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THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

RIVERSIDE

/•)(

The Country of
"The Ring and the Book"

MADONNA, by FRA FILIPPO LIPPI.
In the Pitti Palace, Florence.

The Country of "The
Ring and the Book

SIR FREDERICK TREVES, BART.

G.C.V.O., C.B., LL.D.

Serjeant-Surgeon to H.M. the King ; Surgeon-in-Ordinary to
H.M. Queen Alexandra ; Author of "The Other Side
of the Lantern," "The Cradle of the Deep,
"The Land that is Desolate," etc.

With a Frontispiece in Colour and io6 Illustrations,
Plans and Maps

CASSELL AND COMPANY, LTD

London, New York, Toronto and Melbourne

1913

'■^^919

TO MY DAUGHTER

MRS, CHARLES DELME RADCLIFFE,
OF ROME

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to describe the scene of
a story of two hundred years ago, the story of the
Franceschini, husband and wife, and of the priest who
came between them. It is of these three that the tale
is told in the wondrous poem of "The Ring and the
Book," a poem as brilliant, as pathetic, as lurid and as
dolorous as a winter sunset.

Few need to be reminded that the story is true, and
that the poet follows the ancient record with as much
exactness as the limner of a missal copies a passage of
Holy Writ.

It is a tragic story, since of the six chief persons
who took part in it four died a violent death, a fifth
vanished to distant lands and was heard of no more,
while one remained alone to end his days haunted by
the face of a dead woman, who, when she lived, had
called him " far beyond friend."

The scene of this tale of the Franceschini is laid in
the heart of Italy, in that gracious stretch of valley
and hill which lies between Florence and Rome. To
the traveller, no part of Italy is more familiar, unless it
be the country of the lakes or the northern sea beaches.
It is with no widely scattered region that the narrative
is concerned, but rather with little more than a winding
road between two towns, with the towns themselves,
with a church or so and certain streets, and with a small

vii

Preface

posting-inn, where a meagre upper room still rings with
the voices of tragedy, for here the husband, wife and
priest met, face to face, for the last time.

It may be of service to point these places out, lest
some, interested in the story, should pass them by as
if they were like other roads, other streets and other
churches, or stay to admire an altar-piece without know-
ing that they stand on the spot where Pompilia was
married to her woeful husband, and where her body lay
after her troublous life was over. Elsewhere, from utter
lack of knowing, we may pass, all unheeding, by the
banks of "the crystal dykes at Camelot," ramble over
the spot where bloomed the roses of Rosamond's Bower,
and watch, with apathy, the holiday folk who trample
the English beach first touched by the prows of
Caesar's galleys.

The story covers an unquiet period of four years,
the direful part of which fell in the time of mid-winter,
while that which was more happy to recall came, like
a break of blue sky, in the heyday of spring.

The history of Pompilia has been already briefly told

in prose. The sole excuse for repeating it again, and

in greater detail, is to bring the actual incidents of the

narrative into immediate association with the places of

their happening. It can be of small interest to read

of Castelnuovo if the events that came to pass in the

little town are either unfamiliar or indistinct. The

field of Waterloo, even with its obtrusive monuments,

is no more than a piece of eligible farm land to the

uninformed, while no study of the circumstances of

the battle can compare in vividness with a reading of

the event made on the spot.

viii

Preface

When all that was needed for the purpose of this
book had been done it was impossible to resist the
temptation of setting forth, in the gorgeous language
of the poem, what Robert Browning himself made of
the people of the story. As they appear in the old
documents, they are a company of faded folk, distinc-
tive in a way, but with as little human warmth in them
as animates a row of costumes hanging in a playhouse
cupboard. Browning breathed into these ghostly men
and women the breath of life. They do not pretend
to exact portraiture, neither was the Perseus of Ben-
venuto Cellini a portrait, nor Raphael's " Madonna with
the Goldfinch." The Pompilia and Caponsacchi of the
poem may never have walked the streets of Arezzo,
but in some place, and at some time, they must have
trod the highway of the world together, must have suf-
fered as did the lonely woman and the man who was
" the lover of her life," must have faced their fate
with the same untrammelled spirit, and so have added
some lustre to the chronicle of human endeavour and
devotion.

FREDERICK TREVES.

Thatched House Lodge,

Richmond Park, Surrey,
October^ I913-

CONTENTS

Part One — The Story

I. The Old Yellow Book .

II. The Comparini Family in Rome

III. A Quiet Wedding .

IV. Palace Life at Arezzo .
V. Violante's Confession

VI. PoMPiLiA AT Bay

VII. The Flight with the Priest

VIII. The Scene at Castelnuovo .

IX. After Castelnuovo

X. GuiDo Decides to Visit Rome

XI. The Murder in the Via Vittoria

XII. Guido's Arrest

XIII. The Death of Pompilia .

XIV. The Trial for Murder .
XV. The Execution in the Piazza del Popolo

XVI. The Epilogue

PAGE

23
28

35
44
48

59
66

73
76

79
88

Part Two — The Country of the Story

ROME.

1. The Via Vittoria 97

2. The House of the Comparini loi

3. The Neighbourhood of the Via Vittoria . . 105

4. The Street ok the Lion's Mouth . . . .111

5. The Ursuline Convent 114

6. San Lorenzo in Lucina 118

7. Le Scalette 126

8. The New Prisons 130

9. The Route to the Place of Execution . .138
10. The Piazza del Popolo I45

150

II. THE INN AT MERLUZZA

Contents

l-AGE

III. AREZZO i6i

IV. THE FLIGHT TO ROME.

1. The Road .......

2. From Arezzo to Perugia ....

3. From Perugia to Foligno by Assisi

4. The Journey Across the Hills and Beyond

TO Castelnuovo

5. Castelnuovo

6. From Castelnuovo to Rome

7. How THE People of the Story Looked .

171
179

193

207
217

231

235

Part Three — The People of the Story as they appear

IN THE Poem

I. The Comparini 245

II. The Franceschini 249

III. POMPILIA 250

IV. Caponsacchi 263

V. GuiDo 270

VI. The Pleaders 283

VII. The Pope 287

Appendix 299

Index 301

Xll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

The photographs used in illustration of the text were taken by the
Author at various seasons of the year, and, for the most part, at or about
the actual date in the calendar on which occurred the episode with which the
particular scene is associated.

Madonna, by Fra Filippo Lippi .... Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

1. Via Vittoria, Rome ....... 8

2. Via Vittoria, Rome ....... lO

3. Robert Browning's House in the Via Bocca di Leone, Rome 10

4. The Corso, as it would appear in Pompilia's Time. . 14

5. The Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, Rome . . 16

6. The Lion by the Door of the Church of San Lorenzo in

Lucina, Rome ....... 18

7. The Courtyard of the House of the Knights of Malta, Via

Condotti, Rome . . . . . . .18

8. Le Scalette, Rome ....... 20

9. The Tramp on the Steps of the Convent of the Good

Shepherd ........ 20

10. The Via Giulia, Rome ....... 24

11. Via Giulia and Church of Santa Maria della Mortc, Rome 28

12. The River Side of the Via Giulia, Rome

13 ~

•The New Prisons in the Via Giulia, Rome

14. j

15. The Back of the New Prisons in the Via Giulia, Rome

16. Map of Modern Rome ......

17. The Via del Governo Vecchio, Rome

18. The Old House in the Via del Governo Vecchio, Rome

19. Church of the Agonizzanti, Rome ....

30
32

36
38
40

xiu

List of Illustrations

FACING PAGE

20. The Piazza Navona, Rome ...... 50

21. The Fountain, " II Moro," Piazza Navona, Rome . . 54

22. The Piazza della Rotonda and Pantheon, Rome . . 56

23. The Piazza del Popolo, Rome ..... 60

24. The Piazza del Popolo, Rome {frovn an Engraving by

Piranesi) . . ...... 60

25. The Church of Santa Maria del Popolo, Rome . . 64

26. The Porta del Popolo, Rome ..... 66

27. On the Road from Rome to the Ponte Milvio . . 70

28. Fountain by the Roadside on the Way to the Ponte Milvio 70

29. The Ponte Milvio, Rome ...... 72

30. The Ponte Milvio, Rome [froin Venuti's " Antichita di

Roma," 1763) ....... 72

31. The Inn at La Storta connected with Guido's Flight . 76

32. The Inn at Merluzza where Guido was arrested . . 80

33. Map of Arezzo ........ 82

34. A Street in Arezzo ....... 84

35. The Church of Santa Maria della Pieve, Arezzo . . 88

36. The Door of the Church of Santa Maria della Pieve, Arezzo 90

37. The Old Canale Inn, Arezzo ...... 90

38. The San Clemente Gate, Arezzo ..... 92

39. The City Wall, Arezzo, just inside the San Clemente Gate 98

40. The Town Wall of Arezzo, from the outside . . . 100

41. The Wall of Arezzo by the Torrione .... 100

42. Map of the Country between Arezzo and Rome . . 104

43. Vitiano, whence came the Four Bravoes . . . 106

44. A Typical Wayside Cottage on the Route of Pompilia's

Flight . . . . . . . . . 106

45. Castighon Fiorentino ....... 108

46. Old House at Camoscia . . . . . .112

47. The Walls of Cortona ....... 114

48. A Street in Cortona ....... 118

49. Posting-Road Map from Arezzo to Foligno by Assisi . 120

50. The Frontier between Tuscany and the States of the

Church, near Terontola ...... 124

51. The First GUmpse of Lake Trasimene .... 126

xiv

List of Illustrations

FACING PAGE

52. Lake Trasimene, from the High Road

53. Passignano, on Lake Trasimene

54. Tuoro, from the High Road .

55. Lake Trasimene, from the High Road

56. The Old Posting-Inn, Torricella

57. Torricella .....

58. The Castle at Magione, from the High Road
5g. View from Magione

60. Perugia, from the Road to the North

61. Niccolo Pisano's Fountain, Perugia

62. Perugia : A Dark Entry

63. The Ponte San Giovanni over the Tiber

64. The First View of the Tiber in the process of Flight

65. The Bridge at Bastia crossed in the process of Flight

66. Distant View of the Church of St. Mary of the Angels

67. Assisi, from the Church of San Francesco

68. Assisi, from the Road ......

6g; The Old Posting-House at Santa Maria degli Angeli

70. The Town Wall of Spello and the Foligno Road .

71. The Gate of Spello ......

72. Foligno

73. The Cathedral of San Feliziano, Foligno

74. Trevi, from the High Road .

75. Posting-Road Map from FoHgno to Rome by Castelnuovo

76. Spoleto ........

77. The Road between Spoleto and Strettura

78. The Old Bridge crossed between Spoleto and Strettura

79. A Street in Spoleto

80. The Castle above Strettura .

81. The Posting-House at Strettura

82. Narni .....

83. A Street in Narni

84. The Main Road through Otricoli, from the Old Post-House

85. The Ponte Felice across the Tiber

86. The Ruined Castle near the Ponte FeHce, Borghetto

87. The Gorge at Civita Castcllana ....

The Gate into the Town from the Perugia Road 184

188
192
194
198
202
204
208
208
212
216
220
224
228
232
236

128
130
130

134
136

140
144
146

150
152
156
160
162
164
166
166
170
172
176
180

List of Illustrations

FACING PAGE

88. A Street in Civita Castellana .....

89. The Valley to the South of Civita Castellana, from the

Road to Rome .......

90. Monte Soracte, from the Walls of Civita Castellana
91; Monte Soracte, from the High Road near Rignano

92. Rignano, the last Stopping-Place before Castelnuovo

93. The Town of Castelnuovo ......

94. The Inn at Castelnuovo where Pompilia and Caponsacchi

were discovered by Count Guido
' 95. The Interior of the Inn at Castelnuovo .

96. The Little Chapel between the Post-House and the Town,

Castelnuovo .....

97. A Street in Castelnuovo

98. The Piazza del Duomo, Castelnuovo

99. The Pretura at Castelnuovo .
100. Castelnuovo : The Steps by which Pompilia

the Prison .....
loi. The Piazza Garibaldi, Castelnuovo

102. The Back of the Pretura, Castelnuovo .

103. The Roman Campagna, from the High

Borghettaccio ....

104. The Bridge between Prima Porta and Rome

105. Plan of Rome in 1676 ....

106. Plan of Rome in 1676 ....

ascended to

Road near

238

244
246
250

254
256

260
264

268
272
274
276

280
282
284

288
292
296
300

Part One
THE STORY

THE COUNTRY OF
"THE RING AND THE BOOK

))

THE OLD YELLOW BOOK

A BUNDLE of old legal documents, collected by a
lawyer curious in the dry sophistries of his call-
ing, proved to be the unlikely material out of
which was fashioned one of the finest, most imaginative,
and most human poems of the nineteenth centur}'-, a
work, which has been described as "the most precious
and profound spiritual treasure that England has pro-
duced since the days of Shakespeare."*

The lawyer was Monsignore Francesco Cencini of
Florence, and the object of his concern was a certain
murder trial held at Rome in 1698, in which the principal
accused was Count Guido Franceschini of Arezzo. It is
evident that the man of law was a friend of the Frances-
chini. Probably he had had legal dealings with the
family, for Arezzo is only fifty-one miles distant from
Florence. Moreover, he sent from Florence "proofs
on behalf of Count Guido," but they arrived too late,
since by the time of their coming the nobleman was
merely " Signor Guido of blessed memory." Whatever
Cencini's interest may have been, his curiosity in the case
was acute, for he persuaded at least three of his legal
friends in Rome to send him every possible paper that
bore in any way upon the trial.

* The A then a urn.
3

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

In response to his demand, these correspondents
forwarded to their " most illustrious and most worshipful
Signor and Patron" no fewer than eighteen documents,
partly in print, partly in manuscript, heavy with words,
swollen with arguments, "instruments," citations and de-
positions, set out for the most part in the Latin tongue,
and with as little coherence as would be found in the
clamour of eighteen disputatious persons all speaking at
once. These eighteen papers Signor Cencini arranged
in such order they were capable of, indexed the whole,
and then caused the collection to be bound in vellum
with some care.

What happened to the book when the Florentine
lawyer died none can tell. It vanished from the view of
the world for one hundred and sixty years, lying, it may
be, on some forgotten shelf, with none to finger its pages
nor read its crabbed print. It may well have spent half a
century in a worm-eaten muniment chest, or another fifty
years among the cobwebs of a lumber room. Whatever
its hiding place or its adventure, it emerged at last into
the light of day — into the sunlight, indeed, of an Italian
summer— in the year 1860. It was then that Robert
Browning found it on an open stall in a market square of
Florence, among a jumble of minor relics of abandoned
homes and odds and ends of rubbish.

He purchased it for eightpence. It was a curious
book for a poet to seize upon, a volume, one would
have thought, as little likely to interest him as would an
old Italian "Herbal" or a treatise on geometry. Yet out
of these records of a criminal court, out of this mass of
hard-hammered, bitter, unfeeling stuff, he produced a
poem palpitating with life, full of tenderness and passion,

The Old Yellow Book

where, within a vast fabric of stern wisdom and learned
argument, was enshrined the exquisite, small figure of an
adorable, pathetic woman.

Such is the " square old yellow book " which figures
in the title of the poem. It lies now in safe keeping in
the Library of Balliol College, Oxford, a book with
" crumpled yellow covers," " small quarto size," just as
Browning describes it in his prelude.*

Two additional documents concerned with the famous
case have come to light since Browning found the Yellow
Book in 1860. One of these is a contemporary account in
manuscript dealing with the general facts of the tragedy
and with the execution of the criminals. It was dis-
covered in London by one of Browning's acquaintances,
who, knowing the poet's interest in the subject, sent
it to him. The MS., which contains many new par-
ticulars, was evidently written some years after the story
had closed. t The second document, also in manu-
script, was discovered in a library in Rome. It shows
evidence of having been written at a later period than
the pamphlet just referred to. It was published in
English by W. Hall GriflSn in the Monthly Review for
November, 1900. Of this document Browning had no
knowledge. J

For years, no doubt, the great murder case was talked
about and mused over, its details becoming fainter and

* The most convenient edition of " The Old Yellow Book" is that edited
by Charles W, Hodell, and published as a volume of " Everyman's Library,"
London.

t It is reproduced in the Miscellanies of the Philobiblion Society, 186S-9,
and is made free use of in "The Ring and the Book."

I Both of these interesting manuscripts arc to be found in the appendix of
"The Old Yellow Book" in "Everyman's Library."

The Country of " The Ring and the Book "

fainter in each telling, until it faded into the limbo of

mere legend. It may be surmised that for a century

or more before Browning's time the whole story had

been already blotted out and forgotten. The people

who had played their parts in the vivid tragedy had

passed into nothingness and had vanished as utterly as

if they had never been. As the poet writes :

" What was once seen, grows what is now described,
Then talked of, told about, a tinge the less
In every fresh transmission ; till it melts.
Trickles in silent orange or wan grey
Across our memory, dies and leaves all dark."

Browning brings the tale from out of the dark into the
day again, lifts the curtain of the past and shows a
brightly illumined stage with a drama in progress, brings
the very actors once more to life, and has them act
their tragedy, scene by scene, not precisely as the world
in Rome witnessed it, but as he would have it presented
to the greater world of art, of sentiment and of morality.
The fragments he pieced together to produce this
wondrous reconstruction are to be found scattered
amongst the bundles of papers in the Yellow Book.
These confusing documents circle and flutter within the
vortex of a whirlwind of words, words which arise from
an arena full of heated combatants. In the midst the
lawyers — a stalwart party of four, two on either side —
fight like gladiators armed with buckler and sword.
Around them crowd their supporters, friends, and half
the people of Rome. If one of the four makes a sharp
legal thrust with his blade, it is met, with a thud, by
the blunt shield of his opponent. Cases, judgments,
precedents and rulings, drawn from the whole arsenal
of the law, are snatched up and hurled about like missiles.

The Old Yellow Book

The sentence of a court in ancient Rome is answered
by a passage from the Scriptures ; while the solemn
decision of an august judge is wafted away by a flippant
line of verse from Ovid. The whole battlefield of the
Law, extending far back into dim time, is raked over to
find stones to throw. The fighters yell, the one against
the other, as the missiles fly.

Above the din of the contest there is ever to be heard
the same mean tale told over and over again. The words
that tell it rise and fall like the notes of a recurrent
tune, now pathetic, now horrible, now played in rhythm,
now in discord, but ever discernible the while as the
one same direful melody. The atmosphere is hissing
with abuse, with spiteful denunciations, with partisan
praise, wdth brazen lies and shabby innuendoes, until at
last it comes about that, if all that is said be true,
on the one side and the other, there is not a soul in
the entire company, from the noble lady to the house-
boy, who does not emerge from the fray blackened with
some degree of infamy — save, perhaps, one only, a genial
priest, the easy-going canon, Conti, who died before
the great tragedy was played to the end.

Bandied to and fro in the thick of the crowd is the
figure of a girl of seventeen, delicate and sweet to
look upon. She is now lifted aloft by lusty arms
above the heads of the rabble, is now mercilessly
trampled underfoot, is now dragged through the dirt
like a half-strangled thief, and is now raised high on
a sunny pedestal beyond the reach of harm. There is
in the crowd, too, the strong figure of a man who
stands unmoved in the midst of the squalid riot. It
would seem that no assault can shake him, nor can

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

any eddy of violence drag him from his post. It is
to him that the girl with the fawn-like eyes holds out
her hand, and when the crowd has vanished and all is
still, it is by his side that she rests.

The story, so far as it can be made out from the
twenty documents and so far as it can be extracted
from among the mass of contradictions and dis-
crepancies which they present, is, briefly, as follows.

1. — VIA VITTOKIA, ROME.
To the left are the barred windows of the Ursuline Convent.

THE COMPARINI FAMILY IN ROME

IN the year 1693 there lived, in a quiet street in
Rome, a family of the name of Comparini. They
were people of the middle class and of comfortable
means. The husband, Pietro Comparini, at the time
when the story opens, was about sixty-four years of
age. He followed no occupation, and it is not known
that he had ever adopted any trade or profession. A
native of Florence and therefore a foreigner, he
appears to have been an indolent, easy-going, "inde-
pendent gentleman," who graciously left the affairs of
his household to the charge of his wife. According
to those who Avished him ill, he was a spendthrift,
and in debt. Indeed, these enemies of his did not
shrink from saying that he was so poor as to be
in receipt of secret doles from the Papal Charities.
There seems to have been but little truth in this, for
the last will and testament of Pietro Comparini,
completed shortly before he died, shows that he
was possessed of quite comfortable means. Other
traducers affirmed that he was addicted to vulgar
company and the frequenting of taverns. It is a hard
saying, but, although there are no grounds upon
which to dispute the libel, there were circumstances
in his life and times which make it conceivable that
he would find his "warmest welcome at an inn."

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

The wife, Violante, who was some three years
younger than her husband, was a Roman born. She
was a masterful woman, with a shrewd eye for business,
and a capacity for scheming of a quite exceptional
order. Modern cynics would have called her a
"managing woman." In domestic strategy she was
bold and resourceful, fearless as a lion, quick and crafty
as a fox. She was furthermore haughty, and, on occa-
sion, arrogant. Another quality she had, which enabled
her to use her special talents with full effect : she was
endowed with a preternatural volubility of speech.

The only child was a daughter, Pompilia, who, at
the time the narrative begins, was thirteen years old.
The sole record, so far, in the life of this little girl is
that she was born on July 17th, and baptised on
July 23rd, 1680, in the parish church of San Lorenzo
in Lucina, on which occasion the curate, one Barto-
lomeo Mini, bestowed upon her the sonorous title of
Francisca Camilla Victoria Angela Pompilia Com-
parini, a name like the ripple of a brook expressed in
words.

Pietro's estate consisted of some realisable property,
and of an income derived from certain trust funds,
which funds, in the event of his dying without children,
would pass into the hands of strangers. This latter
detail, although commonplace enough, is noteworthy,
because it proved to be the beginning of trouble.
Indeed, this item in the covenant of a trust led to
tragedy and murder.

The Comparini family lived in the Via Vittoria, a
narrow street leading out of the northern end of the
Corso.

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The Comparini Family in Rome

In the same year of grace 1693, there was to be
found in the ancient Tuscan town of Arezzo — some
154 miles north of Rome — certain reHcs of the noble
family of the Franceschini. The house consisted then
of the Donna Beatrice Franceschini, a widow of
advanced years,* of her three sons, and one
daughter.

The eldest son, Paolo — a man of forty-three — ^was a
priest with the style of abate. He resided at Rome,
where he held the office of Secretary to Cardinal Lauria.
The second son, Girolamo, who was four years younger
than this brother, was a priest and a canon of the Church
of Santa Maria della Pieve at Arezzo. He lived with
his mother in the Franceschini Palace. The third son,
Guido, was thirty-five years of age at the time when
this story begins. He followed no avocation, and as
his other brothers were priests he assumed the title of
Count and took his place in the household at Arezzo
as the head of the family. The only daughter, Porzia,
had already married a member of the distinguished
family of Aldobrandini, and had apparently taken her
leave of the old city.f The household, therefore, at
Arezzo, at the time dealt with, consisted of the widowed
countess, the Canon Girolamo, and the Benjamin of
the family, the idle Guido.

The reverend brother in Christ, the Abbe Paolo
Franceschini, occupies a prominent place in the Old
Yellow Book. He moves through the scenes of the

* She was born in 163 i, and would therefore have been sixty-two years old
in 1693. She died in 1701.

t Porzia was born in January, 165 3, and was thus the second in age in tl)c
family. Guide's baptismal entry is January, 1658.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book'*

drama as a dim, unquiet, sinister figure, whose foot-
steps were a portent of ill. He was a man of parts,
a consummate trickster, a Machiavelli of the back
streets and a coward to boot. His position in Rome
was good. His patron, the Cardinal Lauria, died in
November, 1693, whereupon Paolo secured the lucra-
tive post of secretary to the Order of the Knights
of St. John of Malta. The headquarters of the Order
in Rome were in the Via Condotti, a street very close
to the Via Vittoria. The abbe had also a villa, or
garden house with a vineyard, near the Ponte Milvio, a
little river suburb on the fringe of the Campagna, about
two miles distant from the walls of Rome.

Of Canon Girolamo very little is said in the Yellow
Book, but that very little — if the facts be true — is very
bad. Inasmuch as he lacked the keen intellect of his
brother Paolo, his wickedness was somewhat elemental
and wanting in finish. As a scoundrel, he never rose
above mediocrity, limiting his efforts to listening at
doors, to kicking women and to plotting their ruin.

Count Guido Franceschini was a woeful degenerate
who combined some of the shrewdness of the epileptic
with the domestic attributes of the Bushman. He was
a craw^ling ruffian, meaner than a robber of children
and malicious as a wounded snake. His dwarfed brain
seems to have been drugged by misery of his own
making and to be capable only of devising fresh poisons
for the shafts of hatred and revenge. He reduced
cruelty to an art, made greed the fetish of his worship
and developed to the best of his restricted ability the
accomplishment of lying. He does not seem to have
possessed any rudimentary virtue except patience, the

The Comparini Family in Rome

patience of a coward to wait until the back of liis
victim is turned.

It will not be a matter of surprise that Guido is
described in the Yellow Book as presenting " a dis-
position more gloomy than pleasant." Those who
knew him in the life speak of him as a man of low
stature, thin and pallid, with a prominent nose, black
hair and heavy beard. A less exact observer remem-
bers him as being "ordinary in appearance and of
weak temperament." A drawing of Count Franceschini
exists which was made on the day of his execution.*
He there appears as a dazed melancholic, such as might
be seen lolling aimlessly in the courtyard of a mad-
house. The portrait is that of a ruffian, not of the
fine, slouch-hatted brigand or pirate type, but rather of
a kind that in modern times is discovered by a cook
skulking in an area.

This nobleman had found a place, strange to say, in
the service of a distinguished prelate. Cardinal Nerli.
In what particular manner he assisted the cardinal is
not known. By the time, however, that the present
narrative commences, he was no longer in this pious
household, but was loafing about Rome looking for
something to do.

Had the Franceschini been rich they might have
flaunted it in Arezzo with the best, for their long
lineage gave them a claim to consideration. They
might, indeed, have been the great people of the city
and have lorded it over both the bishop and the
governor. But, unhappily, the Franceschini had fallen

* This appears in Vol. X. of " The Poetical Works of Robert Browning."
London, 1889.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

upon evil times. Although they occupied a palace,
they were desperately poor and were indeed driven to
straits to live. One can imagine the cavern-like palazzo
with its vaulted hall and its solemn stair, a stair so
wide as to give the single figure mounting it an aspect
of unutterable loneliness. One can fancy its shuddering
passages, its echo-haunted suites of empty rooms, where
the plaster that had fallen from ceilings, still bright
wdth Venuses and Cupids, made grave-like heaps on
the creaking floor ; where the light, shot through the
gap left by a shutter dropping from its hinge, showed
bare walls with dull square patches, whence pictures
had been taken, one by one, to fill the empty treasury,
with perhaps just one tall portrait left of some arrogant
count — alone in the gloom — whose canvas was too
mouldy or too frayed to fetch a soldo.

It was fated that Count Guido and Pompilia Com-
parini should meet. Their coming together was the
outcome of no romantic circumstance, but was brought
about by a hairdresser — a female hairdresser to boot.

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A QUIET WEDDING

GUIDO, as has been already said, was mooning
about Rome without a copper in his pocket,
seeking for something to do. It was natural
that his clever elder brother, the prosperous abbe, should
take him in hand in order to promote this laudable
endeavour. Paolo appears to have come to the opinion
that Guido was not destined by Nature for intellectual
work, nor indeed for work of any kind. It was evident,
therefore, that his best prospect of advancement, his .
best chance of obtaining comfort in life and money for
the wretched house in Arezzo, lay in marrying a lady
of wealth. Now a stunted nobleman of gloomy ap-
pearance and weak temperament, with an unattractive
person, vicious habits and an empty purse, is not a
Romeo for every Juliet. Paolo, indeed, had a heavy
task before him when he undertook to " do something "
for this palefaced, bearded brother of his.

Happily there was in the Piazza Colonna, half-way
down the Corso, a hairdresser's shop kept by a woman.
Guido found this establishment a convenient loafing
place. It was central, it was cool, and much fre-
quented ; there would be a bench to sit upon, people
to talk to, the deft work of scissors and comb to watch
and nothing to pay. On one summer's morning he
confided to the hairdresser that he was thinking of

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

entering the holy estate of matrimony. Possibly he
spoke of love, of Dante and Beatrice, of two hearts that
beat as one, and of such other raptures as his limited
invention would permit. Certainly he spoke of Arezzo,
and here his talent for lying served him well, for he
explained to the coifTeuse, while she was sweeping up
hair from the floor, that he had a noble palace in
Tuscany with varied possessions and eligible estates, as
well as a lineage as ancient as the Barberini. To the
description of the amenities of the Franceschini property
his brother, the abbe, no doubt added some illuminating
details.

It so happened, while this was in progress, that
Violante Comparini of the Via Vittoria realised that she
had a daughter and that daughters marry, and, being
aware that the hairdresser's shop in the Piazza Colonna
was a favourable lounging place for gentlemen of quality,
she whispered in the hairdresser's ear some pleasant things
about Pompilia, and especially about Pompilia's financial
prospects. Pompilia, it is true, was only thirteen years
of age, but Violante was a woman who looked ahead.
As a liar, Violante was no match for the Franceschini
brothers, but she did her best and met with quite en-
couraging success. The hairdresser cannot fail to have
been impressed with the amount of wealth laid up in
quarters where it would be little suspected, and later in
her life, when light fell upon her, she must have often
asked with Pilate, "What is truth?"

At an appropriate moment Paolo came forward and
arranged with the coiffeuse for an introduction to the
Comparini family. He went farther, and promised to
the wig-maker the sum of 200 scudi (which is in English

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A Quiet Wedding

currency ;^40) on the day that his illustrious brother led
Signorina Pompilia to the altar. From such knowledge
of the Franceschini family as the Yellow Book affords
it would be safe to conclude that this ^40 was never
paid. No doubt the abbe, when dilating upon the
splendours of his house, might have owned, with a
sigh, that at one time he had hoped that his younger
brother would find a bride among the noble ladies who
graced the many palaces of Rome. From such a noble
dame, escorted to her carriage by bowing lackeys, it
was certainly a deep descent to a slip of a girl of
thirteen, living in a back street, and probably at the
moment playing in the gutter.

The preliminary interview arranged by the coiffeuse
took place no doubt in the best parlour of the house in
the Via Vittoria. It was not the count and his pro-
spective father-in-law who met, because, in a matter of
this kind, poor Pietro, the frequenter of taverns, counted
for nothing. The interview was between Violante and
the Abbe Paolo. It must have been an interview of
severe interest, this fencing bout in lying between a
voluble old lady and a foxy priest, this match with
loaded dice between two finished tricksters, both
genially unscrupulous and frankly without conscience.
The abbe won in the end by sheer weight of lying.
Having dwelt at some length upon the high standing
of the family at Arezzo, he— confirmed at each point by
Guido — proceeded to give details of the purely fictitious
estate upon which that honoured family subsisted. His
brother's income, the abbe said, in a gush of open-
hearted confidence, was £340 per annum. As a matter of
fact, Guido's entire capital did not amount to that sum.
c 17

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

At a later stage in the proceedings Pietro appears to
have been informed of the happy, and indeed brilliant,
future which was in store for his daughter. For some
reason, he was not unduly elated. He had probably made
inquiry among his tavern gossips, with the result that he
was a little dubious as to the financial status of his wife's
noble friend. To convince him on this point, Guido
produced an exact schedule or inventory of his varied
possessions, from which it appeared that his income was
precisely as stated. The concocting of this fantastic
document must have given Paolo and the expectant
bridegroom infinite amusement. One can imagine how
they chuckled when the abbe added another vineyard
or two to the list, and then threw in an ancient castle
" let to a careful tenant," together with a mediaeval don-
jon which was profitable as a lime-kiln. It was all very
diverting, and no doubt the customers at the hairdresser's
must have wondered why the brothers so often nudged
one another as they sat together, and then shook with
suppressed mirth, and why such a simple expression as
" five fine olive groves " convulsed them with laughter.
Later on, an examination of the rent rolls, as preserved
in the public records of Arezzo, revealed the fact that
Count Guido had no settled property of any kind.

The question of Guido's wealth having been satis-
factorily disposed of, the next matter discussed by the
amiable abbe was the question of the exact dowry that
would be bestowed upon Pompilia, who was probably
at that moment nursing a doll on the doorstep. Here
again Pietro was difficult to deal with, difficult and
very obstinate, so obstinate that, although the business
was at last completed to the satisfaction of both Violante

6. -THE LION BY THE DOOR OF THE CHURCH OF SAN
LORENZO IN LUCINA, ROME.

7.— THE COURTYARD OF THE HOUSE

OF THE KNIGHTS OF MALTA,

VIA CONDOTTI, ROME.

A Quiet Wedding

and Paolo, it was evident that it had needed great
pressure to obtain the suspicious man's consent.

The entire property of the Comparini family
amounted to £2,400. A portion of this sum was re-
presented by excellent house property, and the rest by
certain funds in trust. Pietro at last, after struggling
no doubt like a heifer at the door of a slaughter-house,
agreed to bestow upon Pompilia an immediate dowry
of £520, and to hand over the rest of his possessions
to the noble count on condition that the count main-
tained him and his wife, for the rest of their days, at
the ancestral home in Arezzo. To Violante this was
an arrangement of great charm. It implied an inti-
mate association with the nobility and gentry, a vicarious
elevation to the peerage, life in a palace, great deference
and respect when she walked abroad, the enjoyment
of exalted and refined society, and, above all, the
spectacle of her daughter enthroned as a countess.
Pietro probably wondered whether the sum doled out
to him by the unconvivial Guido would enable him to
assume such a position in the wine shops of Arezzo
as his new phase of existence demanded. He evidently
moved with caution, because when the secrets of all
hearts were laid bare it became known that of the
immediate dowry of £520 Pietro had only paid in
actual cash the sum of £140. It also appeared that
Guido was so penniless at the time that he was unable
to meet the expenses incident to the drawing up of
his own marriage settlement, and that these charges
had been defrayed by the yielding Pietro.

When all the talking and whispering and rustling of
papers were over, and when Violante had gloated long

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

enough over Guido's inventory of the estate and his
Hst of the family jewels, Pompilia, with her face newly
washed and her hair freshly "done," was probably
called into the parlour and presented to her future
husband— the gloomy man with a hooked nose and
a black beard— who would interest her as little as a
hyaena would interest a kitten.

The wedding took place in the parish church of
San Lorenzo in Lucina. According to the former of the
two manuscripts, discovered after Browning chanced
upon the Yellow Book, Pompilia was " secretly married
during December, 1693." No part of this statement is
correct, for the marriage did not take place in secret
nor was it in the month of December. There has
been, up to the present, no definite pronouncement
as to the exact date of the ceremony. Browning, fol-
lowing the passage just quoted from the manuscript,
makes the marriage (with great artistic effect) take
place clandestinely and within shut doors, "one dim
end of a December day." It was kept secret, the
poem says, from Pietro, while the ceremony itself was
performed by Guido's brother the abbe. According
to the second of the two manuscripts (the one Browning
never saw) the ceremony was performed, without the
knowledge of the father and without notice, some time
in the month of December. Mr. Charles W. Hodell,
in his commentary on the Yellow Book, states that the
marriage took place in December, but against the day
of the month he puts a note of interrogation. Mr.
Hall Griffin, in the appendix to his "Life of Robert
Browning,"* writes: "The real date of the marriage is

* London, 1910, p. 271.
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A Quiet Wedding

August or September, 1693." This is the nearest to
the truth.

I have had the opportunity of seeing the original
entry in the marriage register of the Church of San
Lorenzo in Lucina, and have obtained an official certi-
fied copy of the same. This is reproduced at the end
of this volume. It will be seen from the entry that
the marriage was celebrated on September 6th, 1693
(the day was a Sunday). It will further be seen that
it was carried out with every proper observance and
formality, so that in no way could it have been de-
scribed as secret or clandestine. The ceremony was
performed not by the Abate Paolo, but by the curate
of the church. The banns were announced on three
preceding Sundays in July, viz. : July 5th, 12th and
19th, and therefore some two months before the actual
marriage took place. It is stated further in the entry
that no legitimate impediment to the union was offered.
As the church is close to the Via Vittoria and was the
parish church of the Comparini, it is inconceivable
that Pompilia could have been married without the
knowledge of her father. It is significant that in the
legal pleadings set forth at the trial of Count Guido
no mention is made by either side of a secret marriage.

Had the wedding been efifected clandestinely it is
safe to assume that the counsel for the defence would
have made use of the fact to show how the simple count
had been trapped by his nefarious mother-in-law. The
long interval that had elapsed between the publication of
the banns and the marriage ceremony certainly suggests
that there was some hitch in the arrangements or that
the announcement was premature.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

As to the precise ages of the "happy couple" it
will be observed that Guido was thirty-five and Pompilia
thirteen years and two months.

It was a quiet wedding. The bride and bridegroom
parted at the church door. Guido probably strolled
down to the hairdresser's shop to tell the news. Violante
and Pompilia would walk home by way of the Corso,
Violante flushed, puffed up and very garrulous, Pompilia
silent and full of wonder, yet possibly occupied by the
hope that some boy or girl she knew would see her
go by in her new frock.

There then followed an interval of great peace that
lasted for three uneventful months. Guido went back
to Arezzo to set his house in order and to prepare for
the reception of his bride and her parents. He would
have his days fully occupied, clearing away the dust of
years, dragging old furniture out of forgotten places,
stuffing up rat holes and adjusting scraps of tapestry
over the worst breaches in the walls.

As for her ladyship, she no doubt returned to her
dolls. One may believe that, in the quiet of her room,
she would place these puppets in a row, would show
them the gold ring on her finger, would tell them of
the strange doings at the church, and of the ugly old
man with a hooked nose who had frightened her with
his horrid eyes. There is every reason to suppose that
on the day after her wedding the Countess Francesca
Pompilia Franceschini resumed her games in the street
with her children friends.

PALACE LIFE AT AREZZO

IN December, 1693, Pompilla and her parents, with
their miscellaneous belongings, moved to Arezzo. It
was an ill time to travel, for December is often bleak
and melancholy, while the roads about that season are,
as I learned to my cost, at their worst. The old couple
left the Via Vittoria with the belief that they would
never see Rome again, but that they would end their
days in the Tuscan city, in the peaceful atmosphere
of a palace and in the company of their daughter and
her children.

They had not been long in Arezzo before trouble
began. We are told from one source that Violante was
arrogant, violent, and generally offensive, that she en-
deavoured to possess herself of the domestic ke5^s and to
oust the dowager countess from her position as chatelaine
of the palace. From the glimpses the Yellow Book
affords of Signora Comparini in various walks of life,
it is conceivable that there was truth in this information.
Moreover, it was further said that Pietro showed an
aversion to the company and conversation of people of
refinement, and "began to frequent daily all the taverns
of the town," The Comparini had made early com-
plaint that they were " denied their old free life," and
in this lamentation the voice of Pietro is assuredly to
be heard.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

As a counterblast to the charge of arrogance and the
seizure of the keys, the Comparini protested that they
had been so basely deceived that their finer natures
had received a shock, and, furthermore, that they
had, in general terms, been hoaxed, trapped and
robbed. The house thus became "a perfect goose-
yard cackle of complaint." It may be taken as
certain that Violante, with that fluency of speech with
which she was endowed, declared that neither she
nor her beloved husband would " stand it." She
asserted, and no doubt with considerable power of
voice, that the Palazzo Franceschini was a whited
sepulchre, a palace of penury, as empty as a cavern
and as cheerless.

There were constant squabbles and brawls, alter-
cations that ended in the slamming of doors, and dis-
putes that were concluded by the throwing of things
out of window. Moreover, the members of this dis-
tinguished family on occasion struck one another. A
maid-servant who had displayed a partisan spirit was
kicked at least twice, while neighbours had heard,
through open windows, the sound of a slap on the
face, followed by a like sound extracted apparently from
another face.

It was left to one, Angelica Battista, aged thirty-five,
fully to illumine the Franceschini menage. She laid open
the entire palace, from attic to cellar, as if it had been
a doll's house with a hinged front that could be operated
like the door of a cupboard. Angelica was once a
domestic servant in the Franceschini employ. As she
had been dismissed with abruptness and ignominy, and
had been both struck and kicked by her master and

Palace Life at Arezzo

mistress at the moment of her departure, she may have
been prejudiced against the family.

She testified, when the occasion came, that the Fran-
ceschini had treated their visitors not only with rudeness
but with brutality. Guido had called his mother-in-
law a " slut " ; Signora Beatrice had warned Angelica
against the Comparini and had commanded her to
render them no service. Once when Violante was ill, and
" needed to be unlaced " and to have vinegar and other
restoratives given her, Angelica was forbidden to afiford
her any assistance, although the poor lady was very cold
and, indeed, "nearly dead." Moreover, she was for-
bidden to light poor Pietro up the stairs when he
returned to the palace late at night. This was a cruel
injunction, because a wide staircase that flits abruptly
to the right and the left in the black abyss of an un-
familiar house is a very puzzling object to a frequenter of
taverns who is on his way to bed. Once, indeed, Pietro,
in stumbling blindly up these stairs when alone, fell
down and was so bruised that he was confined for some
days to his room. On another occasion, Pietro, on his
return to the Palazzo Franceschini in the evening,
found the front door locked, whereupon, to his con-
tinued knocking, Violante, in her nightdress, shaking
and mumbling, had to shuffle down and let him in.

Of the poverty of the house and of the miserly
meanness with which it was conducted, Angelica Battista
gives a very luminous picture in her depositions. We
see Guido on a cold Saturday morning sending Joseph,
the house-boy, out to buy two pounds of beef and wait-
ing at the door to take the meat from him as he returned.
This beef he would hand to his mother, and her ladyship

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

would cook it herself, so that there could be no pil-
fering, for the two pounds of steak had to last the family
a week. We can see this same house-boy sniggering
at the lamb's head which was served up, in sections,
as a relish no fewer than three successive times. We can
picture the dowager countess creeping into the sombre
dining-room on tiptoe, just before a meal, in order to
add water to the one flask of wine which was to serve
the family for dinner. We can see poor old Signor
Comparini trying patiently to eat his helping of beef,
but compelled to abandon the attempt on account of
the extreme toughness of the same. On such occasions,
Angelica says, he supported life upon a little toasted
bread, in bad condition, and a morsel of cheese. This
observant woman concludes her criticism of the cuisine
by giving the menu for dinner on a fast day. On such
occasion it consisted of but three courses, viz. : vege-
table soup, a little salted pike, and some boiled chestnuts.

Some of Angelica's descriptions, although vivid and
even dramatic, are possibly a little overdrawn. Thus we
are presented with the spectacle of Signora Violante,
an aged, grey-haired lady, fleeing, with many a gasp for
breath, along the passage leading to her room, pursued
by a reverend canon of the Church, Girolamo Frances-
chini to wit, brandishing a naked sword.

It is not to be supposed that a household endowed

with so many domestic abnormalities, and productive of

such alarms and incidents, could long remain whole and

undivided. When March came, although only three

months had elapsed since the Comparini had entered

the portals of the palace, they shook the dust of Arezzo

from their feet and returned to Rome. It is significant

Palace Life at Arezzo

that they took Angelica with them. In such straits were
they when they left that they were compelled to apply
to Guido for money to defray the expenses of the re-
turn journey. The Count, one may be sure, never paid
money with greater pleasure, while it might be further
surmised that he took pains to inform Pietro of that
fact. Violante's farewell remarks to Guido and his
mother have not been preserved, and by so much the
Italian language, although possessing great range of
expression, is left the poorer.

The disillusioned couple returned to their old house
in the Via Vittoria, saddened and chastened, no doubt,
but yet provided with a wider experience of life and
something to think about.

Guido must have been jubilant. The Franceschini
brothers had been victorious all along the line. The
noble Count possessed the dainty Pompilia ; he had se-
cured Pietro's money, or the better part of it ; he was
rid of the burden of lodging and supporting two people
he loathed; and, above all, he had seen the last of that
horrible virago, Violante, and her wine-bibbing hus-
band. Time showed, however, that he had neither seen
the last nor heard the last of Violante Comparini,

violante's confession

POMPILIA'S plight after her parents had fled to
Rome was lamentable beyond words. Here was a
girl not yet fourteen left alone in a sepulchre of
a house, in a foreign country, without a single friend.
Guido, on the other hand, was as nearly happy as he
had ever been in his life. His clever plot had succeeded,
his lying had met with the most gratifying results, he
had trampled the Comparini into the dirt ; while as for
his passion of hate, could he not glut it to the full upon
this shrinking, pale-faced girl who was always crying
for her mother and imploring to be sent home?

The noble Count would be at pains to recall, day
by day at dinner, the picture of the two old people —
Violante and Pietro — sneaking along towards Rome,
and would speculate as to what town they had reached
each night, for the journey then occupied a week. Later
he would surmise that they had gained the city, and
had crawled into the familiar house in the Via Vittoria,
whipped and beaten. There they would hide their
shame, together with the failure of all their schemes
and the utter collapse of their fortunes.

For some few weeks there was comparative peace in
the palace, just as after a storm may follow a windless
if dreary calm. No news came from Arezzo, for the

Countess Pompilia Franceschini could not write, while

;i 1 ^

11. — VIA GIULIA AND CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA DELLA

MORTK, ROME.

Violante's Confession

no news came from Rome for other reasons. After
the passage of a month or more of sunshine and blue
sky, the drowsy silence was broken by a fearsome
thunderclap. Violante had made a confession.

As soon as the couple were settled in the old house
again, Violante told her husband, with much solemnity,
that she had something to say. Possibly it was in that
listless hour after sunset, after the Ave Maria had rung,
that the secret was told. The confession was briefly
this : Pompilia was not their daughter. She was the
daughter of a common prostitute from whom Violante
had purchased her several days before her birth. She
then revealed the details of the trick that had been
practised, told how she had feigned illness, how certain
delusive preparations had been made, recalled the buy-
ing of the cradle and the engagement of the nurse, and
reminded Pietro how he had been sent more than once
in fuming haste to the apothecary for mysterious drugs.
Violante — who seems to have possessed an unblushing
pride in her skill as a schemer — omitted no items, and
Pietro had to ow^n that the deception had been artisti-
cally complete. At the time of Pompilia's birth, it may
be mentioned that Violante was about forty-eight years
of age.

The reason for this cold and deliberate work of
fraud Violante now proceeded to expound. Upon the
grounds of sentiment she had thought it would be
pleasant if there were a child to cheer the declining
years of their lives, while from the point of view of busi-
ness she pointed out that, failing an heir, the property
in which they held a reversionary interest would pass out
of the family into the hands of strangers. That perhaps

The Country of "The Ring and the Book'*

weighed more with her than the joys of a fictitious
motherhood. Every item in her story was capable of
proof, for all those who had taken part in the solemn
farce thirteen years ago were alive and more than eager
to state what they knew.

It had been Violante's intention to carry the secret
hidden in her heart to the grave. She had made con-
fession now in order to revenge herself upon Guido,
because it was evident that the dowry which had been
bestowed upon a daughter could not belong to Pompilia
Franceschini, who was a daughter no more. It was not
until this stage in the story was reached that Pietro's
face relaxed, that his indignation faded, and that he
was able to smile and compliment his wife upon her
ingenious brain.

Thus it came about that Guido's short period of
happiness was brought to an end by the dropping of
a bomb into his house in the form of the writ of a legal
action against him for the recovery of the whole of his
wife's dowry. One can conceive how he foamed and
shrieked with rage, how he half narcotised Pompilia
with the fetor of his abuse, how he would drag her to
the window by the ear to look at her face, and then,
with the hiss of a cobra, would ask her if she knew
what she was and what her mother had been. One can
imagine, also, how the chaste Beatrice would draw her
skirts aside in passing, lest she should be polluted by a
creature so infamous ; while the Canon Girolamo, who
had terrified the child by his disgusting advances, would
now sneer at the modesty she had had the impudence
to assume.

The action for the nullification of the dowry contract

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came before the Court at Rome in the summer of 1694.
The trial involved an unusual problem and thus excited
an exceptional interest. In this and in subsequent legal
proceedings the Abbe Paolo acted on behalf of his
brother, who remained at Arezzo. The decision was
given in Guido's favour. It was proved that Pompilia
was not a daughter of the Comparini. It was ruled
that the contract between the count and Pietro had been
made in good faith and must therefore stand. Pompilia
remained in quasi-possession of her daughtership, so
that the immediate dowry of £520 bestowed upon her
was undisturbed, while as regards the reversionary pro-
perty it was obvious that that could not come into her
possession as she was not legitimately an heir to the
same.

So far as money was concerned Guido was no gainer
by the trial. Signor Comparini appealed against the
decision of the Court, and, pending the hearing of that
appeal, no action with regard to the disposal of the dowry
could be taken. For reasons which will appear, this
second action never came to a hearing, Pietro had
paid only £140 out of the amount of £520 which was
due, and further to protect himself against any seizure
of his funds he entered a statement — a little idea of his
wife's, no doubt — that certain creditors had made a claim
upon his property.

Up to this point Violante had done well, but in the
finer art of bull-baiting she was destined to do better. To
support their case at the trial, the Comparini published,
in the form of a pamphlet, the sworn affidavit of An-
gelica Battista dealing with the intimate and inner life
of the Franceschini household. There is not the least

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

doubt that Violante supplied her now spurious son-in-
law with a copy of this incisive document, and, further-
more, she may- be depended upon to have furnished
reprints of Angelica's memoirs to such notables in
Arezzo as were intimate with the Franceschini family.
The brochure must have afforded excellent reading for
many in that quiet town, since as material for gossip the
details relating to the piece of beef, the lamb's head
and the watering of the wine were absolutely beyond
price. It was Angelica's script that converted Guido
from a mere wolfish ruffian into a distempered fiend,
as will in time be made manifest.

The wretched Guido could make no reply. In a
tottering attempt to be equal with Violante he stated
that the Comparini, before they left Arezzo, had urged
Pompilia at once to kill her husband, to poison his
mother and the reverend canon, to set fire to the house,
and then to fly to Rome with the first young black-
guard she could happen on. This motherly advice,
which would have involved very strenuous proceedings
on the part of a mere child of thirteen, was recognised
as the product of Guido's spiteful brain, and was
only of interest as evidence that his invention was at
fault.

Still sillier than the matter of the charge was the
manner in which the poor degenerate brought it for-
ward. He produced a letter which the Abbe Paolo
had received from Pompilia, the same being duly
signed by her and dated "Arezzo, June 14th, 1694."
Now it would be about June that the action to set
aside the dowry contract was instituted. As this letter
rose into unmerited prominence some few years after-

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Violante's Confession

wards, it may be well to dispose of it at this point.
The epistle opens as follows :

" Dearest Brother-in-law :

" I wish by this letter to pay my respects to you, and to
thank you for your efforts in placing me in this home, where,
far removed from my parents, I live now a tranquil life and enjoy
perfect safety, not having them around me. For they grieved
me night and day with their perverse commands, which were
against the law, both human and divine."

Then comes the detailed advice given by Violante on
the subject of wholesale murder, arson and dishonour,
followed by these sentences :

" Now that I have not her at hand who stirred up my mind, I
enjoy the quiet of Paradise, and know that my parents were
thus directing me to a precipice, because of their own rage.

" I wish to be a good Christian and a good wife to Signor
Guido, who has many times chidden me in a loving manner."

The letter concludes

"Your most affectionate servant and sister,

Francesca Franceschini."

Unfortunately the value of this document, as a piece
of evidence, was marred by the fact that Pompilia
could not at this date either read or write. The terms
of the letter were in themselves ridiculous, for it was
never suggested that Pompilia was a mistress of the
art of sarcasm.

The description of the villainous house at Arezzo as
"a quiet Paradise" is extravagant even for the most
flippant cynic. Pompilia always regarded the Comparini
as her parents, always spoke of them as her "dear
Father and Mother," turned to them in her direst
trouble and clung to them with the deepest affection

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

to the end. They were indeed the only friends she
had in the world. Moreover, when the time came,
Pompilia testified that her husband had put before her
a letter in pencil, the words of which he had made
her trace over with ink with her own hand. When
she was shown the letter Paolo produced she said she
believed it to be the one she had dealt with in this
manner and remembered that she had been told that
it was intended for her brother-in-law in Rome.

The obliging Paolo brought forward another letter
of like origin that he had received from Pompilia, in
which she says that she is well and happy, now that
her parents are no longer with her to stir her to evil.
In the great criminal trial in Rome these two prepos-
terous documents told heavily against the count.

POMPILIA AT BAY

GUIDO, wellnigh deranged by the action of the
Comparini, had no other joy or rehef than to
vent the torrent of his wrath upon the shoulders
of his lonely and forsaken wife. His hatred of the
child seems to have been little less than a demoniacal
possession. Everything he saw around him was blood
red. He longed to murder Pompilia, to stab her with
a score of wounds, slowly to poison her, or to beat her
to 'death. This desire of his heart seems to have been
the prevailing topic of his speech when he deigned to
converse with her. Being the most squeamish of cowards
he was afraid to slaughter her outright without a legal
excuse. He cheered himself with the hope that he
might so bully and torture her that she would sicken
and die, or that she would batter herself to death
against the bars of her cage, or would seek peace by
leaping from the palace roof on to the kindly stones of
the street below.

Guido found, however, that this fragile little maid
was hard to kill, and that her courage was even greater
than his cowardice. Her brother-in-law, the Canon
Girolamo, made use of her distress to promote his dis-
honourable advances, while the old mother took savage
delight in playing with her misery as a cat plays with
a benumbed mouse that is still wet from its maw.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

Pompilia, driven hither and thither in this hell-like
cavern of a house, fled in despair to the governor of
Arezzo and threw herself at his feet. The governor,
however, was a friend of the Franceschini. He re-
buked the baby of a wife, charged her with creating
a scandal, told her to mend her ways, go home and
behave better. This is the man whose remedy for
Pompilia's wrong was, as the poem says —

" A shrug o' the shoulder, a facetious word
Or wink, traditional with Tuscan wits,
To Guido in the doorway."

His regard for Guido carried him a little farther, and
took him indeed too far, for he wrote (after a hint, no
doubt) to the ever-mischiefiful Paolo a letter, in which he
says that his brothers at Arezzo possessed the "patience
of martyrs," that the "poor child," as he fitly calls her,
had been led into excesses by her parents, and that she
now detests even the memory of their existence. He
concluded, in a fine outburst of imagery, by describing
the home at Arezzo as "an utter quietude," and in
signing his name, Vincenzo Marzi-Medici, wrote him-
self down as one of the most ready and light-hearted of
the many liars with whose utterances the Yellow Book
is concerned.

Pompilia then sought the bishop of the city, and,
indeed, ran to him twice for pity and protection, begging
him to send her to a convent. This prelate seems to
have adopted the bland attitude of a stage father, to
have patted her on the shoulder, and told her, with
many flatulent platitudes, to go home and be a good
wife. He seems to have been kind to her, in an oily
way, for he "sent her home in his carriage," after he

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Pompilia at Bay

had, no doubt, wiped her wet cheeks, quieted her sob-
bing, and tidied her hair under her wimple. In spite
of all this, Pompilia says in her deposition that "this
did no good."

Pompilia's third and final visit to the bishop is
graphically described by one Bartholomeo Albergotti,
a gentleman of Arezzo, in a communication to Signor
Comparini. He writes that on the morning of the day
before Palm Sunday the countess went to the church
to hear the preaching. It would seem that the quiet
of the place, the atmosphere of peace that filled it, to-
gether with the drowsy scent of incense and the chanting
of the choir, presented so intense a contrast with the
devil-haunted house to which she must return that
when the service was over she suddenly darted away
and rushed into the palace of the bishop.

The bishop declined to give her audience ; where-
upon she took up her place at the head of the stairs,
crouching down in the corner with her heaving shoulders
against the door. To avoid a scandal, both Count
Guido and Signora Beatrice went to her and begged
her to come home. She neither spoke nor moved.
They dared not lay hands on her and drag her away,
so they parleyed with her at a distance. There was
such a look of desperation on her face, such a look
of the hunted animal in her solemn eyes, that they
stood back in awe. Pompilia, huddled against the door
at[the head of the stairs, was like a fawn at bay. There
she remained the whole day through, dumb and motion-
less, the picture of despair. At last, as night was setting
in and as the Christian bishop was still unmoved, a
secretary came out, talked kindly to her, as a passer-by

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

would solace a stray dog that had been chased about
until it dropped. He persuaded her in the end to
return home, having already urged the malignant Guido
not to scold her. It is of this bishop that the Pope
asks later on :

" While the wolf pressed on her within crook's reach,
Wast thou the hireling that did turn and flee ? "

It was a month after this, she says in her deposition,
that she went to her confessor, an Augustinian priest
named Romano, and, telling him all her distresses, im-
plored him to write to her parents and beg their help
in her desperate plight. The holy father, no doubt,
promised to write, but on reflection thought that he had
better not meddle between husband and wife, and so
fulfilled his priestly office by doing nothing. Thus it
is that Pompilia, in speaking of this letter upon which
her last hope hung, says sadly, " But I had no response."

After his first black wrath was satiated a light
dawned upon the muddy waste of Guido's brain, and
showed him that Pompilia's death, although pleasant to
contemplate, would avail him less than he hoped. The
appeal in the action about the dowry was pending, and
he asked himself. Would her death just now make his
position better? He concluded it would make it worse.
But happily there was another way. This wife he
loathed was young and good looking. He would force
her into the arms of some young lover, set a trap for
her, catch her in a compromising position, and then
throw her out into the streets as a base outcast and an
unfaithful wife. This plan, no doubt, pleased him, so
that he gloated over it, rubbing his hands and smacking

16. MAP OV MODERN ROME.

Pompllia at Bay

his knee with genial satisfaction. It would make his
case very strong when next he met the Comparini in
court. The first need obviously was to find the lover,
and in this worthy search he was favoured by fortune.

Connected with the Church of Santa Maria della
Pieve were two canons who were great friends — Canon
Conti and Canon Caponsacchi. Conti was related to
the Franceschini, for his brother had married Guido's
only sister Porzia. Conti was an amiable, easy-going
priest, a peacemaker, a friend to everybody, and a man
with an eye to the joys and gaieties of the world. It
seems to have been an object in his life to avoid trouble.
Caponsacchi was a young man of noble birth and of
considerable culture, a favourite in Arezzo society and,
according to the testimony of some, a squire of dames.
He was a man of spirit, moreover, bold and courageous,
and one who was not easily turned aside from any path
he had elected to tread.

One evening Pompilia and her woeful husband went
to the theatre. The place was very crowded. Near
them were sitting Canon Conti and his friend, Giuseppe
Caponsacchi. The good-natured Conti, in the hope
of bringing a smile to the sorrowful face of the young
wife, threw some confetti into her lap. Guido saw the
act, and declared at once that it was Caponsacchi who
threw them. It was thus, so one reads, that Pompilia
and Caponsacchi met for the first time, face to face.
Guido had found the decoy.

This episode in the playhouse would be probably
towards the end of 1696, when Pompilia was a little over
sixteen and Caponsacchi was about twenty-three. Some
two and a half years had elapsed since the Comparini had

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

fled from Arezzo, and during the whole of this time the
young bride had certainly little relief from unhappiness.

Guido now set to work with a good heart to drive
his wife to desperation and disgrace. Letters were sent
to Caponsacchi purporting to come from Pompilia. As
Pompilia was unable to write, there is little doubt that
these letters were composed by Guido and written under
his direction. Answers to these letters, stated to have
been penned by Caponsacchi, were brought to Pompilia,
but as she could not read she could not appreciate them.
These also were — the evidence suggests — examples of
Count Guido's literary efforts. The documents, as will
be told later on, played a prominent part in the great
trial at Rome. At this period there was a maidservant
in the house with the pretty name of Maria Margherita
Contenti. She had succeeded that Angelica whose vivid
impressions of the inner life of the Franceschini had so
disturbed her late master. Maria Contenti was under
Guido's thumb. She was — as was subsequently shown —
a woman of the lowest character. She pretended to be
the medium of communication between her young mis-
tress and the priest. It was she who manipulated the
spurious billets doux. It was she who brought fictitious
messages of love from the priest, whom she never saw,
to the victim whom she was bribed to entrap.

In the meantime Guido assumed the pose of the
jealous and injured husband. He railed against Capon-
sacchi as the destroyer of his peace, as the serpent that
had crept into his happy home. He accused Pompilia
of encouraging the canon, and so tormented her by
continual outbursts of simulated jealousy that she was

" reduced," as she says, " to desperation."

17.— THE VIA DEL GOVERNO VECCHIO. ROME

Pompilia at Bay

One day, as Caponsacchi was passing the house, she
leaned from the balcony and begged him not to pass
that way, because she had suffered so much from her hus-
band on his account. Caponsacchi, who knew nothing
of the letters and had no inkling of the plot, re-
plied, with a defiant laugh, that no Guido should stop
him from passing along the street if he wished, and by
that way he would go whenever he was so minded.
In answer to this defiance Guido became the more
persistent in his cruelty, and threatened many times to
kill his victim, assuring her that her evil conduct justi-
fied him in doing so.

The story now comes to the beginning of April,
1697, at which time Pompilia realised that she was about
to become a mother. She was then nearly seventeen.
For her own life, for her own safety, for her own
comfort, she had little care. For over three years she
had dragged through a life of wretchedness, under the
daily menace of death. This she had borne, but she
would not allow the life of her child to be sacrificed.
This new life was in her keeping, and she resolved to
protect and shield it at all costs. It was then, she
says, that " I planned to run away and go back to
Rome to my father and mother."

She appealed to the generous Canon Conti to help
her to escape, and indeed to take her with him to Rome.
He explained that he was compelled to decline, owing
to his relationship to the Franceschini and the fact that
they trusted him as a friend. Conti suggested in his
place a certain Signor Gregorio Guillichini. This
gentleman readily consented to undertake the mission,
but unfortunately before his plans could be matured he

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

was seized with illness and could do nothing. It was then
that he and Canon Conti suggested Caponsacchi as the
man to rescue her and take her away to the safe keeping
of her parents. Caponsacchi, it was said, was about to
journey to Rome on business of his own. He was
moreover " a man of powerful strength, fearless and full
of spirit." Pompilia on her part had " heard it said
that he was a resolute man."

So one day as the sturdy canon passed the house
she called to him, told him of her dire peril, and begged
him to take her to her parents in Rome. Caponsacchi
at once replied that he, as a priest, could ill meddle
with a matter of this kind, for if he did so it would be
an act that the Church and the whole city would con-
demn. "But," says Pompilia, "I implored him so
much and told him that it was the duty of a Christian
to free from death a poor foreign woman" that he put
aside his scruples and promised to aid her to escape.
He told her he would secure a carriage and horses, and
when all the arrangements for the journey were com-
plete he would give her a signal by dropping a hand-
kerchief as he passed along the street.

For two whole days, from dawn to sunset, Pom-
pilia, breathless with expectation, watched at the win-
dow during every moment that she was free. Guido
took care that she lacked no opportunity, for it seemed
to him that the snare was ready and the teeth of the
trap were on edge to fall. See her, then, in the gloomy
room that she loathed as a prisoner loathes his cell,
looking out from behind the shutter at a little strip of
sunlit street, with her heart in such concern that the

pressure of her hand failed to still it. There is the

Pompilia at Bay

sound of footsteps in the lane ; she bends to look out
until the sun falls on her shapely head. A priest is pass-
ing by, he walks slowly with his face turned to the
ground, as if he were lost in thought. His hands are
clasped behind his back and in one hand is a hand-
kerchief. As he passes the window the handkerchief
drops.

VII

THE FLIGHT WITH THE PRIEST

ON the night of the last Sunday in April in the
year 1697 Pompilia left her husband's house for
ever. She crept down the stairs without awaken-
ing the household, a white-faced, hooded figure, tense
with terror. She drew back the bolts of the great door,
moved it on its reluctant hinges, and through the gap
slipped out into the street, free for the first time since
she had put her foot within the accursed city. Capon-
sacchi was there in lay dress in the shadow of the wall.
He came forward to meet her, and with the touch of
his hand her sense of horror and of loneliness vanished.
She had with her a little money and a bundle of clothing
such as she could carry in her arms, together with a
few simple trinkets in a box. She had her money tied
up in the corner of a handkerchief, after the manner
of children.

The two walked together through the silent streets,
like two ghosts in a city of the dead. It was a dark
night. Every house looked mysterious and unfamiliar,
while every lane led into black nothingness. They
made their way to the San Clemente Gate, which gate,
like those of the rest of the city, was closed. They
climbed, however, the wall on the hill of the Torrione,
and, having dropped over on the other side, reached
the " Horse Inn" just outside the gate above mentioned.

18. -THE OLD HOUSE IN THE VIA DEL GOVERNO VECCHIO.

ROME.

The Flight with the Priest

There they found a two-horse carriage awaiting them
in charge of a servant from the " Canale Inn" by the
name of Venerino. He had left Arezzo on Sunday
evening, at the Ave Maria, before the gates had been
shut. They mounted the carriage and drove round
outside the walls of the city to the San Spirito Gate,
where they took the high road to Rome by way of
Perugia.

The first stopping place for the changing of horses
was at Camoscia, a little posting-village below Cortona.
It was here that Venerino the driver left them and re-
turned to Arezzo. They were clear of the city by about
one o'clock in the morning — that is, the morning of
Monday, April 29th.

It was alleged that Pompilia had "put a sleeping
potion and opium in her husband's wine at dinner" on
the night on which she escaped, and furthermore that
she had stolen from the house, money, jewellery and
clothing of considerable value, and had taken the same
with her. When the charge of drugging came up for
judgment, it was contended that a girl not yet seventeen
years old could hardly be so adept in the art of poisoning
as to deceive such a man as Count Guido. The matter,
therefore, was not pressed. The accusation of stealing,
on the other hand, was supported by considerable and
precise detail, as will be considered hereafter.

From Camoscia the lady and the priest hurried south-
wards on the high road to Rome by way of Perugia,
Assisi, Foligno, Narni, Otricoli and Civita Castellana.
They drove night and day without a halt, except to
change horses and to seek refreshment. They pushed
on with feverish haste through a score or more of

The Country of **The Ring and the Book"

towns, along endless miles of valley, and over a ram-
part of tumbled hills, pressing ever for Rome with all
the speed that two poor post-horses could make on a
sorry road. In this way they reached Castelnuovo at
about seven in the e/ening of Tuesday, April 30th.
They had travelled, therefore, through two days of day-
light and through one whole night.

Now Castelnuovo is a little posting-place just fifteen
miles from Rome. When they halted at this village to
change horses Caponsacchi was for forging on to their
journey's end, but Pompilia was too exhausted to travel
another mile. Whatever fate was in store for her,
whatever disaster might befall, she could not move
another step. She was wellnigh dead with fatigue.
She was in pain. It must be remembered that she was
very young, that she was in delicate health and that
unless she had slept in the carriage at some post-station
while the horses were being changed, she had not closed
her eyes since Sunday morning, and it was now Tuesday
night. She had passed through a period of the most
acute anxiety and suspense. She had listened during
every hour since they left Arezzo for the galloping hoofs
of men in pursuit. Her very life hung on the fate of
this journey. Behind her was the hell of Arezzo ;
before her was the haven of peace at Rome. It was
as if her flight were across a wide river covered with
thin ice, whence she could see her enemies hurrying
down to the bank behind her and at the same moment
could feel her foothold heave and crackle beneath her
feet. Roads were rough in Italy two centuries ago, and
these runaways had, in forty-two hours, accomplished
a journey that occupied the unruffled traveller a week.

The Flight with the Priest

She must rest at Castelnuovo or die. Thus it was
then that, half conscious, half asleep, she was lifted out
of the carriage, where her body had stiffened into the
contour of the seat, and was carried in Caponsacchi's
strong arms to an upper room of the little inn. The
inn still stands and still can show this tragic room.

VIII

THE SCENE AT CASTELNUOVO

THERE was but one available apartment in the
post-house. It contained two beds. One of these
the priest ordered to be prepared for Pompilia.
Here she threw herself down to rest, while Caponsacchi
watched by her. Her last thought, if she thought at
all, was of the house in the Via Vittoria, which was but
two short hours away across the downs, and her last
sense, unless her drowsiness had numbed it, would tell
her that the air rustling at the open window blew from
off the Campagna of Rome.

Caponsacchi was not long by her side, for he must
need see that all was prepared for the last stage of
the momentous journey. As the dawn began to break —
and here in May it would be light enough to see by
four — he ordered the horses to be put in and the
carriage made ready for the traverse of the last few
miles that separated them from the much-desired
city. In less than half an hour they would start,
while long before the sun had risen above the Monti
Sabini they would see the domes and pinnacles of
Rome.

Just as the moment had arrived to rouse Pompilia
there came a sound of footsteps on the road, and in
the dim light of the dawn the priest saw Count Guido

Franceschini coming towards him with a posse of men.

19. CHURCH OF THE AGONIZZANTI, ROME,
Where Giiido received the Sacrament on his way to execution.

The Scene at Castelnuovo

The tiny town of Castelnuovo lies a little off the main
road. It was from the town that Guido came. He
had pursued the two on horseback, but he had no
intention of confronting Caponsacchi alone. Coward
as he was he knew the priest too well for that. He
did not dash up to the inn on a steaming horse and
throw himself from the saddle sword in hand. On the
contrary, he crept cautiously up to the house on foot.
He had found that the two he sought were at the inn,
so he had slunk off to the town, had awakened the
magistrate and had come back with a party of such
police as the little place afforded. It was neither a
heroic nor a dramatic entry. It is to be gathered —
although the evidence is conflicting — that both Guido
and the canon were armed with a small weapon known
as a travelling sword.

Picture them as they face one another in the dim
road, how Guido shrinks before the gaze of the priest,
how the hand of each flies to the sword hilt, and how
by some unconscious, spontaneous movement both
men lift their eyes to the lamp-lit upper window of
the inn.

A time came some months afterwards when the
curious wondered why the insulted husband had not
rushed upon the defiler of his home and cut him
to the ground. Guido preferred, however, to shelter
himself behind the backs of the sturdy yokels who
represented the law, and to wait until the monk was
safely secured with cords before he assumed the role
of the principal actor in the scene.

The party now proceeded up the stair to the room
in which Pompilia lay asleep. The brave Guido no
E 49

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

doubt led the way, followed by a couple of stumbling
louts who had been commissioned to arrest this desperate
woman of sixteen. Here one can see Guido flinging
open the door and stepping dramatically into the room,
where, in the faint light of the dawn and of the still
flickering lamp, he would stamp and bellow as the
outraged husband. He expected Pompilia, thus sud-
denly awakened, to assume the part appropriate to the
guilty wife, to scream, to throw herself at his feet,
and, with tears pouring from her eyes, to confess her
shame and implore him to forgive her and to spare her
unworthy life. This was the edifying spectacle for the
bumpkins of the law that Guido had in his mind when
he led them dauntlessly up the stair to the chamber
of sin.

Alas ! Except as a thing to cuff and abuse he knew
nothing of the real Pompilia. Now face to face with
the wrecker of her life she showed something of that
spirit which had given her patience and courage for
three dreary years. She sprang to her feet and defied
the gross brute who would have crushed the life out
of her and with it another life that was not her own.
She snatched the sword from her husband's hand and
would have thrust it through his black heart had not
the officers seized her and twisted the weapon from
her grasp.

Sure one may be of this, that Guido 'made his way
down the tavern stair less with the exalted crest of the
champion of virtue than with the drooping head of
the whipped hound.

Caponsacchi and^Pompilia were taken to Castelnuovo,
which lies, as already said, away from the road, and were

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The Scene at Castelnuovo

lodged in the prisons of the somewhat formidable town
hall of the place. The prisons and the town hall are
yet to be seen, and have apparently altered in no essen-
tial since the days when the priest and the girl he had
saved climbed up the steep stair that leads to the
justice room.

5«

AFTER CASTELNUOVO

SOME unimpressive legal proceedings took place in
the Pretura of Castelnuovo before the Guardian
of the Peace, who would probably have felt more
at ease behind his grocery counter than on the magisterial
bench. Guido would address the awed man eloquently
on the subject of his injured honour and the outrage
upon his home. He would, furthermore, give the rustic
some insight into the feelings of a nobleman. The
clodhoppers who represented the strong arm of the law
would tell the story of their doughty deeds, the priest
would smile his contempt of it all, while the little
countess would gain heart by resting her eyes on the
gallant figure of the man who had done his all to
save her.

With proper solemnity the two runaways were com-
mitted to the Carceri Nuove, or New Prisons, in Rome,
and were handed over to the custody of the police
from that city. It was a sad ending to a great venture,
made sadder when Rome was reached, for on their way
to the jail in the Via Giulia, Pompilia would pass the
very street where her parents lived, which had been
to her for three long years the one spot in the wide
world upon which her heart, her love, her hopes of
security were fixed.

Some days elapsed between the arrests at the inn

After Castelnuovo

and the committal of the two to the jail in Rome, for
on May 3rd Pompilia wrote a letter to her parents,
which was addressed from the prison at Castelnuovo.
As this letter is of some moment it is given here in full.

" My dear Father and Mother :

"I wish to inform you that I am imprisoned here at Cas-
telnuovo for having fled from home with a gentleman with whom
you are not acquainted. But he is a relative of the Guillichini,
who was at Rome, and who was to have accompanied me to
Rome. As Guillichini was sick, and could not come with me,
the other gentleman came, and I came with him for this reason,
because my life was not worth an hour's purchase. For Guido,
my husband, wished to kill me, because he had certain suspicions,
which were not true, and on account of these he wished to
murder me. I sent you word of them on purpose, but you did
not believe the letters sent you were in my own hand. But I
declare that I finished learning how to write in Arezzo, Let
me tell you that the one who carries this was moved by pity
and provided me with the paper and what I needed. So as soon
as you have read this letter of mine come here to Castelnuovo
to give me some aid, because my husband is doing all he can
against me. Therefore, if you wish your daughter well, come
quickly. I stop because I have no more time. — May 3.

" Directed to Signor Pietro Comparini, Via Vittoria, Rome."

In due course the two prisoners were brought up for
trial before the criminal court at Rome. There were
many charges in the indictment, but the fulminating one
was the charge of adultery. It soon became assured
that Paolo did not intend that the prosecution should
languish for want of evidence. The trial dragged on
for many months, all through the summer indeed, so
that it was not until nearly the end of September that
the conclusion was reached.

Tlie chief points advanced against the prisoners were
the following :

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

It was asserted by Guido that on their way from
Arezzo to Rome they had spent the night together at
FoHgno, and further that they had been guilty of mis-
conduct at the inn at Castelnuovo. Both these charges
remained unproved, and, indeed, in support of the
former no scrap of testimony was forthcoming. With
regard to Castelnuovo, the evidence of the keeper of the
inn and of his servant sufficed to clear the reputation
of both Caponsacchi and his companion.

In the second place, the man Venerino, or Borsi, who
had driven the two from Arezzo to Camoscia, declared
that they kissed one another before his very face as they
were travelling along the road. This unfortunate man
on his return to Arezzo had been arrested and thrown
headlong into jail on the charge of aiding and abetting
her ladyship and the priest in their flight, and for
having been indulgent to their wickedness. Venerino
must have had it brought home to him that there are
pitfalls even in the path of a driver of hired carriages,
while his position as guardian of the morals of the
aristocracy must have weighed heavily upon him. His
deposition, however, when forthcoming, did not com-
mand respect. "After long rotting in imprisonment"
he was released, and the statement that he was let go
on condition that his testimony favoured Guido's im-
pressions was never contradicted. Moreover, the night
of the escapade was dark, the vehicle was a covered
carriage, and the probability that a man driving along
a scarcely discernible road at high speed could keep a
watch upon the movements of those who sat in the
black recess behind him was not accepted as credible.
Then again, although he knew the Countess Frances-

1^'

21. THE FOUNTAIN, " IJL MORO," PIAZZA NAVONA, ROME.

After Castelnuovo

chini by sight, he was not aware that it was she he was
driving to perdition until he had been informed of the
enormity.

Thirdly, Guido claimed that after the arrest of the
parties he had discovered hidden in the inn those com-
promising letters which were presumed to have passed
between Pompilia and the priest, and of which some
account has already been given. These letters have
been preserved. They are twenty-one in number. Of
these it was declared that eighteen were written by
Pompilia and three by Caponsacchi. It is a curious
thing that this lady and her friend, if guilty, should
have taken care not only to preserve the incrimin-
ating letters, but to have carried them with them in
their flight. Pompilia, in her examination, declared that
at the time the correspondence is supposed to have
taken place she could neither read nor write, and that
she had never sent letters to anyone by the hand of
the servant Maria. Caponsacchi's denial of any concern
in the afifair was very emphatic. He knew nothing of
these miraculously discovered documents. When they
were handed to him he declared that not only were
they not in his handwriting, but they bore not the
slightest resemblance to his script.

Pompilia was then confronted by her marriage settle-
ment, at the foot of which was her name, signed in her
own hand. But in reply to this it was pointed out that
the signature, crude and brief as it was, was fashioned
with so little skill that the same hand could not have
penned the elaborate productions Count Guido had dis-
covered at the post-house.

It is true that Pompilia learned to write before she

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

left Arezzo. She mentions the fact in the letter she
addressed to her father from the prison at Castelnuovo.
The accomplishment must have been acquired very late,
or she would not have asked her confessor, Romano, to
write to Rome in her name on matters of great privacy
if she could have communicated with her parents herself.

The letters, however, provide the best refutation of
the charge. They are silly enough to be genuine love
letters, but not simple enough to be Pompilia's. They
are written in an affected and stilted style, and with no
small pretence at literary skill. The priest signs himself
"Mirtillo" and Pompilia "Amarillis." The effusions
of " Amarillis " are the letters of a woman of the world,
of a finished coquette, and not of a girl of sixteen.
Moreover, the Countess Franceschini was illiterate, and
yet in her epistles she refers to the reading of Tasso,
regrets that Caponsacchi is not a Theseus, and talks
glibly of iEneas, of Ariadne, of Venus and the Graces,
and of the Milky Way. Guido, one may believe, ex-
tracted these elegant communications from some love
story that he had picked up, or that the thoughtful Abbe
Paolo had put in his way. It was further to be noted
that no evidence was furnished as to whom these letters
had been addressed, since no names were attached to
any of them.

One small matter did undoubtedly tell against Pom-
pilia. She maintained, in her deposition, that they had
reached Castelnuovo at dawn. If this had been true
there could have been no question as to a night spent
at the inn, since Guido must have then overtaken them
almost immediately after their arrival. It is certain that
they reached Castelnuovo, as Caponsacchi says with

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After Castelnuovo

precision, "On Tuesday evening, the last day of the
month of April," their coming being perfectly open and
known to everyone at the posting-house. Pompilia must
have been aware that the exact hour when the carriage
halted would be beyond dispute, whatever might have
been her impressions on the subject. She had, it must
be remembered, passed through a period of intense strain,
had travelled without ceasing through day and night for
over forty hours, was ill, was indeed so utterly prostrated
that she could not face the small two hours more which
would have brought her to safety within the walls of
Rome. It is not difficult to understand, therefore, that
in her state of mind and body

" She made confusion of the reddening white
Which was the sunset when her strength gave way,
And the next sunrise and its whitening red
Which she revived in when her husband came."

The result of the trial was as follows : the graver
charge was not proved, Caponsacchi was relegated to
Civita Vecchia for a period of three years, while Pom-
pilia was sent to the Scalette, or Convent di S. Croce
della Penitenza, in Rome. Had the charge of adultery
been made good the punishment would have been
exceedingly severe, according as the law stood at the
moment. As it was the decision given was wise. Both
the lady and the canon had been guilty of indiscretion.
In the interests of the Church it was not desirable that
Caponsacchi should return to his ministry at Arezzo.
After three years' banishment to Civita his headstrong
and foolish exploit as the rescuer of distressed ladies
would be forgotten. As to Pompilia, it was impossible
to order her to return to her home in Arezzo. To

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

set her free without some tangible reprimand would
be to condone an act that no Court could officially
approve of. In the convent she would be free from
further molestation on the part of her husband, and
would find that peace with which she had been so long
unfamiliar. The sentence — if it can be called a sentence —
was rather a provision for her safe keeping than a
punishment.

The above decision of the Court was verified and
confirmed on September 24th, 1697. On October 12th,
after but a short stay at the Scalette, Pompilia was
allowed to return to her parents' house in the Via
Vittoria under a bond of 300 scudi (£60) that "she
would not leave the house, either by day or by night,
nor show herself at the doors or open windows under
any pretence whatever." The fact was that Pompilia's
confinement was approaching, and it was inconsistent
with the regulations of the convent that she should
remain longer within its walls.

While the trial arising out of the Castelnuovo episode
was in progress the Comparini, in the name of their
foster daughter, instituted proceedings against Count
Guido for divorce a mensa et thoro. A third action, viz.
Pietro's appeal against the decision of the Court in the
matter of the dowry, was also at the same time in
progress.

Apart from distant rumblings from these legal
thunder-clouds, there came once more a period of
quietude and clear sky, when all was still both in the
Comparini household and in the palace at Arezzo.

GUIDO DECIDES TO VISIT ROME

GUIDO was not getting on well. His great plot to
entrap Pompilia and to brand her with disgrace
had failed. He was no nearer to the clutch-
ing of the gold he had so long pursued, while his
prospects of success in the coming action as to the
disposal of the dowry were duller than ever. Violante,
with her legal suits, buzzed about his ears like a gad-
fly and nearly maddened him. He must work out
another plan that would give him the two things which
were dearest to him in the world — money and revenge.
Now, at this important juncture, a curious thing hap-
pened. The Abate Paolo vanished from Rome. Not
only did he disappear from Rome, but he vanished from
Italy. So completely did he efface himself that he
might have been drawn up into Heaven, since he was
never heard of again. It was said that he had been
dismissed from his post as secretary to the Order of
the Knights of St. John of Malta, on account of the
scandals which were associated with the name of his
family. This might have been the reason of his going
had the Order been capable of what would seem to be
an act of injustice. His friends declared that the con-
duct of the Comparini had become so villainous and
so persistent in its villany as to exceed the limits of his
forbearance, and that as a consequence "he abandoned

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

all his hopes and possessions, together with his affec-
tionate and powerful patrons, and went to a strange
and unknown clime." This second excuse for flight
is less probable than the first, while neither explains why
he felt compelled not only to leave Rome, but to dis-
appear from the face of the earth.

There was a third reason for his strange migration,
which was accepted as probable by his enemies. Paolo,
they said, knew what was going to happen. Count
Franceschini, the fool of the family, needed guidance.
Some fresh scheme must be forthcoming whereby he
could wreak vengeance upon Violante and her "brat,"
and obtain their money. The scheme he did evolve
was so excellent that it was assumed that he did have
guidance, and that the wise hand that now led him
along the uncertain path was once more the hand of
brother Paolo.

What would be called the argument or subject-
matter of the new plot was as follows : A husband is
justified in killing an adulterous wife, while, if certain
conditions be fulfilled, such killing is no murder. The
attempt to prove that Pompilia was a dishonoured woman
had, so far, failed. Let, therefore, another attempt be
made to establish this fact by means of an action in the
criminal court at Arezzo, where the friendly governor
would preside and where the Franceschini name was
still of some account. If Pompilia were then declared
guilty the weapon for her slaying was at once put into
Guido's hand. With her death — as the matter in the
Court now stood — the dowry would pass into the count's
possession, while if, at the same time, the Comparini

chanced to cease to live all legal steps would be stayed,

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Guido Decides to Visit Rome

and their property would descend through the daughter
to her painstaking husband.

This was a better scheme than the plot of the lady
and the ardent lover. It was too good a project for
Guido to have elaborated unaided. In short, the enemies
of the count believed that Paolo whispered into his
brother's ear, "Kill all three," and having tendered that
advice vanished into an unknown clime, conscious that
there is a prejudice against ministers of God who recom-
mend murder as a means of advancement.

Paolo "passed out of Italy" some time in October
or early in November, or at least soon after Pompilia
had returned to her parents in the Via Vittoria.

In the criminal court at Arezzo three persons, viz.
Gregorio Guillichini, Pompilia Franceschini, and Fran-
cesco Borsi, otherwise Venerino, were accused of various
gross offences. The lady was liberally charged with
adultery and theft, the gentleman with adultery and
theft and with assisting in the lady's escape from
Arezzo, and Borsi, the wretched driver, with the
crime " of having given opportunity for flight to
the said lady along with the Canon Caponsacchi in
the manner told." It is curious that Caponsacchi was
not made a party to the charges. Possibly by the
laws of Tuscany it would be required that, being a priest,
he should be impeached before a different tribunal.

The trial was a ridiculous farce, for neither Guil-
lichini nor the countess appeared, nor do they seem in
any way to have been represented. Signor Guillichini,
as is well known, was ill in bed at the time of Pompilia's
escape, and had no more to do with her flight than to
wish her well in her enterprise.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

As to the theft, Guido furnished a very surprising
and detailed inventory of the articles abstracted. It was
obviously a fictitious catalogue, and designed rather to
impress the good people of Arezzo with the varied and
elegant possessions of that nobleman than to assist a
criminal prosecution. In the first place, he charged his
wife with having stolen £40 in gold and silver coin, and
with having purloined no fewer than twelve articles of
jewellery of great value from the family chest. These
trinkets included a pearl necklace valued at £40, a soli-
taire diamond ring worth £8, and a coronet of carnelians
with five settings and a cameo in silver filigree, priced
at £2 8s. The total value of the missing jewellery
was ;f85 8s. In addition to this, the young countess
stole and took away with her no fewer than forty articles
of female clothing, among them being mantles and
damask suits, embroidered petticoats and smart jackets,
with, indeed, the general equipment of a lavish trousseau.
The clothing came to £46 8s., while the total amount
credited to the thief rose to no less than £171 16s. This
was a large sum for a man to lose who was endeavouring
to support an entire family on two pounds of beef a
week.

It is apparent from one entry in the schedule that

Guido had a sense of humour, and could evolve a quite

excellent joke with a quaint and pretty touch of malice

in it, for among the list of ladies' clothing, among the

embroidered cuffs and sleeves, the shoes with silver

buckles and the light blue hose, he puts " a coat of

her husband Guido rubbed and rent by the lock of a

chest where he kept the aforesaid clothing," the same

being the only article with no value appended to it.

Guido Decides to Visit Rome

The gibe is so good that it must surely have been a
product of the nimbler brain of the Abbe Paolo.

In the matter of the charge, it is needless to say that
a solitary girl flying from her home in the depths of
the night could hardly carry away with her in her arms
over forty articles of clothing; nor, even with the help
of the stout Caponsacchi, could this immense outfit have
been transferred to the city gate, especially when the
alleged robbers had to climb a wall in their progress
thither. Even then room had to be found for them-
selves and this monstrous degree of luggage in a light
travelling gig. A further problem presented itself —
what had become of all these costumes, of the miscel-
laneous garments, and of the choice collection of jewellery
and precious stones? Guido found, or said that he
found, a bundle of love-letters secreted in the inn at
Castelnuovo, but of the pile of raiment and of the
ornaments of gold, silver and enamelled work, no trace
was discovered. Pompilia says, in that part of her de-
position which deals with the leaving of Arezzo, " I
took some little things of my own, a little box with
many trifles inside, and some money, I know not how
much there was, from the strong box. These were,
moreover, my own, as is evident from the list of things
and moneys made by the treasurer of Castelnuovo."
Nothing but what she here describes was ever found.
The money that Pompilia had with her, tied up, in
schoolgirl fashion, in the corner of a handkerchief, was
forty-seven scudi, or £9 8s. in English currency. This
money was handed over to the Abate Paolo, as Count
Guido's representative, and was (after appropriate wrang-
ling) employed to pay for Pompilia's board and lodging

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

while she was in the convent. The fact that it was
her husband who was charged with her support while
she was under the protection of the Court at the Scalette
shows how definitely her innocence had been established.
These and other particulars, however, mattered
nothing to the Governor or Commissioner of Arezzo
who presided at Pompilia's trial. This upholder of
justice was a friend of the Franceschini, and he intended
to demonstrate his allegiance. He would show Guido's
detractors something of the power of the law. Although
he might be a little weak in forensic knowledge, yet in
the pronouncing of sentences he was a perfect Minos.
In this Court of Arezzo, with no prisoners at the bar
except the wretched Venerino, pale with long submer-
sion in jail, the worthy judge laid about him right and
left like a mad giant with a sword. In a trice he found
all three of the accused guilty, and promptly sentenced
Pompilia to penal servitude for life and Signor Guillichini
to five years' confinement in the dungeons at Portoferrio,
on the island of Elba, with the penalty of the galleys for
the same period of time. This latter was quite a severe
sentence for a gentleman who had done nothing more
than lie upon a bed of sickness and mutter from between
the sheets "Bon voyage!" to a runaway lady. The
commissioner generously allowed to both of the convicts
fifteen days in which to appear and clear themselves.
As for Venerino, the governor decided that "he be
not prosecuted further and be liberated from prison."
This deplorable cabman had surely had enough of the
law, for hei^had been sweltering in jail the whole summer
through, where he had gained such insight into things
as to make [him, no doubt, resolve never to let his fly

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Guido Decides to Visit Rome

be used again for the conveyance of young unmarried
people along the Perugia road at two o'clock in the
morning.

This very Pantagruelian sentence needed to be con-
firmed by the Chancery of the Criminal Court at Florence,
and before that Court the matter came late in the year.
The judge who reviewed the case endorsed the verdict
of guilty against the first two prisoners — the young
countess and the gentleman who had been ill in bed ;
but he seemed to have been shocked by the severity
of their respective sentences, for he gave his decision
that Guillichini's sentence to the galleys should be sub-
ject to the pleasure of His Serene Highness, while, as
the countess was in Rome, secured in a sacred place,
he decreed that all action with reference to her punish-
ment should be suspended. Furthermore, the Court was
benevolent enough to express the opinion that Venerino
" had done no voluntary evil."

Above all this legal trumpeting the fact remained
that Pompilia Franceschini had been found guilty of
adultery by the Commissioner of Arezzo, and that
verdict had been confirmed by the Criminal Court at
Florence. Guido had now at last secured what he
wanted, and the very moment the decision at Florence
was assured he took his departure for Rome for the
second time. When his friends asked him why he
was going to Rome for Christmas, he answered cheerily
that he was going there to murder his wife.

THE MURDER IN THE VIA VITTORIA

WHILE all these things were stirring in Tuscany
there was no little excitement in Rome in the
quiet house in the Via Vittoria. On December
18th Pompilia gave birth to a son. It may well be
imagined that her delight was unbounded, that Violante
cackled up and down the street like a fussy hen,
while Pietro, with much enforced leisure on his hands,
held forth as to the wondrous faculties of the babe
to his friends at the tavern. Pompilia named her boy
*'Gaetano" after a recently canonised saint. In the
poem she tells why she chose the name.

" Something put it in my head
To call the boy * Gaetano ' — no old name —
For sorrow's sake ; I looked up to the sky
And took a new saint to begin anew.
One who has only been made saint — how long?
Twenty-five years : so, carefuller, perhaps.
To guard a namesake than those old saints grow
Tired out by this time, — see my own five saints ! "

St. Gaetan, moreover, w^as a saint after her own heart.
He w^as born of noble parents in Vicenza in the year
1480. He became a priest, and, travelling to Rome,
joined The Congregation of the Love of God. He
raised this body to great influence, making its chief
objects earnestness and simplicity of life and the care
of those w^ho were unhappy or in dire distress. His

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The Murder in the Via Vittoria

life was one of suffering and self-denial. He died at
Naples in 1547, and was buried in that city. He was
canonised b}^ Clement X. in the year 1671, only twenty-
six years before Pompilia's boy was born.

That the Comparini had some anxiety as to the safety
of the child may be gathered from the fact that he was
sent away secretly almost immediately after his birth,
although in all probability his hiding place was not
very far from his mother's home.

Guido reached Rome on Christmas Eve, when the
city was rejoicing in its holiday, and when from every
campanile rang forth the message of "Peace on earth,
good will towards men." The church bells, the sounds
of merriment in the streets, the glimpses of happy
family gatherings seen through lamplit windows, the
pictures everywhere of the Madonna as the proud
mother with her babe, must have jarred upon his senses,
for he had not come to Rome to celebrate the birth of
Christ, but to kill his wife.

The noble count did not undertake this mission
alone. He had brought with him four agricultural
labourers as assistants. With so large a party one might
have supposed that he came with the object of farming
the waste places of Rome, had not these brawny louts
been engaged in the capacity of bravoes, and were pre-
pared, for a few scudi, to hack to pieces a girl of
seventeen who was just then scarcely able to rise from
her bed. Browning speaks of these willing countrymen
as "these God-abandoned wretched lumps of life,"
and regards them as the last human clods in whom
any glimmer of intelligence may be traced.

They came from Vitiano, a village a few miles south

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

of Arezzo on the way to Perugia. In this place Guido
had a vineyard, and on this vineyard the four men were
employed when they were not whetting their daggers
on the vineyard wall. Guido went so far as to say
that at least one of these ruffians was possessed of such
a delicate and acute moral feeling that be begged to
be allowed the privilege of assisting his master in
avenging the stain upon his honour. A farm labourer
so sensitive on the subject of the purity of the home
must have been highly esteemed in the hamlet of
Vitiano.

The names of these four were interesting, inasmuch
as they seem in some sonorous way to be peculiarly
fitting to the men who bore them. Is not the name
of Blasio Agostinelli— sounding vaguely like a foreign
oath — an expressive title for a brigand ? Could Ales-
sandro Baldeschi — who was very busy with his dagger
by the by — be better named ? Or could a writer of
romance find more picturesque names for hired assassins
or robber chiefs than those of Domenico Gambassini
or Francesco Pasquini ?

Guido appears to have explained to his assistants
that, although the invalid countess was the main object
of his visit, there was a cackling old woman of sixty-six
and a doddering old man of sixty-nine who might need
to be destroyed, their deaths being, however, merely
incidental to the main slaughtering.

Five armed men, in the prime of life, seemed a large
number to be required for the stabbing of an aged
couple and a sick girl, but I think the cautious noble-
man had an idea that he might meet Caponsacchi in
this venture. He had seen enough of Caponsacchi to

The Murder in the Via Vittoria

have no desire to encounter him again, while, on the
other hand, he felt that if supported by four savage
cut-throats, armed to the teeth, he would be able to
face an unarmed priest, even of the type of the one
he had come upon at Castelnuovo.

Guido and his party, on reaching Rome, concealed
themselves in Abbe Paolo's vineyard, near the Ponte
Milvio. The abbe had left Italy at least a month ago,
while a vineyard in December is little more than a desert
of gnarled sticks, so the retreat was good. There was
on the ground a so-called villa. It would be no more
than a garden house necessary for the operations in the
vineyard, with probably a superior room or two for the
use of the master in the summer. Here the count and
the four countrymen lay hidden for nine days. It must
have been a cheerless Christmas, made even morose
by contrast, for as they gathered round the scrap of
fire in the evening they could hear the sound of the
church bells in Rome. Here, behind closed shutters,
they would "Salute the happy morn," for here they
passed both Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Two
of the cut-throats were mere lads, and when they heard
the Angelus ring on the last day of the old year, it is
possible that their thoughts travelled back to their
homes in Tuscany and that their hearts failed them.

How stirring was the Christmas festival in Rome
may be understood by the following extract from the
diary of John Evelyn. He spent the Christmas of 1644
in the city he calls "The Proud Mistress of the World."
"On Christmas Eve," he writes, "I went not to bed,
being desirous of seeing the many extraordinary cere-
monies performed then in their churches as midnight

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

masses and sermons. I walked from church to church
the whole night in admiration at the multitude of scenes
and pageantry which the friars had, with much industry
and craft, set out to catch the devout women and
superstitious sort of people, who never parted without
dropping some money into a vessel set on purpose ; but
especially observable was the puppetry in the Church
of the Minerva, representing the Nativity. I thence
went and heard a sermon at the ApoUinare, by which
time it was morning. On Christmas Day his Holiness
sang Mass, the artillery of St. Angelo went off, and
all this day was exposed the cradle of our Lord."

Guido would have found in the sitting-room of the
villa many tokens of his brother, which would remind
him of the days before they began to plot. "The idle
door that missed the master's step," the lonely room
with its grave silence broken only by an occasional
clatter of oaths from the kitchen, would have shaken
the resolve of many men, but Guido had done with
peace on earth, and was dead to good will towards
men. He sat in the dark, thumbing the edge of his
dagger, and cursing the cottagers who disturbed his
dream of death by chanting a hymn as they walked
back from the jubilant city.

On the evening of Thursday, January 2nd, the five
miscreants made their way into Rome. The moon
would be about rising, for it was full moon on December
30th. Entering the North gate they would find them-
selves at once in the Piazza del Popolo. But a little
way from the piazza, and approached either by the
Strada Paolina (now the Via del Babuino) or by the Corso,
was the quiet little lane known as the Via Vittoria. It

27.— ON THE ROAD FROM ROME TO THE
PONTE MILVIO.

^>*5^

28. -FOUNTAIN BY THE ROADSIDE ON
THE WAY TO THE PONTE MILVIO.

The Murder in the Via Vittoria

is significant that it was in the Piazza del Popolo that
these ruffians first trod the soil of Rome, since that soil
is also the last piece of ground touched by the feet of
many, the piazza being a place where criminals are
hanged.

They reached the house at the corner of the Via
Vittoria and the Strada Paolina about 8 o'clock in the
evening. Blasio and Gambassini were left on guard
in the street on either side of the house. Guido, who
had disguised himself as a countryman, walked up to
the door alone. He found it closed. He knocked and
could hear within a chair pushed back, and then foot-
steps in the passage. It was Violante who had risen and
was coming to the door. She asked who was there.
Guido replied in a feigned voice, "A messenger with a
letter from Canon Caponsacchi." In a moment the
bolts were withdrawn and the door thrown generously
open. There stood the smiling Violante, with her hand
outstretched for the note. Guido fell upon her and
hacked her to death. It was noted afterwards that most
of her wounds were in the face, in that hated face that
Guido loathed above all things in the world. Frances-
chini then rushed in, followed by two of his gang.
Pietro, dumbfounded with alarm, stood in the way. He
was cut down just as he — realising his fate — shrieked
out the word "Confession."

Now Pompilia, hearing this tumult in the doorw^ay,
this hideous riot of trampling feet, of yells and curses,
of groans and the thud of knives, blew out the light
and fled towards the door that opened on the courtyard,
where was an entry to a locksmith's house. Looking
back along the passage she saw the horrible figure of her

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

husband coming towards her with a lantern in his hand,
spattered with blood, and snarling like a wolf. She
rushed into a room and hid under a bed. He followed,
and by the light of the lantern she could watch him
stalk into the room and then see his clawlike hand
feeling about to find her beneath the couch. He
gripped her, dragged her out — pulling the bed, to which
she clung, across the floor — and spluttering forth a torrent
of hate he stabbed her, like a frenzied epileptic, in more
than a score of places. The two bravoes had followed
their master, but the bloody deed was done, although
later on Pasquini boasted that he had inflicted four or
five additional wounds upon Pompilia in the back. The
brave Pasquini seemingly wished it to be known that
he had done something to earn his money.

Guido now called upon the two to make sure that
his wife was dead ; so one of them, probably the heroic
Pasquini, lifted her ofif the ground by her hair, and then
dropped her, so that she fell with her head on the body
of old Pietro, who was now quite still.

Once more all was silent, and in the pause Guido
would glance round the familiar room and recall the
time when he first met Pompilia there. Then stepping
over the three bodies that lay in his way, and giving a
vicious kick at Violante as he passed, he stepped out
into the street to join his companions.

The work had been well accomplished, except in
two particulars. In their haste one of the murderers
had left his coat in the house, while Guido, in groping
for his wife beneath the bed, had dropped his cap.

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XII

GUIDO'S ARREST

THE Street was now in an uproar. Windows
were being thrown open and people were pour-
ing out of every door. The alarm had reached
the Corso, so that passers-by were running down the
Via Vittoria to the house at the corner.

The five made a dash for the Piazza del Popolo,
gained the gate, and sped for their lives along the
straight unlovely road that leads to the Ponte Milvio.
They made first of all for the house in the vineyard,
where they had been hiding, and then took the Via
Cassia, intending to make all speed for the Tuscan
frontier and Arezzo. They might have gone by the Via
Flaminia through Castelnuovo, but the road they selected
was the better of the two, since it led at once to the
open Campagna and was but little frequented.

Guido had made one mistake. He had provided
no horses for the journey home, and, moreover, had not
obtained the official permit, without which post-horses
could not be secured on the road. He stopped at the
first inn upon the way, and there demanded horses, with
threats of violence, but the landlord declined to furnish
them as the necessary order could not be produced.
Guido was disguised as a yokel and unattractive when
at his best. He therefore probably failed to convince
the linnkeeper that he was a distinguished nobleman,

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

and that the four unkempt savages with him were
members of his suite.

There was no course open to them, therefore, but
to proceed on foot ; so they made the best of their way
across the open Campagna, along a road w^hich was then,
as it is now, a track across an absolute solitude. After
tramping through the better part of the night they
arrived at the lonely "tavern of Merluzza," w-hich is
"towards Baccano." This inn is about 14| miles from
the walls of Rome and some 24 miles south of Baccano.
Here, utterly exhausted by their headlong flight and
attracted, no doubt, by the isolation of the inn, they sought
refuge and rest. In the first room they entered they
threw themselves dow^n to sleep, lying huddled together
like swine, wdth the blood hardly yet dry upon their
weapons. Here they were discovered at the break of
dawn by the police olBcers who had pursued them from
Rome.

The leader of the troop, one Captain Patrizi, had
shown remarkable promptitude in effecting this capture.
Hurrying to the scene of the murder he met a neighbour
who had overheard one of the assassins say, as they left
the house, "Let us make for the vineyard." To the
vineyard Patrizi and his party at once galloped, only to
find that the fugitives had left the place about an hour
before, and had gone " in the direction of the highway."

Guido and his companions, tied to horses and with
their arms pinioned behind their backs, were taken again
to Rome along the very road by which they had fled,
were taken across the Piazza del Popolo and by the end
of the Via Vittoria. As he looked down the street he
could see the gaping crowd standing and gossiping

Guide's Arrest

still in front of the house where the murder had been
done. A great rabble of people, it is said, came out
to meet them, and by this hooting mob they were fol-
lowed to the Carceri Nuove, or New Prisons, in the Via
Giulia. They reached the prisons about 5 o'clock, on
the same evening. This was the identical jail in which
Pompilia and Caponsacchi had been confined after the
afTair at Castelnuovo.

Guido, who had probably been blustering and violent
when first arrested, received an item of news on his way
back to Rome which kept him silent for the rest of the
journey. He asked one of the police how it was that
they associated him with this particular murder in the
Via Vittoria. The officer answered, "Your wife told
us that you had stabbed her and her parents." It was
in this abrupt fashion that Guido learned that Pompilia
was yet alive.

XIII

THE DEATH OF POMPILIA

POMPILIA died in the house in the Via Vittoria
which had been her home since childhood, and
in which she had met her woeful husband for the
last time. Browning, with great artistic effect, places
the scene of her death in a " hospital hard by,"
*'in the long w^hite lazar house" of Saint Anna; but
no such house had any existence, while the entry in the
register of the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina (given
at the end of this volume) shows that she died in the
street which had been familiar to her from babyhood.

Guido and his bravoes could hardly have clattered
out of sight before neighbours and passers-by poured
into the house, stumbling in the , dark over the dead
bodies by the door, slipping on the clotted blood in
the passage, and falling against the overturned furniture
which blocked their way. They would be guided by
the feeble moans which came from one black corner
in the little room.

The first person apparently to enter was one Giuseppe
d'Andillo. I think he must have been the locksmith
who lived next door. He picked Pompilia up from
the ground "where she lay in utter weakness because
of her wounds. She had her head upon the legs of
Signor Pietro Comparini, who was already dead." A

confessor and a surgeon were immediately sent for.

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The Death of Pompilia

Pompilia was placed upon a bed, probably upon the
very bed underneath which she had crept when she
saw Guido coming along the passage with a lantern
and a dripping dagger. She made confession to the
Principal of the Greek College while she was being
held up in the arms of Giuseppe d'Andillo, "because,"
as he says, " she could neither rise nor lie down."
The Greek College was — and still is — attached to the
Church of St. Atanasio, in the Strada Paolina, which
church is but a few doors from the scene of the
murder. The principal of the college appears to have
been the Abate Liberate Barberito, Doctor of Theology.
He was a foreigner, having come from Monopoli (near
Brindisi), in the Kingdom of Naples. The abate was
deeply impressed with Pompilia's Christian resignation,
with the generosity of her forgiveness, with the tender-
ness of her conscience, as well as with her heroism.
Indeed, he says that he had " never observed the dying
with like sentiments."

Besides these two, no fewer than eight other men
came to Pompilia's assistance, and of these at least four
appear to have been with her night and day until she
died. She had, indeed, around her bed ten devoted
men, but no mention is made, curiously enough, of
any women. Among the ten were Giovanni Guitens,
the apothecary; Luca Corsi, his assistant; and Giovanni
Mucha, the apothecary's boy. There were also Dionysio
Godyn and the Marquis Nicolo Gregorio, probably
passers-by, who dropped in on the raising of the alarm.

But the most devoted and the most worshipful of the
ten was a barefooted Augustinian named Fra Celestino
Angelo. His admiration of the dying Pompilia was

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

unbounded and indeed most pathetic. He was with
her *' from the first instant of her pitiful case, even to
the very end of her fife." He speaks of her as "that
ever blessed child," "that saint," "that martyr." He
maintains, with vehemence and enthusiasm, her absolute
innocence, tells how, with tears in her eyes and with
compassionate voice, she forgave her husband with all
her heart, and how she died with these last words on
her lips: "May God have pity on me." He marvels
at "the modesty and calm of so young a girl in the
presence of so many men," and is sure that her soul
was at one with God. Never did a woman have a
more whole-hearted champion than had Pompilia in the
person of this barefooted Augustinian friar. Fra Celestino
Angelo belonged to the Church of Gesu e Maria, a
church close by in the Corso, and in fact only a few
steps from the house in which the little countess died.
From the entry in the parish register (given at the
end of this volume) it will be seen that Pompilia
received all the most holy sacraments before she died,
and that, with her foster parents, Violante and Pietro
Comparini, she was buried in the Church of San Lorenzo
in Lucina. Pompilia died on January 6th, just four
days after her husband's murderous attack.

XIV

THE TRIAL FOR MURDER

THE trial of Count Guido Franceschini and his
associates for the murders in the Via Vittoria was
commenced in Rome in January, 1698, and was
not concluded until the middle of February. The
president of the Court was His Reverence Marco An-
tonio Venturini, the Vice-Governor of Rome. The
counsel for the prosecution were Francesco Gambi,
Procurator of the Fisc (or Treasury) and Giovanni
Battista Bottini, Advocate of the Fisc. The defence
was undertaken by Giacinto Arcangeli, Procurator of
the Poor, and Desiderio Spreti, Advocate for the Poor.
Those who appeared against the prisoners were official
State attorneys, who held the position of the Public
Prosecutor of modern times. The counsel for the de-
fence also were attorneys provided by the State and
not advocates privately employed by the defendants.
Signor Arcangeli at one period takes pains to say, " I
have assumed the defence without a penny of com-
pensation."

According to the custom of the time the pleadings
were made in writing, in the form of "Memorials" laid
before the Court. The memorials presented by one
side would be answered by further memorials brought
forward by the other. These would all be in writing,
for no speeches were made before the judge. Thus

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Girolamo Lunadoro, in his very interesting " Relatione
della Corte di Roma,"* says: "The Advocate of the Poor
has charge to write free of cost for all poor and needy
persons." Moreover, he explains, in the same book,
the different functions of the procurator and the advo-
cate. The advocate, whether for the prosecution or the
defence, dealt with points of law, while the procurator
concerned himself with points of fact. Thus in the
documents set forth in the Yellow Book are both
memorials of law and memorials of fact. In addition
to the memorials, certain summaries were presented
by either side, in which were contained the attestations
of the various parties, together with any letters or docu-
ments bearing upon the case.

The defence of the prisoners was almost entirely
upon points of law. The murders could not be denied.
The prisoners had been captured red-handed. Pom-
pilia's testimony was clear and unassailable, while any
doubt as to the share taken by the five men before the
Court was cleared up by their own confessions, extracted
while they were under the torture. The lawyers for the
defence, indeed, concentrated all their forces upon the
attaining of two objects — upon proving that the murder
was justified, on the one hand ; and upon claiming an
exemption from the death penalty, should the Court
decline to accept justification, on the other.

Arcangeli and Spreti argued that a husband was
justified in killing an adulterous wife, and in thus wiping
out with her blood the stain of infamy cast upon his
honour. They maintained that Pomp ilia's adultery was
proved upon the following grounds :

* Padua, 1685.
80

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The Trial for Murder

1. Her fleeing from her husband's home with the
young priest.

2. The love-letters which had passed between the

two.

3. The fact that they w^re seen kissing one another
in the carriage on the way to Perugia.

4. The fact that they occupied the same room at the
inn at Castelnuovo.

5. The clandestine visits paid by Caponsacchi to
Pompilia while she was with her foster parents in Rome.

6. The sentence of the judge upon the two after
their arrest at Castelnuovo.

To avoid repetition it may be well to give at once
the answer of the lawyers on the other side to these six
points :

1. Pompilia fled from Arezzo because she was fully
convinced that her life was in danger. She could not
make her way to Rome alone. She had consulted
Canon Conti on the subject. He was a relative and
familiar friend of the Franceschini, and it was he who
had advised the distressed woman to beg Caponsacchi
to conduct her to Rome. There is no trustworthy
evidence to show that Caponsacchi ever went to the
Franceschini Palace until he went there to take Pompilia
away. Had he been her lover, what need had they
to leave Arezzo at all, and why in their flight should
they have made such frantic haste to reach Rome of
all places in Italy ? There is not a scrap of evidence
forthcoming to support the idea of any intimacy between
Pompilia and the priest, the testimony of the wretched
woman Margherita Contenti being not worthy of a
hearing.

G 8 1

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

2 and 3. The questions of the love-letters and of the
reported kissing in the carriage have been already dis-
posed of (p. 55). Apart from the fact that Pompilia
was unable to write, and that the messages attributed to
Caponsacchi were not in his handwriting, the letters
themselves afford the best proof that they were forgeries.
The utter lack of probability in the statement of the
driver as to the kissing has been emphasised (p. 54),
while the circumstances under which his testimony was
given make his evidence of little value (p. 54).

4. Not one particle of evidence was adduced to
support the suggestion that any impropriety took place
at the inn at Castelnuovo.

5. The assertion that Caponsacchi visited Pompilia
after she had left the convent and had returned to the
house of the Comparini in the Via Vittoria is a reckless
fiction. There is, on the other hand, every assurance
that the priest never left Civita Vecchia between the
time of his banishment to that town and the fatal day
in January when the murders were committed.

6. With regard to the last-named point, it was
admitted that the decree of banishment of the priest was
worded as follows: "September 24, 1697. Giuseppe
Maria Caponsacchi of Arezzo, for complicity in flight
and running away of Francesca Comparini, and for
carnal knowledge of the same, has been banished for
three years to Civita Vecchia." It was, however, shown
that the words employed in this decree merely reproduce
the title or subject of the charge. They do not show
that the charge was proved, and indeed it never was
proved. The wording of the order was admitted by the
officials responsible for the same to be misleading and

AREZZQ

Scale of Yards
IOC 200 300 400 500

33. — MAP OF AREZZO.

The Trial for Murder

untrue, and a modification of the decree was allowed by
the Court. This item of supposed evidence therefore
came to nothing.

Count Guido's advocates w^ent on to state that the
delay in the killing of the errant wife did not make
her fault the less, and that the injury to the husband's
honour still remained, while the sense of his shame
was rather increased by reflection and a fuller contem-
plation of his position.

He might have killed Pompilia with impunity at
Castelnuovo, but he preferred to leave her punishment
to the law; moreover, he was alone, was exhausted by
his breathless journey and was not well enough armed
to meet so formidable an antagonist as the young priest.
The law failed him. He could not slay his wife so
long as she was confined in the convent, but he did
avenge his bitter wrong the moment that he found
that she was free.

The same injured honour which impelled Count
Guido to slay his wife, also justified him in slaying the
two Comparini. They had been the cause of the whole
trouble. They had tricked and robbed him. They
had foisted upon him a girl of the lowest origin, and
had thereby brought disgrace upon the name he bore
and exposed him to the contempt and ridicule of the
world. They had, moreover, aided and abetted Pompilia
in her infamous conduct, had sheltered an adulterous
woman, and had thereby condoned and apparently
approved her offence. Finally, it was in response
to the word " Caponsacchi " that Violante had opened
the door so readily on the fatal evening of January
2nd.

»3

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

The prosecution had brought against Count Guido
two other charges, both of which were punishable by
death : one was the carrying of prohibited arms, and
the other was the unlawful assembling together of armed
men. But as Guido had ample justification for taking the
life of his wife and of those who had assisted her, he
was also justified, it was urged, in taking such means
as he thought fit to effect this object.

As the trial proceeded, it was evident that the case
for the defence became weaker and weaker, until finally
the advocate, Spreti, devoted his energies to such argu-
ments as bore, not against a sentence, but against the
extreme sentence of the penalty of death. He quoted
many cases in support of his pleading, claimed consider-
ation for his client on the grounds of his being a
nobleman and connected in a minor degree with the
priesthood, and urged that the fault of his client — if any
— was the failure at once to kill the disgraced countess
when he caught her in company with the priest at
Castelnuovo.

The case for the prosecution was simple and very
readily placed before the Court. The crime was a
cowardly, cold-blooded murder of three helpless people,
plotted and carried out with the utmost deliberation.
The object of this wholesale slaughter was no other
than "damnable greed" on the one hand, and malignant
revenge on the other. Guido did not want his wife's
life : he wanted her money. He quietly waited until
after the child was born "in order that he might make
safe his succession to the property."

The plea of adultery was merely an excuse. The

charge, after the closest examination, remained unproved.

34. — A STREET IN AREZZO.

The Trial for Murder

Pompilia's dying statement as to her innocence must be
accepted as absolute truth. The young countess fled
from Arezzo because she believed her life to be in
danger. Assuming that her husband was honestly de-
ceived as to the reason for her flight, and that he was
convinced that she had left her home with Caponsacchi
because the priest was her lover, why had he not slain
her at Castelnuovo? He says that he was no match
for Caponsacchi, who was better armed than he was ;
but Caponsacchi had been immediately pinioned by the
police, and the injured husband had only to go up the
stair of the inn and stab his wife to death as she lay
in bed.

Admitting some error in this delay, Count Guido's
advocates claimed that he did execute sentence upon his
wife at the next available opportunity. It is true that he
could not approach her while she was under the charge
of the nuns at the convent; but she left the convent
for her father's house on October 12th, and the murder
did not take place until January 2nd.

He crept to his wife's house treacherously and in
disguise, and obtained an entry by means of a trick.
Had he still believed that he was justified in killing
his wife for an ofifence that had been committed eight
months previously, for what reason did he kill the two
old Comparini ? He deliberately came to Rome with
the intention of murdering all three, or he would not
have taken the trouble to bring so many armed men
with him all the way from Tuscany.

The crime was nothing more than a common, brutal,
carefully planned murder for the purpose of getting
possession of the money of the dead, and the only

The Country of '*The Ring and the Book"

fitting punishment for so mean and dastardly a crime
was the penalty of death for all the five ruffians con-
cerned.

The Court found the prisoners guilty of wilful murder,
and declined to recognise any extenuating circumstances.
The sentence of death was passed upon them all. The
four countrymen we're condemned to be hanged, but
Guido, as being of noble birth, was allowed the sorry
privilege of meeting death by the edge of the exe-
cutioner's axe.

The decision of the Court was given on February
18th. Guido's friends at once demanded a stay of
execution on the ground that as the count had taken
some minor orders he could claim the benefit of clergy.
As a further ground for postponement it was urged that
one of the murderers, Francesco Pasquini, was a minor.
Both of these matters were referred to His Holiness
the Pope, who promptly disallowed both pleas, and
gave it as his decision that the law should take its
course. The Pope signed the warrant "of his own
accord" at eight o'clock on the evening of February
21st, whereupon the execution of the five prisoners was
fixed for the following day.

The Pope who thus comes into the story was Antonio
Pignatelli, a native of Naples, who held office under the
title of Innocent XII. At the time of Count Guido's
execution he was eighty-three years of age. He died in
1700, a little more than two years after he had signed the
fatal warrant. His coat of arms was the most curious
of any Pope, viz. on a plain shield three little earthern
ewers. This was in reference to his name, since " pigna-
tello " is a small earthern pot. His portraits show him

The Trial for Murder

to be a man with a high forehead and a fine intellectual
face. He wore a little moustache, after the fashion of
the gallants of the time, with a small pointed tuft of
hair on the chin. While the upper part of his face
was that of a philosopher, the lower part was that of a
gay cavalier.

THE EXECUTION IN THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO

VERY early on the morning of Saturday, February
22nd, long indeed before " lauds," or before a
streak of dawn had appeared in the skies, there
was some commotion in the New Prisons in the Via
Giulia. Franceschini and his companions had been in-
formed that their appeal had been refused, and that
they were to be put to death that very day.

To Count Guido the announcement was utterly un-
expected. He was at first dazed and stupefied, but
after a moment he said :

" I feared a heavy sentence, but not the sentence of
death."

The few curious folk who had gathered around the
prison door saw in the dark the Cardinal Acciaiuoli and
the Abate Panciatichi arrive, saw them silently admitted,
and the door close behind them. They had come to
administer the last consolations of the Church to these
five who were now entering the valley of the shadow
of death. Men passing in boats down the Tiber saw
unwonted lights in the prison and guessed the reason
of them.

In the meantime the Piazza del Popolo was the
scene of extraordinary activity. By the fluttering light
of many lanterns men were erecting a scaffold in the
centre of the piazza. The scaffold was lofty, and the

35.- THE CHURCH OF SANTA MARIA BELLA PIEVE,

AREZZO.

Caponsacchi's church.

The Execution in the Piazza del Popolo

steps that led to its high platform were steep. Up
this stair two men, illumined by eager lantern-bearers,
were staggering under a heavy burden. It was the
headsman's block, and its disposal on the scaffold was
the subject of much comment and possibly of some
coarse jesting. On either side of the mannaia was a
gallows, from the cross beams of which two ropes, with
a noose at the end of each, were dangling. The country-
man coming in through the gate with his cattle need
not be told that five men were to die that day. It
was with dumb amazement that these early-comers
viewed the piazza. The place at night was generally
as silent as a glen in the Campagna, and was a spot
where both the sheep and their shepherds could sleep
until it was light enough to make for the market-place
of Rome.

In the piazza itself people were busy putting up
stands for those who would witness the spectacle. "In
spite of the vastness of the piazza, not a single foot
was left which was not occupied by stands, which were
covered with tapestry and other ornaments forming a
theatre for festal celebrations rather than for a solemn
tragedy." Windows were already being thrown open
and chairs placed in the rooms behind them. It is
said that some windows brought as much as six scudi ;
that is to say, twenty-four shillings in modern currency.

As the day wore on, the crowd around the door of
the jail in the Via Giulia increased until the street and
lanes that led into it were blocked. As the hour drew
near to two o'clock in the afternoon a hush fell upon
the chattering crowd, and a company of police made

a way through the mob for the dreadful Brotherhood of

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Death. As these holy men marched with awful steps to
the prison door a hum filled the street like the buzzing
of a countless multitude of bees, a hum made up
by whispers from a thousand lips, and by the
shuffling of a thousand feet. Every hat would be
removed as the posse of dark men passed by, men
without faces, men above whose shoulders rose a black
conical hood with holes for eyes that none could see.
The one who led bore aloft a towering cross, upon which
was stretched a Christ with open arms, while those who
followed chanted with voices muffled in their hoods
"the lamentable psalm," "Out of the depths, O Lord,
have I cried unto Thee." Behind this doleful proces-
sion followed five common carts.

In a while the prisoners would issue one by one
through the prison door, would give a startled look as
the sudden light of the street dazzled them, and as
they saw stretched out to right and left the pitiless
morass of human faces. The first to mount the cart was
Agostinelli, and the second who came was Gambassini.
These were the two who kept watch while the murders
were being done, and it was considered that of the
five they were the least blameworthy. The third to
step out into the light and climb into the cart was the
lad Pasquini, for whom indulgence had been pleaded
because of his age. He it was who owned that he had
stabbed PompiUa in the back after her husband had
done his worst upon her. The fourth to emerge was
Baldeschi. He took his share in the stabbing, and was
the oldest of the four who had come from Tuscany to
help in the massacre. He it was who was so obstinate

in his denial of guilt that he refused to confess until

N
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° 2

The Execution in the Piazza del Popolo

he had twice swooned under the terrible torture of "the
cord." He it was who for so long declined the offices
of the Church, "having a heart hardened by many years
of evil life."

Last of all came Count Guido Franceschini, the
most composed and the most intrepid of the five. He
shunned the gaze of the crowd, for he kept his eyes
fixed upon the crucifix he held in his hand. He wore
the same garb as when he committed the crime, and
presumably the same as when he set out from Arezzo.
This clothing is described as composed of " a coat of
brown cloth, a black shirt, a vest of goats'-hair, a white
hat and cotton cap."

When all the carts were filled the procession started
for the Piazza del Popolo. It was a long way to go.
The route was by the Via del Pellegrino, the Via
del Governo Vecchio, the Piazza Navona, the Piazza
Colonna, where lived the female hairdresser, and the
Corso. Before the end of the Corso was reached the pro-
cession would pass the Via Condotti, where the Abate
Paolo resided, and the Via Vittoria, where all the
trouble began and where it ended (see Maps of
Rome, Plates 16 and 105).

In the Piazza Pasquino is the little church called
the Church of the Agonizzanti. Here the procession
halted, the five tumbrels, the company of hooded priests
with their uplifted cross, and the unseemly rabble who
by clinging to the sides of the carts had followed the
dismal column through the narrow streets of the city.

In this little square, according to the custom of the
Church, the Last Sacrament was administered to the five
men who were nearing the end of their last journey.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

They received the Sacrament kneeling, and, according
to the testimony of one who reported the occurrence,
the people crowding the square or hanging out of every
window that gave a view of the church were moved
to tears.

The five criminals were executed in the order in
which they left the prison. The first to die was
Agostinelli by hanging, while the last was Count Guido,
whose head was struck off by the executioner's axe.
The final act in this dreadful tragedy was completed
when the executioner held Guido's head aloft, gripping
it by the hair, the sightless eyes being turned towards
the open gate and the road that led to Tuscany.

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XVI

THE EPILOGUE

AS the last of the five carts — each carrying a dead
man — moved out of the Piazza del Popolo into
the Corso, the story came to an end, and with
the settling of the wintry night upon the now silent
piazza the black curtain of oblivion fell upon this
astonishing tragedy. Just for one moment, however,
was the curtain raised again, and someone stepped out
upon the empty stage to speak. He who spoke was
one Antonio Lamparelli, Procurator of Charity. The
purport of his speech was as follows, and it came as a
very suitable epilogue to the drama.

There was in the Corso an ancient convent, founded
in 1520, known as the Venerable Convent of Saint
Mary Magdalen of the Convertites. The nuns, when
the murder trial was over, laid claim to the whole of
Pompilia's property on the ground of the right they
possessed of acquiring the possessions of women of evil
life who had died in Rome. The Procurator of the
convent advanced the plea that the dead woman,
Pompilia, had led an evil life, and that therefore such
property as she possessed passed to the Order for whom
he spoke. This demand was stoutly resisted by
Domenico Tighetti, the heir beneficiary or executor of the
little countess. The result was another lawsuit in which
Tighetti wasjhe plaintiff and the Fisc the defendant.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

It is interesting to note that the case was heard
before Marco Antonio Venturini, the Vice-Governor of
Rome, who had been the judge in the great murder
trial just completed.

The whole story was gone over again from the be-
ginning at Arezzo, when someone threw confetti into
Pompilia's lap, to the end at Castelnuovo, when the
two runaways were arrested and taken away to prison.

The result of the trial was a brilliant triumph for
Pompilia; while at the same time the announcement
of the judge's decision must have been received with
reverent satisfaction by the lonely man who was in
banishment at Civita Vecchia.

The Instrument of Final Judgment, as it was called,
was delivered on September 9th, 1698, exactly five
years, almost to the day, after Pompilia's marriage. It
contained this declaration : " We say, pronounce, de-
clare, and finally adjudge from what has been newly
deduced, that proof is not established as regards the
pretended adultery, and therefore the memory of Fran-
cesca Pompilia should be and is entirely restored to her
pristine good name and reputation. And we charge
that perpetual silence be imposed upon the Fisc and
his consorts in the suit."

Throughout the whole of the Yellow Book, volu-
minous though it be, there are only two references to
Pompilia's personal appearance. The lawyer, Bottini, who
was the counsel for the prosecution in the murder trial,
says this : She is "in the flower of her age, and, as I
have heard, of no small reputation for beauty"; while
Antonio Lamparelli, who utters this epilogue, speaks of
her, with simple admiration, as "a beautiful woman."

Part Two
THE COUNTRY OF THE STORY

ROME

1. THE VIA VITTORIA

THE Via Vittoria — the home of the Comparini —
is a little lane, long and straight, which runs from
the north end of the Corso into the Via del
Babuino. It is a street of mediaeval Rome, and is yet
in that part of the city which is best known to strangers,
for it nearly reaches the Piazza di Spagna, which is the
Leicester Square of modern Rome, where the Italian goes
to study the foreigner (see Map of Rome, Plate 16).

The street is narrow, being only some 18 feet wide
from wall to wall, while the road is paved in all its
length like a courtyard (Plate 1). As the Via Vittoria lies
east and west, and as its houses are lofty, it comes to pass
that very little sun can penetrate into its deeper depths.
In the winter, indeed, it lies in the shadow the whole
day long. At such a time, to turn from the crowded
Corso, dazzling with sun, into the quiet Via Vittoria,
is Hke stepping into the aisle of an ancient church from
the broad roadside.

The place is hushed. The atmosphere that fills it

seems to be tinted, so that one would expect a white

paper held in the hand to look brown. There is at

such time night in the street but day in the sky, for

the peaks of the roofs, the parapets and the chimneys

are made golden by a blaze of sun which, here and

there, cuts notches on the dark north walls. Where a
H 97

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

cross street strikes this lane of shadows a clear-cut sheet
of sunlight will cross the road, like a plank of burnished
metal laid over a dark stream. Even in the brilliant
days of spring, the Via Vittoria seems to be a laggard
street, hardly yet awake, but rather blinking like a
drowsy owl in a niche away from the glare of noon.

The houses are for the most part drab, flat and un-
interesting. As a piece of affectation, the windows are
as lavishly provided with sun-shutters as if both rows of
houses stood on a blinding beach, instead of forming the
side of a deep brick and plaster trench. The present
houses do not differ greatly from the humbler dwelling
houses of Rome in Pompilia's time. This may be
gathered to some extent from Vasi's prints (Plates 4 and
22), but with greater precision from certain detailed draw-
ings of Rome at the commencement of the eighteenth
century to be found in La Galleria Nazionale (Palazzo
Corsini).*

It will be noted that the older houses were lower,
and possessed, as a rule, only two storeys, that they had
sloping, red-tiled roofs, the eaves of which hung well
over the house wall, that many of the windows had a
rounded arch in place of being square, and that sun-
shutters were unknown. There are only a few old
houses still in the Via Vittoria with which Pompilia
must have been familiar. One, indeed, is only of two
storeys, and has the overhanging roof of earlier days
(Plate 2). These old houses have arched doorways of
stone, supported very often on either side by pilasters
of no small pretence. Some will have within a stone
staircase, while at the end of the passage may possibly

* Note, for example, drawings Nos. 151, 152 and 1,035.

■,'f'.

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The Via Vittoria

be a glimpse of an ornamental court, or of a tiny garden.
There are fine iron fanlights over a few of the door-
ways, and certain of the lower windows are barred with
very lusty metal work.

There remains one charming feature about the Via
Vittoria which must have been a delight to its inhabitants
even long ago. High above the east end of the street
there rises, in the gap of sky between the housetops,
the crown of the Pincian Hill, covered with trees, and
looking — at a distance — like a great green bush. At the
time that the Comparini lived in Rome this height was
occupied by a kitchen garden, owned by the monks of
Santa Maria del Popolo.*

It is evident that the Via Vittoria has seen better
days, and that it was, at one time, quite a fashionable,
well-to-do street, holding its head high in the world.
Some of the houses are so large as to be almost mansions.
One of the most notable of these has a marble tablet in
the wall to commemorate the fact that the great Garibaldi
once lived under its roof. The residents in the quarter
are now humbler folk, who hang mattresses out of the
upper windows when any sun comes their way. They
themselves hang out of window on occasion and con-
verse with neighbours who in like manner project into
the street. There are shops in the lane. These, although
very small, meet the demands of varied tastes. There
is a provision shop exhibiting hams and bladders of lard,
a shop also for the sale of charcoal — a mere cellar entry
— kept by a man as black as his goods, a shoemaker's

*"La Corte e la Societa Romana nei XVIII. e XIX. secoli." By Signer
Silvagni. Translated by F. Maclaughlin, London, 1885. The same fact is
noted also in the Diary of John Evelyn, who was in Rome in 1644.

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

shop, a chairmaker's, an emporium for seals and rubber
stamps, as well as a place where the housewife can buy
feather brushes and string. Probably such shops as these
did not exist when Pompilia lived in Rome, but there
is an ancient-looking wine shop in the street, where
"choice wines of Frascati " are to be obtained, which
might have been known to Pietro Comparini, who was,
it will be remembered, "a frequenter of taverns."

The street being quiet and shady, and little troubled
by traffic, is a favourite haunt of children, and it may
be assumed that it was no less pleasant a playground
when Pompilia was a little girl. During the carnival
I came upon a party of boys — three in number — who
were holding quite a festa in the Via Vittoria. They
were squatting in the road playing cards. To give the
gathering a proper convivial dignity, they had stuck
four paper flags between the paving stones, and within
the square thus distinguished the game was proceeding.
Four oranges placed on the ground within the flags
provided the suggestion of bons viveurs taking their ease
after a banquet. The game apparently required four
players, and as the number of boys was limited to
three, a small girl had been drawn in to make the fourth.
She sat on a newspaper, spread, courtier fashion, on the
bare road, seemed very shy and meek, and was treated
by the boys w^ith marked condescension. She was so
pretty and so plaintive-looking that she might have been
Pompilia as she would have appeared some few years
before she became a countess.

lOO

40. — THE TOWN WALL OF AREZZO, FROM THE OUTSIDE,
Showing the base of the Torrione.

41. THE WALL OF AREZZO BY THE TORRIONE,
Over which Pompilia and Caponsacchi climbed in their escape.

2. THE HOUSE OF THE COMPARINI

THE house in which Pietro and Violante Comparini
lived was at the corner of the Via Vittoria and
the Via del Babuino. This is made evident by
the following facts. When the Comparini first appear
upon the scene they are described as living in the Via
Vittoria. In the notification of their deaths in the
registry of San Lorenzo in Lucina it is written that
" they died of sundry wounds in the house where
they were living in the Strada Paolina " (see the copy
of the Register at the end of this volume). At the
end of the seventeenth century the Via del Babuino
was known as the Strada Paolina. Pompilia's letter
to her father, written from the prison in Castelnuovo
in the May preceding her death, was addressed to
Signor Pietro Comparini, Via Vittoria, Rome. That
the house occupied was the same from the begin-
ning of the story to the end is made evident by a
passage from the Yellow Book. The writer is speaking
of the rupture with the Franceschini at Arezzo and of
the return of the old couple to Rome. He says, "When
Pietro and his wife decided to return to Rome they
were provided with money for the journey, and in
Rome with furniture to put in order the house they
had lefty

At which corner at the end of the street the house
stood it is impossible to say, while, unhappily for those

lOI

The Country of *' The Ring and the Book"

who are interested in the place where Pompilia spent
her childhood, both the corner houses have been quite
recently rebuilt. They are now represented by modern
shops highly esteemed by tourists, for this end of the
Via Vittoria thrusts itself into the very heart of the
tourist quarter. The shops are devoted to the sale of
bronze figures on the one hand, and of marble statuettes
on the other, so that the traveller who lingers by the
plate glass window, hesitating whether he should buy a
bronze copy of the Dying Gladiator, or a replica in
marble of the Capitoline Venus, may be standing on
the very spot where Agostinelli and Gambassini kept
guard while Guido, dagger in hand, crept up to the
door and knocked.

The Via del Babuino, or Strada Paolina, may be
regarded as the "High Street" of the foreign quarter.
It connects the Piazza del Popolo with the Piazza di
Spagna. It is a street of considerable interest. The
name Via del Babuino, or Street of the Baboon, is de-
rived from the circumstance that half-way down the road*
there was, until recently, a fountain with the mutilated
figure of a satyr on it. To this statue, the people of
Rome — with reckless views upon natural history — gave
the name of "II Babuino," the Baboon.

" Baboon Street " was undoubtedly the popular name
of the causeway, and, in the guide-books of the time, it is
so called. One of the most interesting ' ' Guides ' ' to Rome,
published in the latter part of the seventeenth century,
is that by Signor MartineUi, who is at pains to describe
only "what he has seen with his own eyes" and who
bases his book upon a plan which enables the tourist to

♦The position of the figure is shown in Falda's Plan, Plate io6.

1 02

The House of the Comparini

see all the sights of Rome in eleven days.* He places
the Via del Babuino in his list of " strade principal!, "
although Silvagni, in his account of the Eternal City
at this period, declares that "The Via Babuino was about
as mean and squalid a street as there was in Rome." The
names of Roman streets were constantly being changed —
an inconvenient habit, with which but a slight study of
the older descriptions of the city will make the reader
familiar. The name Strada Paolina was the official title
of this particular road, as is rendered manifest by the
maps and plans of the period.

The most valuable and interesting map of Rome
dealing with the time of the Franceschini story is that
drawn by Antonio Tempesta and "newly engraved,
enlarged, embellished and brought up to date by Giacomo
de Rossi." This map, enlivened wdth colours, is about
ten feet long and four feet wide. It was published in
1664. It is rather a bird's-eye view of the Rome of the
day than a mere plan. It reproduces the details of all
the chief buildings and gives some idea of the general
aspect of the streets. The street in question is the
"Strada Paulina," while the exact position of "II
Babuino" is clearly marked. The houses in the Via
Vittoria are represented as comparatively humble, while
it is shown that at the backs of the houses were court-
yards and gardens, and it is to be inferred that the larger
of these courts were common to the houses that abutted
upon them. At the time of the murder on January 2nd,
it is told in the Yellow Book how Pompilia, hoping to
escape the assassins, extinguished the light "and ran to
the neighbouring door of a locksmith, crying out for

* " Roma." By Signer Fiorav.intc Martinclli. Padua, 1650.

103

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

help." Now as the front of the house was swarming
with the bravoes, and as escape in that direction was
impossible, it must be that the locksmith's door opened
into one of those common courtyards at the backs of
the houses, which the map so clearly shows. De Rossi's
fine drawing indeed makes this somewhat obscure episode
in the account of the tragedy perfectly intelligible (this is
made clear also in Falda's map reproduced in Plate 106).

Tempesta's and Falda's maps demonstrate that, at the
time of their making, the well-known Spanish Steps rising
out of the Piazza di Spagna did not exist.* In their place
was a mound or slope dotted with trees and intersected
by winding paths, having at its foot the ridiculous
ship fountain, and on its summit the Santissima Trinita
de'Monti (see Falda's map, Plate 106). The Piazza di
Spagna does not figure in the story of Pompilia, although
Browning describes Pietro, " periwig on head and cane
in hand," strolling into the square, "toward the Boat-
fountain where our idlers lounge," in order to inquire
of the gossips what they knew of his wife's noble friend.
Count Guido Franceschini.

Falda's plan further shows the convent of Santa
Maria Maddalena delle Convertite. It will be remem-
bered that this religious body laid claim to Pompilia's
property after her death (p. 93). The building has long
since been pulled down. It stood in the Corso, occupy-
ing the whole of the area between the Via delle Convertite
and the Via S. Claudio. As will be seen from the plan,
the chapel of the convent was in the Corso, while two
courtyards and a garden were enclosed by the very ex-
tensive conventual buildings.

* The Scala di Spagna, with its 137 steps, was constructed in 1721-25.

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42.— THE COUNTRY BETWEEN AREZZO AND ROME.

The Route taken by Pcmpilia in her flight is shown thus^—

3. THE NEIGHBOURHOOD OF THE VIA VITTORIA

THOSE who rushed to Pompilia's assistance, when
the attack was made upon the house, believed
her to be dying, and consequently a confessor
was sent for with the utmost haste. The nearest church
to the scene of the murder is the Church of Sant'
Atanasio in the Via del Babuino (see Plate 106). This
church is attached to the Greek College, founded in
1580, and it was to the principal of this college that
she made confession, as she lay in the arms of Giuseppe
d'Andillo (p. 77). The church and the college' still
stand. The former is an imposing structure of reddish-
grey brick with two low towers. It is dry and dusty-
looking, as if bleached by centuries of sun, but is
otherwise unchanged since the time when the priest ran
down the street to the house at the corner and pushed
his way through the crowd to Pompilia's room.

Quite near at hand also is the Church of Gesu e
Maria. It stands in the Corso, a small, plain, stolid
building of grey stone, not unlike an overgrown
mausoleum (see Plate 106). It was from here there came
the barefooted Augustinian friar, Celestino Angelo, who
comforted Pompilia in her dying hours and who bore
such fervent testimony to her innocence and Christian
fortitude (p. 77).

An idea of the general appearance of the Corso
about the time with which the story is concerned can

105

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

be gathered from Vasi's print (Plate 4). It is the Corso
as Pompilia knew it. It shows that part of the great
highway which must have been especially familiar to
the Comparini, since it lies between the Via Vittoria
and the parish church of San Lorenzo in Lucina. The
raised sidewalk for foot passengers — now no longer
existing — will be noticed. There is little doubt that it
was along this path, lifted well out of the mud, that
Pompilia and her mother walked on their return from
the wadding. The street in the extreme left-hand
corner of the plate is the Via Condotti, where the Abate
Paolo lived, while the turning just beyond the palace
leads, on the other side of the road, to the church
above named, where Pompilia was married. Two
streets only separated the Via Condotti from the Via
Vittoria.

Silvagni, in his account of Rome in the eighteenth
century, writes in this manner: "The streets were with-
out names, the houses without numbers, the roofs without
gutters and the shop windows without glass. There were
no foot pavements, no lamps, no names over the trades-
people's premises. Iron or wooden signboards, typical
of the business carried on within, hung, however, at

the doors of the shops There were huge open

drains full of filth and nastiness of every kind running
down the middle of most of the streets, the Corso in-
cluded. As an exception to the general rule, the Corso
had a side-walk for foot passengers raised above the
roadway all along it."*

* " Rome. Its Princes, Priests and People." A translation by Fanny
Maclaughlin of Signor Silvagni's " La Corte e la Societa Romana nei XVIII
e XIX secoli." London, 1885. Vol. I., p. 6.

106

43.-VITIANO, WHENCE CAME THE FOUR BRAVOES.

v.- -i\

44. — A TYPICAL WAYSIDE COTTAGE ON THE ROUTE
OF POMPILIA'S FLIGHT.

The Neighbourhood of the Via Vittoria

Except for the artistic omission of the open drain,
Vasi's print well bears out this description.

That cheerful and most facetious traveller, M. de
Brosses, visited Rome in 1739 or 1740 and lodged in
the Piazza di Spagna. He states that even at that
time only one-third of the city of Rome was really in-
habited, viz. the quarter between the Tiber, the Monte
della Trinita, the Monte Cavallo and the Capitol. "All
the rest," he says, "consists of gardens, fields, huge
buildings, ruins, and a few sparsely populated streets
here and there."* There were no quays along the
river sides, while the Villa Borghese is described as in
the country. He estimates the population of Rome at
50,000. It is now 500,000.

The Earl of Perth, who was resident in Rome just
two years before Guido's execution, was also much
impressed with the poverty of the city. He lived on
the Pincio, and had close acquaintance with that
very Pope, Innocent XII., who signed Guido's death
warrant. "The Pope," he writes, "is a very handsome
old man as ever I saw .... he's a worthy good old
man ; he's of great quality and has the manner of it ;
he's now eighty years and four moneths, yet very
vigorous." t

Venuti's famous drawings of Rome in the early part
of the eighteenth century show the city to be untidy and
disordered, covered with ruins and weeds, with heaps
of stones, earth and rubbish, while market booths, huts

* ** Letters of de Brosses." Translated by Lord Ronald Gower. London,
1897.

t " Letters of James, Earl of Perth." London, Camden Society,

1845.

107

The Country of "The Ring and the Book^'

and hovels were planted in any piazza, however magni-
ficent.*

Venuti, indeed, depicts Rome as a squalid and sombre
city, neglected and uncared for ; and to this picture the
written accounts of the time add details which serve
only to deepen the shadows — details as to the lawless-
ness of a place where no young woman could walk
abroad without protection, and where in every filthy
by-way after dark it was safe to assume that a footpad
or two were hiding.

On the other hand, there was at this time a great
deal in Rome that was magnificent, besides its ancient
monuments and vast ruins, and many pleasant places
which were neither squalid nor uncared for. This may
be gathered from the chatty accounts in the famous
Diary of John Evelyn. John Evelyn reached Rome on
the 4th of November, 1644, " about five at night," wet
to the skin and on horseback. He found a lodging, as
most English travellers did, near the Piazza di Spagna.

He remained in Rome nearly three months, during
which time he took " some lessons on the theorbo."
He was much impressed by many of the mansions and
villas, and especially with the gardens. "The garden,"
he writes, "which is called the Belvedere di Monte
Cavallo is most excellent for air and prospect; its ex-
quisite fountains, close walks, grots, piscinas, or stews
for fish, planted about with venerable cypresses and
refreshed with water music, aviaries and other rarities."
He found the Villa Borghese, with its " baluster of white
marble with frequent jettos of water," exceedingly noble,

* " Descrizione Topografica delle Antichita di Roma." By R. Venuti.
Rome, 1763.

108

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The Neighbourhood of the Via Vittoria

and the garden, with "all sorts of delicious fruit and
exotic simples, fountains of sundry inventions . . . and
a volary full of curious birds, an elysium of delight."

The Ruspoli Palace, shown in Vasi's print (Plate 4),
was built in 1586, and still stands in the Corso. It would
have been very familiar to Pompilia. It once belonged to
the Caetani. It will be noticed that the central entrance
of the mansion is walled up. It was in this entry that
one of the Caetani was stabbed to death by a member
of the Orsini family, whereupon the order was given
that the great door should be closed for ever. The
palace is no longer palatial looking, and, massive as it is,
it is no longer even dignified. The windows have been
modernised, and the stately rooms given up to offices.
Indeed, when I last passed the palace it was in part
devoted to a cinematograph show, while the walls about
the spot where the young Caetani fell were flaming with
posters representing a woman, with very clenched teeth,
jumping out of the carriage of an express train.

The Via Condotti, or Conduit Street, leads from the
Corso to the Piazza di Spagna. In it stands the House
of the Order of the Knights of Malta. If one can judge
from the gorgeousness of the porter at the gate, the
Order is still wealthy and flourishing. The building is of
considerable size, but although it has been modernised,
it probably conforms in its general outlines with the
chapter house of two centuries ago. A fine archway
leads into a little courtyard, an exquisite tiny cloister-
garth, brilliant with flowers, draped with green creepers,
and shaded in one corner by a comely pepper tree.
Against one white wall is a fountain basin, and above

this little pool, on a shield of crimson, is emblazoned the

109

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Maltese cross (Plate 7). Guide's brother, the Abate Paolo
Franceschini, was appointed secretary to this ancient
Order in 1693, and in this stately building most assuredly
he dwelt. It may be surmised that his window looked
into this little green courtyard, and that his evil-plotting
brain was lulled by the sound of water dripping in the
fountain, and that the sweet quietude and happy inno-
cence of the spot so jarred with his black and bloody
thoughts as to impel him to flee from Rome for ever.

4. THE STREET OF THE LION'S MOUTH

TURNING out of the Via Vittoria is a street called
the Via Bocca di Leone. It is wider than the Via
Vittoria, and a street of greater pretension, for it
contains many fine old town houses with handsome
doorways, heavily barred windows and dignified court-
yards. It was never a mean street. Indeed, some two
hundred years ago it must have given quite an aristo-
cratic bearing to the quarter and have echoed with the
rumble of gilded carriages and the laughter of gaily
dressed people. It was down this street that Browning
makes Pompilia hurry on her way to the church on
that dismal evening, howling with rain, when — according
to his statement — she was married. The lane, indeed,
would be the shortest way from the Comparini house
to San Lorenzo in Lucina.

The street, however, has another interest. At that
end of it which is the nearer to the Via Vittoria is a
large, heavy, neglected-looking house of five storeys.
But for its sun-shutters it is no more than a gross,
featureless barrack. It has on one corner, it is true, a
picture of the Virgin and a lamp, but below the painting
is a coarsely lettered board announcing cabs for hire,
while the slip of a lane at the side has the savage name
of Wolf Alley.

In this forbidding house, at the corner of Wolf Alley,
Robert Browning and his wife once lived. The fact is

III

The Country of "The Ring and the Book'*

commemorated by a marble tablet on the wall, between
the picture of the Virgin and the cab proprietor's board.
The tablet was erected by the Municipality of Rome on
the centenary of the poet's birth, May 7th, 1912, while
beneath it — as can be seen in the photograph (Plate 3) —
some kindly soul has hung a handsome wreath of ever-
greens. The house is old, as is evident from its well-
weathered doorway in the Via Bocca di Leone. Above
this entry is a venerable stone shield with the inscrip-
tion DOMus FRANcisi BARAzzi. LIBERA. Possibly Pompilia
puzzled over this in her many walks down the street on
the way to the Corso. The home of Francis Barazzi
has fallen upon humbler days, for on the ground floor
an upholsterer struggles with the cab proprietor for an
existence.

The Brownings first occupied this house in the
winter of 1854. Their rooms were on the third floor,
and, as Mrs. Browning writes, were "turned to the
sun."* They were, therefore, on that corner of the
house which is shown in the photograph, the view
having been taken in the winter. Apparently the last
occasion on which the Brownings resided in Rome was
in the winter of 1859, when a letter of Mrs. Browning
shows that, for at least some part of their visit, they had
their quarters in the same house in the Via Bocca di
Leone. t The old Yellow Book came into Browning's
hands in June, 1860, and apparently he was never again
in Rome after that date. He, therefore, had no oppor-
tunity of seeking out the various spots connected with

* "Life of Robert Browning." By Mrs. Sutherland Orr, London, 1891,
p. 197.

t *' Life of Robert Browning." By W. Hall Griffin, London, 1910, p. 214.

112

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The Street of the Lion's Mouth

the story he was destined to make famous. It is curious
that he should have chosen his home in that quarter
of the city around which the drama centred, for No. 43
Via Bocca di Leone was only but a few steps from
the house where the crafty Violante lived and where
Pompilia died.

5. THE URSULINE CONVENT

THERE is in the Via Vittoria a large motherly-
building of such ample proportions that it actually
overpowers the tiny street, and seems prepared to
gather it, together with all its houses, shops and people,
under the shadow of its wings (Plate 1). This is the
Accademia di S. Cecilia, once a famous Ursuline convent.
It is a somewhat ostentatious house, with a doorway
worthy of a church and with heavily barred windows on
the ground floor. It has been in part modernised of
late, but with seemingly so little disturbance that the
Comparini, if they could once more walk the streets
of Rome, would recognise it as the Ursuline convent of
their day. When it ceased to be an Ursuline convent
I cannot ascertain. It has nothing to do with the
Franceschini tragedy, but there is a story connected
with the house which bears so strange a resemblance
to Pompilia's adventure that it is worth the telling.

The story of the convent concerns a young girl,
not yet twenty, who was married in 1772 to a man of
fifty-two, whom she saw for the first time on the day
that she married him. The wedding, which took place
in the north of Italy, had, like Pompilia's marriage,
been " arranged." The bride and bridegroom resided
for a time in Rome. They then moved northwards,
not to Arezzo but to Florence, where they were living

in 1781. The husband, although his name was not

114

The Ursullne Convent

Guido, was a degraded brute, who treated his j^oung
wife with such cruelty that her health was undermined
and her life put in danger. He is described as a gaunt
man, with a bent back, a purple face, flabby cheeks
and watery eyes. He was gloomy, maudlin, foul-
mouthed and generally loathsome, for he was a con-
firmed drunkard. The wife, on the other hand, is said
to have been pretty and dainty, with golden hair and
dark blue eyes. She was " a childish woman of the
world, a bright, light handful of thistle-bloom" who
fascinated everyone. Not the least interesting thing
about her was the fact that she signed her name
" Louise R," which meant Louise, Queen of Great
Britain, France and Ireland. Her husband was no other
than Charles Edward Stuart, the "Young Pretender,"
the "Bonnie Prince Charlie" of a hundred wild adven-
tures, and the adored of the gallant Flora Macdonald.
He stjded himself Charles IIL of England, while
competent writers of the time styled him " a brutal
sot." His wife appeared, on the other hand, to be
content with the title of Countess of Albany.

Louise, finding her days intolerable and her life in
jeopardy, resolved to flee away to Rome. She was helped
in her flight, not by a young priest, but by a young
poet. His name was Vittorio Alfieri, aged twenty-eight,
"an unorganised mass of passions" and the author, in
due course, of twenty-one tragedies and six comedies.
Louise and her poet did not fly to Rome alone. She was
accompanied in this passage by a lady of her household
and two maids, while the writer of tragedies and a
friend, armed and dressed as servants, accompanied the
carriage a great part of the way. This was in January,

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

1781.* From a study of the roads at this period, it
seems probable that they came by Arezzo and Assisi, and,
indeed, followed the same highway as that traversed by
Pompilia and Caponsacchi. Her husband might have
pursued and caught her before she reached the gates
of Rome, but he was too constantly drunk for so stren-
uous a chase. If the Countess of Albany stayed to
change horses at Castelnuovo — as she must have done if
she came by the Flaminian Road — she might have
listened to some faint, half legendary account of the
flight of the other countess and of how her husband had
ridden up to the inn at the break of dawn, and of how
she and her companion were led away to the prison in
the little town near by. It was curious that both the
Countess Louise and the Countess Pompilia should have
had the Via Vittoria as their haven of refuge in Rome.

Charles Edward Stuart, unlike Guido, did not per-
sonally undertake any wholesale slaughter in connection
with his wife's elopement, but he made it known that
he was prepared to give 1,000 sequins (nearly ;/^500) to
anyone who would murder Alfieri.

In the spring of 1781 Alfieri followed his lady to
Rome, and went at once to the Ursuline convent in
the Via Vittoria. He was of course not admitted, but
he saw the countess at the window, and, no doubt
to the extreme horror of the nuns, spoke to her
through the heavy iron grille which makes those win-
dows so suggestive of a prison. He was a neurotic
and hysterical man, a very self-conscious poseur, who

* " The Countess of Albany." By Vernon Lee. London, 1884. This book
gives a brilliant and vivid account of the adventures of Louise, vs^ho was, how-
ever, more generally known as the Countess of Albany.

116

The Ursuline Convent

expressed his emotions with inane exaggeration and
intenseness. It jmay be assumed that his visit to the
convent caused a gigghng crowd to collect in the Via
Vittoria. Of the painful interview, he writes as follows :
" I saw her, but (O God! my heart seems to break at
the mere recollection) I saw her a prisoner behind a
grating, less tormented than in Florence, but yet not
less unhappy."

There is every reason to suppose that the grille with
which each ground floor window is still barred belongs to
a time before 1781, while it remains for the imagination
of the passer-by to select the particular trellis of iron to
which the blubbering Alfieri clung in such despair.

117

6. SAN LORENZO IN LUCINA

IN a quiet, insignificant piazza, leading out of the
Corso — the great thoroughfare of Rome — is the
Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina, where PompiHa
was baptised, where she was married, and where her body
lay after her death. Here, too, she was buried. San
Lorenzo is the church of an important parish within
whose confines lie the Via Vittoria and much of the quar-
ter about the Piazza di Spagna. The piazza in Lucina is
small, oddly shaped and very still. It is a favourite place
for the lounger, since it forms a placid backwater to
the rushing stream of the Corso, which eddies noisily
by this diffident retreat. The houses are of that un-
obtrusive type which attract no attention and leave on
the mind only a general impression of dwellings.

The church occupies the south side of the piazza.
It is small, humble and self-effacing, being, indeed, one
of the most modest of the churches of Rome. It seems
to be attempting to withdraw from the bustling world
and to hide itself among the adjacent houses. In this
attempt it has succeeded, for only one wall of the
building is visible. From somewhere among the houses
around rises a haughty campanile, with four pillared
storeys, built of faded brick and very ancient looking, for
it belongs to the thirteenth century. It appears to be
anxious to disclaim any connection with the unpretend-
ing church.

ii8

48. — A STREET IN CORTONA.

San Lorenzo in Lucina

That portion of San Lorenzo which is visible would
— if the buildings were correctly oriented — correspond
to the west end of an English church. This facade is
very plain, being covered with a dingy yellow plaster,
and suggests an impoverished meeting-house rather than
a church which was founded in the sixth century and
was rebuilt in the present form in 1606 (Plate 5).

In the entrance is a porch or loggia, dark and vault-
like, and always full of shadow. It is separated from
the sunlit pavement by four simple pillars of granite.
The spaces between the columns are occupied by an
iron grille, in the centre of which is a plain iron gate.
The entry to the guard-room of a barrack could not be
more severe. The loggia is cool, and, so long as the
gate is open, people sleep there on warm mornings.
There are some very ancient tablets on the walls, with
such dates as Anno Dni MCXII. and MCXXX., while
a modern inscription shows to what height the water
reached in the portico during the flood of December,
28th, 1870. The floor is paved with tombstones from
wall to wall, for the porch is a place of sleep for both
the living and the dead. Some of those who lie here
belong to the Rome of centuries ago, since one slab,
on which is carved a coat of arms, bears the date of
the year 1462.

On this stone pavement, on either side of the wooden

door of the church itself, is a marble lion. The lions

are about two feet high, are very old and very dirty,

except where their heads have been pawed smooth by

passing children. They appear to be emerging from

the wall, since only the heads and the shoulders of the

beasts are in evidence. Their venerable aspect is due

119

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

to the fact that they have been crouching on this pave-
ment for some seven hundred years. They have watched
a great multitude of people enter this church, from the
thirteenth century gallant with cloak and dagger, to the
twentieth century tourist with guide book and camera.

The lion to the right of the door has a singularly
benevolent and even fatuous expression, while between
his feet is a manikin, clad only in a loin cloth, who is
affectionately stroking the amiable creature's mane (Plate
6). The lion to the left, on the contrary, is snarling,
and has an aspect of extreme ferocity. Between his
forepaws is an animal, apparently a dog, but obscure as
to its exact species by the accident of being headless.

Lions of this kind are not uncommonly found sitting
at the doors of ancient churches. A pair, for example,
guard the entrance to the duomo at Civita Castellana,
while two like them crouch before the beautiful door
of San Feliziano at Foligno. They are intended to
symbolise the kindly protection that the Church affords
to the believer, on the one hand, and the ferocity with
which it deals with the dog-like heretic, on the other.

In the " Ring and the Book " Pompilia speaks about
one of these lions in her musings over the Church of
San Lorenzo :

"I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble Hon meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man —
To the right, it is, of entry by the door."

It may be gathered from this account that Browning
never saw these lions, or that he made confusion between
the two. The fact that he knew little or nothing of

1 20

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San Lorenzo in Lucina

the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina may be inferred
from the following letter written by him to Frederic
Leighton :

"Oct. 17, 1864. A favour, if you have time for it. Go into
the Church St Lorenzo in Lucina in the Corso — and look atten-
tively at it, so as to describe it to me on your return. The general
arrangement of the building, if with a nave — pillars or not — the
number of altars, and any peculiarity that may be — over the High
Altar is a famous Crucifixion by Guido. It will be of great use to
me. I don't care about, the outside^ *

Leighton's description, when it came to be presented,
evidently misled the poet on the matter of the lion.
The great artist, moreover, must have paid little heed
to "the general arrangement of the building," since he
is probably answerable for Browning's reference to the
aisle of the church, whereas the building has no aisle.

The interior of San Lorenzo is very agreeable to
contemplate, owing to the deUcacy of the colouring of
the walls. The plan of the church is severely simple —
a nave with, on either side, some little chapels, each
lit through a dome in the roof. At noon, even on a
winter's day, the sun slants into some of these tiny
oratories, touching here the marble wall, here the paved
floor and here the altar, and making each one of them
brilliant and gorgeous, while the rest of the church
remains in reverent shadow. The coffered ceiling of
the nave is so beautifully decorated in gold and red
and blue that it looks like a page from a missal, es-
pecially as, in the centre of the ceiling, is a picture of
Christ.

The floor of the church is paved with black and

* "Life of Robert Browning." By Mrs. Sutherland Orr. London, 1891,
p. 284.

121

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

white marble, laid in pronounced pattern. The walls
owe their charm of colour to the marbles of manifold
tints with which they are covered, and to the delicately
painted panels. The whole produces a blithe atmo-
sphere of gre}'', of pale blue and of warm yellow. The
clerestory windows, by which the interior is lit, are
draped with crimson curtains. Two steps lead up to
the altar, in front of which is a balustrade of variegated
marble. Here stood Guido and Pompilia on the fateful
6th of September, 1693 ; and here, too, lay the dead
bodies of the old Comparini and of the little countess.
Behind the handsome altar are four great pillars of dark
grey marble, having in the centre the famous Crucifixion
painted by Guido Reni.

One may well imagine, with the writer of " The
Ring and the Book," that Pompilia had a great affection
for this church. It is just such a church as would
delight a child, being very bright and cheerful, unde-
pressed by heavy, funereal monuments and adorned with
wonderful gilt candlesticks and altar pictures. More-
over, there was the lion's head to pat whenever the
church door was passed.

Under the gallery at the west end of San Lorenzo
is a gilded frame, containing the " Pubblicazioni dei
Matrimoni," with the names of the parties, their fathers
and mothers, their places of origin and the dates on
which the banns were announced. The frame is new,
but it must have been somewhere on this old wall that
the declaration of the marriage between Guido Fran-
ceschini of Arezzo and Pompilia Comparini of Rome,
with all the necessary particulars, was made public.

Although the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina

122

San Lorenzo in Lucina

contains little to attract the curious, yet it is mentioned
very often in the narratives of early travellers. Father
Montfaucon, who visited Rome in 1698 (the year of
Pompilia's death and Guido's execution), speaks of the
church, but not in an illuminating manner. He says
that the part of Rome in which the church was situate
"abounds everywhere with stately houses of princes
and noblemen."*

The genial M. de Brosses, who was lodging in the
Piazza di Spagna in 1739, discovered that San Lorenzo
was his parish church, and very properly considered
that he should attend a service there. He thus describes
his visit: "I have not been here (i.e. in the church)
half a minute before I have had two handkerchiefs and
my snufT-box stolen." |

I was anxious to see the register of San Lorenzo
in Lucina, but found that all but the records of recent
years had been removed to that vast Palazzo del
Laterano which is attached to the still vaster Basilica of
San Giovanni in Laterano. The Record Room of the
Archivio Generale del Vicariato is an old and very
picturesque apartment, which, like everything else con-
nected with the Lateran, is of great size. The walls,
from the brick floor to the beautifully painted cove
roof, are lined with the church registers of Rome, and
a remarkable assemblage of ancient volumes they pre-
sent, being, indeed, a vast library of " old yellow books."
The archivist who has charge of this wondrous muni-
ment room is a learned and most courteous priest, to

* " The Travels of the Learned Father Montfaucon from Paris through
Italy," London, 1712.

t "Letters of Dc Brosses." By Lord Ronald Gower. London, 1897, p. 158.

123

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

whom I am under obligations. The ancient records of
the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina are in three
separate volumes, one dealing with baptisms, one with
marriages and the third with deaths. The books are
large and heavy volumes, about eighteen inches long
by fifteen inches wide, covered with lemon-yellow
parchment and fastened by four cords of cotton. They
are unsoiled, and their perfect state of preservation is
astonishing.

The paper of these books is grey and coarse. The
writing is in the centre of the page, a margin being
left on either side which is sometimes utilised for
addenda to the entry. For example, in the record of
Pompilia's baptism the names given her are entered in
the margin as if they had not been supplied when the
account of her baptism was written out. The ink in
the three books is of a rich, brown colour, without a
shadow of fading. The writing in the baptismal
register is heavy, large, straggling and very difficult to
read. One can imagine the priest who made the
entries to have been a fat, careless, and untidy man,
who was glad to get his clerical work over and take
his ease. The writing in the registers of marriages
and deaths is by one hand, but that not the hand of
the loose-limbed curate. It is, on the contrary, a small,
precise, scholarly script, very neat and plain to read. It
suggests the handiwork of a thin, dapper, little man,
who, if not a genius, was at least painstaking.

It is needless to say that no signatures are attached

to any of these entries in the church registers. Certified

copies of the various entries just named are given at

the end of this volume.

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San Lorenzo in Luclna

Although a wide search has been made, no record
of the baptism of Pompilia's boy, Gaetano, can be
discovered. As the certificate at the end of this volume
shows, a record of such baptism is not to be found in
the registers of the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina,
nor in those of the churches of the six adjoining
parishes. It was suggested that, in the circumstances
under which the child was born, it was possible that
the baptism had been carried out at St. Peter's, but the
registers of that church show no entry of the kind.

125

7. LE SC ALETTE

AFTER the affair at Castelnuovo, Pompilia and
Caponsacchi were sent to Rome and lodged in
the New Prisons. They stood their trial before
the Criminal Court, and, after long wrangling among
the lawyers, Pompilia was committed to a convent known
to the people of Rome as " Le Scalette." Here she re-
mained until October 12th, when she was allowed to return
to the home of her foster parents in the Via Vittoria. Her
stay in the convent does not appear to have been more
than a month. The convent was an institution for
women who had lived, and had repented of, an evil
life. It is said to have been founded in 1615, when its
full title was II Conservatorio di S. Croce della Penitenza.
It is situated across the river in the Via della Lungara,
a street well known to diligent tourists, for it contains
the Palazzo Corsini, which is one of the unavoidable
sights of Rome. The popular name of " Le Scalette"
or "The Little Stairways" is derived from the fact that
in front of the building is a long and unusual plat-
form, approached by a small stair at either end. On
the platform are two doors, one leading into the chapel
and the other to the Penitentiary. The essential part
of the building, the fagade that looks upon the street,
the chapel itself, the platform and the little stairs are
all unchanged, and, as Pompilia saw them long ago, so

the traveller sees them now (Plate 8).

126

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Le Scalette

The institution was enlarged in 1854, but the alter-
ation onl}^ affected the hinder part of the building, as
the tablet in the wall that abuts on the Via Penitenza
bears witness, and as a sketch of the convent in Falda's
map (Plate 105) will show. The name of the place has
changed to the gentler title of the Convent 'of the
Good Shepherd, and thus it is that it now appears upon
the maps of Rome as " Buon Pastore " (see Plate 16).

The convent is a very old, dismal, prison-like build-
ing, in a frowzy quarter and a none too cheerful street.
It seems to have been forgotten by the world and from
callous neglect to have shrivelled into a state of hebe-
tude and decay. It is woefully shabby, while the general
colour of its walls is the sickly greyish-yellow of a faded
leaf. The long platform in front of the building is of
brick, which bricks are slowly crumbling into the road.
The little stone stairs of seven steps, on one side, and
ten on the other, are so worn and cracked and chipped
by the lapse of years that they are little more than
ragged ledges, although they are softened by the grass
which grows in every gap and fissure. No one could
claim that these stairways are less than two hundred
years old, or doubt that they are the very steps trodden
by the faltering feet of Pompilia when she was brought
here for shelter from the great jail across the stream.

The front of the chapel is nearly as shabby as the

steps. Weeds are growing from the roof and from every

hospitable ledge in the stonework. There is, indeed,

one cheerful weed, high up on the wall, which was

ablaze with yellow flowers early in May. The ancient

door of the chapel has apparently not been opened for

a lifetime, if one may judge from the growth of grass

127

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

which lines the rift between the wooden sill and the
stone step. Above the other door on the platform a
great cross is fastened to the wall over the figure
of the Good Shepherd. This door leads into a cavern-
ous kind of guard-room, a grim, hard, uncharitable
place which must have chilled Pompilia's heart as she
stepped into its inhospitable gloom. It was a relief to
see two placid and kindly-looking nuns come out of
this apparently deserted place. All the convent windows
are so strongly barred that they convey the impression
of belonging to a prison, while at the back of the
building is a garden shut in by a terrifying wall.

One morning in May, on walking to the Lungara,
to ponder once again over the Scalette, I found, sitting
on the steps of the chapel, one of the most fearful-
looking human beings I have ever seen. He was a
tramp, very old and wrinkled, unclean and disgustful.
He was dressed darkly, in fantastic and unnatural rags
that seemed to be parts of mediaeval garments, and was
crowned with a ridiculous hat more like a Quaker
woman's bonnet (Plate 9).

It was not the dirt, not the tatters, nor the poverty
of the man that made him horrible, but rather it was
his attitude of the castaway, of the solitary, shipwrecked
man, who had been left by the ebbing tide of the
world upon these desert steps, a mere bit of sodden
wreckage, and who was, nevertheless, garbed in such
a motley as to be incongruously grotesque.

As he sat on the stone, a deformed, distorted bundle,
tricked out as a mummer, he seemed something lower
than a man. The bones of his shoulders and the bones
of his bent knees protruded, with hard anatomical detail,

128

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Le Scalette

under the greasy polished cloth that covered them, and
when he moved his head the profane absurdity of his
hat was dreadful.

He could not have come to a more appropriate place
in search of the sun ; for he seemed to personify the
lamentable hospitality of the building that sheltered him,
as well as the world's disdain, the gibe of the Pharisee
and the cynical pitilessness of time.

Impressions are often inappropriate and lacking in
proportion, but while searching among the relics of the
Yellow Book I experienced few impressions so haunting
as that left by this forlorn, chimerical creature in human
shape, who was leaning against the rotting door of the
House of the Good Shepherd.

I2g

8. THE NEW PRISONS

THE great prisons of Rome at the time of the
Franceschini tragedy were the Carceri Nuove, or
New Prisons, in the Via GiuHa. They replaced
the prisons of the Torre di Nono, which stood on the
bank of the river near the Ponte S. Angelo. The Carceri
Nuove were founded by Pope Innocent X. and were
erected in the year 1655 (see Plates 13 and 14).

To these new prisons Pompilia and Caponsacchi were
brought, after their arrest at Castelnuovo, and here they
were lodged during the summer of 1697, being prisoners
in "this great jail for nearly five months. To the Carceri
Nuove also, on the 3rd of January, 1698, came Guido
and his four associates, strapped to their horses and
followed by a hooting mob. In this prison they lay
until they were led out, one afternoon in February, to
the place of execution in the Piazza del Popolo. To
Innocent the Tenth's new building in the Via Giulia,
therefore, great interest attaches.

Something, however, may be said about the Via
Giulia itself, for it is, and ever has been, one of the pic-
turesque streets in Rome. For a thoroughfare in the
old part of the city it is comparatively wide ; it is, more-
over, of considerable length. It runs by the bank of the
Tiber, and has been evidently a pompous, arrogant, purse-
proud street, as well as the highway of an exceedingly

fashionable quarter. It is lined with mansions that would

130

53. — PASSIGNANO, ON LAKE TRASIMENE.

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54.— TUOKO, FROM THE HIGH ROAD.

The New Prisons

be rightly described as noble, and with town houses of
almost supercilious respectability. The strongly barred
lower windows suggest costly possessions and carefully
guarded wealth. The fine stone balconies will have
been radiant on many a gala day with brightly dressed
women, while the great pillared doorways must have at
one time echoed with the wheels of painted coaches
and the footsteps of lackeys in brave liveries of scarlet
and gold (Plate 10).

At the end of the street is the Palazzo Farnese
(Plate 12), which Hare affirms is "the most majestic and
magnificent of all the Palaces of Rome" ; and near it, in
the Via Giulia, is the Falconieri Palace, which, if not
actually magnificent, is certainly as beautiful, in its river
front, as any like building in the city. The Palazzo
Sacchetti stands also in the street, while, palatial in
its wa}^ the old, weary-looking Collegio Ghislieri
adds the dignity of learning and soberness to this
flamboyant highway.

Very evident is it that the Via Giulia is now neither
rich nor fashionable. It is, in fact, rather a dirty street,
where the wind seems to eddy the waste paper of the
district, and where bare-headed women are ever to be
seen in various attitudes of gossiping. High up on the
wall of a stately house is a coat of arms carved in stone,
the arms of one of the noble families of Rome ; but the
shield is nearly hidden by some sheets and towels which
are hanging out to dry from the window above. It
would look strange to see washing dangling from every
window in Piccadilly, but the sight is quite as incon-
gruous in this street of fine houses. Indeed, on a
Monday, when the washing is apparently "done," the

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

))

whole of the spare underclothing of the inhabitants of
the Via Giulia must be displayed on the house fronts.
In the ground floor of a right lordly mansion is a shop
for the sale of hams, bags of lard, salt fish and lumps
of white cheese that look like fragments of wet con-
crete. In a hall, where a gorgeous porter once strutted
with his stafT, are two shabby men making rush-bottomed
chairs. Among the delicate carving over what was at one
time a boudoir window are entangled the paper streamers
of last year's carnival, while in the window itself a petti-
coat hangs from one nail and a birdcage from another.
From a courtyard, out of which once poured the sound
of water dripping in a fountain, and the scent of roses,
there now floats that sickly, dreadful smell — common in
poor quarters in Italy — which is faint and acrid, and com-
pounded, it would seem, of an anaesthetic, of mouldy
gases of decomposition, together with a revolting sug-
gestion of cooking fat and sour wine.

The Via Giulia also is a street of prominent piety,
for there are either in it, or abutting upon it, no fewer than
ten churches. Most of these are so wan and deserted
as practically to efface themselves, but two demand some
consideration. Guido and the four hired assassins, who
were awaiting death with him in the new jail, were all
natives of Tuscany, and in view of this it is curious that
the church at the north end of the Via Giulia should
be San Giovanni dei Fiorentini, the same being the
national church of the Tuscans, built somewhere about
1520 at the expense of the city of Florence. It is
curious also that the church at the south end of the Via
Giulia should be Santa Maria della Morte, the Church of
Our Lady of Death (Plate 11). It is a little round church.

132

The New Prisons

very curious and picturesque. On each side of the central
door, which opens on tlie street, are stone pilasters, the
capitals of which are made in the form of toothless human
skulls, crowned with wreaths. A like skull surmounts
the window over the door. On the wall is a white
marble tablet on which is shown a man lying dead on
the open ground, while a skeleton with ghastly wings,
made up of straggling, damp-looking feathers, contem-
plates him with an aspect of weary disapproval. This
ancient church is in the charge of a pious brotherhood —
the Fratelloni della Buona Morte — who devote them-
selves to the burial of the neglected dead. More than
probable is it that these Brethren of Kindly Death under-
took the burial of Guido and his four associates. If this
be so, then the church at the north end of the street
would have cared for these Tuscans when living, and
the church at the south end of the street when dead. Both
of these churches are shown in Vasi's print, reproduced
in Plate 12.

The Carceri Nuove stand in about the middle of
the Via Giulia, between Prison Alley and the Alley of the
Evil Way, or Vicolo del Malpasso. They are repre-
sented by two heavy square buildings, connected by
a transverse block of less dimensions. One of the main
prisons has its front in the Via Giulia, while the other
overlooks the river, near to the bank of which it stands.
This immense, crushing mass of grey stone, drab plaster
and mellow brick is four storeys in height, and " the
whole," as John Evelyn would say, " much obliged to
Pope Innocent X." From the drawing of the prison
given in Antonio Tempesta's map of 1664, and also
in Falda's plan of 1676 (reproduced in Plate 105),

133

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

the structure would appear to have undergone no sub-
stantial alteration from that date until now, except
perhaps in the matter of the roof, which on the river
front is flat, whereas in the map it is sloping. The
distant view of the Carceri Nuove, as shown in Vasi's
print (Plate 12), is precisely the same as it appears at
the present day. The windows of the prison are barred
with iron like a trap, and, in common with all other
jails, the general aspect of the place is most forbidding.

The entrance to the prison is in the Via Giulia. It
is of ashen stone, solid and uncompromising, and as
plain as the portal of an Etruscan tomb. An entry more
severe, more melancholy, more inhospitable, could not
be conceived. Through this very portal have passed
Pompilia and Caponsacchi, Guido and the four clowns
who helped him in his murdering. Pompilia, no doubt,
was the first of the seven to enter this dismal doorway,
and within ten months of that occasion all of the seven
were dead save one — the young priest. Over the door
is this inscription: — "Justitise et Clementiae securiori ac
mitiori reorum custodiae. Novum Carcerem. Innocen-
tius Pont. Max. Posuit. Anno Domini M.D.C.L.V."
(Plate 13).

The building ceased to be used as a jail in 1897.
It is now a depot or school of instruction for prison
warders.

The interior of the prison is more forbidding even
than the outside. That part of the building which
stands in the Via Giulia is given up to the depot and
has, in unimportant details, been modified to meet the
needs of its new service ; but the greater part of the jail,
including all that portion which is towards the river,

134

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The New Prisons

is unoccupied, and is in precisely the same condition
as it was when the last prisoner was marched out of
the cells.

There is a certain melancholy about an empty house
which has been long occupied by men and women,
but this deserted jail struck me as one of the most
dismal human habitations that I had ever visited.

Prison buildings are not subject to much change,
and this structure is built so solidly and of such deter-
mined materials as to seem to be incapable of any
change short of that effected by an earthquake. The
original stone stairs still stand, although they are much
worn, and in places extensively repaired. The long
stone corridors are vaulted and unusually lofty. The end
of each corridor is closed by a merciless iron gate and
grille. With few exceptions, the prisoners were herded
together in large, airy cells, capable of taking from twelve
to fourteen beds. These cells have a cove roof or a
vaulted ceiling, in each angle of which is a large star.
This curious and inspiring ornament is the only one
the designer of the jail allowed himself to use. The
windows are blocked with heavy bars, while the opening
into the cell and the opening through the outer wall
of the jail being on different levels, it is impossible
for a prisoner to see anything from his room but a
patch of sky. Indeed, the lower edge of the outside
window is on a level with the upper edge of the
opening into the prison ward.

The locks and bolts are curious and ancient, but
the prisoners' quarters are, as regards light, ventilation
and cubic space, as good as those of the most modern
jail.

135

The Country of "The Rmg and the Book

))

The cells for prisoners condemned to death are
on the roof of the river-side block of the prison.
They consist of a single row of well-designed cells
in the central line of the building, with a corridor on
either side of them. The door of a cell opens into
one corridor, while on the opposite side is a wicket
opening into the other. The cells are ranged alter-
nately on the following plan : — If cell No. 1 has its
door in the right-hand corridor, cell No. 2 will have
its entrance in the passage on the left. Thus, although
the rooms are in a single line, the doors of one half
of them belong to one passage, and the doors of the
remaining half to the other. This lessens the proba-
bility of prisoners meeting, and at the same time
allows of a more complete surveillance of the cell
if a warder be on duty in each passage.

On the side of each of the corridors is a walled-in
exercise yard, open to the air, and approached from
the corridor by two doors. The cells have no win-
dows, being lit only from the roof. Thus it is that
an occupant of one of these rooms is not only ab-
solutely isolated, but can see nothing of the outer
world but a limited square of sky.

In Plate 15 the structure to be seen on the roof
is composed of this row of cells with the connected
yards, the long wall (against the sky line) that faces
the spectator being the boundary of one of the exer-
cise courts. The two windows at the end, above the
cornice, light the two corridors described, while the
raised structure between them is the terminal part of
the single line of cells. The two side windows open
into a latrine.

136

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The New Prisons

Browning, with great dramatic effect, places Guide's
cell in the basement of the building, and describes
the count as sitting

" On a stone bench in a close fetid cell,
Where the hot vapour of an agony.
Struck into drops on the cold wall, runs down
Horrible worms made out of sweat and tears."

I was assured that there are no underground cells
in the prison, and, furthermore, in the Old Yellow
Book it says: "The condemned were made to go
downstairs, and were placed upon separate carts to be
drawn to the place of execution." It is evident, there-
fore, that the condemned cells were in the upper
storeys of the jail.

There is no room in the present jail that has the
reputation, however doubtful, of having been a torture
chamber ; yet in this prison Guido and his accomplices
were assuredly subject to the torture, while Silvagni,
in the w^ork already quoted, writes: "There was a
torture chamber in the Carceri Nuove, which certainly
remained intact up to 1809, when my uncle visited it
in company with Salicetto, the Emperor's Minister."

137

9. THE ROUTE TO THE PLACE OF EXECUTION

ON Saturday, February 22nd, 1698, Count Guide
Franceschini and his four associates in villainy
were executed in the Piazza del Popolo, as has
already been recounted (p. 88). They were brought
down the stairs of the Career! Nuove to the door of
the jail, and were then placed, uncomfortably bound,
in the five tumbrels that had been waiting in a line
in the Via Giulia. February is the month when Rome
is at her dreariest. The afternoon of that day may
have been bright and the sun Italian, but there are
many days in the winter when the sun is not seen,
when the air is still, when the grey clouds, chilled
and sullen, descend almost to the housetops. The
trees are then bare but for a few crackling and
mis-shapen leaves left from the autumn ; men bury
themselves in their cloaks, and the gossip in the cheer-
less streets is curt and ungenial. One may imagine
that it was on such an afternoon as this that the
procession started from the great prison. This journey
to death must have been as gloomy a spectacle as the
Eternal City could provide — the five carts, within each
of which sat a scared, gaping man, pinioned with ropes,
by the side of a priest with a crucifix, the stern company
of police, the horrible hooded figures of the Com-
passionate Brotherhood, the half-terrified crowd pouring
through the narrow lanes like a tide, sweeping along

138

The Route to the Place of Execution

with it the bodies of dying men, while raised high above
all would be the great reassuring cross.

According to the Yellow Book the procession went
"by the most densely populated streets," and the
names of the streets are given. They are densely popu-
lated still, while in their general disposition they are, for
the most part, but little altered (see Plates 16 and 105).

The clumsy carts would leave the Via Giulia by the
Alley of the Evil Way. This is a short alley, drab
and vacant, which opens into the Via del Pellegrino,
or Road of the Pilgrim. Here the strange company
would turn to the right. The Via del Pellegrino is a
typical highway of old Rome. According to Martinelli*
it would appear to have been the Bond Street of the
period, since it was devoted at that time to jewellers' and
silversmiths' shops and to the sale of bonnets and hats.
It is now a poor street, but still very busy and singularly
well patronised by children, being a street of small shops
and brimming with life. It is no longer possible to
buy fine jewels in the street, but it has a high repute for
cabbages, the stalks of which, according to apparent
custom, are left behind in the roadway by the purchaser.
The Pilgrims' Street is, indeed, a street of food shops,
although among them may be a fabbrica di sedie,
where rush-bottomed chairs are made, or a cartoleria,
where one may buy post cards, ink, toys, blacking and
string. Prominent among the food shops is the maga-
sin of eggs and oil, where the eggs are in baskets and
the oil in flasks, which hang from the ceiling and door-
way like some gigantic fruit. More interesting are
^^ pane e paste" shops, where bread, beans and long

* " Roma." By Signor Fioravantc Martinelli. Padua, 1650.

139

The Country of *' The Ring and the Book

wax candles are sold, and where are exhibited the
astounding forms that may be taken by ^^ pasta.' ^ With
macaroni in tubes and vermicelli in threads the world
is familiar, but not so commonplace are fragments of
paste in the form of wasps' nests (nidi di vespe), snails
(chiocciole) , bobbins (spolete), wolf's eyes {occhi di htpo),
celery sticks [sedani) and angels' hair in skeins {capellini
d'angelo a matasse).

The route now turns to the left along the Via del
Governo Vecchio, which street is cut across by the
modern Corso Vittorio Emanuele, with its tram lines, its
spacious pavements and its immense shops. The Street
of the Governor — interesting because it represents the
narrowest part of the route — is not greatly changed, and,
in old walls, old windows and stone doorways, presents
many relics of the street as Guido saw it.

The more ancient part of the street is habitually
festooned with " washing." The houses, indeed, are
draped with sheets, petticoats, and shirts, which form a
white cascade dripping from every window and on
occasion from the very roof. The display of white
affords an agreeable relief, for the street itself is dark
and dirty.

From Plate 17 it will be seen that the lane is so
narrow that it could have admitted little more than the
line of tumbrels, for it will be noticed that the hooded
wine-cart at the bend of the lane nearly fills the roadway.
At this particular bend in the lane is a very old house,
which has been practically untouched by time, and is
to-day as it was on that winter afternoon when the
procession rolled along to the gallows. It is a dignified
house, built partly of stone and partly of narrow Roman

140

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The Route to the Place of Execution

bricks. The stone windows are rounded, while the
doorway takes the form of a simple solemn arch. The
upper windows would have afforded an excellent view
of the procession, for the house is just at the corner
where the street turns towards the Pantheon. According
to Baedeker, the building was erected in 1500 for the
Papal Secretary, and would, therefore, have been nearly
two hundred years old at the time of the story. The
dwelling of the secretary to His Holiness is now a
tavern known as *' Al Bramante," and is as picturesque
a wine-shop as any in Rome (Plate 18).

The carts carrying the condemned men then passed
along to the end of the street, where are still to be seen
remains of old houses, unexpected stables and dingy
courts which present too detailed an insight into
private life. At last the Piazza Pasquino was reached.
This is a quaint, little triangular space containing still
the mutilated statue called "Pasquino," a shapeless
lump of stone, associated in some incongruous way
with the Greek hero Menelaus, on the one hand,
and a deformed tailor with a passion for writing
spiteful and offensive comments upon people, on the
other. In this piazza the procession halted before
a grey chapel called the Church of the Agonizzanti.
One function of this church is to administer the Last
Sacrament to criminals who are on their way to death.
Here, indeed, the Holy Ofhce was carried out for the
benefit of Guido and his four countrymen. Accord-
ing to the Yellow Book, the ceremony was so im-
pressive as to move many of the onlookers to tears,
while Guido's attitude was impressively devout. The
church is insignificant, and as it was restored and

141

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

decorated as lately as 1862, it has lost its legitimate
aspect of antiquity. Before the single door are two
low steps, where no doubt the officiating priest and his
assistants stood. Above the entry is this inscription :

ARCHISODALITII ANIMIS MORIENTIUM
IN EXTREMO AGONE JUVANDIS.

The church within is a cheerful little sanctuary,
made bright by yellow grey columns and clouded by
no reminiscence of its melancholy function (Plate 19).

Silvagni writes* that he remembers, in 1840, reading
a notice posted in the piazza, in which the faithful were
exhorted to gain a plenar)'- indulgence by visiting the
Holy Sacrament exposed in the Church of the Agoniz-
zanti in connection with the execution of a youth who
had been condemned to death for sacrilege.

The procession then crossed the south end of the
magnificent Piazza Navona, close to Bernini's famous
fountain "II Moro " (Plates 20 and 21). The figure of
the Moor has his back turned to the road, while around
him are jubilant tritons blowing water out of double
horns. The fountain is unchanged, the little streams
still splash into the pool as they did two hundred years
ago when the murderers passed by. Indeed, there is
no reason to suppose that the water has ceased to run
from the tritons' conch since Guido looked upon the
fountain for the last time.

The Piazza Navona, on the other hand, has changed,
and that for the better. In the time of the Franceschini
tragedy the square was a squalid market place, given
up to the bartering of old books and curiosities, to the

* hoc. c'li.
142

The Route to the Place of Execution

sale of old Iron, and to rows of untidy booths where the
country people displayed their fruit. Moreover, it was
the privileged place for the quack, the fortune-teller
and the conjurer. Possibly it was not until the crowd
swarming about the carts broke into the square that
the spurious doctor, standing upon a tub, ceased to yell
forth the virtue of his pills for ague and the falling
sickness. John Evelyn was fond of the Piazza Navona.
Writing in this very month of February, in the year
1645, he says : "20th February. I went, as was my usual
custom, and spent an afternoon in Piazza Navona, as
well to see what antiquities I could purchase among the
people who hold market there for medals, pictures and
such curiosities, as to hear the mountebanks prate and
distribute their medicines."

The five condemned men would next be carried
through the Via dei Canestrari and the Piazza S.
Eustachio to the Pantheon, and thence to the Piazza
Colonna (Plate 22). We are now in modern Rome,
where scarcely a trace is to be found of any dwelling
house that could claim to belong to the end of the
seventeenth century. Since Guido's time this part has
been altered beyond recognition. One would like to
know where the hairdresser's shop stood, and whether
the hairdresser, having closed her shop out of respect
to her friend, peeped out through a crack in the
shutter to see the last of the Tuscan nobleman who
had spent so many hours in her establishment and had
lied with such facile invention.

Last of all, the miserable company would enter the
Corso, where every window and balcony, and every
parapet on the roof, would be crowded with solemn

143

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

faces. It was not long since the carnival was over, when
the famous street had been filled with just as dense a
mob. Then the place rang with laughter and snatches
of song, then every face was radiant with smiles, while
the road was packed with gaily decked carriages filled
with men and women in brilliant costume. Now the
whole long road was silent. The only sound that
broke the tense, unnatural quiet was the jolting of
the wheels on the cobble stones, the shuffling of
feet, the sobbing of women, the chant of the priests.
In place of the line of dazzling equipages were five
rude carts drawn by coarse horses, while in place of
the chatting gallants and their ladies in silks and satins,
as gay in colour as the bouquets they tossed to their
friends, were five shabby, unshaven men in the garb of
field labourers, whose lips muttered inaudibly, and whose
eyes were never lifted from the crucifix held before
them.

In this, the last stage of the journey. Count Guido
would pass the little church in which he was married,
would pass the street in which his brother lived, and
would see before him the long, narrow lane, at the end
of which was the closely shuttered house where he had
stabbed his wife and the mother of his boy to death.

I found that to walk from the Carceri Nuove to the
Piazza del Popolo by the route followed by the con-
demned men occupied some thirty-five minutes. The
procession left the prison at 2 o'clock in the afternoon;
so that, taking all things into consideration, it may be
assumed that the piazza was reached about 3 p.m.

144

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10. THE PIAZZA DEL POPOLO

FEW places in Rome are better known to the stranger
than the Piazza del Popolo. Few places figure
with more certainty in the diaries of the old-world
traveller, for, before the railway came, this was the first
part of the Eternal City that met the eye of the pilgrim,
since all who journeyed to Rome from the north must
needs enter the city through the Porta del Popolo. Many
who had been on the road for weeks must have halted
in this piazza and, looking round with an air of satis-
faction, must have exclaimed, in any one of the lan-
guages of Europe, " And this is Rome ! "

The Piazza del Popolo can now claim to be the most
picturesque open space in the city (Plate 23). It forms
an oval area, with, on either side, to the west and east,
rising ground, so that it has the general aspect of an
amphitheatre possessing a level, oval-shaped arena. The
high ground to the east is the beautiful Monte Pincio,
the " Hill of Gardens," covered with trees, with firs
and palms, plane trees and ilex, and intersected by
many winding paths making their way to the summit
of the liill. The clean-cut, grey obelisk in the centre of
the piazza has stood on its present site for over three
hundred years, and it was in front of this imposing
monolith that the scafTolds were erected. The somewhat
ineffectual lions at the four corners of the platform are
of a later date. The steps between the four fountains
K M5

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

are a favourite meeting place for countrymen. Here
they rest on entering Rome, as they have done for
centuries past ; and here they gather when, at the close
of the day, they are about to start on the return journey
across the Campagna.

At the south end of the piazza stand the twin
churches of Santa Maria dei Miracoli and Santa Maria
di Monte Santo. These heavy, domed buildings, erected
in 1664, served to separate the three streets which
diverge from this side of the square. The street in the
centre is the famous Corso, leading to the Capitol, the
Forum and the Colosseum. The street on the right is
the Via di Ripetta, which follows, for a while, the bank
of the Tiber. The street on the left is the Strada
Paolina or Via del Babuino, where, at the corner of the
Via Vittoria, was the home of Pompilia. There are
ample steps leading up to the doors of the two churches,
and there can be little doubt that they were crowded
with spectators on that afternoon in February when the
five men were done to death in the centre of the arena.

On the opposite side of the piazza is the mighty
stone gate, the famous North Gate of Rome. It is
a singularly massive structure, dating from 1562, in
which there is an intolerable deal of masonry to ex-
ceeding little gate (Plate 26). It must have looked still
more overpowering at the time of the story, for the side
entries were not added until 1878. The stonework is
of a delicate drab colour, shaded with faint tints of
brown and yellow. The north side of the gate is
lavishly decorated with marble columns, marble tablets
and most copious inscriptions. On either side of the

centre gateway are two immense statues of solemn men.

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The Piazza del Popolo

Each holds a book in his hand, while on the face of
each is an expression of such vast vacuity as can only
be observed in the state known as senile dementia.

From the gate starts that very ancient road, the Via
Flaminia, which — straight as an arrow — makes for the
north, by Narni and Foligno, pushing on until it meets
the shores of the Adriatic at the old Umbrian town of
Rimini, which was the frontier fortress of Italy looking
towards Gaul.

It was through this gate that Guido and the four
slunk on the eve of the murder. It was through
this gate that they fled to gain the road to Tuscany.
Under this forbidding archwa}^ passed Caponsacchi and
Pompilia on their way from Castelnuovo to the great
prison in the Via Giulia. Guido, as he stood on the
scaffold, would face this stolid gateway. Through the
arch he could see the white road leading to his home
in Arezzo, and, where the road ended, the green country
around his brother's villa by the Ponte Milvio.

By the side of the gate is the beautiful Church of
Santa Maria del Popolo, together with the rambling
picturesque monastic buildings which cluster behind it
(Plate 25). The church was built in 1480, and has suffered
not a little from the merciless hands of the " restorer." A
considerable flight of steps leads up to its three green
doors, and on this stair a huge company, packed shoulder
to shoulder, must have gathered on the day of the
execution.

It is interesting to think how many remarkable per-
sonages, in years gone by, have walked up the steps of
Saint Mary of the People. There are two among them
who haunt the memory by reason of their incongruity:

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

a curious couple they make, a woman and a man. The
one, Lucrezia Borgia, considered by some to be so
vile as to be "outside the pale of humanity," who came
here, at the tender age of twenty-one, to offer thanks
to Almighty God for her betrothal to her third husband,
Alfonso d'Este. The other, Martin Luther, then a fer-
vent Popish priest of twenty-eight, who came hither —
just ten years later — to celebrate Mass in that Church to
the destruction of which he was destined to devote the
remainder of his life. It was in the Augustinian convent
adjoining Santa Maria del Popolo that Luther lived
during his sojourn in Rome.

The Piazza del Popolo at the time of the Frances-
chini tragedy was a rough, ill-cared-for open space, used
as a sort of caravanserai by those peasants, shepherds
and herdsmen who came into Rome from the country to
the north. Many a time the place must have been nearly
blocked with market-carts, pack mules and cattle. As
will be seen from the old print (Plate 24), the roads
were none too good, although the mass of ruins scattered
at the base of the obelisk have been introduced purely
for artistic effect. On the south side of the obelisk
was a plain fountain composed of three basins of di-
minishing size, placed one above the other. This
fountain is very exactly drawn in Antonio Tempesta's
map of 1664. It is also shown on a smaller scale in
Falda's plan (Plate 106). On the east side of the piazza,
at the foot of the Pincio, was a row of small houses
and barn-like structures, while the Pincio itself was
occupied by the monastery vineyard and gardens con-
nected with Santa Maria del Popolo. On the west side
of the square was a large walled garden and a few poor

148

The Piazza del Popolo

houses, while opposite the Church of St. Mary of the
People stood a low rambling cottage of exceptional
meanness.*

The large fountains on either side of the square,
between which Browning assumes that the execution
took place, t did not exist at this period.

The piazza was emphatically a Piazza of the People.
Here they met together as travellers meet at an inn, here
they gossiped and bargained, here they caroused, and
on occasion slept, and here, also on occasion, they were
hanged by the neck.

* An excellent engraving of the Piazza del Popolo is contained in Graevio's
"Thesaurus Antiquitatum Romanorum," published in 1696.
f Book I., line 359.

149

THE INN AT MERLUZZA

IMMEDIATELY after the murder in the Via
Vittoria, Guido 'and his hirehngs fled across the
Piazza del Popolo, and, passing through the Great
North Gate, made their way along the Flaminian Road
to the Ponte Milvio, the ancient bridge across the
Tiber. On the other side of the river was the vineyard
belonging to Guido's brother, the Abate Paolo, in the
villa of which the five wretched Tuscans had been
hiding all through Christmas. To this villa they re-
turned for a moment to collect such few belongings
as they had, and then made for the frontier by the
Via Cassia. They got as far as Merluzza on foot.
Here, utterly exhausted, they took shelter in an inn,
and here, at the break of dawn, they were discovered
and made prisoners.

The distance from the Porta del Popolo to the Ponte
Milvio is three kilometres (11 miles). The road is as
straight and as level as if it were ruled on a map, is
remarkably muddy when wet and remarkably dusty when
dry, is seamed by the rails of a tramway and punctuated
by the iron posts proper to the same. It passes through
an unfinished and undecided suburb, which is, in the
meantime, slatternly and woeful. There are factories
by the road that look prosperous, as well as squatter
shops, emerging from the shanty stage, that look hopeful ;
but there are also immense houses, unoccupied and in-

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complete, that to their innermost hollow re-echo to the
clatter of the passing tramcar. They remain as monu-
ments to an ambition that was never realised or to an
enterprise that failed. These partly built houses are
of such varied type that they give to the place the
aspect of an experimental street where builders' ventures,
failures and ideas are retained for reference or for
educational purposes.

Some way farther on, towards the bridge, the road
passes through a frowsy, mongrel land, a hybrid quarter,
part country, part town, such as is to be found on the
growing margin of every great city. Through a coarse
breach in the wall the stately garden, once as secluded
as a convent close, has been entered by the despoiler
from the town and has become a jungle of rotting weeds
and unutterable filth. Green hedges have been whittled
by street urchins into a starved row of crooked sticks,
waste paper is blown about in the place of rose petals,
while every tree trunk is plastered over with gaudy
posters which announce, as with the voice of a trumpet,
the virtues of a new liqueur. The green meadow, the
vineyard, the lady's pleasaunce have been desecrated
and defiled. The virginal sweet country has been pawed
over by the dirty hand of the satyr of the city, while
on either side are horrible waste places from which all
meaning and all association have vanished, so that they
are in the story of the land as vacant blots in a man's
memory.

Among the rubbish heaps, the picnic inns and the
beer gardens are just a few of the old low-roofed, squat
cottages left, still covered with creepers, still beautiful,
but so unhappy in their surroundings that it is merciful

151

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

to hope that they will soon be hacked to pieces to
make room for the less incongruous petrol store of
corrugated iron.

In Guido Franceschini's day this part of the Via
Flaminia presented only a few scattered houses, to-
gether with many gardens, stretching across the open
country.* Traces of these houses and of substantial
villas are still to be seen, while, no doubt, they were
interspersed with "wretched dwellings," as Signor
Silvagni maintains, for he describes the suburb out-
side the Porta del Popolo as "miserable."! The
suburb may have been miserable, but the road was
not unpicturesque. On one side of it now, for some
distance, is a bare yellow clifif hung with bushes, capped
by cypresses and riddled with romantic-looking caves,
some of which are still inhabited (Plate 27).

A little way along the road is an old and handsome
fountain with a water trough. It is in the classical
style, and lacks nothing in the way of marble tablet
and inscription (Plate 28). I cannot help thinking that
at this fountain Guido and his followers must have
stayed to quench their thirst on the night of January
2nd. It is a long run from the Via Vittoria, and
murdering is hot work. This is the first water they
would have come upon in their flight, for they would
never have dared to halt in the Piazza del Popolo
with the hue and cry resounding in the alarmed streets
behind them.

The Ponte Milvio, or Ponte Molle, is a handsome

* See for example the Plan of Rome given in Scoto's " Intinerario d'
Italia," published in Padua in 1670.

•j- " La Corte e la Societa Romana nei XVIII e XIX secoli."

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The Inn at Merluzza

grey bridge, with an imposing gateway of stone at the
north end which was not in existence in Guido's time.
The first bridge erected upon this spot was built in the
year 109 b.c. Some traces of the old foundations are
still to be seen, but the bridge took its present form
in 1805. Old prints, however, show that the Ponte
Milvio at the end of the seventeenth century was but
little different from the present structure (see Plates 29
and 30).

On the city side of the bridge is the queer little
Chapel of Saint Andrew, built in 1462 to commemorate
an occasion when the Pope, the cardinals, the priests
and monks of every degree, together with "the whole
population of Rome," came to the foot of the bridge
in solemn procession to receive a gift to the city.
The present was nothing more than a man's head —
a brown, shrivelled, mummified thing, in a box ;
but it was a part of no less a person than Saint
Andrew, and it had reached Rome after very vivid
adventures.

The Tiber here is a fine stream, not caerulean, as
Virgil describes it, nor yellow nor tawny, as Macaulay
makes it appear ; but a river of a sober, putty-colour,
flowing between banks of bare mud.

The actual village or hamlet at Ponte Milvio is
exceedingly depressing, especially in the winter time,
for it is given over entirely to conviviality of so un-
couth and squalid a type as to engender melancholy.
In England it would be classed as a Bank Holiday
resort. The sadness of the place lies in the fact that
it aims at being a rustic village, where the folk of the
city can enjoy the pleasures of the country ; but the

153

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

country is shabby and out at elbows, and cannot be
made pastoral by a few crude pergolas and some
painted arbours. In this Arcadia, Strephon and
Amaryllis are decked, not with garlands and wreaths,
but with papier-machd noses and paper hats, while the
shepherd's pipe is replaced by the concertina, and the
gambols of the lamb by the performing clown.

Beyond the bridge, and behind the would-be-joyous
village, is the rim of rising ground which forms the
fringe of the Roman Campagna. This is a beautiful
belt of green hillocks covered with trees, of gardens
and prim villas, w^here from any clearing can be seen
the vast figure of the city of Rome, with — towering
above it — the basilica of St. Peter's in the Vatican.

It was somewhere in this pleasant belt by the
river-side that the Abate Paolo had his vineyard, and
here was the little house among the vines where his
brother and the four murderers hid themselves during
the dismal Christmas that preceded the tragedy in the
Via Vittoria.

At the Ponte Milvio two ancient highways take
their departure for the north. The road to the right
is the Via Flaminia, which — as already stated — runs
due north across the country until it meets the shores
of the Adriatic at Rimini. The road was built in the
year 220 B.C., by the Consul Flaminius, by the same
Flaminius who, a few years later (217 B.C.), was defeated
by Hannibal at the disastrous battle of Lake Trasimene.
It was by this very highway that the news of the
annihilation of the Roman army and of the death of
the great road-maker reached Rome. By this road
came Pompilia and Caponsacchi in their flight from

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The Inn at Merluzza

Arezzo, while less than fourteen miles along the way from
the Ponte Milvio is the little town of Castelnuovo,
which was the scene of the most dramatic episode in
the story of the Franceschini.

The road to the left is the Via Cassia, another old
Roman highway. It runs north-west by Baccano,
Viterbo, Bolsena, Orvieto and Chiusi to Arezzo and
Florence. It is a less easy road than the Via Flaminia,
and in olden times was comparatively little used except
by horsemen and mule teams. Travellers on the way
to Rome from northern Europe came more usually by
the Via Flaminia, or, as it was commonly called, the
" Consular Road."

It was by the Via Cassia that Guido and his
associates fled in their attempt to reach the Tuscan
frontier. The road had every attraction. Although
rough and hilly, it was the most direct road to Arezzo,
and was the way that those who travelled on foot would
naturally take. Moreover, it was less frequented, while
for some miles after leaving Rome it crossed a very
desolate part of the Campagna.

The road passes through a singularly bare country,
almost untenanted, where for miles the traveller may
not come upon a single habitation of man. The first
place reached by the fugitives along the road was the
little hamlet of La Storta, which is nine miles north of
the city. Here is a post-house, the first out of Rome.
Here Guido, in the depth of the night in January,
hammered at the door, aroused the landlord and
demanded horses for himself and his company. He
probably knocked upon the door with the handle of
the dagger which was still wet with the blood of

»55

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Pompilia, and probably, too, the landlord, as he parleyed
from an upper window, was a little alarmed at the
appearance of five bedraggled men, in the garb of vine-
dressers, who stood before the door panting for breath,
and who were very free with their curses when horses
were declined until the necessary permit could be
produced. The five would stand out clearly enough
before the eye of the housewife if she peeped through
the shutter, for it was a bright night, and only three
days after the full moon.* This midnight halt at La
Storta forms one of the vivid scenes in the story — the
sleeping village, the long black shadows cast by the
moon across the white road, the gaunt figure of Guido
Franceschini knocking at the barred door, and his
four companions in a group behind him, faint with
fatigue, fanning their dripping foreheads, or stoop-
ing forwards to gain breath with their hands on their
knees.

La Storta has probably altered but little since the
time when Guido halted there on that winter's night.
It is a pleasant little hamlet, consisting of a few old
dwellings, a large farmhouse and the ancient inn. The
inn is a low building, of no mean size, with a portico
facing the road, and with ample outhouses and stables
clustered around it. It is still a busy place, for it is an
inn of excellent repute. Inscriptions painted on the
wall announce that it provides choice wines, beer and
mineral waters, as well as fresh eggs and garden produce.
It, furthermore, is furnished with " saloons for banquets,"
Stripped of its modern plaster and its paint, it would
appear once more as the old post-house which has so

* The full moon fell on December 30th, 1697.

62. — PERUGIA: A DARK ENTRY

The Inn at Merluzza

rejoiced the hearts of travellers in centuries gone by,
for La Storta is the last stage in the journey to Rome
(Plate 31).

La Storta is an oasis in the Campagna, and when
well clear of the hamlet the features of this open country
can be well appreciated. It is a wide, undulating land,
naked and bleak, immense, monotonous, and in colour
a weary, faded green. This is the Campagna in January.
In the spring it is a little brightened by flowers. In
the summer, again, it is parched and brown. On all
sides, for miles and miles, is the same vast ocean of
waving downs, smooth as a heaving sea when the wind
has dropped, without a house in sight and relieved only
by occasional trees, by some stretches of wood, by a few
green glens, by deep gullies which recall the dongas on
the South African veldt, and by the long white, hedge-
less road. "What do you think the famous Campagna
is like?" writes the cheery de Brosses, who saw this
vast grass-land in the winter. "It consists of a suc-
cession of sterile hillocks, deserted, uncultured, most
dreary and intensely miserable." The Earl of Perth,
who crossed the Campagna in May and had an eye for
picturesque scenery, could see nothing in this vast
panorama "but wild, uncultivated collines." Those
who are familiar with this district in the winter can
quite believe that one hundred years and more ago it
was haunted, as Silvagni asserts, by brigands, rogues
and vagabonds, as well as infested by wolves.

Just beyond La Storta, and to the right of the road,
there is a remarkable part of the Campagna, which,
while it would not interest Guido and his friends,
may be lingered over for a moment. It can best be

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book'^

described in the words of George Dennis* : "A wide
sweep of thie Campagna lies before us, in this part
broken into ravines or narrow glens, which, by varying
the lines of the landscape, redeem it from the monotony
of a plain, and by patches of wood relieve it of its
usual nakedness and sterility. On a steep clif¥, about
a mile distant, stands the village of Isola — a village in
fact, but in appearance a large chateau, with a few
outhouses around it. Behind it rises the long, swelling
ground which once bore the walls, temples and palaces of
Veii, but is now a bare down, partly fringed with wood,
and without a single habitation on its surface. . .
Such is Veii — once the most powerful, the most wealthy
city of Etruria, renowned for its beauty, its arts and
refinement, which in size equalled Athens and Rome,
and in military force was not inferior to the latter —
now void and desolate, without one house or habitant,
its temples and palaces level with the dust, and nothing
beyond a few fragments of walls and some empty
sepulchres remaining to tell the traveller that here
Veii was." And yet it was from Veii that a host of
fighting-men poured forth to join Lars Porsena of
Clusium when he made his march on Rome and was
met by Horatius and his comrades at the bridge.

As has already been stated (p. 74), the five mur-
derers, after the rebuff at La Storta, found refuge in an
inn which is described in the Yellow Book as "a few
miles from Rome," and more precisely as the tavern of
Merluzza, in the direction of Baccano. Now Merluzza,
or Merlazza, finds a place on the map on the Via Cassia
at exactly 24 kilometres (or 14J miles) from Rome — that

* " The Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria." Vol. I., chap. I.

The Inn at Merluzza

is to say, between five and six miles beyond La Storta.
When this particular point of tlie road is reached it
will be discovered that Merluzza is not a village, is not
even a hamlet, but is the name simply of a district of the
Campagna. One kilometre beyond it is an isolated and
ancient watch tower, the Torre del Bosco, a grey, spectral
tower, standing in a spinney, like a pillar of salt ; while
beyond again — just 4 kilometres from Merluzza — is the
curious Valley of Baccano, at one time the crater of a
volcano, now a green basin surrounded by a smoothly
moulded amphitheatre of hills.

Now at Merluzza there is one solitary house, and
that a very ancient one. It stands on the left-hand side
of the road. It is not only alone, but there is no other
house in sight. This building is prominently placed, for
it occupies the top of a hill or ridge on the side towards
Rome. This high ground has an elevation of 810 feet,
and thus it is that the solitary house can be seen from afar
by any who follow the Via Cassia out of Rome. The
country at Merluzza is singularly desolate and bleak, but
the view from the height is magnificent, for it commands
the whole of the Campagna up to the walls of Rome,
while at the end of the vast grey plain there stands up
against the skyline, like a dot of cloud, the great dome
of St. Peter's.

The solitary house at Merluzza is now practically
derelict ; but it was at one time an inn, and there can
be no doubt that it was within the walls of this lonely
tavern that Guido and the four were arrested at the break
of dawn on January 3rd, 1698. From the isolated posi-
tion of the inn, on a height in the open Campagna, it is
probable that its grimy walls were not unacquainted with

159

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

rogues and vagabonds ; so that Guido, stained though he
was with blood and dirt, would feel assured of at least a
cautious welcome. The house is of good size and is
very substantially built of stone. It presents an upper
floor the rooms of which are small and low. A crumb-
ling stone stair leads to the main door, which opens on to
the road. There are two other doorways, on the south
side of the house, which look towards Rome. They are
surmounted by round arches of stone, are flanked by
stone pilasters, and are evidently of considerable age
(Plate 32). From the general aspect of the house one
would gather that, even in Franceschini's time, it was a
building which had been long familiar to the passer-by.
Standing in front of this melancholy tavern, early in
the morning of a day in January, I found it easy to recall
the scene in the road for which it had formed the back-
ground two centuries ago. In the highway would be
the group of dazed and sullen prisoners tied to their
horses and surrounded by a guard of police. On the
steps before the door of the inn would be the distracted
landlord, very scantily dressed, whose sympathy with the
ill-fortune of his late guests would be tempered by a sense
of the suspicion which had fallen upon his house ; while
from the upper windows the women of the inn, hastily
aroused, would be watching the movements of the
strange company. If Guido turned his gaze towards the
south, he would see on the fringe of the plain the city of
Rome made rose-coloured by the light of the rising
sun, and would wonder what fate awaited him within
its gentle-looking walls.

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AREZZO

"A REZZO'S but a little place," writes Robert
r-\ Browning in "The Ring and the Book."
Little it certainly is when compared with Rome
or Florence, but it has a population of over sixteen
thousand people, and it may be doubted if at any
period within historical times its roll of citizens has
been less than now. Arezzo is one of the venerable
cities of Italy, having been famous as Arretium, one of
the twelve towns of the great Etruscan Federation.
It was here that the Consul Flaminius, the road-maker,
had his camp on the eve of the fatal battle of Lake
Trasimene. Arezzo was never tired of fighting. In
the bloody quarrel between the Guelphs and Ghibel-
lines the men of Arezzo were at all times in the thick
of it. They spent their leisure in the making of red
pottery, which became famous the world over ; but on
the sound of alarm they kicked over the potter's
wheel and rushed to the ramparts with the clay still
red on their hands.

The town lies near the end of a vast level plain,
the Val di Chiana, on a slight hillock or slope at the
foot of the Alpe di Poti. Behind, and at a respectful
distance, stand the Etruscan Apennines, the Alpe di
Catenaja and the " Mountains of the Moon." Arezzo
is excellently placed. Viewed from afar, it appears as a
low, dome-shaped mass of houses from the unassuming

L l6l

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

summit of which rise the quaint campanile of Capon-
sacchi's church, Santa Maria della Pieve, the bell-tower
of the Palazzo Communale and the long roof of the
Cathedral.

Arezzo is now, as it always has been, a walled city.
It is confined within the limits of its ancient fortifica-
tions. Up to its very walls creeps the artless country.
Those who lean over the ramparts look down upon
growing corn or upon olive trees, or in the winter
time upon oxen ploughing. Only in one place has
the city broken out of its long-respected boundaries.
This is at the San Spirito Gate, where is a disorderly
suburb. The houses seem to have rushed out of the
town, as schoolboys dash out of school, and to have
disposed themselves in untidy groups along the Perugia
Road. Arezzo is proud of many things — of its blood-
thirstiness in the past, of its red pottery, of Petrarch,
the sweet singer, and of Guido Monaco, the inventor
of musical notation, both of whom were born within
its gates; but it is prouder still of its fine, upstanding
walls. These walls are very motherly in the way in
which they enfold the city in their arms and, at the
same time, very defiant in the stern front they present
to the open plain. They are built of small square
stones, and are in perfect preservation, although they date
from a remote period in the Middle Ages.

The town is as pleasant a one as is to be found in
the whole of Umbria. It is clean, prim and cheery,
and full of memories of old days. The main street,
the Corso, mounts up from the San Spirito Gate, past
the Church of the Pieve, to the top of the town, where

are the Duomo and the Palazzo Communale. This

162

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Arezzo

high street is always bustling and full of life. The
houses, like the shops, have been much modernised, so
that those who enter Arezzo from the Perugia Road
find themselves in a bright, up-to-date little city. This
modern aspect, however, is limited to the Corso. The
rest of the town is quiet, comparatively empty and
almost wholly mediaeval. The streets between the
Corso and the walls are paved, narrow and full of
shade because the buildings are high, while they wander
about among the quaint old houses as if they had lost
their way.

The town in its general disposal and appearance
can have altered but little since the days of the story.
Pompilia would find her way to the San Clemente Gate
without missing a turning and without seeing a great
deal that would be new to her. Even old Pietro
Comparini — if he could come to life again — would
have no great difficulty in following the devious lanes
and by-ways that led to his favourite tavern. Many of
the houses in the old town are very dignified, a few are
magnificent and nearly all present some feature which
makes them picturesque. I have failed to discover
where the Franceschini Palace stood, but there are
houses enough which would fit, in varying detail, with
one's conception of that melancholy dwelling. One
such house is shown, on the left-hand side of the
roadway, in Plate 34, while the lane itself would be
just such a one as Caponsacchi strolled through on the
eventful occasion when he dropped the handkerchief
(p. 43). There are many walled gardens within the
little town, many unexpected squares and strange entries,
the beautiful Abbey of San Fiore and nearly half a score

163

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

of churches, all centuries old, which have altered in
no essential since the time when Pompilia went sobbing
along the street to seek comfort from the bishop. The
little countess would find the Piazza Grande scarcely-
changed at all since the time when she loitered in the
cool shadows of Vasari's Logge to admire the Madonna
over the great doorway of the Brotherhood of Pity,
and yet the Madonna was already two hundred years
old when Pompilia first came to Arezzo.

Within the cathedral she would see little that was
not wholly familiar, and could look once more upon

"Those lancet-windows' jewelled miracle'';

but the outside of the building she would notice to be
somewhat changed ; for although the faqade was com-
menced in 1277, its completion — so leisurely have been
the builders — was not undertaken until 1901.

The most picturesque church in Arezzo is Capon-
sacchi's church, Santa Maria della Pieve. It stands at
the top of the Corso, just at the point where the shops
cease and where the road becomes narrow and steep,
and strangely quiet (Plate 35). The crude, rough, square
campanile, with its storeys of round-headed windows, was
built in 1216, and has been for just upon seven hundred
years a familiar landmark in the valley. It is an im-
pressive symbol of simplicity and rugged strength. The
fagade of the church was erected at the same time as
the great bell-tower, and is as delicate, as richly adorned,
as feminine as the tower is plain, masculine and lusty.
This western front of the church presents four storeys of
arcades, where pillar and arch are made beautiful by most
exquisite masons' v/ork. The stone is grey with age and

164

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Arezzo

very weather-worn, while so narrow is the road and so
lofty the church that this vast front would appear to
have been chiselled out of the face of a cliff.

Above the central door of the church is the figure
of the Virgin, clad in a very fine embroidered gown
with long sleeves and with a crown on her head.
Through this door must have passed at one time or
another all the chief actors in the story : Count Guido
and his shrinking wife, Caponsacchi and the genial
Conti, Donna Beatrice and the false Maria Margherita
Contenti, the Abate Paolo with the foxy face, Violante
Comparini and old Pietro, Venerino from the Canale
Inn, and possibly also the four murderers when they
made a Sabbath day's journey from Vitiano to their
master's town (Plate 36).

In the archivolt above the Madonna are some quaintly
carved figures illustrating the months of the year. These
cannot fail to have interested Pompilia as she walked
under the archway. If one recalls the details and seasons
of the story certain of these little figures are curiously
apt. For example, April gathers a flower, and it may
be that Caponsacchi would remember this conceit and
glory in it during the dull hours of his banishment. May
takes a journey on horseback, and one wonders if the
road traversed lay between Arezzo and Rome ? Decem-
ber is engaged in killing a pig, and from records one
knows that Guido regarded Violante as something lower
than a pig.

The interior of the Pieve is peculiarly impressive.
Most of the churches in Italy are too lavishly decorated
within, are overlaid with gilt and brilliant colours, are
adorned with images and pictures, are hung with vast

165

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

candelabra and present a number of side chapels which
vie with one another in gaudy magnificence. Here is a
church superb in its simplicity and as austere as a great
hall in a fortress. It is entirely free from all decoration,
from monuments, from pictures and from ornate furni-
ture. It is wholly grey, for there is not a patch of
colour in it. The grey may be deepened by shadow or
brightened by a ray of sun ; it may vary in tint as the
stone is smooth in one place or made rough by decay
in another, but it is always grey. On each side of the
huge nave are grey stone pillars of enormous height.
The altar is raised upon a platform, so that it seems
to occupy the dais in a judgment hall ; the immense
paved floor is absolutely bare, and, indeed, the sole
evidence of the human presence on the occasion of
my first visit was a solitary chair against the wall with
a white surplice thrown over it. It is no wonder if
Pompilia was oppressed with the profound solemnity
of this place, with its ascetic harshness, its coldness,
its cavernous gloom. It was so utterly unlike her own
particular church in Rome— the gay, bright, much
gilded, much painted little Church of San Lorenzo in
Lucina. It can be understood how it was that after
a long service in this severe basilica she felt, when
she stepped out into the sunshine again, that she
must run away, and why it was that she fled to the
bishop to beg him help her to escape.

Outside the entrance to Santa Maria della Pieve
is a paved terrace with a stone balustrade around it
(Plate 36). It is a favourite lounging place when the
service of the church is over, because it commands a

view of the Corso both up and down the hill, and allows

1 66

66. DISTANT VIEW OF THE CHURCH OF ST. MARY
OF THE ANGELS.

67.— ASSIST, FROM THE CHURCH OF SAN FRANCESCO.

Arezzo

of a scrutiny of the worshippers as they disperse at the
terrace steps. No gossiping is more keenly favoured
than that which engages the Httle groups outside a
church while the congregation is pouring forth, and
while the smell of incense still hangs in the air. Many
a gaping youth must have waited shyly on this terrace
to see the little countess go by with her boor of a
husband, for there is no doubt that the Franceschini
household was the subject of much comment.

Opposite the church is an old stone building of
some pretence, which was once the Canale Inn. It
was here that Caponsacchi obtained the horses for the
journey, as well as the services of the driver, Francesco
Borsi, otherwise Venerino, who was destined to spend
so many months in the city jail. This ancient house
is now an old curiosity shop, but it shows still the
great arched doorway of the tavern and the liberal
proportions of the place. The entrance leads into a
huge, heavy apartment, which one may assume was
the common room of the inn. From the fine row of
windows on the first floor it is to be gathered that the
upper rooms of the house are of no mean proportions
(Plate 37).

So far as the present matter is concerned, the chief
interest in Arezzo is associated with the particulars of
the flight of Pompilia and the priest. It will be re-
membered that they escaped on the night of the last
Sunday in April, 1697, or rather early on the morning
of Monday, the 29th, because it was not until after
midnight that Pompilia crept out of her husband's
house. Venerino, with a carriage and two horses from

the Canale Inn, had left the town on Sunday evening,

167

The Country of "The Ring and the Book'*

before the gates were closed, and was instructed to be
in waiting for the fugitives outside the San Clemente
Gate. The particular time for the flight was not ill
arranged. Easter was well over, for in the year 1697
Easter Day fell on April 14th. The night was dark,
since the moon was just approaching its first quarter.
By the use of the Metonic Cycle it appears that the
day of the new moon was April 23rd, so that before
the carriage was well on the road the moon, with its
feeble light, would have set.

Now the direct way to Rome was by the Perugia
Road, which leaves the south part of the town at the
San Spirito Gate. The question at once arises why
did Caponsacchi order the carriage to be in waiting at
the San Clemente Gate, which is at the north end of
the town, and at the farthest possible point from the
Perugia Road ? The answer is clear — the city gates
were all closed, and at some spot or another the wall
had to be scaled. Now, the walls of Arezzo are of con-
siderable height, and at the San Spirito Gate are as
impossible to climb on the inside as they are on the
outside. The Yellow Book, however, says, " As the
gates of the city were closed, they climbed the wall
on the hill of the Torrione, and having reached the
Horse Inn, outside the Gate San Clemente, they were
there awaited by a two-horse carriage."

The San Clemente Gate is a plain, simple gate,
with one entrance only, closed by massive and ancient
wooden doors. The stonework of the gate has been
restored, but the general features of the entry are un-
disturbed. Beyond the gate is the open country ; in-
deed, the cornfields and the olive trees come up to

1 68

Arezzo

the very foot of the walL It so happens that there is an
inn just outside the gate, but it is quite modern, while
of the Horse Inn of Pompilia's time no trace is to be
found (Plate 38).

Standing inside the town, it will be noticed that
the wall to the left of the gate is as high and as sheer
on the side of the city as it is on the side that looks
outwards. On the right hand of the gate, however,
the ground within the town rises in the form of a hill,
so that the summit of the wall can be reached to within
a few feet (see Plate 39). No trace of this hill exists
outside the ramparts.

At the top of this hill a great bastion stands out
from the face of the main wall (see Map 33 and
Plate 40). Its purpose is obviously to protect the San
Clemente Gate. On the top of the bastion are certain
masses of masonry, which shows that it was once sur-
mounted by a tower or defensive work of some kind.
This is the Torrione, or Great Tower, and the hill that
leads up to it within the wall is the "Hill of the
Torrione" mentioned in the Yellow Book. It will
be seen from Plate 40 that there is a window on one
face of the bastion which evidently lit some room in
the base of the tower. It is apparent from the illus-
trations that there would be no difficulty to-day in
climbing the wall at the Torrione at the point where it
was scaled by the young countess and the able-bodied
priest (Plate 41). The drop on the other side of the
wall, however, is very considerable, and one can only
suppose that at the time of the flight there must have
been some heaps of rubbish outside the wall, made up
possibly of stones from the ruined or dismantled tower.

169

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

The top of this bastion, or tower, is singularly pictur-
esque, for the irregular masses of stone are overgrown
with weeds, and these, together with a cluster of bushes,
have converted the old stronghold into a wild garden. A
garrison, and a strong garrison, still holds this redoubt,
inasmuch as the garden is given over to bees. Scattered
everywhere among the green are hives. Some of these
aim at reproducing the frame hive of the modern bee-
keeper, but the greater number of them are hives of a
kind that Pompilia would be familiar with, for they are
made of a log of rough wood hollowed out, and provided
at one end with an entrance for the bees. These uncouth,
archaic log hives are no doubt more ancient than even
the humble skep.

A road runs round outside the town from the San
Clemente Gate to the Porta San Spirito, and this is the
road the fugitives followed. The San Spirito Gate has
been pulled down and has been replaced by a barrier,
rather notable for its ugliness, called the Barriera Vittorio
Emanuele. So both the old gate and the old name have
gone to meet the needs of modern "improvements."

170

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IV
THE FLIGHT TO ROME

1. THE ROAD

THE distance from Arezzo to Rome by Foligno
and the Via Flaminia is 154f miles. There are
other roads, of course, between the city and the
Tuscan town. The shortest is by Todi and Narni, but
it does not seem to have been what the ItaUans call
"carriageable" at the end of the seventeenth century.
Another road — and an old road — is by way of Chiusi and
Orvieto. This road was apparently not much used in the
past, as is evident from the narratives of travellers who
were visiting Italy about the time with which the story is
concerned. I have made trial of these routes between
Arezzo and Rome, and can affirm that, in the light of
modern requirements, the Foligno Road is the most
agreeable and, on the whole, the most easy. The
road is described in the Yellow Book as "the shortest
route" and is spoken of as "the Consular Road" —
the road, that is, made by the Consul Flaminius
(p. 154). The Via Flaminia comes down from Rimini,
and joins the Perugia Road at Foligno. Foligno
was an important point in the route of flight, because
the two runaways were charged with having spent
the night together in that town on their way to
Rome.

The Flaminian Road was the one almost invariably

followed by travellers who were seeking the Eternal

171

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

City from the northern parts of Europe. De Brosses
made use of it on his return journey from Rome because,
in his opinion, "the route from Siena to Rome was
simply infamous." Father Montfaucon, who travelled
from Rome to Arezzo in March, 1700, took this road
and occupied nine days on the journey, one Sunday
being necessarily included.*

The Earl of Perth after his long imprisonment in
Stirling Castle pursued this road on his way to Rome
in the spring of 1695. t

Goethe, too, when he visited Rome in October,
1786, came by Arezzo, Perugia, Foligno and Civita
Castellana. It is noteworthy that the carriage journey
from Perugia to Rome occupied him no less than six
days, although he travelled in haste, since his " anxiety
to see Rome was so great. "+ This will serve to show
at what exceptional speed the journey of Pompilia and
the priest was carried out. More interesting still is the
fact that Robert Browning and his wife made the journey
from Florence to Rome by way of Assisi and Terni in
the winter of 1854. § This was six years before the
Yellow Book came into the poet's possession. They
travelled, of course, by carriage, and were eight days
on the road. The more direct route from Florence
to Rome is by Siena and Radicofani, but they were
probably anxious to avoid the hills in the neighbour-
hood of those towns. It is not clear whether the

* "The Travels of the learned Father Montfaucon." London, 171 2.
t "Letters of James, Earl of Perth." London, Camden Society, 1845.
I "Goethe's Travels in Italy." London, 1885, p. 114.
§ " Life of Robert Browning." By Mrs. Sutherland Orr. London,
1891.

172

69.— THE OLD POSTING-HOUSE AT SANTA MARIA DEGLI ANGELI,
Showing the Church in the distance.

The Road

Brownings reached Assisi by Chiusi or by Arezzo,
but certain it is that for the greater part of the
journey they followed, unknowingly, the footsteps of
Pompilia.

The details of the journey from Arezzo to Rome by
the route followed by Caponsacchi are to be gathered
from sundry road books dealing with this part of Italy.
The two most convenient of these books are " Direzione
pe' Viaggiatori in Italia," by Gio. Sassi, published at
Bologna in 1771, and "La Vera Guida per chi Viaggia
in Italia," issued in Rome, in Italian and French, in
1787. Although these works are of later date than the
period with which, we are concerned, they are of prac-
tical service, since posting-stations, being determined by
the position of towns and villages and the capacity of
the post-horse, cannot have varied much since even
earlier times. This is made evident by the " Itinerario
d'ltalia," by Francesco Scoto, published in Padua in
1670, where the posting-road from Perugia to Rome
is precisely as here given, although the names of two
or three of the stations are modified. The two guides
above named are provided w4th road maps, which are
not unlike the motor road maps of the present day,
save in this, that they show where the traveller can
obtain horses in the place of petrol. They give some
account of the road, and of places of interest by the
way (Plates 49 and 75).

"La Vera Guida" is singularly complete in its in-
formation. It commicnces with two prayers, which it
recommends as suitable for the traveller. It then em-
barks upon some very serious moral advice, in which
the reader is urged to avoid people of depraved morals,

i73

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

to decline to play cards with strangers, and not to make
acquaintances lightly. Very elaborate instructions are
given on the subject of highwaymen and footpads, and
on the course to be pursued when the traveller en-
counters either wolves or bears. It is pointed out,
with all the appearance of originality, that a provision
of money is necessary, and that a little knowledge of
surgery, with something more than a speculative know-
ledge of diseases, is useful. The book is not one to be
recommended 'to the nervous tourist. The reader is
advised, before entering his carriage, to take ^^ quelque
corroboratif pour fortifier son estomac,^' as the jolting
which is inevitable engenders vomiting ; and is implored,
when he sleeps in the open, to see that he is not ex-
posed to the rays of the moon, as such exposure may
cause him to become insane. Some pages are occu-
pied with counsel as to the treatment of the driver or
postilion. These sections, which are very full, were
evidently written by a shrewd man of the world, who
had no mean knowledge of stable hands. His method
of dealing with impertinence in underlings is worthy of
a diplomatist.

Along the road were certain post-stations, where
alone horses, either for riding or for the carriage, could
be obtained. The journey, therefore, resolved itself
into a question of the various halting places, and of
the distances between them. The actual number of
miles between one station and the next varied con-
siderably. It might be about six miles, as from Prima
Porta to Rome, or about seventeen miles, as from Arezzo
to Camoscia. The journey, however, was reckoned not
by miles but by so many " posts," each post representing

174

The Road

the same definite payment for the hire of horses. Thus,
the journey from Prima Porta to Rome was reckoned
as one post, the journey from Arezzo to Camoscia as
a post and a half, and that from Civita Castellana to
Borghetto, a distance of three and three-quarter miles,
as three-quarters of a post.

The actual distance represented by a "post" varied
considerabl}^ and was to some extent influenced by
the character of the road. The average distance was
about eight miles. In the same district of Italy, one
journey of eight posts represents sixty-two miles, while
another journey of eight posts covers only fifty-four miles.
The first stage traversed on leaving any capital town was
called a " Posta Reale," and was charged at the rate
of a post and a half.

The distance from Arezzo to Castelnuovo by the
road in question is 138| miles, the posting-stations on
the way, at which the horses were changed, are four-
teen in number, while the number of "posts" the
traveller would be required to pay amounts to fifteen
and a half. These matters are set forth on p. 178. The
charge for horses per post varied in Italy from fifteen
to eight paoli, according to the country traversed.
This represented the payment for the horses only,
and did not include any part of the charge for the
carriage, the postilion, or the driver. Pompilia in
her flight passed through only two countries, viz.
Tuscany and the States of the Church. In both these
parts of Italy the charge per post for two carriage
horses was eight paoli or Pauls.*

The value of the paolo may be put down as five-

* The charge for one saddle horse was three paoli.

'75

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

pence ; the amount, therefore, that Caponsacchi would
be required to pay for post-horses between Arezzo and
Castelnuovo would amount to about £2 10s. in English
currency of the present day.

The carriage used in the flight is described as a
"calesse," or " covered carriage." The calash, as it is
termed in English, is a light carriage with low wheels,
capable of seating four persons inside, and with a
separate seat for the driver. It is provided with a
covering or hood, which was in some examples fixed,
in others capable of being removed. The calesse, or
calash, is shown in many old prints and pictures belong-
ing to the period of the story.* The awning or canopy
is supported by four uprights, is square and very often
dome-topped. In some instances the driver sits within
the canopy, and could, therefore, see the occupants of
the carriage. In other forms of the calesse the
driver's seat is outside the awning, which then
covered in the carriage on four sides. If it was in
such a calesse that the priest and the lady travelled,
it is clear that the testimony of Venerino, the driver,
on the matter of the kissing is rendered still less
convincing.

The distance from Arezzo to Castelnuovo is, as
already stated, 138f miles. Assuming that the two
fugitives left Arezzo at 1 a.m. on the morning of
Monday, April 29th, and reached Castelnuovo at 7 p.m.
on the evening of Tuesday, the 30th, the journey would
have occupied them forty-two hours. If they travelled
without stopping the whole way, a pace of a little

* See for example the plates in the " Itinerario d'ltalia," by Scoto, published
in Padua, 1670.

176

70. -THE TOWN WALI. OF SFELLO AND THE
rOLIGNO ROAD.

The Road

over three miles an hour would be involved, but
allowing that they stopped one hour at each of the
fourteen posting-stations passed on the road, then
the pace would be represented by about five miles
an hour.

It is doubtful if, in actual fact, they went quite
so fast. The roads were mediaeval, and although for
a considerable part of the journey the way was fairly
level, there were a number of serious hills to be
climbed. Guido, who pursued the runaways on horse-
back, reached Castelnuovo some nine or ten hours
after they did, yet, although mounted, the pace at which
he travelled could hardly have exceeded that of the
couple in the carriage. If it be assumed that Pompilia's
escape was not discovered by the household until
about seven in the morning, she would have gained a
start of six hours. Then would follow a hurried
family council en deshabille, and the scurry of mes-
sengers sent hither and thither to find out in which
direction the little countess had fled. Finally, a posting
permit and a horse had to be obtained, a sum of
money had to be got together, and other preparations
made for a long and indefinite journey. It is probable,
therefore, that it was not until some nine or ten hours
after Pompilia had stepped out into the street on
tiptoe that Guido thundered through the San Spirito
Gate on his way to Rome.

The following are the post-stations between Arezzo
and Castelnuovo, together with the distance in English
miles between each halting-place and the number
of "posts" the traveller would have to pay at the
various stages.

M ,77

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Arezzo to —

MILES

POSTS CHARGED

Camoscia

• • ■ • •

Torricella

• • • • •

Perugia

• • • • <

Madonna degli Angeli

Foligno

Vene

Spoleto

Strettura

Terni

Narni

Otricoli

Borghetto

Civita Castellana

Rignano

Castelnuovo ....

138I

1 51

178

2. FROM AREZZO TO PERUGIA

THE road from Arezzo to Foligno, and, indeed,
right on to Spoleto, a distance of over eighty
miles, may be described as practically level,
since it follows a succession of plains which are only
for a moment interrupted by the tumbled country
which lies between Lake Trasimene and Perugia. To
the left of the road, and quite near to it for most of
the way, are the foothills of the Apennines ; while
to the right is the vast even plain which in some
places, on a misty day, appears to be as boundless as
the ocean. This is what Goethe terms " the splendid
plain of Arezzo." Splendid it certainly is in its im-
mensity and in the solid mass of colour that fills it
— a vivid green in the spring, a grey umber in the
winter time.

The country is in good heart, for every acre of
the huge expanse is elaborately cultivated ; all the
woods have been cut down ; all the rough places made
smooth ; with the result that the land has become
like a great garden, prim, formal, artificial, and, it
must be owned, to some degree monotonous. A vine-
yard in full leaf, under an Italian sun, is a beautiful
object; but when that vineyard extends for eighty
miles, or is only broken here and there by a league
or so of olive trees, the eye wearies of it and the

mind is dulled by satiation.

179

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

The vine in this quarter of Italy is grown, for the
most part, on trees, on mulberry trees or on some
form of maple. These trees are made slaves of, are
trees of burden, whose sole purpose in life is to pro-
vide spreading branches for the vine to cling to. They
are pruned to the limits of deformity, are robbed of
any character of freedom or joyous living, and are
more like rustic candelabra, fashioned out of gnarled
wood, than trees. In the winter time, when the vine
is a mere distorted stick, these trees look like skeleton
hands coming out of the earth, with horribly knotted
fingers and long lean wrists. They are then unpleasant
to look upon, being so misshapen, so mutilated, so
tortured, so untree-like.

At the commencement of May, at the time when
Pompilia passed along the road, the vines are at their
loveliest. They are by no means fully grown, and
are, indeed, only just beginning to form festoons
from tree to tree ; but the leaves are wonderful, being
in tint a light yellowish green, as if each leaf had
been dipped in gold. They appear to be almost trans-
lucent, and to cast no shadow, to be almost luminous,
so that even when the sky is clouded they seem to
reflect the sun. These vines stand knee-deep in young
corn, and among the corn will be scarlet poppies.

The crops that, in squares and alleys and lanes,
cover every segment of the ground, are at their
prettiest, for the peas and the beans are in flower,
while everything that grows is young, luscious, sprightly
and eager, and every stream and rivulet is full. In
this carnival of spring in Italy is to be seen, spread

out like a carpet on the earth, every tint of green that

1 80

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From Arezzo to Perugia

the mind of a painter ever imagined, from the lettuce
green of the baby crop to the sturdy middle-aged green
of the bay tree and the wizened green of the ancient,
shrunken, patriarchal olive. The young leaves of the
poplar tree are of so pallid a green that they appear to
be lit by moonlight, while the leaves of the acanthus
are of so deep a hue that one imagines they will be
black by the autumn.

As a relief to this flood of green there will be
a few patches of chocolate-brown earth, still unsown, a
field of claret-coloured clover, a mound of yellow
broom, a dome of white acacia trees in blossom,
a little stone town on a hill, a red-tiled cottage and a
hedge of pink and white wild roses. Every roadside,
every gully, every hedgerow and spinney are brilliant
with flowers, but the most beautiful sight that Umbria
can Idisplay in the early spring — a sight that Pompilia
must have paused to look upon — is a field of flax with
poppies in it. The flax forms a sheet of forget-me-
not blue, as level as a pool; while deep in the pool
— as if submerged in this amazing blue — are a thousand
scarlet cups.

Travellers in Italy in the spring have described in

language, almost extravagant, this road from Arezzo

to Perugia. Its wonderful charm none will dispute,

but it must not be supposed that because it is much

frequented it is the most beautiful highway in Umbria.

In picturesqueness and in variety it is far surpassed by

the road from Arezzo to Florence, by way of Monte-

varchi, the Val d'Arno, and the mouth of Vallombrosa,

as well as by the road from Perugia to Gubbio, through

the town of Umbertide.

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

To return to the road traversed by the Countess
Franceschini. Eight and three-quarter miles from Arezzo
the little hamlet of Vitiano is passed. It was here that
Count Guido had a vineyard, and it was from this place
that he obtained the four field labourers who were to
assist him in the murder of his invalid wife and her
aged foster parents. Vitiano consists of a few scattered
houses by the roadside (Plate 43), of a tiny church,
recently built, and of some well-to-do farms. It is on
a slope at the foot of the hills, and is surrounded by
a fertile country where, in addition to vineyards, are
orchards, olive groves and gardens. It is a very humble
settlement, with no suggestion of villainy about it,
and with nothing to mark it as the birthplace of
murderers.

Some two miles beyond Vitiano is the town of
Castiglion Fiorentino, the first town that the fugitives
would pass on their way to Rome (Plate 45). It is
proudly placed upon an isolated hill, looking at the
distance like a pile of square blocks of stone surmounted
by a lofty tower. The road does not enter the town,
but sweeps round the bottom of the hill. It would be
when the night was at its darkest that the priest and the
lady passed Castiglion. Save for a glimmer of light in
a window or two the town would be a mere heap of
blackness, but the runaways would be cheered by the
thought that they were already more than ten miles
from the terrible city of Arezzo.

Another thing that would cheer them through

the night would be the song of the nightingale,

for this part of Italy is much favoured by that

bird, while his song can be heard all along the way,

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From Arezzo to Perugia

and even from such windows in Perugia as overlook
the walls.

A little way beyond Castiglion it is just possible that
the two would catch a glimpse of the huge fortress of
Montecchio, standing up on the left of the road as
a dark battlemented mass against the dull sky. It is a
fine and gallant place by daylight, a brown fortress on
a low hill with a defiant tower in its centre, and with
many minor towers along its vast walls.

The first halting place for the change of horses was
Camoscia, or, as the modern maps spell it, Camucia.
This little village is seventeen miles from Arezzo, on
a road that is level all the way. Pompilia and her
friend would arrive here about half-past four in the
morning. As the carriage drew up at the inn the
little lady's heart would almost stop, as it would seem
that their headlong rush to Rome was checked. Here
Venerino left them to return to the Canale Inn, little
suspecting that he was to spend the whole of the
summer in jail simply because he had driven two
people seventeen miles on the way to Perugia. While
Caponsacchi was busy about the stables it is probable
that Pompilia would walk a little way back on the road
until, clear of the noisy bustle at the inn, she could
listen for the dreaded sound of pursuing hoofs coming
from the direction of Arezzo.

Camoscia is a straggling and quite modern village,

strongly suburban in type, which has arisen about the

railway station of Cortona ; for Camoscia lies at the foot

of the hill on the summit of which Cortona stands.

On the side towards Arezzo, however, there are traces

of the old village, in the form of houses of such apparent

183

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

age that they must have been in existence in Pompiha's
time. Among these it is not possible to identify with
any assurance the site of the old posting-house. The
building that can with most probability claim this dis-
tinction is shown in Plate 46. It is an ancient house
covered with grey-green tiles and surmounted by a
square stone pigeon cote of a type common in the
district. It is now a farmhouse, but its ample stabling
and general disposition suggest that it was at one time
the first "post" out of Arezzo. It is old enough to
have received Venerino and his pair of horses, while
certain it is that it was at such a house as this that
the carriage drew up at the end of the first long
stage.

The day would be dawning when the eager couple
reached Camoscia, and the growing light in the sky
would give heart to the little countess. High up on
the summit and slope of a hill, to the left of the road,
she would see Cortona. The ponderous walls, the
house tops, the towers and domes of that mysterious
city would stand up black against the rosy glow of the
dawn, for it is behind the mountains about Cortona
that the sun rises. Cortona stands at a height of nearly
1,300 feet above the level of the road, and is approached
from Camoscia by a very steep, winding causeway,
three miles in length. Cortona is — as the guide books
insist — one of the very oldest cities in Italy, for it
was the principal stronghold of the Etruscans. Its
Cyclopean walls still stand, and it still looks, in every
line of it, the impregnable mountain fortress (Plate 47).
The air of mystery about the place is due to the fact

that the city is of the same hue as the rocky hill from

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which it springs, so that it is not ahvays easy to tell
bastion from precipice. The town seems to grow out
of the hill; there are strange, menacing structures and
forbidding entries here and there along the walls, while
within the city are those narrow, winding streets, those
dark lanes and secretive alleys, which are associated
with a cloaked figure and rapier type of romance
(Plate 48).

Probably no part of the long journey would give
such comfort to Pompilia as the beautiful road between
Cortona and Perugia, which latter town she and her
friend would reach about noon. They would pass
through this delectable country in the early morning,
would hear the note of the cuckoo and would
watch the sun flood the great plain around Lake
Trasimene.

About five miles south of Cortona they would reach
the frontier, and, having once crossed it, would feel
a little more secure. The frontier between Tuscany
and the States of the Church is marked by no especial
object. It lies just beyond the uninteresting village of
Terontola — the last place in Tuscany — and is indicated
by Monte Gualandro, on the summit of which is
an ancient fortress for the defence of the border
(Plate 50).

A little way across the frontier the fugitives would
come to a sudden bend in the road, and would there
obtain their first view of Lake Trasimene (Plates
51 and 52). They must assuredly have halted for a
moment at this spot to rest the horses, for it is at the
top of a hill, and Caponsacchi would have much to
say about the memories with which this particular

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

part of Italy is associated. Moreover, the sudden
view of the great lake is so bev^^itching and so peaceful
that Pompilia and her friend, hurried and harried as
they were, must have paused here to take comfort
from the sight.

The lake covers some fifty square miles and has a
circumference of over thirty miles. Its rounded outline
can be made out from the road ; its surface, when the
sun is shining, is a delicate faint blue, while all about
it is a circle of dim hills. A mist so frequently hangs
over the lake that the opposite shore — although it is
only eight and a half miles distant — can seldom be
clearly seen. The actual shores are flat and fringed
with reeds, so that the title of "reedy Thrasymene,"
that Macaulay gives it, is singularly fitting. These
reeds in the early spring form a bright green border
to the lake, which is in exquisite contrast to the pale
blue water. In the winter time the reeds are a ruddy
yellow, and at a distance give the impression that the
shores of the mere are of level sand. The sloping
banks of the lake are for the most part covered with
olive groves, which complete the wonderful variation in
dim colours that make Trasimene so beautiful. I
have never seen the lake at any time, either in the
winter or in the spring, when it has not shown a sur-
face as smooth as a mirror, and thus it is that Trasimene
in a gale is to me beyond conception.

From the bend of the road two low islands are to

be seen on the lake, the one to the right being Isola

Maggiore and the other the Isola Minore. Caponsacchi

cannot have failed to remind his lady that on one of

these islets Saint Francis of Assisi fasted for forty days

1 86

From Arezzo to Perugia

and forty nights, during which time he ate no more
than half a loaf.

This particular turn in the road has another interest
which would probably have occupied Pompilia but little.
The highway at this corner enters a defile, or narrowed
strait, lying between the hills on the left and the lake
on the right. The pass — if it can be so called — soon
widens out into a modest plain, but at Passignano, five
miles farther along the road, the hills come so close to
the water's edge again that a second pass, narrower than
the first, is encountered on the way. Thus it is that
between Borghetto — where is the bend in the road — ■
and Passignano, which is on the water's edge, there is a
semicircular bay of fairly level ground between the hills
and the lake, which bay is shut in by a narrow strait,
or defile, at either end. In the widest part of the
amphitheatre so enclosed are a village called Tuoro and
a minute hamlet named Sanguineto.

The interest attaching to these data carries us back
to the spring of the year b.c. 217, when Rome and
Carthage were at war. Hannibal, the Carthaginian, had
left his winter quarters in Gaul, had crossed the Apen-
nines and the Arno, and was making his way towards
Rome. The Roman army under the Consul Flaminius
was stationed at Arezzo. Hannibal passed to the west
of that town in the direction of Lake Trasimene.
Flaminius, with his whole army, incautiously pursued
him. The Carthaginians entered the defile at Borghetto
and concealed themselves among the hills between the
two passes. The consul reached the lake in the early
morning to find the country enveloped in mist. Seeing

nothing of the enemy, he recklessly assumed that

187

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Hannibal was hurrying on to Rome. He boldly
entered the fatal defile with his entire army, and when
the whole force was w^ell in the trap Hannibal rushed
down upon him from the hills. The pass at either
end was already secured and the massacre began. The
only course open to Flaminius was to endeavour to
force a passage by Passignano. The main onslaught
was in the open ground at the foot of the hill upon
which the village of Tuoro now stands. Here was
fought the great and decisive battle of Lake Trasimene,
the result of which was an overwhelming disaster to
Rome. Flaminius lost no fewer than fifteen thousand
men and was himself killed, while only six thousand
Romans succeeded in forcing a way by Passignano,
and even these were compelled to surrender on the
following morning.

Such then is the interest that attaches to this bend
in the road, for it represents the entrance to the
deadly defile which sealed the fate of the Romans at
Trasimene. It is said that the waters of the lake were
discoloured with blood, and that the name Sanguineto
survives in memory of the fact. Plate 54 shows the
village of Tuoro as seen from the road, together with
the level ground in front of it, where raged the centre
of the battle. In the museum of the Palazzo Pretorio
at Cortona is a plan of the battlefield of Lake Trasi-
mene, drawn in 1794 by some enthusiast, who evi-
dently knew every foot of the ground and had
studied the inevitable disposition of the various troops
engaged.

Passignano, where the six thousand cut their way

through, is a little fisher town on the very edge of

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From Arezzo to Perugia

the lake. Indeed, it seems to be standing in the
water. It has about it the odour which is common
to all fisher towns, but it is none the less charming
on that account. On the hill above the town is a
great castle with a tower, both well stricken in years
and more or less ruinous, while at the water's edge,
among the reeds, are boats, nets hanging up to dry
and all the untidy belongings of the fisherman's
craft (Plate 53).

The road now follows the level shore of the lake
running among the olive groves, the little fields of
corn and the wonderful company of flowers which
here come down to the very water's edge. In some
places the poppies — the boldest of all flowers — seem
to have made their way even among the reeds which
make tremulous the margin of the mere.

Where the road leaves the lake to climb the
steep hill (which forms the side of the basin in which
Trasimene lies) is the hamlet of Torricella. Now,
Torricella is the next posting-station to Camoscia,
and is sixteen miles distant from that place. It is
the last post before Perugia. Curious to say, Torri-
cella is hard to find and can be very easily passed
by. The reason is this : in order to make the ascent
of the hill more easy a new road has been cut
along the hillside from the level of the lake to the
summit of the height which towers above it. It thus
comes to pass that a certain section of the old road
is left derelict, and on this deserted highway the little
village of Torricella is placed. So here is preserved,
as an ancient relic, a part of the original roadway,
unaltered and undisturbed, together with a humble

189

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

settlement which has escaped the progress of modern
times and has remained as it was long years ago. The
road is narrow and neglected, while Torricella, by the
world forgotten, is a dear old grandmotherly hamlet
of some half a dozen houses asleep by the margin of
the lake (Plate 55). But for one recently erected build-
ing all the houses in this isolated hamlet are of ancient
date, are small and humble, are roofed with fine tiles
and are shaded in odd corners by a fig tree or two, or
a rough pergola with a vine. In the centre of the
village, high up on a wall, and protected by a pent-
house with a heavily tiled roof, a great Madonna is
painted, while beneath this Our Lady of Torricella is
the date, MCCCCCI.

In 1501 Henry VII. was King of England, so,
although the inhabitants draw attention to the painting
with gushing pride, it is no matter of wonder that in
four hundred years the colours have become so faint,
and the Lady so indistinct, that there is little left to
admire but a grey shadow on a wall.

The posting-house where Pompilia and Caponsacchi
halted is still in existence, and is nearly as highly prized
as the picture of the Madonna. It is a long, low house
with just one bedroom floor, which is approached by a
stone stair of some pretensions. An archway of stone
leads to the posting stables, which could well accom-
modate fifty horses. A part of the stable is vaulted,
while the ceiling of the rest is made up of very heavy
beams. Over one of the doors is an ancient coat
of arms, and in the yard is an old well from which
many hundreds of horses have been watered (Plates 56

and 57). _

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From Arezzo to Perugia ,

But for the one modern house Torricella can have
altered little since Pompilia alighted in its tiny street.
There is no place along the whole route which can be
so vividly associated with her great adventure as this.
It only needs the calesse, with the two steaming horses,
to be drawn up before the post-house door to make
the picture complete. She and her friend must have
reached Torricella at about half-past eight in the morn-
ing. Here they would have breakfasted. I am sure
that, while the horses were being put in, Pompilia would
walk down to the water's edge to see the boats, would
chat shyly with the fisher-folk, and would pause for
long before the ancient picture of the Virgin. In one
part of the story, as told in "The Ring and the Book,"
Pompilia, while the horses are being changed, talks
with a woman of the village, and nurses her baby for
a while. I think this must have taken place at Torricella.

The road now leaves the lake and, mounting up
the hill, reaches Monte Colognola, where are a ruined
castle and tower, and a tiny town, whence a view
of the lake is to be obtained that cannot be surpassed.
The next place on the way is Magione, a little white
and grey town on a lofty ridge. Here by the road-
side is a huge square fortress, which, by reason of its
grim walls, its machicolations, its towers and its heavy
buttresses is as truculent, as defiant and as villainous-
looking a stronghold as this country of wars, murders
and rapine can produce (Plate 58). The gentle Pompilia
must have shuddered as she passed beneath its shadow.

At Magione the road descends, and, passing through
a maze of low green hills, comes at last in sight of
Perugia. The view of the capital of Umbria from the

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book'*

highway to the north is one of supreme fascination. On
a long ridge against the sky-line there stands the
amazing city, a dim fabric of yellow-grey stone on
a blue-grey hill, a fabric so insubstantial, so delicate,
so elaborate in the fashioning of its crest of tiny
bell-towers, spires and battlements, that — from afar off —
it looks like a piece of silversmith's handiwork (Plate 60).

192

^aiJh-.'i^rfi

74._TREVI, FROM THE HIGH ROAD.

3. FROM PERUGIA TO FOLIGNO BY ASSISI

CAPONSACCHI and his charge must have arrived
at Perugia about noon. The journey of thirteen
miles from Torricella would have carried them
through a country of great charm, while the reaching of
Perugia would mark the first important stage in their
flight. They were now forty-six miles from Arezzo,
and a little more than twice that distance from Rome.
They would probably not drive through the city, but
would skirt it on its southern side, for Perugia stands
nearly one thousand feet above the Tiber valley, and
the climb up to its terrific walls is very steep. One
may suppose that Caponsacchi would talk a great deal
about this famous town, that Pompilia would revive in
the sunshine, and that the w^onders around her would
help her to forget that dreadful house in Arezzo, and
the frowning figure of Guido biting his beard.

The very ancient city of Perugia is one of the
most fascinating in Italy. It has altered so little that it
is still a mediaeval town. The houses, all of great
height, are huddled together along the summit and slopes
of the ridge in a confused and unsteady mass, like a
crowd of drunken men drowsily shouldering one another.
The streets are narrow, tortuous, dark and bewildering.
A lane paved with steep steps will leave the sunshine
on the hilltop, and will plunge down into the gloom of
night among this thicket of old houses. It will shrink to
N 193

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

a mere fissure between two towering walls ; it will tunnel

a cavernous passage beneath a mass of dwellings ; it will

essay to mount the hill again, will emerge for a moment

in the light, and will then once more slink down the slope

into darkness. To look up at the sky is like looking

up from the bottom of a well. One is possessed by

the idea that it is the back of every house that is turned

to the lane and yet the front is undiscoverable. The

houses blend into a disordered fabric of brick and stone,

so that it is hard to tell where one begins or the other

ends. The doors, for the most part, are as heavy as the

portals of a prison. Many entries are very secretive,

being approached slyly by unexpected steps and a sinister

archway (Plate 62). The whole warren of houses is

suspicious, wily, oppressive and fear-compelling.

The past history of Perugia is hideous and revolting.

Its annals are concerned with endless fighting, with

deadly feuds, with sickening acts of revenge, with base

treachery, murder and rapine. At one period there

was scarcely a day when the clash of steel was not to

be heard in the open square, scarcely a night the awed

silence of which was not broken by the shriek of a

man stabbed to the heart, or by some sudden and

horrible alarm. He who mounted the steep, paveii^-—

alley by the light of the dawn was likely to come upon

a trickle of blood and, following it round a corner

or two, stumble over the body of a friend lying head

downwards on the slope. Children playing about the

purlieus of a palace might be startled to see a faint

hand stretched out between the bars of a dungeon

window.

And yet, in the midst of all this, Perugino painted

194

% r ^ ir.-^i ,3' n ^^ i^-^r^

75.— POSTING-ROAD MAP FROM FOLIGNO
TO ROME BY CASTELNUOVO.

From ''/.a I'l-ra i'tiilda f>cr chi l'ias;s;ia in Italia," Rome, 1787,

From Perugia to Follgno by Assisi

his Madonnas and his saints, while young Raphael,
palette in hand, dreamed in his master's studio. In the
chief piazza of the town stands that most exquisite achieve-
ment of art, the fountain of Niccolo Pisano (Plate 61).
The little figures that decorate its panels of stone he
fashioned in the year 1280 — over six centuries ago —
when Edward I. was King of England. It was around
this fountain that most of the fighting took place, and
one wonders how many stricken men have bathed their
wounds in its clear pool, and how often a cup of water
has been dipped from its basin to allay the thirst of a
dying man.

One thing in Perugia can never be forgotten, the
twittering of the thousands of swallows that dart in
the air, above the streets, around the towers and through
the purple deep beyond the walls ; a keen, whistling
sound it is, as of an articulate wind, very wonderful to
hear. So loud is the noise that one can understand
how it was that at Savurniano, St. Francis of Assisi
told the swallows to cease their twittering, in order
that the people might better hear him as he preached.

The ridge on which Perugia stands ends abruptly
towards the south, while from the point extends one
of the most glorious views to be seen from any height
in Umbria. Two plains of immense expanse diverge
from the foot of the hill, the one that sweeps away to
the right is the Tiber valley, the one to the left is the
great Umbrian plain, on the fringe of which are Assisi,
Spello and Foligno, the same being all clearly visible
from the terrace of the city. Assisi, on the slope of
Mount Subasio, looks like a brown mat on a green
bank ; Spello appears as a talus of stones at the hill-

195

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

foot, and Foligno — in the far distance — as a bare, grey
patch on the edge of the level plain. Beyond the
plains, and interposed between the two, are innumerable
hills that roll away south, east and west, to the horizon.

Now a little way beyond Perugia — some four miles, it
may be — the two travellers in the calesse would meet with
a very interesting object, the old Bridge of San Giovanni
over the Tiber (Plate 63). This is a huge, hulking,
hunchbacked bridge with six arches, built of rugged
stone. It is a masterful bridge, and so very old that,
compared with the modern viaduct, it looks like an ante-
diluvian monster stalking across the river. The roadway
is narrow and mounts upwards to the top of the central
arch, so that the traveller is tempted to rest when he
comes to this summit. One may be sure that Pompilia
and the priest halted here for a moment. This would
be their first glimpse of the Tiber, the river the lady
knew so well. The sight would strengthen their hearts
and give them hope. The stream was hurrying on its
w^ay to Rome. To Pompilia it would appear to be
almost a part of the beloved city, and she would long
to be wafted on its surface to her journey's end. The
Tiber here is a beautiful river as it takes a bold sweep
between wooded banks (Plate 64). It is wide and shallow,
and even at this stage of lusty youth has acquired that
wan, putty colour that marks it as it flows beneath the
bridges of Rome. From the top of the bridge, looking
south, is a fine view of Monte Subasio, w^hich seems,
from this point, to fill the horizon and block the way
Romewards.

A little way beyond the bridge the great Umbrian
plain, or Plain of Foligno, breaks into view. It is a

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From Perugia to Follgno by Assisi

level stretch of land between a world of hills, a plain
which ends in a cul-de-sac at Spoleto, thirty-three miles
to the southwards. The width of this great flat varies,
being about seven miles across if measured from Assisi,
and some three and a half miles wide if measured from
hill to hill at the foot of Trevi. This plain is very green,
since every foot of it is cultivated. It is one vast vine-
yard from end to end, for it must encompass some two
hundred square miles of vines. The vines are supported
upon crippled, crutch-like trees, and swing in festoons
from branch to branch. Besides the vines are fruit
trees of many kinds, olives, and, near the villages and
towns, ornamental trees grown for the pure pleasure
they give. Between and beneath the vines the land
is tilled in formal plots. The crops are of infinite
variety — corn, peas, beans, lentils and clover. Viewed
from a height, as from the top of Assisi, the plain is
made glorious by its immensity, by its gradations of
green, by the beauty of the far-ofif hills. It is at the
same time, like the plain about Arezzo, monotonous,
while the division of the land into precise plots gives
it a little the appearance of a limitless allotment
garden. There is one thing that stands up above the
level of the plain, one solitary object in the vast stretch
of thirty miles of green : it is the mighty dome of the
Church of Saint Mary of the Angels, which shelters
the little house in which St. Francis lived and the cell
in which he died. Caponsacchi and Pompilia would
catch sight of it very soon after they had crossed the
Tiber, for it stands in the way like a pillar of cloud.
Many travellers coming towards Rome from the

north have fallen into ecstasies over the Plain of

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Foligno. I need quote but from one of them. The
Earl of Perth was making for Rome early in May in
1695, just two years almost to the week before Pompilia
passed along the very road. He says that the plain
"lookt like a bason of flowers and greens; one's fancy
cannot exceed the beauty of this delightful valley, and
no spot of ground can be more rich ... no description
in a romance comes near to the verity here."* He
says that "the hills were covered with mirtles, laurell,
bays, lavender, cotton, hysop, pennyroyal, suthernwood,"
and speaks of the clover, the olives, the apple and cherry
trees that he came upon in "this Paradise."

Some few miles beyond the Ponte San Giovanni the
road crosses the Chiascio, or Chiaggio, by a picturesque
old yellow bridge (Plate 65), and, passing through the
wholly uneventful town of Bastia, reaches to the posting-
house by Santa Maria degli Angeli, just eleven and a
quarter miles beyond Perugia. The two fugitives would
draw up at Saint Mary of the Angels about three in the
afternoon, and, great as was their haste, it may be assumed
that it was at this holy and romantic spot that they
tarried the longest. They were at the foot of Assisi
and in the very heart of St. Francis's country. Many
and many a time had he and his companions walked
along the particular road that the two had traversed,
talking together and singing and muttering their prayers.
It was while journeying by this way from Perugia that
St. Francis explained to Brother Leo, whom he always
addressed as " thou little sheep of God," what was
perfect joy, and how it could be found even if the seeker
were struck with a knotty stick and, indeed, beaten "with

* "Letters of James, Earl of Perth." London, Camden Society, 1845, p. 74.

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From Perugia to Foligno by Assisi

all the knots of that stick." Caponsacchi had, without

doubt, read the " Fioretti," and possibly knew much of

it by heart. He would tell the little countess about

Brother Anthony, "that marvellous vessel of the Holy

Spirit " ; of Brother Juniper, " a man of deep humility,"

who had unwonted power over demons, and yet who

played at see-saw in order to abase himself; of "the

seraphic and god-like Brother Giles," who at one time

entertained the King of France ; and of the saint's

special companion. Brother Bernard, who on occasion

stood rapt in God, with gaze fast fixed, from morning

until nones. Perhaps he would tell of that disciple of

St. Francis, named John of the Chapel, "who fell

away and finally hanged himself by the neck." Possibly

he would point out to her the spot across the plain

where stood Bevagna, and where it was that St. Francis

preached to "his little sisters the birds," and warned

them solemnly to beware of the sin of ingratitude.

Certain it is that he would tell her that the country around

was once covered with woods, and that in these woods

St. Francis and his companions saw visions, spoke with

God, and gazed with unblinking eyes upon the radiant

face of the Madonna. He would tell how St. Clare came

down from the Convent of San Damiano in Assisi to

break bread with St. Francis at Saint Mary of the Angels,

and how they were so fervent in their discourse that

the people who lived on the hillside were amazed to

see the house of St. Francis and the wood just hard by

the house lit up with a wondrous light as if illumined

by the glow of a great fire.

Close to the spot where Pompilia halted with her

friend there stands the magnificent Church of St. Mary

199

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

of the Angels. It will be safe to assume that, while
fresh horses were being harnessed to the carriage, the
lady and the priest would make their way to the
church and would kneel together before the altar to
offer up a hurried prayer for the safe ending of their
journey. This church, described as "one of the finest
churches in the world," is of immense size, being no
less than 420 feet in length. It is surmounted by a dome
that rises to 258 feet above the pavement, while even
the great door is twenty-seven feet in height from
floor to architrave. The first stone of the church was
laid in 1569, and seventy years passed by before the
building was completed. Although it was greatly
damaged in the earthquake of 1832, it was restored,
and is to-day just such a church as it was when Pompilia
passed by on her way to Rome (Plate 66).

It may be wondered why a basilica so immense as
to exceed in size many famous cathedrals should have
been erected in a trivial hamlet in a vast plain. It
was not founded to the glory of Our Lady of the
Vineyards, as might be surmised, but was built to
provide a shelter for a little stone house, as humble as
a hut, and called " the Portiuncula."

The history of the Portiuncula is very simple. When
St. Francis, about the year 1208, resolved to forswear
a life of luxury and pleasure, and to assume the garb
of a monk and the burden of poverty, this little house
was a wayside chapel falling into ruin. St. Francis
obtained leave to take care of it. He built it up with
his own hands. Here he lived ; here he founded the
great Orders of the Franciscans and the Poor Clares,
and here, in a cell near by, he died. The house is

200

From Perugia to Foligno by Assisi

said to have been originally erected in the forest by
four poor hermits. St. Francis called it "the Portiun-
cula," or " Little Portion," as being the little portion
of the world that God had assigned to him.

The Portiuncula stands now in the centre of the
nave, under the glorious cupola. It is a little brown
building, some twenty feet long by thirteen feet wide,
as plain as a stable. It is the extreme simplicity of
the house when compared to the magnificence of the
basilica built over it that makes it one of the most
impressive religious relics in the world. The two ends
of the building are marred by unfitting decoration and
frescoes. At each end is a rounded doorway, added
since the time of St. Francis, for the convenience of
pilgrims.

The sides of the little house are left untouched, are

almost pitifully plain, and yet the artlessness of these

walls possesses a grandeur to which the immense fabric

round about them can make little pretence. On one

side of the chapel is the original door, small and

crude, through which St. Francis and his companions

and the devoted St. Clare must often have passed. In

the wall, too, is a tiny lancet window of sublime

humility which once lit the little sanctuary. Within

the house is the altar upon which were laid the tresses

of bright hair cut by St. Francis from the pretty head

of Clara Scifi on that Palm Sunday when she knelt in

the Portiuncula and renounced the world. Near the

shrine is the cell where St. Francis died, where he

dictated his last wishes, and where he begged Brother

Leo and Brother Angelo to sing to him, as he passed

away, the Canticle of the Sun.

20 1

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Just outside the church is the rose garden that St.
Francis planted, where still grow the famous pink
roses that have no thorns. The bushes would be in
full bud when Pompilia came to St. Mary of the Angels,
for they blossom in May.

High up above the road and opposite to the Church
of Santa Maria degli Angeli is Assisi, where lie the
bodies of St. Francis and St. Clare. The town is
grandly placed on the steep end of a ridge at the foot
of Monte Subasio. On a mound at the very summit
of the town is the old fortress. To the left are Santa
Croce and the immense Franciscan monastery. To the
right are the Chiesa Nuova, built on the site of the
house where St. Francis was born, the Cathedral of
San Rufino and Santa Chiara, the mother house of the
Poor Clares ; while some way down the hillside is the
unassuming Convent of San Damiano, where St. Clare
spent her life and where she died (Plates 67 and 68).

One object of especial interest in the hamlet of
Santa Maria degli Angeli is the old posting-house of
the place. It stands on a fragment of the ancient
highway, for at this point the road has been diverted
from its original course. The post-house can have
altered little since the calesse, with the couple from
Arezzo, halted there in the spring of 1697. It is a
very old house, sadly decayed, possessed of an out-
side stair and of two storeys besides the ground floor.
Attached to it are the vast posting-stables. They are
solidly built, are vaulted like the crypt of a church
and are capable of standing a hundred horses. So
substantially fashioned is this part of the inn that it
remained unmoved in the great earthquake of 1832,

202

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From Perugia to Follgno by Assisi

and was the place where the people of the village
took refuge at the time of that disaster. On one of
the pillars of the stable is an ancient fresco said to
represent St. Anthony. In a walled garden, just out-
side the building, stands a picturesque well of great
age with an arrangement for the supplying of water
to the stables within. This posting-house is as in-
teresting as the one at Torricella, for, like that silent
world-forgotten hostelry, it presents an untouched pic-
ture of the road and of the houses by the wayside at
the time of the story (Plate 69).

From this post-inn to the next halting place at
Foligno is a distance of 9f miles. The road continues
the same. To the left are the everlasting hills and the
wan olive trees ; to the right are the never-ending vines,
the young corn, the bean fields and the poppies.
When Goethe made his journey to Rome something
went amiss with the carriage when he reached this
part of the way, so he started ahead on foot and
walked from Assisi to Foligno. It was a walk that
deeply impressed him, for he says it was " one of the
most beautiful I ever took." Possibly what charmed
him most was a curious town he would have passed
on the way. This is the bold little town of Spello,
which occupies a dome-shaped hill at the foot of the
mountains, and looks, from afar ofif, like a rounded
heap of grey stones (Plates 70 and 71).

Although Spello has but few inhabitants it has all
the assurance of the capital of a State. It is gallantly
fortified, being girt about by a strong wall, on which
are many towers ready to be manned by an army
of warriors. This self-confident wall is perfectly at

203

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

ease, whether balanced on the edge of a precipice
or cUnging to the side of a headlong slope. There is
a city gate of much dignity, fitting for the passage of a
haughty cavalcade, a city tower for the warder and
a perilous look-out of stone for the watchman. Above
the entry into Spello are three statues of illustrious
personages, to whom the city is pleased to do honour.
At the top of a street as steep as a roof is a noble
cathedral, four centuries old, wherein are choice paint-
ings, carvings and frescoes, such as are appropriate to
any duly famous basilica. Besides this great edifice
there is the Church of St. Andrea, where is an altar-
piece painted by Pinturicchio. No doubt Spello has
its prefect and its council, its council chamber and its
court of justice, from which it thunders forth the man-
dates of the law; anyhow, it has its city palace, adorned
with Roman inscriptions and other insignia of extreme
age. And yet, with all this, it is scarcely more than
a village.

It is, indeed, a little cockerel of a town, crowing
on the top of its stone heap ; a toy town such as a
monarch would give to a petted princelet for a play-
thing ; a miniature city of Troy deporting itself with
unsurpassable assurance — and yet, above all, a rare and
lovable little place. There is nothing about Spello that
is modern. It is a fragment of the Middle Ages, an
unspoiled model of the town that was. It is a dream-
compelling place, full of charm and picturesqueness to
the remotest nook of its hazardous byways.

The Via Flaminia does not pass through the town ;
for, indeed, the climbing of the hill and the descent of
the same would daunt the heart of the bravest post-
204

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From Perugia to Foligno by Assisi

horse. But it passes close beneath the city wall and in
front of the city gate ; so that Pompilia, as she rode by,
could hardly have failed to peep through the archway
and to have wondered into what kind of curious town
the cobbled street was leading, for to look through the
gate of Spello is to look through a door leading into
the past.

A few miles beyond Spello, by the same level road
and through the same vast vineyards, the town of
Foligno is reached. It is a large place possessed, as
the guide books say, of "various industries and an
episcopal residence." As the hills have at this spot
retired a little to the east, Foligno is left alone and
unsheltered in the vast flat plain.

Pompilia and Caponsacchi would reach Foligno
about six in the evening. Those who wished them ill
declared that they spent the night in the town ; but not
one item of evidence was ever forthcoming to support
this statement. Moreover, the speed at which they were
travelling, as shown by the hour when Castelnuovo was
reached, would render any but the briefest halt at any
place on the journey quite impossible. Foligno is a
walled city, and on its northern side a stream runs
outside the town, at the foot of the wall. There is,
therefore, a bridge to cross and a gate to enter for all who
would pass into the town. The bridge and the gate both
stand, but it is evident they have been much restored since
Pompilia passed into Foligno by this road from Assisi
(Plate 72). The gate, even if not very ancient, is still
solemnly closed at ten of the night. As the two made
their way through the town to the southern entry they

would cross the market square and pass the beautiful

205

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Cathedral of San Feliziano, the exquisite fagade of which
dates from the year 1201. Pompilia would notice by
the sides of the central door two crouching lions, very
like the two that wait outside her own particular Church
of San Lorenzo in Lucina in Rome (Plate 73). Of the
post-house at which they changed horses I can find no
trace. It probably stood on the site of the present
Albergo della Posta, which is without doubt the most
excellent hotel between Perugia and Rome.

Those who are familiar with Raphael's "Madonna
of Foligno " in the Vatican, famous for its fine figure of
St. Francis of Assisi, will find the Foligno of to-day in
no way like the fantastic town which forms the back-
ground of this gracious painting. Foligno of the present
day is a clean, bustling, pleasant town, picturesque
and full of interest. It contains several palaces and
numerous ancient houses of infinite charm. There is,
moreover, that most venerable and archaic Church of
Santa Maria infra Portas, with its eighth century porch,
its frescoes by Niccolo da Foligno, who died in 1502,
and its still more ancient Byzantine wall paintings.
As the two runaways crossed the piazza the driver, if
as loquacious then as are drivers now, may have pointed
out the Palazzo del Governo, which was held by the
Trinci as far back as 1398, and have told them that the
little chapel on the upper floor contained frescoes by
Ottaviano Nelli, painted in 1424, to illustrate the history
of the Virgin.

2o6

4. THE JOURNEY ACROSS THE HILLS AND BEYOND TO

CASTELNUOVO

AFTER leaving Foligno the two in the calesse
would enter upon the most weary and most
difficult part of their enterprise — the journey by
night across the hills to the uplands which overlook the
Campagna of Rome. The great Umbrian plain which
Pompilia and her companion were traversing ends at
Spoleto, where it is shut in by a rampart of hills drawn
defiantly across the road. From Foligno to Spoleto is a
distance of seventeen miles, the highway is level and the
aspect of the country the same as that of the rest of
the long valley. Between the two towns is the posting-
station of Le Vene.

Some five or six miles from Foligno is the astonishing
town of Trevi — a cairn-like landmark in the southern
end of the plain (Plate 74). It stands some way to the
left of the road, a steep, conical mound, shaped like a
pierrot's hat, and covered with houses from top to
bottom. Life on this hill of Sisyphus must be hard, for
the citizens of Trevi are always either climbing up or
sidling down. They might as well be living on a stone
stairway, and one may suppose that they would experi-
ence actual confusion whenever they found themselves
on a level road. It is quite appropriate that the chief
church in Trevi should be sacred to Our Lady of
Tears. The mount, however, is picturesque, as would

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

be any pyramid-shaped town, where the front door
of each house is on the level of some neighbour's
roof.

A few miles beyond Trevi is the trifling hamlet of
Le Vene, where was an old posting-station. At this
point there is, by the roadside, a beautiful pool of
water, shaded by trees and surrounded by an informal
garden, very delightful to look upon. Here is the source
of the Clitumnus, made famous by Pliny and feebly
sung about by Byron.

Before Spoleto is reached the road passes through
the peculiar town of San Giacomo — peculiar in the
determined character of its defences and its effort to
take care of itself. San Giacomo would appear to have
been a city of the plain which was liable to be raided
any day in the year and to be roused hideously any
night by fearful alarms. Some part of the town is
lodged within a species of brigand-proof safe, in the
form of a square castle, the inside of which is packed
with crowded dwellings and the very narrowest of
streets.

Spoleto, as seen from the plain, especially about the
time of the setting of the sun, affords a gorgeous presen-
tation of a town. The hills end in a sudden line, like a
breaking comber on a beach. On the crest and slopes of
the foremost height is reared Spoleto (Plates 76 and 79).
The town forms a great bastion barring the way. It stands
erect, a pile of vast houses, of massive walls, of steeples
and towers, with, on the summit, an ancient and im-
perious fortress known as La Rocca. The straight white
road, issuing from among its vineyards, is swallowed up
by the city, while beyond there would appear to be no

208

79.— A STREET IN SPOLETO.

30.— THE CASTLE ABOVE STRETTURA

The Journey Across the Hills to Castelnuovo

way out through the intricate barrier of the mountains.
Of the charm of Spoleto it is needless to speak. The
traveller knows well its palaces, its gates, its churches,
its mysterious streets, its wily alle)^s and the supreme
view from the city wall, which embraces the whole of
the plain as far away as Perugia.

It would be nearly midnight when Pompilia arrived
at Spoleto. If she paused to think, she would find it
hard to believe that only twenty-four hours had passed
since she was dressing herself in the dark in her hated
room at Arezzo, was collecting her few treasures, tying
up her money in a handkerchief, and about to venture,
breathless with terror, upon the perilous descent of the
creaking stair that led to the palace door.

Now would commence, at the blackest depth of the
night, the journey across the hills to Terni, a distance
of sixteen miles, with scarcely a habitation to be met
with the whole way through, except at the little posting-
village of Strettura. The road, which is most fascinating
in the daylight, may well be almost terrifying in the
dark. No part of the route from Arezzo to Rome
is more beautiful than this long mountain pass, unless
it be the road that skirts the Lake of Trasimene.

The highway for miles mounts up and up, winding
from valley to valley, between hills so closely set that,
here and there, it seems as if the sky would be shut
out. The mountain slopes are at first covered with
olives, then, as the greater heights are reached, there
appear forests of ilex and of pine, with savage under-
growth and rugged boulders. The way may pass
through a rocky defile or a sullen ravine, or dip into a

gentle glade and then struggle to a hilltop, whence
o 209

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

is a view of a valley just traversed, with the road as a
broken thread of white in the gaps among the green
(Plate 77).

On nearing Strettura the carriage would cross a very
venerable bridge with a single arch (Plate 78). It is
humble enough and narrow enough, but it is ennobled
by a stately coat of arms, carved in stone, as well as by a
tedious inscription in Latin, made interesting by the date
with which the verbiage ends — the year 1577, In many
places, especially in the country of the bridge, the road
is steep — is, indeed, so dangerously steep that progress
by night must have been very slow.

Strettura would be reached about two in the morn-
ing — the morning of another day. This solitary village
is 8f miles from Spoleto. On the hill to the left of
it is a fine castle, more or less in ruins, and surrounded
by a wall of such solidity and resolution that the centuries
have left it almost untouched (Plate 80). Strettura consists
of a single, indefinite street, a number of most picturesque
old houses and a grandmotherly old church. As a vil-
lage it is very pretty, very dirty and as completely cut
ofif from the world as the most bitter misanthropist
could wish. The posting-house is a delightful and an-
cient building, with a romantic roofed gallery thrown
across the road, like a kind of rustic triumphal arch.
Possibly, in old days, this wooden gallery was a favourite
resort for persons of leisure, in the cool of the evening,
when they could lean over the rail and watch the car-
riages and pack-horses arrive or depart (Plate 81).

I think it would be at Strettura, at two o'clock in
the morning, in this dark maze among the hills and
after twenty-four hours of incessant haste, that Pompilia's

2IO

The Journey Across the Hills to Castelnuovo

courage would be nearest to failing her and that she
would half repent of the step she had taken.

In a while the road begins definitely to descend.
Olive groves appear again on the slopes on either side
of the pass, the mountains open and the great Flaminian
Way glides down to the level plain of Terni. This
flat is of quite small extent, so that the hills very soon
come in the path again. Terni is at the present time
a manufacturing town of over 25,000 inhabitants. It is
probably of no more interest now than it was when
Pompilia passed by, although the old city wall and the
gate towers have some little charm about them. The
couple would reach Terni at 4.30 in the morning, and
as they crossed the narrow plain would see the dawn
break over the circle of hills with which they would
now be surrounded.

It is 7J miles on to Narni, through a green country,
cultivated and tended like a precious garden. At Narni
the hills begin once more. The fugitives would reach
the town at seven in the morning, with little thought
that by the same hour on the following day they
would find themselves lodged in jail, and would hear
Count Guido Franceschini stamping and swearing in
the courtyard outside their prison.

Narni is superbly situated on the brim of a pre-
cipitous ravine, at the foot of which the Nera forces its
way through the rocks to join the Tiber (Plate 82). The
sides of this terrific gorge are lined with evergreen trees,
mostly ilex, and with a dense bush. Narni clings, like
a martin's nest, to the brink of the clilif, and so far below
is the river that the sound of its waters is almost drowned
by the whistling of the swallows that dart and double

211

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

over the great chasm. It is a pretty, rambUng town,
with all its lanes in a confusing tangle, and a savage
castle dominant on its summit. It has a little piazza,
with a fountain in its centre, and a church and various
ancient buildings standing around it in sleepy admiration.
Possibly Pompilia and her friend saw little of this walled
city, for they would assuredly breakfast at Narni while
the horses were being changed (Plate 83).

The next stopping place is Otricoli, 8| miles away,
a short stage, but an arduous one, as the track is across
the hills. It is a beautiful road, never level for long,
commanding wide views on all sides, and plunging
the while through a country of olives and vines, of
growing corn and blossoming acacias and of hedge-
rows more brilliant with flowers possibly than any yet
encountered on the way.

Otricoli is an old walled town, situated on a height,
from which extends an amazing prospect across the
Tiber valley to the hills on the other side, where lies
hidden the town of Civita Castellana. From the
diaries of travellers of bygone days, it would appear
that Otricoli was a favourite stopping place, a place at
which to take dinner or to spend the night. This can
be no matter of wonder, for the exquisite little town
belongs wholly to the past, is curious and simple, while
the look-out from its walls is one not easily to be
forgotten. The view, shown in Plate 84 is taken from
the old posting-house of Otricoli, a crumbling, un-
steady building on arches, on the wall of which is still
to be seen a notice dealing with posting charges to
Narni.

Pompilia would reach Otricoli at 9.30 in the morning,

212

81. — THE POSTING-HOUSK AT STRF:TTURA.

The Journey Across the Hills to Castelnuovo

and, as the posting-inn is quite close to the edge
of the hill, it may be assumed that she walked to the
walls to rest her eyes upon the placid valley through
which the Tiber was lazily sweeping on its way to
Rome.

From Otricoli the road descends to the level bank
of the river, and here, some five or six miles beyond
Otricoli, the carriage would cross the Tiber for the
second time. The bridge which spans the river at this
spot is the famous Ponte Fehce, the " Happy Bridge."
This bridge is as old' as the Via Flaminia, but, in its
present form, dates only from 1589, when it was recon-
structed by Sixtus V. It is a handsome bridge, more
fitted, perhaps, for such a city as Rome than for an
almost uninhabited valley. It is of yellow brick and
time-worn stone, is somewhat ambitiously ornamented,
while in every cranny between the blocks of its masonry
some green weed or bush is growing (Plate 85).

Just beyond the Happy Bridge are the great tower
and castle of Borghetto, now in ruins, but still strong
enough, it may be, to command the road across the river,
which it has defended for so many centuries (Plate 86).
The guide books say little of this hoary stronghold
and nothing of the fights it has witnessed, nor of the
people who have died in its dungeons, nor of the hordes
of wild men who have rushed, in times of alarm, from
its sally-ports, yelling the battle-cry of Borghetto as they
poured down the slope to the bridge.

Possibly Pompilia, when she had reached as far as
this, was too weary to ask Caponsacchi to tell her
about the castle. She would only comfort herself

with the sleepy thought that they had crossed the

213

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Happy Bridge and were within thirty-three miles of
Rome.

The road, leaving the Tiber valley, now mounts
up the hill to Civita Castellana, the last town of any
size before Rome. The two runaways would arrive
at this ancient Etruscan city at about two o'clock in the
afternoon. Civita Castellana is situated on an isolated
plateau, with a huge ravine on either side (Plate 87).
This chasm that cuts Civita Castellana off from the rest
of Italy is very deep, very astonishing and supremely
beautiful. It is a sudden gash in the earth, as clean
cut as the slash of a hatchet. The brown-red cliffs
that form the walls of this terrific moat are perpen-
dicular, harsh and forbidding. The chasm itself, on
the other hand, is filled with trees and bushes of the
softest and daintiest green, while above the tree tops
floats a faint, blue mist haunted by swallows. The
ravine is most fascinating to see in the early spring,
about the time when Pompilia came this way; while
in the winter, as the day is waning, it is a black pit
horrible to look down into. To the south of the city
the ravine sinks away into a gentle valley, carrying
along with it the stream that encircles the plateau (Plate
89). If the traveller, when some distance on the road
to Rome, looks back by the way he has come, Civita
Castellana appears as a mass of brown rock rising out
of a green lagoon.

The town itself is a queer, obsolete place, once
wealthy and powerful, now poor, distraught and purpose-
less ; a city that the world has long forgotten (Plate
88). Its haughty palaces are now little more than superb

sepulchres for filth and for frowsy humanity ; fowls

214

The Journey Across the Hills to Castelnuovo

march out into the street from beneath the arches of
elegantl}^ carved doorways ; a kerosene tin with a red
geranium in bloom occupies a balcony of the most
precious ironwork; whilst the outside stairs of stone,
the mysterious entries, the pillared logge, seem to
belong to the properties of some mediaeval stage play.

Civita Castellana has all the necessary elements of a
romantic Italian town — the untidy piazza with its drip-
ping fountain, the cathedral, still magnificent in spite of
its 700 years, the blind, fumbling lanes, the women
knitting in the shadows, and the heavy, insidious,
evil-suggesting smell.

From the south end of the town is a pleasant view
of Monte Soracte, which stands on the way between
Civita Castellana and Rome. This isolated hill, over
2,000 feet high, is very beautiful to contemplate at a
distance, when it looks like a purple cone rising out
of the plain ; but near at hand it is an exceedingly
harsh ridge of precipitous limestone, grey as a heap of
ashes and pitifully bare. On the summit of the height
are the little Church of San Silvestro and the ruins of
a shrivelled monastery. It would be a joy to Pompilia
to catch sight of Soracte again, for it is a mountain
that can be seen from the high lands about Rome
(Plates 90 and 91).

From Civita Castellana to Castelnuovo is a distance
of 13^- miles, with one posting-station on the way at a
small town called Rignano. Rignano is a straggling
place, lying in a hollow surrounded by olive trees.
The road merely skirts one end of the settlement, and
that the least ancient part of it (Plate 92).

In this portion of the Via Flaminia some remains

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book'^

of the old Roman highway are come upon, in the
form of large slabs of blue-grey stone, almost hidden
in the grass and flowers by the wayside. At one spot
the modern road turns a little aside from the ancient
track, and there, much overgrown, is seen the undis-
turbed road of the Consul Flaminius — a hard, narrow,
paved road, heading direct for Rome. This fragment
enables one to appreciate the observation of M. de
Brosses when he wrote of the Flaminian Way as "one
of the hardest antiquities that I am acquainted with."

The road between Civita Castellana and Castelnuovo
is uninteresting and monotonous, the country bare and
wild, and to a large extent treeless. On nearing
Castelnuovo it becomes a track across naked, inhospit-
able downs, a road so long, so wearisome, so un-
friendly that it must have preyed upon Pompilia's
spirits, must have intensified her fatigue to sheer
misery, and her yearning to rest and be still to an
overwhelming possession. She determined, in spite of
Caponsacchi's entreaties, to spend the night at Castel-
nuovo at any cost, to lie down and sleep at any risk,
although she was almost within sight of Rome and
within reach of safety. The last few miles of the road
had made the journey hideous ; the grinding of the
wheels on the stones had ground into her brain, and
the everlasting sound of the horses' feet had maddened
her beyond all peace.

Castelnuovo is so situated that on coming in from
the north nothing is to be seen of the town (which
lies some way to the left of the road) until the carriage
actually draws up at the door of the tragic inn, which

stands almost alone on the highway.

216

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5. CASTELNUOVO

CASTELNUOVO, as already stated, lies some
little way to the left, or east, of the high road to
Rome. Indeed, the little town is separated
from that road by a deep valley filled with olive trees.
The highway at this part of its course runs along the
edge of a lofty plateau, which forms the western slope
of the valley. From this plateau a narrow ridge runs
out into the Campagna and, curving to the south, finds
itself almost parallel with the road. Along the top of
the ridge is the narrow by-way to Castelnuovo ; while
at the extremity of the ridge, where it becomes suddenly
precipitous, stands the small town, a pile of houses,
roof above roof. It is easy, when making for Rome, to
pass Castelnuovo without seeing it, especially if the
hedge by the side of the track is in leaf. But if the
traveller will stand on the Via Flaminia, just where is
the stone which marks twenty-six kilometres from Rome,
and if he will find a gap in the bushes, he will see, im-
mediately below him, a green valley, and across the
valley, on the blulT end of a long hill, the town he
seeks.

The position of Castelnuovo is most commanding,
for at its foot lies one of the northern reaches of
the Campagna, while from its walls extends, like the
flight of a bird, an unbroken view across the valley of

217

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

the Tiber and away seawards to the dim Alban Hills,
which rise to the south of Rome. The town, indeed,
is on a headland thrust out into the misty plain of the
Campagna.

As to what it looks like from the main road, no
better words can be used than those of de Brosses, when
speaking of Livorno : " Imagine a little pocket town,
pretty enough to put into one's snufifbox " — such
is Castelnuovo. It is a town that a toy-maker would
fashion, a hill town in miniature, a feature for a garden,
an exquisite small fabric of grey walls and yellow-green
roofs on a mound of olives. At the very summit of
the town is a huge square building. That is the
Pretura, where Caponsacchi and Pompilia were confined
after their arrest at the inn. To the left of it is the
church, with its old campanile. Around these two
buildings, on the steep sides of the hill, the town clings
(Plate 93).

Castelnuovo is a very ancient place, and possesses
at this present time some 1,500 inhabitants. The
houses, if old, are at least substantial, and there is not
a modern building in the place ; for since the last
post-chaise rumbled along the road Castelnuovo has
slept, and the busy world has left its slumbers un-
disturbed. When I first caught sight of the town
from the highway it might have been a city of the
dead, for the valley is very quiet, and the im-
pression remained until the silence was broken by
the shrill calling of children from among the houses
and by the sound of a drowsy bell in the church
tower.

Browning had evidently no personal knowledge of

218

Castelnuovo

Castelnuovo. His description of the place is singularly

inapplicable, for he speaks of

" Castelnuovo's few mean, hut-like homes
Huddled together on the hill-foot bleak."

The editor of the last edition (1912) of "The Ring and
the Book" terms this ancient town a " hamlet" ; while in
the notes to Mr. Charles Hodell's version of the Yellow
Book it is spoken of as " a village of but a few houses."
The posting-inn at which Pompilia and the priest
alighted is on the main road, and, therefore, some small
distance from the actual town. It is an old building,
constructed very solidly of stone covered with plaster, and
possesses just one storey above the ground floor. That
part of the inn which faces the road is built on arches.
Within these arches is a cavernous shelter for carts. It
was here, no doubt, that the carriage was housed for
the night, while Pompilia slept in the upper room.
Embedded in the front wall, close by the arch of
entry, is an inscribed tablet (shown in Plate 94) dealing
with the Via Flaminia, and dated 1580. At one end
of the house is an outside chimney of exceptional size.
It belongs to the inn kitchen. The place, which is very
much larger than would appear from the road, is no longer
used as a tavern. On one wall is still to be seen, in
very faint letters, the words "Albergo della Posta " ;
but it must have been a long time since any travellers
drew up at the door. The house is now derelict and
empty, save for two small rooms on the upper floor,
which are occupied by a poor family. The building
is slowly falling into decay ; but so extremely sub-
stantial is it that Time, unaided and alone, will need

many years to bring about its dissolution.

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

The entry is by way of a small arched portal of
stone. This opens directly into the common room of
the inn, a large chamber with a paved floor and immense
beams in the ceiling. At one side is a spacious fire-
place, where, no doubt, a genial wood fire has burned
on many a winter's night, when travellers were expected
on the road. The heavy mantelpiece of stone is in
keeping with the house, which, in spite of its humble
exterior, is of no small pretensions within. The ancient
room is bare of furniture, and there is nothing to
suggest that it has altered in any essential since Pompilia
was led in from the carriage and sank exhausted upon
the first bench she could reach (Plate 95).

By the side of the fireplace is a much-worn stone
stair that no one would dispute has seen little change
for the last two hundred years and more. Its balustrade
is made of upright blocks of stone connected at the
top by an iron rail. After some ten steps a window
is reached, and here the stair turns to the right and
mounts upwards through a stone passage with a vaulted
roof. The passage recalls the narrow stair made in the
thickness of the wall of a mediaeval castle. This is the
only staircase in the house. Up these stone steps Pom-
pilia was helped to her room, or possibly, as the poem
says, was carried there in the arms of Caponsacchi. It
was up this very stair that Guido rushed to denounce
his wife, followed by the stumbling yokels who repre-
sented the law.

Now, if at no time before, are we in intimate touch

with the story. It is easy to picture this very room in the

early hours of that eventful morning. The room is still ;

the lamp on the mantelpiece has almost flickered out ;

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Castelnuovo

over a bench is thrown Pompilia's cloak ; at the foot
of the stair stands Caponsacchi Hstening eagerly for any
sound of movement in the room above, while at the
same time he watches the faint light of the dawn
grow in the window on the stair. He starts at a
sound that comes in through the open door, the sound
of footsteps in the road. He rushes out through the
archway and meets Count Guido face to face.

From the common room of the inn a passage leads
to the old dining-room, which possesses a cove ceiling
very crudely painted. Near by is the kitchen, which is
so archaic as to remind one of the kitchens in Pompeii,
for the stove is of stone. The kitchen, although small,
is evidently capable of providing for many, while the
baking oven is of untoward size. There are other
rooms on the ground floor, one of which has a rounded
roof ; all have enormously thick walls ; all are empty ;
in one place is a cupboard hollowed out of the very
substance of the wall. The windows look over the
valley and provide a fascinating view of the little toy
town of Castelnuovo.

There are several rooms upstairs, some large, some
small. They have brick floors, while the ceilings are
traversed by heavy beams. All are empty, except the
two already mentioned, and perhaps a third should
be included, because it is occupied by a hen and her
chickens. The better rooms, small as they are, open
on the road, while the chambers at the back look over
the valley and the town. It rests with any who wander
over this empty house to determine, to their own
satisfaction, in which room the little countess slept on
that ever-memorable night. There being nothing to

221

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

guide one in the selection, I would venture to choose
a certain room, capable of taking two beds, which has
a window on the highway.

This old Albergo della Posta stands at the point
where the by-way leads ofif to Castelnuovo. This by-way
is a pleasant road, especially in the early morning in
the spring. Probably it failed to impress the party of
people who walked along it shortly after sunrise on
Wednesday, May 1st, 1697. First of all, I think,
would walk Pompilia, sobbing gently to herself, her
little arm in the grip of a brawny officer of police,
while, in her other hand, she would hold the hand-
kerchief, damp with mopping her eyes, in the corner
of which she had tied up her money. Then would
come Caponsacchi, upright and defiant, still suffused
with rage, still maddened with indignation, firmly
bound with cords and held a prisoner between two
men proud of their importance. He would whisper
words of comfort from time to time for the ear of the
lady he had done his best to save. Next would pass
Guido, biting his beard and with so horrible a smile
on his face as to frighten the curious boys who trotted
by his side. Last of all w^ould be the deeply concerned
servant from the inn, carrying the goods that had been
found in the possession of the suspected couple, in-
cluding Pompilia's "little box with many trifles inside."

On the way they would pass a most engaging little
chapel, now old and lamentably decayed. It has a
pillared portico, a stolid door and a single window very
heavily barred. It has a small belfry too, from which
the Angelus might have rung while all these dreadful
things were in progress (Plate 96).

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Castelnuovo

Of all little towns between Florence and Rome with
which I am acquainted I think that Castelnuovo is the
most entrancing. I am aware that its association with
the Franceschini story has much to do with its attractive-
ness ; but, apart from this, it is so unspoiled, so entirely
a part of Old Italy, so infantile and inconsequent in its
planning, so ridiculous, that in comparison with a well-
reasoned resort of man it is a mere kitten of a town.
It has two piazze, but no streets. It has, indeed, no
need of streets, for so steep are the slopes of Castelnuovo
that a street would be merely a shoot down which
people would slide. It has lanes, but they are as erratic
as are the gambols of a kitten pursuing its own tail.
The lane will mount some stone stairs sideways for the
purpose of descending other stairs at a different angle ;
it will then turn upon itself and try to get back to
where it started from, will be demurely level for a
moment and will then fall out of the town, as if it had
slipped over a cliff (Plate 97). Through any gap in
the circuit of the place will be a view over the Cam-
pagna and Tiber valley on the one hand, or across the
beautiful country of hills and dales on the other, where
the dales are wooded and where the hills are green and
are tossed about over the land in exquisite disorder.

There are more corners in Castelnuovo, I believe,
than in any place of its size in the world. No town,
large or small, shows more indecision or less concep-
tion of what it wants or intends to do. No two
houses are alike, and none, except in one piazza, are
on the same level. In the other piazza the question
of level is dealt with by building one house on the

flat and the next on a mound, so that it has to be

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

approached by a stair. There is a particular dwelling,
designed by a genius in variation, which is reached
by a descent towards the bowels of the earth and an
entry, it would seem, through the cellar.

In spite of these distractions, which would drive
a surveyor to madness, Castelnuovo is bright, cheerful,
contented and clean. It is certainly a town and also
a maze ; but it is in addition a poultry farm. For
rambling in the lanes are numerous fluffy chickens
with red, green or blue ribbons tied round their necks
to show to whom they belong. A crippled person
would not live long in Castelnuovo, while the fre-
quenter of taverns, who wandered about at night,
would either find himself repeatedly at the place he
started from, or would fall of^ the town into the
valley and be lost.

The visitor to Castelnuovo attains very suddenly to
the heart of the town. A step or two from the open
country, and he stands in the Piazza del Duomo, or
Cathedral Square, which is to Castelnuovo what
Trafalgar Square is to London. It is into this square
that the two prisoners would be led from the inn.
The piazza is small, prim and neat. On one side is
the church. It has been recently rebuilt and is a poor
affair, tawdry and garish ; but the campanile of Roman
brick is very old and dignified, and might remind
Caponsacchi a little of the superb bell tower of his own
Church of Santa Maria della Pieve. On another side
of the square is a large ancient building, very vague
and curious. It has a massive outside stair of stone,
beneath which is an archway. It is surmounted by a
belfry and a little cross. It must have been a monastic

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house of some kind, but it is now apparently empty
as regards its upper regions. On the ground it accom-
modates, in very picturesque and casual fashion, the
shops of Castelnuovo — the grocer's shop, the charcoal
dealer's, the leatherseller's shop, the pork shop and
the cafe (Plate 98).

On a third side of the piazza is an amazing brick
wall of such aggressive height and substance that it
overwhelms the tiny square. It is a wall some centuries
old, the warm, ruddy colour of which is in contrast
with the green weeds and tufts of green bush which
spring from every cranny. Early in May these strangely
placed plants are covered with yellow flowers. The
wall is so vast that it might form the base of a
Tower of Babel, a conception which is assisted by
the fact that on the face of the wall, and cut out of
its thickness, is a zigzag stone stair, such as is shown
in pictures of the tower in children's books on Bible
history.

The stone stair leads to an immense building of
hoary brick, situated on the top of the wall. This is
the Pretura, a fact made evident by a shield on the
wall presenting the arms of Italy and the words :
" R. Pretura. Castelnuovo di Porto" (Plate 99). It
was here that Pompilia and the priest were imprisoned.
At each end of the building, which is three storeys
in height, is a species of tower, giving the whole
fabric the appearance of a fortress. The windows are
square and would seem to have been enlarged and
modernised. On a side wall of this ponderous build-
ing is a coat of arms in stone, representing three
bees. This is the shield of the Barberini, one member

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

of which family was Pope between the years 1623 and
1644.

The stone stair leading up to the Pretura is very
interesting, because up this identical stair Pompilia
must have been conducted on her way to prison, since
there is no other means of access to the building.
The upper flight of the stair has been renovated, but
the lower part (that shown in Plate 100) is in its original
condition, being paved with cobble stones so worn that
the present steps must have been old even in Pompilia's
time.

The door of the Pretura is of some standing, for
the wood of it has almost perished. It leads into an
open courtyard, deep as a pit, which is assuredly of
greater antiquity than the front of the building. In
the centre is a well, with an uncouth wooden structure
over it for the pulling up of the bucket. The water
in the well is evidently not entirely trusted, for at
the moment of entering the Pretura, a handsome girl,
carrying a copper water urn on her head, crossed the
court with stately carriage and passed the well by as
anathema.

Some parts of the interior of the Pretura are very
ancient, for here stood a castle of the Colonnas, and
many remains of that stronghold still exist. The most
interesting of these is a tiny chapel, or oratory, in the
centre of the building. It is little more than a cell,
has a groined roof of stone, a paved floor and one
small window. It is now used as a bedroom, and a
very minute bedroom it makes. Painted on a wall is
a most archaic Madonna and Child— a mere yellow
shadow of a picture. Of the great age of the work there

2ib

Castelnuovo

can be no doubt. The warder of the Pretura stated
that it was executed by Barna, a painter, I find, who
died in 1381. The Uttle oratory itself would appear to
be of an earlier date than this, but of the history of
the castle I can find no account.

From the open courtyard where the well stands,
a stone stair leads up to a public hall, large, dim and
empty. Into this hall Pompilia and Caponsacchi would
be brought, and here they would wait the pleasure
of the representative of the law. This common hall is
of little interest, but leading out of it by a few steps
is the Sala della Adienze, or Audience Chamber, which
is as perfect and as beautiful a specimen of the ancient
justice room as will be found anywhere. The room is
small and square and lit by two windows. It has a
wonderful cove roof, ornamented and cunningly divided
into panels by delicate plaster work. In each panel is
a picture, for the whole ceiling is painted. The paint-
ings are stated to be the work of Zucchero, who lived
between the years 1529 and 1569. The subjects are
very varied. There are in four panels the four Seasons.
Other pictures represent the Rape of the Sabines, the
parade of armed galleys before a naval battle. Emperors
in council, and the Sibyl ofifering the mystic books to
Tarquin. The colours are, from the lapse of years,
becoming faint, and have, in some places, disappeared,
leaving a mere phantom of the artist's design. The
general effect, however, of the display of faded pinks
and blues and yellows is extremely beautiful.

In the room is a large table covered with green cloth.
Behind it is the magistrate's bench, constructed of wood
which has been coloured black. On either side of the

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

table, and standing with its back against the wall, is a
humbler bench for those who have business in the court.
On one of these benches, or on one like them — for
they are not very old— I think Guido must have sat and
scowled at the two prisoners at the bar, his chin resting
on his hand, his elbow on his knee.

Now, in front of the table, and therefore in front
of the justice's bench, is a wooden railing, the wood
of which is black from age. It extends almost across
the room, from the door to window. It is the bar at
which the prisoners stood. The warder of the prison,
who is at the same time the general factotum of the
Pretura, drew special attention to this wooden rail
and to the obvious antiquity of it. It must have stood
here when Pompilia and her companion were brought
before the magistrate to answer the charge laid against
them by Count Guido. On this very bar — it is hardly
too much to assume — Pompilia's actual hands have
rested. As she turned towards the bench her profile
would stand out against the sunny window as does the
face of a saint painted, in the old fashion, upon a back-
ground of gold.

At the foot of the stair that leads from the well
court to the public hall is a heavy door. This is the
door of the prison to which the little countess and the
priest were dragged after the business in the justice's
room had been disposed of. There is nothing to lead
one to think that these prisons have undergone any
change since 1697. The cells are small, and have all
the aspect of sober age. The warder spoke of them as
if they had existed from all time. There are cells for

male prisoners on one side and for female culprits on

228

Castelnuovo

the other. At the time of my visit there were six
prisoners in this small jail ; so, although the town is
so simple and childlike, and although in the country
round about every prospect pleases, yet there are still
evil-doers in Castelnuovo, even if they have not arrived
there in a calesse from Arezzo, smothered with dust, and
speechless from fatigue.

There is more to be seen of Pompilia's prison from
another part of the town. At the back of the Pretura
is a trivial square called the Piazza Garibaldi (Plate 101).
It is a very meagre piazza, with an unmistakable sugges-
tion of squalor about it. It is occupied by a few old
cottages, disposed in the agreeable disorder which is
characteristic of Castelnuovo. One side of the square
is taken up from end to end by the great building. It
looks even more formidable from this piazza than it
does from the front ; for it presents itself as an untidy
precipice, made up of the exposed rock of the hill,
surmounted by a wall of rough stone or of brick, which
same is made ragged by tufts of weed and shaggy
brambles, all clinging in determined fashion to the
inhospitable height.

Far up on the face of this high wall are five square

windows, heavily barred. These are the windows of the

prison (Plate 102). By the light of one of these Pompilia

wrote her letter to the old people in the Via Vittoria.

The midday sun would throw a shadow of the bars upon

the floor of the cell, for the prison faces south. Saddest

of all is this, that from her window, Pompilia would

see stretched before her eyes the valley of the Tiber,

the peaceful Campagna, and the fair country that lies

about the city of Rome. After long days of turmoil

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

and unhappiness, after the nightmare journey from
Arezzo, after the desperate attempt to save a Hfe other
than her own, these sullen iron bars came between
her and the goal that was already in sight and shut
her out from the paradise, the threshold of which she
had almost reached.

230

G. FROM CASTELNUOVO TO ROME

FROM Castelnuovo to the walls of Rome is a dis-
tance of ISJ miles. It is a very pleasant and
picturesque road, although one may be assured
that Pompilia and Caponsacchi took little note of it, as
they made this — the last — stage in their eventful journey to
Rome. For the first few miles the road passes through
a wooded district where are many oaks, hawthorns,
clumps of white and pink wild roses, masses of yellow
broom, and here and there a patch of bracken.

About 5J miles from Castelnuovo are the few houses
which mark Borghettaccio, or Mai Borghetto as the
old maps give it. Here was a post-station, one of the
two between Castelnuovo and Rome.

Borghettaccio stands at an altitude of some 315 feet,
and provides a singularly fascinating view of the Cam-
pagna, with, in the far distance, Monte Mario and the
domes and towers of the great city. It would be from
this point, while the horses halted, that Pompilia and her
fellow prisoner would have their first sight of Rome.
It must have been to them a memorable moment.
From no spot to the north of Rome does the Cam-
pagna look more beautiful, in the month of May, than
from the high ground about Borghettaccio (Plate 103).
By the side of the road is a stone wall rising out of a border
of acanthus, whose great leaves arc in May at their very
greenest. Beyond the wall the land drops down to a

231

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

vast undulating grass country, wherein are slopes dotted
with trees, glens filled with undergrowth, level meads
and tiny valleys, with here and there a steep grey cliff
and here and there the green track of a hidden rivulet.
Far away is a hillock so covered with yellow broom that
it looks like a golden ball. Nearer at hand are glades
so bright with small white flowers that they seem to be
sprinkled with hoar frost ; while, in another valley, full
of blue shadow, there may be a film of amber which
looks like the golden weed in a trough of the Sargasso
Sea. On one smooth height wanders a flock of sheep,
or a company of black goats maybe, making their way
down a winding path, while, alone, as the only human
creature in sight, stands a man in a cloak, leaning on
a staff, a mere dab of brown in the wide expanse of
green. Straight ahead lie the great city and the plain
that leads to the sea ; to the right are the mountains
that cluster about the Lake of Bracciano, while to the
left is the Tiber Valley, and, beyond, at a distance of
many miles, the purple barrier of the Sabine Hills.

The last stopping place before Rome is Prima Porta,
which is only five miles from the Ponte Milvio. It is here
that the Via Flaminia passes through a defile among the
rocks, and it is here that the high ground ends, since
the road for the rest of the way is along the level floor
of the Tiber Valley.

Prima Porta consists of an old chapel and of two or
three houses of a modern date. It can boast of some
ruins in its neighbourhood, but the interest of the little
posting-place — once the scene of so much bustle and
excitement — is gone for ever. Just beyond Prima Porta

the road, as it crosses a stream, has been diverted from

232

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From Castelnuovo to Rome

the original track, but the old road and the old bridge
have been left. They are shown in Plate 104. Across
this bridge the priest and the little countess journeyed
on their way to prison. The bridge is very venerable,
and is rapidly becoming buried in creepers and in ad-
venturous bush. It serves, however, to show how very
narrow was the ancient highway.

The rest of the road to Rome, although a little un-
interesting in the winter, is exceedingly beautiful in the
beginning of May. It runs for some part of the distance
at the foot of a steep cliff, having on the other side
the level bank of the Tiber. This clifl and the slope
between it and the road are ablaze with colour. There
are innumerable acacia trees in bloom, while among the
tangled undergrowth are masses of blue borage inter-
mixed with a brilliant company of crimson poppies, or
of thistles just breaking into flower. More beautiful
even than these are the banks of fennel, where, hover-
ing round a thousand slender stalks, nearly a fathom
high, are twenty thousand clusters of gold spheres.

Before reaching the Ponte Milvio the road passes
through a curious but pleasant part of the Campagna,
which strikes the traveller as familiar, because it forms
the scenery of so many religious pictures. Here is the
landscape which is associated with the lives of numer-
ous saints, and with the works of such artists as
Poussin, who spent laborious years in Rome. Here is
the road at the foot of the cliff along which the Vir-
gin travels with the Babe. Here is the green, undu-
lating country, with distant hills, with little patches of
wood, with little islands of rock, with isolated mounds,
capped by a house or a clump of trees, which seem

233

The Country of "The Ring and the Book

the native land of the Holy Family and a whole com-
pany of pious folk. Here, again, are the masses of
ruined masonry, partly overgrown with bushes and
partly converted into the dwellings of picturesque
shepherds, which fascinated the landscape painters of
some two centuries ago.

Another turn in the road and there come into view
the River Tiber and the domes and spires of the city
of Rome.

234

7. HOW THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY LOOKED

IN the narrative of the Franceschini tragedy the
Yellow Book tells of many things, but it fails to
furnish any account of the personal appearance of
the men and women who played their parts in the drama.
We can only imagine them as people representative of
certain crude characters which figure in the stories of all
time and which have been familiar to the listening
world ever since tales were told. Guido is the sour,
malignant villain ; Paolo the sleek, smiling plotter of
plots; Caponsacchi the handsome, open-hearted hero;
and Pompilia the beautiful, pathetic, lamentable lady.

Although their faces are blurred and the light in
their eyes has vanished, the dress they wore is pre-
served to us through many contemporary paintings and
prints ; and thus it is possible to picture them moving
among the scenes that have just been described.*

This lean priest, stepping warily from stone to stone
across the muddy Corso and attired much as priests
are attired at the present day, is the Abate Paolo. The
elderly couple walking down the Via Vittoria on their
way to church are Pietro and Violante Comparini. He
wears a black cloth hat with a wide oval brim and a

♦Among the many pictures illustrative of this matter an excellent example
is afforded by the painting on parchment by Baur in the Borghese Gallery in
Rome, showing the facade of the Borghese Palace in the seventeenth century,
with a very remarkable crowd of people of all ranks disposed in the open
square before the building.

235

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

high crown. It is a jaunty hat, for the brim can be
tilted many ways. It is the hat of the time, ranging
from a very shapely model when worn by the noble,
to a mere flapping rag when asprawl on the head
of a labourer. The old gentleman is clad in a tunic
of dark stufif with possibly some pattern on it. Below
the tunic are baggy breeches, in hue blue or black,
and then stockings and shoes. If the day be Sunday,
Pietro would probably display a tuft of ribbons at the
knee, or, should the weather be cold, would wear a
cloak — a mere square of black cloth thrown carelessly
over one shoulder and draped loosely round the body.

The smarter young men who came from the great
houses in the Via Bocca di Lione would be more
gaily dressed. Their coats would be longer and the
collar and cuffs of a different colour from the body.
Thus a grey tunic with red cuffs would be quite in
the mode, while a yellow coat worn under a blue cloak
would attract no more than flattering attention. Round
silk pompons at the knee, in the place of the ribbons,
seem to have been very chic at this period. A wide,
white linen collar was, at the same time, a mark of
distinction to which the humbler folk made no claim.

Violante appears in a close-fitting bodice, a little

low at the neck, with a high waist and with sleeves of

a different colour from the rest. The dress is quite plain,

while above it is an overskirt, reaching to the knee

and presenting some contrast in the matter of tint.

Over the head and shoulders she wears a mantilla,

possibly moulded a little to the head so as to look

somewhat like a hood. A younger woman who passes

her by has her mantilla delicately ornamented across

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How the People of the Story Looked

the forehead. Violante displays a silver comb in her
hair, wears large earrings and a simple necklace.
When she received the Abate Paolo in the parlour in
the Via Vittoria to discuss Pompilia's dowry, one may
expect that she wore, over her simple dress, an em-
broidered apron which had descended to her from her
grandmother.

The two unclean men arguing across the table of
a poor wine shop at Vitiano are Gambassini and Agos-
tinelli. They are discussing Count Guide's terms for
the carrying out of the triple murder in Rome. They
are dressed as Guido himself was dressed when he was
captured at Merluzza — namel}"", in a sack-like brown
coat, worn over a vest of goats'-hair, with rough breeches
and coarser stockings, and on their heads cotton caps
covered by a thing of felt of doubtful colour, and
shapeless.

Count Guido, as he walked the streets of Arezzo
on his way to his friend the Governor, would be seen
to wear a black tunic with a very elaborate pattern
worked upon it in thread of a brighter colour than the
cloth itself. Very possibly, too, if he was in the mood
to be gay, there would be a tuft of feathers in his
hat.

As to Pompilia's appearance we know nothing, ex-
cept that she was "a beautiful woman." I have
wandered through every picture gallery in Rome and
in Florence, seeking, among the crowds of faces of
Italian women of years gone by, for the face of Pompilia.
After scanning some hundreds of faces, many of them
famous, a few of them beautiful, the majority of them
so saintly as to be inhumanly insipid, I at last found

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Pompilia. She appears in Fra Filippo Lippi's picture
of the Madonna in the Pitti Palace at Florence. A
reproduction of Brother Lippi's Madonna appears as the
Frontispiece of this book.

This beautiful face is that of a girl of about seventeen,
very still and pathetic, a little weary it may be, and yet with
an expression of determination about the dainty mouth
that is unexpected. She has the eyes of a fawn, pretty
hair, and a head-dress that is half girlish, half matronly.
The slight tilt of her nose saves her face from being
classical and formal. She is a little woman assuredly,
delicate looking, and one who would seem to have met
with little joy in her short life. Scanning her face one
can understand how she succeeded in persuading Capon-
sacchi to take her away from Arezzo, how her devotion
to him became unfathomable, how she defied her
husband when he confronted her at the inn at Castel-
nuovo and yet how she generously forgave him as she
lay dying in the familiar house in Rome. It is the
face of a guileless woman, tender, patient, sympathetic,
earnest and supremely feminine.

We know from Count Guido's list of the articles
he declared that she carried away with her what might
have been the particulars of her dress and the character
of the ornaments she wore, or might have worn. One
can imagine her decked in her best dress as she makes
her way to the theatre, where she first met Caponsacchi
face to face. It was, according to the inventory, " a
damask suit with its mantle and a petticoat of a poppy
colour embroidered with various flowers." Around the
slender neck, I am sure, was "the collar of crumpled
silk." With this costume would be worn the light

238

How the People of the Story Looked

blue stockings and the shoes with silver buckles that
are mentioned in the list. I fancy, too, that she would
wear the "pair of ear-rings in the shape of a little ship
of gold." Pompilia may always be associated with this
little ship of gold, since she entrusted all her treasure
to one poor argosy, too frail for the darkening sea she
ventured on.

When she ran away with Caponsacchi from Arezzo,
I think that she wore her "snuff-coloured worsted
bodice with petticoat ornamented with white and red
pawns," and that over this was spread the "apron of
key-bit pattern with its lace," while about her shoulders
was wrapped that "scarf of black tafifeta with a bow
of ribbon" of which mention is made. I feel sure
that she had with her the little ship of gold, and that
her heart failed her utterly when this precious emblem
was wrested from her in the jail at Castelnuovo.

Pompilia's flight from Arezzo to Rome, had been
no other than the despairing voyage of a girl in a little
ship that, slight as it proved to be, was to her a ship
of gold.

239

Part Three

THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY AS THEY
APPEAR IN THE POEM

THE PEOPLE OF THE STORY AS THEY APPEAR IN

THE POEM

THE Ring and the Book " is a poem of con-
siderable length, occupying, indeed, twelve
books and over twenty-one thousand lines. It
tells the same story no fewer than ten times over in a
series of monologues. In each telling the events which
occurred are viewed and discussed from a different
standpoint. It may be supposed that so much repetition
is wearisome, but, on the contrary, the interest never
wanes until the reader has heard to the end all that
those who are concerned in the story have to say about
its tragic circumstances.

The first book gives a plain, impartial summary of
the whole affair, such an account as would be presented
in a news-letter of the day. In the second book the
tale is told by one of the many in Rome who took
the side of the husband. It is a reproduction of the
inevitable gossip that babbled through every street of the
city when the private doings of husband and wife became
common knowledge. The third book also is "another
sample speech i' the market-place," expressing the
view of those who had sympathy with the wife.

There then follows a cold dissertation by a speaker
who inclined neither to the one side nor the other. It
is the commentary of the salon cynic, of "the critical
mind," of the callous man who would sum the matter
up as he would sort counters, who would weigh the pros

243

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

and cons of the case in a merchant's balance, and, at
the same time, assure the world that his estimate of
men and women was, in general terms, low. It is the
speech of the person of position who regards all those
who are not of his set as "the mob."

Next comes the speech of Count Guido Frances-
chini, the one he made before the Court in his own
defence, after he had passed the ordeal of the torture.
It is supplemented by a second monologue, later in
the book, which embodies his last frantic utterances,
blurted out in the condemned cell before he was led
away to execution.

After this Caponsacchi speaks. He tells the whole
story over again as it arose and grew within his know-
ledge. It is the speech delivered before the tribunal
in justification of himself and in vindication of the
good name of the lady he sought to serve. Next comes
PompiUa's account of her sad, brief life, told as she
was lying on her death-bed. She speaks with infinite
candour and earnestness, and with such beauty of
language that her confession stands out as the most
superb portion of the book.

Twice again is the whole story traversed in the
lawyers' pleadings ; first, by the advocate who conducted
the defence, and then by his colleague who under-
took the prosecution on behalf of the Treasury.

Last of all comes the Pope's utterance on the entire
afifair. He passes in review the varied and violent
circumstances of the tragedy, and pronounces judgment
upon all who were in any way concerned therewith.
It is through the mouth of the Pope that the poet

reveals the tenor of his own mind.

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I. THE COMPARINI

THE Comparini were, the poem says, " of the
modest middle class" and "of good repute."
Violante was a "stirring, striving" woman, an
ingenious schemer, " quick at the by-road and the
cross-cut," kind of heart, yet unwise, a maker of mis-
chief, yet a woman of blundering good intent. Pietro,
on the other hand, "a good, fat, rosy, careless man,"
was stupid and credulous, and a mere tool in the
hands of his wife. He had a great affection for
Pompilia, the child he believed to be his daughter,
was opposed to her marriage, and charmed by the
thought of her coming back to the Via Vittoria again
after the affair at Arezzo.

" Will she come back, with nothing changed at all,
And laugh ' But how you dreamed uneasily !
I saw the great drops stand here on your brow —
Did I do wrong to wake you with a kiss?'
No, indeed, darling ! "

In the discreditable matter of the dowry contract Pietro
was no party to the cheat. In this transaction

" Guido gives
Money for money — and they, bride for groom,
Having, he, not a doit, they, not a child."

On behalf of the Comparini it must be said that what
they did — lamentable as it proved to be — was done for
the supposed good of the child, while even Violante's

245

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

" leadenest of lies" was uttered without deliberate
thought of wickedness.

They " did their best
Part God's way, part the other way than God's,
To somehow make a shift and scramble through
The world's mud, careless if it splashed and spoiled,
Provided they might so hold high, keep clean
Their child's soul, one soul white enough for three,
And lift it to whatever star should stoop."

Violante pitted her wits against those of the Abate
Paolo and at the outset the abate won. The interview
between the two was a matter of profound concern, for
upon its issue hung the fates of those who were nearest
to them both. The interview took place in the Via
Vittoria. The Abate Paolo called one afternoon and
was admitted :

" Might he speak ?
Yes — to Violante somehow caught alone
While Pietro took his after-dinner doze,
And the young maiden, busily as befits.
Minded her broider-frame three chambers off.
So — giving now his great flap-hat a gloss
With flat o' the hand between-whiles, soothing now
The silk from out its creases o'er the calf,
Setting the stocking clerical again.
But never disengaging, once engaged.
The thin clear grey hold of his eyes on her —
He dissertated on that Tuscan house,
Those Franceschini "

The wedding was clandestine and unknown to Pietro.
It was, indeed, carried out with indecent secrecy a little
while before the family left their home in the Via Vit-
toria for Arezzo. Pompilia describes the ceremony,

such as it was, in the following words :

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" I was hurried through a storm,
Next dark eve of December's deadest day —
How it rained ! through our street and the Lion's-mouth
And the bit of Corso, — cloaked round, covered close,
I was like something strange or contraband, —
Into blank San Lorenzo, up the aisle,
My mother keeping hold of me so tight,
I fancied we were come to see a corpse
Before the altar which she pulled me toward.
There we found waiting an unpleasant priest
Who proved the brother, not our parish friend.
But one with mischief-making mouth and eye,
Paul, whom I know since to my cost. And then
I heard the heav}^ church-door lock out help
Behind us : for the customary warmth,
Two tapers shivered on the altar. ' Quick —
Lose no time ! ' cried the priest. And straightway down
From . . . what's behind the altar where he hid —
Hawk-nose and yellowness and bush and all.
Stepped Guido, caught my hand, and there was I
O' the chancel, and the priest had opened book,
Read here and there, made me say that and this,
And after, told me I was now a wife."

)

Violante was anxious enough to go to Arezzo. She
beHeved that there she would be rid of those money
troubles that pressed so heavily in Rome, while in the
Tuscan city she would find herself " gilt with an alien
glory" and would, together with Pietro, be able to

" Enjoy for once with neither stay nor stint
The luxury of Lord-and-Lady-ship."

The miseries of their short sojourn at Arezzo are

described by the Comparini in trenchant and bitter

terms. In place of a luxuriant life in a palace, they

found themselves housed as spectres in a sepulchre,

picking garbage off a pewter plate. After

247

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

" Four months' probation of this purgatory,
Dog-snap and cat-claw, curse and counterblast ....
Four months' taste of apportioned insolence,
Cruelty graduated, dose by dose ;
The starved, stripped, beaten brace of stupid dupes
Broke at last in their desperation loose.
Fled away for their lives, and lucky so."

Violante's confession, inevitable as it was, came
upon Pompilia as a cruel and paralysing blow. It
seemed to the girl as if the mother she adored "had
stripped her naked to amuse the world," and that
among the many ills heaped upon her this was the
very bitterest. So far as Pompilia's life was concerned
it was after this that

" The stealing, sombre element comes in
Till all is black or blood-red in the piece."

248

II. THE FRANCESCHINI

GUIDO'S mother, the " grey mother with a
monkey-mien, mopping and mowing," fares
ill in the book. The Pope calls her "a gaunt
nightmare who turned motherhood to shame and
womanliness to loathing." The callousness with which
she connived at all the cruelty inflicted upon Pompilia
exposes her to the world as an inhuman wretch.

The "cat-clawed" Canon Girolamo was a loath-
some hybrid, neither fox nor wolf, but combining in
some contemptible degree the craft of one and the
violence of the other.

The Abate Paolo, the "fox-faced" priest, holds a
conspicuous place in the poem. It was his shrewd-
ness and intelligence that gave point and power to the
crude schemes of the Franceschini family. He was
throughout the moving spirit in the tragedy. It was
he who supplied the brains, and although he was out-
witted by Violante in the end, he came near to se-
curing a great triumph in sheer devilry. As Guido
was represented as being forty-six years of age when
the story opened, it was necessary that Browning should
make Paolo a younger brother, although he was, in
point of fact, the eldest of the family. He is de-
scribed as smooth-mannered, soft-speeched, sleek-
cheeked, as a hypocrite as well as a brute, as a man
who lived for greed, ambition, lust and revenge, and who
would have robbed sick folk in the temple porch.

249

III. POMPILIA

POMPILIA, so the book affirms, was young, good
and beautiful, with large dark eyes and a bounty
of black hair. Her face was pale and her expres-
sion grave and griefTul, like that of our Lady of All the
Sorrows. One who saw her on her death-bed believed

"A lovelier face is not in Rome . . .
Shaped like a peacock's egg.'"

Caponsacchi speaks of her appearance in these
words :

" Her brow had not the right line, leaned too much,
Painters would say ; they like the straight-up Greek :
This seemed bent somewhat with an invisible crown
Of martyr and saint, not such as art approves.
And how the dark orbs dwelt deep underneath.
Looked out of such a sad, sweet heaven on me —
The lips, compressed a little, came forward too.
Careful for a whole world of sin and pain."

As she lay dying in the hospital, where she had
been taken after Guido's murderous attack, she gives
the story of her life.*

"Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins."

* In point of fact she died in the house in the Via Vittoria in which the
murder took place.

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Pompilia

She tells her story in simple words and in the
manner of a child. Looking back over her confused,
tragic, broken life, she finds it all a mystery and un-
substantial. "My life," she says, "looks old, fantastic
and impossible. I touch a fairy thing that fades and
fades, even to my babe, till even he withdraws into a
dream."

" So with my husband — just such a surprise,
Such a mistake, in that relationship !
Everyone says that husbands love their wives,
Guard them and guide them, give them happiness ;

.... well,
You see how much of this comes true in mine !
People indeed would fain have somehow proved
He was no husband : but he did not hear.
Or would not wait, and so has killed us all."

Having known little but sorrow all her days, she
wonders at the mystery of existence, as a child wonders
at an illness that strikes it with sudden pain and blots
out, like a chill cloud, all the glamour of life. Her
marriage is a wonder to her, for she hardly knew at
the time what a husband meant. Arezzo is a fathom-
less blank, while the three years of sorrow spent in
that town stand out in her memory as an unintelligible
void.

In the whole of the long, pitiable story there is
never an unkind word and never a reproach. She
upbraids no one ; she condemns no one, while never
does she assume the pose of a martyr or clamour for
pity. She generously forgives "that most woeful man,
her husband," without one word of rancour or bitter-
ness. She seeks to lessen the harshness of Violante's
crime, thinks even that it was good for her and "good

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

for Pietro, who was meant to love a babe," while of
her "poor faulty mother," she is happy to think she
"died the easier by what price I fetched." In the
end she pours forth her heart in adoration of the man
who lifted her out of the slough of despond.

She speaks very prettily of her boy, of "that little
life so detached, so left all to itself." She leaves it to
the care of God, "who knows I am not by."

" Who is it makes the soft gold hair turn black
And sets the tongue, might lie so long at rest.
Trying to talk ? . . . .
All women are not mothers of a boy,
Though they live twice the length of my whole life,
And, as they fancy, happily all the same.
There I lay, then, all my great fortnight long.
As if it would continue, broaden out
Happily more and more, and lead to Heaven :
Christmas before me — was not that a chance ?
I never realised God's birth before —
How he grew likest God in being born ....
When he grows up and gets to be my age.
He will seem hardly more than a great boy ;
And if he asks, ' What was my mother like ? '
People may answer, ' Like girls of seventeen ' —
And how can he but think of this and that,
Lucias, Marias, Sofias, who titter or blush
When he regards them as such boys may do ?

I fancy him grown great.
Strong, stern, a tall young man who tutors me,
Frowns with the others, ' Poor imprudent child !
Why did you venture out of the safe street ?
Why go so far from help to that lone house ?
Why open at the whisper and the knock ? ' "

She dwells at some length upon her life at Arezzo,
in that "fell house of hate" where first Guido "laid

a hand on her that burned all peace." She realises

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Pompilia

that no matter what she did no good resulted, and
that her endeavours only served to increase her hus-
band's hate. She deals with the subject of the so-
called love letters, and proves that she was not only
innocent of sending them, but that she neither knew
nor cared what they purported to convey. She had
some insight into Guido's plot to entrap her, and was
aware that the maid Maria Margherita was both
false to her and bent upon accomplishing her ruin.
She felt that her husband was cruel, not merely that
he might hurt her, but that through her he might
hurt others. As for the reason for his hate it remains,
like so much besides in the wretched house, a matter
of blank mystery. Although she makes little of her
own unhappiness there are others who tell

how

" how the Httle solitary wife
Wept and looked out of window all day long."

"All sort of torture was piled, pain on pain,
On either side Pompilia's path of life.
Built round about and over against by fear,
Circumvallated month by month, and week
By week, and day by day, and hour by hour.
Close, closer and yet closer still with pain.
No outlet from the encroaching pain save just
Where stood one saviour like a piece of heaven,
Hell's arms would strain round but for this blue gap. . .
Then the grim arms stretched yet a little more
And each touched each, all but one streak i' the midst,
Whereat stood Caponsacchi, who cried, ' This way,
Out by me I Hesitate one moment more
And the fire shuts out me and shuts in you !
Here my hand holds you life out ! ' Whereupon
She clasped the hand, which closed on hers and drew
Pompilia out o' the circle now complete."

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

This was the purpose of all her husband's scheming,
to "show the world their saint in a lover's arms, no
matter how driven thither."

She tells of the episode at the theatre, in the last
days of a carnival in March, of the throwing of the
comfits and of her seeing Caponsacchi face to face
for the first time.

In passages of remarkable beauty she speaks of her
resolve to fly away to Rome, tells of what it was that
prompted her to go and of the magic moment when
the impulse seized her.

"It had got half through April. I arose
One vivid daybreak, — who had gone to bed
In the old way my wont those last three 3'ears,
Careless until, the cup drained, I should die.

.... My sole thought
Being still, as night came, ' Done, another day !
How good to sleep and so get nearer death ! ' —
When, what, first thing at daybreak, pierced the sleep
With a summons to me ? Up I sprang alive,
Light in me, light without me, everywhere
Change ! A broad yellow sunbeam was let fall
From heaven to earth, — a sudden drawbridge lay,
Along which marched a myriad merry motes,
Mocking the flies that crossed them and recrossed
In rival dance, companions new-born too.
On the house-eaves, a dripping shag of weed
Shook diamonds on each dull grey lattice-square,
As first one, then another bird leapt by,
And light was off, and lo was back again.
Always with one voice, — where are two such joys ?
The blessed building sparrow ! I stepped forth.
Stood on the terrace, — o'er the roofs, such sky !
My heart sang, ' I, too, am to go away,
I too have something I must care about.
Carry away with me to Rome, to Rome ! ' "

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Then comes the memorable journey, of which more
is said elsewhere, and the moment when, utterly pros-
trated, she arrives at Castelnuovo. It was then, she
says, that

"Something like a white wave o' the sea
Broke o'er my brain and buried me in sleep."

Of her awakening, and of her meeting with her husband
in the little room at the inn, she speaks as follows:

"Where was I found but on a strange bed
In a strange room like hell, roaring with noise.
Ruddy with flame, and filled with men, in front
Whom but the man you call my husband, ay —
Count Guido once more between heaven and me,
For there my heaven stood, my salvation, yes —
That Caponsacchi all my heaven of help,
Helpless himself, held prisoner in the hands
Of men who looked up in my husband's face
To take the fate thence he would signify,
Just as the way was at Arezzo : then,
Not for my sake but his who had helped me —
I sprang up, reached him with one bound, and seized
The sword o' the felon, trembling at his side,
Fit creature of a coward, unsheathed the thing
And would have pinned him through the poison-bag
To the wall and left him there to palpitate,
As you serve scorpions, but men interposed —
Disarmed me, gave his life to him again
That he might take mine and the other lives,
And he has done so. I submit myself."

She speaks with gratitude of her days spent in the
convent after arrest at Castelnuovo. It was here that
she found

" The uttermost of my heart's desire, a truce
From torture and Arezzo, balm for hurt
With the quiet nuns, — God recompense the good !
Who said and sang away the ugly past."

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The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Of the hideous tragedy that brought her Hfe to an
end she says Httle, but as she Ues upon her death-bed
she frankly forgives her husband all that he has done.

*' For that most woeful man my husband once,
Who, needing respite, still draws vital breath,
I — pardon him ? So far as lies in me,
I give him for his good the life he takes.
Praying the world will therefore acquiesce.
Let him make God amends — none, none to me
Who thank him rather that, whereas strange fate
Mockingly styled him husband and me wife.
Himself this way at least pronounced divorce,
Blotted the marriage-bond : this blood of mine
Flies forth exultingly at any door,
Washes the parchment white, and thanks the blow.
We shall not meet in this world nor the next.
But where will God be absent ? In His face
Is light, but in His shadow healing too :
Let Guido touch the shadow and be healed ! "

From the manner of the telling of her story, from
the words spoken by her friends, Pompilia stands re-
vealed as a woman exquisitely feminine, lovable and
loving, gentle, patient, submissive and self-effacing,
generous and noble-hearted, tender as a child and yet
possessed, when the safety of her babe was threatened,
with the courage of a lioness. One circumstance in
her life — her flight from her husband's house — needs to
be explained and justified, while the merits of her
relationship with Caponsacchi stand forth for judgment.

From one point of view we have here a girl, who,
although married very young, was wedded to a man of
her parents' choosing. These two old people, foolish
and deluded as they may have been, were held to be
of good repute in the eyes of the world. Pompilia's

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husband treated her with persistent cruelty and con-
tempt, so that for three years and more her Yiic was
one of unabating miser3^ Would not her conduct have
been more commendable, and, indeed, even heroic, if
she had patiently endured this torture, and had without
flinching fulfilled her duties as a wife ? Instead of
being steadfast to the end, she flies away secretly in the
dark of the night with a sprightly and handsome man
of twenty-three. If there be no more in the story than
this, how is it possible that Pompilia's deliberate step
can be regarded not only as justifiable, but as worthy
of praise and, indeed, of fervid admiration ?

Viewed, however, from another and fuller point of
view the case stands thus. She was little more than a
child when the chronicle opens. She was, as she says,
" in a strange town with no familiar face." Not only was
every day of her existence a day of misery, but her life
was in danger. She was convinced beyond all arguing
that in some fashion or another she would be done to
death. Her presence in the house did harm, not good.
She served only to arouse and aggravate her husband's
vilest passions. To her brother-in-law she was merely
the object of dishonourable designs, while to the aged
countess she proved no more than an incentive to
malice and ill usage. She was polluted by association
with such a man as Guido Franceschini. He not only
blotted out all joy from her being, but he degraded
her and dragged her down with him into the mire. As
she exclaims, when he would seize her at Castelnuovo :

" My soul is mine, my body is my soul's . . .
At least and for ever I am mine and God's,
Never again degraded lo be yours."
R 257

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Possibly it might with justice be allowed that, in
the sum of these dire circumstances, she had reason
and to spare for her flight from Arezzo, yet in her
account of why she fled she talks of none of these
things. She made her escape from her husband's
house for a reason so compelling that it came to her
almost as a Divine command. She fled to save the life
of her unborn child. It was the mother's instinct that
led her to seek, at all costs, a place of safety. " God
put it in my head to fly," she says, "to obey the clear
voice which bade me rise, not for my own sake, but
my babe unborn." When she begged Caponsacchi to
take her to Rome, to take her as he would take a dog
" left masterless for strangers to maltreat," she made
only this one plea. These are her words to the priest :

" Here is the-service. Since a long while now,
I am in course of being put to death :
While death concerned nothing but me, I bowed
The head and bade, in heart, my husband strike.
Now I imperil something more, it seems,
Something that's trulier me than this myself.
Something I trust in God and you to save . . .
I have more life to save than mine."

One other reason she named which makes prominent

her absolute unselfishness. She says at another time,

to Caponsacchi :

"How strange
It is, my husband whom I have not wronged
Should hate and harm me. For his own soul's sake
Hinder the harm ! "

As to the companion in her flight, it was impossible
that she could escape to Rome alone. Neither could
she make the journey with a maid-servant, nor with a

258

Pompilia

woman friend. Travelling in those days was difficult
and dangerous, the times were licentious, footpads
haunted every road, while the protection of the law
was feeble when not actually lacking. The condition
of the roads in Italy at this period is to be gathered
from an entry in the diary of John Evelyn. That
gentleman was travelling on horseback in 1645 through
the country just to the south of Rome. He writes :
"The day following, we were fain to hire a strong
convoy of about thirty firelocks, to guard us through
the cork woods (much infested with the banditti) as far
as Fossa Nuova, where was the Forum Apii."

Pompilia had applied to Canon Conti, a relation
and friend of the Franceschini, and a common-sense
man of the world. Failing GuilHchini, the first name
suggested, he had advised her to seek the help of
Caponsacchi. What else could this lonely woman do ?
She speaks honestly when she says :

" Earth was made hell to me who did no harm :
I only could emerge one way from hell
By catching at the one hand held me, so
I caught at it and thereby stepped to Heaven :
If that be wrong, do with me what you will ! "

As regards Pompilia's relation to Caponsacchi, it is
necessary to remember that at the time she met him
she was fast budding into womanhood. Her experience
of men had been woefully unfortunate. With the
exception of old Pietro Comparini she had grounds for
regarding all men with general distrust, if not with an
instinctive dislike. Her husband — to whom she was
married before she knew what marriage meant — was a
brutal ruffian, who bestowed upon her nothing but

259

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

hate. Of the two other Franceschini, one, the Abate
Paolo, was a foxy-faced priest, as cruel as he was mean,
while the other, the Canon Girolamo, was no more
than a contemptible scoundrel. Neither the Governor
nor the Bishop of Arezzo could have filled her with
any esteem for men, while those who visited at the
house. Canon Conti and Signor Guillichini for example,
regarded her with a pity she was too proud to accept.
It must have seemed to her that all with whom she
was surrounded were party to her misery and tolerant
of her degradation.

Then came the great crisis of her life. She resolved
to fly in order to save the life of her child. She was
about to take a leap in the dark. She sprang and found
herself in the arms of a man who was young and
handsome certainly, but also strong, determined and
courageous. Above all — and this must have been her
strangest experience — he was kind and gentle. Her
husband treated her like a dog, this man approached
her with a homage that raised her at once to a position
of dignity and worshipful respect.

Considering Caponsacchi's personal qualities and con-
sidering the service he rendered her, can it be a matter
of surprise that she regarded him as a being sent from
God ? Can it be wondered that she poured out her
heart to him, that she threw herself at his feet, that for
the rest of her short life she bestowed upon him the
most fervent devotion ? She repudiated with indigna-
tion the suggestion that she and the priest were lovers.
The term "lover," as her detractors used it, was a
term so vulgarised, so indiscriminating, so faulty that
she scorned the idea that it could express the tie that

260

*^ fii^r*f

Pompilia

bound her to Caponsacchi. He was her "sole friend,
guardian and saviour." "He is mine," she cries, " my
Caponsacchi!" "This man restored my soul," "This
one heart brought me all the spring."

The passages in "The Ring and the Book." which
deal with these two, with this despairing girl and the
resolute, unselfish man, are among the most beautiful
to be found in the poetry of any country or any age.

As Pompilia lies on her death-bed her last words
are for Caponsacchi. She revels in her worship of
him. She defends him against his traducers as a tigress
defends its wounded mate, and with the last breath in
her body she comforts him as only an adoring woman
can, and bestows upon him the farewell blessing of
"her immeasurable love."

It was during the flight of the two to Rome that
the change wrought in her life by the coming of this
man was made suddenly manifest to her. On the way
Caponsacchi assures her that in a few hours there will
be no more of the terrible journey, to which she replies:

" No more o' the journey : if it might but last !
Ahvays, my life-long, thus to journey still !
It is the interruption that I dread —
With no dread, ever to be here and thus !
Never to see a face nor hear a voice !
Yours is no voice ; you speak when you are dumb ;
Nor face, 1 see it in the dark. I want
No face nor voice th^t change and grow unkind."

Later on, when the journey was over, and she was
looking back upon the past, she says :

" I did think, do think, in the thought shall die,
That to have Caponsacchi for my guide.
Ever the face upturned to mine, the hand

261

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Holding my hand across the world — a sense
That reads, as only such can read, the mark
God sets on woman, signifying so
She should — shall peradventure — be divine."

Finally, at the very end, when she was dying, and
when she had comnaended her child to the care of
God, she takes farewell of her "one friend" in the
following words, and sends him a message :

" O lover of my life, O soldier-saint.
No work begun shall ever pause for death !
Love will be helpful to me more and more
I' the coming course, the new path I must tread,
My weak hand in thy strong hand, strong for that ! . . .
Tell him, — T know not wherefore the true word
Should fade and fall unuttered at the last —
It was the name of him I sprang to meet
When came the knock, the summons and the end.
' My great heart, my strong hand are back again 1 '
I would have sprung to these, beckoning across
Murder and hell gigantic and distinct
O' the threshold, posted to exclude me Heaven :
He is ordained to call and I to come ! "

262

IV. CAPONSACCHI

CAPONSACCHI is described in the book as a
"young, frank, personable priest," "a courtly,
spiritual Cupid, squire of dames," a man bold
and handsome, with "a polished presence, a genteel
manner, wit at will." He was a younger son of an old
and illustrious family originally from Fiesole, but later
from Florence, where was the Caponsacchi Palace.
He entered the priesthood somewhat against his
will. He was well-to-do and a favourite in society, a
writer of little poems and rather given to frivolity. In
his account of himself he does not claim that his early
life was blameless.

He tells of the part he played in the drama in his
speech before the Court, a speech made in defence of
himself and of the lady he served — made, too, at the
moment when Pompilia was dying. It is a manly,
clear-ringing speech, so vivid in its utterance that the
listener can see the figure of this strong, determined
man standing before his judges and demanding in a
voice of thunder that they hear nothing but the bare,
clean truth. We can see him, as others saw him at
the time, "the seeming-solitary man speaking for
God," and can hear his words ring through that
" grim, black-panelled chamber, rubbed shiny with the
sins of Rome."

It is a flashing, daring, defiant speech. He maintains

263

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Pompilia's innocence and his own honour. He de-
clines to discuss the viler of the charges made against
them.

" Sirs, give what credit to the lie you can !
For me, no word in my defence I speak,
And God shall argue for the lady ! "

He repudiates with indignation the hint that he
was her lover, that he loved her in the way a creature
such as Guido would call love. With withering scorn
he flings back in their teeth the words of those who
titter, "The priest's in love," and adds, with a sob,
" Pompilia is only dying while I speak!" He avers
that never a word passed between them which the
Virgin might not hear :

" I never touched her with my finger-tip,
Except to carry her to the couch that eve,
Against my heart, beneath my head bowed low,
As we priests carry the paten."

He took her away to Rome to save her life and
that of her unborn babe. There was never another
thought in her mind nor in his. What he did was
"altogether for pity's sake," was consistent with his
priesthood, was not an act of self-sacrifice, but a duty.
"Duty to God is duty to her," he says, and claims
that the saving of this fettered and unhappy woman
was a devotional act, an act that he will uphold with
pride to the end of his days. He believed, as she be-
lieved, that he was ordained to save her. He scorns
all excuses. He spurns all fear of the world's opinion
or of the Church's censure. He views the tribunal
before which he stands with contempt, rebukes the
judges as "fools, alike ignorant of God and man,"

264

1-*

-a

•a

4-»

t/i

Caponsacchi

and says at last petulantly, " I have done with being
judged."

He recalls all the details of the story, from the time
when he first came face to face with Pompilia at the
theatre and found her

"A lady, young, tall, beautiful, strange and sad."

He was well aware of Guido's hatred of Pompilia, and
how he "plotted to plague her into overt sin and
shame." He lashes the man without mercy, and
points to him, as he writhes "miserably caught i' the
quagmire of his own tricks, cheats and lies." He re-
pudiates all knowledge of the love letters, and is
furious at the evidence of the perjured maid, that
"lackey of lies." He is convinced that Guido

" himself wrote those papers — from himself
To himself — which, i' the name of me and her.
His mistress-messenger gave her and me.
Touching us with such pustules of the soul
That she and I might take the taint, be shown
To the world and shuddered over, speckled so."

He tells with what deliberation he finally undertook
to rescue Pompilia, how long he pondered over the
matter, and how clearly he saw that he would be
blameworthy unless he carried out the task.

" One evening I was sitting in a muse
Over the opened ' Summa,' darkened round
By the mid-March twilight, thinking how my life
Had shaken under me — broke short indeed
And showed the gap 'twixt what is, what should be —
And into what abysm the soul may slip,
Leave aspiration here, achievement there.
Lacking omnipotence to connect extremes —
Thinking moreover . . . oh, thinking, if you like,
How utterly dissociated was I,

265

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

A priest and celibate, from the sad, strange wife
Of Guido, — just as an instance to the point,
Nought more, — how I had a whole store of strengths
Eating into my heart, which craved employ,
And she, perhaps, need of a finger's help."

He tells the story of the journey from Arezzo to

Rome and recalls with affectionate tenderness every

little detail of the way, although it wrings his heart to

do so. He tells how Pompilia stepped out of the

palace door dressed in black from head to foot, how

white her hands and her face seemed by contrast, how

little she spoke, and how she walked to the city gate

and took her place in the carriage in silence.

" So it began, our flight thro' dusk to clear.
Through day and night and day again to night
Once more, and to last dreadful dawn of all."

He tells how they passed Perugia and Assisi,
treasures up every word she said and the curious,
child-like questions she asked, and narrates how, when
they heard the Angelus ring at sun-down, she begged
him to read Gabriel's song in the place of the service
for the hour. He wishes to recall everything she did,
every " breath or look of hers," and regrets one
particular half hour when he left her free, for, as he
says, that would have been "one more half hour
of her saved." He says that when they reached
Foligno in the evening he begged her to stay and
rest, but "Oh, no stay! she cried, in the fawn's cry,
on to Rome, on, on ! " Pompilia, in her own account
of the journey, tells how glorious he made for her the
world through which they passed, how towns, flowers
and faces, and all things helped so well to make real

the new earth that he had "woven around her."

266

Caponsacchi

" ' This grey place was famous once,' said he — ■
And he began that legend of the place
As if in answer to the unspoken fear,
And told me all about a brave man dead,
\Vhich lifted me and let my soul go on !
How did he know too — at that town's approach
By the rock-side — that in coming near the signs
Of Ufe, the house-roofs and the church and tower,
I saw the old boundary and wall o' the world
Rise plain as ever round me, hard and cold,
As if the broken circlet joined again.
Tightened itself about me with no break —
As if the town would turn Arezzo's self —
The husband there — the friends my enemies,
All ranged against m.e."

Finally, Caponsacchi narrates how on the last
evening, just when " the sky was fierce with colour
from the sun setting," they came in sight of Castel-
nuovo.

Of his anxiety at the post-house, and of how the
journey ended, he speaks in the following words:

" I paced the passage, kept watch all night long.
I listened — not one movement, not one sigh.
' Fear not : she sleeps so sound ! ' they said — but I
Feared, all the same, kept fearing more and more,
Found myself throb with fear from head to foot.
Filled with a sense of such impending woe.
That, at first pause of night, pretence of grey,
I made my mind up it was morn. — ' Reach Rome,
Lest hell reach her ! A dozen miles to make.
Another long breath, and we emerge ! ' I stood
I' the court-yard, roused the sleepy grooms. * Have out
Carriage and horse, give haste, take gold ! ' said I.
While they made ready in the doubtful morn —
'Twas the last minute — needs must I ascend
And break her sleep ; I turned to go.

And there
Faced me Count Guido."

267

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

He is bowed down with shame to think that at
this encounter he could have killed the ruffian, could
have killed him ere he killed his wife, but did not.

In order to inflict upon him the direst punishment

he begs them to let Guido live :

" Leave Guido all alone
Back on the world again that knows him now !
I think he will be found (indulge so far ! )
Not to die so much as slide out of life,
Pushed by the general horror and common hate
Low, lower — left o' the very ledge of things,
I seem to see him catch convulsively
One by one at all honest forms of life,
At reason, order, decency and use —
To cramp him and get foothold by at least ;
And still they disengage them from his clutch.
And thus I see him slowly and surely edged
Off all the tableland whence Hfe upsprings
Aspiring to be immortality.

As the snake, hatched on hill-top by mischance.
Despite his wriggling, slips, slides, slidders down
Hill-side, lies low and prostrate on the smooth
Level of the outer place, lapsed in the vale :
So I lose Guido in the loneliness.
Silence and dusk, till at the doleful end,
At the horizontal line, creation's verge,
From what just is to absolute nothingness —
Lo, what is this he meets, strains onward still ?
What other man deep further in the fate.
Who, turning at the prize of a footfall
To flatter him and promise fellowship.
Discovers in the act a frightful face —
Judas, made monstrous by much solitude !
The two are at one now ! Let them love their love
That bites and claws like hate, or hate their hate
That mops and mows and makes as it were love !
There, let them each tear each in devil's-fun,
Or fondle this the other while malice aches —
Both teach, both learn detestabiHty ! "

268

96. —THE LITTLE CHAPEL BETWEEN THE POST-HOUSE
AND THE TOWN, CASTELNUOVO.

CaponsacchI

He did not kill Franceschini, but, as he says to his
judges, " I gave place to you and let the law reign
paramount : I left Pompilia to your watch and ward,
and now there and thus she lies."

As Caponsacchi's speech nears the end he turns
once more to Pompilia, speaks of her with reverential
admiration, and in tones of despair, for, as he says,
"You see, we are so very pitiable, she and I." To
him she is the glory of life, the beauty of the world,
the wonderful white soul. He was blessed by the
revelation of Pompilia, he " had been lifted up to the
level of her" and with gratitude he exclaims, "She
has done the good to me." Of the depth and power
of the attachment between them, he says only this,
" She called me far beyond friend."

He recalls her appearance. He remembers the
first look she gave him, the gaze that

" burnt to my brain, as sunbeam thro' shut eyes."

He recalls her voice, " that voice immortal, oh ! that
voice of hers," and tells that music seemed always to
hover just above her lips.

He breaks out into passionate despair as he pictures
what life would be with the companionship of such a
woman as Pompilia, how complete would be the joy
merely "to live and see her learn and learn by her,"
while in the place of this is " the old solitary nothing-
ness." He brings his speech abruptly to an end with
the words :

"O great, just, good God! Miserable me ! "

269

V. GUIDO

OUNT GUIDO FRANCESCHINI was the

head of an old noble house, of a family

"old
To that degree they could afford be poor
Better than most."

Poor they certainly were and to a degree but little
short of wretchedness. It was lack of money, together
with a ravenous greed for money, that proved to be
Guido's undoing. A love of gold formed in time the
sole ray of light that glowed; in a heart, filled otherwise
with black hate and the brooding clouds of revenge.

According to the poem, Guido was already forty-six
years old when first he met Pompilia. He was a
mean-looking little man, care-bitten, sorrow-sunk and
lantern-jawed. His wife says that he was " nothing
like so tall as I myself," while others describe him as
lean, yellow, mis-featured, beak-nosed, bushy-bearded
and black-haired.

Of his moral worth there is little that is favourable
to be recorded. If one fervent partisan speaks of him
as "all conscience and all courage," others describe
him as "a prodigy of crime," "part man, part mon-
ster," while one of Pompilia's aUies does not hesitate
to affirm that it would

" beggar hell's regalia to enrich
Count Guido Franceschini."

270

Guldo

In his earlier days he had taken minor orders, and
was connected with the household of a cardinal, in the
position, apparently, of a "parasite and picker up of
crumbs," or, as a cynic observed, he had

" his Cardinal
To serve in some ambiguous sort, as serve
To draw the coach the plumes o' the horses' heads."

The count, in his half-confiding, half-lying, haran-
gues, owns that he was a failure in the world, that he
was very poor, and that his object in marrying Pom-
pilia was to obtain her money. He claims, however,
that if he did deliberately buy her, she was, at least,
as deliberately sold. He even realises — brute though
he was — the pitifulness of the ceremony that mated
him with this shrinking girl. "There she fronts me,"
he says, as he recalls the scene in the parish church
at Rome,

" Held only by her mother's finger-tip —
Struck dumb, for she was white enough before !
She eyes me with those frightened balls of black,
Eyes tremblingly the altar and the priest ;
The amazed look, all one insuppressive prayer —
Might she but be set free as heretofore."

He rails against the Comparini without stint. It was
they who, using Pompilia as a lure, trapped him with
the meanest treachery and deceit. He believed he
was marrying the daughter of a respected family, with
a generous dowry at her back. "Daughter?" he
shrieks, "Dirt o' the kennel! Dowry? Dust o' the
street! " He was fooled and cheated, "his dowry was
derision, his gain — muck."

By the revelation of his wife's low birth he found

271

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

himself loaded with ignominy; he, who had done no

wrong, found himself degraded, he who sought only

to "do God's bidding and man's duty," found himself

the object of scorn and ridicule and "the world's face

an universal grin."

After the Comparini had departed from Arezzo he

was

" left alone
With his immense hate and, the solitary
Subject to satisfy that hate, his wife."

He might have turned her out of doors, as so many
of his friends advised, but he determined, as he says, to

" keep the puppet of my foes —
Her voice that lisps me back their curse — her eye
They lend their leer of triumph to — her lip
I touch and taste their very filth upon."

Moreover, Count Guido had another scheme in
view. He was determined to revenge himself upon
the crafty Comparini and, at the same time, to blast
with his detestation "that mongrel brat" his wife.
Viper though she was, she was young, pretty and
unsuspecting. Although she filled him only with
"vapid disgust" and was no more than a "nullity in
female shape," there were younger men who would
think her fascinating. The course to pursue was
obvious.

" What if the girl-wife, tortured with due care.
Should take, as though spontaneously, the road
It were impolitic to thrust her on ?
If, goaded, she broke out in full revolt,
Followed her parents i' the face o' the world.
Branded as runaway not castaway,

272

97.— A STREET IN CASTELNUOVO.

Guido

Self-sentenced and self-punished in the act ?
So should the loathed form and detested face
Launch themselves into hell and there be lost
While he look o'er the brink with folded arms."

Guido Franceschini's scheme, however, did not
succeed in the way he intended. His wife, it was
true, had run away, but she was not thereby launched
into hell, so that he was denied the delight of looking
over the brink of the pit to watch her writhings. The
Comparini were victorious again. Guido had lost the
dowry ; he had lost his wife ; he could not even say,
"Mine she is if I please wring her neck." She was
safe from neck-wringing with her foster parents in
Rome, in the very house in the Via Vittoria where he
had first seen her.

He sums up his position very graphically in the
following passage from the speech he made before the
tribunal in his own defence :

" I am irremediably beaten here —
The gross illiterate vulgar couple — bah !
Why, they have measured forces, mastered mine,
Made me their spoil and prey from first to last.
They have got my name — 'tis nailed now fast to theirs.
The child or changeling is anyway my wife ;
Point by point as they plan they execute.
They gain all, and I lose all — even to the lure
That led to loss — they have the wealth again
They hazarded awhile to hook me with,
Have caught the fish and find the bait entire :
They even have their child or changeling back
To trade with, turn to account a second time.
They have caught me in the cavern where I fell,
Covered my loudest cry for human aid
With this enormous paving-stone of shame."

s 273

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

At the end, to crown all, had come the birth of
the child — Caponsacchi's child, as he stoutly averred —
the boy who would inherit the name of his ancient
family, who would lord it in the old palace at Arezzo,
and who, over the honoured roof, would keep displayed
"the flag with the ordure on it," as a permanent
evidence of the shame that had soiled the escutcheon
of the Franceschini. Pompilia, he was well assured,
would see the horrible devilry of this, and be content
that no more could be done to complete his misery
and utter humiliation.

He speaks of his furious ride from Arezzo to Castel-
nuovo, and tells how he

" Floundered thro' day and night, another day
And yet another night, and so at last.
As Lucifer kept falling to find hell,
Tumbled into the courtyard of an inn
At the end, and fell on whom I thought to find,
Even Caponsacchi."

Had he killed Caponsacchi and Pompilia at Castel-
nuovo not a hand would have been raised against him,
nor would a word of disapproval have been heard.
He stayed his sword because he thought it right to
leave the punishment of his wife's offence to the law.
The law, however, failed him, gave him no redress, so
he took the matter into his own hands. The sentence
passed upon Pompilia at Arezzo provided justification
for his final act. In what he did he was '* law's mere
executant," and, indeed, he boasts, "I dared and did
it, trusting God and law."

As to the Comparini, they were parties to his wife's

disgrace ; they condoned and, in fact, openly approved

274

Guido

her infamous conduct. Moreover, was he not justified
in retaliating upon those who had tricked and robbed
him, and in seeking to wipe out, with their fives, the
blot of scorn with which they had blackened his fair
name?

The final proof of Pompilia's guilt, the final test
that made her fault unanswerable, was the one word,
" Caponsacchi," whispered outside the darkened door,
a word that threw back bar and bolt as if an angel
waited on the threshold. That name was " the pre-
determined touch for truth."

Even at the last he might have paused, he says,

" Had but Pompilia's self, the tender thing.
Fronted me in the doorway — stood there faint
With the recent pang, perhaps, of giving birth
To what might, though by miracle, seem my child —
Nay more, I will say, had even the aged fool
Pietro, the dotard, in whom folly and age
Wrought, more than enmity or malevolence.
To practise and conspire against my peace —
Had either of these but opened, I had paused.
But it was she, the hag, she that brought heli
For a dowry with her to her husband's house.
She, the mock-mother, she that made the match
And married me to perdition, spring and source
O' the fire inside me that boiled up from heart
To brain and hailed the Fury gave it birth —
Violante Comparinij she it was,
With the old grin amid the wrinkles yet,
Opened : as if in turning from the Cross,
With trust to keep the sight and save my soul,
I had stumbled, first thing, on the serpent's head
Coiled with a leer at foot of it."

As he was murdering Pompilia the thought of
Caponsacchi added fury to his loathing :

275

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

"I thought some few of the stabs were in his heart,
Or had not been so lavish — less had served."

He makes little mention of the murder. That dreadful
deed is told of elsewhere in the book. It is described
how

" The dreadful five felt finger-wise their way
Across the town by blind cuts and black turns ....
To where a threshold-streak of warmth and light
Betrayed the villa-door with life inside,
While an inch outside were those blood-bright eyes,
And black lips wrinkHng o'er the flash of teeth,
And tongues that lolled — Oh God that madest man !
They parleyed in their language. Then one whined —
That was the policy and master stroke —
Deep in his throat whispered what seemed a name —
' Open to Caponsacchi ! ' Guido cried :
Wide as a heart, opened the door at once.
Showing the joyous couple and their child
The two-weeks' mother, to the wolves, the wolves
To them."

According to one speaker, there never was "so
thorough a study of stabbing," while a third tells

vividly how

" Pompilia rushes here and there
Like a dove among lightnings in her brake,
Falls also : Guido's, this last husband's-act,
He lifts her by the long dishevelled hair,
Holds her away at arm's length with one hand.
While the other tries if life come from the mouth —
Looks out his whole heart's hate on the shut eyes,
Draws a deep satisfied breath, ' So — dead at last ! '
Throws down the burthen on dead Pietro's knees."

Guido maintains before the Court that he approached
the actual deed of murder with feelings of remorse,
and that he struggled hard against what he felt to be a

Heaven-directed duty. He thus describes the miserable

276

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^ _ *■

99.— THE PRETURA AT CASTELNUOVO.
Whsrt Pompilia and Caponsacchi were imprisoned

Guido

days of Christmastide that he spent in the empty house
in his brother's vineyard :

" I was in Rome on Christmas Eve.
Festive bells — everywhere the Feast o' the Babe,
Joy upon earth, peace and good will to man !
I am baptised. I started and let drop
The dagger. ' Where is it, His promised peace ? '
Nine days o' the Birth-Feast did I pause and pray
To enter into no temptation more.
I bore the hateful house, my brother's once,
Deserted — let the ghost of social joy
Mock and make mouths at me from empty room
And idle door that missed the master's step —
Bore the frank wonder of incredulous eyes,
As my own people watched without a word.
Waited, from where they huddled round the hearth
Black like all else, that nod so slow to come —
I stopped my ears even to the inner call
Of the dread duty, heard only the song
* Peace upon earth,' saw nothing but the face
O' the Holy Infant, and the halo there
Able to cover yet another face
Behind it, Satan's which I else should see.
But, day by day, joy waned and withered off :
The Babe's face, premature with peak and pine,
Sank into wrinkled ruinous old age,
Suffering and death, then mist-like disappeared."

He tells of his flight with his companions along
the north road that led to Tuscany, and deplores the
folly of his omission to secure the necessary permit for
post-horses. He describes how, at the first inn out of
Rome, he attempted to rectify this error by bribery and
bluster:

" Yet I try the trick,
Double the bribe, call myself Duke for Count,
And say the dead man only was a Jew,
And for my pains find I am dealing just

277

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

With the one scrupulous fellow in all Rome —

Just this immaculate official stares,

Sees I want hat on head and sword in sheath,

Am splashed with other sort of wet than wine,

Shrugs shoulder, puts my hand by, gold and all,

Stands on the strictness of the rule o' the road !

' Where's the Permission ? ' Where's the wretched rag

With the due seal and sign of Rome's Police,

To be had for asking, half an hour ago ?

' Gone ? Get another, or no horses hence 1 ' "

And so, as another speaker tells :

"All on foot, desperate through the dark,
Reeled they like drunkards along open road,
Accomplished a prodigious twenty miles
Homeward, and gained Baccano very near.
Stumbled at last, deaf, dumb, blind through the feat,
Into a grange, and, one dead heap, slept there
Till the pursuers hard upon their trace
Reached them and took them, red from head to heel,
And brought them to the prison where they lie."

Count Guido Franceschini is represented in the
poem by two speeches, one made in a small chamber
that adjoins the Court where

"with a twitchy brow and wincing lip
And cheek that changes to all kinds of white,
He proffers his defence,"

and the other uttered in his cell, as he sits before his
two confessors, shuffling his feet in the fetid straw.

These two monologues provide one of the most re-
markable and most subtle delineations of character that
any work of imagination has ever set forth. Here is
a cold, minute, human dissection. Here is laid bare
the mind of a specious villain as he writhes and strains
against the steel fetters that bind him to the wall. It

278

Guido

is a terrible picture, vivid and masterly, exact in its
drawing, brilliant in its colour, horrible in its reality.

Guido in his defence omits no detail, however
small, that may influence the Court. He talks rapidly,
volubly, and often incoherently. He darts from one
point to another as each hopeful idea enters his
desperate mind. He is a wild beast at bay, searching
for any gap — mere chink though it be — in the cordon
that hems him in.

He is at one time fierce and defiant, quick to
seize any flaw in the indictment, ingenious in excuse,
indignant with his accusers and aggressive in the assertion
of his righteousness. At another moment he is meek
and cringing. He has been misunderstood, has been
treated ill, is an object for pity and kindness. He
humbles himself to the earth, like a chidden dog at
the feet of his master. He is in a state of deep abase-
ment, is a patient, suffering man who only wishes well
to all the world and has ever been anxious to do the
right. He even makes some pitiable fun of his abject
position.

In another sudden mood he is bitter and sarcastic,
boastful and truculent. He no longer pleads, he insists.
He essays to be dignified and self-confident, but his white
lips and haggard eyes belie him. He grasps the bar
at which he stands as if the hand-worn wood were solid
truth. He emphasises his claim with clenched fist and
bellowing voice.

Once more his utterance sinks to a whisper. He

maintains his innocence in canting, sobbing phrases.

He claims "to stand one white integrity from head to

heel," "God shall not lose a life may do Him further

279

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

service," says the stammering hyprocrite, while the
tears run down his cheek. He appeals with fawning
confidence to the law, to the kindly judge, of whose
right-doing he is assured, and finally begs for mercy
for the sake of his aged mother and his new-born
baby boy.

In his second monologue, in his half-crazy utter-
ances made just before he was led away to execution.
Count Guido shows other phases of his character. He
speaks to the two priests who have come to receive his
confession. Cardinal Acciaiuoli and Abate Panciatichi,
both men from his own country of Tuscany. He talks
to them in feverish haste and with reckless impetuosity.
He treats the possibility of his execution as a cruel
jest, a vile experiment. Turning to the Cardinal he
reminds him that the Franceschini family is of as old
a lineage as the Acciaiuoli. "My blood," he says,

" Comes from as far a source : ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink, where her red refuse runs ? "

He implores his fellow-countrymen to help him.
Why should he — a man as innocent as the Pope — be
put to death? "Dying in cold blood is the desperate
thing." Death fills him with horror. He saw the
scafifold once, and it sickened him. Why take a harm-
less human life, when the gospel of Christ is pure love?
Confess? He has nothing to confess. Repent? Will
repentance save his life ?

He jabbers on, he wanders, he talks in stumbling
haste. " Talk I must," he says, for he seems to think
that by talking he may gain another minute or two of

280

100 -CASTELNUOVO : THK STEPS BY WHICH POMPILIA
ASCENDED TO THE PRISON.

Guldo

life. He fumes and curses, breaks out into violent,
incoherent speech, reviles the Pope, reviles the religion
of Christ, fills the dungeon with shrieks of blasphemy.

He becomes in another moment quiet and plausible,
crafty and specious, using many shrewd arguments in
his favour, yet at the same time bolting aimlessly to
this side and to that, like a maddened rat in a cage.

He traverses the whole story from the beginning to
the end, raving like a man in a delirium, now cursing
everyone who had come in his path, and now making
the cell echo with his hideous laughter.

" Why do I laugh ? Why in the very gripe
O' the jaws of death's gigantic skull do I
Grin back his grin, make sport of my own pangs ? "

He becomes bestial in his ravings, coarse, brutal
and savage. He vents much of his wrath upon Violante.

"That mother with her cunning and her cant —
The eyes with first their twinkle of conceit,
Then, dropped to earth in mock-demureness — now,
The smile self-satisfied from ear to ear,
Now, the prim pursed-up mouth's protruded lips,
With deferential duck, slow swing of head,
Tempting the sudden fist of man too much —
That owl-like screw of lid and rock of ruff ! "

Pompilia and the priest are " a pair of liars " ; yet of

Pompilia, he admits, " there was no touch of hate in

her," while in a softer mood he pleads on his behalf

that she forgave him all before she died, she

" One ghost-thing, half on earth.
Half out of it — as if she held God's hand
While she leant back and looked her last at me,
Forgiving me (here monks begin to weep).
Oh, from her very soul, commending mine
To heavenly mercies which are infinite."

281

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

As he becomes calmer he grovels at the feet of his
confessors, prays to them and sets forth with wonder-
ful ingenuity various grounds which may even yet
afford excuse for setting him free.

The interview closes with most dramatic vividness.
Guido hears on the stairs the steps of the Brotherhood
of Death, as they slowly approach the cell, chanting
aloud the penitential psalm, " Out of the depths have
I cried unto thee, O Lord." He springs to his feet
and exclaims :

" Who are these you have let descend my stair ?
Ha, their accursed psalm ! Lights at the sill 1
Is it ' Open * they dare bid you ? Treachery !
Sirs, have I spoken one word all this while
Out of the world of words I had to say ?
Not one word ! all was folly— I laughed and mocked !
Sirs, my first true word all truth and no lie.
Is — save me notwithstanding ! Life is all !
I was just stark mad — let the madman live
Pressed by as many chains as you please pile !
Don't open ! Hold me from them ! I am yours,
I am the Granduke's — no, 1 am the Pope's !
Abate — Cardinal — Christ — Maria — God . . .
Pompiha, will you let them murder me ? "

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VI. THE PLEADERS

THE two leading advocates in the murder trial,
Arcangeli and Bottini, are not, as Browning
presents them, men of vivid personality, nor do
their pleadings add either life to the story or poetry
to the verse. Arcangeli, the counsel for the defence,
speaks first. He is represented as a

"jolly learned man of middle age,
Cheek and jowl all in laps with fat and law,"

who

" Wheezes out law and whiffles Latin forth."

He takes little real interest in the case. He is more
concerned with his son Giacinto, who is just eight
years old, whose birthday he is celebrating, and for
whom he is planning a great, if vulgar, feast. The
points that he emphasises in his memorial of defence
are those that have been already indicated in the
account furnished from the Yellow Book (p. 80). He
naturally lays most stress upon the question

" Who is it dares impugn the natural law ?
Deny God's word ' the faithless wife shall die ' ? "

Pompilia he represents as exhibiting

" a volubility of curse,
A conversancy in the skill of tooth
And claw to make suspicion seem absurd."

283

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

As to the love-letters, he is convinced that she
wrote them, and that she was "as able to write as ready
to sin." Moreover, she dosed her husband with poison
in order to cover her escape from Arezzo, and thus it
was that

" One merry April morning, Guido woke
After the cuckoo, so late, near noonday,
With an inordinate yawning of the jaws,
Ears plugged, eyes gummed together, palate, tongue
And teeth one mud-paste made of poppy milk."

As for Caponsacchi, he asks what right had he to
run away with the countess.

" Pray, in what rubric of the breviary
Do you find it registered the part of a priest
That to right wrongs he skip from the church-door,
Go journeying with a woman that's a wife ? "

What possible defence could explain the discovery
made at Castelnuovo, where, when Guido arrived in
hot haste,

" in the inn-yard, bold as 'twere Troy-town,
There strutted Paris in correct costume.
Pompilia soon looked Helen to the life
Recumbent upstairs in her pink and white.
One couch in one room and one room for both ? "

Guido, on the other hand, was " a sustainer of
society," for he exercised no more than a husband's
right "to save his honour which is more than life" ;
while the wretched clodhoppers from Vitiano, who
were ready to murder women for a few scudi apiece,
were no other than "four courageous, conscientious
friends." It was the news that Pompilia had a child,

284

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^ ' — .->.--

102.— THE BACK OF THK FHKTUKA. CASTELN UOVO,

Showing the windows of llie prison in which Pompilia was

confined.

The Pleaders

his son and heir, that finally drove Guido to frenzy,

for it was then that

" the overburdened mind
Broke down, what was a brain became a blaze."

Arcangeli's speech throughout is tedious, frivolous
and largely beside the mark. It is inflated with flatu-
lent conceit, with extraneous detail and fanciful imagin-
ings. He plays pitch and toss with quotations in Latin,
and fills his memorial with a chaotic jumble of legal
references and citations. It is no argued defence of
the prisoners, but merely a pretentious collection of
forensic quibblings, babbled forth by a man of little
mind and less understanding.

It is obvious enough that Arcangeli is made but a
puppet champion of Guido's claims in order to bring
into strong relief that powerful, masterly, wide-minded
judgment of the Pope, which follows upon the advo-
cate's pleadings.

For a like reason, with a like purpose, to make
prominent by contrast the Pope's massive and nobly
worded indictment of Guido, the speech for the prose-
cution is presented as the petty, feebly handled efTort
of an ambitious pettifogger.

Bottini is referred to by an opponent as "a lean-
gutted, hectic rascal," while others describe his

" Blue juvenile, pure eye, and pippin cheek,
And brow all prematurely soiled and seamed
With sudden age, bright devastated hair,"

and sum up his character as " odds of age joined

in him with ends of youth."

Bottini's speech is more finished than that of his

285

The Country of "The Ring and the Book''

colleague, is more pretentious, less disconnected, and,
at the same time, more florid and verbose. He em-
bellishes his utterances with many classical quotations,
but, at the same time, deals at irrelevant length with
trivial details. Like his opponent, he shows no solid
interest in the matter in hand. He believes himself
to be a great and forcible orator, and takes pleasure in
imagining with what dramatic effect he could bring
forth this and that point if only his pleading could take
the form of a set speech, delivered before an admiring
Court. In his prosecution of the prisoners on behalf of
the Treasury, he advances no particulars other than
those which have been already set out in the account
from the Yellow Book (p. 84).

His condemnation of Guido is mild and half-hearted.
He flourishes the great sword of the law over the head
of the villain count, but the steel is dull and the edge
is blunted.

Of Caponsacchi he speaks leniently and with indulg-
ence, as an old man would comment on the doings
of a hot-headed youth. He sees in him no hero, no
modern-day St. George, for he goes little beyond
allowing that he did his best according to his lights.

His defence of Pompilia is a mere apologia. He
excuses her with ineffectual effort, pities her with vapid
flabbiness, slobbers over her troubles and leaves the
vindication of her honour and the cherishing of her
good name to stronger and unknown hands.

His monologue, indeed, forms a fitting prelude —
fitting in its irritating feebleness — to the real speech of
the prosecution, which comes from the lips of the aged
prelate in the Vatican.

286

VII. THE POPE

HE Pope, an old man over eighty years of age,
is represented as

" sitting out the dim
Droop of a sombre February day
In the plain closet where he does such work,
With, from all Peter's treasury, one stool,
One table and one lathen crucifix,"

poring over what he terms " The dismallest of docu-
ments."

His speech is solemn, dignified and sonorous, the
criticism of a great mind and the judgment of a broad
intellect. He is relentless and, indeed, terrible in his
denunciation of Count Guido, but tender and lovable
in his generous appreciation of Pompilia. He recog-
nises the solemnity of his deliberations and reminds
himself that the life of a human being hangs upon his
decision.

" Once more on this earth of God's,
While twilight lasts and time wherein to work,
I take His staff with my uncertain hand,
And stay my six and fourscore years, my due
Labour and sorrow, on His judgment-seat,
And forthwith think, speak, act in place of Him —
The Pope for Christ. Once more appeal is made
From man's assize to mine : I sit and see
Another poor weak trembling human wretch
Pushed by his fellows, who pretend the right,
Up to the gulf which, where I gaze, begins

287

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

From this world to the next — gives way and way,

Just on the edge over the awful dark :

With nothing to arrest him but my feet. . . .

And I am bound, the solitary judge,

To weigh the worth, decide upon the plea,

And either hold a hand out, or withdraw

A foot and let the wretch drift to the fall."

He owns that he is not infallible, and recalls more
than one occasion in the past when popes had given
decisions which, in fullness of time, were proved to be
erroneous, and were, indeed, reversed. Here no re-
versal is possible. Here no amendment can avail.
Supposing that he does come to a wrong conclusion,
how would he defend himself?

" What other should I say than ' God so willed :
Mankind is ignorant, a man am I :
Call ignorance my sorrow, not my sin ! '
So and not otherwise, in after-time,
If some acuter wit, fresh probing, sound
This multifarious mass of words and deeds
Deeper, and reach through guilt to innocence,
I shall face Guido's ghost nor blench a jot.
'God who set me to judge thee, meted out
So much of judging faculty, no more :
Ask Him if I was slack in use thereof.'"

He wonders if he, as a man of the world, will ever
question his decision as the head of the Church.

"Wherefore, Antonio Pignatelli, thou
My ancient self, who wast no Pope so long
But studied God and man, the many years
I' the school, i' the cloister, in the diocese —
Thou, not Pope, but the mere old man o' the world
Supposed inquisitive and dispassionate,
Wilt thou, the one whose speech I somewhat trust.
Question the after-me, this self now Pope,
Hear his procedure, criticise his work ? "

288

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The Pope

He proceeds to go through the whole of the story,
from the beginning to the end, making wise com-
ments as each phase unfolds itself.

For what he did Guido had assuredly not his cir-
cumstances to blame, for he began life with more than
normal advantages.

" Fortified by propitious circumstance,
Great birth, good breeding, with the Church for guide,"

and guarded from the arch tempter by diligent culture
and choice companionship, he yet proved himself to
be a man of low instinct and base pretension.

With regard to his fatal marriage and the object of
that marriage, the Pope speaks as follows :

"He purposes this marriage, I remark,
On no one motive that should prompt thereto —
Farthest, by consequence, from ends alleged
Appropriate to the action ; so they were :
The best, he knew and feigned, the worst he took.
Not one permissible impulse moves the man.
From the mere liking of the eye and ear,
To the true longing of the heart that loves,
No trace of these : but all to instigate.
Is what sinks man past level of the brute,
Whose appetite if brutish is a truth.
All is lust for money : to get gold —
Why, lie, rob, if it must be murder ! Make
Body and soul wring gold out, lured within
The clutch of hate by love, the trap's pretence ! "

The revelation of Pompilia's birth brings Guido's
carefully laid scheme to nought. He then determines
to wreak his malice on the parents by punishing the
innocent child and at the same time advance his un-
abated greed. With this purpose always in his mind,
he cultivates

T 289

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

" the fine
Felicity and flower of wickedness ;
Determines by the utmost exercise
Of violence, made safe and sure by craft,
To satiate malice, pluck one last arch-pang
From the parents, else would triumph out of reach,
By punishing their child, within reach yet,
Who nowise could have wronged, thought, word or deed,
I' the matter that now moves him. So plans he,
Always subordinating (note the point !)
Revenge, the manlier sin, to interest,
The meaner."

He hopes to goad Pompilia to despair, to suicide,
or at least to flight, with no other result than this :
"She lay resigned to die — so far the simple cruelty
was foiled."

He then endeavours to entrap her in a love affair,

and sets the trap with consummate cunning. Hence

come the maze of lies, the forged letters, the spying

and watching of the maid,

" Whereby the man so far attains his end
That strange temptation is permitted — see !
Pompilia, wife, and Caponsacchi, priest.
Are brought together as nor priest nor wife
Should stand, and there is passion in the place,
Powder in the air for evil as for good.
Promptings, from heaven and hell, as if the stars
Fought in their courses for a fate to be.
Thus stand the wife and priest, a spectacle,
I doubt not, to unseen assemblage there.
No lamp will mark that window for a shrine,
No tablet signalise the terrace, teach
New generations which succeed the old
The pavement of the street is holy ground ;
No bard describe in verse how Christ prevailed
And Satan fell like lightning ! "

This second plot failed utterly by God's gift to

290

The Pope

Pompilia of a purity of soul that would not take
pollution.

Once more Guido schemes in the solitude of his
palace in Arezzo, schemes to satisfy his greed and to
crush the hated family, root and branch. The signal
for this outbreak of malice, for this more finished
display of craft, was the birth of his child — a noble
moment ! He will sweep all three from the earth, but
will save the child, who must in the end inherit all
that the three possessed.

So far with the story. The Pope now proceeds to

pass judgment upon those who have played their parts

in the tragedy. He deals first with Count Guido

Franceschini.

" Such I find Guido, midmost blotch of black
Discernible in this group of clustered crimes
Huddling together in the cave they call
Their palace, outraged day thus penetrates.
Around him ranged, now close and now remote.
Prominent or obscure to meet the needs
O' the mage and master, I detect each heap
Subsidiary i' the scene nor loathed the less.
All alike coloured, all descried akin
By one and the same pitchy furnace stirred
At the centre : see, they lick the master's hand —
This fox-faced horrible priest, this brother-brute
The Abate — wh)^, mere wolfishness looks well,
Guido stands honest in the red o' the flame.
Beside this yellow that would pass for white,
This Guido, all craft but no violence.
This copier of the mien and gait and garb
Of Peter and Paul that he may go disguised,
Rob halt and lame, sick folk i' the temple-porch.
Armed with religion, fortified by law,
A man of peace, who trims the midnight lamp.
And turns the classic page — and all for craft,

2gi

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

All to work harm with, yet incur no scratch !
While Guido brings the struggle to a close,
Paul steps back the due distance, clear o' the trap
He builds and baits. Guido I catch and judge ;
Paul is past reach in this world and my time :
That is a case reserved.''

Having disposed of the other Franceschini, of the
Bishop of Arezzo and of the Governor of that town,
the Pope turns with loving gesture to PompiUa :

"First of the first,
Such I pronounce Pompilia, then as now
Perfect in whiteness — stoop thou down, my child,
Give one good moment to the poor old Pope
Heart-sick at having all his world to blame . . .

Everywhere
I see in the world the intellect of man,
That sword, the energy his subtle spear.
The knowledge which defends him like a shield —
Everywhere ; but they make not up, I think,
The marvel of a soul like thine, earth's flower
She holds up to the softened gaze of God ! "

He praises her purity, her patience, the firmness of
her faith, and the nobleness with which she ever re-
turned right for wrong and pardon for injury. He
then continues :

" My flower,
My rose, I gather for the breast of God,
This I praise most in thee, where all I praise.
That having been obedient to the end
According to the light allotted, law
Prescribed thy life, still tried, still standing test —
Dutiful to the foolish parents first,
Submissive next to the bad husband — nay,
Tolerant of those meaner miserable
That did his bests, eked out the dole of pain —
Thou, patient thus, couldst rise from law to law

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The Pope

The old to the new, promoted at one cr)-
O' the trump of God to the new service, not
To longer bear, but henceforth fight, be found
Sublime in new impatience with the foe ! . . .
Oh child that didst despise thy life so much
When it seemed only thine to keep or lose . . .
Thou at first prompting of what I call God,
And fools call Nature, didst hear, comprehend.
Accept the obligation laid on thee.
Mother elect, to save the unborn child . . .
To worthily defend that trust of trusts,
Life from the Ever Living."

Finally he deals with Caponsacchi, placing him next
to Pompilia.

" And surely not so very much apart
Need I place thee, my warrior-priest . . .
Irregular, noble scapegrace — son the same !
Faulty — and peradventure ours the fault
Who still misteach, mislead . . .
Nay, Caponsacchi, much I find amiss.
Blameworthy, punishable in this freak
Of thine, this youth prolonged though age was ripe,
This masquerade in sober day, with change
Of motley too — now hypocrite's-disguise.
Now fool's-costume . . .
I rather chronicle the healthy rage —
When the first moan broke from the martyr-maid
At that uncaging of the beasts — made bare
My athlete on the instant, gave such good
Great undisguised leap over post and pale
Right into the mid-cirque, free fighting-place.
There may have been rash stripping — every rag
Went to the winds — infringement manifold
Of laws prescribed pudicity, I fear,
In this impulsive and prompt self-display ! . . .

Undergo
The penalty I nowise dare relax —
Conventional chastisement and rebuke.
But for the outcome, the brave starry birth

293

The Country of "The Ring and the Book"

Conciliating earth with all that cloud,

Thank heaven as I do ! Ay, such championship

Of God at first blush, such prompt cheery thud

Of glove on ground that answers ringingly

The challenge of the false knight — watch we long,

And wait we vainly for its gallant like

From those appointed to the service, sworn

His body-guard with pay and privilege . . .

In thought, word and deed,
How throughout all the warfare thou wast pure,
I find it easy to believe : and if
At any fateful moment of the strange
Adventure, the strong passion of that strait,
Fear and surprise, may have revealed too much —
As when a thunderous midnight, with black air
That burns, rain-drops that blister, breaks a spell,
Draws out the excessive virtue of some sheathed
Shut unsuspected flower that hoards and hides
Immensity of sweetness, so, perchance,
Might the surprise and fear release too much
The perfect beauty of the body and soul
Thou savedst in thy passion for God's sake,
He who is Pity : was the trial sore ?
Temptation sharp ? Thank God a second time !
Why comes temptation but for man to meet
And master and make crouch beneath his foot,
And so be pedestalled in triumph ? . . .
Be glad thou has let light into the world.
Through that irregular breach o' the boundary — see
The same upon thy path and march assured,
Learning anew the use of soldiership.
Self-abnegation, freedom from all fear,
Loyalty to the life's end ! "

After he has disposed of the sordid, hideous, yet

beautiful story, the Pope begins to meditate aloud, as

old men will. He considers the mind of man, or

rather that more universal mind which, proceeding

from the Supreme Being, dominates and embraces all

294

The Pope

things that live. He speaks of human perfection and

asks

" What lacks, then, of perfection fit for God
But just the instance which this tale suppHes
Of love without a Umit ? "

and explains that it is in its self-sacrifice that love
becomes unlimited.

All the events that he has talked about tend, he
thinks, in some unseen way to good, for life is but "a
training and a passage" and a place of probation, while
the earth is not man's goal but his starting place.

He becomes a little verbose and tedious and, to
some degree, inconsequent, as he drifts into the byways
of philosophical disquisition. He hears Euripides tell
of the guides that influenced human conduct before the
time of Christ. He answers him. He wonders how far
the existing laws that at the moment control human
conduct are absolute and eternal.

He returns once more to the matter in hand. He
discusses the various pleas urged on behalf of the miti-
gation of Guido's punishment and repudiates them
all. He declines to allow that Guido can claim the
enefit of clergy. He throws aside the appeal that is
founded upon mere mercy. He ignores the petition for
leniency on the ground that his own life is very near
its end. He disregards the world's opinion of his ver-
dict and is indifferent as to the bearing of his decision
upon his reputation as a Pope.

His last words are these :

" Enough, for I may die this very niglu,
And how should I dare die, this man let live?
Carry this forthwith to llie Governor I "

295

^i■^'^

105.-PLAN OF ROME IN 1676.
Frviii the " PiJila dtUa R,-ma." ^y Cia. fUihiu J-Mo.

64. The Convent. Lc Scalene, in Ihe Via delU LunEa'a
388. Pala.ro Falconlerl m Ihe Via Giulia.
173. S. Maria della Morle in the Via Giulia.
"Caccece Noue " matl< Ihe new ptlsons in the Via Giulit
167. Church ol ihe Agoniizanti. Piux> Paiquino.

The Fountain, "II Moto," in the Plaiia Navona, is opposite The stn

Fig. 39B. <lel

The Vicolo Malpasso is to the right ol the words ■' Carcere
Noue" in the Via Giulia, and ia to the north o< that

Appendix

APPENDIX

CERTIFIED COPIES OF CERTAIN ENTRIES IN THE RE-
GISTERS OF THE PARISH CHURCH OF SAN LORENZO
IN LUCINA, ROME.

Obtained from the Archivio Generale del Vicariato.
From the Register of Baptisms

23 Julii 1680.

Ego Bathol. Minius C. M. Curatus baptizavi infantem natam die
17 huius ex D. Petro Comparini Rom. q"' Francisci Florentini et ex
D. Violante Perutii Romaiia fil. q"' Hiacinti Conjug. deg. in hac
Parochia, cui nomina imposita fuere Francisca Camilla Victoria Angela
Pompilia. Patrini fuerunt Rev'^^^ Dq : Jo^^ Bat'* Barberius q™ Ludo-
vici Rom. deg. in Parroch. S. Susannae et D. Barbara Canolli (?) De —
Fabiis deg. in hac Parochia.

In fede ecc. .

From the Register of Marriages.
September 1S93 Die 6.

Denuntiationibus praemissis tribus diebus festis de praecepto inter
Missar. solemnia, utr. 5^ 12^ et 19=^ Julii proximi, nulloque delato
legif^ impedimento, ego Ign^ Bonechi C. M. Curat, de licentia 111""' et
Rev""' D. Vicesgei. habita in scriptis per acta Martoli Notar : sub die
15 Aug'' proximi Dom. Guidum Franceschini fil. q'" D. Thomae
Patritium Aretinum ex parochia S. Nicolai in Arcione et Dn. Franciscam
Camillam Victoriam Angelam Pompiliam til. Petri Comparini pucllam
Rom : ex hac Parochia in Ecclesia de mane interrogavi, habitoque
mutuo eorum consensu per verba de praesenti solemniter matrimonio
coniunxi, iuxta ritum S.R.E. praesentibus et tcstibus ad id specialiter
admissis utr. nostris Fri'^=* Jo^ Bap*=» Pasquale et Josepho Massa. Ouibus
inde Sacra Commun'^ refectis benedixi, inter Missar. solenmia.

In fcdc ecc. .

299

Appendix

From the Register of Deaths.
3 Gennaio 1698.

II Sig. Pietro Comparini Rom: in eta di anni 69 in circa, fig° del
q™ Francesco fiorentino marito della q"" Sig^ Violante Peruzzi Rom.
mori di alcune ferite nella casa dove abitava alia strada Paolina e fu
sep'° in q'^ n^ Chiesa.

In fede ecc. .

3 Gennaio 1698.

La Sig=^ Violante Peruzzi Rom. in eta di anni 66 in circa fig^ del
q™ Giacinto Rom. Moglie del q™ Sig. Pietro Comparini Rom. mori di
alcune ferite nella casa dove abitava alia strada Paolina et fu sep*^ in
q^ n^ Chiesa.

In fede ecc.

7 Gennaio 1698.

La Sig''^ Franca Pompilia Comparini Rom. in eta di anni dicisette
e mezzo fig^ del q™ Sig. Pietro Comparini Rom. Moglie del Sig. Guido
Franceschini d'Arezzo di Toscana mori nella Com"^ della S.M.C. nella
casa dove abitava alia strada paolina riceve tutti li S™' Sac'' et fu
sept^ in qa n^ Chiesa.

In fede ecc.

From the Archivio Generate del Vicariato.

May 26th, 1913.

A certificate to state that search for an entry of the baptism of the
child of Francesca Pompilia Comparini in or about the year 1698 had
been made in the Register of the Church of San Lorenzo in Lucina,
but that no such entry could be found. Further, that a search for a
like entry had been made in the Registers of the following adjoining
parishes, but without result :

Santa Maria del Popolo.
Sant' Andrea delle Fratte.
Santa Maria in Via Lata.
San Marcello.
Santa Maria in Via.
Sant' ApoUinare.

300

..^^

:^:^p

.t^^

f^Mi

^IC

3»'

106.— PLAN Ol

//le " Pian/a delta }

rso.

ia Paolina.

106— PLAN OF ROME IN 1676.

From the " Pianta delta Roma,,
305. Church of S. Maria del Popolo. 391

89. Church of Gesu e Maria in the Corso. 26(

29. Church of S. Atanasio in the Strada Paolina. 19;

293. Church of S. Lorenzo in Lucina.

b}- Gio. Ballista Falda.
391. Palazzo Ruspoli in the Corso.
268 The Ursuline Convent, Via Vitloria.

192. The Convent of S. Maria Maddalena delle Convertite in the Corso.
342. Palazzo Ambasciadore di Malta, Via Condotti.
iTIit h'ig. 34i it ill tin Via Boaa di Ltanth

INDEX

Principal Persons

Comparini, the, 9, 245
PlETRO,

action against Guido, 30
age. 9

appearance, 235
character, 9, 245
estate, 9, 10, 19
murder of, 71, 276
register of death, 300

ViOLANTE

age, 10

appearance, 235

character, 10, 245

confession of, 28, 246, 248

leaves Arezzo, 26

life at Arezzo, 23, 247

murder of, 71, 276

Paolo, interview with, 16, 246

Canon Conti, 39, 41, 259

Caponsacchi

age, 39

arrest at Castelnuovo, 50, 222,

267
character, 39, 42, 263, 286, 293
imprisonment, 52, 130, 225
PompiUa, first meeting \vith,

39, 265, 269
Pompilia, flight with, 44, 167,

171. 175. 191, 196, 216, 266
Pompilia, relation to, 42, 264,

293
sentence on, 57
trial of, 53, 263

Franceschini, the, 11, 249

Abate Paolo,
age, 1 1

character, 1 1 , 249
leaves Italy, 59
meeting with Violante, 1 6, 246
office, II, 12, no

Canon Girolamo, ii, 12, 30,35,249

GUIDO,

age. II

action against Pompilia, 61
appearance, 13, 237, 270
arrest of, 74, 1 50
Castelnuovo, arrives at, 48.

221, 267
character, 12, 270. 287. 291
execution of, 88, 138, 147, 282
flight of, 73, 150, 152, 155, 160,

277
imprisonment of, 75. 130, 137
marriage of, 20, 271, 289
murders the Comparini, 71,276
plot to murder Pompilia, 67,

274
poverty of, 14, 17, 25, 270
Rome, arrives at, 69, 276
trial of, 79. 283

Pompilia

appearance. 94, 237, 250
arrest of, 50, 222
birth, 10, 299
Caponsacchi, flies with, 44,

167, 171, 175, 176, 191, 190.

216, 254, 261

Index

Pompilia {Continued)

Pompilia ^Coniinued)

Caponsacchi, first meeting

with, 39, 254
Caponsacchi, relation to, 43,

256, 259
Castehiuovo, arrives at, 46,

216, 255
charges against, 8 1
death of, 76, 105, 300
divorce pi-oceedings, 58
dowry, 19, 30, 245
imprisonment of, 52, 130,

225
letter from prison, 53, 229

life at Arezzo, 23, 35, 163, 166,

253. 290
love letters imputed to, 40, 55,

56,253
marriage of, 20, in, 123, 247,

271, 299
murder of, 71, 103, 276
parentage, 29, 252
Scalette.sent to the, 5 7, 1 26,2 5 5
sentence on, 57, 64
son born to, 66, 252
trial of, 53
vindication of, 93, 257, 292

Places

Arezzo.'ii. 23, 35,61, 161, 179
Canale Inn, 45, 167
San Clemente Gate, 44, 168
San Spirito Gate, 45, 162, 168,

170
Santa Maria della Pieve. 11,

162, 164
Torrione, 44, 169

Castelnuovo, 46, 48, 53, 217

posting- inn at, 46, 48, 219
Pretura, at, 52, 218, 225
Prison of, 50, 228

LaStorta, 73. i5S. iS6

Merluzza, 74, 158

Rome, 98, 103 106, 107, 139, 143
Agonizzanti, 91, 141
Campagna, 74, 154, 155, 157,

231
Carceri Nuove, 52, 75, 90, 130

convent of the Convertites, 93,

104
Corso, 93, 104, 105, 106, 143,

146
Gesu e Maria, 78, 105
Le Scalette, 56, 126
Piazza Colonna, 15, 91, 143

Rome

{Continued)

Piazza del Popolo, 70, -Jl, 88,

145
Piazza di Spagna, 97, 104, 108,

123
Piazza Navona, 91, 142
Piazza Pasquino, 91, 141
Ponte Milvio, 69, -Ji, 150, 152,

233
St. Atanasio, "jt, 105
S. Giovanni de' Fiorentini, 132
S. Lorenzo in Lucina, 20, 106,

118
S. Maria della Morte, 132
Strada Paolina, 70, loi, 102,

103, 146
Ursuline Convent, 114
Via Bocca di Leone, 1 1 1
Via Condotti, 12. 106, 109
Via del Babuino, 70, loi, 102,

146

Via del Governo Vecchio, 91,

140
Via del Pellegrino, 91, 139
ViaGiulia, 52, 130
Via Vittoria, 10, 26, 27, 66, 71,

97, loi, 114
Vicolo del Malpasso, 133, 139

302

Index

Route of Flight, 171

Assisi, 186, 198, 202, 266
Bastia, 198
Borghettaccio, 231
Borghetto, 213
Camoscia, 45, 1S3
Castiglion Fiorcntino, 182
Civita Castellaua, 214
Cortona, 184
Foligno, 54, 171, 196, 205,

266
Lake Trasimene, 185
La Vene, 208
Magione, 191
Narni, 211
Otricoli, 212
Passignano, 188
Perugia, 191, 193, 266

Route of Flight {Continued^
Ponte Felice, 2 1 3
Ponte S. Giovanni, 196
Prima Porta, 232
Rignano, 2 1 5
S. Maria degli Angeli, 197, 198,

199
Spello, 203
Spoleto, 208
Strettura, 209, 210
Terni, 2 1 1
Terontola, 185
Torricella, 189
Trevi, 207
Tuoro, 187, 188
Via Flamiilia, 147, 152, 154,

155.171.215
Vitiano, 67, 182

303

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