\<

 
 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN 
 ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 THIRD SERIES
 
 Ex Libria 
 C. K. OGDEN 
 
 SKETCHES AND STUDIES 
 
 IN 
 
 ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 
 'RENAISSANCE IN ITALY' 'STUDIES OF THE GREEK POETS' 
 ETC. 
 
 THIRD SERIES 
 
 WITH A FRONTISPIECE 
 
 NEW EDITION 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDEE, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1898 
 
 [All rights reserved]
 
 R.UUUHA 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO ........ 1 
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS ...... 21 
 
 SIENA ............. 41 
 
 MONTE OLIVETO .......... 66 
 
 MONTEPULCIANO ........... 87 
 
 PERUGIA ............ Ill 
 
 OBVIETO ............ 137 
 
 LUCRETIUS ........... 155 
 
 ANTINOUS ............ 184 
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS ......... 230 
 
 AMALFI, PJESTUM, CAPRI ......... 250 
 
 ETNA ............ 279 
 
 PALERMO ............ 290 
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI ......... 319 
 
 ATHENS ............ 339 
 
 INDEX . 365 
 
 THE ILDEFONSO GROUP Frontispiece
 
 SKETCHES AND STUDIES 
 ITALY AND OREECE 
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 
 
 STUDENTS of Mr. Dante Gabriel Eossetti's translations from 
 the early Italian poets (Dante and his Circle. Ellis & 
 White, 1874) will not fail to have noticed the striking figure 
 made among those jejune imitators of Proven9al mannerism 
 by two rhymesters, Cecco Angiolieri and Folgore da San 
 Gemignano. Both belong to the school of Siena, and both 
 detach themselves from the metaphysical fashion of their 
 epoch by clearness of intention and directness of style. The 
 sonnets of both are remarkable for what in the critical jargon 
 of to-day might be termed realism. Cecco is even savage and 
 brutal. He anticipates Villon from afar, and is happily 
 described by Mr. Rossetti as the prodigal or ' scamp ' of the 
 Dantesque circle. The case is different with Folgore. There 
 is no poet who breathes a fresher air of gentleness. He 
 writes in images, dealing but little with ideas. Every line 
 presents a picture, and each picture has the charm of a 
 miniature fancifully drawn and brightly coloured on a missal- 
 margin. Cecco and Folgore alike have abandoned the 
 
 III B
 
 2 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 mediaeval mysticism which sounds unreal on almost all Italian 
 lips but Dante's. True Italians, they are content to live for 
 life's sake, and to take the world as it presents itself to natural 
 senses. But Cecco is perverse and impious. His love has 
 nothing delicate ; his hatred is a morbid passion. At his 
 worst or best (for his best writing is his worst feeling) we 
 find him all but rabid. If Caligula, for instance, had written 
 poetry, he might have piqued himself upon the following 
 sonnet ; only we must do Cecco the justice of remembering 
 that his rage is more than half ironical and humorous : 
 
 An I were fire, I would burn up the world ; 
 
 An I were wind, with tempest I'd it break ; 
 
 An I were sea, I'd drown it in a lake ; 
 
 An I were God, to hell I'd have it hurled ; 
 An I were Pope, I'd see disaster whirled 
 
 O'er Christendom, deep joy thereof to take ; 
 
 An I were Emperor, I'd quickly make 
 
 All heads of all folk from their necks be twirled ; 
 An I were death, I'd to my father go ; 
 
 An I were life, forthwith from him I'd fly; 
 
 And with my mother I'd deal even so ; 
 An I were Cecco, as I am but I, 
 
 Young girls and pretty for myself I'd hold, 
 
 But let my neighbours take the plain and old. 
 
 Of all this there is no trace in Folgore. The worst a moralist 
 could say of him, is that he sought out for himself a life of 
 pure enjoyment. The famous Sonnets on the Months give 
 particular directions for pastime in a round of pleasure suited 
 to each season. The Sonnets on the Days are conceived in 
 a like hedonistic spirit. But these series are specially ad- 
 dressed to members of the Glad Brigades and Spending Com- 
 panies, which were common in the great mercantile cities of 
 mediaeval Italy. Their tone is doubtless due to the occasion 
 of their composition, as compliments to Messer Nichol6 di Nisi 
 and Messer Guerra Cavicciuoli.
 
 FOLGOEE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 3 
 
 The mention of these names reminds me that a word 
 need be said about the date of Folgore. Mr. Eossetti does 
 not dispute the commonly assigned date of 1260, and takes 
 for granted that the Messer Nicolo of the Sonnets on the 
 Months was the Sienese gentleman referred to by Dante in a 
 certain passage of the ' Inferno ' : l 
 
 And to the Poet said I : ' Now was ever 
 So vain a people as the Sienese ? 
 Not for a certainty the French by far.' 
 
 Whereat the other leper, who had heard me, 
 
 Eeplied unto my speech : ' Taking out Stricca, 
 Who knew the art of moderate expenses, 
 
 And Nicolo, who the luxurious use 
 
 Of cloves discovered earliest of all 
 
 Within that garden where such seed takes root. 
 
 And taking out the band, among whom squandered 
 Caccia d' Ascian his vineyards and vast woods, 
 And where his wit the Abbagliato proffered.' 
 
 Now Folgore refers in his political sonnets to events of the 
 years 1314 and 1315 ; and the correct reading of a line in his 
 last sonnet on the Months gives the name of Nicholo di Nisi 
 to the leader of Folgore's ' blithe and lordly Fellowship.' 
 The first of these facts leads us to the conclusion that Folgore 
 flourished in the first quarter of the fourteenth, instead 
 of in the third quarter of the thirteenth century. The 
 second prevents our identifying Nicholo di Nisi with the 
 Niccolo de' Salimbeni, who is thought to have been the 
 founder of the Fellowship of the Carnation. Furthermore, 
 documents have recently been brought to light which mention 
 at San Gemignano, in the years 1305 and 1306, a certain 
 Folgore. There is no sufficient reason to identify this Folgore 
 with the poet ; but the name, to say the least, is so peculiar 
 that its occurrence in the records of so small a town as San 
 Gemignano gives some confirmation to the hypothesis of the 
 
 1 Inferno, xxix. 121. Longfellow. 
 
 a9
 
 4 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 poet's later date. Taking these several considerations to- 
 gether, I think we must abandon the old view that Folgore 
 was one of the earliest Tuscan poets, a view which is, more- 
 over, contradicted by his style. Those critics, at any rate, 
 who still believe him to have been a predecessor of Dante's, 
 are forced to reject as spurious the political sonnets referring 
 to Monte Catini and the plunder of Lucca by Uguccione della 
 Faggiuola. Yet these sonnets rest on the same manuscript 
 authority as the Months and Days, and are distinguished by 
 the same qualities. 1 
 
 Whatever may be the date of Folgore, whether we assign 
 his period to the middle of the thirteenth or the beginning of 
 the fourteenth century, there is no doubt but that he presents 
 us with a very lively picture of Italian manners, drawn from 
 the point of view of the high bourgeoisie. It is on this 
 account that I have thought it worth while to translate five 
 of his Sonnets on Knighthood, which form the fragment that 
 remains to us from a series of seventeen. Few poems better 
 illustrate the temper of Italian aristocracy when the civil 
 wars of two centuries had forced the nobles to enroll them- 
 selves among the burghers, and when what little chivalry had 
 taken root in Italy was fast decaying in a gorgeous over- 
 bloom of luxury. The institutions of feudal knighthood had 
 lost their sterner meaning for our poet. He uses them for 
 the suggestion of delicate allegories fancifully painted. Their 
 mysterious significance is turned to gaiety, their piety to 
 amorous delight, their grimness to refined enjoyment. Still 
 these changes are effected with perfect good taste and in 
 perfect good faith. Something of the perfume of true 
 
 1 The above points are fully discussed by Signer Giulio Navone, in 
 his recent edition of Le Rime di Folgore da San Gemignano e di Cene 
 da la Chitarra d' Arezzo. Bologna : Eomagnoli, 1880. I may further 
 mention that in the sonnet on the Pisans, translated on p. 18, which 
 belongs to the political series, Folgore uses his own name.
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 5 
 
 chivalry still lingered in a society which was fast becoming 
 mercantile and diplomatic. And this perfume is exhaled by 
 the petals of Folgore's song-blossom. He has no conception 
 that to readers of Mort Arthur, or to Founders of the Garter, 
 to Sir Miles Stapleton, Sir Richard Fitz- Simon, or Sir James 
 Audley, his ideal knight would have seemed but little better 
 than a scented civet-cat. Such knights as his were all that 
 Italy possessed, and the poet-painter was justly proud of 
 them, since they served for finished pictures of the beautiful 
 in life. 
 
 The Italians were not a feudal race. During the suc- 
 cessive reigns of Lombard, Frankish, and German masters, 
 they had passively accepted, stubbornly resisted feudalism, 
 remaining true to the conviction that they themselves were 
 Roman. In Roman memories they sought the traditions 
 which give consistency to national consciousness. And when 
 the Italian communes triumphed finally over Empire, counts, 
 bishops, and rural aristocracy ; then Roman law was speedily 
 substituted for the ' asinine code ' of the barbarians, and 
 Roman civility gave its tone to social customs in the place of 
 Teutonic chivalry. Yet just as the Italians borrowed, modi- 
 fied, and misconceived Gothic architecture, so they took a 
 feudal tincture from the nations of the North with whom they 
 came in contact. Their noble families, those especially who 
 followed the Imperial party, sought the honour of knight- 
 hood ; and even the free cities arrogated to themselves the 
 right of conferring this distinction by diploma on their 
 burghers. The chivalry thus formed in Italy was a decora- 
 tive institution. It might be compared to the ornamental 
 frontispiece which masks the structural poverty of such 
 Gothic buildings as the Cathedral of Orvieto. 
 
 On the descent of the German Emperor into Lombardy, 
 the great vassals who acknowledged him, made knighthood,
 
 6 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 among titles of more solid import, the price of their allegi- 
 ance. 1 Thus the chronicle of the Cortusi for the year 1354 
 tells us that when Charles IV. ' was advancing through the 
 March, and had crossed the Oglio, and was at the borders of 
 Cremona, in his camp upon the snow, he, sitting upon his 
 horse, did knight the doughty and noble man, Francesco 
 da Carrara, who had constantly attended him with a great 
 train, and smiting him upon the neck with his palm, said : 
 " Be thou a good knight, and loyal to the Empire." There- 
 upon the noble German peers dismounted, and forthwith 
 buckled on Francesco's spurs. To them the Lord Francesco 
 gave chargers and horses of the best he had.' Immediately 
 afterwards Francesco dubbed several of his own retainers 
 knights. And this was the customary fashion of these 
 Lombard lords. For we read how in the year 1328 Can 
 Grande della Scala, after the capture of Padua, ' returned to 
 Verona, and for the further celebration of his victory upon the 
 last day of October held a court, and made thirty-eight knights 
 with his own hand of the divers districts of Lombardy.' 
 And in 1294 Azzo d'Este ' was knighted by Gerardo da 
 Camino, who then was Lord of Treviso, upon the piazza of 
 Ferrara, before the gate of the Bishop's palace. And on the 
 same day at the same hour the said Lord Marquis Azzo made 
 fifty-two knights with his own hand, namely, the Lord 
 Francesco, his brother, and others of Ferrara, Modena, 
 Bologna, Florence, Padua, and Lombardy ; and on this 
 occasion was a great court held in Ferrara.' Another 
 chronicle, referring to the same event, says that the whole 
 expenses of the ceremony, including the rich dresses of the 
 new knights, were at the charge of the Marquis. It was 
 customary, when a noble house had risen to great wealth and 
 
 1 The passages used in the text are chiefly drawn from Muratori's 
 fifty-third Dissertation.
 
 FOLGOEE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 7 
 
 had abundance of fighting men, to increase its prestige and 
 spread abroad its glory by a wholesale creation of knights. 
 Thus the Chronicle of Rimini records a high court held by 
 Pandolfo Malatesta in the May of 1324, when he and his two 
 sons, with two of his near relatives and certain strangers 
 from Florence, Bologna, and Perugia, received this honour. 
 At Siena, in like manner, in the year 1284, ' thirteen of the 
 house of Salimbeni were knighted with great pomp.' 
 
 It was not on the battlefield that the Italians sought 
 this honour. They regarded knighthood as a part of their 
 signorial parade. Therefore Republics, in whom perhaps, 
 according to strict feudal notions, there was no fount of 
 honour, presumed to appoint procurators for the special pur- 
 pose of making knights. Florence, Siena, and Arezzo, after 
 this fashion gave the golden spurs to men who were enrolled 
 in the arts of trade or commerce. The usage was severely 
 criticised by Germans who visited Italy in the Imperial train. 
 Otto Frisingensis, writing the deeds of Frederick Barbarossa, 
 speaks with bitterness thereof : ' To the end that they may 
 not lack means of subduing their neighbours, they think it 
 no shame to gird as knights young men of low birth, or even 
 handicraftsmen in despised mechanic arts, the which folk 
 other nations banish like the plague from honourable and 
 liberal pursuits.' 'Such knights, amid the chivalry of Europe, 
 were not held in much esteem ; nor is it easy to see what the 
 cities, which had formally excluded nobles from their govern- 
 ment, thought to gain by aping institutions which had their 
 true value only in a feudal society. We must suppose that 
 the Italians were not firmly set enough in their own type to 
 resist an enthusiasm which inflamed all Christendom. At 
 the same time they were too Italian to comprehend the spirit 
 of the thing they borrowed. The knights thus made already 
 contained within themselves the germ of those Condottieri
 
 8 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 who reduced the service of arms to a commercial speculation. 
 But they lent splendour to the Commonwealth, as may be 
 seen in the grave line of mounted warriors, steel-clad, with 
 open visors, who guard the commune of Siena in Ambrogio 
 Lorenzetti's fresco. Giovanni Villani, in a passage of his 
 Chronicle which deals with the fair state of Florence just 
 before the outbreak of the Black and White parties, says the 
 city at that epoch numbered ' three hundred Cavalieri di 
 Corredo, with many clubs of knights and squires, who morning 
 and evening went to meat with many men of the court, and 
 gave away on high festivals many robes of vair.' It is clear 
 that these citizen knights were leaders of society, and did 
 their duty to the commonwealth by adding to its joyous 
 cheer. Upon the battlefields of the civil wars, moreover, 
 they sustained at their expense the charges of the cavalry. 
 
 Siena was a city much given to parade and devoted to the 
 Imperial cause, in which the institution of chivalry flourished. 
 Not only did the burghers take knighthood from their procura- 
 tors, but the more influential sought it by a special dispensa- 
 tion from the Emperor. Thus we hear how Nino Tolomei 
 obtained a Caesarean diploma of knighthood for his son Gio- 
 vanni, and published it with great pomp to the people in 
 his palace. This Giovanni, when he afterwards entered 
 religion, took the name of Bernard, and founded the Order 
 of Monte Oliveto. 
 
 Owing to the special conditions of Italian chivalry, it 
 followed that the new knight, having won his spurs by no 
 feat of arms upon the battlefield, was bounden to display 
 peculiar magnificence in the ceremonies of his investiture. 
 His honour was held to be less the reward of courage than of 
 liberality. And this feeling is strongly expressed in a curious 
 passage of Matteo Villani's Chronicle. ' When the Emperor 
 Charles had received the crown in Rome, as we have said, he
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 9 
 
 turned towards Siena, and on the 19th day of April arrived at 
 that city; and before he entered the same, there met him 
 people of the commonwealth with great festivity upon the 
 hour of vespers ; in the which reception eight burghers, given 
 to display but miserly, to the end they might avoid the charges 
 due to knighthood, did cause themselves then and there to 
 be made knights by him. And no sooner had he passed the 
 gates than many ran to meet him without order in their going 
 or provision for the ceremony, and he, being aware of the vain 
 and light impulse of that folk, enjoined upon the Patriarch to 
 knight them in his name. The Patriarch could not withstay 
 from knighting as many as offered themselves; and seeing 
 the thing so cheap, very many took the honour, who before 
 that hour had never thought of being knighted, nor had made 
 provision of what is required from him who seeketh knight- 
 hood, but with light impulse did cause themselves to be borne 
 upon the arms of those who were around the Patriarch ; and 
 when they were in the path before him, these raised such an 
 one on high, and took his customary cap off, and after he had 
 had the cheek-blow which is used in knighting, put a gold- 
 fringed cap upon his head, and drew him from the press, and 
 so he was a knight. And after this wise were made four- 
 and-thirty on that evening, of the noble and lesser folk. And 
 when the Emperor had been attended to his lodging, night 
 fell, and all returned home ; and the new knights without 
 preparation or expense celebrated their reception into chivalry 
 with their families forthwith. He who reflects with a mind 
 not subject to base avarice upon the coming of a new- 
 crowned Emperor into so famous a city, and bethinks him 
 how so many noble and rich burghers were promoted to 
 the honour of knighthood in their native land, men too by 
 nature fond of pomp, without having made any solemn 
 festival in common or in private to the fame of chivalry,
 
 10 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 may judge this people little worthy of the distinction they 
 received.' 
 
 This passage is interesting partly as an instance of Floren- 
 tine spite against Siena, partly as showing that in Italy great 
 munificence was expected from the carpet-knights who had 
 not won their spurs with toil, and partly as proving how the 
 German Emperors, on their parade expeditions through Italy, 
 debased the institutions they were bound to hold in respect. 
 Enfeebled by the extirpation of the last great German house 
 which really reigned in Italy, the Empire was now no better 
 than a cause of corruption and demoralisation to Italian 
 society. The conduct of a man like Charles disgusted even 
 the most fervent Ghibellines ; and we find Fazio degli Uberti 
 flinging scorn upon his avarice and baseness in such lines as 
 
 these : 
 
 Sappi ch' i' son Italia che ti parlo, 
 
 Di Lusimburgo ignominioso Carlo . . . 
 
 Veggendo te aver tese tue arti 
 
 A tor danari e gir con essi a casa . . . 
 
 Tu dunque, Giove, perche '1 Santo uccello 
 
 Da questo Carlo quarto 
 
 Imperador non togli e dalle mani 
 
 Degli altri, lurchi moderni Germani 
 
 Che d' aquila urn, allocco n" hanno fatto ! 
 
 From a passage in a Sienese chronicle we learn what 
 ceremonies of bravery were usual in that city when the 
 new knights understood their duty. It was the year 1326. 
 Messer Francesco Bandinelli was about to be knighted on 
 the morning of Christmas Day. The friends of his house 
 sent peacocks and pheasants by the dozen, and huge pies of 
 marchpane, and game in quantities. Wine, meat, and bread 
 were distributed to the Franciscan and other convents, and 
 a fair and noble court was opened to all comers. Messer 
 Sozzo, father of the novice, went, attended by his guests, to
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 11 
 
 hear high mass in the cathedral ; and there upon the marble 
 pulpit, which the Pisans carved, the ceremony was completed. 
 Tommaso di Nello bore his sword and cap and spurs before 
 him upon horseback. Messer Sozzo girded the sword upon 
 the loins of Messer Francesco, his son aforesaid. Messer 
 Pietro Ridolfi, of Rome, who was the first vicar that came to 
 Siena, and the Duke of Calabria buckled on his right spur. 
 The Captain of the People buckled on his left. The Count 
 Simone da Battifolle then undid his sword and placed it in 
 the hands of Messer Giovanni di Messer Bartolo de' Fibenzi 
 da Rodi, who handed it to Messer Sozzo, the which sword 
 had previously been girded by the father on his son. After 
 this follows a list of the illustrious guests, and an inventory 
 of the presents made to them by Messer Francesco. We find 
 among these ' a robe of silken cloth and gold, skirt, and fur, 
 and cap lined with vair, with a silken cord.' The descrip- 
 tion of the many costly dresses is minute ; but I find no 
 mention of armour. The singers received golden florins, and 
 the players upon instruments ' good store of money.' A 
 certain Salamone was presented with the clothes which the 
 novice doffed before he took the ceremonial bath. The whole 
 catalogue concludes with Messer Francesco's furniture and 
 outfit. This, besides a large wardrobe of rich clothes and furs, 
 contains armour and the trappings for charger and palfrey. 
 The Corte Bandita, or open house held upon this occasion, 
 lasted for eight days, and the charges on the Bandinelli 
 .estates must have been considerable. 
 
 Knights so made were called in Italy Cavalieri Addobbati, 
 or di Corredo, probably because the expense of costly furni- 
 ture was borne by them addobbo having become a name for 
 decorative trappings, and Corredo for equipment. The latter 
 is still in use for a bride's trousseau. The former has the 
 same Teutonic root as our verb ' to dub.' But the Italians
 
 12 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 recognised three other kinds of knights, the Cavalieri Bagnati, 
 Cavalieri di Scudo, and Cavalieri d'Arme. Of the four sorts 
 Sacchetti writes in one of his novels : ' Knights of the Bath 
 are made with the greatest ceremonies, and it behoves them 
 to he bathed and washed of all impurity. Knights of Equip- 
 ment are those who take the order with a mantle of dark 
 green and the gilded garland. Knights of the Shield are such 
 as are made knights by commonwealths or princes, or go 
 to investiture armed, and with the casque upon their head. 
 Knights of Arms are those who in the opening of a battle, or 
 upon a foughten field, are dubbed knights.' These distinc- 
 tions, however, though concordant with feudal chivalry, were 
 not scrupulously maintained in Italy. Messer Francesco 
 Bandinelli, for example, was certainly a Cavaliere di Corredo. 
 Yet he took the bath, as we have seen. Of a truth, the 
 Italians selected those picturesque elements of chivalry which 
 lent themselves to pageant and parade. The sterner inten- 
 tion of the institution, and the symbolic meaning of its various 
 ceremonies, were neglected by them. 
 
 In the foregoing passages, which serve as a lengthy 
 preamble to Folgore's five sonnets, I have endeavoured to 
 draw illustrations from the history of Siena, because Folgore 
 represents Sienese society at the height of mediaeval culture. 
 In the first of the series he describes the preparation made 
 by the aspirant after knighthood. The noble youth is so 
 bent on doing honour to the order of chivalry, that he raises 
 money by mortgage to furnish forth the banquets and the 
 presents due upon the occasion of his institution. He has 
 made provision also of equipment for himself and all his 
 train. It will be noticed that Folgore dwells only on the 
 fair and joyous aspect of the ceremony. The religious 
 enthusiasm of knighthood, has disappeared, and already, in 
 the first decade of the fourteenth century, we find the spirit
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 13 
 
 of Jehan de Saintre prevalent in Italy. The word donzello, 
 derived from the Latin domicellus, I have translated squire, 
 because the donzel was a youth of gentle birth awaiting 
 knighthood. 
 
 This morn a young squire shall be made a knight ; 
 Whereof he fain would be right worthy found, 
 And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round 
 To furnish all that fits a man of might. 
 
 Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight ; 
 Capons and pheasants on his board abound, 
 Where serving men and pages march around ; 
 Choice chambers, torches, and wax candle light. 
 
 Barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought, 
 Mailed men at arms and noble company, 
 Spears, pennants, housing cloths, bells richly wrought. 
 
 Musicians following with great barony 
 
 And jesters through the land his state have brought, 
 With dames and damsels whereso rideth he. 
 
 The subject having thus been introduced, Folgore treats 
 the ceremonies of investiture by an allegorical method, which 
 is quite consistent with his own preference of images to ideas. 
 Each of the four following sonnets presents a picture to the 
 mind, admirably fitted for artistic handling. We may imagine 
 them to ourselves wrought in arras for a sumptuous chamber. 
 The first treats of the bath, in which, as we have seen already 
 from Sacchetti's note, the aspirant after knighthood puts aside 
 all vice, and consecrates himself anew. Prodezza, or Prowess, 
 must behold him nude from head to foot, in order to assure 
 herself that the neophyte bears no blemish ; and this inspec- 
 tion is an allegory of internal wholeness. 
 
 Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway, 
 
 And saith : ' Friend, now beseems it thee to strip ; 
 For I will see men naked, thigh and hip, 
 And thou my will must know and eke obey ;
 
 14 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 And leave what was thy wont until this day, 
 
 And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip ; 
 This do, and thou shalt join rny fellowship, 
 If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay.' 
 
 And when she sees his comely body bare, 
 
 Forthwith within her arms she him doth take, 
 
 And saith : ' These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer; 
 
 I do accept thee, and this gift thee make, 
 
 So that thy deeds may shine for ever fair ; 
 My lips shall never more thy praise forsake.' 
 
 After courage, the next virtue of the knightly character is 
 gentleness or modesty, called by the Italians humility. It is 
 this quality which makes a strong man pleasing to the world, 
 and wins him favour. Folgore's sonnet enables us to under- 
 stand the motto of the great Borromeo family Humilitas, in 
 Gothic letters underneath the coronet upon their princely 
 palace fronts. 
 
 Humility to him doth gently go, 
 
 And saith : ' I would in no wise weary thee ; 
 
 Yet must I cleanse and wash thee thoroughly, 
 
 And I will make thee whiter than the snow. 
 Hear what I tell thee in few words, for so 
 
 Fain am I of thy heart to hold the key ; 
 
 Now must thou sail henceforward after me ; 
 
 And I will guide thee as myself do go. 
 But one thing would I have thee straightway leave ; 
 
 Well knowest thou mine enemy is pride ; 
 
 Let her no more unto thy spirit cleave : 
 So leal a friend with thee will I abide 
 
 That favour from all folk thou shalt receive ; 
 
 This grace hath he who keepeth on my side.' 
 
 The novice has now bathed, approved himself to the searching 
 eyes of Prowess, and been accepted by Humility. After the 
 bath, it was customary for him to spend a night in vigil ; and 
 this among the Teutons should have taken place in church, 
 alone before the altar. But the Italian poet, after his custom,
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEM1GNANO 15 
 
 gives a suave turn to the severe discipline. His donzel passes 
 the night in bed, attended by Discretion, or the virtue of 
 reflection. She provides fair entertainment for the hours of 
 vigil, and leaves him at the morning with good counsel. It is 
 not for nothing that he seeks knighthood, and it behoves 
 him to be careful of his goings. The last three lines of the 
 sonnet are the gravest of the series, showing that something 
 of true chivalrous feeling survived even among the Cavalieri 
 di Corredo of Tuscany. 
 
 Then did Discretion to the squire draw near, 
 And drieth him with a fair cloth and clean, 
 And straightway putteth him the sheets between, 
 Silk, linen, counterpane, and minevere. 
 
 Think now of this ! Until the day was clear, 
 
 With songs and music and delight the queen, 
 And with new knights, fair fellows well-beseen, 
 To make him perfect, gave him goodly cheer. 
 
 Then saith she : ' Rise forthwith, for now 'tis due, 
 Thou shouldst be born into the world again ; 
 Keep well the order thou dost take in view.' 
 
 Unfathomable thoughts with him remain 
 
 Of that great bond he may no more eschew, 
 Nor can he say, ' I'll hide me from this chain.' 
 
 The vigil is over. The mind of the novice is prepared for his 
 new duties. The morning of his reception into chivalry has 
 arrived. It is therefore fitting that grave thoughts should be 
 abandoned ; and seeing that not only prowess, humility, and 
 discretion are the virtues of a knight, but that he should also 
 be blithe and debonair, Gladness comes to raise him from 
 his bed and equip him for the ceremony of institution. 
 
 Comes Blithesomeness with mirth and merriment, 
 All decked in flowers she seemeth a rose-tree ; 
 Of linen, silk, cloth, fur, now beareth she 
 To the new knight a rich habiliment ;
 
 16 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Head-gear and cap and garland flower-besprent, 
 
 So brave they were May-bloom he seemed to be ; 
 
 "With such a rout, so many and such glee, 
 
 That the floor shook. Then to her work she went ; 
 
 And stood him on his feet in hose and shoon ; 
 And purse and gilded girdle 'neath the fur 
 That drapes his goodly limbs, she buckles on ; 
 
 Then bids the singers and sweet music stir, 
 And showeth him to ladies for a boon 
 And all who in .that following went with her. 
 
 At this point the poem is abruptly broken. The manuscript 
 from which these sonnets are taken states they are a fragment. 
 Had the remaining twelve been preserved to us, we should 
 probably have possessed a series of pictures in which the 
 procession to church would have been portrayed, the investi- 
 ture with the sword, the accolade, the buckling on of the 
 spurs, and the concluding sports and banquets. It is very 
 much to be regretted that so interesting, so beautiful, and so 
 unique a monument of Italian chivalry survives thus mutilated. 
 But students of art have to arm themselves continually with 
 patience, repressing the sad thoughts engendered in them by 
 the spectacle of time's unconscious injuries. 
 
 It is certain that Folgore would have written at least one 
 sonnet on the quality of courtesy, which in that age, as we 
 have learned from Matteo Villani, identified itself in the 
 Italian mind with liberality. This identification marks a 
 certain degradation of the chivalrous ideal, which is charac- 
 teristic of Italian manners. One of Folgore's miscellaneous 
 sonnets shows how sorely he felt the disappearance of this 
 quality from the midst of a society bent daily more and more 
 upon material aims. It reminds us of the lamentable outcries 
 uttered by the later poets of the fourteenth century, Sacchetti, 
 Boccaccio, Uberti, and others of less fame, over the decline of 
 their age.
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 17 
 
 Courtesy ! Courtesy ! Courtesy ! I call : 
 
 But from no quarter comes there a reply. 
 
 They who should show her, hide her ; wherefore I 
 
 And whoso needs her, ill must us befall. 
 Greed with his hook hath ta'en men one and all, 
 
 And murdered every grace that dumb doth lie : 
 
 Whence, if I grieve, I know the reason why ; 
 
 From you, great men, to God I make my call : 
 For you my mother Courtesy have cast 
 
 So low beneath your feet she there must bleed ; 
 
 Your gold remains, but you're not made to last : 
 Of Eve and Adam we are all the seed : 
 
 Able to give and spend, you hold wealth fast : 
 
 111 is the nature that rears such a breed I 
 
 Folgore was not only a poet of occasion and compliment, 
 but a political writer, who fully entertained the bitter feeling 
 of the Guelphs against their Ghibelline opponents. 
 
 Two of his sonnets addressed to the Guelphs have been 
 translated by Mr. Rossetti. In order to complete the list I 
 have made free versions of two others in which he criticised 
 the weakness of his own friends. The first is addressed, in 
 the insolent impiety of rage, to God : 
 
 I praise thee not, God, nor give thee glory, 
 
 Nor yield thee any thanks, nor bow the knee, 
 Nor pay thee service ; for this irketh me 
 More than the souls to stand in purgatory; 
 
 Since thou hast made us Guelphs a jest and story 
 Unto the Ghibellines for all to see : 
 And if Uguccion claimed tax of thee, 
 Thou'dst pay it without interrogatory. 
 
 All, well I wot they know thee ! and have stolen 
 St. Martin from thee, Altopascio, 
 St. Michael, and the treasure thou hast lost ; 
 
 And thou that rotten rabble BO hast swollen 
 That pride now counts for tribute ; even BO 
 Thou'st made their heart stone-hard to thine own cost. 
 ill C
 
 18 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 About the meaning of some lines in this sonnet I am not 
 clear. But the feeling and the general drift of it are manifest. 
 The second is a satire on the feebleness and effeminacy of the 
 Pisans. 
 
 Ye are more silky-sleek than ermines are, 
 
 Ye Pisan counts, knights, damozels, and squires, 
 "Who think by combing out your hair like wires 
 To drive the men of Florence from their car. 
 Ye make the Ghibellines free near and far, 
 
 Here, there, in cities, castles, huts, and byres, 
 Seeing how gallant in your brave attires, 
 How bold you look, true paladins of war. 
 Stout-hearted are ye as a hare hi chase, 
 To meet the sails of Genoa on the sea ; 
 And men of Lucca never saw your face. 
 Dogs with a bone for courtesy are ye : 
 
 Could Folgore but gain a special grace, 
 
 He'd have you banded 'gainst all men that be. 
 
 Among the sonnets not translated by Mr. Rossetti two 
 by Folgore remain, which may be classified with the not 
 least considerable contributions to Italian gnomic poetry in 
 an age when literature easily assumed a didactic tone. The 
 first has for its subject the importance of discernment and 
 discrimination. It is written on the wisdom of what the 
 ancient Greeks called Katpds, or the right occasion in all 
 human conduct. 
 
 Dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower ; 
 
 Nor every flower that blossoms fruit doth bear ; 
 
 Nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare ; 
 
 Nor every stone in earth its healing power : 
 This thing is good when mellow, that when sour ; 
 
 One seems to grieve, within doth rest from care ; 
 
 Not every torch is brave that flaunts in air ; 
 
 There is what dead doth seem, yet flame doth shower. 
 Wherefore it ill behoveth a wise man 
 
 His truss of every grass that grows to bind, 
 
 Or pile his back with every stone he can,
 
 FOLGORE DA SAN GEMIGNANO 19 
 
 Or counsel from each word to seek to find, 
 
 Or take his walks abroad with Dick and Dan : 
 Not without cause I'm moved to speak my mind. 
 
 The second condemns those men of light impulse who, as 
 Dante put it, discoursing on the same theme, ' subject reason 
 to inclination.' l 
 
 What time desire hath o'er the soul such sway 
 
 That reason finds nor place nor puissance here, 
 Men oft do laugh at what should claim a tear, 
 And over grievous dole are seeming gay. 
 
 He sure would travel far from sense astray 
 
 Who should take frigid ice for fire ; and near 
 Unto this plight are those who make glad cheer 
 For what should rather cause their soul dismay. 
 
 But more at heart might he feel heavy pain 
 Who made his reason subject to mere will, 
 And followed wandering impulse without rein ; 
 
 Seeing no lordship is so rich as still 
 
 One's upright self unswerving to sustain, 
 To follow worth, to flee things vain and ill. 
 
 The sonnets translated by me in this essay, taken together 
 with those already published by Mr. Kossetti, put the English 
 reader in possession of all that passes for the work of Folgore 
 da San Gemignano. 
 
 Since these words were written, England has lost the poet- 
 painter, to complete whose work upon the sonnet-writer of 
 
 1 The line in Dante runs : 
 
 ' Che la ragion sommettono al talento.' 
 In Folgore's sonnet we read : 
 
 ' Chi somraette rason a volontadc.' 
 
 On the supposition that Folgore wrote in the second decade of the four- 
 teenth century, it is not impossible that he may have had knowledge of 
 this line from the fifth canto of the Inferno. 
 
 c2
 
 20 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 mediaeval Siena I attempted the translations in this essay. 
 One who has trodden the same path as Eossetti, at however a 
 noticeable interval, and has attempted to present in English 
 verse the works of great Italian singers, doing inadequately 
 for Michelangelo and Campanella what he did supremely 
 well for Dante, may here perhaps be allowed to lay the 
 tribute of reverent recognition at his tomb.
 
 21 
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHEISTMAS 
 
 WHAT is the meaning of our English Christmas ? What 
 makes it seem so truly Northern, national, and homely, that 
 we do not like to keep the feast upon a foreign shore ? These 
 questions grew upon me as I stood one Advent afternoon 
 beneath the Dome of Florence. A priest was thundering 
 from the pulpit against French scepticism, and exalting the 
 miracle of the Incarnation. Through the whole dim church 
 blazed altar candles. Crowds of men and women knelt or sat 
 about the transepts, murmuring their prayers of preparation 
 for the festival. At the door were pedlars selling little 
 books, in which were printed the offices for Christmas-tide, 
 with stories of S. Felix and S. Catherine, whose devotion to 
 the infant Christ had wrought them weal, and promises of 
 the remission of four purgatorial centuries to those who zeal- 
 ously observed the service of the Church at this most holy 
 time. I knew that the people of Florence were preparing 
 for Christmas in their own way. But it was not our way. 
 It happened that outside the church the climate seemed 
 as wintry as our own snowstorms and ice, and wind and 
 chilling fog, suggesting Northern cold. But as the palaces of 
 Florence lacked our comfortable firesides, and the greetings of 
 friends lacked our hearty handshakes and loud good wishes, 
 so there seemed to be a want of the home feeling in those 
 Christmas services and customs. Again I asked myself, 
 ' What do we mean by Christmas ? ' 
 
 The same thought pursued me as I drove to Rome : by
 
 22 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Siena, still and brown, uplifted, mid her russet hills and 
 wilderness of rolling plain ; by Chiusi, with its sepulchral 
 city of a dead and unknown people ; through the chestnut 
 forests of the Apennines ; by Orvieto's rock, Viterbo's foun- 
 tains, and the oak-grown solitudes of the Ciminian heights, 
 from which one looks across the broad lake of Bolsena and 
 the Eoman plain. Brilliant sunlight, like that of a day in 
 late September, shone upon the landscape, and I thought 
 Can this be Christmas? Are they bringing mistletoe and 
 holly on the country carts into the towns in far-off England ? 
 Is it clear and frosty there, with the tramp of heels upon the 
 flag, or snowing silently, or foggy with a round red sun and 
 cries of warning at the corners of the streets ? 
 
 I reached Rome on Christmas Eve, in time to hear mid- 
 night services in the Sistine Chapel and S. John Lateran, to 
 breathe the dust of decayed shrines, to wonder at doting 
 cardinals begrimed with snuff, and to resent the open- 
 mouthed bad taste of my countrymen who made a mockery 
 of these palsy- stricken ceremonies. Nine cardinals going to 
 sleep, nine train-bearers talking scandal, twenty huge, hand- 
 some Switzers in the dress devised by Michelangelo, some 
 ushers, a choir caged off by gilded railings, the insolence and 
 eagerness of polyglot tourists, plenty of wax candles dripping 
 on people's heads, and a continual nasal drone proceeding 
 from the gilded cage, out of which were caught at intervals 
 these words, and these only, ' Sa?cula saeculorum, amen.' 
 Such was the celebrated Sistine service. The chapel blazed 
 with light, and very strange did Michelangelo's Last Judg- 
 ment, his Sibyls, and his Prophets, appear upon the roof 
 and wall above this motley and unmeaning crowd. 
 
 Next morning I put on my dress-clothes and white tie, 
 and repaired, with groups of Englishmen similarly attired, 
 anil of Englishwomen in black crape the regulation costume
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 23 
 
 to S. Peter's. It was a glorious and cloudless morning ; 
 sunbeams streamed in columns from the southern windows, 
 falling on the vast space full of soldiers and a mingled mass 
 of every kind of people. Up the nave stood double files of 
 the Pontifical guard. Monks and nuns mixed with the Swiss 
 cuirassiers and halberds. Contadini crowded round the sacred 
 images, and especially round the toe of S. Peter. I saw 
 many mothers lift their swaddled babies up to kiss it. Valets 
 of cardinals, with the invariable red umbrellas, hung about 
 side chapels and sacristies. Purple-mantled monsignori, like 
 emperor butterflies, floated down the aisles from sunlight into 
 shadow. Movement, colour, and the stir of expectation, made 
 the church alive. We showed our dress-clothes to the guard, 
 were admitted within their ranks, and solemnly walked up 
 toward the dome. There under its broad canopy stood the 
 altar, glittering with gold and candles. The choir was 
 carpeted and hung with scarlet. Two magnificent thrones 
 rose ready for the Pope : guards of honour, soldiers, attaches, 
 and the elite of the residents and visitors in Rome, were 
 scattered in groups picturesquely varied by ecclesiastics of all 
 orders and degrees. At ten a stirring took place near the 
 great west door. It opened, and we saw the procession of the 
 Pope and his cardinals. Before him marched the singers 
 and the blowers of the silver trumpets, making the most 
 liquid melody. Then came his Cap of Maintenance, and 
 three tiaras ; then a company of mitred priests ; next the 
 cardinals in scarlet ; and last, aloft beneath a canopy, upon 
 the shoulders of men, and flanked by the mystic fans, advanced 
 the Pope himself, swaying to and fro like a Lama, or an 
 Aztec king. Still the trumpets blew most silverly, and still 
 the people knelt; and as he came, we knelt and had his 
 blessing. Then he took his state and received homage. After 
 this the choir began to sing a mass of Palestrina's, and the
 
 24 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 deacons robed the Pope. Marvellous putting on and taking 
 off of robes and tiaras and mitres ensued, during which there 
 was much bowing and praying and burning of incense. At 
 last, when he had reached the highest stage of sacrificial 
 sanctity, he proceeded to the altar, waited on by cardinals 
 and bishops. Having censed it carefully, he took a higher 
 throne and divested himself of part of his robes. Then the 
 mass went on in earnest, till the moment of consecration, 
 when it paused, the Pope descended from his throne, passed 
 down the choir, and reached the altar. Every one knelt ; the 
 shrill bell tinkled ; the silver trumpets blew ; the air became 
 sick and heavy with incense, so that sun and candle light 
 swooned in an atmosphere of odorous cloud-wreaths. The 
 whole church trembled, hearing the strange subtle music 
 vibrate in the dome, and seeing the Pope with his own 
 hands lift Christ's body from the altar and present it to the 
 people. An old parish priest, pilgrim from some, valley of 
 the Apennines, who knelt beside me, cried and quivered with 
 excess of adoration. The great tombs around, the sculp- 
 tured saints and angels, the dome, the volumes of light and 
 incense and unfamiliar melody, the hierarchy ministrant, the 
 white and central figure of the Pope, the multitude made 
 up an overpowering scene. What followed was compara- 
 tively tedious. My mind again went back to England, and 
 I thought of Christmas services beginning in all village 
 churches and all cathedrals throughout the land their old 
 familiar hymn, their anthem of Handel, their trite and sleepy 
 sermons. How different the two feasts are Christmas in 
 Eome, Christmas in England Italy and the North the 
 spirit of Latin and the spirit of Teutonic Christianity. 
 
 What, then, constitutes the essence of our Christmas as 
 different from that of more Southern nations ? In their 
 origin they are the same. The stable of Bethlehem, the
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 25 
 
 star-led kings, the shepherds, and the angels all the beautiful 
 story, in fact, which S. Luke alone of the Evangelists has 
 preserved for us are what the whole Christian world owes to 
 the religious feeling of the Hebrews. The first and second" 
 chapters of S. Luke are most important in the history of 
 Christian mythology and art. They are far from containing 
 the whole of what we mean by Christmas ; but the religious 
 poetry which gathers round that season must be sought 
 upon their pages. Angels, ever since the Exodus, played a 
 first part in the visions of the Hebrew prophets and in the 
 lives of their heroes. We know not what reminiscences of 
 old Egyptian genii, what strange shadows of the winged 
 beasts of Persia, flitted through their dreams. In the desert, 
 or under the boundless sky of Babylon, these shapes became 
 no less distinct than the precise outlines of Oriental scenery. 
 They incarnated the vivid thoughts and intense longings of 
 the prophets, who gradually came to give them human forms 
 and titles. We hear of them by name, as servants and 
 attendants upon God, as guardians of nations, and patrons 
 of great men. To the Hebrew mind the whole unseen 
 world was full of spirits, active, strong, and swift of flight, 
 of various aspect, and with power of speech. It is hard to 
 imagine what the first Jewish disciples and the early Greek 
 and Roman converts thought of these great beings. To us, 
 the hierarchies of Dionysius, the services of the Church, the 
 poetry of Dante and Milton, and the forms of art, have made 
 them quite familiar. Northern nations have appropriated the 
 Angels, and invested them with attributes alien to their Oriental 
 origin. They fly through our pine-forests, and the gloom of 
 cloud or storm ; they ride upon our clanging bells, and gather 
 in swift squadrons among the arches of Gothic cathedrals ; 
 we see them making light in the cavernous depth of woods, 
 where sun or moon beams rarely pierce, and ministering
 
 26 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 to the wounded or the weary ; they bear aloft the censers 
 of the mass ; they sing in the anthems of choristers, and live 
 in strains of poetry and music ; our churches bear their names ; 
 we call our children by their titles; we love them as our 
 guardians, and the whole unseen world is made a home to 
 us by their imagined presence. All these things are the 
 growth of time and the work of races whose myth-making 
 imagination is more artistic than that of the Hebrews. Yet 
 this rich legacy of romance is bound up in the second chapter 
 of S. Luke ; and it is to him we must give thanks when at 
 Christmas-tide we read of the shepherds and the angels in 
 English words more beautiful than his own Greek. 
 
 The angels in the stable of Bethlehem, the kings who came 
 from the far East, and the adoring shepherds, are the gift of 
 Hebrew legend and of the Greek physician Luke to Christmas. 
 How these strange and splendid incidents affect modern fancy 
 remains for us to examine ; at present we must ask, What did 
 the Eomans give to Christmas ? The customs of the Christian 
 religion, like everything that belongs to the modern world, 
 have nothing pure and simple in their nature. They are the 
 growth of long ages, and of widely different systems, parts of 
 which have been fused into one living whole. In this respect 
 they resemble our language, our blood, our literature, and 
 our modes of thought and feeling. We find Christianity in 
 one sense wholly original ; in another sense composed of old 
 materials ; in both senses universal and cosmopolitan. The 
 Eoman element in Christmas is a remarkable instance of this 
 acquisitive power of Christianity. The celebration of the 
 festival takes place at the same time as that of the Pagan Satur- 
 nalia ; and from the old customs of that holiday, Christmas 
 absorbed much that was consistent with the spirit of the new 
 religion. During the Saturnalia the world enjoyed, in thought 
 at least, a perfect freedom. Men who had gone to bed as
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHKISTMAS 27 
 
 slaves, rose their own masters. From the ergastula and 
 dismal sunless cages they went forth to ramble in the streets 
 and fields. Liberty of speech was given them, and they might 
 satirise those vices of their lords to which, on other days, they 
 had to minister. Eome on this day, by a strange negation of 
 logic, which we might almost call a prompting of blind con- 
 science, negatived the philosophic dictum that barbarians were 
 by law of nature slaves, and acknowledged the higher principle 
 of equality. The Saturnalia stood out from the whole year 
 as a protest in favour of universal brotherhood, and the right 
 that all men share alike to enjoy life after their own fashion, 
 within the bounds that nature has assigned them. We do 
 not know how far the Stoic school, which was so strong in 
 Rome, and had so many points of contact with the Christians, 
 may have connected its own theories of equality with this old 
 custom of the Saturnalia. But it is possible that the fellowship 
 of human beings, and the temporary abandonment of class 
 prerogatives, became a part of Christmas through the habit 
 of the Saturnalia. We are perhaps practising a Eoman 
 virtue to this day when at Christmas-time our hand is liberal, 
 and we think it wrong that the poorest wretch should fail to 
 feel the pleasure of the day. 
 
 Of course Christianity inspired the freedom of the Saturnalia 
 with a higher meaning. The mystery of the Incarnation, or 
 the deification of human nature, put an end to slavery through 
 all the year, as well as on this single day. What had been a 
 kind of aimless licence became the most ennobling principle 
 by which men are exalted to a state of self-respect and mutual 
 reverence. Still in the Saturnalia was found, ready-made, 
 an easy symbol of unselfish enjoyment. It is, however, dan- 
 gerous to push speculations of this kind to the very verge of 
 possibility. 
 
 The early Roman Christians probably kept Christmas with
 
 28 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 no special ceremonies. Christ was as yet too close to them. 
 He had not become the glorious creature of their fancy, but 
 was partly an historic being, partly confused in their imagi- 
 nation with reminiscences of Pagan deities. As the Good 
 Shepherd, and as Orpheus, we find him painted in the Cata- 
 combs ; and those who thought of him as God, loved to dwell 
 upon his risen greatness more than on the idyll of his birth. 
 To them his entry upon earth seemed less a subject of re- 
 joicing than his opening of the heavens ; they suffered, and 
 looked forward to a future happiness ; they would not seem 
 to make this world permanent by sharing its gladness with 
 the Heathens. Theirs, in truth, was a religion of hope and 
 patience, not of triumphant recollection or of present joy- 
 fulness. 
 
 The Northern converts of the early Church added more 
 to the peculiar character of our Christmas. Who can tell 
 what Pagan rites were half sanctified by their association 
 with that season, or how much of our cheerfulness belonged 
 to Heathen orgies and the banquets of grim warlike gods ? 
 Certainly nothing strikes one more in reading Scandinavian 
 poetry, than the strange mixture of Pagan and Christian 
 sentiments which it presents. For though the missionaries 
 of the Church did all they could to wean away the minds 
 of men from their old superstitions ; yet, wiser than their 
 modern followers, they saw that some things might remain 
 untouched, and that even the great outlines of the Christian 
 faith might be adapted to the habits of the people whom they 
 studied to convert. Thus, on the one hand, they destroyed 
 the old temples one by one, and called the idols by the name 
 of devils, and strove to obliterate the songs which sang great 
 deeds of bloody gods and heroes ; while, on the other, they 
 taught the Northern sea-kings that Jesus was a Prince 
 surrounded by twelve dukes, who conquered all the world.
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 29 
 
 Besides, they left the days of the week to their old patrons. 
 It is certain that the imagination of the people preserved 
 more of heathendom than even such missionaries could 
 approve ; mixing up the deeds of the Christian saints with 
 old heroic legends ; seeing Balder's beauty in Christ and the 
 strength of Thor in Samson ; attributing magic to S. John ; 
 swearing, as of old, bloody oaths in God's name, over the 
 gilded boar's-head ; burning the yule-log, and cutting sacred 
 boughs to grace their new-built churches. 
 
 The songs of choirs and sound of holy bells, and super- 
 stitious reverence for the mass, began to tell upon the people ; 
 and soon the echo of their old religion only swelled upon the 
 ear at intervals, attaching itself to times of more than usual 
 sanctity. Christmas was one of these times, and the old 
 faith threw around its celebration a fantastic light. Many 
 customs of the genial Pagan life remained ; they seemed 
 harmless when the sense of joy was Christian. The Druid's 
 mistletoe graced the church porches of England and of France, 
 and no blood lingered on its berries. Christmas thus became 
 a time of extraordinary mystery. The people loved it as con- 
 necting their old life with the new religion, perhaps uncon- 
 sciously, though every one might feel that Christmas was no 
 common Christian feast. On its eve strange wonders hap- 
 pened : the thorn that sprang at Glastonbury from the sacred 
 crown which Joseph brought with him from Palestine, when 
 Avalon was still an island, blossomed on that day. The 
 Cornish miners seemed to hear the sound of singing men 
 arise from submerged churches by the shore, and others said 
 that bells, beneath the ground where villages had been, 
 chimed yearly on that eve. No evil thing had power, as 
 Marcellus in 'Hamlet' tells us, and the bird of dawning 
 crowed the whole night through. One might multiply folk- 
 lore about the sanctity of Christmas, but enough has been said
 
 30 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 to show that round it lingered long the legendary spirit of 
 old Paganism. It is not to Jews, or Greeks, or Eomans only 
 that we owe our ancient Christmas fancies, but also to those 
 half-heathen ancestors who lovingly looked back to Odin's 
 days, and held the old while they embraced the new. 
 
 Let us imagine Christmas Day in a mediaeval town of 
 Northern England. The cathedral is only partly finished. 
 Its nave and transepts are the work of Norman architects, 
 but the choir has been destroyed in order to be rebuilt by 
 more graceful designers and more skilful hands. The old 
 city is full of craftsmen, assembled to complete the church. 
 Some have come as a religious duty, to work off their tale of 
 sins by bodily labour. Some are animated by a love of art 
 simple men, who might have rivalled with the Greeks in ages 
 of more cultivation. Others, again, are well-known carvers, 
 brought for hire from distant towns and countries beyond 
 the sea. But to-day, and for some days past, the sound of 
 hammer and chisel has been silent in the choir. Monks 
 have bustled about the nave, dressing it up with holly-boughs 
 and bushes of yew, and preparing a stage for the sacred play 
 they are going to exhibit on the feast day. Christmas is not 
 like Corpus Christi, and now the market-place stands inches 
 deep in snow, so that the Miracles must be enacted be- 
 neath a roof instead of in the open air. And what place so 
 appropriate as the cathedral, where poor people may have 
 warmth and shelter while they see the show ? Besides, the 
 gloomy old church, with its windows darkened by the falling 
 snow, lends itself to candlelight effects that will enhance the 
 splendour of the scene. Everything is ready. The incense 
 of morning mass yet lingers round the altar. The voice of 
 the friar who told the people from the pulpit the story of 
 Christ's birth, has hardly ceased to echo. Time has just 
 been given for a mid-day dinner, and for the shepherds and
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHEISTMAS 31 
 
 farm lads to troop in from the country-side. The monks are 
 ready at the wooden stage to draw its curtain, and all the 
 nave is full of eager faces. There you may see the smith and 
 carpenter, the butcher's wife, the country priest, and the grey 
 cowled friar. Scores of workmen, whose home the cathedral 
 for the time is made, are also here, and you may know the 
 artists by their thoughtful foreheads and keen eyes. That 
 young monk carved Madonna and her Son above the southern 
 porch. Beside him stands the master mason, whose strong 
 arms have hewn gigantic images of prophets and apostles for 
 the pinnacles outside the choir ; and the little man with 
 cunning eyes between the two is he who cuts such quaint 
 hobgoblins for the gargoyles. He has a vein of satire in him, 
 and his humour overflows into the stone. Many and many 
 a grim beast and hideous head has he hidden among vine- 
 leaves and trellis-work upon the porches. Those who know 
 him well are loth to anger him, for fear their sons and sons' 
 sons should laugh at them for ever caricatured in solid stone. 
 Hark ! there sounds the bell. The curtain is drawn, and 
 the candles blaze brightly round the wooden stage. What is 
 this first scene ? We have God in Heaven, dressed like a 
 Pope with triple crown, and attended by his court of angels. 
 They sing and toss up censers till he lifts his hand and speaks. 
 In a long Latin speech he unfolds the order of creation and 
 his will concerning man. At the end of it up leaps an ugly 
 buffoon, in goatskin, with rams' horns upon his head. Some 
 children begin to cry ; but the older people laugh, for this is 
 the Devil, the clown and comic character, who talks their 
 common tongue, and has no reverence before the very 
 throne of Heaven. He asks leave to plague men, and 
 receives it ; then, with many a curious caper, he goes down 
 to Hell, beneath the stage. The angels sing and toss their 
 censers as before, and the first scene closes to a sound of
 
 32 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 organs. The next is more conventional, in spite of some 
 grotesque incidents. It represents the Fall ; the monks 
 hurry over it quickly, as a tedious but necessary prelude to 
 the birth of Christ. That is the true Christmas part of the 
 ceremony, and it is understood that the best actors and most 
 beautiful dresses are to be reserved for it. The builders of 
 the choir in particular are interested in the coming scenes, 
 since one of their number has been chosen, for his handsome 
 face and tenor voice, to sing the angel's part. He is a young 
 fellow of nineteen, but his beard is not yet grown, and long 
 hair hangs down upon his shoulders. A chorister of the 
 cathedral, his younger brother, will act the Virgin Mary. At 
 last the curtain is drawn. 
 
 We see a cottage-room, dimly lighted by a lamp, and Mary 
 spinning near her bedside. She sings a country air, and goes 
 on working, till a rustling noise is heard, more light is thrown 
 upon the stage, and a glorious creature, in white raiment, with 
 broad golden wings, appears. He bears a lily, and cries, 
 ' Ave Maria, Gratia Plena ! ' She does not answer, but stands 
 confused, with down-dropped eyes and timid mien. Gabriel 
 rises from the ground and comforts her, and sings aloud his 
 message of glad tidings. Then M'ary gathers courage, and, 
 kneeling in her turn, thanks God ; and when the angel and 
 his radiance disappears, she sings the song of the Magnificat, 
 clearly and simply, in the darkened room. Very soft and 
 silver sounds this hymn through the great church. The 
 women kneel, and children are hushed as by a lullaby. But 
 some of the hinds and 'prentice lads begin to think it rather 
 dull. They are not sorry when the next scene opens with 
 a sheepfold and a little camp-fire. Unmistakable bleatings 
 issue from the fold, and five or six common fellows are sitting 
 round the blazing wood. One might fancy they had stepped 
 straight from the church floor to the stage, so natural
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 33 
 
 do they look. Besides, they call themselves by common 
 names Colin, and Tom Lie-a-bed, and nimble Dick. Many 
 a round laugh wakes echoes in the church when these 
 shepherds stand up, and hold debate about a stolen sheep. 
 Tom Lie-a-bed has nothing to remark but that he is very 
 sleepy, and does not want to go in search of it to-night ; Colin 
 cuts jokes, and throws out shrewd suspicions that Dick knows 
 something of the matter ; but Dick is sly, and keeps them off 
 the scent, although a few of his asides reveal to the audience 
 that he is the real thief. While they are thus talking, 
 silence falls upon the shepherds. Soft music from the church 
 organ breathes, and they appear to fall asleep. 
 
 The stage is now quite dark, and for a few moments the 
 aisles echo only to the dying melody. When, behold, a ray 
 of light is seen, and splendour grows around the stage from 
 hidden candles, and in the glory Gabriel appears upon a higher 
 platform made to look like clouds. The shepherds wake in 
 confusion, striving to shelter their eyes from this unwonted 
 brilliancy. But Gabriel waves his lily, spreads his great gold 
 wings, and bids good cheer with clarion voice. The shep- 
 herds fall to worship, and suddenly round Gabriel there 
 gathers a choir of angels, and a song of ' Gloria in Excelsis ' 
 to the sound of a deep organ is heard far off. From distant 
 aisles it swells, and seems to come from heaven. Through a 
 long resonant fugue the glory flies, and as it ceases with com- 
 plex conclusion, the lights die out, the angels disappear, and 
 Gabriel fades into the darkness. Still the shepherds kneel, 
 rustically chanting a carol half in Latin, half in English, 
 which begins ' In dulci Jubilo.' The people know it well, 
 and when the chorus rises with ' Ubi sunt gaudia ? ' its wild 
 melody is caught by voices up and down the nave. This scene 
 makes deep impression upon many hearts ; for the beauty of 
 Gabriel is rare, and few who see him in his angel's dress 
 
 III D
 
 34 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 would know him for the lad who daily carves his lilies and 
 broad water-flags about the pillars of the choir. To that 
 simple audience he interprets Heaven, and little children will 
 see him in their dreams. Dark winter nights and awful forests 
 will be trodden by his feet, made musical by his melodious 
 voice, and parted by the rustling of his wings. The youth 
 himself may return to-morrow to the workman's blouse and 
 chisel, but his memory lives in many minds and may form a 
 part of Christmas for the fancy of men as yet unborn. 
 
 The next drawing of the curtain shows us the stable of 
 Bethlehem crowned by its star. There kneels Mary, and 
 Joseph leans upon his staff. The ox and ass are close at 
 hand, and Jesus lies in jewelled robes on straw within the 
 manger. To right and left bow the shepherds, worshipping 
 in dumb show, while voices from behind chant a solemn 
 hymn. In the midst of the melody is heard a flourish of 
 trumpets, and heralds step upon the stage, followed by the 
 three crowned kings. They have come from the far East, 
 led by the star. The song ceases, while drums and fifes and 
 trumpets play a stately march. The kings pass by, and do 
 obeisance one by one. Each gives some costly gift ; each doffs 
 his crown and leaves it at the Saviour's feet. Then they 
 retire to a distance and worship in silence like the shepherdf . 
 Again the angel's song is heard, and while it dies away the 
 curtain closes, and the lights are put out. 
 
 The play is over, and evening has come. The people must 
 go from the warm church into the frozen snow, and crunch 
 their homeward way beneath the moon. But in their minds 
 they carry a sense of light and music and unearthly loveliness. 
 Not a scene of this day's pageant will be lost. It grows 
 within them and creates the poetry of Christmas. Nor must 
 we forget the sculptors who listen to the play. We spoke of 
 them minutely, because these mysteries sank deep into their
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 35 
 
 souls and found a way into their carvings on the cathedral 
 walls. The monk who made Madonna by the southern porch, 
 will remember Gabriel, and place him bending low in lordly 
 salutation by her side. The painted glass of the chapter- 
 house will glow with fiery choirs of angels learned by heart 
 that night. And who does not know the mocking devils and 
 quaint satyrs that the humorous sculptor will carve among 
 his fruits and flowers ? Some of the misereres of the stalls 
 still bear portraits of the shepherd thief, and of the ox and 
 ass who blinked so blindly when the kings, by torchlight, 
 brought their dazzling gifts. Truly these old miracle-plays, 
 and the carved work of cunning hands that they inspired, 
 are worth to us more than all the delicate creations of Italian 
 pencils. Our homely Northern churches still retain, for the 
 child who reads their bosses and their sculptured fronts, 
 more Christmas poetry than we can find in Fra Angelico's 
 devoutness or the liveliness of Giotto. Not that Southern 
 artists have done nothing for our Christmas. Cimabue's 
 gigantic angels at Assisi, and the radiant seraphs of Raphael 
 or of Signorelli, were seen by Milton in his Italian journey. 
 He gazed in Romish churches on graceful Nativities, into 
 which Angelico and Credi threw their simple souls. How 
 much they tinged his fancy we cannot say. But what we 
 know of heavenly hierarchies we later men have learned from 
 Milton ; and what he saw he spoke, and what he spoke in 
 sounding verse lives for us now and sways our reason, and 
 controls our fancy, and makes fine art of high theology. 
 
 Thus have I attempted rudely to recall a scene of 
 mediaeval Christmas. To understand the domestic habits of 
 that age is not so easy, though one can fancy how the barons 
 in their halls held Christmas, with the boar's head and the 
 jester and the great yule-log. On the dais sut lord and lady, 
 waited on by knight and squire and page ; but down the long 
 
 D 2
 
 36 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 hall feasted yeomen and hinds and men-at-arnis. Little 
 remains to us of those days, and we have outworn their jollity. 
 It is really from the Elizabethan poets that our sense of old- 
 fashioned festivity arises. They lived at the end of one age 
 and the beginning of another. Though born to inaugurate 
 the new era, they belonged by right of association and 
 sympathy to the period that was fleeting fast away. This 
 enabled them to represent the poetry of past and present. 
 Old customs and old states of feeling, when they are about to 
 perish, pass into the realm of art. For art is like a flower, 
 which consummates the plant and ends its growth, while it 
 translates its nature into loveliness. Thus Dante and Loren- 
 zetti and Orcagna enshrined mediaeval theology in works of 
 imperishable beauty, and Shakspere and his fellows made im- 
 mortal the life and manners that were decaying in their own 
 time. Men do not reflect upon their mode of living till they 
 are passing from one state to another, and the consciousness of 
 art implies a beginning of new things. Let one who wishes to 
 appreciate the ideal of an English Christmas read Shakspere's 
 song, ' When icicles hang by the wall ; ' and if he knows 
 some old grey grange, far from the high-road, among pastures, 
 with a river flowing near, and cawing rooks in elm-trees by 
 the garden-wall, let him place Dick and Joan and Marian 
 there. 
 
 We have heard so much of pensioners, and barons of beef, 
 and yule-logs, and bay, and rosemary, and holly boughs cut 
 upon the hillside, and crab-apples bobbing in the wassail 
 bowl, and masques and mummers, and dancers on the rushes, 
 that we need not here describe a Christmas Eve in olden times. 
 Indeed, this last half of the nineteenth century is weary of 
 the worn-out theme. But one characteristic of the age of 
 Elizabeth may be mentioned : that is its love of music. 
 Fugued melodies, sung by voices without instruments, were
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 37 
 
 much in vogue. We call them madrigals, and their half- 
 merry, half-melancholy music yet recalls the time when Eng- 
 land had her gift of art, when she needed not to borrow of 
 Marenzio and Palestrina, when her Wilbyes and her Morlands 
 and her Dowlands won the praise of Shakspere and the court. 
 We hear the echo of those songs ; and in some towns at 
 Christmas or the New Year old madrigals still sound in 
 praise of Oriana and of Phyllis and the country life. What 
 are called ' waits ' are but a poor travesty of those well-sung 
 Elizabethan carols. We turn in our beds half pitying, half 
 angered by harsh voices that quaver senseless ditties in the 
 fog, or by tuneless fiddles playing popular airs without pro- 
 priety or interest. 
 
 It is a strange mixture of picturesquely blended elements 
 which the Elizabethan age presents. We see it afar off like 
 the meeting of a hundred streams that grow into a river. 
 We are sailing on the flood long after it has shrunk into a 
 single tide, and the banks are dull and tame, and the all- 
 absorbing ocean is before us. Yet sometimes we hear a 
 murmur of the distant fountains, and Christmas is a day 
 on which for some the many waters of the age of great 
 Elizabeth sound clearest. 
 
 The age which followed was not poetical. The Puritans 
 restrained festivity and art, and hated music. Yet from this 
 period stands out the hymn of Milton, written when he was a 
 youth, but bearing promise of his later muse. At one time, 
 as we read it, we seem to be looking on a picture by some 
 old Italian artist. But no picture can give Milton's music 
 or make the ' base of heaven's deep organ blow.' Here he 
 touches new associations, and reveals the realm of poetry which 
 it remains for later times to traverse. Milton felt the true 
 sentiment of Northern Christmas when he opened his poem 
 with the ' winter wild,' in defiance of historical probability,
 
 38 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IX ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 and what the French call local colouring. Nothing shows 
 how wholly we people of the North have appropriated Christ- 
 mas, and made it a creature of our own imagination, more than 
 this dwelling on winds and snows and bitter frosts, so alien 
 from the fragrant nights of Palestine. But Milton's hymn is 
 like a symphony, embracing many thoughts and periods of 
 varying melody. The music of the seraphim brings to his 
 mind the age of gold, and that suggests the judgment and the 
 redemption of the world. Satan's kingdom fails, the false gods 
 go forth, Apollo leaves his rocky throne, and all the dim Phoeni- 
 cian and Egyptian deities, with those that classic fancy fabled, 
 troop away like ghosts into the darkness. What a swell of 
 stormy sound is in those lines ! It recalls the very voice of 
 Pan, which went abroad upon the waters when Christ died, 
 and all the utterances of God on earth, feigned in Delphian 
 shrines, or truly spoken on the sacred hills, were mute for 
 ever. 
 
 After Milton came the age which, of all others, is the 
 prosiest in our history. We cannot find much novelty of 
 interest added to Christmas at this time. But there is one 
 piece of poetry that somehow or another seems to belong to 
 the reign of Anne and of the Georges the poetry of bells. 
 Great civic corporations reigned in those days ; churchwardens 
 tyrannised and were rich ; and many a goodly chime of bells 
 they hung in our old church-steeples. Let us go into the 
 square room of the belfry, where the clock ticks all day, and 
 the long ropes hang dangling down, with fur upon their hemp 
 for ringers' hands above the socket set for ringers' feet. There 
 we may read long lists of gilded names, recording mountainous 
 bob-majors, rung a century ago, with special praise to him 
 who pulled the tenor-bell, year after year, until he died, and 
 left it to his son. The art of bell-ringing is profound, and 
 requires a long apprenticeship. Even now, in some old cities,
 
 THOUGHTS IN ITALY ABOUT CHRISTMAS 39 
 
 the ringers form a guild and mystery. Suppose it to be 
 Christmas Eve in the year 1772. It is now a quarter before 
 twelve, and the sexton has unlocked the church-gates and 
 set the belfry door ajar. Candles are lighted in the room 
 above, and jugs of beer stand ready for the ringers. Up they 
 bustle one by one, and listen to the tickings of the clock that 
 tells the passing minutes. At last it gives a click ; and now 
 they throw off coat and waistcoat, strap their girdles tighter 
 round the waist, and each holds his rope in readiness. 
 Twelve o'clock strikes, and forth across the silent city go 
 the clamorous chimes. The steeple rocks and reels, and far 
 away the night is startled. Damp turbulent west winds, rush- 
 ing from the distant sea, and swirling up the inland valleys, 
 catch the sound, and toss it to and fro, and bear it by gusts 
 and snatches to watchers far away, upon bleak moorlands and 
 the brows of woody hills. Is there not something dim and 
 strange in the thought of these eight men meeting, in the heart 
 of a great city, in the narrow belfry-room, to stir a mighty 
 sound that shall announce to listening ears miles, miles away, 
 the birth of a new day, and tell to dancers, mourners, 
 students, sleepers, and perhaps to dying men, that Christ is 
 born? 
 
 Let this association suffice for the time. And of our own 
 Christmas so much has been said and sung by better voices, 
 that we may leave it to the feelings and the memories of those 
 who read the fireside tales of Dickens, and are happy in their 
 homes. The many elements which I have endeavoured to 
 recall, mix all of them in the Christmas of the present, partly, 
 no doubt, under the form of vague and obscure sentiment ; 
 partly as time-honoured reminiscences, partly as a portion of 
 our own life. But there is one phase of poetry which we 
 enjoy more fully than any previous age. That is music. 
 Music is of all the arts the youngest, and of all can free herself
 
 40 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 most readily from symbols. A fine piece of music moves 
 before us like a living passion, which needs no form or colour, 
 no interpreting associations, to convey its strong but indistinct 
 significance. Each man there finds his soul revealed to him, 
 and enabled to assume a cast of feeling in obedience to the 
 changeful sound. In this manner all our Christmas thoughts 
 and emotions have been gathered up for us by Handel in his 
 drama of the ' Messiah.' To Englishmen it is almost as well 
 known and necessary as the Bible. But only one who has 
 heard its pastoral episode performed year after year from 
 childhood in the hushed cathedral, where pendent lamps or 
 sconces make the gloom of aisle and choir and airy column 
 half intelligible, can invest this music with long associations 
 of accumulated awe. To his mind it brings a scene at mid- 
 night of hills clear in the starlight of the East, with white 
 flocks scattered on the down. The breath of winds that come 
 and go, the bleating of the sheep, with now and then a tinkling 
 bell, and now and then the voice of an awakened shepherd, is 
 all that breaks the deep repose. Overhead shimmer the bright 
 stars, and low to west lies the moon, not pale and sickly (he 
 dreams) as in our North, but golden, full, and bathing distant 
 towers and tall aerial palms with floods of light. Such is a 
 child's vision, begotten by the music of the symphony ; and 
 when he wakes from trance at its low silver close, the dark 
 cathedral seems glowing with a thousand angel faces, and 
 all the air is tremulous with angel wings. Then follow the 
 solitary treble voice and the swift chorus.
 
 11 
 
 SIENA 
 
 AFTER leaving the valley of the Arno at Empoli, the railway 
 enters a country which rises into earthy hills of no great 
 height, and spreads out at intervals into broad tracts of 
 cultivated lowland. Geologically speaking, this portion of 
 Tuscany consists of loam and sandy deposits, forming the 
 basin between two mountain-ranges the Apennines and the 
 chalk hills of the western coast of Central Italy. Seen from 
 the eminence of some old Tuscan turret, this champaign 
 country has a stern and arid aspect. The earth is grey and 
 dusty, the forms of hill and valley are austere and mono- 
 tonous ; even the vegetation seems to sympathise with the 
 uninteresting soil from which it springs. A few spare olives 
 cast their shadows on the lower slopes ; here and there a 
 copse of oakwood and acacia marks the course of some small 
 rivulet ; rye-fields, grey beneath the wind, clothe the hillsides 
 with scanty verdure. Every knoll is crowned with a village 
 brown roofs and white house-fronts clustered together on the 
 edge of cliffs, and rising into the campanile or antique tower, 
 which tells so many stories of bygone wars and decayed 
 civilisations. 
 
 Beneath these villages stand groups of stone pines clearly 
 visible upon the naked country, cypresses like spires beside 
 the square white walls of convent or of villa, patches of dark 
 foliage, showing where the ilex and the laurel and the myrtle 
 hide thick tangles of rose-trees and jessamines in ancient 
 gardens. Nothing can exceed the barren aspect of this
 
 42 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 country in midwinter : it resembles an exaggerated Sussex, 
 without verdure to relieve the rolling lines of down, and hill, 
 and valley ; beautiful yet, by reason of its frequent villages and 
 lucid air and infinitely subtle curves of mountain-ridges. But 
 when spring comes, a light and beauty break upon this gloomy 
 soil ; the whole is covered with a delicate green veil of rising 
 crops and fresh foliage, and the immense distances which 
 may be seen from every height are blue with cloud-shadows, 
 or rosy in the light of sunset. 
 
 Of all the towns of Lower Tuscany, none is more 
 celebrated than Siena. It stands in the very centre of the 
 district which I have attempted to describe, crowning one of 
 its most considerable heights, and commanding one of its 
 most extensive plains. As a city it is a typical representative 
 of those numerous Italian towns, whose origin is buried in 
 remote antiquity, which have formed the seat of three civilisa- 
 tions, and which still maintain a vigorous vitality upon their 
 ancient soil. Its site is Etruscan, its name is Roman, but the 
 town itself owes all its interest and beauty to the artists and 
 the statesmen and the warriors of the middle ages. A single 
 glance at Siena from one of the slopes on the northern side, 
 will show how truly mediaeval is its character. A city wall 
 follows the outline of the hill, from which the towers of the 
 cathedral and the palace, with other cupolas and red-brick 
 campanili, spring ; while cypresses and olive-gardens stretch 
 downwards to the plain. There is not a single Palladian 
 fa9ade or Renaissance portico to interrupt the unity of the 
 effect. Over all, in the distance, rises Monte Amiata melting 
 imperceptibly into sky and plain. 
 
 The three most striking objects of interest in Siena main- 
 tain the character of mediaeval individuality by which the 
 town is marked. They are the public palace, the cathedral, 
 and the house of S. Catherine. The civil life, the arts, and
 
 SIENA 43 
 
 the religious tendencies of Italy during the ascendency of 
 mediaeval ideas, are strongly set before us here. High above 
 every other building in the town soars the straight brick tower 
 of the Palazzo Pubblico, the house of the republic, the hearth 
 of civil life within the State. It guards an irregular Gothic 
 building in which the old government of Siena used to be 
 assembled, but which has now for a long time been converted 
 into prisons, courts of law, and showrooms. Let us enter 
 one chamber of the Palazzo the Sala della Pace, where 
 Ambrogio Lorenzetti, the greatest, perhaps, of Sienese 
 painters, represented the evils of lawlessness and tyranny, 
 and the benefits of peace and justice, in three noble allegories. 
 They were executed early in the fourteenth century, in the 
 age of allegories and symbolism, when poets and painters 
 strove to personify in human shape all thoughts and senti- 
 ments. The first great fresco represents Peace the peace of 
 the Republic of Siena. Ambrogio has painted the twenty- 
 four councillors who formed the Government, standing be- 
 neath the thrones of Concord, Justice, and Wisdom. From 
 these controlling powers they stretch in a long double line to 
 a seated figure, gigantic in size, and robed with the ensigns of 
 baronial sovereignty. This figure is the State and Majesty 
 of Siena. 1 Around him sit Peace, Fortitude, and Prudence, 
 
 ' It is probable that the firm Ghibelline sympathies of the Sienese 
 people for the Empire were allegorised in this figure ; so that the fresco 
 represented by form and colour what Dante had expressed in his treatise 
 ' De Monarchia.' Among the virtues who attend him, Peace distinguishes 
 herself by rare and very remarkable beauty. She is dressed in white and 
 crowned with olive ; the folds of her drapery, clinging to the delicately 
 modelled limbs beneath, ii resistibly suggest a classic statue. So again does 
 the monumental pose of her dignified, reclining, and yet languid figure. 
 It seems not unreasonable to believe that Lorenzetti copied Peace from 
 the antique Venus which belonged to the Sienese, and which in a fit of 
 superstitious malice they subsequently destroyed and buried in Floren- 
 tine soil.
 
 44 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 Temperance, Magnanimity, and Justice, inalienable assessors 
 of a powerful and righteous lord. Faith, Hope, and Charity, 
 the Christian virtues, float like angels in the air above. 
 Armed horsemen guard his throne, and captives show that 
 he has laid his enemy beneath his feet. Thus the mediaeval 
 artist expressed, by painting, his theory of government. The 
 rulers of the State are subordinate to the State itself ; they 
 stand between the State and the great animating principles 
 of wisdom, justice, and concord, incarnating the one, and 
 receiving inspiration from the others. The pagan qualities of 
 prudence, magnanimity, and courage give stability and great- 
 ness to good government, while the spirit of Christianity 
 must harmonise and rule the whole. Arms, too, are needful 
 to maintain by force what right and law demand, and victory 
 in a just quarrel proclaims the power and vigour of the 
 commonwealth. On another wall Ambrogio has depicted 
 the prosperous city of Siena, girt by battlements and moat, 
 with tower and barbican and drawbridge, to insure its 
 peace. Through the gates stream country-people, bringing 
 the produce of their farms into the town. The streets 
 are crowded with men and women intent on business or 
 pleasure ; craftsmen at their trade, merchants with laden 
 mules, a hawking party, hunters scouring the plain, girls 
 dancing, and children playing in the open square. A school- 
 master watching his class, together with the sculptured 
 figures of Geometry, Astronomy, and Philosophy, remind us 
 that education and science flourish under the dominion of 
 well-balanced laws. The third fresco exhibits the reverse of 
 this fair spectacle. Here Tyranny presides over a scene of 
 anarchy and wrong. He is a hideous monster, compounded 
 of all the bestial attributes which indicate force, treason, 
 lechery, and fear. Avarice and Fraud and Cruelty and War 
 and Fury sit around him. At his feet lies Justice, and
 
 SIENA 45 
 
 above are the effigies of Nero, Caracalla, and like monsters 
 of ill-regulated power. Not far from the castle of Tyranny 
 we see the same town as in the other fresco ; but its streets 
 are filled with scenes of quarrel, theft, and bloodshed. Nor 
 are these allegories merely fanciful. In the middle ages 
 the same city might more than once during one lifetime 
 present in the vivid colours of reality the two contrasted 
 pictures. 1 
 
 Quitting the Palazzo, and threading narrow streets, paved 
 with brick and overshadowed with huge empty palaces, we 
 reach the highest of the three hills on which Siena stands, and 
 see before us the Duomo. This church is the most purely 
 Gothic of all Italian cathedrals designed by national architects. 
 Together with that of Orvieto, it stands to show what the 
 unassisted genius of the Italians could produce, when under 
 the empire of mediaeval Christianity and before the advent of 
 the neopagan spirit. It is built wholly of marble, and over- 
 laid, inside and out, with florid ornaments of exquisite beauty. 
 There are no flying buttresses, no pinnacles, no deep and 
 fretted doorways, such as form the charm of French and 
 English architecture ; but instead of this, the lines of parti- 
 coloured marbles, the scrolls and wreaths of foliage, the 
 mosaics and the frescoes which meet the eye in every direc- 
 tion, satisfy our sense of variety, producing most agreeable 
 combinations of blending hues and harmoniously connected 
 forms. The chief fault which offends against our Northern 
 taste is the predominance of horizontal lines, both in the 
 
 1 Siena, of all Italian cities, was most subject to revolutions. Comines 
 describes it as a city which ' se gouverne plus follement que ville d'ltalie.' 
 Yarchi calls it 'un guazzabuglio ed unaconfusione di repubblichepiuttosto 
 che bene ordinata e instituta repubblica.' See my ' Age of the Despots ' 
 (Renaissance in Italy, Part I.), pp. 141, 554, for some account of the 
 Sienese constitution, and of the feuds and reconciliations of the 
 burghers.
 
 46 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 construction of the fa9ade, and also in the internal decoration. 
 This single fact sufficiently proves that the Italians had never 
 seized the true idea of Gothic or aspiring architecture. But, 
 allowing for this original defect, we feel that the Cathedral of 
 Siena combines solemnity and splendour to a degree almost 
 unrivalled. Its dome is another point in which the instinct of 
 Italian architects has led them to adhere to the genius of their 
 ancestral art rather than to follow the principles of Gothic 
 design. The dome is Etruscan and Koinan, native to the 
 soil, and only by a kind of violence adapted to the character 
 of pointed architecture. Yet the builders of Siena have shown 
 what a glorious element of beauty might have been added 
 to our Northern cathedrals, had the idea of infinity which 
 our ancestors expressed by long continuous lines, by com- 
 plexities of interwoven aisles, and by multitudinous aspiring 
 pinnacles, been carried out into vast spaces of aerial cupolas, 
 completing and embracing and covering the whole like heaven. 
 The Duomo, as it now stands, forms only part of a vast 
 design. On entering we are amazed to hear that this church, 
 which looks so large, from the beauty of its proportions, the 
 intricacy of its ornaments, and the interlacing of its columns, 
 is but the transept of the intended building lengthened a 
 little, and surmounted by a cupola and campanile. 1 Yet such 
 is the fact. Soon after its commencement a plague swept 
 over Italy, nearly depopulated Siena, and reduced the town to 
 penury for want of men. The cathedral, which, had it been 
 accomplished, would have surpassed all Gothic churches south 
 of the Alps, remained a ruin. A fragment of the nave still 
 stands, enabling us to judge of its extent. The eastern wall 
 
 1 The present church was begun about 1229. In 1321 the burghers 
 fancied it was too small for the fame and splendour of their city. So they 
 decreed a new ecclesia pulcra, tiiagna, et magnified, for which the older but 
 as yet unfinished building was to be the transept.
 
 SIENA 47 
 
 joins what was to have been the transept, measuring the 
 mighty space which would have been enclosed by marble 
 vaults and columns delicately wrought. The sculpture on the 
 eastern door shows with what magnificence the Sienese de- 
 signed to ornament this portion of their temple ; while the 
 southern fa9ade rears itself aloft above the town, like those 
 high arches which testify to the past splendour of Glastonbury 
 Abbey ; but the sun streams through the broken windows, and 
 the walls are encumbered with hovels and stables and the 
 refuse of surrounding streets. 
 
 One most remarkable feature of the internal decoration is 
 a line of heads of the Popes carried all round the church 
 above the lower arches. Larger than life, white solemn faces 
 they lean, each from his separate niche, crowned with the 
 triple tiara, and labelled with the name he bore. Their accu- 
 mulated majesty brings the whole past history of the Church 
 into the presence of its living members. A bishop walking 
 up the nave of Siena must feel as a Roman felt among the 
 waxen images of ancestors renowned in council or in war. Of 
 course these portraits are imaginary for the most part ; but 
 the artists have contrived to vary their features and expression 
 with great skill. 
 
 Not less peculiar to Siena is the pavement of the cathedral. 
 It is inlaid with a kind of tarsia work in stone, setting 
 forth a variety of pictures in simple but eminently effective 
 mosaic. Some of these compositions are as old as the cathe- 
 dral ; others are the work of Beccafumi and his scholars. 
 They represent, in the liberal spirit of mediaeval Christianity, 
 the history of the Church before the Incarnation. Hermes 
 Trismegistus and the Sibyls meet us at the doorway : in the 
 body of the church we find the mighty deeds of the old 
 Jewish heroes of Moses and Samson and Joshua and Judith. 
 Independently of the artistic beauty of the designs, of the skill
 
 48 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 with which men and horses are drawn in the most difficult 
 attitudes, of the dignity of some single figures, and of the 
 vigour and simplicity of the larger compositions, a special 
 interest attaches to this pavement in connection with the 
 twelfth canto of the ' Purgatorio.' Dante cannot have 
 trodden these stones and meditated upon their sculptured 
 histories. Yet when we read how he journeyed through the 
 plain of Purgatory with eyes intent upon its storied floor, how 
 'morti i morti, e i vivi parean vivi,' how he saw 'Nimrod at 
 the foot of his great work, confounded, gazing at the people 
 who were proud with him,' we are irresistibly led to think of 
 the Divine comedy. The strong and simple outlines of the 
 pavement correspond to the few words of the poet. Bending 
 over these pictures and trying to learn their lesson, with the 
 thought of Dante in our mind, the tones of an organ, singularly 
 sweet and mellow, fall upon our ears, and we remember how 
 he heard Te Deum sung within tbe gateway of repentance. 
 
 Continuing our walk, we descend the hill on which the 
 Duomo stands, and reach a valley lying between the ancient 
 city of Siena and a western eminence crowned by the church 
 of San Domenico. In this depression there has existed from 
 old time a kind of suburb or separate district of the poorer 
 people known by the name of the Contrada d' Oca. To the 
 Sienese it has especial interest, for here is the birthplace of 
 S. Catherine, the very house in which she lived, her father's 
 workshop, and the chapel which has been erected in com- 
 memoration of her saintly life. Over the doorway is written 
 in letters of gold ' Sponsae Christi Katherinae domus.' Inside 
 they show the room she occupied, and the stone on which she 
 placed her head to sleep ; they keep her veil and staff and 
 lantern and enamelled vinaigrette, the bag in which her alms 
 were placed, the sackcloth that she wore beneath her dress, the 
 crucifix from which she took the wounds of Christ. It is im-
 
 SIENA 49 
 
 possible to conceive, even after the lapse of several centuries, 
 that any of these relics are fictitious. Every particular of her 
 life was remembered and recorded with scrupulous attention 
 by devoted followers. Her fame was universal throughout 
 Italy before her death ; and the house from which she went 
 forth to preach and heal the sick and comfort plague -stricken 
 wretches whom kith and kin had left alone to die, was known 
 and well beloved by all her citizens. From the moment of 
 her death it became, and has continued to be, the object of 
 superstitious veneration to thousands. From the little loggia 
 which runs along one portion of its exterior may be seen the 
 campanile and the dome of the cathedral ; on the other side 
 rises the huge brick church of San Domenico, in which she 
 spent the long ecstatic hours that won for her the title of 
 Christ's spouse. In a chapel attached to the church she 
 watched and prayed, fasting and wrestling with the fiends of 
 a disordered fancy. There Christ appeared to her and gave 
 her His own heart, there He administered to her the sacra- 
 ment with His own hands, there she assumed the robe of 
 poverty, and gave her Lord the silver cross and took from 
 Him the crown of thorns. 
 
 To some of us these legends may appear the flimsiest web 
 of fiction : to others they may seem quite explicable by the 
 laws of semi-morbid psychology ; but to Catherine herself, 
 her biographers, and her contemporaries, they were not so. 
 The enthusiastic saint and reverent people believed firmly 
 in these things ; and after the lapse of five centuries her 
 votaries still kiss the floor and steps on which she trod, still 
 say, ' This was the wall on which she leant when Christ 
 appeared ; this was the corner where she clothed Him, naked 
 and shivering like a beggar-boy ; here He sustained her with 
 angels' food.' 
 
 S. Catherine was one of twenty-five children born in 
 
 111 E
 
 50 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 wedlock to Jacopo and Lapa Benincasa, citizens of Siena. 
 Her father exercised the trade of dyer and fuller. In the year 
 of her birth, 1847, Siena reached the climax of its power and 
 splendour. It was then that the plague of Boccaccio began 
 , to rage, which swept off 80,000 citizens, and interrupted 
 the building of the great Duomo. In the midst of so large 
 a family, and during these troubled times, Catherine grew 
 almost unnoticed ; but it was not long before she manifested 
 her peculiar disposition. At six years old she already saw 
 visions and longed for a monastic life : about the same time 
 she used to collect her childish companions together and 
 preach to them. As she grew, her wishes became stronger ; 
 she refused the proposals which her parents made that she 
 should marry, and so vexed them by her obstinacy that they 
 imposed on her the most servile duties in their household. 
 These she patiently fulfilled, pursuing at the same time her 
 own vocation with unwearied ardour. She scarcely slept at 
 all, and ate no food but vegetables and a little bread, scourged 
 herself, wore sackcloth, and became emaciated, weak, and half 
 delirious. At length the firmness of her character and the 
 force of her hallucinations won the day. Her parents con- 
 sented to her assuming the Dominican robe, and at the age 
 of thirteen she entered the monastic life. From this moment 
 till her death we see in her the ecstatic, the philanthropist, 
 and the politician combined to a remarkable degree. For 
 three whole years she never left her cell except to go to 
 church, maintaining an almost unbroken silence. Yet when 
 she returned to the world, convinced at last of having won 
 by prayer and pain the favour of her Lord, it was to preach 
 to infuriated mobs, to toil among men dying of the plague, 
 to execute diplomatic negotiations, to harangue the republic 
 of Florence, to correspond with queens, and to interpose 
 between kings and popes. In the midst of this varied and
 
 SIENA 51 
 
 distracting career she continued to see visions and to fast 
 and scourge herself. The domestic virtues and the personal 
 wants and wishes of a woman were annihilated in her : she 
 lived for the Church, for the poor, and for Christ, whom she 
 imagined to be constantly supporting her. At length she 
 died, worn out by inward conflicts, by the tension of religious 
 ecstasy, by want of food and sleep, and by the excitement of 
 political life. To follow her in her public career is not my 
 purpose. It is well known how, by the power of her elo- 
 quence and the ardour of her piety, she succeeded as a 
 mediator between Florence and her native city, and between 
 Florence and the Pope ; that she travelled to Avignon, and 
 there induced Gregory XI. to put an end to the Babylonian 
 captivity of the Church by returning to Eome ; that she 
 narrowly escaped political martyrdom during one of her em- 
 bassies from Gregory to the Florentine republic ; that she 
 preached a crusade against the Turks ; that her last days 
 were clouded with sorrow for the schism which then rent the 
 Papacy ; and that she aided by her dying words to keep Pope 
 Urban on the Papal throne. When we consider her private 
 and spiritual life more narrowly, it may well move our amaze- 
 ment to think that the intricate politics of Central Italy, the 
 counsels of licentious princes and ambitious Popes, were in 
 any measure guided and controlled by such a woman. Alone, 
 and aided by nothing but a reputation for sanctity, she dared 
 to tell the greatest men in Europe of their faults ; she wrote 
 in words of well-assured command, and they, demoralised, 
 worldly, sceptical, or indifferent as they might be, were yet so 
 bound by superstition that they could not treat with scorn the 
 voice of an enthusiastic girl. 
 
 Absolute disinterestedness, the belief in her own spiritual 
 mission, natural genius, and that vast power which then 
 belonged to all energetic members of the monastic orders, 
 
 9
 
 52 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 enabled her to play this part. She had no advantages to 
 begin with. The daughter of a tradesman overwhelmed with 
 an almost fabulously numerous progeny, Catherine grew up 
 uneducated. When her genius had attained maturity, she 
 could not even read or write. Her biographer asserts that she 
 learned to do so by a miracle. Anyhow, writing became a 
 most potent instrument in her hands ; and we possess several 
 volumes of her epistles, as well as a treatise of mystical 
 theology. To conquer self-love as the root of all evil, and to 
 live wholly for others, was the cardinal axiom of her morality. 
 She pressed this principle to its most rigorous conclusions in 
 practice ; never resting day or night from some kind of service, 
 and winning by her unselfish love the enthusiastic admiration 
 of the people. In the same spirit of exalted self-annihilation, 
 she longed for martyrdom, and courted death. There was 
 not the smallest personal tie or afterthought of interest to 
 restrain her in the course of action which she had marked 
 out. Her personal influence seems to have been immense. 
 When she began her career of public peacemaker and preacher 
 in Siena, Raymond, her biographer, says that whole families 
 devoted to vendetta were reconciled, and that civil strifes 
 were quelled by her letters and addresses. He had seen 
 more than a thousand people flock to hear her speak; the 
 confessionals crowded with penitents, smitten by the force of 
 her appeals ; and multitudes, unable to catch the words which 
 fell from her lips, sustained and animated by the light of 
 holiness which beamed from her inspired countenance. 1 She 
 was not beautiful, but her face so shone with love, and her 
 eloquence was so pathetic in its tenderness, that none could 
 hear or look on her without emotion. Her writings contain 
 
 1 The part played in Italy by preachers of repentance and peace is 
 among the most characteristic features of Italian history. On this 
 subject see the Appendix to my ' Age of the Despots,' Renaissance in 
 Italy, Part I.
 
 SIENA 53 
 
 abundant proofs of this peculiar suavity. They are too 
 sweet and unctuous in style to suit our modern taste. When 
 dwelling on the mystic love of Christ she cries, ' blood ! 
 O fire ! ineffable love ! ' When interceding before the Pope, 
 she prays for ' Pace, pace, pace, babbo mio dolce ; pace, e 
 non piu guerra.' Yet clear and simple thoughts, profound 
 convictions, and stern moral teaching underlie her ecstatic 
 exclamations. One prayer which she wrote, and which the 
 people of Siena still use, expresses the prevailing spirit of 
 her creed : ' Spirito Santo, o Deita eterna Cristo Amore ! 
 vieni nel niio cuore ; per la tua potenza trailo a Te, mio Dio, 
 e concedemi carita con timore. Liberami, o Amore ineffabile, 
 da ogni mal pensiero ; riscaldami ed infiammami del tuo 
 dolcissirao amore, sicche ogni pena mi sembri leggiera. 
 Santo mio Padre e dolce mio Signore, ora aiutami in ogni 
 mio ministero. Cristo amore. Cristo amore.' The reitera- 
 tion of the word ' love ' is most significant. It was the key- 
 note of her whole theology, the mainspring of her life. In 
 no merely figurative sense did she regard herself as the spouse 
 of Christ, but dwelt upon the bliss, beyond all mortal 
 happiness, which she enjoyed in supersensual communion 
 with her Lord. It is easy to understand how such ideas 
 might be, and have been, corrupteH, when impressed on 
 natures no less susceptible, but weaker and less gifted than 
 S. Catherine's. 
 
 One incident related by Catherine in a letter to Eaymond, 
 her confessor and biographer, exhibits the peculiar character 
 of her influence in the most striking light. Nicola Tuldo, a 
 citizen of Perugia, had been condemned to death for treason 
 in the flower of his age. So terribly did the man rebel 
 against his sentence, that he cursed God, and refused the 
 consolations of religion. Priests visited him in vain ; his 
 heart was shut and sealed by the despair of leaving life in all
 
 54 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 the vigour of its prime. Then Catherine came and spoke to 
 him : ' whence,' she says, ' he received such comfort that he 
 confessed, and made me promise, by the love of God, to stand 
 at the block beside him on the day of his execution.' By a 
 few words, by the tenderness of her manner, and by the 
 charm which women have, she had already touched the heart 
 no priest could soften, and no threat of death or judgment 
 terrify into contrition. Nor was this strange. In our own 
 days we have seen men open the secrets of their hearts to 
 women, after repelling the advances of less touching sympathy. 
 Youths, cold and cynical enough among their brethren, have 
 stood subdued like little children before her who spoke to 
 them of love and faith and penitence and hope. The world 
 has not lost its ladies of the race of S. Catherine, beautiful 
 and pure and holy, who have suffered and sought peace with 
 tears, and who have been appointed ministers of mercy for 
 the worst and hardest of their fellow-men. Such saints 
 possess an efficacy even in the imposition of their hands ; 
 many a devotee, like Tuldo, would more willingly greet death 
 if his S. Catherine were by to smile and lay her hands upon 
 his head, and cry, ' Go forth, my servant, and fear not ! ' 
 The chivalrous admiration for women mixes with religious 
 awe to form the reverence which these saints inspire. Human 
 and heavenly love, chaste and ecstatic, constitute the secret 
 of their power. Catherine then subdued the spirit of Tuldo 
 and led him to the altar, where he received the communion 
 for the first time in his life. His only remaining fear was 
 that he might not have strength to face death bravely. 
 Therefore he prayed Catherine, ' Stay with me, do not leave 
 me ; so it shall be well with me, and I shall die contented ; ' 
 ' and,' says the saint, ' he laid his head in the prison on my 
 breast, and I said, " Comfort thee, my brother, the block 
 shall soon become thy marriage altar, the blood of Christ
 
 SIENA 55 
 
 shall bathe thy sins away, and I will stand beside thee." ' 
 When the hour came, she went and waited for him by the 
 scaffold, meditating on Madonna and Catherine the saint of 
 Alexandria. She laid her own neck on the block, and tried 
 to picture to herself the pains and ecstasies of martyr- 
 dom. In her deep thought, time and place became anni- 
 hilated ; she forgot the eager crowd, and only prayed for 
 Tuldo's soul and for herself. At length he came, walking 
 ' like a gentle lamb,' and Catherine received him with the 
 salutation of ' sweet brother.' She placed his head upon 
 the block, and laid her hands upon him, and told him of 
 the Lamb of God. The last words he uttered were the 
 names of Jesus and of Catherine. Then the axe fell, and 
 Catherine beheld his soul borne by angels into the regions 
 of eternal love. When she recovered from her trance, she 
 held his head within her hands ; her dress was saturated 
 with his blood, which she could scarcely bear to wash 
 away, so deeply did she triumph in the death of him whom 
 she had saved. The words of S. Catherine herself deserve 
 to be read. The simplicity, freedom from self-consciousness, 
 and fervent faith in the reality of all she did and said and 
 saw, which they exhibit, convince us of her entire sincerity. 
 
 The supernatural element in the life of S. Catherine may 
 be explained partly by the mythologising adoration of the 
 people ready to find a miracle in every act of her they 
 worshipped partly by her own temperament and modes of 
 life, which inclined her to ecstasy and fostered the faculty 
 of seeing visions partly by a pious misconception of the 
 words of Christ and Bible phraseology. 
 
 To the first kind belong the wonders which are related 
 of her early years, the story of the candle which burnt her 
 veil without injuring her person, and the miracles performed 
 by her body after death. Many childish incidents were
 
 56 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 treasured up which, had her life proved different, would 
 have been forgotten, or have found their proper place among 
 the catalogue of common things. Thus on one occasion, 
 after hearing of the hermits of the Thebaid, she took it 
 into her head to retire into the wilderness, and chose for her 
 dwelling one of the caverns in the sandstone rock which 
 abound in Siena near the quarter where her father lived. 
 We merely see in this event a sign of her monastic disposi- 
 tion, and a more than usual aptitude for realising the ideas 
 presented to her mind. But the old biographers relate how 
 one celestial vision urged the childish hermit to forsake the 
 world, and another bade her return to the duties of her home. 
 To the second kind we may refer the frequent communings 
 with Christ and with the fathers of the Church, together with 
 the other visions to which she frequently laid claim : nor must 
 we omit the stigmata which she believed she had received 
 from Christ. Catherine was constitutionally inclined to hallu- 
 cinations. At the age of six, before it was probable that a 
 child should have laid claim to spiritual gifts which she did 
 not possess, she burst into loud weeping because her little 
 brother rudely distracted her attention from the brilliant 
 forms of saints and angels which she traced among the clouds. 
 Almost all children of a vivid imagination are apt to transfer 
 the objects of their fancy to the world without them. Goethe 
 walked for hours in his enchanted gardens as a boy, and 
 Alfieri tells us how he saw a company of angels in the choris- 
 ters at Asti. Nor did S. Catherine omit any means of culti- 
 vating this faculty, and of preventing her splendid visions from 
 fading away, as they almost always do, beneath the discipline 
 of intellectual education and among the distractions of daily 
 life. Believing simply in their heavenly origin, and receiving 
 no secular training whatsoever, she walked surrounded by a 
 spiritual world, environed, as her legend says, by angels. Her
 
 SIENA 57 
 
 habits were calculated to foster this disposition : it is related 
 that she took but little sleep, scarcely more than two hours 
 at night, and that too on the bare ground ; she ate nothing 
 but vegetables and the sacred wafer of the host, entirely 
 abjuring the use of wine and meat. This diet, combined with 
 frequent fasts and severe ascetic discipline, depressed her 
 physical forces, and her nervous system was thrown into a 
 state of the highest exaltation. Thoughts became things, and 
 ideas were projected from her vivid fancy upon the empty air 
 around her. It was therefore no wonder that, after spending 
 long, hours in vigils and meditating always on the thought of 
 Christ, she should have seemed to take the sacrament from His 
 hands, to pace the chapel in communion with Him, to meet 
 Him in the form of priest and beggar, to hear Him speaking 
 to her as a friend. Once when the anguish of sin had plagued 
 her with disturbing dreams, Christ came and gave her His own 
 heart in exchange for hers. When lost in admiration before 
 the cross at Pisa, she saw His five wounds stream with blood 
 five crimson rays smote her, passed into her soul, and left 
 their marks upon her hands and feet and side. The light of 
 Christ's glory shone round about her, she partook of His 
 martyrdom, and awaking from her trance she cried to Ray- 
 mond, ' Behold ! I bear in my body the marks of the Lord 
 Jesus ! ' 
 
 This miracle had happened to S. Francis. It was regarded 
 as the sign of fellowship with Christ, of worthiness to drink His 
 cup, and to be baptised with His baptism. We find the same 
 idea at least in the old Latin hymns : 
 
 Fac me plagis vulnerari 
 
 Cruce hac inebriari 
 
 Fac ut portem Christi mortem, 
 
 Passionis fac consortem, 
 
 Et plagas recolere.
 
 58 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 These are words from the ' Stabat Mater ; ' nor did S. Francis 
 and S. Catherine do more than carry into the vividness of 
 actual hallucination what had been the poetic rapture of many 
 less ecstatic, but not less ardent, souls. They desired to be 
 literally ' crucified with Christ ; ' they were not satisfied with 
 metaphor or sentiment, and it seemed to them that their 
 Lord had really vouchsafed to them the yearning of their 
 heart. We need not here raise the question whether the 
 stigmata had ever been actually self-inflicted by delirious 
 saint or hermit : it was not pretended that the wounds of 
 S. Catherine were visible during her lifetime. After her death 
 the faithful thought that they had seen them on her corpse, 
 and they actually appeared in the relics of her hands and 
 feet. The pious fraud, if fraud there must have been, should 
 be ascribed, not to the saint herself, but to devotees and relic- 
 mongers. 1 The order of S. Dominic would not be behind 
 that of S. Francis. If the latter boasted of their stigmata, 
 the former would be ready to perforate the hand or foot of 
 their dead saint. Thus the ecstasies of genius or devotion 
 are brought to earth, and rendered vulgar by mistaken piety 
 and the rivalry of sects. The people put the most material 
 construction on all tropes and metaphors : above the door 
 of S. Catherine's chapel at Siena, for example, it is written 
 
 Hsec tenet ara caput Catharinse ; corda requiris ? 
 Haec imo Christus pectore clausa tenet. 
 
 The frequent conversations which she held with S. Dominic 
 and other patrons of the Church, and her supernatural mar- 
 riage, must be referred to the same category. Strong faith, 
 
 1 It is not impossible that the stigmata may have been naturally 
 produced in the person of S. Francis or S. Catherine. There are cases 
 on record in which grave nervous disturbances have resulted in such 
 modifications of the flesh as may have left the traces of wounds in scars 
 and blisters.
 
 SIENA 59 
 
 and constant familiarity with one order of ideas, joined with a 
 creative power of fancy, and fostered by physical debility, pro- 
 duced these miraculous colloquies. Early in her career, her 
 injured constitution, resenting the violence with which it had 
 been forced to serve the ardours of her piety, troubled her 
 with foul phantoms, haunting images of sin and seductive 
 whisperings, which clearly revealed a morbid condition of 
 the nervous system. She was on the verge of insanity. The 
 reality of her inspiration and her genius are proved by the 
 force with which her human sympathies, and moral dignity, 
 and intellectual vigour triumphed over these diseased hallu- 
 cinations of the cloister, and converted them into the instru- 
 ments for effecting patriotic and philanthropic designs. There 
 was nothing savouring of mean pretension or imposture in 
 her claim to supernatural enlightenment. Whatever we may 
 think of the wisdom of her public policy with regard to the 
 Crusades and to the Papal Sovereignty, it is impossible to 
 deny that a holy and high object possessed her from the 
 earliest to the latest of her life that she lived for ideas 
 greater than self-aggrandisement or the saving of her soul, 
 for the greatest, perhaps, which her age presented to an 
 earnest Catholic. 
 
 The abuses to which the indulgence of temperaments like 
 that of S. Catherine must in many cases have given rise, are 
 obvious. Hysterical women and half-witted men, without 
 possessing her abilities and understanding her objects, beheld 
 unmeaning visions, and dreamed childish dreams. Others 
 won the reputation of sanctity by obstinate neglect of all the 
 duties of life and of all the decencies of personal cleanliness. 
 Every little town in Italy could show its saints like the Santa 
 Fina of whom San Gemignano boasts a girl who lay for seven 
 years on a back-board till her mortified flesh clung to the 
 wood ; or the San Bartolo, who, for hideous leprosy, received
 
 60 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 the title of the Job of Tuscany. Children were encouraged 
 in blasphemous pretensions to the special power of Heaven, 
 and the nerves of weak women were shaken by revelations in 
 which they only half believed. We have ample evidence to 
 prove how the trade of miracles is still carried on, and how in 
 the France of our days, when intellectual vigour has been sepa- 
 rated from old forms of faith, such vision-mongering under- 
 mines morality, encourages ignorance, and saps the force of 
 individuals. But S. Catherine must not be confounded with 
 those sickly shams and make-believes. Her enthusiasms 
 were real ; they were proper to her age ; they inspired her 
 with unrivalled self-devotion and unwearied energy ; they con- 
 nected her with the political and social movements of her 
 country. 
 
 Many of the supernatural events in S. Catherine's life were 
 founded on a too literal acceptation of biblical metaphors. 
 The Canticles, perhaps, inspired her with the belief in a 
 mystical marriage. An enigmatical sentence of S. Paul's sug- 
 gested the stigmata. When the saint bestowed her garment 
 upon Christ in the form of a beggar and gave Him the silver 
 cross of her rosary, she was but realising His own words : ' In- 
 asmuch as ye shall do it unto the least of these little ones, ye 
 shall do it unto Me.' Charity, according to her conception, 
 consisted in giving to Christ. He had first taught this duty ; 
 He would make it the test of all duty at the last day. Catherine 
 was charitable for the love of Christ. She thought less of the 
 beggar than of her Lord. How could she do otherwise than 
 see the aureole about His forehead, and hear the voice of Him 
 who had declared, ' Behold, I am with you, even to the end 
 of the world.' Those were times of childlike simplicity when 
 the eye of love was still unclouded, when men could see 
 beyond the phantoms of this world, and stripping off the acci- 
 dents of matter, gaze upon the spiritual and eternal truths
 
 SIENA 61 
 
 that lie beneath. Heaven lay around them in that infancy of 
 faith ; nor did they greatly differ from the saints and founders 
 of the Church from Paul, who saw the vision of the Lord, 
 or Magdalen, who cried, ' He is risen ! ' An age accustomed 
 to veil thought in symbols, easily reversed the process and dis- 
 cerned essential qualities beneath the common or indifferent 
 objects of the outer world. It was therefore Christ whom 
 S. Christopher carried in the shape of a child ; Christ whom 
 Fra Angelico's Dominicans received in pilgrim's garb at their 
 convent gate ; Christ with whom, under a leper's loathsome 
 form, the flower of Spanish chivalry was said to have shared 
 his couch. 
 
 In all her miracles it will be noticed that S. Catherine 
 showed no originality. Her namesake of Alexandria had 
 already been proclaimed the spouse of Christ. S. Francis had 
 already received the stigmata ; her other visions were such as 
 had been granted to all fervent mystics ; they were the growth 
 of current religious ideas and unbounded faith. It is not as 
 an innovator in religious ecstasy, or as the creator of a new 
 kind of spiritual poetry, that we admire S. Catherine. Her 
 inner life was simply the foundation of her character, her 
 visions were a source of strength to her in times of trial, or the 
 expression of a more than usually exalted mood ; but the 
 means by which she moved the hearts of men belonged to 
 that which she possessed in common with all leaders of man- 
 kind enthusiasm, eloquence, the charm of a gracious nature, 
 and the will to do what she designed. She founded no reli- 
 gious order, like S. Francis or S. Dominic, her predecessors, or 
 Loyola, her successor. Her work was a woman's work to 
 make peace, to succour the afflicted, to strengthen the Church, 
 to purify the hearts of those around her ; not to rule or 
 organise. When she died she left behind her a memory of 
 love more than of power, the fragrance of an unselfish and
 
 62 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 gentle life, the echo of sweet and earnest words. Her place 
 is in the heart of the humble ; children belong to her sister- 
 hood, and the poor crowd her shrine on festivals. 
 
 Catherine died at Eome on the 29th of April 1380, in her 
 thirty-third year, surrounded by the most faithful of her friends 
 and followers ; but it was not until 1461 that she received the 
 last honour of canonisation from the hands of Pius II., ^Eneas 
 Sylvius, her countryman, ^neas Sylvius Piccolomini was 
 perhaps the most remarkable man that Siena has produced. 
 Like S. Catherine, he was one of a large family ; twenty of his 
 brothers and sisters perished in a plague. The licentiousness 
 of his early life, the astuteness of his intellect, and the worldli- 
 ness of his aims, contrast with the singularly disinterested 
 character of the saint on whom he conferred the highest 
 honours of the Church. But he accomplished by diplomacy 
 and skill what Catherine had begun. If she was instrumental 
 in restoring the Popes to Eome, he ended the schism which 
 had clouded her last days. She had preached a crusade ; he 
 lived to assemble the armies of Christendom against the Turks, 
 and died at Ancona, while it was still uncertain whether the 
 authority and enthusiasm of a pope could steady the waver- 
 ing counsels and vacillating wills of kings and princes. The 
 middle ages were still vital in S. Catherine ; Pius II. belonged 
 by taste and genius to the new period of Kenaissance. The 
 hundreds of the poorer Sienese who kneel before S. Catherine's 
 shrine prove that her memory is still alive in the hearts of her 
 fellow-citizens ; while the gorgeous library of the cathedral, 
 painted by the hand of Pinturicchio, the sumptuous palace 
 and the Loggia del Papa designed by Bernardo Bossellino and 
 Antonio Federighi, record the pride and splendour of the 
 greatest of the Piccolomini. But honourable as it was for 
 Pius to fill so high a place in the annals of his city ; to have 
 left it as a poor adventurer, to return to it first as bishop, then
 
 SIENA 63 
 
 as pope : to have a chamber in its mother church adorned 
 with the pictured history of his achievements for a monument, 
 and a triumph of Renaissance architecture dedicated to his 
 family, gentilibus suis yet we cannot but feel that the better 
 part remains with S. Catherine, whose prayer is still whispered 
 by children on their mother's knee, and whose relics are kissed 
 daily by the simple and devout. 
 
 Some of the chief Italian painters have represented the 
 incidents of S. Catherine's life and of her mystical experience. 
 All the pathos and beauty which we admire in Sodoma's 
 S. Sebastian at Florence, are surpassed by his fresco of 
 S. Catherine receiving the stigmata. This is one of several 
 subjects painted by him on the walls of her chapel in San 
 Domenico. The tender unction, the sweetness, the languor, 
 and the grace which he commanded with such admirable 
 mastery, are all combined in the figure of the saint falling 
 exhausted into the arms of her attendant nuns. Soft un- 
 dulating lines rule the composition ; yet dignity of attitude 
 and feature prevails over mere loveliness. Another of Siena's 
 greatest masters, Beccafumi, has treated the same subject 
 with less pictorial skill and dramatic effect, but with an 
 earnestness and simplicity that are very touching. Colourists 
 always liked to introduce the sweeping lines of her white 
 robes into their compositions. Fra Bartolommeo, who 
 showed consummate art by tempering the masses of white 
 drapery with mellow tones of brown or amber, painted one 
 splendid picture of the marriage of S. Catherine, and another 
 in which he represents her prostrate in adoration before the 
 mystery of the Trinity. His gentle and devout soul sympathised 
 with the spirit of the saint. The fervour of her devotion 
 belonged to him more truly than the leonine power which 
 he unsuccessfully attempted to express in his large figure of 
 S. Mark. Other artists have painted the two Catherines
 
 61 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 together the princess of Alexandria, crowned and robed in 
 purple, bearing her palm of martyrdom, beside the nun of 
 Siena, holding in her hand the lantern with which she went 
 about by night among the sick. Ambrogio Borgognone 
 makes them stand one on each side of Madonna's throne, 
 while the infant Christ upon her lap extends His hands to 
 both, in token of their marriage. 
 
 The traditional type of countenance which may be traced 
 in all these pictures is not without a real foundation. Not 
 only does there exist at Siena, in the Church of San Domenico, 
 a contemporary portrait of S. Catherine, but her head also, 
 which was embalmed immediately after death, is still pre- 
 served. The skin of the face is fair and white, like parch- 
 ment, and the features have more the air of sleep than death. 
 We find in them the breadth and squareness of general out- 
 line, and the long, even eyebrows which give peculiar calm to 
 the expression of her pictures. This relic is shown publicly 
 once a year on the 6th of May. That is the Festa of the 
 saint, when a procession of priests and acolytes, and pious 
 people holding tapers, and little girls dressed out in white, 
 carry a splendid silver image of their patroness about the city. 
 Banners and crosses and censers go in front ; then follows 
 the shrine beneath a canopy : roses and leaves of box are 
 scattered on the path. The whole Contrada d' Oca is decked 
 out with such finery as the people can muster : red cloths 
 hung from the windows, branches and garlands strewn about 
 the doorsteps, with brackets for torches on the walls, and 
 altars erected in the middle of the street. Troops of country- 
 folk and townspeople and priests go in and out to visit the 
 cell of S. Catherine ; the upper and the lower chapel, built 
 upon its site, and the hall of the confraternitd blaze with 
 lighted tapers. The faithful, full of wonder, kneel or stand 
 about the 'santi luoghi,' marvelling at the relics, and
 
 SIENA 65 
 
 repeating to one another the miracles of the saint. The same 
 bustle pervades the Church of San Domenico. Masses are 
 being said at one or other chapel all the morning, while 
 women in their flapping Tuscan hats crowd round the silver 
 image of S. Catherine, and say their prayers with a continual 
 undercurrent of responses to the nasal voice of priest or choir. 
 Others gain entrance to the chapel of the saint, and kneel 
 before her altar. There, in the blaze of sunlight and of tapers, 
 far away behind the gloss and gilding of a tawdry shrine, is 
 seen the pale, white face which spoke and suffered so much, 
 years ago. The contrast of its rigid stillness and half- 
 concealed corruption with the noise and life and light outside 
 is very touching. Even so the remnant of a dead idea still 
 stirs the souls of thousands, and many ages may roll by before 
 time and oblivion assert their inevitable sway. 
 
 in
 
 66 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 
 
 IN former days the traveller had choice of two old hostelries 
 in the chief street of Siena. Here, if he was fortunate, he 
 might secure a prophet's chamber, with a view across tiled 
 houseroofs to the distant Tuscan champaign glimpses of 
 russet field and olive-garden framed by jutting city walls, 
 which in some measure compensated for much discomfort. 
 He now betakes himself to the more modern Albergo di 
 Siena, overlooking the public promenade La Lizza. Horse- 
 chestnuts and acacias make a pleasant foreground to a 
 prospect of considerable extent. The front of the house is 
 turned toward Belcaro and the mountains between Grosseto 
 and Vol terra. Sideways its windows command the brown 
 bulk of San Domenico, and the Duomo, set like a marble 
 coronet upon the forehead of the town. When we arrived 
 there one October afternoon the sun was setting amid flying 
 clouds and watery yellow spaces of pure sky, with a wind 
 blowing soft and humid from the sea. Long after he had 
 sunk below the hills, a fading chord of golden and rose- 
 coloured tints burned on the city. The cathedral bell tower 
 was glistening with recent rain, and we could see right 
 through its lancet windows to the clear blue heavens beyond. 
 Then, as the day descended into evening, the autumn trees 
 assumed that wonderful effect of luininousness self-evolved,
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 67 
 
 and the red brick walls that crimson afterglow, which Tuscan 
 twilight takes from singular transparency of atmosphere. 
 
 It is hardly possible to define the specific character of 
 each Italian city, assigning its proper share to natural 
 circumstances, to the temper of the population, and to the 
 monuments of art in which these elements of nature and of 
 human qualities are blended. The fusion is too delicate and 
 subtle for complete analysis ; and the total effect in each 
 particular case may best be compared to that impressed on 
 us by a strong personality, making itself felt in the minutest 
 details. Climate, situation, ethnological conditions, the poli- 
 tical vicissitudes of past ages, the bias of the people to certain 
 industries and occupations, the emergence of distinguished 
 men at critical epochs, have all contributed their quota to the 
 composition of an individuality which abides long after the 
 locality has lost its ancient vigour. 
 
 Since the year 1557, when Gian Giacomo de' Medici laid 
 the country of Siena waste, levelled her luxurious suburbs, 
 and delivered her famine-stricken citizens to the tyranny of 
 the Grand Duke Cosimo, this town has gone on dreaming in 
 suspended decadence. Yet the epithet which was given to 
 her in her days of glory, the title of 'Fair Soft Siena,' still 
 describes the city. She claims it by right of the gentle 
 manners, joyous but sedate, of her inhabitants, by the grace 
 of their pure Tuscan speech, and by the unique delicacy of 
 her architecture. Those palaces of brick, with finely moulded 
 lancet windows, and the lovely use of sculptured marbles in 
 pilastered colonnades, are fit abodes for the nobles who reared 
 them five centuries ago, of whose refined and costly living we 
 read in the pages of Dante or of Folgore da San Gemignano. 
 And though the necessities of modern life, the decay of 
 wealth, the dwindling of old aristocracy, and the absorption 
 of what was once an independent state in the Italian nation, 
 
 r2
 
 68 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 have obliterated that large signorial splendour of the Middle 
 Ages, we feel that the modern Sienese are not unworthy of 
 their courteous ancestry. 
 
 Superficially, much of the present charm of Siena consists 
 in the soft opening valleys, the glimpses of long blue hills and 
 fertile country-side, framed by irregular brown houses stretch- 
 ing along the slopes on which the town is built, and losing 
 themselves abruptly in olive fields and orchards. This 
 element of beauty, which brings the city into immediate rela- 
 tion with the country, is indeed not peculiar to Siena. We 
 find it in Perugia, in Assisi, in Montepulciano, in nearly all 
 the hill towns of Umbria and Tuscany. But their landscape 
 is often tragic and austere, while this is always suave. City 
 and country blend here in delightful amity. Neither yields 
 that sense of aloofness which stirs melancholy. 
 
 The most charming district in the immediate neighbour- 
 hood of Siena lies westward, near Belcaro, a villa high up 
 on a hill. It is a region of deep lanes and golden-green oak- 
 woods, with cypresses and stone-pines, and little streams in 
 all directions flowing over the brown sandstone. The country 
 is like some parts of rural England Devonshire or Sussex. 
 Not only is the sandstone here, as there, broken into deep 
 gullies ; but the vegetation is much the same. Tufted 
 spleenwort, primroses, and broom tangle the hedges under 
 boughs of hornbeam and sweet-chestnut. This is the land- 
 scape which the two sixteenth-century novelists of Siena, 
 Fortini and Sermini, so lovingly depicted in their tales. Of 
 literature absorbing in itself the specific character of a country, 
 and conveying it to the reader less by description than by 
 sustained quality of style, I know none to surpass Fortini's 
 sketches. The prospect from Belcaro is one of the finest to 
 be seen in Tuscany. The villa stands at a considerable ele- 
 vation, and commands an immense extent of hill and dale.
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 69 
 
 Nowhere, except Maremma- wards, a level plain. The Tuscan 
 mountains, from Monte Amiata westward to Volterra, round 
 Valdelsa, down to Montepulciano and Kadicofani, with their 
 innumerable windings and intricacies of descending valleys, 
 are dappled with light and shade from flying storm-clouds, 
 sunshine here, and there cloud-shadows. Girdling the villa 
 stands a grove of ilex-trees, cut so as to embrace its high- 
 built walls with dark continuous green. In the courtyard 
 are lemon-trees and pomegranates laden with fruit. From a 
 terrace on the roof the whole wide view is seen ; and here 
 upon a parapet, from which we leaned one autumn afternoon, 
 my friend discovered this graffito : ' E vidi e piansi il fato 
 amaro ! ' ' I gazed, and gazing, wept the bitterness of fate.' 
 
 II 
 
 The prevailing note of Siena and the Sienese seems, as 
 I have said, to be a soft and tranquil grace ; yet this people 
 had one of the stormiest and maddest of Italian histories. 
 They were passionate in love and hate, vehement in their 
 popular amusements, almost frantic in their political conduct 
 of affairs. The luxury, for which Dante blamed tbem, the 
 levity De Comines noticed in their government, found counter- 
 poise in more than usual piety and fervour. S. Bernardino, 
 the great preacher and peacemaker of the Middle Ages ; 
 S. Catherine, the worthiest of all women to be canonised ; 
 the blessed Colombini, who founded the Order of the Gesuati 
 or Brothers of the Poor in Christ ; the blessed Bernardo, 
 who founded that of Monte Oliveto ; were all Sienese. Few 
 cities have given four such saints to modern Christendom. 
 The biography of one of these may serve as prelude to an 
 account of the Sienese monastery of Oliveto Maggiore. 
 
 The family of Tolomei was among the noblest of the
 
 70 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Sienese aristocracy. On May 10, 1272, Mino Tolomei and 
 his wife Fulvia, of the Tancredi, had a son whom they 
 christened Giovanni, but who, when he entered the religious 
 life, assumed the name of Bernard, in memory of the great 
 Abbot of Clairvaux. Of this child, Fulvia is said to have 
 dreamed, long before his birth, that he assumed the form of 
 a white swan, and sang melodiously, and settled in the boughs 
 of an olive-tree, whence afterwards he winged his way to 
 heaven amid a flock of swans as dazzling white as he. The 
 boy was educated in the Dominican Cloister at Siena, under 
 the care of his uncle Cristoforo Tolomei. There, and after- 
 wards in the fraternity of S. Ansano, he felt that impulse 
 towards a life of piety, which after a short but brilliant 
 episode of secular ambition, was destined to return with 
 overwhelming force upon his nature. He was a youth of 
 promise, and at the age of sixteen he obtained the doctorate 
 in philosophy and both laws, civil and canonical. The 
 Tolomei upon this occasion adorned their palaces and threw 
 them open to the people of Siena. The Eepublic hailed with 
 acclamation the early honours of a noble, born to be one of 
 their chief leaders. Soon after this event Mino obtained for 
 his son from the Emperor the title of Caesarian Knight ; and 
 when the diploma arrived, new festivities proclaimed the 
 fortunate youth to his fellow-citizens. Bernardo cased his 
 limbs in steel, and rode in procession with ladies and young 
 nobles through the streets. The ceremonies of a knight's 
 reception in Siena at that period were magnificent. From 
 contemporary chronicles and from the soimets written by 
 Folgore da San Gemignano for a similar occasion, we gather 
 that the whole resources of a wealthy family and all their 
 friends were strained to the utmost to do honour to the order 
 of chivalry. Open house was held for several days. Rich 
 presents of jewels, armour, dresses, chargers were freely
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 71 
 
 distributed. Tournaments alternated with dances. But the 
 climax of the pageant was the novice's investiture with 
 sword and spurs and belt in the cathedral. This, as it 
 appears from a record of the year 1826, actually took place in 
 the great marble pulpit carved by the JPisani ; and the most 
 illustrious knights of his acquaintance were summoned by the 
 squire to act as sponsors for his fealty. 
 
 It is said that young Bernardo Tolomei's head was turned 
 to vanity by these honours showered upon him in his earliest 
 manhood. Yet, after a short period of aberration, he rejoined 
 his confraternity and mortified his flesh by discipline and 
 strict attendance on the poor. The time had come, however, 
 when he should choose a career suitable to his high rank. 
 He devoted himself to jurisprudence, and began to lecture 
 publicly on law. Already at the age of twenty-five his fellow- 
 citizens admitted him to the highest political offices, and in 
 the legend of his life it is written, not without exaggeration 
 doubtless, that he ruled the State. There is, however, no 
 reason to suppose that he did not play an important part in 
 its government. Though a just and virtuous statesman, Ber- 
 nardo now forgot the special service of God, and gave himself 
 with heart and soul to mundane interests. At the age of 
 forty, supported by the wealth, alliances, and reputation of his 
 semi-princely house, he had become one of the most consider- 
 able party-leaders in that age of faction. If we may trust his 
 monastic biographer, he was aiming at nothing less than the 
 tyranny of Siena. But in that year, when he was forty, a 
 change, which can only be described as conversion, came over 
 him. He had advertised a public disputation, in which he 
 proposed before all comers to solve the most arduous pro- 
 blems of scholastic science. The concourse was great, the 
 assembly brilliant ; but the hero of the day, who had designed 
 it for his glory, was stricken with sudden blindness.. In one
 
 72 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 moment he comprehended the internal void he had created 
 for his soul, and the blindness of the body was illumination 
 to the spirit. The pride, power, and splendour of this world 
 seemed to him a smoke that passes. God, penitence, eternity 
 appeared in all the artful clarity of an authentic vision. He 
 fell upon his knees and prayed to Mary that he might receive 
 his sight again. This boon was granted ; but the revelation 
 which had come to him in blindness was not withdrawn. 
 Meanwhile the hall of disputation was crowded with an ex- 
 pectant audience. Bernardo rose from his knees, made his 
 entry, and ascended the chair ; but instead of the scholastic 
 subtleties he had designed to treat, he pronounced the old 
 text, ' Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.' 
 
 Afterwards, attended by two noble comrades, Patrizio 
 Patrizzi and Ambrogio Piccolomini, he went forth into the 
 wilderness. For the human soul, at strife with strange 
 experience, betakes itself instinctively to solitude. Not only 
 prophets of Israel, saints of the Thebaid, and founders of 
 religions in the mystic East have done so ; even the Greek 
 Menander recognised, although he sneered at, the phenomenon. 
 ' The desert, they say, is the place for discoveries.' For the 
 medisevai mind it had peculiar attractions. The wilderness 
 these comrades chose was Accona, a doleful place, hemmed 
 in with earthen precipices, some fifteen miles to the south of 
 Siena. Of his vast possessions Bernardo retained but this 
 
 The lonesome lodge, 
 That stood so low in a lonely glen. 
 
 The rest of his substance he abandoned to the poor. This 
 was in 1313, the very year of the Emperor Henry VII.'s 
 death at Buonconvento, which is a little walled town between 
 Siena and the desert of Accona. Whether Bernardo's retire- 
 ment was in any way due to the extinction of immediate hope
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 73 
 
 for the Ghibelline party by this event, we do not gather from 
 his legend. That, as is natural, refers his action wholly to 
 the operation of divine grace. Yet we may remember how 
 a more illustrious refugee, the singer of the ' Divine Comedy,' 
 betook himself upon the same occasion to the lonely convent 
 of Fonte Avellana on the Alps of Catria, and meditated there 
 the cantos of his Purgatory. While Bernardo Tolomei was 
 founding the Order of Monte Oliveto, Dante penned his letter 
 to the cardinals of Italy : Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena 
 populo : facta est quasi vidua domino, gentium. 
 
 Bernardo and his friends hollowed with their own hands 
 grottos in the rock, and strewed their stone beds with 
 withered chestnut-leaves. For S. Scolastica, the sister of 
 S. Benedict, they built a little chapel. Their food was wild 
 fruit, and their drink the water of the brook. Through the 
 day they delved, for it was in their mind to turn the wilder- 
 ness into a land of plenty. By night they meditated on 
 eternal truth. The contrast between their rude life and 
 the delicate nurture of Sienese nobles, in an age when Siena 
 had become a by-word for luxury, must have been cruel. 
 But it fascinated the mediaeval imagination, and the three 
 anchorites were speedily joined by recruits of a like temper. 
 As yet the new-born order had no rules ; for Bernardo, when 
 he renounced the world, embraced humility. The brethren 
 were bound together only by the ties of charity. They lived 
 in common ; and under their sustained efforts Accona soon 
 became a garden. 
 
 The society could not, however, hold together without 
 further organisation. It began to be ill spoken of, inasmuch 
 as vulgar minds can recognise no good except in what is 
 formed upon a pattern they are familiar with. Then Bernardo 
 had a vision. In his sleep he saw a ladder of light ascending 
 to the heavens. Above sat Jesus with Our Lady in white
 
 74 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 raiment, and the celestial hierarchies around them were 
 attired in white. Up the ladder, led b.y angels, climbed men 
 in vesture of dazzling white ; and among these Bernardo 
 recognised his own companions. Soon after this dream, he 
 called Ambrogio Piccolomini, and bade him get ready for a 
 journey to the Pope at Avignon. 
 
 John XXII. received the pilgrims graciously, and gave 
 them letters to the Bishop of Arezzo, commanding him to 
 furnish the new brotherhood with one of the rules authorised 
 by Holy Church for governance of a monastic order. Guido 
 Tarlati, of the great Pietra-mala house, was Bishop and despot 
 of Arezzo at this epoch. A man less in harmony with 
 ccenobitical enthusiasm than this warrior prelate, could 
 scarcely have been found. Yet attendance to such matters 
 formed part of his business, and the legend even credits him 
 with an inspired dream ; for Our Lady appeared to him, and 
 said : ' I love the valley of Accona and its pious solitaries. 
 Give them the rule of Benedict. But thou shalt strip them 
 of their mourning weeds, and clothe them in white raiment, 
 the symbol of my virgin purity. Their hermitage shall change 
 its name, and henceforth shall be called Mount Olivet, in 
 memory of the ascension of nay divine Son, the which took 
 place upon the Mount of Olives. I take this family beneath 
 my own protection ; and therefore it is my will it should be 
 called henceforth the congregation of S. Mary of Mount 
 Olivet.' After this, the Blessed Virgin took forethought 
 for the heraldic designs of her monks, dictating to Guido 
 Tarlati the blazon they still bear ; it is of three hills or, 
 whereof the third and highest is surmounted with a cross 
 gules, and from the meeting-point of the three hillocks upon 
 either hand a branch of olive vert. This was in 1319. In 
 1324 John XXII. confirmed the order, and in 1344 it was 
 further approved by Clement VI. Affiliated societies sprang
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 75 
 
 up in several Tuscan cities ; and in 1347, Bernardo Tolomei, 
 at that time General of the Order, held a chapter of its 
 several houses. The next year was the year of the great 
 plague or Black Death. Bernardo bade his brethren leave 
 their seclusion, and go forth on works of mercy among the 
 sick. Some went to Florence, some to Siena, others to the 
 smaller hill-set towns of Tuscany. All were bidden to 
 assemble on the Feast of the Assumption at Siena. Here 
 the founder addressed his spiritual children for the last time. 
 Soon afterwards he died himself, at the age of seventy- seven, 
 and the place of his grave is not known. He was beatified 
 by the Church for his great virtues. 
 
 Ill 
 
 At noon we started, four of us, in an open waggonette with 
 a pair of horses, for Monte Oliveto, the luggage heaped 
 mountain-high and tied in a top-heavy mass above us. After 
 leaving the gateway, with its massive fortifications and frescoed 
 arches, the road passes into a dull earthy country, very much 
 like some parts and not the best parts of England. The 
 beauty of the Sienese contado is clearly on the sandstone, 
 not upon the clay. Hedges, haystacks, isolated farms all 
 were English in their details. Only the vines, and mulberries, 
 and wattled waggons drawn by oxen, most Koman in aspect, 
 reminded us we were in Tuscany. In such carpcnta may 
 the vestal virgins have ascended the Capitol. It is the 
 primitive war-chariot also, capable of holding four with ease ; 
 and Romulus may have mounted with the images of Roman 
 gods in even such a vehicle to Latiarian Jove upon the Alban 
 hill. Nothing changes in Italy. The wooden ploughs are 
 those which Virgil knew. The sight of one of them would
 
 76 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 save an intelligent lad much trouble in mastering a certain 
 passage of the Georgics. 
 
 Siena is visible behind us nearly the whole way to Buon- 
 convento, a little town where the Emperor Henry VII. died, 
 as it was supposed, of poison, in 1318. It is still circled 
 with the wall and gates built by the Sienese in 1366, and 
 is a fair specimen of an intact mediaeval stronghold. Here 
 we leave the main road, and break into a country-track across 
 a bed of sandstone, with the delicate volcanic lines of Monte 
 Amiata in front, and the aerial pile of Montalcino to our 
 right. The pyracanthus bushes in the hedge yield their 
 clusters of bright yellow berries, mingled with more glowing 
 hues of red from haws and glossy hips. On the pale grey 
 earthen slopes men and women are plying the long Sabellian 
 hoes of their forefathers, and ploughmen are driving furrows 
 down steep hills. The labour of the husbandmen in Tuscany 
 is very graceful, partly, I think, because it is so primitive, 
 but also because the people have an eminently noble carriage, 
 and are fashioned on the lines of antique statues. I noticed 
 two young contadini in one field, whom Frederick Walker 
 might have painted with the dignity of Pheidian form. They 
 were guiding their ploughs along a hedge of olive-trees, 
 slanting upwards, the white-homed oxen moving slowly 
 through the marl, and the lads bending to press the plough- 
 shares home. It was a delicate piece of colour the grey 
 mist of olive branches, the warm smoking earth, the creamy 
 flanks of the oxen, the brown limbs and dark eyes of the men, 
 who paused awhile to gaze at us, with shadows cast upon 
 the furrows from their tall straight figures. Then they turned 
 to their work again, and rhythmic movement was added to 
 the picture. I wonder when an Italian artist will condescend 
 to pluck these flowers of beauty, so abundantly offered by 
 the simplest things in his own native land. Each city has
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 77 
 
 an Accademia delle Belle Arti, and there is no lack of 
 students. But the painters, having learned their trade, make 
 copies ten times distant from the truth of famous masterpieces 
 for the American market. Few seem to look beyond their 
 picture galleries. Thus the democratic art, the art of Millet, 
 the art of life and nature and the people, waits. 
 
 As we mount, the soil grows of a richer brown ; and there 
 are woods of oak where herds of swine are feeding on the 
 acorns. Monte Oliveto comes in sight a mass of red brick, 
 backed up with cypresses, among dishevelled earthy preci- 
 pices, baize as they are called upon the hill below the 
 village of Chiusure. This Chiusure was once a promising 
 town ; but the life was crushed out of it in the throes of 
 mediaeval civil wars, and since the thirteenth century it has 
 been dwindling to a hamlet. The struggle for existence, 
 from which the larger communes of this district, Siena and 
 Montepulciano, emerged at the expense of their neighbours, 
 must have been tragical. The baize now grow sterner, drier, 
 more dreadful. We see how deluges outpoured from thunder- 
 storms bring down their viscous streams of loam, destroying 
 in an hour the terraces it took a year to build, and spreading 
 wasteful mud upon the scanty cornfields. The people call 
 this soil creta ; but it seems to be less like a chalk than a 
 marl, or marna. It is always washing away into ravines and 
 gullies, exposing the roots of trees, and rendering the tillage 
 of the land a thankless labour. One marvels how any vege- 
 tation has the faith to settle on its dreary waste, or how men 
 have the patience, generation after generation, to renew the 
 industry, still beginning, never ending, which reclaims such 
 wildernesses. Comparing Monte Oliveto with similar dis- 
 tricts of cretaceous soil with the country, for example, 
 between Pienza and San Quirico we perceive how much is 
 owed to the perseverance of the monks whom Bernard
 
 78 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITAI^Y AND GKEECE 
 
 Tolornei planted here. So far as it is clothed at all with 
 crop and wood, this is their service. 
 
 At last we climb the crowning hill, emerge from a copse of 
 oak, glide along a terraced pathway through the broom, and 
 find ourselves in front of the convent gateway. A substantial 
 tower of red brick, machicolated at the top and pierced with 
 small square windows, guards this portal, reminding us that 
 at some time or other the monks found it needful to arm 
 their solitude against a force descending from Chiusure. 
 There is an avenue of slender cypresses ; and over the gate, 
 protected by a jutting roof, shines a fresco of Madonna 
 and Child. Passing rapidly downwards, we are in the court- 
 yard of the monastery, among its stables, barns, and out- 
 houses, with the forlorn bulk of the huge red building, 
 spreading wide, and towering up above us. As good luck 
 ruled our arrival, we came face to face with the Abbate de 
 Negro, who administers the domain of Monte Oliveto for the 
 Government of Italy, and exercises a kindly hospitality to 
 chance-comers. He was standing near the church, which, 
 with its tall square campanile, breaks the long stern outline 
 of the convent. The whole edifice, it may be said, is com- 
 posed of a red-brick inclining to purple in tone, which 
 contrasts not unpleasantly with the lustrous green of the 
 cypresses, and the glaucous sheen of olives. Advantage has 
 been taken of a steep crest ; and the monastery, enlarged 
 from time to time through the last five centuries, has here 
 and there been reared upon gigantic buttresses, which jut 
 upon the baize at a sometimes giddy height. 
 
 The Abbate received us with true courtesy, and gave us 
 spacious rooms, three cells apiece, facing Siena and the 
 western mountains. There is accommodation, he told us, 
 for three hundred monks ; but only three are left in it. As 
 this order was confined to members of the nobility, each of
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 79 
 
 the religious had his own apartment not a cubicle such as 
 the uninstructed dream of when they read of monks, but 
 separate chambers for sleep and study and recreation. 
 
 In the middle of the vast sad landscape, the place is 
 still, with a silence that can be almost heard. The deserted 
 state of those innumerable cells, those echoing corridors and 
 shadowy cloisters, exercises overpowering tyranny over the 
 imagination. Siena is so far away, and Montalcino is so 
 faintly outlined on its airy parapet, that these cities only 
 deepen our sense of desolation. It is a relief to mark at no 
 great distance on the hillside a contadino guiding his oxen, 
 and from a lonely farm yon column of ascending smoke. At 
 least the world goes on, and life is somewhere resonant with 
 song. But here there rests a pall of silence among the oak- 
 groves and the cypresses and baize. As I leaned and mused, 
 while Christian (my good friend and fellow-traveller from the 
 Orisons) made our beds, a melancholy sunset flamed up from 
 a rampart of cloud, built like a city of the air above the 
 mountains of Volterra fire issuing from its battlements, and 
 smiting the fretted roof of heaven above. It was a conflagra- 
 tion of celestial rose upon the saddest purples and cavernous 
 recesses of intensest azure. 
 
 We had an excellent supper in the visitors' refectory 
 soup, good bread and country wine, ham, a roast chicken 
 with potatoes, a nice white cheese made of sheep's milk, and 
 grapes for dessert. The kind Abbate sat by, and watched 
 his four guests eat, tapping his tortoiseshell snuff-box, and 
 telling us many interesting things about the past and present 
 state of the convent. Our company was completed with 
 Lupo, the pet cat, and Pirro, a woolly Corsican dog, very good 
 friends, and both enormously voracious. Lupo in particular 
 engraved himself upon the memory of Christian, into whose 
 large legs he thrust his claws, when the cheese-parings and
 
 80 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 scraps were not supplied him with sufficient promptitude. I 
 never saw a hungrier and bolder cat. It made one fancy 
 that even the mice had been exiled from this solitude. And 
 truly the rule of the monastic order, no less than the habit 
 of Italian gentlemen, is frugal in the matter of the table, 
 beyond the conception of northern folk. 
 
 Monte Oliveto, the Superior told us, owned thirty-two 
 poderi, or large farms, of which five have recently been sold. 
 They are worked on the mezzeria system ; whereby peasants 
 and proprietors divide the produce of the soil ; and which he 
 thinks inferior for developing its resources to that of affitto, 
 or leaseholding. 
 
 The contadini live in scattered houses ; and he says the 
 estate would be greatly improved by doubling the number of 
 these dwellings, and letting the subdivided farms to more 
 energetic people. The village of Chiusure is inhabited by 
 labourers. The contadini are poor : a dower, for instance, of 
 fifty lire is thought something : whereas near Genoa, upon 
 the leasehold system, a farmer may sometimes provide a 
 dower of twenty thousand lire. The country produces grain 
 of different sorts, excellent oil, and timber. It also yields a 
 tolerable red wine. The Government makes from eight to 
 nine per cent, upon the value of the land, employing him and 
 his two religious brethren as agents. 
 
 In such conversation the evening passed. We rested 
 well in large hard beds with dry rough sheets. But there 
 was a fretful wind abroad, which went wailing round the 
 convent walls and rattling the doors in its deserted corridors. 
 One of our party had been placed by himself at the end of 
 a long suite of apartments, with balconies commanding the 
 wide sweep of hills that Monte Amiata crowns. He confessed 
 in the morning to having passed a restless night, tormented 
 by the ghostly noises of the wind, a wanderer, 'like the
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 81 
 
 world's rejected guest,' through those untenanted chambers. 
 The olives tossed their filmy boughs in twilight underneath 
 his windows, sighing and shuddering, with a sheen in them 
 as eerie as that of willows by some haunted mere. 
 
 IV 
 
 The great attraction to students of Italian art in the 
 convent of Monte Oliveto is a large square cloister, covered 
 with wall-paintings by Luca Signorelli and Giovannantonio 
 Bazzi, surnamed II Sodoma. These represent various epi- 
 sodes in the life of S. Benedict ; while one picture, in some 
 respects the best of the whole series, is devoted to the founder 
 of the Olivetan Order, Bernardo Tolomei, dispensing the 
 rule of his institution to a consistory of white-robed monks. 
 Signorelli, that great master of Cortona, may be studied to 
 better advantage elsewhere, especially at Orvieto and in his 
 native city. His work in this cloister, consisting of eight 
 frescoes, has been much spoiled by time and restoration. Yet 
 it can be referred to a good period of his artistic activity (the 
 year 1497) and displays much which is specially characteristic 
 of his manner. In Totila's barbaric train, he painted a 
 crowd of fierce emphatic figures, combining all ages and the 
 most varied attitudes, and reproducing with singular vivid- 
 ness the Italian soldiers of adventure of his day. We see 
 before us the long-haired followers of Braccio and the 
 Baglioni ; their handsome savage faces ; their brawny limbs 
 clad in the particoloured hose and jackets of that period ; 
 feathered caps stuck sideways on their heads ; a splendid 
 swagger in their straddling legs. Female beauty lay outside 
 the sphere of Signorelli's sympathy ; and in the Monte 
 Oliveto cloister he was not called upon to paint it. But none 
 of the Italian masters felt more keenly, or more powerfully 
 
 III Q
 
 82 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 represented in their work, the muscular vigour of young man- 
 hood. Two of the remaining frescoes, different from these 
 in motive, might be selected as no less characteristic of 
 Signorelli's manner. One represents three sturdy monks, 
 clad in brown, working with all their strength to stir a 
 boulder, which has been bewitched, and needs a miracle to 
 move it from its place. The square and powerfully outlined 
 drawing of these figures is beyond all praise for its effect 
 of massive solidity. The other shows us the interior of a 
 fifteenth-century tavern, where two monks are regaling them- 
 selves upon the sly. A country girl, with shapely arms and 
 shoulders, her upper skirts tucked round the ample waist to 
 which broad sweeping lines of back and breasts descend, is 
 serving wine. The exuberance of animal life, the freedom of 
 attitude expressed in this, the mainly interesting figure of 
 the composition, show that Signorelli might have been a 
 great master of realistic painting. Nor are the accessories 
 less effective. A wide-roofed kitchen chimney, a page-boy 
 leaving the room by a flight of steps which leads to the 
 house door, and the table at which the truant monks are 
 seated, complete a picture of homely Italian life. It may 
 still be matched out of many an inn in this hill district. 
 
 Called to graver work at Orvieto, where he painted his 
 gigantic series of frescoes illustrating the coming of Anti- 
 christ, the Destruction of the World, the Eesurrection, the 
 Last Judgment, and the final state of souls in Paradise and 
 Hell, Signorelli left his work at Monte Oliveto unaccom- 
 plished. Seven years later it was taken up by a painter of 
 very different genius. Sodoma was a native of Vercelli, and 
 had received his first training in the Lombard schools, which 
 owed so much to Lionardo da Vinci's influence. He was 
 about thirty years of age when chance brought him to Siena. 
 Here he made acquaintance with Pandolfo Petrucci, who had
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 83 
 
 recently established himself in a species of tyranny over the 
 Kepublic. The work he did for this patron and other nobles 
 of Siena, brought him into notice. Vasari observes that his 
 hot Lombard colouring, a something florid and attractive in 
 his style, which contrasted with the severity of the Tuscan 
 school, rendered him no less agreeable as an artist than his 
 free manners made him acceptable as a house-friend. Fra 
 Domenico da Leccio, also a Lombard, was at that time 
 General of the monks of Monte Oliveto. On a visit to this 
 compatriot in 1505, Sodoma received a commission to com- 
 plete the cloister ; and during the next two years he worked 
 there, producing in all twenty-five frescoes. For his pains 
 he seemed to have received but little pay Vasari says, only 
 the expenses of some colour-grinders who assisted him ; but 
 from the books of the convent it appears that 241 ducats, or 
 something over GO/, of our money, were disbursed to him. 
 
 Sodoma was so singular a fellow, even in that age of 
 piquant personalities, that it may be worth while to translate 
 a fragment of Vasari's gossip about him. We must, however, 
 bear in mind that, for some unknown reason, the Aretine 
 historian bore a rancorous grudge against this Lombard 
 whose splendid gifts and great achievements he did all he 
 could by writing to depreciate. ' He was fond,' says Vasari, 
 ' of keeping in his house all sorts of strange animals : badgers, 
 squirrels, monkeys, cat-a-mountains, dwarf-donkeys, horses, 
 racers, little Elba ponies, jackdaws, bantams, doves of India, 
 and other creatures of this kind, as many as he could lay his 
 hands on. Over and above these beasts, he had a raven, 
 which had learned so well from him to talk, that it could 
 imitate its master's voice, especially in answering the door 
 when some one knocked, and this it did so cleverly that 
 people took it for Giovannantonio himself, as all the folk of 
 Siena know quite well. In like manner, his other pets were 
 
 o2
 
 84 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 so much at home with him that they never left his house, but 
 played the strangest tricks and maddest pranks imaginable, 
 so that his house was like nothing more than a Noah's Ark.' 
 He was a bold rider, it seems ; for with one of his racers, 
 ridden by himself, he bore away the prize in that wild horse- 
 race they run upon the Piazza at Siena. For the rest, ' he 
 attired himself in pompous clothes, wearing doublets of 
 brocade, cloaks trimmed with gold lace, gorgeous caps, neck- 
 chains, and other vanities of a like description, fit for buffoons 
 and mountebanks.' In one of the frescoes of Monte Oliveto, 
 Sodoma painted his own portrait, with some of his curious 
 pets around him. He there appears as a young man with 
 large and decidedly handsome features, a great shock of dark 
 curled hair escaping from a yellow cap, and flowing down 
 over a rich mantle which drapes his shoulders. If we may 
 trust Vasari, he showed his curious humours freely to the 
 monks. ' Nobody could describe the amusement he furnished 
 to those good fathers, who christened him Mattaccio (the big 
 madman), or the insane tricks he played there.' 
 
 In spite of Vasari 's malevolence, the portrait he has given 
 us of Bazzi has so far nothing unpleasant about it. The man 
 seems to have been a madcap artist, combining with his love 
 for his profession a taste for fine clothes, and what was then 
 perhaps rarer in people of his sort, a great partiality for 
 living creatures of all kinds. The darker shades of Yasari's 
 picture have been purposely omitted from these pages. We 
 only know for certain, about Bazzi's private life, that he was 
 married in 1510 to a certain Beatrice, who bore him two 
 children, and who was still living with him in 1541. The 
 further suggestion that he painted at Monte Oliveto subjects 
 unworthy of a religious house, is wholly disproved by the 
 frescoes which still exist in a state of very tolerable preserva- 
 tion. They represent various episodes in the legend of S.
 
 MONTE OLIVETO 85 
 
 Benedict ; all marked by that spirit of simple, almost childish 
 piety which is a special characteristic of Italian religious 
 history. The series forms, in fact, a painted novella of 
 monastic life ; its petty jealousies, its petty trials, its tribula- 
 tions and temptations, and its indescribably petty miracles. 
 Bazzi was well fitted for the execution of this task. He had 
 a swift and facile brush, considerable versatility in the treat- 
 ment of monotonous subjects, and a never-failing sense of 
 humour. His white-cowled monks, some of them with the 
 rosy freshness of boys, some with the handsome brown faces 
 of middle life, others astute and crafty, others again wrinkled 
 with old age, have clearly been copied from real models. He 
 puts them into action without the slightest effort, and sur- 
 rounds them with landscapes, architecture, and furniture, 
 appropriate to each successive situation. The whole is done 
 with so much grace, such simplicity of composition, and 
 transparency of style, corresponding to the naif and super- 
 ficial legend, that we feel a perfect harmony between the 
 artist's mind and the motives he was made to handle. In 
 this respect Bazzi's portion of the legend of S. Benedict is 
 more successful than Signorelli's. It was fortunate, perhaps, 
 that the conditions of his task confined him to uncomplicated 
 groupings, and a scale of colour in which white predominates. 
 For Bazzi, as is shown by subsequent work in the Farnesina 
 Villa at Rome, and in the church of S. Domenico at Siena, 
 was no master of composition ; and the tone, even of his 
 masterpieces, inclines to heat. Unlike Signorelli, Bazzi felt 
 a deep artistic sympathy with female beauty ; and the most 
 attractive fresco in the whole series is that in which the evil 
 monk Florentius brings a bevy of fair damsels to the convent. 
 There is one group, in particular, of six women, so delicately 
 varied in carriage of the head and suggested movement of 
 the body, as to be comparable only to a strain of concerted
 
 86 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 music. This is perhaps the painter's masterpiece in the 
 rendering of pure beauty, if we except his S. Sebastian of the 
 Uffizzi. 
 
 We tire of studying pictures, hardly less than of reading 
 about them ! I was glad enough, after three hours spent 
 among the frescoes of this cloister, to wander forth into the 
 copses which surround the convent. Sunlight was streaming 
 treacherously from flying clouds ; and though it was high 
 noon, the oak-leaves were still a-tremble with dew. Pink 
 cyclamens and yellow amaryllis starred the moist brown 
 earth ; and under the cypress-trees, where alleys had been 
 cut in former time for pious feet, the short firm turf was soft 
 and mossy. Before bidding the hospitable Padre farewell, 
 and starting in our waggonette for Asciano, it was pleasant 
 to meditate awhile in these green solitudes. Generations of 
 white-stoled monks who had sat or knelt upon the now 
 deserted terraces, or had slowly paced the winding paths to 
 Calvaries aloft and points of vantage high above the wood, 
 rose up before me. My mind, still full of Bazzi's frescoes, 
 peopled the wilderness with grave monastic forms, and 
 gracious, young-eyed faces of boyish novices.
 
 87 
 
 NONTEP ULCIANO 
 
 I 
 
 FOB the sake of intending travellers to this, the lordliest of 
 Tuscan hill-towns, it will be well to state at once and without 
 circumlocution what does not appear upon the time-tables 
 of the line from Empoli to Rome. Montepulciano has a 
 station ; but this railway station is at the distance of at least 
 an hour and a half's drive from the mountain upon which 
 the city stands. 
 
 The lumbering train which brought us one October 
 evening from Asciano crawled into this station after dark, at 
 the very moment when a storm, which had been gathering 
 from the south-west, burst in deluges of rain and lightning. 
 There was, however, a covered carriage going to the town. 
 Into this we packed ourselves, together with a polite Italian 
 gentleman who, in answer to our questions, consulted his 
 watch, and smilingly replied that a little half-hour would 
 bring us easily to Montepulciano. He was a native of the 
 place. He knew perfectly well that he would be shut up 
 with us in that carriage for two mortal hours of darkness 
 and downpour. And yet, such is the irresistible impulse in 
 Italians to say something immediately agreeable, he fed us 
 with false hopes and had no fear of consequences. What 
 did it matter to him if we were pulling out our watches and 
 chattering in well-contented undertone about vino nobile, 
 biftek, and possibly a polio arrosto, or a dish of tordi? At
 
 88 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 the end of the half-hour, as he was well aware, self-congra- 
 tulations and visions of a hearty supper would turn to 
 discontented wailings, and the querulous complaining of de- 
 frauded appetites. But the end of half an hour was still 
 half an hour off ; and we meanwhile were comfortable. 
 
 The night was pitchy dark, and blazing flashes of light- 
 ning showed a white ascending road at intervals. Eain 
 rushed in torrents, splashing against the carriage wheels, 
 which moved uneasily, as though they could but scarcely 
 stem the river that swept down upon them. Far away above 
 us to the left, was one light on a hill, which never seemed 
 to get any nearer. We could see nothing but a chasm of 
 blackness below ua on one side, edged with ghostly olive- 
 trees, and a high bank on the other. Sometimes a star 
 swam out of the drifting clouds ; but then the rain hissed 
 down again, and the flashes came in floods of livid light, 
 illuminating the eternal olives and the cypresses which looked 
 like huge black spectres. It seemed almost impossible for 
 the horses to keep their feet, as the mountain road grew ever 
 steeper and the torrent swelled around them. Still they 
 struggled on. The promised half-hour had been doubled, 
 trebled, quadrupled, when at last we saw the great brown 
 sombre walls of a city tower above us. Then we entered one 
 of those narrow lofty Tuscan gates, and rolled upon the pave- 
 ment of a street. 
 
 The inn at Montepulciano is called Marzocco, after the 
 Florentine lion which stands upon its column in a little 
 square before the house. The people there are hospitable, 
 and more than once on subsequent occasions have they 
 extended to us kindly welcome. But on this, our first ap- 
 pearance, they had scanty room at their disposal. Seeing 
 us arrive so late, and march into their dining-room, laden 
 with sealskins, waterproofs, and ulsters, one of the party
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 39 
 
 hugging a complete Euripides in Didot's huge edition, they 
 were confounded. At last they conducted the whole company 
 of four into a narrow back bedroom, where they pointed to 
 one fair-sized and one very little bed. This was the only 
 room at liberty, they said ; and could we not arrange to sleep 
 here ? /S' accomodi, Signore I S' accomodi, Signora ! These 
 encouraging words, uttered in various tones of cheerful and 
 insinuating politeness to each member of the party in suc- 
 cession, failed to make us comprehend how a gentleman and 
 his wife, with a lean but rather lengthy English friend, and a 
 bulky native of the Orisons, could ' accommodate themselves ' 
 collectively and undividedly with what was barely sufficient 
 for their just moiety, however much it might afford a night's 
 rest to their worse half. Christian was sent out into the 
 storm to look for supplementary rooms in Montepulciano, 
 which he failed to get. Meanwhile we ordered supper, and 
 had the satisfaction of seeing set upon the board a huge red 
 flask of vino nobile. In copious draughts of this the King of 
 Tuscan wines, we drowned our cares ; and when the cloth 
 was drawn, our friend and Christian passed their night upon 
 the supper table. The good folk of the inn had recovered 
 from their surprise, and from the inner recesses of their 
 house had brought forth mattresses and blankets. So the 
 better and larger half of the company enjoyed sound sleep. 
 
 It rained itself out at night, and the morning was clear, 
 with the transparent atmosphere of storm-clouds hurrying in 
 broken squadrons from the bad sea quarter. Yet this is just 
 the weather in which Tuscan landscape looks its loveliest. 
 Those immense expanses of grey undulating uplands need 
 the luminousness of watery sunshine, the colour added by 
 cloud-shadows, and the pearly softness of rising vapours, to 
 rob them of a certain awful grimness. The main street of 
 Montepulciano goes straight uphill for a considerable distance
 
 90 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 between brown palaces ; then mounts by a staircase-zigzag 
 under huge impending masses of masonry ; until it ends in a 
 piazza. On the ascent, at intervals, the eye is fascinated by 
 prospects to the north and east over Val di Chiana, Cortona, 
 Thrasymene, Chiusi ; to south and west over Monte Cetona, 
 Eadicofani, Monte Amiata, the Val d' Ombrone, and the 
 Sienese Contado. Grey walls overgrown with ivy, arcades of 
 time-toned brick, and the forbidding bulk of houses hewn 
 from solid travertine, frame these glimpses of aerial space. 
 The piazza is the top of all things. Here are the Duomo ; 
 the Palazzo del Comune, closely resembling that of Florence, 
 with the Marzocco on its front ; the fountain, between two 
 quaintly sculptured columns ; and the vast palace Del Monte, 
 of heavy Eenaissance architecture, said to be the work of 
 Antonio di San Gallo. 
 
 We climbed the tower of the Palazzo del Comune, and 
 stood at the altitude of 2000 feet above the sea. The view 
 is finer in its kind than I have elsewhere seen, even in 
 Tuscany, that land of panoramic prospects over memorable 
 tracts of world-historic country. Such landscape cannot be 
 described in words. But the worst is that, even while we 
 gaze, we know that nothing but the faintest memory of our 
 enjoyment will be carried home with us. The atmospheric 
 conditions were perfect that morning. The sun was still 
 young ; the sky sparkled after the night's thunderstorm ; the 
 whole immensity of earth around lay lucid, smiling, newly 
 washed in baths of moisture. Masses of storm-cloud kept 
 rolling from the west, where we seemed to feel the sea behind 
 those intervening hills. But they did not form in heavy 
 blocks or hang upon the mountain summits. They hurried 
 and dispersed and changed and flung their shadows on the 
 world below.
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 91 
 
 II 
 
 The charm of this view is composed of so many different 
 elements, so subtly blent, appealing to so many separate 
 sensibilities ; the sense of grandeur, the sense of space, the 
 sense of natural beauty, and the sense of human pathos ; that 
 deep internal faculty we call historic sense ; that it cannot 
 be defined. First comes the immense surrounding space a 
 space measured in each arc of the circumference by sections 
 of at least fifty miles, limited by points of exquisitely pic- 
 turesque beauty, including distant cloud-like mountain ranges 
 and crystals of sky-blue Apennines, circumscribing landscapes 
 of refined loveliness in detail, always varied, always marked 
 by objects of peculiar interest where the eye or memory may 
 linger. Next in importance to this immensity of space, so 
 powerfully affecting the imagination by its mere extent, and 
 by the breadth of atmosphere attuning all varieties of form 
 and colour to one harmony beneath illimitable heaven, may 
 be reckoned the episodes of rivers, lakes, hills, cities, with 
 old historic names. For there spreads the lordly length of 
 Thrasymene, islanded and citadelled, in hazy morning mist, 
 still dreaming of the shock of Roman hosts with Carthaginian 
 legions. There is the lake of Chiusi, set like a jewel under- 
 neath the copse-clad hills which hide the dust of a dead 
 Tuscan nation. The streams of Arno start far far away, 
 where Arezzo lies enfolded in bare uplands. And there at 
 our feet rolls Tiber's largest affluent, the Chiaua. And there 
 is the canal which joins their fountains in the marsh that 
 Lionardo would have drained. Monte Cetona is yonder 
 height which rears its bristling ridge defiantly from neighbour- 
 ing Chiusi. And there springs Radicofani, the eagle's eyrie 
 of a brigand brood. Next, Monte Amiata stretches the long 
 lines of her antique volcano ; the swelling mountain flanks,
 
 92 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 descending gently from her cloud-capped top, are russet with 
 autumnal oak and chestnut woods. On them our eyes rest 
 lovingly ; imagination wanders for a moment through those 
 mossy glades, where cyclamens are growing now, and prim- 
 roses in spring will peep amid anemones from rustling foliage 
 strewn by winter's winds. The heights of Casentino, the 
 Perugian highlands, Volterra, far withdrawn amid a wilder- 
 ness of rolling hills, and solemn snow-touched ranges of the 
 Spolentino, Sibyl-haunted fastnesses of Norcia, form the 
 most distant horizon-lines of this unending panorama. And 
 then there are the cities placed each upon a point of van- 
 tage : Siena ; olive-mantled Chiusi ; Cortona, white upon her 
 spreading throne ; poetic Montalcino, lifted aloft against the 
 vaporous sky ; San Quirico, nestling in pastoral tranquillity ; 
 Pienza, where ^Eneas Sylvius built palaces and called his 
 birthplace after his own Papal name. Still closer to the town 
 itself of Montepulciano, stretching along the irregular ridge 
 which gave it building ground, and trending out on spurs 
 above deep orchards, come the lovely details of oak-copses, 
 blending with grey tilth and fields rich with olive and vine. 
 The gaze, exhausted with immensity, pierces those deeply 
 cloven valleys, sheltered from wind and open to the sun 
 undulating folds of brown earth, where Bacchus, when he 
 visited Tuscany, found the grape-juice that pleased him best, 
 and crowned the wine of Montepulciano king. Here from 
 our eyrie we can trace white oxen on the furrows, guided by 
 brown-limbed, white-shirted contadini. 
 
 The morning glory of this view from Montepulciano, 
 though irrecoverable by words, abides in the memory, and 
 draws one back by its unique attractiveness. On a subse- 
 quent visit to the town in springtime, my wife and I took a 
 twilight walk, just after our arrival, through its gloomy 
 fortress streets, up to the piazza, where the impendent houses
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 93 
 
 lowered like bastions, and all the masses of their mighty 
 architecture stood revealed in shadow and dim lamplight. 
 Far and wide, the country round us gleamed with bonfires ; 
 for it was the eve of the Ascension, when every contadino 
 lights a beacon of chestnut logs and straw and piled-up 
 leaves. Each castello on the plain, each village on the hills, 
 each lonely farmhouse at the skirt of forest or the edge of 
 lake, smouldered like a red Cyclopean eye beneath the vault 
 of stars. The flames waxed and waned, leapt into tongues, 
 or disappeared. As they passed from gloom to brilliancy and 
 died away again, they seemed almost to move. The twilight 
 scene was like that of a vast city, filling the plain and climb- 
 ing the heights in terraces. Is this custom, I thought, a relic 
 of old Pales-worship ? 
 
 Ill 
 
 The early history of Montepulciano is buried in impene- 
 trable mists of fable. No one can assign a date to the foun- 
 dation of these high-hill cities. The eminence on which it 
 stands belongs to the volcanic system of Monte Amiata, and 
 must at some time have formed a portion of the crater which 
 threw that mighty mass aloft. But aeons have passed since 
 the gran sasso di Maremma was a fire-vomiting monster, 
 glaring like Etna in eruption on the Tyrrhene sea ; and 
 through those centuries how many races may have camped 
 upon the summit we call Montepulciano ! Tradition assigns 
 the first quasi-historical settlement to Lars Porsena, who is 
 said to have made it his summer residence, when the lower 
 and more marshy air of Clusium became oppressive. Cer- 
 tainly it must have been a considerable town in the Etruscan 
 period. Embedded in the walls of palaces may still be seen 
 numerous fragments of sculptured basreliefs, the works of that 
 mysterious people. Apropos of Montepulciano's importance
 
 94 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 in the early years of Eoman history, I lighted on a quaint 
 story related by its very jejune annalist, Spinello Benci. 
 It will be remembered that Livy attributes the invasion 
 of the Gauls, who, after besieging Clusium, advanced on 
 Borne, to the persuasions of a certain Aruns. He was an 
 exile from Clusium ; and wishing to revenge himself upon his 
 country-people, he allured the Senonian Gauls into his service 
 by the promise of excellent wine, samples of which he had 
 taken with him into Lombardy. Spinello Benci accepts the 
 legend literally, and continues : ' These wines were so pleas- 
 ing to the palate of the barbarians, that they were induced to 
 quit the rich and teeming valley of the Po, to cross the Apen- 
 nines, and move in battle array against Chiusi. And it is 
 clear that the wine which Aruns selected for the purpose was 
 the same as that which is produced to this day at Monte- 
 pulciano. For nowhere else in the Etruscan district can 
 wines of equally generous quality and fiery spirit be found, so 
 adapted for export and capable of such long preservation.' 
 
 We may smile at the historian's naivete. Yet the fact 
 remains that good wine of Montepulciano can still allure 
 barbarians of this epoch to the spot where it is grown. Of 
 all Italian vintages, with the exception of some rare qualities 
 of Sicily and the Valtellina, it is, in my humble opinion, the 
 best. And when the time comes for Italy to develop the 
 resources of her vineyards upon scientific principles, Monte- 
 pulciano will drive Brolio from the field and take the same 
 place by the side of Chianti which Volnay occupies by common 
 Macon. It will then be quoted upon wine-lists throughout 
 Europe, and find its place upon the tables of rich epicures in 
 Hyperborean regions, and add its generous warmth to Trans- 
 atlantic banquets. Even as it is now made, with very little 
 care bestowed on cultivation and none to speak of on selection 
 of the grape, the wine is rich and noble, slightly rough to a
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 95 
 
 sophisticated palate, but clean in quality and powerful and 
 racy. It deserves the enthusiasm attributed by Eedi to 
 Bacchus : * 
 
 Fill, fill, let us all have our will ! 
 
 But with what, with what, boys, shall we fill ? 
 
 Sweet Ariadne no, not that one ah no ; 
 
 Fill me the manna of Montepulciano : 
 
 Fill me a magnum and reach it me. Gods ! 
 
 How it glides to my heart by the sweetest of roads ! 
 
 Oh, how it kisses me, tickles me, bites me ! 
 
 Oh, how my eyes loosen sweetly in tears ! 
 
 I'm ravished ! I'm rapt ! Heaven finds me admissible \ 
 
 Lost in an ecstasy ! blinded ! invisible ! 
 
 Hearken all earth ! 
 
 We, Bacchus, in the might of our great mirth, 
 
 To all who reverence us, are right thinkers ; 
 
 Hear, all ye drinkers ! 
 
 Give ear and give faith to the edict divine ; 
 
 Montepulciano's the King of all wine. 
 
 It is necessary, however, that our modern barbarian should 
 travel to Montepulciano itself, and there obtain a flask of 
 manna or vino nobile from some trusty cellar-master. He 
 will not find it bottled in the inns or restaurants upon his 
 road. 
 
 IV 
 
 The landscape and the wine of Montepulciano are both 
 well worth the trouble of a visit to this somewhat inaccessible 
 city. Yet more remains to be said about the attractions of 
 the town itself. In the Duomo, which was spoiled by unin- 
 telligent rebuilding at a dismal epoch of barren art, are frag- 
 ments of one of the rarest monuments of Tuscan sculpture. 
 This is the tomb of Bartolommeo Aragazzi. He was a native 
 of Montepulciano, and secretary to Pope Martin V., that Papa 
 1 From Leigh Hunt's Translation.
 
 96 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Martino non vale un quattrino, on whom, during his long 
 residence in Florence, the street-boys made their rhymes. 
 Twelve years before his death he commissioned Donatello 
 and Michelozzo Michelozzi, who about that period were 
 working together upon the monuments of Pope John XXIII. 
 and Cardinal Brancacci, to erect his own tomb at the enor- 
 mous cost of twenty-four thousand scudi. That thirst for 
 immortality of fame, which inspired the humanists of the 
 Eenaissance, prompted Aragazzi to this princely expenditure. 
 Yet, having somehow won the hatred of hia fellow-students, 
 he was immediately censured for excessive vanity. Lionardo 
 Bruni makes his monument the theme of a ferocious onslaught. 
 Writing to Poggio Bracciolini, Bruni tells a story how, while 
 travelling through the country of Arezzo, he met a train of 
 oxen dragging heavy waggons piled with marble columns, 
 statues, and all the necessary details of a sumptuous sepulchre. 
 He stopped, and asked what it all meant. Then one of the 
 contractors for this transport, wiping the sweat from his fore- 
 head, in utter weariness of the vexatious labour, at the last 
 end of his temper, answered : ' May the gods destroy all poets, 
 past, present, and future.' I inquired what he had to do with 
 poets, and how they had annoyed him. ' Just this,' he 
 replied, 'that this poet, lately deceased, a fool and windy - 
 pated fellow, has ordered a monument for himself; and with 
 a view to erecting it, these marbles are being dragged to 
 Montepulciano ; but I doubt whether we shall contrive to get 
 them up there. The roads are too bad.' ' But,' cried I, 'do 
 you believe that man was a poet that dunce who had no 
 science, nay, nor knowledge either ? who only rose above the 
 heads of men by vanity and doltishness ? ' 'I don't know,' 
 he answered, ' nor did I ever hear tell, while he was alive, 
 about his being called a poet ; but his fellow- townsmen now 
 decide he was one ; nay, if he had but left a few more money-
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 9JT 
 
 bags, they'd swear he was a god. Anyhow, but for his having 
 been a poet, I would not have cursed poets in general.' 
 Whereupon, the malevolent Bruni withdrew, and composed a 
 scorpion -tailed oration, addressed to his friend Poggio, on the 
 suggested theme of ' diuturnity in monuments,' and false 
 ambition. Our old friends of humanistic learning Cyrus, 
 Alexander, Caesar meet us in these frothy paragraphs. 
 Cambyses, Xerxes, Artaxerxes, Darius, are thrown in to make 
 the gruel of rhetoric ' thick and slab.' The whole epistle ends 
 in a long-drawn peroration of invective against ' that excre- 
 ment in human shape,' who had had the ill-luck, by pretence 
 to scholarship, by big gains from the Papal treasury, by some- 
 thing in his manners alien from the easy-going customs of the 
 Roman Court, to rouse the rancour of his fellow-humanists. 
 
 I have dwelt upon this episode, partly because it illustrates 
 the peculiar thirst for glory in the students of that time, but 
 more especially because it casts a thin clear thread of actual 
 light upon the masterpiece which, having been transported 
 with this difficulty from Donatello's workshop, is now to be 
 seen by all lovers of fine art, in part at least, at Montepulciano. 
 In part at least : the phrase is pathetic. Poor Aragazzi, who 
 thirsted so for ' diuturnity in monuments,' who had been so 
 cruelly assaulted in the grave by humanistic jealousy, express- 
 ing its malevolence with humanistic crudity of satire, was 
 destined after all to be defrauded of his well-paid tomb. The 
 monument, a master work of Donatello and his collaborator, 
 was duly erected. The oxen and the contractors, it appears, 
 had floundered through the mud of Valdichiana, and struggled 
 up the mountain-slopes of Montepulciano. But when the 
 church, which this triumph of art adorned, came to be 
 repaired, the miracle of beauty was dismembered. The 
 sculpture for which Aragazzi spent his thousands of crowns, 
 which Donatello touched with his immortalising chisel, over 
 
 III H
 
 98 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 which the contractors vented their curses and Bruni eased his 
 bile ; these marbles are now visible as mere disjecta membra 
 in a church which, lacking them, has little to detain a 
 traveller's haste. 
 
 On the left hand of the central door, as you enter, Aragazzi 
 lies, in senatorial robes, asleep ; his head turned slightly to 
 the right upon the pillow, his hands folded over his breast. 
 Very noble are the draperies, and dignified the deep tran- 
 quillity of slumber. Here, we say, is a good man fallen upon 
 sleep, awaiting resurrection. The one commanding theme of 
 Christian sculpture, in an age of Pagan feeling, has been 
 adequately rendered. Bartolommeo Aragazzi, like Ilaria led 
 Carretto at Lucca, like the canopied doges in S. Zanipolo at 
 Venice, like the Acciauoli in the Florentine Certosa, like the 
 Cardinal di Portogallo in Samuiiniato, is carved for us as he 
 had been in life, but with that life suspended, its fever all 
 smoothed out, its agitations over, its pettinesses dignified by 
 death. This marmoreal repose of the once active man sym- 
 bolises for our imagination the state into which he passed 
 four centuries ago, but in which, according to the creed, he 
 Btill abides, reserved for judgment and re-incarnation. The 
 flesh, clad with which he walked our earth, may moulder in 
 the vaults beneath. But it will one day rise again ; and art 
 has here presented it imperishable to our gaze. This is how 
 the Christian sculptors, inspired by the majestic calm of 
 classic art, dedicated a Christian to the genius of repose. 
 Among the nations of antiquity this repose of death was 
 eternal; and being unable to conceive of a man's body 
 otherwise than for ever obliterated by the flames of funeral, 
 they were perforce led back to actual life when they would 
 carve his portrait on a tomb. But for Christianity the rest of 
 the grave has ceased to be eternal. Centuries may pass, but 
 in the end it must be broken. Therefore art is justified in
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 99 
 
 showing us the man himself in an imagined state of sleep. 
 Yet this imagined state of sleep is so incalculably long, and 
 by the will of God withdrawn from human prophecy, that 
 the ages sweeping over the dead man before the trumpets of 
 archangels wake him, shall sooner wear away memorial stone 
 than stir his slumber. It is a slumber, too, unterrified, 
 unentertained by dreams. Suspended animation finds no 
 fuller symbolism than the sculptor here presents to us in 
 abstract form. 
 
 The boys of Montepulciano have scratched Messer Ara- 
 gazzi's sleeping figure with graffiti at their own free will. 
 Yet they have had no power to erase the poetry of Dona- 
 tello's mighty style. That, in spite of Drum's envy, in spite 
 of injurious time, in spite of the still worse insult of the 
 modernised cathedral and the desecrated monument, embalms 
 him in our memory and secures for him the diuturnity for 
 which he paid his twenty thousand crowns. Money, methinks, 
 beholding him, was rarely better expended on a similar ambi- 
 tion. And ambition of this sort, relying on the genius of 
 such a master to give it wings for perpetuity of time, is, pace 
 Lionardo Bruni, not ignoble. 
 
 Opposite the figure of Messer Aragazzi are two square 
 basreliefs from the same monument, fixed against piers, 
 of tho nave. One represents Madonna enthroned among 
 worshippers; members, it may be supposed, of Aragazzi 's 
 household. Three angelic children, supporting the child 
 Christ upon her lap, complete that pyramidal form of com- 
 position which Fra Bartolommeo was afterwards to use with 
 such effect in painting. The other basrelief shows a group 
 of grave men and youths, clasping hands with loveliest 
 interlacement; the placid sentiment of human fellowship 
 translated into harmonies of sculptured form. Children 
 below run up to touch their knees, and reach out boyish 
 
 n 2
 
 100 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 arms to welcome them. Two young men, with half-draped 
 busts and waving hair blown off their foreheads, anticipate 
 the type of adolescence which Andrea del Sarto perfected in 
 his S. John. We might imagine that this masterly panel 
 was intended to represent the arrival of Messer Aragazzi in 
 his home. It is a scene from the domestic life of the dead 
 man, duly subordinated to the recumbent figure, which, when 
 the monument was perfect, would have dominated the whole 
 composition. 
 
 Nothing in the range of Donatello's work surpasses these 
 two basreliefs for harmonies of line and grouping, for choice 
 of form, for beauty of expression, and for smoothness of 
 surface-working. The marble is of great delicacy, and is 
 wrought to a wax-like surface. At the high altar are three 
 more fragments from the mutilated tomb. One is a long low 
 frieze of children bearing garlands, which probably formed the 
 base of Aragazzi's monument, and now serves for a predeUa. 
 The remaining pieces are detached statues of Fortitude and 
 Faith. The former reminds us of Donatello's S. George ; 
 the latter is twisted into a strained attitude, full of character, 
 but lacking grace. What the effect of these emblematic 
 figures would have been when harmonised by the architectural 
 proportions of the sepulchre, the repose of Aragazzi on his 
 sarcophagus, the suavity of the two square panels and the 
 rhythmic beauty of the frieze, it is not easy to conjecture. 
 But rudely severed from their surroundings, and exposed in 
 isolation, one at each side of the altar, they leave an im- 
 pression of awkward discomfort on the memory. A certain 
 hardness, peculiar to the Florentine manner, is felt in them. 
 But this quality may have been intended by the sculptors 
 for the sake of contrast with what is eminently graceful, 
 peaceful, and melodious in the other fragments of the ruined 
 masterpiece.
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 101 
 
 V 
 
 At a certain point in the main street, rather more than 
 halfway from the Albergo del Marzocco to the piazza, a 
 tablet has been let into the wall upon the left-hand side. 
 This records the fact that here in 1454 was born Angelo 
 Ambrogini, the special glory of Montepulciano, the greatest 
 classical scholar and the greatest Italian poet of the fifteenth 
 century. He is better known in the history of literature as 
 Poliziano, or Politianus, a name he took from his native 
 city, when he came, a marvellous boy, at the age of ten, to 
 Florence, and joined the household of Lorenzo de' Medici. 
 He had already claims upon Lorenzo's hospitality. For hia 
 father, Benedetto, by adopting the cause of Piero de' Medici 
 in Montepulciano, had exposed himself to bitter feuds and 
 hatred of his fellow-citizens. To this animosity of party 
 warfare he fell a victim a few years previously. We only 
 know that he was murdered, and that he left a helpless 
 widow with five children, of whom Angelo was the eldest. 
 The Ambrogini or Cini were a family of some importance 
 in Montepulciano ; and their dwelling-house is a palace of 
 considerable size. From its eastern windows the eye can 
 sweep that vast expanse of country, embracing the lakes of 
 Thrasymene and Chiusi, which has been already described. 
 What would have happened, we wonder, if Messer Benedetto, 
 the learned jurist, had not espoused the Medicean cause and 
 embroiled himself with murderous antagonists ? Would the 
 little Angelo have grown up in this quiet town, and practised 
 law, and lived and died a citizen of Montepulciano ? In 
 that case the lecture-rooms of Florence would never have 
 echoed to the sonorous hexameters of the ' Rusticus ' and 
 4 Ambra.' Italian literature would have lacked the ' Stanze ' 
 and ' Orfeo.' European scholarship would have been defrauded 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 -v ov C' 
 SANTA BARBARA
 
 102 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 of the impulse given to it by the ' Miscellanea.' The study 
 of Eoman law would have missed those labours on the 
 Pandects, with which the name of Politian is honourably 
 associated. From the Florentine society of the fifteenth 
 century would have disappeared the commanding central 
 figure of humanism, which now contrasts dramatically with 
 the stern monastic Prior of S. Mark. Benedetto's tragic 
 death gave Poliziano to Italy and to posterity. 
 
 VI 
 
 Those who have a day to spare at Montepulciano can 
 scarcely spend it better than in an excursion to Pienza and 
 San Quirico. Leaving the city by the road which takes a 
 westerly direction, the first object of interest is the Church of 
 San Biagio, placed on a fertile plateau immediately beneath 
 the ancient acropolis. It was erected by Antonio di San 
 Gallo in 1518, and is one of the most perfect specimens 
 existing of the sober classical style. The Church consists of 
 a Greek square, continued at the east end into a semicircular 
 tribune, surmounted by a central cupola, and flanked by a 
 detached bell-tower, ending in a pyramidal spire. The whole 
 is built of solid yellow travertine, a material which, by its 
 warmth of colour, is pleasing to the eye, and mitigates the 
 mathematical severity of the design. Upon entering, we feel 
 at once what Alberti called the music of this style ; its large 
 and simple harmonies, depending for effect upon sincerity of 
 plan and justice of balance. The square masses of the main 
 building, the projecting cornices and rounded tribune, meet 
 together and soar up into the cupola ; while the grand but 
 austere proportions of the arches and the piers compose a 
 symphony of perfectly concordant lines. The music is grave 
 and solemn, architecturally expressed in terms of measured
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 103 
 
 space and outlined symmetry. The whole effect is that of 
 one thing pleasant to look upon, agreeably appealing to our 
 sense of unity, charming us by grace and repose ; not stimu- 
 lative nor suggestive, not multiform nor mysterious. We are 
 reminded of the temples imagined by Francesco Colonna, 
 and figured in his Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. One of these 
 shrines has, we feel, come into actual existence here ; and 
 the religious ceremonies for which it is adapted are not 
 those of the Christian worship. Some more 'primitive, less 
 spiritual rites, involving less of tragic awe and deep-wrought 
 symbolism, should be here performed. It is better suited for 
 Polifilo's lustration by Venus Physizoe than for the mass on 
 Easter morning. And in this respect, the sentiment of the 
 architecture is exactly faithful to that mood of religious feel- 
 ing which appeared in Italy under the influences of the 
 classical revival when the essential doctrines of Christianity 
 were blurred with Pantheism ; when Jehovah became Jupiter 
 Optimus Maximus ; and Jesus was the Heros of Calvary, 
 and nuns were Virgines Vestales. In literature this mood 
 often strikes us as insincere and artificial. But it admitted 
 of realisation and showed itself to be profoundly felt in 
 architecture. 
 
 After leaving Madonna di San Biagio, the road strikes at 
 once into an open country, expanding on the right towards 
 the woody ridge of Monte Fallonica, on the left toward 
 Cetona and Radicofani, with Monte Amiata full in front 
 its double crest and long volcanic slope recalling Etna ; the 
 belt of embrowned forest on its flank, made luminous by 
 sunlight. Far away stretches the Sienese Maremma ; Siena 
 dimly visible upon her gentle hill ; and still beyond, the 
 pyramid of Volterra, huge and cloud-like, piled against the 
 sky. The road, as is almost invariable in this district, keeps 
 to the highest line of ridges, winding much, and following
 
 104 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 the dimplings of the earthy hills. Here and there a solitary 
 castello, rusty with old age, and turned into a farm, juts into 
 picturesqueness from some point of vantage on a mound 
 surrounded with green tillage. But soon the dull and 
 intolerable creta, ash-grey earth, without a vestige of vegeta- 
 tion, furrowed by rain, and desolately breaking into gullies, 
 swallows up variety and charm. It is difficult to believe 
 that this creta of Southern Tuscany, which has all the 
 appearance of barrenness, and is a positive deformity in the 
 landscape, can be really fruitful. Yet we are frequently being 
 told that it only needs assiduous labour to render it enormously 
 productive. 
 
 When we reached Pienza we were already in the middle 
 of a country without cultivation, abandoned to the marl. It 
 is a little place, perched upon the ledge of a long sliding hill, 
 which commands the vale of Orcia ; Monte Amiata soaring 
 in aerial majesty beyond. Its old name was Cosignano. 
 But it had the honour of giving birth to ^neas Sylvius 
 Piccolomini, who, when he was elected to the Papacy and 
 had assumed the title of Pius II., determined to transform 
 and dignify his native village, and to call it after his own 
 name. From that time forward Cosignano has been known 
 as Pienza. 
 
 Pius II. succeeded effectually in leaving his mark upon 
 the town. And this forms its main interest at the present 
 time. We see in Pienza how the most active-minded and 
 intelligent man of his epoch, the representative genius of 
 Italy in the middle of the fifteenth century, commanding vast 
 wealth and the Pontifical prestige, worked out his whim of 
 city-building. The experiment had to be made upon a small 
 scale ; for Pienza was then and was destined to remain a 
 village. Yet here, upon this miniature piazza in modern 
 as in ancient Italy the meeting-point of civic life, the forum
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 105 
 
 we find a cathedral, a palace of the bishop, a palace of the 
 feudal lord, and a palace of the commune, arranged upon 
 a well-considered plan, and executed after one design in a 
 consistent style. The religious, municipal, signorial, and 
 ecclesiastical functions of the little town are centralised 
 around the open market-place, on which the common people 
 transacted business and discussed affairs. Pius entrusted 
 the realisation of his scheme to a Florentine architect ; 
 whether Bernardo Eossellino, or a certain Bernardo di 
 Lorenzo, is still uncertain. The same artist, working in the 
 flat manner of Florentine domestic architecture, with rus- 
 ticated basements, rounded windows and bold projecting 
 cornices the manner which is so nobly illustrated by the 
 Rucellai and Strozzi palaces at Florence executed also for 
 Pius the monumental Palazzo Piccolomini at Siena. It is a 
 great misfortune for the group of buildings he designed at 
 Pienza, that they are huddled together in close quarters on 
 a square too small for their effect. A want of space is 
 peculiarly injurious to the architecture of this date, 1462, 
 which, itself geometrical and spatial, demands a certain 
 harmony and liberty in its surroundings, a proportion between 
 the room occupied by each building and the masses of the 
 edifice. The style is severe and prosaic. Those charming 
 episodes and accidents of fancy, in which the Gothic style 
 and the style of the earlier Lombard Renaissance abounded, 
 are wholly wanting to the rigid, mathematical, hard-headed 
 genius of the Florentine quattrocento. Pienza, therefore, 
 disappoints us. Its heavy palace frontispieces shut the spirit 
 up in a tight box. We seem unable to breathe, and lack 
 that element of life and picturesqueness which the splendid 
 retinues of nobles in the age of Pinturicchio might have 
 added to the now forlorn Piazza. 
 
 Yet the material is a fine warm travertine, mellowing to
 
 106 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 dark red, brightening to golden, with some details, especially 
 the tower of the Palazzo Comunale, in red brick. This 
 building, by the way, is imitated in miniature from that of 
 Florence. The cathedral is a small church of three aisles, 
 equally high, ending in what the French would call a chevet. 
 Pius had observed this plan of construction somewhere in 
 Austria, and commanded his architect, Bernardo, to observe 
 it in his plan. He was attracted by the facilities for window- 
 lighting which it offered ; and what is very singular, he pro- 
 vided by the Bull of his foundation for keeping the walls of 
 the interior free from frescoes and other coloured decorations. 
 The result is that, though the interior effect is pleasing, the 
 church presents a frigid aspect to eyes familiarised with 
 warmth of tone in other buildings of that period. The details 
 of the columns and friezes are classical; and the fa9ade, 
 strictly corresponding to the structure, and very honest in its 
 decorative elements, is also of the earlier Renaissance style. 
 But the vaulting and some of the windows are pointed. 
 
 The Palazzo Piccolomini, standing at the right hand of 
 the Duomo, is a vast square edifice. The walls are flat and 
 even, pierced at regular intervals with windows, except upon 
 the south-west side, where the rectangular design is broken 
 by a noble double Loggiata, gallery rising above gallery 
 serene curves of arches, grandly proportioned columns, mas- 
 sive balustrades, a spacious corridor, a roomy vaulting 
 opening out upon the palace garden, and offering fair prospect 
 over the wooded heights of Castiglione and Eocca d' Orcia, up 
 to Eadicofani and shadowy Amiata. It was in these double 
 tiers of galleries, in the garden beneath and in the open inner 
 square of the palazzo, that the great life of Italian aristocracy 
 displayed itself. Four centuries ago these spaces, now so deso- 
 late in their immensity, echoed to the tread of serving-men, 
 the songs of pages ; horse-hooves struck upon the pavement
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 107 
 
 of the court ; spurs jingled on the staircases ; the brocaded 
 trains of ladies sweeping from their chambers rustled on the 
 marbles of the loggia ; knights let their hawks fly from the 
 garden parapets ; cardinals and abbreviators gathered round 
 the doors from which the Pope would issue, when he rose 
 from his siesta to take the cool of evening in those airy colon- 
 nades. How impossible it is to realise that scene amid this 
 solitude ! The palazzo still belongs to the Piccolomini family. 
 But it has fallen into something worse than ruin the squalor 
 of half -starved existence, shorn of all that justified its grand 
 proportions. Partition-walls have been run up across its 
 halls to meet the requirements of our contracted modern 
 customs. Nothing remains of the original decorations except 
 one carved chimney-piece, an emblazoned shield, and a fres- 
 coed portrait of the founder. All movable treasures have 
 been made away with. And yet the carved heraldics of the 
 exterior, the coat of Piccolomini, ' argent, on a cross azure five 
 crescents or,' the Papal ensigns, keys, and tiara, and the 
 monogram of Pius, prove that this country dwelling of a Pope 
 must once have been rich in details befitting its magnificence. 
 With the exception of the very small portion reserved for the 
 Signori, when they visit Pienza, the palace has become a 
 granary for country produce in a starveling land. There was 
 one redeeming point about it to my mind. That was the 
 handsome young man, with earnest Tuscan eyes and a won- 
 derfully sweet voice, the servant of the Piccolomini family, 
 who lives here with his crippled father, and who showed us 
 over the apartments. 
 
 We left Pienza and drove on to S. Quirico, through the 
 same wrinkled wilderness of marl; wasteful, uncultivated, 
 bare to every wind that blows. A cruel blast was sweeping 
 from the sea, and Monte Amiata darkened with rain-clouds. 
 Still the pictures, which formed themselves at intervals, as we
 
 108 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 wound along these barren ridges, were very fair to look upon, 
 especially one not far from S. Quirico. It liad for fore- 
 ground a stretch of tilth olive-trees, honeysuckle hedges, 
 and cypresses. Beyond soared Amiata in all its breadth and 
 blue air-blackness, bearing on its mighty flanks the broken 
 cliffs and tufted woods of Castiglione and the Eocca d' Orcia ; 
 eagles' nests emerging from a fertile valley-champaign, into 
 which the eye was led for rest. It so chanced that a band 
 of sunlight, escaping from filmy clouds, touched this pic- 
 ture with silvery greys and soft greens a suffusion of 
 vaporous radiance, which made it for one moment a Claude 
 landscape. 
 
 S. Quirico was keeping festa. The streets were crowded 
 with healthy, handsome men and women from the contado. 
 This village lies on the edge of a great oasis in the Sienese 
 desert an oasis formed by the waters of the Orcia and Asso 
 sweeping down to join Ombrone, and stretching on to Montal- 
 cino. We put up at the sign of the ' Two Hares,' where a 
 notable housewife gave us a dinner of all we could desire ; 
 frittata di cervello, good fish, roast lamb stuffed with rosemary, 
 salad and cheese, with excellent wine and black coffee, at the 
 rate of three lire a head. 
 
 The attraction of S. Quirico is its gem-like little collegiata, 
 a Lombard church of the ninth century, with carved portals 
 of the thirteenth. It is built of golden travertine ; some 
 details in brown sandstone. The western and southern 
 portals have pillars resting on the backs of lions. On the 
 western side these pillars are four slender columns, linked by 
 snake-like ligatures. On the southern side they consist of 
 two carved figures possibly S. John and the Archangel 
 Michael. There is great freedom and beauty in these statues, 
 as also in the lions which support them, recalling the early 
 French and German manner. In addition, one finds the
 
 MONTEPULCIANO 109 
 
 usual Lombard grotesques two sea-monsters, biting each 
 other ; harpy-birds ; a dragon with a twisted tail ; little men 
 grinning and squatting in adaptation to coigns and angles of 
 the windows. The toothed and chevron patterns of the north 
 are quaintly blent with rude acanthus scrolls and classical 
 egg-mouldings. Over the western porch is a Gothic rose 
 window. Altogether this church must be reckoned one of the 
 most curious specimens of that hybrid architecture, fusing 
 and appropriating different manners, which perplexes the 
 student in Central Italy. It seems strangely out of place 
 in Tuscany. Yet, if what one reads of Toscanella, a village 
 between Viterbo and Orbetello, be true, there exist examples 
 of a similar fantastic Lombard style even lower down. 
 
 The interior was most disastrously gutted and ' restored ' 
 in 1731 : its open wooden roof masked by a false stucco 
 vaulting. A few relics, spared by the eighteenth-century 
 Vandals, show that the church was once rich in antique 
 curiosities. A marble knight in armour lies on his back, half 
 hidden by the pulpit stairs. And in the choir are half a dozen 
 rarely beautiful panels of tarsia, executed in a bold style and 
 on a large scale. One design a man throwing his face back, 
 and singing, while he plays a mandoline ; with long thick 
 hair and fanciful beretta ; behind him a fine line of cypress 
 and other trees struck me as singularly lovely. In another 
 I noticed a branch of peach, broad leaves and ripe fruit, not 
 only drawn with remarkable grace and power, but so modelled 
 as to stand out with the roundness of reality. 
 
 The whole drive of three hours back to Montepulciano was 
 one long banquet of inimitable distant views. Next morning, 
 having to take farewell of the place, we climbed to the Castello, 
 or arx of the old city ! It is a ruined spot, outside the present 
 walls, upon the southern slope, where there is now a farm, 
 and a fair space of short sheep-cropped turf, very green and
 
 110 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 grassy, and gemmed with little pink geraniums as in England 
 in such places. The walls of the old castle, overgrown with 
 ivy, are broken down to their foundations. This may possibly 
 have been done when Montepulciano was dismantled by the 
 Sienese in 1232. At that date the Commune succumbed to 
 its more powerful neighbours. The half of its inhabitants 
 were murdered, and its fortifications were destroyed. Such 
 episodes are common enough in the history of that internecine 
 struggle for existence between the Italian municipalities, which 
 preceded the more famous strife of Guelfs and Ghibellines. 
 Stretched upon the smooth turf of the Castello, we bade adieu 
 to the divine landscape bathed in light and mountain air to 
 Thrasymene and Chiusi and Cetona ; to Amiata, Pienza, and 
 S. Quirico ; to Montalcino and the mountains of Volterra ; to 
 Siena and Cortona ; and, closer, to Monte Fallonica, Madonna 
 di Biagio, the house-roofs and the Palazzo tower of Monte- 
 pulciano.
 
 Ill 
 
 PEEUGIA 
 
 PERUGIA is the empress of hill-set Italian cities. Southward 
 from her high-built battlements and church towers the eye 
 can sweep a circuit of the Apennines unrivalled in its width. 
 From cloudlike Radicofani, above Siena in the west, to snow- 
 capped Monte Catria, beneath whose summit Dante spent 
 those saddest months of solitude in 1313, the mountains curve 
 continuously in lines of austere dignity and tempered sweet- 
 ness. Assisi, Spoleto, Todi, Trevi, crown lesser heights within 
 the range of vision. Here and there the glimpse of distant 
 rivers lights a silver spark upon the plain. Those hills con- 
 ceal Lake Thrasymene ; and there lies Orvieto, and Ancona 
 there : while at our feet the Umbrian champaign, breaking 
 away into the valley of the Tiber, spreads in all the largeness 
 of majestically converging mountain-slopes. This is a land- 
 scape which can never lose its charm. Whether it be purple 
 golden summer, or winter with sad tints of russet woods and 
 faintly rosy snows, or spring attired in tenderest green of new- 
 fledged trees and budding flowers, the air is always pure and 
 light and finely tempered here. City gates, sombre as their 
 own antiquity, frame vistas of the laughing fields. Terraces, 
 flanked on either side by jutting masonry, cut clear vignettes 
 of olive-hoary slopes, with cypress- shadowed farms in hollows 
 of the hills. Each coign or point of vantage carries a bastion 
 or tower of Etruscan, Roman, medieval architecture, tracing 
 the limits of the town upon its mountain plateau. Everywhere
 
 112 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 art and nature lie side by side in amity beneath a sky so pure 
 and delicate, that from its limpid depth the spirit seems to 
 drink new life. What air-tints of lilac, orange, and pale 
 amethyst are shed upon those vast ethereal hills and undu- 
 lating plains ! What wandering cloud-shadows sail across 
 this sea of olives and of vines, with here and there a fleece of 
 vapour or a column of blue smoke from charcoal burners on 
 the mountain flank ! To southward, far away beyond those 
 hills, is felt the presence of eternal Kome, not seen, but 
 clearly indicated by the hurrying of a hundred streams that 
 swell the Tiber. 
 
 In the neighbourhood of the town itself there is plenty to 
 attract the student of antiquities, or art, or history. He may 
 trace the walls of the Etruscan city, and explore the vaults 
 where the dust of the Volumnii lies coffered in sarcophagi and 
 urns. Mild faces of grave deities lean from the living tufa 
 above those narrow alcoves, where the chisel-marks are still 
 fresh, and where the vigilant lamps still hang suspended from 
 the roof by leaden chains. Or, in the Museum, he may read 
 on basreliefs and vases how gloomy and morose were the 
 superstitions of those obscure forerunners of majestic Rome. 
 The piazza offers one of the most perfect Gothic fa9ades, in its 
 Palazzo Pubblico, to be found in Italy. The flight of marble 
 steps is guarded from above by the bronze griffin of Perugia 
 and the Baglioni, with the bronze lion of the Guelf faction, to 
 which the town was ever faithful. Upon their marble brackets 
 they ramp in all the lean ferocity of feudal heraldry, and from 
 their claws hang down the chains wrested in old warfare from 
 some barricaded gateway of Siena. Below is the fountain, on 
 the many-sided curves of which Giovanni Pisano sculptured, 
 in quaint statuettes and basreliefs, all the learning of the 
 middle ages, from the Bible history down to fables of ^Esop 
 and allegories of the several months. Facing the same piazza
 
 PERUGIA 113 
 
 is the Sala del Cambio, a mediaeval Bourse, with its tribunal 
 for the settlement of mercantile disputes, and its exquisite 
 carved woodwork and frescoes, the masterpiece of Perugino's 
 school. Hard by is the University, once crowded with native 
 and foreign students, where the eloquence of Greek Demetrius 
 in the first dawn of the Renaissance withdrew the gallants of 
 Perugia those slim youths with shocks of nut-brown hair 
 beneath their tiny red caps, whose comely legs, encased in 
 tight-fitting hose of two different colours, looked so strange to 
 modern eyes upon the canvas of Signorelli from 'their dice 
 and wine-cups, and amours and daggers, to grave studies in 
 the lore of Greece and Rome. 
 
 This piazza, the scene of all the bloodiest tragedies in 
 Perugian annals, is closed at the north end by the Cathedral, 
 with the open pulpit in its wall from which S. Bernardino of 
 Siena preached peace in vain. The citizens wept to hear his 
 words : a bonfire of vanities was lighted on the flags beside 
 Pisano's fountain : foe kissed foe : and the same cowl of S. 
 Francis was set in token of repentance on heads that long had 
 schemed destruction, each for each. But a few days passed, 
 and the penitents returned to cut each other's throat. Often 
 and often have those steps of the Duomo run with blood of 
 Baglioni, Oddi, Arcipreti, and La Staffa. Once the whole 
 church had to be washed with wine and blessed anew before 
 the rites of Christianity could be resumed in its desecrated 
 aisles. It was here that within the space of two days, in 
 1500, the catafalque was raised for the murdered Astorre, and 
 for his traitorous cousin Grifonetto Baglioni. Here, too, if 
 more ancient tradition does not err, were stretched the corpses 
 of twenty-seven members of the same great house at the end 
 of one of their grim combats. 
 
 No Italian city illustrates more forcibly than Perugia the 
 violent contrasts of the earlier Renaissance. This is perhaps 
 
 in i
 
 114 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 its most essential characteristic that which constitutes its 
 chief aesthetic interest. To many travellers the name of 
 Perugia suggests at once the painter who, more than any 
 other, gave expression to devout emotions in consummate 
 works of pietistic art. They remember how Kaphael, when a 
 boy, with Pinturicchio, Lo Spagna, and Adone Doni, in the 
 workshop of Pietro Perugino, learned the secret of that style 
 to which he gave sublimity and freedom in his Madonnas di 
 San Sisto, di Foligno, and del Cardellino. But the students 
 of mediaeval history in detail know Perugia far better as the 
 lion's lair of one of the most ferocious broods of heroic ruffians 
 Italy can boast. To them the name of Perugia suggests at 
 once the great house of the Baglioni, who drenched Umbria 
 with blood, and gave the broad fields of Assisi to the wolf, and 
 who through six successive generations bred captains for the 
 armies of Venice, Florence, Naples, and the Church. 1 That 
 the trade of Perugino in religious pictures should have been 
 carried on in the city which shared the factions of the 
 Baglioni that Raphael should have been painting Pietas 
 while Astorre and Simonetto were being murdered by the 
 beautiful young Grifonetto is a paradox of the purest water 
 in the history of civilisation. 
 
 The art of Perugino implied a large number of devout and 
 wealthy patrons, a public not only capable of comprehending 
 him, but also eager to restrict his great powers within the 
 limits of purely devotional delineation. The feuds and 
 passions of the Baglioni, on the other hand, implied a society 
 in which egregious crimes only needed success to be accounted 
 glorious, where force, cruelty, and cynical craft reigned 
 
 1 Most of the references in this essay are made to the Perugian 
 chronicles of Graziani, Matarazzo, Bontempi, and Frolliere, in the 
 Archivio Storico Italiano, vol. xvi. parts 1 and 2. Ariodante Fabretti's 
 Biografie dei Capitani Venturieri dclV Umbria supply some details.
 
 PERUGIA 115 
 
 supreme, and where the animal instincts attained gigantic 
 proportions in the persons of splendid young athletic despots. 
 Even the names of these Baglioni, Astorre, Lavinia, Zenobia, 
 Atalanta, Troilo, Ercole, Annibale, Ascanio, Penelope, Orazio, 
 and so forth, clash with the sweet mild forms of Perugino, 
 whose very executioners are candidates for Paradise, and kill 
 their martyrs with compunction. 
 
 In Italy of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries such 
 contradictions subsisted in the same place and under the 
 conditions of a common culture, because there was no limit 
 to the development of personality. Character was far more 
 absolute then than now. The force of the modern world, 
 working in the men of those times like powerful wine, as yet 
 displayed itself only as a spirit of freedom and expansion 
 and revolt. The strait laces of mediaeval Christianity were 
 loosened. The coercive action of public opinion had not yet 
 made itself dominant. That was an age of adolescence, in 
 which men were and dared to be themselves for good or evil. 
 Hypocrisy, except for some solid, well-defined, selfish pur- 
 pose, was unknown : the deference to established canons of 
 decorum which constitutes more than half of our so-called 
 morality, would have been scarcely intelligible to an Italian. 
 The outlines of individuality were therefore strongly accen- 
 tuated. Life itself was dramatic in its incidents and motives, 
 its catastrophes and contrasts. These conditions, eminently 
 favourable to the growth of arts and the pursuit of science, 
 were no less conducive to the hypertrophy of passions, and to 
 the full development of ferocious and inhuman personalities. 
 Every man did what seemed good in his own eyes. Far less 
 restrained than we are by the verdict of his neighbours, but 
 bound by faith more blind and fiercer superstitions, he dis- 
 played the contradictions of his character in picturesque 
 chiaroscuro. What he could was the limit set on what 
 
 i 2
 
 116 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 he would. Therefore, considering the infinite varieties of 
 human temperaments, it was not merely possible, but natural, 
 for Pietro Perugino and Gianpaolo Baglioni to be inhabitants 
 at the same time of the selfsame city, and for the pious 
 Atalanta to mourn the bloodshed and the treason of her 
 Achillean son, the young and terrible Grifone. Here, in a 
 word, in Perugia, beneath the fierce blaze of the Eenaissance, 
 were brought into splendid contrast both the martial violence 
 and the religious sentiment of medievalism, raised for a 
 moment to the elevation of fine art. 
 
 Some of Perugino 's qualities can be studied better in 
 Perugia than elsewhere. Of his purely religious pictures 
 altar-pieces of Madonna and Saints, martyrdoms of S. 
 Sebastian, Crucifixions, Ascensions, Annunciations, and De- 
 positions from the Cross, fine specimens are exhibited in 
 nearly all the galleries of Europe. A large number of his 
 works and of those of his scholars may be seen assembled 
 in the Pinacoteca of Perugia. Yet the student of his pietistic 
 style finds little here of novelty to notice. It is in the Sala 
 del Cambio that we gain a really new conception of his 
 faculty. Upon the decoration of that little hall he concen- 
 trated all his powers of invention. The frescoes of the 
 Transfiguration and the Nativity, which face the great door, 
 are the triumphs of his devotional manner. On other panels 
 of the chamber he has portrayed the philosophers of Greece 
 and Eome, the kings and generals of antiquity, the prophets 
 and the sibyls who announced Christ's advent. The roof is 
 covered with arabesques of delicate design and dainty execu- 
 tion labyrinths of fanciful improvisation, in which flowers 
 and foliage and human forms are woven into a harmonious 
 framework for the medallions of the seven planets. The 
 woodwork with which the hall is lined below the frescoes, 
 shows to what a point of perfection the art of intarsiatura had
 
 PERUGIA 117 
 
 been carried in his school. All these decorative masterpieces 
 are the product of one ingenuous style. Uninfluenced by the 
 Roman frescoes imitated by Raphael in his Loggie of the 
 Vatican, they breathe the spirit of the earlier Renaissance, 
 which created for itself free forms of grace and loveliness 
 without a pattern, divining by its innate sense of beauty what 
 the classic artists had achieved. Take for an example the 
 medallion of the planet Jupiter. The king of gods and men, 
 hoary-headed and mild-eyed, is seated in his chariot drawn 
 by eagles : before him kneels Ganymede, a fair-haired, ex- 
 quisite, slim page, with floating mantle and ribbands flutter- 
 ing round his tight hose and jerkin. Such were the cup- 
 bearers of Galeazzo Sforza and Gianpaolo Baglioni. Then 
 compare this fresco with the Jupiter in mosaic upon the 
 cupola of the Chigi chapel in S. Maria del Popolo at Rome. 
 A new age of experience had passed over Raphael between 
 his execution of Perugino's design in the one and his concep- 
 tion of the other. He had seen the marbles of the Vatican, 
 and had heard of Plato in the interval : the simple graces of 
 the earlier Renaissance were no longer enough for him ; but 
 he must realise the thought of classic myths in his new 
 manner. In the same way we may compare this Transfigura- 
 tion with Raphael's last picture, these sibyls with those of 
 S. Maria della Pace, these sages with the School of Athens, 
 these warriors with the Battle of Maxentius. What is cha- 
 racteristic of the full-grown Raphael is his universal compre- 
 hension, his royal faculty for representing past and present, 
 near and distant, things the most diverse, by forms ideal and 
 yet distinctive. Each phase of the world's history and of 
 human activity receives from him appropriate and elevated 
 expression. What is characteristic of the frescoes in the Sala 
 del Cambio, and indeed of the whole manner of Perugino, is 
 that all subjects, sacred or secular, allegorical or real, are
 
 118 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 conceived in the, same spirit of restrained and well-bred piety. 
 There is no .attempt at historical propriety or dramatic 
 realism. Grave, ascetic, melancholy faces of saints are put 
 on bodies of kings, generals, sages, sibyls, and deities alike. 
 The same ribbands and studied draperies clothe and connect 
 all. The same conventional attitudes of meditative graceful- 
 ness are repeated in each group. Yet, the whole effect, if 
 somewhat feeble and insipid, is harmonious and thoughtful. 
 We see that each part has proceeded from the same mind, in 
 the same mood, and that the master's mind was no common 
 one, the mood itself was noble. Good taste is everywhere 
 apparent : the work throughout is a masterpiece of refined 
 fancy. 
 
 To Perugino the representative imagination was of less 
 importance than a certain delicate and adequately ideal mode 
 of feeling and conceiving. The consequent charm of his 
 style is that everything is thought out and rendered visible in 
 one decorous key. The worst that can be said of it is that its 
 suavity inclines to mawkishness, and that its quietism borders 
 upon sleepiness. We find it difficult not to accuse him of 
 affectation. At the same time we are forced to allow that what 
 he did, and what he refrained from doing, was determined by 
 a purpose. A fresco of the Adoration of the Shepherds, and 
 a picture of S. Sebastian in the Pinacoteca, where the archer 
 on the right hand is drawn in a natural attitude with force 
 and truth, show well enough what Perugino could do when 
 he chose. 
 
 The best way of explaining his conventionality, in which 
 the supreme power of a master is always verging on the facile 
 trick of a mannerist, is to suppose that the people of Perugia 
 and the Umbrian highlands imposed on him this narrow mode 
 of treatment. We may presume that he was always receiving 
 orders for pictures to be executed in his well-known manner.
 
 PEKUGIA 119 
 
 Celestial insipidity in art was the fashion in that Umbria 
 which the Baglioni and the Popes laid waste from time to 
 time with fire and sword. 1 
 
 Therefore the painter who had made his reputation by 
 placing devout young faces upon twisted necks, with a back- 
 ground of limpid twilight and calm landscape, was forced by 
 the fervour of his patrons, and his own desire for money, to 
 perpetuate pious prettinesses long after he had ceased to feel 
 them. It is just this widespread popularity of a master 
 unrivalled in one line of devotional sentimentalism which 
 makes the contrast between Perugino and the Baglioni family 
 so striking. 
 
 The Baglioni first came into notice during the wars they 
 carried on with the Oddi of Perugia in the fourteenth and 
 fifteenth centuries. 2 This was one of those duels to the death, 
 like that of the Visconti with the Torrensi of Milan, on which 
 the fate of so many Italian cities in the middle ages hung. 
 The nobles fought ; the townsfolk assisted like a Greek chorus, 
 sharing the passions of the actors, but contributing little to the 
 
 1 It will not be forgotten by students of Italian history that Umbria 
 was the cradle of the Battuti or Flagellants, who overspread Italy in the 
 fourteenth century, and to whose devotion were due the Laudc, or popular 
 hymns of the religious confraternities, which in course of time produced 
 the Saore Rapprcsentazioni of fifteenth-century Florentine literature. 
 Umbria, and especially Perugia and Assisi, seems to have been inventive 
 in piety between 1200 and 1400. 
 
 * The Baglioni persecuted their rivals with persistent fury to the 
 very last. Matarazzo tells how Morgante Baglioni gave a death-wound 
 to his nephew, the young Carlo de li Oddi, in 1501 : ' Dielli una ferita 
 nella formosa faccia : el quale era in aspetto vago e bello giovane d' anni 
 23 o 24, al quale uscivano e blonde tresse sotto la bella armadura.' The 
 same night his kinsman Pompeo was murdered in prison with this last 
 lament upon his lips : ' O infelice casa degli Oddi, quale aveste tanta 
 fama di conduttieri, capitanie, cavaliere, speron d' oro, protonotarie, e 
 abbate ; et in uno solo tempo aveste homine quarantadue ; e oggie, per 
 me quale son ultimo, se asconde el nome de la magninca e famosa casa 
 degli Oddi, che mai al mondo non ser& piu nominata ' (p. 175).
 
 120 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 catastrophe. The piazza was the theatre on which the tragedy 
 was played. In this contest the Baglioni proved the stronger, 
 and began to sway the state of Perugia after the irregular 
 fashion of Italian despots. They had no legal right over the 
 city, no hereditary magistracy, no title of princely authority. 1 
 The Church was reckoned the supreme administrator of the 
 Perugian commonwealth. But in reality no man could set 
 foot on the Umhrian plain without permission from the 
 Baglioni. They elected the officers of state. The lives and 
 goods of the citizens were at their discretion. When a Papal 
 legate showed his face, they made the town too hot to hold 
 him. One of Innocent VIII. 's nephews had been murdered 
 by them. 2 Another cardinal had shut himself up in a box, 
 and sneaked on mule -back like a bale of merchandise through 
 the gates to escape their fury. It was in vain that from time 
 to time the people rose against them, massacring Pandolfo 
 Baglioni on the public square in 1393, and joining with 
 Eidolfo and Braccio of the dominant house to assassinate 
 another Pandolfo with his son Niccolo in 1460. The more 
 they were cut down, the more they flourished. The wealth 
 they derived from their lordships in the duchy of Spoleto and 
 the Umbrian hill-cities, and the treasures they accumulated in 
 the service of the Italian republics, made them omnipotent in 
 their native town. There they built tall houses on the site 
 which Paul III. chose afterwards for his castello, and which 
 is now an open place above the Porta San Carlo. From the 
 
 1 The Baglioni were lords of Spello, Bettona, Montalera, and other 
 Umbrian burghs, but never of Perugia. Perugia had a civic constitution 
 similar to that of Florence and other Guelf towns under the protection 
 of the Holy See. The power of the eminent house was based only on 
 wealth and prestige. 
 
 2 See Matarazzo, p. 38. It is here that he relates the covert threat 
 addressed by Guide Baglioni to Alexander VI., who was seeking to 
 inveigle him into his clutches.
 
 PERUGIA 121 
 
 balconies and turrets of these palaces, swarming with their 
 bravi, they surveyed the splendid land that felt their force a 
 land which, even in midsummer, from sunrise to sunset keeps 
 the light of day upon its up-turned face. And from this eyrie 
 they issued forth to prey upon the plain, or to take their lust 
 of love or blood within the city streets. The Baglioni spent 
 but short time in the amusements of peace. From father to 
 son they were warriors, and we have records of few Italian 
 houses, except perhaps the Malatesti of Rimini, who equalled 
 them in hardihood and fierceness. Especially were they 
 noted for the remorseless vendette which they carried on 
 among themselves, cousin tracking cousin to death with the 
 ferocity and craft of sleuthhounds. Had they restrained 
 these fratricidal passions, they might, perhaps, by following 
 some common policy, like that of the Medici in Florence or 
 the Bentivogli in Bologna, have successfully resisted the 
 Papal authority and secured dynastic sovereignty. 
 
 It is not until 1495 that the history of the Baglioni 
 becomes dramatic, possibly because till then they lacked the 
 pen of Matarazzo. 1 But from this year forward to their final 
 extinction, every detail of their doings has a picturesque and 
 awful interest. Domestic furies, like the revel descried by 
 Cassandra above the palace of Mycenae, seem to take possession 
 of the fated house ; and the doom which has fallen on them 
 is worked out with pitiless exactitude to the last generation. 
 In 1495 the heads of the Casa Baglioni were two brothers, 
 Guido and Eidolfo, who had a numerous progeny of heroic 
 sons. From Guido sprang Asttorre, Adriano, called for his 
 
 1 His chronicle is a masterpiece of nai've, unstudied narrative. Few 
 documents are so important for the student of the sixteenth century in 
 Italy. Whether it be really the work of Matarazzo or Maturanzio, the 
 distinguished humanist, is more than doubtful. The writer seems to 
 me as yet unspoiled by classic studies and the pedantries of imitation.
 
 122 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 great strength Morgante, 1 Gismondo, Marcantonio, and 
 Gentile. Eidolfo owned Troilo, Gianpaolo, and Simonetto. 
 The first glimpse we get of these young athletes in Matarazzo's 
 chronicle is on the occasion of a sudden assault upon Perugia, 
 made by the Oddi and the exiles of their faction in September 
 1495. The foes of the Baglioni entered the gates, and began 
 breaking the iron chains, serragli, which barred the streets 
 against advancing cavalry. None of the noble house were on 
 the alert except young Simonetto, a lad of eighteen, fierce and 
 cruel, who had not yet begun to shave his chin. 2 In spite 
 of all dissuasion, he rushed forth alone, bareheaded, in his 
 shirt, with a sword in his right hand and a buckler on his 
 arm, and fought against a squadron. There at the barrier 
 of the piazza he kept his foes at bay, smiting men-at-arms 
 to the ground with the sweep of his tremendous sword, 
 and receiving on his gentle body twenty-two cruel wounds. 
 While thus at fearful odds, the noble Astorre mounted his 
 charger and joined him. Upon his helmet flashed the falcon 
 of the Baglioni with the dragon's tail that swept behind. 
 Bidding Simonetto tend his wounds, he in his turn held the 
 square. 
 
 Listen to Matarazzo's description of the scene ; it is as 
 good as any piece of the ' Mort Arthur : ' ' According to the 
 report of one who told me what he had seen with his own 
 eyes, never did anvil take so many blows as he upon his person 
 and his steed ; and they all kept striking at his lordship in 
 
 1 This name, it may be incidentally mentioned, proves the wide- 
 spread popularity of Pulci's poem, the Morgante Maggiore. 
 
 2 ' Era costui al presente di anni 18 o 19 ; ancora non se radeva 
 barba ; e mostrava tanta f orza e tanto ardire, e era tanto adatto nel 
 fatto d' arme, che era gran maraveglia ; e iostrava cum tanta gintilezza 
 e gagliardia, che homo del mondo non 1' aria mai creso ; et aria dato con 
 la punta de la lancia in nel fondo d' uno bicchiere da la mattina a la 
 sera,' <fcc. (p. 50).
 
 PERUGIA 123 
 
 such crowds that the one prevented the other. And so many 
 lances, partisans, and crossbow quarries, and other weapons, 
 made upon his body a most mighty din, that above every 
 other noise and shout was heard the thud of those great 
 strokes. But he, like one who had the mastery of war, set 
 his charger where the press was thickest, jostling now one, 
 and now another ; so that he ever kept at least ten men of 
 his foes stretched on the ground beneath his horse's hoofs ; 
 which horse was a most fierce beast, and gave his enemies 
 what trouble he best could. And now that gentle lord was 
 all fordone with sweat and toil, he and his charger ; and so 
 weary were they that scarcely could they any longer breathe.' 
 Soon after, the Baglioni mustered in force. One by one 
 their heroes rushed from the palaces. The enemy were driven 
 back with slaughter ; and a war ensued, which made the fair 
 land between Assisi and Perugia a wilderness for many 
 months. It must not be forgotten that, at the time of these 
 great feats of Simonetto and Astorre, young Raphael was 
 painting in the studio of Perugino. What the whole city 
 witnessed with astonishment and admiration, he, the keenly 
 sensitive artist-boy, treasured in his memory. Therefore in 
 the S. George of the Louvre, and in the mounted horseman 
 trampling upon Heliodorus in the Stanze of the Vatican, 
 victorious Astorre lives for ever, immortalised in all his 
 splendour by the painter's art. The grinning griffin on the 
 helmet, the resistless frown upon the forehead of the beardless 
 knight, the terrible right arm, and the ferocious steed, all 
 are there as Raphael saw and wrote them on his brain. One 
 characteristic of the Baglioni, as might be plentifully illus- 
 trated from their annalist, was their eminent beauty, which 
 inspired beholders with an enthusiasm and a love they were 
 far from deserving by their virtues. It is this, in combina- 
 tion with their personal heroism, which gives a peculiarly
 
 124 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 dramatic interest to their doings, and makes the chronicle of 
 Matarazzo more fascinating than a novel. He seems unable 
 to write about them without using the language of an adoring 
 lover. 
 
 In the affair of 1495 the Baglioni were at amity among 
 themselves. When they next appear upon the scene, they 
 are engaged in deadly feud. Cousin has set his hand to the 
 throat of cousin, and the two heroes of the piazza are destined 
 to be slain by foulest treachery of their own kin. It must be 
 premised that besides the sons of Guido and Eidolfo already 
 named, the great house counted among its most distinguished 
 members a young Grifone, or Grifonetto, the son of Grifone 
 and Atalanta Baglioni. Both his father and grandfather had 
 died violent deaths in the prime of their youth ; Galeotto, the 
 father of Atalanta, by poison, and Grifone by the knife at 
 Ponte Eicciolo in 1477. Atalanta was left a young widow 
 with one only son, this Grifonetto, whom Matarazzo calls ' un 
 altro Ganimede,' and who combined the wealth of two chief 
 branches of the Baglioni. In 1500, when the events about 
 to be related took place, he was quite a youth. Brave, rich, 
 handsome, and married to a young wife, Zenobia Sforza, he 
 was the admiration of Perugia. He and his wife loved each 
 other dearly ; and how, indeed, could it be otherwise, since 
 ' 1' uno e 1' altro sembravano doi angioli di Paradiso ? ' At 
 the same time he had fallen into the hands of bad and 
 desperate counsellors. A bastard of the house, Filippo da 
 Braccio, his half-uncle, was always at his side, instructing 
 him not only in the accomplishments of chivalry, but also in 
 wild ways that brought his name into disrepute. Another of 
 his familiars was Carlo Barciglia Baglioni, an unquiet spirit, 
 who longed for more power than his poverty and comparative 
 obscurity allowed. With them associated Jeronimo della 
 Penna, a veritable ruffian, contaminated from his earliest
 
 PERUGIA 125 
 
 youth with every form of lust and violence, and capable of 
 any crime. 1 These three companions, instigated partly by 
 the Lord of Camerino and partly by their own cupidity, con- 
 ceived a scheme for massacring the families of Guido and 
 Eidolfo at one blow. As a consequence of this wholesale 
 murder, Perugia would be at their discretion. Seeing of what 
 use Grifonetto by his wealth and name might be to them, 
 they did all they could to persuade him to join their conjura- 
 tion. It would appear that the bait first offered him was the 
 sovereignty of the city, but that he was at last gained over by 
 being made to believe that his wife Zenobia had carried on an 
 intrigue with Gianpaolo Baglioni. The dissolute morals of 
 the family gave plausibility to an infernal trick which worked 
 upon the jealousy of Grifonetto. Thirsting for revenge, he 
 consented to the scheme. The conspirators were further 
 fortified by the accession of Jeronimo della Staffa, and three 
 members of the House of Corgna. It is noticeable that out of 
 the whole number only two, Bernardo da Corgna and Filippo 
 da Braccio, were above the age of thirty. Of the rest, few 
 had reached twenty-five. At so early an age were the men of 
 those times adepts in violence and treason. The execution of 
 the plot was fixed for the wedding festivities of Astorre Baglioni 
 with Lavinia, the daughter of Giovanni Colonna and Giustina 
 Orsini. At that time the whole Baglioni family were to be 
 assembled in Perugia, with the single exception of Marc- 
 antonio, who was taking baths at Naples for his health. It 
 was known that the members of the noble house, nearly all of 
 them condottieri by trade, and eminent for their great strength 
 
 1 Matarazzo's description of the ruffians who surrounded Grifonetto 
 (pp. 104, 105, 113) would suit Webster's Flamineo or Bosola. In one 
 place he likens Filippo to Achitophel and Grifonetto to Absalom. Villano 
 Villani, quoted by Fabretti (vol. Hi. p. 125), relates the street adventures 
 of this clique. It is a carious picture of the pranks of an Italian 
 princeling in the fifteenth century.
 
 126 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 and skill in arms, took few precautions for their safety. They 
 occupied several houses close together between the Porta San 
 Carlo and the Porta Eburnea, set no regular guard over their 
 sleeping chambers, and trusted to their personal bravery, and 
 to the fidelity of their attendants. 1 It was thought that they 
 might be assassinated in their beds. The wedding festivities 
 began upon the 28th of July, and great is the particularity 
 with which Matarazzo describes the doings of each successive 
 day processions, jousts, triumphal arches, banquets, balls, 
 and pageants. The night of the 14th of August was finally 
 set apart for the consummation of el gran tradimento : it is 
 thus that Matarazzo always alludes to the crime of Grifonetto 
 with a solemnity of reiteration that is most impressive. A 
 heavy stone let fall into the courtyard of Guido Baglioni's 
 palace was to be the signal : each conspirator was then to run 
 to the sleeping chamber of his appointed prey. Two of the 
 principals and fifteen bravi were told off to each victim : rams 
 and crowbars were prepared to force the doors, if needful. 
 All happened as had been anticipated. The crash of the 
 falling stone was heard. The conspirators rushed to the 
 scene of operations. Astorre, who was sleeping in the house 
 of his traitorous cousin Grifonetto, was slain in the arms 
 of his young bride, crying, as he vainly struggled, ' Misero 
 Astorre che more come poltrone ! ' Simonetto, who lay that 
 night with a lad called Paolo he greatly loved, flew to arms, 
 exclaiming to his brother, ' Non dubitare Gismondo, mio 
 fratello ! ' He too was soon despatched, together with his 
 bedfellow. Filippo da Braccio, after killing him, tore from a 
 great wound in his side the still quivering heart, into which 
 
 1 Jacobo Antiquari, the secretary of Lodovico Sforza, in a curious 
 letter, which gives an account of the massacre, says that he had often 
 reproved the Baglioni for ' sleeping in their beds without any guard or 
 watch, so that they might easily be overcome by enemies.'
 
 PERUGIA 127 
 
 he drove his teeth with savage fury. Old Guide died groan- 
 ing, ' Ora e gionto il ponto mio ; ' and Gismondo's throat was 
 cut while he lay holding back his face that he might be spared 
 the sight of his own massacre. The corpses of Astorre and 
 Simonetto were stripped and thrown out naked into the 
 streets. Men gathered round and marvelled to see such 
 heroic forms, with faces so proud and fierce even in death. 
 In especial the foreign students likened them to ancient 
 Romans. 1 But on their fingers were rings, and these the 
 ruffians of the place would fain have hacked off with their 
 knives. From this indignity the noble limbs were spared ; 
 then the dead Baglioni were hurriedly consigned to an un- 
 honoured tomb. Meanwhile the rest of the intended victims 
 managed to escape. Gianpaolo, assailed by Grifonetto and 
 Gianfrancesco della Corgna, took refuge with his squire and 
 bedfellow, Maraglia, upon a staircase leading from his room. 
 While the squire held the passage with his pike against the 
 foe, Gianpaolo effected his flight over neighbouring house- 
 roofs. He crept into the attic of some foreign students, who, 
 trembling with terror, gave him food and shelter, clad him in 
 a scholar's gown, and helped him to fly in this disguise from 
 the gates at dawn. He then joined his brother Troilo at 
 Marsciano, whence he returned without delay to punish the 
 traitors. At the same time Grifonetto's mother, Atalanta, 
 taking with her his wife Zenobia and the two young sons of 
 Gianpaolo, Malatesta and Orazio, afterwards so celebrated in 
 Italian history for their great feats of arms and their crimes, 
 fled to her country-house at Landona. Grifonetto in vain 
 
 1 ' Quelli che li vidino, e maxime li forastiere studiante assimigliavano 
 el magnifico Messer Astorre cosl morto ad un antico Romano, perche 
 prima era unanissimo ; tanto sua figura era degnia e magnia,' &c. This 
 is a touch exquisitely illustrative of the Renaissance enthusiasm for 
 classic culture.
 
 128 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 sought to see her there. She drove him from her presence 
 with curses for the treason and the fratricide that he had 
 planned. It is very characteristic of these wild natures? 
 framed of fierce instincts and discordant passions, that his 
 mother's curse weighed like lead upon the unfortunate young 
 man. Next day, when Gianpaolo returned to try the luck of 
 arms, Grifonetto, deserted by the companions of his crime and 
 paralysed by the sense of his guilt, went out alone to meet 
 him on the public place. The semi-failure of their scheme 
 had terrified the conspirators : the horrors of that night of 
 blood unnerved them. All had fled except the next victim of 
 the feud. Putting his sword to the youth's throat, Gianpaolo 
 looked into his eyes and said, ' Art thou here, Grifonetto ? 
 Go with God's peace : I will not slay thee, nor plunge my 
 hand in my own blood, as thou hast done in thine.' Then he 
 turned and left the lad to be hacked in pieces by his guard. 
 The untranslatable words which Matarazzo uses to describe 
 his death are touching from the strong impression they 
 convey of Grifonetto's goodliness : ' Qui ebbe sua signoria 
 sopra sua nobile persona tante ferite che suoi membra leg- 
 giadre stese in terra.' 1 None but Greeks felt the charm of 
 personal beauty thus. But while Grifonetto was breathing 
 out his life upon the pavement of the piazza, his mother 
 Atalanta and his wife Zenobia came to greet him through the 
 awe-struck city. As they approached, all men fell aside and 
 slunk away before their grief. None would seem to have had 
 a share in Grifonetto's murder. Then Atalanta knelt by her 
 dying son, and ceased from wailing, and prayed and exhorted 
 him to pardon those who had caused his death. It appears 
 that Grifonetto was too weak to speak, but that he made a 
 signal of assent, and received his mother's blessing at the last : 
 
 1 Here his lordship received upon his noble person so many wounds 
 at he stretched his graceful limbs upon the earth.
 
 PERUGIA 129 
 
 ' E allora porse el nobil giovenetto la dextra mano a la sua 
 giovenile matre strengendo de sua matre la bianca mano ; e 
 poi incontinente spir6 1' anima dal formoso corpo, e pass6 cum 
 infinite benedizioni de sua matre in cambio de la maledictions 
 che prima li aveva date.' l Here again the style of Matarazzo, 
 tender and full of tears, conveys the keenest sense of the 
 pathos of beauty and of youth in death and sorrow. He has 
 forgotten d gran tradimento. He only remembers how 
 comely Grifonetto was, how noble, how frank and spirited, 
 how strong in war, how sprightly in his pleasures and his 
 loves. And he sees the still young mother, delicate and nobly 
 born, leaning over the athletic body of her bleeding son. 
 This scene, which is perhaps a genuine instance of what 
 we may call the neo-Hellenism of the Kenaissance, finds 
 its parallel in the 'Phoenissae' of Euripides. Jocasta and 
 Antigone have gone forth to the battlefield and found the 
 brothers Polynices and Eteocles drenched in blood : 
 
 From his chest 
 
 Heaving a heavy breath, King Eteocles heard 
 His mother, and stretched forth a cold damp hand 
 On hers, and nothing said, but with his eyes 
 Spake to her by his tears, showing kind thoughts 
 In symbols. 
 
 It was Atalanta, we may remember, who commissioned 
 Eaphael to paint the so-called Borghese Entombment. Did 
 she perhaps feel, as she withdrew from the piazza, soaking 
 with young Grifonetto's blood, 2 that she too had some portion 
 in the sorrow of that mother who had wept for Christ ? The 
 
 1 ' And then the noble stripling stretched his right hand to his youthful 
 mother, pressing the white hand of his mother ; and afterwards forth- 
 with he breathed his soul forth from his beauteous body, and died with 
 numberless blessings of his mother instead of the curses she had given 
 him before.' 
 
 2 See Matarazzo, p. 134, for this detail. 
 
 Ill K
 
 130 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 memory of the dreadful morning must have remained with 
 her through life, and long communion with our Lady of 
 Sorrows may have sanctified the grief that had so bitter and 
 so shameful a root of sin. 
 
 After the death of Grifonetto, and the flight of the con- 
 spirators, Gianpaolo took possession of Perugia. All who 
 were suspected of complicity in the treason were massacred 
 upon the piazza and in the Cathedral. At the expense of 
 more than a hundred murders, the chief of the Baglioni 
 found himself master of the city on the 17th of July. First 
 he caused the Cathedral to be washed with wine and recon- 
 secrated. Then he decorated the Palazzo with the heads of 
 the traitors and with their portraits in fresco, painted hang- 
 ing head downwards, as was the fashion in Italy. 1 Next he 
 established himself in what remained of the palaces of his 
 kindred, hanging the saloons with black, and arraying his 
 retainers in the deepest mourning. Sad indeed was now the 
 aspect of Perugia. Helpless and comparatively uninterested, 
 the citizens had been spectators of these bloody broils. They 
 were now bound to share the desolation of their masters. 
 Matarazzo's description of the mournful palace and the silent 
 town, and of the return of Marcantonio from Naples, presents 
 a picture striking for its vividness. 2 In the true style of the 
 Baglioni, Marcantonio sought to vent his sorrow not so much 
 in tears as by new violence. He prepared and lighted torches, 
 meaning to burn the whole quarter of Sant' Angelo ; and 
 from this design he was with difficulty dissuaded by his 
 
 1 See Varchi (ed. Lemonnier, 1857), vol. ii. p. 265, vol. iii. pp. 224, 
 652, and Corio (Venice, 1554), p. 326, for instances of dipinti per 
 traditori. 
 
 2 P. 142. ' Pareva ogni cosa oscura e lacrimosa : tutte loro servitore 
 piangevano ; et le camere de lo resto de li magnifici Baglioni, e sale, e 
 ognie cosa erano tutte intorno cum pagnie negre. E per la citta non era 
 piu alcuno che sonasse ne cantasse ; e poco si rideva,' &c.
 
 PERUGIA 131 
 
 brother. To such mad freaks of rage and passion were the 
 inhabitants of a mediaeval town in Italy exposed! They 
 make us understand the ordinanze di giustizia, by which to 
 be a noble was a crime in Florence. 
 
 From this time forward the whole history of the Baglioni 
 family is one of crime and bloodshed. A curse had fallen on 
 the house, and to the last of its members the penalty was paid. 
 Gianpaolo himself acquired the highest reputation throughout 
 Italy for his courage and sagacity both as a general and a 
 governor. 1 It was he who held Julius II. at his discretion in 
 1506, and was sneered at by Machiavelli for not consum- 
 mating his enormities by killing the warlike Pope. 2 He 
 again, after joining the diet of La Magione against Cesare 
 Borgia, escaped by his acumen the massacre of Sinigaglia, 
 which overthrew the other conspirators. But his name was 
 no less famous for unbridled lust and deeds of violence. He 
 boasted that his son Constantino was a true Baglioni, since he 
 was his sister's child. He once told Machiavelli that he had 
 it in his mind to murder four citizens of Perugia, his enemies. 
 He looked calmly on while his kinsmen Eusebio and Taddeo 
 Baglioni, who had been accused of treason, were hewn to 
 pieces by his guard. His wife, Ippolita de' Conti, was 
 poignarded in her Eoman farm; on hearing the news, he 
 ordered a festival in which he was engaged to proceed with 
 redoubled merriment. 3 At last the time came for him to die 
 
 1 See Frollieri, p. 437, for a very curious account of his character. 
 
 Fabretti (vol. iii. pp. 193-202, and notes) discusses this circumstance 
 in detail. Machiavelli's critique runs thus (Discern, lib. i. cap. 27) : 
 ' N si poteva credere che si fosse astenuto o per bonta, o per coscienza 
 che lo ritenesse ; perche in un petto d' un uomo facinoroso, che si teneva 
 la sorella, ch' aveva morti i cugini e i nipoti per regnare, non poteva 
 scendere alcuno pietoso rispetto : ma si conchiuse che gli uomini non 
 sanno essere onorevolmente tristi, o perfettamente buoni,' <fcc. 
 
 3 See Fabretti, vol. iii. p. 230. He is an authority for the details of 
 
 K 2
 
 132 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 by fraud and -violence. Leo X., anxious to remove so power- 
 ful a rival from Perugia, lured him in 1520 to Eome under 
 the false protection of a papal safe-conduct. After a short 
 imprisonment he had him beheaded in the Castle of S. 
 Angelo. It was thought that Gentile, his first cousin, some- 
 time Bishop of Orvieto, but afterwards the father of two sons 
 in wedlock with Giulia Vitelli such was the discipline of the 
 Church at this epoch had contributed to the capture of 
 Gianpaolo, and had exulted in his execution. 1 If so, he paid 
 dear for his treachery ; for Orazio Baglioni, the second son of 
 Gianpaolo and captain of the Church under Clement VII., 
 had him murdered in 1527, together with his two nephews 
 Fileno and Annibale. 2 This Orazio was one of the most 
 bloodthirsty of the whole brood. Not satisfied with the 
 assassination of Gentile, he stabbed Galeotto, the son of 
 Grifonetto, with his own hand in the same year. 3 Afterwards 
 he died in the kingdom of Naples while leading the Black 
 Bands in the disastrous war which followed the sack of Kome. 
 He left no son. Malatesta, his elder brother, became one of 
 the most celebrated generals of the age, holding the batons of 
 the Venetian and Florentine republics, and managing to main- 
 tain his ascendency in Perugia in spite of the persistent op- 
 position of successive popes. But his name is best known in 
 history for one of the greatest public crimes a crime which 
 must be ranked with that of Marshal Bazaine. Intrusted 
 with the defence of Florence during the siege of 1530, he sold 
 the city to his enemy, Pope Clement, receiving for the price 
 of this infamy certain privileges and immunities which fortified 
 his hold upon Perugia for a season. All Italy was ringing 
 
 Gianpaolo's life. The circumstance alluded to above justifies the terrible 
 opening scene in Shelley's tragedy, Tlie Cenci. 
 
 1 Fabretti, vol. iii. p. 230, vol. iv. p. 10. 
 
 2 See Varchi, Stone Florentine, vol. i. p. 224. 3 Ibid.
 
 PERUGIA 133 
 
 with the great deeds of the Florentines, who for the sake of 
 their liberty transformed themselves from merchants into 
 soldiers, and withstood the united powers of Pope and 
 Emperor alone. Meanwhile Malatesta, whose trade was war, 
 and who was being largely paid for his services by the belea- 
 guered city, contrived by means of diplomatic procrastination, 
 secret communication with the enemy, and all the arts that 
 could intimidate an army of recruits, to push affairs to a point 
 at which Florence was forced to capitulate without inflict- 
 ing the last desperate glorious blow she longed to deal her 
 enemies. The universal voice of Italy condemned him. 
 When Matteo Dandolo, the Doge of Venice, heard what he 
 had done, he cried before the Pregadi in conclave, ' He has 
 sold that people and that city, and the blood of those poor 
 citizens ounce by ounce, and has donned the cap of the 
 biggest traitor in the world.' l Consumed with shame, cor- 
 roded by an infamous disease, and mistrustful of Clement, to 
 whom he had sold his honour, Malatesta retired to Perugia, 
 and died in 1531. He left one son, Kidolfo, who was unable 
 to maintain himself in the lordship of his native city. After 
 killing the Papal legate, Cinzio Filonardi, in 1534, he was 
 dislodged four years afterwards, when Paul III. took final 
 possession of the place as an appanage of the Church, razed 
 the houses of the Baglioni to the ground, and built upon their 
 site the Eocca Paolina. This fortress bore an inscription : 
 'Ad coercendam Perusinorum audaciam.' The city was 
 given over to the rapacity of the abominable Pier Luigi 
 Farnese, and so bad was this tyranny of priests and bastards, 
 that, strange to say, the Perugians regretted the troublous 
 times of the Baglioni. Malatesta in dying had exclaimed, 
 ' Help me, if you can ; since after me you will be set to draw 
 the cart like oxen.' Frollieri, relating the speech, adds, 
 1 Fabretti, vol. iv. p. 206.
 
 134 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 ' And this has been fulfilled to the last letter, for all have 
 borne not only the yoke but the burden and the goad.' 
 Eidolfo Baglioni and his cousin Braccio, the eldest son of 
 Grifonetto, were both captains of Florence. The one died in 
 battle in 1554, the other in 1559. Thus ended the illustrious 
 family. They are now represented by descendants from 
 females, and by contadini who preserve their name and boast 
 a pedigree of which they have no records. 
 
 The history of the Baglioni needs no commentary. They 
 were not worse than other Italian nobles, who by their 
 passions and their parties destroyed the peace of the city 
 they infested. It is with an odd mixture of admiration and 
 discontent that the chroniclers of Perugia allude to their 
 ascendency. Matarazzo, who certainly cannot be accused of 
 hostility to the great house, describes the miseries of his 
 country under their bad government in piteous terms : l ' As 
 I wish not to swerve from the pure truth, I say that from the 
 day the Oddi were expelled, our city went from bad to worse. 
 All the young men followed the trade of arms. Their lives 
 were disorderly ; and every day divers excesses were divulged, 
 and the city had lost all reason and justice. Every man 
 administered right unto himself, proprid autoritate et manu 
 regid. Meanwhile the Pope sent many legates, if so be the 
 city could be brought to order : but all who came returned 
 in dread of being hewn in pieces ; for they threatened to throw 
 some from the windows of the palace, so that no cardinal or 
 other legate durst approach Perugia, unless he were a friend 
 of the Baglioni. And the city was brought to such misery, 
 that the most wrongous men were most prized ; and those 
 who had slain two or three men walked as they listed through 
 the palace, and went with sword or poignard to speak to the 
 podesta and other magistrates. Moreover, every man of 
 1 Pp. 102, 103.
 
 PEKUGIA 135 
 
 worth was down -trodden by bravi whom the nobles favoured ; 
 nor could a citizen call his property his own. The nobles 
 robbed first one and then another of goods and land. All 
 offices were sold or else suppressed ; and taxes and extortions 
 were so grievous that every one cried out. And if a man 
 were in prison for his head, he had no reason to fear death, 
 provided he had some interest with a noble.' Yet the same 
 Matarazzo in another place finds it in his heart to say : ' 
 ' Though the city suffered great pains for these nobles, yet 
 the illustrious house of Baglioni brought her honour through- 
 out Italy, by reason of the great dignity and splendour of 
 that house, and of their pomp and name. Wherefore through 
 them our city was often set above the rest, and notably above 
 the commonwealths of Florence and Siena.' Pride feels no 
 pain. The gratified vanity of the Perugian burgher, proud 
 ~to see his town preferred before its neighbours, blinds the 
 annalist to all the violence and villany of the magnificent 
 Casa Baglioni. So strong was the esprit de ville which 
 through successive centuries and amid all vicissitudes of 
 politics divided the Italians against themselves, and proved 
 an insuperable obstacle to unity. 
 
 After reading the chronicle of Matarazzo at Perugia 
 through one winter day, I left the inn and walked at sunset 
 to the blood-bedabbled cathedral square ; for still those steps 
 and pavements to my strained imagination seemed reeking 
 with the outpoured blood of Baglioni ; and on the ragged 
 stonework of San Lorenzo red patches slanted from the dying 
 day. Then by one of those strange freaks of the brain to 
 which we are all subject, for a moment I lost sight of untidy 
 Gothic fa9ades and gaunt unfinished church walls ; and as I 
 walked, I was in the Close of Salisbury on a perfumed summer 
 afternoon. The drowsy scent of lime-flowers and mignonette, 
 
 1 P. 139.
 
 136 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 the cawing of elm-cradled rooks, the hum of bees above, the 
 velvet touch of smooth-shorn grass, and the breathless shadow 
 of motionless green boughs made up one potent and absorb- 
 ing mood of the charmed senses. Far overhead soared the 
 calm grey spire into the infinite air, and the perfection of 
 accomplished beauty slept beneath in those long lines of 
 nave and choir and transepts. It was but a momentary 
 dream, a thought that burned itself upon a fancy overtaxed 
 by passionate images. Once more the puppet-scene of the 
 brain was shifted ; once more I saw the bleak bare flags of 
 the Perugian piazza, the forlorn front of the Duomo, the 
 bronze griffin, and Pisano's fountain, with here and there a 
 flake of that tumultuous fire which the Italian sunset sheds. 
 Who shall adequately compare the two pictures? Which 
 shall we prefer the Close of Salisbury, with its sleepy bells 
 and cushioned ease of immemorial Deans or this poor* 
 threadbare passion of Perugia, where every stone is stained 
 with blood, and where genius in painters and scholars and 
 prophets and ecstatic lovers has throbbed itself away to 
 nothingness ? It would be foolish to seek an answer to this 
 question, idle to institute a comparison, for instance, between 
 those tall young men with their broad winter cloaks who 
 remind me of Grifonetto, and the vergers pottering in search 
 of shillings along the gravel paths of Salisbury. It is more 
 rational, perhaps, to reflect of what strange stuff our souls 
 are made in this age of the world, when aesthetic pleasures, 
 full, genuine, and satisfying, can be communicated alike by 
 Perugia with its fascination of a dead irrevocable dramatic 
 past, and Salisbury, which finds the artistic climax of its 
 English comfort in the ' Angel in the House.' From Matarazzo, 
 smitten with a Greek love for the beautiful Grifonetto, to Mr. 
 Patmore, is a wide step.
 
 137 
 
 ORVIETO 
 
 ON the road from Siena to Rome, halfway between Ficulle 
 and Viterbo, is the town of Orvieto. Travellers often pass it 
 in the night-tune. Few stop there, for the place is old and 
 dirty, and its inns are said to be indifferent. But none who 
 see it even from a distance can fail to be struck with its im- 
 posing aspect, as it rises from the level plain upon that mass 
 of rock among the Apennines. 
 
 Orvieto is built upon the first of those huge volcanic blocks 
 which are found like fossils embedded in the more recent geo- 
 logical formations of Central Italy, and which stretch in an 
 irregular but unbroken line to the Campagna of Rome. Many 
 of them, like that on which Civita Castellana is perched, are 
 surrounded by rifts and chasms and ravines and fosses, 
 strangely furrowed and twisted by the force of fiery convul- 
 sions. But their advanced guard, Orvieto, stands up definite 
 and solid, an almost perfect cube, with walls precipitous to 
 north and south and east, but slightly sloping to the westward. 
 At its foot rolls the Paglia, one of those barren streams which 
 swell in winter with the snows and rains of the Apennines, but 
 which in summer-time shrink up, and leave bare beds of sand 
 and pestilential canebrakes to stretch irregularly round their 
 dwindled waters. 
 
 The weary flatness and utter desolation of this valley 
 present a sinister contrast to the broad line of the Apennines, 
 swelling tier on tier, from their oak-girdled basements set 
 with villages and towers, up to the snow and cloud that crown
 
 138 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 their topmost crags. The time to see this landscape is at 
 sunrise ; and the traveller should take his stand upon the 
 rising ground over which the Eoman road is carried from the 
 town the point, in fact, which Turner has selected for his 
 vague and misty sketch of Orvieto in our Gallery. Thence he 
 will command the whole space of the plain, the Apennines, 
 and the river creeping in a straight line at the base ; while the 
 sun, rising to his right, will slant along the mountain flanks, 
 and gild the leaden stream, and flood the castled crags of 
 Orvieto with a haze of light. From the centre of this glory 
 stand out in bold relief old bastions built upon the solid tufa, 
 vast gaping gateways black in shadow, towers of churches 
 shooting up above a medley of deep-corniced tall Italian 
 houses, and, amid them all, the marble front of the Cathedral, 
 calm and solemn in its unfamiliar Gothic state. Down to 
 the valley from these heights there is a sudden fall ; and we 
 wonder how the few spare olive-trees that grow there can 
 support existence on the steep slope of the cliff. 
 
 Our mind, in looking at this landscape, is carried by the 
 force of old association to Jerusalem. We could fancy our- 
 selves to be standing on Mount Olivet, with the valley of Je- 
 hoshaphat between us and the Sacred City. As we approach the 
 town, the difficulty of scaling its crags seems insurmountable. 
 The road, though carried skilfully along each easy slope or 
 ledge of quarried rock, still winds so much that nearly an hour 
 is spent in the ascent. Those who can walk should take a 
 footpath, and enter Orvieto by the mediaeval road, up which 
 many a Pope, flying from rebellious subjects or foreign 
 enemies, has hurried on his mule. 1 
 
 1 Clement VII., for example, escaped from Eome disguised as a 
 gardener after the sack in 1527, and, to quote the words of Varchi (St. 
 Flor., v. 17), ' Entr6 agli otto di dicembre a due ore di notte in Orvieto, 
 terra di sito fortissimo, per lo essere ella sopra uno scoglio pieno di tun 
 posta, d' ogni intorno scosceso e dirupato,' &c.
 
 OEVIETO 139 
 
 To unaccustomed eyes there is something forbidding and 
 terrible about the dark and cindery appearance of volcanic 
 tufa. Where it is broken, the hard and gritty edges leave 
 little space for vegetation ; while at intervals the surface 
 spreads so smooth and straight that one might take it for solid 
 masonry erected by the architect of Pandemonium. Rubbish 
 and shattered bits of earthenware and ashes, thrown from 
 the city walls, cling to every ledge and encumber the broken 
 pavement of the footway. Then as we rise, the castle battle- 
 ments above appear more menacing, toppling upon the rough 
 edge of the crag, and guarding each turn of the road with 
 jealous loopholes or beetle-browed machicolations, until at last 
 the gateway and portcullis are in view. 
 
 On first entering Orvieto, one's heart fails to find so ter- 
 rible a desolation, so squalid a solitude, and so vast a difference 
 between the present and the past, between the beauty of sur- 
 rounding nature and the misery of this home of men. A long 
 space of unoccupied ground intervenes between the walls and 
 the hovels which skirt the modern town. This, in the times 
 of its splendour, may have served for oliveyards, vineyards, 
 and pasturage, in case of siege. There are still some faint 
 traces of dead gardens left upon its arid wilderness, among the 
 ruins of a castellated palace, decorated with the cross-keys 
 and tiara of an unremembered pope. But now it lies a mere 
 tract of scorched grass, insufferably hot and dry and sandy, 
 intersected by dirty paths, and covered with the loathliest 
 offal of a foul Italian town. Should you cross this ground at 
 mid-day, under the blinding sun, when no living thing, except 
 perhaps some poisonous reptile, is about, you would declare 
 that Orvieto had been stricken for its sins by Heaven. Your 
 mind would dwell mechanically on all that you have read of 
 Papal crimes, of fratricidal wars, of Pagan abominations in 
 the high places of the Church, of tempestuous passions and
 
 140 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 refined iniquity of everything, in fact, which renders Italy 
 of the Middle Ages and the Eenaissance dark and ominous 
 amid the splendours of her art and civilisation. This is the 
 natural result ; this shrunken and squalid old age of poverty 
 and self-abandonment is the end of that strong, prodigal, and 
 vicious youth. Who shall restore vigour to these dead bones ? 
 we cry. If Italy is to live again, she must quit her ruined 
 palace towers to build fresh dwellings elsewhere. Filth, lust, 
 rapacity, treason, godlessness, and violence have made their 
 habitation here ; ghosts haunt these ruins ; these streets still 
 smell of blood and echo to the cries of injured innocence ; 
 life cannot be pure, or calm, or healthy, where this curse has 
 settled. 
 
 Occupied with such reflections, we reach the streets of 
 Orvieto. They are not very different from those of most 
 Italian villages, except that there is little gaiety about them. 
 Like Assisi or Siena, Orvieto is too large for its population, 
 and merriment flows better from close crowding than from 
 spacious accommodation. Very dark, and big, and dirty, and 
 deserted, is the judgment we pronounce upon the houses; 
 very filthy and malodorous each passage ; very long this 
 central street ; very few and sad and sullen the inhabitants ; 
 and where, we wonder, is the promised inn ? In search of this 
 one walks nearly through the city, until one enters the Piazza, 
 where there is more liveliness. Here cafes may be found ; 
 soldiers, strong and sturdy, from the north, lounge at the 
 corners ; the shops present more show ; and a huge hotel, not 
 bad for such a place, and appropriately dedicated to the Belle 
 Arti, standing in a courtyard of its own, receives the traveller 
 weary with his climb. As soon as he has taken rooms, his 
 first desire is to go forth and visit the Cathedral. 
 
 The great Duomo was erected at the end of the thirteenth 
 century to commemorate the Miracle of Bolsena. The value
 
 ORVIETO 141 
 
 of this miracle consisted in its establishing unmistakably the 
 truth of transubstantiation. The story runs that a young 
 Bohemian priest who doubted the dogma was performing 
 the office of the mass in a church at Bolsena, when, at the 
 moment of consecration, blood issued from five gashes in the 
 wafer, which resembled the five wounds of Christ. The fact 
 was evident to all the worshippers, who saw blood falling on 
 the linen of the altar ; and the young priest no longer doubted, 
 but confessed the miracle, and journeyed straightway with the 
 evidence thereof to Pope Urban IV. The Pope, who was 
 then at Orvieto, came out with all his retinue to meet the 
 convert and do honour to the magic-working relics. The 
 circumstances of this miracle are well known to students of 
 art through Raphael's celebrated fresco in the Stanze of the 
 Vatican. And it will be remembered by the readers of eccle- 
 siastical history that Urban had in 1264 promulgated by a 
 bull the strict observance of the Corpus Christi festival in con- 
 nection with his strong desire to re-establish the doctrine of 
 Christ's presence in the elements. Nor was it without reason 
 that, while seeking miraculous support for this dogma, he 
 should have treated the affair of Bolsena so seriously as to 
 celebrate it by the erection of one of the most splendid cathe- 
 drals in Italy ; for the peace of the Church had recently been 
 troubled by the reforming ardour of the Fraticelli and by 
 the promulgation of Abbot Joachim's Eternal Gospel. This 
 new evangelist had preached the doctrine of progression in 
 religious faith, proclaiming a kingdom of the Spirit which 
 should transcend the kingdom of the Son, even as the 
 Christian dispensation had superseded the Jewish supremacy 
 of the Father. Nor did he fail at the same time to attack the 
 political and moral abuses of the Papacy, attributing its 
 degradation to the want of vitality which pervaded the old 
 Christian system, and calling on the clergy to lead more
 
 142 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 simple and regenerate lives, consistently with the spiritual 
 doctrine which he had received hy inspiration. The theories 
 of Joachim were immature and crude ; but they were among 
 the first signs of that liberal effort after self-emancipation 
 which eventually stirred all Europe at the time of the 
 Eenaissance. It was, therefore, the obvious policy of the 
 Popes to crush so dangerous an opposition while they could ; 
 and by establishing the dogma of transubstantiation, they 
 were enabled to satisfy the craving mysticism of the people, 
 while they placed upon a firmer basis the cardinal support of 
 their own religious power. 
 
 In pursuance of his plan, Urban sent for Lorenzo Maitani, 
 the great Sienese architect, who gave designs for a Gothic 
 church in the same style as the Cathedral of Siena, though 
 projected on a smaller scale. These two churches, in spite of 
 numerous shortcomings manifest to an eye trained in French 
 or English architecture, are still the most perfect specimens 
 of Pointed Gothic produced by the Italian genius. The 
 Gottico Tedesco had never been received with favour in Italy. 
 Eemains of Eoman architecture, then far more numerous and 
 perfect than they are at present, controlled the minds of 
 artists, and induced them to adopt the rounded rather than 
 the pointed arch. Indeed, there would seem to be something 
 peculiarly Northern hi the spirit of Gothic architecture : its 
 intricacies suit the gloom of Northern skies, its massive 
 exterior is adapted to the severity of Northern weather, its 
 vast windows catch the fleeting sunlight of the North, and the 
 pinnacles and spires which constitute its beauty are better 
 expressed in rugged stone than in the marbles of the South. 
 Northern cathedrals do not depend for their effect upon the 
 advantages of sunlight or picturesque situations. Many of 
 them are built upon broad plains, over which for more than 
 half the year hangs fog. But the cathedrals of Italy owe
 
 ORVIETO 143 
 
 their charm to colour and brilliancy : their gilded sculpture 
 and mosaics, the variegated marbles and shallow portals of 
 their facades, the light aerial elegance of their campanili, are 
 all adapted to the luminous atmosphere of a smiling land, 
 where changing effects of natural beauty distract the atten- 
 tion from solidity of design and permanence of grandeur in 
 the edifice itself. 1 
 
 The Cathedral of Orvieto will illustrate these remarks. 
 Its design is very simple. It consists of a parallelogram, from 
 which three chapels of equal size project, one at the east end, 
 and one at the north and south. The windows are small and 
 narrow, the columns round, and the roof displays none of that 
 intricate groining we find in English churches. The beauty 
 of the interior depends on surface decoration, on marble 
 statues, woodwork, and fresco-paintings. Outside, there is the 
 same simplicity of design, the same elaborated local ornament. 
 The sides of the Cathedral are austere, their narrow windows 
 cutting horizontal lines of black and white marble. But the 
 fa9ade is a triumph of decorative art. It is strictly what has 
 often been described as a ' frontispiece ;' for it bears no sincere 
 relation to the construction of the building. The three gables 
 
 1 In considering why Gothic architecture took so little root in 
 mediaeval Italy, we must remember that the Italians had maintained an 
 unbroken connection with Pagan Borne, and that many of their finest 
 churches were basilicas appropriated to Christian rites. Add to this 
 that the commerce of their cities, which first acquired wealth in the 
 twelfth century, especially Pisa and Venice, kept them in communication 
 with the Levant, where they admired the masterpieces of Byzantine 
 architecture, and whence they imported Greek artists in mosaic and 
 stonework. Against these external circumstances, taken in connection 
 with the hereditary leanings of an essentially Latin race, and with the 
 natural conditions of landscape and climate alluded to above, the 
 influence of a few imported German architects could not have had 
 sufficient power to effect a thorough metamorphosis of the national 
 taste. For further treatment of this subject see my ' Fine Arts,' 
 Renaissance in Italy, Part III. chap. ii.
 
 144 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 rise high above the aisles. The pinnacles and parapets and 
 turrets are stuck on to look agreeable. It is a screen such as 
 might be completed or left unfinished at will by the architect. 
 Finished as it is, the fa9ade of Orvieto presents a wilderness of 
 beauties. Its pure white marble has been mellowed by time to 
 a rich golden hue, in which are set mosaics shining like gems 
 or pictures of enamel. A statue stands on every pinnacle ; 
 each pillar has a different design ; round some of them are 
 woven wreaths of vine and ivy ; acanthus leaves curl over the 
 capitals, making nests for singing birds or Cupids ; the door- 
 ways are a labyrinth of intricate designs, in which the utmost 
 elegance of form is made more beautiful by incrustations of 
 precious agates and Alexandrine glasswork. On every square 
 inch of this wonderful fa9ade have been lavished invention, 
 skill, and precious material. But its chief interest centres in the 
 sculptures executed by Giovanni and Andrea, sons and pupils 
 of Nicola Pisano. The names of these three men mark an era 
 in the history of art. They first rescued Italian sculpture from 
 the grotesqueness of the Lombard and the wooden monotony 
 of the Byzantine styles. Sculpture takes the lead of all the 
 arts. And Nicola Pisano, before Cimabue, before Duccio, even 
 before Dante, opened the gates of beauty, which for a thousand 
 years had been shut up and overgrown with weeds. As Dante 
 invoked the influence of Virgil when he began to write his 
 mediaeval poem, and made a heathen bard his hierophant in 
 Christian mysteries, just so did Nicola Pisano draw inspira- 
 tion from a Graeco-Roman sarcophagus. He studied the bas- 
 relief of Phaedra and Hippolytus, which may still be seen 
 upon the tomb of Countess Beatrice in the Campo Santo, and 
 so learned by heart the beauty of its lines and the dignity 
 expressed in its figures, that in all his subsequent works 
 we trace the elevated tranquillity of Greek sculpture. This 
 imitation never degenerated into servile copying ; nor, on the
 
 OKVIETO 145 
 
 other hand, did Nicola attain the perfect grace of an Athenian 
 artist. He remained a truly mediaeval carver, animated with 
 a Christian instead of a Pagan spirit, but caring for the 
 loveliness of form which art iu the dark ages failed to realise. 1 
 
 Whether it was Nicola or his scholars who designed the 
 basreliefs at Orvieto is of little consequence. Vasari ascribes 
 them to the father ; but we know that he completed his 
 pulpit at Pisa in 1230, and his death is supposed to have taken 
 place fifteen years before the foundation of the cathedral. 
 At any rate, they are imbued with his genius, and bear the 
 strongest affinity to his sculptures at Pisa, Siena, and Bologna. 
 To estimate the influence they exercised over the arts of 
 sculpture and painting in Italy would be a difficult task. 
 Duccio and Giotto studied here; Ghiberti closely followed 
 them. Signorelli and Raphael made drawings from their 
 compositions. And the spirit which pervades these sculptures 
 may be traced in all succeeding works of art. It is not 
 classic ; it is modern, though embodied in a form of beauty 
 modelled on the Greek. 
 
 The basreliefs are carved on four marble tablets placed 
 beside the porches of the church, and corresponding in size 
 and shape with the chief doorways. They represent the 
 course of Biblical history, beginning with the creation of the 
 world, and ending with the last judgment. If it were possible 
 here to compare them in detail with the similar designs of 
 Ghiberti, Michel Angelo, and Eaphael, it might be shown 
 that the Pisani established modes of treating sacred subjects 
 from which those mighty masters never deviated, though each 
 stamped upon them his peculiar genius, making them more 
 perfect as time added to the power of art. It would also be 
 
 1 I am not inclined to reject the old legend mentioned above about 
 Pisano's study of the antique. For a full discussion of the question see 
 my ' Fine Arts,' Renaissance in Italy, Part III. chap. iii. 
 
 Ill L
 
 146 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 not without interest to show that, in their primitive concep- 
 tions of the earliest events in history, the works of the Pisan 
 artists closely resemble some sculptures executed on the walls 
 of Northern cathedrals, as well as early mosaics in the South 
 of Italy. We might have noticed how all the grotesque 
 elements which appear in Nicola Pisano, and which may still 
 be traced in Ghiberti, are entirely lost in Michel Angelo, how 
 the supernatural is humanised, how the symbolical receives 
 an actual expression, and how intellectual types are substituted 
 for mere local and individual representations. For instance, 
 the Pisani represent the Creator as a young man standing 
 on the earth, with a benign and dignified expression, and 
 attended by two ministering angels. He is the Christ of the 
 Creed, ' by whom all things were made.' In Ghiberti we find 
 an older man, sometimes appearing in a whirlwind of clouds 
 and attendant spirits, sometimes walking on the earth, but 
 still far different in conception from the Creative Father of* 
 Michel Angelo. The latter is rather the Platonic Demiurgus 
 than the Mosaic God. By every line and feature of his face 
 and flowing hair, by each movement of his limbs, whether he 
 ride on clouds between the waters and the firmament, or stand 
 alone creating by a glance and by a motion of his hand Eve, 
 the full-formed and conscious woman, he is proclaimed the 
 Maker who from all eternity has held the thought of the 
 material universe within his mind. Eaphael does not depart 
 from this conception. The profound abstraction of Michel 
 Angelo ruled his intellect, and received from his genius a 
 form of perhaps greater grace. A similar growth from the 
 germinal designs of the Pisani may be traced in many 
 groups. 
 
 But we must not linger at the gate. Let us enter the 
 cathedral and see some of the wonders it contains. Statues 
 of gigantic size adorn the nave. Of these, the most beautiful
 
 ORVIETO 147 
 
 are the work of Ippolito Scalza, an artist whom Orvieto claims 
 with pride as one of her own sons. The long line of saints 
 and apostles whom they represent conduct us to the high 
 altar, surrounded by its shadowy frescoes, and gleaming with 
 the work of carvers in marble and bronze and precious metals. 
 But our steps are drawn toward the chapel of the south 
 transept, where now a golden light from the autumnal sunset 
 falls across a crowd of worshippers. From far and near the 
 poor people are gathered. Most of them are women. They 
 kneel upon the pavement and the benches, sunburnt faces 
 from the vineyards and the canebrakes of the valley. The old 
 look prematurely aged and withered their wrinkled cheeks 
 bound up in scarlet and orange-coloured kerchiefs, their 
 skinny fingers fumbling on the rosary, and their mute lips 
 moving in prayer. The younger women have great listless 
 eyes and large limbs used to labour. Some of them carry 
 babies trussed up in tight swaddling-clothes. One kneels 
 beside a dark-browed shepherd, on whose shoulder falls his 
 shaggy hair ; and little children play about, half hushed, half 
 heedless of the place, among old men whose life has dwindled 
 down into a ceaseless round of prayers. We wonder why 
 this chapel, alone in the empty cathedral, is so crowded 
 with worshippers. They surely are not turned towards that 
 splendid Pieta of Scalza a work in which the marble seems 
 to live a cold, dead, shivering life. They do not heed An- 
 gelico's and Signorelli's frescoes on the roof and walls. The 
 interchange of light and gloom upon the stalls and carved 
 work of the canopies can scarcely rivet so intense a gaze. All 
 eyes seem fixed upon a curtain of red silk above the altar. 
 Votive pictures, and glass cases full of silver hearts, wax 
 babies, hands and limbs of every kind, are hung round it. A 
 bell rings. A jingling organ plays a little melody in triple 
 time; and from the sacristy comes forth the priest. With
 
 148 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 much reverence, and with a show of preparation, he and the 
 acolytes around him mount the altar steps and pull a string 
 which draws the curtain. Behind the silken veil we behold 
 Madonna and her child a faint, old, ugly picture, blackened 
 with the smoke and incense of five hundred years, a wonder- 
 working image, cased in gold, and guarded from the common 
 air by glass and draperies. Jewelled crowns are stuck upon 
 the heads of the mother and the infant. In the efficacy of 
 Madonna di San Brizio to ward off agues, to deliver from the 
 pangs of childbirth or the fury of the storm, to keep the lover's 
 troth and make the husband faithful to his home, these pious 
 women of the marshes and the mountains put a simple trust. 
 While the priest sings, and the people pray to the dance- 
 music of the organ, let us take a quiet seat unseen, and 
 picture to our minds how the chapel looked when Angelico 
 and Signorelli stood before its plastered walls, and thought 
 the thoughts with which they covered them. Four centuries 
 have gone by since those walls were white and even to their 
 brushes ; and now you scarce can see the golden aureoles of 
 saints, the vast wings of the angels, and the flowing robes of 
 prophets through the gloom. Angelico came first, in monk's 
 dress, kneeling before he climbed the scaffold to paint the 
 angry judge, the Virgin crowned, the white-robed army of the 
 Martyrs, and the glorious company of the Apostles. These 
 he placed upon the roof, expectant of the Judgment. Then 
 he passed away, and Luca Signorelli, the rich man who ' lived 
 splendidly and loved to dress himself in noble clothes, 1 the 
 liberal and courteous gentleman, took his place upon the 
 scaffold. For all the worldliness of his attire and the worldli- 
 ness of his living, his brain teemed with stern and terrible 
 thoughts. He searched the secrets of sin and of the grave, 
 of destruction and of resurrection, of heaven and hell. All 
 these he has painted on the walls beneath the saints of Fra
 
 OEVTETO 149 
 
 Angelico. First come the troubles of the last days, the 
 preaching of Antichrist, and the confusion of the wicked. In 
 the next compartment we see the Resurrection from the tomb ; 
 and side by side with that is painted Hell. Paradise occupies 
 another portion of the chapel. On each side of the window, 
 beneath the Christ of Fra Angelico, are delineated scenes from 
 the Judgment. A wilderness of arabesques, enclosing medal- 
 lion portraits of poets and chiaroscuro episodes selected from 
 Dante and Ovid, occupies the lower portions of the chapel 
 walls beneath the great subjects enumerated above ; and here 
 Signorelli has given free vein to his fancy and his mastery 
 over anatomical design, accumulating naked human figures 
 in the most fantastic and audacious variety of pose. 
 
 Look at the ' Fulminati ' so the group of wicked men 
 are called whose death precedes the Judgment. Huge naked 
 angels, sailing upon vanlike wings, breathe columns of red 
 flame upon a crowd of wicked men and women. In vain 
 these sinners avoid the descending fire. It pursues and 
 fells them to the earth. As they fly, their eyes are turned 
 towards the dreadful faces in the air. Some hurry through 
 a portico, huddled together, falling men, and women clasping 
 to their arms dead babies scorched with flame. One old 
 man stares straightforward, doggedly awaiting death. One 
 woman scowls defiance as she dies. A youth has twisted 
 both hands in his hair, and presses them against his ears to 
 drown the screams and groans and roaring thunder. They 
 trample upon prostrate forms already stiff. Every shape and 
 attitude of sudden terror and despairing guilt are here. Next 
 comes the Resurrection. Two angels of the Judgment 
 gigantic figures, with the plumeless wings that Signorelli 
 loves are seen upon the clouds. They blow trumpets with 
 all their might, so that each naked muscle seems strained to 
 make the blast, which bellows through the air and shakes
 
 150 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 s 
 
 the sepulchres beneath the earth. Thence rise the dead. All 
 are naked, and a few are seen like skeletons. With pain- 
 ful effort they struggle from the soil that clasps them round, 
 as if obeying an irresistible command. Some have their 
 heads alone above the ground. Others wrench their limbs 
 from the clinging earth ; and as each man rises, it closes 
 under him. One would think that they were being born 
 again from solid clay, and growing into form with labour. 
 The fully risen spirits stand and walk about, all occupied with 
 the expectation of the Judgment ; but those that are yet in the 
 act of rising, have no thought but for the strange and toilsome 
 process of this second birth. Signorelli here, as elsewhere, 
 proves himself one of the greatest painters by the simple 
 means with which he produces the most marvellous effects. 
 His composition sways our souls with all the passion of the 
 terrible scenes that he depicts. Yet what does it contain ? 
 Two stern angels on the clouds, a blank grey plain, and a 
 multitude of naked men and women. In the next compart- 
 ment Hell is painted. This is a complicated picture, con- 
 sisting of a mass of human beings entangled with torturing 
 fiends. Above hover demons bearing damned spirits, and 
 three angels see that justice takes its course. Signorelli 
 here degenerates into no mediasval ugliness and mere bar- 
 barity of form. His fiends are not the bestial creatures of 
 Pisano's basreliefs, but models of those monsters which 
 Duppa has engraved from Michel Angelo's ' Last Judgment ' 
 lean naked men, in whose hollow eyes glow the fires of 
 hate and despair, whose nails have grown to claws, and from 
 whose ears have started horns. They sail upon bats' wings ; 
 and only by their livid hue, which changes from yellow to the 
 ghastliest green, and by the cruelty of their remorseless eyes, 
 can you know them from the souls they torture. In Hell 
 ugliness and power of mischief come with length of years.
 
 ORVIETO 151 
 
 / 
 
 Continual growth in crime distorts the form which once was 
 human ; and the interchange of everlasting hatred degrades 
 the tormentor and his victim to the same demoniac ferocity. 
 To this design the science of foreshortening, and the pro- 
 found knowledge of the human form in every posture, give its 
 chief interest. Paradise is not less wonderful. Signorelli 
 has contrived to throw variety and grace into the somewhat 
 monotonous groups which this subject requires. Above are 
 choirs of angels, not like Fra Angelico's, but tall male crea- 
 tures clothed in voluminous drapery, with grave features and 
 still, solemn eyes. Some are dancing, some are singing to 
 the lute, and one, the most gracious of them all, bends down 
 to aid a suppliant soul. The men beneath, who listen in a 
 state of bliss, are all undraped. Signorelli, in this difficult 
 composition, remains temperate, serene, and simple ; a Mil- 
 tonic harmony pervades the movement of his angelic choirs. 
 Their beauty is the product of their strength and virtue. No 
 floral ornaments or cherubs, or soft clouds, are found in his 
 Paradise ; yet it is fair and full of grace. Here Luca seems 
 to have anticipated Raphael. 
 
 It may be parenthetically observed, that Signorelli has 
 introduced himself and Niccolo Angeli, treasurer of the cathe- 
 dral building fund, in the corner of the fresco representing 
 Antichrist, with the date 1503. They stand as spectators and 
 solemn witnesses of the tragedy, set forth in all its acts by the 
 great master. 
 
 After viewing these frescoes, we muse and ask ourselves 
 why Signorelli's fame is so inadequate to his deserts ? Partly, 
 no doubt, because he painted in obscure Italian towns, and 
 left few easel-pictures. 1 Besides, the artists of the sixteenth 
 
 1 The Uffizzi and Pitti Galleries at Florence contain one or two fine 
 specimens of Luca Signorelli's Holy Families, which show his influence 
 over the early manner of Michel Angelo. Into the background of one
 
 152 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 century eclipsed all their predecessors, and the name of 
 Signorelli has been swallowed up in that of Michel Angelo. 
 Vasari said that ' esso Michel Angelo imito 1' andar di Luca, 
 
 circular picture he has introduced a group of naked figures, which was 
 imitated by Buonarroti in the Holy Family of the Tribune. The Acca- 
 demia has also a picture of saints and angels illustrative of his large 
 style and crowded composition. The Brera at Milan can boast of a very 
 characteristic Flagellation, where the nude has been carefully studied, 
 and the brutality of an insolent officer is forcibly represented. But per- 
 haps the most interesting of his works out of Orvieto are those in his 
 native place, Cortona. In the Church of the Gesu in that town there is 
 an altar-piece representing Madonna in glory with saints, which also 
 contains on a smaller scale than the principal figures a little design of 
 the Temptation in Eden. You recognise the master's individuality in 
 the muscular and energetic Adam. The Duomo has a Communion of the 
 Apostles which shows Signorelli's independence of tradition. It is the 
 Cenacolo treated with freedom. Christ stands in the midst of the 
 twelve, who are gathered around him, some kneeling and some upright, 
 upon a marble pavement. The whole scene is conceived in a truly grand 
 style noble attitudes, broad draperies, sombre and rich colouring, 
 masculine massing of the figures in effective groups. The Christ is 
 especially noble. Swaying a little to the right, he gives the bread to a 
 kneeling apostle. The composition is marked by a dignity and self- 
 restraint which Eaphael might have envied. San Niccolo, again, has a 
 fine picture by this master. It is a Deposition with saints and angels 
 those large-limbed and wide-winged messengers of God whom none but 
 Signorelli realised. The composition of this picture is hazardous, and 
 at first sight it is even displeasing. The figures seem roughly scattered 
 in a vacant space. The dead Christ has but little dignity, and the 
 passion of S. Jerome in the foreground is stiff in spite of its exaggeration. 
 But long study only serves to render this strange picture more and more 
 attractive. Especially noticeable is the youthful angel clad in dark 
 green who sustains Christ. He is a young man in the bloom of strength 
 and beauty, whose long golden hair falls on each side of a sublimely 
 lovely face. Nothing in painting surpasses the modelling of the vigorous 
 but delicate left arm stretched forward to support the heavy corpse. 
 This figure is conceived and executed in a style worthy of the Orvietan 
 frescoes. Signorelli, for whose imagination angels had a special charm, 
 has shown here that his too frequent contempt for grace was not the 
 result of insensibility to beauty. Strength is the parent of sweetness in 
 this wonderful winged youth. But not a single sacrifice is made in the 
 whole picture to mere elegance. Cortona is a place which, independently
 
 ORVIETO 153 
 
 come puo vedere ognuno.' Nor is it hard to see that what 
 the one began at Orvieto the other completed in the Vatican. 
 These great men had truly kindred spirits. Both struggled 
 
 of Signorelli, well deserves a visit. Like all Etruscan towns, it is 
 perched on the top of a high hill, whence it commands a wonderful 
 stretch of landscape Monte Amiata and Montepulciano to the south, 
 Chiusi with its lake, the lake of Thrasymene, and the whole broad 
 Tuscan plain. The city itself is built on a projecting buttress of the 
 mountain, to which it clings so closely that, in climbing to the terrace 
 of S. Margarita, you lose sight of all but a few towers and house-roofs. 
 One can almost fancy that Signorelli gained his broad and austere style 
 from the habitual contemplation of a view so severe in outline, and so 
 vacant in its width. This landscape has none of the variety which 
 distinguishes the prospect from Perugia, none of the suavity of Siena. 
 It is truly sympathetic in its bare simplicity to the style of the great 
 painter of Cortona. Try to see it on a winter morning, when the mists 
 are lying white and low and thin upon the plain, when distant hills rise 
 islanded into the air, and the outlines of lakes are just discernible 
 through fleecy haze. Next to Cortona in importance is the Convent of 
 Monte Oliveto in the neighbourhood of Siena, where Signorelli painted 
 eight frescoes from the story of S. Benedict, distinguished by his 
 customary vigour of conception, masculine force of design, and martial 
 splendour in athletic disdainful young men. One scene in this series, 
 representing the interior of a country inn, is specially interesting for a 
 realism not usual in the work of Signorelli. The frescoes painted for 
 Petruccio at Siena, one of which is now in the National Gallery, the 
 fresco in the Sistine Chapel, which has suffered sadly from retouching, 
 and the magnificent classical picture called the ' School of Pan,' executed 
 for Lorenzo de' Medici, and now at Berlin, must not be forgotten, nor 
 yet the church-pictures scattered over Loreto, Arcevia, Citt& di Castello, 
 Borgo San Sepolcro, Volterra, and other cities of the Tuscan-Umbrian 
 district. Arezzo, it may be added in conclusion, has two altar-pieces of 
 Signorelli's in its Pinaooteca, neither of which adds much to our concep- 
 tion of this painter's style. Noticeable as they may be among the works 
 of that period, they prove that his genius was hampered by the narrow 
 and traditional treatment imposed on him in pictures of this kind. 
 Students may be referred to Robert Vischer's Luca Signorelli (Leipzig, 
 1879) for a complete list of the master's works and an exhaustive 
 biography. I have tried to estimate his place in the history of Italian 
 art in my volume on the ' Fine Arts,' Renaissance in Italy, Part III. 
 I may also mention two able articles by Professor Colvin published a few 
 years since in the Cornhill Magazine.
 
 154 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 to express their intellectual conceptions in the simplest and 
 most abstract forms. The works of both are distinguished 
 by contempt for adventitious ornaments and for the grace of 
 positive colour. Both chose to work in fresco, and selected 
 subjects of the gravest and most elevated character. The 
 study of anatomy, and the scientific drawing of the naked 
 body, which Luca practised, were carried to perfection by 
 Michel Angelo. Sublimity of thought and self-restraint per- 
 vade their compositions. He who would understand Buon- 
 arroti must first appreciate Signorelli. The latter, it is true, 
 was confined to a narrower circle in his study of the beautiful 
 and the sublime. He had not ascended to that pure idealism, 
 superior to all the accidents of place and time, which is the 
 chief distinction of Michel Angelo's work. At the same time, 
 his manner had not suffered from too fervid an enthusiasm 
 for the imperfectly comprehended antique. He painted the 
 life he saw around him, and clothed his men and women in 
 the dress of Italy. 
 
 Such reflections, and many more, pass through our mind 
 as we sit and ponder in the chapel, which the daylight has 
 deserted. The country people are still on their knees, still 
 careless of the frescoed forms around them, still praying 
 to Madonna of the Miracles. The service is well-nigh done. 
 The benediction has been given, the organist strikes up his 
 air of Verdi, and the congregation shuffles off, leaving the 
 dimly lighted chapel for the vast sonorous dusky nave. How 
 strange it is to hear that faint strain of a feeble opera 
 sounding where, a short while since, the trumpet-blast of 
 Signorelli 's angels seemed to thrill our ears !
 
 155 
 
 LUCRETIUS 
 
 IN seeking to distinguish the Roman from the Greek genius 
 we can find no surer guide than Virgil's famous lines in the 
 Sixth yEneid. Virgil lived to combine the traditions of both 
 races in a work of profoundly meditated art, and to their 
 points of divergence he was sensitive as none but a poet bent 
 upon resolving them could be. The real greatness of the 
 Romans consisted in their capacity for government, law, 
 practical administration. What they willed, they carried into 
 effect with an iron indifference to everything but the object 
 in view. What they acquired, they held with the firm grasp 
 of force, and by the might of organised authority. Their 
 architecture, in so far as it was original, subserved purposes 
 of public utility. Philosophy with them ceased to be specu- 
 lative, and applied itself to the ethics of conduct. Their 
 religious conceptions in so far as these were not adopted to- 
 gether with general culture from the Greeks, or together with 
 sensual mysticism from the East were practical abstractions. 
 The- Latin ideal was to give form to the state by legislation, 
 and to mould the citizen by moral discipline. The Greek 
 ideal was contained in the poetry of Homer, the sculpture 
 of Pheidias, the heroism of Harmodius, the philosophy of 
 Socrates. Hellas was held together by no system, but by the 
 Delphic oracle and the Olympian games. The Greeks de- 
 pended upon culture, as the Romans upon law. The national 
 character determined by culture, and that determined by 
 discipline, eventually broke down : but the ruin in either case
 
 156 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 was different. The Greek became servile, indolent, and 
 slippery ; the Eoman became arrogant, bloodthirsty, tyrannous, 
 and brutal. The Greeks in their best days attained to 
 o-(0(j>poo-vvT), their regulative virtue, by a kind of instinct ; and 
 even in their worst debasement they never exhibited the extra- 
 vagance of lust and cruelty and pompous prodigality displayed 
 by Eome. The Romans, deficient in the aesthetic instinct, 
 whether applied to morals or to art, were temperate upon com- 
 pulsion ; and when the strain of law relaxed, they gave them- 
 selves unchecked to profligacy. The bad taste of the Romans 
 made them aspire to the huge and monstrous. Nero's whim 
 to cut through the isthmus, Caligula's villa built upon the sea 
 at Baiaa, the acres covered by imperial palaces in Rome, are 
 as Latin as the small scale of the Parthenon is Greek. Athens 
 annihilates our notions of mere magnitude by the predomi- 
 nance of harmony and beauty, to which size is irrelevant. 
 Rome dilates them to the full : it is the colossal greatness, the 
 mechanical pride, of her monuments that win our admiration. 
 By comparing the Dionysian theatre at Athens, during a 
 representation of the' Antigone,' with the Flavian amphitheatre 
 at Rome, while the gladiators sang their Ave Ccesar! we gain 
 at once a measure for the differences between Greek and 
 Latin taste. In spiritual matters, again, Rome, as distin- 
 guished from Hellas, was omnivorous. The cosmopolitan 
 receptivity of Roman sympathies, absorbing Egypt and the 
 Orient wholesale, is as characteristic as the exclusiveness of 
 the Greeks, their sensitive anxiety about the rj6o<s. We feel 
 that it was in a Roman rather than a Greek atmosphere, 
 where no middle term of art existed like a neutral ground 
 between the moral law and sin, where no delicate intellectual 
 sensibilities interfered with the assimilation of new creeds, 
 that Christianity was destined to strike root and flourish. 
 These remarks, familiar to students, form a proper prelude to
 
 LUCRETIUS 157 
 
 the criticism of Lucretius : for in Lucretius the Roman character 
 found its most perfect literary incarnation. He is at all points 
 a true Roman, gifted with the strength, the conquering temper, 
 the uncompromising haughtiness, and the large scale of his race. 
 Holding, as it were, the thought of Greece in fee, he adminis- 
 ters the Epicurean philosophy as though it were a province, 
 marshalling his arguments like legionaries, and spanning the 
 chasms of speculative insecurity with the masonry of hypo- 
 theses. As the arches of the Pont du Gard, suspended in 
 their power amid that solitude, produce an overmastering 
 feeling of awe ; so the huge fabric of the Lucretian system, 
 hung across the void of Nihilism, inspires a sense of terror, 
 not so much on its own account as for the Roman sternness of 
 the mind that made it. ' Le retentissement de mes pas dans 
 ces immenses voutes me faisait croire entendre la forte voix de 
 ceux qui les avait baties. Je me perdais comme un insecte 
 dans cette immensite". ' This is what Rousseau wrote about 
 the aqueduct of Nismes. This is what we feel in pacing the 
 corridors of the Lucretian poem. Sometimes it seems like 
 walking through resounding caves of night and death, where 
 unseen cataracts keep plunging down uncertain depths, and 
 winds ' thwarted and forlorn ' swell from an unknown distance, 
 and rush by, and wail themselves to silence in the unexplored 
 beyond. At another time the impression left upon the memory 
 is different. We have been following a Roman road from the 
 gate of the Eternal City, through field and vineyard, by lake 
 and river-bed, across the broad intolerable plain and the barren 
 tops of Alps, down into forests where wild beasts and bar- 
 barian tribes wander, along the marge of Rhine or Elbe, and 
 over frozen fens, in one perpetual straight line, until the sea is 
 reached and the road ends because it can go no further. All 
 the while, the iron wheel-rims of our chariot have jarred upon 
 imperishable paved work ; there has been no stop nor stay ;
 
 1.58 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 the visions of things beautiful and strange and tedious have 
 flown past; at the climax we look forth across a waste of 
 waves and tumbling wilderness of surf and foam, where the 
 storm sweeps and hurrying mists drive eastward close above 
 our heads. The want of any respite, breathing-space, or inter- 
 mission in the poem, helps to force this image of a Roman 
 journey on our mind. From the first line to the last there is 
 no turning-point, no pause of thought, scarcely a comma, and 
 the whole breaks off : 
 
 rixantes potius qnam corpora desererentur : 
 
 as though a scythe-sweep from the arm of Death had cut the 
 thread of singing short. 
 
 Is, then, this poem truly song ? Indeed it is. The brazen 
 voice of Rome becomes tunable ; a majestic rhythm sustains 
 the progress of the singer, who, like Milton's Satan, 
 
 O'er bog or steep, through strait, rough, dense, or rare, 
 "With head, hands, wings or feet, pursues his way, 
 And swims, or sinks, or wades, or creeps, or flies. 
 
 It is only because, being so much a Roman, he insists on 
 moving ever onward with unwavering march, that Lucretius 
 is often wearisome and rough. He is too disdainful to care 
 to mould the whole stuff of his poem to one quality. He is 
 too truth-loving to condescend to rhetoric. The scoriae, the 
 grit, the dross, the quartz, the gold, the jewels of his thought 
 are hurried onward in one mighty lava-flood, that has the 
 force to bear them all with equal ease not altogether unlike 
 that hurling torrent of the world painted by Tintoretto in his 
 picture of the Last Day, which carries on its breast cities and 
 forests and men with all their works, to plunge them in a 
 bottomless abyss. 
 
 Poems of the perfect Hellenic type may be compared to 
 bronze statues, in the material of which many divers metals
 
 LUCRETIUS 159 
 
 have been fused. Silver and tin and copper and lead and gold 
 are there : each substance adds a quality to the mass ; yet the 
 whole is bronze. The furnace of the poet's will has so melted 
 and mingled all these ores, that they have run together and 
 filled the mould of his imagination. It is thus that Virgil 
 chose to work. He made it his glory to realise artistic 
 harmony, and to preserve a Greek balance in his style. Not 
 so Lucretius. In him the Roman spirit, disdainful, un- 
 compromising, and forceful, had full sway. We can fancy 
 him accosting the Greek masters of the lyre upon Parnassus, 
 deferring to none, conceding nought, and meeting their 
 arguments with proud indifference : 
 
 tn regere imperio populos Romane memento. 
 
 The Roman poet, swaying the people of his thoughts, will 
 stoop to no persuasion, adopt no middle course. It is not his 
 business to please, but to command ; he will not wait upon 
 the Katies, or court opportunity; Greeks may surprise the 
 Muses in relenting moods, and seek out ' mollia tempora 
 fandi ; ' all times and seasons must serve him ; the terrible, 
 the discordant, the sublime, and the magnificent shall drag 
 his thundering car-wheels, as he lists, along the road of 
 thought. 
 
 At the very outset of the poem we feel ourselves within 
 the grasp of the Roman imagination. It is no Aphrodite, 
 risen from the waves and white as the sea-foam, that he 
 invokes : 
 
 /Eneadum genetrix, hominum divomque voluptas, 
 alma Venus. 
 
 This Venus is the mother of the brood of Rome, and at the 
 same time an abstraction as wide as the universe. See her in 
 the arms of Mavors :
 
 160 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 in gremium qui ssepe tuum se 
 reicit aeterno devietus volnere amoris, 
 atque ita suspiciens tereti cervice reposta 
 pascit amore avidos inhians in te, dea, visas, 
 eque tuo pendet resupini spiritus ore. 
 hunc tu, diva, tuo recubantem corpore sancto 
 circumfasa super, suavis ex ore loquelas 
 funde petens placidam Eomanis, incluta, pacena. 
 
 In the whole Lucretian treatment of love there is nothing 
 really Greek. We do not hear of Eros, either as the mystic 
 mania of Plato, or as the winged boy of Meleager. Love 
 in Lucretius is something deeper, larger, and more elemental 
 than the Greeks conceived ; a fierce and overmastering 
 force, a natural impulse which men share in common with 
 the world of things. 1 Both the pleasures and the pains of 
 love are conceived on a gigantic scale, and described with 
 an irony that has the growl of a roused lion mingled with its 
 laughter : 
 
 ulcus enim vivescit et inveterascit alendo 
 inque dies gliscit furor atque aerumna gravescit. 
 
 The acts of love and the insanities of passion are 
 viewed from no standpoint of sentiment or soft emotion, 
 but always in relation to philosophical ideas, or as the 
 manifestation of something terrible in human life. Yet they 
 lose nothing thereby in the voluptuous impression left upon 
 the fancy : 
 
 sic in amore Venus simulacris ludit amantis, 
 nee satiare queunt spectando corpora coram 
 nee manibus quicquam teneris abradere membris 
 possunt errantes incerti corpore toto. 
 
 1 A fragment preserved from the Danaides of ^Eschylus has the 
 thought of Aphrodite as the mistress of love in earth and sky and sea and 
 cloud ; and this idea finds a philosophical expression in Empedocles. 
 But the tone of these Greek poets is as different from that of Lucretius 
 as a Greek Hera is from a Eoman Juno.
 
 LUCRETIUS 161 
 
 denique cum membris conlatis flore fruuntur 
 setatis, iam cum praesagit gaudia corpus 
 atque in eost Venus ut muliebria conserat arva, 
 adngunt avide corpus iunguntque salivas 
 oris et inspirant pressantes dentibus ora, 
 nequiquam, quoniam nil inde abradere possunt 
 nee penetrate et abire in corpus corpore toto. 
 
 The master-word in this passage is nequiquam. ' To 
 desire the impossible,' says the Greek proverb, ' is a disease 
 of the soul.' Lucretius, who treats of physical desire as a 
 torment, asserts the impossibility of its perfect satisfaction. 
 There is something almost tragic in these sighs and pantings 
 and pleasure-throes, and incomplete fruitions of souls pent 
 up within their frames of flesh. We seem to see a race of 
 men and women such as have never lived, except perhaps 
 in Rome or in the thought of Michel Angelo, 1 meeting in 
 leonine embracements that yield pain, whereof the climax is, 
 at best, relief from rage and respite for a moment from con- 
 suming fire. There is a life daemonic rather than human in 
 those mighty limbs ; and the passion that bends them on 
 the marriage bed has in it the stress of storms, the rampings 
 and the roarings of leopards at play. Or, take again this 
 single line : 
 
 et Venus in silvis iungebat corpora amantum. 
 
 What a picture of primeval breadth and vastness ! The 
 vice egrillard of Voltaire, the coarse animalism of Rabelais, 
 even the large comic sexuality of Aristophanes, are in another 
 region : for the forest is the world, and the bodies of the 
 lovers are things natural and unashamed, and Venus is the 
 tyrannous instinct that controls the blood in spring. Only a 
 Roman poet could have conceived of passion so mightily and 
 
 1 See, for instance, his meeting of Ixion with the phantom of Juno, 
 or his design for Leda and the Swan. 
 
 Ill M
 
 162 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 so impersonally, expanding its sensuality to suit the scale of 
 Titanic existences, and purging from it both sentiment and 
 spirituality as well as all that makes it mean. 
 
 In like manner, the Lucretian conception of Ennui is 
 wholly Koman : 
 
 Si possent homines, proinde ac sentire videntur 
 pondus inesse animo quod se gravitate fatiget, 
 e quibus id fiat causis quoque noscere et unde 
 tanta mali tamquam moles in pectore constet, 
 haut ita vitam agerent, ut nunc plerumque videmus 
 quid sibi quisque velit nescire et quserere semper 
 commutare locum quasi onus deponere possit. 
 exit saepe foras magnis ex sedibus ille, 
 esse domi quern pertsesumst, subitoque revertit, 
 quippe foris nilo melius qui sentiat esse. 
 currit agens mannos ad villam prsecipitanter, 
 auxilium tectis quasi ferre ardentibus instans ; 
 oscitat extemplo, tetigit cum limina villas, 
 aut abit in somnum gravis atque oblivia quaerit, 
 aut etiam properans urbem petit atque revisit. 
 hoc se quisque modo fugit (at quern scilicet, ut fit, 
 effugere haut potis est, ingratis haeret) et odit 
 propterea, morbi quia causam non tenet aeger ; 
 quarn bene si videat, iam rebus quisque relictis 
 naturam primum studeat cognoscere rerum, 
 temporis aeterni quoniam, non unius horse, 
 arnbigitur status, in quo sit mortalibus omnis 
 setas, post mortem quse restat cumque manenda. 
 
 Virgil would not have written these lines. A Greek poet could 
 not have conceived them : unless we imagine to ourselves what 
 .ZEschylus or Pindar, oppressed by long illness, and forgetful of 
 the gods, might possibly have felt. In its sense of spiritual 
 vacancy, when the world and all its uses have become flat, 
 stale, unprofitable, and the sentient soul oscillates like a pendu- 
 lum between weariful extremes, seeking repose in restless move- 
 ment, and hurling the ruins of a life into the gulf of its exhausted 
 cravings, we perceive already the symptoms of that unnamed
 
 LUCKETIUS 163 
 
 malady which was the plague of imperial Home. The tyrants 
 and the suicides of the Empire expand before our eyes a pageant 
 of their lassitude, relieved in vain by festivals of blood and 
 orgies of unutterable lust. It is not that ennui was a specially 
 Roman disease. Under certain conditions it is sure to afflict 
 all overtaxed civilisation ; and for the modern world no one 
 has expressed its nature better than the slight and feminine 
 De Musset. 1 Indeed, the Latin language has no one phrase 
 denoting Ennui ; livor a,n<l fastidium, and even tcedium vita, 
 meaning something more specific and less all-pervasive as a 
 moral agency. This in itself is significant, since it shows the 
 unconsciousness of the race at large, and renders the intuition 
 of Lucretius all the more remarkable. But in Borne there 
 were the conditions favourable to its development imperfect 
 culture, vehement passions unabsorbed by commerce or by 
 political life, the habituation to extravagant excitement in war 
 and in the circus, and the fermentation of an age foredestined 
 to give birth to new religious creeds. When the infinite but 
 ill-assured power of the Empire was conferred on semi-madmen, 
 Ennui in Rome assumed colossal proportions. Its victims 
 sought for palliatives in cruelty and crime elsewhere unknown, 
 except perhaps in Oriental courts. Lucretius, in the last days 
 of the Republic, had discovered its deep significance for human 
 nature. To all the pictures of Tacitus it forms a solemn 
 tragic background, enhancing, as it were, by spiritual gloom 
 the carnival of passions which gleam so brilliantly upon his 
 canvas. In the person of Caligula, Ennui sat supreme upon 
 the throne of the terraqueous globe. The insane desires and 
 the fantastic deeds of the autocrat who wished one head for 
 humanity that he might cut it off, sufficiently reveal the extent 
 to which his spirit had been gangrened by this ulcer. There 
 
 1 See the prelude to Les Confessions cTun Enfant du Sttcle and Les 
 Nuits. 
 
 u2
 
 164 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 is a simple paragraph in Suetonius which lifts the veil from 
 his imperial unrest more ruthlessly than any legend : 
 ' Incitabatur insomniis maxime ; neque enim plus tribus horis 
 nocturnis quiescebat, ac ne his quidem placida quiete, at pavida 
 miris rerum imaginibus . . . ideoque magna parte noctis, vigilias 
 cubandique tredio, nunc toro residens, nunc per longissimas 
 porticus vagus, invocare identidem atque expectare lucem 
 consueverat.' This is the very picture of Ennui that has 
 become mortal disease. Nor was Nero different. 'Neron,' 
 says Victor Hugo, ' cherche tout simplement une distraction. 
 Poete, comedien, chanteur, cocher, epuisant la ferocite pour 
 trouver la volupte, essayant le changement de sexe, epoux 
 de 1'eunuque Sporus et epouse de 1'esclave Pythagore, et se 
 promenant dans les rues de Eome entre sa femme et son 
 mari ; ayant deux plaisirs : voir le peuple se jeter sur les 
 pieces d'or, les diamants et les perles, et voir les lions se 
 jeter sur le peuple ; incendiaire par curiosite et parricide par 
 desoeuvrement.' Nor need we stop at Nero. Over Vitellius at 
 his banquets, over Hadrian in his Tiburtine villa calling in 
 vain on Death, over Commodus in the arena, and Heliogabalus 
 among the rose-leaves, the same livid shadow of imperial 
 Ennui hangs. We can even see it looming behind the noble 
 form of Marcus Aurelius, who, amid the ruins of empire and 
 the revolutions of belief, penned in his tent among the Quadi 
 those maxims of endurance which were powerless to re- 
 generate the world. 
 
 Roman again, in the true sense of the word, is the Lucre- 
 tian philosophy of Conscience. Christianity has claimed the 
 celebrated imprecation of Persius upon tyrants for her own, 
 as though to her alone belonged the secret of the soul- 
 tormenting sense of guilt. Yet it is certain that we owe to 
 the Romans that conception of sin bearing its own fruit of 
 torment which the Latin Fathers Augustine and Tertullian
 
 LUCKETIUS 165 
 
 imposed with such terrific force upon the mediaeval conscious- 
 ness. There is no need to conclude that Persius was a Chris- 
 tian because he wrote 
 
 Magne pater divum, saevos punire tyrannos, etc., 
 when we know that he had before his eyes that passage in the 
 third book of the ' De Rerum Natura ' (978-1028) which 
 reduces the myths of Tityos and Sisyphus and Cerberus and 
 the Furies to facts of the human soul : 
 
 sed metus in vita poenarum pro male factis 
 
 est insignibus insignis, scelerisque luella. 
 
 career et horribilis de saxo iactu' deorsum. 
 
 verbera carnifices robur pix laraniina taedae ; 
 
 quae taiuen etsi absunt, at mens sibi conscia facti 
 
 prsemetuens adhibet stimulos terretque flagellis 
 
 nee videt interea qui terminus esse malorum 
 
 possit nee quse sit poenarum denique finis 
 
 atque eadem metuit magis hsec ne in morte graveseant. 
 
 The Greeks, by personifying those secret terrors, had removed 
 them into a region of existences separate from man. They 
 became dread goddesses, who might to some extent be pro- 
 pitiated by exorcisms or expiatory rites. This was in strict 
 accordance with the mythopoaic and artistic quality of the 
 Greek intellect. The stern and somewhat prosaic rectitude of 
 the Roman broke through such figments of the fancy, and 
 exposed the sore places of the soul itself. The theory of the 
 Conscience, moreover, is part of the Lucre tian polemic against 
 false notions of the gods and the pernicious belief in hell. 
 
 Positivism and Realism were qualities of Roman as distin- 
 guished from Greek culture. There was no self-delusion in 
 Lucretius no attempt, however unconscious, to compromise 
 unpalatable truth, or to invest philosophy with the charm of 
 myth. A hundred illustrations might be chosen to prove his 
 method of setting forth thought with unadorned simplicity. 
 These, however, are familiar to any one who has but opened
 
 166 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 the ' De Eerum Natura.' It is more profitable to trace this 
 Roman ruggedness in the poet's treatment of the subject which 
 more than any other seems to have preoccupied his intellect 
 and fascinated his imagination that is Death. His poem 
 has been called by a great critic the 'poem of Death.' 
 Shakspere's line 
 
 And Death once dead, there's no more dying then, 
 
 might be written as a motto on the title-page of the book, 
 which is full of passages like this : 
 
 scire licet nobis nil esse in morte timendum 
 nee miserum fieri qui lion est posse neque hilurn 
 differre anne ullo fuerit iani tempore natus, 
 mortalem vitam mors cum imrnortalis ademit. 
 
 His whole mind was steeped in the thought of death ; and 
 though he can hardly be said to have written ' the words that 
 shall make death exhilarating,' he devoted his genius, in all its 
 energy, to removing from before men the terror of the doom 
 that waits for all. Sometimes, in his attempt at consolation, 
 he adduces images which, like the Delphian knife, are double- 
 handled, and cut both ways : 
 
 hinc indignatur se mortalem esse creatum 
 nee videt in vera nullum fore morte alium se 
 qui possit vivus sibi se lugere peremptum 
 stansque iacentem se lacerari urive dolere. 
 
 This suggests, by way of contrast, Blake's picture of the soul 
 that has just left the body and laments her separation. As 
 we read, we are inclined to lay the book down, and wonder 
 whether the argument is, after all, conclusive. May not the 
 spirit, when she has quitted her old house, be forced to weep 
 And wring her hands, and stretch vain shadowy arms to the 
 limbs that were so dear ? No one has felt more profoundly 
 than Lucretius the pathos of the dead. The intensity with
 
 LUCRETIUS 167 
 
 which he realised what we must lose in dying and what we 
 leave behind of grief to those who loved us, reaches a climax 
 of restrained passion in this well-known paragraph : 
 
 ' iam iam non domus accipiet te Iseta, neque uxor 
 optima nee dulces occurrent oscula nati 
 prseripere et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent, 
 non poteris factis florentibus esse, tuisque 
 praesidium. misero misere ' aiunt ' oiunia ademit 
 una dies infesta tibi tot prsemia vitae.' 
 illud in his rebus non addunt ' nee tibi earum 
 iam desiderium rerum super insidet una.' 
 quod bene si videant animo dictisque sequantur, 
 dissoluant animi magno se angore metuque. 
 ' tu quidem ut es leto sopitus, sic eris sevi 
 quod superest cunctis privatu' doloribus aegriff. 
 at nos horrifico cinefactum te prope busto 
 insatiabiliter deflevimus, seternumque 
 nulla dies nobis mserorem e pectore demet.' 
 
 Images, again, of almost mediaeval grotesqueness, rise in 
 his mind when he contemplates the universality of Death. 
 Simonides had dared to say : ' One horrible Charybdis waits 
 for all.' That was as near a discord as a Greek could venture 
 on. Lucretius describes the open gate and ' huge wide-gaping 
 maw ' which must devour heaven, earth, and sea, and all that 
 they contain : 
 
 haut igitur leti prseclusa est ianua cselo 
 nee sob' terrseque neque altis sequoris undis, 
 sed pat et immani et vasto respectat hiatu. 
 
 The ever-during battle of life and death haunts his imagi- 
 nation. Sometimes he sets it forth in philosophical array 
 of argument. Sometimes he touches on the theme with 
 
 elegiac pity : 
 
 miscetur funere vagor 
 quern pueri tollunt visentis huninis oraa ; 
 nee nox ulla diem neque noctern aurora secutast 
 qua non audierit mixtos vagitibus aegris 
 ploratus mortis comites et funeris atri.
 
 168 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Then again he returns, with obstinate persistence, to de- 
 scribe how the dread of death, fortified by false religion, hangs 
 like a pall over humanity, and how the whole world is a ceme- 
 tery overshadowed by cypresses. The most sustained, perhaps, 
 of these passages is at the beginning of the third book (lines 
 81 to 93). The most profoundly melancholy is the descrip- 
 tion of the new-born child (v. 221) : 
 
 quare mors immatura vagatur ? 
 turn porro puer, ut saevis proiectus ab undis 
 navita, nudus humi iacet, infans, indigus omni 
 vitali auxilio, cum primum in luminis oras 
 nixibus ex alvo matris natura profudit, 
 vagituque locum lugubri complet, ut aecumst 
 cui tantum in vita restet transire malorum. 
 
 Disease and old age, as akin to Death, touch his imagina- 
 tion with the same force. He rarely alludes to either with- 
 out some lines as terrible as these (iii. 472, 453) : 
 
 nam dolor ac morbus leti fabricator uterquest. 
 
 claudicat ingenium, delirat lingua, labat mens. 
 
 Another kindred subject affects him with an equal pathos. 
 He sees the rising and decay of nations, age following after 
 age, like waves hurrying to dissolve upon a barren shore, and 
 
 writes (ii. 75) : 
 
 sic rerum summa novatur 
 semper, et inter se mortales mutua vivunt, 
 augescunt aliae gentes, alise rninuuntur, 
 inque brevi spatio mutantur saecla animantum 
 et quasi cursores vitai lampada tradxint. 
 
 Although the theme is really the procession of life through 
 countless generations, it obtains a tone of sadness from the 
 sense of intervenient decay and change. No Greek had the 
 heart thus to dilate his imagination with the very element of 
 death. What the Greeks commemorated when they spoke of 
 Death was the loss of the lyre and the hymeneal chaunt, and
 
 LUCRETIUS 169 
 
 the passage across dim waves to a sunless land. Nor indeed 
 does Lucretius, like the modern poet of Democracy, ascend 
 into the regions of ecstatic trance : 
 
 Lost in the loving, floating ocean of thee, 
 Laved in the flood of thy bliss, Death. 
 
 He keeps his reason cool, and sternly contemplates the thought 
 of the annihilation which awaits all perishable combinations 
 of eternal things. Like Milton, Lucretius delights in giving 
 the life of his imagination to abstractions. Time, with his 
 retinue of ages, sweeps before his vision, and he broods in 
 fancy over the illimitable ocean of the universe. The fascina- 
 tion of the infinite is the quality which, more than any other, 
 separates Lucretius as a Roman poet from the Greeks. 
 
 Another distinctive feature of his poetry Lucretius in- 
 herited as part of his birthright. This is the sense of Roman 
 greatness. It pervades the poem, and may be felt in every 
 part ; although to Athens, and the Greek sages, Dernocritus, 
 Empedocles, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus, and Epicurus, as the 
 fountain-heads of soul-delivering culture, he reserves his most 
 magnificent periods of panegyric. Yet when he would fain 
 persuade his readers that the fear of death is nugatory, and 
 that the future will be to them even as the past, it is the shock 
 of Rome with Carthage that he dwells upon as the critical 
 event of the world's history (iii. 830) : 
 
 Nil igitur mors est ad nos neque pertinet hilum, 
 quandoquidem natura anhm mortalis habetur. 
 et velut anteacto nil tempore sensimus segri, 
 ad confligendum venientibus undique Pcenis, 
 omnia cum belli trepido concussa tumultu 
 horrida contremuere sub altis setheris oria, 
 in dubioque fuere utrorum ad regna cadendum 
 omnibus humanis esset terraque marique, 
 sic: 
 
 The lines in italics could have been written by none but a
 
 170 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Eoman conscious that the conflict with Carthage had decided 
 the absolute empire of the habitable world. In like manner 
 the description of a military review (ii. 323) is Roman : so, 
 too, is that of the amphitheatre (iv. 75) : 
 
 et volgo faciunt id lutea russaque vela 
 et ferrugina, cum magnis intenta theatris 
 per malos volgata trabesque trementia flutant. 
 namque ibi consessum caveai supter et omnem 
 scaenai speciem, patrum coetumque decorum 
 inficiunt coguntque suo fluitare colore. 
 
 The imagination of Lucretius, however, was habitually less 
 affected by the particular than by the universal. He loved to 
 dwell upon the large and general aspects of things on the 
 procession of the seasons, for example, rather than upon the 
 landscape of the Campagna in spring or autumn. Therefore 
 it is only occasionally and by accident that we find in his 
 verse touches peculiarly characteristic of the manners of his 
 country. Therefore, again, it has happened that modern 
 critics have detected a lack of patriotic interest in this most 
 Roman of all Latin poets. Also may it here be remembered, 
 that the single line which sums up all the history of Rome in 
 one soul-shaking hexameter, is not Lucretian but Virgilian : 
 Tantae molis erat Romanam condere gentem. 
 
 The custode of the Baths of Titus, when he lifts his torch 
 to explore those ruined arches, throws the wan light upon one 
 place where a Roman hand has scratched that verse in gigantic 
 letters on the cement. The colossal genius of Rome seems 
 speaking to us, an oracle no lapse of time can render dumb. 
 
 But Lucretius is not only the poet par excellence of Rome. 
 He will always rank also among the first philosophical poets 
 of the world : and here we find a second standpoint for 
 inquiry. The question how far it is practicable to express
 
 LUCRETIUS 171 
 
 philosophy in verse, and to combine the accuracy of scientific 
 language with the charm of rhythm and the ornaments of the 
 fancy, is one which belongs rather to modern than to ancient 
 criticism. In the progress of culture there has been an ever- 
 growing separation between the several spheres of intellectual 
 activity. What Livy said about the Roman Empire is true 
 now of knowledge : magnitudine laborat suA ; so that the 
 labour of specialising and distinguishing has for many cen- 
 turies been all-important. Not only do we disbelieve in the 
 desirability of smearing honey upon the lip of the medicine- 
 glass through which the draught of erudition has to be 
 Administered ; but we know for certain that it is only at the 
 meeting-points between science and emotion that the philo- 
 sophic poet finds a proper sphere. Whatever subject-matter 
 can be permeated or penetrated with strong human feeling 
 is fit for verse. Then the rhythms and the forms of poetry 
 to which high passions naturally move, become spontaneous. 
 The emotion is paramount, and the knowledge conveyed 
 is valuable as supplying fuel to the fire of feeling. There 
 are, were, and always will be high imaginative points of 
 vantage commanding the broad fields of knowledge, upon 
 which the poet may take his station to survey the world and all 
 that it contains. But it has long ceased to be his function to 
 set forth, in any kind of metre, systems of speculative thought 
 or purely scientific truths. This was not the case in the old 
 world. There was a period in the development of the intellect 
 when the abstractions of logic appeared like intuitions, and 
 guesses about the structure of the universe still wore the 
 garb of fancy. When physics and metaphysics were scarcely 
 distinguished from mythology, it was natural to address the 
 Muses at the outset of a treatise of ontology, and to cadence 
 a theory of elemental substances in hexameter verse. Thus 
 the philosophical poems of Xenophanes, Parmenides, and
 
 172 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Empedocles belonged essentially to a transitional stage of 
 human culture. 
 
 There is a second species of poetry to which the name 
 of philosophical may be given, though it better deserves that 
 of mystical. Pantheism occupies a middle place between a 
 scientific theory of the universe and a form of religious enthu- 
 siasm. It supplies an element in which the poetic faculty can 
 move with freedom : for its conclusions, in so far as they 
 pretend to philosophy, are large and general, and the emotions 
 which it excites are co-extensive with the world. Therefore, 
 Pantheistic mysticism, from the Bhagavadgita of the far East, 
 through the Persian Soofis, down to the poets of our own 
 century, Goethe, and Shelley, and Wordsworth, and Whitman, 
 and many more whom it would be tedious to enumerate, has 
 generated a whole tribe of philosophic singers. 
 
 Yet a third class may be mentioned. Here we have to deal 
 with what are called didactic poems. These, like the metaphy- 
 sical epic, began to flourish in early Greece at the moment 
 when exact thought was dividing itself laboriously from myths 
 and fancies. Hesiod with his poem on the life of man leads 
 the way ; and the writers of moral sentences in elegiac verse, 
 among whom Solon and Theognis occupy the first place, 
 follow. Latin literature contributes highly artificial specimens 
 of this kind in the ' Georgics ' of Virgil, the stoical diatribes of 
 Persius, and the ' Ars Poetica ' of Horace. Didactic verse had 
 a special charm for the genius of the Latin race. The name 
 of such poems in the Italian literature of the Eenaissance is 
 legion. The French delighted in the same style under the 
 same influences ; nor can we fail to attribute the ' Essay on 
 Man ' and the ' Essay on Criticism ' of our own Pope to a 
 similar revival in England of Latin forms of art. The taste 
 for didactic verse has declined. Yet in its stead another sort of 
 philosophical poetry has grown up in this century, which, for
 
 LUCRETIUS 173 
 
 the want of a better term, may be called psychological. It 
 deserves this title, inasmuch as the motive-interest of the art 
 in question is less the passion or the action of humanity than 
 the analysis of the same. The ' Faust ' of Goethe, the 
 ' Prelude ' and ' Excursion ' of Wordsworth, Browning's ' Sor- 
 dello ' and Mrs. Browning's ' Aurora Leigh,' together with the 
 ' Musings ' of Coleridge and the ' In Memoriam ' of Tennyson, 
 may be roughly reckoned in this class. It will be noticed that 
 nothing has been said about professedly religious poetry, much 
 of which attaches itself to mysticism, while some, like the 
 ' Divine Comedy ' of Dante, is philosophic in the truest sense 
 of the word. 
 
 Where, then, are we to place Lucretius ? He was a Roman, 
 imbued with the didactic predilections of the Latin race ; and 
 the didactic quality of the ' De Rerum Natura ' is unmistakable. 
 Yet it would be uncritical to place this poem in the class which 
 derives from Hesiod. It belongs really to the succession of 
 Xenophanes, Parmenides, and Empedocles. As such it was 
 an anachronism. The specific moment hi the development of 
 thought at which the Parmenidean Epic was natural has been 
 already described. The Romans of the age of Lucretius had 
 advanced far beyond it. The idealistic metaphysics of the 
 Socratic school, the positive ethics of the Stoics, and the pro- 
 found materialism of Epicurus, had accustomed the mind to 
 habits of exact and subtle thinking, prolonged from generation 
 to generation upon the same lines of speculative inquiry. 
 Philosophy expressed in verse was out of date. Moreover, the 
 very myths had been rationalised. Euhemerus had even been 
 translated into Latin by Ennius, and his prosaic explanations 
 of Greek legend had found acceptance with the essentially 
 positive Roman intellect. Lucretius himself, it may be said 
 in passing, thought it worth while to offer a philosophical 
 explanation of the Greek mythology. The Cybele of the poets
 
 174 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 is shown in one of his sublimest passages (ii. 600-645) to be 
 Earth. To call the sea Neptune, corn Ceres, and wine Bacchus, 
 seems to him a simple folly (ii. 652-657). We have already 
 seen how he reduces the fiends and spectres of the Greek 
 Hades to facts of moral subjectivity (iii. 978-1023). In 
 another place he attacks the worship of Phoebus and the stars 
 (v. 110) ; in yet another he upsets the belief in the Centaurs, 
 Scylla, and Chimaera (v. 877-924) with a gravity which is 
 almost comic. Such arguments formed a necessary element in 
 his polemic against foul religion (foeda religio turpis religio) ; 
 to deliver men from which (i. 62-112), by establishing firmly 
 in their minds the conviction that the gods exist far away 
 from this world in unconcerned tranquillity (ii. 646), and by 
 substituting the notion of Nature for that of deity (ii. 1090), 
 was the object of his scientific demonstration. 
 
 Lucretius, therefore, had outgrown mythology, was hostile 
 to religion, and burned with unsurpassable enthusiasm to in- 
 doctrinate his Roman readers with the weighty conclusions of 
 systematised materialism. Yet he chose the vehicle of hexa- 
 meter verse, and trammelled his genius with limitations which 
 Empedocles, four hundred years before, must have found 
 almost intolerable. It needed the most ardent intellectual 
 passion and the loftiest inspiration to sustain on his far flight 
 a poet who had forged a hoplite's panoply for singing robes. 
 Both passion and inspiration were granted to Lucretius in full 
 measure. And just as there was something contradictory 
 between the scientific subject-matter and the poetical form of 
 his masterpiece, so the very sources of his poetic strength were 
 such as are usually supposed to depress the soul. His passion 
 was for death, annihilation, godlessness. It was not the 
 eloquence, but the force of logic in Epicurus that roused his 
 enthusiasm : 
 
 ergo vivida vis aniini pervicit et extra 
 processit longe flarninantia mcenia mundi.
 
 LUCRETIUS 175 
 
 No other poet who ever lived in any age, or any shore, drew 
 inspiration from founts more passionless and more imper- 
 sonal. 
 
 The ' De Berum Natura ' is therefore an attempt, unique 
 in its kind, to combine philosophical exposition and poetry in 
 an age when the requirements of the former had already out- 
 grown the resources of the latter. Throughout the poem we 
 trace a discord between the matter and the form. The frost 
 of reason and the fire of fancy war in deadly conflict ; for the 
 Lucretian system destroyed nearly everything with which the 
 classical imagination loved to play. It was only in some high 
 ethereal region, before the majestic thought of Death or the 
 new Myth of Nature, that the two faculties of the poet's genius 
 met for mutual support. Only at rare intervals did he allow 
 himself to make artistic use of mere mythology, as in the cele- 
 brated exordium of the first book, or the description of the 
 Seasons in the fifth book (787-745). For the most part reason 
 and fancy worked separately : after long passages of scientific 
 explanation, Lucretius indulged his readers with those pictures 
 of unparalleled sublimity and grace which are the charm of 
 the whole poem ; or dropping the phraseology of atoms, void, 
 motion, chance, he spoke at times of Nature as endowed with 
 reason and a will (v. 186, 811, 846). 
 
 It would be beyond the scope of this essay to discuss the 
 particular form given by Lucretius to the Democritean philo- 
 sophy. He believed the universe to be composed of atoms, 
 infinite in number, and variable, to a finite extent, in form, 
 which drift slantingly through an infinite void. Their com- 
 binations under the conditions of what we call space and 
 time are transitory, while they remain themselves imperish- 
 able. Consequently, as the soul itself is corporeally con- 
 stituted, and as thought and sensation depend on mere 
 material idola, men may divest themselves of any fear of the 
 hereafter. There is no such thing as providence, nor do the
 
 176 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 gods concern themselves with the kaleidoscopic medley of 
 atoms in transient combination which we call our world. The 
 latter were points of supreme interest to Lucretius. He seems 
 to have cared for the cosmology of Epicurus chiefly as it touched 
 humanity through ethics and religion. To impartial observers, 
 the identity or the divergence of the forms assumed by 
 scientific hypothesis at different periods of the world's history 
 is not a matter of much importance. Yet a peculiar interest 
 has of late been given to the Lucretian materialism by the 
 fact that physical speculation has returned to what is substan- 
 tially the same ground. The most modern theories of evolution 
 and of molecular structure may be stated in language which, 
 allowing for the progress made by exact thought during the 
 last twenty centuries, is singularly like that of Lucretius. 
 The Roman poet knew fewer facts than are familiar to our 
 men of science, and was far less able to analyse one puzzle 
 into a whole group of unexplained phenomena. He had 
 besides but a feeble grasp upon those discoveries which sub- 
 serve the arts of life and practical utility. But as regards 
 absolute knowledge knowledge, that is to say, of what the 
 universe really is, and of how it became what it seems to us 
 to be Lucretius stood at the same point of ignorance as we, 
 after the labours of Darwin and of Spencer, of Helmholtz and 
 of Huxley, still do. Ontological speculation is as barren now 
 as then, and the problems of existence still remain insoluble. 
 The chief difference indeed between him and modern investi- 
 gators is that they have been lessoned by the experience of 
 the last two thousand years to know better the depths of 
 human ignorance, and the directions in which it is possible to 
 sound them. 
 
 It may not be uninteresting to collect a few passages in 
 which the Koman poet has expressed in his hexameters the 
 lines of thought adopted by our most advanced theorists.
 
 LUCRETIUS 177 
 
 Here is the general conception of Nature, working by her own 
 laws toward the achievement of that result which we appre- 
 hend through the medium of the senses (ii. 1090) : 
 
 Quse bene cognita si teneas, natura videtur 
 libera continue dominis privata superbis 
 ipsa sna per se sponte omnia dis agere expers. 
 
 Here again is a demonstration of the absurdity of supposing 
 that the world was made for the use of men (v. 156) : 
 
 dicere porro hominum causa voluisse parare 
 prseclaram mundi naturam proptereaque 
 adlaudabile opus divoni laudare decere 
 seternumque putare atque inmortale futurum 
 nee fas esse, deum quod sit ratione vetusta 
 gentibus hiiruanis fundatum perpetuo aevo, 
 sollicitare suis ulla vi ex sedibus umquam 
 nee verbis vexare et ab imo evertere summa, 
 cetera de genere hoc adfingere et addere, Memmi, 
 desiperest. 
 
 A like cogent rhetoric is directed against the arguments of 
 teleology (iv. 828) : 
 
 Hlud in his rebus vitium vementer avessis 
 effugere, errorem vitareque praemetuenter, 
 lumina ne facias oculorum clara creata, 
 prospicere ut possemus, et ut proferre queamus 
 proceros passus, ideo fastigia posse 
 surarum ac feiuinuin pedibus fundata plicari, 
 bracchia turn porro validis ex apta lacertis 
 esse manusque datas utraqne ex parte ministras, 
 ut facere ad vitam possemus quae foret usus. 
 cetera de genere hoc inter quaecumque pretantur 
 omnia perversa prsepostera sunt ratione, 
 nil ideo quoniam natumst in corpore ut uti 
 possemus, sed quod natumst id procreat usum. 
 nee fuit ante videre oculorum lumina nata 
 nee dictis orare prius quaru lingua creatast, 
 sed potius longe linguae prsecessit origo 
 sermoneru multoque creatae sunt prius aures 
 III N
 
 178 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 quam sonus est auditus, et omnia denique membra 
 ante fuere, ut opinor, eorum quam foret usus. 
 baud igitur potuere utendi crescere causa. 
 
 The ultimate dissolution and the gradual decay of the ter- 
 restrial globe is set forth in the following luminous passage 
 (ii. 1148) : 
 
 Sic igitur magni quoque circum mcenia mundi 
 expugnata dabunt labem putrisque ruinas. 
 iamque adeo fracta est aetas effetaque tellus 
 vix animalia parva creat quae cuncta creavit 
 saecla deditque ferarum ingentia corpora partu. 1 
 
 The same mind which recognised these probabilities knew 
 also that our globe is not single, but that it forms one among 
 an infinity of sister orbs (ii. 1084) : 
 
 quapropter caelum simili ratione fatendumst 
 terramque et solem lunam mare, cetera quae sunt 
 non ease unica, sed numero magis innumerali. 2 
 
 When Lucretius takes upon himself to describe the process 
 of becoming which made the world what it now is, he seems 
 to incline to a theory not at all dissimilar to that of unassisted 
 evolution (v. 419) : 
 
 nam certe neque consilio primordia rerum 
 ordine se suo quaeque sagaci mente locarunt 
 nee quos quaeque darent motus pepigere profecto, 
 sed quia multa modis multis primordia rerum 
 ex infinite iam tempore percita plagis 
 ponderibusque suis consuerunt concita ferri 
 omnimodisque coire atque omnia pertemptare, 
 quaecumque inter se possent congressa creare, 
 propterea fit uti magnum volgata per aevom 
 omne genus ccetus et motus experiundo 
 
 1 Compare book v. 306-317 on the evidences of decay continually at 
 work in the fabric of the world. 
 
 2 The same truth is insisted on with even greater force of language in 
 vi. 649-652.
 
 * 
 LUCRETIUS 179 
 
 tandem conveniant ea quse convecta repente 
 magnarum rerum fiunt exordia esepe, 
 terrai maris et cseli generisque aniinantum. 
 
 Entering into the details of the process, he describes the 
 many ill-formed, amorphous beginnings of organised life upon 
 the globe, which came to nothing, ' since nature set a ban 
 upon their increase ' (v. 687-848) ; and then proceeds to ex- 
 plain how, in the struggle for existence, the stronger prevailed 
 over the weaker (v. 855-863). What is really interesting in 
 this exposition is that Lucretius ascribes to nature the volition 
 (' convertebat ibi natura foramina terrae ; ' ' quoniam natura 
 absterruit auctum ') which has recently been attributed by 
 materialistic speculators to the same maternal power. 
 
 To press these points, and to neglect the gap which sepa- 
 rates Lucretius from thinkers fortified by the discoveries of 
 modern chemistry, astronomy, physiology, and so forth, would 
 be childish. All we can do is to point to the fact that the cir- 
 cumambient atmosphere of human ignorance, with reference 
 to the main matters of speculation, remains undissipated. 
 The mass of experience acquired since the age of Lucretius is 
 enormous, and is infinitely valuable ; while our power of tabu- 
 lating, methodising, and extending the sphere of experimental 
 knowledge seems to be unlimited. Only ontological deduc- 
 tions, whether negative or affirmative, remain pretty much 
 where they were then. 
 
 The fame of Lucretius, however, rests not on this founda- 
 tion of hypothesis. In his poetry lies the secret of a charm 
 which he will continue to exercise as long as humanity chooses 
 to read Latin verse. No poet has created a world of larger 
 and nobler images, designed with the sprezzatura of indif- 
 ference to mere gracefulness, but all the more fascinating 
 because of the artist's negligence. There is something monu- 
 mental in the effect produced by his large- sounding single 
 
 I
 
 180 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 epithets and simple names. We are at home with the 
 daemonic life of nature when he chooses to bring Pan and his 
 following before our eyes (iv. 580). Or, again, the Seasons 
 pass like figures on some frieze of Mantegna, to which, by 
 divine accident, has been added the glow of Titian's colouring 1 
 (v. 737) : 
 
 it ver et Venus, et veris praenuntius ante 
 pennatus graditur zephyrus, vestigia propter 
 Flora quibus mater praespargens ante viai 
 cuncta coloribus egregiis et odoribus opplet. 
 inde loci sequitur calor aridus et comes una 
 pulverulenta Ceres et etesia flabra aquilonum, 
 inde aiitumnus adit, graditur simul Euhius Euan, 
 inde aliae tempestates ventique secuntur, 
 altitonans Volturnus et auster fulruine pollens, 
 tandem bruma nives adfert pigrumque rigorem, 
 prodit hiemps, sequitur crepitans hanc dentibus algor. 
 
 With what a noble style, too, are the holidays of the 
 primeval pastoral folk described (v. 1379-1404). It is no 
 mere celebration of the bell' eta dell 1 oro : but we see the 
 woodland glades, and hear the songs of shepherds, and feel 
 the hush of summer among rustling forest trees, while at the 
 same time all is far away, in a better, simpler, larger age. 
 The sympathy of Lucretius for every form of country life was 
 very noticeable. It belonged to that which was most deeply 
 and sincerely poetic in the Latin genius, whence Virgil drew 
 his sweetest strain of melancholy, and Horace his most 
 unaffected pictures, and Catullus the tenderness of his best 
 lines on Sirmio. No Roman surpassed the pathos with which 
 
 1 The elaborate illustration of the first four lines of this passage, 
 painted by Botticelli (in the Florence Academy of Fine Arts), proves 
 Botticelli's incapacity or unwillingness to deal with the subject in the 
 spirit of the original. It is graceful and ' subtle ' enough, but not 
 Lucretian.
 
 LUCRETIUS 181 
 
 Lucretius described the separation of a cow from her calf 
 (ii. 352-365). The same note indeed was touched by Virgil 
 in his lines upon the forlorn nightingale, and in the pero- 
 ration to the third ' Georgic.' But the style of Virgil is more 
 studied, the feeling more artistically elaborated. It would be 
 difficult to parallel such Lucretian passages in Greek poetry. 
 The Greeks lacked an undefinable something of rusticity which 
 dignified the Latin race. This quality was not altogether dif- 
 ferent from what we call homeliness. Looking at the busts of 
 Romans, and noticing their resemblance to English country 
 gentlemen, I have sometimes wondered whether the Latin 
 genius, just in those points where it differed from the Greek, 
 was not approximated to the English. 
 
 All subjects needing a large style, brief and rapid, but at 
 the same time luminous with imagination, were sure of the 
 right treatment from Lucretius. This is shown by his enume- 
 ration of the celestial signs (v. 1188) : 
 
 in cseloque deum sedes et templa locarunt, 
 per cselum volvi quia nox et luna videtur, 
 luna dies et nox et noctis signa severa 
 noctivagseque faces cseli flainmaeque volantes, 
 nubila sol imbres nix venti fulmina grando 
 et rapid! fremitus et murmura magna niinaruru. 
 
 Again, he never failed to rise to an occasion which required 
 the display of fervid eloquence. The Roman eloquence, which 
 in its energetic volubility was the chief force of Juvenal, added 
 a tidal strength and stress of storm to the quick gathering 
 thoughts of the greater poet. The exordia to the first and 
 second books, the analysis of Love in the fourth, the praises of 
 Epicurus in the third and fifth, the praises of Empedocles and 
 Ennius in the first, the elaborate passage on the progress of 
 civilisation in the fifth, and the description of the plague at
 
 182 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Athens which closes the sixth, are noble instances of the sub- 
 limest poetry sustained and hurried onward by the volume 
 of impassioned improvisation. It is difficult to imagine that 
 Lucretius wrote slowly. The strange word vociferari, which 
 he uses so often, and which the Eomans of the Augustan age 
 almost dropped from their poetic vocabulary, seems exactly 
 made to suit his utterance. Yet at times he tempers the full 
 torrent of resonant utterance with divine tranquillity, and 
 leaves upon our mind that sense of powerful aloofness from 
 his subject, which only belongs to the mightiest poets in their 
 most majestic moments. One instance of this rare felicity of 
 style shall end the list of our quotations (v. 1194) : 
 
 genus infelix humanurn, talia divis 
 
 cum tribuit facta atque iras adiunxit acerbas ! 
 
 quantos turn gemitus ipsi sibi, quantaque nobis 
 
 volnera, quas lacrimas peperere minoribu' nostris ! 
 
 nee pietas ullast velatum saepe videri 
 
 vertier ad lapidem atque omnis accedere ad aras 
 
 nee procumbere hunai prostraturn et pandere palmas 
 
 ante deum delubra nee aras sanguine niulto 
 
 spargere quadrupedum nee votis nectere vota, 
 
 sed rnage pacata posse omnia inente tueri. 
 
 nam curn suspicinius magni caelestia mundi 
 
 templa, super stellisque niicantibus sethera fixum, 
 
 et venit in rnentem solis lunseque viarum, 
 
 tune aliis oppressa malis in pectora cura 
 
 ilia quoque expergefactum caput erigere infit, 
 
 ne quse forte deum nobis inmensa potestas 
 
 sit, vario motu quae Candida sidera verset. 
 
 temptat enim dubiam mentem rationis egestas, 
 
 ecquaenam fuerit mundi genitalis origo, 
 
 et simul ecquse sit finis, quoad mcenia mundi 
 
 solliciti motus hunc possint ferre laborena, 
 
 an divinitus aeterna donata salute 
 
 perpetuo possint aevi labentia tractu 
 
 inmensi validas aevi contemnere viris. 
 
 It would be impossible to adduce from any other poet a
 
 LUCRETIUS 183 
 
 passage in which the deepest doubts and darkest terrors and 
 most vexing questions that beset the soul, are touched with an 
 eloquence more stately and a pathos more sublime. Without 
 losing the sense of humanity, we are carried off into the 
 infinite. Such poetry is as imperishable as the subject of 
 which it treats.
 
 184 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 ANTINOUS 
 
 VISITORS to picture and sculpture galleries are haunted by the 
 forms of two handsome young men Sebastian and Antinous. 
 Both were saints : the one of decadent Paganism, the other of 
 mythologising Christianity. According to the popular beliefs 
 to which they owed their canonisation, both suffered death in 
 the bloom of earliest manhood for the faith that burned in 
 them. There is, however, this difference between the two 
 that whereas Sebastian is a shadowy creature of the pious 
 fancy, Antinous preserves a marked and unmistakable per- 
 sonality. All his statues are distinguished by unchanging 
 characteristics. The pictures of Sebastian vary according to 
 the ideal of adolescent beauty conceived by each successive 
 artist. In the frescoes of Perugino and Luini he shines with 
 the pale pure light of saintliness. On the canvas of Sodoma 
 he reproduces the voluptuous charm of youthful Bacchus, 
 with so much of anguish in his martyred features as may 
 serve to heighten his daemonic fascination. On the richer 
 panels of the Venetian masters he glows with a flame of 
 earthly passion aspiring heavenward. Under Guide's hand 
 he is a model of mere carnal comeliness. And so forth 
 through the whole range of the Italian painters. We know 
 Sebastian only by his arrows. The case is very different with 
 Antinous. Depicted under diverse attributes as Hermes of 
 the wrestling-ground, as Aristaeus or Vertumnus, as Dionysus, 
 as Ganymede, as Herakles, or as a god of ancient Egypt 
 his individuality is always prominent. No metamorphosis of
 
 ANTINOUS 185 
 
 divinity can change the lineaments he wore on earth. And 
 this difference, so marked in the artistic presentation of the 
 two saints, is no less striking in their several histories. The 
 legend of Sebastian tells us nothing to be relied upon, except 
 that he was a Roman soldier converted to the Christian faith, 
 and martyred. In spite of the perplexity and mystery that 
 involve the death of Antinous in impenetrable gloom, he is a 
 true historic personage, no phantom of myth, but a man as 
 real as Hadrian, his master. 
 
 Antinous, as he appears in sculpture, is a young man of 
 eighteen or nineteen years, almost faultless in his form. His 
 beauty is not of a pure Greek type. Though perfectly pro- 
 portioned and developed by gymnastic exercises to the true 
 athletic fulness, his limbs are round and florid, suggesting 
 the possibility of early over-ripeness. The muscles are not 
 trained to sinewy firmness, but yielding and elastic ; the chest 
 is broad and singularly swelling ; and the shoulders are placed 
 so far back from the thorax that the breasts project beyond 
 them in a massive arch. It has been asserted that one 
 shoulder is slightly lower than the other. Some of the busts 
 seem to justify this statement ; but the appearance is due 
 probably to the different position of the two arms, one of 
 which, if carried out, would be lifted and the other be depressed. 
 The legs and arms are modelled with exquisite grace of outline ; 
 yet they do not show that readiness for active service which is 
 noticeable in the statues of the Meleager, the Apoxyomenos, 
 or the Belvedere Hermes. The whole body combines Greek 
 beauty of structure with something of Oriental voluptuousness. 
 The same fusion of diverse elements may be traced in the 
 head. It is not too large, though more than usually broad, 
 and is nobly set upon a massive throat, slightly inclined for- 
 wards, as though this posture were habitual; the hair lies 
 thick in clusters, which only form curls at the tips. The fore-
 
 186 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 head is low and somewhat square ; the eyebrows are level, 
 of a peculiar shape, and very thick, converging so closely as 
 almost to meet above the deep-cut eyes. The nose is straight, 
 but blunter than is consistent with the Greek ideal. Both 
 cheeks and chin are delicately formed, but fuller than a severe 
 taste approves : one might trace in their rounded contours 
 either a survival of infantine innocence and immaturity, or 
 else the sign of rapidly approaching over-bloom. The mouth 
 is one of the loveliest ever carved ; but here again the blend- 
 ing of the Greek and Oriental types is visible. The lips, half 
 parted, seem to pout ; and the distance between mouth and 
 nostrils is exceptionally short. The undefinable expression of 
 the lips, together with the weight of the brows and slumberous 
 half-closed eyes, gives a look of sulkiness or voluptuousness 
 to the whole face. This, I fancy, is the first impression which 
 the portraits of Antinous produce ; and Shelley has well con- 
 veyed it by placing the two following phrases, ' eager and 
 impassioned tenderness ' and ' effeminate sullenness,' in close 
 juxtaposition. 1 But, after longer familiarity with the whole 
 range of Antinous's portraits, and after study of his life, we 
 are brought to read the peculiar expression of his face and 
 form somewhat differently. A prevailing melancholy, sweet- 
 ness of temperament overshadowed by resignation, brooding 
 reverie, the innocence of youth touched and saddened by a 
 calm resolve or an accepted doom such are the sentences we 
 form to give distinctness to a still vague and uncertain im- 
 pression. As we gaze, Virgil's lines upon the young Marcellus 
 recur to our mind : what seemed sullen, becomes mournful ; 
 the unmistakable voluptuousness is transfigured in tranquillity. 
 After all is said and written, the statues of Antinous do 
 not render up their secret. Like some of the Egyptian gods 
 with whom he was associated, he remains for us a sphinx, 
 1 Fragment, Tlie Coliseum.
 
 ANTINOUS 187 
 
 secluded in the shade of a ' mild mystery.' His soul, like the 
 Harpocrates he personated, seems to hold one finger on closed 
 lips, in token of eternal silence. One thing, however, is 
 certain. We have before us no figment of the artistic imagi- 
 nation, but a real youth of incomparable beauty, just as nature 
 made him, with all the inscrutableness of undeveloped cha- 
 racter, with all the pathos of a most untimely doom, with the 
 almost imperceptible imperfections that render choice reality 
 more permanently charming than the ideal. It has been dis- 
 puted whether the Antinous statues are portraits or idealised 
 works of inventive art ; and it is usually conceded that the 
 sculptors of Hadrian's age were not able to produce a new 
 ideal type. Critics, therefore, like Helbig and Overbeck, 
 arrive at the conclusion that Antinous was one of nature's 
 masterpieces, modelled in bronze, marble, and granite with 
 almost flawless technical dexterity. Without attaching too 
 much weight to this kind of criticism, it is well to find the 
 decisions of experts in harmony with the instincts of simple 
 observers. Antinous is as real as any man who ever sat for 
 his portrait to a modern sculptor. 
 
 But who was Antinous, and what is known of him ? He 
 was a native of Bithynium or Claudiopolis, a Greek town 
 claiming to have been a colony from Arcadia, which was 
 situated near the Sangarius, in the Eoman province of 
 Bithynia ; therefore he may have had pure Hellenic blood in 
 his veins, or, what is more probable, his ancestry may have 
 been hybrid between the Greek immigrants and the native 
 populations of Asia Minor. Antinous was probably born in 
 the first decade of the second century of our era. About his 
 youth and education we know nothing. He first appears upon 
 the scene of the world's history as Hadrian's friend. Whether 
 the Emperor met with him during his travels in Asia Minor, 
 whether he found him among the students of the University at
 
 188 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Athens, or whether the boy had been sent to Rome in his child- 
 hood, must remain matter of the merest conjecture. We do not 
 even know for certain whether Antinous was free or a slave. The 
 report that he was one of the Emperor's pages rests upon the 
 testimony of Hegesippus, quoted by a Christian Father, and 
 cannot therefore be altogether relied upon. It receives, how- 
 ever, some confirmation from the fact that Antinous is more 
 than once represented in the company of Hadrian and Trajan 
 in a page's hunting dress upon the basreliefs which adorn the 
 Arch of Constantine. The so-called Antinous-Castor of the 
 Villa Albani is probably of a similar character. Winckelmann, 
 who adopted the tradition as trustworthy, pointed out the 
 similarity between the portraits of Antinous and some lines in 
 Phasdrus, which describe a curly-haired atriensis. If Antinous 
 took the rank of atriensis in the imperial pcedagogium, his 
 position would have been, to say the least, respectable ; for to 
 these upper servants was committed the charge of the atrium, 
 where the Romans kept their family archives, portraits, and 
 works of art. Yet he must have quitted this kind of service 
 some time before his death, since we find him in the company 
 of Hadrian upon one of those long journeys in which an 
 atriensis would have had no atrium to keep. By the time of 
 Hadrian's visit to Egypt, Antinous had certainly passed into 
 the closest relationship with his imperial master ; and what 
 we know of the Emperor's inclination towards literary and 
 philosophical society perhaps justifies the belief that the youth 
 he admitted to his friendship had imbibed Greek culture, 
 and had been initiated into those cloudy metaphysics which 
 amused the leisure of semi-Oriental thinkers in the last age 
 of decaying Paganism. 
 
 It was a moment in the history of the human mind when 
 East and West were blending their traditions to form the husk 
 of Christian creeds and the fantastic visions of neo-Platonism.
 
 ANTINOUS 189 
 
 Koine herself had received with rapture the strange rites of 
 Nilotic and of Syrian superstition. Alexandria was the forge 
 of fanciful imaginations, the majority of which were destined 
 to pass like vapours and leave not a wrack behind, while a 
 few fastened with the force of dogma on the conscience of 
 awakening Christendom. During Hadrian's reign it was still 
 uncertain which among the many hybrid products of that 
 motley age would live and flourish ; and the Emperor, we 
 know, dreamed fondly of reviving the cults and restoring the 
 splendour of degenerate Hellas. At the same time he was 
 not averse to the more mystic rites of Egypt : in his villa at 
 Tivoli he built a Serapeum, and named one of its quarters 
 Canopus. What part Antinous may have taken in the projects 
 of his friend and master we know not ; yet, when we come to 
 consider the circumstances of his death, it may not be super- 
 fluous to have thus touched upon the intellectual conditions 
 of the world in which he lived. The mixed blood of the 
 boy, born and bred in a Greek city near the classic ground 
 of Dindymean rites, and his beauty, blent of Hellenic and 
 Eastern qualities, may also not unprofitably be remembered. 
 In such a youth, nurtured between Greece and Asia, admitted 
 to the friendship of an emperor for whom neo-Hellenism was 
 a life's dream in the midst of grave state-cares, influenced by 
 the dark and symbolical creeds of a dimly apprehended East, 
 might there not have lurked some spark of enthusiasm com- 
 bining the impulses of Atys and Aristogeiton, pathetic even 
 in its inefficiency when judged by the light of modern know- 
 ledge, but heroic at that moment in its boundless vista of great 
 deeds to be accomplished ? 
 
 After journeying through Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, 
 Palestine, and Arabia, Hadrian, attended by Antinous, came 
 to Egypt. He there restored the tomb of Pompey, near 
 Pelusium, with great magnificence, and shortly afterwards
 
 190 SKETCHES A3D STUDIES IN ITALY AND GBEECE 
 
 embarked from Alexandria upon the Nile, proceeding on his 
 journey through Memphis into the Thebaid. When he had 
 arrived near an ancient city named Besa, on the right bank 
 of the river, he lost his friend. Antinous was drowned in the 
 Nile. He had thrown himself, it was believed, into the water ; 
 seeking thus by a voluntary death to substitute his own life 
 for Hadrian's, and to avert predicted perils from the Roman 
 Empire. What these perils were, and whether Hadrian was 
 ill, or whether an oracle had threatened him with approach- 
 ing calamity, we do not know. Even supposition is at fault, 
 because the date of the event is still uncertain ; some authori- 
 ties placing Hadrian's Egyptian journey in the year 122, and 
 others in the year 130 A.D. Of the two dates, the second 
 seems the more probable. We are left to surmise that, if 
 the Emperor was in danger, the recent disturbances which 
 followed a new discovery of Apis, may have exposed him to 
 fanatical conspiracy. The same doubt affects an ingenious 
 conjecture that rumours which reached the Roman court of a 
 new rising in Judaea had disturbed the Emperor's mind, and 
 led to the belief that he was on the verge of a mysterious 
 doom. He had pacified the Empire and established its 
 administration on a solid basis. Yet the revolt of the in- 
 domitable Jews more dreaded since the days of Titus than 
 any other perturbation of the imperial economy would have 
 been enough, especially in Egypt, to engender general uneasi- 
 ness. However this may have been, the grief of the Emperor, 
 intensified either by gratitude or remorse, led to the immediate 
 canonisation of Antinous. The city where he died was re- 
 built, and named after him. His worship as a hero and as a 
 god spread far and wide throughout the provinces of the 
 Mediterranean. A new star, which appeared about the time 
 of his decease, was supposed to be his soul received into the 
 company of the immortals. Medals were struck in his honour,
 
 ANTINOUS 191 
 
 and countless works of art were produced to make his memory 
 undying. Great cities wore wreaths of red lotos on his feast- 
 day in commemoration of the manner of his death. Public 
 games were celebrated in his honour at the city Antinoe, and 
 also in Arcadian Mantinea. This canonisation may probably 
 have taken place in the fourteenth year of Hadrian's reign, 
 A.D. ISO. 1 Antinous continued to be worshipped until the 
 reign of Valentinian. 
 
 Thus far I have told a simple story, as though the details 
 of the youth's last days were undisputed. Still we are as yet 
 but on the threshold of the subject. All that we have any 
 right to take for uncontested is that Antinous passed from 
 this life near the city of Besa, called thereafter Antinoopolis or 
 Antinoe. Whether he was drowned by accident, whether he 
 drowned himself in order to save Hadrian by vicarious suffer- 
 ing, or whether Hadrian sacrificed him in order to extort the 
 secrets of fate from blood -propitiated deities, remains a ques- 
 tion buried in the deepest gloom. With a view to throwing 
 such light as is possible upon the matter, we must proceed 
 to summon in their order the most trustworthy authorities 
 among the ancients. 
 
 Dion Cassius takes precedence. In compiling his life 
 of Hadrian, he had beneath his eyes the Emperor's own 
 ' Commentaries,' published under the name of the freedman 
 Phlegon. We therefore learn from him at least what the 
 
 1 Overbeck, Hausrath, and Mommsen, following apparently the con- 
 clusions arrived at by Flemmer in his work on Hadrian's journeys, place 
 it in 130 A.D. This would leave an interval of only eight years between 
 the deaths of Antinous and Hadrian. It may here be observed that two 
 medals of Antinous, referred by Rasche with some hesitation to the 
 Egyptian series, bear the dates of the eighth and ninth years of Hadrian's 
 reign. If these coins are genuine, and if we accept Flemmer's conclu- 
 sions, they must have been struck in the lifetime of Antinous. Neither 
 of them represents Antinous with the insignia of deity : one gives the 
 portrait of Hadrian upon the reverse.
 
 192 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 friend of Antinous wished the world to know about his death ; 
 and though this does not go for much, since Hadrian is him- 
 self an accused person in the suit before us, yet the whole 
 Koman Empire may be said to have accepted his account, and 
 based on it a pious cult that held its own through the next 
 three centuries of growing Christianity. Dion, in the abstract 
 of his history compiled by Xiphilinus, speaks then to this 
 effect : ' In Egypt he also built the city named after Antinous. 
 Now Antinous was a native of Bithynium, a city of Bithynia, 
 which we also call Claudiopolis. He was Hadrian's favourite, 
 and he died in Egypt : whether by having fallen into the 
 Nile, as Hadrian writes, or by having been sacrificed, as the 
 truth was. For Hadrian, as I have said, was in general over- 
 much given to superstitious subtleties, and practised all kinds 
 of sorceries and magic arts. At any rate he so honoured 
 Antinous, whether because of the love he felt for him, or 
 because he died voluntarily, since a willing victim was 
 needed for his purpose, that he founded a city in the place 
 where he met this fate, and called it after him, and dedicated 
 statues, or rather images, of him in, so to speak, the whole 
 inhabited world. Lastly, he affirmed that a certain star 
 which he saw was the star of Antinous, and listened with 
 pleasure to the myths invented by his companions about this 
 star having really sprung from the soul of his favourite, and 
 having then for the first time appeared. For which things 
 he was laughed at.' 
 
 We may now hear what Spartian, in his ' Vita Hadriani,' 
 has to say : ' He lost his favourite, Antinous, while sailing on 
 the Nile, and lamented him like a woman. About Antinous re- 
 ports vary, for some say that he devoted his life for Hadrian, 
 while others hint what his condition seems to prove, as well as 
 Hadrian's excessive inclination to luxury. Some Greeks, at the 
 instance of Hadrian, canonised him, asserting that oracles were
 
 ANTINOUS 193 
 
 given by him, which Hadrian himself is supposed to have 
 made up.' 
 
 In the third place comes Aurelius Victor : ' Others main- 
 tain that this sacrifice of Antinous was both pious and reli- 
 gious ; for when Hadrian was wishing to prolong his life, and 
 the magicians required a voluntary vicarious victim, they say 
 that, upon the refusal of all others, Antinous offered himself.' 
 
 These are the chief authorities. In estimating them we 
 must remember that, though Dion Cassius wrote less than 
 a century after the event narrated, he has come down to us 
 merely in fragments and in the epitome of a Byzantine of 
 the twelfth century, when everything that could possibly be 
 done to discredit the worship of Antinous, and to blacken the 
 memory of Hadrian, had been attempted by the Christian 
 Fathers. On the other hand, Spartianus and Aurelius Victor 
 compiled their histories at too distant a date to be of first-rate 
 value. Taking the three reports together, we find that antiquity 
 differed about the details of Antinous's death. Hadrian himself 
 averred that his friend was drowned ; and it was surmised that 
 he had drowned himself in order to prolong his master's life. 
 The courtiers, however, who had scoffed at Hadrian's fond- 
 ness for his favourite, and had laughed to see his sorrow for 
 his death, somewhat illogically came to the conclusion that 
 Antinous had been immolated by the Emperor, either because 
 a victim was needed to prolong his life, or because some human 
 sacrifice was required in order to complete a dark mysterious 
 magic rite. Dion, writing not very long after the event, be- 
 lieved that Antinous had been immolated for some such pur- 
 pose with his own consent. Spartian, who wrote at the distance 
 of more than a century, felt uncertain about the question of 
 self-devotion ; but Aurelius Victor, following after the interval 
 of another century, unhesitatingly adopted Dion's view, and 
 gave it a fresh colour. This opinion he summarised in a 
 
 III O
 
 194 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 compact, authoritative form, upon which we may perhaps 
 found an assumption that the belief in Antinous, as a self- 
 devoted victim, had been gradually growing through two 
 centuries. 
 
 There are therefore three hypotheses to be considered. 
 The first is that Antinous died an accidental death by drown- 
 ing ; the second is, that Antinous, in some way or another, 
 gave his life willingly for Hadrian's ; the third is, that Hadrian 
 ordered his immolation in the performance of magic rites. 
 
 For the first of the three hypotheses we have the authority 
 of Hadrian himself, as quoted by Dion. The simple words eis 
 TOV NctXov CXTTCO-WV imply no more than accidental death ; and 
 yet, if the Emperor had believed the story of his favourite's 
 self-devotion, it is reasonable to suppose that he would have 
 recorded it in his ' Memoirs.' Accepting this view of the case, 
 we must refer the deification of Antinous wholly to Hadrian's 
 affection ; and the tales of his devotio may have been invented 
 partly to flatter the Emperor's grief, partly to explain its vio- 
 lence to the Roman world. This hypothesis seems, indeed, 
 by far the most natural of the three ; and if we could strip the 
 history of Antinous of its mysterious and mythic elements, it 
 is rational to believe that we should find his death a simple 
 accident. Yet our authorities prove that writers of history 
 among the ancients wavered between the two other theories of 
 (i) Self -Devotion and (ii) Immolation, with a bias toward the 
 latter. These, then, have now to be considered with some 
 attention. Both, it may parenthetically be observed, relieve 
 Antinous from a moral stigma, since in either case a pure 
 untainted victim was required. 
 
 If we accept the former of the two remaining hypotheses, 
 we can understand how love and gratitude, together with 
 sorrow, led Hadrian to canonise Antinous. If we accept the 
 latter, Hadrian's sorrow itself becomes inexplicable ; and we
 
 ANTINOUS 195 
 
 must attribute the foundation of Antinoe and the deification 
 of Antinous to remorse. It may be added, while balancing 
 these two solutions of the problem, that cynical sophists, like 
 Hadrian's Graeculi, were likely to have put the worst construc- 
 tion on the Emperor's passion, and to have invented the worst 
 stories concerning the favourite's death. To perpetuate these 
 calumnious reports was the real interest of the Christian apolo- 
 gists, who not unnaturally thought it scandalous that a hand- 
 some page should be deified. Thus, at first sight, the balance 
 of probability inclines toward the former of the two solutions, 
 while the second may be rejected as based upon court-gossip 
 and religious animosity. Attention may also again be called 
 to the fact that Hadrian ventured to publish an account of 
 Antinous quite inconsistent with what Dion chose to call tho 
 truth, and that virtuous Emperors like the Antonines did not 
 interfere with a cult, which, had it been paid to the mere 
 victim of Hadrian's passion and his superstition, would have 
 been an infamy even in Rome. Moreover, that cult was not, 
 like the creations of the impious emperors, forgotten or de- 
 stroyed by public acclamation. It took root and flourished 
 apparently, as we shall see, because it satisfied some craving of 
 the popular religious sense, and because the people believed 
 that this man had died for his friend. It will not, however, 
 do to dismiss the two hypotheses so lightly. 
 
 The alternative of self-devotion presents itself under a 
 double aspect. Antinous may either have committed suicide 
 by drowning with the intention of prolonging the Emperor's 
 life, or he may have offered himself as a voluntary victim to 
 the magicians, who required a sacrifice for a similar purpose. 
 Spartian's brief phrase, aliis cum devotum pro Hadriano, may 
 seem to point to the first form of self-devotion ; the testimony 
 of Aurelius Victor clearly supports the second : yet it does 
 not much matter which of the two explanations we adopt. 
 
 02
 
 196 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 The point is whether Antinous gave his life willingly to save 
 the Emperor's, or whether he was murdered for the satisfaction 
 of some superstitious curiosity. It was absolutely necessary 
 that the vicarious victim should make a free and voluntary 
 oblation of himself. That the notion of vicarious suffering 
 was familiar to the ancients is sufficiently attested by the 
 phrases U.VTL^/V\OL, avravSpoi, and hostia succidanea. We find 
 traces of it in the legend of Alcestis, who died for Admetus, 
 and of Cheiron, who took the place of Prometheus in Hades. 
 Suetonius records that in the first days of Caligula's popularity, 
 when he was labouring under dangerous illness, many Eomans 
 of both sexes vowed their lives for his recovery in temples of 
 the gods. That this superstition retained a strong hold on the 
 popular imagination in the time of Hadrian is proved by the 
 curious affirmation of Aristides, a contemporary of that Em- 
 peror. He says that once, when he was ill, a certain Philu- 
 mene offered her soul for his soul, her body for his body, and 
 that, upon his own recovery, she died. On the same testimony 
 it appears that her brother Hermeas had also died for Aristides. 
 This faith in the efficacy of substitution is persistent in the 
 human race. Not long ago a Christian lady was supposed to 
 have vowed her own life for the prolongation of that of Pope 
 Pius IX., and good Catholics inclined to the belief that the 
 sacrifice had been accepted. We shall see that in the first 
 centuries of Christendom the popular conviction that Antinous 
 had died for Hadrian brought him into inconvenient rivalry 
 with Christ, whose vicarious suffering was the cardinal point 
 of the new creed. 
 
 The alternative of immolation has next to be considered. 
 The question before us here is, Did Hadrian sacrifice Antinous 
 for the satisfaction of a superstitious curiosity, and in the per- 
 formance of magic rites ? Dion Cassius uses the word iepovpyrj- 
 0els, and explains it by saying that Hadrian needed a voluntary
 
 ANTINOUS 197 
 
 human victim for the accomplishment of an act of divination 
 in which he was engaged. Both Spartian and Dion speak 
 emphatically of the Emperor's proclivities to the black art ; 
 and all antiquity agreed about this trait in his character. 
 Ammianus Marcellinus spoke of him as 'futurorum sciscita- 
 tioni nimice deditum.' Tertullian described him as ' curiosita- 
 tum omnium exploratorem.' To multiply such phrases would, 
 however, be superfluous, for they are probably mere repetitions 
 from the text of Dion. That human victims were used by the 
 Romans of the Empire seems certain. Lampridius, in the 
 ' Life of Heliogabalus,' records his habit of slaying handsome 
 and noble youths, in order that he might inspect their entrails. 
 Eusebius, in his ' Life of Maxentius,' asserts the same of that 
 Emperor. Quum inspiceret exta puerilia, veoyvwv <nr\dyxva. 
 /?pe'<ojv 8ipf.vvofifvov, are the words used by Lampridius and 
 Eusebius. Justin Martyr speaks of ez-OTrret'o-eis vat8<av a8ia- 
 <f>66p(j>v. Caracalla and Julian are credited with similar bloody 
 sacrifices. Indeed, it may be affirmed in general that tyrants 
 have ever been eager to foresee the future and to extort her 
 secrets from Fate, stopping short at no crime in the attempt 
 to quiet a corroding anxiety for their own safety. What we 
 read about Italian despots Ezzelino da Romano, Sigismondo 
 Malatesta, Filippo Maria Visconti, and Pier Luigi Farnese 
 throws light upon the practice of their Imperial predecessors ; 
 while the mysterious murder of the beautiful Astorre Manfredi 
 by the Borgias in Hadrian's Mausoleum has been referred by 
 modern critics of authority to the same unholy curiosity. That 
 Hadrian laboured under this moral disease, and that he deliber- 
 ately used the body of Antinous for extispicium, is, I think, 
 Dion's opinion. But are we justified in reckoning Hadrian 
 among these tyrants ? That must depend upon our view of 
 his character. 
 
 Hadrian was a man in whom the most conflicting qualities
 
 198 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 were blent. In his youth and through his whole life he was 
 passionately fond of hunting; hardy, simple in his habits, 
 marching bareheaded with his legions through German frost 
 and Nubian heat, sharing the food of his soldiers, and exer- 
 cising the most rigid military discipline. At the same time he 
 has aptly been described as ' the most sumptuous character 
 of antiquity.' He filled the cities of the empire with showy 
 buildings, and passed his last years in a kind of classic 
 Munich, where he had constructed imitations of every cele- 
 brated monument in Europe. He was so far fond of nature 
 that, anticipating the most recently developed of modern 
 tastes, he ascended Mount ./Etna and the Mons Casius, in 
 order to enjoy the spectacle of sunrise. In his villa at Tivoli 
 he indulged a trivial fancy by christening one garden Tempe 
 and another the Elysian Fields ; and he had his name carved 
 on the statue of the vocal Memnon with no less gusto than 
 a modern tourist : audivi voces divinas. His memory was 
 prodigious, his eloquence in the Latin language studied and 
 yet forcible, his knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy 
 far from contemptible. He enjoyed the society of Sophists 
 and distinguished rhetoricians, and so far affected authorship 
 as to win the unenviable title of G-rceculus in his own lifetime : 
 yet he never neglected state affairs. Owing to his untiring 
 energy and vast capacity for business, he not only succeeded 
 in reorganising every department of the empire, social, 
 political, fiscal, military, and municipal ; but he also held in 
 his own hands the threads of all its complicated machinery. 
 He was strict in matters of routine, and appears to have been 
 almost a martinet among his legions : yet in social inter- 
 course he lived on terms of familiarity with inferiors, com- 
 bining the graces of elegant conversation with the bonhomie 
 of boon companionship, displaying a warm heart to his 
 friends, and using magnificent generosity. He restored the
 
 ANTINOUS 199 
 
 domestic as well as the military discipline of the Eoman 
 world ; and his code of laws lasted till Justinian. Among 
 many of his useful measures of reform he issued decrees 
 restricting the power of masters over their slaves, and 
 depriving them of their old capital jurisdiction. His 
 biographers find little to accuse him of beyond a singular 
 avidity for fame, addiction to magic arts and luxurious vices : 
 yet they adduce no proof of his having, at any rate before the 
 date of his final retirement to his Tiburtine villa, shared the 
 crimes of a Nero or a Commodus. On the whole, we must 
 recognise in Hadrian a nature of extraordinary energy, 
 capacity for administrative government, and mental versa- 
 tility. A certain superficiality, vulgarity, and commonplace- 
 ness seems to have been forced upon him by the circumstances 
 of his age, no less than by his special temperament. This 
 quality of the immitigable commonplace is clearly written on 
 his many portraits. Their chief interest consists in a fixed 
 expression of fatigue as though the man were weary with 
 much seeking and with little finding. In all things, he was 
 somewhat of a dilettante ; and the Nemesis of that sensibility 
 to impressions which distinguishes the dilettante, came upon 
 him ere he died. He ended his days in an appalling and 
 persistent paroxysm of ennui, desiring the death which would 
 not come to his relief. 
 
 The whole creative and expansive force of Hadrian's cen- 
 tury lay concealed in the despised Christian sect. Art was 
 expiring in a sunset blaze of gorgeous imitation, tasteless 
 grandeur, technical elaboration. Philosophy had become 
 sophistical or mystic ; its real life survived only in the phrase 
 ' entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren ' of the Stoics. Litera- 
 ture was repetitive and scholastic. Tacitus, Suetonius, 
 Plutarch, and Juvenal indeed were living ; but their works 
 formed the last great literary triumph of the age. Religion
 
 200 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 had degenerated under the twofold influences of scepticism 
 and intrusive foreign cults. It was, in truth, an age in which, 
 for a sound heart and manly intellect, there lay no proper 
 choice except between the stoicism of Marcus Aurelius and 
 the Christianity of the Catacombs. All else had passed 
 into shams, unrealities, and visions. Now Hadrian was 
 neither stoical nor Christian, though he so far coquetted 
 with Christianity as to build temples dedicated to no Pagan 
 deity, which passed in after times for unfinished churches. 
 He was a Grceculus. In that contemptuous epithet, stripping 
 it of its opprobrious significance, we find the real key to his 
 character. In a failing age he lived a restless-minded, many- 
 sided soldier-prince, whose inner hopes and highest aspirations 
 were for Hellas. Hellas, her art, her history, her myths, her 
 literature, her lovers, her young heroes filled him with 
 enthusiasm. To rebuild her ruined cities, to restore her 
 deities, to revive her golden life of blended poetry and 
 science, to reconstruct her spiritual empire as he had re- 
 organised the Kornan world, was Hadrian's dream. It was 
 indeed a dream ; one which a far more creative genius than 
 Hadrian's could not have realised. 
 
 But now, returning to the two alternatives regarding his 
 friend's death : was this philo-Hellenic Emperor the man to have 
 immolated Antinous for extispicium and then deified him ? 
 Probably not. The discord between this bloody act and sub- 
 sequent hypocrisy upon the one hand, and Hadrian's Greek 
 sympathies upon the other, must be reckoned too strong for 
 even such a dipsychic character as his. There is nothing in 
 either Spartian or Dion to justify the opi.aion that he was 
 naturally cruel or fantastically deceitful. On the other hand, 
 Hadrian's philo-Hellenic, splendour-loving, somewhat taw- 
 dry, fame-desiring nature was precisely of the sort to jump 
 eagerly at the deification of a favourite who had either died a
 
 ANTINOUS 201 
 
 natural death or killed himself to save his master. Hadrian 
 had loved Antinous with a Greek passion in his lifetime. The 
 Roman Emperor was half a god. He remembered how Zeus 
 had loved Ganymede, and raised him to Olympus ; how 
 Achilles had loved Patroclus, and performed his funeral rites 
 at Troy ; how the demi-god Alexander had loved Hephaestion, 
 and lifted him into a hero's seat on high. He, Hadrian, 
 would do the like, now that death had robbed him of his 
 comrade. The Roman, who surrounded himself at Tivoli 
 with copies of Greek temples, and who called his. garden 
 Tempe, played thus at being Zeus, Achilles, Alexander ; and 
 the civilised world humoured his whim. Though the Sophists 
 scoffed at his real grief and honourable tears, they consecrated 
 his lost favourite, found out a star for him, carved him in 
 breathing brass, and told tales about his sacred flower. 
 Pancrates was entertained in Alexandria at the public cost 
 for his fable of the lotos ; and the lyrist Mesomedes received 
 so liberal a pension for his hymn to Antinous that Antoninus 
 Pius found it needful to curtail it. 
 
 After weighing the authorities, considering the circum- 
 stances of the age, and estimating Hadrian's character, I am 
 thus led to reject the alternative of immolation. Spartian's 
 own words, quern muliebriter flevit, as well as the subsequent 
 acts of the Emperor and the acquiescence of the whole world 
 in the new deity, prove to my mind that in the suggestion of 
 extispicium we have one of those covert calumnies which it is 
 impossible to set aside at this distance of time, and which 
 render the history of Roman Emperors and Popes almost 
 impracticable. 
 
 The case, then, stands before us thus. Antinous was 
 drowned in the Nile, near Besa, either by accident or by 
 voluntary suicide to save his master's life. Hadrian's love 
 for him had been unmeasured, so was his grief. Both of
 
 202 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 them were genuine ; but in the nature of the man there was 
 something artificial. He could not be content to love and 
 grieve alone ; he must needs enact the part of Alexander, and 
 realise, if only by a sort of makebelieve, a portion of his Greek 
 ideal. Antinous, the beautiful servant, was to take the place 
 of Ganymede, of Patroclus, of Hephaestion ; never mind if 
 Hadrian was a Koman and his friend a Bithynian, and if the 
 love between them, as between an emperor of fifty and a boy 
 of nineteen, had been less than heroic. The opportunity was 
 too fair to be missed ; the role too fascinating to be rejected. 
 The world, in spite of covert sneers, lent itself to the sham, 
 and Antinous became a god. 
 
 The uniformly contemptuous tone of antique authorities 
 almost obliges us to rank this deification of Antinous, together 
 with the Tiburtine villa and the dream of a Hellenic Eenais- 
 sance, among the part-shams, part-enthusiasms of Hadrian's 
 ' sumptuous ' character. Spartian's account of the consecra- 
 tion, and his hint that Hadrian composed the oracles delivered 
 at his favourite's tomb ; Arrian's letter to the Emperor de- 
 scribing the island Leuke and flattering him by an adroit 
 comparison with Achilles ; the poem by Pancrates mentioned 
 in the ' Deipnosophistas,' which furnished the myth of a new 
 lotos dedicated to Antinous ; the invention of the star, and 
 Hadrian's conversations with his courtiers on this subject 
 all converge to form the belief that something of consciously 
 unreal mingled with this act of apotheosis by Imperial decree. 
 Hadrian sought to assuage his grief by paying his favourite 
 illustrious honours after death ; he also desired to give the 
 memory of his own love the most congenial and poetical 
 environment, to feed upon it in the daintiest places, and to 
 deck it with the prettiest flowers of fancy. He therefore 
 canonised Antinous, and took measures for disseminating his 
 cult throughout the world, careless of the element of im-
 
 ANTINOUS 203 
 
 posture which might seem to mingle with the consecration 
 of his true affection. Hadrian's superficial taste was not 
 offended by the gimcrack quality of the new god; and 
 Antinous was saved from being a merely pinchbeck saint by 
 his own charming personality. 
 
 This will not, however, wholly satisfy the conditions of 
 the problem ; and we are obliged to ask ourselves whether 
 there was not something in the character of Antinous him- 
 self, something divinely inspired and irradiate with spiritual 
 beauty, apparent to his fellows and remembered after 
 his mysterious death, which justified his canonisation, and 
 removed it from the region of Imperial makebelieve. If this 
 was not the case, if Antinous died like a flower cropped from 
 the seraglio garden of the court-pages, how should the 
 Emperor in the first place have bewailed him with ' unhus- 
 banded passion,' and the people afterwards have received 
 him as a god ? May it not have been that he was a youth 
 of more than ordinary promise, gifted with intellectual en- 
 thusiasms proportioned to his beauty and endowed with 
 something of Phoabean inspiration, who, had he survived, 
 might have even inaugurated a new age for the world, or have 
 emulated the heroism of Hypatia hi a hopeless cause ? Was 
 the link between him and Hadrian formed less by the boy's 
 beauty than by his marvellous capacity for apprehending and 
 his fitness for realising the Emperor's Greek dreams ? Did 
 the spirit of neo-Platonism find in him congenial incarnation ? 
 At any rate, was there not enough in the then current beliefs 
 about the future of the soul, as abundantly set forth in 
 Plutarch's writings, to justify a conviction that after death he 
 had already passed into the lunar sphere, awaiting the final 
 apotheosis of purged spirits in the sun ? These questions 
 may be asked indeed, they must be asked for, without 
 suggesting them, we leave the worship of Antinous an almost
 
 204 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 inexplicable scandal, an almost unintelligible blot on human 
 nature. Unless we ask them, we must be content to echo 
 the coarse and violent diatribes of Clemens Alexandrinus 
 against the vigils of the deified exoletus. But they cannot 
 be answered, for antiquity is altogether silent about him ; only 
 here and there, in the indignant utterance of a Christian 
 Father, stung to the quick by Pagan parallels between Antinous 
 and Christ, do we catch a perverted echo of the popular emo- 
 tion upon which his cult reposed, which recognised his god- 
 hood or his vicarious self-sacrifice, and which paid enduring 
 tribute to the sublimity of his young life untimely quenched. 
 The senatus consultum required for the apotheosis of an 
 Emperor was not, so far as we know, obtained in the case 
 of Antinous. Hadrian's determination to exalt his favourite 
 sufficed ; and this is perhaps one of the earliest instances of 
 those informal deifications which became common in the 
 later Kornan period. Antinous was canonised according to 
 Greek ritual and by Greek priests : Gvaci quidam volente 
 Hadriano eum consecraverunt. How this was accomplished 
 we know not ; but forms of canonisation must have been in com- 
 mon usage, seeing that emperors and members of the Imperial 
 family received the honour in due course. The star which was 
 supposed to have appeared soon after his death, and which 
 represented his soul admitted to Olympus, was somewhere 
 near the constellation Aquila, according to Ptolemy, but not 
 part of it. I believe the letters TJ . 6 . i . K . X. of Aquila now bear 
 the name of Antinous ; but this appropriation dates only from 
 the time of Tycho Brahe. It was also asserted that as a new 
 star had appeared in the skies, so a new flower had blossomed 
 on the earth, at the moment of his death. This was the lotos, of 
 a peculiar red colour, which the people of Lower Egypt used 
 to wear in wreaths upon his festival. It received the name 
 Antinoeian ; and the Alexandrian sophist, Pancrates, seeking
 
 ANTINOUS 205 
 
 to pay a double compliment to Hadrian and his favourite, 
 wrote a poem in which he pretended that this lily was stained 
 with the blood of a Libyan lion slain by the Emperor. As 
 Arrian compared his master to Achilles, so Pancrates flattered 
 him with allusions to Herakles. The lotos, it is well known, 
 was a sacred flower in Egypt. Both as a symbol of the all- 
 nourishing moisture of the earth and of the mystic marriage 
 of Isis and Osiris, and also as an emblem of immortality, it 
 appeared on all the sacred places of the Egyptians, especially 
 on tombs and funeral utensils. To dignify Antinous with the 
 lotos emblem was to consecrate him ; to find a new species of 
 the revered blossom and to wear it in his honour, calling it by 
 his name, was to exalt him to the company of gods. Nothing, 
 as it seems, had been omitted that could secure for him the 
 patent of divinity. 
 
 He met his death near the city Besa, an ancient Egyptian 
 town upon the eastern bank of the Nile, almost opposite to 
 Hermopolis. Besa was the name of a local god, who gave 
 oracles and predicted future events. But of this Besa we know 
 next to nothing. Hadrian determined to rebuild the city, 
 change its name, and let his favourite take the place of the 
 old deity. Accordingly, he raised a splendid new town in 
 the Greek style ; furnished it with temples, agora, hippo- 
 drome, gymnasium, and baths ; filled it with Greek citizens ; 
 gave it a Greek constitution, and named it Antinoe. This 
 new town, whether called Antinoe, Antinoopolis, Antinous, 
 Antinoeia, or even Besantinous (for its titles varied), con- 
 tinued long to flourish, and was mentioned by Ammianus 
 Marcellinus, together with Copton and Hermopolis, as one of 
 the three most distinguished cities of the Thebaid. In the 
 age of Julian these three cities were perhaps the only still 
 thriving towns of Upper Egypt. It has even been main- 
 tained on Ptolemy's authority that Antinoe was the metropolis
 
 206 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 of a nome, called Antinoeitis ; but this is doubtful, since in- 
 scriptions discovered among the ruins of the town record no 
 name of nomarch or strategus, while they prove the govern- 
 ment to have consisted of a Boule and a Prytaneus, who was 
 also the Eponymous Magistrate. Strabo reckons it, together 
 with Ptolemais and Alexandria, as governed after the Greek 
 municipal system. 
 
 In this city Antinous was worshipped as a god. Though 
 a Greek god, and the eponym of a Greek city, he inherited 
 the place and functions of an Egyptian deity, and was here 
 represented in the hieratic style of Ptolemaic sculpture. A 
 fine specimen of this statuary is preserved in the Vatican, 
 showing how the neo-Hellenic sculptors had succeeded in 
 maintaining the likeness of Antinous without sacrificing the 
 traditional manner of Egyptian piety. The sacred emblems 
 of Egyptian deities were added : we read, for instance, in one 
 passage, that his shrine contained a boat. This boat, like 
 the mystic egg of Eros or the cista of Dionysos, symbolised 
 the embryo of cosmic life. It was specially appropriated to 
 Osiris, and suggested collateral allusions doubtless to im- 
 mortality and the soul's journey in another world. Antinous 
 had a college of priests appointed to his service ; and oracles 
 were delivered from the cenotaph inside his temple. The 
 people believed him to be a genius of warning, gracious to 
 his suppliants, but terrible to evil-doers, combining the 
 qualities of the avenging and protective deities. Annual 
 games were celebrated in Antinoe on his festival, with chariot 
 races and gymnastic contests ; and the fashion of keeping his 
 day seems, from Athenseus's testimony, to have spread through 
 Egypt. An inscription in Greek characters discovered at Rome 
 upon the Campus Martius entitles Antinous a colleague of the 
 gods in Egypt 
 ANTINOQI 2YN0PONftI TON EN AirYIITOI EON.
 
 ANTINOUS 207 
 
 The worship of Antinous spread rapidly through the Greek 
 and Asian provinces, especially among the cities which owed 
 debts of gratitude to Hadrian or expected from him future 
 favours. At Athens, for example, the Emperor, attended 
 perhaps by Antinous, had presided as Archon during his 
 last royal progress, had built a suburb called after his 
 name, and raised a splendid temple to Olympian Jove. 
 The Athenians, therefore, founded games and a priesthood 
 in honour of the new divinity. Even now, in the Dionysiac 
 theatre, among the chairs above the orchestra assigned 
 to priests of elder deities and more august tradition, may 
 be found one bearing the name of Antinous IEPEQ2 
 ANTINOOY. A marble tablet has also been discovered 
 inscribed with the names of agonothetai for the games cele- 
 brated in honour of Antinous ; and a stele exists engraved 
 with the crown of these contests together with the crowns 
 of Severus, Commodus, and Antoninus. It appears that the 
 games in honour of Antinous took place both at Eleusis and 
 at Athens ; and that the agonothetai, as also the priest of the 
 new god, were chosen from the Ephebi. The Corinthians, 
 the Argives, the Achaians, and the Epirots, as we know from 
 coins issued by the priests of Antinous, adopted his cult ; ' 
 but the region of Greece proper where it flourished most 
 was Arcadia, the mother state of his Bithynian birthplace. 
 Pausanias, who lived contemporaneously with Antinous, and 
 might have seen him, though he tells us that he had not 
 chanced to meet the youth alive, mentions the temple of 
 Antinous at Mantinea as the newest in that city. ' The 
 Mantineans,' he says, ' reckon Antinous among their gods.' 
 He then describes the yearly festival and mysteries connected 
 
 1 For example : 
 
 O2T1AIO5 MAPKEAAOSO IEPET2TOT ANTINOOT ANE0HKE TOI2 AXAIOI2 
 and a similar inscription for Corinth,
 
 208 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 with his cult, the quinquennial games established in his honour, 
 and his statues. The gymnasium had a cell dedicated to 
 Antinous, adorned with pictures and fair stone-work. The 
 new god was in the habit of Dionysus. 
 
 As was natural, his birthplace paid him special observance. 
 Coins dedicated by the province of Bithynia, as well as by the 
 town Bithynium, are common, with the epigraphs, ANTINOOY 
 H HATPI2 and ANTINOON 0EON H HATPI2. Among the 
 cities of Asia Minor and the vicinity the new cult seems to 
 have been widely spread. Adramyttene in Mysia, Alabanda, 
 Ancyra in Galatia, Chalcedon, Cuma in ^olis, Cyzicum in 
 Mysia, the Ciani, the Hadrianotheritae of Bithynia, Hierapolis 
 in Phrygia, Nicomedia, Philadelphia, Sardis, Smyrna, Tarsus, 
 the Tianians of Paphlagonia, and a town Rhessena in Meso- 
 potamia, all furnish their quota of medals. On the majority 
 of these medals he is entitled Heros, but on others he has the 
 higher title of god ; and he seems to have been associated in 
 each place with some deity of local fame. 
 
 Being essentially a Greek hero, or divinised man received 
 into the company of immortals and worshipped with the attri- 
 butes of god, his cult took firmer root among the neo-Hellenic 
 provinces of the empire than in Italy. Yet there are signs 
 that even in Italy he found his votaries. Among these may 
 first be mentioned the comparative frequency of his name in 
 Roman inscriptions, which have no immediate reference to him, 
 but prove that parents gave it to their children. The discovery 
 of his statues in various cities of the Roman Campagna shows 
 that his cult was not confined to one or two localities. Naples 
 in particular, which remained in all essential points a Greek 
 city, seems to have received him with acclamation. A quarter 
 of the town was called after his name, and a phratria of priests 
 was founded in connection with his worship. The Neapolitans 
 owed much to the patronage of Hadrian, and they repaid him
 
 ANTINOUS 209 
 
 after this fashion. At the beginning of the last century Raffaello 
 Fabretti discovered an inscription near the Porta S. Sebastiano 
 at Rome, which throws some light on the matter. It records 
 the name of a Roman knight, Sufenas, who had held the office 
 of Lupercus and had been a fellow of the Neapolitan phratria 
 of Antinous fretriaco Neapoli Antinoiton et Eunostidon. 
 Eunostos was a hero worshipped at Tanagra in Bceotia, where 
 he had a sacred grove no female foot might enter ; and the 
 wording of the inscription leaves it doubtful whether the Euno- 
 stidae and Antinoitae of Naples were two separate colleges; or 
 whether the heroes were associated as the common patrons of 
 one brotherhood. 
 
 A valuable inscription discovered in 1816 near the Baths 
 at Lanuvium or Lavigna shows that Antinous was here as- 
 sociated with Diana as the saint of a benefit club. The rules 
 of the confraternity prescribe the payments and other contribu- 
 tions of its members, provide for their assembling on the feast 
 days of their patrons, fix certain fines, and regulate the cere- 
 monies and expenses of their funerals. This club seems to 
 have resembled modern burial societies, as known to us in 
 England ; or still more closely to have been formed upon the 
 same model as Italian confraternite of the Middle Ages. The 
 Lex, or table of regulations, was drawn up in the year 183 A.D. 
 It fixes the birthday of Antinous as v. k. Decembr., and alludes 
 to the temple of Antinoua Tetrastylo Antinoi. Probably we 
 cannot build much on the birthday as a genuine date, for the 
 same table gives the birthday of Diana ; and what was wanted 
 was not accuracy in such matters, but a settled anniversary for 
 banquets and pious celebrations. When we come to consider 
 the divinity of Antinous, it will be of service to remember that 
 at Lanuvium, together with Diana of the netherworld, he was 
 reckoned among the saints of sepulture. Could this thought 
 have penetrated the imagination of his worshippers : that since 
 HI P
 
 210 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Antinous had given his life for his friend, since he had faced 
 death and triumphed over it, winning immortality and god- 
 hood for himself by sacrifice, the souls of his votaries might be 
 committed to his charge and guidance on their journey through 
 the darkness of the tomb ? Could we venture to infer thus 
 much from his selection by a confraternity existing for the pur- 
 pose of securing decent burial or pious funeral rites, the date of 
 its formation, so soon after his death, would confirm the hypo- 
 thesis that he was known to have devoted his life for Hadrian. 
 While speaking of Antinous as a divinised man, adscript to 
 the gods of Egypt, accepted as hero and as god in Hellas, 
 Italy, and Asia Minor, we have not yet considered the nature 
 of his deity. The question is not so simple as it seems at first 
 sight : and the next step to take, with a view to its solution, is 
 to consider the various forms under which he was adored the 
 phases of his divinity. The coins already mentioned, and the 
 numerous works of glyptic art surviving in the galleries of 
 Europe, will help us to place ourselves at the same point of 
 view as the least enlightened of his antique votaries. Eeasoning 
 upon these data by the light of classic texts, may afterwards 
 
 enable ,us to assign him his true place in the Pantheon of 
 
 J 
 decadofet and uninventive Paganism. 
 
 In Egypt, as we have already seen, Antinous was wor- 
 shipped by the neo-Hellenes of Antinoopolis as their Epony- 
 mous Hero ; but he took the place of an elder native god, and 
 was represented in art according to the traditions of Egyptian 
 sculpture. The marble statue of the Vatican is devoid of 
 hieratic emblems. Antinous is attired with the Egyptian head- 
 dress and waistband : he holds a short truncheon firmly clasped 
 in each hand ; and by his side is a palm-stump, such as one 
 often finds in statues of the Greek Hermes. Two colossal 
 statues of red granite discovered in the ruins of Hadrian's villa, 
 at Tivoli, represent him in like manner with the usual Egyptian
 
 ANTINOUS 211 
 
 head-dress. They seem to have been designed for pillars 
 supporting the architrave of some huge portal ; and the wands 
 grasped firmly in both hands are supposed to be symbolical 
 of the genii called Dii Averrunci. Von Levezow, in his mono- 
 graph upon Antinous in art, catalogues five statues of a similar 
 description to the three already mentioned. From the indistinct 
 character of all of them, it would appear that Antinous was 
 nowhere identified with any one of the great Egyptian deities, 
 but was treated as a Dromon powerful to punish and protect. 
 This designation corresponds to the contemptuous rebuke 
 addressed by Origen to Celsus, where he argues that the new 
 saint was only a malignant and vengeful spirit. His Egyptian 
 medals are few and of questionable genuineness : the majority 
 of them seem to be purely Hellenic ; but on one he bears a 
 crown like that of Isis, and on another a lotos wreath. The 
 dim records of his cult in Egypt, and the remnants of Graeco- 
 Egyptian art, thus mark him out as one of the Averruncan 
 deities, associated perhaps with Kneph or the Agathodaemon of 
 Hellenic mythology, or approximated to Anubis, the Egyptian 
 Hermes. Neither statues nor coins throw much light upon 
 his precise place among those gods of Nile whose throne he 
 is said to have ascended. Egyptian piety may not have been 
 so accommodating as that of Hellas. 
 
 With the Greece-Roman world the case is different. We 
 obtain a clearer conception of the Antinous divinity, and 
 recognise him always under the mask of youthful gods already 
 honoured with fixed ritual. To worship even living men under 
 the names and attributes of well-known deities was no new 
 thing in Hellas. We may remember the Ithyphallic hymn 
 with which the Athenians welcomed Demetrius Poliorketes, 
 the marriage of Anthony as Dionysus to Athene, and the 
 deification of Mithridates as Bacchus. The Roman Emperors 
 had already been represented in art with the characteristics 
 
 p2
 
 212 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 of gods Nero, for example, as Phoebus, and Hadrian as 
 Mars. Such compliments were freely paid to Antinous. On 
 the Achaian coins we find his portrait on the obverse, with 
 different types of Hermes on the reverse, varied in one case 
 by the figure of a ram, in another by the representation of a 
 temple, in a third by a nude hero grasping a spear. One 
 Mysian medal, bearing the epigraph 'Antinous lacchus,' 
 represents him crowned with ivy, and exhibits Demeter on 
 the reverse. A single specimen from Ancyra, with the legend 
 ' Antinous Herds,' depicts the god Lunus carrying a crescent 
 moon upon his shoulder. The Bithynian coins generally give 
 youthful portraits of Antinous upon the obverse, with the 
 title of ' Heros ' or ' Theos ; ' while the reverse is stamped 
 with a pastoral figure, sometimes bearing the talaria, some- 
 times accompanied by a feeding ox or a boar or a star. This 
 youth is supposed to be Philesius, the son of Hermes. In 
 one specimen of the Bithynian series the reverse yields a head 
 of Proserpine crowned with thorns. A coin of Chalcedon 
 ornaments the reverse with a griffin seated near a naked 
 figure. Another, from Corinth, bears the sun-god in a chariot ; 
 another, from Cuma, presents an armed Pallas. Bulls, with 
 the crescent moon, occur in the Hadrianotheritan medals : a 
 crescent moon in that of Hierapolis : a ram and star, a female 
 head crowned with towers, a standing bull, and Harpocrates 
 placing one finger on his lips, in those of Nicomedia ; a horned 
 moon and star in that of Epirot Nicopolis. One Philadel- 
 phian coin is distinguished by Antinous in a temple with 
 four columns ; another by an Aphrodite in her cella. The 
 Sardian coins give Zeua with the thunderbolt, or Phoebus 
 with the lyre ; those of Smyrna are stamped with a standing 
 ox, a ram, and the caduceus, a female panther and the 
 thyrsus, or a hero reclining beneath a plane-tree ; those of 
 Tarsus with the Dionysian cista, the Phcebean tripod, the
 
 ANTINOUS 213 
 
 river Cydmis, and the epigraphs 'Neos Puthios,' 'Neoa 
 lacchos ; ' those of the Tianians with Antinous as Bacchus on 
 a panther, or, in one case, as Poseidon. 
 
 It would be unsafe to suppose that the emblems of the 
 reverse in each case had a necessary relation to Antinous, 
 whose portrait is almost invariably represented on the obverse. 
 They may refer, as in the case of the Tarsian river-god, to the 
 locality in which the medal was struck. Yet the frequent 
 occurrence of the well-known type with the attributes and 
 sacred animals of various deities, and the epigraphs ' Neos 
 Puthios ' or ' Neos lacchos,' justify us in assuming that he 
 was associated with divinities in vogue among the people who 
 accepted his cult especially Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes. 
 On more than one coin he is described as Antinous-Pan, 
 showing that his Arcadian compatriots of Peloponnese and 
 Bithynia paid him the compliment of placing him beside their 
 great local deity. In a Latin inscription discovered at Tibur, 
 he is connected with the sun-god of Noricia, Pannonia and 
 Illyria, who was worshipped under the title of Belenus : 
 
 Antinoo et Beleno par aetas famaque par est ; 
 Cur non Antinous sit quoque qui Belenus ? 
 
 This couplet sufficiently explains the ground of his adscription 
 to the society of gods distinguished for their beauty. Both 
 Belenus and Antinous are young and beautiful : why, therefore, 
 should not Antinous be honoured equally with Belenus ? The 
 same reasoning would apply to all his impersonations. The 
 pious imagination or the aesthetic taste tricked out this favourite 
 of fortune in masquerade costumes, just as a wealthy lover 
 may amuse himself by dressing his mistress after the simili- 
 tude of famous beauties. The analogy of statues confirms 
 this assumption. A considerable majority represent him as 
 Dionysus Kisseus : in some of the best he is conceived as 
 Hermes of the Palaestra or a simple hero : in one he is probably
 
 214 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Dionysus Antheus ; in another Vertumnus or Aristaeus ; yet 
 again he is the Agathos Daimon : while a fine specimen pre- 
 served in England shows him as Ganymede raising a goblet 
 of wine : a little statue in the Louvre gives him the attributes 
 of youthful Herakles ; a basrelief of somewhat doubtful 
 genuineness in the Villa Albani exhibits him with Komanised 
 features in the character perhaps of Castor. Again, I am not 
 sure whether the Endymion in the celebrated basrelief of the 
 Capitol does not yield a portrait of Antinous. 
 
 This rapid enumeration will suffice to show that Antinous 
 was universally conceived as a young deity in bloom, and that 
 preference was given to Phoebus and lacchus, the gods of 
 divination and enthusiasm, for his associates. In some cases 
 he appears to have been represented as a simple hero without 
 the attributes of any deity. Many of his busts, and the fine 
 nude statues of the Capitol and the Neapolitan Museum, 
 belong to this class, unless we recognise the two last as Anti- 
 nous under the form of a young Hercules, or of the gymnastic 
 Hermes. But when he comes before us with the title of 
 Puthios, or with the attributes of Dionysus, distinct reference 
 is probably intended in the one case to his oracular quality, 
 in the other to the enthusiasm which led to his death. 
 Allusions to Harpocrates, Lunus, Aristeeus, Philesius, Vertum- 
 nus, Castor, Herakles, Ganymedes, show how the divinising 
 fancy played around the beauty of his youth, and sought to 
 connect him with myths already honoured in the pious con- 
 science. Lastly, though it would be hazardous to strain this 
 point, we find in his chief impersonations a Chthonian cha- 
 racter, a touch of the mystery that is shrouded in the world 
 beyond the grave. The double nature of his Athenian cult may 
 perhaps confirm this view. But, over and above all these 
 symbolic illustrations, one artistic motive of immortal loveli- 
 ness pervades and animates the series.
 
 ANTINOUS 215 
 
 It becomes at this point of some moment to determine 
 what was the relation of Antinous to the gods with whom he 
 blended, and whose attributes he shared. It seems tolerably 
 certain that he had no special legend which could be idealised 
 in art. The mythopoeic fancy invented no fable for him. His 
 cult was parasitic upon elder cults. He was the colleague of 
 greater well-established deities, from whom he borrowed a pale 
 and evanescent lustre. Speaking accurately, he was a hero or 
 divinised mortal, on the same grade as Helen immortalised for 
 her beauty, as Achilles for his prowess, or as Herakles for his 
 great deeds. But having no poet like Homer to sing his 
 achievements, no myth fertile in emblems, he dwelt beneath 
 the shadow of superior powers, and crept into a place with 
 them. What was this place worth ? What was the mean- 
 ing attached by his votaries to the title o-vvOpovos or WpcSpos 
 0>s ? According to the simple meaning of both epithets, he 
 occupied a seat together with or by the side of the genuine 
 Olympians. In this sense Pindar called Dionysus the TrdpeSpos 
 of Demeter, because the younger god had been admitted 
 to her worship on equal terms at Eleusis. In this sense 
 Sophocles spoke of Himeros as TrapcSpos of the eternal laws, 
 and of Justice as OT.WKOS with the Chthonian deities. In 
 this sense Euripides makes Helen w#aKos with her brethren, 
 the Dioscuri. In this sense the three chief Archons at Athens 
 were said to have two irdpffyoi apiece. In this sense, again, 
 Hepha?stion was named a Ofo? irdptSpos, and Alexander in hia 
 lifetime was voted a thirteenth in the company of the twelve 
 Olympians. The divinised emperors were WpeSpoi or <n'r- 
 fyovoi ; nor did Virgil hesitate to flatter Augustus by question- 
 ing into which college of the immortals he would be adscript 
 after death 
 
 Tuque adeo, quern mox quae sint habitura deorum 
 Concilia, incertum est.
 
 216 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Conscript deities of this heroic order were supposed to avert 
 evils from their votaries, to pursue offenders with calamity, to 
 inspire prophetic dreams, and to appear, as the phantom of 
 Achilles appeared to Apollonius of Tyana, and answer ques- 
 tions put to them. They corresponded very closely and exactly 
 to the saints of medievalism, acting as patrons of cities, con- 
 fraternities, and persons, and interposing between the supreme 
 powers of heaven and their especial devotees. As a TropeSpos 
 of this exalted quality, Antinous was the associate of Phoebus, 
 Bacchus, and Hermes among the Olympians, and a colleague 
 with the gods of Nile. The principal difficulty of grasping 
 his true rank consists in the variety of his emblems and divine 
 disguises. 
 
 It must here be mentioned that the epithet Trape^os had 
 a secondary and inferior signification. It was applied by 
 later authors to the demons or familiar spirits who attended 
 upon enchanters like Simon Magus or Apollonius ; and such 
 satellites were believed to be supplied by the souls of inno- 
 cent young persons violently slain. Whether this secondary 
 meaning of the thle indicates a degeneration of the other, 
 and forms the first step of the process whereby classic heroes 
 were degraded into the foul fiends of mediasval fancy, or 
 whether we find in it a wholly new application of the word, is 
 questionable. I am inclined to believe that, while WjoeSpos 
 in the one case means an associate of the Olympian gods, 
 SOU/AW in the other means a fellow-agent and assessor 
 of the wizard. In other words, however they may afterwards 
 have been confounded, the two uses of the same epithet were 
 originally distinct : so that not every TrapeSpo? 6eo<s, Achilles, 
 or Hephaestion or Antinous, was supposed to haunt and serve 
 a sorcerer, but only some inferior spirit over whom his black 
 art gave him authority. The TrapeSpos #eos was so called be- 
 cause he sat with the great gods. The TrapeSpos Sat/xuv was so
 
 ANTINOUS 217 
 
 called because he sat beside the magician. At the same time 
 there seems sufficient evidence that the two meanings came to 
 be confounded ; and as the divinities of Hellas, with all their 
 lustrous train, paled before the growing splendour of Christ, 
 they gradually fell beneath the necromantic ferule of the witch. 
 Keturning from this excursion, and determining that Anti- 
 nous was a hero or divinised mortal, adscript to the college 
 of the greater gods, and invested with many of their attributes, 
 we may next ask the question, why this artificial cult, due in 
 the first place to imperial passion and caprice, and nourished 
 by the adulation of fawning provinces, was preserved from the 
 rapid dissolution to which the flimsy products of court-flattery 
 are subject. The mythopoetic faculty was extinct, or in its last 
 phase of decadent vitality. There was nothing in the life of 
 Antinous to create a legend or to stimulate the sense of awe ; 
 and yet this worship persisted long after the fear of Hadrian 
 had passed away, long after the benefits to be derived by 
 humouring a royal fancy had been exhausted, long after any- 
 thing could be gained by playing out the farce. It is clear, 
 from a passage in Clemens Alexandrinus, that the sacred 
 nights of Antinous were observed, at least a century after the 
 date of his deification, with an enthusiasm that roused the 
 anger of the Christian Father. Again, it is worthy of notice 
 that, while many of the noblest works of antiquity have 
 perished, the statues of Antinous have descended to us in fair 
 preservation and in very large numbers. From the contemp- 
 tuous destruction which erased the monuments of base men 
 in the Roman Empire they were safe ; and the state in which 
 we have them shows how little they had suffered from neglect. 
 The most rational conclusion seems to be that Antinous 
 became in truth a popular saint, and satisfied some new need 
 in Paganism, for which none of the elder and more respec- 
 table deities sufficed. The novelty of his cult had, no doubt,
 
 218 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 something to do with the fascination it exercised ; and some- 
 thing may be attributed to the impulse art received from the 
 introduction of so rare and original a type of beauty into the 
 exhausted cycle of mythical subjects. The blending of Greek 
 and Egyptian elements was also attractive to an age remark- 
 able for its eclecticism. But after allowing for the many ad- 
 ventitious circumstances which concurred to make Antinous 
 the fashion, it is hardly unreasonable to assume that the spirit 
 of poetry in the youth's story, the rumour of his self-devoted 
 death, kept him alive in the memory of the people. It is just 
 that element of romance in the tale of his last hours, that 
 preservative association with the pathos of self-sacrifice, which 
 forms the interest we still feel for him. 
 
 The deified Antinous was therefore for the Konran world 
 a charming but dimly felt and undeveloped personality, made 
 perfect by withdrawal into an unseen world of mystery. The 
 belief in the value of vicarious suffering attached itself to his 
 beautiful and melancholy form. His sorrow borrowed some- 
 thing of the universal world-pain, more pathetic than the hero- 
 pangs of Herakles, the anguish of Prometheus, or the passion 
 of lacchus-Zagreus, because more personal and less suggestive 
 of a cosmic mystery. The ancient cries of Ah Linus, Ah 
 Adonis, found in him an echo. For votaries ready to accept a 
 new god as simply as we accept a new poet, he was the final 
 manifestation of an old-world mystery, the rejuvenescence of 
 a well-known incarnation, the semi-Oriental realisation of a 
 recurring Avatar. And if we may venture on so bold a sur- 
 mise, this last flower of antique mythology had taken up into 
 itself a portion of the blood outpoured on Calvary. Planted 
 in the conservatory of semi-philosophical yearnings, faintly 
 tinctured with the colours of misapprehended Christianity, 
 without inherent stamina, without the powerful nutrition which 
 the earlier heroic fables had derived from the "Spiritual vigour
 
 ANTINOUS 219 
 
 of a truly mythopceic age, the cult of Antinous subsisted as 
 an echo, a reflection, the last serious effort of deifying but no 
 longer potent Paganism, the last reverberation of its oracles, 
 an aesthetic rather than a religious product, viewed even in 
 its origin with sarcasm by the educated, and yet sufficiently 
 attractive to enthral the minds of simple votaries, and to 
 survive the circumstances of its first creation. It may be 
 remembered that the century which witnessed the canonisa- 
 tion of Antinous, produced the myth of Cupid and Psyche 
 or, if this be too sweeping an assertion, gave it final form, 
 and handed it, in its suggestive beauty, to the modern world. 
 Thus at one and the same moment the dying spirit of Hellas 
 seized upon those doctrines of self-devotion and immortality 
 which, through the triumph of Christian teaching, were gain- 
 ing novel and incalculable value for the world. According to 
 its own laws of inspiration, it stamped both legends of Love 
 victorious over Death, with beautiful form in myth and poem 
 and statuary. 
 
 That we are not altogether unjustified in drawing this con- 
 clusion may be gathered from the attitude assumed by the 
 Christian apologists toward Antinous. There is more than the 
 mere hatred of a Pagan hero, more than the bare indignation at 
 a public scandal, in their acrimony. Accepting the calumnious 
 insinuations of Dion Cassius, these gladiators of the new faith 
 found a terrible rhetorical weapon ready to their hands in the 
 canonisation of a court favourite. Prudeutius, Clemens Alexan- 
 drinus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Justin Martyr, Athanasius.Tatian 
 all inveigh, in nearly the same terms, against the Emperor's 
 Ganymede, exalted to the skies, and worshipped with base fear 
 and adulation by abject slaves. But in Origen, arguing with 
 Celsus, we find a somewhat different keynote struck. Celsus, 
 it appears, had told the story of Antinous, and had compared 
 his cult with that of Christ. Origen replies justly, that there
 
 220 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 was nothing in common between the lives of Antinous and of 
 Christ, and that his supposed divinity is a fiction. We can 
 discern in this response an echo of the faith which endeared 
 Antinous to his Pagan votaries. Antinous was hated by the 
 Christians as a rival ; insignificant, it is true, and unworthy, but 
 still of sufficient force to be regarded and persecuted. If Anti- 
 nous had been utterly contemptible, if he had not gained some 
 firm hold upon the piety of Grseco-Eoman Paganism, Celsus 
 could hardly have ventured to rest an argument upon his wor- 
 ship, nor would Origen have chosen to traverse that argument 
 with solid reasoning, instead of passing it by in rhetorical 
 silence. Nothing is more difficult than to understand the 
 conditions of that age or to sympathise with its dominant 
 passions. Educated as we have been in the traditions of the 
 finally triumphant Christian faith, warmed through and 
 through as we are by its summer glow and autumn splendour, 
 believing as we do in the adequacy of its spirit to satisfy the 
 cravings of the human heart, how can we comprehend a 
 moment in its growth when the divinised Antinous was not 
 merely an object offensive to the moral sense, but also a 
 parody dangerous to the pure form of Christ ? 
 
 It remains to say somewhat of Antinous as he appears in 
 art. His place in classic sculpture corresponds to his position 
 in antique mythology. The Antinous statues and coins are 
 reflections of earlier artistic masterpieces, executed with ad- 
 mirable skill, but lacking original faculty for idealisation in 
 the artists. Yet there is so much personal attraction in his 
 type, his statues are so manifestly faithful portraits, and we find 
 eo great a charm of novelty in his delicately perfect individua- 
 lity, that the life-romance which they reveal, as through a veil 
 of mystery, has force enough to make them rank among the 
 valuable heirlooms of antiquity. We could almost believe 
 that, while so many gods and heroes of Greece have perished,
 
 ANTINOUS 221 
 
 Antinous has been preserved in all his forms and phases for 
 his own most lovely sake ; as though, according to Ghiberti's 
 exquisite suggestion, gentle souls in the first centuries of 
 Christianity had spared this blameless youth, and hidden him 
 away with tender hands, in quiet places, from the fury of 
 iconoclasts. Nor is it impossible that the great vogue of his 
 worship was due among the Pagan laity to this same fascina- 
 tion of pure beauty. Could a more graceful temple of the 
 body have been fashioned, after the Platonic theory, for the 
 habitation of a guileless, god-inspired, enthusiastic soul? 
 The personality of Antinous, combined with the suggestion 
 of his self-devoted death, made him triumphant in art as in 
 the affections of the pious. 
 
 It would be an interesting task to compose a catalogue 
 raisonnti of Antinous statues and basreliefs, and to discuss the 
 question of their mythological references. This is, however, not 
 the place for such an inquiry. And yet I cannot quit Antinous 
 without some retrospect upon the most important of his por- 
 traits. Among the simple busts, by far the finest, to my think- 
 ing, are the colossal head of the Louvre, and the ivy-crowned 
 bronze at Naples. The latter is not only flawless in its execu- 
 tion, but is animated with a pensive beauty of expression. 
 The former, though praised by Winckelmann, as among the 
 two or three most precious masterpieces of antique art, must 
 be criticised for a certain vacancy and lifelessness. Of the 
 heroic statues, the two noblest are those of the Capitol and 
 Naples. The identity of the Capitoline Antinous has only 
 once, I think, been seriously questioned ; and yet it may bo 
 reckoned more than doubtful. The head is almost certainly 
 not his. How it came to be placed upon a body presenting so 
 much resemblance to the type of Antinous I do not know. 
 Careful comparison of the torso and the arms with an indubi- 
 table portrait will even raise the question whether this fine
 
 222 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 statue is not a Hermes or a hero of an earlier age. Its atti- 
 tude suggests Narcissus or Adonis ; and under either of these 
 forms Antinous may properly have been idealised. The 
 Neapolitan marble, on the contrary, yields the actual Antinous 
 in all the exuberant fulness of his beauty. Head, body, pose, 
 alike bring him vividly before us, forming an undoubtedly 
 authentic portrait. The same personality, idealised, it is true, 
 but rather suffering than gaining by the process, is powerfully 
 impressed upon the colossal Dionysus of the Vatican. What 
 distinguishes this great work is the inbreathed spirit of divinity, 
 more overpowering here than in any other of the extant dvSpi- 
 dvres KOI ayaX/jLara. The basrelief of the Villa Albani, re- 
 stored to suit the conception of a Vertumnus, has even more 
 of florid beauty ; but whether the restoration was wisely made 
 may be doubted. It is curious to compare this celebrated 
 masterpiece of technical dexterity with another basrelief in the 
 Villa Albani, representing Antinous as Castor. He is standing, 
 half clothed with the chlamys, by a horse. His hair is close- 
 cropped, after the Roman fashion, cut straight above the fore- 
 head, but crowned with a fillet of lotos-buds. The whole face 
 has a somewhat stern and frowning Roman look of resolution, 
 contrasting with the mild benignity of the Bacchus statues, and 
 the almost sulky voluptuousness of the busts. In the Lateran 
 Museum Antinous appears as a god of flowers, holding in his 
 lap a multitude of blossoms, and wearing on his head a wreath. 
 The conception of this statue provokes comparison with the 
 Flora of the Neapolitan Museum. I should like to recognise 
 in it a Dionysus Antheus, rather than one of the more prosy 
 Roman gods of horticulture. Not unworthy to rank with 
 these first-rate portraits of Antinous is a Ganymede, engraved 
 by the Dilettante Society, which represents him standing alert, 
 in one hand holding the wine-jug and in the other lifting a cup 
 aloft. It will be seen from even this brief enumeration of a
 
 ANTINOUS 223 
 
 few among the statues of Antinous, how many and how various 
 they are. One, however, remains still to be discussed, which, 
 so far as concerns the story of Antinous, is by far the most in- 
 teresting of all. As a work of art, to judge by photographs, it 
 is inferior to others in execution and design. Yet could we 
 but understand its meaning clearly, the mystery of Antinous 
 would be solved : the key to the whole matter probably lies 
 here ; but, alas ! we know not how to use it. I speak of the 
 Ildefonso Group at Madrid. 1 
 
 On one pedestal there are three figures in white marble. 
 To the extreme right of the spectator stands a little female 
 statue of a goddess, in archaistic style, crowned with the 
 calathos, and holding a sphere, probably of pomegranate fruit, 
 to her breast. To the left of this image are two young men, 
 three times the height of the goddess, quite naked, standing 
 one on each side of a low altar. Both are crowned with a 
 wreath of leaves and berries laurel or myrtle. The youth to 
 the right, next the image, holds a torch in either hand : with 
 the right he turns the flaming point downwards, till it lies upon 
 the altar ; with the left he lifts the other torch aloft, and rests 
 it on his shoulder. He has a beautiful Grseco-Roman face, 
 touched with sadness or ineffable reflection. The second 
 youth leans against his comrade, resting his left arm across 
 the other's back, and this hand is lightly placed upon the 
 shoulder, close to the lifted torch. His right arm is bent, 
 and so placed that the hand just cuts the line of the pelvis a 
 little above the hip. The weight of his body is thrown prin- 
 cipally upon the right leg ; the left foot is drawn back, away 
 from the altar. It is the attitude of the Apollo Sauroctonos. 
 His beautiful face, bent downward, is intently gazing with a 
 calm, collected, serious, and yet sad cast of earnest meditation. 
 His eyes seem fixed on something beyond him and beneath 
 1 See Frontispiece.
 
 224 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 him as it were on an inscrutable abyss ; and in this direction 
 also looks his companion. The face is unmistakably the face 
 of Antinous ; yet the figure, and especially the legs, are not 
 characteristic. They seem modelled after the conventional 
 type of the Greek Ephebus. Parts of the two torches and 
 the lower half of the right arm of Antinous are restorations. 
 
 Such is the Ildefonso marble ; and it may be said that its 
 execution is hard and rough the arms of both figures are 
 carelessly designed ; the hands and fingers are especially 
 angular, elongated, and ill-formed. But there is a noble 
 feeling in the whole group, notwithstanding. F. Tieck, the 
 sculptor and brother of the poet, was the first to suggest that 
 we have here Antinous, the Genius of Hadrian, and Perse- 
 phone. 1 He also thought that the self-immolation of Antinous 
 was indicated by the loving, leaning attitude of the younger 
 man, and by his melancholy look of resolution. The same 
 view, in all substantial points, is taken by Friedrichs, author 
 of a work on Greece-Roman sculpture. But Friedrichs, while 
 admitting the identity of the younger figure with Antinous, 
 and recognising Persephone in the archaic image, is not 
 prepared to accept the elder as the Genius of Hadrian ; and 
 it must be confessed that this face does not bear any resem- 
 blance to the portraits of the Emperor. According to his 
 interpretation, the Daemon is kindling the fire upon the 
 sacrificial altar with the depressed torch ; and the second or 
 lifted torch must be supposed to have been needed for the 
 performance of some obscure rite of immolation. What 
 Friedrichs fails to elucidate is the trustful attitude of Antinous, 
 who could scarcely have been conceived as thus affectionately 
 
 1 See the article on Antinous, by Victor Eydberg, in the Svensk Tid- 
 skrift for Litteratur, Politik, och Ekonomi, 1875. Stockholm. Also 
 Karl Botticher, KGnigliches Museum, Erklarendes Verzeichniss. Berlin, 
 1871.
 
 ANTINOUS 225 
 
 reclining on the shoulder of a merely sacrificial daemon ; nor 
 is there anything upon the altar to kindle. It must, how- 
 ever, be conceded that the imperfection of the marble at this 
 point leaves the restoration of the altar and the torch upon it 
 doubtful. 
 
 Charles Botticher started a new solution of the principal 
 problem. According to him, it was executed in the lifetime 
 of Antinous ; and it represents not a sacrifice of death, but a 
 sacrifice of fidelity on the part of the two friends, Hadrian 
 and Antinous, who have met together before Persephone to 
 ratify a vow of love till death. He suggests that the wreaths 
 are of stephanotis, that large-leaved myrtle, which was sacred 
 to the Chthonian goddesses after the liberation of Semele 
 from Hades by her son Dionysus. With reference to such 
 ceremonies between Greek comrades, Botticher cites a vase 
 upon which Theseus and Peirithous are sacrificing in the 
 temple of Persephone ; and he assumes that there may have 
 existed Athenian groups in marble representing similar vows 
 of friendship, from which Hadrian had this marble copied. 
 He believes that the Genius of Hadrian is kindling one torch 
 at the sacred fire, which he will reach to Antinous, while he 
 holds the other in readiness to kindle for himself. This 
 explanation is both ingenious and beautiful. It has also the 
 great merit of explaining the action of the right arm of Anti- 
 iious. Yet it is hardly satisfactory. It throws no light upon 
 the melancholy and solemnity of both figures, which irresistibly 
 suggest a funereal rather than a joyous rite. Antinous is not 
 even looking at the altar, and the meditative curves of his 
 beautiful reclining form indicate anything rather than the 
 spirited alacrity with which a friend would respond to his 
 comrade's call at such a moment. Besides, why should not 
 the likeness of Hadrian have been preserved as well as that 
 of Antinous, if the group commemorated an act of their joint 
 
 III Q
 
 226 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 will ? On the other hand, we must admit that the altar itself 
 is not dressed for a funereal sacrifice. 
 
 It has been pointed out that in the British Museum there 
 exists a basrelief of Homer's apotheosis where we notice a 
 figure holding two torches. Is it, then, possible that the 
 Ildefonso marble may express, not the sacrifice, but the 
 apotheosis of Antinous, and that the Genius who holds the 
 two torches is conferring on him immortality? The lifted 
 torch would symbolise his new life, and the depressed torch 
 would stand for the life he had devoted. According to this 
 explanation, the sorrowful expression of Antinous must in- 
 dicate the agony of death through which he passed into the 
 company of the undying. Against this interpretation is the 
 fact that we have no precise authority for the symbolism of 
 the torches, except only the common inversion of the life-brand 
 by the Genius of Death. 
 
 Yet another solution may be suggested. Assuming that 
 we have before us a sacrificial ceremony, and that the group 
 was executed after the self-devotion of Antinous had passed 
 into the popular belief, we may regard the elder youth as 
 either the Genius of the Emperor, separate in spirit from 
 Hadrian himself and presiding over his destinies, who accepts 
 the offer of Antinous with solemn calmness suited to so great 
 a gift ; or else as the Genius of the Eoman people, witnessing 
 the same act in the same majestic spirit. This view finds 
 Eome support in the abstract ideality of the torch-bearer, who 
 is clearly no historical personage as Antinous himself is, but 
 rather a power controlling his fate. The interpretation of 
 the two torches remains very difficult. In the torch flung 
 down upon the flameless and barren altar we might recognise 
 a symbol of Hadrian's life upon the point of extinction, but 
 not yet extinguished ; and in the torch lifted aloft we might 
 find a metaphor of life resuscitated and exalted. Nor is it
 
 ANTINOUS 227 
 
 perhaps without significance that the arm of the self- 
 immolating youth meets the upraised torch, as though to 
 touch the life which he will purchase with his death. There 
 is, however, the objection stated above to this bold use of 
 symbolism. 
 
 In support of any explanation which ascribes this group to 
 a period later than the canonisation of Antinous, it may be 
 repeated that the execution is inferior to that of almost all the 
 other statues of the hero. Is it possible, then, that it belongs 
 to a subsequent date, when art was further on the wane, but 
 when the self-devotion of Antinous had become a dogma of his 
 cult? 
 
 After all is said, the Ildefonso marble, like the legend of 
 Antinous, remains a mystery. Only hypothases, more or less 
 ingenious, more or less suited to our sympathies, varying 
 between Casaubon's coarse vilification and Rjdberg's roseate 
 vision, are left us. 
 
 As a last note on the subject of Antinous let me refer to 
 Raphael's statue of Jonah in the Chigi Chapel of S. Maria del 
 Popolo at Rome. Raphael, who handled the myth of Cupid 
 and Psyche so magnificently in the Villa Farnesina of his 
 patron Agostino Chigi, dedicated a statue of Antinous the 
 only statue he ever executed in marble under the title of a 
 Hebrew prophet in a Christian sanctuary. The fact is no 
 less significant than strange. During the early centuries of 
 Christianity, as is amply proved by the sarcophagi in the 
 Lateran Museum, Jonah symbolised self-sacrifice and immor- 
 tality. He was a type of Christ, an emblem of the Christian's 
 hope beyond the grave. During those same centuries Antinous 
 represented the same ideas, however inadequately, however 
 dimly, for the unlettered laity of Paganism. It could scarcely 
 have been by accident, or by mere admiration for the features 
 of Antinous, that Raphael, in his marble, blent the Christian
 
 228 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 and the Pagan traditions. To unify and to transcend the 
 double views of Christianity and Paganism in a work of pure 
 art was Kaphael's instinctive, if not his conscious, aim. Nor is 
 there a, more striking instance of this purpose than the youth- 
 ful Jonah with the head of Hadrian's favourite. Lionardo's 
 Dionysus-John-the-Baptist seems but a careless jeu d'esprit 
 compared with this profound and studied symbol of renascent 
 humanisn. Thus to regard the Jonah-Antinous of the Cappella 
 Chigi as a type of immortality and self-devotion, fusing Chris- 
 tian and Graeco-Eoman symbolism in one work of modern 
 art, is the most natural interpretation ; but it would not be 
 impossible to trace in it a metaphor of the resurgent Pagan 
 spirit also as though, leaving Jonah and his Biblical asso- 
 ciations in the background, the artist had determined that 
 from the mouth of the monstrous grave should issue not a 
 bearded prophet, but the victorious youth who had captivated 
 with his beauty and his heroism the sunset age of the classic 
 world. At any rate, whatever may have been Eaphael's in- 
 tention, the legend of Antinous, that last creation of antique 
 mythology, shines upon us in this marble, just as the tale of 
 Hero and Leander, that last blossom of antique literature, 
 flowers afresh in the verses of our Marlowe. It would appear 
 as though the Eenaissance poets, hastening to meet the classic 
 world with arms of welcome, had embraced its latest saints, 
 as nearest to them, in the rapture of their first enthusiasm. 
 
 Over all these questions, over all that concerns Antinous, 
 there rests a cloud of darkness and impenetrable doubt. To 
 pierce that cloud is now impossible. The utmost we can do 
 is to mdulgfc- our fancy in dreams of greater or less probability, 
 and to mark out clearly the limitations of the subject. It is 
 indeed something to have shown that the stigma of slavery 
 and disgrace attaching to his name has no solid historical 
 justification, and something to have suggested plausible reasons
 
 ANTINOUS 229 
 
 for conjecturing that his worship had a genuine spiritual basis. 
 Yet the sincere critic, at the end of the whole inquiry, will 
 confess that he has only cast a plummet into the unfathomable 
 sea of ignorance. What remains, immortal, indestructible, 
 victorious, is Antinous in art. Against the gloomy back- 
 ground of doubt, calumny, contention, terrible surmise, his 
 statues are illuminated with the dying glory of the classic 
 genius even as the towers and domes of a marble city shine 
 forth from the purple banks of a thunder-cloud in sunset light. 
 Here and here only does reality emerge from the chaos of con- 
 flicting phantoms. Front to front with them, it is allowed us 
 to forget all else but the beauty of one who died young 
 because the gods loved him. But when we question those 
 wonderful mute features and beg them for their secret, they 
 return no answer. There is not even a smile upon the parted 
 lips. So profound is the mystery, so insoluble the enigma, 
 that from its most importunate interrogation we derive nothing 
 but an attitude of deeper reverence. This in itself, however, is 
 worth the pains of study. 1 
 
 1 I must here express my indebtedness to my friend H. F. Brown for 
 a large portion of the materials used by me in this essay on Antinous, 
 which I had no means at Davos Platz of accumulating for myself, and 
 which he unearthed from the libraries of Florence in the course of his 
 own work, and generously placed at my disposal.
 
 230 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IX ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 
 
 ANA-CAPRI 
 
 THE storm-clouds at this season, though it is the bloom of 
 May, are daily piled in sulky or menacing masses over Vesu- 
 vius and the Abruzzi, frothing out their curls of moulded mist 
 across the bay, and climbing the heavens with toppling castle 
 towers and domes of alabaster. 
 
 We made the most of a tranquil afternoon, when there 
 was an armistice of storm, to climb the bluff of Mount 
 Solaro. A ruined fort caps that limestone bulwark ; and 
 there we lay together, drinking the influences of sea, sun, and 
 wind. Immeasurably deep beneath us plunged the precipices, 
 deep, deep descending to a bay where fisher boats were rock- 
 ing, diminished to a scale that made the fishermen in them 
 invisible. Low down above the waters wheeled white gulls, 
 and higher up the hawks and ospreys of the cliff sailed out of 
 sunlight into shadow. Immitigable strength is in the mould- 
 ing of this limestone, and sharp, clear definiteness marks yon 
 clothing of scant brushwood where the fearless goats are 
 browsing. The sublime of sculpturesque in crag structure is 
 here, refined and modulated by the sweetness of sea distances. 
 For the air came pure and yielding to us over the unfooted 
 sea ; and at the basement of those fortress-cliffs the sea was 
 dreaming in its caves ; and far away, to east and south and 
 west, soft light was blent with inist upon the surface of the 
 shimmering waters.
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 231 
 
 The distinction between prospects viewed from a mountain 
 overlooking a great plain, or viewed from heights that, like 
 this, dominate the sea, principally lies in this : that while the 
 former only offer cloud shadows cast upon the fields below 
 our feet, in the latter these shadows are diversified with cloud 
 reflections. This gives superiority in qualities of colour, 
 variety of tone, and luminous effect to the sea, compensating 
 in some measure for the lack of those associations which 
 render the outlook over a wide extent of populated land so 
 thrilling. The emergence of towered cities into sunlight at 
 the skirts of moving shadows, the liquid lapse of rivers half 
 disclosed by windings among woods, the upturned mirrors of 
 unruffled lakes, are wanting to the sea. For such episodes 
 the white sails of vessels, with all their wistfulness of going 
 to and fro on the mysterious deep, are but a poor exchange. 
 Yet the sea-lover may justify his preference by appealing to 
 the beauty of empurpled shadows, toned by amethyst or opal, 
 or shining with violet light, reflected from the clonds that 
 cross and find in those dark shields a mirror. There are sug- 
 gestions, too, of immensity, of liberty, of action, presented by 
 the boundless horizons and the changeful changeless tracts of 
 ocean which no plain possesses. 
 
 It was nigh upon sunset when we descended to Ana-Capri. 
 That evening the clouds assembled suddenly. The armistice 
 of storm was broken. They were terribly blue, and the sea 
 grew dark as steel beneath them, till the moment when the 
 sun's lip reached the last edge of the waters. Then a courier 
 of rosy flame sent forth from him passed swift across the gulf, 
 touching, where it trod, the waves with accidental fire. The 
 messenger reached Naples ; and in a moment, as by some 
 diabolical illumination, the sinful city kindled into light like 
 glowing charcoal. From Posilippo on the left, along the 
 palaces of the Chiaja, up to S. Elmo on the hill, past Santa
 
 232 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Lucia, down on the Marinella, beyond Portici, beyond Torre 
 del Greco, where Vesuvius towered up aloof, an angry mount 
 of amethystine gloom, the conflagration spread and reached 
 Pompeii, and dwelt on Torre dell' Annunziata. Stationary, 
 lurid, it smouldered while the day died slowly. The long, 
 densely populated sea-line from Pozzuoli to Castellammare 
 burned and smoked with intensest incandescence, sending a 
 glare of fiery mist against the threatening blue behind, and 
 fringing with pomegranate-coloured blots the water where no 
 light now lingered. It is difficult to bend words to the use 
 required. The scene, in spite of natural suavity and grace, 
 had become like Dante's first glimpse of the City of Dis like 
 Sodom and Gomorrah when fire from heaven descended on 
 their towers before they crumbled into dust. 
 
 FROM CAPRI TO ISCHIA 
 
 After this, for several days, Libeccio blew harder. No 
 boats could leave or come to Capri. From the piazza parapet 
 we saw the wind scooping the surface of the waves, and fling- 
 ing spray-fleeces in sheets upon the churning water. As they 
 broke on Cape Campanella, the rollers climbed in foam how 
 many feet ? and blotted out the olive-trees above the head- 
 land. The sky was always dark with hanging clouds and 
 masses of low-lying vapour, very moist, but scarcely raining 
 lightning without thunder in the night. 
 
 Such weather is unexpected in the middle month of May, 
 especially when the olives are blackened by December storms, 
 and the orange-trees despoiled of foliage, and the tendrils of 
 the vines yellow with cold. The walnut-trees have shown no 
 sign of making leaves. Only the figs seem to have suffered 
 little. 
 
 It had been settled that we should start upon the first
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 233 
 
 seafaring dawn for Ischia or Sorrento, according as the wind 
 might set ; and I was glad when, early one morning, the 
 captain of the Serena announced a moderate sirocco. When 
 we reached the little quay we found the surf of the Libeccio 
 still rolling heavily into the gulf. A gusty south-easter 
 crossed it, tearing spray-crests from the swell as it went 
 plunging onward. The sea was rough enough ; but we made 
 fast sailing, our captain steering with a skill which it was 
 beautiful to watch, his five oarsmen picturesquely grouped 
 beneath the straining sail. The sea slapped and broke from 
 time to time on our windward quarter, drenching the boat 
 with brine ; and now and then her gunwale scooped into the 
 shoulder of a wave as she shot sidling up it. Meanwhile 
 enormous masses of leaden-coloured clouds formed above our 
 heads and on the sea-line ; but these were always shifting 
 in the strife of winds, and the sun shone through them 
 petulantly. As we climbed the rollers, or sank into their 
 trough, the outline of the bay appeared in glimpses, shyly 
 revealed, suddenly withdrawn from sight ; the immobility and 
 majesty of mountains contrasted with the weltering waste of 
 water round us now blue and garish where the sunlight fell, 
 now shrouded in squally rain-storms, and then again sullen 
 beneath a vaporous canopy. Each of these vignettes was 
 photographed for one brief second on the brain, and swallowed 
 by the hurling drift of billows. The painter's art could but 
 ill have rendered that changeful colour in the sea, passing 
 from tawny cloud-reflections and surfaces of glowing violet to 
 bright blue or impenetrable purple flecked with boiling foam, 
 according as a light-illuminated or a shadowed facet of the 
 moving mass was turned to sight. 
 
 Halfway across the gulf the sirocco lulled ; the sail was 
 lowered, and we had to make the rest of the passage by row- 
 ing. Under the lee of Ischia we got into comparatively quiet
 
 234 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 water ; though here the beautiful Italian sea was yellowish 
 green with churned-up sand, like an unripe orange. We 
 passed the castle on its rocky island, with the domed church 
 which has heen so often painted in gouache pictures through 
 the last two centuries, and soon after noon we came to 
 Casamicciola. 
 
 LA PICCOLA SENTINELLA 
 
 Casamicciola is a village on the north side of the island, 
 in its centre, where the visitors to the mineral baths of Ischia 
 chiefly congregate. One of its old-established inns is called 
 La Piccola Sentinella. The first sight on entrance is an open 
 gallery, with a pink wall on which bloom magnificent cactuses, 
 sprays of thick-clustering scarlet and magenta flowers. This 
 is a rambling house, built in successive stages against a hill, 
 with terraces and verandahs opening on unexpected gardens 
 to the back and front. Beneath its long irregular faQade 
 there spreads a wilderness of orange-trees and honeysuckles 
 and roses, verbenas, geraniums and mignonette, snapdragons, 
 gazanias and stocks, exceeding bright and fragrant, with the 
 green slopes of Monte Epomeo for a background and Vesu- 
 vius for far distance. There are wonderful bits of detail in 
 this garden. One dark, thick-foliaged olive, I remember, 
 leaning from the tufa over a lizard-haunted wall, feathered 
 waist-high in huge acanthus leaves. The whole rich orchard 
 ground of Casamicciola is dominated by Monte Epomeo, the 
 extinct volcano which may be called the raison d'etre of 
 Ischia ; for this island is nothing but a mountain lifted by the 
 energy of fire from the sea-basement. Its fantastic peaks and 
 ridges, sulphur-coloured, dusty grey, and tawny, with brush- 
 wood in young leaf upon the cloven flanks, form a singular 
 pendant to the austere but more artistically modelled lime- 
 stone crags of Capri. No two islands that I know, within so
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 235 
 
 short a space of sea, offer two pictures so different in style and 
 quality of loveliness. The inhabitants are equally distinct in 
 type. Here, in spite of what De Musset wrote somewhat 
 affectedly about the peasant girls 
 
 Ischia ! c'est Id qu'on a ties yeux, 
 C'est la qu'un corsage amoureux 
 
 Serre la hanche. 
 Sur un bas rouge bien tire 
 Brille, sous le jupon don', 
 
 La mule blanche 
 
 in spite of these lines I did not find the Ischian women 
 eminent, as those of Capri are, for beauty. But the young 
 men have fine, loose, faun-like figures, and faces that would 
 be strikingly handsome but for too long and prominent noses. 
 They are a singular race, graceful in movement. 
 
 Evening is divine in Ischia. From the topmost garden 
 terrace of the inn one looks across the sea towards Terracina, 
 Gaeta, and those descending mountain buttresses, the Phleg- 
 rasan plains, and the distant snows of the Abruzzi. Rain- 
 washed and luminous, the sunset sky held Hesper trembling 
 in a solid green of beryl. Fireflies flashed among the orange 
 blossoms. Far away in the obscurity of eastern twilight 
 glared the smouldering cone of Vesuvius a crimson blot 
 upon the darkness a Cyclops' eye, bloodshot and menacing. 
 
 The company in the Piccola Sentinella, young and old, 
 were decrepit, with an odd, rheumatic, shrivelled look upon 
 them. The dining-room reminded me, as certain rooms are 
 apt to do, of a ship's saloon. I felt as though I had got into 
 the cabin of the Flying Dutchman, and that all these people 
 had been sitting there at meat a hundred years, through 
 storm and shine, for ever driving onward over immense 
 waves in an enchanted calm.
 
 236 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 ISCHIA AND FORIO 
 
 One morning we drove along the shore, up hill, and down, 
 by the Porto d'Ischia to the town and castle. This country 
 curiously combines the qualities of Corfu and Catania. The 
 near distance, so richly cultivated, with the large volcanic 
 slopes of Monte Epomeo rising from the sea, is like Catania. 
 Then, across the gulf, are the bold outlines and snowy peaks 
 of the Abruzzi, recalling Albanian ranges. Here, as in Sicily, 
 the old lava is overgrown with prickly pear and red valerian. 
 Mesembrianthemums I must be pardoned this word ; for I 
 cannot omit those fleshy-leaved creepers, with their wealth 
 of gaudy blossoms, shaped like sea anemones, coloured like 
 strawberry and pineapple cream-ices mesembrianthemurns, 
 then, tumble in torrents from the walls, and large-cupped 
 white convolvuluses curl about the hedges. The Castle Rock, 
 with Capri's refined sky-coloured outline relieving its hard 
 profile on the horizon, is one of those exceedingly picturesque 
 objects just too theatrical to be artistic. It seems ready-made 
 for a back scene in ' Masaniello,' and cries out to the chromo- 
 lithographer, ' Come and make the most of me ! ' Yet this 
 morning all things, in sea, earth, and sky, were so delicately 
 tinted and bathed in pearly light that it was difficult to be 
 critical. 
 
 In the afternoon we took the other side of the island, 
 driving through Lacca to Forio. One gets right round the 
 bulk of Epomeo, and looks up into a weird region called Le 
 Falange, where white lava streams have poured in two broad 
 irregular torrents among broken precipices. Forio itself is 
 placed at the end of a flat headland, boldly thrust into the 
 sea ; and its furthest promontory bears a pilgrimage church, 
 intensely white and glaring.
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 237 
 
 There is something arbitrary in the memories we make of 
 places casually visited, dependent as they are upon our mood 
 at the moment, or on an accidental interweaving of impres- 
 sions which the genius loci blends for us. Of Forio two 
 memories abide with me. The one is of a young woman, 
 with very fair hair, in a light blue dress, standing beside an 
 older woman in a garden. There was a flourishing pome- 
 granate-tree above them. The whiteness and the dreamy 
 smile of the young woman seemed strangely out of tune with 
 her strong-toned southern surroundings. I could have fancied 
 her a daughter of some moist north-western isle of Scandi- 
 navian seas. My other memory is of a lad, brown, handsome, 
 powerfully featured, thoughtful, lying curled up in the sun 
 upon a sort of ladder in his house-court, profoundly meditat- 
 ing. He had a book in his hand, and his finger still marked 
 the place where he had read. He looked as though a Colum- 
 bus or a Campanella might emerge from his earnest, fervent, 
 steadfast adolescence. Driving rapidly along, and leaving 
 Forio in all probability for ever, I kept wondering whether 
 those two lives, discerned as though in vision, would meet 
 whether she was destined to be his evil genius, whether pos- 
 terity would hear of him and journey to his birthplace in this 
 world-neglected Forio. Such reveries are futile. Yet who 
 entirely resists them ? 
 
 MONTE EPOMEO 
 
 About three on the morning which divides the month of 
 May into two equal parts I woke and saw the waning moon 
 right opposite my window, stayed in her descent upon the 
 slope of Epomeo. Soon afterwards Christian called me, and 
 we settled to ascend the mountain. Three horses and a stout 
 black donkey, with their inevitable grooms, were ordered ;
 
 238 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 and we took for guide a lovely faun-like boy, goat-faced, goat- 
 footed, with gentle manners and pliant limbs swaying beneath 
 the breath of impulse. He was called Giuseppe. 
 
 The way leads past the mineral baths and then strikes 
 uphill, at first through lanes cut deep in the black lava. The 
 trees meet almost overhead. It is like Devonshire, except 
 that one half hopes to see tropical foxgloves with violet bells 
 and downy leaves sprouting among the lush grasses and 
 sweet-scented ferns upon those gloomy, damp, warm walls. 
 After this we skirted a thicket of arbutus, and came upon the 
 long volcanic ridge, with divinest outlook over Procida and 
 Miseno toward Vesuvius. Then once more we had to dive 
 into brown sandstone gullies, extremely steep, where the 
 horses almost burst their girths in scrambling, and the 
 grooms screamed, exasperating their confusion with en- 
 couragements and curses. Straight or bending as a willow 
 wand, Giuseppe kept in front. I could have imagined he 
 had stepped to life from one of Leonardo's fancy-sprighted 
 studies. 
 
 After this fashion we gained the spine of mountain which 
 composes Ischia the smooth ascending ridge that grows up 
 from those eastern waves to what was once the apex of fire- 
 vomiting Inarime, and breaks in precipices westward, a ruin 
 of gulfed lava, tortured by the violence of pent Typhceus. 
 Under a vast umbrella pine we dismounted, rested, and saw 
 Capri. Now the road skirts slanting-wise along the further 
 flank of Epomeo, rising by muddy earth-heaps and sandstone 
 hollows to the quaint pinnacles which build the summit. 
 There is no inconsiderable peril in riding over this broken 
 ground; for the soil crumbles away, and the ravines open 
 downward, treacherously masked with brushwood. 
 
 On Epomeo's topmost cone a chapel dedicated to S. 
 Niccolo da Bari, the Italian patron of seamen, has been
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 239 
 
 hollowed from the rock. Attached to it is the dwelling of 
 two hermits, subterranean, with long dark corridors and 
 windows opening on the western seas. Church and hermitage 
 alike are scooped, with slight expenditure of mason's skill, 
 from solid mountain. The windows are but loopholes, lean- 
 ing from which the town of Forio is seen, 2500 feet below ; 
 and the jagged precipices of the menacing Falange toss their 
 contorted horror forth to sea and sky. Through gallery and 
 grotto we wound in twilight under a monk's guidance, and 
 came at length upon the face of the crags above Casamicciola. 
 A few steps upward, cut like a ladder in the stone, brought 
 us to the topmost peak a slender spire of soft, yellowish 
 tufa. It reminded me (with differences) of the way one 
 climbs the spire at Strasburg, and stands upon that temple's 
 final crocket, with nothing but a lightning conductor to steady 
 swimming senses. Different indeed are the views unrolled 
 beneath the peak of Epomeo and the pinnacle of Strasburg ! 
 Vesuvius, with the broken lines of Procida, Miseno, and 
 Lago Fusaro for foreground; the sculpturesque beauty of 
 Capri, buttressed in everlasting calm upon the waves; the 
 Phlegrsean plains and champaign of Volturno, stretching 
 between smooth seas and shadowy hills ; the mighty sweep 
 of Naples' bay ; all merged in blue ; aerial, translucent, 
 exquisitely frail. In this ethereal fabric of azure the most 
 real of realities, the most solid of substances, seem films upon 
 a crystal sphere. 
 
 The hermit produced some flasks of amber-coloured wine 
 from his stores in the grotto. These we drank, lying full- 
 length upon the tufa in the morning sunlight. The panorama 
 of sea, sky, and long-drawn lines of coast, breathless, without 
 a ripple or a taint of cloud, spread far and wide around us. 
 Our horses and donkey cropped what little grass, blent witli 
 bitter herbage, grew on that barren summit. Their grooms
 
 240 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 helped us out with the hermit's wine, and turned to sleep 
 face downward. The whole, scene was very quiet, islanded 
 in immeasurable air. Then we asked the boy, Giuseppe, 
 whether he could guide us on foot down the cliffs of Monte 
 Epomeo to Casamicciola. This he was willing and able to 
 do ; for he told me that he had spent many months each 
 year upon the hillside, tending goats. When rough weather 
 came, he wrapped himself in a blanket from the snow that 
 falls and melts upon the ledges. In summer time he basked 
 the whole day long, and slept the calm ambrosial nights 
 away. Something of this free life was in the burning eyes, 
 long clustering dark hair, and smooth brown bosom of the 
 faun-like creature. His graceful body had the brusque, 
 unerring movement of the goats he shepherded. Human 
 thought and emotion seemed a-slumber in this youth who 
 had grown one with nature. As I watched his careless 
 incarnate loveliness I remembered lines from an old Italian 
 poem of romance, describing a dweller of the forest, who 
 
 Haunteth the woodland aye 'neath verdurous shade, 
 Eateth wild fruit, drinketh of running stream ; 
 And such-like is his nature, as 'tis said, 
 That ever weepeth he when clear skies gleam, 
 Seeing of storms and rain he then hath dread, 
 And feareth lest the sun's heat fail for him ; 
 But when on high hurl winds and clouds together, 
 Full glad is he and waiteth for fair weather. 
 
 Giuseppe led us down those curious volcanic baize, where the 
 soil is soft as marl, with tints splashed on it of pale green and 
 rose and orange, and a faint scent in it of sulphur. They 
 break away into wild chasms, where rivulets begin ; and here 
 the narrow watercourses made for us plain going. The turf 
 beneath our feet was starred with cyclamens and wavering 
 anemones. At last we reached the chestnut woods, and so
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 241 
 
 by winding paths descended on the village. Giuseppe told 
 me, as we walked, that in a short time he would be obliged 
 to join the army. He contemplated this duty with a dim 
 and undefined dislike. Nor could I, too, help dreading and 
 misliking it for him. The untamed, gentle creature, who 
 knew so little but his goats as yet, whose nights had been 
 passed from childhood a la belle etoile, whose limbs had 
 never been cumbered with broadcloth or belt for him to be 
 shut up in the barrack of some Lombard city, packed in 
 white conscript's sacking, drilled, taught to read and write, 
 and weighted with the knapsack and the musket ! There 
 was something lamentable in the prospect. But such is the 
 burden of man's life, of modern life especially. United Italy 
 demands of her children that by this discipline they should 
 be brought into that harmony which builds a nation out of 
 diverse elements. 
 
 FROM ISCHIA TO NAPLES 
 
 Ischia showed a new aspect on the morning of our de- 
 parture. A sea-mist passed along the skirts of the island, 
 and rolled in heavy masses round the peaks of Monte Epomeo, 
 slowly condensing into summer clouds, and softening each 
 outline with a pearly haze, through which shone emerald 
 glimpses of young vines and fig-trees. 
 
 We left in a boat with four oarsmen for Pozzuoli. For 
 about an hour the breeze carried us well, while Ischia behind 
 grew ever lovelier, soft as velvet, shaped like a gem. The 
 mist had become a great white luminous cloud not dense 
 and alabastrine, like the clouds of thunder ; but filmy, tender, 
 comparable to the atmosphere of Dante's moon. Porpoises 
 and sea-gulls played and fished about our bows, dividing the 
 
 III R
 
 dark brine in spray. The mountain distances were drowned 
 in bluish vapour Vesuvius quite invisible. About noon the 
 air grew clearer, and Capri reared her fortalice of sculptured 
 rock, aerially azure, into liquid ether. I know not what 
 effect of atmosphere or light it is that lifts an island from the 
 sea by interposing that thin edge of lustrous white between 
 it and the water. But this phenomenon to-day was perfectly 
 exhibited. Like a mirage on the wilderness, like Fata 
 Morgana's palace ascending from the deep, the pure and 
 noble vision stayed suspense 'twixt heaven and ocean. At 
 the same time the breeze failed, and we rowed slowly between 
 Procida and Capo Miseno a space in old-world history 
 athrong with Caesar's navies. When we turned the point, 
 and came in sight of Baiae, the wind freshened and took us 
 flying into Pozzuoli. The whole of this coast has been 
 spoiled by the recent upheaval of Monte Nuovo with its lava 
 floods and cindery deluges. Nothing remains to justify its 
 fame among the ancient Eomans and the Neapolitans of 
 Boccaccio's and Pontano's age. It is quite wrecked, beyond 
 the power even of hendeeasyllables to bring again its breath 
 
 of beauty : 
 
 Mecran si sapies, Gravina, mecum 
 Baias, et placidos coles recessus, 
 Quos ipsse et veneres colunt, et ilia 
 Quse mentes hominum regit voluptas. 
 Hie vina et choreae jocique regnant, 
 Regnant et charites facetiseque. 
 Has sedes amor, has colit cupido. 
 His passim juvenes puellulaeque 
 Ludunt, et tepidis aquis lavantur, 
 Coenantque et dapibus leporibusque 
 Miscent delitias venustiores : 
 Miscent gaudia et osculationes, 
 Atque una sociis toris foventur, 
 Has te ad delitias vocant camrense ; 
 Invitat mare, myrteumque littus ;
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 243 
 
 Invitant volucres canorae, et ipse 
 Gaurus pampineas parat corollas. 1 
 
 At Pozzuoli we dined in the Albergo del Ponte di Caligola 
 (Heaven save the mark !), and drank Falernian wine of 
 modern and indifferent vintage. Then Christian hired two 
 open carriages for Naples. He and I sat in the second. In 
 the first we placed the two ladies of our party. They had a 
 large, fat driver. Just after we had all passed the gate a big 
 fellow rushed up, dragged the corpulent coachman from his 
 box, pulled out a knife, and made a savage thrust at the 
 man's stomach. At the same moment a guardia-porta, with 
 drawn cutlass, interposed and struck between the combatants. 
 They were separated. Their respective friends assembled 
 in two jabbering crowds, and the whole party, uttering 
 vociferous objurgations, marched off, as I imagined, to the 
 watch-house. A very shabby lazzarone, without more ado, 
 
 1 These verses are extracted from the second book of Pontano's 
 Hendecasyllabi (Aldus, 1513, p. 208). They so vividly paint the amuse- 
 ments of a watering-place in the fifteenth century that I have translated 
 them : 
 
 With me, let but the mind be wise, Gravina, 
 
 With me haste to the tranquil haunts of Baiae, 
 
 Haunts that pleasure hath made her home, and she who 
 
 Sways all hearts, the voluptuous Aphrodite. 
 
 Here wine rules, and the dance, and games and laughter ; 
 
 Graces reign in a round of mirthful madness ; 
 
 Love hath built, and desire, a palace here too, 
 
 WTiere glad youths and enamoured girls on all sides 
 
 Play and bathe in the waves in sunny weather, 
 
 Dine and sup, and the merry mirth of banquets 
 
 Blend with dearer delights and love's embraces, 
 
 Blend with pleasures of youth and honeyed kisses, 
 
 Till, sport-tired, in the couch inarmed they slumber. 
 
 Thee our Muses invite to these enjoyments ; 
 
 Thee those billows allure, the myrtled seashore, 
 
 Birds allure with a song, and mighty Gaums 
 
 Twines his redolent wreath of vines and ivy. 
 
 fci
 
 244 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 sprang on the empty box, and we made haste for Naples. 
 Being only anxious to get there, and not at all curious about 
 the squabble which had deprived us of our fat driver, I 
 relapsed into indifference when I found that neither of the 
 men to whose lot we had fallen was desirous of explaining 
 the affair. It was sufficient cause for self-congratulation that 
 no blood had been shed, and that the Procuratore del Ee 
 would not require our evidence. 
 
 The Grotta di Posilippo was a sight of wonder, with the 
 afternoon sun slanting on its festoons of creeping plants 
 above the western entrance the gas lamps, dust, huge carts, 
 oxen, and contadini in its subterranean darkness and then 
 the sudden revelation of the bay and city as we jingled out 
 into the summery air again by Virgil's tomb. 
 
 NIGHT AT POMPEII 
 
 On to Pompeii in the clear sunset, falling very lightly 
 upon mountains, islands, little ports, and indentations of 
 the bay. 
 
 From the railway station we walked above hah* a mile to 
 the Albergo del Sole under a lucid heaven of aqua-marine 
 colour, with Venus large in it upon the border line between 
 the tints of green and blue. 
 
 The Albergo del Sole is worth commemorating. We 
 stepped, without the intervention of courtyard or entrance 
 hall, straight from the little inn garden into an open, vaulted 
 room. This was divided into two compartments by a stout 
 column supporting round arches. Wooden gates furnished 
 a kind of fence between the atrium and what an old Pompeian 
 would have styled the triclinium. For in the further part a 
 table was laid for supper and lighted with suspended lamps. 
 And here a party of artists and students drank and talked and
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 245 
 
 smoked. A great live peacock, half asleep and winking his 
 eyes, sat perched upon a heavy wardrobe watching them. 
 The outer chamber, where we waited in armchairs of ample 
 girth, had its loggia windows and doors open to the air. 
 There were singing-birds in cages ; and plants of rosemary, 
 iris, and arundo sprang carelessly from holes in the floor. A 
 huge vase filled to overflowing with oranges and lemons, the 
 very symbol of generous prodigality, stood in the midst, and 
 several dogs were lounging round. The outer twilight, 
 blending with the dim sheen of the lamps, softened this pretty 
 scene to picturesqueness. Altogether it was a strange and 
 unexpected place. Much experienced as the nineteenth - 
 century nomad may be in inns, he will rarely receive a more 
 powerful and refreshing impression, entering one at evenfall, 
 than here. 
 
 There was no room for us in the inn. We were sent, 
 attended by a boy with a lantern, through fields of dew- 
 drenched barley and folded poppies, to a farmhouse over- 
 shadowed by four spreading . pines. Exceedingly soft and 
 grey, with rose-tinted weft of steam upon its summit, stood 
 Vesuvius above us in the twilight. Something in the recent 
 impression of the dimly lighted supper-room, and in the 
 idyllic simplicity of this lantern-litten journey through the 
 barley, suggested, by one of those inexplicable stirrings of 
 association which affect tired senses, a dim, dreamy thought 
 of Palestine and Bible stories. The feeling of the cenacolo 
 blent here with feelings of Ruth's cornfields, and the white 
 square houses with their flat roofs enforced the illusion. 
 Here we slept in the middle of a contadino colony. Some 
 of the folk had made way for us ; and by the wheezing, 
 coughing, and snoring of several sorts and ages in the 
 chamber next me, I imagine they must have endured con- 
 siderable crowding. My bed was large enough to have
 
 246 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 contained a family. Over its head there was a little shrine, 
 hollowed in the thickness of the wall, with several sacred 
 emblems and a shallow vase of holy water. On dressers at 
 each end of the room stood glass shrines, occupied by finely 
 dressed Madonna dolls and pots of artificial flowers. Above 
 the doors S. Michael and S. Francis, roughly embossed in low 
 relief and boldly painted, gave dignity and grandeur to the 
 walls. These showed some sense for art in the first builders 
 of the house. But the taste of the inhabitants could not be 
 praised. There were countless gaudy prints of saints, and 
 exactly five pictures of the Bambino, very big, and sprawling 
 in a field alone. A crucifix, some old bottles, a gun, old 
 clothes suspended from pegs, pieces of peasant pottery and 
 china, completed the furniture of the apartment. 
 
 But what a view it showed when Christian next morning 
 opened the door ! From my bed I looked across the red-tiled 
 terrace to the stone-pines with their velvet roofage and the 
 blue-peaked hills of Stabiae. 
 
 SAN GEEMANO 
 
 No one need doubt about his quarters in this country 
 town. The Albergo di Pompeii is a truly sumptuous place. 
 Sofas, tables, and chairs in our sitting-room are made of 
 buffalo horns, very cleverly pieced together, but torturing the 
 senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or standing, 
 one felt insecure. When would the points run into us ? 
 when should we begin to break these incrustations off ? and 
 would the whole fabric crumble at a touch into chaotic heaps 
 of horns ? 
 
 It is market day, and the costumes in the streets are 
 brilliant. The women wear a white petticoat, a blue skirt 
 made straight and tightly bound above it, a white richly
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 247 
 
 worked bodice, and the white square-folded napkin of the 
 Abruzzi on their heads. Their jacket is of red or green pure 
 colour. A rug of striped red, blue, yellow, and black protects 
 the whole dress from the rain. There is a very noble quality 
 of green sappy and gemmy like some of Titian's or Gior- 
 gione's in the stuffs they use. Their build and carriage are 
 worthy of goddesses. 
 
 Bain falls heavily, persistently. We must ride on donkeys, 
 in waterproofs, to Monte Cassino. Mountain and valley, oak 
 wood and ilex grove, lentisk thicket and winding river-bed, are 
 drowned alike in soft-descending, soaking rain. Far and near 
 the landscape swims in rain, and the hillsides send down 
 torrents through their watercourses. 
 
 The monastery is a square, dignified building, of vast 
 extent and princely solidity. It has a fine inner court, with 
 sumptuous staircases of slabbed stone leading to the church. 
 This public portion of the edifice is both impressive and 
 magnificent, without sacrifice of religious severity to parade. 
 We acknowledge a successful compromise between the 
 austerity of the order and the grandeur befitting the fame, 
 wealth, prestige, and power of its parent foundation. The 
 church itself is a tolerable structure of the Renaissance 
 costly marble incrustations and mosaics, meaningless Nea- 
 politan frescoes. One singular episode in the mediocrity of 
 art adorning it, is the tomb of Pietro de' Medici. Expelled 
 from Florence in 1494, he never returned, but was drowned in 
 the Garigliano. Clement VII. ordered, and Duke Cosimo I. 
 erected, this marble monument the handicraft, in part at 
 least, of Francesco di San Gallo to their relative. It is 
 singularly stiff, ugly, out of place at once obtrusive and 
 insignificant. 
 
 A gentle old German monk conducted Christian and me 
 over the convent boys' school, refectory, printing press,
 
 lithographic workshop, library, archives. We then returned 
 to the church, from which we passed to visit the most 
 venerable and sacred portion of the monastery. The cell of 
 S. Benedict is being restored and painted in fresco by the 
 Austrian Benedictines ; a pious but somewhat frigid process 
 of re-edification. This so-called cell is a many-chambered 
 and very ancient building, with a tower which is now 
 embedded in the massive superstructure of the modern 
 monastery. The German artists adorning it contrive to 
 blend the styles of Giotto, Fra Angelico, Egypt, and Byzance, 
 not without force and a kind of intense frozen pietism. S. 
 Mauro's vision of his master's translation to heaven the 
 ladder of light issuing between two cypresses, and the angels 
 watching on the tower walls might even be styled poetical. 
 But the decorative angels on the roof and other places, 
 being adapted from Egyptian art, have a strange, incongruous 
 appearance. 
 
 Monasteries are almost invariably disappointing to one 
 who goes in search of what gives virtue and solidity to human 
 life ; and even Monte Cassino was no exception. This ought 
 not to be otherwise, seeing what a peculiar sympathy with 
 the monastic institution is required to make these cloisters 
 comprehensible. The atmosphere of operose indolence, pro- 
 longed through centuries and centuries, stifles ; nor can 
 antiquity and influence impose upon a mind which resents 
 monkery itself as an essential evil. That Monte Cassino 
 supplied the Church with several potentates is incontestable. 
 That mediaeval learning and morality would have suffered 
 more without this brotherhood cannot be doubted. Yet it is 
 difficult to name men of very eminent genius whom the 
 Cassinesi claim as their alumni ; nor, with Boccaccio's 
 testimony to their carelessness, and with the evidence of 
 their library before our eyes, can we rate their services to
 
 SPRING WANDERINGS 249 
 
 civilised erudition very highly. I longed to possess the spirit, 
 for one moment, of Montalembert. I longed for what is 
 called historical imagination, for the indiscriminate voracity 
 of those men to whom world-famous sites are in themselves 
 soul-stirring.
 
 250 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GBEECE 
 
 AMALFI, P^STUM, CAPEI 
 
 THE road between Vietri and Arnalfi is justly celebrated as 
 one of the most lovely pieces of coast scenery in Italy. Its 
 only rivals are the roads from Castellaminare to Sorrento, 
 from Genoa to Sestri, and from Nice to Mentone. Each of 
 these has its own charm ; and yet their similarity is sufficient 
 to invite comparison : under the spell of each in turn, we are 
 inclined to say, This then, at all events, is the most beautiful. 
 On first quitting Vietri, Salerno is left low down upon the 
 sea-shore, nestling into a little corner of the bay which bears 
 its name, and backed up by gigantic mountains. With each 
 onward step these mountain-ranges expand in long aerial line, 
 revealing reaches of fantastic peaks, that stretch away beyond 
 the plain of Paestum, till they end at last in mist and sun- 
 beams shimmering on the sea. On the left hand hangs the 
 cliff above the deep salt water, with here and there a fig-tree 
 spreading fanlike leaves against the blue beneath. On the 
 right rises the hillside, clothed with myrtle, lentisk, cistus, 
 and pale yellow coronilla a tangle as sweet with scent as it 
 is gay with blossom. Over the parapet that skirts the preci- 
 pice lean heavy-foliaged locust-trees, and the terraces in sunny 
 nooks are set with lemon-orchards. There are but few olives, 
 and no pines. Meanwhile each turn in the road brings some 
 change of scene now a village with its little beach of grey 
 sand, lapped by clearest sea-waves, where bare-legged fisher- 
 men mend their nets, and naked boys bask like lizards in the
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPRI 251 
 
 sun now towering bastions of weird rock, broken into spires 
 and pinnacles like those of Skye, and coloured with bright 
 hues of red and orange then a ravine, where the thin thread 
 of a mountain streamlet seems to hang suspended upon ferny 
 ledges in the limestone or a precipice defined in profile 
 against sea and sky, with a lad, half dressed in goat-skin, 
 dangling his legs into vacuity and singing or a tract of 
 cultivation, where the orange, apricot, and lemon trees nestle 
 together upon terraces with intermingled pergolas of vines. 
 
 Amalfi and Atrani lie close together in two of these 
 ravines, the mountains almost arching over them, and the 
 sea washing their very house-walls. Each has its crowning 
 campanile ; but that of Amalfi is the stranger of the two, like 
 a Moorish tower at the top, and coloured with green and 
 yellow tiles that glitter in the sunlight. The houses are all 
 dazzling white, plastered against the naked rock, rising on 
 each other's shoulders to get a glimpse of earth and heaven, 
 j utting out on coigns of vantage from the toppling cliff, and 
 pierced with staircases as dark as night at noonday. Some 
 frequented lanes lead through the basements of these houses ; 
 and as the donkeys pick their way from step to step in the 
 twilight, bare-chested macaroni-makers crowd forth like ants 
 to see us strangers pass. A myriad of swallows or a swarm 
 of mason bees might build a town like this. 
 
 It is not easy to imagine the time when Amalfi and Atrani 
 were one town, with docks and arsenals and harbourage for 
 their associated fleets, and when these little communities were 
 second in importance to no naval power of Christian Europe. 
 The Byzantine Empire lost its hold on Italy during the eighth 
 century ; and after this time the history of Calabria is mainly 
 concerned with the republics of Naples and Amalfi, their 
 conflict with the Lombard dukes of Benevento, their oppo- 
 sition to the Saracens, and their final subjugation by the
 
 252 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Norman conquerors of Sicily. Between the year 839 A.D., 
 when Amalfi freed itself from the control of Naples and the 
 yoke of Benevento, and the year 1181, when Eoger of Haute- 
 ville incorporated the republic in his kingdom of the Two 
 Sicilies, this city was the foremost naval and commercial port 
 of Italy. The burghers of Amalfi elected their own doge ; 
 founded the Hospital of Jerusalem, whence sprang the knightly 
 order of S. John ; gave their name to the richest quarter in 
 Palermo ; and owned trading establishments or factories in 
 all the chief cities of the Levant. Their gold coinage of tari 
 formed the standard of currency before the Florentines had 
 stamped the lily and S. John upon the Tuscan florin. Their 
 shipping regulations supplied Europe with a code of maritime 
 laws. Their scholars, in the darkest depth of the dark ages, 
 prized and conned a famous copy of the Pandects of Justinian ; 
 and their seamen deserved the fame of having first used, if 
 they did not actually invent, the compass. 
 
 To modern visitors those glorious centuries of Amalfitan 
 power and independence cannot but seem fabulous ; so 
 difficult is it for us to imagine the conditions of society in 
 Europe when a tiny city, shut in between barren mountains 
 and a tideless sea, without a circumjacent territory, and with 
 no resources but piracy or trade, could develop maritime 
 supremacy in the Levant and produce the first fine flowers of 
 liberty and culture. 
 
 If the history of Amalfi 's early splendour reads like a 
 brilliant legend, the story of its premature extinction has the 
 interest of a tragedy. The republic had grown and flourished 
 on the decay of the Greek Empire. When the hard-handed 
 race of Hauteville absorbed the heritage of Greeks and Lom- 
 bards and Saracens in Southern Italy, these adventurers 
 succeeded in annexing Amalfi. But it was not their interest 
 to extinguish the state. On the contrary, they relied for
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPRI 253 
 
 assistance upon the navies and the armies of the little 
 commonwealth. New powers had meanwhile arisen in the 
 North of Italy, who were jealous of rivalry upon the open 
 seas ; and when the Neapolitans resisted King Roger in 1135, 
 they called Pisa to their aid, and sent her fleet to destroy 
 Amalfi. The ships of Amalfi were on guard with Roger's 
 navy in the Bay of Naples. The armed citizens were, under 
 Roger's orders, at Aversa. Meanwhile the home of the 
 republic lay defenceless on its mountain-girdled seaboard. 
 The Pisans sailed into the harbour, sacked the city, and 
 carried off the famous Pandects of Justinian as a trophy. 
 Two years later they returned, to complete the work of 
 devastation. Amalfi never recovered from the injuries and 
 the humiliation of these two attacks. It was ever thus that 
 the Italians, like the children of the dragon's teeth which 
 Cadmus sowed, consumed each other. Pisa cut the throat of 
 her sister-port Amalfi, and Genoa gave a mortal wound to 
 Pisa, when the waters of Meloria were dyed with blood in 
 1284. Venice fought a duel to the death with Genoa in the 
 succeeding century ; and what Venice failed to accomplish was 
 completed by Milan and the lords of the Visconti dynasty, 
 who crippled and enslaved the haughty queen of the Ligurian 
 Riviera. 
 
 The naval and commercial prosperity of Amalfi was thus 
 put an end to by the Pisans in the twelfth century. But it 
 was not then that the town assumed its present aspect. What 
 surprises the student of history more than anything is the 
 total absence of fortifications, docks, arsenals, and break- 
 waters, bearing witness to the ancient grandeur of a city which 
 numbered 50,000 inhabitants, and traded with Alexandria, 
 Syria, and the far East. Nothing of the sort, with the 
 exception of a single solitary tower upon the Monte Aureo, 
 is visible. Nor will he fail to remember that Amalfi and
 
 254 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Atrani, which are now divided by a jut ting mountain huttress, 
 were once joined by a tract of sea-beach, where the galleys of 
 the republic rested after sweeping the Levant, and where 
 the fishermen drew up their boats upon the smooth grey 
 sand. That also has disappeared. The violence of man was 
 not enough to reduce Amalfi to its present state of insigni- 
 ficance. The forces of nature aided partly by the gradual 
 subsidence of the land, which caused the lower quarters of 
 the city to be submerged, and separated Amalfi from her twin- 
 port by covering the beach with water partly by a fearful 
 tempest, accompanied by earthquake, in 1343. Petrarch, 
 then resident at Naples, witnessed the destructive fury of this 
 great convulsion, and the description he wrote of it soon after 
 its occurrence is so graphic that some notice may well be 
 taken of it here. 
 
 His letter, addressed to the noble Eoman, Giovanni 
 Colonna, begins with a promise to tell something of a storm 
 which deserved the title of ' poetic,' and in a degree so super- 
 lative that no epithet but ' Homeric ' would suffice to do it 
 justice. This exordium is singularly characteristic of Petrarch, 
 who never forgot that he was a literary man, and lost no 
 opportunity of dragging the great names of antiquity into his 
 rhetorical compositions. The catastrophe was hardly unex- 
 pected ; for it had been prophesied by an astrological bishop, 
 whom Petrarch does not name, that Naples would be over- 
 whelmed by a terrible disaster in December 1343. The 
 people were therefore in a state of wild anxiety, repenting of 
 their sins, planning a total change of life under the fear of 
 imminent death, and neglecting their ordinary occupations. 
 On the day of the predicted calamity women roamed in 
 trembling crowds through the streets, pressing their babies to 
 their breasts, and besieging the altars of the saints with 
 prayers. Petrarch, who shared the general disquietude, kept
 
 AMALFI, PJESTUM, CAPRI 255 
 
 watching the signs of the weather ; but nothing happened 
 to warrant an extraordinary panic. At sunset the sky was 
 quieter than usual ; and he could discern none of the symptoms 
 of approaching tempest, to which his familiarity with the 
 mountains of Vaucluse accustomed him. After dusk he 
 stationed himself at a window to observe the moon until she 
 went down, before midnight, obscured by clouds. Then he 
 betook himself to bed ; but scarcely had he fallen into his 
 first sleep when a most horrible noise aroused him. The 
 whole house shook; the night-light on his table was extin- 
 guished ; and he was thrown with violence from his couch. 
 He was lodging in a convent ; and soon after this first intima- 
 tion of the tempest he heard the monks calling to each other 
 through the darkness. From cell to cell they hurried, the 
 ghastly gleams of lightning falling on their terror-stricken 
 faces. Headed by the Prior, and holding crosses and relics of 
 the saints in their hands, they now assembled in Petrarch's 
 chamber. Thence they proceeded in a body to the chapel, 
 where they spent the night in prayer and expectation of 
 impending ruin. It would be impossible, says the poet, to 
 relate the terrors of that hellish night the deluges of rain, 
 the screaming of the wind, the earthquake, the thunder, the 
 howling of the sea, and the shrieks of agonising human beings. 
 All these horrors were prolonged, as though by some magi- 
 cian's spell, for what seemed twice the duration of a natural 
 night. It was so dark that at last by conjecture rather than the 
 testimony of their senses they knew that day had broken. A 
 hurried mass was said. Then, as the noise in the town above 
 them began to diminish, and a confused clamour from the sea- 
 shore continually increased, their suspense became unendur- 
 able. They mounted their horses, and descended to the port 
 to see and perish. A fearful spectacle awaited them. The 
 ships in the harbour had broken their moorings, and
 
 256 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 were crashing helplessly together. The strand was strewn 
 with mutilated corpses. The breakwaters were submerged, 
 and the sea seemed gaining momently upon the solid land. 
 A thousand watery mountains surged up into the sky between 
 the shore and Capri ; and these massive billows were not black 
 or purple, but hoary with a livid foam. After describing 
 some picturesque episodes such as the gathering of the 
 knights of Naples to watch the ruin of their city, the pro- 
 cession of court ladies headed by the queen to implore the 
 intercession of Mary, and the wreck of a vessel freighted with 
 400 convicts bound for Sicily Petrarch concludes with a 
 fervent prayer that he may never have to tempt the sea, of 
 whose fury he had seen so awful an example. 
 
 The capital on this occasion escaped the ruin prophesied. 
 But Amalfi was inundated ; and what the waters then gained 
 has never been restored to man. This is why the once so 
 famous city ranks now upon a level with quiet little towns 
 whose names are hardly heard in history with San Bemo, 
 or Bapallo, or Chiavari and 'yet it is still as full of life as a 
 wasp's nest, especially upon the molo, or raised piazza paved 
 with bricks, in front of the Albergo de' Cappuccini. The 
 changes of scene upon this tiny square are so frequent as to 
 remind one of a theatre. Looking down from the inn-balcony, 
 between the glazy green pots gay with scarlet amaryllis- 
 bloom, we are inclined to fancy that the whole has been 
 prepared for our amusement. In the morning the corn for 
 the macaroni-flour, after being washed, is spread out on the 
 bricks to dry. In the afternoon the fishermen bring their 
 nets for the same purpose. In the evening the city magnates 
 promenade and whisper. Dark-eyed women, with orange or 
 crimson kerchiefs for headgear, cross and re-cross, bearing 
 baskets on their shoulders. Great lazy large-limbed fellows, 
 girt with scarlet sashes and finished off with dark blue
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPKI 257 
 
 nightcaps (for a contrast to their saffron-coloured shirts, 
 white breeches, and sunburnt calves), slouch about or sleep 
 face downwards on the parapets. On either side of this 
 same molo stretches a miniature beach of sand and pebble, 
 covered with nets, which the fishermen are always mending, 
 and where the big boats lade or unlade, trimming for the 
 sardine fishery, or driving in to shore with a whirr of oars 
 and a jabber of discordant voices. As the land-wind freshens, 
 you may watch them set off one by one, like pigeons taking 
 flight, till the sea is flecked with twenty sail, all scudding in 
 the same direction. The torrent runs beneath the molo, and 
 finds the sea beyond it ; so that here too are the washer- 
 women, chattering like sparrows ; and everywhere the naked 
 boys, like brown sea-urchins, burrow in the clean warm sand, 
 or splash the shallow brine. If you like the fun, you may 
 get a score of them to dive together and scramble for coppers 
 in the deeper places, their lithe bodies gleaming wan beneath 
 the water in a maze of interlacing arms and legs. 
 
 Over the whole busy scene rise the grey hills, soaring into 
 blueness of air-distance, turreted here and there with ruined 
 castles, capped with particoloured campanili and white 
 convents, and tufted through their whole height with the 
 orange and the emerald of the great tree-spurge, and with 
 the live gold of the blossoming broom. It is difficult to say 
 when this picture is most beautiful whether in the early 
 morning, when the boats are coming back from their night- 
 toil upon the sea, and along the headlands in the fresh light 
 lie swathes of fleecy mist, betokening a still, hot day or at 
 noontide, when the houses on the hill stand, tinted pink and 
 yellow, shadowless like gems, and the great caruba-trees 
 above the tangles of vines and figs are blots upon the steady 
 glare or at sunset, when violet and rose, reflected from the 
 eastern sky, make all these terraces and peaks translucent 
 
 III 8
 
 258 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 with a wondrous glow. The best of all, perhaps, is night, 
 with a full moon hanging high overhead. Who shall describe 
 the silhouettes of boats upon the shore or sleeping on the 
 misty sea ? On the horizon lies a dusky film of brownish 
 golden haze, between the moon and the glimmering water ; 
 and here and there a lamp or candle burns with a deep red. 
 Then is the time to take a boat and row upon the bay, or 
 better, to swim out into the waves and trouble the reflections 
 from the steady stars. The mountains, clear and calm, with 
 light-irradiated chasms and hard shadows cast upon the rock, 
 soar up above a city built of alabaster, or sea-foam, or summer 
 clouds. The whole is white and wonderful : no similes 
 suggest an analogue for the lustre, solid and transparent, of 
 Amalfi nestling in moonlight between the grey-blue sea and 
 lucid hills. Stars stand on all the peaks, and twinkle, or 
 keep gliding, as the boat moves, down the craggy sides. 
 Stars are mirrored on the marble of the sea, until one knows 
 not whether the oar has struck sparks from a star image or 
 has scattered diamonds of phosphorescent brine. 
 
 All this reads like a rhapsody ; but indeed it is difficult 
 not to be rhapsodical when a May night of Amalfi is in the 
 memory, with the echo of rich baritone voices chanting 
 Neapolitan songs to a mandoline. It is fashionable to com- 
 plain that these Italian airs are opera-tunes ; but this is only 
 another way of saying that the Italian opera is the genuine 
 outgrowth of national melody, and that Weber was not the 
 first, as some German critics have supposed, to string together 
 Volkslieder for the stage. Northerners, who have never seen 
 or felt the beauty of the South, talk sad nonsense about the 
 superiority of German over Italian music. It is true that 
 much Italian music is out of place in Northern Europe, 
 where we seem to need more travail of the intellect in art. 
 But the Italians are rightly satisfied with such facile melody
 
 AMALFI, PJESTUM, CAPJII 259 
 
 and such simple rhythms as harmonise -with sea and sky and 
 boon earth sensuously beautiful. ' Perche pensa ? Pensando 
 s' invecchia,' expresses the same habit of mind as another 
 celebrated saying, ' La musica e il lamento dell' amore o la 
 preghiera agli Dei.' Whatever may be the value of Italian 
 music, it is in concord with such a scene as Amain by moon- 
 light ; and he who does not appreciate this no less than some 
 more artificial combination of sights and sounds in Wagner's 
 theatre at Bayreuth, has scarcely learned the first lesson in 
 the lore of beauty. 
 
 There is enough and to spare for all .tastes at Amalfi. 
 The student of architecture may spend hours in the Cathedral, 
 pondering over its high-built western front, and wondering 
 whether there is more of Moorish or of Gothic in its delicate 
 arcades. The painter may transfer its campanile, glittering 
 like dragon's scales, to his canvas. The lover of the pic- 
 turesque will wander through its aisle at mass-time, watching 
 the sunlight play upon those upturned Southern faces with 
 their ardent eyes ; and happy is he who sees young men and 
 maidens on Whit Sunday crowding round the chancel rails, 
 to catch the marigolds and gillyflowers scattered from baskets 
 which the priest has blessed. Is this a symbol of the Holy 
 Spirit's gifts, or is it some quaint relic of Pagan sparsiones ? 
 This question, with the memory of Pompeian graffiti in our 
 mind, may well suggest itself in Southern Italy, where old 
 and new faiths are so singularly blended. Then there is 
 Ravello on tbe hills above. The path winds upward between 
 stone walls tufted with maidenhair ; and ever nearer grow 
 the mountains, and the sea-line soars into the sky. An 
 Englishman has made his home here in a ruined Moorish 
 villa, with cool colonnaded cloisters and rose-embowered 
 terraces, lending far prospect over rocky hills and olive-girdled 
 villages to Paestum's plain. The churches of Ravello have 
 
 s 2
 
 260 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 rare mosaics, and bronze doors, and marble pulpits, older 
 perhaps tban those of Tuscany, which tempt the archaeologist 
 to ask if Nicholas the Pisan learned his secret here. But 
 who cares to be a sober antiquary at Amain ? Far pleasanter 
 is it to climb the staircase to the Capuchins, and linger in 
 those caverns of the living rock, and pluck the lemons 
 hanging by the mossy walls ; or to row from cove to cove 
 along the shore, watching the fishes swimming in the deeps 
 beneath, and the medusas spreading their filmy bells ; to land 
 upon smooth slabs of rock, where corallines wave to and fro ; 
 or to rest on samphire-tufted ledges, when the shadows slant 
 beneath the westering sun. 
 
 There is no point in all this landscape which does not 
 make a picture. Painters might even complain that the 
 pictures are too easy and the poetry too facile, just as the 
 musicians find the melodies of this fair land too simple. No 
 effect, carefully sought and strenuously seized, could enhance 
 the mere beauty of Amain bathed in sunlight. You have only 
 on some average summer day to sit down and paint the scene. 
 Little scope is afforded for suggestions of far-away weird 
 thoughts, or for elaborately studied motives. Daubigny and 
 Corot are as alien here as Blake or Diirer. 
 
 What is wanted, and what no modern artist can success- 
 fully recapture from the wasteful past, is the mythopreic sense 
 the apprehension of primeval powers akin to man, growing 
 into shape and substance on the borderland between the 
 world and the keen human sympathies it stirs in us. Greek 
 mythology was the proper form of art for scenery like this. 
 It gave the final touch to all its beauties, and added to its 
 sensuous charm an inbreathed spiritual life. No exercise of 
 the poetic faculty, far less that metaphysical mood of the 
 reflective consciousness which 'leads from nature up to 
 nature's God,' can now supply this need. From sea and earth
 
 AMALFI, P^STUM, CAPRI 261 
 
 and sky, in those creative ages when the world was young, 
 there leaned to greet the men whose fancy made them, forms 
 imagined and yet real human, divine the archetypes and 
 everlasting patterns of man's deepest sense of what is wonder- 
 ful in nature. Feeling them there, for ever there, inalienable, 
 ready to start forth and greet successive generations as the 
 Hamadryad greeted Bhaicos from his father's oak those 
 mythopoets called them by immortal names. All their pent- 
 up longings, all passions that consume, all aspirations that 
 inflame the desire for the impossible, which is disease, the 
 day-dreams and visions of the night, which are spontaneous 
 poems were thus transferred to nature. And nature, respon- 
 sive to the soul that loves her, gave them back transfigured 
 and translated into radiant beings of like substance with man- 
 kind. It was thus, we feel, upon these southern shores that 
 the gods of Greece came into being. The statues in the 
 temples were the true fine flower of all this beauty, the cul- 
 mination of the poetry which it evoked in hearts that feel and 
 brains that think. 
 
 In Italy, far more than in any other part of Europe, the 
 life of the present is imposed upon the strata of successive 
 past lives. Greek, Latin, Moorish, and mediaeval civilisations 
 have arisen, flourished, and decayed on nearly the same soil ; 
 and it is common enough to find one city, which may have 
 perished twenty centuries ago, neighbour to another that 
 enjoyed its brief prosperity in the middle of our era. There 
 is not, for example, the least sign of either Greek or Roman 
 at Amalfi. Whatever may have been the glories of the 
 republic in the early middle ages, they had no relation to tho 
 classic past. Yet a few miles off along the bay rise the 
 ancient Greek temples of Paestum, from a desert with no 
 trace of any intervening occupants. Poseidonia was founded 
 in the sixth century before Christ, by colonists from Sybaris.
 
 262 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Three centuries later the Hellenic element in this settlement, 
 which must already have become a town of no little import- 
 ance, was submerged by a deluge of recurrent barbarism. 
 Under the Roman rule it changed its name to Psestum, and 
 was prosperous. The Saracens destroyed it in the ninth 
 century of our era ; and Robert Guiscard carried some of the 
 materials of its buildings to adorn his new town of Salerno. 
 Since then the ancient site has been abandoned to malaria 
 and solitude. The very existence of PaBstum was unknown, 
 except to wandering herdsmen and fishers coasting near its 
 ruined colonnades, until the end of the last century. Yet, 
 strange to relate, after all these revolutions, and in the midst 
 of this total desolation, the only relics of the antique city are 
 three Greek temples, those very temples where the Hellenes, 
 barbarised by their Lucanian neighbours, met to mourn for 
 their lost liberty. It is almost impossible to trace more than 
 the mere circuit of the walls of Poseidonia. Its port, if port 
 it had in Roman days, has disappeared. Its theatre is only 
 just discernible. Still not a column of the great hypaethral 
 temple, built by the Sybarite colonists two thousand and five 
 hundred years ago, to be a house for Zeus or for Poseidon, 
 has been injured. The accidents that erased far greater cities, 
 like Syracuse, from the surface of the earth pillage, earth- 
 quake, the fury of fanatics, the slow decay of perishable stone, 
 or the lust of palace builders in the middle ages have spared 
 those three houses of the gods, over whom, in the days of 
 Alexander, the funeral hymn was chanted by the enslaved 
 Hellenes. 
 
 ' We . do the same,' said Aristoxenus in his Convivial 
 Miscellanies, ' as the men of Poseidonia, who dwell on the 
 Tyrrhenian Gulf. It befell them, having been at first true 
 Hellenes, to be utterly barbarised, changing to Tyrrhenes or 
 Romans, and altering their language, together with their
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPRI % 263 
 
 other customs. Yet they still observe one Hellenic festival, 
 when they meet together and call to remembrance their old 
 names and bygone institutions ; and having lamented one to 
 the other, and shed bitter tears, they afterwards depart to 
 their own homes. Even thus a few of us also, now that our 
 theatres have been barbarised, and this art of music has gone 
 to ruin and vulgarity, meet together and remember what once 
 music was.' ' 
 
 This passage has a strange pathos, considering how it was 
 penned, and how it has come down to us, tossed by the dark 
 indifferent stream of time. The Aristoxenus who wrote it 
 was a pupil of the Peripatetic School, born at Tarentum, and 
 therefore familiar with the vicissitudes of Magna Graecia. 
 The study of music was his chief preoccupation ; and he used 
 this episode in the agony of an enslaved Greek city, to point 
 his own conservative disgust for innovations in an art of 
 which we have no knowledge left. The works of Aristoxenus 
 have perished, and the fragment I have quoted is embedded in 
 the gossip of Egyptian Athenaeus. In this careless fashion 
 has been opened for us, as it were, a little window on a grief 
 now buried in the oblivion of a hundred generations. After 
 reading his words one May morning, beneath the pediment of 
 Paestum's noblest ruin, I could not refrain from thinking that 
 if the spirits of those captive Hellenes were to revisit their old 
 habitations, they would change their note of wailing into a 
 thin ghostly paean, when they found that Romans and Luca- 
 nians had passed away, that Christians and Saracens had left 
 alike no trace behind, while the houses of their own am/Aiot 
 0cot dawn-facing deities were still abiding in the pride of 
 immemorial strength. Who knows whether buffalo-driver or 
 bandit may not ere now have seen processions of these Posei- 
 donian phantoms, bearing laurels and chaunting hymns on 
 1 Athenaus, xiv. 632.
 
 264 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 the spot where once they fell each on the other's neck to 
 weep ? Gathering his cloak around him and cowering closer 
 to his fire of sticks, the night-watcher in those empty colon- 
 nades may have mistaken the Hellenic outlines of his shadowy 
 visitants for fevered dreams, and the melody of their evanished 
 music for the whistling of night winds or the cry of owls. So 
 abandoned is Paestum in its solitude that we know not even 
 what legends may have sprung up round those relics of a 
 mightier age. 
 
 The shrine is ruined now ; and far away 
 
 To east and west stretch olive groves, whose shade 
 
 Even at the height of summer noon is grey. 
 
 Asphodels sprout upon the plinth decayed 
 
 Of these low columns, and the snake hath found 
 
 Her haunt 'neath altar-steps with weeds o'erlaid. 
 
 Yet this was once a hero's temple, crowned 
 With myrtle-boughs by lovers, and with palm 
 By wrestlers, resonaixt with sweetest sound 
 
 Of flute and fife in summer evening's calm, 
 
 And odorous with incense all the year, 
 
 With nard and spice, and galbanum and balm. 
 
 These lines sufficiently express the sense of desolation felt 
 at Paestum, except that the scenery is more solemn and 
 mournful, and the temples are too august to be the shrine of 
 any simple hero. There are no olives. The sea plunges on 
 its sandy shore within the space of half a mile to westward. 
 Far and wide on either hand stretch dreary fever- stricken 
 marshes. The plain is bounded to the north, and east, and 
 south, with mountains, purple, snow-peaked, serrated, and 
 grandly broken like the hills of Greece. Driving over this 
 vast level where the Silarus stagnates, the monotony of the 
 landscape is broken now and then by a group of buffaloes
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPRI 265 
 
 standing up to their dewlaps in reeds, by peasants on horse- 
 back, with goads in their hands, and muskets slung athwart 
 their backs, or by patrols of Italian soldiers crossing and re- 
 crossing on the brigand-haunted roads. Certain portions 
 have been reclaimed from the swamp, and here may be seen 
 white oxen in herds of fifty grazing ; or gangs of women at 
 field-labour, with a man to oversee them, cracking a long 
 hunting-whip ; or the mares and foals of a famous stud-farm 
 browsing under spreading pines. There are no villages, and 
 the few farmhouses are so widely scattered as to make us 
 wonder where the herdsmen and field-workers, scanty as they 
 are, can possibly be lodged. 
 
 At last the three great temples come in sight. The rich 
 orange of the central building contrasts with the paler yellow 
 of its two companions, while the glowing colour of all three 
 is splendidly relieved against green vegetation and blue 
 mountain-flanks. Their material is travertine a calcareous 
 stone formed by the deposit of petrifying waters, which contains 
 fragments of reeds, spiral shells, and other substances, em- 
 bedded in the porous limestone. In the flourishing period of 
 old Poseidonia these travertine columns were coated with 
 stucco, worked to a smooth surface, and brilliantly tinted to 
 harmonise with the gay costumes of a Greek festival. Even 
 now this coating of fine sand, mingled with slaked lime and 
 water, can be seen in patches on the huge blocks of the 
 masonry. Thus treated, the travertine lacked little of the 
 radiance of marble, for it must be remembered that the 
 Greeks painted even the Pentelic cornice of the Parthenon 
 with red and blue. Nor can we doubt that the general effect 
 of brightness suited the glad and genial conditions of Greek 
 life. 
 
 All the surroundings are altered now, and the lover of the 
 picturesque may be truly thankful that the hand of time, by
 
 266 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 stripping the buildings of this stucco, without impairing their 
 proportions, has substituted a new harmony of tone between 
 the native stone and the surrounding landscape, no less sym- 
 pathetic to the present solitude than the old symphony of 
 colours was to the animated circumstances of a populous 
 Greek city. In this way those critics who defend the poly- 
 chrome decorations of the classic architects, and those who 
 contend that they cannot imagine any alteration from the 
 present toning of Greek temples for the better, are both right. 
 
 In point of colour the Paestum ruins are very similar 
 to those of Girgenti ; but owing to their position on a level 
 plain, in front of a scarcely indented sea-shore, we lack the 
 irregularity which adds so much charm to the row of temples 
 on their broken cliff in the old town of Agrigentum. In like 
 manner the celebrated asymmetreia of the buildings of the 
 Athenian Acropolis, which causes so much variety of light 
 and shade upon the temple-fronts, and offers so many novel 
 points of view when they are seen in combination, seems to 
 have been due originally to the exigencies of the ground. At 
 Paestum, in planning out the city, there can have been no 
 utilitarian reasons for placing the temples at odd angles, either 
 to each other or the shore. Therefore we see them now 
 almost exactly in line and parallel, though at unequal distances. 
 If something of picturesque effect is thus lost at Pspstum 
 through the flatness of the ground, something of impressive 
 grandeur on the other hand is gained by the very regularity 
 with which those phalanxes of massive Doric columns are 
 drawn up to face the sea. 
 
 Poseidonia, as the name betokens, was dedicated to the 
 god of the sea ; and the coins of the city are stamped with his 
 effigy bearing a trident, and with his sacred animal, the bull. 
 It has therefore been conjectured that the central of the 
 three temples which was hypaethral and had two entrances,
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPEI 267 
 
 east and west belonged to Poseidon ; and there is something 
 fine in the notion of the god being thus able to pass to and 
 fro from his cella through those sunny peristyles, down to his 
 chariot, yoked with sea-horses, in the brine. Yet hypaethral 
 temples were generally consecrated to Zeus, and it is therefore 
 probable that the traditional name of this vast edifice is wrong. 
 The names of the two other temples, Tempio di Cerere and 
 Basilica, are wholly unsupported by any proof or probability. 
 The second is almost certainly founded on a mistake ; and if 
 we assign the largest of the three shrines to Zeus, one or 
 other of the lesser belonged most likely to Poseidon. 
 
 The style of the temples is severe and primitive. In 
 general effect their Doric architecture is far sterner than that 
 adapted by Ictinus to the Parthenon. The entablature seems 
 somewhat disproportioned to the columns and the pediment ; 
 and, owing to this cause, there is a general effect of heaviness. 
 The columns, again, are thick-set ; nor is the effect of solidity 
 removed by their gradual narrowing from the base upwards. 
 The pillars of the Neptune are narrowed in a straight line ; 
 those of the Basilica and Ceres by a gentle curve. Study of 
 these buildings, so sublime in their massiveness, so noble in the 
 parsimony of their decoration, so dignified in their employment 
 of the simplest means for the attainment of an indestructible 
 effect of harmony, heightens our admiration for the Attic 
 genius which found in this grand manner of the elder Doric 
 architects resources as yet undeveloped ; creating, by slight 
 and subtle alterations of outline, proportion, and rhythm of 
 parts, what may fairly be classed as a style unique, because 
 exemplified in only one transcendent building. 
 
 It is difficult not to return again and again to the beauty 
 of colouring at Paestum. Lying basking in the sun upon a flat 
 slab of stone, and gazing eastward, we overlook a foreground 
 of dappled light and shadow, across which the lizards run
 
 268 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 quick streaks of living emerald making the bunches of yellow 
 rue and little white serpyllum in the fissures of the masonry 
 nod as they hurry past. Then come two stationary columns, 
 built, it seems, of solid gold, where the sunbeams strike along 
 their russet surface. Between them lies the landscape, a med- 
 ley first of brakefern and asphodel and feathering acanthus 
 and blue spikes of bugloss ; then a white farm in the middle 
 distance, roofed with the reddest tiles and sheltered by a 
 velvety umbrella pine. Beyond and above the farm, a glimpse 
 of mountains purple almost to indigo with cloud shadows, and 
 flecked with snow. Still higher but for this we have to raise 
 our head a little the free heavens enclosed within the frame- 
 work of the tawny travertine, across which sail hawks and 
 flutter jackdaws, sharply cut against the solid sky. Down 
 from the architrave, to make the vignette perfect, hang tufts 
 of crimson snapdragons. Each opening in the peristyle gives 
 a fresh picture. 
 
 The temples are overgrown with snapdragons and mallows, 
 yellow asters and lilac gillyflowers, white allium and wild fig. 
 When a breeze passes, the whole of this many-coloured 
 tapestry waves gently to and fro. The fields around are 
 flowery enough ; but where are the roses ? I suppose no one 
 who has read his Virgil at school, crosses the plain from 
 Salerno to Psestum without those words of the ' Georgics ' 
 ringing in his ears : biferique rosaria Fasti. They have that 
 wonderful Virgilian charm which, by a touch, transforms 
 mere daily sights and sounds, and adds poetic mystery to 
 common things. The poets of ancient Kome seem to have 
 felt the magic of this phrase ; for Ovid has imitated the line 
 in his 'Metamorphoses,' tamely substituting tepidi for the 
 suggestive biferi, while again in his ' Elegies ' he uses the 
 same termination with odorati for his epithet. Martial sings 
 of PcestancB rosa and P&stani gloria ruris. Even Ausonius,
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPRI 269 
 
 at the very end of Latin literature, draws from the rosaries 
 of Passtum a pretty picture of beauty doomed to premature 
 
 decline : 
 
 Vidi Paestano gaudere rosaria cultu 
 Exoriente novo roscida Lucifero. 
 
 ' I have watched the rose-beds that luxuriate on Paestum's well- 
 tilled soil, all dewy in the young light of the rising dawn-star.' 
 
 What a place indeed was this for a rose-garden, spreading far 
 and wide along the fertile plain, with its deep loam reclaimed 
 from swamps and irrigated by the passing of perpetual streams ! 
 But where are the roses now ? As well ask, ou sont les neiges 
 d'antan? 
 
 We left Amalfi for Capri in the freshness of an early 
 morning at the end of May. As we stepped into our six- 
 oared boat the sun rose above the horizon, flooding the sea 
 with gold and flashing on the terraces above Amalfi. High 
 up along the mountains hung pearly and empurpled mists, set 
 like resting-places between a world too beautiful and heaven 
 too far for mortal feet. Not a breath of any wind was stir- 
 ring. The water heaved with a scarcely perceptible swell, 
 and the vapours lifted gradually as the sun's rays grew in 
 power. Here the hills descend abruptly on the sea, ending 
 in cliffs where light reflected from the water dances. Huge 
 caverns open in the limestone ; on their edges hang stalactites 
 like beards, and the sea within sleeps dark as night. For 
 some of these caves the maidenhair fern makes a shadowy 
 curtain ; and all of them might be the home of Proteus, or of 
 Calypso, by whose side her mortal lover passed his nights in 
 vain home-sickness : 
 
 y\a<f)vpoi(rt Trap' OVK idtKw tdt\ov(rr}. 
 
 This is a truly Odyssean journey. Soon the islands of the 
 Sirens come in sight, bare bluffs of rock, shaped like galleys
 
 270 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 taking flight for the hroad sea. As we row past in this 
 ambrosial weather, the oarsmen keeping time and ploughing 
 furrows in the fruitless fields of Nereus, it is not difficult to 
 hear the siren voices for earth and heaven and sea make 
 melodies far above mortal singing. The water round the 
 Galli so the islands are now called, as antiquaries tell us, 
 from an ancient fortress named Guallo is very deep, and 
 not a sign of habitation is to be seen upon them. In bygone 
 ages they were used as prisons ; and many doges of Amalfi 
 languished their lives away upon those shadeless stones, 
 watching the sea around them blaze like a burnished shield 
 at noon, and the peaks of Capri deepen into purple when the 
 west was glowing after sunset with the rose and daffodil of 
 Southern twilight. 
 
 The end of the Sorrentine promontory, Point Campanella, 
 is absolutely barren grey limestone, with the scantiest over- 
 growth of rosemary and myrtle. A more desolate spot can 
 hardly be imagined. But now the morning breeze springs up 
 behind ; sails are hoisted, and the boatmen ship their oars. 
 Under the albatross wings of our lateen sails we scud across 
 the freshening waves. The precipice of Capri soars against 
 the sky, and the Bay of Naples expands before us with those 
 sweeping curves and azure amplitude that all the poets of the 
 world have sung. Even thus the mariners of ancient Hellas 
 rounded this headland when the world was young. Eightly 
 they named yon rising ground, beneath Vesuvius, Posilippo 
 rest from grief. Even now, after all those centuries of toil, 
 though the mild mountain has been turned into a mouth of 
 murderous fire, though Eoman emperors and Spanish despots 
 have done their worst to mar what nature made so perfect, we 
 may here lay down the burden of our cares, gaining tran- 
 quillity by no mysterious lustral rites, no penitential prayers 
 or offerings of holocausts, but by the influence of beauty in
 
 AMALFI, P^ESTUM, CAPRI 271 
 
 the earth and air, and by sympathy with a people unspoiled in 
 their healthful life of labour alternating with simple joy. 
 
 The last hour of the voyage was beguiled by stories of our 
 boatmen, some of whom had seen service on distant seas, 
 while others could tell of risks on shore and love adventures. 
 They showed us how the tunny-nets were set, and described 
 the solitary life of the tunny-watchers, in their open boats, 
 waiting to spear the monsters of the deep entangled in the 
 chambers made for them beneath the waves. How much of 
 ^Eschylean imagery, I reflected, is drawn from this old fisher's 
 art the toils of Clytemnestra and the tragedy of Psyttaleia 
 rising to my mind. One of the crew had his little son with 
 him, a child of six years old ; and when the boy was restless, 
 his father spoke of Barbarossa and Timberio (sic) to keep him 
 quiet ; for the memory of the Moorish pirate and the mighty 
 emperor is still alive here. The people of Capri are as familiar 
 with Tiberius as the Bretons with King Arthur ; and the hoof - 
 mark of illustrious crime is stamped upon the island. 
 
 Capri offers another example of the versatility of Southern 
 Italy. If Amalfi brings back to us the naval and commercial 
 prosperity of the early middle ages ; if Paestum remains a 
 monument of the oldest Hellenic civilisation ; Capri, at a few 
 miles' distance, is dedicated to the Roman emperor who 
 made it his favourite residence, when, life-weary with the 
 world and all its shows, he turned these many peaks and 
 slumbering caves into a summer palace for the nursing of his 
 brain-sick phantasy. Already, on landing, we are led to 
 remember that from this shore was loosed the galley bearing 
 that great letter verbosa et grandis epistola which undid 
 Sejanus and shook Rome. Riding to Ana-Capri and the 
 Salto di Tiberio, exploring the remains of his favourite twelve 
 villas, and gliding over the smooth waters paved with the 
 white marbles of his baths, we are for ever attended by the
 
 272 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 same forbidding spectre. Here, perchance, were the sedes 
 arcanarum libidinum whereof Suetonius speaks ; the Spintrian 
 medals, found in these recesses, still bear witness that the 
 biographer trusted no mere fables for the picture he has 
 drawn. Here, too, below the Villa Jovis, gazing 700 feet sheer 
 down into the waves, we tread the very parapet whence fell 
 the victims of that maniac lust for blood. ' After long and 
 exquisite torments,' says the Eoman writer, ' he ordered con- 
 demned prisoners to be cast into the sea before his eyes ; 
 marines were stationed near to pound the fallen corpses with 
 poles and oars, lest haply breath should linger in their limbs.' 
 The Neapolitan Museum contains a little basrelief represent- 
 ing Tiberius, with the well-known features of the Claudian 
 house, seated astride upon a donkey, with a girl before him. 
 A slave is leading the beast and its burden to a terminal statue 
 under an olive-tree. This curious relic, discovered some 
 while since at Capri, haunted my fancy as I climbed the olive- 
 planted slopes to his high villa on the Arx Tiberii. It is some 
 relief, amid so much that is tragic in the associations of this 
 place, to have the horrible Tiberius burlesqued and brought 
 into donkey-riding relation with the tourist of to-day. And 
 what an ironical revenge of time it is that his famous Salto 
 should be turned into a restaurant, where the girls dance 
 tarantella for a few coppers ; that a toothless hermit should 
 occupy a cell upon the very summit of his Villa Jovis; 
 and that the Englishwoman's comfortable hotel should be 
 called Timberio by the natives ! A spiritualist might well 
 believe that the emperor's ghost was forced to haunt the 
 island, and to expiate his old atrocities by gazing on these 
 modern vulgarisms. 
 
 Few problems suggested by history are more darkly 
 fascinating than the madness of despots ; and of this mad- 
 ness, whether inherent in their blood or encouraged by the
 
 AMALFI, P.ESTUM, CAPRI 273 
 
 circumstance of absolute autocracy, the emperors of the 
 Claudian and Julian houses furnish the most memorable 
 instance. 1 It is this that renders Tiberius ever present to 
 our memory at Capri. Nor will the student of Suetonius 
 forget his even more memorable grand-nephew Caligula. 
 The following passage is an episode from the biography of 
 that imperial maniac, whose portrait in green basalt, with 
 the strain of dire mental tension on the forehead, is still so 
 beautiful that we are able at this distance of time to pity 
 more than loathe him. ' Above all, he was tormented with 
 nervous irritation, by sleeplessness ; for he enjoyed not more 
 than three hours of nocturnal repose, nor even these in pure 
 untroubled rest, but agitated by phantasmata of portentous 
 augury ; as, for example, upon one occasion, among other 
 spectral visions, he fancied that he saw the sea, under some 
 definite impersonation, conversing with himself. Hence it 
 was, and from this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness 
 of lying awake, that he had fallen into habits of ranging all 
 night long through the palace, sometimes throwing himself 
 on a couch, sometimes wandering along the vast corridors, 
 watching for the earliest dawn, and anxiously wishing its 
 approach.' Those corridors, or loggie, where Caligula spent 
 his wakeful hours, opened perchance upon this Bay of Naples, 
 if not upon the sea- waves of his favourite Porto d' Anzio ; for 
 we know that one of his great follies was a palace built above 
 the sea on piles at Baiae ; and where else could Pelagus, with 
 his cold azure eyes and briny locks, have more appropriately 
 terrified his sleep with prophecy conveyed in dreams ? The 
 very nature of this vision, selected for such special comment 
 
 1 De Quincey, in his essay on The Ccesars, has worked out this 
 subject with such artistic vividness that no more need be said. From 
 his pages I have quoted the paraphrastic version of Suetonius that 
 follows. 
 
 Ill T
 
 274 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 by Suetonius as to show that it had troubled Caligula pro- 
 foundly, proves the fantastic nature of the man, and justifies 
 the hypothesis of insanity. 
 
 But it is time to shake off the burden of the past. Only 
 students, carrying superfluity of culture in their knapsacks, 
 will ponder over the imperial lunatics who made Capri and 
 Baias fashionable in the days of ancient Rome. Neither 
 Tiberius nor Caligula, nor yet Ferdinand of Aragon or Bomba 
 for that matter, has been able to leave trace of vice or scar of 
 crime on nature in this Eden. A row round the island, or a 
 supper-party in the loggia above the sea at sunset-time, is no 
 less charming now, in spite of Roman or Spanish memories, 
 than when the world was young. 
 
 Sea-mists are frequent in the early summer mornings, 
 swathing the cliffs of Capri in impenetrable wool and brooding 
 on the perfectly smooth water till the day- wind rises. Then 
 they disappear like magic, rolling in smoke-wreaths from the 
 surface of the sea, condensing into clouds and climbing the 
 hillsides like Oceanides in quest of Prometheus, or taking 
 their station on the watch-towers of the world, as in the 
 chorus of the Nephelai. Such a morning may be chosen for 
 the giro of the island. The blue grotto loses nothing of its 
 beauty, but rather gains by contrast, when passing from dense 
 fog you find yourself transported to a world of wavering 
 subaqueous sheen. It is only through the opening of the 
 very topmost arch that a boat can glide into this cavern ; the 
 arch itself spreads downward through the water, so that all 
 the light is transmitted from beneath and coloured by the sea. 
 The grotto is domed in many chambers ; and the water is so 
 clear that you can see the bottom, silvery, with black-finned 
 fishes diapered upon the blue white sand. The flesh of a 
 diver in this water showed like the faces of children play- 
 ing at snapdragon ; all around him the spray leapt up with
 
 AMALFI, PJESTUM, CAPRI 27-i 
 
 living fire ; and when the oars struck the surface, it was as 
 though a phosphorescent sea had been smitten, and the drops 
 ran from the blades in blue pearls. I have only once seen 
 anything (outside the magic-world of a pantomime) to equal 
 these effects of blue and silver ; and tha was when I made 
 my way into an ice-cave in the Great Aletsch glacier not 
 an artificial gallery such as they cut at Grindelwald, but a 
 natural cavern, arched, hollowed into fanciful recesses, and 
 hung with stalactites of pendent ice. The difference between 
 the glacier-cavern and the sea-grotto was that in the former 
 all the light was transmitted through transparent sides, so 
 that the whole was one uniform azure, except in rare places 
 where little chinks opened upwards to the air, and the light 
 of day came glancing with a roseate flush. In the latter the 
 light sent from beneath through the water played upon a 
 roof of rock ; reflections intermingled with translucence ; and 
 a greater variety of light and shadow compensated the lack 
 of that strange sense of being shut within a solid gem. 
 
 Numberless are the caves at Capri. The so-called green 
 grotto has the beauty of moss-agate in its liquid floor ; the 
 red grotto shows a warmer chord of colour ; and where there 
 is no other charm to notice, endless beauty may be found 
 in the play of sunlight upon roofs of limestone, tinted with 
 yellow, orange, and pale pink, mossed over, hung with fern, 
 and catching tones of blue or green from the still deeps 
 beneath. 
 
 Sheets of water, wherever found, are the most subtle 
 heighteners of colour. To those who are familiar with 
 Venetian or Mantuan sunsets, who have seen the flocks of 
 flamingoes reflected on the lagoons of Tunis, or who have 
 watched stormy red flakes tossed from crest to crest of great 
 Atlantic waves on our own coasts, this need hardly be said. 
 Yet I cannot leave this beauty of the sea at Capri without 
 
 T2
 
 276 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 touching on a melodrama of light and colour I once saw at 
 Castellammare. It was a festa night, when the people sent 
 up rockets and fireworks of every hue from the harbour- 
 breakwater. The surf rolled shoreward like a bath of molten 
 metals, all confused of blue, and red, and green, and gold 
 dying dolphin tints that burned strangely beneath the purple 
 skies and tranquil stars. Boats at sea hung out their 
 crimson cressets, flickering in long lines on the bay ; and 
 larger craft moved slowly with rows of lamps defining their 
 curves ; while the full moon shed over all her ' vitreous pour, 
 just tinged with blue.' To some tastes this mingling of 
 natural and artificial effects would seem unworthy of sober 
 notice ; but I confess to having enjoyed it with childish 
 eagerness like music never to be forgotten. 
 
 After a day upon the water it is pleasant to rest at sunset 
 in the loggia above the sea. The Bay of Naples stretches far 
 and wide in front, beautiful by reason chiefly of the long fine 
 line descending from Vesuvius, dipping almost to a level and 
 then gliding up to join the highlands of the north. Now sun 
 and moon begin to mingle : waning and waxing" splendours. 
 The cliffs above our heads are still blushing a deep flame- 
 colour, like the heart of some tea-rose ; when lo, the touch 
 of the huntress is laid upon those eastern pinnacles, and the 
 horizon glimmers with her rising. Was it on such a night 
 that Ferdinand of Aragon fled from his capital before the 
 French, with eyes turned ever to the land he loved, chanting, 
 as he leaned from his galley's stern, that melancholy psalm 
 ' Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but 
 jn vain ' and seeing Naples dwindle to a white blot on the 
 purple shore ? 
 
 Our journey takes the opposite direction. Farewell to 
 Capri, welcome to Sorrento ! The roads are sweet with scent 
 of acacia and orange flowers. When you walk in a garden at
 
 AMALFI, P.ESTU3I. CAPRI 277 
 
 night, the white specks beneath your feet are fallen petals of 
 lemon blossoms. Over the walls hang cataracts of roses, 
 honey-pale clusters of the Banksia rose, and pink bushes of 
 the China rose, growing as we never see them grow with us. 
 The grey rocks wave with gladiolus feathers of crimson, set 
 amid tufts of rosemary, and myrtle, and tree-spurge. In the 
 clefts of the sandstone, and behind the orchard walls, sleeps 
 a dark green night of foliage, in the midst of which gleani 
 globed oranges, and lemons dropping like great pearls of 
 palest amber dew. It is difficult to believe that the lemons 
 have not grown into length by their own weight, as though 
 mere hanging on the bough prevented them from being round 
 so waxen are they. Overhead soar stone-pines a roof of 
 sombre green, a lattice-work of strong red branches, through 
 which the moon peers wonderfully. One part of this mar- 
 vellous piano is bare rock tufted with keen-scented herbs, and 
 sparsely grown with locust-trees and olives. Another waves 
 from sea to summit with beech-copses and oak-woods, as 
 verdant as the most abundant English valley. Another 
 region turns its hoary raiment of olive-gardens to the sun 
 and sea, or flourishes with fig and vine. Everywhere, the 
 houses of men are dazzling white, perched on natural coigns 
 of vantage, clustered on the brink of brown clifts, nestling 
 under mountain eaves, or piled up from the sea- beach in 
 ascending tiers, until the broad knees of the hills are reached, 
 and great Pan, the genius of solitude in nature, takes unto 
 himself a region yet untenanted by man. The occupations 
 of the sea and land are blent together on this shore ; and the 
 people are both blithe and gentle. It is true that their 
 passions are upon the surface, and that the knife is ready to 
 their hand. But the combination of fierceness and softness 
 in them has an infinite charm when one has learned by 
 observation that their lives are laborious and frugal, and that
 
 278 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 their honesty is hardly less than their vigour. Happy indeed 
 are they so happy that, but for crimes accumulated through 
 successive generations by bad governors, and but for super- 
 stitions cankering the soul within, they might deserve what 
 Shelley wrote of his imagined island in ' Epipsychidion.'
 
 279 
 
 ETNA 
 
 THE eruptions of Etna have blackened the whole land for 
 miles in every direction. That is the first observation forced 
 upon one in the neighbourhood of Catania, or Giarre, or 
 Bronte. From whatever point of view you look at Etna, it is 
 always a regular pyramid, with long and gradually sloping 
 sides, broken here and there by the excrescence of minor 
 craters and dotted over with villages ; the summit crowned 
 with snow, divided into peak and cone, girdled with clouds, 
 and capped with smoke, that shifts shape as the wind veers, 
 dominates a blue-black monstrous mass of outpoured lava. 
 From the top of Monte Rosso, a subordinate volcano which 
 broke into eruption in 1669, you can trace the fountain from 
 which ' the unapproachable river of purest fire,' that nearly 
 destroyed Catania, issued. You see it still, bubbling up like 
 a frozen geyser from the flank of tbe mountain, whence the 
 sooty torrent spreads, or rather sprawls, with jagged edges to 
 the sea. The plain of Catania lies at your feet, threaded by 
 the Simeto, bounded by the promontory of Syracuse and the 
 mountains of Castro Giovanni. This huge amorphous blot 
 upon the landscape may be compared to an ink-stain on a 
 variegated tablecloth, or to the coal districts marked upon 
 a geological atlas, or to the heathen in a missionary map 
 the green and red and grey colours standing for Christians 
 and Mahommedans and Jews of different shades and qualities. 
 The lava, where it has been cultivated, is reduced to fertile
 
 280 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 sand, in which vines and fig-trees are planted their tender 
 green foliage contrasting strangely with the sinister soil that 
 makes them flourish. All the roads are hlack as jet, like 
 paths leading to coal-pits, and the country-folk on mule-back 
 plodding along them look like Arabs on an infernal Sahara. 
 The very lizards which haunt the rocks are swart and smutty. 
 Yet the flora of the district is luxuriant. The gardens round 
 Catania, nestling into cracks and ridges of the stiffened flood, 
 are marvellously brilliant with spurge and fennel and valerian. 
 It is impossible to form a true conception of flower-brightness 
 till one has seen these golden and crimson tints upon their 
 ground -of ebony, or to realise the blueness of the Mediter- 
 ranean except in contrast with the lava where it breaks 
 into the sea. Copses of frail oak and ash, undergrown with 
 ferns of every sort ; cactus-hedges, orange-trees grafted with 
 lemons and laden with both fruits ; olives of scarce two 
 centuries' growth, and fig-trees knobbed with their sweet 
 produce, overrun the sombre soil, and spread their boughs 
 against the deep blue sea and the translucent amethyst of the 
 Calabrian mountains. Underfoot, a convolvulus with large 
 white blossoms, binding dingy stone to stone, might be 
 compared to a rope of Desdemona's pearls upon the neck of 
 Othello. 
 
 The villages are perhaps the most curious feature of this 
 scenery. Their houses, rarely more than one story high, are 
 walled, paved, and often roofed with the inflexible material 
 which once was ruinous fire, and is now the servant of the 
 men it threatened to destroy. The churches are such as 
 might be raised in Hades to implacable Proserpine, such as 
 one might dream of in a vision of the world turned into hell, 
 such as Baudelaire in his fiction of a metallic landscape 
 might have imagined under the influence of hasheesh. Their 
 flights of steps are built of sharply cut black lava blocks no
 
 ETNA 281 
 
 feet can wear. Their door -jambs and columns and pediments 
 and carved work are wrought and sculptured of the same 
 gloomy masonry. How forbidding are the acanthus scrolls, 
 how grim the skulls and cross-bones on these portals ! The 
 bell-towers, again, are ribbed and beamed with black lava. 
 A certain amount of the structure is whitewashed, which 
 serves to relieve the funereal solemnity of the rest. In an 
 Indian district each of these churches would be a temple, 
 raised in vain propitiation to the demon of the fire above and 
 below. Some pictures made by their spires in combination 
 with the sad village-hovels, the snowy dome of Etna, and the 
 ever- smiling sea, are quite unique in their variety of sugges- 
 tion and wild beauty. 
 
 The people have a sorrow-smitten and stern aspect. 
 Some of the men in the prime of life are grand and 
 haughty, with the cast-bronze countenance of Roman em- 
 perors. But the old men bear rigid faces of carved basalt, 
 gazing fixedly before them as though at some time or other 
 in their past lives they had met Medusa : and truly Etna in 
 eruption is a Gorgon, which their ancestors have oftentimes 
 seen shuddering, and fled from terror-frozen. The white- 
 haired old women, plying their spindle or distaff, or meditating 
 in grim solitude, sit with the sinister set features of Fates by 
 their doorways. The young people are very rarely seen to 
 smile : they open hard, black, beaded eyes upon a world in 
 which there is little for them but endurance or the fierceness 
 of passions that delight in blood. Strangely different are 
 these dwellers on the sides of Etna from the voluble, lithe 
 sailors of Sciacca or Mazara, with their sunburnt skins and 
 many-coloured garments. 
 
 The Val del Bove a vast chasm in the flank of Etna, 
 where the very heart of the volcano has been riven and its 
 entrails bared is the most impressive spot of all this region.
 
 282 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 The road to it leads from Zafferana (so called because of 
 its crocus-flowers) along what looks like a series of black 
 moraines, where the lava torrents pouring from the craters of 
 Etna have spread out, and reared themselves in stiffened 
 ridges against opposing mountain buttresses. After toiling 
 for about three hours over the dismal waste, a point between 
 the native rock of Etna and the dead sea of lava is reached, 
 which commands a prospect of the cone with its curling 
 smoke surmounting a caldron of some four thousand feet in 
 depth and seemingly very wide. The whole of this space is 
 filled with billows of blackness, wave on wave, crest over 
 crest, and dyke by dyke, precisely similar to a gigantic glacier, 
 swarthy and immovable. The resemblance of the lava flood 
 to a glacier is extraordinarily striking. One can fancy oneself 
 standing on the Belvedere at Macugnaga, or the Tacul point 
 upon the Mer de Glace, in some nightmare, and finding to 
 one's horror that the radiant snows and river-breeding ice- 
 fields have been turned by a malignant deity to sullen, 
 stationary cinders. It is a most hideous place, like a pit in 
 Dante's Hell, disused for some unexplained reason, and left 
 iintenanted by fiends. The scenery of the moon, without 
 atmosphere and without life, must be of this sort ; and such, 
 rolling round in space, may be some planet that has survived 
 its own combustion. When the clouds, which almost always 
 hang about the Val del Bove, are tumbling at their awful 
 play around its precipices, veiling the sweet suggestion of 
 distant sea and happier hills that should be visible, the horror 
 of this view is aggravated. Breaking here and there, the 
 billows of mist disclose forlorn tracts of jet-black desolation, 
 wicked, unutterable, hateful in their hideousness, with patches 
 of smutty snow above, and downward-rolling volumes of 
 murky smoke. Shakspere, when he imagined the damned 
 spirits confined to ' thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice,'
 
 ETNA 283 
 
 divined the nature of a glacier ; but what line could he have 
 composed, adequate to shadow forth the tortures of a soul 
 condemned to palpitate for ever between the ridges of this 
 thirsty and intolerable sea of dead fire ? If the world-spirit 
 chose to assume for itself the form and being of a dragon, of 
 like substance to this, impenetrable, invulnerable, unapproach- 
 able would be its hide. It requires no great stretch of the 
 imagination to picture these lava lakes glowing, as they must 
 have been, when first outpoured, the bellowing of the crater, 
 the heaving and surging of the solid earth, the air obstructed 
 with cinders and whizzing globes of molten rock. Yet in 
 these throes of devilish activity, the Val del Bove would be 
 less insufferable than in its present state of suspension, 
 asleep, but threatening, ready to regurgitate its flame, but for 
 a moment inert. 
 
 An hour's drive from Nicolosi or Zafferana, seaward, 
 brings one into the richest land of ' olive and aloe and maize 
 and vine ' to be found upon the face of Europe. Here, too, 
 are laughing little towns, white, prosperous, and gleeful, the 
 very opposite of those sad stations on the mountain-flank. 
 Every house in Aci Eeale has its courtyard garden filled with 
 orange-trees, and nespole, and fig-trees, and oleanders. From 
 the grinning corbels that support the balconies hang tufts of 
 gem-bright ferns and glowing clove-pinks. Pergolas of vines, 
 bronzed in autumn, and golden green like chrysoprase beneath 
 an April sun, fling their tendrils over white walls and shady 
 loggie. Gourds hang ripening in the steady blaze. Far and 
 wide stretches a landscape rich with tilth and husbandry, 
 boon Nature paying back to men tenfold for all their easy 
 toil. The terrible great mountain sleeps in the distance 
 innocent of fire. I know not whether this land be more 
 delightful in spring or autumn. The little flamelike flakes 
 of brightness upon vines and fig-trees in April have their
 
 284 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 own peculiar charm. But in November the whole vast flank 
 of Etna glows with the deep-blue tone of steel; the russet 
 woods are like a film of rust ; the vine-boughs thrust living 
 carbuncles against the sun. To this season, when the 
 peculiar earth-tints of Etna, its strong purples and tawny 
 browns, are harmonised with the decaying wealth of forest 
 and of orchard, I think the palm of beauty must be given in 
 this land. 
 
 The sea is an unchangeable element of charm in all this 
 landscape. Aci Castello should be visited, and those strange 
 rocks, called the Ciclopidi, forced by volcanic pressure from 
 beneath the waves. They are made of black basalt like the 
 Giant's Causeway ; and on their top can be traced the caps 
 of calcareous stone they carried with them in the fret and fury 
 of their upheaval from the sea-bed. Samphire, wild fennel, 
 cactus, and acanthus clothe them now from crest to basement 
 where the cliff is not too sheer. By the way, there are few 
 plants more picturesque than the acanthus in full flower. 
 Its pale lilac spikes of blossom stand waist-high above a 
 wilderness of feathering, curving, delicately indented, bur- 
 nished leaves deep, glossy, cool, and green. 
 
 This is the place for a child's story of the one-eyed giant 
 Polyphemus, who fed his flocks among the oak-woods of 
 Etna, and who, strolling by the sea one summer evening, 
 saw and loved the fair girl Galatea. She was afraid of him, 
 and could not bear his shaggy-browed round rolling eye. 
 But he forgot his sheep and goats, and sat upon the cliffs 
 and piped to her. Meanwhile she loved the beautiful boy 
 Acis, who ran down from the copse to play with her upon the 
 sea-beach. They hid together from Polyphemus in a fern- 
 curtained cavern of the shore. But Polyphemus spied them 
 out and heard them laughing together at their games. Then 
 he grew wroth, and stamped with his huge feet upon the
 
 ETNA 285 
 
 earth, and made it shake and quiver. He roared and 
 bellowed in his rage, and tore up rocks and flung them at 
 the cavern where the children were in hiding, and his eye 
 shot fire beneath the grisly pent-house of his wrinkled brows. 
 They, in their sore distress, prayed to heaven ; and their 
 prayers were heard : Galatea became a mermaid, so that she 
 might swim and sport like foam upon the crests of the blue 
 sea ; and Acis was changed into a stream that leapt from the 
 hills to play with her amid bright waters. But Polyphemus, 
 in punishment for his rage, and spite, and jealousy, was 
 forced to live in the mid-furnaces of Etna. There he growled 
 and groaned and shot forth flame in impotent fury; for 
 though he remembered the gladness of those playfellows, and 
 sought to harm them by tossing red-hot rocks upon the shore, 
 yet the light sea ever laughed, and the radiant river found its 
 way down from the copsewood to the waves. The throes of 
 Etna in convulsion are the pangs of his great giant's heart, 
 pent up and sick with love for the bright sea and gladsome 
 sun ; for, as an old poet sings : 
 
 There's love when holy heaven doth wound the earth ; 
 And love still prompts the land to yearn for bridals : 
 The rain that falls in rivers from the sky, 
 Impregnates earth : and she brings forth for men 
 The flocks and herds and life of teeming Ceres. 
 
 To which let us add : 
 
 But sometimes love is barren, when broad hills, 
 Rent with the pangs of passion, yearn in vain, 
 Pouring fire tears adown their furrowed cheeks, 
 And heaving in the impotence of anguish. 
 
 There are few places in Europe where the poetic truth of 
 Greek mythology is more apparent than here upon the coast 
 between Etna and the sea. Of late, philosophers have been 
 eager to tell us that the beautiful legends of the Greeks, which
 
 28C SKETCHES AST) STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 ' contain in the coloured haze of fancy all the thoughts after- 
 wards expressed by that divine race in poetry and sculpture, 
 
 are but decayed phrases, dead sentences, and words whereof 
 the meaning was forgotten. In this theory there is a certain 
 truth ; for mythology stands midway between the first lispings 
 of a nation in its language, and its full-developed utterances 
 in art. Yet we have only to visit the scenes which gave 
 birth to some Hellenic myth, and we perceive at once that, 
 whatever philology may affirm, the legend was a living poem, 
 a drama of life and passion transferred from human experience 
 to the inanimate world by those early myth-makers, who were 
 the first and the most fertile of all artists. Persephone was 
 the patroness of Sicily, because amid the billowy cornfields 
 of her mother Demeter and the meadow flowers she loved 
 in girlhood, are ever found sulphurous ravines and chasms 
 breathing vapour from the pit of Hades. What were the 
 Cyclops that race of one-eyed giants but the many minor 
 cones of Etna? Observed from the sea by mariners, or 
 vaguely spoken of by the natives, who had reason to dread 
 their rage, these hillocks became lawless and devouring 
 giants, each with one round burning eye. Afterwards the 
 tales of Titans who had warred with Zeus were realised in 
 this spot. Typhoeus or Enceladus made the mountain heave 
 and snort ; while Hephaestus not unnaturally forged thunder- 
 bolts in the central caverns of a volcano that never ceased to 
 smoke. To the student of art and literature, mythology is 
 chiefly interesting in its latest stages, when, the linguistic 
 origin of special legends being utterly forgotten, the poets of 
 the race played freely with its rich material. Who cares to 
 be told that Achilles was the sun, when the child of Thetis 
 and the lover of Patroclus has been sung for us by Homer ? 
 Are the human agonies of the doomed house of Thebes made 
 less appalling by tracing back the tale of (Edipus to some
 
 ETNA 287 
 
 prosaic source in old astronomy ? The incest of Jocasta is 
 the subject of supreme tragic art. It does not improve the 
 matter, or whitewash the imagination of the Greeks, as some 
 have fondly fancied, to unravel the fabric wrought by Homer 
 and by Sophocles, into its raw material in Aryan dialects. 
 Indeed, this new method of criticism bids fair to destroy for 
 young minds the human lessons of pathos and heroism in 
 Greek poetry, and to create an obscure conviction that the 
 greatest race of artists the world has ever produced were but 
 dotards, helplessly dreaming over distorted forms of speech 
 and obsolete phraseology. 
 
 Let us bid farewell to Etna from Taormina. All along 
 the coast between Aci and Giardini the mountain towers 
 distinct against a sunset sky divested of its robe of cloud, 
 translucent and blue as some dark sea-built crystal. The 
 Val del Bove is shown to be a circular crater in which the 
 lava has boiled and bubbled over to the fertile land beneath. 
 As we reach Giardini, the young moon is shining, and the 
 night is alive with stars so large and bright that they seem 
 leaning down to whisper in the ears of our soul. The sea is 
 calm, touched here and there on the fringes of the bays and 
 headlands with silvery light ; and impendent crags loom 
 black and sombre against the feeble azure of the moonlit 
 sky. Quale per incertam lunam et sub luce maligiid : such 
 is our journey, with Etna, a grey ghost, behind our path, 
 and the reflections of stars upon the sea, and glow-worms in 
 the hedges, and the mystical still splendour of the night, 
 that, like Death, liberates the soul, raising it above all 
 common things, simplifying the outlines of the earth as well 
 as our own thoughts to one twilight hush of aerial tran- 
 quillity. It is a strange compliment to such a landscape to 
 say that it recalls a scene from an opera. Yet so it is. 
 What the arts of the scene-painter and the musician strive to
 
 288 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 suggest is here realised in fact ; the mood of the soul created 
 by music and by passion is natural here, spontaneous, prepared 
 by the divine artists of earth, air, and sea. 
 
 Was there ever such another theatre as this of Taormina ? 
 Turned to the south, hollowed from the crest of a promontory 
 1000 feet above the sea, it faces Etna with its crown of snow : 
 below, the coast sweeps onward to Catania and the distant 
 headland of Syracuse. From the back the shore of Sicily 
 curves with delicately indented bays towards Messina : then 
 come the straits, and the blunt mass of the Calabrian moun- 
 tains terminating Italy at Spartivento. Every spot on which 
 the eye can rest is rife with reminiscences. It was there, we 
 say, looking northward to the straits, that Ulysses tossed 
 between Scylla and Charybdis ; there, turning towards the 
 flank of Etna, that he met with Polyphemus and defied the 
 giant from his galley. From yonder snow-capped eyrie, Au-j/as 
 o-KOTTia, the rocks were hurled on Acis. And all along that 
 shore, after Persephone was lost, went Demeter, torch in 
 hand, wailing for the daughter she could no more find 
 among Sicilian villages. Then, leaving myths for history, 
 we remember how the ships of Nikias set sail from 
 Eeggio, and coasted the forelands at our feet, past Naxos, 
 on their way to Catania and Syracuse. Gylippus after- 
 wards in his swift galley took the same course : and Dion, 
 when he came to destroy his nephew's empire. Here too 
 Timoleon landed, resolute in his firm will to purge the isle 
 of tyrants. 
 
 What scenes, more spirit-shaking than any tragic shows 
 pageants of fire and smoke, and mountains in commotion 
 are witnessed from these grassy benches, when the earth 
 rocks, and the sea is troubled, and the side of Etna flows 
 with flame, and night grows horrible with bellowings that 
 forebode changes in empires !
 
 ETNA 289 
 
 Quoties Cyclopum effervere in agros 
 Vidimus undantem ruptis fornacibus jEtnam, 
 Flammarumque globos liquefactaque volvere saxa. 
 
 The stage of these tremendous pomps is very calm and 
 peaceful now. Lying among acanthus leaves and asphodels, 
 bound together by wreaths of white and pink convolvulus, we 
 only feel that this is the loveliest landscape on which our eyes 
 have ever rested or can rest. The whole scene is a symphony 
 of blues gemlike lapis-lazuli in the sea, aerial azure in the 
 distant headlands, light-irradiated sapphire in the sky, and 
 impalpable vapour-mantled purple upon Etna. The grey 
 tones of the neighbouring cliffs, and the glowing brickwork 
 of the ruined theatre, through the arches of which shine sea 
 and hillside, enhance by contrast these modulations of the 
 one prevailing hue. Etna is the dominant feature of the 
 landscape AITVO. p-arep e/xa TroXvSevSpcos Atn/a than which 
 no other mountain is more sublimely solitary, more worthy 
 of Pindar's praise, ' The pillar of heaven, the nurse of sharp 
 eternal snow.' It is Etna that gives its unique character of 
 elevated beauty to this coast scenery, raising it to a grander 
 and more tragic level than the landscape of the Cornice and 
 the Bay of Naples. 
 
 in
 
 290 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 PALERMO 
 
 THE NORMANS IN SICILY 
 
 SICILY, in the centre of the Mediterranean, has been through- 
 out all history the meeting-place and battle-ground of the 
 races that contributed to civilise the West. It was here that 
 the Greeks measured their strength against Phosnicia, and 
 that Carthage fought her first duel with Kome. Here the 
 bravery of Hellenes triumphed over barbarian force in the 
 victories of Gelon and Timoleon. Here, in the harbour of 
 Syracuse, the Athenian Empire succumbed to its own intem- 
 perate ambition. Here, in the end, Eome laid her mortmain 
 upon Greek, Phffinician, and Sikeliot alike, turning the island 
 into a granary and reducing its inhabitants to serfdom. When 
 the classic age had closed, when Belisarius had vainly re- 
 conquered from the Goths for the empire of the East the 
 fair island of Persephone and Zeus Olympius, then came the 
 Mussulman, filling up with an interval of Oriental luxury and 
 Arabian culture the period of utter deadness between the 
 ancient and the modern world. To Islam succeeded the con- 
 querors of the house of Hauteville, Norman knights who had 
 but lately left their Scandinavian shores, and settled in the 
 northern provinces of France. The Normans flourished for a 
 season, and were merged in a line of Suabian princes, old 
 Barbarossa's progeny. German rulers thus came to sway the 
 corn-lands of Trinacria, until the bitter hatred of the Popes 
 extinguished the house of Hohenstauffen upon the battlefield
 
 PALERMO 291 
 
 of Grandella and the scaffold of Naples. Frenchmen had the 
 next turn for a brief space only ; since Palermo cried to the 
 sound of her tocsins, ' Mora, Mora,' and the tyranny of Anjou 
 was expunged with blood. Spain, the tardy and patient 
 power, which inherited so much from the failure of more 
 brilliant races, came at last, and tightened so firm a hold 
 upon the island, that from the end of the thirteenth to the 
 beginning of the nineteenth century, with one brief exception, 
 Sicily belonged to the princes of Aragon, Castile, and Bourbon. 
 These vicissitudes have left their traces everywhere. The 
 Greek temples of Segeste and Girgenti and Selinus, the 
 Eoman amphitheatre of Syracuse, the Byzantine mosaics and 
 Saracenic villas of Palermo, the Norman cathedrals of Mon- 
 reale and Cefalu, and the Spanish habits which still charac- 
 terise the life of Sicilian cities, testify to the successive strata 
 of races which have been deposited upon the island. Amid 
 its anarchy of tongues, the Latin alone has triumphed. In the 
 time of the Greek colonists Sicily was polyglot. During the 
 Saracenic occupation it was trilingual. It is now, and during 
 modern history it has always been, Italian. Differences of 
 language and of nationality have gradually been fused into 
 one substance, by the spirit which emanates from Rome, and 
 vivifies the Latin race. 
 
 The geographical position of Sicily has always influenced 
 its history in a very marked way. The eastern coast, which 
 is turned towards Greece and Italy, has been the centre of 
 Aryan civilisation in the island, so that during Greek and 
 Roman ascendency Syracuse was held the capital. The 
 western end, which projects into the African sea, was occu- 
 pied in the time of the Hellenes by Phoenicians, and afterwards 
 by Mussulmans : consequently Panormus, the ancient seat of 
 Punic colonists, now called Palermo, became the centre of the 
 Moslem rule, which, inherited entire by the Norman chieftains,
 
 292 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 was transmitted eventually to Spain. Palermo, devoid of 
 classic monuments, and unknown except as a name to the 
 historians of Greek civilisation, is therefore the modern capital 
 of the island. 'Prima sedes, corona regis, et regni caput,' 
 is the motto inscribed upon the cathedral porch and the 
 archiepiseopal throne of Palermo : nor has any other city, 
 except Messina, 1 presumed to contest this title. 
 
 Perhaps there are few spots upon the surface of the globe 
 more beautiful than Palermo. The hills on either hand 
 descend upon the sea with long-drawn delicately broken out- 
 lines, so exquisitely tinted with aerial hues, that at early dawn 
 or beneath the blue light of a full moon the panorama seems 
 to be some fabric of the fancy, that must fade away, ' like 
 shapes of clouds we form,' to nothing. Within the cradle of 
 these hills, and close upon the tideless water, lies the city. 
 Behind and around on every side stretches the famous Conca 
 d'Oro, or golden shell, a plain of marvellous fertility, so called 
 because of its richness and also because of its shape ; for it 
 tapers to a fine point where the mountains meet, and spreads 
 abroad, where they diverge, like a cornucopia, toward the sea. 
 The whole of this long vega is a garden, thick with olive- 
 groves and orange-trees, with orchards of nespole and palms 
 and almonds, with fig-trees and locust-trees, with judas-trees 
 that blush in spring, and with flowers as multitudinously 
 brilliant as the fretwork of sunset clouds. It was here that in 
 the days of the Kelbite dynasty, the sugar-cane and cotton- 
 tree and mulberry supplied both East and West with produce 
 for the banquet and the paper-rnill and the silk-loom ; and 
 though these industries are now neglected, vast gardens of 
 
 1 Messina, owing to its mercantile position between the Levant, Italy, 
 and France, and as the key to Sicily from the mainland, might probably 
 have become the modern capital had not the Normans found a state 
 machinery ready to their use centralised at Palermo.
 
 PALERMO 293 
 
 cactuses still give a strangely Oriental character to the scenery 
 of Palermo, while the land flows with honey-sweet wine 
 instead of sugar. The language in which Arabian poets 
 extolled the charms of this fair land is even now nowise 
 extravagant : ' Oh how beautiful is the lakelet of the twin 
 palms, and the island where the spacious palace stands ! 
 The limpid water of the double springs resembles liquid 
 pearls, and their basin is a sea : you would say that the 
 branches of the trees stretched down to see the fishes in the 
 pool and smile at them. The great fishes swim in those clear 
 waters, and the birds among the gardens tune their songs. 
 The ripe oranges of the island are like fire that burns on 
 boughs of emerald ; the pale lemon reminds me of a lover 
 who has passed the night in weeping for his absent darling. 
 The two palms may be compared to lovers who have gained 
 an inaccessible retreat against their enemies, or raise them- 
 selves erect in pride to confound the murmurs and ill thoughts 
 of jealous men. palms of the two lakelets of Palermo, may 
 ceaseless, undisturbed, and plenteous dews for ever keep your 
 freshness ! ' Such is the poetry which suits the environs of 
 Palermo, where the Moorish villas of La Zisa and La Cuba 
 and La Favara still stand, and where the modern gardens, 
 though wilder, are scarcely less delightful than those be- 
 neath which King Roger discoursed with Edrisi, and Gian da 
 Procida surprised his sleeping mistress. 1 The groves of 
 oranges and lemons are an inexhaustible source of joy : not 
 only because of their ' golden lamps in a green night,' but 
 also because of their silvery constellations, nebulae, and drifts 
 of stars, in the same green night, and milky ways of blossoms 
 on the ground beneath. As in all southern scenery, the tran- 
 sition from these perfumed thickly clustering gardens to the 
 bare unirrigated hillsides is very striking. There the dwarf- 
 1 Boccaccio, Giorn. v. Nov. 6.
 
 294 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 palm tufts with its spiky foliage the clefts of limestone rock, 
 and the lizards run in and out among bushes of tree-spurge 
 and wild cactus and grey asphodels. The sea-shore is a tangle 
 of lilac and oleander and laurustinus and myrtle and lentisk 
 and cytisus and geranium. The flowering plants that make 
 our shrubberies gay in spring with blossoms, are here wild, 
 running riot upon the sand-heaps of Mondello or beneath the 
 barren slopes of Monte Pellegrino. 
 
 It was into this terrestrial paradise, cultivated through 
 two preceding centuries by the Arabs, who of all races were 
 wisest in the arts of irrigation and landscape-gardening, that 
 the Norsemen entered as conquerors, and lay down to pass 
 their lives. 1 
 
 No chapter of history more resembles a romance than that 
 which records the sudden rise and brief splendour of the 
 house of Hauteviile. In one generation the sons of Tancred 
 passed from the condition of squires in the Norman vale of 
 
 1 The Saracens possessed themselves of Sicily by a gradual conquest, 
 which began about 827 A.D. Disembarking on the little isle of Pantellaria 
 and the headland of Lilybceum, where of old the Carthaginians used to 
 enter Sicily, they began by overrunning the island for the first four 
 years. In 831 they took Palermo ; during the next ten years they sub- 
 jugated the Val di Mazara; between 841 and 859 they possessed them- 
 selves of the Val di Noto ; after this they extended their conquest over 
 the seaport towns of the Val Demone, but neglected to reduce the whole 
 of the N.E. district. Syracuse was stormed and reduced to ruins after 
 a desperate defence in 878, while Leo, the heir of the Greek Empire, 
 contented himself with composing two Anacreontic elegies on the disaster 
 at Byzantium. In 895 Sicily was wholly lost to the Greeks, by a treaty 
 signed between the Saracens and the remaining Christian towns. The 
 Christians during the Mussulman occupation were divided into four 
 classes (1) A few independent municipalities obedient loosely to the 
 Greek Empire ; (2) tributaries who paid the Arabs what they would 
 otherwise have sent to Byzantium ; (3) vassals, whose towns had fallen 
 by arms or treaty into the hands of the conquerors, and who, though 
 their property was respected and religion tolerated, were called ' dsimmi ' 
 pr ' humbled ; ' (4) serfs, prisoners of war, sold as slaves or attached to 
 the soil (4.mari, vol. i.).
 
 PALERMO 295 
 
 Cotentin, to kinghood in the richest island of the southern 
 sea. The Norse adventurers became Sultans of an Oriental 
 capital. The sea-robbers assumed together with the sceptre 
 the culture of an Arabian court. The marauders whose 
 armies burned Rome, received at papal hands the mitre and 
 dalmatic as symbols of ecclesiastical jurisdiction. 1 The 
 brigands who on their first appearance in Italy had pillaged 
 stables and farmyards to supply their needs, lived to mate 
 their daughters with princes and to sway the politics of Europe 
 with gold. The freebooters, whose skill consisted in the use 
 of sword and shield, whose brains were vigorous in strategy 
 or statecraft, and whose pleasures were confined to the hunt- 
 ing-field and the wine-cup, raised villas like the Zisa and 
 encrusted the cathedral of Monreale with mosaics. Finally, 
 while the race was yet vigorous, after giving two heroes to 
 the first Crusade, it transmitted its titles, its temper, and its 
 blood to the great Emperor, who was destined to fight out 
 upon the battlefield of Italy the strife of Empire against 
 Papacy, and to bequeath to mediaeval Europe the tradition 
 of cosmopolitan culture. The physical energy of this brood 
 of heroes was such as can scarcely be paralleled in history. 
 Tancred de Hauteville begat two families by different wives. 
 Of his children twelve were sons ; two of whom stayed with 
 their father in Normandy, while ten sought fame and found 
 a kingdom in the south. Of these, William Iron Arm, the 
 first Count of Apulia ; Robert Guiscard, who united Calabria 
 and Apulia under one dukedom, and carried victorious arms 
 against both Emperors of East and West ; and Roger the 
 Great Count, who added Sicily to the conquests of the 
 Normans and bequeathed the kingdom of South Italy to his 
 son, rose to the highest name. But all the brothers shared 
 
 1 King Roger in the mosaics of the Martorana Church at Palermo 
 wears the dalmatic, and receives his crown from the hands of Christ.
 
 296 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 the great qualities of the house ; and two of them, Humphrey 
 and Drogo, also wore a coronet. Large of limb and stout of 
 heart, persevering under difficulties, crafty yet gifted with the 
 semblance of sincerity, combining the piety of pilgrims with 
 the morals of highwaymen, the sturdiness of barbarians with 
 the plasticity of culture, eloquent in the council-chamber and 
 the field, dear to their soldiers for their bravery and to women 
 for their beauty, equally eminent as generals and as rulers, 
 restrained by no scruples but such as policy suggested, restless 
 in their energy, yet neither fickle nor rash, comprehensive in 
 their views, but indefatigable in detail, these lions among men 
 were made to conquer in the face of overwhelming obstacles, 
 and to hold their conquests with a grasp of iron. What they 
 wrought, whether wisely or not for the ultimate advantage 
 of Italy, endures to this day, while the work of so many 
 emperors, republics, and princes has passed and shifted like 
 the scenes in a pantomime. Through them the Greeks, the 
 Lombards, and the Moors were extinguished in the south. 
 The Papacy was checked in its attempt to found a province 
 of S. Peter below the Tiber. The republics of Naples, Gaeta, 
 Amalfi, which might have rivalled perchance with Milan, 
 Genoa, and Florence, were subdued to a master's hand. In 
 short, to the Normans Italy owed that kingdom of the Two 
 Sicilies which formed one-third of her political balance, and 
 which proved the cause of all her most serious revolutions. 
 
 Eoger, the youngest of the Hauteville family, and the 
 founder of the kingdom of Sicily, showed by his untamable 
 spirit and sound intellect that his father's vigour remained 
 unexhausted. Each of Tancred's sons was physically speaking 
 a masterpiece, and the last was the prime work of all. This 
 Eoger, styled the Great Count, begat a second Eoger, the 
 first King of Sicily, whose son and grandson, both named 
 William, ruled in succession at Palermo. With them the
 
 PALEKMO 297 
 
 direct line of the house of Hauteville expired. It would seem 
 as if the energy and fertility of the stock had been drained 
 by its efforts in the first three generations. Constance, the 
 heiress of the family, who married Henry VI. and gave birth 
 to the Emperor Frederick II., was daughter of King Koger, 
 and therefore third in descent from Tancred. Drawing her 
 blood more immediately from the parent stem, she thus 
 transmitted to the princes of the race of Hohenstauffen the 
 vigour of her Norman ancestry unweakened. This was a 
 circumstance of no small moment in the history of Europe. 
 Upon the fierce and daring Suabian stem were grafted the 
 pertinacity, the cunning, the versatility of the Norman adven- 
 turers. Young Frederick, while strong and subtle enough to 
 stand for himself against the world, was so finely tempered 
 by the blended strains of his parentage that he received the 
 polish of an Oriental education without effeminacy. Called 
 upon to administer the affairs of Germany, to govern Italy, to 
 contend with the Papacy, and to settle by arms and treaties 
 the great Oriental question of his days, Frederick, cosmo- 
 politan from the cradle, was equal to the task. Had Europe 
 been but ready, the Renaissance would have dated from his 
 reign, and a universal empire, if not of political government, 
 yet of intellectual culture, might have been firmly instituted. 
 Of the personal appearance of the Norman chiefs their 
 fair hair, clear eyes, and broad shoulders we hear much from 
 the chroniclers. One minutely studied portrait will serve to 
 bring the whole race vividly before us. Bohemond, Prince of 
 Tarentum, the son of Robert Guiscard, and first cousin to 
 Tancred of Montferrat, was thus described by Anna Comnena, 
 who saw him at her father's court during the first Crusade : 
 ' Neither amongst our own nation (the Greeks), nor amongst 
 foreigners, is there in our age a man equal to Bohemond. 
 His presence dazzled the eyes, as his reputation the fancy.
 
 298 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 He was one cubit taller than the tallest man known. In his 
 waist he was thin, but broad in his shoulders and chest, 
 without being either too thin or too fat. His arms were 
 strong, his hands full and large, his feet firm and solid. He 
 stooped a little, but through habit only, and not on account 
 of any deformity. He was fair, but on his cheeks there was 
 an agreeable mixture of vermilion. His hair was not loose 
 over his shoulders, according to the fashion of the barbarians, 
 but was cut above his ears. His eyes were blue, and full of 
 wrath and fierceness. His nostrils were large, inasmuch as 
 having a wide chest and a great heart, his lungs required an 
 unusual quantity of air to moderate the warmth of his blood. 
 His handsome face had in itself something gentle and soften- 
 ing, but the height of his person and the fierceness of his 
 looks had something wild and terrible. He was more dreadful 
 in his smiles than others in their rage.' When we read this 
 description, remembering the romance of Bohemond's ancestry 
 and his own life, we do not wonder at the tales of chivalry. 
 Those ' knights of Logres and of Lyoness, Lancelot or Pelleas 
 or Pellenore,' with whose adventures our tawny-haired mag- 
 nificent Plantagenets amused their leisure, become realities. 
 The manly beauty, described by the Byzantine princess in 
 words which seem to betray a more than common interest in 
 her handsome foe, was hereditary in the house of Hauteville. 
 They transmitted it to the last of the Suabian dynasty, to 
 Manfred and Conradin, and to the king Enzio, whose long 
 golden hair fell down from his shoulders to his saddle-bow as 
 he rode, a captive, into Bologna. 
 
 The story of the Norman conquest is told by two chroniclers 
 William of Apulia, who received his materials from Eobert 
 Guiscard, and Godfrey Malaterra, who wrote down the oral 
 narrative of Eoger. Thus we possess what is tantamount to 
 personal memoirs of the Norman chiefs. Nevertheless, a veil
 
 PALERMO 299 
 
 of legendary romance obscures the first appearance of the 
 Scandinavian warriors upon the scene of history. William of 
 Apulia tells how, in the course of a pilgrimage to S. Michael's 
 shrine on Monte Gargano, certain knights of Normandy were 
 accosted by a stranger of imposing aspect, who persuaded them 
 to draw their swords in the quarrel of the Lombard towns of 
 South Italy against the Greeks. This man was Melo of Bari. 
 Whether his invitation were so theatrically conveyed or not, it 
 is probable that the Norsemen made their first acquaintance 
 with Apulia on a pilgrimage to the Italian Michael's mount ; 
 and it is certain that Melo, whom we dimly descry as a patriot 
 of enlarged views and indomitable constancy, provided them 
 with arms and horses, raised troops in Salerno and Benevento 
 to assist them, and directed them against the Greeks. This 
 happened in 1017. Twelve years later we find the town of 
 Aversa built and occupied by Normans under the control of 
 their Count Rainulf ; while another band, headed by Ardoin, 
 a Lombard of Milan, lived at large upon the country, selling 
 its services to the Byzantine Greeks. In the anarchy of 
 Southern Italy at this epoch, when the decaying Empire of 
 the East was relaxing its hold upon the Apulian provinces, 
 when the Papacy was beginning to lift up its head after the 
 ignominy of Theodora and Marozia, and the Lombard power 
 was slowly dissolving upon its ill-established foundations, 
 the Norman adventurers pursued a policy which, however 
 changeful, was invariably self-advantageous. On whatever 
 side they fought, they took care that the profits of war should 
 accrue to their own colony. Quarrel as they might among 
 themselves, they were always found at one against a common 
 foe. And such was their reputation in the field, that the 
 hardiest soldiers errant of all nations joined their standard. 
 Thus it fell out that when Ardoin and his Normans had 
 helped Maniaces to wrest the eastern districts of Sicily from
 
 300 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 the Moors, they returned, upon an insult offered by the Greek 
 general, to extend the right hand of fellowship to Rainulf 
 and his Normans of Aversa. ' Why should you stay here like 
 a rat in his hole, when with our help you might rule those 
 fertile plains, expelling the women in armour who keep guard 
 over them ? ' The agreement of Ardoin and Eainulf formed 
 the basis of the future Norman power. Their companies 
 joined forces. Melfi was chosen as the centre of their federal 
 government. The united Norman colony elected twelve 
 chiefs or counts of equal authority ; and henceforth they 
 thought only of consolidating their ascendency over the effete 
 races which had hitherto pretended to employ their arms. 
 The genius of their race and age, however, was unfavourable 
 to federations. In a short time the ablest man among them, 
 the true king, by right of personal vigour and mental cunning, 
 showed himself. It was at this point that the house of 
 Hauteville rose to the altitude of its romantic destiny. William 
 Iron Arm was proclaimed Count of Apulia. Two of his 
 brothers succeeded him in the same dignity. His half- 
 brother, Robert Guiscard, imprisoned one Pope, 1 Leo IX., and 
 wrested from another, Nicholas II., the title of Duke of 
 Apulia and Calabria. By the help of his youngest brother, 
 Roger, he gradually completed the conquest of Italy below 
 the Tiber, and then addressed himself to the task of sub- 
 duing Sicily. The Papacy, incapable of opposing the military 
 vigour of the Northmen, was distracted between jealousy of 
 their growing importance and desire to utilise them for its 
 own advantage. 2 The temptation to employ these filial 
 
 1 The Normans were lucky in getting hold of Popes. King Roger 
 caught Innocent II. at San Germano in 1139, and got from him the 
 confirmation of all his titles. 
 
 2 Even the great Hildebrand wavered in his policy toward Robert 
 Guiscard. Having raised an army by the help of the Countess Matilda 
 in 1074, he excommunicated Robert and made war against him. Robert
 
 PALERMO 301 
 
 pirates as a catspaw for restoring Sicily to the bosom of the 
 Church, was too strong to be resisted. In spite of many ebbs 
 and flows of policy, the favour which the Popes accorded to 
 the Normans gilded the might and cunning of the adven- 
 turers with the specious splendour of acknowledged sanctity. 
 The time might come for casting off these powerful allies and 
 adding their conquests to the patrimony of S. Peter. Mean- 
 while it costs nothing to give away what does not belong 
 to one, particularly when by doing so a title to the same 
 is gradually formed. So the Popes reckoned. Eobert and 
 Roger went forth with banners blessed by Rome to subjugate 
 the island of the Greek and Moor. 
 
 The honours of this conquest, paralleled for boldness only 
 by the achievements of Cortes and Pizarro, belong to Roger. 
 It is true that since the fall of the Kelbite dynasty Sicily had 
 been shaken by anarchy and despotism, by the petty quarrels 
 of princes and party leaders, and to some extent also by the 
 invasion of Maniaces. Yet on the approach of Roger with a 
 handful of Norman knights, ' the island was guarded,' to 
 quote Gibbon's energetic phrase, ' to the water's edge.' For 
 some years he had to content himself with raids and harrying 
 excursions, making Messina, which he won from the Moors 
 by the aid of their Christian serfs and vassals, the basis of his 
 operations, and retiring from time to time across the Faro 
 
 proved more than his match in force and craft ; and Hildebrand had to 
 confirm his title as duke, and designate him Knight of S. Peter in 1080. 
 When Robert drove the Emperor Henry IV. from Rome, and burned the 
 citj of the Ccelian, Hildebrand retired with his terrible defender to 
 Salerno, and died there in 1085. Robert and both Rogers were good sons 
 of the Church, deserving the titles of ' Terror of the faithless,' ' Sword 
 of the Lord drawn from the scabbard of Sicily,' as long as they were 
 suffered to pursue their own schemes of empire. They respected the 
 Pope's person and his demesne of Benevento ; they were largely liberal 
 in donations to churches and abbeys. But they did not suffer their 
 piety to interfere with their ambition.
 
 302 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 with booty to Reggio. The Mussulmans had never thoroughly 
 subdued the north-eastern highlands of Sicily. Satisfied with 
 occupying the whole western and southern sections of the 
 island, with planting their government firmly at Palermo, 
 destroying Syracuse, and establishing a military fort on the 
 heights of Castro Giovanni, they had somewhat neglected the 
 Christian populations of the Val Demone. Thus the key to 
 Sicily upon the Italian side fell into the hands of the invaders. 
 From Messina Roger advanced by Rametta and Centorbi to 
 Troina, a hill-town raised high above the level of the sea, 
 within view of the solemn blue-black pyramid of Etna. There 
 he planted a garrison in 1062, two years after his first in- 
 cursion into the island. The interval had been employed 
 in marches and countermarches, descents upon the vale of 
 Catania, and hurried expeditions as far as Girgenti, on the 
 southern coast. One great battle is recorded beneath the 
 walls of Castro Giovanni, when six hundred Norman knights, 
 so say the chroniclers, engaged with fifteen thousand of the 
 Arabian chivalry and one hundred thousand foot soldiers. 
 However great the exaggeration of these numbers, it is 
 certain that the Christians fought at fearful odds that day, 
 and that all the eloquence of Roger, who wrought on their 
 fanaticism in his speech before the battle, was needed to raise 
 their courage to the sticking-point. The scene of the great 
 rout of Saracens which followed, is in every respect memorable. 
 Castro Giovanni, the old Enna of the Greeks and Romans, 
 stands on the top of a precipitous mountain, two thousand 
 feet above a plain which waves with corn. A sister height, 
 Calascibetta, raised nearly to an equal altitude, keeps ward 
 over the same valley ; and from their summits the whole of 
 Sicily is visible. Here in old days Demeter from her rock- 
 built temple could survey vast tracts of hill and dale, breaking 
 downwards to the sea and undulating everywhere with harvest.
 
 PALERMO 303 
 
 The much praised lake and vale of Enna ' are now a desolate 
 sulphur district, void of beauty, with no flowers to tempt 
 Proserpine. Yet the landscape is eminently noble because of 
 its breadth bare naked hills stretching in every direction to 
 the sea that girdles Sicily peak rising above peak and town- 
 capped eyrie over eyrie while Etna, wreathed with snow, 
 and purple with the peculiar colour of its coal-black lava seen 
 through light-irradiated air, sleeps far off beneath a crown of 
 clouds. Upon the cornfields in the centre of this landscape 
 the multitudes of the Infidels were smitten hip and thigh by 
 the handful of Christian warriors. Yet the victory was by 
 no means a decisive one. The Saracens swarmed round the 
 Norman fortress of Troina ; where, during a severe winter, 
 Roger and his young wife, Judith of Evreux, whom he had 
 loved in Normandy, and who journeyed to marry him amid 
 the din of battles, had but one cloak to protect them both 
 from the cold. The traveller, who even in April has experi- 
 enced the chill of a high-set Sicilian village, will not be 
 
 1 Cicero's description of Enna is still accurate : ' Enna is placed in 
 a very lofty and exposed situation, at the top of which is a tableland and 
 never-failing supply of springs. The whole site is cut off from access, 
 and precipitous.' But when he proceeds to say, ' many groves and 
 lakes surround it and luxuriant flowers through all the year,' we cannot 
 follow him. The only quality which Enna has not lost is the impregnable 
 nature of its cliffs. A few poplars and thorns are all that remain of 
 its forests. Did we not know that the myth of Demeter and Persephone 
 was a poem of seed-time and harvest, we might be tempted, while sitting 
 on the crags of Castro Giovanni and looking toward the lake, to fancy 
 that in old days a village dependent upon Enna, and therefore called 
 her daughter, might have occupied the site of the lake, and that this 
 village might have been withdrawn into the earth by the volcanic action 
 which produced the cavity. Then people would have said that Demeter 
 had lost Persephone and sought her vainly through all the cities of 
 Sicily : and if this happened in spring Persephone might well have been 
 thought to have been gathering flowers at the time when Hades took 
 her to himself. So easy and yet so dangerous is it to rationalise a 
 legend.
 
 304 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 inclined to laugh at the hardships revealed by this little 
 incident. Yet the Normans, one and all, were stanch. A 
 victory over their assailants in the spring gave them courage 
 to push their arms as far as the river Himera and beyond the 
 Simeto, while a defeat of fifty thousand Saracens by four 
 hundred Normans at Cerami opened the way at last to 
 Palermo. Beading of these engagements, we are led to 
 remember how Gelon smote his Punic foes upon the Himera, 
 and Timoleon arrayed Greeks by the ten against Cartha- 
 ginians by the thousand on the Crimisus. The battlefields 
 are scarcely altered ; the combatants are as unequally 
 matched, and represent analogous races. It is still the 
 combat of a few heroic Europeans against the hordes of Asia. 
 In the battle of Cerami it is said that S. George fought visibly 
 on horseback before the Christian band, like that wide-winged 
 chivalrous archangel whom Spinello Aretino painted beside 
 Sant' Efeso in the press of men upon the walls of the Pisan 
 Campo Santo. 
 
 The capture of Palermo cost the Normans another eight 
 years, part of which was spent according to their national 
 tactics in plundering expeditions, part in the subjugation of 
 Catania and other districts, part in the blockade of the capital 
 by sea and land. After the fall of Palermo, it only remained 
 for Roger to reduce isolated cities Taormina, Syracuse, 1 
 Girgenti, and Castro Giovanni to his sway. The last-named 
 and strongest hold of the Saracens fell into his hands by the 
 treason of Ibn-Hamud in 1087, and thus, after thirty years' 
 continual effort, the two brothers were at last able to divide 
 the island between them. The lion's share, as was due, fell 
 to Eoger, who styled himself Great Count of Sicily and 
 Calabria. In 1098, Urban II., a politician of the school of 
 
 1 In this siege, as in that of the Athenians, and of the Saracens 
 878 A.D., decisive engagements took place in the great harbour.
 
 PALERMO 305 
 
 Cluny, who well understood the scope of Hildebrand's plan 
 for subjecting Europe to the Court of Home, rewarded Roger 
 for his zeal in the service of the Church with the title of 
 Hereditary Apostolical Legate. The Great Count was now 
 on a par with the most powerful monarchs of Europe. In 
 riches he exceeded all; so that he was able to wed one 
 daughter to the King of Hungary, another to Conrad, King 
 of Italy, a third to Eaimond, Count of Provence and Toulouse, 
 dowering them all with imperial munificence. 
 
 Hale and vigorous, his life was prolonged through a green 
 old age until his seventieth year; when he died in 1101, he 
 left two sons by his third wife, Adelaide. Roger, the younger 
 of the two, destined to succeed his father, and (on the death 
 of his cousin, William, Duke of Apulia, in 1127) to unite 
 South Italy and Sicily under one crown, was only four years 
 old at the death of the Great Count. Inheriting all the 
 valour and intellectual qualities of his family, he rose to even 
 higher honour than his predecessors. In 1130 he assumed 
 the style of King of Sicily, no doubt with the political purpose 
 of impressing his Mussulman subjects ; and nine years later, 
 when he took Innocent captive at San Germane, he forced 
 from the half- willing pontiff a confirmation of this title as well 
 as the investiture of Apulia, Calabria, and Capua. The extent 
 of his sway is recorded in the line engraved upon his sword : 
 
 Appulus et Calaber Siculus mihi servit et Afer. 
 
 King Roger died in 1154, and bequeathed his kingdoms to his 
 son William, surnamed the Bad ; who in his turn left them to 
 a William, called the Good, in 1166. The second William 
 died in 1189, transmitting his possessions by will to Constance, 
 wife of the Suabian emperor. These two Williams, the last 
 of the Haute ville monarchs of Sicily, were not altogether un- 
 worthy of their Norman origin. William the Bad could rouse 
 in x
 
 306 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 himself from the sloth of his seraglio to head an army ; 
 William the Good, though feeble in foreign policy, and no 
 general, administered the state with clemency and wisdom. 
 
 Sicily under the Normans offered the spectacle of a singu- 
 larly hybrid civilisation. Christians and Northmen, adopting 
 the habits and imbibing the culture of their Mussulman sub- 
 jects, ruled a mixed population of Greeks, Arabs, Berbers, and 
 Italians. The language of the princes was French ; that of 
 the Christians in their territory, Greek and Latin ; that of 
 their Mahommedan subjects, Arabic. At the same time the 
 Scandinavian Sultans of Palermo did not cease to play an 
 active part in the affairs, both civil and ecclesiastical, of 
 Europe. The children of the Vikings, though they spent 
 their leisure in harems, exercised, as hereditary Legates of 
 the Holy See, a peculiar jurisdiction in the Church of Sicily. 
 They dispensed benefices to the clergy, and assumed the mitre 
 and dalmatic, together with the sceptre and the crown, as 
 symbols of their authority in Church as well as State. As a 
 consequence of this confusion of nationalities in Sicily, we 
 find French and English ecclesiastics * mingling at court with 
 Moorish freedmen and Oriental odalisques, Apulian captains 
 fraternising with Greek corsairs, Jewish physicians in attend- 
 ance on the person of the prince, and Arabian poets eloquent 
 in his praises. The very money with which Roger subsidised 
 his Italian allies was stamped with Cuphic letters, 2 and there is 
 
 1 The English Gualterio Offamilio, or Walter of the Mill, Archbishop 
 of Palermo during the reign of William the Good, by his intrigues brought 
 about the match between Constance and Henry VI. Richard Palmer at 
 the same time was Bishop of Syracuse. Stephen des Rotrous, a French- 
 man of the Counts of Perche, preceded Walter of the Mill in the Arch 
 See of Palermo. 
 
 2 Frederick Barbarossa's soldiers are said to have bidden the 
 Romans : ' Take this German iron in change for Arab gold. This pay 
 your master gives you, and this is how Franks win empire.' Amari, 
 vol. iii. p. 468.
 
 PALEEMO 307 
 
 reason to believe that the reproach against Frederick of being 
 a false coiner arose from his adopting the Eastern device of 
 plating copper pieces to pass for silver. The commander of 
 Eoger's navies and his chief minister of state was styled, 
 according to Oriental usage, Emir or Ammiraglio. George of 
 Antioch, who swept the shores of Africa, the Morea, and the 
 Black Sea, in his service, was a Christian of the Greek Church, 
 who had previously held an office of finance under Temin 
 Prince of Mehdia. The workers in his silk factories were 
 slaves from Thebes and Corinth. The pages of his palace 
 were Sicilian or African eunuchs. His charters ran in Arabic 
 as well as Greek and Latin. His jewellers engraved the rough 
 gems of the Orient with Christian mottoes in Semitic charac- 
 ters. 1 His architects were Mussulmans who adapted their 
 native style to the requirements of Christian ritual, and 
 inscribed the walls of cathedrals with Catholic legends in the 
 Cuphic language. The predominant characteristic of Palermo 
 was Orientalism. Religious toleration was extended to the Mus- 
 sulmans, so that the two creeds, Christian and Mahommedan, 
 flourished side by side. The Saracens had their own quarters 
 in the towns, their mosques and schools, and Cadis for the 
 administration of petty justice. French and Italian women in 
 Palermo adopted the Oriental fashions of dress. The adminis- 
 tration of law and government was conducted on Eastern prin- 
 ciples. In nothing had the Mussulmans shown greater genius 
 than in their system of internal statecraft. Count Roger found a 
 machinery of taxation in full working order, officers acquainted 
 with the resources of the country, books and schedules con- 
 
 1 The embroidered skullcap of Constance of Aragon, wife of Frederick 
 II., in the sacristy of the cathedral at Palermo, is made of gold thread 
 thickly studded with pearls and jewels rough sapphires and carbuncles, 
 among which may be noticed a red cornelian engraved in Arabic with 
 this sentence, ' In Christ, God, I put my hope.' 
 
 x2
 
 308 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IX ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 strueted on the principles of strictest accuracy, a whole bureau- 
 cracy, in fact, ready to his use. By applying this machinery 
 he became the richest potentate in Europe, at a time when 
 the northern monarchs were dependent upon feudal aids and 
 precarious revenues from crown lands. In the same way, the 
 Saracens bequeathed to the Normans the court system, which 
 they in turn had derived from the princes of Persia and the 
 example of Constantinople. Eoger found it convenient to 
 continue that organisation of pages, chamberlains, ushers, 
 secretaries, viziers, and masters of the wardrobe, invested each 
 with some authority of state according to his rank, which 
 confined the administration of an Eastern kingdom to the 
 walls of the palace. 1 At Palermo Europe saw the first 
 instance of a court not wholly unlike that which Versailles 
 afterwards became. The intrigues which endangered the 
 throne and liberty of William the Bad, and which perplexed 
 the policy of William the Good, were court-conspiracies of a 
 kind common enough at Constantinople. In this court life 
 men of letters and erudition played a first part three centuries 
 before Petrarch taught the princes of Italy to respect the pen 
 of a poet. 
 
 King Eoger, of whom the court geographer Edrisi writes 
 
 1 The Arabic title of Kdid, which originally was given to a subordinate 
 captain of the guard, took a wide significance at the Norman Court. 
 Latinised to gaytus, and Grecised under the form of KOITOS, it frequently 
 occurs in chronicles and diplomas to denote a high minister of state. 
 Matteo of Ajello, who exercised so powerful an influence over the policy 
 of William the Good, heading the Mussulman and national party 
 against the great ecclesiastics who were intriguing to draw Sicily into 
 the entanglements of European diplomacy, was a Kaid. Matteo favoured 
 the cause of Tancred, Walter of the Mill espoused that of the Germans, 
 during the war of succession which followed upon William's death. The 
 barons of the realm had to range themselves under these two leaders 
 to such an extent were the affairs of state in Sicily within the grasp of 
 courtiers and churchmen.
 
 PALERMO 309 
 
 that ' he did more sleeping than any other man waking,' was 
 surrounded during his leisure moments, beneath the palm- 
 groves of Favara, with musicians, historians, travellers, mathe- 
 maticians, poets, and astrologers of Oriental breeding. At his 
 command Ptolemy's Optics were translated into Latin from 
 the Arabic. The prophecies of the Erythrean Sibyl were 
 rendered accessible in the same way. His respect for the 
 occult sciences was proved by his disinterring the bones of 
 Virgil from their resting-place at Posilippo, and placing them 
 in the Castel dell' Uovo in order that he might have access 
 through necromancy to the spirit of the Koman wizard. It 
 may be remembered in passing, that Palermo in one of her 
 mosques already held suspended between earth and air the 
 supposed relics of Aristotle. Such were the saints of modern 
 culture in its earliest dawning. While Venice was robbing 
 Alexandria of the body of S. Mark, Palermo and Naples placed 
 themselves beneath the protection of a philosopher and a 
 poet. But Roger's greatest literary work was the compilation 
 of a treatise of universal geography. Fiftee'.i years were 
 devoted to the task ; and the manuscript, in Arabic, drawn 
 up by the philosopher Edrisi, appeared only six weeks before 
 the king's death in 1154. This book, called ' The Book of 
 Roger, or the Delight of whoso loves to make the Circuit of 
 the World,' was based upon the previous labours of twelve 
 geographers, classical and Mussulman. But aiming at greater 
 accuracy than could be obtained by a merely literary com- 
 pilation, Roger caused pilgrims, travellers, and merchants of 
 all countries to be assembled for conference and examination 
 before him. Their accounts were sifted and collated. Edrisi 
 held the pen while Roger questioned. Measurements and 
 distances were carefully compared ; and a vast silver disc was 
 constructed, on which all the seas, islands, continents, plains, 
 rivers, mountain ranges, cities, roads, and harbours of the
 
 310 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 known world were delineated. The text supplied an explana- 
 tory description of this map, with tables of the products, habits, 
 races, religions, and qualities, both physical and moral, of all 
 climates. The precious metal upon which the map was drawn 
 proved its ruin, and the Geography remained in the libraries 
 of Arab scholars. Yet this was one of the first great essays 
 of practical exploration and methodical statistic, to which the 
 genius of the Norseman and the Arab each contributed a 
 quota. The Arabians, by their primitive nomadic habits, by 
 the necessities of their system of taxation, by their predilection 
 for astrology, by their experience as pilgrims, merchants, and 
 poets errant, were specially qualified for the labour of geogra- 
 phical investigation. Eoger supplied the unbounded curiosity 
 and restless energy of his Scandinavian temper, the kingly 
 comprehensive intellect of his race, and the authority of a 
 prince who was powerful enough to compel the service of 
 qualified collaborators. 
 
 The architectural works of the Normans in Palermo reveal 
 the same ascendency of Arab culture. San Giovanni degli 
 Eremiti, with its low white rounded domes, is nothing more 
 or less than a little mosque adapted to the rites of Christians. 1 
 The country palaces of the Zisa and the Cuba, built by the 
 two Williams, retain their ancient Moorish character. Stand- 
 ing beneath the fretted arches of the hall of the Zisa, through 
 which a fountain flows within a margin of carved marble, and 
 looking on the landscape from its open porch, we only need 
 to reconstruct in fancy the green gardens and orange-groves, 
 where fair-haired Normans whiled away their hours among 
 black-eyed odalisques and graceful singing boys from Persia. 
 Amid a wild tangle of olive and lemon trees overgrown with 
 scarlet passion-flowers, the pavilion of the Cubola, built of 
 
 1 Tradition asserts that the tocsin of this church gave the signal in 
 Palermo to the massacre of the Sicilian Vespers.
 
 PALERMO 311 
 
 hewn stone and open at each of its four sides, still stands 
 much as it stood when William II. paced through flowers 
 from his palace of the Cuba, to enjoy the freshness of the 
 evening hy the side of its fountain. The views from all these 
 Saracenic villas over the fruitful valley of the Golden Horn, 
 and the turrets of Palermo, and the mountains and the dis- 
 tant sea, are ineffably delightful. When the palaces were 
 new when the gilding and the frescoes still shone upon 
 their honeycombed ceilings, when their mosaics glittered in 
 noonday twilight, and their amber-coloured masonry was set 
 in shade of pines and palms, and the cool sound of rivulets 
 made music in their courts and gardens, they must have well 
 deserved their Arab titles of ' Sweet Waters ' and ' The Glory ' 
 and ' The Paradise of Earth.' 
 
 But the true splendour of Palermo, that which makes this 
 city one of the most glorious of the south, is to be sought 
 in its churches in the mosaics of the Cappella Palatina 
 founded by King Roger, in the vast aisles and cloisters of 
 Monreale built by King William the Good at the instance of 
 his Chancellor Matteo, 1 in the Cathedral of Palermo begun 
 by Offamilio, and in the Martorana dedicated by George the 
 Admiral. These triumphs of ecclesiastical architecture, none 
 the less splendid because they cannot be reduced to rule or 
 assigned to any single style, were the work of Saracen builders 
 assisted by Byzantine, Italian, and Norman craftsmen. The 
 genius of Latin Christianity determined the basilica shape of 
 the Cathedral of Monreale. Its bronze doors were wrought 
 by smiths of Trani and Pisa. Its walls were incrusted with 
 the mosaics of Constantinople. The woodwork of its roof, 
 and the emblazoned patterns in porphyry and serpentine and 
 glass and smalto, which cover its whole surface, were designed 
 
 1 Matteo of Ajello induced William to found an archbishopric at 
 Monreale in order to spite his rival Offamilio.
 
 312 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 by Oriental decorators. Norman sculptors added their dog- 
 tooth and chevron to the mouldings of its porches ; Greeks, 
 Frenchmen, and Arabs may have tried their skill in turn upon 
 the multitudinous ornaments of its cloister capitals. ' The 
 like of which church,' said Lucius III. in 1182, ' hath not 
 been constructed by any king even from ancient times, and 
 such an one as must compel all men to admiration.' These 
 words remain literally and emphatically true. Other cathe- 
 drals may surpass that of Monreale in sublimity, simplicity, 
 bulk, strength, or unity of plan. None can surpass it in the 
 strange romance with which the memory of its many artificers 
 invests it. None again can exceed it in richness and glory, 
 in the gorgeousness of a thousand decorative elements sub- 
 servient to one controlling thought. 'It is evident,' says 
 Fergusson in his ' History of Architecture,' ' that all the archi- 
 tectural features in the building were subordinate in the eyes 
 of the builders to the mosaic decorations, which cover every 
 part of the interior, and are in fact the glory and the pride 
 of the edifice, and alone entitle it to rank among the finest 
 of mediaeval churches.' The whole of the Christian history 
 is depicted in this series of mosaics ; but on first entering, 
 one form alone compels attention. The semi-dome of the 
 eastern apse above the high altar is entirely filled with a 
 gigantic half-length figure of Christ. He raises His right 
 hand to bless, and with His left holds an open book on which 
 is written in Greek and Latin, ' I am the Light of the world.' 
 His face is solemn and severe, rather than mild or piteous ; 
 and round His nimbus runs the legend 'lyo-ovs Xptoros 6 
 n-avTOKpoLTwp. Below Him on a smaller scale are ranged the 
 archangels and the mother of the Lord, who holds the child 
 upon her knees. Thus Christ appears twice upon this wall, 
 once as the Omnipotent Wisdom, the Word by whom all 
 things were made, and once as God deigning to assume a
 
 PALERMO 313 
 
 shape of flesh and dwell with men. The magnificent image 
 of supreme Deity seems to fill with a single influence and to 
 dominate the whole building. The house with all its glory is 
 His. He dwells there like Pallas in her Parthenon or Zeus 
 in his Olympian temple. To left and right over every square 
 inch of the cathedral blaze mosaics, which portray the story 
 of God's dealings with the human race from the Creation 
 downwards, together with those angelic beings and saints 
 who symbolise each in his own degree some special virtue 
 granted to mankind. The walls of the fane are therefore an 
 open book of history, theology, and ethics for all men to 
 read. 
 
 The superiority of mosaics over fresco as an architectural 
 adjunct on this gigantic scale is apparent at a glance in 
 Monreale. Permanency of splendour and glowing richness 
 of tone are all on the side of the mosaics. Their true rival is 
 painted glass. The jewelled churches of the south are con- 
 structed for the display of coloured surfaces illuminated by 
 sunlight falling on them from narrow windows, just as those 
 of the north Rheims, for example, or Le Mans are built 
 for the transmission of light through a variegated medium of 
 transparent hues. The painted windows of a northern cathe- 
 dral find their proper counterpart in the mosaics of the south. 
 The Gothic architect strove to obtain the greatest amount 
 of translucent surface. The Byzantine builder directed his 
 attention to securing just enough light for the illumination of 
 his glistening walls. The radiance of the northern church 
 was similar to that of flowers or sunset clouds or jewels. 
 The glory of the southern temple was that of dusky gold and 
 gorgeous needlework. The north needed acute brilliancy as 
 a contrast to external greyness. The south found rest from 
 the glare and glow of noonday in these sombre splendours. 
 Thus Christianity, both of the south and of the north, decked
 
 314 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 her shrines with colour. Not so the Paganism of Hellas. 
 With the Greeks, colour, though used in architecture, was 
 severely subordinated to sculpture ; toned and modified to a 
 calculated harmony with actual nature, it did not, as in a 
 Christian church, create a world beyond the world, a paradise 
 of supersensual ecstasy, but remained within the limits of the 
 known. Light falling upon carved forms of gods and heroes, 
 bathing clear-cut columns and sharp basreliefs in simple 
 lustre, was enough for the Phoebean rites of Hellas. Though 
 we know that red and blue and green and gilding were 
 employed to accentuate the mouldings of Greek temples, yet 
 neither the gloomy glory of mosaics nor the gemmed fretwork 
 of storied windows was needed to attune the souls of Hellenic 
 worshippers to devotion. 
 
 Less vast than Monreale, but even more beautiful, because 
 the charm of mosaic increases in proportion as the surface it 
 covers may be compared to the interior of a casket, is the 
 Cappella Palatina of the royal palace in Palermo. Here, 
 again, the whole design and ornament are Arabo-Byzantine. 
 Saracenic pendentives with Cuphic legends incrust the richly 
 painted ceiling of the nave. The roofs of the apses and 
 the walls are coated with mosaics, in which the Bible history, 
 from the dove that brooded over Chaos to the lives of S. 
 Peter and S. Paul, receives a grand though formal presenta- 
 tion. Beneath the mosaics are ranged slabs of grey marble, 
 edged and divided with delicate patterns of inserted glass, 
 resembling drapery with richly embroidered fringes. The 
 floor is inlaid with circles of serpentine and porphyry en- 
 cased in white marble, and surrounded by winding bands of 
 Alexandrine work. Some of these patterns are restricted 
 to the five tones of red, green, white, black, and pale yellow. 
 Others add turquoise blue, and emerald, and scarlet, and 
 gold. Not a square inch of the surface floor, roof, walls, or
 
 PALERMO 315 
 
 cupola is free from exquisite gemmed work of precious 
 marbles. A candelabrum of fanciful design, combining lions 
 devouring men and beasts, cranes, flowers, and winged genii, 
 stands by the pulpit. Lamps of chased silver hang from the 
 roof. The cupola blazes with gigantic archangels, stationed 
 in a ring beneath the supreme figure and face of Christ. 
 Some of the Ravenna churches are more historically interest- 
 ing, perhaps, than this little masterpiece of the mosaic art. 
 But none is so rich in detail and lustrous in effect. It should 
 be seen at night, when the lamps are lighted in a pyramid 
 around the sepulchre of the dead Christ on Holy Thursday, 
 when partial gleams strike athwart the tawny gold of the 
 arches, and fall upon the profile of a priest declaiming in 
 voluble Italian to a listening crowd. 
 
 Such are a few of the monuments which still remain 
 to show of what sort was the mixed culture of Normans, 
 Saracens, Italians, and Greeks at Palermo. In scenes like 
 these the youth of Frederick II. was passed : for at the end, 
 while treating of Palermo, we are bound to think again of the 
 Emperor who inherited from his German father the ambition 
 of the Hohenstauffens, and from his Norman mother the fair 
 fields and Oriental traditions of Sicily. The strange history 
 of Frederick an intellect of the eighteenth century born out 
 of date, a cosmopolitan spirit in the age of Saint Louis, the 
 crusader who conversed with Moslem sages on the threshold 
 of the Holy Sepulchre, the Sultan of Lucera ' who persecuted 
 
 1 Charles of Anjou gave this nickname to Manfred, who carried on 
 the Siculo-Norman tradition. Frederick, it may here be mentioned, had 
 transferred his Saracen subjects of the vale of Mazara to Lucera in the 
 Capitanate. He employed them as trusty troops in his warfare with 
 the Popes and preaching friars. Nothing shows the confusion of the 
 century in matters ecclesiastical and religious more curiously than that 
 Frederick, who conducted a crusade and freed the Holy Sepulchre, 
 should not only have tolerated the religion of Mussulmans, but also
 
 316 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Paterini while he respected the superstition of Saracens, the 
 anointed successor of Charlemagne, who carried his harem 
 with him to the battlefields of Lombardy, and turned Infidels 
 loose upon the provinces of Christ's Vicar would be in- 
 explicable, were it not that Palermo still reveals in all her 
 monuments the genius loci which gave spiritual nurture to 
 this phoenix among kings. From his Mussulman teachers 
 Frederick derived the philosophy to which he gave a vogue in 
 Europe. From his Arabian predecessors he learnt the arts 
 of internal administration and finance, which he transmitted 
 to the princes of Italy. In imitation of Oriental courts, he 
 adopted the practice of verse composition, which gave the first 
 impulse to Italian literature. His Grand Vizier, Piero Delle 
 Vigne, set an example to Petrarch, not only by composing the 
 first sonnet in Italian, but also by showing to what height 
 a low-born secretary versed in art and law might rise. In 
 a word, the zeal for liberal studies, the luxury of life, the 
 religious indifferentism, the bureaucratic system of state 
 government, which mark the age of the Italian Kenaissance, 
 found their first manifestation within the bosom of the Middle 
 Ages in Frederick. While our King John was signing Magna 
 Charta, Frederick had already lived long enough to compre- 
 hend, at least in outline, what is meant by the spirit of 
 modern culture. 1 It is true that the so-called Renaissance 
 followed slowly and by tortuous paths upon the death of 
 Frederick. The Church obtained a complete victory over his 
 family, and succeeded in extinguishing the civilisation of 
 Sicily. Yet the fame of the Emperor who transmitted 
 
 have armed them against the Head of the Church. What we are apt to 
 regard as religious questions really belonged at that period to the sphere 
 of politics. 
 
 1 It is curious to note that in this year 1215, the date of Magna 
 Charta, Frederick took the Cross at Aix-la-Chapelle.
 
 PALERMO 3 If 
 
 questions of sceptical philosophy to Arab sages, who con- 
 versed familiarly with men of letters, who loved splendour and 
 understood the arts of refined living, survived both long and 
 late in Italy. His power, his wealth, his liberality of soul 
 and lofty aspirations, formed the theme of many a tale and 
 poem. Dante places him in hell among the heresiarchs ; 
 and truly the splendour of his supposed infidelity found for 
 him a goodly following. Yet Dante dated the rise of Italian 
 literature from the blooming period of the Sicilian court. 
 Frederick's unorthodoxy proved no drawback to his intel- 
 lectual influence. More than any other man of mediaeval 
 times he contributed, if only as the memory of a mighty 
 name, to the progress of civilised humanity. 
 
 Let us take leave both of Frederick and of Palermo, that 
 centre of converging influences which was his cradle, in the 
 cathedral where he lies gathered to his fathers. This church, 
 though its rich sunbrowned yellow 1 reminds one of the tone 
 of Spanish buildings, is like nothing one has seen elsewhere. 
 Here even more than at Monreale the eye is struck with a 
 fusion of styles. The western towers are grouped into some- 
 thing like the clustered sheafs of the Caen churches : the 
 windows present Saracenic arches : the southern porch is 
 covered with foliated incrustations of a late and decorative 
 Gothic style : the exterior of the apse combines Arabic inlaid 
 patterns of black and yellow with the Greek honeysuckle : 
 the western door adds Norman dog-tooth and chevron to the 
 
 1 Nearly all cities have their own distinctive colour. That of Venice 
 is a pearly white suggestive of every hue in delicate abeyance, and that 
 of Florence is a sober brown. Palermo displays a rich yellow ochre 
 passing at the deepest into orange, and at the lightest into primrose. 
 This is the tone of the soil, of sun-stained marble, and of the rough, 
 ashlar masonry of the chief buildings. Palermo has none of the glaring 
 whiteness of Naples, nor yet of that particoloured gradation of tints 
 which adds gaiety to the grandeur of Genoa.
 
 318 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Saracenic billet. Nowhere is any one tradition firmly 
 followed. The whole wavers and yet is beautiful like the 
 immature eclecticism of the culture which Frederick himself 
 endeavoured to establish in his southern kingdoms. Inside 
 there is no such harmony of blended voices : all the strange 
 tongues, which speak together on the outside, making up a 
 music in which the far North, and ancient Byzance, and the 
 delicate East sound each a note, are hushed. The frigid 
 silence of the Palladian style reigns there simple indeed and 
 dignified, but lifeless as the century in which it flourished. 
 
 Yet there, in a side chapel near the western door, stand 
 the porphyry sarcophagi which shrine the bones of the Haute- 
 villes and their representatives. There sleeps King Eoger 
 ' Dux strenuus et primus Rex Sicilise ' with his daughter 
 Constance in her purple chest beside him. Henry VI. and 
 Frederick II. and Constance of Aragon complete the group, 
 which surpasses for interest all sepulchral monuments even 
 the tombs of the Scaligers at Verona except only, perhaps, 
 the statues of the nave of Innspruck. Very sombre and 
 stately are these porphyry resting-places of princes born in 
 the purple, assembled here from lands so distant from the 
 craggy heights of Hohenstauffen, from the green orchards of 
 Cotentin, from the dry hills of Aragon. They sleep, and the 
 centuries pass by. Eude hands break open the granite lids of 
 their sepulchres, to find tresses of yellow hair and fragments 
 of imperial mantles, embroidered with the hawks and stags the 
 royal hunter loved. The church in which they lie changes 
 with the change of taste in architecture and the manners of 
 successive ages. But the huge stone arks remain unmoved, 
 guarding their freight of mouldering dust beneath gloomy 
 canopies of stone that temper the sunlight as it streams from 
 the chapel windows.
 
 319 
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI 
 
 THE traveller in Sicily is constantly reminded of classical 
 history and literature. While tossing, it may be, at anchor 
 in the port of Trapani, and wondering when the tedious 
 Libeccio will release him, he must perforce remember that 
 here ^neas instituted the games for Anchises. Here Mnes- 
 theus and Gyas and Sergestus and Cloanthus raced their 
 galleys : on yonder little isle the Centaur struck ; and that 
 was the rock which received the dripping Menoetes : 
 
 Ilium et labentem Teucri et risere natantem, 
 Et salsos rident revomentem pectore fluctus. 
 
 Or crossing a broken bridge at night in the lumbering dili- 
 gence, guarded by infantry with set bayonets, and wondering 
 on which side of the ravine the brigands are in ambush, he 
 suddenly calls to mind that this torrent was the ancient 
 Halycus, the border between Greeks and Carthaginians, 
 established of old, and ratified by Timoleon after the battle 
 of the Crimisus. Among the bare grey hills of Segeste his 
 thoughts revert to that strange story told by Herodotus of 
 Philippus, the young soldier of Crotona, whose beauty was so 
 great, that when the Segesteans found him slain among their 
 foes, they raised the corpse and burned it on a pyre of honour, 
 and built a hero's temple over the urn that held his ashes. 
 The first sight of Etna makes us cry with Theocritus,
 
 320 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 fj,a.Tcp e/i.a .... TToAvStvSpeos AtT/a. The solemn heights of 
 Castro Giovanni bring lines of Ovid to our lips : 
 
 Haud procul Hennaeis lacus est a mcenibus altae 
 Nomine Fergus aquae. Non illo plura Caystros 
 Carmina cygnorum labentibus audit in undis. 
 Silva coronat aquas, cingens latus omne ; suisque 
 Frondibus ut velo Phoebeos summovet ignes. 
 Frigora dant rami, Tyrios hunius humida flores. 
 Perpetuum ver est. 
 
 We look indeed in vain for the leafy covert and the purple 
 flowers that tempted Proserpine. The place is barren now : 
 two solitary cypress-trees mark the road which winds down- 
 wards from a desolate sulphur mine, and the lake is clearly 
 the crater of an extinct volcano. Yet the voices of old poets 
 are not mute. ' The rich Virgilian rustic measure ' recalls a 
 long-since buried past. Even among the wavelets of the Faro 
 we remember Homer, scanning the shore if haply somewhere 
 yet may linger the wild fig-tree which saved Ulysses from the 
 whirlpool of Charybdis. At any rate we cannot but exclaim 
 with Goethe, ' Now all these coasts, gulfs, and creeks, islands 
 and peninsulas, rocks and sand-banks, wooded hills, soft 
 meadows, fertile fields, neat gardens, hanging grapes, cloudy 
 mountains, constant cheerfulness of plains, cliffs and ridges, 
 and the surrounding sea, with such manifold variety are pre- 
 sent in my mind; now is the "Odyssey" for the first time 
 become to me a living world." 
 
 But rich as the whole of Sicily may be in classical associa- 
 tions, two places, Syracuse and Girgenti, are pre-eminent for 
 the power of bringing the Greek past forcibly before us. Their 
 interest is of two very different kinds. Girgenti still displays 
 the splendour of temples placed upon a rocky cornice between 
 sea and olive-groves. Syracuse has nothing to show but 
 the scene of world-important actions. Yet the great deeds
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI 321 
 
 recorded by Thucydides, the conflict between eastern and western 
 Hellas which ended in the annihilation of the bright, brief, 
 brilliant reality of Athenian empire, remain so clearly written 
 on the hills and harbours and marshlands of Syracuse that 
 no place in the world is topographically more memorable. 
 The artist, whether architect, or landscape-painter, or poet, 
 finds full enjoyment at Girgenti. The historian must be 
 exacting indeed in his requirements if he is not satisfied with 
 Syracuse. 
 
 What has become of Syracuse, ' the greatest of Greek 
 cities and the fairest of all cities ' even in the days of Cicero ? 
 Scarcely one stone stands upon another of all those temples 
 and houses. The five towns which were included by the walls 
 have now shrunk to the little island which the first settlers 
 named Ortygia, where the sacred fountain of Arethusa seemed 
 to their home-loving hearts to have followed them from Hellas. 1 
 Nothing survives but a few columns of Athene's temple built 
 into a Christian church, with here and there the marble 
 masonry of a bath or the Eoman stonework of an amphi- 
 theatre. There are not even any mounds or deep deposits of 
 rubble mixed with pottery to show here once a town had 
 been. 2 Etiam periere ruina. The vast city, devastated for 
 the last time by the Saracens in 878 A.D., has been reduced to 
 dust and swept by the scirocco into the sea. This is the expla- 
 nation of its utter ruin. The stone of Syracuse is friable and 
 easily disintegrated. The petulant moist wind of the south- 
 east corrodes its surface ; and when it falls, it crumbles to 
 
 1 The fountain of Arethusa, recently rescued from the washerwomen 
 of Syracuse, is shut off from the Great Harbour by a wall and planted 
 with papyrus. Taste has not been displayed in the bear-pit architecture 
 of its circular enclosure. 
 
 2 This is not strictly true of Achradina, where some dtbris may still 
 be found worth excavating. 
 
 Ill Y
 
 322 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 powder. Here, then, the elements have had their will un- 
 checked by such sculptured granite as in Egypt resists the 
 mounded sand of the desert, or by such marble colonnades as 
 in Athens have calmly borne the insults of successive sieges. 
 What was hewn out of the solid rock the semicircle of the 
 theatre, the street of the tombs with its deeply dented chariot- 
 ruts, the gigantic quarries from which the material of the 
 metropolis was scooped, the catacombs which burrow for 
 miles underground alone prove how mighty must have been 
 the Syracuse of Dionysius. Truly ' the iniquity of oblivion 
 blindly scattereth her poppy, and deals with the memory of 
 men without distinction to merit of perpetuity.' Standing on 
 the beach of the Great Harbour or the Bay of Thapsus, we 
 may repeat almost word by word Antipater's solemn lament 
 over Corinth : 
 
 Where is thy splendour now, thy crown of towers, 
 
 Thy beauty visible to all men's eyes, 
 The gold and silver of thy treasuries, 
 
 Thy temples of blest gods, thy woven bowers 
 Where long-stoled ladies walked in tranquil hours, 
 
 Thy multitudes like stars that crowd the skies ? 
 
 All, all are gone. Thy desolation lies 
 Bare to the night. The elemental powers 
 Resume their empire : on this lonely shore 
 
 Thy deathless Nereids, daughters of the sea, 
 
 Wailing 'mid broken stones unceasingly, 
 Like halcyons when the restless south winds roar, 
 Sing the sad story of thy woes of yore : 
 
 These plunging waves are all that's left to thee. 
 
 Time, however, though he devours his children, cannot utterly 
 destroy either the written record of illustrious deeds or the 
 theatre of their enactment. Therefore, with Thucydides in 
 hand, we may still follow the events of that Syracusan siege 
 which decided the destinies of Greece, and by the fall of
 
 SYKACUSE AND GIRGENTI 323 
 
 Athens, raised Sparta, Macedonia, and finally Rome to the 
 hegemony of the civilised world. 
 
 There are few students of Thucydides and Grote who 
 would not be surprised by the small scale of the cliffs, and the 
 gentle incline of Epipolte the rising ground above the town 
 of Syracuse, upon the slope of which the principal operations 
 of the Athenian siege took place. 1 Maps, and to some extent 
 also the language of Thucydides, who talks of the 7rpoo-/?ao-is, 
 or practicable approaches to Epipolae, and the KprjfivoL, or 
 precipices by which it was separated from the plain, would 
 lead one to suppose that the whole region was on each hand 
 rocky and abrupt. In reality it is extremely difficult to dis- 
 tinguish the rising ground of Epipolae upon the southern side 
 from the plain, so very gradual is the line of ascent and so 
 comparatively even is the rocky surface of the hill. Thucy- 
 dides, in narrating the night attack of Demosthenes upon 
 the lines of Gylippus (book vii. 43-45), lays stress upon the 
 necessity of approaching Epipolae from the western side by 
 Euryalus, and again asserts that during the hurried retreat of 
 the Athenians great numbers died by leaping from the cliffs, 
 while still more had to throw away their armour. At this 
 time the Athenian army was encamped upon the shore of the 
 Great Harbour, and held trenches and a wall that stretched 
 from that side at least halfway across Epipolaa. It seems 
 therefore strange that, unless their movements were impeded 
 by counterworks and lines of walls, of which we have no 
 information, the troops of Demosthenes should not, at least 
 in their retreat, have been able to pour down over the gentle 
 
 1 Epipolae is in shape a pretty regular isosceles triangle, of which the 
 apex is Mongibellisi or Euryalus, and the base Achradina or the northern 
 quarter of the ancient city. Thucydides describes it as x<*pl u atroKp^^ov 
 re Kal inrtp TTJS ir6\tais fiidvs Ktifufvov . . . ^pTijToi yap -rb &\\o x<*pioy 
 i T ^ S ir6\t<i>s 4iriK\ivts ft fan *ol firt<pavfs itav ftffw Ka.1 UVO/JLCUTTCU 
 rSiv "Svpcucoffiuv Sick rb &TITOATJS rou &\\ov tlvat 'EiniroAaf (vi. 96). 
 
 V2
 
 324 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 descent of Epipolse toward the Anapus, instead of returning 
 to Euryalus. Anyhow, we can scarcely discern cliffs of more 
 than ten feet upon the southern slope of Epipolse, nor can we 
 understand why the Athenians should have been forced to 
 take these in their line of retreat. There must have been 
 some artificial defences of which we read nothing, and of 
 which no traces now remain, but which were sufficient to pre- 
 vent them from choosing their ground. Slight difficulties of 
 this kind raise the question whether the wonderful clearness 
 of Thucydides in detail was really the result of personal 
 observation, or whether his graphic style enabled him to give 
 the appearance of scrupulous accuracy. I incline to think 
 that the author of the sixth and seventh books of the History 
 must have visited Syracuse, and that if we could see his own 
 map of Epipolae, we should better be able to understand the 
 difficulties of the backward night march of Demosthenes, by 
 discovering that there was some imperative necessity for not 
 descending, as seems natural, upon the open slope of the hill 
 to the south. The position of Euryalus at the extreme point 
 called Mongibellisi is clear enough. Here the ground, which 
 has been continually rising from the plateau of Achradina 
 (the northern suburb of Syracuse), comes to an abrupt finish. 
 Between Mongibellisi and the Belvedere hill beyond there is 
 a deep depression, and the slope to Euryalus either from the 
 south or north is gradual. It was a gross piece of neglect on 
 the part of Nikias not to have fortified this spot on his first 
 investment of Epipolse, instead of choosing Labdalum, which, 
 wherever we may place it, must have been lower down the 
 hill to the east. For Euryalus is the key to Epipolse. It 
 was here that Nikias himself ascended in the first instance, 
 and that afterwards he permitted Gylippus to enter and raise 
 the siege, and lastly that Demosthenes, by overpowering the 
 insufficient Syracusan guard, got at night within the lines of
 
 SYKACUSE AND GIKGENTI 325 
 
 tbe Spartan general. Thus the three most important move- 
 ments of the siege were made upon Euryalus. Dionysius, 
 when he enclosed Epipolse with walls, recognised the value of 
 the point, and fortified it with the castle which remains, and 
 to which, as Colonel Leake believes, Archimedes, at the order 
 of Hiero II., made subsequent additions. This castle is one 
 of the most interesting Greek ruins extant. A little repair 
 would make it even now a substantial place of defence, 
 according to Greek tactics. Its deep foss is cut in the solid 
 rock, and furnished with subterranean magazines for the 
 storage of provisions. The three piles of solid masonry on 
 which the drawbridge rested, still stand in the centre of this 
 ditch. The oblique grand entrance to the foss descends by a 
 flight of well-cut steps. The rock itself over which the fort 
 was raised is honeycombed with excavated passages for in- 
 fantry and cavalry, of different width and height, so that one 
 sort can be assigned to mounted horsemen and another to 
 foot soldiers. The trap-doors which led from these galleries 
 into the fortress are provided with rests for ladders that 
 could be let down to help a sallying force or drawn up to 
 impede an advancing enemy. The inner court for stabled 
 horses and the stations for the catapults are still in tolerable 
 preservation. Thus the whole arrangement of the stronghold 
 can be traced not dimly but distinctly. Being placed on the 
 left side of the chief gate of Epipolae, the occupants of the 
 fort could issue to attack a foe advancing toward that gate in 
 the rear. At the same time the subterranean galleries enabled 
 them to pour out upon the other side, if the enemy had 
 forced an entrance, while the minor passages and trap-doors 
 provided a retreat in case the garrison were overpowered in 
 one of their offensive operations. The view from Euryalus 
 is extensive. To the left rises Etna, snowy, solitary, broadly 
 vast, above the plain of Catania, the curving shore, Thapsus,
 
 326 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 and the sea. Syracuse itself, a thin white line between the 
 harbour and the open sea, a dazzling streak between two 
 blues, terminates the slope of Epipolae, and on the right 
 hand stretch the marshes of Anapus rich with vines and 
 hoary with olives. 
 
 By far the most interesting localities of Syracuse are the 
 Great Harbour and the stone quarries. When the sluggish 
 policy and faint heart of Nikias had brought the Athenians to 
 the verge of ruin, when Gylippus had entered the besieged 
 city, and Plemmyrium had been wrested from the invaders, 
 and Demosthenes had failed in his attack upon Epipolse, and 
 the blockading trenches had been finally evacuated, no hope 
 remained for the armament of Athens except only in retreat 
 by water. They occupied a palisaded encampment upon the 
 shore of the harbour, between the mouth of the Anapus and 
 the city; whence they attempted to force their way with 
 their galleys to the open sea. Hitherto the Athenians had 
 been supreme upon their own element ; but now the Syra- 
 cusans adopted tactics suited to the narrow basin in which the 
 engagements had to take place. Building their vessels with 
 heavy beaks, they crushed the lighter craft of the Athenians, 
 which had no room for flank movements and rapid evolutions. 
 A victory was thus obtained by the Syracusan navy ; the har- 
 bour was blockaded with chains by the order of Gylippus; 
 the Athenians were driven back to their palisades upon the 
 fever-haunted shore. Their only chance seemed to depend 
 upon a renewal of the sea-fight in the harbour. The supreme 
 moment arrived. What remained of the Athenian fleet, in 
 numbers still superior to that of their enemies, steered straight 
 for the mouth of the harbour. The Syracusans advanced 
 from the naval stations of Ortygia to meet them. The shore 
 was thronged with spectators, Syracusans tremulous with the 
 expectation of a decisive success, Athenians on the tenter-
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI 327 
 
 hooks of hope and dread. In a short time the harbour 
 became a confused mass of clashing triremes; the water 
 beaten into bloody surf by banks of oars ; the air filled with 
 shouts from the combatants and exclamations from the 
 lookers-on : 6Ao<up/>s, /8o?y, vtKwvres, Kparov/tevot, aAAa o<ra fv 
 /JcyaAw KivSvvw/teya <rrpaTO7re8ov iro\vei8rj dvayxa^oiTO <$eyyr$ai. 
 Then after a struggle, in which desperation gave energy to 
 the Athenians, and ambitious hope inspired their foes with 
 more than wonted vigour, the fleet of the Athenians was finally 
 overwhelmed. The whole scene can be reproduced with 
 wonderful distinctness; for the low shores of Plemmyrium, 
 the city of Ortygia, the marsh of Lysimeleia, the hills above 
 the Anapus, and the distant dome of Etna, are the same as 
 they were upon that memorable day. Nothing has disap- 
 peared except the temple of Zeus Olympius and the buildings 
 of Temenitis. 
 
 What followed upon the night of that defeat is less easily 
 realised. Thucydides, however, by one touch reveals the 
 depth of despair to which the Athenians had sunk. They 
 neglected to rescue the bodies of their dead from the Great 
 Harbour, or to ask for a truce, according to hallowed Greek 
 usage, in order that they might perform the funeral rites. 
 To such an extent was the army demoralised. Meanwhile 
 within the city the Syracusans kept high festival, honouring 
 their patron Herakles, upon whose day it happened that the 
 battle had been fought. Nikias neglected this opportunity of 
 breaking up his camp and retiring unmolested into the interior 
 of the island. When after the delay of two nights and a 
 day he finally began to move, the Syracusans had blockaded 
 the roads. How his own division capitulated by the blood- 
 stained banks of the Asinarus after a six days' march of 
 appalling misery, and how that of Demosthenes surrendered 
 in the olive-field of Polyzelus, is too well known.
 
 328 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 One of the favourite excursions from modern Syracuse 
 takes the traveller in a boat over the sandy bar of the Anapus, 
 beneath the old bridge which joined the Helorine road to the 
 city, and up the river to its junction with the Cyane. This 
 is the ground traversed by the army first in their attempted 
 flight and then in their return as captives to Syracuse. Few, 
 perhaps, who visit the spot, think as much of that last act in 
 a world-historical tragedy, as of the picturesque compositions 
 made by arundo donax, castor-oil plant, yellow flags, and 
 papyrus, on the river-banks and promontories. Like minia- 
 ture palm-groves these water-weeds stand green and golden 
 against the bright blue sky, feathering above the boat which 
 slowly pushes its way through clinging reeds. The huge red 
 oxen of Sicily in the marsh on either hand toss their spread- 
 ing horns and canter off knee-deep in ooze. Then comes the 
 fountain of Cyane, a broad round well of water, thirty feet in 
 depth, but quite clear, so that you can see the pebbles at 
 the bottom and fishes swimming to and fro among the weeds. 
 Papyrus plants edge the pool ; thick and tufted, they are 
 exactly such as one sees carved or painted upon Egyptian 
 architecture of the Ptolemaic period. 
 
 With Thucydides still in hand, before quitting Syracuse 
 we must follow the Athenian captives to their prison-grave. 
 The Latomia de' Cappuccini is a place which it is impossible 
 to describe in words, and of which no photographs give any 
 notion. Sunk to the depth of a hundred feet below the level 
 of the soil, with sides perpendicular and in many places as 
 smooth as though the chisel had just passed over them, 
 these vast excavations produce the impression of some huge 
 subterranean gallery, widening here and there into spacious 
 halls, the whole of which has been unroofed and opened to 
 the air of heaven. It is a solemn and romantic labyrinth, 
 where no wind blows rudely, and where orange-trees shoot
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGEXTI 329 
 
 upward luxuriantly to meet the light. The wild fig bursts 
 from the living rock, mixed with lentisk-shrubs and pendent 
 caper-plants. Old olives split the masses of fallen cliff with 
 their tough, snakelike, slowly corded and compacted roots. 
 Thin flames of pomegranate-flowers gleam amid foliage of 
 lustrous green ; and lemons drop unheeded from femininely 
 fragile branches. There too the ivy hangs in long festoons, 
 waving like tapestry to the breath of stealthy breezes ; while 
 under foot is a tangle of acanthus, thick curling leaves of 
 glossiest green, surmounted by spikes of dull lilac blossoms. 
 Wedges and columns and sharp teeth of the native rock rear 
 themselves here and there in the midst of the open spaces to 
 the sky, worn fantastically into notches and saws by the action 
 of scirocco. A light yellow calcined by the sun to white is 
 the prevailing colour of the quarries. But in shady places 
 the limestone takes a curious pink tone of great beauty, like 
 the interior of some sea- shells. The reflected lights too, and 
 half-shadows in their scooped-out chambers, make a wonderful 
 natural chiaroscuro. The whole scene is now more pictur- 
 esque in a sublime and grandiose style than forbidding. There 
 is even one spot planted with magenta- coloured mesembrian- 
 themums of dazzling brightness ; and the air is loaded with the 
 drowsy perfume of lemon-blossoms. Yet this is the scene of 
 a great agony. This garden was once the Gethsemane of a 
 nation, where 9000 free men of the proudest city of Greece 
 were brought by an unexampled stroke of fortune to slavery, 
 shame, and a miserable end. Here they dwindled away, worn 
 out by wounds, disease, thirst, hunger, heat by day and cold 
 by night, heart-sickness, and the insufferable stench of putre- 
 fying corpses. The pupils of Socrates, the admirers of 
 Euripides, the orators of the Pnyx, the athletes of the Lyceum, 
 lovers and comrades and philosophers, died here like dogs ; 
 and the dames of Syracuse stood doubtless on those parapets
 
 330 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 above, and looked upon them like wild beasts. What the 
 Gorgo of Theocritus might have said to her friend Praxinoe 
 on the occasion would be the subject for an idyll d la Brown- 
 ing ! How often, pining in those great glaring pits, which 
 were not then curtained with ivy or canopied by olive-trees, 
 must the Athenians have thought with vain remorse of their 
 own Khamnusian Nemesis, the goddess who held scales 
 adverse to the hopes of men, and bore the legend ' Be not 
 lifted up' I How often must they have watched the dawn 
 walk forth fire-footed upon the edge of those bare crags, or 
 the stars slide from east to west across the narrow space of 
 sky ! How they must have envied the unfettered clouds 
 sailing in liquid ether, or traced the far flight of hawk and 
 swallow, sighing, ' Oh that I too had the wings of a bird ! ' 
 The weary eyes turned upwards found no change or respite, 
 save what the frost of night brought to the fire of day, and the 
 burning sun to the pitiless cold constellations. 
 
 A great painter, combining Dore's power over space and 
 distance with the distinctness of Flaxman's design and the 
 colouring of Alma Tadema, might possibly realise this agony 
 of the Athenian captives in the stone quarries. The time of 
 day chosen for the picture should be full noon, with its glare 
 of light and sharply defined vertical shadows. The crannies 
 in the straight sides of the quarry should here and there be 
 tufted with a few dusty creepers and wild fig-trees. On the 
 edge of the sky-line stand parties of Syracusan citizens with 
 their wives and children, shaded by umbrellas, richly dressed, 
 laughing and triumphing over the misery beneath. In the 
 full foreground there are placed two figures. A young 
 Athenian has just died of fever. His body lies stretched along 
 the ground, the head resting on a stone, and the face turned 
 to the sky. Beside him kneels an older warrior, sunburned 
 and dry with thirst, but full as yet of vigour. He stares with
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIEGENTI 331 
 
 wide despair-smitten eyes straight out, as though he had 
 lately been stretched upon the corpse, but had risen at the 
 sound of movement, or some supposed word of friends close 
 by. His bread lies untasted near him, and the half-pint of 
 water his day's portion has been given to bathe the fore- 
 head of his dying friend. They have stood together through 
 the festival of leave-taking from Peiraeus, through the battles 
 of Epipolffi, through the retreat and the slaughter at the 
 passage of the Asinarus. But now it has come to this, and 
 death has found the younger. Perhaps the friend beside him 
 remembers some cool wrestling-ground in far-off Athens, or 
 some procession up the steps of the Acropolis, where first they 
 met. Anyhow his fixed gaze now shows that he has passed 
 in thought at least beyond the hell around him. Not far 
 behind should be ranged groups of haggard men, with tattered 
 clothes and dulled or tigerish eyes, some dignified, some 
 broken down by grief; while here and there newly fallen 
 corpses, and in one hideous corner a great heap of abandoned 
 dead, should point the ghastly words of Thucydides : TUV 
 vfKpSjv ofiov fir dXXT/Xois ^vvvev^/Aevwv. 
 
 Every landscape has some moment of its own at which it 
 should be seen for the first time. Mediaeval cities, with their 
 narrow streets and solemn spires, demand the twilight of a 
 summer night. Mediterranean islands show their best in the 
 haze of afternoon, when sea and sky and headland are bathed 
 in aerial blue, and the mountains seem to be made of trans- 
 parent amethyst. The first sight of the Alps should be taken 
 at sunset from some point of vantage, like the terrace at 
 Berne, or the castle walls of Salzburg. If these fortunate 
 moments be secured, all after knowledge of locality and detail 
 serves to fortify and deepen the impression of picturesque 
 harmony. The mind has then conceived a leading thought, 
 which gives ideal unity to scattered memories and invests the
 
 332 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 crude reality with an aesthetic beauty. The lucky moment 
 for the landscape of Girgenti is half an hour past sunset in a 
 golden afterglow. Landing at the port named after Empe- 
 docles, having caught from the sea some glimpses of temple- 
 fronts emergent on green hill-slopes among almond-trees, 
 with Pindar's epithet of ' splendour-loving ' in my mind, I 
 rode on such an evening up the path which leads across the 
 Drago to Girgenti. The way winds through deep-sunk lanes 
 of rich amber sandstone, hedged with cactus and dwarf-palm, 
 and set with old gnarled olive-trees. As the sunlight faded, 
 Venus shone forth in a luminous sky, and the deep yellows 
 and purples overhead seemed to mingle with the heavy scent 
 of orange-flowers from scarcely visible groves by the roadside. 
 Saffron in the west and violet in the east met midway, com- 
 posing a translucent atmosphere of mellow radiance, like 
 some liquid gem dolce color d' oriental berillo. Girgenti, 
 far off and far up, gazing seaward, and rearing her topaz - 
 coloured bastions into that gorgeous twilight, shone like the 
 aerial vision of cities seen in dreams or- imaged in the clouds. 
 Hard and sharp against the sallow line of sunset, leaned 
 grotesque shapes of cactuses like hydras, and delicate silhou- 
 ettes of young olive-trees like sylphs : the river ran silver in 
 the hollow, and the mountain-side on which the town is piled 
 was solid gold. Then came the dirty dull interior of Girgenti, 
 misnamed the magnificent. But no disenchantment could 
 destroy the memory of that vision, and Pindar's <tAay\aos 
 'A/cpaya? remains in my mind a reality. 1 
 
 The temples of Girgenti are at the distance of two miles 
 
 1 Lest I should seem to have overstated the splendour of this sunset 
 view, I must remark that the hare dry landscape of the south is peculiarly 
 fortunate in such effects. The local tint of the Girgenti rock is yellow. 
 The vegetation on the hillside is sparse. There is nothing to prevent 
 the colours of the sky being reflected upon the vast amber-tinted surface, 
 which then glows with indescribable glory.
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGENTI 333 
 
 from the modern town. Placed upon the edge of an irregular 
 plateau which breaks off abruptly into cliffs of moderate 
 height below them, they stand in a magnificent row between 
 the sea and plain on one side, and the city and the hills upon 
 the other. Their colour is that of dusky honey or dun amber ; 
 for they are not built of marble, but of sandstone, which at 
 some not very distant geological period must have been a 
 sea-bed. Oyster and scallop shells are embedded in the 
 roughly hewn masonry, while here and there patches of a red 
 deposit, apparently of broken coralline, make the surface 
 crimson. The vegetation against which the ruined colon- 
 nades are relieved consists almost wholly of almond and 
 olive trees, the bright green foliage of the one mingling with 
 the greys of the other, and both enhancing the warm tints of 
 the stone. This contrast of colours is very agreeable to the 
 eye ; yet when the temples were perfect it did not exist. 
 There is no doubt that their surface was coated with a 
 fine stucco, wrought to smoothness, toned like marble, and 
 painted over with the blue and red and green decorations 
 proper to the Doric style. This fact is a practical answer to 
 those aesthetic critics who would fain establish that the 
 Greeks practised no deception in their arts. The whole 
 effect of the colonnades of Selinus and Girgenti must have 
 been an illusion, and their surface must have needed no less 
 constant reparation than the exterior of a Gothic cathedral. 
 The sham jewellery frequently found in Greek tombs, and the 
 curious mixture of marble with sandstone in the sculptures 
 from Selinus, are other instances that Greeks no less than 
 modern artists condescended to trickery for the sake of effect. 
 In the series of the metopes from Selinus now preserved in 
 the museum at Palermo, the flesh of the female persons is 
 represented by white marble, while that of the men, together 
 with the dresses and other accessories, is wrought of common
 
 334 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 stone. Yet the basreliefs in which this peculiarity occurs 
 belong to the best period of Greek sculpture, and the groups 
 are not unworthy for spirit and design to be placed by the 
 side of the metopes of the Parthenon. Most beautiful, for 
 example, is the contrast between the young unarmed Hercules 
 and the Amazon he overpowers. His naked man's foot 
 grasps with the muscular energy of an athlete her soft and 
 helpless woman's foot, the roughness of the sandstone and 
 the smoothness of the marble really heightening the effect of 
 difference. 
 
 Though ranged in a row along the same cornice, the 
 temples of Girgenti, originally at least six in number, were 
 not so disposed that any of their architectural lines should be 
 exactly parallel. The Greeks disliked formality ; the carefully 
 calculated asymmetreia in the disposition of their groups of 
 buildings secured variety of effect as well as a broken surface 
 for the display of light and shadow. This is very noticeable 
 on the Acropolis of Athens, where, however regular may be 
 the several buildings, all are placed at different angles to each 
 other and the hill. Only two of the Girgenti temples survive 
 in any degree of perfection the so-called Concordia and the 
 Juno Lacinia. The rest are but mere heaps of mighty ruins, 
 with here and there a broken column, and in one place an 
 angle of a pediment raised upon a group of pillars. The 
 foundations of masonry which supported them and the drums 
 of their gigantic columns are tufted with wild palm, aloe, 
 asphodel, and crimson snapdragon. Yellow blossoming sage, 
 and mint, and lavender, and mignonette, sprout in the crevices 
 where snakes and lizards harbour. The grass around is 
 gemmed with blue pimpernel and convolvulus. Gladiolus 
 springs amid the young corn-blades beneath the almond-trees ; 
 while a beautiful little iris makes the most unpromising dry 
 places brilliant with its delicate greys and blues. In cooler
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIEGENTI 335 
 
 and damper hollows, around the boles of old olives and under 
 ruined arches, flourishes the tender acanthus, and the road- 
 sides are gaudy with a yellow daisy flower, which may per- 
 chance be the eAi'^puo-os of Theocritus. Thus the whole scene 
 is a wilderness of brightness, less radiant but more touching 
 than when processions of men and maidens bearing urns 
 and laurel-branches, crowned with ivy or with myrtle, paced 
 along those sandstone roads, chanting paeans and prosodial 
 hymns, toward the glistening porches and hypasthral cells. 
 
 The only temple about the name of which there can be 
 no doubt is that of Zeus Olympius. A prostrate giant who 
 once with nineteen of his fellows helped to support the roof 
 of this enormous fane, and who now lies in pieces among the 
 asphodels, remains to prove that this was the building begun 
 by the Agrigentines after the defeat of the Phoenicians at the 
 Himera, when slaves were many and spoil was abundant, and 
 Hellas both in Sicily and on the mainland felt a more than 
 usual thrill of gratitude to their ancestral deity. The greatest 
 architectural works of the island, the temples of Segeste and 
 Selinus, as well as those of Girgenti, were begun between this 
 period and the Carthaginian invasion of 409 B.C. The victory 
 of the Hellenes over the barbarians in 480 B.C., symbolised 
 in the victory of Zeus over the enslaved Titans of this temple, 
 gave a vast impulse to their activity and wealth. After the 
 disastrous incursion of the same foes seventy years later, the 
 western Greek towns of the island received a check from 
 which they never recovered. Many of their noblest buildings 
 remained unfinished. The question which rises to the lips 
 of all who contemplate the ruins of this gigantic temple 
 and its compeer dedicated to Herakles is this : Who wrought 
 the destruction of works so solid and enduring ? For what 
 purpose of spite or interest were those vast columns in the 
 very flutings of which a man can stand with ease felled like
 
 336 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 forest pines ? One sees the mighty pillars lying as they sank, 
 like swathes beneath the mower's scythe. Their basements 
 are still in line. The drums which composed them have 
 fallen asunder, but maintain their original relation to each 
 other on the ground. Was it earthquake or the hand of man 
 that brought them low ? Poggio Bracciolini tells us that in 
 the fifteenth century they were burning the marble buildings 
 of the Koman Campagna for lime. We know that the Sena- 
 tor Brancaleone made havoc among the classic monuments 
 occupied as fortresses by Frangipani and Savelli and Orsini. 
 We understand how the Farnesi should have quarried the 
 Coliseum for their palace. But here, at the distance of three 
 miles from Girgenti, in a comparative desert, what army, or 
 what band of ruffians, or what palace-builders could have 
 found it worth their while to devastate mere mountains of 
 sculptured sandstone? The Eomans invariably respected 
 Greek temples. The early Christians used them for churches : 
 and this accounts for the comparative perfection of the 
 Concordia. It was in the age of the Eenaissance that the 
 ruin of Girgenti's noblest monuments occurred. The temple 
 of Zeus Olympius was shattered in the fifteenth century, and 
 in the next its fragments were used to build a breakwater. 
 The demolition of such substantial edifices is as great a 
 wonder as their construction. We marvel at the energy 
 which must have been employed on then- overthrow, no less 
 than at the art which raised such blocks of stone and placed 
 them in position. 
 
 While so much remains both at Syracuse and at Girgenti 
 to recall the past, we are forced here, as at Athens, to feel 
 how very little we really know about Greek life. We cannot 
 bring it up before our fancy with any clearness, but rather in 
 a sort of hazy dream, from which some luminous points 
 emerge. The entrance of an Olympian victor through the
 
 SYRACUSE AND GIRGEXTI 337 
 
 breach in the city walls of Girgenti, the procession of citizens 
 conducting old Timoleon in his chariot to the theatre, the 
 conferences of the younger Dionysius with Plato in hrs guarded 
 palace-fort, the stately figure of Empedocles presiding over 
 incantations in the marshes of Selinus, the austerity of Dion 
 and his mystic dream, the first appearance of stubborn 
 Gylippus with long Lacedaemonian hair in the theatre of 
 Syracuse, such picturesque pieces of history we may fairly 
 well recapture. But what were the daily occupations of the 
 Simcetha of Theocritus? What was the state dress of the 
 splendid Queen Philistis, whose name may yet be read upon 
 her seat, and whose face adorns the coins of Syracuse? 
 How did the great altar of Zeus look, when the oxen were 
 being slaughtered there by hundreds, in a place which 
 must have been shambles and meat-market and temple all in 
 one ? What scene of architectural splendour met the eyes of 
 the swimmers in the Piscina of Girgenti ? How were the 
 long hours of so many days of leisure occupied by the Greeks, 
 who had each three pillows to his head in ' splendour-loving 
 Acragas ' ? Of what sort was the hospitality of Gellias ? 
 Questions like these rise up to tantalise us with the hopeless- 
 ness of ever truly recovering the life of a lost race. After all 
 the labour of antiquary and the poet, nothing remains to be 
 uttered but such moralisings as Sir Thomas Browne poured 
 forth over the urns discovered at Old Walsingham : ' What 
 time the persons of these ossuaries entered the famous nations 
 of the dead, and slept with princes and counsellors, might 
 admit a wide solution. But who were the proprietaries of 
 these bones, or what bodies these ashes made up, were a 
 question above antiquarism ; not to be resolved by man, nor 
 easily perhaps by spirits except we consult the provincial 
 guardians, or tutelary observators.' Death reigns over the 
 peoples of the past, and we must fain be satisfied to cry with 
 
 III Z
 
 338 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Raleigh : ' eloquent, just, and mighty death ! whom none 
 could advise, thou hast persuaded ; what none hath dared, 
 thou hast done ; and whom all the world hath flattered, thou 
 only hast cast out of the world and despised : thou hast 
 drawn together all the far-stretched greatness, all the pride, 
 cruelty, and ambition of men, and covered it all over with 
 these two narrow words, hie jacet' Even so. Yet while the 
 cadence of this august rhetoric is yet in our ears, another voice 
 is heard as of the angel seated by a void and open tomb, 
 ' Why seek ye the living among the dead ? ' The spirit of 
 Hellas is indestructible, however much the material exist- 
 ence of the Greeks be lost beyond recovery ; for the life of 
 humanity is not many but one, not parcelled into separate 
 moments but continuous.
 
 S39 
 
 ATHENS 
 
 ATHENS, by virtue of scenery and situation, was predestined to 
 be the motherland of the free reason of mankind, long before 
 the Athenians had won by their great deeds the right to name 
 their city the ornament and the eye of Hellas. Nothing is 
 more obvious to one who has seen many lands and tried to 
 distinguish their essential characters, than the fact that no 
 one country exactly resembles another, but that, however 
 similar in climate and locality, each presents a peculiar and 
 well-marked property belonging to itself alone. The specific 
 quality of Athenian landscape is light not richness or 
 sublimity or romantic loveliness or grandeur of mountain 
 outline, but luminous beauty, serene exposure to the airs of 
 heaven. The harmony and balance of the scenery, so varied 
 in its details and yet so comprehensible, are sympathetic to 
 the temperance of Greek morality, the moderation of Greek 
 art. The radiance with which it is illuminated has all the 
 clearness and distinction of the Attic intellect. From what- 
 ever point the plain of Athens with its semicircle of greater 
 and lesser hills may be surveyed, it always presents a picture 
 of dignified and lustrous beauty. The Acropolis is the centre 
 of this landscape, splendid as a work of art with its crown 
 of temples ; and the sea, surmounted by the long low hills 
 of the Morea, is the boundary to which the eye is irresistibly 
 led. Mountains and islands and plain alike are made of 
 limestone, hardening here and there into marble, broken 
 
 z2
 
 3-10 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 into delicate and varied forms, and sprinkled with a vegetation 
 of low shrubs and brushwood so sparse and slight that the 
 naked rock in every direction meets the light. This rock is 
 grey and colourless : viewed in the twilight of a misty day, 
 it shows the dull, tame uniformity of bone. Without the 
 sun it is asleep and sorrowful. But by reason of this very 
 deadness, the limestone of Athenian landscape is always ready 
 to take the colours of the air and sun. In noonday it smiles 
 with silvery lustre, fold upon fold of the indented hills and 
 islands melting from the brightness of the sea into the 
 untempered brilliance of the sky. At dawn and sunset the 
 same rocks array themselves with a celestial robe of rainbow^ 
 woven hues : islands, sea, and mountains, far and near, burn 
 with saffron, violet, and rose, with the tints of beryl and topaz, 
 sapphire and almatidine and amethyst, each in due order and 
 at proper distances. The fabled dolphin in its death could 
 not have showed a more brilliant succession of splendours 
 waning into splendours through the whole chord of prismatic 
 colours. This sensitiveness of the Attic limestone to every 
 modification of the sky's light gives a peculiar spirituality to 
 the landscape. The hills remain in form and outline un- 
 changed; but the beauty breathed upon them lives or dies 
 with the emotions of the air from whence it emanates : the 
 spirit of light abides with them and quits them by alternations 
 that seem to be the pulses of an ethereally communicated 
 life. No country, therefore, could be better fitted for the 
 home of a race gifted with exquisite sensibilities, in whom 
 humanity should first attain the freedom of self -consciousness 
 in art and thought. 'Aei 8ia Aa/m-pora-rov ySatVovres d/?pa>? 
 aWepa* ever delicately moving through most translucent 
 air said Euripides of the Athenians : and truly the bright 
 air of Attica was made to be breathed by men in whom the 
 light of culture should begin to shine. 'locrre'^avos is an epithet
 
 ATHENS 341 
 
 of Aristophanes for his city ; and if not crowned with other 
 violets, Athens wears for her garland the air-empurpled hills 
 Hymettus, Lycabettus, Pentelicus, and Parnes. 1 Conse- 
 quently, while still the Greeks of Homer's age were Achaians, 
 while Argos was the titular seat of Hellenic empire, and the 
 mythic deeds of the heroes were being enacted in Thebes or 
 Mycenae, Athens did but bide her time, waiting to manifest 
 herself as the true godchild of Pallas, who sprang perfect 
 from the brain of Zeus, Pallas, who is the light of cloudless 
 heaven emerging after storms. And Pallas, when she planted 
 her chosen people in Attica, knew well what she was doing. 
 To the far-seeing eyes of the goddess, although the first-fruits 
 of song and science and philosophy might be reaped upon the 
 shores of the ^Egean and the islands, yet the days were clearly 
 descried when Athens should stretch forth her hand to hold 
 the lamp of all her founder loved for Europe. As the priest 
 of Egypt told Solon : ' She chose the spot of earth in which 
 you were born, because she saw that the happy temperament 
 of the seasons in that land would produce the wisest of men. 
 Wherefore the goddess, who was a lover both of war and 
 wisdom, selected and first of all settled that spot which was 
 the most likely to produce men likest herself.' This sentence 
 from the ' Timaeus ' of Plato 2 reveals the consciousness 
 possessed by the Greeks of that intimate connection which 
 subsists between a country and the temper of its race. To us 
 the name Athenai the fact that Athens by its title even in 
 the prehistoric age was marked out as the appanage of her 
 
 1 This interpretation of the epithet loffrfyavos is not, I think, merely 
 fanciful. It seems to occur naturally to those who visit Athens with the 
 language of Greek poets in their memory. I was glad to find, on reading 
 a paper by the Dean of Westminster on the topography of Greece, that 
 the same thought had struck him. Ovid, too, gives the adjective pur- 
 pureus to Hymettus. 
 
 2 Jovrett's translation, vol. ii. p. 520.
 
 342 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 who was the patroness of culture seems a fortunate accident, 
 an undesigned coincidence of the most striking sort. To the 
 Greeks, steeped in mythologic faith, accustomed to regard 
 their lineage as autochthonous and their polity as the fahric 
 of a god, nothing seemed more natural than that Pallas 
 should have selected for her own exactly that portion of 
 Hellas where the arts and sciences might flourish best. Let 
 the Boeotians grow fat and stagnant upon their rich marsh- 
 lands : let the Spartans form themselves into a race of 
 soldiers in their mountain fortress : let Corinth reign, the 
 queen of commerce, between her double seas : let the Arca- 
 dians in their oak woods worship pastoral Pan : let the plains 
 of Elis be the meeting-place of Hellenes at their sacred games : 
 let Delphi boast the seat of sooth oracular from Phoebus. 
 Meanwhile the sunny but barren hills of Attica, open to the 
 magic of the sky, and beautiful by reason of their nakedness, 
 must be the home of a people powerful by might of intelligence 
 rather than strength of limb, wealthy not so much by natural 
 resources as by enterprise. Here, and here only, could stand 
 the city sung by Milton : 
 
 Built nobly, pure the air, and light the soil, 
 
 Athens, the eye of Greece, mother of arts 
 
 And eloquence, native to famous wits 
 
 Or hospitable, in her sweet recess, 
 
 City or suburban, studious walks and shades. 
 
 We who believe in no authentic Pallas, child of Zeus, may 
 yet pause awhile, when we contemplate Athens, to ponder 
 whether those old mythologic systems, which ascribed to god- 
 head the foundation of states and the patronage of peoples, 
 had not some glimpse of truth beyond a mere blind guess. 
 Is not, in fact, this Athenian land the promised and pre- 
 destined home of a peculiar people, in the same sense as that
 
 ATHENS 343 
 
 in which Palestine was the heritage by faith of a tribe set 
 apart by Jehovah for His own ? 
 
 Unlike Kome, Athens leaves upon the memory one simple 
 and ineffaceable impression. There is here no conflict between 
 Paganism and Christianity, no statues of Hellas baptised by 
 popes into the company of saints, no blending of the classical 
 and mediaeval and Renaissance influences in a bewilderment 
 of vast antiquity. Rome, true to her historical vocation, 
 embraces in her ruins all ages, all creeds, all nations. Her 
 life has never stood still, but has submitted to many transfor- 
 mations, of which the traces are still visible. Athens, like the 
 Greeks of history, is isolated in a sort of self-completion : she 
 is a thing of the past, which still exists, because the spirit 
 never dies, because beauty is a joy for ever. What is truly 
 remarkable about the city is just this, that while the modern 
 town is an insignificant mushroom of the present century, the 
 monuments of Greek art in the best period the masterpieces 
 of Ictinus and Mnesioles, and the theatre on which the plays 
 of the tragedians were produced survive in comparative per- 
 fection, and are so far unencumbered with subsequent edifices 
 that the actual Athens of Pericles absorbs our attention. 
 There is nothing of any consequence intermediate between 
 us and the fourth century B.C. Seen from a distance the 
 Acropolis presents nearly the same appearance as it offered to 
 Spartan guardsmen when they paced the ramparts of Deceleia. 
 Nature around is all unaltered. Except that more villages, 
 enclosed with olive -groves and vineyards, were sprinkled over 
 those bare hills in classic days, no essential change in the 
 landscape has taken place, no transformation, for example, of 
 equal magnitude with that which converted the Campagna of 
 Rome from a plain of cities to a poisonous solitude. All 
 through the centuries which divide us from the age of 
 Hadrian centuries unfilled, as far as Athens is concerned,
 
 344 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 with memorable deeds or national activity the Acropolis has 
 stood uncovered to the sun. The tones of the marble of 
 Pentelicus have daily grown more golden ; decay has here 
 and there invaded frieze and capital ; war too has done its 
 work, shattering the Parthenon in 1687 by the explosion of a 
 powder magazine, and the Propylasa in 1656 by a similar 
 accident, and seaming the colonnades that still remain with 
 cannon-balls in 1827. Yet in spite of time and violence the 
 Acropolis survives, a miracle of beauty : like an everlasting 
 flower, through all that lapse of years it has spread its coronal 
 of marbles to the air, unheeded. And now, more than ever, 
 its temples seem to be incorporate with the rock they crown. 
 The slabs of column and basement have grown together by 
 long pressure or molecular adhesion into a coherent whole. 
 Nor have weeds or creeping ivy invaded the glittering 
 fragments that strew the sacred hill. The sun's kiss alone 
 has caused a change from white to amber-hued or russet. 
 Meanwhile, the exquisite adaptation of Greek building to 
 Greek landscape has been enhanced rather than impaired by 
 that ' unimaginable touch of time,' which has broken the 
 regularity of outline, softened the chisel-work of the sculptor, 
 and confounded the painter's fretwork in one tint of glowing 
 gold. The Parthenon, the Erechtheum, and the Propylaea 
 have become one with the hill on which they cluster, as 
 needful to the scenery around them as the everlasting moun- 
 tains, as sympathetic as the rest of nature to the successions 
 of morning and evening, which waken them to passionate 
 life by the magic touch of colour. 
 
 Thus there is no intrusive element in Athens to distract 
 the mind from memories of its most glorious past. Walk 
 into the theatre of Dionysus. The sculptures that support 
 the stage Sileni bending beneath the weight of cornices, 
 and lines of graceful youths and maidens are still in their
 
 ATHENS 345 
 
 ancient station. 1 The pavement of the orchestra, once 
 trodden by Athenian choruses, presents its tessellated marbles 
 to our feet ; and we may choose the seat of priest or archon 
 or herald or thesmothetes, when we wish to summon before 
 our mind's eye the pomp of the ' Agamemnon ' or the dances 
 of the ' Birds ' and ' Clouds.' Each seat still bears some carven 
 name-IEPE2 TON MOYSfiN or IEPEQ2 A2KAHIIIOY 
 and that of the priest of Dionysus is beautifully wrought 
 with Bacchic basreliefs. One of them, inscribed IEPEfi2 
 ANTINOOY, proves indeed that the extant chairs were 
 placed here in the age of Hadrian, who completed the vast 
 temple of Zeus Olympius, and filled its precincts with statues 
 of his favourite, and named a new Athens after his own 
 name. 2 Yet we need not doubt that their position round the 
 orchestra is traditional, and that even in their form they do 
 not differ from those which the priests and officers of Athens 
 used from the time of jEschylus downward. Probably a 
 slave brought cushion and footstool to complete the comfort 
 of these stately armchairs. Nothing else is wanted to render 
 them fit now for their august occupants ; and we may imagine 
 the long-stoled greybearded men throned in state, each with 
 his wand and with appropriate fillets on his head. As we 
 rest here in the light of the full moon, which simplifies all 
 outlines and heals with tender touch the wounds of ages, it 
 is easy enough to dream ourselves into the belief that the 
 ghosts of dead actors may once more glide across the stage. 
 
 1 It is true, however, that these sculptures belong to a comparatively 
 late period, and that the theatre underwent some alterations in Roman 
 days, so that the stage is now probably a few yards farther from the seats 
 than in the time of Sophocles. 
 
 * It is not a little surprising to come upon this relic of the worship of 
 the young Bithynian at Athens in the theatre still consecrated by the 
 memories of ^Eschylus and Sophocles.
 
 346 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Fiery-hearted Medea, statuesque Antigone, Prometheus silent 
 beneath the hammer-strokes of Force and Strength, Orestes 
 hounded by his mother's Furies, Cassandra aghast before the 
 palace of Mycenae, pure-souled Hippolytus, ruthful Alcestis, 
 the divine youth of Helen, and Clytemnestra in her queenli- 
 ness, emerge like faint grey films against the bluish back- 
 ground of Hymettus. The night air seems vocal with echoes 
 of old Greek, more felt than heard, like voices wafted to our 
 sense in sleep, the sound whereof we do not seize, though the 
 burden lingers in our memory. 
 
 In like manner, when moonlight, falling aslant upon the 
 Propylaea, restores the marble masonry to its original white- 
 ness, and the shattered heaps of ruined colonnades are veiled 
 in shadow, and every form seems larger, grander, and more 
 perfect than by day, it is well to sit upon the lowest steps, and 
 looking upwards, to remember what processions passed along 
 this way bearing the sacred peplus to Athene. The Pana- 
 thenaic pomp, which Pheidias and his pupils carved upon the 
 friezes of the Parthenon, took place once in five years, on one 
 of the last days of July. 1 All the citizens joined in the honour 
 paid to their patroness. Old men bearing olive-branches, 
 young men clothed in bronze, chapleted youths singing the 
 praise of Pallas in prosodial hymns, maidens carrying holy 
 vessels, aliens bending beneath the weight of urns, servants of 
 the temple leading oxen crowned with fillets, troops of horse- 
 men reining in impetuous steeds : all these pass before us in 
 the frieze of Pheidias. But to our imagination must be left 
 what he has refrained from sculpturing, the chariot formed 
 like a ship, in which the most illustrious nobles of Athens 
 sat, splendidly arrayed, beneath the crocus-coloured curtain or 
 
 1 My purpose being merely picturesque, I have ignored the grave 
 antiquarian difficulties which beset the interpretation of this frieze.
 
 ATHENS 347 
 
 peplus outspread upon a mast. Some concealed machinery 
 caused this car to move ; but whether it passed through the 
 Propylaea, and entered the Acropolis, admits of doubt. It is, 
 however, certain that the procession which ascended those 
 steep slabs, and before whom the vast gates of the Propylaea 
 swang open with the clangour of resounding bronze, included 
 not only the citizens of Athens and their attendant aliens, 
 but also troops of cavalry and chariots; for the mark of 
 chariot-wheels can still be traced upon the rock. The ascent 
 is so abrupt that this multitude moved but slowly. Splendid 
 indeed, beyond any pomp of modern ceremonial, must have 
 been the spectacle of the well-ordered procession, advancing 
 through those giant colonnades to the sound of flutes and 
 solemn chants the shrill clear voices of boys in antiphonal 
 chorus rising above the confused murmurs of such a crowd, 
 the chafing of horses' hoofs upon the stone, and the lowing 
 of bewildered oxen. 
 
 To realise by fancy the many-coloured radiance of the 
 temples, and the rich dresses of the votaries illuminated by 
 that sharp light of a Greek sun, which defines outline and 
 shadow and gives value to the faintest hue, would be im- 
 possible. All we can know for positive about the chromatic 
 decoration of the Greeks is, that whiteness artificially subdued 
 to the tone of ivory prevailed throughout the stonework of 
 the buildings, while blue and red and green in distinct, yet 
 interwoven patterns, added richness to the fretwork and the 
 sculpture of pediment and frieze. The sacramental robes 
 of the worshippers accorded doubtless with this harmony, 
 wherein colour was subordinate to light, and light was toned 
 to softness. 
 
 r Musing thus upon the staircase of the Propylaea, we may 
 say with truth that all our modern art is but child's play to 
 that of the Greeks. Very soul-subduing is the gloom of a
 
 348 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 cathedral like the Milanese Duomo, when the incense rises in 
 blue clouds athwart the bands of sunlight falling from the 
 dome, and the crying of choirs upborne upon the wings of 
 organ music fills the whole vast space with a mystery of 
 melody. Yet such ceremonial pomps as this are as dreams 
 and the shapes of visions, when compared with the clearly 
 defined splendours of a Greek procession through marble peri- 
 styles in open air beneath the sun and sky. That spectacle 
 combined the harmonies of perfect human forms in move- 
 ment with the divine shapes of statues, the radiance of care- 
 fully selected vestments with hues inwrought upon pure 
 marble. The rhythms and the melodies of the Doric mood 
 were sympathetic to the proportions of the Doric colonnades. 
 The grove of pillars through which the pageant passed grew 
 from the living rock into shapes of beauty, fulfilling by the 
 inbreathed spirit of man Nature's blind yearning after abso 
 lute completion. The sun himself not thwarted by artificial 
 gloom, or tricked with alien colours of stained glass was 
 made to minister in all his strength to a pomp, the pride of 
 which was the display of form in manifold magnificence. The 
 ritual of the Greeks was the ritual of a race at one with 
 Nature, glorying in its affiliation to the mighty mother of all 
 life, and striving to add by human art the coping-stone and 
 final touch to her achievement. The ritual of the Catholic 
 Church is the ritual of a race shut out from Nature, holding 
 no communion with the powers of earth and air, but turning 
 the spirit inwards and aiming at the concentration of the 
 whole soul upon an unseen God. The temple of the Greeks 
 was the house of a present deity ; its cell his chamber ; its 
 statue his reality. The Christian cathedral is the fane where 
 God who is a spirit is worshipped ; no statue fills the choir 
 from wall to wall and lifts its forehead to the roof ; but the 
 vacant aisles, with their convergent arches soaring upwards
 
 ATHENS 349 
 
 to the dome, are made to suggest the brooding of infinite and 
 omnipresent Godhead. It was the object of the Greek artist 
 to preserve a just proportion between the god's statue and his 
 house, in order that the worshipper might approach him as a 
 subject draws near to his monarch's throne. The Christian 
 architect seeks to affect the emotions of the votary with a 
 sense of vastness filled with unseen power. Our cathedrals 
 are symbols of the universe where God is everywhere pavilioned 
 and invisible. The Greek temple was a practical, utilitarian 
 dwelling-house, made beautiful enough to suit divinity. The 
 modern church is an idea expressed in stone, an aspiration 
 of the spirit, shooting up from arch and pinnacle and spire 
 into illimitable fields of air. 
 
 It follows from these differences between the religious aims 
 of Pagan and Christian architecture, that the former was far 
 more favourable to the plastic arts. No beautiful or simple 
 incident of human life was an inappropriate subject for the 
 sculptor, in adorning the houses of gods who were themselves 
 but human on a higher level ; and the ritual whereby the gods 
 were honoured was merely an exhibition, in its strength and 
 joyfulness, of mortal beauty. Therefore the Panathenaic pro- 
 cession furnished Pheidias with a series of sculptural motives, 
 which he had only to express according to the principles of 
 his art. The frieze, three feet and four inches in height, 
 raised forty feet above the pavement of the peristyle, ran for 
 five hundred and twenty-four continuous feet round the out- 
 side wall of the cella of the Parthenon. The whole of this 
 long line was wrought with carving of exquisite delicacy and 
 supreme vigour, in such low relief as its peculiar position, far 
 above the heads of the spectators, and only illuminated by 
 light reflected from below, required. Each figure, each atti- 
 tude, and each fold of drapery in its countless groups is a 
 study ; yet the whole was a transcript from actual contemporary
 
 350 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Athenian life. Truly in matters of art we are but infants to 
 the Greeks. 
 
 The topographical certainty which invests the ruins of the 
 Acropolis with such peculiar interest, belongs in a less degree 
 to the whole of Athens. Although the most recent researches 
 have thrown fresh doubt upon the exact site of the Pnyx, and 
 though no traces of the agora remain, yet we may be sure 
 that the Bema from which Pericles sustained the courage of 
 the Athenians during the Peloponnesian war, was placed upon 
 the northern slope looking towards the Propylaea, while the 
 wide irregular space between this hill, the Acropolis, the 
 Areopagus, and the Theseum, must have formed the meeting- 
 ground for amusement and discussion of the citizens at leisure. 
 About Areopagus, with its tribunal hollowed in the native 
 rock, and the deep cleft beneath, where the shrine of the 
 Eumenides was built, there is no question. The extreme 
 insignificance of this little mound may at first indeed excite 
 incredulity and wonder ; but a few hours in Athens accustom 
 the traveller to a smallness of scale which at first sight 
 seemed ridiculous. Colonus, for example, the Colonus which 
 every student of Sophocles has pictured to himself in the 
 solitude of unshorn meadows, where groves of cypresses and 
 olives bent unpruned above wild tangles of narcissus -flowers 
 and crocuses, and where the nightingale sang undisturbed by 
 city noise or labour of the husbandman, turns out to be a 
 scarcely appreciable mound, gently swelling from the culti- 
 vated land of the Cephissus. The Cephissus even in a rainy 
 season may be crossed dryshod by an active jumper; and 
 the Ilissus, where it flows beneath the walls of the Olym- 
 pieion, is now dedicated to washerwomen instead of water- 
 nymphs. Nature herself remains, on the whole, unaltered. 
 Most notable are still the white poplars dedicated of old to 
 Herakles, and the spreading planes which whisper to the
 
 ATIIKNs 351 
 
 limes in spring. In the midst of so arid and bare a landscape, 
 these umbrageous trees are singularly grateful to tbe eye 
 and to the sense oppressed with heat and splendour. Night- 
 ingales have not ceased to crowd the gardens in such numbers 
 as to justify the tradition of their Attic origin, nor have the 
 bees of Hymettus forgotten their labours : the honey of Athens 
 can still boast a quality superior to that of Hybla or any other 
 famous haunt of hives. 
 
 Tradition points out one spot which commands a beautiful 
 distant view of Athens and the hills, as the garden of the 
 Academy. The place is not unworthy of Plato and his com- 
 panions. Very old olives grow in abundance, to remind us 
 of those sacred trees beneath which the boys of Aristophanes 
 ran races ; and reeds with which they might crown their fore- 
 heads are thickly scattered through the grass. Abeles inter- 
 lace their murmuring branches overhead, and the planes are 
 as leafy as that which invited Socrates and Phasdrus on the 
 morning when they talked of love. In such a place we com- 
 prehend how philosophy went hand in hand at Athens with 
 gymnastics, and why the poplar and the plane were dedicated 
 to athletic gods. For the wrestling-grounds were built in 
 groves like these, and their cool peristyles, the meeting-places 
 of young men and boys, supplied the sages not only with an 
 eager audience, but also with the leisure and the shade that 
 learning loves. 
 
 It was very characteristic of Greek life that speculative 
 philosophy should not have chosen 'to walk the studious 
 cloister pale,' but should rather have sought out places where 
 4 the busy hum of men ' was loudest, and where youthful 
 voices echoed. The Athenian transacted no business, and 
 pursued but few pleasures, under a private roof. He con- 
 versed and bargained in the agora, debated on the open rocks 
 of the Pnyx, and enjoyed discussion in the courts of the
 
 352 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 gymnasium. It is also far from difficult to understand beneath 
 this over-vaulted and grateful gloom of bee-laden branches, 
 what part love played in the haunts of runners and of wrest- 
 lers, why near the statue of Hermes stood that of Eros, and 
 wherefore Socrates surnamed his philosophy the Science of 
 Love. &i\ocro(f>ov[ji.ev avev /xaAaKias is the boast of Pericles 
 in his description of the Athenian spirit. 3>iAoo-o</>ia /zero. 
 TraiSepacrrias is Plato's formula for the virtues of the most 
 distinguished soul. These two mottoes, apparently so con- 
 tradictory, found their point of meeting and their harmony in 
 the gymnasium. 
 
 The mere contemplation of these luxuriant groves, set in 
 the luminous Attic landscape, and within sight of Athens, 
 explains a hundred passages of poets and philosophers. Turn 
 to the opening scenes of the 'Lysis' and the 'Charmides.' 
 The action of the latter dialogue is laid in the palaestra of 
 Taureas. Socrates has just returned from the camp at 
 Potidaea, and after answering the questions of his friends, has 
 begun to satisfy his own curiosity : * 
 
 When there had been enough of this, I, in my turn, began to 
 make inquiries about matters at home about the present state of 
 philosophy, and about the youth. I asked whether any of them 
 were remarkable for beauty or sense or both. Critiap, glancing at 
 the door, invited my attention to some youths who were coming 
 in, and talking noisily to one another, followed by a crowd. ' Of 
 the beauties, Socrates,' he said, ' I fancy that you will soon be able 
 to form a judgment. For those who are just entering are the 
 advanced guard of the great beauty of the day and he is likely 
 -not to be far off himself.' 
 
 ' Who is he ? ' I said ; ' and who is his father ? ' 
 
 ' Cbarmides,' be replied, ' is his name ; be is my cousin, and 
 the son of my uncle Glaucon : I rather think that you know him, 
 although he was not grown up at tbe time of your departure.' 
 
 ' Certainly I know him,' I said ; ' for he was remarkable even 
 
 1 I quote from Professor Jowett's translation.
 
 ATHENS 353 
 
 then when he was still a child, and now I should imagine that he 
 must be almost a young man.' 
 
 ' You will see,' he said, ' in a moment what progress he has 
 made, and what he is like.' He had scarcely said the word, when 
 Charmides entered. 
 
 Now you know, my friend, that I cannot measure anything, and 
 of the beautiful, I am simply such a measure as a white line is of 
 chalk ; for almost all young persons are alike beautiful in my eyes. 
 But at that moment, when I saw him coming in, I must admit 
 that I was quite astonished at his beauty and stature ; all the world 
 seemed to be enamoured of him ; amazement and confusion reigned 
 when he entered ; and a troop of lovers followed him. That grown- 
 up men like ourselves should have been affected in this way was 
 not surprising, but I observed that there was the same feeling 
 among the boys ; all of them, down to the very least child, turned 
 and looked at him as if he had been a statue. 
 
 Chaerephon called me and said : ' What do you think of him, 
 Socrates ? Has he not a beautiful face ? ' 
 
 ' That he has indeed,' I said. 
 
 ' But you would think nothing of his face,' he replied, ' if you 
 could see his naked form : he is absolutely perfect.' 
 
 This Charmides is a true Greek of the perfect type. Not 
 only is he the most beautiful of Athenian youths ; lie is also 
 temperate, modest, and subject to the laws of moral health. 
 His very beauty is a harmony of well-developed faculties in 
 which the mind and body are at one. How a young Greek 
 managed to preserve this balance in the midst of the admiring 
 crowds described by Socrates is a marvel. Modern conven- 
 tions unfit our minds for realising the conditions under which 
 he had to live. Yet it is indisputable that Plato has strained 
 no point in the animated picture he presents of the palaestra. 
 Aristophanes and Xenophon bear him out in all the details of 
 the scene. "We have to imagine a totally different system of 
 social morality from ours, with virtues and vices, temptations 
 and triumphs, unknown to our young men. The next scene 
 from the ' Lysis ' introduces us to another wrestling-ground 
 
 III A A
 
 354 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 in the neighbourhood of Athens. Here Socrates meets with 
 Hippothales, who is a devoted lover but a bad poet. Hippo- 
 thales asks the philosopher's advice as to the best method of 
 pleasing the boy Lysis : 
 
 ' Will you tell me by what words or actions I may become 
 endeared to my love ? ' 
 
 'That is not easy to determine,' I said ; 'but if you will bring 
 your love to me, and will let me talk with him, I may perhaps be 
 able to show you how to converse with him, instead of singing 
 and reciting in the fashion of which you are accused.' 
 
 ' There will be no difficulty in bringing him,' he replied ; ' if you 
 will only go into the house with Ctesippus, and sit down and talk, 
 he will come of himself ; for he is fond of listening, Socrates. And 
 as this is the festival of the Hermaea, there is no separation of 
 young men and boys, but they are all mixed up together. He will 
 be sure to come. But if he does not come, Ctesippus, with whom 
 he is familiar, and whose relation Menexenus is, his great friend, 
 shall call him.' 
 
 ' That will be the way,' I said. Thereupon I and Ctesippus 
 went towards the Palaestra, and the rest followed. 
 
 Upon entering we found that the boys had just been sacrificing ; 
 and this part of the festival was nearly come to an end. They 
 were all in white array, and games at dice were going on among 
 them. Most of them were in the outer court amusing themselves ; 
 but some were in a corner of the Apodyterium playing at odd-and- 
 even with a number of dice, which they took out of little wicker 
 baskets. There was also a circle of lookers-on, one of whom was 
 Lysis. He was standing among the other boys and youths, having 
 a crown upon his head, like a fair vision, and not less worthy of 
 praise for his goodness than for his beauty. We left them, and 
 went over to the opposite side of the room, where we found a quiet 
 place, and sat down ; and then we began to talk. This attracted 
 Lysis, who was constantly turning round to look at us he was 
 evidently wanting to come to us. For a time he hesitated and had 
 not the courage to come alone ; but first of all, his friend Menex- 
 enus came in out of the court in the interval of his play, and when 
 he saw Ctesippus and myself, came and sat by us ; and then Lysis, 
 seeing him, followed and sat down with him; and the other boys 
 joined. I should observe that Hippothales, when he saw the
 
 ATHENS 355 
 
 crowd, got behind them, where he thought that he would be out of 
 sight of Lysis, lest he should anger him ; and there he stood and 
 listened. 
 
 Enough has been quoted to show that beneath the porches 
 of a Greek palaestra, among the youths of Athens, who wrote 
 no exercises in dead languages, and thought chiefly of attain- 
 ing to perfect manhood by the harmonious exercise of mind 
 and body in temperate leisure, divine philosophy must indeed 
 have been charming both to teachers and to learners : 
 
 Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose, 
 But musical as is Apollo's lute, 
 And a perpetual feast of nectared sweets 
 Where no crude surfeit reigns. 
 
 There are no remains above ground of the buildings which 
 made the Attic gymnasia splendid. Nor are there in Athens 
 itself many statues of the noble human beings who paced 
 their porches and reclined beneath their shade. The galleries 
 of Italy and the verses of the poets can alone help us to 
 repeople the Academy with its mixed multitude of athletes 
 and of sages. The language of Simaetha, in Theocritus, 
 brings the younger men before us : their cheeks are yellower 
 than helichrysus with the down of youth, and their breasts 
 shine brighter far than the moon, as though they had but 
 lately left the ' fair toils of the wrestling-ground.' Upon 
 some of the monumental tablets exposed in the burying- 
 ground of Cerameicus and in the Theseum may be seen 
 portraits of Athenian citizens. A young man holding a bird, 
 with a boy beside him who carries a lamp or strigil ; a youth, 
 naked, and scraping himself after the games ; a boy taking 
 leave with clasped hands of his mother, while a dog leaps up 
 to fawn upon his knee; a wine-party; a soul in Charon's 
 boat ; a husband parting from his wife : such are the simple 
 
 AA'2
 
 356 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 subjects of these monuments ; and under each is written 
 XPHSTE XAIPE Friend, farewell! The tombs of the 
 women are equally plain in character : a nurse brings a baby 
 to its mother, or a slave helps her mistress at the toilette 
 table. There is nothing to suggest either the gloom of the 
 grave or the hope of heaven in any of these sculptures. Their 
 symbolism, if it at all exist, is of the least mysterious kind. 
 Our attention is rather fixed upon the commonest affairs of 
 life than on the secrets of death. 
 
 As we wander through the ruins of Athens, among temples 
 which are all but perfect, and gardens which still keep their 
 ancient greenery, we must perforce reflect how all true know- 
 ledge of Greek life has passed away. To picture to ourselves 
 its details, so as to become quite familiar with the way in 
 which an Athenian thought and felt and occupied his time, 
 is impossible. Such books as the ' Charicles ' of Becker or 
 Wieland's ' Agathon ' only increase our sense of hopelessness, 
 by showing that neither a scholar's learning nor a poet's fancy 
 can pierce the mists -of antiquity. We know that it was a 
 strange and fascinating life, passed for the most part beneath 
 the public eye, at leisure, without the society of free women, 
 without what we call a home, in constant exercise of body 
 and mind, in the duties of the law-courts and the assembly, 
 in the toils of the camp and the perils of the sea, in the 
 amusements of the wrestling-ground and the theatre, in- 
 sportful study and strenuous play. We also know that the 
 citizens of Athens, bred up under the peculiar conditions of 
 this artificial life, became impassioned lovers of their city ; ' 
 that the greatest generals, statesmen, poets, orators, artists, 
 historians, and philosophers that the world can boast, were 
 produced in the short space of a century and a half by a city 
 
 1 T))v TTJS iro\f<i)s Svva t u.iv Ka0' iifMtpav fpyy Bewpeitovs Kal ^paffras 
 avTTJ*. Thuc. ii. 43.
 
 ATHENS 357 
 
 numbering about 20,000 burghers. It is scarcely an exagge- 
 ration to say with the author of ' Hereditary Genius,' that 
 the population of Athens, taken as a whole, was as superior to 
 us as we are to the Australian savages. Long and earnest, 
 therefore, should be our hesitation before we condemn as 
 pernicious or unprofitable the instincts and the customs of 
 such a race. 
 
 The permanence of strongly marked features in the land- 
 scape of Greece, and the- small scale of the whole country, add 
 a vivid charm to the scenery of its great events. In the 
 harbour of Peiraeus we can scarcely fail to picture to ourselves 
 the pomp which went forth to Sicily that solemn morning, 
 when the whole host prayed together and made libations at 
 the signal of the herald's trumpet?.. The nation of athletes 
 and artists and philosophers were embarked on what seemed 
 to some a holiday excursion, and for others bid fair to realise 
 unbounded dreams of ambition or avarice. Only a few were 
 heavy-hearted ; but the heaviest of all was the general who 
 had vainly dissuaded his countrymen from the endeavour, and 
 fruitlessly refused the command thrust upon him. That was 
 * the morning of a mighty day, a day of crisis ' for the desti- 
 nies of Athens. Of all that multitude^ how few would come 
 again ; of the empire which they made so manifest in its pride 
 of men and arms, how little but a shadow would be left, when 
 war and fever and the quarries of Syracuse had done their 
 fore-appointed work ! Yet no commotion of the elements, 
 no eclipse or authentic oracle from heaven, was interposed 
 between the arrogance of Athens and sure-coming Nemesis. 
 The sun shone, and the waves laughed, smitten by the oars 
 of galleys racing to /Egina. Meanwhile Zeus from the watch- 
 tower of the world held up the scales of fate, and the balance 
 of Athens was wavering to its fall. 
 
 A few strokes of the oar carry us away from Peineus to a
 
 358 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 scene fraught with far more thrilling memories. That little 
 point of rock emergent from the water between Salamis and 
 the mainland, bare, insignificant, and void of honour among 
 islands to the natural eye, is Psyttaleia. A strange tightening 
 at the heart assails us when we approach the centre-point of 
 the most memorable battlefield of history. It was again ' the 
 morning of a mighty day, a day of crisis ' for the destinies, 
 not of Athens alone, but of humanity, when the Persian fleet, 
 after rowing all night up and down the channel between 
 Salamis and the shore, beheld the face of Phoebus flash from 
 behind Pentelicus and flood the Acropolis of Athens with fire. 
 The Peirasus recalls a crisis in the world's drama whereof the 
 great actors were unconscious : fair winds and sunny waves 
 bore light hearts to Sicily. But Psyttaleia brings before us 
 the heroism of a handful of men, who knew that the supreme 
 hour of ruin or of victory for their nation and themselves had 
 come. Terrible therefore was the energy with which they 
 prayed and joined their paean to the trumpet-blast of dawn 
 that blazed upon them from the Attic hills. And this time 
 Zeus, when he heard their cry, saw the scale of Hellas mount 
 to the stars. Let ^Eschylus tell the tale ; for he was there. 
 A Persian is giving an account of the defeat of Salamis to 
 Atossa : 
 
 The whole disaster, O my qneen, began 
 With some fell fiend or devil, I know not whence : 
 For thus it was ; from the Athenian host 
 A man of Hellas came to thy son, Xerxes, 
 Saying that when black night shall fall in gloom, 
 The Hellenes would no longer stay, but leap 
 .Each on the benches of his bark, and save 
 Hither and thither by stolen flight their lives. 
 He, when he heard thereof, discerning not 
 The Hellene's craft, no, nor the spite of heaven, 
 To all his captains gives this edict forth : 
 "When as the sun doth cease to light the world,
 
 ATHENS 359 
 
 And darkness holds the precincts of the sky, 
 They should dispose the fleet in three close ranks, 
 To guard the outlets and the water-ways ; 
 Others should compass Ajax' isle around : 
 Seeing that if the Hellenes 'scaped grim death 
 By finding for their ships some privy exit, 
 It was ordained that all should lose their heads. 
 So spake he, led by a mad mind astray, 
 Nor knew what should be by the will of heaven. 
 They, like well-ordered vassals, with assent 
 Straightway prepared their food, and every sailor 
 Fitted his oar-blade to the steady rowlock. 
 But when the sunlight waned and night apace 
 Descended, every man who swayed an oar 
 Went to the boats with him who wielded armour. 
 Then through the ship's length rank cheered rank in 
 
 concert, 
 
 Sailing as each was set in order due : 
 And all night long the tyrants of the ships 
 Kept the whole navy cruising to and fro. 
 Night passed : yet never did the host of Hellene 
 At any point attempt their stolen sally ; 
 Until at length, when day with her white steeds 
 Forth shining, held the whole world under sway. 
 First from the Hellenes with a loud clear cry 
 Song-like, a shout made music, and therewith 
 The echo of the rocky isle rang back 
 Shrill triumph : but the vast barbarian host 
 Shorn of their hope trembled ; for not for flignt 
 The Hellenes hymned their solemn paean then 
 Nay, rather as for battle with stout heart. 
 Then too the trumpet speaking fired our foes, 
 And with a sudden rush of oars in time 
 They smote the deep sea at that clarion cry ; 
 And in a moment you might see them all. 
 The right wing in due order well arrayed 
 First took the lead ; then came the serried squadron 
 Swelling against us, and from many voices 
 One cry arose : Ho ! sons of Hellenes, up I 
 Now free your fatherland, now free your sons, 
 Your wives, the fanes of your ancestral gods,
 
 360 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Your fathers' tombs ! Now fight you for your all. 
 Yea, and from our side brake an answering hum 
 Of Persian voices. Then, no more delay, 
 Ship upon ship her beak of biting brass 
 Struck stoutly. 'Twas a bark, I ween, of Hellas 
 First charged, dashing from a Tyrrhenian galleon 
 Her prow-gear ; then ran hull on hull pell-mell. 
 At first the torrent of the Persian navy 
 Bore up : but when the multitude of ships 
 Were straitly jammed, and none could help another, 
 Huddling with brazen-mouthed beaks they clashed 
 And brake their serried banks of oars together; 
 Nor were the Hellenes slow or slack to muster 
 And pound them in a circle. Then ships' hulks 
 Floated keel upwards, and the sea was covered 
 With shipwreck multitudinous and with slaughter. 
 The shores and jutting reefs were full of corpses. 
 In indiscriminate rout, with straining oar, 
 The whole barbarian navy turned and fled. 
 Our foes, like men 'mid tunnies, draughts of fishes, 
 With splintered oars and spokes of shattered spars 
 Kept striking, grinding, smashing us : shrill shrieks 
 With groanings mingled held the hollow deep, 
 Till night's dark eye set limit to the slaughter. 
 But for our mass of miseries, could I speak 
 Straight on for ten days, I should never sum it : 
 For know this well, never in one day died 
 Of men so many multitudes before. 
 
 After a pause he resumes his narrative by describing 
 Psyttaleia : 
 
 There lies an island before Salamis, 
 Small, with scant harbour, which dance-loving Pan 
 Is wont to tread, haunting the salt sea-beaches. 
 There Xerxes placed his chiefs, that when the foes 
 Chased from their ships should seek the sheltering isle, 
 They might with ease destroy the host of Hellas, 
 Saving their own friends from the briny straits. 
 Ill had he learned what was to hap ; for when 
 God gave the glory to the Greeks at sea,
 
 ATHENS 361 
 
 That same day, having fenced their flesh with brass, 
 
 They leaped from out their ships ; and in a circle 
 
 Enclosed the whole girth of the isle, that so 
 
 None knew where he should turn ; but many fell 
 
 Crushed with sharp stones in conflict, and swift arrows 
 
 Flew from the quivering bowstrings winged with murder. 
 
 At last in one fierce onset with one shout 
 
 They strike, hack, hew the wretches' limbs asunder, 
 
 Till every man alive had fallen beneath them. 
 
 Then Xerxes groaned, seeing the gulf unclose 
 
 Of grief below him ; for his throne was raised 
 
 High in the sight of all by the sea-shore. 
 
 Bending his robes, and shrieking a shrill shriek, 
 
 He hurriedly gave orders to his host ; 
 
 Then headlong rushed in rout and heedless ruin. 
 
 Atossa makes appropriate exclamations of despair and horror. 
 Then the messenger proceeds : 
 
 The captains of the ships that were not shattered, 
 
 Set speedy sail in flight as the winds blew. 
 
 The remnant of the host died miserably, 
 
 Some in Boeotia round the glimmering springs 
 
 Tired out with thirst ; some of us scant of breath 
 
 Escaped with bare life to the Phocian bounds, 
 
 And land of Doris, and the Melian Gulf, 
 
 Where with kind draughts Spercheius soaks the soil. 
 
 Thence in our flight Achaia's ancient plain 
 
 And Thessaly's stronghold received us worn 
 
 For want of food. Most died in that fell place 
 
 Of thirst and famine ; for both, deaths were there. 
 
 Yet to Magnesia came we and. the coast 
 
 Of Macedonia, to the ford of Axius, 
 
 And Bolbe's canebrakes and the Pangaean range, 
 
 Edonian borders. Then in that grim night 
 
 God sent unseasonable- frost, and froze 
 
 The stream of holy Strymon. He who erst 
 
 Recked nought of gods, now prayed with supplication, 
 
 Bowing before the powers of earth and sky. 
 
 But when the hosts from lengthy orisons 
 
 Surceased, it crossed the ice-incrusted ford.
 
 362 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 And he among us who set forth before 
 
 The sun-god's rays were scattered, now was saved. 
 
 For blazing with sharp beams the sun's bright circle 
 
 Pierced the mid-stream, dissolving it with fire. 
 
 There were they huddled. Happy then was he 
 
 Who soonest cut the breath of life asunder. 
 
 Such as survived and had the luck of living, 
 
 Crossed Thrace with pain and peril manifold, 
 
 'Scaping mischance, a miserable remnant, 
 
 Into the dear land of their homes. Wherefore 
 
 Persia may wail, wanting in vain her darlings. 
 
 This is the truth. Much I omit to tell 
 
 Of woes by God wrought on the Persian race. 
 
 Upon this triumphal note it were well, perhaps, to pause. 
 Yet since the sojourner in Athens must needs depart by sea, 
 let us advance a little way farther beyond Salamis. The low 
 shore of the isthmus soon appears ; and there is the hill of 
 Corinth and the site of the city, as desolate now as when 
 Antipater of Sidon made the sea-waves utter a threnos over 
 her ruins. ' The deathless Nereids, daughters of Oceanus,' 
 still lament by the shore, and the Isthmian pines are as green 
 as when their boughs were plucked to bind a victor's forehead. 
 Feathering the grey rock now as then, they bear witness to 
 the wisdom and the moderation of the Greeks, who gave to 
 the conquerors in sacred games no wreath of gold, or title of 
 nobility, or land, or jewels, but the honour of an illustrious 
 name, the guerdon of a mighty deed, and branches taken from 
 the wild pine of Corinth, or the olive of Olympia, or the bay 
 that flourished like a weed at Delphi. What was indigenous 
 and characteristic of his native soil, not rare and costly things 
 from foreign lands, was precious to the Greek. This piety, 
 after the lapse of centuries and the passing away of mighty 
 cities, still bears fruit. Oblivion cannot wholly efface the 
 memory of those great games while the fir-trees rustle to the 
 sea-wind as of old. Down the gulf we pass, between mountain
 
 ATHENS 363 
 
 range and mountain. On one hand, two-peaked Parnassus 
 rears his cope of snow aloft over Delphi; on the other, 
 Erymanthus and Hermes' home, Cyllene, bar the pastoral 
 glades of Arcady. Greece is the Jand of mountains, not of 
 rivers or of plains. The titles of the hills of Hellas smite our 
 ears with echoes of ancient music Olympus and Cithaeron, 
 Taygetus, Othrys, Helicon, and Ida. The headlands of the 
 mainland are mountains, and the islands are mountain 
 summits of a submerged continent. Austerely beautiful, not 
 wild with an Italian luxuriance, nor mournful with Sicilian 
 monotony of outline, nor yet again overwhelming with the 
 sublimity of Alps, they seem the proper home of a race which 
 sought its ideal of beauty in distinction of shape and not in 
 multiplicity of detail, in light and not in richness of colouring, 
 in form and not in size. 
 
 At length the open sea is reached. Past Zante and Cepha- 
 lonia we glide ' under a roof of blue Ionian weather ; ' or, if 
 the sky has been troubled with storm, we watch the moulding 
 of long glittering cloud-lines, processions and pomps of silvery 
 vapour, fretwork and frieze of alabaster piled above the 
 islands, pearled promontories and domes of rounded snow. 
 Soon Santa Maura comes in sight : 
 
 Leucatse nimbosa cacumina mentis, 
 Et formidatus nautis aperitur Apollo. 
 
 Here Sappho leapt into the waves to cure love-longing, ac- 
 cording to the ancient story ; and he who sees the white cliffs 
 chafed with breakers and burning with fierce light, as it was 
 once my luck to see them, may well with Childe Harold 'feel 
 or deem he feels no common glow.' All through the after- 
 noon it had been raining, and the sea was running high 
 beneath a petulant west wind. But just before evening, while 
 yet there remained a hand's-breadth between the sea and the
 
 364 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 sinking sun, the clouds were rent and blown in masses about 
 the sky. Bain still fell fretfully in scuds and fleeces ; but 
 where for hours there had been nothing but a monotone of 
 greyness, suddenly fire broke and radiance and storm-clouds 
 in commotion. Then, as if built up by music, a rainbow rose 
 and grew above Leucadia, planting one foot on Actium and 
 the other on Ithaca, and spanning with a horseshoe arch 
 that touched the zenith, the long line of roseate cliffs. The 
 clouds upon which this bow was woven were steel-blue 
 beneath and crimson above ; and the bow itself was bathed 
 in fire its violets and greens and yellows visibly ignited by 
 the liquid flame on which it rested. The sea beneath, stormily 
 dancing, flashed back from all its crest the same red glow, 
 shining like a ridged lava-torrent in. its first combustion. 
 Then as the sun sank, the crags burned deeper with scarlet 
 blushes as of blood, and with passionate bloom as of pome- 
 granate or oleander flowers. Could Turner rise from the 
 grave to paint a picture that should bear the name of ' Sappho's 
 Leap,' he might strive to paint it thus : and the world would 
 complain that he had dreamed the poetry of his picture. 
 But who could dream anything so wild and yet so definite ? 
 Only the passion of orchestras, the fire-flight of the last 
 movement of the C minor symphony, can in the realms of 
 art give utterance to the spirit of scenes like this.
 
 INDEX 
 
 AAR 
 
 A\r>, the, i. 20 
 
 Abano, il. 98 
 
 Abruzzi, the, ii. 34 ; iii. 280, 235, 
 236 
 
 Acciaiuoli, Agnolo, ii. 226 
 
 Acciauoli, the, iii. 98 
 
 Accolti, Bernardo, ii. 83 
 
 Accona, iii. 72, 74 
 
 Accoramboni, Camillo, ii. 91 : 
 Claudio, ii. 89 : Flaminio, ii. 91, 
 99, 100, 103 foil., 118 foil., 126: 
 Marcello, ii. 91 foil., 99, 102, 103, 
 105 : Mario, ii. 91 : Ottavio, ii. 
 91 : Scipione, ii. 91 : Tarquinia, 
 ii. 89, 92, 103 : Vittoria, ii. 89- 
 125 
 
 Achilles, iii. 286 
 
 Achradina, iii. 321, 324 
 
 Aci, iii. 287 
 
 Aci Castello, iii. 284 
 
 Acis and Galatea, iii. 284, 285 
 
 Acropolis, the, iii. 339, 344, 347 
 
 Actium, iii. 364 
 
 Adda, the, i. 50, 51, 62, 63, 174 
 
 Addison, i. 3 
 
 Adelaide, Queen of Lothair, King 
 of Italy, ii. 169, 178 
 
 Adelaisie (wife of Berald desBaux), 
 i. 80 
 
 Adrian VI. (Pope), ii. 251 
 
 Adriatic, the, ii. 1, 3, 56, 59 
 
 /Eneas, iii. 319 
 
 ^schylus, iii. 162, 271, 345, 358- 
 362 
 
 Affo, Padre Ireneo, ii. 363 note 
 
 Agrigentines, the, iii. 335 
 
 AMBROGINI 
 
 Agrigentum, iii. 266 
 Ajaccio, i. 104-120 
 Alamanni, Antonio, ii. 328 
 Alban Hills, ii. 32 
 Albany, Countess of, i. 352 
 Albert!, house of the, ii. 213 
 Alberti, Leo Battista, i. 216 ; ii. 14, 
 
 18, 21-29 ; iii. 102 
 Albizzi, the, ii. 50, 209, 213 foil., 
 
 221, 224 
 Albizzi, Maao degli, ii. 213- 
 
 215 
 Albizzi, Binaldo degli, ii. 215, 218, 
 
 220, 221, 256 
 
 Albula, ii. 127, 128 ; Pass of, i. 53 
 Aleotti, Giambattista, ii. 180 
 Alexander the Great, iii. 262 
 Alexander VI., ii. 47, 74, 184, 191, 
 
 193, 237, 363 note 
 Alexandria, ii. 19 ; iii. 189, 190, 
 
 201 253 
 
 Alfieri, i. 342, 345-359 
 Alfonso of Aragon, i. 195, 203 ; ii. 
 
 189, 235 
 Alps, the, i. 1-67, 122, 123, 126, 
 
 133, 209, 258; ii. 8, 129, 168 
 
 et passim 
 Amadeo, Gian Antonio, i. 146, 150, 
 
 151, 191-193, 243 
 Amalasuntha, daughter of Theo- 
 
 doric the Ostrogoth, ii. 2, 13 
 Amain, i. 103 note; iii. 250- 
 
 261 
 
 Ambrogini family, iii. 101 
 Ambrogini, Angelo. (See Poliziano, 
 
 Angelo)
 
 366 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 AMBROGINI 
 
 Ambrogini, Benedetto, iii. 101, 
 
 102 
 
 Ampezzo, the, i. 268 
 Ana-Capri, iii. 231, 232, 271 
 Anapus, the, iii. 326, 328 
 Anchises, iii. 319 
 Ancona, i. 196, 198 ; ii. 14, 38, 45, 
 
 55, 102, 199 ; iii. Ill 
 Ancona, Professor d', ii. 276 note 
 Andrea, Giovann', i. 318 
 Andreini, ii. 269 
 Angeli, Niccolo, iii. 151 
 Angelico, Fra, i. 100, 240 ; ii. 49 ; 
 
 iii. 35, 61, 147-149, 151, 248 
 Angelo, S., ii. 96 
 Angelo, Giovan. {See Pius IV.) 
 Angiolieri, Cecco, iii. 1, 2 
 Anguillara, Deifobo, Count of, i. 
 
 202 
 
 Anjou, house of, ii. 188 
 Ansano, S., iii. 70 
 Anselmi, ii. 158 
 Antegnate, i. 197 
 Antelao, i. 268, 283 
 Antibes, i. 102 
 Antinoe.iii. 191, 205 
 Antinoopolis, iii. 191, 205 
 Antinous, iii. 184-197, 200-229 
 Antipater, iii. 322, 362 
 Antiquari, Jacobo, iii. 126 note 
 Antonio da Venafro, ii. 47 
 Aosta, i. 2 
 Apennines, the, i. 45, 99, 133 ; ii. 
 
 7, 8, 37, 45, 56, 62, 65, 66, 
 
 132 foil., 145, 168 ; iii. 91 et 
 
 passim 
 
 Apollonius of Tyana, iii. 216 
 Apulia, i. 87 note ; iii. 305 
 Aquaviva, Dominico d', ii. 94 
 Aquila, i. 196 
 Aragazzi, Bartolommeo, iii. 95- 
 
 100 
 
 Aragon, Kings of, i. 79 
 Arausio, i. 68 
 Archimedes, iii, 325 
 Arcipreti family, the, iii. 113 
 Ardoin of Milan, iii. 299, 300 
 Aretine, the, ii. 83 
 Aretino, Pietro, ii. 91 
 Aretino, Spinello, iii. 304 
 Aretusi, Cesare, ii. 149 note 
 
 Arezzo, ii. 214 ; iii. 7, 91, 96, 151 
 
 note ; Bishop of, iii. 74 
 Ariosto, i. 71 ; ii.66, 160, 168,261, 
 
 264, 265, 267, 269, 273, 280, 336, 
 
 343 
 
 Aristides, iii. 196 
 Aristophanes, i. 84 note ; iii. 161, 
 
 341, 351, 353 
 
 Aristotle, i. 249 ; ii. 74 ; iii. 309 
 Aristoxenus, iii. 262, 263 
 Aries, i. 76-81 ; King of, i. 79 
 Arno, the, iii. 91; valley of, iii. 41 
 Arosa, valley of, i. 33 
 Arqua, i. 167, 168 
 Arrian, iii. 205 
 Aruns, iii. 94 
 
 Ascham, Roger, ii. 265, 266 
 Asciano, iii. 86, 87 
 Asinarus, iii. 327 
 Assisi, i. 137 ; ii. 35, 39, 43,44, 46 ; 
 
 iii. 35, 68, 111, 114, 140 
 Asso, the, iii. 108 
 Asti, i. 347, 348 ; ii. 193, 197 
 Astolphus, ii. 2 
 Athens, i. 243 ; iii. 156, 169, 182, 
 
 188, 207, 323, 339-364 
 Athens, Duke of, ii. 207, 208, 233 
 
 note 
 
 Atrani, iii. 251, 254 
 Attendolo, Sforza, i. 195 ; ii. 71 
 Atti,Isottadegli, ii. 17 and note, 20 
 Augustine, S., i. 232 
 Augustus, Emperor, ii. 1, 14 ; iii. 
 
 215 
 
 Aurelius, Marcus, iii. 164, 200 
 Ausonias, iii. 268 
 Aversa, iii. 253, 299, 300 
 Avignon, i. 69-71, 77, 81, 86 ; ii. 
 
 136 ; iii. 51, 74 
 Azzo (progenitor of Este and 
 
 Brunswick), ii. 175 
 Azzo (son of Sigifredo), ii. 169 
 
 BADRUTT, Herr Caspar, i. 55 
 
 Baffo, i. 259, 260 
 
 Baganza, the, ii. 184 
 
 Baglioni, the, ii. 16, 47, 71, 236 ; 
 
 iii. 81, 113-115, 119-136 
 Baglioni, Annibale, iii. 132 : As- 
 
 torre, iii. 113, 114, 121, 122,
 
 INDEX 
 
 367 
 
 125, 126: Atalanta, iii. 116, 
 124, 127-129 : Braccio, iii. 134 : 
 Carlo Barciglia, iii. 124 : Con- 
 stantino, iii. 131 : Eusebio, iii. 
 131 : Filene, iii. 132 : Galeotto, 
 iii. 124, 132: Gentile, ii. 42, 
 iii. 122, 132: Gian-Paolo, ii. 
 47, 220, iii. 116, 117, 122, 125, 
 127, 128, 130-132 : Gismondo, 
 iii. 122, 126, 127 : Grifone, iii. 
 124: Grifonetto, ii. 47, iii. 
 113, 114, 124-129 : Guido, iii. 
 
 121, 126, 127: Ippolita, iii. 
 131: Malatesta, ii. 253, 254, 
 iii. 127, 132 : Marcantonio, iii. 
 
 122, 125, 130: Morgante, iii. 
 119 note 2: Niccolo, iii. 120: 
 Orazio, iii. 127, 132 : Pandolfo, 
 iii. 120 : Pietro Paolo, ii. 41 : 
 Bidolfo (1), iii. 120, 121: Bi- 
 dolfo (2), iii. 133, 134: Simo- 
 netto, iii. 123, 124, 126 : Taddeo, 
 iii. 131 : Troilo, iii. 122, 127 
 
 Baiae, iii. 242 
 
 Balzac, ii. 160 
 
 Bandello, i. 155, 157, 158, 270 ; ii. 
 
 116, 265, 271, 277 
 Bandinelli, Messer Francesco, iii. 
 
 10-12 
 
 Barano, the, ii. 56-58 
 Barbarossa, Frederick, ii. 69, 201 ; 
 
 iii. 7, 271, 290, 306 note 2 
 Ban, Duke of. (See Sforza, Lodo- 
 
 vico) 
 
 Bartolo, San, iii. 59 
 Bartolommeo, Fra, iii. 63, 99 
 Basaiti, i. 269 
 Basella, i. 193 
 Basinio, ii. 18 
 Basle, i. 1, 2 
 Bassano, i. 340 
 Bastelica, i. 109, 113, 115 
 Bastia, Matteo di, i. 216 
 Battagli, Gian Battista, i. 216 
 Battifolle, Count Simone da, iii. 
 
 11 
 
 Baudelaire, iii. 280 
 Baveno, i. 19 
 Bayard, i. 113 
 Bazzi, Giovannantonio. (See So- 
 
 doma) 
 
 Beatrice, Countess, iii. 144 
 Beatrice, Dante's, ii. 6 
 Beatrice of Lorraine, ii. 170 
 Beaumarchais, i. 228, 229, 234 
 Beaumont and Fletcher, ii. 267, 
 
 269 
 
 Becchi, Gentile, ii. 192 
 Beethoven, i. 10, 249 ; ii. 160 
 Belcari, Feo, ii. 305 
 Belcaro, iii. 66, 68 
 Belisarius, ii. 2 ; iii. 290 
 Bellagio, i. 186 
 Bellano, i. 186 
 Belleforest, ii. 116 
 Bellini, Gentile, i. 269, 270 
 Bellini, Gian, i. 263, 269 ; ii. 55, 
 
 135 
 
 Bellinzona, i. 180 
 Bembo, Pietro, ii. 82, 85 
 Benci, Spinello, iii. 94 
 Benedict, S., iii. 73, 81, 85, 248 
 Benevento, iii. 251, 252, 299 
 Benincasa, Jacopo (father of S. 
 
 Catherine of Siena), iii. 50 
 Benivieni, ii. 305 
 Bentivogli, the, ii. 47, 178, 224 
 Bentivogli, Alessandra de', i. 155, 
 
 156 
 Bentivogli, Alessandro de', i. 155, 
 
 156 
 
 Bentivogli, Ercole de', ii. 224 
 Bentivoglio, Ermes, ii. 47 
 Benzene, Giorgio, i. 194 
 Beral des Baux, i. 79, 80 
 Berangere des Baux, i. 80 
 Berceto, ii. 131, 133 
 Berenger, King of Italy, ii. 169 
 Berenger, Raymond, i. 80 
 Bergamo, i. 190-207 ; ii. 82 
 Bernardino, S., iii. 69, 113 
 Bernardo, iii. 69-75 
 Bernardo da Campo, i. 61 
 Berne, i. 20 
 
 Bernhardt, Madame, ii. 108 
 Berni, ii. 270 
 Bernina, the, L 37, 55-57, 60, 64, 
 
 126 ; ii. 128 
 Bernini, ii. 159 
 Bersaglio, i. 268 
 Bervic, ii. 149 
 Besa, iii. 190, 191, 205
 
 368 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Besozzi, Francesco, i. 156 
 Bevagna, ii. 35, 38 
 Beyle, Henri, ii. 102 
 Bianco, Bernardo, i. 177 
 Bibbiena, Cardinal, ii. 82, 83 
 Bibboni, Francesco, or Cecco, i. 
 
 327-341 
 
 Bion, i. 152 ; ii. 303 
 Biondo, Flavio, ii. 28 
 Bisola, Lodovico, ii. 150 
 Bithynia, iii. 208 
 Bithynium, iii. 187, 208 
 Blacas (a knight of Provence), i. 
 
 80 
 Blake, the poet, i. 101, 265; ii. 
 
 273 ; iii. 166, 260 
 Boccaccio, ii. 7, 160, 208, 260,261, 
 
 265, 270, 272, 273, 277, 334 ; iii. 
 
 16, 50, 248, 293 
 Bocognano, i. 109-111, 115 
 Boheraond, Prince of Tarentum, 
 
 iii. 297, 298 
 Boiardo, Matteo Maria, ii. 30, 66, 
 
 269, 343 
 
 Boldoni, Polidoro, i. 183 
 Bologna, i. 121, 155, 192, 196, 326 ; 
 
 ii. 29, 47, 85, 185, 224 
 Bologna, Gian, ii. 86 
 Bolsena, iii. 140, 141 ; Lake of, 
 
 iii. 22 
 Bona of Savoy (wife of Galeazzo 
 
 Maria Sforza), ii. 230 
 Bondeno de' Eoncori, ii. 178 
 Bonifazio (of Canossa), ii. 169, 
 
 170 
 
 Bordighera, i. 102, 103 
 Bordone, Paris, ii. 109 
 Borgia family, ii. 66, 117, 363 
 
 note 
 Borgia, Cesare, ii. 47, 48, 73, 74, 
 
 80, 83, 126, 363 note ; iii. 131 
 Borgia, Lucrezia, ii. 363 note 
 Borgia, Eoderigo, i. 220. (See also 
 
 Alexander VI.) 
 Borgognone, Ambrogio, i. 146-148 ; 
 
 iii. 64 
 
 Bormio, i. 61, 180 
 Borromeo family, iii. 14 
 Borromeo, Carlo, i. 182 
 Borromeo, Count Giberto, i. 182 
 Boscoli, i. 341 ; ii. 246 
 
 Bosola, i. 149 
 
 Botticelli, Sandro, i. 266; ii. 29, 
 
 30 ; iii. 180 note 
 Botticher, Charles, iii. 225 
 Bourbon, Duke of, i. 158 ; Con- 
 stable of, ii. 252 
 Bracciano, Duke of, ii. 91 foil., 
 
 104 
 Bracciano, second Duke of, ii. 93, 
 
 99, 101 
 Braccio, i. 195, 197, 204, 207 ; ii. 
 
 47 ; iii. 81 
 Braccio, Filippo da, iii. 124- 
 
 126 
 
 Bracciolini, Poggio, iii. 96, 336 
 Bragadin, Aloisio, ii. 101 
 Bramante, i. 216, 243 
 Brancacci, Cardinal, iii. 96 
 Brancaleone, Senator, iii. 336 
 Brancaleoni family, ii. 66, 69 
 Bregaglia, i. 35 ; valley of, i. 184 
 Brenner, the, ii. 168 
 Brenta, the, i. 258 
 Brescia, i. 63, 200 ; ii. 103, 169 
 Brest, Anna Maria, ii. 149 
 Brianza, the, i. 185, 186 
 Brolio, iii. 94 
 Bronte, iii. 279 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, i. 44 ; iii. 
 
 337 
 Browning, Robert, ii. 102, 270, 
 
 273, 281 ; iii. 173 
 Browning, Mrs., ii. 270, 271 ; iii. 
 
 173 
 
 Bruni, Lionardo, iii. 96, 98, 99 
 Buol family, the, i. 35, 36, 40, 41, 
 
 49,61 
 
 Buol, Herr, i. 34-36 
 Buonaparte family, the, i. 119, 120 
 Buonarroti, Michel Angelo, i. 176, 
 
 193, 221, 236, 243, 326 ; ii. 21, 
 
 30, 40, 152, 158, 160, 161, 178, 
 
 253, 332 ; iii. 20, 22, 145, 146, 
 
 150, 154, 161 
 Buonconvento, iii. 72, 76 
 Burano, i. 258 
 
 Burgundy, Duke of, i. 202, 203 
 Burne-Jones, ii. 29 
 Busti, Agostino, i. 159, 161, 193 
 Byron, i. 280 ; ii. 7, 13, 15, 146, 
 
 162, 270, 271
 
 INDEX 
 
 369 
 
 CADKNABBIA 
 
 CADENABBIA, i. 121, 173 
 
 Cadore, i. 267 
 
 Cffisarea, ii. 1 
 
 Cagli, ii. 56, 69, 74 
 
 Cajano, ii. 221 
 
 Calabria, iii. 305 ; mountains of, 
 
 288 
 
 Calabria, Duke of, iii. 11 
 Calascibelta, iii. 302 
 Caldora, Giovanni Antonio, i. 202 
 Caldora, Jacopo, i. 196 
 Caligula, i. 134-136 ; iii. 2, 156, 
 
 163, 197, 273, 274 
 Calles (Cagli), ii. 57 
 Camargue, the, i. 78, 81 
 Camerino, Duchy of, i. 185 ; ii. 
 
 47,73 
 
 Campagna, the, ii. 32 
 Campaldino, ii. 206 
 Campanella, iii. 20, 270 
 Campell (or Campbell) family, the j 
 
 i. 61, 62 and note 
 Campione, i. 175 
 
 Canale, Messer Carlo, ii. 363 note 
 Cannaregio, i. 268, 269, 339 
 Cannes, i. 103 note ; ii. 143 
 Canonge, Jules, i. 81 
 Canossa, ii. 163-179 
 Cantu, i. 340 
 Cap S. Martin, i. 90 
 Capello, Bianca, ii. 93, 126 
 Capponi, Agostino, ii. 246 
 Capponi, Niccolo, ii. 253 
 Capri, ii. 58 ; iii. 242, 256, 269- 
 
 276 
 
 Caracalla, i. 135 ; iii. 197 
 Cardona, Viceroy, ii. 244 
 Carducci, Francesco, ii. 253, 325 
 Carini, Baronessa di, ii. 276 
 Carlyle (quoted), i. 72 
 Carmagnola, i. 197, 200, 208 ; ii. 
 
 71 
 Carmngnuola, Bussoni di, ii. 17 
 
 and note 
 Carpaccio, Vittore, i. 269, 270 ; ii. 
 
 42 
 
 Carpegna, ii. 64 
 Carpi, Duchy of, i. 185 ; ii. 168 
 Carpi, the princes of, i. 202 
 Carrara range, the, ii. 134, 146, 
 
 218,238 
 
 III 
 
 CHARLES 
 
 Casamicciola, iii. 234, 239 
 
 Casanova, i. 259, 260 
 
 Cascese, Santi da, ii. 224 
 
 Casentino, iii. 92 
 
 Cassinesi, the, iii. 248 
 
 Cassius, Dion, iii. 191, 193, 195- 
 
 197, 219 
 
 Castagniccia, i. 110 
 Castagno, Andrea del, ii. 233 
 Castellammare, i. 103 note ; iii. 
 
 232, 250, 276 
 Casti, Abbe, ii. 270 
 Castiglione, i. 144, 145; ii.68, 80, 
 
 82 ; iii. 106, 108 
 Castro Giovanni, mountains of, iii. 
 
 279, 302, 304, 320 
 Catania, i. 87 note ; iii. 279, 280, 
 
 288, 302, 304, 325 
 Catherine, S. (of Alexandria), i. 136, 
 
 142, 153, 155-157, 178 ; iii. 55, 
 
 61 
 Catherine, S. (of Sienna), i. 70; 
 
 iii. 48-65 
 Catria, iii. 73 
 Catullus, iii. 180 
 Cavalcanti, Guido, ii. 261, 308, 
 
 325, 343 
 
 Cavicciuoli, Merser Guerra, iii. 2 
 Cavro, i. 109 
 Cecile (Passe Bose), i. 81 
 Cefalii, iii. 291 
 
 Cellant, Contessa di, i. 157-159 
 Cellant, Count of, i. 158 
 Cellini, Benvenuto, i. 2, 189, 240, 
 
 241, 328 ; ii. 25 
 Celsano, i. 329 
 Celsus, iii. 211, 219, 220 
 Cenci, the, ii. 17, 89 
 Cenci, Beatrice, ii. 102, 270 
 Ceno, the, ii. 183, 195 
 Centorbi, iii. 302 
 Cephalonia, iii. 363 
 Cephissus, the, iii. 350 
 Cerami, iii. 304 
 Cervantes, ii. 160 
 Cesena, ii. 15, 62 
 Cetona, iii. 103 
 Chalcedon, iii. 212 
 Chalons, the, i. 79 
 Chapman, George, ii. 268 
 Charles IV., iii. 6 
 
 B B
 
 370 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Charles V., i. 184, 185, 187, 188, 319, 
 
 338, 339 ; ii. 75, 202, 255, 257 
 Charles VIII., ii. 67, 132, 183, 189 
 
 and note, 191-197, 238, 328 
 Charles of Anjou, iii. 315 note 
 Charles the Bold, i. 202 
 Charles Martel, i. 75 
 Charles of Valois, ii. 207 
 Chartres, i. 243 
 Chateaubriand, ii. 13 
 Chatterton, ii. 273 
 Chaucer, ii. 258, 260, 261, 270, 272 
 Chiana, the, iii. 91 ; valley of, iii. 
 
 90,97 
 
 Chianti, iii. 94 
 Chiara, S., ii. 36, 37 
 Chiarelli, the, of Fabriano, ii. 236 
 Chiavari, iii. 256 
 Chiavenna, i. 35, 53, 63, 180, 184 ; 
 
 ii. 130, 131 
 Chioggia, i. 257-261 
 Chiozzia, i. 350, 351 
 Chiusi, i. 86; ii. 50,51, 52; iii. 22, 
 
 90, 92 ; Lake of, iii. 91, 94, 101 
 Chiusure, iii. 77, 78, 80 
 Chivasso, i. 19 
 
 Christiern of Denmark, i. 205 
 Chur, i. 49, 65 
 Cicero, iii. 321 
 Ciclopidi rocks, iii. 284 
 Cima, i. 263 
 Cimabue, iii. 35, 144 
 Ciminian Hills, ii. 88 ; iii. 22 
 Cini family. (See Ambrogini) 
 Cinthio, ii. 265, 272, 277 
 Ciompi, the, ii. 208, 209 
 Cisa, i. 340 
 
 Citta della Pieve, ii. 51 
 Citta di Castello, ii. 47, 71 
 Ciuffagni, Bernardo, ii. 30 
 Clair, S., ii. 37 and note 
 Clairvaux, Abbot of, iii. 70 
 Claudian, ii. 57, 343, 344 
 Clemens Alexandrinus, iii. 204, 
 
 217, 219 
 
 Clement VI., iii. 74, 132 - 
 Clement VII., i. 221, 316, 317, 321 ; 
 
 ii. 233, 239, 247 foil. ; iii. 138 
 
 note, 247 
 
 Clitumnus, the, ii. 35, 39 
 Cloanthus, iii. 319 
 
 COUETHEZON 
 
 Clough, the poet, ii. 273 
 
 Clusium, iii. 93, 94 
 
 Coire, i. 183 
 
 Col de Checruit, the, i. 15 
 
 Coleridge, S. T., ii. 273 ; iii. 173 
 
 Colico, i. 64, 183 
 
 Collalto, Count Salici da, i. 337 
 
 Colleoni family, the, i. 194 
 
 Colleoni, Bartolommeo, i. 192- 
 
 208 ; ii. 71 
 
 Colleoni, Medea, i. 193, 204 
 Collona family, ii. 187 
 Colma, the, i. 18 
 Colombini, iii. 69 
 Colonna, Francesco, iii. 103 
 Colonna, Giovanni, iii. 125, 254 
 Colonus, the, iii. 350 
 Columbus, i. 97 ; ii. 237 
 Commodus, i. 135 ; iii. 164 
 Comnena, Anna, iii. 297 
 Como, i. 136, 174-189 
 Como, Lake of, i. 50, 64, 122, 173, 
 
 174, 179, 181, 183-186 
 Conrad (of Canossa), ii. 178 
 Conrad, King of Italy, iii. 305 
 Conradin, iii. 298 
 Constance, daughter of King Roger 
 
 of Sicily, iii. 297, 318 
 Constance of Aragon, wife of 
 
 Frederick II., iii. 307 note 
 Constantinople, ii. 186 ; iii. 311 
 Contado, iii. 90 
 Copton, iii. 205 
 Corfu, i. 87 note, 103 note 
 Corgna, Bernardo da, iii. 125 
 Corinth, iii. 212, 322, 342, 362 
 Cormayeur, valley of, i. 9, 14-16 
 Correggio, i. 137, 140, 163 ; ii. 126, 
 
 147-162 
 
 Corsica, i. 85, 102-120 ; ii. 286 
 Corte, i. 110, 111 
 Corte Savella, ii. 96 
 Cortina, i. 268 
 Cortona, ii. 48-51, 214 ; iii. 90, 92, 
 
 151 note 
 
 Cortusi, the, iii. 6 
 Corviolo, ii. 170, 178 
 Coryat, Tom, i. 49 
 Costa (of Venice), Antonio, ii. 150 
 Costa (of Borne), ii. 33, 146 
 Courthezon, i. 81
 
 INDEX 
 
 371 
 
 Covo, i. 197 
 
 Cramont, the, i. 15 
 
 Credi, Lorenzo di, iii. 35 
 
 Crema, i. 194, 209-222 
 
 Cremona, i. 209, 213, 215 ; iii. 6 
 
 Crimisus, the, iii. 304, 319 
 
 Crotona, iii. 319 
 
 Crowne, the dramatist, ii. 159 
 
 Cuma, iii. 212 
 
 Curtius, Lancinus, i. 159, 193 
 
 Cyane, the, iii. 328 
 
 Cybo, Franceschetto, ii. 239 
 
 DALCO, Antonio, ii. 150 
 
 Dandolo, Gherardo, i. 198 
 
 Dandolo, Matteo, 133 
 
 Daniel, Samuel (the poet), ii. 263 
 
 Dante, i. 29, 80 ; ii. 5, 6, 13, 15, 
 23, 65,70, 136, 137, 160, 170, 206, 
 207, 261, 262, 269, 273, 277, 305, 
 343 ; iii. 2, 19, 25, 36, 43 note, 
 67, 69, 73, 111, 144, 149, 173, 
 241, 317 
 
 D'Arcello, Filippo, i. 195 
 
 Davenant, Sir William, ii. 267 
 
 David, Jacques Louis, i. 71, 72 
 
 Davos, i. 20, 28-47, 49, 53, 58, 65, 
 183 
 
 Davos Dorfli, i. 53 
 
 De Comines, Philippe, ii. 190, 
 193-197; iii. 45 note, 69 
 
 De Gie, Marechal, ii. 199 
 
 De Musset, iii. 163, 235 
 
 De Quincey, ii. 113 ; iii. 273 note 
 
 De Kosset, ii. 103 
 
 Dekker, Thomas, ii. 267 
 
 Del Corvo, ii. 136 
 
 Delia Casa, Giovanni, i. 331, 333 
 
 Delia Porta, i. 193 
 
 Delia Quercia, i. 192 
 
 Delia Rocca, Giudice, i. 112, 113 
 
 Delia Rovere family, ii. 66 (see also 
 Rovere) 
 
 Delia Seta, Galeazzo, i. 329 
 
 Demetrius, iii. 113 
 
 Demosthenes, iii. 323, 324, 326,327 
 
 Desenzano, i. 173 
 
 Dickens, Charles, iii. 39 
 
 Dionysius, iii. 322, 325 
 
 Dischma-Thal, the, i. 49 
 
 Dolce Acqua, ii. 136 
 Dolcebono, Gian Giacomo, i. 153 
 Domenico da Leccio, Fra, iii. 83 
 Dominic, S., i. 221 ; iii. 61 
 Donatello, i. 150, 178 ; ii 29, 30, 
 
 41; iii. 96, 97, 100 
 Doni, Adone, iii. 114 
 Dore, Gustave, i. 264 ; ii. 15 
 j Doria, Pietro, i. 260 
 Doria, Stephen, i. 113 
 Dorias, the, i. 97 
 Dossi, Dosso, i. 166, 170, 172 
 Drayton, Michael, ii. 263 
 Druids, the, iii. 29 
 Drummond, William (the poet), ii. 
 
 263 
 
 Dryden, i. 2, 6 ; ii. 7, 270 
 Duccio, iii. 144, 145 
 Diirer, Albert, i. 345 ; ii. 275 ; iii. 
 
 260 
 
 ECKEKMANX, ii. 157, 162 
 
 Edolo, i. 63 
 
 Edrisi, iii. 308, 309 
 
 Egypt, iii. 189, 190, 192, 210 foil. 
 
 Eichens, Edward, ii. 150 
 
 Eiger, the, i. 12 
 
 Electra, ii. 135 
 
 Eliot, George,' ii. 270 
 
 Emilia, ii. 16 
 
 Emilia Pia, ii. 82 
 
 Empedocles, i. 87 ; iii. 172, 173, 
 
 174, 181, 337 
 Empoli, iii. 41, 87 
 Engadine, the, i. 48, 55, 56, 61, 
 
 183 ; ii. 128 
 
 Enna, iii. 302, 303 and note 
 Ennius, iii. 173, 181 
 Enza, the, ii. 166 
 Enzio, King, iii. 298 
 Epicurus, iii. 173, 174, 181 
 Eridanus, ii. 131 
 Eryx (Lerici), ii. 142 
 Este, i. 167 
 Este family, the, i. 166; ii. 68, 
 
 251,968 
 Bate, Azzo d', iii. 6 : Beatrice d', 
 
 i. 150: Cardinal d', ii. 91: 
 
 Ercole d', i. 202, ii. 236; 
 
 Guelfo d', ii. 177 : Guinipera d^ 
 
 I! I. 2
 
 372 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 ESTKELLES 
 
 ii. 17 ; Lucrezia <T, ii. 77, 83 : 
 
 Niccolo d', ii. 236 
 Estrelles, the, i. 102 
 Etna, iii. 93, 103, 198, 279-287, 
 
 319, 325, 327 
 Etruscans, the, i. 49 
 Euganeans, the, i. 258, 281, 282 ; 
 
 ii. 168 
 
 Eugenie, Empress, i. 119 
 Eugenius IV., i. 199 ; ii. 70, 220 
 Euhemerus, iii. 173 
 Euripides, ii. 142, 159 note, 335 ; 
 
 iii. 89, 215, 340 
 Eusebius, iii. 197, 219 
 Everelina, ii. 166 
 
 FABRETTI, Eaffaello, iii. 209 
 
 Faenza, ii. 47 
 
 Fairfax, Edward, translator of 
 
 Tasso, ii. 265 
 Fano, ii. 57, 59, 69 
 Fanum Fortunes (Fano), ii. 57 
 Farnese, Alessandro, i. 317 : Julia, 
 i. 193 : Odoardo, ii. 180 : Pier 
 Luigi, iii. 133 : Eanunzio, ii. 
 180 : Vittoria, ii. 76 
 Farnesi family, ii. 75, 90, 117, 
 
 180 ; iii. 336 
 Faro, the, iii. 301, 320 
 Favara, iii. 309 
 Federighi, Antonio, iii. 62 
 Federigo of Urbino. (See Urbino) 
 Feltre, Vittorino da, ii. 70 
 Ferdinand, Grand Duke of Tus- 
 cany, ii. 78 
 Ferdinand of Aragon, ii. 189, 191, 
 
 192, 193, 234 ; iii. 274, 276 
 Fermo, ii. 47, 90 
 Ferrara, i. 166, 167, 171 ; ii. 67, 
 
 68, 168, 169, 185, 221 ; iii. 6 
 Ferrara, Duke of, i. 206 
 Ferrari, Gaudenzio, i. 137-139, 
 
 141, 162-164, 177 
 Ferretti, Professor, ii. 179 
 Ferrucci, Francesco, i. 343 ; ii. 
 
 254 
 
 Fesch, Cardinal, i. 118 
 Fiesole, i. 86 
 Filelfo, Francesco, ii. 25 
 Filibert of Savoy, ii. 91 
 
 Filiberta, Princess of Savoy, ii. 
 
 247 
 
 Filippo, i. 149 
 Filonardi, Cinzio, iii. 133 
 Fina, Santa, iii. 59 
 Finiguerra, Maso, i. 218 
 Finsteraarhorn, the, ii. 130 
 Fiorenzuola, ii. 197, 284 
 Flaminian Way, ii. 55, 57 
 Flaxman, ii. 15 
 Fletcher, the dramatist, i. 358 ; ii. 
 
 267 
 
 Florence, i. 121, 316, 318, 319; ii. 
 5, 50, 145, 185, 187, 198,201- 
 257, 259, 305, 306 ; iii. 7, 10, 21, 
 132, 151 note, 317 note, et passim 
 Florence, Duke of, i. 187 
 Fluela, the, i. 29, 37, 54 
 Fluela Bernina Pass, the, i. 53 
 Fluela Hospice, i. 59 
 Foglia, the, ii. 65 
 Foiano, ii. 50 
 Folcioni, Signor, i. 217 
 Folengo, ii. 270 
 Folgore da San Gemignano, ii. 53 ; 
 
 iii. 1-20, 67, 70 
 Foligno, ii. 37-41, 45, 46, 52 
 Fondi, i. 318 
 Ford, John (the dramatist), ii. 
 
 267, 277 
 
 Forio, iii. 236, 237 
 Fornovo, ii. 132, 180-200 
 Fortini, iii. 68 
 Forulus (Furlo), ii. 57 
 Forum Sempronii (Fossombrone), 
 
 ii. 57 
 
 Foscari, the, ii. 98 
 Fosdinovo, ii. 134-137 
 Fossato, ii. 52 
 Fossombrone, ii. 57, 58, 69, 85, 
 
 91 
 
 Fouquet, i. 80 
 Francesco, Fra, i. 269 
 Francesco da Carrara, iii. 6 
 Francesco Maria I. of Urbino. (See 
 
 Urbino) 
 Francesco Maria II.' of Urbino. 
 
 (See Urbino) 
 
 Francia, Francesco, ii. 33 
 Francis I. of France, i. 113, 183, 
 184
 
 INDEX 
 
 373 
 
 Francis of Assisi, S., i. 99, 100; 
 
 ii. 23, 44; iii. 57, 58, 61, 113 
 Francois des Baux, i. 81 
 Frederick, Emperor, L 80 
 Frederick II., Emperor, iii. 297, 
 
 315 and note, 316-318 
 Frere, J. H., ii. 270 
 Friedrichs, , iii. 224 
 Frisingensis, Otto, iii. 7 
 Friuli, i. 351 
 Furka, ii. 130 
 Furlo, ii. 55 
 Forlo Pass, ii. 57, 58 
 Fusina, i. 281 
 
 GAETA, i. 318 ; iii. 235 
 
 Galatea, i. 91 
 
 Galileo, ii. 27 
 
 Galli Islands, iii. 270 
 
 Gallio, Marchese Giacomo, i. 179 
 
 Gallo, Antonio di San, iii. 90, 102 
 
 Gallo, Francesco da San, ii. 253 ; 
 
 iii. 247 
 
 Garda, i. 173 ; Lake of, ii. 98, 169 
 Garden, the, valley of, i. 75 
 Garfagnana, ii. 168 
 Garigliano, iii. 247 
 Gaston de Foix, i. 160, 161, 193 ; 
 
 ii. 2, 10 
 Gattamelata (Erasmo da Narni), 
 
 i. 197 ; ii. 41, 71 
 Gellias, iii. 337 
 Gelon, iii. 290, 304 
 Genoa, i. 97, 105, 113, 259; ii. 
 
 185 ; iii. 250, 253, 317 note 
 Gentile, Girolamo, ii. 236 
 George of Antioch, iii. 307, 311 
 Gerard, ii. 149 
 Gerardo da Camino, iii. 6 
 Ghiacciuolo, ii. 15 
 Ghibellines, ii. 15, 54, 69, 202 
 
 foil.; iii. 17, 43 note, 73, 110 
 Ghiberti, Lorenzo di Cino, ii. 30 ; 
 
 iii. 145, 146 
 Giannandrea, bravo of Verona, ii. 
 
 85 
 
 Giardini, iii. 287 
 Giarre, iii. 279 
 
 Gibbon, Edward (cited), i. 346 
 Ginori, Caterina, L 323, 324 
 
 Ginori, Lionardo, i. 323 
 
 Giordani, i. 326 
 
 Giorgione, i 345 ; iii. 247 
 
 Giottino, ii. 233 note 
 
 Giotto, i. 152 ; ii. 43, 206 ; iii. 35 
 
 145, 248 
 
 Giovanni da Fogliani, ii. 47 
 Giovenone, i. 139 
 Giovio, i. 322 
 Girgenti, iii. 266, 291, 302, 304, 
 
 320, 321, 332-338 
 Giulio Romano, i. 140, 152 
 Glastonbury, iii. 29. 47 
 Gnoli, Professor, i. 327 note; ii. 
 
 102 note, 103 
 
 Godfrey, the Hunchback, ii. 170 
 Godfrey, Duke of Lorraine, ii. 170 
 Goethe, i. 5, 6, 10, 11, 131, 164, 
 
 237 ; ii. 26, 157, 160, 162 ; iii. 
 
 172, 173, 320 
 Goldoni, i. 259, 345-359 
 Golo, the, valley of, i. Ill 
 Gonfalonier of Florence, ii. 83, 
 
 206, 209, 243, 245, 253 
 Gonzaga family, ii. 68 
 Gonzaga, Alessandro, i. 186 : 
 
 Elisabetta, ii. 73 : Francesco, 
 
 ii. 73, 194, 196, 197, 345, 363 
 
 note : Giulia, L 318 : Leonora, 
 
 ii. 76 
 
 Gorbio, i. 85, 91 
 Gozzoli, Benozzo, i. 137 ; ii. 35 
 Graubiinden, the, i. 50 
 Gravedona, i. 181 
 Gray, the poet, i. 3 ; ii. 273 
 Greece, and the Greeks, i. 101, 102, 
 
 240, 244; ii. 18; iii. 155 foil., 
 
 260 foil., 285-287, 290-292, 320 
 
 foil., 339-364 
 
 Greene, Robert, ii. 265, 266, 267 
 Gregory VII., ii. 172, 173-176 (see 
 
 also Hildebrand) 
 Gregory XL, iii. 51 
 Gregory XIII., ii. 88, 95, 96, 97 
 Grenoble, i. Ill 
 Grigioni, the, i. 49 
 Grindelwald, iii. 275 
 Grisons, Canton of the, i. 48, 49, 
 
 50, 183, 184, 186, 188 
 Grivola, the, i. 126 
 Grosseto, iii. 66
 
 374 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IX ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Grote, the historian, iii. 323 
 
 Grumello, i. 48, 64 
 
 Guarini, ii. 267 
 
 Guazzi, the, i. 329 
 
 Gubbio, ii. 35, 45, 52-55, 69,85, 89, 
 
 97 
 Guelfs, ii. 15, 54, 202 foil. ; iii. 
 
 17, 110, 112 
 Guerin, ii. 43 
 Guicciardini, Francesco, i. 319 ; 
 
 ii. 75, 255 
 
 Guiccioli, Countess, ii. 7 
 Guidantonio, Count, ii. 70 
 Guido, iii. 184 
 Guidobaldo I. (See Urbino) 
 Guidobaldo II. (See Urbino) 
 Guillaume de Cabestan, i. 80 
 Guiscard, Eobert, iii. 262, 297, 
 
 298, 300 
 Gyas, iii. 319 
 Gjlippus, iii. 323, 324, 326, 337 
 
 HADRIAN, iii. 164, 185, 187-205, 
 
 208, 210, 212, 224, 225, 226,228, 
 
 343, 345 
 
 Halycus, the, iii. 319 
 Handel, iii. 40 
 Harmodius, ii. 135 ; iii. 155 
 Harrington, Sir John, ii. 265 
 Harvey, Gabriel, ii. 265 
 Hauteville, house of, iii. 252, 253, 
 
 254, 290, 294 foil. 
 Hazlitt, ii. 109 
 Hegesippus, iii. 188 
 Helbig, iii. 187 
 Heliogabalus, i. 135 ; iii. 164 
 Henry II. of France, i. 316 
 Henry III., ii. 170 
 Henry IV., King of Italy, ii. 170, 
 
 173-177 ; iii. 300 note 
 Henry V., Emperor, ii. 178 
 Henry VI. (of Sicily), iii. 297, 318 
 Henry VII., Emperor, iii. 72, 76 
 Hermopolis, iii. 205 
 Herodotus, iii. 319 
 Herrick, Kobert, ii. 324 
 Hesiod, ii. 338 ; iii. 172, 173 
 Hiero II., iii. 325 
 Hildebrand, ii. 163, 171, 172 ; iii. 
 
 300 note 2, 305 
 
 Himera, the, iii. 304 
 Hispellum (Spello), ii. 38 
 Hoby, Thomas, ii. 265 
 Hoffnungsau, i. 66 
 Hohenstauffen, house of, ii. 188, 
 
 202 ; iii. 290, 297, 315 
 Homer, i. 84 note ; iii. 155, 226, 
 
 286, 287, 320 
 
 Honorius, Emperor, ii. 2, 57 
 Horace, ii. 273 ; iii. 180 
 Hosvell, James, ii. 266 
 Hugh, Abbot of Clugny, ii. 175, 
 
 176 
 
 Hugo, Victor, iii. 164 
 Hunt, Leigh, ii. 15, 146, 270 
 Hymettus, iii. 351 
 
 L-D, iii. 304 
 Ictinus, iii. 267, 343 
 II Medeghino. (See Medici, Gian 
 
 Giacomo de') 
 Ilaria del Caretto, iii. 98 
 Ilario, Fra, ii. 136, 137 
 Ilissus, the, iii. 350 
 Imola, ii. 231 
 Imperial, Prince, i. 119 
 Inn river, the, i. 54, 55 
 Innocent III., ii. 203 
 Innocent VIII., ii. 184 
 Innspriick, i. Ill 
 Isabella of Aragon, ii. 192 
 Isac, Antonio, ii. 149 
 Ischia, iii. 233, 234, 236, 238, 241 
 Isella, i. 19 
 Iseo, Lake, i. 173, 174 
 Ithaca, iii. 364 
 Itri, i. 318, 319 
 
 JACOBSHOBN, the, ii. 131 
 James ' III. of England,' ii. 83 
 Joachim, Abbot, iii. 141, 142 
 Joan of Naples, i. 81, 195 
 John XXII., iii. 74 
 John XXIII., iii. 96 
 John of Austria, Don, ii. 77 
 Jonson, Ben, ii. 267, 268 
 Jourdain (the hangman of the 
 
 Glaciere), i. 72 
 Judith of Evreux, iii. 303
 
 INDEX 
 
 37-3 
 
 JULIA 
 
 Julia, daughter of Claudius, ii. 
 
 36 
 
 Julian, iii. 197 
 Julier, ii. 127, 128 
 Julius II., i. 221 ; ii. 74, 83, 220 ; 
 
 iii. 131 
 
 Jungfrau, the, i. 12 
 Justin Martyr, iii. 197, 219 
 Justinian, ii. 10, 12 
 Juvara, Aloisio, ii. 150 
 Juvenal, iii. 181, 199 
 
 KEATS, the poet, ii. 262, 263, 270, 
 
 273 
 
 Kelbite dynasty, iii. 292, 301 
 Killigrew, the dramatist, ii. 159 
 Klosters, i. 30, 46 
 
 LA CISA, the pass, ii. 132, 133 
 
 La Madonna di Tirano, i. 61, 62 
 
 La Magione, ii. 46-48 
 
 La Rosa, i. 59 
 
 La Spezzia, ii. 137-139, 143 
 
 La Staffa family, the, iii. 113 
 
 Lacca, iii. 236 
 
 Lamb, Charles, ii. 110 
 
 Lampridius, iii. 197 
 
 Landona, iii. 127 
 
 Lanini, i. 139-142, 162 
 
 Lanuvium, iii. 209 
 
 Lars Porsena, ii. 52, 93 
 
 Laschi, the, i. 329 
 
 Le Prese, i. 60 
 
 Leake, Colonel, iii. 325 
 
 Lecco, i. 183, 185, 186, 188 
 
 Legnano, ii. 198 
 
 Lenz, i. 65 
 
 Leo IX., iii. 300 
 
 Leo X., i. 221 ; ii. 75, 88, 246 ; 
 
 iii. 132 
 Leonardo. (See Vinci, Leonardo 
 
 da) 
 
 Leoncina, Monna Ippolita, ii. 308 
 Leopardi, Alessandro, i. 207, 326 ; 
 
 ii. 62 
 
 Lepanto, ii. 77, 93 
 Lepidus, ii. 27 
 Lerici, ii. 139, 142-145 
 Les Baux, i. 77-81 ; ii. 136 
 
 MACUGNAGA 
 
 Leucadia, iii. 364 
 
 Levezow, Von, iii. 211 
 
 Leyva, Anton de, i. 187 
 
 Lido, the, i. 280, 283-286 ; ii. 1 
 
 Liguria, the, i. 97 ; ii. 178, 283 
 
 Lilybceum, iii. 294 note 
 
 Lioni, Leone, i. 188 
 
 L'Isle, i. 72 
 
 Livorno, ii. 145, 214 
 
 Livy, iii. 94, 171 
 
 Lo Spagna, iii. 114 
 
 Lodi, i. 216 
 
 Lomazzo, i. 137 
 
 Lombardy, i. 19, 49, 61, 121, 122, 
 
 129, 133-172, 209 ; ii. 129, 132, 
 
 147, 165, 168, 182 
 Lorenzaccio, ii. 41 
 Lorenzetti, Ambrogio, iii. 8, 36, 
 
 43, 44 
 
 Lorenzo, Bernardo di, iii. 105 
 Loreto, ii. 97 
 
 Lothair, King of Italy, ii. 169 
 Louis XL, ii. 237 
 Louis of Anjou, i. 195 
 Lovere, i. 174 
 Loyela, Ignatius, iii. 61 
 Lucan (quoted), i. 92 
 Lucca, ii. 145, 168, 170, 203, 211, 
 
 214, 218, 286 ; iii. 4, 98 
 Lucca, Pauline, i. 224, 226, 227, 
 
 229, 233, 234, 237 
 Lucera, iii. 315 and note 
 Lucius III., iii. 312 
 Lucretius, iii. 157-183 
 Lugano, i. 125, 128, 156, 180 
 Lugano, Lake, i. 122, 125, 169, 
 
 185 
 
 Luigi, Pier, ii. 180 
 Luini, i. 141, 148, 153, 154, 155, 
 
 156, 157, 162, 164-166, 177, 
 
 178 ; iii. 184 
 Luna, Etruscan, ii. 131 
 Luziano of Lauranna, ii. 78 
 Lyly, John, ii. 268 
 Lysimeleia, iii. 327 
 
 MACEDONIA, iii. 323 
 Machiavelli, ii. 16, 41, 75, 117, 
 219, 220, 225, 231, 250 ; iii. 131 
 Macugnnga, i. 18, 20 ; iii. 282
 
 376 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GKEECE 
 
 Madrid, iii. 223 
 Magenta, i. 127 
 Maggiore, Lake, i. 124, 173 
 Magnanapoli, ii. 95, 96, 103 
 Magnani, Giuseppe, ii. 150 
 Magra, the, ii. 133, 134, 136, 238 
 Maitani, Lorenzo, iii. 142 
 Majano, Benedetto da, ii. 30 
 Malamocco, i. 257, 280, 281 
 Malaspina family, ii. 134, 136 
 Malaspina, Moroello, ii. 136 
 Malaterra, Godfrey, iii. 298 
 Malatesta family, ii. 15-17, 62, 
 
 66, 69, 71, 278 ; iii. 121 
 Malatesta, Gian Galeazzo, ii. 16 
 Malatesta, Giovanni, ii. 15 
 Malatesta, Sigismondo Pandolfo, 
 
 i. 135, 202, 203 ; ii. 14, 16-21, 
 
 72 ; iii. 7 
 
 Main, Duchess of, i. 149 
 Malghera, i. 339 
 Malipiero, Pasquale, i. 200 
 Maloja, i. 55, ii. 128, 129 ; the 
 
 Pass of, i. 53 
 Malpaga, i. 205, 206 
 Manente, M. Francesco, i. 329 
 Manfred, King, ii. 203 
 Manfredi, the, ii. 47 
 Manfredi, Astorre, i. 202 ; iii. 197 
 Manfredi, Taddeo, ii. 231 
 Maniaces, iii. 299, 301 
 Mansueti, i. 269 
 Mantegna, i. 176 ; ii. 100, 197 ; 
 
 iii. 180 
 
 Mantinea, iii. 207 
 Mantua, i. 340; ii. 68, 70, 74, 
 
 168, 185, 345 
 
 Mantua, Dukes of, i. 186, 243 
 Mantua, Marquis of, ii. 194-196, 
 
 199 
 Marcellinus, Ammianus, iii. 197, 
 
 205 
 
 Marcellus, iii. 186 
 March, the, ii. 16, 187 
 Marches of Ancona, ii. 199 
 Marecchia, the, ii. 14 
 Maremma, the, ii. 286 ; iii. 69, 103 
 Marenzio, iii. 37 
 Margaret of Austria, ii. 180 
 Maria, Galeazzo, i. 149 
 Maria, Gian, i. 149 
 
 Maria Louisa, Duchess of Parma, 
 
 ii. 149 
 Marianazzo, robber chieftain, ii. 
 
 88 
 
 Mariano family, the, i. 139 
 Marignano, i. 186 
 Marignano, Marquis of. (See 
 
 Medici, Gian Giacomo de') 
 Mark, S., ii. 19 
 Marlowe, Christopher, ii. 159, 181, 
 
 258, 267, 208 and note ; iii. 
 
 228 
 
 Maroggia, i. 175 
 Marseilles, i. 2 
 Marston, the dramatist, ii. 113, 
 
 267, 268 
 Martelli, Giovan Battista, i. 334, 
 
 335 
 
 Martelli, Luca, i. 340 
 Martial, i. 2 ; iii. 268 
 Martin V., iii. 95 
 Martinengo, i. 203 
 Martinengo family, i. 204 
 Martini, Biagio, ii. 149 
 Masaccio, i. 144, 145 
 Masolino da Panicale, i. 144, 145 ; 
 
 ii. 55 
 
 Mason (artist), ii. 32, 129 
 Massinger, Philip, ii. 267 
 Matarazzo, iii. 121, 122, 128, 130, 
 
 134 
 Matilda, Countess, ii. 165, 168, 
 
 170-173, 179 ; iii. 300 note 2 
 Matteo of Ajello, iii. 308 note, 
 
 311 
 
 Mauro, S., iii. 248 
 Mayenfeld, i. 65 
 Mazara, iii. 281 
 Mazzorbo, i. 282 
 Medici family, i. 187, 315-344 ; ii. 
 
 66, 90, 117, 187, 208, 209 foil., 
 
 245, 247, 278 
 Medici, Alessandro de', i. 315-327, 
 
 ii. 83, 248, 251, 255: Battista 
 
 de', i. 188 : Bernardo de', i. 
 
 180 : Bianca de', ii. 233 : Casa 
 
 de', i. 317: Catherine de', i. 
 
 316, ii. 76, 255 : Clarina de', 
 
 i. 182: Claudia de', ii. 77: 
 
 Cosimo de', i. 319, ii. 225 
 
 note, iii. 67, 247 : Cosimo (the
 
 INDEX 
 
 377 
 
 MEDITERRANEAN 
 
 younger) de', i. 326, 330, 340, j 
 ii. 255, 257 : Ferdinand de', j 
 (Cardinal), ii. 93 : Francesco di ! 
 Kaffaello de', i. 321, ii. 93, ! 
 104 : Gabrio de', i. 188 : Gian ! 
 Giacomo de' (II Medeghino), i. 
 179-188, iii. 67 : Giovanni de', 
 ii. 215, 216, 239, 244, 245, 246 
 (see also Leo X.) : Giovanni de ' 
 (general), ii. 249 : Giuliano, son 
 of Piero de', ii. 83, 226, 232, 
 233, 239, 318, 334: Giuliano 
 de' (Duke of Nemours), ii. 239, 
 244, 245, 247 : Giulio dei (see 
 Clement VII.) : Ippolito de', i. 
 316-319, ii. 83, 248, 251, 255 : 
 Isabella de', ii. 93, 104, 105 : 
 Lorenzino de', i. 315, 319-335, j 
 338, 341-344, ii. 83, 255 : 
 Lorenzo de' (the Magnificent), 
 ii. 67, 184, 185, 187, 216, 218, 
 226 foil., 305, 311, 325, 326, 330, 
 iii. 101 : Lorenzo de' (Duke of 
 Urbino) (see Urbino) : Maddalena 
 de', ii. 239 : Piero de', ii. 184, 
 191, 192, 226, 227, 238, 328, iii. 
 101 : Pietro de', iii. 247 : Sal- 
 vestro de', ii. 208 
 
 Mediterranean, the, i. 2 ; ii. 145 
 
 Melfi, iii. 300 
 
 Melo of Bari, iii. 299 
 
 Meloria, the, iii. 253 
 
 Menaggio, i. 181, 186, 188 
 
 Menander, iii. 72 
 
 Mendelssohn, i. 10 
 
 Mendrisio, i. 122, 175 
 
 Menoetes, iii. 319 
 
 Mentone, i. 83-93, 94, 98, 102, 
 103, 106 ; iii. 250 
 
 Menzoni, ii. 285 
 
 Mer de Glace, iii. 282 
 
 Meran, i. Ill 
 
 Mercatello, Gentile, ii. 70 
 
 Mesomedes, iii. 201 
 
 Messina, iii. 288, 292 and note, 301 
 
 Mestre, i. 339 
 
 Metaurus, or Metauro, the, ii. 38, 
 58 
 
 Mevania (Bevagna), ii. 38 
 
 Michelangelo. (See Buonarroti, 
 Michel Angelo) 
 
 Michelhorn, ii. 127 
 Michelozzi, Michelozzo, iii. 96 
 Middleton, Thomas, ii. 267 
 Mignucci, Francesco, ii. 90 
 Milan, i. 14, 19, 20, 50, 121, 124, 
 136, 152-161, 168, 178, 180, 184, 
 195, 203, 212, 213, 223 foil. ; ii. 
 
 185, 186, 190, 191, 224 ; iii. 151 
 note, 253, 348 
 
 Milan, Dukes of, i. 49, 149, 180, 
 
 186, 200 ; ii. 214 
 Millet, iii. 77 
 
 Milton, ii. 160, 258, 262, 263, 269, 
 274; iii. 25, 35, 37, 38, 158, 
 169, 342 
 
 Mino da Fiesole, ii. 81 
 
 Mirandola, Duchy of, i. 185 ; ii. 
 168 
 
 Mirandola, the Counts of, i. 202 
 
 Mirandola, Pico della, ii. 21 
 
 Mirano, i. 294 
 
 Miseno, iii. 238, 239, 242 
 
 Mnesicles, iii. 343 
 
 Mnestheus, iii. 319 
 
 Modena, i. 170, 172 ; ii. 168, 169, 
 221 
 
 Molsa, Francesco Maria, i. 326 
 
 Monaco, i. 92, 102 
 
 Moudello, iii. 294 
 
 Monreale, ii. 10 ; iii. 291,311-314 
 
 Mont Blanc, i. 14, 126, 134 : Cenis, 
 ii. 174 : Cervin, i. 169 : Chetif, 
 i. 14 : Finsteraarhorn, i. 169 : 
 GenSvre, ii. 193 : S. Michel, ii. 
 167 : de la Saxe, i. 14 : Solaro, 
 iii. 230 : Ventoux, ii. 22 
 
 Montalcino, iii. 76, 79, 92 
 
 Montalembert, iii. 249 
 
 Montalto, Cardinal, ii. 90, 91, 95, 
 98, 103 (see also Sixtus V.) 
 
 Montdragon, i. 68 
 
 Monte Adamello, i. 174, ii. 168 : 
 Amiata, iii. 42, 69, 76, 80, 90, 
 91, 93, 103, 104, 106, 108: 
 d'Asdrubale, ii. 66 : Aureo, iii. 
 253 : Calvo, ii. 55 : Carboniano, 
 ii. 168 : Cassino, iii. 248 : Catini, 
 iii. 4 : Catria, ii. 66, 68, 69, iii. 
 Ill : Cavallo, ii. 94 : Cetona, ii. 
 51, iii. 90, 91 : Coppiolo, ii. 64 : 
 Delle Celle, ii. 168 : di Disgrazia,
 
 378 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 MONTEFALCO 
 
 i. 64 : Epomeo, iii. 234, 236, 
 237-240, 241 : Fallonica, iii. 
 103, 110: Gargano, iii. 299: 
 Generoso, i. 121-132, 173 : 
 Leone, i. 174 : Nerone, ii. 66 : 
 Nuovo, iii. 242 : Oliveto, i. 166, 
 ii. 82, iii. 8, 69, 73, 74 foil., 
 151 note: d'Oro, i. 105, 111: 
 Pellegrino, ii. 176, iii. 294: 
 Bosa, i. 8, 18, 105, 125, 126, 129, 
 134, 169: Eosso, iii. 279: Eo- 
 tondo, i. Ill, ii. 33 : Salvadore, 
 i. 125, 128: Soracte, ii. 51: 
 Viso, i. 126, 134, 169, 174 
 
 Montefalco, ii. 35-37, 39, 45, 46 
 
 Montefeltro family, ii. 62, 64, 66, 
 69-72 
 
 Montefeltro, Federigo di, i. 207, 208 
 
 Montefeltro, Giovanna, ii. 73 
 
 Montelimart, i. 68 
 
 Montepulciano, ii. 50, 214 ; iii. 68, 
 69, 77, 87-102, 109, 110 
 
 Montferrat, Boniface, Marquis of, 
 i. 202 
 
 Monti della Sibilla, ii. 46 
 
 Monza, i. 199 
 
 Moors, the, i. 85, 94 ; iii. 296, 299, 
 301 
 
 Morbegno, i. 49, 51, 64, 186 
 
 Morea, the, ii. 18 ; iii. 339 
 
 Morris, William, ii. 271 
 
 Morteratsch, the, i. 56 
 
 Mozart, i. 223, 227, 229, 231-237, 
 249 ; ii. 153 
 
 Miihlen, ii. 128 
 
 Mulhausen, i. 1 
 
 Murano, i. 268, 282, 333 ; ii. 1 
 
 Murillo, ii. 153 
 
 Miirren, i. 9, 11, 14 
 
 Musset, De, i. 342 
 
 Mussulmans, iii. 290, 291, 294 
 note, 302, 305, 307, 316 
 
 NAPLES, ii. 185, 188, 189, 191, 193, 
 234, 282 ; iii. 221, 231, 239, 243, 
 253, 254, 256, 270, 276, 289, 317 
 note 
 
 Naples, Queens of, i. 79 
 
 Napoleon Buonaparte, i. 50, 106, 
 118, 119, 120 
 
 Narni, i. 86 ; ii. 34, 38 
 
 Nash, Thomas, ii. 265 
 
 Nassaus, the, i. 79 
 
 Navone, Signer Giulio, iii. 4 note 
 
 Naxos, iii. 288 
 
 Negro, Abbate de, iii. 78, 79 
 
 Nera, the, ii. 34, 37, 46 
 
 Nero, i. 135 ; iii. 156, 164 
 
 Neroni, Diotisalvi, ii. 226, 256 
 
 Niccolini, i. 342 
 
 Niccolc da Bari, S., iii. 238 
 
 Niccolo da Uzzano, ii. 215 
 
 Nice, i. 83, 106 ; iii. 250 
 
 Nicholas II. , iii. 300 
 
 Nicholas V., ii. 28, 187, 236 
 
 Nicholas the Pisan, iii. 260 
 
 Nicolosi, iii. 283 
 
 Nikias, iii. 288, 324, 326, 327 
 
 Nile, the, iii. 190, 201, 205 
 
 Niolo, i. 112, 115 
 
 Nisi, Messer Nicholo di, iii. 2, 3 
 
 Nismes, i. 74-77 
 
 Noel, Mr. Eoden, i. 10 
 
 Norcia, ii. 35, 46 ; iii. 92 
 
 Normans (in Sicily), iii. 290 foil. 
 
 Novara, i. 19, 124 
 
 OBERLAND valleys, i. 12 
 Oddantonio, Duke of Urbino, ii. 70 
 Oddi family, the, iii. 113, 119, 122, 
 
 134 
 
 Odoacer, ii. 2 
 Offamilio, iii. 311 
 Oglio, the, iii. 6 
 Olgiati, i. 341 
 
 Oliverotto da Fermo, ii. 47, 48 
 Ombrone, the, iii. 108 ; Val d'.iii. 
 
 90 
 
 Oortman, ii. 149 
 Orange, i. 68, 69 
 Orange, Prince of, i. 79, 316; ii. 
 
 253, 254 
 Orcagna, iii. 36 
 Orcia, the, iii. 104, 108 
 Ordelaffi, Cicco and Pino, i. 202 
 Origen, iii. 211, 219, 220 
 Orlando, ii. 42, 43 
 Ornani, the, i. 114 
 Orpheus, ii. 346-364 
 Orsini, the, ii. 47, 91, 157
 
 INDEX 
 
 379 
 
 OBSINI 
 
 Orsini, Alfonsina, ii. 239 : Cardi- 
 nal, ii. 47: Clarice, ii. 227: 
 Francesco, ii. 48 : Giustina, iii. 
 125 : Lodovico, ii. 99, 100, 101, 
 104, 105, 108 : Paolo, ii. 47, 48 : 
 Paolo Giordano (see Bracciano, 
 Duke of) : Troilo, i. 327 note, ii. 
 93 and note : Virginio (see Brac- 
 ciano, second Duke of) 
 
 Orta, i. 173 
 
 Ortler, the, i. 126 ; ii. 168 
 
 Ortygia, iii. 321, 326, 327 
 
 Orvieto, i. 86 ; ii. 51, 136, 362 ; 
 iii. 5, 82, 111, 137-154 
 
 Otho I., ii. 169 
 
 Otho III., ii. 15 
 
 Otranto, ii. 235 
 
 1 Ottimati,' the, ii. 242 foil., 251, 
 254, 255, 257 
 
 Overbeck, iii. 187 
 
 Ovid, ii. 338, 344 ; iii. 149, 268, 
 320, 341 note I 
 
 PADUA, i. 152, 197, 260 ; ii. 41, 98, 
 99, 101, 104, 168, 218, 221 ; iii. 6 
 
 Paestum, iii. 250, 259, 261-269 
 
 Paganello, Conte, ii. 102 
 
 Paglia, the, iii. 137 
 
 Painter, William, ii. 117, 265, 
 272 
 
 Palermo, ii. 10 ; iii. 252, 290-318 
 
 Palestrina, iii. 37 
 
 Palladio, i. 75, 256 ; ii. 29 
 
 Pallavicino, Matteo, ii. 91 
 
 Palma, i. 263, 269 
 
 Palmaria, ii. 142 
 
 Palmer, Richard, Bishop of Syra- 
 cuse, iii. 306 note 
 
 Pancrates, iii. 201, 204, 205 
 
 Panizzi, ii. 43 
 
 Panormus, iii. 291 
 
 Pantellaria, iii. 294 note 
 
 Paoli, General, i. Ill, 115 
 
 Paris, i. 20 
 
 Parker, , ii. 266 
 
 Parma, i. 163 ; ii. 131, 147-162, 
 168, 180, 184, 196 
 
 Parma, Duke of, ii. 70 
 
 Parmegiano, ii. 150, 158, 159 
 
 Parmenides, iii. 171, 173 
 
 PHILISTIS 
 
 Passerini, Silvio (Cardinal of Cor- 
 
 tona), ii. 251 
 Passerini da Cortona, Cardinal, i. 
 
 316 
 
 Passignano, ii. 48 
 Pasta, Dr., i. 123, 124 note 
 Patmore, Coventry, iii. 136 
 Patrizzi, Patrizio, iii. 72 
 Paul III., i. 318 ; ii. 88 ; iii. 120, 
 
 133 
 
 Pausanias, iii. 207 
 Pavia, i. 146-151, 158, 176, 184, 
 
 189, 198, 212, 351 ; ii. 182 
 Pavia, Cardinal of, ii. 75 
 Pazzi, Francesco, ii. 232, 233, 256, 
 
 335 
 
 Pazzi, Guglielmo, ii. 233 
 Peiraeus, iii. 357 
 Pelestrina, i. 258 
 Pelusium, iii. 189 
 Pembroke, Countess of, ii. 265 
 Penna, Jeronimo della, iii. 124 
 Pentelicus, i. 210 
 Pepin, ii. 2 
 
 Peretti family, ii. 90, 94 
 Peretti, Camilla, ii. 90, 98 
 Peretti, Francesco, ii. 90, 92 foil., 
 
 103 
 
 Pericles, iii. 343, 350 
 Persephone, iii. 290 
 Persius, iii. 165, 172 
 Perugia, i. 188, 214, 350 ; ii. 35, 
 
 38, 46, 52, 163 ; iii. 53, 68, 92, 
 
 111-136 
 Perugino, i. 149, 239 ; ii. 42, 57, 
 
 59, 159 ; iii. 114, 116, 117-119, 
 
 184 
 
 Perusia Augusta, ii. 45, 46 
 Peruzzi, i. 152 ; ii. 49 
 Pesaro, ii. 59, 69, 76 
 Pescara, Marquis of, i. 184 
 Petrarch, i. 72, 73, 74 and note, 86, 
 
 168 ; ii. 22, 261, 262, 269, 273, 
 
 280, 303, 332, 344,365-368; iii. 
 
 254-256, 308, 316 
 Petrucci, Pandolfo, ii. 47 ; iii. 82 
 Phtedrus, iii. 188, 351 
 Pheidias, i. 239, 246 ; iii. 155, 346, 
 
 349 
 
 Philippus, iii. 319 
 Philistis, Queen, iii. 337
 
 380 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IX ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 PHILOSTRATUS 
 
 Philostratus, ii. 293 
 Phlegramn plains, iii. 235, 239 
 Phoenicians, iii. 290, 291, 335 
 Piacenza, i. 142-144, 195, 340 ; ii. 
 
 180, 197 
 
 ' Piagnoni,' the, ii. 253, 254 
 Piccinino, Jacopo, ii. 234 
 Piccinino, Niccolo, i. 207 ; ii. 70 
 Piccolomini family, iii. 107 
 Piccoiomini, .(Eneas Sylvius, ii. 
 
 23 (see also Pius II.) 
 Piccolomini, Ambrogio, iii. 72, 
 
 74 
 
 Piedmont, i. 129 
 Pienza, iii. 77, 92, 102, 104-107 
 Piero della Francesca, ii. 72, 322 
 Piero Delle Vigne, iii. 316 
 Pietra Rubia, ii. 64 
 Pietra Santa, ii. 238 
 Pietro di Cardona, Don, i. 158 
 Pignatta, Captain, i. 319 
 Pindar, iii. 162, 215, 289, 332 
 Pinturicchio, Bernardo, ii. 42 ; iii. 
 
 62, 105, 114 
 Piranesi, i. 77 ; ii. 181 
 Pisa, i. 340 ; ii. 170, 203, 211, 214, 
 
 239, 244; iii. 145, 253, 304, 
 
 311 
 
 Pisani, the, ii. 30 ; iii. 71 
 Pisani, Vittore, i. 259 
 Pisano, Andrea, iii. 144 
 Pisano, Giovanni, iii. 112, 144 
 Pisano, Niccola, ii. 170 ; iii. 144, 
 
 146 
 
 Pisciadella, i. 60 
 Pistoja, ii. 281, 283, 287 
 Pitr6, Signer, ii. 281 note 
 Pitta, Luca, ii. 226, 256 
 Pitz d'Aela, ii. 127 
 Pitz Badin, ii. 130 
 Pitz Languard, i. 55 
 Pitz Palu, i. 56 
 Pius II., i. 202 ; ii. 18 ; iii. 62, 
 
 104, 105 
 
 Pius IV., i. 182, 188 
 Pius IX., iii. 196 
 Placidia, Galla, ii. 8, 11 
 Planta, i. 49 
 Plato, i. 249 ; iii. 337, 341, 351, 
 
 352, 353 
 Pletho, Gemisthus, ii. 19 and note 
 
 QUIEINI 
 
 Plinies, the, i. 177 
 
 Plutarch, iii. 199 
 
 Po, the, i. 50, 124, 134 ; ii. 1, 168 ; 
 
 iii. 94 
 
 Poggio. (See Bracciolini, Poggio) 
 Polenta, Francesca da, ii. 15 
 Politian, iii. 102 
 Poliziano, Angelo, ii. 233, 237, 273, 
 
 305, 306, 308, 309, 312, 314, 318, 
 
 322, 323, 324, 334, 335, 333, 340, 
 
 342-344, 345-364 ; iii. 101 
 Polyphemus, i. 91 
 Pompeii, iii. 232, 244 
 Pompey, iii. 189 
 Pontano, iii. 242, 243 note 
 Ponte, Da,i. 227, 236 
 i Pontremoli, i. 340; ii. 133, 183, 
 
 194 
 
 Pontresina, i. 49, 53, 55 
 Pope, Alexander, i. 6 ; ii. 273 ; iii. 
 
 172 
 
 Porcari, Stefano, ii. 236 
 Porcellio, ii. 18 
 Porlezza, i. 184 
 Portici, iii. 232 
 Porto d' Anzio, iii. 273 
 Porto Fino, ii. 142 
 Porto Venere, ii. 140-142 
 Portogallo, Cardinal di, iii. 98 
 Portus Classis, ii. 1, 8, 11, 12 
 Poschiavo, i. 49, 60 
 Poseidonia, iii. 261 foil. 
 Posilippo, iii. 231, 270, 309 
 Poussin (cited), i. 262 
 Poveglia, i. 257 
 
 Pozzuoli, iii. 232, 241, 242, 243 
 Prato, ii. 244, 245 
 Procida, iii. 238, 239, 242 
 Proniontogno, ii. 130 
 Provence, i. 68-82 
 Provence, Counts of, i. 79 
 Psyttaleia, iii. 358 
 Ptolemy, iii. 205 
 Puccini (Medicean) party, the, ii. 
 
 222 
 
 Pulci, ii. 269, 270 
 Pythagoras, ii. 24 
 
 QUATTKO CASTELLI, ii. 165, 171 
 Quirini, the, i. 331
 
 INDEX 
 
 381 
 
 RABELAIS 
 
 RABELAIS, iii. 161 
 
 Radicofani, iii. 69, 90, 91, 103, 106, 
 
 111 
 
 Ragatz, i. 65 
 Raimond, Count of Provence, iii. 
 
 305 
 
 Raimondi, Carlo, ii. 150 
 Rainulf, Count, iii. 299, 300 
 Raleigh, Sir Walter, ii. 264 
 Rametta, iii. 302 
 Rapallo, iii. 256 
 Raphael, i. 138-140, 149, 152, 239, 
 
 266 ; ii. 27, 37, 46, 56, 82, 83, 
 
 85, 126, 147, 152, 159 ; iii. 35, 
 
 114, 117, 123, 129, 141, 145, 146, 
 
 227, 228 
 Ravello, iii. 259 
 Ravenna, i. 160 ; ii. 1-13, 75, 244 ; 
 
 iii. 315 
 
 Raymond, iii. 52, 53 
 Recanati, ii. 63 
 Redi, iii. 95 
 Reggio d'Emilia, ii. 165, 167-169, 
 
 196; iii. 288 
 Regno, the, i. 196 
 Rembrandt, i. 345 ; ii. 156, 275 
 Rene of Anjou, King, i. 202 
 Reni, Guido, ii. 86 
 Rhaetia, i. 49 
 Rhaetikon, the, i. 29 
 Rhine, the, i. 2 
 Rhone, the, i. 70, 71, 76, 78 
 Riario, Girolamo, ii. 231, 232 
 Ricci, the, ii. 213 
 Ridolfi, Cardinal, i. 318 
 Ridolfi, Pietro, iii. 11 
 Rienzi, i. 70 
 Rieti, valley of, ii. 34 
 Rimini, i. 350, 353 ; ii. 14-31, 60, 70 
 Rimini, Francesca da, ii. 270 
 Riviera, the, i. 2, 97, 104 ; ii. 143 
 Riviera, mountains of, ii. 142 
 Robbia, Luca della, ii. 29 
 Robustelli, Jacopo, i. 61 
 Rocca d' Orcia, iii. 106, 108 
 Roccabruna, i. 83, 91, 92 
 Rodari, Bernardino, i. 175 
 Rodari, Jacopo, i. 175 
 Rodari, Tommaso, i. 175..176 
 Roger of Hauteville, iii. 295 and 
 
 note, 296 foil. 
 
 Roger (the younger) of Hauteville, 
 
 King of Sicily, iii. 252, 253, 293, 
 
 305, 307-311, 318 
 Rogers, Samuel, ii. 270 
 Roland, ii. 42, 43 
 Roma, Antonio da, i. 328, 329 
 Romagna, ii. 16, 73, 185, 187, 199 
 Romano, i. 197 
 Romano, Giulio, i. 243 
 Rome, i. 2, 49, 68, 75, 139 ; ii. 10, 
 
 32, 88, 89, 187, 259 ; iii. 22 foil., 
 
 85, 156, 323 
 Ronco, the, ii. 1, 10 
 Rossellino, Bernardo, iii. 62, 105, 
 
 106 
 Rossetti, Dante Gabriel, ii. 262, 
 
 263, 270 ; iii. 1, 3, 17 foil. 
 Rousseau, i. 5, 6 ; ii. 27 ; iii. 157 
 Rovere, Francesco della. (See Six- 
 
 tus IV.) 
 Rovere, Francesco Maria (Duke of 
 
 Urbino). (See Urbino) 
 Rovere, Giovanni della, ii. 73 
 Rovere, Livia della, ii. 77 
 Rovere, Vittoria della, ii. 78 
 Rubens, i. 345 
 Rubicon, the, ii. 14 
 Rucellai family, ii. 28 
 Rumano, i. 204 
 Rusca, Francesco, i. 177 
 Ruskin, Mr., i. 10, 125 
 Rydberg, Victor, iii. 224 note, 227 
 
 SABINE Mountains, ii. 32, 33, 39, 
 
 88 
 
 Sacchetti, iii. 12, 13, 16 
 Saiutre, Jehan de, iii. 13 
 Salamis, iii. 358, 362 
 Salerno, iii. 250, 262, 268, 299 
 Salimbeni, house of, iii. 7 
 Salimbeni, Niccolo de', iii. 3 
 Salis, Von, family, i. 50 
 Salis, Von, i. 49 
 Sal6, ii. 98 
 
 Salviati, Cardinal, i. 318 
 Salviati, Francesco (Archbishop of 
 
 Pisa), ii. 232, 233 
 Salviati (Governor of Cortona), ii. 
 
 50 
 Salviati, Madonna Lucrezia, i. 320
 
 382 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Salviati, Madonna Maria, i. 320 
 
 Samaden, i. 48, 53, 55 
 
 Samminiato, iii. 98 
 
 Sampiero, i. 112, 113-115 
 
 Sanazzaro, ii. 264 and note 1 
 
 S. Agnese, i. 85 
 
 S. Erasmo, i. 256, 283 
 
 S. Gilles, i. 81, 82 
 
 S. Pietro, i. 258 
 
 S. Spirito, i. 257 
 
 San Gemignano, iii. 3, 59 
 
 San Germano, iii. 246, 305 
 
 San Giacomo, i. 63 
 
 San Lazzaro, i. 280 
 
 San Leo, ii. 64 
 
 San Marino, ii. 60, 62-64 
 
 San Martino, i. 173 
 
 San Michele, i. 268 
 
 San Moritz, i. 55, 58 
 
 San Nicoletto, i. 283, 286 
 
 San Quirico, iii. 77, 92, 102, 107- 
 
 110 
 San Eemo, i. 87 note, 93-98, 105 ; 
 
 iii. 256 
 
 San Eocco, i. 265 
 San Bomolo, i. 98-100, 103 
 San Terenzio, ii. 143, 144 
 Sangarius, the, iii. 187 
 Sanseverino, Eoberto, i. 158 
 Sansovino, i. 337 note, ii. 17 note 
 Sant' Elisabetta, i. 283 
 Santa Agata, ii. 64, 90 
 Santa Lucia, iii. 232 
 Santa Maura, iii. 363 
 Santi, Giovanni, ii. 56, 59 
 Sappho, iii. 363 
 Saracens, iii. 252, 263, 594 note, 
 
 302 foil., 308, 321 
 Sardinia, ii. 189, 286 
 Saronno, i. 137, 156, 161-166 
 Sarto, Andrea del, i. 345 ; iii. 100 
 Sarzana, ii. 131, 134, 143, 183, 
 
 238 
 
 Sassella, i. 48, 62 
 Sasso Eancio, i. 173 
 Savonarola, i. 171 ; ii. 122, 193, 
 
 237, 238, 239-242 
 Scala, Can Grande della, iii. 6 
 Scaletta, pass of the, i. 49 
 Scaligers, the, iii. 318 
 Scalza, Ippolito, iii. 147 
 
 Scandiano, Count of, ii. 67 
 
 Scheffer, Ary, ii. 15 
 
 Scheggia, ii. 55 
 
 Schiahorn, the, i. 54 
 
 Schwartzhorn, the, i. 54 
 
 Schyn, ii. 127 
 
 Sciacca, iii. 281 
 
 Scolastica, S., iii. 73 
 
 Scott, Sir Walter, ii. 273 
 
 Sebastian, S., iii. 184, 185 
 
 Seehorn, the, i. 29 
 
 Seelisberg, i. 14 
 
 Segeste, iii. 291, 319, 335 
 
 Selinus, iii. 291, 333, 335, 337 
 
 Serafino, Fra, ii. 83 
 
 Serbelloni, Cecilia, i. 180 
 
 Sergestus, iii. 319 
 
 Serio, river, i. 204 
 
 Sermini, iii. 68 
 
 Sesia, the, i. 19 
 
 Sestri, i. 103 note ; iii. 250 
 
 Sforza family, the, i. 146, 155, 
 179, 184, 185, 197, 244 
 
 Sforza, Alessandro, i. 202, ii. 72 : 
 Battista, ii. 72 : Beatrice, i. 176 : 
 Cardinal Ascanio, ii. 91 : Fran- 
 cesco, i. 149, 181, 186, 198, 200, 
 203, 208, ii. 17 note, 71, 185, 
 224 : Galeazzo, ii. 236 : Gale- 
 azzo Maria, ii. 185, 230, 236, 
 iii. 117 : Giovanni Galeazzo, 
 ii. 185, 192: Ippolita, i. 155: 
 Lodovico, i. 149, ii. 185, 186, 
 191, 193, 194, 236, 238 : Polis- 
 sena, ii. 17 : Zenobia, iii. 124, 
 125, 128 
 
 Shakspere, ii. 258, 262,263,267, 
 268, 271-274, 277, 335 ; iii. 
 36, 37, 166, 280, 282 
 
 Shelley, i. 5, 10, 25, 26, 87, 166, 
 232 ; ii. 138, 140, 143-145, 
 270, 271, 273 ; iii. 172, 186 
 
 Shirley, the dramatist, ii. 159 
 
 Sicily, i. 103 note ; ii. 66, 189, 276, 
 281 note, 282; iii. 252, 279 
 foil., 286, 288, 290 foil., 319 foil. 
 
 Sidney, Sir Philip, ii. 263, 264, 266 
 
 Siena, i. 166, 187, 192 ; ii. 42, 185, 
 214, 281, 286 ; iii. 1, 7, 10, 12, 
 41-65, 66 foil., 92, 105 et passim 
 Sigifredo, ii. 168
 
 INDEX 
 
 3S3 
 
 SIOXOKELLI 
 
 Signorelli, i. 239 ; ii. 49, 362 ; iii. 
 
 35, 81, 82, 85, 145, 147-152, 
 
 154 
 
 Silarus, the, iii. 264 
 Silchester, i. 214 
 Silvaplana, ii. 128, 129 
 Silvretta, the, i. 31 
 Silz Maria, ii. 129 
 Simaetha, i. 140 
 Simeto, the, iii. 279, 304 
 Simon Magus, iii. 216 
 Simonetta, La Bella, ii. 318, 322, 
 
 335, 343 
 
 Simonides, iii. 167 
 Simplon, the, i. 19, 125 
 Sinigaglia, ii. 48 ; iii. 131 
 Sinnione, i. 173 
 Sixtus IV., i. 221; ii. 73, 231, 
 
 232, 234, 235 
 Sixtus V., ii. 90, 95, 98 
 Smyrna, iii. 212 
 Sobieski, Clementina, ii. 83 
 Socrates, iii. 155, 329, 351, 352, 
 
 353, 354 
 Soderini, Alessandro, i. 332. 334, 
 
 335, 338, 341 
 Soderini, Maria, i. 320 
 Soderini, Niccolo, ii. 226 
 Soderini, Paolo Antonio, ii. 192 
 Soderini, Piero, ii. 243-245 
 Sodoma, i. 141, 152, 165, 166; 
 
 iii. 63, 81, 82-84, 184 
 Sogliano, ii. 15 
 Solari, Andrea, i. 148 
 Solari, Cristoforo (II Gobbo), i. 
 
 149, 176 
 Solferino, i. 127 
 Solon, ii. 163 ; iii. 172, 341 
 Solza, i. 194 
 Sondrio, i. 49, 61, 63 
 Sophocles, ii. 160, 161 ; iii. 215, 
 
 287, 345 notes 1 and 2, 350 
 Sordello, i. 80 
 Sorgues river, i. 72 
 Sorrento, iii. 233, 250, 276-278 
 Sozzo, Messer, iii. 10, 11 
 Sparta, iii. 323 
 Spartian, iii. 192, 193, 197 
 Spartivento, iii. 288 
 Spello, ii. 35, 38, 39, 41-43, 45, 46 
 Spenser, Edmund, ii. 258, 262, 264 
 
 Spezzia, Bay of, ii. 135, 146 
 
 Spliigen, i. 64 
 
 Splugen, the, i. 50, 53, 64 ; valley 
 
 of, i. 184 
 
 Spolentino, hills of, iii. 92 
 Spoleto, ii. 35, 38, 45, 46, 170; 
 
 iii. Ill, 120 
 
 Sprecher von Bernegg, i. 49 
 Stabiaj, iii. 246 
 Staffa, Jeronimo della, iii. 125 
 Stelvio, the, i. 9, 50, 61 
 Stephen des Eotrous, Archbishop 
 
 of Palermo, iii. 306 note 1 
 Stimigliano, ii. 34 
 Strabo, iii. 206 
 Strozzi family, ii. 75 
 Ptrozzi, Filippo, i. 318, 321, 326, 
 
 344 
 Strozzi (Governor of Cortona), ii. 
 
 50 
 
 Strozzi, Palla degli, ii. 222 
 Strozzi, Pietro, i. 332 
 Strozzi, Kuberto, i. 331 
 Suardi, Bartolommeo, i. 154 
 Subasio, ii. 45 
 Suetonius, i. 134-136; iii. 164, 
 
 196, 199, 272, 274 
 Sufenas, iii. 209 
 Superga, the, i. 133, 134 
 Surrey, Earl of, ii. 261-263, 271 
 Susa, vale of, i. 134 
 Suss, i. 55 
 
 Swinburne, Mr., ii. 270, 273 
 Switzerland, i. 1-67, 105, 129 
 Sybaris, ancient Hellenic city of, 
 
 ii. 2 note ; iii. 261 
 Syracuse, i. 87 note ; iii. 262, 279, 
 
 288, 290, 291, 294 note, 304, 
 
 320-331 
 
 TACITUS, iii. 199 
 Tadema, Alma, i. 210 
 Tanagra, iii. 209 
 
 TancreddeHauteville.iii. 294, 295 
 Taormina, iii. 287, 288, 304 
 Tarentura, iii. 263 
 Tarentum, Prince of,.i. 79 
 Tarlati, Guido, iii. 74 
 Taro, the, i. 340 ; ii. 132, 183, 184, 
 195
 
 384 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GEEECE 
 
 Tarsus, iii. 212 
 
 Tasso, ii. 83, 264, 265, 267, 269, 
 
 273, 274, 280, 332, 337, 343 
 Tavignano, the, valley of, i. Ill 
 Tedaldo, Count of Eeggio and 
 
 Modena, ii. 169 
 Tennyson, Lord, i. 4 ; ii. 23, 270, 
 
 273, 296 ; iii. 173 
 Terlan, i. 63 
 Terni, ii. 34, 253 
 Terracina, i. 318 ; iii. 235 
 Tertullian, iii. 219 
 Theocritus, i. 84, 94 ; ii. 304, 330, 
 
 335, 337, 355 ; iii. 319 
 Theodoric the Ostrogoth, ii. 2, 10, 
 
 11, 13 
 
 Theognis, iii. 172 
 Thomas a Kempis (quoted), i. 98, 
 
 100 
 
 Thomas of Sarzana, ii. 28 
 Thrasymene, ii. 45, 46, 48 ; iii. 90, 
 
 91, 101, 111 
 Thucydides, iii. 321-324, 327, 
 
 328, 331 
 
 Thuillier, Prefect, i. 109 
 Tiber, the, ii. 33, 46 ; iii. 112 
 Tiberio d'Assisi, ii. 35 
 Tiberius, ii. 14 ; iii. 271-274 
 Ticino, the, i. 124, 211 
 Tieck, F., iii. 224 
 Timoleon, iii. 288, 290, 304, 319, 
 
 337 
 Tintoretto, i. 138, 236, 262-267, 
 
 269, 281; ii. 147, 156; iii. 158 
 Tinzenhorn, ii. 127 
 Tirano, i. 49-53, 61, 62 
 Titian, i. 337 note ; ii. 76, 83, 130, 
 
 153, 154 ; iii. 180, 247 
 Titus, iii. 190 
 Tivoli, i. 87 note; ii. 32; iii. 189, 
 
 198, 201, 210 
 Todi, iii. Ill 
 Tofana, i. 268, 283 
 Tolomei family, iii. 69 
 Tolomei, Cristoforo, iii. 70 
 Tolomei, Fulvia, iii. 70 
 Tolomei, Giovanni, iii. 8, 70 (see 
 
 also Bernardo) 
 Tolomei, Nino, iii. 8, 70 
 Tommaseo, ii. 283 
 Tommaso di Nello, iii. 11 
 
 Torcello, i. 171, 172, 282 ; ii. 1 
 
 Torre dell' Annunziata, iii. 232 
 
 Torre del Greco, iii. 232 
 
 Torrensi family, the, iii. 119 
 
 Toscanella, iii. 109 
 
 Toschi, Paolo, ii. 148-150 
 
 Totila, iii. 81 
 
 Tourneur, ii. 267 
 
 Trajan, ii. 14 ; iii. 188 
 
 Trani, iii. 311 
 
 Trapani, iii. 319 
 
 Trasimeno, ii. 50 
 
 Trastevere, ii. 96 
 
 Trebanio, ii. 19 
 
 Trelawny, ii. 144, 146 
 
 Tremazzi, Ambrogio, i. 327 note 
 
 Trento, i. 340 
 
 Trepievi, the, i. 184, 188 
 
 Trescorio, i. 204 
 
 Tresenda, i. 63 
 
 Trevi, ii. 35, 39, 46, 97 ; iii. Ill 
 
 Treviglio, i. 209 
 
 Treviso, iii. 6 
 
 Trezzo, i. 194 
 
 Trinacria, iii. 290 
 
 Trinci family, ii. 38, 41 
 
 Trinci, Corrado, ii. 40 
 
 Troina, iii. 302, 303 
 
 Tuldo, Nicola, iii. 53-55 
 
 Tunis, iii. 275 
 
 Turin, i. 134, 138, 348 
 
 Turner, J. M. W., iii. 138, 364 
 
 Tuscany, i. 187 ; ii. 45, 169, 234, 
 
 244, 276 foil. ; iii. 41 foil., 68, 
 
 104 
 Tuscany, Grand Duke of, ii. 99, 
 
 170, 256 
 Tyrol, the, i. 89 
 Tyrrhenian sea, the, ii. 183 
 
 UBALDO, S., ii. 54 
 
 Uberti, Fazio degli, iii. 10, 16 
 
 Udine, i. 351 
 
 Ugolini, Messer Baccio, ii. 362 
 
 Uguccione della Faggiuola, ii. 136 ; 
 
 iii. 4 
 
 Ulysses, iii. 288, 320 
 Umbria, i. 149 ; ii. 32-59 ; iii. 68, 
 
 119 note 1 
 Urban II., iii. 304
 
 INDEX 
 
 385 
 
 URBAN 
 
 Urban IV., ii. 177; iii. 141, 
 
 142 
 
 Urban V., i. 70 ; ii. 78 
 Urbino, i. 203; ii. 45, 58, 66-69, 
 
 74, 78-87, 185 
 
 Urbino, Counts of, ii. 15, 70 
 Urbino, Federigo, Duke of, i. 203, 
 
 207, 316, 317, 326 ; ii. 48, 66- 
 
 68, 70-73, 78-81, 231 
 Urbino, Prince Federigo-Ubaldo of, 
 
 ii. 77, 78 
 Urbino, Francesco Maria della 
 
 Eovere, Duke of, ii. 73-76, 85 
 Urbino, Francesco Maria II., Duke 
 
 of, ii. 76-78, 86 
 Urbino, Guidobaldo, Duke of, ii. 
 
 73, 74, 79, 80, 83, 84 
 Urbino, Guidobaldo II., Duke of, 
 
 ii. 76, 82 
 Urbino, Lorenzo de' Medici, Duke 
 
 of, ii. 75, 76, 247 
 
 VALDABNO, ii. 218 
 
 Valdelsa, iii. 69 
 
 Valentinian, iii. 191 
 
 Valentino, ii. 64 
 
 Valperga, Ardizzino, i. 158 
 
 Valsassina, the, i. 184 
 
 Valtelline, the, i. 35, 48-51, 53, 58, 
 
 61, 64, 180, 184, 186, 188 ; ii. 168 ; 
 
 iii. 94 
 
 Valturio, ii. 18 
 Varallo, i. 19, 136, 138, 164 
 Varani, the, ii. 47, 71 
 Varano, Giulia, ii. 76 
 Varano, Madonna Maria, ii. 85 
 Varano, Venanzio, ii. 85 
 Varchi, i. 320-322, 325, 326 ; iii. 
 
 45 note 
 
 Varenna, i. 173, 186 
 Varese, i. 144 ; Lake of, i. 124, 173, 
 
 174 
 Vasari, Giorgio, ii. 26, 28 ; iii. 83, 
 
 84, 145 
 
 Vasco de Gama, ii. 237 
 Vasto, Marquis del, i. 187 
 Vaucluse, i. 72-74 
 Velino, the, ii. 34, 46 
 Venice, i. 44, 167, 171, 200,201, 
 
 206, 254-315 ; ii. 1,2 and note, 
 
 III 
 
 16, 42, 102; iii. 253, 309, 317 
 note, et passim 
 Ventimiglia, i. 102 
 Vercelli, i. 136-142 ; ii. 173 ; iii. 
 
 82 
 
 Vergerio, Pier Paolo, i. 331 
 Verne, M. Jules, ii. 139 
 Vernet, Horace, i. 71 
 Verocchio, i. 193, 207 
 Verona, i. 212 ; ii. 168 ; iii. 6, 318 
 Verucchio, ii. 62 
 Vespasian, ii. 57 
 Vespasiano, Florentine bookseller, 
 
 ii. 80 
 Vesuvius, iii. 230, 232, 234, 235, 
 
 239, 242, 245, 276 
 Vettori, Paolo, ii. 245 
 Via Mala, the, ii. 57 
 Viareggio, ii. 145, 146 
 Vicenza, i. 75, 328-330 
 Vico,i. 109,112,115 
 Vico Soprano, ii. 129 
 Victor, Aurelius, iii. 193, 195 
 Vietri, iii. 250 
 Vignole, i. 283 
 Villa, i. 48, 62 
 Villafranca, i. 83 
 Villani, Giovanni, iii. 8 
 Villani, Matteo, ii. 208 ; iii. 8, 16 
 Villeneuve, i. 70 
 Villon, iii. 1 
 Vinci, Leonardo da, i. 139, 148, 
 
 154, 349 ; ii. 19, 21, 27, 50, 152, 
 
 156 ; iii. 82, 228, 238 
 Vinta, M. Francesco, i. 330 
 Vire, Val de, ii. 291 
 Virgil, i. 246 ; ii. 6, 63, 285, 304, 
 
 338, 343 ; iii. 75, 144, 155, 162, 
 
 172, 180, 181, 186, 215, 268, 309, 
 
 320 
 Visconti family, the, i. 146, 181, 
 
 195 ; ii. 16, 178, 185, 224, 278 ; 
 
 iii. 119, 253 
 
 Visconti, Astore, i, 181, 182 
 Visconti, Bianca Maria, i. 199 
 Visconti, Ermes, i. 157 
 Visconti, Filippo Maria, i. 195,197- 
 
 199 ; ii. 215, 224, 235 
 Visconti, Gian Galeazzo, i. 149, 
 
 152 ; ii. 213 
 Visconti, Gian Maria, ii. 236 
 
 CC
 
 386 SKETCHES AND STUDIES IN ITALY AND GREECE 
 
 Vitelli, the, ii. 41, 47, 71 
 
 Vitelli, Alessandro, ii. 250 
 
 Vitelli, Giulia, iii. 132 
 
 Vitelli, Vitellozzo, ii. 47, 48 
 
 Vitellius, iii. 164 
 
 Vittoli, the, i. 114, 115 
 
 Vivarini, i. 269 
 
 Voltaire, iii. 161 
 
 Volterra, ii. 163, 214, 231 ; iii. 66, 
 
 69, 79, 92, 103 
 Volterra, Bebo da, i. 328-330, 333- 
 
 341 
 
 Volterrano, Andrea, i. 336 
 Volturno, iii. 239 
 Volumnii, the, iii. 112 
 
 WALKEB, Frederick, ii. 129 ; iii. 76 
 Walter of Brienne. (See Athens, 
 
 Duke of) 
 Walter of the Mill, Archbishop of 
 
 Palermo, iii. 306 iwte, 308 
 Webster, the dramatist, i. 220 ; ii. 
 
 103-126, 267, 271, 277 
 Weisshorn, the, i. 54 
 
 Whitman, Walt, ii. 24 ; iii. 172 
 
 Wien, i. 45 
 
 Wiesen, i. 65 ; ii. 127 
 
 William of Apulia, iii. 298, 299, 
 
 305 
 William the Bad and William the 
 
 Good of Sicily, iii. 305, 306, 308, 
 
 311 
 
 Winckelman, iii. 188 
 Wolfgang, i. 30 
 Wolfswalk, the, i. 31 
 Wordsworth, i. 5, 6, 10, 11 ; ii. 262, 
 
 263, 273 ; iii. 172, 173 
 Wyatt, Sir Thomas, ii. 261, 262 
 
 XENOPHANES, iii. 171, 173, 353 
 Xiphilinus, iii. 192 
 
 ZAFFERANA, iii. 282, 283 
 Zante, iii. 363 
 Zeno, Carlo, i. 260 
 Zeus Olympius, iii. 290 
 Zizers, i. 65 
 
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 THE COMPLETE WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 Edited and Annotated by AUGUSTINE BIRRELL, Q-C., M.P., and FREDERIC G. 
 KENYON. In 2 vols. large crown 8vo. bound in cloth, gilt top, with a Portrait- 
 Frontispiece to each volume, 7^. 6d. per volume. 
 
 * 4 * An Edition has also been printed on Oxford India Paper. This can be obtained 
 only through booksellers, who will furnish particulars as to price, &c. 
 
 UNIFORM EDITION OF THE WORKS OF ROBERT 
 
 BROWNING. 17 vols. Small crown 8vo. lettered separately, or in set binding, 
 $s. each. 
 
 This Edition contains Three Portraits of Mr. Browning, at different periods of life, 
 and a few Illustrations. 
 
 O:F THE 
 
 i. PAULINE : and SORDELLO. 
 
 a. PARACELSUS : & STRAFFORD. 
 
 3 . PIPPA PASSES : KING VICTOR 
 
 AND KING CHARLES : THE 
 RETURN OF THE DRUSES : 
 and A SOUL'S TRAGEDY. With 
 a Portrait of Mr. Browning. 
 
 4 . A BLOT IN THE 'SCUTCHEON : 
 
 COLOMBE'S BIRTHDAY: and 
 MEN AND WOMEN. 
 
 5. DRAMATIC ROMANCES: and 
 
 CHRISTMAS EVE & EASTER 
 DAY. 
 
 6. DRAMATIC LYRICS: and LURIA. 
 
 7 . IN A BALCONY: and DRAMATIS 
 
 PERSONA. With a Portrait of 
 Mr. Browning. 
 
 8. THE RING AND THE BOOK. 
 
 Books i to 4. With 2 Illustra- 
 tions. 
 
 9. THE RING AND THE BOOK. 
 
 Books 5 to 8. 
 
 10. THE RING AND THE BOOK. 
 Books 9 to 12. With a Portrait of 
 Guido t'ranceschini. 
 
 11. BALAUSTION'S ADVENTURE: 
 
 PRINCE HOHENSTIEL- 
 SCHWANGAU, Saviourof Society: 
 and FIFINE AT THE FAIR. 
 
 12. RED COTTON NIGHTCAP 
 
 COUNTRY: and THE INN 
 ALBUM. 
 
 13. ARISTOPHANES' APOLOGY, in- 
 
 cluding a Transcript from Euri- 
 pides, being the Last Adventure of 
 Balaustion: and THE AGAMEM- 
 NON OF AESCHYLUS. 
 
 14. PACCHIAROTTO, and How he 
 
 Worked in Distemper ; with other 
 Poems : LA SAISIAZ : and THE 
 TWO POETS OF CROISIC. 
 
 15. DRAMATIC IDYLS, First Series: 
 
 DRAMATIC IDYLS, Second 
 Series : and JOCOSERIA. 
 
 16. FERISHTAH'S FANCIES: and 
 
 PARLEY1NGS WITH CER- 
 TAIN PEOPLE OF IMPORT- 
 ANCE IN THEIR DAY. With 
 a Portrait of Mr. Browning;. 
 
 17. ASOLANDO : Fancies and Facts; 
 
 and BIOGRAPHICAL AND HIS- 
 TORICAL NOTES TO THE 
 POEMS. 
 
 A SELECTION FROM THE POETICAL WORKS OF 
 
 ROBERT BROWNING. FIRST SERIES, crown 8vo. $s. 6d. SECOND SERIES, 
 crown 8vo. 3$. 6d. 
 
 POCKET VOLUME OF SELECTIONS FROM THE 
 
 POETICAL WORKS OF ROBERT BROWNING. Small fcp. 8vo. bound 
 in half-cloth, with cut or uncut edges, price ONE SHILLING. 
 
 THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF ROBERT BROWNING. 
 
 By MRS. SUTHERLAND ORR. With Portrait, and Steel Engraving of 
 Mr. Browning's Study in De Vere Gardens, Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 
 i2S. dd. 
 
 London: SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 Waterloo Place.
 
 
 University of California 
 
 SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 
 
 405 Hilgard Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90024-1388 
 
 Return this material to the library 
 
 from which it was borrowed. 
 
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