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diff --git a/18893-h/18893-h.htm b/18893-h/18893-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cc89703 --- /dev/null +++ b/18893-h/18893-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,40881 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, by John Addington Symonds</title> +<link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.letter {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.center {text-align: center; + text-indent: 0em; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.right {text-align: right; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + + .pagenum {position: absolute; left: 92%; font-size: smaller; text-align: right;} /* page numbers */ + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +div.fig { display:block; + margin:0 auto; + text-align:center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em;} + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + + ul.IX { /* styling the IndeX */ + list-style-type: none; + font-size: 90%; + } + ul.IX li { /* list items in an index list: compressed */ + margin-top: 0; + } + + </style> + </head> +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, by John Symonds</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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 <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. 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. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece<br /> + Series I, II, and III</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: John Symonds</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: July 22, 2006 [eBook #18893]<br /> +[Most recently updated: October 17, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Turgut Dincer, Ted Garvin, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE ***</div> + +<div class="fig" style="width:55%;"> +<img src="images/cover.jpg" style="width:100%;" alt="[Illustration: ildefonso]" /> +</div> + +<h1>Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece</h1> + +<h2>by John Addington Symonds</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h2>Contents</h2> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#vol01"><b>VOLUME I.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap01">THE LOVE OF THE ALPS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap02">WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap03">BACCHUS IN GRAUBÜNDEN</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap04">OLD TOWNS OF PROVENCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap05">THE CORNICE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap06">AJACCIO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap07">MONTE GENEROSO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap08">LOMBARD VIGNETTES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap09">COMO AND IL MEDEGHINO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap10">BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap11">CREMA AND THE CRUCIFIX</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap12">CHERUBINO AT THE SCALA THEATRE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap13">A VENETIAN MEDLEY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap14">THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap15">A CINQUE CENTO BRUTUS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap16">TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#vol02"><b>VOLUME II.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap17">RAVENNA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap18">RIMINI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap19">MAY IN UMBRIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap20">THE PALACE OF URBINO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap21">VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap22">AUTUMN WANDERINGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap23">PARMA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap24">CANOSSA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap25">FORNOVO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap26">FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap27">THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap28">POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap29">POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap30">THE ‘ORFEO’ OF POLIZIANO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap31">EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH</a><br /><br /></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#vol03"><b>VOLUME III.</b></a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap32">FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap33">THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap34">SIENA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap35">MONTE OLIVETO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap36">MONTEPULCIANO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap37">PERUGIA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap38">ORVIETO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap39">LUCRETIUS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap40">ANTINOUS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap41">SPRING WANDERINGS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap42">AMALFI, PÆSTUM, CAPRI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap43">ETNA</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap44">PALERMO</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap45">SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap46">ATHENS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#chap47">INDEX FOR ALL THREE VOLUMES</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="PREFATORY_NOTE" id="PREFATORY_NOTE">PREFATORY NOTE</a></h2> + +<p> +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. +</p> + +<p class="right"> +HORATIO F. BROWN. +</p> + +<p>Venice: <i>June</i> 1898.</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>SKETCHES AND STUDIES<br /> + +IN<br /> + +ITALY AND GREECE</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="vol01"></a>VOLUME I.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.001" id="pg1.001"></a></span> +<a name="chap01"></a>THE LOVE OF THE ALPS<a href="#fn-1" +name="fnref-1" id="fnref-1"><sup>[1]</sup></a></h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.002" id= "pg1.002">2</a></span>out, +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-1" id="fn-1"></a> <a href="#fnref-1">[1]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-2" name="fnref-2" id="fnref-2"><sup>[2]</sup></a> Dryden, in his dedication to 'The +Indian <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.003" id= +"pg1.003">3</a></span>Emperor,' 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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.004" id= "pg1.004">4</a></span>arrange, 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</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Some vague emotion of delight<br /> +In gazing up an Alpine height, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.005" id= "pg1.005">5</a></span>Shelley'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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-2" id="fn-2"></a> <a href="#fnref-2">[2]</a> +See, however, what is said about Leo Battista Alberti in the sketch of Rimini +in the second series. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 '<i>école buissonnière</i>,' +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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.006" id= "pg1.006">6</a></span>philosophy, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.007" id= "pg1.007">7</a></span>of 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, <i>cannot</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>cultus</i>,—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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.008" id= "pg1.008">8</a></span>with 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.009" id= "pg1.009">9</a></span>a 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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.010" id= "pg1.010">10</a></span>that, 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 <i>not</i> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.011" id= "pg1.011">11</a></span>reached 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +At Mürren let the morning lead thee out<br /> + To walk upon the cold and cloven hills,<br /> +To hear the congregated mountains shout<br /> + Their pæan of a thousand foaming rills.<br /> +Raimented with intolerable light<br /> + The snow-peaks stand above thee, row on row<br /> +Arising, each a seraph in his might;<br /> + An organ each of varied stop doth blow.<br /> +Heaven's azure dome trembles through all her spheres,<br /> + Feeling that music vibrate; and the sun<br /> +Raises his tenor as he upward steers,<br /> + And all the glory-coated mists that run<br /> +Below him in the valley, hear his voice,<br /> +And cry unto the dewy fields, Rejoice! +</p> + +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.012" id= "pg1.012">12</a></span>which +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. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.013" id= "pg1.013">13</a></span>peaks, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.014" id= "pg1.014">14</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg1.015" id= "pg1.015">15</a></span>clear 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.016" id= "pg1.016">16</a></span>and 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.017" id= "pg1.017">17</a></span>the 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.'</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.018" id= "pg1.018">18</a></span>like 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 <i>Saxifraga cotyledon</i>; 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.019" id= "pg1.019">19</a></span>moist 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.020" id= "pg1.020">20</a></span>than a day's journey from Milan to the brink of snow at Macugnaga. But +very sad it is to <i>leave</i> 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.</p> + +<h3>THE ALPS IN WINTER</h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.021" id= "pg1.021">21</a></span>intermingled 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.</p> + +<p>So we live through two days and nights, and on the third <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.022" id= "pg1.022">22</a></span>a 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.023" id= "pg1.023">23</a></span>The 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.024" id= "pg1.024">24</a></span>rising and falling and passing +crosswise in the sun-illumined shade of tree or mountain-side.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.025" id= "pg1.025">25</a></span>The 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.</p> + +<p>Leaving the horse-sledges on the verge of some high hill-road, and +trusting oneself to the little hand-sledge which the <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.026" id= "pg1.026">26</a></span>people 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.027" id= "pg1.027">27</a></span>as 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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.028" id= "pg1.028">28</a></span></p> + +<h2> +<a name="chap02"></a>WINTER NIGHTS AT DAVOS</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>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—<i>dolce +color</i>. (It is difficult to use the word <i>colour</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.029" id= "pg1.029">29</a></span>moony 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.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Parova a me, che nube ne coprisse<br /> +Lucida, spessa, solida e pulita. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.030" id= "pg1.030">30</a></span>and 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.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.031" id= "pg1.031">31</a></span>there, 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.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.032" id= "pg1.032">32</a></span> +</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.033" id= "pg1.033">33</a></span></p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.034" id= "pg1.034">34</a></span>them 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.</p> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.035" id= "pg1.035">35</a></span>stalwart 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.</p> + +<p>The occasion was cheerful, and yet a little solemn. The scene was +feudal. For these Buols are the scions of a warrior race:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +A race illustrious for heroic deeds;<br /> +Humbled, but not degraded. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.036" id= "pg1.036">36</a></span>Counts 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.037" id= "pg1.037">37</a></span>broad 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 <i>Prosit Neujahr!</i></p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.038" id= "pg1.038">38</a></span>Bürschen, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.039" id= "pg1.039">39</a></span>angles. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.040" id= "pg1.040">40</a></span>swinging +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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The die is cast! Nay, light the torch!<br /> + I'll take the road! Up, courage, ho!<br /> +Why linger pondering in the porch?<br /> + Upon Love's revel we will go!<br /> +<br /> +Shake off those fumes of wine! Hang care<br /> + And caution! What has Love to do<br /> +With prudence? Let the torches flare!<br /> + Quick, drown the doubts that hampered you!<br /> +<br /> +Cast weary wisdom to the wind!<br /> + One thing, but one alone, I know:<br /> +Love bent e'en Jove and made him blind<br /> + Upon Love's revel we will go! +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.041" id= "pg1.041">41</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And then again:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I've drunk sheer madness! Not with wine,<br /> + But old fantastic tales, I'll arm<br /> +My heart in heedlessness divine,<br /> + And dare the road, nor dream of harm!<br /> +<br /> +I'll join Love's rout! Let thunder break,<br /> + Let lightning blast me by the way!<br /> +Invulnerable Love shall shake<br /> + His ægis o'er my head to-day. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Cold blows the winter wind; 'tis Love,<br /> + Whose sweet eyes swim with honeyed tears,<br /> +That bears me to thy doors, my love,<br /> + Tossed by the storm of hopes and fears.<br /> +<br /> +Cold blows the blast of aching Love;<br /> + But be thou for my wandering sail,<br /> +Adrift upon these waves of love,<br /> + Safe harbour from the whistling gale! +</p> + +<p> +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 +<i>canaille</i> choruses, of which the facile rhymes seemed mostly +made on a prolonged <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.042" id= "pg1.042">42</a></span><i>amu-u-u-r</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.043" id= "pg1.043">43</a></span>Gothic tower, and mullioned windows deep embayed +beneath their eaves and icicles. <i>Deh vieni alla finestra!</i> sings +Palmy-Leporello; the chorus answers: <i>Deh vieni! Perchè non vieni +ancora?</i> pleads Leporello; the chorus shouts: <i>Perchè? Mio +amu-u-u-r</i>, sighs Leporello; and Echo cries, <i>amu-u-u-r!</i> 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 <i>Prosits</i>! 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.044" id= "pg1.044">44</a></span>Fräulein 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 <i>Prosits</i> and clinked glasses follow; +and with a fair good-morning to our hostess, we retire.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.045" id= "pg1.045">45</a></span>idle, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.046" id= "pg1.046">46</a></span>slabbed 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.047" id= "pg1.047">47</a></span>down 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.'</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.048" id= "pg1.048">48</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap03"></a> +BACCHUS IN GRAUBÜNDEN</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p>Some years' residence in the Canton of the Grisons made me familiar +with all sorts of Valtelline wine; with masculine but rough <i>Inferno</i>, +generous <i>Forzato</i>, delicate <i>Sassella</i>, harsher <i>Montagner</i>, the +raspberry flavour of <i>Grumello</i>, the sharp invigorating twang of +<i>Villa</i>. 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Et quo te carmine dicam,<br /> +Rhætica? nec cellis ideo contende Falernis. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.049" id= "pg1.049">49</a></span>Such 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 <i>Ras</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.050" id= "pg1.050">50</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.051" id= "pg1.051">51</a></span>deal +with it; and, as I have hinted, the wine requires a mountain climate +for its full development.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Forzato is the strongest, dearest, longest-lived of this <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.052" id= "pg1.052">52</a></span>whole 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 <i>Stroh</i>) 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.053" id= "pg1.053">53</a></span>fallen, 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.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At the end of January, my friend Christian and I left Davos long +before the sun was up, and ascended for four <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.054" id= "pg1.054">54</a></span>hours 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.055" id= "pg1.055">55</a></span>Süss 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.056" id= "pg1.056">56</a></span>flanks, +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.057" id= "pg1.057">57</a></span>sunshine, as though a bloom of plum or grape +had been shed over them, enamelling their jagged precipices.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>loggia</i> 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 <i>trinketti</i>. These are oblong, +hexagonal wooden kegs, holding about fourteen litres, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.058" id= "pg1.058">58</a></span>which 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 <i>Schluck</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.059" id= "pg1.059">59</a></span>the +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>jauchzen</i> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.060" id= "pg1.060">60</a></span>blooming 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.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>finanzieri</i>, mere boys, were sitting wrapped in <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.061" id= "pg1.061">61</a></span>their 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.062" id= "pg1.062">62</a></span>some +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.<a href="#fn-3" name="fnref-3" id="fnref-3"><sup>[3]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-3" id="fn-3"></a> <a href="#fnref-3">[3]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.063" id= "pg1.063">63</a></span>and +terraces, which justify its Italian epithet of <i>Teatro di Bacco</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>il vino de' Signori Grigioni</i>, has been +modernised in dull Italian fashion.</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.064" id= "pg1.064">64</a></span>have 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.</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>Though not strictly connected with the subject of this paper, I shall +conclude these notes of winter wanderings in <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.065" id= "pg1.065">65</a></span>the high Alps with an +episode which illustrates their curious vicissitudes.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.066" id= "pg1.066">66</a></span>posts 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>I have rarely felt anything more piercing than the grim <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.067" id= "pg1.067">67</a></span>cold 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.068" id= "pg1.068">68</a></span></p> + +<h2> +<a name="chap04"></a> +OLD TOWNS OF PROVENCE</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.069" id= "pg1.069">69</a></span>from +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.070" id= "pg1.070">70</a></span>inside 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.071" id= "pg1.071">71</a></span>solid 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.072" id= "pg1.072">72</a></span>'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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.073" id= "pg1.073">73</a></span>and 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.074" id= "pg1.074">74</a></span>and 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-4" name="fnref-4" id="fnref-4"><sup>[4]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-4" id="fn-4"></a> <a href="#fnref-4">[4]</a> +I have translated and printed at the end of the second volume some sonnets of +Petrarch as a kind of palinode for this impertinence. +</p> + +<p>The change from Avignon to Nismes is very trying to the latter place; +for Nismes is not picturesquely or historically <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.075" id= "pg1.075">75</a></span>interesting. 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.076" id= "pg1.076">76</a></span>Next 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!'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.077" id= "pg1.077">77</a></span>partly 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:'— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Si come ad Arli ove 'l Rodano stagna,<br /> +Fanno i sepolcri tutto 'l loco varo; +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +but also because of the intrinsic picturesqueness of this avenue of +sepulchres beneath green trees upon a long soft grassy field.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.078" id= "pg1.078">78</a></span>looking 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.079" id= "pg1.079">79</a></span>title 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>places baussenques</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.080" id= "pg1.080">80</a></span>with 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—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Plas mi cavalier Francez. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.081" id= "pg1.081">81</a></span>so 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.082" id= "pg1.082">82</a></span>this 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!</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.083" id= "pg1.083">83</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap05"></a>THE CORNICE</h2> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.084" id= "pg1.084">84</a></span>full 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 <i>Hylas</i>. 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<a href="#fn-5" name="fnref-5" id="fnref-5"><sup>[5]</sup></a> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.085" id= "pg1.085">85</a></span>on 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-5" id="fn-5"></a> <a href="#fnref-5">[5]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.093" id= "pg1.093">93</a></span>gossiping 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.086" id= "pg1.086">86</a></span>it 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.087" id= "pg1.087">87</a></span>of 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.<a href="#fn-6" name="fnref-6" id="fnref-6"><sup>[6]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-6" id="fn-6"></a> <a href="#fnref-6">[6]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.088" id= "pg1.088">88</a></span>fountain, '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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.089" id= "pg1.089">89</a></span>some 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. '<i>Une immense +espérance a traversé la terre</i>,' 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 <i>Miserere</i> and their <i>Gloria</i> and their <i>Dies Iræ</i>, 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.090" id= "pg1.090">90</a></span>and 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.091" id= "pg1.091">91</a></span>head: 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>Tempora labuntur +tacitisque senescimus annis</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.092" id= "pg1.092">92</a></span>its 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 <i>ad libitum</i>.</p> + +<p>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, '<i>Non Corus in illum jus habet aut +Zephyrus</i>;' 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>noli me tangere</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.094" id= "pg1.094">94</a></span>raise 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—<i>attritus ægrâ macie</i>. But the fast of Good +Friday is followed by the festival of Easter. That, after all, is the +chief difference.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.095" id= "pg1.095">95</a></span>arrows, 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 <i>uggia</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.096" id= "pg1.096">96</a></span>reminding 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.097" id= "pg1.097">97</a></span>pyramids +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.098" id= "pg1.098">98</a></span>side by side beneath one load of lime, others +scarcely visible under a stack of oats, another with her baby in its +cradle fast asleep.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Imitatio</i> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.099" id= "pg1.099">99</a></span>seclusion.' 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.<a href="#fn-7" name="fnref-7" id="fnref-7"><sup>[7]</sup></a> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.100" id= "pg1.100">100</a></span>and 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-7" id="fn-7"></a> <a href="#fnref-7">[7]</a> +Dante, Par. xi. 106. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Here is a sentence of the <i>Imitatio</i> 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 '<i>de conditione <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.101" id= "pg1.101">101</a></span>humanæ miseriæ</i>,' and '<i>de +contemptu mundi</i>,' 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.102" id= "pg1.102">102</a></span>unobservant 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.103" id= "pg1.103">103</a></span>one 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.104" id= "pg1.104">104</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap06"></a>AJACCIO</h2> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.105" id= "pg1.105">105</a></span>Ajaccio 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.106" id= "pg1.106">106</a></span>plenty 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.107" id= "pg1.107">107</a></span>lupines, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.108" id= "pg1.108">108</a></span>a 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 <i>alla campagna</i>, 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 <i>vendetta</i> were constantly being <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.109" id= "pg1.109">109</a></span>sown. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>arêtes</i> to the snows piled on their summits, +which contrasts in a strange way with the softness and beauty <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.110" id= "pg1.110">110</a></span>of +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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.111" id= "pg1.111">111</a></span>absolutely 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 <i>débris</i> 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 +(<i>Pinus larix</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.112" id= "pg1.112">112</a></span>poverty and bareness are scarcely +less striking than those of Bocognano.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.113" id= "pg1.113">113</a></span>full 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.114" id= "pg1.114">114</a></span>his 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.115" id= "pg1.115">115</a></span>his 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.</p> + +<p>Among the old Corsican customs which are fast dying out, but +which still linger in the remote valleys of Niolo and Vico, is the +<i>vócero</i>, 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 <i>vóceri</i>, 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 <i>gridata</i>, or wake, is assembled in a dark room. On the +wooden board, called <i>tola</i>, 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 <i>pasto</i> or +<i>conforto</i>, food supplied for mourners, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.116" id= "pg1.116">116</a></span>stands 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!</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'"Ma per fà la to bindetta,<br /> +Sta siguru, basta anch ella! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 +<i>vócero</i> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Halla mai bista nissunu<br /> +Tumbà l'omi pe li canti?' +</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.117" id= "pg1.117">117</a></span> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <i>vóceri</i> +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 <i>vóceri</i> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Mi l'hannu crucifissatu<br /> +Cume Ghiesu Cristu in croce.' +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.118" id= "pg1.118">118</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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. +</p> + +<p>But all the <i>vóceri</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.119" id= "pg1.119">119</a></span>gave 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.120" id= "pg1.120">120</a></span><i>pianse molto</i> (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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.121" id= "pg1.121">121</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap07"></a>MONTE GENEROSO</h2> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.122" id= "pg1.122">122</a></span>thought 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>From Mendrisio, the village at the foot of the mountain, an easy +mule-path leads to the hotel, winding first through <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.123" id= "pg1.123">123</a></span>English-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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.124" id= "pg1.124">124</a></span>with +much faith or with a real prophetic instinct.<a href="#fn-8" name="fnref-8" id="fnref-8"><sup>[8]</sup></a> 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' +<i>villeggiatura</i> 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-8" id="fn-8"></a> <a href="#fnref-8">[8]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.125" id= "pg1.125">125</a></span>Five 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.126" id= "pg1.126">126</a></span>Darkness 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.127" id= "pg1.127">127</a></span>only 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</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Old, unhappy, far-off things,<br /> +And battles long ago, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.128" id= "pg1.128">128</a></span>feet, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.129" id= "pg1.129">129</a></span>stems, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.130" id= "pg1.130">130</a></span>landscape +to the south and east from sight. It rose <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.314" id="pg1.314">314</a></span>with 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.131" id= "pg1.131">131</a></span>those 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +To Him who from eternity, self-stirred,<br /> +Himself hath made by His creative word!<br /> +To Him, supreme, who causeth Faith to be,<br /> +Trust, Hope, Love, Power, and endless Energy!<br /> +To Him, who, seek to name Him as we will,<br /> +Unknown within Himself abideth still!<br /> +<br /> +Strain ear and eye, till sight and sense be dim;<br /> +Thou'lt find but faint similitudes of Him:<br /> +Yea, and thy spirit in her flight of flame<br /> +Still strives to gauge the symbol and the name:<br /> +Charmed and compelled thou climb'st from height to height,<br /> +And round thy path the world shines wondrous bright;<br /> +Time, Space, and Size, and Distance cease to be,<br /> +And every step is fresh infinity.<br /> +<br /> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.132" id= "pg1.132">132</a></span> + +What were the God who sat outside to scan<br /> +The spheres that 'neath His finger circling ran?<br /> +God dwells within, and moves the world and moulds,<br /> +Himself and Nature in one form enfolds:<br /> +Thus all that lives in Him and breathes and is,<br /> +Shall ne'er His puissance, ne'er His spirit miss.<br /> +<br /> +The soul of man, too, is an universe:<br /> +Whence follows it that race with race concurs<br /> +In naming all it knows of good and true<br /> +God,—yea, its own God; and with homage due<br /> +Surrenders to His sway both earth and heaven;<br /> +Fears Him, and loves, where place for love is given. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.133" id= "pg1.133">133</a></span> +</p> + +<h2><a name="chap08"></a>LOMBARD VIGNETTES</h2> + +<h3>ON THE SUPERGA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.134" id= "pg1.134">134</a></span>bars 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>A BRONZE BUST OF CALIGULA AT TURIN</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.135" id= "pg1.135">135</a></span>lines 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.136" id= "pg1.136">136</a></span>were 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<h3>FERRARI AT VERCELLI</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.137" id= "pg1.137">137</a></span>Saronno, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.138" id= "pg1.138">138</a></span>strong 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.139" id= "pg1.139">139</a></span>disciple 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 <i>furia</i> granted to very few of the +Italian painters.</p> + +<h3>LANINI AT VERCELLI</h3> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.140" id= "pg1.140">140</a></span>The 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 <i>tours de force</i> 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:— +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.141" id= "pg1.141">141</a></span></p> + +<p class="poem"> +Τοίς δ΄ ήν +ξανθοτέρα μέν +ελιχρύσοιο +γενειάς<br /> +στήθεα δε +στίλβοντα +πολύ πλέον +η΅ τυ Σελάνα.<a +href="#fn-9" name="fnref-9" id="fnref-9"><sup>[9]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-9" id="fn-9"></a> <a href="#fnref-9">[9]</a> +'The down upon their cheeks and chin was yellower than helichrysus, and their +breasts gleamed whiter far than thou, O Moon.' +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E i tuoi capei più volte ho somigliati<br /> +Di Cerere a le paglie secche o bionde<br /> +Dintorno crespi al tuo capo legati.<a +href="#fn-10" name="fnref-10" id="fnref-10"><sup>[10]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-10" id="fn-10"></a> <a href="#fnref-10">[10]</a> +'Thy tresses have I oftentimes compared to Ceres' yellow autumn sheaves, +wreathed in curled bands around thy head.' +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>confraternita</i> appended to it. One <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.142" id= "pg1.142">142</a></span>portion +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.</p> + +<h3>THE PIAZZA OF PIACENZA</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.143" id= "pg1.143">143</a></span>arcades 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 <i>barocco</i> as it is possible to be +in style, but so splendidly toned with verdigris, so superb in their +<i>bravura</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.144" id= "pg1.144">144</a></span>palace—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.</p> + +<h3>MASOLINO AT CASTIGLIONE D'OLONA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.145" id= "pg1.145">145</a></span>The 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.146" id= "pg1.146">146</a></span></p> + +<h3>THE CERTOSA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.147" id= "pg1.147">147</a></span>architecture, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tarsia</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.148" id= "pg1.148">148</a></span>inspection 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.149" id= "pg1.149">149</a></span>immeasurable 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—<i>et tacitos sine +labe laous sine murmure rivos</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>il gran Biscione</i>, 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Much you had of land and rent;<br /> +Your length in clay's now competent:<br /> +A long war disturbed your mind;<br /> +Here your perfect peace is signed! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Some of these faces are commonplace, with <i>bourgeois</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.150" id= "pg1.150">150</a></span>his 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Lavabo</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.151" id= "pg1.151">151</a></span>once 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.152" id= "pg1.152">152</a></span>the 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. +<i>Auf den Alpen droben ist ein herrliches Leben!</i></p> + +<p>Did the echoes of Gian Galeazzo's convent ever wake to such a tune as +this before?</p> + +<h3>SAN MAURIZIO</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.153" id= "pg1.153">153</a></span>oldest 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 <i>magistro di taliare +pietre</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.154" id= "pg1.154">154</a></span>upon 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.155" id= "pg1.155">155</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<p>Few pictures bring the splendid Milanese Court so vividly <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.156" id= "pg1.156">156</a></span>before 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.157" id= "pg1.157">157</a></span>is 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.158" id= "pg1.158">158</a></span>with 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.159" id= "pg1.159">159</a></span>disgust at the discord between the Contessa's life and her artistic +presentation in the person of a royal martyr.</p> + +<h3>A HUMANIST'S MONUMENT</h3> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +En Virtutem Mortis nesciam.<br /> +Vivet Lancinus Curtius<br /> + Sæcula per omnia<br /> +Quascunque lustrans oras,<br /> +Tantum possunt Camoenæ. +</p> + +<p>'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, <i>pro virili parte</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.160" id= "pg1.160">160</a></span>Pagan. 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.</p> + +<h3>THE MONUMENT OF GASTON DE FOIX IN THE BRERA</h3> + +<p>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 +<i>cinquecento</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.161" id= "pg1.161">161</a></span>youth 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 <i>virtù</i>—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 +<i>cinquecento</i>, 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.</p> + +<h3>SARONNO</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.162" id= "pg1.162">162</a></span>central 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>tripudio celeste</i>, not one of all these angels flings his arms +abroad or makes a movement <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.163" id= "pg1.163">163</a></span>that 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.</p> + +<p>It is natural, beneath this dome, to turn aside and think one +moment of Correggio at Parma. Before the <i>macchinisti</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.164" id= "pg1.164">164</a></span>if anywhere in painting, we may apply Goethe's +words—<i>Gefühl ist Alles.</i></p> + +<p>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 <i>guazzetti +di rane</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>In the ante-choir of the sanctuary are Luini's priceless frescoes of +the 'Marriage of the Virgin,' and the 'Dispute with the Doctors.'<a href="#fn-11" name="fnref-11" id="fnref-11"><sup>[11]</sup></a> +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 <i>frescanti.</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.165" id= "pg1.165">165</a></span>the 'Disputa' the +gravity and dignity of old men are above all things striking.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-11" id="fn-11"></a> <a href="#fnref-11">[11]</a> +Both these and the large frescoes in the choir have been chromolithographed by +the Arundel Society. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>Bernardinus Lovinus +pinxit</i>, MDXXV.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.166" id= "pg1.166">166</a></span>Monte Oliveto, near Siena. Yet Sodoma had not all Luini's innocence or +<i>naïveté.</i> 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.</p> + +<h3>THE CASTELLO OF FERRARA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.167" id= "pg1.167">167</a></span>remember 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.</p> + +<h3>PETRARCH'S TOMB AT ARQUA</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.168" id= "pg1.168">168</a></span>gigantic +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mandorlato</i>, 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.</p> + +<h3>ON A MOUNTAIN</h3> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.169" id= "pg1.169">169</a></span>are 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.170" id= "pg1.170">170</a></span>corn. 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?</p> + +<h3>SIC GENIUS</h3> + +<p>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, <i>Sic Genius</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.171" id= "pg1.171">171</a></span>does 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—<i>Sic Genius</i>.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.172" id= "pg1.172">172</a></span>brilliant 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—<i>Sic +Genius</i>.</p> + +<p>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, <i>Sic Genius</i>. Are not all things, even profanity, +permissible in dreams? +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.173" id= "pg1.173">173</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap09"></a>COMO AND IL MEDEGHINO</h2> + +<p> +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 <i>millefleurs</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.174" id= "pg1.174">174</a></span>with 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.</p> + +<p>Of a truth, to decide which is the queen of the Italian lakes, is but +an <i>infinita quæstio</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.175" id= "pg1.175">175</a></span>dimensions, 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 <i>cinquecento</i>: +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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Magistri Comacini</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.176" id= "pg1.176">176</a></span>world 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 <i>bottega</i>; 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.177" id= "pg1.177">177</a></span>decorated +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.178" id= "pg1.178">178</a></span>Sposalizio 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.179" id= "pg1.179">179</a></span>neglected +their engagement, were obliged to persuade testators, <i>cum bonis +modis dulciter</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.180" id= "pg1.180">180</a></span>while 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.181" id= "pg1.181">181</a></span>proved his <i>virtù</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.182" id= "pg1.182">182</a></span>Musso +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.<a href="#fn-12" name="fnref-12" id="fnref-12"><sup>[12]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-12" id="fn-12"></a> <a href="#fnref-12">[12]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.183" id= "pg1.183">183</a></span>marauder 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.184" id= "pg1.184">184</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.185" id= "pg1.185">185</a></span>Il 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.186" id= "pg1.186">186</a></span>arduous 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.187" id= "pg1.187">187</a></span>artillery 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.188" id= "pg1.188">188</a></span>genealogists 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>virtù</i>, to the grave.</p> + +<p>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 <i>nexus</i> is but local. At others, +one <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.189" id= "pg1.189">189</a></span>single 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.190" id= "pg1.190">190</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap10"></a>BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI</h2> + +<p> +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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.191" id= "pg1.191">191</a></span>The 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 <i>quattrocento</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.192" id= "pg1.192">192</a></span>Quercia 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 +<i>improvvisatore</i> charm.</p> + +<p>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 <i>putti</i> in a <i>cinquecento</i> 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.</p> + +<p>There is another portrait of Colleoni in a round above the great door, +executed with spirit, though in a <i>bravura</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.193" id= "pg1.193">193</a></span>stamp of a good likeness; but when or by +whom it was made, I do not know.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Hic jacet Medea virgo.</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.194" id= "pg1.194">194</a></span>modern 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.195" id= "pg1.195">195</a></span>petty 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 <i>ragazzo</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.196" id= "pg1.196">196</a></span>better 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 <i>Condotta di venti cavalli</i>, and so forth. +Each <i>cavallo</i> was equal to one mounted man-at-arms and two +attendants, who were also called <i>ragazzi</i>. 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 <i>Condottiere</i> was in other words a contractor +or <i>impresario</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.239" id="pg1.239">239</a></span>is 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 <i>Condotta</i> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.197" id= "pg1.197">197</a></span>to 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 <i>bravo</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.198" id= "pg1.198">198</a></span>than 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.199" id= "pg1.199">199</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.200" id= "pg1.200">200</a></span>by a mere spasm of +suspicious jealousy, for which he could have given no account.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.201" id= "pg1.201">201</a></span>some 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:—</p> + +<p>'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.202" id= "pg1.202">202</a></span>warfare with our enemies. +Free jurisdiction and lordship over each one of our soldiers, except +in cases of treason, we hereby commit to you.'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.203" id= "pg1.203">203</a></span>drawn 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.204" id= "pg1.204">204</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.205" id= "pg1.205">205</a></span>horses 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.206" id= "pg1.206">206</a></span>some 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.207" id= "pg1.207">207</a></span>to 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.208" id= "pg1.208">208</a></span>of 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.209" id= "pg1.209">209</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap11"></a>CREMA AND THE CRUCIFIX</h2> + +<p> +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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.210" id= "pg1.210">210</a></span>The 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.211" id= "pg1.211">211</a></span>feet 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 <i>torroni</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.212" id= "pg1.212">212</a></span>from 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>mandorlato</i> +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 <i>mandorlato</i>, 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.213" id= "pg1.213">213</a></span>it 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 <i>mandorlato</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>If the <i>mandorlato</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.214" id= "pg1.214">214</a></span>freshness +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 +<i>plasticatore</i> 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—<i>nec pluteum coedit nec demorsos sapit +ungues</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>non merita nome di creatore se +non Iddio ed il poeta</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.215" id= "pg1.215">215</a></span>the form-giver has stamped his +thought upon the moist clay, and fire has made that imprint permanent.</p> + +<p>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 <i>trecento</i> 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.</p> + +<p>In the so-called Santuario of Crema—a circular church dedicated to +S. Maria della Croce, outside the walls—the <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.216" id= "pg1.216">216</a></span>Lombard 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,' <i>ciò che tu muti +discorda tutta quella musica</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bravi</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.217" id= "pg1.217">217</a></span>balcony, 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.</p> + +<p>When we entered the Museo, we found a little old man, gentle, grave, +and unobtrusive, varnishing the ugly portrait of some Signor of the +<i>cinquecento</i>. 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 <i>bric-à-brac</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.218" id= "pg1.218">218</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Fioretti di San Francesco</i> describes them. After this +came some original drawings of doubtful interest, and then a case of +fifty-two <i>nielli</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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! <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.219" id= "pg1.219">219</a></span>Here 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.220" id= "pg1.220">220</a></span>had 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.'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.221" id="pg1.221">221</a></span>materialises, +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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.222" id="pg1.222">222</a></span>follow. +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? +</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.223" id="pg1.223">223</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap12"></a>CHERUBINO AT THE SCALA THEATRE</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Nozze</i>. Before they were half through, it was clear +that we should not enjoy that <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.224" id="pg1.224">224</a></span>evening 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 <i>mezza voce</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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! <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.225" id="pg1.225">225</a></span>The <i>Nozze di Figaro</i> 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. <i>Quia multum amavit</i>, 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.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.226" id="pg1.226">226</a></span>foot for supper. From the +Scala Theatre to the Rebecchino is a walk of some three minutes.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>beccafico</i>, 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 <i>motif</i> 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 <i>tête-à-tête</i>. '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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.227" id="pg1.227">227</a></span>music 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 +<i>Inhalt</i> 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 <i>ad hominem</i>, '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 <i>Selbst-ständig</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.228" id="pg1.228">228</a></span>from situations similar to those +in which Cherubino finds himself? How can you prove he did not feel +a natural appropriateness in the <i>motifs</i> 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 <i>Die Entführung?</i> 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 <i>enfant terrible</i>—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.'</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.229" id="pg1.229">229</a></span>'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.'</p> + +<p>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?'</p> + +<p>'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 +<i>Nozze</i>, Beaumarchais' <i>Mariage de Figaro</i> 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.</p> + +<p>'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.230" id="pg1.230">230</a></span>sort of transcendental omelette. +But I think the pretty woman has more to do with it than metaphysics!'</p> + +<p>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 <i>spettacolo</i>. That pleases. What does a man +want more? The <i>Nozze</i> 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!'</p> + +<p>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!'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.231" id="pg1.231">231</a></span></p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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, <i>Don Giovanni</i> +and the <i>Nozze di Figaro</i>, though the one is tragic and the other +comic, are twin-sisters, similar in form and feature.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.232" id="pg1.232">232</a></span>his 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.</p> + +<p>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. +<i>Nondum amabam, sed amare amabam, quaerebam quod amarem, amans +amare</i>—'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.233" id="pg1.233">233</a></span>in 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? <i>E +pur mi piace languir cosi.... E se non ho chi m' oda, parlo d'amor con +me.</i></p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Cherubino is by no means the most important person in the plot of the +<i>Nozze</i>. 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.234" id="pg1.234">234</a></span></p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>This is indeed a rhapsodical production. Miranda was probably right. +Had it not been for Pauline Lucca, I might not have philosophised the +<i>Nozze</i> 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.</p> + +<p>That the Cherubino of Mozart's <i>Nozze</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.235" id="pg1.235">235</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.236" id="pg1.236">236</a></span>collaborated 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.</p> + +<p>To assert that the musician Mozart meant nothing by his music, to +assert that he only cared about it <i>quâ</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.237" id="pg1.237">237</a></span>sounds 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.</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>'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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.238" id="pg1.238">238</a></span>Whatever 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>quâ</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.240" id="pg1.240">240</a></span>acquires 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.</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.241" id="pg1.241">241</a></span>If 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.242" id="pg1.242">242</a></span>humanity. 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.</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.243" id="pg1.243">243</a></span>and 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.244" id="pg1.244">244</a></span>one 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.245" id="pg1.245">245</a></span>presented 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.</p> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.246" id="pg1.246">246</a></span>The whole psychological conception of Aphrodite Pandemos enters into +every muscle, every joint, no less than into her physiognomy, her +hair, her attitude.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.247" id="pg1.247">247</a></span>Painting 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Music transports us to a different region. It imitates nothing. It +uses pure sound, and sound of the most wholly <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.248" id="pg1.248">248</a></span>artificial 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.249" id="pg1.249">249</a></span>another 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.250" id="pg1.250">250</a></span>what 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.251" id="pg1.251">251</a></span>poetry; 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.252" id="pg1.252">252</a></span>in 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.</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.253" id="pg1.253">253</a></span>separates 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. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.254" id="pg1.254">254</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap13"></a>A VENETIAN MEDLEY</h2> + +<h3>I.—FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND FAMILIARITY</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.255" id="pg1.255">255</a></span>pathos of +a marble city crumbling to its grave in mud and brine.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>II.—A LODGING IN SAN VIO</h3> + +<p>I have escaped from the hotels with their bustle of tourists and +crowded <i>tables-d'hôte</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.256" id="pg1.256">256</a></span>enormous 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 <i>barca</i> 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 <i>zucca</i>, 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 <i>Rio</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>This is my home. By day it is as lively as a scene in +<i>Masaniello</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.257" id="pg1.257">257</a></span>perhaps 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 <i>sandolo</i> 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.'</p> + +<h3>III.—TO CHIOGGIA WITH OAR AND SAIL</h3> + +<p>The <i>sandolo</i> is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller +and lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or +<i>ferro</i> 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 <i>Fisolo</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.258" id="pg1.258">258</a></span>Adriatic 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 <i>impresario</i> of the trade, +employing hundreds of hands, and speculating for a handsome profit in +the foreign market on the price he gives his workwomen.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.259" id="pg1.259">259</a></span>saffron, +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>donna</i> 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 <i>calli</i>, +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 <i>soprani</i>. +Baffo walks beside us in hypocritical composure of bag-wig and +senatorial dignity, whispering unmentionable sonnets in his dialect of +<i>Xe</i> and <i>Ga</i>. 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.260" id="pg1.260">260</a></span>From 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.</p> + +<p>These great deeds are far away and hazy. The brief sentences of +mediæval annalists bring them less near to us than the <i>chroniques +scandaleuses</i> 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 <i>intimité</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.261" id="pg1.261">261</a></span>cuttlefishes, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>recitativo</i> 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.</p> + +<p>The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above +the Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.262" id="pg1.262">262</a></span>and 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>IV.—MORNING RAMBLES</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.263" id="pg1.263">263</a></span>sublimed 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.264" id="pg1.264">264</a></span>excites 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A studied contrast between the simplicity and repose of the central +figure and the tumult of passions in the multitude <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.265" id="pg1.265">265</a></span>around, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.266" id="pg1.266">266</a></span>by 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.</p> + +<p>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. +<i>Bos locutus est</i>. '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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.267" id="pg1.267">267</a></span>together 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.268" id="pg1.268">268</a></span>Ampezzo 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.269" id="pg1.269">269</a></span>this 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Bather than prolong this list, I will tell a story which drew <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.270" id="pg1.270">270</a></span>me 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.'</p> + +<h3>V.—A VENETIAN NOVELLA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.271" id="pg1.271">271</a></span>closely 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!'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.272" id="pg1.272">272</a></span>took possession of his heart together, +and straightway he forgot Dulcinea.</p> + +<p>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 <i>calle</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.273" id="pg1.273">273</a></span>to 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.274" id="pg1.274">274</a></span>sleep, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.275" id="pg1.275">275</a></span>hands, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.276" id="pg1.276">276</a></span>and +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.'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.277" id="pg1.277">277</a></span>was 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.278" id="pg1.278">278</a></span>asunder. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.279" id="pg1.279">279</a></span>taken 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.280" id="pg1.280">280</a></span></p> + +<h3>VI.—ON THE LAGOONS</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>murazzi</i>, 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.281" id="pg1.281">281</a></span>Adriatic 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 <i>murazzi</i> +were broken in a gale, or <i>sciroccale</i>, 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 <i>murazzi</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.282" id="pg1.282">282</a></span>pallid 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.288" id="pg1.288">288</a></span>on the Zattere. The +quiet of the night has come.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.283" id="pg1.283">283</a></span>here 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.</p> + +<h3>VII.—AT THE LIDO</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.284" id="pg1.284">284</a></span>Antonio and Francesco wait and order wine, +which we drink with them in the shade of the little <i>osteria's</i> +wall.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.285" id="pg1.285">285</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>pergola</i>. 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 <i>zazzera</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.286" id="pg1.286">286</a></span>opals. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Corruption most abhorred<br /> +Mingling itself with their renownèd ashes. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.287" id="pg1.287">287</a></span></p> + +<h3>VIII.—A VENETIAN RESTAURANT</h3> + +<p>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 <i>table-d'hôte</i>. 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!</p> + +<p>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 +<i>trattoria</i> 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 <i>caffé</i>. 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 <i>barchetta</i> 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 <i>padrone</i> 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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.289" id="pg1.289">289</a></span>several 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 <i>cuisine</i>, or about the reasonable charges of this +<i>trattoria</i>. 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 <i>ahurissement</i> 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 <i>giro</i> in the +gondola.</p> + +<h3>IX.—NIGHT IN VENICE</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.290" id="pg1.290">290</a></span>but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of +<i>rio</i> linked with <i>rio</i>, through which we wind in light and +shadow, to reach once more the level glories and the luminous expanse +of heaven beyond the Misericordia.</p> + +<p>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 <i>scirocco</i>. 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 <i>barcaruolo</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.291" id="pg1.291">291</a></span>transparency 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>calle</i> which leads to the <i>traghetto</i> 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 <i>soldi</i> on the +gunwale. Then he arose and turned the <i>ferro</i> 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.292" id="pg1.292">292</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap14"></a>THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING</h2> + +<p> +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, <i>orai</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>When seven o'clock struck, Eustace and I, who had been <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.293" id="pg1.293">293</a></span>entertaining +the children in their mothers' absence, heard the sound of steps upon +the stairs. The guests arrived, bringing their own <i>risotto</i> 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 <i>trattoria</i>, 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 <i>fazzoletto</i> of +crimson and orange dyes, pounced down upon her for some supposed +infraction of good manners—<i>creanza</i>, 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.294" id="pg1.294">294</a></span>The 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 <i>mezzo voce</i>, +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.295" id="pg1.295">295</a></span>songs. 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.296" id="pg1.296">296</a></span>then wrapped the children up, and took +their leave. It was an uncomfortable, warm, wet night of sullen +<i>scirocco</i>.</p> + +<p>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 <i>felze</i>, 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 <i>bourgeoise</i>. 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.297" id="pg1.297">297</a></span>crowding 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.</p> + +<p>After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct +offertories. Considering how much account even two <i>soldi</i> 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 <i>barocco</i> building, or the +fault of the fat oily priest, I know not. But the <i>sposalizio</i> +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.</p> + +<p>We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and +bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best +man—<i>compare</i>, as he is called—at a narrow <i>prie-dieu</i> before the +altar. The <i>compare</i> 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 <i>compare</i>, who does the thing handsomely, must be <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.298" id="pg1.298">298</a></span>prepared +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>nozze</i> 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 <i>Tacchin</i>, or turkey-cock. +Here at Venice the sons and daughters call their parent briefly +<i>Vecchio</i>. 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 <i>Vecchio</i>, +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 +<i>Vecchi</i>, indeed, continue to ply their trade, day and night, at +the <i>traghetto</i>.</p> + +<p><i>Traghetti</i> 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 <i>traghetti</i> 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 <i>traghetto</i>, that each station should +always be provided with two boats for the service of the ferry. When +vacancies occur <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.299" id="pg1.299">299</a></span>on the <i>traghetti</i>, 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 <i>Capo-traghetto</i>, 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 <i>Gastaldo di traghetto</i>. 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 <i>traghetto</i>. +The highest subscription I have heard of is twenty-five francs; the +lowest, seven. There is one <i>traghetto</i>, known by the name +of Madonna del Giglio or Zobenigo, which possesses near its +<i>pergola</i> of vines a nice old brown Venetian picture. Some +stranger offered a considerable sum for this. But the guild refused to +part with it.</p> + +<p>As may be imagined, the <i>traghetti</i> 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 <i>traghetto</i> 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 <i>traghetto</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.300" id="pg1.300">300</a></span>the 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 <i>traghetto</i>, 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 <i>traghetto</i>. One is to this +effect: <i>il traghetto è un buon padrone</i>. The other satirises +the meanness of the poverty-stricken Venetian nobility: <i>pompa di +servitù, misera insegna</i>. When they combine the <i>traghetto</i> +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 <i>traghetti</i> 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 <i>mezz' uomo</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.301" id="pg1.301">301</a></span>sea-horses or +<i>cavalli</i>, steel prow or <i>ferro</i>, covered cabin or <i>felze</i>, cushions +and leather-covered back-board or <i>stramazetto</i>, maybe transferred to +it. When a man wants to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one +already half past service—a <i>gondola da traghetto</i> or <i>di mezza età</i>. +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 <i>squero</i>, as the place is called. At these <i>squeri</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.302" id="pg1.302">302</a></span>out, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.303" id="pg1.303">303</a></span>cigars 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.</p> + +<p>Eustace and I were treated quite like friends. They called us <i>I +Signori</i>. 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 +<i>pranzo</i>? 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.304" id="pg1.304">304</a></span>for action. +His gondola was in attendance, covered with the <i>felze</i>, to take us to +the house of the <i>sposa</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.305" id="pg1.305">305</a></span>slightest regard for my incapacity to follow +her vagaries. The <i>Vecchio</i> marshalled us in order. First went the +<i>sposa</i> and <i>comare</i> with the mothers of bride and bridegroom. Then +followed the <i>sposo</i> 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 <i>sposa</i> and her +three companions had been safely stowed away beneath their <i>felze</i>. +The <i>sposo</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.306" id="pg1.306">306</a></span>away 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.307" id="pg1.307">307</a></span>costume. She had +a pretty little pale face, a <i>minois chiffonné</i>, 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 +<i>modus vivendi</i> 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 <i>naïvetés</i> of art. By that +time we had come to be <i>compare</i> and <i>comare</i> to each other—the +sequel of some clumsy piece of jocularity.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.308" id="pg1.308">308</a></span>each 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 <i>comare</i>) 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.309" id="pg1.309">309</a></span>with their stockinged feet upon the +<i>scagliola</i> pavement. I observed that some cavaliers by special +permission were allowed to remove their partners' slippers. This was +not my lucky fate. My <i>comare</i> 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 +<i>bourgeoisie</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.310" id="pg1.310">310</a></span>their friends. Meanwhile, the big table +at which we had dined was taken to pieces and removed. The +<i>scagliola</i> floor was swept by the waiters. Musicians came +streaming in and took their places. The ladies resumed their shoes. +Every one prepared to dance.</p> + +<p>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 <i>pranzo</i>? Now, really, were we +amusing ourselves? And did we think the custom of the wedding <i>un +bel costume</i>?' 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 +<i>divertimento</i> is heard upon the lips of the Italians. They have +a notion that it is the function in life of the <i>Signori</i> to +amuse themselves.</p> + +<p>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 <i>pranzo</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.311" id="pg1.311">311</a></span>women, +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 <i>comare</i> 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 <i>Ah, poverino!</i></p> + +<p>Some time after midnight we felt that we had had enough of +<i>divertimento</i>. 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 <i>traghetto</i>, and were +soon sound asleep at the end of a long pleasant day. The ball, we +heard next morning, finished about four.</p> + +<p>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 <i>lassa</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.312" id="pg1.312">312</a></span>of 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 <i>fascia</i>, which marks the ancient faction of +the Castellani. The other faction, called Nicolotti, are distinguished +by a black <i>assisa</i>. 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. <i>Voga, Azzò, voga!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>On all these occasions I have found these gondoliers the <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.313" id="pg1.313">313</a></span>same +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 <i>feste</i> and their singing +clubs.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Signori</i> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.315" id="pg1.315">315</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap15"></a>A CINQUE CENTO BRUTUS</h2> + +<h3>I.—THE SESTIERE DI SAN POLO</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.316" id="pg1.316">316</a></span></p> + +<h3>II.—THE MURDER OF IPPOLITO DE' MEDICI</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.317" id="pg1.317">317</a></span>da 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.318" id="pg1.318">318</a></span>numerous 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.319" id="pg1.319">319</a></span>Captain 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!'</p> + +<h3>III.—THE MURDER OF ALESSANDRO DE' MEDICI</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.320" id="pg1.320">320</a></span>as +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.'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.321" id="pg1.321">321</a></span>with 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.322" id="pg1.322">322</a></span>Alessandro 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.323" id="pg1.323">323</a></span>religious 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.324" id="pg1.324">324</a></span>one 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.325" id="pg1.325">325</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<h3>IV.—THE FLIGHT OF LORENZINO DE' MEDICI</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.326" id="pg1.326">326</a></span>stabs 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>Chiasso del Traditore</i>. The price of four +thousand golden florins was put upon his head, together with the +further sum of one hundred florins per <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.327" id="pg1.327">327</a></span>annum 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.</p> + +<p> +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.<a href="#fn-13" name="fnref-13" id="fnref-13"><sup>[13]</sup></a> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.328" id="pg1.328">328</a></span>contemporary 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 <i>Signori di Notte</i> and the +<i>Esecutori contro la Bestemmia</i>, which are preserved among the Archives at +the Frari. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-13" id="fn-13"></a> <a href="#fnref-13">[13]</a> +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 <i>Vittoria +Accoramboni</i>, pp. 404-414. +</p> + +<h3>V.—THE MURDER OF LORENZINO DE' MEDICI</h3> + +<p> +'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.' +</p> + +<p>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 <i>bravi</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.329" id="pg1.329">329</a></span>all 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bravi</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.330" id="pg1.330">330</a></span>and +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.'</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p>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 <i>bona fide</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.331" id="pg1.331">331</a></span>luck, 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.'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.332" id="pg1.332">332</a></span>was himself by +birth a Florentine, and he had no objection to take Brutus-Lorenzino +by the hand.</p> + +<p>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 <i>spenditore</i> 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 (<i>tre +compagni bravi e facinorosi</i>), 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 (<i>altura</i>) 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.333" id="pg1.333">333</a></span>these, 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.'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.334" id="pg1.334">334</a></span>shop, 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.'</p> + +<p>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 +<i>stoia</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.335" id="pg1.335">335</a></span>get 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.'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>'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.'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.336" id="pg1.336">336</a></span></p> + +<h3>VI.—THE ESCAPE OF THE BRAVI</h3> + +<p>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 (<i>sbirri</i>). '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 <i>sbirrí</i>. 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.337" id="pg1.337">337</a></span>It 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.<a href="#fn-14" name="fnref-14" id="fnref-14"><sup>[14]</sup></a> +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! +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-14" id="fn-14"></a> <a href="#fnref-14">[14]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>Soon after the Count returned, and 'lavished caresses' upon Bebo and +his precious comrade. They did not tell <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.338" id="pg1.338">338</a></span>him what they had achieved +that morning, but put him off with a story of having settled a +<i>sbirro</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.339" id="pg1.339">339</a></span>that 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.340" id="pg1.340">340</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p>So ends the story of the two <i>bravi</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.341" id="pg1.341">341</a></span>was 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.</p> + +<h3>VII.—LORENZINO BRUTUS</h3> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.342" id="pg1.342">342</a></span>Alfieri 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 <i>roué</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.343" id="pg1.343">343</a></span>confirmed 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>bizarre</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.344" id="pg1.344">344</a></span>weakness 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 <i>Requiescat</i>. Clio, as she takes the pen in hand to +record this prayer, smiles disdainfully and turns to graver business. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.345" id="pg1.345">345</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap16"></a>TWO DRAMATISTS OF THE LAST CENTURY</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.346" id="pg1.346">346</a></span>interest 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!</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.347" id="pg1.347">347</a></span>show 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!</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.348" id="pg1.348">348</a></span>Let 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.349" id="pg1.349">349</a></span>Instead 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.350" id="pg1.350">350</a></span>Goldoni'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.351" id="pg1.351">351</a></span>deep 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tête-à-tête</i>. 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.352" id="pg1.352">352</a></span>unable 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.353" id="pg1.353">353</a></span>friendship 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 <i>sansculottes</i> 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.'</p> + +<p>The difference between the men is seen no less remarkably <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.354" id="pg1.354">354</a></span>in 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 <i>græculus</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.355" id="pg1.355">355</a></span>from 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 <i>was</i> melancholy now and +then—lasted <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.356" id="pg1.356">356</a></span>a 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!</p> + +<p>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 <i>ennui</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.357" id="pg1.357">357</a></span>which 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 <i>bourgeoisie</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.358" id="pg1.358">358</a></span>the 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:—</p> + +<p class="letter"> +'<i>Cr</i>. Scegliesti?<br /> +'<i>Ant</i>. Ho scelto.<br /> +'<i>Cr</i>. Emon?<br /> +'<i>Ant</i>. Morte.<br /> +'<i>Cr</i>. L'avrai!' +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg1.359" id="pg1.359">359</a></span>'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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="vol02"></a>VOLUME II.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.001" id= "pg2.001">1</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap17"></a>RAVENNA</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.002" id= "pg2.002">2</a></span>vines 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.<a href="#fn-15" name="fnref-15" id="fnref-15"><sup>[15]</sup></a> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-15" id="fn-15"></a> <a href="#fnref-15">[15]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.003" id= "pg2.003">3</a></span>As 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 +<i>pinocchi</i> or kernels of the stone-pine are largely used in cookery, +and those of Ravenna are prized for their good <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.004" id= "pg2.004">4</a></span>quality 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>You may ride or drive for miles along green aisles between <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.005" id= "pg2.005">5</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Non però dal lor esser dritto sparte<br /> + Tanto, che gli augelletti per le cime<br /> + Lasciasser d' operare ogni lor arte:<br /> +Ma con piena letizia l' aure prime,<br /> + Cantando, ricevano intra le foglie,<br /> + Che tenevan bordone alle sue rime<br /> +Tal, qual di ramo in ramo si raccoglie<br /> + Per la pineta in sul lito di Chiassi<br /> + Quand' Eolo Scirocco fuor discioglie. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.006" id= "pg2.006">6</a></span>With 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.007" id= "pg2.007">7</a></span>Nor 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.'</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.008" id= "pg2.008">8</a></span>this 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.009" id= "pg2.009">9</a></span>cold 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 <i>sedet aternumque sedebit: </i> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.010" id= "pg2.010">10</a></span>Another monument upon the plain is worthy of a visit. It is the +so-called Colonna dei Francesi, a <i>cinquecento</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.011" id= "pg2.011">11</a></span>third 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.012" id= "pg2.012">12</a></span>coloured 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.013" id= "pg2.013">13</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.014" id= "pg2.014">14</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap18"></a>RIMINI</h2> + +<h3>SIGISMONDO PANDOLFO MALATESTA AND LEO BATTISTA ALBERTI</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.015" id= "pg2.015">15</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E il mastin vecchio e il nuovo da Verucchio<br /> + Che fecer di Montagna il mal governo, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.016" id= "pg2.016">16</a></span>Papal 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.017" id= "pg2.017">17</a></span>way 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,<a href="#fn-16" name="fnref-16" id="fnref-16"><sup>[16]</sup></a> +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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Porto le corna ch' ognuno le vede,<br /> +E tal le porta che non se lo crede. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-16" id="fn-16"></a> <a href="#fnref-16">[16]</a> +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 <i>Famiglie Illustri</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.018" id= "pg2.018">18</a></span>Montefeltro 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.019" id= "pg2.019">19</a></span>a nobler +prize—nothing less than the body of a saint of scholarship, the +authentic bones of the great Platonist, Gemisthus Pletho.<a href="#fn-17" name="fnref-17" id="fnref-17"><sup>[17]</sup></a> 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.' +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-17" id="fn-17"></a> <a href="#fnref-17">[17]</a> +For the place occupied in the evolution of Italian scholarship by this Greek +sage, see my 'Revival of Learning,' <i>Renaissance in Italy</i>, part 2. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>zazzera</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.020" id= "pg2.020">20</a></span>cheek 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-18" name="fnref-18" id="fnref-18"><sup>[18]</sup></a> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.021" id= "pg2.021">21</a></span>Italian of that period than the tyrant of Rimini himself, before our +notice.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-18" id="fn-18"></a> <a href="#fnref-18">[18]</a> +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.' +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.022" id= "pg2.022">22</a></span>language +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.023" id= "pg2.023">23</a></span>Sylvius +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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Tears from the depth of some divine despair<br /> +Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,<br /> +In looking on the happy autumn fields,<br /> +And thinking of the days that are no more. +</p> + +<p>Both Alberti and Tennyson have connected the <i>mal du pays</i> 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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.024" id= "pg2.024">24</a></span>Of 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 (<i>naturæ delitias</i>).' 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-19" name="fnref-19" id="fnref-19"><sup>[19]</sup></a> +Their finer perfume, as almost always happens +with good sayings which do not certain the <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.025" id= "pg2.025">25</a></span>full 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.026" id= "pg2.026">26</a></span>to 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.027" id= "pg2.027">27</a></span>impulse 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-19" id="fn-19"></a> <a href="#fnref-19">[19]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.028" id= "pg2.028">28</a></span>recourse 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.029" id= "pg2.029">29</a></span>developed 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, <i>in statu quo</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.030" id= "pg2.030">30</a></span>sciences 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.031" id= "pg2.031">31</a></span>his 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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.032" id= "pg2.032">32</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap19"></a>MAY IN UMBRIA</h2> + +<h3>FROM ROME TO TERNI</h3> + +<p> +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 <i>fioriture</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.033" id= "pg2.033">33</a></span>of Costa's +colouring. This is the breadth and magnitude of Rome.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.034" id= "pg2.034">34</a></span>all 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.</p> + +<p>We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni.</p> + +<h3>THE CASCADES OF TERNI</h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.035" id= "pg2.035">35</a></span>volume 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.</p> + +<h3>MONTEFALCO</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.036" id= "pg2.036">36</a></span>the 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.037" id= "pg2.037">37</a></span>here; 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!<a href="#fn-20" name="fnref-20" id="fnref-20"><sup>[20]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-20" id="fn-20"></a> <a href="#fnref-20">[20]</a> +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. +</p> + +<h3>FOLIGNO</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.038" id= "pg2.038">38</a></span>easy 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.039" id= "pg2.039">39</a></span>the +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +<i>genius loci</i> as he has conceived it. Though <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.040" id= "pg2.040">40</a></span>his 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.041" id= "pg2.041">41</a></span>our 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.</p> + +<h3>SPELLO</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.042" id= "pg2.042">42</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.043" id= "pg2.043">43</a></span>who 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.</p> + +<h3>EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.044" id= "pg2.044">44</a></span>the 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!</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.045" id= "pg2.045">45</a></span></p> + +<h3>PERUSIA AUGUSTA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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; <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.046" id= "pg2.046">46</a></span>but 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 <i>contadini</i>, 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.</p> + +<h3>LA MAGIONE</h3> + +<p>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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.047" id= "pg2.047">47</a></span>It 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.048" id= "pg2.048">48</a></span>common 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.</p> + +<h3>CORTONA</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.049" id= "pg2.049">49</a></span>business. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.050" id= "pg2.050">50</a></span>Albizzi, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.051" id= "pg2.051">51</a></span>live to be of any age—doomed always, +is that possible, to beg?</p> + +<h3>CHIUSI</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.052" id= "pg2.052">52</a></span>hedgerows 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.</p> + +<h3>GUBBIO</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.053" id= "pg2.053">53</a></span>arched 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.054" id= "pg2.054">54</a></span>tranquil, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.055" id= "pg2.055">55</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<h3>FROM GUBBIO TO FANO</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.056" id= "pg2.056">56</a></span>at 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.</p> + +<p>After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes<br /> +Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +—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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.057" id= "pg2.057">57</a></span>why 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto,<br /> +Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus,<br /> +Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu<br /> +Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.058" id= "pg2.058">58</a></span>crag-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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.059" id= "pg2.059">59</a></span>such 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Pallone</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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! +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.060" id= "pg2.060">60</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap20"></a>THE PALACE OF URBINO</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +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 <i>vetturino</i>, 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. '<i>Filippo Visconti, per +servirla!</i>' 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. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.061" id= "pg2.061">61</a></span>While 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.062" id= "pg2.062">62</a></span>the May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our <i>bovi</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.063" id= "pg2.063">63</a></span> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Omai disprezza<br /> +Te, la natura, il brutto<br /> +Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera,<br /> +E l' infinita vanità del tutto. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Gemüthlichkeit</i>, 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 <i>ennui</i> 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: <i>Aspicit, et +dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos</i>. Even <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.064" id= "pg2.064">64</a></span>a 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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! +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.065" id= "pg2.065">65</a></span>It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of Devonshire +scorns compromise or mitigation by <i>détour</i> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli,<br /> +Montasi su Bismantova in cacume<br /> +Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch' uom voli. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.066" id= "pg2.066">66</a></span>land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, by +Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its <i>contadini</i> 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 +<i>brusquerie</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.067" id= "pg2.067">67</a></span>moment 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.068" id= "pg2.068">68</a></span>it 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.</p> + +<p>The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give +the building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed +<i>loggie</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.069" id= "pg2.069">69</a></span>pointed 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.'</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.070" id= "pg2.070">70</a></span>Adriatic 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.071" id= "pg2.071">71</a></span>placing 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 +<i>bâton</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.072" id= "pg2.072">72</a></span>wealth 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.</p> + +<p>While fighting for the masters who offered him <i>condotta</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.073" id= "pg2.073">73</a></span>was +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 <i>condotte</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.074" id= "pg2.074">74</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.075" id= "pg2.075">75</a></span>Rovere, +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.076" id= "pg2.076">76</a></span>suffered 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.077" id= "pg2.077">77</a></span>which 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.078" id= "pg2.078">78</a></span>their 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.079" id= "pg2.079">79</a></span>When 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 <i>ventosa</i>, 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, <i>Inclinata Resurgam</i>: 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.080" id= "pg2.080">80</a></span>profession 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.</p> + +<p>This profusion of sculptured <i>rilievo</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.081" id= "pg2.081">81</a></span>colours, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>torricini</i>. 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella,<br /> + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. +</p> + +<p>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, <i>bâtons</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.082" id= "pg2.082">82</a></span>great 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!</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.083" id= "pg2.083">83</a></span>witticisms 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.084" id= "pg2.084">84</a></span>Death 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo<br /> +Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda<br /> +Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <i>bâtons</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.085" id= "pg2.085">85</a></span>puppets 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 +<i>coltellata</i> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.086" id= "pg2.086">86</a></span>fine 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>barocco</i> emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky +<i>Pietà</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.087" id= "pg2.087">87</a></span>bareheaded 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.088" id= "pg2.088">88</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap21"></a>VITTORIA ACCORAMBONI</h2> + +<h3>AND THE TRAGEDY OF WEBSTER</h3> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.089" id= "pg2.089">89</a></span>quarters 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>dramatis personæ</i>, is that of Vittoria Accoramboni.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.090" id= "pg2.090">90</a></span>offers 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.091" id= "pg2.091">91</a></span>the 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.092" id= "pg2.092">92</a></span>insane 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.093" id= "pg2.093">93</a></span>a 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.<a href="#fn-21" name="fnref-21" id="fnref-21"><sup>[21]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-21" id="fn-21"></a> <a href="#fnref-21">[21]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.094" id= "pg2.094">94</a></span>him 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, <i>alias</i> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.095" id= "pg2.095">95</a></span>two 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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>'Veramente costui è un gran +frate!</i>' was Gregory's remark at the close of the consistory when +Montalto begged him to let the matter of Peretti's murder rest. '<i>Of a +truth, that fellow is a consummate hypocrite!</i>' How accurate this +judgment was, appeared when Sixtus V. assumed the reins of <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.096" id= "pg2.096">96</a></span>power. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.097" id= "pg2.097">97</a></span>his +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.098" id= "pg2.098">98</a></span>24th 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>lupa</i> justified his trying what change of air, together +with the sulphur waters of Abano, would do for him.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>la gioia dei profani è un fumo passaggier</i>. Paolo Giordano Orsini, +Duke of Bracciano, died suddenly at Salò on the 10th of November 1585, +leaving the young and beautiful <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.099" id= "pg2.099">99</a></span>Vittoria 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Miserere</i> in the great hall of the palace. The murderers surprised +him with a shot from one of their <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.100" id= "pg2.100">100</a></span>harquebuses. 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.</p> + +<p>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. '<i>Dentibus fremebant</i>,' +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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.101" id= "pg2.101">101</a></span>The 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.102" id= "pg2.102">102</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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.'<a href="#fn-22" name="fnref-22" id="fnref-22"><sup>[22]</sup></a> +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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.103" id= "pg2.103">103</a></span>of 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 <i>rôle</i> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-22" id="fn-22"></a> <a href="#fnref-22">[22]</a> +I have amplified and corrected this chronicle by the light of Professor Gnoli's +monograph, <i>Vittoria Accoramboni</i>, published by Le Monnier at Florence in +1870. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.104" id= "pg2.104">104</a></span>Webster 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.<a href="#fn-23" name="fnref-23" id="fnref-23"><sup>[23]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-23" id="fn-23"></a> <a href="#fnref-23">[23]</a> +In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have adhered to his use and spelling of +names. +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.105" id= "pg2.105">105</a></span>Duchess 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.106" id= "pg2.106">106</a></span>allied 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.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.107" id= "pg2.107">107</a></span>Flamineo. +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.108" id= "pg2.108">108</a></span>Bernhardt. 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.109" id= "pg2.109">109</a></span> +trenchant truth to nature:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + <i>You</i> my death's-man!<br /> +Methinks thou dost not look horrid enough,<br /> +Thou hast too good a face to be a hangman:<br /> +If thou be, do thy office in right form;<br /> +Fall down upon thy knees, and ask forgiveness!<br /> +<br /> +I will be waited on in death; my servant<br /> +Shall never go before me.<br /> +<br /> + Yes, I shall welcome death<br /> +As princes do some great ambassadors:<br /> +I'll meet thy weapon half-way.<br /> +<br /> + 'Twas a manly blow!<br /> +The next thou giv'st, murder some sucking infant;<br /> +And then thou wilt be famous. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.110" id= "pg2.110">110</a></span>rebukes 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Had I foreknown his death, as you suggest,<br /> +I would have bespoke my mourning. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +She is condemned, but not vanquished, and leaves the court with a +stinging sarcasm. They send her to a house of Convertites:</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>V.C</i>. A house of Convertites! what's that?<br /> +<i>M</i>. A house of penitent whores.<br /> +<i>V.C</i>. Do the noblemen of Rome<br /> +Erect it for their wives, that I am sent<br /> +To lodge there? +</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And both were struck dead by that sacred yew,<br /> +In that base shallow grave that was their due. +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>It is tempting to pass from this analysis of Vittoria's life to a +consideration of Webster's drama as a whole, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.111" id= "pg2.111">111</a></span>especially 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tableau +vivant</i>; 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.112" id= "pg2.112">112</a></span>intricacy +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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>fantoccini</i> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.113" id= "pg2.113">113</a></span>in 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 <i>drame sanglant</i>—Marston, for +example—blundered.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Mater Tenebrarum</i>, 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + You speak as if a man<br /> +Should know what fowl is coffined in a baked meat<br /> +Afore you cut it open. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Hideous similes are heaped together in illustration of the commonest +circumstances: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +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.<br /> +When knaves come to preferment, they rise as gallowses are raised in the +Low Countries, one upon another's shoulders.<br /> +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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.114" id= "pg2.114">114</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A soldier is twitted with serving his master: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +As witches do their serviceable spirits,<br /> +Even with thy prodigal blood. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +An adulterous couple get this curse: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Like mistletoe on sear elms spent by weather,<br /> +Let him cleave to her, and both rot together. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A bravo is asked: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Dost thou imagine thou canst slide on blood,<br /> +And not be tainted with a shameful fall?<br /> +Or, like the black and melancholic yew-tree,<br /> +Dost think to root thyself in dead men's graves,<br /> +And yet to prosper? +</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Only like dead walls or vaulted graves,<br /> +That, ruined, yield no echo.<br /> + O this gloomy world!<br /> +In what a shadow or deep pit of darkness<br /> +Doth womanish and fearful mankind live!<br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +We are merely the stars' tennis-balls, struck and banded<br /> +Which way please them.<br /> +<br /> + +<br /> +Pleasure of life! what is't? only the good hours of an ague.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A Duchess is 'brought to mortification,' before her strangling by the +executioner, in this high fantastical oration:</p> + +<p class="letter">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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.115" id= "pg2.115">115</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Man's life in its totality is summed up with monastic cynicism in +these lyric verses: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Of what is't fools make such vain keeping?<br /> +Sin their conception, their birth weeping,<br /> +Their life a general mist of error,<br /> +Their death a hideous storm of terror. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The greatness of the world passes by with all its glory:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Vain the ambition of kings,<br /> +Who seek by trophies and dead things<br /> +To leave a living name behind,<br /> +And weave but nets to catch the wind. +</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Sir, be confident!<br /> +What is't distracts you? This is flesh and blood, sir;<br /> +'Tis not the figure cut in alabaster,<br /> +Kneels at my husband's tomb. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.116" id= "pg2.116">116</a></span>Italian 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.117" id= "pg2.117">117</a></span>and 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.118" id= "pg2.118">118</a></span>Thus 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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What fury raised <i>thee</i> up? Away, away! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And when she pleads the honour of their house he answers:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Shall I,<br /> +Having a path so open and so free<br /> +To my preferment, still retain your milk<br /> +In my pale forehead? +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.119" id= "pg2.119">119</a></span>courting 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:</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Brach</i>. No, you pander?<br /> +<i>Flam</i>. What, me, my lord?<br /> +Am I your dog?<br /> +<i>B</i>. A bloodhound; do you brave, do you stand me?<br /> +<i>F</i>. Stand you! let those that have diseases run;<br /> +I need no plasters.<br /> +<i>B</i>. Would you be kicked?<br /> +<i>F</i>. Would you have your neck broke?<br /> +I tell you, duke, I am not in Russia;<br /> +My shins must be kept whole.<br /> +<i>B</i>. Do you know me?<br /> +<i>F</i>. Oh, my lord, methodically:<br /> +As in this world there are degrees of evils,<br /> +So in this world there are degrees of devils.<br /> +You're a great duke, I your poor secretary. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +When the Duke dies and his prey escapes him, the rage of +disappointment breaks into this fierce apostrophe:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I cannot conjure; but if prayers or oaths.<br /> +Will get the speech of him, though forty devils<br /> +Wait on him in his livery of flames,<br /> +I'll speak to him and shake him by the hand,<br /> +Though I be blasted. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +As crimes thicken round him, and he still despairs of the reward for +which he sold himself, conscience awakes:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I have lived<br /> +Riotously ill, like some that live in court,<br /> +And sometimes when my face was full of smiles Have felt the<br /> +maze of conscience in my breast. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The scholar's scepticism, which lies at the root of his perversity, +finds utterance in this meditation upon death:</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.120" id= "pg2.120">120</a></span></p> + +<p class="poem"> +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!<br /> + Whether I resolve to fire, earth, water, air, or all the +elements by scruples, I know not, nor greatly care. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +At the last moment he yet can say:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +We cease to grieve, cease to be Fortune's slaves,<br /> +Nay, cease to die, by dying. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And again, with the very yielding of his spirit:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +My life was a black charnel. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="letter"> +<i>Bos</i>. It seems you would create me<br /> +One of your familiars.<br /> +<i>Ferd</i>. Familiar! what's that?<br /> +<i>Bos</i>. Why, a very quaint invisible devil in flesh,<br /> +An intelligencer.<br /> +<i>Ferd</i>. Such a kind of thriving thing<br /> +I would wish thee; and ere long thou may'st arrive<br /> +At a higher place by it. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.121" id= "pg2.121">121</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Lured by hope of preferment, Bosola undertakes the office of spy, +tormentor, and at last of executioner. For: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Discontent and want<br /> +Is the best clay to mould a villain of. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It is fitting that something should be said about Webster's conception +of the Italian despot. Brachiano and Ferdinand, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.122" id= "pg2.122">122</a></span>the 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + The law to him<br /> +Is like a foul black cobweb to a spider;<br /> +He makes it his dwelling and a prison<br /> +To entangle those shall feed him. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +They are eaten up with parasites, accomplices, and all the creatures +of their crimes:</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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.</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In their lives they are without a friend; for society in guilt brings +nought of comfort, and honours are but emptiness:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Glories, like glow-worms, afar off shine bright;<br /> +But looked to near, have neither heat nor light. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Their plots and counterplots drive repose far from them:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +There's but three furies found in spacious hell;<br /> +But in a great man's breast three thousand dwell. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Fearful shapes afflict their fancy; shadows of ancestral crime or +ghosts of their own raising:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + For these many years<br /> +None of our family dies, but there is seen<br /> +The shape of an old woman; which is given<br /> +By tradition to us to have been murdered<br /> +By her nephews for her riches. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Apparitions haunt them:</p> + +<p> + How tedious is a guilty conscience!<br /> +When I look into the fish-ponds in my garden,<br /> +Methinks I see a thing armed with a rake<br /> +That seems to strike at me. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.123" id= "pg2.123">123</a></span>Continually 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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +On pain of death, let no man name death to me;<br /> +It is a word infinitely horrible. +</p> + +<p>And how solemn are the following reflections on the death of princes:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O thou soft natural death, that art joint-twin<br /> +To sweetest slumber! no rough-bearded comet<br /> +Stares on thy mild departure; the dull owl<br /> +Beats not against thy casement, the hoarse wolf<br /> +Scents not thy carrion: pity winds thy corse,<br /> +Whilst horror waits on princes. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +After their death, this is their epitaph:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + These wretched eminent things<br /> +Leave no more fame behind'em than should one<br /> +Fall in a frost and leave his print in snow. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.124" id= "pg2.124">124</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Farewell, Cariola!<br /> +I pray thee look thou givest my little boy<br /> +Some syrup for his cold, and let the girl<br /> +Say her prayers ere she sleep. +</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.125" id= "pg2.125">125</a></span>The 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> + I prithee, yet remember,<br /> +Millions are now in graves, which at last day<br /> +Like mandrakes shall rise shrieking.— +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.126" id= "pg2.126">126</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.127" id= "pg2.127">127</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap22"></a>AUTUMN WANDERINGS</h2> + +<h3>I.—ITALIAM PETIMUS</h3> + +<p> +<i>Italiam Petimus!</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.128" id= "pg2.128">128</a></span>of 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.</p> + +<p><i>Italiam petimus!</i> 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 <i>Italiam petimus!</i></p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.129" id= "pg2.129">129</a></span>A 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.130" id= "pg2.130">130</a></span>already 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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Italiam petimus!</i></p> + +<p><i>Tangimus Italiam!</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.131" id= "pg2.131">131</a></span>light 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.</p> + +<h3>II.—OVER THE APENNINES</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.132" id= "pg2.132">132</a></span>summit +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.</p> + +<p>As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the <i>ghiara</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.133" id= "pg2.133">133</a></span>square-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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.134" id= "pg2.134">134</a></span>with 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>III.—FOSDINOVO</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.135" id= "pg2.135">135</a></span>then 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: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +καί προσπεσών +εκλυσ΄ ε΄ρημίας +τυχών<br /> +σπονδάς τε +λύσας ασκόν ον +Φέρω ξένοις +<br /> +εσπεισα +τύμβω δ΄άμφεθηκα μυρσίνας +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.136" id= "pg2.136">136</a></span>this 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>tremolar +della marina</i>, portending dawn, which afterwards he painted in the +'Purgatory.'</p> + +<p>From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the <i>candentia moenia Lunae</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.137" id= "pg2.137">137</a></span>to 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.'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>IV.—LA SPEZZIA</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.138" id= "pg2.138">138</a></span>along 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea! +</p> + +<p>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 +<i>contrabbandiere</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.139" id= "pg2.139">139</a></span>Borgo Ognissanti. He had all +the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a sort of innocent malice mixed +with <i>espieglerie</i>. 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 <i>Non più +andrai</i>; 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 <i>l' +uomo cavallo, l' uomo volante, l' uomo pesce</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>fanali</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.140" id= "pg2.140">140</a></span>rain; +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.</p> + +<h3>V.—PORTO VENERE</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Smilax Sarsaparilla</i>) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its +creamy odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.141" id= "pg2.141">141</a></span>hanging 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.</p> + +<p>We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys—<i>diavoli +scatenati</i>—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.</p> + +<p>At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.142" id= "pg2.142">142</a></span>stands 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.143" id= "pg2.143">143</a></span></p> + +<h3>VI.—LERICI</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Erycina ridens</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.144" id= "pg2.144">144</a></span>burnished 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>villeggiatura</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.145" id= "pg2.145">145</a></span>that 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, '<i>Siete soddisfatto</i>?'</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>VII.—VIAREGGIO</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.146" id= "pg2.146">146</a></span>reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had +the rough force of a tidal sea.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.147" id= "pg2.147">147</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap23"></a>PARMA</h2> + +<p> +Parma is perhaps the brightest <i>Residenzstadt</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.148" id= "pg2.148">148</a></span>his 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.149" id= "pg2.149">149</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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<a href="#fn-24" name="fnref-24" id="fnref-24"><sup>[24]</sup></a> +and various portions of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.150" id= "pg2.150">150</a></span>side +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-24" id="fn-24"></a> <a href="#fnref-24">[24]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.151" id= "pg2.151">151</a></span>has 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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.152" id= "pg2.152">152</a></span>places 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'—<i>Fac ut +portem</i> or <i>Quis est homo</i>—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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.153" id= "pg2.153">153</a></span>as 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.154" id= "pg2.154">154</a></span>colour 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.155" id= "pg2.155">155</a></span>play 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.156" id= "pg2.156">156</a></span>Correggio'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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.157" id= "pg2.157">157</a></span>cheeks 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.158" id= "pg2.158">158</a></span>which 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.159" id= "pg2.159">159</a></span>and women—colossal trunks and writhen limbs—interpret the meanings +of his deep and melancholy soul.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-25" name="fnref-25" id="fnref-25"><sup>[25]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-25" id="fn-25"></a> <a href="#fnref-25">[25]</a> +See the chapter on Euripides in my <i>Studies of Greek Poets</i>, First Series, +for a further development of this view of artistic evolution. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.160" id= "pg2.160">160</a></span>loveliness 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.161" id= "pg2.161">161</a></span>maternity, 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.162" id= "pg2.162">162</a></span>even 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.' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.163" id= "pg2.163">163</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap24"></a>CANOSSA</h2> + +<p> +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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.164" id= "pg2.164">164</a></span>quality 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.165" id= "pg2.165">165</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>débris</i> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.166" id= "pg2.166">166</a></span>reaching 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 <i>alba Canossa</i>, the <i>candida petra</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>arête</i> 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 <i>balze</i> which are so common and so unattractive a +feature of Apennine scenery. The most hideous <i>balze</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.167" id= "pg2.167">167</a></span>wildness or grandeur as forms, the saving merit of nearly all wasteful +things in the world, and can only be classed with the desolate +<i>ghiare</i> of Italian river-beds.</p> + +<p>Such as they are, these <i>balze</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.168" id= "pg2.168">168</a></span>blossom, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.169" id= "pg2.169">169</a></span>bought 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.170" id= "pg2.170">170</a></span>father'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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.171" id= "pg2.171">171</a></span>history. +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.172" id= "pg2.172">172</a></span>donning 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.173" id= "pg2.173">173</a></span>dominion incarnate in a man and +woman of almost super-human mould.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.174" id= "pg2.174">173</a></span>Henry 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.175" id= "pg2.175">175</a></span>A 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.176" id= "pg2.176">176</a></span>wait 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.177" id= "pg2.177">177</a></span>It 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.178" id= "pg2.178">178</a></span>fugitive, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>débris</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.179" id= "pg2.179">179</a></span>was 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.<a href="#fn-26" name="fnref-26" id="fnref-26"><sup>[26]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-26" id="fn-26"></a> <a href="#fnref-26">[26]</a> +I find that this story is common in the country round Canossa. It is mentioned +by Professor A. Ferretti in his monograph entitled <i>Canossa, Studi e +Ricerche</i>, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and which will repay +careful study. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.180" id= "pg2.180">180</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap25"></a>FORNOVO</h2> + +<p> +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 <i>sprezzatura</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.181" id= "pg2.181">181</a></span>the 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 <i>Carceri</i>. 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: <i>questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi.</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.182" id= "pg2.182">182</a></span>were 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>réveil</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.183" id= "pg2.183">183</a></span>encroach 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 <i>ghiara</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.184" id= "pg2.184">184</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.185" id= "pg2.185">185</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.186" id= "pg2.186">186</a></span>had 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.187" id= "pg2.187">187</a></span>Florence 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 <i>bourgeois</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.188" id= "pg2.188">188</a></span>caused 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.189" id= "pg2.189">189</a></span>sword 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.<a href="#fn-27" name="fnref-27" id="fnref-27"><sup>[27]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-27" id="fn-27"></a> <a href="#fnref-27">[27]</a> +Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in turn claimed under the +will of Joan II. +</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.190" id= "pg2.190">190</a></span>such 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.191" id= "pg2.191">191</a></span>contact 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.192" id= "pg2.192">192</a></span>Isabella 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.'</p> + +<p>Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +<i>parvenus</i>, 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—<i>tutta a bordello.</i>' 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.193" id= "pg2.193">193</a></span>really 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>i.e.</i> 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.'</p> + +<p>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,' <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.194" id= "pg2.194">194</a></span>No 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.195" id= "pg2.195">195</a></span>'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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Savoy</i>. 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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.196" id= "pg2.196">196</a></span>3000 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.197" id= "pg2.197">197</a></span>night, 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.198" id= "pg2.198">198</a></span>Italy 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 <i>Contado</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.199" id= "pg2.199">199</a></span>were 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.200" id= "pg2.200">200</a></span>was 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.201" id= "pg2.201">201</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap26"></a>FLORENCE AND THE MEDICI</h2> + +<p class="letter"> +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.—M<small>ACHIAVELLI</small>. +</p> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.202" id= "pg2.202">202</a></span>practical inefficiency of the Emperors to play their part +encouraged the establishment of numerous minor powers amenable to no +controlling discipline.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.203" id= "pg2.203">203</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.204" id= "pg2.204">204</a></span>Italy; 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>popolo</i>, were ultimately sovereigns in the State. +Assembled under the banners of their several companies, they formed a +<i>parlamento</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.205" id= "pg2.205">205</a></span>the +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.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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 <i>scioperato</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.206" id= "pg2.206">206</a></span>Ghibellines 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.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.207" id= "pg2.207">207</a></span> +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. +</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.208" id= "pg2.208">208</a></span>that +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.209" id= "pg2.209">209</a></span>discontent 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.</p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.210" id= "pg2.210">210</a></span>purpose 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 <i>borse</i>, 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 <i>Balia</i>, 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 <i>Pratiche</i>, +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, <i>to admonish</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.211" id= "pg2.211">211</a></span>exercise 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.212" id= "pg2.212">212</a></span>had 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 <i>point d'appui</i> for insidious and self-seeking party +leaders.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Popolani +Nobili</i>; 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.213" id= "pg2.213">213</a></span>been. Florence in the days of +her slavery remained a <i>Popolo</i>.</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>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 <i>novi homines</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.214" id= "pg2.214">214</a></span>deprived 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.</p> + +<p>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 (<i>nobili popolani</i>) 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.215" id= "pg2.215">215</a></span>Albizzi +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.</p> + +<h3>VII</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.216" id= "pg2.216">216</a></span>It 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.217" id= "pg2.217">217</a></span>contrived, 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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.218" id= "pg2.218">218</a></span></p> + +<h3>VIII</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.219" id= "pg2.219">219</a></span>westward 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.220" id= "pg2.220">220</a></span>bad 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.</p> + +<h3>IX</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.221" id= "pg2.221">221</a></span>them 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.</p> + +<h3>X</h3> + +<p> +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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.222" id= "pg2.222">222</a></span>with 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 <i>Puccini</i> +from a certain Puccio, whose name was better known in caucus or +committee than that of his real master.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.223" id= "pg2.223">223</a></span>enabled 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.224" id= "pg2.224">224</a></span>relations 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.225" id= "pg2.225">225</a></span>and the obscure craftsman ended his days a powerful +prince.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Pater Patriæ</i>. This was +inscribed upon his tomb in S. Lorenzo. He left to posterity the fame +of a great and generous patron,<a href="#fn-28" name="fnref-28" id="fnref-28"><sup>[28]</sup></a> +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? +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-28" id="fn-28"></a> <a href="#fnref-28">[28]</a> +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 <i>Renaissance in Italy</i>: 'The Revival +of Learning,' chap. iv. +</p> + +<h3>XI</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.226" id= "pg2.226">226</a></span>difficulty 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.227" id= "pg2.227">227</a></span>dignities. +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. +</p> + +<h3>XII</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The extraordinary versatility of this man's intellectual <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.228" id= "pg2.228">228</a></span>and 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.229" id= "pg2.229">229</a></span>cynical +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.</p> + +<h3>XIII</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.230" id= "pg2.230">230</a></span>commerce, +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.</p> + +<h3>XIV</h3> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.231" id= "pg2.231">231</a></span>their 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.232" id= "pg2.232">232</a></span>Florence. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.233" id= "pg2.233">233</a></span>churches,' 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.<a href="#fn-29" name="fnref-29" id="fnref-29"><sup>[29]</sup></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-29" id="fn-29"></a> <a href="#fnref-29">[29]</a> +Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in like manner, on the same walls. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.234" id= "pg2.234">234</a></span></p> + +<h3>XV</h3> + +<p> +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 <i>coup de main</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.235" id= "pg2.235">235</a></span>his 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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.236" id= "pg2.236">236</a></span></p> + +<h3>XVI</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.237" id= "pg2.237">237</a></span>then 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.</p> + +<h3>XVII</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.238" id= "pg2.238">238</a></span>every 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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.239" id= "pg2.239">239</a></span></p> + +<h3>XVIII</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<h3>XIX</h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.240" id= "pg2.240">240</a></span>powerful; 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.241" id= "pg2.241">241</a></span>dictator. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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>I Piagnoni</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.242" id= "pg2.242">242</a></span>consequence 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 <i>Palleschi</i>. Men who chafed against +puritanical reform, and who were eager for any government that should +secure them their old licence, were known as <i>Compagnacci</i>. 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 <i>Gli Ottimati</i>. Florence held within +itself, from this epoch forward to the final extinction of liberty, +four great parties: the <i>Piagnoni</i>, passionate for political freedom +and austerity of life; the <i>Palleschi</i>, favourable to the Medicean +cause, and regretful of Lorenzo's pleasant rule; the <i>Compagnacci</i>, +intolerant of the reformed republic, neither hostile nor loyal to the +Medici, but desirous of personal licence; the <i>Ottimati</i>, 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. +</p> + +<h3>XX</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.243" id= "pg2.243">243</a></span>referring +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.244" id= "pg2.244">244</a></span>to comprehend these +circumstances, in order that the next revolution may be clearly +understood.</p> + +<h3>XXI</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.245" id= "pg2.245">245</a></span>autumnal +weather, and turned the paradise into a hell. It is even now +impossible to read of what they did in Prato without +shuddering.<a href="#fn-30" name="fnref-30" id="fnref-30"><sup>[30]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-30" id="fn-30"></a> <a href="#fnref-30">[30]</a> +See <i>Archivio Storico</i>. +</p> + +<h3>XXII</h3> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.246" id= "pg2.246">246</a></span>servitude. 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Florence shared in the general rejoicing which greeted Leo's accession +to the Papacy. He was the first Florentine <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.247" id= "pg2.247">247</a></span>citizen 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.248" id= "pg2.248">248</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<h3>XXIII</h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.249" id= "pg2.249">249</a></span>reduced. 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.250" id= "pg2.250">250</a></span>incline to aristocracy, or what Italians called <i>Governo Stretto</i>; +some to democracy, or <i>Governo Largo</i>; some to an eclectic compound of +the other forms, or <i>Governo Misto</i>. 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.</p> + +<h3>XXIV</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.251" id= "pg2.251">251</a></span>taken into service +for the protection of his person and the intimidation of the citizens.</p> + +<p>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—<i>stalla da muli</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.252" id= "pg2.252">252</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<h3>XXV</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.253" id= "pg2.253">253</a></span>last of the Apocalyptic tragedies +foretold by Savonarola—the death of the old age.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<h3>XXVI</h3> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.254" id= "pg2.254">254</a></span>It 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.255" id= "pg2.255">255</a></span>to her foes, 'putting on his head,' as the Doge +of Venice said before the Senate, 'the cap of the biggest traitor upon +record.'</p> + +<h3>XXVII</h3> + +<p>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 +<i>Governo Stretto</i> or <i>di Pochi</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.256" id= "pg2.256">256</a></span>immediate +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.</p> + +<h3>XXVIII</h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.257" id= "pg2.257">257</a></span>pursuing 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.258" id= "pg2.258">258</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap27"></a>THE DEBT OF ENGLISH TO ITALIAN LITERATURE</h2> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.259" id= "pg2.259">259</a></span>scholarship, +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.260" id= "pg2.260">260</a></span>masterpieces 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.261" id= "pg2.261">261</a></span>are 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 <i>rime royal</i>, 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, <i>Posso degli occhi miei</i>.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.262" id= "pg2.262">262</a></span>our +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.<a href="#fn-31" name="fnref-31" id="fnref-31"><sup>[31]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-31" id="fn-31"></a> <a href="#fnref-31">[31]</a> +The order of rhymes runs thus: <i>a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d</i>; +or in the terzets, <i>c, d, e, c, d, e</i>, or <i>c, d, e, d, c, e</i>, and so +forth. +</p> + +<p>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: <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.263" id= "pg2.263">263</a></span>there 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 <i>versi +sciolti</i>, fixing that decasyllable iambic rhythm for English +versification in which our greatest poetical triumphs have been +achieved.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.264" id= "pg2.264">264</a></span>Italy, 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.<a href="#fn-32" name="fnref-32" id="fnref-32"><sup>[32]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-33" name="fnref-33" id="fnref-33"><sup>[33]</sup></a> +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:' +</p> + +<p class="letter"> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-32" id="fn-32"></a> <a href="#fnref-32">[32]</a> +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 <i>terza rima</i>, poems with +<i>sdrucciolo</i> 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-33" id="fn-33"></a> <a href="#fnref-33">[33]</a> +The stately structure of the <i>Prothalamion</i> and <i>Epithalamion</i> is a +rebuilding of the Italian Canzone. His Eclogues, with their allegories, repeat +the manner of Petrarch's minor Latin poems. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.265" id= "pg2.265">265</a></span>jealous 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.</p> + +<p>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."'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.266" id= "pg2.266">266</a></span>literature, +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. <i>Inglese Italianato è un diavolo incarnato</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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; <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.267" id= "pg2.267">267</a></span>while 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.268" id= "pg2.268">268</a></span>and 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.<a href="#fn-34" name="fnref-34" id="fnref-34"><sup>[34]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-34" id="fn-34"></a> <a href="#fnref-34">[34]</a> +Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian masques.' At the same time, in the +prologue to <i>Tamburlaine</i>, he shows that he was conscious of the new and +nobler direction followed by the drama in England. +</p> + +<p>The Elizabethan period of our literature was, in fact, the period +during which we derived most from the Italian nation.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.269" id= "pg2.269">269</a></span>The 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 <i>o</i> and <i>a</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.270" id= "pg2.270">270</a></span>period 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.271" id= "pg2.271">271</a></span>North, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>versi sciolti</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.272" id= "pg2.272">272</a></span>given 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.</p> + +<p>English literature has been defined a literature of genius.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.273" id= "pg2.273">273</a></span>Our 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.274" id= "pg2.274">274</a></span>producing 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.275" id= "pg2.275">275</a></span>smooth 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.276" id= "pg2.276">276</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap28"></a>POPULAR SONGS OF TUSCANY</h2> + +<p> +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.<a href="#fn-35" name="fnref-35" id="fnref-35"><sup>[35]</sup></a> +Though the Tuscan contadini are always singing, it rarely happens that +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.277" id= "pg2.277">277</a></span></p> + +<p class="poem"> + The plaintive numbers flow<br /> +For old, unhappy, far-off things,<br /> + And battles long ago. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +On the contrary, we may be sure, when we hear their voices ringing +through the olive-groves or macchi, that they are chanting</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Some more humble lay,<br /> +Familiar matter of to-day,—<br /> +Some natural sorrow, loss, or pain,<br /> +That has been, and may be again; +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +or else, since their melodies are by no means uniformly sad, some +ditty of the joyousness of springtime or the ecstasy of love.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-35" id="fn-35"></a> <a href="#fnref-35">[35]</a> +This sentence requires some qualification. In his <i>Poesia Popolare +Italiana</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>novelle</i> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.278" id= "pg2.278">278</a></span>who 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Volkslieder</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.279" id= "pg2.279">279</a></span>human 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Schwärmerei</i> 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.280" id="pg2.280">280</a></span>It 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.</p> + +<p>Signor Tigri's collection,<a href="#fn-36" name="fnref-36" id="fnref-36"><sup>[36]</sup></a> +to which I shall confine my attention +in this paper, consists of eleven hundred and eighty-five <i>rispetti</i>, +with the addition of four hundred and sixty-one <i>stornelli</i>. 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 <i>ripresa</i>, complete the +poem.<a href="#fn-37" name="fnref-37" id="fnref-37"><sup>[37]</sup></a> The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.281" id= "pg2.281">281</a></span>stornello, 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,<a href="#fn-38" name="fnref-38" id="fnref-38"><sup>[38]</sup></a> +which sets out with the name of a flower, and rhymes with it, as thus: +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Fior di narciso.<br /> +Prigionero d'amore mi son reso,<br /> +Nel rimirare il tuo leggiadro viso. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-36" id="fn-36"></a> <a href="#fnref-36">[36]</a> +<i>Canti Popolari Toscani</i>, raccolti e annotati da Giuseppe Tigri. Volume +unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-37" id="fn-37"></a> <a href="#fnref-37">[37]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-38" id="fn-38"></a> <a href="#fnref-38">[38]</a> +This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for <i>fiore</i>) 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. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.282" id= "pg2.282">282</a></span>Apennines 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 <i>Volkslied</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.283" id= "pg2.283">283</a></span>rhymesters whom the +country-folk employ in the composition of love-letters to their +sweethearts at a distance.<a href="#fn-39" name="fnref-39" id="fnref-39"><sup>[39]</sup></a> 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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano;<br /> +Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia.<br /> +A me mi pare un poeta sovrano,<br /> +Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia.<a href="#fn-40" name="fnref-40" id="fnref-40"><sup>[40]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-39" id="fn-39"></a> <a href="#fnref-39">[39]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-40" id="fn-40"></a> <a href="#fnref-40">[40]</a> +'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.' +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.284" id= "pg2.284">284</a></span>and 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.</p> + +<p>The purity of all the Italian love-songs collected by Tigri is very +remarkable.<a href="#fn-41" name="fnref-41" id="fnref-41"><sup>[41]</sup></a> +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 <i>damo</i>—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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Dice che tu tî affacci alia finestra;<br /> +Ma non tî dice che tu vada fuora,<br /> +Perchè, la notte, è cosa disonesta. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.285" id= "pg2.285">285</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All the language of his love is respectful. <i>Signore</i>, or master of my +soul, <i>madonna, anima mia, dolce mio ben, nobil persona,</i> 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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E tu non mi lasciar per poverezza,<br /> +Chè povertà non guasta gentilezza.<a href="#fn-42" name="fnref-42" id="fnref-42"><sup>[42]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.286" id= "pg2.286">286</a></span>in 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-41" id="fn-41"></a> <a href="#fnref-41">[41]</a> +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 <i>Volkslieder</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-42" id="fn-42"></a> <a href="#fnref-42">[42]</a> +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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +My state is poor: I am not meet<br /> + To court so nobly born a love;<br /> +For poverty hath tied my feet,<br /> + Trying to climb too far above.<br /> +Yet am I gentle, loving thee;<br /> +Nor need thou shun my poverty. +</p> + +<p>A translator of these <i>Volkslieder</i> has to contend with difficulties +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.287" id= "pg2.287">287</a></span>of 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.<a href="#fn-43" name="fnref-43" id="fnref-43"><sup>[43]</sup></a> +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 <i>ripresa</i> 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 +<i>bene</i> and <i>piacere, oro</i> and <i>volo, ala</i> and <i>alata</i>, in +the place of rhymes; while such remote resemblances of sound as <i>colli</i> +and <i>poggi</i>, <i>lascia</i> and <i>piazza</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-43" id="fn-43"></a> <a href="#fnref-43">[43]</a> +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.' +</p> + +<p>In the following serenade many of the peculiarities which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.288" id= "pg2.288">288</a></span>I 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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Sleeping or waking, thou sweet face,<br /> +Lift up thy fair and tender brow:<br /> +List to thy love in this still place;<br /> +He calls thee to thy window now:<br /> +But bids thee not the house to quit,<br /> +Since in the night this were not meet.<br /> +Come to thy window, stay within;<br /> +I stand without, and sing and sing:<br /> +Come to thy window, stay at home;<br /> +I stand without, and make my moan. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here is a serenade of a more impassioned character (p. 99):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I come to visit thee, my beauteous queen,<br /> +Thee and the house where thou art harboured:<br /> +All the long way upon my knees, my queen,<br /> +I kiss the earth where'er thy footsteps tread.<br /> +I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the wall,<br /> +Whereby thou goest, maid imperial!<br /> +I kiss the earth, and gaze upon the house,<br /> +Whereby thou farest, queen most beauteous! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I see the dawn e'en now begin to peer:<br /> +Therefore I take my leave, and cease to sing,<br /> +See how the windows open far and near,<br /> +And hear the bells of morning, how they ring!<br /> +Through heaven and earth the sounds of ringing swell;<br /> +Therefore, bright jasmine flower, sweet maid, farewell!<br /> +Through heaven and Rome the sound of ringing goes;<br /> +Farewell, bright jasmine flower, sweet maiden rose! +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.289" id= "pg2.289">289</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The next is more quaint (p. 99):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I come by night, I come, my soul aflame;<br /> +I come in this fair hour of your sweet sleep;<br /> +And should I wake you up, it were a shame.<br /> +I cannot sleep, and lo! I break your sleep.<br /> +To wake you were a shame from your deep rest;<br /> +Love never sleeps, nor they whom Love hath blest. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Beauty was born with you, fair maid:<br /> +The sun and moon inclined to you;<br /> +On you the snow her whiteness laid<br /> +The rose her rich and radiant hue:<br /> +Saint Magdalen her hair unbound,<br /> +And Cupid taught you how to wound—<br /> +How to wound hearts Dan Cupid taught:<br /> +Your beauty drives me love-distraught. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The lady in the next was December's child (p. 25):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O beauty, born in winter's night,<br /> +Born in the month of spotless snow:<br /> +Your face is like a rose so bright;<br /> +Your mother may be proud of you!<br /> +She may be proud, lady of love,<br /> +Such sunlight shines her house above:<br /> +She may be proud, lady of heaven,<br /> +Such sunlight to her home is given. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The sea wind is the source of beauty to another (p. 16):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Nay, marvel not you are so fair;<br /> +For you beside the sea were born:<br /> +The sea-waves keep you fresh and fair,<br /> +Like roses on their leafy thorn.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.290" id= "pg2.290">290</a></span> +If roses grow on the rose-bush,<br /> +Your roses through midwinter blush;<br /> +If roses bloom on the rose-bed,<br /> +Your face can show both white and red. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The eyes of a fourth are compared, after quite a new and original +fashion, to stars (p. 210):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The moon hath risen her plaint to lay<br /> +Before the face of Love Divine.<br /> +Saying in heaven she will not stay,<br /> +Since you have stolen what made her shine:<br /> +Aloud she wails with sorrow wan,—<br /> +She told her stars and two are gone:<br /> +They are not there; you have them now;<br /> +They are the eyes in your bright brow. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O welcome, welcome, lily white,<br /> +Thou fairest youth of all the valley!<br /> +When I'm with you, my soul is light;<br /> +I chase away dull melancholy.<br /> +I chase all sadness from my heart:<br /> +Then welcome, dearest that thou art!<br /> +I chase all sadness from my side:<br /> +Then welcome, O my love, my pride!<br /> +I chase all sadness far away:<br /> +Then welcome, welcome, love, to-day! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The image of a lily is very prettily treated in the next (p 79):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I planted a lily yestreen at my window;<br /> +I set it yestreen, and to-day it sprang up:<br /> +When I opened the latch and leaned out of my window,<br /> +It shadowed my face with its beautiful cup.<br /> +O lily, my lily, how tall you are grown!<br /> +Remember how dearly I loved you, my own.<br /> +O lily, my lily, you'll grow to the sky!<br /> +Remember I love you for ever and aye. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.291" id= "pg2.291">291</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The same thought of love growing like a flower receives another turn +(p. 69):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +On yonder hill I saw a flower;<br /> +And, could it thence be hither borne,<br /> +I'd plant it here within my bower,<br /> +And water it both eve and morn.<br /> +Small water wants the stem so straight;<br /> +'Tis a love-lily stout as fate.<br /> +Small water wants the root so strong:<br /> +'Tis a love-lily lasting long.<br /> +Small water wants the flower so sheen:<br /> +'Tis a love-lily ever green. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Think it no grief that I am brown,<br /> +For all brunettes are born to reign:<br /> +White is the snow, yet trodden down;<br /> +Black pepper kings need not disdain:<br /> +White snow lies mounded on the vales<br /> +Black pepper's weighed in brazen scales. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Another song runs on the same subject (p. 38):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The whole world tells me that I'm brown,<br /> +The brown earth gives us goodly corn:<br /> +The clove-pink too, however brown,<br /> +Yet proudly in the hand 'tis borne.<br /> +They say my love is black, but he<br /> +Shines like an angel-form to me:<br /> +They say my love is dark as night;<br /> +To me he seems a shape of light. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The freshness of the following spring song recalls the ballads of the +Val de Vire in Normandy (p. 85):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +It was the morning of the first of May,<br /> +Into the close I went to pluck a flower;<br /> +And there I found a bird of woodland gay,<br /> +Who whiled with songs of love the silent hour.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.292" id= "pg2.292">292</a></span> +O bird, who fliest from fair Florence, how<br /> +Dear love begins, I prithee teach me now!—<br /> +Love it begins with music and with song,<br /> +And ends with sorrow and with sighs ere long. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Love at first sight is described (p. 79):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The very moment that we met,<br /> +That moment love began to beat:<br /> +One glance of love we gave, and swore<br /> +Never to part for evermore;<br /> +We swore together, sighing deep,<br /> +Never to part till Death's long sleep. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here too is a memory of the first days of love (p. 79):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +If I remember, it was May<br /> +When love began between us two:<br /> +The roses in the close were gay,<br /> +The cherries blackened on the bough.<br /> +O cherries black and pears so green!<br /> +Of maidens fair you are the queen.<br /> +Fruit of black cherry and sweet pear!<br /> +Of sweethearts you're the queen, I swear. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The troth is plighted with such promises as these (p. 230):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Or ere I leave you, love divine,<br /> +Dead tongues shall stir and utter speech,<br /> +And running rivers flow with wine,<br /> +And fishes swim upon the beach;<br /> +Or ere I leave or shun you, these<br /> +Lemons shall grow on orange-trees. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The girl confesses her love after this fashion (p. 86):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Passing across the billowy sea,<br /> +I let, alas, my poor heart fall;<br /> +I bade the sailors bring it me;<br /> +They said they had not seen it fall.<br /> +I asked the sailors, one and two;<br /> +They said that I had given it you.<br /> +I asked the sailors, two and three;<br /> +They said that I had given it thee. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.293" id= "pg2.293">293</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It is not uncommon to speak of love as a sea. Here is a curious play +upon this image (p. 227):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ho, Cupid! Sailor Cupid, ho!<br /> +Lend me awhile that bark of thine;<br /> +For on the billows I will go,<br /> +To find my love who once was mine:<br /> +And if I find her, she shall wear<br /> +A chain around her neck so fair,<br /> +Around her neck a glittering bond,<br /> +Four stars, a lily, a diamond. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It is also possible that the same thought may occur in the second line +of the next ditty (p. 120):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Beneath the earth I'll make a way<br /> +To pass the sea and come to you.<br /> +People will think I'm gone away;<br /> +But, dear, I shall be seeing you.<br /> +People will say that I am dead;<br /> +But we'll pluck roses white and red:<br /> +People will think I'm lost for aye;<br /> +But we'll pluck roses, you and I. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Blest be the mason's hand who built<br /> +This house of mine by the roadside,<br /> +And made my window low and wide<br /> +For me to watch my love go by.<br /> +And if I knew when she went by,<br /> +My window should be fairly gilt;<br /> +And if I knew what time she went,<br /> +My window should be flower-besprent. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here is a conceit which reminds one of the pretty epistle of +Philostratus, in which the footsteps of the beloved are called +<i>ερηρεισμένα +Φιλήματα</i> (p. 117):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.294" id= "pg2.294">294</a></span> +What time I see you passing by;<br /> +I sit and count the steps you take:<br /> +You take the steps; I sit and sigh:<br /> +Step after step, my sighs awake.<br /> +Tell me, dear love, which more abound,<br /> +My sighs or your steps on the ground?<br /> +Tell me, dear love, which are the most,<br /> +Your light steps or the sighs they cost? +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A girl complains that she cannot see her lover's house (p. 117):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I lean upon the lattice, and look forth<br /> +To see the house where my lover dwells.<br /> +There grows an envious tree that spoils my mirth:<br /> +Cursed be the man who set it on these hills!<br /> +But when those jealous boughs are all unclad,<br /> +I then shall see the cottage of my lad:<br /> +When once that tree is rooted from the hills,<br /> +I'll see the house wherein my lover dwells.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I see and see, yet see not what I would:<br /> +I see the leaves atremble on the tree:<br /> +I saw my love where on the hill he stood,<br /> +Yet see him not drop downward to the lea.<br /> + O traitor hill, what will you do?<br /> + I ask him, live or dead, from you.<br /> + O traitor hill, what shall it be?<br /> + I ask him, live or dead, from thee. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which +calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I would I were a bird so free,<br /> +That I had wings to fly away:<br /> +Unto that window I would flee,<br /> +Where stands my love and grinds all day.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.295" id= "pg2.295">295</a></span> +Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep!<br /> +I cannot grind; love makes me weep.<br /> +Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow!<br /> +I cannot grind; love wastes me so. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower +of benedictions (p. 118):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Would God I were a swallow free,<br /> +That I had wings to fly away:<br /> +Upon the miller's door I'd be,<br /> +Where stands my love and grinds all day:<br /> +Upon the door, upon the sill,<br /> +Where stays my love;—God bless him still!<br /> +God bless my love, and blessed be<br /> +His house, and bless my house for me;<br /> +Yea, blest be both, and ever blest<br /> +My lover's house, and all the rest! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and +calls to it (p. 179):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill,<br /> +Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest,<br /> +Let me a feather from thy pinion pull,<br /> +For I will write to him who loves me best.<br /> +And when I've written it and made it clear,<br /> +I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear:<br /> +And when I've written it and sealed it, then<br /> +I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O swallow, swallow, flying through the air,<br /> +Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above!<br /> +Give me one feather from thy wing so fair,<br /> +For I will write a letter to my love.<br /> +When I have written it and made it clear,<br /> +I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear;<br /> +When I have written it on paper white,<br /> +I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right;<br /> +When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold,<br /> +I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.296" id= "pg2.296">296</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O swallow, flying over hill and plain,<br /> +If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come!<br /> +And tell him, on these mountains I remain<br /> +Even as a lamb who cannot find her home:<br /> +And tell him, I am left all, all alone,<br /> +Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown:<br /> +And tell him, I am left without a mate<br /> +Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate:<br /> +And tell him, I am left uncomforted<br /> +Even as the grass upon the meadows dead. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O dear my love, you come too late!<br /> +What found you by the way to do?<br /> +I saw your comrades pass the gate,<br /> +But yet not you, dear heart, not you!<br /> +If but a little more you'd stayed,<br /> +With sighs you would have found me dead;<br /> +If but a while you'd keep me crying,<br /> +With sighs you would have found me dying. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The <i>amantium iræ</i> find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl +explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true,<br /> +Your kin are wroth as wroth can be;<br /> +For loving me they swear at you,<br /> +They swear at you because of me;<br /> +Your father, mother, all your folk,<br /> +Because you love me, chafe and choke!<br /> +Then set your kith and kin at ease;<br /> +Set them at ease and let me die:<br /> +Set the whole clan of them at ease;<br /> +Set them at ease and see me die! +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.297" id= "pg2.297">297</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. +200):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +On Sunday morning well I knew<br /> +Where gaily dressed you turned your feet;<br /> +And there were many saw it too,<br /> +And came to tell me through the street:<br /> +And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me!<br /> +But in my room wept privately;<br /> +And when they spoke, I sang for pride,<br /> +But in my room alone I sighed. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Then come reconciliations (p. 223):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Let us make peace, my love, my bliss!<br /> +For cruel strife can last no more.<br /> +If you say nay, yet I say yes:<br /> +'Twixt me and you there is no war.<br /> +Princes and mighty lords make peace;<br /> +And so may lovers twain, I wis:<br /> +Princes and soldiers sign a truce;<br /> +And so may two sweethearts like us:<br /> +Princes and potentates agree;<br /> +And so may friends like you and me. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the +damo (p. 223):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +As yonder mountain height I trod,<br /> +I chanced to think of your dear name;<br /> +I knelt with clasped hands on the sod,<br /> +And thought of my neglect with shame:<br /> +I knelt upon the stone, and swore<br /> +Our love should bloom as heretofore. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as +in the following (p. 232):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above,<br /> +I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart:<br /> +You to your breast shall clasp me full of love,<br /> +And I will lead you to our Lord apart.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.298" id= "pg2.298">298</a></span> +Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known,<br /> +Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone;<br /> +One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest<br /> +In heaven amid the splendours of the blest. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +If I were master of all loveliness,<br /> +I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art:<br /> +If I were master of all wealthiness,<br /> +Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart:<br /> +If I were master of the house of hell,<br /> +I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face;<br /> +Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell,<br /> +I'd free thee from that punishment apace.<br /> +Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come,<br /> +I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room;<br /> +Were I in paradise, well seated there,<br /> +I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, +as in the following (p. 136):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Down into hell I went and thence returned:<br /> +Ah me! alas! the people that were there!<br /> +I found a room where many candles burned,<br /> +And saw within my love that languished there.<br /> +When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer,<br /> +And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine;<br /> +Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear,<br /> +When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine?<br /> +Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here;<br /> +Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine!<br /> +So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear,<br /> +That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine!<br /> +Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say,<br /> +Look not to leave this place again for aye. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Or again in this (p. 232):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries:<br /> +Beyond the hill it floats upon the air.<br /> +It is my lover come to bid me rise,<br /> +If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.299" id= "pg2.299">299</a></span> +But I have answered him, and said him No!<br /> +I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you:<br /> +Till we together go to paradise,<br /> +I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh!<br /> +Of sighs I now full well have learned the art:<br /> +Sighing at table when to eat I try,<br /> +Sighing within my little room apart,<br /> +Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly,<br /> +Sighing with her and her who know my heart:<br /> +I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing;<br /> +'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing:<br /> +I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through;<br /> +And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ah, when will dawn that glorious day<br /> +When you will softly mount my stair?<br /> +My kin shall bring you on the way;<br /> +I shall be first to greet you there.<br /> +Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss<br /> +When we before the priest say Yes?<br /> +<br /> +Ah, when will dawn that blissful day<br /> +When I shall softly mount your stair,<br /> +Your brothers meet me on the way,<br /> +And one by one I greet them there?<br /> +When comes the day, my staff, my strength,<br /> +To call your mother mine at length?<br /> +When will the day come, love of mine,<br /> +I shall be yours and you be mine? +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.300" id= "pg2.300">300</a></span>Hitherto 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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +They have this custom in fair Naples town;<br /> +They never mourn a man when he is dead:<br /> +The mother weeps when she has reared a son<br /> +To be a serf and slave by love misled;<br /> +The mother weeps when she a son hath born<br /> +To be the serf and slave of galley scorn;<br /> +The mother weeps when she a son gives suck<br /> +To be the serf and slave of city luck. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange +passion in detail (p. 300):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I'll spread a table brave for revelry,<br /> +And to the feast will bid sad lovers all.<br /> +For meat I'll give them my heart's misery;<br /> +For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall.<br /> +Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry,<br /> +To serve the lovers at this festival:<br /> +The table shall be death, black death profound;<br /> +Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around!<br /> +The table shall be death, yea, sacred death;<br /> +Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +High up, high up, a house I'll rear,<br /> +High up, high up, on yonder height;<br /> +At every window set a snare,<br /> +With treason, to betray the night;<br /> +With treason, to betray the stars,<br /> +Since I'm betrayed by my false feres;<br /> +With treason, to betray the day,<br /> +Since Love betrayed me, well away! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which +I quote next (p. 303):—</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.301" id= "pg2.301">301</a></span></p> + +<p class="poem"> +I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell,<br /> +Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need:<br /> +I've had it tempered in the streams of hell<br /> +By masters mighty in the mystic rede:<br /> +I've had it tempered by the light of stars;<br /> +Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars;<br /> +I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade;<br /> +Then let him come who stole from me my maid.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more,<br /> +But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair.<br /> +If there be wretched women, sure I think<br /> +I too may rank among the most forlorn.<br /> +I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink:<br /> +Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne.<br /> +What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross?<br /> +Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross.<br /> +How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth?<br /> +Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth.<br /> +What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk?<br /> +Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here is pathos (p. 172):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The wood-dove who hath lost her mate,<br /> +She lives a dolorous life, I ween;<br /> +She seeks a stream and bathes in it,<br /> +And drinks that water foul and green:<br /> +With other birds she will not mate,<br /> +Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen;<br /> +She bathes her wings and strikes her breast;<br /> +Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I'll build a house of sobs and sighs,<br /> + With tears the lime I'll slack;<br /> +And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes<br /> + Until my love come back:<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.302" id= "pg2.302">302</a></span> +And there I'll stay with eyes that burn<br /> +Until I see my love return. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan +beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Dark house and window desolate!<br /> +Where is the sun which shone so fair?<br /> +'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate:<br /> +Now the stones weep; I see them there.<br /> +They weep, and feel a grievous chill:<br /> +Dark house and widowed window-sill! +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Love, if you love me, delve a tomb,<br /> +And lay me there the earth beneath;<br /> +After a year, come see my bones,<br /> +And make them dice to play therewith.<br /> +But when you're tired of that game,<br /> +Then throw those dice into the flame;<br /> +But when you're tired of gaming free,<br /> +Then throw those dice into the sea. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more +impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain?<br /> +The cross before my bier will go;<br /> +And thou wilt hear the bells complain,<br /> +The <i>Misereres</i> loud and low.<br /> +Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie<br /> +With folded hands and frozen eye;<br /> +Then say at last, I do repent!—<br /> +Nought else remains when fires are spent. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Here is a rustic Œnone (p. 307):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe!<br /> +Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere:<br /> +Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go;<br /> +But when we call, thou wilt not hear.<br /> +Fell death, false death of treachery,<br /> +Thou makest all content but me. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.303" id= "pg2.303">303</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Strew me with blossoms when I die,<br /> +Nor lay me 'neath the earth below;<br /> +Beyond those walls, there let me lie,<br /> +Where oftentimes we used to go.<br /> +There lay me to the wind and rain;<br /> +Dying for you, I feel no pain:<br /> +There lay me to the sun above;<br /> +Dying for you, I die of love. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of +expression (p. 271):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand:<br /> +I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind:<br /> +Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band,<br /> +Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind.<br /> +Now am I ware, and know my own mistake—<br /> +How false are all the promises you make;<br /> +Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me!<br /> +That who confides in you, deceived will be. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Yestreen I went my love to greet,<br /> + By yonder village path below:<br /> + Night in a coppice found my feet;<br /> + I called the moon her light to show—<br /> +O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face,<br /> +Look forth and lend me light a little space! +</p> + +<p> +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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.304" id= "pg2.304">304</a></span>their 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.305" id= "pg2.305">305</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap29"></a>POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE</h2> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.306" id= "pg2.306">306</a></span>this 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Ballate</i>.<a href="#fn-44" name="fnref-44" id="fnref-44"><sup>[44]</sup></a> +The first is written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye +may.'</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,<br /> +In a green garden in mid month of May.<br /> +<br /> +Violets and lilies grew on every side<br /> + Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful,<br /> +Golden and white and red and azure-eyed;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.307" id= "pg2.307">307</a></span> + Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull<br /> + Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful,<br /> +To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.<br /> +<br /> +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,<br /> +In a green garden in mid month of May.<br /> +<br /> +But when my lap was full of flowers I spied<br /> + Roses at last, roses of every hue;<br /> +Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride,<br /> + Because their perfume was so sweet and true<br /> + That all my soul went forth with pleasure new,<br /> +With yearning and desire too soft to say.<br /> +<br /> +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,<br /> +In a green garden in mid month of May.<br /> +<br /> +I gazed and gazed. Hard task it were to tell<br /> + How lovely were the roses in that hour:<br /> +One was but peeping from her verdant shell,<br /> + And some were faded, some were scarce in flower:<br /> + Then Love said: Go, pluck from the blooming bower<br /> +Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray.<br /> +<br /> +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,<br /> +In a green garden in mid month of May.<br /> +<br /> +For when the full rose quits her tender sheath,<br /> + When she is sweetest and most fair to see,<br /> +Then is the time to place her in thy wreath,<br /> + Before her beauty and her freshness flee.<br /> + Gather ye therefore roses with great glee,<br /> +Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away.<br /> +<br /> +I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day,<br /> +In a green garden in mid month of May. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-44" id="fn-44"></a> <a href="#fnref-44">[44]</a> +I need hardly guard myself against being supposed to mean that the form of +<i>Ballata</i> in question was the only one of its kind in Italy. +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.308" id= "pg2.308">308</a></span>feature 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I found myself one day all, all alone,<br /> +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.<br /> +<br /> +I do not think the world a field could show<br /> + With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare;<br /> +But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row,<br /> + A thousand flowers around me flourished fair,<br /> + White, pied and crimson, in the summer air;<br /> +Among the which I heard a sweet bird's tone.<br /> +<br /> +I found myself one day all, all alone,<br /> +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.<br /> +<br /> +Her song it was so tender and so clear<br /> + That all the world listened with love; then I<br /> +With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near,<br /> + Her golden head and golden wings could spy,<br /> + Her plumes that flashed like rubies 'neath the sky,<br /> +Her crystal beak and throat and bosom's zone.<br /> +<br /> +I found myself one day all, all alone,<br /> +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.<br /> +<br /> +Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love;<br /> + But arrow-like she soared, and through the air<br /> +Fled to her nest upon the boughs above;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.309" id= "pg2.309">309</a></span> + Wherefore to follow her is all my care,<br /> + For haply I might lure her by some snare<br /> +Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown.<br /> +<br /> +I found myself one day all, all alone,<br /> +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.<br /> +<br /> +Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile;<br /> + But since of singing she doth take such pleasure,<br /> +Without or other art or other guile<br /> + I seek to win her with a tuneful measure;<br /> + Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure,<br /> +To make by singing this sweet bird my own.<br /> +<br /> +I found myself one day all, all alone,<br /> +For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +He who knows not what thing is Paradise,<br /> +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.<br /> +<br /> +From Myrrha's eyes there flieth, girt with fire,<br /> + An angel of our lord, a laughing boy,<br /> +Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre,<br /> + And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy,<br /> + That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy;<br /> +Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise!<br /> +<br /> +He who knows not what thing is Paradise,<br /> +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.<br /> +<br /> +From Myrrha's eyes a virtue still doth move,<br /> + So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight,<br /> +That it is like the lightning of high Jove,<br /> + Riving of iron and adamant the might;<br /> + Nathless the wound doth carry such delight<br /> +That he who suffers dwells in Paradise.<br /> +<br /> +He who knows not what thing is Paradise,<br /> +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.310" id= "pg2.310">310</a></span> +From Myrrha's eyes a lovely messenger<br /> + Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee,<br /> +That all proud souls are bound to bend to her;<br /> + So sweet her countenance, it turns the key<br /> + Of hard hearts locked in cold security:<br /> +Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise.<br /> +<br /> +He who knows not what thing is Paradise,<br /> +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes.<br /> +<br /> +In Myrrha's eyes beauty doth make her throne,<br /> + And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind:<br /> +Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known<br /> + As in the whole wide world he scarce may find:<br /> + Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind,<br /> +He lives again beneath her gazing eyes.<br /> +<br /> +He who knows not what thing is Paradise,<br /> +Let him look fixedly on Myrrha's eyes. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I ask no pardon if I follow Love;<br /> +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.<br /> +<br /> +From those who feel the fire I feel, what use<br /> + Is there in asking pardon? These are so<br /> +Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous,<br /> + That they will have compassion, well I know.<br /> + From such as never felt that honeyed woe,<br /> +I seek no pardon: nought they know of Love.<br /> +<br /> +I ask no pardon if I follow Love;<br /> +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.<br /> +<br /> +Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness,<br /> + Weighed in the scales of equity refined,<br /> +Are but one thing: beauty is nought or less,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.311" id= "pg2.311">311</a></span> + Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind.<br /> + Who can rebuke me then if I am kind<br /> +So far as honesty comports and Love?<br /> +<br /> +I ask no pardon if I follow Love;<br /> +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.<br /> +<br /> +Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone<br /> + Ne'er felt of Love the summer in his vein!<br /> +I pray to Love that who hath never known<br /> + Love's power, may ne'er be blessed with Love's great gain;<br /> + But he who serves our lord with might and main,<br /> +May dwell for ever in the fire of Love!<br /> +<br /> +I ask no pardon if I follow Love;<br /> +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.<br /> +<br /> +Let him rebuke me without cause who will;<br /> + For if he be not gentle, I fear nought:<br /> +My heart obedient to the same love still<br /> + Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught:<br /> + So long as life remains, it is my thought<br /> +To keep the laws of this so gentle Love.<br /> +<br /> +I ask no pardon if I follow Love;<br /> +Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>Signore</i> for +mistress in Florentine poetry.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.312" id= "pg2.312">312</a></span> +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,<br /> +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?<br /> +<br /> +Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave<br /> + To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay;<br /> +Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave<br /> + That only doleful tears are mine for aye:<br /> + Who hath heart's ease, may carol, dance, and play<br /> +While I am fain to weep continually.<br /> +<br /> +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,<br /> +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?<br /> +<br /> +I too had heart's ease once, for so Love willed,<br /> + When my lord loved me with love strong and great:<br /> +But envious fortune my life's music stilled,<br /> + And turned to sadness all my gleeful state.<br /> + Ah me! Death surely were less desolate<br /> +Than thus to live and love-neglected be!<br /> +<br /> +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,<br /> +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?<br /> +<br /> +One only comfort soothes my heart's despair,<br /> + And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer;<br /> +Unto my lord I ever yielded fair<br /> + Service of faith untainted pure and clear;<br /> + If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier<br /> +It may be she will shed one tear for me.<br /> +<br /> +How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,<br /> +When my loved lord no longer smiles on me? +</p> + +<p>The Florentine <i>Rispetto</i> 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.<a href="#fn-45" name="fnref-45" id="fnref-45"><sup>[45]</sup></a> +Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own facility, sacrificing the +unstudied raciness of his popular models to literary elegance. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-45" id="fn-45"></a> <a href="#fnref-45">[45]</a> +See my <i>Sketches in Italy and Greece</i>, p. 114. +</p> + +<p>Here are a few of these detached stanzas or <i>Rispetti Spicciolati</i>:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Upon that day when first I saw thy face,<br /> + I vowed with loyal love to worship thee.<br /> +Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place:<br /> + Whate'er thou dost, will I do equally.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.313" id= "pg2.313">313</a></span> +In joy of thine I find most perfect grace,<br /> + And in thy sadness dwells my misery:<br /> +Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep.<br /> +Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep.<br /> +<br /> +Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace,<br /> + Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine.<br /> +White will he turn those golden curls, that lace<br /> + Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine.<br /> +Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace,<br /> + Pluck it: for beauty but awhile doth shine.<br /> +Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night<br /> + Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite.<br /> +<br /> +Fire, fire! Ho, water! for my heart's afire!<br /> + Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die!<br /> +See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire!<br /> + He sets my heart aflame: in vain I cry.<br /> +Too late, alas! The flames mount high and higher.<br /> + Alack, good friends! I faint, I fail, I die.<br /> +Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I<br /> +My heart's a cinder if you do but stay.<br /> +<br /> +Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade,<br /> + And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary;<br /> +Nor may God's mercy on my soul be laid,<br /> + If ere for aught I shall abandon thee:<br /> +Before all-seeing God this prayer be made—<br /> + When I desert thee, may death feed on me:<br /> +Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure<br /> +That without faith none may abide secure.<br /> +<br /> +I ask not, Love, for any other pain<br /> + To make thy cruel foe and mine repent,<br /> +Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain<br /> + Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement;<br /> +Then would I clasp her so with might and main,<br /> + That she should learn to pity and relent,<br /> +And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite,<br /> +A thousand times I'd kiss her forehead white.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.314" id= "pg2.314">314</a></span> +Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea,<br /> + Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky;<br /> +Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee,<br /> + Disclosing flowers that 'neath their whiteness lie;<br /> +The saints each one doth wait his day to see,<br /> + And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I<br /> +Ween that 'tis wise to wait my turn, and say,<br /> +That who subdues himself, deserves to sway. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>Rispetto Gontinuato</i>. 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 <i>Serenata ovvero Lettera +in Istrambotti</i>, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine +convention in the matter of love-making.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen,<br /> + Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame,<br /> +Thine ear unto thy servant's singing lean,<br /> + Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame;<br /> +For thou his shining planet still hast been,<br /> + And day and night he calls on thy fair name:<br /> +First wishing thee all good the world can give,<br /> +Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live.<br /> +<br /> +He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind<br /> + To think upon his pure and perfect faith,<br /> +And that such mercy in thy heart and mind<br /> + Should reign, as so much beauty argueth:<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.315" id= "pg2.315">315</a></span> +A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind,<br /> + Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth:<br /> +Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue<br /> +Such guerdon only as shall prove them true.<br /> +<br /> +He knows himself unmeet for love from thee,<br /> + Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes;<br /> +Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be,<br /> + That there is none but 'neath thy beauty sighs:<br /> +Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery,<br /> + Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize,<br /> +And since he strives to honour thee alway,<br /> +He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day.<br /> +<br /> +Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen,<br /> + Still findeth none to love or value it;<br /> +Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been,<br /> + Not being known, can profit him no whit:<br /> +He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween,<br /> + If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it;<br /> +The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze;<br /> +Him only faith above the crowd doth raise.<br /> +<br /> +Suppose that he might meet thee once alone,<br /> + Face unto face, without or jealousy,<br /> +Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown,<br /> + And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee,<br /> +Sure from thy breast he'd draw full many a moan.<br /> + And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously:<br /> +Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show,<br /> +He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe.<br /> +<br /> +Now art thou in thy beauty's blooming hour;<br /> + Thy youth is yet in pure perfection's prime:<br /> +Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower,<br /> + Or look to find it paled by envious time:<br /> +For none to stay the flight of years hath power,<br /> + And who culls roses caught by frosty rime?<br /> +Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they<br /> +Too late repent who act not while they may.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.316" id= "pg2.316">316</a></span> +Time flies: and lo! thou let'st it idly fly:<br /> + There is not in the world a thing more dear;<br /> +And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by,<br /> + Where find'st thou roses in the later year?<br /> +He never can, who lets occasion die:<br /> + Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear;<br /> +But by the forelock take the flying hour,<br /> +Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower.<br /> +<br /> +Too long 'twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung;<br /> + Whether he sleep or wake he little knows,<br /> +Or free or in the bands of bondage strung:<br /> + Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose!<br /> +What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung?<br /> + Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose:<br /> +No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part:<br /> +Either relax the bow, or speed the dart.<br /> +<br /> +Thou feedest him on words and windiness,<br /> + On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air;<br /> +Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress,<br /> + But dar'st not, canst not: nay, dear lady fair,<br /> +All things are possible beneath the stress<br /> + Of will, that flames above the soul's despair!<br /> +Dally no longer: up, set to thy hand;<br /> +Or see his love unclothed and naked stand.<br /> +<br /> +For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide,<br /> + E'en though his life be lost in the endeavour,<br /> +To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried,<br /> + Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever:<br /> +And, though he still would spare thy honest pride,<br /> + The knot that binds him he must loose or sever;<br /> +Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife,<br /> +If thou art fain to end this amorous strife.<br /> +<br /> +Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread,<br /> + Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty,<br /> +Here hast thou need of wile and warihead,<br /> + To test thy lover's strength in screening thee;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.317" id= "pg2.317">317</a></span> +Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead,<br /> + Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly:<br /> +Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way;<br /> + Keep not the steed too long at idle play.<br /> +<br /> +Or if thou heedest what those friars teach,<br /> + I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool:<br /> +Well may they blame our private sins and preach;<br /> + But ill their acts match with their spoken rule;<br /> +The same pitch clings to all men, one and each.<br /> + There, I have spoken: set the world to school<br /> +With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted<br /> +The devil's ne'er so black as he is painted.<br /> +<br /> +Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee<br /> + That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast,<br /> +But to reward thy servant's constancy,<br /> + Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed:<br /> +Think it no sin to be some trifle free,<br /> + Because thou livest at a lord's behest;<br /> +For if he take enough to feed his fill,<br /> +To cast the rest away were surely ill.<br /> +<br /> +They find most favour in the sight of heaven<br /> + Who to the poor and hungry are most kind;<br /> +A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given<br /> + By God, who loves the free and generous mind;<br /> +Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven,<br /> + Crying: I sinned; my sin hath made me blind!—<br /> +He wants not much: enough if he be able<br /> +To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table.<br /> +<br /> +Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length;<br /> + Make thou, too, trial of love's fruits and flowers:<br /> +When in thine arms thou feel'st thy lover's strength,<br /> + Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours;<br /> +Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length,<br /> + Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours:<br /> +Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee:<br /> +If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.318" id= "pg2.318">318</a></span> +What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth;<br /> + I have told all my mind, withholding nought:<br /> +And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth,<br /> + And through the riddle read the hidden thought:<br /> +Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth,<br /> + Some good effect for me may yet be wrought:<br /> +Then fare thee well; too many words offend:<br /> +She who is wise is quick to comprehend. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains<br /> + And forces all the world beneath his sway,<br /> + In lowly verse to say<br /> +The great delight that in my bosom reigns.<br /> +For if perchance I took but little pains<br /> + To tell some part of all the joy I find,<br /> + I might be deem'd unkind<br /> +By one who knew my heart's deep happiness.<br /> +He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss;<br /> + Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung;<br /> + And he who curbs his tongue<br /> +Through cowardice, knows but of love the name.<br /> +Wherefore to succour and augment the fame<br /> + Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may,<br /> + Who like the star of day<br /> +Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun,<br /> +Forth from my burning heart the words shall run.<br /> + Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear,<br /> + With discord dark and drear,<br /> +And all the choir that is of love the foe.—<br /> +The season had returned when soft winds blow,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.319" id= "pg2.319">319</a></span> + The season friendly to young lovers coy,<br /> + Which bids them clothe their joy<br /> +In divers garbs and many a masked disguise.<br /> +Then I to track the game 'neath April skies<br /> + Went forth in raiment strange apparellèd,<br /> + And by kind fate was led<br /> +Unto the spot where stayed my soul's desire.<br /> +The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire,<br /> + I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood,<br /> + In graceful attitude,<br /> +Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign.<br /> +So sweet, so tender was her face divine,<br /> + So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes<br /> + Shone perfect paradise,<br /> +Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave.<br /> +Around her was a band so nobly brave<br /> + Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these<br /> + Methought heaven's goddesses<br /> +That day for once had deigned to visit earth.<br /> +But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth,<br /> + Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face<br /> + Venus; for every grace<br /> +And beauty of the world in her combined.<br /> +Merely to think, far more to tell my mind<br /> + Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me,<br /> + For mid the maidens she<br /> +Who most resembled her was found most rare.<br /> +Call ye another first among the fair;<br /> + Not first, but sole before my lady set:<br /> + Lily and violet<br /> +And all the flowers below the rose must bow.<br /> +Down from her royal head and lustrous brow<br /> + The golden curls fell sportively unpent,<br /> + While through the choir she went<br /> +With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound.<br /> +Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground,<br /> + Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair;<br /> + But still her jealous hair<br /> +Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze.<br /> +She, born and nursed in heaven for angels' praise,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.320" id= "pg2.320">320</a></span> + No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew,<br /> + With hand of purest hue,<br /> +Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien.<br /> +Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen,<br /> + So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine,<br /> + That scarce can I divine<br /> +How then I 'scaped from burning utterly.<br /> +These are the first fair signs of love to be,<br /> + That bound my heart with adamant, and these<br /> + The matchless courtesies<br /> +Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover.<br /> +This is the honeyed food she gave her lover,<br /> + To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine;<br /> + Nectar is not so fine,<br /> +Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove.<br /> +Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love,<br /> + As though to show the faith within her heart,<br /> + She moved, with subtle art,<br /> +Her feet accordant to the amorous air.<br /> +But while I gaze and pray to God that ne'er<br /> + Might cease that happy dance angelical,<br /> + O harsh, unkind recall!<br /> +Back to the banquet was she beckonèd.<br /> +She, with her face at first with pallor spread,<br /> + Then tinted with a blush of coral dye,<br /> + 'The ball is best!' did cry,<br /> +Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake.<br /> +But from her eyes celestial forth did break<br /> + Favour at parting; and I well could see<br /> + Young love confusedly<br /> +Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze,<br /> +Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays,<br /> + For war with Pallas and with Dian cold.<br /> + Fairer than mortal mould,<br /> +She moved majestic with celestial gait;<br /> +And with her hand her robe in royal state<br /> + Raised, as she went with pride ineffable.<br /> + Of me I cannot tell,<br /> +Whether alive or dead I there was left.<br /> +Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.321" id= "pg2.321">321</a></span> + Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive—<br /> + Such virtue to revive<br /> +My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face,<br /> +But if that powerful charm of thy great grace<br /> + Could then thy loyal lover so sustain,<br /> + Why comes there not again<br /> +More often or more soon the sweet delight?<br /> +Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light<br /> + Stored from her brother's rays her crescent horn,<br /> + Nor yet hath fortune borne<br /> +Me on the way to so much bliss again.<br /> +Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign:<br /> + The grass and every shrub once more is green;<br /> + The amorous birds begin,<br /> +From winter loosed, to fill the field with song.<br /> +See how in loving pairs the cattle throng;<br /> + The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy:<br /> + Thou maiden, I a boy,<br /> +Shall we prove traitors to love's law for aye?<br /> +Shall we these years that are so fair let fly?<br /> + Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use?<br /> + Or with thy beauty choose<br /> +To make him blest who loves thee best of all?<br /> +Haply I am some hind who guards the stall,<br /> + Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn,<br /> + Poor, or a cripple born,<br /> +Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so?<br /> +Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow<br /> + With honour to our land, with pomp and power;<br /> + My youth is yet in flower,<br /> +And it may chance some maiden sighs for me.<br /> +My lot it is to deal right royally<br /> + With all the goods that fortune spreads around,<br /> + For still they more abound,<br /> +Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste.<br /> +My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste;<br /> + Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I:<br /> + Yet though I rank so high<br /> +Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss,<br /> +Still without thee, my hope, my happiness,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.322" id= "pg2.322">322</a></span> + It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live!<br /> + Then stint me not, but give<br /> +That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one.<br /> +Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone! +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Canzone</i>, 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hills, valleys, caves and fells,<br /> + With flowers and leaves and herbage spread;<br /> + Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low;<br /> + Lawns watered with the rills<br /> + That cruel Love hath made me shed,<br /> + Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe;<br /> + Thou stream that still dost know<br /> + What fell pangs pierce my heart,<br /> + So dost thou murmur back my moan;<br /> + Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone,<br /> + While in our descant drear Love sings his part:<br /> + Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air;<br /> + List to the sound out-poured from my despair!<br /> +Seven times and once more seven<br /> + The roseate dawn her beauteous brow<br /> + Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed;<br /> + Cynthia once more in heaven<br /> + Hath orbed her horns with silver now;<br /> + While in sea waves her brother's light was laid;<br /> + Since this high mountain glade<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.323" id= "pg2.323">323</a></span> + Felt the white footsteps fall<br /> + Of that proud lady, who to spring<br /> + Converts whatever woodland thing<br /> + She may o'ershadow, touch, or heed at all.<br /> + Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring<br /> + From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring.<br /> +Yea, nourished with my tears<br /> + Is every little leaf I see,<br /> + And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave.<br /> + Ah me! through what long years<br /> + Will she withhold her face from me,<br /> + Which stills the stormy skies howe'er they rave?<br /> + Speak! or in grove or cave<br /> + If one hath seen her stray,<br /> + Plucking amid those grasses green<br /> + Wreaths for her royal brows serene,<br /> + Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay!<br /> + Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell<br /> + Among these woods, within this leafy dell!<br /> +O Love! 'twas here we saw,<br /> + Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring<br /> + From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid:—<br /> + The thought renews my awe!<br /> + How sweetly did her tresses fling<br /> + Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed<br /> + Fire, frost within me played,<br /> + While I beheld the bloom<br /> + Of laughing flowers—O day of bliss!—<br /> + Around those tresses meet and kiss,<br /> + And roses in her lap of Love the home!<br /> + Her grace, her port divinely fair,<br /> + Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare.<br /> +In mute intent surprise<br /> + I gazed, as when a hind is seen<br /> + To dote upon its image in a rill;<br /> + Drinking those love-lit eyes,<br /> + Those hands, that face, those words serene,<br /> + That song which with delight the heaven did fill,<br /> + That smile which thralls me still,<br /> + Which melteth stones unkind,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.324" id= "pg2.324">324</a></span> + Which in this woodland wilderness<br /> + Tames every beast and stills the stress<br /> + Of hurrying waters. Would that I could find<br /> + Her footprints upon field or grove!<br /> + I should not then be envious of Jove.<br /> +Thou cool stream rippling by,<br /> + Where oft it pleased her to dip<br /> + Her naked foot, how blest art thou!<br /> + Ye branching trees on high,<br /> + That spread your gnarled roots on the lip<br /> + Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven's dew!<br /> + She often leaned on you,<br /> + She who is my life's bliss!<br /> + Thou ancient beech with moss o'ergrown,<br /> + How do I envy thee thy throne,<br /> + Found worthy to receive such happiness!<br /> + Ye winds, how blissful must ye be,<br /> + Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony!<br /> +The winds that music bore,<br /> + And wafted it to God on high,<br /> + That Paradise might have the joy thereof.<br /> + Flowers here she plucked, and wore<br /> + Wild roses from the thorn hard by:<br /> + This air she lightened with her look of love:<br /> + This running stream above,<br /> + She bent her face!—Ah me!<br /> + Where am I? What sweet makes me swoon?<br /> + What calm is in the kiss of noon?<br /> + Who brought me here? Who speaks? What melody?<br /> + Whence came pure peace into my soul?<br /> + What joy hath rapt me from my own control? +</p> + +<p>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 <i>Maggio</i>, +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.325" id= "pg2.325">325</a></span>historical +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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Welcome in the May<br /> + And the woodland garland gay!<br /> +<br /> +Welcome in the jocund spring<br /> + Which bids all men lovers be!<br /> +Maidens, up with carolling,<br /> + With your sweethearts stout and free,<br /> + With roses and with blossoms ye<br /> +Who deck yourselves this first of May!<br /> +<br /> +Up, and forth into the pure<br /> + Meadows, mid the trees and flowers!<br /> +Every beauty is secure<br /> + With so many bachelors:<br /> + Beasts and birds amid the bowers<br /> +Burn with love this first of May.<br /> +<br /> +Maidens, who are young and fair,<br /> + Be not harsh, I counsel you;<br /> +For your youth cannot repair<br /> + Her prime of spring, as meadows do:<br /> + None be proud, but all be true<br /> +To men who love, this first of May.<br /> +<br /> +Dance and carol every one<br /> + Of our band so bright and gay!<br /> +See your sweethearts how they run<br /> + Through the jousts for you to-day!<br /> + She who saith her lover nay,<br /> +Will deflower the sweets of May,<br /> +<br /> +Lads in love take sword and shield<br /> + To make pretty girls their prize:<br /> +Yield ye, merry maidens, yield<br /> + To your lovers' vows and sighs:<br /> + Give his heart back ere it dies:<br /> +Wage not war this first of May.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.326" id= "pg2.326">326</a></span> +He who steals another's heart,<br /> + Let him give his own heart too:<br /> +Who's the robber? 'Tis the smart<br /> + Little cherub Cupid, who<br /> + Homage comes to pay with you,<br /> +Damsels, to the first of May.<br /> +<br /> +Love comes smiling; round his head<br /> + Lilies white and roses meet:<br /> +'Tis for you his flight is sped.<br /> + Fair one, haste our king to greet:<br /> + Who will fling him blossoms sweet<br /> +Soonest on this first of May?<br /> +<br /> +Welcome, stranger! welcome, king!<br /> + Love, what hast thou to command?<br /> +That each girl with wreaths should ring<br /> + Her lover's hair with loving hand,<br /> + That girls small and great should band<br /> +In Love's ranks this first of May. +</p> + +<p>The <i>Canto Carnascialesco</i>, 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Fair is youth and void of sorrow;<br /> + But it hourly flies away.—<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.327" id= "pg2.327">327</a></span> +This is Bacchus and the bright<br /> + Ariadne, lovers true!<br /> +They, in flying time's despite,<br /> + Each with each find pleasure new;<br /> +These their Nymphs, and all their crew<br /> + Keep perpetual holiday.—<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed,<br /> + Of the Nymphs are paramours:<br /> +Through the caves and forests wide<br /> + They have snared them mid the flowers;<br /> +Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers,<br /> + Now they dance and leap alway.—<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +These fair Nymphs, they are not loth<br /> + To entice their lovers' wiles.<br /> +None but thankless folk and rough<br /> + Can resist when Love beguiles.<br /> +Now enlaced, with wreathèd smiles,<br /> + All together dance and play.—<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +See this load behind them plodding<br /> + On the ass! Silenus he,<br /> +Old and drunken, merry, nodding,<br /> + Full of years and jollity;<br /> +Though he goes so swayingly,<br /> + Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.—<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +Midas treads a wearier measure:<br /> + All he touches turns to gold:<br /> +If there be no taste of pleasure,<br /> + What's the use of wealth untold?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.328" id= "pg2.328">328</a></span> +What's the joy his fingers hold,<br /> + When he's forced to thirst for aye?—<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +Listen well to what we're saying;<br /> + Of to-morrow have no care!<br /> +Young and old together playing,<br /> + Boys and girls, be blithe as air!<br /> +Every sorry thought forswear!<br /> + Keep perpetual holiday.—-<br /> + Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +Ladies and gay lovers young!<br /> + Long live Bacchus, live Desire!<br /> +Dance and play; let songs be sung;<br /> + Let sweet love your bosoms fire;<br /> +In the future come what may!—-<br /> +Youths and maids, enjoy to-day!<br /> +Nought ye know about to-morrow.<br /> +<br /> +Fair is youth and void of sorrow;<br /> + But it hourly flies away. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.329" id= "pg2.329">329</a></span></p> + +<p class="poem"> +Sorrow, tears, and penitence<br /> +Are our doom of pain for aye;<br /> +This dead concourse riding by<br /> +Hath no cry but penitence!<br /> +<br /> +E'en as you are, once were we:<br /> +You shall be as now we are:<br /> +We are dead men, as you see:<br /> +We shall see you dead men, where<br /> +Nought avails to take great care,<br /> +After sins, of penitence.<br /> +<br /> +We too in the Carnival<br /> +Sang our love-songs through the town;<br /> +Thus from sin to sin we all<br /> +Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:—<br /> +Now we cry, the world around,<br /> +Penitence! oh, Penitence!<br /> +<br /> +Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools!<br /> +Time steals all things as he rides:<br /> +Honours, glories, states, and schools,<br /> +Pass away, and nought abides;<br /> +Till the tomb our carcase hides,<br /> +And compels this penitence.<br /> +<br /> +This sharp scythe you see us bear,<br /> +Brings the world at length to woe:<br /> +But from life to life we fare;<br /> +And that life is joy or woe:<br /> +All heaven's bliss on him doth flow<br /> +Who on earth does penitence.<br /> +<br /> +Living here, we all must die;<br /> +Dying, every soul shall live:<br /> +For the King of kings on high<br /> +This fixed ordinance doth give:<br /> +Lo, you all are fugitive!<br /> +Penitence! Cry Penitence!<br /> +<br /> +Torment great and grievous dole<br /> +Hath the thankless heart mid you;<br /> +But the man of piteous soul<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.330" id= "pg2.330">330</a></span> +Finds much honour in our crew:<br /> +Love for loving is the due<br /> +That prevents this penitence.<br /> +<br /> +Sorrow, tears, and penitence<br /> +Are our doom of pain for aye:<br /> +This dead concourse riding by<br /> +Hath no cry but Penitence! +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Since you beg with such a grace,<br /> + How can I refuse a song,<br /> + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,<br /> + On the follies of the place?<br /> +<br /> +Courteously on you I call;<br /> + Listen well to what I sing:<br /> + For my roundelay to all<br /> + May perchance instruction bring,<br /> + And of life good lessoning.—<br /> + When in company you meet,<br /> + Or sit spinning, all the street<br /> + Clamours like a market-place.<br /> +<br /> +Thirty of you there may be;<br /> + Twenty-nine are sure to buzz,<br /> + And the single silent she<br /> + Racks her brains about her coz:—<br /> + Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz,<br /> + Mind your work, my ditty saith;<br /> + Do not gossip till your breath<br /> + Fails and leaves you black of face!<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.331" id= "pg2.331">331</a></span> +Governments go out and in:—<br /> + You the truth must needs discover.<br /> + Is a girl about to win<br /> + A brave husband in her lover?—<br /> + Straight you set to talk him over:<br /> + 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat<br /> + Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?'<br /> + 'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?'<br /> +<br /> +Out of window one head pokes;<br /> + Twenty others do the same:—<br /> + Chatter, clatter!—creaks and croaks<br /> + All the year the same old game!—<br /> + 'See my spinning!' cries one dame,<br /> + 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!'<br /> + Cries another, 'Mine must go,<br /> + Drat it, to the bleaching base!'<br /> +<br /> +'Devil take the fowl!' says one:<br /> + 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess;<br /> + Cocks and hens with vermin run,<br /> + Mangy, filthy, featherless.'<br /> + Says another: 'I confess<br /> + Every hair I drop, I keep—<br /> + Plague upon it, in a heap<br /> + Falling off to my disgrace!'<br /> +<br /> +If you see a fellow walk<br /> + Up or down the street and back,<br /> + How you nod and wink and talk,<br /> + Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!—<br /> + 'What, I wonder, does he lack<br /> + Here about?'—'There's something wrong!'<br /> + Till the poor man's made a song<br /> + For the female populace.<br /> +<br /> +It were well you gave no thought<br /> + To such idle company;<br /> + Shun these gossips, care for nought<br /> + But the business that you ply.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.332" id= "pg2.332">332</a></span> + You who chatter, you who cry,<br /> + Heed my words; be wise, I pray:<br /> + Fewer, shorter stories say:<br /> + Bide at home, and mind your place.<br /> +<br /> +Since you beg with such a grace,<br /> + How can I refuse a song,<br /> + Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,<br /> + On the follies of the place? +</p> + +<p>The <i>Madrigale</i>, 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.<a href="#fn-46" name="fnref-46" id="fnref-46"><sup>[46]</sup></a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-46" id="fn-46"></a> <a href="#fnref-46">[46]</a> +The originals will be found in Carducci's <i>Studi Letterari</i>, p. 273 <i>et +seq.</i> I have preserved their rhyming structure. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Cogliendo per un prato.</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Plucking white lilies in a field I saw<br /> + Fair women, laden with young Love's delight:<br /> + Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright.<br /> +Then by the margin of a fount they leaned,<br /> + And of those flowers made garlands for their hair—<br /> + Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare.<br /> +Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon<br /> +Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Togliendo l' una all' altra.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers,<br /> + I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees,<br /> + Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties.<br /> +Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.333" id= "pg2.333">333</a></span> + Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!'<br /> + Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake.<br /> +My heart she read, and her fair garland gave:<br /> +Therefore I am her servant to the grave.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Appress' un fiume chiaro</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hard by a crystal stream<br /> + Girls and maids were dancing round<br /> + A lilac with fair blossoms crowned.<br /> +Mid these I spied out one<br /> + So tender-sweet, so love-laden,<br /> + She stole my heart with singing then:<br /> +Love in her face so lovely-kind<br /> +And eyes and hands my soul did bind.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Di riva in riva</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley,<br /> + Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill<br /> + I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill.<br /> +Lina was there all loveliness excelling;<br /> + The pleasure of her beauty made me sad,<br /> + And yet at sight of her my soul was glad.<br /> +Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming,<br /> + And all a tremble from the fountain fled:<br /> + For each was naked as her maidenhead.<br /> +Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain,<br /> +Where bye and bye I found my hawk again!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Nel chiaro fiume</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant<br /> + I went a fishing all alone one day,<br /> + And spied three maidens bathing there at play.<br /> +Of love they told each other honeyed stories,<br /> + While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet<br /> + Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet.<br /> +Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage,<br /> + Till one who spied a rustling branch on high,<br /> + Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry,<br /> +And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me:<br /> + 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.'<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.334" id= "pg2.334">334</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Quel sole che nutrica.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The sun which makes a lily bloom,<br /> + Leans down at times on her to gaze—<br /> + Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays:<br /> +Then, having looked a little while,<br /> + He turns and tells the saints in bliss<br /> + How marvellous her beauty is.<br /> +Thus up in heaven with flute and string<br /> +Thy loveliness the angels sing.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Di novo è giunt'.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lo: here hath come an errant knight<br /> + On a barbed charger clothed in mail:<br /> +His archers scatter iron hail.<br /> +At brow and breast his mace he aims;<br /> + Who therefore hath not arms of proof,<br /> + Let him live locked by door and roof;<br /> +Until Dame Summer on a day<br /> +That grisly knight return to slay. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.335" id= "pg2.335">335</a></span>chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the <i>spolia +opima</i> 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:<a href="#fn-47" name="fnref-47" id="fnref-47"><sup>[47]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +White is the maid, and white the robe around her,<br /> + With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;<br /> +Enwreathèd folds of golden tresses crowned her,<br /> +Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride:<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.336" id= "pg2.336">336</a></span> +The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her,<br /> + To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side:<br /> +Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,<br /> +And with her brow tempers the tempests wild. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-47" id="fn-47"></a> <a href="#fnref-47">[47]</a> +Stanza XLIII. All references are made to Carducci's excellent edition, <i>Le +Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime di Messer Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano.</i> Firenze: G. +Barbéra. 1863. +</p> + +<p>After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more +apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Reclined he found her on the swarded grass<br /> + In jocund mood; and garlands she had made<br /> +Of every flower that in the meadow was,<br /> + Or on her robe of many hues displayed;<br /> +But when she saw the youth before her pass,<br /> + Raising her timid head awhile she stayed;<br /> +Then with her white hand gathered up her dress,<br /> + And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness.<br /> +<br /> +Then through the dewy field with footstep slow<br /> + The lingering maid began to take her way,<br /> +Leaving her lover in great fear and woe,<br /> + For now he longs for nought but her alway:<br /> +The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go,<br /> + Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay;<br /> +And thus at last, all trembling, all afire,<br /> +In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire:<br /> +<br /> +'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen,<br /> + Goddess, or nymph—nay, goddess seems most clear—<br /> +If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen;<br /> + If mortal, let thy proper self appear!<br /> +Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien;<br /> + I have no merit that I should be here!<br /> +What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign<br /> +Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?' +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.337" id= "pg2.337">337</a></span>Alcina 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:—</p> + +<p class="center"> +BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +How far more safe it is, how far more fair,<br /> + To chase the flying deer along the lea;<br /> +Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair,<br /> + Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety:<br /> +To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air,<br /> + The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free;<br /> +To hear the birds wake from their winter trance,<br /> +The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance.<br /> +<br /> +How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung<br /> + From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot,<br /> +While in thick pleachèd shade the shepherd sung<br /> + His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute;<br /> +To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung,<br /> + And every bough thick set with ripening fruit,<br /> +The butting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea,<br /> +And cornfields waving like the windy sea.<br /> +<br /> +Lo! how the rugged master of the herd<br /> + Before his flock unbars the wattled cote;<br /> +Then with his rod and many a rustic word<br /> + He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note<br /> +The delver, when his toothèd rake hath stirred<br /> + The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote;<br /> +Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone,<br /> +Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone.<br /> +<br /> +After such happy wise, in ancient years,<br /> + Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold;<br /> +Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears<br /> + For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.338" id= "pg2.338">338</a></span> +Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers,<br /> + Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold;<br /> +Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store<br /> +Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore.<br /> +<br /> +Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursèd thirst<br /> + Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth:<br /> +Joyous in liberty they lived at first;<br /> + Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth;<br /> +Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst<br /> + The bond of law, and pity banned and worth;<br /> +Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage<br /> +Which men call love in our degenerate age. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="center"> +STANZAS 99-107. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean,<br /> + The seed deific from Olympus sown,<br /> +Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean<br /> + Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown;<br /> +Thence, born at last by movements hymenean,<br /> + Rises a maid more fair than man hath known;<br /> +Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her;<br /> + She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter<br /> +<br /> +Seeing the carved work you would cry that real<br /> + Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow;<br /> +The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel,<br /> + The smiling heavens, the elemental glow:<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.339" id= "pg2.339">339</a></span> +White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal,<br /> + With loosened curls that to the breezes flow;<br /> +Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces,<br /> +E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces.<br /> +<br /> +Well might you swear that on those waves were riding<br /> + The goddess with her right hand on her hair,<br /> +And with the other the sweet apple hiding;<br /> + And that beneath her feet, divinely fair,<br /> +Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing;<br /> + Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare,<br /> +The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her,<br /> +Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer.<br /> +<br /> +The one, with hands above her head upraised,<br /> + Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath,<br /> +With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed;<br /> + The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath;<br /> +The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed<br /> + Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe<br /> +Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing<br /> +Among the gods with dance and carolling.<br /> +<br /> +Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres,<br /> + Seated upon a cloud of silvery white;<br /> +The trembling of the cloven air appears<br /> + Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright;<br /> +The gods drink in with open eyes and ears<br /> + Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight;<br /> +Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze—<br /> +Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze. +</p> + +<p>The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by +Cupid:—</p> + +<p class="center"> +STANZAS 122—124. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid,<br /> + Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace;<br /> +He, lying back within her bosom, fed<br /> + His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.340" id= "pg2.340">340</a></span> +Roses above them like a cloud were shed,<br /> + To reinforce them in the amorous chace;<br /> +While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed,<br /> + A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.<br /> +<br /> +Above, around, young Loves on every side<br /> + Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro;<br /> +And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed,<br /> + Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow;<br /> +One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied<br /> + To pour them on the couch that lay below;<br /> +Another, poised upon his pinions, through<br /> +The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew:<br /> +<br /> +For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing,<br /> + The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;—<br /> +Thus none was weary of glad gambolling;<br /> + Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed,<br /> +Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling<br /> + His languid arms, and with his winnowing made<br /> +Her heart burn:—very glad and bright of face,<br /> +But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace. +</p> + +<p>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:— +</p> + +<p class="center"> +STANZAS 104—107. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +In the last square the great artificer<br /> + Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm;<br /> +Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her,<br /> + Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm:<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.341" id= "pg2.341">341</a></span> +Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir,<br /> + Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm;<br /> +Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly<br /> + Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.<br /> +<br /> +Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull,<br /> + Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears<br /> +His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful:<br /> + She turns toward the shore that disappears,<br /> +With frightened gesture; and the wonderful<br /> + Gold curls about her bosom and her ears<br /> +Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne;<br /> +This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.<br /> +<br /> +With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress,<br /> + She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise:<br /> +So, imaged in a shape of drear distress,<br /> + In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries;<br /> +They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less<br /> + For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes:<br /> +Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss<br /> +But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.<br /> +<br /> +Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower,<br /> + Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain,<br /> +To work his amorous will in secret hour;<br /> + Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain,<br /> +Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower<br /> + Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign;<br /> +The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned,<br /> +Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +STANZAS 110—112. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies,<br /> + And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains.<br /> +And of the air and slumber's treacheries;<br /> + Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain.<br /> +And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies:<br /> + Her very speechless attitude complains—<br /> +No beast there is so cruel as thou art,<br /> +No beast less loyal to my broken heart.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.342" id= "pg2.342">342</a></span> +Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine,<br /> + Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven:<br /> +Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine<br /> + Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven<br /> +With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine<br /> + From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven,<br /> +Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements,<br /> +Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements.<br /> +<br /> +Upon his ass Silenus, never sated,<br /> + With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking,<br /> +Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated;<br /> + His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking:<br /> +Bold Mænads goad the ass so sorely weighted,<br /> + With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking<br /> +The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him,<br /> +E'en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The leafy tresses of that timeless garden<br /> + Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten;<br /> +Frore winter never comes the rills to harden,<br /> + Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten;<br /> +Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden;<br /> + Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten;<br /> +Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding,<br /> +With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.343" id= "pg2.343">343</a></span>express 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E 'n lei discerne un non so che divino. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Dante has the line:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Vostri risplende un non so che divino. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In the 44th he speaks about the birds:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +This comes from Cavalcanti's:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E cantinne gli augelli.<br /> +Ciascuno in suo latino. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +E già dall'alte ville il fumo esala. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It comes straight from Virgil:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.344" id= "pg2.344">344</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In the next stanza the line—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Tal che 'l ciel tutto rasserenò d'intorno, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +is Petrarch's. So in the 56th, is the phrase 'il dolce andar celeste.' +In stanza 57—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Par che 'l cor del petto se gli schianti, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +belongs to Boccaccio. In stanza 60 the first line:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +La notte che le cose ci nasconde, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.345" id= "pg2.345">345</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap30"></a>ORFEO</h2> + +<p> +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 +<i>terza rima</i>, madrigals, a carnival song, a <i>ballata</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.346" id= "pg2.346">346</a></span>exceptions, 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. +</p> + +<h3><i>THE FABLE OF ORPHEUS</i></h3> + +<p class="center"> +MERCURY <i>announces the show</i>. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ho, silence! Listen! There was once a hind,<br /> + Son of Apollo, Aristaeus hight,<br /> + Who loved with so untamed and fierce a mind<br /> + Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus wight,<br /> + That chasing her one day with will unkind<br /> + He wrought her cruel death in love's despite;<br /> + For, as she fled toward the mere hard by,<br /> + A serpent stung her, and she had to die.<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.347" id= "pg2.347">347</a></span> +Now Orpheus, singing, brought her back from hell,<br /> + But could not keep the law the fates ordain:<br /> + Poor wretch, he backward turned and broke the spell;<br /> + So that once more from him his love was ta'en.<br /> + Therefore he would no more with women dwell,<br /> + And in the end by women he was slain.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +<i>Enter</i> A SHEPHERD, <i>who says</i>— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Nay, listen, friends! Fair auspices are given,<br /> +Since Mercury to earth hath come from heaven.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SCENE I +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MOPSUS, <i>an old shepherd</i>. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Say, hast thou seen a calf of mine, all white<br /> + Save for a spot of black upon her front,<br /> + Two feet, one flank, and one knee ruddy-bright?<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS, <i>a young shepherd</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Friend Mopsus, to the margin of this fount<br /> + No herds have come to drink since break of day;<br /> +Yet may'st thou hear them low on yonder mount.<br /> + Go, Thyrsis, search the upland lawn, I pray!<br /> +Thou Mopsus shalt with me the while abide;<br /> + For I would have thee listen to my lay.<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Exit</i> THYRSIS.<br /> +<br /> +'Twas yester morn where trees yon cavern hide,<br /> + I saw a nymph more fair than Dian, who<br /> + Had a young lusty lover at her side:<br /> +But when that more than woman met my view,<br /> + The heart within my bosom leapt outright,<br /> + And straight the madness of wild Love I knew.<br /> +Since then, dear Mopsus, I have no delight;<br /> + But weep and weep: of food and drink I tire,<br /> + And without slumber pass the weary night.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MOPSUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.348" id= "pg2.348">348</a></span> +Friend Aristaeus, if this amorous fire<br /> + Thou dost not seek to quench as best may be,<br /> + Thy peace of soul will vanish in desire.<br /> +Thou know'st that love is no new thing to me:<br /> + I've proved how love grown old brings bitter pain:<br /> + Cure it at once, or hope no remedy;<br /> +For if thou find thee in Love's cruel chain,<br /> + Thy bees, thy blossoms will be out of mind,<br /> + Thy fields, thy vines, thy flocks, thy cotes, thy grain<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Mopsus, thou speakest to the deaf and blind:<br /> + Waste not on me these wingèd words, I pray,<br /> + Lest they be scattered to the inconstant wind,<br /> +I love, and cannot wish to say love nay;<br /> + Nor seek to cure so charming a disease:<br /> + They praise Love best who most against him say.<br /> +Yet if thou fain wouldst give my heart some ease,<br /> + Forth from thy wallet take thy pipe, and we<br /> + Will sing awhile beneath the leafy trees;<br /> +For well my nymph is pleased with melody.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THE SONG. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;<br /> +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.<br /> +<br /> +The lovely nymph is deaf to my lament,<br /> + Nor heeds the music of this rustic reed;<br /> +Wherefore my flocks and herds are ill content,<br /> + Nor bathe their hoof where grows the water weed,<br /> + Nor touch the tender herbage on the mead;<br /> +So sad, because their shepherd grieves, are they.<br /> +<br /> +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;<br /> +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.<br /> +<br /> +The herds are sorry for their master's moan;<br /> + The nymph heeds not her lover though he die,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.349" id= "pg2.349">349</a></span> +The lovely nymph, whose heart is made of stone—<br /> + Nay steel, nay adamant! She still doth fly<br /> + Far, far before me, when she sees me nigh,<br /> +Even as a lamb flies fern the wolf away.<br /> +<br /> +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;<br /> +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.<br /> +<br /> +Nay, tell her, pipe of mine, how swift doth flee<br /> + Beauty together with our years amain;<br /> +Tell her how time destroys all rarity,<br /> + Nor youth once lost can be renewed again;<br /> + Tell her to use the gifts that yet remain:<br /> +Roses and violets blossom not alway.<br /> +<br /> +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;<br /> +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.<br /> +<br /> +Carry, ye winds, these sweet words to her ears,<br /> + Unto the ears of my loved nymph, and tell<br /> +How many tears I shed, what bitter tears!<br /> + Beg her to pity one who loves so well:<br /> + Say that my life is frail and mutable,<br /> +And melts like rime before the rising day.<br /> +<br /> +Listen, ye wild woods, to my roundelay;<br /> +Since the fair nymph will hear not, though I pray.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MOPSUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Less sweet, methinks the voice of waters falling<br /> + From cliffs that echo back their murmurous song;<br /> + Less sweet the summer sound of breezes calling<br /> + Through pine-tree tops sonorous all day long;<br /> + Than are thy rhymes, the soul of grief enthralling,<br /> + Thy rhymes o'er field and forest borne along:<br /> +If she but hear them, at thy feet she'll fawn.—<br /> +Lo, Thyrsis, hurrying homeward from the lawn!<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Re-enters</i> THYRSIS.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.350" id= "pg2.350">350</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What of the calf? Say, hast thou seen her now?<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THYRSIS, <i>the cowherd</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I have, and I'd as lief her throat were cut!<br /> +She almost ripped my bowels up, I vow,<br /> +Running amuck with horns well set to butt:<br /> +Nathless I've locked her in the stall below:<br /> +She's blown with grass, I tell you, saucy slut!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Now, prithee, let me hear what made you stay<br /> +So long upon the upland lawns away?<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THYRSIS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Walking, I spied a gentle maiden there,<br /> + Who plucked wild flowers upon the mountain side:<br /> + I scarcely think that Venus is more fair,<br /> + Of sweeter grace, most modest in her pride:<br /> + She speaks, she sings, with voice so soft and rare,<br /> + That listening streams would backward roll their tide:<br /> + Her face is snow and roses; gold her head;<br /> + All, all alone she goes, white-raimented,<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Stay, Mopsus! I must follow: for 'tis she<br /> + Of whom I lately spoke. So, friend, farewell!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MOPSUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hold, Aristaeus, lest for her or thee<br /> +Thy boldness be the cause of mischief fell!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Nay, death this day must be my destiny,<br /> +Unless I try my fate and break the spell.<br /> +Stay therefore, Mopsus, by the fountain stay!<br /> +I'll follow her, meanwhile, yon mountain way.<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Exit</i> ARISTAEUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.351" id= "pg2.351">351</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +MOPSUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Thyrsis, what thinkest thou of thy loved lord?<br /> + See'st thou that all his senses are distraught?<br /> + Couldst thou not speak some seasonable word,<br /> + Tell him what shame this idle love hath wrought?<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +THYRSIS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Free speech and servitude but ill accord,<br /> +Friend Mopsus, and the hind is folly-fraught<br /> +Who rates his lord! He's wiser far than I.<br /> +To tend these kine is all my mastery.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SCENE II +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ARISTAEUS, <i>in pursuit of</i> EURYDICE. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Flee not from me, maiden!<br /> + Lo, I am thy friend!<br /> + Dearer far than life I hold thee.<br /> + List, thou beauty-laden,<br /> + To these prayers attend:<br /> + Flee not, let my arms enfold thee!<br /> + Neither wolf nor bear will grasp thee:<br /> + That I am thy friend I've told thee:<br /> + Stay thy course then; let me clasp thee!—<br /> + Since thou'rt deaf and wilt not heed me,<br /> + Since thou'rt still before me flying,<br /> + While I follow panting, dying,<br /> + Lend me wings, Love, wings to speed me!<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Exit</i> ARISTAEUS, <i>pursuing</i> EURYDICE. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SCENE III +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A DRYAD. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Sad news of lamentation and of pain,<br /> + Dear sisters, hath my voice to bear to you:<br /> + I scarcely dare to raise the dolorous strain.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.352" id= "pg2.352">352</a></span> +Eurydice by yonder stream lies low;<br /> + The flowers are fading round her stricken head,<br /> + And the complaining waters weep their woe.<br /> +The stranger soul from that fair house hath fled;<br /> + And she, like privet pale, or white May-bloom<br /> + Untimely plucked, lies on the meadow, dead.<br /> +Hear then the cause of her disastrous doom!<br /> + A snake stole forth and stung her suddenly.<br /> + I am so burdened with this weight of gloom<br /> +That, lo, I bid you all come weep with me!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +CHORUS OF DRYADS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Let the wide air with our complaint resound!<br /> + For all heaven's light is spent.<br /> + Let rivers break their bound,<br /> + Swollen with tears outpoured from our lament!<br /> +<br /> +Fell death hath ta'en their splendour from the skies:<br /> + The stars are sunk in gloom.<br /> + Stern death hath plucked the bloom<br /> + Of nymphs:—Eurydice down-trodden lies.<br /> +Weep, Love! The woodland cries.<br /> + Weep, groves and founts;<br /> + Ye craggy mounts; you leafy dell,<br /> + Beneath whose boughs she fell,<br /> + Bend every branch in time with this sad sound.<br /> +<br /> +Let the wide air with our complaint resound!<br /> +<br /> +Ah, fortune pitiless! Ah, cruel snake!<br /> + Ah, luckless doom of woes!<br /> + Like a cropped summer rose,<br /> + Or lily cut, she withers on the brake.<br /> +Her face, which once did make<br /> + Our age so bright<br /> + With beauty's light, is faint and pale;<br /> + And the clear lamp doth fail,<br /> + Which shed pure splendour all the world around<br /> +<br /> +Let the wide air with our complaint resound!<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.353" id= "pg2.353">353</a></span> +Who e'er will sing so sweetly, now she's gone?<br /> + Her gentle voice to hear,<br /> + The wild winds dared not stir;<br /> + And now they breathe but sorrow, moan for moan:<br /> +So many joys are flown,<br /> + Such jocund days<br /> + Doth Death erase with her sweet eyes!<br /> + Bid earth's lament arise,<br /> + And make our dirge through heaven and sea rebound!<br /> +<br /> +Let the wide air with our complaint resound!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A DRYAD. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Tis surely Orpheus, who hath reached the hill,<br /> + With harp in hand, glad-eyed and light of heart!<br /> + He thinks that his dear love is living still.<br /> +My news will stab him with a sudden smart:<br /> + An unforeseen and unexpected blow<br /> + Wounds worst and stings the bosom's tenderest part.<br /> +Death hath disjoined the truest love, I know,<br /> + That nature yet to this low world revealed,<br /> + And quenched the flame in its most charming glow.<br /> +Go, sisters, hasten ye to yonder field,<br /> + Where on the sward lies slain Eurydice;<br /> + Strew her with flowers and grasses! I must yield<br /> +This man the measure of his misery.<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Exeunt</i> DRYADS. <i>Enter</i> ORPHEUS, <i>singing</i>.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Musa, triumphales titulos et gesta canamus</i><br /> + <i>Herculis, et forti monstra subacta manu;</i><br /> +<i>Ut timidae malri pressos ostenderit angues,</i><br /> + <i>Intrepidusque fero riserit ore puer.</i> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A DRYAD. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Orpheus, I bring thee bitter news. Alas!<br /> + Thy nymph who was so beautiful, is slain!<br /> + flying from Aristaeus o'er the grass,<br /> + What time she reached yon stream that threads the plain,<br /> +<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.354" id= "pg2.354">354</a></span> + A snake which lurked mid flowers where she did pass,<br /> + Pierced her fair foot with his envenomed bane:<br /> + So fierce, so potent was the sting, that she<br /> + Died in mid course. Ah, woe that this should be!<br /> +<br /> + [ORPHEUS <i>turns to go in silence.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MNESILLUS, <i>the satyr</i>. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Mark ye how sunk in woe<br /> + The poor wretch forth doth pass,<br /> + And may not answer, for his grief, one word?<br /> + On some lone shore, unheard,<br /> + Far, far away, he'll go,<br /> + And pour his heart forth to the winds, alas!<br /> + I'll follow and observe if he<br /> + Moves with his moan the hills to sympathy.<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Follows</i> ORPHEUS.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate!<br /> + Our wonted music is in tune no more.<br /> + Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let<br /> + The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore!<br /> + O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate!<br /> + How shall I bear a pang so passing sore?<br /> + Eurydice, my love! O life of mine!<br /> + On earth I will no more without thee pine!<br /> +I will go down unto the doors of Hell,<br /> + And see if mercy may be found below:<br /> + Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell<br /> + With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe:<br /> + Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well<br /> + With singing have we turned the streams that flow;<br /> + Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn,<br /> + And made trees dance upon the forest lawn.<br /> +<br /> + [<i>Passes from sight on his way to Hades.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +MNESILLUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The staff of Fate is strong<br /> + And will not lightly bend,<br /> + Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell.<br /> + Nay, I can see full well<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.355" id= "pg2.355">355</a></span> + His life will not be long:<br /> + Those downward feet no more will earthward wend.<br /> + What marvel if they lose the light,<br /> + Who make blind Love their guide by day and night!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +SCENE IV +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS, <i>at the gate of Hell.</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan!<br /> + Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you!<br /> + To your dark regions led me Love alone:<br /> + Downward upon his wings of light I flew.<br /> + Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne!<br /> + For when you hear my tale of misery, you,<br /> + Nor you alone, but all who here abide<br /> + In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide.<br /> +There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage;<br /> + To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine:<br /> + Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage,<br /> + Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine.<br /> + Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage<br /> + With heaven, the elements, the powers divine!<br /> + I beg for pity or for death. No more!<br /> + But open, ope Hell's adamantine door!<br /> +<br /> + [ORPHEUS <i>enters Hell.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +PLUTO. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What man is he who with his golden lyre<br /> + Hath moved the gates that never move,<br /> + While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love?<br /> +The rolling stone no more doth tire<br /> + Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill;<br /> + And Tantalus with water slakes his fire;<br /> +The groans of mangled Tityos are still;<br /> + Ixion's wheel forgets to fly;<br /> + The Danaids their urns can fill:<br /> +I hear no more the tortured spirits cry;<br /> +But all find rest in that sweet harmony.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.356" id= "pg2.356">356</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +PROSERPINE. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee,<br /> + I left the light of heaven serene,<br /> + And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen;<br /> +The charm of tenderest sympathy<br /> + Hath never yet had power to turn<br /> + My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me.<br /> +Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn;<br /> + Nor is there aught so dear<br /> + As that delight. Nay, be not stern<br /> +To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe,<br /> +And rest awhile with me that song to hear!<br /> +<br /> + [ORPHEUS <i>stands before the throne.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom,<br /> + Who see no more the jocund light of day!<br /> + Ye who inherit all things that the womb<br /> + Of Nature and the elements display!<br /> + Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb!<br /> + Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way:<br /> + Not to chain Cerberus I hither come,<br /> + But to bring back my mistress to her home.<br /> + A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves<br /> + Stole my fair mistress—nay, my heart—from me:<br /> + Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves,<br /> + Nor can I stand against this agony.<br /> + Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves<br /> + Of your famed love unto your memory,<br /> + If of that ancient rape you think at all,<br /> + Give back Eurydice!—On you I call.<br /> + All things ere long unto this bourne descend:<br /> + All mortal lives to you return at last:<br /> + Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end<br /> + Must fade and perish in your empire vast:<br /> + Some sooner and some later hither wend;<br /> + Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed:<br /> + This of our footsteps is the final goal;<br /> + And then we dwell for aye in your control.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.357" id= "pg2.357">357</a></span> + Therefore the nymph I love is left for you<br /> + When nature leads her deathward in due time:<br /> + But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew,<br /> + The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb:<br /> + Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew,<br /> + Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime?<br /> + Give back, give back my hope one little day!—<br /> + Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray.<br /> + I pray not to you by the waves forlorn<br /> + Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron,<br /> + By Chaos where the mighty world was born,<br /> + Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon;<br /> + But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn<br /> + When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne!<br /> + O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath,<br /> + I will no more return, but ask for death!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +PROSERPINE. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Husband, I never guessed<br /> + That in our realm oppressed<br /> + Pity could find a home to dwell:<br /> + But now I know that mercy teems in Hell.<br /> + I see Death weep; her breast<br /> + Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell.<br /> + Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed<br /> + By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +PLUTO. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +She's thine, but at this price:<br /> + Bend not on her thine eyes,<br /> + Till mid the souls that live she stay.<br /> + See that thou turn not back upon the way!<br /> + Check all fond thoughts that rise!<br /> + Else will thy love be torn from thee away.<br /> + I am well pleased that song so rare as thine<br /> + The might of my dread sceptre should incline.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.358" id= "pg2.358">358</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +SCENE V +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS, <i>sings.</i> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri.</i><br /> + <i>Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est,</i><br /> +<i>Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ.</i><br /> + <i>Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +EURYDICE. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +All me! Thy love too great<br /> + Hath lost not thee alone!<br /> + I am torn from thee by strong Fate.<br /> + No more I am thine own.<br /> + In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell<br /> + I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well!<br /> +<br /> + [EURYDICE <i>disappears.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Who hath laid laws on Love?<br /> + Will pity not be given<br /> + For one short look so full thereof?<br /> + Since I am robbed of heaven,<br /> + Since all my joy so great is turned to pain,<br /> + I will go back and plead with Death again!<br /> +<br /> + [TISIPHONE <i>blocks his way.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +TISIPHONE. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Nay, seek not back to turn!<br /> + Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain.<br /> + Eurydice may not complain<br /> + Of aught but thee—albeit her grief is great.<br /> + Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate!<br /> + How vain thy song! For Death is stern!<br /> + Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain!<br /> + The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.359" id= "pg2.359">359</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +SCENE VI +</p> + +<p class="center"> +ORPHEUS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found<br /> + To match the burden of my matchless woe?<br /> + How shall I make the fount of tears abound,<br /> + To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow?<br /> + Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground,<br /> + So long as life delays me here below;<br /> + And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore,<br /> + I swear I'll never love a woman more!<br /> +Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring,<br /> + The bloom of youth when life is loveliest,<br /> + Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring:<br /> + This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best!<br /> + Of female charms let no one speak or sing;<br /> + Since she is slain who ruled within my breast.<br /> + He who would seek my converse, let him see<br /> + That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me!<br /> +How pitiful is he who changes mind<br /> + For woman! for her love laments or grieves!<br /> + Who suffers her in chains his will to bind,<br /> + Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves,<br /> + Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind!<br /> + A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves:<br /> + Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees;<br /> + And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas!<br /> +High Jove confirms the truth of what I said,<br /> + Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare,<br /> + Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed:<br /> + Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair:<br /> + Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led<br /> + Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.—<br /> + Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly<br /> + Far, far away from female company!<br /> +<br /> +[<i>Enter a</i> MAENAD <i>leading a train of</i> BACCHANTES.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A MAENAD. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive!<br /> + See him who doth our sex deride!<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.360" id= "pg2.360">360</a></span> + Hunt him to death, the slave!<br /> +Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive!<br /> + Cast down this doeskin and that hide!<br /> + We'll wreak our fury on the knave!<br /> +Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave!<br /> + He shall yield up his hide<br /> + Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive!<br /> + No power his life can save;<br /> + Since women he hath dared deride!<br /> + Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive!<br /> +<br /> +[ORPHEUS <i>is chased off the scene and slain: the</i> MAENADS<br /> +<i>then return.</i><br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +A MAENAD. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this!<br /> + Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne:<br /> + So that each root is slaked with blood of his:<br /> + Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn<br /> + Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss:<br /> + His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!—<br /> + Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling!<br /> + Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring!<br /> +</p> + +<p class="center"> +CHORUS OF MAENADS. +</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Bacchus! we all must follow thee!<br /> + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!<br /> +<br /> +With ivy coronals, bunch and berry,<br /> + Crown we our heads to worship thee!<br /> +Thou hast bidden us to make merry<br /> + Day and night with jollity!<br /> +Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free,<br /> +And hand ye the drinking-cup to me!<br /> + Bacchus! we all must follow thee!<br /> + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!<br /> +<br /> +See, I have emptied my horn already:<br /> + Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray:<br /> +Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady?<br /> + Or is it my brain that reels away?<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.361" id= "pg2.361">361</a></span> +Let every one run to and fro through the hay,<br /> +As ye see me run! Ho! after me!<br /> + Bacchus! we all must follow thee!<br /> + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!<br /> +<br /> +Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber:<br /> + Am I drunken or sober, yes or no?<br /> +What are these weights my feet encumber?<br /> + You too are tipsy, well I know!<br /> +Let every one do as ye see me do,<br /> +Let every one drink and quaff like me!<br /> + Bacchus! we all must follow thee!<br /> + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!<br /> +<br /> +Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry,<br /> + Tossing wine down your throats away!<br /> +Let sleep then come and our gladness bury:<br /> + Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may!<br /> +Dancing is over for me to-day.<br /> +Let every one cry aloud Evohé!<br /> + Bacchus! we all must follow thee!<br /> + Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé! +</p> + +<p>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 <i>furore</i> in the Mænads, an attempt to +model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.362" id= "pg2.362">362</a></span>sympathetic 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 +<i>tondo</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.363" id= "pg2.363">363</a></span>the 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.</p> + +<p><i>NOTE</i></p> + +<p>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 <i>ottava rima</i>. In the +year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.364" id= "pg2.364">364</a></span>printed 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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +instead of giving:— +</p> + +<p class="poem">Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +because I thought that the second and faithful version would be +unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.365" id= "pg2.365">365</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap31"></a>EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH</h2> + +<p class="center"> +ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire!<br /> + Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies!<br /> + Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease,<br /> + That maddenest men with fears and fell desire!<br /> +O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire,<br /> + Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase!<br /> + Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease<br /> + If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire.<br /> +Founded in chaste and humble poverty,<br /> + Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn,<br /> + Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride?<br /> +Even from foul and loathed adultery,<br /> + The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return!<br /> + Not so: the felon world its fate must bide. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +TO STEFANO COLONNA<br /> +WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head<br /> + Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name,<br /> + Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame<br /> + The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread:<br /> +Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread;<br /> + But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill<br /> + Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill,<br /> + Where musing oft I climb by fancy led.<br /> +These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul,<br /> + While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers<br /> + Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe,<br /> +Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control;<br /> + But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours,<br /> + Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.366" id= "pg2.366">366</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI<br /> +ON LEAVING AVIGNON +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Backward at every weary step and slow<br /> + These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear;<br /> + Then take I comfort from the fragrant air<br /> + That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go.<br /> +But when I think how joy is turned to woe,<br /> + Remembering my short life and whence I fare,<br /> + I stay my feet for anguish and despair,<br /> + And cast my tearful eyes on earth below.<br /> +At times amid the storm of misery<br /> + This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor<br /> + Can severed from their spirit hope to live.<br /> +Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory<br /> + How I to lovers this great guerdon give,<br /> + Free from all human bondage to endure? +</p> + +<p class="center"> +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII<br /> +THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow<br /> + Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years,<br /> + Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears,<br /> + To see their father's tottering steps and slow.<br /> +Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe,<br /> + In these last days of life he nothing fears,<br /> + But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers,<br /> + And spent and wayworn forward still doth go;<br /> +Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire,<br /> + To gaze upon the portraiture of Him<br /> + Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see:<br /> +Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire,<br /> + Lady, to find in other features dim<br /> + The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.367" id= "pg2.367">367</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII<br /> +OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE! +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I am so tired beneath the ancient load<br /> + Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny,<br /> + That much I fear to fail upon the road<br /> + And yield my soul unto mine enemy.<br /> +'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed,<br /> + To save me came with matchless courtesy:<br /> + Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode,<br /> + So that I strive in vain his face to see.<br /> +Yet still his voice reverberates here below:<br /> + Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here;<br /> + Come unto me if none your going stay!<br /> +What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear<br /> + Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow,<br /> + That I may rest and raise me from the clay? +</p> + +<p class="center"> +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song,<br /> + The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign,<br /> + Which severed me from what was rightly mine,<br /> + And made me sole and strange amid the throng,<br /> +The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful,<br /> + And those angelic smiles which once did shine<br /> + Imparadising earth with joy divine,<br /> + Are now a little dust—dumb, deaf, and dull.<br /> +And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail,<br /> + Left alone without the light I loved so long,<br /> + Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail.<br /> +Then let me here give o'er my amorous song;<br /> + The fountains of old inspiration fail,<br /> + And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg2.368" id= "pg2.368">368</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +In thought I raised me to the place where she<br /> + Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines;<br /> + There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines,<br /> + More fair I found her and less proud to me.<br /> +She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be<br /> + With me ensphered, unless desires mislead;<br /> + Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed,<br /> + Whose day ere eve was ended utterly:<br /> +My bliss no mortal heart can understand;<br /> + Thee only do I lack, and that which thou<br /> + So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.<br /> +Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?<br /> + For at the sound of that celestial tale<br /> + I all but stayed in paradise till now. +</p> + +<p class="center"> +IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The flower of angels and the spirits blest,<br /> + Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she<br /> + Who is my lady died, around her pressed<br /> + Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.<br /> +What light is this? What beauty manifest?<br /> + Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy<br /> + Of splendour in this age to our high rest<br /> + Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.<br /> +She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place,<br /> + Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;<br /> + At times the while she backward turns her face<br /> +To see me follow—seems to wait and plead:<br /> + Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,<br /> + Because I hear her praying me to speed. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="vol03"></a>VOLUME III.</h2> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.001" id="pg3.001"></a></span> +</p> + +<h2><a name="chap32"></a>FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO</h2> + +<p> +Students of Mr. Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translations from the +early Italian poets (<i>Dante and his Circle</i>. 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 <a name="pg3.002" id="pg3.002"></a><span +class="pagenum">2</span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +An I were fire, I would burn up the world;<br /> + An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break;<br /> + An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake;<br /> + An I were God, to hell I'd have it hurled;<br /> +An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled<br /> + O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take;<br /> + An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make<br /> + All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled;<br /> +An I were death, I'd to my father go;<br /> + An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly;<br /> + And with my mother I'd deal even so;<br /> +An I were Cecco, as I am but I,<br /> + Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold,<br /> + But let my neighbours take the plain and old.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.003" id="pg3.003">3</a></span> +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':<a href="#fn-48" name="fnref-48" id="fnref-48"><sup>[48]</sup></a>—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And to the Poet said I: 'Now was ever<br /> + So vain a people as the Sienese?<br /> + Not for a certainty the French by far.'<br /> +Whereat the other leper, who had heard me,<br /> + Replied unto my speech: 'Taking out Stricca,<br /> + Who knew the art of moderate expenses,<br /> +And Nicolò, who the luxurious use<br /> + Of cloves discovered earliest of all<br /> + Within that garden where such seed takes root.<br /> +And taking out the band, among whom squandered<br /> + Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods,<br /> + And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.'<br /> +</p> + + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.004" id= +"pg3.004">4</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-49" name="fnref-49" id="fnref-49"><sup>[49]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-48" id="fn-48"></a> <a href="#fnref-48">[48]</a> +<i>Inferno</i>, xxix. 121.—<i>Longfellow</i>.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-49" id="fn-49"></a> <a href="#fnref-49">[49]</a> +The above points are fully discussed by Signor Giulio Navone, in his +recent edition of <i>Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene +da la Chitarra d' Arezzo</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.005" id="pg3.005">5</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>On the descent of the German Emperor into Lombardy, the great +vassals who acknowledged him, made knighthood, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.006" id="pg3.006">6</a></span> among titles of +more solid import, the price of their allegiance.<a href="#fn-50" name="fnref-50" id="fnref-50"><sup>[50]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.007" id="pg3.007">7</a></span> 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.'</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-50" id="fn-50"></a> <a href="#fnref-50">[50]</a> +The passages used in the text are chiefly drawn from Muratori's +fifty-third Dissertation.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.008" id="pg3.008">8</a></span>who +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.009" id= +"pg3.009">9</a></span>turned 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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.010" id="pg3.010">10</a></span>may +judge this people little worthy of the distinction they +received.'</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Sappi ch' i' son Italia che ti parlo,<br /> +Di Lusimburgo <i>ignominioso Carlo</i> ...<br /> +Veggendo te aver tese tue arti<br /> +<i>A tór danari e gir con essi a casa</i> ...<br /> +Tu dunque, Giove, perche 'l Santo uccello<br /> +Da questo Carlo quarto<br /> +Imperador non togli e dalle mani<br /> +<i>Degli altri, lurchi moderni Germani</i><br /> +<i>Che d' aquila un allocco n' hanno fatto</i>?<br /> +</p> + + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.011" id="pg3.011">11</a></span>hear 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 <i>Corte Bandita</i>, or open house held +upon this occasion, lasted for eight days, and the charges on the +Bandinelli estates must have been considerable.</p> + +<p>Knights so made were called in Italy <i>Cavalieri Addobbati</i>, +or <i>di Corredo</i>, probably because the expense of costly +furniture was borne by them—<i>addobbo</i> having become a +name for decorative trappings, and <i>Corredo</i> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.012" id="pg3.012">12</a></span>recognised +three other kinds of knights, the <i>Cavalieri Bagati</i>, +<i>Cavalieri di Scudo</i>, and <i>Cavalieri d'Arme</i>. 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 <i>Cavaliere di +Corredo</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.013" id="pg3.013">13</a></span>of Jehan de Saintrè +prevalent in Italy. The word <i>donzello</i>, derived from the +Latin <i>domicellus</i>, I have translated <i>squire</i>, because +the donzel was a youth of gentle birth awaiting knighthood.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +This morn a young squire shall be made a knight;<br /> + hereof he fain would be right worthy found,<br /> + And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round<br /> + To furnish all that fits a man of might.<br /> +Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight;<br /> + Capons and pheasants on his board abound,<br /> + Where serving men and pages march around;<br /> + Choice chambers, torches, and wax candle light.<br /> +Barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought,<br /> + Mailed men at arms and noble company,<br /> + Spears, pennants, housing cloths, bells richly wrought.<br /> +Musicians following with great barony<br /> + And jesters through the land his state have brought,<br /> + With dames and damsels whereso rideth he.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway,<br /> + And saith: 'Friend, now beseems it thee to strip;<br /> + For I will see men naked, thigh and hip,<br /> + And thou my will must know and eke obey;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.014" id= "pg3.014">14</a></span> +And leave what was thy wont until this day,<br /> + And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip;<br /> + This do, and thou shalt join my fellowship,<br /> + If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay.'<br /> +And when she sees his comely body bare,<br /> + Forthwith within her arms she him doth take,<br /> + And saith: 'These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer;<br /> +I do accept thee, and this gift thee make,<br /> + So that thy deeds may shine for ever fair;<br /> + My lips shall never more thy praise forsake.'<br /> +</p> + +<p>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—<i>Humilitas</i>, in Gothic letters +underneath the coronet upon their princely palace fronts.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Humility to him doth gently go,<br /> + And saith: 'I would in no wise weary thee;<br /> + Yet must I cleanse and wash thee thoroughly,<br /> + And I will make thee whiter than the snow.<br /> +Hear what I tell thee in few words, for so<br /> + Fain am I of thy heart to hold the key;<br /> + Now must thou sail henceforward after me;<br /> + And I will guide thee as myself do go.<br /> +But one thing would I have thee straightway leave;<br /> + Well knowest thou mine enemy is pride;<br /> + Let her no more unto thy spirit cleave:<br /> +So leal a friend with thee will I abide<br /> + That favour from all folk thou shalt receive;<br /> + This grace hath he who keepeth on my side.'<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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, <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.015" id="pg3.015">15</a></span>gives 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Then did Discretion to the squire draw near,<br /> + And drieth him with a fair cloth and clean,<br /> + And straightway putteth him the sheets between,<br /> + Silk, linen, counterpane, and minevere.<br /> +Think now of this! Until the day was clear,<br /> + With songs and music and delight the queen,<br /> + And with new knights, fair fellows well-beseen,<br /> + To make him perfect, gave him goodly cheer.<br /> +Then saith she: 'Rise forthwith, for now 'tis due,<br /> + Thou shouldst be born into the world again;<br /> + Keep well the order thou dost take in view.'<br /> +Unfathomable thoughts with him remain<br /> + Of that great bond he may no more eschew,<br /> + Nor can he say, 'I'll hide me from this chain.'<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Comes Blithesomeness with mirth and merriment,<br /> + All decked in flowers she seemeth a rose-tree;<br /> + Of linen, silk, cloth, fur, now beareth she<br /> + <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.016" id="pg3.016">16</a></span> +the new knight a rich habiliment;<br /> +Head-gear and cap and garland flower-besprent,<br /> + So brave they were May-bloom he seemed to be;<br /> + With such a rout, so many and such glee,<br /> + That the floor shook. Then to her work she went;<br /> +And stood him on his feet in hose and shoon;<br /> + And purse and gilded girdle 'neath the fur<br /> + That drapes his goodly limbs, she buckles on;<br /> +Then bids the singers and sweet music stir,<br /> + And showeth him to ladies for a boon<br /> + And all who in that following went with her.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.017" id="pg3.017">17</a></span> +Courtesy! Courtesy! Courtesy! I call:<br /> + But from no quarter comes there a reply.<br /> + And whoso needs her, ill must us befall.<br /> +Greed with his hook hath ta'en men one and all,<br /> + And murdered every grace that dumb doth lie:<br /> + Whence, if I grieve, I know the reason why;<br /> + From you, great men, to God I make my call:<br /> +For you my mother Courtesy have cast<br /> + So low beneath your feet she there must bleed;<br /> + Your gold remains, but you're not made to last:<br /> +Of Eve and Adam we are all the seed:<br /> + Able to give and spend, you hold wealth fast:<br /> + Ill is the nature that rears such a breed!<br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +I praise thee not, O God, nor give thee glory,<br /> + Nor yield thee any thanks, nor bow the knee,<br /> + Nor pay thee service; for this irketh me<br /> + More than the souls to stand in purgatory;<br /> +Since thou hast made us Guelphs a jest and story<br /> + Unto the Ghibellines for all to see:<br /> + And if Uguccion claimed tax of thee,<br /> + Thou'dst pay it without interrogatory.<br /> +Ah, well I wot they know thee! and have stolen<br /> + St. Martin from thee, Altopascio,<br /> + St. Michael, and the treasure thou hast lost;<br /> +And thou that rotten rabble so hast swollen<br /> + That pride now counts for tribute; even so<br /> + Thou'st made their heart stone-hard to thine own cost.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.018" id= +"pg3.018">18</a></span>About 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ye are more silky-sleek than ermines are,<br /> + Ye Pisan counts, knights, damozels, and squires,<br /> + Who think by combing out your hair like wires<br /> + To drive the men of Florence from their car.<br /> +Ye make the Ghibellines free near and far,<br /> + Here, there, in cities, castles, huts, and byres,<br /> + Seeing how gallant in your brave attires,<br /> + How bold you look, true paladins of war.<br /> +Stout-hearted are ye as a hare in chase,<br /> + To meet the sails of Genoa on the sea;<br /> + And men of Lucca never saw your face.<br /> +Dogs with a bone for courtesy are ye:<br /> + Could Folgore but gain a special grace,<br /> + He'd have you banded 'gainst all men that be.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower;<br /> + Nor every flower that blossoms fruit doth bear;<br /> + Nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare;<br /> + Nor every stone in earth its healing power:<br /> +This thing is good when mellow, that when sour;<br /> + One seems to grieve, within doth rest from care;<br /> + Not every torch is brave that flaunts in air;<br /> + There is what dead doth seem, yet flame doth shower.<br /> +Wherefore it ill behoveth a wise man<br /> + His truss of every grass that grows to bind,<br /> + Or pile his back with every stone he can,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.019" id="pg3.019">19</a></span> +Or counsel from each word to seek to find,<br /> + Or take his walks abroad with Dick and Dan:<br /> + Not without cause I'm moved to speak my mind.<br /> +</p> + +<p>The second condemns those men of light impulse who, as Dante put +it, discoursing on the same theme, 'subject reason to +inclination.'<a href="#fn-51" name="fnref-51" id="fnref-51"><sup>[51]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +What time desire hath o'er the soul such sway<br /> + That reason finds nor place nor puissance here,<br /> + Men oft do laugh at what should claim a tear,<br /> + And over grievous dole are seeming gay.<br /> +He sure would travel far from sense astray<br /> + Who should take frigid ice for fire; and near<br /> + Unto this plight are those who make glad cheer<br /> + For what should rather cause their soul dismay.<br /> +But more at heart might he feel heavy pain<br /> + Who made his reason subject to mere will,<br /> + And followed wandering impulse without rein;<br /> +Seeing no lordship is so rich as still<br /> + One's upright self unswerving to sustain,<br /> + To follow worth, to flee things vain and ill.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-51" id="fn-51"></a> <a href="#fnref-51">[51]</a> +The line in Dante runs:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Che la ragion sommettono al talento.' +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +In Folgore's sonnet we read:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'Chi sommette rason a volontade.' +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +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 +<i>Inferno</i>.</p> + +<p>Since these words were written, England has lost the +poet-painter, to complete whose work upon the sonnet-writer of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.020" id= +"pg3.020">20</a></span>mediæval 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.021" id="pg3.021">21</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap33"></a>THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS</h2> + +<p> +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?'</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.022" id= +"pg3.022">22</a></span>The 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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.023" id="pg3.023">23</a></span>S. +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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.024" id="pg3.024">24</a></span>deacons +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.025" id="pg3.025">25</a></span>star-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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.026" id="pg3.026">26</a></span>to 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.027" id="pg3.027">27</a></span>slaves, rose +their own masters. From the <i>ergastula</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The early Roman Christians probably kept Christmas with <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.028" id="pg3.028">28</a></span>no 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.029" id= +"pg3.029">29</a></span>Besides, 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.030" id="pg3.030">30</a></span>to 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.031" id= +"pg3.031">31</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.032" id="pg3.032">32</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.033" id="pg3.033">33</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.034" id= +"pg3.034">34</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.035" id= +"pg3.035">35</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.036" id="pg3.036">36</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.037" id= +"pg3.037">37</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.038" id="pg3.038">38</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.039" id="pg3.039">39</a></span> 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?</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.040" id= +"pg3.040">40</a></span> 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.041" id="pg3.041">41</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap34"></a>SIENA</h2> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg3.042" id= +"pg3.042"></a><span class="pagenum">42</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.043" id="pg3.043">43</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-52" name="fnref-52" id="fnref-52"><sup>[52]</sup></a> +Around him sit Peace, Fortitude, and Prudence, <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.044" id="pg3.044">44</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.045" id= +"pg3.045">45</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-53" name="fnref-53" id="fnref-53"><sup>[53]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-52" id="fn-52"></a> <a href="#fnref-52">[52]</a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-53" id="fn-53"></a> <a href="#fnref-53">[53]</a> +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' (<i>Renaissance in Italy</i>, Part I.), +pp. 141, 554, for some account of the Sienese constitution, and of +the feuds and reconciliations of the burghers. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.046" id="pg3.046">46</a></span> +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.<a href="#fn-54" name="fnref-54" id="fnref-54"><sup>[54]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.047" id= +"pg3.047">47</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-54" id="fn-54"></a> <a href="#fnref-54">[54]</a> +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 <i>ecclesia pulcra, magna, et magnifica</i>, for +which the older but as yet unfinished building was to be the +transept.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Not less peculiar to Siena is the pavement of the cathedral. It +is inlaid with a kind of <i>tarsia</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.048" id= +"pg3.048">48</a></span> 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 <i>Te Deum</i> sung within the gateway of +repentance.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.049" id="pg3.049">49</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p>S. Catherine was one of twenty-five children born in <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.050" id="pg3.050">50</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.051" id="pg3.051">51</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.052" id="pg3.052">52</a></span> 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 <i>vendetta</i> 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.<a href="#fn-55" name="fnref-55" id="fnref-55"><sup>[55]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.053" id= +"pg3.053">53</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-55" id="fn-55"></a> <a href="#fnref-55">[55]</a> +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,' <i>Renaissance in +Italy</i>, Part I.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.054" id= +"pg3.054">54</a></span> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.055" id="pg3.055">55</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.056" id="pg3.056">56</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.057" id="pg3.057">57</a></span> 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!'</p> + +<p>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:</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Fac me plagis vulnerari—<br /> +Cruce hac inebriari—<br /> +Fac ut portem Christi mortem,<br /> +Passionis fac consortem,<br /> +Et plagas recolere.<br /> +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.058" id="pg3.058">58</a></span> +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 +<i>literally</i> '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.<a href="#fn-56" name="fnref-56" id="fnref-56"><sup>[56]</sup></a> +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—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Hæc tenet ara caput Catharinæ; corda requiris?<br /> + Hæc imo Christus pectore clausa tenet. +</p> + +<p>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, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.059" id="pg3.059">59</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-56" id="fn-56"></a> <a href="#fnref-56">[56]</a> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.060" id= +"pg3.060">60</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.061" id="pg3.061">61</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.062" id="pg3.062">62</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.063" id="pg3.063">63</a></span> +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, <i>gentilibus +suis</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.064" id="pg3.064">64</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>confraternità</i> blaze with lighted tapers. The +faithful, full of wonder, kneel or stand about the 'santi luoghi,' +marvelling at the relics, and <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.065" id="pg3.065">65</a></span> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.066" id="pg3.066">66</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap35"></a>MONTE OLIVETO</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +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, <a name="pg3.067" id="pg3.067"></a><span +class="pagenum">67</span> and the red brick walls that crimson +afterglow, which Tuscan twilight takes from singular transparency +of atmosphere.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.068" id="pg3.068">68</a></span> have obliterated +that large signorial splendour of the Middle Ages, we feel that the +modern Sienese are not unworthy of their courteous ancestry.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.069" id="pg3.069">69</a></span> 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 <i>graffito</i>: +'<i>E vidi e piansi il fato amaro!</i>'—'I gazed, and gazing, +wept the bitterness of fate.'</p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The family of Tolomei was among the noblest of the <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.070" id="pg3.070">70</a></span> 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.071" id="pg3.071">71</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.072" id="pg3.072">72</a></span> +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.'</p> + +<p>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— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The lonesome lodge,<br /> + That stood so low in a lonely glen. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.073" id="pg3.073">73</a></span> 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: <i>Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo: +facta est quasi vidua domina gentium</i>.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.074" id= +"pg3.074">74</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.075" id="pg3.075">75</a></span> +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.</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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 <i>carpenta</i> 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.076" id="pg3.076">76</a></span> save an +intelligent lad much trouble in mastering a certain passage of the +Georgics.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.077" id="pg3.077">77</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>balze</i> 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 <i>balze</i> 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 +<i>creta</i>; but it seems to be less like a chalk than a marl, or +<i>marna</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.078" id= +"pg3.078">78</a></span> Tolomei planted here. So far as it is clothed +at all with crop and wood, this is their service.</p> + +<p>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 <i>balze</i> at +a sometimes giddy height.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.079" id= +"pg3.079">79</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>balze</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.080" id="pg3.080">80</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>Monte Oliveto, the Superior told us, owned thirty-two +<i>poderi</i>, or large farms, of which five have recently been +sold. They are worked on the <i>mezzeria</i> system; whereby +peasants and proprietors divide the produce of the soil; and which +he thinks inferior for developing its resources to that of +<i>affitto</i>, or leaseholding.</p> + +<p>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 <i>lire</i> is +thought something: whereas near Genoa, upon the leasehold system, a +farmer may sometimes provide a dower of twenty thousand +<i>lire</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.081" id="pg3.081">81</a></span> +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.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.082" id= +"pg3.082">82</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.083" id="pg3.083">83</a></span> 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<i>l.</i> +of our money, were disbursed to him.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.084" id="pg3.084">84</a></span> 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.'</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.085" id= +"pg3.085">85</a></span> 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 +<i>novella</i> 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 +<i>naïf</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.086" id="pg3.086">86</a></span> music. This is perhaps the +painter's masterpiece in the rendering of pure beauty, if we except +his S. Sebastian of the Uffizzi.</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.087" id="pg3.087">87</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap36"></a>MONTEPULCIANO</h2> + +<h3>I</h3> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>vino nobile</i>, <i>biftek</i>, and possibly a <i>polio +arrosto</i>, or a dish of <i>tord</i>? At <a name="pg3.088" id= +"pg3.088"></a><span class="pagenum">88</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.089" id= +"pg3.089">89</a></span> 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? <i>S' +accomodi, Signore! S' accomodi, Signora!</i> 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 <i>vino nobile</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.090" id= +"pg3.090">90</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.091" id="pg3.091">91</a></span></p> + +<h3>II</h3> + +<p>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, <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.092" id="pg3.092">92</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.093" id="pg3.093">93</a></span> +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?</p> + +<h3>III</h3> + +<p>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 <i>gran sasso di Maremma</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.094" id="pg3.094">94</a></span> +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.'</p> + +<p>We may smile at the historian's <i>naïveté</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.095" id= +"pg3.095">95</a></span> sophisticated palate, but clean in quality +and powerful and racy. It deserves the enthusiasm attributed by +Redi to Bacchus:<a href="#fn-57" name="fnref-57" id="fnref-57"><sup>[57]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Fill, fill, let us all have our will!<br /> +But with <i>what</i>, with <i>what</i>, boys, shall we fill.<br /> +Sweet Ariadne—no, not <i>that</i> one—<i>ah</i> no;<br /> +Fill me the manna of Montepulciano:<br /> +Fill me a magnum and reach it me.—Gods!<br /> +How it glides to my heart by the sweetest of roads!<br /> +Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me!<br /> +Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears!<br /> +I'm ravished! I'm rapt! Heaven finds me admissible!<br /> +Lost in an ecstasy! blinded! invisible!—<br /> +Hearken all earth!<br /> +We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth,<br /> +To all who reverence us, are right thinkers;<br /> +Hear, all ye drinkers!<br /> +Give ear and give faith to the edict divine;<br /> +Montepulciano's the King of all wine.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-57" id="fn-57"></a> <a href="#fnref-57">[57]</a> +From Leigh Hunt's Translation. +</p> + +<p>It is necessary, however, that our modern barbarian should +travel to Montepulciano itself, and there obtain a flask of +<i>manna</i> or <i>vino nobile</i> from some trusty cellar-master. +He will not find it bottled in the inns or restaurants upon his +road.</p> + +<h3>IV</h3> + +<p>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 <i>Papa</i> <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.096" id= +"pg3.096">96</a></span> <i>Martino non vale un quattrino</i>, 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 +<i>that</i> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.097" id="pg3.097">97</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.098" id="pg3.098">98</a></span> which the +contractors vented their curses and Bruni eased his bile; these +marbles are now visible as mere <i>disjecta membra</i> in a church +which, lacking them, has little to detain a traveller's haste.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.099" id="pg3.099">99</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>The boys of Montepulciano have scratched Messer Aragazzi's +sleeping figure with <i>graffiti</i> 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, +<i>pace</i> Lionardo Bruni, not ignoble.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.100" id= +"pg3.100">100</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.101" id= +"pg3.101">101</a></span></p> + +<h3>V</h3> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.102" id="pg3.102">102</a></span> 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.</p> + +<h3>VI</h3> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.103" id="pg3.103">103</a></span> +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 +<i>Hypnerotomachia Poliphili</i>. 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 +<i>Jupiter Optimus Maximus</i>; and Jesus was the <i>Heros</i> of +Calvary, and nuns were <i>Virgines Vestales</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.104" id="pg3.104">104</a></span> 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 <i>creta</i>, +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 <i>creta</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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— <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.105" id= +"pg3.105">105</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>Yet the material is a fine warm travertine, mellowing to <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.106" id="pg3.106">106</a></span> 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 <i>chevet</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.107" id= +"pg3.107">107</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.108" id="pg3.108">108</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>S. Quirico was keeping <i>festa</i>. 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; <i>frittata di cervello</i>, good fish, +roast lamb stuffed with rosemary, salad and cheese, with excellent +wine and black coffee, at the rate of three <i>lire</i> a head.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.109" id="pg3.109">109</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>arx</i> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.110" id="pg3.110">110</a></span> 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.111" id="pg3.111">111</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap37"></a>PERUGIA</h2> + +<p> +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 <a name="pg3.112" id= +"pg3.112"></a><span class="pagenum">112</span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.113" id="pg3.113">113</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>No Italian city illustrates more forcibly than Perugia the +violent contrasts of the earlier Renaissance. This is perhaps <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.114" id="pg3.114">114</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-58" name="fnref-58" id="fnref-58"><sup>[58]</sup></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-58" id="fn-58"></a> <a href="#fnref-58">[58]</a> +Most of the references in this essay are made to the Perugian chronicles of +Graziani, Matarazzo, Bontempi, and Frolliere, in the <i>Archivio +Storico Italiano</i>, vol. xvi. parts 1 and 2. Ariodante Fabretti's +<i>Biografie dei Capitani Venturieri dell' Umbria</i> supply some +details. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.115" id= +"pg3.115">115</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>themselves</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.116" id="pg3.116">116</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.117" id= +"pg3.117">117</a></span> 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.118" id="pg3.118">118</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.119" id="pg3.119">119</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-59" name="fnref-59" id="fnref-59"><sup>[59]</sup></a></p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-59" id="fn-59"></a> <a href="#fnref-59">[59]</a> +It will not be forgotten by students of Italian history that Umbria was the +cradle of the <i>Battuti</i> or Flagellants, who overspread Italy +in the fourteenth century, and to whose devotion were due the +<i>Laude</i>, or popular hymns of the religious confraternities, +which in course of time produced the <i>Sacre Rappresentazioni</i> +of fifteenth-century Florentine literature. Umbria, and especially +Perugia and Assisi, seems to have been inventive in piety between +1200 and 1400.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The Baglioni first came into notice during the wars they carried +on with the Oddi of Perugia in the fourteenth and fifteenth +centuries.<a href="#fn-60" name="fnref-60" id="fnref-60"><sup>[60]</sup></a> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.120" id="pg3.120">120</a></span> +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.<a href="#fn-61" name="fnref-61" id="fnref-61"><sup>[61]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-62" name="fnref-62" id="fnref-62"><sup>[62]</sup></a> +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 <i>castello</i>, and which is now an +open place above the Porta San Carlo. From the <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.121" id="pg3.121">121</a></span> balconies and +turrets of these palaces, swarming with their <i>bravi</i>, 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 <i>vendette</i> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-60" id="fn-60"></a> <a href="#fnref-60">[60]</a> +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, <i>al quale uscivano e bionde tresse sotto la +bella armadura</i>.' 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). +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-61" id="fn-61"></a> <a href="#fnref-61">[61]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-62" id="fn-62"></a> <a href="#fnref-62">[62]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>It is not until 1495 that the history of the Baglioni becomes +dramatic, possibly because till then they lacked the pen of +Matarazzo.<a href="#fn-63" name="fnref-63" id="fnref-63"><sup>[63]</sup></a> +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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.122" id="pg3.122">122</a></span> great +strength Morgante,<a href="#fn-64" name="fnref-64" id="fnref-64"><sup>[64]</sup></a> +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, <i>serragli</i>, 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.<a href="#fn-65" name="fnref-65" id="fnref-65"><sup>[65]</sup></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-63" id="fn-63"></a> <a href="#fnref-63">[63]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-64" id="fn-64"></a> <a href="#fnref-64">[64]</a> +This name, it may be incidentally mentioned, proves the wide-spread +popularity of Pulci's poem, the <i>Morgante Maggiore</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-65" id="fn-65"></a> <a href="#fnref-65">[65]</a> +'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). +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.123" id="pg3.123">123</a></span> 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.'</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.124" id="pg3.124">124</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.125" id="pg3.125">125</a></span> youth with every form of +lust and violence, and capable of any crime.<a href="#fn-66" name="fnref-66" id="fnref-66"><sup>[66]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.126" id="pg3.126">126</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-67" name="fnref-67" id="fnref-67"><sup>[67]</sup></a> +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 <i>el gran +tradimento</i>: 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.127" id="pg3.127">127</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-68" name="fnref-68" id="fnref-68"><sup>[68]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.128" id= +"pg3.128">128</a></span> 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.'<a href="#fn-69" name="fnref-69" id="fnref-69"><sup>[69]</sup></a> +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: <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.129" id="pg3.129">129</a></span> '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.'<a href="#fn-70" name="fnref-70" id="fnref-70"><sup>[70]</sup></a> +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 <i>el gran tradimento</i>. 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +From his chest<br /> +Heaving a heavy breath, King Eteocles heard<br /> +His mother, and stretched forth a cold damp hand<br /> +On hers, and nothing said, but with his eyes<br /> +Spake to her by his tears, showing kind thoughts<br /> +In symbols.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-66" id="fn-66"></a> <a href="#fnref-66">[66]</a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-67" id="fn-67"></a> <a href="#fnref-67">[67]</a> +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.'</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-68" id="fn-68"></a> <a href="#fnref-68">[68]</a> '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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-69" id="fn-69"></a> <a href="#fnref-69">[69]</a> +Here his lordship received upon his noble person so many wounds that he +stretched his graceful limbs upon the earth.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-70" id="fn-70"></a> <a href="#fnref-70">[70]</a> +'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.'</p> + +<p>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,<a href="#fn-71" name="fnref-71" id="fnref-71"><sup>[71]</sup></a> +that she too had some portion in the sorrow of that mother who had wept for Christ? +The <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.130" id="pg3.130">130</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-71" id="fn-71"></a> <a href="#fnref-71">[71]</a> +See Matarazzo, <a href="#pg3.134">p. 134</a>, for this +detail. +</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-72" name="fnref-72" id="fnref-72"><sup>[72]</sup></a> 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.<a href="#fn-73" name="fnref-73" id="fnref-73"><sup>[73]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.131" id="pg3.131">131</a></span> brother. To +such mad freaks of rage and passion were the inhabitants of a +mediæval town in Italy exposed! They make us understand the +<i>ordinanze di giustizia</i>, by which to be a noble was a crime +in Florence.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-72" id="fn-72"></a> <a href="#fnref-72">[72]</a> +See Varchi (ed. Lemonnier, 1857), vol. ii. p. 265, vol. iii. pp. 224, +652, and Corio (Venice, 1554), p. 326, for instances of <i>dipinti +per traditori</i>. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-73" id="fn-73"></a> <a href="#fnref-73">[73]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-74" name="fnref-74" id="fnref-74"><sup>[74]</sup></a> 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.<a href="#fn-75" name="fnref-75" id="fnref-75"><sup>[75]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-76" name="fnref-76" id="fnref-76"><sup>[76]</sup></a> +At last the time came for him to die +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.132" id="pg3.132">132</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-77" name="fnref-77" id="fnref-77"><sup>[77]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-78" name="fnref-78" id="fnref-78"><sup>[78]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-79" name="fnref-79" id="fnref-79"><sup>[79]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.133" id= +"pg3.133">133</a></span> 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.'<a href="#fn-80" name="fnref-80" id="fnref-80"><sup>[80]</sup></a> +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, <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.134" id="pg3.134">134</a></span> '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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-74" id="fn-74"></a> <a href="#fnref-74">[74]</a> +See Frollieri, p. 437, for a very curious account of his character. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-75" id="fn-75"></a> <a href="#fnref-75">[75]</a> +Fabretti (vol. iii. pp. 193-202. and notes) discusses this +circumstance in detail. Machiavelli's critique runs thus +(<i>Discorsi</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-76" id="fn-76"></a> <a href="#fnref-76">[76]</a> +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, <i>The Cenci</i>.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-77" id="fn-77"></a> <a href="#fnref-77">[77]</a> +Fabretti, vol. iii. p. 230, vol. iv. p. 10. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-78" id="fn-78"></a> <a href="#fnref-78">[78]</a> +See Varchi, <i>Storie Florentine</i>, vol. i. p. 224. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-79" id="fn-79"></a> <a href="#fnref-79">[79]</a> +Ibid. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-80" id="fn-80"></a> <a href="#fnref-80">[80]</a> +Fabretti, vol. iv. p. 206. +</p> + +<p>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:<a href="#fn-81" name="fnref-81" id="fnref-81"><sup>[81]</sup></a> +'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, +<i>propriâ autoritate et manu regiâ</i>. 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.135" id="pg3.135">135</a></span> 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:<a href="#fn-82" name="fnref-82" id="fnref-82"><sup>[82]</sup></a> +'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 <i>esprit de ville</i> which through +successive centuries and amid all vicissitudes of politics divided +the Italians against themselves, and proved an insuperable obstacle +to unity.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-81" id="fn-81"></a> <a href="#fnref-81">[81]</a> +Pp. 102, 103. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-82" id="fn-82"></a> <a href="#fnref-82">[82]</a> +P. 139. +</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.136" id="pg3.136">136</a></span> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.137" id="pg3.137">137</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap38"></a>ORVIETO</h2> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.138" id="pg3.138">138</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-83" name="fnref-83" id="fnref-83"><sup>[83]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-83" id="fn-83"></a> <a href="#fnref-83">[83]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.139" id="pg3.139">139</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.140" id="pg3.140">140</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>The great Duomo was erected at the end of the thirteenth century +to commemorate the Miracle of Bolsena. The value <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.141" id="pg3.141">141</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.142" id= +"pg3.142">142</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.143" id="pg3.143">143</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-84" name="fnref-84" id="fnref-84"><sup>[84]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-84" id="fn-84"></a> <a href="#fnref-84">[84]</a> +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,' <i>Renaissance in +Italy</i>, Part III. chap. ii. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.144" id="pg3.144">144</a></span> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.145" id= +"pg3.145">145</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-85" name="fnref-85" id="fnref-85"><sup>[85]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-85" id="fn-85"></a> <a href="#fnref-85">[85]</a> +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,' <i>Renaissance in Italy</i>, Part III. +chap. iii.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.146" id="pg3.146">146</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.147" id="pg3.147">147</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.148" id= +"pg3.148">148</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.149" id="pg3.149">149</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.150" id= +"pg3.150">150</a></span> 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.151" id= +"pg3.151">151</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-86" name="fnref-86" id="fnref-86"><sup>[86]</sup></a> +Besides, the artists of the sixteenth <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.152" id= +"pg3.152">152</a></span> 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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.153" id= +"pg3.153">153</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.154" id= +"pg3.154">154</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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!</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-86" id="fn-86"></a> <a href="#fnref-86">[86]</a> +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 <i>Luca Signorelli</i> (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,' <i>Renaissance in Italy</i>, Part III. I +may also mention two able articles by Professor Colvin published a +few years since in the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.155" id="pg3.155">155</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap39"></a>LUCRETIUS</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.156" id= +"pg3.156">156</a></span> 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 <i>Ave Cæsar!</i> 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.</p> + +<p>These remarks, familiar to students, form a proper prelude to +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.157" id="pg3.157">157</a></span> 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; <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.158" id= +"pg3.158">158</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +rixantes potius quam corpora desererentur: +</p> + +<p>as though a scythe-sweep from the arm of Death had cut the +thread of singing short.</p> + +<p>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,</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare,<br /> +With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way,<br /> +And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Poems of the perfect Hellenic type may be compared to bronze +statues, in the material of which many divers metals <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.159" id="pg3.159">159</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +tu regere imperio populos Romane memento. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Æneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, alma Venus. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.160" id= +"pg3.160">160</a></span> in gremium qui sæpe tuum se<br /> +reicit æterno devictus volnere amoris,<br /> +atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta<br /> +pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visus,<br /> +eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore.<br /> +hunc tu, diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto<br /> +circumfusa super, suavis ex ore loquelas<br /> +funde petens placidam Romanis, incluta, pacem.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.<a href="#fn-87" name="fnref-87" id="fnref-87"><sup>[87]</sup></a> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ulcus enim vivescit et inveterascit alendo<br /> +inque dies gliscit furor atque aerumna gravescit. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-87" id="fn-87"></a> <a href="#fnref-87">[87]</a> +A fragment preserved from the <i>Danaides</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +sic in amore Venus simulacris ludit amantis,<br /> +nec satiare queunt spectando corpora coram<br /> +nec manibus quicquam teneris abradere membris<br /> +possunt errantes incerti corpore toto.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.161" id="pg3.161">161</a></span> +denique cum membris conlatis flore fruuntur<br /> +ætatis, iam cum præsagit gaudia corpus<br /> +atque in eost Venus ut muliebria conserat arva,<br /> +adfigunt avide corpus iunguntque salivas<br /> +oris et inspirant pressantes dentibus ora,<br /> +nequiquam, quoniam nil inde abradere possunt<br /> +nec penetrare et abire in corpus corpore toto.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The master-word in this passage is <i>nequiquam</i>. '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,<a href="#fn-88" name="fnref-88" id="fnref-88"><sup>[88]</sup></a> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +et Venus in silvis iungebat corpora amantum. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +What a picture of primeval breadth and vastness! The <i>vice +égrillard</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.162" id="pg3.162">162</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-88" id="fn-88"></a> <a href="#fnref-88">[88]</a> +See, for instance, his meeting of Ixion with the phantom of Juno, or his +design for Leda and the Swan. +</p> + +<p>In like manner, the Lucretian conception of Ennui is wholly +Roman:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Si possent homines, proinde ac sentire videntur<br /> +pondus inesse animo quod se gravitate fatiget,<br /> +e quibus id fiat causis quoque noscere et unde<br /> +tanta mali tamquam moles in pectore constet,<br /> +haut ita vitam agerent, ut nunc plerumque videmus<br /> +quid sibi quisque velit nescire et quærere semper<br /> +commutare locum quasi onus deponere possit.<br /> +exit sæpe foras magnis ex ædibus ille,<br /> +esse domi quem pertæsumst, subitoque revertit,<br /> +quippe foris nilo melius qui sentiat esse.<br /> +currit agens mannos ad villam præcipitanter,<br /> +auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans;<br /> +oscitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villæ,<br /> +aut abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quærit,<br /> +aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit,<br /> +hoc se quisque modo fugit (at quem scilicet, ut fit,<br /> +effugere haut potis est, ingratis hæret) et odit<br /> +propterea, morbi quia causam non tenet æger;<br /> +quam bene si videat, iam rebus quisque relictis<br /> +naturam primum studeat cognoscere rerum,<br /> +temporis æterni quoniam, non unius horæ,<br /> +ambigitur status, in quo sit mortalibus omnis<br /> +ætas, post mortem quæ restat cumque manenda.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.163" id="pg3.163">163</a></span> 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 <i>ennui</i> 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.<a href="#fn-89" name="fnref-89" id="fnref-89"><sup>[89]</sup></a> +Indeed, the Latin language has no one phrase denoting Ennui;—<i>livor</i> and +<i>fastidium</i>, and even <i>tædium vitæ</i>, 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.164" id="pg3.164">164</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-89" id="fn-89"></a> <a href="#fnref-89">[89]</a> +See the prelude to <i>Les Confessions d'un Enfant du Siècle</i> and +<i>Les Nuits</i>. +</p> + +<p>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— <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.165" id="pg3.165">165</a></span> imposed with +such terrific force upon the mediæval consciousness. There is +no need to conclude that Persius was a Christian because he +wrote—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Magne pater divum, sævos punire tyrannos, etc., +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +sed metus in vita poenarum pro male factis<br /> +est insignibus insignis, scelerisque luella,<br /> +carcer et horribilis de saxo iactu' deorsum,<br /> +verbera carnifices robur pix lammina tædæ;<br /> +quæ tamen etsi absunt, at mens sibi conscia facti<br /> +præmetuens adhibet stimulos terretque flagellis<br /> +nec videt interea qui terminus esse malorum<br /> +possit nec quæ sit poenarum denique finis<br /> +atque eadem metuit magis hæc ne in morte gravescant.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.166" id="pg3.166">166</a></span> 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—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +And Death once dead, there's no more dying then, +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +might be written as a motto on the title-page of the book, which is full of +passages like this:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +scire licet nobis nil esse in morte timendum<br /> +nec miserum fieri qui non est posse neque hilum<br /> +differre anne ullo fuerit iam tempore natus,<br /> +mortalem vitam mors cum immortalis ademit. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +hinc indignatur se mortalem esse creatum<br /> +nec videt in vera nullum fore morte alium se<br /> +qui possit vivus sibi se lugere peremptum<br /> +stansque iacentem se lacerari urive dolere. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.167" id= +"pg3.167">167</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +'iam iam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor<br /> +optima nec dulces occurrent oscula nati<br /> +præripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent.<br /> +non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque<br /> +præsidium. misero misere' aiunt 'omnia ademit<br /> +una dies infesta tibi tot præmia vitæ.'<br /> +illud in his rebus non addunt 'nec tibi earum<br /> +iam desiderium rerum super insidet una.'<br /> +quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur,<br /> +dissoluant animi magno se angore metuque.<br /> +'tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris ævi<br /> +quod superest cunctis privatu' doloribus ægris.<br /> +at nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto<br /> +insatiabiliter deflevimus, æternumque<br /> +nulla dies nobis mærorem e pectore demet.' +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +haut igitur leti præclusa est ianua cælo<br /> +nec soli terræque neque altis æquoris undis,<br /> +sed patet immani et vasto respectat hiatu. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + miscetur funere vagor<br /> +quem pueri tollunt visentis luminis oras;<br /> +nec nox ulla diem neque noctem aurora secutast<br /> +quæ non audierit mixtos vagitibus ægris<br /> +ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.168" id="pg3.168">168</a></span> +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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + quare mors immatura vagatur?<br /> +tum porro puer, ut sævis proiectus ab undis<br /> +navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni<br /> +vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras<br /> +nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit,<br /> +vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut æcumst<br /> +cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +nam dolor ac morbus leti fabricator uterquest.<br /> +claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua, labat mens. +</p> + +<p>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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + sic rerum summa novatur<br /> +semper, et inter se mortales mutua vivunt,<br /> +augescunt aliæ gentes, aliæ minuuntur,<br /> +inque brevi spatio mutantur sæcla animantum<br /> +et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradunt. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.169" id="pg3.169">169</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee,<br /> +Laved in the flood of thy bliss, O Death. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.</p> + +<p>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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum,<br /> +quandoquidem natura animi mortalis habetur.<br /> +et velut anteacto nil tempore sensimus ægri,<br /> +ad confligendum venientibus undique Poenis,<br /> +omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu<br /> +horrida contremuere sub altis ætheris oris,<br /> +<i>in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum</i><br /> +<i>omnibus humanis esset terraque marique</i>,<br /> +sic: +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +The lines in italics could have been written by none but a <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.170" id="pg3.170">170</a></span> 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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +et volgo faciunt id lutea russaque vela<br /> +et ferrugina, cum magnis intenta theatris<br /> +per malos volgata trabesque trementia flutant.<br /> +namque ibi consessum caveai supter et omnem<br /> +scænai speciem, patrum coetumque decorum<br /> +inficiunt coguntque suo fluitare colore. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Tantæ molis erat Romanam condere gentem. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="p2"> +But Lucretius is not only the poet <i>par excellence</i> 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.171" id="pg3.171">171</a></span> 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: <i>magnitudine laborat +suâ</i>; 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.172" id= +"pg3.172">172</a></span> Empedocles belonged essentially to a +transitional stage of human culture.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.173" id="pg3.173">173</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.174" id="pg3.174">174</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +ergo vivida vis animi pervicit et extra<br /> +processit longe flammantia moenia mundi. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.175" id="pg3.175">175</a></span></p> + +<p class="noindent"> +No other poet who ever lived in any age, or any shore, drew +inspiration from founts more passionless and more impersonal.</p> + +<p>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).</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.176" id="pg3.176">176</a></span> +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 <i>absolute +knowledge</i>—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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.177" id="pg3.177">177</a></span> 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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Quæ bene cognita si teneas, natura videtur<br /> +libera continuo dominis privata superbis<br /> +ipsa sua per se sponte omnia dis agere expers. +</p> + +<p>Here again is a demonstration of the absurdity of supposing that +the world was made for the use of men (v. 156):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +dicere porro hominum causa voluisse parare<br /> +præclaram mundi naturam proptereaque<br /> +adlaudabile opus divom laudare decere<br /> +æternumque putare atque inmortale futurum<br /> +nec fas esse, deum quod sit ratione vetusta<br /> +gentibus humanis fundatum perpetuo ævo,<br /> +sollicitare suis ulla vi ex sedibus umquam<br /> +nec verbis vexare et ab imo evertere summa,<br /> +cetera de genere hoc adfingere et addere, Memmi<br /> +desiperest. +</p> + +<p> +A like cogent rhetoric is directed against the arguments of +toleology (iv. 823):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> + Illud in his rebus vitium vementer avessis<br /> +effugere, errorem vitareque præmetuenter,<br /> +lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata,<br /> +prospicere ut possemus, et ut proferre queamus<br /> +proceros passus, ideo fastigia posse<br /> +surarum ac feminum pedibus fundata plicari,<br /> +bracchia tum porro validis ex apta lacertis<br /> +esse manusque datas utraque ex parte ministras,<br /> +ut facere ad vitam possemus quæ foret usus.<br /> +cetera de genere hoc inter quæcumque pretantur<br /> +omnia perversa præpostera sunt ratione,<br /> +nil ideo quoniam natumst in corpore ut uti<br /> +possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum.<br /> +nec fuit ante videre oculorum lumina nata<br /> +nec dictis orare prius quam lingua creatast,<br /> +sed potius longe linguæ præcessit origo<br /> +sermonem multoque creatæ sunt prius aures<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.178" id="pg3.178">178</a></span> +quam sonus est auditus, et omnia denique membra<br /> +ante fuere, ut opinor, eorum quam foret usus.<br /> +haud igitur potuere utendi crescere causa. +</p> + +<p>The ultimate dissolution and the gradual decay of the +terrestrial globe is set forth in the following luminous passage +(ii. 1148):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Sic igitur magni quoque circum moenia mundi<br /> +expugnata dabunt labem putrisque ruinas.<br /> +iamque adeo fracta est ætas effetaque tellus<br /> +vix animalia parva creat quæ cuncta creavit<br /> +sæcla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu.<a href="#fn-90" name="fnref-90" id="fnref-90"><sup>[90]</sup></a> +</p> + + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-90" id="fn-90"></a> <a href="#fnref-90">[90]</a> +Compare book v. 306-317 on the evidences of decay continually at work in +the fabric of the world. +</p> + +<p>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):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +quapropter cælum simili ratione fatendumst<br /> +terramque et solem lunam mare, cetera quæ sunt<br /> +non esse unica, sed numero magis innumerali.<a href="#fn-91" name="fnref-91" id="fnref-91"><sup>[91]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-91" id="fn-91"></a> <a href="#fnref-91">[91]</a> +The same truth is insisted on with even greater force of language in +vi. 649-652. +</p> + +<p>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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum<br /> +ordine se suo quæque sagaci mente locarunt<br /> +nec quos quæque darent motus pepigere profecto,<br /> +sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum<br /> +ex infinito iam tempore percita plagis<br /> +ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita ferri<br /> +omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertemptare,<br /> +quæcumque inter se possent congressa creare,<br /> +propterea fit uti magnum volgata per ævom<br /> +omne genus coetus et motus experiundo<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.179" id="pg3.179">179</a></span> +tandem conveniant ea quæ convecta repente<br /> +magnarum rerum fiunt exordia sæpe,<br /> +terrai maris et cæli generisque animantum. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>sprezzatura</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.180" id= +"pg3.180">180</a></span> 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<a href="#fn-92" name="fnref-92" id="fnref-92"><sup>[92]</sup></a> +(v. 737):— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +it ver et Venus, et veris prænuntius ante<br /> +pennatus graditur zephyrus, vestigia propter<br /> +Flora quibus mater præspargens ante viai<br /> +cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet.<br /> +inde loci sequitur calor aridus et comes una<br /> +pulverulenta Ceres et etesia flabra aquilonum,<br /> +inde antumnus adit, graditur simul Eubius Euan,<br /> +inde aliæ tempestates ventique secuntur,<br /> +altitonans Volturnus et auster fulmine pollens.<br /> +tandem bruma nives adfert pigrumque rigorem,<br /> +prodit hiemps, sequitur crepitans hanc dentibus algor. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-92" id="fn-92"></a> <a href="#fnref-92">[92]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>bell' età dell' oro</i>: 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.181" id= +"pg3.181">181</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +in cæloque deum sedes et templa locarunt,<br /> +per cælum volvi quia nox et luna videtur,<br /> +luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa<br /> +noctivagæque faces cæli flammæque volantes,<br /> +nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando<br /> +et rapidi fremitus et murmura magna minarum. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.182" id="pg3.182">182</a></span> 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 +<i>vociferari</i>, 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):—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +O genus infelix humanum, talia divis<br /> +cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas!<br /> +quantos tum gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis<br /> +volnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu' nostris!<br /> +nec pietas ullast velatum sæpe videri<br /> +vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras<br /> +nec procumbere humi prostratum et pandere palmas<br /> +ante deum delubra nec aras sanguine multo<br /> +spargere quadrupedum nec votis nectere vota,<br /> +sed mage pacata posse omnia mente tueri.<br /> +nam cum suspicimus magni cælestia mundi<br /> +ellisque micantibus æthera fixum,<br /> +et venit in mentem solis lunæque viarum,<br /> +tunc aliis oppressa malis in pectora cura<br /> +illa quoque expergefactum caput erigere infit,<br /> +ne quæ forte deum nobis inmensa potestas<br /> +sit, vario motu quæ candida sidera verset.<br /> +temptat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas,<br /> +ecquænam fuerit mundi genitalis origo,<br /> +et simul ecquæ sit finis, quoad moenia mundi<br /> +solliciti motus hunc possint ferre laborem,<br /> +an divinitus æterna donata salute<br /> +perpetuo possint ævi labentia tractu<br /> +inmensi validas ævi contemnere viris. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +It would be impossible to adduce from any other poet a <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.183" id="pg3.183">183</a></span> 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.184" id="pg3.184">184</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap40"></a>ANTINOUS</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.185" id="pg3.185">185</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.186" id= +"pg3.186">186</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-93" name="fnref-93" id="fnref-93"><sup>[93]</sup></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-93" id="fn-93"></a> <a href="#fnref-93">[93]</a> +Fragment, <i>The Coliseum</i>. +</p> + +<p>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, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.187" id="pg3.187">187</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.188" id="pg3.188">188</a></span> 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 <i>atriensis</i>. If Antinous took the rank +of <i>atriensis</i> in the imperial <i>pædagogium</i>, his +position would have been, to say the least, respectable; for to +these upper servants was committed the charge of the <i>atrium</i>, +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 <i>atriensis</i> would have +had no <i>atrium</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.189" id="pg3.189">189</a></span> 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?</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.190" id="pg3.190">190</a></span> 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, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.191" id="pg3.191">191</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-94" name="fnref-94" id="fnref-94"><sup>[94]</sup></a> +Antinous continued to be worshipped until the reign of Valentinian. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-94" id="fn-94"></a> <a href="#fnref-94">[94]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.192" id= +"pg3.192">192</a></span> 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.'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.193" id="pg3.193">193</a></span> given by him, which Hadrian +himself is supposed to have made up.'</p> + +<p>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.'</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.194" id= +"pg3.194">194</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>devotio</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.195" id="pg3.195">195</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>aliis eum devotum pro Hadriano</i>, 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. <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.196" id="pg3.196">196</a></span> 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 +<i>hostia succidanea</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.197" id="pg3.197">197</a></span> 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 '<i>futurorum sciscitationi nimiæ deditum</i>.' +Tertullian described him as '<i>curiositatum omnium +exploratorem</i>.' 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. <i>Quum inspiceret exta +puerilia</i>, 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 <i>extispicium</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>Hadrian was a man in whom the most conflicting qualities <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.198" id="pg3.198">198</a></span> 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: <i>audivi +voces divinas</i>. 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 +<i>Græculus</i> 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 <i>bonhomie</i> of boon +companionship, displaying a warm heart to his friends, and using +magnificent generosity. He restored the <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.199" id="pg3.199">199</a></span> 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 <i>ennui</i>, desiring the death which would not come to his +relief.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.200" id= +"pg3.200">200</a></span> 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 <i>Græculus</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>But now, returning to the two alternatives regarding his +friend's death: was this philo-Hellenic Emperor the man to have +immolated Antinous for <i>extispicium</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.201" id="pg3.201">201</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <i>quem +muliebriter flevit</i>, 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 <i>extispicium</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.202" id= +"pg3.202">202</a></span> 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 <i>rôle</i> too fascinating to be rejected. The world, in +spite of covert sneers, lent itself to the sham, and Antinous +became a god.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.203" id="pg3.203">203</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.204" id= +"pg3.204">204</a></span> 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 <i>exoletus</i>. 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.</p> + +<p>The <i>senatus consultum</i> 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: <i>Græci quidam volente Hadriano eum +consecraverunt</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.205" id="pg3.205">205</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.206" id="pg3.206">206</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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—</p> + +<p class="center"> +ΑΝΤΙΝΟΩΙ +ΣΥΝΘΡΟΝΩΙ +ΤΩΝ ΕΝ +ΑΙΓΥΗΤΩΙ +ΘΕΩΝ. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.207" id="pg3.207">207</a></span> +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;<a href="#fn-95" name="fnref-95" id="fnref-95"><sup>[95]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.208" id="pg3.208">208</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-95" id="fn-95"></a> <a href="#fnref-95">[95]</a> +For example:</p> + +<p class="letter"> +ΟΣΤΙΛΙΟΣ +ΜΑΡΚΕΛΛΟΣΟ +ΙΕΡΕΥΣΤΟΥ +ΑΝΤΙΟΟΥ +ΑΝΕΘΗΚΕ +ΤΟΙΣ +ΑΧΑΙΟΙΣ and a similar +inscription for Corinth. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.209" id="pg3.209">209</a></span> +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—<i>fretriaco Neapoli Antinoiton et Eunostidon</i>. +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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>Tetrastylo Antinoi</i>. 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.210" id="pg3.210">210</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.211" id= +"pg3.211">211</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.212" id= +"pg3.212">212</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.213" id= +"pg3.213">213</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Antinoo et Beleno par ætas famaque par est;<br /> + Cur non Antinous sit quoque qui Belenus? +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.214" id= +"pg3.214">214</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.215" id="pg3.215">215</a></span> +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—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Tuque adeo, quem mox quæ sint habitura deorum<br /> +Concilia, incertum est. +</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.216" id="pg3.216">216</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.217" id="pg3.217">217</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.218" id= +"pg3.218">218</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.219" id= +"pg3.219">219</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.220" id="pg3.220">220</a></span> +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?</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.221" id="pg3.221">221</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>It would be an interesting task to compose a <i>catalogue +raisonné</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.222" id="pg3.222">222</a></span> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.223" id="pg3.223">223</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-96" name="fnref-96" id="fnref-96"><sup>[96]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-96" id="fn-96"></a> <a href="#fnref-96">[96]</a> +<a href="images/cover.jpg">See Frontispiece.</a> +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.224" id="pg3.224">224</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-97" name="fnref-97" id="fnref-97"><sup>[97]</sup></a> +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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.225" id="pg3.225">225</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-97" id="fn-97"></a> <a href="#fnref-97">[97]</a> +See the article on Antinous, by Victor Rydberg, in the <i>Svensk Tidskrift +för Litteratur, Politik, och Ekonomi</i>. 1875, Stockholm. +Also Karl Bötticher, <i>Königliches Museum, +Erklärendes Verzeichniss</i>. Berlin, 1871.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.226" id= +"pg3.226">226</a></span> will? On the other hand, we must admit that +the altar itself is not dressed for a funereal sacrifice.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.227" id="pg3.227">227</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.228" id= +"pg3.228">228</a></span> 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 <i>jeu d'esprit</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.229" id="pg3.229">229</a></span> +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.<a href="#fn-98" name="fnref-98" id="fnref-98"><sup>[98]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-98" id="fn-98"></a> <a href="#fnref-98">[98]</a> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.230" id="pg3.230">230</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap41"></a>SPRING WANDERINGS</h2> + +<p class="center"> +A<small>NA</small>-C<small>APRI</small> +</p> + +<p> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.231" id="pg3.231">231</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.232" id="pg3.232">232</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p class="center"> +F<small>ROM</small> C<small>APRI TO</small> I<small>SCHIA</small> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>It had been settled that we should start upon the first <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.233" id="pg3.233">233</a></span> seafaring +dawn for Ischia or Sorrento, according as the wind might set; and I +was glad when, early one morning, the captain of the <i>Serena</i> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.234" id="pg3.234">234</a></span> 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 <i>gouache</i> pictures through the last two centuries, and soon +after noon we came to Casamicciola.</p> + +<p class="center"> +L<small>A</small> P<small>ICCOLA</small> S<small>ENTINELLA</small> +</p> + +<p>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 <i>raison d'être</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.235" id= +"pg3.235">235</a></span> 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—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Ischia! c'est là qu'on a des yeux,<br /> +C'est là qu'un corsage amoureux<br /> + Serre la hanche.<br /> +Sur un bas rouge bien tiré<br /> +Brille, sous le jupon doré,<br /> + La mule blanche— +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Flying Dutchman</i>, 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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.236" id= +"pg3.236">236</a></span></p> + +<p class="center"> +I<small>SCHIA AND</small> F<small>ORIO</small> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.237" id="pg3.237">237</a></span> +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 +<i>genius loci</i> 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?</p> + +<p class="center"> +M<small>ONTE</small> E<small>POMEO</small> +</p> + +<p>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; <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.238" id="pg3.238">238</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>On Epomeo's topmost cone a chapel dedicated to S. Niccolo da +Bari, the Italian patron of seamen, has been <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.239" id="pg3.239">239</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.240" id="pg3.240">240</a></span> +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</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade,<br /> +Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream;<br /> +And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said,<br /> +That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam,<br /> +Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread,<br /> +And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him;<br /> +But when on high hurl winds and clouds together,<br /> +Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic <i>balze</i>, 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.241" id="pg3.241">241</a></span> +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 <i>à la belle étoile</i>, 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.</p> + +<p class="center"> +F<small>ROM</small> I<small>SCHIA TO</small> N<small>APLES</small> +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.242" id="pg3.242">242</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Mecum si sapies, Gravina, mecum<br /> +Baias, et placidos coles recessus,<br /> +Quos ipsæ et veneres colunt, et illa<br /> +Quæ mentes hominum regit voluptas.<br /> +Hic vina et choreæ jocique regnant,<br /> +Regnant et charites facetiæque.<br /> +Has sedes amor, has colit cupido.<br /> +His passim juvenes puellulæque<br /> +Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur,<br /> +Coenantque et dapibus leporibusque<br /> +Miscent delitias venustiores:<br /> +Miscent gaudia et osculationes,<br /> +Atque una sociis toris foventur,<br /> +Has te ad delitias vocant camoenæ;<br /> +Invitat mare, myrteumque littus;<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.243" id="pg3.243">243</a></span> +Invitant volueres canoræ, et ipse<br /> +Gaurus pampineas parat corollas.<a href="#fn-99" name="fnref-99" id="fnref-99"><sup>[99]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-99" id="fn-99"></a> <a href="#fnref-99">[99]</a> +These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's +<i>Hendecasyllabi</i> (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint +the amusements of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I +have translated them:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina,<br /> +With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiæ,<br /> +Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who<br /> +Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite.<br /> +Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter;<br /> +Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness;<br /> +Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too,<br /> +Where glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides<br /> +Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather,<br /> +Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets<br /> +Blend with dearer delights and love's embraces,<br /> +Blend with pleasures of youth and honeyed kisses,<br /> +Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber.<br /> +Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments;<br /> +Thee those billows allure, the myrtled seashore,<br /> +Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus<br /> +Twines his redolent wreath of vines and ivy. +</p> + +<p>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 +<i>guardia-porta</i>, 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, <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.244" id="pg3.244">244</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>contadini</i> 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.</p> + +<p class="center"> +N<small>IGHT AT</small> P<small>OMPEII</small> +</p> + +<p>On to Pompeii in the clear sunset, falling very lightly upon +mountains, islands, little ports, and indentations of the bay.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.245" id="pg3.245">245</a></span> 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 <i>loggia</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>cenacolo</i> +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 <i>contadino</i> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.246" id="pg3.246">246</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p class="center"> +S<small>AN</small> G<small>ERMANO</small> +</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.247" id="pg3.247">247</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A gentle old German monk conducted Christian and me over the +convent—boys' school, refectory, printing press, <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.248" id="pg3.248">248</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.249" id= +"pg3.249">249</a></span> 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.250" id="pg3.250">250</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap42"></a>AMALFI, PÆSTUM, CAPRI</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.251" id="pg3.251">251</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.252" id= +"pg3.252">252</a></span> 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 <i>tari</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.253" id= +"pg3.253">253</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.254" id= +"pg3.254">254</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.255" id= +"pg3.255">255</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.256" id="pg3.256">256</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.257" id= +"pg3.257">257</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.258" id="pg3.258">258</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.259" id="pg3.259">259</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>sparsiones</i>? This question, with the memory of Pompeian +<i>graffiti</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.260" id= +"pg3.260">260</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.261" id="pg3.261">261</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.262" id= +"pg3.262">262</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>'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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.263" id="pg3.263">263</a></span> 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.'<a href="#fn-100" name="fnref-100" id="fnref-100"><sup>[100]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-100" id="fn-100"></a> <a href="#fnref-100">[100]</a> +<i>Athenæus</i>, xiv. 632. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.264" id="pg3.264">264</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The shrine is ruined now; and far away<br /> +To east and west stretch olive groves, whose shade<br /> +Even at the height of summer noon is grey.<br /> +<br /> +Asphodels sprout upon the plinth decayed<br /> +Of these low columns, and the snake hath found<br /> +Her haunt 'neath altar-steps with weeds o'erlaid.<br /> +<br /> +Yet this was once a hero's temple, crowned<br /> +With myrtle-boughs by lovers, and with palm<br /> +By wrestlers, resonant with sweetest sound<br /> +<br /> +Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm,<br /> +And odorous with incense all the year,<br /> +With nard and spice, and galbanum and balm.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.265" id="pg3.265">265</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>All the surroundings are altered now, and the lover of the +picturesque may be truly thankful that the hand of time, by <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.266" id="pg3.266">266</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>asymmetreia</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.267" id="pg3.267">267</a></span> +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, <i>Tempio di Cerere</i> and +<i>Basilica</i>, 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>Neptune</i> are narrowed in a straight line; those of the +<i>Basilica</i> and <i>Ceres</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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— <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.268" id="pg3.268">268</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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: <i>biferique rosaria +Pæsti</i>. 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 <i>tepidi</i> for the +suggestive <i>biferi</i>, while again in his 'Elegies' he uses the +same termination with <i>odorati</i> for his epithet. Martial sings +of <i>Pæstanæ rosæ</i> and <i>Pæstani +gloria ruris</i>. Even Ausonius, <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.269" id="pg3.269">269</a></span> at the very end of Latin +literature, draws from the rosaries of Pæstum a pretty +picture of beauty doomed to premature decline:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Vidi Pæstano gaudere rosaria cultu<br /> + Exoriente novo roscida Lucifero. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +'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.' +</p> + + +<p>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, <i>où sont les neiges +d'antan?</i></p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +εν σπέσσι +γλαφυροισι +παρ' ουκ +εθέλων +εθελούση. +</p> + +<p>This is a truly Odyssean journey. Soon the islands of the Sirens +come in sight,—bare bluffs of rock, shaped like galleys <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.270" id="pg3.270">270</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.271" id="pg3.271">271</a></span> the earth and +air, and by sympathy with a people unspoiled in their healthful +life of labour alternating with simple joy.</p> + +<p>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 (<i>sic</i>) 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.</p> + +<p>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—<i>verbosa et grandis +epistola</i>—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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.272" id="pg3.272">272</a></span> +same forbidding spectre. Here, perchance, were the <i>sedes +arcanarum libidinum</i> 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 <i>Timberio</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.273" id="pg3.273">273</a></span> circumstance of absolute +autocracy, the emperors of the Claudian and Julian houses furnish +the most memorable instance.<a href="#fn-101" name="fnref-101" id="fnref-101"><sup>[101]</sup></a> +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 +<i>Pelagus</i>, 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.274" id="pg3.274">274</a></span> by +Suetonius as to show that it had troubled Caligula profoundly, +proves the fantastic nature of the man, and justifies the +hypothesis of insanity.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-101" id="fn-101"></a> <a href="#fnref-101">[101]</a> +De Quincey, in his essay on <i>The Cæsars</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <i>Nephelai</i>. Such a morning +may be chosen for the <i>giro</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.275" id= +"pg3.275">275</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.276" id= +"pg3.276">276</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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?</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.277" id="pg3.277">277</a></span> 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 <i>piano</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.278" id="pg3.278">278</a></span> 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.' +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.279" id="pg3.279">279</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap43"></a>ETNA</h2> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.280" id="pg3.280">280</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.281" id= +"pg3.281">281</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.282" id="pg3.282">282</a></span> 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,' <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.283" id= +"pg3.283">283</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.284" id="pg3.284">284</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.285" id="pg3.285">285</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +There's love when holy heaven doth wound the earth;<br /> +And love still prompts the land to yearn for bridals:<br /> +The rain that falls in rivers from the sky,<br /> +Impregnates earth: and she brings forth for men<br /> +The flocks and herds and life of teeming Ceres. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +To which let us add:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +But sometimes love is barren, when broad hills,<br /> +Rent with the pangs of passion, yearn in vain,<br /> +Pouring fire tears adown their furrowed cheeks,<br /> +And heaving in the impotence of anguish. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.286" id="pg3.286">286</a></span> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.287" id="pg3.287">287</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <i>Quale per +incertam lunam et sub luce malignâ</i>: 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.288" id="pg3.288">288</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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!—</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.289" id= +"pg3.289">289</a></span></p> + +<p class="poem"> + Quoties Cyclopum effervere in agros<br /> +Vidimus undantem ruptis fornacibus Ætnam,<br /> +Flammarumque globos liquefactaque volvere saxa. +</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.290" id="pg3.290">290</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap44"></a>PALERMO</h2> + +<p class="center"> +<small>THE NORMANS IN SICILY</small> +</p> + +<p> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.291" id="pg3.291">291</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.292" id= +"pg3.292">292</a></span> 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,<a href="#fn-102" name="fnref-102" id="fnref-102"><sup>[102]</sup></a> +presumed to contest this title. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-102" id="fn-102"></a> <a href="#fnref-102">[102]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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 <i>Conca d'Oro</i>, 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.293" id="pg3.293">293</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-103" name="fnref-103" id="fnref-103"><sup>[103]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.294" id="pg3.294">294</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-104" name="fnref-104" id="fnref-104"><sup>[104]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-103" id="fn-103"></a> <a href="#fnref-103">[103]</a> +Boccaccio, Giorn. v. Nov. 6. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-104" id="fn-104"></a> <a href="#fnref-104">[104]</a> +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 (<i>Amari</i>, vol. i.). +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.295" id="pg3.295">295</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-105" name="fnref-105" id="fnref-105"><sup>[105]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.296" id="pg3.296">296</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-105" id="fn-105"></a> <a href="#fnref-105">[105]</a> +King Roger in the mosaics of the Martorana Church at Palermo wears the +dalmatic, and receives his crown from the hands of Christ. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.297" id= +"pg3.297">297</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.298" id= +"pg3.298">298</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.299" id="pg3.299">299</a></span> 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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.300" id="pg3.300">300</a></span> 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,<a href="#fn-106" name="fnref-106" id="fnref-106"><sup>[106]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-107" name="fnref-107" id="fnref-107"><sup>[107]</sup></a> +The temptation to employ these filial <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.301" id= +"pg3.301">301</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-106" id="fn-106"></a> <a href="#fnref-106">[106]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-107" id="fn-107"></a> <a href="#fnref-107">[107]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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 +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.302" id="pg3.302">302</a></span> +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. <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.303" id="pg3.303">303</a></span> The much +praised lake and vale of Enna<a href="#fn-108" name="fnref-108" id="fnref-108"><sup>[108]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.304" id="pg3.304">304</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-108" id="fn-108"></a> <a href="#fnref-108">[108]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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,<a href="#fn-109" name="fnref-109" id="fnref-109"><sup>[109]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.305" id="pg3.305">305</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-109" id="fn-109"></a> <a href="#fnref-109">[109]</a> +In this siege, as in that of the Athenians, and of the Saracens 878 A.D., +decisive engagements took place in the great harbour. +</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi servit et Afer. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.306" id="pg3.306">306</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<a href="#fn-110" name="fnref-110" id="fnref-110"><sup>[110]</sup></a> +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,<a href="#fn-111" name="fnref-111" id="fnref-111"><sup>[111]</sup></a> +and there is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.307" id="pg3.307">307</a></span> +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.<a href="#fn-112" name="fnref-112" id="fnref-112"><sup>[112]</sup></a> +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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.308" id="pg3.308">308</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-113" name="fnref-113" id="fnref-113"><sup>[113]</sup></a> +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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-110" id="fn-110"></a> <a href="#fnref-110">[110]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-111" id="fn-111"></a> <a href="#fnref-111">[111]</a> +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.'—<i>Amari</i>, vol. iii. p. 468. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-112" id="fn-112"></a> <a href="#fnref-112">[112]</a> 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.' +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-113" id="fn-113"></a> <a href="#fnref-113">[113]</a> +The Arabic title of <i>Kâid</i>, which originally was given to a +subordinate captain of the guard, took a wide significance at the +Norman Court. Latinised to <i>gaytus</i>, 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. +</p> + +<p>King Roger, of whom the court geographer Edrisi writes <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.309" id="pg3.309">309</a></span> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.310" id="pg3.310">310</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-114" name="fnref-114" id="fnref-114"><sup>[114]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.311" id="pg3.311">311</a></span> 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.'</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-114" id="fn-114"></a> <a href="#fnref-114">[114]</a> +Tradition asserts that the tocsin of this church gave the signal in +Palermo to the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers. +</p> + +<p>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,<a href="#fn-115" name="fnref-115" id="fnref-115"><sup>[115]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.312" id= +"pg3.312">312</a></span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.313" id= +"pg3.313">313</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-115" id="fn-115"></a> <a href="#fnref-115">[115]</a> +Matteo of Ajello induced William to found an archbishopric at Monreale in +order to spite his rival Offamilio. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.314" id="pg3.314">314</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.315" id="pg3.315">315</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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<a href="#fn-116" name="fnref-116" id="fnref-116"><sup>[116]</sup></a> +who persecuted +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.316" id="pg3.316">316</a></span> +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 <i>genius +loci</i> 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.<a href="#fn-117" name="fnref-117" id="fnref-117"><sup>[117]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name= +"pg3.317" id="pg3.317">317</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-116" id="fn-116"></a> <a href="#fnref-116">[116]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-117" id="fn-117"></a> <a href="#fnref-117">[117]</a> +It is curious to note that in this year 1215, the date of Magna Charta, +Frederick took the Cross at Aix-la-Chapelle. +</p> + +<p>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<a href="#fn-118" name="fnref-118" id="fnref-118"><sup>[118]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.318" id= +"pg3.318">318</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-118" id="fn-118"></a> <a href="#fnref-118">[118]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.319" id="pg3.319">319</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap45"></a>SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI</h2> + +<p> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Illum et labentem Teucri et risere natantem,<br /> +Et salsos rident revomentem pectore fluctus. +</p> + +<p>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 <a name="pg3.320" id="pg3.320"></a><span +class="pagenum">320</span> ματερ +εμά....πολυδένδρεος +Αιτνα. The solemn heights of Castro +Giovanni bring lines of Ovid to our lips:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Haud procul Hennæis lacus est a moenibu altæ<br /> +Nomine Pergus aquæ. Non illo plura Caystros<br /> +Carmina cygnorum labentibus audit in undis.<br /> +Silva coronat aquas, cingens latus omne; suisque<br /> +Frondibus ut velo Phoebeos summovet ignes.<br /> +Frigora dant rami, Tyrios humus humida flores.<br /> +Perpetnum ver est. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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.'</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.321" id="pg3.321">321</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-119" name="fnref-119" id="fnref-119"><sup>[119]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-120" name="fnref-120" id="fnref-120"><sup>[120]</sup></a> +<i>Etiam periere ruinæ.</i> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.322" id="pg3.322">322</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Where is thy splendour now, thy crown of towers,<br /> + Thy beauty visible to all men's eyes,<br /> + The gold and silver of thy treasuries,<br /> +Thy temples of blest gods, thy woven bowers<br /> +Where long-stoled ladies walked in tranquil hours,<br /> + Thy multitudes like stars that crowd the skies?<br /> + All, all are gone. Thy desolation lies<br /> +Bare to the night. The elemental powers<br /> +Resume their empire: on this lonely shore<br /> + Thy deathless Nereids, daughters of the sea,<br /> + Wailing 'mid broken stones unceasingly,<br /> +Like halcyons when the restless south winds roar,<br /> +Sing the sad story of thy woes of yore:<br /> + These plunging waves are all that's left to thee. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.323" id="pg3.323">323</a></span> Athens, raised +Sparta, Macedonia, and finally Rome to the hegemony of the +civilised world.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-119" id="fn-119"></a> <a href="#fnref-119">[119]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-120" id="fn-120"></a> <a href="#fnref-120">[120]</a> +This is not strictly true of Achradina, where some <i>débris</i> may +still be found worth excavating. +</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-121" name="fnref-121" id="fnref-121"><sup>[121]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.324" id="pg3.324">324</a></span> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.325" id="pg3.325">325</a></span> +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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.326" id= +"pg3.326">326</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-121" id="fn-121"></a> <a href="#fnref-121">[121]</a> +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).] +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.327" id="pg3.327">327</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.328" id="pg3.328">328</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.329" id="pg3.329">329</a></span> 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.330" id="pg3.330">330</a></span> 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 <i>à la</i> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.331" id= +"pg3.331">331</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.332" id= +"pg3.332">332</a></span> 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—<i>dolce color d' oriental berillo</i>. +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.<a href="#fn-122" name="fnref-122" id="fnref-122"><sup>[122]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-122" id="fn-122"></a> <a href="#fnref-122">[122]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>The temples of Girgenti are at the distance of two miles <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.333" id="pg3.333">333</a></span> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.334" id="pg3.334">334</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 +<i>asymmetreia</i> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.335" id="pg3.335">335</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.336" id= +"pg3.336">336</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.337" id= +"pg3.337">337</a></span> 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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.338" id="pg3.338">338</a></span> 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, <i>hic jacet</i>.' 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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p><span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.339" id="pg3.339">339</a></span></p> + +<h2><a name="chap46"></a>ATHENS</h2> + +<p> +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 <a name= +"pg3.340" id="pg3.340"></a><span class="pagenum">340</span> 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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.341" id= +"pg3.341">341</a></span> 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.<a href="#fn-123" name="fnref-123" id="fnref-123"><sup>[123]</sup></a> +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<a href="#fn-124" name="fnref-124" id="fnref-124"><sup>[124]</sup></a> +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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.342" id="pg3.342">342</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil,<br /> +Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts<br /> +And eloquence, native to famous wits<br /> +Or hospitable, in her sweet recess,<br /> +City or suburban, studious walks and shades. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-123" id="fn-123"></a> <a href="#fnref-123">[123]</a> +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 <i>purpureus</i> to +Hymettus. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-124" id="fn-124"></a> <a href="#fnref-124">[124]</a> +Jowett's translation, vol. ii. p. 520. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.343" id= +"pg3.343">343</a></span> in which Palestine was the heritage by faith +of a tribe set apart by Jehovah for His own?</p> + +<p>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, <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.344" id= +"pg3.344">344</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.345" id="pg3.345">345</a></span> ancient +station.<a href="#fn-125" name="fnref-125" id="fnref-125"><sup>[125]</sup></a> +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.<a href="#fn-126" name="fnref-126" id="fnref-126"><sup>[126]</sup></a> +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. <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.346" id="pg3.346">346</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-125" id="fn-125"></a> <a href="#fnref-125">[125]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-126" id="fn-126"></a> <a href="#fnref-126">[126]</a> +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. +</p> + +<p>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.<a href="#fn-127" name="fnref-127" id="fnref-127"><sup>[127]</sup></a> +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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.347" id="pg3.347">347</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-127" id="fn-127"></a> <a href="#fnref-127">[127]</a> +My purpose being merely picturesque, I have ignored the grave +antiquarian difficulties which beset the interpretation of this +frieze. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.348" id="pg3.348">348</a></span> 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 <span +class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.349" id="pg3.349">349</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.350" id="pg3.350">350</a></span> Athenian life. +Truly in matters of art we are but infants to the Greeks.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.351" id="pg3.351">351</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.352" id="pg3.352">352</a></span> +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.</p> + +<p> +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:<a href="#fn-128" name="fnref-128" id="fnref-128"><sup>[128]</sup></a>— +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +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.'</p> + +<p>'Who is he?' I said; 'and who is his father?'</p> + +<p>'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.'</p> + +<p>'Certainly I know him,' I said; 'for he was remarkable even +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.353" id="pg3.353">353</a></span> +then when he was still a child, and now I should imagine that he +must be almost a young man.'</p> + +<p>'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.</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>Chaerephon called me and said: 'What do you think of him, +Socrates? Has he not a beautiful face?'</p> + +<p>'That he has indeed,' I said.</p> + +<p>'But you would think nothing of his face,' he replied, 'if you +could see his naked form: he is absolutely perfect.' +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-128" id="fn-128"></a> <a href="#fnref-128">[128]</a> +I quote from Professor Jowett's translation. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.354" id="pg3.354">354</a></span> 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:—</p> + +<p class="p2"> +'Will you tell me by what words or actions I may become endeared to my love?' +</p> + +<p>'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.'</p> + +<p>'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.'</p> + +<p>'That will be the way,' I said. Thereupon I and Ctesippus went +towards the Palæstra, and the rest followed.</p> + +<p>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 <span class= +"pagenum"><a name="pg3.355" id="pg3.355">355</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,<br /> +But musical as is Apollo's lute,<br /> +And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets<br /> +Where no crude surfeit reigns. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.356" id= +"pg3.356">356</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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;<a href="#fn-129" name="fnref-129" id="fnref-129"><sup>[129]</sup></a> +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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.357" id= +"pg3.357">357</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-129" id="fn-129"></a> <a href="#fnref-129">[129]</a> +Την της +πόλεως +δύναμιν καθ' +εμεραν εργω +θεωμένους +και +εραστας +γιγνομένους +αυτης.—Thuc. ii. 43. +</p> + +<p>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.</p> + +<p>A few strokes of the oar carry us away from Peiræus to a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.358" id="pg3.358">358</a></span> +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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The whole disaster, O my queen, began<br /> +With some fell fiend or devil,—I know not whence:<br /> +For thus it was; from the Athenian host<br /> +A man of Hellas came to thy son, Xerxes,<br /> +Saying that when black night shall fall in gloom,<br /> +The Hellenes would no longer stay, but leap<br /> +Each on the benches of his bark, and save<br /> +Hither and thither by stolen flight their lives.<br /> +He, when he heard thereof, discerning not<br /> +The Hellene's craft, no, nor the spite of heaven,<br /> +To all his captains gives this edict forth:<br /> +When as the sun doth cease to light the world,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.359" id= +"pg3.359">359</a></span> And darkness holds the precincts of the sky,<br /> +They should dispose the fleet in three close ranks,<br /> +To guard the outlets and the water-ways;<br /> +Others should compass Ajax' isle around:<br /> +Seeing that if the Hellenes 'scaped grim death<br /> +By finding for their ships some privy exit,<br /> +It was ordained that all should lose their heads.<br /> +So spake he, led by a mad mind astray,<br /> +Nor knew what should be by the will of heaven.<br /> +They, like well-ordered vassals, with assent<br /> +Straightway prepared their food, and every sailor<br /> +Fitted his oar-blade to the steady rowlock.<br /> +But when the sunlight waned and night apace<br /> +Descended, every man who swayed an oar<br /> +Went to the boats with him who wielded armour.<br /> +Then through the ship's length rank cheered rank in concert,<br /> +Sailing as each was set in order due:<br /> +And all night long the tyrants of the ships<br /> +Kept the whole navy cruising to and fro.<br /> +Night passed: yet never did the host of Hellene<br /> +At any point attempt their stolen sally;<br /> +Until at length, when day with her white steeds<br /> +Forth shining, held the whole world under sway.<br /> +First from the Hellenes with a loud clear cry<br /> +Song-like, a shout made music, and therewith<br /> +The echo of the rocky isle rang back<br /> +Shrill triumph: but the vast barbarian host<br /> +Shorn of their hope trembled; for not for flight<br /> +The Hellenes hymned their solemn pæan then—<br /> +Nay, rather as for battle with stout heart.<br /> +Then too the trumpet speaking fired our foes,<br /> +And with a sudden rush of oars in time<br /> +They smote the deep sea at that clarion cry;<br /> +And in a moment you might see them all.<br /> +The right wing in due order well arrayed<br /> +First took the lead; then came the serried squadron<br /> +Swelling against us, and from many voices<br /> +One cry arose: Ho! sons of Hellenes, up!<br /> +Now free your fatherland, now free your sons,<br /> +Your wives, the fanes of your ancestral gods,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.360" id= +"pg3.360">360</a></span> Your fathers' tombs! Now fight you for your all.<br /> +Yea, and from our side brake an answering hum<br /> +Of Persian voices. Then, no more delay,<br /> +Ship upon ship her beak of biting brass<br /> +Struck stoutly. 'Twas a bark, I ween, of Hellas<br /> +First charged, dashing from a Tyrrhenian galleon<br /> +Her prow-gear; then ran hull on hull pell-mell.<br /> +At first the torrent of the Persian navy<br /> +Bore up: but when the multitude of ships<br /> +Were straitly jammed, and none could help another,<br /> +Huddling with brazen-mouthed beaks they clashed<br /> +And brake their serried banks of oars together;<br /> +Nor were the Hellenes slow or slack to muster<br /> +And pound them in a circle. Then ships' hulks<br /> +Floated keel upwards, and the sea was covered<br /> +With shipwreck multitudinous and with slaughter.<br /> +The shores and jutting reefs were full of corpses.<br /> +In indiscriminate rout, with straining oar,<br /> +The whole barbarian navy turned and fled.<br /> +Our foes, like men 'mid tunnies, draughts of fishes,<br /> +With splintered oars and spokes of shattered spars<br /> +Kept striking, grinding, smashing us: shrill shrieks<br /> +With groanings mingled held the hollow deep,<br /> +Till night's dark eye set limit to the slaughter.<br /> +But for our mass of miseries, could I speak<br /> +Straight on for ten days, I should never sum it:<br /> +For know this well, never in one day died<br /> +Of men so many multitudes before. +</p> + +<p>After a pause he resumes his narrative by describing +Psyttaleia:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +There lies an island before Salamis,<br /> +Small, with scant harbour, which dance-loving Pan<br /> +Is wont to tread, haunting the salt sea-beaches.<br /> +There Xerxes placed his chiefs, that when the foes<br /> +Chased from their ships should seek the sheltering isle,<br /> +They might with ease destroy the host of Hellas,<br /> +Saving their own friends from the briny straits.<br /> +Ill had he learned what was to hap; for when<br /> +God gave the glory to the Greeks at sea,<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.361" id="pg3.361">361</a></span> +That same day, having fenced their flesh with brass,<br /> +They leaped from out their ships; and in a circle<br /> +Enclosed the whole girth of the isle, that so<br /> +None knew where he should turn; but many fell<br /> +Crushed with sharp stones in conflict, and swift arrows<br /> +Flew from the quivering bowstrings winged with murder.<br /> +At last in one fierce onset with one shout<br /> +They strike, hack, hew the wretches' limbs asunder,<br /> +Till every man alive had fallen beneath them.<br /> +Then Xerxes groaned, seeing the gulf unclose<br /> +Of grief below him; for his throne was raised<br /> +High in the sight of all by the sea-shore.<br /> +Rending his robes, and shrieking a shrill shriek,<br /> +He hurriedly gave orders to his host;<br /> +Then headlong rushed in rout and heedless ruin.<br /> +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Atossa makes appropriate exclamations of despair and horror. +Then the messenger proceeds:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +The captains of the ships that were not shattered,<br /> +Set speedy sail in flight as the winds blew.<br /> +The remnant of the host died miserably,<br /> +Some in Boeotia round the glimmering springs<br /> +Tired out with thirst; some of us scant of breath<br /> +Escaped, with bare life to the Phocian bounds,<br /> +And land of Doris, and the Melian Gulf,<br /> +Where with kind draughts Spercheius soaks the soil.<br /> +Thence in our flight Achaia's ancient plain<br /> +And Thessaly's stronghold received us worn<br /> +For want of food. Most died in that fell place<br /> +Of thirst and famine; for both deaths were there.<br /> +Yet to Magnesia came we and the coast<br /> +Of Macedonia, to the ford of Axius,<br /> +And Bolbe's canebrakes and the Pangæan range,<br /> +Edonian borders. Then in that grim night<br /> +God sent unseasonable frost, and froze<br /> +The stream of holy Strymon. He who erst<br /> +Recked nought of gods, now prayed with supplication,<br /> +Bowing before the powers of earth and sky.<br /> +But when the hosts from lengthy orisons<br /> +Surceased, it crossed the ice-incrusted ford.<br /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.362" id="pg3.362">362</a></span> +And he among us who set forth before<br /> +The sun-god's rays were scattered, now was saved.<br /> +For blazing with sharp beams the sun's bright circle<br /> +Pierced the mid-stream, dissolving it with fire.<br /> +There were they huddled. Happy then was he<br /> +Who soonest cut the breath of life asunder.<br /> +Such as survived and had the luck of living,<br /> +Crossed Thrace with pain and peril manifold,<br /> +'Scaping mischance, a miserable remnant,<br /> +Into the dear land of their homes. Wherefore<br /> +Persia may wail, wanting in vain her darlings.<br /> +This is the truth. Much I omit to tell<br /> +Of woes by God wrought on the Persian race.<br /> +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a +name="pg3.363" id="pg3.363">363</a></span> 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.</p> + +<p>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:—</p> + +<p class="poem"> +Leucatæ nimbosa cacumina montis,<br /> +Et formidatus nautis aperitur Apollo. +</p> + +<p>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 <span class="pagenum"><a name="pg3.364" id= +"pg3.364">364</a></span> 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 <i>dream</i> +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. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="chap47"></a>INDEX</h2> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Aar, the, i. <a href="#pg1.020">20</a></li> + +<li>Abano, ii. <a href="#pg2.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Abruzzi, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.230">230</a>, <a href="#pg3.235">235</a>, <a href="#pg3.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Acciaiuoli, Agnolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.226">226</a></li> + +<li>Acciauoli, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Accolti, Bernardo, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Accona, iii. <a href="#pg3.072">72</a>, <a href="#pg3.074">74</a></li> + +<li>Accoramboni, Camillo, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Claudio, ii. <a href="#pg2.089">89</a>:</li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Flaminio, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg2.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg2.100">100</a>, <a href="#pg2.103">103</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.118">118</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.126">126</a>:</li> + +<li>Marcello, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg2.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg2.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg2.105">105</a>:</li> + +<li>Mario, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>:</li> + +<li>Ottavio, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>:</li> + +<li>Scipione, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>:</li> + +<li>Tarquinia, ii. <a href="#pg2.089">89</a>, <a href="#pg2.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg2.103">103</a>:</li> + +<li>Vittoria, ii. <a href="#pg2.089">89</a>-125</li> +</ul> + +<ul class="noindent"> +<li>Achilles, iii. <a href="#pg3.286">286</a></li> + +<li>Achradina, iii. <a href="#pg3.321">321</a>, <a href="#pg3.324">324</a></li> + +<li>Aci, iii. <a href="#pg3.287">287</a></li> + +<li>Aci Castello, iii. <a href="#pg3.284">284</a></li> + +<li>Acis and Galatea, iii. <a href="#pg3.284">284</a>, <a href="#pg3.285">285</a></li> + +<li>Acropolis, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.339">339</a>, <a href="#pg3.344">344</a>, <a href="#pg3.347">347</a></li> + +<li>Actium, iii. <a href="#pg3.364">364</a></li> + +<li>Adda, the, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.051">51</a>, <a href="#pg1.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg1.063">63</a>, <a href="#pg1.174">174</a></li> + +<li>Addison, i. <a href="#pg1.003">3</a></li> + +<li>Adelaide, Queen of Lothair, King of Italy, ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg2.178">178</a></li> + +<li>Adelaisie (wife of Berald des Baux), i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Adrian VI. (Pope), ii. <a href="#pg2.251">251</a></li> + +<li>Adriatic, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg2.003">3</a>, <a href="#pg2.056">56</a>, <a href="#pg2.059">59</a></li> + +<li>Æ, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Æschylus, iii. <a href="#pg3.162">162</a>, <a href="#pg3.271">271</a>, <a href="#pg3.345">345</a>, <a href="#pg3.358">358</a>-362</li> + +<li>Affò, Padre Ireneo, ii. <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Agrigentines, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.335">335</a></li> + +<li>Agrigentum, iii. <a href="#pg3.266">266</a></li> + +<li>Ajaccio, i. <a href="#pg1.104">104</a>-120</li> + +<li>Alamanni, Antonio, ii. <a href="#pg2.328">328</a></li> + +<li>Alban Hills, ii. <a href="#pg2.032">32</a></li> + +<li>Albany, Countess of, i. <a href="#pg1.352">352</a></li> + +<li>Alberti, house of the, ii. <a href="#pg2.213">213</a></li> + +<li>Alberti, Leo Battista, i. <a href="#pg1.216">216</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>, <a href="#pg2.018">18</a>, <a href="#pg2.021">21</a>-29; iii. <a href="#pg3.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Albizzi, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg2.209">209</a>, <a href="#pg2.213">213</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.221">221</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Albizzi, Maso degli, ii. <a href="#pg2.213">213</a>-215</li> + +<li>Albizzi, Rinaldo degli, ii. <a href="#pg2.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg2.218">218</a>, <a href="#pg2.220">220</a>, <a href="#pg2.221">221</a>, <a href="#pg2.256">256</a></li> + +<li>Albula, ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a>, <a href="#pg2.128">128</a>;</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Pass of, i. <a href="#pg1.053">53</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="noindent"> +<li>Aleotti, Giambattista, ii. <a href="#pg2.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Alexander the Great, iii. <a href="#pg3.262">262</a></li> + +<li>Alexander VI., ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg2.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg2.237">237</a>, <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Alexandria, ii. <a href="#pg2.019">19</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg3.190">190</a>, <a href="#pg3.201">201</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a></li> + +<li>Alfieri, i. <a href="#pg1.342">342</a>, <a href="#pg1.345">345</a>-359</li> + +<li>Alfonso of Aragon, i. <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>, <a href="#pg1.203">203</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg2.235">235</a></li> + +<li>Alps, the, i. <a href="#pg1.001">1</a>-67, <a href="#pg1.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg1.123">123</a>, <a href="#pg1.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg1.133">133</a>, <a href="#pg1.209">209</a>, <a href="#pg1.258">258</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg2.129">129</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a> _et passim_</li> + +<li>Amadeo, Gian Antonio, i. <a href="#pg1.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg1.150">150</a>, <a href="#pg1.151">151</a>, <a href="#pg1.191">191</a>-193, <a href="#pg1.243">243</a></li> + +<li>Amalasuntha, daughter of Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg2.013">13</a></li> + +<li>Amalfi, i. <a href="#pg1.103">103</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a>-261</li> + +<li>Ambrogini family, iii. <a href="#pg3.101">101</a></li> + +<li>Ambrogini, Angelo. (_See_ Poliziano, Angelo)</li> + +<li>Ambrogini, Benedetto, iii. <a href="#pg3.101">101</a>, <a href="#pg3.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Ampezzo, the, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Ana-Capri, iii. <a href="#pg3.231">231</a>, <a href="#pg3.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg3.271">271</a></li> + +<li>Anapus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg3.328">328</a></li> + +<li>Anchises, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Ancona, i. <a href="#pg1.196">196</a>, <a href="#pg1.198">198</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>, <a href="#pg2.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.055">55</a>, <a href="#pg2.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg2.199">199</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Ancona, Professor d', ii. <a href="#pg2.276">276</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Andrea, Giovann', i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Andreini, ii. <a href="#pg2.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Angeli, Niccolo, iii. <a href="#pg3.151">151</a></li> + +<li>Angelico, Fra, i. <a href="#pg1.100">100</a>, <a href="#pg1.240">240</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.049">49</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg3.147">147</a>-149, <a href="#pg3.151">151</a>, <a href="#pg3.248">248</a></li> + +<li>Angelo, S., ii. <a href="#pg2.096">96</a></li> + +<li>Angelo, Giovan. (_See_ Pius IV.)</li> + +<li>Angiolieri, Cecco, iii. <a href="#pg1.001">1</a> <a href="#pg3.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Anguillara, Deifobo, Count of, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Anjou, house of, ii. <a href="#pg2.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Ansano, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Anselmi, ii. <a href="#pg2.158">158</a></li> + +<li>Antegnate, i. <a href="#pg1.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Antelao, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg1.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Antibes, i. <a href="#pg1.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Antinoë, iii. <a href="#pg3.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Antinoopolis, iii. <a href="#pg3.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Antinous, iii. <a href="#pg3.184">184</a>-197, <a href="#pg3.200">200</a>-229</li> + +<li>Antipater, iii. <a href="#pg3.322">322</a>, <a href="#pg3.362">362</a></li> + +<li>Antiquari, Jacobo, iii. <a href="#pg3.126">126</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Antonio da Venafro, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a></li> + +<li>Aosta, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Apennines, the, i. <a href="#pg1.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg1.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg1.133">133</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg2.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg2.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.056">56</a>, <a href="#pg2.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg2.065">65</a>, <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.132">132</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.091">91</a> _et passim_</li> + +<li>Apollonius of Tyana, iii. <a href="#pg3.216">216</a></li> + +<li>Apulia, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.305">305</a></li> + +<li>Aquaviva, Dominico d', ii. <a href="#pg2.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Aquila, i. <a href="#pg1.196">196</a></li> + +<li>Aragazzi, Bartolommeo, iii. <a href="#pg3.095">95</a>-100</li> + +<li>Aragon, Kings of, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Arausio, i. <a href="#pg1.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Archimedes, iii. <a href="#pg3.325">325</a></li> + +<li>Arcipreti family, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Ardoin of Milan, iii. <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>, <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Aretine, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Aretino, Pietro, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Aretino, Spinello, iii. <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Aretusi, Cesare, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Arezzo, ii. <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg3.096">96</a>, <a href="#pg3.151">151</a> _note_;</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>Bishop of, iii. <a href="#pg3.074">74</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="noindent"> +<li>Ariosto, i. <a href="#pg1.071">71</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.264">264</a>, <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg2.336">336</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Aristides, iii. <a href="#pg3.196">196</a></li> + +<li>Aristophanes, i. <a href="#pg1.084">84</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.161">161</a>, <a href="#pg3.341">341</a>, <a href="#pg3.351">351</a>, <a href="#pg3.353">353</a></li> + +<li>Aristotle, i. <a href="#pg1.249">249</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.309">309</a></li> + +<li>Aristoxenus, iii. <a href="#pg3.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg3.263">263</a></li> + +<li>Arles, i. <a href="#pg1.076">76</a>-81;</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>King of, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="noindent"> +<li>Arno, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>;</li> +</ul> + +<ul> +<li>valley of, iii. <a href="#pg3.041">41</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="noindent"> +<li>Arosa, valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.033">33</a></li> + +<li>Arqua, i. <a href="#pg1.167">167</a>, <a href="#pg1.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Arrian, iii. <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Aruns, iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Ascham, Roger, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.266">266</a></li> + +<li>Asciano, iii. <a href="#pg3.086">86</a>, <a href="#pg3.087">87</a></li> + +<li>Asinarus, iii. <a href="#pg3.327">327</a></li> + +<li>Assisi, i. <a href="#pg1.137">137</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.039">39</a>, <a href="#pg2.043">43</a>, <a href="#pg2.044">44</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg3.111">111</a>, <a href="#pg3.114">114</a>, <a href="#pg3.140">140</a></li> + +<li>Asso, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.108">108</a></li> + +<li>Asti, i. <a href="#pg1.347">347</a>, <a href="#pg1.348">348</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg2.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Astolphus, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Athens, i. <a href="#pg1.243">243</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg3.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg3.182">182</a>, <a href="#pg3.188">188</a>, <a href="#pg3.207">207</a>, <a href="#pg3.323">323</a>, <a href="#pg3.339">339</a>-364</li> + +<li>Athens, Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.207">207</a>, <a href="#pg2.208">208</a>, <a href="#pg2.233">233</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Atrani, iii. <a href="#pg3.251">251</a>, <a href="#pg3.254">254</a></li> + +<li>Attendolo, Sforza, i. <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Atti, Isotta degli, ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a> and _note_, <a href="#pg2.020">20</a></li> + +<li>Augustine, S., i. <a href="#pg1.232">232</a></li> + +<li>Augustus, Emperor, ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.215">215</a></li> + +<li>Aurelius, Marcus, iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a>, <a href="#pg3.200">200</a></li> + +<li>Ausonias, iii. <a href="#pg3.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Aversa, iii. <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>, <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Avignon, i. <a href="#pg1.069">69</a>-71, <a href="#pg1.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg1.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg1.086">86</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.051">51</a>, <a href="#pg3.074">74</a></li> + +<li>Azzo (progenitor of Este and Brunswick), ii. <a href="#pg2.175">175</a></li> + +<li>Azzo (son of Sigifredo), ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Badrutt, Herr Caspar, i. <a href="#pg1.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Baffo, i. <a href="#pg1.259">259</a>, <a href="#pg1.260">260</a></li> + +<li>Baganza, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Baglioni, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a>, <a href="#pg2.236">236</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg3.113">113</a>-115, <a href="#pg3.119">119</a>-136</li> + +<li>Baglioni, Annibale, iii. <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Astorre, iii. <a href="#pg3.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg3.114">114</a>, <a href="#pg3.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg3.126">126</a>:</li> + +<li>Atalanta, iii. <a href="#pg3.116">116</a>, <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg3.127">127</a>-129:</li> + +<li>Braccio, iii. <a href="#pg3.134">134</a>:</li> + +<li>Carlo Barciglia, iii. <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>:</li> + +<li>Constantino, iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a>:</li> + +<li>Eusebio, iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a>:</li> + +<li>Filene, iii. <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>:</li> + +<li>Galeotto, iii. <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>:</li> + +<li>Gentile, ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>:</li> + +<li>Gian-Paolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.220">220</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.116">116</a>, <a href="#pg3.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg3.127">127</a>, <a href="#pg3.128">128</a>, <a href="#pg3.130">130</a>-132:</li> + +<li>Gismondo, iii. <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg3.127">127</a>:</li> + +<li>Grifone, iii. <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>:</li> + +<li>Grifonetto, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg3.114">114</a>, <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>-129:</li> + +<li>Guido, iii. <a href="#pg3.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg3.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg3.127">127</a>:</li> + +<li>Ippolita, iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a>:</li> + +<li>Malatesta, ii. <a href="#pg2.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg2.254">254</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.127">127</a>, <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>:</li> + +<li>Marcantonio, iii. <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg3.130">130</a>:</li> + +<li>Morgante, iii. <a href="#pg3.119">119</a> _note_ 2:</li> + +<li>Niccolo, iii. <a href="#pg3.120">120</a>:</li> + +<li>Orazio, iii. <a href="#pg3.127">127</a>, <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>:</li> + +<li>Pandolfo, iii. <a href="#pg3.120">120</a>:</li> + +<li>Pietro Paolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>:</li> + +<li>Ridolfo (1), iii. <a href="#pg3.120">120</a>, <a href="#pg3.121">121</a>:</li> + +<li>Ridolfo (2), iii. <a href="#pg3.133">133</a>, <a href="#pg3.134">134</a>:</li> + +<li>Simonetto, iii. <a href="#pg3.123">123</a>, <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg3.126">126</a>:</li> + +<li>Taddeo, iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a>:</li> + +<li>Troilo, iii. <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.127">127</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Baiæ, iii. <a href="#pg3.242">242</a></li> + +<li>Balzac, ii. <a href="#pg2.160">160</a></li> + +<li>Bandello, i. <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg1.157">157</a>, <a href="#pg1.158">158</a>, <a href="#pg1.270">270</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.116">116</a>, <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a>, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a></li> + +<li>Bandinelli, Messer Francesco, iii. <a href="#pg3.010">10</a>-12</li> + +<li>Barano, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.056">56</a>-58</li> + +<li>Barbarossa, Frederick, ii. <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.201">201</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg3.271">271</a>, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.306">306</a> _note_ 2</li> + +<li>Bari, Duke of. (_See_ Sforza, Lodovico)</li> + +<li>Bartolo, San, iii. <a href="#pg3.059">59</a></li> + +<li>Bartolommeo, Fra, iii. <a href="#pg3.063">63</a>, <a href="#pg3.099">99</a></li> + +<li>Basaiti, i. <a href="#pg1.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Basella, i. <a href="#pg1.193">193</a></li> + +<li>Basinio, ii. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a></li> + +<li>Basle, i. <a href="#pg1.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg1.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Bassano, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a></li> + +<li>Bastelica, i. <a href="#pg1.109">109</a>, <a href="#pg1.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg1.115">115</a></li> + +<li>Bastia, Matteo di, i. <a href="#pg1.216">216</a></li> + +<li>Battagli, Gian Battista, i. <a href="#pg1.216">216</a></li> + +<li>Battifolle, Count Simone da, iii. <a href="#pg3.011">11</a></li> + +<li>Baudelaire, iii. <a href="#pg3.280">280</a></li> + +<li>Baveno, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a></li> + +<li>Bayard, i. <a href="#pg1.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Bazzi, Giovannantonio. (_See_ Sodoma)</li> + +<li>Beatrice, Countess, iii. <a href="#pg3.144">144</a></li> + +<li>Beatrice, Dante's, ii. <a href="#pg2.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Beatrice of Lorraine, ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a></li> + +<li>Beaumarchais, i. <a href="#pg1.228">228</a>, <a href="#pg1.229">229</a>, <a href="#pg1.234">234</a></li> + +<li>Beaumont and Fletcher, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Becchi, Gentile, ii. <a href="#pg2.192">192</a></li> + +<li>Beethoven, i. <a href="#pg1.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg1.249">249</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.160">160</a></li> + +<li>Belcari, Feo, ii. <a href="#pg2.305">305</a></li> + +<li>Belcaro, iii. <a href="#pg3.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg3.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Belisarius, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a></li> + +<li>Bellagio, i. <a href="#pg1.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Bellano, i. <a href="#pg1.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Belleforest, ii. <a href="#pg2.116">116</a></li> + +<li>Bellini, Gentile, i. <a href="#pg1.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg1.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Bellini, Gian, i. <a href="#pg1.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg1.269">269</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.055">55</a>, <a href="#pg2.135">135</a></li> + +<li>Bellinzona, i. <a href="#pg1.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Bembo, Pietro, ii. <a href="#pg2.082">82</a>, <a href="#pg2.085">85</a></li> + +<li>Benci, Spinello, iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Benedict, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg3.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg3.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg3.248">248</a></li> + +<li>Benevento, iii. <a href="#pg3.251">251</a>, <a href="#pg3.252">252</a>, <a href="#pg3.299">299</a></li> + +<li>Benincasa, Jacopo (father of S. Catherine of Siena), iii. <a href="#pg3.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Benivieni, ii. <a href="#pg2.305">305</a></li> + +<li>Bentivogli, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.178">178</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Bentivogli, Alessandro de', i. <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg1.156">156</a></li> + +<li>Bentivogli, Ercole de', ii. <a href="#pg2.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Bentivoglio, Ermes, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a></li> + +<li>Benzone, Giorgio, i. <a href="#pg1.194">194</a></li> + +<li>Beral des Baux, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a>, <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Berangère des Baux, i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Berceto, ii. <a href="#pg2.131">131</a>, <a href="#pg2.133">133</a></li> + +<li>Berenger, King of Italy, ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> + +<li>Berenger, Raymond, i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Bergamo, i. <a href="#pg1.190">190</a>-207; ii. <a href="#pg2.082">82</a></li> + +<li>Bernardino, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Bernardo, iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>-75</li> + +<li>Bernardo da Campo, i. <a href="#pg1.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Berne, i. <a href="#pg1.020">20</a></li> + +<li>Bernhardt, Madame, ii. <a href="#pg2.108">108</a></li> + +<li>Berni, ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Bernina, the, i. <a href="#pg1.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg1.055">55</a>-57, <a href="#pg1.060">60</a>, <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg1.126">126</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.128">128</a></li> + +<li>Bernini, ii. <a href="#pg2.159">159</a></li> + +<li>Bersaglio, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Bervic, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Besa, iii. <a href="#pg3.190">190</a>, <a href="#pg3.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Besozzi, Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.156">156</a></li> + +<li>Bevagna, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.038">38</a></li> + +<li>Beyle, Henri, ii. <a href="#pg2.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Bianco, Bernardo, i. <a href="#pg1.177">177</a></li> + +<li>Bibbiena, Cardinal, ii. <a href="#pg2.082">82</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Bibboni, Francesco, or Cecco, i. <a href="#pg1.327">327</a>-341</li> + +<li>Bion, i. <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.303">303</a></li> + +<li>Biondo, Flavio, ii. <a href="#pg2.028">28</a></li> + +<li>Bisola, Lodovico, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Bithynia, iii. <a href="#pg3.208">208</a></li> + +<li>Bithynium, iii. <a href="#pg3.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg3.208">208</a></li> + +<li>Blacas (a knight of Provence), i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Blake, the poet, i. <a href="#pg1.101">101</a>, <a href="#pg1.265">265</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.166">166</a>, <a href="#pg3.260">260</a></li> + +<li>Boccaccio, ii. <a href="#pg2.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.208">208</a>, <a href="#pg2.260">260</a>, <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.272">272</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a>, <a href="#pg2.334">334</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg3.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg3.248">248</a>, <a href="#pg3.293">293</a></li> + +<li>Bocognano, i. <a href="#pg1.109">109</a>-111, <a href="#pg1.115">115</a></li> + +<li>Bohemond, Prince of Tarentum, iii. <a href="#pg3.297">297</a>, <a href="#pg3.298">298</a></li> + +<li>Boiardo, Matteo Maria, ii. <a href="#pg2.030">30</a>, <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Boldoni, Polidoro, i. <a href="#pg1.183">183</a></li> + +<li>Bologna, i. <a href="#pg1.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg1.192">192</a>, <a href="#pg1.196">196</a>, <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.029">29</a>, <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Bologna, Gian, ii. <a href="#pg2.086">86</a></li> + +<li>Bolsena, iii. <a href="#pg3.140">140</a>, <a href="#pg3.141">141</a>; + +<ul> +<li>Lake of, iii. <a href="#pg3.022">22</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Bona of Savoy (wife of Galeazzo Maria Sforza), ii. <a href="#pg2.230">230</a></li> + +<li>Bondeno de' Roncori, ii. <a href="#pg2.178">178</a></li> + +<li>Bonifazio (of Canossa), ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg2.170">170</a></li> + +<li>Bordighera, i. <a href="#pg1.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg1.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Bordone, Paris, ii. <a href="#pg2.109">109</a></li> + +<li>Borgia family, ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Borgia, Cesare, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg2.080">80</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Borgia, Lucrezia, ii. <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Borgia, Roderigo, i. <a href="#pg1.220">220</a>. (_See +also_ Alexander VI.)</li> + +<li>Borgognone, Ambrogio, i. <a href="#pg1.146">146</a>-148; iii. <a href="#pg3.064">64</a></li> + +<li>Bormio, i. <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Borromeo family, iii. <a href="#pg3.014">14</a></li> + +<li>Borromeo, Carlo, i. <a href="#pg1.182">182</a></li> + +<li>Borromeo, Count Giberto, i. <a href="#pg1.182">182</a></li> + +<li>Boscoli, i. <a href="#pg1.341">341</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.246">246</a></li> + +<li>Bosola, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Botticelli, Sandro, i. <a href="#pg1.266">266</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.029">29</a>, <a href="#pg2.030">30</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.180">180</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Bötticher, Charles, iii. <a href="#pg3.225">225</a></li> + +<li>Bourbon, Duke of, i. <a href="#pg1.158">158</a>; + +<ul> +<li>Constable of, ii. <a href="#pg2.252">252</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Bracciano, Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.104">104</a></li> + +<li>Bracciano, second Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg2.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg2.101">101</a></li> + +<li>Braccio, i. <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>, <a href="#pg1.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg1.204">204</a>, <a href="#pg1.207">207</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Braccio, Filippo da, iii. <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>-126</li> + +<li>Bracciolini, Poggio, iii. <a href="#pg3.096">96</a>, <a href="#pg3.336">336</a></li> + +<li>Bragadin, Aloisio, ii. <a href="#pg2.101">101</a></li> + +<li>Bramante, i. <a href="#pg1.216">216</a>, <a href="#pg1.243">243</a></li> + +<li>Brancacci, Cardinal, iii. <a href="#pg3.096">96</a></li> + +<li>Brancaleone, Senator, iii. <a href="#pg3.336">336</a></li> + +<li>Brancaleoni family, ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a></li> + +<li>Bregaglia, i. <a href="#pg1.035">35</a>; + +<ul> +<li>valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Brenner, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Brenta, the, i. <a href="#pg1.258">258</a></li> + +<li>Brescia, i. <a href="#pg1.063">63</a>, <a href="#pg1.200">200</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> + +<li>Brest, Anna Maria, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Brianza, the, i. <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Brolio, iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Bronte, iii. <a href="#pg3.279">279</a></li> + +<li>Browne, Sir Thomas, i. <a href="#pg1.044">44</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Browning, Robert, ii. <a href="#pg2.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.281">281</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Browning, Mrs., ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Bruni, Lionardo, iii. <a href="#pg3.096">96</a>, <a href="#pg3.098">98</a>, <a href="#pg3.099">99</a></li> + +<li>Buol family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg1.036">36</a>, <a href="#pg1.040">40</a>, <a href="#pg1.041">41</a>, <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Buol, Herr, i. <a href="#pg1.034">34</a>-36</li> + +<li>Buonaparte family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.119">119</a>, <a href="#pg1.120">120</a></li> + +<li>Buonarroti, Michel Angelo, i. <a href="#pg1.176">176</a>, <a href="#pg1.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg1.221">221</a>, <a href="#pg1.236">236</a>, <a href="#pg1.243">243</a>, <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.021">21</a>, <a href="#pg2.030">30</a>, <a href="#pg2.040">40</a>, <a href="#pg2.152">152</a>, <a href="#pg2.158">158</a>, <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.161">161</a>, <a href="#pg2.178">178</a>, <a href="#pg2.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg2.332">332</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.020">20</a>, <a href="#pg3.022">22</a>, <a href="#pg3.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg3.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg3.150">150</a>, <a href="#pg3.154">154</a>, <a href="#pg3.161">161</a></li> + +<li>Buonconvento, iii. <a href="#pg3.072">72</a>, <a href="#pg3.076">76</a></li> + +<li>Burano, i. <a href="#pg1.258">258</a></li> + +<li>Burgundy, Duke of, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a>, <a href="#pg1.203">203</a></li> + +<li>Burne-Jones, ii. <a href="#pg2.029">29</a></li> + +<li>Busti, Agostino, i. <a href="#pg1.159">159</a>, <a href="#pg1.161">161</a>, <a href="#pg1.193">193</a></li> + +<li>Byron, i. <a href="#pg1.280">280</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg2.013">13</a>, <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg2.162">162</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Cadenabbia, i. <a href="#pg1.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Cadore, i. <a href="#pg1.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Cæsarea, ii. <a href="#pg1.001">1</a></li> + +<li>Cagli, ii. <a href="#pg2.056">56</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.074">74</a></li> + +<li>Cajano, ii. <a href="#pg2.221">221</a></li> + +<li>Calabria, iii. <a href="#pg3.305">305</a>; + +<ul> +<li>mountains of, iii.? <a href="#pg3.288">288</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Calabria, Duke of, iii. <a href="#pg3.011">11</a></li> + +<li>Calascibetta, iii. <a href="#pg3.302">302</a></li> + +<li>Caldora, Giovanni Antonio, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Caldora, Jacopo, i. <a href="#pg1.196">196</a></li> + +<li>Caligula, i. <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>-136; iii. <a href="#pg3.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg3.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg3.163">163</a>, <a href="#pg3.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg3.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg3.274">274</a></li> + +<li>Calles (Cagli), ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Camargue, the, i. <a href="#pg1.078">78</a>, <a href="#pg1.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Camerino, Duchy of, i. <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.073">73</a></li> + +<li>Campagna, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.032">32</a></li> + +<li>Campaldino, ii. <a href="#pg2.206">206</a></li> + +<li>Campanella, iii. <a href="#pg3.020">20</a>, <a href="#pg3.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Campèll (or Campbèll) family, the i. <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.062">62</a> and _note_</li> + +<li>Campione, i. <a href="#pg1.175">175</a></li> + +<li>Canale, Messer Carlo, ii. <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Cannaregio, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg1.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg1.339">339</a></li> + +<li>Cannes, i. <a href="#pg1.103">103</a> _note_; ii. <a href="#pg2.143">143</a></li> + +<li>Canonge, Jules, i. <a href="#pg1.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Canossa, ii. <a href="#pg2.163">163</a>-179</li> + +<li>Cantù, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a></li> + +<li>Cap S. Martin, i. <a href="#pg1.090">90</a></li> + +<li>Capello, Bianca, ii. <a href="#pg2.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg2.126">126</a></li> + +<li>Capponi, Agostino, ii. <a href="#pg2.246">246</a></li> + +<li>Capponi, Niccolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.253">253</a></li> + +<li>Capri, ii. <a href="#pg2.058">58</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.242">242</a>, <a href="#pg3.256">256</a>, <a href="#pg3.269">269</a>-276</li> + +<li>Caracalla, i. <a href="#pg1.135">135</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Cardona, Viceroy, ii. <a href="#pg2.244">244</a></li> + +<li>Carducci, Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg2.325">325</a></li> + +<li>Carini, Baronessa di, ii. <a href="#pg2.276">276</a></li> + +<li>Carlyle (quoted), i. <a href="#pg1.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Carmagnola, i. <a href="#pg1.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg1.200">200</a>, <a href="#pg1.208">208</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Carmagnuola, Bussoni di, ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a> +and _note_</li> + +<li>Carpaccio, Vittore, i. <a href="#pg1.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg1.270">270</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a></li> + +<li>Carpegna, ii. <a href="#pg2.064">64</a></li> + +<li>Carpi, Duchy of, i. <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Carpi, the princes of, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Carrara range, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg2.218">218</a>, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a></li> + +<li>Casamicciola, iii. <a href="#pg3.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg3.239">239</a></li> + +<li>Casanova, i. <a href="#pg1.259">259</a>, <a href="#pg1.260">260</a></li> + +<li>Cascese, Santi da, ii. <a href="#pg2.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Casentino, iii. <a href="#pg3.092">92</a></li> + +<li>Cassinesi, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.248">248</a></li> + +<li>Cassius, Dion, iii. <a href="#pg3.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg3.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg3.195">195</a>-197, <a href="#pg3.219">219</a></li> + +<li>Castagniccia, i. <a href="#pg1.110">110</a></li> + +<li>Castagno, Andrea del, ii. <a href="#pg2.233">233</a></li> + +<li>Castellammare, i. <a href="#pg1.103">103</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg3.250">250</a>, <a href="#pg3.276">276</a></li> + +<li>Casti, Abbé, ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Castiglione, i. <a href="#pg1.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg1.145">145</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg2.080">80</a>, <a href="#pg2.082">82</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.106">106</a>, <a href="#pg3.108">108</a></li> + +<li>Castro Giovanni, mountains of, iii. <a href="#pg3.279">279</a>, <a href="#pg3.302">302</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Catania, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.279">279</a>, <a href="#pg3.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.302">302</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.325">325</a></li> + +<li>Catherine, S. (of Alexandria), i. <a href="#pg1.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg1.142">142</a>, <a href="#pg1.153">153</a>, <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>-157, <a href="#pg1.178">178</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.055">55</a>, <a href="#pg3.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Catherine, S. (of Sienna), i. <a href="#pg1.070">70</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.048">48</a>-65</li> + +<li>Catria, iii. <a href="#pg3.073">73</a></li> + +<li>Catullus, iii. <a href="#pg3.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Cavalcanti, Guido, ii. <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.308">308</a>, <a href="#pg2.325">325</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Cavicciuoli, Messer Guerra, iii. <a href="#pg3.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Cavro, i. <a href="#pg1.109">109</a></li> + +<li>Cécile (Passe Rose), i. <a href="#pg1.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Cefalú, iii. <a href="#pg3.291">291</a></li> + +<li>Cellant, Contessa di, i. <a href="#pg1.157">157</a>-159</li> + +<li>Cellant, Count of, i. <a href="#pg1.158">158</a></li> + +<li>Cellini, Benvenuto, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg1.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg1.240">240</a>, <a href="#pg1.241">241</a>, <a href="#pg1.328">328</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.025">25</a></li> + +<li>Celsano, i. <a href="#pg1.329">329</a></li> + +<li>Celsus, iii. <a href="#pg3.211">211</a>, <a href="#pg3.219">219</a>, <a href="#pg3.220">220</a></li> + +<li>Cenci, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a>, <a href="#pg2.089">89</a></li> + +<li>Cenci, Beatrice, ii. <a href="#pg2.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Ceno, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg2.195">195</a></li> + +<li>Centorbi, iii. <a href="#pg3.302">302</a></li> + +<li>Cephalonia, iii. <a href="#pg3.363">363</a></li> + +<li>Cephissus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.350">350</a></li> + +<li>Cerami, iii. <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Cervantes, ii. <a href="#pg2.160">160</a></li> + +<li>Cesena, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Cetona, iii. <a href="#pg3.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Chalcedon, iii. <a href="#pg3.212">212</a></li> + +<li>Châlons, the, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Chapman, George, ii. <a href="#pg2.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Charles IV., iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Charles V., i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg1.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a>, <a href="#pg1.319">319</a>, <a href="#pg1.338">338</a>, <a href="#pg1.339">339</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.202">202</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>, <a href="#pg2.257">257</a></li> + +<li>Charles VIII., ii. <a href="#pg2.067">67</a>, <a href="#pg2.132">132</a>, <a href="#pg2.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg2.189">189</a> and _note_, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>-197, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a>, <a href="#pg2.328">328</a></li> + +<li>Charles of Anjou, iii. <a href="#pg3.315">315</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Charles the Bold, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Charles Martel, i. <a href="#pg1.075">75</a></li> + +<li>Charles of Valois, ii. <a href="#pg2.207">207</a></li> + +<li>Chartres, i. <a href="#pg1.243">243</a></li> + +<li>Chateaubriand, ii. <a href="#pg2.013">13</a></li> + +<li>Chatterton, ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Chaucer, ii. <a href="#pg2.258">258</a>, <a href="#pg2.260">260</a>, <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.272">272</a></li> + +<li>Chiana, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>; valley of, iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.097">97</a></li> + +<li>Chianti, iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Chiara, S., ii. <a href="#pg2.036">36</a>, <a href="#pg2.037">37</a></li> + +<li>Chiarelli, the, of Fabriano, ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Chiavari, iii. <a href="#pg3.256">256</a></li> + +<li>Chiavenna, i. <a href="#pg1.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg1.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg1.063">63</a>, <a href="#pg1.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.130">130</a>, <a href="#pg2.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Chioggia, i. <a href="#pg1.257">257</a>-261</li> + +<li>Chiozzia, i. <a href="#pg1.350">350</a>, <a href="#pg1.351">351</a></li> + +<li>Chiusi, i. <a href="#pg1.086">86</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg2.051">51</a>, <a href="#pg2.052">52</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.022">22</a>, <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>; + +<ul> +<li>Lake of, iii. <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg3.094">94</a>, <a href="#pg3.101">101</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Chiusure, iii. <a href="#pg3.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg3.078">78</a>, <a href="#pg3.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Chivasso, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a></li> + +<li>Christiern of Denmark, i. <a href="#pg1.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Chur, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.065">65</a></li> + +<li>Cicero, iii. <a href="#pg3.321">321</a></li> + +<li>Ciclopidi rocks, iii. <a href="#pg3.284">284</a></li> + +<li>Cima, i. <a href="#pg1.263">263</a></li> + +<li>Cimabue, iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.144">144</a></li> + +<li>Ciminian Hills, ii. <a href="#pg2.088">88</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.022">22</a></li> + +<li>Cini family. (_See_ Ambrogini)</li> + +<li>Cinthio, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.272">272</a>, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a></li> + +<li>Ciompi, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.208">208</a>, <a href="#pg2.209">209</a></li> + +<li>Cisa, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a></li> + +<li>Città della Pieve, ii. <a href="#pg2.051">51</a></li> + +<li>Città di Castello, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Ciuffagni, Bernardo, ii. <a href="#pg2.030">30</a></li> + +<li>Clair, S., ii. <a href="#pg2.037">37</a> and _note_</li> + +<li>Clairvaux, Abbot of, iii. <a href="#pg3.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Claudian, ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a>, <a href="#pg2.344">344</a></li> + +<li>Clemens Alexandrinus, iii. <a href="#pg3.204">204</a>, <a href="#pg3.217">217</a>, <a href="#pg3.219">219</a></li> + +<li>Clement VI., iii. <a href="#pg3.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg3.132">132</a></li> + +<li>Clement VII., i. <a href="#pg1.221">221</a>, <a href="#pg1.316">316</a>, <a href="#pg1.317">317</a>, <a href="#pg1.321">321</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg2.247">247</a> foll.; iii. <a href="#pg3.138">138</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.247">247</a></li> + +<li>Climmnus, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.039">39</a></li> + +<li>Cloanthus, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Clough, the poet, ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Clusium, iii. <a href="#pg3.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Coire, i. <a href="#pg1.183">183</a></li> + +<li>Col de Checruit, the, i. <a href="#pg1.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Coleridge, S.T., ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Colico, i. <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg1.183">183</a></li> + +<li>Collalto, Count Salici da, i. <a href="#pg1.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Colleoni family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.194">194</a></li> + +<li>Colleoni, Bartolommeo, i. <a href="#pg1.192">192</a>-208; ii. <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Colleoni, Medea, i. <a href="#pg1.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg1.204">204</a></li> + +<li>Collona family, ii. <a href="#pg2.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Colma, the, i. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a></li> + +<li>Colombini, iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a></li> + +<li>Colonna, Francesco, iii. <a href="#pg3.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Colonna, Giovanni, iii. <a href="#pg3.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg3.254">254</a></li> + +<li>Colonus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.350">350</a></li> + +<li>Columbus, i. <a href="#pg1.097">97</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.237">237</a></li> + +<li>Commodus, i. <a href="#pg1.135">135</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a></li> + +<li>Comnena, Anna, iii. <a href="#pg3.297">297</a></li> + +<li>Como, i. <a href="#pg1.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg1.174">174</a>-189</li> + +<li>Como, Lake of, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg1.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg1.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg1.174">174</a>, <a href="#pg1.179">179</a>, <a href="#pg1.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg1.183">183</a>-186</li> + +<li>Conrad (of Canossa), ii. <a href="#pg2.178">178</a></li> + +<li>Conrad, King of Italy, iii. <a href="#pg3.305">305</a></li> + +<li>Conradin, iii. <a href="#pg3.298">298</a></li> + +<li>Constance, daughter of King Roger of Sicily, iii. <a href="#pg3.297">297</a>, <a href="#pg3.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Constance of Aragon, wife of Frederick II., iii. <a href="#pg3.307">307</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Constantinople, ii. <a href="#pg2.186">186</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Contado, iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a></li> + +<li>Copton, iii. <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Corfu, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a> _note_, <a href="#pg1.103">103</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Corgna, Bernardo da, iii. <a href="#pg3.125">125</a></li> + +<li>Corinth, iii. <a href="#pg3.212">212</a>, <a href="#pg3.322">322</a>, <a href="#pg3.342">342</a>, <a href="#pg3.362">362</a></li> + +<li>Cormayeur, valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.009">9</a>, <a href="#pg1.014">14</a>-16</li> + +<li>Correggio, i. <a href="#pg1.137">137</a>, <a href="#pg1.140">140</a>, <a href="#pg1.163">163</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg2.147">147</a>-162</li> + +<li>Corsica, i. <a href="#pg1.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg1.102">102</a>-120; ii. <a href="#pg2.286">286</a></li> + +<li>Corte, i. <a href="#pg1.110">110</a>, <a href="#pg1.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Corte Savella, ii. <a href="#pg2.096">96</a></li> + +<li>Cortina, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Cortona, ii. <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>-51, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg3.151">151</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Cortusi, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Corviolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg2.178">178</a></li> + +<li>Coryat, Tom, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Costa (of Venice), Antonio, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Costa (of Rome), ii. <a href="#pg2.033">33</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a></li> + +<li>Courthezon, i. <a href="#pg1.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Covo, i. <a href="#pg1.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Cramont, the, i. <a href="#pg1.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Credi, Lorenzo di, iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a></li> + +<li>Crema, i. <a href="#pg1.194">194</a>, <a href="#pg1.209">209</a>-222</li> + +<li>Cremona, i. <a href="#pg1.209">209</a>, <a href="#pg1.213">213</a>, <a href="#pg1.215">215</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Crimisus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Crotona, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Crowne, the dramatist, ii. <a href="#pg2.159">159</a></li> + +<li>Cuma, iii. <a href="#pg3.212">212</a></li> + +<li>Curtius, Lancinus, i. <a href="#pg1.159">159</a>, <a href="#pg1.193">193</a></li> + +<li>Cyane, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.328">328</a></li> + +<li>Cybo, Franceschetto, ii. <a href="#pg2.239">239</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Dalcò, Antonio, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Dandolo, Gherardo, i. <a href="#pg1.198">198</a></li> + +<li>Dandolo, Matteo, iii. <a href="#pg3.133">133</a></li> + +<li>Daniel, Samuel (the poet), ii. <a href="#pg2.263">263</a></li> + +<li>Dante, i. <a href="#pg1.029">29</a>, <a href="#pg1.080">80</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg2.006">6</a>, <a href="#pg2.013">13</a>, <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.023">23</a>, <a href="#pg2.065">65</a>, <a href="#pg2.070">70</a>, <a href="#pg2.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg2.137">137</a>, <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg2.206">206</a>, <a href="#pg2.207">207</a>, <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a>, <a href="#pg2.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg3.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg3.025">25</a>, <a href="#pg3.036">36</a>, <a href="#pg3.043">43</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.067">67</a>, <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg3.111">111</a>, <a href="#pg3.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg3.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg3.241">241</a>, <a href="#pg3.317">317</a></li> + +<li>D'Arcello, Filippo, i. <a href="#pg1.195">195</a></li> + +<li>Davenant, Sir William, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>David, Jacques Louis, i. <a href="#pg1.071">71</a>, <a href="#pg1.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Davos, i. <a href="#pg1.020">20</a>, <a href="#pg1.028">28</a>-47, <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg1.058">58</a>, <a href="#pg1.065">65</a>, <a href="#pg1.183">183</a></li> + +<li>Davos Dörfli, i. <a href="#pg1.053">53</a></li> + +<li>De Comines, Philippe, ii. <a href="#pg2.190">190</a>, <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>-197; iii. <a href="#pg3.045">45</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.069">69</a></li> + +<li>De Gié, Maréchal, ii. <a href="#pg2.199">199</a></li> + +<li>De Musset, iii. <a href="#pg3.163">163</a>, <a href="#pg3.235">235</a></li> + +<li>De Quincey, ii. <a href="#pg2.113">113</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.273">273</a> _note_</li> + +<li>De Rosset, ii. <a href="#pg2.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Dekker, Thomas, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Del Corvo, ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a></li> + +<li>Della Casa, Giovanni, i. <a href="#pg1.331">331</a>, <a href="#pg1.333">333</a></li> + +<li>Della Porta, i. <a href="#pg1.193">193</a></li> + +<li>Della Quercia, i. <a href="#pg1.192">192</a></li> + +<li>Della Rocca, Giudice, i. <a href="#pg1.112">112</a>, <a href="#pg1.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Della Rovere family, ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a> (_see also_ Rovere)</li> + +<li>Della Seta, Galeazzo, i. <a href="#pg1.329">329</a></li> + +<li>Demetrius, iii. <a href="#pg3.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Demosthenes, iii. <a href="#pg3.323">323</a>, <a href="#pg3.324">324</a>, <a href="#pg3.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg3.327">327</a></li> + +<li>Desenzano, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Dickens, Charles, iii. <a href="#pg3.039">39</a></li> + +<li>Dionysius, iii. <a href="#pg3.322">322</a>, <a href="#pg3.325">325</a></li> + +<li>Dischma-Thal, the, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Dolce Acqua, ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a></li> + +<li>Dolcebono, Gian Giacomo, i. <a href="#pg1.153">153</a></li> + +<li>Domenico da Leccio, Fra, iii. <a href="#pg3.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Dominic, S., i. <a href="#pg1.221">221</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Donatello, i. <a href="#pg1.150">150</a>, <a href="#pg1.178">178</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.029">29</a>, <a href="#pg2.030">30</a>, <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.096">96</a>, <a href="#pg3.097">97</a>, <a href="#pg3.100">100</a></li> + +<li>Doni, Adone, iii. <a href="#pg3.114">114</a></li> + +<li>Doré, Gustave, i. <a href="#pg1.264">264</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Doria, Pietro, i. <a href="#pg1.260">260</a></li> + +<li>Doria, Stephen, i. <a href="#pg1.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Dorias, the, i. <a href="#pg1.097">97</a></li> + +<li>Dossi, Dosso, i. <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>, <a href="#pg1.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg1.172">172</a></li> + +<li>Drayton, Michael, ii. <a href="#pg2.263">263</a></li> + +<li>Druids, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.029">29</a></li> + +<li>Drummond, William (the poet), ii. <a href="#pg2.263">263</a></li> + +<li>Dryden, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg1.006">6</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Duccio, iii. <a href="#pg3.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg3.145">145</a></li> + +<li>Dürer, Albert, i. <a href="#pg1.345">345</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.275">275</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.260">260</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Eckermann, ii. <a href="#pg2.157">157</a>, <a href="#pg2.162">162</a></li> + +<li>Edolo, i. <a href="#pg1.063">63</a></li> + +<li>Edrisi, iii. <a href="#pg3.308">308</a>, <a href="#pg3.309">309</a></li> + +<li>Egypt, iii. <a href="#pg3.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg3.190">190</a>, <a href="#pg1.192">192</a>, <a href="#pg1.210">210</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Eichens, Edward, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Eiger, the, i. <a href="#pg1.012">12</a></li> + +<li>Electra, ii. <a href="#pg2.135">135</a></li> + +<li>'Eliot, George,' ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Emilia, ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a></li> + +<li>Emilia Pia, ii. <a href="#pg2.082">82</a></li> + +<li>Empedocles, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg3.174">174</a>, <a href="#pg3.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Empoli, iii. <a href="#pg3.041">41</a>, <a href="#pg3.087">87</a></li> + +<li>Engadine, the, i. <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg1.055">55</a>, <a href="#pg1.056">56</a>, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.183">183</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.128">128</a></li> + +<li>Enna, iii. <a href="#pg3.302">302</a>, <a href="#pg3.303">303</a> +and _note_</li> + +<li>Ennius, iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg3.181">181</a></li> + +<li>Enza, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.166">166</a></li> + +<li>Enzio, King, iii. <a href="#pg3.298">298</a></li> + +<li>Epicurus, iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg3.174">174</a>, <a href="#pg3.181">181</a></li> + +<li>Eridanus, ii. <a href="#pg2.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Eryx (Lerici), ii. <a href="#pg2.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Este, i. <a href="#pg1.167">167</a></li> + +<li>Este family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg2.251">251</a>, <a href="#pg2.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Este, Azzo d', iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Beatrice d', i. <a href="#pg1.150">150</a>:</li> + +<li>Cardinal d', ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>:</li> + +<li>Ercole d', i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a>:</li> + +<li>Guelfo d', ii. <a href="#pg2.177">177</a>:</li> + +<li>Guinipera d', ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a>;</li> + +<li>Lucrezia d', ii. <a href="#pg2.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>:</li> + +<li>Niccolo d', ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Estrelles, the, i. <a href="#pg1.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Etna, iii. <a href="#pg3.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg3.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg3.198">198</a>, <a href="#pg3.279">279</a>-287, <a href="#pg3.319">319</a>, <a href="#pg3.325">325</a>, <a href="#pg3.327">327</a></li> + +<li>Etruscans, the, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Euganeans, the, i. <a href="#pg1.258">258</a>, <a href="#pg1.281">281</a>, <a href="#pg1.282">282</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Eugénie, Empress, i. <a href="#pg1.119">119</a></li> + +<li>Eugenius IV., i. <a href="#pg1.199">199</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.070">70</a>, <a href="#pg2.220">220</a></li> + +<li>Euhemerus, iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Euripides, ii. <a href="#pg2.142">142</a>, <a href="#pg2.159">159</a> _note_, <a href="#pg2.335">335</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.089">89</a>, <a href="#pg3.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg3.340">340</a></li> + +<li>Eusebius, iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg3.219">219</a></li> + +<li>Everelina, ii. <a href="#pg2.166">166</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Fabretti, Raffaello, iii. <a href="#pg3.209">209</a></li> + +<li>Faenza, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a></li> + +<li>Fairfax, Edward, translator of Tasso, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a></li> + +<li>Fano, ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a>, <a href="#pg2.059">59</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a></li> + +<li>Fanum Fortunæ (Fano), ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Farnese, Alessandro, i. <a href="#pg1.317">317</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Julia, i. <a href="#pg1.193">193</a>:</li> + +<li>Odoardo, ii. <a href="#pg2.180">180</a>:</li> + +<li>Pier Luigi, iii. <a href="#pg3.133">133</a>:</li> + +<li>Ranunzio, ii. <a href="#pg2.180">180</a>:</li> + +<li>Vittoria, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Farnesi family, ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg2.180">180</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.336">336</a></li> + +<li>Faro, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.301">301</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Favara, iii. <a href="#pg3.309">309</a></li> + +<li>Federighi, Antonio, iii. <a href="#pg3.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Federigo of Urbino. (_See_ Urbino)</li> + +<li>Feltre, Vittorino da, ii. <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tuscany, ii. <a href="#pg2.078">78</a></li> + +<li>Ferdinand of Aragon, ii. <a href="#pg2.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg2.192">192</a>, <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg2.234">234</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.274">274</a>, <a href="#pg3.276">276</a></li> + +<li>Fermo, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.090">90</a></li> + +<li>Ferrara, i. <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>, <a href="#pg1.167">167</a>, <a href="#pg1.171">171</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.067">67</a>, <a href="#pg2.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.221">221</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Ferrara, Duke of, i. <a href="#pg1.206">206</a></li> + +<li>Ferrari, Gaudenzio, i. <a href="#pg1.137">137</a>-139, <a href="#pg1.141">141</a>, <a href="#pg1.162">162</a>-164, <a href="#pg1.177">177</a></li> + +<li>Ferretti, Professor, ii. <a href="#pg2.179">179</a></li> + +<li>Ferrucci, Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.343">343</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.254">254</a></li> + +<li>Fesch, Cardinal, i. <a href="#pg1.118">118</a></li> + +<li>Fiesole, i. <a href="#pg1.086">86</a></li> + +<li>Filelfo, Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.025">25</a></li> + +<li>Filibert of Savoy, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Filiberta, Princess of Savoy, ii. <a href="#pg2.247">247</a></li> + +<li>Filippo, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Filonardi, Cinzio, iii. <a href="#pg3.133">133</a></li> + +<li>Fina, Santa, iii. <a href="#pg3.059">59</a></li> + +<li>Finiguerra, Maso, i. <a href="#pg1.218">218</a></li> + +<li>Finsteraarhorn, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.130">130</a></li> + +<li>Fiorenzuola, ii. <a href="#pg2.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg2.284">284</a></li> + +<li>Flaminian Way, ii. <a href="#pg2.055">55</a>, <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Flaxman, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Fletcher, the dramatist, i. <a href="#pg1.358">358</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Florence, i. <a href="#pg1.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg1.316">316</a>, <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>, <a href="#pg1.319">319</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg2.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg2.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg2.198">198</a>, <a href="#pg2.201">201</a>-257, <a href="#pg2.259">259</a>, <a href="#pg2.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg2.306">306</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg3.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg3.021">21</a>, <a href="#pg3.132">132</a>, <a href="#pg3.151">151</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.317">317</a> _note_, _et passim_</li> + +<li>Florence, Duke of, i. <a href="#pg1.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Fluela, the, i. <a href="#pg1.029">29</a>, <a href="#pg1.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg1.054">54</a></li> + +<li>Fluela Bernina Pass, the, i. <a href="#pg1.053">53</a></li> + +<li>Fluela Hospice, i. <a href="#pg1.059">59</a></li> + +<li>Foglia, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.065">65</a></li> + +<li>Foiano, ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Folcioni, Signor, i. <a href="#pg1.217">217</a></li> + +<li>Folengo, ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Folgore da San Gemignano, ii. <a href="#pg2.053">53</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.001">1</a>-20, <a href="#pg3.067">67</a>, <a href="#pg3.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Foligno, ii. <a href="#pg2.037">37</a>-41, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>, <a href="#pg2.052">52</a></li> + +<li>Fondi, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Ford, John (the dramatist), ii, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a></li> + +<li>Forio, iii. <a href="#pg3.236">236</a>, <a href="#pg3.237">237</a></li> + +<li>Fornovo, ii. <a href="#pg2.132">132</a>, <a href="#pg2.180">180</a>-200</li> + +<li>Fortini, iii. <a href="#pg3.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Forulus (Furlo), ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone), ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Foscari, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Fosdinovo, ii. <a href="#pg2.134">134</a>-137</li> + +<li>Fossato, ii. <a href="#pg2.052">52</a></li> + +<li>Fossombrone, ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a>, <a href="#pg2.058">58</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg2.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Fouquet, i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Francesco, Fra, i. <a href="#pg1.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Francesco da Carrara, iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Francesco Maria I. of Urbino. (_See_ Urbino)</li> + +<li>Francesco Maria II. of Urbino. (_See_ Urbino)</li> + +<li>Francia, Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.033">33</a></li> + +<li>Francis I. of France, i. <a href="#pg1.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg1.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Francis of Assisi, S., i. <a href="#pg1.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg1.100">100</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.023">23</a>, <a href="#pg2.044">44</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.057">57</a>, <a href="#pg3.058">58</a>, <a href="#pg3.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg3.113">113</a></li> + +<li>François des Baux, i. <a href="#pg1.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Frederick, Emperor, i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Frederick II., Emperor, iii. <a href="#pg3.297">297</a>, <a href="#pg3.315">315</a> and _note_, <a href="#pg3.316">316</a>-318</li> + +<li>Frere, J.H., ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Friedrichs, ----, iii. <a href="#pg3.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Frisingensis, Otto, iii. <a href="#pg3.007">7</a></li> + +<li>Friuli, i. <a href="#pg1.351">351</a></li> + +<li>Furka, ii. <a href="#pg2.130">130</a></li> + +<li>Furlo, ii. <a href="#pg2.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Furlo Pass, ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a>, <a href="#pg2.058">58</a></li> + +<li>Fusina, i. <a href="#pg1.281">281</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Gaeta, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.235">235</a></li> + +<li>Galatea, i. <a href="#pg1.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Galileo, ii. <a href="#pg2.027">27</a></li> + +<li>Galli Islands, iii. <a href="#pg3.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Gallio, Marchese Giacomo, i. <a href="#pg1.179">179</a></li> + +<li>Gallo, Antonio di San, iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Gallo, Francesco da San, ii. <a href="#pg2.253">253</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.247">247</a></li> + +<li>Garda, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a>; + +<ul> +<li>Lake of, ii. <a href="#pg2.098">98</a>, <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Gardon, the, valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.075">75</a></li> + +<li>Garfagnana, ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Garigliano, iii. <a href="#pg3.247">247</a></li> + +<li>Gaston de Foix, i. <a href="#pg1.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg1.161">161</a>, <a href="#pg1.193">193</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg2.010">10</a></li> + +<li>Gattamelata (Erasmo da Narni), i. <a href="#pg1.197">197</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Gellias, iii. <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Gelon, iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Genoa, i. <a href="#pg1.097">97</a>, <a href="#pg1.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg1.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg1.259">259</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.317">317</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Gentile, Girolamo, ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a></li> + +<li>George of Antioch, iii. <a href="#pg3.307">307</a>, <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Gérard, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Gerardo da Camino, iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Ghiacciuolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Ghibellines, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.054">54</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.202">202</a> foll.; iii. <a href="#pg3.017">17</a>, <a href="#pg3.043">43</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg3.110">110</a></li> + +<li>Ghiberti, Lorenzo di Cino, ii. <a href="#pg2.030">30</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg3.146">146</a></li> + +<li>Giannandrea, bravo of Verona, ii. <a href="#pg2.085">85</a></li> + +<li>Giardini, iii. <a href="#pg3.287">287</a></li> + +<li>Giarre, iii. <a href="#pg3.279">279</a></li> + +<li>Gibbon, Edward (cited), i. <a href="#pg1.346">346</a></li> + +<li>Ginori, Caterina, i. <a href="#pg1.323">323</a>, <a href="#pg1.324">324</a></li> + +<li>Ginori, Lionardo, i. <a href="#pg1.323">323</a></li> + +<li>Giordani, i. <a href="#pg1.326">326</a></li> + +<li>Giorgione, i. <a href="#pg1.345">345</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.247">247</a></li> + +<li>Giottino, ii. <a href="#pg2.233">233</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Giotto, i. <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.043">43</a>, <a href="#pg2.206">206</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg3.248">248</a></li> + +<li>Giovanni da Fogliani, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a></li> + +<li>Giovenone, i. <a href="#pg1.139">139</a></li> + +<li>Giovio, i. <a href="#pg1.322">322</a></li> + +<li>Girgenti, iii. <a href="#pg3.266">266</a>, <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.302">302</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a>, <a href="#pg3.321">321</a>, <a href="#pg3.332">332</a>-338</li> + +<li>Giulio Romano, i. <a href="#pg1.140">140</a>, <a href="#pg1.152">152</a></li> + +<li>Glastonbury, iii. <a href="#pg3.029">29</a>, <a href="#pg3.047">47</a></li> + +<li>Gnoli, Professor, i. <a href="#pg1.327">327</a> _note_; ii. <a href="#pg2.102">102</a> _note_, <a href="#pg2.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Godfrey, the Hunchback, ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a></li> + +<li>Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a></li> + +<li>Goethe, i. <a href="#pg1.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg1.006">6</a>, <a href="#pg1.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg1.011">11</a>, <a href="#pg1.131">131</a>, <a href="#pg1.164">164</a>, <a href="#pg1.237">237</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.026">26</a>, <a href="#pg2.157">157</a>, <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.162">162</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Goldoni, i. <a href="#pg1.259">259</a>, <a href="#pg1.345">345</a>-359</li> + +<li>Golo, the, valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Gonfalonier of Florence, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.206">206</a>, <a href="#pg2.209">209</a>, <a href="#pg2.243">243</a>, <a href="#pg2.245">245</a>, <a href="#pg2.253">253</a></li> + +<li>Gonzaga family, ii. <a href="#pg2.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Gonzaga, Alessandro, i. <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Elisabetta, ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>:</li> + +<li>Grancesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg2.194">194</a>, <a href="#pg2.196">196</a>, <a href="#pg2.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg2.345">345</a>, <a href="#pg2.363">363</a> _note_:</li> + +<li>Giulia, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>:</li> + +<li>Leonora, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Gorbio, i. <a href="#pg1.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg1.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Gozzoli, Benozzo, i. <a href="#pg1.137">137</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a></li> + +<li>Graubünden, the, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Gravedona, i. <a href="#pg1.181">181</a></li> + +<li>Gray, the poet, i. <a href="#pg1.003">3</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Greece, and the Greeks, i. <a href="#pg1.101">101</a>, <a href="#pg1.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg1.240">240</a>, <a href="#pg1.244">244</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.155">155</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.260">260</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.285">285</a>-287, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>-292, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.339">339</a>-364</li> + +<li>Greene, Robert, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.266">266</a>, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Gregory VII., ii. <a href="#pg2.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg2.173">173</a>-176 (_see also_ Hildebrand)</li> + +<li>Gregory XI., iii. <a href="#pg3.051">51</a></li> + +<li>Gregory XIII., ii. <a href="#pg2.088">88</a>, <a href="#pg2.095">95</a>, <a href="#pg2.096">96</a>, <a href="#pg2.097">97</a></li> + +<li>Grenoble, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Grigioni, the, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Grindelwald, iii. <a href="#pg3.275">275</a></li> + +<li>Grisons, Canton of the, i. <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Grivola, the, i. <a href="#pg1.126">126</a></li> + +<li>Grosseto, iii. <a href="#pg3.066">66</a></li> + +<li>Grote, the historian, iii. <a href="#pg3.323">323</a></li> + +<li>Grumello, i. <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg1.064">64</a></li> + +<li>Guarini, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Guazzi, the, i. <a href="#pg1.329">329</a></li> + +<li>Gubbio, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.052">52</a>-55, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg2.089">89</a>, <a href="#pg2.097">97</a></li> + +<li>Guelfs, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.054">54</a>, <a href="#pg2.202">202</a> foll.; iii. <a href="#pg3.017">17</a>, <a href="#pg3.110">110</a>, <a href="#pg3.112">112</a></li> + +<li>Guérin, ii. <a href="#pg2.043">43</a></li> + +<li>Guicciardini, Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.319">319</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a></li> + +<li>Guiccioli, Countess, ii. <a href="#pg2.007">7</a></li> + +<li>Guidantonio, Count, ii. <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Guido, iii. <a href="#pg3.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Guidobaldo I. (_See_ Urbino)</li> + +<li>Guidobaldo II. (_See_ Urbino)</li> + +<li>Guillaume de Cabestan, i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Guiscard, Robert, iii. <a href="#pg3.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg3.297">297</a>, <a href="#pg3.298">298</a>, <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Gyas, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Gylippus, iii. <a href="#pg3.323">323</a>, <a href="#pg3.324">324</a>, <a href="#pg3.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Hadrian, iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a>, <a href="#pg3.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg3.187">187</a>-205, <a href="#pg3.208">208</a>, <a href="#pg3.210">210</a>, <a href="#pg3.212">212</a>, <a href="#pg3.224">224</a>, <a href="#pg3.225">225</a>, <a href="#pg3.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg3.228">228</a>, <a href="#pg3.343">343</a>, <a href="#pg3.345">345</a></li> + +<li>Halycus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Handel, iii. <a href="#pg3.040">40</a></li> + +<li>Harmodius, ii. <a href="#pg2.135">135</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.155">155</a></li> + +<li>Harrington, Sir John, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a></li> + +<li>Harvey, Gabriel, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a></li> + +<li>Hauteville, house of, iii. <a href="#pg3.252">252</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.254">254</a>, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.294">294</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Hazlitt, ii. <a href="#pg2.109">109</a></li> + +<li>Hegesippus, iii. <a href="#pg3.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Helbig, iii. <a href="#pg3.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Heliogabalus, i. <a href="#pg1.135">135</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a></li> + +<li>Henry II. of France, i. <a href="#pg1.316">316</a></li> + +<li>Henry III., ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a></li> + +<li>Henry IV., King of Italy, ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg2.173">173</a>-177; iii. <a href="#pg3.300">300</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Henry V., Emperor, ii. <a href="#pg2.178">178</a></li> + +<li>Henry VI. (of Sicily), iii. <a href="#pg3.297">297</a>, <a href="#pg3.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Henry VII., Emperor, iii. <a href="#pg3.072">72</a>, <a href="#pg3.076">76</a></li> + +<li>Hermopolis, iii. <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Herodotus, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Herrick, Robert, ii. <a href="#pg2.324">324</a></li> + +<li>Hesiod, ii. <a href="#pg2.338">338</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Hiero II., iii. <a href="#pg3.325">325</a></li> + +<li>Hildebrand, ii. <a href="#pg2.163">163</a>, <a href="#pg2.171">171</a>, <a href="#pg2.172">172</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.300">300</a> _note_ 2, <a href="#pg3.305">305</a></li> + +<li>Himera, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Hispellum (Spello), ii. <a href="#pg2.038">38</a></li> + +<li>Hoby, Thomas, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a></li> + +<li>Hoffnungsau, i. <a href="#pg1.066">66</a></li> + +<li>Hohenstauffen, house of, ii. <a href="#pg2.188">188</a>, <a href="#pg2.202">202</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.297">297</a>, <a href="#pg3.315">315</a></li> + +<li>Homer, i. <a href="#pg1.084">84</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg3.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg3.286">286</a>, <a href="#pg3.287">287</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Honorius, Emperor, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Horace, ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Howell, James, ii. <a href="#pg2.266">266</a></li> + +<li>Hugh, Abbot of Clugny, ii. <a href="#pg2.175">175</a>, <a href="#pg2.176">176</a></li> + +<li>Hugo, Victor, iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a></li> + +<li>Hunt, Leigh, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Hymettus, iii. <a href="#pg3.351">351</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Ibn-Hamûd, iii. <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Ictinus, iii. <a href="#pg3.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg3.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Il Medeghino. (_See_ Medici, Gian Giacomo de')</li> + +<li>Ilaria del Caretto, iii. <a href="#pg3.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Ilario, Fra, ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg2.137">137</a></li> + +<li>Ilissus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.350">350</a></li> + +<li>Imola, ii. <a href="#pg2.231">231</a></li> + +<li>Imperial, Prince, i. <a href="#pg1.119">119</a></li> + +<li>Inn river, the, i, <a href="#pg1.054">54</a>, <a href="#pg1.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Innocent III., ii. <a href="#pg2.203">203</a></li> + +<li>Innocent VIII., ii. <a href="#pg2.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Innsprück, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Isabella of Aragon, ii. <a href="#pg2.192">192</a></li> + +<li>Isac, Antonio, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Ischia, iii. <a href="#pg3.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg3.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg3.236">236</a>, <a href="#pg3.238">238</a>, <a href="#pg3.241">241</a></li> + +<li>Isella, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a></li> + +<li>Iseo, Lake, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg1.174">174</a></li> + +<li>Ithaca, iii. <a href="#pg3.364">364</a></li> + +<li>Itri, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>, <a href="#pg1.319">319</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Jacobshorn, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.131">131</a></li> + +<li>James 'III. of England,' ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Joachim, Abbot, iii. <a href="#pg3.141">141</a>, <a href="#pg3.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Joan of Naples, i. <a href="#pg1.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg1.195">195</a></li> + +<li>John XXII., iii. <a href="#pg3.074">74</a></li> + +<li>John XXIII., iii. <a href="#pg3.096">96</a></li> + +<li>John of Austria, Don, ii. <a href="#pg2.077">77</a></li> + +<li>Jonson, Ben, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Jourdain (the hangman of the Glacière), i. <a href="#pg1.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Judith of Evreux, iii. <a href="#pg3.303">303</a></li> + +<li>Julia, daughter of Claudius, ii. <a href="#pg2.036">36</a></li> + +<li>Julian, iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Julier, ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a>, <a href="#pg2.128">128</a></li> + +<li>Julius II., i. <a href="#pg1.221">221</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.220">220</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Jungfrau, the, i. <a href="#pg1.012">12</a></li> + +<li>Justin Martyr, iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg3.219">219</a></li> + +<li>Justinian, ii. <a href="#pg2.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg2.012">12</a></li> + +<li>Juvara, Aloisio, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Juvenal, iii. <a href="#pg3.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg3.199">199</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Keats, the poet, ii. <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Kelbite dynasty, iii. <a href="#pg3.292">292</a>, <a href="#pg3.301">301</a></li> + +<li>Killigrew, the dramatist, ii. <a href="#pg2.159">159</a></li> + +<li>Klosters, i. <a href="#pg1.030">30</a>, <a href="#pg1.046">46</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>La Cisa, the pass, ii. <a href="#pg2.132">132</a>, <a href="#pg2.133">133</a></li> + +<li>La Madonna di Tirano, i. <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.062">62</a></li> + +<li>La Magione, ii. <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>-48</li> + +<li>La Rosa, i. <a href="#pg1.059">59</a></li> + +<li>La Spezzia, ii. <a href="#pg2.137">137</a>-139, <a href="#pg2.143">143</a></li> + +<li>La Staffa family, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.113">113</a></li> + +<li>Lacca, iii. <a href="#pg3.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Lamb, Charles, ii. <a href="#pg2.110">110</a></li> + +<li>Lampridius, iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Landona, iii. <a href="#pg3.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Lanini, i. <a href="#pg1.139">139</a>-142, <a href="#pg1.162">162</a></li> + +<li>Lanuvium, iii. <a href="#pg3.209">209</a></li> + +<li>Lars Porsena, ii. <a href="#pg2.052">52</a>, <a href="#pg2.093">93</a></li> + +<li>Laschi, the, i. <a href="#pg1.329">329</a></li> + +<li>Le Prese, i. <a href="#pg1.060">60</a></li> + +<li>Leake, Colonel, iii. <a href="#pg3.325">325</a></li> + +<li>Lecco, i. <a href="#pg1.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Legnano, ii. <a href="#pg2.198">198</a></li> + +<li>Lenz, i. <a href="#pg1.065">65</a></li> + +<li>Leo IX., iii. <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Leo X., i. <a href="#pg1.221">221</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.088">88</a>, <a href="#pg2.246">246</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.132">132</a></li> + +<li>Leonardo. (_See_ Vinci, Leonardo da)</li> + +<li>Leoncina, Monna Ippolita, ii. <a href="#pg2.308">308</a></li> + +<li>Leopardi, Alessandro, i. <a href="#pg1.207">207</a>, <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Lepanto, ii. <a href="#pg2.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg2.093">93</a></li> + +<li>Lepidus, ii. <a href="#pg2.027">27</a></li> + +<li>Lerici, ii. <a href="#pg2.139">139</a>, <a href="#pg2.142">142</a>-145</li> + +<li>Les Baux, i. <a href="#pg1.077">77</a>-81; ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a></li> + +<li>Leucadia, iii. <a href="#pg3.364">364</a></li> + +<li>Levezow, Von, iii. <a href="#pg3.211">211</a></li> + +<li>Leyva, Anton de, i. <a href="#pg1.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Lido, the, i. <a href="#pg1.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg1.283">283</a>-286; ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a></li> + +<li>Liguria, the, i. <a href="#pg1.097">97</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.178">178</a>, <a href="#pg2.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Lilyboeum, iii. <a href="#pg3.294">294</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Lioni, Leone, i. <a href="#pg1.188">188</a></li> + +<li>L'Isle, i. <a href="#pg1.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Livorno, ii. <a href="#pg2.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a></li> + +<li>Livy, iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a>, <a href="#pg3.171">171</a></li> + +<li>Lo Spagna, iii. <a href="#pg3.114">114</a></li> + +<li>Lodi, i. <a href="#pg1.216">216</a></li> + +<li>Lomazzo, i. <a href="#pg1.137">137</a></li> + +<li>Lombardy, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg1.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg1.129">129</a>, <a href="#pg1.133">133</a>-172, <a href="#pg1.209">209</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.129">129</a>, <a href="#pg2.132">132</a>, <a href="#pg2.147">147</a>, <a href="#pg2.165">165</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.182">182</a></li> + +<li>Lorenzaccio, ii. <a href="#pg2.041">41</a></li> + +<li>Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, iii. <a href="#pg3.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg3.036">36</a>, <a href="#pg3.043">43</a>, <a href="#pg3.044">44</a></li> + +<li>Lorenzo, Bernardo di, iii. <a href="#pg3.105">105</a></li> + +<li>Loreto, ii. <a href="#pg2.097">97</a></li> + +<li>Lothair, King of Italy, ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> + +<li>Louis XI, ii. <a href="#pg2.237">237</a></li> + +<li>Louis of Anjou, i. <a href="#pg1.195">195</a></li> + +<li>Lovere, i. <a href="#pg1.174">174</a></li> + +<li>Loyola, Ignatius, iii. <a href="#pg3.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Lucan (quoted), i. <a href="#pg1.092">92</a></li> + +<li>Lucca, ii. <a href="#pg2.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg2.203">203</a>, <a href="#pg2.211">211</a>, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>, <a href="#pg2.218">218</a>, <a href="#pg2.286">286</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.004">4</a>, <a href="#pg3.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Lucca, Pauline, i. <a href="#pg1.224">224</a>, <a href="#pg1.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg1.227">227</a>, <a href="#pg1.229">229</a>, <a href="#pg1.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg1.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg1.237">237</a></li> + +<li>Lucera, iii. <a href="#pg3.315">315</a> and _note_</li> + +<li>Lucius III., iii. <a href="#pg3.312">312</a></li> + +<li>Lucretius, iii. <a href="#pg3.157">157</a>-183</li> + +<li>Lugano, i. <a href="#pg1.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg1.128">128</a>, <a href="#pg1.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg1.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Lugano, Lake, i. <a href="#pg1.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg1.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg1.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg1.185">185</a></li> + +<li>Luigi, Pier, ii. <a href="#pg2.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Luini, i. <a href="#pg1.141">141</a>, <a href="#pg1.148">148</a>, <a href="#pg1.153">153</a>, <a href="#pg1.154">154</a>, <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg1.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg1.157">157</a>, <a href="#pg1.162">162</a>, <a href="#pg1.164">164</a>-166, <a href="#pg1.177">177</a>, <a href="#pg1.178">178</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Luna, Etruscan, ii. <a href="#pg2.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Luziano of Lauranna, ii. <a href="#pg2.078">78</a></li> + +<li>Lyly, John, ii. <a href="#pg2.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Lysimeleia, iii. <a href="#pg3.327">327</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Macedonia, iii. <a href="#pg3.323">323</a></li> + +<li>Machiavelli, ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>, <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg2.219">219</a>, <a href="#pg2.220">220</a>, <a href="#pg2.225">225</a>, <a href="#pg2.231">231</a>, <a href="#pg2.250">250</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Macugnaga, i. <a href="#pg1.018">18</a>, <a href="#pg1.020">20</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.282">282</a></li> + +<li>Madrid, iii. <a href="#pg3.223">223</a></li> + +<li>Magenta, i. <a href="#pg1.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Maggiore, Lake, i. <a href="#pg1.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Magnanapoli, ii. <a href="#pg2.095">95</a>, <a href="#pg2.096">96</a>, <a href="#pg2.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Magnani, Giuseppe, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Magra, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.133">133</a>, <a href="#pg2.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg2.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a></li> + +<li>Maitani, Lorenzo, iii. <a href="#pg3.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Majano, Benedetto da, ii. <a href="#pg2.030">30</a></li> + +<li>Malamocco, i. <a href="#pg1.257">257</a>, <a href="#pg1.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg1.281">281</a></li> + +<li>Malaspina family, ii. <a href="#pg2.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg2.136">136</a></li> + +<li>Malaspina, Moroello, ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a></li> + +<li>Malaterra, Godfrey, iii. <a href="#pg3.298">298</a></li> + +<li>Malatesta family, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>-17, <a href="#pg2.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a>, <a href="#pg2.278">278</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.121">121</a></li> + +<li>Malatesta, Gian Galeazzo, ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a></li> + +<li>Malatesta, Giovanni, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Malatesta, Sigismondo Pandolfo, i. <a href="#pg1.135">135</a>, <a href="#pg1.202">202</a>, <a href="#pg1.203">203</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>, <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>-21, <a href="#pg2.072">72</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.007">7</a></li> + +<li>Malfi, Duchess of, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Malghera, i. <a href="#pg1.339">339</a></li> + +<li>Malipiero, Pasquale, i. <a href="#pg1.200">200</a></li> + +<li>Maloja, i. <a href="#pg1.055">55</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.128">128</a>, <a href="#pg2.129">129</a>; + +<ul> +<li>the Pass of, i. <a href="#pg1.053">53</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Malpaga, i. <a href="#pg1.205">205</a>, <a href="#pg1.206">206</a></li> + +<li>Manente, M. Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.329">329</a></li> + +<li>Manfred, King, ii. <a href="#pg2.203">203</a></li> + +<li>Manfredi, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a></li> + +<li>Manfredi, Astorre, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Manfredi, Taddeo, ii. <a href="#pg2.231">231</a></li> + +<li>Maniaces, iii. <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>, <a href="#pg3.301">301</a></li> + +<li>Mansueti, i. <a href="#pg1.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Mantegna, i. <a href="#pg1.176">176</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.100">100</a>, <a href="#pg2.197">197</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Mantinea, iii. <a href="#pg3.207">207</a></li> + +<li>Mantua, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg2.070">70</a>, <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.345">345</a></li> + +<li>Mantua, Dukes of, i. <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.243">243</a></li> + +<li>Mantua, Marquis of, ii. <a href="#pg2.194">194</a>-196, <a href="#pg2.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Marcellinus, Ammianus, iii. <a href="#pg3.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Marcellus, iii. <a href="#pg3.186">186</a></li> + +<li>March, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Marches of Ancona, ii. <a href="#pg2.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Marecchia, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a></li> + +<li>Maremma, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.286">286</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Marenzio, iii. <a href="#pg3.037">37</a></li> + +<li>Margaret of Austria, ii. <a href="#pg2.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Maria, Galeazzo, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Maria, Gian, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Maria Louisa, Duchess of Parma, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Marianazzo, robber chieftain, ii. <a href="#pg2.088">88</a></li> + +<li>Mariano family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.139">139</a></li> + +<li>Marignano, i. <a href="#pg1.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Marignano, Marquis of. (_See_ Medici, Gian Giacomo de')</li> + +<li>Mark, S., ii. <a href="#pg2.019">19</a></li> + +<li>Marlowe, Christopher, ii. <a href="#pg2.159">159</a>, <a href="#pg2.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg2.258">258</a>, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.268">268</a> and _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.228">228</a></li> + +<li>Maroggia, i. <a href="#pg1.175">175</a></li> + +<li>Marseilles, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Marston, the dramatist, ii. <a href="#pg2.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Martelli, Giovan Battista, i. <a href="#pg1.334">334</a>, <a href="#pg1.335">335</a></li> + +<li>Martelli, Luca, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a></li> + +<li>Martial, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a>; iii. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a></li> + +<li>Martin V., iii. <a href="#pg3.095">95</a></li> + +<li>Martinengo, i. <a href="#pg1.203">203</a></li> + +<li>Martinengo family, i. <a href="#pg1.204">204</a></li> + +<li>Martini, Biagio, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Masaccio, i. <a href="#pg1.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg1.145">145</a></li> + +<li>Masolino da Panicale, i. <a href="#pg1.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg1.145">145</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Mason (artist), ii. <a href="#pg2.032">32</a>, <a href="#pg2.129">129</a></li> + +<li>Massinger, Philip, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Matarazzo, iii. <a href="#pg3.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.128">128</a>, <a href="#pg3.130">130</a>, <a href="#pg3.134">134</a></li> + +<li>Matilda, Countess, ii. <a href="#pg2.165">165</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>-173, <a href="#pg2.179">179</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.300">300</a> _note_ 2</li> + +<li>Matteo of Ajello, iii. <a href="#pg3.308">308</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Mauro, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.248">248</a></li> + +<li>Mayenfeld, i. <a href="#pg1.065">65</a></li> + +<li>Mazara, iii. <a href="#pg3.281">281</a></li> + +<li>Mazzorbo, i. <a href="#pg1.282">282</a></li> + +<li>Medici family, i. <a href="#pg1.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg1.315">315</a>-344; ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg2.208">208</a>, <a href="#pg2.209">209</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.245">245</a>, <a href="#pg2.247">247</a>, <a href="#pg2.278">278</a></li> + +<li>Medici, Alessandro de', i. <a href="#pg1.315">315</a>-327, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.248">248</a>, <a href="#pg2.251">251</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Battista de', i. <a href="#pg1.188">188</a>:</li> + +<li>Bernardo de', i. <a href="#pg1.180">180</a>:</li> + +<li>Bianca de', ii. <a href="#pg2.233">233</a>:</li> + +<li>Casa de', i. <a href="#pg1.317">317</a>:</li> + +<li>Catherine de', i. <a href="#pg1.316">316</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>:</li> + +<li>Clarina de', i. <a href="#pg1.182">182</a>:</li> + +<li>Claudia de', ii. <a href="#pg2.077">77</a>:</li> + +<li>Cosimo de', i. <a href="#pg1.319">319</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.225">225</a> _note_, iii. <a href="#pg3.067">67</a>, <a href="#pg3.247">247</a>:</li> + +<li>Cosimo (the younger) de', i. <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg1.330">330</a>, <a href="#pg1.340">340</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>, <a href="#pg2.257">257</a>:</li> + +<li>Ferdinand de', (Cardinal), ii. <a href="#pg2.093">93</a>:</li> + +<li>Francesco di Raffaello de', i. <a href="#pg1.321">321</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg2.104">104</a>:</li> + +<li>Gabrio de', i. <a href="#pg1.188">188</a>:</li> + +<li>Gian Giacomo de' (Il Medeghino), i. <a href="#pg1.179">179</a>-188, iii. <a href="#pg3.067">67</a>:</li> + +<li>Giovanni de', ii. <a href="#pg2.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg2.216">216</a>, <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg2.244">244</a>, <a href="#pg2.245">245</a>, <a href="#pg2.246">246</a> (_see also_ Leo X.):</li> + +<li>Giovanni de' (general), ii. <a href="#pg2.249">249</a>:</li> + +<li>Giuliano, son of Piero de', ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg2.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg2.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg2.318">318</a>, <a href="#pg2.334">334</a>:</li> + +<li>Giuliano de' (Duke of Nemours), ii. <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg2.244">244</a>, <a href="#pg2.245">245</a>, <a href="#pg2.247">247</a>:</li> + +<li>Giulio dei (_see_ Clement VII.):</li> + +<li>Ippolito de', i. <a href="#pg1.316">316</a>-319, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.248">248</a>, <a href="#pg2.251">251</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>:</li> + +<li>Isabella de', ii. <a href="#pg2.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg2.104">104</a>, <a href="#pg2.105">105</a>:</li> + +<li>Lorenzino de', i. <a href="#pg1.315">315</a>, <a href="#pg1.319">319</a>-335, <a href="#pg1.338">338</a>, <a href="#pg1.341">341</a>-344, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>:</li> + +<li>Lorenzo de' (the Magnificent), ii. <a href="#pg2.067">67</a>, <a href="#pg2.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg2.216">216</a>, <a href="#pg2.218">218</a>, <a href="#pg2.226">226</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg2.311">311</a>, <a href="#pg2.325">325</a>, <a href="#pg2.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg2.330">330</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.101">101</a>:</li> + +<li>Lorenzo de' (Duke of Urbino) (_see_ Urbino):</li> + +<li>Maddalena de', ii. <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>:</li> + +<li>Piero de', ii. <a href="#pg2.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg2.192">192</a>, <a href="#pg2.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg2.227">227</a>, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a>, <a href="#pg2.328">328</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.101">101</a>:</li> + +<li>Pietro de', iii. <a href="#pg3.247">247</a>:</li> + +<li>Salvestro de', ii. <a href="#pg2.208">208</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Mediterranean, the, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.145">145</a></li> + +<li>Melfi, iii. <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Melo of Bari, iii. <a href="#pg3.299">299</a></li> + +<li>Meloria, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.253">253</a></li> + +<li>Menaggio, i. <a href="#pg1.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Menander, iii. <a href="#pg3.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Mendelssohn, i. <a href="#pg1.010">10</a></li> + +<li>Mendrisio, i. <a href="#pg1.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg1.175">175</a></li> + +<li>Menoetes, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Mentone, i. <a href="#pg1.083">83</a>-93, <a href="#pg1.094">94</a>, <a href="#pg1.098">98</a>, <a href="#pg1.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg1.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg1.106">106</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a></li> + +<li>Menzoni, ii. <a href="#pg2.285">285</a></li> + +<li>Mer de Glace, iii. <a href="#pg3.282">282</a></li> + +<li>Meran, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Mercatello, Gentile, ii. <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Mesomedes, iii. 201</li> + +<li>Messina, iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.292">292</a> and _note_, <a href="#pg3.301">301</a></li> + +<li>Mestre, i. <a href="#pg1.339">339</a></li> + +<li>Metaurus, or Metauro, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg2.058">58</a></li> + +<li>Mevania (Bevagna), ii. <a href="#pg2.038">38</a></li> + +<li>Michelangelo. (_See_ Buonarroti, Michel Angelo)</li> + +<li>Michelhorn, ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Michelozzi, Michelozzo, iii. <a href="#pg3.096">96</a></li> + +<li>Middleton, Thomas, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Mignucci, Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.090">90</a></li> + +<li>Milan, i. <a href="#pg1.014">14</a>, <a href="#pg1.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg1.020">20</a>, <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.121">121</a>, <a href="#pg1.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg1.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>-161, <a href="#pg1.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg1.178">178</a>, <a href="#pg1.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>, <a href="#pg1.203">203</a>, <a href="#pg1.212">212</a>, <a href="#pg1.213">213</a>, <a href="#pg1.223">223</a> foll.; ii. <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg2.190">190</a>, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.151">151</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.348">348</a></li> + +<li>Milan, Dukes of, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg1.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.200">200</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.214">214</a></li> + +<li>Millet, iii. <a href="#pg3.077">77</a></li> + +<li>Milton, ii. <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.258">258</a>, <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.274">274</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.025">25</a>, <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg3.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg3.158">158</a>, <a href="#pg3.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg3.342">342</a></li> + +<li>Mino da Fiesole, ii. <a href="#pg2.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Mirandola, Duchy of, i. <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Mirandola, the Counts of, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Mirandola, Pico della, ii. <a href="#pg2.021">21</a></li> + +<li>Mirano, i. <a href="#pg1.294">294</a></li> + +<li>Miseno, iii. <a href="#pg3.238">238</a>, <a href="#pg3.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg3.242">242</a></li> + +<li>Mnesicles, iii. <a href="#pg3.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Mnestheus, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Modena, i. <a href="#pg1.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg1.172">172</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg2.221">221</a></li> + +<li>Molsa, Francesco Maria, i. <a href="#pg1.326">326</a></li> + +<li>Monaco, i. <a href="#pg1.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg1.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Mondello, iii. <a href="#pg3.294">294</a></li> + +<li>Monreale, ii. <a href="#pg2.010">10</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.311">311</a>-314</li> + +<li>Mont Blanc, i. <a href="#pg1.014">14</a>, <a href="#pg1.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Cenis, ii. <a href="#pg2.174">174</a>:</li> + +<li>Cervin, i. <a href="#pg1.169">169</a>:</li> + +<li>Chétif, i. <a href="#pg1.014">14</a>:</li> + +<li>Finsteraarhorn, i. <a href="#pg1.169">169</a>:</li> + +<li>Genêvre, ii. <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>:</li> + +<li>S. Michel, ii. <a href="#pg2.167">167</a>:</li> + +<li>de la Saxe, i. <a href="#pg1.014">14</a>:</li> + +<li>Solaro, iii. <a href="#pg3.230">230</a>:</li> + +<li>Ventoux, ii. <a href="#pg2.022">22</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Montalcino, iii. <a href="#pg3.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg3.079">79</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a></li> + +<li>Montalembert, iii. <a href="#pg3.249">249</a></li> + +<li>Montalto, Cardinal, ii. <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg2.095">95</a>, <a href="#pg2.098">98</a>, <a href="#pg2.103">103</a> (_see also_ Sixtus V.)</li> + +<li>Montdragon, i. <a href="#pg1.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Monte Adamello, i. <a href="#pg1.174">174</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Amiata, iii. <a href="#pg3.042">42</a>, <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg3.080">80</a>, <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg3.093">93</a>, <a href="#pg3.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg3.104">104</a>, <a href="#pg3.106">106</a>, <a href="#pg3.108">108</a>:</li> + +<li>d'Asdrubale, ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>:</li> + +<li>Aureo, iii. <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>:</li> + +<li>Calvo, ii. <a href="#pg2.055">55</a>:</li> + +<li>Carboniano, ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>:</li> + +<li>Cassino, iii. <a href="#pg3.248">248</a>:</li> + +<li>Catini, iii. <a href="#pg3.004">4</a>:</li> + +<li>Catria, ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.111">111</a>:</li> + +<li>Cavallo, ii. <a href="#pg2.094">94</a>:</li> + +<li>Cetona, ii. <a href="#pg2.051">51</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>:</li> + +<li>Coppiolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.064">64</a>:</li> + +<li>Delle Celle, ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>:</li> + +<li>di Disgrazia, i. <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>:</li> + +<li>Epomeo, iii. <a href="#pg3.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg3.236">236</a>, <a href="#pg3.237">237</a>-240, <a href="#pg3.241">241</a>:</li> + +<li>Fallonica, iii. <a href="#pg3.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg3.110">110</a>:</li> + +<li>Gargano, iii. <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>:</li> + +<li>Generoso, i. <a href="#pg1.121">121</a>-132, <a href="#pg1.173">173</a>:</li> + +<li>Leone, i. <a href="#pg1.174">174</a>:</li> + +<li>Nerone, ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>:</li> + +<li>Nuovo, iii. <a href="#pg3.242">242</a>:</li> + +<li>Oliveto, i. <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.082">82</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg3.074">74</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.151">151</a> _note_:</li> + +<li>d'Oro, i. <a href="#pg1.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg1.111">111</a>:</li> + +<li>Pellegrino, ii. <a href="#pg2.176">176</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.294">294</a>:</li> + +<li>Rosa, i. <a href="#pg1.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg1.018">18</a>, <a href="#pg1.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg1.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg1.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg1.129">129</a>, <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg1.169">169</a>:</li> + +<li>Rosso, iii. <a href="#pg3.279">279</a>:</li> + +<li>Rotondo, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.033">33</a>:</li> + +<li>Salvadore, i. <a href="#pg1.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg1.128">128</a>:</li> + +<li>Soracte, ii. <a href="#pg2.051">51</a>:</li> + +<li>Viso, i. <a href="#pg1.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg1.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg1.174">174</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Montefalco, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>-37, <a href="#pg2.039">39</a>, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a></li> + +<li>Montefeltro family, ii. <a href="#pg2.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg2.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>-72</li> + +<li>Montefeltro, Federigo di, i. <a href="#pg1.207">207</a>, <a href="#pg1.208">208</a></li> + +<li>Montefeltro, Giovanna, ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a></li> + +<li>Montélimart, i. <a href="#pg1.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Montepulciano, ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg3.087">87</a>-102, <a href="#pg3.109">109</a>, <a href="#pg3.110">110</a></li> + +<li>Montferrat, Boniface, Marquis of, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Monti della Sibilla, ii. <a href="#pg2.046">46</a></li> + +<li>Monza, i. <a href="#pg1.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Moors, the, i. <a href="#pg1.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg1.094">94</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.296">296</a>, <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>, <a href="#pg3.301">301</a></li> + +<li>Morbegno, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.051">51</a>, <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Morea, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.339">339</a></li> + +<li>Morris, William, ii. <a href="#pg2.271">271</a></li> + +<li>Morteratsch, the, i. <a href="#pg1.056">56</a></li> + +<li>Mozart, i. <a href="#pg1.223">223</a>, <a href="#pg1.227">227</a>, <a href="#pg1.229">229</a>, <a href="#pg1.231">231</a>-237, <a href="#pg1.249">249</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.153">153</a></li> + +<li>Mühlen, ii. <a href="#pg2.128">128</a></li> + +<li>Mulhausen, i. <a href="#pg1.001">1</a></li> + +<li>Murano, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg1.282">282</a>, <a href="#pg1.333">333</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a></li> + +<li>Murillo, ii. <a href="#pg2.153">153</a></li> + +<li>Mürren, i. <a href="#pg1.009">9</a>, <a href="#pg1.011">11</a>, <a href="#pg1.014">14</a></li> + +<li>Musset, De, i. <a href="#pg1.342">342</a></li> + +<li>Mussulmans, iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.294">294</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.302">302</a>, <a href="#pg3.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg3.307">307</a>, <a href="#pg3.316">316</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Naples, ii. <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.188">188</a>, <a href="#pg2.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg2.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg2.282">282</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.221">221</a>, <a href="#pg3.231">231</a>, <a href="#pg3.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg3.243">243</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.254">254</a>, <a href="#pg3.256">256</a>, <a href="#pg3.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg3.276">276</a>, <a href="#pg3.289">289</a>, <a href="#pg3.317">317</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Naples, Queens of, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Napoleon Buonaparte, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.106">106</a>, <a href="#pg1.118">118</a>, <a href="#pg1.119">119</a>, <a href="#pg1.120">120</a></li> + +<li>Narni, i. <a href="#pg1.086">86</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a>, <a href="#pg2.038">38</a></li> + +<li>Nash, Thomas, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a></li> + +<li>Nassaus, the, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Navone, Signor Giulio, iii. <a href="#pg3.004">4</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Naxos, iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a></li> + +<li>Negro, Abbate de, iii. <a href="#pg3.078">78</a>, <a href="#pg3.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Nera, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a>, <a href="#pg2.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a></li> + +<li>Nero, i. <a href="#pg1.135">135</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg3.164">164</a></li> + +<li>Neroni, Diotisalvi, ii. <a href="#pg2.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg2.256">256</a></li> + +<li>Niccolini, i. <a href="#pg1.342">342</a></li> + +<li>Niccolo da Bari, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.238">238</a></li> + +<li>Niccolo da Uzzano, ii. <a href="#pg2.215">215</a></li> + +<li>Nice, i. <a href="#pg1.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg1.106">106</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a></li> + +<li>Nicholas II., iii. <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Nicholas V., ii. <a href="#pg2.028">28</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg2.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Nicholas the Pisan, iii. <a href="#pg3.260">260</a></li> + +<li>Nicolosi, iii. <a href="#pg3.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Nikias, iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.324">324</a>, <a href="#pg3.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg3.327">327</a></li> + +<li>Nile, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.190">190</a>, <a href="#pg3.201">201</a>, <a href="#pg1.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Niolo, i. <a href="#pg1.112">112</a>, <a href="#pg1.115">115</a></li> + +<li>Nisi, Messer Nicholò di, iii. <a href="#pg3.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg3.003">3</a></li> + +<li>Nismes, i. <a href="#pg1.074">74</a>-77</li> + +<li>Noel, Mr. Roden, i. <a href="#pg1.010">10</a></li> + +<li>Norcia, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.092">92</a></li> + +<li>Normans (in Sicily), iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Novara, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg1.124">124</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Oberland valleys, i. <a href="#pg1.012">12</a></li> + +<li>Oddantonio, Duke of Urbino, ii. <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Oddi family, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.113">113</a>, <a href="#pg3.119">119</a>, <a href="#pg3.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg3.134">134</a></li> + +<li>Odoacer, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Offamilio, iii. <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Oglio, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Olgiati, i. <a href="#pg1.341">341</a></li> + +<li>Oliverotto da Fermo, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.048">48</a></li> + +<li>Ombrone, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.108">108</a>; + +<ul> +<li>Val d', iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Oortman, ii. <a href="#pg2.149">149</a></li> + +<li>Orange, i. <a href="#pg1.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg1.069">69</a></li> + +<li>Orange, Prince of, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a>, <a href="#pg1.316">316</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg2.254">254</a></li> + +<li>Orcagna, iii. <a href="#pg3.036">36</a></li> + +<li>Orcia, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.104">104</a>, <a href="#pg3.108">108</a></li> + +<li>Ordelaffi, Cicco and Pino, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Origen, iii. <a href="#pg3.211">211</a>, <a href="#pg3.219">219</a>, <a href="#pg3.220">220</a> Orlando, ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>, <a href="#pg2.043">43</a></li> + +<li>Ornani, the, i. <a href="#pg1.114">114</a></li> + +<li>Orpheus, ii. <a href="#pg2.346">346</a>-364</li> + +<li>Orsini, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg2.157">157</a></li> + +<li>Orsini, Alfonsina, ii. <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Cardinal, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>:</li> + +<li>Clarice, ii. <a href="#pg2.227">227</a>:</li> + +<li>Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>:</li> + +<li>Giustina, iii. <a href="#pg3.125">125</a>:</li> + +<li>Lodovico, ii. <a href="#pg2.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg2.100">100</a>, <a href="#pg2.101">101</a>, <a href="#pg2.104">104</a>, <a href="#pg2.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg2.108">108</a>:</li> + +<li>Paolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>:</li> + +<li>Paolo Giordano (_see_ Bracciano, Duke of):</li> + +<li>Troilo, i. <a href="#pg1.327">327</a> _note_, ii. <a href="#pg2.093">93</a> and _note_:</li> + +<li>Virginio (_see_ Bracciano, second Duke of)</li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Orta, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Ortler, the, i. <a href="#pg1.126">126</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Ortygia, iii. <a href="#pg3.321">321</a>, <a href="#pg3.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg3.327">327</a></li> + +<li>Orvieto, i. <a href="#pg1.086">86</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.051">51</a>, <a href="#pg2.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg2.362">362</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg3.082">82</a>, <a href="#pg3.111">111</a>, <a href="#pg3.137">137</a>-154</li> + +<li>Otho I., ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> + +<li>Otho III., ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Otranto, ii. <a href="#pg2.235">235</a></li> + +<li>'Ottimati,' the, ii. <a href="#pg2.242">242</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.251">251</a>, <a href="#pg2.254">254</a>, <a href="#pg2.255">255</a>, <a href="#pg2.257">257</a></li> + +<li>Overbeck, iii. <a href="#pg3.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Ovid, ii. <a href="#pg2.338">338</a>, <a href="#pg2.344">344</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg3.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a>, <a href="#pg3.341">341</a> _note_ 1</li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Padua, i. <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>, <a href="#pg1.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg1.260">260</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>, <a href="#pg2.098">98</a>, <a href="#pg2.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg2.101">101</a>, <a href="#pg2.104">104</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.218">218</a>, <a href="#pg2.221">221</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Pæstum, iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a>, <a href="#pg3.259">259</a>, <a href="#pg3.261">261</a>-269</li> + +<li>Paganello, Conte, ii. <a href="#pg2.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Paglia, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.137">137</a></li> + +<li>Painter, William, ii. <a href="#pg2.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.272">272</a></li> + +<li>Palermo, ii. <a href="#pg2.010">10</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.252">252</a>, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>-318</li> + +<li>Palestrina, iii. <a href="#pg3.037">37</a></li> + +<li>Palladio, i. <a href="#pg1.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg1.256">256</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.029">29</a></li> + +<li>Pallavicino, Matteo, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Palma, i. <a href="#pg1.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg1.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Palmaria, ii. <a href="#pg2.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Palmer, Richard, Bishop of Syracuse, iii. <a href="#pg3.306">306</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Pancrates, iii. <a href="#pg3.201">201</a>, <a href="#pg3.204">204</a>, <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Panizzi, ii. <a href="#pg2.043">43</a></li> + +<li>Panormus, iii. <a href="#pg3.291">291</a></li> + +<li>Pantellaria, iii. <a href="#pg3.294">294</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Paoli, General, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a>, <a href="#pg1.115">115</a></li> + +<li>Paris, i. <a href="#pg1.020">20</a></li> + +<li>Parker, ----, ii. <a href="#pg2.266">266</a></li> + +<li>Parma, i. <a href="#pg1.163">163</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.131">131</a>, <a href="#pg2.147">147</a>-162, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>, <a href="#pg2.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg2.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg2.196">196</a></li> + +<li>Parma, Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a></li> + +<li>Parmegiano, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a>, <a href="#pg2.158">158</a>, <a href="#pg2.159">159</a></li> + +<li>Parmenides, iii. <a href="#pg3.171">171</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Passerini, Silvio (Cardinal of Cortona), ii. <a href="#pg2.251">251</a></li> + +<li>Passerini da Cortona, Cardinal, i. <a href="#pg1.316">316</a></li> + +<li>Passignano, ii. <a href="#pg2.048">48</a></li> + +<li>Pasta, Dr., i. <a href="#pg1.123">123</a>, <a href="#pg1.124">124</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Patmore, Coventry, iii. <a href="#pg3.136">136</a></li> + +<li>Patrizzi, Patrizio, iii. <a href="#pg3.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Paul III., i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.088">88</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.120">120</a>, <a href="#pg3.133">133</a></li> + +<li>Pausanias, iii. <a href="#pg3.207">207</a></li> + +<li>Pavia, i. <a href="#pg1.146">146</a>-151, <a href="#pg1.158">158</a>, <a href="#pg1.176">176</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg1.198">198</a>, <a href="#pg1.212">212</a>, <a href="#pg1.351">351</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.182">182</a></li> + +<li>Pavia, Cardinal of, ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a></li> + +<li>Pazzi, Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg2.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg2.256">256</a>, <a href="#pg2.335">335</a></li> + +<li>Pazzi, Guglielmo, ii. <a href="#pg2.233">233</a></li> + +<li>Peiræeus, iii. <a href="#pg3.357">357</a></li> + +<li>Pelestrina, i. <a href="#pg1.258">258</a></li> + +<li>Pelusium, iii. <a href="#pg3.189">189</a></li> + +<li>Pembroke, Countess of, ii. <a href="#pg2.265">265</a></li> + +<li>Penna, Jeronimo della, iii. <a href="#pg3.124">124</a></li> + +<li>Pentelicus, i. <a href="#pg1.210">210</a></li> + +<li>Pepin, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Peretti family, ii. <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Peretti, Camilla, ii. <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Peretti, Francesco, ii. <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.092">92</a> foll., <a href="#pg2.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Pericles, iii. <a href="#pg3.343">343</a>, <a href="#pg3.350">350</a></li> + +<li>Persephone, iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a></li> + +<li>Persius, iii. <a href="#pg3.165">165</a>, <a href="#pg3.172">172</a></li> + +<li>Perugia, i. <a href="#pg1.188">188</a>, <a href="#pg1.214">214</a>, <a href="#pg1.350">350</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>, <a href="#pg2.052">52</a>, <a href="#pg2.163">163</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg3.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg3.111">111</a>-136</li> + +<li>Perugino, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg1.239">239</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>, <a href="#pg2.057">57</a>, <a href="#pg2.059">59</a>, <a href="#pg2.159">159</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.114">114</a>, <a href="#pg3.116">116</a>, <a href="#pg3.117">117</a>-119, <a href="#pg3.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Perusia Augusta, ii. <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a></li> + +<li>Peruzzi, i. <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Pesaro, ii. <a href="#pg2.059">59</a>, <a href="#pg2.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg2.076">76</a></li> + +<li>Pescara, Marquis of, i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Petrarch, i. <a href="#pg1.072">72</a>, <a href="#pg1.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg1.074">74</a> and _note_, <a href="#pg1.086">86</a>, <a href="#pg1.168">168</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.022">22</a>, <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg2.303">303</a>, <a href="#pg2.332">332</a>, <a href="#pg2.344">344</a>, <a href="#pg2.365">365</a>-368; iii. <a href="#pg3.254">254</a>-256, <a href="#pg3.308">308</a>, <a href="#pg3.316">316</a></li> + +<li>Petrucci, Pandolfo, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.082">82</a></li> + +<li>Phædrus, iii. <a href="#pg3.188">188</a>, <a href="#pg3.351">351</a></li> + +<li>Pheidias, i. <a href="#pg1.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg1.246">246</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg3.346">346</a>, <a href="#pg3.349">349</a></li> + +<li>Philippus, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Philistis, Queen, iii. <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Philostratus, ii. <a href="#pg2.293">293</a></li> + +<li>Phlegræan plains, iii. <a href="#pg3.235">235</a>, <a href="#pg3.239">239</a></li> + +<li>Phoenicians, iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.335">335</a></li> + +<li>Piacenza, i. <a href="#pg1.142">142</a>-144, <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>, <a href="#pg1.340">340</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg2.197">197</a></li> + +<li>'Piagnoni,' the, ii. <a href="#pg2.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg2.254">254</a></li> + +<li>Piccinino, Jacopo, ii. <a href="#pg2.234">234</a></li> + +<li>Piccinino, Niccolò, i. <a href="#pg1.207">207</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Piccolomini family, iii. <a href="#pg3.107">107</a></li> + +<li>Piccolomini, Æneas Sylvius, ii. <a href="#pg2.023">23</a> (_see also_ Pius II.)</li> + +<li>Piccolomini, Ambrogio, iii. <a href="#pg3.072">72</a>, <a href="#pg3.074">74</a></li> + +<li>Piedmont, i. <a href="#pg1.129">129</a></li> + +<li>Pienza, iii. <a href="#pg3.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg3.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg3.104">104</a>-107</li> + +<li>Piero della Francesca, ii. <a href="#pg2.072">72</a>, <a href="#pg2.322">322</a></li> + +<li>Piero Delle Vigne, iii. <a href="#pg3.316">316</a></li> + +<li>Pietra Rubia, ii. <a href="#pg2.064">64</a></li> + +<li>Pietra Santa, ii. <a href="#pg2.238">238</a></li> + +<li>Pietro di Cardona, Don, i. <a href="#pg1.158">158</a></li> + +<li>Pignatta, Captain, i. <a href="#pg1.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Pindar, iii. <a href="#pg3.162">162</a>, <a href="#pg3.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg3.289">289</a>, <a href="#pg3.332">332</a></li> + +<li>Pinturicchio, Bernardo, ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg3.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg3.114">114</a></li> + +<li>Piranesi, i. <a href="#pg1.077">77</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.181">181</a></li> + +<li>Pisa, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg2.203">203</a>, <a href="#pg2.211">211</a>, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>, <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg2.244">244</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Pisani, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.030">30</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Pisani, Vittore, i. <a href="#pg1.259">259</a></li> + +<li>Pisano, Andrea, iii. <a href="#pg3.144">144</a></li> + +<li>Pisano, Giovanni, iii. <a href="#pg3.112">112</a>, <a href="#pg3.144">144</a></li> + +<li>Pisano, Niccola, ii. <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg3.146">146</a></li> + +<li>Pisciadella, i. <a href="#pg1.060">60</a></li> + +<li>Pistoja, ii. <a href="#pg2.281">281</a>, <a href="#pg2.283">283</a>, <a href="#pg2.287">287</a></li> + +<li>Pitré, Signor, ii. <a href="#pg2.281">281</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Pitta, Luca, ii. <a href="#pg2.226">226</a>, <a href="#pg2.256">256</a></li> + +<li>Pitz d'Aela, ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Pitz Badin, ii. <a href="#pg2.130">130</a></li> + +<li>Pitz Languard, i. <a href="#pg1.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Pitz Palu, i. <a href="#pg1.056">56</a></li> + +<li>Pius II., i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg3.104">104</a>, <a href="#pg3.105">105</a></li> + +<li>Pius IV., i. <a href="#pg1.182">182</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Pius IX., iii. <a href="#pg3.196">196</a></li> + +<li>Placidia, Galla, ii. <a href="#pg2.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg2.011">11</a></li> + +<li>Planta, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Plato, i. <a href="#pg1.249">249</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.337">337</a>, <a href="#pg3.341">341</a>, <a href="#pg3.351">351</a>, <a href="#pg3.352">352</a>, <a href="#pg3.353">353</a></li> + +<li>Pletho, Gemisthus, ii. <a href="#pg2.019">19</a> and _note_</li> + +<li>Plinies, the, i. <a href="#pg1.177">177</a></li> + +<li>Plutarch, iii. <a href="#pg3.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Po, the, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Poggio. (_See_ Bracciolini, Poggio)</li> + +<li>Polenta, Francesca da, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Politian, iii. <a href="#pg3.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Poliziano, Angelo, ii. <a href="#pg2.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg2.237">237</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg2.306">306</a>, <a href="#pg2.308">308</a>, <a href="#pg2.309">309</a>, <a href="#pg2.312">312</a>, <a href="#pg2.314">314</a>, <a href="#pg2.318">318</a>, <a href="#pg2.322">322</a>, <a href="#pg2.323">323</a>, <a href="#pg2.324">324</a>, <a href="#pg2.334">334</a>, <a href="#pg2.335">335</a>, <a href="#pg2.338">338</a>, <a href="#pg2.340">340</a>, <a href="#pg2.342">342</a>-344, <a href="#pg2.345">345</a>-364; iii. <a href="#pg3.101">101</a></li> + +<li>Polyphemus, i. <a href="#pg1.091">91</a></li> + +<li>Pompeii, iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg3.244">244</a></li> + +<li>Pompey, iii. <a href="#pg3.189">189</a></li> + +<li>Pontano, iii. <a href="#pg3.242">242</a>, <a href="#pg3.243">243</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Ponte, Da, i. <a href="#pg1.227">227</a>, <a href="#pg1.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Pontremoli, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.133">133</a>, <a href="#pg2.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg2.194">194</a></li> + +<li>Pontresina, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg1.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Pope, Alexander, i. <a href="#pg1.006">6</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a></li> + +<li>Porcari, Stefano, ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Porcellio, ii. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a></li> + +<li>Porlezza, i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Portici, iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a></li> + +<li>Porto d' Anzio, iii. <a href="#pg3.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Porto Fino, ii. <a href="#pg2.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Porto Venere, ii. <a href="#pg2.140">140</a>-142</li> + +<li>Portogallo, Cardinal di, iii. <a href="#pg3.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Portus Classis, ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg2.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg2.011">11</a>, <a href="#pg2.012">12</a></li> + +<li>Poschiavo, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.060">60</a></li> + +<li>Poseidonia, iii. <a href="#pg3.261">261</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Posilippo, iii. <a href="#pg3.231">231</a>, <a href="#pg3.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg3.309">309</a></li> + +<li>Poussin (cited), i. <a href="#pg1.262">262</a></li> + +<li>Poveglia, i. <a href="#pg1.257">257</a></li> + +<li>Pozzuoli, iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg3.241">241</a>, <a href="#pg3.242">242</a>, <a href="#pg3.243">243</a></li> + +<li>Prato, ii. <a href="#pg2.244">244</a>, <a href="#pg2.245">245</a></li> + +<li>Procida, iii. <a href="#pg3.238">238</a>, <a href="#pg3.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg3.242">242</a></li> + +<li>Promontogno, ii. <a href="#pg2.130">130</a></li> + +<li>Provence, i. <a href="#pg1.068">68</a>-82</li> + +<li>Provence, Counts of, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Psyttaleia, iii. <a href="#pg3.358">358</a></li> + +<li>Ptolemy, iii. <a href="#pg3.205">205</a></li> + +<li>Puccini (Medicean) party, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.222">222</a></li> + +<li>Pulci, ii. <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Pythagoras, ii. <a href="#pg2.024">24</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Quattro Castelli, ii. <a href="#pg2.165">165</a>, <a href="#pg2.171">171</a></li> + +<li>Quirini, the, i. <a href="#pg1.331">331</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Rabelais, iii. <a href="#pg3.161">161</a></li> + +<li>Radicofani, iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg3.103">103</a>, <a href="#pg3.106">106</a>, <a href="#pg3.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Ragatz, i. <a href="#pg1.065">65</a></li> + +<li>Raimond, Count of Provence, iii. <a href="#pg3.305">305</a></li> + +<li>Raimondi, Carlo, ii. <a href="#pg2.150">150</a></li> + +<li>Rainulf, Count, iii. <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>, <a href="#pg3.300">300</a></li> + +<li>Raleigh, Sir Walter, ii. <a href="#pg2.264">264</a></li> + +<li>Rametta, iii. <a href="#pg3.302">302</a></li> + +<li>Rapallo, iii. <a href="#pg3.256">256</a></li> + +<li>Raphael, i. <a href="#pg1.138">138</a>-140, <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>, <a href="#pg1.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg1.266">266</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.027">27</a>, <a href="#pg2.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>, <a href="#pg2.056">56</a>, <a href="#pg2.082">82</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg2.126">126</a>, <a href="#pg2.147">147</a>, <a href="#pg2.152">152</a>, <a href="#pg2.159">159</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.114">114</a>, <a href="#pg3.117">117</a>, <a href="#pg3.123">123</a>, <a href="#pg3.129">129</a>, <a href="#pg3.141">141</a>, <a href="#pg3.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg3.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg3.227">227</a>, <a href="#pg3.228">228</a></li> + +<li>Ravello, iii. <a href="#pg3.259">259</a></li> + +<li>Ravenna, i. <a href="#pg1.160">160</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1-13</a>, <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.244">244</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.315">315</a></li> + +<li>Raymond, iii. <a href="#pg3.052">52</a>, <a href="#pg3.053">53</a></li> + +<li>Recanati, ii. <a href="#pg2.063">63</a></li> + +<li>Redi, iii. <a href="#pg3.095">95</a></li> + +<li>Reggio d'Emilia, ii. <a href="#pg2.165">165</a>, <a href="#pg2.167">167</a>-169, <a href="#pg2.196">196</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a></li> + +<li>Regno, the, i. <a href="#pg1.196">196</a></li> + +<li>Rembrandt, i. <a href="#pg1.345">345</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg2.275">275</a></li> + +<li>René of Anjou, King, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a></li> + +<li>Reni, Guido, ii. <a href="#pg2.086">86</a></li> + +<li>Rhætia, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Rhætikon, the, i. <a href="#pg1.029">29</a></li> + +<li>Rhine, the, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a></li> + +<li>Rhone, the, i. <a href="#pg1.070">70</a>, <a href="#pg1.071">71</a>, <a href="#pg1.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg1.078">78</a></li> + +<li>Riario, Girolamo, ii. <a href="#pg2.231">231</a>, <a href="#pg2.232">232</a></li> + +<li>Ricci, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.213">213</a></li> + +<li>Ridolfi, Cardinal, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Ridolfi, Pietro, iii. <a href="#pg3.011">11</a></li> + +<li>Rienzi, i. <a href="#pg1.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Rieti, valley of, ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a></li> + +<li>Rimini, i. <a href="#pg1.350">350</a>, <a href="#pg1.353">353</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>-31, <a href="#pg2.060">60</a>, <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Rimini, Francesca da, ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Riviera, the, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg1.097">97</a>, <a href="#pg1.104">104</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.143">143</a></li> + +<li>Riviera, mountains of, ii. <a href="#pg2.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Robbia, Luca della, ii. <a href="#pg2.029">29</a></li> + +<li>Robustelli, Jacopo, i. <a href="#pg1.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Rocca d' Orcia, iii. <a href="#pg3.106">106</a>, <a href="#pg3.108">108</a></li> + +<li>Roccabruna, i. <a href="#pg1.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg1.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg1.092">92</a></li> + +<li>Rodari, Bernardino, i. <a href="#pg1.175">175</a></li> + +<li>Rodari, Jacopo, i. <a href="#pg1.175">175</a></li> + +<li>Rodari, Tommaso, i. <a href="#pg1.175">175</a>, <a href="#pg1.176">176</a></li> + +<li>Roger of Hauteville, iii. <a href="#pg3.295">295</a> and _note_, <a href="#pg3.296">296</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Roger (the younger) of Hauteville, King of Sicily, iii. <a href="#pg3.252">252</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.293">293</a>, <a href="#pg3.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg3.307">307</a>-311, <a href="#pg3.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Rogers, Samuel, ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a></li> + +<li>Roland, ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>, <a href="#pg2.043">43</a></li> + +<li>Roma, Antonio da, i. <a href="#pg1.328">328</a>, <a href="#pg1.329">329</a></li> + +<li>Romagna, ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg2.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Romano, i. <a href="#pg1.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Romano, Giulio, i. <a href="#pg1.243">243</a></li> + +<li>Rome, i. <a href="#pg1.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg1.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg1.139">139</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg2.032">32</a>, <a href="#pg2.088">88</a>, <a href="#pg2.089">89</a>, <a href="#pg2.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg2.259">259</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.022">22</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg3.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg3.323">323</a></li> + +<li>Ronco, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg2.010">10</a></li> + +<li>Rossellino, Bernardo, iii. <a href="#pg3.062">62</a>, <a href="#pg3.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg3.106">106</a></li> + +<li>Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, ii. <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg3.003">3</a>, <a href="#pg3.017">17</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Rousseau, i. <a href="#pg1.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg1.006">6</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.027">27</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.157">157</a></li> + +<li>Rovere, Francesco della. (_See_ Sixtus IV.)</li> + +<li>Rovere, Francesco Maria (Duke of Urbino). (_See_ Urbino)</li> + +<li>Rovere, Giovanni della, ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a></li> + +<li>Rovere, Livia della, ii. <a href="#pg2.077">77</a></li> + +<li>Rovere, Vittoria della, ii. <a href="#pg2.078">78</a></li> + +<li>Rubens, i. <a href="#pg1.345">345</a></li> + +<li>Rubicon, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a></li> + +<li>Rucellai family, ii. <a href="#pg2.028">28</a></li> + +<li>Rumano, i. <a href="#pg1.204">204</a></li> + +<li>Rusca, Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.177">177</a></li> + +<li>Ruskin, Mr., i. <a href="#pg1.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg1.125">125</a></li> + +<li>Rydberg, Victor, iii. <a href="#pg3.224">224</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.227">227</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Sabine Mountains, ii. <a href="#pg2.032">32</a>, <a href="#pg2.033">33</a>, <a href="#pg2.039">39</a>, <a href="#pg2.088">88</a></li> + +<li>Sacchetti, iii. <a href="#pg3.012">12</a>, <a href="#pg3.013">13</a>, <a href="#pg3.016">16</a></li> + +<li>Saintrè, Jehan de, iii. <a href="#pg3.013">13</a></li> + +<li>Salamis, iii. <a href="#pg3.358">358</a>, <a href="#pg3.362">362</a></li> + +<li>Salerno, iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a>, <a href="#pg3.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg3.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg3.299">299</a></li> + +<li>Salimbeni, house of, iii. <a href="#pg3.007">7</a></li> + +<li>Salimbeni, Niccolò de', iii. <a href="#pg3.003">3</a></li> + +<li>Salis, Von, family, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Salis, Von, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Salò, ii. <a href="#pg2.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Salviati, Cardinal, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Salviati, Francesco (Archbishop of Pisa), ii. <a href="#pg2.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg2.233">233</a></li> + +<li>Salviati (Governor of Cortona), ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Salviati, Madonna Lucrezia, i. <a href="#pg1.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Salviati, Madonna Maria, i. <a href="#pg1.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Samaden, i. <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg1.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg1.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Samminiato, iii. <a href="#pg3.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Sampiero, i. <a href="#pg1.112">112</a>, <a href="#pg1.113">113</a>-115</li> + +<li>Sanazzaro, ii. <a href="#pg2.264">264</a> and _note_ 1</li> + +<li>S. Agnese, i. <a href="#pg1.085">85</a></li> + +<li>S. Erasmo, i. <a href="#pg1.256">256</a>, <a href="#pg1.283">283</a></li> + +<li>S. Gilles, i. <a href="#pg1.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg1.082">82</a></li> + +<li>S. Pietro, i. <a href="#pg1.258">258</a></li> + +<li>S. Spirito, i. <a href="#pg1.257">257</a></li> + +<li>San Gemignano, iii. <a href="#pg3.003">3</a>, <a href="#pg3.059">59</a></li> + +<li>San Germano, iii. <a href="#pg3.246">246</a>, <a href="#pg3.305">305</a></li> + +<li>San Giacomo, i. <a href="#pg1.063">63</a></li> + +<li>San Lazzaro, i. <a href="#pg1.280">280</a></li> + +<li>San Leo, ii. <a href="#pg2.064">64</a></li> + +<li>San Marino, ii. <a href="#pg2.060">60</a>, <a href="#pg2.062">62</a>-64</li> + +<li>San Martino, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>San Michele, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a></li> + +<li>San Moritz, i. <a href="#pg1.055">55</a>, <a href="#pg1.058">58</a></li> + +<li>San Nicoletto, i. <a href="#pg1.283">283</a>, <a href="#pg1.286">286</a></li> + +<li>San Quirico, iii. <a href="#pg3.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg3.102">102</a>, <a href="#pg3.107">107</a>-110</li> + +<li>San Remo, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a> _note_, <a href="#pg1.093">93</a>-98, <a href="#pg1.105">105</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.256">256</a></li> + +<li>San Rocco, i. <a href="#pg1.265">265</a></li> + +<li>San Romolo, i. <a href="#pg1.098">98</a>-100, <a href="#pg1.103">103</a></li> + +<li>San Terenzio, ii. <a href="#pg2.143">143</a>, <a href="#pg2.144">144</a></li> + +<li>Sangarius, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Sanseverino, Roberto, i. <a href="#pg1.158">158</a></li> + +<li>Sansovino, i. <a href="#pg1.337">337</a> _note_, ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Sant' Elisabetta, i. <a href="#pg1.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Santa Agata, ii. <a href="#pg2.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg2.090">90</a></li> + +<li>Santa Lucia, iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a></li> + +<li>Santa Maura, iii. <a href="#pg3.363">363</a>.</li> + +<li>Santi, Giovanni, ii. <a href="#pg2.056">56</a>, <a href="#pg2.059">59</a></li> + +<li>Sappho, iii. <a href="#pg3.363">363</a></li> + +<li>Saracens, iii. <a href="#pg3.252">252</a>, <a href="#pg3.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg3.294">294</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.302">302</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.308">308</a>, <a href="#pg3.321">321</a></li> + +<li>Sardinia, ii. <a href="#pg2.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg2.286">286</a></li> + +<li>Saronno, i. <a href="#pg1.137">137</a>, <a href="#pg1.156">156</a>, <a href="#pg1.161">161</a>-166</li> + +<li>Sarto, Andrea del, i. <a href="#pg1.345">345</a>; iii. 100</li> + +<li>Sarzana, ii. <a href="#pg2.131">131</a>, <a href="#pg2.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg2.143">143</a>, <a href="#pg2.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a></li> + +<li>Sassella, i. <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg1.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Sasso Rancio, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Savonarola, i. <a href="#pg1.171">171</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.122">122</a>, <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg2.237">237</a>, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a>, <a href="#pg2.239">239</a>-242</li> + +<li>Scala, Can Grande della, iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Scaletta, pass of the, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Scaligers, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Scalza, Ippolito, iii. <a href="#pg3.147">147</a></li> + +<li>Scandiano, Count of. ii. <a href="#pg2.067">67</a></li> + +<li>Scheffer, Ary, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Scheggia, ii. <a href="#pg2.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Schiahorn, the, i. <a href="#pg1.054">54</a></li> + +<li>Schwartzhorn, the, i. <a href="#pg1.054">54</a></li> + +<li>Schyn, ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Sciacca, iii. <a href="#pg3.281">281</a></li> + +<li>Scolastica, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.073">73</a></li> + +<li>Scott, Sir Walter, ii. <a href="#pg2.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Sebastian, S., iii. <a href="#pg3.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg3.185">185</a></li> + +<li>Seehorn, the, i. <a href="#pg1.029">29</a></li> + +<li>Seelisberg, i. <a href="#pg1.014">14</a></li> + +<li>Segeste, iii. <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.319">319</a>, <a href="#pg3.335">335</a></li> + +<li>Selinus, iii. <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.333">333</a>, <a href="#pg3.335">335</a>, <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Serafino, Fra, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Serbelloni, Cecilia, i. <a href="#pg1.180">180</a></li> + +<li>Sergestus, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Serio, river, i. <a href="#pg1.204">204</a></li> + +<li>Sermini, iii. <a href="#pg3.068">68</a></li> + +<li>Sesia, the, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a></li> + +<li>Sestri, i. <a href="#pg1.103">103</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a></li> + +<li>Sforza family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg1.179">179</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg1.197">197</a>, <a href="#pg1.244">244</a></li> + +<li>Sforza, Alessandro, i. <a href="#pg1.202">202</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.072">72</a>: + +<ul> +<li>Battista, ii. <a href="#pg2.072">72</a>:</li> + +<li>Beatrice, i. <a href="#pg1.176">176</a>:</li> + +<li>Cardinal Ascanio, ii. <a href="#pg2.091">91</a>:</li> + +<li>Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg1.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.198">198</a>, <a href="#pg1.200">200</a>, <a href="#pg1.203">203</a>, <a href="#pg1.208">208</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a>17 _note_, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a>:</li> + +<li>Galeazzo, ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a>:</li> + +<li>Galeazzo Maria, ii. <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.230">230</a>, <a href="#pg2.236">236</a>, iii. <a href="#pg3.117">117</a>:</li> + +<li>Giovanni Galeazzo, ii. <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.192">192</a>:</li> + +<li>Ippolita, i. <a href="#pg1.155">155</a>:</li> + +<li>Lodovico, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, ii. <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg2.191">191</a>, <a href="#pg2.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg2.194">194</a>, <a href="#pg2.236">236</a>, <a href="#pg2.238">238</a>:</li> + +<li>Polissena, ii. <a href="#pg2.017">17</a>:</li> + +<li>Zenobia, iii. <a href="#pg3.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg3.125">125</a>, <a href="#pg3.128">128</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Shakspere, ii. <a href="#pg2.258">258</a>, <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a>-274, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a>, <a href="#pg2.335">335</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.036">36</a>, <a href="#pg3.037">37</a>, <a href="#pg3.166">166</a>, <a href="#pg3.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg3.282">282</a></li> + +<li>Shelley, i. <a href="#pg1.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg1.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg1.025">25</a>, <a href="#pg1.026">26</a>, <a href="#pg1.087">87</a>, <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>, <a href="#pg1.232">232</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.138">138</a>, <a href="#pg2.140">140</a>, <a href="#pg2.143">143</a>-145, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Shirley, the dramatist, ii. <a href="#pg2.159">159</a></li> + +<li>Sicily, i. <a href="#pg1.103">103</a> _note_; ii. <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg2.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg2.276">276</a>, <a href="#pg2.281">281</a> _note_, <a href="#pg2.282">282</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.252">252</a>, <a href="#pg3.279">279</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.286">286</a>, <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.319">319</a> foll.</li> + +<li>Sidney, Sir Philip, ii. <a href="#pg2.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg2.264">264</a>, <a href="#pg2.266">266</a></li> + +<li>Siena, i. <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>, <a href="#pg1.187">187</a>, <a href="#pg1.192">192</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>, <a href="#pg2.281">281</a>, <a href="#pg2.286">286</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg3.007">7</a>, <a href="#pg3.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg3.012">12</a>, <a href="#pg3.041">41</a>-65, <a href="#pg3.066">66</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg3.105">105</a> _et passim_</li> + +<li>Sigifredo, ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a></li> + +<li>Signorelli, i. <a href="#pg1.239">239</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg2.362">362</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg3.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg3.082">82</a>, <a href="#pg3.085">85</a>, <a href="#pg3.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg3.147">147</a>-152, <a href="#pg3.154">154</a></li> + +<li>Silarus, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.264">264</a></li> + +<li>Silchester, i. <a href="#pg1.214">214</a></li> + +<li>Silvaplana, ii. <a href="#pg2.128">128</a>, <a href="#pg2.129">129</a></li> + +<li>Silvretta, the, i. <a href="#pg1.031">31</a></li> + +<li>Silz Maria, ii. <a href="#pg2.129">129</a></li> + +<li>Simaetha, i. <a href="#pg1.140">140</a></li> + +<li>Simeto, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.279">279</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Simon Magus, iii. <a href="#pg3.216">216</a></li> + +<li>Simonetta, La Bella, ii. <a href="#pg2.318">318</a>, <a href="#pg2.322">322</a>, <a href="#pg2.335">335</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Simonides, iii. <a href="#pg3.167">167</a></li> + +<li>Simplon, the, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg1.125">125</a></li> + +<li>Sinigaglia, ii. <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.131">131</a></li> + +<li>Sirmione, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Sixtus IV., i. <a href="#pg1.221">221</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg2.231">231</a>, <a href="#pg2.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg2.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg2.235">235</a></li> + +<li>Sixtus V., ii. <a href="#pg2.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg2.095">95</a>, <a href="#pg2.098">98</a></li> + +<li>Smyrna, iii. <a href="#pg3.212">212</a></li> + +<li>Sobieski, Clementina, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Socrates, iii. <a href="#pg3.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg3.329">329</a>, <a href="#pg3.351">351</a>, <a href="#pg3.352">352</a>, <a href="#pg3.353">353</a>, <a href="#pg3.354">354</a></li> + +<li>Soderini, Alessandro, i. <a href="#pg1.332">332</a>, <a href="#pg1.334">334</a>, <a href="#pg1.335">335</a>, <a href="#pg1.338">338</a>, <a href="#pg1.341">341</a></li> + +<li>Soderini, Maria, i. <a href="#pg1.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Soderini, Niccolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.226">226</a></li> + +<li>Soderini, Paolo Antonio, ii. <a href="#pg2.192">192</a></li> + +<li>Soderini, Piero, ii. <a href="#pg2.243">243</a>-245</li> + +<li>Sodoma, i. <a href="#pg1.141">141</a>, <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>, <a href="#pg1.165">165</a>, <a href="#pg1.166">166</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.063">63</a>, <a href="#pg3.081">81</a>, <a href="#pg3.082">82</a>-84, <a href="#pg3.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Sogliano, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a></li> + +<li>Solari, Andrea, i. <a href="#pg1.148">148</a></li> + +<li>Solari, Cristoforo (Il Gobbo), i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg1.176">176</a></li> + +<li>Solferino, i. <a href="#pg1.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Solon, ii. <a href="#pg2.163">163</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.341">341</a></li> + +<li>Solza, i. <a href="#pg1.194">194</a></li> + +<li>Sondrio, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.063">63</a></li> + +<li>Sophocles, ii. <a href="#pg2.160">160</a>, <a href="#pg2.161">161</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg3.287">287</a>, <a href="#pg3.345">345</a> _notes_ 1 and 2, <a href="#pg3.350">350</a></li> + +<li>Sordello, i. <a href="#pg1.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Sorgues river, i. <a href="#pg1.072">72</a></li> + +<li>Sorrento, iii. <a href="#pg3.233">233</a>, <a href="#pg3.250">250</a>, <a href="#pg3.276">276</a>-278</li> + +<li>Sozzo, Messer, iii. <a href="#pg3.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg3.011">11</a></li> + +<li>Sparta, iii. <a href="#pg3.323">323</a></li> + +<li>Spartian, iii. <a href="#pg3.192">192</a>, <a href="#pg3.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg3.197">197</a></li> + +<li>Spartivento, iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a></li> + +<li>Spello, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg2.039">39</a>, <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>-43, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a></li> + +<li>Spenser, Edmund, ii. <a href="#pg2.258">258</a>, <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.264">264</a></li> + +<li>Spezzia, Bay of, ii. <a href="#pg2.135">135</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a></li> + +<li>Splügen, i. <a href="#pg1.064">64</a></li> + +<li>Splügen, the, i. <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>; + +<ul> +<li>valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Spolentino, hills of, iii. <a href="#pg3.092">92</a></li> + +<li>Spoleto, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>, <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.111">111</a>, <a href="#pg3.120">120</a></li> + +<li>Sprecher von Bernegg, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a></li> + +<li>Stabiæ, iii. <a href="#pg3.246">246</a></li> + +<li>Staffa, Jeronimo della, iii. <a href="#pg3.125">125</a></li> + +<li>Stelvio, the, i. <a href="#pg1.009">9</a>, <a href="#pg1.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a></li> + +<li>Stephen des Rotrous, Archbishop of Palermo, iii. <a href="#pg3.306">306</a> _note_ 1</li> + +<li>Stimigliano, ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a></li> + +<li>Strabo, iii. <a href="#pg3.206">206</a></li> + +<li>Strozzi family, ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a></li> + +<li>Strozzi, Filippo, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>, <a href="#pg1.321">321</a>, <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>, <a href="#pg1.344">344</a></li> + +<li>Strozzi (Governor of Cortona), ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Strozzi, Palla degli, ii. <a href="#pg2.222">222</a></li> + +<li>Strozzi, Pietro, i. <a href="#pg1.332">332</a></li> + +<li>Strozzi, Ruberto, i. <a href="#pg1.331">331</a></li> + +<li>Suardi, Bartolommeo, i. <a href="#pg1.154">154</a></li> + +<li>Subasio, ii. <a href="#pg2.045">45</a></li> + +<li>Suetonius, i. <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>-136; iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a>, <a href="#pg3.196">196</a>, <a href="#pg3.199">199</a>, <a href="#pg3.272">272</a>, <a href="#pg3.274">274</a></li> + +<li>Sufenas, iii. <a href="#pg3.209">209</a></li> + +<li>Superga, the, i. <a href="#pg1.133">133</a>, <a href="#pg1.134">134</a></li> + +<li>Surrey, Earl of, ii. <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>-263, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a></li> + +<li>Susa, vale of, i. <a href="#pg1.134">134</a></li> + +<li>Süss, i. <a href="#pg1.055">55</a></li> + +<li>Swinburne, Mr., ii. <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a></li> + +<li>Switzerland, i. <a href="#pg1.001">1</a>-67, <a href="#pg1.105">105</a>, <a href="#pg1.129">129</a></li> + +<li>Sybaris, ancient Hellenic city of, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.261">261</a></li> + +<li>Syracuse, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a> _note_; iii. <a href="#pg3.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg3.279">279</a>, <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.291">291</a>, <a href="#pg3.294">294</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a>-331</li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Tacitus, iii. <a href="#pg3.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Tadema, Alma, i. <a href="#pg1.210">210</a></li> + +<li>Tanagra, iii. <a href="#pg3.209">209</a></li> + +<li>Tancred de Hauteville, iii. <a href="#pg3.294">294</a>, <a href="#pg3.295">295</a></li> + +<li>Taormina, iii. <a href="#pg3.287">287</a>, <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Tarentum, iii. <a href="#pg3.263">263</a></li> + +<li>Tarentum, Prince of, i. <a href="#pg1.079">79</a></li> + +<li>Tarlati, Guido, iii. <a href="#pg3.074">74</a></li> + +<li>Taro, the, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.132">132</a>, <a href="#pg2.183">183</a>, <a href="#pg2.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg2.195">195</a></li> + +<li>Tarsus, iii. <a href="#pg3.212">212</a></li> + +<li>Tasso, ii. <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.264">264</a>, <a href="#pg2.265">265</a>, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.274">274</a>, <a href="#pg2.280">280</a>, <a href="#pg2.332">332</a>, <a href="#pg2.337">337</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a></li> + +<li>Tavignano, the, valley of, i. <a href="#pg1.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Tedaldo, Count of Reggio and Modena, ii. <a href="#pg2.169">169</a></li> + +<li>Tennyson, Lord, i. <a href="#pg1.004">4</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.023">23</a>, <a href="#pg2.270">270</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>, <a href="#pg2.296">296</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Terlan, i. <a href="#pg1.063">63</a></li> + +<li>Terni, ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a>, <a href="#pg2.253">253</a></li> + +<li>Terracina, i. <a href="#pg1.318">318</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.235">235</a></li> + +<li>Tertullian, iii. <a href="#pg3.219">219</a></li> + +<li>Theocritus, i. <a href="#pg1.084">84</a>, <a href="#pg1.094">94</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg2.330">330</a>, <a href="#pg2.335">335</a>, <a href="#pg2.337">337</a>, <a href="#pg2.355">355</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ii. <a href="#pg2.002">2</a>, <a href="#pg2.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg2.011">11</a>, <a href="#pg2.013">13</a></li> + +<li>Theognis, iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a></li> + +<li>Thomas à Kempis (quoted), i. <a href="#pg1.098">98</a>, <a href="#pg1.100">100</a></li> + +<li>Thomas of Sarzana, ii. <a href="#pg2.028">28</a></li> + +<li>Thrasymene, ii. <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>, <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.090">90</a>, <a href="#pg3.091">91</a>, <a href="#pg3.101">101</a>, <a href="#pg3.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Thucydides, iii. <a href="#pg3.321">321</a>-324, <a href="#pg3.327">327</a>, <a href="#pg3.328">328</a>, <a href="#pg3.331">331</a></li> + +<li>Thuillier, Prefect, i. <a href="#pg1.109">109</a></li> + +<li>Tiber, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.033">33</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.112">112</a></li> + +<li>Tiberio d'Assisi, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a></li> + +<li>Tiberius, ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.271">271</a>-274</li> + +<li>Ticino, the, i. <a href="#pg1.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg1.211">211</a></li> + +<li>Tieck, R. iii. <a href="#pg3.224">224</a></li> + +<li>Timoleon, iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.290">290</a>, <a href="#pg3.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg3.319">319</a>, <a href="#pg3.337">337</a></li> + +<li>Tintoretto, i. <a href="#pg1.138">138</a>, <a href="#pg1.236">236</a>, <a href="#pg1.262">262</a>-267, <a href="#pg1.269">269</a>, <a href="#pg1.281">281</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.147">147</a>, <a href="#pg2.156">156</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.158">158</a></li> + +<li>Tinzenhorn, ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a></li> + +<li>Tirano, i. <a href="#pg1.049">49</a>-53, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Titian, i. <a href="#pg1.337">337</a> _note_; ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.130">130</a>, <a href="#pg2.153">153</a>, <a href="#pg2.154">154</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg3.247">247</a></li> + +<li>Titus, iii. <a href="#pg3.190">190</a></li> + +<li>Tivoli, i. <a href="#pg1.087">87</a> _note_; ii. <a href="#pg2.032">32</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.189">189</a>, <a href="#pg3.198">198</a>, <a href="#pg3.201">201</a>, <a href="#pg3.210">210</a></li> + +<li>Todi, iii. <a href="#pg3.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Tofana, i. <a href="#pg1.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg1.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Tolomei family, iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a></li> + +<li>Tolomei, Cristoforo, iii. <a href="#pg3.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Tolomei, Fulvia, iii. <a href="#pg3.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Tolomei, Giovanni, iii. <a href="#pg3.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg3.070">70</a> (_see also_ Bernardo)</li> + +<li>Tolomei, Nino, iii. <a href="#pg3.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg3.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Tommaseo, ii. <a href="#pg2.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Tommaso di Nello, iii. <a href="#pg3.011">11</a></li> + +<li>Torcello, i. <a href="#pg1.171">171</a>, <a href="#pg1.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg1.282">282</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a></li> + +<li>Torre dell' Annunziata, iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a></li> + +<li>Torre del Greco, iii. <a href="#pg3.232">232</a></li> + +<li>Torrensi family, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.119">119</a></li> + +<li>Toscanella, iii. <a href="#pg3.109">109</a></li> + +<li>Toschi, Paolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.148">148</a>-150</li> + +<li>Totila, iii. <a href="#pg3.081">81</a></li> + +<li>Tourneur, ii. <a href="#pg2.267">267</a></li> + +<li>Trajan, ii. <a href="#pg2.014">14</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Trani, iii. <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Trapani, iii. <a href="#pg3.319">319</a></li> + +<li>Trasimeno, ii. <a href="#pg2.050">50</a></li> + +<li>Trastevere, ii. <a href="#pg2.096">96</a></li> + +<li>Trebanio, ii. <a href="#pg2.019">19</a></li> + +<li>Trelawny, ii. <a href="#pg2.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a></li> + +<li>Tremazzi, Ambrogio, i. <a href="#pg1.327">327</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Trento, i. <a href="#pg1.340">340</a></li> + +<li>Trepievi, the, i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Trescorio, i. <a href="#pg1.204">204</a></li> + +<li>Tresenda, i. <a href="#pg1.063">63</a></li> + +<li>Trevi, ii. <a href="#pg2.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg2.039">39</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a>, <a href="#pg2.097">97</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.111">111</a></li> + +<li>Treviglio, i. <a href="#pg1.209">209</a></li> + +<li>Treviso, iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a></li> + +<li>Trezzo, i. <a href="#pg1.194">194</a></li> + +<li>Trinacria, iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a></li> + +<li>Trinci family, ii. <a href="#pg2.038">38</a>, <a href="#pg2.041">41</a></li> + +<li>Trinci, Corrado, ii. <a href="#pg2.040">40</a></li> + +<li>Troina, iii. <a href="#pg3.302">302</a>, <a href="#pg3.303">303</a></li> + +<li>Tuldo, Nicola, iii. <a href="#pg3.053">53</a>-55</li> + +<li>Tunis, iii. <a href="#pg3.275">275</a></li> + +<li>Turin, i. <a href="#pg1.134">134</a>, <a href="#pg1.138">138</a>, <a href="#pg1.348">348</a></li> + +<li>Turner, J.M.W., iii. <a href="#pg3.138">138</a>, <a href="#pg3.364">364</a></li> + +<li>Tuscany, i. <a href="#pg1.187">187</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.169">169</a>, <a href="#pg2.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg2.244">244</a>, <a href="#pg2.276">276</a> foll.; iii. <a href="#pg3.041">41</a> foll., <a href="#pg3.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg3.104">104</a></li> + +<li>Tuscany, Grand Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.099">99</a>, <a href="#pg2.170">170</a>, <a href="#pg2.256">256</a></li> + +<li>Tyrol, the, i. <a href="#pg1.089">89</a></li> + +<li>Tyrrhenian sea, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.183">183</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Ubaldo, S., ii. <a href="#pg2.054">54</a></li> + +<li>Uberti, Fazio degli, iii. <a href="#pg3.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg3.016">16</a></li> + +<li>Udine, i. <a href="#pg1.351">351</a></li> + +<li>Ugolini, Messer Baccio, ii. <a href="#pg2.362">362</a></li> + +<li>Uguccione della Faggiuola, ii. <a href="#pg2.136">136</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.004">4</a></li> + +<li>Ulysses, iii. <a href="#pg3.288">288</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Umbria, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.032">32</a>-59; iii. <a href="#pg3.068">68</a>, <a href="#pg3.119">119</a> _note_ 1</li> + +<li>Urban II., iii. <a href="#pg3.304">304</a></li> + +<li>Urban IV., ii. <a href="#pg2.177">177</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.141">141</a>, <a href="#pg3.142">142</a></li> + +<li>Urban V., i. <a href="#pg1.070">70</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.078">78</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, i. <a href="#pg1.203">203</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.045">45</a>, <a href="#pg2.058">58</a>, <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>-69, <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg2.078">78</a>-87, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Counts of, ii. <a href="#pg2.015">15</a>, <a href="#pg2.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Federigo, Duke of, i. <a href="#pg1.203">203</a>, <a href="#pg1.207">207</a>, <a href="#pg1.316">316</a>, <a href="#pg1.317">317</a>, <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg2.066">66</a>-68, <a href="#pg2.070">70</a>-73, <a href="#pg2.078">78</a>-81, <a href="#pg2.231">231</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Prince Federigo-Ubaldo of, ii. <a href="#pg2.077">77</a>, <a href="#pg2.078">78</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Francesco Maria della Rovere, Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>-76, <a href="#pg2.085">85</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Francesco Maria II., Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a>-78, <a href="#pg2.086">86</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Guidobaldo, Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.073">73</a>, <a href="#pg2.074">74</a>, <a href="#pg2.079">79</a>, <a href="#pg2.080">80</a>, <a href="#pg2.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg2.084">84</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Guidobaldo II., Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg2.082">82</a></li> + +<li>Urbino, Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke of, ii. <a href="#pg2.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg2.076">76</a>, <a href="#pg2.247">247</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Valdarno, ii. <a href="#pg2.218">218</a></li> + +<li>Valdelsa, iii. <a href="#pg3.069">69</a></li> + +<li>Valentinian, iii. <a href="#pg3.191">191</a></li> + +<li>Valentino, ii. <a href="#pg2.064">64</a></li> + +<li>Valperga, Ardizzino, i. <a href="#pg1.158">158</a></li> + +<li>Valsassina, the, i. <a href="#pg1.184">184</a></li> + +<li>Valtelline, the, i. <a href="#pg1.035">35</a>, <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>-51, <a href="#pg1.053">53</a>, <a href="#pg1.058">58</a>, <a href="#pg1.061">61</a>, <a href="#pg1.064">64</a>, <a href="#pg1.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg1.184">184</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg1.188">188</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.094">94</a></li> + +<li>Valturio, ii. <a href="#pg2.018">18</a></li> + +<li>Varallo, i. <a href="#pg1.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg1.136">136</a>, <a href="#pg1.138">138</a>, <a href="#pg1.164">164</a></li> + +<li>Varani, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Varano, Giulia, ii. <a href="#pg2.076">76</a></li> + +<li>Varano, Madonna Maria, ii. <a href="#pg2.085">85</a></li> + +<li>Varano, Venanzio, ii. <a href="#pg2.085">85</a></li> + +<li>Varchi, i. <a href="#pg1.320">320</a>-322, <a href="#pg1.325">325</a>, <a href="#pg1.326">326</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.045">45</a> _note_</li> + +<li>Varenna, i. <a href="#pg1.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg1.186">186</a></li> + +<li>Varese, i. <a href="#pg1.144">144</a>; + +<ul> +<li>Lake of, i. <a href="#pg1.124">124</a>, <a href="#pg1.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg1.174">174</a></li> +</ul> +</li> + +<li>Vasari, Giorgio, ii. <a href="#pg2.026">26</a>, <a href="#pg2.028">28</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.083">83</a>, <a href="#pg3.084">84</a>, <a href="#pg3.145">145</a></li> + +<li>Vasco de Gama, ii. <a href="#pg2.237">237</a></li> + +<li>Vasto, Marquis del, i. <a href="#pg1.187">187</a></li> + +<li>Vaucluse, i. <a href="#pg1.072">72</a>-74</li> + +<li>Velino, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.034">34</a>, <a href="#pg2.046">46</a></li> + +<li>Venice, i. <a href="#pg1.044">44</a>, <a href="#pg1.167">167</a>, <a href="#pg1.171">171</a>, <a href="#pg1.200">200</a>, <a href="#pg1.201">201</a>, <a href="#pg1.206">206</a>, <a href="#pg1.254">254</a>-315; ii. <a href="#pg2.001">1</a>, <a href="#pg2.002">2</a> +and _note_, <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg2.042">42</a>, <a href="#pg2.102">102</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.253">253</a>, <a href="#pg3.309">309</a>, <a href="#pg3.317">317</a> _note_, _et passim_</li> + +<li>Ventimiglia, i. <a href="#pg1.102">102</a></li> + +<li>Vercelli, i. <a href="#pg1.136">136</a>-142; ii. <a href="#pg2.173">173</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.082">82</a></li> + +<li>Vergerio, Pier Paolo, i. <a href="#pg1.331">331</a></li> + +<li>Verne, M. Jules, ii. <a href="#pg2.139">139</a></li> + +<li>Vernet, Horace, i. <a href="#pg1.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Verocchio, i. <a href="#pg1.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg1.207">207</a></li> + +<li>Verona, i. <a href="#pg1.212">212</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.168">168</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.006">6</a>, <a href="#pg3.318">318</a></li> + +<li>Verucchio, ii. <a href="#pg2.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Vespasian, ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Vespasiano, Florentine bookseller, ii. <a href="#pg2.080">80</a></li> + +<li>Vesuvius, iii. <a href="#pg3.230">230</a>, <a href="#pg3.232">232</a>, <a href="#pg3.234">234</a>, <a href="#pg3.235">235</a>, <a href="#pg3.239">239</a>, <a href="#pg3.242">242</a>, <a href="#pg3.245">245</a>, <a href="#pg3.276">276</a></li> + +<li>Vettori, Paolo, ii. <a href="#pg2.245">245</a></li> + +<li>Via Mala, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.057">57</a></li> + +<li>Viareggio, ii. <a href="#pg2.145">145</a>, <a href="#pg2.146">146</a></li> + +<li>Vicenza, i. <a href="#pg1.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg1.328">328</a>-330</li> + +<li>Vico, i. <a href="#pg1.109">109</a>, <a href="#pg1.112">112</a>, <a href="#pg1.115">115</a></li> + +<li>Vico Soprano, ii. <a href="#pg2.129">129</a></li> + +<li>Victor, Aurelius, iii. <a href="#pg3.193">193</a>, <a href="#pg3.195">195</a></li> + +<li>Vietri, iii. <a href="#pg3.250">250</a></li> + +<li>Vignole, i. <a href="#pg1.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Villa, i. <a href="#pg1.048">48</a>, <a href="#pg1.062">62</a></li> + +<li>Villafranca, i. <a href="#pg1.083">83</a></li> + +<li>Villani, Giovanni, iii. <a href="#pg3.008">8</a></li> + +<li>Villani, Matteo, ii. <a href="#pg2.208">208</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.008">8</a>, <a href="#pg3.016">16</a></li> + +<li>Villeneuve, i. <a href="#pg1.070">70</a></li> + +<li>Villon, iii. <a href="#pg3.001">1</a></li> + +<li>Vinci, Leonardo da, i. <a href="#pg1.139">139</a>, <a href="#pg1.148">148</a>, <a href="#pg1.154">154</a>, <a href="#pg1.349">349</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.019">19</a>, <a href="#pg2.021">21</a>, <a href="#pg2.027">27</a>, <a href="#pg2.050">50</a>, <a href="#pg2.152">152</a>, <a href="#pg2.156">156</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.082">82</a>, <a href="#pg3.228">228</a>, <a href="#pg3.238">238</a></li> + +<li>Vinta, M. Francesco, i. <a href="#pg1.330">330</a></li> + +<li>Vire, Val de, ii. <a href="#pg2.291">291</a></li> + +<li>Virgil, i. <a href="#pg1.246">246</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.006">6</a>, <a href="#pg2.063">63</a>, <a href="#pg2.285">285</a>, <a href="#pg2.304">304</a>, <a href="#pg2.338">338</a>, <a href="#pg2.343">343</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.075">75</a>, <a href="#pg3.144">144</a>, <a href="#pg3.155">155</a>, <a href="#pg3.162">162</a>, <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.180">180</a>, <a href="#pg3.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg3.186">186</a>, <a href="#pg3.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg3.268">268</a>, <a href="#pg3.309">309</a>, <a href="#pg3.320">320</a></li> + +<li>Visconti family, the, i. <a href="#pg1.146">146</a>, <a href="#pg1.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.016">16</a>, <a href="#pg2.178">178</a>, <a href="#pg2.185">185</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a>, <a href="#pg2.278">278</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.119">119</a>, <a href="#pg3.253">253</a></li> + +<li>Visconti, Astore, i, <a href="#pg1.181">181</a>, <a href="#pg1.182">182</a></li> + +<li>Visconti, Bianca Maria, i. <a href="#pg1.199">199</a></li> + +<li>Visconti, Ermes, i. <a href="#pg1.157">157</a></li> + +<li>Visconti, Filippo Maria, i. <a href="#pg1.195">195</a>, <a href="#pg1.197">197</a>-199; ii. <a href="#pg2.215">215</a>, <a href="#pg2.224">224</a>, <a href="#pg2.235">235</a></li> + +<li>Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, i. <a href="#pg1.149">149</a>, <a href="#pg1.152">152</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.213">213</a></li> + +<li>Visconti, Gian Maria, ii. <a href="#pg2.236">236</a></li> + +<li>Vitelli, the, ii. <a href="#pg2.041">41</a>, <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.071">71</a></li> + +<li>Vitelli, Alessandro, ii. <a href="#pg2.250">250</a></li> + +<li>Vitelli, Giulia, iii. <a href="#pg3.132">132</a></li> + +<li>Vitelli, Vitellozzo, ii. <a href="#pg2.047">47</a>, <a href="#pg2.048">48</a></li> + +<li>Vitellius, iii. <a href="#pg3.164">164</a></li> + +<li>Vittoli, the, i. <a href="#pg1.114">114</a>, <a href="#pg1.115">115</a></li> + +<li>Vivarini, i. <a href="#pg1.269">269</a></li> + +<li>Voltaire, iii. <a href="#pg3.161">161</a></li> + +<li>Volterra, ii. <a href="#pg2.163">163</a>, <a href="#pg2.214">214</a>, <a href="#pg2.231">231</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.066">66</a>, <a href="#pg3.069">69</a>, <a href="#pg3.079">79</a>, <a href="#pg3.092">92</a>, <a href="#pg3.103">103</a></li> + +<li>Volterra, Bebo da, i. <a href="#pg1.328">328</a>-330, <a href="#pg1.333">333</a>-341</li> + +<li>Volterrano, Andrea, i. <a href="#pg1.336">336</a></li> + +<li>Volturno, iii. <a href="#pg3.239">239</a></li> + +<li>Volumnii, the, iii. <a href="#pg3.112">112</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Walker, Frederick, ii. <a href="#pg2.129">129</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.076">76</a></li> + +<li>Walter of Brienne. (_See_ Athens, Duke of)</li> + +<li>Walter of the Mill, Archbishop of Palermo, iii. <a href="#pg3.306">306</a> _note_, <a href="#pg3.308">308</a></li> + +<li>Webster, the dramatist, i. <a href="#pg1.220">220</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.103">103</a>-126, <a href="#pg2.267">267</a>, <a href="#pg2.271">271</a>, <a href="#pg2.277">277</a></li> + +<li>Weisshorn, the, i. <a href="#pg1.054">54</a></li> + +<li>Whitman, Walt, ii. <a href="#pg2.024">24</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a></li> + +<li>Wien, i. <a href="#pg1.045">45</a></li> + +<li>Wiesen, i. <a href="#pg1.065">65</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.127">127</a></li> + +<li>William of Apulia, iii. <a href="#pg3.298">298</a>, <a href="#pg3.299">299</a>, <a href="#pg3.305">305</a></li> + +<li>William the Bad and William the Good of Sicily, iii. <a href="#pg3.305">305</a>, <a href="#pg3.306">306</a>, <a href="#pg3.308">308</a>, <a href="#pg3.311">311</a></li> + +<li>Winckelman, iii. <a href="#pg3.188">188</a></li> + +<li>Wolfgang, i. <a href="#pg1.030">30</a></li> + +<li>Wolfswalk, the, i. <a href="#pg1.031">31</a></li> + +<li>Wordsworth, i. <a href="#pg1.005">5</a>, <a href="#pg1.006">6</a>, <a href="#pg1.010">10</a>, <a href="#pg1.011">11</a>; ii. <a href="#pg2.262">262</a>, <a href="#pg2.263">263</a>, <a href="#pg2.273">273</a>; iii. <a href="#pg3.172">172</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a></li> + +<li>Wyatt, Sir Thomas, ii. <a href="#pg2.261">261</a>, <a href="#pg2.262">262</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Xenophanes, iii. <a href="#pg3.171">171</a>, <a href="#pg3.173">173</a>, <a href="#pg3.353">353</a></li> + +<li>Xiphilinus, iii. <a href="#pg3.192">192</a></li> +</ul> + +<ul class="IX"> +<li>Zafferana, iii. <a href="#pg3.282">282</a>, <a href="#pg3.283">283</a></li> + +<li>Zante, iii. <a href="#pg3.363">363</a></li> + +<li>Zeno, Carlo, i. <a href="#pg1.260">260</a></li> + +<li>Zeus Olympius, iii. <a href="#pg3.290">290</a></li> + +<li>Zizers, i. <a href="#pg1.065">65</a></li> +</ul> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE ***</div> +<div style='text-align:left'> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +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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