ITALY
AND
THE ITALIANS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR.
FREDERIC UVEDALE: A Romance.
Crown 8vo, 6s.
STUDIES IN THE LIVES OF THE
SAINTS. Crown 8vo, 3s. 6d. net.
ITALY
AND
THE ITALIANS
BY
EDWARD HUTTON
THE LIVES OF THE SAINTS
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
SECOND EDITION
NEW YORK
E. P. DUTTON & COMPANY
1903
All Rights reseri'ed
Printed by
William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh, Scotland.
TO MY FRIEND,
D. S. MELD RUM, Esq,
i\ m & ^
Preface.
To-night, under a nearly full moon, the peasants
are practising their dances and songs for to-morrow's
feast — the feast of St Sebastian. I am brought from
the fireside about ten o'clock out under the stars,
to listen to them. The sky is very clear, and the
moon rides easily, like a pale lady on horseback,
among the stars, that seem incomparably far away.
The plaintive, poignant sweetness of the mandolins
floating away from me out across the silver levels
of water, throbs almost bitterly it seems to me, as
I lean over the verandah listening. Just at the
bottom of my garden, but on higher ground, — on a
kind of a promontory, in fact, that juts out into
the sea, — is the cemetery, full of tall calm cypresses
that look jet black against the paleness of the sky.
Far away, somewhere deep down in the valley, a
bugle calls, and as the notes gallop towards me,
a curious emotion sweeps through my blood, and I
feel the splendours of the pageants and of all the
royalty of the emperors and kings that are no more.
The bugle ceases, and a quiet wind creeps round
viii PREFACE
the house through the orange-trees, and once more
the throb of the mandolins takes full possession of
me, and I wait to hear what the singers will sing.
For some time they do nothing but dance. Such
funny dances ! Up and down the road they go for
fifty yards, the mandolins bitterly upbraiding. And
then over all, quite suddenly, the wail of a violin.
Unseen by me the musician has joined the group,
and now the measure becomes less uncouth, less
barbaric, perhaps less modern. As the dancers be-
come warmer they throw aside their cloaks and the
figures grow more intricate, the throbbing mandolins
more insistent, the breathing deeper and less regular ;
and at last, when a mandolin breaks as it were from
control and shrieks terribly, somewhere high up on
the " E " string, the dancers break from one another
and throw themselves down on the roadside.
Then the singing begins while the dancers rest.
Very glad singing it is, with nothing of sadness in
it, but of that sweet sentimental kind that is one
of the common denominators of all the world.
" Santa Lucia " they sing — so old, but one never
wearies of it, — " Addio ! Addio ! " and some more
songs which delight the visitors at Venice and
Naples — songs which we all, once at any rate in
our life, believed could never be bettered.
The dancing begins again, receding now down the
hill slowly, until the night comes up out of the
valley and swallows it. I walk up and down the
verandah, light a cigarette and determine to enjoy
PREFACE ix
the beauty of the night for a few minutes. The
sky is a deeper blue now, and the stars are not so
pale, not so utterly distant. Orion is lying on his
side, and Mars — it must be Mars, he looks so red —
is stealing up out of the east. The old town lies
at my feet, sleeping as it has done these last seven
hundred years, between the mountains and the sea.
The old towers, their tiles glistening in the moon-
light, rise silently towards heaven. A clock strikes
suddenly without any preparation, slowly and medi-
tatively ; another, more distant, answers it more
hurriedly ; in my study my own little carriage-clock
pipes too, raising an utterly childish, inadequate voice
that cannot possibly reach much farther than the
verandah. Still the sky is clear, and the wind from
the hills carries the clock notes towards Greece. How
far will they go that have just struck midnight here ?
I am just thinking of going in — have indeed thrown
away my cigarette — when something stops me. It
sounds like a very tiny note from high up on the " E "
string of a mandolin. But they have all gone home,
these singers and dancers, — home to bed to dream of
to-morrow and the festa.
No ; what was that ? I lean over the verandah
and there below me in the road are two tiny figures,
a boy and a girl. The boy cannot be more than
ten, and the girl, though the taller of the two, is
certainly less than twelve years old. A mandolin
is slung over the boy's shoulders, and he reaches
blunderingly I think for it, till his sister swings it
x PREFACE
round for him ; and they both, at a whispered word
from the girl, drop me curtseys.
" Let me sing to you, signore," says the little girl ;
" we too love San Sebastiano."
The boy tunes his mandolin, and then, with just
a simple note or two, startlingly abrupt, they begin.
It is a curious song — where have I heard the words
before ? — set to a curious music. The notes come
as it were in little heaps, with no regular time that
I can grasp, but with a kind of spiritual sweetness
and clearness, exactly fitting the time and the semi-
darkness. Two such curious little figures they look,
singing in piping treble there in the road under my
window. This is what they sing : —
" Fior di mortelle
Queste manine tue son tanto belle.
Zompa llari-llira.
Fior di limone
Ti voglio far morire di passione !
Zompa llari-llira.
Fiore di nardo
Passa Rosina mia : mi da uno sguardo.
Zompa llari-llira !
Fiore di Rosa !
Piangi mio ben, perche ? vuoi qualche cosa?
Zompa llari-llira.
Fiore di spica
Collera, o bella, in me non entra mica
Zompa llari-llira.
Fiore di menta,
Questa parola mia ben ti rammenta.
Zompa llari-llira."
PREFACE xi
They sing it right through to the end, and then the
boy's fingers wander over the mandolin strings still
playing the air. Where can they have learnt that
song ?
I ask them. "Oh," says the girl, "yes, signore.
Giovanni-Battista heard it read out of a paper, and
made a tune for it : it is his favourite song."
" Sing some more, then, if you would please me,"
I say, giving them some money. They whisper to-
gether for a time ; the mandolin is silent now ; they
look just like two little wild-flowers dropped on the
road. I can only see their upturned faces.
Something is wrong, the girl is down on her hands
and knees looking for something.
" He has dropped the plettro, signore," she says,
" and one cannot play a mandolin with one's fingers."
"Wait a moment," I say, "I will bring a light."
I go into the house and fetch a big hall lamp, and
the girl and I search for the plettro, in vain.
" Come and help us, Giovannino," I say. He does
not move, but looks on with wide eyes, — eyes that
seem to look me through and through, gazing out
of a white, spiritual face.
" Are you blind, Giovannino ? " I say ; " come and
help us look for your plettro."
"Yes, signore, he is blind," says the little girl;
" but," she adds quickly, putting her arm round her
brother — "but he is a great musician, aren't you,
Giovanni ? "
" Yes," says the boy with a sigh, " I am a great
xii PREFACE
musician." He says it as though it were not so
great a thing after all — as though it certainly were
not worth that blindness.
The moonbeams play upon his face, he seems not
to feel the light at all ; a more spiritual, almost un-
canny face, full of a kind of twilight I don't think
I have ever seen. He stands quite still, waiting.
But it cannot be found, this plettro, that has given
us so much trouble. I ask them will they not come
into the house and have some supper.
" No, thank you, signore," says the girl, " we
will go home ; it is late, and San Sebastiano is
here."
They go off down the road, she leading the boy
who is blind and who has lost his plettro, but who
is so great a musician ; and I, as I turn and watch
them in the moonlight, there where they go down
into the valley where all is so quiet and so dark,
find my eyes wet with tears. Surely this is Italy
that I have seen on the eve of San Sebastiano, Italy
who is blind and who has lost her plettro.
Contents.
IMPRESSIONS OF ITALY OF TO-DAY.
PAGE
I. ON THE WAY ... 3
II. UNITED ITALY . . . . ,12
III. IL PAPA-RE . • . . .25
IV. THE HOUSE OF SAVOY . . . .41
V. THE SOCIALISTS . . . .54
VI. LITERATURE 1. . , . =65
II. GABR1ELE D'ANNUNZIO . - .78
THE CITIES OF ITALY.
I. AT GENOA
II. AT PISA
III. AT SIENA
IV. AT ORVIETO
V. ROME .
VI. CHRISTMAS EVE IN ROME
VII. THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN ROME
VIII. PLAIN-SONG ON THE AVENTINE HILL
IX. AT NAPLES
X. AT PERUGIA
I03
III
121
131
J 39
145
156
180
189
202
XIV
CONTENTS
XI.
AT ASSISI
210
XII.
FLORENCE 1. .
223
XIII.
FLORENCE — II. .
235
XIV.
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
243
XV.
FRA LIPPO LIPPI
254
XVI.
AT BOLOGNA
1 264
XVII.
A NOTE ON RAVENNA .
27O
XVIII.
AT VENICE
274
XIX.
AT PADUA . ,
290
XX.
AT VERONA
300
XXI.
AT MANTUA
306
XXII.
AT MILAN
CONCLUSION
APPE
NDIX.
' 311
3 2 °
AN ITINERARY .
A NOTE ON EDUCATION IN ITALY
A NOTE ON THE POLITICAL SYSTEM
A NOTE ON THE ARMY AND NAVY
327
33*
334
338
INDEX .
341
Illustrations.
IAGE
the singing boys ..... Froniispiece
By Luca della Robbia.
THE CREATION OF MAN .... 8o
By Michaelangelo.
st peter's, rome . . . . . .138
the forum . . . . . . . 150
the altar of santa maria delle grazie in san
lorenzo, perugia . 208
santa maria del fiore and giotto's tower, florence 224
the birth of venus ..... 228
By Sandro Botticelli.
SANTA MARIA NOVELLA, FLORENCE . . * 238
VIEW OF VENICE .... . 274
Impressions of Italy of To-Day
I.
ON THE WAY,
" A MONGST those many advantages which conduce to
enrich the mind with knowledge, to rectify the judg-
ment and improve outward manners, foreign travel is none
of the least. But to be a sedentary traveller only, penned
up between walls, and to stand poring all day upon a map,
upon imaginary circles and scales, is like him who thought
to come to be a good fencer by looking on Agrippa's book
postures only. But, indeed, this is the prime use of travel,
which therefore may be not imperfectly called a moving
Academy of the true Peripatetic school. This made Ulysses
to be cried up so much amongst the Greeks for their
greatest wise man, because he had travelled through many
strange countries and observed the manners of divers
nations, having seen, as it was said and sung of him, more
cities than there were houses in Athens, which was much in
that age of the world ; and the greatest of their Emperors
did use to glory in nothing so often as that he had surveyed
more land with his eye than other kings could comprehend
with their thoughts. Amongst other people of the earth,
Islanders seem to stand in most need of foreign travel, for
they, being cut off as it were from the rest of the citizens of
the world, have not those obvious accesses and contiguity
4 ITALY OF TO-DAY
of situation and other advantages of society to mingle with
those more refined nations whom learning and knowledge
did first urbanize and polish."
So in the seventeenth century wrote James Howell
in the beginning of his ' Instructions for Foreign
Travel ' for the use of us Islanders, almost as though
he had been retained for a seventeenth -century Mr
Cook or Mr Gaze. Yet pardon me, reader, if, with
all the will in the world, I fail to maintain so reason-
able an attitude. In truth it was in some such mood
that I set out one day of spring on foot for Italy ; but
I had scarcely gone a score of miles through France
before my old world, home-sick from the first, had
turned back homewards, and I, not altogether with-
out a kind of joy, was talking with some peasants
over a bottle of wine in an inn, and found that I, too,
was one of the " Peripatetic school " in earnest, and
had already begun to whisper to-morrow to myself as
a thing of great comfort, and was, indeed, a pilgrim
through my world of beckoning roads as I had ever
been, though maybe unwillingly, from this world to
the next. So I made pilgrimage to the Land of
Heart's Desire, and longed with a great longing for
the end of the journey, knowing all the time that
it was the journey itself that was the end, the great
reward. And among innumerable hostelries, inns,
taverns, wine shops, monasteries, chapels, and caverns,
I discovered almost without knowing it the Island of
Once, for which, perhaps, I had set out. Nor,
believe me, was I too lonely on the way. I went
ON THE WAY 5
by the old highways. The roads down which I
travelled were worn white by the feet of saints and
sinners, kings and peasants, and the pilgrims to
the Eternal City for over a thousand years. Hot
and tired, I, too, had climbed that last intolerable
hill, and descried, oh, far away ! that faint shimmer
to the southward that my heart told me must be
the Mediterranean. It was a far journey; shall I
ever, in some fortunate year, or in a marvellous sweet
dream before I die, see that white road again ? Shall
I once more, footsore and almost weeping with the
steepness of the way, under an implacable night, see
with a passion of joy the friendly lights of the inn
by the wayside ? Shall I ever again talk with the
dreamers in the fields at evening or pray with the
monks in the mountains or listen to the music of
the villages ? Oh, has my God so sweet a recom-
pense for me in His heart, after all, before I must
for ever forget the sun ? I never envied Borrow
with his Bible in Spain since I have walked with
the saints beside clear rivers, under shivering poplars,
and with kings through the plains of France, nor,
busied with these, did I forget to love the people
by the way. Oh world ! how can a man bear to
die ? Have not the children laughed with me be-
cause we were alive and because I went down
the road, staying nowhere long, having no abiding
city?
So I met Life, not in the city, where, it may well
be, one would not give up all for her as I would
6 ITALY OF TO-DAY
do, but in the winds of the great plains of France,
that went past me for days like a splendid host,
and in the sun of the south and in the shadows of
the olive -gardens of Italy. And I have known, at
a turn of the road in the silence of the sunshine,
or at the sudden noise of waves far below me, or
at some gesture of the mountains, or when a child
has led me into some immortal city, a passion of
sudden glory fill my being, so that for a moment
I too have seen, as it were, the gates of Paradise
and the angel with the flaming sword. And once,
in a lonely and sweet place, I lived for a week with
a shepherd whom I had met tending his sheep as
in old time. And he told me the history of the
world under an almond-tree that had just finished
blossoming. He was lonely on the mountains and
told the time by the sun ; yet he, too, had dreamed
of invincible cities and of the villages among the
vines, and of Death that was still unashamed under
the stars.
" Ah," he said to me on a night of innumerable
stars, "all the stars of God's house cannot put out
the Night."
So I passed ever towards Rome. And at the end
of my day's journey I was not so terribly far from
the place whence I had set out in the morning, as
you will surely be, making pilgrimage, as I foresee
you will, by railway. And yet, as God is my judge,
reader, what in this earth I love have I in common
with you ? God, who is our Father, knows. Even
ON THE WAY 7
if you have read so far, my shepherd, who was a
thousand times more real than you can ever be,
has sent you, it may be, to Baedeker and reality.
Reality? Well, I know Italy well, having loved
her for a matter of all the long years of youth: drug
me in Soho and carry me whither you will, if it be to
Italy you have brought me, I would name her; yet
if Italy be anywhere in Baedeker, you shall burn
me at Amen Corner with the paper and pasteboard
of my books.
No, no ; for the glory of her name men have been
persuaded for more than a thousand years to embrace
Death. All the far-fetched greatness, all the elo-
quent renown, all the pride and splendour of the
hearts of men were her birthright, that even our
England had to fetch from her fair, invincible cities.
How often on a summer's day, in all the weary delight
of her sun and sky, have the tears sprung to my
eyes as I looked on the pallid splendour of Genoa
from the sea, or gazed with a kind of sacred awe
from the tower of Pisa upon the immortal gesture
of the mountains ; or, realising quite suddenly some
light among the shadows, some aspect of the sky,
some glamour of the evening, my heart has leapt
up as I wandered through the streets of that brave,
sweet city, the mistress of Dante and Michael Angelo
and Leonardo da Vinci, on the banks of Arno. For
your soul's safety you dare not look for Italy in
Baedeker. But on a night that is musical with
voices out of the past, when the tireless singing of
8 ITALY OF TO-DAY
the mandolines comes to you from across that yellow
river, and the stars are beating in heaven with the
ecstasy of the night, and the profound sky is as
tender as the eyes of Mary Madonna, and because
of the wideness of the world and the glory of it
you are cleansed from all the stains of life and the
blackness of the North and the noise of its trum-
pery cities, there in that hour look into your own
heart, and it may well be you will find Italy smiling
at you from its most sacred depth.
Love is not to be hired, nor can you buy knowledge
with anything but love. And here is the Land of
Heart's Desire, the dear land our fathers sought in
youth, so that they might have something lovely
stored in their hearts to remember in the quiet and
noiseless years of age. You dare not follow in their
footsteps with that shouting, scarlet book in your
hand, led by the buttonhole by a scientific German.
He who would see Rome shall never come in the
train of the Goth, unless, as before, he comes and
finds it a ruin. And yet, I think, indeed, that is
what he has done. That destroying army from
Northern Europe, that sacked Rome so many ages
ago, only grows more innumerable every year, more
contemptible, more disgusting; so that really Rome
having been destroyed any time these many cen-
turies, it is only the old remorseless ruins that their
ancestors have thrown down that the tourist to-dav
looks on with a languid curiosity. Rome is only
immortal in the hearts of men. To the crowd she
ON THE WAY 9
is but a heap of ruins, or a noisy modern capital,
or the despised and hated Christian name of the
Catholic Church. Ah, you who come to her and
are to be seen nowadays, alas ! among her ruins,
listening to innumerable lies, or racing through her
galleries, or touting for invitations from her new-
made nobles and princes, you all seek something
immortal, one may suppose, yet how rudely, how
noisily you pursue that which is only to be ap-
proached after due ceremony, very quietly, through
long lanes of the old culture and after long days
and nights of enthusiasm and love. That divinity
you seek has fled in fear at your approach. You,
sir, are clothed, perhaps, for golf, or some form of
violent exercise ; are you then in pursuit of that
divine being you will never even see ? Would you
hunt her, sir ? And you, madam, it is not, I imagine,
possible to offend one so indifferent to the feelings
of others, therefore I do not scruple to remind you
that in Rome one should do as the Romans do, and
not seek in vain, in vain I assure you, to advertise
the national dress of the sex from the hockey -fields
of Yorkshire or the golf-links of far Idaho. So,
where Csesar trod, where Caesar sleeps, one can
hear to-day the silly shuffle of the flocks of tourists,
driven, by the ridiculous barking of the rote-learned
sheep-dog guide, from one immortal, desecrated spot
to another as emotionless.
And now, in the City that flung out the House
of Tarquin in order to welcome, more than two
io ITALY OF TO-DAY
thousand years later, the House of Savoy, associa-
tions of hotel -keepers and other bawds have com-
bined in order to display more in accordance with
the barbarian taste the beautiful body of Italy to
the vile and ignorant gaze of the Great Beast from
every vandal and successful country in Europe. The
Italians may now be said to live on the prostitution
of their country to the stranger. Monster hotels
are built in the beautiful Piazzas in order that any
fool who can pay and gape may be housed, not
indeed as befits him but in a manner he can admire.
The market - places of the people, hallowed for I
know not how many centuries, in the pure and
lovely memories of those who are happily dead, are
pulled down, and German beer -palaces, and flashy
and foreign shops, stocked with heavily taxed bad
German goods, are run up with a Carnival King a'
horseback in the midst of the square that now bears
his name, in order that the foreigners from artistic
America, or sensitive England, or austere Germany,
may not be offended in Italia la Nuova.
This kind of thing is, I think, known as " better-
ment " to the halfpenny and more ignorant press of
my country. Such a digging up and flinging into
the dust -heap of our fathers' bones has their ap-
plause, I know. They see, no doubt, in that which
displaces the beauty that sometimes seems to me
to be fleeing from us for ever, the realisation of their
own vile imaginations. It may be there is yet a
great while for them to triumph. Yet he, our de-
ON THE WAY n
liverer, will one day come, with unscabbarded sword
and the tramp of soldiers, or it may be silent as time
is and sweet as the dawn. The world has not yet
said Amen to the work of the Great Beast.
So, reader, you see you have, after all, been be-
guiled into reading the book of a very fool, an
idealist, a valiant silly-pop, and a dreamer. Yet
Italy is an unpractical land ; I shall keep you in
better humour than your rubicund and portly Ger-
man. And I shall tell you of new things, perhaps —
but not all by way of information.
Will you set out where the road leads ? It is
my opinion you will not. Yet you will often be
weary at evening, but not of the white roads you
will seldom see, that are part of the life of me and
call me like a woman. Of all that you know
nothing. So be it. Yet it may be that on some
fortunate night your angel shall lead you, perhaps,
to the long-desired steps of San Pietro in Rome, and
you too will remember only old things for a time,
where, oh, once upon a time, all the kings in the
world were proud to kneel, and there even you too
may chance to see the gates of Paradise and the
angel with the ilaming sword.
I
II.
UNITED ITALY.
T was perhaps but yesterday that Italy ceased
to be a vision and became a Kingdom. Yet
she has already thrown far from her the high and
sweet dreams of youth, and is grown as sceptical
as a disillusioned man at the approach of middle
age.
All the heroic figures of the Homeric years of
attack and no less noble defence are gone ; and
with them too has fled Faith, into whose eyes
Garibaldi had gazed often upon the cliffs of Sicily,
whose words Mazzini never ceased to echo, upon
whose lips even to-day the eyes of the Church are
set, waiting in magnificent patience till they form
the image of the word "Amen."
It would seem that the mere glance of death is
sufficient to make immortal that man upon whom
it rests even for a moment. For though Garibaldi
had found in the fury and freedom of the sea the
secret of his patient desire, it was not till he had
been condemned to die for the fierce love he bore
UNITED ITALY 13
Genoa la Superba that he was mastered by the glory
of his passion against authority. It was then, it
would seem, that his dauntless spirit first experienced
the joy that he ever received from the nearness of
danger. And it is almost as a kind of Lucifer that
we see him in the end, in rebellion against all
Heaven, setting his proud and superb dream as the
end of his desire, following it even to the last,
scattering before him, in his chase of it, Popes and
Kings, while behind him — but his gaze was ever
set forwards — followed all the tragedy of his desires,
all the misery of the fulfilment of his dreams, all
the loathsome bestiality of the crowd, and the im-
mense clamour of implacable greed. So that one
realises how even a soul so noble and splendid as
his is but the very plaything of its own dreams, the
slave of its own ideas for which at the last every-
thing must be sacrificed — all the visions it has really
seen, the beauty of the only dreams that were al-
together lovely, the gentle nobility of those things
it really desired. To love one's land too well has
ever proved fatal to the lover : Garibaldi, no less
than Sir Walter Raleigh or General Gordon, was
killed at last by her to whom he had given every-
thing. Hopelessly out-generaled, out-numbered, and
out-marched, we see him at the last an old and
broken man at the age of sixty -three leading some
irregular troops in an alien cause in the Vosges
Mountains in the war of '70, as a kind of relief from
the unbearable weight of the failure of his dreams,
14 ITALY OF TO-DAY
and at last, on a tiny island bought for him by the
English, in the hands of women, he died, June 2,
1882. One has there something of the marvel of
the shooting-star, something too of its swiftness in
passing away yet remaining as something beautiful
and wonderful in our memories. After all, his red-
shirts grappled Italy together into one land ; and
though it may be he was scarcely anything more
than a great and cunning captain of irregular troops,
his dreams have hypnotised not those troops alone, but
a whole world, and for this reason his name stands
first among those who in making modern Italy have
brought not peace but a sword.
And we find the natural result of their failure in
the pretentious statues that are scattered up and
down the beautiful cities : it is not that the men
they commemorate were not sometimes great and
noble, but that those who have commemorated them
have for the most part been full of resentment against
their enemies, tasteless and tactless, and without the
elementary sense of beauty. The statue of Garibaldi
on the Janiculum is perhaps one of the most offensive,
in that there the dreamer turns eyes that the crowd
has dared to believe were impudent on the Vatican
and St Peter's Church. It is so childish a sneer
there, in sight of the Alban Hills and the mountains
that Horace once looked upon, that have seen
Romulus slay his brother and have witnessed the
expulsion of the kings and the tears of the mother
of the Gracchi, that have gazed into the immortal
UNITED ITALY 15
face of Caesar and unmoved have witnessed the
gathering and passing of his armies, the triumphs
accorded by the Senate, and the Judas face of his
murderer. Those hills have watched innumerable
emperors pass by, have seen the flames leap up that
were the tongues shouting the name of the Son of
God to all the world. And it is in their sight one
finds a huge figure on horseback sneering at all that ;
suggesting every day and every night the glib lie
which Italy has believed so easily ; so that she will
tell you almost with pride that her history began
with the year 1848.
It was on a March evening in that volcanic year
that an immense crowd, fascinated and exalted by
the dreams and visions of Mazzini, waited before the
palace of the King of Savoy in Turin till, inspired
by the passions of his people, he, " tired of shrinking
alternately from the dagger of the Carbonari and
the chocolate of the Jesuits," appeared with a tri-
colour flag upon the balcony, and was persuaded
almost against his own judgment (" il Re Tentenna ")
to declare war on Austria, Doubtless that night saw
the star of united Italy creep into the farthest sky.
Yet are all her unequalled services, all the noble
laws of the Republic, all the red years of Empire,
all the splendid victories of the Holy Empire and
the ecstatic patience of the Papacy to go for nothing ?
On that night in 1848 Italy's recorded history spanned
more than 2200 years. Looking back over the fifty four
years since that luminous night, can we dare to admit
16 ITALY OF TO-DAY
that these puny months that number less than the
years that went before have outweighed in virtue
and splendour and glory the heroic ages in the
history of what for most of that time was almost
the very world ? There is little to be very ashamed
of in that old and princely yet humble past, but in
the sordid years since 1848 we find so few great
or splendid sins, so few really heroic men, so little
honour, so much vulgarity and vainglory and vile
meanness and littleness. What has been ill done,
and there has been much ill done, has been magnified
in vileness and hatefulness by its unutterable mean-
ness and sordidness. Has Roman history anything
so vile, so brutal, to show as the gambling mania
that ruined all those princes who tried to make
money out of their own defeat and the successes
of their enemies, who pandered to the vilest desires
for destruction and brutality on the part of the new-
comers — the crowd ? I cannot find it. Yet that
frightful patricide, that bloodless crime, is considered
almost as a mere misfortune by the whole world that
has really lost its sense of proportion in its passion
for gold. It is horrible — humanity is concerned
to-day less with the character or the nobility or the
birth of a man than with the depth of his pockets.
The smartest thief is the most lordly hero ; one is
confused when the greatest titles are easily acquired
by a successful banker or an universal grocer or
rhetorical deputy. It is not an aristocracy (Heaven
save the word !) of talent one objects to, but an
UNITED ITALY 17
aristocracy of knaves and villains. How did these
men obtain their titles ? by birth, by theft, by
bribery, by auction ? Was Garibaldi a prince or
Mazzini a duke in this kingdom "by the grace of
God and the will of the people " ? Yet what a fool
I am — this is no new thing, say you. 'Tis none
the less a damnable thing on that account. Perhaps
it is the unconscious fault of the Socialist — give every
man an equal chance and it will go hard but the
knave will win the prize. It is tiresome to lay every
evil at the door of the Socialist ; moreover, it is use-
less to do that in Italy. The future is most probably
in the hands of the Socialists, and though I am not
one of them, I am glad to know for sure that they
are not contented with the present state of affairs.
But who has the heart now to sing ? —
"Fratelli d' Italia
L' Italia s' e desta."
No, no, Italy has fallen asleep again. The old
Faiths are worn out, one no longer believes them ;
there have been disappointments ; terrible lies, that
have been tended for years with all the care given
to a delicate child, have grown up and are devouring
the Italians. The Italians — it was easier to find
them twenty years ago than it is to-day. To-day
there are Romans, Florentines, Neapolitans, Vene-
tians, and a few Italians who it may be either have
forgotten where they were born or do not care to
tell. Yet the old Faiths are not dead. I am sure
B
18 ITALY OF TO-DAY
they, like Italy, will awake at the voice of the de-
liverer. Ah ! never doubt that, believe it, believe it.
You, reader, when in England, possibly have often
spoken of the "dying Latin peoples," or the "de-
cadent Latin nations," or of the " idle Italians,"
and so forth and so on : but in Italy it is impossible
to pish so. The Italians are neither idle nor dying.
They have already within living memory produced
many very great men : Garibaldi, Mazzini, Cavour,
Lombroso, and others whose names perhaps have
not reached so far as the suburbs of London. One
day they will produce a great leader, which is indeed
their chief need, and he will awaken them. Their
present condition only shows how utterly illogical
the idea of democracy is, how utterly dependent any
unfortunate country in the grip of this disease is
on her leaders, those whose first duty it is to
dominate the crowd, to put Demos in his place,
which is always behind, — he is a good follower, as
Italian history, no less than English, will easily
prove. Even at moments of high passion it is always
the idea of one man that drives the crowd to action,
as on that March night in 1848.
Meantime one sees a strange and sad spectacle.
In an old book I have read that a house divided
against itself cannot stand — if ever there were a
house or nation in that sorry condition, you see it
when you look on Italy. And there, I think, I touch
the root of all the trouble that has made the past
thirty-two years less splendid, less happy, than they
UNITED ITALY 19
should have been. If all Italy has lost faith in her
destiny and herself — he who sleeps within the
Vatican, a prisoner like Peter, has never doubted
his vision or his dream for a single moment. In
how much worse a plight have been the former
vicegerents of the Prince of Life ! The Vatican is
not so poor a house for the Church as the Castle
of Sant' Angelo with a yelling horde of villains under
the Constable de Bourbon (whom Cellini swears he
shot) threatening to pull the very world about the
ears of Holy Church. And how much better is
Rome than Avignon or Gaeta ? Doubtless that
prisoner dreams, and nobly too. Yet, consider, is
it so impossible for Pope and King, Church and
Kingdom, to agree ? Suppose it is. Then must
Italy suffer. And one day, say a thousand years
from now, either more or less as you will, the king-
dom of Italy crumbles, or whatsoever House is on
the Italian throne fails to produce an heir, or Italy
like Greece is really a thing of the past, still there is
that claimant only waiting the will of God. It may
be we have among us sequestered him to America,
or even, as we did Napoleon, confined his body to
a tiny island, yet that marvellous, miraculous, and
stupendous idea that he personifies we can never
slay, never in all the countless millions of years in
which it may be humanity will still laugh into the
face of the sun and be sorry to die ; never though
all knowledge fail, though the white man has fallen
before the Slav and he before the yellow man, and
20 ITALY OF TO-DAY
he again in the inscrutable wisdom and justice of
time before some other race ; never can we destroy
with all our cruelty or our sufferance or our science
or our scorn that Church founded upon the Rock,
against which our God has promised no gates of
hell shall ever prevail, to whom He has said, " Lo,
I am with you alway, even to the end of the world."
But is it so impossible for Church and Kingdom
to agree ? I will never believe it. One day that
deliverer will come who will give to his beautiful
country the crowning gift of Peace. He will
" Cleanse the stuff 'd bosom of that perilous stuff
That preys upon the heart,"
and Italy once more will forget her childish passions
and furies and her suicidal purpose of revenge, re-
membering her greater past, when the dignity of
her Senate struck terror into the heart of the Bar-
barian and the most precious altars of God were
built in the hearts of her children.
Is it not possible that, even as England appears
to be willing to sacrifice everything to her principle
of Free Trade, so Italy may very easily pay too
dearly for her dreams of unity ? It is not that that
dream is not great and noble, but that in spite of
innumerable sacrifices it remains still a dream.
Never in the history of the world has there been
unity in that old and dear land, though the idea
has lifted a whole people towards heroism, and in-
spired the thoughts of many dreamers. Is it not
UNITED ITALY 21
possible that, after all, the happiness, the greatness,
the character, the history of a people are worth
more than a dream which Nature seems to have
forbidden reality to claim ? To buy unity at the
price of destruction and death seems but a silly
bargain. And who, knowing Italy to-day, can say
with knowledge and honesty that Florence and
Naples, for instance, are sister cities, in the same
way that Oxford and Bristol or Manchester and
Birmingham are. Just as there are centuries of
history behind our England circling her with inde-
structible deeds and thoughts and passions and
fights, so there is a longer tale of centuries behind
the Italian States sundering them with deeds bloodier
and more terrible than any that have welded us
together ; hatreds that have lived a thousand years,
traditions that were born when our Europe was
born, distrust that the last fifty years have only
served to fan into furious antipathy. Is all this,
the unforgetable story of the world, to go for nothing
in the hearts of men ? Is it so easy to carve out
of their souls the things they have heard with their
ears, that their fathers have declared unto them
of the old time long ago ? How many years it took
to unite England and Scotland ! Yet there are not
less but greater reasons for hatred and distrust be-
tween North and South in Italy than ever there
were between England and Scotland. Yes, and as
great a difference in race too, as instinctive a dislike.
We are in such a hurry to be rich and great and
22 ITALY OF TO-DAY
powerful that we forget it takes more than a hundred
years for the smallest wound to heal. We too, like
the Americans, are always out of breath — it is a
bad habit.
But if unity is the true ideal for Italy, then I
think there are two things necessary to be won
before that dream will become bright reality. The
first is good government, and the second follows as
the night the day — peace with the Vatican. Let
the Government convince, not England or Germany
alone, but all Italy too, that its idea of rule is not
to spoil the people, not to enrich its wretched
deputies, not to make grandiose alliances, not to
avenge itself upon the Church, but to make its
people happy and prosperous, and to train them to
use liberty rightly. For the Italians — as, in spite
of themselves, one desires to call them — are capable
of great happiness beyond anything dreamed of in
England since Cromwell came and, having failed
in everything else, succeeded in making us sad.
There must be no more adventures in Africa, no
more bank scandals, no more despoiling of monas-
teries, no more throwing of nuns into the streets,
no more robbery, no more bribery, no more wholesale
nurder at Ostia and elsewhere, no more cowardice ;
but there must be Justice, so that the laws shall
not be administered in one way to him who can
pay and in quite another to him who cannot. More-
over, the Royal House of Savoy must cease to ad-
vertise itself by renaming old streets after itself, or
UNITED ITALY 23
placing wonderful and ridiculous statues of its mem-
bers in all sorts of unexpected and unsuitable places.
At the present time the Church does far more for
Italy than the Government attempts. For while
the Government taxes the people within an inch of
their lives the clergy are busied in good works.
Meantime the people, of whom no one who knows
them dare despair, — nay, rather he who knows them
best will believe in them most firmly, — are helping
themselves. Everywhere agricultural syndicates and
people's banks are appearing, and thus the money-
lender Jew, though by no means extirpated, no longer
finds an easy prey in the farmer in need of capital.
No doubt the State, too, will help more and more,
— it is to be believed. Already it is trying with the
help of local bodies to prevent malaria, which still
claims some 18,000 lives every year. But before all
things Peace. Till that is given to Italy by those
who govern her, to combat the malaria is but to
physic a man for indigestion who is dying of a
terrible fever. At present those who are most loving
to the Government are least in their allegiance to
God. For in Italy, as in Spain, Protestantism is
the merest merry-andrew. It has made no impres-
sion whatever on the people, nor will it ever do so,
save to convince them of the unreasonableness of
Religion — a thing patent to every educated man.
In Rome, no less than in the other fair cities, to
be seen at Mass is as good as to forfeit your position
under Government. I do not fear contradiction.
24 ITALY OF TO-DAY
The Italian Government is as hostile to religion as
the French is at this time, but less openly for fear
of the people. For the Italian, taking him in the
main, still looks towards heaven with hope and for
other reasons than to admire the stars or to point
a jest at Joshua. Somewhere behind his ample and
profound sky he knows Christ waits with all His
saints, nor does he believe for a moment that he
is deserted by them. He will desire the priest to
give God's blessing on his crops as he sows his seed,
and remembers the old stories of the Gospel and the
lives of the Saints. To scoff at Christ is still to his
mind blasphemy. So in a world that he loves and
makes beautiful, he is perhaps a little behind the
times; but the blood of Caesar's armies is in his
veins, it were well not to torture him beyond endur-
ance, nor to anger him more than is necessary.
III.
IL PAPA-RE.
SO soon as we have climbed up to the last Alp,
beautiful as though touched with the sword
of the archangel, and in some gap among those
spectral peaks, moved, perhaps for the first time, to
deep emotion, have knelt to gaze down on Italy, we
realise that a new land, quite different from any
of those we have ever seen before, lies before us.
In the mist of early morning, with the sun still
low on the horizon, in the devout loneliness of the
mountains, as the width of the great plain of Lom-
bardy opens before us, with a glimpse of far-away
mountains that we can scarcely persuade ourselves
to believe to be the Apennines, we almost imagine
that we see cupolas, innumerable towns, and the
strong and fair walls of cities, and it is not difficult
to believe for a moment that in the pure and
nimble air we can see even so far as Rome her-
self. I think it is some such beautiful and im-
mortal city, built of the desire of the world's heart,
that we see when we look towards Rome in reality,
26 ITALY OF TO-DAY
at least from a great distance, as from Tivoli over
the Campagna, when the dome of St Peter's is like
a ship for ever a-sail in the distance, beneath which
the very precious dreams of an awakened world
live ; and where, in spite of unquenchable laughter,
innumerable pilgrims still kneel before one who is
a king and in prison.
And being very young, it was thus I came to
Rome. I was a very fool, and, as I have told you
before, I came afoot. And when at last, after many
adventures, many tarryings by the way, — in Avignon,
in Frejus, in the rock villages of the Riviera, in my
Genoa of the Proud Heart, in white Pisa and Perugia
that frowns over the valley of St Francis, — I came
toward Rome on that last day, it was, I dare believe,
even in the mood ot the old-fashioned and reverent
pilgrim of old time who had followed in the footsteps
of an English king. Yes, and I, too, had shouted
" Ecco Roma ! " with all my fathers, and crossed the
Campagna hurriedly in my eagerness to be in the
very city of Rome before another sunset. The first
church I saw was St Peter's, and the first house,
the prison of the Pope. Yet, at the very moment
of my arrival, which should have crowned my journey,
a kind of remorse, a horrible regret, came to me
for the journey itself now ended. The freedom of
the road, the eternal expectation of to - morrow.
And, even as I sat resting on the Spanish steps, the
bells of the Trinita were ringing the Angelus, and,
if you will believe me, there among the tattered
IL PAPA-RE 27
" models," almost before the bells had finished
ringing, I fell asleep.
The prison of the Pope, — well, I thought it finer
than the old prison of the first Peter, finer even than
Raphael's dream of it, painted in fresco on the wall
of the Stanze — and with a view ! But there was no
angel of deliverance — yet. Still I will believe, though
you will not, the prophecies of St Malachy. A true
Irishman was he, with all the gifts of his race and
the piety too, Archbishop of Armagh, 1134, m the
island of Saints.
In these days, when a great Pope cannot be far
from death, in Rome as of old the soothsayers have
at least a hearing. Traditions, legends, and ap-
paritions gather like a crowd of vultures round his
last years ; Centro has seen this, or Monsignor
has heard that, as they sat with his Holiness and
smoothed his forehead when it ached. The Blessed
Virgin has deigned to comfort him whose last hours
no earthly woman may make easy. And always
St Malachy is remembered as having named Leo
XIII. " Lumen in ccelo," as he named Pius IX.
with equal truth " Crux de Cruce." And, indeed,
Leo XIII. has been "Lumen in ccelo" for the
Church.
When Pius IX. died in 1878 and Cardinal Joachim
Pecci was elected as Leo XIII., every Government
in Europe almost was hostile to the Papacy. In
Italy herself Victor Emmanuel, he who had wrested
Rome from the hands of Christ, was just dead, and
28 ITALY OF TO-DAY
Humbert by the " grace of God and the will of the
people " reigned in his stead. In Germany the con-
flict regarding public worship known as the Kultur-
Kampf was at its height, and Bismarck was hostile.
In England the Government was busy encouraging
the Italian monarchy, then eighteen years old, to
establish a national Church on the splendid and
successful pattern of the Church of England ; in
France the anti-clericals, under MM. Dufaure and
Waddington, were in power, having caused Marshal
MacMahon to resign on the 13th December 1877.
It was, too, in 1878 that Gambetta made his speech
proposing that theological students should no longer
be free from military service. Even Russia had been
angered by a protest against her cruel policy in
Poland. Indeed the whole world appears to have
thought that at length the gates of hell were about
to swallow Papacy and Church together.
It was of a kingdom seemingly so despised that
Leo XIII. was chosen king. Nor has he in his long
reign of twenty-four years ever proved himself any-
thing but a good, great, and wise ruler. That Pius
IX. was a saint is most probable; Leo XIII. has,
I imagine, no such claim, but has been content to
serve God well and truly with the gifts that were
given him. So England is no longer quite so hostile.
King Edward VII. is the first king of his House of
Hanover to receive a Cardinal Prince in state. He,
too, like Queen Victoria before him, has sent a
special embassy to Rome to congratulate the Pope
IL PAPA-RE 29
in his Jubilee year. But it was in the very year
of his election that Pope Leo restored the Hier-
archy in Scotland, and soon after composed the
difficulty with Bismarck. In 1894 he made his
peace with France by recognising the Republic,
and although now the French seem bent on sham-
ing their country in the eyes of the world by
enforcing the Law of Associations, it is, I think,
to Leo XIII. we owe the fact that the Religious
Orders are almost welcomed in England, where it
is well to forget that it is still "against the law"
for a Jesuit to land. In fact, the Vatican is now
at peace with all Europe, with all the world save
Italy only. And there even Leo's wisdom has found
no way for peace. There he has not dared to abate
one iota of his demands ; there he still regards him-
self, nor is he alone in his opinion, as the despoiled
King of Rome, the Vicar of Christ, now prisoner
in the Vatican. And everywhere, and not least in
Italy, there has been a wonderful revival of Catholic
energy. Innumerable societies, unions, associations,
have been formed, each to express some special side
or idea contained in the Catholic Church. So we
hear of the "Catholic Socialists" in Italy and France
and Germany, of the "Christian Democrats" in Italy,
of innumerable congresses and reunions, and in Italy,
too, of " Rural Unions," " Catholic Agricultural
Unions," and "Village Banks." For Leo, who has
been called in England the Working-man's Pope,
while resolute against socialism in any other form
30 ITALY OF TO-DAY
than that professed by the Catholic Socialists, has
really shown a feeling of tenderness even in his
policy and in his encyclicals for the poor and the
unfortunate. Still, as the Church never for an
instant forgets, she is a kingdom, not a democracy.
St Malachy prophesied truly when he spoke of Leo
XIII. as " Lumen in ccelo," for there is no country
in the world that has not seen that bright star on
his escutcheon and wondered at the immortality of
Christ's Church militant here in earth.
But in Rome to-day that light in heaven is setting ;
everywhere one may hear whispers of the change
that is coming. The Pope is ninety-three and very
feeble. Even the cheering of the soldiers and the
people is too much for him, the triple crown too
heavy, the light of the tapers too dazzling. As he
draws near heaven, the world, even that beautiful
world seen from the windows of the Vatican which
is all that Pope Leo has known for twenty-four years,
falls away as a thing not to be endured. Only in
some marvellous sweet way the name of Jesus is more
precious, the robe of Mary a fold of the soft sky.
Meantime, an eager world that is seldom in suffi-
cient silence to think of Death other than as an
interesting innovator, can hardly contain its im-
patience for him who is to come. O cynic Death,
who taught us that " a live dog is better than a
dead Pope," there are those who call you eloquent
in that you have touched the hearts of men, and just
because you are indifferent, and mighty because you
IL PAPA-RE 31
will not spare even him who natters you. Ah, here
over the coffin and the old white body of the mightiest
king you will draw together all the far-fetched great-
ness, all the greed, pride, and ambition of men,
among which will be found no single soul to weep
for Joachim Pecci who is dead.
But in spite of his great and magnificent titles,
in spite of the visible significance of the triple crown,
the Pope is no king, but the servant of the servants
of God. Though the Vicegerent of Christ is a
prisoner as his Master was, it is still Jesus, the
Prince of Life, safe in His heaven, who is King. And
so one sees the utter uselessness of those lies that
are believed so eagerly : that the Pope has nominated
his successor in his will, as say the wiseacres Peter
did, though, none knows better than the Pope, Peter
never did ; or that he is about to surrender the
temporal power. Nor are these the only rumours
that spread through Europe and the world con-
cerning so mysterious a kingdom, for some of the
more excitable wiseacres will tell us that Cardinal
Rampolla is about to be disgraced on account of the
French imbroglio, in spite of the fact that he and he
alone has been Leo's Secretary of State since 1878,
and that if the present state of religion in France
is one of his failures, then the present position of
the Papacy in Germany, in Spain, in Austria, in
England, is also his success. That he should retire
and name Cardinal Ferrata as his successor is, as
it were, to suggest that Mr Chamberlain should
32 ITALY OF TO-DAY
resign and name Mr Jesse Collings to reign in his
stead, so though the voice were that of Jesse, the
words would still, as before, be Joseph's. And to
those who watch events with some attention and
are not at the mercy of the first wind of rumour
that blows from the Quirinal or even from less hostile
quarters, it appears certain that should the Pope die
to-day or very shortly, his successor would be either
Cardinal Seranno Vannutelli or Cardinal Prince
Rampolla del Tindaro. Yet there is and always
must be a great uncertainty as to the result of any
election, for the Pope is elected by a majority and
not by the unanimous vote of the Conclave.
The Cardinal Prince Rampolla del Tindaro was
born in Sicily. He is of all men the most tactful,
ever ready to annihilate himself if thereby he may
gain an advantage. In his manner ordinarily he
is quiet, yet he is capable of the most majestical
emotions. Thus at Mass he surpasses himself, for
he is tactful enough to know that he that humbleth
himself shall be exalted. He is said to have the
gift of tears, and though he may forget that he is
of the South it is impossible for others to do so.
His supreme worth, at least one may suppose in the
eyes of Leo XIII., is that he is, or seems to be,
content to carry out the ideas of the Pope without
leavening them in the process. Thus if it is true
that it is in France that the chief, it may be the
only, failure of the papal policy is seen, it is Leo's
policy, not Rampolla's, that has been unfortunate ;
IL PAPA-RE 33
yet Rampolla continues to bear the burden not un-
willingly, and it may well be that the chief cause
of the failure in France is to be found neither in
the policy itself nor in the methods by which it was
carried out, but in the unfortunate death of Lavi-
gerie, who was really a great man and not a mere
reactionary like Cardinal Langenieux. There is
more beneath the struggle in France than appears
at first sight, into which it is impossible to enter
here. Yet it is perhaps not altogether unworthy to
point out that Cardinal Rampolla has made friends
of the cardinal monks, whose votes would be, one
may believe, not less than twelve. In spite of all
this it is not usual for the Secretary of State to
become the new Pope, and so after all it may be
that Rampolla desires some new post, and is busy
getting himself seemingly disgraced in order to
mount in the end to the very chair of St Peter.
For if St Malachy is to be trusted, the title of the
new Pope is to be " Ignis ardens," which some would
tell you will suit Rampolla del Tindaro very well.
The prophecies of St Malachy of Armagh, pub-
lished for the first time in Venice in 1595, by Arnold
Wion, a Flemish Benedictine, in his 'Lignum Vitse,'
begin with Celestine II. in 1143, and consist of a
roll of one hundred and eleven popes. They have
never been looked on seriously by any historian
that I know of, yet they are interesting at any rate
to the traveller and the passer-by, both because of
their extraordinary fulfilment in many instances in
o
34 ITALY OF TO-DAY
the past, and because they allow of only nine suc-
cessors to the present Pope. Leo XIII., " Lumen
in ccelo," is the one hundred and second pope in
St Malachy's roll ; of these one hundred and two
dead popes, St Malachy named Celestine II. (1143-44)
"Ex Castro Tiberis " — "From the fortress of the
Tiber" — and, as it proved, his name was de Castelli,
he had a fortress in his " coat," and he was born
in the city of Castello, where the Tiber rises in
Umbria.
Again, he named Lucius II. (1144-45) " Inimicus
expulsus " — " The enemy chased out " — and the
Pope's name was Caccianemico, meaning "chase
enemy."
Again, Eugene III. (1145-53), "Ex magnitudine
montis " — "From the greatness of a mountain" — he
was born in the castle of Grammonte.
Again, Adrian IV., the Englishman (1154-59).
" De rure Albo," he called him. Adrian was born
at, and was Bishop of, St Alban's.
But it will be said, All these popes lived about the
time of St Malachy himself (1095-1148) ; what proof
is there that these are not prophecies after the event ?
Of course there is no proof. But I will give a few
instances of St Malachy's prophetic gift in the names
of some of the popes who reigned after the date
of the publication of the prophecy by Arnold Wion
in 1595 ; so that whatever one may think of the
inspiration of St Malachy, — and there is no necessity
to believe in it that ever I heard of, should one pre-
IL PAPA-RE 35
fer to remain incredulous, — it will be seen that it
was at any rate manifestly impossible for these
prophecies to have been spoken after the event.
Of Innocent XII., who reigned (1691-1700) a
hundred years after Wion's publication, St Malachy
says, " Rastrum in porta" — "The rake at the door."
He was of Rastello (the rake) at the very gates of
Naples. Pius VI. (1775-1799), " Peregrinus Aposto-
licus " — "The apostolic pilgrim" or "wanderer";
he was carried to Siena on his refusal to surrender
the temporal power, thence to the Certosa, and
thence to Grenoble, and at last to Vallence, where
he died.
Pius VII. (1800-23), " Aquila rapax " — "The grasp-
ing eagle." When it is remembered that Napoleon
Buonaparte was then at the height of his power,
and that he brought the Pope to Paris, the inter-
pretation is easy. So we come down to our own
day, to Pius IX., "Crux de Cruce " — "The Cross
from a cross" — who reigned through all the troub-
lous times of '48, '60, and '70 ; who saw the tem-
poral power once more stolen from the Church ;
whose cross came truly from the cross of Savoy,
whose device, to be found on every match-box or
packet of bad cigarettes, is a cross argent.
I have already spoken of the title of Leo XIII.,
but there are still nine popes and no more, according
to St Malachy, v\ho are to sit on St Peter's throne.
First he comes called "Ignis ardens " — "Burning
fire," then " Religio depopolata," then "Fides in-
3 6 ITALY OF TO-DAY
trepida," then " Pastor angelicus," then " Pastor
et Nauta," which some believing soul has thought
points to an American Pope, then "Flos florum,"
then " De meditate lunae," then " De labore solis,"
then "Gloria Olivse," — and so St Malachy says
during the last tyranny and persecution the Roman
Peter shall feed the sheep. " In persecutione ex-
trema Sanctse Romanse Ecclesise sedebit Petrus
Romanus qui pascet oves in multis tribulationibus
quibus transactis, Civitatis Septicollis disuetur, et
Judex tremendus judicabit populum."
While claiming that there is no little interest
in this ancient Irish prophecy, I do not for a moment
suggest that there is any real reason to believe it
other than that of the pleasure one may find on
a holiday or a pilgrimage in so old and precious
a land in the idlest words spoken concerning it by
one who loved it well. There are very many of
the prophecies to which it seems impossible to find
any interpretation. Thus Gregory XVI. (1832-46)
is named " De Balneis Etruriae," — " From the baths
of Tuscany" — but he was a Lombard. Pius VIII.
(1829-31) is named " Vir Religiosus " — " A Religious ' :
— but he was nothing of the sort. So it will not do
for united Italy or any other enemy of the Papacy
to depend too much on St Malachy and his "nine
more popes," which by the year 2000 would bring
the Papacy to an end.
Founded as it is on most ancient custom, the papal
Conclave has in the course of centuries greatly
IL PAPA-RE 37
changed. The election of a Pope was at one time
at the hands of the clergy and the people and the
soldiers of the city of Rome ; it is now at the hands
of the College of Cardinals, a body of seventy men,
when complete, which is hardly ever the case. The
struggle for the independence of the Papal Court,
and of the right of election, from any tyranny of
emperor or king in Rome or Germany or Byzantium,
is certainly as old as the year 483, when the election
was forbidden " without the co - operation of the
king's plenipotentiary," a decree annulled by a synod
of Pope Symacchus in 502.
To-day too, it would seem, we are to witness
a like struggle. Certainly in 1878 Crispi managed
that the Conclave should be undisturbed, but Italy
was not so old then. What guarantee beyond the
already broken and evaded " Law of Guarantees "
has the Church that in the future she will be per-
mitted by an already jealous and frightened Govern-
ment to choose her visible Head ? None, I think.
For in case of disturbance or riot within the city or
the kingdom, the Government would undoubtedly
seize the opportunity to remove the cause of it.
And if that cause were the length of an election
or some other similar reason within the Conclave,
Italy might think it a fortunate occasion in which
to interfere, and maybe elect an antipope herself
almost without outside interference if the Powers
were already occupied in China or America or
elsewhere.
38 ITALY OF TO-DAY
On the death of any Pope all cardinals are sum-
moned to a Conclave to elect a successor, ten days
being allowed to go by before the Conclave meets.
This practically annuls the votes of any American
cardinals, who would find it difficult to come to
Rome within the time. It is within these ten days
that the funeral of the late Pope takes place, and he
is buried temporarily in St Peter's amid innumerable
ceremonials, pageants, traditions, glories, and pray-
ers, under the splendid and tremendous phrases of
the Church. Surrounded by the inscrutable mystery
and faith of the plain chant the old Pope is carried
to his temporary resting-place, while in his funeral
train surge the vastest ambitions of the world, the
passions that have been blowing in the hearts of men
for it may be a generation, the greed and envy and
despair of all his ministers, the fears or sorrows of
his friends, the curiosity of surprised ambassadors,
the weak tears of those who weep because of the
beauty of the antique words or the magnificence of
the rise and fall of the chant, or the splendour of the
tapers. Outside, a world waits chiefly expectant.
So few to weep, for he was the Father of us all and
therefore had no children ; so many to follow, for
that he was a king and has left a great kingdom and
no man knows who will wear his crown.
The Sacred College rules the Church when the
pope dies till his successor is elected, and so the
Cardinal Camerlengo is for the time the visible Head
of the Church. It is from him that the Swiss Guard
IL PAPA-RE 39
will take their orders, and it is for him in case of
need they will die.
Of the Conclave itself a very excellent account will
be found in 'John Inglesant,' by Mr J. H. Short-
house, a book that has caught more of the spirit of
Italy than any other I know of. It is useless for
me to describe again a ceremonial told once for all
in so well known a book.
As to Pope Leo XIII., he was born at Carpineti,
near Segni in the Volscian Hills, in 1810, and christ-
ened Joachim Vincent ; he bears the hereditary title
of Conte, and comes of a noble family of Siena in
Tuscany. Those who have cared to find the old
house in the mountains where he was born will re-
member the portraits of his father and mother, still
hanging on the walls. His likeness to his father is
extraordinary. Of his face it is impossible to speak.
Only those who have seen him will understand me
when I say that, like St Dominic, there is a "certain
radiance " about him, so that he seems to have been
carved from the whitest and most delicate marble,
within which some sun is imprisoned but shining.
That it is extremely difficult to decide whether the
grievances that he has always stated so openly are
really such, or whether a people in its struggle for
liberty and unity is justified in robbing both him and
the Church, I shall be the first to admit. Nor, I
hope, will any one quarrel with me for being of the
former opinion. To me it seems clear that the Popes
had been practically undisputed masters of Rome for
40 ITALY OF TO-DAY
hundreds of years, that Mazzini and Garibaldi desired
not a kingdom but a republic, that for ten years Flor-
ence was the very excellent and convenient capital
of United Italy. To others these things go for
nothing. Their devotion to the undeniably noble
desires and passions of the Italian people for unity
sweep even justice into that sea of things forgot
where the tragedy of our own House of Stuart lies.
But if it is right for a mass of men, or the majority
of individuals of which a nation is made up, or even
an entire people, to rob another people, or an institu-
tion, or even a single person, though it be for the
good of all concerned ; then it is equally right for a
tyrant to rob and imprison his people if it be for their
ultimate good. To my own countrymen, to whom
nothing that is not practical appeals, this argument
goes for nothing. To more thoughtful people, such
as the Italians, it is an ever-recurring question. And
it is not in Italy alone that it is the supreme quarrel
of all, but, as is becoming clearer every day, in every
country in the civilised world. May a nation do evil,
scout justice, rob, murder, and slay in order that the
believed happiness of the crowd may by chance be
attained ? For myself I have answered this question
in the negative — but I shall not quarrel with you for
thinking me a fooi.
IV.
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY.
THE murder of King Humbert, a tragedy all the
more profound in that he perhaps of all men
concerned in the government of his country so little
deserved a vengeance so brutal, has perhaps awakened
Italy. For his death roused the indignation not of
the outer world alone, but of Italy too ; even in
England one began to read in the better informed
and more intelligent newspapers that the Italian
Government was greatly to blame, and at last the
truth of twenty years seemed almost to have got
itself expressed in our old and dear land — viz., that
the Government of Italy was unspeakably corrupt,
impotent for good, a great wound from which Italy
was bleeding to death. During the last twenty years
the Government could not have done worse ; indeed
there is not one single thing in which they have
done well ; nor can this be gainsaid. I am not
concerned to deny that while Italy is anxious to
compare herself with the most successful nations,
to her own unavoidable discomfort, one should
42 ITALY OF TO-DAY
rather compare her present conditions with her
past just before that unification — indeed I am anxious
to agree in any such contention. It is in such a
comparison that one will find a great encourage-
ment to believe in her future. For if her present
state is not so splendid, nor so successful, as that
of her neighbours and allies, she is, I firmly believe,
at least on the road to a better world than that
she has left ; and although the crowd is not perhaps
so happy or so free from taxation in Tuscany or
Umbria, for instance, as in the old days a hundred
years ago, still a great and bright future is now pos-
sible to Italia la Nuova, that was impossible to the
geographical expression that travellers and artists
and historians called Italy before i860. So though
it is into an Eldorado of the spirit at least that
you will come over the Alps and along the shores
of that old and great sea, it is into a very human
land, that democracy has as yet had scarcely time
to soil with its desire for uniformity. Theft, adultery,
and murder flourish as with us. Nor are the moun-
tains as yet scarred with railways, nor quite all of
the monasteries turned into barracks. A poor land
rich in memories the superficial traveller will remark.
It is scarcely the whole truth. There is even a small
surplus in the budgets at present ; and there are
other things. It is in leaders that Italy is unfor-
tunately still so poor. The House of Savoy has not
risen to the occasion. Victor Emmanuel, popular
though he was, was a soldier, not a statesman. King
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY 43
Humbert, lately so foully murdered, had been be-
wildered since the day of his proclamation ; he was
the last man in the world to hold the reins of the
Government that was thrust upon him. A good
man, with a kind heart, utterly fearless too, he looked
on the Chamber of Deputies as the conjuring-box
from which his father had his throne.
The ridiculous collection of faddists, anarchists,
socialists, irreligious maniacs, and fools that make
up that extraordinary camera, he regarded as the
nation. Whilst others more bold or credulous than
he have believed that God has given them their
kingdoms, that they rule by His will, and are to
Him accountable, he for his sins, or those of others,
knew he ruled "by the will of the people." He
showed, full of faith as he was, almost an emotional
interest in his Chamber of Deputies : it is difficult
to understand, when we remember that shortly be-
fore his murder, in the month of April in the year
1900, the obstruction of public business by the mere
noise of that gathering was to be ended by the calling
in of the carabineers. In May, after the prorogation
and the reassembling of the Chamber, at a suggest-
ion of the suppression of an obstruction which, as
an English paper said at the time, " puts Berlin and
Vienna and the simple tactics of Irish members
quite in the shade," the Left rose, seventy of them,
and began to sing the Marseillaise and Garibaldi's
Hymn, using "their desks as drums and their fists
as drumsticks." Nor were they content w'th this,
44 ITALY OF TO-DAY
but began to sing " The Socialist ' Inno dei Lavor-
atori,' a song forbid by law."
After these shameful and ridiculous tactics had
amused a cynical world for long enough, King
Humbert dissolved Parliament, instead of going
down to the House with a whip, as Herodotus tells
us in the beginning of the book of Melpomene the
Scythians did when, on returning to their country
after ruling for many years in Upper Asia, they
found that their slaves had seized their country and
their women.
And amid all that vulgar hurly-burly, in all the
noise and despair of the place-seeking majority, in
all the noise and hatred of the " constitutional
Opposition " that under the chivalrous and valiant
Signor Giolitti had made common cause with those
who shouted treason, there was one man who might
have saved the honour and perhaps the soul of his
country, but he hesitated — I mean the king. If he
was King of Italy — if Italy was his kingdom — why
did he not save her from those who were despoiling
her ? Why did he not come as Odysseus came, and
stretch the mighty bow and slay these suitors, the
devourers of man's substance, ere thev could com-
pletely slay the beautiful land he loved, and at last
even himself also, at Monza in the north ; or if in
the multitude of petty vulgarities that surrounded
him, amid the hideous obscenity of modern vandalism,
he dared not think of great Odysseus, why did he not
recall the splendid words of his own father, Victor
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY 45
Emmanuel, who in 1849 dissolved his Parliament
that had become unruly, and from Moncalieri
spoke in words that cut like little whips ? " What
fruit," cried he, " have my words obtained ? Acts
unfriendly to my crown, the idiotic hostility of the
Opposition, and encroachments on my prerogative
secured to me by law. I will call the Chamber
severely to account for its actions. I have promised
to save my nation from the tyranny of parties, what-
ever men they be who lead or compose them. I
have fulfilled my oath by dissolving a Parliament
that had become impossible." Why was it King
Humbert never spoke words like these to the vile
crew of vampires that were sucking his country dry ?
Can it be that he had forgotten them ? or, as he
looked from the great windows of the Quirinal down
over Rome, and saw far away across the mighty city
smouldering in the sunset, the everlasting dome of
St Peter's Church, and the mighty angel over the
castle of Sant' Angelo, did his heart accuse him of
the sins of his ancestors of which he had not yet
purged himself, and as he remembered that mighty
theft, did he fear that the Romans — nay, the whole
world — might remember it too, and so fear also his
people, who were his accomplices in that immortal
crime ? What thoughts came to him out of that
old city as he gazed over her from his palace on the
hill we can never know, but be sure they were not
always joyful or inspiring.
So he never dared to save his country, unless by
46 ITALY OF TO-DAY
his terrible death he has shown her the way she is
going. He was the first king of his House to fall
under the hand of the murderer. And in contem-
plating the cowardly deed, one is moved more by
its significance, at least at this distance of time,
than by its tragedy. He was murdered because he
was a king alter the modern pattern, because he
reigned but never ruled. It was his own child
killed him — one of those who made him and his
father what they were, giving them, not without
exacting toll as we have seen, stolen goods. His
very chivalry, his gallant courage, his fearlessness,
his belief in his people, were the things that led
him into danger. There is no honour among thieves,
nor could he play his part. After all, the temptation
was too great ; who could have withstood it, after
having listened to the words of Cavour and the
marvellous dreams of Mazzini ? He, like his an-
cestors, was a dreamer from the mountains ; he
should have died with a grey sword in his right
hand, not with a trumpery crown in his fingers
that he was striving not to break. So with this
brittle ring of glass ever in his keeping, he submitted
himself, in order to preserve it, to the vile company
of atheist Ministers, republican and anarchist depu-
ties, who ended by almost persuading him they were
" the country," to the contamination of all the
sharpers of Sicily and the south, to the vulgar con-
versation of the fraudulent grocers and bankers of
the north, and to the insolent tactics of the ad-
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY 47
venturer. And when he died one was really glad
for him. He was a brave man in a terrible situation ;
he tried to serve well a herd of swine that he mistook
for his subjects. Let us be glad for him, for he is
now with his ancestors, and sleeps well.
King Humbert's death was received with extraor-
dinary quietness by the Italian people. Not even
the Socialists dared to say a word. There remains
the question of his successor. Where King Humbert,
good man though he was, failed, will his son succeed ?
That it is impossible to say. Victor Emmanuel III.
is really, even now after two years of his reign have
passed, an unknown quantity. His first speech from
the throne was certainly most splendid. Some of his
words seemed to have an echo of his grandfather's
speech of 1849 — since then he has been for the most
part silent.
A writer in the ' Saturday Review ' for August 4,
1900, ventured to say of him : " As Prince of Naples,
he has been a complete enigma, and never perhaps
did any nation know so little of its sovereign's heir-
apparent. He is known to be an efficient soldier
with a turn for strategy ; he is a good shot, a fair
horseman, a constant yachtsman ; his hobby is
numismatics, and he is a good herald and geneal-
ogist. In infancy and boyhood his health was weak,
hence perhaps the vague general impression that he
is also weak in character. There are those who
think he will prove even more of a figurehead than
his unfortunate father ; and again there are those
48 ITALY OF TO-DAY
who think that he is a ' dark horse ' and will do
strange and great things and even things autocratic."
It may be possible that this enthusiastic athlete and
sportsman will prove the deliverer Italy has wished
for so long, but I think it were too much to be cer-
tain of it as yet. As I have ventured to say in a
former chapter, absolutely the first work any really
great statesman or king will set himself will be a
reconciliation with the Church ; that accomplished,
there is no knowing to what splendour Italy might
not advance. But wanting that internal peace with-
out which no country can for long live, her outlook
is dark indeed. It is useless for her to dream of
colonial enterprise or of authority and place in the
councils of Europe, or even in those of the Triple
Alliance, if she is divided in her allegiance within her
own borders. It is, then, a man with sufficient
imagination, sufficient energy, and sufficient daring
Italy needs, and if that man should indeed prove to
be her king, then is she twice blest.
And this King Victor Emmanuel III. about whom
Europe is so curious, should find in the lives and
legends of his ancestors an inspiration to control his
will and inform his spirit even to compass such great
labours as are so plainly set before him. He is the
tenth king of his house, which has given more than
one pope to Christendom, has produced saints,
warriors, statesmen, and cardinals ; and as may also
be pointed out, kings too, surnamed the Great, the
Peaceful, the Warrior, the Hunter. That he should
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY 49
add to these names that of King Victor Emmanuel
III., the Saviour of his country, would indeed be to
fulfil the tradition of his house. When he spoke
those brave and fearless words to his first Parlia-
ment : " Unabashed and steadfast I ascend the
throne, conscious of my rights and of my duties as
king. Let Italy have faith in me as I have faith in
her destinies, and no human force shall destroy that
which with such self-sacrifice my fathers built," can
one dare to believe he really meant what he said ?
Let us try to believe it, for some of them who heard
him, knowing so well the state of that beloved land,
were not ashamed to weep and to cry to their own
hearts, It may be, oh that it might be, that the Master
has come !
Since then there has been for the most part silence.
Yet it may well be that he is but maturing his plans,
or waiting the appointed hour or gathering all his
strength, so that his mastery may be only more
steadfast in the end. Our age was supposed to have
no need of kings so short a time ago, yet where were
England without her Crown, or Germany without
her Emperor, or Austria without her double Crown,
or Spain without her beautiful and fearless Regent ?
I think, indeed, the age as ever is against sham kings,
but against real kings it is not, nor has any age been
so since the beginning. Thus Italy, simple of heart,
left to the bitter mercies of her professional poli-
ticians, is in the position of Andromeda, whom may
Perseus her prince rescue with all speed.
D
50 ITALY OF TO-DAY
Looking on the political life of Italy to-day, one
discovers scarcely anything but an almost inextricable
confusion. There is no Centre party at Montecitorio,
and the Right and the Left have become useless as
names for parties so uncertain in their allegiance and
in their policy as to be nothing but a mass of inde-
pendent and inconsistent votes. Instead of Govern-
ment and Opposition, as in a country so indifferent
to ideas as England, one finds, for example, that Di
Rudini has a small following, Giolitti the shameless
another, Sonnino another, and other demagogues
other always small followings. Each of these little
cliques is really a political party, with a more or less
sound or unsound programme by means of which in
most cases it hopes to enrich itself.
As to a Court party, there is no such phenomenon,
happily, and it is there that the King's chief power
lies. Neither he nor his father have stooped to trick
and plot and bribe, and so happily there is no Royal-
ist party. For nowadays in Italy, since the death
of that great and profound thinker to whom Italy
owes almost all she has of stable government and
life, Count Cavour, a politician must satisfy the
ridiculous demands of some half-a-dozen parties be-
fore he can obtain a majority in this unfortunate
Chamber. So that one finds that though one has a
majority to-day, to-morrow two or three groups will
find themselves offended and will consequently vote
against the rest that form with them the Govern-
ment. What the ruture has in store it is of course
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY 51
impossible to say for certain, but it seems to me (I
write in all humility and am willing to take correction
from others who are better acquainted with Italy
than myself) that all these groups will soon be
welded into two great parties, the Conservatives
and the Socialists.
I speak of the Socialists elsewhere. With all
their work and enthusiasm and faith I doubt if they
will triumph save for a very short time. It may be
they will succeed beyond their expectations and
precipitate a revolutionary movement that will border
on, if it will not actually achieve, civil war. But
from the Conservatives, if they are wise, great things
should come. A wise conservatism will be eager
to grant real reform where it is needed, and it is
needed in many things in Italy ; and if, as I hope,
the Conservatives will urge the King to make peace
with the Vatican, so that the Pope will no longer
refuse to allow good Catholics to vote at the elections,
their future is certain. It is impossible that the
Clerical party can work for long with the Socialists.
The Jesuits, who, one is told, place the recovery of
the temporal power for the Church first in their
programme, may work — and I for one am inclined
to believe that others beside the Jesuits did so work
at Milan in 1898 — with the Socialists so far as to
disturb and overthrow the present form of govern-
ment, for in the end that is the Socialists' aim, but
after that they will be compelled to oppose them
and fight them for the very mastery of Italy. But
52 ITALY OF TO-DAY
in spite of the prejudice felt, for the most part abroad,
against the Clericals, they are in touch with the
people and they are, if only for their own sakes, eager
for reform. A great and splendid party might be
formed from the Conservatives and the Clericals,
if they could produce a leader. And the King might
rind in it the very instrument he needs to begin the
work of organisation and reformation that must be
done, and done without much more delay.
It would be a bright day for Italy should the
King be able to say—
"The wind that swells my sails
Propels ; but I am helmsman."
As things are now one sees the shameful spectacle
of men sacrificing their country in order to line
their own pockets or to realise their own ambitions.
Something has been done, not much, but one must
make the most of it, and hope it is only a pledge
of future good work. An Employers' Liability Act
has been given to the people, and what Signor
Villari, an excellent judge calis ' 5 an incomplete
Old Age Pensions Act,'*
But in all this sordid business one figure stands
out unsullied by party strife or bank scandal, or
misfortune — I mean the King. After all, he is Italy's
forlorn hope. In his youth still, with all his energy
unimpaired, married to a princess of ancient and
strong race, who may well be to him the great
encourager, it is to him Italy turns in her need,
THE HOUSE OF SAVOY 53
unheeding in her profound expectation the ranting
of demagogues and the snarling of fools. Will he
rescue her from her danger and set her feet upon
the rock, will he dare to venture so far as to make
peace with the Pope, and forgetting the late years
of passion, remember the deeds of his fathers and
do a great deed to save a great people from ruin,
and be ashamed to be a figurehead, for that he is
indeed a king?
V.
THE SOCIALISTS.
IT is very possible that the immediate future of
Italy is in the hands of the Socialists, and, as
I believe, it is certain that this is the case unless
the King can bring himself to make peace with the
Vatican. This, to my mind, is a pity, chiefly because
though Socialism may triumph for a time, it will in-
evitably fail to satisfy Italian ambition, and because
many useful and splendid things must fall to build its
very foundations, among which is the new kingdom
Italy possessed herself of at such great cost so short
a time ago. It is not that one has any ridiculous
dislike for Socialism as a theory, but that even as a
theory one profoundly distrusts its very postulates
and axioms. And coming to close quarters with its
special manifestation of itself in Italy, one finds that
it proposes to deal with perhaps the most individualist
people in Europe as though they were as capable of
combined thought and action as are the French or
even the Germans. It needs but little reflection to
enable one to see how very much easier, had they
THE SOCIALISTS 55
been so, the unification of Italy would have been to
accomplish, instead of the almost impossible task it
has proved. Yet after one has satisfied himself of
the inevitable failure of Socialism in the end to bring
happiness to this land, he has to acknowledge its gift
of faith in itself and in its mission, a gift that every
other political party is without ; but lacking it, how
can they hope to accomplish anything. It is indeed
one of the most valuable emotions that the Clericals
would bring to the Conservatives, if ever there might
be peace, in which case I think Socialism would be
defeated almost before the inevitable battle. But at
present Socialism alone seems to have faith in its
politics — nor does it hesitate to promise great things,
nor is it slow to convince the Italians that it has
happiness and prosperity to give.
The " minimum programme " of the Socialists is
somewhat as follows : First, universal suffrage ; a
dangerous gift when one remembers that, so late as
1896, more than thirty-six males even in every hun-
dred could not read. But the Socialist idea of uni-
versal suffrage is to include both men and women,
so that the percentage of illiterates would be much
higher. Second, the Socialists place the Referendum,
a proposal open to the same objection. Third, the
payment of members of Parliament and municipal
councillors, a proposal which, considering the already
immense number of professional politicians, mounte-
banks who earn their living out of politics by all sorts
of extraordinary ways and startling contrivance, is, I
56 ITALY OF TO-DAY
think, scarcely to be desired, since it would inevitably
increase this army of vultures. Fourth, complete
liberty of the press, freedom of speech and public
meeting — a proposal which probably a wise con-
servatism would be anxious to agree to if not to
propose, but one that the Socialists have not prac-
tised in the past and would possibly be compelled to
forget in the future. Fifth, an eight hours' day and
minimum wage. Sixth, the abolition of conscription
and the substitution of an army on the pattern of the
Swiss Militia — a wise proposal, I think. Seventh, a
progressive income-tax, also a wise and unobjec-
tionable idea. But, as Signor Villari has recently
pointed out, this cannot be all. When King Hum-
bert passed through Milan on his way to death, the
Socialist municipality refused to greet him ; after
the murder they refused to take any part whatsoever
in the commemoration. " In June 1901," says the
same writer, " the Socialist leaders, especially Signor
Ferri, made speech after speech in Parliament in
which they declared themselves unequivocally hostile
to the Monarchy as one of the chief obstacles in the
way of the realisation of their objects." Just there,
I think, lies the real danger ; for if it is difficult to
hold Italy together under a king, it will be impossible
to do so under a republic ; especially with the ever-
present claim of the Papacy to temporal power, which
would be much more hopeful under a republic than
under a king, because a republic, as in France has
been proved over and over again, is always more
THE SOCIALISTS 57
subject to attack, more sensitive of a passing fury
or dissatisfaction, than a kingdom.
It was the wisdom of Cavour that made the mag-
nificent dreams of Mazzini and Garibaldi reality.
How would a republic have been able to withstand
the defeat at Adowa or the bank scandals ? It was
the knowledge that the King, outside and above party
government as he is, had no hand in all that villainy,
was as innocent of it as the mass of his people, for
whom he truly stands, that held Italy back from
some frightful revolution. A republic could never
have stood so utterly beyond the suspicion of even
the most hostile as the King did, for the very men
who were most concerned would inevitably have been
the very republic herself.
But in writing of Socialism in Italy it is in regard
to the land that its plans are most far reaching. In
Sicily, where I was last winter, I saw the most appal-
ling misery that I have ever witnessed in any land.
The peasantry were in reality starving, the landlord
possibly an absentee in possession of the land that
the peasants at least believed was by right their own.
It is there that this side of the Socialist programme
has most readily found acceptance. For though the
Socialist will tell you that he does not aim at a forced
division of property, the people believe he does ; and
should the Socialist obtain the government, it is what
the people believe is his idea, and not what it might
once have been, that will of necessity happen. The
peasant wants naturally to be a landlord, because
58 ITALY OF TO-DAY
he thinks that the landlord is a great man, who can
have everything it is possible to wish for, who never
felt hungry in his life, and to whom everybody is
respectful. So individualist is he that any idea of
the nationalisation of land is beyond him. What he
chiefly desires is to be a landowner himself, with ten-
ants and retainers of his own to whom he can in his
turn be a tyrant and indifferent. I firmly believe
that were it possible so to nationalise property to-
morrow as to give the right to cultivate a certain
number of acres to each peasant, he would still feel
aggrieved that he had not some one to whom he might
appear hateful and to be envied. That desire for
glory, for display, is in the very marrow of the bones
of the Neapolitans and Sicilians. To be happy is
not enough, they must also be envied. It is true
that in the north — in Tuscany, for instance, which
has had the advantage of fair government for a long
time now — there is less discontent and there is less
misery. This is not altogether owing to the system
of partnership between landlord and peasant that
obtains there, but is in part at least due to a real
difference in character. Socialism can make but
little headway in Tuscany outside the cities. I
am not anxious to deny that the Tuscany peasant
is far happier and better off than the southerner, —
he is, on the contrary, very much better off ;
but also he is of a different character, a stronger
race, and furnishes, I think, the finest speci-
men of an Italian to be found to - day ; indeed
THE SOCIALISTS 59
there are few finer races in the world than the
Tuscan.
But it is in the north that Socialism has been most
successful ; in Milan, which sends three Socialists
to Montecitorio, thus returning a Socialist for half
of her constituencies. This is partly explained by
the misery of a large proportion of the artisan class
— that is, the peasantry of a large city. The riots of
1898 will prove to any one who cares to examine the
matter with fairness the enormous extent of that
misery. It is there in Milan that the Christian
democrats have a stronghold. It was probably this
fact which led to the suspicion of the Church as
having helped to cause the riot of 1898. There were
undoubtedly hundreds of priests who sympathised
with the people. I doubt, however, that they would
advise or countenance riot. If they did so, which
has never been proven, they did so absolutely with-
out authority save that of their own judgment, which
in political matters it is difficult to underestimate.
But it is on the whole an excellent sign that a party
owing supreme allegiance to the Holy See should
mix to some extent with the Socialists, for they will
help to leaven that very various lump, giving it some-
thing of their own high-mindedness and reverence,
without which it would be more dangerous than it is.
It is curious that wherever Socialism manifests
itself — and where does it not? — it is always as
champion of the lower class against the upper class,
the uneducated against the educated, and never as
6o ITALY OF TO-DAY
the champion of humanity as a whole. In this it
differs from Anarchism only in its mode of attack,
for the latter disease would have humanity commit
suicide, while the former philosophy suggests that
humanity shall perish utterly in a fight between rich
and poor. Their method of propagating an idea in
itself noble and Christian may be to blame for my
conclusion ; for it is always the rich man who is the
enemy, not for any fault of his own, but because he
is rich. So to the Italians, who are eager listeners
to any sort of philosophy, it appears that he who
owns a factory is the natural enemy of him he em-
ploys ; he who has a house is the oppressor of him
who has none ; he who has food is the murderer of
him who has died of starvation. And so the Italian
sees the human nature of such an argument, and is
not dismayed when he is told in an apologetic way
by the householder or the manufacturer that it really
is not his fault, but that obviously he would be a fool
to give up his factory or his house to the many house-
less ones, because then even he himself would be
houseless too. But if, on the other hand, the Social-
ist desires nothing so much as brotherly love among
men, and is not anxious, should he see a chance, to
appeal to physical force which might enable him to
seize the goods of those he calls bourgeoisie, then how
is one to account not only for the bread riots, but
also for the many extraordinary speeches and pam-
phlets that are written by well-known men up and
down Italy ? Thus one finds that in Italy Socialism
THE SOCIALISTS 61
is really at the mercy of its ideas, and also at the
mercy of the ideas it creates in the mind of the
crowd. In a country so phlegmatic, so indifferent,
so difficult to rouse as England, Socialism really has
a better chance of fulfilling its mission; in Italy it
can only exist by stirring up the passions of man, so
easily aroused, and in the end being captured by
them.
I do not for one moment seek to deny that
Socialism in Italy was created by the pressing need
of reform, but I am inclined to deny that Socialism
can ever really do any lasting good to Italy. Already
one sees that fatal cancer, Opportunism, eating into
the Socialist as into every other political party in
Italy, so that one finds it also willing to sacrifice
something, some principle, in order to gain an ad-
vantage in Parliament or in the country. It is not
by pointing out the horrible indifference of the rich
to the poor, nor by calling the stupid middle class
shopkeeper a murderer, that Italy will be bettered
or will find peace, for in the end that idea can only
succeed in destroying society utterly ; but in patiently
teaching the people how to help themselves, how to
better themselves, so that in the end they may be
worthy indeed of those things as yet denied them
not altogether through the fault of others. It is
so easy to preach patience, so difficult to practise
it. Yet I believe with all my heart that patience
is still the mightiest weapon that those who really
desire the good of this country can use. Thirty,
62 ITALY OF TO-DAY
forty years are such a long time for a man to wait
to see the fulfilment of his dreams, but in the life
of a nation they are but a moment. The waiting
is long and terrible that is necessary for the realisa-
tion of any very precious thing, but the character
of a nation is tried and proved by such agony. Let
Italy take heart : oh, I speak not as one who is
nothing moved by her sorrows and her pain, but
as one who would do much to help her, all he could
do, and indeed I believe the greatest need at this
time is patience and a great faith m herself and in
her King.
And in these long years of waiting it is the greatest
misfortune that the Pope has felt obliged to forbid
Catholics to vote at the parliamentary elections.
Thus many of the most orderly and sane Italians
are compelled to remain out of political life alto-
getherc It is to be hoped and believed that before
long, perhaps even at the next election, he will be
able to repeal this law, that only gives greater power
to his bitterest enemies.
But it is really not so much in politics of any sort,
save those that shall bring peace with the Church,
that the salvation of this land, so splendid in every-
thing but the fortunes of her people, lies, but in work
both industrial and agricultural. Let the Socialists
forget their passions and put away all hatred and
remember only their love for their country and their
fellow-men, and in the greatness of their power let
them devote all their energies to the development
THE SOCIALISTS 63
of agriculture and the industries of the north.
Though Italy is not naturally a very rich country,
she is richer than she appears to be to-day. For
if the Socialists are honest, as I for one believe them
to be, they desire before all things the happiness
and welfare of their country, which they will find
lies not in hatred but in charity, not in jealousy
but in trust, not in selfishness but in self-sacrifice.
But I must end as I began, it is to them probably
the immediate future is given : we who are but
passers-by after all, in spite of all our love, can do
little but hope that if they have the power put into
their hands they will realise their responsibility and
use it well.
It is not to be thought of even for a moment
that all those great and splendid dreamers dreamed
but in vain, that all those heroes who marched under
the ragged banners of Garibaldi died in vain ; that
vanity should be the end of her of whom all men
dream when they are children and hear for the first
time the name of Caesar, when they are in the flush
of youth and read of love in Horace, when they are
men and come to her and find her beautiful and
fairer than the fairest, when they are old and stir,
by the winter fire in England, or some other land,
turn softly the page of Virgil, oh, it is not to be
thought of. For her men have yearned in the dark
cities for a lifetime> under her sky men have believed
in lovely things, on leaving her men have wept as
for a dear mistress, to her the world will turn when
64 ITALY OF TO-DAY
beauty has fled in terror from elsewhere, at her call
ever swords shall flash, at her name eyes blaze with
love, for her fame is everlasting and her beauty im-
maculate in the hands of the immortal dead to whom
she was very precious.
VI.
LITERATURE,
I.
ITALIAN literature, that has in the past pro
duced so many great and magnificent master-
pieces, that numbers among its many glorious names
not a few that are immortal, that is the eldest
daughter of the Latin tongue, is to-day like one
newly risen from the dead. Still pale and but half
alive after the long sojourn underground, she prom-
ises us at the least, in this her new youth, great
things about to be accomplished. And looking
back on Italian literature proper of the last thirty
years, four names stand out from the innumerable
crowd of philosophers, political writers, pamphlet-
eers, and revolutionaries — namely, Carducci, Verga,
Fogazzaro, and D'Annunzio, and the greatest of
these is D'Annunzio.
It is only with the present age of letters in Italy
that we must concern ourselves, pleasant and prof-
itable as it would doubtless be to examine some-
E
66 ITALY OF TO-DAY
what minutely the more or less distant past. We
are but travellers after all ; it is the impression
of the living moment that we seek for so labori-
ously, betraying it, having snared it carefully, to
captivity.
And as in all other countries that have subjected
themselves to European culture and civilisation, so
in Italy we find chaos — Art, Beauty, Letters, fettered
and derided by the crowd, that is already licking
the plebeian feet of its millionaires. All rules and
standards of faith, of morals, and of taste, have been
overthrown by the crowd which found them irksome ;
no canon of literature or art exists which is acknow-
ledged by the anarchists who call themselves a
people, or by the particular class of cocks and
cockerels who call themselves men of letters. So
one finds that not only is the existence of God
doubted as of old by fools, but that the merits of
the great masters of literature and art are either
openly denied or simply disregarded. And even
as God is safe in His heaven, nor shall the crowing
of ten million cocks distract Him for a moment
from His meditation, so in spite of the laughter
and ignorance of the crowd the great masters remain
immortal and inviolate, guarding the way to Par-
nassus. Having decided to forget and forego the
Past, it has been found necessary to invent some
ideal, some standard of achievement at which this
magnificent new democracy may aim in matters of
art — so Truth, Reality, was born quietly in a brothel,
LITERATURE 67
the ugly daughter of an actor and a harlot, and
ever since democracy has been trying to kiss her
exaggerated lips and to look into her bloodshot and
!y in g e y es -
This triumph of democracy over art has not, how-
ever, succeeded in effacing individual talent or genius.
It is true that no great and classical production seems
possible, but the frequently erratic imperfect work of
individual writers is met with that merits our atten-
tion. Literature in Italy to-day resembles politics in
that land, in that it is confused by reason of its own
liberty and licence.
First in point of time, though it may be not in
merit, stands Giosue Carducci, who has contrived to
express the romantic desire for liberty and unity that
is or was a characteristic of the Italian peoples. The
son of a physician, he was born at the village of
Valdicastello, between Spezia and Pisa, in July 1836.
In 1849 ne with his father went to Florence, where
he entered the Scuole Pie, and began his studies that
were continued at the University of Pisa. His first
volume, ' Rime,' was published in 1857, while he was
a private tutor in Florence, where he also wrote for
the reviews. There, too, he became part editor of
1 II Poliziano,' a review devoted to the cause of
Classicism as opposed to Romanticism. In i860 he
appears to have gone to Bologna, where he has lived
ever since, being at one time Professor of Literature
in the University there. In 1865 appeared his famous
" Inno a Satana " — " Hymn to Satan " — in which he
68 ITALY OF TO-DAY
appears to look to Satan as a kind of Messiah
more genuine than II Gesu Cristo ; as, indeed, the
incarnate spirit of Liberty.
" Salute O Satana,
O Ribellione,
O forza vindice,
Delia ragione,
Sacri a te salgano
Gl' incensi e i voti !
Hai vinto il Giova
De' sacerdoti,"
and suchlike youthfulness, very common even in
England in the middle of the nineteenth century,
that it is scarcely necessary to translate. Mr G.
A. Greene, from whose book, ' Italian Lyrists of
To-Day,' I have borrowed the graceful translations
given in this chapter, says of this poem, " I do
not, even for all its brilliancy, consider it truly
representative of Carducci's genius, and with re-
spect to its form this appears to be the poet's
own maturest judgment upon the youthful out-
burst which made him famous." He published
poems from i860 to 1870, which have been collected
in ' Decennalia,' and ' New Poems ' in 1873. In
1877 he published the ' Odi Barbare,' Italian poems
in the old classical metres which created much crit-
icism on style in modern verse. An example from
this volume, translated by Mr G. A. Greene, will not
be out of place.
LITERATURE 69
In the Square of San Petronio at Bologna on a
Winter's Evening.
u Rises in frost of winter, gloomy and towered Bologna,
While the mountain above smiles in the glimmer of snow.
This is the tranquil hour when the sun that is dying saluteth
Towers and fane to thee, sainted Petronius, raised.
Towers whose summits were touched by wings of the ages that
vanished,
And of the solemn fane, pinnacles lofty and lone.
Cold adamantine, the heavens are agleam with dazzling splen-
dour ;
All the air like a veil, silver, diaphanous lies
Over the forum lightly blending with colour the masses
Dark, which the weaponed hand once of our ancestors built.
Up on the lofty heights the sun as it sinketh, delaying,
Pierces with languid smile violet mists of the night,
Which in the old grey stone, in the dusky vermilion brickwork,
Seems to waken anew souls of the ages that passed,
So that a mournful desire in the frosty air is awakened —
Ah ! for the roseate May's, warm in the perfume of eve,
When the beautiful maidens danced in the open places,
And with the conquered kings triumphing consuls returned.
So do the joyful Muses turn to the resonant metre
Trembling with vain desire, seeking the beauty antique/'
In ' I Critici Italiani e La Metrica delle Odi Bar-
bare ' Chiarini defends very ably Carducci's use of
the classical metres, yet it may be doubted whether
any modern language can support the magnificence
and weight of the hexameter, for instance, with
dignity. In English, Mr Swinburne and Mr William
Watson may be said to have succeeded, perhaps —
the latter in one poem "The Hymn to the Sea" —
while Clough and a host of others fail. We can
70 ITALY OF TO-DAY
never be sufficiently thankful that Spenser decided
against this metre for his " Faerie Queene," in
spite of the efforts of Abraham Fraunce, whose
" Emmanuel " is perhaps the most charming an-
tique example of the use of the hexameter in
English verse. But it is, as I think, in the
Sapphic metre rather than in the Horatian or the
hexameter that Carducci has been most successful.
The following translation, in Sapphics, may help
the reader who knows not Italian to understand
something of Carducci's verse : —
On Monte Mario.
" Cypresses solemn stand on Monte Mario,
Luminous, quiet is the air around them,
They watch the Tiber through the misty meadows
Wandering voiceless.
They gaze beneath them where, a silent city,
Rome lies extended : like a giant shepherd,
O'er flocks unnumbered vigilant and watchful
Rises St Peter's.
Friends, on the summit of the sunlit mountain
Mix we the white wine scintillating brightly
In mirrored sunshine ; smile, O lovely maidens !
Death comes to-morrow.
Lalage, touch not in the scented copses
The boasted laurel that is called eternal,
Lest it should lose there in thy chestnut tresses
Half of its splendour.
LITERATURE 71
Between the verses pensively arising
Mine be the laughter of the joyous vintage
And mine the rosebuds fugitive, in winter
Flowering to perish.
We die to-morrow, as the lost and loved ones
Yesterday perished ; out of all men's memories
And all men's loving, shadow-like and fleeting
We too shall vanish.
Yes, we must die, friends ; and the earth, unceasing
Still in its labour, round the sun revolving
Shall every instant send our lives in thousand
Sparks evanescent ;
Lives which in new loves passionate shall quiver,
Lives which in new wars conquering shall triumph,
And unto Gods new sing in grander chorus
Hymns to the future.
Nations unborn yet, in whose hands the beacon
Shall blaze resplendent, which from ours has fallen.
Ye too shall vanish, luminous battalions
Into the endless.
Farewell thou mother, Earth, of my brief musings
And of my spirit fugitive ! How much thou
^Eons-long whirling round the sun shalt carry
Glory and sorrow !
Till the day comes, when, on the chilled equator,
Following vainly heat that is expiring
Of man's exhausted race survive one only
Man and one woman.
Who stand forsaken on the ruined mountains
Mid the dead forests, pale with glassy eyeballs
Watching the sun's orb o'er the fearful ice-fields
Sink for the last time."
72 ITALY OF TO-DAY
Probably the best example in English of the
Sapphic metre so-called — though it is improbable
that Sappho invented it — is to be found in Mr
Swinburne's poem " Sapphics " : —
" All the night sleep came not upon my eyelids,
Shed not dew, nor shook nor unclosed a feather,
Yet with lips shut close and with eyes of iron
Stood and beheld me."
But in spite of this desire for manner, for classicism,
Carducci is very far from being all form and no sub-
ject, if indeed that was ever attained by any writer
that ever lived. His " sense " is extremely clear and
weighty.
In 1896, at the University of Bologna, the jubilee
of his professorship was celebrated. In life he has
been almost as successful as in art : entering politics
as an extreme Radical, he is now a senator, and,
we may believe, a loyal subject of King Victor
Emmanuel. He is of course an anti-clerical, as his
" Hymn to Satan " assures us. He appears but
for one exception to dominate modern Italian verse,
but the exception, D'Annunzio, beginning as Car-
ducci's disciple, has far outsoared his master not
only in thought but in the art of poetry. Of him,
however, I treat more fully in a separate section, as
being of all modern Italian writers the only one
who has attained European fame. Carducci's poems
have been translated by Mr F. Sewall, and were
published in New York in 1891. Mr G. A. Greene,
in his 'Italian Lyrists of To -Day' (John Lane,
LITERATURE 73
London, 1893), already referred to, has translated
a number of his pieces very delightfully.
Giovanni Verga, born at Catania in Sicily in 1840,
is known all over the world as the author of the
libretto of " Cavalleria Rusticana." He is of the
same school as Emile Zola, with this difference, that,
unlike the Frenchman, he is intensely local — as local,
for instance, as Thomas Hardy; and as Hardy seldom
or never leaves Wessex, so Verga never leaves Sicily,
which he views with that " inward eye " from Milan
where he lives. A novelist of the most desperate
industry, he is continually producing documents that
are, I imagine, in the eyes of the scientist utterly un-
trustworthy, but that he vaguely believes may bring
him immortality as social history. Perhaps his wish
may be fulfilled, in spite of the scientists.
The minor poets — some of them true poets though
of small volume — at present writing in Italy are in-
numerable. Mr G. A. Greene finds thirty-two worthy
of translation beside Carducci and D'Annunzio. Of
these perhaps the most widely-known writer — though
scarcely as a poet — is Antonio Fogazzaro, who in the
opinion of many is the greatest novelist at present
writing in Italy, for to a host of people D'Annunzio
is anathema. Fogazzaro has been called the poet of
hope and faith, but it is chiefly as a novelist that he
is famous, though to the English public he is access-
ible only in his ' Malombra,' translated by Mr F.
T. Dickson, published by Fisher Unwin, 1896 ; and
' Daniele Cortis,' translated by Mr S. L. Simeon,
74 ITALY OF TO-DAY
and published in 1890. These two books are, how-
ever, not the best examples of his work. It is in such
books as ' II Piccolo Mondo Antico ' and ' II Piccolo
Mondo Moderno ' that he proves himself to be a really
fine artist, avoiding what Messrs Bolton King and
Okey call his " tendency to preach," though certainly
an Englishman would not easily find such a tendency
in J Malombra.' He was born at Vicenza in 1842, and
published his first work, * Miranda,' a kind of romance
in verse, in 1874.
His recent work, ' II Piccolo Mondo Moderno,' is,
in my opinion, far finer than anything else he has
done. f II Piccolo Mondo Antico,' the book that
came immediately before it, is almost a masterpiece
— the later work is really so. It is concerned with
the life and temptations of one Piero Maironi. In
the end Maironi enters a monastery, under what
Rule we are not told. Fogazzaro will, I feel sure,
yet prove himself a greater writer than the world
imagines him. He perhaps needs a little reticence
— a lack of which in D'Annunzio has almost pre-
vented the English from reading him. But he can
give us real men and women, who have nothing
in common with the creatures of the realists ; his
psychology is subtle, but one does not think of his
characters from the scientific but rather from the
artistic point of view.
Guerrini, Ada Negri, Rapisardi, and Ersilio Bicci
are four lyrical poets of fine achievement, though not
in the first rank. Guerrini began as an erotic poet
LITERATURE 75
of the most finished kind, and has developed a love
for political verse, which, in its way, is most excellent.
Ada Negri, of whom report speaks as one of those
utterly natural spirits to be met with perhaps in our
day only in Italy, has sung the despair and hopeless-
ness of the poor of Lombardy, the poor, who at least
in the north are awaking from their lethargy. It is
possible she may accomplish much. Rapisardi, the
Sicilian, born in 1843 at Catania, as was Giovanni
Verga, is the antagonist of Carducci, an anti-Christ-
ian and a Socialist : he appears to have been over-
come by humanity, and in the struggle his art has
suffered, f Giobbe,' one of his most famous works,
published in 1884, which was ridiculed especially by
Guerrini, is in many respects a fine work spoiled by
the poet's enthusiasm for his fellow-men. Ersilio
Bicci, born in 1845 in Tuscany, is another of Car-
ducci's opponents. A poet of great simplicity, he
writes so that he may be understood of the people —
a rather hopeless task for a poet, one may believe.
A very delightful translation of one of his poems I
give below from Mr G. A. Greene's book.
Contempt.
"When I pass singing, singing on my way,
I think not, dream not, of her — not indeed !
Burns she with jealousy? Well, well, she may ;
I mind my own affairs, and give no heed.
If in my song she fancy that she hears
Some note of sadness or some trace of tears,
76 ITALY OF TO-DAY
It is my whim — not that my heart is sore !
For as to that I care for her no more.
And if they say I drive the cynic's trade,
It is Time's fault, not hers who love betrayed ;
Or that I call on Death where'er I rove,
What matters that to her ? Am I her love ?
But if I meet her with Luigi, know
She to her grave — I to the gallows go.
Edmondo De Amicis, born near Genoa in 1846,
was educated for the army. In 1867 he began to
write his interesting ' Bozzetti della Vita Militare,'
which brought him fame and fortune. He has
written many books of travel, on Spain, Constanti-
nople, and Holland. His latest book (1902), ' Un
Salotto Fiorentino del Secolo Scorso,' is an excep-
tion to his work as a rule, in that it is dull and
disappointing. He is undoubtedly one of the most
popular writers in the peninsula.
Of Pasquale Villari, the really fine historian ;
of Lanciani and Rossi, the famous archaeologists ;
of Lombroso, the criminologist and psychologist,
and other specialists as it were in literature and
science, it is impossible for me to speak. After all,
literature with them is a secondary thing. But
Lanciani, at least, is a writer of fine and clear
style, whom it is well worth the while of the
traveller to read, especially if he be interested in
classic Italy.
Literature proper is in a condition of drowsiness.
It might almost be said that there are but two writers
of importance in Italy, Carducci and D'Annunzio,
LITERATURE 77
and one of them grows old. Yet with such achieve-
ment as theirs before her, Italy can never dare to
despair of her future.
Matilde Serao, by far the greatest writer of all
Italian women, has undoubtedly attained to some-
thing of a European fame. Two of her books,
1 Fantasy ' and ' Farewell Love,' were translated into
English so long ago as 1891 and 1896, and were
published by Mr Heinemann in his " International
Library." It is, however, in her later work that
Matilde Serao is most fortunate. ' Suor Giovanna
della Croce,' perhaps the most pitiful book that
modern Italy has produced, is the story of a nun
whose convent has been suppressed by the Govern-
ment, and who is literally thrown into the streets.
It will shortly appear in English, — indeed a uniform
edition of Signora Serao's work is in course of
publication by Mr Heinemann. In ' The Land of
Cockayne ' she treats of the lottery system, that
benefits the Government so largely and depraves the
people. In ' The Ballet-Dancer ' one finds, as indeed
in most of her work, a kind of realism often painful,
perhaps seldom really worthy of the name of Art,
but very honest and earnest. She is, as I think, not
verily of the realist school, for all her work is re-
deemed by a kind of poetical emotion that is, how-
ever, not strong enough wholly to redeem it, and
yet is by no means a mere sentimentality. She
thinks too deeply ever to be captured by mere senti-
ment. ' II Paese di Gesu ' is, while less exquisite
78 ITALY OF TO-DAY
by far than Pierre Loti's ' Palestine,' perhaps more
in sympathy with the religion of the Church and
of Christ. In ' La Madonna e i Santi,' published in
1902, she is how far ! from the early romances with
which she made her success. Something exquisite
has come into her life, as it were : often a writer of
vision, it is as though she had suddenly for the first
time seen the sun, and the whole world had been
changed for her. It is certain that the writer of
1 Suor Giovanna ' is capable of much, but the writer
of ' La Madonna ' seems to promise us something
more and something very different.
II. Gabriele D'Annunzio.
Born in the year 1863 in the old walled town of
Pescara, Gabriele D'Annunzio is at the age of thirty-
eight famous throughout Europe, chiefly by means
of the influence of the great French critic the Vicomte
de Vogue, who, as is well known, welcomed him as
the angel of the Latin Renaissance. And perhaps it
is by reason of this splendid annunciation, rather
than by the power of his own genius, hidden or ob-
scured, at least to the majority of mankind, by the
general ignorance of so antique a language as Italian,
that the world has received him so readily, and set
him too among its gods. For though it is in vain
that we should deny his genius, for it is incontestable ;
it is strange that he is welcomed, everywhere almost,
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 79
more readily than he is in Italy, seeing that it is
really only the Italian who reads him in his own
words.
Profound, in the strict sense of the word, never, as
is almost a matter of course in modern English liter-
ature, without ideas, he is at one and the same time
a Mystic and a Realist. Taking the side neither of
the Angels nor of the Devils, he is even scornful of
Man, a passion for whom has led to some of the
great indiscretions in literature. A Mystic, he is
never far from reality ; a Realist, he is almost always
a poet, consumed, it would seem, even when in the
close embrace of the actual world, with a lust for the
beauty of mere words, desiring, almost before any-
thing beside, the emotion of their flight and sweep
and glory and terror. And in the quest for this
beauty he has searched all lands and ransacked the
fields of Cadmus and the burial-places of the Atridse.
Nor is he without the words and the grave serious
accents of the sensualist, possessed by the hallucin-
ation of Desire, in which madness he, like all in the
grip of that Demon, is minute, dreary, infinitely
infinitesimal.
His terror he has from the Greeks, and his sensu-
ality, obscenity, and passion from his own land ; his
realism from France and Russia, and his mysticism
from Germany and Belgium and the profound Saints
of the Catholic Church. It is only from us he has
learnt nothing or next to nothing, at least till lately,
finding perhaps in the plays of Shakespeare, or the
80 ITALY OF TO-DAY
writings of one or two moderns, something less
lengthy, less full of useless words and pages that
might have been left out, than in the writings of
Zola or the works of Tolstoi or the operas of Richard
Wagner, and that may, one is not slow to think, be
of use to him at least by way of example.
It is well to remember in reading D'Annunzio that
he wrote verse before ever he wrote prose, and not
verse only but poetry. Chiarini, the critic, welcomed
him as early as 1880, when his 'Primo Vere' was pub-
lished, seeing in him perhaps another jewel for Italy's
new crown, till later he found, as he supposed, noth-
ing but "desire"; and as Jowett said of Swinburne,
so Chiarini may have said of D'Annunzio, " A brilliant
youth ! Too brilliant a youth ! It's all youth ! " For
even in those days D'Annunzio was chiefly an artist
in himself, exploiting his own soul, and mind, and
physical presentment in his work ; so that behind
the puppets, be they never so living, happy, or sad,
one sees Gabriele D'Annunzio smiling, with not
quite truthful or unenigmatic brows. And so among
his other delightful, splendid, or shameful poses there
is almost before all that famous name — for Gabriel
of the Annunciation has not so sweet a Prince's name
after all, but is just Signor Rapagnetta in a world
that as yet he has taught to smile for no other cause.
In his first work in prose, ' Libro delle Virgine,' one
finds almost nothing of the Gabriele D'Annunzio of
to-day. The strength and beauty of the ' Trionfo '
are not there, and even the very prose itself is almost
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sacrificed to a desire not for reality but for realism ;
and it is only when dealing with exterior things that
he contrives to make a peace, broken over and over
again with a beauty without which, however, he is
never quite himself.
In considering his Novels first, and his Poetry and
Plays afterwards, I deal with him as the world deals,
treating him as chiefly a writer of Prose. But in
reading his novels it is before all things necessary
to remember that the works of D'Annunzio are
scarcely novels at all in our sense of the word. It
is characteristic of the English novel that, apart from
every other form of literature, it alone is indifferent
to words, concerning itself chiefly with a tale of love
or crime, interesting us not by its Prose but by its
inherent Romance or Realism. It is indeed to the
rest of literature — to poetry, for example, in its pre-
occupation with form — what the photograph is to
the work of the painter, appealing to us not by any
beauty of its own, but by a kind of familiarity, as
who should say, I recognise that person or event,
so and not otherwise such or such an occurrence
must have happened. In other words, the English
novelist is not to-day concerned with art or literature
at all, he is merely anxious to interest a certain
number of people in the tale he is telling; and be-
cause for the majority style or the art of words
merely serves to confuse the story, he, wisely no
doubt and happily for himself, discards any at-
tempt at beauty of sentence or choice of words,
F
82 ITALY OF TO-DAY
and sets himself to tell a plain tale as lengthily as
he can.
It is, so D'Annunzio seems to tell us, and not
D'Annunzio alone, the interior life unsuspected by
the majority breathing there so quietly, that shall
quicken imaginative art. The adventures of the soul
with itself — it is just there we encounter the eternal
in human nature as we never do in the exterior world.
Nor, as one can see in D'Annunzio's work, will im-
aginative art stop short of Truth itself. For it is
not realism, nor even reality, for which we seek, but
Beauty. And in this interior castle there can be no
lying. In that quiet profound life where one realises
perhaps for the first time that mankind was made
after one image, it may be indeed as our fathers have
told us in the image of God, no noise of argument or
contradiction can come ; one finds the assurance of
music there, the certainty of life. But there is no
country of the spirit that does not include as part of
its kingdom a sensuous or even sensual region also.
It is not in dreamland, be sure, that the world of
D'Annunzio lies, but in a region of sensation, spiritual,
sensual, of profound and ridiculous physical passions,
and tears as terrible and moving as any looked at
from the outside that have, oh, once upon a time,
made the world laugh or weep. The phenomena are
the same. It is the artist who is different. Con-
cerned less with plot than with beauty, he cannot
excuse himself if he lies. An enemy really rather
contemptuous of story-tellers and realists, he is con-
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 83
cerned with the adventures of the soul of man. Nor
will he in his use of words emulate their slovenliness.
As his highest aim is beauty, so he finds that at least
in his own art it is not to be divorced from words ;
that in themselves perhaps words are the most beauti-
ful things in the world, to be used carefully and not
without a real love.
So in comparing D'Annunzio's work with that of
the English writers of to-day, it will be found, doubt-
less, to be less excited and excitable, but, I think,
more enthusiastic.
One speaks so many languages, one goes so swiftly
by train or electric tram, one lunches so soon after
breakfast, that a real sense of humour — that looking
on the world as a spectacle of which nothing is strange
to us — is among the rarest of habits or gifts. Nor
indeed can one say of D'Annunzio that humour is a
habit with him. Is there, I wonder, a smile other
than that of contempt in all his work ? I doubt it.
But there, in the silence and remoteness of ' L'lnno-
cente ' or the more profound ' Trionfo,' and even in
' II Piacere ' too, we find time to feel the genius of
places, the enchantment of quiet cities, the breadth
of the country, the vastness of the sea.
In ' II Piacere ' he is perhaps more under the
influence of French work than in any other of his
longer books. This history of a lust is in some parts
almost as ugly as that title ; redeemed indeed by the
genius of the author from the more sordid and ex-
citing tale of ordinary French fiction, one has glimpses
84 ITALY OF TO-DAY
almost from the first of a new manner of handling
landscape, nature, music, everything indeed that is
outside the miserable soul of the hero. One is not
at the trouble (it is never very wise) to look at any
man's work from the point of view of the morality
of the day, or its fitness for the rather bilious mind of
the seventeen-year-old girl or the schoolboy. Yet it
appears to me that D'Annunzio is often quite need-
lessly obscene, worrying subjects usually dealt with
carefully, as a maniac will twist and turn his fingers,
never letting them rest for a moment the whole day
long. And so, almost in spite of himself as it were,
D'Annunzio often attains to a profound morality; for
having described with the weary minuteness of the
sensualist some scene or passion, one is filled with
disgust, one finds the whole thing detestable, where
a man of lesser passions and equal genius would have
moved us to desire.
And here, too, as in all his works, one finds the
hero Andrea Sperelli, as at other times one finds
Giorgio Aurispa or Tullio Hermil or Cantelmo or the
extraordinary being of ' II Fuoco,' isolated, alone, cut
off from the world in which he lives by some impass-
able barrier of the spirit, so that, as it were, the very
atmosphere he breathes would prove too rare for
another, who after all, one may believe, is not con-
sumed by the same flame as that which is slowly
burning the very life out of these sad and passionate
people. And so one may say of D'Annunzio, as has
been said of Praxiteles, that in spite of his sensuality,
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 85
in spite of his implacable animalism, his aim is ideal.
And, curiously enough, it is generally in writing of
the sea that one finds that vision, without which
one may believe the artist works but in vain. For
it is not in the actions of men or women, or in their
thoughts about one another, that D'Annunzio is in-
terested, but perhaps a little in their loves and in
their hates, and chiefly in their thoughts about them-
selves. And so when for a moment he forsakes
humanity and turns to nature, it is that most human
of Nature's elements, the sea, with its absorbing
passions and furies, its persistence, its incorrigible
ugliness, its majestic beauty, its sadness, its change-
fulness, and above all, its isolation, that becomes
for him almost a god after the Greek fashion, pos-
sessing in its heart even the passions of men, but
confined by no law, ruled by no relentless morality,
persuaded from an expression of its desire by no
equal voice.
There are no people in D'Annunzio's novels, just
as there are no plots, and scarcely even a story.
His men and women, his peasants and young Roman
patricians, are only real in so far as they are of little
importance, in so far as he has spent but little pains
on them. Of his men, Andrea and Giorgio, and Tullio,
and Cantelmo — yes, even the hero of ' II Fuoco ' —
are but expressions of the same soul, almost of the
same body, expressions, if you will, of the author's
self, but also of the whole world, as we know it, of the
men of our own day, of men as they must have been
86 ITALY OF TO-DAY
yesterday, as they will be to-morrow; not in their
strength, scarcely ever that, but in their weakness, and
in their desires, and in their temptations, to which it
is necessary that they should succumb, so that one
rinds in them no heroes at all, scarcely even reason-
able people, but certain aspects of very life, where
people do not usually rise above the implacable cir-
cumstances of their lives, and are not too much in
love with chastity or asceticism of any sort, and do
not concern themselves very often with the necessity
of resistance to evil, or desire, which come to them
almost always as friends with promises. And as all
these things come to man not outwardly at all, there
is but little action in this book, and one feels some-
thing at the least of that isolation which is to become
more pronounced in the ' Innocente,' and complete
and never to be broken at all in the 'Trionfo.'
And it is in a moment of profound emotion, of dis-
gust almost, at the ridiculous figure cut by the pilgrims
at the shrine of the Madonna, a scene which perhaps
to one less scornful of humanity, less cruel, would not
have appeared as ridiculous at all, that D'Annunzio
speaks to us really honestly from behind the mask of
Giorgio Aurispa in ' The Triumph of Death.'
It cannot be [he says] that his being had its roots in that
soil ; he could have nothing in common with this multitude,
which, like the majority of animal species, had already at-
tained to its definite and fixed type. . . . He was as much
a stranger to these people as though they were a tribe of
South Sea Islanders, as much an alien to his country and
his native soil as he was to his family and his childhood's
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 87
home. . . . That dream of asceticism which he had con-
structed with so much splendour and adorned with so much
elegance, what was it but another expedient for warding off"
death ? You must train your mind to avoid Truth and
certitude if you would live. Renounce all keen experience,
rend no veils, believe all you see, accept all you hear. Look
not beyond the world of appearances created by your own
vivid imagination. Adore the illusion.
It is thus in reality he would counsel us ; so that
one comes to see that it is not Truth for which we
seek but Beauty, and not Beauty perhaps entirely,
but creative power. So in another place he can
say :—
"You think too much," she cried; "you pick your
thoughts to pieces. I daresay you find them more attrac-
tive than me, because your thoughts are always new, always
changing, whereas I have lost all novelty for you. In the
first days of our love you were less introspective, more
spontaneous. You had not acquired a taste for bitter
things then, because you were more lavish with your
kisses than your words. If, as you say, words are such
an inadequate form of expression, why make so much use
of them — you often use them cruelly."
And, indeed, D'Annunzio, like Giorgio Aurispa, is
intensely cruel and without pity, utterly scornful,
never appeased, keeping his anger for ever against a
humanity that has displeased and disgusted him.
He describes the plucking of a living dove with an
exactness that is wonderful and needless. His de-
scription of the pilgrimage in the ' Trionfo ' is one
88 ITALY OF TO-DAY
of the most terrible things he has written, yet it is
horrible too, for he makes no sign of pity, he sees
with the eyes not of a man but of a god or a devil,
and is eternally scornful of poor people who were
worthy of tears, who must have called forth the tears
of a greater man. So he became brutal, and sees a
suffering human being only as an object for ridicule,
for scorn ; sees the cripple as a barbarian boy might
see him, and the unsound of mind as an example of
Nature's humour. His manner of describing the
aunt of Giorgio in the ' Trionfo ' is an example of
what I mean, and not an extreme instance by any
means. So one sees the pose of the cynic, perhaps
his most natural attitude, becoming the most fre-
quent of all his poses, utterly destroying his insight
and his creative power, till, as in the ' Fuoco,' he
flies over the sky himself, an object for men and
angels, having exposed not his own soul alone to the
gaze of a world he has hated. So I find him guilty
of a deep and ingrained cruelty, that, as I think, he
will never quite be able to forget, to unlearn ; for is
not cruelty the real malady at the heart of the sen-
sualist, and has D'Annunzio not told us, almost with
a great boast, that sensuality has claimed him and
held him for its own ?
It was his aunt Gioconda. . . . She was his father's
eldest sister, and about sixty years of age. She was lame
from the effects of a fall and somewhat stout, but with an
unwholesome stoutness — pale and flaccid. Wholly absorbed
in religious exercises, she lived her own life shut away from
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 89
the rest of the family on the upper floor of fhe house,
neglected, unloved, regarded as semi-imbecile. Her world
was made up of sacred pictures, relics, emblems, symbols ;
her sole occupation religious practices, sighing out her life
in the monotony of prayer and enduring the cruel tortures
imposed on her by her greediness — for she adored sweet
things, turning in disgust from any other kind of food, and
very often she had to go without. Giorgio therefore was
high in favour with her because, whenever he came home
he never failed to bring her large quantities of sweetmeats.
"Well," she said, "mumbling through her poor old tooth-
less jaws — " Well, so you have come back ! Eh ! come
back ? "
She looked at him half timidly, not knowing what else to
say, but there was a gleam of evident expectation in her
eyes. Giorgio felt his heart contract with a pang of pity.
This poor creature, he thought, who has sunk to the last
depths of human degradation — this miserable bigoted old
sweet-tooth is connected with me by the insuperable tie of
blood. She and I belong to the same race.
" Well," she repeated, seized with obvious anxiety, and
her expression grew almost impudent.
" Oh, Aunt Gioconda, I am so sorry," he answered at last
with painful effort, " I quite forgot to get your sweets this
time."
The old lady's face suddenly changed as if she were going
to be ill, the light died out of her eyes. " Never — mind,"
she said brokenly.
" But I will get you some to-morrow," Giorgio hastened
to console her ; " I can get some easily — I will write "
Aunt Gioconda rallied. " You can get them at the
Ursuline convent, you know," she said hurriedly.
A pause ensued during which she no doubt enjoyed a
foretaste of the delight of the morrow ; for judging by the
90 ITALY OF TO-DAY
little gurgling noises in her throat, her toothless mouth was
apparently watering at the prospect.
Is that true ? If so, it ought never to have been
written, at least by a man or woman. In Hell's
library, no doubt, such cruel scorn of foolish or
bestial men and women is welcomed ; on our earth
are we not all too nearly approaching the grave — in
which be sure, could we but see ourselves, we should
appear ridiculous enough, and desire for our poor
bones a little pity from the living — for such betrayal
as that, for such scorn as that ?
And it is not only in such passages that D'An-
nunzio accuses himself of cruelty; for ' II Fuoco,'
his last book, is, it appears to me, scarcely anything
more than a long torture from beginning to end of
a woman whom one is continually on the point
of recognising by a man one is never in doubt of
for a moment. In this book the Egoist has for
once obtained entire command, so that art and
workmanship, passion, laughter, tears, are forgotten,
are never really thought of at all, so absorbed is
the author in expressing himself; in which object,
I think, he scarcely succeeds at all, showing us,
indeed, instead of a man a human monster, very
often ridiculous, whose mad or silly passions or
freaks of mind he does not scruple to label genius
to an astonished world.
Still it is not in such vagaries of a great mind
that we must look for the expression of the real
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 91
D'Annunzio, but, I think, in the marvellous and
quiet pages of the 'Innocente' and in the ' Trionfo'
itself. Of all his women, and they are all adorable,
I love best her he has named " Turris Eburnea," the
divine Giuliana. But in truth she is no tower of
ivory, save in that her body is very white and sweet,
for she is full of the sensuous, and almost dreamy
desire of life, loving and desirable and tender and
in despair and almost reconciled with death. But
indeed, like his men, his women are almost always
the same woman, with or without that profounder
sensuality which crowns Ippolyta above Elena Muti
as queen of harlots.
And this woman, sweeter than the shoulders of the
mountains, desirable and desirous, trips through all
his books to the mournful music of the castanets or
the melodies of spring or autumn, or the thrumming
of the blood in the ears, when she has succeeded in
driving us mad for love. She comes to us first as the
Duchess Elena, and having given us what we desired,
leaves us still unsatisfied as the pale and dear woman
of Siena, Donna Maria. And she appears to us
again, more desirable than ever, as Giuliana Hermil,
Tullio's wife, of the white and flower-like body, whose
secrets we learn always with surprise, whose misfor-
tunes only make her dearer to us than before. And
last of all, stripped naked, her body marked with the
bruises of love, in full womanhood, with red and
clinging mouth and feet of clay, we see her crashing
down to death locked in her lover's arms, keeping
92 ITALY OF TO-DAY
always life in her remembrance, whilst he has for-
gotten it. There are no women out of Shakespeare
so profoundly feminine. George Meredith's girls are
girls, and sometimes borrow more than a little from
his delightful boys. But place them for a moment
beside D'Annunzio's women and they would show
their uncouthness, their shyness, their masculine
powers of speech or strength or abruptness of manner
too well to be untroubled by the beauty of these
we have learned to know as a lover knows his
mistress.
And last of all, in these beautiful and mysterious
pages of ' Le Vergini delle Rocce,' we meet those
three Princesses, Massimilla, Anatolia, and Violante.
Massimilla, who knows that " the shape of her lips
forms the living and visible image of the word Amen."
Anatolia, who possesses " the two supreme gifts that
enrich life and prolong it beyond the mission of
death." Violante, whose hair weighs heavier on her
brow than a hundred crowns, who has dazed herself
with perfumes. In this book of exquisite prose one
finds the achievement of the highest poetry. Scarcely
to be read without emotion or hurriedly at all, it
appeals to us as some majestic and imperial dream.
Yet there is nothing but truth in the book, a truth far
more profound and necessary than any of the little
obvious obscenities or indecencies that have in fiction
at any rate almost usurped the very name of Truth
herself. These three solitary princesses are no fable,
but real beings, born in an old land, in a time that
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 93
is in love with change, that is scornful of old things
and its own past, and, like the youngest, looks for
glory to the future.
After all, we live in a world that shrinks all
day long, and maybe in the night too, from
death. Let us hug to us, then, Art at least
together with the brief charm of the world and
the passing glory of the Hills. Content only with
perfection ; the proper state of mind after creation
being, as one likes to remember, that it was very
good.
D'Annunzio has written six plays of varying beauty,
interest, and power. Two only of these are at all
known in England — viz., "The Dead City" and
" Gioconda " ; of the "Dream of a Morning of
Spring" and the "Dream of an Autumn Sunset'
we know nothing, as they have not yet been
translated into either French or English. Of his
last splendid tragedy, in verse, " Francesca da
Rimini," it is almost impossible to speak save
in terms of deep admiration. But on a night
I shall not forget in the glorious and splendid
theatre on the Viminal Hill in Rome, I heard
Duse speak the magnificent and sad lines that
D'Annunzio has written for her who has made
Hell as dear as Heaven. It was not a friendly
house. The Roman people, never in history re-
markable for perfect taste, satisfied its contempt
for the work of a man recognised all over Europe
as one of the greatest men of letters of our day,
94 ITALY OF TO-DAY
by stamping and shouting continually whenever their
slow and vandal minds were puzzled or disgusted by
the beauty of the verse. It was scarcely a pleasant
impression one had of Beauty in the hands of the
crowd. Yet as the first act proceeded, almost in
spite of itself the crowd was compelled to be silent,
and the glorious verse passed over it and van-
quished it and swept it away, till at the
close of a long and perfect page shouts of " Bello ! "
" Bello ! " rang through the theatre, and the beast
with innumerable heads was cowed — nay, even loving
for the moment to him who had conquered it with
beauty. It is impossible for me to speak of " Fran-
cesca da Rimini " as a critic. The night I saw it
and heard for the first time D'Annunzio's verse
spoken by an artist was one of intense excitement.
It was the first representation of the play, which had
twice been postponed. All Rome was at the Cos-
tanzi to see D'Annunzio's triumph or failure. There
were, it was very evident, two parties in the house :
those who wished his success and those who above
all things desired his failure. These two factions
were continually at each others' throats. Even the
critics — and they came from Russia and from France,
from all Italy, and from Germany and England
— were hostile or friendly, it was impossible to be
otherwise than excited. Magnificently staged, it was,
I think, really owing to the acting that it was not
a greater success than it proved to be. La Duse
is not what she was even five years ago, and her
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 95
methods are and always were naturalistic, yet in this
play she was more stagey than I have ever seen her
before. Salvini, who played Paolo, on the other
hand was classical in his method, so that really
it seemed to me that it was Francesca rather than
Paolo who was as it were the guilty one ; that
indeed Paolo had very little to do with the
matter, he was so little moved, so unconcerned,
even when caught in the very arms of Francesca
by his brother Malatesta lo Sciancato, Francesca's
husband.
And D'Annunzio too, in writing this play, has
not treated it romantically as one would have ex-
pected, but psychologically, so that we find, or seem
to find, that he has analysed and laid bare the very
soul and inner motives of the characters, and, as
indeed in all his plays, one seems rather to be
reading a novel than to be watching the action of
a play. There seemed to me, too, to be more than
a suggestion of " Tristan " — yes, Wagner's " Tristan "
— in a play that was fulfilled always with desire and
the inevitable mastery of passion. But I will say
no more. " Francesca da Rimini " seemed to me
to be almost as beautiful as anything he has written.
To be, also, something new in his work, written
as it is in a classical language, in verse that he has
desired " shall not be too unworthy of Dante."
" Sogno d'un Mattino di Primavera " — a "Dream
of a Morning in Spring " — is a play written probably
after a study of Maurice Maeterlinck, and it is to
96 ITALY OF TO-DAY
be noticed, not in his plays alone, that D'Annunzio
is always strongly influenced by the most unlikely
people. Nietsche has influenced him strongly, and
the Russians, and even Wagner and Maeterlinck.
It is a curious story, as lovely as horrible, that might
perhaps have been omitted by Boccaccio from the
' Decameron ' owing to its morbidness, or its horror,
told as those stories were, we may remember, not
far from the dying and the terror of great misfortune.
Isabella, the beautiful wife of the Duca of Poggio-
Gherardi, is mad. For her lover, a young lord,
was killed as he lay in her arms, on her breast, by
the duke her husband, and she, drenched in his
blood, still held him close, and at sunrise they
found her mad. That is the simple and morbid
story of a play that is certainly not the least beauti-
ful of all D'Annunzio's work. And one gathers as
the play proceeds that Isabella has been sent,
together with her sister Beatrice, away into the
forest to a villa, there to remain under the care
of the doctor, that he may if it be possible cure
her. So he banishes from her sight everything
that is sad, and the poppies are no longer suffered
to grow in the corn-fields, nor are there any red
roses to be seen in a world that for Isabella must
for the future be green only, with the leaves of the
trees and the grass and the whole forest life. And
it is really in her becoming one with this green life
that the solution of the play seems to lie. And there
is in this play, as in " Gioconda," a curious half-
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 97
Shakespearean creature, wholly delightful — Virginio —
who, like La Sirinetta in the " Gioconda," stands
really outside the action of the play, hears and sees
all that is passing so inevitably, but is, as it were,
untouched by it, a little lower, a little higher — who
knows? — than the human race — than the characters
of the play, chiefly concerned with listening to the
tragedy of a world by which he is moved so little.
Ah, it is impossible within the limits of a single
chapter on the works of D'Annunzio generally to
do justice to the fantastic beauty of what, after
all, is almost as nothing beside the " Trionfo," " La
Gloria," or " La Citta Morta."
The " Dream of an Autumn Sunset " is really not
a play at all but a vision. The terrible and im-
possible scenes of lust, and blood, and glory, which
can scarcely be realised in the mind, would be
ridiculous on the stage, before a public that shrinks
from blood as from the very secret of Death. The
immense conflagration with which this play closes
is certainly a piece of glorious imagination, but the
play as a whole is excessive in its very intention, and
can scarcely have been written in the saner moments
of an author who, after all, is living in a reasonable
world.
It remains, then, to discuss " La Gloria," and I
will say at once that in many respects, and especially
because of its magnificent symbolism, this plav seems
to me the most remarkable that D'Annunzio has yet
written. It is really a picture of Rome — yes, Rome
a
98 ITALY OF TO-DAY
to-day. For, as I read " La Gloria," Cesare Bronte,
who is dying and passing, courageous to the last,
impervious to new ideals, fighting to the end those
ideas that are destroying him, Cesare Bronte is the
Pope — the Papacy; while Ruggero Flamma — the
elect one, he who has been chosen by the people and
has allied himself with La Gloria, whom in the end
La Gloria kills — is the New Rome, the Third Rome,
the kingdom that the people chose with so much
enthusiasm. I do not think it is possible to give a
clear account of this extraordinary play without re-
producing it almost word for word. One finds in it
a new character — a character entirely new in drama
or indeed in Art — " La Folia," the crowd, the multi-
tude. The play opens as it closes, with this tremend-
ous character governing the issues of the play and
of life, till it brings about its own destruction,
shouting for the head of Ruggero Flamma, the elect
one, its chosen leader, whom La Gloria slays after
kissing him upon the forehead and the lips. And can
any one who has read this play ever really forget that
terrible monster and its awful cry, " La sua testa,
la sua testa, gettaci la sua testa " ?
La Comnena, or La Gloria, it is the same, is talking
with Ruggero Flamma.
" You have longed for me, it was for me you waited," she
says.
" I looked for Fame," he answers.
" La Gloria mi somiglia," she says.
The Crowd. Death to Flamma ! death to Flamma !
Flamma (to La Comnena). Who are you ? who are you ?
GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO 99
La Comnena. Listen ! [She goes to the window.
The Crowd. The Empress ! the Empress ! Death to
Flamma ! death to Flamma !
[She goes to Flamma and kisses hi?n on the eyelids and
on the mouth, a?id then drives her dagger through
his heart.
La Comnena. Listen ! listen !
The Crowd. The Empress ! the Empress ! Kill her !
kill her!
La Comnena. Listen ! Ruggero Flamma is dead.
[There is a moment of silence, and then a long indis-
tinct roar from the multitude.
La Comnena. Ruggero Flamma is dead. I have killed
him, I, even I myself, have killed him.
The Crowd. His head ! his head ! throw us his head !
[The sacred city is in a great shadow, a?id to her, as
she turns insolently to withdraw the stiletto, there
comes a moa?iing that becomes one vast and terrible
cry.
His head ! his head ! throw us his head !
So ends a play that is, I say it advisedly, without
parallel in our time for significance and terror. For
here for the first time an artist has attempted that
study not only of his own time but of Demos, that
ugly and merciless being which is in our own day
really master of the situation, who, even as the other,
hails La Gloria as the Empress.
In the "Gioconda" and the U CittaL Morta" we
have two plays that probably contain the finest
dramatic work of D'Annunzio. But he who runs
may read, for Mr Arthur Symons' translations are
so excellent that they leave nothing to be desired.
ioo ITALY OF TO-DAY
The English translations of D'Annunzio's work are,
as a rule, very bad ; but the two plays, " The Dead
City " and " Gioconda," are almost perfect examples
of the art of translation, and this is easily tested by
the ordinary reader, for in "The Dead City" Mr
Symons has translated some passages of Sophocles
as they have never before been Englished : I wish he
would give us the whole of the ' Antigone,' for we
have not even a readable translation of that master-
piece, in English.
Of the novels, that translated the best is the
' Virgins of the Rocks.' The ' Trionfo ' probably
could never have been properly translated owing to
the seventeen-year-old English miss and the sixty-
year-old Mrs and Mr; and the same unfortunate
habit of blushing on the part of the young and
old alike of our race would prevent ' II Piacere '
also from being translated fully and honestly.
However, all these can be read, not in the entirety,
but perhaps as much so as is desirable, in the
French.
What D'Annunzio's future may be I cannot say.
That he will accomplish something, and not a little
thing, I believe ; but since he is now thirty-eight
years old, it is time that he came down from the
clouds and forgot such visions as the " Dream of an
Autumn Sunset " or the " Episcopo & Co.," and
turned towards a living world, not less wonderful,
in which, as he has already shown us, his true
inspiration lies.
'
The Cities of Italy
I.
AT GENOA.
TO look on Genoa from afar is to see one of the
fairest sights of the world. And come to her
how you may — by the coast road through Mentone
and Ventimiglia, San Remo and Savona, or by sea
from Marseilles, or from Turin and Milan over the
mountains, down through the olive -gardens by the
byways — even from a long way off she appears as
the very perfect celestial city. Enthroned in a
theatre of mountains with the Mediterranean at her
feet, she is like a proud princess, her white brow
crowned with the immaculate blue of her sky and
the gold that has stained her air and made it
precious.
"Protinus aerii mellis ccelestia dona
Exequar,"
as Virgil says ; and indeed he is not the only one
who has noticed this fragrant and precious quality
in the air, so that the meanest material, as stucco
or whitewash, or the rose colour of the houses, or
the ragged garments of the people, seem to be all
104 GENOA
of some precious material — the churches and the
Pharos of alabaster perhaps, and the poor cotton
of a woman's dress of silk or Venice velvet. Mr
Evelyn, in his dedication of the ' Fumifigium ' to
King Charles II., notices the peculiar joys of Italy
in the perfumes of orange, citron, and jasmine
flowers, which may perfectly be smelt for divers
leagues seaward.
And she is of the true South : the bells of the
mules carrying firewood and fuel wake one early on
one's first morning ; and ever afterwards one cannot
think of her save as a city of the East, with some-
thing Biblical about her, something that we have
all longed for from our tiniest childhood, — a blaze of
white light full of dust, a pleasant wearying heat, a
sound of everlasting summer. Ah, over our fields at
Easter, in early spring, have there not always come
to us, perhaps, in the vulgar noise amid which Christ
dies every year in England while the people make
holiday, or in the relief and joy of Easter Day, some
tameless desire, some unappeasable longing for the
light and dust and heat and atmosphere of Palestine
or the South, some covetousness just for once of
a weariness of the sun ?
Well, it was Holy Week when first I came to
Genoa. The air was heavy with the scent of
orange-blossom, the smell of ships came up from
the sea, the oranges among the blossom on the trees
against the dark green foliage were like burning
lamps in broad sunlight ; in the deep shadow of
THE GATE OF ITALY 105
the doorways women sat surrounded by innumer-
able flowers, white and gold and red. Amid all the
clangour and noise there was a hush and expect-
ancy. Quite by chance I passed out of the heat
and noise of the crowd in the so narrow streets
into a church. It was almost dark, but there were
many candles burning. The murmur of the city
came in through the heavy curtain, and far off I
heard the Latin of prayers. Suddenly a voice louder
than the rest chanted the Antiphon —
O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte si
est dolor sicut dolor meus.
Ah ! I knew then that I had found it — the land
of heart's desire, the place I had longed for all the
days of my life ; and it seemed to me that the very
Church herself, distracted and alone on Calvary or
by the Tomb in the garden of Joseph, had asked
that question, " O all ye who pass by, behold and
see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow ? "
and for the first time I realised how far I was from
England, in how different a land, though doubtless
I might have heard the words often enough in
London, where they would have meant almost
nothing at all. And so I too heard the young
boy priest pass, singing clear —
"Jesus, the son of Mary, has been slain;
O come and fill his sepulchre with flowers*
Outside was the world at its fairest : the splendour
106 GENOA
of that antique sea, the spirituality of the everlast-
ing mountains, the calmness, the ineffable comfort
of the soft sky. There was a kind of bloom on the
city of palaces ; and over towards the lighthouse a
great ship put out to sea, perhaps with eyes bent
forwards, unconscious of the beautiful city, and I,
a sentimental traveller, at least a century behind
my time, was captured by the moment, and would
have given all the world had it been mine to pro-
long that short hour so that I might understand
all this fading glory of the world.
It is perhaps in some such mood as this that the
fortunate traveller may find Genoa the Proud, lying
on the bosom of the mountains, whiter than the foam
of her waves, a true daughter of the South. To come
to her in youth, in the spring, for the first time is, I
think, one of the great experiences of life, not to be
surpassed by any later passion in Rome or Naples or
Florence, that ever after seem but as sisters of the
Fairest. Yet I think Genoa gives of her best, at first
and from afar. In her narrow and seldom splendid
streets one loses the vision, and has to be content with
a very inferior picturesque. She was fair, and has
had many lovers ; from afar she is still desirable.
Yet one remembers sometimes, as one saunters on
the ramparts, the story of those vast multitudes that
came from all Europe to embark at Genoa for Pales-
tine, to rescue the Holy City from the Turk. What
vision that they ever after saw, what mirage in the
desert, what dream of the armies of the Prince of Life,
THE PORT FOR PALESTINE 107
can have compared with their sight of Genoa from the
sea, when it was too late to return ? And, indeed, in
all history one can find no more pathetic tale than
that of those 7000 children who came, under the
command of a boy of thirteen years, " clamouring for
transports " to take them also to the fight for the
sepulchre of Jesus, the son of Mary. What became of
them ? In what old age did they forget the vision
when they first came in sight of Genoa, still a long
way off? Were there not some among that army of
babies who believed that indeed it was to Jerusalem
they had come ? Were not these marble houses
indeed the very palaces of Herod and the High Priest ?
Was not the first shining church the very Temple
where Christ was found by Madonna sorrowing ?
What became of them all ? I have never been able
to discover. Yet in that age of iron and of gold,
when kings came and sailed away to the sunrise, and
countless soldiers, princes, light women, monks and
nuns, priests and merchants, loafers and dreamers
followed after to die in the desert, there is nothing so
magnificent as that boy of thirteen and his army of
babies, who, remembering something done for love of
them long ago, had come over the mountains only to
find the impassable sea.
Life unencumbered by rule thrusts itself on one's
notice. A street of palaces ends in a brilliant slum, a
vista of bedizened squalor leads one's gaze at last to
the splendour of the sea. Yet though one could
imagine no angel daring to pass through any London
io8 GENOA
street, here even in the narrowest places one would
see him without surprise, so near to life has one come
in a city with a blue sky.
And in Genoa, wherever one may go, it is the
sweetness and nobility of nature rather than of art
that haunt one's footsteps, the sky that is as lovely
as the stars, the mountains that enfold the beautiful
city, the sea that, before all seas, before all other
things, is the most precious thing in the world.
So often is the traveller, in these days when sunset
follows so fast on sunrise, at his work of sight-seeing
very early in the morning, as Mr Ruskin among others
has directed, that it would appear to be superfluous to
say more of the aspect of a place that for me at least
is a kind of vision. Yet when one remembers that the
sight-seer's day is not as the day of other mortals, that
it passes with a tragic swiftness and brings an intoler-
able weariness, that it is passed for the most part in
churches where he never prays or is even quiet for a
little, so that his angel may tell him something
perhaps of this very place ; or it is passed in galleries
where the innumerable Madonnas, Aphrodites, and
long-faced saints irritate him who is too busy listening
to the guide or studying his book, to understand or
care for their tears or gestures or side-long looks, — one
is tempted for a moment to suggest that a day or two
spent in lounging on the ramparts or upon the moun-
tains, or even a few hours stolen from the sunlight and
spent in a meditation in some church, would give the
traveller more of the live Genoa, more of the true
LEONARDO'S JOHN THE BAPTIST 109
mood of Italy, than any number of days or weeks given
up to rushing from one palace to another, from one
church to another, or from the arcades — where one is
entranced by the sedate and almost sombre appear-
ance of the living — to the Campo Santo, where one is
disgusted, almost for the first time, by the vulgarity
and vanity of the dead. I think, indeed, that the
sailors with their bearded lips and the strange life of
the port are more valuable to us than even Leonardo's
John the Baptist in the Palazzo Rosso. He holds no
cross as his prototype does in the Louvre, but is like
the Bacchus by the same artist that brought to
Gautier's mind Heine's notion of the gods in exile
" who to maintain themselves after the fall of paganism
took employment in the new religion." " All this joy
and gay laughter," says Heine, " have long been
silent ; now in the ruins of the ancient temples the old
Greek deities still dwell, but they have lost their
majesty by the victory of Christ, and now they are
sheer devils who hide by day in gloomy wreck and
rubbish, but by night rise in charming loveliness to
bewilder and allure some heedless wanderer or daring
youth." Was it for this the Baptist preferred the
desert to a king's house ? Unfortunate gods ! Is it
not very possible that Dionysus should have enjoyed
one more transformation ? That Christianity, after
all, is but an expression of the same worship in a
different way, the same gods seen from a different
point of view ? Well, it is with some such thought,
some such suggestion as this, that one looks on the
no GENOA
beautiful figure in the Palazzo Rosso that Leonardo
seems to have hesitated to name either St John
Baptist or Dionysus the Dreamer, the Deliverer.
And after one has heard the story of Andrea Doria,
and (if one is American) admired the statue of
Columbus, and (if one is English) learned how
Richard Coeur de Lion on his way to the wars,
finding that Genoa had given the "eighty galleys'
in which he and the King of Spain with their armies
set out for the Holy Land, adopted the battle-cry of
the Genoese, v For St George," which we are wont to
consider our own special invocation, — after one has
wondered at these things, it is, I think, ever as the
city of the South, the gate of Italy, that one thinks of
Genoa rather than as the supposed birthplace of
Columbus, or the home of Admiral Doria, or the port
for Palestine. Nowhere in Italy is anticipation
doomed to be so entirely unfulfilled. Seen from afar
as the city of dreams, she proves on closer acquaint-
ance a kind of splendid but unbearable nightmare,
more noisy than Rome, as filthy as Naples, less
homely than Florence. Yet through life she appears
to me, through the mist of morning, whiter than snow,
or stained by the sunset and violet crowned, the
Proud Princess of the South, the warden of innumer-
able dreams.
T
i.
AT PISA.
ONE is often tempted at Pisa to think that
Italy is as she was long ago, a land of long
unhurried days, fulfilled even in their more brilliant
moments with a kind of leisure. For the traveller
is convinced, after he has seen the little group of
buildings on the edge of the city to the north, that
Pisa is done with, that she holds nothing else that
is precious or worth his time, which, after all, has
been snatched so uneasily from business, and in
which he is to see not one city or two, but all
Italy. But I think, indeed, that to see Pisa truly,
is to attain to a kind of culture quite other than
is necessary to appreciate Florence or Venice or
Rome, or even the works of art that they contain.
For there is a silence, and an old world quiet and
repose about the place that is only to be found in
the smaller cities that the traveller usually passes
by without so much as a thought of that old world
in which, be sure, they cut a not ignoble figure.
Pisa holds only such things as have lasted for a
ii2 PISA
long time — as quiet, sleep, an antique order, a few
churches, a few men, a few women, a few girls and
boys, some old priests, and death. Somehow, in
spite of the railway, she has been left stranded in
her immense plain, within sight of the marble
mountains whose daughter she is. And, after all,
it is only new and unessential things she lacks ; she
has the everlasting necessities of the soul of man,
among which her miracle picture is not the least.
Walter Pater's picture of her as she was in the
days of Marcus Aurelius describes her very beauti-
fully as she is to-day.
The partly decayed, pensive town [he writes], which still
had its commerce by sea and its fashion at the bathing
season, had lent, at one time the vivid memory of its fair
streets of marble, at another the solemn outline of the
dark hills of Luna on its background, at another the living
glances of its men and women, to the thickly gathering
crowd of impressions out of which his notion of the
world was forming. . . . The great temple of the place,
as he could remember it, on turning back once for a last
look from an angle of his homeward road, . . . the harbour
and its lights, . . . the sailors' chapel of Venus, and the
gilded image hung with votive gifts, the seamen them-
selves, their women and children, who had a whole
peculiar colour world of their own ; the boys' superficial
delight in the broad light and shadow of all that, was
mingled with the sense of power, of unknown distance, of
the danger of storm and possible death.
Well, one still sees the great temple of the place,
and the river and its lights, and the little chapel
A QUIET CITY 113
of the sailors, once dedicated to Venus now to
Madonna; one still finds a great delight in the
women and children, and the broad light and
shadow of unknown distance, and the danger of
storm and possible death. And, coming from the
noise of Genoa, above all one finds peace.
Some barrier, miraculous, invisible, guards Pisa
from the world, so that one wanders up and down
her streets in a kind of ecstatic happiness, with a
kind of liberty, since there is no necessity to guard
the soul from any roughness or vulgarity, where all
is so calm, so beautiful. Yet even in this, perhaps the
last of the invincible cities, one finds traces of the
handiwork of the enemy ; so that even, as in some
aspects Pisa lures one into security within her old
walls, or her Cathedral, or her magnificent Campo
Santo, so in other moods one sees in her a horrible
modernity that despises the old things and is swiftly
driving them away. As one looks from the win-
dows of the Hotel Victoria along the Lung' Arno,
on the wrinkled image of the city in the yellow
waters of the river, one sees in that reflection,
between the line of houses, a strip of the blue
sky full of light, that is still the most beautiful
thing to be seen in Pisa* and that has remained
unchanged for more than a thousand years. So
our good God has placed thus much of immortal
beauty beyond the reach of the vandals.
It is of course to the wonderful group of buildings
to the northward of the city, just within the walls,
H
ii4 PISA
that the curious traveller will first turn his steps.
Standing there as though left stranded upon some
shore that life has long deserted, they are symbols
of all that has had to be given up in order that
we may follow her in her modern whims. Coming
as one does out from the narrow cloistered streets
into the space and breadth of the Piazza del Duomo,
one is almost blinded by the sudden light and glory
and whiteness of the sunlight on these buildings that
seem to be made of moonstone or ivory intricately
carved and infinitely noble. And as one stands there,
with the tide of life running away from them, though
so slowly, through the streets of Pisa and out over
the bridges where the trains are marked Milano,
Firenze, Roma, Torino, it almost seems as though
this Church and Baptistery, the Campo Santo where
the cypresses are dying in the earth of Calvary, and
the Bell Tower that alone has leaned towards life
to follow her, have been really deserted and for-
gotten by a world that has taken other gods to
its heart.
On entering the Campo Santo one is surprised,
I think, that it should prove to be so beautiful.
Out of the dust and heat of the Piazza one comes
into a cool cloister that surrounds a quadrangle open
to the sky in which a cypress or two still lives. But
it is before the fresco of the Triumph of Death that
one stays longest, trying to understand the dainty
treatment of so horrible a subject. Those fair ladies
riding on horseback with so brave a show of cavaliers,
THE CAMPO SANTO 115
even they too must come at last to be just dust, is it ?
or like that swelled body that seems to taint even
the summer sunshine lying there by the wayside,
and come upon so unexpectedly ? What love -song
was that troubadour, fluttering with ribbons, singing
to that little company under the orange-trees, cava-
liers and ladies returned from the chase or whiling
away a summer afternoon playing with their falcons
and their dogs ? The servants have spread rich
carpets for their feet, and into the picture trips a
singing-girl, who has surely called the very loves
from Paradise or from the apple-trees covered with
blossom where they make temporary abode. What
love-song were they singing ere the music was frozen
on their lips by a falling leaf or chance flutter of bird
life calling them to turn and behold Death is here ?
It is in such a city as this that meditation upon
death loses both its sentimental and its ascetic aspect
and becomes almost wholly aesthetic, so that it can
never be before this fresco that such contemplations
can become as it were "a lifelong following of one's
own funeral." For the gentle melancholy and desire
for life that one experiences in quiet places are in
reality but a process of recreation, a new accumu-
lation of emotion and enthusiasm, the coming of
reinforcements of one's energy. So in this still and
lovely place, as one passes the old fading frescoes
and the magnificent sarcophagi or urns or statues,
sheltered as they would need to be at home from
the sea air, one likes to remember that it was a sight
n6 PISA
of these ancient and pagan tombs that inspired the
great Pisano to produce his most precious works.
His son, Giovanni, who built this airy cloister so
daintily, found too among the treasures he was
enclosing, life to breathe into his own work.
The sentimental traveller, now somewhat out-
moved, may desire, indeed I confess I did, to see
this place by moonlight, nor will he be disappointed
by so strange a transformation. Amidst a silence
less profound than in the sunlight, by reason of the
sibilant rustling of even the loneliest night, it seems as
though all the great or splendid people who are buried
here, or who have worked here, have assembled for
some great office, as Compline or belated Evensong.
The keen sea-air penetrates and sends a chill along
the blood. The fantastic shadows of the dying
cypresses dance on the walls like a very company
of spirits, and Orcagna's great fresco seems more
dainty than ever, more ravishing a story of the
romance of man. But even the sentimental traveller
is not quite dead, and, worse still, not quite silent
either. I suppose the books that have been written
by the wise on the buildings of the Piazza del Duomo
would fill a long shelf in my library, and the books
written by the foolish all the sides of my room. One
might as well try to describe the face of one's angel
as these holy places of Pisa, which are catalogued in
every guide-book ever written. So I will withhold
my hand from desecrating further that which is still
so lovely. Only if you would hear the heavenly
MADONNA UNDER THE ORGANS 117
choirs before death has his triumph over you, go by
night into the baptistry, having bribed some choir-
boy with a paper lira to sing for you, and you shall
hear from that marvellous roof a thousand angels
singing round the blessed feet of San Raniero. Nor
shall you omit to hear the huntsman's Mass, Missa
dei Cacciatori, at Santa Maria della Spina on the
Lung' Arno, where in mediaeval days Mass was said
as early as three or four o'clock so that the hunts-
men might be off betimes, but armed against all evil
chance by Christ himself.
If it is chiefly as the city of the Leaning Tower
that Pisa is known to the vulgar, and to the learned
as the birthplace of Niccolo and Giovanni Pisano;
to the Italian peasant and noble (if such remain)
within the commune of Pisa it is as the dwelling-
place of La Madonna sotto gli Organi, most powerful
and celebrated of miracle pictures in Tuscany.
There in the Cathedral she dwells, the blessed
protectress of Pisa — nay, of all poor banished sons
of Eve ; nor till lately, for five hundred years, had
any one seen her face. It is true that in 1607 a
certain Archbishop, more impudent and proud than
is usual even with Archbishops, resolved to remove
the seven veils that covered the marvellous picture,
and indeed nearly succeeded ; but as he was about
to remove the seventh veil (so irreverent and proud
was he), death swiftly claimed him, and his accom-
plices — certain prebendaries and workmen — became
blind. But at last there came others more im-
n8 PISA
pudent and proud than he ; and in that terrible
year when, it is said, the saints shook on their
thrones for the safety of the very earth, and all
devils danced in their own place, — in 1789, in Dec-
ember, on the thirteenth (the one unfortunate day of
that blessed month), — Duke Peter Leopold, brother
to the Emperor, tore off the seven veils, and for
the first time for five hundred years a mortal gazed
into the soft eyes of " Madonna under the Organs."
Good God ! what could the wretched man expect ?
What power in heaven or earth was there to save
him from the awful fate that befel the Archbishop
and his " lousy prebendary " ? Reader, I know
not. For what I know, — such is the beneficence of
Heaven, and of her our Blessed Advocate, Virgo
Clemens, Mater Amabilis, Janua Cceli (ora pro
nobis), — Duke Peter Leopold died in his bed and
went no lower than Purgatory, where, I think, all
inquisitive travellers should pray for him. But that
he had the narrowest escape in the world of utter
disaster, I, with my hand on my heart, can assert,
since on May 29, 1897, I was in the Cathedral of
Pisa when they unveiled Santa Maria sotto gli Organi
in honour of her Coronation Jubilee. You, too, oh
friend Protestant, were honouring in that same year
a lesser Queen than Regina Angelorum, therefore
you should not sneer. It was just after the Charity
Bazaar fire in Paris, which happened on the fourth
of the same month ; doubtless this, as you will see,
helped the disaster. There were many thousands
MADONNA UNDER THE ORGANS 119
from all Tuscany and the mountains packtd in the
Cathedral, myself among them, leaning against a
pillar near the great bronze west door. Suddenly
some one shouted " Fire ! ' and in a moment that
mass of people was struggling madly to get out of
the Cathedral. Fortunately (I lay it all at Madonna's
feet, I was one of the few who disapproved of this
repeated unveiling, though not for orthodox reasons),
I reasoned with myself, as : This church is of marble,
and therefore a great time must go by before it is
consumed ; and, said I, who ever heard of a church
being burned down where so miraculous an Image
dwells ? (I was wrong in both arguments, but doubt-
less She sent them ; they served their purpose.) So
I stood quite still behind the pillar, embracing it so
that I might not be swept away by the crowd.
How strong was that pillar of the church, divid-
ing and breaking the crowd like a rock ! Cries and
shrieks and agony filled the air, while I said Aves
on my fingers against the pillar in fear. Some nine
persons were crushed to death and some twenty-
one injured. And I think indeed that the little
child of two years old that had been knocked out
of its mother's arms, whom they found laughing
under a bench, and I, were the only persons on
that terrible day who were not very much afraid.
The child's mother gave its frock, together with a
glass case that cost a heap of money, to St Mary
under the Organs, for the escape of her little one;
and I — well, my gift I keep to myself. To this
120 PISA
day when I think of Duke Peter Leopold I shiver.
Therefore, all ye who pass by, forget not to pray
for a moment at the altar of the Madonna of Pisa,
seeing she had mercy on a little child and a poor
pilgrim in a time of fear and great danger.
Ah, do not be in too great a hurry to leave Pisa
for Rome or Florence. They have waited for you
now more than a thousand years ; let them wait a
day or two longer, while you wander through the
King's Park towards the sea, and watch the light
on the hills, and dream on the top of the famous
tower whence you shall see all the kingdoms of the
world and the glory of them. It may well be you
will never see that line of hills again ; ah, look at
them carefully. A little while before to-day the
most precious of your dreams was not so lovely as
that spur of the Apennines.
" lam nox inducere terris
Umbras et ccelo diffundere signa parabat.
. . . Mali culices ranasque palustres
Avertunt somnos, absentem ut cantat amicam
Multa prolutus vappa nauta atque viator
Certatim. Tandem fessus dormire viator
Incipit." . . .
So be it, traveller,,
Ill,
AT SIENA.
BEFORE all others Siena is the typical mediaeval
city — not without joy. It has been the pro-
found mistake of our democratic age to think in its
somewhat sentimental fashion of the Middle Age as
a period of almost unbroken gloom. But indeed of
all ages of the world I ever read of it seems to me to
have been fulfilled with the most splendid enthusiasm,
profoundly humorous and merry too, in a way the
Reformation and Renaissance and the three million
and four differences of the three hundred and fifteen
religious sects infesting my dear land have, in England
at least, made impossible for us.
But nowadays one does not come to Siena to be
amused — at least I suppose not — but to be instructed.
And there, I think, indeed, the traveller makes his
greatest mistake. Nothing is so amusing as en-
thusiasm, nor is anything I ever saw so enthusiastic
as Italian Gothic.
And Siena, from the splendour of her gates to the
intangible sweetness of her Cathedral, is all glorious,
122 SIENA
a very king's daughter, a virgin waiting, not in sad-
ness but in ecstasy, for the bridegroom. And her
joy has been found in silence, for she has risen up out
of the desert, a tower of passionate glory, and her
fountains sing her canticle. Fonte Gaia sings of
spring, Fonte Branda of the wearying summer, Fonte
Nuova of the Resurrection, Fonte Ovile " Gloria in
Excelsis." And even as the best and most quiet half
of our lives passes away in a dream, "vitam nobiscum
dividit somnus," as Seneca says, so it is in such a
city as this, fulfilled with a temperate silence, that
the most precious hours of an ever anxious life are
found at last. For it would be impossible to die
without regret while so much beauty lingers in the
world, nor, since our angels will at last entice us
hence, shall we be surprised at the loveliness of any
celestial city. For Siena is the virgin of Italy, Turris
Eburnea, and sings Magnificat. All the splendour of
Rome is but a bubble while her beautiful white body
lies upon the mountains. I am content, having seen
her, for ever after to look on nothing but the sky, in
the which I may mirror her enfolded in ineffable peace,
guarded by innumerable angels invisible, whose swords
unscabbarded meet point to point, beneath which dome
of flame, in the attitude of prayer, my city stands.
It is to the cathedral that the traveller will first
turn his steps, and maybe wisely. For there one sees
a new creation of the heart of man, all the mystery
and passionate groping after God, all the fierce desire
of unspoken prayers that in the North have created
THE CATHEDRAL 123
Amiens and Chartres and Beauvais, curbed and ful-
filled with a kind of magical grace and sanity, so that
one remembers rather how God loved the world than
His resolve to consume it in a moment, and destroy,
who knows, us too with the wicked.
Begun in the year 1229 or thereabout, the Cathedral
of Siena is, I suppose, the most perfect piece of Italian
Gothic anywhere to be found. For a time at least
the Italians had forgotten their old gods and remem-
bered only Jesus of Nazareth and Madonna Mary.
Yet in all that forgetfulness there remains some
glimmer, some suggestion, of that older civilisation in
a grace and proportion and sanity quite foreign to the
Cathedrals of France and Germany and England,
where there was neither religion nor civilisation to
forget, that lends a new sweetness even to-day to
Christianity in Italy. Heaven is not so far off from
us in Italy as in England ; one does not grope in any-
mysterious gloom after a terrible God, but in a garden
of sweetly-coloured marble and level light one as it
were walks at least with saints, and is not afraid or
mystified at all, but just happy. In the North we are
so serious, so gloomy in our faith : here they have,
as it were, humanised Christianity. And in spite of
the Northerner's inevitable dislike to any sort of
familiarity in dealing with the dead, who in his
gloomy and smoky cities he has forgotten are not
dead but alive for ever, he cannot but be moved by the
evidence all about him of the way in which the Italian
disdains to be afraid or to forget them. So, remem-
124 SIENA
bering they are indeed alive, he asks their prayers and
paints their more noble or wonderful deeds upon the
walls of God's house, and, not morbidly or with
curiosity, but very lovingly, keeps their dust about
him.
And it is with one of these, long dead and now alive
in heaven, that in Siena one is almost compelled to
live, seeing that it was her home.
Born in Siena in 1347, St Catherine was the
daughter of Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa, who had
beside twenty -four other children. It was in the
Contrada d'Oca, in the valley between the church of
San Domenico and the Duomo, that she was born, in
a house still standing, over whose door are written
the words, " Sponsae Christi Catherinae domus." In
1367 she received the habit of the third order of St
Dominic, and from that time earth and this fair city
fell away from her, and her little cell became for her
heaven and all. It was in silence that she found her
great teacher, so that she never at this time spoke
to any one save God and her confessor. And that
mysticism that afterwards enveloped the souls and
bodies of St Teresa and St John of the Cross seems
also to have come to her and conquered her. In her
contemplation, vile and filthy imaginings, desperate
thoughts and despicable passions fought in her soul
for mastery, while she, calm and a virgin, told her
beads in silence. " At her voice, nay, only looking
upon her, hearts were changed," and with a kind of
genius men, by the time she was twenty-four, called her
SAINT CATHERINE 125
" mother," and her confessors, meeting her majestical
eyes under those straight brows, called themselves her
sons, as they were indeed already her disciples. So
unlearned that she had never been able to read or
write, she is taught by a miracle, and becomes, as all
the world is a witness, "a writer of singular beauty,
force, and distinction."
In the short thirty -three years of her life she
changed the political aspect of Europe, and her
power became greater almost than that of the
Papacy itself. For she fulfilled the Dominican ideal
of the union of contemplation and labour. In all
her century hers is the most splendid figure : Popes
and kings shrink into insignificance beside this
mystic with a genius for politics, who at any
moment of her life, howsoever splendid or successful,
would, how gladly, have retired into the silence of a
tiny cell. And it was from her unbroken silence in
her cell in Siena that she came one day of spring,
conquering and to conquer. It was she who was
to tame the implacable enemy. The wearying and
terrible wars of Guelf and Ghibelline that bolt the
Middle Age with the iron of their noise were hushed,
and both were united against the Holy See. She,
but a girl, a visionary, that in a hundred encounters
had possessed herself of the passion of infuriated
mobs, the anguish and regret of the dying, the
misery of a little world, sick and plague-stricken,
saw the banners of the league blazing with the
splendid and impossible word, Libertas ; and it may
i 2 6 SIENA
well have been in pity for mankind, in sympathy
with its disappointments and follies and its natural
human hopes, its ridiculous and touching faith in
itself, that she, never doubting, intervened and pre-
vented Siena, Arezzo, Lucca, and other cities from
joining a cause so sure of failure.
The Pope, Gregory XL, far away in Avignon, a
coward and a fool, had at last found a champion
before whom the very world was but as a shadow.
And at last the Florentines, overcome by her who
had so lately left that silence where God dwells,
asked her to be their mediator with the Pope. At
the gates of Florence she was met by the chief
magistrates, who sent her with magnificent honours
before them to Avignon.
What panoply of war or crusade, what defiance
of authority in the name of liberty, what terror of
red death, can match in nobility and splendour
that scene so long ago ? A girl, scarcely twenty-
nine, her white passionate face overruled by silence
and contemplation and communion with God, goes
forth to compel the Pope to return to Rome,
utterly without fear and without doubt.
St Catherine came to Avignon on the 18th June
1376 ; she was received by the Pope and Cardinals.
To her Gregory XL says, " I put the affair entirely
in your hands, only I recommend you the honoui
of the Church. I desire nothing but peace." Thus
at last she persuaded him to return to Rome, and
yet he dared not, unless she held his hand: so that
SAINT CATHERINE 127
we find that she met him at Genoa in September
of that year and led him into Rome. But in truth
the Florentines desired not peace but war, and it
was only after a most terrible struggle that she
brought peace to him in 1378 ; immediately after
she returned to her cell. Yet after all it was not
in peace but in grief and tears that she died two
years later, the people having chosen another Pope,
Urban VI., and knowing this "she would dissolve
into floods of tears." Her body is in Rome in the
church of Santa Maria Sopra Minerva, a gloomy place
enough, while her head is preserved most magically
in her own city, in the Duomo.
Having so briefly and imperfectly sketched her
actions, there remain over thirty - three years of
life in which she talked with Jesus and received
indeed from His very hands, which the nails had
pierced, the Blessed Sacrament. It is told of her
how that one Nicola Tuldo of Perugia, being con-
demned to death, and he, still in his youth, utterly
refusing even for a moment to contemplate so hard
a fortune, cursing God therefor, and refusing all
consolation, she "came and spoke with him; whence
he received such comfort that he confessed and made
her promise by the love of God to stand at the block
beside him on the day of execution." And yet, even
after he had looked into those quiet eyes, he feared
the great enemy so that he prayed the Saint to stay
with him that he might die content. O wonderful !
And says she, "his head lay on my breast. Then
128 SIENA
I felt a great joy within me, and the odour of his
blood rose up, and I said, ' Comfort thee, my
brother, the block shall soon become thy marriage
altar, for sure I will stand beside thee.' " And so
she laid her white neck on the block and prayed
for his soul and for herself. Then came Tuldo
walking "like a gentle lamb," and she preceding
him he seemed content, and calling the names of
Jesus and of Catherine he died ; while she beheld
his soul borne by the angels into God's love. Then
she " held his head within her hands, her dress was
saturated with his blood, which she could scarcely
bear to wash away, so deeply did she triumph in
the death of him whom she had saved." That is
but one incident in a life almost beyond modern
dreams. " Be thou, be thou, that fragrant flower
spreading its fragrance abroad in the sweet pres-
ence of God," she wrote. Well, is it not with some
such refreshment one comes even to-day from her
chapel in the Duomo ? But in reading that story
of Tuldo, contained in her letter to Brother
Raimondo of Capua, it is not only the ecstasy of
love we see but the ecstasy of desire. How different
perhaps her life might have been had she been less
convinced, less captured, in that silence. One hears
in her words the ecstatic madness of the profound
voluptuary, the sensualist. " The odour of his
blood rose up," she says, and in her simple and
wise way speaks of her sensuality as of a mighty
weapon, "arming oneself with one's sensuality."
SAINT CATHERINE 129
Nor is she afraid, for she says to the Pope, " Be
a brave man, and not a coward ; " and to the King
of France she says, " I will."
Ah, all saints beside her are but little children ; was
it not she who wrote, seven hundred years ago, "The
intelligence feeds the affections — who knows most
loves most, and he who loves most enjoys most."
One follows her as did those crowds ages ago, even
to-day, because one must. Ruled by her will and
overcome and utterly defeated, we see " a vast multi-
tude clothed in sackcloth and in purple, in iron and in
gold," every sort of person comes under her influence
and is captured and a slave for ever. It is not only
Gregory XL and Queen Joanna of Naples and the
King of France that are overcome by her, nor male-
factors like Tuldo nor holy men like Stephen, but all
sorts and conditions of men and women, nuns and
friars, soldiers of fortune, light women, and citizens.
And in a vision our Saviour presented her with two
crowns, one of gold and the other of thorns, bid-
ding her to choose. Says she, " I desire, O Lord,
to live here always conformed to thy Passion and to
find pain and suffering my delight," and, taking the
all -glorious crown of thorns, she pressed it on her
brows, loving it better than all else in that she therein
wore even what He had worn, for her too among the
others.
Reader, before so lovely a saint, so glorious a
woman, will you too not rest contented for a day or
so ? Ah, but I have not told you a hundredth part of
I
130 SIENA
her history. She is a thousand times more glorious
than I have said : read her own words, and you, too,
will love her city better than all the more famous
places. And it is here in Siena you should think
of her, not of our little day. And if your angel should
have it in his heart to give you the happiness of
remaining in Siena over the sixth day of May, you
too, O son or daughter of the North, whence we have
frightened all our saints ages ago, may see a tiny
remnant of her lovers that still worship at her shrine,
friars and nuns, soldiers and light women, and all
sorrowful people and oppressed, whose eyes gush out
with tears before her who changed the hearts of those
who only looked upon her.
IV.
AT ORVIETO.
A CITY of convents and monasteries, exquisite, of
the spirit, apart from the world, to be compared
only with a vision of the heavenly city ; such is the
impression the traveller receives on first catching
sight of Orvieto from afar. Too few seek her in her
silence and her solitude ; for the many the more re-
sounding cities suffice. In a noisy night on the
railway, distracted by innumerable and abortive
dreams, half-asleep, half-awake, in all the agony of
dawn in the train, one rushes past a place that has
little to offer but peace. And when one desires the
greatest of all, and is so near to her, when almost
every moment one expects to see the domes and
roofs of Rome herself, it is not Orvieto in her sim-
plicity that can turn us from the goal of all our world,
even for a moment. Yet somehow more than all
the modern magnificence and trumpery splendour of
the Eternal City, Orvieto in her antique garments,
with her spiritual country face, very like one of
Raphael's Madonnas, has for us the gift of Italy.
132 ORVIETO
" Imagine," says Gabriele D'Annunzio — " Imagine
a rock in the midst of a melancholy valley, and on
the top of the rock a city, so deathly silent as to give
the impression of being uninhabited — every window
closed — grass growing in the dusty grey streets — a
Capuchin friar crosses the Piazza — a priest descends
from a closed carriage in front of a hospital, all in
black and with a decrepit old servant to open the
door ; here a tower against the white, rain-sodden
clouds — there a clock slowly striking the hour, and
suddenly, at the end of a street, a miracle — the
Duomo."
But it is not to the impatient traveller — he who
stays but one night within her walls — that this city
set on a hill under the soft sky will reveal her secret ;
but to him who, having spent sufficient time in the
silence of the Cathedral, has cleansed his heart, so
that he may understand her story. You might
almost say that within her walls is contained the
whole Christian mythos, beginning with Genesis
and ending with the Coronation of the Blessed
Virgin ; the centre, the climax, the supreme mystery
of the whole being the tremendous secret of the
Doctrine of the Blessed Sacrament. And it is not
in the Cathedral alone that Orvieto declares to us
that Christianity has conquered a reluctant world,
for in herself she is a monument of that victory.
In the Piazza del Duomo there are four buildings
beside the Duomo that are inevitably connected
with the Church, and so with Christ. The oldest,
THE PIAZZA DEL DUOMO 133
the Palace of the Bishop, stands beyond the Cathedral,
and though begun in 977 and enlarged by Adrian IV.
in 1151, it is now mainly a building of the sixteenth
century. We then turn to the Palace of the Popes —
Palazzo Soliano, that with the decay of religion has
been turned into a museum — built by Boniface VIII.
in the end of the thirteenth century. Beside this
palace rises the Hospital, built in the end of the
twelfth century, and opposite the cathedral itself we
find the Opera del Duomo, built in the fourteenth
century, a magnificent piece of work. Thus for
Orvieto, at the least half her life was laid up in
heaven, where also her treasure was. For it was to
a miracle that she owed not only her beauty but her
true being, there on her great rock above her melan-
choly valley, a very miracle herself, famous, and
holding gifts. And even as she owed her splen-
dour to the blood of Christ, so she seems to have
desired the blood of man, staining her streets with
that mystical and shameful river of life in the month
of August 1312, and at other times when civil war
reigned in the streets and many hundreds of citizens
perished. And, whether under the Monaldeschi, or
the Popes, or the Neapolitan king, always her
streets ran with blood — it is as it were the very
symbol of herself.
But after a week, or even a few days, spent within
her walls, it is always to the Cathedral that the
traveller will return to be satisfied with its beauty
and its dreams. Built in order to commemorate one
i 3 4 ORVIETO
of the most famous of miracles — that of Bolsena, the
story of which Raphael has painted on the walls of
the Vatican — the Cathedral is itself perhaps one of
the mightiest miracles of the world. And this it
may be is scarcely strange, for the miracle the
Cathedral commemorates is the divine expression
of the truth of the doctrine of transubstantiation —
the actual Sacrifice of the Mass. After all, has not
this very idea divided Christendom ? It is scarcely
strange then that it should have created even the
Duomo of Orvieto. It happened in this wise among
a faithful, simple, and childlike people, who were in
love with the story of Christ and His Mother. A
certain German priest — ah, Martin Luther, another
of your countrymen — had dared to doubt the doctrine
of the Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sac-
rament. Utterly tired and weary of his doubts, dis-
turbed by his uncertainty, he set out for Rome, so
that there, in the capital of his religion, he might
decide at last or be persuaded. For it began to
appear plain to him that if this that he presumed
to doubt were indeed untrue other things he had
scarcely thought of as yet might be untrue also. It
was, therefore, we may well believe, in a certain
sadness of heart that he set out for Rome, and,
" resting one day on the shores of the beautiful lake
of Bolsena," which is but twelve miles from Orvieto,
he, at the request of the villagers, celebrated a Mass
for them in the Church of Santa Cristina, which is with
us even to this day. And though Santa Cristina is
THE MIRACLE OF BOLSENA 135
rejected by all authority, she has her lovers in the
sweet Umbrian country who will never forget her,
and perhaps for their love she brought these things
to pass — being in Heaven at the time. For it
happened that as our German doubter (Raphael says
he was but a lad) elevated the Host, more than ever
troubled in his mind concerning the doctrine that
none of those simple folk in the church there thought
of doubting for a moment, he saw drops of red blood
upon the Corporal, " each stain severally assuming
the form of a human head, with features like the
'Volto Santo,' or portrait of our Saviour." O
wonderful ! What shame in his heart, what anger
at his doubts, what love, what certainty, what glad-
ness ! Overcome by fear and reverence, he, sinner
that he was, dared not consume the Holy Species,
but with eagerness and love reserved the Body of
our Lord, and travelling in haste to Orvieto, where
the Pope then was, he, not without shame, confessed
to him not only the miracle that had happened but
his doubts also. The Bishop of Orvieto at the
command of the Pope hastened to Bolsena, and
brought from the altar of Santa Cristina the Sacred
Host and the Blessed Corporals. The Pope himself,
Urban IV. it was, passed with all the splendid clergy,
with joy, with music, in procession to meet him who
indeed bore Christ along with him.
Thus was instituted the magnificent festival of
Corpus Christi, whose office St Thomas Aquinas,
the Angelical Doctor, composed. The Sacred Host
I3 6 ORVIETO
rests to-day in the Capella del Corporale in the
Cathedral, surrounded by the magnificent frescoes of
Ugolino di Prete d'llario, that tell the story to the
world.
Thus, in the simple days of old, miracles happened
and men believed, and chased the devil down the
vistas of his own damnable doubts. To us valiant
shopkeepers disputing about the reality of matter it
is doubtless nothing but a fairy tale at best; some
of us even may be so strict as to call it a lie — yet I
can but hope they are few* For we, too, have heard
with our ears, and our fathers have declared unto us
the noble works done in their day and in the old time
before them. After all, I would rather be wrong with
St Francis than right with Martin Luther.
In order, therefore, to celebrate this miracle, men
built the Cathedral of Orvieto — nor is there anything
more marvellous extant upon earth. Fra Angelico
did not hesitate to spend his genius on her walls.
Signorelli, who is so much greater than his fame, in
1499 began to paint the vaulting and the walls. And
amid all the magnificence and richness of the work
around one, it is again and again to his work that the
traveller will return — always with joy.
Born at Cortona in 1440, Vasari declares that in his
day his works were more esteemed than those of any
other master. It is strange that they should have
fallen into such neglect in our own. It is the human
form that especially delights him, so that in Uffizi
we find a picture called The Virgin holding her
SIGNORELLI 137
Divine Son in her Lap, in which the shepherds in
the background are naked and unashamed, as in
an older age. It is, however, in the Cathedral at
Orvieto that we find his best work. Says Vasari, " I
am not surprised that the works of Luca were always
highly extolled by Michaelangelo, or that for his
(Michael's) divine work of the Last Judgment in the
Sistine Chapel he should have courteously availed him-
self to a certain extent of the inventions of Signorelli,
as, for example, in the angels and demons, in the
divisions of the heavens, and some other parts,
wherein Michaelangelo imitated the mode of treat-
ment adopted by Luca, as may be seen by every
one." In looking at his work in the Cathedral, it
is perhaps a question whether Michael borrowed to
advantage. Nothing more extraordinarily thoughtful
and subtle than the Antichrist is to be found in
Michael's Last Judgment. So like to Christ as
indeed to be always mistaken for him from a distance,
Antichrist has all the beauty, all the cynical hatred
of mankind, which listens to him in adoration that,
after Luca has suggested it to us, we might expect.
It is hardly necessary, one might say, for the devil
to whisper to him ; in his heart all the cruelty and
villany of the universe have been sown and come to
flower.
Opposite, the fresco of the Resurrection, with its
huge naked angels sounding their death-destroying
trumpets, decked with a banner of the cross, crushes
us beneath its tremendous imaginative power. In
138 ORVIETO
his magnificent mind the Resurrection took form, so
that he, as it were, was able to comprehend it and
its humanity, and show it to us ere it had been re-
solved out of the confusion of the trumpets into the
order of the syllables of God. Visions as splendid as
those of Dante dawn upon him. The Punishment of
the Wicked, the Reward of the Blessed, and Paradise.
Perhaps Luca Signorelli alone of all great painters,
not excepting the author of the Triumph of Death
in the Campo Santo at Pisa, has, as it were, com-
prehended heaven and hell. With his tremendous
thoughts as our companions we walk the streets of
Orvieto, ever finding it necessary to return again to
the Cappella della Madonna di S. Brizio in the
Cathedral. And when at last we leave the beautiful
city for Rome, or for Florence, or for the country, it
is perhaps with a new vision of life that we set out ;
a little tired of less absolute things, till immersed in
the history of the Eternal City, or in the thoughts of
the Humanists at Florence, we come to see again
that man too is, as it were, God in the making,
seeing that he was made in the image of God.
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ROME.
IT is necessary to remember in writing of Rome
as she is to-day that although she has so lately
been born again, as it were, yet in reality she is old,
the very Mother indeed of all those who come, never
altogether as strangers, to her. And so when one
sees her modern buildings and streets and statues,
whether they are noble, or, as is more often the case,
ignoble, it is always with a consciousness that some-
thing has been destroyed to make room for these
newer things, something that was nearly always very
noble and beautiful indeed, and scarcely ever ignoble
or ugly at all. And strangely enough one's first
impression almost, on coming to so beautiful a city,
is one of vandalism ; as though a people hitherto
devoted to order and sanity had suddenly gone mad,
and had begun to destroy its most priceless posses-
sions, quarrelling in a ridiculous and almost impos-
sible fashion with its own past, the work of its fathers,
the dwelling-places of its Gods.
Scarcely anything in modern Italy will so surprise
140 ROME
and disgust the traveller as the preparations that
are being made on the Capitoline Hill in Rome
for a statue to that harmless and theatrically fierce
monarch, Vittorio Emmanuele II., in which not only
has some eight millions of lire (£320,000) been already
spent, but the Palazzo Torlonia, built in 1650 by
Fontana, has been utterly destroyed.
On account of the same ridiculous piece of vanity
and conceit on the part of a family who thirty years
ago were among the petty monarchs of Europe, the
Palazzo Venezia, one of the most glorious palaces in
the world, must lose the wing facing the Corso, and the
Franciscan monastery of Santa Maria in Aracoeli has
been pulled down. So Vittorio Emmanuele II. aloft
on a ruined monastery will be able to gaze with all
the effrontery of the Switzer down the Corso, a street
almost as old as history, which his son has had the
temerity to rechristen after himself. One scarcely
desires to speak in harsher language of those who,
having done some good things in their lives, are now
no longer able to do harm. Yet this act of hideous
vandalism does not by any means stand alone in
Rome, much less does it do so in all Italy. In the
history of Rome much blame is laid to the account of
the Barbarian which is not his due : it has been
hitherto generally at the hands of her own sons that
she has suffered most. But here for once it is the bar-
barian and no Italian who has heaped destruction
upon destruction, and built too, after his fashion.
When those who shall come after, ask perhaps of
A DESPOILED CITY 141
our sons, or even of our very selves, the questions,
"Who turned our Tiber into a ditch and bridged
with hideous iron the river of Horatius and the
Caesars ? Where is the golden tower of Nero, and
where is the Ghetto of Rome ? What have you done
with our monasteries and convents, S. Maria in Val-
licella, SS. Apostoli, S. Silvestro in Capite, S. Sil-
vestro di Monte Cavallo, S. Maria della Vergine, S.
Andrea della Valle, S. Maria Minerva, S. Agostino ?
Where are the gardens and villas of Negroni, Ludo-
visi, Corsini ? Where are the cypresses of history,
and the ruins that cannot have come to us bare and
ashamed as these we see?" — When they shall ask
these questions, take them in silence along the Corso
" Umberto Primo " so far as the Piazza Venezia, and
with all the reverence due to the occasion and to so
humble, honest, and faithful a king, point to the
statue that shall offend the sky and say, " Ask him —
he knows "
So it is not without shame for a city once so noble,
a race so persistent and glorious, that one comes to
Rome to-day. For now beauty is in tears and for-
gotten, and the intellect of Rome is even as the
intellect of America, and possibly of England too,
gone in search of money, only not so successfully
nor so naturally and honestly. And I, too, who am
younger than the third Rome, have yet lived long
enough to be sad for a city I had meant to worship,
and cannot but love in spite of her gaze that has
grown vulgar and craven, and her brows that are
142 ROME
lined with the counting of coins. It was not her
habit of old. Have not her eyes blazed with anger
and her brows been set to meet the world ? But now
the crowd has seized upon her, nor has it grown
afraid as yet. But I believe, and am sure, that some
day in the Forum or upon the Hill of the Caesars
it will suddenly come upon some mighty trove, the
very head of Jupiter or the bones of Augustus Caesar,
and then and in a moment the crowd shall be afraid,
and through the darkness of the centuries it will see
a great light, and from the dust of Rome that hero
shall arise for whom she has ever been the insatiable
mistress ; and he shall set up her altars again, and
he shall lift up her head and kiss her on the lips, and
Beauty shall no longer be an outcast, and once more
she shall awake, still and for ever the one immortal
city. This is my faith.
Ah! there are many points difficult to decide in
that train of thought that leads each man who has
once loved her to create for his own soul the fourth
Rome ! For the Roman is an old and proud man ;
in his veins throbs the blood of the world's remotest
ancestors. He has suffered much from treason.
And having taught us government and given us of
his strength, he is to-day more easily bewildered by
the malady that has seized on us too. His magnifi-
cent families he has buried with tears; he sees the
chimneys belch forth foul smoke over Rome and
hears the groaning of the living cypresses as they fall
beneath the barbarian axe of those we hounded on.
THE FOURTH ROME 143
Hucksters and swindlers, gamblers and thieves, dwell
in the palaces of his ancestors, and drive on his Hill
of Gardens and in the private pleasure-grounds of his
greatest nobles. Is this not enough for Latin blood
to bear ? No, it is not enough ; for under the govern-
ment of the crowd he is distracted between his allegi-
ance to his country and his allegiance to his God.
It would take from him not only the beauty of his
land, the children of his loins, the bread he has grown,
the very light of his sun, but his dream of heaven
also, so that at last, having made him worse than a
beggar, it must put out his very eyes too, that he may
not see his deep and profound sky full of the imme-
morial stars, nor think of Mary when he sees the
crescent moon, nor find the sign of Jesus in the
east, nor the power and loving-kindness of his God in
the rainbow. So is he most wretched, yet must we
believe in him ; for he will not always be silent in his
misery, nor listen to the insolent and vulgar laughter
of those who have beggared him without protest.
So let us think of Rome to-day as on the point of
waking, having washed herself in sleep and gathered
the beauty of her dreams. And though her streets
are not so noble as of old, nor her government so
splendid, nor her people so happy nor so beautiful
nor so strong, even yet she has many splendours still
about her, not religious only but of the world too, in
garden and palace, and ruin, in which we may joy,
seeing that they are still left us after the deluge of
the crowd that has swept away so much. Even to-
144 ROME
day to see the sun set from the Pincio, or at that
hour to watch the Trinita de' Monti flame with gold
and purple, are two of the most wonderful sights of
the world. If St Peter's dome appeals only to those
who love that of which it is a sign, the Pantheon
embraces all the world. And from the Janiculum
saint and sinner, bond and free, alike may look at
last, perhaps after years of waiting and desire, upon
the eternal hills above Albano, and the mountains of
the Sabine that are covered with snow, and may re-
member that Caesar and Virgil, Horace and home-
sick Ovid, saw them too even as we do. Let us think
only of old things for a time, since we can almost see
the sea that was furrowed by the kingly ships of
Carthage and of Tyre. So we shall be comforted
even in the modern capital of Italy, because those
gods who dwell in the sea and upon the mountains
and in the valleys of their earth can never die, neither
will they permit their world ever really to forget
them.
VI.
CHRISTMAS EVE IN ROME.
CAN a heretic ever be really at home in Rome,
ever shake off the oppression almost of feeling
everywhere that he is really an outsider ? This curi-
ous and yet not wonderful mood that the city thrusts
upon those who are strangers to her later passions
is especially noticeable at Christmastide. One is then
sure to meet a great many unmistakable Englishmen,
English parsons, English people of all sorts in the
Forum or on the Palatine Hill, or shyly gazing at the
Colosseum. Of course this may simply be a result
of the foresight of Messrs Thomas Cook & Son ; but
I am inclined to think it is not wholly due to that,
but to a desire on the part of the heretic to escape
from the inquisition of the great city during a time
of religious emotion, to hold to more friendly things,
the spacious days of the Emperors, the earnestness
of the Republic, and to forget everything Papal and
mediaeval with which England at least has nothing
in common at all — of which indeed she hardly under-
stands the language.
Yet in Rome Christmas is not a season of emotion.
K
146 ROME
There is not nearly so much jovial goodwill towards
men as one may see at that season in London. It is
very curious to see the Roman nowadays, chiefly in-
different or hostile to the Church as he is, and re-
member the years that the locust hath eaten ; and
remembering too the suppression of the convents and
monasteries, it is amusing on the Eve of the Feast
of the Immaculate Conception to walk through the
city and see the lines of tiny lamps hung out of
numberless houses that one would never suspect were
monasteries and convents, but for that little expres-
sion of emotion. It is curious that one sees nothing
of the sort on the vigil of Christmas. It is perhaps
certain that Rome finds the Blessed Virgin more
sympathetic, more likely to be delighted with lines
of dancing fairy lamps, than II Gesu Cristo.
It was already towards evening, and the sun was
sinking somewhere over the Campagna, when I went
out into the streets to keep the vigil of Christmas.
As I turned out of the Corso into the Via Condotti,
the Spanish steps, magnificent and splendid, bathed
in the gold and glory of the setting sun, seemed to
show to me, by a happy fortune, almost a piece of the
very garments of old Rome wrapt in her eternity and
the magnificence of her penances. In a mood too
difficult to explain, I went under the heavy leathern
curtain, held aside for me by a beggar, into a little
church, curiously dark for a Roman church and with
but few candles on the altar. The Litany of Loretto
was being sung to a curious dance tune, to which the
CHRISTMAS EVE 147
Virgin seemed to trip and bow in acknowledgment
of her beautiful names. It was a very poor little
church, that had probably never given refuge to the
devout rich or the ultramontane stranger. Yet I
was very fond of it, for there, albeit very badly sung,
one could still sometimes hear the old plain-song,
and I who had tramped Rome in search of music
and always been given Mozart or Mendelssohn or
Gounod, who had spent weary and agonised hours
in the Gesu unable to move, with 3000 people
pressing upon me and three organs declaiming the
Credo, was glad to listen to the old Gregorian tones
even though they were murdered by the poor lad
who sang them.
As I knelt there watching the beauty of the burn-
ing candles, or listening to the incomparable names
of the Virgin, it seemed to me that perhaps I was
keeping the vigil of Christmas for the first time, and
that although I was a heretic I too perhaps might
rejoice even with the true shepherds and the wise
kings for that Jesus was born into a world that
was expecting Him — but without excitement. Near
the high altar, but a little to the right, was the
prcescpio, not yet visible, waiting, as it were, for the
knock on the door that indeed we were all but ex-
pecting too — the grave, even voice of St Joseph ;
the song of the angels, " Gloria in excelsis Deo " ;
the swift and eager simplicity of the shepherd-boys ;
the magnificence of the three kings — the Desire of
all Nations. The church was crowded with the
148 ROME
poor and that indescribable class of persons who
are neither very poor nor a little rich : they crowded
round the confessionals ; and many remained a long
time praying before a curiously modern picture of
the Virgin, in front of which two exquisite tapers
were burning, lending the picture a beauty that
otherwise it could never have possessed. Nor were
we without the gift of tears. For a child of scarcely
three years old wept almost incessantly, but softly,
oh, softly, to the crooning of the mother, whose
other child, a boy of about six, was playing with a
dog in a corner. Presently a soldier — a sergeant of
infantry, I think — came in with his wife and little
boy, who held by a string a little air -ball, the
colour of the sky, that presently escaped him and
flew up with the incense -smoke to the old, sweet
angels on the ceiling. He gazed after it for a long
time, and then with that indescribable little curtsey
that even the youngest, tiniest child, howsoever
ragged, evil, or unclean, will never pass the high
altar without dropping, he followed his mother, who
had a message for the Virgin, oh, of gladness for
her, for her who had known too the joy of a tiny
first-born son.
The beautiful names had become more tender, more
appealing, more curious, and at last magnificent : —
Regina Angelorum,
Regina Martyrum,
Regina Virginum,
Regina Sanctorum omnium,
CHRISTMAS EVE 149
Regina sine labe originali concepta,
Regina Sacratissimi Rosarii.
The voices of the impossible ; the harsh, violent
voices of the poor and the vicious ; the starved,
thin voices of the poor and the persecuted ; the
profound, unlovely voices of the poor and the in-
different, — answered to each magnificent and splen-
did title in the equally marvellous words —
" Ora pro nobis " ;
and I kept repeating to myself so that I might
not lose touch of reality : " This is Christmas Eve :
in the rich and splendid churches of Rome a thou-
sand candles are burning on every altar — even in
the churches of the very poor they do what they
can; I can count six — no, eight with the two
smaller lights — even here to-night, and I like it
better so. This is Christmas Eve : in the rich and
splendid shops of London a thousand gas-jets flare
— even in the shops of the very poor they do what
they can ; how many kerosene-lamps might I count
to-night in the Hampstead Road ? This is Christmas
Eve ; they too keep the feast. All Europe is bending
to-night over the manger to which ' Jesu parvule '
came from His heaven — but without excitement."
" In dulci jubilo, now let us sing with mirth and jo !
Our heartis consolation lyes in pra^sepio,
And shines as the sun, matris in graemio.
Alpha es et Omega, Alpha es et Omega.
O Jesu parvule, I thirst sore after Thee ;
Comfort my heart and minde, O Puer Optime,
150 ROME
and in our fashion too we sing in Rome as in old
days — but without excitement.
When I came out after the benediction of the
Blessed Sacrament, there was still running in my
head that curious half-Eastern tune that is so often
played here in Italy during the moment of the pro-
found silence. It is like a rushing of wind, or the
far-off sound of drums, or the sound of flutes not so
far away. Past the innumerable shrines of the Virgin
that thread the labyrinth of the city, marking for ever
the indestructible footsteps of the Middle Age, I went
to look down on the kingdom the " Jesu parvule'
had won and to hear the bells of Santa Maria Rotonda
cry to Him on His birthday, " Vicisti Galilsee." Ah,
how great was that victory ! In all the majesty of
ruin, still splendid in spite of the wounds of the
Christian centuries, the Pantheon alone in all Rome
remembered the very song of the angels. From beneath
that marvellous dome what gods had heard the multi-
tude of the heavenly host, and looked forward perhaps
even to to-day, not altogether in shame or fear, since
of all the temples of their world this alone still stands ?
To-night the rain had wetted the floor beneath that
field of stars, and as one gazed upwards to the sky
that was the roof, the moon fled backwards as it were
with great speed, or soared up swiftly as if to leave
this earth for ever, then during interminable moments
fell through the void. And over the sad, sweet music
of the Church came the sound of the winds of heaven,
and the drops of rain that fell from such unimaginable
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CHRISTMAS EVE 151
heights, and perhaps to some of us, too, even the
song of the angels.
And so when I gazed from the steps of the Capitol
at the living cypresses on the Palatine Hill that
burned their flameless tapers over the bodies of the
Caesars, I was seized with the transfiguring emotion of
victory, and I too threw to the winds the words of
submission, " Vicisti Galilsee." Yet it is not altogether
without a remembrance of our various and vulgar day
that one, protected though he be with triple steel,
even in Rome may keep the vigil of Christ's birthday.
As I came back with a sickening fall, from the
grandiloquent heights and depths of the destiny of
man to Christmas Eve of to-day, I found it was near
midnight, and that the first Mass of Christmas morn-
ing would be almost beginning. So I went towards
San Silvestro in Capite. As I gave up my ticket with
which it was necessary to be provided as in the days
of persecution, I found myself in a splendid church,
from which everything that would suggest silence and
prayer had been excluded. A great number of people
was assembled, almost entirely made up of English
and Americans. One was everywhere forbidden to
spit, which from the frequency of the injunction one
may suppose was necessary. The ceiling was alive
with a host of imperious and splendid figures. The
image of the Virgin was dressed in rich and magnifi-
cent robes, the altar blazed with hundreds of candles,,
the poor and the Romans sat in humility behind the
indomitable Anglo-Saxon.
152 ROME
Here for the first time I, but another pilgrim from
that little island of Britain, found a great expectancy,
a scarcely veiled excitement : it was Christmas Eve,
surely we looked even for Jesus.
Among the innumerable candles in the midst of
the altar there hung a little black curtain, about
two feet high and as broad too, at which all our
world seemed to be gazing. The electric lights were
switched on, the organ began to play, and suddenly,
as though by magic, that little curtain leapt up, and
behold a tiny, rosy bambino with arms outstretched
towards us. A great sigh as of relief passed over the
congregation, and — and Mass began. Ah, but I
longed for a darker place and a little silence and
space s and not quite so grand a stable for the " Jesu
parvule"; so I went out. Not that I saw anything so
ludicrous as "idolatry" or irreverence in what, after
all, perhaps seemed sweet or even beautiful to those
people. Nor did I mind the realism ; it was not that,
but some suggestion of childish make-believe, some-
thing that seemed like playing at things that one
dared only contemplate as a great mystery, educated,
civilised, entirely disillusioned as these English and
Americans were — even as I was. There was a touch
— nay, more than a touch — of vulgarity in that, as in
the dressing of the image of Mary or the use of
artificial flowers where real ones would have been
entirely in place. Something not quite sincere or
simple, that is really in place with the Italian, but
that in a church for English people is wrong, pro-
CHRISTMAS EVE 153
foundly distressing, and to me at least unbearable.
Ah, at times Jesus is nearly as unapproachable as
the hearts of men.
But for many years — for hundreds of years as
it seems to me — I have not really kept Christmas;
nor watched by night for any star, nor really re-
joiced more at dawn of that day than at the dawn
of any other. Yet I remember, yes, in spite of the
kind of night that is, how imperceptibly, already
closing around my childhood, I remember the simple
words of my prayer on Christmas Eve, and how in
the earliest, earliest hours of the morning, long,
oh, long before dawn, I would creep from my bed,
and with the long blind over my head gaze, with
an unutterable excitement in my heart, over London
for that star that came and stood over the place
where the young child was ; and when, shivering with
cold and excitement, I got back into bed, doubting-
nothing that I had found it among so many, I too
watched with the shepherds over their flocks, and
verily and indeed heard the heavenly music. The
romance of all that ! The cold and the glittering
glory of the stars, the danger of wolves, the hysterical
amazement, the excitement, the beauty, when the
great archangel whose song was taken up by that
multitude of the heavenly host shone from heaven ;
ah ! why is all that gone for ever ? That was
Christmas. Not all the majestic music or sweetness
of that midnight mass, and the earliest matins at
Santa Maria Maggiore, can bring back Jesus to my
154 ROME
earth as He used to come to me, a little sleepless boy,
in the flickering light of the night-light hundreds of
years ago.
Is it so with us all ? Does Christmas Eve, from
being the one unmatchable night of the year, become
gradually as we grow older the same dark, senseless
period of sleep that had once, for the very songs of
the angels, been impossible ?
It is perhaps that I am the most unfortunate of
mortals. Still in the darkness and the snow the
world waits breathless, under a mantle most pure,
for the " Desire of all Nations," and I alone so soiled
in a world I love have lost my vision, and may only
look back with envy and despair on days so different,
when as yet there was nothing in me very bad.
No, I cannot think it. I am not the only one who
now finds it hard even in Rome to keep awake all
through the night of Christmas. I am not the only
one who has perhaps doubted or forgotten. I am not
the only one either who regrets.
So perhaps through death, but not otherwise, I
shall win back to those days hundreds of years ago.
But I am so sure, though I hear them sing matins to
the old tones at Santa Maria Maggiore, or watch from
a great distance ten or fifteen simultaneous Masses at
St Peter's, that will be like a city with streets, full of
the mist of incense and the flickering of candles and
the concourse of men, I shall not win back to those
days, nor be one single step nearer to that star, nor
find the shepherds in those fields, nor in the darkness
CHRISTMAS EVE 155
and the cold be sore afraid ; but it may be that if I
go to a little church in the Via Babuino, where they
say old words and old, old prayers in English that
I learned hundreds of years ago, and where be sure
they will sing " O come, all ye faithful," to that sweet
old Portuguese tune — it may be I shall have courage
to come even to the very cradle of that " Jesu
parvule " I used to expect so eagerly.
VII.
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS IN ROME.
"Bernardus valles colles Benedictus amabat,
Oppida Franciscus, magnas Ignatius urbes."
IT would require at the least an entire book to
discuss the origin of monasticism properly;
for our present purpose a very slight and imperfect
sketch of the history of monachism must suffice.
Though asceticism probably existed from the first
in the Christian Church, it is not until the fourth
century that monasticism can be said to have de-
veloped from the Anchorites, the first of whom was
Paul, 228-341, through the Stylitai, of whom the
most famous was Simeon of Antioch, 387-459, and
the Cenobites, who dwelt together in community, of
whom the first abbas and lawgiver was one Pach-
omius, who ruled 1400 brothers in eight or nine
houses. And in order to understand monasticism
in its greater developments, it is necessary before
all things to remember that it was the work of
laymen and not of the clergy. All the great figures
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 157
of these early centuries — Antony, Pachomius, and
even Benedict — were laymen. Indeed at this time
it was forbidden to a monk to be ordained. And
amidst all the hurly-burly of Christendom East and
West in those early centuries we find much that
appears to us ridiculous and extreme ; gangs of
fanatics sworn to every sort of excessive asceticism
and cruelty, hating or despising the clergy, yet when
the opportunity offered ready at the bidding of some
ignorant priest to murder and torture all those whom
they were unable to understand, crash through the
almost illegible pages of the history of the time.
The excesses of the Inquisition grow pale and pas-
sionless before the orgies ol blood, the immense sen-
sualities and crimes of the early Church. For the
Church of Christ grew up, her hands already crim-
soned in the rivers of blood that she had shed, her
eyes flaming with a new cruelty that desired even
the blood of the bloodless and immortal statues,
since the living hearts of men torn from their mortal
bodies were not sufficient to satiate her desires.
It was not till St Benedict came, 480-542, that we
find any order or sanity in this immense chaos. The
history of his order is for centuries the history of
monachism. He was the son of wealthy parents
of Nursia in Spoleto, and was educated in Rome.
Disgusted, it is said, by the licentiousness of the
Roman youth of his day, he fled to the mountains
of Subiaco at the age of fifteen. One finds just there
perhaps the true explanation of all the nightmare
158 ROME
of the previous Christian centuries. Flight — it was
the very first principle, the very spirit of asceticism,
of monasticism — flight from the world, from the race
of man, so that one might separate oneself from
those whom God had already condemned. Fear
drove them as the wind drives the sea. And it was
fear, that most terrible of all passions, that had
driven so many thousands mad with cruelty and
the desire for blood, for sacrifice, for the death and
mutilation of those who were not afraid. But St
Benedict, after many adventures, founded twelve
monasteries, placing in each twelve monks with a
superior. His order, he says, " is a school in which
men learn to serve God." Well, it was founded on
obedience, and began to civilise Europe as well as
to convert it. His motto — the motto of his order
— was Pax. With his advent monasticism proper
may be said to have begun. And the Benedictines
have always been, and are still, not only the greatest
community in the Catholic Church, but its most
civilising force, its most cultured class, as it were
its aristocracy. Of the five orders of Western
Christendom the Benedictine order stands first. Of
the three Rules that of St Benedict is the most pro-
found, the most comprehensive. His is the only
monastic order proper. The Dominicans, the Fran-
ciscans, the Carmelites, the Augustinians, are friars
and not monks at all.
The Benedictine order in rather less than five
hundred years began to produce branches of black
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 159
and white monks and nuns, which are liable to
cause confusion to the stranger, unless he clearly
understands that these numerous orders are really
only Benedictines under other names. Thus we may
divide the order somewhat as follows : —
1. The Benedictines Proper, founded in 580, who
wear a black habit ; these are the original order
founded by St Benedict. 2. The Black monks and
nuns ; and, 3. The White monks and nuns. The
Black monks and nuns are as follows : The Vallom-
brosans of Italy, founded in 1038, and the Silves-
trines of Italy, who are monks only, founded in
1230. The White monks and nuns consist of the
following orders : The Cistercians of France, founded
in 1 100, from whom again in 1660 we get the Trap-
pists of France; the Camaldolese of Italy, founded
in 1012, from whom we get in 1272 the Olivetans
of Italy, who are monks only; the Carthusians of
France, founded in 1086. All these are Benedic-
tines and are under St Benedict's rule, with or
without additions peculiar to each sub-order. Thus
we see how from time to time in the course of cen-
turies reformers arose to restore the ancient rule
in all its strictness when may be it had from one
cause or another fallen into disuse or abuse. It
will give the reader some idea of the vast strength
and power of the Benedictine order if he under-
stands that before the first sub-order was founded
the Benedictines held in England alone the mon-
asteries of Westminster, St Albans, Winchester,
i6o ROME
Whitby, and Glastonbury, to name no others. To
name the monasteries and churches they have held
in Italy would fill a small volume. In Rome at the
present day, however, they occupy only six houses —
namely, the great monastery of S. Anselmo on the
Aventine Hill, which is a great international college
for the education of monks of the order, at present
under a Belgian abbas. It is here that at 9 a.m.
on Sundays one may hear mass sung to the old
plain-song, a magnificent experience. S. Callisto in
Trastevere and S. Ambrogio de' Maxima in the
Piazza Mattei are also Benedictine monasteries.
There are also three nunneries in the city — namely,
S. Maria in Campo Marzio, S. Benedetto in Via
Boncampagni (which used to have, and for what I
know has now, an English abbess), and St Cecilia in
Trastevere. From time to time the Benedictines have
occupied more than thirty-seven different monasteries
and churches in Rome, among them being S. Maria
in Aracoeli, S. Gregorio Magno on the Ccelian Hill,
and S. Giorgio in Velabro, these two last being the
churches of the apostle and the patron saint of the
English, and S. Silvestro in Capite, which is now the
church of the English-speaking Catholics. S. Agnese
Fuori le Mura, S. Maria Sopra Minerva, and S.
Bibiana were also at various times in their hands.
It should be noted also that the first reform of the
Benedictines was that made by William of Aquitaine
at Cluny in 910, and it was indirectly from Cluny
that in 11 19 at Citcaux the Cistercian order was
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 161
founded, not as a separate body from the Bene-
dictine Order, but as a reform of it. It was to
Citeaux that St Bernard, " the last of the Fathers,"
came accompanied by his five brothers and other
friends to beg the habit of the Order. At the pres-
ent time the Cistercians are in occupation of three
churches and chapels in Rome — namely, S. Bernardo,
in Piazza S. Bernardo, near the railway station ;
S. Susanna, on the opposite side of the Via Venti
Settembre from S. Bernardo ; and S. Croce in
Gerusalemme. The dress is a white habit and black
scapular.
But already S. Romuald of Ravenna in 1012 had
founded a house at Camaldoli, close to Arezzo, where
a little village of hermitages was built. Mr Mont-
gomery Carmichael in his book ' In Tuscany ' has
written a delightful chapter on this monastery, now
secularised, but well worth a visit. This was the
third reform that had arisen within the Benedictine
Order. The Camaldolese are to be found in Rome
at S. Ildefonso in Via Sistina and at S. Antonio on
the Aventine Hill. The dress is a white habit and
white scapular.
The fourth reform was instituted in 1038 by S.
Giovanni Gualbertus at Vallombrosa, a place familiar
to most people who have visited Florence. The
monastery is now secularised, but in Rome you will
find the Vallombrosans at S. Prassede on the
Esquiline Hill. The habit and scapular are black.
The next reform was the foundation of the great
L
162 ROME
Order of Carthusians by S. Bruno in 1086. It was he
who founded the Grande Chartreuse in the high Alps.
In England the houses of the Order were called
Charterhouses, as in France Chartreuses, and in Italy
Certose. The great school and alms - house, the
Charterhouse, was one of their foundations sup-
pressed by Henry VIII. They are famous in the
Church for their Rule, which has never been re-
formed, and in the world for their liqueur, distilled
in the Alps, and known in every city in Europe.
In Rome they are to be found in the Via Palestro,
but there is no monastery ; the principal centre of
the Order is in France. The dress of the Order is
a white habit and white scapular. They are said
to wear a hair shirt next the skin.
The Sylvestrians, an unimportant reform founded
by Sylvester Gozzolini in 1230, is an Italian Order.
It admits monks only. The dress is a blue habit and
blue scapular. It is in Austria the Order is mostly
found. In Rome they have a house in the Via di S.
Stefano.
The Olivetan Order, another small reform wholly
Italian in origin and development, was founded by
Bernard of Siena in 1319. The convent on Monte
Oliveto, not far from Siena, was suppressed in 1870,
and has practically been turned into an hotel where
one may live very fairly for 5 lire a-day. Mr and Mrs
Pennell in their book, ' An Italian Pilgrimage,' have
written a charming account of their sojourn with the
few remaining monks in that curiously lonely spot.
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 163
The Abbate di Negro, however, died in 1897, mourned
by many who had experienced his courtesy and kind-
ness and who loved him. He was of the family of
St Catherine, the Seraph of Genoa. In Rome the
Order will be found at St Francis Church in the
Forum. The dress is a white habit and scapular.
We now come to the Order about which there is
so much vulgar curiosity. The Trappists are really
a reform of the Cistercian Order. They were founded
as late as 1660 by the Abbe de Ranee. His abbey,
La Trappe, founded in 1140, was a Cistercian mon-
astery. The discipline of La Trappe — how often one
hears the phrase together with an adventurous ex-
planation wholly inaccurate. It is true that silence
is considered as a spiritual necessity among the
Trappists, but it is wholly untrue that when they
speak they dismally murmur, " Brother, we must
die." After a rather large experience of the Religious
Orders of the Catholic Church, I find that I am chiefly
impressed by the extraordinary cheerfulness, more
especially of the monks, whom one might expect
perhaps to find unspeakably sad. But it is not so.
Their point of view is so different from that of the
ordinary man living in the world that it is impossible
to judge of them by the same standard. A very
excellent account of a Trappist monastery as seen
from the inside may be found in J. K. Huysman's
' En Route.' In Rome the Trappists will be found at
Tre Fontane, which they have redeemed from the
malaria partly by means of plantations of eucalyptus
1 64 ROME
trees. The dress of the Order is white with a black
scapular.
Having given this utterly inadequate account of
the monastic Orders, it is necessary to turn for a
few moments to the friars — a very different body
of men. The three great names among the friars
are those of St Francis, St Dominic, and St
Teresa.
The friars, of whom perhaps the best known type
is St Francis of Assisi and the Franciscans, whom
we shall consider later, are different from monks in
many things. Their first aim is not so much the
service of God as of man. They are not so much
contemplatives as preachers ; they are not inclosed
as the monk really is, but are pilgrims through the
world. It is perhaps necessary to remind the Eng-
lish reader, who is usually never so much at sea as
when trying to understand the Religious Orders of
the Catholic Church, that the Dominicans are not
monks but friars. It is from St Dominic that the
Dominicans get their Rule. A Spaniard, born in
Old Castille in 1170, twelve years before St Francis
of Assisi, he founded his Order in 1215 — an Order
which has indeed proved to be the watch -dog of
the Church. The enterprise he set on foot was
chiefly missionary. He was a son of the noble
house of Guzmani, and was educated at Salamanca.
In 1198 he went, together with the Bishop of Osma,
to arrange a marriage between Prince Ferdinand of
Castille and the daughter of the Earl of La Marche.
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 165
Passing through Languedoc, where the Albigensian
heresy was rife, he is said to have converted com-
pletely the owner of the house where he lodged in
the course of a single night. And it would seem
that this experience coloured his whole life, setting
an ideal before him of which he never lost sight.
The Pope somewhat reluctantly gave him leave to
return to Languedoc, whence in reality he set out
to conquer the world. And it was during this mis-
sionary enterprise in Languedoc that St Dominic
composed the Rosary of the Blessed Virgin Mary —
a series of prayers designed really to remind the
world of the birth of our Saviour. And it was in
Languedoc, too, in 1215, that he established his
order of Preaching Friars. Setting out for Rome
in 1216 to get his Order established by the Pope,
he was present at the Fourth Council at the Lat-
eran, when the rule of confession once at the least
in each year before receiving the Eucharist at Easter
was enjoined on the faithful. In 1218 he returned
to Spain, to Segovia, where he founded a convent;
and we find his convents and monasteries already,
even at that date, in England, France, Italy, Ire-
land, Germany, Greece, Norway, Sweden, and the
near East. He died at Bologna, August 6, 1221, of
a summer fever, after returning from a mission to
Florence.
Of all religious orders that of St Dominic has
remained the most at one with itself. There
appear to have been no reforms, no branches
166 ROME
springing from the Dominicans. They have ever
worked together, under a discipline as sound as
that of the Society of Jesus. The dress of the
Order is white as to habit and scapular, covered by
a black cloak and hood — the cappa nigra. In Rome
the Dominicans will be found at S. Clemente (Irish),
S. Sabina, and on Monte Mario. There is also a
nursing order of English Dominican sisters in Via
Napoli. Their General lives at S. Maria Sopra
Minerva, where St Catherine of Siena, their greatest
saint, lies buried under the high altar. St Thomas
Aquinas, whom Leo XIII. loves so dearly, was a
great Dominican ; as also St Rose of Lima, the
Mystic, and St Peter Martyr.
The life of St Francis of Assisi is known to every-
one almost, certainly to everyone who has any pre-
tensions to education. In him we seem to see Christ
on earth again. The knight of Lady Poverty, he has
fascinated a world with the beauty of holiness. His
few poor brothers have multiplied till in every city of
Italy they are of all sorts and conditions of men the
most frequently met with. And even as the ideal of
St Benedict appears always to be intellectual, so the
ideal of St Francis is emotional, is, in its founder at
least, just love. To read " The Little Flowers of St
Francis " is to catch a glimpse of heaven. His rule,
approved by Pope Honorius III. in 1223, appears only
to have been accepted by those in authority because
of a supposed miracle. Pope Innocent III., who in
1210 had provisionally approved the rule, did so in
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 167
spite of the decision of the Church to create no new
order, because of a dream in which he saw a little
poor man in a brown frock supporting the Lateran
Church which was falling. St Mary of the Angels at
Assisi, given to St Francis by the Benedictines, has
since 1870 been taken from the Franciscans by a
government that is already perjured beyond any
redemption. That is not the least of its crimes.
The Franciscan Order, however, early divided into
two branches because of the severity of the original
vow of poverty. For this rule was not only applied
to the individual but to the Order itself as an Order,
so that the Franciscans could hold no property or
money either privately or in common. The two
branches into which the Order was divided were the
Observants and the Conventuals. The Observants,
with whom S. Bernardino of Siena will ever be as-
sociated, tried to keep the strict Franciscan rule of
poverty. The Conventuals compromised with the
flesh in this matter. The Observants, however, in
various countries passed under different names and
under separate government; but in 1897 Leo XIII.
re-formed them all into one Order, called the Ordo
Minorum, under which splendid and ancient name
may they long flourish.
The Cappuccini, another reform instituted by the
Observant Matteo of Urbino, are still in existence,
however. They wear the original pointed hood
supposed to have been designed by St Francis him-
self. These Cappuccini are perhaps the strictest
168 ROME
Order of the three. They are really as poor as
church mice, whom they much resemble. Even the
ornaments of their churches are without intrinsic
value, and they beg their bread. Thus we see the
First Order, at the present day, divided into three
branches — namely, Friars Minor, Cappuchins, and
Conventuals.
The Second Order, founded in 1212 by St Clare,
who loved St Francis, is for women. St Francis gave
her a Rule in 1224, confirmed in 1246 by Innocent
IV. Their rule is probably stricter than any observed
by the friars.
There is a Third Order, which consists of those
who, while living in the world, desire to conform their
lives as much as possible to the rule of St Francis.
These tertiaries, as they are called, recite every day
the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary and
the Rosary. They wear a tiny scapular under
their clothes, and are buried in the habit of the
Order.
The Friars Minor are to be found in Rome at the
Church of S. Antonio, 1 which was inaugurated
December 1887. It has been built entirely " by the
Franciscan friars of Italy, who each gave the price
of two masses weekly. There are 13,000 friars, and
about 26,000 lire were paid weekly." S. Maria in
Aracceli also belongs to them, together with S.
Sebastiano in Via Appia, S. Pietro in Montorio, S.
Francesco a Ripa, the convent of which was turned
1 See Hare, Walks in Rome, vol. ii. 82.
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 169
into a barracks by the Sardinian Government. 1 A
room is shown there in which St Francis lived.
The Conventuals are to be found at SS. Apostoli
and at S. Dorotea.
The Cappuccini are to be found at the Cappuccini
in Piazza Barberini Via Veneto.
The dress of the Franciscans is made of a coarse
woollen stuff, confined round the waist by a cord.
The Friars Minor wear a deep red-brown habit and
long cape or cloak, together with a small round hood
of the same colour, and white cord for the waist. The
Conventuals wear a black habit and short cape, a
rosary, white cord for the waist, and a priest's hat.
The Cappuccini wear a brown habit, with a long
pointed hood, a short cape reaching only just below
the waist, round which is a white cord and a hanging
rosary ; they also are, as a rule, unshaven, wearing a
long beard and moustache. The Conventuals alone
wear shoes, the Friars Minor and the Cappuccini
being practically barefoot. The Poor Clares wear a
brown habit and cloak, and a black veil ; they, too,
are practically barefoot ; around the waist is the usual
white cord.
The Order of Mount Carmel, about which, had it
not been for St Teresa, perhaps the greatest of all the
mystical saints, there would have been but little to
say, is said to follow the Rule of the prophet Elijah.
However that may be, we find a Calabrian, Berthold
by name, founding a hermitage on Mount Carmel in
1 See Hare, Walks in Rome, vol. ii. 256.
170 ROME
the twelfth century, and in 1209 the Patriarch of
Jerusalem, whose name has escaped me, gave him
a Rule that was confirmed by Pope Honorius III.
(he who approved the Rule of St Francis) in 1224.
In 1247 Pope Innocent IV. appears to have changed
the rule and re-formed the Order under the name of
Our Lady of Mount Carmel. The Order owes every-
thing to St Teresa, who, finding it in a condition of
considerable feebleness in 1562, re-formed it. It is
impossible to speak adequately of St Teresa in a few
lines ; I will therefore content myself with referring
the reader to Alban Butler's " Life," in his ' Lives of
the Saints,' or to her own works, her Autobiography,
and her ' Interior Castle.' Here it will be sufficient to
state that, excepting St Catherine of Siena, no more
profoundly reasonable and practical a woman ever
lived. It is a vulgar error to think of her as always
in an hysterical ecstasy. She destroyed the Pro-
testant reformation or revolution in Spain by her
magnificent work, and even confused her fellow-
Catholics, and more especially her confessors, by the
originality of her ideas. Her enthusiasm was genius,
it consumed everything — herself, too, at last. A pro-
found mystic, in which science she has never been
surpassed, she was the friend and counsellor of St
John of the Cross, who to some extent carried on her
work — though he was perhaps more entirely a mystic,
with less real genius. She, unlike St John, never
allowed herself to be consumed by despair and melan-
choly. Having practically revivified religion in Spain
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 171
and founded thirty-two houses for men and women,
she died, being sixty-seven years old, in 1582. She is
buried at Avila.
Her Rule is beautiful — a kind of " government by
love." Such as are sick are to " sleep in linen and
have good beds," such as are in health on straw.
Clean linen is one of the signs of her sons and
daughters, the latter it is said being allowed even a
flask of eau-de-Cologne in their cells. The dress is
a brown habit and scapular, together with a white
cloak. In Rome they are to be found at S. Maria
della Vittoria, in Via Venti Settembre, where there is
a group by Bernini, 1 representing St Teresa killed by
the Angel of Death, inordinately admired by M.
Habert in M. Zola's ' Rome.' In spite of M. Zola's
irony, however, Bernini's peculiar genius is not quite
so diseased as he suggests. One may at least admire
Bernini without compromising St Teresa. The
Carmelite nuns are found at various churches and
convents in the city.
Having now very briefly and inadequately put
before the reader a few facts regarding the Re-
ligious Orders proper, there remain to be con-
sidered still more briefly, and therefore more inade-
quately, the Sisters of Charity of all rules, the
"Clerks Regular," who include the Jesuits, and such
Canons and Friars and Congregations as the Augus-
tinians, the Trinitarians, the Passionists. and a host
1 Hare, Walks in Rome, vol. ii. 30. Mrs Jameson, Monastic Orders,
p. 421.
172 ROME
of others. The reader is possibly already utterly
confused. It is only with a certain amount of
pains that he can arrive at last at a clear under-
standing of such a multitude of religious. For it
is in the Religious Orders that we see the great-
ness, the immensity of Rome. It is probably im-
possible to say how many thousands, it may be
millions, of human beings are devoted to the cause
of Christ and the Church under the strict rule of
some greater or lesser Order. When one begins to
consider then their work in all Italy, in Spain,
in France, in Germany, even in England and
America, one is confronted by a fact too often
forgotten in England — namely, the tremendous
power of the Roman Catholic faith over the hearts
of men.
It is really to St Vincent de Paul that Europe
owes the inestimable blessing of the Sisters of
Charity, for about the year 1630 he instituted a
confraternity " of Charity, to attend all poor sick
persons in each parish ; which institute he began
in Bresse and propagated in other places ; one
called Of the Dames of the Cross for the edu-
cation of young girls, another of Dames to serve
the sick in great hospitals, as in that of Hotel
Dieu in Paris. He procured and directed the
foundation of several great hospitals, as in Paris
that of Foundlings, and that of poor old men ;
at Marseilles, the stately hospital for the galley-
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 173
slaves, who when sick are there abundantly fur-
nished with every help both corporal and spiritual."
Thus far Alban Butler. Strictly speaking the Sisters
of Charity are not Religious. They number some
30,000, and are engaged both in education and in
tending the sick. In Rome they are to be found
in the Via S. Nicola da Tolentino, in the Via
di S. Maria in Capella, and in other places. Their
dress is a blue habit with a white linen head-dress
and collar ; they carry a rosary.
In 1799 the Sisters of Charity suffered a reform
from which grew a branch called the Sisters of
St Vincent de Paul ; their dress is grey with a
white head-dress, over which is a black veil. Their
work is of a similar nature to that of the Sisters
of Charity. In Rome they have many houses, the
chief being in the Bocca della Verita.
Amongst St Vincent's immense works must be
mentioned the foundation of the Lazarists, a con-
gregation of seculars who make four vows — namely,
those of Poverty, Chastity, Stability, and Obedience.
" They devote themselves," says Alban Butler, " to
labour, to the conversion of sinners to God, and
to the training of the clergy."
The Sisters of Charity are not to be confused
with the Little Sisters of the Poor, who are a
foundation of the nineteenth century, and again
French in origin. Their dress is black, with a
hood and large cloak. In Rome they may be
174 ROME
found in Piazza S. Pietro in Vincoli, and they
are famous not only in Europe but in England
also.
There are beside these two very famous Sisterhoods
more than sixty others which are at the least rep-
resented in Rome, though in many cases their chief
work lies abroad. It is not possible even to name all
these : some are of English origin, as the Dames
Anglaises founded by Mary Ward, 1585-1603, and
the Poor Servants of the Mother of God Incarnate
who hold the Church of St George and the English
Martyrs in Piazza di Spagna, and The Little Com-
pany of Mary, who at their house in Via Castel-
fidardo receive invalid or infirm gentlewomen.
Some are French, some German, some Spanish,
some Austrian. From hearts in all the world Eome
has drawn love and devotion : it is not perhaps till
one realises the charities of the Catholic Church
that one remembers how many there are to be
sorry for.
We now come to those numerous bodies of Canons
and Friars, such as the Augustinians — canons, her-
mits, and oblates, and the Trinitarians.
The Augustinians are orders founded or said to
have been founded by St Augustine. The canons
appear to have the best claim to that honour. The
history of the hermits, however, is interesting, but
so indistinct that at the most we can be sure that
whatever their origin it was of no great account.
The authors of ' Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome '
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 175
thus very clearly sum up the known history of the
hermits : 1 —
The Augustinians or Austin Friars, although now classed
among Mendicants, are really an order of hermits. They
trace their origin to St Augustine, and to the year 388, in
Tagaste, when that Father united some friends in a house
near the church, and lived with them according to a Rule.
The canons, however, declare that Augustine merely gave
some rules for African solitaries with a view to regulating
their life, and the controversy between the canons and the
hermits as to which were genuine Augustinians had to be
silenced by Sixtus IV. It is certain, at least, that Alex-
ander IV. (following Innocent IV.) collected together the
numerous hermits scattered through Europe, and united
them under the Rule of St Augustine. In 1567 Pius V.
aggregated them with Mendicant Friars.
Their dress is a black habit with a cape pointed be-
hind, and a leathern belt around the waist ; they wear
a priest's hat.
The Trinitarians are an order of friars founded in
the twelfth century by Jean de Matha, a French-
man, for the purpose of redeeming slaves and
captives. The full name of the order is the Order
of the Holy Trinity for the Redemption of Cap-
tives. In Rome they will be found at the little
church of the Trinita in Via Condotti. Their
dress is white, with a fairly ample black cloak ; on
the breast they wear a cross, the perpendicular in
red, the horizontal in blue.
The Jesuits, the Theatines, and the Barnabites
1 Christian and Ecclesiastical Rome, part iii. p. 214.
176 ROME
are the best known of the Clerks Regular. The
Passionists, so well known in England, and one
or two other congregations out of a total of some-
thing like forty, I will briefly describe later.
The Society of Jesus, founded in 1534 by St
Ignatius of Loyola, is really the heir of the Domini-
cans, who in their turn were the heirs of the
Benedictines, in the education of Europe.
St Ignatius was born in 1491, and was the heir
to a most ancient and noble Spanish family. Martin
Luther, the arch - revolutionary of the age, was a
child of eight years old when Ignatius was born,
and so these two seem to have come into the
world for mortal combat, and the result is per-
haps still in doubt. Wounded while holding the
town of Pampeluna in Navarre in 1520, Ignatius
read the ' Lives of the Saints,' and thereupon
decided to devote his whole life to the Blessed
Virgin as her knight. After many adventures he
came to Montserrat, where he formally dedicated
himself to the Divine service. As a pilgrim thence
he came almost starved to Manresa, where he re-
mained in a convent of Dominicans for a whole
year t Thence he journeyed to Barcelona, and from
there to Italy and Rome, and eventually to Venice,
whence he set out for Palestine, arriving in Jeru-
salem in September 1523.
In 1524 he returned to Venice and Barcelona,
and with an idea of acquiring the education neces-
sary to one who would be a priest, he journeyed
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 177
to Paris, not without having suffered persecution
from the Church for his extraordinary asceticism.
He stayed in Paris for three years, finding a friend
in Peter Faber, who from being his master in
the arts becomes his disciple in religion. It was
in Paris also that he met Francis Xavier. On
the Feast of the Assumption in 1534 Ignatius
founded that Society of Jesus of which the world
has heard so much. Having determined on this,
he and his friend immediately set out for Rome,
where Paul III., in a Bull of September 27, 1540,
approved the new Society. The head of the Jesuits
is called their general, and if one examines the
Society at all closely it is as an army it appears,
in which each single personality is sacrificed so that
the machine itself may be efficient. The chief
teaching of the new order was Obedience, their
chief business hearing confessions. Unlike every
other order within the Catholic Church, they were
forbidden by their founder to wear a distinctive
dress ; they were to appear as other priests, or to
adopt the dress of the country where they might
be. As missionaries they have been marvellously
successful even in the East. Though they have
been expelled from every country in Europe at one
time or another, the vulgar prejudice against them
as teachers of the doctrine that " one may do evil
that good may come " appears to be utterly without
foundation. Yet there is much which culture and
good taste at least may bring against them. Their
M
178 ROME
learning has not availed to save them from a gross
vulgarity, and in their churches one may generally
be sure of seeing more bad taste in decoration and
music than elsewhere. As educators they are prob-
ably without equals. So long ago as the reign of
James II. in England they were sought after as
teachers even of Protestant youth. In Rome they
may be found in all their gilt and vulgar splendour
at II Gesu, and the Collegio Romano is in their
charge. Their general is to be found at Fiesole near
Florence — popularly he is known as the Black Pope.
The Theatines were founded in 1524 by the Arch-
bishop of Teata, afterwards Pope Paul IV., partly
with the object, in which they failed, of insisting on
the personal poverty of the clergy. In Rome they
may be found at the church of S. Andrea della Valle,
where is a miraculous picture of the Blessed Virgin.
The Barnabites, who are also Clerks Regular
and not a Congregation, were founded about 1533
and called after their church in Milan, which was
dedicated to St Barnabas. Their chief work is
education. Their dress is a black habit or cassock,
together with a black sash, a priest's hat, and
collar.
The Passionists are a Congregation founded by
St Paul of the Cross, who lived 1694 -1775. The
chief design of St Paul in founding this Congre-
gation was the conversion of England, for which
country he had a great love. The Passionists are
so called from the fact that one of their vows is
THE RELIGIOUS ORDERS 179
" To keep alive for ever in the hearts and minds
of the Faithful a memory of the Passion of our
Lord." They came to England in the 'Forties.
Father Dominic, who received Cardinal Newman
into the Roman Church in 1845, was a Passionist
Father. Their dress consists of a black habit and
a heavy black cloak. On the cloak, and on the left
breast, is a white heart, three nails, and the words,
" Jesu Christi Passio," crowned with a cross.
Around the waist is a belt of leather. They also
wear a rosary, sandals, and a priest's hat. In
Rome they may be found on the Ccelian Hill at
the Church of SS. Giovanni and Paolo.
Thus we have seen, in utterly inadequate fashion,
it is true, but still we have seen something of the
vast organisation of the Catholic Church. It is not
among the secular priests that we shall find the
real strength of the Church, at any rate in Italy,
but in her Religious. Such of them as I have
known personally, and always by chance, have been
simple and holy men, whose one idea was the
service of God or of His poor. Their lives are not
susceptible of the coarser joys that we experience,
taken up with life as we are and only fearful of
death. They, more simple by far, think of death
as the valley down which they must travel to meet
their Love. Is this the reason of their cheerful-
ness ? I have never in all my life met a melancholy
monk ; they all seem inspired by a great gladness,
that it may be the world does not desire to notice.
VIII.
PLAIN-SONG ON THE AVENTINE HILL.
It is curious that in the great capital of Christianity
it should be so difficult to hear good music. Coming
to Rome from London, where a great revival of
music seemed on the point of being achieved in
the English Church, it was with profound disap-
pointment that, after weeks of searching and hope
deferred, I remembered that in Rome the most
one could hope for was to avoid M. Gounod and
his erotics.
Never shall I forget the immense and futile ser-
vices at II Gesu. Lasting as they did for many
hours, decorated as they were with every sort of
meretricious furbelow that it is possible for music
to bear, they seemed to bear witness, not to the
cunning or adaptability of the Society of Jesus,
but to its unmeasured vulgarity ; for the choir of
men, to which was added a few castrati, was noisy,
and in the intervals of singing chatted and spat
without mercy; while the large and magnificent
church, hung with glass chandeliers of the most
PLAIN-SONG 181
frightful, surrounded by altars decorated with out-
rageous artificial flowers, seemed at least in keeping
with the music. And again on December 31, at
Vespers and Benediction, this immense church was
filled with people, English and American visitors
and tourists, Germans and Frenchmen, and innum-
erable Romans, who for more than three hours
listened to the efforts of two organs and a choir,
while a small army of attendants lighted hundreds
of candles all over the church. As the nearer of
the two organs was some eighty feet above the
priests, and some forty or fifty feet away, the
organ and choir were invariably half a bar or so
in front of the priest, which added to the immense
wonder of the whole musical performance.
But it is not in II Gesu alone that one is
astonished at the taste of the Romans in Church
music. At St Peter's, though it is occasionally pos-
sible to hear Palestrina and the old masters, it is
more frequently some atrocious concoction of a
modern, sung by voices that seem like splintering
glass or shrieking steel, that one hears. And on
many a night of December I have wended my way
about five o'clock down the Via Condotti to a little
poor church, just before one comes to the Corso,
named the Trinita, where children sing the magnif-
icent litany of the Blessed Virgin to an old eighteenth
century air, almost a dance measure, in which the
Virgin bows in acquiescence and in answer to each
" Ora pro nobis." The voices of the children were
182 ROME
rather rough, and the priest somewhat old and un-
certain, but in the very simplicity of the children
and the utterly poor folk who came there I found
something of that aesthetic sincerity which was a
stranger to II Gesu, and which, it may be, Bach
was the last composer to understand or feel. It
was during one of those sudden and sad evenings
of December that I became acquainted with a Roman
Catholic gentleman whom I had noticed invariably
in the same place in this little church, before a pic-
ture of the Blessed Virgin, where a slender taper
was always burning. One night, on our leaving the
church together, he courteously held back the heavy
leathern curtain for me, and introduced himself.
It seemed that he, like myself, was a lover of the
old music, and especially of Plain-song, the which
he professed himself willing to walk any distance
to hear well sung. I lamented that it seemed im-
possible to find Plain-song well or ill sung in Rome.
"Have you searched the monasteries?" said he.
I replied that I had not, as I supposed it was
necessary to be introduced. " If you will meet me
next Sunday morning," said he, " at eight o'clock,
at the bottom of the Spanish steps in the Piazza
di Spagna, you shall hear a Plain-song Mass sung
as you have probably never heard it before." I
thanked him and promised to be there.
On the following Sunday morning I was at my
post to the minute, and we set off down the Via di
Propaganda, through the Piazza di San Silvestro into
PLAIN-SONG 183
the Corso, to the Piazza Venezia, and from there to
the Capitol, which we crossed, passing down the
steps into the Via della Consolazione. The Forum,
with its fringe of churches and temples of a forgotten
religion, lay below us in the sunshine, strewn with
the immortal limbs of the old gods, while the bells
sounded from innumerable cupolas, telling us that
Christ was at that moment descended to their altars.
My friend, seeming to read my thoughts — the in-
evitable Roman thoughts that overcome the stranger
— smiled. " It was in these temples," said he, "now
so ruinous, that the Plain-song was born, or at least
grew up, coming to us Romans it may be from
Egypt, in the train of some victorious emperor, or
with the religion and priests of Isis or some other
religion ; for Plain-song is as old as the world itself
almost, and to us at least/' he said, smiling again,
"the only real music, for once having heard it, you
will forsake everything for it at last There are more
than one in the monastery to which I am taking you,
who, having become enamoured of the Plain chant,
have forsaken the world in order to devote their lives
to its study in that place where alone it can be
properly understood or studied at all, a Benedictine
monastery." As we passed the old Temple of Vesta
and came out beside Tiber, where of old the Mar-
morata had received the precious marbles of the
world, the golden-tinted blocks from Greece, and the
white rocks from the quarries of Luna, all the
strength of Republican Rome and the red years of
184 ROME
the Empire seemed to come back to me up that old
river through which Caesar himself had swam in the
depth of winter. But my companion continued, " It
is just here we must turn off, for, as you have doubt-
less already guessed, it is to Sant' Anselmo, the new
monastery on the Aventine, that we are going for
Mass."
Far above us on the hill rose the tower of the
monastery, and even as we turned up the Via Sabina
the bell began to ring. A large garden surrounds the
monastery, which rises brand new from among the
old trees of the wooded Aventine, the youngest son
of Rome, a Religious, vowed to God. Begun in
1892, Sant' Anselmo was practically finished in 1896.
It has been built by Leo XIII. as a college for
"Black Benedictines" of every nation. An Abbas
Primas, nominated by the Pope for ten years, is the
head of the college, which is entirely international,
this fact being emphasised by the appointment of
Abbe Hemptinne, a Belgian, — not an Italian, — as
Abbas Primas, After passing through the great
gates and along a short gravelled drive we came to
a shady cloister, in the midst of which was a great
marble basin in which were some gold fish. To our
left were the main buildings of the monastery, in front
of us the church. As we opened the door a brother
came forward and motioned us very courteously to-
wards a long bench set against the west wall of the
nave. The church is very broad and simple, the choir
being larger than the chancel and nave together.
PLAIN-SONG 185
Over the high altar, which seemed to be the only altar
in the church, is a great baldachino of marble. There
was no decoration of any sort about the church save
such as the architect had carved in the stone and
brick. The altar was very simple, and so soon as
Mass began six candles were lighted, and there was a
blessed absence of artificial flowers. More than any
other church in Rome it reminded one of home ; in
its simple and unadorned beauty it was more like an
English church of the seventeenth century than any-
thing I had seen in Rome. The monks, some four or
five hundred (I should say), sat in choir in the black
robe of the Order, as in a college chapel, facing north
and south. The music, which was sung in unison,
without harmony of any sort, was unaccompanied,
what appeared to be a small harmonium, somewhere
out of sight, giving the note ; otherwise the male
voice was the only instrument used. The opening
psalms were not sung, but as it were declaimed, with
a pause of a full second at the colon in each verse.
At the Gloria Patri all faced the altar, bending very
low, almost double indeed. It was admirable, this
method of chanting the psalms giving to them a kind
of beautiful monotony or eternity that suggested an
incantation. My friend and I were the only persons
present with the monks, and we remained alone
through all that matchless service.
The Kyrie was sung to an exquisite and simple
tune of the old Plain-song that changed with the
Christi eleison and again for the last three Kyrie
186 ROME
eleison. The cry of humanity seemed to have lost
something of its bitterness, to carry within itself
some assurance of being heard ; and as these hun-
dreds of men's voices, clear and limpid with some
suggestion, some tone in them never heard in the
voices of those in the world, rose in magnificent
unison, I knew that I had found it at last, the true
Plain-song, that is the elder sister to Fra Angelico's
triptyches, fulfilled with the desire to express worship
and that only. With a gracious swiftness that sug-
gested attention, the loins being girt and the mind
ready and anxious for the accomplishing of some
mystery or miracle, the service proceeded. Here
there was no elaboration of that which was already
perfectly adequate. The Gloria in Excelsis, sung to
a magnificent old tune, in a kind of antiphon between
those who were appointed as Cantors and the rest of
the college, seemed almost for the first time to be the
real song of the angels announcing to the world the
" glad tidings of great joy," the sweet advent of the
Eucharist. Amid those lights in the sunshine, that
streamed into the church, soon, ah ! soon, we too
might look for Jesus, even as the shepherds of old,
nor does the world marvel the less at our story than
at theirs.
Through the halt-open door came the sound of a
fountain, that seemed to rise with the irresistible
exaltation of the music. " Quoniam tu solus sanctus :
tu solus Dominus : tu solus altissimus, Jesu Christo
cum sancto spiritu in Gloria Dei Patris. Amen."
PLAIN-SONG 187
Ah ! after the certainty of that chant there was
no need of those indecent and prolonged repetitions
that have made the liturgy a kind of ridiculous non-
sense verse, a kind of intricate jugglery with words.
Sung straight through, certain from the beginning
of its message, it was as though faith had suddenly
become incarnate in the heart, as though the music
had retained for the words the immortality that had
been stolen from them by the scepticism of bad
music and musicians that have loved many women.
Far beyond the music of love, with its entrancing
and sensuous passion, beyond the dear dreams of
Mozart, and the profound trouble and discontent
of Beethoven, in a region of which the tinselled
music of Gounod never dreamed, the Plain - song,
the music of worship, has preserved the very essence
of Christianity, its humility, its faith, its immortal
claim on the heart and the intelligence.
The Credo, sung by all in unison, became not
a mere statement of more or less doubtful facts
but a very hymn of triumph, not without joy. It
passed as swiftly as a procession gay with banners
and the implements of war, displayed for their
splendour and their beauty. One stood instinct-
ively all the while with a kind of eagerness, so
real was this magnificent and old story become
under the inspiration of the life-giving chant, reach-
ing at last a homely and perfect assurance almost,
as at the mention of the name of one's birthplace
in a far land. " Et unam sanctam Catholicam et
188 ROME
Apostolicam Ecclesiam. Confiteor unum baptisma
in remissionem peccatorum. Et expecto resurrec-
tionem mortuorum et vitam venturi saeculi. Amen."
What a solemn character, not without a kind of
joy, a kind of ecstasy, has the Plain chant ! Those
"discreet embraces," that are given at the Com-
munion, seem perfectly in place, some new kind of
Love having suddenly been born into the world, and
the music has spoken to us even in its most profound
rhapsody of thanksgiving. The Agnus Dei, sung to
the Plain chant, seems no mere heartfelt petition, but
the very ecstatic song of the resurrection. What the
later musicians, yes, even Palestrina and Vittoria,
have made of the liturgy is something very different
from that most precious commemoration of Love
concealed and preserved in the Plain - song. And
while all the world has followed the lighter and more
sensuous tunes, the sons of St Benedict, scholars as
they are, have been content with the beauty that is
older than their mighty founder, that has for ages,
it may be ere Christ came to save the world,
captured the hearts of men for God. And we too,
who desire not a fair thing, but the fairest of all, are
content that the Jesuits should draw thousands and
tens of thousands by the vulgarity that appeals so
strongly to multitudes, so long as there is a refuge
in the Benedictine abbeys of the world, and not
least on the Aventine Hill.
"Lucus Aventino suberat niger ilicis umbra
Quo posses viso dicere, Numen inest."
IX.
AT NAPLES.
IN one gift Naples is supreme over all the cities of
Italy, nay, over all the cities of the world, with-
out the exception even of Madrid, namely, in noise.
To me, at least, Naples is full of terror and indescrib-
able horror or disgust. It is not merely the noise,
which to some extent at least may be avoided, but a
kind of animalism I find in her, that seems to have
destroyed the spirit or driven it mad. Civilisation
appears to have been swept away suddenly in some
terrible disaster, and man finds himself with a number
of his mechanical contrivances back in the horror
of a strange unfortunate age in which his soul was
heavy with chains.
Of her famous Museum the whole world has ever
been envious. Bronzes, mosaics, statues, sculpture :
in each department her treasures are almost innumer-
able. Within these solemn corridors Madame Venus
Kallipyge dwells, and receives her admirers ; the
bronzes and frescoes of Pompeii have been collected
here in bewildering abundance. The British Consul,
igo NAPLES
Mr E. Neville Rolfe, has edited and translated * A
Complete Handbook to the Naples Museum,' from
the original work by Signor Domenico Monaco.
No more adequate guide exists. The traveller can-
not do better than buy it. The price is but three
francs. But for the tourist, who differs considerably
from the traveller, there is little to see in Naples
when once he has raced through the museum. For
him remain the long excursions — which are as com-
fortable as may be with the aid of Messrs Cook —
to Pompeii, to Vesuvius, to Sorrento, to Capri and
Castellammare, and, farther yet, to Amalfi and
Salerno and the Temples at Psestum, on the south-
east ; while on the north - west are Pozzuoli and
Cumae and Baiae and the great Cape of Misenum.
Much the most interesting excursions are those to
Pompeii and to Paestum ; much the most beautiful
is that to Castellammare by train, with the drive
to Sorrento. All these places the traveller will visit
at his leisure ; but the tourist, goaded on by time
and his inexorable desire, must plan prodigiously
and economise sleep. A few suggestions as to the
best way to negotiate a peculiarly difficult piece of
country may not be out of place in a work so un-
practical as this.
So long as Naples itself remains unseen, live in
Naples, if possible in one of the hotels above the
city on the Corso Vittorio Emanuele. When the
traveller is tired of Naples, before he makes any of
the longer excursions, and before he has been to
NAPLES 191
Pompeii more than once, but after he has visited
Pozzuoli, Cumse, and Baiss, let him go either to
Castellammare, where there is a good hotel — Hotel
Quisisana — or to Sorrento, to which he must drive
from Castellammare. From either of these places
he will find it easier, pleasanter, and less fatiguing
to visit Pompeii and Capri than from Naples, and
he will be able to enjoy at his leisure the delight-
ful country. From Castellammare or Sorrento he
should proceed to Salerno, from which place Amalfi
and Paestum may be most easily visited. The drive
from Salerno to Amalfi is an especially splendid piece
of engineering, and should please the Englishman;
while the journey, partly by train, from Salerno to
Paestum is nothing compared with the journey from
Naples to Paestum and back in one day. Since it is
impossible to sleep at Psestum on account of fever,
this extremely tiring journey is usually undertaken.
To return now to Naples herself. Her beauty,
chiefly of situation, has from the beginning been
praised by the poets, and has passed into a common-
place. From Virgil, who sings —
" Ilia Vifgilium me tempore dulcis alebat
Parthenope, studiis florentem ignobilis oti,"
to the innumerable song-writers whose sweet unin-
telligible words strike on the ear of the traveller
everywhere in the country round Naples and in the
city herself, all have conspired together to pronounce
Naples beautiful in every language of the world. Yet
Naples herself, to one traveller at least, is not beauti-
ig 2 NAPLES
fill, save perhaps from one point of view. It is her
situation on a noble and magnificent bay, under a soft
and ineffable sky, on the shores of the midland sea,
that has brought to her her fame. And even as she is
to be seen from the sea in early morning, when she is
lovely indeed, I protest Genoa is not less beautiful.
Circumstances, however, have conspired to throw
over Naples a mantle of romance. Vesuvius guards
her with his artillery ; many Caesars have slept
beside her. So to the world that has not seen her
she remains the ever enchanting mistress, compel-
ling the longing thoughts of strangers, a true Siren,
from whom perhaps we shall receive not Death but
Disillusion. Yet even to-day
" Semiputata tibi frondosa vitis in ulmo est,"
and we, too, can perhaps catch the spirit of the south
wind with Virgil when he says —
" Atque equidem, extremo ni jam sub fine laborum
Vela traham, et terris festinem advertere proram ,
Forsitan et pingues hortos quae cura colendi
Ornaret, canerem, biferique rosaria Paesti."
The twice blossoming roses of Paestum — ah! they
are gone with the years : no roses bloom now beside
the lonely and desolate temples of that eternal but
forgotten religion ; only in the mind of a solitary
traveller they bloom across the plain as never be-
fore, golden and red and white.
But I think in all Naples the chiefest sight is the
Neapolitans. One is never tired of watching them
THE NEAPOLITANS 193
either in the Toledo or on Santa Lucia. Gay and
full of spirit, they are the perfect example of the
happiness to be found in sunshine and blue sky.
Poor they not seldom are beyond our dreams, yet never
with our melancholy. They take no thought for the
morrow while it is to-day. Enough for them that
the Saints are still in heaven, and not yet the Padre
Eterno has bidden themselves return from the earth.
Even their own misfortunes will amuse them, they
will laugh while they watch themselves starve. They
will sing or play the mandolin for you while they
know not where they will sleep or sup. Their betters
are like to them. After the Races they will drive in
the Toledo with every sort of magnificence, their
carriages flaming with their arms and crests, their
servants before and sometimes behind too, themselves
covered with jewels, and it may very well be without
a shirt on their backs or a soldo in their purses.
They will sacrifice everything to outdo one another
in display, they will starve themselves for a week
in order to be envied on the eighth day. Their
cruelty to their beasts has, I think, been exaggerated,
and is at any rate in many cases only an exuberance
of spirits. They are, however, utterly without mercy,
even to their favourite Saints, whom they will curse
as heartily as they will bless, with as great a con-
tempt as at another time reverence. Be sure they
will cheat you if they can, either with bad money
or by sharp practice. Trust none further than you
can see him, and not so far if you can help it. They
N
194 NAPLES
are not greater gamblers than the English, I think,
but they are as great with less excuse. The Govern-
ment lottery, which is more flourishing in Naples
than elsewhere, is only another example of the ridicu-
lous venality of the Italian Government. The Govern-
ment benefits to the extent of many millions a year
from this institution — in fact, without it it is doubt-
ful that the State could be carried on. That they
speak among themselves more by signs than by
words is a commonplace that is scarcely true. It
is not that they use fewer words — far from it — but
that they use more gesticulation. Less civilised than
ourselves perhaps, the Neapolitan is at least never
vulgar in our fashion. He may be a villain, but he
is a courteous one ; he may be a thief, but he steals
politely ; he may murder you for much less than a lira,
but he does it with perfect grace. Even his curses
sound magnificent. Altogether he is not to be de-
spised. Yet his brother Italians do despise him
heartily — chiefly because he is not industrious. Of
all Italians he is the only one who is not, and curious
as it may seem, in spite of the bad government and
hideous tyranny under the late Bourbon Kingdom
of the Two Sicilies, he is the very person who most
ardently desires the return of the old kings.
In art he has never been very great — most of that
which he possesses he has found or stolen or bought.
His churches are scarcely worth a visit, his picture-
gallery is rich with the works of alien masters.
Nature having given him so much natural beauty
BALE 195
seems to have denied him the creative gift. Thus
most of his bronzes and statues and frescoes and
mosaics she has given him out of her bosom, where
they lay hid for hundreds of years. Of these I
do not think the Neapolitan proud; he is aware of
them as his inalienable right, and thinks more fre-
quently of them than the Londoner does of his per-
haps greater treasures in the British Museum. The
traveller will decide at once that the Museum and
Pompeii are the two most valuable things for him to
study. When masterpieces of ancient sculpture are
to be seen it is stupid to waste time, precious even to
the leisured traveller, over Neapolitan work in the
churches and squares.
One must drive to Baias, if one would see it, and
indeed it is worth seeing. It was during a visit to the
so - called Temple of Diana there that I saw some
extremely ugly fat old women, pathetically avaricious,
dance the Tarantella. Dance, do I say ? Nay,
waddle, would better express their ridiculous evolu-
tions. In the temple of the chaste and perfect
goddess, the sweet and mighty huntress, I, half in
tears, watched these fat and filthy peasants pass
through the figures of their dance. Indeed, indeed,
she had fallen ! not before the rude passion of St
Paul, nor before the Christian centuries and their
new ideal and their splendour, not till now was she
utterly cast out, Diana, the huntress of men. Sud-
denly as I looked on this disgusting spectacle a great
hound peered into the cavernous temple from the
i 9 6 NAPLES
broad daylight, and divining — it must have been so —
my misery, insinuated his great cold nose into my
hand. We alone in all the forgetful world remem-
bered splendid days.
At Cumse, it is necessary not to miss the charm-
ing little amphitheatre dug out of the turf, now
green with vines ; in its classic and homely use-
fulness it is immortal. All this country is immortal ;
passages forgotten since boyhood from Virgil and
Lucretius spring to the lips almost at every step.
From the road near Monte Nuovo there is a splendid
view of the desolate Lake Avernus.
From the left part of this [(the Lucrine Lake) says
Evelyn] we walked to the Lake of Avernus, of a round
form and totally environed with mountains. This lake was
famed by the poet for the gates of hell by which ^Eneas
made his descent, and where they sacrificed to Pluto
and the Manes. The waters are of a remarkable black
colour, but I tasted of them without danger ; hence they
fain that the river Styx has its source. . . . Opposite to
this, having now lighted our torches, we enter a vast cave,
in which, having gone about two hundred paces, we pass
a narrow entry which leads us into a room of about ten
paces long. . . . Here is a short cell, or rather niche, cut
out of the solid rock, somewhat resembling a couch, in
which they report that the Sybilla lay and uttered her
oracles, but it is supposed by most to have been a bath
only.
That was written nearly three hundred years ago,
but for all the change to be seen it might have
been written yesterday. In truth, whether or no
AMALFI 197
old Hades still guards his gates, this is even a
somewhat melancholy excursion especially to him
who has read his Virgil. The nature of the country —
volcanic and gloomy, the still and desolate lake, the
ruins everywhere around one, the spare population
after the crowding and noise of Naples, affect one
to melancholy, while if the sky is smiling the road
is deep with dust, and if the sky is cloudy the
gloominess is but deepened.
On the other side of Naples all is different.
Sorrento is if possible more delightful than Castel-
lammare. A summer spent in these places is charm-
ing, the heat is not usually oppressive, and the sea
is ever at hand to cool and refresh. There is but
little more sightseeing to be done, but every turn
of the road, every whisper of wind, every shiver of
the olive trees, the very silence in the sunshine, is
pregnant with a kind of history, a kind of joyful yet
sad memory of a departed world.
At Amain, in the lovely old Capuchin monastery,
now an hotel, one is merely consumed with happi-
ness. It is as though one had suddenly been born
into a new world that he had but dimly perceived
before in the dreams of his youth. Driving to
Amain, perhaps from Vietri, one comes by one of
"the loveliest pieces of coast scenery in Italy. Its
only rivals are the roads from Castellammare to
Sorrento, from Genoa to Sestri, and from Nice to
Mentone." Civilisations and histories lie deep upon
this shore, unfathomably deep for the most part.
ig8 NAPLES
It is not easy [says J. A. Symonds] to imagine the time
when Amalfi and Atrani were one town with docks and
arsenais and harbourage for their associated fleets, and
when these little communities were second in importance
to no naval power of Christian Europe. The Byzantine
Empire lost its hold on Italy during the eighth century,
and after this time the history of Calabria is mainly con-
cerned with the republics of Naples and Amalfi, their con-
flict with the Lombard Dukes of Benevento, their opposi-
tion to the Saracens, and their final subjugation by the
Norman conquerors of Sicily. Between the year 839 a.d.,
when Amalfi freed itself from the control of Naples and the
yoke of Benevento, and the year 1101, when Roger of
Hauteville incorporated the republic in his kingdom of the
Two Sicilies, this city was the foremost naval and commercial
port of Italy.
It is not easy to realise it, for how are the mighty
fallen! To-day Amalfi is but a village on the sea-
coast, precipitous, forgotten. She who was the
Athens of the middle age, so that " her scholars in
the darkest depths of the dark ages owned and
prized a famous copy of the Pandects of Justinian,
and her gold coinage of Tari formed the standard
currency before the Florentines had stamped the
Lily upon the Tuscan florin; and her seamen de-
served the fame of having first used, if they did
not actually invent, the compass."
The Hotel Cappuccini at Amalfi, where Signor
Vozzi so cheerfully dispenses his hospitality, has
since the thirteenth century been in the posses-
sion of the Capuchin Friars. Alas! united Italy,
P^STUM 199
thinking she can dispense with such humble folk,
has turned them out of their home of seven cen-
turies, and converted it into an hotel for the
traveller. Down its corridors immense congrega-
tions of friars, still disputing with us as intruders,
seem to pass. In the refectory, where now the
unconscious tourist dines cheerfully, they in old
times ate in silence, listening to the words of
St Francis and St Augustine or Jesus of Nazareth.
It is a strange fate that has befallen, yet by
no means a peculiar one : many are the monasteries
in Italy that have been put to far baser uses, of
which let Perugia and Assisi speak, than that of
an hotel for the foreigner.
Of Paestum there is but little to be said. He
who has once set eyes upon those majestic temples,
splendid in their ruin and their desolation, is
bereft of words concerning them to praise them.
No grander sight is to be found in this our world.
In the immense silence they seem like the very
spirits of their gods scorning us and our little
day, secure in their nobility. On no account, how-
ever great the pains, must the traveller miss this
vision of sadness and splendour. In contemplating
these desolate ruins Swinburne's words are often
in the mind : —
" I have lived long enough, having found one thing — that love
hath an end."
At Salerno there is but little either to do or
to see. It is of dull places the dullest, yet it is
200 NAPLES
not without its own beauty, in spite of guide-
books. The cathedral, in defiance of its matchless
acrobatics in style, has a kind of loveliness, and,
as I have said, and the guide - books before me,
it is an excellent centre from which to visit Paes-
tum and Amalfi.
There remains Pompeii. Imagine to yourself
Bournemouth, or even Margate, buried, in all the
splendour of our civilisation, under the ashes of a
volcano. Forget the immense catastrophe if you
will, and think only of the result. Nearly two
thousand years hence certain men and governments
excavate Margate (or it may be Bournemouth) from
her ashes. Well, will they wonder, think you ?
Will they find priceless bronzes and statues and
pictures lovely with vermilion and gold, the luxuries
of a great civilisation that reached even to such
a place as Margate, not without splendour and
beauty? I think not. Yet Pompeii was even less
than Margate. No great or rich men lived there;
it was not Baise nor Cumae, nor Caesar's palace
on Capri. A mere little provincial town by the
sea-side ; yet what treasures has she not kept safe
for us through all the hurly-burly of the Christian
years of war and horror! So far had their civil-
isation fulfilled its purpose, so much the people
loved beauty. Perhaps we have achieved another
victory. 1
1 Mr Neville Rolfe has written a delightful and masterly book on
Pompeii which the traveller should possess.
THE AQUARIUM 201
Such, reader, is your prospect around Naples.
Go, see, think your own thoughts, and be not led
by the nose by the guide, either the German or
another ; consult him if you will, but I pray you
think for yourself. And so back to Naples; and
it may well be that I have left the most wonder-
ful sight in that noisy city to the last. I mean
the Aquarium. The Aquarium, say you ? Yes,
the Aquarium. There is nothing like it in the
world. Fishes — but fishes ! Go, see them under
the sea. Devil-fish such as Victor Hugo wrote
of; fish that are half vegetable, half fish. Beauti-
ful fishes, ugly fishes, fishes that make you tremble,
and fishes that make you smile. There is nothing
like the Aquarium on a wet day ; one's only re-
gret is that on leaving Naples one has to leave
it behind. I pray you on no account to miss the
Aquarium from your programme.
X.
AT PERUGIA.
PERUGIA is the queen of all hill cities. She
does not belie the richness of her name.
Within her palaces is some of the softest and sweet-
est work of Perugino, within her Cathedral one of
the most lovely shrines of the Blessed Virgin, She
sits enthroned upon the Apennine, and her prospect
is of a thousand hills and valleys. At her feet St
Francis lived and sang along the byways, and died
while the crested larks sang his requiem. Nor has
she been slow to defend her liberty and her beauty.
In her history live some of the fiercest spirits of the
world; not seldom have her streets been red with
blood, not easily have the tyrants conquered her.
From Fonte Braccio and the Baglioni to the latest
Popes, her lovers have in the end striven to take her
life, lest she should slay them. So far as she could
see within that noble and magnificent horizon there
was none like her, none. Equal in glory with her
only rivals — the sun, the moon, and the hills — she
stands even to-day, fierce and impregnable in a world
QUEEN OF HILL CITIES 203
of which she is scornful. A mile away the levelling
railway passes unheeded, perhaps a little fearful of
her aspect. Nor has she made overtures to progress ;
it is only painfully and after much labour that one
comes to her from the less proud and less isolated
cities.
And to-day is she not more terrible — more to be
pitied in her pride and her ruin than ever before ?
Down the long corridors of her monasteries an alien
army tramps. Her countenance is haggard and
ruinous, her soul shattered under the hoofs of the
modern satyr she pretends not to see. She greets
the sunrise now perhaps as something less than an
equal, she is sometimes ashamed under the soft sky.
For in spite of all her pride and glory and spirit
and rage, she too in her soul, that, ah ! once upon a
time, was free, loved her God, and did not disdain to
pray to her beautiful and simple Madonnina, nor to
tell all Italy with a sweetness and a love beyond
any other the story of the life and death of Jesus
Christ.
I think, indeed, as to-day she looks over her hills,
and some thought comes to her perhaps on the shriek
of the engine's whistle of that mighty and material
world that never thinks of her for a moment, that
disregards her utterly, into whose counsels she is too
old and too feeble to enter, that the ruin of her face,
that was once so noble, is rather wrought out from
within than the work of those who possessed her,
not with love, but with lust and fury. Yet in the
204 PERUGIA
night, under a few stars, I have surprised something
of the old expression upon her face : thoughts of
the old days of pride and liberty and beauty and
vision, that have risen to her head with the mist from
the valleys — that come to her sleeping, as dreams.
It was then for a moment I seemed to remember all
her old renown, to be astonished at her splendour,
and to understand her tragedy. The implacable
night, on whose breast shone a few splendid jewels,
had burned up the trumpery crimes of the last cen-
tury, and there remained the old ineradicable beauty
of body and spirit. I watched her through the night,
the memories chasing one another across her sleeping
bastions, and with the dawn I again beheld her ruin
and her despair, the reality of her degradation.
• •••••••
It is to Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, whose pictures lend a
spirit of antique cheerfulness to the Pinacoteca be-
yond anything of the sort to be found in the some-
what cloying sweetness of Perugino, that I would
suggest the traveller should turn his attention. For
Fiorenzo appears, almost beyond his master Gozzoli
or Bonfigli, to have caught in his canvasses the Spirit
of the fifteenth century, not so much in a new man-
ner, as objectively, seen as though she were a stranger
in Florence or even Perugia into whose fierce and
rugged streets she trips a vision of new beauty. In
that series of eight pictures of scenes in the life of
San Bernardino of Siena, a new elegance transforming
the old religion, almost certainly aiding it profoundly
FIORENZO DI LORENZO 205
in its encounter with the new spirit, seems to
have come into the Piazza and the streets of the
old warrior city — something infinitely more subtle
and perhaps more sincere than the sentiment of
Perugino.
There is but little to tell of Fiorenzo himself.
Born between 1440 and 1445, he appears to have
lived to a great age, and whether he was the pupil
of Benozzo Gozzoli or of Bonfigli, whose noble work
hangs beside his to-day, or of both, he was as it were
the realist of a very fortunate age — altogether de-
lightful at anyrate for us who are only entirely satis-
fied by a man like Perugino in his forerunners or his
pupils. " Fiorenzo's work is in painting not unlike
Crashaw's work in poetry, doubtless a mirror of
the time — elegant, charming, and profoundly sincere.
His young men, slender and lovely, magnificently
dressed, with a dainty fastidiousness and sumptuous
elegance, gather together or swagger across his can-
vasses with all the sweetness, the vanity, the confidence
of ideal youth. It is always necessary to remind us
that they are but the attendants of a great Saint who
is busied with a miracle. What are miracles to
them or to us ! We care for them for themselves,
and are willing to forget San Bernardino. In one
picture of this series of events in the life of the
saint, in which a hound gazes out of the picture,
there are two youths who, even in their obvious sur-
prise and satisfaction at the miracle they are watch-
ing, never forget the world and their joy of it for a
206 PERUGIA
moment, — they are but typical of the painter's work.
In the same picture is a figure of a kneeling woman,
perhaps the wife or mistress of the injured man, in
whom we see, perhaps, some reminiscence of the
Magdalen before the cross in many an early picture
by Fra Angelico or another. The curious rocks
towering above their own natural arches show us
for a moment a vision of the far later dreams in
landscape of Lionardo, in their curious shapes, their
stalactites, their mysterious beauty. One is aston-
ished to find so curious an arbour just outside a
palace — or a monastery, is it ? — that rises magnificent
with marble and brick to the left of the picture. Are
these paintings really concerned with the miracles of
San Bernardino of Siena or with the most magnif-
icent gentlemen Oddi and Baglioni of Perugia ?
How indifferent are these youths to the work of
the good saint ! And so this effort of flattery or
realism, softened and made precious by the years,
comes to us to-day a very vision of ourselves perhaps
as we were three hundred years ago. In spite of the
beauty of Fiorenzo's Adoration of the Shepherds,
where Christ lies among His brethren the Flowers,
whilst in the distance shepherds still watch their
flocks, angels still sing in heaven, as indeed it befell,
it is to these pictures of the fifteenth century in its
dainty vanity and proud elegance we return, charmed
in a new way by the reality, the sincerity of the
artist, and even in his religious pictures he reminds
us of such homely, real, natural things as flowers. In
IN SAN LORENZO 207
his Adoration one is charmed not so much by the
shepherds themselves, so infinitely less real to us than
in Murillo's picture in the Vatican, as by the flowers,
that exquisite fluffy head of dandelion run to seed,
the little wild hyacinths and bluebells — the vision of
the unheeding world in the distance. In all Perugia
there is nothing more delightful than his pictures
of a world that has forgotten for a moment that it
is only reprieved from death.
Turning from a world that Fiorenzo seems to have
found so proud, so pleasant, and so confident, it is
in the Cathedral that the counterpart, the reverse of
his vision maybe seen. •' War and indifference have
made San Lorenzo almost human in aspect. "
It is here, in the warmth and security that always
in some way seem absent from the city itself,
enshrined in the Cappella del Santo Anello, that
Perugia has placed her most precious possession, the
wedding ring of the Blessed Virgin. France still
holds Perugia's picture of the Sposalizio, which
Napoleon stole — it is but a copy we see in its
place ; a kind of divine reprisal, one may believe,
for Messer Winterio di Magonza " piously stole " the
wedding ring of the Blessed Virgin from Chiusi
towards the end of the fifteenth century. One is
privileged to behold so magnificent a relic in the
blessed month of May from daylight to nightfall.
The shrine, where in its glorious casket of silver
the holy ring reposes, is lighted by innumerable
candles, and suddenly, in the dazzling soft light one
2 o8 PERUGIA
sees a shimmer of little conflicting colours aglow, a
burning point of fire. The ring is of some strange
cornelian or agate, and semi-transparent and pale
as a flame. Some have described it as white, some
as blue, some as yellow, some as red. Goldoni
in his Memoirs says it depends upon the heart of
him who approaches it what colour it takes.
There is also the famous picture of Madonna delle
Grazie to cheer the traveller. No sweeter vision of
Our Lady will he ever see, till in heaven he shall
perhaps behold her as she is. With hands raised
she seems to deprecate our prayers and to bless us.
Innumerable trifles, silver hearts, and invisible thank-
fulness surround the altar of a " miraculous" picture,
in which even the stern Protestant cannot but find
at least a miracle of beauty. Perugino, it is said,
sought his inspiration here, and a hundred galleries
witness that he was heard indeed. It was to her one
day as I knelt that I heard an old priest, to whom,
after all, the service of the sanctuary, seeing that he
was very old, must perhaps have lost some of its
enchantment, whisper, " Ecce ancilla Domini."
It is delightful to spend many weeks of summer
in Perugia. Miss Margaret Symonds and Miss Janet
Duff have made for the leisured traveller, at least, a
delightful companion in * The Story of Perugia,'
published by Messrs Dent in their " Medieval Towns
Series." Mr J. A. Symonds in his 'Sketches in
Italy,' gives us a wonderful picture of Perugia in
the grip of the Baglioni. It is with such writers one
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PERUGIA 209
desires to pass unending days in the old streets and
churches, and on the everlasting hills. Regardless
of modernity, since to the seeing eye there is but
the thin haze of scarce two hundred thousand sunsets
between our poor day and theirs.
o
XI.
AT ASSISI.
IN thinking of St Francis, and it is the inevitable
joy of the traveller to be able at Assisi to
think of nothing else, one is compelled as with no
other saint to think of him as a human being,
almost perfect in many ways, of which cheerfulness
is not the least, but always very human beside the
figures of other it may be less perfect but more terrible
saints. M. Paul Sabatier, a French Protestant, has
devoted himself during many years to the study of
the life of the little poor man of Assisi, gradually
making clear for us those things which were hidden
and obscure, throwing a new light on a life of
peculiar perfection, so that he seems to suggest
that under all the beauty and sweetness that have
led men to think of him as the imitation of Christ,
wholly compelled and transformed by it, there lies
the revolutionary, the progressive reformer, intent
on his own freedom of spirit and the liberty of the
hearts of men. And however we may view so new a
reading of the parable of St Francis's life, we are
ST FRANCIS 211
from the first grateful for the exquisite and loving
care that M. Sabatier, profound and learned, yet
never without a transforming and illuminating love,
has bestowed upon this saint of an alien religion.
But for the traveller, who without undue haste
would see Assisi and learn something of a life that
men have counted so precious, there is no book so
perfect as * The Little Flowers,' the ' Fioretti,' of
St Francis himself.
Born at Assisi in 1182, the son of wealthy parents,
St Francis was named Giovanni at the font, and it
was only on his father's return from a journey,
possibly to Lyons to sell cloth or silk, that he was
renamed by him " II Francesco," the little French-
man. Educated by his father, not only as became
a merchant but to some extent as became a fine
gentleman, Francis appears first to have turned
his thoughts towards heaven from a world that he
ever found gay, after a long illness. It is from this
time that we find him with " no relish but for solitude
and prayer." And it was one day in St Damian's
Church, without the walls of Assisi, that kneeling
before a crucifix he hears a voice, that voice which
creeps into the lives of all the saints as that mighty
and marvellous river winds through the pictures of
Lionardo, saying thrice over, " Francis, go and repair
my house which thou seest falling " ; for even then the
church was very old and frail, haunted by innumer-
able unavailing prayers and unworthy petitions. And
coming home he, without thought of evil, over-
212 ASSISI
whelmed by that implacable voice, "took a horse-
load of cloth out of his father's warehouse and sold
it, together with the horse," at Foligno, a town some
twelve miles from Assisi. So he came back to St
Damian's Church with the money, which he offered
to the priest who, however, refused it, laying it on
the window-sill ; but the priest, though old and poor,
seems to have seen something divine in the young
man after all, for he permitted him to stay with him
and loved him. But Peter Bernardon, the father of
Francis, came to St Damian's Church angry because
of the loss of his cloth and of his horse, but finding
the money laid on the widow-sill he grew calmer,
though he did not forbear to denounce his son as a
madman, in which the townspeople appear to have
agreed with him. And eventually Francis having
been seen in the streets in rags, Peter Bernardon
took him home and locked him up, but his mother
set him free when his father was gone. Thus the
story of St Francis begins with a not unusual touch
of everyday humour, none the less charming on that
account, since the saints, as a rule, early put humour
away from them, with life.
St Francis, freed by the love of his mother, went
to St Damian's, where, after a time, his father
followed him and demanded that either he should
return home or forego his inheritance. Before the
Bishop, who, as well may be, was astonished no
less at the severity of the father than at the eager-
ness of the son for poverty, and appears therefore
ST FRANCIS 213
to have hesitated, St Francis, impatient of delay,
" stripped himself of his clothes and gave them to
his father, saying cheerfully and meekly, ' Hitherto
I have called you father on earth, but now I say
with more confidence Paternoster qui es in ccelis, in
whom I place all my hope and treasure.' " The
good Bishop, somewhat overcome by the remarkable
actions and fervour of the youth, and for the sake
of Lady Modesty, gave Francis his cloak for the
moment, and later procured that of his servant for
him, which Francis signed in chalk with the Holy
Cross and cheerfully accepted as his first alms.
Thus St Francis renounced the world and set out
for heaven, being about twenty-five years old.
St Francis now began to beg money to repair St
Damian's, and having collected a little, he with his
own hands helped to carry the stones, and so repaired
the church. He then went to La Porziuncula, a little
chapel belonging to the Benedictines of Subiaco, at
that time nearly a mile from Assisi, but now to be
found within Santa Maria degli Angeli, that has been
built around it. When St Francis came to it on that
morning in 1207 he found it in an utterly ruinous
condition, almost unfit either for service or dwelling.
He immediately set himself to repair it, which he did
before the year was out. To-day over the magnifi-
cent church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, built by
Vignola, and begun in 1569, to be restored after an
earthquake by Poletti in 1832, is the vision of St
Francis when he heard that voice speak for the second
214 ASSISI
time, " Take nothing for your journey, neither staves
nor scrip, neither bread, neither money ; neither have
two coats apiece." And it was this one coat, girt
with a rough cord, that in the next year, 1208, he
gave to his disciples as their habit, when first Ber-
nard, a rich tradesman of Assisi, and then Peter, a
canon of the Cathedral of Assisi, and then Brother
Giles, " a person of great simplicity and virtue,"
joined him as his brethren in his cell at Porziuncula.
So he went to Rome in 1209, and "obtained a
verbal approbation of his Order " from Innocent
III. It seems to have been a vision the Pope had
of St Francis propping up the Lateran Church, which
was about to fall, that convinced him of the necessity
of approving this new little Order of perfection. It is,
however, curious that the same story is told of St
Dominic, of whom the Pope had a similar vision
scarcely five years later, that convinced him of the
necessity for that approbation also. St Francis had
now twelve disciples. His Rule was one of great sim-
plicity: it included obedience, chastity, and poverty,
and the greatest of these was, I think, Lady Poverty.
Not only individually must the Franciscans hold no
possessions, but in common also it was unlawful for
them to possess anything whatever. St Dominic, in
an encounter with St Francis, lays especial stress on
this point. For having desired to take thought for
the morrow, which St Francis forbade, and having at
last seen, as it were, by a miracle that St Francis was
right, " coming before him, he knelt down and humbly
ST FRANCIS 215
told his fault, and added : ' Of a truth God hath
especial care of these holy poor little ones, and I
knew it not ; and from now henceforth I promise to
observe the Holy Gospel poverty, and in the name of
God I curse all the brothers of my Order who in the
said Order shall presume to hold property.' "
To understand the spirit of this man, — so like to
Christ as to have seemed almost a re-incarnation of
Him, so that legend tells us he was born in a stable,
as was our Lord, and other things too they had in
common, — is to possess oneself of one of the most
beautiful things in the world. His body, we are told,
he called brother Ass, because it must bear great
burdens and be beaten, and rest but of necessity.
Everything, and every sort of animal in the world
were to him brethren or sisters. Thus the sun, the
moon, and the stars, the fishes, the birds, and the
flowers, are, as it were, only perhaps more attentive
members than ourselves of the family of God. A
profound humanist in the best sense of that term, he
in that rough and rude age had in more than one way,
as it were, anticipated the Renaissance. " Know,
dear brother," says he to his companion, "that cour-
tesy is one of the qualities of God Himself, who of
His courtesy giveth His sun and His rain to the just
and the unjust: and courtesy is the sister of charity,
the which quencheth hate and keepeth love alive."
In March 1212 St Francis met Clare, the daughter
of Phavorino Sciffo, a knight of noble family, she
having run from home to Porziuncula, where St
216 ASSISI
Francis dwelt with his brothers. He met her at the
door of the church of St Mary, and together with his
brethren began to sing " Veni Creator." Before the
high altar St Francis gave her the penitential habit,
and there being as yet no Franciscan nunnery, he
sent her to the " Benedictine nunnery of St Paul.
The Poor Clares date from this epoch the foundation
of their Order." In 1215 St Francis and St Dominic
met in Rome and loved one another. In 1219 was
held at La Porziuncula the great chapter " called of
Matts," because being very numerous it was impos-
sible to find a building in which it might assemble,
so tents and booths were set up in the fields. So
great had the order grown that it is said more than
5000 friars came to this general chapter.
St Clare, who is in many ways the most important
figure in the order next to St Francis, was the sister
of St Damian. One invariably pictures her, poor
little saint as she is, on her knees at the feet of St
Francis. Many lovely idylls are woven between
them in the pages of the ' Fioretti,' as " How St
Clare, being sick, was miraculously carried on the
night of Christmas Eve to the church of St Francis
and there heard the Office," and " How St Clare ate
with St Francis and the brothers his companions in
St Mary of the Angels," which runs as follows, as
translated by Mr T W. Taylor • —
Whereas St Francis was at Assisi oftentimes, he visited St
Clare and gave her holy admonishments. And she having
ST FRANCIS 217
exceeding great desire once to break bread with him, often-
times besought him thereto, but he was never willing to grant
her this consolation ; wherefore his companions, beholding
the desire of St Clare, said unto St Francis : " Father, it
doth appear to us that this severity accordeth not with
heavenly charity : since thou givest not ear unto Sister Clare,
a virgin so saintly, so beloved of God, in so slight a matter
as breaking bread with thee, and, above all, bearing in mind
that she, through thy preaching, abandoned the riches and
pomps of the world. And of a truth had she asked of thee
a greater boon than this, thou oughtest so to do unto thy
spiritual plant." . . . Then spoke St Francis : "Since it
seems good to you, it seems so, likewise, unto me. But
that she may be the more consoled, I will that this breaking
of bread take place in St Mary of the Angels ; for she has
been so long shut up in St Damian that it will rejoice her to
see again the house of St Mary's, where her hair was shorn
away and she became the bride of Jesus Christ ; there let us
eat together in the name of God." When came the day
ordained by him, St Clare with one companion passed forth
from out the convent, and with the companions of St Francis
to bear her company, came unto St Mary of the Angels and
devoutly saluted the Virgin Mary before her altar, where she
had been shorn and veiled ; so they conducted her to see
the House until such time as the hour for breaking bread
was come. And in the meantime St Francis let make ready
the table on the bare ground as he was wont to do. And the
hour of breaking bread being come, they set themselves
down together, St Francis and St Clare, and one of the com-
panions of St Francis with the companion of St Clare, and
all the other companions took each his place at the table
with all humility. And at the first dish St Francis began to
speak of God so sweetly, so sublimely, and so wondrously
218 ASSISI
that the fulness of the divine grace came down on them,
and they were all rapt in God. And as they were thus rapt,
with eyes and hands uplifted to heaven, the folk of Assisi
and Bettona and the country round saw that St Mary of the
Angels and all the House and the wood that was just hard
by the House was burning brightly, and it seemed as it were
a great fire that filled the Church and the House and the
whole wood together : for the which cause the folk of Assisi ran
thither in great haste for to quench the flames, believing of a
truth that the whole place was all on fire. But coming close
up to the House and finding no fire at all, they entered
within and found St Francis and St Clare.
" Never was wedding banquet," says Gabriele
d'Annunzio of this passage — "Never was wedding
banquet lit up by more radiant torches of love." So
St Clare loved St Francis, so St Francis loved St
Clare.
It was about the time of the Feast of the Exaltation
of the Cross in September 1224 that St Francis made
his retreat on Monte Alvernia, and there received the
stigmata from our Lord Jesus, as may be learned from
many a pleasant fresco up and down Italy.
St Francis, says the anonymous author of the
' Fioretti,' being forty-three years old in 1224, being
inspired of God, set out from the valley of Spoleto,
where Christ spoke of love to Sant' Angela of Foligno,
for to go into Romagna. But Orlando da Chiusi of
Carentino, having heard of the little poor man of
Assisi, loved him, and gave him at this time Monte
Alvernia, not far from Chiusi. And so it was that
St Francis came to make his retreat there before the
ST FRANCIS 219
Feast of the Exaltation. He being alone, was wont
to say matins with Brother Leo, who, in order to see
whether or no St Francis wished his company in
prayer, used to cry out, "Domine, labia mea aperies!"
— " O Lord, open Thou my lips," when he drew near
that place where St Francis was. But on this morning
St Francis made him no answer, and contrary to St
Francis's desire, but with the very best of intentions,
dear little brother Leo crossed the bridge over the
chasm, which you may see to this day, and entered
into St Francis's cell. There he found Francis in
ecstasy, saying, " Who art Thou, O most sweet, my
God? What am I, most vile worm, and Thine
unprofitable servant ? " Again and again Brother
Leo heard him repeat these words, and wondering
thereat, he lifted his eyes to the sky, and saw there
among the stars, for it was dark, a torch of flame
very beautiful and bright, which, coming down from
the sky, rested on St Francis's head. So thinking
himself unworthy to behold so sweet a vision, " he
softly turned away for to go to his cell again. And
as he was going softly, deeming himself unseen, St
Francis was aware of him by the rustling of the
leaves under his feet." Surely, even to the most
doubtful, that sound of the rustling leaves must bring
conviction. And St Francis explains to Brother Leo
all that this might mean.
And as he thus continued a long time in prayer, he came
to know that God would hear him, and that so far as was
possible for the mere creature, so far would it be granted
220 ASSISI
him to feel the things aforesaid. . . . And as he was thus
set on fire in his contemplation on that same morn, he saw-
descend from heaven a Seraph with six wings resplendent
and aflame, and as with swift flight the Seraph drew nigh
unto St Francis so that he could discern him, he clearly
saw that he bore in him the image of a man crucified ; and
his wings were in such guise displayed that two wings were
spread above his head, and two were spread out to fly, and
other two covered all his body. Seeing this St Francis
was sore adread, and was filled at once with joy and grief
and marvel. He felt glad at the gracious look of Christ,
who appeared to him so lovingly, and gazed on him so
graciously ; but on the other hand, seeing Him crucified
upon the cross, he felt immeasurable grief for pity's sake.
. . . Then the whole mount of Alvernia appeared as though
it burned with bright shining flames that lit up all the
mountains and valleys round as though it had been the sun
upon the earth ; whereby the shepherds that were keeping
watch in these parts, seeing the mountains aflame, and so
great a light around, had exceeding great fear, according as
they afterwards told unto the brothers, declaring that this
flame rested upon the mount of Alvernia for the space of
an hour and more. In like manner at the bright shining of
this light, which through the windows lit up the hostels of
the country round, certain muleteers that were going into
Romagna arose, believing that the day had dawned, and
saddled and laded their beasts ; and going on their way,
they saw the said light die out and the material sun arise.
In the seraphic vision Christ, the which appeared to him,
spake to St Francis certain high and secret things, the which
St Francis in his lifetime desired not to reveal to any man ;
but after his life was done he did reveal them as is set forth
below ; and the words were these : " Knowest thou," said
ST FRANCIS 221
Christ, "what it is that I have done unto thee? I have
given thee the Stigmata that are the signs of My Passion,
to the end that thou mayest be My standard-bearer. And
even as in the day of My death I descended into hell and
brought out thence all souls that I found there by reason
of these My Stigmata : even so do I grant to thee that every
year on the day of thy death thou shalt go to Purgatory, and
in virtue of thy Stigmata shalt bring out thence all the souls
of thy three orders, — to wit, Minors, Sisters, Continents, —
and likewise others that shall have had a great devotion for
thee, and shalt lead them unto the glory of Paradise, to the
end that thou mayest be confirmed to Me in death as thou
art in life." Then this marvellous image vanished away,
and left in the heart of St Francis a burning ardour and
flame of love divine, and in his flesh a marvellous image and
copy of the Passion of Christ. For straightway in the hands
and feet of St Francis began to appear the marks of the
nails in such wise as he had seen them in the body of Jesus
Christ the crucified, the which had shown Himself to him
in the likeness of a Seraph; and thus his hands and feet
appeared to be pierced through the middle with nails, and
the heads of them were in the palms of his hands and the
soles of his feet outside the flesh, and their points came
out in the back of his hands and of his feet, so that they
seemed bent back and rivetted in such a fashion that
under the bend and rivetting which all stood out above
the flesh might easily be put a finger of the hand as a
ring ; and the heads of the nails were round and black.
Likewise in the right side appeared the image of a wound
made by a lance unhealed, and red and bleeding, the
which afterwards oftentimes dropped blood from the sacred
breast of St Francis, and stained with blood his tunic and
his hose.
222 ASSISI
Thus St Francis received the Stigmata. Nor is
there any reason to doubt the writer of the ' Fioretti.'
That he actually received the Stigmata is as certain
as any other fact of history, and far better attested
than most.
No long time after St Francis came to die — lame
from the sacred wounds and ill and weary at last.
No longer as in youth could he sing those French
songs in the byways and olive-gardens around Assisi.
We catch a glimpse of him in the convent garden
of St Clare, under the shade of the olive-trees in a
summer of drought, when St Clare drank the tears
" from his almost blind eyes " to quench her thirst,
not only for water but for St Francis, too. It is
almost the last we ever see of the mystical lovers.
Of his love of all natural things the world has gladly
taken account, for it is there that he is so different
from almost all other saints. He died one day of
October 1226, and it was Saturday ; in La Porziuncula
he lay listening to the song of the birds he loved,
when Christ caught him away from our earth, which
has ever been the poorer since we spared him.
If the traveller, who by some fortunate chance is
not in a hurry, will spend a few days at Assisi in the
company of the t Fioretti,' he will certainly not have
journeyed through Italy in van. No sweeter book
was ever composed, or a truer either, for those who
have ears to hear.
XII.
FLORENCE.— I.
IT is well for the traveller to remember that unless
he has a considerable time at his disposal he
cannot see everything in Florence. He will do well,
therefore, on coming to a city that is really full of
things to see, to map out his days carefully, deter-
mining to see only a little every day, but to see that
little carefully at his leisure. To rush from the
Duomo to Santa Croce, and thence to the Annun-
ziata, and thence to San Lorenzo, and thence to
Santa Maria Novella, is merely to succeed in con-
fusing his mind so that he will never be able to sep-
arate the interior of one from another, or indeed
the exterior either. All the guide-books I ever read
ask the traveller to see too much, and in their usual
seven days never leave him a minute to himself. Yet
it is just the time he has to himself that is most
precious. For it is then that he will gather his really
enduring impressions, which, indelible though they
be, are delicate beings that come by chance and are
never found by seeking. It would be well, if, having
224 FLORENCE
ten days at his disposal, — and who would willingly
spend less in Florence ? — he devotes the afternoons
to casual walks or drives, to dreams and what not,
and the morning only to sight-seeing. All wet days
(of which I wish him few) may very well be spent in
the galleries, together with two afternoons towards
the end of the visit. I give below a small time-
table, allowing two mornings, should there be no wet
ones, for the galleries.
First Morning, Duomo group and Museo di Santa Maria
del Fiore.
Second
ii
Santa Maria Novella.
Third
it
San Marco and Riccardi Palace.
Fourth
ti
Santa Croce.
Fifth
it
The Bargello, Annunziata,
Sixth
ii
Or San Michele, San Lorenzo Sacristy.
Seventh
ti
Galleries.
Eighth
it
Galleries.
Ninth
ii
The Carmine.
Tenth
it
Piazza della Signoria, Palazzo Vecchio.
Thus in ten days, of which the afternoons are more
or less free, Florence may be superficially known.
Two afternoons should be devoted to the galleries as
well as the two mornings, and an afternoon each
given to Fiesole, San Miniato, and The Certosa.
Even under this rule the traveller, unless he is fairly
well acquainted with his subjects, will suffer inevitably
from mental indigestion, the most appalling and
common ailment to be met with among travellers in
Italy.
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FLORENCE 225
If the unfortunate being who wanders through the
churches, his eyes glued to his flaming travellers' bible,
thinking that it will save him, were to spend some
of the time he must give to railway travelling in read-
ing simple and easy lives of St Benedict, St Dominic,
St Francis, St Catherine, and St Anthony, he would
not be so bewildered before these seas of frescoed
saints ; and then, instead of reading his guide-
book, he would read the frescoes themselves, as they
were meant to be read, simply like a book. If, as is
very often the case, the traveller never heard of St
Dominic before he saw his name in Baedeker, how
can he hope to be interested in his life or his miracles,
or anything that is his, written in flashes of genius
on the walls of an old church ? And if all he knows
of St Francis is that he was poor, though that is
much, still it will scarcely explain satisfactorily the
story of the Stigmata. Unfortunately for the English-
man it is seldom a story from the Bible that the
painter sets himself to tell, but generally the life of
a saint perfectly well known to his countrymen,
about whom the average Englishman knows nothing
at all. Even the life of Our Lady is utterly un-
known to the ordinary Englishman. Now one is
obviously lost here in Florence where there are miles
of pictures, and miles of frescoes dealing for the most
part with the lives of saints, if one is utterly ignorant
of the very names of those of whom they speak. But
with some knowledge of these lovely and superb
souls, nothing can be more enjoyable than to spend
P
226 FLORENCE
•
some time in their company. And indeed in Flor-
ence one is in the home of Literature and the Arts ;
Commerce does not force itself on one's notice as at
Genoa, but one's thoughts turn to Dante and Giottc
who were friends, to Lionardo da Vinci and Michael
Angelo, and Ghiberti who forged the Paradise Gate
of the Baptistery. Everywhere one is surrounded by
beauty, save in the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele, a
hideous stucco square with a ridiculous monument
in the midst, that occupies the place of the old and
beautiful market-place of the city. Vandalism ap-
pears to have suffered a renaissance under the House
of Savoy as Learning did under the house of Medici ;
and it is here in Florence, I think, that one learns
to be ashamed for modern liberty and democracy
with its licence and make-believe.
Richer than any other city in Europe in pictures,
it is impossible to notice the three great galleries at
any length here. The Pitti Palace, designed by
Brunelleschi, and for the present the king's residence
in Florence, is a gallery of masterpieces collected by
the Medici, in which almost every picture is worthy
of long study and attention. Among the portraits I
would name the one by Titian of that Duke of
Norfolk exiled by Richard II., who eventually died
in a monastery in Venice. The extraordinarily
beautiful English face, fulfilled with some incalculable
romance, is, to me at least, by far the most delightful
portrait in Florence. One seems to understand Eng-
land, her charm, her fascination, her extraordinary
THE PITTI PALACE 227
persistence, on looking at this picture of one of her
sons, as never before [: all the tragedy of her kings,
the adventure to be met with in her seas, the beauty
and culture of Oxford, and the serenity of her country
places come back to one fresh and unsullied by the
memories of the defiling and trumpery cities that so
lately have begun to destroy her. Raphael's pictures
are more numerous here than in any other gallery,
and the almost fabulous Giorgione is represented by
the magnificent picture called The Concert, of which
Pater has written so exquisitely, " The Concert in
the Pitti Palace," he writes, " in which a monk with
cowl and tonsure touches the keys of a harpsichord,
while a clerk placed behind him grasps the handle of
a viol, and a third with cap and plume seems to wait
upon the true interval for beginning to sing, is un-
doubtedly Giorgione's. 1 The outline of the lifted
finger, the trace of the plume, the very threads of the
fine linen, which fasten themselves in the memory in
the moment before they are lost altogether in that
calm unearthly glow, the skill which has caught the
waves of wandering sound and fixed them for ever
on the lips and hands — these are indeed the master's
own ; . . . and among the most precious things in
the world of art,"
Bartolommeo and Andrea del Sarto are also mag-
nificently represented, especially the latter, who was
1 Kugler throws doubt on its authenticity, however, supposing it to
be an early work by Titian. Cf. Kugler, ' Iialian Schools of Painting,'
vol. ii. 55.
228 FLORENCE
the first among the few " colourists " Florence pro-
duced. For in all Florentine art it is design,
drawing, idea, rather than colour, as with the
Venetian, that we find ; — especially valuable qualities,
with which art renewed herself.
The Uffizi Gallery, with its collections of sculpture,
painting, drawings, and jewels, is perhaps less a
scrupulous collection, but not less valuable to the
student. Botticelli, of whom Mr Pater was the
first to write in England, is magnificently represented
by the Adoration of the Kings (1286), The Birth of
Venus, Calumny, and Judith with the Head of Holo-
fernes, together with several Holy Families ; Titian,
Raphael, Andrea del Sarto, Giorgione, Correggio,
Lionardo da Vinci, are represented by splendid
pictures, but they can all be studied better elsewhere.
Fra Filippo Lippi and Filippino Lippi, the master
and pupil of Botticelli, are, however, seen here and
at the Accademia in their full glory. Fra Angelico,
whose Tabernacle and Predella in the Hall of Lorenzo
Monaco are among the chief treasures of the collec-
tion, is almost as glorious here as at San Marco,
though not so ubiquitous* One is overwhelmed by
the glories of the lives of men, the beauty of the
gods, the splendour of earth no less than of heaven.
The art of the fifteenth century comes to one as a
strong and mighty angel, not without sins. And in
a world given over to all the luxury of a great city,
the home of princes and of the revolution of the mind
of man, amidst all the sensuality of that awakened
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THE UFFIZI GALLERY 229
mind, the animalism of the Latin race that has
never been sufficiently powerful to kill the spiritual-
ity that is alive in the race even to-day, one finds that
Florence created an ideal idea, that went hand in
hand with her religion, only to transform it utterly,
and in time to supersede it. Yet she still kept about
her her ancient mantle, figured with supernatural life,
full of astounding adventures, lighted by the genius
of saint and martyr, artist and hero. At first, as
with the earliest men, and with Fra Angelico, art
was in her hands a kind of symbol ; so that one
might almost say that here was an alphabet, certain
signs, colours, or natural objects that had come to
have a limited or certain meaning. And then life
thrusts itself on man's notice, and the gods and
heaven itself are forgotten for the beauty of earth
and the strength of man. Thus Luca Signorelli
introduces into his picture of the Adoration of the
Shepherds naked youths, that he may express his
love for the human form, its glory, its perfection ; and
so at last the religious painters are out-moded, and
the realists, those who had fallen in love with life,
are victorious, and the great names of the sixteenth
century are carved on the minds of men never to be
erased. It is, I think, in some such mood, and with
some such idea as this, that one leaves the Uffizi for
the first time, perhaps a little bewildered by the
number of the pictures and the pieces of sculpture.
And of these latter it may be said that he who has
not seen the Venus dei Medici is indeed unfortunate.
230 FLORENCE
She is the younger sister, perhaps, of that Aphrodite
returning from the bath that Praxiteles made. For
though so good a judge as Shelley considered the
goddess in the Tribune as " the finest personification
of Venus t . . in all antique statuary," to me, at
least, she is less beautiful than Venus of Melos, and
less profoundly the "goddess of desire" than Venus
of the CapitoL She is innocent, while the Roman
is learned in the secrets of love, and is, while less
perfect perhaps in form, more desirable by far.
Found in Hadrian's villa, below Tivoli, Cosimo III.,
of the House of Medici, brought her to Florence
in 1677, where she was considered to be " a work
among other works as the very goddess among
other goddesses," easily the first. But that she is
inferior in no small degree to the Aphrodite of
Cnidos, of which Ovid wrote, is, since the dis-
covery of that statue, impossible of denial ; but
Shelley died too soon to see the Cnidian Venus.
In the Hall of Niobe are the famous antique
copies of the group of Niobe with her sons and
daughters. Niobe herself is, as Shelley beautifully
says, "the consummation of feminine majesty and
loveliness, beyond which the imagination scarcely
doubts that it can conceive nothing." The child
at her knees, "terrified as we may conceive by the
destruction of all its kindred, has fled to its mother,
and is hiding its head in the folds of her robe, and
casting back one arm as in a passionate appeal for
defence, where it never before could have been sought
THE UFFIZI GALLERY 231
in vain. Everything is swallowed up in sorrow : she
is all tears : her gaze, in assured expectation of the
arrow piercing its last victim in her embrace, is
fixed on her omnipotent enemy. The pathetic
beauty of the expression of her tender and in-
exhaustible and unquenchable despair is beyond the
effect of sculpture. As soon as the arrow shall pierce
her last tie upon earth, the fable that she was turned
into stone or dissolved in a fountain of tears will be
but a feeble emblem of the sadness of hopelessness
in which the few and evil years of her remaining
life we feel must flow away. It is difficult to speak
of the beauty of the countenance, or to make in-
telligible in words from what such astonishing loveli-
ness results." Indeed I know but one head in all
antiquity in which the expression is so lovely, and
that is a statue of Demeter of Cnidos in the British
Museum, where the expression, the soul speaking in
the face, seems almost for the first time to have found
expression, whence it has utterly overcome all art,
and is the very touchstone of genius.
But the Uffizi, crowded as it is with the treasures
of many ages, will after all impress the traveller
chiefly as a picture - gallery, which, so far as the
Italian school is concerned, is among the first in
the world. It is impossible within the covers of a
book devoted to Italy and the Italians to do more
than touch upon the enormous wealth of ancient
art in the possession of almost every city. And
here in Florence more than anywhere else I know
232 FLORENCE
my feebleness. Where libraries have scarcely sufficed
to treat adequately so great a subject it is almost
ridiculous for a book of a few hundred pages to be
anything but silent. Yet I have ventured to set
down in some detail the lives of two of the lesser
artists of Florence in the days of her glory and
youth. If within these two meagre chapters I
have managed to convey to the reader some sugges-
tion of the times and the lives of these men, I am
content. In order to care for any work of art really
deeply it is, I am assured, necessary to know and to
understand the life and ideas of the artist, to sym-
pathise with him as it were, so that the emotion of
the onlooker may generously expand the perhaps im-
perfect or tentative achievement of the artist to the
full measure of his intention. Therefore, instead of
a long and, as I think, useless sermon upon, or de-
scription of, the picture or other work of art, I have
placed these two short lives of Fra Lippo Lippi and
Luca della Robbia before the reader, not without
fear that he may imagine I think them adequate ;
because it is in some such way as I have ventured
there to suggest that I believe the way to true
appreciation lies.
The Accademia delie Belle Arti is perhaps to
the student the most interesting picture-gallery in
Florence. The late Mr Grant Allen, whose method
as set forth for the traveller in those inimitable
guide-books of his I fear I have never dared to
follow, says that it is " by far the most important
ACCADEMIA DELLE BELLE ARTI 233
gallery in Florence for the study of Florentine art."
For though it contains less masterpieces than the
Pitti, and has not the variety of the Uffizi, it is
here one finds the earlier masters of the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries without whom the art of
Raphael and Lionardo, Michael Angelo and the
Venetians, is not to be understood. It also has the
advantage of a complete collection of casts of the
sculpture of Michael Angelo, and the master's David
as he carved it, removed here from the Piazza
Signoria. One of Botticelli's most famous pictures,
the Primavera, is also here in the Sala Prima del
Botticelli, together with some of the loveliest work
of his master Fra Lippo Lippi. Gentile da Fabriano's
Adoration of the Magi, removed from the Sacristy
of Santa Trinita, and Fra Angelico's Descent from
the Cross, also from Santa Trinita, are the master-
pieces of the two artists, at least apart from fresco
so far as the Fra Angelico is concerned. In the
Adoration of the Magi the curiously delightful
attempt to paint a sunrise is to be noticed, and in
the latter the still visible marks of flagellation on
the Body of the Christ.
But there is a Florence apart from her churches
and her galleries which the traveller must by no
means miss. It is fairly easy, given sufficient time
and a good catalogue and guide-book, such as E.
Grin's, to know something of that Florence which is
preserved in museums and churches : but without in
234 FLORENCE
any way wishing to suggest that such a Florence is
less priceless than it really is, I think that there is
another city too which it is less easy to know and
care for, perhaps because it is more common but less
obvious — I mean even Florence herself as she is to-
day. Pierre Loti, than whom no more sensitive artist
ever gazed over a city at night-fall, has said some-
where that to see things by stealth in the evening for
the first time in a glance, as it were, without being
able to take a second look, is the way to receive a
really true impression of them. Well, it may well be
that one coming to Florence in the evening, when all
the galleries would be shut> who would have nothing
to do but wander up and down her streets, and, it may
be, into a church or two* would gather a more perfect
image of this flower-like city than that traveller who,
with his nose in his guide-book, dashes from gallery
to church, and from church to museum, in a cab all
the day long, To see the Venus of the Medici and to
miss hearing the singers that come with the moon-
light, or the fall of the waters of Arno towards the
Cascine, would be but a sorry way of seeing Florence.
Nor is it to the Florence of Ruskin, nor to the Flor-
ence of the Gambrinus Halle and the like, that I would
lead the traveller, but to Florence herself, which is
really independent alike of traveller and modern
citizen, populated as she is by the great figures of
the past and the dreams of our very selves for years
before we had the fortune to set e)^es upon her.
XIII.
FLORENCE.— II.
THERE has been so much written on the history,
the arts, the churches, and the great men of
Florence that, at least for the educated traveller, it is
to no strange city he comes when he enters her gates,
but to a place almost as well known as Rome, and
certainly as beloved. Yet, after all, when one has
seen all the galleries, and all the churches, and all the
statues, there still remains, better than them all, Flor-
ence herself, of whom they are but the splendid orna-
ments. What I am going to write is only for those
who are not in the power of the first passion of dis-
covery, who, having seen all her ornaments and loved
them, are after all really in love with La Bella herself,
and are content. It is curious how the English love
Florence better than any other Italian city. Is there
something of home in her quiet, perverse streets ;
something of an English cathedral town in the no-
bility of her gesture and her expression ? No ; I think
there is very little of England in a city so passionate ;
she conquers, I will believe, by sheer beauty. Before
236 FLORENCE
any city in the world she seems to smile ; one is in
love with her from the first morning, she is so frank
and joyful and grave. She has built also within her
walls two towers, the one to Liberty and the other to
Humility, and that is the fairest of all towers in the
world.
" Her ways are ways of pleasantness,
And all her paths are peace."
As I look down over the near valleys to the evening
mist in the distance touched with gold, where Arno
winds like a silver thread over the plain towards the
city, these words always come into my mind. Seen
from some village without the city, it is as though for
the first time one had experienced quiet, and realised
just for a moment the beauty of holiness. In these
tiny villages in the dawn the country-folk, with now
and then a stranger from the city, come into the
church for Mass, and the children bring flowers — irises
or tall nodding Florentine lilies — which the Capuchins
help them to lay at the altar of Our Lady. At night,
as one gazes on Florence from afar, she seems to be
made of some great precious stone ; the roofs and
towers that the moon strikes seem so far away ; the
great and holy dome of the Duomo like the name of
Mary unuttered on the lips ; and then one seems to
hear the call at dawn on the mountains, far, oh ! far
away, and the rush of a distant waterfall as one
drowses off to sleep. I once saw a star shoot across
heaven over the city leaving a train of gold, — I still
treasure the vision ; and from my village in the hills I
MADONNA OF THE STREET CORNER 237
used to sit and watch the night grow up like a great
lily out of the valleys. Then on a night in June I
have heard just a little laugh come in at my window
in the twilight, while the chestnut-trees were shedding
their blossoms white and red : it must have been such
a little laugh that Lippo Lippi heard from the great
house at the corner —
" There came a hurry of feet, and little feet,
A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song —
Flower d the broom j
Take away love and our earth is a tomd."
Ah ! you too have heard those mandolines mixing
with the noise of the streams, singing wonderful
songs ; you too, perhaps, have under that profound
starry sky wondered at the hearts of men.
Or in the deep heart of the night I have seen some
old woman lying before a little shrine of Madonna at
the corner of some street, prostrate under some un-
imaginable sorrow, some unappeasable regret, some ter-
rible awakening. Does she hear — that Virgin with the
narrow half-open eyes and the side-long look ? God,
I know not if she hears or no. Perhaps she does not
hear — she is occupied with grand and joyful things ;
how should she hear or care or know ? Perhaps I
alone have heard in all the world. Heaven is too
calm, too spotless, too beautiful to dare to sympathise
with so desolate a sorrow. No, it is impossible that
they who have heard the Voice as of many waters
should care to listen to a poor old woman sobbing and
in tears.
238 FLORENCE
To you, travellers, whose eyes are satiated with
Saints and Virgins, who have found them ever occupied
with their own perfections, does it seem wonderful
that one should cry to them in vain ? But Madonna
of the Street Corner is perhaps less exclusive than
those majestical, who have attained to the honour of a
place in the Uffizi or the Pitti Palace and look their
best for you. Yet I will even call them, in spite of
protest, unfortunate. Their ears, long since filled it
may well be with heavenly music, hear no prayers from
those who are still wretched and alone. Vulgar and
incredulous eyes gaze on their beauty and their pain ;
their ecstasy or death is watched for ever by stupid
unseeing eyes that have no love for them, and it may
be, those who gaze never heard their names before.
Madonna of the Street Corner, in all her little pomp of
blue and white, and few and vulgar silver hearts, she
at least is loved of some who pass by, not without a
reverent smile. She mothers those whom the streets
houseo Poor Queen of Angels, with her tiny flickering
lamp, she hears the very city speak in its sleep, and
doubtless talks with her Son in the quiet night. Ah !
I never doubted her really for a moment. Be sure
she hears, and is compassionate, and is occupied all
day long, when because of the noise and the eyes of
men one only glances at her from a distance, fearing to
worship openly, in praying for her sinners now and as
she will do in the hour of their death.
This city of warm brick, with its churches of marble
and its palaces of stone, comes in time to hold for us
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MR RUSKIN 239
all our dreams, all the unattainable things in the
world. And of all its precious possessions, that which
to me at least seems most lovely is the sweet bride of
Michael Angelo — Santa Maria Novella. For here at
last in Florence is a really beautiful church, the
interior not unworthy of the exterior, as is the case
with Santa Maria delle Fiore and Santa Croce ;
moreover, as Mr Ruskin I think is careful to tell one,
it was the parish church of Giotto. Magnificent as
was Mr Ruskin's enthusiasm for what he had con-
vinced himself in one way or another was lovely and
noble and the truth, he was, I think, at least in
Florence, a little lacking in charity. It is true I have
gazed always with new pleasure on the little fresco
work he sets such store by in the cloister, yet I am
convinced that many who have loved Florence at least
as well as he never became an idolater before that
particular piece of fresco, After all. Florence is
greater than her greatest sons. Having produced
Giotto and buried him, how many other great men,
statesmen, poets, and artists, did she not produce
without fatigue. Savonarola was no less her son than
Giotto, and has proved as immortal too ; yet it is easy
to feel resentment against the mighty puritan, easier
still to fail to do him justice. It is impossible for any
one Florentine to sum up and exhaust the city as
Mr Ruskin rhetorically imagined. Yet I think that,
perhaps, since this courageous and moving dictum of
Mr Ruskin's may, strictly speaking, be nonsense, it
serves a useful purpose in sending the traveller for
240 FLORENCE
certain to Santa Maria Novella, where he will see
other things as fine as Giotto — the frescoes in the
Capella degli Spagnuoli, attributed to Taddeo Gaddi
and Simone Memmi, for instance, and the Cimabue
Madonna, and the church itself. If one so little
careful of mere sight-seeing as the present writer may
advise the reader in the matter of a guide-book, he
would say, go to Messrs Flor & Findel, on the
Lung' Arno Acciajoli, and buy ' Saunterings in Flor-
ence,' by E. Grifi ? which is by far the best (and
cheapest) book on the city to be had, For other
places Mr Hare is better than a wilderness of German
Baedekers, and not nearly so compromising.
Having spent a morning in Santa Maria Novella,
and vowed return to Cimabue's Madonna, one may
find coolness and shade in the convent of San Marco,
where one comes upon Savonarola, having passed the
place of his martyrdom in the Piazza Signoria on the
way* And here indeed one is, on a summer's day, in
paradise. Around one blossom the frescoes of that
dear and devout soul Fra Angelico da Fiesole. Of
all the pictures in the world his little meditations in
the tiny cells of his brothers move me most. The
Nativity (in cell No. 5), where St Catherine has
come to see her bridegroom, and the very angels
of heaven hover over the cowshed. The Empty
Tomb (in cell No. 8), when Christ rose from the dead,
with Mary utterly bewildered and dazzled at the
fortune of the world, while Christ unseen looks on
as though ready to come to her assistance should she
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FRA ANGELICO 241
fall, overcome by joy. The Presentation of Christ
(in cell No. 10), where the beautiful babyhood of II
Gesu Cristo is a very vision, such as St Rose of Lima
saw when the infant Christ came to play with her
and left her beggared. And so, magnificent as are
the Annunciation, Angelico's favourite subject, and
The Crucifixion, in the chapter house, it is always
to these smaller frescoes I return with a never-failing
joy. And yet who, looking on the Crucifixion, can
desire anything else ? Even Kugler with all his
science allows that it is in point of religious ex-
pression " one of the most beautiful works of art
existing." In these figures grouped so simply beneath
the three crosses all the ecstacy and sorrow of the
world seem to find expression. The hair of Magdalene
is like a river of red gold, the Virgin is a pale lily
drooping at midday, and Christ upon the Tree of Life
glows over all, the very light of the world.
In studying the works of Fra Angelico it is inter-
esting to notice the few colours he uses, — uses sym-
bolically, mystically, one may think, after due and
grave consideration of their value and meaning.
Thus white is the colour of truth, of virginity, and
of God ; red of innocence and of the Passion ; blue
of quietness, calmness, and virginity ; green of hope
and contemplation ; black of death and evil ; violet
of mourning and penitence ; grey of trouble and
tribulation ; yellow of jealousy and envy ; and rose
of the victory ot Christ with its anguish and sorrow
and triumph.
Q
242 FLORENCE
One finds but few of Fra Angelico's works out of
Florence, and so while Lionardo is perhaps best studied
at Paris or at Milan, Michael Angelo at Rome, and
Giotto at Assisi and Padua, Fra Angelico, Botticelli,
and Andrea del Sarto are found at Florence, and
should be studied there, together with two lesser
men, whose chief characteristic was their humanism,
who amid all the splendid names that ring in our
ears, here in Florence we shall do well to remember,
seeing that even among those most famous they are
altogether lovely.
XIV.
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA.
FROM the sunrise to the middle day of the world's
history, perhaps even to the lowering sun at
evening, it would seem there have been seasons
which have had a curious fascination for those who
have come after. And to us of this century, who
have lost so much of the picturesque from life,
some of those illuminative days, whose deeds some-
times, whose spirit always, live after them, would
seem to have a more direct appeal.
The age of the Renaissance in Italy, with its after-
glow in France, dying at last on the same soil from
which it had sprung, is one of them, one indeed
which we can hardly study too much — hardly give
too much thought and patience to the reading of its
enigmas.
The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in which the
learning of the ancient world had been re-discovered,
in which the graciousness of Plato was a subject of
polite conversation, and the Paganism of Greece was
beginning to find new half -veiled advocates, pro-
244 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
duced many strange personalities, much exquisite
work, and a history half legend, half truth, which has
laid hold of the mind of mankind, and demanded
attention so strenuously that we should not be far
wrong in naming it as the most fascinating age in
history.
Florence, with its dust and heat, its sweetly
shaded valleys, its quaint streets and houses, charms
us both by her simplicity and by a strange spirit
which seems everywhere in her walls and her pic-
tures. The young girl standing in the doorway with
a wonderful gracefulness, a negligent arm behind her
head, with contour of parted lips and falling eyelids,
just in the shadow, the sun, as it were, trying to see
the glory beneath the veiling lids, the breeze just
whispering as a lover to her — surely it is some such
imaginary portrait as this that conjures up Florence
for us.
Yet it would be a gain all the greater because of
its impossibility, to get back to the Florence of the
Renaissance and walk with Pico della Mirandola or
with Simonetta under the orange trees and see the
face, all the soft lines, the sadness of the eyes, the
wonderful superiority, the exclusiveness of the lines
of the body in their own soft earth where they
were once so skilfully moulded, which attract the
men of our generation so strangely.
About the year 1400, born neither to poverty nor
riches, but enjoying, in an age whose characteristic
was that it enjoyed itself, an unwearied frugality, an
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 245
unending delight in simple things, a child played
with the sunbeams, who was to come, by means of
these simple things, to some eminence.
His family we are led to believe was not undis-
tinguished, and it was after some opposition, and
after some patient but we may be sure dutiful in-
sistence on the part of Luca, that old Simone di
Marco della Robbia gave the necessary permission,
and apprenticed his son to Leonardo di Ser Gio-
vanni, a goldsmith, from whom Luca was to learn,
so far as in him lay, how to become an artist. Leon-
ardo seems to have been a hard taskmaster, and
certainly to his scholarly pupil, who never forgot a
lesson, who all his life assumed the attitude of the
scholar towards his teachers, nay, even his contem-
poraries, old Giovanni must have been trying indeed.
At any rate we find Luca before long in the house
of a much more congenial master^ one of the greatest
sculptors of his day, Lorenzo Ghiberti. From him
Luca learned in that loyal way — loyalty to his
masters being one of his most pronounced char-
acteristics, amounting almost to a gift with him —
to cast in bronze.
His loyalty receives almost touching expression in
regard to Giotto, seventy years dead ; for he is com-
missioned to execute panels for Giotto's Campanile,
" The Shepherd's Tower," the most glorious tower in
the world, and for the time being he, as it were,
becomes the pupil of Giotto. So like the master,
indeed, are these panels, so Giottesque in feeling and
246 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
execution, that it has been supposed Giotto left draw-
ings for them ; but I think, seeing there is nothing
to prove any such hypothesis, that knowing Luca's
loyalty, it is much more reasonable, more gracious
too, perhaps, to think of him as loyal to the great
artist and architect whom he with all Florentines
would reverence, even to the extent of effacing him-
self and carrying out that which Giotto was unable
to do in the way he believed Giotto would have
wished.
Here in the studio of Ghiberti, who could tell such
wonderful stories of the world beyond Florence, of
that long ramble he made when a boy, starting
suddenly during a fit of romantic longing which in
the end lasted so long, Luca must often have met
Donatello — Donato, Donatello for love, the other
great influence in his life. The strong, the terrible
power that sometimes seems almost to descend in
Donatello, the realism, if one may use such a word in
an age that was happily ignorant of what it has come
to mean for us, against the sweet, summer - like
sentimentalism, the romance, sometimes perhaps the
prettiness, of Ghiberti, — these are the two influences
which must have borne most strongly on the young
Luca even in those early days.
" Choose ye this day whom ye will serve:" "ye
cannot serve God and mammon." But how if
neither were mammon ? how if both were good,
each in its way ? Luca, contemplating both, wish-
ing to be loyal to both, hesitated, and in the end
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 247
chose neither, hesitating to the end of his life.
Now he leaned towards Ghiberti, now towards
Donatello, but he never chose either method. He
hesitated, and hesitating, curiously enough he found
salvation. In his great bronze gates for the sacristy
in the cathedral of his beloved Florence, we may
almost see the struggle it had come to be for him to
choose between those two influences. And surely it
is more than a fancied difference, surely there is some-
thing of his appreciation of both methods, his love of
both masters, in those four evangelists, of which St
Matthew and St Mark are for Donatello and St Luke
and St John for the gentler Ghiberti. His supposed
earliest works, his lunettes of the Resurrection and
the Ascension in the Cathedral, would seem to have
been sculptured rather under the influence of Ghiberti
than of his great contemporary, and yet in marked
degree, in some aspect of expression, he surpasses
them both. For not only has Luca the slow, hesi-
tating choice — a choice that is never really made — of
the true scholar, as we see in this wavering which is
almost a compromise ; but he realises, is indeed the
first of his time to realise, in sculpture the power of
expressing life. What the Greeks had striven perhaps
in vain to attain, that naturalness in sculpture, as
though the figure were really about to breathe and
put out its hand, that wonderful vagueness of Michael
Angelo, akin to nature, by which he attained the same
live-giving effect, a something more than mere form,
something not frozen, an expression of the spirit in
248 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
fact, bloomed in Luca's work like a new wild-flower.
Expression, life, the power to express the spirit in
stone or bronze or terra-cotta, these are what he really
discovered, and not the mere material of his art as
Vasari supposes. It is the first exhibition of the
Christian idea in sculpture. The whole philosophy of
Epicurus, that power or gift of making the most of
each moment as it passes ; that wonderful eternal
moment frozen for ever in Greek sculpture, is gone,
and instead we get a wonderful restfulness. The
spirit has time to shine forth, and Mary Madonna tells
us of the soul, the immortal part of man.
And so Luca, having made this great discovery,
hesitates to give himself to either side, is not quite
sure perhaps which is the right side, and in hesitating
he gradually drifts into a kind of compromise which
surely suits that message of his of spirit in life, very
happily.
For the first forty-five or fifty years of his life he
did little, at least that remains to us : he was a man
full of dreams, and possibly, as Vasari leads us to
believe, full of invention to give joy to all people.
In the year 1450 his most perfect work in marble
was completed — begun and finished within the year —
the monument to the Bishop of Fiesole, lately dead,
Benozzo Federighi by name. In this work, as one
might almost expect, there is a hopefulness, almost a
cheerfulness, and a profusion of natural things that is
truly Luca's very self — fruits, garlands, grapes, John
the Baptist, the Christ and the Virgin, and the old
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 249
ecclesiastic too, whose features express not oblivion,
not sleep even, but the very spirit of repose after
labour ; neither the terror of the grave nor the felicity
of some sentimental beatitude, but the spirit of rest.
During those fifty years Luca must have been far
from idle. Searching for new methods of art, new
means of expression, he came upon a new medium by
which to express his wonderful discovery. That blue
and white enamelled terra-cotta, could it have come
from anywhere but Italy, can it live anywhere but in
Italy ? Luca, searching for some humbler material in
which to express himself, — could it be that he wished
perhaps to popularise his work? — comes upon this
terra-cotta, and chiefly by it, dust though it is, is
made immortal. Having, as we have seen, in early
life made the sacristy doors with their panels for
Santa Maria del Fiore, the Cathedral of Florence, he
now with his new discovery crowned them, for over
them, where perhaps other less enduring things
might not dwell because of the damp, he placed two
angels in enamelled terra-cotta.
Among the first to give Luca commissions for
this exquisite work in clay was Piero di Cosimo
Medici, master practically of Florence and patron
of the arts. For him Luca decorated a small
book-lined chamber in the great Medici palace built
by Cosmo de' Medici. His work was for the ceil-
ing and the pavement, the ceiling being a half
sphere. For the hot summer days of Italy, when
the streets are a blaze of light and the sun seems
250 LUCA DELLA ROBBIA
literally to embrace the loved city, this terra-cotta
work of Luca's with its cool whites and blues
was particularly delightful, bringing really a piece,
as it were, of the cool moving sea or the soft
sky into a place confined and shut in. And by
some curious "trick" or felicity of workmanship
he has contrived to give the whole the appearance
of being not of many pieces but of one only, as
though he had given the place a really settled
charm, where, in the summer days, scorching and
hot, coolness, temperance might find a safe retreat.
The organ loft by Luca della Robbia made for
the Cathedral, his chiefest work, is often compared
to that which now stands so near it, the organ
loft by Donatello. Luca, as usual with him now,
sets out to express the abounding spirit. He pro-
poses to illustrate the 150th Psalm, " Praise the
Lord. Praise Him in the sound of the trumpet :
praise Him upon the lute and harp. Praise Him
in the cymbals and dances : praise Him upon the
strings and pipe." For expression this work stands
unequalled by any of his contemporaries. For
Luca, always happiest we may suppose among
children* those simple souls who understood the
humble dreamer, has here repaid them in full for
all their sympathy. He has made youth a thing
of beauty, a joy for ever, giving it a substance, an
immortality which in the short elusive morning of
human reality it lacked. He always succeeded best
with children, understanding them, perhaps feeling
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 251
for them, as though those tender ungrown babies
were something especially precious to one who
all his life had loved best that which was simple.
The voices sound on our ears, the throats seem
verily to throb, and the eyes show unspeakable
worship, joy, thanksgiving. The treble, alto, tenor,
and bass, all are heard : it is a triumph of the spirit
in the expression of a few youths and maidens.
The choice of the humbler way, the search for
meekness, did not go unrewarded. His work in
terra - cotta gradually became famous throughout
Italy, throughout Europe. He is worked to death,
so many desiring to possess the work of the artist
who had chosen that which was in itself so poor,
and elevated it by the very simplicity, the noble-
ness and sweetness of his genius, that he is unable
to satisfy all their demands. It is like the story
of Michael Angelo, who being commanded by the
great Medici to model a figure in snow during a
snowy winter in the courtyard of the Pitti Palace
at Florence, as though in irony gave to the work
his mightiest powers, and on that melting snow
image lavished his choicest genius, thinking per-
haps that that which was to have so short a life,
so momentary an existence, the snow melting even
as he moulded it, called at least for as much love
as his creations in everlasting marble.
It was so with Luca, till at last he had too
much to do, Italy, Europe, requiring more from
him than he could perform. And so he takes to
252 LUCA BELLA ROBBIA
him his brothers Ottaviano and Agostino, and more
especially his nephew Andrea, taking this last youth
into his very heart too, training them in his own
new invention, the glorious work in the humble
material. And not without success, at least with
Andrea, who seems, perhaps from the fact that
Luca did take him into his heart, to have caught
at times the very spirit of the master. For in
Andrea's work we catch an afterglow at least of
Luca, and sometimes of Luca at his best.
But he is not even yet satisfied : invention, tire-
less study for some still more perfect mode of self-
expression, was a kind of mania with him. And
at last, tired out, he goes to Orleans, to France,
to his brother Girolamo, who had succeeded greatly
in that country, even, as Vasari says, " acquiring
high reputation and great riches." After the labour
and heat of the day we may suppose he found
rest at last, though but for a little time. Soon
after his arrival in France he seems to fade almost
to a shadow, like a flower of his own Italy trans-
planted from its native soil. It is a characteristic
of his work. It will not bear removal. That white
and blue terra-cotta, so delicate, so cooling, fades,
too, away from Italy. It is only really satisfactory
on its native soil, of which, after all, it is a product.
He died in France soon after his arrival. His
friends brought his body back to Italy, to the
tomb of his fathers, to bury him. How could he
rest, he who was made of her earth and her sky,
LUCA DELLA ROBBIA 253
away from Italy, when at last he came to lay
himself down ? It was a characteristic of him that
he should always have conceived of death cheer-
fully. Not as oblivion, nor even as sleep, as we
have seen in that great marble tomb he made for
the Bishop of Fiesole, but just as rest — a rest well
earned, as though even yet, perhaps — who knows ?
— there might be work for him to do,
XV.
FRA LIPPO LIPPI.
THE love and enthusiasm for antiquity that
colours the age of the Renaissance for us,
even to its close, was in reality a search for immor-
tality. That dread of death, common even amongst
ourselves, in the very young, the fear of entire forget-
fulness, the dread of nothingness, was the soil out
of which sprung the beautiful flower we call the
Renaissance. And instead of looking forward to the
future for that gift of life everlasting, we find the
Florentines of that day peering longingly back at
the past, certain that there at any rate was a sure
immortality, and that in that wonderful culture of
antiquity, divided from them by the gulf of dark-
ness called the Middle Age, there was the secret of
eternity, the power to confer upon Art a something
which would not allow it to be utterly forgotten. It
came to be a kind of creed, of almost passionate belief,
that to be a scholar was the surest way to save some-
thing from the wreck of Time ; that learning was a
salt which would crystallise their work, giving it an
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 255
endurance, an appeal to those coming after, that
otherwise it would lack. For Art in those early
days was looked upon as something divine, and the
artist as only a little lower than the angels, perhaps
a true son of God in whom He was well pleased. An
example of this disposition of the people toward the
artist may be noted in that wonderful reception — it is
almost a triumph — which Cimabue received when his
Madonna was borne in procession through the streets
of Florence to its home in Santa Maria Novella.
Even the Church took part in that welcome, as
though in reality Madonna Mary had graciously
come to them and they had found her a home
right in their midst, as near as possible to their
own dwellings.
In this age of extremes, then, we shall not be
surprised to find great loves and great hates, great
virtue and great vice : it was an age of enthusiasm,
and it did nothing small. When Art was received
with so much reverence even by the people, when
its power to move them seems to have been so great,
it is not surprising to find the artist passionate in his
work, and, feeling the divine spark in him, seeking
his own special medium, wherein he may express
himself.
For the artist to find the medium through which
he may express himself has ever been the great
need, coming in later times, indeed, almost to be
an end in itself. To come upon it early, to know
that one is doing the best with oneself that can be
256 FRA LIPPO LIPPI
done, is the prize of the few, and they generally the
greatest of all. Most, after much toil, many fruit-
less pilgrimages, many inventions, find their medium
late, perhaps too late, and, looking back on the
flowers they have plucked by the way, are content
even to leave their own true work undone, thinking,
after all, on the pleasantness of the way thither.
But there are left those who never find it, men
sometimes of real genius or exquisite talent, shown,
it is true, in all that they do, but lacking the
means to express the true inspiration — the very soul
of the artist. It is of such an one I have tried to
write, telling you in the simplest way I could of
his life and his work. He was a great painter;
but he was always above his work, always with the
real soul left over, finding at last its true expression
not in his own work nor even in himself, but in
the work of his most famous pupil. His own genius
would find a voice, if not in a noble then in an
ignoble passion, if not in art then in life. It is in
this way, and because of his failure, or even failure
to grasp the secret of his own work, that his name
is not over the great constellation of artists that
now bears that of another.
About the year 1412 was born in a little mediaeval
street — called Ardigotione — in Florence, Filippo di
Tommaso Lippi, called Fra Lippo Lippi. His
mother, poor soul, died in giving him life, and his
father, burdened maybe with sorrow, lived only till
Lippo was two years old. Frail from his birth, be-
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 257
ginning life without a mother's unreplaceable care,
we find him shortly in the convent of the Carmelites,
just outside whose walls he had begun his life. The
monks having forsaken fatherhood, yet yielding to
the instinct of nature towards that which is helpless,
seem to have taken good care of him, bringing him
up in the Offices of the Church, and striving to
teach a mind always almost unteachable. For we
find him no lover of books, no scholar, but a dreamer
of dreams in bright colours, dexterous and ingenious
with his hands, so long as his thoughts are allowed to
wander on that life-long search of his. And so, while
still very young, with the approval of the wondering
monks, he, almost untaught, paints a picture in terra
verde in the cloisters of their convent, a picture to
please his fathers, the subject being a Pope confirm-
ing the Rule of the Carmelites. They praised him,
for did they not love him, they who had rescued
him from death almost on his arrival in this world
of which they knew so little ? And so at the age
of seventeen he thinks he wishes to be a painter, and
without a thought throws off the clerical habit.
He was ever a dreamer of dreams, and even in his
own time his dreams came to be a part of his actual
life. Legends, stories grew up regarding him that
seem, under the search-light of modern criticism, to
have had but little reality. It is said he was oat in
a boat one day, thinking, thinking, when he was made
prisoner suddenly by some Moorish pirates and taken
a captive to Barbary, whence he returned only after
R
258 FRA LIPPO LIPPI
eighteen months, when they discovered he could draw,
and, so the legend runs, for this they took him to be
a god. He landed at Naples on his return, where he
painted a picture for King Alfonso which was placed
in the private chapel of the king. But he was still
undecided. In truth all this legend is but an allegory
of his life-long search for his own medium. Discon-
tented, out of humour with his art, he longed for
Florence, and at length indeed returned there, and
arrived, painted a picture for the nuns of Sant' Am-
brogio, now in the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence.
It was the age of Lorenzo Ghiberti and Donatello,
the age, therefore, of the great schism in art which
has lasted ever since — the division between the
Naturalists and the Mystics. How to choose ? It
does not trouble Fiiippo for an instant : he who had
travelled and loved the world, even to the desertion
of that quiet cloistral home, is a Naturalist already.
His angels, even in the work he has already done, are
just boys, not angels at all really, yet fulfilling the
requirements of even the most exacting devotee in a
certain humanism, a certain delight in mere living,
the sensuous side of worship, which is far indeed
from coarseness, and farther still from that Middle
Age just gone by for ever — the age of Asceticism.
That picture of his in Sant' Ambrogio made him
known to Cosimo de' Medici, who became his friend
and protector. So he painted a picture of the
Nativity of Christ for the wife of Cosimo de' Medici,
and remembering perhaps the circumstances of his
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 259
own birth, gives an unwonted faintness — at any rate
for him — to the expression of the Madonna : a wish,
as it were, not to live ; a desire for quiet, as though
she were thinking of the " lowliness of His hand-
maiden."
The lust of the eye, the desire of life, the power
latent in all art to enjoy itself, — it was in expressing
these that Filippo came almost to believe he had
found his medium, and when engaged in the feverish
search, he has time for nothing else, has thoughts for
nothing else. Cosimo de' Medici wishes him to finish
some paintings on which he is engaged for the Palace,
but Lippo is up and down Florence with no thought
for work ; that terrible desire of life in him eating
his very soul away in its hunger, its desire to be
appeased. So Cosimo shut him in— a kindly act, at
any rate he thought so — that he might not waste
time so precious to Florence, to Italy, perhaps to the
world. But Lippo, insatiable of life, of that dear
irresponsible going to and fro, cannot endure confine-
ment for longer than two days ; so making a rope of
the sheets of the bed, he slips down again to the sun
and shade, the dust and the bustle, the roses and
love of that Florence of which he can never tire.
Cosimo is disturbed, distracted, at his absence,
terrified for his safety, and on his return at last,
seeing that Filippo must have his way, promises to
shut him up no more, endeavouring ever after by
kindness alone to keep him at work, which for his
own sake he must— so it seems to Cosimo — finish.
2 6o FRA LIPPO LIPPI
But now he has sent work to Rome, he is known
in Padua, Cardinal Barbo, patron of the Arts, has
commended his grace, and some distant relations at
length hold out welcoming arms to him from Prato.
Thither he journeys, staying for months together
with Fra Diamente, a friend of his youth from the
convent at Florence. The nuns of Santa Margherita
— he seems always to have had a curious fascination
for women — commission him to paint a Madonna for
the high altar of their church, and so by chance, as it
were, and slow stages, as he would have thought, he
comes to what must have been the crisis of his life
— the desire of life, the lust of the eye, triumphing
completely at last
In the cool church on sunny mornings, or perhaps
in aimless wanderings, still in search of that which
ever evades him, he has seen Lucrezia Buti, a nun
of a curious fascinating beauty that holds him as
in a vice. And Naturalist as he is, with no thought
beyond, behind his picture, he begs her as model for
his Madonna* Persuasive, eloquent, graceful, he is
not denied. He paints her, and while at work sud-
denly finds himself, for the first time in his life per-
haps, really in love. From desire to accomplishment
was a matter of mere wishing in most things with
Filippo. We see that, in the ease with which he
accomplished that earliest picture for the Carmelites
in Florence, almost without any teaching. Lucrezia
is easily persuaded, and on a certain day when they
had gone forth to do honour to a relic — the girdle
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 261
presented to St Thomas by our Lady — he bears her
from their keeping. Disgrace falls where it is ill
deserved, on the Nuns of Santa Margherita, and
the father of Lucrezia, justly angry at the seduc-
tion of his daughter, in vain makes every effort to
recover her, and in the end is supposed to have
caused Lippo's death by poison. It was the outcome
of this romantic union, their only son, Filippino
Lippi, who carried on the tradition of his father's
work, becoming, though in a somewhat different
style, "a most excellent and famous painter," as
Vasari says. Poor as he always had been and was,
theirs must have been a curious existence. Out-
lawed, at any rate for a time, by the Church, with
no friend but Cosimo de' Medici, Filippo needed then
all that Lucrezia could give of love and sympathy in
order to justify even to himself the wild act he had
been so certain would mean happiness.
Pictures of his about this period are not rare ; for
Cosimo seems to have exercised his influence and
arranged matters with the Church. So we find him
painting in the Augustine church of Santo Spirito in
Florence ; and in Prato, too, in the church of San
Domenico there still remains a Nativity by him.
His drapery is always fine, and his monks are full of
some true spirit of devotion that is wanting in many
a greater master. But it is in his Bambini and in
his boy angels that, in so far as he found expression
in painting, he expresses himself. They are above
all else natural, boisterous children from the streets
202 FRA LIPPO LIPPI
of Florence, with something humorous in the bent
heads, and lips that should be murmuring Aves. In
his picture of the Martyrdom of St Stephen he has
depicted brutal fury and lust for blood with an ex-
traordinary power. Always vivid, there is some-
thing demoniac in the cruelty, the grinding teeth,
and stretched lips of the mob that stones the Saint.
His Madonnas seem to me to be only half realised.
It was a later hand that found expression for all that
Filippo had dreamed ; for among his pupils we find
him who was to supplant him, to say all or nearly
all that Filippo has said and much more that Filippo
had never dreamed of. I mean Sandro Botticelli.
Sandro was his pupil, and certainly no small meas-
ure of Filippo's unexpressed genius fell to his share.
But Botticelli was a man who needed no helping
introductions, a man well able to stand alone. Still
I think we can trace Lippo's influence in some of
Botticelli's early work, and especially in the hair and
heads of his Madonnas. Fra Filippo died in his
fifty-eighth year, in the year 1469.
To Fra Diamente, with whom he had taken that
eventful journey to Prato, he left his only son Filip-
pino, then ten years old. And in due time Filippino
goes to school to Sandro Botticelli, and when he is
older learns from those careful lips the life of his
father.
So died Filippo the painter, a man of immense
genius, wandering through this world trying to find
the medium through which to express himself. He
FRA LIPPO LIPPI 263
never succeeded, and he died greater than his work.
Some compensation for a life set with pitfalls and
sorrow from birth, we may believe he found, some
truth after all, perhaps, though meagre at best, in
the old proverb, " Let us eat, drink, and be merry,
for to-morrow we die." A Naturalist by inspiration
and conviction, a dreamer, a poet, in a way that is
not elaborately artistic but close to life, he was not
one of the greatest painters, but a great artist. A
man of curious fascination, a man of his own time ;
for out of that age of enthusiasm, of extremes, there
would have been no place for Lippo Lippi. Lucky
in this, that he did not die without having known
what life meant, what love meant, in the search for
which we are all so much in earnest.
XVI.
AT BOLOGNA.
N" EVER one of the more beautiful cities of Italy,
Bologna is nevertheless a place of some inter-
est, chiefly because of its school of painting. But
at first sight what strikes the traveller as most char-
acteristic is the arcades, that give to this old-world
city a curious individuality. There are indeed really
miles of them, so that it is said to be possible to
pass through the whole city under cover.
It is, however, rather as the city of curious leaning
towers than as the city of arcades that Bologna event-
ually appears to us, with a kind of sombreness in her
aspect that, it may be, prevents her being overmuch
loved especially by the traveller. But at last, when
the mere curiosity for something strange has ex-
hausted itself upon the leaning towers, Bologna
remains memorable to us as the home of a very re-
markable school of painting, and as the birthplace of
the goldsmith and painter Francesco Francia. Born
here in 1450, Francia appears to have been the son
of humble parents who apprenticed him to a gold-
FRANCESCO FRANCIA 265
smith in the city. Vasari says of him, " His manner
and conversation were so gentle and obliging, that
he kept all around him in good humour, and had the
gift of dissipating the heavy thoughts of the most
melancholy by the charms of his conversation : for
these reasons he was not only beloved by all who
were acquainted with him, but in course of time he
obtained the favour of many princes and nobles,
Italian and others." Having applied himself to the
study of design, " the desire for greater things
awakened within him," the result of which is visible
to us to-day in San Giacomo Maggiore and in the
Accademia.
According to Vasari, Francia took great delight in
the casting of medals: "his works," says that irre-
sistible biographer, " are most admirable, as may be
judged from some on which is the head of Pope
Julius II. so lifelike that these medals will bear com-
parison with those of Carradosso," the famous cutter
of dies of Pavia. And so a large part of Francia's
life was passed as director of the Mint of Bologna.
Giovanni Bentivoglio, who was tyrant there in 1490,
employing him not alone as a cutter of dies but as
a painter too, as may be seen in the chapel of the
Bentivogli in San Giacomo Maggiore, where Francia
painted the lovely altar-piece, one of his most perfect
works, of the Madonna and Child with angels, and
SS. Florian, Augustine, John the Evangelist, and
Sebastian, which he signed Franciscus Francia,
Aurifex, "as though he wished to imply that he be-
266 BOLOGNA
longed to the goldsmith's art, not to that of painting."
And perhaps in a way he did not mean, this is gold-
smith's work indeed in its perfection, and because of
a certain golden light that seems to burst from the
picture. The figure of St Sebastian is, I think, among
all his work perhaps the grandest figure he ever
painted.
There are no less than nine of Francia's works in
the Accademia. One of these, a Nativity, is especi-
ally delightful in that it contains the portrait of
Signor Antonio Galeazzo Bentivoglio and of the
poet Girolamo Pandolfi di Cario. Vasari declares
the portrait of Monsignore de' Bentivoglio to be an
excellent likeness : " he wears the dress of a pilgrim,
in the which he returned from Jerusalem." The
figure in the background with folded hands is gener-
ally supposed to be Bentivoglio, though from Vasari's
description one might suppose the figure in the fore-
ground to the left, with the pilgrim's staff in his hand,
to be Monsignore.
Having thus proved himself a master in oil, he
determined to see if he could not succeed equally
well in fresco. He accomplished his desire on the
walls of the Palazzo Bentivoglio, which, however,
was destroyed by order of Pope Julius II. ; but we
may see to-day in the chapel of St Cecilia, attached
to the church of San Giacomo Maggiore, Francia's
frescoes of The Marriage of Cecilia and Valerian
and The Burial of Cecilia — the rest of the work
here being that of his pupils. These frescoes are
FRANCESCO FRANCIA 267
among his noblest works, — their simplicity and
beauty and grace enchanting us from the begin-
ning in spite of the ruin that is overtaking them.
From this time Francia seems to have had more
work than he could possibly perform, and doubtless a
number of paintings passing under his name are really
the work of his pupils. He appears still to have con-
tinued his work in metal — his die-cutting ; although
the exile of the Bentivoglio family seems to have
caused him sorrow, his fame suffered nothing, Many
of his works, like those he executed for the Duke of
Urbino, were utterly lost. Vasari continues : " While
Francia was then living in so much glory and was
peacefully enjoying the fruits of his labours, Raphael
was working in Rome, where there daily flocked
around him numerous foreigners from various parts,
and among them many gentlemen of Bologna anxious
to see the works of that master, and as it most
commonly happens that every one is ready to extol
the distinguished persons of his native place, so these
Bolognese began to entertain Raphael with praises
of the life and works and genius of Francia until so
much friendship was established between those two
masters by means of words that they saluted each
other by letter." Mrs Foster in her edition of
Vasari appends one of these letters, as follows : —
My dear Messer Francesco, — I have this moment re-
ceived your portrait, which has been brought to me safely
and without having suffered any injury whatever by Bazotto.
I thank you heartily for it ; it is singularly beautiful, and so
n
68 BOLOGNA
life-like that I sometimes fancy myself to be near you, listen-
ing to your words. I beg you to have patience with me and
to excuse the long delay of mine which perpetual and weighty
occupations have prevented me from executing with my own
hand, as we agreed, and I did not think it becoming to per-
mit that it should be done by my scholars and only re-
touched by myself. On the contrary, it will be proper that
all shall be able to perceive how little my work is capable of
comparing with your own. I beg that you will grant me your
friendly indulgence ; you may yourself have experienced what
it is to be deprived of one's freedom and to be obliged to
live in the service of nobles. Meanwhile I send you, through
the same person, who returns in about six days, another
drawing, that of the Prsesepio, already known to you, but
very different, as you will see, from the picture which you
have honoured with so much praise. And this, I constantly
hear, you are pleased to bestow on my attempts, insomuch
that I must blush for myself, as indeed I may well do, with
respect to the trifle I now send you, but you must accept it
as a token of my respect and affection rather than for any
other cause. If I, on my part, might possess your story of
Judith, I should certainly treasure it among my most valued
and dearest possessions. The Honourable Signor Dartany
is awaiting his little Madonna with great desire, as is Car-
dinal Riario his larger one ; of all which Bazotto will inform
you more minutely. I shall myself see them with all the
pleasure and satisfaction with which I always see and recom-
mend your works, than which I find none more beautiful or
executed better. Continue to hold me in affection, as I hold
you with my whole heart ; being ever bound to your service,
and truly your own Raffaele Sanzio.
Francia, now an old man, greatly desired to see
Raphael's works, and by a piece of the good fortune
FRANCESCO FRANCIA 269
that seems to have followed him all his days, a pic-
ture — the St Cecilia, now in the Accademia — came to
Bologna for a chapel in San Giovanni in Monte,
Raphael, by way of compliment, addressing it to the
care of Francia himself; and, his legend continues,
when he saw at last the very work of the divine
Raphael, he perceived " his error and the foolish pre-
sumption with which he had weakly believed in his
own superiority. . . . He was utterly confounded, but
nevertheless caused the painting to be placed with all
care and diligence in the chapel for which it was in-
tended in the church of San Giovanni in Monte ; but
having become like a man beside himself, he took to
his bed a few days after, appearing to himself to be
almost as nothing in art when compared with what
he had believed himself and what he had always been
considered. Thus he died, many believe, of grief, . . .
in 1528, receiving honourable interment from his sons
in Bologna." Almost the whole of this story has been
questioned, however, and it is even asserted that
Francia had for a long time previous to his death
been well acquainted with Raphael's work.
Beyond anything in Bologna the genius of Francia
haunts the traveller, constraining him, perhaps almost
against his will, to love this curious city of colonnades
and leaning towers, restful enough now after its fierce
and angry youth. It stands like a kind of uncouth
Hermes, where three nations meet, almost unnoticed
in the shade of its cloistered streets.
XVIL
A NOTE ON RAVENNA.
AFTER all, when the unique historical value of
Ravenna is forgotten or ignored for a time
by the traveller, it is always as the city of pine
woods she is remembered, set in the solitude not far
from the sea -shore. Yet it is only when some
sense of her history remains in the mind, to colour
the natural beauty and perfection of her unique and
solitary loveliness, that even her pine woods can be
rightly loved, and their secrets become a possession
of the traveller who passes by.
Not only, at least for the sentimental, as the city
of Dante is she known, proud Ravenna by the eastern
sea, but as the city beloved by Byron, the home ot
"the Guiccioli."
I have been here [he writes, June 29, 1819] these four
weeks, having left Venice a month ago. I came to see my
"Arnica," the Countess Guiccioli, who has been, and still
continues, very unwell. . . . She is only in her seventeenth,
but not of a strong constitution. She has a perpetual
cough and intermittent fever, but bears up most gallantly in
BYRON 271
every sense of the word. Her husband (this is his third
wife) is the richest noble in Ravenna and almost of Romagna ;
he is also not the youngest, being upwards of three-score, but
in good preservation. All this will appear strange to you
who do not understand the meridian morality nor our way of
life. ... I have my horses here, saddle as well as carriage,
and ride and drive every day in the forest, the Pineta, the
scene of Boccaccio's novel and Dryden's fable of Honoria,
etc. ; and I see my Dama every day. . . .
And these woods, through which the sea-wind
whispers, somewhat sadly one may think, of the
innumerable centuries that have watched the splend-
our and the ruin of this city, are full of song, for the
sea with its never-changing music is never far away
from the thoughts of him who wanders over the
plains of that Ravenna which was a naval station
of Csesar Augustus.
As John Addington Symonds seems to suggest,
the proper companion during a stay in Ravenna is
Dante's " Purgatorio," Canto xxviii. : —
" Through the celestial forest, whose thick shade
With lively greenness the new springing day
Attempered, eager now to roam and search
Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank,
Along the champain leisurely my way
Pursuing, o'er the ground, that on all sides
Delicious odour breathed. A pleasant air
That intermitted never, never veered,
Smote on my temples, gently as a wind
Of softest influence : at which the sprays,
Obedient all, lean'd trembling to that part
Where first the holy mountain casts his shade ;
272 RAVENNA
Yet were not so discovered, but that still
Upon their top the feathered choristers
Applied their wonted art, and with full joy
Welcomed those hours of prime and warbled shrill
Amid the leaves, that to their jocund lays
Kept tenour ; even as from branch to branch
Along the piny forests on the shore
Of Chiassi, rolls the gathering melody
When Eolus hath from his cavern loosed
The dripping south."
The mystical figure of Dante is, indeed, never far
from the mind in this the city where he died. It is
chiefly as a place full of the memories of the unforget-
able dead that Ravenna is dear to us to-day. One is
perhaps a little overwhelmed on arrival when turning
to the necessary guide-book to find it crammed with
nothing but inhuman learning. It is curious how
profoundly lacking in charm Baedeker can be in
Italy, since he seemed to promise such romance in
the library at home ! Valuable as it may be to the
traveller to realise for himself the Ravenna and Classis
of Roman times, the siege of the city by the Ostro-
goths under Theodoric their king, the gift of the
place by Charlemagne to the Holy See, — it is of none
of these things that one traveller at least is content
to think in a place so passionate and so austere, but
of Dante dreaming of far-off Florence by the sea-
shore, and of Boccaccio's beautiful tale, and of
Byron's passion for Countess Guiccioli. To me, at
least, of all places in the world Ravenna is the least
like a museum. Yet the guide-books of every shade
of red would make of her one of the chief museums of
DANTE 273
Italy. To me she is a dream, a vision seen through
a grey-blue air over a passionate sea by the light of
a few stars and the summer night. Herself a dead
and cindered passion, one may sometimes imagine
her as she was in her splendour. Among all her mag-
nificent treasures — the mausoleum of Galla Placida,
the tomb of Dante, the baptistery, the chapel of the
Arcivescovado, the church of San Apollinare Nuovo,
the palace and tomb of Theodoric, and the church
of San Apollinare in Classe, — she is herself more
precious than they all, forgotten utterly by the world,
still roaming in her marvellous Pineta in which she
has perhaps lost her way.
XVIIL
AT VENICE.
TIKE a vast precious stone sinking into the mud
-■— * and ooze of her lagoons Venice is to - day
vanishing from our earth in the sea distance and
her lapsing tides. Glorified by our dreams and her
smouldering tragic sunsets she is gradually disap-
pearing beyond the remotest of horizons. She, too,
like the lovely nude courtesans of her greatest
painters, seems to shine with a rich glow of her
own, and " almost to illumine the sky rather than
to receive light from it." Through her marvellous
and dying streets the wet sea-wind passes with the
same immortal melody that Wagner caught in the
herdsman's tune, played on a pipe before the castle
on the rocky height from which are seen the wide
and sad horizons of the sea in the third act of
"Tristan und Isolde," and on the walls of her mould-
ering palaces is deposited the salt gathered by the
wind over many miles of water glistening in the
silence and the sun. Perhaps Venice may stand for
the tragedy of our modern world. She is dying so
.
1 r
w;
_
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O
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"NON SUM QUALIS ERAM " 275
slowly under the glittering indifferent stars. Through
her streets rush the penny steamers, like horrible
bacilli in the veins of one dying of a dreadful fever.
They care nothing for her beauty, and are perhaps
unconscious that they are destroying her, being occu-
pied with their own thoughts, their own little life.
Within her palaces, innumerable and splendid, the
canvases that reflect her ancient beauty and magnif-
icence decay too and fade under the glances of the
vulgar and foolish tourist. For how long has she
asked in vain who will defend Beauty, Beauty dis-
tressed now as never before, despised and rejected
by the vulgar and barbarous century that has been
captured by lust of gold and sensuality and ugliness ?
I at least have no words to express my contempt, my
hatred, and my despair of a world that has destroyed
so fair a thing. I hate how bitterly, how ineffectually
these bestial multitudes that without understanding
or knowledge are trampling Beauty down beneath
their million hoofs. Ah, how shall I tell, without an
emotion that in a despicable vile world of mechanics
will seem ridiculous, all my loathing, all my horror !
O Demos, King of kings, Lord of lords, the only
Ruler of princes, thou who hast in thy turn con-
quered, thou also in thy turn shalt die, despicably
die at last, and men shall laugh together and be glad.
Humanity, once the mistress of poets, philosophers,
and heroes, is now its own "pimp and pander, its
own adorer and assassin." It, too, has sinned more
vilely than the most contemptible of devils. Like
276 VENICE
an immense flock of sheep afflicted with fly, unclean,
diseased, filthy, and abominable, humanity follows,
whither it knows not, stamping underfoot the glory
and the beauty and the loveliness of our world.
Ah ! he that goeth about to persuade a multitude
that it is never more to be despised shall never
want for laughter. But this at least is within my
power, this at least is part of my office, to defend
my dream. Though the Great Beast swallow me up
quite, ever and ever I will hate it. I will laugh in
its eyes, and smite it in the face, though still un-
consciously it destroy me. Not less for the fear I
have of its triumph, but rather to the utmost be-
cause of it, I will defend my vision, the beauty it
has never seen, the thought it has never been able
to comprehend, the freedom and the ancient order,
and the virtue that can never utterly pass away, in
spite of the drunken assaults of the slaves and fools
of King Demos, the greed of the tradesmen, the
cheating of the grocers, the savagery of the me-
chanics, the bestiality of the Great Beast. In all
the boasting parliaments of earth they proclaim
Demos king and greet him with the funeral saluta-
tion, O king, live for ever! — already his body that
is but reprieved from death, condemned and un-
clean, stinks of the inevitable worm. We shall
return : be of good cheer, Beauty has but turned
from us for a moment to look into the face of God.
She alone is immortal, calm, and composed, while
Humanity in abject terror stutters to the grave. In
HE LAS! 277
spite of hideous wrongs, in spite of the awful whines
and groans of the children of the Great Beast, who
never having seen the sun fear to die, in spite of
the most terrible sins and destruction and cruelty
and murder, we must never despair. Though but
few in number, it is we who possess the mastery in
the end — we the poets, the artists, the soldiers of
Beauty. We will pierce the Great Beast with
spears of ridicule and satire, we will crush him
with the majesty of the syllables of our mother
tongue — we will overwhelm him with legions of
beautiful words. His slaves we will disperse with
the whips of our scorn and wit, for when they see
the terrible and beautiful banners of our Lady they
will falter and be afraid and beseech of us our
tyranny. But in that day may God forget that
He is Love, may our Lady forget her Mercy. O
Poets, in this our night forget not your office ;
defend the vision you have seen, the thought that
is immaculate in your souls !
Thus shall we avenge Venice upon her destroyers,
and preserve at least the suggestion of that beauty
which was once named Venezia.
" Does it not strike you," says Perdita, seated in
her gondola, to her lover, one September evening
in Venice, in D'Annunzio's latest romance — " Does
it not strike you that we seem to be following the
princely retinue of dead Summer ? There she lies
sleeping in her funeral boat all dressed in gold, like
the wife of a Doge, like a Loredana or a Morosina,
278 VENICE
or a Soranza of the enlightened centuries ; and the
procession is taking her to the island of Murano,
where some masterly lord of fire will make her a
crystal coffin, and the walls of the coffin shall be of
opal, so that when once submerged in the Laguna
she may at least see the languid play of the sea-
weed through her transparent eyelids, and while
awaiting the hour of resurrection give herself the
illusion of having still about her person the con-
stant undulation of her hair." Something of this
voluptuous dreaminess remains with Venice to-day
in spite of all. She still has gold upon her gar-
ments. On the very first morning as one gazes out
over the still waters, San Giorgio rises before one
like a rosy lily, its mighty bell-tower tipped with a
golden angel. One's first impression indeed is one
of rosiness, as though some indefinite rosy light
shone through everything here.
As one wanders about Venice to-day so quietly in a
sombre gondola, watching her t throned there on her
piles, sink into the mud, one seems to be witnessing
some magnificent tragedy. As evening is shrouded
by night the singers in their fantastic barges greet
one over the mysterious waters with the music of
mandolin and guitar and warm Italian voices. Life,
like some fantastic play, seems to drift by one as in
a dream. To be attentive to- every sound and sight,
just that, it is sufficient. One is almost impatient
of Mr Ruskin, who would appear to have exhausted
Venice, and yet missed her most important secrets.
SAN MARCO 279
For it is here in the most tourist-ridden city in Italy
that one can best perceive the glory of those things
which have been, without effort, adrift in a gondola
watching the reflections in the waters. St Mark's,
of which even the most insular must have heard so
much, never becomes quite real to us, is always more
or less an insubstantial vision. One wanders up and
down the lofty galleries among the innumerable
figures of the mosaics, under the blessed uplifted
hands of the Virgin or the large overshadowing
wings of an archangel " an hundred cubits high,"
almost as we might wander in heaven among saints
and angels, with whom, after all, we have very little
in common.
San Marco is, indeed, less like a church than we
had perhaps expected. The place, as has been well
said, is like to the sea upon which it is built, uneven
or rising in little, little waves. The other churches
tell us almost nothing but that we are in what was
once a splendid and magnificent city. Perhaps Santa
Maria della Salute is the most romantic, standing
as she does at the gate, that all going in or passing
out may adore her. It is only after many days that
the picture-gallery contains anything for us but other
splendid spaces of colour, less magnificently voluptu-
ous than are to be found everywhere in the city
herself. Gradually her waterways, perhaps, become
less romantic and more real — one has time to think
a little, one's emotion is less ready. It is at this
moment that we perceive the marvellous richness
2 8o VENICE
of her museums and her details. On getting into
a gondola one desires to go somewhere, one is no
longer content to drift. Then is the time to depart
or to remain for ever. Once immersed in her history
and her art, the story of her valour and her merchand-
ise, the visible splendour of her visions, the profound
temperance of her religion, the wisdom of her govern-
ment, the abyss of her corruption, the traveller is
doomed to love her and never to leave her. One begins
to watch the tourists in companies or couples seeking
out her loveliness or her renown, always in vain.
One begins to understand that the end of one's own
passion for her must be despair. Day by day, little
by little, she sinks into mud. Even the smoke of the
steamers is beginning to stain her stainless marbles.
The filth of ages churned up by the screws and the
paddle-wheels is beginning to cling to her splendid
robes. It is only in the evening one may occasionally
look into her eyes and view her very soul. She used
to gather about her innumerable ships, that sailed at
her bidding and were precious in her eyes ; now they
hoot at her and despise her on her piles. She wedded
the sea in her youth, and it is he who at the last will
save her from the savages who have deflowered her.
Gradually he, her immortal lover, is gathering her
into his embrace ; soon he will kiss her on the mouth
and cleanse her from all the abominations that we
have made her suffer. For she is too beautiful for
our little day ; she has attained immortality, and we
who must die hate her therefor — our very thoughts
THE CAMPANILE OF ST MARK 281
are an insult to her. But he who is her husband
is rising irresistibly, and will one day surround her
with his inviolable silence, his immaculate purity,
his everlasting strength.
Thus, when I evoke her image, does she appear
to me enthroned on her piles sinking into the mud
encircled by the sea. And believing as I do that one
day a great cry will go up for her beauty and her
splendour and her strength when it is too late, I
desire nothing better than to be remembered as one
who loved her and that for which she stands, and
hated with bitterness and despair the Great Beast
who destroyed her, and whom her spirit will one
day everlastingly vanquish.
• ••*••••
To think of Venice without the Campanile of St
Mark is to any one who has ever known her in-
timately almost an impossibility. For it was not
the Piazza di San Marco alone that the famous bell-
tower dominated, but all Venice too, across whose
silent ways that bell, sounded by the watchman on
the summit every quarter of an hour by day and
night, no longer sounds. So passes the glory of
the world.
Begun in 902 under Doge Pietro Tribuno, it was
not till 1 150, under Doge Domenico Morosini, that
it was finished so far as the belfry, which was added
under Doge Leonardo Loredan in 15 10. The belfry
and pyramid then added, completing the shaft, were
the work of Buono ; the belfry was a beautiful " open
282 VENICE
loggia of four arches in each face," and commanded a
magnificent view of Venice and her islands. The
whole tower, including the angel which tipped it, was
323 feet high, while the base measured 42 feet. And
now that it has fallen a mere mass of ruin 100 feet
high in the Piazzi, we are beginning to realise perhaps
what we have lost. For four hundred years not one
of our countrymen has visited Venice without being
astonished at the beauty of the Campanile. John
Evelyn thus writes of it in his ' Diary ' concerning
his visit to Venice in 1645 : —
Having fed our eyes with the noble prospect of the island
of St George, the galleys, gondolas, and other vessels passing
to and fro, we walked under the cloisters on the other side
of this goodly piazza, being a most magnificent building, the
design of Sansorino. Here we went into the zecca or mint.
. . . After this we climbed up the tower of St Mark, which
we might have done on horseback, as 'tis said one of the
French kings did, there being no stairs or steps, but returns
that take up an entire square on the arches 40 feet, broad
enough for a coach. This steeple stands by itself, without
any church near it, and is lather a watch-tent in the corner
of the great piazza, 230 feet in height, the foundation exceed-
ing deep ; on the top is an angel that turns with the wind,
and from hence is a prospect down the Adriatic as far as
Istria and the Dalmatian side, with the surprising sight of
this miraculous city lying in the bosom of the sea in the
shape of a lute, the numberless islands tacked together by
no fewer than 450 bridges.
Mr John Evelyn seems to have made some mistake as
to the height of the tower ; and indeed though, as he
SAN GIORGIO MAGGIORE 283
says, the foundation was exceeding deep, it was not
deep enough to prevent our grief.
But the Campanile of St Mark is not the only tower
in Venice that we hold precious. In a halo of mist
in early morning, sailing as it were in a sea as smooth
and blue and transparent as the sky itself, rises the
island of St George, with its church and monastery
and its mighty bell-tower, tipped too with a golden
angel that looks like a tall lily standing in the serene
waters of some lake of fancy. Indeed, one's first
impression almost of Venice is one of rosiness, as
though some soft indefinite rosy light shone through
everything there. And it is from this Tower of San
Giorgio Maggiore that, as I think, the finest view of
Venice is to be seen ; finer than that from the Tower
of St Mark, since one is as it were really outside
Venice, almost in the sea, which, tired and motionless
in the heat, completely surrounds one. The Church
of San Giorgio Maggiore is the work of Palladio, and
was begun in 1565. It is not long since Roman
remains were discovered on the island, that was in
old days called Isola dei Cipressi — the island of the
cypresses. It would seem that there was a Benedic-
tine monastery here so long ago as 985. The Doge
Domenico Michele is buried within the Church of
Palladio. It was he who brought the two granite
columns from Syria that are now and have been
since 1180 the chiefest monument of the Piazzetta,
exquisitely visible from San Giorgio ; with these he also
brought the body of San Isodoro, a not less precious
284 VENICE
gift. Over his tomb are carved the words, "Terror
Grsecorum hie jacet." The monastery, together with
how many others in Italy, has been secularised, and
is now used as an artillery barracks !
It is perhaps from this island that one has the
finest view of the Doge's Palace, a dream of splendour
in the distance ; and one cannot help asking oneself
as one gazes on so much beauty, How long will it
remain with us to rejoice us of the modern world ?
For though the fall of St Mark's Tower came as a
surprise at least to the outer world, though it would
appear those responsible for the buildings of Venice
had frequently been warned by their own architect of
its inevitable fall unless various repairs were under-
taken, it is not so long since we were told that that
side of the ducal palace from which springs the
Bridge of Sighs was gradually sinking into the mud,
whither — in how short a time ! — all Venice must
surely follow. The inevitable decay of the piles of
white poplar wood, driven into the mud, the dredging
of the lagoon and the tideway for the huge modern
ships, the wash and swirl and hurry of the passing
steamboats up and down the Grand Canal that was
surely never meant for them, — all have contributed
toward the downfall of that majestic and lovely
tower whose loss we have as yet hardly realised,
whose fall has left our world by how great a thought
less lovely than of old.
On one's first coming to her, Venice has a strange
fascination for even the most philistine tourist, nor is
AVE AT QUE VALE 285
that first impression unenduring. It is easy to under-
stand and to describe her obvious beauty, the mystery
of that limitless horizon, the voluptuous glory of sun-
set ; the delicate and fragile splendour of dawn — even
her numberless islands ; the blue and grey and silver
in which the twilight dresses her ; the music of
mandolin and guitar and the voices of the gondoliers
echoing among her half-deserted palaces, that bear
the names of princely families that have passed for
ever. A sensuous, and amid all that dead and dying
loveliness around perhaps a sensual emotion has from
the first almost entire possession of the traveller ; and
this, as I think, is no false impression but a profound
truth, that is true enough to be obvious — perceived by
the most casual passer-by. A largesse of colour that
is in itself a kind of rich music, fierce and splendid,
possessed of many a dying fall, awaits all who may
come to her, suggesting to them the galop of the
bugles, the triumphant assurance of the scarlet
trumpets and all their insolent joy, the thunder of
innumerable drums deadening thought, and the
exquisite honey of violins and harps, the wrathless
passion of the mandolin, the balanced wisdom of
violoncellos. It is in some such emotional rapture as
this that one leaves her after staying but a few weeks
with her in summer time. For she seems to be
fulfilled even now with a kind of riotous joy beyond
any other city in our world. But it is not thus she
will appear to those who have long lived beside her
silent ways, who have learned to know her very soul.
286 VENICE
She is not really joyful at all, but profoundly sad ; her
ecstasy of beauty is over, and the sunsets only gild
a dying city, only glorify her last mysterious hours.
For her husband the sea, whom she wedded in her
youth with a ring of gold and ruled so imperiously
for many years, has robed himself just before twi-
light with heavenly gold and crimson and his own
white and blue ; patiently he has waited these many
years, till she has grown tired of conquest and glory
and is ready to sink into the arms of him who has
loved her from the beginning. Ah, no, she is not
joyful : she is thinking perhaps of all those years
that he has waited, or of her own bespattered glory,
and her beauty that is almost a ruin. Is it thus
she thinks in the solitude and silence of her limit-
less horizon, in the mysterious loneliness of the
lagoons in the sunshine under her wide heaven,
before she goes down to the depths of the sea ?
Still the gondolas at evening steal back from the
Lido, like ghosts of winged Hermes, silently into
the city as night descends from the mountains far
away. Still the stars peer down from an unimag-
inable height, and seem like great golden water-lilies
on the waters of the lagoon. And everywhere and
at all hours there is a kind of music : perhaps it is
the weeping of the oar; perhaps the whisper of the
lagoon grass through which the gondola passes,
cleaving a disappearing lane as it goes ; perhaps
the musical blow of the boat itself on the water,
meeting the south wind coming over the sand-dunes.
AVE AT QUE VALE 287
And at evening this music only becomes more dis-
tinct, more passionate, resolving itself into singing
heard in the distance to the accompaniment of
mandolin or guitar.
Under the unfathomable serenity of her sky she
still draws breath at evening, but how languidly!
And we too think of heaven, and with her just
touch it perhaps during the space of one heart's
beat. Maybe in the dusk she is praying that her
soul may be relieved of this disorderly throng of
sensible things. Hers has been one of those sublime
moments that have no return, and now her last
lover of all these countless ones, Night with its
warm, damp breath, has touched her eyelids as with
a kiss ; for she has turned her face to the wind,
the wind that has passed over the sea. And he,
her true husband — how can we doubt for a moment
that he will possess her at the last, seeing the in-
finite persistence of the waves, the perseverance of
the foam, the imperceptible wearing away of the
rocks, the furious beating of the wind, and all his
travail and waiting and weariness for her ?
It is at dawn, perhaps, that Venice appears to us as
of old a city of joy. In the cold glittering light of
sunrise the deserted canals are fulfilled with a kind
of ancient poetry and all the ardour of silence. Above,
the stars are dying in a sky almost green and rimmed
with gold. Some mystery of light coming from the
cave of darkness has passed over the city, and the
palaces and towers and churches seem insubstantial,
288 VENICE
fairy-like, aerial, and magically new. A cold faint
wind blows from the sea ; and as the gondola flies
towards the dawn past the Ducal Palace, that seems
like a house of ivory, past San Giorgio, that is delicately
flushed and tall, like a youth almost, gradually the
expanse of sea and the strength of the sea -wind
dominate the city that has already faded away as a
dream. The great red sails of the fishing-boats, bellied
by the wind, the foam under their bows, the music of
the buffeting of the little waves raised by the salt sea-
wind, the growing splendour of that immense horizon,
— all are fulfilled with a riot of joy, a profound enthu-
siasm for life, conscious of itself and of nothing beside.
And gradually the ear becomes aware of the thunder
of waves, the joyful song of the surf, and at last the
boat leaps forward and lies panting upon the eternal
waves of the great sea that has already consumed so
many eternities.
But at night all is changed. Perhaps under a full
moon all the domes are glistening with silver ; while
before one, far away out over the lagoon, disappearing
at last into the heaven's heart, stretches a path of
pearl, along which the gondola passes slowly and
gently, as though the way were indeed precious. It is
then, in the numberless smaller canals and in the
Grand Canal too, one may watch the city dying so
slowly, and understand her profound sorrow. How
indifferent she is to the life that goes on around her !
neither the love-songs of the living nor the chanting
of those who already look upon death as upon a dear
AVE ATQUE VALE 289
mistress move her at all, for she is thinking of her own
destiny. Far away from her thoughts now are the
lust and love and glory of the world that still live in
the voices and mandolins of the gondoliers. What
is it to her that the Piazza di San Marco is full of
men and women, that in the Salute they are singing
Compline, for she is thinking of her husband the Sea,
and of her destined bridal bed.
And still beautiful, still the most lovely city of our
world, she will gradually or in a moment be lost to us,
and he her husband will not greet her as less than a
queen. All the spoils of the splendid ships, all the
beauty of his prey, all that in the centuries he has
stolen from us, all the sunshine he has stored in his
deep indestructible caverns, he will lavish upon her,
and every night he will deck her with innumerable
stars. Ropes of seaweed, opalescent and rare, shall
sway like beautiful snakes in her hair ; banners woven
by the secret sway of the sea shall float from the tall
campanili ; on her left hand shall flash the mighty ring
of the fisherman ; and over her heart a red and burning
sun shall flame. Thus in the silence of that lucent
world the sea shall make her his own at last.
XIX.
AT PADUA.
WITHIN easy reach of Venice, Padua stands in
the plain that lies at the foot of the Euganean
hills. Chiefly noteworthy on account of St Anthony
and Giotto, it has nevertheless entertained in its day
many illustrious and humble personages, among them
Mr John Inglesant and Mr Nicholas Ferrar. Mr
John Evelyn, a contemporary of both, has given us
in his Memoirs the following description of Padua
in the seventeenth century that will not be without
interest for the reader : —
On the . . . June we went to Padua [from Venice] to
the faire of their St Anthony, in company of divers pass-
engers. The first terra firma we landed at was Fusina,
being onely an inn, where we changed our barge and were
then draune up by horses through the river Brenta, a strait
chanell as even as a line for 20 miles, the country on both
sides deliciously adorned with country villas and gentle-
man's retirements, gardens planted with oranges, figs, and
other fruit belonging to y e Venetians. At one of these
villas we went ashore to see a pretty contrived palace. . . .
The toune stands on the river Padus, whence its name, and
JOHN INGLESANT 291
is generally built like Bologna on arches and on brick, so
that one may walk all round it dry and in the shade w ch is
very convenient in these hot countries, and I think I was
never so sensible of so burning a heate as I was at this
season, especially the next day, which was that of y e faire,
filled with noble Venetians by reason of a great and solemn
procession to their famous cathedral.
Mr John Inglesant being in Padua at a somewhat
later period may be permitted to add to this de-
scription a few further particulars. He says : —
The failure of the silk trade, owing to the importation
of silk from India into Europe, had destroyed the prosperity
of many parts of Italy ; and in Padua long streets of de-
serted mansions attested by their beauty the wealth and
taste of the nobility, whom the loss of the rents of their
mulberry groves had reduced to ruin. Many houses being
empty, rents were exceedingly cheap, and the country being
very plentiful in produce and the air very good, a little
money went a long way in Padua. There was something
about the quiet gloomy town with its silent narrow streets
and its winding dim arcades by which you might go from
one end of the city to the other under a shady covert — that
soothed Inglesant's weary senses and excited brain.
It is another picture we get from the learned and
devout Mr Nicholas Ferrar, his biographer; including
as it does something of the life in that magnificent
century at the famous university here.
For travellers from beyond the Alps [she writes] the chief
attractions of the Italian Oxford now lie in the picturesque
cathedral on the river bank, and the silent garden where
2Q2 PADUA
among long lines of mulberry trees stands the deserted
chapel which Giotto painted while he listened to the talk of
Dante.
It was very different in the seventeenth century. The
city was crowded and overflowing with youths who came
from all parts of the civilised world, eager to study in its
famous schools of law and medicine. The students in
the great University of Law were classed in twenty-three
"nations," each of which had its own officers and its own
rules, and was permitted, under the sole condition of not
interfering with the Government or religion of the State
of Venice, to live according to its own customs. Its
humbler sister the University of Arts could number but
seven " nations," five of which belonged to the States of
Italy, the foreign students being grouped as "oltremonte"
or "oltremare"; but the artisti enjoyed equal independence
with the aristocratic quiristi or law students. Neapolitan
and Tuscan, Frenchman and German, Pole and Dalmatian,
Englishman, Scot, Hungarian, Spaniard, Cypriote, each
when he came forth from the magnificent palace (once
the dwelling-place of the Dukes of Carrera), which is still
the home of the university, and went to his lodging in
the fresco-painted streets of the students' quarter, found
himself in the midst of a little world of his own countrymen,
where he might unmolested practise the manners and profess
the religion of his own land, a toleration possible at that
time in no State of Italy or perhaps of Europe [certainly not
in England] but the territories of the Venetian Republic,
which, owing its importance mainly to its wide commercial
relations, used every means in its power to make foreigners
feel at home on its soil.
Quarrels of course were of constant occurrence in this
mixed crowd of unruly young men, and the luckless " Virro"
NICHOLAS FERRAR 293
who might rashly venture to interfere was often ill-used
and even stabbed with impunity. It was very dangerous,
says Evelyn, to traverse the streets after dark. When St
Francis de Sales, who was a student in the University of
Law from 1587 to 1591, irritated his companions by his
refusal to join in their evil ways, they attacked him with
blows, and the future bishop was forced to defend himself
with his sword.
This was the world in which Ferrar found himself
when some time in the spring of 1615 he entered the
University of Arts, in which was taught medicine,
geometry, philosophy, and rhetoric. There was an
anatomical theatre and a " garden of simples rarely
furnished with plants," to which was attached a
school of pharmacy, which had been in existence
for more than sixty years. There were also two
hospitals for the study of clinical medicine, furnished
with the ''greatest helps and most skilful physicians,"
and most miserable and deplorable objects to exercise
upon, " very carefully attended, and with extreme
charity."
It is to no university but to a tiny chapel in a
garden of mulberries that the traveller comes nowa-
days. The chapel of Madonna dell' Arena is not far
from the very middle of the city. It stands in the
old Roman arena, whose shape can still be traced in
the oval of the garden. Giotto is said to have painted
the frescoes in the Chapel during the time Dante was
in Padua. His work, always profound and broad, is
sure to win the love of those who follow Mr Ruskin.
294 PADUA
One dare scarcely enter Florence indeed, or at least
Santa Maria Novella, should one be unwilling to
worship in the dark cloister a tiny fresco, where,
with every weapon his mother tongue provides and
many of his own invention, Mr Ruskin stands on
guard. It is, perhaps, at least for the English reader,
impossible to study Giotto apart from Mr Ruskin's
work. Perhaps Mr Ruskin is too devout, even before
so worthy a god as Giotto. His supreme achieve-
ment seems to have been to free painting from the
Byzantine manner. At least his men and women, his
gods and angels, were once alive. But he seems to
have desired rather to express thought, character, than
beauty, thus to a large extent influencing the whole
Florentine school. Kugler says of him : " It is impos-
sible to over-estimate the influence of Giotto's genius.
He opened a fountain of Nature to the gifted genera-
tions who succeeded him in Italy, which permeated
through the length and breadth of the land, spread-
ing beauty and fertility in its course." The which
is perhaps rather true than well expressed. It
would be superfluous for me to name the subjects,
one by one, of his work in the Arena chapel here
in Padua. Every guide-book devotes pages to them.
They are devoted to the life of Christ and the life of
the Madonna. On the wall above the high altar
Christ is seen in Glory, on the western wall of the
chapel Giotto has painted The Last Judgment. And
of all his work here, The Resurrection seems to me
the most lovely, with perhaps The Nativity coming
SAINT ANTONY 295
next. They seem to me beyond the rest to attain
to a supreme naturalness, which is absent from much
of the lovelier work of Fra Angelico, and which seems
to have been Giotto's especial characteristic.
From this chapel of Madonna one goes to the
church of " II Santo " — St Antony of Padua. Born in
1195 at Lisbon, St Antony received at his christening
the name of Ferdinand, which, when he became a
son of St Francis, he changed for that of Antony — it
is said from devotion to the great Abbot Antony, the
Patriarch of monks ; for it was in a chapel under his
invocation that St Antony of Padua was received into
the Franciscan Order. His father was an officer,
Martin de Bullones by name, who fought in the army
of El Consultador. As a youth Antony was one of
the community of canons of the cathedral at Lisbon,
where he had his schooling. But not long after he
had, at the age of fifteen, " entered among the regular
canons of St Austin," he desired greater seclusion and
silence, and so went to the convent of the Holy Cross
belonging to the Order of St Austin at Coi'mbra.
There he appears to have become enamoured of the
ascetic life, and to have followed it during eight years.
Suddenly a new idea seems to have awakened him.
Don Pedro, Infant of Portugal, about that time
brought, with what pomp and reverence we may
well imagine, the relics of five Franciscans, lately
martyred, from Morocco. Antony was immediately
possessed by an enthusiasm for that order, desiring
above all things to lay down his life in the cause
296 PADUA
of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Franciscans, who
doubtless had observed the youth, seeing his en-
thusiasm, encouraged him to join them, a step from
which naturally the canons of Holy Cross en-
deavoured to dissuade him. And in all the struggles,
both interior and with his fellows, that followed in
this his desire, it is the poverty, the austerity of the
Franciscan Order that attract him, that in the end
compel him to desert to St Francis.
In 1221 he, having obtained the consent of his
prior, entered into the Franciscan Order of Little
Poor Men, taking the name of Antony, as I have
said. And consumed by that horrible enthusiasm
for death that is the mark of so many of the saints,
he early set out for Africa to seek for martyrdom
and to preach Christ's Gospel. " He was scarce
arrived there, however, when God, satisfied with the
sacrifice of his heart, visited him with a severe fit
of illness, which obliged him to return to Spain
for the re-establishment of his health." By chance
the ship in which he sailed, baffled from its course by
contrary winds, touched at Messina, where Antony
heard that St Francis, the very god of his idolatry,
was holding a " general chapter" at Assisi. Thither
he went in spite of his sickness, and having set eyes
upon that Mirror of Perfection, he desired never
again to leave him, determined to forsake not only
his friends but his country also so that he might
stay near St Francis. No superior, however, would
agree "to be troubled" with him in his condition
SAINT ANTONY 297
of sickness, till at length a certain Gratiani from
Romagna sends him to a hermitage at Monte Paolo,
near Bologna. Here he appears to have buried him-
self in silence, permitting neither his learning nor
his communications with God to be so much as
guessed at ; till one day the Franciscan convent is
entertaining some Dominican Friars, for the Domin-
icans and Franciscans are always thought of as friends,
and the Franciscan superior, wishing to show his
guests honour, desires one of them " to make an
exhortation to the company." But they all with
one accord began to make excuse, saying that they
were most miserably unprepared. Then the superior
desired Antony to speak just as God should direct
him, and he " begged to be excused, alleging that
he had only been used to wash the dishes in the
kitchen and to sweep the house." However, he is
persuaded, and all are astonished not only at his
learning but also at his eloquence and humility.
Tnis marvellous eloquence, humility, and learning,
all in combination, comes to St Francis's ears, who
sends Antony to Vercelli to study and to teach.
St Francis's letter, in which he recommends this
course to him, is as follows : " To my most dear
brother Antony, Friar Francis wishes health in
Jesus Christ. It seemeth good to me that you
should read sacred theology to the friars, yet so
that you do not prejudice yourself by too great
earnestness in studies; and be careful that you do
not extinguish in yourself, or in them, the spirit of
298 PADUA
holy prayer." After this Antony appears to have
taught divinity at Bologna, Padua, Toulouse, and
Montpelier. Soon, however, he forsook the schools
for the life of a preaching friar, in which he travelled
through many lands, making many converts and per-
forming many miracles, but at last he comes face
to face with that Ezzelino, lord of Padua, whom
Browning names, —
" Grey, wizened, dwarfish, devil Ecelin."
This fiend in human shape had in one day murdered
more than 12,000 persons in Padua, and the city of
Verona too had " lost through him most of its in-
habitants." Antony without fear confronts him and
tells him of his sins — when, instead of ordering his
guards to murder the saint, as seemed most likely,
" to their great astonishment he descended from his
throne pale and trembling, and putting his girdle
round his neck for a halter, cast himself at the feet
of the humble servant of God, and with many tears
begged him to intercede with God for the pardon of
his sins. The saint lifted him up and gave him suit-
able advice to do penance. Q . . Ezzelino seemed for
some time to have changed his conduct, but after the
death of the saint relapsed into his former disorders.
At length, being taken prisoner by the confederate
princes of Lombardy in 1259, ne died distracted in
close confinement." Well might the Pope — Gregory
IX. it was — call Antony the Ark of the Covenant;
well may the people of Padua always love him.
SAINT ANTONY 299
St Francis dying in 1226, there succeeded to the
Generalship of the Order a certain Brother Elias,
who, besides being worldly-minded, appears to have
forgotten the rule of the order as regards poverty.
Against him Antony, and, strangely enough, a certain
Englishman also, Adam by name, protest, and are in
consequence persecuted till they appeal to the Pope,
who appears to have received them graciously. Soon
after this, and after a visit to Monte Alvernia, where
St Francis received from Christ the Stigmata, Antony
is made provincial of Romagna, having some time
previously retired to Padua, where he died on June
13, 1231, in his thirty -seventh year. " At the first
news of his departure," says Butler, following the
Bollandists, "the children ran about the streets
crying, • The saint is dead.' " He was canonised by
the Pope, Gregory IX., in the following year. About
thirty years after, the great church of II Santo was
built in Padua, and his relics were there interred.
Such in brief is the life of him whom all the world
loves and turns to when it has lost or mislaid any-
thing. He, like all Franciscans, is a protector of
the poor. At his tomb in Padua, reader, breathe
a prayer, not for him but for thyself and me.
XX.
AT VERONA.
MR RUSKIN'S 'Architecture and Painting'
contains pages of curious felicity on the
beautiful city of Juliet. He speaks of her as a city
with whom Nature herself might compete and be
vanquished, and compares her with Edinburgh for
nobility of position — a strange comparison. For
Verona with her cypresses and campanile, her
palaces and amphitheatre, her swift and splendid
river, her vivid and passionate history, seems to
me to be profoundly different, not in position alone,
from the city of Jenny Geddes and Princes Street.
One may perhaps very aptly and truly personify
the two cities in the figures of Juliet and Jenny
Geddes.
I suppose the amphitheatre is still the chief sight
in Verona as it was in John Evelyn's day. "The
vastnesse of y e marble stones is stupendious," he
says, and " This I esteem to be one of the noblest
antiquities in Europ, it is so vast and intire, having
escaped the ruines of so many other public buildings
THE CYPRESSES 301
for above 1400 years." Yet, in spite of the fact that,
to me at least, the arena of Verona appears in some
inexplicable way more " stupendious " than the Col-
iseum, it is not there that one lingers curious of
Christian dust, so precious and so old, but, as I
think, in the churches of Michele Sanmicheli, and
at evening in the gardens of Count Giusti's villa,
where the cypresses are, I think, finer even than those
of Hadrian's garden, near Tivoli. And it is perhaps
here in these gardens that the very atmosphere of
antique Italy, Italy of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries at the least, is to be found. The majestic
and melancholy cypresses, that yet in their cheerful
enthusiasm for heaven are beautiful, like ideal monks
with hands pointed in prayer, or like solemn tapers
ecstatically burning for the glory of our God, seem
to invest the scene with a new kind of beauty, that
leads us at last to the contemplation of the beauty
of holiness. And, on the eve almost of leaving Italy,
it is some such emotion of her ideal self that we
would carry away. All the panoramic life of Venice ;
the melancholy splendour of Rome, with its worldly
ambitions, its modern vulgarity and degradation ; the
hideous brutality and ignorance and noise of Naples,
— seem now to fade into just nothing at all before the
quiet beauty and calmness of Verona as seen from
these gardens, or the soft outline, almost spiritual,
of the far-away Apennines as seen from Pisa, or
the Certosa, near Florence, seen from a field of
corn powdered with irises and poppies. It would
3 02 VERONA
seem as though the art which was born amid such
perfection must itself reach perfection without the
struggle and effort that is necessary for any attain-
ment whatsoever in the North. It is as though one
were in a "chosen" land — a land indeed "flowing
with milk and honey." Something of this beneficence
is visible too in the people — the peasants. One seems
to understand that they were born with a different
soul from us Northerners. They are more at one
with a Nature that for the most part is urbane and
sumptuous, yet without luxury, indeed with a kind
of " dry beauty " about her that after all was the very
morality of all Greek art. Passionate she may be, but
always joyful, always fulfilled with joy, even in anger.
The melancholy that has so profoundly gathered our
own land to itself, that seems indeed to be a very
part of our landscape, and above all of our sky (surely
the aspect of heaven is man's chiefest influence), is
not to be found save perhaps in a part of the
country around Naples near the Lake of Avernus.
And especially in this pleasant country that has but
lately been restored to Italy, and in Umbria, this
peaceful cheerfulness is found suggesting very aptly,
not to the traveller alone, the truth that not rebellion
but peace is the perfection of culture.
As the traveller wanders up and down the antique
streets of this city of Verona he will come upon much
that is worthy of admiration. The tombs of the
Scaligers, of which Mr Ruskin has written with
all his knowledge and enthusiasm ; the Dominican
SAN ZENONE 303
Church of Sant' Anastasia, a lovely Gothic build-
ing of the thirteenth century; the tomb of II Conte
Guglielmo di Castelbarco, the Palazzo del Consiglio,
the Mercato Vecchio and its open-air staircase, and
the Campanile that rises 300 feet into the soft sky,
the Roman remains and the market-place that was
the Forum, — all these the travellers may see in a
single walk, and, lovely as they are, they will speak
to him of his own dream.
But it is, I think, the church of San Zenone, with
its detached campanile of alternate lines of brick and
marble, that strikes as it were the keynote of this
city of antiquity and romance by its rapid Adige.
San Zeno, built in 1138-1178, has something mystical
about it, something that is, as it were, a Gothic spirit
cleansed and softened. Three arches of triumph span
the nave, the last being the arch of the chancel, under
which lies the crypt, half visible from the nave. In
this beautiful crypt San Zeno lies buried in a stone
sarcophagus, mounted in bronze, that, curiously
enough, the setting sun, even in so underground a
place, sometimes reaches. The low roof of the crypt
is supported by forty-eight slim columns of various
forms, and the three round arches that face the nave
are one of the most beautiful and surprising effects of
the church. The choir and chancel are reached from
the nave by two magnificent flights of steps on either
side of the screen, on which are statues in marble, of
the thirteenth century, of Christ and His Apostles,
the curious figure of San Zeno himself, in whose
3 04 VERONA
hand is a fishing-rod with a dangling fish, referring,
let us hope, not to Christian baptism, but to his
supposed love of fishing in the Adige. Julian the
Apostate, the sad and enlightened emperor whom the
puritanical fury of the monks of his time drove to
despair and forgetfulness, is said to have been in
power 380, when San Zeno set out for heaven. One
treasure of art the church contains, a Madonna and
child enthroned with SS. Peter and Paul, John and
Augustine, on the left, and SS. John the Baptist,
Gregory, Laurence, and Benedict on the right,
together with angels, by Andrea Mantegna. It is
difficult to see, unless, as is not unlikely, a flight of
steps is at hand, for it is hung so high that it is
almost invisible from the ground. The cloisters are
beautiful.
It is not, however, those things which can be named
and enumerated that make San Zenone precious, but
the atmosphere, the aspect of the church itself. It
seems to possess an inexhaustible gift of suggestion,
and in this gift, as it were, is akin to Sant' Ambrogio
in Milan. To kneel under its painted wooden roof is
to attain to a new kind of sincerity. One multiplies
one's faith by detaching from it all luxury that has
not attained antiquity. Something of the faith, the
vision, that is buried under the pagan marble of the
more splendid churches of Rome disengages itself
from the very fabric of the humbler churches of Italy.
Religious initiators could not breath this atmosphere
for a moment. San Zenone seems to wear the sharp
SAN ZENONE 305
impress of an absorbing motive. It was built in
faith, not without visions of heaven, in all sincerity of
heart, by men on whom the world and all we mean by
worldliness had not left a mark as they have done to-
day on all of us. They looked on their own city and
their land of fair plain and supreme mountain, and
they refused to build what was unworthy of all that.
And having nothing to unlearn in the desire of their
hearts, they occupied themselves in simple fashion
with God's house, having not a little inward beauty in
their hearts, seeing they were born under that soft
ineffable sky.
XXI.
AT MANTUA.
OF Mantua, forlorn upon her lakes, where over
the pale green water the red sails of the
fishing -boats pass how languidly under the case-
ments, we have often dreamed in the winter over
the fire in England, while turning the pages of the
Mantuan.
"... primus Idumasas referam tibi, Mantua, palmas,
Et viridi in campo templum de marmore ponam
Propter aquam, tardis ingens ubi flexibus errat
Mincius, et tenera praetexit harundine ripas."
Nor is she less lovely than our dreams of her. A
city of silver, her Campanili shining into her ample
sky, forlorn among her sedge and her pale green
water, she is still the city of Virgil.
" Mantua, vae miserae nimium vicina Cremonae."
Since, reader, you are determined to travel by rail,
it is perhaps here almost more than anywhere else
that you are a loser. You entirely miss the walk
A FORLORN CITY 307
that Dickens has described so well, the walk from
Verona that Romeo went.
Was the way to Mantua as beautiful [he writes] when
Romeo was banished thither, I wonder? Did it wind
through pasture land as green, bright with the same
glancing streams, and dotted with fresh clumps of graceful
trees? Those purple mountains lay on the horizon then
for certain, and the dresses of these peasant girls, who
wear a great knobbed silver pin through their hair behind,
can hardly be much changed. Mantua itself must have
broken on him in the prospect with its towers and walls
and water as it does now. He made the same sharp
twists and turns perhaps, over the rumbling drawbridges ;
passed through the like long curved, wooden bridge ; and
leaving the marshy water behind approached the rusty
gate of stagnant Mantua.
It is almost the same to-day, if you can be per-
suaded to come on foot or by carriage.
Mantua to me is the most forlorn city of Italy :
something of the stillness and silence of her lakes
seems to have fallen on her too. She is a city of
large and level spaces of sunlight and shadow and
of silence. Gradually, imperceptibly, she is decaying
under the sunshine and the damp of her lagoons.
She is more like a city of dreamland than any
earthly place of abiding. Profoundly beautiful,
death has already loved her and encircled her
with something of his silence. There is but little
to be seen in her silent streets and palaces.
Giulio Romano, the famous pupil of Raphael,
308 MANTUA
lived here after his master's death, and seems
almost to have made the town his own.
The excellent qualities of Giulio [says Vasari], causing
him to be esteemed the best artist in Italy after the death
of Raphael, the Count Baldassare Castiglione, who was then
in Rome as ambassador from Federigo Gonzaga, Marquis of
Mantua, and was the intimate friend of Giulio, . . . did his
utmost by prayers and promises to prevail on that master to
accompany him to Mantua, Baldassare having been com-
manded by the Marquis, his master, to send him an architect
of whose services he might avail himself, whether for his own
palace or the necessities of the city, and having moreover
observed that it would be particularly agreeable to him if he
could have Giulio. The latter thereupon declared at length
that he would certainly go, provided they could obtain the per-
mission of the Pope ; and the desired licence being secured,
Baldassare, who was returning to Mantua, . . . took Giulio
with him to that city.
There is much of Giulio's work in Mantua, and for
this reason, if for no other, Mantua is worthy of a
visit. The Duomo in Piazza San Pietro, the interior
of the Palazzo Ducale, the frescoes in the Scalcheria
of The Chase of Diana, and Venus in the Vulcan's
Workshop, and the Palazzo del Te, are all the work
of this one man. The Palazzo del Te alone should
give the traveller pause ere he omits Mantua from
his little list of places to be seen. A dreary, forlorn
place enough, desolate and damp, built in a swamp,
it is the creation, with all its decorations, of a genius
overcome perhaps by the profound dreams that arise
from the lakes and lagoons around the city. Some
GIULIO ROMANO 309
terrible distress of mind, amounting almost to a
disease, seems to have been devouring the very soul
of the painter.
To render his work still more fearful and terrible [says
Vasari], Giulio has exhibited many of the giants, who are of
the most extraordinary forms, as well as of immense stature,
in the act of falling to the earth, some backward and others on
their faces as they are differently struck and wounded by the
lightnings and thunderbolts ; some are already dead, others
writhing with their wounds, and still more lying crushed and
partially covered by the mountains and edifices which have
fallen upon them. Wherefore let none believe that he
could ever behold any work of the pencil better calculated
to awaken fear and horror, or more truly natural and life-
like, than that before us ; nay, whosoever enters that
chamber and sees all the doors, windows, and other parts,
constructed as they are awry, and, as it were, on the point
of falling with the buildings, and even the mountains
tumbling around in ruin, cannot fail to be in doubt whether
all be not about to topple down upon him, and the rather
as he sees the very gods in heaven, some rushing here and
others there, but all taking flight. Another circumstance
remarkable in this work is that it has neither beginning nor
end ; the whole is, nevertheless, well connected in all its
parts, and continued throughout unbroken by division or
the intervention of frame-work or decorations, so that all the
objects which are near the buildings appear to be of great
size, while those at a distance, and scattered about the land-
scapes, seem to diminish gradually until they become lost
amidst infinite space, whence this apartment has the appear-
ance of a wide tract of country.
Robbed as she has been of her pictures, beside Giulio
310 MANTUA
there remains work by Andrea Mantegna of a more
pleasing character perhaps than usual — " charming
cupids, like fleecy clouds turned to babies, playing in
a sky of the most marvellous blue, among garlands
of green and of orange and lemon trees, cut into
triumphal arches, with the Marquis of Mantua and all
the young swashbuckler Gonzagas underneath."
But in spite of all the splendour that here and
there meets the eye, Mantua is a fairy land forlorn.
Desolate among her lagoons, she awaits no future.
In her streets the past, full of fantastic silences and
sunshine and the awful damp of forgotten nights, sits
with a great dignity watching its own funeral. Over
her gates seem to be graven the words " Ave atque
vale."
XXII.
AT MILAN.
MILAN is the most modern city in Italy. To
the traveller returning from a journey
through the peninsula his arrival in Milan is accom-
panied by a shock of surprise. Can this still be Italy ?
he asks himself as he gazes on the busy streets and
the extraordinary and certainly not Italian cathedral.
And yet Milan is not all modern : she too, like every
city in this marvellous land, has gifts for the traveller,
and indeed hers are not the least splendid in the world.
Within her picture-gallery, the Brera, are some of
the most lovely works of the school of Lionardo — and
La Madonna della Grazie still holds the remains of
Lionardo's own fresco, The Last Supper. But it is,
as I think, in her churches that Milan is really rich,
so that when one has forgotten the cathedral alto-
gether — not a difficult matter — one may still find in
Sant' Ambrogio, Sant' Eustorgio, La Madonna, and
San Nazzaro Maggiore, buildings as lovely as any
in Italy.
Milan is, however, a city entirely given over to the
312 MILAN
electric tram system that has its centre, not inappro-
priately, in the Piazza del Duomo. But in the
churches and in the picture-gallery one soon forgets
the hideous modern aspect of this ancient city. Sant'
Ambrogio, to my mind one of the finest churches in
Italy, was founded by St Ambrose, who was Bishop
of Milan in 385.
Ambrose [says Cardinal Newman] was eminently a
popular bishop, as everyone knows who has read ever so
little of his history. His very promotion to the sacred office
was owing to an excitement of the populace. Auxentius,
his Arian predecessor in the See of Milan, died a.d. 374,
upon which the bishops of the province wrote to the then
Emperor, Valentinian the First, who was in Gaul, requesting
him to name the person who was to succeed him. This
was a prudent step on their part, Arianism having intro-
duced such matter for discord and faction among the Milan-
ese that it was dangerous to submit the election to the
people at large, though the majority of them were orthodox.
Valentinian, however, declined to avail himself of the per-
mission thus given him ; the choice was thrown upon the
voices of the people, and the cathedral, which was the
place of assembling, was soon a scene of disgraceful uproar
as the bishops had anticipated. Ambrose was at that time
civil governor of the province of which Milan was the
capital ; and the tumult increasing, he was obliged to inter-
fere in person with a view of preventing its ending in open
sedition. He was a man of grave character, and had been
in youth brought up with a sister who had devoted herself
to the service of God in a single life ; but as yet was only
a catechumen, though above thirty years of age. Arrived
at the scene of tumult he addressed the assembled crowds,
SAINT AMBROSE 313
exhorting them to peace and order. While he was speaking
a child's voice, as is reported, was heard in the midst of the
crowd to say, " Ambrose is bishop " : the populace took up
the cry, and both parties in the church, Catholic and Arian,
whether influenced by a sudden enthusiasm or willing to
take a man who was unconnected with party, voted un-
animously for the election of Ambrose. It is not wonderful
[Cardinal Newman continues] that the subject of this sudden
decision should have been unwilling to quit his civil office
for a station of such high responsibility : for many days he
fought against the popular voice, and that by the most ex-
travagant expedients. He absconded and was not recovered
till the emperor, confirming the act of the people of Milan,
published an edict against all who should conceal him.
Under these strange circumstances Ambrose was at length
consecrated bishop. His ordination was canonical only on
the supposition that it came under these rare exceptions for
which the rules of the Church allow when she speaks of
election " by divine grace," by the immediate suggestion of
God ; and if ever a bishop's character and works might
be appealed to as evidence of the divine purpose, surely
Ambrose was the subject of that singular and extraordinary
favour. From the time of his call he devoted his life and
abilities to the service of Christ. He bestowed his personal
property on the poor ; his lands on the Church, making his
sister tenant for life. Next he gave himself up to the
peculiar studies necessary for the due execution of his high
duties till he gained that deep insight into Catholic truth
which is evidenced in his works, and in no common
measure in relation to Arianism, which had been the
dominant creed in Milan for the twenty years preceding
his elevation.
Thus began that marvellous life which ended on
314 MILAN
Good Friday the fourth of April 397. It was said of
him before he died, by Count Stilico, "the guardian
and Prime Minister of Honorius, who governed the
Western Empire," that the day " this great man dies
destruction hangs over Italy." By common consent
he ranks as one of the four great doctors of the
Church, the others being St Jerome, St Augustine,
and St Gregory the Great.
The church, however, that Ambrose founded in
Milan has long since disappeared, the present church
having been built by Bishop Aspertus of Milan in
871 in the same place. It is therefore into an almost
primitive church we come when we enter Sant
Ambrogio. One notices many features in common
with other early churches in Italy, among which
not the least attractive and important is the cloister,
or courtyard, before the great door. San Gregorio
Magno in Rome has a similar atrium. Here the un-
baptised persons who were still under instruction
assembled for Mass.
Inside, the church is plain but beautiful. One
seems to realise the homely sincerity, the humility of
brickwork as opposed to the fantastic marble and
stone of the cathedral. There is a true Lombard note
in the severe and lowly beauty of so sweet a house of
God. Up in the choir, which is encircled by a fine
marble screen of great antiquity, behind the high
altar, almost by chance one comes upon the very
chair of St Ambrose — the great archbishop — in which
the present Archbishop of Milan, too, sits in state
THE CHURCH OF ST AMBROSE 315
even as St Ambrose did fifteen hundred years ago.
The high altar itself is, I suppose, the most splendid
in all Italy. Even to look on it costs five francs. It
consists of plates of gold in front and silver behind,
curiously worked in relief. The golden plates relate
the life of our Lord, the silver the life of St Ambrose.
The altar is encrusted with innumerable gems and
enamel, and was the work of one Volfinus, a German
goldsmith of the ninth century. He made it in honour
of St Ambrose at the bidding of Angilbertus, Arch-
bishop of Milan. Four columns of porphyry support
the canopy, which is decorated with reliefs, also of
ninth century workmanship. And it is under this
precious altar, with its splendid canop}', that St
Ambrose lies buried in a little silver shrine in the
crypt. But full of marvels as the church is, among
which not the least noteworthy is the pulpit placed
over an old tomb containing some precious Chris-
tian dust about which we know nothing, it is really
as a whole that I at least find its perfection — in its
sheer beauty, absolutely without pretence, a beauty
entirely sincere and homely, that as yet is not become
a thing of airs and of the world.
And it is a somewhat similar charm that hangs
about Sant' Eustorgio, built by Tommaso Lom-
bardino for the Dominicans in the thirteenth cen-
tury in the place of a much older church, dating,
it is said, from the fourth century. Originally
the church appears to have been built to receive
the relics of the Magi, that were afterwards stolen
316 MILAN
and carried to Cologne. So the tale goes. But
for us to - day the church is chiefly delightful by
reason of its exquisite brickwork, — a style, it may
be, found in its perfection only here in Milan and
in Verona, — and above all its steeple of brick too,
and of the thirteenth century. St Peter Martyr,
for whose tomb the thirteenth-century church was
built, is buried here. His pulpit, " from which he
often confuted the Manichseans," is still in the west
front in the open air. His shrine in the chapel
of San Pietro Martire, by Balduccio da Pisa, is a
very noble work. Balduccio's work is not often met
with, and is most worthy of study. It will be long
before I can forget the figure of Charity hugging to
her breast two little children. There is something
almost modern in the sentiment of the value of youth
as such, of its aesthetic perfection.
In the Madonna della Grazie, where Lionardo
painted his great picture of The Last Supper, one is
pursued by a different spirit from that of humility.
Walter Pater has most perfectly expressed the senti-
ment of its fading and faded beauty in a lovely
passage that I venture to take from his book, ' The
Renaissance ' : —
On the damp wall of the refectory, oozing with mineral
salts, Lionardo painted The Last Supper. Effective anec-
dotes were told about it, his retouchings and delays. They
show him refusing to work except at the moment of in-
vention, scornful of any one who supposed that art could
be a work of mere industry and rule, often coming the
LIONARDO'S "LAST SUPPER" 317
whole length of Milan to give a single touch. He painted
it, not in fresco, where all must be impromptu, but in oils,
the new method which he had been one of the first to
welcome, because it allowed of so many after-thoughts, so
refined a working-out of perfection. It turned out that
on the plastered wall no process could have been less
durable. Within fifty years it had fallen into decay, and
now we have to turn back to Lionardo's own studies, above
all to one drawing of the central head, at the Brera, which,
in a union of tenderness and severity in the free-lines,
remains one of the monumental works of Mino da Fiesole,
to trace it as it was.
Here was another effort to lift a given subject out of
the range of its traditional associations. Strange after all
the mystic developments of the middle age was the effort
to see the Eucharist not as the pale Host of the altar, but
as one taking leave of his friends. . . . Vasari pretends
that the central head was never finished. But finished
or unfinished, or owing part of its effect to a mellowing
decay, the head of Jesus does but consummate the sentiment
of the whole company — ghosts through which you see the
wall, faint as the shadows of the leaves upon the wall on
autumn afternoons. This figure is but the faintest, the
most spectral of them all.
It is certainly not in the words of another that
you might wish to learn the story of Lionardo's faded
picture on the old convent wall. "As one taking
leave of his friends," it is the sentiment that over-
whelms one in so sad and dreary a place.
And not only in that old convent, but almost every-
where in Milan, it is of Lionardo one thinks. The
chief figure in all these splendid years, he seems
318 MILAN
to have come to Milan almost like Prometheus
with fire from heaven. He really created Milanese
art. Luini, his chief pupil, almost overwhelms
the Brera with his work, and while some of it is
negligible, he sometimes almost attains the perfection
of his master. Perfection, after all it is just that
that Lionardo sought for. One hears that he was im-
patient of all work done for practice or for money —
impatient of it, that is, as art. Well, I think he was
right. And in an age such as ours, when but little
work is done for any other result than money, his
life is at least a pattern by which we increase the
infinite smallness of ourselves. In the Brera one
may see how high something, it may be a little less
than genius, led a man, who patiently sought what
his master, not less patient, had succeeded so trium-
phantly in winning. If the smile, the adorable
features, and the enigmatic aspect of Leonardo's
women were tricks, which I for one will never believe,
then certainly later painters were curiously clumsy in
the attempts to imitate an artifice that we have been
told was so simple. After all, Mona Lisa is not the
only work by Lionardo that we possess, and in the
drawing in the Brera, that outshines all the Luinis
and makes Raphael's work too seem somewhat
sweet and obvious, we have, I think, a very perfect
proof of the visions Lionardo saw.
He at least seems always to have lived at the
highest point not only of every moment but of
his every vision. He is not careless even of the
LIONARDO 319
minutest, the subtlest point of perfection. And see-
ing that he lived for the most part in some splendour,
it is surprising to find that his trick at least served
to make him realise his dream of perfection.
It is perhaps difficult in Milan to-day to think of
one who cared so much for beauty as to be patient
and to wait upon her.
CONCLUSION.
TO come to the end of any book we have written
is perhaps but to realise how far short we
have fallen of our intention. The vision appeared
to us so splendid — yet how poor a thing we have
made of it ! For in betraying that exquisite emotion
to captivity, we have robbed it perhaps of almost all
its beauty. To realise this is the constant agony
of the writer. He feels, it may be, little better than
a murderer. And if it is true, as we have been
assured, that "all men kill the thing they love," my
love for Italy must excuse the faint eloquence of
this book. For to defend her who is already to
most of us so precious were ridiculous. And though
for no lesser cause, yet for this, O Mother Church,
pardon my weak arm too, that would have defended
what none can reach.
At least, at least men will know that I loved her;
and though to many that will seem but a small
thing, I at least am assured that I owe to it every-
thing that is precious in my life. Without Italy I
am beggared. Though God saw fit to make me an
Englishman, it was in Italy I caught my first glimpse
CONCLUSION 321
of heaven. Yet He knows under her sun and sky I
envy no archangel in Paradise. Neither am I in a
hurry to meet the illustrious dead while I can live
in her quiet cities, or listen to the mandolins in the
evening, or gather grapes in my vineyard. It is
such simple things, I am told, together with a little
little more, that will cost me delight eternal. Well,
doubtless there will come a day when I am not so
much as remembered in the world, when even my
friends will speak and behave themselves as if I
had never been. After all, friendship is but " Ave
atque vale " ; always of two lovers even, one must
look on the dead face of other. It is no new thing.
For the world — yes, even for a tiny corner of it —
men have been content from the beginning to sacrifice
eternity. If it is necessary to think of this world
as enemy to the next, it shall go hard but earth
will beggar heaven.
Yet sometimes I think that I am deceiving myself.
Is all that lies behind that beautiful image that we
have made and named the Past really so lovely as I
suppose, or has my imagination played me false ?
Was the old world so beautiful ? really, actually ; or
is that only another lie with which man has deceived
himself for his comfort in an eternally ugly world,
where actuality is always sordid and unlovely, and,
after all, the lies, the dreams, the immense fabrications
of the mind, the only beautiful things for ever and
ever ? Am I engaging myself to do battle for a chim-
era ? One might almost think so on looking round
x
322 CONCLUSION
on life to-day. Yet I am not deceived : the world was
once as lovely as our dreams of it, though maybe not
quite the same. Be sure he who carved the frieze of
the Parthenon had saturated himself not only with
Beauty but with Reality and Nature, and was but
calling on his mind to refine and his hands to re-
produce what in truth his very eyes had seen. Am
I deceiving myself? How can I ever know!
I have seen the fishermen put out to sea in the
dawn after a storm, when the air was cool in an
ecstatic happiness, as though nature had expressed
herself, had relieved herself from some unbearable
emotion, some intolerable thought ; and every now
and then the wind would sweep just for a little
distance over the waves still white with hurry, almost
like a sob breaking from a woman after long crying,
involuntary and full of weariness. And it has seemed
to me as I watched those sailors, unconscious of
nature's thoughts or sorrows, sailing so swiftly over
the haggard waters as though in that very uncon-
sciousness there was the actual beauty of the old
world that went, almost with a kind of innocence,
about its own simple business.
Or again, as I have read, on some summer's
evening, in some magnificent and simple book, the
very world itself has been translated for me into
a more profound and beautiful language than any
I have really heard with my bodily ears. And I
have understood that my world too is lovely, if I
can only find sufficient silence so that I may listen
CONCLUSION 323
and be very quiet for a little, or see — ah, for a
moment — some light among the shadows, some
new perspective in which the world would be trans-
formed for me, so that I might see the simplicity
of a thing so frail and mortal. And in reading
the mighty hexameters of Homer I have most often
attained to this vision when, never without excite-
ment and indescribable emotion, I have whispered
the magnificent words in which Agamemnon tells of
his own death and of the death of Cassandra. At
that moment it has seemed to me that Beauty was
inseparable from simplicity, and everything really
inexpressible save in the most simple language and
the easiest words.
Thus, reader, I have thought on the plains of
Apulia and in the Apennines, far from reality. Have
I succeeded in building that ivory chamber within
which a man may place in safety all his desires ?
Shall I be able to see through the outer shell of the
everyday world, and let that be as though it were
not ? After all, is that not really the end of all
education ? But above all else that I have wished
has been the desire to avenge Beauty upon the crowd,
to tear in pieces the vulgarity that it seems to me
clothes the Great Beast ; and, if necessary, in defence
of my dream, to chastise it with words of joy.
If the worship of physical beauty is really a direct
negation of the whole modern world, that will bring
with it an unattainable desire for the past, a mad
jealousy of the profane and vulgar present, a war in
324 CONCLUSION
one's own soul between that which is old and that
which is new in life, in the world, in the hearts of
men, how shall we excuse ourselves ? Hither doubt-
less points the old litany when it prays, " A me salva
me, Domine."
But, day by day as I go down to the insatiable sea
or gaze at sunset upon the indestructible headlands, I
am rebuked. Have I not loved Italy well, am I not
content, are not heaven and earth agreed ? Be sure
even now as ever the world belongs not to the many
but to the few. One single and profound thought
outweighs in the eternities all the toil and sweat, the
fevered endeavour, the sullen and unremitting labour
of the crowd. To him who can keep a space and
silence in his soul, even in a city, all that is worth
having is assured. It is for him I write. He will
understand the intention of this book, and understand
my failure.
But there is the same glory as of old before the
rising places of the sun. The sea is still angered,
and calm anon, the stars are still unnumbered, the
sky inviolate, we are still made of dust. Look you,
there is our hope. Even Rome may still be reached
by walking.
THE END.
Appendix
AN ITINERARY.
It may be of some assistance to the reader if a line
of route enabling him to see Italy practically in
her entirety is mapped out for him. To begin then.
Howsoever he may enter Italy — from the Riviera or
from the St Gothard or from Mont Cenis — it seems
to me that Genoa, the first city of the South, should
be his starting-point. Genoa is a city by herself,
utterly different from any other Italian city : three
days at least should be given to her.
Leaving Genoa by the midday train, before even-
ing Pisa is reached, where two days may very easily
be spent, and more, too, if the traveller is indifferent
to time. From Pisa an excursion to Lucca is easily
made, where also two days are not too short a time in
which to see all the beauties of that quiet city. Leav-
ing Pisa just before midday, Siena may be reached via
Empoli early in the afternoon. In Siena, if possible,
a week at least should be spent, for Siena is filled with
innumerable delightful things that it is utterly im-
possible, in spite of the guide-books, to see in a day
or two. There are many excursions to be made from
Siena, to Monte Oliveto, to San Gimignano, and
328 APPENDIX
other places. Leaving Siena early, Orvieto may be
reached by mid-afternoon via Chiusi. Two days at
least should be given to Orvieto, whence to Rome
is but two hours in the train. Two weeks must be
devoted to sheer sight - seeing in Rome, of which
delightful occupation guides and guide-books will
tell the traveller more than he can ever remember.
I have therefore tried to set before the traveller
aspects of Rome which the guides altogether forget
to show him. From Rome, Naples may be reached
\n five hours, and should the traveller have plenty
of time at his disposal, many delightful places may
be visited en route, such as Segni, Monte Cassino,
Caserta, etc.
For most of Italy, and for this part south of Rome
especially, Mr Hare's Guides are much the most de-
lightful. South of Naples there is a country almost
untouched by the tourist, and very well worth a
visit. The accommodation is for the most part
almost intolerable, however. Mr Gissing's book,
' By the Ionian Sea,' will give the traveller very
delightfully some idea of what he may expect. Of
Sicily I have said nothing — both it and the south of
Italv deserve a book to themselves, a book written
in the great leisure of Italian summer days.
Returning from Naples to Rome, where a few of
the more interesting museums may be revisited, we
then set out for Perugia, visiting Spoleto for an hour
or so on the way. From Perugia, Assisi should be
visited, or the traveller may live in Assisi itself very
APPENDIX 329
comfortably. The inn at Perugia, however, is de-
lightful. Four days will be enough for Perugia and
Assisi together perhaps, but a week should be spent
in this country if possible, especially if it is fine
weather. From Perugia we set out for Florence,
taking Arezzo on the way. Two weeks at least
should be given to Florence, which is inexhaustible,
and one of the loveliest cities in the world — especially
loved, for some reason or other, by the English.
From Florence to Bologna and thence to Ravenna
and back again, and then from Bologna to Venice is
the route I suggest. Rimini may also be visited from
Bologna if the traveller so desires. In Venice also
a fortnight is not too much, especially if Mr Ruskin
be the guide. But I think myself that Mr Hare is
better for the traveller.
From Venice, via Padua, Verona, and Mantua, to
Milan is or ought to be at least a week's journey;
when after four or five days in Milan, the traveller
will retire to the lakes at Como, or Cadenabbia, or
Bellagio, or Lugano, or, best of all as I think, Bella
Vista on Monte Generoso to recoup. Thus in some-
thing like eleven weeks most of Northern and Central
Italy, including Naples, may be seen without too
much fatigue.
If I may so far enter into the domain of the guide-
book, I would say to the traveller : Save money
where you like, only never in railway fares, especially
for long journeys. After all, one's health is the
chief consideration, and I would rather go without
330 APPENDIX
my luncheon than without a sleeping-car. I hope
the traveller may get both.
To conclude this brief time-table. Let me suggest
to the traveller the advisability — nay, the absolute
necessity — for scrupulous politeness. An Italian is
not to be driven. But he may be led with ease — but
with ease. I will not say that politeness will do
everything that money will do in England, but it is
nearly as ubiquitous and therefore the fashion. To
be impolite is to write yourself down a mere boor,
unspeakably ill - educated. And if there be those
who are angered at the very precious sight of the
Host or the glorious spectacle of a procession, and
who happening upon this book in a fit of dejec-
tion, have read so far, let them at least allow so
much advice as this from one who sympathises
with their scepticism and bad taste, not at all :
Forget your anger and your dislike, and for the sake
of your country and her honour behave like gentle-
men, and forbear from forcing your opinions under
the notice of those whose guests you are.
A NOTE ON EDUCATION IN ITALY.
The desire for universal education is one of the most
obvious of the various passions in which the latter
part of the nineteenth century indulged itself. So
terrible has this passion proved that now even the
most stupid and the most depraved can read of his
own heroic vileness, infamy, and despair in the daily
press of his land. Beside this monstrous public con-
fession, the Confessional of which the English have
an almost historic dread shines like a star in its deli-
cate and classical quietness. Even the very poor,
to say nothing of the middle class, are now made
free of that mighty kingdom of the written word, in
which they are of course bewildered strangers, with-
out any sort of guide, and therefore they suffer not
from literature but from fiction both licentious and
vulgar, from the lies of all the politicians, the dreams
of the visionaries who like themselves are strangers
in this land, and from the immense vagueness of their
own awakening minds.
Surely education was the master-passion of the
last thirty years of the nineteenth century. In Italy
from 1871 to 1881 so fiercely did it burn that the
332 APPENDIX
number of those between twenty and twenty -five
years of age unable to read was reduced from 63 to
54 per cent. Still in 1894, thirteen years later, 55
per cent of the married people could not read. Of
late years, however, especially among the male popu-
lation, things are very different, for in 1893 only
38 per cent of the conscripts for the army were
utterly illiterate.
There are in Italy between 46,000 and 52,000 ele-
mentary schools, with an attendance of about 2^
million children. In England and Wales, with a popu-
lation of 32^ millions (about the same as Italy), there
are about 20,000 elementary schools inspected, with
accommodation for 6% million scholars. Above the
elementary school there is the gymnasium, then the
lyceum, and then the university. If we put the
number of gymnasia at 700 or 750, and the number
of lycea at 300, and the number of universities at 17
or 20 — viz., Padua, Pisa, Rome, Bologna, Turin,
Genoa, Naples, Modena, Parma, Pavia, Messina,
Macerata, Catania, Siena, Florence, Sassari, and
Cagliari — and add that the attendance at the gym-
nasia is about 50,000, that at the lycea about 10,000
or 11,000, that at the universities about 21,000, we
shall have a hasty bird's-eye view of the statistics of
education in Italy to-day. But this is really to see
nothing. Of military schools, naval schools, techni-
cal schools and institutes, medical and veterinary
schools, and schools of agriculture, mining, engineer-
ing, commerce, science in its many branches, I say
APPENDIX 333
nothing. The subject is too vast to interest the
traveller — especially the Englishman, who has yet to
interest himself in education in his own land.
The religious question is not unknown in Italy,
but it has not usurped the throne in matters of ele-
mentary education as it has with us. If one who
has but seen things from the outside may express an
opinion, I should be inclined to say that politics
occupied too much of the time of the university man.
It is no rare thing to find two or three regiments of
soldiers in hiding, ready to suppress the undergraduate
if he becomes excited, as he invariably does when
he sees what is expected of him. The student is
taken too seriously, and thinks of Freedom or Liberty
rather as his mistress than as his wife.
A NOTE ON THE POLITICAL SYSTEM.
The political system in Italy, as everywhere else,
is very much what the people choose to make it.
In Italy the people have not made it a success.
Every householder paying from 150 to 500 francs
a-year in rent (in some places the former, in others
the latter) has a vote ; so has every one who can
read and who at the same time pays 20 francs
a-year in taxes directly to the State. Every farmer
too who pays from 450 to 600 francs a-year in
rent, every soldier who fought in the war for unity,
and every graduate at a university have votes; and
there are other qualifications. Yet the voters are
less than 8 per cent of the nation, while in the
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland they
are 17 per cent. There are still to be considered,
however, the numbers of those who, while entitled
to vote, do not exercise their right for various
reasons; they are more than 40 per cent of the
whole.
The Government consists of King, Senate, and
Chamber of Deputies. The Senate, which, roughly
speaking, corresponds to our House of Lords, is
APPENDIX 335
a House of citizens over forty years of age, nom-
inated for life by the king. There are certain other
restrictions beside that of age, but almost any
respectable person may become eligible. The Sen-
ate has a certain power in that it is trusted to a
greater extent by the people than is the Camera.
Messrs Bolton King, and Okey, however, say that
" it is a piece of almost unused machinery, neg-
lected by everybody, and quite without influence
in the national life." That is certainly true at
present, and yet language of that kind sounds very
much the same as the vain threatening of the
House of Lords at the time of the second Home
Rule Bill. It seems to me that there is a very
important and useful life before the Senate.
The Chamber of Deputies consists of men over
thirty years old, who are elected for a term of five
years. The Prime Minister is, as in England,
chosen by the king. All Ministers receive a salary
of 25,000 francs (£1000 in our money), which is
quite inadequate for their needs. Ministers travel
free, in a most magnificent manner, on the railway;
but during their very precarious tenure of office
they have an uncomfortable time of it, owing to
the fact that they are expected by their friends to
repay them for services rendered, with the gift of
offices, favours, introductions, and recommendations.
I myself have seen a certain Minister worried nearly
out of his life in a small town that he was visiting
by the attentions of the town band, the police, the
336 APPENDIX
mayor, and the people, who were all bent on getting
something out of him.
A general election takes place on any given Sun-
day, on the same day throughout the Peninsula.
To ensure his return a candidate must obtain more
than 50 per cent of the votes. The corruption on
these occasions is extreme. " Newspapers are subsi-
dised from the secret funds, school teachers are
impressed to assist in canvassing, railway employees
are warned, or, if influential Socialists, are removed
to a distant post during the election. . . . Police-
men are stationed at the polling-booths to shut out
opposition votes. . . . Registers are tampered with
in the Revision Courts. A teacher of literature has
been known to be struck off as illiterate." So say
Messrs Bolton King, and Okey in their valuable
book, ' Italy To - day.' It is always the Govern-
ment of the day that has the power to be the
villain of the piece. It is the Government that
bribes the Mafia and Camorra with Secret Service
money to come to its assistance ; perhaps it is to
their usefulness at the elections that the Mafia and
Camorra owe their continued existence. The can-
didates, too, do not hesitate to bribe in the most
open manner. " It is believed," say the authors
of ' Italy To-day,' quoted above, "that Pelloux
saved up £400,000 for electoral contingencies. In
1892 £8000 are said to have been spent in one
constituency. At the elections of 1900 bribery
seems to have been rampant both in the North
APPENDIX 337
and in the South." Indeed, the prices of votes,
subject to fluctuation as they are, like other mar-
ketable things, should be quoted in the newspapers
from day to day. The Government might then
seize the opportunity "to go to the country" when
there was a " slump " in votes and thus save Italy
a large amount of money.
Is it likely that such a Government should ac-
complish anything but harm ?
A NOTE ON THE ARMY AND NAVY.
The annual cost of the army and navy is just over
£16,000,000. This expenditure, which really would
seem to be necessary, is very heavy for a country so
poor as Italy, It is true that these sixteen millions
include pensions, but even without these it is a heavy
price for Italy to pay for safety. Out of these
£16,000,000 the navy takes some £4,000,000. It
would certainly seem to a foreigner that it is abso-
lutely necessary to keep up the navy, yet it is to be
feared that this is not done, at least as it ought to be.
Italy is far more exposed to an attack by sea than by
land. Her effective fighting fleet consists of 3 first-
class battleships built, and 6 building ; 5 second-class
battleships built, and 2 third-class battleships ; 4 first-
class cruisers built, and 1 building ; 5 second-class, and
11 third-class; 11 torpedo boats and 3 torpedo-boat
destroyers built, and 8 building; 7 gun-boats, and
3 coast-defence ships. That is a total of 16 battle-
ships built or building, against France's 34 ; 21
cruisers built or building, against France's 55 ; 22
torpedo boats and destroyers built or building,
against France's 209. From these figures the
APPENDIX 339
traveller will see that Italy cannot abate one lira
from her naval expenditure, — that indeed if she were
to stand alone she would be at the mercy of France,
for instance, at sea. However, it is generally believed
in Italy that the navy is an efficient fighting machine.
The officers are recruited from the upper classes of
society, the men conscripted from the coast popula-
tion. There is a Navy League, but it has as yet been
given but little hearing, though everyone is con-
vinced of the necessity of keeping up the sea power
of the country.
The army consists in peace time of some 330,000
men, that in war time might become three and a
quarter millions. It consists of Cavalry, which is
the fashionable and most brilliant arm, Artillery,
Infantry, and Engineers ; the Riflemen or Bersagliere,
who wear plumes of cock's feathers on their wide-
brimmed hats ; the Cacciatori Alpini, who are, as
indeed are the Chasseurs Alpins in France, among
the finest soldiers in the world ; and the Carabineers.
The army is conscript, the officers, of course, being
educated at a military college. Thus the nation is,
as in France and Germany, really a nation of soldiers,
for every citizen between the ages of twenty and forty
is liable to be called out in case of war.
When an Italian is twenty years old he is called on
to serve his country, unless he is the son of a widow
or an only son, or a university student, in which last
case he only postpones his services. There are three
classes of recruits : the first serve for two years, and
340 APPENDIX
are on the special reserve for seven years more ; then
they are on the ordinary reserve for four years, and
lastly they pass into the militia for seven years, and
can only be called on for service in case of invasion,
— this brings them to the age of forty. The second
class are nominally in the army for eight years, but
in reality they are only called out for a month or
two every other year or so : they then pass into the
ordinary reserve and the militia, as those of the first
class do. The third class enter the militia at once,
and so come off easily best.
The Cavalry is the aristocratic arm of the service ;
the officers are gentlemen, and often rich, too. The
Infantry is not invariably officered by gentlemen ;
perhaps it is none the worse as a fighting machine
on that account, though this is doubtful, to say the
least.
The army has done much for United Italy — indeed
without the army United Italy would be impossible.
Certainly in Italy conscription has meant a sort of
civilisation.
Index.
Agricultural syndicates, 23.
Alban Hills, 14.
Amalfi, 197.
D'Amicis, 76.
D'Annunzio, 78-100, 132, 277.
Assisi, 210-222.
Austria, 15.
Baiae, 195, 196.
Banks, 23, 29.
Bicci, 74, 75.
Bologna, 264-269.
Borrow, 5.
Caesar, 9, 15, 63.
Carducci, 65, 67-73.
Cavour, 50, 57.
Chamber of Deputies, 43, 50.
Christian Democrats, 29.
Church, the, 9, 19, 20, 23.
Clericals, 52, 55.
Conscription, its abolition, 56.
Conservatives, 51, 52, 55.
Cumae, 196.
Dufaure, 28.
Edward VII., King, 28.
Eight hours' day, 56.
Ferri, Signor, 56.
Filippo Lippi, 254-263.
Florence, 7, 223-263.
Accademia delle Belle Arti, 232-253.
Fra Lippo Lippi, 254-263.
Itinerary, 224.
La Bella herself, 235-242.
Luca della Robbia, 243-253,
Pitti Palace, 226-228.
Uffizi Gallery, 228-232.
Fogazzaro, 65, 73, 74.
Francia (Francesco), 264-269.
Gambetta, 28.
Gambling mania, 16, 17, 57, 63.
Garibaldi, 12-14, I 7. 57. 63.
Genoa, 7, 13, 16, 103-110.
Holy Week there, 104.
Lionardo's John Baptist there,
109.
The port for Palestine, 106, 107.
Giolitti, 44, 50.
Gordon, General, 13.
Government, the Italian, 24, 41.
Guerrini, 74.
Horace, 14.
Howell, James, quoted, 3.
Humbert, King, 41-47.
Illiterates in Italy, 55.
Impressions of cities, 103-319.
Impressions of Italy, i-iou.
Income-tax, 56.
Italians, the, 17, 22, 23, 54.
Italy, a vision, 12.
Her cities, 103-319.
To-day, 3-100.
United, 12-24.
Italy's ideal, 22.
Janiculum, 14.
Jesuits, 29, 51, 176-178.
'John Inglesant,' 39.
Kultur-Ka7npf, 28.
Lanciani, 76.
Leo XIII., 27-40.
Lionardo, 109, 316-319.
Literature, 65-100.
D'Amicis, 76.
342
INDEX
D'Annunzio, 78-100.
Bicci, 74, 75.
Carducci, 67, 73.
Fogazzaro, 73, 74.
Guerrini, 74.
Lanciani, j6.
Lombroso, 76.
Negri, Ada, 74, 75.
Rapisardi, 75.
Rossi, 76.
Serao (Matilde), 77,
Verga, 73.
Villari (Pasquale), 76.
Lombroso, 76.
Lorenzo, Fiorenzo di, 205-220.
Luca della Robbia, 243-253.
MacMahon, 28.
Malaria, 23.
Mantua, 306-310.
Giulio Romano, 308, 309.
Mazzini, 12, 15, 17, 57.
" Minimum programme," Socialists',
55-
Milan, 311-319.
Lionardo, 316-319.
Socialism there, 59.
St Ambrose, 312, 313.
Sant' Eustorgio, his church, 315.
Monza, 44.
Music. See Rome, Plain-song.
Naples, 189-201.
Amain, 197.
Aquarium, 201.
Baise, 195, 196.
Cumae, 196.
Museum, 189.
Noise of, 189.
Passtum, 199.
People, 192-195.
Pompeii, 200.
Salerno, 199, 200.
Negri, Ada, 74, 75.
Orders, the religious, in Rome, 156-
179.
Augustinians, 174, 175.
Barnabites, 178.
Benedictines, 157-164, 180-188.
Camaldolese, 161.
Cappuccini, 167, 168.
Carmelites, 169-171.
Carthusians, 162.
Cistercians, 160, 161.
"Clerks Regular," 171.
Conventuals, 167.
Dames Anglaises, 174.
Dominicans, 165, 166.
Franciscans, 164-169.
Friars Minor, 168, 169.
Jesuits, 176-178.
Lazarists, 173.
Little Sisters of the Poor, 173, 174.
Observants, 167.
Olivetans, 162, 163.
Pessimists, 178, 179.
Poor Clares, 168.
Sisters of Charity, 172, 173.
Society of Jesus, 176-178.
Sylvestrians, 162.
Theatines, 178.
Trappists, 163, 164.
Trinitarians, 174.
Vallombrosans, 161.
Orvieto, 131-138.
DAnnunzio on, 132.
City of convents, 130.
Miracle of Bolsena, 135.
Piazza del Duomo, 133.
Signorelli, 137, 138. "
Padua, 290-299.
John Inglesant, 291.
Nicholas Ferrar, 293.
St Anthony, 295-299.
Paestum, 199.
Papal conclave, 32, 36-39.
Papa-Re, II, 25-40.
Payment of members, 55.
Peasant's desire for property, 58
Perugia, 26, 202-209.
Cathedral, 207.^
Fiorenzo di Lorenzo, 205-207.
Madonna delle Grazie, 208. ?
Queen of hill cities, 203. *
Virgin's ring, 207, 208. *
Pisa, 7, 26, 111-120.
Cathedral fire, 118-120.
Cathedral group, 1 13-120.
La Madonna sotto gli Organi,
Orcagna's fresco, 115.
Pater's picture of, 112.
Pius IX., 27, 28.
Pompeii, 200.
Pope, the, 25-40.
Press, liberty of, 56.
Property, division of, 57, 58.
Protestantism, 23.
w
Rampolla, Cardinal, 31-33.
Rapisardi, 75.
Ravenna, 270-273.
INDEX
343
Referendum, 55.
Republicanism, 56, 57.
Riviera, 26.
Rome, 8, 25, 26, 139-188.
Born again, 139.
Christmas Eve in, 145-155.
Fall of, 16.
Plain-song in, 180-188.
Religious Orders. See under
Orders.
Vandalism, 139-143.
Romulus, 14.
Rossi, 76,
Rudini, Di, 50.
Rural unions, 29.
St Ambrose, 312, 313.
Sant' Anselmo in Aventino, 180-188.
St Anthony, 295-299.
St Catherine, 124-130.
St Francis, 210-222.
St Malachy, 27, 30, 33-36.
St Peter's Church, 11, 14.
San Silvestro in Capite, 151, 152.
St Teresa, 169-171.
St Vincent de Paul, 172, 173. See
also under Orders.
Saints, necessity for reading their
lives, 225.
Salerno, 200.
Savoy, House of, 9, 15, 22, 41-5?
Scotland and Pope Leo, 29,
Serao, Matilde, 77.
Shorthouse, Mr J. H. , 39.
Sicily, 57.
Siena, 121-130.
Cathedral, 122-124.
St Catherine, 124-130.
Signorelli, Luca, 137, 138.
Socialists, 17, 51, 54-64.
Socialists (Catholic), 29.
Sonnino, 50.
Spanish steps, 23.
Statues, pretentious, 14.
Tuscany, Socialism in, 58.
Turin, 15.
Universal suffrage, 55.
Vandalism, 9, 10, 139-143.
Vannutelli, Cardinal, 32.
Venice, 274-289.
Verga, 65-73.
Verona, 300-305.
San Zenone, 303-305i
Victoria, Queen, 28.
Village banks, 29.
Villari, L., 52.
Villari, Pasquale, 76.
Virgil, 63.
Vittorio Emanuele II., 10,
Vittorio Emanuele II
42, 44. 45
47-49. 5 2 > 53
Waddingion, 28.
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THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
WAV 3 10^3
^ 4 1933
DEC 27 1937
....
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY