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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/24689-8.txt b/24689-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7943a1e --- /dev/null +++ b/24689-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8737 @@ +Project Gutenberg's New Italian sketches, by John Addington Symonds + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: New Italian sketches + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: February 26, 2008 [EBook #24689] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Barbara Kosker, Ted Garvin +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +---------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | + | document has been preserved. | + | | + | Greek text has been transliterated and marked with +'s. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +---------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + NEW + + ITALIAN SKETCHES. + + BY + + JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, + + AUTHOR OF "SKETCHES IN ITALY," ETC. + + _COPYRIGHT EDITION._ + + LEIPZIG + + BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ + + 1884. + + _The Right of Translation is reserved._ + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +This volume of New Italian Sketches has been made up from two books +published in England and America under the titles of "Sketches and +Studies in Italy" and "Italian Byways." It forms in some respects a +companion volume to my "Sketches in Italy" already published in the +Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors. But it is quite independent of +that other book, and is in no sense a continuation of it. In making the +selection, I have however followed the same principles of choice. That +is to say, I have included only those studies of places, rather than of +literature or history, which may suit the needs of travellers in Italy. + + JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. + + DAVOS PLATZ, _Dec. 1883_. + + + TO + + CHRISTIAN BUOL AND CHRISTIAN PALMY + + MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW-TRAVELLERS + + I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. + + + +CONTENTS + + + Page + AUTUMN WANDERINGS 11 + + MONTE OLIVETO 34 + + MONTEPULCIANO 57 + + SPRING WANDERINGS 84 + + MAY IN UMBRIA 106 + + THE PALACE OF URBINO 138 + + A VENETIAN MEDLEY 169 + + THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING 212 + + FORNOVO 238 + + BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI 261 + + LOMBARD VIGNETTES 282 + + + + NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES. + + + + + AUTUMN WANDERINGS. + + I.--ITALIAM PETIMUS. + + +_Italiam petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows with +rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. Men and +women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine scythes; and +as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost tinkling sound. Down +into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses plunged; and there we +lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's Walk, opening upon the +vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up above, shone morning +light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven slopes reddening with a +hundred fading plants; now and then it caught the grey-green icicles +that hung from cliffs where summer streams had dripped. There is no +colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in the high Alps, +defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting imperceptibly +downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the crimson of the +bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërial 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 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. + +_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Mühlen. The +stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up through +the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing far-off snowy +ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, soundless waste of +rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence and fade suddenly +into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, with its forests of +larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a ground of grey, and in +front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and here and there a glimpse of +emerald lake at turnings of the road. Autumn is the season for this +landscape. Through the fading of innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of +larches, and something vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not +unlike that of the lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana +the light was strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the +Maloja, and floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which +may literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss landscape; +but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow on the +heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of dark +pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks beside the +lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept repeating to +myself _Italiam petimus!_ + +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. + +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 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. + +It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring this +window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just frames +it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously planted +with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow cast upon +the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down between +black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings of a +rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape soars +the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; and +there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, shooting +into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar the double +peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal not unlike the +Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by a snowy saddle, +and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in powdery drifts. +Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green and golden +forests now join from either side, and now recede, according as the +sinuous valley brings their lines together or disparts them. There is a +sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the roar of the stream is dulled +or quickened as the gusts of this October wind sweep by or slacken. +_Italiam petimus!_ + +_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate Italian. +We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral-cloister--white, +smoothly curving, well-proportioned logge, enclosing a green space, whence +soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had sunk, but her 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 mythopoeic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another +form, and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable. + + +II.--OVER THE APENNINES. + +At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-à-brac shop than an inn; and slept but badly, for the good folk of +Parma twanged guitars and exercised their hoarse male voices all night +in the street below. We were glad when Christian called us, at 5 A.M., +for an early start across the Apennines. This was the day of a right +Roman journey. In thirteen and a half hours, leaving Parma at 6, and +arriving in Sarzana at 7.30, we flung ourselves across the spine of +Italy, from the plains of Eridanus to the seashore of Etruscan Luna. I +had secured a carriage and extra post-horses the night before; therefore +we found no obstacles upon the road, but eager drivers, quick relays, +obsequious postmasters, change, speed, perpetual movement. The road +itself is a noble one, and nobly entertained in all things but +accommodation for travellers. At Berceto, near the summit of the pass, +we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldly hen and six eggs; +but that was all the halt we made. + +As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at home +had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the box to +call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the plain of +Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the village of +Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting Charles VIII. upon +that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes suddenly aside, gains +a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps this vantage till the +pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are occasioned by thus adhering +to arêtes, but the total result is a gradual ascent with free prospect +over plain and mountain. The Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale +than the Alps, perplexed in detail and entangled with cross sections and +convergent systems, lend themselves to this plan of carrying highroads +along their ridges instead of following the valley. + +What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern water-shed 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 +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. + +From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment of +the Apennines, 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 hill-sides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for nearly +an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but the fruit +was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the still October air +the husks above our heads would loosen, and the brown nuts rustle through +the foliage, and with a dull short thud, like drops of thunder-rain, +break down upon the sod. At the foot of this rich forest, wedged in +between huge buttresses, we found Pontremoli, and changed our horses here +for the last time. It was Sunday, and the little town was alive with +country-folk; tall stalwart fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their +black slouched hats, and nut-brown maids. + +From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich 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 pink ling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline in +shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which they +were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to south-east, +and seem as though they belonged to another and more celestial region. + +Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There was +a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. + + +III.--FOSDINOVO. + +The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur above +Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of Luni. This +is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and still in the possession +of the Marquis of that name. + +The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It 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 hill-side 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: + + +kai prospesôn eklaus' erêmias tychôn + spondas te lysas askon on pherô zenois + espeisa tymbô d' amphethêka mursinas.+ + +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 +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. + +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 pleasance; or may have watched through a short +summer's night, until he saw that _tremolar della marina_, portending +dawn, which afterwards he painted in the "Purgatory." + +From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunæ_ flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back the +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 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." + +If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the poet's +apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of peace, but +also an interesting record of the destiny which presided over the first +great work of literary art in a distinctly modern language. + + +IV. LA SPEZZIA. + +While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall they +have lately built 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. + + "Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!" + +Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note of +time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic influence, how +sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with each other +complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest within them. A +touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and saw a boy beside +me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol that night; but my +English accent soon assured him that I was no contrabbandiere, and he +too leaned against the stanchion and told me his short story. He was in +his nineteenth year, and came from Florence, where his people live in +the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a +sort of innocent malice mixed with _espièglerie_. It was diverting to +see the airs he gave himself on the strength of his new military +dignity, his gun, and uniform, and night duty on the shore. I could not +help humming to myself _Non più andrai_; for Francesco was a sort of +Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about picture galleries and libraries in +Florence, and I had to hear his favourite passages from the Italian +poets. And then there came the plots of Jules Verne's stories and +marvellous narrations about _l'uomo cavallo_, _l'uomo volante_, _l'uomo +pesce_. The last of these personages turned out to be Paolo Boÿnton (so +pronounced), who had swam the Arno in his diving dress, passing the +several bridges, and when he came to the great weir "allora tutti stare +con bocca aperta." Meanwhile the storm grew serious, and our conversation +changed. Francesco told me about the terrible sun-stricken sand shores of +the Riviera, burning in summer noon, over which the coastguard has to +tramp, their perils from falling stones in storm, and the trains that +come rushing from those narrow tunnels on the midnight line of march. It +is a hard life; and the thirst for adventure which drove this boy--il più +matto di tutta la famiglia--to adopt it, seems well-nigh quenched. And +still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked enthusiastically of +deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, and working his way to +southern islands where wonders are. + +A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea-wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came 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. + + +V.--PORTO VENERE. + +For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary. + +At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and lightning +poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. Is he out in +it, and where? + +At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the sky +was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepid as +boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the face +of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so rich +in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the winds +from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore in many +places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up for this +lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession of tiny +harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are many +villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval stations, +hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the _Smilax +sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its creamy +odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. + +A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey walls +flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one long +narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above the sea. +Their doors at the back open on to cliffs with drop about fifty feet +upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with medieval battlements and +shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and sky, runs up the +rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a deep gateway above +which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room opening upon the +town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch enclosing images and +frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to the jollity of +smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such as Tintoretto +loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with pent-house +canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of chestnut; rude +low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the edges, and laden +with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, big-bellied jugs of +earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people of the place were +lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd nooks and corners +everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows slanting through the +thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; high-zoned serving +women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral beads; smoke-blackened +roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. The house was inexhaustible +in motives for pictures. + +We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli +scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, "Soldo, soldo!" I do not know why these sea-urchins are so far +more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus in +Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere annoyance. I +shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with that shrill +obbligato, "Soldo, soldo, soldo!" rattling like a dropping fire from +lungs of brass. + +At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland 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. + +The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It has +the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as one +looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's amethystine +promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace the Riviera +mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling in with tawny +breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and the cloud-shadows +over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been seen, soared banks +of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. + +This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it +remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has long +been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto Venere +remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, where an +inscription tells us that Byron once "tempted the Ligurian waves." It is +just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired Euripides when he +described the refuge of Orestes in "Iphigenia." + + +VI.--LERICI. + +Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. + +After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent views +across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with olives--a +genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are hoary, and +spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle against a blue +sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently adorned with +bas-reliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very delicately +wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who had passed a +summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low upon the sands +to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then the high-built +castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across the bay to Porto +Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam between. The +village is piled around its cove with tall and picturesquely-coloured +houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just beneath the castle. +There is one point of the descending carriage road where all this +gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive branches, swaying, +wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of ocean back from +their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. And, as we stayed +to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women from the bay +below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with 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. + +At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. Christian +now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This was rather a +rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it seemed, at will +with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to reach the shore. +Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa Magni. It is not at +Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south side of the village. +Looking across the bay from the molo, one could clearly see its square +white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on rude arcades with a broad +orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly prepares one for so +considerable a place. I think the English exiles of that period must +have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to them no better than a +bathing-house. + +We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, who, +when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: "It is not so bad now as it +used to be." The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's _Recollections_ have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees round +the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we sat +talking, I laughed to think of 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, +"_Siete soddisfatto?_" + +There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +_Triumph of Life_. Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning has +been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on this +terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea was +fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the Don Juan +disappeared. + +From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, attended +by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the place to +sadness. + + +VII.--VIAREGGIO. + +The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where Shelley's +body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts of +a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. There +is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of waves, +foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded into the +grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There is a +feeling of "immensity, liberty, action" here, which is not common in +Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had the +rough force of a tidal sea. + +Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. It +is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman Costa +has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this landscape of the +Carrarese his own. The space between sand and pine-wood was covered with +faint, yellow, evening primroses. They flickered like little harmless +flames in sun and shadow, and the spires of the Carrara range were giant +flames transformed to marble. The memory of that day described by +Trelawny in a passage of immortal English prose, when he and Byron and +Leigh Hunt stood beside the funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and +the _Cor Cordium_ was found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my +thoughts to flame beneath the gentle autumn sky. + +Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, over +which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last days. +It passes an immense forest of stone-pines--aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. + + + + +MONTE OLIVETO. + + +I. + +In former days the traveller had choice of two old hostelries in the +chief street of Siena. Here, if he was fortunate, he might secure a +prophet's chamber, with a view across tiled house-roofs 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, and the red +brick walls that crimson after-glow, which Tuscan twilight takes from +singular transparency of atmosphere. + +It is hardly possible to define the specific character of each Italian +city, assigning its proper share to natural circumstances, to the temper +of the population, and to the monuments of art in which these elements +of nature and of human qualities are blended. The fusion is too delicate +and subtle for complete analysis; and the total effect in each +particular case may best be compared to that impressed on us by a strong +personality, making itself felt in the minutest details. Climate, +situation, ethnological conditions, the political vicissitudes of past +ages, the bias of the people to certain industries and occupations, the +emergence of distinguished men at critical epochs, have all contributed +their quota to the composition of an individuality which abides long +after the locality has lost its ancient vigour. + +Since the year 1557, when Gian Giacomo de' Medici laid the country of +Siena waste, levelled her luxurious suburbs, and delivered her +famine-stricken citizens to the tyranny of the Grand Duke Cosimo, this +town has gone on dreaming in suspended decadence. Yet the epithet which +was given to her in her days of glory, the title of "Fair Soft Siena," +still describes the city. She claims it by right of the gentle manners, +joyous but sedate, of her inhabitants, by the grace of their pure Tuscan +speech, and by the unique delicacy of her architecture. Those palaces of +brick, with finely-moulded lancet windows, and the lovely use of +sculptured marbles in pilastered colonnades, are fit abodes for the +nobles who reared them five centuries ago, of whose refined and costly +living we read in the pages of Dante or of Folgore da San Gemignano. And +though the necessities of modern life, the decay of wealth, the +dwindling of old aristocracy, and the absorption of what was once an +independent state in the Italian nation, have obliterated that large +signorial splendour of the Middle Ages, we feel that the modern Sienese +are not unworthy of their courteous ancestry. + +Superficially, much of the present charm of Siena consists in the soft +opening valleys, the glimpses of long blue hills and fertile +country-side, framed by irregular brown houses stretching along the +slopes on which the town is built, and losing themselves abruptly in +olive fields and orchards. This element of beauty, which brings the city +into immediate relation with the country, is indeed not peculiar to +Siena. We find it in Perugia, in Assisi, in Montepulciano, in nearly all +the hill towns of Umbria and Tuscany. But their landscape is often +tragic and austere, while this is always suave. City and country blend +here in delightful amity. Neither yields that sense of aloofness which +stirs melancholy. + +The most charming district in the immediate neighbourhood of Siena lies +westward, near Belcaro, a villa high up on a hill. It is a region of +deep lanes and golden-green oak-woods, with cypresses and stone-pines, +and little streams in all directions flowing over the brown sandstone. +The country is like some parts of rural England--Devonshire or Sussex. +Not only is the sandstone here, as there, broken into deep gullies; but +the vegetation is much the same. Tufted spleen-wort, 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. Nowhere, except Maremma-wards, a level plain. The Tuscan +mountains, from Monte Amiata westward to Volterra, round Valdelsa, down +to Montepulciano and Radicofani, with their innumerable windings and +intricacies of descending valleys, are dappled with light and shade from +flying storm-clouds, sunshine here and there cloud-shadows. Girdling the +villa stands a grove of ilex-trees, cut so as to embrace its high-built +walls with dark continuous green. In the courtyard are lemon-trees and +pomegranates laden with fruit. From a terrace on the roof the whole wide +view is seen; and here upon a parapet, from which we leaned one autumn +afternoon, my friend discovered this _graffito_: "_E vidi e piansi il +fato amaro!_"--"I gazed, and gazing, wept the bitterness of fate." + + +II. + +The prevailing note of Siena and the Sienese seems, as I have said, to +be a soft and tranquil grace; yet this people had one of the stormiest +and maddest of Italian histories. They were passionate in love and hate, +vehement in their popular amusements, almost frantic in their political +conduct of affairs. The luxury, for which Dante blamed them, the levity +De Comines noticed in their government found counter-poise in more than +usual piety and fervour. S. Bernardino, the great preacher and +peace-maker of the Middle Ages; S. Catherine, the worthiest of all women +to be canonised; the blessed Colombini, who founded the Order of the +Gesuati or Brothers of the Poor in Christ; the blessed Bernardo, who +founded that of Monte Oliveto; were all Sienese. Few cities have given +four such saints to modern Christendom. The biography of one of these +may serve as prelude to an account of the Sienese monastery of Oliveto +Maggiore. + +The family of Tolomei was among the noblest of the 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 Christoforo 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 distributed. Tournaments alternated with dances. But the +climax of the pageant was the novice's investiture with sword and spurs +and belt in the cathedral. This, as it appears from a record of the year +1326, actually took place in the great marble pulpit carved by the +Pisani; and the most illustrious knights of his acquaintance were +summoned by the squire to act as sponsors for his fealty. + +It is said that young Bernardo Tolomei's head was turned to vanity by +these honours showered upon him in his earliest manhood. Yet, after a +short period of aberration, he rejoined his confraternity and mortified +his flesh by discipline and strict attendance on the poor. The time had +come, however, when he should choose a career suitable to his high rank. +He devoted himself to jurisprudence, and began to lecture publicly on +law. Already at the age of twenty-five his fellow-citizens admitted him +to the highest political offices, and in the legend of his life it is +written, not without exaggeration doubtless, that he ruled the State. +There is, however, no reason to suppose that he did not play an +important part in its government. Though a just and virtuous statesman, +Bernardo now forgot the special service of God, and gave himself with +heart and soul to mundane interests. At the age of forty, supported by +the wealth, alliances, and reputation of his semi-princely house, he had +become one of the most considerable party-leaders in that age of +faction. If we may trust his monastic biographer, he was aiming at +nothing less than the tyranny of Siena. But in that year, when he was +forty, a change, which can only be described as conversion, came over +him. He had advertised a public disputation, in which he proposed before +all comers to solve the most arduous problems of scholastic science. The +concourse was great, the assembly brilliant; but the hero of the day, +who had designed it for his glory, was stricken with sudden blindness. +In one moment he comprehended the internal void he had created for his +soul, and the blindness of the body was illumination to the spirit. The +pride, power, and splendour of this world seemed to him a smoke that +passes. God, penitence, eternity appeared in all the awful clarity of an +authentic vision. He fell upon his knees and prayed to Mary that he +might receive his sight again. This boon was granted; but the revelation +which had come to him in blindness was not withdrawn. Meanwhile the hall +of disputation was crowded with an expectant audience. Bernardo rose +from his knees, made his entry, and ascended the chair; but instead of +the scholastic subtleties he had designed to treat, he pronounced the +old text, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." + +Afterwards, attended by two noble comrades, Patrizio Patrizzi and +Ambrogio Piccolomini, he went forth into the wilderness. For the human +soul, at strife with strange experience, betakes itself instinctively to +solitude. Not only prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaid, and +founders of religions in the mystic East have done so; even the Greek +Menander recognised, although he sneered at, the phenomenon. "The +desert, they say, is the place for discoveries." For the mediæval mind +it had peculiar attractions. The wilderness these comrades chose was +Accona, a doleful place, hemmed in with earthen precipices, some fifteen +miles to the south of Siena. Of his vast possessions Bernardo retained +but this-- + + The lonesome lodge, + That stood so low in a lonely glen. + +The rest of his substance he abandoned to the poor. This was in 1313, +the very year of the Emperor Henry VII.'s death at Buonconvento, which +is a little walled town between Siena and the desert of Accona. Whether +Bernardo's retirement was in any way due to the extinction of immediate +hope for the Ghibelline party by this event, we do not gather from his +legend. That, as is natural, refers his action wholly to the operation +of divine grace. Yet we may remember how a more illustrious refugee, the +singer of the Divine Comedy, betook himself upon the same occasion to +the lonely convent of Fonte Avellana on the Alps of Catria, and +meditated there the cantos of his Purgatory. While Bernardo Tolomei was +founding the Order of Monte Oliveto, Dante penned his letter to the +cardinals of Italy: _Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo: facta est +quasi vidua domino gentium._ + +Bernardo and his friends hollowed with their own hands grottos in the +rock, and strewed their stone beds with withered chestnut-leaves. For S. +Scolastica, the sister of S. Benedict, they built a little chapel. Their +food was wild fruit, and their drink the water of the brook. Through the +day they delved, for it was in their mind to turn the wilderness into a +land of plenty. By night they meditated on eternal truth. The contrast +between their rude life and the delicate nurture of Sienese nobles, in +an age when Siena had become a by-word for luxury, must have been cruel. +But it fascinated the mediæval imagination, and the three anchorites +were speedily joined by recruits of a like temper. As yet the new-born +order had no rules; for Bernardo, when he renounced the world, embraced +humility. The brethren were bound together only by the ties of charity. +They lived in common; and under their sustained efforts Accona soon +became a garden. + +The society could not, however, hold together without further +organisation. It began to be ill spoken of, inasmuch as vulgar minds can +recognise no good except in what is formed upon a pattern they are +familiar with. Then Bernardo had a vision. In his sleep he saw a ladder +of light ascending to the heavens. Above sat Jesus with Our Lady in +white raiment, and the celestial hierarchies around them were attired in +white. Up the ladder, led by angels, climbed men in vesture of dazzling +white; and among these Bernardo recognised his own companions. Soon +after this dream, he called Ambrogio Piccolomini, and bade him get +ready for a journey to the Pope at Avignon. + +John XXII. received the pilgrims graciously, and gave them letters to +the Bishop of Arezzo, commanding him to furnish the new brotherhood with +one of the rules authorised by Holy Church for governance of a monastic +order. Guido Tarlati, of the great Pietra-mala house, was Bishop and +despot of Arezzo at this epoch. A man less in harmony with +coenobitical enthusiasm than this warrior prelate, could scarcely have +been found. Yet attendance to such matters formed part of his business, +and the legend even credits him with an inspired dream; for Our Lady +appeared to him, and said: "I love the valley of Accona and its pious +solitaries. Give them the rule of Benedict. But thou shalt strip them of +their mourning weeds, and clothe them in white raiment, the symbol of my +virgin purity. Their hermitage shall change its name, and henceforth +shall be called Mount Olivet, in memory of the ascension of my divine +Son, the which took place upon the Mount of Olives. I take this family +beneath my own protection; and therefore it is my will it should be +called henceforth the congregation of S. Mary of Mount Olivet." After +this, the Blessed Virgin took forethought for the heraldic designs of +her monks, dictating to Guido Tarlati the blazon they still bear; it is +of three hills or, whereof the third and highest is surmounted with a +cross gules, and from the meeting-point of the three hillocks upon +either hand a branch of olive vert. This was in 1319. In 1324, John +XXII. confirmed the order, and in 1344 it was further approved by +Clement VI. Affiliated societies sprang up in several Tuscan cities; and +in 1347, Bernardo Tolomei, at that time General of the Order, held a +chapter of its several houses. The next year was the year of the great +plague or Black Death. Bernardo bade his brethren leave their seclusion, +and go forth on works of mercy among the sick. Some went to Florence, +some to Siena, others to the smaller hill-set towns of Tuscany. All were +bidden to assemble on the Feast of the Assumption at Siena. Here the +founder addressed his spiritual children for the last time. Soon +afterwards he died himself, at the age of seventy-seven, and the place +of his grave is not known. He was beatified by the Church for his great +virtues. + + +III. + +At noon we started, four of us, in an open waggonette with a pair of +horses, for Monte Oliveto, the luggage heaped mountain-high and tied in +a top-heavy mass above us. After leaving the gateway, with its massive +fortifications and frescoed arches, the road passes into a dull earthy +country, very much like some parts--and not the best parts--of England. +The beauty of the Sienese contado is clearly on the sandstone, not upon +the clay. Hedges, haystacks, isolated farms--all were English in their +details. Only the vines, and mulberries, and wattled waggons drawn by +oxen, most Roman in aspect, reminded us we were in Tuscany. In such +_carpenta_ may the vestal virgins have ascended the Capitol. It is the +primitive war-chariot also, capable of holding four with ease; and +Romulus may have mounted with the images of Roman gods in even such a +vehicle to Latiarian Jove upon the Alban hill. Nothing changes in Italy. +The wooden ploughs are those which Virgil knew. The sight of one of +them would save an intelligent lad much trouble in mastering a certain +passage of the Georgics. + +Siena is visible behind us nearly the whole way to Buonconvento, a +little town where the Emperor Henry VII. died, as it was supposed, of +poison, in 1313. It is still circled with the wall and gates built by +the Sienese in 1366, and is a fair specimen of an intact mediæval +stronghold. Here we leave the main road, and break into a country-track +across a bed of sandstone, with the delicate volcanic lines of Monte +Amiata in front, and the aërial 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 an Accademia delle Belle Arti, and there is no lack of +students. But the painters, having learned their trade, make copies ten +times distant from the truth of famous masterpieces for the American +market. Few seem to look beyond their picture galleries. Thus the +democratic art, the art of Millet, the art of life and nature and the +people, waits. + +As we mount, the soil grows of a richer brown; and there are woods of +oak where herds of swine are feeding on the acorns. Monte Oliveto comes +in sight--a mass of red brick, backed up with cypresses, among +dishevelled earthy precipices, _balze_ as they are called--upon the hill +below the village of Chiusure. This Chiusure was once a promising town; +but the life was crushed out of it in the throes of mediæval civil wars, +and since the thirteenth century it has been dwindling to a hamlet. The +struggle for existence, from which the larger communes of this district, +Siena and Montepulciano, emerged at the expense of their neighbours, +must have been tragical. The _balze_ now grow sterner, drier, more +dreadful. We see how deluges outpoured from thunderstorms bring down +their viscous streams of loam, destroying in an hour the terraces it +took a year to build, and spreading wasteful mud upon the scanty +cornfields. The people call this soil _creta_; but it seems to be less +like a chalk than a marl, or _marna_. It is always washing away into +ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the +tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vegetation +has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have the +patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still +beginning, never ending, which reclaims such wildernesses. Comparing +Monte Oliveto with similar districts of cretaceous soil--with the +country, for example, between Pienza and San Quirico--we perceive how +much is owed to the monks whom Bernardo Tolomei planted here. So far as +it is clothed at all with crop and wood, this is their service. + +At last we climb the crowning hill, emerge from a copse of oak, glide +along a terraced pathway through the broom, and find ourselves in front +of the convent gateway. A substantial tower of red brick, machicolated +at the top and pierced with small square windows, guards this portal, +reminding us that at some time or other the monks found it needful to +arm their solitude against a force descending from Chiusure. There is an +avenue of slender cypresses; and over the gate, protected by a jutting +roof, shines a fresco of Madonna and Child. Passing rapidly downwards, +we are in the courtyard of the monastery, among its stables, barns, and +out-houses, with the forlorn bulk of the huge red building spreading +wide, and towering up above us. As good luck ruled our arrival, we came +face to face with the Abbate de Negro, who administers the domain of +Monte Oliveto for the Government of Italy, and exercises a kindly +hospitality to chance-comers. He was standing near the church, which, +with its tall square campanile, breaks the long stern outline of the +convent. The whole edifice, it may be said, is composed of a red brick +inclining to purple in tone, which contrasts not unpleasantly with the +lustrous green of the cypresses, and the glaucous sheen of olives. +Advantage has been taken of a steep crest; and the monastery, enlarged +from time to time through the last five centuries, has here and there +been reared upon gigantic buttresses, which jut upon the _balze_ at a +sometimes giddy height. + +The Abbate received us with true courtesy, and gave us spacious rooms, +three cells apiece, facing Siena and the western mountains. There is +accommodation, he told us, for three hundred monks; but only three are +left in it. As this order was confined to members of the nobility, each +of the religious had his own apartment--not a cubicle such as the +uninstructed dream of when they read of monks, but separate chambers for +sleep and study and recreation. + +In the middle of the vast sad landscape, the place is still, with a +silence that can be almost heard. The deserted state of those +innumerable cells, those echoing corridors and shadowy cloisters, +exercises overpowering tyranny over the imagination. Siena is so far +away, and Montalcino is so faintly outlined on its airy parapet, that +these cities only deepen our sense of desolation. It is a relief to mark +at no great distance on the hill-side a contadino guiding his oxen, and +from a lonely farm yon column of ascending smoke. At least the world +goes on, and life is somewhere resonant with song. But here there rests +a pall of silence among the oak-groves and the cypresses and _balze_. As +I leaned and mused, while Christian (my good friend and fellow-traveller +from the Grisons) made our beds, a melancholy sunset flamed up from a +rampart of cloud, built like a city of the air above the mountains of +Volterra--fire issuing from its battlements, and smiting the fretted +roof of heaven above. It was a conflagration of celestial rose upon the +saddest purples and cavernous recesses of intensest azure. + +We had an excellent supper in the visitor's 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 tortoise-shell +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 scraps were not supplied him with sufficient +promptitude. I never saw a hungrier and bolder cat. It made one fancy +that even the mice had been exiled from this solitude. And truly the +rule of the monastic order, no less than the habit of Italian gentlemen, +is frugal in the matter of the table, beyond the conception of northern +folk. + +Monte Oliveto, the Superior told us, owned thirty-two _poderi_, or large +farms, of which five have recently been sold. They are worked on the +_mezzeria_ system; whereby peasants and proprietors divide the produce +of the soil; and which he thinks inferior for developing its resources +to that of _affito_, or lease-holding. + +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 sub-divided farms to more energetic people. The village of Chiusure +is inhabited by labourers. The contadini are poor: a dower, for +instance, of fifty _lire_ is thought something: whereas near Genoa, upon +the leasehold system, a farmer may sometimes provide a dower of twenty +thousand _lire_. The country produces grain of different sorts, +excellent oil, and timber. It also yields a tolerable red wine. The +Government makes from eight to nine per cent upon the value of the land, +employing him and his two religious brethren as agents. + +In such conversations 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 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 +eery as that of willows by some haunted mere. + + +IV. + +The great attraction to students of Italian art in the convent of Monte +Oliveto is a large square cloister, covered with wall-paintings by Luca +Signorelli and Giovannantonio Bazzi, surnamed Il Sodoma. These represent +various episodes in the life of S. Benedict; while one picture, in some +respects the best of the whole series, is devoted to the founder of the +Olivetan Order, Bernardo Tolomei, dispensing the rule of his institution +to a consistory of white-robed monks. Signorelli, that great master of +Cortona, may be studied to better advantage elsewhere, especially at +Orvieto and in his native city. His work in this cloister, consisting of +eight frescoes, has been much spoiled by time and restoration. Yet it +can be referred to a good period of his artistic activity (the year +1497) and displays much which is specially characteristic of his manner. +In Totila's barbaric train, he painted a crowd of fierce emphatic +figures, combining all ages and the most varied attitudes, and +reproducing with singular vividness the Italian soldiers of adventure of +his day. We see before us the long-haired followers of Braccio and the +Baglioni; their handsome savage faces; their brawny limbs clad in the +parti-coloured 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 represented +in their work, the muscular vigour of young manhood. Two of the +remaining frescoes, different from these in motive, might be selected as +no less characteristic of Signorelli's manner. One represents three +sturdy monks, clad in brown, working with all their strength to stir a +boulder, which has been bewitched, and needs a miracle to move it from +its place. The square and powerfully outlined drawing of these figures +is beyond all praise for its effect of massive solidity. The other +shows us the interior of a fifteenth century tavern, where two monks are +regaling themselves upon the sly. A country girl, with shapely arms and +shoulders, her upper skirts tucked round the ample waist to which broad +sweeping lines of back and breasts descend, is serving wine. The +exuberance of animal life, the freedom of attitude expressed in this, +the mainly interesting figure of the composition, show that Signorelli +might have been a great master of realistic painting. Nor are the +accessories less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy +leaving the room by a flight of steps, which leads to the house door, +and the table at which the truant monks are seated, complete a picture +of homely Italian life. It may still be matched out of many an inn in +this hill district. + +Called to graver work at Orvieto, where he painted his gigantic series +of frescoes illustrating the coming of Antichrist, 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 +recently established himself in a species of tyranny over the Republic. +The work he did for this patron and other nobles of Siena, brought him +into notice. Vasari observes that his hot Lombard colouring, a something +florid and attractive in his style, which contrasted with the severity +of the Tuscan school, rendered him no less agreeable as an artist than +his free manners made him acceptable as a house-friend. Fra Domenico da +Leccio, also a Lombard, was at that time General of the monks of Monte +Oliveto. On a visit to this compatriot in 1505, Sodoma received a +commission to complete the cloister; and during the next two years he +worked there, producing in all twenty-five frescoes. For his pains he +seemed to have received but little pay--Vasari says, only the expenses +of some colour-grinders who assisted him; but from the books of the +convent it appears that 241 ducats, or something over 60_l._ of our +money, were disbursed to him. + +Sodoma was so singular a fellow, even in that age of piquant +personalities, that it may be worth while to translate a fragment of +Vasari's gossip about him. We must, however, bear in mind that, for some +unknown reason, the Aretine historian bore a rancorous grudge against +this Lombard, whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did all he +could by writing to depreciate. "He was fond," says Vasari, "of keeping +in his house all sorts of strange animals: badgers, squirrels, monkeys, +cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba ponies, +jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, and other creatures of this kind, as +many as he could lay his hands on. Over and above these beasts, he had a +raven, which had learned so well from him to talk, that it could imitate +its master's voice, especially in answering the door when some one +knocked, and this it did so cleverly that people took it for +Giovannantonio himself, as all the folk of Siena know quite well. In +like manner, his other pets were so much at home with him that they +never left his house, but played the strangest tricks and maddest pranks +imaginable, so that his house was like nothing more than a Noah's Ark." +He was a bold rider, it seems; for with one of his racers, ridden by +himself, he bore away the prize in that wild horse-race they run upon +the Piazza at Siena. For the rest, "he attired himself in pompous +clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace, +gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a like description, +fit for buffoons and mountebanks." In one of the frescoes of Monte +Oliveto, Sodoma painted his own portrait, with some of his curious pets +around him. He there appears as a young man with large and decidedly +handsome features, a great shock of dark curled hair escaping from a +yellow cap, and flowing down over a rich mantle which drapes his +shoulders. If we may trust Vasari, he showed his curious humours freely +to the monks. "Nobody could describe the amusement he furnished to those +good fathers, who christened him Mattaccio (the big madman), or the +insane tricks he played there." + +In spite of Vasari's malevolence, the portrait he has given us of Bazzi +has so far nothing unpleasant about it. The man seems to have been a +madcap artist, combining with his love for his profession a taste for +fine clothes, and what was then perhaps rarer in people of his sort, a +great partiality for living creatures of all kinds. The darker shades of +Vasari's picture have been purposely omitted from these pages. We only +know for certain, about Bazzi's private life, that he was married in +1510 to a certain Beatrice, who bore him two children, and who was +still living with him in 1541. The further suggestion that he painted +at Monte Oliveto subjects unworthy of a religious house, is wholly +disproved by the frescoes which still exist in a state of very tolerable +preservation. They represent various episodes in the legend of S. +Benedict; all marked by that spirit of simple, almost childish piety +which is a special characteristic of Italian religious history. The +series forms, in fact, a painted _novella_ of monastic life; its petty +jealousies, its petty trials, its tribulations and temptations, and its +indescribably petty miracles. Bazzi was well fitted for the execution of +this task. He had a swift and facile brush, considerable versatility in +the treatment of monotonous subjects, and a never-failing sense of +humour. His white-cowled monks, some of them with the rosy freshness of +boys, some with the handsome brown faces of middle life, others astute +and crafty, others again wrinkled with old age, have clearly been copied +from real models. He puts them into action without the slightest effort, +and surrounds them with landscapes, architecture, and furniture, +appropriate to each successive situation. The whole is done with so much +grace, such simplicity of composition, and transparency of style, +corresponding to the _naïf_ and superficial legend, that we feel a +perfect harmony between the artist's mind and the motives he was made to +handle. In this respect Bazzi's portion of the legend of S. Benedict is +more successful than Signorelli's. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the +conditions of his task confined him to uncomplicated groupings, and a +scale of colour in which white predominates. For Bazzi, as is shown by +subsequent work in the Farnesina Villa at Rome, and in the church of S. +Domenico at Siena, was no master of composition; and the tone, even of +his masterpieces, inclines to heat. Unlike Signorelli, Bazzi felt a deep +artistic sympathy with female beauty; and the most attractive fresco in +the whole series is that in which the evil monk Florentius brings a bevy +of fair damsels to the convent. There is one group, in particular, of +six women, so delicately varied in carriage of the head and suggested +movement of the body, as to be comparable only to a strain of concerted +music. This is perhaps the painter's masterpiece in the rendering of +pure beauty, if we except his S. Sebastian of the Uffizzi. + +We tire of studying pictures, hardly less than of reading about them! I +was glad enough, after three hours spent among the frescoes of this +cloister, to wander forth into the copses which surround the convent. +Sunlight was streaming treacherously from flying clouds; and though it +was high noon, the oak-leaves were still a-tremble with dew. Pink +cyclamens and yellow amaryllis starred the moist brown earth; and under +the cypress-trees, where alleys had been cut in former time for pious +feet, the short firm turf was soft and mossy. Before bidding the +hospitable Padre farewell, and starting in our waggonette for Asciano, +it was pleasant to meditate awhile in these green solitudes. Generations +of white-stoled monks who had sat or knelt upon the now deserted +terraces, or had slowly paced the winding paths to Calvaries aloft and +points of vantage high above the wood, rose up before me. My mind, still +full of Bazzi's frescoes, peopled the wilderness with grave monastic +forms, and gracious, young-eyed faces of boyish novices. + + + + +MONTEPULCIANO. + +I. + + +For the sake of intending travellers to this, the lordliest of Tuscan +hill-towns, it will be well to state at once and without circumlocution +what does not appear upon the time-tables of the line from Empoli to +Rome. Montepulciano has a station; but this railway station is at the +distance of at least an hour and a half's drive from the mountain upon +which the city stands. + +The lumbering train which brought us one October evening from Asciano +crawled into this station after dark, at the very moment when a storm, +which had been gathering from the south-west, burst in deluges of rain +and lightning. There was, however, a covered carriage going to the town. +Into this we packed ourselves, together with a polite Italian gentleman +who, in answer to our questions, consulted his watch, and smilingly +replied that a little half-hour would bring us easily to Montepulciano. +He was a native of the place. He knew perfectly well that he would be +shut up with us in that carriage for two mortal hours of darkness and +down-pour. And yet, such is the irresistible impulse in Italians to say +something immediately agreeable, he fed us with false hopes and had no +fear of consequences. What did it matter to him if we were pulling out +our watches and chattering in well-contented undertone about _vino +nobile_, _biftek_, and possibly a _pollo arrosto_, or a dish of _tordi_? +At the end of the half-hour, as he was well aware, self-congratulations +and visions of a hearty supper would turn to discontented wailings, and +the querulous complaining of defrauded appetites. But the end of half an +hour was still half an hour off; and we meanwhile were comfortable. + +The night was pitchy dark, and blazing flashes of lightning showed a +white ascending road at intervals. Rain rushed in torrents, splashing +against the carriage wheels, which moved uneasily, as though they could +but scarcely stem the river that swept down upon them. Far away above us +to the left, was one light on a hill, which never seemed to get any +nearer. We could see nothing but a chasm of blackness below us on one +side, edged with ghostly olive-trees, and a high bank on the other. +Sometimes a star swam out of the drifting clouds; but then the rain +hissed down again, and the flashes came in floods of livid light, +illuminating the eternal olives and the cypresses which looked like huge +black spectres. It seemed almost impossible for the horses to keep their +feet, as the mountain road grew ever steeper and the torrent swelled +around them. Still they struggled on. The promised half hour had been +doubled, trebled, quadrupled, when at last we saw the great brown sombre +walls of a city tower above us. Then we entered one of those narrow +lofty Tuscan gates, and rolled upon the pavement of a street. + +The inn at Montepulciano is called Marzocco, after the Florentine lion +which stands upon its column in a little square before the house. The +people there are hospitable, and more than once on subsequent occasions +have they extended to us kindly welcome. But on this, our first +appearance, they had scanty room at their disposal. Seeing us arrive so +late, and march into their dining-room, laden with sealskins, +waterproofs, and ulsters, one of the party 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 bed-room, where they +pointed to one fair-sized and one very little bed. This was the only +room at liberty, they said; and could we not arrange to sleep here? +_S'accomodi, Signore! S'accomodi, Signora!_ These encouraging words, +uttered in various tones of cheerful and insinuating politeness to each +member of the party in succession, failed to make us comprehend how a +gentleman and his wife, with a lean but rather lengthy English friend, +and a bulky native of the Grisons, could "accommodate themselves" +collectively and undividedly with what was barely sufficient for their +just moiety, however much it might afford a night's rest to their worse +half. Christian was sent out into the storm to look for supplementary +rooms in Montepulciano, which he failed to get. Meanwhile we ordered +supper, and had the satisfaction of seeing set upon the board a huge red +flask of _vino nobile_. In copious draughts of this the King of Tuscan +wines, we drowned our cares; and when the cloth was drawn, our friend +and Christian passed their night upon the supper table. The good folk of +the inn had recovered from their surprise, and from the inner recesses +of their house had brought forth mattresses and blankets. So the better +and larger half of the company enjoyed sound sleep. + +It rained itself out at night, and the morning was clear, with the +transparent atmosphere of storm-clouds hurrying in broken squadrons from +the bad sea quarter. Yet this is just the weather in which Tuscan +landscape looks its loveliest. Those immense expanses of grey undulating +uplands need the luminousness of watery sunshine, the colour added by +cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to rob them of +a certain awful grimness. The main street of Montepulciano goes straight +uphill for a considerable distance 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 aërial space. The piazza +is the top of all things. Here are the Duomo; the Palazzo del Comune, +closely resembling that of Florence, with the Marzocco on its front; the +fountain, between two quaintly sculptured columns; and the vast palace +Del Monte, of heavy Renaissance architecture, said to be the work of +Antonio di San Gallo. + +We climbed the tower of the Palazzo del Comune, and stood at the +altitude of 2000 feet above the sea. The view is finer in its kind than +I have elsewhere seen, even in Tuscany, that land of panoramic +prospects over memorable tracts of world-historic country. Such +landscape cannot be described in words. But the worst is that, even +while we gaze, we know that nothing but the faintest memory of our +enjoyment will be carried home with us. The atmospheric conditions were +perfect that morning. The sun was still young; the sky sparkled after +the night's thunderstorm; the whole immensity of earth around lay lucid, +smiling, newly washed in baths of moisture. Masses of storm-cloud kept +rolling from the west, where we seemed to feel the sea behind those +intervening hills. But they did not form in heavy blocks or hang upon +the mountain summits. They hurried and dispersed and changed and flung +their shadows on the world below. + + +II. + +The charm of this view is composed of so many different elements, so +subtly blent, appealing to so many separate sensibilities; the sense of +grandeur, the sense of space, the sense of natural beauty, and the sense +of human pathos; that deep internal faculty we call historic sense; that +it cannot be defined. First comes the immense surrounding space--a space +measured in each arc of the circumference by sections of at least fifty +miles, limited by points of exquisitely picturesque beauty, including +distant cloud-like mountain ranges and crystals of sky-blue Apennines, +circumscribing landscapes of refined loveliness in detail, always +varied, always marked by objects of peculiar interest where the eye or +memory may linger. Next in importance to this immensity of space, so +powerfully affecting the imagination by its mere extent, and by the +breadth of atmosphere attuning all varieties of form and colour to one +harmony beneath illimitable heaven, may be reckoned the episodes of +rivers, lakes, hills, cities, with old historic names. For there spreads +the lordly length of Thrasymene, islanded and citadelled, in hazy +morning mist, still dreaming of the shock of Roman hosts with +Carthaginian legions. There is the lake of Chiusi, set like a jewel +underneath the copse-clad hills which hide the dust of a dead Tuscan +nation. The streams of Arno start far far away, where Arezzo lies +enfolded in bare uplands. And there at our feet rolls Tiber's largest +affluent, the Chiana. And there is the canal which joins their fountains +in the marsh that Lionardo would have drained. Monte Cetona is yonder +height which rears its bristling ridge defiantly from neighbouring +Chiusi. And there springs Radicofani, the eagle's eyrie of a brigand +brood. Next, Monte Amiata stretches the long lines of her antique +volcano; the swelling mountain flanks, descending gently from her +cloud-capped top, are russet with autumnal oak and chestnut woods. On +them our eyes rest lovingly; imagination wanders for a moment through +those mossy glades, where cyclamens are growing now, and primroses in +spring will peep amid anemones from rustling foliage strewn by winter's +winds. The heights of Casentino, the Perugian highlands, Volterra, far +withdrawn amid a wilderness of rolling hills, and solemn snow-touched +ranges of the Spolentino, Sibyl-haunted fastnesses of Norcia, form the +most distant horizon-lines of this unending panorama. And then there are +the cities, placed each upon a point of vantage: Siena; olive-mantled +Chiusi; Cortona, white upon her spreading throne; poetic Montalcino, +lifted aloft against the vaporous sky; San Quirico, nestling in pastoral +tranquillity; Pienza, where Æneas Sylvius built palaces and called his +birthplace after his own Papal name. Still closer to the town itself of +Montepulciano, stretching along the irregular ridge which gave it +building ground, and trending out on spurs above deep orchards, come the +lovely details of oak-copses, blending with grey tilth and fields rich +with olive and vine. The gaze, exhausted with immensity, pierces those +deeply cloven valleys, sheltered from wind and open to the +sun--undulating folds of brown earth, where Bacchus, when he visited +Tuscany, found the grape-juice that pleased him best, and crowned the +wine of Montepulciano king. Here from our eyrie we can trace white oxen +on the furrows, guided by brown-limbed, white-shirted contadini. + +The morning glory of this view from Montepulciano, though irrecoverable +by words, abides in the memory, and draws one back by its unique +attractiveness. On a subsequent visit to the town in spring time, 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 +lowered like bastions, and all the masses of their mighty architecture +stood revealed in shadow and dim lamplight. Far and wide, the country +round us gleamed with bonfires; for it was the eve of the Ascension, +when every contadino lights a beacon of chestnut logs and straw and +piled-up leaves. Each castello on the plain, each village on the hills, +each lonely farmhouse at the skirt of forest or the edge of lake, +smouldered like a red Cyclopean eye beneath the vault of stars. The +flames waxed and waned, leapt into tongues, or disappeared. As they +passed from gloom to brilliancy and died away again, they seemed almost +to move. The twilight scene was like that of a vast city, filling the +plain and climbing the heights in terraces. Is this custom, I thought, a +relic of old Pales-worship? + + +III. + +The early history of Montepulciano is buried in impenetrable mists of +fable. No one can assign a date to the foundation of these high-hill +cities. The eminence on which it stands belongs to the volcanic system +of Monte Amiata, and must at some time have formed a portion of the +crater which threw that mighty mass aloft. But æons have passed since +the _gran sasso di Maremma_ was a fire-vomiting monster, glaring like +Etna in eruption on the Tyrrhene sea; and through those centuries how +many races may have camped upon the summit we call Montepulciano! +Tradition assigns the first quasi-historical settlement to Lars Porsena, +who is said to have made it his summer residence, when the lower and +more marshy air of Clusium became oppressive. Certainly it must have +been a considerable town in the Etruscan period. Embedded in the walls +of palaces may still be seen numerous fragments of sculptured +bas-reliefs, the works of that mysterious people. A propos of +Montepulciano's importance in the early years of Roman history, I +lighted on a quaint story related by its very jejune annalist, Spinello +Benci. It will be remembered that Livy attributes the invasion of the +Gauls, who, after besieging Clusium, advanced on Rome, to the +persuasions of a certain Aruns. He was an exile from Clusium; and +wishing to revenge himself upon his country-people, he allured the +Senonian Gauls into his service by the promise of excellent wine, +samples of which he had taken with him into Lombardy. Spinello Benci +accepts the legend literally, and continues: "These wines were so +pleasing to the palate of the barbarians, that they were induced to quit +the rich and teeming valley of the Po, to cross the Apennines, and move +in battle array against Chiusi. And it is clear that the wine which +Aruns selected for the purpose was the same as that which is produced to +this day at Montepulciano. For nowhere else in the Etruscan district can +wines of equally generous quality and fiery spirit be found, so adapted +for export and capable of such long preservation." + +We may smile at the historian's _naïveté_. Yet the fact remains that +good wine of Montepulciano can still allure barbarians of this epoch to +the spot where it is grown. Of all Italian vintages, with the exception +of some rare qualities of Sicily and the Valtellina, it is, in my humble +opinion, the best. And when the time comes for Italy to develop the +resources of her vineyards upon scientific principles, Montepulciano +will drive Brolio from the field and take the same place by the side of +Chianti which Volnay occupies by common Macon. It will then be quoted +upon wine-lists throughout Europe, and find its place upon the tables of +rich epicures in Hyperborean regions, and add its generous warmth to +Transatlantic 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 sophisticated palate, +but clean in quality and powerful and racy. It deserves the enthusiasm +attributed by Redi to Bacchus:[A]-- + + Fill, fill, let us all have our will! + But with _what_, with _what_, boys, shall we fill? + Sweet Ariadne--no, not _that_ one--_ah_ no; + Fill me the manna of Montepulciano: + Fill me a magnum and reach it me.--Gods! + How it glides to my heart by the sweetest of roads! + Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me! + Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears! + I'm ravished! I'm rapt! Heaven finds me admissible! + Lost in an ecstasy! blinded! invisible!-- + Hearken all earth! + We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth, + To all who reverence us, are right thinkers; + Hear, all ye drinkers! + Give ear and give faith to the edict divine; + Montepulciano's the King of all wine. + +It is necessary, however, that our modern barbarian should travel to +Montepulciano itself, and there obtain a flask of _manna_ or _vino +nobile_ from some trusty cellar-master. He will not find it bottled in +the inns or restaurants upon his road. + + +IV. + +The landscape and the wine of Montepulciano are both well worth the +trouble of a visit to this somewhat inaccessible city. Yet more remains +to be said about the attractions of the town itself. In the Duomo, which +was spoiled by unintelligent rebuilding at a dismal epoch of barren art, +are fragments of one of the rarest monuments of Tuscan sculpture. This +is the tomb of Bartolommeo Aragazzi. He was a native of Montepulciano, +and secretary to Pope Martin V., that _Papa Martino non vale un +quattrino_, on whom, during his long residence in Florence, the +street-boys made their rhymes. Twelve years before his death he +commissioned Donatello and Michelozzo Michelozzi, who about that period +were working together upon the monuments of Pope John XXIII. and +Cardinal Brancacci, to erect his own tomb at the enormous cost of +twenty-four thousand scudi. That thirst for immortality of fame, which +inspired the humanists of the Renaissance, prompted Aragazzi to this +princely expenditure. Yet, having somehow won the hatred of his +fellow-students, he was immediately censured for excessive vanity. +Lionardo Bruni makes his monument the theme of a ferocious onslaught. +Writing to Poggio Bracciolini, Bruni tells a story how, while travelling +through the country of Arezzo, he met a train of oxen dragging heavy +waggons piled with marble columns, statues, and all the necessary +details of a sumptuous sepulchre. He stopped, and asked what it all +meant. Then one of the contractors for this transport, wiping the sweat +from his forehead, in utter weariness of the vexatious labour, at the +last end of his temper, answered: "May the gods destroy all poets, past, +present, and future." I inquired what he had to do with poets, and how +they had annoyed him. "Just this," he replied, "that this poet, lately +deceased, a fool and windy-pated fellow, has ordered a monument for +himself; and with a view to erecting it, these marbles are being dragged +to Montepulciano; but I doubt whether we shall contrive to get them up +there. The roads are too bad." "But," cried I, "do you believe _that_ +man was a poet--that dunce who had no science, nay, nor knowledge +either? who only rose above the heads of men by vanity and doltishness?" +"I don't know," he answered, "nor did I ever hear tell, while he was +alive, about his being called a poet; but his fellow-townsmen now decide +he was one; nay, if he had but left a few more moneybags, they'd swear +he was a god. Anyhow, but for his having been a poet, I would not have +cursed poets in general." Whereupon, the malevolent Bruni withdrew, and +composed a scorpion-tailed oration, addressed to his friend Poggio, on +the suggested theme of "diuturnity in monuments," and false ambition. +Our old friends of humanistic learning--Cyrus, Alexander, Cæsar--meet us +in these frothy paragraphs. Cambyses, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius, are +thrown in to make the gruel of rhetoric "thick and slab." The whole +epistle ends in a long-drawn peroration of invective against "that +excrement in human shape," who had had the ill-luck, by pretence to +scholarship, by big gains from the Papal treasury, by something in his +manners alien from the easy-going customs of the Roman Court, to rouse +the rancour of his fellow-humanists. + +I have dwelt upon this episode, partly because it illustrates the +peculiar thirst for glory in the students of that time, but more +especially because it casts a thin clear thread of actual light upon the +masterpiece which, having been transported with this difficulty from +Donatello's workshop, is now to be seen by all lovers of fine art, in +part at least, at Montepulciano. In part at least: the phrase is +pathetic. Poor Aragazzi, who thirsted so for "diuturnity in monuments," +who had been so cruelly assaulted in the grave by humanistic jealousy, +expressing its malevolence with humanistic crudity of satire, was +destined after all to be defrauded of his well-paid tomb. The monument, +a master work of Donatello and his collaborator, was duly erected. The +oxen and the contractors, it appears, had floundered through the mud of +Valdichiana, and struggled up the mountain-slopes of Montepulciano. But +when the church, which this triumph of art adorned, came to be repaired, +the miracle of beauty was dismembered. The sculpture for which Aragazzi +spent his thousands of crowns, which Donatello touched with his +immortalising chisel, over which the contractors vented their curses and +Bruni eased his bile; these marbles are now visible as mere _disjecta +membra_ in a church which, lacking them, has little to detain a +traveller's haste. + +On the left hand of the central door, as you enter, Aragazzi lies, in +senatorial robes, asleep; his head turned slightly to the right upon the +pillow, his hands folded over his breast. Very noble are the draperies, +and dignified the deep tranquillity of slumber. Here, we say, is a good +man fallen upon sleep, awaiting resurrection. The one commanding theme +of Christian sculpture, in an age of Pagan feeling, has been adequately +rendered. Bartolommeo Aragazzi, like Ilaria del 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 reincarnation. 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 showing us the man himself in an +imagined state of sleep. Yet this imagined state of sleep is so +incalculably long, and by the will of God withdrawn from human prophecy, +that the ages sweeping over the dead man before the trumpets of +archangels wake him, shall sooner wear away memorial stone than stir his +slumber. It is a slumber, too, unterrified, unentertained by dreams. +Suspended animation finds no fuller symbolism than the sculptor here +presents to us in abstract form. + +The boys of Montepulciano have scratched Messer Aragazzi's sleeping +figure with _graffiti_ at their own free will. Yet they have had no +power to erase the poetry of Donatello's mighty style. That, in spite of +Bruni's envy, in spite of injurious time, in spite of the still worse +insult of the modernised cathedral and the desecrated monument, embalms +him in our memory and secures for him the diuturnity for which he paid +his twenty thousand crowns. Money, methinks, beholding him, was rarely +better expended on a similar ambition. And ambition of this sort, +relying on the genius of such a master to give it wings for perpetuity +of time, is, _pace_ Lionardo Bruni, not ignoble. + +Opposite the figure of Messer Aragazzi are two square bas-reliefs 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 bas-relief 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 arms to welcome them. Two young +men, with half-draped busts and waving hair blown off their foreheads, +anticipate the type of adolescence which Andrea del Sarto perfected in +his S. John. We might imagine that this masterly panel was intended to +represent the arrival of Messer Aragazzi in his home. It is a scene from +the domestic life of the dead man, duly subordinated to the recumbent +figure, which, when the monument was perfect, would have dominated the +whole composition. + +Nothing in the range of Donatello's work surpasses these two bas-reliefs +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. + + +V. + +At a certain point in the main street, rather more than half way 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 of the impulse given to +it by the "Miscellanea." The study of Roman law would have missed those +labours on the Pandects, with which the name of Politian is honourably +associated. From the Florentine society of the fifteenth century would +have disappeared the commanding central figure of humanism, which now +contrasts dramatically with the stern monastic Prior of S. Mark. +Benedetto's tragic death gave Poliziano to Italy and to posterity. + + +VI. + +Those who have a day to spare at Montepulciano can scarcely spend it +better than in an excursion to Pienza and San Quirico. Leaving the city +by the road which takes a westerly direction, the first object of +interest is the Church of San Biagio, placed on a fertile plateau +immediately beneath the ancient acropolis. It was erected by Antonio di +San Gallo in 1518, and is one of the most perfect specimens existing of +the sober classical style. The Church consists of a Greek square, +continued at the east end into a semicircular tribune, surmounted by a +central cupola, and flanked by a detached bell-tower, ending in a +pyramidal spire. The whole is built of solid yellow travertine, a +material which, by its warmth of colour, is pleasing to the eye, and +mitigates the mathematical severity of the design. Upon entering, we +feel at once what Alberti called the music of this style; its large and +simple harmonies, depending for effect upon sincerity of plan and +justice of balance. The square masses of the main building, the +projecting cornices and rounded tribune, meet together and soar up into +the cupola; while the grand but austere proportions of the arches and +the piers compose a symphony of perfectly concordant lines. The music is +grave and solemn, architecturally expressed in terms of measured space +and outlined symmetry. The whole effect is that of one thing pleasant to +look upon, agreeably appealing to our sense of unity, charming us by +grace and repose; not stimulative nor suggestive, not multiform nor +mysterious. We are reminded of the temples imagined by Francesco +Colonna, and figured in his _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_. One of these +shrines has, we feel, come into actual existence here; and the religious +ceremonies for which it is adapted are not those of the Christian +worship. Some more primitive, less spiritual rites, involving less of +tragic awe and deep-wrought symbolism, should be here performed. It is +better suited for Polifilo's lustration by Venus Physizoe than for the +mass on Easter morning. And in this respect, the sentiment of the +architecture is exactly faithful to that mood of religious feeling which +appeared in Italy under the influences of the classical revival--when +the essential doctrines of Christianity were blurred with Pantheism; +when Jehovah became _Jupiter Optimus Maximus_; and Jesus was the _Heros_ +of Calvary, and nuns were _Virgines Vestales_. In literature this mood +often strikes us as insincere and artificial. But it admitted of +realisation and showed itself to be profoundly felt in architecture. + +After leaving Madonna di San Biagio, the road strikes at once into an +open country, expanding on the right towards the woody ridge of Monte +Fallonica, on the left toward Cetona and Radicofani, with Monte Amiata +full in front--its double crest and long volcanic slope recalling Etna; +the belt of embrowned forest on its flank, made luminous by sunlight. +Far away stretches the Sienese Maremma; Siena dimly visible upon her +gentle hill; and still beyond, the pyramid of Volterra, huge and +cloud-like, piled against the sky. The road, as is almost invariable in +this district, keeps to the highest line of ridges, winding much, and +following the dimplings of the earthy hills. Here and there a solitary +castello, rusty with old age, and turned into a farm, juts into +picturesqueness from some point of vantage on a mound surrounded with +green tillage. But soon the dull and intolerable _creta_, ash-grey +earth, without a vestige of vegetation, furrowed by rain, and desolately +breaking into gullies, swallows up variety and charm. It is difficult to +believe that this _creta_ of Southern Tuscany, which has all the +appearance of barrenness, and is a positive deformity in the landscape, +can be really fruitful. Yet we are frequently being told that it only +needs assiduous labour to render it enormously productive. + +When we reached Pienza we were already in the middle of a country +without cultivation, abandoned to the marl. It is a little place, +perched upon the ledge of a long sliding hill, which commands the vale +of Orcia; Monte Amiata soaring in aërial majesty beyond. Its old name +was Cosignano. But it had the honour of giving birth to Æneas Sylvius +Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and had assumed the +title of Pius II., determined to transform and dignify his native +village, and to call it after his own name. From that time forward +Cosignano has been known as Pienza. + +Pius II. succeeded effectually in leaving his mark upon the town. And +this forms its main interest at the present time. We see in Pienza how +the most active-minded and intelligent man of his epoch, the +representative genius of Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century, +commanding vast wealth and the Pontifical prestige, worked out his whim +of city-building. The experiment had to be made upon a small scale; for +Pienza was then and was destined to remain a village. Yet here, upon +this miniature piazza--in modern as in ancient Italy the meeting-point +of civic life, the forum--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 realization of his scheme to a Florentine architect; +whether Bernardo Rossellino, or a certain Bernardo di Lorenzo, is still +uncertain. The same artist, working in the flat manner of Florentine +domestic architecture, with rusticated basements, rounded windows and +bold projecting cornices--the manner which is so nobly illustrated by +the Rucellai and Strozzi palaces at Florence--executed also for Pius the +monumental Palazzo Piccolomini at Siena. It is a great misfortune for +the group of buildings he designed at Pienza, that they are huddled +together in close quarters on a square too small for their effect. A +want of space is peculiarly injurious to the architecture of this date, +1462, which, itself geometrical and spatial, demands a certain harmony +and liberty in its surroundings, a proportion between the room occupied +by each building and the masses of the edifice. The style is severe and +prosaic. Those charming episodes and accidents of fancy, in which the +Gothic style and the style of the earlier Lombard Renaissance abounded, +are wholly wanting to the rigid, mathematical, hard-headed genius of the +Florentine quattrocento. Pienza, therefore, disappoints us. Its heavy +palace frontispieces shut the spirit up in a tight box. We seem unable +to breathe, and lack that element of life and picturesqueness which the +splendid retinues of nobles in the age of Pinturicchio might have added +to the now forlorn Piazza. + +Yet the material is a fine warm travertine, mellowing to dark red, +brightening to golden, with some details, especially the tower of the +Palazzo Communale, in red brick. This building, by the way, is imitated +in miniature from that of Florence. The cathedral is a small church of +three aisles, equally high, ending in what the French would call a +_chevet_. Pius had observed this plan of construction somewhere in +Austria, and commanded his architect, Bernardo, to observe it in his +plan. He was attracted by the facilities for window-lighting which it +offered; and what is very singular, he provided by the Bull of his +foundation for keeping the walls of the interior free from frescoes and +other coloured decorations. The result is that, though the interior +effect is pleasing, the church presents a frigid aspect to eyes +familiarised with warmth of tone in other buildings of that period. The +details of the columns and friezes are classical; and the façade, +strictly corresponding to the structure, and very honest in its +decorative elements, is also of the earlier Renaissance style. But the +vaulting and some of the windows are pointed. + +The Palazzo Piccolomini, standing at the right hand of the Duomo, is a +vast square edifice. The walls are flat and even, pierced at regular +intervals with windows, except upon the south-west side, where the +rectangular design is broken by a noble double Loggiata, gallery rising +above gallery--serene curves of arches, grandly proportioned columns, +massive balustrades, a spacious corridor, a roomy vaulting--opening out +upon the palace garden, and offering fair prospect over the wooded +heights of Castiglione and Rocca d'Orcia, up to Radicofani and shadowy +Amiata. It was in these double tiers of galleries, in the garden beneath +and in the open inner square of the palazzo, that the great life of +Italian aristocracy displayed itself. Four centuries ago these spaces, +now so desolate in their immensity, echoed to the tread of serving-men, +the songs of pages; horse-hooves struck upon the pavement of the court; +spurs jingled on the staircases; the brocaded trains of ladies sweeping +from their chambers rustled on the marbles of the loggia; knights let +their hawks fly from the garden-parapets; cardinals and abbreviators +gathered round the doors from which the Pope would issue, when he rose +from his siesta to take the cool of evening in those airy colonnades. +How impossible it is to realise that scene amid this solitude! The +palazzo still belongs to the Piccolomini family. But it has fallen into +something worse than ruin--the squalor of half-starved existence, shorn +of all that justified its grand proportions. Partition-walls have been +run up across its halls to meet the requirements of our contracted +modern customs. Nothing remains of the original decorations except one +carved chimney-piece, an emblazoned shield, and a frescoed portrait of +the founder. All movable treasures have been made away with. And yet the +carved heraldics of the exterior, the coat of Piccolomini, "argent, on a +cross azure five crescents or," the Papal ensigns, keys, and tiara, and +the monogram of Pius, prove that this country dwelling of a Pope must +once have been rich in details befitting its magnificence. With the +exception of the very small portion reserved for the Signori, when they +visit Pienza, the palace has become a granary for country produce in a +starveling land. There was one redeeming point about it to my mind. That +was the handsome young man, with earnest Tuscan eyes and a wonderfully +sweet voice, the servant of the Piccolomini family, who lives here with +his crippled father, and who showed us over the apartments. + +We left Pienza and drove on to S. Quirico, through the same wrinkled +wilderness of marl; wasteful, uncultivated, bare to every wind that +blows. A cruel blast was sweeping from the sea, and Monte Amiata +darkened with rain clouds. Still the pictures, which formed themselves +at intervals, as we wound along these barren ridges, were very fair to +look upon, especially one, not far from S. Quirico. It had for +foreground a stretch of tilth--olive-trees, honeysuckle hedges, and +cypresses. Beyond soared Amiata in all its breadth and blue +air-blackness, bearing on its mighty flanks the broken cliffs and tufted +woods of Castiglione and the Rocca d'Orcia; eagles' nests emerging from +a fertile valley-champaign, into which the eye was led for rest. It so +chanced that a band of sunlight, escaping from filmy clouds, touched +this picture with silvery greys and soft greens--a suffusion of vaporous +radiance, which made it for one moment a Claude landscape. + +S. Quirico was keeping _festa_. The streets were crowded with healthy +handsome men and women from the contado. This village lies on the edge +of a great oasis in the Sienese desert--an oasis, formed by the waters +of the Orcia and Asso sweeping down to join Ombrone, and stretching on +to Montalcino. We put up at the sign of the "Two Hares," where a notable +housewife gave us a dinner of all we could desire; _frittata di +cervelle_, good fish, roast lamb stuffed with rosemary, salad and +cheese, with excellent wine and black coffee, at the rate of three +_lire_ a head. + +The attraction of S. Quirico is its gem-like little collegiata, a +Lombard church of the ninth century, with carved portals of the +thirteenth. It is built of golden travertine; some details in brown +sandstone. The western and southern portals have pillars resting on the +backs of lions. On the western side these pillars are four slender +columns, linked by snake-like ligatures. On the southern side they +consist of two carved figures--possibly S. John and the Archangel +Michael. There is great freedom and beauty in these statues, as also in +the lions which support them, recalling the early French and German +manner. In addition, one finds the usual Lombard grotesques--two +sea-monsters, biting each other; harpy-birds; a dragon with a twisted +tail; little men grinning and squatting in adaptation to coigns and +angles of the windows. The toothed and chevron patterns of the north are +quaintly blent with rude acanthus scrolls and classical egg-mouldings. +Over the western porch is a Gothic rose window. Altogether this church +must be reckoned one of the most curious specimens of that hybrid +architecture, fusing and appropriating different manners, which +perplexes the student in Central Italy. It seems strangely out of place +in Tuscany. Yet, if what one reads of Toscanella, a village between +Viterbo and Orbetello, be true, there exist examples of a similar +fantastic Lombard style even lower down. + +The interior was most disastrously gutted and "restored" in 1731: its +open wooden roof masked by a false stucco vaulting. A few relics, spared +by the eighteenth century Vandals, show that the church was once rich +in antique curiosities. A marble knight in armour lies on his back, half +hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in the choir are half a dozen rarely +beautiful panels of tarsia, executed in a bold style and on a large +scale. One design--a man throwing his face back, and singing, while he +plays a mandoline; with long thick hair and fanciful berretta; behind +him a fine line of cypresses and other trees--struck me as singularly +lovely. In another I noticed a branch of peach, broad leaves and ripe +fruit, not only drawn with remarkable grace and power, but so modelled +as to stand out with the roundness of reality. + +The whole drive of three hours back to Montepulciano was one long +banquet of inimitable distant views. Next morning, having to take +farewell of the place, we climbed to the Castello, or _arx_ of the old +city! It is a ruined spot, outside the present walls, upon the southern +slope, where there is now a farm, and a fair space of short +sheep-cropped turf, very green and 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. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] From Leigh Hunt's Translation. + + + + +SPRING WANDERINGS. + +ANA-CAPRI. + + +The storm-clouds at this season, though it is the bloom of May, are +daily piled in sulky or menacing masses over Vesuvius and the Abruzzi, +frothing out their curls of moulded mist across the bay, and climbing +the heavens with toppling castle towers and domes of alabaster. + +We made the most of a tranquil afternoon, where 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. + +The distinction between prospects viewed from a mountain overlooking a +great plain, or viewed from heights that, like this, dominate the sea, +principally lies in this: that while the former only offer cloud shadows +cast upon the fields below our feet, in the latter these shadows are +diversified with cloud reflections. This gives superiority in qualities +of colour, variety of tone, and luminous effect to the sea, compensating +in some measure for the lack of those associations which render the +outlook over a wide extent of populated land so thrilling. The emergence +of towered cities into sunlight at the skirts of moving shadows, the +liquid lapse of rivers half disclosed by windings among woods, the +upturned mirrors of unruffled lakes, are wanting to the sea. For such +episodes the white sails of vessels, with all their wistfulness of going +to and fro on the mysterious deep, are but a poor exchange. Yet the +sea-lover may justify his preference by appealing to the beauty of +empurpled shadows, toned by amethyst or opal or shining with violet +light, reflected from the clouds that cross and find in those dark +shields a mirror. There are suggestions, too, of immensity, of liberty, +of action, presented by the boundless horizons and the changeful +changeless tracts of ocean which no plain possesses. + +It was nigh upon sunset when we descended to Ana-Capri. That evening the +clouds assembled suddenly. The armistice of storm was broken. They were +terribly blue, and the sea grew dark as steel beneath them, till the +moment when the sun's lip reached the last edge of the waters. Then a +courier of rosy flame sent forth from him passed swift across the gulf, +touching, where it trod, the waves with accidental fire. The messenger +reached Naples; and in a moment, as by some diabolical illumination, the +sinful city kindled into light like glowing charcoal. From Posilippo on +the left, along the palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. Elmo on the hill, +past Santa Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond Portici, beyond Torre +del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an angry mount of +amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached Pompeii, and +dwelt on Torre dell'Annunziata. Stationary, lurid, it smouldered while +the day died slowly. The long, densely populated sea-line from Pozzuoli +to Castellammare burned and smoked with intensest incandescence, sending +a glare of fiery mist against the threatening blue behind, and fringing +with pomegranate-coloured blots the water where no light now lingered. +It is difficult to bend words to the use required. The scene in spite of +natural suavity and grace, had become like Dante's first glimpse of the +City of Dis--like Sodom and Gomorrah when fire from heaven descended on +their towers before they crumbled into dust. + + +FROM CAPRI TO ISCHIA. + +After this, for several days, Libeccio blew harder. No boats could leave +or come to Capri. From the piazza parapet we saw the wind scooping the +surface of the waves, and flinging spray-fleeces in sheets upon the +churning water. As they broke on Cape Campanella, the rollers climbed in +foam--how many feet?--and blotted out the olive trees above the +headland. The sky was always dark with hanging clouds and masses of +low-lying vapour, very moist, but scarcely raining--lightning without +thunder in the night. + +Such weather is unexpected in the middle month of May, especially when +the olives are blackened by December storms, and the orange-trees +despoiled of foliage, and the tendrils of the vines yellow with cold. +The walnut-trees have shown no sign of making leaves. Only the figs seem +to have suffered little. + +It had been settled that we should start upon the first seafaring dawn +for Ischia or Sorrento, according as the wind might set; and I was glad +when, early one morning, the captain of the _Serena_ announced a +moderate sirocco. When we reached the little quay we found the surf of +the libeccio still rolling heavily into the gulf. A gusty south-easter +crossed it, tearing spray-crests from the swell as it went plunging +onward. The sea was rough enough; but we made fast sailing, our captain +steering with a skill which it was beautiful to watch, his five oarsmen +picturesquely grouped beneath the straining sail. The sea slapped and +broke from time to time on our windward quarter, drenching the boat with +brine; and now and then her gunwale scooped into the shoulder of a wave +as she shot sidling up it. Meanwhile enormous masses of leaden-coloured +clouds formed above our heads and on the sea-line; but these were always +shifting in the strife of winds, and the sun shone through them +petulantly. As we climbed the rollers, or sank into their trough, the +outline of the bay appeared in glimpses, shyly revealed, suddenly +withdrawn from sight; the immobility and majesty of mountains contrasted +with the weltering waste of water round us--now blue and garish where +the sunlight fell, now shrouded in squally rain-storms, and then again +sullen beneath a vaporous canopy. Each of these vignettes was +photographed for one brief second on the brain, and swallowed by the +hurling drift of billows. The painter's art could but ill have rendered +that changeful colour in the sea, passing from tawny cloud-reflections +and surfaces of glowing violet to bright blue or impenetrable purple +flecked with boiling foam, according as a light-illuminated or a +shadowed facet of the moving mass was turned to sight. + +Half-way 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 water; though here the beautiful +Italian sea was yellowish green with churned-up sand, like an unripe +orange. We passed the castle on its rocky island, with the domed church +which has been so often painted in _gouache_ pictures through the last +two centuries, and soon after noon we came to Casamicciola. + + +LA PICCOLA SENTINELLA. + +Casamicciola is a village on the north side of the island, in its +centre, where the visitors to the mineral baths of Ischia chiefly +congregate. One of its old-established inns is called La Piccola +Sentinella. The first sight on entrance is an open gallery, with a pink +wall on which bloom magnificent cactuses, sprays of thick-clustering +scarlet and magenta flowers. This is a rambling house, built in +successive stages against a hill, with terraces and verandahs opening +on unexpected gardens to the back and front. Beneath its long irregular +façade there spreads a wilderness of orange-trees and honeysuckles and +roses, verbenas, geraniums and mignonette, snapdragons, gazenias and +stocks, exceeding bright and fragrant, with the green slopes of Monte +Epomeo for a background and Vesuvius for far distance. There are +wonderful bits of detail in this garden. One dark, thick-foliaged olive, +I remember, leaning from the tufa over a lizard-haunted wall, feathered +waist-high in huge acanthus-leaves. The whole rich orchard ground of +Casamicciola is dominated by Monte Epomeo, the extinct volcano which may +be called the _raison d'être_ of Ischia; for this island is nothing but +a mountain lifted by the energy of fire from the sea-basement. Its +fantastic peaks and ridges, sulphur-coloured, dusty grey, and tawny, +with brushwood in young leaf upon the cloven flanks, form a singular +pendant to the austere but more artistically modelled limestone crags of +Capri. Not two islands that I know, within so short a space of sea, +offer two pictures so different in style and quality of loveliness. The +inhabitants are equally distinct in type. Here, in spite of what De +Musset wrote somewhat affectedly about the peasant girls-- + + Ischia! c'est là qu'on a des yeux, + C'est là qu'un corsage amoureux + Serre la hanche. + Sur un bas rouge bien tiré + Brille, sous le jupon doré, + La mule blanche-- + +in spite of these lines I did not find the Ischia women eminent, as +those of Capri are, for beauty. But the young men have fine, loose, +faun-like figures, and faces that would be strikingly handsome but for +too long and prominent noses. They are a singular race, graceful in +movement. + +Evening is divine in Ischia. From the topmost garden terrace of the inn +one looks across the sea toward 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 Cyclop's eye, +bloodshot and menacing. + +The company in the Piccola Sentinella, young and old, were decrepit, +with an odd, rheumatic, shrivelled look upon them. The dining-room +reminded me, as certain rooms are apt to do, of a ship's saloon. I felt +as though I had got into the cabin of the _Flying Dutchman_, and that +all these people had been sitting there at meat a hundred years, through +storm and shine, for ever driving onward over immense waves in an +enchanted calm. + + +ISCHIA AND FORIO. + +One morning we drove along the shore, up hill, and down, by the Porto +d'Ischia to the town and castle. This country curiously combines the +qualities of Corfu and Catania. The near distance, so richly cultivated, +with the large volcanic slopes of Monte Epomeo rising from the sea, is +like Catania. Then, across the gulf, are the bold outlines and snowy peaks +of the Abruzzi, recalling Albanian ranges. Here, as in Sicily, the old +lava is overgrown with prickly pear and red valerian. Mesembrianthemums--I +must be pardoned this word; for I cannot omit those fleshy-leaved creepers, +with their wealth of gaudy blossoms, shaped like sea anemones, coloured +like strawberry and pine-apple cream-ices--mesembrianthemums, then, tumble +in torrents from the walls, and large-cupped white convolvuluses curl +about the hedges. The Castle Rock, with Capri's refined sky-coloured +outline relieving its hard profile on the horizon, is one of those +exceedingly picturesque objects just too theatrical to be artistic. It +seems ready-made for a back scene in _Masaniello_, and cries out to +the chromo-lithographer, "Come and make the most of me!" Yet this morning +all things, in sea, earth, and sky, were so delicately tinted and bathed +in pearly light that it was difficult to be critical. + +In the afternoon we took the other side of the island, driving through +Lacca to Forio. One gets right round the bulk of Epomeo, and looks up +into a weird region called Le Falange, where white lava streams have +poured in two broad irregular torrents among broken precipices. Florio +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. + +There is something arbitrary in the memories we make of places casually +visited, dependent as they are upon our mood at the moment, or on an +accidental interweaving of impressions which the _genius loci_ blends +for us. Of Forio two memories abide with me. The one is of a young +woman, with very fair hair, in a light blue dress, standing beside an +older woman in a garden. There was a flourishing pomegranate-tree above +them. The whiteness and the dreamy smile of the young woman seemed +strangely out of tune with her strong-toned southern surroundings. I +could have fancied her a daughter of some moist north-western isle of +Scandinavian seas. My other memory is of a lad, brown, handsome, +powerfully-featured, thoughtful, lying curled up in the sun upon a sort +of ladder in his house-court, profoundly meditating. He had a book in +his hand, and his finger still marked the place where he had read. He +looked as though a Columbus or a Campanella might emerge from his +earnest, fervent, steadfast adolescence. Driving rapidly along, and +leaving Forio in all probability for ever, I kept wondering whether +these two lives, discerned as though in vision, would meet--whether she +was destined to be his evil genius, whether posterity would hear of him +and journey to his birthplace in this world-neglected Forio. Such +reveries are futile. Yet who entirely resists them? + + +MONTE EPOMEO. + +About three on the morning which divides the month of May into two equal +parts I woke and saw the waning moon right opposite my window, stayed in +her descent upon the slope of Epomeo. Soon afterwards Christian called +me, and we settled to ascend the mountain. Three horses and a stout +black donkey, with their inevitable grooms, were ordered; and we took +for guide a lovely faun-like boy, goat-faced, goat-footed, with gentle +manners and pliant limbs swaying beneath the breath of impulse. He was +called Giuseppe. + +The way leads past the mineral baths and then strikes uphill, at first +through lanes cut deep in the black lava. The trees met 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 +encouragement and curses. Straight or bending like a willow wand, +Giuseppe kept in front. I could have imagined he had stepped to life +from one of Lionardo's fancy-sprighted studies. + +After this fashion we gained the spine of mountain which composes +Ischia--the smooth ascending ridge that grows up from those eastern +waves to what was once the apex of fire-vomiting Inarime, and breaks in +precipices westward, a ruin of gulfed lava, tortured by the violence of +pent Typhoeus. Under a vast umbrella pine we dismounted, rested, and +saw Capri. Now the road skirts slanting-wise along the further flank of +Epomeo, rising by muddy earth-heaps and sandstone hollows to the quaint +pinnacles which build the summit. There is no inconsiderable peril in +riding over this broken ground; for the soil crumbles away, and the +ravines open downward, treacherously masked with brushwood. + +On Epomeo's topmost cone a chapel dedicated to S. Niccolo da Bari, the +Italian patron of seamen, has been 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; aërial, translucent, exquisitely frail. In this +ethereal fabric of azure the most real of realities, the most solid of +substances, seem films upon a crystal sphere. + +The hermit produced some flasks of amber-coloured wine from his stores +in the grotto. These we drank, lying full-length upon the tufa in the +morning sunlight. The panorama of sea, sky, and long-drawn lines of +coast, breathless, without a ripple or a taint of cloud, spread far and +wide around us. Our horses and donkey cropped what little grass, blent +with bitter herbage, grew on that barren summit. Their grooms 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 hill-side, +tending goats. When rough weather came, he wrapped himself in a blanket +from the snow that falls and melts upon the ledges. In summer time he +basked the whole day long, and slept the calm ambrosial nights away. +Something of this free life was in the burning eyes, long clustering +dark hair, and smooth brown bosom of the faun-like creature. His +graceful body had the brusque, unerring movement of the goats he +shepherded. Human thought and emotion seemed a-slumber in this youth who +had grown one with nature. As I watched his careless incarnate +loveliness I remembered lines from an old Italian poem of romance, +describing a dweller of the forest, who + + Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade, + Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream; + And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said, + That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam, + Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread, + And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him; + But when on high hurl winds and clouds together, + Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather. + +Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic _balze_, where the soil is +soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and +orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild +chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for +us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and +wavering anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so by +winding paths descended on the village. Giuseppe told me, as we walked, +that in a short time he would be obliged to join the army. He +contemplated this duty with a dim and undefined dislike. Nor could I, +too, help dreading and misliking it for him. The untamed, gentle +creature, who knew so little but his goats as yet, whose nights had been +passed from childhood _à la belle étoile_, whose limbs had never been +cumbered with broadcloth or belt--for him to be shut up in the barrack +of some Lombard city, packed in white conscript's sacking, drilled, +taught to read and write, and weighted with the knapsack and the musket! +There was something lamentable in the prospect. But such is the burden +of man's life, of modern life especially. United Italy demands of her +children that by this discipline they should be brought into that +harmony which builds a nation out of diverse elements. + + +FROM ISCHIA TO NAPLES. + +Ischia showed a new aspect on the morning of our departure. A sea-mist +passed along the skirts of the island, and rolled in heavy masses round +the peaks of Monte Epomeo, slowly condensing into summer clouds, and +softening each outline with a pearly haze, through which shone emerald +glimpses of young vines and fig-trees. + +We left in a boat with four oarsmen for Pozzuoli. For about an hour the +breeze carried us well, while Ischia behind grew ever lovelier, soft as +velvet, shaped like a gem. The mist had become a great white luminous +cloud--not dense and alabastrine, like the clouds of thunder; but filmy, +tender, comparable to the atmosphere of Dante's moon. Porpoises and +sea-gulls played and fished about our bows, dividing the 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, aërially azure, into liquid ether. I know +not what effect of atmosphere or light it is that lifts an island from +the sea by interposing that thin edge of lustrous white between it and +the water. But this phenomenon to-day was perfectly exhibited. Like a +mirage on the wilderness, like Fata Morgana's palace ascending from the +deep, the pure and noble vision stayed suspense 'twixt heaven and ocean. +At the same time the breeze failed, and we rowed slowly between Procida +and Capo Miseno--a space in old-world history athrong with Cæsar's +navies. When we turned the point, and came in sight of Baiæ, the wind +freshened and took us flying into Pozzuoli. The whole of this coast has +been spoiled by the recent upheaval of Monte Nuovo with its lava floods +and cindery deluges. Nothing remains to justify its fame among the +ancient Romans and the Neapolitans of Boccaccio's and Pontano's age. It +is quite wrecked, beyond the power even of hendecasyllables to bring +again its breath of beauty: + + Mecum si sapies, Gravina, mecum + Baias, et placidos coles recessus, + Quos ipsæ et veneres colunt, et illa + Quæ mentes hominum regit voluptas. + Hic vina et choreæ jocique regnant, + Regnant et charites facetiæque. + Has sedes amor, has colit cupido. + Hic passim juvenes puellulæque + Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur, + Coenantque et dapibus leporibusque + Miscent delitias venustiores: + Miscent gaudia et osculationes, + Atque una sociis toris foventur, + Has te ad delitias vocant camoenæ; + Invitat mare, myrteumque littus; + Invitaut volucres canoræ, et ipse + Gaurus pampineas parat corollas.[B] + +At Pozzuoli we dined in the Albergo del Ponte di Caligola (Heaven save +the mark!), and drank Falernian wine of modern and indifferent vintage. +Then Christian hired two open carriages for Naples. He and I sat in the +second. In the first we placed the two ladies of our party. They had a +large, fat driver. Just after we had all passed the gate a big fellow +rushed up, dragged the corpulent coachman from his box, pulled out a +knife, and made a savage thrust at the man's stomach. At the same moment +a _guardia-porta_, with drawn cutlass, interposed and struck between the +combatants. They were separated. Their respective friends assembled in +two jabbering crowds, and the whole party, uttering vociferous +objurgations, marched off, as I imagined, to the watch-house. A very +shabby lazzarone, without more ado, sprang on the empty box, and we made +haste for Naples. Being only anxious to get there, and not at all +curious about the squabble which had deprived us of our fat driver, I +relapsed into indifference when I found that neither of the men to whose +lot we had fallen was desirous of explaining the affair. It was +sufficient cause for self-congratulation that no blood had been shed, +and that the Procuratore del Rè would not require our evidence. + +The Grotta di Posilippo was a sight of wonder, with the afternoon sun +slanting on its festoons of creeping plants above the western +entrance--the gas lamps, dust, huge carts, oxen, and _contadini_ in its +subterranean darkness--and then the sudden revelation of the bay and +city as we jingled out into the summery air again by Virgil's tomb. + + +NIGHT AT POMPEII. + +On to Pompeii in the clear sunset, falling very lightly upon mountains, +islands, little ports, and indentations of the bay. + +From the railway station we walked above half a mile to the Albergo del +Sole under a lucid heaven of aqua-marine colour, with Venus large in it +upon the border line between the tints of green and blue. + +The Albergo del Sole is worth commemorating. We stepped, without the +intervention of courtyard or entrance hall, straight from the little inn +garden into an open, vaulted room. This was divided into two +compartments by a stout column supporting round arches. Wooden gates +furnished a kind of fence between the atrium and what an old Pompeian +would have styled the triclinium. For in the further part a table was +laid for supper and lighted with suspended lamps. And here a party of +artists and students drank and talked and 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 arm-chairs of ample +girth, had its _loggia_ windows and doors open to the air. There were +singing-birds in cages; and plants of rosemary, iris, and arundo sprang +carelessly from holes in the floor. A huge vase filled to overflowing +with oranges and lemons, the very symbol of generous prodigality, stood +in the midst, and several dogs were lounging round. The outer twilight, +blending with the dim sheen of the lamps, softened this pretty scene to +picturesqueness. Altogether it was a strange and unexpected place. Much +experienced as the nineteenth-century nomad may be in inns, he will +rarely receive a more powerful and refreshing impression, entering one +at evenfall, than here. + +There was no room for us in the inn. We were sent, attended by a boy +with a lantern, through fields of dew-drenched barley and folded +poppies, to a farmhouse overshadowed by four spreading pines. +Exceedingly soft and grey, with rose-tinted weft of steam upon its +summit, stood Vesuvius above us in the twilight. Something in the recent +impression of the dimly-lighted supper-room, and in the idyllic +simplicity of this lantern-litten journey through the barley, suggested, +by one of those inexplicable stirrings of association which affect tired +senses, a dim, dreamy thought of Palestine and Bible stories. The +feeling of the _cenacolo_ blent here with feelings of Ruth's cornfields, +and the white square houses with their flat roofs enforced the illusion. +Here we slept in the middle of a _contadino_ colony. Some of the folk +had made way for us; and by the wheezing, coughing, and snoring of +several sorts and ages in the chamber next me, I imagine they must have +endured considerable crowding. My bed was large enough to have contained +a family. Over its head there was a little shrine, hollowed in the +thickness of the wall, with several sacred emblems and a shallow vase +of holy water. On dressers at each end of the room stood glass shrines, +occupied by finely-dressed Madonna dolls and pots of artificial flowers. +Above the doors S. Michael and S. Francis, roughly embossed in low +relief and boldly painted, gave dignity and grandeur to the walls. These +showed some sense for art in the first builders of the house. But the +taste of the inhabitants could not be praised. There were countless +gaudy prints of saints, and exactly five pictures of the Bambino, very +big, and sprawling in a field alone. A crucifix, some old bottles, a +gun, old clothes suspended from pegs, pieces of peasant pottery and +china, completed the furniture of the apartment. + +But what a view it showed when Christian next morning opened the door! +From my bed I looked across the red-tiled terrace to the stone pines +with their velvet roofage and the blue-peaked hills of Stabiæ. + + +SAN GERMANO. + +No one need doubt about his quarters in this country town. The Albergo +di Pompeii is a truly sumptuous place. Sofas, tables, and chairs in our +sitting-room are made of buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, +but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or +standing, one felt insecure. When would the points run into us? when +should we begin to break these incrustations off? and would the whole +fabric crumble at a touch into chaotic heaps of horns? + +It is market day, and the costumes in the streets are brilliant. The +women wear a white petticoat, a blue skirt made straight and tightly +bound above it, a white richly-worked bodice, and the white +square-folded napkin of the Abruzzi on their heads. Their jacket is of +red or green--pure colour. A rug of striped red, blue, yellow, and black +protects the whole dress from the rain. There is a very noble quality of +green--sappy and gemmy--like some of Titian's or Giorgione's--in the +stuffs they use. Their build and carriage are worthy of goddesses. + +Rain falls heavily, persistently. We must ride on donkeys, in +waterproofs, to Monte Cassino. Mountain and valley, oak wood and ilex +grove, lentisk thicket and winding river-bed, are drowned alike in +soft-descending, soaking rain. Far and near the landscape swims in rain, +and the hill-sides send down torrents through their watercourses. + +The monastery is a square, dignified building, of vast extent and +princely solidity. It has a fine inner court, with sumptuous staircases +of slabbed stone leading to the church. This public portion of the +edifice is both impressive and magnificent, without sacrifice of +religious severity to parade. We acknowledge a successful compromise +between the austerity of the order and the grandeur befitting the fame, +wealth, prestige, and power of its parent foundation. The church itself +is a tolerable structure of the Renaissance--costly marble incrustations +and mosaics, meaningless Neapolitan frescoes. One singular episode in +the mediocrity of art adorning it, is the tomb of Pietro dei Medici. +Expelled from Florence in 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in +the Garigliano. Clement VII. ordered, and Duke Cosimo I. erected, this +marble monument--the handicraft, in part at least, of Francesco di San +Gallo--to their relative. It is singularly stiff, ugly, out of place--at +once obtrusive and insignificant. + +A gentle old German monk conducted Christian and me over the +convent--boy's school, refectory printing press, lithographic workshop, +library, archives. We then returned to the church, from which we passed +to visit the most venerable and sacred portion of the monastery. The +cell of S. Benedict is being restored and painted in fresco by the +Austrian Benedictines; a pious but somewhat frigid process of +re-edification. This so-called cell is a many-chambered and very ancient +building, with a tower which is now embedded in the massive +superstructure of the modern monastery. The German artists adorning it +contrive to blend the styles of Giotto, Fra Angelico, Egypt, and +Byzance, not without force and a kind of intense frozen pietism. S. +Mauro's vision of his master's translation to heaven--the ladder of +light issuing between two cypresses, and the angels watching on the +tower walls--might even be styled poetical. But the decorative angels on +the roof and other places, being adapted from Egyptian art, have a +strange, incongruous appearance. + +Monasteries are almost invariably disappointing to one who goes in +search of what gives virtue and solidity to human life; and even Monte +Cassino was no exception. This ought not to be otherwise, seeing what a +peculiar sympathy with the monastic institution is required to make +these cloisters comprehensible. The atmosphere of operose indolence, +prolonged through centuries and centuries, stifles; nor can antiquity +and influence impose upon a mind which resents monkery itself as an +essential evil. That Monte Cassino supplied the Church with several +potentates is incontestable. That mediæval learning and morality would +have suffered more without this brotherhood cannot be doubted. Yet it is +difficult to name men of very eminent genius whom the Cassinesi claim as +their alumni; nor, with Boccaccio's testimony to their carelessness, and +with the evidence of their library before our eyes, can we rate their +services to 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. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's +_Hendecasyllabi_ (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint the +amusements of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I have +translated them: + +With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina, With me haste to the +tranquil haunts of Baiæ, Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and +she who Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite. Here wine rules, and +the dance, and games and laughter; Graces reign in a round of mirthful +madness; Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too, Where glad +youths and enamoured girls on all sides Play and bathe in the waves in +sunny weather, Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets Blend with +dearer delights and love's embraces, Blend with pleasures of youth and +honeyed kisses, Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber. +Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments; Thee those billows allure, +the myrtled seashore, Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus Twines +his redolent wreath of vines and ivy. + + + + + + +MAY IN UMBRIA. + +FROM ROME TO TERNI. + + +We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine +Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunder-clouds, +casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. To +westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz, +flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been +called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus and +thistle, embroider it with patterns infinite and intricate beyond the +power of art. They have already mown the hay in part; and the billowy +tracts of greyish green, where no flowers are now in bloom, supply a +restful groundwork to those brilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_. +These are like praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of +a mosque whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the +mowers flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway sideways +from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, there +stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising their +heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their horns and +dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's colouring. This is +the breadth and magnitude of Rome. + +Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber and +S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine Hills, +we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames where he had +perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, grew slowly +into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, turbid river, +in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This changeful +mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to valley, hill and +lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, and a green ocean +above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the clouds are floating. +Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride upon a sea-horse, and +followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery waves. The orange +deepens into dying red. The green divides into daffodil and beryl. The +blue above grows fainter, and the moon and stars shine stronger. + +Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting water. +The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this scene. No +painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both luminaries +tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. Sometimes they +sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. And here and +there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft of shrubs upon +the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor of the West. The +last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey monochrome, faintly +silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and woods all floating in +aërial twilight. There is no definition of outline now. The daffodil of +the horizon has faded into scarcely perceptible pale greenish yellow. + +We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. + + +THE CASCADES OF TERNI. + +The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the highest +region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged with +particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends continually to +choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which the torrent +thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, carried on the wind +in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the falls with fine white +dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the most sublime and +beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is worthy of so great +a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble mid-Italian landscape, +where the mountain forms are austere and boldly modelled, but the +vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something of the South-Italian +richness. The hill-sides 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 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. + + +MONTEFALCO. + +The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. Through +this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one of those +long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities of the +Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, Perugia on +its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the Tiber +valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the kind +of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, so +beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain contrasts +with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and the name of +each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. + +The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside 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 +here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The +world-famous Saint 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![C] + + +FOLIGNO. + +In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain at +the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to details +which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of subordinate +importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The place has not +materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth century. Indeed +relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is still the same as in +the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station of commanding interest +between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great Flaminian Way. At Foligno +the passes of the Apennines debouch into the Umbrian plain, which slopes +gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, and from it the valley of the +Nera is reached by an 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 dépôt, +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 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. + +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 pawlonias on the ramparts are in full bloom +of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal lights these trees, +with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the most fantastic of +artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into the sky amid that +solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony with nature. I never +sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion of fireworks upon +scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up at so much per head +on stated evenings, with a band playing and a crowd of cockneys staring, +presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. But where, as here at +Foligno, a whole city has made itself a festival, where there are +multitudes of citizens and soldiers and country-people slowly moving and +gravely admiring, with the decency and order characteristic of an +Italian crowd, I have nothing but a sense of satisfaction. + +It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though 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 Corrado Trinci +paraded the mangled remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on +muleback, through Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the +procession moved along the ramparts, I found myself in contact 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 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 bed-room on the +city-wall. The last rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had +thundered ere I fell asleep. + + +SPELLO. + +Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments 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. + +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, +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 Guérin or Panizzi to have been +identified with the Roland myth at Spello. Such a column either never +existed here, or had been removed before the memory of the present +generation. + + +EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI. + +We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are lighted +on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the low +southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the many-coloured +gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women in bright +kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the mountains stand +or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving from point to +point. Where we have taken our station, at the north-western angle of +the transept, there we stay till mass be over. The whole low-vaulted +building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the stained windows, the +figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but subdued colours, like +hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like a deep-toned rainbow +mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such tapestry as Eastern +queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion of an empress. Forth +from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in shade and sunbeams, lean +earnest, saintly faces--ineffably pure--adoring, pitying, pleading; +raising their eyes in ecstasy to heaven, or turning them in ruth toward +earth. Men and women of whom the world was not worthy--at the hands of +those old painters they have received the divine grace, the dove-like +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! + + +PERUSIA AUGUSTA. + +The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt, perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy "Pennacchio di Perugia," jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise shadowy +Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Montefalco, +and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of breezes, very +slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they pass from Apennine +to plain. The slowly moving population--women in veils, men +winter-mantled--pass to and fro between the buildings and the grey +immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow retreat in +convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets beneath, singing +May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through the vitreous +moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed castelli +smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas vies with +moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; Etruscan +mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban world-old +dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. + +Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy masses +of thunder-cloud hang every day; but the plain and hill-buttresses are +clear 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, and 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 underfoliage tints reflected from this verdure or +red tones from the naked earth. A fine race of _contadini_, with large, +heroically-graceful forms, and beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move +about this garden, intent on ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian +soil. + + +LA MAGIONE. + +On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La Magione, +a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian champaign to +the lake of Thrasymene. 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. + +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 Petrucci. +These men vowed hostility on the basis of 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 +Vitellezzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Paolo Orsini, and Francesco +Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at Sinigaglia. Under pretext of +fair conference and equitable settlement of disputed claims, he +possessed himself of their persons, and had them strangled--two upon +December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. Of all Cesare's actions, +this was the most splendid for its successful combination of sagacity +and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive diplomacy, and of +ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow arrived. + + +CORTONA. + +After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the Lake of Thrasymene +through oak-woods full of nightingales. The Lake lay basking, +leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, rain-charged, +sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its shore, we stopped +for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of very poor people, who +live entirely by labour on the waters. They showed us huge eels coiled +in tanks, and some fine specimens of the silver carp--Reina del Lago. It +was off one of the eels that we made our lunch; and taken, as he was, +alive from his cool lodging, he furnished a series of dishes fit for a +king. + +Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable 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. + +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 æsthetic vocation, whether + reative or critical, suffer more than is good for them by compliance +with mere fashion. Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the +ages which produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of +an industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present. + +I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of art-study +while travelling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is only on +reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive that the +most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual and +unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, art, and +life are happily blent. + +The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, and +inserted in its outer walls--Peruzzi, 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. + +The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild--up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities of +Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is Trasimeno, a +silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon one corner of +the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for separate +contemplation. There is something in the singularity and circumscribed +completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by distance, which +would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had he seen it. + +Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining "Signore! +Padrone!" It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. Sitting +later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the same blind +boy taken by his brother to play. The game consisted 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 small pox at eight months, and has never been able to see since. He +looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age--doomed always, is that +possible, to beg? + + +CHIUSI. + +What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded hills +of Città della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley goes +stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain mass, +distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The near +country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine olives and +oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its crowning villages, +is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. The breadth and depth +and quiet which those painters loved, the space of lucid sky, the +suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all are here. The +evening is beautiful--golden light streaming softly from behind us on +this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue with stars +above. + +At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and black +scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed vault of +stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out of the +living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent in +walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens and +cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo and +Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways winding +among 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 Porsena and Etruscan ethnology. + + +GUBBIO. + +Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its back +set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house over +house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth and +independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural defences; and +Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity and isolation. +Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; and the brown +mediæval walls with square towers which protected them upon the mountain +side, following the inequalities of the ground, are still a marked +feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets and staircases, +with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas opening at every turn +across the lowland. One of these views might be selected for especial +notice. In front, irregular buildings losing themselves in country as +they straggle by the roadside; then the open post-road with a cypress to +the right; afterwards, the rich green fields, and on a bit of rising +ground an ancient farmhouse with its brown dependencies; lastly, the +blue hills above Fossato, and far away a wrack of tumbling clouds. All +this enclosed by the heavy archway of the Porta Romana, where sunlight +and shadow chequer the mellow tones of a dim fresco, indistinct with +age, but beautiful. + +Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair 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. + +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 morticed into +the solid hill-side, 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 aërial 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, 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. + +These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio was +a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to play in +the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and Ghibelline. The +ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us of the advent of +the despots. It has been stripped of all its tarsia-work and sculpture. +Only here and there a Fe. D., with the cupping-glass of Federigo di +Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio once became the fairest fief of +the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave his name to this duke's son, was +the patron of Gubbio, and to him the cathedral is dedicated--one low +enormous vault, like a cellar or feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a +succession of solid Gothic arches. This strange old church, and the +House of Canons, buttressed on the hill beside it, have suffered less +from modernisation than most buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in +particular, helps one to understand what this city of grave palazzi must +have been, and how the mere opening of old doors and windows would +restore it to its primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in +fact, not yet been given over to the use of middle-class and +proletariate. + +At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its specific +blending 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. + + +FROM GUBBIO TO FANO. + +The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gaunt masses +of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short turf and +scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of Scheggia, and +is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At Scheggia, it joins the +great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman armies. At the top there +is a fine view over the conical hills that dominate Gubbio, and, far +away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and the Foligno line of railway +to Ancona. Range rises over range, crossing 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. + +After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane-- + + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes + Apenninigenis cultæ pastoribus aræ + +--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little pass +leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian water-shed, +and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the sea. The valley +is fairly green with woods, where misletoe 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 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. + +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:-- + + Lætior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, + Despiciturque vagus prærupta valle Metaurus, + Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu + Admittitque viam sectæ per viscera rupis. + +The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position at +the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, without +too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on the scale of +the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either hand above the +gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and solemn, like a +succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous flanking obelisks and +pyramids. Some of these 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 road-sides wave with many sorts of +campanulas--a profusion of azure and purple bells upon the hard white +stone. Of Roman remains there is still enough (in the way of Roman +bridges and bits of broken masonry) to please an antiquary's eye. But +the lover of nature will dwell chiefly on the picturesque qualities of +this historic gorge, so alien to the general character of Italian +scenery, and yet so remote from anything to which Swiss travelling +accustoms one. + +The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of far-away +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that I +feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage windows as +we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, and cytisus, +and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and saintfoil. 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 snapdragon, 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, such luxuriance, such +self-abandonment to joy. The air was filled with fragrances. Songs of +cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on the hill-sides. The +sun was out, and dancing over all the landscape. + +After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries an +English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. In +colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. + +The seashore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many churches, +and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. Giovanni +Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of Perugino there +is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great centre panel, and +predella--dusty in its present condition, but splendidly painted, and +happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is worth journeying to Fano to +see this. Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while +if he could be sure to witness such a game of _Pallone_ as we chanced +upon in the Via dell'Arco di Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt, +in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with +cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves. I do not +understand the game; but it was clearly played something after the +manner of our football, that is to say, with sides, and front and back +players so arranged as to cover the greatest number of angles of +incidence on either wall. + +Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain in +the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering her +veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity upon +the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[C] 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. + + + + +THE PALACE OF URBINO. + +I. + + +At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make our +way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called apocryphally +after Julius Cæsar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a good carriage +and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, and bore a great +historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was completed. "What are +you called?" I asked him. "_Filippo Visconti, per servirla!_" was the +prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest memories of the Italian +Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this answer. The associations +seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself was so attractive--tall, +stalwart, and well-looking--no feature of his face or limb of his +athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who concealed worse than +Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret chambers--that I shook this +preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had +nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and +trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, +at the end of it, did he attempt by any masterstroke 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 good-will of an accomplished gentleman. +The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his +humanity credit. 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. + +An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial sayings, +the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. When emotion +fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, or suggest the +motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. + +For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between quickset +hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep hill which +ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, and we +toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red anemones and +sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges replaced the +May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_ brought us to the +Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further ascent of seven hundred +feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis of the republic. These we +climbed on foot, watching the view expand around us and beneath. Crags +of limestone here break down abruptly to the rolling hills, which go to +lose themselves in field and shore. Misty reaches of the Adriatic close +the world to eastward. Cesena, Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set +villages, each isolated on its tract of verdure conquered from the stern +grey soil, define the points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas +in long bygone years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and +gnarled convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers +crawling through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of +gaunt Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this +landscape, a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees +lies like a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. + +Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological antiquity +than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of innumerable ages, +wrought by slow persistent action of weather and water on an upheaved +mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave in that vast sea of +hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells its tale of a continuous +corrosion still in progress. The dominant impression is one of +melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching Carthaginians, trod +the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, retaining independence +through the drums and tramplings of the last seven centuries, is +swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn instinctively in thought +to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war with unknown nature-forces +and malignant rulers of the universe. + + Omai disprezza + Te, la natura, il brutto + Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, + E l'infinita vanità dell tutto. + +And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. + +The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque hill-cities +with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of S. Marino in +the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the stone bed and +pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow window near the +saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy landscape of distant hills +and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing charm of San Marino, our eyes +instinctively, recurrently, take flight. It is a landscape which by +variety and beauty thralls attention, but which by its interminable +sameness might grow almost overpowering. There is no relief. The +gladness shed upon far humbler Northern lands in May is ever absent +here. The German word _Gemüthlichkeit_, the English phrase "a home of +ancient peace," are here alike by art and nature untranslated into +visibilities. And yet (as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if +peradventure the intolerable _ennui_ of this panorama should drive a +citizen of San Marino into outlands, the same view would haunt him +whithersoever he went--the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill +through his sleep--he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in +winter, and to watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in +spring;--like Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: +_Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even 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. + +Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the best +red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills deceived +my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its statutes, +in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess to having +learned from these pages little else than this: first, that the survival +of the Commonwealth through all phases of European politics had been +semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San Marinesi had been +lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from these two propositions +(to which, however, I am far from wishing to commit myself), that the +latter is a sufficient explanation of the former. + +From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in the +true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued in the +twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key of +entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred years +ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress looks as +though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo was taken +and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, Borgia, Malatesta, +Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. Yonder is Sta. Agata, +the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night when Valentino drove him +from his dukedom. A little farther towers Carpegna, where one branch of +the Montefeltro house maintained a countship through seven centuries, +and only sold their fief to Rome in 1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, +Pietra Rubia in front: two other eagle's-nests of the same brood. What a +road it is! It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of +Devonshire scorns compromise or mitigation by _détour_ and zigzag. But +here geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England--knotty masses of talc and nodes +of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings--that only Dante's words +describe the journey:-- + + Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, + Montasi su Bismantova in cacume + Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch'uom voli. + +Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the brave +spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help of hand +and voice at need. + +We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine: winding round +ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high above their +grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign girdling their +bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the blue lights across +the distance, and the ever-present sea, these earthy Apennines would be +too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil of spring-tide greenery on +field and forest soothe their sternness. Two rivers, swollen by late +rains, had to be forded. Through one of these, the Foglia, bare-legged +peasants led the way. The horses waded to their bellies in the tawny +water. Then more hills and vales; green nooks with rippling corn-crops; +secular oaks attired in golden leafage. The clear afternoon air rang +with the voices of a thousand larks overhead. The whole world seemed +quivering with light and delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned +irresistibly to thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has +this intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, +by Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its _contadini_ are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge oxen. +As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to southward. +The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove into sight. +At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the neighbouring ridge, +a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. Urbino stood before +us. Our long day's march was at an end. + +The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or palace +sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where shall we +find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed battlemented bulk +of mediæval strongholds with the airy balconies, suspended gardens, and +fantastic turrets of Italian pleasure-houses? This unique blending of +the feudal past with the Renaissance spirit of the time when it was +built, connects it with the art of Ariosto--or more exactly with +Boiardo's epic. Duke Federigo planned his palace at Urbino just at the +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. + +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 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. + +The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give the +building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed _logge_ +and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city ramparts for its +due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine which separates it +from a lower quarter of the town, and take our station near the Oratory +of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can appreciate the beauty of its +design, or the boldness of the group it forms with the cathedral dome +and tower and the square masses of numerous out-buildings. Yet this +peculiar position of the palace, though baffling to a close observer of +its details, is one of singular advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the +verge of Urbino's towering eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of +vales and mountain summits toward the rising and the setting sun. There +is nothing but illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the +Duchess's apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. + +A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +_Cortegiano_. To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring back +the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint, perhaps, +for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies of the court +had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising to the height of +mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when one of them +exclaimed, "The day has broken!" "He 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." + + +II. + +The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in 1160. +Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an undefined +authority over the district, which they afterwards converted into a +duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the Montefeltri +were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free themselves from +ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they sought and obtained the +title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino acknowledged them as semi-despots +in their double capacity of Imperial and Papal deputies. Cagli and +Gubbio followed in the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth, Castel +Durante was acquired from the Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone +from the Malatestas by purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into +their hands upon the borders of Rimini in the course of a continued +struggle with the House of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were +added at the opening of the sixteenth century, the domain over which +they ruled was a compact territory, some forty miles square, between the +Adriatic and Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they +bore the title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante +placed among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house +and increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it +was not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural son +of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's lifetime, +and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was Federigo, a +youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in 1444 as Count +of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title was revived for +him. + +Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for private +virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his youth at +Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where the sons and +daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model education in +humanities, good manners, and gentle physical accomplishments. More than +any of his fellow-students Frederick profited by this rare scholar's +discipline. On leaving school he adopted the profession of arms, as it +was then practised, and joined the troop of the Condottiere Niccolò +Piccinino. Young men of his own rank, especially the younger sons and +bastards of ruling families, sought military service under captains of +adventure. If they succeeded they were sure to make money. The coffers +of the Church and the republics lay open to their not too scrupulous +hands; the wealth of Milan and Naples was squandered on them in +retaining-fees and salaries for active service. There was always the +further possibility of 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 _bâton_ of +S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a tiller of +the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a house which +ranked among the first in Europe. + +It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the good-will 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 dependants. 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 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 its +cities, drawing youths of promise to his court, maintaining a great +train of life, and keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness +of a rule which contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier +despots. + +While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the +bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal error of +embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, and who +died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. Urbino profited +by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this long desultory +strife with Rimini is a history of gradual aggrandisement and +consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. + +In 1459, Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi. 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 bas-reliefs. It 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 _condotte_ must be regarded as compliments and pledges for the +future. They prove to what a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit +of his state and war establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo +married Elisabetta, daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. +This union, though a happy one, was never blessed with children; and in +the certainty of barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt +a nephew as heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, +Giovanna, had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della +Rovere, Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, +Francesco Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his +boyhood at Urbino. + +The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the petty +tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His next move +was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, having lulled +Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous professions of good-will. +Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that 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. + +The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere to +the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was the +sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. It was +therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on the hill, +and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so recently +been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement of his +court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest gentlemen of +Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active pleasures and +employments of his station, was borne with uniform sweetness of temper +and philosophy. + +When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della 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. + +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 suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerrilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. + +This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the house of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was twice +married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of Camerino; +secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma. Guidobaldo +spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his subjects, whom he treated +badly, attempting to draw from their pockets the wealth which his father +and the Montefeltri had won in military service. He intervened at an +awkward period of Italian politics. The old Italy of despots, +commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his predecessors played +substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of Popes and +Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. Between these +epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy presentation on +the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen flat. As a sign of +altered circumstances, he removed his court to Pesaro, and built the +great palace of the Della Roveres upon the public square. + +Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, 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 dependants 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 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. + +This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. The +life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, petty +studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A powerful and +grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this juncture pressed +Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of Urbino devolved his +lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal act of abdication +seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his duchy to the Papal +States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to the bounds of Venice +on the Po. + + +III. + +Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and the +beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the construction, was +brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian stone of +Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel mark with wonderful +precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must have had the pliancy +of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in scroll or foliage +scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves each cusp and angle of +the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and the sharpness of a +crystal. 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 +ultra-marine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations on +the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, +hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved +with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a +raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to +the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: their arms, three golden +bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial eagle, granted when +Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the Garter of England, worn +by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the ermine of Naples: the +_ventosa_, or cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick: +the golden oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, +bent beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, _Inclinata +Resurgam_: the cypher, 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 +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. + +This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that "in the opinion of many it is the +fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with all +things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace than +a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels of +silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, and +such like 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 MSS., 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 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. + +Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern façade. These were apparently the private rooms of the +Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find a +little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; friezes +of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief of +Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a small +study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet connecting +these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion here dwells +near the temple of the liberal arts: + + Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. + +On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, _bâtons_ of command, scientific instruments, +lutes, viols, and books, some open and some shut. The Bible, Homer, +Virgil, Seneca, Tacitus, and Cicero, are lettered; apparently to +indicate his favourite authors. The Duke himself, arrayed in his state +robes, occupies a fourth 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! + +A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness of +scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. + +The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall we +reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, the +splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? It is +not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes from +tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's 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 daïs 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 Castiglione'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. + +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: + + Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo + Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda + Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet. + +His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring flambeaux. +Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The daïs and the throne are +draped in black. The arms and _bâtons_ of his father hang about the +doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and trophies, with the +banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and the cross keys of S. +Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the high-reared catafalque of +sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded with wax-candles burning +steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream of people, coming and +going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in crimson hose and doublet +of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on his feet, and his ducal +cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the Garter, made of dark-blue +Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, lined with white silk damask, +and embroidered with the badge, drapes the stiff sleeping form. + +It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and the +life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into harmony +with real existence. The southern façade, with its vaulted balconies and +flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, and lends itself +as a fit stage for 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 +Bembo courted "dear dead women" with Platonic phrase, smothering the +Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from Academe and thyme of +Mount Hymettus. In yonder _loggia_, lifted above the garden and the +court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They lean beneath the +coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering his +dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove +carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, +broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's favourite and +carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome's Prefect, +widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse +a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's boldness--Camerino's +Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart charms. And more will +follow, when that lady's brother, furious Francesco Maria della Rovere, +shall stab the bravo in torch-litten palace rooms with twenty poignard +strokes twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent down to +his account by a varlet's _coltellata_ through the midriff. Imagination +shifts the scene, and shows in that same _loggia_ Rome's warlike Pope, +attended by his cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of +Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson +mantle, as in Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he +has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the +line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his +honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, +to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, 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. + +A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in the +crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, buried +his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely solemn. +Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky _Pietà_ +by Gian Bologna, with Madonna's face unfinished, towers up and crowds +the narrow cell. Religion has evanished from this late Renaissance art, +nor has the after-glow of Guido Reni's hectic piety yet overflushed it. +Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct race here entombed in +its last representative, we gladly emerge from the sepulchral vault into +the air of day. + +Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well-fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are half way 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 bare-headed 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. + + + + +A VENETIAN MEDLEY. + +I.--FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND FAMILIARITY. + + +It is easy to feel and to say something obvious about Venice. The +influence of this sea-city is unique, immediate, and unmistakable. But +to express the sober truth of those impressions which remain when the +first astonishment of the Venetian revelation has subsided, when the +spirit of the place has been harmonised through familiarity with our +habitual mood, is difficult. + +Venice inspires at first an almost Corybantic rapture. From our earliest +visits, if these have been measured by days rather than weeks, we carry +away with us the memory of sunsets emblazoned in gold and crimson upon +cloud and water; of violet domes and bell-towers etched against the +orange of a western sky; of moonlight silvering breeze-rippled breadths +of liquid blue; of distant islands shimmering in sunlitten 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 pathos of a marble city crumbling to its +grave in mud and brine. + +These first impressions of Venice are true. Indeed they are inevitable. +They abide, and form a glowing background for all subsequent pictures, +toned more austerely, and painted in more lasting hues of truth upon the +brain. Those have never felt Venice at all who have not known this +primal rapture, or who perhaps expected more of colour, more of +melodrama, from a scene which nature and the art of man have made the +richest in these qualities. Yet the mood engendered by this first +experience is not destined to be permanent. It contains an element of +unrest and unreality which vanishes upon familiarity. From the blare of +that triumphal bourdon of brass instruments emerge the delicate voices +of violin and clarinette. To the contrasted passions of our earliest +love succeed a multitude of sweet and fanciful emotions. It is my +present purpose to recapture some of the impressions made by Venice in +more tranquil moods. Memory might be compared to a kaleidoscope. Far +away from Venice I raise the wonder-working tube, allow the glittering +fragments to settle as they please, and with words attempt to render +something of the patterns I behold. + + +II.--A LODGING IN SAN VIO. + +I have escaped from the hotels with their bustle of tourists and crowded +tables-d'hôte. My garden stretches down to the Grand Canal, closed at +the end with a pavilion, where I lounge and smoke and watch the cornice +of the Prefettura fretted with gold in sunset light. My sitting-room and +bed-room face the southern sun. There is a canal below, crowded with +gondolas, and across its bridge the good folk of San Vio come and go the +whole day long--men in blue shirts with enormous hats, and jackets slung +on their left shoulder; women in kerchiefs of orange and crimson. +Bare-legged 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 winebarge are red from brows to breast with +drippings of the vat. And now there is a bustle in the quarter. A +_barca_ has arrived from S. Erasmo, the island of the market-gardens. It +is piled with gourds and pumpkins, cabbages and tomatoes, pomegranates +and pears--a pyramid of gold and green and scarlet. Brown men lift the +fruit aloft, and women bending from the pathway bargain for it. A +clatter of chaffering tongues, a ring of coppers, a Babel of hoarse +sea-voices, proclaim the sharpness of the struggle. When the quarter has +been served, the boat sheers off diminished in its burden. Boys and +girls are left seasoning their polenta with a slice of _zucca_, while +the mothers of a score of families go pattering up yonder courtyard with +the material for their husbands' supper in their handkerchiefs. Across +the canal, or more correctly the _Rio_, opens a wide grass-grown court. +It is lined on the right hand by a row of poor dwellings, swarming with +gondoliers' children. A garden wall runs along the other side, over +which I can see pomegranate-trees in fruit and pergolas of vines. Far +beyond are more low houses, and then the sky, swept with sea-breezes, +and the masts of an ocean-going ship against the dome and turrets of +Palladio's Redentore. + +This is my home. By day it is as lively as a scene in _Masaniello_. By +night, after nine o'clock, the whole stir of the quarter has subsided. +Far away I hear the bell of some church tell the hours. But no noise +disturbs my rest, unless 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 _sandolo_ already with Antonio. The +Signora is to go with us in the gondola." "Then get three more men, +Francesco, and see that all of them can sing." + + +III.--TO CHIOGGIA WITH OAR AND SAIL. + +The _sandolo_ is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller and +lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or _ferro_ +which distinguishes the gondola. The gunwale is only just raised above +the water, over which the little craft skims with a rapid bounding +motion, affording an agreeable variation from the stately swan-like +movement of the gondola. In one of these boats--called by him the +_Fisolo_ or Seamew--my friend Eustace had started with Antonio, +intending to row the whole way to Chioggia, or, if the breeze favoured, +to hoist a sail and help himself along. After breakfast, when the crew +for my gondola had been assembled, Francesco and I followed with the +Signora. It was one of those perfect mornings which occur as a respite +from broken weather, when the air is windless and the light falls soft +through haze on the horizon. As we broke into the lagoon behind the +Redentore, the islands in front of us, S. Spirito, Poveglia, Malamocco, +seemed as though they were just lifted from the sea-line. The Euganeans, +far away to westward, were bathed in mist, and almost blent with the +blue sky. Our four rowers put their backs into their work; and soon we +reached the port of Malamocco, where a breeze from the 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 _impresario_ of the +trade, employing hundreds of hands, and speculating for a handsome +profit in the foreign market on the price he gives his workwomen. + +Now we are well lost in the lagoons--Venice no longer visible behind; +the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the +mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver +silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour have +disappeared in light-irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet +instinctively we know that we are not at sea; the different quality of +the water, the piles emerging here and there above the surface, the +suggestion of coast-lines scarcely felt in this infinity of lustre, all +remind us that our voyage is confined to the charmed limits of an inland +lake. At length the jutting headland of Pelestrina was reached. We broke +across the Porto di Chioggia, and saw Chioggia itself ahead--a huddled +mass of houses low upon the water. One by one, as we rowed steadily, the +fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for a twelve hours' +cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came, with variegated +sails of orange, red, and 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. + +The Signorino and Antonio, though want of wind obliged them to row the +whole way from Venice, had reached Chioggia an hour before, and stood +waiting to receive us on the quay. It is a quaint town this Chioggia, +which has always lived a separate life from that of Venice. Language +and race and customs have held the two populations apart from those +distant years when Genoa and the Republic of S. Mark fought their duel +to the death out in the Chioggian harbours, down to these days, when +your Venetian gondolier will tell you that the Chioggoto loves his pipe +more than his _donna_ or his wife. The main canal is lined with +substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from +Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and +traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders of +the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter. +Wandering about its wide deserted courts and _calli_, we feel the spirit +of the decadent Venetian nobility. Passages from Goldoni's and +Casanova's Memoirs occur to our memory. It seems easy to realise what +they wrote about the dishevelled gaiety and lawless license of Chioggia +in the days of powder, sword-knot, and _soprani_. Baffo walks beside us +in hypocritical composure of bag-wig and senatorial dignity, whispering +unmentionable sonnets in his dialect of _Xe_ and _Ga_. Somehow or +another that last dotage of S. Mark's decrepitude is more recoverable by +our fancy than the heroism of Pisani in the fourteenth century. + +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. + +These great deeds are far away and hazy. The brief sentences of mediæval +annalists bring them less near to us than the _chroniques scandaleuses_ +of good-for-nothing scoundrels, whose vulgar adventures might be revived +at the present hour with scarce a change of setting. Such is the force +of _intimité_ in literature. And yet Baffo and Casanova are as much of +the past as Doria and Pisani. It is only perhaps that the survival of +decadence in all we see around us, forms a fitting frame-work for our +recollections of their vividly described corruption. + +Not far from the landing-place a balustraded bridge of ample breadth and +large bravura manner spans the main canal. Like everything at Chioggia, +it is dirty and has fallen from its first estate. Yet neither time nor +injury can obliterate style or wholly degrade marble. Hard by the bridge +there are two rival inns. At one of these we ordered a sea-dinner--crabs, +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. + +That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side by +side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole +homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or +slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the +sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing--those at +least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had trained +voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level water, with +the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, and mingled +with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar to Venice +were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some transcripts from +classical operas were even more attractive, through the dignity with +which these men invested them. By the peculiarity of their treatment the +_recitativo_ of the stage assumed a solemn movement, marked in rhythm, +which removed it from the commonplace into antiquity, and made me +understand how cultivated music may pass back by natural, unconscious +transition into the realm of popular melody. + +The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above the +Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, 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. + +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 button-hole. The dew was on its +burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume. + + +IV.--MORNING RAMBLES. + +A story is told of Poussin, the French painter, that when he was asked +why he would not stay in Venice, he replied, "If I stay here, I shall +become a colourist!" A somewhat similar tale is reported of a +fashionable English decorator. While on a visit to friends in Venice, he +avoided every building which contains a Tintoretto, averring that the +sight of Tintoretto's pictures would injure his carefully trained taste. +It is probable that neither anecdote is strictly true. Yet there is a +certain epigrammatic point in both; and I have often speculated whether +even Venice could have so warped the genius of Poussin as to shed one +ray of splendour on his canvases, or whether even Tintoretto could have +so 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. + +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 +water-line of a neighbouring building; and all about the crumbling walls +sprout flowering weeds--samphire and snapdragon and the spiked +campanula, which shoots a spire of sea-blue stars from chinks of Istrian +stone. + +The house stands opposite the Church of Santa Maria dell'Orto, where +Tintoretto was buried, and where four of his chief masterpieces are to +be seen. This church, swept and garnished, is a triumph of modern +Italian restoration. They have contrived to make it as commonplace as +human ingenuity could manage. Yet no malice of ignorant industry can +obscure the treasures it contains--the pictures of Cima, Gian Bellini, +Palma, and the four Tintorettos, which form its crowning glory. Here the +master may be studied in four of his chief moods: as the painter of +tragic passion and movement, in the huge Last Judgment; as the painter +of impossibilities, in the Vision of Moses upon Sinai; as the painter of +purity and tranquil pathos, in the Miracle of S. Agnes; as the painter +of Biblical history brought home to daily life, in the Presentation of +the Virgin. Without leaving the Madonna dell'Orto, a student can explore +his genius in all its depth and breadth; comprehend the enthusiasm he +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, ruining, ascending +figures in the Judgment, what an interval there is! How strangely the +white lamb-like maiden, kneeling beside her lamb in the picture of S. +Agnes, contrasts with the dusky gorgeousness of the Hebrew women +despoiling themselves of jewels for the golden calf! Comparing these +several manifestations of creative power, we feel ourselves in the grasp +of a painter who was essentially a poet, one for whom his art was the +medium for expressing before all things thought and passion. Each +picture is executed in the manner suited to its tone of feeling, the key +of its conception. + +Elsewhere than in the Madonna dell'Orto there are more distinguished +single examples of Tintoretto's realising faculty. The Last Supper in +San Giorgio, for instance, and the Adoration of the Shepherds in the +Scuola di San Rocco illustrate his unique power of presenting sacred +history in a novel, romantic frame-work of familiar things. The +commonplace circumstances of ordinary life have been employed to portray +in the one case a lyric of mysterious splendour; in the other, an idyll +of infinite sweetness. Divinity shines through the rafters of that +upper chamber, where round a low large table the Apostles are assembled +in a group translated from the social customs of the painter's days. +Divinity is shed upon the straw-spread manger, where Christ lies +sleeping in the loft, with shepherds crowding through the room beneath. + +A studied contrast between the simplicity and repose of the central +figure and the tumult of passions in the multitude 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. + +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 border-land 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 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. + +To comprehend Tintoretto's touch upon the pastoral idyll we must turn +our steps to San Giorgio again, and pace those meadows by the running +river in company with his Manna-Gatherers. Or we may seek the Accademia, +and notice how he here has varied the Temptation of Adam by Eve, +choosing a less tragic motive of seduction than the one so powerfully +rendered at San Rocco. Or in the Ducal Palace we may take our station, +hour by hour, before the Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne. It is well to +leave the very highest achievements of art untouched by criticism +undescribed. And in this picture we have the most perfect of all modern +attempts to realise an antique myth--more perfect than Raphael's +Galatea, or Titian's Meeting of Bacchus with Ariadne, or Botticelli's +Birth of Venus from the Sea. It may suffice to marvel at the slight +effect which melodies so powerful and so direct as these produce upon +the ordinary public. Sitting, as is my wont, one Sunday morning, +opposite the Bacchus, four Germans with a cicerone sauntered by. The +subject was explained to them. They waited an appreciable space of time. +Then the youngest opened his lips and spake: "Bacchus war der +Wein-Gott." And they all moved heavily away. _Bos locutus est._ "Bacchus +was the wine-god!" This, apparently, is what a picture tells to one man. +To another it presents divine harmonies, perceptible indeed in nature, +but here by the painter-poet for the first time brought 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. + +Tintoretto, to be rightly understood, must be sought all over Venice--in +the church as well as the Scuola di San Rocco; in the Temptation of S. +Anthony at S. Trovaso no less than in the Temptations of Eve and Christ; +in the decorative pomp of the Sala del Senato, and in the Paradisal +vision of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. Yet, after all, there is one of +his most characteristic moods, to appreciate which fully we return to +the Madonna dell'Orto. I have called him "the painter of +impossibilities." At rare moments he rendered them possible by sheer +imaginative force. If we wish to realise this phase of his creative +power, and to measure our own subordination to his genius in its most +hazardous enterprise, we must spend much time in the choir of this +church. Lovers of art who mistrust this play of the audacious +fancy--aiming at sublimity in supersensual regions, sometimes attaining +to it by stupendous effort or authentic revelation, not seldom sinking +to the verge of bathos, and demanding the assistance of interpretative +sympathy in the spectator--such men will not take the point of view +required of them by Tintoretto in his boldest flights, in the Worship of +the Golden Calf and in the Destruction of the World by Water. It is for +them to ponder well the flying archangel with the scales of judgment in +his hand, and the seraph-charioted Jehovah enveloping Moses upon Sinai +in lightnings. + +The gondola has had a long rest. Were Francesco but a little more +impatient, he might be wondering what had become of the padrone. I bid +him turn, and we are soon gliding into the Sacca della Misericordia. +This is a protected float, where the wood which comes from Cadore and +the hills of the Ampezzo is stored in spring. Yonder square white house, +standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the Casa +degli Spiriti. No one cares to inhabit it; for here, in old days, it was +the wont of the Venetians to lay their dead for a night's rest before +their final journey to the graveyard of S. Michele. So many generations +of dead folk had made that house their inn, that it is now no fitting +home for living men. San Michele is the island close before Murano, +where the Lombardi built one of their most romantically graceful +churches of pale Istrian stone, and where the Campo Santo has for +centuries received the dead into its oozy clay. The cemetery is at +present undergoing restoration. Its state of squalor and abandonment to +cynical disorder makes one feel how fitting for Italians would be the +custom of cremation. An island in the lagoons devoted to funeral pyres +is a solemn and ennobling conception. This graveyard, with its ruinous +walls, its mangy riot of unwholesome weeds, its corpses festering in +slime beneath neglected slabs in hollow chambers, and the mephitic wash +of poisoned waters that surround it, inspires the horror of disgust. + +The morning has not lost its freshness. Antelao and Tofana, guarding the +vale above Cortina, show faint streaks of snow upon their amethyst. +Little clouds hang in the still autumn sky. There are men dredging for +shrimps and crabs through shoals uncovered by the ebb. Nothing can be +lovelier, more resting to eyes tired with pictures than this tranquil, +sunny expanse of the lagoon. As we round the point of the Bersaglio, new +landscapes of island and Alp and low-lying mainland move into sight at +every slow stroke of the oar. A luggage-train comes lumbering along the +railway bridge, puffing white smoke into the placid blue. Then we strike +down Cannaregio, and I muse upon processions of kings and generals and +noble strangers, entering Venice by 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. + +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. + +Rather than prolong this list, I will tell a story which drew 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." + + +V.--A VENETIAN NOVELLA. + +At the time when Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini were painting those +handsome youths in tight jackets, parti-coloured hose, and little round +caps placed awry upon their shocks of well-combed hair, there lived in +Venice two noblemen, Messer Pietro and Messer Paolo, whose palaces +fronted each other on the Grand Canal. Messer Paolo was a widower, with +one married daughter, and an only son of twenty years or thereabouts, +named Gerardo. Messer Pietro's wife was still living; and this couple +had but one child, a daughter, called Elena, of exceeding beauty, aged +fourteen. Gerardo, as is the wont of gallants, was paying his addresses +to a certain lady; and nearly every day he had to cross the Grand Canal +in his gondola, and to pass beneath the house of Elena on his way to +visit his Dulcinea; for this lady lived some distance up a little canal +on which the western side of Messer Pietro's palace looked. + +Now it so happened that at the very time when the story opens, Messer +Pietro's wife fell ill and died, and Elena was left alone at home with +her father and her old nurse. Across the little canal of which I spoke +there dwelt another nobleman, with four daughters, between the years of +seventeen and twenty-one. Messer Pietro, desiring to provide amusement +for poor little Elena, besought this gentleman that his daughters might +come on feast-days to play with her. For you must know that, except on +festivals of the Church, the custom of Venice required that gentlewomen +should remain 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 balustrated +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 ribbands for tokens. Which negligence of theirs +annoyed Elena much; for she thought only of the game. Wherefore she +scolded them in childish wise, and one of them made answer, "Elena, if +you only knew how pleasant it is to play as we are playing on this +balcony, you would not care so much for ball and forfeits!" + +On one of those feast-days the four sisters were prevented from keeping +their little friend company. Elena, with nothing to do, and feeling +melancholy, leaned upon the window-sill which overlooked the narrow +canal. And it chanced that just then Gerardo, on his way to Dulcinea, +went by; and Elena looked down at him, as she had seen those sisters +look at passers-by. Gerardo caught her eye, and glances passed between +them, and Gerardo's gondolier, bending from the poop, said to his +master, "O master! methinks that gentle maiden is better worth your +wooing than Dulcinea." Gerardo pretended to pay no heed to these words; +but after rowing a little way, he bade the man turn, and they went +slowly back beneath the window. This time Elena, thinking to play the +game which her four friends had played, took from her hair a clove +carnation and let it fall close to Gerardo on the cushion of the +gondola. He raised the flower and put it to his lips, acknowledging the +courtesy with a grave bow. But the perfume of the clove and the beauty +of Elena in that moment took possession of his heart together, and +straightway he forgot Dulcinea. + +As yet he knew not who Elena was. Nor is this wonderful; for the +daughters of Venetian nobles were but rarely seen or spoken of. But the +thought of her haunted him awake and sleeping; and every feast-day, when +there was the chance of seeing her, he rowed his gondola beneath her +windows. And there she appeared to him in company with her four friends; +the five girls clustering together like sister roses beneath the pointed +windows of the Gothic balcony. Elena, on her side, had no thought of +love; for of love she had heard no one speak. But she took pleasure in +the game those friends had taught her, of leaning from the balcony to +watch Gerardo. He meanwhile grew love-sick and impatient, wondering how +he might declare his passion. Until one day it happened that, walking +through a lane or _calle_ which skirted Messer Pietro's 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 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +Messer Paolo, who knew nothing of these things, took thought meanwhile +for his son's career. It was the season when the Signory of Venice sends +a fleet of galleys to Beirut with merchandise; and the noblemen may bid +for the hiring of a ship, and charge it with wares, and send whomsoever +they list as factor in their interest. One of these galleys, then, +Messer Paolo engaged, and told his son that he had appointed him to +journey with it and increase their wealth. "On thy return, my son," he +said, "we will bethink us of a wife for thee." Gerardo, when he heard +these words, was sore troubled, and first he told his father roundly +that he would not go, and flew off in the twilight to pour out his +perplexities to Elena. But she, who was prudent and of gentle soul, +besought him to obey his father in this thing, to the end, moreover, +that, having done his will and increased his wealth, he might afterwards +unfold the story of their secret marriage. To these good counsels, +though loth, Gerardo consented. His father was overjoyed at his son's +repentance. The galley was straightway laden with merchandise, and +Gerardo set forth on his voyage. + +The trip to Beirut and back lasted usually six months or at the most +seven. Now when Gerardo had been some six months away, Messer Pietro, +noticing how fair his daughter was, and how she had grown into +womanhood, looked about him for a husband for her. When he had found a +youth suitable in birth and wealth and years, he called for Elena, 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." + +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 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 +marble chest outside the church, and all departed, still with torches +burning, to their homes. + +Now it so fell out that upon that very evening Gerardo's galley had +returned from Syria, and was anchoring within the port of Lido, which +looks across to the island of Castello. It was the gentle custom of +Venice at that time that, when a ship arrived from sea, the friends of +those on board at once came out to welcome them, and take and give the +news. Therefore many noble youths and other citizens were on the deck of +Gerardo's galley, making merry with him over the safe conduct of his +voyage. Of one of these he asked, "Whose is yonder funeral procession +returning from San Pietro?" The young man made answer, "Alas for poor +Elena, Messer Pietro's daughter! She should have been married this day. +But death took her, and to-night they buried her in the marble monument +outside the church." A woeful man was Gerardo, hearing suddenly this +news, and knowing what his dear wife must have suffered ere she died. +Yet he restrained himself, daring not to disclose his anguish, and +waited till his friends had left the galley. Then he called to him the +captain of the oarsmen, who was his friend, and unfolded to him all the +story of his love and sorrow, and said that he must go that night and +see his wife once more, if even he should have to break her tomb. The +captain tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Seeing him so obstinate, he +resolved not to desert Gerardo. The two men took one of the galley's +boats, and rowed together toward San Pietro. It was past midnight when +they reached the Campo and broke the marble sepulchre 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. + +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 +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 +over-measure 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. + + +VI.--ON THE LAGOONS. + +The mornings are spent in study, sometimes among pictures, sometimes in +the Marcian Library, or again in those vast convent chambers of the +Frari, where the archives of Venice load innumerable shelves. The +afternoons invite us to a further flight upon the water. Both sandolo +and gondola await our choice, and we may sail or row, according as the +wind and inclination tempt us. + +Yonder lies San Lazzaro, with the neat red buildings of the Armenian +convent. The last oleander blossoms shine rosy pink above its walls +against the pure blue sky as we glide into the little harbour. Boats +piled with coal-black grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are +gathering their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new +wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of Byron--that +curious patron saint of the Armenian colony--or to inspect the +printing-press, which issues books of little value for our studies. It +is enough to pace the terrace, and linger half an hour beneath the low +broad arches of the alleys pleached with vines, through which the domes +and towers of Venice rise more beautiful by distance. + +Malamocco lies considerably farther, and needs a full hour of stout +rowing to reach it. Alighting there, we cross the narrow strip of land, +and find ourselves upon the huge sea-wall--block piled on block--of +Istrian stone in tiers and ranks, with cunning breathing-places for the +waves to wreak their fury on and foam their force away in fretful waste. +The very existence of Venice may be said to depend sometimes on these +_murazzi_, which were finished at an immense cost by the Republic in the +days of its decadence. The enormous monoliths which compose them had to +be brought across the 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 _murazzi_ were broken in a gale, or _sciroccale_, not very long ago. +Lying awake in Venice, when the wind blows hard, one hears the sea +thundering upon its sandy barrier, and blesses God for the _murazzi_. On +such a night it happened once to me to dream a dream of Venice +overwhelmed by water. I saw the billows roll across the smooth lagoon +like a gigantic Eager. The Ducal Palace crumbled, and San Marco's domes +went down. The Campanile rocked and shivered like a reed. And all along +the Grand Canal the palaces swayed helpless, tottering to their fall, +while boats piled high with men and women strove to stem the tide, and +save themselves from those impending ruins. It was a mad dream, born of +the sea's roar and Tintoretto's painting. But this afternoon no such +visions are suggested. The sea sleeps, and in the moist autumn air we +break tall branches of the seeded yellowing samphire from hollows of the +rocks, and bear them homeward in a wayward bouquet mixed with cobs of +Indian-corn. + +Fusina is another point for these excursions. It lies at the mouth of +the Canal di Brenta, where the mainland ends in marsh and meadows, +intersected by broad renes. In spring the ditches bloom with +fleurs-de-lys; in autumn they take sober colouring from lilac daisies +and the delicate sea-lavender. Scores of tiny plants are turning scarlet +on the brown moist earth; and when the sun goes down behind the Euganean +hills, his crimson canopy of cloud, reflected on these shallows, muddy +shoals, and wilderness of matted weeds, converts the common earth into a +fairyland of fabulous dyes. Purple, violet, and rose are spread around +us. In front stretches the lagoon, tinted with a pale light from the +east, and beyond this 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 on +the Zattere. The quiet of the night has come. + +Words cannot be formed to express the endless varieties of Venetian +sunset. The most magnificent follow after wet stormy days, when the west +breaks suddenly into a labyrinth of fire, when chasms of clear turquoise +heavens emerge, and horns of flame are flashed to the zenith, and +unexpected splendours scale the fretted clouds, step over step, stealing +along the purple caverns till the whole dome throbs. Or, again, after a +fair day, a change of weather approaches, and high, infinitely high, the +skies are woven over with a web of half-transparent cirrus-clouds. These +in the after-glow blush crimson, and through their rifts the depth of +heaven is of a hard and gem-like 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 +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. + + +VII.--AT THE LIDO. + +Of all these afternoon excursions, that to the Lido is most frequent. It +has two points for approach. The more distant is the little station of +San Nicoletto, at the mouth of the Porto. With an ebb-tide, the water +of the lagoon runs past the mulberry gardens of this hamlet like a +river. There is here a grove of acacia-trees, shadowy and dreamy, above +deep grass, which even an Italian summer does not wither. The Riva is +fairly broad, forming a promenade, where one may conjure up the +personages of a century ago. For San Nicoletto used to be a fashionable +resort before the other points of Lido had been occupied by +pleasure-seekers. An artist even now will select its old-world quiet, +leafy shade, and prospect through the islands of Vignole and Sant'Erasmo +to snow-touched peaks of Antelao and Tofana, rather than the glare and +bustle and extended view of Venice which its rival Sant'Elisabetta +offers. + +But when we want a plunge into the Adriatic, or a stroll along smooth +sands, or a breath of genuine sea-breeze, or a handful of horned poppies +from the dunes, or a lazy half-hour's contemplation of a limitless +horizon flecked with russet sails, then we seek Sant'Elisabetta. Our +boat is left at the landing-place. We saunter across the island and back +again. Antonio and Francesco wait and order wine, which we drink with +them in the shade of the little _osteria's_ wall. + +A certain afternoon in May I well remember, for this visit to the Lido +was marked by one of those apparitions which are as rare as they are +welcome to the artist's soul. I have always held that in our modern life +the only real equivalent for the antique mythopoeic sense--that sense +which enabled the Hellenic race to figure for themselves the powers of +earth and air, streams and forests, and the presiding genii of places, +under the forms of living human beings, is supplied by the appearance at +some felicitous moment of a man or woman who impersonates for our +imagination the essence of the beauty that environs us. It seems, at +such a fortunate moment, as though we had been waiting for this +revelation, although perchance the want of it had not been previously +felt. Our sensations and perceptions test themselves at the touchstone +of this living individuality. The keynote of the whole music dimly +sounding in our ears is struck. A melody emerges, clear in form and +excellent in rhythm. The landscapes we have painted on our brain, no +longer lack their central figure. The life proper to the complex +conditions we have studied is discovered, and every detail, judged by +this standard of vitality, falls into its right relations. + +I had been musing long that day and earnestly upon the mystery of the +lagoons, their opaline transparencies of air and water, their fretful +risings and sudden subsidence into calm, the treacherousness of their +shoals, the sparkle and the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked +myself how would a Greek sculptor have personified the elemental deity +of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the Ægean or +Ionian sea? What would he find distinctive of their spirit? The Tritons +of these shallows must be of other form and lineage than the fierce-eyed +youth who blows his conch upon 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. + +We had picked up shells and looked for sea-horses on the Adriatic shore. +Then we returned to give our boatmen wine beneath the vine-clad +_pergola_. Four other men were there, drinking, and eating from a dish +of fried fish set upon the coarse white linen cloth. Two of them soon +rose and went away. Of the two who stayed, one was a large, middle-aged +man; the other was still young. He was tall and sinewy, but slender, for +these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is +equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the +muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free +sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed +these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to +its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved +with a singular brusque grace. A black broad-brimmed hat was thrown back +upon his matted _zazzera_ of dark hair tipped with dusky brown. This +shock of hair, cut in flakes, and falling wilfully, reminded me of the +lagoon grass when it darkens in autumn upon uncovered shoals, and sunset +gilds its sombre edges. Fiery grey eyes beneath it gazed intensely, with +compulsive effluence of electricity. It was the wild glance of a Triton. +Short blonde moustache, dazzling teeth, skin bronzed, but showing white +and healthful through open front and sleeves of lilac shirt. The dashing +sparkle of this animate splendour, who looked to me as though the +sea-waves and the sun had made him in some hour of secret and unquiet +rapture, was somehow emphasised by a curious dint dividing his square +chin--a cleft that harmonised with smile on lip and steady flame in +eyes. I hardly know what effect it would have upon a reader to compare +eyes to 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. + +I felt, as I looked, that here, for me at least, the mythopoem of the +lagoons was humanised; the spirit of the salt-water lakes had appeared +to me; the final touch of life emergent from nature had been given. I +was satisfied; for I had seen a poem. + +Then we rose, and wandered through the Jews' cemetery. It is a quiet +place, where the flat grave-stones, inscribed in Hebrew and Italian, lie +deep in Lido sand, waved over with wild grass and poppies. I would fain +believe that no neglect, but rather the fashion of this folk, had left +the monuments of generations to be thus resumed by nature. Yet, knowing +nothing of the history of this burial-ground, I dare not affirm so much. +There is one outlying piece of the cemetery which seems to contradict my +charitable interpretation. It is not far from San Nicoletto. No +enclosure marks it from the unconsecrated dunes. Acacia-trees sprout +amid the monuments, and break the tablets with their thorny shoots +upthrusting from the soil. Where patriarchs and rabbis sleep for +centuries, the fishers of the sea now wander, and defile these +habitations of the dead: + + Corruption most abhorred + Mingling itself with their renownèd ashes. + +Some of the grave-stones have been used to fence the towing-path; and +one I saw, well carved with letters legible of Hebrew on fair Itrian +marble, which roofed an open drain leading from the stable of a +Christian dog. + + +VIII.--A VENETIAN RESTAURANT. + +At the end of a long glorious day, unhappy is that mortal whom the +Hermes of a cosmopolitan hotel, white-chokered and white-waistcoated, +marshals to the Hades of the _table-d'hôte_. The world has often been +compared to an inn; but on my way down to this common meal I have, not +unfrequently, felt fain to reverse the simile. From their separate +stations, at the appointed hour, the guests like ghosts flit to a gloomy +gas-lit chamber. They are of various speech and race, preoccupied with +divers interests and cares. Necessity and the waiter drive them all to a +sepulchral syssition, whereof the cook too frequently deserves that old +Greek comic epithet--+hadou mageiros+--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 gondola from +the railway station; a German shopkeeper descanting in one breath on +Baur's Bock and the beauties of the Marcusplatz; an intelligent æsthete +bent on working into clearness his own views of Carpaccio's genius: all +these in turn, or all together, must be suffered gladly through +well-nigh two long hours. Uncomforted in soul we rise from the expensive +banquet; and how often rise from it unfed! + +Far other be the doom of my own friends--of pious bards and genial +companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I +desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's +window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a +bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain +humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending +little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a +cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front lies +a Mediterranean steamer, which all day long has been discharging cargo. +Gazing westward up Giudecca, masts and funnels bar the sunset and the +Paduan hills; and from a little front room of the _trattoria_ the view +is so marine that one keeps fancying oneself in some ship's cabin. +Sea-captains sit and smoke beside their glass of grog in the pavilion +and the _caffé_. But we do not seek their company at dinner-time. Our +way lies under yonder arch, and up the narrow alley into a paved court. +Here are oleanders in pots, and plants of Japanese spindle-wood in tubs; +and from the walls beneath the window hang cages of all sorts of +birds--a talking parrot, a whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries, +linnets. Athos, the fat dog, who goes to market daily in a _barchetta_ +with his master, snuffs around. "Where are Porthos and Aramis, my +friend?" Athos does not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail +and pokes his nose into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its bridge +displays the full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. But +beneath, this muzzle is a patent sham. The frame does not even pretend +to close on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a decoration. A +little farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who has no discoverable +name, but is famous for the sprightliness and grace with which she bears +her eighteen years. Not far from the cat one is sure to find Carlo--the +bird-like, bright-faced, close-cropped Venetian urchin, whose duty it is +to trot backwards and forwards between the cellar and the dining-tables. +At the end of the court we walk into the kitchen, where the black-capped +little _padrone_ and the gigantic white-capped _chef_ are in close +consultation. Here we have the privilege of inspecting the larder--fish +of various sorts, meat, vegetables, 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 _cuisine_, or about the reasonable charges +of this _trattoria_. A soup of lentils, followed by boiled turbot or +fried soles, beef-steak or mutton cutlets, tordi or beccafichi, with a +salad, the whole enlivened with good red wine or Florio's Sicilian +Marsala from the cask, costs about four francs. Gas is unknown in the +establishment. There is no noise, no bustle, no brutality of waiters, no +_ahurissement_ of tourists. And when dinner is done, we can sit awhile +over our cigarette and coffee, talking until the night invites us to a +stroll along the Zattere or a _giro_ in the gondola. + + +IX.--NIGHT IN VENICE. + +Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be winter +among the high Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of the +mountains are too different in kind to be compared. + +There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day +is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon +which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow; +ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute; +pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding +the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; +piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of _rio_ linked with +_rio_, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once more the +level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond the +Misericordia. + +This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight; and if a single impression +of the night has to be retained from one visit to Venice, those are +fortunate who chance upon a full moon of fair weather. Yet I know not +whether some quieter and soberer effects are not more thrilling. +To-night, for example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of +_scirocco_. Over the bridges of San Cristoforo and San Gregorio, through +the deserted Calle di Mezzo, my friend and I walk in darkness, pass the +marble basements of the Salute, and push our way along its Riva to the +point of the Dogana. We are out at sea alone, between the Canalozzo and +the Giudecca. A moist wind ruffles the water and cools our forehead. It +is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the light reflected on +it from the Piazzetta. The same light climbs the Campanile of S. Mark, +and shows the golden angel in mystery of gloom. The only noise that +reaches us is a confused hum from the Piazza. Sitting and musing there, +the blackness of the water whispers in our ears a tale of death. And now +we hear a plash of oars and gliding through the darkness comes a single +boat. One man leaps upon the landing-place without a word and +disappears. There is another wrapped in a military cloak asleep. I see +his face beneath me, pale and quiet. The _barcaruolo_ turns the point in +silence. From the darkness they came; into the darkness they have gone. +It is only an ordinary incident of coastguard service. But the spirit of +the night has made a poem of it. + +Even tempestuous and rainy weather, though melancholy enough, is never +sordid here. There is no noise from carriage traffic in Venice, and the +sea-wind preserves the purity and 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 blueish sky, +and Santa Maria della Salute domed with moon-irradiated pearl, and the +wet slabs of the Riva shimmering in moonlight, the whole misty sky, with +its clouds and stellar spaces, drenched in moonlight, nothing but +moonlight sensible except the tawny flare of gas-lamps and the orange +lights of gondolas afloat upon the waters. On such a night the very +spirit of Venice is abroad. We feel why she is called Bride of the Sea. + +Take yet another night. There had been a representation of Verdi's +"Forza del Destino" at the Teatro Malibran. After midnight we walked +homeward through the Merceria, crossed the Piazza, and dived into the +narrow _calle_ which leads to the _traghetto_ of the Salute. It was a +warm moist starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe in those +narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace called him as we +jumped into his boat, and rang our _soldi_ on the gunwale. Then he arose +and turned the _ferro_ round, and stood across towards the Salute. +Silently, insensibly, from the oppression of confinement in the airless +streets to the liberty and immensity of the water and the night we +passed. It was but two minutes ere we touched the shore and said +good-night, and went our way and left the ferryman. But in that brief +passage he had opened our souls to everlasting things--the freshness, +and the darkness, and the kindness of the brooding, all-enfolding night +above the sea. + + + + +THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING. + + +The night before the wedding we had a supper-party in my rooms. We were +twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio with +fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest child. My +own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two children. Then +there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best clothes, or out +of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers, in dark blue +shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the maid Catina, who +came and went about the table, laughing and joining in the songs, and +sitting down at intervals to take her share of wine. The big room +looking across the garden to the Grand Canal had been prepared for +supper; and the company were to be received in the smaller, which has a +fine open space in front of it to southwards. But as the guests arrived, +they seemed to find the kitchen and the cooking that was going on quite +irresistible. Catina, it seems, had lost her head with so many +cuttlefishes, _orai_, cakes, and fowls, and cutlets to reduce to order. +There was, therefore, a great bustle below stairs; and I could hear +plainly that all my guests were lending their making, or their marring, +hands to the preparation of the supper. That the company should cook +their own food on the way to the dining-room, seemed a quite novel +arrangement, but one that promised well for their contentment with the +banquet. Nobody could be dissatisfied with what was everybody's affair. + +When seven o'clock struck, Eustace and I, who had been entertaining the +children in their mothers' absence, heard the sound of steps upon the +stairs. The guests arrived, bringing their own _risotto_ with them. +Welcome was short, if hearty. We sat down in carefully appointed order, +and fell into such conversation as the quarter of San Vio and our +several interests supplied. From time to time one of the matrons left +the table and descended to the kitchen, when a finishing stroke was +needed for roast pullet or stewed veal. The excuses they made their host +for supposed failure in the dishes, lent a certain grace and comic charm +to the commonplace of festivity. The entertainment was theirs as much as +mine; and they all seemed to enjoy what took the form by degrees of +curiously complicated hospitality. I do not think a well-ordered supper +at any _trattoria_, such as at first suggested itself to my imagination, +would have given any of us an equal pleasure or an equal sense of +freedom. The three children had become the guests of the whole party. +Little Attilio, propped upon an air-cushion, which puzzled him +exceedingly, ate through his supper and drank his wine with solid +satisfaction, opening the large brown eyes beneath those tufts of +clustering fair hair which promise much beauty for him in his manhood. +Francesco's boy, who is older and begins to know the world, sat with a +semi-suppressed grin upon his face, as though the humour of the +situation was not wholly hidden from him. Little Teresa too was happy, +except when her mother, a severe Pomona, with enormous earrings and +splendid _fazzoletto_ of crimson and orange dyes, pounced down upon her +for some supposed infraction of good manners--_creanza_, as they vividly +express it here. Only Luigi looked a trifle bored. But Luigi has been a +soldier, and has now attained the supercilious superiority of +young-manhood, which smokes its cigar of an evening in the piazza and +knows the merits of the different cafés. + +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 _mezza voce_, which might, by a stretch of politeness, +be called baritone. Piero's comrade, whose name concerns us not, has +another of these nondescript voices. They sat together with their +glasses and cigars before them, sketching part-songs in outline, +striking the keynote--now higher and now lower--till they saw their +subject well in view. Then they burst into full singing, Antonio leading +with a metal note that thrilled one's ears, but still was musical. +Complicated contrapuntal pieces, such as we should call madrigals, with +ever-recurring refrains of "Venezia, gemma Triatica, sposa del mar," +descending probably from ancient days, followed each other in quick +succession. Barcaroles, serenades, love-songs, and invitations to the +water were interwoven for relief. One of these romantic pieces had a +beautiful burden, "Dormi, o bella, o fingi di dormir," of which the +melody was fully worthy. But the most successful of all the tunes were +two with a sad motive. The one repeated incessantly "Ohimé! mia madre +morì;" the other was a girl's love lament: "Perchè tradirmi, perchè +lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri così!" 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 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, then +wrapped the children up, and took their leave. It was an uncomfortable, +warm, wet night of sullen _scirocco_. + +The next day, which was Sunday, Francesco called me at five. There was +no visible sunrise that cheerless damp October morning. Grey dawn stole +somehow imperceptibly between the veil of clouds and leaden waters, as +my friend and I, well sheltered by our _felze_, passed into the +Giudecca, and took our station before the church of the Gesuati. A few +women from the neighbouring streets and courts crossed the bridges in +draggled petticoats on their way to first mass. A few men, shouldering +their jackets, lounged along the Zattere, opened the great green doors, +and entered. Then suddenly Antonio cried out that the bridal party was +on its way, not as we had expected, in boats, but on foot. We left our +gondola, and fell into the ranks, after shaking hands with Francesco, +who is the elder brother of the bride. There was nothing very noticeable +in her appearance, except her large dark eyes. Otherwise both face and +figure were of a common type; and her bridal dress of sprigged grey +silk, large veil and orange blossoms, reduced her to the level of a +_bourgeoise_. It was much the same with the bridegroom. His features, +indeed, proved him a true Venetian gondolier; for the skin was strained +over the cheekbones, and the muscles of the throat beneath the jaws +stood out like cords, and the bright blue eyes were deep-set beneath a +spare brown forehead. But he had provided a complete suit of black for +the occasion, and wore a shirt of worked cambric, which disguised what +is really splendid in the physique of these oarsmen, at once slender and +sinewy. Both bride and bridegroom looked uncomfortable in their clothes. +The light that fell upon them in the church was dull and leaden. The +ceremony, which was very hurriedly performed by an unctuous priest, did +not appear to impress either of them. Nobody in the bridal party, +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. + +After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct +offertories. Considering how much account even two _soldi_ are to these +poor people, I was really angry when I heard the copper shower. Every +member of the party had his or her pennies ready, and dropped them into +the boxes. Whether it was the effect of the bad morning, or the ugliness +of a very ill-designed _barocco_ building, or the fault of the fat oily +priest, I know not. But the _sposalizio_ struck me as tame and +cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly conducted. At the same +time there is something too impressive in the mass for any perfunctory +performance to divest its symbolism of sublimity. A Protestant Communion +Service lends itself more easily to degradation by unworthiness in the +minister. + +We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and +bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best +man--_compare_, as he is called--at a narrow _prie-dieu_ before the +altar. The _compare_ is a person of distinction at these weddings. He +has to present the bride with a great pyramid of artificial flowers, +which is placed before her at the marriage-feast, a packet of candles, +and a box of bonbons. The comfits, when the box is opened, are found to +include two magnificent sugar babies lying in their cradles. I was told +that a _compare_, who does the thing handsomely, must be 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. + +From the church to the bride's house was a walk of some three minutes. +On the way we were introduced to the father of the bride--a very +magnificent personage, with points of strong resemblance to Vittorio +Emmanuele. He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green +earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son, +Francesco. Throughout the _nozze_ he took the lead in a grand imperious +fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and +was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would have +got the nickname of _Tacchin_, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the sons +and daughters call their parent briefly _Vecchio_. I heard him so +addressed with a certain amount of awe, expecting an explosion of +bubbly-jock displeasure. But he took it, as though it was natural, +without disturbance. The other _Vecchio_, father of the bridegroom, +struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his +many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen, +were gondoliers. Both the _Vecchi_, indeed, continue to ply their trade, +day and night, at the _traghetto_. + +_Traghetti_ are stations for gondolas at different points of the canals. +As their name implies, it is the first duty of the gondoliers upon them +to ferry people across. This they do for the fixed fee of five centimes. +The _traghetti_ are in fact Venetian cab-stands. And, of course, like +London cabs, the gondolas may be taken off them for trips. The +municipality, however, makes it a condition, under penalty of fine to +the _traghetto_, that each station should always be provided with two +boats for the service of the ferry. When vacancies occur on the +_traghetti_, a gondolier who owns or hires a boat makes application to +the municipality, receives a number, and is inscribed as plying at a +certain station. He has now entered a sort of guild, which is presided +over by a _Capo-traghetto_, elected by the rest for the protection of +their interests, the settlement of disputes, and the management of their +common funds. In the old acts of Venice this functionary is styled +_Gastaldo di traghetto_. The members have to contribute something yearly +to the guild. This payment varies upon different stations, according to +the greater or less amount of the tax levied by the municipality on the +_traghetto_. The highest subscription I have heard of is twenty-five +francs; the lowest, seven. There is one _traghetto_, known by the name +of Madonna del Giglio or Zobenigo, which possesses near its _pergola_ of +vines a nice old brown Venetian picture. Some stranger offered a +considerable sum for this. But the guild refused to part with it. + +As may be imagined, the _traghetti_ vary greatly in the amount and +quality of their custom. By far the best are those in the neighbourhood +of the hotels upon the Grand Canal. At any one of these a gondolier +during the season is sure of picking up some foreigner or other who will +pay him handsomely for comparatively light service. A _traghetto_ on the +Giudecca, on the contrary, depends upon Venetian traffic. The work is +more monotonous, and the pay is reduced to its tariffed minimum. So far +as I can gather, an industrious gondolier, with a good boat, belonging +to a good _traghetto_, may make as much as ten or fifteen francs in a +single day. But this cannot be relied on. They therefore prefer a fixed +appointment with a private family, for which they receive by tariff five +francs a day, or by arrangement for long periods perhaps four francs a +day, with certain perquisites and small advantages. It is great luck to +get such an engagement for 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 _traghetto_, except by +stipulation with their masters. Then they may take their place one night +out of every six in the rank and file. The gondoliers have two proverbs, +which show how desirable it is, while taking a fixed engagement, to keep +their hold on the _traghetto_. One is to this effect: _il traghetto è un +buon padrone_. The other satirises the meanness of the poverty-stricken +Venetian nobility: _pompa di servitù, misera insegna_. When they combine +the _traghetto_ with private service, the municipality insists on their +retaining the number painted on their gondola; and against this their +employers frequently object. It is, therefore, a great point for a +gondolier to make such an arrangement with his master as will leave him +free to show his number. The reason for this regulation is obvious. +Gondoliers are known more by their numbers and their _traghetti_ than +their names. They tell me that though there are upwards of a thousand +registered in Venice, each man of the trade knows the whole +confraternity by face and number. Taking all things into consideration, +I think four francs a day the whole year round are very good earnings +for a gondolier. On this he will marry and rear a family, and put a +little money by. A young unmarried man, working at two and a half or +three francs a day, is proportionately well-to-do. If he is economical, +he ought upon these wages to save enough in two or three years to buy +himself a gondola. A boy from fifteen to nineteen is called a +_mezz'uomo_, and gets about one franc a day. A new gondola with all its +fittings is worth about a thousand francs. It does not last in good +condition more than six or seven years. At the end of that time the hull +will fetch eighty francs. A new hull can be had for three hundred +francs. The old fittings--brass sea-horses or _cavalli_, steel prow or +_ferro_, covered cabin or _felze_, cushions and leather-covered +back-board or _stramazetto_, may be transferred to it. When a man wants +to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one already half past +service--a _gondola da traghetto_ or _di mezza età_. This should cost +him something over two hundred francs. Little by little, he accumulates +the needful fittings; and when his first purchase is worn out, he hopes +to set up with a well-appointed equipage. He thus gradually works his +way from the rough trade which involves hard work and poor earnings to +that more profitable industry which cannot be carried on without a smart +boat. The gondola is a source of continual expense for repairs. Its oars +have to be replaced. It has to be washed with sponges, blacked, and +varnished. Its bottom needs frequent cleaning. Weeds adhere to it in the +warm brackish water, growing rapidly through the summer months, and +demanding to be scrubbed off once in every four weeks. The gondolier has +no place where he can do this for himself. He therefore takes his boat +to a wharf, or _squero_, as the place is called. At these _squeri_ +gondolas are built as well as cleaned. The fee for a thorough setting to +rights of the boat is five francs. It must be done upon a fine day. Thus +in addition to the cost, the owner loses a good day's work. + +These details will serve to give some notion of the sort of people with +whom Eustace and I spent our day. The bride's house is in an excellent +position on an open canal leading from the Canalozzo to the Giudecca. +She had arrived before us, and received her friends in the middle of the +room. Each of us in turn kissed her cheek and murmured our +congratulations. We found the large living-room of the house arranged +with chairs all round the walls, and the company were marshalled in some +order of precedence, my friend and I taking place near the bride. On +either hand airy bed-rooms opened 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. + +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 +macaroon 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 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 shop-keepers as possible. +But they did not all of them succeed. Two handsome women, who handed the +cups round--one a brunette, the other a blonde--wore skirts of brilliant +blue, with a sort of white jacket, and white kerchief folded heavily +about their shoulders. The brunette had a great string of coral, the +blonde of amber, round her throat. Gold earrings and the long gold +chains Venetian women wear, of all patterns and degrees of value, +abounded. Nobody appeared without them; but I could not see any of an +antique make. The men seemed to be contented with rings--huge, heavy +rings of solid gold, worked with a rough flower pattern. One young +fellow had three upon his fingers. This circumstance led me to speculate +whether a certain portion at least of this display of jewellery around +me had not been borrowed for the occasion. + +Eustace and I were treated quite like friends. They called us _I +Signori_. But this was only, I think, because our English names are +quite unmanageable. The women fluttered about us and kept asking whether +we really liked it all? whether we should come to the _pranzo_? whether +it was true we danced? It seemed to give them unaffected pleasure to be +kind to us; and when we rose to go away, the whole company crowded +round, shaking hands and saying: "_Si divertirà bene stasera_!" Nobody +resented our presence; what was better, no one put himself out for us. +"_Vogliono veder il nostro costume_," I heard one woman say. + +We got home soon after eight, and, as our ancestors would have said, +settled our stomachs with a dish of tea. It makes me shudder now to +think of the mixed liquids and miscellaneous cakes we had consumed at +that unwonted hour. + +At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves for action. +His gondola was in attendance, covered with the _felze_, to take us to +the house of the _sposa_. We found the canal crowded with poor people of +the quarter--men, women, and children lining the walls along its side, +and clustering like bees upon the bridges. The water itself was almost +choked with gondolas. Evidently the folk of San Vio thought our wedding +procession would be a most exciting pageant. We entered the house, and +were again greeted by the bride and bridegroom, who consigned each of us +to the control of a fair tyrant. This is the most fitting way of +describing our introduction to our partners of the evening; for we were +no sooner presented, than the ladies swooped upon us like their prey, +placing their shawls upon our left arms, while they seized and clung to +what was left available of us for locomotion. There was considerable +giggling and tittering throughout the company when Signora Fenzo, the +young and comely wife of a gondolier, thus took possession of Eustace, +and Signora dell'Acqua, the widow of another gondolier, appropriated me. +The affair had been arranged beforehand, and their friends had probably +chaffed them with the difficulty of managing two mad Englishmen. +However, they proved equal to the occasion, and the difficulties were +entirely on our side. Signora Fenzo was a handsome brunette, quiet in +her manners, who meant business. I envied Eustace his subjection to such +a reasonable being. Signora dell'Acqua, though a widow, was by no means +disconsolate; and I soon perceived that it would require all the address +and diplomacy I possessed, to make anything out of her society. She +laughed incessantly; darted in the most diverse directions, dragging me +along with her; exhibited me in triumph to her cronies; made eyes at me +over a fan; repeated my clumsiest remarks, as though they gave her +indescribable amusement; and all the while jabbered Venetian at express +rate, without the slightest regard for my incapacity to follow her +vagaries. The _Vecchio_ marshalled us in order. First went the _sposa_ +and _comare_ with the mothers of bride and bridegroom. Then followed the +_sposo_ and the bridesmaid. After them I was made to lead my fair +tormentor. As we descended the staircase there arose a hubbub of +excitement from the crowd on the canals. The gondolas moved turbidly +upon the face of the waters. The bridegroom kept muttering to himself, +"How we shall be criticised! They will tell each other who was decently +dressed, and who stepped awkwardly into the boats, and what the price of +my boots was!" Such exclamations, murmured at intervals, and followed by +chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With regard to his +boots, he need have had no anxiety. They were of the shiniest patent +leather, much too tight, and without a speck of dust upon them. But his +nervousness infected me with a cruel dread. All those eyes were going to +watch how we comported ourselves in jumping from the landing-steps into +the boat! If this operation, upon a ceremonious occasion, has terrors +even for a gondolier, how formidable it ought to be to me! And here is +the Signora dell'Acqua's white cachemire shawl dangling on one arm, and +the Signora herself languishingly clinging to the other; and the +gondolas are fretting in a fury of excitement, like corks, upon the +churned green water! The moment was terrible. The _sposa_ and her three +companions had been safely stowed away beneath their _felze_. The +_sposo_ had successfully handed the bridesmaid into the second gondola. +I had to perform the same office for my partner. Off she went, like a +bird, from the bank. I seized a happy moment, followed, bowed, and found +myself to my contentment gracefully ensconced in a corner opposite the +widow. Seven more gondolas were packed. The procession moved. We glided +down the little channel, broke 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. + +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 costume. She had a pretty +little pale face, a _minois chiffonné_, with slightly turned-up nose, +large laughing brown eyes, a dazzling set of teeth, and a tempestuously +frizzled mop of powdered hair. When I managed to get a side-look at her +quietly, without being giggled at or driven half mad by unintelligible +incitements to a jocularity I could not feel, it struck me that, if we +once found a common term of communication we should become good friends. +But for the moment that _modus vivendi_ seemed unattainable. She had not +recovered from the first excitement of her capture of me. She was still +showing me off and trying to stir me up. The arrival of the soup gave me +a momentary relief; and soon the serious business of the afternoon +began. I may add that before dinner was over, the Signora dell'Acqua and +I were fast friends. I had discovered the way of making jokes, and she +had become intelligible. I found her a very nice, though flighty, little +woman; and I believe she thought me gifted with the faculty of uttering +eccentric epigrams in a grotesque tongue. Some of my remarks were flung +about the table, and had the same success as uncouth Lombard carvings +have with connoisseurs in _naïvetés_ of art. By that time we had come to +be _compare_ and _comare_ to each other--the sequel of some clumsy piece +of jocularity. + +It was a heavy entertainment, copious in quantity, excellent in quality, +plainly but well cooked. I remarked there was no fish. The widow replied +that everybody present ate fish to satiety at home. They did not join a +marriage feast at the San Gallo, and pay their nine francs, for that! It +should be observed that each guest paid for his own entertainment. This +appears to be the custom. Therefore attendance is complimentary, and +the married couple are not at ruinous charges for the banquet. A curious +feature in the whole proceeding had its origin in this custom. I noticed +that before 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 _comare_) had +accumulated two whole chickens, half a turkey, and a large assortment of +mixed eatables. I performed my duty and won her regard by placing +delicacies at her disposition. + +Crudely stated, this proceeding moves disgust. But that is only because +one has not thought the matter out. In the performance there was nothing +coarse or nasty. These good folk had made a contract at so much a +head--so many fowls, so many pounds of beef, &c., to be supplied; and +what they had fairly bought, they clearly had a right to. No one, so far +as I could notice, tried to take more than his proper share; except, +indeed, Eustace and myself. In our first eagerness to conform to custom, +we both overshot the mark, and grabbed at disproportionate helpings. +The waiters politely observed that we were taking what was meant for +two; and as the courses followed in interminable sequence, we soon +acquired the tact of what was due to us. + +Meanwhile the room grew warm. The gentlemen threw off their coats--a +pleasant liberty of which I availed myself, and was immediately more at +ease. The ladies divested themselves of their shoes (strange to relate!) +and sat in comfort with their stockinged feet upon the _scagliola_ +pavement. I observed that some cavaliers by special permission were +allowed to remove their partners' slippers. This was not my lucky fate. +My _comare_ had not advanced to that point of intimacy. Healths began to +be drunk. The conversation took a lively turn; and women went fluttering +round the table, visiting their friends, to sip out of their glass, and +ask each other how they were getting on. It was not long before the +stiff veneer of _bourgeoisie_ which bored me had worn off. The people +emerged in their true selves: natural, gentle, sparkling with enjoyment, +playful. Playful is, I think, the best word to describe them. They +played with infinite grace and innocence, like kittens, from the old men +of sixty to the little boys of thirteen. Very little wine was drunk. +Each guest had a litre placed before him. Many did not finish theirs; +and for very few was it replenished. When at last the desert arrived, +and the bride's comfits had been handed round, they began to sing. It +was very pretty to see a party of three or four friends gathering round +some popular beauty, and paying her compliments in verse--they grouped +behind her chair, she sitting back in it and laughing up to them, and +joining in the chorus. The words, "Brunetta mia simpatica, ti amo sempre +più," sung after this fashion to Eustace's handsome partner, who puffed +delicate whiffs from a Russian cigarette, and smiled her thanks, had a +peculiar appropriateness. All the ladies, it may be observed in passing, +had by this time lit their cigarettes. The men were smoking Toscani, +Sellas, or Cavours, and the little boys were dancing round the table +breathing smoke from their pert nostrils. + +The dinner, in fact, was over. Other relatives of the guests arrived, +and then we saw how some of the reserved dishes were to be bestowed. A +side-table was spread at the end of the gallery, and these late-comers +were regaled with plenty by their friends. Meanwhile, the big table at +which we had dined was taken to pieces and removed. The _scagliola_ +floor was swept by the waiters. Musicians came streaming in and took +their places. The ladies resumed their shoes. Every one prepared to +dance. + +My friend and I were now at liberty to chat with the men. He knew some +of them by sight, and claimed acquaintance with others. There was plenty +of talk about different boats, gondolas, and sandolos and topos, remarks +upon the past season, and inquiries as to chances of engagements in the +future. One young fellow told us how he had been drawn for the army, and +should be obliged to give up his trade just when he had begun to make it +answer. He had got a new gondola, and this would have to be hung up +during the years of his service. The warehousing of a boat in these +circumstances costs nearly one hundred francs a year, which is a serious +tax upon the pockets of a private in the line. Many questions were put +in turn to us, but all of the same tenor. "Had we really enjoyed the +_pranzo_? Now, really, were we amusing ourselves? And did we think the +custom of the wedding _un bel costume_?" We could give an unequivocally +hearty response to all these interrogations. The men seemed pleased. +Their interest in our enjoyment was unaffected. It is noticeable how +often the word _divertimento_ is heard upon the lips of the Italians. +They have a notion that it is the function in life of the _Signori_ to +amuse themselves. + +The ball opened, and now we were much besought by the ladies. I had to +deny myself with a whole series of comical excuses. Eustace performed +his duty after a stiff English fashion--once with his pretty partner of +the _pranzo_, and once again with a fat gondolier. The band played +waltzes and polkas, chiefly upon patriotic airs--the Marcia Reale, +Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with men, women with 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 _comare_ careered about with a light mænadic impetuosity, +which made me regret my inability to accept her pressing invitations. +She pursued me into every corner of the room, but when at last I dropped +excuses and told her that my real reason for not dancing was that it +would hurt my health, she waived her claims at once with an _Ah, +poverino_! + +Some time after midnight we felt that we had had enough of +_divertimento_. Francesco helped us to slip out unobserved. With many +silent good wishes we left the innocent, playful people who had been so +kind to us. The stars were shining from a watery sky as we passed into +the piazza beneath the Campanile and the pinnacles of S. Mark. The Riva +was almost empty, and the little waves fretted the boats moored to the +piazzetta, as a warm moist breeze went fluttering by. We smoked a last +cigar, crossed our _traghetto_, and were soon sound asleep at the end of +a long, pleasant day. The ball, we heard next morning, finished about +four. + +Since that evening I have had plenty of opportunities for seeing my +friends the gondoliers, both in their own homes and in my apartment. +Several have entertained me at their mid-day meal of fried fish and +amber-coloured polenta. These repasts were always cooked with scrupulous +cleanliness, and served upon a table covered with coarse linen. The +polenta is turned out upon a wooden platter, and cut with a string +called _lassa_. You take a large slice of it on the palm of the left +hand, and break it with the fingers of the right. Wholesome red wine of +the Paduan district and good white bread were never wanting. The rooms +in which we met to eat looked out on narrow lanes or over pergolas of +yellowing vines. Their whitewashed walls were hung with photographs of +friends and foreigners, many of them souvenirs from English or American +employers. The men, in broad black hats and lilac skirts, sat round the +table, girt with the red waist-wrapper, or _fascia_, which marks the +ancient faction of the Castellani. The other faction, called Nicolotti, +are distinguished by a black _assisa_. The quarters of the town are +divided unequally and irregularly into these two parties. What was once +a formidable rivalry between two sections of the Venetian populace, +still survives in challenges to trials of strength and skill upon the +water. The women, in their many-coloured kerchiefs, stirred polenta at +the smoke-blackened chimney, whose huge pent-house roof projects two +feet or more across the hearth. When they had served the table they took +their seat on low stools, knitted stockings, or drank out of glasses +handed across the shoulder to them by their lords. Some of these women +were clearly notable housewives, and I have no reason to suppose that +they do not take their full share of the housework. Boys and girls came +in and out, and got a portion of the dinner to consume where they +thought best. Children went tottering about upon the red-brick floor, +the playthings of those hulking fellows, who handled them very gently +and spoke kindly in a sort of confidential whisper to their ears. These +little ears were mostly pierced for earrings, and the light blue eyes of +the urchins peeped maliciously beneath shocks of yellow hair. A dog was +often of the party. He ate fish like his masters, and was made to beg +for it by sitting up and rowing with his paws. _Voga, Azzò, voga!_ The +Anzolo who talked thus to his little brown Spitz-dog has the hoarse +voice of a Triton and the movement of an animated sea-wave. Azzò +performed his trick, swallowed his fish-bones, and the fiery Anzolo +looked round approvingly. + +On all these occasions I have found these gondoliers the 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 _feste_ and +their singing clubs. + +Of course it is not easy for a stranger in a very different social +position to feel that he has been admitted to their confidence. Italians +have an ineradicable habit of making themselves externally agreeable, of +bending in all indifferent matters to the whims and wishes of superiors, +and of saying what they think _Signori_ like. This habit, while it +smoothes the surface of existence, raises up a barrier of compliment and +partial insincerity, against which the more downright natures of us +Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met with an +imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who are bent +on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very reverse of that dour +opposition which a Lowland Scot or a North English peasant offers to +familiarity; but it is hardly less insurmountable. The treatment, again, +which Venetians of the lower class have received through centuries from +their own nobility, makes attempts at fraternisation on the part of +gentlemen unintelligible to them. The best way, here and elsewhere, of +overcoming these obstacles is to have some bond of work or interest in +common--of service on the one side rendered, and good-will 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. + + + + +FORNOVO. + + +In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor of +this gray-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the palace of +the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in it now that +only vague memory survives of its former uses. The princely +_sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of these unfinished +courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendor 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 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 frescos, +its hangings all in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and +mildew and discolored gold--this theatre, a sham in its best days, and +now that ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of +day, is yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its +grand Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare--like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such as +our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to dower +these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier ruins +phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is like a +maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of things +that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living men and +women: _questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi_. So clinging is the sense of +instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot tyranny +which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day on Italy. + +In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a symbol +of those hollow principalities which the despot and the stranger built +in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national enthusiasm and +political energy 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. + +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 6th, 1495, for the onset, sounded the _réveille_ of +the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of the struggle of +that day the Italians were already judged and sentenced as a nation. The +armies who met that morning represented Italy and France--Italy, the +Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl of Revolution. At the fall of +evening Europe was already looking northward; and the last years of the +fifteenth century were opening an act which closed in blood at Paris on +the ending of the eighteenth. + +If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village of +Fornovo--a score of bare gray 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 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 _ghiara_, or pebbly bottom, of the Taro. The +Taro is not less wasteful than any other of the brotherhood of streams +that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the Po. It wanders, an impatient +rivulet, through a wilderness of boulders, uncertain of its aim, +shifting its course with the season of the year, unless the jaws of some +deep-cloven gully hold it tight and show how insignificant it is. As we +advance, the hills approach again; between their skirts there is nothing +but the river-bed; and now on rising ground above the stream, at the +point of juncture between the Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond +the village the valley broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines +capped with winter snow. To the right descends the Ceno. To the left +foams the Taro, following whose rocky channel we should come at last to +Pontremoli and the Tyrrhenian Sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of +sunshine like the present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn +by two white oxen has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino +with goat-skin leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures +stem the water, which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round +the creaking wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the +river-bed, they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon +the stones; and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight. + +It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and crush +him in the mouse-trap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles and his +troops but 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. + +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 8th 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 25th, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded by the +very worst pope who has ever occupied St. 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, 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. + +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, 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 honorable +prison. Virtual master in Milan, but without a legal title to the +throne, unrecognized 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 a usurper to +maintain himself in his despotism which, as we shall see, brought the +French into Italy. + +Venice, the neighbor 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 favor of the conquerors. + +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 +equalization of the burghers, and in the formation of a new aristocracy +of wealth. From this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprang the Medici, who, +by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by the creation of a +powerful party devoted to their interests, by flattery of the people, by +corruption, by taxation, and by constant scheming, raised themselves to +the first place in the commonwealth, and became its virtual masters. In +the year 1492, Lorenzo de Medici, the most remarkable chief of this +despotic family, died, bequeathing his supremacy in the republic to a +son of marked incompetence. + +Since the pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon a +new period of existence. The popes no longer dreaded to reside in Rome, +but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both splendid as +a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital of a secular +kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were still held but +loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty despots who defied +the papal authority, and though the princely Roman houses of Colonna and +Orsini were still strong enough to terrorize 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 secularized 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 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 +favorites and bastards in the principalities they seized as spoils of +war. + +The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the House +of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence or the free +institutions of the northern provinces; nor had it been Italianized 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 state-craft. 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 favor 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 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.[D] + +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 +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 civilization. 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 seven hundred +thousand 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 vigor in the +republics and the noxious tyranny of the despots, analyzing 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 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. + +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 the 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 grand-daughter, 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." + +Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +_parvenus_ who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as this +was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed all +the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on disadvantageous +terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that he might be able +to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian expedition. At the end +of the year 1493, it was known that the invasion was resolved upon. +Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at the Court of France, wrote to +Piero de' Medici: "If the king succeeds, it is all over with +Italy--_tutta a bordello_." The extraordinary selfishness of the several +Italian states at this critical moment deserves to be noticed. The +Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini described them to Piero de' Medici, +"are of opinion that to keep quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy +spending and suffering, cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no +one, and feel sure they have enough money to be able at any moment to +raise sufficient troops, and so to guide events according to their +inclinations." As the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of +Aragon displayed the acutest sense of the situation. "Frenchmen," he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted with +the cold indifference of others no less 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.e._, Lodovico Sforza) should think what +may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who raises this wind +will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. Let him look to the +past, and he will see how every time that our internal quarrels have +brought powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, these have oppressed and +lorded over her." + +Terribly verified as these words were destined to be--and they were no +less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's prediction +of the Sword and bloody Scourge--it was now too late to avert the coming +ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at Lyons. Early in +September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genêvre and taken up his +quarters in the town of Asti. There is no need to describe in detail the +holiday march of the French troops through Lombardy, Tuscany, and Rome, +until, without having struck a blow of consequence, the gates of Naples +opened to receive the conqueror upon February 22, 1495. Philippe de +Comines, who parted from the king at Asti and passed the winter as his +envoy at Venice, has more than once recorded his belief that nothing but +the direct interposition of Providence could have brought so mad an +expedition to so successful a conclusion. "Dieu monstroit conduire +l'entreprise." 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 5th, +1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De Comines reckons +that his whole fighting force at this time did not exceed nine thousand +men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at the opening of +the valley was the army of the League, numbering some thirty-five +thousand men, of whom three fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle. + +De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed Charles +to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy to have +established themselves in the village and so have caught the French +troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down upon +Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it the +white crests of the Alps. "We were," says De Comines, "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 +towards the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order that Charles +should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross the Taro, just +below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by marching in a +parallel line with his foes. + +All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; so +that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At seven +o'clock the king sent for De Comines, who found him already armed and +mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of this charger +was Savoy. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his +great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The +French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the +Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a quarter of a league +from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the light cavalry of their +enemies entered the village and began to attack the baggage. At the same +time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower of his men-at-arms, crossed +the Taro and harassed the rear of the French host; while raids from the +right bank to the left were constantly being made by sharp-shooters 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 +three hundred and fifty men-at-arms, three thousand Switzers, three +hundred archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, and the +artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rear-guard. At the +time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French rear-guard +had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put himself at +the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, driving them +back, some to the village and others to their camp. De Comines observes, +that had the Italian knights been supported in this passage of arms by +the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called Stradiots, the French +must have been outnumbered, thrown into confusion, and defeated. As it +was, these Stradiots were engaged in plundering the baggage of the +French; and the Italians, accustomed to bloodless encounters, did not +venture, in spite of their immense superiority of numbers, to renew the +charge. In the pursuit of Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his +staff, and was left almost alone to grapple with a little band of +mounted foemen. It was here that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his +person by plunging and charging till assistance came up from the French, +and enabled the king to regain his van. + +It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number of +the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians three +quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they threw +away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So complete +was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the want of +military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead of +advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the 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 favored their retreat; and the same pusillanimity which +the allies had shown at Fornovo prevented them from re-forming and +engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. One hour before +daybreak on Tuesday morning the French broke up their camp and succeeded +in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at Fiorenzuola, the next +at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day they arrived at Asti +without having been so much as incommoded by the army of the allies in +their rear. + +Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of St. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame. + +A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the Middle Ages, +and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of 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 _Contado_ of the nobles, and the burghers of Lombardy gained the +battle of Legnano. In course of time, by a process of change which it is +not very easy to trace, heavily armed cavalry began to take the place of +infantry in mediæval warfare. Men-at-arms, as they were called, encased +from head to foot in iron, and mounted upon chargers no less solidly +caparisoned, drove the foot-soldiers before them at the points of their +long lances. Nowhere in Italy do they seem to have met with the fierce +resistance which the bears of the Swiss Oberland and the bulls of Uri +offered to the knights of Burgundy. No Tuscan Arnold von Winkelried +clasped a dozen lances to his bosom that the foeman's ranks might thus +be broken at the cost of his own life; nor did it occur to the Italian +burghers to meet the charge of the horsemen with squares protected by +bristling spears. They seem, on the contrary, to have abandoned military +service with the readiness of men whose energies were already absorbed +in the affairs of peace. To become a practised and efficient man-at-arms +required long training and a life's devotion. So much time the burghers +of the free towns could not spare to military service, while the petty +nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so honorable 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 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 +shamfight 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 was a murderous horse-play; 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. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[D] Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in turn claimed +under the will of Joan II. + + + + +BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI. + + +From the new town of commerce to the old town of history upon the hill +the road is carried along a rampart lined with horse-chestnut +trees--clumps of massy foliage and snowy pyramids of bloom expanded in +the rapture of a Southern spring. Each pair of trees between their stems +and arch of intermingling leaves includes a space of plain checkered +with cloud-shadows, melting blue and green in amethystine haze. To right +and left the last spurs of the Alps descend, jutting like promontories, +heaving like islands from the misty breadth below; and here and there +are towers half lost in airy azure, and cities dwarfed to blots, and +silvery lines where rivers flow, and distant, vapor-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 air-space 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 splendor live +here side by side. Grand Renaissance portals grinning with satyr masks +are flanked by tawdry frescos shamming stonework, or by doorways where +the withered bush hangs out a promise of bad wine. + +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, bass-reliefs, pilasters, +statuettes, incrusted 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 labors. Italian craftsmen of the _quattrocento_ were +not averse to setting thus together, in one frame-work, 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 labor, 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 epitomized in +twelve of the sixteen bass-reliefs. The remaining four show Hercules +wrestling with Antæus, taming the Nemean lion, extirpating the Hydra, +and bending to his will the bull of Crete. Labor, 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 bass-reliefs far-fetched; yet, such as +it is, it agrees with the spirit of humanism, bent ever on harmonizing +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 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 _improvisatore_ charm. + +This chapel was built by the great Condottiere Bartolommeo Colleoni, to +be the monument of his puissance even in the grave. It had been the +Sacristy of S. Maria Maggiore, which, when the Consiglio della +Misericordia refused it to him for his half-proud, half-pious purpose, +he took and held by force. The structure, of costliest materials, reared +by Gian Antonio Amadeo, cost him fifty thousand golden florins. An +equestrian statue of gilt wood, voted to him by the town of Bergamo, +surmounts his monument inside the chapel. This was the work of two +German masters called Sisto figlio di Enrico Syri da Norimberga and +Leonardo Tedesco. The tomb itself is of marble, executed for the most +part in a Lombard style resembling Amadeo's, but scarcely worthy of his +genius. The whole effect is disappointing. Five figures representing +Mars, Hercules, and three sons-in-law of Colleoni, who surround the +sarcophagus of the buried general, are, indeed, almost grotesque. The +angularity and crumpled draperies of the Milanese manner, when so +exaggerated, produce an impression of caricature. Yet many subordinate +details--a row of _putti_ in a Cinque Cento frieze, for instance--and +much of the low relief work, especially the Crucifixion, with its +characteristic episodes of the fainting Marys and the soldiers casting +dice, are lovely in their unaffected Lombardism. + +There is another portrait of Colleoni in a round above the great door, +executed with spirit, though in a _bravura_ style that curiously +anticipates the decline of Italian sculpture. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with +prominent cheekbones and strong jaws, this animated half-length statue +of the hero bears the stamp of a good likeness, but when or by whom it +was made I do not know. + +Far more noteworthy than Colleoni's own monument is that of his daughter +Medea. She died young in 1470, and her father caused her tomb, carved of +Carrara marble, to be placed in the Dominican Church of Basella, which +he had previously founded. It was not until 1842 that this most precious +masterpiece of Antonio Amadeo's skill was transferred to Bergamo. _Hic +jacet Medea virgo._ Her hands are clasped across her breast. A robe of +rich brocade, gathered to the waist and girdled, lies in simple folds +upon the bier. Her throat, exceedingly long and slender, is circled with +a string of pearls. Her face is not beautiful, for the features, +especially the nose, are large and prominent; but it is pure and +expressive of vivid individuality. The hair curls in crisp, short +clusters; and the ear, fine and shaped almost like a Faun's, reveals the +scrupulous fidelity of the sculptor. Italian art has, in truth, nothing +more exquisite than this still-sleeping figure of the girl who, when she +lived, must certainly have been so rare of type and lovable in +personality. If Busti's Lancinus Curtius be the portrait of a humanist, +careworn with study, burdened by the laurel leaves that were so dry and +dusty; if Gaston de Foix in the Brera, smiling at death and beautiful in +the cropped bloom of youth, idealize the hero of romance; if Michael +Angelo'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 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. + +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 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 enroll +himself under the banners of the one or the other. Bartolommeo chose +Braccio for his master, and was enrolled among his men as a simple +trooper, or _ragazzo_, with no better prospects than he could make for +himself by the help of his talents and his borrowed horse and armor. +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 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 "Condottiere" was derived from the circumstance +that he was said to have received a _Condotta di venti cavalli_, and so +forth. Each _cavallo_ was equal to one mounted man-at-arms and two +attendants, who were also called _ragazzi_. It was his business to +provide the stipulated number of men, to keep them in good discipline, +and to satisfy their just demands. Therefore an Italian army at this +epoch consisted of numerous small armies varying in size, each held +together by personal engagements to a captain, and all dependent on the +will of a general-in-chief, who had made a bargain with some prince or +republic for supplying a fixed contingent of fighting-men. The +_condottiere_ was in other words a contractor or _impresario_, +undertaking to do a certain piece of work for a certain price, and to +furnish the requisite forces for the business in good working order. It +will be readily seen upon this system how important were the personal +qualities of the captain, and what great advantages those condottieri +had who, like the petty princes of Romagna and the March, the +Montefeltri, Ordelaffi, Malatesti, Manfredi, Orsini, and Vitelli, could +rely upon a race of hardy vassals for their recruits. + +It 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 _condotta_ gradually +increased. Meanwhile his cousins, the murderers of his father, began to +dread his rising power, and determined, if possible, to ruin him. He was +not a man to be easily assassinated; so they sent a hired ruffian 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 _bravo_, and who gave such evidence that the captains of the army +were enabled to ascertain the truth. The impostor was stripped and +drummed out of the camp. + +At the conclusion of a peace between the Pope and the Bolognese, +Bartolommeo found himself without occupation. He now offered himself to +the Venetians, and began to fight again under the great Carmagnola +against Filippo Visconti. His engagement allowed him forty men, which, +after the judicial murder of Carmagnola at Venice in 1432, were +increased to eighty. Erasmo da Narni, better known as Gattamelata, was +now his general-in-chief--a man who had risen from the lowest fortunes +to one of the most splendid military positions in Italy. Colleoni spent +the next years of his life, until 1443, in Lombardy, manoeuvring +against Il Piccinino, and gradually rising in the Venetian service, +until his condotta reached the number of eight hundred 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 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. + +In the year 1443, Colleoni quitted the Venetian service on account of a +quarrel with Gherardo Dandolo, the Proveditore of the Republic. He now +took a commission from Filippo Maria Visconti, who received him at Milan +with great honor, 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 body-guard 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 +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. + +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 honor 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, by a mere spasm of suspicious jealousy, for which he could +have given no account. + +From the year 1447 to the year 1455, it is difficult to follow +Colleoni's movements, or to trace his policy. First, we find him +employed by the Milanese Republic, during its brief space of +independence; then he is engaged by the Venetians, with a commission for +fifteen hundred 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 St. Mark elected him general-in-chief of +their armies, with the fullest powers, and with a stipend of one hundred +thousand florins. For nearly twenty-one years, until the day of his +death, in 1475, Colleoni held this honorable 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 baton of St. 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 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 cortége. 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 St. +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 St. Mark. Here, after mass had been said, and a +sermon had been preached, kneeling before the high-altar he received the +truncheon from the doge's hands. The words of his commission ran as +follows: + + "By authority and decree of this most excellent city of + Venice, of us the prince, and of the senate, you are to be + commander and captain-general of all our forces and armaments + on _terra firma_. Take from our hands this truncheon, with + good augury and fortune, as sign and warrant of your power. Be + it your care and effort, with dignity and splendor to maintain + and to defend the majesty, the loyalty, and the principles of + this empire. Neither provoking, nor yet provoked, unless at + our command, shall you break into open warfare with our + enemies. Free jurisdiction and lordship over each one of our + soldiers, except in cases of treason, we hereby commit to + you." + +After the ceremony of his reception, Colleoni was conducted with no less +pomp to his lodgings, and the next ten days were spent in festivities of +all sorts. + +The commandership-in-chief of the Venetian forces was perhaps the +highest military post in Italy. It placed Colleoni on the pinnacle of +his profession, and made his camp the favorite 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. Honors 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, authorized +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 honor 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 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. + +Colleoni had been engaged continually since his earliest boyhood in the +trade of war. It was not therefore possible that he should have gained a +great degree of literary culture. Yet the fashion of the times made it +necessary that a man in his position should seek the society of +scholars. Accordingly his court and camp were crowded with students, in +whose wordy disputations he is said to have delighted. It will be +remembered that his contemporaries, Alfonso the Magnanimous, Francesco +Sforza, Federigo of Urbino, and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, piqued +themselves at least as much upon their patronage of letters as upon +their prowess in the field. + +Colleoni's court, like that of Urbino, was a model of 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 St. Chiara, the other +to St. Francis. In Bergamo itself he founded an establishment named "La +Pietà," for the good purpose of dowering and marrying poor girls. This +house he endowed with a yearly income of three thousand 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 St. 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 St. John the Baptist, attached to the +Church of S. Maria Maggiore, which he endowed with fitting maintenance +for two priests and deacons. + +The one defect acknowledged by his biographer was his partiality for +women. Early in life he married Tisbe, of the noble house of the +Brescian Martinenghi, who bore him one daughter, Caterina, wedded to +Gasparre Martinengo. Two illegitimate daughters, Ursina and Isotta, were +recognized 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 apiece for +dowry. Medea, the child of his old age (for she was born to him when he +was sixty), died before her father, and was buried, as we have seen, in +the Chapel of Basella. + +Throughout his life he was distinguished for great physical strength and +agility. When he first joined the troop of Braccio, he could race, with +his corselet on, against the swiftest runner of the army; and when he +was stripped, few 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 colored with sanguine and lively carnation. His eyes were black; in +look and sharpness of light they were vivid, piercing, and terrible. The +outlines of his nose and all his countenance expressed a certain manly +nobleness, combined with goodness and prudence." Such is the portrait +drawn of Colleoni by his biographer and it well accords with the famous +bronze statue of the general at Venice. + +Colleoni lived with a magnificence that suited his rank. His favorite +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 frescos, 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 some days +as the general's guest. In order to do him honor, 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 armor, and gave to each of his servants a +complete livery of red and white, his colors. Among the frescos at +Malpaga none are more interesting, and none, thanks to the silkworms +rather than to any other cause, are fortunately in a better state of +preservation, than those which represent this episode in the history of +the castle. + +Colleoni died in the year 1475, at the age of seventy-five. Since he +left no male representative, he constituted the Republic of St. Mark his +heir in chief, after properly providing for his daughters and his +numerous foundations. The Venetians received under this testament a sum +of one hundred thousand ducats, together with all arrears of pay due to +him, and ten thousand 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 St. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for +the proud republic had never accorded a similar honor, 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, 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. + +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 St. 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 loath 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 +splendor of suggested motion. That the Tuscan science of Verocchio +secured conscientious modelling for man and horse may be assumed; but I +am fain to believe that the concentrated fire which animates them both +is due in no small measure to the handling of his northern +fellow-craftsman. + +While immersed in the dreary records of crimes, treasons, cruelties, and +base ambitions, which constitute the bulk of fifteenth-century Italian +history, it is refreshing to meet with a character so frank and manly, +so simply pious and comparatively free from stain, as Colleoni. The only +general of his day who can bear comparison with him for purity of public +life and decency in conduct was Federigo di Montefeltro. Even here, the +comparison redounds to Colleoni's credit; for he, unlike the Duke of +Urbino, rose to eminence by his own exertion in a profession fraught +with peril to men 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 dishonorable dealings, +and Carmagnola to the scaffold by questionable practice against his +masters. + + + + +LOMBARD VIGNETTES. + +ON THE SUPERGA. + + +This is the chord of Lombard coloring in May: Lowest in the scale, +bright green of varied tints, the meadow-grasses mingling with willows +and acacias, harmonized 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 towards infinity. Above all is heaven, the hierarchies +ascending row on row to reach the light of God. + +This fancy occurred to me as I climbed the slope of the Superga, gazing +over acacia hedges and poplars to the mountains bare in morning light. +The occasional occurrence of 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. + +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 blended with the Grand Paradis, the +airy pyramid of Monte Viso, these are the battlements of that vast +Alpine rampart in which the vale of Susa opens like a gate. To west and +south sweep the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Beneath glides the +infant Po; and where he leads our eyes the plain is only limited by +pearly mist. + + +A BRONZE BUST OF CALIGULA AT TURIN. + +The Albertina bronze is one of the most precious portraits of antiquity, +not merely because it confirms the testimony of the green basalt bust in +the Capitol, but also because it supplies an even more emphatic and +impressive illustration to the narrative of Suetonius. + +Caligula is here represented as young and singularly beautiful. It is +indeed an ideal Roman head, with the powerful square modelling, the +crisp short hair, low forehead, and regular firm features proper to the +noblest Roman type. The head is thrown backward from the throat; and +there is a something of menace or defiance or suffering in the +suggestion of brusque movement given to the sinews of the neck. This +attitude, together with the tension of the forehead and the fixed +expression of pain and strain communicated by the 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 the 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 idealizes 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 agonizing 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 tantalized 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, forever 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 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 pothouse dissipation and school-boy cruelty in point +of size. And this of a truth is the Nemesis of evil. After a time, mere +tyrannous caprice must become commonplace and cloying, tedious to the +tyrant and uninteresting to the student of humanity; nor can I believe +that Caligula failed to perceive this to his own infinite disgust. + +Suetonius asserts that he was hideously ugly. How are we to square this +testimony with the witness of the bronze before us? What changed the +face, so beautiful and terrible in youth, to ugliness that shrank from +sight in manhood? Did the murderers find it blurred in its fine +lineaments, furrowed with lines of care, hollowed with the soul's +hunger? Unless a life of vice and madness had succeeded in making +Caligula's face what the faces of some maniacs are--the bloated ruin of +what was once a living witness to the soul within--I could fancy that +death may have sanctified it with even more beauty than this bust of the +self-tormented young man shows. Have we not all seen the anguish of +thought-fretted faces smoothed out by the hands of the Deliverer? + + +FERRARI AT VERCELLI. + +It is possible that many visitors to the Cathedral of Como have carried +away the memory of stately women with abundant yellow hair and draperies +of green and crimson in a picture they connect thereafter with Gaudenzio +Ferrari. And when they come to Milan they are probably both impressed +and disappointed by a Martyrdom of St. Catherine in the Brera, bearing +the same artist's name. If they wish to understand this painter they +must seek him at Varallo, at Saronno, and at Vercelli. In the Church of +S. Christoforo, in Vercelli, Gaudenzio Ferrari, at the full height of +his powers, showed what he could do to justify Lomazzi'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 frescos) +neutralized by an incurable defect of the combining and harmonizing +faculty so essential to a masterpiece. There is stuff enough of thought +and vigor and imagination to make a dozen artists. And yet we turn away +disappointed from the crowded, dazzling, stupefying wilderness of forms +and faces on these mighty walls. + +All that Ferrari derived from actual life--the heads of single figures, +the powerful movement of men and women in excited action, the monumental +pose of two praying nuns--is admirably rendered. His angels, too, in S. +Cristoforo, as elsewhere, are quite original; not only in their type of +beauty, which is terrestrial and peculiar to Ferrari, without a touch of +Correggio's sensuality; but also in the intensity of their emotion, the +realisation of their vitality. Those which hover round the Cross in the +fresco of the "Crucifixion" are as passionate as any angels of the +Giottesque masters in Assisi. Those, again, which crowd the Stable of +Bethlehem in the "Nativity" yield no point of idyllic charm to Gozzoli's +in the Riccardi Chapel. + +The "Crucifixion," and the "Assumption of Madonna" are very tall and +narrow compositions, audacious in their attempt to fill almost +unmanageable space with a connected action. Of the two frescos, the +"Crucifixion," which has points of 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. + +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 frescos. It represents Madonna and a crowd of saints +under an orchard of apple-trees, with cherubs curiously flung about +almost at random in the air. The motive of the orchard is prettily +conceived and carried out with spirit. + +What Ferrari possessed was rapidity of movement, fulness and richness of +reality, exuberance of invention, excellent portraiture, dramatic +vehemence, and an almost unrivalled sympathy with the swift and +passionate world of angels. What he lacked was power of composition, +simplicity of total effect, harmony in coloring, control over his own +luxuriance, the sense of tranquillity. He seems to have sought grandeur +in size and multitude, richness, éclat, contrast. Being the disciple of +Leonardo 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 realized them +with a force and _furia_ granted to very few of the Italian painters. + + +LANINI AT VERCELLI. + +The Casa Mariano is a palace which belonged to a family of that name. +Like many houses of the sort in Italy, it fell to vile uses, and its +hall of audience was turned into a lumber-room. The Operai of Vercelli, +I was told, bought the palace a few years ago, restored the noble hall, +and devoted a smaller room to a collection of pictures valuable for +students of the early Vercellese style of painting. Of these there is no +need to speak. The great hall is the gem of the Casa Mariano. It has a +coved roof, with a large, flat, oblong space in the centre of the +ceiling. The whole of this vault and the lunettes beneath were painted +by Lanini; so runs the tradition of the fresco-painter's name; and +though much injured by centuries of outrage, and somewhat marred by +recent restoration, these frescos 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 bare-faced copy. 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 coloring 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 vigor. +But where the grace of form and color is so soft and sweet, where the +high-bred calm of good company is so sympathetically rendered, where +the atmosphere of amorous languor and of melody is so artistically +diffused, we cannot miss the powerful modelling and rather vulgar _tours +de force_ of Giulio Romano. The scala 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 snow-drops, +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; realizing Simætha's picture of her lover and his +friend: + + +tois d' ên xanthotera men helichrysoio geneias, + stêthea de stilbonta poly pleon ê ty Selana.+ + + +It was thus that the almost childlike spirit of the Milanese painters +felt the antique; how differently from their Roman brethren! It was thus +that they interpreted the lines of their own poets: + + E i tuoi capei più volte ho somigliati + Di Cerere a le paglie secche o bionde + Dintorno crespi al tuo capo legati.[F] + +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 vigor of +design. + +Lanini, like Sodoma, was a native of Vercelli; and though he was +Ferrari's pupil, there is more in him of Luini or of Sodoma than of his +master. He does not rise at any point to the height of these three great +masters, but he shares some of Luini's and Sodoma's fine qualities, +without having any of Ferrari's force. A visit to the mangled remnants +of his frescos in S. Caterina will repay the student of art. This was +once, apparently, a double church with the hall and chapel of a +_confraternità_ appended to it. One 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 round them, adding to the +airiness of their continual dance. Some of the loveliest are in a room +used to stow away the lumber of the church--old boards and curtains, +broken lanterns, candle-ends in tin sconces, the musty apparatus of +festival adornments, and in the midst of all a battered, weather-beaten +bier. + + +THE PIAZZA OF PIACENZA. + +The great feature of Piacenza is its famous piazza--a romantically, +picturesquely perfect square, surpassing the most daring attempts of the +scene-painter, and realizing 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 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 _barocco_ as it is possible to be in style, +but so splendidly toned with verdigris, so superb in their _bravura_ +attitude, and so happily placed in the line of two streets lending far +vistas from the square into the town beyond, that it is difficult to +criticise them seriously. They form, indeed, an important element in the +pictorial effect, and enhance the terra-cotta work of the façade, by the +contrast of their color. + +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, etherealized, and harmonized by +one pervasive glow. When I last saw Piacenza, it had been raining all +day; and ere sun-down 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 thunder-cloud kept +flashing distant lightnings. The pallid primrose of the West, forced +down and reflected back from the vast bank of tempest, gave unearthly +beauty to the hues of church and palace--tender half-tones of violet and +russet paling into grays and yellows on what in daylight seemed but dull +red brick. Even the uncompromising façade of St. Francesco helped; and +the dukes were like statues of the "Gran Commendatore," waiting for Don +Giovanni's invitation. + + +MASOLINO AT CASTIGLIONE D'OLONA. + +Through the loveliest Arcadian scenery of woods and fields and rushing +waters the road leads downward from Varese to Castiglione. The +Collegiate Church stands on a leafy hill above the town, with fair +prospect over groves and waterfalls and distant mountains. Here in the +choir is a series of frescos 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, St. +Stephen, and St. Lawrence are represented; but the injuries of time and +neglect have been so great that it is difficult to judge them fairly. +All we feel for certain is that Masolino had not yet escaped from the +traditional Giottesque mannerism. Only a group of Jews stoning Stephen +and Lawrence before the tribunal remind us by dramatic energy of the +Brancacci chapel. + +The baptistery frescos, dealing with the legend of St. 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 realized. 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 St. 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 color is strong and brilliant, and the execution solid. + +The margin of the Salome panel has been used for scratching the +chronicle of Castiglione. I read one date, 1568, several of the next +century, the record of a duel between two gentlemen, and many +inscriptions to this effect "Erodiana Regina," "Omnia prætereunt," etc. +A dirty, one-eyed fellow keeps the place. In my presence he swept the +frescos over with a scratchy broom, flaying their upper surface in +profound unconsciousness of mischief. The armor of the executioner has +had its steel colors almost rubbed off by this infernal process. Damp +and cobwebs are far kinder. + + +THE CERTOSA. + +The Certosa of Pavia leaves upon the mind an impression of bewildering +sumptuousness: nowhere else are costly materials so combined with a +lavish expenditure of the rarest art. Those who have only once been +driven round together with the crew of sight-seers can carry little away +but the memory of lapis-lazuli and bronze-work, inlaid agates and +labyrinthine sculpture, cloisters tenantless in silence, fair painted +faces smiling from dark corners on the senseless crowd, trim gardens +with rows of pink primroses in spring and of begonia in autumn, blooming +beneath colonnades of glowing terra-cotta. The striking contrast between +the Gothic of the interior and the Renaissance façade, each in its own +kind perfect, will also be remembered; and thoughts of the two great +houses, Visconti and Sforza, to whose pride of power it is a monument, +may be blended with the recollection of art-treasures alien to their +spirit. + +Two great artists, Ambrogio Borgognone and Antonio Amadeo, are the +presiding genii of the Certosa. To minute criticism, based upon the +accurate investigation of records and the comparison of styles, must be +left the task of separating their work from that of numerous +collaborators. But it is none the less certain that the keynote of the +whole music is struck by them. Amadeo, the master of the Colleoni chapel +at Bergamo, was both sculptor and architect. If the façade of the +Certosa be not absolutely his creation, he had a hand in the +distribution of its masses and the detail of its ornaments. The only +fault in this otherwise faultless product of the purest quattrocento +inspiration is that the façade is a frontispiece, with hardly any +structural relation to the church it masks; and this, though serious +from the point of view of 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 chant of +Pergolese or Stradella--will enrapture one who has the sense for unity +evoked from divers elements, for thought subduing all caprices to the +harmony of beauty. It is not possible elsewhere in Italy to find the +instinct of the earlier Renaissance, so amorous in its expenditure of +rare material, so lavish in its bestowal of the costliest workmanship +on ornamental episodes, brought into truer keeping with a pure and +simple structural effect. + +All the great sculptor-architects of Lombardy worked in succession on +this miracle of beauty; and this may account for the sustained +perfection of style, which nowhere suffers from the languor of +exhaustion in the artist or from repetition of motives. It remains the +triumph of North Italian genius, exhibiting qualities of tenderness and +self-abandonment to inspiration which we lack in the severer +masterpieces of the Tuscan school. + +To Borgognone is assigned the painting of the roof in nave and +choir--exceeding rich, varied, and withal in sympathy with stately +Gothic style. Borgognone, again, is said to have designed the saints and +martyrs worked in _tarsia_ for the choir-stalls. His frescos 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 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 coloring 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 color what the greatest Lombard sculptors +sought in stone--a sharpness of relief that passes over into angularity. +This brusqueness was the counter-poise 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 St. Siro +with St. Lawrence and St. Stephen and two fathers of the Church, for its +fusion of this master's qualities. + +The Certosa is a wilderness of lovely workmanship. From Borgognone's +majesty we pass into the quiet region of Luini's Christian grace, or +mark the influence of Leonardo on that rare Assumption of Madonna by his +pupil, Andrea Solari. Like everything touched by the Leonardesque +spirit, this great picture was left unfinished; yet Northern Italy has +nothing finer to show than the landscape, outspread in its immeasurable +purity of calm, behind the grouped Apostles and the ascendent Mother of +Heaven. The feeling of that happy region between the Alps and Lombardy, +where there are many waters--_et tacitos sine labe lacus sine murmure +rivos_--and where the last spurs of the mountains sink in undulations +to the plain, has passed into this azure vista, just as all Umbria is +suggested in a twilight background of young Raphael or Perugino. + +The portraits of the dukes of Milan and their families carry us into a +very different realm of feeling. Medallions above the doors of sacristy +and chancel, stately figures reared aloft beneath gigantic canopies, men +and women slumbering with folded hands upon their marble biers--we read +in all those sculptured forms a strange record of human restlessness +resolved into the quiet of the tomb. The iniquities of Gian Galeazzo +Visconti, _il gran Biscione_; the blood-thirst of Gian Maria; the dark +designs of Filippo and his secret vices; Francesco Sforza's treason; +Galeazzo Maria's vanities and lusts; their tyrants' dread of thunder and +the knife; their awful deaths by pestilence and the assassin's poniard; +their selfishness, oppression, cruelty, and fraud; the murders of their +kinsmen; their labyrinthine plots and acts of broken faith--all is +tranquil now, and we can say to each what Bosola found for the Duchess +of Malfi ere her execution: + + Much you had of land and rent; + Your length in clay's now competent: + A long war disturbed your mind; + Here your perfect peace is signed! + +Some of these faces are commonplace, with _bourgeois_ cunning written on +the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a +fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one +has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of +Lodovico Sforza and 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. + +After all wanderings in this temple of art, we return to Antonio Amadeo, +to his long-haired seraphs playing on the lutes of Paradise, to his +angels of the Passion with their fluttering robes and arms outspread in +agony, to his saints and satyrs mingled on pilasters of the marble +doorways, his delicate _Lavabo_ decorations, and his hymns of piety +expressed in noble forms of weeping women and dead Christs. Wherever we +may pass, this master-spirit of the Lombard style enthralls attention. +His curious treatment of drapery, as though it were made of crumpled +paper, and his trick of enhancing relief by sharp angles and attenuated +limbs, do not detract from his peculiar charm. That is his way, very +different from Donatello's, of attaining to the maximum of life and +lightness in the stubborn vehicle of stone. Nor do all the riches of the +choir--those multitudes of singing angels, those Ascensions and +Assumptions, and innumerable bass-reliefs 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 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. + +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 +ribbons incessantly inscribed with Ave Maria! Then, over all, the rich +red light and purple shadows of the brick, than which no substance +sympathizes more completely with the sky of solid blue above, the broad +plain space of waving summer grass beneath our feet. + +It is now late afternoon, and when evening comes the train will take us +back to Milan. There is yet a little while to rest tired eyes and +strained spirits among the willows and the poplars by the monastery +wall. Through that gray-green leafage, young with early spring, the +pinnacles of the Certosa leap like flames into the sky. The rice-fields +are under water, far and wide, shining like burnished gold beneath the +level light now near to sun-down. Frogs are croaking; those persistent +frogs whom the muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion and +all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy +rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat, well-watered soil. +Nightingales here and there, new-comers, tune their timid April song. +But, strangest of all sounds in such a place, my comrade from the +Grisons jodels forth an Alpine cowherd's melody--_Auf den Alpen droben +ist ein herrliches Leben!_ + +Did the echoes of Gian Galeazzo's convent ever wake to such a tune as +this before? + + +SAN MAURIZIO. + +The student of art in Italy, after mastering the characters of different +styles and epochs, finds a final satisfaction in the contemplation of +buildings designed and decorated by one master, or by groups of artists +interpreting the spirit of a single period. Such supreme monuments of +the national genius are not very common, and they are therefore the more +precious. Giotto's chapel at Padua; the Villa Farnesina at Rome, built +by Peruzzi and painted in fresco by Raphael and Sodoma; the Palazzo del +Te at Mantua, Giulio Romano's masterpiece; the Scuola di San Rocco, +illustrating the Venetian Renaissance at its climax, might be cited +among the most splendid of these achievements. In the church of the +Monastero Maggiore at Milan, dedicated to San Maurizio, Lombard +architecture and fresco-painting may be studied in this rare +combination. The monastery itself, one of the oldest in Milan, formed a +retreat for cloistered virgins following the rule of St. 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 frescos by Luini and +his pupils. Gian Giacomo Dolcebono, architect and sculptor, called by +his fellow-craftsmen _magistro di taliare pietre_, gave the design, at +once simple and harmonious, which was carried out with hardly any +deviation from his plan. The church is a long parallelogram, divided +into two unequal portions, the first and smaller for the public, the +second for the nuns. The walls are pierced with rounded and pilastered +windows, ten on each side, four of which belong to the outer and six to +the inner section. The dividing wall or septum rises to the point from +which the groinings of the roof spring; and round three sides of the +whole building, north, east, and south, runs a gallery for the use of +the convent. The altars of the inner and outer church are placed against +the septum, back to back, with certain differences of structure that +need not be described. Simple and severe, San 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 color. Every +square inch is covered with fresco or rich wood-work 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 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 St. Martin and the glorified +Madonna of the Brera frescos. It is not impossible that the male saints +of the loggia may be also his, though a tenderer touch, a something more +nearly Leonardesque 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 St. Rocco, the classical perfection +of the cupid with lighted tapers, the gracious majesty of women smiling +on us sideways from their Lombard eyelids--these remain to haunt our +memory, emerging from the shadows of the vault above. + +The inner church, as is fitting, excludes all worldly elements. We are +in the presence of Christ's agony, relieved and tempered by the sunlight +of those beauteous female faces. All is solemn here, still as the +convent, pure as the meditations 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 harmonizing color 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, honored +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 St. Scolastica. + +Few pictures bring the splendid Milanese court so vividly 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 frescos, they are +far surpassed both in value and interest by his paintings in the side +chapel of St. 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 favorite +types. The chapel was decorated at the expense of a Milanese advocate, +Francesco Besozzi, who died in 1529. It is he who is kneeling, +gray-haired and bare-headed, under the protection of St. Catherine of +Alexandria, intently gazing at Christ unbound from the scourging-pillar. +On the other side stand St. Lawrence and St. 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 Sts. Catherine and Lawrence! What +divine anguish in the loosened limbs and bending body of Christ; what +piety in the adoring old man! All the moods proper to this supreme +tragedy of the faith are touched as in some tenor song with low +accompaniment of viols; for it was Luini's special province to feel +profoundly and to express musically. The very depth of the Passion is +there; and yet there is no discord. + +Just in proportion to this unique faculty for yielding a melodious +representation of the most intense moments of stationary emotion was his +inability to deal with a dramatic subject. The first episode of St. +Catherine's execution, when the wheel was broken and the executioners +struck by lightning, 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 coloring. The most tragic situation has here again been +alchemized by Luini's magic into a pure idyl, without the loss of power, +without the sacrifice of edification. + +St. 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 Monastero 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 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 favor. 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 fifteen thousand golden crowns with which she +hoped to bribe her jailers, she was finally beheaded. Thus did a vulgar +and infamous Messalina, distinguished only by rare beauty, furnish Luini +with a St. Catherine for this masterpiece of pious art! The thing seems +scarcely credible. Yet Bandello lived in Milan while the Church of St. +Maurizio was being painted; nor does he show the slightest sign of +disgust at the discord between the Contessa's life and her artistic +presentation in the person of a royal martyr. + + +A HUMANIST'S MONUMENT. + +In the Sculpture Gallery of the Brera is preserved a fair white marble +tomb, carved by that excellent Lombard sculptor Agostino Busti. The +epitaph runs as follows: + + En Virtutem Mortis nesciam. + Vivet Lancinus Curtius + Sæcula per omnia + Quascunque lustrans oras, + Tantum possunt Camoenæ. + +"Look here on Virtue that knows naught of Death! Lancinus Curtius shall +live through all the centuries, and visit every shore on earth. Such +power have the Muses." The time-worn poet reclines, as though sleeping +or resting, ready to be waked; his head is covered with flowing hair, +and crowned with laurel; it leans upon his left hand. On either side of +his couch stand cupids or genii with torches turned to earth. Above is a +group of the three Graces, flanked by winged Pegasi. Higher up are +throned two Victories with palms, and at the top a naked Fame. We need +not ask who was Lancinus Curtius. He is forgotten, and his virtue has +not saved him from oblivion; though he strove in his lifetime, _pro +virili parte_, for the palm that Busti carved upon his grave. Yet his +monument teaches in short compass a deep lesson; and his epitaph sums up +the dream which lured the men of Italy in the Renaissance to their doom. +We see before us sculptured in this marble the ideal of the humanistic +poet-scholar's life: Love, Grace, the Muse, and Nakedness, and Glory. +There is not a single intrusive thought derived from Christianity. The +end for which the man lived was 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. + + +THE MONUMENT OF GASTON DE FOIX IN THE BRERA. + +The hero of Ravenna lies stretched upon his back in the hollow of a bier +covered with laced drapery; and his head rests on richly ornamented +cushions. These decorative accessories, together with the minute work of +his scabbard, wrought in the fanciful mannerism of the _cinquecento_, +serve to enhance the statuesque simplicity of the young soldier's +effigy. The contrast between so much of richness in the merely +subordinate details and this sublime severity of treatment in the person +of the hero is truly and touchingly dramatic. There is a smile, as of +content in death, upon his face; and the features are exceedingly +beautiful--with the beauty of a boy, almost of a woman. The heavy hair +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 armor is quite plain. So is the +surcoat. Upon the swelling bust, that seems fit harbor 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 +prôton +hypênêtês+, "a 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 idealization of _virtù_--that quality so highly prized by +the Italians and the ancients, so well fitted for commemoration in the +arts. It is the apotheosis of human life resolved into undying memory +because of one great deed. It is the supreme portrait in modern times of +a young hero, chiselled by artists belonging to a race no longer heroic, +but capable of comprehending and expressing the æsthetic charm of +heroism. Standing before it, we may say of Gaston what Arrian wrote to +Hadrian of Achilles: "That he was a hero, if hero ever lived, I cannot +doubt; for his birth and blood were noble, and he was beautiful, and his +spirit was mighty, and he passed in youth's prime away from men." +Italian sculpture, under the condition of the _cinquecento_, had indeed +no more congenial theme than this of bravery and beauty, youth and +fame, immortal honor and untimely death; nor could any sculptor of death +have poetized the theme more thoroughly than Agostino Busti, whose +simple instinct, unlike that of Michael Angelo, led him to subordinate +his own imagination to the pathos of reality. + + +SARONNO. + +The Church of Saronno is a pretty building with a Bramantesque cupola, +standing among meadows at some distance from the little town. It is the +object of a special cult, which draws pilgrims from the neighboring +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 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 Gaudenzio Ferrari. + +The cupola is raised on a sort of drum composed of twelve pieces, +perforated with round windows and supported on four massive piers. On +the level of the eye are frescos by Luini of St. Rocco, St. Sebastian, +St. Christopher, and St. Anthony--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 frescos from the early Bible history by Lanini, painted in +continuation of Ferrari's medallions from the story of Adam expelled +from Paradise, which fill the space beneath the cupola, leading the eye +upward to Ferrari's masterpiece. + +The dome itself is crowded with a host of angels singing and playing +upon instruments of music. At each of the twelve angles of the drum +stands a coryphæus 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 color. 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 harmonized variety. There is no trace of his violence here. Though +the motion of music runs through the whole multitude like a breeze, +though the joy expressed is a real _tripudio celeste_, not one of all +these angels flings his arms abroad or makes a movement 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. Each too has specific character, while +all are robust and full of life, intent upon the service set them. Their +instruments of music are all lutes and viols, flutes, cymbals, drums, +fifes, citherns, organs, and harps that Ferrari's day could show. The +scale of color, as usual with Ferrari, is a little heavy; nor are the +tints satisfactorily harmonized. But the vigor and invention of the +whole work would atone for minor defects of far greater consequence. + +It is natural, beneath this dome, to turn aside and think one moment of +Correggio at Parma. Before the _macchinisti_ of the seventeenth century +had vulgarized 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 +naught 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 color have now so far vanished from the cupola of +the Duomo that the constructive poverty is not disguised. Here, if +anywhere in painting, we may apply Goethe's words--_Gefühl ist Alles_. + +If, then, we return to Ferrari's angels at Saronno, we find that the +painter of Varallo chose a safer though a far more modest theme. Nor did +he expose himself to that most cruel of all degradations which the +ethereal genius of Correggio has suffered from incompetent imitators. To +daub a tawdry and superficial reproduction of these Parmese frescos, to +fill the cupolas of Italy with veritable _guazzetti di rane_, was +comparatively easy; and between our intelligence and what remains of +that stupendous masterpiece of boldness crowd a thousand memories of +such ineptitude. On the other hand, nothing but solid work and +conscientious inspiration could enable any workman, however able, to +follow Ferrari in the path struck out by him at Saronno. His cupola has +had no imitator; and its only rival is the noble pendant painted at +Varallo by his own hand, of angels in adoring anguish round the cross. + +In the ante-choir of the sanctuary are Luini's priceless frescos of the +"Marriage of the Virgin" and the "Dispute with the Doctors."[G] 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 St. Catherine at Milan, we feel +that Luini was the greatest colourist among _frescanti_. In the +"Sposalizio" the female heads are singularly noble and idyllically +graceful. Some of the young men too have Luini's special grace and +abundance of golden hair. In the "Disputa" the gravity and dignity of +old men are above all things striking. + +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 +frescos. 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 color in fresco. +The blues detach themselves too much, perhaps, from the rest of the +coloring; and that is all a devil's advocate could say. It is possible +that the absence of blue makes the St. Catherine frescos in the +Monastero Maggiore at Milan surpass all other works of Luini. But +nowhere else has he shown more beauty and variety in detail than here. +The group of women led by Joseph, the shepherd carrying the lamb upon +his shoulder, the girl with a basket of white doves, the child with an +apple on the altar-steps, the lovely youth in the foreground heedless of +the scene; all these are idyllic incidents treated with the purest, the +serenest, the most spontaneous, the truest, most instinctive sense of +beauty. The landscape includes a view of Saronno, and an episodical +picture of the "Flight into Egypt," where a white-robed angel leads the +way. All these lovely things are in the "Purification," which is dated +_Bernardinus Lovinus pinxit_, MDXXV. + +The fresco of the "Magi" is less notable in detail, and in general +effect is more spoiled by obtrusive blues. There is, however, one young +man of wholly Leonardesque 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 +idyl, is Sodoma; and the work of his which comes nearest to Luini's +masterpieces is the legend of St. Benedict, at Monte Oliveto, near +Siena. Yet Sodoma had not all Luini's innocence or _naïveté_. If he +added something slightly humorous which has an indefinite charm, he +lacked that freshness, as of "cool, meek-blooded flowers" and boyish +voices, which fascinates us in Luini. Sodoma was closer to the earth, +and feared not to impregnate what he saw of beauty with the fiercer +passions of his nature. If Luini had felt passion who shall say? It +appears nowhere in his work, where life is toned to a religious +joyousness. When Shelley compared the poetry of the Theocritean +amourists to the perfume of the tuberose, and that of the earlier Greek +poets to "a meadow-gale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the +flowers of the field," he supplied us with critical images which may not +unfairly be used to point the distinction between Sodoma at Monte +Oliveto and Luini at Saronno. + + +THE CASTELLO OF FERRARA. + +Is it possible that the patron saints of cities should mould the temper +of the people to their own likeness? St. George, the chivalrous, is +champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the cathedral porch, +so feudal in its mediæval pomp. He and St. Michael are painted in fresco +over the south portcullis of the castle. His lustrous armor 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 St. George for patron, is at any rate significant. + +The best-preserved relic of princely feudal life in Italy is this +Castello of the Este family, with its sombre moat, chained draw-bridges, +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 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. + + +PETRARCH'S TOMB AT ARQUA. + +The drive from Este along the skirts of the Euganean Hills to Arqua +takes one through a country which is tenderly beautiful, because of its +contrast between little peaked mountains and the plain. It is not a +grand landscape. It lacks all that makes the skirts of Alps and +Apennines sublime. Its charm is a certain mystery and repose--an +undefined sense of the neighboring 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 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. + +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 hill-side, to be a sign and sanctuary for after-men. A simple +rectilinear coffin, of smooth Verona _mandorlato_, raised on four thick +columns, and closed by a heavy cippus-cover. Without emblems, +allegories, or lamenting genii, this tomb of the great poet, the great +awakener of Europe from mental lethargy, encircled by the hills beneath +the canopy of heaven, is impressive beyond the power of words. Bending +here, we feel that Petrarch's own winged thoughts and fancies, eternal +and aërial, "forms more real than living man, nurslings of immortality," +have congregated to be the ever-ministering and irremovable attendants +on the shrine of one who, while he lived, was purest spirit in a veil of +flesh. + + +ON A MOUNTAIN. + +Milan is shining in sunset on those purple fields; and a score of cities +flash back the last red light, which shows each inequality and +undulation of Lombardy outspread four thousand feet beneath. Both +ranges, Alps and Apennines, 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 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. Cold 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 naught? + + +SIC GENIUS. + +In the picture-gallery at Modena there is a masterpiece of Dosso Dossi. +The frame is old and richly carved; and the painting, bordered by its +beautiful dull gold, shines with the lustre of an emerald. In his happy +moods Dosso set color upon canvas as no other painter out of Venice ever +did; and here he is at his happiest. The picture is the portrait of a +jester, dressed in courtly clothes and with a feathered cap upon his +head. He holds a lamb in his arms, and carries the legend, _Sic Genius_. +Behind him is a landscape of exquisite brilliancy and depth. His face is +young and handsome. Dosso has made it one most wonderful laugh. Even so +perhaps laughed Yorick. Nowhere else have I seen a laugh thus painted: +not violent, not loud, although the lips are opened to show teeth of +dazzling whiteness; but fine and delicate, playing over the whole face +like a ripple sent up from the depths of the soul within? Who was he? +What 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 immortalized by truthfullest art. +With the Gaul, the Spaniard, and the German at her gates, and in her +cities, and encamped upon her fields, Italy still laughed; and when the +voice of conscience sounding through Savonarola asked her why, she only +smiled--_Sic Genius_. + +One evening in May we rowed from Venice to Torcello, and at sunset broke +bread and drank wine together among the rank grasses just outside that +ancient church. It was pleasant to sit in the so-called chair of Attila +and feel the placid stillness of the place. Then there came lounging by +a sturdy young fellow in brown country clothes, with a marvellous old +wide-awake upon his head, and across his shoulders a bunch of massive +church-keys. In strange contrast to his uncouth garb he flirted a pink +Japanese fan, gracefully disposing it to cool his sun-burned 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 blended upon his features. Yet this impression was but the +prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath of humor +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. It broadened, showing brilliant teeth, and grew into a +noiseless laugh; and then I saw before me Dosso's jester, the type of +Shakespeare's fools, the life of that wild irony, now rude, now fine, +which once delighted courts. The laughter of the whole world and of all +the centuries was silent in his face. What he said need not be repeated. +The charm was less in his words than in his personality; for +Momus-philosophy lay deep in every look and gesture of the man. The +place lent itself to irony; parties of Americans and English parsons, +the former agape for any rubbishy old things, the latter learned in the +lore of obsolete church-furniture, had thronged Torcello; and now they +were all gone, and the sun had set behind the Alps, while an irreverent +stranger drank his wine in Attila's chair, and nature's jester +smiled--_Sic Genius_. + +When I slept that night I dreamed of an altar-piece in the Temple of +Folly. The goddess sat enthroned beneath a canopy hung with bells and +corals. On her lap was a beautiful winged smiling genius, who flourished +two bright torches. On her left hand stood the man of Modena with his +white lamb, a new St. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with +his keys, a new St. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent, +divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, _Sic Genius_. Are +not all things, even profanity, permissible in dreams? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[E] The down upon their cheeks and chin was yellower than helichrysus, +and their breasts gleamed whiter far than thou, O Moon. + +[F] Thy tresses have I oftentimes compared to Ceres' yellow autumn +sheaves, wreathed in curled bands around thy head. + +[G] Both these and the large frescos in the choir have been +chromo-lithographed by the Arundel Society. + +THE END. + + + +-----------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | + sign denotes Greek transliteration | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 15 loggie changed to logge | + | Page 18 Apennine changed to Apennines | + | Page 21 pleasaunce changed to pleasance | + | Page 27 obligato changed to obbligato | + | Page 29 dedicate changed to dedicated | + | Page 37 ome changed to some | + | Page 45 Heny changed to Henry | + | Page 47 Bernard changed to Bernardo | + | Page 69 led changed to del | + | Page 82 beretta changed to berretta | + | Page 91 intensily changed to intensely | + | Page 111 word "a" added | + | Page 128 Porsenna changed to Porsena | + | Page 147 loggie changed to logge | + | Page 149 Apeninnes changed to Apennines | + | Page 173 potect changed to protect | + | Page 173 Vernice changed to Venice | + | Page 178 aad changed to and | + | Page 180 ruining changed to running | + | Page 183 Bachus changed to Bacchus | + | Page 192 Signiory changed to Signory | + | Page 224 maccaroon changed to macaroon | + | Page 242 wagon changed to waggon | + | Page 273 piazetta changed to piazzetta | + | Page 298 sensibilty changed to sensibility | + | Page 304 colorist changed to colourist | + | Page 309 Monistero changed to Monastero | + | Page 317 colorist changed to colourist | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's New Italian sketches, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES *** + +***** This file should be named 24689-8.txt or 24689-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Barbara Kosker, Ted Garvin +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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margin-left: 6em;} + + .poem span.pn { /* uncomment the next line for invisible page numbers */ + /* visibility: hidden; */ + position: absolute; right: 2%; + font-size: 75%; + text-align: right; + text-indent: 0em; + font-style: normal; + font-weight: normal; + font-variant: normal;} /* page numbers in poems */ + .poem span.i12 {display: block; margin-left: 12em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i15 {display: block; margin-left: 15em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i17 {display: block; margin-left: 6em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem span.i8 {display: block; margin-left: 8em; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + + // --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> + </head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +Project Gutenberg's New Italian sketches, by John Addington Symonds + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: New Italian sketches + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: February 26, 2008 [EBook #24689] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Barbara Kosker, Ted Garvin +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + +</pre> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen" style="font-weight: bold;">Transcriber's Note:</p> +<br /> +<p class="noin">Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document has been preserved.</p> +<p class="noin">Hover over underlined greek text for transliteration.</p> +<p class="noin">Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. +For a complete list, please see the <span style="white-space: nowrap;"><a href="#TN">end of this document</a>.</span></p> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>NEW</h2> + +<h1>ITALIAN SKETCHES.</h1> + +<br /> +<h3>BY</h3> + +<h2>JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS,</h2> + +<h3>AUTHOR OF "SKETCHES IN ITALY," ETC.</h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3><i>COPYRIGHT EDITION.</i></h3> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h3>LEIPZIG</h3> + +<h3>BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ</h3> + +<h3>1884.</h3> + +<br /> + +<h4><i>The Right of Translation is reserved.</i></h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>PREFATORY NOTE.</h2> +<hr style="width: 15%" /> + +<p>This volume of New Italian Sketches has been made up from two books +published in England and America under the titles of "Sketches and +Studies in Italy" and "Italian Byways." It forms in some respects a +companion volume to my "Sketches in Italy" already published in the +Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors. But it is quite independent of +that other book, and is in no sense a continuation of it. In making the +selection, I have however followed the same principles of choice. That +is to say, I have included only those studies of places, rather than of +literature or history, which may suit the needs of travellers in Italy.</p> + +<p class="right"><span class="smcap">John Addington Symonds.</span></p> +<p style="margin-left: 2em;"><span class="smcap">Davos Platz</span>, <i>Dec. 1883</i>.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h4>TO</h4> +<h3>CHRISTIAN BUOL AND CHRISTIAN PALMY</h3> +<h4>MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW-TRAVELLERS</h4> +<h4>I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.</h4> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + +<h2>CONTENTS</h2> + +<div class="centered"> +<table border="0" width="70%" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" summary="Table of Contents"> + <tr> + <td class="tdl" width="80%"> </td> + <td class="tdr" width="20%"><span style="font-size: 90%;">Page</span></td> + </tr> + <tr> +<td class="tdl"><a href="#AUTUMN_WANDERINGS">AUTUMN WANDERINGS.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">11</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#MONTE_OLIVETO">MONTE OLIVETO.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">34</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#MONTEPULCIANO">MONTEPULCIANO.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">57</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#SPRING_WANDERINGS">SPRING WANDERINGS.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">84</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#MAY_IN_UMBRIA">MAY IN UMBRIA.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">106</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO">THE PALACE OF URBINO.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">138</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#A_VENETIAN_MEDLEY">A VENETIAN MEDLEY.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">169</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#THE_GONDOLIERS_WEDDING">THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">212</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#FORNOVO">FORNOVO.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">238</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#BERGAMO_AND_BARTOLOMMEO_COLLEONI">BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">261</td> + </tr> + <tr> + <td class="tdl"><a href="#LOMBARD_VIGNETTES">LOMBARD VIGNETTES.</a></td> + <td class="tdr">282</td> + </tr> +</table> +</div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<h1>NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES.</h1><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span><br /> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="AUTUMN_WANDERINGS" id="AUTUMN_WANDERINGS"></a><hr /> +<br /> + +<h2>AUTUMN WANDERINGS.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">I.—Italiam Petimus.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span>warm yellow of the larches and the crimson of the +bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aërial 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>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>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>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 logge, +enclosing a green space, whence soars the campanile to the stars. The +moon had sunk, but her 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> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span> +<br /> +<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">Over the Apennines.</span></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 +<span class="smcap">A.M.</span>, 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 summit of the pass, +we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldly 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>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 water-shed 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span>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 Apennines, 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 hill-sides 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>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 pink ling, 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> + +<br /> +<h3>III.—<span class="smcap">Fosdinovo.</span></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 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 then takes to the +open fields, bordered with tall reeds waving from the foss on either +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span>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 hill-side 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="noin" style="margin-left: 10%;"> +<span class="Greek" title="kai prospesôn eklaus' erêmias tychôn">καὶ προσπεσὼν ἔκλαυσ᾽ ἐρημίας τυχὼν</span><br /> +<span class="Greek" title="spondas te lysas askon on pherô zenois ">σπονδάς τε λύσας ἀσκὸν ὄν φέρω ζένοις</span><br /> +<span class="Greek" title="espeisa tymbô d' amphethêka mursinas.">ἔσπεισα τύμβῳ δ᾽ ἀμφέθηκα μυρσίνας.</span> +</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—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>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 +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 pleasance; 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 mœnia Lunæ</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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<h3>IV.—<span class="smcap">La Spezzia.</span></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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>me, and the drowned secret of Shelley's +death those waves which were his grave revealed not.</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">"Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!"<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<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 contrabbandiere, and he +too leaned against the stanchion and told me his short story. He was in +his nineteenth year, and came from Florence, where his people live in +the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a +sort of innocent malice mixed with <i>espièglerie</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</i>, <i>l'uomo volante</i>, <i>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span>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 +coastguard 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 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> + +<br /> +<h3>V.—<span class="smcap">Porto Venere.</span></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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>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 hanging sheer above the sea. +Their doors at the back open on to cliffs with drop about fifty feet +upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with medieval 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span>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 +obbligato, "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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>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> +<br /> + +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span> +<h3>VI.—<span class="smcap">Lerici.</span></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 +bas-reliefs 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>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 <i>Recollections</i> 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 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 +<i>Triumph of Life</i>. 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> + +<br /> +<h3>VII.—<span class="smcap">Viareggio.</span></h3> + +<p>The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where Shelley's +body was burned. Viareggio <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span>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 <i>Cor Cordium</i> 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> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="MONTE_OLIVETO" id="MONTE_OLIVETO"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span> +<h2>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 house-roofs 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>wonderful effect of luminousness self-evolved, and the red +brick walls that crimson after-glow, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span>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, 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 spleen-wort, primroses, and +broom tangle the hedges under <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>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. 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> + +<br /> +<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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span>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 +peace-maker 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 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 Christoforo 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>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 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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>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 Thebaid, 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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i17">The lonesome lodge,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That stood so low in a lonely glen.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>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 domino 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>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 +cœnobitical 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 up in several Tuscan cities; and +in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>are those which Virgil knew. The sight of one of +them would 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 aërial 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>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 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 thunderstorms 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>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 monks whom Bernardo 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>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 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 hill-side 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span>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 visitor's 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 tortoise-shell +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 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>affito</i>, or lease-holding.</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 sub-divided farms to more energetic people. The village <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span>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 conversations 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 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 +eery as that of willows by some haunted mere.</p> + +<br /> +<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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>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 +parti-coloured 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>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 Antichrist, 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 +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span>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="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>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. +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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>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 +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> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="MONTEPULCIANO" id="MONTEPULCIANO"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span> +<h2>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 +down-pour. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>we were pulling out +our watches and chattering in well-contented undertone about <i>vino +nobile</i>, <i>biftek</i>, and possibly a <i>pollo arrosto</i>, or a dish of <i>tordi</i>? +At 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>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 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 bed-room, 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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span>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 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 aërial 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>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, 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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>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 spring time, 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 +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<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 æons 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 +bas-reliefs, the works of that mysterious people. A propos of +Montepulciano's importance 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span>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 +Transatlantic 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="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span>sophisticated palate, +but clean in quality and powerful and racy. It deserves the enthusiasm +attributed by Redi to Bacchus:<a name="FNanchor_A_1" id="FNanchor_A_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_A_1" class="fnanchor">[A]</a>—</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Fill, fill, let us all have our will!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But with <i>what</i>, with <i>what</i>, boys, shall we fill?<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sweet Ariadne—no, not <i>that</i> one—<i>ah</i> no;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fill me the manna of Montepulciano:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Fill me a magnum and reach it me.—Gods!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">How it glides to my heart by the sweetest of roads!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">I'm ravished! I'm rapt! Heaven finds me admissible!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Lost in an ecstasy! blinded! invisible!—<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hearken all earth!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">To all who reverence us, are right thinkers;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hear, all ye drinkers!<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Give ear and give faith to the edict divine;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Montepulciano's the King of all wine.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<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> + +<br /> +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>Bartolommeo Aragazzi. He was a native of Montepulciano, +and secretary to Pope Martin V., that <i>Papa 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>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 moneybags, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span>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 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 del 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span>reincarnation. 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>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>Opposite the figure of Messer Aragazzi are two square bas-reliefs 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 bas-relief 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 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 bas-reliefs +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<h3>V.</h3> + +<p>At a certain point in the main street, rather more than half way 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' <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span></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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span><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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>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 aërial 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>life, the forum—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 realization 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>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 dark red, +brightening to golden, with some details, especially the tower of the +Palazzo Communale, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>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 wound along these barren ridges, were very fair to +look upon, especially one, not far from S. Quirico. It had for +foreground 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; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span><i>frittata di +cervelle</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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>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 berretta; behind +him a fine line of cypresses 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span>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> + + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_A_1" id="Footnote_A_1"></a><a href="#FNanchor_A_1"><span class="label">[A]</span></a> From Leigh Hunt's Translation.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="SPRING_WANDERINGS" id="SPRING_WANDERINGS"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span> +<h2>SPRING WANDERINGS.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">Ana-Capri.</span></h3> + + +<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, where 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>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>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">From Capri to Ischia.</span></h3> + +<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?—<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>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>Half-way 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 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">La Piccola Sentinella.</span></h3> + +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>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, gazenias 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. Not two islands that I know, within so 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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Ischia! c'est là qu'on a des yeux,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">C'est là qu'un corsage amoureux<br /></span> +<span class="i8">Serre la hanche.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sur un bas rouge bien tiré<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Brille, sous le jupon doré,<br /></span> +<span class="i8">La mule blanche—<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>in spite of these lines I did not find the Ischia women eminent, as +those of Capri are, for beauty. But the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span>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 toward 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 Cyclop's 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Ischia and Forio.</span></h3> + +<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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>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 pine-apple 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 <i>Masaniello</i>, 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. Florio +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>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span>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 +these 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Monte Epomeo.</span></h3> + +<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; and we took +for guide a lovely faun-like boy, goat-faced, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>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 met 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 +encouragement and curses. Straight or bending like 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 Typhœus. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span>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 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; aërial, 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span>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 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 hill-side, +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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread,<br /></span><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span> +<span class="i0">And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">But when on high hurl winds and clouds together,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 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> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span> +<h3><span class="smcap">From Ischia to Naples.</span></h3> + +<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 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, aërially 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span>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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Mecum si sapies, Gravina, mecum<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Baias, et placidos coles recessus,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quos ipsæ et veneres colunt, et illa<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quæ mentes hominum regit voluptas.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hic vina et choreæ jocique regnant,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Regnant et charites facetiæque.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has sedes amor, has colit cupido.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Hic passim juvenes puellulæque<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cœnantque et dapibus leporibusque<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Miscent delitias venustiores:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Miscent gaudia et osculationes,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Atque una sociis toris foventur,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Has te ad delitias vocant camœnæ;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Invitat mare, myrteumque littus;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Invitaut volucres canoræ, et ipse<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Gaurus pampineas parat corollas.<a name="FNanchor_B_2" id="FNanchor_B_2"></a><a href="#Footnote_B_2" class="fnanchor">[B]</a><br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>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, 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Night at Pompeii.</span></h3> + +<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 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 arm-chairs 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>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 contained +a family. Over its head there was a little shrine, hollowed in the +thickness of the wall, with several sacred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">San Germano.</span></h3> + +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>are brilliant. The +women wear a white petticoat, a blue skirt made straight and tightly +bound above it, a white richly-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 hill-sides 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 dei Medici. +Expelled from Florence in 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in +the Garigliano. Clement VII. ordered, and Duke Cosimo I. erected, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span>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—boy's school, refectory printing press, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>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 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> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_B_2" id="Footnote_B_2"></a><a href="#FNanchor_B_2"><span class="label">[B]</span></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></div> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiæ,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Where glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blend with dearer delights and love's embraces,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Blend with pleasures of youth and honeyed kisses,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Thee those billows allure, the myrtled seashore,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Twines his redolent wreath of vines and ivy.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span> +<a name="MAY_IN_UMBRIA" id="MAY_IN_UMBRIA"></a><hr /> +<br /> +<h2>MAY IN UMBRIA.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">From Rome to Terni.</span></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 thunder-clouds, +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>crimson on their horns and +dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span>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 all floating in +aërial 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Cascades of Terni.</span></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 hill-sides are a labyrinth of box and arbutus, with +coronilla in golden bloom. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Montefalco.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span>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 +here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The +world-famous Saint 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 name="FNanchor_C_3" id="FNanchor_C_3"></a><a href="#Footnote_C_3" class="fnanchor">[C]</a></p> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span> +<h3><span class="smcap">Foligno.</span></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 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, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span>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 dépôt, +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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>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 pawlonias 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>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 Corrado Trinci +paraded the mangled remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on +muleback, through Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the +procession moved along the ramparts, I found myself in contact 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 our half-hour's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>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 bed-room on the +city-wall. The last rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had +thundered ere I fell asleep.</p> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span> +<h3><span class="smcap">Spello.</span></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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span>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, +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 Guérin 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Easter Morning at Assisi.</span></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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>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 the divine grace, the dove-like +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 Phœbus or Athene, from their marble pedestals; but <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Perusia Augusta.</span></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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>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 thunder-cloud hang every day; but the plain and hill-buttresses are +clear 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span>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, and 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 underfoliage 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">La Magione.</span></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. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span>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 Petrucci. +These men vowed hostility on the basis of 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span>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 +Vitellezzo 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Cortona.</span></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 business. It +poured a deluge. Our horses <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>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 æsthetic vocation, whether<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 0.5em;">reative or critical, suffer more than is good for them by compliance</span><br /> +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 travelling, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, and +inserted in its outer walls—Peruzzi, 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 consisted in the little +creature throwing his arms about the trunk of a big tree, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>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 small pox at eight months, and has never been able to see since. He +looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age—doomed always, is that +possible, to beg?</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Chiusi.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>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 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 Porsena and Etruscan ethnology.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Gubbio.</span></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, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span>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 morticed into +the solid hill-side, 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 aërial 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, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">From Gubbio to Fano</span>.</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 at unexpected angles, +breaking into sudden precipices, and stretching out long, +exquisitely-modelled outlines, as only Apennines can do, in silvery +sobriety <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span>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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i2">Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Apenninigenis cultæ pastoribus aræ<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>—once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little pass +leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian water-shed, +and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the sea. The valley +is fairly green with woods, where misletoe 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>and sweetness, +grace and vigour, makes one wonder 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="noin"> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Lætior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Despiciturque vagus prærupta valle Metaurus,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Admittitque viam sectæ per viscera rupis.</span><br /> +</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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span>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 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 road-sides 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 saintfoil. 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span>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 snapdragon, 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, such luxuriance, such +self-abandonment to joy. The air was filled with fragrances. Songs of +cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on the hill-sides. 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 seashore 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>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> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_C_3" id="Footnote_C_3"></a><a href="#FNanchor_C_3"><span class="label">[C]</span></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></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO" id="THE_PALACE_OF_URBINO"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span> +<br /> +<h2>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 masterstroke 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 good-will of an accomplished gentleman. +The only exhibition of his hot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>Italian blood which I remember did his +humanity credit. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span>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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i6">Omai disprezza<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Te, la natura, il brutto<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">E l'infinita vanità dell tutto.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>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 outlands, 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>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 eagle's-nests of the same brood. What a +road it is! 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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Montasi su Bismantova in cacume<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Con esso i piè; ma qui convien ch'uom voli.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>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 +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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span>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 <i>Orlando Innamorato</i>. By comparing 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give the +building an irregular outline. The fine façade, with its embayed <i>logge</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 +<i>Cortegiano</i>. 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 pointed to the light which was +beginning to enter by the fissures of the windows. Whereupon we flung +the casements wide <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span>which +they ruled was a compact territory, some forty miles square, between the +Adriatic and 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span>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 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 good-will of his subjects by attending personally +to their interests, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>relieving them of imposts, and executing equal +justice. He gained the then unique reputation of an honest prince, +paternally disposed toward his dependants. 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 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>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. 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 bas-reliefs. It 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span>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 good-will. +Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>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 suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerrilla 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span>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, which Francesco Maria I. displayed in acts of homicide, +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span>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 dependants 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span>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. 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 +ultra-marine, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>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 cypher, 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 +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 +such like 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>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 MSS., 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 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 façade. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>connecting +these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion here dwells +near the temple of the liberal arts:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella,<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<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 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>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 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 daïs tore the Montefeltri's throne, and from the arras stripped +their ensigns, replacing these with his <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>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 Castiglione'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>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>Fossombrone, repeating +to his friends around his bed these lines of Virgil:</p> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 daïs 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 puppets of the musing mind. Once more imagination +plants trim <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span>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 +Bembo 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 <i>loggia</i>, 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 <i>loggia</i> 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>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, 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 after-glow 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>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 half way 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 bare-headed 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> + + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="A_VENETIAN_MEDLEY" id="A_VENETIAN_MEDLEY"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span> +<br /> +<h2>A VENETIAN MEDLEY.</h2> + +<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">First Impressions and Familiarity.</span></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 sunlitten 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">A Lodging in San Vio.</span></h3> + +<p>I have escaped from the hotels with their bustle of tourists and crowded +tables-d'hôte. My garden stretches <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>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 enormous hats, and jackets slung +on their left shoulder; women in kerchiefs of orange and crimson. +Bare-legged 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 winebarge 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<h3>III.—<span class="smcap">To Chioggia with Oar and Sail.</span></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 swan-like +movement of the gondola. In one of these boats—called by him the +<i>Fisolo</i> or <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>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 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>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 frame-work 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 sea-dinner—crabs, +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>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, and then in strength, +reflected on the sea. The <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>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 button-hole. The dew was on its +burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume.</p> + +<br /> +<h3>IV.—<span class="smcap">Morning Rambles.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span>of splendour on his canvases, or whether even Tintoretto could have +so 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 +water-line 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>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 +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, ruining, 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 frame-work 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>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 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 border-land of +the grotesque. And of this quality there are three remarkable instances +in the Scuola. No one but Tintoretto could have evoked the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span>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 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span>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 Ampezzo is stored in spring. Yonder square white house, +standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the Casa +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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>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>Rather than prolong this list, I will tell a story which drew 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> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span> +<h3>V.—<span class="smcap">A Venetian Novella.</span></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 closely shut within the private apartments of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>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 balustrated +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 ribbands 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span>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 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, walking +through a lane or <i>calle</i> which skirted Messer Pietro's 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>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 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>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 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 Signory 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span>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, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span>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 asunder. Pushing +back its lid, Gerardo descended into the grave and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span>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 +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>and bliss in +over-measure 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> + +<br /> +<h3>VI.—<span class="smcap">On the Lagoons.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span>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 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 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>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 after-glow blush crimson, and through their rifts the depth of +heaven is of a hard and gem-like 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 +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> + +<br /> +<h3>VII.—<span class="smcap">At the Lido.</span></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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>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. 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 mythopœic 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>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 salt-water 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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i4">Corruption most abhorred<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Mingling itself with their renownèd ashes.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 Itrian +marble, which roofed an open drain leading from the stable of a +Christian dog.</p> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span> +<h3>VIII.—<span class="smcap">A Venetian Restaurant.</span></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—<span class="Greek" title="hadou mageiros">ᾅδου μάγειρος</span>—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 +gondola 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span>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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>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 <i>chef</i> are in close +consultation. Here we have the privilege of inspecting the larder—fish +of various sorts, meat, vegetables, 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, beef-steak 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> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span> +<h3>IX.—<span class="smcap">Night in Venice</span>.</h3> + +<p>Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span>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 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 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 blueish 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>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> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="THE_GONDOLIERS_WEDDING" id="THE_GONDOLIERS_WEDDING"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span> +<br /> +<h2>THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING.</h2> +<br /> + +<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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>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>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>mezza 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span>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 +morì;" the other was a girl's love lament: "Perchè tradirmi, perchè +lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri così!" 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span>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, 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>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, +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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span>small advantages. It is great luck to +get such an engagement for 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span>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 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>, may be 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>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 bed-rooms opened 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>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 +macaroon 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 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 shop-keepers 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>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: "<i>Si divertirà bene stasera</i>!" Nobody +resented our presence; what was better, no one put himself out for us. +"<i>Vogliono veder il nostro costume</i>," 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span>air of lightness to her 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span>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 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 desert 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span>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 of +friends and foreigners, many of them souvenirs from English or American +employers. The men, in broad black hats and lilac skirts, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span>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. Azzò +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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span>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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>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 good-will 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> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="FORNOVO" id="FORNOVO"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span> +<br /> +<h2>FORNOVO.</h2> +<br /> + +<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 gray-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 splendor 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>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 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 frescos, +its hangings all in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and +mildew and discolored 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>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 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 6th, 1495, for the onset, sounded the <i>réveille</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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>of bare gray 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 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>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 mouse-trap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles and his +troops but 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span>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 8th 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 25th, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded by the +very worst pope who has ever occupied St. 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, 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>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, 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 honorable +prison. Virtual master in Milan, but without a legal title to the +throne, unrecognized 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>of a usurper to +maintain himself in his despotism which, as we shall see, brought the +French into Italy.</p> + +<p>Venice, the neighbor 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 favor of the conquerors.</p> + +<p>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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>resulting in the destruction of the old nobility, in the +equalization of the burghers, and in the formation of a new aristocracy +of wealth. From 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 terrorize 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 secularized 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 caused their religious claims to be respected. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>Corrupt and +shameless, they indulged themselves in every vice, openly acknowledged +their children, and turned Italy upside down in order to establish +favorites 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 Italianized 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 state-craft. 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 favor of the Angevine +princes, proved a constant source of peril to the rest of Italy by +rendering the succession <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>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 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 name="FNanchor_D_4" id="FNanchor_D_4"></a><a href="#Footnote_D_4" class="fnanchor">[D]</a></p> + +<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span>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 +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 civilization. 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 seven hundred +thousand 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span>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 vigor in the +republics and the noxious tyranny of the despots, analyzing 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span>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 the 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 grand-daughter, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>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." 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span>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 5th, +1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De Comines reckons +that his whole fighting force at this time did not exceed nine thousand +men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at the opening of +the valley was the army of the League, numbering some thirty-five +thousand 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, "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." <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span>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 +towards 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 Savoy. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his +great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The +French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the +Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a quarter of a league +from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the light cavalry of their +enemies entered the village and began to attack the baggage. At the same +time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower of his men-at-arms, crossed +the Taro and harassed the rear of the French host; while raids from the +right bank to the left were constantly being made by sharp-shooters 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 +three hundred and fifty men-at-arms, three thousand Switzers, three +hundred archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, and the +artillery. Next <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>came the Battle, and after this the rear-guard. At the +time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French rear-guard +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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span>advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the 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 favored 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 St. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>the petty +nobles were only too glad to devote themselves to so honorable 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>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 +shamfight 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 was a murderous horse-play; 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> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_D_4" id="Footnote_D_4"></a><a href="#FNanchor_D_4"><span class="label">[D]</span></a> Charles claimed under the will of René of Anjou, who in +turn claimed under the will of Joan II.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="BERGAMO_AND_BARTOLOMMEO_COLLEONI" id="BERGAMO_AND_BARTOLOMMEO_COLLEONI"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span> +<br /> +<h2>BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI.</h2> +<br /> + +<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, vapor-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 air-space 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 splendor <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span>live +here side by side. Grand Renaissance portals grinning with satyr masks +are flanked by tawdry frescos shamming stonework, or by doorways where +the withered bush hangs out a promise of bad wine.</p> + +<p>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, bass-reliefs, pilasters, +statuettes, incrusted 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 labors. Italian craftsmen of the <i>quattrocento</i> were +not averse to setting thus together, in one frame-work, 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 labor, 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 epitomized in +twelve of the sixteen bass-reliefs. The remaining four show Hercules +wrestling with Antæus, taming the Nemean lion, extirpating the Hydra, +and bending to his will the bull of Crete. Labor, appointed for a +punishment to Adam, becomes a title to immortality <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>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 bass-reliefs far-fetched; yet, such as +it is, it agrees with the spirit of humanism, bent ever on harmonizing +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 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>improvisatore</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 fifty thousand 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>an impression of caricature. Yet many subordinate +details—a row of <i>putti</i> in a Cinque Cento frieze, for instance—and +much of the low relief work, especially the Crucifixion, with its +characteristic episodes of the fainting Marys 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 cheekbones and strong jaws, this animated half-length statue +of the hero bears the 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>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, idealize the hero of romance; if Michael +Angelo'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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span>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 enroll +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 armor. +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 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 "Condottiere" 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span>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.</p> + +<p>It 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>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, manœuvring +against Il Piccinino, and gradually rising in the Venetian service, +until his condotta reached the number of eight hundred 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 than for using a success with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>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 Proveditore of the Republic. He now +took a commission from Filippo Maria Visconti, who received him at Milan +with great honor, 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 body-guard 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>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 +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 honor 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>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, 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 +fifteen hundred 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 St. Mark elected him general-in-chief of +their armies, with the fullest powers, and with a stipend of one hundred +thousand florins. For nearly twenty-one years, until the day of his +death, in 1475, Colleoni held this honorable 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>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 baton of St. 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 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 cortége. 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 St. +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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span>and, conducted by the doge in person, +walked to the Church of St. 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> + +<div class="blockquot"><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 <i>terra firma</i>. 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 splendor to maintain +and to defend the majesty, the loyalty, and the principles of +this empire. Neither provoking, nor yet provoked, unless at +our command, shall you break into open 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></div> + +<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 favorite 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. Honors 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>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, authorized +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 honor 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 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><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>Colleoni's court, like that of Urbino, was a model of 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 St. Chiara, the other +to St. Francis. In Bergamo itself he founded an establishment named "La +Pietà," for the good purpose of dowering and marrying poor girls. This +house he endowed with a yearly income of three thousand 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 St. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>Serio, in memory of his beloved daughter Medea. +Last, not least, was the Chapel of St. 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 +recognized 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 apiece 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 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 colored 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span>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 favorite +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 frescos, 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 some days +as the general's guest. In order to do him honor, 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span>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 armor, and gave to each of his servants a +complete livery of red and white, his colors. Among the frescos 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 St. Mark his +heir in chief, after properly providing for his daughters and his +numerous foundations. The Venetians received under this testament a sum +of one hundred thousand ducats, together with all arrears of pay due to +him, and ten thousand 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 St. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for +the proud republic had never accorded a similar honor, 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, to the purpose. Here +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span>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 St. 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 loath 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 +splendor 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>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 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 dishonorable dealings, +and Carmagnola to the scaffold by questionable practice against his +masters.</p> + +<br /> +<br /> +<a name="LOMBARD_VIGNETTES" id="LOMBARD_VIGNETTES"></a><hr /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span> +<br /> +<h2>LOMBARD VIGNETTES.</h2> + +<h3><span class="smcap">On the Superga.</span></h3> + + +<p>This is the chord of Lombard coloring in May: Lowest in the scale, +bright green of varied tints, the meadow-grasses mingling with willows +and acacias, harmonized 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 towards 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>to the mountains bare in morning light. +The occasional occurrence of 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 blended 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">A bronze Bust of Caligula at Turin.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span>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 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 the 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 idealizes 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 agonizing 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 tantalized 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, forever <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>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 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 pothouse dissipation and school-boy 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> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span> +<h3><span class="smcap">Ferrari at Vercelli.</span></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 St. Catherine in the Brera, bearing +the same artist's name. If they wish to understand this painter they +must seek him at Varallo, at Saronno, and at Vercelli. In the Church of +S. Christoforo, in Vercelli, Gaudenzio Ferrari, at the full height of +his powers, showed what he could do to justify Lomazzi'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 frescos) +neutralized by an incurable defect of the combining and harmonizing +faculty so essential to a masterpiece. There is stuff enough of thought +and vigor and imagination to make a dozen artists. And yet we turn away +disappointed from the crowded, dazzling, stupefying wilderness of forms +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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span>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 frescos, the +"Crucifixion," which has points of 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>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 frescos. 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 coloring, control over his own +luxuriance, the sense of tranquillity. He seems to have sought grandeur +in size and multitude, richness, éclat, contrast. Being the disciple of +Leonardo 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 realized them +with a force and <i>furia</i> granted to very few of the Italian painters.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Lanini at Vercelli</span>.</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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>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 frescos 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 bare-faced copy. 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 coloring 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 vigor. +But where the grace of form and color is so soft and sweet, where the +high-bred calm of good company is <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span>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 scala 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 snow-drops, +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; realizing Simætha's picture of her lover and his +friend:</p> + +<p class="noin" style="margin-left: 10%;"> +<span class="Greek" title="tois d' ên xanthotera men helichrysoio geneias,">τοῖς δ᾽ ἦν ξανθοτέρα μὲν ἑλιχρύσοιο γενειάς,</span><br /> +<span class="Greek" title="stêthea de stilbonta poly pleon ê ty Selana.">στήθεα δὲ στίλβοντα πολὺ πλέον ἢ τὺ Σελάνα.</span><a name="FNanchor_E_5" id="FNanchor_E_5"></a><a href="#Footnote_E_5" class="fnanchor">[E]</a><br /> +</p> + + +<p>It was thus that the almost childlike spirit of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span>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="noin"> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">E i tuoi capei più volte ho somigliati</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Di Cerere a le paglie secche o bionde</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 8em;">Dintorno crespi al tuo capo legati.<a name="FNanchor_F_6" id="FNanchor_F_6"></a><a href="#Footnote_F_6" class="fnanchor">[F]</a></span><br /> +</p> + +<p>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 vigor 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 frescos in S. Caterina will repay the student of art. This was +once, apparently, a double church with the hall and chapel of a +<i>confraternità</i> appended to it. One <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</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 round 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Piazza of Piacenza.</span></h3> + +<p>The great feature of Piacenza is its famous piazza—a romantically, +picturesquely perfect square, surpassing the most daring attempts of the +scene-painter, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span>and realizing 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 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 color.</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, etherealized, and harmonized by +one pervasive glow. When I last saw Piacenza, it had been raining all +day; and ere sun-down a clearing had come from the Alps, followed by +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span>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 thunder-cloud kept +flashing distant lightnings. The pallid primrose of the West, forced +down and reflected back from the vast bank of tempest, gave unearthly +beauty to the hues of church and palace—tender half-tones of violet and +russet paling into grays and yellows on what in daylight seemed but dull +red brick. Even the uncompromising façade of St. Francesco helped; and +the dukes were like statues of the "Gran Commendatore," waiting for Don +Giovanni's invitation.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Masolino at Castiglione D'olona.</span></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 frescos 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, St. +Stephen, and St. 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>and Lawrence before the tribunal remind us by dramatic energy of the +Brancacci chapel.</p> + +<p>The baptistery frescos, dealing with the legend of St. 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 realized. 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 <i>quattrocento</i> 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 St. 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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span>The color 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 prætereunt," etc. +A dirty, one-eyed fellow keeps the place. In my presence he swept the +frescos over with a scratchy broom, flaying their upper surface in +profound unconsciousness of mischief. The armor of the executioner has +had its steel colors almost rubbed off by this infernal process. Damp +and cobwebs are far kinder.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Certosa.</span></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 sight-seers 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>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 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 chant 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span>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 frescos 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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span>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 coloring 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 color what the greatest Lombard sculptors +sought in stone—a sharpness of relief that passes over into angularity. +This brusqueness was the counter-poise 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 St. Siro +with St. Lawrence and St. 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 Leonardo on that rare Assumption of Madonna by his +pupil, Andrea Solari. Like everything touched by the Leonardesque +spirit, this great picture was left unfinished; yet Northern Italy has +nothing finer to show than the landscape, outspread in its immeasurable +purity of calm, behind the grouped Apostles and the ascendent Mother of +Heaven. The feeling of that happy region between the Alps and Lombardy, +where there are many waters—<i>et tacitos sine labe lacus sine murmure +rivos</i>—and where the last spurs of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span>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 poniard; +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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">Much you had of land and rent;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Your length in clay's now competent:<br /></span> +<span class="i0">A long war disturbed your mind;<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Here your perfect peace is signed!<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>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 his wife, Beatrice <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>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 bass-reliefs of gleaming marble moulded +into softest wax by mastery of art—distract our eyes from the single +round <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>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 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 +ribbons incessantly inscribed with Ave Maria! Then, over all, the rich +red light <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span>and purple shadows of the brick, than which no substance +sympathizes 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 the poplars by the monastery +wall. Through that gray-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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">San Maurizio.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span>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 San Maurizio, Lombard +architecture and fresco-painting may be studied in this rare +combination. The monastery itself, one of the oldest in Milan, formed a +retreat for cloistered virgins following the rule of St. 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 frescos 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>differences of structure that +need not be described. Simple and severe, San 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 color. Every +square inch is covered with fresco or rich wood-work 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 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 St. Martin and the glorified +Madonna of the Brera frescos. It is not impossible <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span>that the male saints +of the loggia may be also his, though a tenderer touch, a something more +nearly Leonardesque 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 St. 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 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 harmonizing color 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, honored +by the Sforzas and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span>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 St. Scolastica.</p> + +<p>Few pictures bring the splendid Milanese court so vividly 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 frescos, they are +far surpassed both in value and interest by his paintings in the side +chapel of St. 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>feeling, and the peculiar beauty of his favorite +types. The chapel was decorated at the expense of a Milanese advocate, +Francesco Besozzi, who died in 1529. It is he who is kneeling, +gray-haired and bare-headed, under the protection of St. Catherine of +Alexandria, intently gazing at Christ unbound from the scourging-pillar. +On the other side stand St. Lawrence and St. 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 Sts. 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 St. +Catherine's execution, when the wheel was broken and the executioners +struck by lightning, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span>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 coloring. The most tragic situation has here again been +alchemized by Luini's magic into a pure idyl, without the loss of power, +without the sacrifice of edification.</p> + +<p>St. 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 Monastero 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 with the freedom of the +Milanese ladies. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>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 favor. 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 fifteen thousand golden crowns with which she +hoped to bribe her jailers, she was finally beheaded. Thus did a vulgar +and infamous Messalina, distinguished only by rare beauty, furnish Luini +with a St. Catherine for this masterpiece <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span>of pious art! The thing seems +scarcely credible. Yet Bandello lived in Milan while the Church of St. +Maurizio was being painted; nor does he show the slightest sign of +disgust at the discord between the Contessa's life and her artistic +presentation in the person of a royal martyr.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">A Humanist's Monument.</span></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> + +<div class="poem"><div class="stanza"> +<span class="i0">En Virtutem Mortis nesciam.<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Vivet Lancinus Curtius<br /></span> +<span class="i2">Sæcula per omnia<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Quascunque lustrans oras,<br /></span> +<span class="i0">Tantum possunt Camœnæ.<br /></span> +</div></div> + +<p>"Look here on Virtue that knows naught of Death! Lancinus Curtius shall +live through all the centuries, and visit every shore on earth. Such +power have the Muses." The time-worn 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_312" id="Page_312">[Pg 312]</a></span>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 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Monument of Gaston de Foix in the Brera.</span></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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_313" id="Page_313">[Pg 313]</a></span>hair +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 armor is quite plain. So is the +surcoat. Upon the swelling bust, that seems fit harbor 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 <span class="Greek" title="prôton hypênêtês">πρῶτον ὑπηνήτης</span>, "a 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 idealization 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, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_314" id="Page_314">[Pg 314]</a></span>youth and +fame, immortal honor and untimely death; nor could any sculptor of death +have poetized the theme more thoroughly than Agostino Busti, whose +simple instinct, unlike that of Michael Angelo, led him to subordinate +his own imagination to the pathos of reality.</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Saronno.</span></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 neighboring +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 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 Gaudenzio 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 frescos by Luini of St. Rocco, St. Sebastian, +St. Christopher, and St. Anthony—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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_315" id="Page_315">[Pg 315]</a></span>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 frescos 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 coryphæus 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 color. 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 harmonized 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_316" id="Page_316">[Pg 316]</a></span>like flowers in a vase. Each too has specific character, while +all are robust and full of life, intent upon the service set them. Their +instruments of music are all lutes and viols, flutes, cymbals, drums, +fifes, citherns, organs, and harps that Ferrari's day could show. The +scale of color, as usual with Ferrari, is a little heavy; nor are the +tints satisfactorily harmonized. But the vigor 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 vulgarized 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 +naught 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 color have now so far vanished from the cupola of +the Duomo that the constructive poverty is not disguised. Here, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_317" id="Page_317">[Pg 317]</a></span>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 these Parmese frescos, 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 frescos of the +"Marriage of the Virgin" and the "Dispute with the Doctors."<a name="FNanchor_G_7" id="FNanchor_G_7"></a><a href="#Footnote_G_7" class="fnanchor">[G]</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 St. 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. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_318" id="Page_318">[Pg 318]</a></span>In the "Disputa" the gravity and dignity of +old men are above all things striking.</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 +frescos. 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 color in fresco. +The blues detach themselves too much, perhaps, from the rest of the +coloring; and that is all a devil's advocate could say. It is possible +that the absence of blue makes the St. Catherine frescos 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 Leonardesque loveliness, whose divine innocence of +adolescence, unalloyed by serious thought, unstirred by passions, almost +forces a comparison with Sodoma. The only <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_319" id="Page_319">[Pg 319]</a></span>painter who approaches Luini +in what may be called the Lombard, to distinguish it from the Venetian +idyl, is Sodoma; and the work of his which comes nearest to Luini's +masterpieces is the legend of St. Benedict, at 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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">The Castello of Ferrara.</span></h3> + +<p>Is it possible that the patron saints of cities should mould the temper +of the people to their own likeness? St. George, the chivalrous, is +champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the cathedral porch, +so feudal in its mediæval pomp. He and St. Michael are painted in fresco +over the south portcullis of the castle. His lustrous armor gleams with +Giorgionesque brilliancy from Dossi's masterpiece in the Pinacoteca. +That <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_320" id="Page_320">[Pg 320]</a></span>Ferrara, the only place in Italy where chivalry struck any root, +should have had St. 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 draw-bridges, +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 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> + +<br /> +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_321" id="Page_321">[Pg 321]</a></span> +<h3><span class="smcap">Petrarch's Tomb at Arqua.</span></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 neighboring 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 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 hill-side, to be a sign and sanctuary for after-men. A simple +rectilinear <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_322" id="Page_322">[Pg 322]</a></span>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 aërial, "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> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">On a Mountain.</span></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, 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_323" id="Page_323">[Pg 323]</a></span>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 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 +<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_324" id="Page_324">[Pg 324]</a></span>the vast wonder of the world. Cold 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 naught?</p> + +<br /> +<h3><span class="smcap">Sic Genius.</span></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 color 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 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 <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_325" id="Page_325">[Pg 325]</a></span>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 immortalized 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 sun-burned 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 blended upon his features. Yet this impression was but the +prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath of humor +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. It broadened, showing brilliant teeth, and grew into a +noiseless laugh; and then I saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_326" id="Page_326">[Pg 326]</a></span>before me Dosso's jester, the type of +Shakespeare'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 St. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with +his keys, a new St. 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> + +<h4>FOOTNOTES:</h4> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_E_5" id="Footnote_E_5"></a><a href="#FNanchor_E_5"><span class="label">[E]</span></a> The down upon their cheeks and chin was yellower than +helichrysus, and their breasts gleamed whiter far than thou, O Moon.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_F_6" id="Footnote_F_6"></a><a href="#FNanchor_F_6"><span class="label">[F]</span></a> Thy tresses have I oftentimes compared to Ceres' yellow +autumn sheaves, wreathed in curled bands around thy head.</p></div> + +<div class="footnote"><p class="noin"><a name="Footnote_G_7" id="Footnote_G_7"></a><a href="#FNanchor_G_7"><span class="label">[G]</span></a> Both these and the large frescos in the choir have been +chromo-lithographed by the Arundel Society.</p></div> + +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<h2>THE END.</h2> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> +<br /> + + +<div class="tr"> +<p class="cen"><a name="TN" id="TN"></a>Transcriber's Note</p> +<br /> +Typographical errors corrected in text:<br /> +<br /> +Page 15 loggie changed to logge<br /> +Page 18 Apennine changed to Apennines<br /> +Page 21 pleasaunce changed to pleasance<br /> +Page 27 obligato changed to obbligato<br /> +Page 29 dedicate changed to dedicated<br /> +Page 37 ome changed to some<br /> +Page 45 Heny changed to Henry<br /> +Page 47 Bernard changed to Bernardo<br /> +Page 69 led changed to del<br /> +Page 82 beretta changed to berretta<br /> +Page 91 intensily changed to intensely<br /> +Page 111 word "a" added<br /> +Page 128 Porsenna changed to Porsena<br /> +Page 147 loggie changed to logge<br /> +Page 149 Apeninnes changed to Apennines<br /> +Page 173 potect changed to protect<br /> +Page 173 Vernice changed to Venice<br /> +Page 178 aad changed to and<br /> +Page 180 ruining changed to running<br /> +Page 183 Bachus changed to Bacchus<br /> +Page 192 Signiory changed to Signory<br /> +Page 224 maccaroon changed to macaroon<br /> +Page 242 wagon changed to waggon<br /> +Page 273 piazetta changed to piazzetta<br /> +Page 298 sensibilty changed to sensibility<br /> +Page 304 colorist changed to colourist<br /> +Page 309 Monistero changed to Monastero<br /> +Page 317 colorist changed to colourist<br /> +</div> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's New Italian sketches, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES *** + +***** This file should be named 24689-h.htm or 24689-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Barbara Kosker, Ted Garvin +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: New Italian sketches + +Author: John Addington Symonds + +Release Date: February 26, 2008 [EBook #24689] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES *** + + + + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Barbara Kosker, Ted Garvin +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + + + + + + +---------------------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original | + | document has been preserved. | + | | + | Greek text has been transliterated and marked with +'s. | + | | + | Obvious typographical errors have been corrected. For | + | a complete list, please see the end of this document. | + | | + +---------------------------------------------------------+ + + + + NEW + + ITALIAN SKETCHES. + + BY + + JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS, + + AUTHOR OF "SKETCHES IN ITALY," ETC. + + _COPYRIGHT EDITION._ + + LEIPZIG + + BERNHARD TAUCHNITZ + + 1884. + + _The Right of Translation is reserved._ + + + +PREFATORY NOTE. + + +This volume of New Italian Sketches has been made up from two books +published in England and America under the titles of "Sketches and +Studies in Italy" and "Italian Byways." It forms in some respects a +companion volume to my "Sketches in Italy" already published in the +Tauchnitz Collection of British Authors. But it is quite independent of +that other book, and is in no sense a continuation of it. In making the +selection, I have however followed the same principles of choice. That +is to say, I have included only those studies of places, rather than of +literature or history, which may suit the needs of travellers in Italy. + + JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS. + + DAVOS PLATZ, _Dec. 1883_. + + + TO + + CHRISTIAN BUOL AND CHRISTIAN PALMY + + MY FRIENDS AND FELLOW-TRAVELLERS + + I DEDICATE THIS BOOK. + + + +CONTENTS + + + Page + AUTUMN WANDERINGS 11 + + MONTE OLIVETO 34 + + MONTEPULCIANO 57 + + SPRING WANDERINGS 84 + + MAY IN UMBRIA 106 + + THE PALACE OF URBINO 138 + + A VENETIAN MEDLEY 169 + + THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING 212 + + FORNOVO 238 + + BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI 261 + + LOMBARD VIGNETTES 282 + + + + NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES. + + + + + AUTUMN WANDERINGS. + + I.--ITALIAM PETIMUS. + + +_Italiam petimus!_ We left our upland home before daybreak on a clear +October morning. There had been a hard frost, spangling the meadows with +rime-crystals, which twinkled where the sun's rays touched them. Men and +women were mowing the frozen grass with thin short Alpine scythes; and +as the swathes fell, they gave a crisp, an almost tinkling sound. Down +into the gorge, surnamed of Avalanche, our horses plunged; and there we +lost the sunshine till we reached the Bear's Walk, opening upon the +vales of Albula, and Julier, and Schyn. But up above, shone morning +light upon fresh snow, and steep torrent-cloven slopes reddening with a +hundred fading plants; now and then it caught the grey-green icicles +that hung from cliffs where summer streams had dripped. There is no +colour lovelier than the blue of an autumn sky in the high Alps, +defining ridges powdered with light snow, and melting imperceptibly +downward into the warm yellow of the larches and the crimson of the +bilberry. Wiesen was radiantly beautiful: those aerial 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 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. + +_Italiam petimus!_ We have climbed the valley of the Julier, following +its green, transparent torrent. A night has come and gone at Muehlen. The +stream still leads us up, diminishing in volume as we rise, up through +the fleecy mists that roll asunder for the sun, disclosing far-off snowy +ridges and blocks of granite mountains. The lifeless, soundless waste of +rock, where only thin winds whistle out of silence and fade suddenly +into still air, is passed. Then comes the descent, with its forests of +larch and cembra, golden and dark green upon a ground of grey, and in +front the serried shafts of the Bernina, and here and there a glimpse of +emerald lake at turnings of the road. Autumn is the season for this +landscape. Through the fading of innumerable leaflets, the yellowing of +larches, and something vaporous in the low sun, it gains a colour not +unlike that of the lands we seek. By the side of the lake at Silvaplana +the light was strong and warm, but mellow. Pearly clouds hung over the +Maloja, and floating overhead cast shadows on the opaque water, which +may literally be compared to chrysoprase. The breadth of golden, brown, +and russet tints upon the valley at this moment adds softness to its +lines of level strength. Devotees of the Engadine contend that it +possesses an austere charm beyond the common beauty of Swiss landscape; +but this charm is only perfected in autumn. The fresh snow on the +heights that guard it helps. And then there are the forests of dark +pines upon those many knolls and undulating mountain-flanks beside the +lakes. Sitting and dreaming there in noonday sun, I kept repeating to +myself _Italiam petimus!_ + +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. + +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 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. + +It is sad that words can do even less than painting could to bring this +window-scene at Promontogno before another eye. The casement just frames +it. In the foreground are meadow slopes, thinly, capriciously planted +with chestnut trees and walnuts, each standing with its shadow cast upon +the sward. A little farther falls the torrent, foaming down between +black jaws of rain-stained granite, with the wooden buildings of a +rustic mill set on a ledge of rock. Suddenly above this landscape soars +the valley, clothing its steep sides on either hand with pines; and +there are emerald isles of pasture on the wooded flanks; and then +cliffs, where the red-stemmed larches glow; and at the summit, shooting +into ether with a swathe of mist around their basement, soar the double +peaks, the one a pyramid, the other a bold broken crystal not unlike the +Finsteraarhorn seen from Furka. These are connected by a snowy saddle, +and snow is lying on their inaccessible crags in powdery drifts. +Sunlight pours between them into the ravine. The green and golden +forests now join from either side, and now recede, according as the +sinuous valley brings their lines together or disparts them. There is a +sound of cow-bells on the meadows; and the roar of the stream is dulled +or quickened as the gusts of this October wind sweep by or slacken. +_Italiam petimus!_ + +_Tangimus Italiam!_ Chiavenna is a worthy key to this great gate Italian. +We walked at night in the open galleries of the cathedral-cloister--white, +smoothly curving, well-proportioned logge, enclosing a green space, whence +soars the campanile to the stars. The moon had sunk, but her 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 mythopoeic yearning. But in our perplexed life it takes another +form, and seems the longing for emotion, ever fleeting, ever new, +unrealised, unreal, insatiable. + + +II.--OVER THE APENNINES. + +At Parma we slept in the Albergo della Croce Bianca, which is more a +bric-a-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 summit of the pass, +we stopped just half an hour, to lunch off a mouldly hen and six eggs; +but that was all the halt we made. + +As we drove out of Parma, striking across the plain to the _ghiara_ of +the Taro, the sun rose over the austere autumnal landscape, with its +withered vines and crimson haws. Christian, the mountaineer, who at home +had never seen the sun rise from a flat horizon, stooped from the box to +call attention to this daily recurring miracle, which on the plain of +Lombardy is no less wonderful than on a rolling sea. From the village of +Fornovo, where the Italian League was camped awaiting Charles VIII. upon +that memorable July morn in 1495, the road strikes suddenly aside, gains +a spur of the descending Apennines, and keeps this vantage till the +pass of La Cisa is reached. Many windings are occasioned by thus adhering +to aretes, but the total result is a gradual ascent with free prospect +over plain and mountain. The Apennines, built up upon a smaller scale +than the Alps, perplexed in detail and entangled with cross sections and +convergent systems, lend themselves to this plan of carrying highroads +along their ridges instead of following the valley. + +What is beautiful in the landscape of that northern water-shed 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 +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. + +From La Cisa the road descends suddenly; for the southern escarpment of +the Apennines, 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 hill-sides breaking down into +thick chestnut woods, through which we wound at a rapid pace for nearly +an hour. The leaves were still green, mellowing to golden; but the fruit +was ripe and heavy, ready at all points to fall. In the still October air +the husks above our heads would loosen, and the brown nuts rustle through +the foliage, and with a dull short thud, like drops of thunder-rain, +break down upon the sod. At the foot of this rich forest, wedged in +between huge buttresses, we found Pontremoli, and changed our horses here +for the last time. It was Sunday, and the little town was alive with +country-folk; tall stalwart fellows wearing peacock's feathers in their +black slouched hats, and nut-brown maids. + +From this point the valley of the Magra is exceeding rich 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 pink ling, a place to dream of in the twilight. But +the main motive of this landscape was the indescribable Carrara range, +an island of pure form and shooting peaks, solid marble, crystalline in +shape and texture, faintly blue against the blue sky, from which they +were but scarce divided. These mountains close the valley to south-east, +and seem as though they belonged to another and more celestial region. + +Soon the sunlight was gone, and moonrise came to close the day, as we +rolled onward to Sarzana, through arundo donax and vine-girdled olive +trees and villages, where contadini lounged upon the bridges. There was +a stream of sound in our ears, and in my brain a rhythmic dance of +beauties caught through the long-drawn glorious golden autumn-day. + + +III.--FOSDINOVO. + +The hamlet and the castle of Fosdinovo stand upon a mountain-spur above +Sarzana, commanding the valley of the Magra and the plains of Luni. This +is an ancient fief of the Malaspina House, and still in the possession +of the Marquis of that name. + +The road to Fosdinovo strikes across the level through an avenue of +plane trees, shedding their discoloured leaves. It 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 hill-side 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: + + +kai prospeson eklaus' eremias tychon + spondas te lysas askon on phero zenois + espeisa tymbo d' amphetheka mursinas.+ + +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 +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. + +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 pleasance; or may have watched through a short +summer's night, until he saw that _tremolar della marina_, portending +dawn, which afterwards he painted in the "Purgatory." + +From Fosdinovo one can trace the Magra work its way out seaward, not +into the plain where once the _candentia moenia Lunae_ flashed sunrise +from their battlements, but close beside the little hills which back the +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 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." + +If we can trust Fra Ilario's letter as a genuine record, which is +unhappily a matter of some doubt, we have in this narration not only a +picturesque, almost a melodramatically picturesque glimpse of the poet's +apparition to those quiet monks in their seagirt house of peace, but +also an interesting record of the destiny which presided over the first +great work of literary art in a distinctly modern language. + + +IV. LA SPEZZIA. + +While we were at Fosdinovo the sky filmed over, and there came a halo +round the sun. This portended change; and by evening, after we had +reached La Spezzia, earth, sea, and air were conscious of a coming +tempest. At night I went down to the shore, and paced the sea-wall they +have lately built 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. + + "Howler and scooper of storms! capricious and dainty sea!" + +Meanwhile the incantation swelled in shrillness, the electric shudders +deepened. Alone in this elemental overture to tempest I took no note of +time, but felt, through self-abandonment to the symphonic influence, how +sea and air, and clouds akin to both, were dealing with each other +complainingly, and in compliance to some maker of unrest within them. A +touch upon my shoulder broke this trance; I turned and saw a boy beside +me in a coastguard's uniform. Francesco was on patrol that night; but my +English accent soon assured him that I was no contrabbandiere, and he +too leaned against the stanchion and told me his short story. He was in +his nineteenth year, and came from Florence, where his people live in +the Borgo Ognissanti. He had all the brightness of the Tuscan folk, a +sort of innocent malice mixed with _espieglerie_. It was diverting to +see the airs he gave himself on the strength of his new military +dignity, his gun, and uniform, and night duty on the shore. I could not +help humming to myself _Non piu andrai_; for Francesco was a sort of +Tuscan Cherubino. We talked about picture galleries and libraries in +Florence, and I had to hear his favourite passages from the Italian +poets. And then there came the plots of Jules Verne's stories and +marvellous narrations about _l'uomo cavallo_, _l'uomo volante_, _l'uomo +pesce_. The last of these personages turned out to be Paolo Boynton (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 coastguard 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 piu +matto di tutta la famiglia--to adopt it, seems well-nigh quenched. And +still, with a return to Giulio Verne, he talked enthusiastically of +deserting, of getting on board a merchant ship, and working his way to +southern islands where wonders are. + +A furious blast swept the whole sky for a moment almost clear. The +moonlight fell, with racing cloud-shadows, upon sea and hills, the +lights of Lerici, the great _fanali_ at the entrance of the gulf, and +Francesco's upturned handsome face. Then all again was whirled in mist +and foam; one breaker smote the sea-wall in a surge of froth, another +plunged upon its heels; with inconceivable swiftness came 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. + + +V.--PORTO VENERE. + +For the next three days the wind went worrying on, and a line of surf +leapt on the sea-wall always to the same height. The hills all around +were inky black and weary. + +At night the wild libeccio still rose, with floods of rain and lightning +poured upon the waste. I thought of the Florentine patrol. Is he out in +it, and where? + +At last there came a lull. When we rose on the fourth morning, the sky +was sulky, spent and sleepy after storm--the air as soft and tepid as +boiled milk or steaming flannel. We drove along the shore to Porto +Venere, passing the arsenals and dockyards, which have changed the face +of Spezzia since Shelley knew it. This side of the gulf is not so rich +in vegetation as the other, probably because it lies open to the winds +from the Carrara mountains. The chestnuts come down to the shore in many +places, bringing with them the wild mountain-side. To make up for this +lack of luxuriance, the coast is furrowed with a succession of tiny +harbours, where the fishing-boats rest at anchor. There are many +villages upon the spurs of hills, and on the headlands naval stations, +hospitals, lazzaretti, and prisons. A prickly bindweed (the _Smilax +sarsaparilla_) forms a feature in the near landscape, with its creamy +odoriferous blossoms, coral berries, and glossy thorned leaves. + +A turn of the road brought Porto Venere in sight, and on its grey walls +flashed a gleam of watery sunlight. The village consists of one long +narrow street, the houses on the left side hanging sheer above the sea. +Their doors at the back open on to cliffs with drop about fifty feet +upon the water. A line of ancient walls, with medieval battlements and +shells of chambers suspended midway between earth and sky, runs up the +rock behind the town; and this wall is pierced with a deep gateway above +which the inn is piled. We had our lunch in a room opening upon the +town-gate, adorned with a deep-cut Pisan arch enclosing images and +frescoes--a curious episode in a place devoted to the jollity of +smugglers and seafaring folk. The whole house was such as Tintoretto +loved to paint--huge wooden rafters; open chimneys with pent-house +canopies of stone, where the cauldrons hung above logs of chestnut; rude +low tables spread with coarse linen embroidered at the edges, and laden +with plates of fishes, fruit, quaint glass, big-bellied jugs of +earthenware, and flasks of yellow wine. The people of the place were +lounging round in lazy attitudes. There were odd nooks and corners +everywhere; unexpected staircases with windows slanting through the +thickness of the town-wall; pictures of saints; high-zoned serving +women, on whose broad shoulders lay big coral beads; smoke-blackened +roofs, and balconies that opened on the sea. The house was inexhaustible +in motives for pictures. + +We walked up the street, attended by a rabble rout of boys--_diavoli +scatenati_--clean, grinning, white-teethed, who kept incessantly +shouting, "Soldo, soldo!" I do not know why these sea-urchins are so far +more irrepressible than their land brethren. But it is always thus in +Italy. They take an imperturbable delight in noise and mere annoyance. I +shall never forget the sea-roar of Porto Venere, with that shrill +obbligato, "Soldo, soldo, soldo!" rattling like a dropping fire from +lungs of brass. + +At the end of Porto Venere is a withered and abandoned city, climbing +the cliffs of S. Pietro; and on the headland 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. + +The headland is a bold block of white limestone stained with red. It has +the pitch of Exmoor stooping to the sea near Lynton. To north, as one +looks along the coast, the line is broken by Porto Fino's amethystine +promontory; and in the vaporous distance we could trace the Riviera +mountains, shadowy and blue. The sea came roaring, rolling in with tawny +breakers; but, far out, it sparkled in pure azure, and the cloud-shadows +over it were violet. Where Corsica should have been seen, soared banks +of fleecy, broad-domed alabaster clouds. + +This point, once dedicated to Venus, now to Peter--both, be it +remembered, fishers of men--is one of the most singular in Europe. The +island of Palmaria, rich in veined marbles, shelters the port; so that +outside the sea rages, while underneath the town, reached by a narrow +strait, there is a windless calm. It was not without reason that our +Lady of Beauty took this fair gulf to herself; and now that she has long +been dispossessed, her memory lingers yet in names. For Porto Venere +remembers her, and Lerici is only Eryx. There is a grotto here, where an +inscription tells us that Byron once "tempted the Ligurian waves." It is +just such a natural sea-cave as might have inspired Euripides when he +described the refuge of Orestes in "Iphigenia." + + +VI.--LERICI. + +Libeccio at last had swept the sky clear. The gulf was ridged with +foam-fleeced breakers, and the water churned into green, tawny wastes. +But overhead there flew the softest clouds, all silvery, dispersed in +flocks. It is the day for pilgrimage to what was Shelley's home. + +After following the shore a little way, the road to Lerici breaks into +the low hills which part La Spezzia from Sarzana. The soil is red, and +overgrown with arbutus and pinaster, like the country around Cannes. +Through the scattered trees it winds gently upwards, with frequent views +across the gulf, and then descends into a land rich with olives--a +genuine Riviera landscape, where the mountain-slopes are hoary, and +spikelets of innumerable light-flashing leaves twinkle against a blue +sea, misty-deep. The walls here are not unfrequently adorned with +bas-reliefs of Carrara marble--saints and madonnas very delicately +wrought, as though they were love-labours of sculptors who had passed a +summer on this shore. San Terenzio is soon discovered low upon the sands +to the right, nestling under little cliffs; and then the high-built +castle of Lerici comes in sight, looking across the bay to Porto +Venere--one Aphrodite calling to the other, with the foam between. The +village is piled around its cove with tall and picturesquely-coloured +houses; the molo and the fishing-boats lie just beneath the castle. +There is one point of the descending carriage road where all this +gracefulness is seen, framed by the boughs of olive branches, swaying, +wind-ruffled, laughing the many-twinkling smiles of ocean back from +their grey leaves. Here _Erycina ridens_ is at home. And, as we stayed +to dwell upon the beauty of the scene, came women from the bay +below--barefooted, straight as willow wands, with 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. + +At Lerici we took a boat and pushed into the rolling breakers. Christian +now felt the movement of the sea for the first time. This was rather a +rude trial, for the grey-maned monsters played, as it seemed, at will +with our cockle-shell, tumbling in dolphin curves to reach the shore. +Our boatmen knew all about Shelley and the Casa Magni. It is not at +Lerici, but close to San Terenzio, upon the south side of the village. +Looking across the bay from the molo, one could clearly see its square +white mass, tiled roof, and terrace built on rude arcades with a broad +orange awning. Trelawny's description hardly prepares one for so +considerable a place. I think the English exiles of that period must +have been exacting if the Casa Magni seemed to them no better than a +bathing-house. + +We left our boat at the jetty, and walked through some gardens to the +villa. There we were kindly entertained by the present occupiers, who, +when I asked them whether such visits as ours were not a great +annoyance, gently but feelingly replied: "It is not so bad now as it +used to be." The English gentleman who rents the Casa Magni has known +it uninterruptedly since Shelley's death, and has used it for +_villeggiatura_ during the last thirty years. We found him in the +central sitting-room, which readers of Trelawny's _Recollections_ have +so often pictured to themselves. The large oval table, the settees round +the walls, and some of the pictures are still unchanged. As we sat +talking, I laughed to think of 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, +"_Siete soddisfatto?_" + +There were great ilexes behind the house in Shelley's time, which have +been cut down, and near these he is said to have sat and written the +_Triumph of Life_. Some new houses, too, have been built between the +villa and the town; otherwise the place is unaltered. Only an awning has +been added to protect the terrace from the sun. I walked out on this +terrace, where Shelley used to listen to Jane's singing. The sea was +fretting at its base, just as Mrs. Shelley says it did when the Don Juan +disappeared. + +From San Terenzio we walked back to Lerici through olive woods, attended +by a memory which toned the almost overpowering beauty of the place to +sadness. + + +VII.--VIAREGGIO. + +The same memory drew us, a few days later, to the spot where Shelley's +body was burned. Viareggio is fast becoming a fashionable +watering-place for the people of Florence and Lucca, who seek fresher +air and simpler living than Livorno offers. It has the usual new inns +and improvised lodging-houses of such places, built on the outskirts of +a little fishing village, with a boundless stretch of noble sands. There +is a wooden pier on which we walked, watching the long roll of waves, +foam-flaked, and quivering with moonlight. The Apennines faded into the +grey sky beyond, and the sea-wind was good to breathe. There is a +feeling of "immensity, liberty, action" here, which is not common in +Italy. It reminds us of England; and to-night the Mediterranean had the +rough force of a tidal sea. + +Morning revealed beauty enough in Viareggio to surprise even one who +expects from Italy all forms of loveliness. The sand-dunes stretch for +miles between the sea and a low wood of stone pines, with the Carrara +hills descending from their glittering pinnacles by long lines to the +headlands of the Spezzian Gulf. The immeasurable distance was all +painted in sky-blue and amethyst; then came the golden green of the +dwarf firs; and then dry yellow in the grasses of the dunes; and then +the many-tinted sea, with surf tossed up against the furthest cliffs. It +is a wonderful and tragic view, to which no painter but the Roman Costa +has done justice; and he, it may be said, has made this landscape of the +Carrarese his own. The space between sand and pine-wood was covered with +faint, yellow, evening primroses. They flickered like little harmless +flames in sun and shadow, and the spires of the Carrara range were giant +flames transformed to marble. The memory of that day described by +Trelawny in a passage of immortal English prose, when he and Byron and +Leigh Hunt stood beside the funeral pyre, and libations were poured, and +the _Cor Cordium_ was found inviolate among the ashes, turned all my +thoughts to flame beneath the gentle autumn sky. + +Still haunted by these memories, we took the carriage road to Pisa, over +which Shelley's friends had hurried to and fro through those last days. +It passes an immense forest of stone-pines--aisles and avenues; +undergrowth of ilex, laurustinus, gorse, and myrtle; the crowded +cyclamens, the solemn silence of the trees; the winds hushed in their +velvet roof and stationary domes of verdure. + + + + +MONTE OLIVETO. + + +I. + +In former days the traveller had choice of two old hostelries in the +chief street of Siena. Here, if he was fortunate, he might secure a +prophet's chamber, with a view across tiled house-roofs 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, and the red +brick walls that crimson after-glow, which Tuscan twilight takes from +singular transparency of atmosphere. + +It is hardly possible to define the specific character of each Italian +city, assigning its proper share to natural circumstances, to the temper +of the population, and to the monuments of art in which these elements +of nature and of human qualities are blended. The fusion is too delicate +and subtle for complete analysis; and the total effect in each +particular case may best be compared to that impressed on us by a strong +personality, making itself felt in the minutest details. Climate, +situation, ethnological conditions, the political vicissitudes of past +ages, the bias of the people to certain industries and occupations, the +emergence of distinguished men at critical epochs, have all contributed +their quota to the composition of an individuality which abides long +after the locality has lost its ancient vigour. + +Since the year 1557, when Gian Giacomo de' Medici laid the country of +Siena waste, levelled her luxurious suburbs, and delivered her +famine-stricken citizens to the tyranny of the Grand Duke Cosimo, this +town has gone on dreaming in suspended decadence. Yet the epithet which +was given to her in her days of glory, the title of "Fair Soft Siena," +still describes the city. She claims it by right of the gentle manners, +joyous but sedate, of her inhabitants, by the grace of their pure Tuscan +speech, and by the unique delicacy of her architecture. Those palaces of +brick, with finely-moulded lancet windows, and the lovely use of +sculptured marbles in pilastered colonnades, are fit abodes for the +nobles who reared them five centuries ago, of whose refined and costly +living we read in the pages of Dante or of Folgore da San Gemignano. And +though the necessities of modern life, the decay of wealth, the +dwindling of old aristocracy, and the absorption of what was once an +independent state in the Italian nation, have obliterated that large +signorial splendour of the Middle Ages, we feel that the modern Sienese +are not unworthy of their courteous ancestry. + +Superficially, much of the present charm of Siena consists in the soft +opening valleys, the glimpses of long blue hills and fertile +country-side, framed by irregular brown houses stretching along the +slopes on which the town is built, and losing themselves abruptly in +olive fields and orchards. This element of beauty, which brings the city +into immediate relation with the country, is indeed not peculiar to +Siena. We find it in Perugia, in Assisi, in Montepulciano, in nearly all +the hill towns of Umbria and Tuscany. But their landscape is often +tragic and austere, while this is always suave. City and country blend +here in delightful amity. Neither yields that sense of aloofness which +stirs melancholy. + +The most charming district in the immediate neighbourhood of Siena lies +westward, near Belcaro, a villa high up on a hill. It is a region of +deep lanes and golden-green oak-woods, with cypresses and stone-pines, +and little streams in all directions flowing over the brown sandstone. +The country is like some parts of rural England--Devonshire or Sussex. +Not only is the sandstone here, as there, broken into deep gullies; but +the vegetation is much the same. Tufted spleen-wort, 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. Nowhere, except Maremma-wards, a level plain. The Tuscan +mountains, from Monte Amiata westward to Volterra, round Valdelsa, down +to Montepulciano and Radicofani, with their innumerable windings and +intricacies of descending valleys, are dappled with light and shade from +flying storm-clouds, sunshine here and there cloud-shadows. Girdling the +villa stands a grove of ilex-trees, cut so as to embrace its high-built +walls with dark continuous green. In the courtyard are lemon-trees and +pomegranates laden with fruit. From a terrace on the roof the whole wide +view is seen; and here upon a parapet, from which we leaned one autumn +afternoon, my friend discovered this _graffito_: "_E vidi e piansi il +fato amaro!_"--"I gazed, and gazing, wept the bitterness of fate." + + +II. + +The prevailing note of Siena and the Sienese seems, as I have said, to +be a soft and tranquil grace; yet this people had one of the stormiest +and maddest of Italian histories. They were passionate in love and hate, +vehement in their popular amusements, almost frantic in their political +conduct of affairs. The luxury, for which Dante blamed them, the levity +De Comines noticed in their government found counter-poise in more than +usual piety and fervour. S. Bernardino, the great preacher and +peace-maker of the Middle Ages; S. Catherine, the worthiest of all women +to be canonised; the blessed Colombini, who founded the Order of the +Gesuati or Brothers of the Poor in Christ; the blessed Bernardo, who +founded that of Monte Oliveto; were all Sienese. Few cities have given +four such saints to modern Christendom. The biography of one of these +may serve as prelude to an account of the Sienese monastery of Oliveto +Maggiore. + +The family of Tolomei was among the noblest of the 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 Christoforo 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 Caesarian 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 distributed. Tournaments alternated with dances. But the +climax of the pageant was the novice's investiture with sword and spurs +and belt in the cathedral. This, as it appears from a record of the year +1326, actually took place in the great marble pulpit carved by the +Pisani; and the most illustrious knights of his acquaintance were +summoned by the squire to act as sponsors for his fealty. + +It is said that young Bernardo Tolomei's head was turned to vanity by +these honours showered upon him in his earliest manhood. Yet, after a +short period of aberration, he rejoined his confraternity and mortified +his flesh by discipline and strict attendance on the poor. The time had +come, however, when he should choose a career suitable to his high rank. +He devoted himself to jurisprudence, and began to lecture publicly on +law. Already at the age of twenty-five his fellow-citizens admitted him +to the highest political offices, and in the legend of his life it is +written, not without exaggeration doubtless, that he ruled the State. +There is, however, no reason to suppose that he did not play an +important part in its government. Though a just and virtuous statesman, +Bernardo now forgot the special service of God, and gave himself with +heart and soul to mundane interests. At the age of forty, supported by +the wealth, alliances, and reputation of his semi-princely house, he had +become one of the most considerable party-leaders in that age of +faction. If we may trust his monastic biographer, he was aiming at +nothing less than the tyranny of Siena. But in that year, when he was +forty, a change, which can only be described as conversion, came over +him. He had advertised a public disputation, in which he proposed before +all comers to solve the most arduous problems of scholastic science. The +concourse was great, the assembly brilliant; but the hero of the day, +who had designed it for his glory, was stricken with sudden blindness. +In one moment he comprehended the internal void he had created for his +soul, and the blindness of the body was illumination to the spirit. The +pride, power, and splendour of this world seemed to him a smoke that +passes. God, penitence, eternity appeared in all the awful clarity of an +authentic vision. He fell upon his knees and prayed to Mary that he +might receive his sight again. This boon was granted; but the revelation +which had come to him in blindness was not withdrawn. Meanwhile the hall +of disputation was crowded with an expectant audience. Bernardo rose +from his knees, made his entry, and ascended the chair; but instead of +the scholastic subtleties he had designed to treat, he pronounced the +old text, "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity." + +Afterwards, attended by two noble comrades, Patrizio Patrizzi and +Ambrogio Piccolomini, he went forth into the wilderness. For the human +soul, at strife with strange experience, betakes itself instinctively to +solitude. Not only prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaid, 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 mediaeval mind +it had peculiar attractions. The wilderness these comrades chose was +Accona, a doleful place, hemmed in with earthen precipices, some fifteen +miles to the south of Siena. Of his vast possessions Bernardo retained +but this-- + + The lonesome lodge, + That stood so low in a lonely glen. + +The rest of his substance he abandoned to the poor. This was in 1313, +the very year of the Emperor Henry VII.'s death at Buonconvento, which +is a little walled town between Siena and the desert of Accona. Whether +Bernardo's retirement was in any way due to the extinction of immediate +hope for the Ghibelline party by this event, we do not gather from his +legend. That, as is natural, refers his action wholly to the operation +of divine grace. Yet we may remember how a more illustrious refugee, the +singer of the Divine Comedy, betook himself upon the same occasion to +the lonely convent of Fonte Avellana on the Alps of Catria, and +meditated there the cantos of his Purgatory. While Bernardo Tolomei was +founding the Order of Monte Oliveto, Dante penned his letter to the +cardinals of Italy: _Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo: facta est +quasi vidua domino gentium._ + +Bernardo and his friends hollowed with their own hands grottos in the +rock, and strewed their stone beds with withered chestnut-leaves. For S. +Scolastica, the sister of S. Benedict, they built a little chapel. Their +food was wild fruit, and their drink the water of the brook. Through the +day they delved, for it was in their mind to turn the wilderness into a +land of plenty. By night they meditated on eternal truth. The contrast +between their rude life and the delicate nurture of Sienese nobles, in +an age when Siena had become a by-word for luxury, must have been cruel. +But it fascinated the mediaeval imagination, and the three anchorites +were speedily joined by recruits of a like temper. As yet the new-born +order had no rules; for Bernardo, when he renounced the world, embraced +humility. The brethren were bound together only by the ties of charity. +They lived in common; and under their sustained efforts Accona soon +became a garden. + +The society could not, however, hold together without further +organisation. It began to be ill spoken of, inasmuch as vulgar minds can +recognise no good except in what is formed upon a pattern they are +familiar with. Then Bernardo had a vision. In his sleep he saw a ladder +of light ascending to the heavens. Above sat Jesus with Our Lady in +white raiment, and the celestial hierarchies around them were attired in +white. Up the ladder, led by angels, climbed men in vesture of dazzling +white; and among these Bernardo recognised his own companions. Soon +after this dream, he called Ambrogio Piccolomini, and bade him get +ready for a journey to the Pope at Avignon. + +John XXII. received the pilgrims graciously, and gave them letters to +the Bishop of Arezzo, commanding him to furnish the new brotherhood with +one of the rules authorised by Holy Church for governance of a monastic +order. Guido Tarlati, of the great Pietra-mala house, was Bishop and +despot of Arezzo at this epoch. A man less in harmony with +coenobitical enthusiasm than this warrior prelate, could scarcely have +been found. Yet attendance to such matters formed part of his business, +and the legend even credits him with an inspired dream; for Our Lady +appeared to him, and said: "I love the valley of Accona and its pious +solitaries. Give them the rule of Benedict. But thou shalt strip them of +their mourning weeds, and clothe them in white raiment, the symbol of my +virgin purity. Their hermitage shall change its name, and henceforth +shall be called Mount Olivet, in memory of the ascension of my divine +Son, the which took place upon the Mount of Olives. I take this family +beneath my own protection; and therefore it is my will it should be +called henceforth the congregation of S. Mary of Mount Olivet." After +this, the Blessed Virgin took forethought for the heraldic designs of +her monks, dictating to Guido Tarlati the blazon they still bear; it is +of three hills or, whereof the third and highest is surmounted with a +cross gules, and from the meeting-point of the three hillocks upon +either hand a branch of olive vert. This was in 1319. In 1324, John +XXII. confirmed the order, and in 1344 it was further approved by +Clement VI. Affiliated societies sprang up in several Tuscan cities; and +in 1347, Bernardo Tolomei, at that time General of the Order, held a +chapter of its several houses. The next year was the year of the great +plague or Black Death. Bernardo bade his brethren leave their seclusion, +and go forth on works of mercy among the sick. Some went to Florence, +some to Siena, others to the smaller hill-set towns of Tuscany. All were +bidden to assemble on the Feast of the Assumption at Siena. Here the +founder addressed his spiritual children for the last time. Soon +afterwards he died himself, at the age of seventy-seven, and the place +of his grave is not known. He was beatified by the Church for his great +virtues. + + +III. + +At noon we started, four of us, in an open waggonette with a pair of +horses, for Monte Oliveto, the luggage heaped mountain-high and tied in +a top-heavy mass above us. After leaving the gateway, with its massive +fortifications and frescoed arches, the road passes into a dull earthy +country, very much like some parts--and not the best parts--of England. +The beauty of the Sienese contado is clearly on the sandstone, not upon +the clay. Hedges, haystacks, isolated farms--all were English in their +details. Only the vines, and mulberries, and wattled waggons drawn by +oxen, most Roman in aspect, reminded us we were in Tuscany. In such +_carpenta_ may the vestal virgins have ascended the Capitol. It is the +primitive war-chariot also, capable of holding four with ease; and +Romulus may have mounted with the images of Roman gods in even such a +vehicle to Latiarian Jove upon the Alban hill. Nothing changes in Italy. +The wooden ploughs are those which Virgil knew. The sight of one of +them would save an intelligent lad much trouble in mastering a certain +passage of the Georgics. + +Siena is visible behind us nearly the whole way to Buonconvento, a +little town where the Emperor Henry VII. died, as it was supposed, of +poison, in 1313. It is still circled with the wall and gates built by +the Sienese in 1366, and is a fair specimen of an intact mediaeval +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 aerial 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 an Accademia delle Belle Arti, and there is no lack of +students. But the painters, having learned their trade, make copies ten +times distant from the truth of famous masterpieces for the American +market. Few seem to look beyond their picture galleries. Thus the +democratic art, the art of Millet, the art of life and nature and the +people, waits. + +As we mount, the soil grows of a richer brown; and there are woods of +oak where herds of swine are feeding on the acorns. Monte Oliveto comes +in sight--a mass of red brick, backed up with cypresses, among +dishevelled earthy precipices, _balze_ as they are called--upon the hill +below the village of Chiusure. This Chiusure was once a promising town; +but the life was crushed out of it in the throes of mediaeval civil wars, +and since the thirteenth century it has been dwindling to a hamlet. The +struggle for existence, from which the larger communes of this district, +Siena and Montepulciano, emerged at the expense of their neighbours, +must have been tragical. The _balze_ now grow sterner, drier, more +dreadful. We see how deluges outpoured from thunderstorms bring down +their viscous streams of loam, destroying in an hour the terraces it +took a year to build, and spreading wasteful mud upon the scanty +cornfields. The people call this soil _creta_; but it seems to be less +like a chalk than a marl, or _marna_. It is always washing away into +ravines and gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the +tillage of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vegetation +has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men have the +patience, generation after generation, to renew the industry, still +beginning, never ending, which reclaims such wildernesses. Comparing +Monte Oliveto with similar districts of cretaceous soil--with the +country, for example, between Pienza and San Quirico--we perceive how +much is owed to the monks whom Bernardo Tolomei planted here. So far as +it is clothed at all with crop and wood, this is their service. + +At last we climb the crowning hill, emerge from a copse of oak, glide +along a terraced pathway through the broom, and find ourselves in front +of the convent gateway. A substantial tower of red brick, machicolated +at the top and pierced with small square windows, guards this portal, +reminding us that at some time or other the monks found it needful to +arm their solitude against a force descending from Chiusure. There is an +avenue of slender cypresses; and over the gate, protected by a jutting +roof, shines a fresco of Madonna and Child. Passing rapidly downwards, +we are in the courtyard of the monastery, among its stables, barns, and +out-houses, with the forlorn bulk of the huge red building spreading +wide, and towering up above us. As good luck ruled our arrival, we came +face to face with the Abbate de Negro, who administers the domain of +Monte Oliveto for the Government of Italy, and exercises a kindly +hospitality to chance-comers. He was standing near the church, which, +with its tall square campanile, breaks the long stern outline of the +convent. The whole edifice, it may be said, is composed of a red brick +inclining to purple in tone, which contrasts not unpleasantly with the +lustrous green of the cypresses, and the glaucous sheen of olives. +Advantage has been taken of a steep crest; and the monastery, enlarged +from time to time through the last five centuries, has here and there +been reared upon gigantic buttresses, which jut upon the _balze_ at a +sometimes giddy height. + +The Abbate received us with true courtesy, and gave us spacious rooms, +three cells apiece, facing Siena and the western mountains. There is +accommodation, he told us, for three hundred monks; but only three are +left in it. As this order was confined to members of the nobility, each +of the religious had his own apartment--not a cubicle such as the +uninstructed dream of when they read of monks, but separate chambers for +sleep and study and recreation. + +In the middle of the vast sad landscape, the place is still, with a +silence that can be almost heard. The deserted state of those +innumerable cells, those echoing corridors and shadowy cloisters, +exercises overpowering tyranny over the imagination. Siena is so far +away, and Montalcino is so faintly outlined on its airy parapet, that +these cities only deepen our sense of desolation. It is a relief to mark +at no great distance on the hill-side a contadino guiding his oxen, and +from a lonely farm yon column of ascending smoke. At least the world +goes on, and life is somewhere resonant with song. But here there rests +a pall of silence among the oak-groves and the cypresses and _balze_. As +I leaned and mused, while Christian (my good friend and fellow-traveller +from the Grisons) made our beds, a melancholy sunset flamed up from a +rampart of cloud, built like a city of the air above the mountains of +Volterra--fire issuing from its battlements, and smiting the fretted +roof of heaven above. It was a conflagration of celestial rose upon the +saddest purples and cavernous recesses of intensest azure. + +We had an excellent supper in the visitor's 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 tortoise-shell +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 scraps were not supplied him with sufficient +promptitude. I never saw a hungrier and bolder cat. It made one fancy +that even the mice had been exiled from this solitude. And truly the +rule of the monastic order, no less than the habit of Italian gentlemen, +is frugal in the matter of the table, beyond the conception of northern +folk. + +Monte Oliveto, the Superior told us, owned thirty-two _poderi_, or large +farms, of which five have recently been sold. They are worked on the +_mezzeria_ system; whereby peasants and proprietors divide the produce +of the soil; and which he thinks inferior for developing its resources +to that of _affito_, or lease-holding. + +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 sub-divided farms to more energetic people. The village of Chiusure +is inhabited by labourers. The contadini are poor: a dower, for +instance, of fifty _lire_ is thought something: whereas near Genoa, upon +the leasehold system, a farmer may sometimes provide a dower of twenty +thousand _lire_. The country produces grain of different sorts, +excellent oil, and timber. It also yields a tolerable red wine. The +Government makes from eight to nine per cent upon the value of the land, +employing him and his two religious brethren as agents. + +In such conversations 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 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 +eery as that of willows by some haunted mere. + + +IV. + +The great attraction to students of Italian art in the convent of Monte +Oliveto is a large square cloister, covered with wall-paintings by Luca +Signorelli and Giovannantonio Bazzi, surnamed Il Sodoma. These represent +various episodes in the life of S. Benedict; while one picture, in some +respects the best of the whole series, is devoted to the founder of the +Olivetan Order, Bernardo Tolomei, dispensing the rule of his institution +to a consistory of white-robed monks. Signorelli, that great master of +Cortona, may be studied to better advantage elsewhere, especially at +Orvieto and in his native city. His work in this cloister, consisting of +eight frescoes, has been much spoiled by time and restoration. Yet it +can be referred to a good period of his artistic activity (the year +1497) and displays much which is specially characteristic of his manner. +In Totila's barbaric train, he painted a crowd of fierce emphatic +figures, combining all ages and the most varied attitudes, and +reproducing with singular vividness the Italian soldiers of adventure of +his day. We see before us the long-haired followers of Braccio and the +Baglioni; their handsome savage faces; their brawny limbs clad in the +parti-coloured 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 represented +in their work, the muscular vigour of young manhood. Two of the +remaining frescoes, different from these in motive, might be selected as +no less characteristic of Signorelli's manner. One represents three +sturdy monks, clad in brown, working with all their strength to stir a +boulder, which has been bewitched, and needs a miracle to move it from +its place. The square and powerfully outlined drawing of these figures +is beyond all praise for its effect of massive solidity. The other +shows us the interior of a fifteenth century tavern, where two monks are +regaling themselves upon the sly. A country girl, with shapely arms and +shoulders, her upper skirts tucked round the ample waist to which broad +sweeping lines of back and breasts descend, is serving wine. The +exuberance of animal life, the freedom of attitude expressed in this, +the mainly interesting figure of the composition, show that Signorelli +might have been a great master of realistic painting. Nor are the +accessories less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy +leaving the room by a flight of steps, which leads to the house door, +and the table at which the truant monks are seated, complete a picture +of homely Italian life. It may still be matched out of many an inn in +this hill district. + +Called to graver work at Orvieto, where he painted his gigantic series +of frescoes illustrating the coming of Antichrist, 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 +recently established himself in a species of tyranny over the Republic. +The work he did for this patron and other nobles of Siena, brought him +into notice. Vasari observes that his hot Lombard colouring, a something +florid and attractive in his style, which contrasted with the severity +of the Tuscan school, rendered him no less agreeable as an artist than +his free manners made him acceptable as a house-friend. Fra Domenico da +Leccio, also a Lombard, was at that time General of the monks of Monte +Oliveto. On a visit to this compatriot in 1505, Sodoma received a +commission to complete the cloister; and during the next two years he +worked there, producing in all twenty-five frescoes. For his pains he +seemed to have received but little pay--Vasari says, only the expenses +of some colour-grinders who assisted him; but from the books of the +convent it appears that 241 ducats, or something over 60_l._ of our +money, were disbursed to him. + +Sodoma was so singular a fellow, even in that age of piquant +personalities, that it may be worth while to translate a fragment of +Vasari's gossip about him. We must, however, bear in mind that, for some +unknown reason, the Aretine historian bore a rancorous grudge against +this Lombard, whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did all he +could by writing to depreciate. "He was fond," says Vasari, "of keeping +in his house all sorts of strange animals: badgers, squirrels, monkeys, +cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, racers, little Elba ponies, +jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, and other creatures of this kind, as +many as he could lay his hands on. Over and above these beasts, he had a +raven, which had learned so well from him to talk, that it could imitate +its master's voice, especially in answering the door when some one +knocked, and this it did so cleverly that people took it for +Giovannantonio himself, as all the folk of Siena know quite well. In +like manner, his other pets were so much at home with him that they +never left his house, but played the strangest tricks and maddest pranks +imaginable, so that his house was like nothing more than a Noah's Ark." +He was a bold rider, it seems; for with one of his racers, ridden by +himself, he bore away the prize in that wild horse-race they run upon +the Piazza at Siena. For the rest, "he attired himself in pompous +clothes, wearing doublets of brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace, +gorgeous caps, neck-chains, and other vanities of a like description, +fit for buffoons and mountebanks." In one of the frescoes of Monte +Oliveto, Sodoma painted his own portrait, with some of his curious pets +around him. He there appears as a young man with large and decidedly +handsome features, a great shock of dark curled hair escaping from a +yellow cap, and flowing down over a rich mantle which drapes his +shoulders. If we may trust Vasari, he showed his curious humours freely +to the monks. "Nobody could describe the amusement he furnished to those +good fathers, who christened him Mattaccio (the big madman), or the +insane tricks he played there." + +In spite of Vasari's malevolence, the portrait he has given us of Bazzi +has so far nothing unpleasant about it. The man seems to have been a +madcap artist, combining with his love for his profession a taste for +fine clothes, and what was then perhaps rarer in people of his sort, a +great partiality for living creatures of all kinds. The darker shades of +Vasari's picture have been purposely omitted from these pages. We only +know for certain, about Bazzi's private life, that he was married in +1510 to a certain Beatrice, who bore him two children, and who was +still living with him in 1541. The further suggestion that he painted +at Monte Oliveto subjects unworthy of a religious house, is wholly +disproved by the frescoes which still exist in a state of very tolerable +preservation. They represent various episodes in the legend of S. +Benedict; all marked by that spirit of simple, almost childish piety +which is a special characteristic of Italian religious history. The +series forms, in fact, a painted _novella_ of monastic life; its petty +jealousies, its petty trials, its tribulations and temptations, and its +indescribably petty miracles. Bazzi was well fitted for the execution of +this task. He had a swift and facile brush, considerable versatility in +the treatment of monotonous subjects, and a never-failing sense of +humour. His white-cowled monks, some of them with the rosy freshness of +boys, some with the handsome brown faces of middle life, others astute +and crafty, others again wrinkled with old age, have clearly been copied +from real models. He puts them into action without the slightest effort, +and surrounds them with landscapes, architecture, and furniture, +appropriate to each successive situation. The whole is done with so much +grace, such simplicity of composition, and transparency of style, +corresponding to the _naif_ 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 +music. This is perhaps the painter's masterpiece in the rendering of +pure beauty, if we except his S. Sebastian of the Uffizzi. + +We tire of studying pictures, hardly less than of reading about them! I +was glad enough, after three hours spent among the frescoes of this +cloister, to wander forth into the copses which surround the convent. +Sunlight was streaming treacherously from flying clouds; and though it +was high noon, the oak-leaves were still a-tremble with dew. Pink +cyclamens and yellow amaryllis starred the moist brown earth; and under +the cypress-trees, where alleys had been cut in former time for pious +feet, the short firm turf was soft and mossy. Before bidding the +hospitable Padre farewell, and starting in our waggonette for Asciano, +it was pleasant to meditate awhile in these green solitudes. Generations +of white-stoled monks who had sat or knelt upon the now deserted +terraces, or had slowly paced the winding paths to Calvaries aloft and +points of vantage high above the wood, rose up before me. My mind, still +full of Bazzi's frescoes, peopled the wilderness with grave monastic +forms, and gracious, young-eyed faces of boyish novices. + + + + +MONTEPULCIANO. + +I. + + +For the sake of intending travellers to this, the lordliest of Tuscan +hill-towns, it will be well to state at once and without circumlocution +what does not appear upon the time-tables of the line from Empoli to +Rome. Montepulciano has a station; but this railway station is at the +distance of at least an hour and a half's drive from the mountain upon +which the city stands. + +The lumbering train which brought us one October evening from Asciano +crawled into this station after dark, at the very moment when a storm, +which had been gathering from the south-west, burst in deluges of rain +and lightning. There was, however, a covered carriage going to the town. +Into this we packed ourselves, together with a polite Italian gentleman +who, in answer to our questions, consulted his watch, and smilingly +replied that a little half-hour would bring us easily to Montepulciano. +He was a native of the place. He knew perfectly well that he would be +shut up with us in that carriage for two mortal hours of darkness and +down-pour. And yet, such is the irresistible impulse in Italians to say +something immediately agreeable, he fed us with false hopes and had no +fear of consequences. What did it matter to him if we were pulling out +our watches and chattering in well-contented undertone about _vino +nobile_, _biftek_, and possibly a _pollo arrosto_, or a dish of _tordi_? +At the end of the half-hour, as he was well aware, self-congratulations +and visions of a hearty supper would turn to discontented wailings, and +the querulous complaining of defrauded appetites. But the end of half an +hour was still half an hour off; and we meanwhile were comfortable. + +The night was pitchy dark, and blazing flashes of lightning showed a +white ascending road at intervals. Rain rushed in torrents, splashing +against the carriage wheels, which moved uneasily, as though they could +but scarcely stem the river that swept down upon them. Far away above us +to the left, was one light on a hill, which never seemed to get any +nearer. We could see nothing but a chasm of blackness below us on one +side, edged with ghostly olive-trees, and a high bank on the other. +Sometimes a star swam out of the drifting clouds; but then the rain +hissed down again, and the flashes came in floods of livid light, +illuminating the eternal olives and the cypresses which looked like huge +black spectres. It seemed almost impossible for the horses to keep their +feet, as the mountain road grew ever steeper and the torrent swelled +around them. Still they struggled on. The promised half hour had been +doubled, trebled, quadrupled, when at last we saw the great brown sombre +walls of a city tower above us. Then we entered one of those narrow +lofty Tuscan gates, and rolled upon the pavement of a street. + +The inn at Montepulciano is called Marzocco, after the Florentine lion +which stands upon its column in a little square before the house. The +people there are hospitable, and more than once on subsequent occasions +have they extended to us kindly welcome. But on this, our first +appearance, they had scanty room at their disposal. Seeing us arrive so +late, and march into their dining-room, laden with sealskins, +waterproofs, and ulsters, one of the party 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 bed-room, where they +pointed to one fair-sized and one very little bed. This was the only +room at liberty, they said; and could we not arrange to sleep here? +_S'accomodi, Signore! S'accomodi, Signora!_ These encouraging words, +uttered in various tones of cheerful and insinuating politeness to each +member of the party in succession, failed to make us comprehend how a +gentleman and his wife, with a lean but rather lengthy English friend, +and a bulky native of the Grisons, could "accommodate themselves" +collectively and undividedly with what was barely sufficient for their +just moiety, however much it might afford a night's rest to their worse +half. Christian was sent out into the storm to look for supplementary +rooms in Montepulciano, which he failed to get. Meanwhile we ordered +supper, and had the satisfaction of seeing set upon the board a huge red +flask of _vino nobile_. In copious draughts of this the King of Tuscan +wines, we drowned our cares; and when the cloth was drawn, our friend +and Christian passed their night upon the supper table. The good folk of +the inn had recovered from their surprise, and from the inner recesses +of their house had brought forth mattresses and blankets. So the better +and larger half of the company enjoyed sound sleep. + +It rained itself out at night, and the morning was clear, with the +transparent atmosphere of storm-clouds hurrying in broken squadrons from +the bad sea quarter. Yet this is just the weather in which Tuscan +landscape looks its loveliest. Those immense expanses of grey undulating +uplands need the luminousness of watery sunshine, the colour added by +cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to rob them of +a certain awful grimness. The main street of Montepulciano goes straight +uphill for a considerable distance 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 aerial space. The piazza +is the top of all things. Here are the Duomo; the Palazzo del Comune, +closely resembling that of Florence, with the Marzocco on its front; the +fountain, between two quaintly sculptured columns; and the vast palace +Del Monte, of heavy Renaissance architecture, said to be the work of +Antonio di San Gallo. + +We climbed the tower of the Palazzo del Comune, and stood at the +altitude of 2000 feet above the sea. The view is finer in its kind than +I have elsewhere seen, even in Tuscany, that land of panoramic +prospects over memorable tracts of world-historic country. Such +landscape cannot be described in words. But the worst is that, even +while we gaze, we know that nothing but the faintest memory of our +enjoyment will be carried home with us. The atmospheric conditions were +perfect that morning. The sun was still young; the sky sparkled after +the night's thunderstorm; the whole immensity of earth around lay lucid, +smiling, newly washed in baths of moisture. Masses of storm-cloud kept +rolling from the west, where we seemed to feel the sea behind those +intervening hills. But they did not form in heavy blocks or hang upon +the mountain summits. They hurried and dispersed and changed and flung +their shadows on the world below. + + +II. + +The charm of this view is composed of so many different elements, so +subtly blent, appealing to so many separate sensibilities; the sense of +grandeur, the sense of space, the sense of natural beauty, and the sense +of human pathos; that deep internal faculty we call historic sense; that +it cannot be defined. First comes the immense surrounding space--a space +measured in each arc of the circumference by sections of at least fifty +miles, limited by points of exquisitely picturesque beauty, including +distant cloud-like mountain ranges and crystals of sky-blue Apennines, +circumscribing landscapes of refined loveliness in detail, always +varied, always marked by objects of peculiar interest where the eye or +memory may linger. Next in importance to this immensity of space, so +powerfully affecting the imagination by its mere extent, and by the +breadth of atmosphere attuning all varieties of form and colour to one +harmony beneath illimitable heaven, may be reckoned the episodes of +rivers, lakes, hills, cities, with old historic names. For there spreads +the lordly length of Thrasymene, islanded and citadelled, in hazy +morning mist, still dreaming of the shock of Roman hosts with +Carthaginian legions. There is the lake of Chiusi, set like a jewel +underneath the copse-clad hills which hide the dust of a dead Tuscan +nation. The streams of Arno start far far away, where Arezzo lies +enfolded in bare uplands. And there at our feet rolls Tiber's largest +affluent, the Chiana. And there is the canal which joins their fountains +in the marsh that Lionardo would have drained. Monte Cetona is yonder +height which rears its bristling ridge defiantly from neighbouring +Chiusi. And there springs Radicofani, the eagle's eyrie of a brigand +brood. Next, Monte Amiata stretches the long lines of her antique +volcano; the swelling mountain flanks, 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 AEneas Sylvius built palaces and called his +birthplace after his own Papal name. Still closer to the town itself of +Montepulciano, stretching along the irregular ridge which gave it +building ground, and trending out on spurs above deep orchards, come the +lovely details of oak-copses, blending with grey tilth and fields rich +with olive and vine. The gaze, exhausted with immensity, pierces those +deeply cloven valleys, sheltered from wind and open to the +sun--undulating folds of brown earth, where Bacchus, when he visited +Tuscany, found the grape-juice that pleased him best, and crowned the +wine of Montepulciano king. Here from our eyrie we can trace white oxen +on the furrows, guided by brown-limbed, white-shirted contadini. + +The morning glory of this view from Montepulciano, though irrecoverable +by words, abides in the memory, and draws one back by its unique +attractiveness. On a subsequent visit to the town in spring time, 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 +lowered like bastions, and all the masses of their mighty architecture +stood revealed in shadow and dim lamplight. Far and wide, the country +round us gleamed with bonfires; for it was the eve of the Ascension, +when every contadino lights a beacon of chestnut logs and straw and +piled-up leaves. Each castello on the plain, each village on the hills, +each lonely farmhouse at the skirt of forest or the edge of lake, +smouldered like a red Cyclopean eye beneath the vault of stars. The +flames waxed and waned, leapt into tongues, or disappeared. As they +passed from gloom to brilliancy and died away again, they seemed almost +to move. The twilight scene was like that of a vast city, filling the +plain and climbing the heights in terraces. Is this custom, I thought, a +relic of old Pales-worship? + + +III. + +The early history of Montepulciano is buried in impenetrable mists of +fable. No one can assign a date to the foundation of these high-hill +cities. The eminence on which it stands belongs to the volcanic system +of Monte Amiata, and must at some time have formed a portion of the +crater which threw that mighty mass aloft. But aeons have passed since +the _gran sasso di Maremma_ was a fire-vomiting monster, glaring like +Etna in eruption on the Tyrrhene sea; and through those centuries how +many races may have camped upon the summit we call Montepulciano! +Tradition assigns the first quasi-historical settlement to Lars Porsena, +who is said to have made it his summer residence, when the lower and +more marshy air of Clusium became oppressive. Certainly it must have +been a considerable town in the Etruscan period. Embedded in the walls +of palaces may still be seen numerous fragments of sculptured +bas-reliefs, the works of that mysterious people. A propos of +Montepulciano's importance in the early years of Roman history, I +lighted on a quaint story related by its very jejune annalist, Spinello +Benci. It will be remembered that Livy attributes the invasion of the +Gauls, who, after besieging Clusium, advanced on Rome, to the +persuasions of a certain Aruns. He was an exile from Clusium; and +wishing to revenge himself upon his country-people, he allured the +Senonian Gauls into his service by the promise of excellent wine, +samples of which he had taken with him into Lombardy. Spinello Benci +accepts the legend literally, and continues: "These wines were so +pleasing to the palate of the barbarians, that they were induced to quit +the rich and teeming valley of the Po, to cross the Apennines, and move +in battle array against Chiusi. And it is clear that the wine which +Aruns selected for the purpose was the same as that which is produced to +this day at Montepulciano. For nowhere else in the Etruscan district can +wines of equally generous quality and fiery spirit be found, so adapted +for export and capable of such long preservation." + +We may smile at the historian's _naivete_. 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 +Transatlantic 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 sophisticated palate, +but clean in quality and powerful and racy. It deserves the enthusiasm +attributed by Redi to Bacchus:[A]-- + + Fill, fill, let us all have our will! + But with _what_, with _what_, boys, shall we fill? + Sweet Ariadne--no, not _that_ one--_ah_ no; + Fill me the manna of Montepulciano: + Fill me a magnum and reach it me.--Gods! + How it glides to my heart by the sweetest of roads! + Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me! + Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears! + I'm ravished! I'm rapt! Heaven finds me admissible! + Lost in an ecstasy! blinded! invisible!-- + Hearken all earth! + We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth, + To all who reverence us, are right thinkers; + Hear, all ye drinkers! + Give ear and give faith to the edict divine; + Montepulciano's the King of all wine. + +It is necessary, however, that our modern barbarian should travel to +Montepulciano itself, and there obtain a flask of _manna_ or _vino +nobile_ from some trusty cellar-master. He will not find it bottled in +the inns or restaurants upon his road. + + +IV. + +The landscape and the wine of Montepulciano are both well worth the +trouble of a visit to this somewhat inaccessible city. Yet more remains +to be said about the attractions of the town itself. In the Duomo, which +was spoiled by unintelligent rebuilding at a dismal epoch of barren art, +are fragments of one of the rarest monuments of Tuscan sculpture. This +is the tomb of Bartolommeo Aragazzi. He was a native of Montepulciano, +and secretary to Pope Martin V., that _Papa Martino non vale un +quattrino_, on whom, during his long residence in Florence, the +street-boys made their rhymes. Twelve years before his death he +commissioned Donatello and Michelozzo Michelozzi, who about that period +were working together upon the monuments of Pope John XXIII. and +Cardinal Brancacci, to erect his own tomb at the enormous cost of +twenty-four thousand scudi. That thirst for immortality of fame, which +inspired the humanists of the Renaissance, prompted Aragazzi to this +princely expenditure. Yet, having somehow won the hatred of his +fellow-students, he was immediately censured for excessive vanity. +Lionardo Bruni makes his monument the theme of a ferocious onslaught. +Writing to Poggio Bracciolini, Bruni tells a story how, while travelling +through the country of Arezzo, he met a train of oxen dragging heavy +waggons piled with marble columns, statues, and all the necessary +details of a sumptuous sepulchre. He stopped, and asked what it all +meant. Then one of the contractors for this transport, wiping the sweat +from his forehead, in utter weariness of the vexatious labour, at the +last end of his temper, answered: "May the gods destroy all poets, past, +present, and future." I inquired what he had to do with poets, and how +they had annoyed him. "Just this," he replied, "that this poet, lately +deceased, a fool and windy-pated fellow, has ordered a monument for +himself; and with a view to erecting it, these marbles are being dragged +to Montepulciano; but I doubt whether we shall contrive to get them up +there. The roads are too bad." "But," cried I, "do you believe _that_ +man was a poet--that dunce who had no science, nay, nor knowledge +either? who only rose above the heads of men by vanity and doltishness?" +"I don't know," he answered, "nor did I ever hear tell, while he was +alive, about his being called a poet; but his fellow-townsmen now decide +he was one; nay, if he had but left a few more moneybags, 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, Caesar--meet us +in these frothy paragraphs. Cambyses, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius, are +thrown in to make the gruel of rhetoric "thick and slab." The whole +epistle ends in a long-drawn peroration of invective against "that +excrement in human shape," who had had the ill-luck, by pretence to +scholarship, by big gains from the Papal treasury, by something in his +manners alien from the easy-going customs of the Roman Court, to rouse +the rancour of his fellow-humanists. + +I have dwelt upon this episode, partly because it illustrates the +peculiar thirst for glory in the students of that time, but more +especially because it casts a thin clear thread of actual light upon the +masterpiece which, having been transported with this difficulty from +Donatello's workshop, is now to be seen by all lovers of fine art, in +part at least, at Montepulciano. In part at least: the phrase is +pathetic. Poor Aragazzi, who thirsted so for "diuturnity in monuments," +who had been so cruelly assaulted in the grave by humanistic jealousy, +expressing its malevolence with humanistic crudity of satire, was +destined after all to be defrauded of his well-paid tomb. The monument, +a master work of Donatello and his collaborator, was duly erected. The +oxen and the contractors, it appears, had floundered through the mud of +Valdichiana, and struggled up the mountain-slopes of Montepulciano. But +when the church, which this triumph of art adorned, came to be repaired, +the miracle of beauty was dismembered. The sculpture for which Aragazzi +spent his thousands of crowns, which Donatello touched with his +immortalising chisel, over which the contractors vented their curses and +Bruni eased his bile; these marbles are now visible as mere _disjecta +membra_ in a church which, lacking them, has little to detain a +traveller's haste. + +On the left hand of the central door, as you enter, Aragazzi lies, in +senatorial robes, asleep; his head turned slightly to the right upon the +pillow, his hands folded over his breast. Very noble are the draperies, +and dignified the deep tranquillity of slumber. Here, we say, is a good +man fallen upon sleep, awaiting resurrection. The one commanding theme +of Christian sculpture, in an age of Pagan feeling, has been adequately +rendered. Bartolommeo Aragazzi, like Ilaria del 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 reincarnation. 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 showing us the man himself in an +imagined state of sleep. Yet this imagined state of sleep is so +incalculably long, and by the will of God withdrawn from human prophecy, +that the ages sweeping over the dead man before the trumpets of +archangels wake him, shall sooner wear away memorial stone than stir his +slumber. It is a slumber, too, unterrified, unentertained by dreams. +Suspended animation finds no fuller symbolism than the sculptor here +presents to us in abstract form. + +The boys of Montepulciano have scratched Messer Aragazzi's sleeping +figure with _graffiti_ at their own free will. Yet they have had no +power to erase the poetry of Donatello's mighty style. That, in spite of +Bruni's envy, in spite of injurious time, in spite of the still worse +insult of the modernised cathedral and the desecrated monument, embalms +him in our memory and secures for him the diuturnity for which he paid +his twenty thousand crowns. Money, methinks, beholding him, was rarely +better expended on a similar ambition. And ambition of this sort, +relying on the genius of such a master to give it wings for perpetuity +of time, is, _pace_ Lionardo Bruni, not ignoble. + +Opposite the figure of Messer Aragazzi are two square bas-reliefs 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 bas-relief 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 arms to welcome them. Two young +men, with half-draped busts and waving hair blown off their foreheads, +anticipate the type of adolescence which Andrea del Sarto perfected in +his S. John. We might imagine that this masterly panel was intended to +represent the arrival of Messer Aragazzi in his home. It is a scene from +the domestic life of the dead man, duly subordinated to the recumbent +figure, which, when the monument was perfect, would have dominated the +whole composition. + +Nothing in the range of Donatello's work surpasses these two bas-reliefs +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. + + +V. + +At a certain point in the main street, rather more than half way 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 of the impulse given to +it by the "Miscellanea." The study of Roman law would have missed those +labours on the Pandects, with which the name of Politian is honourably +associated. From the Florentine society of the fifteenth century would +have disappeared the commanding central figure of humanism, which now +contrasts dramatically with the stern monastic Prior of S. Mark. +Benedetto's tragic death gave Poliziano to Italy and to posterity. + + +VI. + +Those who have a day to spare at Montepulciano can scarcely spend it +better than in an excursion to Pienza and San Quirico. Leaving the city +by the road which takes a westerly direction, the first object of +interest is the Church of San Biagio, placed on a fertile plateau +immediately beneath the ancient acropolis. It was erected by Antonio di +San Gallo in 1518, and is one of the most perfect specimens existing of +the sober classical style. The Church consists of a Greek square, +continued at the east end into a semicircular tribune, surmounted by a +central cupola, and flanked by a detached bell-tower, ending in a +pyramidal spire. The whole is built of solid yellow travertine, a +material which, by its warmth of colour, is pleasing to the eye, and +mitigates the mathematical severity of the design. Upon entering, we +feel at once what Alberti called the music of this style; its large and +simple harmonies, depending for effect upon sincerity of plan and +justice of balance. The square masses of the main building, the +projecting cornices and rounded tribune, meet together and soar up into +the cupola; while the grand but austere proportions of the arches and +the piers compose a symphony of perfectly concordant lines. The music is +grave and solemn, architecturally expressed in terms of measured space +and outlined symmetry. The whole effect is that of one thing pleasant to +look upon, agreeably appealing to our sense of unity, charming us by +grace and repose; not stimulative nor suggestive, not multiform nor +mysterious. We are reminded of the temples imagined by Francesco +Colonna, and figured in his _Hypnerotomachia Poliphili_. One of these +shrines has, we feel, come into actual existence here; and the religious +ceremonies for which it is adapted are not those of the Christian +worship. Some more primitive, less spiritual rites, involving less of +tragic awe and deep-wrought symbolism, should be here performed. It is +better suited for Polifilo's lustration by Venus Physizoe than for the +mass on Easter morning. And in this respect, the sentiment of the +architecture is exactly faithful to that mood of religious feeling which +appeared in Italy under the influences of the classical revival--when +the essential doctrines of Christianity were blurred with Pantheism; +when Jehovah became _Jupiter Optimus Maximus_; and Jesus was the _Heros_ +of Calvary, and nuns were _Virgines Vestales_. In literature this mood +often strikes us as insincere and artificial. But it admitted of +realisation and showed itself to be profoundly felt in architecture. + +After leaving Madonna di San Biagio, the road strikes at once into an +open country, expanding on the right towards the woody ridge of Monte +Fallonica, on the left toward Cetona and Radicofani, with Monte Amiata +full in front--its double crest and long volcanic slope recalling Etna; +the belt of embrowned forest on its flank, made luminous by sunlight. +Far away stretches the Sienese Maremma; Siena dimly visible upon her +gentle hill; and still beyond, the pyramid of Volterra, huge and +cloud-like, piled against the sky. The road, as is almost invariable in +this district, keeps to the highest line of ridges, winding much, and +following the dimplings of the earthy hills. Here and there a solitary +castello, rusty with old age, and turned into a farm, juts into +picturesqueness from some point of vantage on a mound surrounded with +green tillage. But soon the dull and intolerable _creta_, ash-grey +earth, without a vestige of vegetation, furrowed by rain, and desolately +breaking into gullies, swallows up variety and charm. It is difficult to +believe that this _creta_ of Southern Tuscany, which has all the +appearance of barrenness, and is a positive deformity in the landscape, +can be really fruitful. Yet we are frequently being told that it only +needs assiduous labour to render it enormously productive. + +When we reached Pienza we were already in the middle of a country +without cultivation, abandoned to the marl. It is a little place, +perched upon the ledge of a long sliding hill, which commands the vale +of Orcia; Monte Amiata soaring in aerial majesty beyond. Its old name +was Cosignano. But it had the honour of giving birth to AEneas Sylvius +Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and had assumed the +title of Pius II., determined to transform and dignify his native +village, and to call it after his own name. From that time forward +Cosignano has been known as Pienza. + +Pius II. succeeded effectually in leaving his mark upon the town. And +this forms its main interest at the present time. We see in Pienza how +the most active-minded and intelligent man of his epoch, the +representative genius of Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century, +commanding vast wealth and the Pontifical prestige, worked out his whim +of city-building. The experiment had to be made upon a small scale; for +Pienza was then and was destined to remain a village. Yet here, upon +this miniature piazza--in modern as in ancient Italy the meeting-point +of civic life, the forum--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 realization of his scheme to a Florentine architect; +whether Bernardo Rossellino, or a certain Bernardo di Lorenzo, is still +uncertain. The same artist, working in the flat manner of Florentine +domestic architecture, with rusticated basements, rounded windows and +bold projecting cornices--the manner which is so nobly illustrated by +the Rucellai and Strozzi palaces at Florence--executed also for Pius the +monumental Palazzo Piccolomini at Siena. It is a great misfortune for +the group of buildings he designed at Pienza, that they are huddled +together in close quarters on a square too small for their effect. A +want of space is peculiarly injurious to the architecture of this date, +1462, which, itself geometrical and spatial, demands a certain harmony +and liberty in its surroundings, a proportion between the room occupied +by each building and the masses of the edifice. The style is severe and +prosaic. Those charming episodes and accidents of fancy, in which the +Gothic style and the style of the earlier Lombard Renaissance abounded, +are wholly wanting to the rigid, mathematical, hard-headed genius of the +Florentine quattrocento. Pienza, therefore, disappoints us. Its heavy +palace frontispieces shut the spirit up in a tight box. We seem unable +to breathe, and lack that element of life and picturesqueness which the +splendid retinues of nobles in the age of Pinturicchio might have added +to the now forlorn Piazza. + +Yet the material is a fine warm travertine, mellowing to dark red, +brightening to golden, with some details, especially the tower of the +Palazzo Communale, in red brick. This building, by the way, is imitated +in miniature from that of Florence. The cathedral is a small church of +three aisles, equally high, ending in what the French would call a +_chevet_. Pius had observed this plan of construction somewhere in +Austria, and commanded his architect, Bernardo, to observe it in his +plan. He was attracted by the facilities for window-lighting which it +offered; and what is very singular, he provided by the Bull of his +foundation for keeping the walls of the interior free from frescoes and +other coloured decorations. The result is that, though the interior +effect is pleasing, the church presents a frigid aspect to eyes +familiarised with warmth of tone in other buildings of that period. The +details of the columns and friezes are classical; and the facade, +strictly corresponding to the structure, and very honest in its +decorative elements, is also of the earlier Renaissance style. But the +vaulting and some of the windows are pointed. + +The Palazzo Piccolomini, standing at the right hand of the Duomo, is a +vast square edifice. The walls are flat and even, pierced at regular +intervals with windows, except upon the south-west side, where the +rectangular design is broken by a noble double Loggiata, gallery rising +above gallery--serene curves of arches, grandly proportioned columns, +massive balustrades, a spacious corridor, a roomy vaulting--opening out +upon the palace garden, and offering fair prospect over the wooded +heights of Castiglione and Rocca d'Orcia, up to Radicofani and shadowy +Amiata. It was in these double tiers of galleries, in the garden beneath +and in the open inner square of the palazzo, that the great life of +Italian aristocracy displayed itself. Four centuries ago these spaces, +now so desolate in their immensity, echoed to the tread of serving-men, +the songs of pages; horse-hooves struck upon the pavement of the court; +spurs jingled on the staircases; the brocaded trains of ladies sweeping +from their chambers rustled on the marbles of the loggia; knights let +their hawks fly from the garden-parapets; cardinals and abbreviators +gathered round the doors from which the Pope would issue, when he rose +from his siesta to take the cool of evening in those airy colonnades. +How impossible it is to realise that scene amid this solitude! The +palazzo still belongs to the Piccolomini family. But it has fallen into +something worse than ruin--the squalor of half-starved existence, shorn +of all that justified its grand proportions. Partition-walls have been +run up across its halls to meet the requirements of our contracted +modern customs. Nothing remains of the original decorations except one +carved chimney-piece, an emblazoned shield, and a frescoed portrait of +the founder. All movable treasures have been made away with. And yet the +carved heraldics of the exterior, the coat of Piccolomini, "argent, on a +cross azure five crescents or," the Papal ensigns, keys, and tiara, and +the monogram of Pius, prove that this country dwelling of a Pope must +once have been rich in details befitting its magnificence. With the +exception of the very small portion reserved for the Signori, when they +visit Pienza, the palace has become a granary for country produce in a +starveling land. There was one redeeming point about it to my mind. That +was the handsome young man, with earnest Tuscan eyes and a wonderfully +sweet voice, the servant of the Piccolomini family, who lives here with +his crippled father, and who showed us over the apartments. + +We left Pienza and drove on to S. Quirico, through the same wrinkled +wilderness of marl; wasteful, uncultivated, bare to every wind that +blows. A cruel blast was sweeping from the sea, and Monte Amiata +darkened with rain clouds. Still the pictures, which formed themselves +at intervals, as we wound along these barren ridges, were very fair to +look upon, especially one, not far from S. Quirico. It had for +foreground a stretch of tilth--olive-trees, honeysuckle hedges, and +cypresses. Beyond soared Amiata in all its breadth and blue +air-blackness, bearing on its mighty flanks the broken cliffs and tufted +woods of Castiglione and the Rocca d'Orcia; eagles' nests emerging from +a fertile valley-champaign, into which the eye was led for rest. It so +chanced that a band of sunlight, escaping from filmy clouds, touched +this picture with silvery greys and soft greens--a suffusion of vaporous +radiance, which made it for one moment a Claude landscape. + +S. Quirico was keeping _festa_. The streets were crowded with healthy +handsome men and women from the contado. This village lies on the edge +of a great oasis in the Sienese desert--an oasis, formed by the waters +of the Orcia and Asso sweeping down to join Ombrone, and stretching on +to Montalcino. We put up at the sign of the "Two Hares," where a notable +housewife gave us a dinner of all we could desire; _frittata di +cervelle_, good fish, roast lamb stuffed with rosemary, salad and +cheese, with excellent wine and black coffee, at the rate of three +_lire_ a head. + +The attraction of S. Quirico is its gem-like little collegiata, a +Lombard church of the ninth century, with carved portals of the +thirteenth. It is built of golden travertine; some details in brown +sandstone. The western and southern portals have pillars resting on the +backs of lions. On the western side these pillars are four slender +columns, linked by snake-like ligatures. On the southern side they +consist of two carved figures--possibly S. John and the Archangel +Michael. There is great freedom and beauty in these statues, as also in +the lions which support them, recalling the early French and German +manner. In addition, one finds the usual Lombard grotesques--two +sea-monsters, biting each other; harpy-birds; a dragon with a twisted +tail; little men grinning and squatting in adaptation to coigns and +angles of the windows. The toothed and chevron patterns of the north are +quaintly blent with rude acanthus scrolls and classical egg-mouldings. +Over the western porch is a Gothic rose window. Altogether this church +must be reckoned one of the most curious specimens of that hybrid +architecture, fusing and appropriating different manners, which +perplexes the student in Central Italy. It seems strangely out of place +in Tuscany. Yet, if what one reads of Toscanella, a village between +Viterbo and Orbetello, be true, there exist examples of a similar +fantastic Lombard style even lower down. + +The interior was most disastrously gutted and "restored" in 1731: its +open wooden roof masked by a false stucco vaulting. A few relics, spared +by the eighteenth century Vandals, show that the church was once rich +in antique curiosities. A marble knight in armour lies on his back, half +hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in the choir are half a dozen rarely +beautiful panels of tarsia, executed in a bold style and on a large +scale. One design--a man throwing his face back, and singing, while he +plays a mandoline; with long thick hair and fanciful berretta; behind +him a fine line of cypresses and other trees--struck me as singularly +lovely. In another I noticed a branch of peach, broad leaves and ripe +fruit, not only drawn with remarkable grace and power, but so modelled +as to stand out with the roundness of reality. + +The whole drive of three hours back to Montepulciano was one long +banquet of inimitable distant views. Next morning, having to take +farewell of the place, we climbed to the Castello, or _arx_ of the old +city! It is a ruined spot, outside the present walls, upon the southern +slope, where there is now a farm, and a fair space of short +sheep-cropped turf, very green and 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. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[A] From Leigh Hunt's Translation. + + + + +SPRING WANDERINGS. + +ANA-CAPRI. + + +The storm-clouds at this season, though it is the bloom of May, are +daily piled in sulky or menacing masses over Vesuvius and the Abruzzi, +frothing out their curls of moulded mist across the bay, and climbing +the heavens with toppling castle towers and domes of alabaster. + +We made the most of a tranquil afternoon, where 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. + +The distinction between prospects viewed from a mountain overlooking a +great plain, or viewed from heights that, like this, dominate the sea, +principally lies in this: that while the former only offer cloud shadows +cast upon the fields below our feet, in the latter these shadows are +diversified with cloud reflections. This gives superiority in qualities +of colour, variety of tone, and luminous effect to the sea, compensating +in some measure for the lack of those associations which render the +outlook over a wide extent of populated land so thrilling. The emergence +of towered cities into sunlight at the skirts of moving shadows, the +liquid lapse of rivers half disclosed by windings among woods, the +upturned mirrors of unruffled lakes, are wanting to the sea. For such +episodes the white sails of vessels, with all their wistfulness of going +to and fro on the mysterious deep, are but a poor exchange. Yet the +sea-lover may justify his preference by appealing to the beauty of +empurpled shadows, toned by amethyst or opal or shining with violet +light, reflected from the clouds that cross and find in those dark +shields a mirror. There are suggestions, too, of immensity, of liberty, +of action, presented by the boundless horizons and the changeful +changeless tracts of ocean which no plain possesses. + +It was nigh upon sunset when we descended to Ana-Capri. That evening the +clouds assembled suddenly. The armistice of storm was broken. They were +terribly blue, and the sea grew dark as steel beneath them, till the +moment when the sun's lip reached the last edge of the waters. Then a +courier of rosy flame sent forth from him passed swift across the gulf, +touching, where it trod, the waves with accidental fire. The messenger +reached Naples; and in a moment, as by some diabolical illumination, the +sinful city kindled into light like glowing charcoal. From Posilippo on +the left, along the palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. Elmo on the hill, +past Santa Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond Portici, beyond Torre +del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an angry mount of +amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached Pompeii, and +dwelt on Torre dell'Annunziata. Stationary, lurid, it smouldered while +the day died slowly. The long, densely populated sea-line from Pozzuoli +to Castellammare burned and smoked with intensest incandescence, sending +a glare of fiery mist against the threatening blue behind, and fringing +with pomegranate-coloured blots the water where no light now lingered. +It is difficult to bend words to the use required. The scene in spite of +natural suavity and grace, had become like Dante's first glimpse of the +City of Dis--like Sodom and Gomorrah when fire from heaven descended on +their towers before they crumbled into dust. + + +FROM CAPRI TO ISCHIA. + +After this, for several days, Libeccio blew harder. No boats could leave +or come to Capri. From the piazza parapet we saw the wind scooping the +surface of the waves, and flinging spray-fleeces in sheets upon the +churning water. As they broke on Cape Campanella, the rollers climbed in +foam--how many feet?--and blotted out the olive trees above the +headland. The sky was always dark with hanging clouds and masses of +low-lying vapour, very moist, but scarcely raining--lightning without +thunder in the night. + +Such weather is unexpected in the middle month of May, especially when +the olives are blackened by December storms, and the orange-trees +despoiled of foliage, and the tendrils of the vines yellow with cold. +The walnut-trees have shown no sign of making leaves. Only the figs seem +to have suffered little. + +It had been settled that we should start upon the first seafaring dawn +for Ischia or Sorrento, according as the wind might set; and I was glad +when, early one morning, the captain of the _Serena_ announced a +moderate sirocco. When we reached the little quay we found the surf of +the libeccio still rolling heavily into the gulf. A gusty south-easter +crossed it, tearing spray-crests from the swell as it went plunging +onward. The sea was rough enough; but we made fast sailing, our captain +steering with a skill which it was beautiful to watch, his five oarsmen +picturesquely grouped beneath the straining sail. The sea slapped and +broke from time to time on our windward quarter, drenching the boat with +brine; and now and then her gunwale scooped into the shoulder of a wave +as she shot sidling up it. Meanwhile enormous masses of leaden-coloured +clouds formed above our heads and on the sea-line; but these were always +shifting in the strife of winds, and the sun shone through them +petulantly. As we climbed the rollers, or sank into their trough, the +outline of the bay appeared in glimpses, shyly revealed, suddenly +withdrawn from sight; the immobility and majesty of mountains contrasted +with the weltering waste of water round us--now blue and garish where +the sunlight fell, now shrouded in squally rain-storms, and then again +sullen beneath a vaporous canopy. Each of these vignettes was +photographed for one brief second on the brain, and swallowed by the +hurling drift of billows. The painter's art could but ill have rendered +that changeful colour in the sea, passing from tawny cloud-reflections +and surfaces of glowing violet to bright blue or impenetrable purple +flecked with boiling foam, according as a light-illuminated or a +shadowed facet of the moving mass was turned to sight. + +Half-way 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 water; though here the beautiful +Italian sea was yellowish green with churned-up sand, like an unripe +orange. We passed the castle on its rocky island, with the domed church +which has been so often painted in _gouache_ pictures through the last +two centuries, and soon after noon we came to Casamicciola. + + +LA PICCOLA SENTINELLA. + +Casamicciola is a village on the north side of the island, in its +centre, where the visitors to the mineral baths of Ischia chiefly +congregate. One of its old-established inns is called La Piccola +Sentinella. The first sight on entrance is an open gallery, with a pink +wall on which bloom magnificent cactuses, sprays of thick-clustering +scarlet and magenta flowers. This is a rambling house, built in +successive stages against a hill, with terraces and verandahs opening +on unexpected gardens to the back and front. Beneath its long irregular +facade there spreads a wilderness of orange-trees and honeysuckles and +roses, verbenas, geraniums and mignonette, snapdragons, gazenias and +stocks, exceeding bright and fragrant, with the green slopes of Monte +Epomeo for a background and Vesuvius for far distance. There are +wonderful bits of detail in this garden. One dark, thick-foliaged olive, +I remember, leaning from the tufa over a lizard-haunted wall, feathered +waist-high in huge acanthus-leaves. The whole rich orchard ground of +Casamicciola is dominated by Monte Epomeo, the extinct volcano which may +be called the _raison d'etre_ 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. Not two islands that I know, within so short a space of sea, +offer two pictures so different in style and quality of loveliness. The +inhabitants are equally distinct in type. Here, in spite of what De +Musset wrote somewhat affectedly about the peasant girls-- + + Ischia! c'est la qu'on a des yeux, + C'est la qu'un corsage amoureux + Serre la hanche. + Sur un bas rouge bien tire + Brille, sous le jupon dore, + La mule blanche-- + +in spite of these lines I did not find the Ischia women eminent, as +those of Capri are, for beauty. But the young men have fine, loose, +faun-like figures, and faces that would be strikingly handsome but for +too long and prominent noses. They are a singular race, graceful in +movement. + +Evening is divine in Ischia. From the topmost garden terrace of the inn +one looks across the sea toward Terracina, Gaeta, and those descending +mountain buttresses, the Phlegraean 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 Cyclop's eye, +bloodshot and menacing. + +The company in the Piccola Sentinella, young and old, were decrepit, +with an odd, rheumatic, shrivelled look upon them. The dining-room +reminded me, as certain rooms are apt to do, of a ship's saloon. I felt +as though I had got into the cabin of the _Flying Dutchman_, and that +all these people had been sitting there at meat a hundred years, through +storm and shine, for ever driving onward over immense waves in an +enchanted calm. + + +ISCHIA AND FORIO. + +One morning we drove along the shore, up hill, and down, by the Porto +d'Ischia to the town and castle. This country curiously combines the +qualities of Corfu and Catania. The near distance, so richly cultivated, +with the large volcanic slopes of Monte Epomeo rising from the sea, is +like Catania. Then, across the gulf, are the bold outlines and snowy peaks +of the Abruzzi, recalling Albanian ranges. Here, as in Sicily, the old +lava is overgrown with prickly pear and red valerian. Mesembrianthemums--I +must be pardoned this word; for I cannot omit those fleshy-leaved creepers, +with their wealth of gaudy blossoms, shaped like sea anemones, coloured +like strawberry and pine-apple cream-ices--mesembrianthemums, then, tumble +in torrents from the walls, and large-cupped white convolvuluses curl +about the hedges. The Castle Rock, with Capri's refined sky-coloured +outline relieving its hard profile on the horizon, is one of those +exceedingly picturesque objects just too theatrical to be artistic. It +seems ready-made for a back scene in _Masaniello_, and cries out to +the chromo-lithographer, "Come and make the most of me!" Yet this morning +all things, in sea, earth, and sky, were so delicately tinted and bathed +in pearly light that it was difficult to be critical. + +In the afternoon we took the other side of the island, driving through +Lacca to Forio. One gets right round the bulk of Epomeo, and looks up +into a weird region called Le Falange, where white lava streams have +poured in two broad irregular torrents among broken precipices. Florio +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. + +There is something arbitrary in the memories we make of places casually +visited, dependent as they are upon our mood at the moment, or on an +accidental interweaving of impressions which the _genius loci_ blends +for us. Of Forio two memories abide with me. The one is of a young +woman, with very fair hair, in a light blue dress, standing beside an +older woman in a garden. There was a flourishing pomegranate-tree above +them. The whiteness and the dreamy smile of the young woman seemed +strangely out of tune with her strong-toned southern surroundings. I +could have fancied her a daughter of some moist north-western isle of +Scandinavian seas. My other memory is of a lad, brown, handsome, +powerfully-featured, thoughtful, lying curled up in the sun upon a sort +of ladder in his house-court, profoundly meditating. He had a book in +his hand, and his finger still marked the place where he had read. He +looked as though a Columbus or a Campanella might emerge from his +earnest, fervent, steadfast adolescence. Driving rapidly along, and +leaving Forio in all probability for ever, I kept wondering whether +these two lives, discerned as though in vision, would meet--whether she +was destined to be his evil genius, whether posterity would hear of him +and journey to his birthplace in this world-neglected Forio. Such +reveries are futile. Yet who entirely resists them? + + +MONTE EPOMEO. + +About three on the morning which divides the month of May into two equal +parts I woke and saw the waning moon right opposite my window, stayed in +her descent upon the slope of Epomeo. Soon afterwards Christian called +me, and we settled to ascend the mountain. Three horses and a stout +black donkey, with their inevitable grooms, were ordered; and we took +for guide a lovely faun-like boy, goat-faced, goat-footed, with gentle +manners and pliant limbs swaying beneath the breath of impulse. He was +called Giuseppe. + +The way leads past the mineral baths and then strikes uphill, at first +through lanes cut deep in the black lava. The trees met 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 +encouragement and curses. Straight or bending like a willow wand, +Giuseppe kept in front. I could have imagined he had stepped to life +from one of Lionardo's fancy-sprighted studies. + +After this fashion we gained the spine of mountain which composes +Ischia--the smooth ascending ridge that grows up from those eastern +waves to what was once the apex of fire-vomiting Inarime, and breaks in +precipices westward, a ruin of gulfed lava, tortured by the violence of +pent Typhoeus. Under a vast umbrella pine we dismounted, rested, and +saw Capri. Now the road skirts slanting-wise along the further flank of +Epomeo, rising by muddy earth-heaps and sandstone hollows to the quaint +pinnacles which build the summit. There is no inconsiderable peril in +riding over this broken ground; for the soil crumbles away, and the +ravines open downward, treacherously masked with brushwood. + +On Epomeo's topmost cone a chapel dedicated to S. Niccolo da Bari, the +Italian patron of seamen, has been 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 Phlegraean plains and champaign of Volturno, stretching +between smooth seas and shadowy hills; the mighty sweep of Naples' bay; +all merged in blue; aerial, translucent, exquisitely frail. In this +ethereal fabric of azure the most real of realities, the most solid of +substances, seem films upon a crystal sphere. + +The hermit produced some flasks of amber-coloured wine from his stores +in the grotto. These we drank, lying full-length upon the tufa in the +morning sunlight. The panorama of sea, sky, and long-drawn lines of +coast, breathless, without a ripple or a taint of cloud, spread far and +wide around us. Our horses and donkey cropped what little grass, blent +with bitter herbage, grew on that barren summit. Their grooms 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 hill-side, +tending goats. When rough weather came, he wrapped himself in a blanket +from the snow that falls and melts upon the ledges. In summer time he +basked the whole day long, and slept the calm ambrosial nights away. +Something of this free life was in the burning eyes, long clustering +dark hair, and smooth brown bosom of the faun-like creature. His +graceful body had the brusque, unerring movement of the goats he +shepherded. Human thought and emotion seemed a-slumber in this youth who +had grown one with nature. As I watched his careless incarnate +loveliness I remembered lines from an old Italian poem of romance, +describing a dweller of the forest, who + + Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade, + Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream; + And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said, + That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam, + Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread, + And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him; + But when on high hurl winds and clouds together, + Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather. + +Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic _balze_, where the soil is +soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and rose and +orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They break away into wild +chasms, where rivulets begin; and here the narrow watercourses made for +us plain going. The turf beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and +wavering anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so 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 _a la belle etoile_, whose limbs had never been +cumbered with broadcloth or belt--for him to be shut up in the barrack +of some Lombard city, packed in white conscript's sacking, drilled, +taught to read and write, and weighted with the knapsack and the musket! +There was something lamentable in the prospect. But such is the burden +of man's life, of modern life especially. United Italy demands of her +children that by this discipline they should be brought into that +harmony which builds a nation out of diverse elements. + + +FROM ISCHIA TO NAPLES. + +Ischia showed a new aspect on the morning of our departure. A sea-mist +passed along the skirts of the island, and rolled in heavy masses round +the peaks of Monte Epomeo, slowly condensing into summer clouds, and +softening each outline with a pearly haze, through which shone emerald +glimpses of young vines and fig-trees. + +We left in a boat with four oarsmen for Pozzuoli. For about an hour the +breeze carried us well, while Ischia behind grew ever lovelier, soft as +velvet, shaped like a gem. The mist had become a great white luminous +cloud--not dense and alabastrine, like the clouds of thunder; but filmy, +tender, comparable to the atmosphere of Dante's moon. Porpoises and +sea-gulls played and fished about our bows, dividing the 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, aerially 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 Caesar's +navies. When we turned the point, and came in sight of Baiae, the wind +freshened and took us flying into Pozzuoli. The whole of this coast has +been spoiled by the recent upheaval of Monte Nuovo with its lava floods +and cindery deluges. Nothing remains to justify its fame among the +ancient Romans and the Neapolitans of Boccaccio's and Pontano's age. It +is quite wrecked, beyond the power even of hendecasyllables to bring +again its breath of beauty: + + Mecum si sapies, Gravina, mecum + Baias, et placidos coles recessus, + Quos ipsae et veneres colunt, et illa + Quae mentes hominum regit voluptas. + Hic vina et choreae jocique regnant, + Regnant et charites facetiaeque. + Has sedes amor, has colit cupido. + Hic passim juvenes puellulaeque + Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur, + Coenantque et dapibus leporibusque + Miscent delitias venustiores: + Miscent gaudia et osculationes, + Atque una sociis toris foventur, + Has te ad delitias vocant camoenae; + Invitat mare, myrteumque littus; + Invitaut volucres canorae, et ipse + Gaurus pampineas parat corollas.[B] + +At Pozzuoli we dined in the Albergo del Ponte di Caligola (Heaven save +the mark!), and drank Falernian wine of modern and indifferent vintage. +Then Christian hired two open carriages for Naples. He and I sat in the +second. In the first we placed the two ladies of our party. They had a +large, fat driver. Just after we had all passed the gate a big fellow +rushed up, dragged the corpulent coachman from his box, pulled out a +knife, and made a savage thrust at the man's stomach. At the same moment +a _guardia-porta_, with drawn cutlass, interposed and struck between the +combatants. They were separated. Their respective friends assembled in +two jabbering crowds, and the whole party, uttering vociferous +objurgations, marched off, as I imagined, to the watch-house. A very +shabby lazzarone, without more ado, 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 Re would not require our evidence. + +The Grotta di Posilippo was a sight of wonder, with the afternoon sun +slanting on its festoons of creeping plants above the western +entrance--the gas lamps, dust, huge carts, oxen, and _contadini_ in its +subterranean darkness--and then the sudden revelation of the bay and +city as we jingled out into the summery air again by Virgil's tomb. + + +NIGHT AT POMPEII. + +On to Pompeii in the clear sunset, falling very lightly upon mountains, +islands, little ports, and indentations of the bay. + +From the railway station we walked above half a mile to the Albergo del +Sole under a lucid heaven of aqua-marine colour, with Venus large in it +upon the border line between the tints of green and blue. + +The Albergo del Sole is worth commemorating. We stepped, without the +intervention of courtyard or entrance hall, straight from the little inn +garden into an open, vaulted room. This was divided into two +compartments by a stout column supporting round arches. Wooden gates +furnished a kind of fence between the atrium and what an old Pompeian +would have styled the triclinium. For in the further part a table was +laid for supper and lighted with suspended lamps. And here a party of +artists and students drank and talked and 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 arm-chairs of ample +girth, had its _loggia_ windows and doors open to the air. There were +singing-birds in cages; and plants of rosemary, iris, and arundo sprang +carelessly from holes in the floor. A huge vase filled to overflowing +with oranges and lemons, the very symbol of generous prodigality, stood +in the midst, and several dogs were lounging round. The outer twilight, +blending with the dim sheen of the lamps, softened this pretty scene to +picturesqueness. Altogether it was a strange and unexpected place. Much +experienced as the nineteenth-century nomad may be in inns, he will +rarely receive a more powerful and refreshing impression, entering one +at evenfall, than here. + +There was no room for us in the inn. We were sent, attended by a boy +with a lantern, through fields of dew-drenched barley and folded +poppies, to a farmhouse overshadowed by four spreading pines. +Exceedingly soft and grey, with rose-tinted weft of steam upon its +summit, stood Vesuvius above us in the twilight. Something in the recent +impression of the dimly-lighted supper-room, and in the idyllic +simplicity of this lantern-litten journey through the barley, suggested, +by one of those inexplicable stirrings of association which affect tired +senses, a dim, dreamy thought of Palestine and Bible stories. The +feeling of the _cenacolo_ blent here with feelings of Ruth's cornfields, +and the white square houses with their flat roofs enforced the illusion. +Here we slept in the middle of a _contadino_ colony. Some of the folk +had made way for us; and by the wheezing, coughing, and snoring of +several sorts and ages in the chamber next me, I imagine they must have +endured considerable crowding. My bed was large enough to have contained +a family. Over its head there was a little shrine, hollowed in the +thickness of the wall, with several sacred emblems and a shallow vase +of holy water. On dressers at each end of the room stood glass shrines, +occupied by finely-dressed Madonna dolls and pots of artificial flowers. +Above the doors S. Michael and S. Francis, roughly embossed in low +relief and boldly painted, gave dignity and grandeur to the walls. These +showed some sense for art in the first builders of the house. But the +taste of the inhabitants could not be praised. There were countless +gaudy prints of saints, and exactly five pictures of the Bambino, very +big, and sprawling in a field alone. A crucifix, some old bottles, a +gun, old clothes suspended from pegs, pieces of peasant pottery and +china, completed the furniture of the apartment. + +But what a view it showed when Christian next morning opened the door! +From my bed I looked across the red-tiled terrace to the stone pines +with their velvet roofage and the blue-peaked hills of Stabiae. + + +SAN GERMANO. + +No one need doubt about his quarters in this country town. The Albergo +di Pompeii is a truly sumptuous place. Sofas, tables, and chairs in our +sitting-room are made of buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, +but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or +standing, one felt insecure. When would the points run into us? when +should we begin to break these incrustations off? and would the whole +fabric crumble at a touch into chaotic heaps of horns? + +It is market day, and the costumes in the streets are brilliant. The +women wear a white petticoat, a blue skirt made straight and tightly +bound above it, a white richly-worked bodice, and the white +square-folded napkin of the Abruzzi on their heads. Their jacket is of +red or green--pure colour. A rug of striped red, blue, yellow, and black +protects the whole dress from the rain. There is a very noble quality of +green--sappy and gemmy--like some of Titian's or Giorgione's--in the +stuffs they use. Their build and carriage are worthy of goddesses. + +Rain falls heavily, persistently. We must ride on donkeys, in +waterproofs, to Monte Cassino. Mountain and valley, oak wood and ilex +grove, lentisk thicket and winding river-bed, are drowned alike in +soft-descending, soaking rain. Far and near the landscape swims in rain, +and the hill-sides send down torrents through their watercourses. + +The monastery is a square, dignified building, of vast extent and +princely solidity. It has a fine inner court, with sumptuous staircases +of slabbed stone leading to the church. This public portion of the +edifice is both impressive and magnificent, without sacrifice of +religious severity to parade. We acknowledge a successful compromise +between the austerity of the order and the grandeur befitting the fame, +wealth, prestige, and power of its parent foundation. The church itself +is a tolerable structure of the Renaissance--costly marble incrustations +and mosaics, meaningless Neapolitan frescoes. One singular episode in +the mediocrity of art adorning it, is the tomb of Pietro dei Medici. +Expelled from Florence in 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in +the Garigliano. Clement VII. ordered, and Duke Cosimo I. erected, this +marble monument--the handicraft, in part at least, of Francesco di San +Gallo--to their relative. It is singularly stiff, ugly, out of place--at +once obtrusive and insignificant. + +A gentle old German monk conducted Christian and me over the +convent--boy's school, refectory printing press, lithographic workshop, +library, archives. We then returned to the church, from which we passed +to visit the most venerable and sacred portion of the monastery. The +cell of S. Benedict is being restored and painted in fresco by the +Austrian Benedictines; a pious but somewhat frigid process of +re-edification. This so-called cell is a many-chambered and very ancient +building, with a tower which is now embedded in the massive +superstructure of the modern monastery. The German artists adorning it +contrive to blend the styles of Giotto, Fra Angelico, Egypt, and +Byzance, not without force and a kind of intense frozen pietism. S. +Mauro's vision of his master's translation to heaven--the ladder of +light issuing between two cypresses, and the angels watching on the +tower walls--might even be styled poetical. But the decorative angels on +the roof and other places, being adapted from Egyptian art, have a +strange, incongruous appearance. + +Monasteries are almost invariably disappointing to one who goes in +search of what gives virtue and solidity to human life; and even Monte +Cassino was no exception. This ought not to be otherwise, seeing what a +peculiar sympathy with the monastic institution is required to make +these cloisters comprehensible. The atmosphere of operose indolence, +prolonged through centuries and centuries, stifles; nor can antiquity +and influence impose upon a mind which resents monkery itself as an +essential evil. That Monte Cassino supplied the Church with several +potentates is incontestable. That mediaeval 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 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. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[B] These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's +_Hendecasyllabi_ (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint the +amusements of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I have +translated them: + +With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina, With me haste to the +tranquil haunts of Baiae, Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and +she who Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite. Here wine rules, and +the dance, and games and laughter; Graces reign in a round of mirthful +madness; Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too, Where glad +youths and enamoured girls on all sides Play and bathe in the waves in +sunny weather, Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets Blend with +dearer delights and love's embraces, Blend with pleasures of youth and +honeyed kisses, Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber. +Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments; Thee those billows allure, +the myrtled seashore, Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaurus Twines +his redolent wreath of vines and ivy. + + + + + + +MAY IN UMBRIA. + +FROM ROME TO TERNI. + + +We left Rome in clear sunset light. The Alban Hills defined themselves +like a cameo of amethyst upon a pale blue distance; and over the Sabine +Mountains soared immeasurable moulded domes of alabaster thunder-clouds, +casting deep shadows, purple and violet, across the slopes of Tivoli. To +westward the whole sky was lucid, like some half-transparent topaz, +flooded with slowly yellowing sunbeams. The Campagna has often been +called a garden of wild-flowers. Just now poppy and aster, gladiolus and +thistle, embroider it with patterns infinite and intricate beyond the +power of art. They have already mown the hay in part; and the billowy +tracts of greyish green, where no flowers are now in bloom, supply a +restful groundwork to those brilliant patches of diapered _fioriture_. +These are like praying-carpets spread for devotees upon the pavement of +a mosque whose roof is heaven. In the level light the scythes of the +mowers flash as we move past. From their bronzed foreheads the men toss +masses of dark curls. Their muscular flanks and shoulders sway sideways +from firm yet pliant reins. On one hill, fronting the sunset, there +stands a herd of some thirty huge grey oxen, feeding and raising their +heads to look at us, with just a flush of crimson on their horns and +dewlaps. This is the scale of Mason's and of Costa's colouring. This is +the breadth and magnitude of Rome. + +Thus, through dells of ilex and oak, yielding now a glimpse of Tiber and +S. Peter's, now opening on a purple section of the distant Sabine Hills, +we came to Monte Rotondo. The sun sank; and from the flames where he had +perished, Hesper and the thin moon, very white and keen, grew slowly +into sight. Now we follow the Tiber, a swollen, hurrying, turbid river, +in which the mellowing Western sky reflects itself. This changeful +mirror of swift waters spreads a dazzling foreground to valley, hill and +lustrous heaven. There is orange on the far horizon, and a green ocean +above, in which sea-monsters fashioned from the clouds are floating. +Yonder swims an elf with luminous hair astride upon a sea-horse, and +followed by a dolphin plunging through the fiery waves. The orange +deepens into dying red. The green divides into daffodil and beryl. The +blue above grows fainter, and the moon and stars shine stronger. + +Through these celestial changes we glide into a landscape fit for +Francia and the early Umbrian painters. Low hills to right and left; +suavely modelled heights in the far distance; a very quiet width of +plain, with slender trees ascending into the pellucid air; and down in +the mystery of the middle distance a glimpse of heaven-reflecting water. +The magic of the moon and stars lends enchantment to this scene. No +painting could convey their influences. Sometimes both luminaries +tremble, all dispersed and broken, on the swirling river. Sometimes they +sleep above the calm cool reaches of a rush-grown mere. And here and +there a ruined turret, with a broken window and a tuft of shrubs upon +the rifted battlement, gives value to the fading pallor of the West. The +last phase in the sunset is a change to blue-grey monochrome, faintly +silvered with starlight; hills, Tiber, fields and woods all floating in +aerial twilight. There is no definition of outline now. The daffodil of +the horizon has faded into scarcely perceptible pale greenish yellow. + +We have passed Stimigliano. Through the mystery of darkness we hurry +past the bridges of Augustus and the lights of Narni. + + +THE CASCADES OF TERNI. + +The Velino is a river of considerable volume which rises in the highest +region of the Abruzzi, threads the upland valley of Rieti, and +precipitates itself by an artificial channel over cliffs about seven +hundred feet in height into the Nera. The water is densely charged with +particles of lime. This calcareous matter not only tends continually to +choke its bed, but clothes the precipices over which the torrent +thunders with fantastic drapery of stalactite; and, carried on the wind +in foam, incrusts the forests that surround the falls with fine white +dust. These famous cascades are undoubtedly the most sublime and +beautiful which Europe boasts; and their situation is worthy of so great +a natural wonder. We reach them through a noble mid-Italian landscape, +where the mountain forms are austere and boldly modelled, but the +vegetation, both wild and cultivated, has something of the South-Italian +richness. The hill-sides 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 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. + + +MONTEFALCO. + +The rich land of the Clitumnus is divided into meadows by transparent +watercourses, gliding with a glassy current over swaying reeds. Through +this we pass, and leave Bevagna to the right, and ascend one of those +long gradual roads which climb the hills where all the cities of the +Umbrians perch. The view expands, revealing Spello, Assisi, Perugia on +its mountain buttress, and the far reaches northward of the Tiber +valley. Then Trevi and Spoleto came into sight, and the severe +hill-country above Gubbio in part disclosed itself. Over Spoleto the +fierce witch-haunted heights of Norcia rose forbidding. This is the kind +of panorama that dilates the soul. It is so large, so dignified, so +beautiful in tranquil form. The opulent abundance of the plain contrasts +with the severity of mountain ranges desolately grand; and the name of +each of all those cities thrills the heart with memories. + +The main object of a visit to Montefalco is to inspect its many +excellent frescoes; painted histories of S. Francis and S. Jerome, by +Benozzo Gozzoli; saints, angels, and Scripture episodes by the gentle +Tiberio d'Assisi. Full justice had been done to these, when a little +boy, seeing us lingering outside 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 +here; and withdrew, toned to a not unpleasing melancholy. The +world-famous Saint 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![C] + + +FOLIGNO. + +In the landscape of Raphael's votive picture, known as the Madonna di +Foligno, there is a town with a few towers, placed upon a broad plain at +the edge of some blue hills. Allowing for that license as to details +which imaginative masters permitted themselves in matters of subordinate +importance, Raphael's sketch is still true to Foligno. The place has not +materially changed since the beginning of the sixteenth century. Indeed +relatively to the state of Italy at large, it is still the same as in +the days of ancient Rome. Foligno forms a station of commanding interest +between Rome and the Adriatic upon the great Flaminian Way. At Foligno +the passes of the Apennines debouch into the Umbrian plain, which slopes +gradually toward the valley of the Tiber, and from it the valley of the +Nera is reached by an 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 mediaeval 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 depot, +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 mediaeval +period, it is difficult to say. Yet 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. + +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 pawlonias on the ramparts are in full bloom +of creamy white and lilac. In the glare of Bengal lights these trees, +with all their pendulous blossoms, surpassed the most fantastic of +artificial decorations. The rockets sent aloft into the sky amid that +solemn Umbrian landscape were nowise out of harmony with nature. I never +sympathised with critics who resent the intrusion of fireworks upon +scenes of natural beauty. The Giessbach, lighted up at so much per head +on stated evenings, with a band playing and a crowd of cockneys staring, +presents perhaps an incongruous spectacle. But where, as here at +Foligno, a whole city has made itself a festival, where there are +multitudes of citizens and soldiers and country-people slowly moving and +gravely admiring, with the decency and order characteristic of an +Italian crowd, I have nothing but a sense of satisfaction. + +It is sometimes the traveller's good fortune in some remote place to +meet with an inhabitant who incarnates and interprets for him the +_genius loci_ as he has conceived it. Though 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 Corrado Trinci +paraded the mangled remnants of three hundred of his victims, heaped on +muleback, through Foligno, for a warning to the citizens. As the +procession moved along the ramparts, I found myself in contact 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 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 Caesar, 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 bed-room on the +city-wall. The last rockets had whizzed and the last cannons had +thundered ere I fell asleep. + + +SPELLO. + +Spello contains some not inconsiderable antiquities--the remains of a +Roman theatre, a Roman gate with the heads of two men and a woman +leaning over it, and some fragments 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. + +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, +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. + + +EASTER MORNING AT ASSISI. + +We are in the lower church of S. Francesco. High mass is being sung, +with orchestra and organ and a choir of many voices. Candles are lighted +on the altar, over-canopied with Giotto's allegories. From the low +southern windows slants the sun, in narrow bands, upon the many-coloured +gloom and embrowned glory of these painted aisles. Women in bright +kerchiefs kneel upon the stones, and shaggy men from the mountains stand +or lean against the wooden benches. There is no moving from point to +point. Where we have taken our station, at the north-western angle of +the transept, there we stay till mass be over. The whole low-vaulted +building glows duskily; the frescoed roof, the stained windows, the +figure-crowded pavements blending their rich but subdued colours, like +hues upon some marvellous moth's wings, or like a deep-toned rainbow +mist discerned in twilight dreams, or like such tapestry as Eastern +queens, in ancient days, wrought for the pavilion of an empress. Forth +from this maze of mingling tints, indefinite in shade and sunbeams, lean +earnest, saintly faces--ineffably pure--adoring, pitying, pleading; +raising their eyes in ecstasy to heaven, or turning them in ruth toward +earth. Men and women of whom the world was not worthy--at the hands of +those old painters they have received the divine grace, the dove-like +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! + + +PERUSIA AUGUSTA. + +The piazza in front of the Prefettura is my favourite resort on these +nights of full moon. The evening twilight is made up partly of sunset +fading over Thrasymene and Tuscany; partly of moonrise from the +mountains of Gubbio and the passes toward Ancona. The hills are capped +with snow, although the season is so forward. Below our parapets the +bulk of S. Domenico, with its gaunt, perforated tower, and the finer +group of S. Pietro, flaunting the arrowy "Pennacchio di Perugia," jut +out upon the spine of hill which dominates the valley of the Tiber. As +the night gloom deepens, and the moon ascends the sky, these buildings +seem to form the sombre foreground to some French etching. Beyond them +spreads the misty moon-irradiated plain of Umbria. Over all rise shadowy +Apennines, with dim suggestions of Assisi, Spello, Foligno, Montefalco, +and Spoleto on their basements. Little thin whiffs of breezes, very +slight and searching, flit across, and shiver as they pass from Apennine +to plain. The slowly moving population--women in veils, men +winter-mantled--pass to and fro between the buildings and the grey +immensity of sky. Bells ring. The bugles of the soldiers blow retreat in +convents turned to barracks. Young men roam the streets beneath, singing +May songs. Far, far away upon the plain, red through the vitreous +moonlight ringed with thundery gauze, fires of unnamed castelli +smoulder. As we lean from ledges eighty feet in height, gas vies with +moon in chequering illuminations on the ancient walls; Etruscan +mouldings, Roman letters, high-piled hovels, suburban world-old +dwellings plastered like martins' nests against the masonry. + +Sunlight adds more of detail to this scene. To the right of Subasio, +where the passes go from Foligno towards Urbino and Ancona, heavy masses +of thunder-cloud hang every day; but the plain and hill-buttresses are +clear 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, and 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 underfoliage tints reflected from this verdure or +red tones from the naked earth. A fine race of _contadini_, with large, +heroically-graceful forms, and beautiful dark eyes and noble faces, move +about this garden, intent on ancient, easy tillage of the kind Saturnian +soil. + + +LA MAGIONE. + +On the road from Perugia to Cortona, the first stage ends at La Magione, +a high hill-village commanding the passage from the Umbrian champaign to +the lake of Thrasymene. 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 Citta di Castello, of the +Baglioni at Perugia, and of the Bentivogli at Bologna would come next. +Pandolfo Petrucci at Siena, surrounded on all sides by Cesare's +conquests, and specially menaced by the fortification of Piombino, felt +himself in danger. The great house of the Orsini, who swayed a large +part of the Patrimony of S. Peter's, and were closely allied to the +Vitelli, had even graver cause for anxiety. But such was the system of +Italian warfare, that nearly all these noble families lived by the +profession of arms, and most of them were in the pay of Cesare. When, +therefore, the conspirators met at La Magione, they were plotting +against a man whose money they had taken, and whom they had hitherto +aided in his career of fraud and spoliation. + +The diet consisted of the Cardinal Orsini, an avowed antagonist of +Alexander VI.; his brother Paolo, the chieftain of the clan; Vitellozzo +Vitelli, lord of Citta 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 Petrucci. +These men vowed hostility on the basis of 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 +Vitellezzo Vitelli, Oliverotto da Fermo, Paolo Orsini, and Francesco +Orsini, Duke of Gravina, into his nets at Sinigaglia. Under pretext of +fair conference and equitable settlement of disputed claims, he +possessed himself of their persons, and had them strangled--two upon +December 31, and two upon January 18, 1503. Of all Cesare's actions, +this was the most splendid for its successful combination of sagacity +and policy in the hour of peril, of persuasive diplomacy, and of +ruthless decision when the time to strike his blow arrived. + + +CORTONA. + +After leaving La Magione, the road descends upon the Lake of Thrasymene +through oak-woods full of nightingales. The Lake lay basking, +leaden-coloured, smooth and waveless, under a misty, rain-charged, +sun-irradiated sky. At Passignano, close beside its shore, we stopped +for mid-day. This is a little fishing village of very poor people, who +live entirely by labour on the waters. They showed us huge eels coiled +in tanks, and some fine specimens of the silver carp--Reina del Lago. It +was off one of the eels that we made our lunch; and taken, as he was, +alive from his cool lodging, he furnished a series of dishes fit for a +king. + +Climbing the hill of Cortona seemed a quite interminable 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. + +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 + reative or critical, suffer more than is good for them by compliance +with mere fashion. Sooner or later we shall return to the spirit of the +ages which produced these pictures, and which regarded them with less of +an industrious bewilderment than they evoke at present. + +I am far indeed from wishing to decry art, the study of art, or the +benefits to be derived from its intelligent enjoyment. I only mean to +suggest that we go the wrong way to work at present in this matter. +Picture and sculpture galleries accustom us to the separation of art +from life. Our methods of studying art, making a beginning of art-study +while travelling, tend to perpetuate this separation. It is only on +reflection, after long experience, that we come to perceive that the +most fruitful moments in our art education have been casual and +unsought, in quaint nooks and unexpected places, where nature, art, and +life are happily blent. + +The Palace of the Commune at Cortona is interesting because of the +shields of Florentine governors, sculptured on blocks of grey stone, and +inserted in its outer walls--Peruzzi, 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. + +The landscape of this Tuscan highland satisfies me more and more with +sense of breadth and beauty. From S. Margherita above the town the +prospect is immense and wonderful and wild--up into those brown, +forbidding mountains; down to the vast plain; and over to the cities of +Chiusi, Montepulciano, and Foiano. The jewel of the view is Trasimeno, a +silvery shield encased with serried hills, and set upon one corner of +the scene, like a precious thing apart and meant for separate +contemplation. There is something in the singularity and circumscribed +completeness of the mountain-girded lake, diminished by distance, which +would have attracted Lionardo da Vinci's pencil, had he seen it. + +Cortona seems desperately poor, and the beggars are intolerable. One +little blind boy, led by his brother, both frightfully ugly and ragged +urchins, pursued us all over the city, incessantly whining "Signore! +Padrone!" It was only on the threshold of the inn that I ventured to +give them a few coppers, for I knew well that any public beneficence +would raise the whole swarm of the begging population round us. Sitting +later in the day upon the piazza of S. Domenico, I saw the same blind +boy taken by his brother to play. The game consisted 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 small pox at eight months, and has never been able to see since. He +looks sturdy, and may live to be of any age--doomed always, is that +possible, to beg? + + +CHIUSI. + +What more enjoyable dinner can be imagined than a flask of excellent +Montepulciano, a well-cooked steak, and a little goat's cheese in the +inn of the Leone d'Oro at Chiusi? The windows are open, and the sun is +setting. Monte Cetona bounds the view to the right, and the wooded hills +of Citta della Pieve to the left. The deep green dimpled valley goes +stretching away toward Orvieto; and at its end a purple mountain mass, +distinct and solitary, which may peradventure be Soracte! The near +country is broken into undulating hills, forested with fine olives and +oaks; and the composition of the landscape, with its crowning villages, +is worthy of a background to an Umbrian picture. The breadth and depth +and quiet which those painters loved, the space of lucid sky, the +suggestion of winding waters in verdant fields, all are here. The +evening is beautiful--golden light streaming softly from behind us on +this prospect, and gradually mellowing to violet and blue with stars +above. + +At Chiusi we visited several Etruscan tombs, and saw their red and black +scrawled pictures. One of the sepulchres was a well-jointed vault of +stone with no wall-paintings. The rest had been scooped out of the +living tufa. This was the excuse for some pleasant hours spent in +walking and driving through the country. Chiusi means for me the +mingling of grey olives and green oaks in limpid sunlight; deep leafy +lanes; warm sandstone banks; copses with nightingales and cyclamens and +cuckoos; glimpses of a silvery lake; blue shadowy distances; the +bristling ridge of Monte Cetona; the conical towers, Becca di Questo and +Becca di Quello, over against each other on the borders; ways winding +among 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 Porsena and Etruscan ethnology. + + +GUBBIO. + +Gubbio ranks among the most ancient of Italian hill-towns. With its back +set firm against the spine of central Apennines, and piled, house over +house, upon the rising slope, it commands a rich tract of upland +champaign, bounded southward toward Perugia and Foligno by peaked and +rolling ridges. This amphitheatre, which forms its source of wealth and +independence, is admirably protected by a chain of natural defences; and +Gubbio wears a singularly old-world aspect of antiquity and isolation. +Houses climb right to the crests of gaunt bare peaks; and the brown +mediaeval walls with square towers which protected them upon the mountain +side, following the inequalities of the ground, are still a marked +feature in the landscape. It is a town of steep streets and staircases, +with quaintly framed prospects, and solemn vistas opening at every turn +across the lowland. One of these views might be selected for especial +notice. In front, irregular buildings losing themselves in country as +they straggle by the roadside; then the open post-road with a cypress to +the right; afterwards, the rich green fields, and on a bit of rising +ground an ancient farmhouse with its brown dependencies; lastly, the +blue hills above Fossato, and far away a wrack of tumbling clouds. All +this enclosed by the heavy archway of the Porta Romana, where sunlight +and shadow chequer the mellow tones of a dim fresco, indistinct with +age, but beautiful. + +Gubbio has not greatly altered since the middle ages. But poor people +are now living in the palaces of noblemen and merchants. These new +inhabitants have walled up the fair 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. + +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 morticed into +the solid hill-side, 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 aerial 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, 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. + +These public palaces belong to the age of the Communes, when Gubbio was +a free town, with a policy of its own, and an important part to play in +the internecine struggles of Pope and Empire, Guelf and Ghibelline. The +ruined, deserted, degraded Palazzo Ducale reminds us of the advent of +the despots. It has been stripped of all its tarsia-work and sculpture. +Only here and there a Fe. D., with the cupping-glass of Federigo di +Montefeltro, remains to show that Gubbio once became the fairest fief of +the Urbino duchy. S. Ubaldo, who gave his name to this duke's son, was +the patron of Gubbio, and to him the cathedral is dedicated--one low +enormous vault, like a cellar or feudal banqueting hall, roofed with a +succession of solid Gothic arches. This strange old church, and the +House of Canons, buttressed on the hill beside it, have suffered less +from modernisation than most buildings in Gubbio. The latter, in +particular, helps one to understand what this city of grave palazzi must +have been, and how the mere opening of old doors and windows would +restore it to its primitive appearance. The House of the Canons has, in +fact, not yet been given over to the use of middle-class and +proletariate. + +At the end of a day in Gubbio, it is pleasant to take our ease in the +primitive hostelry, at the back of which foams a mountain-torrent, +rushing downward from the Apennines. The Gubbio wine is very fragrant, +and of a rich ruby colour. Those to whom the tints of wine and jewels +give a pleasure not entirely childish, will take delight in its specific +blending 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. + + +FROM GUBBIO TO FANO. + +The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a +narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks, +and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we +travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our +driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and +toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gaunt masses +of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short turf and +scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of Scheggia, and +is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At Scheggia, it joins the +great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman armies. At the top there +is a fine view over the conical hills that dominate Gubbio, and, far +away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and the Foligno line of railway +to Ancona. Range rises over range, crossing 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. + +After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the +sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane-- + + Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes + Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae + +--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little pass +leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian water-shed, +and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the sea. The valley +is fairly green with woods, where misletoe 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 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. + +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 Fortunae. Vespasian +commemorated this early achievement in engineering by an inscription +carved on the living stone, which still remains; and Claudian, when he +sang the journey of his Emperor Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks +thus of what was even then an object of astonishment to travellers:-- + + Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto, + Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus, + Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu + Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis. + +The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several +tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not +extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position at +the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, without +too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on the scale of +the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either hand above the +gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and solemn, like a +succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous flanking obelisks and +pyramids. Some of these 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 road-sides wave with many sorts of +campanulas--a profusion of azure and purple bells upon the hard white +stone. Of Roman remains there is still enough (in the way of Roman +bridges and bits of broken masonry) to please an antiquary's eye. But +the lover of nature will dwell chiefly on the picturesque qualities of +this historic gorge, so alien to the general character of Italian +scenery, and yet so remote from anything to which Swiss travelling +accustoms one. + +The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving +cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail, +with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running +water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone, +the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of far-away +Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of +immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that I +feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage windows as +we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, and cytisus, +and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and saintfoil. 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 snapdragon, 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, such luxuriance, such +self-abandonment to joy. The air was filled with fragrances. Songs of +cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on the hill-sides. The +sun was out, and dancing over all the landscape. + +After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a +sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the +Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over +Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries an +English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. In +colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel. + +The seashore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many churches, +and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. Giovanni +Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of Perugino there +is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great centre panel, and +predella--dusty in its present condition, but splendidly painted, and +happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is worth journeying to Fano to +see this. Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while +if he could be sure to witness such a game of _Pallone_ as we chanced +upon in the Via dell'Arco di Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt, +in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with +cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves. I do not +understand the game; but it was clearly played something after the +manner of our football, that is to say, with sides, and front and back +players so arranged as to cover the greatest number of angles of +incidence on either wall. + +Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain in +the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering her +veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity upon +the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint! + +FOOTNOTES: + +[C] 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. + + + + +THE PALACE OF URBINO. + +I. + + +At Rimini, one spring, the impulse came upon my wife and me to make our +way across San Marino to Urbino. In the Piazza, called apocryphally +after Julius Caesar, I found a proper _vetturino_, with a good carriage +and two indefatigable horses. He was a splendid fellow, and bore a great +historic name, as I discovered when our bargain was completed. "What are +you called?" I asked him. "_Filippo Visconti, per servirla!_" was the +prompt reply. Brimming over with the darkest memories of the Italian +Renaissance, I hesitated when I heard this answer. The associations +seemed too ominous. And yet the man himself was so attractive--tall, +stalwart, and well-looking--no feature of his face or limb of his +athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who concealed worse than +Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret chambers--that I shook this +preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had +nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name. On a long and +trying journey, he showed neither sullen nor yet ferocious tempers; nor, +at the end of it, did he attempt by any masterstroke 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 good-will of an accomplished gentleman. +The only exhibition of his hot Italian blood which I remember did his +humanity credit. 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. + +An Italian of this type, handsome as an antique statue, with the +refinement of a modern gentleman and that intelligence which is innate +in a race of immemorial culture, is a fascinating being. He may be +absolutely ignorant in all book-learning. He may be as ignorant as a +Bersagliere from Montalcino with whom I once conversed at Rimini, who +gravely said that he could walk in three months to North America, and +thought of doing it when his term of service was accomplished. But he +will display, as this young soldier did, a grace and ease of address +which are rare in London drawing-rooms; and by his shrewd remarks upon +the cities he has visited, will show that he possesses a fine natural +taste for things of beauty. The speech of such men, drawn from the +common stock of the Italian people, is seasoned with proverbial sayings, +the wisdom of centuries condensed in a few nervous words. When emotion +fires their brain, they break into spontaneous eloquence, or suggest the +motive of a poem by phrases pregnant with imagery. + +For the first stage of the journey out of Rimini, Filippo's two horses +sufficed. The road led almost straight across the level between quickset +hedges in white bloom. But when we reached the long steep hill which +ascends to San Marino, the inevitable oxen were called out, and we +toiled upwards leisurely through cornfields bright with red anemones and +sweet narcissus. At this point pomegranate hedges replaced the +May-thorns of the plain. In course of time our _bovi_ brought us to the +Borgo, or lower town, whence there is a further ascent of seven hundred +feet to the topmost hawk's-nest or acropolis of the republic. These we +climbed on foot, watching the view expand around us and beneath. Crags +of limestone here break down abruptly to the rolling hills, which go to +lose themselves in field and shore. Misty reaches of the Adriatic close +the world to eastward. Cesena, Rimini, Verucchio, and countless hill-set +villages, each isolated on its tract of verdure conquered from the stern +grey soil, define the points where Montefeltri wrestled with Malatestas +in long bygone years. Around are marly mountain-flanks in wrinkles and +gnarled convolutions like some giant's brain, furrowed by rivers +crawling through dry wasteful beds of shingle. Interminable ranges of +gaunt Apennines stretch, tier by tier, beyond; and over all this +landscape, a grey-green mist of rising crops and new-fledged oak-trees +lies like a veil upon the nakedness of Nature's ruins. + +Nothing in Europe conveys a more striking sense of geological antiquity +than such a prospect. The denudation and abrasion of innumerable ages, +wrought by slow persistent action of weather and water on an upheaved +mountain mass, are here made visible. Every wave in that vast sea of +hills, every furrow in their worn flanks, tells its tale of a continuous +corrosion still in progress. The dominant impression is one of +melancholy. We forget how Romans, countermarching Carthaginians, trod +the land beneath us. The marvel of San Marino, retaining independence +through the drums and tramplings of the last seven centuries, is +swallowed in a deeper sense of wonder. We turn instinctively in thought +to Leopardi's musings on man's destiny at war with unknown nature-forces +and malignant rulers of the universe. + + Omai disprezza + Te, la natura, il brutto + Poter che, ascoso, a comun danno impera, + E l'infinita vanita dell tutto. + +And then, straining our eyes southward, we sweep the dim blue distance +for Recanati, and remember that the poet of modern despair and +discouragement was reared in even such a scene as this. + +The town of San Marino is grey, narrow-streeted, simple; with a great, +new, decent, Greek-porticoed cathedral, dedicated to the eponymous +saint. A certain austerity defines it from more picturesque hill-cities +with a less uniform history. There is a marble statue of S. Marino in +the choir of his church; and in his cell is shown the stone bed and +pillow on which he took austere repose. One narrow window near the +saint's abode commands a proud but melancholy landscape of distant hills +and seaboard. To this, the great absorbing charm of San Marino, our eyes +instinctively, recurrently, take flight. It is a landscape which by +variety and beauty thralls attention, but which by its interminable +sameness might grow almost overpowering. There is no relief. The +gladness shed upon far humbler Northern lands in May is ever absent +here. The German word _Gemuethlichkeit_, the English phrase "a home of +ancient peace," are here alike by art and nature untranslated into +visibilities. And yet (as we who gaze upon it thus are fain to think) if +peradventure the intolerable _ennui_ of this panorama should drive a +citizen of San Marino into outlands, the same view would haunt him +whithersoever he went--the swallows of his native eyrie would shrill +through his sleep--he would yearn to breathe its fine keen air in +winter, and to watch its iris-hedges deck themselves with blue in +spring;--like Virgil's hero, dying, he would think of San Marino: +_Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos_. Even 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. + +Descending to the Borgo, we found that Filippo Visconti had ordered a +luncheon of excellent white bread, pigeons, and omelette, with the best +red muscat wine I ever drank, unless the sharp air of the hills deceived +my appetite. An Italian history of San Marino, including its statutes, +in three volumes, furnished intellectual food. But I confess to having +learned from these pages little else than this: first, that the survival +of the Commonwealth through all phases of European politics had been +semi-miraculous; secondly, that the most eminent San Marinesi had been +lawyers. It is possible on a hasty deduction from these two propositions +(to which, however, I am far from wishing to commit myself), that the +latter is a sufficient explanation of the former. + +From San Marino the road plunges at a break-neck pace. We are now in the +true Feltrian highlands, whence the Counts of Montefeltro issued in the +twelfth century. Yonder eyrie is San Leo, which formed the key of +entrance to the duchy of Urbino in campaigns fought many hundred years +ago. Perched on the crest of a precipitous rock, this fortress looks as +though it might defy all enemies but famine. And yet San Leo was taken +and re-taken by strategy and fraud, when Montefeltro, Borgia, Malatesta, +Rovere, contended for dominion in these valleys. Yonder is Sta. Agata, +the village to which Guidobaldo fled by night when Valentino drove him +from his dukedom. A little farther towers Carpegna, where one branch of +the Montefeltro house maintained a countship through seven centuries, +and only sold their fief to Rome in 1815. Monte Coppiolo lies behind, +Pietra Rubia in front: two other eagle's-nests of the same brood. What a +road it is! It beats the tracks on Exmoor. The uphill and downhill of +Devonshire scorns compromise or mitigation by _detour_ and zigzag. But +here geography is on a scale so far more vast, and the roadway is so far +worse metalled than with us in England--knotty masses of talc and nodes +of sandstone cropping up at dangerous turnings--that only Dante's words +describe the journey:-- + + Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli, + Montasi su Bismantova in cacume + Con esso i pie; ma qui convien ch'uom voli. + +Of a truth, our horses seemed rather to fly than scramble up and down +these rugged precipices; Visconti cheerily animating them with the brave +spirit that was in him, and lending them his wary driver's help of hand +and voice at need. + +We were soon upon a cornice-road between the mountains and the +Adriatic: following the curves of gulch and cleft ravine: winding round +ruined castles set on points of vantage; the sea-line high above their +grass-grown battlements, the shadow-dappled champaign girdling their +bastions mortised on the naked rock. Except for the blue lights across +the distance, and the ever-present sea, these earthy Apennines would be +too grim. Infinite air and this spare veil of spring-tide greenery on +field and forest soothe their sternness. Two rivers, swollen by late +rains, had to be forded. Through one of these, the Foglia, bare-legged +peasants led the way. The horses waded to their bellies in the tawny +water. Then more hills and vales; green nooks with rippling corn-crops; +secular oaks attired in golden leafage. The clear afternoon air rang +with the voices of a thousand larks overhead. The whole world seemed +quivering with light and delicate ethereal sound. And yet my mind turned +irresistibly to thoughts of war, violence, and pillage. How often has +this intermediate land been fought over by Montefeltro and Brancaleoni, +by Borgia and Malatesta, by Medici and Della Rovere! Its _contadini_ are +robust men, almost statuesque in build, and beautiful of feature. No +wonder that the Princes of Urbino, with such materials to draw from, +sold their service and their troops to Florence, Rome, S. Mark, and +Milan. The bearing of these peasants is still soldierly and proud. Yet +they are not sullen or forbidding like the Sicilians, whose habits of +life, for the rest, much resemble theirs. The villages, there as here, +are few and far between, perched high on rocks, from which the folk +descend to till the ground and reap the harvest. But the southern +_brusquerie_ and brutality are absent from this district. The men have +something of the dignity and slow-eyed mildness of their own huge oxen. +As evening fell, more solemn Apennines upreared themselves to southward. +The Monte d'Asdrubale, Monte Nerone, and Monte Catria hove into sight. +At last, when light was dim, a tower rose above the neighbouring ridge, +a broken outline of some city barred the sky-line. Urbino stood before +us. Our long day's march was at an end. + +The sunset was almost spent, and a four days' moon hung above the +western Apennines, when we took our first view of the palace. It is a +fancy-thralling work of wonder seen in that dim twilight; like some +castle reared by Atlante's magic for imprisonment of Ruggiero, or palace +sought in fairyland by Astolf winding his enchanted horn. Where shall we +find its like, combining, as it does, the buttressed battlemented bulk +of mediaeval 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 +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. + +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 mediaeval +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 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 mediaeval and Renaissance Italy, between +the age when principalities arose upon the ruins of commercial +independence and the age when they became dynastic under Spain. + +The exigencies of the ground at his disposal forced Federigo to give the +building an irregular outline. The fine facade, with its embayed _logge_ +and flanking turrets, is placed too close upon the city ramparts for its +due effect. We are obliged to cross the deep ravine which separates it +from a lower quarter of the town, and take our station near the Oratory +of S. Giovanni Battista, before we can appreciate the beauty of its +design, or the boldness of the group it forms with the cathedral dome +and tower and the square masses of numerous out-buildings. Yet this +peculiar position of the palace, though baffling to a close observer of +its details, is one of singular advantage to the inhabitants. Set on the +verge of Urbino's towering eminence, it fronts a wave-tossed sea of +vales and mountain summits toward the rising and the setting sun. There +is nothing but illimitable air between the terraces and loggias of the +Duchess's apartments and the spreading pyramid of Monte Catria. + +A nobler scene is nowhere swept from palace windows than this, which +Castiglione touched in a memorable passage at the end of his +_Cortegiano_. To one who in our day visits Urbino, it is singular how +the slight indications of this sketch, as in some silhouette, bring back +the antique life, and link the present with the past--a hint, perhaps, +for reticence in our descriptions. The gentlemen and ladies of the court +had spent a summer night in long debate on love, rising to the height of +mystical Platonic rapture on the lips of Bembo, when one of them +exclaimed, "The day has broken!" "He 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." + + +II. + +The House of Montefeltro rose into importance early in the twelfth +century. Frederick Barbarossa erected their fief into a county in 1160. +Supported by imperial favour, they began to exercise an undefined +authority over the district, which they afterwards converted into a +duchy. But, though Ghibelline for several generations, the Montefeltri +were too near neighbours of the Papal power to free themselves from +ecclesiastical vassalage. Therefore in 1216 they sought and obtained the +title of Vicars of the Church. Urbino acknowledged them as semi-despots +in their double capacity of Imperial and Papal deputies. Cagli and +Gubbio followed in the fourteenth century. In the fifteenth, Castel +Durante was acquired from the Brancaleoni by warfare, and Fossombrone +from the Malatestas by purchase. Numerous fiefs and villages fell into +their hands upon the borders of Rimini in the course of a continued +struggle with the House of Malatesta: and when Fano and Pesaro were +added at the opening of the sixteenth century, the domain over which +they ruled was a compact territory, some forty miles square, between the +Adriatic and Apennines. From the close of the thirteenth century they +bore the title of Counts of Urbino. The famous Conte Guido, whom Dante +placed among the fraudulent in hell, supported the honours of the house +and increased its power by his political action, at this epoch. But it +was not until the year 1443 that the Montefeltri acquired their ducal +title. This was conferred by Eugenius IV. upon Oddantonio, over whose +alleged crimes and indubitable assassination a veil of mystery still +hangs. He was the son of Count Guidantonio, and at his death the +Montefeltri of Urbino were extinct in the legitimate line. A natural son +of Guidantonio had been, however, recognised in his father's lifetime, +and married to Gentile, heiress of Mercatello. This was Federigo, a +youth of great promise, who succeeded his half-brother in 1444 as Count +of Urbino. It was not until 1474 that the ducal title was revived for +him. + +Duke Frederick was a prince remarkable among Italian despots for private +virtues and sober use of his hereditary power. He spent his youth at +Mantua, in that famous school of Vittorino da Feltre, where the sons and +daughters of the first Italian nobility received a model education in +humanities, good manners, and gentle physical accomplishments. More than +any of his fellow-students Frederick profited by this rare scholar's +discipline. On leaving school he adopted the profession of arms, as it +was then practised, and joined the troop of the Condottiere Niccolo +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 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 Citta 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 _baton_ of +S. Mark. Francesco Sforza, whose father had begun life as a tiller of +the soil, seized the ducal crown of Milan, and founded a house which +ranked among the first in Europe. + +It is not needful to follow Duke Frederick in his military career. We +may briefly remark that when he succeeded to Urbino by his brother's +death in 1444, he undertook generalship on a grand scale. His own +dominions supplied him with some of the best troops in Italy. He was +careful to secure the good-will 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 dependants. 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 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 its +cities, drawing youths of promise to his court, maintaining a great +train of life, and keeping his vassals in good-humour by the lightness +of a rule which contrasted favourably with the exactions of needier +despots. + +While fighting for the masters who offered him _condotta_ in the +complicated wars of Italy, Duke Frederick used his arms, when occasion +served, in his own quarrels. Many years of his life were spent in a +prolonged struggle with his neighbour Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, the +bizarre and brilliant tyrant of Rimini, who committed the fatal error of +embroiling himself beyond all hope of pardon with the Church, and who +died discomfited in the duel with his warier antagonist. Urbino profited +by each mistake of Sigismondo, and the history of this long desultory +strife with Rimini is a history of gradual aggrandisement and +consolidation for the Montefeltrian duchy. + +In 1459, Duke Frederick married his second wife, Battista, daughter of +Alessandro Sforza, Lord of Pesaro. Their portraits, painted by Piero +della Francesca, are to be seen in the Uffizzi. 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 bas-reliefs. It 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 _condotte_ must be regarded as compliments and pledges for the +future. They prove to what a pitch Duke Frederick had raised the credit +of his state and war establishment. Seven years later, Guidobaldo +married Elisabetta, daughter of Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of Mantua. +This union, though a happy one, was never blessed with children; and in +the certainty of barrenness, the young Duke thought it prudent to adopt +a nephew as heir to his dominions. He had several sisters, one of whom, +Giovanna, had been married to a nephew of Sixtus IV., Giovanni della +Rovere, Lord of Sinigaglia and Prefect of Rome. They had a son, +Francesco Maria, who, after his adoption by Guidobaldo, spent his +boyhood at Urbino. + +The last years of the fifteenth century were marked by the sudden rise +of Cesare Borgia to a power which threatened the liberties of Italy. +Acting as General for the Church, he carried his arms against the petty +tyrants of Romagna, whom he dispossessed and extirpated. His next move +was upon Camerino and Urbino. He first acquired Camerino, having lulled +Guidobaldo into false security by treacherous professions of good-will. +Suddenly the Duke received intelligence that 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. + +The sudden death of Alexander VI. and the election of a Della Rovere to +the Papacy in 1503 changed Guidobaldo's prospects. Julius II. was the +sworn foe of the Borgias and the close kinsman of Urbino's heir. It was +therefore easy for the Duke to walk into his empty palace on the hill, +and to reinstate himself in the domains from which he had so recently +been ousted. The rest of his life was spent in the retirement of his +court, surrounded with the finest scholars and the noblest gentlemen of +Italy. The ill-health which debarred him from the active pleasures and +employments of his station, was borne with uniform sweetness of temper +and philosophy. + +When he died, in 1508, his nephew, Francesco Maria della 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. + +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 suffered the campaigns to +degenerate into a guerrilla warfare of pillage and reprisals. In 1517 +the duchy was formally ceded to Lorenzo. But this Medici did not live +long to enjoy it, and his only child Catherine, the future Queen of +France, never exercised the rights which had devolved upon her by +inheritance. The shifting scene of Italy beheld Francesco Maria +reinstated in Urbino after Leo's death in 1522. + +This Duke married Leonora Gonzaga, a princess of the house of Mantua. +Their portraits, painted by Titian, adorn the Venetian room of the +Uffizzi. Of their son, Guidobaldo II., little need be said. He was twice +married, first to Giulia Varano, Duchess by inheritance of Camerino; +secondly, to Vittoria Farnese, daughter of the Duke of Parma. Guidobaldo +spent a lifetime in petty quarrels with his subjects, whom he treated +badly, attempting to draw from their pockets the wealth which his father +and the Montefeltri had won in military service. He intervened at an +awkward period of Italian politics. The old Italy of despots, +commonwealths, and Condottieri, in which his predecessors played +substantial parts, was at an end. The new Italy of Popes and +Austro-Spanish dynasties had hardly settled into shape. Between these +epochs, Guidobaldo II., of whom we have a dim and hazy presentation on +the page of history, seems somehow to have fallen flat. As a sign of +altered circumstances, he removed his court to Pesaro, and built the +great palace of the Della Roveres upon the public square. + +Guidobaldaccio, as he was called, died in 1574, leaving an only son, +Francesco Maria II., whose life and character illustrate the new age +which had begun for Italy. He was educated in Spain at the court of +Philip II., where he spent more than two years. When he returned, his +Spanish haughtiness, punctilious attention to etiquette, and +superstitious piety attracted observation. The violent temper of the +Della Roveres, 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 dependants 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 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. + +This happened in 1623. Francesco Maria was stunned by the blow. His +withdrawal from the duties of the sovereignty in favour of such a son +had proved a constitutional unfitness for the duties of his station. The +life he loved was one of seclusion in a round of pious exercises, petty +studies, peddling economies, and mechanical amusements. A powerful and +grasping Pope was on the throne of Rome. Urban at this juncture pressed +Francesco Maria hard; and in 1624 the last Duke of Urbino devolved his +lordships to the Holy See. He survived the formal act of abdication +seven years; when he died, the Pontiff added his duchy to the Papal +States, which thenceforth stretched from Naples to the bounds of Venice +on the Po. + + +III. + +Duke Frederick began the palace at Urbino in 1454, when he was still +only Count. The architect was Luziano of Lauranna, a Dalmatian; and the +beautiful white limestone, hard as marble, used in the construction, was +brought from the Dalmatian coast. This stone, like the Istrian stone of +Venetian buildings, takes and retains the chisel mark with wonderful +precision. It looks as though, when fresh, it must have had the pliancy +of clay, so delicately are the finest curves in scroll or foliage +scooped from its substance. And yet it preserves each cusp and angle of +the most elaborate pattern with the crispness and the sharpness of a +crystal. 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 +ultra-marine, is supported by broad flat pilasters. These are engraved +with children holding pots of flowers; roses on one side, carnations on +the other. Above the frieze another pair of angels, one at each end, +hold lighted torches; and the pyramidal cap of the chimney is carved +with two more, flying, and supporting the eagle of the Montefeltri on a +raised medallion. Throughout the palace we notice emblems appropriate to +the Houses of Montefeltro and Della Rovere: their arms, three golden +bends upon a field of azure: the Imperial eagle, granted when +Montefeltro was made a fief of the Empire: the Garter of England, worn +by the Dukes Federigo and Guidobaldo: the ermine of Naples: the +_ventosa_, or cupping-glass, adopted for a private badge by Frederick: +the golden oak-tree on an azure field of Della Rovere: the palm-tree, +bent beneath a block of stone, with its accompanying motto, _Inclinata +Resurgam_: the cypher, 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 +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. + +This profusion of sculptured _rilievo_ is nearly all that remains to +show how rich the palace was in things of beauty. Castiglione, writing +in the reign of Guidobaldo, says that "in the opinion of many it is the +fairest to be found in Italy; and the Duke filled it so well with all +things fitting its magnificence, that it seemed less like a palace than +a city. Not only did he collect articles of common use, vessels of +silver, and trappings for chambers of rare cloths of gold and silk, and +such like 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 MSS., 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 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. + +Exception must be made in favour of two apartments between the towers +upon the southern facade. These were apparently the private rooms of the +Duke and Duchess, and they are still approached by a great winding +staircase in one of the _torricini_. Adorned in indestructible or +irremovable materials, they retain some traces of their ancient +splendour. On the first floor, opening on the vaulted loggia, we find a +little chapel encrusted with lovely work in stucco and marble; friezes +of bulls, sphinxes, sea-horses, and foliage; with a low relief of +Madonna and Child in the manner of Mino da Fiesole. Close by is a small +study with inscriptions to the Muses and Apollo. The cabinet connecting +these two cells has a Latin legend, to say that Religion here dwells +near the temple of the liberal arts: + + Bina vides parvo discrimine juncta sacella, + Altera pars Musis altera sacra Deo est. + +On the floor above, corresponding in position to this apartment, is a +second, of even greater interest, since it was arranged by the Duke +Frederick for his own retreat. The study is panelled in tarsia of +beautiful design and execution. Three of the larger compartments show +Faith, Hope, and Charity; figures not unworthy of a Botticelli or a +Filippino Lippi. The occupations of the Duke are represented on a +smaller scale by armour, _batons_ 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 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! + +A portion of the pile is devoted to more worthy purposes; for the +Academy of Raphael here holds its sittings, and preserves a collection +of curiosities and books illustrative of the great painter's life and +works. They have recently placed in a tiny oratory, scooped by +Guidobaldo II. from the thickness of the wall, a cast of Raphael's +skull, which will be studied with interest and veneration. It has the +fineness of modelling combined with shapeliness of form and smallness of +scale which is said to have characterised Mozart and Shelley. + +The impression left upon the mind after traversing this palace in its +length and breadth is one of weariness and disappointment. How shall we +reconstruct the long-past life which filled its rooms with sound, the +splendour of its pageants, the thrill of tragedies enacted here? It is +not difficult to crowd its doors and vacant spaces with liveried +servants, slim pages in tight hose, whose well-combed hair escapes from +tiny caps upon their silken shoulders. We may even replace the +tapestries of Troy which hung one hall, and build again the sideboards +with their embossed gilded plate. But are these chambers really those +where Emilia Pia held debate on love with Bembo and Castiglione; where +Bibbiena's 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 Castiglione'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. + +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: + + Me circum limus niger et deformis arundo + Cocyti tardaque palus inamabilis unda + Alligat, et novies Styx interfusa coercet. + +His body had been carried on the shoulders of servants through those +mountain ways at night, amid the lamentations of gathering multitudes +and the baying of dogs from hill-set farms alarmed by flaring flambeaux. +Now it is laid in state in the great hall. The dais and the throne are +draped in black. The arms and _batons_ of his father hang about the +doorways. His own ensigns are displayed in groups and trophies, with the +banners of S. Mark, the Montefeltrian eagle, and the cross keys of S. +Peter. The hall itself is vacant, save for the high-reared catafalque of +sable velvet and gold damask, surrounded with wax-candles burning +steadily. Round it passes a ceaseless stream of people, coming and +going, gazing at their Duke. He is attired in crimson hose and doublet +of black damask. Black velvet slippers are on his feet, and his ducal +cap is of black velvet. The mantle of the Garter, made of dark-blue +Alexandrine velvet, hooded with crimson, lined with white silk damask, +and embroidered with the badge, drapes the stiff sleeping form. + +It is easier to conjure up the past of this great palace, strolling +round it in free air and twilight; perhaps because the landscape and the +life still moving on the city streets bring its exterior into harmony +with real existence. The southern facade, with its vaulted balconies and +flanking towers, takes the fancy, fascinates the eye, and lends itself +as a fit stage for 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 +Bembo courted "dear dead women" with Platonic phrase, smothering the +Menta of his natural man in lettuce culled from Academe and thyme of +Mount Hymettus. In yonder _loggia_, lifted above the garden and the +court, two lovers are in earnest converse. They lean beneath the +coffered arch, against the marble of the balustrade, he fingering his +dagger under the dark velvet doublet, she playing with a clove +carnation, deep as her own shame. The man is Giannandrea, +broad-shouldered bravo of Verona, Duke Guidobaldo's favourite and +carpet-count. The lady is Madonna Maria, daughter of Rome's Prefect, +widow of Venanzio Varano, whom the Borgia strangled. On their discourse +a tale will hang of woman's frailty and man's boldness--Camerino's +Duchess yielding to a low-born suitor's stalwart charms. And more will +follow, when that lady's brother, furious Francesco Maria della Rovere, +shall stab the bravo in torch-litten palace rooms with twenty poignard +strokes twixt waist and throat, and their Pandarus shall be sent down to +his account by a varlet's _coltellata_ through the midriff. Imagination +shifts the scene, and shows in that same _loggia_ Rome's warlike Pope, +attended by his cardinals and all Urbino's chivalry. The snowy beard of +Julius flows down upon his breast, where jewels clasp the crimson +mantle, as in Raphael's picture. His eyes are bright with wine; for he +has come to gaze on sunset from the banquet-chamber, and to watch the +line of lamps which soon will leap along that palace cornice in his +honour. Behind him lies Bologna humbled. The Pope returns, a conqueror, +to Rome. Yet once again imagination is at work. A gaunt, bald man, +close-habited in Spanish black, his spare, 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. + +A farewell to these memories of Urbino's dukedom should be taken in the +crypt of the cathedral, where Francesco Maria II., the last Duke, buried +his only son and all his temporal hopes. The place is scarcely solemn. +Its dreary _barocco_ emblems mar the dignity of death. A bulky _Pieta_ +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 after-glow of Guido Reni's hectic piety yet overflushed it. +Chilled by the stifling humid sense of an extinct race here entombed in +its last representative, we gladly emerge from the sepulchral vault into +the air of day. + +Filippo Visconti, with a smile on his handsome face, is waiting for us +at the inn. His horses, sleek, well-fed, and rested, toss their heads +impatiently. We take our seats in the carriage, open wide beneath a +sparkling sky, whirl past the palace and its ghost-like recollections, +and are half way 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 bare-headed 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. + + + + +A VENETIAN MEDLEY. + +I.--FIRST IMPRESSIONS AND FAMILIARITY. + + +It is easy to feel and to say something obvious about Venice. The +influence of this sea-city is unique, immediate, and unmistakable. But +to express the sober truth of those impressions which remain when the +first astonishment of the Venetian revelation has subsided, when the +spirit of the place has been harmonised through familiarity with our +habitual mood, is difficult. + +Venice inspires at first an almost Corybantic rapture. From our earliest +visits, if these have been measured by days rather than weeks, we carry +away with us the memory of sunsets emblazoned in gold and crimson upon +cloud and water; of violet domes and bell-towers etched against the +orange of a western sky; of moonlight silvering breeze-rippled breadths +of liquid blue; of distant islands shimmering in sunlitten 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 pathos of a marble city crumbling to its +grave in mud and brine. + +These first impressions of Venice are true. Indeed they are inevitable. +They abide, and form a glowing background for all subsequent pictures, +toned more austerely, and painted in more lasting hues of truth upon the +brain. Those have never felt Venice at all who have not known this +primal rapture, or who perhaps expected more of colour, more of +melodrama, from a scene which nature and the art of man have made the +richest in these qualities. Yet the mood engendered by this first +experience is not destined to be permanent. It contains an element of +unrest and unreality which vanishes upon familiarity. From the blare of +that triumphal bourdon of brass instruments emerge the delicate voices +of violin and clarinette. To the contrasted passions of our earliest +love succeed a multitude of sweet and fanciful emotions. It is my +present purpose to recapture some of the impressions made by Venice in +more tranquil moods. Memory might be compared to a kaleidoscope. Far +away from Venice I raise the wonder-working tube, allow the glittering +fragments to settle as they please, and with words attempt to render +something of the patterns I behold. + + +II.--A LODGING IN SAN VIO. + +I have escaped from the hotels with their bustle of tourists and crowded +tables-d'hote. 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 enormous hats, and jackets slung +on their left shoulder; women in kerchiefs of orange and crimson. +Bare-legged 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 winebarge are red from brows to breast with +drippings of the vat. And now there is a bustle in the quarter. A +_barca_ has arrived from S. Erasmo, the island of the market-gardens. It +is piled with gourds and pumpkins, cabbages and tomatoes, pomegranates +and pears--a pyramid of gold and green and scarlet. Brown men lift the +fruit aloft, and women bending from the pathway bargain for it. A +clatter of chaffering tongues, a ring of coppers, a Babel of hoarse +sea-voices, proclaim the sharpness of the struggle. When the quarter has +been served, the boat sheers off diminished in its burden. Boys and +girls are left seasoning their polenta with a slice of _zucca_, while +the mothers of a score of families go pattering up yonder courtyard with +the material for their husbands' supper in their handkerchiefs. Across +the canal, or more correctly the _Rio_, opens a wide grass-grown court. +It is lined on the right hand by a row of poor dwellings, swarming with +gondoliers' children. A garden wall runs along the other side, over +which I can see pomegranate-trees in fruit and pergolas of vines. Far +beyond are more low houses, and then the sky, swept with sea-breezes, +and the masts of an ocean-going ship against the dome and turrets of +Palladio's Redentore. + +This is my home. By day it is as lively as a scene in _Masaniello_. By +night, after nine o'clock, the whole stir of the quarter has subsided. +Far away I hear the bell of some church tell the hours. But no noise +disturbs my rest, unless 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 _sandolo_ already with Antonio. The +Signora is to go with us in the gondola." "Then get three more men, +Francesco, and see that all of them can sing." + + +III.--TO CHIOGGIA WITH OAR AND SAIL. + +The _sandolo_ is a boat shaped like the gondola, but smaller and +lighter, without benches, and without the high steel prow or _ferro_ +which distinguishes the gondola. The gunwale is only just raised above +the water, over which the little craft skims with a rapid bounding +motion, affording an agreeable variation from the stately swan-like +movement of the gondola. In one of these boats--called by him the +_Fisolo_ or Seamew--my friend Eustace had started with Antonio, +intending to row the whole way to Chioggia, or, if the breeze favoured, +to hoist a sail and help himself along. After breakfast, when the crew +for my gondola had been assembled, Francesco and I followed with the +Signora. It was one of those perfect mornings which occur as a respite +from broken weather, when the air is windless and the light falls soft +through haze on the horizon. As we broke into the lagoon behind the +Redentore, the islands in front of us, S. Spirito, Poveglia, Malamocco, +seemed as though they were just lifted from the sea-line. The Euganeans, +far away to westward, were bathed in mist, and almost blent with the +blue sky. Our four rowers put their backs into their work; and soon we +reached the port of Malamocco, where a breeze from the 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 _impresario_ of the +trade, employing hundreds of hands, and speculating for a handsome +profit in the foreign market on the price he gives his workwomen. + +Now we are well lost in the lagoons--Venice no longer visible behind; +the Alps and Euganeans shrouded in a noonday haze; the lowlands at the +mouth of Brenta marked by clumps of trees ephemerally faint in silver +silhouette against the filmy, shimmering horizon. Form and colour have +disappeared in light-irradiated vapour of an opal hue. And yet +instinctively we know that we are not at sea; the different quality of +the water, the piles emerging here and there above the surface, the +suggestion of coast-lines scarcely felt in this infinity of lustre, all +remind us that our voyage is confined to the charmed limits of an inland +lake. At length the jutting headland of Pelestrina was reached. We broke +across the Porto di Chioggia, and saw Chioggia itself ahead--a huddled +mass of houses low upon the water. One by one, as we rowed steadily, the +fishing-boats passed by, emerging from their harbour for a twelve hours' +cruise upon the open sea. In a long line they came, with variegated +sails of orange, red, and 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. + +The Signorino and Antonio, though want of wind obliged them to row the +whole way from Venice, had reached Chioggia an hour before, and stood +waiting to receive us on the quay. It is a quaint town this Chioggia, +which has always lived a separate life from that of Venice. Language +and race and customs have held the two populations apart from those +distant years when Genoa and the Republic of S. Mark fought their duel +to the death out in the Chioggian harbours, down to these days, when +your Venetian gondolier will tell you that the Chioggoto loves his pipe +more than his _donna_ or his wife. The main canal is lined with +substantial palaces, attesting to old wealth and comfort. But from +Chioggia, even more than from Venice, the tide of modern luxury and +traffic has retreated. The place is left to fishing folk and builders of +the fishing craft, whose wharves still form the liveliest quarter. +Wandering about its wide deserted courts and _calli_, we feel the spirit +of the decadent Venetian nobility. Passages from Goldoni's and +Casanova's Memoirs occur to our memory. It seems easy to realise what +they wrote about the dishevelled gaiety and lawless license of Chioggia +in the days of powder, sword-knot, and _soprani_. Baffo walks beside us +in hypocritical composure of bag-wig and senatorial dignity, whispering +unmentionable sonnets in his dialect of _Xe_ and _Ga_. Somehow or +another that last dotage of S. Mark's decrepitude is more recoverable by +our fancy than the heroism of Pisani in the fourteenth century. + +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. + +These great deeds are far away and hazy. The brief sentences of mediaeval +annalists bring them less near to us than the _chroniques scandaleuses_ +of good-for-nothing scoundrels, whose vulgar adventures might be revived +at the present hour with scarce a change of setting. Such is the force +of _intimite_ 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 frame-work for our +recollections of their vividly described corruption. + +Not far from the landing-place a balustraded bridge of ample breadth and +large bravura manner spans the main canal. Like everything at Chioggia, +it is dirty and has fallen from its first estate. Yet neither time nor +injury can obliterate style or wholly degrade marble. Hard by the bridge +there are two rival inns. At one of these we ordered a sea-dinner--crabs, +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. + +That afternoon the gondola and sandolo were lashed together side by +side. Two sails were raised, and in this lazy fashion we stole +homewards, faster or slower according as the breeze freshened or +slackened, landing now and then on islands, sauntering along the +sea-walls which bulwark Venice from the Adriatic, and singing--those at +least of us who had the power to sing. Four of our Venetians had trained +voices and memories of inexhaustible music. Over the level water, with +the ripple plashing at our keel, their songs went abroad, and mingled +with the failing day. The barcaroles and serenades peculiar to Venice +were, of course, in harmony with the occasion. But some transcripts from +classical operas were even more attractive, through the dignity with +which these men invested them. By the peculiarity of their treatment the +_recitativo_ of the stage assumed a solemn movement, marked in rhythm, +which removed it from the commonplace into antiquity, and made me +understand how cultivated music may pass back by natural, unconscious +transition into the realm of popular melody. + +The sun sank, not splendidly, but quietly in banks of clouds above the +Alps. Stars came out, uncertainly at first, 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. + +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 button-hole. The dew was on its +burnished leaves, and evening had drawn forth its perfume. + + +IV.--MORNING RAMBLES. + +A story is told of Poussin, the French painter, that when he was asked +why he would not stay in Venice, he replied, "If I stay here, I shall +become a colourist!" A somewhat similar tale is reported of a +fashionable English decorator. While on a visit to friends in Venice, he +avoided every building which contains a Tintoretto, averring that the +sight of Tintoretto's pictures would injure his carefully trained taste. +It is probable that neither anecdote is strictly true. Yet there is a +certain epigrammatic point in both; and I have often speculated whether +even Venice could have so warped the genius of Poussin as to shed one +ray of splendour on his canvases, or whether even Tintoretto could have +so 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-mediaeval theories to oppress them. + +Tintoretto's house, though changed, can still be visited. It formed part +of the Fondamenta dei Mori, so called from having been the quarter +assigned to Moorish traders in Venice. A spirited carving of a turbaned +Moor leading a camel charged with merchandise, remains above the +water-line of a neighbouring building; and all about the crumbling walls +sprout flowering weeds--samphire and snapdragon and the spiked +campanula, which shoots a spire of sea-blue stars from chinks of Istrian +stone. + +The house stands opposite the Church of Santa Maria dell'Orto, where +Tintoretto was buried, and where four of his chief masterpieces are to +be seen. This church, swept and garnished, is a triumph of modern +Italian restoration. They have contrived to make it as commonplace as +human ingenuity could manage. Yet no malice of ignorant industry can +obscure the treasures it contains--the pictures of Cima, Gian Bellini, +Palma, and the four Tintorettos, which form its crowning glory. Here the +master may be studied in four of his chief moods: as the painter of +tragic passion and movement, in the huge Last Judgment; as the painter +of impossibilities, in the Vision of Moses upon Sinai; as the painter of +purity and tranquil pathos, in the Miracle of S. Agnes; as the painter +of Biblical history brought home to daily life, in the Presentation of +the Virgin. Without leaving the Madonna dell'Orto, a student can explore +his genius in all its depth and breadth; comprehend the enthusiasm he +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 Dore. +Between that quiet canvas of the Presentation, so modest in its cool +greys and subdued gold, and the tumult of flying, ruining, ascending +figures in the Judgment, what an interval there is! How strangely the +white lamb-like maiden, kneeling beside her lamb in the picture of S. +Agnes, contrasts with the dusky gorgeousness of the Hebrew women +despoiling themselves of jewels for the golden calf! Comparing these +several manifestations of creative power, we feel ourselves in the grasp +of a painter who was essentially a poet, one for whom his art was the +medium for expressing before all things thought and passion. Each +picture is executed in the manner suited to its tone of feeling, the key +of its conception. + +Elsewhere than in the Madonna dell'Orto there are more distinguished +single examples of Tintoretto's realising faculty. The Last Supper in +San Giorgio, for instance, and the Adoration of the Shepherds in the +Scuola di San Rocco illustrate his unique power of presenting sacred +history in a novel, romantic frame-work of familiar things. The +commonplace circumstances of ordinary life have been employed to portray +in the one case a lyric of mysterious splendour; in the other, an idyll +of infinite sweetness. Divinity shines through the rafters of that +upper chamber, where round a low large table the Apostles are assembled +in a group translated from the social customs of the painter's days. +Divinity is shed upon the straw-spread manger, where Christ lies +sleeping in the loft, with shepherds crowding through the room beneath. + +A studied contrast between the simplicity and repose of the central +figure and the tumult of passions in the multitude 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. + +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 border-land 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 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. + +To comprehend Tintoretto's touch upon the pastoral idyll we must turn +our steps to San Giorgio again, and pace those meadows by the running +river in company with his Manna-Gatherers. Or we may seek the Accademia, +and notice how he here has varied the Temptation of Adam by Eve, +choosing a less tragic motive of seduction than the one so powerfully +rendered at San Rocco. Or in the Ducal Palace we may take our station, +hour by hour, before the Marriage of Bacchus and Ariadne. It is well to +leave the very highest achievements of art untouched by criticism +undescribed. And in this picture we have the most perfect of all modern +attempts to realise an antique myth--more perfect than Raphael's +Galatea, or Titian's Meeting of Bacchus with Ariadne, or Botticelli's +Birth of Venus from the Sea. It may suffice to marvel at the slight +effect which melodies so powerful and so direct as these produce upon +the ordinary public. Sitting, as is my wont, one Sunday morning, +opposite the Bacchus, four Germans with a cicerone sauntered by. The +subject was explained to them. They waited an appreciable space of time. +Then the youngest opened his lips and spake: "Bacchus war der +Wein-Gott." And they all moved heavily away. _Bos locutus est._ "Bacchus +was the wine-god!" This, apparently, is what a picture tells to one man. +To another it presents divine harmonies, perceptible indeed in nature, +but here by the painter-poet for the first time brought 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. + +Tintoretto, to be rightly understood, must be sought all over Venice--in +the church as well as the Scuola di San Rocco; in the Temptation of S. +Anthony at S. Trovaso no less than in the Temptations of Eve and Christ; +in the decorative pomp of the Sala del Senato, and in the Paradisal +vision of the Sala del Gran Consiglio. Yet, after all, there is one of +his most characteristic moods, to appreciate which fully we return to +the Madonna dell'Orto. I have called him "the painter of +impossibilities." At rare moments he rendered them possible by sheer +imaginative force. If we wish to realise this phase of his creative +power, and to measure our own subordination to his genius in its most +hazardous enterprise, we must spend much time in the choir of this +church. Lovers of art who mistrust this play of the audacious +fancy--aiming at sublimity in supersensual regions, sometimes attaining +to it by stupendous effort or authentic revelation, not seldom sinking +to the verge of bathos, and demanding the assistance of interpretative +sympathy in the spectator--such men will not take the point of view +required of them by Tintoretto in his boldest flights, in the Worship of +the Golden Calf and in the Destruction of the World by Water. It is for +them to ponder well the flying archangel with the scales of judgment in +his hand, and the seraph-charioted Jehovah enveloping Moses upon Sinai +in lightnings. + +The gondola has had a long rest. Were Francesco but a little more +impatient, he might be wondering what had become of the padrone. I bid +him turn, and we are soon gliding into the Sacca della Misericordia. +This is a protected float, where the wood which comes from Cadore and +the hills of the Ampezzo is stored in spring. Yonder square white house, +standing out to sea, fronting Murano and the Alps, they call the Casa +degli Spiriti. No one cares to inhabit it; for here, in old days, it was +the wont of the Venetians to lay their dead for a night's rest before +their final journey to the graveyard of S. Michele. So many generations +of dead folk had made that house their inn, that it is now no fitting +home for living men. San Michele is the island close before Murano, +where the Lombardi built one of their most romantically graceful +churches of pale Istrian stone, and where the Campo Santo has for +centuries received the dead into its oozy clay. The cemetery is at +present undergoing restoration. Its state of squalor and abandonment to +cynical disorder makes one feel how fitting for Italians would be the +custom of cremation. An island in the lagoons devoted to funeral pyres +is a solemn and ennobling conception. This graveyard, with its ruinous +walls, its mangy riot of unwholesome weeds, its corpses festering in +slime beneath neglected slabs in hollow chambers, and the mephitic wash +of poisoned waters that surround it, inspires the horror of disgust. + +The morning has not lost its freshness. Antelao and Tofana, guarding the +vale above Cortina, show faint streaks of snow upon their amethyst. +Little clouds hang in the still autumn sky. There are men dredging for +shrimps and crabs through shoals uncovered by the ebb. Nothing can be +lovelier, more resting to eyes tired with pictures than this tranquil, +sunny expanse of the lagoon. As we round the point of the Bersaglio, new +landscapes of island and Alp and low-lying mainland move into sight at +every slow stroke of the oar. A luggage-train comes lumbering along the +railway bridge, puffing white smoke into the placid blue. Then we strike +down Cannaregio, and I muse upon processions of kings and generals and +noble strangers, entering Venice by 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. + +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 mediaeval symbolism, some fierce impossible Renaissance freak of +fancy. + +Rather than prolong this list, I will tell a story which drew 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." + + +V.--A VENETIAN NOVELLA. + +At the time when Carpaccio and Gentile Bellini were painting those +handsome youths in tight jackets, parti-coloured hose, and little round +caps placed awry upon their shocks of well-combed hair, there lived in +Venice two noblemen, Messer Pietro and Messer Paolo, whose palaces +fronted each other on the Grand Canal. Messer Paolo was a widower, with +one married daughter, and an only son of twenty years or thereabouts, +named Gerardo. Messer Pietro's wife was still living; and this couple +had but one child, a daughter, called Elena, of exceeding beauty, aged +fourteen. Gerardo, as is the wont of gallants, was paying his addresses +to a certain lady; and nearly every day he had to cross the Grand Canal +in his gondola, and to pass beneath the house of Elena on his way to +visit his Dulcinea; for this lady lived some distance up a little canal +on which the western side of Messer Pietro's palace looked. + +Now it so happened that at the very time when the story opens, Messer +Pietro's wife fell ill and died, and Elena was left alone at home with +her father and her old nurse. Across the little canal of which I spoke +there dwelt another nobleman, with four daughters, between the years of +seventeen and twenty-one. Messer Pietro, desiring to provide amusement +for poor little Elena, besought this gentleman that his daughters might +come on feast-days to play with her. For you must know that, except on +festivals of the Church, the custom of Venice required that gentlewomen +should remain 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 balustrated +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 ribbands for tokens. Which negligence of theirs +annoyed Elena much; for she thought only of the game. Wherefore she +scolded them in childish wise, and one of them made answer, "Elena, if +you only knew how pleasant it is to play as we are playing on this +balcony, you would not care so much for ball and forfeits!" + +On one of those feast-days the four sisters were prevented from keeping +their little friend company. Elena, with nothing to do, and feeling +melancholy, leaned upon the window-sill which overlooked the narrow +canal. And it chanced that just then Gerardo, on his way to Dulcinea, +went by; and Elena looked down at him, as she had seen those sisters +look at passers-by. Gerardo caught her eye, and glances passed between +them, and Gerardo's gondolier, bending from the poop, said to his +master, "O master! methinks that gentle maiden is better worth your +wooing than Dulcinea." Gerardo pretended to pay no heed to these words; +but after rowing a little way, he bade the man turn, and they went +slowly back beneath the window. This time Elena, thinking to play the +game which her four friends had played, took from her hair a clove +carnation and let it fall close to Gerardo on the cushion of the +gondola. He raised the flower and put it to his lips, acknowledging the +courtesy with a grave bow. But the perfume of the clove and the beauty +of Elena in that moment took possession of his heart together, and +straightway he forgot Dulcinea. + +As yet he knew not who Elena was. Nor is this wonderful; for the +daughters of Venetian nobles were but rarely seen or spoken of. But the +thought of her haunted him awake and sleeping; and every feast-day, when +there was the chance of seeing her, he rowed his gondola beneath her +windows. And there she appeared to him in company with her four friends; +the five girls clustering together like sister roses beneath the pointed +windows of the Gothic balcony. Elena, on her side, had no thought of +love; for of love she had heard no one speak. But she took pleasure in +the game those friends had taught her, of leaning from the balcony to +watch Gerardo. He meanwhile grew love-sick and impatient, wondering how +he might declare his passion. Until one day it happened that, walking +through a lane or _calle_ which skirted Messer Pietro's 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 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. + +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 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. + +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 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. + +Messer Paolo, who knew nothing of these things, took thought meanwhile +for his son's career. It was the season when the Signory of Venice sends +a fleet of galleys to Beirut with merchandise; and the noblemen may bid +for the hiring of a ship, and charge it with wares, and send whomsoever +they list as factor in their interest. One of these galleys, then, +Messer Paolo engaged, and told his son that he had appointed him to +journey with it and increase their wealth. "On thy return, my son," he +said, "we will bethink us of a wife for thee." Gerardo, when he heard +these words, was sore troubled, and first he told his father roundly +that he would not go, and flew off in the twilight to pour out his +perplexities to Elena. But she, who was prudent and of gentle soul, +besought him to obey his father in this thing, to the end, moreover, +that, having done his will and increased his wealth, he might afterwards +unfold the story of their secret marriage. To these good counsels, +though loth, Gerardo consented. His father was overjoyed at his son's +repentance. The galley was straightway laden with merchandise, and +Gerardo set forth on his voyage. + +The trip to Beirut and back lasted usually six months or at the most +seven. Now when Gerardo had been some six months away, Messer Pietro, +noticing how fair his daughter was, and how she had grown into +womanhood, looked about him for a husband for her. When he had found a +youth suitable in birth and wealth and years, he called for Elena, 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, e ammogliato; ma il matrimonio non e stato +benedetto." "Yes, he has taken a wife, but the marriage has not yet been +blessed." + +So the days flew by in doubt and sore distress for Elena. Then on the +night before her wedding, she felt that she could bear this life no +longer. But having no poison, and being afraid to pierce her bosom with +a knife, she lay down on her bed alone, and tried to die by holding in +her breath. A mortal swoon came over her; her senses fled; the life in +her remained suspended. And when her nurse came next morning to call +her, she found poor Elena cold as a corpse. Messer Pietro and all the +household rushed, at the nurse's cries, into the room, and they all saw +Elena stretched dead upon her bed undressed. Physicians were called, who +made theories to explain the cause of death. But all believed that she +was really dead, beyond all help of art or medicine. Nothing remained +but to carry her to church for burial instead of marriage. Therefore, +that very evening, a funeral procession 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 +marble chest outside the church, and all departed, still with torches +burning, to their homes. + +Now it so fell out that upon that very evening Gerardo's galley had +returned from Syria, and was anchoring within the port of Lido, which +looks across to the island of Castello. It was the gentle custom of +Venice at that time that, when a ship arrived from sea, the friends of +those on board at once came out to welcome them, and take and give the +news. Therefore many noble youths and other citizens were on the deck of +Gerardo's galley, making merry with him over the safe conduct of his +voyage. Of one of these he asked, "Whose is yonder funeral procession +returning from San Pietro?" The young man made answer, "Alas for poor +Elena, Messer Pietro's daughter! She should have been married this day. +But death took her, and to-night they buried her in the marble monument +outside the church." A woeful man was Gerardo, hearing suddenly this +news, and knowing what his dear wife must have suffered ere she died. +Yet he restrained himself, daring not to disclose his anguish, and +waited till his friends had left the galley. Then he called to him the +captain of the oarsmen, who was his friend, and unfolded to him all the +story of his love and sorrow, and said that he must go that night and +see his wife once more, if even he should have to break her tomb. The +captain tried to dissuade him, but in vain. Seeing him so obstinate, he +resolved not to desert Gerardo. The two men took one of the galley's +boats, and rowed together toward San Pietro. It was past midnight when +they reached the Campo and broke the marble sepulchre 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. + +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 +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 +over-measure 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. + + +VI.--ON THE LAGOONS. + +The mornings are spent in study, sometimes among pictures, sometimes in +the Marcian Library, or again in those vast convent chambers of the +Frari, where the archives of Venice load innumerable shelves. The +afternoons invite us to a further flight upon the water. Both sandolo +and gondola await our choice, and we may sail or row, according as the +wind and inclination tempt us. + +Yonder lies San Lazzaro, with the neat red buildings of the Armenian +convent. The last oleander blossoms shine rosy pink above its walls +against the pure blue sky as we glide into the little harbour. Boats +piled with coal-black grapes block the landing-place, for the Padri are +gathering their vintage from the Lido, and their presses run with new +wine. Eustace and I have not come to revive memories of Byron--that +curious patron saint of the Armenian colony--or to inspect the +printing-press, which issues books of little value for our studies. It +is enough to pace the terrace, and linger half an hour beneath the low +broad arches of the alleys pleached with vines, through which the domes +and towers of Venice rise more beautiful by distance. + +Malamocco lies considerably farther, and needs a full hour of stout +rowing to reach it. Alighting there, we cross the narrow strip of land, +and find ourselves upon the huge sea-wall--block piled on block--of +Istrian stone in tiers and ranks, with cunning breathing-places for the +waves to wreak their fury on and foam their force away in fretful waste. +The very existence of Venice may be said to depend sometimes on these +_murazzi_, which were finished at an immense cost by the Republic in the +days of its decadence. The enormous monoliths which compose them had to +be brought across the 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 _murazzi_ were broken in a gale, or _sciroccale_, not very long ago. +Lying awake in Venice, when the wind blows hard, one hears the sea +thundering upon its sandy barrier, and blesses God for the _murazzi_. On +such a night it happened once to me to dream a dream of Venice +overwhelmed by water. I saw the billows roll across the smooth lagoon +like a gigantic Eager. The Ducal Palace crumbled, and San Marco's domes +went down. The Campanile rocked and shivered like a reed. And all along +the Grand Canal the palaces swayed helpless, tottering to their fall, +while boats piled high with men and women strove to stem the tide, and +save themselves from those impending ruins. It was a mad dream, born of +the sea's roar and Tintoretto's painting. But this afternoon no such +visions are suggested. The sea sleeps, and in the moist autumn air we +break tall branches of the seeded yellowing samphire from hollows of the +rocks, and bear them homeward in a wayward bouquet mixed with cobs of +Indian-corn. + +Fusina is another point for these excursions. It lies at the mouth of +the Canal di Brenta, where the mainland ends in marsh and meadows, +intersected by broad renes. In spring the ditches bloom with +fleurs-de-lys; in autumn they take sober colouring from lilac daisies +and the delicate sea-lavender. Scores of tiny plants are turning scarlet +on the brown moist earth; and when the sun goes down behind the Euganean +hills, his crimson canopy of cloud, reflected on these shallows, muddy +shoals, and wilderness of matted weeds, converts the common earth into a +fairyland of fabulous dyes. Purple, violet, and rose are spread around +us. In front stretches the lagoon, tinted with a pale light from the +east, and beyond this 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 on +the Zattere. The quiet of the night has come. + +Words cannot be formed to express the endless varieties of Venetian +sunset. The most magnificent follow after wet stormy days, when the west +breaks suddenly into a labyrinth of fire, when chasms of clear turquoise +heavens emerge, and horns of flame are flashed to the zenith, and +unexpected splendours scale the fretted clouds, step over step, stealing +along the purple caverns till the whole dome throbs. Or, again, after a +fair day, a change of weather approaches, and high, infinitely high, the +skies are woven over with a web of half-transparent cirrus-clouds. These +in the after-glow blush crimson, and through their rifts the depth of +heaven is of a hard and gem-like 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 +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. + + +VII.--AT THE LIDO. + +Of all these afternoon excursions, that to the Lido is most frequent. It +has two points for approach. The more distant is the little station of +San Nicoletto, at the mouth of the Porto. With an ebb-tide, the water +of the lagoon runs past the mulberry gardens of this hamlet like a +river. There is here a grove of acacia-trees, shadowy and dreamy, above +deep grass, which even an Italian summer does not wither. The Riva is +fairly broad, forming a promenade, where one may conjure up the +personages of a century ago. For San Nicoletto used to be a fashionable +resort before the other points of Lido had been occupied by +pleasure-seekers. An artist even now will select its old-world quiet, +leafy shade, and prospect through the islands of Vignole and Sant'Erasmo +to snow-touched peaks of Antelao and Tofana, rather than the glare and +bustle and extended view of Venice which its rival Sant'Elisabetta +offers. + +But when we want a plunge into the Adriatic, or a stroll along smooth +sands, or a breath of genuine sea-breeze, or a handful of horned poppies +from the dunes, or a lazy half-hour's contemplation of a limitless +horizon flecked with russet sails, then we seek Sant'Elisabetta. Our +boat is left at the landing-place. We saunter across the island and back +again. Antonio and Francesco wait and order wine, which we drink with +them in the shade of the little _osteria's_ wall. + +A certain afternoon in May I well remember, for this visit to the Lido +was marked by one of those apparitions which are as rare as they are +welcome to the artist's soul. I have always held that in our modern life +the only real equivalent for the antique mythopoeic sense--that sense +which enabled the Hellenic race to figure for themselves the powers of +earth and air, streams and forests, and the presiding genii of places, +under the forms of living human beings, is supplied by the appearance at +some felicitous moment of a man or woman who impersonates for our +imagination the essence of the beauty that environs us. It seems, at +such a fortunate moment, as though we had been waiting for this +revelation, although perchance the want of it had not been previously +felt. Our sensations and perceptions test themselves at the touchstone +of this living individuality. The keynote of the whole music dimly +sounding in our ears is struck. A melody emerges, clear in form and +excellent in rhythm. The landscapes we have painted on our brain, no +longer lack their central figure. The life proper to the complex +conditions we have studied is discovered, and every detail, judged by +this standard of vitality, falls into its right relations. + +I had been musing long that day and earnestly upon the mystery of the +lagoons, their opaline transparencies of air and water, their fretful +risings and sudden subsidence into calm, the treacherousness of their +shoals, the sparkle and the splendour of their sunlight. I had asked +myself how would a Greek sculptor have personified the elemental deity +of these salt-water lakes, so different in quality from the AEgean 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 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. + +We had picked up shells and looked for sea-horses on the Adriatic shore. +Then we returned to give our boatmen wine beneath the vine-clad +_pergola_. Four other men were there, drinking, and eating from a dish +of fried fish set upon the coarse white linen cloth. Two of them soon +rose and went away. Of the two who stayed, one was a large, middle-aged +man; the other was still young. He was tall and sinewy, but slender, for +these Venetians are rarely massive in their strength. Each limb is +equally developed by the exercise of rowing upright, bending all the +muscles to their stroke. Their bodies are elastically supple, with free +sway from the hips and a mercurial poise upon the ankle. Stefano showed +these qualities almost in exaggeration. The type in him was refined to +its artistic perfection. Moreover, he was rarely in repose, but moved +with a singular brusque grace. A black broad-brimmed hat was thrown back +upon his matted _zazzera_ of dark hair tipped with dusky brown. This +shock of hair, cut in flakes, and falling wilfully, reminded me of the +lagoon grass when it darkens in autumn upon uncovered shoals, and sunset +gilds its sombre edges. Fiery grey eyes beneath it gazed intensely, with +compulsive effluence of electricity. It was the wild glance of a Triton. +Short blonde moustache, dazzling teeth, skin bronzed, but showing white +and healthful through open front and sleeves of lilac shirt. The dashing +sparkle of this animate splendour, who looked to me as though the +sea-waves and the sun had made him in some hour of secret and unquiet +rapture, was somehow emphasised by a curious dint dividing his square +chin--a cleft that harmonised with smile on lip and steady flame in +eyes. I hardly know what effect it would have upon a reader to compare +eyes to 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. + +I felt, as I looked, that here, for me at least, the mythopoem of the +lagoons was humanised; the spirit of the salt-water lakes had appeared +to me; the final touch of life emergent from nature had been given. I +was satisfied; for I had seen a poem. + +Then we rose, and wandered through the Jews' cemetery. It is a quiet +place, where the flat grave-stones, inscribed in Hebrew and Italian, lie +deep in Lido sand, waved over with wild grass and poppies. I would fain +believe that no neglect, but rather the fashion of this folk, had left +the monuments of generations to be thus resumed by nature. Yet, knowing +nothing of the history of this burial-ground, I dare not affirm so much. +There is one outlying piece of the cemetery which seems to contradict my +charitable interpretation. It is not far from San Nicoletto. No +enclosure marks it from the unconsecrated dunes. Acacia-trees sprout +amid the monuments, and break the tablets with their thorny shoots +upthrusting from the soil. Where patriarchs and rabbis sleep for +centuries, the fishers of the sea now wander, and defile these +habitations of the dead: + + Corruption most abhorred + Mingling itself with their renowned ashes. + +Some of the grave-stones have been used to fence the towing-path; and +one I saw, well carved with letters legible of Hebrew on fair Itrian +marble, which roofed an open drain leading from the stable of a +Christian dog. + + +VIII.--A VENETIAN RESTAURANT. + +At the end of a long glorious day, unhappy is that mortal whom the +Hermes of a cosmopolitan hotel, white-chokered and white-waistcoated, +marshals to the Hades of the _table-d'hote_. 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--+hadou mageiros+--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 gondola from +the railway station; a German shopkeeper descanting in one breath on +Baur's Bock and the beauties of the Marcusplatz; an intelligent aesthete +bent on working into clearness his own views of Carpaccio's genius: all +these in turn, or all together, must be suffered gladly through +well-nigh two long hours. Uncomforted in soul we rise from the expensive +banquet; and how often rise from it unfed! + +Far other be the doom of my own friends--of pious bards and genial +companions, lovers of natural and lovely things! Nor for these do I +desire a seat at Florian's marble tables, or a perch in Quadri's +window, though the former supply dainty food, and the latter command a +bird's-eye view of the Piazza. Rather would I lead them to a certain +humble tavern on the Zattere. It is a quaint, low-built, unpretending +little place, near a bridge, with a garden hard by which sends a +cataract of honeysuckles sunward over a too-jealous wall. In front lies +a Mediterranean steamer, which all day long has been discharging cargo. +Gazing westward up Giudecca, masts and funnels bar the sunset and the +Paduan hills; and from a little front room of the _trattoria_ the view +is so marine that one keeps fancying oneself in some ship's cabin. +Sea-captains sit and smoke beside their glass of grog in the pavilion +and the _caffe_. But we do not seek their company at dinner-time. Our +way lies under yonder arch, and up the narrow alley into a paved court. +Here are oleanders in pots, and plants of Japanese spindle-wood in tubs; +and from the walls beneath the window hang cages of all sorts of +birds--a talking parrot, a whistling blackbird, goldfinches, canaries, +linnets. Athos, the fat dog, who goes to market daily in a _barchetta_ +with his master, snuffs around. "Where are Porthos and Aramis, my +friend?" Athos does not take the joke; he only wags his stump of tail +and pokes his nose into my hand. What a Tartufe's nose it is! Its bridge +displays the full parade of leather-bound brass-nailed muzzle. But +beneath, this muzzle is a patent sham. The frame does not even pretend +to close on Athos' jaw, and the wise dog wears it like a decoration. A +little farther we meet that ancient grey cat, who has no discoverable +name, but is famous for the sprightliness and grace with which she bears +her eighteen years. Not far from the cat one is sure to find Carlo--the +bird-like, bright-faced, close-cropped Venetian urchin, whose duty it is +to trot backwards and forwards between the cellar and the dining-tables. +At the end of the court we walk into the kitchen, where the black-capped +little _padrone_ and the gigantic white-capped _chef_ are in close +consultation. Here we have the privilege of inspecting the larder--fish +of various sorts, meat, vegetables, 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 _cuisine_, or about the reasonable charges +of this _trattoria_. A soup of lentils, followed by boiled turbot or +fried soles, beef-steak or mutton cutlets, tordi or beccafichi, with a +salad, the whole enlivened with good red wine or Florio's Sicilian +Marsala from the cask, costs about four francs. Gas is unknown in the +establishment. There is no noise, no bustle, no brutality of waiters, no +_ahurissement_ of tourists. And when dinner is done, we can sit awhile +over our cigarette and coffee, talking until the night invites us to a +stroll along the Zattere or a _giro_ in the gondola. + + +IX.--NIGHT IN VENICE. + +Night in Venice! Night is nowhere else so wonderful, unless it be winter +among the high Alps. But the nights of Venice and the nights of the +mountains are too different in kind to be compared. + +There is the ever-recurring miracle of the full moon rising, before day +is dead, behind San Giorgio, spreading a path of gold on the lagoon +which black boats traverse with the glow-worm lamp upon their prow; +ascending the cloudless sky and silvering the domes of the Salute; +pouring vitreous sheen upon the red lights of the Piazzetta; flooding +the Grand Canal, and lifting the Rialto higher in ethereal whiteness; +piercing but penetrating not the murky labyrinth of _rio_ linked with +_rio_, through which we wind in light and shadow, to reach once more the +level glories and the luminous expanse of heaven beyond the +Misericordia. + +This is the melodrama of Venetian moonlight; and if a single impression +of the night has to be retained from one visit to Venice, those are +fortunate who chance upon a full moon of fair weather. Yet I know not +whether some quieter and soberer effects are not more thrilling. +To-night, for example, the waning moon will rise late through veils of +_scirocco_. Over the bridges of San Cristoforo and San Gregorio, through +the deserted Calle di Mezzo, my friend and I walk in darkness, pass the +marble basements of the Salute, and push our way along its Riva to the +point of the Dogana. We are out at sea alone, between the Canalozzo and +the Giudecca. A moist wind ruffles the water and cools our forehead. It +is so dark that we can only see San Giorgio by the light reflected on +it from the Piazzetta. The same light climbs the Campanile of S. Mark, +and shows the golden angel in mystery of gloom. The only noise that +reaches us is a confused hum from the Piazza. Sitting and musing there, +the blackness of the water whispers in our ears a tale of death. And now +we hear a plash of oars and gliding through the darkness comes a single +boat. One man leaps upon the landing-place without a word and +disappears. There is another wrapped in a military cloak asleep. I see +his face beneath me, pale and quiet. The _barcaruolo_ turns the point in +silence. From the darkness they came; into the darkness they have gone. +It is only an ordinary incident of coastguard service. But the spirit of +the night has made a poem of it. + +Even tempestuous and rainy weather, though melancholy enough, is never +sordid here. There is no noise from carriage traffic in Venice, and the +sea-wind preserves the purity and 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 blueish sky, +and Santa Maria della Salute domed with moon-irradiated pearl, and the +wet slabs of the Riva shimmering in moonlight, the whole misty sky, with +its clouds and stellar spaces, drenched in moonlight, nothing but +moonlight sensible except the tawny flare of gas-lamps and the orange +lights of gondolas afloat upon the waters. On such a night the very +spirit of Venice is abroad. We feel why she is called Bride of the Sea. + +Take yet another night. There had been a representation of Verdi's +"Forza del Destino" at the Teatro Malibran. After midnight we walked +homeward through the Merceria, crossed the Piazza, and dived into the +narrow _calle_ which leads to the _traghetto_ of the Salute. It was a +warm moist starless night, and there seemed no air to breathe in those +narrow alleys. The gondolier was half asleep. Eustace called him as we +jumped into his boat, and rang our _soldi_ on the gunwale. Then he arose +and turned the _ferro_ round, and stood across towards the Salute. +Silently, insensibly, from the oppression of confinement in the airless +streets to the liberty and immensity of the water and the night we +passed. It was but two minutes ere we touched the shore and said +good-night, and went our way and left the ferryman. But in that brief +passage he had opened our souls to everlasting things--the freshness, +and the darkness, and the kindness of the brooding, all-enfolding night +above the sea. + + + + +THE GONDOLIER'S WEDDING. + + +The night before the wedding we had a supper-party in my rooms. We were +twelve in all. My friend Eustace brought his gondolier Antonio with +fair-haired, dark-eyed wife, and little Attilio, their eldest child. My +own gondolier, Francesco, came with his wife and two children. Then +there was the handsome, languid Luigi, who, in his best clothes, or out +of them, is fit for any drawing-room. Two gondoliers, in dark blue +shirts, completed the list of guests, if we exclude the maid Catina, who +came and went about the table, laughing and joining in the songs, and +sitting down at intervals to take her share of wine. The big room +looking across the garden to the Grand Canal had been prepared for +supper; and the company were to be received in the smaller, which has a +fine open space in front of it to southwards. But as the guests arrived, +they seemed to find the kitchen and the cooking that was going on quite +irresistible. Catina, it seems, had lost her head with so many +cuttlefishes, _orai_, cakes, and fowls, and cutlets to reduce to order. +There was, therefore, a great bustle below stairs; and I could hear +plainly that all my guests were lending their making, or their marring, +hands to the preparation of the supper. That the company should cook +their own food on the way to the dining-room, seemed a quite novel +arrangement, but one that promised well for their contentment with the +banquet. Nobody could be dissatisfied with what was everybody's affair. + +When seven o'clock struck, Eustace and I, who had been entertaining the +children in their mothers' absence, heard the sound of steps upon the +stairs. The guests arrived, bringing their own _risotto_ with them. +Welcome was short, if hearty. We sat down in carefully appointed order, +and fell into such conversation as the quarter of San Vio and our +several interests supplied. From time to time one of the matrons left +the table and descended to the kitchen, when a finishing stroke was +needed for roast pullet or stewed veal. The excuses they made their host +for supposed failure in the dishes, lent a certain grace and comic charm +to the commonplace of festivity. The entertainment was theirs as much as +mine; and they all seemed to enjoy what took the form by degrees of +curiously complicated hospitality. I do not think a well-ordered supper +at any _trattoria_, such as at first suggested itself to my imagination, +would have given any of us an equal pleasure or an equal sense of +freedom. The three children had become the guests of the whole party. +Little Attilio, propped upon an air-cushion, which puzzled him +exceedingly, ate through his supper and drank his wine with solid +satisfaction, opening the large brown eyes beneath those tufts of +clustering fair hair which promise much beauty for him in his manhood. +Francesco's boy, who is older and begins to know the world, sat with a +semi-suppressed grin upon his face, as though the humour of the +situation was not wholly hidden from him. Little Teresa too was happy, +except when her mother, a severe Pomona, with enormous earrings and +splendid _fazzoletto_ of crimson and orange dyes, pounced down upon her +for some supposed infraction of good manners--_creanza_, as they vividly +express it here. Only Luigi looked a trifle bored. But Luigi has been a +soldier, and has now attained the supercilious superiority of +young-manhood, which smokes its cigar of an evening in the piazza and +knows the merits of the different cafes. + +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 _mezza voce_, which might, by a stretch of politeness, +be called baritone. Piero's comrade, whose name concerns us not, has +another of these nondescript voices. They sat together with their +glasses and cigars before them, sketching part-songs in outline, +striking the keynote--now higher and now lower--till they saw their +subject well in view. Then they burst into full singing, Antonio leading +with a metal note that thrilled one's ears, but still was musical. +Complicated contrapuntal pieces, such as we should call madrigals, with +ever-recurring refrains of "Venezia, gemma Triatica, sposa del mar," +descending probably from ancient days, followed each other in quick +succession. Barcaroles, serenades, love-songs, and invitations to the +water were interwoven for relief. One of these romantic pieces had a +beautiful burden, "Dormi, o bella, o fingi di dormir," of which the +melody was fully worthy. But the most successful of all the tunes were +two with a sad motive. The one repeated incessantly "Ohime! mia madre +mori;" the other was a girl's love lament: "Perche tradirmi, perche +lasciarmi! prima d'amarmi non eri cosi!" 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 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 citta," 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, then +wrapped the children up, and took their leave. It was an uncomfortable, +warm, wet night of sullen _scirocco_. + +The next day, which was Sunday, Francesco called me at five. There was +no visible sunrise that cheerless damp October morning. Grey dawn stole +somehow imperceptibly between the veil of clouds and leaden waters, as +my friend and I, well sheltered by our _felze_, passed into the +Giudecca, and took our station before the church of the Gesuati. A few +women from the neighbouring streets and courts crossed the bridges in +draggled petticoats on their way to first mass. A few men, shouldering +their jackets, lounged along the Zattere, opened the great green doors, +and entered. Then suddenly Antonio cried out that the bridal party was +on its way, not as we had expected, in boats, but on foot. We left our +gondola, and fell into the ranks, after shaking hands with Francesco, +who is the elder brother of the bride. There was nothing very noticeable +in her appearance, except her large dark eyes. Otherwise both face and +figure were of a common type; and her bridal dress of sprigged grey +silk, large veil and orange blossoms, reduced her to the level of a +_bourgeoise_. It was much the same with the bridegroom. His features, +indeed, proved him a true Venetian gondolier; for the skin was strained +over the cheekbones, and the muscles of the throat beneath the jaws +stood out like cords, and the bright blue eyes were deep-set beneath a +spare brown forehead. But he had provided a complete suit of black for +the occasion, and wore a shirt of worked cambric, which disguised what +is really splendid in the physique of these oarsmen, at once slender and +sinewy. Both bride and bridegroom looked uncomfortable in their clothes. +The light that fell upon them in the church was dull and leaden. The +ceremony, which was very hurriedly performed by an unctuous priest, did +not appear to impress either of them. Nobody in the bridal party, +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. + +After the ceremony we heard mass and contributed to three distinct +offertories. Considering how much account even two _soldi_ are to these +poor people, I was really angry when I heard the copper shower. Every +member of the party had his or her pennies ready, and dropped them into +the boxes. Whether it was the effect of the bad morning, or the ugliness +of a very ill-designed _barocco_ building, or the fault of the fat oily +priest, I know not. But the _sposalizio_ struck me as tame and +cheerless, the mass as irreverent and vulgarly conducted. At the same +time there is something too impressive in the mass for any perfunctory +performance to divest its symbolism of sublimity. A Protestant Communion +Service lends itself more easily to degradation by unworthiness in the +minister. + +We walked down the church in double file, led by the bride and +bridegroom, who had knelt during the ceremony with the best +man--_compare_, as he is called--at a narrow _prie-dieu_ before the +altar. The _compare_ is a person of distinction at these weddings. He +has to present the bride with a great pyramid of artificial flowers, +which is placed before her at the marriage-feast, a packet of candles, +and a box of bonbons. The comfits, when the box is opened, are found to +include two magnificent sugar babies lying in their cradles. I was told +that a _compare_, who does the thing handsomely, must be 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. + +From the church to the bride's house was a walk of some three minutes. +On the way we were introduced to the father of the bride--a very +magnificent personage, with points of strong resemblance to Vittorio +Emmanuele. He wore an enormous broad-brimmed hat and emerald-green +earrings, and looked considerably younger than his eldest son, +Francesco. Throughout the _nozze_ he took the lead in a grand imperious +fashion of his own. Wherever he went, he seemed to fill the place, and +was fully aware of his own importance. In Florence I think he would have +got the nickname of _Tacchin_, or turkey-cock. Here at Venice the sons +and daughters call their parent briefly _Vecchio_. I heard him so +addressed with a certain amount of awe, expecting an explosion of +bubbly-jock displeasure. But he took it, as though it was natural, +without disturbance. The other _Vecchio_, father of the bridegroom, +struck me as more sympathetic. He was a gentle old man, proud of his +many prosperous, laborious sons. They, like the rest of the gentlemen, +were gondoliers. Both the _Vecchi_, indeed, continue to ply their trade, +day and night, at the _traghetto_. + +_Traghetti_ are stations for gondolas at different points of the canals. +As their name implies, it is the first duty of the gondoliers upon them +to ferry people across. This they do for the fixed fee of five centimes. +The _traghetti_ are in fact Venetian cab-stands. And, of course, like +London cabs, the gondolas may be taken off them for trips. The +municipality, however, makes it a condition, under penalty of fine to +the _traghetto_, that each station should always be provided with two +boats for the service of the ferry. When vacancies occur on the +_traghetti_, a gondolier who owns or hires a boat makes application to +the municipality, receives a number, and is inscribed as plying at a +certain station. He has now entered a sort of guild, which is presided +over by a _Capo-traghetto_, elected by the rest for the protection of +their interests, the settlement of disputes, and the management of their +common funds. In the old acts of Venice this functionary is styled +_Gastaldo di traghetto_. The members have to contribute something yearly +to the guild. This payment varies upon different stations, according to +the greater or less amount of the tax levied by the municipality on the +_traghetto_. The highest subscription I have heard of is twenty-five +francs; the lowest, seven. There is one _traghetto_, known by the name +of Madonna del Giglio or Zobenigo, which possesses near its _pergola_ of +vines a nice old brown Venetian picture. Some stranger offered a +considerable sum for this. But the guild refused to part with it. + +As may be imagined, the _traghetti_ vary greatly in the amount and +quality of their custom. By far the best are those in the neighbourhood +of the hotels upon the Grand Canal. At any one of these a gondolier +during the season is sure of picking up some foreigner or other who will +pay him handsomely for comparatively light service. A _traghetto_ on the +Giudecca, on the contrary, depends upon Venetian traffic. The work is +more monotonous, and the pay is reduced to its tariffed minimum. So far +as I can gather, an industrious gondolier, with a good boat, belonging +to a good _traghetto_, may make as much as ten or fifteen francs in a +single day. But this cannot be relied on. They therefore prefer a fixed +appointment with a private family, for which they receive by tariff five +francs a day, or by arrangement for long periods perhaps four francs a +day, with certain perquisites and small advantages. It is great luck to +get such an engagement for 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 _traghetto_, except by +stipulation with their masters. Then they may take their place one night +out of every six in the rank and file. The gondoliers have two proverbs, +which show how desirable it is, while taking a fixed engagement, to keep +their hold on the _traghetto_. One is to this effect: _il traghetto e un +buon padrone_. The other satirises the meanness of the poverty-stricken +Venetian nobility: _pompa di servitu, misera insegna_. When they combine +the _traghetto_ with private service, the municipality insists on their +retaining the number painted on their gondola; and against this their +employers frequently object. It is, therefore, a great point for a +gondolier to make such an arrangement with his master as will leave him +free to show his number. The reason for this regulation is obvious. +Gondoliers are known more by their numbers and their _traghetti_ than +their names. They tell me that though there are upwards of a thousand +registered in Venice, each man of the trade knows the whole +confraternity by face and number. Taking all things into consideration, +I think four francs a day the whole year round are very good earnings +for a gondolier. On this he will marry and rear a family, and put a +little money by. A young unmarried man, working at two and a half or +three francs a day, is proportionately well-to-do. If he is economical, +he ought upon these wages to save enough in two or three years to buy +himself a gondola. A boy from fifteen to nineteen is called a +_mezz'uomo_, and gets about one franc a day. A new gondola with all its +fittings is worth about a thousand francs. It does not last in good +condition more than six or seven years. At the end of that time the hull +will fetch eighty francs. A new hull can be had for three hundred +francs. The old fittings--brass sea-horses or _cavalli_, steel prow or +_ferro_, covered cabin or _felze_, cushions and leather-covered +back-board or _stramazetto_, may be transferred to it. When a man wants +to start a gondola, he will begin by buying one already half past +service--a _gondola da traghetto_ or _di mezza eta_. This should cost +him something over two hundred francs. Little by little, he accumulates +the needful fittings; and when his first purchase is worn out, he hopes +to set up with a well-appointed equipage. He thus gradually works his +way from the rough trade which involves hard work and poor earnings to +that more profitable industry which cannot be carried on without a smart +boat. The gondola is a source of continual expense for repairs. Its oars +have to be replaced. It has to be washed with sponges, blacked, and +varnished. Its bottom needs frequent cleaning. Weeds adhere to it in the +warm brackish water, growing rapidly through the summer months, and +demanding to be scrubbed off once in every four weeks. The gondolier has +no place where he can do this for himself. He therefore takes his boat +to a wharf, or _squero_, as the place is called. At these _squeri_ +gondolas are built as well as cleaned. The fee for a thorough setting to +rights of the boat is five francs. It must be done upon a fine day. Thus +in addition to the cost, the owner loses a good day's work. + +These details will serve to give some notion of the sort of people with +whom Eustace and I spent our day. The bride's house is in an excellent +position on an open canal leading from the Canalozzo to the Giudecca. +She had arrived before us, and received her friends in the middle of the +room. Each of us in turn kissed her cheek and murmured our +congratulations. We found the large living-room of the house arranged +with chairs all round the walls, and the company were marshalled in some +order of precedence, my friend and I taking place near the bride. On +either hand airy bed-rooms opened 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. + +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 +curacoa 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 +macaroon 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 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 shop-keepers as possible. +But they did not all of them succeed. Two handsome women, who handed the +cups round--one a brunette, the other a blonde--wore skirts of brilliant +blue, with a sort of white jacket, and white kerchief folded heavily +about their shoulders. The brunette had a great string of coral, the +blonde of amber, round her throat. Gold earrings and the long gold +chains Venetian women wear, of all patterns and degrees of value, +abounded. Nobody appeared without them; but I could not see any of an +antique make. The men seemed to be contented with rings--huge, heavy +rings of solid gold, worked with a rough flower pattern. One young +fellow had three upon his fingers. This circumstance led me to speculate +whether a certain portion at least of this display of jewellery around +me had not been borrowed for the occasion. + +Eustace and I were treated quite like friends. They called us _I +Signori_. But this was only, I think, because our English names are +quite unmanageable. The women fluttered about us and kept asking whether +we really liked it all? whether we should come to the _pranzo_? whether +it was true we danced? It seemed to give them unaffected pleasure to be +kind to us; and when we rose to go away, the whole company crowded +round, shaking hands and saying: "_Si divertira bene stasera_!" Nobody +resented our presence; what was better, no one put himself out for us. +"_Vogliono veder il nostro costume_," I heard one woman say. + +We got home soon after eight, and, as our ancestors would have said, +settled our stomachs with a dish of tea. It makes me shudder now to +think of the mixed liquids and miscellaneous cakes we had consumed at +that unwonted hour. + +At half-past three, Eustace and I again prepared ourselves for action. +His gondola was in attendance, covered with the _felze_, to take us to +the house of the _sposa_. We found the canal crowded with poor people of +the quarter--men, women, and children lining the walls along its side, +and clustering like bees upon the bridges. The water itself was almost +choked with gondolas. Evidently the folk of San Vio thought our wedding +procession would be a most exciting pageant. We entered the house, and +were again greeted by the bride and bridegroom, who consigned each of us +to the control of a fair tyrant. This is the most fitting way of +describing our introduction to our partners of the evening; for we were +no sooner presented, than the ladies swooped upon us like their prey, +placing their shawls upon our left arms, while they seized and clung to +what was left available of us for locomotion. There was considerable +giggling and tittering throughout the company when Signora Fenzo, the +young and comely wife of a gondolier, thus took possession of Eustace, +and Signora dell'Acqua, the widow of another gondolier, appropriated me. +The affair had been arranged beforehand, and their friends had probably +chaffed them with the difficulty of managing two mad Englishmen. +However, they proved equal to the occasion, and the difficulties were +entirely on our side. Signora Fenzo was a handsome brunette, quiet in +her manners, who meant business. I envied Eustace his subjection to such +a reasonable being. Signora dell'Acqua, though a widow, was by no means +disconsolate; and I soon perceived that it would require all the address +and diplomacy I possessed, to make anything out of her society. She +laughed incessantly; darted in the most diverse directions, dragging me +along with her; exhibited me in triumph to her cronies; made eyes at me +over a fan; repeated my clumsiest remarks, as though they gave her +indescribable amusement; and all the while jabbered Venetian at express +rate, without the slightest regard for my incapacity to follow her +vagaries. The _Vecchio_ marshalled us in order. First went the _sposa_ +and _comare_ with the mothers of bride and bridegroom. Then followed the +_sposo_ and the bridesmaid. After them I was made to lead my fair +tormentor. As we descended the staircase there arose a hubbub of +excitement from the crowd on the canals. The gondolas moved turbidly +upon the face of the waters. The bridegroom kept muttering to himself, +"How we shall be criticised! They will tell each other who was decently +dressed, and who stepped awkwardly into the boats, and what the price of +my boots was!" Such exclamations, murmured at intervals, and followed by +chest-drawn sighs, expressed a deep preoccupation. With regard to his +boots, he need have had no anxiety. They were of the shiniest patent +leather, much too tight, and without a speck of dust upon them. But his +nervousness infected me with a cruel dread. All those eyes were going to +watch how we comported ourselves in jumping from the landing-steps into +the boat! If this operation, upon a ceremonious occasion, has terrors +even for a gondolier, how formidable it ought to be to me! And here is +the Signora dell'Acqua's white cachemire shawl dangling on one arm, and +the Signora herself languishingly clinging to the other; and the +gondolas are fretting in a fury of excitement, like corks, upon the +churned green water! The moment was terrible. The _sposa_ and her three +companions had been safely stowed away beneath their _felze_. The +_sposo_ had successfully handed the bridesmaid into the second gondola. +I had to perform the same office for my partner. Off she went, like a +bird, from the bank. I seized a happy moment, followed, bowed, and found +myself to my contentment gracefully ensconced in a corner opposite the +widow. Seven more gondolas were packed. The procession moved. We glided +down the little channel, broke 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. + +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 costume. She had a pretty +little pale face, a _minois chiffonne_, with slightly turned-up nose, +large laughing brown eyes, a dazzling set of teeth, and a tempestuously +frizzled mop of powdered hair. When I managed to get a side-look at her +quietly, without being giggled at or driven half mad by unintelligible +incitements to a jocularity I could not feel, it struck me that, if we +once found a common term of communication we should become good friends. +But for the moment that _modus vivendi_ seemed unattainable. She had not +recovered from the first excitement of her capture of me. She was still +showing me off and trying to stir me up. The arrival of the soup gave me +a momentary relief; and soon the serious business of the afternoon +began. I may add that before dinner was over, the Signora dell'Acqua and +I were fast friends. I had discovered the way of making jokes, and she +had become intelligible. I found her a very nice, though flighty, little +woman; and I believe she thought me gifted with the faculty of uttering +eccentric epigrams in a grotesque tongue. Some of my remarks were flung +about the table, and had the same success as uncouth Lombard carvings +have with connoisseurs in _naivetes_ of art. By that time we had come to +be _compare_ and _comare_ to each other--the sequel of some clumsy piece +of jocularity. + +It was a heavy entertainment, copious in quantity, excellent in quality, +plainly but well cooked. I remarked there was no fish. The widow replied +that everybody present ate fish to satiety at home. They did not join a +marriage feast at the San Gallo, and pay their nine francs, for that! It +should be observed that each guest paid for his own entertainment. This +appears to be the custom. Therefore attendance is complimentary, and +the married couple are not at ruinous charges for the banquet. A curious +feature in the whole proceeding had its origin in this custom. I noticed +that before 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 _comare_) had +accumulated two whole chickens, half a turkey, and a large assortment of +mixed eatables. I performed my duty and won her regard by placing +delicacies at her disposition. + +Crudely stated, this proceeding moves disgust. But that is only because +one has not thought the matter out. In the performance there was nothing +coarse or nasty. These good folk had made a contract at so much a +head--so many fowls, so many pounds of beef, &c., to be supplied; and +what they had fairly bought, they clearly had a right to. No one, so far +as I could notice, tried to take more than his proper share; except, +indeed, Eustace and myself. In our first eagerness to conform to custom, +we both overshot the mark, and grabbed at disproportionate helpings. +The waiters politely observed that we were taking what was meant for +two; and as the courses followed in interminable sequence, we soon +acquired the tact of what was due to us. + +Meanwhile the room grew warm. The gentlemen threw off their coats--a +pleasant liberty of which I availed myself, and was immediately more at +ease. The ladies divested themselves of their shoes (strange to relate!) +and sat in comfort with their stockinged feet upon the _scagliola_ +pavement. I observed that some cavaliers by special permission were +allowed to remove their partners' slippers. This was not my lucky fate. +My _comare_ had not advanced to that point of intimacy. Healths began to +be drunk. The conversation took a lively turn; and women went fluttering +round the table, visiting their friends, to sip out of their glass, and +ask each other how they were getting on. It was not long before the +stiff veneer of _bourgeoisie_ which bored me had worn off. The people +emerged in their true selves: natural, gentle, sparkling with enjoyment, +playful. Playful is, I think, the best word to describe them. They +played with infinite grace and innocence, like kittens, from the old men +of sixty to the little boys of thirteen. Very little wine was drunk. +Each guest had a litre placed before him. Many did not finish theirs; +and for very few was it replenished. When at last the desert 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 +piu," sung after this fashion to Eustace's handsome partner, who puffed +delicate whiffs from a Russian cigarette, and smiled her thanks, had a +peculiar appropriateness. All the ladies, it may be observed in passing, +had by this time lit their cigarettes. The men were smoking Toscani, +Sellas, or Cavours, and the little boys were dancing round the table +breathing smoke from their pert nostrils. + +The dinner, in fact, was over. Other relatives of the guests arrived, +and then we saw how some of the reserved dishes were to be bestowed. A +side-table was spread at the end of the gallery, and these late-comers +were regaled with plenty by their friends. Meanwhile, the big table at +which we had dined was taken to pieces and removed. The _scagliola_ +floor was swept by the waiters. Musicians came streaming in and took +their places. The ladies resumed their shoes. Every one prepared to +dance. + +My friend and I were now at liberty to chat with the men. He knew some +of them by sight, and claimed acquaintance with others. There was plenty +of talk about different boats, gondolas, and sandolos and topos, remarks +upon the past season, and inquiries as to chances of engagements in the +future. One young fellow told us how he had been drawn for the army, and +should be obliged to give up his trade just when he had begun to make it +answer. He had got a new gondola, and this would have to be hung up +during the years of his service. The warehousing of a boat in these +circumstances costs nearly one hundred francs a year, which is a serious +tax upon the pockets of a private in the line. Many questions were put +in turn to us, but all of the same tenor. "Had we really enjoyed the +_pranzo_? Now, really, were we amusing ourselves? And did we think the +custom of the wedding _un bel costume_?" We could give an unequivocally +hearty response to all these interrogations. The men seemed pleased. +Their interest in our enjoyment was unaffected. It is noticeable how +often the word _divertimento_ is heard upon the lips of the Italians. +They have a notion that it is the function in life of the _Signori_ to +amuse themselves. + +The ball opened, and now we were much besought by the ladies. I had to +deny myself with a whole series of comical excuses. Eustace performed +his duty after a stiff English fashion--once with his pretty partner of +the _pranzo_, and once again with a fat gondolier. The band played +waltzes and polkas, chiefly upon patriotic airs--the Marcia Reale, +Garibaldi's Hymn, &c. Men danced with men, women with 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 _comare_ careered about with a light maenadic impetuosity, +which made me regret my inability to accept her pressing invitations. +She pursued me into every corner of the room, but when at last I dropped +excuses and told her that my real reason for not dancing was that it +would hurt my health, she waived her claims at once with an _Ah, +poverino_! + +Some time after midnight we felt that we had had enough of +_divertimento_. Francesco helped us to slip out unobserved. With many +silent good wishes we left the innocent, playful people who had been so +kind to us. The stars were shining from a watery sky as we passed into +the piazza beneath the Campanile and the pinnacles of S. Mark. The Riva +was almost empty, and the little waves fretted the boats moored to the +piazzetta, as a warm moist breeze went fluttering by. We smoked a last +cigar, crossed our _traghetto_, and were soon sound asleep at the end of +a long, pleasant day. The ball, we heard next morning, finished about +four. + +Since that evening I have had plenty of opportunities for seeing my +friends the gondoliers, both in their own homes and in my apartment. +Several have entertained me at their mid-day meal of fried fish and +amber-coloured polenta. These repasts were always cooked with scrupulous +cleanliness, and served upon a table covered with coarse linen. The +polenta is turned out upon a wooden platter, and cut with a string +called _lassa_. You take a large slice of it on the palm of the left +hand, and break it with the fingers of the right. Wholesome red wine of +the Paduan district and good white bread were never wanting. The rooms +in which we met to eat looked out on narrow lanes or over pergolas of +yellowing vines. Their whitewashed walls were hung with photographs of +friends and foreigners, many of them souvenirs from English or American +employers. The men, in broad black hats and lilac skirts, sat round the +table, girt with the red waist-wrapper, or _fascia_, which marks the +ancient faction of the Castellani. The other faction, called Nicolotti, +are distinguished by a black _assisa_. The quarters of the town are +divided unequally and irregularly into these two parties. What was once +a formidable rivalry between two sections of the Venetian populace, +still survives in challenges to trials of strength and skill upon the +water. The women, in their many-coloured kerchiefs, stirred polenta at +the smoke-blackened chimney, whose huge pent-house roof projects two +feet or more across the hearth. When they had served the table they took +their seat on low stools, knitted stockings, or drank out of glasses +handed across the shoulder to them by their lords. Some of these women +were clearly notable housewives, and I have no reason to suppose that +they do not take their full share of the housework. Boys and girls came +in and out, and got a portion of the dinner to consume where they +thought best. Children went tottering about upon the red-brick floor, +the playthings of those hulking fellows, who handled them very gently +and spoke kindly in a sort of confidential whisper to their ears. These +little ears were mostly pierced for earrings, and the light blue eyes of +the urchins peeped maliciously beneath shocks of yellow hair. A dog was +often of the party. He ate fish like his masters, and was made to beg +for it by sitting up and rowing with his paws. _Voga, Azzo, voga!_ The +Anzolo who talked thus to his little brown Spitz-dog has the hoarse +voice of a Triton and the movement of an animated sea-wave. Azzo +performed his trick, swallowed his fish-bones, and the fiery Anzolo +looked round approvingly. + +On all these occasions I have found these gondoliers the 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 _feste_ and +their singing clubs. + +Of course it is not easy for a stranger in a very different social +position to feel that he has been admitted to their confidence. Italians +have an ineradicable habit of making themselves externally agreeable, of +bending in all indifferent matters to the whims and wishes of superiors, +and of saying what they think _Signori_ like. This habit, while it +smoothes the surface of existence, raises up a barrier of compliment and +partial insincerity, against which the more downright natures of us +Northern folk break in vain efforts. Our advances are met with an +imperceptible but impermeable resistance by the very people who are bent +on making the world pleasant to us. It is the very reverse of that dour +opposition which a Lowland Scot or a North English peasant offers to +familiarity; but it is hardly less insurmountable. The treatment, again, +which Venetians of the lower class have received through centuries from +their own nobility, makes attempts at fraternisation on the part of +gentlemen unintelligible to them. The best way, here and elsewhere, of +overcoming these obstacles is to have some bond of work or interest in +common--of service on the one side rendered, and good-will 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. + + + + +FORNOVO. + + +In the town of Parma there is one surpassingly strange relic of the +past. The palace of the Farnesi, like many a haunt of upstart tyranny +and beggared pride on these Italian plains, rises misshapen and +disconsolate above the stream that bears the city's name. The squalor of +this gray-brown edifice of formless brick, left naked like the palace of +the same Farnesi at Piacenza, has something even horrid in it now that +only vague memory survives of its former uses. The princely +_sprezzatura_ of its ancient occupants, careless of these unfinished +courts and unroofed galleries amid the splendor 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 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 frescos, +its hangings all in rags, its cobwebs of two centuries, its dust and +mildew and discolored gold--this theatre, a sham in its best days, and +now that ugliest of things, a sham unmasked and naked to the light of +day, is yet sublime, because of its proportioned harmony, because of its +grand Roman manner. The sight and feeling of it fasten upon the mind and +abide in the memory like a nightmare--like one of Piranesi's weirdest +and most passion-haunted etchings for the _Carceri_. Idling there at +noon in the twilight of the dust-bedarkened windows, we fill the tiers +of those high galleries with ladies, the space below with grooms and +pages; the stage is ablaze with torches, and an Italian Masque, such as +our Marlowe dreamed of, fills the scene. But it is impossible to dower +these fancies with even such life as in healthier, happier ruins +phantasy may lend to imagination's figments. This theatre is like a +maniac's skull, empty of all but unrealities and mockeries of things +that are. The ghosts we raise here could never have been living men and +women: _questi sciaurati non fur mai vivi_. So clinging is the sense of +instability that appertains to every fragment of that dry-rot tyranny +which seized by evil fortune in the sunset of her golden day on Italy. + +In this theatre I mused one morning after visiting Fornovo; and the +thoughts suggested by the battlefield found their proper atmosphere in +the dilapidated place. What, indeed, is the Teatro Farnese but a symbol +of those hollow principalities which the despot and the stranger built +in Italy after the fatal date of 1494, when national enthusiasm and +political energy 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. + +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 6th, 1495, for the onset, sounded the _reveille_ of +the modern world; and in the inconclusive termination of the struggle of +that day the Italians were already judged and sentenced as a nation. The +armies who met that morning represented Italy and France--Italy, the +Sibyl of Renaissance; France, the Sibyl of Revolution. At the fall of +evening Europe was already looking northward; and the last years of the +fifteenth century were opening an act which closed in blood at Paris on +the ending of the eighteenth. + +If it were not for thoughts like these, no one, I suppose, would take +the trouble to drive for two hours out of Parma to the little village of +Fornovo--a score of bare gray 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 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 _ghiara_, or pebbly bottom, of the Taro. The +Taro is not less wasteful than any other of the brotherhood of streams +that pour from Alp or Apennine to swell the Po. It wanders, an impatient +rivulet, through a wilderness of boulders, uncertain of its aim, +shifting its course with the season of the year, unless the jaws of some +deep-cloven gully hold it tight and show how insignificant it is. As we +advance, the hills approach again; between their skirts there is nothing +but the river-bed; and now on rising ground above the stream, at the +point of juncture between the Ceno and the Taro, we find Fornovo. Beyond +the village the valley broadens out once more, disclosing Apennines +capped with winter snow. To the right descends the Ceno. To the left +foams the Taro, following whose rocky channel we should come at last to +Pontremoli and the Tyrrhenian Sea beside Sarzana. On a May-day of +sunshine like the present, the Taro is a gentle stream. A waggon drawn +by two white oxen has just entered its channel, guided by a contadino +with goat-skin leggings, wielding a long goad. The patient creatures +stem the water, which rises to the peasant's thighs and ripples round +the creaking wheels. Swaying to and fro, as the shingles shift upon the +river-bed, they make their way across; and now they have emerged upon +the stones; and now we lose them in a flood of sunlight. + +It was by this pass that Charles VIII. in 1495 returned from Tuscany, +when the army of the League was drawn up waiting to intercept and crush +him in the mouse-trap of Fornovo. No road remained for Charles and his +troops but 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. + +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 8th 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 25th, Innocent VIII. died, and was succeeded by the +very worst pope who has ever occupied St. 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, 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. + +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, 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 honorable +prison. Virtual master in Milan, but without a legal title to the +throne, unrecognized 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 a usurper to +maintain himself in his despotism which, as we shall see, brought the +French into Italy. + +Venice, the neighbor 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 favor of the conquerors. + +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 +equalization of the burghers, and in the formation of a new aristocracy +of wealth. From this class of _bourgeois_ nobles sprang the Medici, who, +by careful manipulation of the State machinery, by the creation of a +powerful party devoted to their interests, by flattery of the people, by +corruption, by taxation, and by constant scheming, raised themselves to +the first place in the commonwealth, and became its virtual masters. In +the year 1492, Lorenzo de Medici, the most remarkable chief of this +despotic family, died, bequeathing his supremacy in the republic to a +son of marked incompetence. + +Since the pontificate of Nicholas V. the See of Rome had entered upon a +new period of existence. The popes no longer dreaded to reside in Rome, +but were bent upon making the metropolis of Christendom both splendid as +a seat of art and learning, and also potent as the capital of a secular +kingdom. Though their fiefs in Romagna and the March were still held but +loosely, though their provinces swarmed with petty despots who defied +the papal authority, and though the princely Roman houses of Colonna and +Orsini were still strong enough to terrorize 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 secularized 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 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 +favorites and bastards in the principalities they seized as spoils of +war. + +The kingdom of Naples differed from any other state of Italy. Subject +continually to foreign rulers since the decay of the Greek Empire, +governed in succession by the Normans, the Hohenstauffens, and the House +of Anjou, it had never enjoyed the real independence or the free +institutions of the northern provinces; nor had it been Italianized 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 state-craft. 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 favor 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 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.[D] + +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 +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 civilization. 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 seven hundred +thousand 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 vigor in the +republics and the noxious tyranny of the despots, analyzing 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 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. + +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 the 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 grand-daughter, 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." + +Charles VIII. was young, light-brained, romantic, and ruled by +_parvenus_ who had an interest in disturbing the old order of the +monarchy. He lent a willing ear to Lodovico's invitation, backed as this +was by the eloquence and passion of numerous Italian refugees and +exiles. Against the advice of his more prudent counsellors, he taxed all +the resources of his kingdom, and concluded treaties on disadvantageous +terms with England, Germany, and Spain, in order that he might be able +to concentrate all his attention upon the Italian expedition. At the end +of the year 1493, it was known that the invasion was resolved upon. +Gentile Becchi, the Florentine envoy at the Court of France, wrote to +Piero de' Medici: "If the king succeeds, it is all over with +Italy--_tutta a bordello_." The extraordinary selfishness of the several +Italian states at this critical moment deserves to be noticed. The +Venetians, as Paolo Antonio Soderini described them to Piero de' Medici, +"are of opinion that to keep quiet, and to see other potentates of Italy +spending and suffering, cannot but be to their advantage. They trust no +one, and feel sure they have enough money to be able at any moment to +raise sufficient troops, and so to guide events according to their +inclinations." As the invasion was directed against Naples, Ferdinand of +Aragon displayed the acutest sense of the situation. "Frenchmen," he +exclaimed, in what appears like a prophetic passion when contrasted with +the cold indifference of others no less 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.e._, Lodovico Sforza) should think what +may ensue from the tumult he is stirring up. He who raises this wind +will not be able to lay the tempest when he likes. Let him look to the +past, and he will see how every time that our internal quarrels have +brought powers from beyond the Alps into Italy, these have oppressed and +lorded over her." + +Terribly verified as these words were destined to be--and they were no +less prophetic in their political sagacity than Savonarola's prediction +of the Sword and bloody Scourge--it was now too late to avert the coming +ruin. On March 1, 1494, Charles was with his army at Lyons. Early in +September he had crossed the pass of Mont Genevre 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." 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 5th, +1495, took up his quarters in the village of Fornovo. De Comines reckons +that his whole fighting force at this time did not exceed nine thousand +men, with fourteen pieces of artillery. Against him at the opening of +the valley was the army of the League, numbering some thirty-five +thousand men, of whom three fourths were supplied by Venice, the rest by +Lodovico Sforza and the German emperor. Francesco Gonzaga, Marquis of +Mantua, was the general of the Venetian forces; and on him, therefore, +fell the real responsibility of the battle. + +De Comines remarks on the imprudence of the allies, who allowed Charles +to advance as far as Fornovo, when it was their obvious policy to have +established themselves in the village and so have caught the French +troops in a trap. It was a Sunday when the French marched down upon +Fornovo. Before them spread the plain of Lombardy, and beyond it the +white crests of the Alps. "We were," says De Comines, "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 +towards the plain, lay the host of the allies; and in order that Charles +should escape them, it was necessary that he should cross the Taro, just +below its junction with the Ceno, and reach Lombardy by marching in a +parallel line with his foes. + +All through the night of Sunday it thundered and rained incessantly; so +that on the Monday morning the Taro was considerably swollen. At seven +o'clock the king sent for De Comines, who found him already armed and +mounted on the finest horse he had ever seen. The name of this charger +was Savoy. He was black, one-eyed, and of middling height; and to his +great courage, as we shall see, Charles owed life upon that day. The +French army, ready for the march, now took to the gravelly bed of the +Taro, passing the river at a distance of about a quarter of a league +from the allies. As the French left Fornovo, the light cavalry of their +enemies entered the village and began to attack the baggage. At the same +time the Marquis of Mantua, with the flower of his men-at-arms, crossed +the Taro and harassed the rear of the French host; while raids from the +right bank to the left were constantly being made by sharp-shooters 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 +three hundred and fifty men-at-arms, three thousand Switzers, three +hundred archers of the Guard, a few mounted crossbow-men, and the +artillery. Next came the Battle, and after this the rear-guard. At the +time when the Marquis of Mantua made his attack, the French rear-guard +had not yet crossed the river. Charles quitted the van, put himself at +the head of his chivalry, and charged the Italian horsemen, driving them +back, some to the village and others to their camp. De Comines observes, +that had the Italian knights been supported in this passage of arms by +the light cavalry of the Venetian force, called Stradiots, the French +must have been outnumbered, thrown into confusion, and defeated. As it +was, these Stradiots were engaged in plundering the baggage of the +French; and the Italians, accustomed to bloodless encounters, did not +venture, in spite of their immense superiority of numbers, to renew the +charge. In the pursuit of Gonzaga's horsemen Charles outstripped his +staff, and was left almost alone to grapple with a little band of +mounted foemen. It was here that his noble horse, Savoy, saved his +person by plunging and charging till assistance came up from the French, +and enabled the king to regain his van. + +It is incredible, considering the nature of the ground and the number of +the troops engaged, that the allies should not have returned to the +attack and have made the passage of the French into the plain +impossible. De Comines, however, assures us that the actual engagement +only lasted a quarter of an hour, and the pursuit of the Italians three +quarters of an hour. After they had once resolved to fly, they threw +away their lances and betook themselves to Reggio and Parma. So complete +was their discomfiture, that De Comines gravely blames the want of +military genius and adventure in the French host. If, instead of +advancing along the left bank of the Taro and there taking up his +quarters for the 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 favored their retreat; and the same pusillanimity which +the allies had shown at Fornovo prevented them from re-forming and +engaging with the army of Charles upon the plain. One hour before +daybreak on Tuesday morning the French broke up their camp and succeeded +in clearing the valley. That night they lodged at Fiorenzuola, the next +at Piacenza, and so on; till on the eighth day they arrived at Asti +without having been so much as incommoded by the army of the allies in +their rear. + +Although the field of Fornovo was in reality so disgraceful to the +Italians, they reckoned it a victory upon the technical pretence that +the camp and baggage of the French had been seized. Illuminations and +rejoicings made the piazza of St. Mark in Venice gay, and Francesco da +Gonzaga had the glorious Madonna della Vittoria painted for him by +Mantegna, in commemoration of what ought only to have been remembered +with shame. + +A fitting conclusion to this sketch, connecting its close with the +commencement, may be found in some remarks upon the manner of warfare +to which the Italians of the Renaissance had become accustomed, and +which proved so futile on the field of Fornovo. During the Middle Ages, +and in the days of the Communes, the whole male population of 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 _Contado_ of the nobles, and the burghers of Lombardy gained the +battle of Legnano. In course of time, by a process of change which it is +not very easy to trace, heavily armed cavalry began to take the place of +infantry in mediaeval 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 honorable 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 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 +shamfight 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 Marechal de Gie +it was a murderous horse-play; 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. + +FOOTNOTES: + +[D] Charles claimed under the will of Rene of Anjou, who in turn claimed +under the will of Joan II. + + + + +BERGAMO AND BARTOLOMMEO COLLEONI. + + +From the new town of commerce to the old town of history upon the hill +the road is carried along a rampart lined with horse-chestnut +trees--clumps of massy foliage and snowy pyramids of bloom expanded in +the rapture of a Southern spring. Each pair of trees between their stems +and arch of intermingling leaves includes a space of plain checkered +with cloud-shadows, melting blue and green in amethystine haze. To right +and left the last spurs of the Alps descend, jutting like promontories, +heaving like islands from the misty breadth below; and here and there +are towers half lost in airy azure, and cities dwarfed to blots, and +silvery lines where rivers flow, and distant, vapor-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 air-space 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 splendor live +here side by side. Grand Renaissance portals grinning with satyr masks +are flanked by tawdry frescos shamming stonework, or by doorways where +the withered bush hangs out a promise of bad wine. + +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, bass-reliefs, pilasters, +statuettes, incrusted on the fanciful domed shrine. Upon the facade 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 labors. Italian craftsmen of the _quattrocento_ were +not averse to setting thus together, in one frame-work, 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 labor, 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 epitomized in +twelve of the sixteen bass-reliefs. The remaining four show Hercules +wrestling with Antaeus, taming the Nemean lion, extirpating the Hydra, +and bending to his will the bull of Crete. Labor, 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 bass-reliefs far-fetched; yet, such as +it is, it agrees with the spirit of humanism, bent ever on harmonizing +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 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 _improvisatore_ charm. + +This chapel was built by the great Condottiere Bartolommeo Colleoni, to +be the monument of his puissance even in the grave. It had been the +Sacristy of S. Maria Maggiore, which, when the Consiglio della +Misericordia refused it to him for his half-proud, half-pious purpose, +he took and held by force. The structure, of costliest materials, reared +by Gian Antonio Amadeo, cost him fifty thousand golden florins. An +equestrian statue of gilt wood, voted to him by the town of Bergamo, +surmounts his monument inside the chapel. This was the work of two +German masters called Sisto figlio di Enrico Syri da Norimberga and +Leonardo Tedesco. The tomb itself is of marble, executed for the most +part in a Lombard style resembling Amadeo's, but scarcely worthy of his +genius. The whole effect is disappointing. Five figures representing +Mars, Hercules, and three sons-in-law of Colleoni, who surround the +sarcophagus of the buried general, are, indeed, almost grotesque. The +angularity and crumpled draperies of the Milanese manner, when so +exaggerated, produce an impression of caricature. Yet many subordinate +details--a row of _putti_ in a Cinque Cento frieze, for instance--and +much of the low relief work, especially the Crucifixion, with its +characteristic episodes of the fainting Marys and the soldiers casting +dice, are lovely in their unaffected Lombardism. + +There is another portrait of Colleoni in a round above the great door, +executed with spirit, though in a _bravura_ style that curiously +anticipates the decline of Italian sculpture. Gaunt, hollow-eyed, with +prominent cheekbones and strong jaws, this animated half-length statue +of the hero bears the stamp of a good likeness, but when or by whom it +was made I do not know. + +Far more noteworthy than Colleoni's own monument is that of his daughter +Medea. She died young in 1470, and her father caused her tomb, carved of +Carrara marble, to be placed in the Dominican Church of Basella, which +he had previously founded. It was not until 1842 that this most precious +masterpiece of Antonio Amadeo's skill was transferred to Bergamo. _Hic +jacet Medea virgo._ Her hands are clasped across her breast. A robe of +rich brocade, gathered to the waist and girdled, lies in simple folds +upon the bier. Her throat, exceedingly long and slender, is circled with +a string of pearls. Her face is not beautiful, for the features, +especially the nose, are large and prominent; but it is pure and +expressive of vivid individuality. The hair curls in crisp, short +clusters; and the ear, fine and shaped almost like a Faun's, reveals the +scrupulous fidelity of the sculptor. Italian art has, in truth, nothing +more exquisite than this still-sleeping figure of the girl who, when she +lived, must certainly have been so rare of type and lovable in +personality. If Busti's Lancinus Curtius be the portrait of a humanist, +careworn with study, burdened by the laurel leaves that were so dry and +dusty; if Gaston de Foix in the Brera, smiling at death and beautiful in +the cropped bloom of youth, idealize the hero of romance; if Michael +Angelo'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 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. + +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 Puho 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, +Puho 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, Puho 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 Puho 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 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 enroll +himself under the banners of the one or the other. Bartolommeo chose +Braccio for his master, and was enrolled among his men as a simple +trooper, or _ragazzo_, with no better prospects than he could make for +himself by the help of his talents and his borrowed horse and armor. +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 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 "Condottiere" was derived from the circumstance +that he was said to have received a _Condotta di venti cavalli_, and so +forth. Each _cavallo_ was equal to one mounted man-at-arms and two +attendants, who were also called _ragazzi_. It was his business to +provide the stipulated number of men, to keep them in good discipline, +and to satisfy their just demands. Therefore an Italian army at this +epoch consisted of numerous small armies varying in size, each held +together by personal engagements to a captain, and all dependent on the +will of a general-in-chief, who had made a bargain with some prince or +republic for supplying a fixed contingent of fighting-men. The +_condottiere_ was in other words a contractor or _impresario_, +undertaking to do a certain piece of work for a certain price, and to +furnish the requisite forces for the business in good working order. It +will be readily seen upon this system how important were the personal +qualities of the captain, and what great advantages those condottieri +had who, like the petty princes of Romagna and the March, the +Montefeltri, Ordelaffi, Malatesti, Manfredi, Orsini, and Vitelli, could +rely upon a race of hardy vassals for their recruits. + +It 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 _condotta_ gradually +increased. Meanwhile his cousins, the murderers of his father, began to +dread his rising power, and determined, if possible, to ruin him. He was +not a man to be easily assassinated; so they sent a hired ruffian to +Caldora's camp to say that Bartolommeo had taken his name by fraud, and +that he was himself the real son of Puho Colleoni. Bartolommeo defied +the liar to a duel; and this would have taken place before the army, had +not two witnesses appeared who knew the fathers of both Colleoni and +the _bravo_, and who gave such evidence that the captains of the army +were enabled to ascertain the truth. The impostor was stripped and +drummed out of the camp. + +At the conclusion of a peace between the Pope and the Bolognese, +Bartolommeo found himself without occupation. He now offered himself to +the Venetians, and began to fight again under the great Carmagnola +against Filippo Visconti. His engagement allowed him forty men, which, +after the judicial murder of Carmagnola at Venice in 1432, were +increased to eighty. Erasmo da Narni, better known as Gattamelata, was +now his general-in-chief--a man who had risen from the lowest fortunes +to one of the most splendid military positions in Italy. Colleoni spent +the next years of his life, until 1443, in Lombardy, manoeuvring +against Il Piccinino, and gradually rising in the Venetian service, +until his condotta reached the number of eight hundred 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 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. + +In the year 1443, Colleoni quitted the Venetian service on account of a +quarrel with Gherardo Dandolo, the Proveditore of the Republic. He now +took a commission from Filippo Maria Visconti, who received him at Milan +with great honor, 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 body-guard 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 +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. + +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 honor 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, by a mere spasm of suspicious jealousy, for which he could +have given no account. + +From the year 1447 to the year 1455, it is difficult to follow +Colleoni's movements, or to trace his policy. First, we find him +employed by the Milanese Republic, during its brief space of +independence; then he is engaged by the Venetians, with a commission for +fifteen hundred 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 St. Mark elected him general-in-chief of +their armies, with the fullest powers, and with a stipend of one hundred +thousand florins. For nearly twenty-one years, until the day of his +death, in 1475, Colleoni held this honorable 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 baton of St. 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 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 St. +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 St. Mark. Here, after mass had been said, and a +sermon had been preached, kneeling before the high-altar he received the +truncheon from the doge's hands. The words of his commission ran as +follows: + + "By authority and decree of this most excellent city of + Venice, of us the prince, and of the senate, you are to be + commander and captain-general of all our forces and armaments + on _terra firma_. Take from our hands this truncheon, with + good augury and fortune, as sign and warrant of your power. Be + it your care and effort, with dignity and splendor to maintain + and to defend the majesty, the loyalty, and the principles of + this empire. Neither provoking, nor yet provoked, unless at + our command, shall you break into open warfare with our + enemies. Free jurisdiction and lordship over each one of our + soldiers, except in cases of treason, we hereby commit to + you." + +After the ceremony of his reception, Colleoni was conducted with no less +pomp to his lodgings, and the next ten days were spent in festivities of +all sorts. + +The commandership-in-chief of the Venetian forces was perhaps the +highest military post in Italy. It placed Colleoni on the pinnacle of +his profession, and made his camp the favorite 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. Honors 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 Rene of Anjou, by special patent, authorized +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 Rene, the honor 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 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. + +Colleoni had been engaged continually since his earliest boyhood in the +trade of war. It was not therefore possible that he should have gained a +great degree of literary culture. Yet the fashion of the times made it +necessary that a man in his position should seek the society of +scholars. Accordingly his court and camp were crowded with students, in +whose wordy disputations he is said to have delighted. It will be +remembered that his contemporaries, Alfonso the Magnanimous, Francesco +Sforza, Federigo of Urbino, and Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, piqued +themselves at least as much upon their patronage of letters as upon +their prowess in the field. + +Colleoni's court, like that of Urbino, was a model of 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 St. Chiara, the other +to St. Francis. In Bergamo itself he founded an establishment named "La +Pieta," for the good purpose of dowering and marrying poor girls. This +house he endowed with a yearly income of three thousand 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 St. 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 St. John the Baptist, attached to the +Church of S. Maria Maggiore, which he endowed with fitting maintenance +for two priests and deacons. + +The one defect acknowledged by his biographer was his partiality for +women. Early in life he married Tisbe, of the noble house of the +Brescian Martinenghi, who bore him one daughter, Caterina, wedded to +Gasparre Martinengo. Two illegitimate daughters, Ursina and Isotta, were +recognized 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 apiece for +dowry. Medea, the child of his old age (for she was born to him when he +was sixty), died before her father, and was buried, as we have seen, in +the Chapel of Basella. + +Throughout his life he was distinguished for great physical strength and +agility. When he first joined the troop of Braccio, he could race, with +his corselet on, against the swiftest runner of the army; and when he +was stripped, few 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 colored with sanguine and lively carnation. His eyes were black; in +look and sharpness of light they were vivid, piercing, and terrible. The +outlines of his nose and all his countenance expressed a certain manly +nobleness, combined with goodness and prudence." Such is the portrait +drawn of Colleoni by his biographer and it well accords with the famous +bronze statue of the general at Venice. + +Colleoni lived with a magnificence that suited his rank. His favorite +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 frescos, 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 some days +as the general's guest. In order to do him honor, 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 armor, and gave to each of his servants a +complete livery of red and white, his colors. Among the frescos at +Malpaga none are more interesting, and none, thanks to the silkworms +rather than to any other cause, are fortunately in a better state of +preservation, than those which represent this episode in the history of +the castle. + +Colleoni died in the year 1475, at the age of seventy-five. Since he +left no male representative, he constituted the Republic of St. Mark his +heir in chief, after properly providing for his daughters and his +numerous foundations. The Venetians received under this testament a sum +of one hundred thousand ducats, together with all arrears of pay due to +him, and ten thousand 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 St. Mark. This, however, involved some difficulty; for +the proud republic had never accorded a similar honor, 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, 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. + +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 St. 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 loath 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 +splendor of suggested motion. That the Tuscan science of Verocchio +secured conscientious modelling for man and horse may be assumed; but I +am fain to believe that the concentrated fire which animates them both +is due in no small measure to the handling of his northern +fellow-craftsman. + +While immersed in the dreary records of crimes, treasons, cruelties, and +base ambitions, which constitute the bulk of fifteenth-century Italian +history, it is refreshing to meet with a character so frank and manly, +so simply pious and comparatively free from stain, as Colleoni. The only +general of his day who can bear comparison with him for purity of public +life and decency in conduct was Federigo di Montefeltro. Even here, the +comparison redounds to Colleoni's credit; for he, unlike the Duke of +Urbino, rose to eminence by his own exertion in a profession fraught +with peril to men 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 dishonorable dealings, +and Carmagnola to the scaffold by questionable practice against his +masters. + + + + +LOMBARD VIGNETTES. + +ON THE SUPERGA. + + +This is the chord of Lombard coloring in May: Lowest in the scale, +bright green of varied tints, the meadow-grasses mingling with willows +and acacias, harmonized 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 mediaeval 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 towards infinity. Above all is heaven, the hierarchies +ascending row on row to reach the light of God. + +This fancy occurred to me as I climbed the slope of the Superga, gazing +over acacia hedges and poplars to the mountains bare in morning light. +The occasional occurrence of 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. + +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 blended with the Grand Paradis, the +airy pyramid of Monte Viso, these are the battlements of that vast +Alpine rampart in which the vale of Susa opens like a gate. To west and +south sweep the Maritime Alps and the Apennines. Beneath glides the +infant Po; and where he leads our eyes the plain is only limited by +pearly mist. + + +A BRONZE BUST OF CALIGULA AT TURIN. + +The Albertina bronze is one of the most precious portraits of antiquity, +not merely because it confirms the testimony of the green basalt bust in +the Capitol, but also because it supplies an even more emphatic and +impressive illustration to the narrative of Suetonius. + +Caligula is here represented as young and singularly beautiful. It is +indeed an ideal Roman head, with the powerful square modelling, the +crisp short hair, low forehead, and regular firm features proper to the +noblest Roman type. The head is thrown backward from the throat; and +there is a something of menace or defiance or suffering in the +suggestion of brusque movement given to the sinews of the neck. This +attitude, together with the tension of the forehead and the fixed +expression of pain and strain communicated by the 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 the 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 idealizes 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 agonizing 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 tantalized 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, forever 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 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 pothouse dissipation and school-boy cruelty in point +of size. And this of a truth is the Nemesis of evil. After a time, mere +tyrannous caprice must become commonplace and cloying, tedious to the +tyrant and uninteresting to the student of humanity; nor can I believe +that Caligula failed to perceive this to his own infinite disgust. + +Suetonius asserts that he was hideously ugly. How are we to square this +testimony with the witness of the bronze before us? What changed the +face, so beautiful and terrible in youth, to ugliness that shrank from +sight in manhood? Did the murderers find it blurred in its fine +lineaments, furrowed with lines of care, hollowed with the soul's +hunger? Unless a life of vice and madness had succeeded in making +Caligula's face what the faces of some maniacs are--the bloated ruin of +what was once a living witness to the soul within--I could fancy that +death may have sanctified it with even more beauty than this bust of the +self-tormented young man shows. Have we not all seen the anguish of +thought-fretted faces smoothed out by the hands of the Deliverer? + + +FERRARI AT VERCELLI. + +It is possible that many visitors to the Cathedral of Como have carried +away the memory of stately women with abundant yellow hair and draperies +of green and crimson in a picture they connect thereafter with Gaudenzio +Ferrari. And when they come to Milan they are probably both impressed +and disappointed by a Martyrdom of St. Catherine in the Brera, bearing +the same artist's name. If they wish to understand this painter they +must seek him at Varallo, at Saronno, and at Vercelli. In the Church of +S. Christoforo, in Vercelli, Gaudenzio Ferrari, at the full height of +his powers, showed what he could do to justify Lomazzi'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 frescos) +neutralized by an incurable defect of the combining and harmonizing +faculty so essential to a masterpiece. There is stuff enough of thought +and vigor and imagination to make a dozen artists. And yet we turn away +disappointed from the crowded, dazzling, stupefying wilderness of forms +and faces on these mighty walls. + +All that Ferrari derived from actual life--the heads of single figures, +the powerful movement of men and women in excited action, the monumental +pose of two praying nuns--is admirably rendered. His angels, too, in S. +Cristoforo, as elsewhere, are quite original; not only in their type of +beauty, which is terrestrial and peculiar to Ferrari, without a touch of +Correggio's sensuality; but also in the intensity of their emotion, the +realisation of their vitality. Those which hover round the Cross in the +fresco of the "Crucifixion" are as passionate as any angels of the +Giottesque masters in Assisi. Those, again, which crowd the Stable of +Bethlehem in the "Nativity" yield no point of idyllic charm to Gozzoli's +in the Riccardi Chapel. + +The "Crucifixion," and the "Assumption of Madonna" are very tall and +narrow compositions, audacious in their attempt to fill almost +unmanageable space with a connected action. Of the two frescos, the +"Crucifixion," which has points of 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. + +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 frescos. It represents Madonna and a crowd of saints +under an orchard of apple-trees, with cherubs curiously flung about +almost at random in the air. The motive of the orchard is prettily +conceived and carried out with spirit. + +What Ferrari possessed was rapidity of movement, fulness and richness of +reality, exuberance of invention, excellent portraiture, dramatic +vehemence, and an almost unrivalled sympathy with the swift and +passionate world of angels. What he lacked was power of composition, +simplicity of total effect, harmony in coloring, control over his own +luxuriance, the sense of tranquillity. He seems to have sought grandeur +in size and multitude, richness, eclat, contrast. Being the disciple of +Leonardo 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 realized them +with a force and _furia_ granted to very few of the Italian painters. + + +LANINI AT VERCELLI. + +The Casa Mariano is a palace which belonged to a family of that name. +Like many houses of the sort in Italy, it fell to vile uses, and its +hall of audience was turned into a lumber-room. The Operai of Vercelli, +I was told, bought the palace a few years ago, restored the noble hall, +and devoted a smaller room to a collection of pictures valuable for +students of the early Vercellese style of painting. Of these there is no +need to speak. The great hall is the gem of the Casa Mariano. It has a +coved roof, with a large, flat, oblong space in the centre of the +ceiling. The whole of this vault and the lunettes beneath were painted +by Lanini; so runs the tradition of the fresco-painter's name; and +though much injured by centuries of outrage, and somewhat marred by +recent restoration, these frescos 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 bare-faced copy. 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 coloring 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 vigor. +But where the grace of form and color is so soft and sweet, where the +high-bred calm of good company is so sympathetically rendered, where +the atmosphere of amorous languor and of melody is so artistically +diffused, we cannot miss the powerful modelling and rather vulgar _tours +de force_ of Giulio Romano. The scala 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 snow-drops, +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; realizing Simaetha's picture of her lover and his +friend: + + +tois d' en xanthotera men helichrysoio geneias, + stethea de stilbonta poly pleon e ty Selana.+ + + +It was thus that the almost childlike spirit of the Milanese painters +felt the antique; how differently from their Roman brethren! It was thus +that they interpreted the lines of their own poets: + + E i tuoi capei piu volte ho somigliati + Di Cerere a le paglie secche o bionde + Dintorno crespi al tuo capo legati.[F] + +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 vigor of +design. + +Lanini, like Sodoma, was a native of Vercelli; and though he was +Ferrari's pupil, there is more in him of Luini or of Sodoma than of his +master. He does not rise at any point to the height of these three great +masters, but he shares some of Luini's and Sodoma's fine qualities, +without having any of Ferrari's force. A visit to the mangled remnants +of his frescos in S. Caterina will repay the student of art. This was +once, apparently, a double church with the hall and chapel of a +_confraternita_ appended to it. One 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 round them, adding to the +airiness of their continual dance. Some of the loveliest are in a room +used to stow away the lumber of the church--old boards and curtains, +broken lanterns, candle-ends in tin sconces, the musty apparatus of +festival adornments, and in the midst of all a battered, weather-beaten +bier. + + +THE PIAZZA OF PIACENZA. + +The great feature of Piacenza is its famous piazza--a romantically, +picturesquely perfect square, surpassing the most daring attempts of the +scene-painter, and realizing 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 arcades of stone below, surmounted by a brick building with +wonderfully delicate and varied terra-cotta work in the round-arched +windows. Before this facade, on the marble pavement, prance the bronze +equestrian statues of two Farnesi--insignificant men, exaggerated +horses, flying drapery--as _barocco_ as it is possible to be in style, +but so splendidly toned with verdigris, so superb in their _bravura_ +attitude, and so happily placed in the line of two streets lending far +vistas from the square into the town beyond, that it is difficult to +criticise them seriously. They form, indeed, an important element in the +pictorial effect, and enhance the terra-cotta work of the facade, by the +contrast of their color. + +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, etherealized, and harmonized by +one pervasive glow. When I last saw Piacenza, it had been raining all +day; and ere sun-down 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 thunder-cloud kept +flashing distant lightnings. The pallid primrose of the West, forced +down and reflected back from the vast bank of tempest, gave unearthly +beauty to the hues of church and palace--tender half-tones of violet and +russet paling into grays and yellows on what in daylight seemed but dull +red brick. Even the uncompromising facade of St. Francesco helped; and +the dukes were like statues of the "Gran Commendatore," waiting for Don +Giovanni's invitation. + + +MASOLINO AT CASTIGLIONE D'OLONA. + +Through the loveliest Arcadian scenery of woods and fields and rushing +waters the road leads downward from Varese to Castiglione. The +Collegiate Church stands on a leafy hill above the town, with fair +prospect over groves and waterfalls and distant mountains. Here in the +choir is a series of frescos 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, St. +Stephen, and St. Lawrence are represented; but the injuries of time and +neglect have been so great that it is difficult to judge them fairly. +All we feel for certain is that Masolino had not yet escaped from the +traditional Giottesque mannerism. Only a group of Jews stoning Stephen +and Lawrence before the tribunal remind us by dramatic energy of the +Brancacci chapel. + +The baptistery frescos, dealing with the legend of St. 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 realized. 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 St. 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 color is strong and brilliant, and the execution solid. + +The margin of the Salome panel has been used for scratching the +chronicle of Castiglione. I read one date, 1568, several of the next +century, the record of a duel between two gentlemen, and many +inscriptions to this effect "Erodiana Regina," "Omnia praetereunt," etc. +A dirty, one-eyed fellow keeps the place. In my presence he swept the +frescos over with a scratchy broom, flaying their upper surface in +profound unconsciousness of mischief. The armor of the executioner has +had its steel colors almost rubbed off by this infernal process. Damp +and cobwebs are far kinder. + + +THE CERTOSA. + +The Certosa of Pavia leaves upon the mind an impression of bewildering +sumptuousness: nowhere else are costly materials so combined with a +lavish expenditure of the rarest art. Those who have only once been +driven round together with the crew of sight-seers 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 facade, each in its own +kind perfect, will also be remembered; and thoughts of the two great +houses, Visconti and Sforza, to whose pride of power it is a monument, +may be blended with the recollection of art-treasures alien to their +spirit. + +Two great artists, Ambrogio Borgognone and Antonio Amadeo, are the +presiding genii of the Certosa. To minute criticism, based upon the +accurate investigation of records and the comparison of styles, must be +left the task of separating their work from that of numerous +collaborators. But it is none the less certain that the keynote of the +whole music is struck by them. Amadeo, the master of the Colleoni chapel +at Bergamo, was both sculptor and architect. If the facade 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 facade is a frontispiece, with hardly any +structural relation to the church it masks; and this, though serious +from the point of view of 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 chant of +Pergolese or Stradella--will enrapture one who has the sense for unity +evoked from divers elements, for thought subduing all caprices to the +harmony of beauty. It is not possible elsewhere in Italy to find the +instinct of the earlier Renaissance, so amorous in its expenditure of +rare material, so lavish in its bestowal of the costliest workmanship +on ornamental episodes, brought into truer keeping with a pure and +simple structural effect. + +All the great sculptor-architects of Lombardy worked in succession on +this miracle of beauty; and this may account for the sustained +perfection of style, which nowhere suffers from the languor of +exhaustion in the artist or from repetition of motives. It remains the +triumph of North Italian genius, exhibiting qualities of tenderness and +self-abandonment to inspiration which we lack in the severer +masterpieces of the Tuscan school. + +To Borgognone is assigned the painting of the roof in nave and +choir--exceeding rich, varied, and withal in sympathy with stately +Gothic style. Borgognone, again, is said to have designed the saints and +martyrs worked in _tarsia_ for the choir-stalls. His frescos 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 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 coloring 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 color what the greatest Lombard sculptors +sought in stone--a sharpness of relief that passes over into angularity. +This brusqueness was the counter-poise 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 St. Siro +with St. Lawrence and St. Stephen and two fathers of the Church, for its +fusion of this master's qualities. + +The Certosa is a wilderness of lovely workmanship. From Borgognone's +majesty we pass into the quiet region of Luini's Christian grace, or +mark the influence of Leonardo on that rare Assumption of Madonna by his +pupil, Andrea Solari. Like everything touched by the Leonardesque +spirit, this great picture was left unfinished; yet Northern Italy has +nothing finer to show than the landscape, outspread in its immeasurable +purity of calm, behind the grouped Apostles and the ascendent Mother of +Heaven. The feeling of that happy region between the Alps and Lombardy, +where there are many waters--_et tacitos sine labe lacus sine murmure +rivos_--and where the last spurs of the mountains sink in undulations +to the plain, has passed into this azure vista, just as all Umbria is +suggested in a twilight background of young Raphael or Perugino. + +The portraits of the dukes of Milan and their families carry us into a +very different realm of feeling. Medallions above the doors of sacristy +and chancel, stately figures reared aloft beneath gigantic canopies, men +and women slumbering with folded hands upon their marble biers--we read +in all those sculptured forms a strange record of human restlessness +resolved into the quiet of the tomb. The iniquities of Gian Galeazzo +Visconti, _il gran Biscione_; the blood-thirst of Gian Maria; the dark +designs of Filippo and his secret vices; Francesco Sforza's treason; +Galeazzo Maria's vanities and lusts; their tyrants' dread of thunder and +the knife; their awful deaths by pestilence and the assassin's poniard; +their selfishness, oppression, cruelty, and fraud; the murders of their +kinsmen; their labyrinthine plots and acts of broken faith--all is +tranquil now, and we can say to each what Bosola found for the Duchess +of Malfi ere her execution: + + Much you had of land and rent; + Your length in clay's now competent: + A long war disturbed your mind; + Here your perfect peace is signed! + +Some of these faces are commonplace, with _bourgeois_ cunning written on +the heavy features; one is bluff, another stolid, a third bloated, a +fourth stately. The sculptors have dealt fairly with all, and not one +has the lineaments of utter baseness. To Cristoforo Solari's statues of +Lodovico Sforza and 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. + +After all wanderings in this temple of art, we return to Antonio Amadeo, +to his long-haired seraphs playing on the lutes of Paradise, to his +angels of the Passion with their fluttering robes and arms outspread in +agony, to his saints and satyrs mingled on pilasters of the marble +doorways, his delicate _Lavabo_ decorations, and his hymns of piety +expressed in noble forms of weeping women and dead Christs. Wherever we +may pass, this master-spirit of the Lombard style enthralls attention. +His curious treatment of drapery, as though it were made of crumpled +paper, and his trick of enhancing relief by sharp angles and attenuated +limbs, do not detract from his peculiar charm. That is his way, very +different from Donatello's, of attaining to the maximum of life and +lightness in the stubborn vehicle of stone. Nor do all the riches of the +choir--those multitudes of singing angels, those Ascensions and +Assumptions, and innumerable bass-reliefs 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 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. + +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 +ribbons incessantly inscribed with Ave Maria! Then, over all, the rich +red light and purple shadows of the brick, than which no substance +sympathizes more completely with the sky of solid blue above, the broad +plain space of waving summer grass beneath our feet. + +It is now late afternoon, and when evening comes the train will take us +back to Milan. There is yet a little while to rest tired eyes and +strained spirits among the willows and the poplars by the monastery +wall. Through that gray-green leafage, young with early spring, the +pinnacles of the Certosa leap like flames into the sky. The rice-fields +are under water, far and wide, shining like burnished gold beneath the +level light now near to sun-down. Frogs are croaking; those persistent +frogs whom the muses have ordained to sing for aye, in spite of Bion and +all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water-snakes, the busy +rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat, well-watered soil. +Nightingales here and there, new-comers, tune their timid April song. +But, strangest of all sounds in such a place, my comrade from the +Grisons jodels forth an Alpine cowherd's melody--_Auf den Alpen droben +ist ein herrliches Leben!_ + +Did the echoes of Gian Galeazzo's convent ever wake to such a tune as +this before? + + +SAN MAURIZIO. + +The student of art in Italy, after mastering the characters of different +styles and epochs, finds a final satisfaction in the contemplation of +buildings designed and decorated by one master, or by groups of artists +interpreting the spirit of a single period. Such supreme monuments of +the national genius are not very common, and they are therefore the more +precious. Giotto's chapel at Padua; the Villa Farnesina at Rome, built +by Peruzzi and painted in fresco by Raphael and Sodoma; the Palazzo del +Te at Mantua, Giulio Romano's masterpiece; the Scuola di San Rocco, +illustrating the Venetian Renaissance at its climax, might be cited +among the most splendid of these achievements. In the church of the +Monastero Maggiore at Milan, dedicated to San Maurizio, Lombard +architecture and fresco-painting may be studied in this rare +combination. The monastery itself, one of the oldest in Milan, formed a +retreat for cloistered virgins following the rule of St. 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 frescos by Luini and +his pupils. Gian Giacomo Dolcebono, architect and sculptor, called by +his fellow-craftsmen _magistro di taliare pietre_, gave the design, at +once simple and harmonious, which was carried out with hardly any +deviation from his plan. The church is a long parallelogram, divided +into two unequal portions, the first and smaller for the public, the +second for the nuns. The walls are pierced with rounded and pilastered +windows, ten on each side, four of which belong to the outer and six to +the inner section. The dividing wall or septum rises to the point from +which the groinings of the roof spring; and round three sides of the +whole building, north, east, and south, runs a gallery for the use of +the convent. The altars of the inner and outer church are placed against +the septum, back to back, with certain differences of structure that +need not be described. Simple and severe, San 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 color. Every +square inch is covered with fresco or rich wood-work 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 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 St. Martin and the glorified +Madonna of the Brera frescos. It is not impossible that the male saints +of the loggia may be also his, though a tenderer touch, a something more +nearly Leonardesque 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 St. Rocco, the classical perfection +of the cupid with lighted tapers, the gracious majesty of women smiling +on us sideways from their Lombard eyelids--these remain to haunt our +memory, emerging from the shadows of the vault above. + +The inner church, as is fitting, excludes all worldly elements. We are +in the presence of Christ's agony, relieved and tempered by the sunlight +of those beauteous female faces. All is solemn here, still as the +convent, pure as the meditations 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 Pieta, an Assumption, Saints and Founders of the church, +group themselves under the influence of Luini's harmonizing color 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, honored +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 St. Scolastica. + +Few pictures bring the splendid Milanese court so vividly 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 frescos, they are +far surpassed both in value and interest by his paintings in the side +chapel of St. 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 favorite +types. The chapel was decorated at the expense of a Milanese advocate, +Francesco Besozzi, who died in 1529. It is he who is kneeling, +gray-haired and bare-headed, under the protection of St. Catherine of +Alexandria, intently gazing at Christ unbound from the scourging-pillar. +On the other side stand St. Lawrence and St. 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 Sts. Catherine and Lawrence! What +divine anguish in the loosened limbs and bending body of Christ; what +piety in the adoring old man! All the moods proper to this supreme +tragedy of the faith are touched as in some tenor song with low +accompaniment of viols; for it was Luini's special province to feel +profoundly and to express musically. The very depth of the Passion is +there; and yet there is no discord. + +Just in proportion to this unique faculty for yielding a melodious +representation of the most intense moments of stationary emotion was his +inability to deal with a dramatic subject. The first episode of St. +Catherine's execution, when the wheel was broken and the executioners +struck by lightning, 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 coloring. The most tragic situation has here again been +alchemized by Luini's magic into a pure idyl, without the loss of power, +without the sacrifice of edification. + +St. 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 Monastero 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 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 favor. 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 fifteen thousand golden crowns with which she +hoped to bribe her jailers, she was finally beheaded. Thus did a vulgar +and infamous Messalina, distinguished only by rare beauty, furnish Luini +with a St. Catherine for this masterpiece of pious art! The thing seems +scarcely credible. Yet Bandello lived in Milan while the Church of St. +Maurizio was being painted; nor does he show the slightest sign of +disgust at the discord between the Contessa's life and her artistic +presentation in the person of a royal martyr. + + +A HUMANIST'S MONUMENT. + +In the Sculpture Gallery of the Brera is preserved a fair white marble +tomb, carved by that excellent Lombard sculptor Agostino Busti. The +epitaph runs as follows: + + En Virtutem Mortis nesciam. + Vivet Lancinus Curtius + Saecula per omnia + Quascunque lustrans oras, + Tantum possunt Camoenae. + +"Look here on Virtue that knows naught of Death! Lancinus Curtius shall +live through all the centuries, and visit every shore on earth. Such +power have the Muses." The time-worn poet reclines, as though sleeping +or resting, ready to be waked; his head is covered with flowing hair, +and crowned with laurel; it leans upon his left hand. On either side of +his couch stand cupids or genii with torches turned to earth. Above is a +group of the three Graces, flanked by winged Pegasi. Higher up are +throned two Victories with palms, and at the top a naked Fame. We need +not ask who was Lancinus Curtius. He is forgotten, and his virtue has +not saved him from oblivion; though he strove in his lifetime, _pro +virili parte_, for the palm that Busti carved upon his grave. Yet his +monument teaches in short compass a deep lesson; and his epitaph sums up +the dream which lured the men of Italy in the Renaissance to their doom. +We see before us sculptured in this marble the ideal of the humanistic +poet-scholar's life: Love, Grace, the Muse, and Nakedness, and Glory. +There is not a single intrusive thought derived from Christianity. The +end for which the man lived was 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. + + +THE MONUMENT OF GASTON DE FOIX IN THE BRERA. + +The hero of Ravenna lies stretched upon his back in the hollow of a bier +covered with laced drapery; and his head rests on richly ornamented +cushions. These decorative accessories, together with the minute work of +his scabbard, wrought in the fanciful mannerism of the _cinquecento_, +serve to enhance the statuesque simplicity of the young soldier's +effigy. The contrast between so much of richness in the merely +subordinate details and this sublime severity of treatment in the person +of the hero is truly and touchingly dramatic. There is a smile, as of +content in death, upon his face; and the features are exceedingly +beautiful--with the beauty of a boy, almost of a woman. The heavy hair +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 armor is quite plain. So is the +surcoat. Upon the swelling bust, that seems fit harbor 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 +proton +hypenetes+, "a 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 idealization of _virtu_--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 aesthetic charm of +heroism. Standing before it, we may say of Gaston what Arrian wrote to +Hadrian of Achilles: "That he was a hero, if hero ever lived, I cannot +doubt; for his birth and blood were noble, and he was beautiful, and his +spirit was mighty, and he passed in youth's prime away from men." +Italian sculpture, under the condition of the _cinquecento_, had indeed +no more congenial theme than this of bravery and beauty, youth and +fame, immortal honor and untimely death; nor could any sculptor of death +have poetized the theme more thoroughly than Agostino Busti, whose +simple instinct, unlike that of Michael Angelo, led him to subordinate +his own imagination to the pathos of reality. + + +SARONNO. + +The Church of Saronno is a pretty building with a Bramantesque cupola, +standing among meadows at some distance from the little town. It is the +object of a special cult, which draws pilgrims from the neighboring +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 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 Gaudenzio Ferrari. + +The cupola is raised on a sort of drum composed of twelve pieces, +perforated with round windows and supported on four massive piers. On +the level of the eye are frescos by Luini of St. Rocco, St. Sebastian, +St. Christopher, and St. Anthony--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 frescos from the early Bible history by Lanini, painted in +continuation of Ferrari's medallions from the story of Adam expelled +from Paradise, which fill the space beneath the cupola, leading the eye +upward to Ferrari's masterpiece. + +The dome itself is crowded with a host of angels singing and playing +upon instruments of music. At each of the twelve angles of the drum +stands a coryphaeus of this celestial choir, full length, with waving +drapery. Higher up, the golden-haired, broad-winged divine creatures are +massed together, filling every square inch of the vault with color. 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 harmonized variety. There is no trace of his violence here. Though +the motion of music runs through the whole multitude like a breeze, +though the joy expressed is a real _tripudio celeste_, not one of all +these angels flings his arms abroad or makes a movement 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. Each too has specific character, while +all are robust and full of life, intent upon the service set them. Their +instruments of music are all lutes and viols, flutes, cymbals, drums, +fifes, citherns, organs, and harps that Ferrari's day could show. The +scale of color, as usual with Ferrari, is a little heavy; nor are the +tints satisfactorily harmonized. But the vigor and invention of the +whole work would atone for minor defects of far greater consequence. + +It is natural, beneath this dome, to turn aside and think one moment of +Correggio at Parma. Before the _macchinisti_ of the seventeenth century +had vulgarized 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 +naught 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 color have now so far vanished from the cupola of +the Duomo that the constructive poverty is not disguised. Here, if +anywhere in painting, we may apply Goethe's words--_Gefuehl ist Alles_. + +If, then, we return to Ferrari's angels at Saronno, we find that the +painter of Varallo chose a safer though a far more modest theme. Nor did +he expose himself to that most cruel of all degradations which the +ethereal genius of Correggio has suffered from incompetent imitators. To +daub a tawdry and superficial reproduction of these Parmese frescos, to +fill the cupolas of Italy with veritable _guazzetti di rane_, was +comparatively easy; and between our intelligence and what remains of +that stupendous masterpiece of boldness crowd a thousand memories of +such ineptitude. On the other hand, nothing but solid work and +conscientious inspiration could enable any workman, however able, to +follow Ferrari in the path struck out by him at Saronno. His cupola has +had no imitator; and its only rival is the noble pendant painted at +Varallo by his own hand, of angels in adoring anguish round the cross. + +In the ante-choir of the sanctuary are Luini's priceless frescos of the +"Marriage of the Virgin" and the "Dispute with the Doctors."[G] 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 St. Catherine at Milan, we feel +that Luini was the greatest colourist among _frescanti_. In the +"Sposalizio" the female heads are singularly noble and idyllically +graceful. Some of the young men too have Luini's special grace and +abundance of golden hair. In the "Disputa" the gravity and dignity of +old men are above all things striking. + +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 +frescos. 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 color in fresco. +The blues detach themselves too much, perhaps, from the rest of the +coloring; and that is all a devil's advocate could say. It is possible +that the absence of blue makes the St. Catherine frescos in the +Monastero Maggiore at Milan surpass all other works of Luini. But +nowhere else has he shown more beauty and variety in detail than here. +The group of women led by Joseph, the shepherd carrying the lamb upon +his shoulder, the girl with a basket of white doves, the child with an +apple on the altar-steps, the lovely youth in the foreground heedless of +the scene; all these are idyllic incidents treated with the purest, the +serenest, the most spontaneous, the truest, most instinctive sense of +beauty. The landscape includes a view of Saronno, and an episodical +picture of the "Flight into Egypt," where a white-robed angel leads the +way. All these lovely things are in the "Purification," which is dated +_Bernardinus Lovinus pinxit_, MDXXV. + +The fresco of the "Magi" is less notable in detail, and in general +effect is more spoiled by obtrusive blues. There is, however, one young +man of wholly Leonardesque 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 +idyl, is Sodoma; and the work of his which comes nearest to Luini's +masterpieces is the legend of St. Benedict, at Monte Oliveto, near +Siena. Yet Sodoma had not all Luini's innocence or _naivete_. If he +added something slightly humorous which has an indefinite charm, he +lacked that freshness, as of "cool, meek-blooded flowers" and boyish +voices, which fascinates us in Luini. Sodoma was closer to the earth, +and feared not to impregnate what he saw of beauty with the fiercer +passions of his nature. If Luini had felt passion who shall say? It +appears nowhere in his work, where life is toned to a religious +joyousness. When Shelley compared the poetry of the Theocritean +amourists to the perfume of the tuberose, and that of the earlier Greek +poets to "a meadow-gale of June, which mingles the fragrance of all the +flowers of the field," he supplied us with critical images which may not +unfairly be used to point the distinction between Sodoma at Monte +Oliveto and Luini at Saronno. + + +THE CASTELLO OF FERRARA. + +Is it possible that the patron saints of cities should mould the temper +of the people to their own likeness? St. George, the chivalrous, is +champion of Ferrara. His is the marble group above the cathedral porch, +so feudal in its mediaeval pomp. He and St. Michael are painted in fresco +over the south portcullis of the castle. His lustrous armor 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 St. George for patron, is at any rate significant. + +The best-preserved relic of princely feudal life in Italy is this +Castello of the Este family, with its sombre moat, chained draw-bridges, +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 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. + + +PETRARCH'S TOMB AT ARQUA. + +The drive from Este along the skirts of the Euganean Hills to Arqua +takes one through a country which is tenderly beautiful, because of its +contrast between little peaked mountains and the plain. It is not a +grand landscape. It lacks all that makes the skirts of Alps and +Apennines sublime. Its charm is a certain mystery and repose--an +undefined sense of the neighboring 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 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. + +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 hill-side, to be a sign and sanctuary for after-men. A simple +rectilinear coffin, of smooth Verona _mandorlato_, raised on four thick +columns, and closed by a heavy cippus-cover. Without emblems, +allegories, or lamenting genii, this tomb of the great poet, the great +awakener of Europe from mental lethargy, encircled by the hills beneath +the canopy of heaven, is impressive beyond the power of words. Bending +here, we feel that Petrarch's own winged thoughts and fancies, eternal +and aerial, "forms more real than living man, nurslings of immortality," +have congregated to be the ever-ministering and irremovable attendants +on the shrine of one who, while he lived, was purest spirit in a veil of +flesh. + + +ON A MOUNTAIN. + +Milan is shining in sunset on those purple fields; and a score of cities +flash back the last red light, which shows each inequality and +undulation of Lombardy outspread four thousand feet beneath. Both +ranges, Alps and Apennines, 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 Mischabelhoerner 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 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. Cold 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 naught? + + +SIC GENIUS. + +In the picture-gallery at Modena there is a masterpiece of Dosso Dossi. +The frame is old and richly carved; and the painting, bordered by its +beautiful dull gold, shines with the lustre of an emerald. In his happy +moods Dosso set color upon canvas as no other painter out of Venice ever +did; and here he is at his happiest. The picture is the portrait of a +jester, dressed in courtly clothes and with a feathered cap upon his +head. He holds a lamb in his arms, and carries the legend, _Sic Genius_. +Behind him is a landscape of exquisite brilliancy and depth. His face is +young and handsome. Dosso has made it one most wonderful laugh. Even so +perhaps laughed Yorick. Nowhere else have I seen a laugh thus painted: +not violent, not loud, although the lips are opened to show teeth of +dazzling whiteness; but fine and delicate, playing over the whole face +like a ripple sent up from the depths of the soul within? Who was he? +What 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 immortalized by truthfullest art. +With the Gaul, the Spaniard, and the German at her gates, and in her +cities, and encamped upon her fields, Italy still laughed; and when the +voice of conscience sounding through Savonarola asked her why, she only +smiled--_Sic Genius_. + +One evening in May we rowed from Venice to Torcello, and at sunset broke +bread and drank wine together among the rank grasses just outside that +ancient church. It was pleasant to sit in the so-called chair of Attila +and feel the placid stillness of the place. Then there came lounging by +a sturdy young fellow in brown country clothes, with a marvellous old +wide-awake upon his head, and across his shoulders a bunch of massive +church-keys. In strange contrast to his uncouth garb he flirted a pink +Japanese fan, gracefully disposing it to cool his sun-burned 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 blended upon his features. Yet this impression was but the +prelude to his smile. When that first dawned, some breath of humor +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. It broadened, showing brilliant teeth, and grew into a +noiseless laugh; and then I saw before me Dosso's jester, the type of +Shakespeare's fools, the life of that wild irony, now rude, now fine, +which once delighted courts. The laughter of the whole world and of all +the centuries was silent in his face. What he said need not be repeated. +The charm was less in his words than in his personality; for +Momus-philosophy lay deep in every look and gesture of the man. The +place lent itself to irony; parties of Americans and English parsons, +the former agape for any rubbishy old things, the latter learned in the +lore of obsolete church-furniture, had thronged Torcello; and now they +were all gone, and the sun had set behind the Alps, while an irreverent +stranger drank his wine in Attila's chair, and nature's jester +smiled--_Sic Genius_. + +When I slept that night I dreamed of an altar-piece in the Temple of +Folly. The goddess sat enthroned beneath a canopy hung with bells and +corals. On her lap was a beautiful winged smiling genius, who flourished +two bright torches. On her left hand stood the man of Modena with his +white lamb, a new St. John. On her right stood the man of Torcello with +his keys, a new St. Peter. Both were laughing after their all-absorbent, +divine, noiseless fashion; and under both was written, _Sic Genius_. Are +not all things, even profanity, permissible in dreams? + +FOOTNOTES: + +[E] The down upon their cheeks and chin was yellower than helichrysus, +and their breasts gleamed whiter far than thou, O Moon. + +[F] Thy tresses have I oftentimes compared to Ceres' yellow autumn +sheaves, wreathed in curled bands around thy head. + +[G] Both these and the large frescos in the choir have been +chromo-lithographed by the Arundel Society. + +THE END. + + + +-----------------------------------------------+ + | Transcriber's Note: | + | | + | + sign denotes Greek transliteration | + | | + | Typographical errors corrected in text: | + | | + | Page 15 loggie changed to logge | + | Page 18 Apennine changed to Apennines | + | Page 21 pleasaunce changed to pleasance | + | Page 27 obligato changed to obbligato | + | Page 29 dedicate changed to dedicated | + | Page 37 ome changed to some | + | Page 45 Heny changed to Henry | + | Page 47 Bernard changed to Bernardo | + | Page 69 led changed to del | + | Page 82 beretta changed to berretta | + | Page 91 intensily changed to intensely | + | Page 111 word "a" added | + | Page 128 Porsenna changed to Porsena | + | Page 147 loggie changed to logge | + | Page 149 Apeninnes changed to Apennines | + | Page 173 potect changed to protect | + | Page 173 Vernice changed to Venice | + | Page 178 aad changed to and | + | Page 180 ruining changed to running | + | Page 183 Bachus changed to Bacchus | + | Page 192 Signiory changed to Signory | + | Page 224 maccaroon changed to macaroon | + | Page 242 wagon changed to waggon | + | Page 273 piazetta changed to piazzetta | + | Page 298 sensibilty changed to sensibility | + | Page 304 colorist changed to colourist | + | Page 309 Monistero changed to Monastero | + | Page 317 colorist changed to colourist | + | | + +-----------------------------------------------+ + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's New Italian sketches, by John Addington Symonds + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW ITALIAN SKETCHES *** + +***** This file should be named 24689.txt or 24689.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/4/6/8/24689/ + +Produced by Melissa Er-Raqabi, Barbara Kosker, Ted Garvin +and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at +http://www.pgdp.net + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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