectation of the Judgment; but those +that are yet in the act of rising, have no thought but for the strange +and toilsome process of this second birth. Signorelli here, as +elsewhere, proves himself one of the greatest painters by the simple +means with which he produces the most marvellous effects. His +composition sways our souls with all the passion of the terrible scenes +that he depicts. Yet what does it contain? Two stern angels on the +clouds, a blank grey plain, and a multitude of naked men and women. In +the next compartment Hell is painted. This is a complicated picture, +consisting of a mass of human beings entangled with torturing fiends. +Above hover demons bearing damned spirits, and three angels see that +justice takes its course. Signorelli here degenerates into no mediæval +ugliness and mere barbarity of form. His fiends are not the bestial +creatures of Pisano's basreliefs, but models of those monsters which +Duppa has engraved from Michel Angelo's 'Last Judgment'—lean naked men, +in whose hollow eyes glow the fires of hate and despair, whose nails +have grown to claws, and from whose ears have started horns. They sail +upon bats' wings; and only by their livid hue, which changes from +yellow to the ghastliest green, and by the cruelty of their remorseless +eyes, can you know them from the souls they torture. In Hell ugliness +and power of mischief come with length of years. 151 Continual growth +in crime distorts the form which once was human; and the interchange of +everlasting hatred degrades the tormentor and his victim to the same +demoniac ferocity. To this design the science of foreshortening, and +the profound knowledge of the human form in every posture, give its +chief interest. Paradise is not less wonderful. Signorelli has +contrived to throw variety and grace into the somewhat monotonous +groups which this subject requires. Above are choirs of angels, not +like Fra Angelico's, but tall male creatures clothed in voluminous +drapery, with grave features and still, solemn eyes. Some are dancing, +some are singing to the lute, and one, the most gracious of them all, +bends down to aid a suppliant soul. The men beneath, who listen in a +state of bliss, are all undraped. Signorelli, in this difficult +composition, remains temperate, serene, and simple; a Miltonic harmony +pervades the movement of his angelic choirs. Their beauty is the +product of their strength and virtue. No floral ornaments or cherubs, +or soft clouds, are found in his Paradise; yet it is fair and full of +grace. Here Luca seems to have anticipated Raphael. + +It may be parenthetically observed, that Signorelli has introduced +himself and Niccolo Angeli, treasurer of the cathedral building fund, +in the corner of the fresco representing Antichrist, with the date +1503. They stand as spectators and solemn witnesses of the tragedy, set +forth in all its acts by the great master. + +After viewing these frescoes, we muse and ask ourselves why +Signorelli's fame is so inadequate to his deserts? Partly, no doubt, +because he painted in obscure Italian towns, and left few +easel-pictures.[86] Besides, the artists of the sixteenth 152 century +eclipsed all their predecessors, and the name of Signorelli has been +swallowed up in that of Michel Angelo. Vasari said that 'esso Michel +Angelo imitò l'andar di Luca, 153 come può vedere ognuno.' Nor is it +hard to see that what the one began at Orvieto the other completed in +the Vatican. These great men had truly kindred spirits. Both struggled +154 to express their intellectual conceptions in the simplest and most +abstract forms. The works of both are distinguished by contempt for +adventitious ornaments and for the grace of positive colour. Both chose +to work in fresco, and selected subjects of the gravest and most +elevated character. The study of anatomy, and the scientific drawing of +the naked body, which Luca practised, were carried to perfection by +Michel Angelo. Sublimity of thought and self-restraint pervade their +compositions. He who would understand Buonarroti must first appreciate +Signorelli. The latter, it is true, was confined to a narrower circle +in his study of the beautiful and the sublime. He had not ascended to +that pure idealism, superior to all the accidents of place and time, +which is the chief distinction of Michel Angelo's work. At the same +time, his manner had not suffered from too fervid an enthusiasm for the +imperfectly comprehended antique. He painted the life he saw around +him, and clothed his men and women in the dress of Italy. + +Such reflections, and many more, pass through our mind as we sit and +ponder in the chapel, which the daylight has deserted. The country +people are still on their knees, still careless of the frescoed forms +around them, still praying to Madonna of the Miracles. The service is +well-nigh done. The benediction has been given, the organist strikes up +his air of Verdi, and the congregation shuffles off, leaving the dimly +lighted chapel for the vast sonorous dusky nave. How strange it is to +hear that faint strain of a feeble opera sounding where, a short while +since, the trumpet-blast of Signorelli's angels seemed to thrill our +ears! + + [86] The Uffizzi and Pitti Galleries at Florence contain one or two + fine specimens of Luca Signorelli's Holy Families, which show his + influence over the early manner of Michel Angelo. Into the background + of one circular picture he has introduced a group of naked figures, + which was imitated by Buonarroti in the Holy Family of the Tribune. + The Accademia has also a picture of saints and angels illustrative of + his large style and crowded composition. The Brera at Milan can boast + of a very characteristic Flagellation, where the nude has been + carefully studied, and the brutality of an insolent officer is + forcibly represented. But perhaps the most interesting of his works + out of Orvieto are those in his native place, Cortona. In the Church + of the Gesù in that town there is an altar-piece representing Madonna + in glory with saints, which also contains on a smaller scale than the + principal figures a little design of the Temptation in Eden. You + recognise the master's individuality in the muscular and energetic + Adam. The Duomo has a Communion of the Apostles which shows + Signorelli's independence of tradition. It is the Cenacolo treated + with freedom. Christ stands in the midst of the twelve, who are + gathered around him, some kneeling and some upright, upon a marble + pavement. The whole scene is conceived in a truly grand style—noble + attitudes, broad draperies, sombre and rich colouring, masculine + massing of the figures in effective groups. The Christ is especially + noble. Swaying a little to the right, he gives the bread to a kneeling + apostle. The composition is marked by a dignity and self-restraint + which Raphael might have envied. San Niccolo, again, has a fine + picture by this master. It is a Deposition with saints and + angels—those large-limbed and wide-winged messengers of God whom none + but Signorelli realised. The composition of this picture is hazardous, + and at first sight it is even displeasing. The figures seem roughly + scattered in a vacant space. The dead Christ has but little dignity, + and the passion of S. Jerome in the foreground is stiff in spite of + its exaggeration. But long study only serves to render this strange + picture more and more attractive. Especially noticeable is the + youthful angel clad in dark green who sustains Christ. He is a young + man in the bloom of strength and beauty, whose long golden hair falls + on each side of a sublimely lovely face. Nothing in painting surpasses + the modelling of the vigorous but delicate left arm stretched forward + to support the heavy corpse. This figure is conceived and executed in + a style worthy of the Orvietan frescoes. Signorelli, for whose + imagination angels had a special charm, has shown here that his too + frequent contempt for grace was not the result of insensibility to + beauty. Strength is the parent of sweetness in this wonderful winged + youth. But not a single sacrifice is made in the whole picture to mere + elegance.—Cortona is a place which, independently of Signorelli, well + deserves a visit. Like all Etruscan towns, it is perched on the top of + a high hill, whence it commands a wonderful stretch of landscape—Monte + Amiata and Montepulciano to the south, Chiusi with its lake, the lake + of Thrasymene, and the whole broad Tuscan plain. The city itself is + built on a projecting buttress of the mountain, to which it clings so + closely that, in climbing to the terrace of S. Margarita, you lose + sight of all but a few towers and house-roofs. One can almost fancy + that Signorelli gained his broad and austere style from the habitual + contemplation of a view so severe in outline, and so vacant in its + width. This landscape has none of the variety which distinguishes the + prospect from Perugia, none of the suavity of Siena. It is truly + sympathetic in its bare simplicity to the style of the great painter + of Cortona. Try to see it on a winter morning, when the mists are + lying white and low and thin upon the plain, when distant hills rise + islanded into the air, and the outlines of lakes are just discernible + through fleecy haze.—Next to Cortona in importance is the Convent of + Monte Oliveto in the neighbourhood of Siena, where Signorelli painted + eight frescoes from the story of S. Benedict, distinguished by his + customary vigour of conception, masculine force of design, and martial + splendour in athletic disdainful young men. One scene in this series, + representing the interior of a country inn, is specially interesting + for a realism not usual in the work of Signorelli. The frescoes + painted for Petruccio at Siena, one of which is now in the National + Gallery, the fresco in the Sistine Chapel, which has suffered sadly + from retouching, and the magnificent classical picture called the + 'School of Pan,' executed for Lorenzo de' Medici, and now at Berlin, + must not be forgotten, nor yet the church-pictures scattered over + Loreto, Arcevia, Città di Castello, Borgo San Sepolcro, Volterra, and + other cities of the Tuscan-Umbrian district. Arezzo, it may be added + in conclusion, has two altar-pieces of Signorelli's in its Pinacoteca, + neither of which adds much to our conception of this painter's style. + Noticeable as they may be among the works of that period, they prove + that his genius was hampered by the narrow and traditional treatment + imposed on him in pictures of this kind. Students may be referred to + Robert Vischer's _Luca Signorelli_ (Leipzig, 1879) for a complete list + of the master's works and an exhaustive biography. I have tried to + estimate his place in the history of Italian art in my volume on the + 'Fine Arts,' _Renaissance in Italy_, Part III. I may also mention two + able articles by Professor Colvin published a few years since in the + _Cornhill Magazine_. + +155 + + + + +LUCRETIUS + + +In seeking to distinguish the Roman from the Greek genius we can find +no surer guide than Virgil's famous lines in the Sixth Æneid. Virgil +lived to combine the traditions of both races in a work of profoundly +meditated art, and to their points of divergence he was sensitive as +none but a poet bent upon resolving them could be. The real greatness +of the Romans consisted in their capacity for government, law, +practical administration. What they willed, they carried into effect +with an iron indifference to everything but the object in view. What +they acquired, they held with the firm grasp of force, and by the might +of organised authority. Their architecture, in so far as it was +original, subserved purposes of public utility. Philosophy with them +ceased to be speculative, and applied itself to the ethics of conduct. +Their religious conceptions—in so far as these were not adopted +together with general culture from the Greeks, or together with sensual +mysticism from the East—were practical abstractions. The Latin ideal +was to give form to the state by legislation, and to mould the citizen +by moral discipline. The Greek ideal was contained in the poetry of +Homer, the sculpture of Pheidias, the heroism of Harmodius, the +philosophy of Socrates. Hellas was held together by no system, but by +the Delphic oracle and the Olympian games. The Greeks depended upon +culture, as the Romans upon law. The national character determined by +culture, and that determined by discipline, eventually broke down: but +the ruin in either case 156 was different. The Greek became servile, +indolent, and slippery; the Roman became arrogant, bloodthirsty, +tyrannous, and brutal. The Greeks in their best days attained to +σωφροσύνη, their regulative virtue, by a kind of instinct; and even in +their worst debasement they never exhibited the extravagance of lust +and cruelty and pompous prodigality displayed by Rome. The Romans, +deficient in the æsthetic instinct, whether applied to morals or to +art, were temperate upon compulsion; and when the strain of law +relaxed, they gave themselves unchecked to profligacy. The bad taste of +the Romans made them aspire to the huge and monstrous. Nero's whim to +cut through the isthmus, Caligula's villa built upon the sea at Baiæ, +the acres covered by imperial palaces in Rome, are as Latin as the +small scale of the Parthenon is Greek. Athens annihilates our notions +of mere magnitude by the predominance of harmony and beauty, to which +size is irrelevant. Rome dilates them to the full: it is the colossal +greatness, the mechanical pride, of her monuments that win our +admiration. By comparing the Dionysian theatre at Athens, during a +representation of the 'Antigone,' with the Flavian amphitheatre at +Rome, while the gladiators sang their _Ave Cæsar!_ we gain at once a +measure for the differences between Greek and Latin taste. In spiritual +matters, again, Rome, as distinguished from Hellas, was omnivorous. The +cosmopolitan receptivity of Roman sympathies, absorbing Egypt and the +Orient wholesale, is as characteristic as the exclusiveness of the +Greeks, their sensitive anxiety about the ἦθος. We feel that it was in +a Roman rather than a Greek atmosphere, where no middle term of art +existed like a neutral ground between the moral law and sin, where no +delicate intellectual sensibilities interfered with the assimilation of +new creeds, that Christianity was destined to strike root and flourish. + +These remarks, familiar to students, form a proper prelude to 157 the +criticism of Lucretius: for in Lucretius the Roman character found its +most perfect literary incarnation. He is at all points a true Roman, +gifted with the strength, the conquering temper, the uncompromising +haughtiness, and the large scale of his race. Holding, as it were, the +thought of Greece in fee, he administers the Epicurean philosophy as +though it were a province, marshalling his arguments like legionaries, +and spanning the chasms of speculative insecurity with the masonry of +hypotheses. As the arches of the Pont du Gard, suspended in their power +amid that solitude, produce an overmastering feeling of awe; so the +huge fabric of the Lucretian system, hung across the void of Nihilism, +inspires a sense of terror, not so much on its own account as for the +Roman sternness of the mind that made it. 'Le retentissement de mes pas +dans ces immenses voûtes me faisait croire entendre la forte voix de +ceux qui les avait bâties. Je me perdais comme un insecte dans cette +immensité.' This is what Rousseau wrote about the aqueduct of Nismes. +This is what we feel in pacing the corridors of the Lucretian poem. +Sometimes it seems like walking through resounding caves of night and +death, where unseen cataracts keep plunging down uncertain depths, and +winds 'thwarted and forlorn' swell from an unknown distance, and rush +by, and wail themselves to silence in the unexplored beyond. At another +time the impression left upon the memory is different. We have been +following a Roman road from the gate of the Eternal City, through field +and vineyard, by lake and river-bed, across the broad intolerable plain +and the barren tops of Alps, down into forests where wild beasts and +barbarian tribes wander, along the marge of Rhine or Elbe, and over +frozen fens, in one perpetual straight line, until the sea is reached +and the road ends because it can go no further. All the while, the iron +wheel-rims of our chariot have jarred upon imperishable paved work; +there has been no stop nor stay; 158 the visions of things beautiful +and strange and tedious have flown past; at the climax we look forth +across a waste of waves and tumbling wilderness of surf and foam, where +the storm sweeps and hurrying mists drive eastward close above our +heads. The want of any respite, breathing-space, or intermission in the +poem, helps to force this image of a Roman journey on our mind. From +the first line to the last there is no turning-point, no pause of +thought, scarcely a comma, and the whole breaks off:— + +rixantes potius quam corpora desererentur: + +as though a scythe-sweep from the arm of Death had cut the thread of +singing short. + +Is, then, this poem truly song? Indeed it is. The brazen voice of Rome +becomes tunable; a majestic rhythm sustains the progress of the singer, +who, like Milton's Satan, + +O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, +With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way, +And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. + +It is only because, being so much a Roman, he insists on moving ever +onward with unwavering march, that Lucretius is often wearisome and +rough. He is too disdainful to care to mould the whole stuff of his +poem to one quality. He is too truth-loving to condescend to rhetoric. +The scoriæ, the grit, the dross, the quartz, the gold, the jewels of +his thought are hurried onward in one mighty lava-flood, that has the +force to bear them all with equal ease—not altogether unlike that +hurling torrent of the world painted by Tintoretto in his picture of +the Last Day, which carries on its breast cities and forests and men +with all their works, to plunge them in a bottomless abyss. + +Poems of the perfect Hellenic type may be compared to bronze statues, +in the material of which many divers metals 159 have been fused. Silver +and tin and copper and lead and gold are there: each substance adds a +quality to the mass; yet the whole is bronze. The furnace of the poet's +will has so melted and mingled all these ores, that they have run +together and filled the mould of his imagination. It is thus that +Virgil chose to work. He made it his glory to realise artistic harmony, +and to preserve a Greek balance in his style. Not so Lucretius. In him +the Roman spirit, disdainful, uncompromising, and forceful, had full +sway. We can fancy him accosting the Greek masters of the lyre upon +Parnassus, deferring to none, conceding nought, and meeting their +arguments with proud indifference:— + +tu regere imperio populos Romane memento. + +The Roman poet, swaying the people of his thoughts, will stoop to no +persuasion, adopt no middle course. It is not his business to please, +but to command; he will not wait upon the καιρός, or court opportunity; +Greeks may surprise the Muses in relenting moods, and seek out 'mollia +tempora fandi;' all times and seasons must serve him; the terrible, the +discordant, the sublime, and the magnificent shall drag his thundering +car-wheels, as he lists, along the road of thought. + +At the very outset of the poem we feel ourselves within the grasp of +the Roman imagination. It is no Aphrodite, risen from the waves and +white as the sea-foam, that he invokes:— + +Æneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, alma Venus. + +This Venus is the mother of the brood of Rome, and at the same time an +abstraction as wide as the universe. See her in the arms of Mavors:— + +160 in gremium qui sæpe tuum se +reicit æterno devictus volnere amoris, +atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta +pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visus, +eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore. +hunc tu, diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto +circumfusa super, suavis ex ore loquelas +funde petens placidam Romanis, incluta, pacem. + + +In the whole Lucretian treatment of love there is nothing really Greek. +We do not hear of Eros, either as the mystic mania of Plato, or as the +winged boy of Meleager. Love in Lucretius is something deeper, larger, +and more elemental than the Greeks conceived; a fierce and +overmastering force, a natural impulse which men share in common with +the world of things.[87] Both the pleasures and the pains of love are +conceived on a gigantic scale, and described with an irony that has the +growl of a roused lion mingled with its laughter:— + +ulcus enim vivescit et inveterascit alendo +inque dies gliscit furor atque aerumna gravescit. + + + [87] A fragment preserved from the _Danaides_ of Æschylus has the + thought of Aphrodite as the mistress of love in earth and sky and sea + and cloud; and this idea finds a philosophical expression in + Empedocles. But the tone of these Greek poets is as different from + that of Lucretius as a Greek Hera is from a Roman Juno. + +The acts of love and the insanities of passion are viewed from no +standpoint of sentiment or soft emotion, but always in relation to +philosophical ideas, or as the manifestation of something terrible in +human life. Yet they lose nothing thereby in the voluptuous impression +left upon the fancy:— + +sic in amore Venus simulacris ludit amantis, +nec satiare queunt spectando corpora coram +nec manibus quicquam teneris abradere membris +possunt errantes incerti corpore toto. +161 denique cum membris conlatis flore fruuntur +ætatis, iam cum præsagit gaudia corpus +atque in eost Venus ut muliebria conserat arva, +adfigunt avide corpus iunguntque salivas +oris et inspirant pressantes dentibus ora, +nequiquam, quoniam nil inde abradere possunt +nec penetrare et abire in corpus corpore toto. + + +The master-word in this passage is _nequiquam_. 'To desire the +impossible,' says the Greek proverb, 'is a disease of the soul.' +Lucretius, who treats of physical desire as a torment, asserts the +impossibility of its perfect satisfaction. There is something almost +tragic in these sighs and pantings and pleasure-throes, and incomplete +fruitions of souls pent up within their frames of flesh. We seem to see +a race of men and women such as have never lived, except perhaps in +Rome or in the thought of Michel Angelo,[88] meeting in leonine +embracements that yield pain, whereof the climax is, at best, relief +from rage and respite for a moment from consuming fire. There is a life +dæmonic rather than human in those mighty limbs; and the passion that +bends them on the marriage bed has in it the stress of storms, the +rampings and the roarings of leopards at play. Or, take again this +single line:— + +et Venus in silvis iungebat corpora amantum. + + +What a picture of primeval breadth and vastness! The _vice égrillard_ +of Voltaire, the coarse animalism of Rabelais, even the large comic +sexuality of Aristophanes, are in another region: for the forest is the +world, and the bodies of the lovers are things natural and unashamed, +and Venus is the tyrannous instinct that controls the blood in spring. +Only a Roman poet could have conceived of passion so mightily and 162 +so impersonally, expanding its sensuality to suit the scale of Titanic +existences, and purging from it both sentiment and spirituality as well +as all that makes it mean. + + [88] See, for instance, his meeting of Ixion with the phantom of Juno, + or his design for Leda and the Swan. + +In like manner, the Lucretian conception of Ennui is wholly Roman:— + + Si possent homines, proinde ac sentire videntur +pondus inesse animo quod se gravitate fatiget, +e quibus id fiat causis quoque noscere et unde +tanta mali tamquam moles in pectore constet, +haut ita vitam agerent, ut nunc plerumque videmus +quid sibi quisque velit nescire et quærere semper +commutare locum quasi onus deponere possit. +exit sæpe foras magnis ex ædibus ille, +esse domi quem pertæsumst, subitoque revertit, +quippe foris nilo melius qui sentiat esse. +currit agens mannos ad villam præcipitanter, +auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans; +oscitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villæ, +aut abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quærit, +aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit, +hoc se quisque modo fugit (at quem scilicet, ut fit, +effugere haut potis est, ingratis hæret) et odit +propterea, morbi quia causam non tenet æger; +quam bene si videat, iam rebus quisque relictis +naturam primum studeat cognoscere rerum, +temporis æterni quoniam, non unius horæ, +ambigitur status, in quo sit mortalibus omnis +ætas, post mortem quæ restat cumque manenda. + + +Virgil would not have written these lines. A Greek poet could not have +conceived them: unless we imagine to ourselves what Æschylus or Pindar, +oppressed by long illness, and forgetful of the gods, might possibly +have felt. In its sense of spiritual vacancy, when the world and all +its uses have become flat, stale, unprofitable, and the sentient soul +oscillates like a pendulum between weariful extremes, seeking repose in +restless movement, and hurling the ruins of a life into the gulf of its +exhausted cravings, we perceive already the symptoms of that unnamed +163 malady which was the plague of imperial Rome. The tyrants and the +suicides of the Empire expand before our eyes a pageant of their +lassitude, relieved in vain by festivals of blood and orgies of +unutterable lust. It is not that _ennui_ was a specially Roman disease. +Under certain conditions it is sure to afflict all overtaxed +civilisation; and for the modern world no one has expressed its nature +better than the slight and feminine De Musset.[89] Indeed, the Latin +language has no one phrase denoting Ennui;—_livor_ and _fastidium_, and +even _tædium vitæ_, meaning something more specific and less +all-pervasive as a moral agency. This in itself is significant, since +it shows the unconsciousness of the race at large, and renders the +intuition of Lucretius all the more remarkable. But in Rome there were +the conditions favourable to its development—imperfect culture, +vehement passions unabsorbed by commerce or by political life, the +habituation to extravagant excitement in war and in the circus, and the +fermentation of an age foredestined to give birth to new religious +creeds. When the infinite but ill-assured power of the Empire was +conferred on semi-madmen, Ennui in Rome assumed colossal proportions. +Its victims sought for palliatives in cruelty and crime elsewhere +unknown, except perhaps in Oriental courts. Lucretius, in the last days +of the Republic, had discovered its deep significance for human nature. +To all the pictures of Tacitus it forms a solemn tragic background, +enhancing, as it were, by spiritual gloom the carnival of passions +which gleam so brilliantly upon his canvas. In the person of Caligula, +Ennui sat supreme upon the throne of the terraqueous globe. The insane +desires and the fantastic deeds of the autocrat who wished one head for +humanity that he might cut it off, sufficiently reveal the extent to +which his spirit had been gangrened by this ulcer. There 164 is a +simple paragraph in Suetonius which lifts the veil from his imperial +unrest more ruthlessly than any legend:—'Incitabatur insomniis maxime; +neque enim plus tribus horis nocturnis quiescebat, ac ne his quidem +placidâ quiete, at pavidâ, miris rerum imaginibus ... ideoque magnâ +parte noctis, vigiliæ cubandique tædio, nunc toro residens, nunc per +longissimas porticus vagus, invocare identidem atque expectare lucem +consueverat.' This is the very picture of Ennui that has become mortal +disease. Nor was Nero different. 'Néron,' says Victor Hugo, 'cherche +tout simplement une distraction. Poë;te, comédien, chanteur, cocher, +épuisant la férocité pour trouver la volupté, essayant le changement de +sexe, époux de l'eunuque Sporus et épouse de l'esclave Pythagore, et se +promenant dans les rues de Rome entre sa femme et son mari; ayant deux +plaisirs: voir le peuple se jeter sur les pièces d'or, les diamants et +les perles, et voir les lions se jeter sur le peuple; incendiaire par +curiosité et parricide par désoeuvrement.' Nor need we stop at Nero. +Over Vitellius at his banquets, over Hadrian in his Tiburtine villa +calling in vain on Death, over Commodus in the arena, and Heliogabalus +among the rose-leaves, the same livid shadow of imperial Ennui hangs. +We can even see it looming behind the noble form of Marcus Aurelius, +who, amid the ruins of empire and the revolutions of belief, penned in +his tent among the Quadi those maxims of endurance which were powerless +to regenerate the world. + + [89] See the prelude to _Les Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle_ and + _Les Nuits_. + +Roman again, in the true sense of the word, is the Lucretian philosophy +of Conscience. Christianity has claimed the celebrated imprecation of +Persius upon tyrants for her own, as though to her alone belonged the +secret of the soul-tormenting sense of guilt. Yet it is certain that we +owe to the Romans that conception of sin bearing its own fruit of +torment which the Latin Fathers—Augustine and Tertullian— 165 imposed +with such terrific force upon the mediæval consciousness. There is no +need to conclude that Persius was a Christian because he wrote— + +Magne pater divum, sævos punire tyrannos, etc., + + +when we know that he had before his eyes that passage in the third book +of the 'De Rerum Naturâ,' (978-1023) which reduces the myths of Tityos +and Sisyphus and Cerberus and the Furies to facts of the human soul:— + +sed metus in vita poenarum pro male factis +est insignibus insignis, scelerisque luella, +carcer et horribilis de saxo iactu' deorsum, +verbera carnifices robur pix lammina tædæ; +quæ tamen etsi absunt, at mens sibi conscia facti +præmetuens adhibet stimulos terretque flagellis +nec videt interea qui terminus esse malorum +possit nec quæ sit poenarum denique finis +atque eadem metuit magis hæc ne in morte gravescant. + + +The Greeks, by personifying those secret terrors, had removed them into +a region of existences separate from man. They became dread goddesses, +who might to some extent be propitiated by exorcisms or expiatory +rites. This was in strict accordance with the mythopoeic and artistic +quality of the Greek intellect. The stern and somewhat prosaic +rectitude of the Roman broke through such figments of the fancy, and +exposed the sore places of the soul itself. The theory of the +Conscience, moreover, is part of the Lucretian polemic against false +notions of the gods and the pernicious belief in hell. + +Positivism and Realism were qualities of Roman as distinguished from +Greek culture. There was no self-delusion in Lucretius—no attempt, +however unconscious, to compromise unpalatable truth, or to invest +philosophy with the charm of myth. A hundred illustrations might be +chosen to prove his method of setting forth thought with unadorned +simplicity. These, however, are familiar to any one who has but opened +166 the 'De Rerum Naturâ.' It is more profitable to trace this Roman +ruggedness in the poet's treatment of the subject which more than any +other seems to have preoccupied his intellect and fascinated his +imagination—that is Death. His poem has been called by a great critic +the 'poem of Death.' Shakspere's line— + +And Death once dead, there's no more dying then, + + +might be written as a motto on the title-page of the book, which is +full of passages like this:— + +scire licet nobis nil esse in morte timendum +nec miserum fieri qui non est posse neque hilum +differre anne ullo fuerit iam tempore natus, +mortalem vitam mors cum immortalis ademit. + + +His whole mind was steeped in the thought of death; and though he can +hardly be said to have written 'the words that shall make death +exhilarating,' he devoted his genius, in all its energy, to removing +from before men the terror of the doom that waits for all. Sometimes, +in his attempt at consolation, he adduces images which, like the +Delphian knife, are double-handled, and cut both ways:— + +hinc indignatur se mortalem esse creatum +nec videt in vera nullum fore morte alium se +qui possit vivus sibi se lugere peremptum +stansque iacentem se lacerari urive dolere. + + +This suggests, by way of contrast, Blake's picture of the soul that has +just left the body and laments her separation. As we read, we are +inclined to lay the book down, and wonder whether the argument is, +after all, conclusive. May not the spirit, when she has quitted her old +house, be forced to weep and wring her hands, and stretch vain shadowy +arms to the limbs that were so dear? No one has felt more profoundly +than Lucretius the pathos of the dead. The intensity with 167 which he +realised what we must lose in dying and what we leave behind of grief +to those who loved us, reaches a climax of restrained passion in this +well-known paragraph:— + +'iam iam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor +optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati +præripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent. +non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque +præsidium. misero misere' aiunt 'omnia ademit +una dies infesta tibi tot præmia vitæ.' +illud in his rebus non addunt 'nec tibi earum +iam desiderium rerum super insidet una.' +quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur, +dissoluant animi magno se angore metuque. +'tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris ævi +quod superest cunctis privatu' doloribus ægris. +at nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto +insatiabiliter deflevimus, æternumque +nulla dies nobis mærorem e pectore demet.' + +Images, again, of almost mediæval grotesqueness, rise in his mind when +he contemplates the universality of Death. Simonides had dared to say: +'One horrible Charybdis waits for all.' That was as near a discord as a +Greek could venture on. Lucretius describes the open gate and 'huge +wide-gaping maw' which must devour heaven, earth, and sea, and all that +they contain:— + +haut igitur leti præclusa est ianua cælo +nec soli terræque neque altis æquoris undis, +sed patet immani et vasto respectat hiatu. + +The ever-during battle of life and death haunts his imagination. +Sometimes he sets it forth in philosophical array of argument. +Sometimes he touches on the theme with elegiac pity:— + + miscetur funere vagor +quem pueri tollunt visentis luminis oras; +nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secutast +quæ non audierit mixtos vagitibus ægris +ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri. + +168 Then again he returns, with obstinate persistence, to describe how +the dread of death, fortified by false religion, hangs like a pall over +humanity, and how the whole world is a cemetery overshadowed by +cypresses. The most sustained, perhaps, of these passages is at the +beginning of the third book (lines 31 to 93). The most profoundly +melancholy is the description of the new-born child (v. 221):— + + quare mors immatura vagatur? +tum porro puer, ut sævis proiectus ab undis +navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni +vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras +nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit, +vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut æcumst +cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum. + + +Disease and old age, as akin to Death, touch his imagination with the +same force. He rarely alludes to either without some lines as terrible +as these (iii. 472, 453):— + +nam dolor ac morbus leti fabricator uterquest. +claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua, labat mens. + +Another kindred subject affects him with an equal pathos. He sees the +rising and decay of nations, age following after age, like waves +hurrying to dissolve upon a barren shore, and writes (ii. 75):— + + sic rerum summa novatur +semper, et inter se mortales mutua vivunt, +augescunt aliæ gentes, aliæ minuuntur, +inque brevi spatio mutantur sæcla animantum +et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt. + +Although the theme is really the procession of life through countless +generations, it obtains a tone of sadness from the sense of +intervenient decay and change. No Greek had the heart thus to dilate +his imagination with the very element of death. What the Greeks +commemorated when they spoke of Death was the loss of the lyre and the +hymeneal chaunt, and 169 the passage across dim waves to a sunless +land. Nor indeed does Lucretius, like the modern poet of Democracy, +ascend into the regions of ecstatic trance:— + +Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, +Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death. + + +He keeps his reason cool, and sternly contemplates the thought of the +annihilation which awaits all perishable combinations of eternal +things. Like Milton, Lucretius delights in giving the life of his +imagination to abstractions. Time, with his retinue of ages, sweeps +before his vision, and he broods in fancy over the illimitable ocean of +the universe. The fascination of the infinite is the quality which, +more than any other, separates Lucretius as a Roman poet from the +Greeks. + +Another distinctive feature of his poetry Lucretius inherited as part +of his birthright. This is the sense of Roman greatness. It pervades +the poem, and may be felt in every part; although to Athens, and the +Greek sages, Democritus, Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and +Epicurus, as the fountain-heads of soul-delivering culture, he reserves +his most magnificent periods of panegyric. Yet when he would fain +persuade his readers that the fear of death is nugatory, and that the +future will be to them even as the past, it is the shock of Rome with +Carthage that he dwells upon as the critical event of the world's +history (iii. 830):— + + Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum, +quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur. +et velut anteacto nil tempore sensimus ægri, +ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis, +omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu +horrida contremuere sub altis ætheris oris, +_in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum_ +_omnibus humanis esset terraque marique_, +sic: + + +The lines in italics could have been written by none but a 170 Roman +conscious that the conflict with Carthage had decided the absolute +empire of the habitable world. In like manner the description of a +military review (ii. 323) is Roman: so, too, is that of the +amphitheatre (iv. 75):— + +et volgo faciunt id lutea russaque vela +et ferrugina, cum magnis intenta theatris +per malos volgata trabesque trementia flutant. +namque ibi consessum caveai supter et omnem +scænai speciem, patrum coetumque decorum +inficiunt coguntque suo fluitare colore. + +The imagination of Lucretius, however, was habitually less affected by +the particular than by the universal. He loved to dwell upon the large +and general aspects of things—on the procession of the seasons, for +example, rather than upon the landscape of the Campagna in spring or +autumn. Therefore it is only occasionally and by accident that we find +in his verse touches peculiarly characteristic of the manners of his +country. Therefore, again, it has happened that modern critics have +detected a lack of patriotic interest in this most Roman of all Latin +poets. Also may it here be remembered, that the single line which sums +up all the history of Rome in one soul-shaking hexameter, is not +Lucretian but Virgilian:— + +Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem. + +The custode of the Baths of Titus, when he lifts his torch to explore +those ruined arches, throws the wan light upon one place where a Roman +hand has scratched that verse in gigantic letters on the cement. The +colossal genius of Rome seems speaking to us, an oracle no lapse of +time can render dumb. + +But Lucretius is not only the poet _par excellence_ of Rome. He will +always rank also among the first philosophical poets of the world: and +here we find a second standpoint for inquiry. The question how far it +is practicable to express 171 philosophy in verse, and to combine the +accuracy of scientific language with the charm of rhythm and the +ornaments of the fancy, is one which belongs rather to modern than to +ancient criticism. In the progress of culture there has been an +ever-growing separation between the several spheres of intellectual +activity. What Livy said about the Roman Empire is true now of +knowledge: _magnitudine laborat suâ_; so that the labour of +specialising and distinguishing has for many centuries been +all-important. Not only do we disbelieve in the desirability of +smearing honey upon the lip of the medicine-glass through which the +draught of erudition has to be administered; but we know for certain +that it is only at the meeting-points between science and emotion that +the philosophic poet finds a proper sphere. Whatever subject-matter can +be permeated or penetrated with strong human feeling is fit for verse. +Then the rhythms and the forms of poetry to which high passions +naturally move, become spontaneous. The emotion is paramount, and the +knowledge conveyed is valuable as supplying fuel to the fire of +feeling. There are, were, and always will be high imaginative points of +vantage commanding the broad fields of knowledge, upon which the poet +may take his station to survey the world and all that it contains. But +it has long ceased to be his function to set forth, in any kind of +metre, systems of speculative thought or purely scientific truths. This +was not the case in the old world. There was a period in the +development of the intellect when the abstractions of logic appeared +like intuitions, and guesses about the structure of the universe still +wore the garb of fancy. When physics and metaphysics were scarcely +distinguished from mythology, it was natural to address the Muses at +the outset of a treatise of ontology, and to cadence a theory of +elemental substances in hexameter verse. Thus the philosophical poems +of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and 172 Empedocles belonged essentially to a +transitional stage of human culture. + +There is a second species of poetry to which the name of philosophical +may be given, though it better deserves that of mystical. Pantheism +occupies a middle place between a scientific theory of the universe and +a form of religious enthusiasm. It supplies an element in which the +poetic faculty can move with freedom: for its conclusions, in so far as +they pretend to philosophy, are large and general, and the emotions +which it excites are co-extensive with the world. Therefore, +Pantheistic mysticism, from the Bhagavadgita of the far East, through +the Persian Soofis, down to the poets of our own century, Goethe, and +Shelley, and Wordsworth, and Whitman, and many more whom it would be +tedious to enumerate, has generated a whole tribe of philosophic +singers. + +Yet a third class may be mentioned. Here we have to deal with what are +called didactic poems. These, like the metaphysical epic, began to +flourish in early Greece at the moment when exact thought was dividing +itself laboriously from myths and fancies. Hesiod with his poem on the +life of man leads the way; and the writers of moral sentences in +elegiac verse, among whom Solon and Theognis occupy the first place, +follow. Latin literature contributes highly artificial specimens of +this kind in the 'Georgics' of Virgil, the stoical diatribes of +Persius, and the 'Ars Poetica' of Horace. Didactic verse had a special +charm for the genius of the Latin race. The name of such poems in the +Italian literature of the Renaissance is legion. The French delighted +in the same style under the same influences; nor can we fail to +attribute the 'Essay on Man' and the 'Essay on Criticism' of our own +Pope to a similar revival in England of Latin forms of art. The taste +for didactic verse has declined. Yet in its stead another sort of +philosophical poetry has grown up in this century, which, for 173 the +want of a better term, may be called psychological. It deserves this +title, inasmuch as the motive-interest of the art in question is less +the passion or the action of humanity than the analysis of the same. +The 'Faust' of Goethe, the 'Prelude' and 'Excursion' of Wordsworth, +Browning's 'Sordello' and Mrs. Browning's 'Aurora Leigh,' together with +the 'Musings' of Coleridge and the 'In Memoriam' of Tennyson, may be +roughly reckoned in this class. It will be noticed that nothing has +been said about professedly religious poetry, much of which attaches +itself to mysticism, while some, like the 'Divine Comedy' of Dante, is +philosophic in the truest sense of the word. + +Where, then, are we to place Lucretius? He was a Roman, imbued with the +didactic predilections of the Latin race; and the didactic quality of +the 'De Rerum Naturâ' is unmistakable. Yet it would be uncritical to +place this poem in the class which derives from Hesiod. It belongs +really to the succession of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles. As +such it was an anachronism. The specific moment in the development of +thought at which the Parmenidean Epic was natural has been already +described. The Romans of the age of Lucretius had advanced far beyond +it. The idealistic metaphysics of the Socratic school, the positive +ethics of the Stoics, and the profound materialism of Epicurus, had +accustomed the mind to habits of exact and subtle thinking, prolonged +from generation to generation upon the same lines of speculative +inquiry. Philosophy expressed in verse was out of date. Moreover, the +very myths had been rationalised. Euhemerus had even been translated +into Latin by Ennius, and his prosaic explanations of Greek legend had +found acceptance with the essentially positive Roman intellect. +Lucretius himself, it may be said in passing, thought it worth while to +offer a philosophical explanation of the Greek mythology. The Cybele of +the poets 174 is shown in one of his sublimest passages (ii. 600-645) +to be Earth. To call the sea Neptune, corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, +seems to him a simple folly (ii. 652-657). We have already seen how he +reduces the fiends and spectres of the Greek Hades to facts of moral +subjectivity (iii. 978-1023). In another place he attacks the worship +of Phoebus and the stars (v. 110); in yet another he upsets the belief +in the Centaurs, Scylla, and Chimæra (v. 877-924) with a gravity which +is almost comic. Such arguments formed a necessary element in his +polemic against foul religion (foeda religio—turpis religio); to +deliver men from which (i. 62-112), by establishing firmly in their +minds the conviction that the gods exist far away from this world in +unconcerned tranquillity (ii. 646), and by substituting the notion of +Nature for that of deity (ii. 1090), was the object of his scientific +demonstration. + +Lucretius, therefore, had outgrown mythology, was hostile to religion, +and burned with unsurpassable enthusiasm to indoctrinate his Roman +readers with the weighty conclusions of systematised materialism. Yet +he chose the vehicle of hexameter verse, and trammelled his genius with +limitations which Empedocles, four hundred years before, must have +found almost intolerable. It needed the most ardent intellectual +passion and the loftiest inspiration to sustain on his far flight a +poet who had forged a hoplite's panoply for singing robes. Both passion +and inspiration were granted to Lucretius in full measure. And just as +there was something contradictory between the scientific subject-matter +and the poetical form of his masterpiece, so the very sources of his +poetic strength were such as are usually supposed to depress the soul. +His passion was for death, annihilation, godlessness. It was not the +eloquence, but the force of logic in Epicurus that roused his +enthusiasm:— + +ergo vivida vis animi pervicit et extra +processit longe flammantia moenia mundi. + +175 + +No other poet who ever lived in any age, or any shore, drew inspiration +from founts more passionless and more impersonal. + +The 'De Rerum Naturâ' is therefore an attempt, unique in its kind, to +combine philosophical exposition and poetry in an age when the +requirements of the former had already outgrown the resources of the +latter. Throughout the poem we trace a discord between the matter and +the form. The frost of reason and the fire of fancy war in deadly +conflict; for the Lucretian system destroyed nearly everything with +which the classical imagination loved to play. It was only in some high +ethereal region, before the majestic thought of Death or the new Myth +of Nature, that the two faculties of the poet's genius met for mutual +support. Only at rare intervals did he allow himself to make artistic +use of mere mythology, as in the celebrated exordium of the first book, +or the description of the Seasons in the fifth book (737-745). For the +most part reason and fancy worked separately: after long passages of +scientific explanation, Lucretius indulged his readers with those +pictures of unparalleled sublimity and grace which are the charm of the +whole poem; or dropping the phraseology of atoms, void, motion, chance, +he spoke at times of Nature as endowed with reason and a will (v. 186, +811, 846). + +It would be beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the particular +form given by Lucretius to the Democritean philosophy. He believed the +universe to be composed of atoms, infinite in number, and variable, to +a finite extent, in form, which drift slantingly through an infinite +void. Their combinations under the conditions of what we call space and +time are transitory, while they remain themselves imperishable. +Consequently, as the soul itself is corporeally constituted, and as +thought and sensation depend on mere material idola, men may divest +themselves of any fear of the hereafter. There is no such thing as +providence, nor do the 176 gods concern themselves with the +kaleidoscopic medley of atoms in transient combination which we call +our world. The latter were points of supreme interest to Lucretius. He +seems to have cared for the cosmology of Epicurus chiefly as it touched +humanity through ethics and religion. To impartial observers, the +identity or the divergence of the forms assumed by scientific +hypothesis at different periods of the world's history is not a matter +of much importance. Yet a peculiar interest has of late been given to +the Lucretian materialism by the fact that physical speculation has +returned to what is substantially the same ground. The most modern +theories of evolution and of molecular structure may be stated in +language which, allowing for the progress made by exact thought during +the last twenty centuries, is singularly like that of Lucretius. The +Roman poet knew fewer facts than are familiar to our men of science, +and was far less able to analyse one puzzle into a whole group of +unexplained phenomena. He had besides but a feeble grasp upon those +discoveries which subserve the arts of life and practical utility. But +as regards _absolute knowledge_—knowledge, that is to say, of what the +universe really is, and of how it became what it seems to us to +be—Lucretius stood at the same point of ignorance as we, after the +labours of Darwin and of Spencer, of Helmholtz and of Huxley, still do. +Ontological speculation is as barren now as then, and the problems of +existence still remain insoluble. The chief difference indeed between +him and modern investigators is that they have been lessoned by the +experience of the last two thousand years to know better the depths of +human ignorance, and the directions in which it is possible to sound +them. + +It may not be uninteresting to collect a few passages in which the +Roman poet has expressed in his hexameters the lines of thought adopted +by our most advanced theorists. 177 Here is the general conception of +Nature, working by her own laws toward the achievement of that result +which we apprehend through the medium of the senses (ii. 1090):— + + Quæ bene cognita si teneas, natura videtur +libera continuo dominis privata superbis +ipsa sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers. + +Here again is a demonstration of the absurdity of supposing that the +world was made for the use of men (v. 156):— + +dicere porro hominum causa voluisse parare +præclaram mundi naturam proptereaque +adlaudabile opus divom laudare decere +æternumque putare atque inmortale futurum +nec fas esse, deum quod sit ratione vetusta +gentibus humanis fundatum perpetuo ævo, +sollicitare suis ulla vi ex sedibus umquam +nec verbis vexare et ab imo evertere summa, +cetera de genere hoc adfingere et addere, Memmi +desiperest. + + +A like cogent rhetoric is directed against the arguments of toleology +(iv. 823):— + + Illud in his rebus vitium vementer avessis +effugere, errorem vitareque præmetuenter, +lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata, +prospicere ut possemus, et ut proferre queamus +proceros passus, ideo fastigia posse +surarum ac feminum pedibus fundata plicari, +bracchia tum porro validis ex apta lacertis +esse manusque datas utraque ex parte ministras, +ut facere ad vitam possemus quæ foret usus. +cetera de genere hoc inter quæcumque pretantur +omnia perversa præpostera sunt ratione, +nil ideo quoniam natumst in corpore ut uti +possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum. +nec fuit ante videre oculorum lumina nata +nec dictis orare prius quam lingua creatast, +sed potius longe linguæ præcessit origo +sermonem multoque creatæ sunt prius aures +178 quam sonus est auditus, et omnia denique membra +ante fuere, ut opinor, eorum quam foret usus. +haud igitur potuere utendi crescere causa. + +The ultimate dissolution and the gradual decay of the terrestrial globe +is set forth in the following luminous passage (ii. 1148):— + +Sic igitur magni quoque circum moenia mundi +expugnata dabunt labem putrisque ruinas. +iamque adeo fracta est ætas effetaque tellus +vix animalia parva creat quæ cuncta creavit +sæcla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu.[90] + + + [90] Compare book v. 306-317 on the evidences of decay continually at + work in the fabric of the world. + +The same mind which recognised these probabilities knew also that our +globe is not single, but that it forms one among an infinity of sister +orbs (ii. 1084):— + +quapropter cælum simili ratione fatendumst +terramque et solem lunam mare, cetera quæ sunt +non esse unica, sed numero magis innumerali.[91] + + + [91] The same truth is insisted on with even greater force of language + in vi. 649-652. + +When Lucretius takes upon himself to describe the process of becoming +which made the world what it now is, he seems to incline to a theory +not at all dissimilar to that of unassisted evolution (v. 419):— + +nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum +ordine se suo quæque sagaci mente locarunt +nec quos quæque darent motus pepigere profecto, +sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum +ex infinito iam tempore percita plagis +ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita ferri +omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertemptare, +quæcumque inter se possent congressa creare, +propterea fit uti magnum volgata per ævom +omne genus coetus et motus experiundo +179 tandem conveniant ea quæ convecta repente +magnarum rerum fiunt exordia sæpe, +terrai maris et cæli generisque animantum. + +Entering into the details of the process, he describes the many +ill-formed, amorphous beginnings of organised life upon the globe, +which came to nothing, 'since nature set a ban upon their increase' (v. +837-848); and then proceeds to explain how, in the struggle for +existence, the stronger prevailed over the weaker (v. 855-863). What is +really interesting in this exposition is that Lucretius ascribes to +nature the volition ('convertebat ibi natura foramina terræ;' 'quoniam +natura absterruit auctum') which has recently been attributed by +materialistic speculators to the same maternal power. + +To press these points, and to neglect the gap which separates Lucretius +from thinkers fortified by the discoveries of modern chemistry, +astronomy, physiology, and so forth, would be childish. All we can do +is to point to the fact that the circumambient atmosphere of human +ignorance, with reference to the main matters of speculation, remains +undissipated. The mass of experience acquired since the age of +Lucretius is enormous, and is infinitely valuable; while our power of +tabulating, methodising, and extending the sphere of experimental +knowledge seems to be unlimited. Only ontological deductions, whether +negative or affirmative, remain pretty much where they were then. + +The fame of Lucretius, however, rests not on this foundation of +hypothesis. In his poetry lies the secret of a charm which he will +continue to exercise as long as humanity chooses to read Latin verse. +No poet has created a world of larger and nobler images, designed with +the _sprezzatura_ of indifference to mere gracefulness, but all the +more fascinating because of the artist's negligence. There is something +monumental in the effect produced by his large-sounding single 180 +epithets and simple names. We are at home with the dæmonic life of +nature when he chooses to bring Pan and his following before our eyes +(iv. 580). Or, again, the Seasons pass like figures on some frieze of +Mantegna, to which, by divine accident, has been added the glow of +Titian's colouring[92] (v. 737):— + +it ver et Venus, et veris prænuntius ante +pennatus graditur zephyrus, vestigia propter +Flora quibus mater præspargens ante viai +cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. +inde loci sequitur calor aridus et comes una +pulverulenta Ceres et etesia flabra aquilonum, +inde antumnus adit, graditur simul Eubius Euan, +inde aliæ tempestates ventique secuntur, +altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens. +tandem bruma nives adfert pigrumque rigorem, +prodit hiemps, sequitur crepitans hanc dentibus algor. + + + [92] The elaborate illustration of the first four lines of this + passage, painted by Botticelli (in the Florence Academy of Fine Arts), + proves Botticelli's incapacity or unwillingness to deal with the + subject in the spirit of the original. It is graceful and 'subtle' + enough, but not Lucretian. + +With what a noble style, too, are the holidays of the primeval pastoral +folk described (v. 1379-1404). It is no mere celebration of the _bell' +età dell' oro_: but we see the woodland glades, and hear the songs of +shepherds, and feel the hush of summer among rustling forest trees, +while at the same time all is far away, in a better, simpler, larger +age. The sympathy of Lucretius for every form of country life was very +noticeable. It belonged to that which was most deeply and sincerely +poetic in the Latin genius, whence Virgil drew his sweetest strain of +melancholy, and Horace his most unaffected pictures, and Catullus the +tenderness of his best lines on Sirmio. No Roman surpassed the pathos +with which 181 Lucretius described the separation of a cow from her +calf (ii. 352-365). The same note indeed was touched by Virgil in his +lines upon the forlorn nightingale, and in the peroration to the third +'Georgic.' But the style of Virgil is more studied, the feeling more +artistically elaborated. It would be difficult to parallel such +Lucretian passages in Greek poetry. The Greeks lacked an undefinable +something of rusticity which dignified the Latin race. This quality was +not altogether different from what we call homeliness. Looking at the +busts of Romans, and noticing their resemblance to English country +gentlemen, I have sometimes wondered whether the Latin genius, just in +those points where it differed from the Greek, was not approximated to +the English. + +All subjects needing a large style, brief and rapid, but at the same +time luminous with imagination, were sure of the right treatment from +Lucretius. This is shown by his enumeration of the celestial signs (v. +1188):— + +in cæloque deum sedes et templa locarunt, +per cælum volvi quia nox et luna videtur, +luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa +noctivagæque faces cæli flammæque volantes, +nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando +et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum. + + +Again, he never failed to rise to an occasion which required the +display of fervid eloquence. The Roman eloquence, which in its +energetic volubility was the chief force of Juvenal, added a tidal +strength and stress of storm to the quick gathering thoughts of the +greater poet. The exordia to the first and second books, the analysis +of Love in the fourth, the praises of Epicurus in the third and fifth, +the praises of Empedocles and Ennius in the first, the elaborate +passage on the progress of civilisation in the fifth, and the +description of the plague at 182 Athens which closes the sixth, are +noble instances of the sublimest poetry sustained and hurried onward by +the volume of impassioned improvisation. It is difficult to imagine +that Lucretius wrote slowly. The strange word _vociferari_, which he +uses so often, and which the Romans of the Augustan age almost dropped +from their poetic vocabulary, seems exactly made to suit his utterance. +Yet at times he tempers the full torrent of resonant utterance with +divine tranquillity, and leaves upon our mind that sense of powerful +aloofness from his subject, which only belongs to the mightiest poets +in their most majestic moments. One instance of this rare felicity of +style shall end the list of our quotations (v. 1194):— + +O genus infelix humanum, talia divis +cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas! +quantos tum gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis +volnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu' nostris! +nec pietas ullast velatum sæpe videri +vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras +nec procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas +ante deum delubra nec aras sanguine multo +spargere quadrupedum nec votis nectere vota, +sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri. +nam cum suspicimus magni cælestia mundi +ellisque micantibus æthera fixum, +et venit in mentem solis lunæque viarum, +tunc aliis oppressa malis in pectora cura +illa quoque expergefactum caput erigere infit, +ne quæ forte deum nobis inmensa potestas +sit, vario motu quæ candida sidera verset. +temptat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas, +ecquænam fuerit mundi genitalis origo, +et simul ecquæ sit finis, quoad moenia mundi +solliciti motus hunc possint ferre laborem, +an divinitus æterna donata salute +perpetuo possint ævi labentia tractu +inmensi validas ævi contemnere viris. + + +It would be impossible to adduce from any other poet a 183 passage in +which the deepest doubts and darkest terrors and most vexing questions +that beset the soul, are touched with an eloquence more stately and a +pathos more sublime. Without losing the sense of humanity, we are +carried off into the infinite. Such poetry is as imperishable as the +subject of which it treats. + +184 + + + + +ANTINOUS + + +Visitors to picture and sculpture galleries are haunted by the forms of +two handsome young men—Sebastian and Antinous. Both were saints: the +one of decadent Paganism, the other of mythologising Christianity. +According to the popular beliefs to which they owed their canonisation, +both suffered death in the bloom of earliest manhood for the faith that +burned in them. There is, however, this difference between the two—that +whereas Sebastian is a shadowy creature of the pious fancy, Antinous +preserves a marked and unmistakable personality. All his statues are +distinguished by unchanging characteristics. The pictures of Sebastian +vary according to the ideal of adolescent beauty conceived by each +successive artist. In the frescoes of Perugino and Luini he shines with +the pale pure light of saintliness. On the canvas of Sodoma he +reproduces the voluptuous charm of youthful Bacchus, with so much of +anguish in his martyred features as may serve to heighten his dæmonic +fascination. On the richer panels of the Venetian masters he glows with +a flame of earthly passion aspiring heavenward. Under Guido's hand he +is a model of mere carnal comeliness. And so forth through the whole +range of the Italian painters. We know Sebastian only by his arrows. +The case is very different with Antinous. Depicted under diverse +attributes—as Hermes of the wrestling-ground, as Aristæus or Vertumnus, +as Dionysus, as Ganymede, as Herakles, or as a god of ancient Egypt—his +individuality is always prominent. No metamorphosis of 185 divinity can +change the lineaments he wore on earth. And this difference, so marked +in the artistic presentation of the two saints, is no less striking in +their several histories. The legend of Sebastian tells us nothing to be +relied upon, except that he was a Roman soldier converted to the +Christian faith, and martyred. In spite of the perplexity and mystery +that involve the death of Antinous in impenetrable gloom, he is a true +historic personage, no phantom of myth, but a man as real as Hadrian, +his master. + +Antinous, as he appears in sculpture, is a young man of eighteen or +nineteen years, almost faultless in his form. His beauty is not of a +pure Greek type. Though perfectly proportioned and developed by +gymnastic exercises to the true athletic fulness, his limbs are round +and florid, suggesting the possibility of early over-ripeness. The +muscles are not trained to sinewy firmness, but yielding and elastic; +the chest is broad and singularly swelling; and the shoulders are +placed so far back from the thorax that the breasts project beyond them +in a massive arch. It has been asserted that one shoulder is slightly +lower than the other. Some of the busts seem to justify this statement; +but the appearance is due probably to the different position of the two +arms, one of which, if carried out, would be lifted and the other be +depressed. The legs and arms are modelled with exquisite grace of +outline; yet they do not show that readiness for active service which +is noticeable in the statues of the Meleager, the Apoxyomenos, or the +Belvedere Hermes. The whole body combines Greek beauty of structure +with something of Oriental voluptuousness. The same fusion of diverse +elements may be traced in the head. It is not too large, though more +than usually broad, and is nobly set upon a massive throat, slightly +inclined forwards, as though this posture were habitual; the hair lies +thick in clusters, which only form curls at the tips. The forehead 186 +is low and somewhat square; the eyebrows are level, of a peculiar +shape, and very thick, converging so closely as almost to meet above +the deep-cut eyes. The nose is straight, but blunter than is consistent +with the Greek ideal. Both cheeks and chin are delicately formed, but +fuller than a severe taste approves: one might trace in their rounded +contours either a survival of infantine innocence and immaturity, or +else the sign of rapidly approaching over-bloom. The mouth is one of +the loveliest ever carved; but here again the blending of the Greek and +Oriental types is visible. The lips, half parted, seem to pout; and the +distance between mouth and nostrils is exceptionally short. The +undefinable expression of the lips, together with the weight of the +brows and slumberous half-closed eyes, gives a look of sulkiness or +voluptuousness to the whole face. This, I fancy, is the first +impression which the portraits of Antinous produce; and Shelley has +well conveyed it by placing the two following phrases, 'eager and +impassioned tenderness' and 'effeminate sullenness,' in close +juxtaposition.[93] But, after longer familiarity with the whole range +of Antinous's portraits, and after study of his life, we are brought to +read the peculiar expression of his face and form somewhat differently. +A prevailing melancholy, sweetness of temperament overshadowed by +resignation, brooding reverie, the innocence of youth, touched and +saddened by a calm resolve or an accepted doom—such are the sentences +we form to give distinctness to a still vague and uncertain impression. +As we gaze, Virgil's lines upon the young Marcellus recur to our mind: +what seemed sullen, becomes mournful; the unmistakable voluptuousness +is transfigured in tranquillity. + + [93] Fragment, _The Coliseum_. + +After all is said and written, the statues of Antinous do not render up +their secret. Like some of the Egyptian gods with whom he was +associated, he remains for us a sphinx, 187 secluded in the shade of a +'mild mystery.' His soul, like the Harpocrates he personated, seems to +hold one finger on closed lips, in token of eternal silence. One thing, +however, is certain. We have before us no figment of the artistic +imagination, but a real youth of incomparable beauty, just as nature +made him, with all the inscrutableness of undeveloped character, with +all the pathos of a most untimely doom, with the almost imperceptible +imperfections that render choice reality more permanently charming than +the ideal. It has been disputed whether the Antinous statues are +portraits or idealised works of inventive art; and it is usually +conceded that the sculptors of Hadrian's age were not able to produce a +new ideal type. Critics, therefore, like Helbig and Overbeck, arrive at +the conclusion that Antinous was one of nature's masterpieces, modelled +in bronze, marble, and granite with almost flawless technical +dexterity. Without attaching too much weight to this kind of criticism, +it is well to find the decisions of experts in harmony with the +instincts of simple observers. Antinous is as real as any man who ever +sat for his portrait to a modern sculptor. + +But who was Antinous, and what is known of him? He was a native of +Bithynium or Claudiopolis, a Greek town claiming to have been a colony +from Arcadia, which was situated near the Sangarius, in the Roman +province of Bithynia; therefore he may have had pure Hellenic blood in +his veins, or, what is more probable, his ancestry may have been hybrid +between the Greek immigrants and the native populations of Asia Minor. +Antinous was probably born in the first decade of the second century of +our era. About his youth and education we know nothing. He first +appears upon the scene of the world's history as Hadrian's friend. +Whether the Emperor met with him during his travels in Asia Minor, +whether he found him among the students of the University at 188 +Athens, or whether the boy had been sent to Rome in his childhood, must +remain matter of the merest conjecture. We do not even know for certain +whether Antinous was free or a slave. The report that he was one of the +Emperor's pages rests upon the testimony of Hegesippus, quoted by a +Christian Father, and cannot therefore be altogether relied upon. It +receives, however, some confirmation from the fact that Antinous is +more than once represented in the company of Hadrian and Trajan in a +page's hunting dress upon the basreliefs which adorn the Arch of +Constantine. The so-called Antinous-Castor of the Villa Albani is +probably of a similar character. Winckelmann, who adopted the tradition +as trustworthy, pointed out the similarity between the portraits of +Antinous and some lines in Phædrus, which describe a curly-haired +_atriensis_. If Antinous took the rank of _atriensis_ in the imperial +_pædagogium_, his position would have been, to say the least, +respectable; for to these upper servants was committed the charge of +the _atrium_, where the Romans kept their family archives, portraits, +and works of art. Yet he must have quitted this kind of service some +time before his death, since we find him in the company of Hadrian upon +one of those long journeys in which an _atriensis_ would have had no +_atrium_ to keep. By the time of Hadrian's visit to Egypt, Antinous had +certainly passed into the closest relationship with his imperial +master; and what we know of the Emperor's inclination towards literary +and philosophical society perhaps justifies the belief that the youth +he admitted to his friendship had imbibed Greek culture, and had been +initiated into those cloudy metaphysics which amused the leisure of +semi-Oriental thinkers in the last age of decaying Paganism. + +It was a moment in the history of the human mind when East and West +were blending their traditions to form the husk of Christian creeds and +the fantastic visions of neo-Platonism. 189 Rome herself had received +with rapture the strange rites of Nilotic and of Syrian superstition. +Alexandria was the forge of fanciful imaginations, the majority of +which were destined to pass like vapours and leave not a wrack behind, +while a few fastened with the force of dogma on the conscience of +awakening Christendom. During Hadrian's reign it was still uncertain +which among the many hybrid products of that motley age would live and +flourish; and the Emperor, we know, dreamed fondly of reviving the +cults and restoring the splendour of degenerate Hellas. At the same +time he was not averse to the more mystic rites of Egypt: in his villa +at Tivoli he built a Serapeum, and named one of its quarters Canopus. +What part Antinous may have taken in the projects of his friend and +master we know not; yet, when we come to consider the circumstances of +his death, it may not be superfluous to have thus touched upon the +intellectual conditions of the world in which he lived. The mixed blood +of the boy, born and bred in a Greek city near the classic ground of +Dindymean rites, and his beauty, blent of Hellenic and Eastern +qualities, may also not unprofitably be remembered. In such a youth, +nurtured between Greece and Asia, admitted to the friendship of an +emperor for whom neo-Hellenism was a life's dream in the midst of grave +state-cares, influenced by the dark and symbolical creeds of a dimly +apprehended East, might there not have lurked some spark of enthusiasm +combining the impulses of Atys and Aristogeiton, pathetic even in its +inefficiency when judged by the light of modern knowledge, but heroic +at that moment in its boundless vista of great deeds to be +accomplished? + +After journeying through Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, and +Arabia, Hadrian, attended by Antinous, came to Egypt. He there restored +the tomb of Pompey, near Pelusium, with great magnificence, and shortly +afterwards 190 embarked from Alexandria upon the Nile, proceeding on +his journey through Memphis into the Thebaïd. When he had arrived near +an ancient city named Besa, on the right bank of the river, he lost his +friend. Antinous was drowned in the Nile. He had thrown himself, it was +believed, into the water; seeking thus by a voluntary death to +substitute his own life for Hadrian's, and to avert predicted perils +from the Roman Empire. What these perils were, and whether Hadrian was +ill, or whether an oracle had threatened him with approaching calamity, +we do not know. Even supposition is at fault, because the date of the +event is still uncertain; some authorities placing Hadrian's Egyptian +journey in the year 122, and others in the year 130 A.D. Of the two +dates, the second seems the more probable. We are left to surmise that, +if the Emperor was in danger, the recent disturbances which followed a +new discovery of Apis, may have exposed him to fanatical conspiracy. +The same doubt affects an ingenious conjecture that rumours which +reached the Roman court of a new rising in Judæa had disturbed the +Emperor's mind, and led to the belief that he was on the verge of a +mysterious doom. He had pacified the Empire and established its +administration on a solid basis. Yet the revolt of the indomitable +Jews—more dreaded since the days of Titus than any other perturbation +of the imperial economy—would have been enough, especially in Egypt, to +engender general uneasiness. However this may have been, the grief of +the Emperor, intensified either by gratitude or remorse, led to the +immediate canonisation of Antinous. The city where he died was rebuilt, +and named after him. His worship as a hero and as a god spread far and +wide throughout the provinces of the Mediterranean. A new star, which +appeared about the time of his decease, was supposed to be his soul +received into the company of the immortals. Medals were struck in his +honour, 191 and countless works of art were produced to make his memory +undying. Great cities wore wreaths of red lotos on his feast-day in +commemoration of the manner of his death. Public games were celebrated +in his honour at the city Antinoë;, and also in Arcadian Mantinea. This +canonisation may probably have taken place in the fourteenth year of +Hadrian's reign, A.D. 130.[94] Antinous continued to be worshipped +until the reign of Valentinian. + + [94] Overbeck, Hausrath, and Mommsen, following apparently the + conclusions arrived at by Flemmer in his work on Hadrian's journeys, + place it in 130 A.D. This would leave an interval of only eight years + between the deaths of Antinous and Hadrian. It may here be observed + that two medals of Antinous, referred by Rasche with some hesitation + to the Egyptian series, bear the dates of the eighth and ninth years + of Hadrian's reign. If these coins are genuine, and if we accept + Flemmer's conclusions, they must have been struck in the lifetime of + Antinous. Neither of them represents Antinous with the insignia of + deity: one gives the portrait of Hadrian upon the reverse. + +Thus far I have told a simple story, as though the details of the +youth's last days were undisputed. Still we are as yet but on the +threshold of the subject. All that we have any right to take for +uncontested is that Antinous passed from this life near the city of +Besa, called thereafter Antinoopolis or Antinoë;. Whether he was +drowned by accident, whether he drowned himself in order to save +Hadrian by vicarious suffering, or whether Hadrian sacrificed him in +order to extort the secrets of fate from blood-propitiated deities, +remains a question buried in the deepest gloom. With a view to throwing +such light as is possible upon the matter, we must proceed to summon in +their order the most trustworthy authorities among the ancients. + +Dion Cassius takes precedence. In compiling his life of Hadrian, he had +beneath his eyes the Emperor's own 'Commentaries,' published under the +name of the freedman Phlegon. We therefore learn from him at least what +the 192 friend of Antinous wished the world to know about his death; +and though this does not go for much, since Hadrian is himself an +accused person in the suit before us, yet the whole Roman Empire may be +said to have accepted his account, and based on it a pious cult that +held its own through the next three centuries of growing Christianity. +Dion, in the abstract of his history compiled by Xiphilinus, speaks +then to this effect: 'In Egypt he also built the city named after +Antinous. Now Antinous was a native of Bithynium, a city of Bithynia, +which we also call Claudiopolis. He was Hadrian's favourite, and he +died in Egypt: whether by having fallen into the Nile, as Hadrian +writes, or by having been sacrificed, as the truth was. For Hadrian, as +I have said, was in general over-much given to superstitious +subtleties, and practised all kinds of sorceries and magic arts. At any +rate he so honoured Antinous, whether because of the love he felt for +him, or because he died voluntarily, since a willing victim was needed +for his purpose, that he founded a city in the place where he met this +fate, and called it after him, and dedicated statues, or rather images, +of him in, so to speak, the whole inhabited world. Lastly, he affirmed +that a certain star which he saw was the star of Antinous, and listened +with pleasure to the myths invented by his companions about this star +having really sprung from the soul of his favourite, and having then +for the first time appeared. For which things he was laughed at.' + +We may now hear what Spartian, in his 'Vita Hadriani,' has to say: 'He +lost his favourite, Antinous, while sailing on the Nile, and lamented +him like a woman. About Antinous reports vary, for some say that he +devoted his life for Hadrian, while others hint what his condition +seems to prove, as well as Hadrian's excessive inclination to luxury. +Some Greeks, at the instance of Hadrian, canonised him, asserting that +oracles were 193 given by him, which Hadrian himself is supposed to +have made up.' + +In the third place comes Aurelius Victor: 'Others maintain that this +sacrifice of Antinous was both pious and religious; for when Hadrian +was wishing to prolong his life, and the magicians required a voluntary +vicarious victim, they say that, upon the refusal of all others, +Antinous offered himself.' + +These are the chief authorities. In estimating them we must remember +that, though Dion Cassius wrote less than a century after the event +narrated, he has come down to us merely in fragments and in the epitome +of a Byzantine of the twelfth century, when everything that could +possibly be done to discredit the worship of Antinous, and to blacken +the memory of Hadrian, had been attempted by the Christian Fathers. On +the other hand, Spartianus and Aurelius Victor compiled their histories +at too distant a date to be of first-rate value. Taking the three +reports together, we find that antiquity differed about the details of +Antinous's death. Hadrian himself averred that his friend was drowned; +and it was surmised that he had drowned himself in order to prolong his +master's life. The courtiers, however, who had scoffed at Hadrian's +fondness for his favourite, and had laughed to see his sorrow for his +death, somewhat illogically came to the conclusion that Antinous had +been immolated by the Emperor, either because a victim was needed to +prolong his life, or because some human sacrifice was required in order +to complete a dark mysterious magic rite. Dion, writing not very long +after the event, believed that Antinous had been immolated for some +such purpose with his own consent. Spartian, who wrote at the distance +of more than a century, felt uncertain about the question of +self-devotion; but Aurelius Victor, following after the interval of +another century, unhesitatingly adopted Dion's view, and gave it a +fresh colour. This opinion he summarised in a 194 compact, +authoritative form, upon which we may perhaps found an assumption that +the belief in Antinous, as a self-devoted victim, had been gradually +growing through two centuries. + +There are therefore three hypotheses to be considered. The first is +that Antinous died an accidental death by drowning; the second is, that +Antinous, in some way or another, gave his life willingly for +Hadrian's; the third is, that Hadrian ordered his immolation in the +performance of magic rites. + +For the first of the three hypotheses we have the authority of Hadrian +himself, as quoted by Dion. The simple words εἰς τον Νειλον εκπεσὼν +imply no more than accidental death; and yet, if the Emperor had +believed the story of his favourite's self-devotion, it is reasonable +to suppose that he would have recorded it in his 'Memoirs.' Accepting +this view of the case, we must refer the deification of Antinous wholly +to Hadrian's affection; and the tales of his _devotio_ may have been +invented partly to flatter the Emperor's grief, partly to explain its +violence to the Roman world. This hypothesis seems, indeed, by far the +most natural of the three; and if we could strip the history of +Antinous of its mysterious and mythic elements, it is rational to +believe that we should find his death a simple accident. Yet our +authorities prove that writers of history among the ancients wavered +between the two other theories of (i) Self-Devotion and (ii) +Immolation, with a bias toward the latter. These, then, have now to be +considered with some attention. Both, it may parenthetically be +observed, relieve Antinous from a moral stigma, since in either case a +pure untainted victim was required. + +If we accept the former of the two remaining hypotheses, we can +understand how love and gratitude, together with sorrow, led Hadrian to +canonise Antinous. If we accept the latter, Hadrian's sorrow itself +becomes inexplicable; and we 195 must attribute the foundation of +Antinoë; and the deification of Antinous to remorse. It may be added, +while balancing these two solutions of the problem, that cynical +sophists, like Hadrian's Græculi, were likely to have put the worst +construction on the Emperor's passion, and to have invented the worst +stories concerning the favourite's death. To perpetuate these +calumnious reports was the real interest of the Christian apologists, +who not unnaturally thought it scandalous that a handsome page should +be deified. Thus, at first sight, the balance of probability inclines +toward the former of the two solutions, while the second may be +rejected as based upon court-gossip and religious animosity. Attention +may also again be called to the fact that Hadrian ventured to publish +an account of Antinous quite inconsistent with what Dion chose to call +the truth, and that virtuous Emperors like the Antonines did not +interfere with a cult, which, had it been paid to the mere victim of +Hadrian's passion and his superstition, would have been an infamy even +in Rome. Moreover, that cult was not, like the creations of the impious +emperors, forgotten or destroyed by public acclamation. It took root +and flourished apparently, as we shall see, because it satisfied some +craving of the popular religious sense, and because the people believed +that this man had died for his friend. It will not, however, do to +dismiss the two hypotheses so lightly. + +The alternative of self-devotion presents itself under a double aspect. +Antinous may either have committed suicide by drowning with the +intention of prolonging the Emperor's life, or he may have offered +himself as a voluntary victim to the magicians, who required a +sacrifice for a similar purpose. Spartian's brief phrase, _aliis eum +devotum pro Hadriano_, may seem to point to the first form of +self-devotion; the testimony of Aurelius Victor clearly supports the +second: yet it does not much matter which of the two explanations we +adopt. 196 The point is whether Antinous gave his life willingly to +save the Emperor's, or whether he was murdered for the satisfaction of +some superstitious curiosity. It was absolutely necessary that the +vicarious victim should make a free and voluntary oblation of himself. +That the notion of vicarious suffering was familiar to the ancients is +sufficiently attested by the phrases αντίψυχοι, αντανδροι, and _hostia +succidanea_. We find traces of it in the legend of Alcestis, who died +for Admetus, and of Cheiron, who took the place of Prometheus in Hades. +Suetonius records that in the first days of Caligula's popularity, when +he was labouring under dangerous illness, many Romans of both sexes +vowed their lives for his recovery in temples of the gods. That this +superstition retained a strong hold on the popular imagination in the +time of Hadrian is proved by the curious affirmation of Aristides, a +contemporary of that Emperor. He says that once, when he was ill, a +certain Philumene offered her soul for his soul, her body for his body, +and that, upon his own recovery, she died. On the same testimony it +appears that her brother Hermeas had also died for Aristides. This +faith in the efficacy of substitution is persistent in the human race. +Not long ago a Christian lady was supposed to have vowed her own life +for the prolongation of that of Pope Pius IX., and good Catholics +inclined to the belief that the sacrifice had been accepted. We shall +see that in the first centuries of Christendom the popular conviction +that Antinous had died for Hadrian brought him into inconvenient +rivalry with Christ, whose vicarious suffering was the cardinal point +of the new creed. + +The alternative of immolation has next to be considered. The question +before us here is, Did Hadrian sacrifice Antinous for the satisfaction +of a superstitious curiosity, and in the performance of magic rites? +Dion Cassius uses the word ἱερουργηθεις, and explains it by saying that +Hadrian needed a voluntary 197 human victim for the accomplishment of +an act of divination in which he was engaged. Both Spartian and Dion +speak emphatically of the Emperor's proclivities to the black art; and +all antiquity agreed about this trait in his character. Ammianus +Marcellinus spoke of him as '_futurorum sciscitationi nimiæ deditum_.' +Tertullian described him as '_curiositatum omnium exploratorem_.' To +multiply such phrases would, however, be superfluous, for they are +probably mere repetitions from the text of Dion. That human victims +were used by the Romans of the Empire seems certain. Lampridius, in the +'Life of Heliogabalus,' records his habit of slaying handsome and noble +youths, in order that he might inspect their entrails. Eusebius, in his +'Life of Maxentius,' asserts the same of that Emperor. _Quum inspiceret +exta puerilia_, νεογνον σπλάγχνα βρέφων διερευνομένου, are the words +used by Lampridius and Eusebius. Justin Martyr speaks of εποπτεύσεις +παίδων αδιαφθόρον. Caracalla and Julian are credited with similar +bloody sacrifices. Indeed, it may be affirmed in general that tyrants +have ever been eager to foresee the future and to extort her secrets +from Fate, stopping short at no crime in the attempt to quiet a +corroding anxiety for their own safety. What we read about Italian +despots—Ezzelino da Romano, Sigismondo Malatesta, Filippo Maria +Visconti, and Pier Luigi Farnese—throws light upon the practice of +their Imperial predecessors; while the mysterious murder of the +beautiful Astorre Manfredi by the Borgias in Hadrian's Mausoleum has +been referred by modern critics of authority to the same unholy +curiosity. That Hadrian laboured under this moral disease, and that he +deliberately used the body of Antinous for _extispicium_, is, I think, +Dion's opinion. But are we justified in reckoning Hadrian among these +tyrants? That must depend upon our view of his character. + +Hadrian was a man in whom the most conflicting qualities 198 were +blent. In his youth and through his whole life he was passionately fond +of hunting; hardy, simple in his habits, marching bareheaded with his +legions through German frost and Nubian heat, sharing the food of his +soldiers, and exercising the most rigid military discipline. At the +same time he has aptly been described as 'the most sumptuous character +of antiquity.' He filled the cities of the empire with showy buildings, +and passed his last years in a kind of classic Munich, where he had +constructed imitations of every celebrated monument in Europe. He was +so far fond of nature that, anticipating the most recently developed of +modern tastes, he ascended Mount Ætna and the Mons Casius, in order to +enjoy the spectacle of sunrise. In his villa at Tivoli he indulged a +trivial fancy by christening one garden Tempe and another the Elysian +Fields; and he had his name carved on the statue of the vocal Memnon +with no less gusto than a modern tourist: _audivi voces divinas_. His +memory was prodigious, his eloquence in the Latin language studied and +yet forcible, his knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy far from +contemptible. He enjoyed the society of Sophists and distinguished +rhetoricians, and so far affected authorship as to win the unenviable +title of _Græculus_ in his own lifetime: yet he never neglected state +affairs. Owing to his untiring energy and vast capacity for business, +he not only succeeded in reorganising every department of the empire, +social, political, fiscal, military, and municipal; but he also held in +his own hands the threads of all its complicated machinery. He was +strict in matters of routine, and appears to have been almost a +martinet among his legions: yet in social intercourse he lived on terms +of familiarity with inferiors, combining the graces of elegant +conversation with the _bonhomie_ of boon companionship, displaying a +warm heart to his friends, and using magnificent generosity. He +restored the 199 domestic as well as the military discipline of the +Roman world; and his code of laws lasted till Justinian. Among many of +his useful measures of reform he issued decrees restricting the power +of masters over their slaves, and depriving them of their old capital +jurisdiction. His biographers find little to accuse him of beyond a +singular avidity for fame, addiction to magic arts and luxurious vices: +yet they adduce no proof of his having, at any rate before the date of +his final retirement to his Tiburtine villa, shared the crimes of a +Nero or a Commodus. On the whole, we must recognise in Hadrian a nature +of extraordinary energy, capacity for administrative government, and +mental versatility. A certain superficiality, vulgarity, and +commonplaceness seems to have been forced upon him by the circumstances +of his age, no less than by his special temperament. This quality of +the immitigable commonplace is clearly written on his many portraits. +Their chief interest consists in a fixed expression of fatigue—as +though the man were weary with much seeking and with little finding. In +all things, he was somewhat of a dilettante; and the Nemesis of that +sensibility to impressions which distinguishes the dilettante, came +upon him ere he died. He ended his days in an appalling and persistent +paroxysm of _ennui_, desiring the death which would not come to his +relief. + +The whole creative and expansive force of Hadrian's century lay +concealed in the despised Christian sect. Art was expiring in a sunset +blaze of gorgeous imitation, tasteless grandeur, technical elaboration. +Philosophy had become sophistical or mystic; its real life survived +only in the phrase 'entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren' of the +Stoics. Literature was repetitive and scholastic. Tacitus, Suetonius, +Plutarch, and Juvenal indeed were living; but their works formed the +last great literary triumph of the age. Religion 200 had degenerated +under the twofold influences of scepticism and intrusive foreign cults. +It was, in truth, an age in which, for a sound heart and manly +intellect, there lay no proper choice except between the stoicism of +Marcus Aurelius and the Christianity of the Catacombs. All else had +passed into shams, unrealities, and visions. Now Hadrian was neither +stoical nor Christian, though he so far coquetted with Christianity as +to build temples dedicated to no Pagan deity, which passed in after +times for unfinished churches. He was a _Græculus_. In that +contemptuous epithet, stripping it of its opprobrious significance, we +find the real key to his character. In a failing age he lived a +restless-minded, many-sided soldier-prince, whose inner hopes and +highest aspirations were for Hellas. Hellas, her art, her history, her +myths, her literature, her lovers, her young heroes filled him with +enthusiasm. To rebuild her ruined cities, to restore her deities, to +revive her golden life of blended poetry and science, to reconstruct +her spiritual empire as he had re-organised the Roman world, was +Hadrian's dream. It was indeed a dream; one which a far more creative +genius than Hadrian's could not have realised. + +But now, returning to the two alternatives regarding his friend's +death: was this philo-Hellenic Emperor the man to have immolated +Antinous for _extispicium_ and then deified him? Probably not. The +discord between this bloody act and subsequent hypocrisy upon the one +hand, and Hadrian's Greek sympathies upon the other, must be reckoned +too strong for even such a dipsychic character as his. There is nothing +in either Spartian or Dion to justify the opinion that he was naturally +cruel or fantastically deceitful. On the other hand, Hadrian's +philo-Hellenic, splendour-loving, somewhat tawdry, fame-desiring nature +was precisely of the sort to jump eagerly at the deification of a +favourite who had either died a 201 natural death or killed himself to +save his master. Hadrian had loved Antinous with a Greek passion in his +lifetime. The Roman Emperor was half a god. He remembered how Zeus had +loved Ganymede, and raised him to Olympus; how Achilles had loved +Patroclus, and performed his funeral rites at Troy; how the demi-god +Alexander had loved Hephæstion, and lifted him into a hero's seat on +high. He, Hadrian, would do the like, now that death had robbed him of +his comrade. The Roman, who surrounded himself at Tivoli with copies of +Greek temples, and who called his garden Tempe, played thus at being +Zeus, Achilles, Alexander; and the civilised world humoured his whim. +Though the Sophists scoffed at his real grief and honourable tears, +they consecrated his lost favourite, found out a star for him, carved +him in breathing brass, and told tales about his sacred flower. +Pancrates was entertained in Alexandria at the public cost for his +fable of the lotos; and the lyrist Mesomedes received so liberal a +pension for his hymn to Antinous that Antoninus Pius found it needful +to curtail it. + +After weighing the authorities, considering the circumstances of the +age, and estimating Hadrian's character, I am thus led to reject the +alternative of immolation. Spartian's own words, _quem muliebriter +flevit_, as well as the subsequent acts of the Emperor and the +acquiescence of the whole world in the new deity, prove to my mind that +in the suggestion of _extispicium_ we have one of those covert +calumnies which it is impossible to set aside at this distance of time, +and which render the history of Roman Emperors and Popes almost +impracticable. + +The case, then, stands before us thus. Antinous was drowned in the +Nile, near Besa, either by accident or by voluntary suicide to save his +master's life. Hadrian's love for him had been unmeasured, so was his +grief. Both of 202 them were genuine; but in the nature of the man +there was something artificial. He could not be content to love and +grieve alone; he must needs enact the part of Alexander, and realise, +if only by a sort of makebelieve, a portion of his Greek ideal. +Antinous, the beautiful servant, was to take the place of Ganymede, of +Patroclus, of Hephæstion; never mind if Hadrian was a Roman and his +friend a Bithynian, and if the love between them, as between an emperor +of fifty and a boy of nineteen, had been less than heroic. The +opportunity was too fair to be missed; the _rôle_ too fascinating to be +rejected. The world, in spite of covert sneers, lent itself to the +sham, and Antinous became a god. + +The uniformly contemptuous tone of antique authorities almost obliges +us to rank this deification of Antinous, together with the Tiburtine +villa and the dream of a Hellenic Renaissance, among the part-shams, +part-enthusiasms of Hadrian's 'sumptuous' character. Spartian's account +of the consecration, and his hint that Hadrian composed the oracles +delivered at his favourite's tomb; Arrian's letter to the Emperor +describing the island Leukè and flattering him by an adroit comparison +with Achilles; the poem by Pancrates mentioned in the 'Deipnosophistæ,' +which furnished the myth of a new lotos dedicated to Antinous; the +invention of the star, and Hadrian's conversations with his courtiers +on this subject—all converge to form the belief that something of +consciously unreal mingled with this act of apotheosis by Imperial +decree. Hadrian sought to assuage his grief by paying his favourite +illustrious honours after death; he also desired to give the memory of +his own love the most congenial and poetical environment, to feed upon +it in the daintiest places, and to deck it with the prettiest flowers +of fancy. He therefore canonised Antinous, and took measures for +disseminating his cult throughout the world, careless of the element of +imposture 203 which might seem to mingle with the consecration of his +true affection. Hadrian's superficial taste was not offended by the +gimcrack quality of the new god; and Antinous was saved from being a +merely pinchbeck saint by his own charming personality. + +This will not, however, wholly satisfy the conditions of the problem; +and we are obliged to ask ourselves whether there was not something in +the character of Antinous himself, something divinely inspired and +irradiate with spiritual beauty, apparent to his fellows and remembered +after his mysterious death, which justified his canonisation, and +removed it from the region of Imperial makebelieve. If this was not the +case, if Antinous died like a flower cropped from the seraglio garden +of the court-pages, how should the Emperor in the first place have +bewailed him with 'unhusbanded passion,' and the people afterwards have +received him as a god? May it not have been that he was a youth of more +than ordinary promise, gifted with intellectual enthusiasms +proportioned to his beauty and endowed with something of Phoebean +inspiration, who, had he survived, might have even inaugurated a new +age for the world, or have emulated the heroism of Hypatia in a +hopeless cause? Was the link between him and Hadrian formed less by the +boy's beauty than by his marvellous capacity for apprehending and his +fitness for realising the Emperor's Greek dreams? Did the spirit of +neo-Platonism find in him congenial incarnation? At any rate, was there +not enough in the then current beliefs about the future of the soul, as +abundantly set forth in Plutarch's writings, to justify a conviction +that after death he had already passed into the lunar sphere, awaiting +the final apotheosis of purged spirits in the sun? These questions may +be asked—indeed, they must be asked—for, without suggesting them, we +leave the worship of Antinous an almost 204 inexplicable scandal, an +almost unintelligible blot on human nature. Unless we ask them, we must +be content to echo the coarse and violent diatribes of Clemens +Alexandrinus against the vigils of the deified _exoletus_. But they +cannot be answered, for antiquity is altogether silent about him; only +here and there, in the indignant utterance of a Christian Father, stung +to the quick by Pagan parallels between Antinous and Christ, do we +catch a perverted echo of the popular emotion upon which his cult +reposed, which recognised his godhood or his vicarious self-sacrifice, +and which paid enduring tribute to the sublimity of his young life +untimely quenched. + +The _senatus consultum_ required for the apotheosis of an Emperor was +not, so far as we know, obtained in the case of Antinous. Hadrian's +determination to exalt his favourite sufficed; and this is perhaps one +of the earliest instances of those informal deifications which became +common in the later Roman period. Antinous was canonised according to +Greek ritual and by Greek priests: _Græci quidam volente Hadriano eum +consecraverunt_. How this was accomplished we know not; but forms of +canonisation must have been in common usage, seeing that emperors and +members of the Imperial family received the honour in due course. The +star which was supposed to have appeared soon after his death, and +which represented his soul admitted to Olympus, was somewhere near the +constellation Aquila, according to Ptolemy, but not part of it. I +believe the letters η.θ.ι.κ.λ. of Aquila now bear the name of Antinous; +but this appropriation dates only from the time of Tycho Brahe. It was +also asserted that as a new star had appeared in the skies, so a new +flower had blossomed on the earth, at the moment of his death. This was +the lotos, of a peculiar red colour, which the people of Lower Egypt +used to wear in wreaths upon his festival. It received the name +Antinoeian; and the Alexandrian sophist, Pancrates, seeking 205 to pay +a double compliment to Hadrian and his favourite, wrote a poem in which +he pretended that this lily was stained with the blood of a Libyan lion +slain by the Emperor. As Arrian compared his master to Achilles, so +Pancrates flattered him with allusions to Herakles. The lotos, it is +well known, was a sacred flower in Egypt. Both as a symbol of the +all-nourishing moisture of the earth and of the mystic marriage of Isis +and Osiris, and also as an emblem of immortality, it appeared on all +the sacred places of the Egyptians, especially on tombs and funeral +utensils. To dignify Antinous with the lotos emblem was to consecrate +him; to find a new species of the revered blossom and to wear it in his +honour, calling it by his name, was to exalt him to the company of +gods. Nothing, as it seems, had been omitted that could secure for him +the patent of divinity. + +He met his death near the city Besa, an ancient Egyptian town upon the +eastern bank of the Nile, almost opposite to Hermopolis. Besa was the +name of a local god, who gave oracles and predicted future events. But +of this Besa we know next to nothing. Hadrian determined to rebuild the +city, change its name, and let his favourite take the place of the old +deity. Accordingly, he raised a splendid new town in the Greek style; +furnished it with temples, agora, hippodrome, gymnasium, and baths; +filled it with Greek citizens; gave it a Greek constitution, and named +it Antinoë;. This new town, whether called Antinoë;, Antinoopolis, +Antinous, Antinoeia, or even Besantinous (for its titles varied), +continued long to flourish, and was mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, +together with Copton and Hermopolis, as one of the three most +distinguished cities of the Thebaïd. In the age of Julian these three +cities were perhaps the only still thriving towns of Upper Egypt. It +has even been maintained on Ptolemy's authority that Antinoë; was the +metropolis 206 of a nome, called Antinoeitis; but this is doubtful, +since inscriptions discovered among the ruins of the town record no +name of nomarch or strategus, while they prove the government to have +consisted of a Boulè and a Prytaneus, who was also the Eponymous +Magistrate. Strabo reckons it, together with Ptolemais and Alexandria, +as governed after the Greek municipal system. + +In this city Antinous was worshipped as a god. Though a Greek god, and +the eponym of a Greek city, he inherited the place and functions of an +Egyptian deity, and was here represented in the hieratic style of +Ptolemaic sculpture. A fine specimen of this statuary is preserved in +the Vatican, showing how the neo-Hellenic sculptors had succeeded in +maintaining the likeness of Antinous without sacrificing the +traditional manner of Egyptian piety. The sacred emblems of Egyptian +deities were added: we read, for instance, in one passage, that his +shrine contained a boat. This boat, like the mystic egg of Erôs or the +cista of Dionysos, symbolised the embryo of cosmic life. It was +specially appropriated to Osiris, and suggested collateral allusions +doubtless to immortality and the soul's journey in another world. +Antinous had a college of priests appointed to his service; and oracles +were delivered from the cenotaph inside his temple. The people believed +him to be a genius of warning, gracious to his suppliants, but terrible +to evil-doers, combining the qualities of the avenging and protective +deities. Annual games were celebrated in Antinoë; on his festival, with +chariot races and gymnastic contests; and the fashion of keeping his +day seems, from Athenæus's testimony, to have spread through Egypt. An +inscription in Greek characters discovered at Rome upon the Campus +Martius entitles Antinous a colleague of the gods in Egypt— + +ΑΝΤΙΝΟΩΙ ΣΥΝΘΡΟΝΩΙ ΤΩΝ ΕΝ ΑΙΓΥΗΤΩΙ ΘΕΩΝ. + +207 The worship of Antinous spread rapidly through the Greek and Asian +provinces, especially among the cities which owed debts of gratitude to +Hadrian or expected from him future favours. At Athens, for example, +the Emperor, attended perhaps by Antinous, had presided as Archon +during his last royal progress, had built a suburb called after his +name, and raised a splendid temple to Olympian Jove. The Athenians, +therefore, founded games and a priesthood in honour of the new +divinity. Even now, in the Dionysiac theatre, among the chairs above +the orchestra assigned to priests of elder deities and more august +tradition, may be found one bearing the name of Antinous—ΙΕΡΕΩΣ +ΑΝΤΙΝΟΟΥ. A marble tablet has also been discovered inscribed with the +names of agonothetai for the games celebrated in honour of Antinous; +and a stele exists engraved with the crown of these contests together +with the crowns of Severus, Commodus, and Antoninus. It appears that +the games in honour of Antinous took place both at Eleusis and at +Athens; and that the agonothetai, as also the priest of the new god, +were chosen from the Ephebi. The Corinthians, the Argives, the +Achaians, and the Epirots, as we know from coins issued by the priests +of Antinous, adopted his cult;[95] but the region of Greece proper +where it flourished most was Arcadia, the mother state of his Bithynian +birthplace. Pausanias, who lived contemporaneously with Antinous, and +might have seen him, though he tells us that he had not chanced to meet +the youth alive, mentions the temple of Antinous at Mantinea as the +newest in that city. 'The Mantineans,' he says, 'reckon Antinous among +their gods.' He then describes the yearly festival and mysteries +connected 208 with his cult, the quinquennial games established in his +honour, and his statues. The gymnasium had a cell dedicated to +Antinous, adorned with pictures and fair stone-work. The new god was in +the habit of Dionysus. + + [95] For example: + + +ΟΣΤΙΛΙΟΣ ΜΑΡΚΕΛΛΟΣΟ ΙΕΡΕΥΣΤΟΥ ΑΝΤΙΟΟΥ ΑΝΕΘΗΚΕ ΤΟΙΣ ΑΧΑΙΟΙΣ and a +similar inscription for Corinth. + +As was natural, his birthplace paid him special observance. Coins +dedicated by the province of Bithynia, as well as by the town +Bithynium, are common, with the epigraphs, ΑΝΤΙΟΟΥ Η ΠΑΤΡΙΣ and +ΑΝΤΙΝΟΟΝ ΘΕΟΝ Η ΠΑΤΡΙΣ. Among the cities of Asia Minor and the vicinity +the new cult seems to have been widely spread. Adramyttene in Mysia, +Alabanda, Ancyra in Galatia, Chalcedon, Cuma in Æolis, Cyzicum in +Mysia, the Ciani, the Hadrianotheritæ of Bithynia, Hierapolis in +Phrygia, Nicomedia, Philadelphia, Sardis, Smyrna, Tarsus, the Tianians +of Paphlagonia, and a town Rhesæna in Mesopotamia, all furnish their +quota of medals. On the majority of these medals he is entitled Herôs, +but on others he has the higher title of god; and he seems to have been +associated in each place with some deity of local fame. + +Being essentially a Greek hero, or divinised man received into the +company of immortals and worshipped with the attributes of god, his +cult took firmer root among the neo-Hellenic provinces of the empire +than in Italy. Yet there are signs that even in Italy he found his +votaries. Among these may first be mentioned the comparative frequency +of his name in Roman inscriptions, which have no immediate reference to +him, but prove that parents gave it to their children. The discovery of +his statues in various cities of the Roman Campagna shows that his cult +was not confined to one or two localities. Naples in particular, which +remained in all essential points a Greek city, seems to have received +him with acclamation. A quarter of the town was called after his name, +and a phratria of priests was founded in connection with his worship. +The Neapolitans owed much to the patronage of Hadrian, and they repaid +him 209 after this fashion. At the beginning of the last century +Raffaello Fabretti discovered an inscription near the Porta S. +Sebastiano at Rome, which throws some light on the matter. It records +the name of a Roman knight, Sufenas, who had held the office of +Lupercus and had been a fellow of the Neapolitan phratria of +Antinous—_fretriaco Neapoli Antinoiton et Eunostidon_. Eunostos was a +hero worshipped at Tanagra in Boeotia, where he had a sacred grove no +female foot might enter; and the wording of the inscription leaves it +doubtful whether the Eunostidæ and Antinoitæ of Naples were two +separate colleges; or whether the heroes were associated as the common +patrons of one brotherhood. + +A valuable inscription discovered in 1816 near the Baths at Lanuvium or +Lavigna shows that Antinous was here associated with Diana as the saint +of a benefit club. The rules of the confraternity prescribe the +payments and other contributions of its members, provide for their +assembling on the feast days of their patrons, fix certain fines, and +regulate the ceremonies and expenses of their funerals. This club seems +to have resembled modern burial societies, as known to us in England; +or still more closely to have been formed upon the same model as +Italian confraternitè of the Middle Ages. The Lex, or table of +regulations, was drawn up in the year 133 A.D. It fixes the birthday of +Antinous as v.k. Decembr., and alludes to the temple of +Antinous—_Tetrastylo Antinoi_. Probably we cannot build much on the +birthday as a genuine date, for the same table gives the birthday of +Diana; and what was wanted was not accuracy in such matters, but a +settled anniversary for banquets and pious celebrations. When we come +to consider the divinity of Antinous, it will be of service to remember +that at Lanuvium, together with Diana of the nether world, he was +reckoned among the saints of sepulture. Could this thought have +penetrated the imagination of his worshippers: that since 210 Antinous +had given his life for his friend, since he had faced death and +triumphed over it, winning immortality and godhood for himself by +sacrifice, the souls of his votaries might be committed to his charge +and guidance on their journey through the darkness of the tomb? Could +we venture to infer thus much from his selection by a confraternity +existing for the purpose of securing decent burial or pious funeral +rites, the date of its formation, so soon after his death, would +confirm the hypothesis that he was known to have devoted his life for +Hadrian. + +While speaking of Antinous as a divinised man, adscript to the gods of +Egypt, accepted as hero and as god in Hellas, Italy, and Asia Minor, we +have not yet considered the nature of his deity. The question is not so +simple as it seems at first sight: and the next step to take, with a +view to its solution, is to consider the various forms under which he +was adored—the phases of his divinity. The coins already mentioned, and +the numerous works of glyptic art surviving in the galleries of Europe, +will help us to place ourselves at the same point of view as the least +enlightened of his antique votaries. Reasoning upon these data by the +light of classic texts, may afterwards enable us to assign him his true +place in the Pantheon of decadent and uninventive Paganism. + +In Egypt, as we have already seen, Antinous was worshipped by the +neo-Hellenes of Antinoopolis as their Eponymous Hero; but he took the +place of an elder native god, and was represented in art according to +the traditions of Egyptian sculpture. The marble statue of the Vatican +is devoid of hieratic emblems. Antinous is attired with the Egyptian +head-dress and waistband: he holds a short truncheon firmly clasped in +each hand; and by his side is a palm-stump, such as one often finds in +statues of the Greek Hermes. Two colossal statues of red granite +discovered in the ruins of Hadrian's villa, at Tivoli, represent him in +like manner with the usual Egyptian 211 head-dress. They seem to have +been designed for pillars supporting the architrave of some huge +portal; and the wands grasped firmly in both hands are supposed to be +symbolical of the genii called Dii Averrunci. Von Levezow, in his +monograph upon Antinous in art, catalogues five statues of a similar +description to the three already mentioned. From the indistinct +character of all of them, it would appear that Antinous was nowhere +identified with any one of the great Egyptian deities, but was treated +as a Dæmon powerful to punish and protect. This designation corresponds +to the contemptuous rebuke addressed by Origen to Celsus, where he +argues that the new saint was only a malignant and vengeful spirit. His +Egyptian medals are few and of questionable genuineness: the majority +of them seem to be purely Hellenic; but on one he bears a crown like +that of Isis, and on another a lotos wreath. The dim records of his +cult in Egypt, and the remnants of Græco-Egyptian art, thus mark him +out as one of the Averruncan deities, associated perhaps with Kneph or +the Agathodæmon of Hellenic mythology, or approximated to Anubis, the +Egyptian Hermes. Neither statues nor coins throw much light upon his +precise place among those gods of Nile whose throne he is said to have +ascended. Egyptian piety may not have been so accommodating as that of +Hellas. + +With the Græco-Roman world the case is different. We obtain a clearer +conception of the Antinous divinity, and recognise him always under the +mask of youthful gods already honoured with fixed ritual. To worship +even living men under the names and attributes of well-known deities +was no new thing in Hellas. We may remember the Ithyphallic hymn with +which the Athenians welcomed Demetrius Poliorkêtes, the marriage of +Anthony as Dionysus to Athenè, and the deification of Mithridates as +Bacchus. The Roman Emperors had already been represented in art with +the characteristics 212 of gods—Nero, for example, as Phoebus, and +Hadrian as Mars. Such compliments were freely paid to Antinous. On the +Achaian coins we find his portrait on the obverse, with different types +of Hermes on the reverse, varied in one case by the figure of a ram, in +another by the representation of a temple, in a third by a nude hero +grasping a spear. One Mysian medal, bearing the epigraph 'Antinous +Iacchus,' represents him crowned with ivy, and exhibits Demeter on the +reverse. A single specimen from Ancyra, with the legend 'Antinous +Herôs,' depicts the god Lunus carrying a crescent moon upon his +shoulder. The Bithynian coins generally give youthful portraits of +Antinous upon the obverse, with the title of 'Herôs' or 'Theos;' while +the reverse is stamped with a pastoral figure, sometimes bearing the +talaria, sometimes accompanied by a feeding ox or a boar or a star. +This youth is supposed to be Philesius, the son of Hermes. In one +specimen of the Bithynian series the reverse yields a head of +Proserpine crowned with thorns. A coin of Chalcedon ornaments the +reverse with a griffin seated near a naked figure. Another, from +Corinth, bears the sun-god in a chariot; another, from Cuma, presents +an armed Pallas. Bulls, with the crescent moon, occur in the +Hadrianotheritan medals: a crescent moon in that of Hierapolis: a ram +and star, a female head crowned with towers, a standing bull, and +Harpocrates placing one finger on his lips, in those of Nicomedia; a +horned moon and star in that of Epirot Nicopolis. One Philadelphian +coin is distinguished by Antinous in a temple with four columns; +another by an Aphrodite in her cella. The Sardian coins give Zeus with +the thunderbolt, or Phoebus with the lyre; those of Smyrna are stamped +with a standing ox, a ram, and the caduceus, a female panther and the +thyrsus, or a hero reclining beneath a plane-tree; those of Tarsus with +the Dionysian cista, the Phoebean tripod, the 213 river Cydnus, and the +epigraphs 'Neos Puthios,' 'Neos Iacchos;' those of the Tianians with +Antinous as Bacchus on a panther, or, in one case, as Poseidôn. + +It would be unsafe to suppose that the emblems of the reverse in each +case had a necessary relation to Antinous, whose portrait is almost +invariably represented on the obverse. They may refer, as in the case +of the Tarsian river-god, to the locality in which the medal was +struck. Yet the frequent occurrence of the well-known type with the +attributes and sacred animals of various deities, and the epigraphs +'Neos Puthios' or 'Neos Iacchos,' justify us in assuming that he was +associated with divinities in vogue among the people who accepted his +cult—especially Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes. On more than one coin he +is described as Antinous-Pan, showing that his Arcadian compatriots of +Peloponnese and Bithynia paid him the compliment of placing him beside +their great local deity. In a Latin inscription discovered at Tibur, he +is connected with the sun-god of Noricia, Pannonia and Illyria, who was +worshipped under the title of Belenus:— + +Antinoo et Beleno par ætas famaque par est; + Cur non Antinous sit quoque qui Belenus? + +This couplet sufficiently explains the ground of his adscription to the +society of gods distinguished for their beauty. Both Belenus and +Antinous are young and beautiful: why, therefore, should not Antinous +be honoured equally with Belenus? The same reasoning would apply to all +his impersonations. The pious imagination or the æsthetic taste tricked +out this favourite of fortune in masquerade costumes, just as a wealthy +lover may amuse himself by dressing his mistress after the similitude +of famous beauties. The analogy of statues confirms this assumption. A +considerable majority represent him as Dionysus Kisseus: in some of the +best he is conceived as Hermes of the Palæstra or a simple hero: in one +he is probably 214 Dionysus Antheus; in another Vertumnus or Aristæus; +yet again he is the Agathos Daimon: while a fine specimen preserved in +England shows him as Ganymede raising a goblet of wine: a little statue +in the Louvre gives him the attributes of youthful Herakles; a +basrelief of somewhat doubtful genuineness in the Villa Albani exhibits +him with Romanised features in the character perhaps of Castor. Again, +I am not sure whether the Endymion in the celebrated basrelief of the +Capitol does not yield a portrait of Antinous. + +This rapid enumeration will suffice to show that Antinous was +universally conceived as a young deity in bloom, and that preference +was given to Phoebus and Iacchus, the gods of divination and +enthusiasm, for his associates. In some cases he appears to have been +represented as a simple hero without the attributes of any deity. Many +of his busts, and the fine nude statues of the Capitol and the +Neapolitan Museum, belong to this class, unless we recognise the two +last as Antinous under the form of a young Hercules, or of the +gymnastic Hermes. But when he comes before us with the title of +Puthios, or with the attributes of Dionysus, distinct reference is +probably intended in the one case to his oracular quality, in the other +to the enthusiasm which led to his death. Allusions to Harpocrates, +Lunus, Aristæus, Philesius, Vertumnus, Castor, Herakles, Ganymedes, +show how the divinising fancy played around the beauty of his youth, +and sought to connect him with myths already honoured in the pious +conscience. Lastly, though it would be hazardous to strain this point, +we find in his chief impersonations a Chthonian character, a touch of +the mystery that is shrouded in the world beyond the grave. The double +nature of his Athenian cult may perhaps confirm this view. But, over +and above all these symbolic illustrations, one artistic motive of +immortal loveliness pervades and animates the series. + +215 It becomes at this point of some moment to determine what was the +relation of Antinous to the gods with whom he blended, and whose +attributes he shared. It seems tolerably certain that he had no special +legend which could be idealised in art. The mythopoeic fancy invented +no fable for him. His cult was parasitic upon elder cults. He was the +colleague of greater well-established deities, from whom he borrowed a +pale and evanescent lustre. Speaking accurately, he was a hero or +divinised mortal, on the same grade as Helen immortalised for her +beauty, as Achilles for his prowess, or as Herakles for his great +deeds. But having no poet like Homer to sing his achievements, no myth +fertile in emblems, he dwelt beneath the shadow of superior powers, and +crept into a place with them. What was this place worth? What was the +meaning attached by his votaries to the title σύνθρονος or πάρεδρος +θεός? According to the simple meaning of both epithets, he occupied a +seat together with or by the side of the genuine Olympians. In this +sense Pindar called Dionysus the πάρεδρος of Demeter, because the +younger god had been admitted to her worship on equal terms at Eleusis. +In this sense Sophocles spoke of Himeros as πάρεδρος of the eternal +laws, and of Justice as σύνοικος with the Chthonian deities. In this +sense Euripides makes Helen ζύνθακος her brethren, the Dioscuri. In +this sense the three chief Archons at Athens were said to have two +πάρεδροι apiece. In this sense, again, Hephæstion was named a θεος +παρεδρος, and Alexander in his lifetime was voted a thirteenth in the +company of the twelve Olympians. The divinised emperors were πάρεδροι +or σύνθρονοι nor did Virgil hesitate to flatter Augustus by questioning +into which college of the immortals he would be adscript after death— + +Tuque adeo, quem mox quæ sint habitura deorum +Concilia, incertum est. + +216 Conscript deities of this heroic order were supposed to avert evils +from their votaries, to pursue offenders with calamity, to inspire +prophetic dreams, and to appear, as the phantom of Achilles appeared to +Apollonius of Tyana, and answer questions put to them. They +corresponded very closely and exactly to the saints of mediævalism, +acting as patrons of cities, confraternities, and persons, and +interposing between the supreme powers of heaven and their especial +devotees. As a πάρεδρος of this exalted quality, Antinous was the +associate of Phoebus, Bacchus, and Hermes among the Olympians, and a +colleague with the gods of Nile. The principal difficulty of grasping +his true rank consists in the variety of his emblems and divine +disguises. + +It must here be mentioned that the epithet πάρεδρος had a secondary and +inferior signification. It was applied by later authors to the demons +or familiar spirits who attended upon enchanters like Simon Magus or +Apollonius; and such satellites were believed to be supplied by the +souls of innocent young persons violently slain. Whether this secondary +meaning of the title indicates a degeneration of the other, and forms +the first step of the process whereby classic heroes were degraded into +the foul fiends of mediæval fancy, or whether we find in it a wholly +new application of the word, is questionable. I am inclined to believe +that, while πάρεδρος θεος in the one case means an associate of the +Olympian gods, πάοεδρος δαίμων in the other means a fellow-agent and +assessor of the wizard. In other words, however they may afterwards +have been confounded, the two uses of the same epithet were originally +distinct: so that not every πάρεδρος θεος, Achilles, or Hephæstion or +Antinous, was supposed to haunt and serve a sorcerer, but only some +inferior spirit over whom his black art gave him authority. The +πάρεδρος θεος was so called because he sat with the great gods. The +πάρεδρος δαίμον was so 217 called because he sat beside the magician. +At the same time there seems sufficient evidence that the two meanings +came to be confounded; and as the divinities of Hellas, with all their +lustrous train, paled before the growing splendour of Christ, they +gradually fell beneath the necromantic ferule of the witch. + +Returning from this excursion, and determining that Antinous was a hero +or divinised mortal, adscript to the college of the greater gods, and +invested with many of their attributes, we may next ask the question, +why this artificial cult, due in the first place to imperial passion +and caprice, and nourished by the adulation of fawning provinces, was +preserved from the rapid dissolution to which the flimsy products of +court-flattery are subject. The mythopoetic faculty was extinct, or in +its last phase of decadent vitality. There was nothing in the life of +Antinous to create a legend or to stimulate the sense of awe; and yet +this worship persisted long after the fear of Hadrian had passed away, +long after the benefits to be derived by humouring a royal fancy had +been exhausted, long after anything could be gained by playing out the +farce. It is clear, from a passage in Clemens Alexandrinus, that the +sacred nights of Antinous were observed, at least a century after the +date of his deification, with an enthusiasm that roused the anger of +the Christian Father. Again, it is worthy of notice that, while many of +the noblest works of antiquity have perished, the statues of Antinous +have descended to us in fair preservation and in very large numbers. +From the contemptuous destruction which erased the monuments of base +men in the Roman Empire they were safe; and the state in which we have +them shows how little they had suffered from neglect. The most rational +conclusion seems to be that Antinous became in truth a popular saint, +and satisfied some new need in Paganism, for which none of the elder +and more respectable deities sufficed. The novelty of his cult had, no +doubt, 218 something to do with the fascination it exercised; and +something may be attributed to the impulse art received from the +introduction of so rare and original a type of beauty into the +exhausted cycle of mythical subjects. The blending of Greek and +Egyptian elements was also attractive to an age remarkable for its +eclecticism. But after allowing for the many adventitious circumstances +which concurred to make Antinous the fashion, it is hardly unreasonable +to assume that the spirit of poetry in the youth's story, the rumour of +his self-devoted death, kept him alive in the memory of the people. It +is just that element of romance in the tale of his last hours, that +preservative association with the pathos of self-sacrifice, which forms +the interest we still feel for him. + +The deified Antinous was therefore for the Roman world a charming but +dimly felt and undeveloped personality, made perfect by withdrawal into +an unseen world of mystery. The belief in the value of vicarious +suffering attached itself to his beautiful and melancholy form. His +sorrow borrowed something of the universal world-pain, more pathetic +than the hero-pangs of Herakles, the anguish of Prometheus, or the +passion of Iacchus-Zagreus, because more personal and less suggestive +of a cosmic mystery. The ancient cries of Ah Linus, Ah Adonis, found in +him an echo. For votaries ready to accept a new god as simply as we +accept a new poet, he was the final manifestation of an old-world +mystery, the rejuvenescence of a well-known incarnation, the +semi-Oriental realisation of a recurring Avatar. And if we may venture +on so bold a surmise, this last flower of antique mythology had taken +up into itself a portion of the blood outpoured on Calvary. Planted in +the conservatory of semi-philosophical yearnings, faintly tinctured +with the colours of misapprehended Christianity, without inherent +stamina, without the powerful nutrition which the earlier heroic fables +had derived from the spiritual vigour 219 of a truly mythopoeic age, +the cult of Antinous subsisted as an echo, a reflection, the last +serious effort of deifying but no longer potent Paganism, the last +reverberation of its oracles, an æsthetic rather than a religious +product, viewed even in its origin with sarcasm by the educated, and +yet sufficiently attractive to enthral the minds of simple votaries, +and to survive the circumstances of its first creation. It may be +remembered that the century which witnessed the canonisation of +Antinous, produced the myth of Cupid and Psyche—or, if this be too +sweeping an assertion, gave it final form, and handed it, in its +suggestive beauty, to the modern world. Thus at one and the same moment +the dying spirit of Hellas seized upon those doctrines of self-devotion +and immortality which, through the triumph of Christian teaching, were +gaining novel and incalculable value for the world. According to its +own laws of inspiration, it stamped both legends of Love victorious +over Death, with beautiful form in myth and poem and statuary. + +That we are not altogether unjustified in drawing this conclusion may +be gathered from the attitude assumed by the Christian apologists +toward Antinous. There is more than the mere hatred of a Pagan hero, +more than the bare indignation at a public scandal, in their acrimony. +Accepting the calumnious insinuations of Dion Cassius, these gladiators +of the new faith found a terrible rhetorical weapon ready to their +hands in the canonisation of a court favourite. Prudentius, Clemens +Alexandrinus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Justin Martyr, Athanasius, +Tatian—all inveigh, in nearly the same terms, against the Emperor's +Ganymede, exalted to the skies, and worshipped with base fear and +adulation by abject slaves. But in Origen, arguing with Celsus, we find +a somewhat different keynote struck. Celsus, it appears, had told the +story of Antinous, and had compared his cult with that of Christ. +Origen replies justly, that there 220 was nothing in common between the +lives of Antinous and of Christ, and that his supposed divinity is a +fiction. We can discern in this response an echo of the faith which +endeared Antinous to his Pagan votaries. Antinous was hated by the +Christians as a rival; insignificant, it is true, and unworthy, but +still of sufficient force to be regarded and persecuted. If Antinous +had been utterly contemptible, if he had not gained some firm hold upon +the piety of Græco-Roman Paganism, Celsus could hardly have ventured to +rest an argument upon his worship, nor would Origen have chosen to +traverse that argument with solid reasoning, instead of passing it by +in rhetorical silence. Nothing is more difficult than to understand the +conditions of that age or to sympathise with its dominant passions. +Educated as we have been in the traditions of the finally triumphant +Christian faith, warmed through and through as we are by its summer +glow and autumn splendour, believing as we do in the adequacy of its +spirit to satisfy the cravings of the human heart, how can we +comprehend a moment in its growth when the divinised Antinous was not +merely an object offensive to the moral sense, but also a parody +dangerous to the pure form of Christ? + +It remains to say somewhat of Antinous as he appears in art. His place +in classic sculpture corresponds to his position in antique mythology. +The Antinous statues and coins are reflections of earlier artistic +masterpieces, executed with admirable skill, but lacking original +faculty for idealisation in the artists. Yet there is so much personal +attraction in his type, his statues are so manifestly faithful +portraits, and we find so great a charm of novelty in his delicately +perfect individuality, that the life-romance which they reveal, as +through a veil of mystery, has force enough to make them rank among the +valuable heirlooms of antiquity. We could almost believe that, while so +many gods and heroes of Greece have perished, 221 Antinous has been +preserved in all his forms and phases for his own most lovely sake; as +though, according to Ghiberti's exquisite suggestion, gentle souls in +the first centuries of Christianity had spared this blameless youth, +and hidden him away with tender hands, in quiet places, from the fury +of iconoclasts. Nor is it impossible that the great vogue of his +worship was due among the Pagan laity to this same fascination of pure +beauty. Could a more graceful temple of the body have been fashioned, +after the Platonic theory, for the habitation of a guileless, +god-inspired, enthusiastic soul? The personality of Antinous, combined +with the suggestion of his self-devoted death, made him triumphant in +art as in the affections of the pious. + +It would be an interesting task to compose a _catalogue raisonné_ of +Antinous statues and basreliefs, and to discuss the question of their +mythological references. This is, however, not the place for such an +inquiry. And yet I cannot quit Antinous without some retrospect upon +the most important of his portraits. Among the simple busts, by far the +finest, to my thinking, are the colossal head of the Louvre, and the +ivy-crowned bronze at Naples. The latter is not only flawless in its +execution, but is animated with a pensive beauty of expression. The +former, though praised by Winckelmann, as among the two or three most +precious masterpieces of antique art, must be criticised for a certain +vacancy and lifelessness. Of the heroic statues, the two noblest are +those of the Capitol and Naples. The identity of the Capitoline +Antinous has only once, I think, been seriously questioned; and yet it +may be reckoned more than doubtful. The head is almost certainly not +his. How it came to be placed upon a body presenting so much +resemblance to the type of Antinous I do not know. Careful comparison +of the torso and the arms with an indubitable portrait will even raise +the question whether this fine 222 statue is not a Hermes or a hero of +an earlier age. Its attitude suggests Narcissus or Adonis; and under +either of these forms Antinous may properly have been idealised. The +Neapolitan marble, on the contrary, yields the actual Antinous in all +the exuberant fulness of his beauty. Head, body, pose, alike bring him +vividly before us, forming an undoubtedly authentic portrait. The same +personality, idealised, it is true, but rather suffering than gaining +by the process, is powerfully impressed upon the colossal Dionysus of +the Vatican. What distinguishes this great work is the inbreathed +spirit of divinity, more overpowering here than in any other of the +extant ανδριάντες και αγάλματα The basrelief of the Villa Albani, +restored to suit the conception of a Vertumnus, has even more of florid +beauty; but whether the restoration was wisely made may be doubted. It +is curious to compare this celebrated masterpiece of technical +dexterity with another basrelief in the Villa Albani, representing +Antinous as Castor. He is standing, half clothed with the chlamys, by a +horse. His hair is close-cropped, after the Roman fashion, cut straight +above the forehead, but crowned with a fillet of lotos-buds. The whole +face has a somewhat stern and frowning Roman look of resolution, +contrasting with the mild benignity of the Bacchus statues, and the +almost sulky voluptuousness of the busts. In the Lateran Museum +Antinous appears as a god of flowers, holding in his lap a multitude of +blossoms, and wearing on his head a wreath. The conception of this +statue provokes comparison with the Flora of the Neapolitan Museum. I +should like to recognise in it a Dionysus Antheus, rather than one of +the more prosy Roman gods of horticulture. Not unworthy to rank with +these first-rate portraits of Antinous is a Ganymede, engraved by the +Dilettante Society, which represents him standing alert, in one hand +holding the wine-jug and in the other lifting a cup aloft. It will be +seen from even this brief enumeration of a 223 few among the statues of +Antinous, how many and how various they are. One, however, remains +still to be discussed, which, so far as concerns the story of Antinous, +is by far the most interesting of all. As a work of art, to judge by +photographs, it is inferior to others in execution and design. Yet +could we but understand its meaning clearly, the mystery of Antinous +would be solved: the key to the whole matter probably lies here; but, +alas! we know not how to use it. I speak of the Ildefonso Group at +Madrid.[96] + + [96] See Frontispiece. + + +On one pedestal there are three figures in white marble. To the extreme +right of the spectator stands a little female statue of a goddess, in +archaistic style, crowned with the calathos, and holding a sphere, +probably of pomegranate fruit, to her breast. To the left of this image +are two young men, three times the height of the goddess, quite naked, +standing one on each side of a low altar. Both are crowned with a +wreath of leaves and berries—laurel or myrtle. The youth to the right, +next the image, holds a torch in either hand: with the right he turns +the flaming point downwards, till it lies upon the altar; with the left +he lifts the other torch aloft, and rests it on his shoulder. He has a +beautiful Græco-Roman face, touched with sadness or ineffable +reflection. The second youth leans against his comrade, resting his +left arm across the other's back, and this hand is lightly placed upon +the shoulder, close to the lifted torch. His right arm is bent, and so +placed that the hand just cuts the line of the pelvis a little above +the hip. The weight of his body is thrown principally upon the right +leg; the left foot is drawn back, away from the altar. It is the +attitude of the Apollo Sauroctonos. His beautiful face, bent downward, +is intently gazing with a calm, collected, serious, and yet sad cast of +earnest meditation. His eyes seem fixed on something beyond him and +beneath 224 him—as it were on an inscrutable abyss; and in this +direction also looks his companion. The face is unmistakably the face +of Antinous; yet the figure, and especially the legs, are not +characteristic. They seem modelled after the conventional type of the +Greek Ephebus. Parts of the two torches and the lower half of the right +arm of Antinous are restorations. + +Such is the Ildefonso marble; and it may be said that its execution is +hard and rough—the arms of both figures are carelessly designed; the +hands and fingers are especially angular, elongated, and ill-formed. +But there is a noble feeling in the whole group, notwithstanding. F. +Tieck, the sculptor and brother of the poet, was the first to suggest +that we have here Antinous, the Genius of Hadrian, and Persephone.[97] +He also thought that the self-immolation of Antinous was indicated by +the loving, leaning attitude of the younger man, and by his melancholy +look of resolution. The same view, in all substantial points, is taken +by Friedrichs, author of a work on Græco-Roman sculpture. But +Friedrichs, while admitting the identity of the younger figure with +Antinous, and recognising Persephone in the archaic image, is not +prepared to accept the elder as the Genius of Hadrian; and it must be +confessed that this face does not bear any resemblance to the portraits +of the Emperor. According to his interpretation, the Dæmon is kindling +the fire upon the sacrificial altar with the depressed torch; and the +second or lifted torch must be supposed to have been needed for the +performance of some obscure rite of immolation. What Friedrichs fails +to elucidate is the trustful attitude of Antinous, who could scarcely +have been conceived as thus affectionately 225 reclining on the +shoulder of a merely sacrificial dæmon; nor is there anything upon the +altar to kindle. It must, however, be conceded that the imperfection of +the marble at this point leaves the restoration of the altar and the +torch upon it doubtful. + + [97] See the article on Antinous, by Victor Rydberg, in the _Svensk + Tidskrift för Litteratur, Politik, och Ekonomi_. 1875, Stockholm. Also + Karl Bötticher, _Königliches Museum, Erklärendes Verzeichniss_. + Berlin, 1871. + +Charles Bötticher started a new solution of the principal problem. +According to him, it was executed in the lifetime of Antinous; and it +represents not a sacrifice of death, but a sacrifice of fidelity on the +part of the two friends, Hadrian and Antinous, who have met together +before Persephone to ratify a vow of love till death. He suggests that +the wreaths are of stephanotis, that large-leaved myrtle, which was +sacred to the Chthonian goddesses after the liberation of Semele from +Hades by her son Dionysus. With reference to such ceremonies between +Greek comrades, Bötticher cites a vase upon which Theseus and +Peirithous are sacrificing in the temple of Persephone; and he assumes +that there may have existed Athenian groups in marble representing +similar vows of friendship, from which Hadrian had this marble copied. +He believes that the Genius of Hadrian is kindling one torch at the +sacred fire, which he will reach to Antinous, while he holds the other +in readiness to kindle for himself. This explanation is both ingenious +and beautiful. It has also the great merit of explaining the action of +the right arm of Antinous. Yet it is hardly satisfactory. It throws no +light upon the melancholy and solemnity of both figures, which +irresistibly suggest a funereal rather than a joyous rite. Antinous is +not even looking at the altar, and the meditative curves of his +beautiful reclining form indicate anything rather than the spirited +alacrity with which a friend would respond to his comrade's call at +such a moment. Besides, why should not the likeness of Hadrian have +been preserved as well as that of Antinous, if the group commemorated +an act of their joint 226 will? On the other hand, we must admit that +the altar itself is not dressed for a funereal sacrifice. + +It has been pointed out that in the British Museum there exists a +basrelief of Homer's apotheosis where we notice a figure holding two +torches. Is it, then, possible that the Ildefonso marble may express, +not the sacrifice, but the apotheosis of Antinous, and that the Genius +who holds the two torches is conferring on him immortality? The lifted +torch would symbolise his new life, and the depressed torch would stand +for the life he had devoted. According to this explanation, the +sorrowful expression of Antinous must indicate the agony of death +through which he passed into the company of the undying. Against this +interpretation is the fact that we have no precise authority for the +symbolism of the torches, except only the common inversion of the +life-brand by the Genius of Death. + +Yet another solution may be suggested. Assuming that we have before us +a sacrificial ceremony, and that the group was executed after the +self-devotion of Antinous had passed into the popular belief, we may +regard the elder youth as either the Genius of the Emperor, separate in +spirit from Hadrian himself and presiding over his destinies, who +accepts the offer of Antinous with solemn calmness suited to so great a +gift; or else as the Genius of the Roman people, witnessing the same +act in the same majestic spirit. This view finds some support in the +abstract ideality of the torch-bearer, who is clearly no historical +personage as Antinous himself is, but rather a power controlling his +fate. The interpretation of the two torches remains very difficult. In +the torch flung down upon the flameless and barren altar we might +recognise a symbol of Hadrian's life upon the point of extinction, but +not yet extinguished; and in the torch lifted aloft we might find a +metaphor of life resuscitated and exalted. Nor is it 227 perhaps +without significance that the arm of the self-immolating youth meets +the upraised torch, as though to touch the life which he will purchase +with his death. There is, however, the objection stated above to this +bold use of symbolism. + +In support of any explanation which ascribes this group to a period +later than the canonisation of Antinous, it may be repeated that the +execution is inferior to that of almost all the other statues of the +hero. Is it possible, then, that it belongs to a subsequent date, when +art was further on the wane, but when the self-devotion of Antinous had +become a dogma of his cult? + +After all is said, the Ildefonso marble, like the legend of Antinous, +remains a mystery. Only hypotheses, more or less ingenious, more or +less suited to our sympathies, varying between Casaubon's coarse +vilification and Rydberg's roseate vision, are left us. + +As a last note on the subject of Antinous let me refer to Raphael's +statue of Jonah in the Chigi Chapel of S. Maria del Popolo at Rome. +Raphael, who handled the myth of Cupid and Psyche so magnificently in +the Villa Farnesina of his patron Agostino Chigi, dedicated a statue of +Antinous—the only statue he ever executed in marble—under the title of +a Hebrew prophet in a Christian sanctuary. The fact is no less +significant than strange. During the early centuries of Christianity, +as is amply proved by the sarcophagi in the Lateran Museum, Jonah +symbolised self-sacrifice and immortality. He was a type of Christ, an +emblem of the Christian's hope beyond the grave. During those same +centuries Antinous represented the same ideas, however inadequately, +however dimly, for the unlettered laity of Paganism. It could scarcely +have been by accident, or by mere admiration for the features of +Antinous, that Raphael, in his marble, blent the Christian 228 and the +Pagan traditions. To unify and to transcend the double views of +Christianity and Paganism in a work of pure art was Raphael's +instinctive, if not his conscious, aim. Nor is there a more striking +instance of this purpose than the youthful Jonah with the head of +Hadrian's favourite. Leonardo's Dionysus-John-the-Baptist seems but a +careless _jeu d'esprit_ compared with this profound and studied symbol +of renascent humanism. Thus to regard the Jonah-Antinous of the +Cappella Chigi as a type of immortality and self-devotion, fusing +Christian and Græco-Roman symbolism in one work of modern art, is the +most natural interpretation; but it would not be impossible to trace in +it a metaphor of the resurgent Pagan spirit also—as though, leaving +Jonah and his Biblical associations in the background, the artist had +determined that from the mouth of the monstrous grave should issue not +a bearded prophet, but the victorious youth who had captivated with his +beauty and his heroism the sunset age of the classic world. At any +rate, whatever may have been Raphael's intention, the legend of +Antinous, that last creation of antique mythology, shines upon us in +this marble, just as the tale of Hero and Leander, that last blossom of +antique literature, flowers afresh in the verses of our Marlowe. It +would appear as though the Renaissance poets, hastening to meet the +classic world with arms of welcome, had embraced its latest saints, as +nearest to them, in the rapture of their first enthusiasm. + +Over all these questions, over all that concerns Antinous, there rests +a cloud of darkness and impenetrable doubt. To pierce that cloud is now +impossible. The utmost we can do is to indulge our fancy in dreams of +greater or less probability, and to mark out clearly the limitations of +the subject. It is indeed something to have shown that the stigma of +slavery and disgrace attaching to his name has no solid historical +justification, and something to have suggested plausible reasons 229 +for conjecturing that his worship had a genuine spiritual basis. Yet +the sincere critic, at the end of the whole inquiry, will confess that +he has only cast a plummet into the unfathomable sea of ignorance. What +remains, immortal, indestructible, victorious, is Antinous in art. +Against the gloomy background of doubt, calumny, contention, terrible +surmise, his statues are illuminated with the dying glory of the +classic genius—even as the towers and domes of a marble city shine +forth from the purple banks of a thunder-cloud in sunset light. Here +and here only does reality emerge from the chaos of conflicting +phantoms. Front to front with them, it is allowed us to forget all else +but the beauty of one who died young because the gods loved him. But +when we question those wonderful mute features and beg them for their +secret, they return no answer. There is not even a smile upon the +parted lips. So profound is the mystery, so insoluble the enigma, that +from its most importunate interrogation we derive nothing but an +attitude of deeper reverence. This in itself, however, is worth the +pains of study.[98] + + [98] I must here express my indebtedness to my friend H.F. Brown for a + large portion of the materials used by me in this essay on Antinous, + which I had no means at Davos Platz of accumulating for myself, and + which he unearthed from the libraries of Florence in the course of his + own work, and generously placed at my disposal. + +230 + + + + +SPRING WANDERINGS + + +ANA-CAPRI + +The storm-clouds at this season, though it is the bloom of May, are +daily piled in sulky or menacing masses over Vesuvius and the Abruzzi, +frothing out their curls of moulded mist across the bay, and climbing +the heavens with toppling castle towers and domes of alabaster. + +We made the most of a tranquil afternoon, when there was an armistice +of storm, to climb the bluff of Mount Solaro. A ruined fort caps that +limestone bulwark; and there we lay together, drinking the influences +of sea, sun, and wind. Immeasurably deep beneath us plunged the +precipices, deep, deep descending to a bay where fisher boats were +rocking, diminished to a scale that made the fishermen in them +invisible. Low down above the waters wheeled white gulls, and higher up +the hawks and ospreys of the cliff sailed out of sunlight into shadow. +Immitigable strength is in the moulding of this limestone, and sharp, +clear definiteness marks yon clothing of scant brushwood where the +fearless goats are browsing. The sublime of sculpturesque in crag +structure is here, refined and modulated by the sweetness of sea +distances. For the air came pure and yielding to us over the unfooted +sea; and at the basement of those fortress-cliffs the sea was dreaming +in its caves; and far away, to east and south and west, soft light was +blent with mist upon the surface of the shimmering waters. + +231 The distinction between prospects viewed from a mountain +overlooking a great plain, or viewed from heights that, like this, +dominate the sea, principally lies in this: that while the former only +offer cloud shadows cast upon the fields below our feet, in the latter +these shadows are diversified with cloud reflections. This gives +superiority in qualities of colour, variety of tone, and luminous +effect to the sea, compensating in some measure for the lack of those +associations which render the outlook over a wide extent of populated +land so thrilling. The emergence of towered cities into sunlight at the +skirts of moving shadows, the liquid lapse of rivers half disclosed by +windings among woods, the upturned mirrors of unruffled lakes, are +wanting to the sea. For such episodes the white sails of vessels, with +all their wistfulness of going to and fro on the mysterious deep, are +but a poor exchange. Yet the sea-lover may justify his preference by +appealing to the beauty of empurpled shadows, toned by amethyst or +opal, or shining with violet light, reflected from the clouds that +cross and find in those dark shields a mirror. There are suggestions, +too, of immensity, of liberty, of action, presented by the boundless +horizons and the changeful changeless tracts of ocean which no plain +possesses. + +It was nigh upon sunset when we descended to Ana-Capri. That evening +the clouds assembled suddenly. The armistice of storm was broken. They +were terribly blue, and the sea grew dark as steel beneath them, till +the moment when the sun's lip reached the last edge of the waters. Then +a courier of rosy flame sent forth from him passed swift across the +gulf, touching, where it trod, the waves with accidental fire. The +messenger reached Naples; and in a moment, as by some diabolical +illumination, the sinful city kindled into light like glowing charcoal. +From Posilippo on the left, along the palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. +Elmo on the hill, past Santa 232 Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond +Portici, beyond Torre del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an +angry mount of amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached +Pompeii, and dwelt on Torre dell' Annunziata. Stationary, lurid, it +smouldered while the day died slowly. The long, densely populated +sea-line from Pozzuoli to Castellammare burned and smoked with +intensest incandescence, sending a glare of fiery mist against the +threatening blue behind, and fringing with pomegranate-coloured blots +the water where no light now lingered. It is difficult to bend words to +the use required. The scene, in spite of natural suavity and grace, had +become like Dante's first glimpse of the City of Dis—like Sodom and +Gomorrah when fire from heaven descended on their towers before they +crumbled into dust. + +FROM CAPRI TO ISCHIA + +After this, for several days, Libeccio blew harder. No boats could +leave or come to Capri. From the piazza parapet we saw the wind +scooping the surface of the waves, and flinging spray-fleeces in sheets +upon the churning water. As they broke on Cape Campanella, the rollers +climbed in foam—how many feet?—and blotted out the olive-trees above +the headland. The sky was always dark with hanging clouds and masses of +low-lying vapour, very moist, but scarcely raining—lightning without +thunder in the night. + +Such weather is unexpected in the middle month of May, especially when +the olives are blackened by December storms, and the orange-trees +despoiled of foliage, and the tendrils of the vines yellow with cold. +The walnut-trees have shown no sign of making leaves. Only the figs +seem to have suffered little. + +It had been settled that we should start upon the first 233 seafaring +dawn for Ischia or Sorrento, according as the wind might set; and I was +glad when, early one morning, the captain of the _Serena_ announced a +moderate sirocco. When we reached the little quay we found the surf of +the Libeccio still rolling heavily into the gulf. A gusty south-easter +crossed it, tearing spray-crests from the swell as it went plunging +onward. The sea was rough enough; but we made fast sailing, our captain +steering with a skill which it was beautiful to watch, his five oarsmen +picturesquely grouped beneath the straining sail. The sea slapped and +broke from time to time on our windward quarter, drenching the boat +with brine; and now and then her gunwale scooped into the shoulder of a +wave as she shot sidling up it. Meanwhile enormous masses of +leaden-coloured clouds formed above our heads and on the sea-line; but +these were always shifting in the strife of winds, and the sun shone +through them petulantly. As we climbed the rollers, or sank into their +trough, the outline of the bay appeared in glimpses, shyly revealed, +suddenly withdrawn from sight; the immobility and majesty of mountains +contrasted with the weltering waste of water round us—now blue and +garish where the sunlight fell, now shrouded in squally rain-storms, +and then again sullen beneath a vaporous canopy. Each of these +vignettes was photographed for one brief second on the brain, and +swallowed by the hurling drift of billows. The painter's art could but +ill have rendered that changeful colour in the sea, passing from tawny +cloud-reflections and surfaces of glowing violet to bright blue or +impenetrable purple flecked with boiling foam, according as a +light-illuminated or a shadowed facet of the moving mass was turned to +sight. + +Halfway across the gulf the sirocco lulled; the sail was lowered, and +we had to make the rest of the passage by rowing. Under the lee of +Ischia we got into comparatively quiet 234 water; though here the +beautiful Italian sea was yellowish green with churned-up sand, like an +unripe orange. We passed the castle on its rocky island, with the domed +church which has been so often painted in _gouache_ pictures through +the last two centuries, and soon after noon we came to Casamicciola. + +LA PICCOLA SENTINELLA + +Casamicciola is a village on the north side of the island, in its +centre, where the visitors to the mineral baths of Ischia chiefly +congregate. One of its old-established inns is called La Piccola +Sentinella. The first sight on entrance is an open gallery, with a pink +wall on which bloom magnificent cactuses, sprays of thick-clustering +scarlet and magenta flowers. This is a rambling house, built in +successive stages against a hill, with terraces and verandahs opening +on unexpected gardens to the back and front. Beneath its long irregular +façade there spreads a wilderness of orange-trees and honeysuckles and +roses, verbenas, geraniums and mignonette, snapdragons, gazanias and +stocks, exceeding bright and fragrant, with the green slopes of Monte +Epomeo for a background and Vesuvius for far distance. There are +wonderful bits of detail in this garden. One dark, thick-foliaged +olive, I remember, leaning from the tufa over a lizard-haunted wall, +feathered waist-high in huge acanthus leaves. The whole rich orchard +ground of Casamicciola is dominated by Monte Epomeo, the extinct +volcano which may be called the _raison d'être_ of Ischia; for this +island is nothing but a mountain lifted by the energy of fire from the +sea-basement. Its fantastic peaks and ridges, sulphur-coloured, dusty +grey, and tawny, with brushwood in young leaf upon the cloven flanks, +form a singular pendant to the austere but more artistically modelled +limestone crags of Capri. No two islands that I know, within so 235 +short a space of sea, offer two pictures so different in style and +quality of loveliness. The inhabitants are equally distinct in type. +Here, in spite of what De Musset wrote somewhat affectedly about the +peasant girls— + +Ischia! c'est là qu'on a des yeux, +C'est là qu'un corsage amoureux + Serre la hanche. +Sur un bas rouge bien tiré +Brille, sous le jupon doré, + La mule blanche— + +in spite of these lines I did not find the Ischian women eminent, as +those of Capri are, for beauty. But the young men have fine, loose, +faun-like figures, and faces that would be strikingly handsome but for +too long and prominent noses. They are a singular race, graceful in +movement. + +Evening is divine in Ischia. From the topmost garden terrace of the inn +one looks across the sea towards Terracina, Gaeta, and those descending +mountain buttresses, the Phlegræan plains, and the distant snows of the +Abruzzi. Rain-washed and luminous, the sunset sky held Hesper trembling +in a solid green of beryl. Fireflies flashed among the orange blossoms. +Far away in the obscurity of eastern twilight glared the smouldering +cone of Vesuvius—a crimson blot upon the darkness—a Cyclops' eye, +bloodshot and menacing. + +The company in the Piccola Sentinella, young and old, were decrepit, +with an odd, rheumatic, shrivelled look upon them. The dining-room +reminded me, as certain rooms are apt to do, of a ship's saloon. I felt +as though I had got into the cabin of the _Flying Dutchman_, and that +all these people had been sitting there at meat a hundred years, +through storm and shine, for ever driving onward over immense waves in +an enchanted calm. + +236 + +ISCHIA AND FORIO + +One morning we drove along the shore, up hill, and down, by the Porto +d'Ischia to the town and castle. This country curiously combines the +qualities of Corfu and Catania. The near distance, so richly +cultivated, with the large volcanic slopes of Monte Epomeo rising from +the sea, is like Catania. Then, across the gulf, are the bold outlines +and snowy peaks of the Abruzzi, recalling Albanian ranges. Here, as in +Sicily, the old lava is overgrown with prickly pear and red valerian. +Mesembrianthemums—I must be pardoned this word; for I cannot omit those +fleshy-leaved creepers, with their wealth of gaudy blossoms, shaped +like sea anemones, coloured like strawberry and pineapple +cream-ices—mesembrianthemums, then, tumble in torrents from the walls, +and large-cupped white convolvuluses curl about the hedges. The Castle +Rock, with Capri's refined sky-coloured outline relieving its hard +profile on the horizon, is one of those exceedingly picturesque objects +just too theatrical to be artistic. It seems ready-made for a back +scene in 'Masaniello,' and cries out to the chromo-lithographer, 'Come +and make the most of me!' Yet this morning all things, in sea, earth, +and sky, were so delicately tinted and bathed in pearly light that it +was difficult to be critical. + +In the afternoon we took the other side of the island, driving through +Lacca to Forio. One gets right round the bulk of Epomeo, and looks up +into a weird region called Le Falange, where white lava streams have +poured in two broad irregular torrents among broken precipices. Forio +itself is placed at the end of a flat headland, boldly thrust into the +sea; and its furthest promontory bears a pilgrimage church, intensely +white and glaring. + +237 There is something arbitrary in the memories we make of places +casually visited, dependent as they are upon our mood at the moment, or +on an accidental interweaving of impressions which the _genius loci_ +blends for us. Of Forio two memories abide with me. The one is of a +young woman, with very fair hair, in a light blue dress, standing +beside an older woman in a garden. There was a flourishing +pomegranate-tree above them. The whiteness and the dreamy smile of the +young woman seemed strangely out of tune with her strong-toned southern +surroundings. I could have fancied her a daughter of some moist +north-western isle of Scandinavian seas. My other memory is of a lad, +brown, handsome, powerfully featured, thoughtful, lying curled up in +the sun upon a sort of ladder in his house-court, profoundly +meditating. He had a book in his hand, and his finger still marked the +place where he had read. He looked as though a Columbus or a Campanella +might emerge from his earnest, fervent, steadfast adolescence. Driving +rapidly along, and leaving Forio in all probability for ever, I kept +wondering whether those two lives, discerned as though in vision, would +meet—whether she was destined to be his evil genius, whether posterity +would hear of him and journey to his birthplace in this world-neglected +Forio. Such reveries are futile. Yet who entirely resists them? + +MONTE EPOMEO + +About three on the morning which divides the month of May into two +equal parts I woke and saw the waning moon right opposite my window, +stayed in her descent upon the slope of Epomeo. Soon afterwards +Christian called me, and we settled to ascend the mountain. Three +horses and a stout black donkey, with their inevitable grooms, were +ordered; 238 and we took for guide a lovely faun-like boy, goat-faced, +goat-footed, with gentle manners and pliant limbs swaying beneath the +breath of impulse. He was called Giuseppe. + +The way leads past the mineral baths and then strikes uphill, at first +through lanes cut deep in the black lava. The trees meet almost +overhead. It is like Devonshire, except that one half hopes to see +tropical foxgloves with violet bells and downy leaves sprouting among +the lush grasses and sweet-scented ferns upon those gloomy, damp, warm +walls. After this we skirted a thicket of arbutus, and came upon the +long volcanic ridge, with divinest outlook over Procida and Miseno +toward Vesuvius. Then once more we had to dive into brown sandstone +gullies, extremely steep, where the horses almost burst their girths in +scrambling, and the grooms screamed, exasperating their confusion with +encouragements and curses. Straight or bending as a willow wand, +Giuseppe kept in front. I could have imagined he had stepped to life +from one of Lionardo's fancy-sprighted studies. + +After this fashion we gained the spine of mountain which composes +Ischia—the smooth ascending ridge that grows up from those eastern +waves to what was once the apex of fire-vomiting Inarime, and breaks in +precipices westward, a ruin of gulfed lava, tortured by the violence of +pent Typhoeus. Under a vast umbrella pine we dismounted, rested, and +saw Capri. Now the road skirts slanting-wise along the further flank of +Epomeo, rising by muddy earth-heaps and sandstone hollows to the quaint +pinnacles which build the summit. There is no inconsiderable peril in +riding over this broken ground; for the soil crumbles away, and the +ravines open downward, treacherously masked with brushwood. + +On Epomeo's topmost cone a chapel dedicated to S. Niccolo da Bari, the +Italian patron of seamen, has been 239 hollowed from the rock. Attached +to it is the dwelling of two hermits, subterranean, with long dark +corridors and windows opening on the western seas. Church and hermitage +alike are scooped, with slight expenditure of mason's skill, from solid +mountain. The windows are but loopholes, leaning from which the town of +Forio is seen, 2500 feet below; and the jagged precipices of the +menacing Falange toss their contorted horror forth to sea and sky. +Through gallery and grotto we wound in twilight under a monk's +guidance, and came at length upon the face of the crags above +Casamicciola. A few steps upward, cut like a ladder in the stone, +brought us to the topmost peak—a slender spire of soft, yellowish tufa. +It reminded me (with differences) of the way one climbs the spire at +Strasburg, and stands upon that temple's final crocket, with nothing +but a lightning conductor to steady swimming senses. Different indeed +are the views unrolled beneath the peak of Epomeo and the pinnacle of +Strasburg! Vesuvius, with the broken lines of Procida, Miseno, and Lago +Fusaro for foreground; the sculpturesque beauty of Capri, buttressed in +everlasting calm upon the waves; the Phlegræan plains and champaign of +Volturno, stretching between smooth seas and shadowy hills; the mighty +sweep of Naples' bay; all merged in blue; aë;rial, translucent, +exquisitely frail. In this ethereal fabric of azure the most real of +realities, the most solid of substances, seem films upon a crystal +sphere. + +The hermit produced some flasks of amber-coloured wine from his stores +in the grotto. These we drank, lying full-length upon the tufa in the +morning sunlight. The panorama of sea, sky, and long-drawn lines of +coast, breathless, without a ripple or a taint of cloud, spread far and +wide around us. Our horses and donkey cropped what little grass, blent +with bitter herbage, grew on that barren summit. Their grooms 240 +helped us out with the hermit's wine, and turned to sleep face +downward. The whole scene was very quiet, islanded in immeasurable air. +Then we asked the boy, Giuseppe, whether he could guide us on foot down +the cliffs of Monte Epomeo to Casamicciola. This he was willing and +able to do; for he told me that he had spent many months each year upon +the hillside, tending goats. When rough weather came, he wrapped +himself in a blanket from the snow that falls and melts upon the +ledges. In summer time he basked the whole day long, and slept the calm +ambrosial nights away. Something of this free life was in the burning +eyes, long clustering dark hair, and smooth brown bosom of the +faun-like creature. His graceful body had the brusque, unerring +movement of the goats he shepherded. Human thought and emotion seemed +a-slumber in this youth who had grown one with nature. As I watched his +careless incarnate loveliness I remembered lines from an old Italian +poem of romance, describing a dweller of the forest, who + +Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade, +Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream; +And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said, +That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam, +Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread, +And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him; +But when on high hurl winds and clouds together, +Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather. + + +Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic _balze_, where the soil is +soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and +orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild +chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for +us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens +and wavering anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so +241 by winding paths descended on the village. Giuseppe told me, as we +walked, that in a short time he would be obliged to join the army. He +contemplated this duty with a dim and undefined dislike. Nor could I, +too, help dreading and misliking it for him. The untamed, gentle +creature, who knew so little but his goats as yet, whose nights had +been passed from childhood _à la belle étoile_, whose limbs had never +been cumbered with broadcloth or belt—for him to be shut up in the +barrack of some Lombard city, packed in white conscript's sacking, +drilled, taught to read and write, and weighted with the knapsack and +the musket! There was something lamentable in the prospect. But such is +the burden of man's life, of modern life especially. United Italy +demands of her children that by this discipline they should be brought +into that harmony which builds a nation out of diverse elements. + +FROM ISCHIA TO NAPLES + +Ischia showed a new aspect on the morning of our departure. A sea-mist +passed along the skirts of the island, and rolled in heavy masses round +the peaks of Monte Epomeo, slowly condensing into summer clouds, and +softening each outline with a pearly haze, through which shone emerald +glimpses of young vines and fig-trees. + +We left in a boat with four oarsmen for Pozzuoli. For about an hour the +breeze carried us well, while Ischia behind grew ever lovelier, soft as +velvet, shaped like a gem. The mist had become a great white luminous +cloud—not dense and alabastrine, like the clouds of thunder; but filmy, +tender, comparable to the atmosphere of Dante's moon. Porpoises and +sea-gulls played and fished about our bows, dividing the 242 dark brine +in spray. The mountain distances were drowned in bluish vapour—Vesuvius +quite invisible. About noon the air grew clearer, and Capri reared her +fortalice of sculptured rock, aë;rially azure, into liquid ether. I +know not what effect of atmosphere or light it is that lifts an island +from the sea by interposing that thin edge of lustrous white between it +and the water. But this phenomenon to-day was perfectly exhibited. Like +a mirage on the wilderness, like Fata Morgana's palace ascending from +the deep, the pure and noble vision stayed suspense 'twixt heaven and +ocean. At the same time the breeze failed, and we rowed slowly between +Procida and Capo Miseno—a space in old-world history athrong with +Cæsar's navies. When we turned the point, and came in sight of Baiæ, +the wind freshened and took us flying into Pozzuoli. The whole of this +coast has been spoiled by the recent upheaval of Monte Nuovo with its +lava floods and cindery deluges. Nothing remains to justify its fame +among the ancient Romans and the Neapolitans of Boccaccio's and +Pontano's age. It is quite wrecked, beyond the power even of +hendecasyllables to bring again its breath of beauty:— + +Mecum si sapies, Gravina, mecum +Baias, et placidos coles recessus, +Quos ipsæ et veneres colunt, et illa +Quæ mentes hominum regit voluptas. +Hic vina et choreæ jocique regnant, +Regnant et charites facetiæque. +Has sedes amor, has colit cupido. +His passim juvenes puellulæque +Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur, +Coenantque et dapibus leporibusque +Miscent delitias venustiores: +Miscent gaudia et osculationes, +Atque una sociis toris foventur, +Has te ad delitias vocant camoenæ; +Invitat mare, myrteumque littus; +243 Invitant volueres canoræ, et ipse +Gaurus pampineas parat corollas.[99] + + + [99] These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's + _Hendecasyllabi_ (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint the + amusements of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I have + translated them:— + + +With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina, +With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiæ, +Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who +Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite. +Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter; +Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness; +Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too, +Where glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides +Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather, +Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets +Blend with dearer delights and love's embraces, +Blend with pleasures of youth and honeyed kisses, +Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber. +Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments; +Thee those billows allure, the myrtled seashore, +Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus +Twines his redolent wreath of vines and ivy. + +At Pozzuoli we dined in the Albergo del Ponte di Caligola (Heaven save +the mark!), and drank Falernian wine of modern and indifferent vintage. +Then Christian hired two open carriages for Naples. He and I sat in the +second. In the first we placed the two ladies of our party. They had a +large, fat driver. Just after we had all passed the gate a big fellow +rushed up, dragged the corpulent coachman from his box, pulled out a +knife, and made a savage thrust at the man's stomach. At the same +moment a _guardia-porta_, with drawn cutlass, interposed and struck +between the combatants. They were separated. Their respective friends +assembled in two jabbering crowds, and the whole party, uttering +vociferous objurgations, marched off, as I imagined, to the +watch-house. A very shabby lazzarone, without more ado, 244 sprang on +the empty box, and we made haste for Naples. Being only anxious to get +there, and not at all curious about the squabble which had deprived us +of our fat driver, I relapsed into indifference when I found that +neither of the men to whose lot we had fallen was desirous of +explaining the affair. It was sufficient cause for self-congratulation +that no blood had been shed, and that the Procuratore del Rè would not +require our evidence. + +The Grotta di Posilippo was a sight of wonder, with the afternoon sun +slanting on its festoons of creeping plants above the western +entrance—the gas lamps, dust, huge carts, oxen, and _contadini_ in its +subterranean darkness—and then the sudden revelation of the bay and +city as we jingled out into the summery air again by Virgil's tomb. + +NIGHT AT POMPEII + +On to Pompeii in the clear sunset, falling very lightly upon mountains, +islands, little ports, and indentations of the bay. + +From the railway station we walked above half a mile to the Albergo del +Sole under a lucid heaven of aqua-marine colour, with Venus large in it +upon the border line between the tints of green and blue. + +The Albergo del Sole is worth commemorating. We stepped, without the +intervention of courtyard or entrance hall, straight from the little +inn garden into an open, vaulted room. This was divided into two +compartments by a stout column supporting round arches. Wooden gates +furnished a kind of fence between the atrium and what an old Pompeian +would have styled the triclinium. For in the further part a table was +laid for supper and lighted with suspended lamps. And here a party of +artists and students drank and talked and 245 smoked. A great live +peacock, half asleep and winking his eyes, sat perched upon a heavy +wardrobe watching them. The outer chamber, where we waited in armchairs +of ample girth, had its _loggia_ windows and doors open to the air. +There were singing-birds in cages; and plants of rosemary, iris, and +arundo sprang carelessly from holes in the floor. A huge vase filled to +overflowing with oranges and lemons, the very symbol of generous +prodigality, stood in the midst, and several dogs were lounging round. +The outer twilight, blending with the dim sheen of the lamps, softened +this pretty scene to picturesqueness. Altogether it was a strange and +unexpected place. Much experienced as the nineteenth-century nomad may +be in inns, he will rarely receive a more powerful and refreshing +impression, entering one at evenfall, than here. + +There was no room for us in the inn. We were sent, attended by a boy +with a lantern, through fields of dew-drenched barley and folded +poppies, to a farmhouse overshadowed by four spreading pines. +Exceedingly soft and grey, with rose-tinted weft of steam upon its +summit, stood Vesuvius above us in the twilight. Something in the +recent impression of the dimly lighted supper-room, and in the idyllic +simplicity of this lantern-litten journey through the barley, +suggested, by one of those inexplicable stirrings of association which +affect tired senses, a dim, dreamy thought of Palestine and Bible +stories. The feeling of the _cenacolo_ blent here with feelings of +Ruth's cornfields, and the white square houses with their flat roofs +enforced the illusion. Here we slept in the middle of a _contadino_ +colony. Some of the folk had made way for us; and by the wheezing, +coughing, and snoring of several sorts and ages in the chamber next me, +I imagine they must have endured considerable crowding. My bed was +large enough to have 246 contained a family. Over its bead there was a +little shrine, hollowed in the thickness of the wall, with several +sacred emblems and a shallow vase of holy water. On dressers at each +end of the room stood glass shrines, occupied by finely dressed Madonna +dolls and pots of artificial flowers. Above the doors S. Michael and S. +Francis, roughly embossed in low relief and boldly painted, gave +dignity and grandeur to the walls. These showed some sense for art in +the first builders of the house. But the taste of the inhabitants could +not be praised. There were countless gaudy prints of saints, and +exactly five pictures of the Bambino, very big, and sprawling in a +field alone. A crucifix, some old bottles, a gun, old clothes suspended +from pegs, pieces of peasant pottery and china, completed the furniture +of the apartment. + +But what a view it showed when Christian next morning opened the door! +From my bed I looked across the red-tiled terrace to the stone-pines +with their velvet roofage and the blue-peaked hills of Stabiæ. + +SAN GERMANO + +No one need doubt about his quarters in this country town. The Albergo +di Pompeii is a truly sumptuous place. Sofas, tables, and chairs in our +sitting-room are made of buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, +but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or +standing, one felt insecure. When would the points run into us? when +should we begin to break these incrustations off? and would the whole +fabric crumble at a touch into chaotic heaps of horns? + +It is market day, and the costumes in the streets are brilliant. The +women wear a white petticoat, a blue skirt made straight and tightly +bound above it, a white richly 247 worked bodice, and the white +square-folded napkin of the Abruzzi on their heads. Their jacket is of +red or green—pure colour. A rug of striped red, blue, yellow, and black +protects the whole dress from the rain. There is a very noble quality +of green—sappy and gemmy—like some of Titian's or Giorgione's—in the +stuffs they use. Their build and carriage are worthy of goddesses. + +Rain falls heavily, persistently. We must ride on donkeys, in +waterproofs, to Monte Cassino. Mountain and valley, oak wood and ilex +grove, lentisk thicket and winding river-bed, are drowned alike in +soft-descending, soaking rain. Far and near the landscape swims in +rain, and the hillsides send down torrents through their watercourses. + +The monastery is a square, dignified building, of vast extent and +princely solidity. It has a fine inner court, with sumptuous staircases +of slabbed stone leading to the church. This public portion of the +edifice is both impressive and magnificent, without sacrifice of +religious severity to parade. We acknowledge a successful compromise +between the austerity of the order and the grandeur befitting the fame, +wealth, prestige, and power of its parent foundation. The church itself +is a tolerable structure of the Renaissance—costly marble incrustations +and mosaics, meaningless Neapolitan frescoes. One singular episode in +the mediocrity of art adorning it, is the tomb of Pietro de' Medici. +Expelled from Florence in 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in +the Garigliano. Clement VII. ordered, and Duke Cosimo I. erected, this +marble monument—the handicraft, in part at least, of Francesco di San +Gallo—to their relative. It is singularly stiff, ugly, out of place—at +once obtrusive and insignificant. + +A gentle old German monk conducted Christian and me over the +convent—boys' school, refectory, printing press, 248 lithographic +workshop, library, archives. We then returned to the church, from which +we passed to visit the most venerable and sacred portion of the +monastery. The cell of S. Benedict is being restored and painted in +fresco by the Austrian Benedictines; a pious but somewhat frigid +process of re-edification. This so-called cell is a many-chambered and +very ancient building, with a tower which is now embedded in the +massive superstructure of the modern monastery. The German artists +adorning it contrive to blend the styles of Giotto, Fra Angelico, +Egypt, and Byzance, not without force and a kind of intense frozen +pietism. S. Mauro's vision of his master's translation to heaven—the +ladder of light issuing between two cypresses, and the angels watching +on the tower walls—might even be styled poetical. But the decorative +angels on the roof and other places, being adapted from Egyptian art, +have a strange, incongruous appearance. + +Monasteries are almost invariably disappointing to one who goes in +search of what gives virtue and solidity to human life; and even Monte +Cassino was no exception. This ought not to be otherwise, seeing what a +peculiar sympathy with the monastic institution is required to make +these cloisters comprehensible. The atmosphere of operose indolence, +prolonged through centuries and centuries, stifles; nor can antiquity +and influence impose upon a mind which resents monkery itself as an +essential evil. That Monte Cassino supplied the Church with several +potentates is incontestable. That mediæval learning and morality would +have suffered more without this brotherhood cannot be doubted. Yet it +is difficult to name men of very eminent genius whom the Cassinesi +claim as their alumni; nor, with Boccaccio's testimony to their +carelessness, and with the evidence of their library before our eyes, +can we rate their services to 249 civilised erudition very highly. I +longed to possess the spirit, for one moment, of Montalembert. I longed +for what is called historical imagination, for the indiscriminate +voracity of those men to whom world-famous sites are in themselves +soul-stirring. + +250 + + + + +AMALFI, PÆSTUM, CAPRI + + +The road between Vietri and Amalfi is justly celebrated as one of the +most lovely pieces of coast scenery in Italy. Its only rivals are the +roads from Castellammare to Sorrento, from Genoa to Sestri, and from +Nice to Mentone. Each of these has its own charm; and yet their +similarity is sufficient to invite comparison: under the spell of each +in turn, we are inclined to say, This then, at all events, is the most +beautiful. On first quitting Vietri, Salerno is left low down upon the +sea-shore, nestling into a little corner of the bay which bears its +name, and backed up by gigantic mountains. With each onward step these +mountain-ranges expand in long aë;rial line, revealing reaches of +fantastic peaks, that stretch away beyond the plain of Pæstum, till +they end at last in mist and sunbeams shimmering on the sea. On the +left hand hangs the cliff above the deep salt water, with here and +there a fig-tree spreading fanlike leaves against the blue beneath. On +the right rises the hillside, clothed with myrtle, lentisk, cistus, and +pale yellow coronilla—a tangle as sweet with scent as it is gay with +blossom. Over the parapet that skirts the precipice lean heavy-foliaged +locust-trees, and the terraces in sunny nooks are set with +lemon-orchards. There are but few olives, and no pines. Meanwhile each +turn in the road brings some change of scene—now a village with its +little beach of grey sand, lapped by clearest sea-waves, where +bare-legged fishermen mend their nets, and naked boys bask like lizards +in the 251 sun—now towering bastions of weird rock, broken into spires +and pinnacles like those of Skye, and coloured with bright hues of red +and orange—then a ravine, where the thin thread of a mountain streamlet +seems to hang suspended upon ferny ledges in the limestone—or a +precipice defined in profile against sea and sky, with a lad, half +dressed in goat-skin, dangling his legs into vacuity and singing—or a +tract of cultivation, where the orange, apricot, and lemon trees nestle +together upon terraces with intermingled pergolas of vines. + +Amalfi and Atrani lie close together in two of these ravines, the +mountains almost arching over them, and the sea washing their very +house-walls. Each has its crowning campanile; but that of Amalfi is the +stranger of the two, like a Moorish tower at the top, and coloured with +green and yellow tiles that glitter in the sunlight. The houses are all +dazzling white, plastered against the naked rock, rising on each +other's shoulders to get a glimpse of earth and heaven, jutting out on +coigns of vantage from the toppling cliff, and pierced with staircases +as dark as night at noonday. Some frequented lanes lead through the +basements of these houses; and as the donkeys pick their way from step +to step in the twilight, bare-chested macaroni-makers crowd forth like +ants to see us strangers pass. A myriad of swallows or a swarm of mason +bees might build a town like this. + +It is not easy to imagine the time when Amalfi and Atrani were one +town, with docks and arsenals and harbourage for their associated +fleets, and when these little communities were second in importance to +no naval power of Christian Europe. The Byzantine Empire lost its hold +on Italy during the eighth century; and after this time the history of +Calabria is mainly concerned with the republics of Naples and Amalfi, +their conflict with the Lombard dukes of Benevento, their opposition to +the Saracens, and their final subjugation by the 252 Norman conquerors +of Sicily. Between the year 839 A.D., when Amalfi freed itself from the +control of Naples and the yoke of Benevento, and the year 1131, when +Roger of Hauteville incorporated the republic in his kingdom of the Two +Sicilies, this city was the foremost naval and commercial port of +Italy. The burghers of Amalfi elected their own doge; founded the +Hospital of Jerusalem, whence sprang the knightly order of S. John; +gave their name to the richest quarter in Palermo; and owned trading +establishments or factories in all the chief cities of the Levant. +Their gold coinage of _tari_ formed the standard of currency before the +Florentines had stamped the lily and S. John upon the Tuscan florin. +Their shipping regulations supplied Europe with a code of maritime +laws. Their scholars, in the darkest depth of the dark ages, prized and +conned a famous copy of the Pandects of Justinian; and their seamen +deserved the fame of having first used, if they did not actually +invent, the compass. + +To modern visitors those glorious centuries of Amalfitan power and +independence cannot but seem fabulous; so difficult is it for us to +imagine the conditions of society in Europe when a tiny city, shut in +between barren mountains and a tideless sea, without a circumjacent +territory, and with no resources but piracy or trade, could develop +maritime supremacy in the Levant and produce the first fine flowers of +liberty and culture. + +If the history of Amalfi's early splendour reads like a brilliant +legend, the story of its premature extinction has the interest of a +tragedy. The republic had grown and flourished on the decay of the +Greek Empire. When the hard-handed race of Hauteville absorbed the +heritage of Greeks and Lombards and Saracens in Southern Italy, these +adventurers succeeded in annexing Amalfi. But it was not their interest +to extinguish the state. On the contrary, they relied for 253 +assistance upon the navies and the armies of the little commonwealth. +New powers had meanwhile arisen in the North of Italy, who were jealous +of rivalry upon the open seas; and when the Neapolitans resisted King +Roger in 1135, they called Pisa to their aid, and sent her fleet to +destroy Amalfi. The ships of Amalfi were on guard with Roger's navy in +the Bay of Naples. The armed citizens were, under Roger's orders, at +Aversa. Meanwhile the home of the republic lay defenceless on its +mountain-girdled seaboard. The Pisans sailed into the harbour, sacked +the city, and carried off the famous Pandects of Justinian as a trophy. +Two years later they returned, to complete the work of devastation. +Amalfi never recovered from the injuries and the humiliation of these +two attacks. It was ever thus that the Italians, like the children of +the dragon's teeth which Cadmus sowed, consumed each other. Pisa cut +the throat of her sister-port Amalfi, and Genoa gave a mortal wound to +Pisa, when the waters of Meloria were dyed with blood in 1284. Venice +fought a duel to the death with Genoa in the succeeding century; and +what Venice failed to accomplish was completed by Milan and the lords +of the Visconti dynasty, who crippled and enslaved the haughty queen of +the Ligurian Riviera. + +The naval and commercial prosperity of Amalfi was thus put an end to by +the Pisans in the twelfth century. But it was not then that the town +assumed its present aspect. What surprises the student of history more +than anything is the total absence of fortifications, docks, arsenals, +and breakwaters, bearing witness to the ancient grandeur of a city +which numbered 50,000 inhabitants, and traded with Alexandria, Syria, +and the far East. Nothing of the sort, with the exception of a single +solitary tower upon the Monte Aureo, is visible. Nor will he fail to +remember that Amalfi and 254 Atrani, which are now divided by a jutting +mountain buttress, were once joined by a tract of sea-beach, where the +galleys of the republic rested after sweeping the Levant, and where the +fishermen drew up their boats upon the smooth grey sand. That also has +disappeared. The violence of man was not enough to reduce Amalfi to its +present state of insignificance. The forces of nature aided—partly by +the gradual subsidence of the land, which caused the lower quarters of +the city to be submerged, and separated Amalfi from her twin-port by +covering the beach with water—partly by a fearful tempest, accompanied +by earthquake, in 1343. Petrarch, then resident at Naples, witnessed +the destructive fury of this great convulsion, and the description he +wrote of it soon after its occurrence is so graphic that some notice +may well be taken of it here. + +His letter, addressed to the noble Roman, Giovanni Colonna, begins with +a promise to tell something of a storm which deserved the title of +'poetic,' and in a degree so superlative that no epithet but 'Homeric' +would suffice to do it justice. This exordium is singularly +characteristic of Petrarch, who never forgot that he was a literary +man, and lost no opportunity of dragging the great names of antiquity +into his rhetorical compositions. The catastrophe was hardly +unexpected; for it had been prophesied by an astrological bishop, whom +Petrarch does not name, that Naples would be overwhelmed by a terrible +disaster in December 1343. The people were therefore in a state of wild +anxiety, repenting of their sins, planning a total change of life under +the fear of imminent death, and neglecting their ordinary occupations. +On the day of the predicted calamity women roamed in trembling crowds +through the streets, pressing their babies to their breasts, and +besieging the altars of the saints with prayers. Petrarch, who shared +the general disquietude, kept 255 watching the signs of the weather; +but nothing happened to warrant an extraordinary panic. At sunset the +sky was quieter than usual; and he could discern none of the symptoms +of approaching tempest, to which his familiarity with the mountains of +Vaucluse accustomed him. After dusk he stationed himself at a window to +observe the moon until she went down, before midnight, obscured by +clouds. Then he betook himself to bed; but scarcely had he fallen into +his first sleep when a most horrible noise aroused him. The whole house +shook; the night-light on his table was extinguished; and he was thrown +with violence from his couch. He was lodging in a convent; and soon +after this first intimation of the tempest he heard the monks calling +to each other through the darkness. From cell to cell they hurried, the +ghastly gleams of lightning falling on their terror-stricken faces. +Headed by the Prior, and holding crosses and relics of the saints in +their hands, they now assembled in Petrarch's chamber. Thence they +proceeded in a body to the chapel, where they spent the night in prayer +and expectation of impending ruin. It would be impossible, says the +poet, to relate the terrors of that hellish night—the deluges of rain, +the screaming of the wind, the earthquake, the thunder, the howling of +the sea, and the shrieks of agonising human beings. All these horrors +were prolonged, as though by some magician's spell, for what seemed +twice the duration of a natural night. It was so dark that at last by +conjecture rather than the testimony of their senses they knew that day +had broken. A hurried mass was said. Then, as the noise in the town +above them began to diminish, and a confused clamour from the sea-shore +continually increased, their suspense became unendurable. They mounted +their horses, and descended to the port—to see and perish. A fearful +spectacle awaited them. The ships in the harbour had broken their +moorings, and 256 were crashing helplessly together. The strand was +strewn with mutilated corpses. The breakwaters were submerged, and the +sea seemed gaining momently upon the solid land. A thousand watery +mountains surged up into the sky between the shore and Capri; and these +massive billows were not black or purple, but hoary with a livid foam. +After describing some picturesque episodes—such as the gathering of the +knights of Naples to watch the ruin of their city, the procession of +court ladies headed by the queen to implore the intercession of Mary, +and the wreck of a vessel freighted with 400 convicts bound for +Sicily—Petrarch concludes with a fervent prayer that he may never have +to tempt the sea, of whose fury he had seen so awful an example. + +The capital on this occasion escaped the ruin prophesied. But Amalfi +was inundated; and what the waters then gained has never been restored +to man. This is why the once so famous city ranks now upon a level with +quiet little towns whose names are hardly heard in history—with San +Remo, or Rapallo, or Chiavari—and yet it is still as full of life as a +wasp's nest, especially upon the molo, or raised piazza paved with +bricks, in front of the Albergo de' Cappuccini. The changes of scene +upon this tiny square are so frequent as to remind one of a theatre. +Looking down from the inn-balcony, between the glazy green pots gay +with scarlet amaryllis-bloom, we are inclined to fancy that the whole +has been prepared for our amusement. In the morning the corn for the +macaroni-flour, after being washed, is spread out on the bricks to dry. +In the afternoon the fishermen bring their nets for the same purpose. +In the evening the city magnates promenade and whisper. Dark-eyed +women, with orange or crimson kerchiefs for headgear, cross and +re-cross, bearing baskets on their shoulders. Great lazy large-limbed +fellows, girt with scarlet sashes and finished off with dark blue 257 +nightcaps (for a contrast to their saffron-coloured shirts, white +breeches, and sunburnt calves), slouch about or sleep face downwards on +the parapets. On either side of this same molo stretches a miniature +beach of sand and pebble, covered with nets, which the fishermen are +always mending, and where the big boats lade or unlade, trimming for +the sardine fishery, or driving in to shore with a whirr of oars and a +jabber of discordant voices. As the land-wind freshens, you may watch +them set off one by one, like pigeons taking flight, till the sea is +flecked with twenty sail, all scudding in the same direction. The +torrent runs beneath the molo, and finds the sea beyond it; so that +here too are the washerwomen, chattering like sparrows; and everywhere +the naked boys, like brown sea-urchins, burrow in the clean warm sand, +or splash the shallow brine. If you like the fun, you may get a score +of them to dive together and scramble for coppers in the deeper places, +their lithe bodies gleaming wan beneath the water in a maze of +interlacing arms and legs. + +Over the whole busy scene rise the grey hills, soaring into blueness of +air-distance, turreted here and there with ruined castles, capped with +particoloured campanili and white convents, and tufted through their +whole height with the orange and the emerald of the great tree-spurge, +and with the live gold of the blossoming broom. It is difficult to say +when this picture is most beautiful—whether in the early morning, when +the boats are coming back from their night-toil upon the sea, and along +the headlands in the fresh light lie swathes of fleecy mist, betokening +a still, hot day—or at noontide, when the houses on the hill stand, +tinted pink and yellow, shadowless like gems, and the great +caruba-trees above the tangles of vines and figs are blots upon the +steady glare—or at sunset, when violet and rose, reflected from the +eastern sky, make all these terraces and peaks translucent 258 with a +wondrous glow. The best of all, perhaps, is night, with a full moon +hanging high overhead. Who shall describe the silhouettes of boats upon +the shore or sleeping on the misty sea? On the horizon lies a dusky +film of brownish golden haze, between the moon and the glimmering +water; and here and there a lamp or candle burns with a deep red. Then +is the time to take a boat and row upon the bay, or better, to swim out +into the waves and trouble the reflections from the steady stars. The +mountains, clear and calm, with light-irradiated chasms and hard +shadows cast upon the rock, soar up above a city built of alabaster, or +sea-foam, or summer clouds. The whole is white and wonderful: no +similes suggest an analogue for the lustre, solid and transparent, of +Amalfi nestling in moonlight between the grey-blue sea and lucid hills. +Stars stand on all the peaks, and twinkle, or keep gliding, as the boat +moves, down the craggy sides. Stars are mirrored on the marble of the +sea, until one knows not whether the oar has struck sparks from a star +image or has scattered diamonds of phosphorescent brine. + +All this reads like a rhapsody; but indeed it is difficult not to be +rhapsodical when a May night of Amalfi is in the memory, with the echo +of rich baritone voices chanting Neapolitan songs to a mandoline. It is +fashionable to complain that these Italian airs are opera-tunes; but +this is only another way of saying that the Italian opera is the +genuine outgrowth of national melody, and that Weber was not the first, +as some German critics have supposed, to string together Volkslieder +for the stage. Northerners, who have never seen or felt the beauty of +the South, talk sad nonsense about the superiority of German over +Italian music. It is true that much Italian music is out of place in +Northern Europe, where we seem to need more travail of the intellect in +art. But the Italians are rightly satisfied with such facile melody 259 +and such simple rhythms as harmonise with sea and sky and boon earth +sensuously beautiful. 'Perchè pensa? Pensando s' invecchia,' expresses +the same habit of mind as another celebrated saying, 'La musica è il +lamento dell' amore o la preghiera agli Dei.' Whatever may be the value +of Italian music, it is in concord with such a scene as Amalfi by +moon-light; and he who does not appreciate this no less than some more +artificial combination of sights and sounds in Wagner's theatre at +Bayreuth, has scarcely learned the first lesson in the lore of beauty. + +There is enough and to spare for all tastes at Amalfi. The student of +architecture may spend hours in the Cathedral, pondering over its +high-built western front, and wondering whether there is more of +Moorish or of Gothic in its delicate arcades. The painter may transfer +its campanile, glittering like dragon's scales, to his canvas. The +lover of the picturesque will wander through its aisle at mass-time, +watching the sunlight play upon those upturned Southern faces with +their ardent eyes; and happy is he who sees young men and maidens on +Whit Sunday crowding round the chancel rails, to catch the marigolds +and gillyflowers scattered from baskets which the priest has blessed. +Is this a symbol of the Holy Spirit's gifts, or is it some quaint relic +of Pagan _sparsiones_? This question, with the memory of Pompeian +_graffiti_ in our mind, may well suggest itself in Southern Italy, +where old and new faiths are so singularly blended. Then there is +Ravello on the hills above. The path winds upward between stone walls +tufted with maidenhair; and ever nearer grow the mountains, and the +sea-line soars into the sky. An Englishman has made his home here in a +ruined Moorish villa, with cool colonnaded cloisters and rose-embowered +terraces, lending far prospect over rocky hills and olive-girdled +villages to Pæstum's plain. The churches of Ravello have 260 rare +mosaics, and bronze doors, and marble pulpits, older perhaps than those +of Tuscany, which tempt the archæologist to ask if Nicholas the Pisan +learned his secret here. But who cares to be a sober antiquary at +Amalfi? Far pleasanter is it to climb the staircase to the Capuchins, +and linger in those caverns of the living rock, and pluck the lemons +hanging by the mossy walls; or to row from cove to cove along the +shore, watching the fishes swimming in the deeps beneath, and the +medusas spreading their filmy bells; to land upon smooth slabs of rock, +where corallines wave to and fro; or to rest on samphire-tufted ledges, +when the shadows slant beneath the westering sun. + +There is no point in all this landscape which does not make a picture. +Painters might even complain that the pictures are too easy and the +poetry too facile, just as the musicians find the melodies of this fair +land too simple. No effect, carefully sought and strenuously seized, +could enhance the mere beauty of Amalfi bathed in sunlight. You have +only on some average summer day to sit down and paint the scene. Little +scope is afforded for suggestions of far-away weird thoughts, or for +elaborately studied motives. Daubigny and Corot are as alien here as +Blake or Dürer. + +What is wanted, and what no modern artist can successfully recapture +from the wasteful past, is the mythopoeic sense—the apprehension of +primeval powers akin to man, growing into shape and substance on the +borderland between the world and the keen human sympathies it stirs in +us. Greek mythology was the proper form of art for scenery like this. +It gave the final touch to all its beauties, and added to its sensuous +charm an inbreathed spiritual life. No exercise of the poetic faculty, +far less that metaphysical mood of the reflective consciousness which +'leads from nature up to nature's God,' can now supply this need. From +sea and earth 261 and sky, in those creative ages when the world was +young, there leaned to greet the men whose fancy made them, forms +imagined and yet real—human, divine—the archetypes and everlasting +patterns of man's deepest sense of what is wonderful in nature. Feeling +them there, for ever there, inalienable, ready to start forth and greet +successive generations—as the Hamadryad greeted Rhaicos from his +father's oak—those mythopoets called them by immortal names. All their +pent-up longings, all passions that consume, all aspirations that +inflame—the desire for the impossible, which is disease, the day-dreams +and visions of the night, which are spontaneous poems—were thus +transferred to nature. And nature, responsive to the soul that loves +her, gave them back transfigured and translated into radiant beings of +like substance with mankind. It was thus, we feel, upon these southern +shores that the gods of Greece came into being. The statues in the +temples were the true fine flower of all this beauty, the culmination +of the poetry which it evoked in hearts that feel and brains that +think. + +In Italy, far more than in any other part of Europe, the life of the +present is imposed upon the strata of successive past lives. Greek, +Latin, Moorish, and mediæval civilisations have arisen, flourished, and +decayed on nearly the same soil; and it is common enough to find one +city, which may have perished twenty centuries ago, neighbour to +another that enjoyed its brief prosperity in the middle of our era. +There is not, for example, the least sign of either Greek or Roman at +Amalfi. Whatever may have been the glories of the republic in the early +middle ages, they had no relation to the classic past. Yet a few miles +off along the bay rise the ancient Greek temples of Pæstum, from a +desert—with no trace of any intervening occupants. Poseidonia was +founded in the sixth century before Christ, by colonists from Sybaris. +262 Three centuries later the Hellenic element in this settlement, +which must already have become a town of no little importance, was +submerged by a deluge of recurrent barbarism. Under the Roman rule it +changed its name to Pæstum, and was prosperous. The Saracens destroyed +it in the ninth century of our era; and Robert Guiscard carried some of +the materials of its buildings to adorn his new town of Salerno. Since +then the ancient site has been abandoned to malaria and solitude. The +very existence of Pæstum was unknown, except to wandering herdsmen and +fishers coasting near its ruined colonnades, until the end of the last +century. Yet, strange to relate, after all these revolutions, and in +the midst of this total desolation, the only relics of the antique city +are three Greek temples, those very temples where the Hellenes, +barbarised by their Lucanian neighbours, met to mourn for their lost +liberty. It is almost impossible to trace more than the mere circuit of +the walls of Poseidonia. Its port, if port it had in Roman days, has +disappeared. Its theatre is only just discernible. Still not a column +of the great hypæthral temple, built by the Sybarite colonists two +thousand and five hundred years ago, to be a house for Zeus or for +Poseidon, has been injured. The accidents that erased far greater +cities, like Syracuse, from the surface of the earth—pillage, +earthquake, the fury of fanatics, the slow decay of perishable stone, +or the lust of palace builders in the middle ages—have spared those +three houses of the gods, over whom, in the days of Alexander, the +funeral hymn was chanted by the enslaved Hellenes. + +'We do the same,' said Aristoxenus in his Convivial Miscellanies, 'as +the men of Poseidonia, who dwell on the Tyrrhenian Gulf. It befell +them, having been at first true Hellenes, to be utterly barbarised, +changing to Tyrrhenes or Romans, and altering their language, together +with their 263 other customs. Yet they still observe one Hellenic +festival, when they meet together and call to remembrance their old +names and bygone institutions; and having lamented one to the other, +and shed bitter tears, they afterwards depart to their own homes. Even +thus a few of us also, now that our theatres have been barbarised, and +this art of music has gone to ruin and vulgarity, meet together and +remember what once music was.'[100] + + [100] _Athenæus_, xiv. 632. + +This passage has a strange pathos, considering how it was penned, and +how it has come down to us, tossed by the dark indifferent stream of +time. The Aristoxenus who wrote it was a pupil of the Peripatetic +School, born at Tarentum, and therefore familiar with the vicissitudes +of Magna Græcia. The study of music was his chief preoccupation; and he +used this episode in the agony of an enslaved Greek city, to point his +own conservative disgust for innovations in an art of which we have no +knowledge left. The works of Aristoxenus have perished, and the +fragment I have quoted is embedded in the gossip of Egyptian Athenæus. +In this careless fashion has been opened for us, as it were, a little +window on a grief now buried in the oblivion of a hundred generations. +After reading his words one May morning, beneath the pediment of +Pæstum's noblest ruin, I could not refrain from thinking that if the +spirits of those captive Hellenes were to revisit their old +habitations, they would change their note of wailing into a thin +ghostly pæan, when they found that Romans and Lucanians had passed +away, that Christians and Saracens had left alike no trace behind, +while the houses of their own αντήλιοι θεοι—dawn-facing deities—were +still abiding in the pride of immemorial strength. Who knows whether +buffalo-driver or bandit may not ere now have seen processions of these +Poseidonian phantoms, bearing laurels and chaunting hymns on 264 the +spot where once they fell each on the other's neck to weep? Gathering +his cloak around him and cowering closer to his fire of sticks, the +night-watcher in those empty colonnades may have mistaken the Hellenic +outlines of his shadowy visitants for fevered dreams, and the melody of +their evanished music for the whistling of night winds or the cry of +owls. So abandoned is Pæstum in its solitude that we know not even what +legends may have sprung up round those relics of a mightier age. + +The shrine is ruined now; and far away +To east and west stretch olive groves, whose shade +Even at the height of summer noon is grey. + +Asphodels sprout upon the plinth decayed +Of these low columns, and the snake hath found +Her haunt 'neath altar-steps with weeds o'erlaid. + +Yet this was once a hero's temple, crowned +With myrtle-boughs by lovers, and with palm +By wrestlers, resonant with sweetest sound + +Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm, +And odorous with incense all the year, +With nard and spice, and galbanum and balm. + + +These lines sufficiently express the sense of desolation felt at +Pæstum, except that the scenery is more solemn and mournful, and the +temples are too august to be the shrine of any simple hero. There are +no olives. The sea plunges on its sandy shore within the space of half +a mile to westward. Far and wide on either hand stretch dreary +fever-stricken marshes. The plain is bounded to the north, and east, +and south, with mountains, purple, snow-peaked, serrated, and grandly +broken like the hills of Greece. Driving over this vast level where the +Silarus stagnates, the monotony of the landscape is broken now and then +by a group of buffaloes 265 standing up to their dewlaps in reeds, by +peasants on horseback, with goads in their hands, and muskets slung +athwart their backs, or by patrols of Italian soldiers crossing and +re-crossing on the brigand-haunted roads. Certain portions have been +reclaimed from the swamp, and here may be seen white oxen in herds of +fifty grazing; or gangs of women at field-labour, with a man to oversee +them, cracking a long hunting-whip; or the mares and foals of a famous +stud-farm browsing under spreading pines. There are no villages, and +the few farmhouses are so widely scattered as to make us wonder where +the herdsmen and field-workers, scanty as they are, can possibly be +lodged. + +At last the three great temples come in sight. The rich orange of the +central building contrasts with the paler yellow of its two companions, +while the glowing colour of all three is splendidly relieved against +green vegetation and blue mountain-flanks. Their material is +travertine—a calcareous stone formed by the deposit of petrifying +waters, which contains fragments of reeds, spiral shells, and other +substances, embedded in the porous limestone. In the flourishing period +of old Poseidonia these travertine columns were coated with stucco, +worked to a smooth surface, and brilliantly tinted to harmonise with +the gay costumes of a Greek festival. Even now this coating of fine +sand, mingled with slaked lime and water, can be seen in patches on the +huge blocks of the masonry. Thus treated, the travertine lacked little +of the radiance of marble, for it must be remembered that the Greeks +painted even the Pentelic cornice of the Parthenon with red and blue. +Nor can we doubt that the general effect of brightness suited the glad +and genial conditions of Greek life. + +All the surroundings are altered now, and the lover of the picturesque +may be truly thankful that the hand of time, by 266 stripping the +buildings of this stucco, without impairing their proportions, has +substituted a new harmony of tone between the native stone and the +surrounding landscape, no less sympathetic to the present solitude than +the old symphony of colours was to the animated circumstances of a +populous Greek city. In this way those critics who defend the +polychrome decorations of the classic architects, and those who contend +that they cannot imagine any alteration from the present toning of +Greek temples for the better, are both right. + +In point of colour the Pæstum ruins are very similar to those of +Girgenti; but owing to their position on a level plain, in front of a +scarcely indented sea-shore, we lack the irregularity which adds so +much charm to the row of temples on their broken cliff in the old town +of Agrigentum. In like manner the celebrated _asymmetreia_ of the +buildings of the Athenian Acropolis, which causes so much variety of +light and shade upon the temple-fronts, and offers so many novel points +of view when they are seen in combination, seems to have been due +originally to the exigencies of the ground. At Pæstum, in planning out +the city, there can have been no utilitarian reasons for placing the +temples at odd angles, either to each other or the shore. Therefore we +see them now almost exactly in line and parallel, though at unequal +distances. If something of picturesque effect is thus lost at Pæstum +through the flatness of the ground, something of impressive grandeur on +the other hand is gained by the very regularity with which those +phalanxes of massive Doric columns are drawn up to face the sea. + +Poseidonia, as the name betokens, was dedicated to the god of the sea; +and the coins of the city are stamped with his effigy bearing a +trident, and with his sacred animal, the bull. It has therefore been +conjectured that the central of the three temples—which was hypæthral +and had two entrances, 267 east and west—belonged to Poseidon; and +there is something fine in the notion of the god being thus able to +pass to and fro from his cella through those sunny peristyles, down to +his chariot, yoked with sea-horses, in the brine. Yet hypæthral temples +were generally consecrated to Zeus, and it is therefore probable that +the traditional name of this vast edifice is wrong. The names of the +two other temples, _Tempio di Cerere_ and _Basilica_, are wholly +unsupported by any proof or probability. The second is almost certainly +founded on a mistake; and if we assign the largest of the three shrines +to Zeus, one or other of the lesser belonged most likely to Poseidon. + +The style of the temples is severe and primitive. In general effect +their Doric architecture is far sterner than that adapted by Ictinus to +the Parthenon. The entablature seems somewhat disproportioned to the +columns and the pediment; and, owing to this cause, there is a general +effect of heaviness. The columns, again, are thick-set; nor is the +effect of solidity removed by their gradual narrowing from the base +upwards. The pillars of the _Neptune_ are narrowed in a straight line; +those of the _Basilica_ and _Ceres_ by a gentle curve. Study of these +buildings, so sublime in their massiveness, so noble in the parsimony +of their decoration, so dignified in their employment of the simplest +means for the attainment of an indestructible effect of harmony, +heightens our admiration for the Attic genius which found in this grand +manner of the elder Doric architects resources as yet undeveloped; +creating, by slight and subtle alterations of outline, proportion, and +rhythm of parts, what may fairly be classed as a style unique, because +exemplified in only one transcendent building. + +It is difficult not to return again and again to the beauty of +colouring at Pæstum. Lying basking in the sun upon a flat slab of +stone, and gazing eastward, we overlook a foreground of dappled light +and shadow, across which the lizards run— 268 quick streaks of living +emerald—making the bunches of yellow rue and little white serpyllum in +the fissures of the masonry nod as they hurry past. Then come two +stationary columns, built, it seems, of solid gold, where the sunbeams +strike along their russet surface. Between them lies the landscape, a +medley first of brakefern and asphodel and feathering acanthus and blue +spikes of bugloss; then a white farm in the middle distance, roofed +with the reddest tiles and sheltered by a velvety umbrella pine. Beyond +and above the farm, a glimpse of mountains purple almost to indigo with +cloud shadows, and flecked with snow. Still higher—but for this we have +to raise our head a little—the free heavens enclosed within the +frame-work of the tawny travertine, across which sail hawks and flutter +jackdaws, sharply cut against the solid sky. Down from the architrave, +to make the vignette perfect, hang tufts of crimson snapdragons. Each +opening in the peristyle gives a fresh picture. + +The temples are overgrown with snapdragons and mallows, yellow asters +and lilac gillyflowers, white allium and wild fig. When a breeze +passes, the whole of this many-coloured tapestry waves gently to and +fro. The fields around are flowery enough; but where are the roses? I +suppose no one who has read his Virgil at school, crosses the plain +from Salerno to Pæstum without those words of the 'Georgics' ringing in +his ears: _biferique rosaria Pæsti_. They have that wonderful Virgilian +charm which, by a touch, transforms mere daily sights and sounds, and +adds poetic mystery to common things. The poets of ancient Rome seem to +have felt the magic of this phrase; for Ovid has imitated the line in +his 'Metamorphoses,' tamely substituting _tepidi_ for the suggestive +_biferi_, while again in his 'Elegies' he uses the same termination +with _odorati_ for his epithet. Martial sings of _Pæstanæ rosæ_ and +_Pæstani gloria ruris_. Even Ausonius, 269 at the very end of Latin +literature, draws from the rosaries of Pæstum a pretty picture of +beauty doomed to premature decline:— + +Vidi Pæstano gaudere rosaria cultu + Exoriente novo roscida Lucifero. + + +'I have watched the rose-beds that luxuriate on Pæstum's well-tilled +soil, all dewy in the young light of the rising dawn-star.' + +What a place indeed was this for a rose-garden, spreading far and wide +along the fertile plain, with its deep loam reclaimed from swamps and +irrigated by the passing of perpetual streams! But where are the roses +now? As well ask, _où sont les neiges d'antan?_ + +We left Amalfi for Capri in the freshness of an early morning at the +end of May. As we stepped into our six-oared boat the sun rose above +the horizon, flooding the sea with gold and flashing on the terraces +above Amalfi. High up along the mountains hung pearly and empurpled +mists, set like resting-places between a world too beautiful and heaven +too far for mortal feet. Not a breath of any wind was stirring. The +water heaved with a scarcely perceptible swell, and the vapours lifted +gradually as the sun's rays grew in power. Here the hills descend +abruptly on the sea, ending in cliffs where light reflected from the +water dances. Huge caverns open in the limestone; on their edges hang +stalactites like beards, and the sea within sleeps dark as night. For +some of these caves the maidenhair fern makes a shadowy curtain; and +all of them might be the home of Proteus, or of Calypso, by whose side +her mortal lover passed his nights in vain home-sickness:— + +εν σπέσσι γλαφυροισι παρ' ουκ εθέλων εθελούση. + +This is a truly Odyssean journey. Soon the islands of the Sirens come +in sight,—bare bluffs of rock, shaped like galleys 270 taking flight +for the broad sea. As we row past in this ambrosial weather, the +oarsmen keeping time and ploughing furrows in the fruitless fields of +Nereus, it is not difficult to hear the siren voices—for earth and +heaven and sea make melodies far above mortal singing. The water round +the Galli—so the islands are now called, as antiquaries tell us, from +an ancient fortress named Guallo—is very deep, and not a sign of +habitation is to be seen upon them. In bygone ages they were used as +prisons; and many doges of Amalfi languished their lives away upon +those shadeless stones, watching the sea around them blaze like a +burnished shield at noon, and the peaks of Capri deepen into purple +when the west was glowing after sunset with the rose and daffodil of +Southern twilight. + +The end of the Sorrentine promontory, Point Campanella, is absolutely +barren—grey limestone, with the scantiest over-growth of rosemary and +myrtle. A more desolate spot can hardly be imagined. But now the +morning breeze springs up behind; sails are hoisted, and the boatmen +ship their oars. Under the albatross wings of our lateen sails we scud +across the freshening waves. The precipice of Capri soars against the +sky, and the Bay of Naples expands before us with those sweeping curves +and azure amplitude that all the poets of the world have sung. Even +thus the mariners of ancient Hellas rounded this headland when the +world was young. Rightly they named yon rising ground, beneath +Vesuvius, Posilippo—rest from grief. Even now, after all those +centuries of toil, though the mild mountain has been turned into a +mouth of murderous fire, though Roman emperors and Spanish despots have +done their worst to mar what nature made so perfect, we may here lay +down the burden of our cares, gaining tranquillity by no mysterious +lustral rites, no penitential prayers or offerings of holocausts, but +by the influence of beauty in 271 the earth and air, and by sympathy +with a people unspoiled in their healthful life of labour alternating +with simple joy. + +The last hour of the voyage was beguiled by stories of our boatmen, +some of whom had seen service on distant seas, while others could tell +of risks on shore and love adventures. They showed us how the +tunny-nets were set, and described the solitary life of the +tunny-watchers, in their open boats, waiting to spear the monsters of +the deep entangled in the chambers made for them beneath the waves. How +much of Æschylean imagery, I reflected, is drawn from this old fisher's +art—the toils of Clytemnestra and the tragedy of Psyttaleia rising to +my mind. One of the crew had his little son with him, a child of six +years old; and when the boy was restless, his father spoke of +Barbarossa and Timberio (_sic_) to keep him quiet; for the memory of +the Moorish pirate and the mighty emperor is still alive here. The +people of Capri are as familiar with Tiberius as the Bretons with King +Arthur; and the hoof-mark of illustrious crime is stamped upon the +island. + +Capri offers another example of the versatility of Southern Italy. If +Amalfi brings back to us the naval and commercial prosperity of the +early middle ages; if Pæstuni remains a monument of the oldest Hellenic +civilisation; Capri, at a few miles' distance, is dedicated to the +Roman emperor who made it his favourite residence, when, life-weary +with the world and all its shows, he turned these many peaks and +slumbering caves into a summer palace for the nursing of his brain-sick +phantasy. Already on landing, we are led to remember that from this +shore was loosed the galley bearing that great letter—_verbosa et +grandis epistola_—which undid Sejanus and shook Rome. Riding to +Ana-Capri and the Salto di Tiberio, exploring the remains of his +favourite twelve villas, and gliding over the smooth waters paved with +the white marbles of his baths, we are for ever attended by the 272 +same forbidding spectre. Here, perchance, were the _sedes arcanarum +libidinum_ whereof Suetonius speaks; the Spintrian medals, found in +these recesses, still bear witness that the biographer trusted no mere +fables for the picture he has drawn. Here, too, below the Villa Jovis, +gazing 700 feet sheer down into the waves, we tread the very parapet +whence fell the victims of that maniac lust for blood. 'After long and +exquisite torments,' says the Roman writer, 'he ordered condemned +prisoners to be cast into the sea before his eyes; marines were +stationed near to pound the fallen corpses with poles and oars, lest +haply breath should linger in their limbs.' The Neapolitan Museum +contains a little basrelief representing Tiberius, with the well-known +features of the Claudian house, seated astride upon a donkey, with a +girl before him. A slave is leading the beast and its burden to a +terminal statue under an olive-tree. This curious relic, discovered +some while since at Capri, haunted my fancy as I climbed the +olive-planted slopes to his high villa on the Arx Tiberii. It is some +relief, amid so much that is tragic in the associations of this place, +to have the horrible Tiberius burlesqued and brought into donkey-riding +relation with the tourist of to-day. And what an ironical revenge of +time it is that his famous Salto should be turned into a restaurant, +where the girls dance tarantella for a few coppers; that a toothless +hermit should occupy a cell upon the very summit of his Villa Jovis; +and that the Englishwoman's comfortable hotel should be called +_Timberio_ by the natives! A spiritualist might well believe that the +emperor's ghost was forced to haunt the island, and to expiate his old +atrocities by gazing on these modern vulgarisms. + +Few problems suggested by history are more darkly fascinating than the +madness of despots; and of this madness, whether inherent in their +blood or encouraged by the 273 circumstance of absolute autocracy, the +emperors of the Claudian and Julian houses furnish the most memorable +instance.[101] It is this that renders Tiberius ever present to our +memory at Capri. Nor will the student of Suetonius forget his even more +memorable grand-nephew Caligula. The following passage is an episode +from the biography of that imperial maniac, whose portrait in green +basalt, with the strain of dire mental tension on the forehead, is +still so beautiful that we are able at this distance of time to pity +more than loathe him. 'Above all, he was tormented with nervous +irritation, by sleeplessness; for he enjoyed not more than three hours +of nocturnal repose, nor even these in pure untroubled rest, but +agitated by phantasmata of portentous augury; as, for example, upon one +occasion, among other spectral visions, he fancied that he saw the sea, +under some definite impersonation, conversing with himself. Hence it +was, and from this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of lying +awake, that he had fallen into habits of ranging all night long through +the palace, sometimes throwing himself on a couch, sometimes wandering +along the vast corridors, watching for the earliest dawn, and anxiously +wishing its approach.' Those corridors, or loggie, where Caligula spent +his wakeful hours, opened perchance upon this Bay of Naples, if not +upon the sea-waves of his favourite Porto d'Anzio; for we know that one +of his great follies was a palace built above the sea on piles at Baiæ; +and where else could _Pelagus_, with his cold azure eyes and briny +locks, have more appropriately terrified his sleep with prophecy +conveyed in dreams? The very nature of this vision, selected for such +special comment 274 by Suetonius as to show that it had troubled +Caligula profoundly, proves the fantastic nature of the man, and +justifies the hypothesis of insanity. + + [101] De Quincey, in his essay on _The Cæsars_, has worked out this + subject with such artistic vividness that no more need be said. From + his pages I have quoted the paraphrastic version of Suetonius that + follows. + +But it is time to shake off the burden of the past. Only students, +carrying superfluity of culture in their knapsacks, will ponder over +the imperial lunatics who made Capri and Baiæ fashionable in the days +of ancient Rome. Neither Tiberius nor Caligula, nor yet Ferdinand of +Aragon or Bomba for that matter, has been able to leave trace of vice +or scar of crime on nature in this Eden. A row round the island, or a +supper-party in the loggia above the sea at sunset-time, is no less +charming now, in spite of Roman or Spanish memories, than when the +world was young. + +Sea-mists are frequent in the early summer mornings, swathing the +cliffs of Capri in impenetrable wool and brooding on the perfectly +smooth water till the day-wind rises. Then they disappear like magic, +rolling in smoke-wreaths from the surface of the sea, condensing into +clouds and climbing the hillsides like Oceanides in quest of +Prometheus, or taking their station on the watch-towers of the world, +as in the chorus of the _Nephelai_. Such a morning may be chosen for +the _giro_ of the island. The blue grotto loses nothing of its beauty, +but rather gains by contrast, when passing from dense fog you find +yourself transported to a world of wavering subaqueous sheen. It is +only through the opening of the very topmost arch that a boat can glide +into this cavern; the arch itself spreads downward through the water, +so that all the light is transmitted from beneath and coloured by the +sea. The grotto is domed in many chambers; and the water is so clear +that you can see the bottom, silvery, with black-finned fishes diapered +upon the blue white sand. The flesh of a diver in this water showed +like the faces of children playing at snapdragon; all around him the +spray leapt up with 275 living fire; and when the oars struck the +surface, it was as though a phosphorescent sea had been smitten, and +the drops ran from the blades in blue pearls. I have only once seen +anything (outside the magic-world of a pantomime) to equal these +effects of blue and silver; and that was when I made my way into an +ice-cave in the Great Aletsch glacier—not an artificial gallery such as +they cut at Grindelwald, but a natural cavern, arched, hollowed into +fanciful recesses, and hung with stalactites of pendent ice. The +difference between the glacier-cavern and the sea-grotto was that in +the former all the light was transmitted through transparent sides, so +that the whole was one uniform azure, except in rare places where +little chinks opened upwards to the air, and the light of day came +glancing with a roseate flush. In the latter the light sent from +beneath through the water played upon a roof of rock; reflections +intermingled with translucence; and a greater variety of light and +shadow compensated the lack of that strange sense of being shut within +a solid gem. + +Numberless are the caves at Capri. The so-called green grotto has the +beauty of moss-agate in its liquid floor; the red grotto shows a warmer +chord of colour; and where there is no other charm to notice, endless +beauty may be found in the play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, +tinted with yellow, orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, +and catching tones of blue or green from the still deeps beneath. + +Sheets of water, wherever found, are the most subtle heighteners of +colour. To those who are familiar with Venetian or Mantuan sunsets, who +have seen the flocks of flamingoes reflected on the lagoons of Tunis, +or who have watched stormy red flakes tossed from crest to crest of +great Atlantic waves on our own coasts, this need hardly be said. Yet I +cannot leave this beauty of the sea at Capri without 276 touching on a +melodrama of light and colour I once saw at Castellammare. It was a +festa night, when the people sent up rockets and fireworks of every hue +from the harbour-breakwater. The surf rolled shoreward like a bath of +molten metals, all confused of blue, and red, and green, and gold—dying +dolphin tints that burned strangely beneath the purple skies and +tranquil stars. Boats at sea hung out their crimson cressets, +flickering in long lines on the bay; and larger craft moved slowly with +rows of lamps defining their curves; while the full moon shed over all +her 'vitreous pour, just tinged with blue.' To some tastes this +mingling of natural and artificial effects would seem unworthy of sober +notice; but I confess to having enjoyed it with childish eagerness like +music never to be forgotten. + +After a day upon the water it is pleasant to rest at sunset in the +loggia above the sea. The Bay of Naples stretches far and wide in +front, beautiful by reason chiefly of the long fine line descending +from Vesuvius, dipping almost to a level and then gliding up to join +the highlands of the north. Now sun and moon begin to mingle: waning +and waxing splendours. The cliffs above our heads are still blushing a +deep flame-colour, like the heart of some tea-rose; when lo, the touch +of the huntress is laid upon those eastern pinnacles, and the horizon +glimmers with her rising. Was it on such a night that Ferdinand of +Aragon fled from his capital before the French, with eyes turned ever +to the land he loved, chanting, as he leaned from his galley's stern, +that melancholy psalm—'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman +waketh but in vain'—and seeing Naples dwindle to a white blot on the +purple shore? + +Our journey takes the opposite direction. Farewell to Capri, welcome to +Sorrento! The roads are sweet with scent of acacia and orange flowers. +When you walk in a garden at 277 night, the white specks beneath your +feet are fallen petals of lemon blossoms. Over the walls hang cataracts +of roses, honey-pale clusters of the Banksia rose, and pink bushes of +the China rose, growing as we never see them grow with us. The grey +rocks wave with gladiolus—feathers of crimson, set amid tufts of +rosemary, and myrtle, and tree-spurge. In the clefts of the sandstone, +and behind the orchard walls, sleeps a dark green night of foliage, in +the midst of which gleam globed oranges, and lemons dropping like great +pearls of palest amber dew. It is difficult to believe that the lemons +have not grown into length by their own weight, as though mere hanging +on the bough prevented them from being round—so waxen are they. +Overhead soar stone-pines—a roof of sombre green, a lattice-work of +strong red branches, through which the moon peers wonderfully. One part +of this marvellous _piano_ is bare rock tufted with keen-scented herbs, +and sparsely grown with locust-trees and olives. Another waves from sea +to summit with beech-copses and oak-woods, as verdant as the most +abundant English valley. Another region turns its hoary raiment of +olive-gardens to the sun and sea, or flourishes with fig and vine. +Everywhere, the houses of men are dazzling white, perched on natural +coigns of vantage, clustered on the brink of brown cliffs, nestling +under mountain eaves, or piled up from the sea-beach in ascending +tiers, until the broad knees of the hills are reached, and great Pan, +the genius of solitude in nature, takes unto himself a region yet +untenanted by man. The occupations of the sea and land are blent +together on this shore; and the people are both blithe and gentle. It +is true that their passions are upon the surface, and that the knife is +ready to their hand. But the combination of fierceness and softness in +them has an infinite charm when one has learned by observation that +their lives are laborious and frugal, and that 278 their honesty is +hardly less than their vigour. Happy indeed are they—so happy that, but +for crimes accumulated through successive generations by bad governors, +and but for superstitions cankering the soul within, they might deserve +what Shelley wrote of his imagined island in 'Epipsychidion.' + +279 + + + + +ETNA + + +The eruptions of Etna have blackened the whole land for miles in every +direction. That is the first observation forced upon one in the +neighbourhood of Catania, or Giarre, or Bronte. From whatever point of +view you look at Etna, it is always a regular pyramid, with long and +gradually sloping sides, broken here and there by the excrescence of +minor craters and dotted over with villages; the summit crowned with +snow, divided into peak and cone, girdled with clouds, and capped with +smoke, that shifts shape as the wind veers, dominates a blue-black +monstrous mass of outpoured lava. From the top of Monte Rosso, a +subordinate volcano which broke into eruption in 1669, you can trace +the fountain from which 'the unapproachable river of purest fire,' that +nearly destroyed Catania, issued. You see it still, bubbling up like a +frozen geyser from the flank of the mountain, whence the sooty torrent +spreads, or rather sprawls, with jagged edges to the sea. The plain of +Catania lies at your feet, threaded by the Simeto, bounded by the +promontory of Syracuse and the mountains of Castro Giovanni. This huge +amorphous blot upon the landscape may be compared to an ink-stain on a +variegated tablecloth, or to the coal districts marked upon a +geological atlas, or to the heathen in a missionary map—the green and +red and grey colours standing for Christians and Mahommedans and Jews +of different shades and qualities. The lava, where it has been +cultivated, is reduced to fertile 280 sand, in which vines and +fig-trees are planted—their tender green foliage contrasting strangely +with the sinister soil that makes them flourish. All the roads are +black as jet, like paths leading to coal-pits, and the country-folk on +mule-back plodding along them look like Arabs on an infernal Sahara. +The very lizards which haunt the rocks are swart and smutty. Yet the +flora of the district is luxuriant. The gardens round Catania, nestling +into cracks and ridges of the stiffened flood, are marvellously +brilliant with spurge and fennel and valerian. It is impossible to form +a true conception of flower-brightness till one has seen these golden +and crimson tints upon their ground of ebony, or to realise the +blueness of the Mediterranean except in contrast with the lava where it +breaks into the sea. Copses of frail oak and ash, undergrown with ferns +of every sort; cactus-hedges, orange-trees grafted with lemons and +laden with both fruits; olives of scarce two centuries' growth, and +fig-trees knobbed with their sweet produce, overrun the sombre soil, +and spread their boughs against the deep blue sea and the translucent +amethyst of the Calabrian mountains. Underfoot, a convolvulus with +large white blossoms, binding dingy stone to stone, might be compared +to a rope of Desdemona's pearls upon the neck of Othello. + +The villages are perhaps the most curious feature of this scenery. +Their houses, rarely more than one story high, are walled, paved, and +often roofed with the inflexible material which once was ruinous fire, +and is now the servant of the men it threatened to destroy. The +churches are such as might be raised in Hades to implacable Proserpine, +such as one might dream of in a vision of the world turned into hell, +such as Baudelaire in his fiction of a metallic landscape might have +imagined under the influence of hasheesh. Their flights of steps are +built of sharply cut black lava blocks no 281 feet can wear. Their +door-jambs and columns and pediments and carved work are wrought and +sculptured of the same gloomy masonry. How forbidding are the acanthus +scrolls, how grim the skulls and cross-bones on these portals! The +bell-towers, again, are ribbed and beamed with black lava. A certain +amount of the structure is whitewashed, which serves to relieve the +funereal solemnity of the rest. In an Indian district each of these +churches would be a temple, raised in vain propitiation to the demon of +the fire above and below. Some pictures made by their spires in +combination with the sad village-hovels, the snowy dome of Etna, and +the ever-smiling sea, are quite unique in their variety of suggestion +and wild beauty. + +The people have a sorrow-smitten and stern aspect. Some of the men in +the prime of life are grand and haughty, with the cast-bronze +countenance of Roman emperors. But the old men bear rigid faces of +carved basalt, gazing fixedly before them as though at some time or +other in their past lives they had met Medusa: and truly Etna in +eruption is a Gorgon, which their ancestors have oftentimes seen +shuddering, and fled from terror-frozen. The white-haired old women, +plying their spindle or distaff, or meditating in grim solitude, sit +with the sinister set features of Fates by their doorways. The young +people are very rarely seen to smile: they open hard, black, beaded +eyes upon a world in which there is little for them but endurance or +the fierceness of passions that delight in blood. Strangely different +are these dwellers on the sides of Etna from the voluble, lithe sailors +of Sciacca or Mazara, with their sunburnt skins and many-coloured +garments. + +The Val del Bove—a vast chasm in the flank of Etna, where the very +heart of the volcano has been riven and its entrails bared—is the most +impressive spot of all this region. 282 The road to it leads from +Zafferana (so called because of its crocus-flowers) along what looks +like a series of black moraines, where the lava torrents pouring from +the craters of Etna have spread out, and reared themselves in stiffened +ridges against opposing mountain buttresses. After toiling for about +three hours over the dismal waste, a point between the native rock of +Etna and the dead sea of lava is reached, which commands a prospect of +the cone with its curling smoke surmounting a caldron of some four +thousand feet in depth and seemingly very wide. The whole of this space +is filled with billows of blackness, wave on wave, crest over crest, +and dyke by dyke, precisely similar to a gigantic glacier, swarthy and +immovable. The resemblance of the lava flood to a glacier is +extraordinarily striking. One can fancy oneself standing on the +Belvedere at Macugnaga, or the Tacul point upon the Mer de Glace, in +some nightmare, and finding to one's horror that the radiant snows and +river-breeding ice-fields have been turned by a malignant deity to +sullen, stationary cinders. It is a most hideous place, like a pit in +Dante's Hell, disused for some unexplained reason, and left untenanted +by fiends. The scenery of the moon, without atmosphere and without +life, must be of this sort; and such, rolling round in space, may be +some planet that has survived its own combustion. When the clouds, +which almost always hang about the Val del Bove, are tumbling at their +awful play around its precipices, veiling the sweet suggestion of +distant sea and happier hills that should be visible, the horror of +this view is aggravated. Breaking here and there, the billows of mist +disclose forlorn tracts of jet-black desolation, wicked, unutterable, +hateful in their hideousness, with patches of smutty snow above, and +downward-rolling volumes of murky smoke. Shakspere, when he imagined +the damned spirits confined to 'thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,' +283 divined the nature of a glacier; but what line could he have +composed, adequate to shadow forth the tortures of a soul condemned to +palpitate for ever between the ridges of this thirsty and intolerable +sea of dead fire? If the world-spirit chose to assume for itself the +form and being of a dragon, of like substance to this, impenetrable, +invulnerable, unapproachable would be its hide. It requires no great +stretch of the imagination to picture these lava lakes glowing, as they +must have been, when first outpoured, the bellowing of the crater, the +heaving and surging of the solid earth, the air obstructed with cinders +and whizzing globes of molten rock. Yet in these throes of devilish +activity, the Val del Bove would be less insufferable than in its +present state of suspension, asleep, but threatening, ready to +regurgitate its flame, but for a moment inert. + +An hour's drive from Nicolosi or Zafferana, seaward, brings one into +the richest land of 'olive and aloe and maize and vine' to be found +upon the face of Europe. Here, too, are laughing little towns, white, +prosperous, and gleeful, the very opposite of those sad stations on the +mountain-flank. Every house in Aci Reale has its courtyard garden +filled with orange-trees, and nespole, and fig-trees, and oleanders. +From the grinning corbels that support the balconies hang tufts of +gem-bright ferns and glowing clove-pinks. Pergolas of vines, bronzed in +autumn, and golden green like chrysoprase beneath an April sun, fling +their tendrils over white walls and shady loggie. Gourds hang ripening +in the steady blaze. Far and wide stretches a landscape rich with tilth +and husbandry, boon Nature paying back to men tenfold for all their +easy toil. The terrible great mountain sleeps in the distance innocent +of fire. I know not whether this land be more delightful in spring or +autumn. The little flamelike flakes of brightness upon vines and +fig-trees in April have their 284 own peculiar charm. But in November +the whole vast flank of Etna glows with the deep-blue tone of steel; +the russet woods are like a film of rust; the vine-boughs thrust living +carbuncles against the sun. To this season, when the peculiar +earth-tints of Etna, its strong purples and tawny browns, are +harmonised with the decaying wealth of forest and of orchard, I think +the palm of beauty must be given in this land. + +The sea is an unchangeable element of charm in all this landscape. Aci +Castello should be visited, and those strange rocks, called the +Ciclopidi, forced by volcanic pressure from beneath the waves. They are +made of black basalt like the Giant's Causeway; and on their top can be +traced the caps of calcareous stone they carried with them in the fret +and fury of their upheaval from the sea-bed. Samphire, wild fennel, +cactus, and acanthus clothe them now from crest to basement where the +cliff is not too sheer. By the way, there are few plants more +picturesque than the acanthus in full flower. Its pale lilac spikes of +blossom stand waist-high above a wilderness of feathering, curving, +delicately indented, burnished leaves—deep, glossy, cool, and green. + +This is the place for a child's story of the one-eyed giant Polyphemus, +who fed his flocks among the oak-woods of Etna, and who, strolling by +the sea one summer evening, saw and loved the fair girl Galatea. She +was afraid of him, and could not bear his shaggy-browed round rolling +eye. But he forgot his sheep and goats, and sat upon the cliffs and +piped to her. Meanwhile she loved the beautiful boy Acis, who ran down +from the copse to play with her upon the sea-beach. They hid together +from Polyphemus in a fern-curtained cavern of the shore. But Polyphemus +spied them out and heard them laughing together at their games. Then he +grew wroth, and stamped with his huge feet upon the 285 earth, and made +it shake and quiver. He roared and bellowed in his rage, and tore up +rocks and flung them at the cavern where the children were in hiding, +and his eye shot fire beneath the grisly pent-house of his wrinkled +brows. They, in their sore distress, prayed to heaven; and their +prayers were heard: Galatea became a mermaid, so that she might swim +and sport like foam upon the crests of the blue sea; and Acis was +changed into a stream that leapt from the hills to play with her amid +bright waters. But Polyphemus, in punishment for his rage, and spite, +and jealousy, was forced to live in the mid-furnaces of Etna. There he +growled and groaned and shot forth flame in impotent fury; for though +he remembered the gladness of those playfellows, and sought to harm +them by tossing red-hot rocks upon the shore, yet the light sea ever +laughed, and the radiant river found its way down from the copsewood to +the waves. The throes of Etna in convulsion are the pangs of his great +giant's heart, pent up and sick with love for the bright sea and +gladsome sun; for, as an old poet sings:— + +There's love when holy heaven doth wound the earth; +And love still prompts the land to yearn for bridals: +The rain that falls in rivers from the sky, +Impregnates earth: and she brings forth for men +The flocks and herds and life of teeming Ceres. + + +To which let us add:— + +But sometimes love is barren, when broad hills, +Rent with the pangs of passion, yearn in vain, +Pouring fire tears adown their furrowed cheeks, +And heaving in the impotence of anguish. + + +There are few places in Europe where the poetic truth of Greek +mythology is more apparent than here upon the coast between Etna and +the sea. Of late, philosophers have been eager to tell us that the +beautiful legends of the Greeks, which 286 contain in the coloured haze +of fancy all the thoughts afterwards expressed by that divine race in +poetry and sculpture, are but decayed phrases, dead sentences, and +words whereof the meaning was forgotten. In this theory there is a +certain truth; for mythology stands midway between the first lispings +of a nation in its language, and its full-developed utterances in art. +Yet we have only to visit the scenes which gave birth to some Hellenic +myth, and we perceive at once that, whatever philology may affirm, the +legend was a living poem, a drama of life and passion transferred from +human experience to the inanimate world by those early myth-makers, who +were the first and the most fertile of all artists. Persephone was the +patroness of Sicily, because amid the billowy cornfields of her mother +Demeter and the meadow flowers she loved in girlhood, are ever found +sulphurous ravines and chasms breathing vapour from the pit of Hades. +What were the Cyclops—that race of one-eyed giants—but the many minor +cones of Etna? Observed from the sea by mariners, or vaguely spoken of +by the natives, who had reason to dread their rage, these hillocks +became lawless and devouring giants, each with one round burning eye. +Afterwards the tales of Titans who had warred with Zeus were realised +in this spot. Typhoeus or Enceladus made the mountain heave and snort; +while Hephæstus not unnaturally forged thunder-bolts in the central +caverns of a volcano that never ceased to smoke. To the student of art +and literature, mythology is chiefly interesting in its latest stages, +when, the linguistic origin of special legends being utterly forgotten, +the poets of the race played freely with its rich material. Who cares +to be told that Achilles was the sun, when the child of Thetis and the +lover of Patroclus has been sung for us by Homer? Are the human agonies +of the doomed house of Thebes made less appalling by tracing back the +tale of OEdipus to some 287 prosaic source in old astronomy? The incest +of Jocasta is the subject of supreme tragic art. It does not improve +the matter, or whitewash the imagination of the Greeks, as some have +fondly fancied, to unravel the fabric wrought by Homer and by +Sophocles, into its raw material in Aryan dialects. Indeed, this new +method of criticism bids fair to destroy for young minds the human +lessons of pathos and heroism in Greek poetry, and to create an obscure +conviction that the greatest race of artists the world has ever +produced were but dotards, helplessly dreaming over distorted forms of +speech and obsolete phraseology. + +Let us bid farewell to Etna from Taormina. All along the coast between +Aci and Giardini the mountain towers distinct against a sunset +sky—divested of its robe of cloud, translucent and blue as some dark +sea-built crystal. The Val del Bove is shown to be a circular crater in +which the lava has boiled and bubbled over to the fertile land beneath. +As we reach Giardini, the young moon is shining, and the night is alive +with stars so large and bright that they seem leaning down to whisper +in the ears of our soul. The sea is calm, touched here and there on the +fringes of the bays and headlands with silvery light; and impendent +crags loom black and sombre against the feeble azure of the moonlit +sky. _Quale per incertam lunam et sub luce malignâ_: such is our +journey, with Etna, a grey ghost, behind our path, and the reflections +of stars upon the sea, and glow-worms in the hedges, and the mystical +still splendour of the night, that, like Death, liberates the soul, +raising it above all common things, simplifying the outlines of the +earth as well as our own thoughts to one twilight hush of aë;rial +tranquillity. It is a strange compliment to such a landscape to say +that it recalls a scene from an opera. Yet so it is. What the arts of +the scene-painter and the musician strive to 288 suggest is here +realised in fact; the mood of the soul created by music and by passion +is natural here, spontaneous, prepared by the divine artists of earth, +air, and sea. + +Was there ever such another theatre as this of Taormina? Turned to the +south, hollowed from the crest of a promontory 1000 feet above the sea, +it faces Etna with its crown of snow: below, the coast sweeps onward to +Catania and the distant headland of Syracuse. From the back the shore +of Sicily curves with delicately indented bays towards Messina: then +come the straits, and the blunt mass of the Calabrian mountains +terminating Italy at Spartivento. Every spot on which the eye can rest +is rife with reminiscences. It was there, we say, looking northward to +the straits, that Ulysses tossed between Scylla and Charybdis; there, +turning towards the flank of Etna, that he met with Polyphemus and +defied the giant from his galley. From yonder snow-capped eyrie, Αιτνας +σκοπία, the rocks were hurled on Acis. And all along that shore, after +Persephone was lost, went Demeter, torch in hand, wailing for the +daughter she could no more find among Sicilian villages. Then, leaving +myths for history, we remember how the ships of Nikias set sail from +Reggio, and coasted the forelands at our feet, past Naxos, on their way +to Catania and Syracuse. Gylippus afterwards in his swift galley took +the same course: and Dion, when he came to destroy his nephew's empire. +Here too Timoleon landed, resolute in his firm will to purge the isle +of tyrants. + +What scenes, more spirit-shaking than any tragic shows—pageants of fire +and smoke, and mountains in commotion—are witnessed from these grassy +benches, when the earth rocks, and the sea is troubled, and the side of +Etna flows with flame, and night grows horrible with bellowings that +forebode changes in empires!— + +289 + + Quoties Cyclopum effervere in agros +Vidimus undantem ruptis fornacibus Ætnam, +Flammarumque globos liquefactaque volvere saxa. + +The stage of these tremendous pomps is very calm and peaceful now. +Lying among acanthus leaves and asphodels, bound together by wreaths of +white and pink convolvulus, we only feel that this is the loveliest +landscape on which our eyes have ever rested or can rest. The whole +scene is a symphony of blues—gemlike lapis-lazuli in the sea, aë;rial +azure in the distant headlands, light-irradiated sapphire in the sky, +and impalpable vapour-mantled purple upon Etna. The grey tones of the +neighbouring cliffs, and the glowing brickwork of the ruined theatre, +through the arches of which shine sea and hillside, enhance by contrast +these modulations of the one prevailing hue. Etna is the dominant +feature of the landscape—Αιτνας ματερ εμά—πολυδένδρεος Αιτνας— than +which no other mountain is more sublimely solitary, more worthy of +Pindar's praise, 'The pillar of heaven, the nurse of sharp eternal +snow.' It is Etna that gives its unique character of elevated beauty to +this coast scenery, raising it to a grander and more tragic level than +the landscape of the Cornice and the Bay of Naples. + +290 + + + + +PALERMO + + +THE NORMANS IN SICILY + +Sicily, in the centre of the Mediterranean, has been throughout all +history the meeting-place and battle-ground of the races that +contributed to civilise the West. It was here that the Greeks measured +their strength against Phoenicia, and that Carthage fought her first +duel with Rome. Here the bravery of Hellenes triumphed over barbarian +force in the victories of Gelon and Timoleon. Here, in the harbour of +Syracuse, the Athenian Empire succumbed to its own intemperate +ambition. Here, in the end, Rome laid her mortmain upon Greek, +Phoenician, and Sikeliot alike, turning the island into a granary and +reducing its inhabitants to serfdom. When the classic age had closed, +when Belisarius had vainly reconquered from the Goths for the empire of +the East the fair island of Persephone and Zeus Olympius, then came the +Mussulman, filling up with an interval of Oriental luxury and Arabian +culture the period of utter deadness between the ancient and the modern +world. To Islam succeeded the conquerors of the house of Hauteville, +Norman knights who had but lately left their Scandinavian shores, and +settled in the northern provinces of France. The Normans flourished for +a season, and were merged in a line of Suabian princes, old +Barbarossa's progeny. German rulers thus came to sway the corn-lands of +Trinacria, until the bitter hatred of the Popes extinguished the house +of Hohenstauffen upon the battlefield 291 of Grandella and the scaffold +of Naples. Frenchmen had the next turn—for a brief space only; since +Palermo cried to the sound of her tocsins, 'Mora, Mora,' and the +tyranny of Anjou was expunged with blood. Spain, the tardy and patient +power, which inherited so much from the failure of more brilliant +races, came at last, and tightened so firm a hold upon the island, that +from the end of the thirteenth to the beginning of the nineteenth +century, with one brief exception, Sicily belonged to the princes of +Aragon, Castile, and Bourbon. These vicissitudes have left their traces +everywhere. The Greek temples of Segeste and Girgenti and Selinus, the +Roman amphitheatre of Syracuse, the Byzantine mosaics and Saracenic +villas of Palermo, the Norman cathedrals of Monreale and Cefalú, and +the Spanish habits which still characterise the life of Sicilian +cities, testify to the successive strata of races which have been +deposited upon the island. Amid its anarchy of tongues, the Latin alone +has triumphed. In the time of the Greek colonists Sicily was polyglot. +During the Saracenic occupation it was trilingual. It is now, and +during modern history it has always been, Italian. Differences of +language and of nationality have gradually been fused into one +substance, by the spirit which emanates from Rome, and vivifies the +Latin race. + +The geographical position of Sicily has always influenced its history +in a very marked way. The eastern coast, which is turned towards Greece +and Italy, has been the centre of Aryan civilisation in the island, so +that during Greek and Roman ascendency Syracuse was held the capital. +The western end, which projects into the African sea, was occupied in +the time of the Hellenes by Phoenicians, and afterwards by Mussulmans: +consequently Panormus, the ancient seat of Punic colonists, now called +Palermo, became the centre of the Moslem rule, which, inherited entire +by the Norman chieftains, 292 was transmitted eventually to Spain. +Palermo, devoid of classic monuments, and unknown except as a name to +the historians of Greek civilisation, is therefore the modern capital +of the island. 'Prima sedes, corona regis, et regni caput,' is the +motto inscribed upon the cathedral porch and the archiepiscopal throne +of Palermo: nor has any other city, except Messina,[102] presumed to +contest this title. + + [102] Messina, owing to its mercantile position between the Levant, + Italy, and France, and as the key to Sicily from the mainland, might + probably have become the modern capital had not the Normans found a + state machinery ready to their use centralised at Palermo. + +Perhaps there are few spots upon the surface of the globe more +beautiful than Palermo. The hills on either hand descend upon the sea +with long-drawn delicately broken outlines, so exquisitely tinted with +aë;rial hues, that at early dawn or beneath the blue light of a full +moon the panorama seems to be some fabric of the fancy, that must fade +away, 'like shapes of clouds we form,' to nothing. Within the cradle of +these hills, and close upon the tideless water, lies the city. Behind +and around on every side stretches the famous _Conca d'Oro_, or golden +shell, a plain of marvellous fertility, so called because of its +richness and also because of its shape; for it tapers to a fine point +where the mountains meet, and spreads abroad, where they diverge, like +a cornucopia, toward the sea. The whole of this long vega is a garden, +thick with olive-groves and orange-trees, with orchards of nespole and +palms and almonds, with fig-trees and locust-trees, with judas-trees +that blush in spring, and with flowers as multitudinously brilliant as +the fretwork of sunset clouds. It was here that in the days of the +Kelbite dynasty, the sugar-cane and cotton-tree and mulberry supplied +both East and West with produce for the banquet and the paper-mill and +the silk-loom; and though these industries are now neglected, vast +gardens of 293 cactuses still give a strangely Oriental character to +the scenery of Palermo, while the land flows with honey-sweet wine +instead of sugar. The language in which Arabian poets extolled the +charms of this fair land is even now nowise extravagant: 'Oh how +beautiful is the lakelet of the twin palms, and the island where the +spacious palace stands! The limpid water of the double springs +resembles liquid pearls, and their basin is a sea: you would say that +the branches of the trees stretched down to see the fishes in the pool +and smile at them. The great fishes swim in those clear waters, and the +birds among the gardens tune their songs. The ripe oranges of the +island are like fire that burns on boughs of emerald; the pale lemon +reminds me of a lover who has passed the night in weeping for his +absent darling. The two palms may be compared to lovers who have gained +an inaccessible retreat against their enemies, or raise themselves +erect in pride to confound the murmurs and ill thoughts of jealous men. +O palms of the two lakelets of Palermo, may ceaseless, undisturbed, and +plenteous dews for ever keep your freshness!' Such is the poetry which +suits the environs of Palermo, where the Moorish villas of La Zisa and +La Cuba and La Favara still stand, and where the modern gardens, though +wilder, are scarcely less delightful than those beneath which King +Roger discoursed with Edrisi, and Gian da Procida surprised his +sleeping mistress.[103] The groves of oranges and lemons are an +inexhaustible source of joy: not only because of their 'golden lamps in +a green night,' but also because of their silvery constellations, +nebulæ, and drifts of stars, in the same green night, and milky ways of +blossoms on the ground beneath. As in all southern scenery, the +transition from these perfumed thickly clustering gardens to the bare +unirrigated hillsides is very striking. There the dwarf-palm 294 tufts +with its spiky foliage the clefts of limestone rock, and the lizards +run in and out among bushes of tree-spurge and wild cactus and grey +asphodels. The sea-shore is a tangle of lilac and oleander and +laurustinus and myrtle and lentisk and cytisus and geranium. The +flowering plants that make our shrubberies gay in spring with blossoms, +are here wild, running riot upon the sand-heaps of Mondello or beneath +the barren slopes of Monte Pellegrino. + +It was into this terrestrial paradise, cultivated through two preceding +centuries by the Arabs, who of all races were wisest in the arts of +irrigation and landscape-gardening, that the Norsemen entered as +conquerors, and lay down to pass their lives.[104] + + [103] Boccaccio, Giorn. v. Nov. 6. + + + [104] The Saracens possessed themselves of Sicily by a gradual + conquest, which began about 827 A.D. Disembarking on the little isle + of Pantellaria and the headland of Lilyboeum, where of old the + Carthaginians used to enter Sicily, they began by overrunning the + island for the first four years. In 831 they took Palermo; during the + next ten years they subjugated the Val di Mazara; between 841 and 859 + they possessed themselves of the Val di Noto; after this they extended + their conquest over the seaport towns of the Val Demone, but neglected + to reduce the whole of the N.E. district. Syracuse was stormed and + reduced to ruins after a desperate defence in 878, while Leo, the heir + of the Greek Empire, contented himself with composing two Anacreontic + elegies on the disaster at Byzantium. In 895 Sicily was wholly lost to + the Greeks, by a treaty signed between the Saracens and the remaining + Christian towns. The Christians during the Mussulman occupation were + divided into four classes—(1) A few independent municipalities + obedient loosely to the Greek Empire; (2) tributaries who paid the + Arabs what they would otherwise have sent to Byzantium; (3) vassals, + whose towns had fallen by arms or treaty into the hands of the + conquerors, and who, though their property was respected and religion + tolerated, were called 'dsimmi' or 'humbled;' (4) serfs, prisoners of + war, sold as slaves or attached to the soil (_Amari_, vol. i.). + +No chapter of history more resembles a romance than that which records +the sudden rise and brief splendour of the house of Hauteville. In one +generation the sons of Tancred passed from the condition of squires in +the Norman vale of 295 Cotentin, to kinghood in the richest island of +the southern sea. The Norse adventurers became Sultans of an Oriental +capital. The sea-robbers assumed together with the sceptre the culture +of an Arabian court. The marauders whose armies burned Rome, received +at papal hands the mitre and dalmatic as symbols of ecclesiastical +jurisdiction.[105] The brigands who on their first appearance in Italy +had pillaged stables and farmyards to supply their needs, lived to mate +their daughters with princes and to sway the politics of Europe with +gold. The freebooters, whose skill consisted in the use of sword and +shield, whose brains were vigorous in strategy or statecraft, and whose +pleasures were confined to the hunting-field and the wine-cup, raised +villas like the Zisa and encrusted the cathedral of Monreale with +mosaics. Finally, while the race was yet vigorous, after giving two +heroes to the first Crusade, it transmitted its titles, its temper, and +its blood to the great Emperor, who was destined to fight out upon the +battlefield of Italy the strife of Empire against Papacy, and to +bequeath to mediæval Europe the tradition of cosmopolitan culture. The +physical energy of this brood of heroes was such as can scarcely be +paralleled in history. Tancred de Hauteville begat two families by +different wives. Of his children twelve were sons; two of whom stayed +with their father in Normandy, while ten sought fame and found a +kingdom in the south. Of these, William Iron Arm, the first Count of +Apulia; Robert Guiscard, who united Calabria and Apulia under one +dukedom, and carried victorious arms against both Emperors of East and +West; and Roger the Great Count, who added Sicily to the conquests of +the Normans and bequeathed the kingdom of South Italy to his son, rose +to the highest name. But all the brothers shared 296 the great +qualities of the house; and two of them, Humphrey and Drogo, also wore +a coronet. Large of limb and stout of heart, persevering under +difficulties, crafty yet gifted with the semblance of sincerity, +combining the piety of pilgrims with the morals of highwaymen, the +sturdiness of barbarians with the plasticity of culture, eloquent in +the council-chamber and the field, dear to their soldiers for their +bravery and to women for their beauty, equally eminent as generals and +as rulers, restrained by no scruples but such as policy suggested, +restless in their energy, yet neither fickle nor rash, comprehensive in +their views, but indefatigable in detail, these lions among men were +made to conquer in the face of overwhelming obstacles, and to hold +their conquests with a grasp of iron. What they wrought, whether wisely +or not for the ultimate advantage of Italy, endures to this day, while +the work of so many emperors, republics, and princes has passed and +shifted like the scenes in a pantomime. Through them the Greeks, the +Lombards, and the Moors were extinguished in the south. The Papacy was +checked in its attempt to found a province of S. Peter below the Tiber. +The republics of Naples, Gaeta, Amalfi, which might have rivalled +perchance with Milan, Genoa, and Florence, were subdued to a master's +hand. In short, to the Normans Italy owed that kingdom of the Two +Sicilies which formed one-third of her political balance, and which +proved the cause of all her most serious revolutions. + + [105] King Roger in the mosaics of the Martorana Church at Palermo + wears the dalmatic, and receives his crown from the hands of Christ. + +Roger, the youngest of the Hauteville family, and the founder of the +kingdom of Sicily, showed by his untamable spirit and sound intellect +that his father's vigour remained unexhausted. Each of Tancred's sons +was physically speaking a masterpiece, and the last was the prime work +of all. This Roger, styled the Great Count, begat a second Roger, the +first King of Sicily, whose son and grandson, both named William, ruled +in succession at Palermo. With them the 297 direct line of the house of +Hauteville expired. It would seem as if the energy and fertility of the +stock had been drained by its efforts in the first three generations. +Constance, the heiress of the family, who married Henry VI. and gave +birth to the Emperor Frederick II., was daughter of King Roger, and +therefore third in descent from Tancred. Drawing her blood more +immediately from the parent stem, she thus transmitted to the princes +of the race of Hohenstauffen the vigour of her Norman ancestry +unweakened. This was a circumstance of no small moment in the history +of Europe. Upon the fierce and daring Suabian stem were grafted the +pertinacity, the cunning, the versatility of the Norman adventurers. +Young Frederick, while strong and subtle enough to stand for himself +against the world, was so finely tempered by the blended strains of his +parentage that he received the polish of an Oriental education without +effeminacy. Called upon to administer the affairs of Germany, to govern +Italy, to contend with the Papacy, and to settle by arms and treaties +the great Oriental question of his days, Frederick, cosmopolitan from +the cradle, was equal to the task. Had Europe been but ready, the +Renaissance would have dated from his reign, and a universal empire, if +not of political government, yet of intellectual culture, might have +been firmly instituted. + +Of the personal appearance of the Norman chiefs—their fair hair, clear +eyes, and broad shoulders—we hear much from the chroniclers. One +minutely studied portrait will serve to bring the whole race vividly +before us. Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, the son of Robert Guiscard, +and first cousin to Tancred of Montferrat, was thus described by Anna +Comnena, who saw him at her father's court during the first Crusade: +'Neither amongst our own nation (the Greeks), nor amongst foreigners, +is there in our age a man equal to Bohemond. His presence dazzled the +eyes, as his reputation the fancy. 298 He was one cubit taller than the +tallest man known. In his waist he was thin, but broad in his shoulders +and chest, without being either too thin or too fat. His arms were +strong, his hands full and large, his feet firm and solid. He stooped a +little, but through habit only, and not on account of any deformity. He +was fair, but on his cheeks there was an agreeable mixture of +vermilion. His hair was not loose over his shoulders, according to the +fashion of the barbarians, but was cut above his ears. His eyes were +blue, and full of wrath and fierceness. His nostrils were large, +inasmuch as having a wide chest and a great heart, his lungs required +an unusual quantity of air to moderate the warmth of his blood. His +handsome face had in itself something gentle and softening, but the +height of his person and the fierceness of his looks had something wild +and terrible. He was more dreadful in his smiles than others in their +rage.' When we read this description, remembering the romance of +Bohemond's ancestry and his own life, we do not wonder at the tales of +chivalry. Those 'knights of Logres and of Lyoness, Lancelot or Pelleas +or Pellenore,' with whose adventures our tawny-haired magnificent +Plantagenets amused their leisure, become realities. The manly beauty, +described by the Byzantine princess in words which seem to betray a +more than common interest in her handsome foe, was hereditary in the +house of Hauteville. They transmitted it to the last of the Suabian +dynasty, to Manfred and Conradin, and to the king Enzio, whose long +golden hair fell down from his shoulders to his saddle-bow as he rode, +a captive, into Bologna. + +The story of the Norman conquest is told by two chroniclers—William of +Apulia, who received his materials from Robert Guiscard, and Godfrey +Malaterra, who wrote down the oral narrative of Roger. Thus we possess +what is tantamount to personal memoirs of the Norman chiefs. +Nevertheless, a veil 299 of legendary romance obscures the first +appearance of the Scandinavian warriors upon the scene of history. +William of Apulia tells how, in the course of a pilgrimage to S. +Michael's shrine on Monte Gargano, certain knights of Normandy were +accosted by a stranger of imposing aspect, who persuaded them to draw +their swords in the quarrel of the Lombard towns of South Italy against +the Greeks. This man was Melo of Bari. Whether his invitation were so +theatrically conveyed or not, it is probable that the Norsemen made +their first acquaintance with Apulia on a pilgrimage to the Italian +Michael's mount; and it is certain that Melo, whom we dimly descry as a +patriot of enlarged views and indomitable constancy, provided them with +arms and horses, raised troops in Salerno and Benevento to assist them, +and directed them against the Greeks. This happened in 1017. Twelve +years later we find the town of Aversa built and occupied by Normans +under the control of their Count Rainulf; while another band, headed by +Ardoin, a Lombard of Milan, lived at large upon the country, selling +its services to the Byzantine Greeks. In the anarchy of Southern Italy +at this epoch, when the decaying Empire of the East was relaxing its +hold upon the Apulian provinces, when the Papacy was beginning to lift +up its head after the ignominy of Theodora and Marozia, and the Lombard +power was slowly dissolving upon its ill-established foundations, the +Norman adventurers pursued a policy which, however changeful, was +invariably self-advantageous. On whatever side they fought, they took +care that the profits of war should accrue to their own colony. Quarrel +as they might among themselves, they were always found at one against a +common foe. And such was their reputation in the field, that the +hardiest soldiers errant of all nations joined their standard. Thus it +fell out that when Ardoin and his Normans had helped Maniaces to wrest +the eastern districts of Sicily from 300 the Moors, they returned, upon +an insult offered by the Greek general, to extend the right hand of +fellowship to Rainulf and his Normans of Aversa. 'Why should you stay +here like a rat in his hole, when with our help you might rule those +fertile plains, expelling the women in armour who keep guard over +them?' The agreement of Ardoin and Rainulf formed the basis of the +future Norman power. Their companies joined forces. Melfi was chosen as +the centre of their federal government. The united Norman colony +elected twelve chiefs or counts of equal authority; and henceforth they +thought only of consolidating their ascendency over the effete races +which had hitherto pretended to employ their arms. The genius of their +race and age, however, was unfavourable to federations. In a short time +the ablest man among them, the true king, by right of personal vigour +and mental cunning, showed himself. It was at this point that the house +of Hauteville rose to the altitude of its romantic destiny. William +Iron Arm was proclaimed Count of Apulia. Two of his brothers succeeded +him in the same dignity. His half-brother, Robert Guiscard, imprisoned +one Pope,[106] Leo IX., and wrested from another, Nicholas II., the +title of Duke of Apulia and Calabria. By the help of his youngest +brother, Roger, he gradually completed the conquest of Italy below the +Tiber, and then addressed himself to the task of subduing Sicily. The +Papacy, incapable of opposing the military vigour of the Northmen, was +distracted between jealousy of their growing importance and desire to +utilise them for its own advantage.[107] The temptation to employ these +filial 301 pirates as a catspaw for restoring Sicily to the bosom of +the Church, was too strong to be resisted. In spite of many ebbs and +flows of policy, the favour which the Popes accorded to the Normans +gilded the might and cunning of the adventurers with the specious +splendour of acknowledged sanctity. The time might come for casting off +these powerful allies and adding their conquests to the patrimony of S. +Peter. Meanwhile it costs nothing to give away what does not belong to +one, particularly when by doing so a title to the same is gradually +formed. So the Popes reckoned. Robert and Roger went forth with banners +blessed by Rome to subjugate the island of the Greek and Moor. + + [106] The Normans were lucky in getting hold of Popes. King Roger + caught Innocent II. at San Germano in 1139, and got from him the + confirmation of all his titles. + + + [107] Even the great Hildebrand wavered in his policy toward Robert + Guiscard. Having raised an army by the help of the Countess Matilda in + 1074, he excommunicated Robert and made war against him. Robert proved + more than his match in force and craft; and Hildebrand had to confirm + his title as duke, and designate him Knight of S. Peter in 1080. When + Robert drove the Emperor Henry IV. from Rome, and burned the city of + the Coelian, Hildebrand retired with his terrible defender to Salerno, + and died there in 1085. Robert and both Rogers were good sons of the + Church, deserving the titles of 'Terror of the faithless,' 'Sword of + the Lord drawn from the scabbard of Sicily,' as long as they were + suffered to pursue their own schemes of empire. They respected the + Pope's person and his demesne of Benevento; they were largely liberal + in donations to churches and abbeys. But they did not suffer their + piety to interfere with their ambition. + +The honours of this conquest, paralleled for boldness only by the +achievements of Cortes and Pizarro, belong to Roger. It is true that +since the fall of the Kelbite dynasty Sicily had been shaken by anarchy +and despotism, by the petty quarrels of princes and party leaders, and +to some extent also by the invasion of Maniaces. Yet on the approach of +Roger with a handful of Norman knights, 'the island was guarded,' to +quote Gibbon's energetic phrase, 'to the water's edge.' For some years +he had to content himself with raids and harrying excursions, making +Messina, which he won from the Moors by the aid of their Christian +serfs and vassals, the basis of his operations, and retiring from time +to time across the Faro 302 with booty to Reggio. The Mussulmans had +never thoroughly subdued the north-eastern highlands of Sicily. +Satisfied with occupying the whole western and southern sections of the +island, with planting their government firmly at Palermo, destroying +Syracuse, and establishing a military fort on the heights of Castro +Giovanni, they had somewhat neglected the Christian populations of the +Val Demone. Thus the key to Sicily upon the Italian side fell into the +hands of the invaders. From Messina Roger advanced by Rametta and +Centorbi to Troina, a hill-town raised high above the level of the sea, +within view of the solemn blue-black pyramid of Etna. There he planted +a garrison in 1062, two years after his first incursion into the +island. The interval had been employed in marches and countermarches, +descents upon the vale of Catania, and hurried expeditions as far as +Girgenti, on the southern coast. One great battle is recorded beneath +the walls of Castro Giovanni, when six hundred Norman knights, so say +the chroniclers, engaged with fifteen thousand of the Arabian chivalry +and one hundred thousand foot soldiers. However great the exaggeration +of these numbers, it is certain that the Christians fought at fearful +odds that day, and that all the eloquence of Roger, who wrought on +their fanaticism in his speech before the battle, was needed to raise +their courage to the sticking-point. The scene of the great rout of +Saracens which followed, is in every respect memorable. Castro +Giovanni, the old Enna of the Greeks and Romans, stands on the top of a +precipitous mountain, two thousand feet above a plain which waves with +corn. A sister height, Calascibetta, raised nearly to an equal +altitude, keeps ward over the same valley; and from their summits the +whole of Sicily is visible. Here in old days Demeter from her +rock-built temple could survey vast tracts of hill and dale, breaking +downwards to the sea and undulating everywhere with harvest. 303 The +much praised lake and vale of Enna[108] are now a desolate sulphur +district, void of beauty, with no flowers to tempt Proserpine. Yet the +landscape is eminently noble because of its breadth—bare naked hills +stretching in every direction to the sea that girdles Sicily—peak +rising above peak and town-capped eyrie over eyrie—while Etna, wreathed +with snow, and purple with the peculiar colour of its coal-black lava +seen through light-irradiated air, sleeps far off beneath a crown of +clouds. Upon the cornfields in the centre of this landscape the +multitudes of the Infidels were smitten hip and thigh by the handful of +Christian warriors. Yet the victory was by no means a decisive one. The +Saracens swarmed round the Norman fortress of Troina; where, during a +severe winter, Roger and his young wife, Judith of Evreux, whom he had +loved in Normandy, and who journeyed to marry him amid the din of +battles, had but one cloak to protect them both from the cold. The +traveller, who even in April has experienced the chill of a high-set +Sicilian village, will not be 304 inclined to laugh at the hardships +revealed by this little incident. Yet the Normans, one and all, were +stanch. A victory over their assailants in the spring gave them courage +to push their arms as far as the river Himera and beyond the Simeto, +while a defeat of fifty thousand Saracens by four hundred Normans at +Cerami opened the way at last to Palermo. Reading of these engagements, +we are led to remember how Gelon smote his Punic foes upon the Himera, +and Timoleon arrayed Greeks by the ten against Carthaginians by the +thousand on the Crimisus. The battlefields are scarcely altered; the +combatants are as unequally matched, and represent analogous races. It +is still the combat of a few heroic Europeans against the hordes of +Asia. In the battle of Cerami it is said that S. George fought visibly +on horseback before the Christian band, like that wide-winged +chivalrous archangel whom Spinello Aretino painted beside Sant' Efeso +in the press of men upon the walls of the Pisan Campo Santo. + + [108] Cicero's description of Enna is still accurate: 'Enna is placed + in a very lofty and exposed situation, at the top of which is a + tableland and never-failing supply of springs. The whole site is cut + off from access, and precipitous.' But when he proceeds to say, 'many + groves and lakes surround it and luxuriant flowers through all the + year,' we cannot follow him. The only quality which Enna has not lost + is the impregnable nature of its cliffs. A few poplars and thorns are + all that remain of its forests. Did we not know that the myth of + Demeter and Persephone was a poem of seed-time and harvest, we might + be tempted, while sitting on the crags of Castro Giovanni and looking + toward the lake, to fancy that in old days a village dependent upon + Enna, and therefore called her daughter, might have occupied the site + of the lake, and that this village might have been withdrawn into the + earth by the volcanic action which produced the cavity. Then people + would have said that Demeter had lost Persephone and sought her vainly + through all the cities of Sicily: and if this happened in spring + Persephone might well have been thought to have been gathering flowers + at the time when Hades took her to himself. So easy and yet so + dangerous is it to rationalise a legend. + +The capture of Palermo cost the Normans another eight years, part of +which was spent according to their national tactics in plundering +expeditions, part in the subjugation of Catania and other districts, +part in the blockade of the capital by sea and land. After the fall of +Palermo, it only remained for Roger to reduce isolated cities—Taormina, +Syracuse,[109] Girgenti, and Castro Giovanni—to his sway. The +last-named and strongest hold of the Saracens fell into his hands by +the treason of Ibn-Hamûud in 1087, and thus, after thirty years' +continual effort, the two brothers were at last able to divide the +island between them. The lion's share, as was due, fell to Roger, who +styled himself Great Count of Sicily and Calabria. In 1098, Urban II., +a politician of the school of 305 Cluny, who well understood the scope +of Hildebrand's plan for subjecting Europe to the Court of Rome, +rewarded Roger for his zeal in the service of the Church with the title +of Hereditary Apostolical Legate. The Great Count was now on a par with +the most powerful monarchs of Europe. In riches he exceeded all; so +that he was able to wed one daughter to the King of Hungary, another to +Conrad, King of Italy, a third to Raimond, Count of Provence and +Toulouse, dowering them all with imperial munificence. + + [109] In this siege, as in that of the Athenians, and of the Saracens + 878 A.D., decisive engagements took place in the great harbour. + +Hale and vigorous, his life was prolonged through a green old age until +his seventieth year; when he died in 1101, he left two sons by his +third wife, Adelaide. Roger, the younger of the two, destined to +succeed his father, and (on the death of his cousin, William, Duke of +Apulia, in 1127) to unite South Italy and Sicily under one crown, was +only four years old at the death of the Great Count. Inheriting all the +valour and intellectual qualities of his family, he rose to even higher +honour than his predecessors. In 1130 he assumed the style of King of +Sicily, no doubt with the political purpose of impressing his Mussulman +subjects; and nine years later, when he took Innocent captive at San +Germano, he forced from the half-willing pontiff a confirmation of this +title as well as the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and Capua. The +extent of his sway is recorded in the line engraved upon his sword:— + +Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi servit et Afer. + + +King Roger died in 1154, and bequeathed his kingdoms to his son +William, surnamed the Bad; who in his turn left them to a William, +called the Good, in 1166. The second William died in 1189, transmitting +his possessions by will to Constance, wife of the Suabian emperor. +These two Williams, the last of the Hauteville monarchs of Sicily, were +not altogether unworthy of their Norman origin. William the Bad could +rouse 306 himself from the sloth of his seraglio to head an army; +William the Good, though feeble in foreign policy, and no general, +administered the state with clemency and wisdom. + +Sicily under the Normans offered the spectacle of a singularly hybrid +civilisation. Christians and Northmen, adopting the habits and imbibing +the culture of their Mussulman subjects, ruled a mixed population of +Greeks, Arabs, Berbers, and Italians. The language of the princes was +French; that of the Christians in their territory, Greek and Latin; +that of their Mahommedan subjects, Arabic. At the same time the +Scandinavian Sultans of Palermo did not cease to play an active part in +the affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, of Europe. The children of +the Vikings, though they spent their leisure in harems, exercised, as +hereditary Legates of the Holy See, a peculiar jurisdiction in the +Church of Sicily. They dispensed benefices to the clergy, and assumed +the mitre and dalmatic, together with the sceptre, and the crown, as +symbols of their authority in Church as well as State. As a consequence +of this confusion of nationalities in Sicily, we find French and +English ecclesiastics[110] mingling at court with Moorish freedmen and +Oriental odalisques, Apulian captains fraternising with Greek corsairs, +Jewish physicians in attendance on the person of the prince, and +Arabian poets eloquent in his praises. The very money with which Roger +subsidised his Italian allies was stamped with Cuphic letters,[111] and +there is 307 reason to believe that the reproach against Frederick of +being a false coiner arose from his adopting the Eastern device of +plating copper pieces to pass for silver. The commander of Roger's +navies and his chief minister of state was styled, according to +Oriental usage, Emir or Ammiraglio. George of Antioch, who swept the +shores of Africa, the Morea, and the Black Sea, in his service, was a +Christian of the Greek Church, who had previously held an office of +finance under Temin Prince of Mehdia. The workers in his silk factories +were slaves from Thebes and Corinth. The pages of his palace were +Sicilian or African eunuchs. His charters ran in Arabic as well as +Greek and Latin. His jewellers engraved the rough gems of the Orient +with Christian mottoes in Semitic characters.[112] His architects were +Mussulmans who adapted their native style to the requirements of +Christian ritual, and inscribed the walls of cathedrals with Catholic +legends in the Cuphic language. The predominant characteristic of +Palermo was Orientalism. Religious toleration was extended to the +Mussulmans, so that the two creeds, Christian and Mahommedan, +flourished side by side. The Saracens had their own quarters in the +towns, their mosques and schools, and Cadis for the administration of +petty justice. French and Italian women in Palermo adopted the Oriental +fashions of dress. The administration of law and government was +conducted on Eastern principles. In nothing had the Mussulmans shown +greater genius than in their system of internal statecraft. Count Roger +found a machinery of taxation in full working order, officers +acquainted with the resources of the country, books and schedules +constructed 308 on the principles of strictest accuracy, a whole +bureaucracy, in fact, ready to his use. By applying this machinery he +became the richest potentate in Europe, at a time when the northern +monarchs were dependent upon feudal aids and precarious revenues from +crown lands. In the same way, the Saracens bequeathed to the Normans +the court system, which they in turn had derived from the princes of +Persia and the example of Constantinople. Roger found it convenient to +continue that organisation of pages, chamberlains, ushers, secretaries, +viziers, and masters of the wardrobe, invested each with some authority +of state according to his rank, which confined the administration of an +Eastern kingdom to the walls of the palace.[113] At Palermo Europe saw +the first instance of a court not wholly unlike that which Versailles +afterwards became. The intrigues which endangered the throne and +liberty of William the Bad, and which perplexed the policy of William +the Good, were court-conspiracies of a kind common enough at +Constantinople. In this court life men of letters and erudition played +a first part three centuries before Petrarch taught the princes of +Italy to respect the pen of a poet. + + [110] The English Gualterio Offamilio, or Walter of the Mill, + Archbishop of Palermo during the reign of William the Good, by his + intrigues brought about the match between Constance and Henry VI. + Richard Palmer at the same time was Bishop of Syracuse. Stephen des + Rotrous, a Frenchman of the Counts of Perche, preceded Walter of the + Mill in the Arch See of Palermo. + + + [111] Frederick Barbarossa's soldiers are said to have bidden the + Romans: 'Take this German iron in change for Arab gold. This pay your + master gives you, and this is how Franks win empire.'—_Amari_, vol. + iii. p. 468. + + + [112] The embroidered skullcap of Constance of Aragon, wife of + Frederick II., in the sacristy of the cathedral at Palermo, is made of + gold thread thickly studded with pearls and jewels—rough sapphires and + carbuncles, among which may be noticed a red cornelian engraved in + Arabic with this sentence, 'In Christ, God, I put my hope.' + + + [113] The Arabic title of _Kâid_, which originally was given to a + subordinate captain of the guard, took a wide significance at the + Norman Court. Latinised to _gaytus_, and Grecised under the form of + κάιτος, it frequently occurs in chronicles and diplomas to denote a + high minister of state. Matteo of Ajello, who exercised so powerful an + influence over the policy of William the Good, heading the Mussulman + and national party against the great ecclesiastics who were intriguing + to draw Sicily into the entanglements of European diplomacy, was a + Kâid. Matteo favoured the cause of Tancred, Walter of the Mill + espoused that of the Germans, during the war of succession which + followed upon William's death. The barons of the realm had to range + themselves under these two leaders—to such an extent were the affairs + of state in Sicily within the grasp of courtiers and churchmen. + +King Roger, of whom the court geographer Edrisi writes 309 that 'he did +more sleeping than any other man waking,' was surrounded during his +leisure moments, beneath the palm-groves of Favara, with musicians, +historians, travellers, mathematicians, poets, and astrologers of +Oriental breeding. At his command Ptolemy's Optics were translated into +Latin from the Arabic. The prophecies of the Erythrean Sibyl were +rendered accessible in the same way. His respect for the occult +sciences was proved by his disinterring the bones of Virgil from their +resting-place at Posilippo, and placing them in the Castel dell' Uovo +in order that he might have access through necromancy to the spirit of +the Roman wizard. It may be remembered in passing, that Palermo in one +of her mosques already held suspended between earth and air the +supposed relics of Aristotle. Such were the saints of modern culture in +its earliest dawning. While Venice was robbing Alexandria of the body +of S. Mark, Palermo and Naples placed themselves beneath the protection +of a philosopher and a poet. But Roger's greatest literary work was the +compilation of a treatise of universal geography. Fifteen years were +devoted to the task; and the manuscript, in Arabic, drawn up by the +philosopher Edrisi, appeared only six weeks before the king's death in +1154. This book, called 'The Book of Roger, or the Delight of whoso +loves to make the Circuit of the World,' was based upon the previous +labours of twelve geographers, classical and Mussulman. But aiming at +greater accuracy than could be obtained by a merely literary +compilation, Roger caused pilgrims, travellers, and merchants of all +countries to be assembled for conference and examination before him. +Their accounts were sifted and collated. Edrisi held the pen while +Roger questioned. Measurements and distances were carefully compared; +and a vast silver disc was constructed, on which all the seas, islands, +continents, plains, rivers, mountain ranges, cities, roads, and +harbours of the 310 known world were delineated. The text supplied an +explanatory description of this map, with tables of the products, +habits, races, religions, and qualities, both physical and moral, of +all climates. The precious metal upon which the map was drawn proved +its ruin, and the Geography remained in the libraries of Arab scholars. +Yet this was one of the first great essays of practical exploration and +methodical statistic, to which the genius of the Norseman and the Arab +each contributed a quota. The Arabians, by their primitive nomadic +habits, by the necessities of their system of taxation, by their +predilection for astrology, by their experience as pilgrims, merchants, +and poets errant, were specially qualified for the labour of +geographical investigation. Roger supplied the unbounded curiosity and +restless energy of his Scandinavian temper, the kingly comprehensive +intellect of his race, and the authority of a prince who was powerful +enough to compel the service of qualified collaborators. + +The architectural works of the Normans in Palermo reveal the same +ascendency of Arab culture. San Giovanni degli Eremiti, with its low +white rounded domes, is nothing more or less than a little mosque +adapted to the rites of Christians.[114] The country palaces of the +Zisa and the Cuba, built by the two Williams, retain their ancient +Moorish character. Standing beneath the fretted arches of the hall of +the Zisa, through which a fountain flows within a margin of carved +marble, and looking on the landscape from its open porch, we only need +to reconstruct in fancy the green gardens and orange-groves, where +fair-haired Normans whiled away their hours among black-eyed odalisques +and graceful singing boys from Persia. Amid a wild tangle of olive and +lemon trees overgrown with scarlet passion-flowers, the pavilion of the +Cubola, built of 311 hewn stone and open at each of its four sides, +still stands much as it stood when William II. paced through flowers +from his palace of the Cuba, to enjoy the freshness of the evening by +the side of its fountain. The views from all these Saracenic villas +over the fruitful valley of the Golden Horn, and the turrets of +Palermo, and the mountains and the distant sea, are ineffably +delightful. When the palaces were new—when the gilding and the frescoes +still shone upon their honeycombed ceilings, when their mosaics +glittered in noonday twilight, and their amber-coloured masonry was set +in shade of pines and palms, and the cool sound of rivulets made music +in their courts and gardens, they must have well deserved their Arab +titles of 'Sweet Waters' and 'The Glory' and 'The Paradise of Earth.' + + [114] Tradition asserts that the tocsin of this church gave the signal + in Palermo to the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. + +But the true splendour of Palermo, that which makes this city one of +the most glorious of the south, is to be sought in its churches—in the +mosaics of the Cappella Palatina founded by King Roger, in the vast +aisles and cloisters of Monreale built by King William the Good at the +instance of his Chancellor Matteo,[115] in the Cathedral of Palermo +begun by Offamilio, and in the Martorana dedicated by George the +Admiral. These triumphs of ecclesiastical architecture, none the less +splendid because they cannot be reduced to rule or assigned to any +single style, were the work of Saracen builders assisted by Byzantine, +Italian, and Norman craftsmen. The genius of Latin Christianity +determined the basilica shape of the Cathedral of Monreale. Its bronze +doors were wrought by smiths of Trani and Pisa. Its walls were +incrusted with the mosaics of Constantinople. The woodwork of its roof, +and the emblazoned patterns in porphyry and serpentine and glass and +smalto, which cover its whole surface, were designed 312 by Oriental +decorators. Norman sculptors added their dog-tooth and chevron to the +mouldings of its porches; Greeks, Frenchmen, and Arabs may have tried +their skill in turn upon the multitudinous ornaments of its cloister +capitals. 'The like of which church,' said Lucius III. in 1182, 'hath +not been constructed by any king even from ancient times, and such an +one as must compel all men to admiration.' These words remain literally +and emphatically true. Other cathedrals may surpass that of Monreale in +sublimity, simplicity, bulk, strength, or unity of plan. None can +surpass it in the strange romance with which the memory of its many +artificers invests it. None again can exceed it in richness and glory, +in the gorgeousness of a thousand decorative elements subservient to +one controlling thought. 'It is evident,' says Fergusson in his +'History of Architecture,' 'that all the architectural features in the +building were subordinate in the eyes of the builders to the mosaic +decorations, which cover every part of the interior, and are in fact +the glory and the pride of the edifice, and alone entitle it to rank +among the finest of mediæval churches.' The whole of the Christian +history is depicted in this series of mosaics; but on first entering, +one form alone compels attention. The semi-dome of the eastern apse +above the high altar is entirely filled with a gigantic half-length +figure of Christ. He raises His right hand to bless, and with His left +holds an open book on which is written in Greek and Latin, 'I am the +Light of the world.' His face is solemn and severe, rather than mild or +piteous; and round His nimbus runs the legend Ιησους Χριστος 'ο +παντοκράτωρ. Below Him on a smaller scale are ranged the archangels and +the mother of the Lord, who holds the child upon her knees. Thus Christ +appears twice upon this wall, once as the Omnipotent Wisdom, the Word +by whom all things were made, and once as God deigning to assume a 313 +shape of flesh and dwell with men. The magnificent image of supreme +Deity seems to fill with a single influence and to dominate the whole +building. The house with all its glory is His. He dwells there like +Pallas in her Parthenon or Zeus in his Olympian temple. To left and +right over every square inch of the cathedral blaze mosaics, which +portray the story of God's dealings with the human race from the +Creation downwards, together with those angelic beings and saints who +symbolise each in his own degree some special virtue granted to +mankind. The walls of the fane are therefore an open book of history, +theology, and ethics for all men to read. + + [115] Matteo of Ajello induced William to found an archbishopric at + Monreale in order to spite his rival Offamilio. + +The superiority of mosaics over fresco as an architectural adjunct on +this gigantic scale is apparent at a glance in Monreale. Permanency of +splendour and glowing richness of tone are all on the side of the +mosaics. Their true rival is painted glass. The jewelled churches of +the south are constructed for the display of coloured surfaces +illuminated by sunlight falling on them from narrow windows, just as +those of the north—Rheims, for example, or Le Mans—are built for the +transmission of light through a variegated medium of transparent hues. +The painted windows of a northern cathedral find their proper +counterpart in the mosaics of the south. The Gothic architect strove to +obtain the greatest amount of translucent surface. The Byzantine +builder directed his attention to securing just enough light for the +illumination of his glistening walls. The radiance of the northern +church was similar to that of flowers or sunset clouds or jewels. The +glory of the southern temple was that of dusky gold and gorgeous +needlework. The north needed acute brilliancy as a contrast to external +greyness. The south found rest from the glare and glow of noonday in +these sombre splendours. Thus Christianity, both of the south and of +the north, decked 314 her shrines with colour. Not so the Paganism of +Hellas. With the Greeks, colour, though used in architecture, was +severely subordinated to sculpture; toned and modified to a calculated +harmony with actual nature, it did not, as in a Christian church, +create a world beyond the world, a paradise of supersensual ecstasy, +but remained within the limits of the known. Light falling upon carved +forms of gods and heroes, bathing clear-cut columns and sharp +basreliefs in simple lustre, was enough for the Phoebean rites of +Hellas. Though we know that red and blue and green and gilding were +employed to accentuate the mouldings of Greek temples, yet neither the +gloomy glory of mosaics nor the gemmed fretwork of storied windows was +needed to attune the souls of Hellenic worshippers to devotion. + +Less vast than Monreale, but even more beautiful, because the charm of +mosaic increases in proportion as the surface it covers may be compared +to the interior of a casket, is the Cappella Palatina of the royal +palace in Palermo. Here, again, the whole design and ornament are +Arabo-Byzantine. Saracenic pendentives with Cuphic legends incrust the +richly painted ceiling of the nave. The roofs of the apses and the +walls are coated with mosaics, in which the Bible history, from the +dove that brooded over Chaos to the lives of S. Peter and S. Paul, +receives a grand though formal presentation. Beneath the mosaics are +ranged slabs of grey marble, edged and divided with delicate patterns +of inserted glass, resembling drapery with richly embroidered fringes. +The floor is inlaid with circles of serpentine and porphyry encased in +white marble, and surrounded by winding bands of Alexandrine work. Some +of these patterns are restricted to the five tones of red, green, +white, black, and pale yellow. Others add turquoise blue, and emerald, +and scarlet, and gold. Not a square inch of the surface—floor, roof, +walls, or 315 cupola—is free from exquisite gemmed work of precious +marbles. A candelabrum of fanciful design, combining lions devouring +men and beasts, cranes, flowers, and winged genii, stands by the +pulpit. Lamps of chased silver hang from the roof. The cupola blazes +with gigantic archangels, stationed in a ring beneath the supreme +figure and face of Christ. Some of the Ravenna churches are more +historically interesting, perhaps, than this little masterpiece of the +mosaic art. But none is so rich in detail and lustrous in effect. It +should be seen at night, when the lamps are lighted in a pyramid around +the sepulchre of the dead Christ on Holy Thursday, when partial gleams +strike athwart the tawny gold of the arches, and fall upon the profile +of a priest declaiming in voluble Italian to a listening crowd. + +Such are a few of the monuments which still remain to show of what sort +was the mixed culture of Normans, Saracens, Italians, and Greeks at +Palermo. In scenes like these the youth of Frederick II. was +passed:—for at the end, while treating of Palermo, we are bound to +think again of the Emperor who inherited from his German father the +ambition of the Hohenstauffens, and from his Norman mother the fair +fields and Oriental traditions of Sicily. The strange history of +Frederick—an intellect of the eighteenth century born out of date, a +cosmopolitan spirit in the age of Saint Louis, the crusader who +conversed with Moslem sages on the threshold of the Holy Sepulchre, the +Sultan of Lucera[116] who persecuted 316 Paterini while he respected +the superstition of Saracens, the anointed successor of Charlemagne, +who carried his harem with him to the battlefields of Lombardy, and +turned Infidels loose upon the provinces of Christ's Vicar—would be +inexplicable, were it not that Palermo still reveals in all her +monuments the _genius loci_ which gave spiritual nurture to this +phoenix among kings. From his Mussulman teachers Frederick derived the +philosophy to which he gave a vogue in Europe. From his Arabian +predecessors he learnt the arts of internal administration and finance, +which he transmitted to the princes of Italy. In imitation of Oriental +courts, he adopted the practice of verse composition, which gave the +first impulse to Italian literature. His Grand Vizier, Piero Delle +Vigne, set an example to Petrarch, not only by composing the first +sonnet in Italian, but also by showing to what height a low-born +secretary versed in art and law might rise. In a word, the zeal for +liberal studies, the luxury of life, the religious indifferentism, the +bureaucratic system of state government, which mark the age of the +Italian Renaissance, found their first manifestation within the bosom +of the Middle Ages in Frederick. While our King John was signing Magna +Charta, Frederick had already lived long enough to comprehend, at least +in outline, what is meant by the spirit of modern culture.[117] It is +true that the so-called Renaissance followed slowly and by tortuous +paths upon the death of Frederick. The Church obtained a complete +victory over his family, and succeeded in extinguishing the +civilisation of Sicily. Yet the fame of the Emperor who transmitted 317 +questions of sceptical philosophy to Arab sages, who conversed +familiarly with men of letters, who loved splendour and understood the +arts of refined living, survived both long and late in Italy. His +power, his wealth, his liberality of soul and lofty aspirations, formed +the theme of many a tale and poem. Dante places him in hell among the +heresiarchs; and truly the splendour of his supposed infidelity found +for him a goodly following. Yet Dante dated the rise of Italian +literature from the blooming period of the Sicilian court. Frederick's +unorthodoxy proved no drawback to his intellectual influence. More than +any other man of mediæval times he contributed, if only as the memory +of a mighty name, to the progress of civilised humanity. + + [116] Charles of Anjou gave this nickname to Manfred, who carried on + the Siculo-Norman tradition. Frederick, it may here be mentioned, had + transferred his Saracen subjects of the vale of Mazara to Lucera in + the Capitanate. He employed them as trusty troops in his warfare with + the Popes and preaching friars. Nothing shows the confusion of the + century in matters ecclesiastical and religious more curiously than + that Frederick, who conducted a crusade and freed the Holy Sepulchre, + should not only have tolerated the religion of Mussulmans, but also + have armed them against the Head of the Church. What we are apt to + regard as religious questions really belonged at that period to the + sphere of politics. + + + [117] It is curious to note that in this year 1215, the date of Magna + Charta, Frederick took the Cross at Aix-la-Chapelle. + +Let us take leave both of Frederick and of Palermo, that centre of +converging influences which was his cradle, in the cathedral where he +lies gathered to his fathers. This church, though its rich sunbrowned +yellow[118] reminds one of the tone of Spanish buildings, is like +nothing one has seen elsewhere. Here even more than at Monreale the eye +is struck with a fusion of styles. The western towers are grouped into +something like the clustered sheafs of the Caen churches: the windows +present Saracenic arches: the southern porch is covered with foliated +incrustations of a late and decorative Gothic style: the exterior of +the apse combines Arabic inlaid patterns of black and yellow with the +Greek honeysuckle: the western door adds Norman dog-tooth and chevron +to the 318 Saracenic billet. Nowhere is any one tradition firmly +followed. The whole wavers and yet is beautiful—like the immature +eclecticism of the culture which Frederick himself endeavoured to +establish in his southern kingdoms. Inside there is no such harmony of +blended voices: all the strange tongues, which speak together on the +outside, making up a music in which the far North, and ancient Byzance, +and the delicate East sound each a note, are hushed. The frigid silence +of the Palladian style reigns there—simple indeed and dignified, but +lifeless as the century in which it flourished. + + [118] Nearly all cities have their own distinctive colour. That of + Venice is a pearly white suggestive of every hue in delicate abeyance, + and that of Florence is a sober brown. Palermo displays a rich yellow + ochre passing at the deepest into orange, and at the lightest into + primrose. This is the tone of the soil, of sun-stained marble, and of + the rough ashlar masonry of the chief buildings. Palermo has none of + the glaring whiteness of Naples, nor yet of that particoloured + gradation of tints which adds gaiety to the grandeur of Genoa. + +Yet there, in a side chapel near the western door, stand the porphyry +sarcophagi which shrine the bones of the Hautevilles and their +representatives. There sleeps King Roger—'Dux strenuus et primus Rex +Siciliæ'—with his daughter Constance in her purple chest beside him. +Henry VI. and Frederick II. and Constance of Aragon complete the group, +which surpasses for interest all sepulchral monuments—even the tombs of +the Scaligers at Verona—except only, perhaps, the statues of the nave +of Innspruck. Very sombre and stately are these porphyry resting-places +of princes born in the purple, assembled here from lands so +distant—from the craggy heights of Hohenstauffen, from the green +orchards of Cotentin, from the dry hills of Aragon. They sleep, and the +centuries pass by. Rude hands break open the granite lids of their +sepulchres, to find tresses of yellow hair and fragments of imperial +mantles, embroidered with the hawks and stags the royal hunter loved. +The church in which they lie changes with the change of taste in +architecture and the manners of successive ages. But the huge stone +arks remain unmoved, guarding their freight of mouldering dust beneath +gloomy canopies of stone that temper the sunlight as it streams from +the chapel windows. + +319 + + + + +SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI + + +The traveller in Sicily is constantly reminded of classical history and +literature. While tossing, it may be, at anchor in the port of Trapani, +and wondering when the tedious Libeccio will release him, he must +perforce remember that here Æneas instituted the games for Anchises. +Here Mnestheus and Gyas and Sergestus and Cloanthus raced their +galleys: on yonder little isle the Centaur struck; and that was the +rock which received the dripping Menoetes:— + +Illum et labentem Teucri et risere natantem, +Et salsos rident revomentem pectore fluctus. + +Or crossing a broken bridge at night in the lumbering diligence, +guarded by infantry with set bayonets, and wondering on which side of +the ravine the brigands are in ambush, he suddenly calls to mind that +this torrent was the ancient Halycus, the border between Greeks and +Carthaginians, established of old, and ratified by Timoleon after the +battle of the Crimisus. Among the bare grey hills of Segeste his +thoughts revert to that strange story told by Herodotus of Philippus, +the young soldier of Crotona, whose beauty was so great, that when the +Segesteans found him slain among their foes, they raised the corpse and +burned it on a pyre of honour, and built a hero's temple over the urn +that held his ashes. The first sight of Etna makes us cry with +Theocritus, Αιτνα 320 ματερ εμά....πολυδένδρεος Αιτνα. The solemn +heights of Castro Giovanni bring lines of Ovid to our lips:— + +Haud procul Hennæis lacus est a moenibu altæ +Nomine Pergus aquæ. Non illo plura Caystros +Carmina cygnorum labentibus audit in undis. +Silva coronat aquas, cingens latus omne; suisque +Frondibus ut velo Phoebeos summovet ignes. +Frigora dant rami, Tyrios humus humida flores. +Perpetnum ver est. + + +We look indeed in vain for the leafy covert and the purple flowers that +tempted Proserpine. The place is barren now: two solitary cypress-trees +mark the road which winds downwards from a desolate sulphur mine, and +the lake is clearly the crater of an extinct volcano. Yet the voices of +old poets are not mute. 'The rich Virgilian rustic measure' recalls a +long-since buried past. Even among the wavelets of the Faro we remember +Homer, scanning the shore if haply somewhere yet may linger the wild +fig-tree which saved Ulysses from the whirlpool of Charybdis. At any +rate we cannot but exclaim with Goethe, 'Now all these coasts, gulfs, +and creeks, islands and peninsulas, rocks and sand-banks, wooded hills, +soft meadows, fertile fields, neat gardens, hanging grapes, cloudy +mountains, constant cheerfulness of plains, cliffs and ridges, and the +surrounding sea, with such manifold variety are present in my mind; now +is the "Odyssey" for the first time become to me a living world.' + +But rich as the whole of Sicily may be in classical associations, two +places, Syracuse and Girgenti, are pre-eminent for the power of +bringing the Greek past forcibly before us. Their interest is of two +very different kinds. Girgenti still displays the splendour of temples +placed upon a rocky cornice between sea and olive-groves. Syracuse has +nothing to show but the scene of world-important actions. Yet the great +deeds 321 recorded by Thucydides, the conflict between eastern and +western Hellas which ended in the annihilation of the bright, brief, +brilliant reality of Athenian empire, remain so clearly written on the +hills and harbours and marshlands of Syracuse that no place in the +world is topographically more memorable. The artist, whether architect, +or landscape-painter, or poet, finds full enjoyment at Girgenti. The +historian must be exacting indeed in his requirements if he is not +satisfied with Syracuse. + +What has become of Syracuse, 'the greatest of Greek cities and the +fairest of all cities' even in the days of Cicero? Scarcely one stone +stands upon another of all those temples and houses. The five towns +which were included by the walls have now shrunk to the little island +which the first settlers named Ortygia, where the sacred fountain of +Arethusa seemed to their home-loving hearts to have followed them from +Hellas.[119] Nothing survives but a few columns of Athene's temple +built into a Christian church, with here and there the marble masonry +of a bath or the Roman stonework of an amphitheatre. There are not even +any mounds or deep deposits of rubble mixed with pottery to show here +once a town had been.[120] _Etiam periere ruinæ._ The vast city, +devastated for the last time by the Saracens in 878 A.D., has been +reduced to dust and swept by the scirocco into the sea. This is the +explanation of its utter ruin. The stone of Syracuse is friable and +easily disintegrated. The petulant moist wind of the south-east +corrodes its surface; and when it falls, it crumbles to 322 powder. +Here, then, the elements have had their will unchecked by such +sculptured granite as in Egypt resists the mounded sand of the desert, +or by such marble colonnades as in Athens have calmly borne the insults +of successive sieges. What was hewn out of the solid rock—the +semicircle of the theatre, the street of the tombs with its deeply +dented chariot-ruts, the gigantic quarries from which the material of +the metropolis was scooped, the catacombs which burrow for miles +underground—alone prove how mighty must have been the Syracuse of +Dionysius. Truly 'the iniquity of oblivion blindly scattereth her +poppy, and deals with the memory of men without distinction to merit of +perpetuity.' Standing on the beach of the Great Harbour or the Bay of +Thapsus, we may repeat almost word by word Antipater's solemn lament +over Corinth:— + +Where is thy splendour now, thy crown of towers, + Thy beauty visible to all men's eyes, + The gold and silver of thy treasuries, +Thy temples of blest gods, thy woven bowers +Where long-stoled ladies walked in tranquil hours, + Thy multitudes like stars that crowd the skies? + All, all are gone. Thy desolation lies +Bare to the night. The elemental powers +Resume their empire: on this lonely shore + Thy deathless Nereids, daughters of the sea, + Wailing 'mid broken stones unceasingly, +Like halcyons when the restless south winds roar, +Sing the sad story of thy woes of yore: + These plunging waves are all that's left to thee. + + +Time, however, though he devours his children, cannot utterly destroy +either the written record of illustrious deeds or the theatre of their +enactment. Therefore, with Thucydides in hand, we may still follow the +events of that Syracusan siege which decided the destinies of Greece, +and by the fall of 323 Athens, raised Sparta, Macedonia, and finally +Rome to the hegemony of the civilised world. + + [119] The fountain of Arethusa, recently rescued from the washerwomen + of Syracuse, is shut off from the Great Harbour by a wall and planted + with papyrus. Taste has not been displayed in the bear-pit + architecture of its circular enclosure. + + + [120] This is not strictly true of Achradina, where some _débris_ may + still be found worth excavating. + +There are few students of Thucydides and Grote who would not be +surprised by the small scale of the cliffs, and the gentle incline of +Epipolæ—the rising ground above the town of Syracuse, upon the slope of +which the principal operations of the Athenian siege took place.[121] +Maps, and to some extent also the language of Thucydides, who talks of +the προσβάσεις or practicable approaches to Epipolæ, and the κρημνοι, +or precipices by which it was separated from the plain, would lead one +to suppose that the whole region was on each hand rocky and abrupt. In +reality it is extremely difficult to distinguish the rising ground of +Epipolæ upon the southern side from the plain, so very gradual is the +line of ascent and so comparatively even is the rocky surface of the +hill. Thucydides, in narrating the night attack of Demosthenes upon the +lines of Gylippus (book vii. 43-45), lays stress upon the necessity of +approaching Epipolæ from the western side by Euryâlus, and again +asserts that during the hurried retreat of the Athenians great numbers +died by leaping from the cliffs, while still more had to throw away +their armour. At this time the Athenian army was encamped upon the +shore of the Great Harbour, and held trenches and a wall that stretched +from that side at least halfway across Epipolæ. It seems therefore +strange that, unless their movements were impeded by counterworks and +lines of walls, of which we have no information, the troops of +Demosthenes should not, at least in their retreat, have been able to +pour down over the gentle 324 descent of Epipolæ toward the Anapus, +instead of returning to Euryâlus. Anyhow, we can scarcely discern +cliffs of more than ten feet upon the southern slope of Epipolæ, nor +can we understand why the Athenians should have been forced to take +these in their line of retreat. There must have been some artificial +defences of which we read nothing, and of which no traces now remain, +but which were sufficient to prevent them from choosing their ground. +Slight difficulties of this kind raise the question whether the +wonderful clearness of Thucydides in detail was really the result of +personal observation, or whether his graphic style enabled him to give +the appearance of scrupulous accuracy. I incline to think that the +author of the sixth and seventh books of the History must have visited +Syracuse, and that if we could see his own map of Epipolæ, we should +better be able to understand the difficulties of the backward night +march of Demosthenes, by discovering that there was some imperative +necessity for not descending, as seems natural, upon the open slope of +the hill to the south. The position of Euryâlus at the extreme point +called Mongibellisi is clear enough. Here the ground, which has been +continually rising from the plateau of Achradina (the northern suburb +of Syracuse), comes to an abrupt finish. Between Mongibellisi and the +Belvedere hill beyond there is a deep depression, and the slope to +Euryâlus either from the south or north is gradual. It was a gross +piece of neglect on the part of Nikias not to have fortified this spot +on his first investment of Epipolæ, instead of choosing Labdalum, +which, wherever we may place it, must have been lower down the hill to +the east. For Euryâlus is the key to Epipolæ. It was here that Nikias +himself ascended in the first instance, and that afterwards he +permitted Gylippus to enter and raise the siege, and lastly that +Demosthenes, by overpowering the insufficient Syracusan guard, got at +night within the lines of 325 the Spartan general. Thus the three most +important movements of the siege were made upon Euryâlus. Dionysius, +when he enclosed Epipolæ with walls, recognised the value of the point, +and fortified it with the castle which remains, and to which, as +Colonel Leake believes, Archimedes, at the order of Hiero II., made +subsequent additions. This castle is one of the most interesting Greek +ruins extant. A little repair would make it even now a substantial +place of defence, according to Greek tactics. Its deep foss is cut in +the solid rock, and furnished with subterranean magazines for the +storage of provisions. The three piles of solid masonry on which the +drawbridge rested, still stand in the centre of this ditch. The oblique +grand entrance to the foss descends by a flight of well-cut steps. The +rock itself over which the fort was raised is honeycombed with +excavated passages for infantry and cavalry, of different width and +height, so that one sort can be assigned to mounted horsemen and +another to foot soldiers. The trap-doors which led from these galleries +into the fortress are provided with rests for ladders that could be let +down to help a sallying force or drawn up to impede an advancing enemy. +The inner court for stabled horses and the stations for the catapults +are still in tolerable preservation. Thus the whole arrangement of the +stronghold can be traced not dimly but distinctly. Being placed on the +left side of the chief gate of Epipolæ, the occupants of the fort could +issue to attack a foe advancing toward that gate in the rear. At the +same time the subterranean galleries enabled them to pour out upon the +other side, if the enemy had forced an entrance, while the minor +passages and trap-doors provided a retreat in case the garrison were +overpowered in one of their offensive operations. The view from +Euryâlus is extensive. To the left rises Etna, snowy, solitary, broadly +vast, above the plain of Catania, the curving shore, Thapsus, 326 and +the sea. Syracuse itself, a thin white line between the harbour and the +open sea, a dazzling streak between two blues, terminates the slope of +Epipolæ, and on the right hand stretch the marshes of Anapus rich with +vines and hoary with olives. + + [121] Epipolæ is in shape a pretty regular isosceles triangle, of + which the apex is Mongibellisi or Euryâlus, and the base Achradina or + the northern quarter of the ancient city. Thucydides describes it as + χωρίου αποκρήμνου τε και υπερ της πόλεως ευθυς κειμένου... εξήρτηται + γαρ το αλλο χωρίον και μέχρι της πόλεως επικλινές τέ εστι και επιφανες + παν εισο και ωνομαστα υπυ τον Συρακοσίων δια το επιπολης του αλλου + ειναι Επιπολαι (vi. 96).] + +By far the most interesting localities of Syracuse are the Great +Harbour and the stone quarries. When the sluggish policy and faint +heart of Nikias had brought the Athenians to the verge of ruin, when +Gylippus had entered the besieged city, and Plemmyrium had been wrested +from the invaders, and Demosthenes had failed in his attack upon +Epipolæ, and the blockading trenches had been finally evacuated, no +hope remained for the armament of Athens except only in retreat by +water. They occupied a palisaded encampment upon the shore of the +harbour, between the mouth of the Anapus and the city; whence they +attempted to force their way with their galleys to the open sea. +Hitherto the Athenians had been supreme upon their own element; but now +the Syracusans adopted tactics suited to the narrow basin in which the +engagements had to take place. Building their vessels with heavy beaks, +they crushed the lighter craft of the Athenians, which had no room for +flank movements and rapid evolutions. A victory was thus obtained by +the Syracusan navy; the harbour was blockaded with chains by the order +of Gylippus; the Athenians were driven back to their palisades upon the +fever-haunted shore. Their only chance seemed to depend upon a renewal +of the sea-fight in the harbour. The supreme moment arrived. What +remained of the Athenian fleet, in numbers still superior to that of +their enemies, steered straight for the mouth of the harbour. The +Syracusans advanced from the naval stations of Ortygia to meet them. +The shore was thronged with spectators, Syracusans tremulous with the +expectation of a decisive success, Athenians on the tenter-hooks 327 of +hope and dread. In a short time the harbour became a confused mass of +clashing triremes; the water beaten into bloody surf by banks of oars; +the air filled with shouts from the combatants and exclamations from +the lookers-on: ολοφυρμός, βοή, νικοντες, κρατούμενοι, αλλα οσα εν +μεγάλω κινδύνω μέγα στρατόπεδον πολυειδη αναγκάζοιτο φθέγγεσθαι. Then +after a struggle, in which desperation gave energy to the Athenians, +and ambitious hope inspired their foes with more than wonted vigour, +the fleet of the Athenians was finally overwhelmed. The whole scene can +be reproduced with wonderful distinctness; for the low shores of +Plemmyrium, the city of Ortygia, the marsh of Lysimeleia, the hills +above the Anapus, and the distant dome of Etna, are the same as they +were upon that memorable day. Nothing has disappeared except the temple +of Zeus Olympius and the buildings of Temenitis. + +What followed upon the night of that defeat is less easily realised. +Thucydides, however, by one touch reveals the depth of despair to which +the Athenians had sunk. They neglected to rescue the bodies of their +dead from the Great Harbour, or to ask for a truce, according to +hallowed Greek usage, in order that they might perform the funeral +rites. To such an extent was the army demoralised. Meanwhile within the +city the Syracusans kept high festival, honouring their patron +Herakles, upon whose day it happened that the battle had been fought. +Nikias neglected this opportunity of breaking up his camp and retiring +unmolested into the interior of the island. When after the delay of two +nights and a day he finally began to move, the Syracusans had blockaded +the roads. How his own division capitulated by the blood-stained banks +of the Asinarus after a six days' march of appalling misery, and how +that of Demosthenes surrendered in the olive-field of Polyzelus, is too +well known. + +328 One of the favourite excursions from modern Syracuse takes the +traveller in a boat over the sandy bar of the Anapus, beneath the old +bridge which joined the Helorine road to the city, and up the river to +its junction with the Cyane. This is the ground traversed by the army +first in their attempted flight and then in their return as captives to +Syracuse. Few, perhaps, who visit the spot, think as much of that last +act in a world-historical tragedy, as of the picturesque compositions +made by arundo donax, castor-oil plant, yellow flags, and papyrus, on +the river-banks and promontories. Like miniature palm-groves these +water-weeds stand green and golden against the bright blue sky, +feathering above the boat which slowly pushes its way through clinging +reeds. The huge red oxen of Sicily in the marsh on either hand toss +their spreading horns and canter off knee-deep in ooze. Then comes the +fountain of Cyane, a broad round well of water, thirty feet in depth, +but quite clear, so that you can see the pebbles at the bottom and +fishes swimming to and fro among the weeds. Papyrus plants edge the +pool; thick and tufted, they are exactly such as one sees carved or +painted upon Egyptian architecture of the Ptolemaic period. + +With Thucydides still in hand, before quitting Syracuse we must follow +the Athenian captives to their prison-grave. The Latomia de' Cappuccini +is a place which it is impossible to describe in words, and of which no +photographs give any notion. Sunk to the depth of a hundred feet below +the level of the soil, with sides perpendicular and in many places as +smooth as though the chisel had just passed over them, these vast +excavations produce the impression of some huge subterranean gallery, +widening here and there into spacious halls, the whole of which has +been unroofed and opened to the air of heaven. It is a solemn and +romantic labyrinth, where no wind blows rudely, and where orange-trees +shoot 329 upward luxuriantly to meet the light. The wild fig bursts +from the living rock, mixed with lentisk-shrubs and pendent +caper-plants. Old olives split the masses of fallen cliff with their +tough, snakelike, slowly corded and compacted roots. Thin flames of +pomegranate-flowers gleam amid foliage of lustrous green; and lemons +drop unheeded from femininely fragile branches. There too the ivy hangs +in long festoons, waving like tapestry to the breath of stealthy +breezes; while under foot is a tangle of acanthus, thick curling leaves +of glossiest green, surmounted by spikes of dull lilac blossoms. Wedges +and columns and sharp teeth of the native rock rear themselves here and +there in the midst of the open spaces to the sky, worn fantastically +into notches and saws by the action of scirocco. A light yellow +calcined by the sun to white is the prevailing colour of the quarries. +But in shady places the limestone takes a curious pink tone of great +beauty, like the interior of some sea-shells. The reflected lights too, +and half-shadows in their scooped-out chambers, make a wonderful +natural chiaroscuro. The whole scene is now more picturesque in a +sublime and grandiose style than forbidding. There is even one spot +planted with magenta-coloured mesembrianthemums of dazzling brightness; +and the air is loaded with the drowsy perfume of lemon-blossoms. Yet +this is the scene of a great agony. This garden was once the Gethsemane +of a nation, where 9000 free men of the proudest city of Greece were +brought by an unexampled stroke of fortune to slavery, shame, and a +miserable end. Here they dwindled away, worn out by wounds, disease, +thirst, hunger, heat by day and cold by night, heart-sickness, and the +insufferable stench of putrefying corpses. The pupils of Socrates, the +admirers of Euripides, the orators of the Pnyx, the athletes of the +Lyceum, lovers and comrades and philosophers, died here like dogs; and +the dames of Syracuse stood doubtless on those parapets 330 above, and +looked upon them like wild beasts. What the Gorgo of Theocritus might +have said to her friend Praxinoe on the occasion would be the subject +for an idyll _à la_ Browning! How often, pining in those great glaring +pits, which were not then curtained with ivy or canopied by +olive-trees, must the Athenians have thought with vain remorse of their +own Rhamnusian Nemesis, the goddess who held scales adverse to the +hopes of men, and bore the legend 'Be not lifted up'! How often must +they have watched the dawn walk forth fire-footed upon the edge of +those bare crags, or the stars slide from east to west across the +narrow space of sky! How they must have envied the unfettered clouds +sailing in liquid ether, or traced the far flight of hawk and swallow, +sighing, 'Oh that I too had the wings of a bird!' The weary eyes turned +upwards found no change or respite, save what the frost of night +brought to the fire of day, and the burning sun to the pitiless cold +constellations. + +A great painter, combining Doré's power over space and distance with +the distinctness of Flaxman's design and the colouring of Alma Tadema, +might possibly realise this agony of the Athenian captives in the stone +quarries. The time of day chosen for the picture should be full noon, +with its glare of light and sharply defined vertical shadows. The +crannies in the straight sides of the quarry should here and there be +tufted with a few dusty creepers and wild fig-trees. On the edge of the +sky-line stand parties of Syracusan citizens with their wives and +children, shaded by umbrellas, richly dressed, laughing and triumphing +over the misery beneath. In the full foreground there are placed two +figures. A young Athenian has just died of fever. His body lies +stretched along the ground, the head resting on a stone, and the face +turned to the sky. Beside him kneels an older warrior, sunburned and +dry with thirst, but full as yet of vigour. He stares with 331 wide +despair-smitten eyes straight out, as though he had lately been +stretched upon the corpse, but had risen at the sound of movement, or +some supposed word of friends close by. His bread lies untasted near +him, and the half-pint of water—his day's portion—has been given to +bathe the forehead of his dying friend. They have stood together +through the festival of leave-taking from Peiræus, through the battles +of Epipolæ, through the retreat and the slaughter at the passage of the +Asinarus. But now it has come to this, and death has found the younger. +Perhaps the friend beside him remembers some cool wrestling-ground in +far-off Athens, or some procession up the steps of the Acropolis, where +first they met. Anyhow his fixed gaze now shows that he has passed in +thought at least beyond the hell around him. Not far behind should be +ranged groups of haggard men, with tattered clothes and dulled or +tigerish eyes, some dignified, some broken down by grief; while here +and there newly fallen corpses, and in one hideous corner a great heap +of abandoned dead, should point the ghastly words of Thucydides: τον +νεκρον ομου επ' αλλήλοις ξυννενημένων. + +Every landscape has some moment of its own at which it should be seen +for the first time. Mediæval cities, with their narrow streets and +solemn spires, demand the twilight of a summer night. Mediterranean +islands show their best in the haze of afternoon, when sea and sky and +headland are bathed in aë;rial blue, and the mountains seem to be made +of transparent amethyst. The first sight of the Alps should be taken at +sunset from some point of vantage, like the terrace at Berne, or the +castle walls of Salzburg. If these fortunate moments be secured, all +after knowledge of locality and detail serves to fortify and deepen the +impression of picturesque harmony. The mind has then conceived a +leading thought, which gives ideal unity to scattered memories and +invests the 332 crude reality with an æsthetic beauty. The lucky moment +for the landscape of Girgenti is half an hour past sunset in a golden +afterglow. Landing at the port named after Empedocles, having caught +from the sea some glimpses of temple-fronts emergent on green +hill-slopes among almond-trees, with Pindar's epithet of +'splendour-loving' in my mind, I rode on such an evening up the path +which leads across the Drago to Girgenti. The way winds through +deep-sunk lanes of rich amber sandstone, hedged with cactus and +dwarf-palm, and set with old gnarled olive-trees. As the sunlight +faded, Venus shone forth in a luminous sky, and the deep yellows and +purples overhead seemed to mingle with the heavy scent of +orange-flowers from scarcely visible groves by the roadside. Saffron in +the west and violet in the east met midway, composing a translucent +atmosphere of mellow radiance, like some liquid gem—_dolce color d' +oriental berillo_. Girgenti, far off and far up, gazing seaward, and +rearing her topaz-coloured bastions into that gorgeous twilight, shone +like the aë;rial vision of cities seen in dreams or imaged in the +clouds. Hard and sharp against the sallow line of sunset, leaned +grotesque shapes of cactuses like hydras, and delicate silhouettes of +young olive-trees like sylphs: the river ran silver in the hollow, and +the mountain-side on which the town is piled was solid gold. Then came +the dirty dull interior of Girgenti, misnamed the magnificent. But no +disenchantment could destroy the memory of that vision, and Pindar's +φιλάγλαος Ακράγας remains in my mind a reality.[122] + + [122] Lest I should seem to have overstated the splendour of this + sunset view, I must remark that the bare dry landscape of the south is + peculiarly fortunate in such effects. The local tint of the Girgenti + rock is yellow. The vegetation on the hillside is sparse. There is + nothing to prevent the colours of the sky being reflected upon the + vast amber-tinted surface, which then glows with indescribable glory. + +The temples of Girgenti are at the distance of two miles 333 from the +modern town. Placed upon the edge of an irregular plateau which breaks +off abruptly into cliffs of moderate height below them, they stand in a +magnificent row between the sea and plain on one side, and the city and +the hills upon the other. Their colour is that of dusky honey or dun +amber; for they are not built of marble, but of sandstone, which at +some not very distant geological period must have been a sea-bed. +Oyster and scallop shells are embedded in the roughly hewn masonry, +while here and there patches of a red deposit, apparently of broken +coralline, make the surface crimson. The vegetation against which the +ruined colonnades are relieved consists almost wholly of almond and +olive trees, the bright green foliage of the one mingling with the +greys of the other, and both enhancing the warm tints of the stone. +This contrast of colours is very agreeable to the eye; yet when the +temples were perfect it did not exist. There is no doubt that their +surface was coated with a fine stucco, wrought to smoothness, toned +like marble, and painted over with the blue and red and green +decorations proper to the Doric style. This fact is a practical answer +to those æsthetic critics who would fain establish that the Greeks +practised no deception in their arts. The whole effect of the +colonnades of Selinus and Girgenti must have been an illusion, and +their surface must have needed no less constant reparation than the +exterior of a Gothic cathedral. The sham jewellery frequently found in +Greek tombs, and the curious mixture of marble with sandstone in the +sculptures from Selinus, are other instances that Greeks no less than +modern artists condescended to trickery for the sake of effect. In the +series of the metopes from Selinus now preserved in the museum at +Palermo, the flesh of the female persons is represented by white +marble, while that of the men, together with the dresses and other +accessories, is wrought of common 334 stone. Yet the basreliefs in +which this peculiarity occurs belong to the best period of Greek +sculpture, and the groups are not unworthy for spirit and design to be +placed by the side of the metopes of the Parthenon. Most beautiful, for +example, is the contrast between the young unarmed Hercules and the +Amazon he overpowers. His naked man's foot grasps with the muscular +energy of an athlete her soft and helpless woman's foot, the roughness +of the sandstone and the smoothness of the marble really heightening +the effect of difference. + +Though ranged in a row along the same cornice, the temples of Girgenti, +originally at least six in number, were not so disposed that any of +their architectural lines should be exactly parallel. The Greeks +disliked formality; the carefully calculated _asymmetreia_ in the +disposition of their groups of buildings secured variety of effect as +well as a broken surface for the display of light and shadow. This is +very noticeable on the Acropolis of Athens, where, however regular may +be the several buildings, all are placed at different angles to each +other and the hill. Only two of the Girgenti temples survive in any +degree of perfection—the so-called Concordia and the Juno Lacinia. The +rest are but mere heaps of mighty ruins, with here and there a broken +column, and in one place an angle of a pediment raised upon a group of +pillars. The foundations of masonry which supported them and the drums +of their gigantic columns are tufted with wild palm, aloe, asphodel, +and crimson snapdragon. Yellow blossoming sage, and mint, and lavender, +and mignonette, sprout in the crevices where snakes and lizards +harbour. The grass around is gemmed with blue pimpernel and +convolvulus. Gladiolus springs amid the young corn-blades beneath the +almond-trees; while a beautiful little iris makes the most unpromising +dry places brilliant with its delicate greys and blues. In cooler 335 +and damper hollows, around the boles of old olives and under ruined +arches, flourishes the tender acanthus, and the road-sides are gaudy +with a yellow daisy flower, which may perchance be the ελίχρυσος of +Theocritus. Thus the whole scene is a wilderness of brightness, less +radiant but more touching than when processions of men and maidens +bearing urns and laurel-branches, crowned with ivy or with myrtle, +paced along those sandstone roads, chanting pæans and prosodial hymns, +toward the glistening porches and hypæthral cells. + +The only temple about the name of which there can be no doubt is that +of Zeus Olympius. A prostrate giant who once with nineteen of his +fellows helped to support the roof of this enormous fane, and who now +lies in pieces among the asphodels, remains to prove that this was the +building begun by the Agrigentines after the defeat of the Phoenicians +at the Himera, when slaves were many and spoil was abundant, and Hellas +both in Sicily and on the mainland felt a more than usual thrill of +gratitude to their ancestral deity. The greatest architectural works of +the island, the temples of Segeste and Selinus, as well as those of +Girgenti, were begun between this period and the Carthaginian invasion +of 409 B.C. The victory of the Hellenes over the barbarians in 480 +B.C., symbolised in the victory of Zeus over the enslaved Titans of +this temple, gave a vast impulse to their activity and wealth. After +the disastrous incursion of the same foes seventy years later, the +western Greek towns of the island received a check from which they +never recovered. Many of their noblest buildings remained unfinished. +The question which rises to the lips of all who contemplate the ruins +of this gigantic temple and its compeer dedicated to Herakles is this: +Who wrought the destruction of works so solid and enduring? For what +purpose of spite or interest were those vast columns—in the very +flutings of which a man can stand with ease—felled like 336 forest +pines? One sees the mighty pillars lying as they sank, like swathes +beneath the mower's scythe. Their basements are still in line. The +drums which composed them have fallen asunder, but maintain their +original relation to each other on the ground. Was it earthquake or the +hand of man that brought them low? Poggio Bracciolini tells us that in +the fifteenth century they were burning the marble buildings of the +Roman Campagna for lime. We know that the Senator Brancaleone made +havoc among the classic monuments occupied as fortresses by Frangipani +and Savelli and Orsini. We understand how the Farnesi should have +quarried the Coliseum for their palace. But here, at the distance of +three miles from Girgenti, in a comparative desert, what army, or what +band of ruffians, or what palace-builders could have found it worth +their while to devastate mere mountains of sculptured sandstone? The +Romans invariably respected Greek temples. The early Christians used +them for churches:—and this accounts for the comparative perfection of +the Concordia. It was in the age of the Renaissance that the ruin of +Girgenti's noblest monuments occurred. The temple of Zeus Olympius was +shattered in the fifteenth century, and in the next its fragments were +used to build a breakwater. The demolition of such substantial edifices +is as great a wonder as their construction. We marvel at the energy +which must have been employed on their overthrow, no less than at the +art which raised such blocks of stone and placed them in position. + +While so much remains both at Syracuse and at Girgenti to recall the +past, we are forced here, as at Athens, to feel how very little we +really know about Greek life. We cannot bring it up before our fancy +with any clearness, but rather in a sort of hazy dream, from which some +luminous points emerge. The entrance of an Olympian victor through the +337 breach in the city walls of Girgenti, the procession of citizens +conducting old Timoleon in his chariot to the theatre, the conferences +of the younger Dionysius with Plato in his guarded palace-fort, the +stately figure of Empedocles presiding over incantations in the marshes +of Selinus, the austerity of Dion and his mystic dream, the first +appearance of stubborn Gylippus with long Lacedæmonian hair in the +theatre of Syracuse,—such picturesque pieces of history we may fairly +well recapture. But what were the daily occupations of the Simætha of +Theocritus? What was the state dress of the splendid Queen Philistis, +whose name may yet be read upon her seat, and whose face adorns the +coins of Syracuse? How did the great altar of Zeus look, when the oxen +were being slaughtered there by hundreds, in a place which must have +been shambles and meat-market and temple all in one? What scene of +architectural splendour met the eyes of the swimmers in the Piscina of +Girgenti? How were the long hours of so many days of leisure occupied +by the Greeks, who had each three pillows to his head in +'splendour-loving Acragas'? Of what sort was the hospitality of +Gellias? Questions like these rise up to tantalise us with the +hopelessness of ever truly recovering the life of a lost race. After +all the labour of antiquary and the poet, nothing remains to be uttered +but such moralisings as Sir Thomas Browne poured forth over the urns +discovered at Old Walsingham: 'What time the persons of these ossuaries +entered the famous nations of the dead, and slept with princes and +counsellors, might admit a wide solution. But who were the +proprietaries of these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were +a question above antiquarism; not to be resolved by man, nor easily +perhaps by spirits except we consult the provincial guardians, or +tutelary observators.' Death reigns over the peoples of the past, and +we must fain be satisfied to cry with 338 Raleigh: 'O eloquent, just, +and mighty death! whom none could advise, thou hast persuaded; what +none hath dared, thou hast done; and whom all the world hath flattered, +thou only hast cast out of the world and despised: thou hast drawn +together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, cruelty, and +ambition of men, and covered it all over with these two narrow words, +_hic jacet_.' Even so. Yet while the cadence of this august rhetoric is +yet in our ears, another voice is heard as of the angel seated by a +void and open tomb, 'Why seek ye the living among the dead?' The spirit +of Hellas is indestructible, however much the material existence of the +Greeks be lost beyond recovery; for the life of humanity is not many +but one, not parcelled into separate moments but continuous. + +339 + + + + +ATHENS + + +Athens, by virtue of scenery and situation, was predestined to be the +motherland of the free reason of mankind, long before the Athenians had +won by their great deeds the right to name their city the ornament and +the eye of Hellas. Nothing is more obvious to one who has seen many +lands and tried to distinguish their essential characters, than the +fact that no one country exactly resembles another, but that, however +similar in climate and locality, each presents a peculiar and +well-marked property belonging to itself alone. The specific quality of +Athenian landscape is light—not richness or sublimity or romantic +loveliness or grandeur of mountain outline, but luminous beauty, serene +exposure to the airs of heaven. The harmony and balance of the scenery, +so varied in its details and yet so comprehensible, are sympathetic to +the temperance of Greek morality, the moderation of Greek art. The +radiance with which it is illuminated has all the clearness and +distinction of the Attic intellect. From whatever point the plain of +Athens with its semicircle of greater and lesser hills may be surveyed, +it always presents a picture of dignified and lustrous beauty. The +Acropolis is the centre of this landscape, splendid as a work of art +with its crown of temples; and the sea, surmounted by the long low +hills of the Morea, is the boundary to which the eye is irresistibly +led. Mountains and islands and plain alike are made of limestone, +hardening here and there into marble, broken 340 into delicate and +varied forms, and sprinkled with a vegetation of low shrubs and +brushwood so sparse and slight that the naked rock in every direction +meets the light. This rock is grey and colourless: viewed in the +twilight of a misty day, it shows the dull, tame uniformity of bone. +Without the sun it is asleep and sorrowful. But by reason of this very +deadness, the limestone of Athenian landscape is always ready to take +the colours of the air and sun. In noonday it smiles with silvery +lustre, fold upon fold of the indented hills and islands melting from +the brightness of the sea into the untempered brilliance of the sky. At +dawn and sunset the same rocks array themselves with a celestial robe +of rainbow-woven hues: islands, sea, and mountains, far and near, burn +with saffron, violet, and rose, with the tints of beryl and topaz, +sapphire and almandine and amethyst, each in due order and at proper +distances. The fabled dolphin in its death could not have showed a more +brilliant succession of splendours waning into splendours through the +whole chord of prismatic colours. This sensitiveness of the Attic +limestone to every modification of the sky's light gives a peculiar +spirituality to the landscape. The hills remain in form and outline +unchanged; but the beauty breathed upon them lives or dies with the +emotions of the air from whence it emanates: the spirit of light abides +with them and quits them by alternations that seem to be the pulses of +an ethereally communicated life. No country, therefore, could be better +fitted for the home of a race gifted with exquisite sensibilities, in +whom humanity should first attain the freedom of self-consciousness in +art and thought. Αει δια λαμπροτάτου βαίνοντες αβρος αιθέρος—ever +delicately moving through most translucent air—said Euripides of the +Athenians: and truly the bright air of Attica was made to be breathed +by men in whom the light of culture should begin to shine. Ιοστέφανος +is an epithet 341 of Aristophanes for his city; and if not crowned with +other violets, Athens wears for her garland the air-empurpled +hills—Hymettus, Lycabettus, Pentelicus, and Parnes.[123] Consequently, +while still the Greeks of Homer's age were Achaians, while Argos was +the titular seat of Hellenic empire, and the mythic deeds of the heroes +were being enacted in Thebes or Mycenæ, Athens did but bide her time, +waiting to manifest herself as the true godchild of Pallas, who sprang +perfect from the brain of Zeus, Pallas, who is the light of cloudless +heaven emerging after storms. And Pallas, when she planted her chosen +people in Attica, knew well what she was doing. To the far-seeing eyes +of the goddess, although the first-fruits of song and science and +philosophy might be reaped upon the shores of the Ægean and the +islands, yet the days were clearly descried when Athens should stretch +forth her hand to hold the lamp of all her founder loved for Europe. As +the priest of Egypt told Solon: 'She chose the spot of earth in which +you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament of the +seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. Wherefore the +goddess, who was a lover both of war and wisdom, selected and first of +all settled that spot which was the most likely to produce men likest +herself.' This sentence from the 'Timæus' of Plato[124] reveals the +consciousness possessed by the Greeks of that intimate connection which +subsists between a country and the temper of its race. To us the name +Athenai—the fact that Athens by its title even in the prehistoric age +was marked out as the appanage of her 342 who was the patroness of +culture—seems a fortunate accident, an undesigned coincidence of the +most striking sort. To the Greeks, steeped in mythologic faith, +accustomed to regard their lineage as autochthonous and their polity as +the fabric of a god, nothing seemed more natural than that Pallas +should have selected for her own exactly that portion of Hellas where +the arts and sciences might flourish best. Let the Boeotians grow fat +and stagnant upon their rich marshlands: let the Spartans form +themselves into a race of soldiers in their mountain fortress: let +Corinth reign, the queen of commerce, between her double seas: let the +Arcadians in their oak woods worship pastoral Pan: let the plains of +Elis be the meeting-place of Hellenes at their sacred games: let Delphi +boast the seat of sooth oracular from Phoebus. Meanwhile the sunny but +barren hills of Attica, open to the magic of the sky, and beautiful by +reason of their nakedness, must be the home of a people powerful by +might of intelligence rather than strength of limb, wealthy not so much +by natural resources as by enterprise. Here, and here only, could stand +the city sung by Milton:— + +Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil, +Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts +And eloquence, native to famous wits +Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, +City or suburban, studious walks and shades. + + + [123] This interpretation of the epithet Ιοστέφανος is not, I think, + merely fanciful. It seems to occur naturally to those who visit Athens + with the language of Greek poets in their memory. I was glad to find, + on reading a paper by the Dean of Westminster on the topography of + Greece, that the same thought had struck him. Ovid, too, gives the + adjective _purpureus_ to Hymettus. + + + [124] Jowett's translation, vol. ii. p. 520. + +We who believe in no authentic Pallas, child of Zeus, may yet pause +awhile, when we contemplate Athens, to ponder whether those old +mythologic systems, which ascribed to godhead the foundation of states +and the patronage of peoples, had not some glimpse of truth beyond a +mere blind guess. Is not, in fact, this Athenian land the promised and +predestined home of a peculiar people, in the same sense as that 343 in +which Palestine was the heritage by faith of a tribe set apart by +Jehovah for His own? + +Unlike Rome, Athens leaves upon the memory one simple and ineffaceable +impression. There is here no conflict between Paganism and +Christianity, no statues of Hellas baptised by popes into the company +of saints, no blending of the classical and mediæval and Renaissance +influences in a bewilderment of vast antiquity. Rome, true to her +historical vocation, embraces in her ruins all ages, all creeds, all +nations. Her life has never stood still, but has submitted to many +transformations, of which the traces are still visible. Athens, like +the Greeks of history, is isolated in a sort of self-completion: she is +a thing of the past, which still exists, because the spirit never dies, +because beauty is a joy for ever. What is truly remarkable about the +city is just this, that while the modern town is an insignificant +mushroom of the present century, the monuments of Greek art in the best +period—the masterpieces of Ictinus and Mnesicles, and the theatre on +which the plays of the tragedians were produced—survive in comparative +perfection, and are so far unencumbered with subsequent edifices that +the actual Athens of Pericles absorbs our attention. There is nothing +of any consequence intermediate between us and the fourth century B.C.. +Seen from a distance the Acropolis presents nearly the same appearance +as it offered to Spartan guardsmen when they paced the ramparts of +Deceleia. Nature around is all unaltered. Except that more villages, +enclosed with olive-groves and vineyards, were sprinkled over those +bare hills in classic days, no essential change in the landscape has +taken place, no transformation, for example, of equal magnitude with +that which converted the Campagna of Rome from a plain of cities to a +poisonous solitude. All through the centuries which divide us from the +age of Hadrian—centuries unfilled, as far as Athens is concerned, 344 +with memorable deeds or national activity—the Acropolis has stood +uncovered to the sun. The tones of the marble of Pentelicus have daily +grown more golden; decay has here and there invaded frieze and capital; +war too has done its work, shattering the Parthenon in 1687 by the +explosion of a powder magazine, and the Propylæa in 1656 by a similar +accident, and seaming the colonnades that still remain with +cannon-balls in 1827. Yet in spite of time and violence the Acropolis +survives, a miracle of beauty: like an everlasting flower, through all +that lapse of years it has spread its coronal of marbles to the air, +unheeded. And now, more than ever, its temples seem to be incorporate +with the rock they crown. The slabs of column and basement have grown +together by long pressure or molecular adhesion into a coherent whole. +Nor have weeds or creeping ivy invaded the glittering fragments that +strew the sacred hill. The sun's kiss alone has caused a change from +white to amber-hued or russet. Meanwhile, the exquisite adaptation of +Greek building to Greek landscape has been enhanced rather than +impaired by that 'unimaginable touch of time,' which has broken the +regularity of outline, softened the chisel-work of the sculptor, and +confounded the painter's fretwork in one tint of glowing gold. The +Parthenon, the Erechtheum, and the Propylæa have become one with the +hill on which they cluster, as needful to the scenery around them as +the everlasting mountains, as sympathetic as the rest of nature to the +successions of morning and evening, which waken them to passionate life +by the magic touch of colour. + +Thus there is no intrusive element in Athens to distract the mind from +memories of its most glorious past. Walk into the theatre of Dionysus. +The sculptures that support the stage—Sileni bending beneath the weight +of cornices, and lines of graceful youths and maidens—are still in +their 345 ancient station.[125] The pavement of the orchestra, once +trodden by Athenian choruses, presents its tessellated marbles to our +feet; and we may choose the seat of priest or archon or herald or +thesmothetes, when we wish to summon before our mind's eye the pomp of +the 'Agamemnon' or the dances of the 'Birds' and 'Clouds.' Each seat +still bears some carven name—ΙΕΡΕΩΣ ΤΩΝ ΜΟΥΣΩΝ or ΙΕΡΕΩΣ ΑΣΚΛΗΠΙΟΥ—and +that of the priest of Dionysus is beautifully wrought with Bacchic +basreliefs. One of them, inscribed ΙΕΡΕΩΣ ΑΝΤΙΝΟΟΥ, proves indeed that +the extant chairs were placed here in the age of Hadrian, who completed +the vast temple of Zeus Olympius, and filled its precincts with statues +of his favourite, and named a new Athens after his own name.[126] Yet +we need not doubt that their position round the orchestra is +traditional, and that even in their form they do not differ from those +which the priests and officers of Athens used from the time of Æschylus +downward. Probably a slave brought cushion and footstool to complete +the comfort of these stately armchairs. Nothing else is wanted to +render them fit now for their august occupants; and we may imagine the +long-stoled greybearded men throned in state, each with his wand and +with appropriate fillets on his head. As we rest here in the light of +the full moon, which simplifies all outlines and heals with tender +touch the wounds of ages, it is easy enough to dream ourselves into the +belief that the ghosts of dead actors may once more glide across the +stage. 346 Fiery-hearted Medea, statuesque Antigone, Prometheus silent +beneath the hammer-strokes of Force and Strength, Orestes hounded by +his mother's Furies, Cassandra aghast before the palace of Mycenæ, +pure-souled Hippolytus, ruthful Alcestis, the divine youth of Helen, +and Clytemnestra in her queenliness, emerge like faint grey films +against the bluish background of Hymettus. The night air seems vocal +with echoes of old Greek, more felt than heard, like voices wafted to +our sense in sleep, the sound whereof we do not seize, though the +burden lingers in our memory. + + [125] It is true, however, that these sculptures belong to a + comparatively late period, and that the theatre underwent some + alterations in Roman days, so that the stage is now probably a few + yards farther from the seats than in the time of Sophocles. + + + [126] It is not a little surprising to come upon this relic of the + worship of the young Bithynian at Athens in the theatre still + consecrated by the memories of Æschylus and Sophocles. + +In like manner, when moonlight, falling aslant upon the Propylæa, +restores the marble masonry to its original whiteness, and the +shattered heaps of ruined colonnades are veiled in shadow, and every +form seems larger, grander, and more perfect than by day, it is well to +sit upon the lowest steps, and looking upwards, to remember what +processions passed along this way bearing the sacred peplus to Athene. +The Panathenaic pomp, which Pheidias and his pupils carved upon the +friezes of the Parthenon, took place once in five years, on one of the +last days of July.[127] All the citizens joined in the honour paid to +their patroness. Old men bearing olive-branches, young men clothed in +bronze, chapleted youths singing the praise of Pallas in prosodial +hymns, maidens carrying holy vessels, aliens bending beneath the weight +of urns, servants of the temple leading oxen crowned with fillets, +troops of horsemen reining in impetuous steeds: all these pass before +us in the frieze of Pheidias. But to our imagination must be left what +he has refrained from sculpturing, the chariot formed like a ship, in +which the most illustrious nobles of Athens sat, splendidly arrayed, +beneath the crocus-coloured curtain or 347 peplus outspread upon a +mast. Some concealed machinery caused this car to move; but whether it +passed through the Propylæa, and entered the Acropolis, admits of +doubt. It is, however, certain that the procession which ascended those +steep slabs, and before whom the vast gates of the Propylæa swang open +with the clangour of resounding bronze, included not only the citizens +of Athens and their attendant aliens, but also troops of cavalry and +chariots; for the mark of chariot-wheels can still be traced upon the +rock. The ascent is so abrupt that this multitude moved but slowly. +Splendid indeed, beyond any pomp of modern ceremonial, must have been +the spectacle of the well-ordered procession, advancing through those +giant colonnades to the sound of flutes and solemn chants—the shrill +clear voices of boys in antiphonal chorus rising above the confused +murmurs of such a crowd, the chafing of horses' hoofs upon the stone, +and the lowing of bewildered oxen. + + [127] My purpose being merely picturesque, I have ignored the grave + antiquarian difficulties which beset the interpretation of this + frieze. + +To realise by fancy the many-coloured radiance of the temples, and the +rich dresses of the votaries illuminated by that sharp light of a Greek +sun, which defines outline and shadow and gives value to the faintest +hue, would be impossible. All we can know for positive about the +chromatic decoration of the Greeks is, that whiteness artificially +subdued to the tone of ivory prevailed throughout the stonework of the +buildings, while blue and red and green in distinct, yet interwoven +patterns, added richness to the fretwork and the sculpture of pediment +and frieze. The sacramental robes of the worshippers accorded doubtless +with this harmony, wherein colour was subordinate to light, and light +was toned to softness. + +Musing thus upon the staircase of the Propylæa, we may say with truth +that all our modern art is but child's play to that of the Greeks. Very +soul-subduing is the gloom of a 348 cathedral like the Milanese Duomo, +when the incense rises in blue clouds athwart the bands of sunlight +falling from the dome, and the crying of choirs upborne upon the wings +of organ music fills the whole vast space with a mystery of melody. Yet +such ceremonial pomps as this are as dreams and the shapes of visions, +when compared with the clearly defined splendours of a Greek procession +through marble peristyles in open air beneath the sun and sky. That +spectacle combined the harmonies of perfect human forms in movement +with the divine shapes of statues, the radiance of carefully selected +vestments with hues inwrought upon pure marble. The rhythms and the +melodies of the Doric mood were sympathetic to the proportions of the +Doric colonnades. The grove of pillars through which the pageant passed +grew from the living rock into shapes of beauty, fulfilling by the +inbreathed spirit of man Nature's blind yearning after absolute +completion. The sun himself—not thwarted by artificial gloom, or +tricked with alien colours of stained glass—was made to minister in all +his strength to a pomp, the pride of which was the display of form in +manifold magnificence. The ritual of the Greeks was the ritual of a +race at one with Nature, glorying in its affiliation to the mighty +mother of all life, and striving to add by human art the coping-stone +and final touch to her achievement. The ritual of the Catholic Church +is the ritual of a race shut out from Nature, holding no communion with +the powers of earth and air, but turning the spirit inwards and aiming +at the concentration of the whole soul upon an unseen God. The temple +of the Greeks was the house of a present deity; its cell his chamber; +its statue his reality. The Christian cathedral is the fane where God +who is a spirit is worshipped; no statue fills the choir from wall to +wall and lifts its forehead to the roof; but the vacant aisles, with +their convergent arches soaring upwards 349 to the dome, are made to +suggest the brooding of infinite and omnipresent Godhead. It was the +object of the Greek artist to preserve a just proportion between the +god's statue and his house, in order that the worshipper might approach +him as a subject draws near to his monarch's throne. The Christian +architect seeks to affect the emotions of the votary with a sense of +vastness filled with unseen power. Our cathedrals are symbols of the +universe where God is everywhere pavilioned and invisible. The Greek +temple was a practical, utilitarian dwelling-house, made beautiful +enough to suit divinity. The modern church is an idea expressed in +stone, an aspiration of the spirit, shooting up from arch and pinnacle +and spire into illimitable fields of air. + +It follows from these differences between the religious aims of Pagan +and Christian architecture, that the former was far more favourable to +the plastic arts. No beautiful or simple incident of human life was an +inappropriate subject for the sculptor, in adorning the houses of gods +who were themselves but human on a higher level; and the ritual whereby +the gods were honoured was merely an exhibition, in its strength and +joyfulness, of mortal beauty. Therefore the Panathenaic procession +furnished Pheidias with a series of sculptural motives, which he had +only to express according to the principles of his art. The frieze, +three feet and four inches in height, raised forty feet above the +pavement of the peristyle, ran for five hundred and twenty-four +continuous feet round the outside wall of the cella of the Parthenon. +The whole of this long line was wrought with carving of exquisite +delicacy and supreme vigour, in such low relief as its peculiar +position, far above the heads of the spectators, and only illuminated +by light reflected from below, required. Each figure, each attitude, +and each fold of drapery in its countless groups is a study; yet the +whole was a transcript from actual contemporary 350 Athenian life. +Truly in matters of art we are but infants to the Greeks. + +The topographical certainty which invests the ruins of the Acropolis +with such peculiar interest, belongs in a less degree to the whole of +Athens. Although the most recent researches have thrown fresh doubt +upon the exact site of the Pnyx, and though no traces of the agora +remain, yet we may be sure that the Bema from which Pericles sustained +the courage of the Athenians during the Peloponnesian war, was placed +upon the northern slope looking towards the Propylæa, while the wide +irregular space between this hill, the Acropolis, the Areopagus, and +the Theseum, must have formed the meeting-ground for amusement and +discussion of the citizens at leisure. About Areopagus, with its +tribunal hollowed in the native rock, and the deep cleft beneath, where +the shrine of the Eumenides was built, there is no question. The +extreme insignificance of this little mound may at first indeed excite +incredulity and wonder; but a few hours in Athens accustom the +traveller to a smallness of scale which at first sight seemed +ridiculous. Colonus, for example, the Colonus which every student of +Sophocles has pictured to himself in the solitude of unshorn meadows, +where groves of cypresses and olives bent unpruned above wild tangles +of narcissus flowers and crocuses, and where the nightingale sang +undisturbed by city noise or labour of the husbandman, turns out to be +a scarcely appreciable mound, gently swelling from the cultivated land +of the Cephissus. The Cephissus even in a rainy season may be crossed +dryshod by an active jumper; and the Ilissus, where it flows beneath +the walls of the Olympieion, is now dedicated to washerwomen instead of +water-nymphs. Nature herself remains, on the whole, unaltered. Most +notable are still the white poplars dedicated of old to Herakles, and +the spreading planes which whisper to the 351 limes in spring. In the +midst of so arid and bare a landscape, these umbrageous trees are +singularly grateful to the eye and to the sense oppressed with heat and +splendour. Nightingales have not ceased to crowd the gardens in such +numbers as to justify the tradition of their Attic origin, nor have the +bees of Hymettus forgotten their labours: the honey of Athens can still +boast a quality superior to that of Hybla or any other famous haunt of +hives. + +Tradition points out one spot which commands a beautiful distant view +of Athens and the hills, as the garden of the Academy. The place is not +unworthy of Plato and his companions. Very old olives grow in +abundance, to remind us of those sacred trees beneath which the boys of +Aristophanes ran races; and reeds with which they might crown their +foreheads are thickly scattered through the grass. Abeles interlace +their murmuring branches overhead, and the planes are as leafy as that +which invited Socrates and Phædrus on the morning when they talked of +love. In such a place we comprehend how philosophy went hand in hand at +Athens with gymnastics, and why the poplar and the plane were dedicated +to athletic gods. For the wrestling-grounds were built in groves like +these, and their cool peristyles, the meeting-places of young men and +boys, supplied the sages not only with an eager audience, but also with +the leisure and the shade that learning loves. + +It was very characteristic of Greek life that speculative philosophy +should not have chosen 'to walk the studious cloister pale,' but should +rather have sought out places where 'the busy hum of men' was loudest, +and where youthful voices echoed. The Athenian transacted no business, +and pursued but few pleasures, under a private roof. He conversed and +bargained in the agora, debated on the open rocks of the Pnyx, and +enjoyed discussion in the courts of the 352 gymnasium. It is also far +from difficult to understand beneath this over-vaulted and grateful +gloom of bee-laden branches, what part love played in the haunts of +runners and of wrestlers, why near the statue of Hermes stood that of +Erôs, and wherefore Socrates surnamed his philosophy the Science of +Love. Φιλοσοφουμεν ανευ μαλακίας is the boast of Pericles in his +description of the Athenian spirit. Φιλοσοφία μετα παιδεραστίας is +Plato's formula for the virtues of the most distinguished soul. These +two mottoes, apparently so contradictory, found their point of meeting +and their harmony in the gymnasium. + +The mere contemplation of these luxuriant groves, set in the luminous +Attic landscape, and within sight of Athens, explains a hundred +passages of poets and philosophers. Turn to the opening scenes of the +'Lysis' and the 'Charmides.' The action of the latter dialogue is laid +in the palæstra of Taureas. Socrates has just returned from the camp at +Potidæa, and after answering the questions of his friends, has begun to +satisfy his own curiosity:[128]— + +When there had been enough of this, I, in my turn, began to make +inquiries about matters at home—about the present state of philosophy, +and about the youth. I asked whether any of them were remarkable for +beauty or sense—or both. Critias, glancing at the door, invited my +attention to some youths who were coming in, and talking noisily to one +another, followed by a crowd. 'Of the beauties, Socrates,' he said, 'I +fancy that you will soon be able to form a judgment. For those who are +just entering are the advanced guard of the great beauty of the day—and +he is likely not to be far off himself.' + +'Who is he?' I said; 'and who is his father?' + +'Charmides,' he replied, 'is his name; he is my cousin, and the son of +my uncle Glaucon: I rather think that you know him, although he was not +grown up at the time of your departure.' + +'Certainly I know him,' I said; 'for he was remarkable even 353 then +when he was still a child, and now I should imagine that he must be +almost a young man.' + +'You will see,' he said, 'in a moment what progress he has made, and +what he is like.' He had scarcely said the word, when Charmides +entered. + +Now you know, my friend, that I cannot measure anything, and of the +beautiful, I am simply such a measure as a white line is of chalk; for +almost all young persons are alike beautiful in my eyes. But at that +moment, when I saw him coming in, I must admit that I was quite +astonished at his beauty and stature; all the world seemed to be +enamoured of him; amazement and confusion reigned when he entered; and +a troop of lovers followed him. That grown-up men like ourselves should +have been affected in this way was not surprising, but I observed that +there was the same feeling among the boys; all of them, down to the +very least child, turned and looked at him as if he had been a statue. + +Chaerephon called me and said: 'What do you think of him, Socrates? Has +he not a beautiful face?' + +'That he has indeed,' I said. + +'But you would think nothing of his face,' he replied, 'if you could +see his naked form: he is absolutely perfect.' + + [128] I quote from Professor Jowett's translation. + +This Charmides is a true Greek of the perfect type. Not only is he the +most beautiful of Athenian youths; he is also temperate, modest, and +subject to the laws of moral health. His very beauty is a harmony of +well-developed faculties in which the mind and body are at one. How a +young Greek managed to preserve this balance in the midst of the +admiring crowds described by Socrates is a marvel. Modern conventions +unfit our minds for realising the conditions under which he had to +live. Yet it is indisputable that Plato has strained no point in the +animated picture he presents of the palæstra. Aristophanes and Xenophon +bear him out in all the details of the scene. We have to imagine a +totally different system of social morality from ours, with virtues and +vices, temptations and triumphs, unknown to our young men. The next +scene from the 'Lysis' introduces us to another wrestling-ground 354 in +the neighbourhood of Athens. Here Socrates meets with Hippothales, who +is a devoted lover but a bad poet. Hippothales asks the philosopher's +advice as to the best method of pleasing the boy Lysis:— + +'Will you tell me by what words or actions I may become endeared to my +love?' + +'That is not easy to determine,' I said; 'but if you will bring your +love to me, and will let me talk with him, I may perhaps be able to +show you how to converse with him, instead of singing and reciting in +the fashion of which you are accused.' + +'There will be no difficulty in bringing him,' he replied; 'if you will +only go into the house with Ctesippus, and sit down and talk, he will +come of himself; for he is fond of listening, Socrates. And as this is +the festival of the Hermæa, there is no separation of young men and +boys, but they are all mixed up together. He will be sure to come. But +if he does not come, Ctesippus, with whom he is familiar, and whose +relation Menexenus is, his great friend, shall call him.' + +'That will be the way,' I said. Thereupon I and Ctesippus went towards +the Palæstra, and the rest followed. + +Upon entering we found that the boys had just been sacrificing; and +this part of the festival was nearly come to an end. They were all in +white array, and games at dice were going on among them. Most of them +were in the outer court amusing themselves; but some were in a corner +of the Apodyterium playing at odd-and-even with a number of dice, which +they took out of little wicker baskets. There was also a circle of +lookers-on, one of whom was Lysis. He was standing among the other boys +and youths, having a crown upon his head, like a fair vision, and not +less worthy of praise for his goodness than for his beauty. We left +them, and went over to the opposite side of the room, where we found a +quiet place, and sat down; and then we began to talk. This attracted +Lysis, who was constantly turning round to look at us—he was evidently +wanting to come to us. For a time he hesitated and had not the courage +to come alone; but first of all, his friend Menexenus came in out of +the court in the interval of his play, and when he saw Ctesippus and +myself, came and sat by us; and then Lysis, seeing him, followed and +sat down with him; and the other boys joined. I should observe that +Hippothales, when he saw the 355 crowd, got behind them, where he +thought that he would be out of sight of Lysis, lest he should anger +him; and there he stood and listened. + +Enough has been quoted to show that beneath the porches of a Greek +palæstra, among the youths of Athens, who wrote no exercises in dead +languages, and thought chiefly of attaining to perfect manhood by the +harmonious exercise of mind and body in temperate leisure, divine +philosophy must indeed have been charming both to teachers and to +learners:— + +Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, +But musical as is Apollo's lute, +And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets +Where no crude surfeit reigns. + +There are no remains above ground of the buildings which made the Attic +gymnasia splendid. Nor are there in Athens itself many statues of the +noble human beings who paced their porches and reclined beneath their +shade. The galleries of Italy and the verses of the poets can alone +help us to repeople the Academy with its mixed multitude of athletes +and of sages. The language of Simætha, in Theocritus, brings the +younger men before us: their cheeks are yellower than helichrysus with +the down of youth, and their breasts shine brighter far than the moon, +as though they had but lately left the 'fair toils of the +wrestling-ground.' Upon some of the monumental tablets exposed in the +burying-ground of Cerameicus and in the Theseum may be seen portraits +of Athenian citizens. A young man holding a bird, with a boy beside him +who carries a lamp or strigil; a youth, naked, and scraping himself +after the games; a boy taking leave with clasped hands of his mother, +while a dog leaps up to fawn upon his knee; a wine-party; a soul in +Charon's boat; a husband parting from his wife: such are the simple 356 +subjects of these monuments; and under each is written ΧΡΗΣΤΕ +ΧΑΙΡΕ—Friend, farewell! The tombs of the women are equally plain in +character: a nurse brings a baby to its mother, or a slave helps her +mistress at the toilette table. There is nothing to suggest either the +gloom of the grave or the hope of heaven in any of these sculptures. +Their symbolism, if it at all exist, is of the least mysterious kind. +Our attention is rather fixed upon the commonest affairs of life than +on the secrets of death. + +As we wander through the ruins of Athens, among temples which are all +but perfect, and gardens which still keep their ancient greenery, we +must perforce reflect how all true knowledge of Greek life has passed +away. To picture to ourselves its details, so as to become quite +familiar with the way in which an Athenian thought and felt and +occupied his time, is impossible. Such books as the 'Charicles' of +Becker or Wieland's 'Agathon' only increase our sense of hopelessness, +by showing that neither a scholar's learning nor a poet's fancy can +pierce the mists of antiquity. We know that it was a strange and +fascinating life, passed for the most part beneath the public eye, at +leisure, without the society of free women, without what we call a +home, in constant exercise of body and mind, in the duties of the +law-courts and the assembly, in the toils of the camp and the perils of +the sea, in the amusements of the wrestling-ground and the theatre, in +sportful study and strenuous play. We also know that the citizens of +Athens, bred up under the peculiar conditions of this artificial life, +became impassioned lovers of their city;[129] that the greatest +generals, statesmen, poets, orators, artists, historians, and +philosophers that the world can boast, were produced in the short space +of a century and a half by a city 357 numbering about 20,000 burghers. +It is scarcely an exaggeration to say with the author of 'Hereditary +Genius,' that the population of Athens, taken as a whole, was as +superior to us as we are to the Australian savages. Long and earnest, +therefore, should be our hesitation before we condemn as pernicious or +unprofitable the instincts and the customs of such a race. + + [129] Την της πόλεως δύναμιν καθ' εμεραν εργω θεωμένους και εραστας + γιγνομένους αυτης.—Thuc. ii. 43. + +The permanence of strongly marked features in of Greece, and the small +scale of the whole country, add a vivid charm to the scenery of its +great events. In the harbour of Peiræus we can scarcely fail to picture +to ourselves the pomp which went forth to Sicily that solemn morning, +when the whole host prayed together and made libations at the signal of +the herald's trumpet. The nation of athletes and artists and +philosophers were embarked on what seemed to some a holiday excursion, +and for others bid fair to realise unbounded dreams of ambition or +avarice. Only a few were heavy-hearted; but the heaviest of all was the +general who had vainly dissuaded his countrymen from the endeavour, and +fruitlessly refused the command thrust upon him. That was 'the morning +of a mighty day, a day of crisis' for the destinies of Athens. Of all +that multitude, how few would come again; of the empire which they made +so manifest in its pride of men and arms, how little but a shadow would +be left, when war and fever and the quarries of Syracuse had done their +fore-appointed work! Yet no commotion of the elements, no eclipse or +authentic oracle from heaven, was interposed between the arrogance of +Athens and sure-coming Nemesis. The sun shone, and the waves laughed, +smitten by the oars of galleys racing to Ægina. Meanwhile Zeus from the +watchtower of the world held up the scales of fate, and the balance of +Athens was wavering to its fall. + +A few strokes of the oar carry us away from Peiræus to a 358 scene +fraught with far more thrilling memories. That little point of rock +emergent from the water between Salamis and the mainland, bare, +insignificant, and void of honour among islands to the natural eye, is +Psyttaleia. A strange tightening at the heart assails us when we +approach the centre-point of the most memorable battlefield of history. +It was again 'the morning of a mighty day, a day of crisis' for the +destinies, not of Athens alone, but of humanity, when the Persian +fleet, after rowing all night up and down the channel between Salamis +and the shore, beheld the face of Phoebus flash from behind Pentelicus +and flood the Acropolis of Athens with fire. The Peiræius recalls a +crisis in the world's drama whereof the great actors were unconscious: +fair winds and sunny waves bore light hearts to Sicily. But Psyttaleia +brings before us the heroism of a handful of men, who knew that the +supreme hour of ruin or of victory for their nation and themselves had +come. Terrible therefore was the energy with which they prayed and +joined their pæan to the trumpet-blast of dawn that blazed upon them +from the Attic hills. And this time Zeus, when he heard their cry, saw +the scale of Hellas mount to the stars. Let Æschylus tell the tale; for +he was there. A Persian is giving an account of the defeat of Salamis +to Atossa:— + +The whole disaster, O my queen, began +With some fell fiend or devil,—I know not whence: +For thus it was; from the Athenian host +A man of Hellas came to thy son, Xerxes, +Saying that when black night shall fall in gloom, +The Hellenes would no longer stay, but leap +Each on the benches of his bark, and save +Hither and thither by stolen flight their lives. +He, when he heard thereof, discerning not +The Hellene's craft, no, nor the spite of heaven, +To all his captains gives this edict forth: +When as the sun doth cease to light the world, +359 And darkness holds the precincts of the sky, +They should dispose the fleet in three close ranks, +To guard the outlets and the water-ways; +Others should compass Ajax' isle around: +Seeing that if the Hellenes 'scaped grim death +By finding for their ships some privy exit, +It was ordained that all should lose their heads. +So spake he, led by a mad mind astray, +Nor knew what should be by the will of heaven. +They, like well-ordered vassals, with assent +Straightway prepared their food, and every sailor +Fitted his oar-blade to the steady rowlock. +But when the sunlight waned and night apace +Descended, every man who swayed an oar +Went to the boats with him who wielded armour. +Then through the ship's length rank cheered rank in concert, +Sailing as each was set in order due: +And all night long the tyrants of the ships +Kept the whole navy cruising to and fro. +Night passed: yet never did the host of Hellene +At any point attempt their stolen sally; +Until at length, when day with her white steeds +Forth shining, held the whole world under sway. +First from the Hellenes with a loud clear cry +Song-like, a shout made music, and therewith +The echo of the rocky isle rang back +Shrill triumph: but the vast barbarian host +Shorn of their hope trembled; for not for flight +The Hellenes hymned their solemn pæan then— +Nay, rather as for battle with stout heart. +Then too the trumpet speaking fired our foes, +And with a sudden rush of oars in time +They smote the deep sea at that clarion cry; +And in a moment you might see them all. +The right wing in due order well arrayed +First took the lead; then came the serried squadron +Swelling against us, and from many voices +One cry arose: Ho! sons of Hellenes, up! +Now free your fatherland, now free your sons, +Your wives, the fanes of your ancestral gods, +360 Your fathers' tombs! Now fight you for your all. +Yea, and from our side brake an answering hum +Of Persian voices. Then, no more delay, +Ship upon ship her beak of biting brass +Struck stoutly. 'Twas a bark, I ween, of Hellas +First charged, dashing from a Tyrrhenian galleon +Her prow-gear; then ran hull on hull pell-mell. +At first the torrent of the Persian navy +Bore up: but when the multitude of ships +Were straitly jammed, and none could help another, +Huddling with brazen-mouthed beaks they clashed +And brake their serried banks of oars together; +Nor were the Hellenes slow or slack to muster +And pound them in a circle. Then ships' hulks +Floated keel upwards, and the sea was covered +With shipwreck multitudinous and with slaughter. +The shores and jutting reefs were full of corpses. +In indiscriminate rout, with straining oar, +The whole barbarian navy turned and fled. +Our foes, like men 'mid tunnies, draughts of fishes, +With splintered oars and spokes of shattered spars +Kept striking, grinding, smashing us: shrill shrieks +With groanings mingled held the hollow deep, +Till night's dark eye set limit to the slaughter. +But for our mass of miseries, could I speak +Straight on for ten days, I should never sum it: +For know this well, never in one day died +Of men so many multitudes before. + +After a pause he resumes his narrative by describing Psyttaleia:— + +There lies an island before Salamis, +Small, with scant harbour, which dance-loving Pan +Is wont to tread, haunting the salt sea-beaches. +There Xerxes placed his chiefs, that when the foes +Chased from their ships should seek the sheltering isle, +They might with ease destroy the host of Hellas, +Saving their own friends from the briny straits. +Ill had he learned what was to hap; for when +God gave the glory to the Greeks at sea, +361 That same day, having fenced their flesh with brass, +They leaped from out their ships; and in a circle +Enclosed the whole girth of the isle, that so +None knew where he should turn; but many fell +Crushed with sharp stones in conflict, and swift arrows +Flew from the quivering bowstrings winged with murder. +At last in one fierce onset with one shout +They strike, hack, hew the wretches' limbs asunder, +Till every man alive had fallen beneath them. +Then Xerxes groaned, seeing the gulf unclose +Of grief below him; for his throne was raised +High in the sight of all by the sea-shore. +Rending his robes, and shrieking a shrill shriek, +He hurriedly gave orders to his host; +Then headlong rushed in rout and heedless ruin. + + +Atossa makes appropriate exclamations of despair and horror. Then the +messenger proceeds:— + +The captains of the ships that were not shattered, +Set speedy sail in flight as the winds blew. +The remnant of the host died miserably, +Some in Boeotia round the glimmering springs +Tired out with thirst; some of us scant of breath +Escaped, with bare life to the Phocian bounds, +And land of Doris, and the Melian Gulf, +Where with kind draughts Spercheius soaks the soil. +Thence in our flight Achaia's ancient plain +And Thessaly's stronghold received us worn +For want of food. Most died in that fell place +Of thirst and famine; for both deaths were there. +Yet to Magnesia came we and the coast +Of Macedonia, to the ford of Axius, +And Bolbe's canebrakes and the Pangæan range, +Edonian borders. Then in that grim night +God sent unseasonable frost, and froze +The stream of holy Strymon. He who erst +Recked nought of gods, now prayed with supplication, +Bowing before the powers of earth and sky. +But when the hosts from lengthy orisons +Surceased, it crossed the ice-incrusted ford. +362 And he among us who set forth before +The sun-god's rays were scattered, now was saved. +For blazing with sharp beams the sun's bright circle +Pierced the mid-stream, dissolving it with fire. +There were they huddled. Happy then was he +Who soonest cut the breath of life asunder. +Such as survived and had the luck of living, +Crossed Thrace with pain and peril manifold, +'Scaping mischance, a miserable remnant, +Into the dear land of their homes. Wherefore +Persia may wail, wanting in vain her darlings. +This is the truth. Much I omit to tell +Of woes by God wrought on the Persian race. + + +Upon this triumphal note it were well, perhaps, to pause. Yet since the +sojourner in Athens must needs depart by sea, let us advance a little +way farther beyond Salamis. The low shore of the isthmus soon appears; +and there is the hill of Corinth and the site of the city, as desolate +now as when Antipater of Sidon made the sea-waves utter a threnos over +her ruins. 'The deathless Nereids, daughters of Oceanus,' still lament +by the shore, and the Isthmian pines are as green as when their boughs +were plucked to bind a victor's forehead. Feathering the grey rock now +as then, they bear witness to the wisdom and the moderation of the +Greeks, who gave to the conquerors in sacred games no wreath of gold, +or title of nobility, or land, or jewels, but the honour of an +illustrious name, the guerdon of a mighty deed, and branches taken from +the wild pine of Corinth, or the olive of Olympia, or the bay that +flourished like a weed at Delphi. What was indigenous and +characteristic of his native soil, not rare and costly things from +foreign lands, was precious to the Greek. This piety, after the lapse +of centuries and the passing away of mighty cities, still bears fruit. +Oblivion cannot wholly efface the memory of those great games while the +fir-trees rustle to the sea-wind as of old. Down the gulf we pass, +between mountain 363 range and mountain. On one hand, two peaked +Parnassus rears his cope of snow aloft over Delphi; on the other, +Erymanthus and Hermes' home, Cyllene, bar the pastoral glades of +Arcady. Greece is the land of mountains, not of rivers or of plains. +The titles of the hills of Hellas smite our ears with echoes of ancient +music—Olympus and Cithæron, Taygetus, Othrys, Helicon, and Ida. The +headlands of the mainland are mountains, and the islands are mountain +summits of a submerged continent. Austerely beautiful, not wild with an +Italian luxuriance, nor mournful with Sicilian monotony of outline, nor +yet again overwhelming with the sublimity of Alps, they seem the proper +home of a race which sought its ideal of beauty in distinction of shape +and not in multiplicity of detail, in light and not in richness of +colouring, in form and not in size. + +At length the open sea is reached. Past Zante and Cephalonia we glide +'under a roof of blue Ionian weather;' or, if the sky has been troubled +with storm, we watch the moulding of long glittering cloud-lines, +processions and pomps of silvery vapour, fretwork and frieze of +alabaster piled above the islands, pearled promontories and domes of +rounded snow. Soon Santa Maura comes in sight:— + +Leucatæ nimbosa cacumina montis, +Et formidatus nautis aperitur Apollo. + +Here Sappho leapt into the waves to cure love-longing, according to the +ancient story; and he who sees the white cliffs chafed with breakers +and burning with fierce light, as it was once my luck to see them, may +well with Childe Harold 'feel or deem he feels no common glow.' All +through the afternoon it had been raining, and the sea was running high +beneath a petulant west wind. But just before evening, while yet there +remained a hand's-breadth between the sea and the 364 sinking sun, the +clouds were rent and blown in masses about the sky. Rain still fell +fretfully in scuds and fleeces; but where for hours there had been +nothing but a monotone of greyness, suddenly fire broke and radiance +and storm-clouds in commotion. Then, as if built up by music, a rainbow +rose and grew above Leucadia, planting one foot on Actium and the other +on Ithaca, and spanning with a horseshoe arch that touched the zenith, +the long line of roseate cliffs. The clouds upon which this bow was +woven were steel-blue beneath and crimson above; and the bow itself was +bathed in fire—its violets and greens and yellows visibly ignited by +the liquid flame on which it rested. The sea beneath, stormily dancing, +flashed back from all its crest the same red glow, shining like a +ridged lava-torrent in its first combustion. Then as the sun sank, the +crags burned deeper with scarlet blushes as of blood, and with +passionate bloom as of pomegranate or oleander flowers. Could Turner +rise from the grave to paint a picture that should bear the name of +'Sappho's Leap,' he might strive to paint it thus: and the world would +complain that he had dreamed the poetry of his picture. But who could +_dream_ anything so wild and yet so definite? Only the passion of +orchestras, the fire-flight of the last movement of the C minor +symphony, can in the realms of art give utterance to the spirit of +scenes like this. + + + + +INDEX + + +Aar, the, i. 20 + +Abano, ii. 98 + +Abruzzi, the, ii. 34; iii. 230, 235, 236 + +Acciaiuoli, Agnolo, ii. 226 + +Acciauoli, the, iii. 98 + +Accolti, Bernardo, ii. 83 + +Accona, iii. 72, 74 + +Accoramboni, Camillo, ii. 91: + +Claudio, ii. 89: + + +Flaminio, ii. 91, 99, 100, 103 foll., 118 foll., 126: + +Marcello, ii. 91 foll., 99, 102, 103, 105: + +Mario, ii. 91: + +Ottavio, ii. 91: + +Scipione, ii. 91: + +Tarquinia, ii. 89, 92, 103: + +Vittoria, ii. 89-125 + + +Achilles, iii. 286 + +Achradina, iii. 321, 324 + +Aci, iii. 287 + +Aci Castello, iii. 284 + +Acis and Galatea, iii. 284, 285 + +Acropolis, the, iii. 339, 344, 347 + +Actium, iii. 364 + +Adda, the, i. 50, 51, 62, 63, 174 + +Addison, i. 3 + +Adelaide, Queen of Lothair, King of Italy, ii. 169, 178 + +Adelaisie (wife of Berald des Baux), i. 80 + +Adrian VI. (Pope), ii. 251 + +Adriatic, the, ii. 1, 3, 56, 59 + +Æ, iii. 319 + +Æschylus, iii. 162, 271, 345, 358-362 + +Affò, Padre Ireneo, ii. 363 _note_ + +Agrigentines, the, iii. 335 + +Agrigentum, iii. 266 + +Ajaccio, i. 104-120 + +Alamanni, Antonio, ii. 328 + +Alban Hills, ii. 32 + +Albany, Countess of, i. 352 + +Alberti, house of the, ii. 213 + +Alberti, Leo Battista, i. 216; ii. 14, 18, 21-29; iii. 102 + +Albizzi, the, ii. 50, 209, 213 foll., 221, 224 + +Albizzi, Maso degli, ii. 213-215 + +Albizzi, Rinaldo degli, ii. 215, 218, 220, 221, 256 + +Albula, ii. 127, 128; + + +Pass of, i. 53 + + +Aleotti, Giambattista, ii. 180 + +Alexander the Great, iii. 262 + +Alexander VI., ii. 47, 74, 184, 191, 193, 237, 363 _note_ + +Alexandria, ii. 19; iii. 189, 190, 201, 253 + +Alfieri, i. 342, 345-359 + +Alfonso of Aragon, i. 195, 203; ii. 189, 235 + +Alps, the, i. 1-67, 122, 123, 126, 133, 209, 258; ii. 8, 129, 168 _et +passim_ + +Amadeo, Gian Antonio, i. 146, 150, 151, 191-193, 243 + +Amalasuntha, daughter of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ii. 2, 13 + +Amalfi, i. 103 _note_; iii. 250-261 + +Ambrogini family, iii. 101 + +Ambrogini, Angelo. (_See_ Poliziano, Angelo) + +Ambrogini, Benedetto, iii. 101, 102 + +Ampezzo, the, i. 268 + +Ana-Capri, iii. 231, 232, 271 + +Anapus, the, iii. 326, 328 + +Anchises, iii. 319 + +Ancona, i. 196, 198; ii. 14, 38, 45, 55, 102, 199; iii. 111 + +Ancona, Professor d', ii. 276 _note_ + +Andrea, Giovann', i. 318 + +Andreini, ii. 269 + +Angeli, Niccolo, iii. 151 + +Angelico, Fra, i. 100, 240; ii. 49; iii. 35, 61, 147-149, 151, 248 + +Angelo, S., ii. 96 + +Angelo, Giovan. (_See_ Pius IV.) + +Angiolieri, Cecco, iii. 1 2 + +Anguillara, Deifobo, Count of, i. 202 + +Anjou, house of, ii. 188 + +Ansano, S., iii. 70 + +Anselmi, ii. 158 + +Antegnate, i. 197 + +Antelao, i. 268, 283 + +Antibes, i. 102 + +Antinoë, iii. 191, 205 + +Antinoopolis, iii. 191, 205 + +Antinous, iii. 184-197, 200-229 + +Antipater, iii. 322, 362 + +Antiquari, Jacobo, iii. 126 _note_ + +Antonio da Venafro, ii. 47 + +Aosta, i. 2 + +Apennines, the, i. 45, 99, 133; ii. 7, 8, 37, 45, 56, 62, 65, 66, 132 +foll., 145, 168; iii. 91 _et passim_ + +Apollonius of Tyana, iii. 216 + +Apulia, i. 87 _note_; iii. 305 + +Aquaviva, Dominico d', ii. 94 + +Aquila, i. 196 + +Aragazzi, Bartolommeo, iii. 95-100 + +Aragon, Kings of, i. 79 + +Arausio, i. 68 + +Archimedes, iii. 325 + +Arcipreti family, the, iii. 113 + +Ardoin of Milan, iii. 299, 300 + +Aretine, the, ii. 83 + +Aretino, Pietro, ii. 91 + +Aretino, Spinello, iii. 304 + +Aretusi, Cesare, ii. 149 _note_ + +Arezzo, ii. 214; iii. 7, 91, 96, 151 _note_; + + +Bishop of, iii. 74 + + +Ariosto, i. 71; ii. 66, 160, 168, 261, 264, 265, 267, 269, 273, 280, +336, 343 + +Aristides, iii. 196 + +Aristophanes, i. 84 _note_; iii. 161, 341, 351, 353 + +Aristotle, i. 249; ii. 74; iii. 309 + +Aristoxenus, iii. 262, 263 + +Arles, i. 76-81; + + +King of, i. 79 + + +Arno, the, iii. 91; + + +valley of, iii. 41 + + +Arosa, valley of, i. 33 + +Arqua, i. 167, 168 + +Arrian, iii. 205 + +Aruns, iii. 94 + +Ascham, Roger, ii. 265, 266 + +Asciano, iii. 86, 87 + +Asinarus, iii. 327 + +Assisi, i. 137; ii. 35, 39, 43, 44, 46; iii. 35, 68, 111, 114, 140 + +Asso, the, iii. 108 + +Asti, i. 347, 348; ii. 193, 197 + +Astolphus, ii. 2 + +Athens, i. 243; iii. 156, 169, 182, 188, 207, 323, 339-364 + +Athens, Duke of, ii. 207, 208, 233 _note_ + +Atrani, iii. 251, 254 + +Attendolo, Sforza, i. 195; ii. 71 + +Atti, Isotta degli, ii. 17 and _note_, 20 + +Augustine, S., i. 232 + +Augustus, Emperor, ii. 1, 14; iii. 215 + +Aurelius, Marcus, iii. 164, 200 + +Ausonias, iii. 268 + +Aversa, iii. 253, 299, 300 + +Avignon, i. 69-71, 77, 81, 86; ii. 136; iii. 51, 74 + +Azzo (progenitor of Este and Brunswick), ii. 175 + +Azzo (son of Sigifredo), ii. 169 + + +Badrutt, Herr Caspar, i. 55 + +Baffo, i. 259, 260 + +Baganza, the, ii. 184 + +Baglioni, the, ii. 16, 47, 71, 236; iii. 81, 113-115, 119-136 + +Baglioni, Annibale, iii. 132: + +Astorre, iii. 113, 114, 121, 122, 125, 126: + +Atalanta, iii. 116, 124, 127-129: + +Braccio, iii. 134: + +Carlo Barciglia, iii. 124: + +Constantino, iii. 131: + +Eusebio, iii. 131: + +Filene, iii. 132: + +Galeotto, iii. 124, 132: + +Gentile, ii. 42, iii. 122, 132: + +Gian-Paolo, ii. 47, 220, iii. 116, 117, 122, 125, 127, 128, 130-132: + +Gismondo, iii. 122, 126, 127: + +Grifone, iii. 124: + +Grifonetto, ii. 47, iii. 113, 114, 124-129: + +Guido, iii. 121, 126, 127: + +Ippolita, iii. 131: + +Malatesta, ii. 253, 254, iii. 127, 132: + +Marcantonio, iii. 122, 125, 130: + +Morgante, iii. 119 _note_ 2: + +Niccolo, iii. 120: + +Orazio, iii. 127, 132: + +Pandolfo, iii. 120: + +Pietro Paolo, ii. 41: + +Ridolfo (1), iii. 120, 121: + +Ridolfo (2), iii. 133, 134: + +Simonetto, iii. 123, 124, 126: + +Taddeo, iii. 131: + +Troilo, iii. 122, 127 + + +Baiæ, iii. 242 + +Balzac, ii. 160 + +Bandello, i. 155, 157, 158, 270; ii. 116, 265, 271, 277 + +Bandinelli, Messer Francesco, iii. 10-12 + +Barano, the, ii. 56-58 + +Barbarossa, Frederick, ii. 69, 201; iii. 7, 271, 290, 306 _note_ 2 + +Bari, Duke of. (_See_ Sforza, Lodovico) + +Bartolo, San, iii. 59 + +Bartolommeo, Fra, iii. 63, 99 + +Basaiti, i. 269 + +Basella, i. 193 + +Basinio, ii. 18 + +Basle, i. 1, 2 + +Bassano, i. 340 + +Bastelica, i. 109, 113, 115 + +Bastia, Matteo di, i. 216 + +Battagli, Gian Battista, i. 216 + +Battifolle, Count Simone da, iii. 11 + +Baudelaire, iii. 280 + +Baveno, i. 19 + +Bayard, i. 113 + +Bazzi, Giovannantonio. (_See_ Sodoma) + +Beatrice, Countess, iii. 144 + +Beatrice, Dante's, ii. 6 + +Beatrice of Lorraine, ii. 170 + +Beaumarchais, i. 228, 229, 234 + +Beaumont and Fletcher, ii. 267, 269 + +Becchi, Gentile, ii. 192 + +Beethoven, i. 10, 249; ii. 160 + +Belcari, Feo, ii. 305 + +Belcaro, iii. 66, 68 + +Belisarius, ii. 2; iii. 290 + +Bellagio, i. 186 + +Bellano, i. 186 + +Belleforest, ii. 116 + +Bellini, Gentile, i. 269, 270 + +Bellini, Gian, i. 263, 269; ii. 55, 135 + +Bellinzona, i. 180 + +Bembo, Pietro, ii. 82, 85 + +Benci, Spinello, iii. 94 + +Benedict, S., iii. 73, 81, 85, 248 + +Benevento, iii. 251, 252, 299 + +Benincasa, Jacopo (father of S. Catherine of Siena), iii. 50 + +Benivieni, ii. 305 + +Bentivogli, the, ii. 47, 178, 224 + +Bentivogli, Alessandro de', i. 155, 156 + +Bentivogli, Ercole de', ii. 224 + +Bentivoglio, Ermes, ii. 47 + +Benzone, Giorgio, i. 194 + +Beral des Baux, i. 79, 80 + +Berangère des Baux, i. 80 + +Berceto, ii. 131, 133 + +Berenger, King of Italy, ii. 169 + +Berenger, Raymond, i. 80 + +Bergamo, i. 190-207; ii. 82 + +Bernardino, S., iii. 69, 113 + +Bernardo, iii. 69-75 + +Bernardo da Campo, i. 61 + +Berne, i. 20 + +Bernhardt, Madame, ii. 108 + +Berni, ii. 270 + +Bernina, the, i. 37, 55-57, 60, 64, 126; ii. 128 + +Bernini, ii. 159 + +Bersaglio, i. 268 + +Bervic, ii. 149 + +Besa, iii. 190, 191, 205 + +Besozzi, Francesco, i. 156 + +Bevagna, ii. 35, 38 + +Beyle, Henri, ii. 102 + +Bianco, Bernardo, i. 177 + +Bibbiena, Cardinal, ii. 82, 83 + +Bibboni, Francesco, or Cecco, i. 327-341 + +Bion, i. 152; ii. 303 + +Biondo, Flavio, ii. 28 + +Bisola, Lodovico, ii. 150 + +Bithynia, iii. 208 + +Bithynium, iii. 187, 208 + +Blacas (a knight of Provence), i. 80 + +Blake, the poet, i. 101, 265; ii. 273; iii. 166, 260 + +Boccaccio, ii. 7, 160, 208, 260, 261, 265, 270, 272, 273, 277, 334; +iii. 16, 50, 248, 293 + +Bocognano, i. 109-111, 115 + +Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, iii. 297, 298 + +Boiardo, Matteo Maria, ii. 30, 66, 269, 343 + +Boldoni, Polidoro, i. 183 + +Bologna, i. 121, 155, 192, 196, 326; ii. 29, 47, 85, 185, 224 + +Bologna, Gian, ii. 86 + +Bolsena, iii. 140, 141; + +Lake of, iii. 22 + + +Bona of Savoy (wife of Galeazzo Maria Sforza), ii. 230 + +Bondeno de' Roncori, ii. 178 + +Bonifazio (of Canossa), ii. 169, 170 + +Bordighera, i. 102, 103 + +Bordone, Paris, ii. 109 + +Borgia family, ii. 66, 117, 363 _note_ + +Borgia, Cesare, ii. 47, 48, 73, 74, 80, 83, 126, 363 _note_; iii. 131 + +Borgia, Lucrezia, ii. 363 _note_ + +Borgia, Roderigo, i. 220. (_See also_ Alexander VI.) + +Borgognone, Ambrogio, i. 146-148; iii. 64 + +Bormio, i. 61, 180 + +Borromeo family, iii. 14 + +Borromeo, Carlo, i. 182 + +Borromeo, Count Giberto, i. 182 + +Boscoli, i. 341; ii. 246 + +Bosola, i. 149 + +Botticelli, Sandro, i. 266; ii. 29, 30; iii. 180 _note_ + +Bötticher, Charles, iii. 225 + +Bourbon, Duke of, i. 158; + +Constable of, ii. 252 + + +Bracciano, Duke of, ii. 91 foll., 104 + +Bracciano, second Duke of, ii. 93, 99, 101 + +Braccio, i. 195, 197, 204, 207; ii. 47; iii. 81 + +Braccio, Filippo da, iii. 124-126 + +Bracciolini, Poggio, iii. 96, 336 + +Bragadin, Aloisio, ii. 101 + +Bramante, i. 216, 243 + +Brancacci, Cardinal, iii. 96 + +Brancaleone, Senator, iii. 336 + +Brancaleoni family, ii. 66, 69 + +Bregaglia, i. 35; + +valley of, i. 184 + + +Brenner, the, ii. 168 + +Brenta, the, i. 258 + +Brescia, i. 63, 200; ii. 103, 169 + +Brest, Anna Maria, ii. 149 + +Brianza, the, i. 185, 186 + +Brolio, iii. 94 + +Bronte, iii. 279 + +Browne, Sir Thomas, i. 44; iii. 337 + +Browning, Robert, ii. 102, 270, 273, 281; iii. 173 + +Browning, Mrs., ii. 270, 271; iii. 173 + +Bruni, Lionardo, iii. 96, 98, 99 + +Buol family, the, i. 35, 36, 40, 41, 49, 61 + +Buol, Herr, i. 34-36 + +Buonaparte family, the, i. 119, 120 + +Buonarroti, Michel Angelo, i. 176, 193, 221, 236, 243, 326; ii. 21, 30, +40, 152, 158, 160, 161, 178, 253, 332; iii. 20, 22, 145, 146, 150, 154, +161 + +Buonconvento, iii. 72, 76 + +Burano, i. 258 + +Burgundy, Duke of, i. 202, 203 + +Burne-Jones, ii. 29 + +Busti, Agostino, i. 159, 161, 193 + +Byron, i. 280; ii. 7, 13, 15, 146, 162, 270, 271 + + +Cadenabbia, i. 121, 173 + +Cadore, i. 267 + +Cæsarea, ii. 1 + +Cagli, ii. 56, 69, 74 + +Cajano, ii. 221 + +Calabria, iii. 305; + +mountains of, iii.? 288 + + +Calabria, Duke of, iii. 11 + +Calascibetta, iii. 302 + +Caldora, Giovanni Antonio, i. 202 + +Caldora, Jacopo, i. 196 + +Caligula, i. 134-136; iii. 2, 156, 163, 197, 273, 274 + +Calles (Cagli), ii. 57 + +Camargue, the, i. 78, 81 + +Camerino, Duchy of, i. 185; ii. 47, 73 + +Campagna, the, ii. 32 + +Campaldino, ii. 206 + +Campanella, iii. 20, 270 + +Campèll (or Campbèll) family, the i. 61, 62 and _note_ + +Campione, i. 175 + +Canale, Messer Carlo, ii. 363 _note_ + +Cannaregio, i. 268, 269, 339 + +Cannes, i. 103 _note_; ii. 143 + +Canonge, Jules, i. 81 + +Canossa, ii. 163-179 + +Cantù, i. 340 + +Cap S. Martin, i. 90 + +Capello, Bianca, ii. 93, 126 + +Capponi, Agostino, ii. 246 + +Capponi, Niccolo, ii. 253 + +Capri, ii. 58; iii. 242, 256, 269-276 + +Caracalla, i. 135; iii. 197 + +Cardona, Viceroy, ii. 244 + +Carducci, Francesco, ii. 253, 325 + +Carini, Baronessa di, ii. 276 + +Carlyle (quoted), i. 72 + +Carmagnola, i. 197, 200, 208; ii. 71 + +Carmagnuola, Bussoni di, ii. 17 and _note_ + +Carpaccio, Vittore, i. 269, 270; ii. 42 + +Carpegna, ii. 64 + +Carpi, Duchy of, i. 185; ii. 168 + +Carpi, the princes of, i. 202 + +Carrara range, the, ii. 134, 146, 218, 238 + +Casamicciola, iii. 234, 239 + +Casanova, i. 259, 260 + +Cascese, Santi da, ii. 224 + +Casentino, iii. 92 + +Cassinesi, the, iii. 248 + +Cassius, Dion, iii. 191, 193, 195-197, 219 + +Castagniccia, i. 110 + +Castagno, Andrea del, ii. 233 + +Castellammare, i. 103 _note_; iii. 232, 250, 276 + +Casti, Abbé, ii. 270 + +Castiglione, i. 144, 145; ii. 68, 80, 82; iii. 106, 108 + +Castro Giovanni, mountains of, iii. 279, 302, 304, 320 + +Catania, i. 87 _note_; iii. 279, 280, 288, 302, 304, 325 + +Catherine, S. (of Alexandria), i. 136, 142, 153, 155-157, 178; iii. 55, +61 + +Catherine, S. (of Sienna), i. 70; iii. 48-65 + +Catria, iii. 73 + +Catullus, iii. 180 + +Cavalcanti, Guido, ii. 261, 308, 325, 343 + +Cavicciuoli, Messer Guerra, iii. 2 + +Cavro, i. 109 + +Cécile (Passe Rose), i. 81 + +Cefalú, iii. 291 + +Cellant, Contessa di, i. 157-159 + +Cellant, Count of, i. 158 + +Cellini, Benvenuto, i. 2, 189, 240, 241, 328; ii. 25 + +Celsano, i. 329 + +Celsus, iii. 211, 219, 220 + +Cenci, the, ii. 17, 89 + +Cenci, Beatrice, ii. 102, 270 + +Ceno, the, ii. 183, 195 + +Centorbi, iii. 302 + +Cephalonia, iii. 363 + +Cephissus, the, iii. 350 + +Cerami, iii. 304 + +Cervantes, ii. 160 + +Cesena, ii. 15, 62 + +Cetona, iii. 103 + +Chalcedon, iii. 212 + +Châlons, the, i. 79 + +Chapman, George, ii. 268 + +Charles IV., iii. 6 + +Charles V., i. 184, 185, 187, 188, 319, 338, 339; ii. 75, 202, 255, 257 + +Charles VIII., ii. 67, 132, 183, 189 and _note_, 191-197, 238, 328 + +Charles of Anjou, iii. 315 _note_ + +Charles the Bold, i. 202 + +Charles Martel, i. 75 + +Charles of Valois, ii. 207 + +Chartres, i. 243 + +Chateaubriand, ii. 13 + +Chatterton, ii. 273 + +Chaucer, ii. 258, 260, 261, 270, 272 + +Chiana, the, iii. 91; valley of, iii. 90, 97 + +Chianti, iii. 94 + +Chiara, S., ii. 36, 37 + +Chiarelli, the, of Fabriano, ii. 236 + +Chiavari, iii. 256 + +Chiavenna, i. 35, 53, 63, 180, 184; ii. 130, 131 + +Chioggia, i. 257-261 + +Chiozzia, i. 350, 351 + +Chiusi, i. 86; ii. 50, 51, 52; iii. 22, 90, 92; + +Lake of, iii. 91, 94, 101 + + +Chiusure, iii. 77, 78, 80 + +Chivasso, i. 19 + +Christiern of Denmark, i. 205 + +Chur, i. 49, 65 + +Cicero, iii. 321 + +Ciclopidi rocks, iii. 284 + +Cima, i. 263 + +Cimabue, iii. 35, 144 + +Ciminian Hills, ii. 88; iii. 22 + +Cini family. (_See_ Ambrogini) + +Cinthio, ii. 265, 272, 277 + +Ciompi, the, ii. 208, 209 + +Cisa, i. 340 + +Città della Pieve, ii. 51 + +Città di Castello, ii. 47, 71 + +Ciuffagni, Bernardo, ii. 30 + +Clair, S., ii. 37 and _note_ + +Clairvaux, Abbot of, iii. 70 + +Claudian, ii. 57, 343, 344 + +Clemens Alexandrinus, iii. 204, 217, 219 + +Clement VI., iii. 74, 132 + +Clement VII., i. 221, 316, 317, 321; ii. 233, 239, 247 foll.; iii. 138 +_note_, 247 + +Climmnus, the, ii. 35, 39 + +Cloanthus, iii. 319 + +Clough, the poet, ii. 273 + +Clusium, iii. 93, 94 + +Coire, i. 183 + +Col de Checruit, the, i. 15 + +Coleridge, S.T., ii. 273; iii. 173 + +Colico, i. 64, 183 + +Collalto, Count Salici da, i. 337 + +Colleoni family, the, i. 194 + +Colleoni, Bartolommeo, i. 192-208; ii. 71 + +Colleoni, Medea, i. 193, 204 + +Collona family, ii. 187 + +Colma, the, i. 18 + +Colombini, iii. 69 + +Colonna, Francesco, iii. 103 + +Colonna, Giovanni, iii. 125, 254 + +Colonus, the, iii. 350 + +Columbus, i. 97; ii. 237 + +Commodus, i. 135; iii. 164 + +Comnena, Anna, iii. 297 + +Como, i. 136, 174-189 + +Como, Lake of, i. 50, 64, 122, 173, 174, 179, 181, 183-186 + +Conrad (of Canossa), ii. 178 + +Conrad, King of Italy, iii. 305 + +Conradin, iii. 298 + +Constance, daughter of King Roger of Sicily, iii. 297, 318 + +Constance of Aragon, wife of Frederick II., iii. 307 _note_ + +Constantinople, ii. 186; iii. 311 + +Contado, iii. 90 + +Copton, iii. 205 + +Corfu, i. 87 _note_, 103 _note_ + +Corgna, Bernardo da, iii. 125 + +Corinth, iii. 212, 322, 342, 362 + +Cormayeur, valley of, i. 9, 14-16 + +Correggio, i. 137, 140, 163; ii. 126, 147-162 + +Corsica, i. 85, 102-120; ii. 286 + +Corte, i. 110, 111 + +Corte Savella, ii. 96 + +Cortina, i. 268 + +Cortona, ii. 48-51, 214; iii. 90, 92, 151 _note_ + +Cortusi, the, iii. 6 + +Corviolo, ii. 170, 178 + +Coryat, Tom, i. 49 + +Costa (of Venice), Antonio, ii. 150 + +Costa (of Rome), ii. 33, 146 + +Courthezon, i. 81 + +Covo, i. 197 + +Cramont, the, i. 15 + +Credi, Lorenzo di, iii. 35 + +Crema, i. 194, 209-222 + +Cremona, i. 209, 213, 215; iii. 6 + +Crimisus, the, iii. 304, 319 + +Crotona, iii. 319 + +Crowne, the dramatist, ii. 159 + +Cuma, iii. 212 + +Curtius, Lancinus, i. 159, 193 + +Cyane, the, iii. 328 + +Cybo, Franceschetto, ii. 239 + + +Dalcò, Antonio, ii. 150 + +Dandolo, Gherardo, i. 198 + +Dandolo, Matteo, iii. 133 + +Daniel, Samuel (the poet), ii. 263 + +Dante, i. 29, 80; ii. 5, 6, 13, 15, 23, 65, 70, 136, 137, 160, 170, +206, 207, 261, 262, 269, 273, 277, 305, 343; iii. 2, 19, 25, 36, 43 +_note_, 67, 69, 73, 111, 144, 149, 173, 241, 317 + +D'Arcello, Filippo, i. 195 + +Davenant, Sir William, ii. 267 + +David, Jacques Louis, i. 71, 72 + +Davos, i. 20, 28-47, 49, 53, 58, 65, 183 + +Davos Dörfli, i. 53 + +De Comines, Philippe, ii. 190, 193-197; iii. 45 _note_, 69 + +De Gié, Maréchal, ii. 199 + +De Musset, iii. 163, 235 + +De Quincey, ii. 113; iii. 273 _note_ + +De Rosset, ii. 103 + +Dekker, Thomas, ii. 267 + +Del Corvo, ii. 136 + +Della Casa, Giovanni, i. 331, 333 + +Della Porta, i. 193 + +Della Quercia, i. 192 + +Della Rocca, Giudice, i. 112, 113 + +Della Rovere family, ii. 66 (_see also_ Rovere) + +Della Seta, Galeazzo, i. 329 + +Demetrius, iii. 113 + +Demosthenes, iii. 323, 324, 326, 327 + +Desenzano, i. 173 + +Dickens, Charles, iii. 39 + +Dionysius, iii. 322, 325 + +Dischma-Thal, the, i. 49 + +Dolce Acqua, ii. 136 + +Dolcebono, Gian Giacomo, i. 153 + +Domenico da Leccio, Fra, iii. 83 + +Dominic, S., i. 221; iii. 61 + +Donatello, i. 150, 178; ii. 29, 30, 41; iii. 96, 97, 100 + +Doni, Adone, iii. 114 + +Doré, Gustave, i. 264; ii. 15 + +Doria, Pietro, i. 260 + +Doria, Stephen, i. 113 + +Dorias, the, i. 97 + +Dossi, Dosso, i. 166, 170, 172 + +Drayton, Michael, ii. 263 + +Druids, the, iii. 29 + +Drummond, William (the poet), ii. 263 + +Dryden, i. 2, 6; ii. 7, 270 + +Duccio, iii. 144, 145 + +Dürer, Albert, i. 345; ii. 275; iii. 260 + + +Eckermann, ii. 157, 162 + +Edolo, i. 63 + +Edrisi, iii. 308, 309 + +Egypt, iii. 189, 190, 192, 210 foll. + +Eichens, Edward, ii. 150 + +Eiger, the, i. 12 + +Electra, ii. 135 + +'Eliot, George,' ii. 270 + +Emilia, ii. 16 + +Emilia Pia, ii. 82 + +Empedocles, i. 87; iii. 172, 173, 174, 181, 337 + +Empoli, iii. 41, 87 + +Engadine, the, i. 48, 55, 56, 61, 183; ii. 128 + +Enna, iii. 302, 303 and _note_ + +Ennius, iii. 173, 181 + +Enza, the, ii. 166 + +Enzio, King, iii. 298 + +Epicurus, iii. 173, 174, 181 + +Eridanus, ii. 131 + +Eryx (Lerici), ii. 142 + +Este, i. 167 + +Este family, the, i. 166; ii. 68, 251, 268 + +Este, Azzo d', iii. 6: + +Beatrice d', i. 150: + +Cardinal d', ii. 91: + +Ercole d', i. 202, ii. 236: + +Guelfo d', ii. 177: + +Guinipera d', ii. 17; + +Lucrezia d', ii. 77, 83: + +Niccolo d', ii. 236 + + +Estrelles, the, i. 102 + +Etna, iii. 93, 103, 198, 279-287, 319, 325, 327 + +Etruscans, the, i. 49 + +Euganeans, the, i. 258, 281, 282; ii. 168 + +Eugénie, Empress, i. 119 + +Eugenius IV., i. 199; ii. 70, 220 + +Euhemerus, iii. 173 + +Euripides, ii. 142, 159 _note_, 335; iii. 89, 215, 340 + +Eusebius, iii. 197, 219 + +Everelina, ii. 166 + + +Fabretti, Raffaello, iii. 209 + +Faenza, ii. 47 + +Fairfax, Edward, translator of Tasso, ii. 265 + +Fano, ii. 57, 59, 69 + +Fanum Fortunæ (Fano), ii. 57 + +Farnese, Alessandro, i. 317: + +Julia, i. 193: + +Odoardo, ii. 180: + +Pier Luigi, iii. 133: + +Ranunzio, ii. 180: + +Vittoria, ii. 76 + + +Farnesi family, ii. 75, 90, 117, 180; iii. 336 + +Faro, the, iii. 301, 320 + +Favara, iii. 309 + +Federighi, Antonio, iii. 62 + +Federigo of Urbino. (_See_ Urbino) + +Feltre, Vittorino da, ii. 70 + +Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, ii. 78 + +Ferdinand of Aragon, ii. 189, 191, 192, 193, 234; iii. 274, 276 + +Fermo, ii. 47, 90 + +Ferrara, i. 166, 167, 171; ii. 67, 68, 168, 169, 185, 221; iii. 6 + +Ferrara, Duke of, i. 206 + +Ferrari, Gaudenzio, i. 137-139, 141, 162-164, 177 + +Ferretti, Professor, ii. 179 + +Ferrucci, Francesco, i. 343; ii. 254 + +Fesch, Cardinal, i. 118 + +Fiesole, i. 86 + +Filelfo, Francesco, ii. 25 + +Filibert of Savoy, ii. 91 + +Filiberta, Princess of Savoy, ii. 247 + +Filippo, i. 149 + +Filonardi, Cinzio, iii. 133 + +Fina, Santa, iii. 59 + +Finiguerra, Maso, i. 218 + +Finsteraarhorn, the, ii. 130 + +Fiorenzuola, ii. 197, 284 + +Flaminian Way, ii. 55, 57 + +Flaxman, ii. 15 + +Fletcher, the dramatist, i. 358; ii. 267 + +Florence, i. 121, 316, 318, 319; ii. 5, 50, 145, 185, 187, 198, +201-257, 259, 305, 306; iii. 7, 10, 21, 132, 151 _note_, 317 _note_, +_et passim_ + +Florence, Duke of, i. 187 + +Fluela, the, i. 29, 37, 54 + +Fluela Bernina Pass, the, i. 53 + +Fluela Hospice, i. 59 + +Foglia, the, ii. 65 + +Foiano, ii. 50 + +Folcioni, Signor, i. 217 + +Folengo, ii. 270 + +Folgore da San Gemignano, ii. 53; iii. 1-20, 67, 70 + +Foligno, ii. 37-41, 45, 46, 52 + +Fondi, i. 318 + +Ford, John (the dramatist), ii, 267, 277 + +Forio, iii. 236, 237 + +Fornovo, ii. 132, 180-200 + +Fortini, iii. 68 + +Forulus (Furlo), ii. 57 + +Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone), ii. 57 + +Foscari, the, ii. 98 + +Fosdinovo, ii. 134-137 + +Fossato, ii. 52 + +Fossombrone, ii. 57, 58, 69, 85, 91 + +Fouquet, i. 80 + +Francesco, Fra, i. 269 + +Francesco da Carrara, iii. 6 + +Francesco Maria I. of Urbino. (_See_ Urbino) + +Francesco Maria II. of Urbino. (_See_ Urbino) + +Francia, Francesco, ii. 33 + +Francis I. of France, i. 113, 183, 184 + +Francis of Assisi, S., i. 99, 100; ii. 23, 44; iii. 57, 58, 61, 113 + +François des Baux, i. 81 + +Frederick, Emperor, i. 80 + +Frederick II., Emperor, iii. 297, 315 and _note_, 316-318 + +Frere, J.H., ii. 270 + +Friedrichs, ----, iii. 224 + +Frisingensis, Otto, iii. 7 + +Friuli, i. 351 + +Furka, ii. 130 + +Furlo, ii. 55 + +Furlo Pass, ii. 57, 58 + +Fusina, i. 281 + + +Gaeta, i. 318; iii. 235 + +Galatea, i. 91 + +Galileo, ii. 27 + +Galli Islands, iii. 270 + +Gallio, Marchese Giacomo, i. 179 + +Gallo, Antonio di San, iii. 90, 102 + +Gallo, Francesco da San, ii. 253; iii. 247 + +Garda, i. 173; + +Lake of, ii. 98, 169 + + +Gardon, the, valley of, i. 75 + +Garfagnana, ii. 168 + +Garigliano, iii. 247 + +Gaston de Foix, i. 160, 161, 193; ii. 2, 10 + +Gattamelata (Erasmo da Narni), i. 197; ii. 41, 71 + +Gellias, iii. 337 + +Gelon, iii. 290, 304 + +Genoa, i. 97, 105, 113, 259; ii. 185; iii. 250, 253, 317 _note_ + +Gentile, Girolamo, ii. 236 + +George of Antioch, iii. 307, 311 + +Gérard, ii. 149 + +Gerardo da Camino, iii. 6 + +Ghiacciuolo, ii. 15 + +Ghibellines, ii. 15, 54, 69, 202 foll.; iii. 17, 43 _note_, 73, 110 + +Ghiberti, Lorenzo di Cino, ii. 30; iii. 145, 146 + +Giannandrea, bravo of Verona, ii. 85 + +Giardini, iii. 287 + +Giarre, iii. 279 + +Gibbon, Edward (cited), i. 346 + +Ginori, Caterina, i. 323, 324 + +Ginori, Lionardo, i. 323 + +Giordani, i. 326 + +Giorgione, i. 345; iii. 247 + +Giottino, ii. 233 _note_ + +Giotto, i. 152; ii. 43, 206; iii. 35, 145, 248 + +Giovanni da Fogliani, ii. 47 + +Giovenone, i. 139 + +Giovio, i. 322 + +Girgenti, iii. 266, 291, 302, 304, 320, 321, 332-338 + +Giulio Romano, i. 140, 152 + +Glastonbury, iii. 29, 47 + +Gnoli, Professor, i. 327 _note_; ii. 102 _note_, 103 + +Godfrey, the Hunchback, ii. 170 + +Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, ii. 170 + +Goethe, i. 5, 6, 10, 11, 131, 164, 237; ii. 26, 157, 160, 162; iii. +172, 173, 320 + +Goldoni, i. 259, 345-359 + +Golo, the, valley of, i. 111 + +Gonfalonier of Florence, ii. 83, 206, 209, 243, 245, 253 + +Gonzaga family, ii. 68 + +Gonzaga, Alessandro, i. 186: + +Elisabetta, ii. 73: + +Grancesco, ii. 73, 194, 196, 197, 345, 363 _note_: + +Giulia, i. 318: + +Leonora, ii. 76 + + +Gorbio, i. 85, 91 + +Gozzoli, Benozzo, i. 137; ii. 35 + +Graubünden, the, i. 50 + +Gravedona, i. 181 + +Gray, the poet, i. 3; ii. 273 + +Greece, and the Greeks, i. 101, 102, 240, 244; ii. 18; iii. 155 foll., +260 foll., 285-287, 290-292, 320 foll., 339-364 + +Greene, Robert, ii. 265, 266, 267 + +Gregory VII., ii. 172, 173-176 (_see also_ Hildebrand) + +Gregory XI., iii. 51 + +Gregory XIII., ii. 88, 95, 96, 97 + +Grenoble, i. 111 + +Grigioni, the, i. 49 + +Grindelwald, iii. 275 + +Grisons, Canton of the, i. 48, 49, 50, 183, 184, 186, 188 + +Grivola, the, i. 126 + +Grosseto, iii. 66 + +Grote, the historian, iii. 323 + +Grumello, i. 48, 64 + +Guarini, ii. 267 + +Guazzi, the, i. 329 + +Gubbio, ii. 35, 45, 52-55, 69, 85, 89, 97 + +Guelfs, ii. 15, 54, 202 foll.; iii. 17, 110, 112 + +Guérin, ii. 43 + +Guicciardini, Francesco, i. 319; ii. 75, 255 + +Guiccioli, Countess, ii. 7 + +Guidantonio, Count, ii. 70 + +Guido, iii. 184 + +Guidobaldo I. (_See_ Urbino) + +Guidobaldo II. (_See_ Urbino) + +Guillaume de Cabestan, i. 80 + +Guiscard, Robert, iii. 262, 297, 298, 300 + +Gyas, iii. 319 + +Gylippus, iii. 323, 324, 326, 337 + + +Hadrian, iii. 164, 185, 187-205, 208, 210, 212, 224, 225, 226, 228, +343, 345 + +Halycus, the, iii. 319 + +Handel, iii. 40 + +Harmodius, ii. 135; iii. 155 + +Harrington, Sir John, ii. 265 + +Harvey, Gabriel, ii. 265 + +Hauteville, house of, iii. 252, 253, 254, 290, 294 foll. + +Hazlitt, ii. 109 + +Hegesippus, iii. 188 + +Helbig, iii. 187 + +Heliogabalus, i. 135; iii. 164 + +Henry II. of France, i. 316 + +Henry III., ii. 170 + +Henry IV., King of Italy, ii. 170, 173-177; iii. 300 _note_ + +Henry V., Emperor, ii. 178 + +Henry VI. (of Sicily), iii. 297, 318 + +Henry VII., Emperor, iii. 72, 76 + +Hermopolis, iii. 205 + +Herodotus, iii. 319 + +Herrick, Robert, ii. 324 + +Hesiod, ii. 338; iii. 172, 173 + +Hiero II., iii. 325 + +Hildebrand, ii. 163, 171, 172; iii. 300 _note_ 2, 305 + +Himera, the, iii. 304 + +Hispellum (Spello), ii. 38 + +Hoby, Thomas, ii. 265 + +Hoffnungsau, i. 66 + +Hohenstauffen, house of, ii. 188, 202; iii. 290, 297, 315 + +Homer, i. 84 _note_; iii. 155, 226, 286, 287, 320 + +Honorius, Emperor, ii. 2, 57 + +Horace, ii. 273; iii. 180 + +Howell, James, ii. 266 + +Hugh, Abbot of Clugny, ii. 175, 176 + +Hugo, Victor, iii. 164 + +Hunt, Leigh, ii. 15, 146, 270 + +Hymettus, iii. 351 + + +Ibn-Hamûd, iii. 304 + +Ictinus, iii. 267, 343 + +Il Medeghino. (_See_ Medici, Gian Giacomo de') + +Ilaria del Caretto, iii. 98 + +Ilario, Fra, ii. 136, 137 + +Ilissus, the, iii. 350 + +Imola, ii. 231 + +Imperial, Prince, i. 119 + +Inn river, the, i, 54, 55 + +Innocent III., ii. 203 + +Innocent VIII., ii. 184 + +Innsprück, i. 111 + +Isabella of Aragon, ii. 192 + +Isac, Antonio, ii. 149 + +Ischia, iii. 233, 234, 236, 238, 241 + +Isella, i. 19 + +Iseo, Lake, i. 173, 174 + +Ithaca, iii. 364 + +Itri, i. 318, 319 + + +Jacobshorn, the, ii. 131 + +James 'III. of England,' ii. 83 + +Joachim, Abbot, iii. 141, 142 + +Joan of Naples, i. 81, 195 + +John XXII., iii. 74 + +John XXIII., iii. 96 + +John of Austria, Don, ii. 77 + +Jonson, Ben, ii. 267, 268 + +Jourdain (the hangman of the Glacière), i. 72 + +Judith of Evreux, iii. 303 + +Julia, daughter of Claudius, ii. 36 + +Julian, iii. 197 + +Julier, ii. 127, 128 + +Julius II., i. 221; ii. 74, 83, 220; iii. 131 + +Jungfrau, the, i. 12 + +Justin Martyr, iii. 197, 219 + +Justinian, ii. 10, 12 + +Juvara, Aloisio, ii. 150 + +Juvenal, iii. 181, 199 + + +Keats, the poet, ii. 262, 263, 270, 273 + +Kelbite dynasty, iii. 292, 301 + +Killigrew, the dramatist, ii. 159 + +Klosters, i. 30, 46 + + +La Cisa, the pass, ii. 132, 133 + +La Madonna di Tirano, i. 61, 62 + +La Magione, ii. 46-48 + +La Rosa, i. 59 + +La Spezzia, ii. 137-139, 143 + +La Staffa family, the, iii. 113 + +Lacca, iii. 236 + +Lamb, Charles, ii. 110 + +Lampridius, iii. 197 + +Landona, iii. 127 + +Lanini, i. 139-142, 162 + +Lanuvium, iii. 209 + +Lars Porsena, ii. 52, 93 + +Laschi, the, i. 329 + +Le Prese, i. 60 + +Leake, Colonel, iii. 325 + +Lecco, i. 183, 185, 186, 188 + +Legnano, ii. 198 + +Lenz, i. 65 + +Leo IX., iii. 300 + +Leo X., i. 221; ii. 75, 88, 246; iii. 132 + +Leonardo. (_See_ Vinci, Leonardo da) + +Leoncina, Monna Ippolita, ii. 308 + +Leopardi, Alessandro, i. 207, 326; ii. 62 + +Lepanto, ii. 77, 93 + +Lepidus, ii. 27 + +Lerici, ii. 139, 142-145 + +Les Baux, i. 77-81; ii. 136 + +Leucadia, iii. 364 + +Levezow, Von, iii. 211 + +Leyva, Anton de, i. 187 + +Lido, the, i. 280, 283-286; ii. 1 + +Liguria, the, i. 97; ii. 178, 283 + +Lilyboeum, iii. 294 _note_ + +Lioni, Leone, i. 188 + +L'Isle, i. 72 + +Livorno, ii. 145, 214 + +Livy, iii. 94, 171 + +Lo Spagna, iii. 114 + +Lodi, i. 216 + +Lomazzo, i. 137 + +Lombardy, i. 19, 49, 61, 121, 122, 129, 133-172, 209; ii. 129, 132, +147, 165, 168, 182 + +Lorenzaccio, ii. 41 + +Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, iii. 8, 36, 43, 44 + +Lorenzo, Bernardo di, iii. 105 + +Loreto, ii. 97 + +Lothair, King of Italy, ii. 169 + +Louis XI, ii. 237 + +Louis of Anjou, i. 195 + +Lovere, i. 174 + +Loyola, Ignatius, iii. 61 + +Lucan (quoted), i. 92 + +Lucca, ii. 145, 168, 170, 203, 211, 214, 218, 286; iii. 4, 98 + +Lucca, Pauline, i. 224, 226, 227, 229, 233, 234, 237 + +Lucera, iii. 315 and _note_ + +Lucius III., iii. 312 + +Lucretius, iii. 157-183 + +Lugano, i. 125, 128, 156, 180 + +Lugano, Lake, i. 122, 125, 169, 185 + +Luigi, Pier, ii. 180 + +Luini, i. 141, 148, 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 162, 164-166, 177, 178; +iii. 184 + +Luna, Etruscan, ii. 131 + +Luziano of Lauranna, ii. 78 + +Lyly, John, ii. 268 + +Lysimeleia, iii. 327 + + +Macedonia, iii. 323 + +Machiavelli, ii. 16, 41, 75, 117, 219, 220, 225, 231, 250; iii. 131 + +Macugnaga, i. 18, 20; iii. 282 + +Madrid, iii. 223 + +Magenta, i. 127 + +Maggiore, Lake, i. 124, 173 + +Magnanapoli, ii. 95, 96, 103 + +Magnani, Giuseppe, ii. 150 + +Magra, the, ii. 133, 134, 136, 238 + +Maitani, Lorenzo, iii. 142 + +Majano, Benedetto da, ii. 30 + +Malamocco, i. 257, 280, 281 + +Malaspina family, ii. 134, 136 + +Malaspina, Moroello, ii. 136 + +Malaterra, Godfrey, iii. 298 + +Malatesta family, ii. 15-17, 62, 66, 69, 71, 278; iii. 121 + +Malatesta, Gian Galeazzo, ii. 16 + +Malatesta, Giovanni, ii. 15 + +Malatesta, Sigismondo Pandolfo, i. 135, 202, 203; ii. 14, 16-21, 72; +iii. 7 + +Malfi, Duchess of, i. 149 + +Malghera, i. 339 + +Malipiero, Pasquale, i. 200 + +Maloja, i. 55, ii. 128, 129; + +the Pass of, i. 53 + + +Malpaga, i. 205, 206 + +Manente, M. Francesco, i. 329 + +Manfred, King, ii. 203 + +Manfredi, the, ii. 47 + +Manfredi, Astorre, i. 202; iii. 197 + +Manfredi, Taddeo, ii. 231 + +Maniaces, iii. 299, 301 + +Mansueti, i. 269 + +Mantegna, i. 176; ii. 100, 197; iii. 180 + +Mantinea, iii. 207 + +Mantua, i. 340; ii. 68, 70, 74, 168, 185, 345 + +Mantua, Dukes of, i. 186, 243 + +Mantua, Marquis of, ii. 194-196, 199 + +Marcellinus, Ammianus, iii. 197, 205 + +Marcellus, iii. 186 + +March, the, ii. 16, 187 + +Marches of Ancona, ii. 199 + +Marecchia, the, ii. 14 + +Maremma, the, ii. 286; iii. 69, 103 + +Marenzio, iii. 37 + +Margaret of Austria, ii. 180 + +Maria, Galeazzo, i. 149 + +Maria, Gian, i. 149 + +Maria Louisa, Duchess of Parma, ii. 149 + +Marianazzo, robber chieftain, ii. 88 + +Mariano family, the, i. 139 + +Marignano, i. 186 + +Marignano, Marquis of. (_See_ Medici, Gian Giacomo de') + +Mark, S., ii. 19 + +Marlowe, Christopher, ii. 159, 181, 258, 267, 268 and _note_; iii. 228 + +Maroggia, i. 175 + +Marseilles, i. 2 + +Marston, the dramatist, ii. 113, 267, 268 + +Martelli, Giovan Battista, i. 334, 335 + +Martelli, Luca, i. 340 + +Martial, i. 2; iii. 268 + +Martin V., iii. 95 + +Martinengo, i. 203 + +Martinengo family, i. 204 + +Martini, Biagio, ii. 149 + +Masaccio, i. 144, 145 + +Masolino da Panicale, i. 144, 145; ii. 55 + +Mason (artist), ii. 32, 129 + +Massinger, Philip, ii. 267 + +Matarazzo, iii. 121, 122, 128, 130, 134 + +Matilda, Countess, ii. 165, 168, 170-173, 179; iii. 300 _note_ 2 + +Matteo of Ajello, iii. 308 _note_, 311 + +Mauro, S., iii. 248 + +Mayenfeld, i. 65 + +Mazara, iii. 281 + +Mazzorbo, i. 282 + +Medici family, i. 187, 315-344; ii. 66, 90, 117, 187, 208, 209 foll., +245, 247, 278 + +Medici, Alessandro de', i. 315-327, ii. 83, 248, 251, 255: + +Battista de', i. 188: + +Bernardo de', i. 180: + +Bianca de', ii. 233: + +Casa de', i. 317: + +Catherine de', i. 316, ii. 76, 255: + +Clarina de', i. 182: + +Claudia de', ii. 77: + +Cosimo de', i. 319, ii. 225 _note_, iii. 67, 247: + +Cosimo (the younger) de', i. 326, 330, 340, ii. 255, 257: + +Ferdinand de', (Cardinal), ii. 93: + +Francesco di Raffaello de', i. 321, ii. 93, 104: + +Gabrio de', i. 188: + +Gian Giacomo de' (Il Medeghino), i. 179-188, iii. 67: + +Giovanni de', ii. 215, 216, 239, 244, 245, 246 (_see also_ Leo X.): + +Giovanni de' (general), ii. 249: + +Giuliano, son of Piero de', ii. 83, 226, 232, 233, 239, 318, 334: + +Giuliano de' (Duke of Nemours), ii. 239, 244, 245, 247: + +Giulio dei (_see_ Clement VII.): + +Ippolito de', i. 316-319, ii. 83, 248, 251, 255: + +Isabella de', ii. 93, 104, 105: + +Lorenzino de', i. 315, 319-335, 338, 341-344, ii. 83, 255: + +Lorenzo de' (the Magnificent), ii. 67, 184, 185, 187, 216, 218, 226 +foll., 305, 311, 325, 326, 330, iii. 101: + +Lorenzo de' (Duke of Urbino) (_see_ Urbino): + +Maddalena de', ii. 239: + +Piero de', ii. 184, 191, 192, 226, 227, 238, 328, iii. 101: + +Pietro de', iii. 247: + +Salvestro de', ii. 208 + + +Mediterranean, the, i. 2; ii. 145 + +Melfi, iii. 300 + +Melo of Bari, iii. 299 + +Meloria, the, iii. 253 + +Menaggio, i. 181, 186, 188 + +Menander, iii. 72 + +Mendelssohn, i. 10 + +Mendrisio, i. 122, 175 + +Menoetes, iii. 319 + +Mentone, i. 83-93, 94, 98, 102, 103, 106; iii. 250 + +Menzoni, ii. 285 + +Mer de Glace, iii. 282 + +Meran, i. 111 + +Mercatello, Gentile, ii. 70 + +Mesomedes, iii. 201 + +Messina, iii. 288, 292 and _note_, 301 + +Mestre, i. 339 + +Metaurus, or Metauro, the, ii. 38, 58 + +Mevania (Bevagna), ii. 38 + +Michelangelo. (_See_ Buonarroti, Michel Angelo) + +Michelhorn, ii. 127 + +Michelozzi, Michelozzo, iii. 96 + +Middleton, Thomas, ii. 267 + +Mignucci, Francesco, ii. 90 + +Milan, i. 14, 19, 20, 50, 121, 124, 136, 152-161, 168, 178, 180, 184, +195, 203, 212, 213, 223 foll.; ii. 185, 186, 190, 191, 224; iii. 151 +_note_, 253, 348 + +Milan, Dukes of, i. 49, 149, 180, 186, 200; ii. 214 + +Millet, iii. 77 + +Milton, ii. 160, 258, 262, 263, 269, 274; iii. 25, 35, 37, 38, 158, +169, 342 + +Mino da Fiesole, ii. 81 + +Mirandola, Duchy of, i. 185; ii. 168 + +Mirandola, the Counts of, i. 202 + +Mirandola, Pico della, ii. 21 + +Mirano, i. 294 + +Miseno, iii. 238, 239, 242 + +Mnesicles, iii. 343 + +Mnestheus, iii. 319 + +Modena, i. 170, 172; ii. 168, 169, 221 + +Molsa, Francesco Maria, i. 326 + +Monaco, i. 92, 102 + +Mondello, iii. 294 + +Monreale, ii. 10; iii. 291, 311-314 + +Mont Blanc, i. 14, 126, 134: + +Cenis, ii. 174: + +Cervin, i. 169: + +Chétif, i. 14: + +Finsteraarhorn, i. 169: + +Genêvre, ii. 193: + +S. Michel, ii. 167: + +de la Saxe, i. 14: + +Solaro, iii. 230: + +Ventoux, ii. 22 + + +Montalcino, iii. 76, 79, 92 + +Montalembert, iii. 249 + +Montalto, Cardinal, ii. 90, 91, 95, 98, 103 (_see also_ Sixtus V.) + +Montdragon, i. 68 + +Monte Adamello, i. 174, ii. 168: + +Amiata, iii. 42, 69, 76, 80, 90, 91, 93, 103, 104, 106, 108: + +d'Asdrubale, ii. 66: + +Aureo, iii. 253: + +Calvo, ii. 55: + +Carboniano, ii. 168: + +Cassino, iii. 248: + +Catini, iii. 4: + +Catria, ii. 66, 68, 69, iii. 111: + +Cavallo, ii. 94: + +Cetona, ii. 51, iii. 90, 91: + +Coppiolo, ii. 64: + +Delle Celle, ii. 168: + +di Disgrazia, i. 64: + +Epomeo, iii. 234, 236, 237-240, 241: + +Fallonica, iii. 103, 110: + +Gargano, iii. 299: + +Generoso, i. 121-132, 173: + +Leone, i. 174: + +Nerone, ii. 66: + +Nuovo, iii. 242: + +Oliveto, i. 166, ii. 82, iii. 8, 69, 73, 74 foll., 151 _note_: + +d'Oro, i. 105, 111: + +Pellegrino, ii. 176, iii. 294: + +Rosa, i. 8, 18, 105, 125, 126, 129, 134, 169: + +Rosso, iii. 279: + +Rotondo, i. 111, ii. 33: + +Salvadore, i. 125, 128: + +Soracte, ii. 51: + +Viso, i. 126, 134, 169, 174 + + +Montefalco, ii. 35-37, 39, 45, 46 + +Montefeltro family, ii. 62, 64, 66, 69-72 + +Montefeltro, Federigo di, i. 207, 208 + +Montefeltro, Giovanna, ii. 73 + +Montélimart, i. 68 + +Montepulciano, ii. 50, 214; iii. 68, 69, 77, 87-102, 109, 110 + +Montferrat, Boniface, Marquis of, i. 202 + +Monti della Sibilla, ii. 46 + +Monza, i. 199 + +Moors, the, i. 85, 94; iii. 296, 299, 301 + +Morbegno, i. 49, 51, 64, 186 + +Morea, the, ii. 18; iii. 339 + +Morris, William, ii. 271 + +Morteratsch, the, i. 56 + +Mozart, i. 223, 227, 229, 231-237, 249; ii. 153 + +Mühlen, ii. 128 + +Mulhausen, i. 1 + +Murano, i. 268, 282, 333; ii. 1 + +Murillo, ii. 153 + +Mürren, i. 9, 11, 14 + +Musset, De, i. 342 + +Mussulmans, iii. 290, 291, 294 _note_, 302, 305, 307, 316 + + +Naples, ii. 185, 188, 189, 191, 193, 234, 282; iii. 221, 231, 239, 243, +253, 254, 256, 270, 276, 289, 317 _note_ + +Naples, Queens of, i. 79 + +Napoleon Buonaparte, i. 50, 106, 118, 119, 120 + +Narni, i. 86; ii. 34, 38 + +Nash, Thomas, ii. 265 + +Nassaus, the, i. 79 + +Navone, Signor Giulio, iii. 4 _note_ + +Naxos, iii. 288 + +Negro, Abbate de, iii. 78, 79 + +Nera, the, ii. 34, 37, 46 + +Nero, i. 135; iii. 156, 164 + +Neroni, Diotisalvi, ii. 226, 256 + +Niccolini, i. 342 + +Niccolo da Bari, S., iii. 238 + +Niccolo da Uzzano, ii. 215 + +Nice, i. 83, 106; iii. 250 + +Nicholas II., iii. 300 + +Nicholas V., ii. 28, 187, 236 + +Nicholas the Pisan, iii. 260 + +Nicolosi, iii. 283 + +Nikias, iii. 288, 324, 326, 327 + +Nile, the, iii. 190, 201, 205 + +Niolo, i. 112, 115 + +Nisi, Messer Nicholò di, iii. 2, 3 + +Nismes, i. 74-77 + +Noel, Mr. Roden, i. 10 + +Norcia, ii. 35, 46; iii. 92 + +Normans (in Sicily), iii. 290 foll. + +Novara, i. 19, 124 + + +Oberland valleys, i. 12 + +Oddantonio, Duke of Urbino, ii. 70 + +Oddi family, the, iii. 113, 119, 122, 134 + +Odoacer, ii. 2 + +Offamilio, iii. 311 + +Oglio, the, iii. 6 + +Olgiati, i. 341 + +Oliverotto da Fermo, ii. 47, 48 + +Ombrone, the, iii. 108; + +Val d', iii. 90 + + +Oortman, ii. 149 + +Orange, i. 68, 69 + +Orange, Prince of, i. 79, 316; ii. 253, 254 + +Orcagna, iii. 36 + +Orcia, the, iii. 104, 108 + +Ordelaffi, Cicco and Pino, i. 202 + +Origen, iii. 211, 219, 220 Orlando, ii. 42, 43 + +Ornani, the, i. 114 + +Orpheus, ii. 346-364 + +Orsini, the, ii. 47, 91, 157 + +Orsini, Alfonsina, ii. 239: + +Cardinal, ii. 47: + +Clarice, ii. 227: + +Francesco, ii. 48: + +Giustina, iii. 125: + +Lodovico, ii. 99, 100, 101, 104, 105, 108: + +Paolo, ii. 47, 48: + +Paolo Giordano (_see_ Bracciano, Duke of): + +Troilo, i. 327 _note_, ii. 93 and _note_: + +Virginio (_see_ Bracciano, second Duke of) + + +Orta, i. 173 + +Ortler, the, i. 126; ii. 168 + +Ortygia, iii. 321, 326, 327 + +Orvieto, i. 86; ii. 51, 136, 362; iii. 5, 82, 111, 137-154 + +Otho I., ii. 169 + +Otho III., ii. 15 + +Otranto, ii. 235 + +'Ottimati,' the, ii. 242 foll., 251, 254, 255, 257 + +Overbeck, iii. 187 + +Ovid, ii. 338, 344; iii. 149, 268, 320, 341 _note_ 1 + + +Padua, i. 152, 197, 260; ii. 41, 98, 99, 101, 104, 168, 218, 221; iii. +6 + +Pæstum, iii. 250, 259, 261-269 + +Paganello, Conte, ii. 102 + +Paglia, the, iii. 137 + +Painter, William, ii. 117, 265, 272 + +Palermo, ii. 10; iii. 252, 290-318 + +Palestrina, iii. 37 + +Palladio, i. 75, 256; ii. 29 + +Pallavicino, Matteo, ii. 91 + +Palma, i. 263, 269 + +Palmaria, ii. 142 + +Palmer, Richard, Bishop of Syracuse, iii. 306 _note_ + +Pancrates, iii. 201, 204, 205 + +Panizzi, ii. 43 + +Panormus, iii. 291 + +Pantellaria, iii. 294 _note_ + +Paoli, General, i. 111, 115 + +Paris, i. 20 + +Parker, ----, ii. 266 + +Parma, i. 163; ii. 131, 147-162, 168, 180, 184, 196 + +Parma, Duke of, ii. 76 + +Parmegiano, ii. 150, 158, 159 + +Parmenides, iii. 171, 173 + +Passerini, Silvio (Cardinal of Cortona), ii. 251 + +Passerini da Cortona, Cardinal, i. 316 + +Passignano, ii. 48 + +Pasta, Dr., i. 123, 124 _note_ + +Patmore, Coventry, iii. 136 + +Patrizzi, Patrizio, iii. 72 + +Paul III., i. 318; ii. 88; iii. 120, 133 + +Pausanias, iii. 207 + +Pavia, i. 146-151, 158, 176, 184, 189, 198, 212, 351; ii. 182 + +Pavia, Cardinal of, ii. 75 + +Pazzi, Francesco, ii. 232, 233, 256, 335 + +Pazzi, Guglielmo, ii. 233 + +Peiræeus, iii. 357 + +Pelestrina, i. 258 + +Pelusium, iii. 189 + +Pembroke, Countess of, ii. 265 + +Penna, Jeronimo della, iii. 124 + +Pentelicus, i. 210 + +Pepin, ii. 2 + +Peretti family, ii. 90, 94 + +Peretti, Camilla, ii. 90, 98 + +Peretti, Francesco, ii. 90, 92 foll., 103 + +Pericles, iii. 343, 350 + +Persephone, iii. 290 + +Persius, iii. 165, 172 + +Perugia, i. 188, 214, 350; ii. 35, 38, 46, 52, 163; iii. 53, 68, 92, +111-136 + +Perugino, i. 149, 239; ii. 42, 57, 59, 159; iii. 114, 116, 117-119, 184 + +Perusia Augusta, ii. 45, 46 + +Peruzzi, i. 152; ii. 49 + +Pesaro, ii. 59, 69, 76 + +Pescara, Marquis of, i. 184 + +Petrarch, i. 72, 73, 74 and _note_, 86, 168; ii. 22, 261, 262, 269, +273, 280, 303, 332, 344, 365-368; iii. 254-256, 308, 316 + +Petrucci, Pandolfo, ii. 47; iii. 82 + +Phædrus, iii. 188, 351 + +Pheidias, i. 239, 246; iii. 155, 346, 349 + +Philippus, iii. 319 + +Philistis, Queen, iii. 337 + +Philostratus, ii. 293 + +Phlegræan plains, iii. 235, 239 + +Phoenicians, iii. 290, 291, 335 + +Piacenza, i. 142-144, 195, 340; ii. 180, 197 + +'Piagnoni,' the, ii. 253, 254 + +Piccinino, Jacopo, ii. 234 + +Piccinino, Niccolò, i. 207; ii. 70 + +Piccolomini family, iii. 107 + +Piccolomini, Æneas Sylvius, ii. 23 (_see also_ Pius II.) + +Piccolomini, Ambrogio, iii. 72, 74 + +Piedmont, i. 129 + +Pienza, iii. 77, 92, 102, 104-107 + +Piero della Francesca, ii. 72, 322 + +Piero Delle Vigne, iii. 316 + +Pietra Rubia, ii. 64 + +Pietra Santa, ii. 238 + +Pietro di Cardona, Don, i. 158 + +Pignatta, Captain, i. 319 + +Pindar, iii. 162, 215, 289, 332 + +Pinturicchio, Bernardo, ii. 42; iii. 62, 105, 114 + +Piranesi, i. 77; ii. 181 + +Pisa, i. 340; ii. 170, 203, 211, 214, 239, 244; iii. 145, 253, 304, 311 + +Pisani, the, ii. 30; iii. 71 + +Pisani, Vittore, i. 259 + +Pisano, Andrea, iii. 144 + +Pisano, Giovanni, iii. 112, 144 + +Pisano, Niccola, ii. 170; iii. 144, 146 + +Pisciadella, i. 60 + +Pistoja, ii. 281, 283, 287 + +Pitré, Signor, ii. 281 _note_ + +Pitta, Luca, ii. 226, 256 + +Pitz d'Aela, ii. 127 + +Pitz Badin, ii. 130 + +Pitz Languard, i. 55 + +Pitz Palu, i. 56 + +Pius II., i. 202; ii. 18; iii. 62, 104, 105 + +Pius IV., i. 182, 188 + +Pius IX., iii. 196 + +Placidia, Galla, ii. 8, 11 + +Planta, i. 49 + +Plato, i. 249; iii. 337, 341, 351, 352, 353 + +Pletho, Gemisthus, ii. 19 and _note_ + +Plinies, the, i. 177 + +Plutarch, iii. 199 + +Po, the, i. 50, 124, 134; ii. 1, 168; iii. 94 + +Poggio. (_See_ Bracciolini, Poggio) + +Polenta, Francesca da, ii. 15 + +Politian, iii. 102 + +Poliziano, Angelo, ii. 233, 237, 273, 305, 306, 308, 309, 312, 314, +318, 322, 323, 324, 334, 335, 338, 340, 342-344, 345-364; iii. 101 + +Polyphemus, i. 91 + +Pompeii, iii. 232, 244 + +Pompey, iii. 189 + +Pontano, iii. 242, 243 _note_ + +Ponte, Da, i. 227, 236 + +Pontremoli, i. 340; ii. 133, 183, 194 + +Pontresina, i. 49, 53, 55 + +Pope, Alexander, i. 6; ii. 273; iii. 172 + +Porcari, Stefano, ii. 236 + +Porcellio, ii. 18 + +Porlezza, i. 184 + +Portici, iii. 232 + +Porto d' Anzio, iii. 273 + +Porto Fino, ii. 142 + +Porto Venere, ii. 140-142 + +Portogallo, Cardinal di, iii. 98 + +Portus Classis, ii. 1, 8, 11, 12 + +Poschiavo, i. 49, 60 + +Poseidonia, iii. 261 foll. + +Posilippo, iii. 231, 270, 309 + +Poussin (cited), i. 262 + +Poveglia, i. 257 + +Pozzuoli, iii. 232, 241, 242, 243 + +Prato, ii. 244, 245 + +Procida, iii. 238, 239, 242 + +Promontogno, ii. 130 + +Provence, i. 68-82 + +Provence, Counts of, i. 79 + +Psyttaleia, iii. 358 + +Ptolemy, iii. 205 + +Puccini (Medicean) party, the, ii. 222 + +Pulci, ii. 269, 270 + +Pythagoras, ii. 24 + + +Quattro Castelli, ii. 165, 171 + +Quirini, the, i. 331 + + +Rabelais, iii. 161 + +Radicofani, iii. 69, 90, 91, 103, 106, 111 + +Ragatz, i. 65 + +Raimond, Count of Provence, iii. 305 + +Raimondi, Carlo, ii. 150 + +Rainulf, Count, iii. 299, 300 + +Raleigh, Sir Walter, ii. 264 + +Rametta, iii. 302 + +Rapallo, iii. 256 + +Raphael, i. 138-140, 149, 152, 239, 266; ii. 27, 37, 46, 56, 82, 83, +85, 126, 147, 152, 159; iii. 35, 114, 117, 123, 129, 141, 145, 146, +227, 228 + +Ravello, iii. 259 + +Ravenna, i. 160; ii. 1-13, 75, 244; iii. 315 + +Raymond, iii. 52, 53 + +Recanati, ii. 63 + +Redi, iii. 95 + +Reggio d'Emilia, ii. 165, 167-169, 196; iii. 288 + +Regno, the, i. 196 + +Rembrandt, i. 345; ii. 156, 275 + +René of Anjou, King, i. 202 + +Reni, Guido, ii. 86 + +Rhætia, i. 49 + +Rhætikon, the, i. 29 + +Rhine, the, i. 2 + +Rhone, the, i. 70, 71, 76, 78 + +Riario, Girolamo, ii. 231, 232 + +Ricci, the, ii. 213 + +Ridolfi, Cardinal, i. 318 + +Ridolfi, Pietro, iii. 11 + +Rienzi, i. 70 + +Rieti, valley of, ii. 34 + +Rimini, i. 350, 353; ii. 14-31, 60, 70 + +Rimini, Francesca da, ii. 270 + +Riviera, the, i. 2, 97, 104; ii. 143 + +Riviera, mountains of, ii. 142 + +Robbia, Luca della, ii. 29 + +Robustelli, Jacopo, i. 61 + +Rocca d' Orcia, iii. 106, 108 + +Roccabruna, i. 83, 91, 92 + +Rodari, Bernardino, i. 175 + +Rodari, Jacopo, i. 175 + +Rodari, Tommaso, i. 175, 176 + +Roger of Hauteville, iii. 295 and _note_, 296 foll. + +Roger (the younger) of Hauteville, King of Sicily, iii. 252, 253, 293, +305, 307-311, 318 + +Rogers, Samuel, ii. 270 + +Roland, ii. 42, 43 + +Roma, Antonio da, i. 328, 329 + +Romagna, ii. 16, 73, 185, 187, 199 + +Romano, i. 197 + +Romano, Giulio, i. 243 + +Rome, i. 2, 49, 68, 75, 139; ii. 10, 32, 88, 89, 187, 259; iii. 22 +foll., 85, 156, 323 + +Ronco, the, ii. 1, 10 + +Rossellino, Bernardo, iii. 62, 105, 106 + +Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, ii. 262, 263, 270; iii. 1, 3, 17 foll. + +Rousseau, i. 5, 6; ii. 27; iii. 157 + +Rovere, Francesco della. (_See_ Sixtus IV.) + +Rovere, Francesco Maria (Duke of Urbino). (_See_ Urbino) + +Rovere, Giovanni della, ii. 73 + +Rovere, Livia della, ii. 77 + +Rovere, Vittoria della, ii. 78 + +Rubens, i. 345 + +Rubicon, the, ii. 14 + +Rucellai family, ii. 28 + +Rumano, i. 204 + +Rusca, Francesco, i. 177 + +Ruskin, Mr., i. 10, 125 + +Rydberg, Victor, iii. 224 _note_, 227 + + +Sabine Mountains, ii. 32, 33, 39, 88 + +Sacchetti, iii. 12, 13, 16 + +Saintrè, Jehan de, iii. 13 + +Salamis, iii. 358, 362 + +Salerno, iii. 250, 262, 268, 299 + +Salimbeni, house of, iii. 7 + +Salimbeni, Niccolò de', iii. 3 + +Salis, Von, family, i. 50 + +Salis, Von, i. 49 + +Salò, ii. 98 + +Salviati, Cardinal, i. 318 + +Salviati, Francesco (Archbishop of Pisa), ii. 232, 233 + +Salviati (Governor of Cortona), ii. 50 + +Salviati, Madonna Lucrezia, i. 320 + +Salviati, Madonna Maria, i. 320 + +Samaden, i. 48, 53, 55 + +Samminiato, iii. 98 + +Sampiero, i. 112, 113-115 + +Sanazzaro, ii. 264 and _note_ 1 + +S. Agnese, i. 85 + +S. Erasmo, i. 256, 283 + +S. Gilles, i. 81, 82 + +S. Pietro, i. 258 + +S. Spirito, i. 257 + +San Gemignano, iii. 3, 59 + +San Germano, iii. 246, 305 + +San Giacomo, i. 63 + +San Lazzaro, i. 280 + +San Leo, ii. 64 + +San Marino, ii. 60, 62-64 + +San Martino, i. 173 + +San Michele, i. 268 + +San Moritz, i. 55, 58 + +San Nicoletto, i. 283, 286 + +San Quirico, iii. 77, 92, 102, 107-110 + +San Remo, i. 87 _note_, 93-98, 105; iii. 256 + +San Rocco, i. 265 + +San Romolo, i. 98-100, 103 + +San Terenzio, ii. 143, 144 + +Sangarius, the, iii. 187 + +Sanseverino, Roberto, i. 158 + +Sansovino, i. 337 _note_, ii. 17 _note_ + +Sant' Elisabetta, i. 283 + +Santa Agata, ii. 64, 90 + +Santa Lucia, iii. 232 + +Santa Maura, iii. 363. + +Santi, Giovanni, ii. 56, 59 + +Sappho, iii. 363 + +Saracens, iii. 252, 263, 294 _note_, 302 foll., 308, 321 + +Sardinia, ii. 189, 286 + +Saronno, i. 137, 156, 161-166 + +Sarto, Andrea del, i. 345; iii. 100 + +Sarzana, ii. 131, 134, 143, 183, 238 + +Sassella, i. 48, 62 + +Sasso Rancio, i. 173 + +Savonarola, i. 171; ii. 122, 193, 237, 238, 239-242 + +Scala, Can Grande della, iii. 6 + +Scaletta, pass of the, i. 49 + +Scaligers, the, iii. 318 + +Scalza, Ippolito, iii. 147 + +Scandiano, Count of. ii. 67 + +Scheffer, Ary, ii. 15 + +Scheggia, ii. 55 + +Schiahorn, the, i. 54 + +Schwartzhorn, the, i. 54 + +Schyn, ii. 127 + +Sciacca, iii. 281 + +Scolastica, S., iii. 73 + +Scott, Sir Walter, ii. 273 + +Sebastian, S., iii. 184, 185 + +Seehorn, the, i. 29 + +Seelisberg, i. 14 + +Segeste, iii. 291, 319, 335 + +Selinus, iii. 291, 333, 335, 337 + +Serafino, Fra, ii. 83 + +Serbelloni, Cecilia, i. 180 + +Sergestus, iii. 319 + +Serio, river, i. 204 + +Sermini, iii. 68 + +Sesia, the, i. 19 + +Sestri, i. 103 _note_; iii. 250 + +Sforza family, the, i. 146, 155, 179, 184, 185, 197, 244 + +Sforza, Alessandro, i. 202, ii. 72: + +Battista, ii. 72: + +Beatrice, i. 176: + +Cardinal Ascanio, ii. 91: + +Francesco, i. 149, 181, 186, 198, 200, 203, 208, ii. 1717 _note_, 71, +185, 224: + +Galeazzo, ii. 236: + +Galeazzo Maria, ii. 185, 230, 236, iii. 117: + +Giovanni Galeazzo, ii. 185, 192: + +Ippolita, i. 155: + +Lodovico, i. 149, ii. 185, 186, 191, 193, 194, 236, 238: + +Polissena, ii. 17: + +Zenobia, iii. 124, 125, 128 + + +Shakspere, ii. 258, 262, 263, 267, 268, 271-274, 277, 335; iii. 36, 37, +166, 280, 282 + +Shelley, i. 5, 10, 25, 26, 87, 166, 232; ii. 138, 140, 143-145, 270, +271, 273; iii. 172, 186 + +Shirley, the dramatist, ii. 159 + +Sicily, i. 103 _note_; ii. 66, 189, 276, 281 _note_, 282; iii. 252, 279 +foll., 286, 288, 290 foll., 319 foll. + +Sidney, Sir Philip, ii. 263, 264, 266 + +Siena, i. 166, 187, 192; ii. 42, 185, 214, 281, 286; iii. 1, 7, 10, 12, +41-65, 66 foll., 92, 105 _et passim_ + +Sigifredo, ii. 168 + +Signorelli, i. 239; ii. 49, 362; iii. 35, 81, 82, 85, 145, 147-152, 154 + +Silarus, the, iii. 264 + +Silchester, i. 214 + +Silvaplana, ii. 128, 129 + +Silvretta, the, i. 31 + +Silz Maria, ii. 129 + +Simaetha, i. 140 + +Simeto, the, iii. 279, 304 + +Simon Magus, iii. 216 + +Simonetta, La Bella, ii. 318, 322, 335, 343 + +Simonides, iii. 167 + +Simplon, the, i. 19, 125 + +Sinigaglia, ii. 48; iii. 131 + +Sirmione, i. 173 + +Sixtus IV., i. 221; ii. 73, 231, 232, 234, 235 + +Sixtus V., ii. 90, 95, 98 + +Smyrna, iii. 212 + +Sobieski, Clementina, ii. 83 + +Socrates, iii. 155, 329, 351, 352, 353, 354 + +Soderini, Alessandro, i. 332, 334, 335, 338, 341 + +Soderini, Maria, i. 320 + +Soderini, Niccolo, ii. 226 + +Soderini, Paolo Antonio, ii. 192 + +Soderini, Piero, ii. 243-245 + +Sodoma, i. 141, 152, 165, 166; iii. 63, 81, 82-84, 184 + +Sogliano, ii. 15 + +Solari, Andrea, i. 148 + +Solari, Cristoforo (Il Gobbo), i. 149, 176 + +Solferino, i. 127 + +Solon, ii. 163; iii. 172, 341 + +Solza, i. 194 + +Sondrio, i. 49, 61, 63 + +Sophocles, ii. 160, 161; iii. 215, 287, 345 _notes_ 1 and 2, 350 + +Sordello, i. 80 + +Sorgues river, i. 72 + +Sorrento, iii. 233, 250, 276-278 + +Sozzo, Messer, iii. 10, 11 + +Sparta, iii. 323 + +Spartian, iii. 192, 193, 197 + +Spartivento, iii. 288 + +Spello, ii. 35, 38, 39, 41-43, 45, 46 + +Spenser, Edmund, ii. 258, 262, 264 + +Spezzia, Bay of, ii. 135, 146 + +Splügen, i. 64 + +Splügen, the, i. 50, 53, 64; + +valley of, i. 184 + + +Spolentino, hills of, iii. 92 + +Spoleto, ii. 35, 38, 45, 46, 170; iii. 111, 120 + +Sprecher von Bernegg, i. 49 + +Stabiæ, iii. 246 + +Staffa, Jeronimo della, iii. 125 + +Stelvio, the, i. 9, 50, 61 + +Stephen des Rotrous, Archbishop of Palermo, iii. 306 _note_ 1 + +Stimigliano, ii. 34 + +Strabo, iii. 206 + +Strozzi family, ii. 75 + +Strozzi, Filippo, i. 318, 321, 326, 344 + +Strozzi (Governor of Cortona), ii. 50 + +Strozzi, Palla degli, ii. 222 + +Strozzi, Pietro, i. 332 + +Strozzi, Ruberto, i. 331 + +Suardi, Bartolommeo, i. 154 + +Subasio, ii. 45 + +Suetonius, i. 134-136; iii. 164, 196, 199, 272, 274 + +Sufenas, iii. 209 + +Superga, the, i. 133, 134 + +Surrey, Earl of, ii. 261-263, 271 + +Susa, vale of, i. 134 + +Süss, i. 55 + +Swinburne, Mr., ii. 270, 273 + +Switzerland, i. 1-67, 105, 129 + +Sybaris, ancient Hellenic city of, ii. 2 _note_; iii. 261 + +Syracuse, i. 87 _note_; iii. 262, 279, 288, 290, 291, 294 _note_, 304, +320-331 + + +Tacitus, iii. 199 + +Tadema, Alma, i. 210 + +Tanagra, iii. 209 + +Tancred de Hauteville, iii. 294, 295 + +Taormina, iii. 287, 288, 304 + +Tarentum, iii. 263 + +Tarentum, Prince of, i. 79 + +Tarlati, Guido, iii. 74 + +Taro, the, i. 340; ii. 132, 183, 184, 195 + +Tarsus, iii. 212 + +Tasso, ii. 83, 264, 265, 267, 269, 273, 274, 280, 332, 337, 343 + +Tavignano, the, valley of, i. 111 + +Tedaldo, Count of Reggio and Modena, ii. 169 + +Tennyson, Lord, i. 4; ii. 23, 270, 273, 296; iii. 173 + +Terlan, i. 63 + +Terni, ii. 34, 253 + +Terracina, i. 318; iii. 235 + +Tertullian, iii. 219 + +Theocritus, i. 84, 94; ii. 304, 330, 335, 337, 355; iii. 319 + +Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ii. 2, 10, 11, 13 + +Theognis, iii. 172 + +Thomas à Kempis (quoted), i. 98, 100 + +Thomas of Sarzana, ii. 28 + +Thrasymene, ii. 45, 46, 48; iii. 90, 91, 101, 111 + +Thucydides, iii. 321-324, 327, 328, 331 + +Thuillier, Prefect, i. 109 + +Tiber, the, ii. 33, 46; iii. 112 + +Tiberio d'Assisi, ii. 35 + +Tiberius, ii. 14; iii. 271-274 + +Ticino, the, i. 124, 211 + +Tieck, R. iii. 224 + +Timoleon, iii. 288, 290, 304, 319, 337 + +Tintoretto, i. 138, 236, 262-267, 269, 281; ii. 147, 156; iii. 158 + +Tinzenhorn, ii. 127 + +Tirano, i. 49-53, 61, 62 + +Titian, i. 337 _note_; ii. 76, 83, 130, 153, 154; iii. 180, 247 + +Titus, iii. 190 + +Tivoli, i. 87 _note_; ii. 32; iii. 189, 198, 201, 210 + +Todi, iii. 111 + +Tofana, i. 268, 283 + +Tolomei family, iii. 69 + +Tolomei, Cristoforo, iii. 70 + +Tolomei, Fulvia, iii. 70 + +Tolomei, Giovanni, iii. 8, 70 (_see also_ Bernardo) + +Tolomei, Nino, iii. 8, 70 + +Tommaseo, ii. 283 + +Tommaso di Nello, iii. 11 + +Torcello, i. 171, 172, 282; ii. 1 + +Torre dell' Annunziata, iii. 232 + +Torre del Greco, iii. 232 + +Torrensi family, the, iii. 119 + +Toscanella, iii. 109 + +Toschi, Paolo, ii. 148-150 + +Totila, iii. 81 + +Tourneur, ii. 267 + +Trajan, ii. 14; iii. 188 + +Trani, iii. 311 + +Trapani, iii. 319 + +Trasimeno, ii. 50 + +Trastevere, ii. 96 + +Trebanio, ii. 19 + +Trelawny, ii. 144, 146 + +Tremazzi, Ambrogio, i. 327 _note_ + +Trento, i. 340 + +Trepievi, the, i. 184, 188 + +Trescorio, i. 204 + +Tresenda, i. 63 + +Trevi, ii. 35, 39, 46, 97; iii. 111 + +Treviglio, i. 209 + +Treviso, iii. 6 + +Trezzo, i. 194 + +Trinacria, iii. 290 + +Trinci family, ii. 38, 41 + +Trinci, Corrado, ii. 40 + +Troina, iii. 302, 303 + +Tuldo, Nicola, iii. 53-55 + +Tunis, iii. 275 + +Turin, i. 134, 138, 348 + +Turner, J.M.W., iii. 138, 364 + +Tuscany, i. 187; ii. 45, 169, 234, 244, 276 foll.; iii. 41 foll., 68, +104 + +Tuscany, Grand Duke of, ii. 99, 170, 256 + +Tyrol, the, i. 89 + +Tyrrhenian sea, the, ii. 183 + + +Ubaldo, S., ii. 54 + +Uberti, Fazio degli, iii. 10, 16 + +Udine, i. 351 + +Ugolini, Messer Baccio, ii. 362 + +Uguccione della Faggiuola, ii. 136; iii. 4 + +Ulysses, iii. 288, 320 + +Umbria, i. 149; ii. 32-59; iii. 68, 119 _note_ 1 + +Urban II., iii. 304 + +Urban IV., ii. 177; iii. 141, 142 + +Urban V., i. 70; ii. 78 + +Urbino, i. 203; ii. 45, 58, 66-69, 74, 78-87, 185 + +Urbino, Counts of, ii. 15, 70 + +Urbino, Federigo, Duke of, i. 203, 207, 316, 317, 326; ii. 48, 66-68, +70-73, 78-81, 231 + +Urbino, Prince Federigo-Ubaldo of, ii. 77, 78 + +Urbino, Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of, ii. 73-76, 85 + +Urbino, Francesco Maria II., Duke of, ii. 76-78, 86 + +Urbino, Guidobaldo, Duke of, ii. 73, 74, 79, 80, 83, 84 + +Urbino, Guidobaldo II., Duke of, ii. 76, 82 + +Urbino, Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of, ii. 75, 76, 247 + + +Valdarno, ii. 218 + +Valdelsa, iii. 69 + +Valentinian, iii. 191 + +Valentino, ii. 64 + +Valperga, Ardizzino, i. 158 + +Valsassina, the, i. 184 + +Valtelline, the, i. 35, 48-51, 53, 58, 61, 64, 180, 184, 186, 188; ii. +168; iii. 94 + +Valturio, ii. 18 + +Varallo, i. 19, 136, 138, 164 + +Varani, the, ii. 47, 71 + +Varano, Giulia, ii. 76 + +Varano, Madonna Maria, ii. 85 + +Varano, Venanzio, ii. 85 + +Varchi, i. 320-322, 325, 326; iii. 45 _note_ + +Varenna, i. 173, 186 + +Varese, i. 144; + +Lake of, i. 124, 173, 174 + + +Vasari, Giorgio, ii. 26, 28; iii. 83, 84, 145 + +Vasco de Gama, ii. 237 + +Vasto, Marquis del, i. 187 + +Vaucluse, i. 72-74 + +Velino, the, ii. 34, 46 + +Venice, i. 44, 167, 171, 200, 201, 206, 254-315; ii. 1, 2 and _note_, +16, 42, 102; iii. 253, 309, 317 _note_, _et passim_ + +Ventimiglia, i. 102 + +Vercelli, i. 136-142; ii. 173; iii. 82 + +Vergerio, Pier Paolo, i. 331 + +Verne, M. Jules, ii. 139 + +Vernet, Horace, i. 71 + +Verocchio, i. 193, 207 + +Verona, i. 212; ii. 168; iii. 6, 318 + +Verucchio, ii. 62 + +Vespasian, ii. 57 + +Vespasiano, Florentine bookseller, ii. 80 + +Vesuvius, iii. 230, 232, 234, 235, 239, 242, 245, 276 + +Vettori, Paolo, ii. 245 + +Via Mala, the, ii. 57 + +Viareggio, ii. 145, 146 + +Vicenza, i. 75, 328-330 + +Vico, i. 109, 112, 115 + +Vico Soprano, ii. 129 + +Victor, Aurelius, iii. 193, 195 + +Vietri, iii. 250 + +Vignole, i. 283 + +Villa, i. 48, 62 + +Villafranca, i. 83 + +Villani, Giovanni, iii. 8 + +Villani, Matteo, ii. 208; iii. 8, 16 + +Villeneuve, i. 70 + +Villon, iii. 1 + +Vinci, Leonardo da, i. 139, 148, 154, 349; ii. 19, 21, 27, 50, 152, +156; iii. 82, 228, 238 + +Vinta, M. Francesco, i. 330 + +Vire, Val de, ii. 291 + +Virgil, i. 246; ii. 6, 63, 285, 304, 338, 343; iii. 75, 144, 155, 162, +172, 180, 181, 186, 215, 268, 309, 320 + +Visconti family, the, i. 146, 181, 195; ii. 16, 178, 185, 224, 278; +iii. 119, 253 + +Visconti, Astore, i, 181, 182 + +Visconti, Bianca Maria, i. 199 + +Visconti, Ermes, i. 157 + +Visconti, Filippo Maria, i. 195, 197-199; ii. 215, 224, 235 + +Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, i. 149, 152; ii. 213 + +Visconti, Gian Maria, ii. 236 + +Vitelli, the, ii. 41, 47, 71 + +Vitelli, Alessandro, ii. 250 + +Vitelli, Giulia, iii. 132 + +Vitelli, Vitellozzo, ii. 47, 48 + +Vitellius, iii. 164 + +Vittoli, the, i. 114, 115 + +Vivarini, i. 269 + +Voltaire, iii. 161 + +Volterra, ii. 163, 214, 231; iii. 66, 69, 79, 92, 103 + +Volterra, Bebo da, i. 328-330, 333-341 + +Volterrano, Andrea, i. 336 + +Volturno, iii. 239 + +Volumnii, the, iii. 112 + + +Walker, Frederick, ii. 129; iii. 76 + +Walter of Brienne. (_See_ Athens, Duke of) + +Walter of the Mill, Archbishop of Palermo, iii. 306 _note_, 308 + +Webster, the dramatist, i. 220; ii. 103-126, 267, 271, 277 + +Weisshorn, the, i. 54 + +Whitman, Walt, ii. 24; iii. 172 + +Wien, i. 45 + +Wiesen, i. 65; ii. 127 + +William of Apulia, iii. 298, 299, 305 + +William the Bad and William the Good of Sicily, iii. 305, 306, 308, 311 + +Winckelman, iii. 188 + +Wolfgang, i. 30 + +Wolfswalk, the, i. 31 + +Wordsworth, i. 5, 6, 10, 11; ii. 262, 263, 273; iii. 172, 173 + +Wyatt, Sir Thomas, ii. 261, 262 + + +Xenophanes, iii. 171, 173, 353 + +Xiphilinus, iii. 192 + + +Zafferana, iii. 282, 283 + +Zante, iii. 363 + +Zeno, Carlo, i. 260 + +Zeus Olympius, iii. 290 + +Zizers, i. 65 + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE *** + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the +United States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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