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Venturi, little of other than scientific or archaeological importance has been written about these places. It has not been considered worth while; and even the beautiful illustrations in Lear’s Journal of a Landscape Painter and the cult of Garibaldi have failed to attract a stream of travellers as far south as Calabria.

The vastness and sometimes ugUness of the districts to be traversed, the bareness and filth of the inns, the roughness of the natives, the torment of zanzare, the terror of earthquakes, the inseciirity of the roads, and the far more serious risk of malaria or of typhoid from the bad water, are natural causes which have hitherto kept strangers away from the south.

But every year these risks are being lessened, and som. Owing to rail and motor, everj’ year the splendid land between Rome and Naples is becoming far better known.

All the places near the Eternal City have been aheady fuUy described in Days near Rome, and the Italy of artists is to be found more amongst these moimtain districts than in any other part of the peninsula. The way in which the national character alters, as Naples is approached, may seem incredible to those who have not lived in Italy. Within fifty miles of Rome, where the people have not been demoralised by travellers and their luxuries as at AlbanoJ, cases of extortion or incivility are almost unknown, and the peasants are honest, fairly contented, and industrious.

Some of the truest of gentlemen in Italy are the Campanian shepherds. But after crossing the Pontine marshes or passing the Garighano into the former kingdom of Naples, the characteristics of the people are utterly changed, and all friendly confidence on the part of strangers except, perhaps, in the islands of Capri and Ischia would be misplaced.

The degree to which a Neapolitan of the lower orders can cheat is only equalled by the degree to which he is in the habit of lying ; while the ignorance of the people, and the extravagance of their superstitions, is such as can only be realised by long familiarity. The misgovernment of the Spanish viceroys and afterwards of the Bourbon princes accounts for much. There is possibly regret in Tuscany for the Grand Dukes : there are still some living who would restore the sovereignty of the Popes ; but, with the exception of a few members of the rather extensive nobility, there is no Italian who would wish to bring back the Bourbons to Naples.

Since , the old Neapolitan States have derived great advantage from the opening out of the country by railways, and in being freed from the thraldom of an ignorant and self-interested priesthood. But grinding misery and povertj’ are caused by the severe taxation, which absorbs nearly half the income of real property, while the corruption of the police and misprision of justice are still deplorable.

In 1, the Italian Minister of the Interior, Signor De Pretis, was com- pelled to issue a circular to all the prefects of the kingdom, calling their attention to the extraordinary number of arrests made by the police and not followed by a conviction, proving thereby that, on the average, innocent persons were daily imprisoned through caprice, abuse, or paltry pretext.

The effectual men depart ; the agriculture devolves upon the women : education is neglected ; and consequently juvenile crime flourishes on an extraordinary scale. The spirit of fun which possesses Neapolitans is irresistible. To enjoy while you can is the apparent ciim of every hour of Ufe — to laugh at Pulcinella and Bailardo, to dance the tarantella, to listen to improvisatore. Prolonged gravity to them is impossible.

They will be convulsed with laughter while they tell you they are starving, and the slightest joke will drive them from the excess of grief or anger into peals of merriment. Swin- burne narrates how some malefactors, left all night upon a gibbet, were characteristically found the next morning with hats and long periwigs on their heads, and pipes of tobacco in their mouths : and how, on the feast of a patron of a church, a paste- board PoUchinello was exhibited on the front of the edifice administering a clyster to Scaramouche Scaramuccia , and at a given signal the instrument took fire, and both apothecary and patient blew up in a volley of crackers.

Sa grossieret6 meme frappe I’imagination. La rive africaine qui borde la mer de 1 ‘autre cote se fait presque deja seatir, et il y a je ne sais quoi de Numidie dans les cris sauvages qu’on entend de toates parts. Oes visages bninis, ces vetements formes de quelques morcaux d’etoSe rouge ou violette, dont la couleur foncee attire les regards ; ces la.

Un certain gout pour la parure et les decorations se trouve souvent k Naples, a cote du manque absolu des cfaoses necessaires ou commodes. Les boutiques sont omees agreablement avec des fieurs et des fruits. Les tailleurs y font des habits, les traiteurs leurs repas ; et les occupations de la maison, se passant ainsi au dehors, multiplient le mouvement de mille m«uiieres.

For this the priest was chiefly responsible. Yet it must in justice be noticed that Naples has improved in this very matter more rapidly of late than has any other town in all Italy. The NeapoU- tans have outshone the Romans altogether in humanity, and they deserve exceptional praise for it. In this, an ambo, or two prize numbers, gives the fortunate speculator twenty times his money ; a terno, or three prize numbers, a hundred times his investment ; while a cinquina, or all the five prize numbers, is considered to make his fortune.

The lottery, and which numbers seem likely to turn out lucky, is the most serious occupation of the NeapoUtan intellect. Si I’argent s’introduisait chez les sauvages, les sauvages le demanderaient comme cela. The conversation of Neapolitans is more than half made up of gestures ; it is amusing, and it saves trouble. An outward wave of the hand, Adieu ; an inward, Come ; a downward, Stop. The thumb pointed backwards, Look ; to the lips, with a slight toss of the head, drinking ; passed across the forehead as though wiping away the perspiration, fatigue.

The index finger drawn across the mouth, anger ; across the clenched teeth, defiance ; rapping the closed fingers against the lips, eating ; passing the extended index and thumb in front of the mouth, hunger ; twisting the end of the moustache, isn’t it good to eat? The exuberance of Neapolitan gesture comes to its climax in the popular dance of the tarantella.

It is the old theme — ‘ the quarrels of lovers are the renewal of love. Petting, wooing, billing, cooing. Jealous accusation, sharp recrimination ; manly expostulation, shrewish aggravation ; angry threat, summary dismissal. Fuming on one side, pouting on the other. Reaction, approxi- mation, explanation, exoneration, reconciliation, osculation, winding up with a grand pas de circonstance, expressive of confidence re-established and joy unbounded.

The sights of Naples may be easily visited from Pozzuoli or Castellamare. Besides those at these places, tolerable inns may be found at S. A summer may be spent delightfully at Ischia, Capri, or Sorrento, and no one has a real knowledge of what Italy can be who has not enjoyed the open-air life of these lovely places — the flowers, the fire-flies, the bathing, and, above all, the nights, of which Chateaubriand said, ” Ce ne sont pas des t6nebres, mais seulement I’absence du jour.

Thencefonvards, the trains crawl Sicily-ward, through the ugly but sometimes very grand country, and loiter, without the shghtest apparent object, at small wayside stations, to which the ragged, cursing, begging population is freely admitted.

Luggage is often robbed in the transit, and the traveller will obtain no assistance in discovering his plunderer. Porters are rare, and, where they exist, are violent, and greedy. The dihgences are indescribably wretched, and sway like a boat in a rough sea over the half-formed roads. Carriages are difficult to procure, and bullock-carts are the usual means of transit. The inns are miserable, and sometimes are swarming with insects ; the beds are damp : the food is scanty, and except at Bari, Reggio and Cosenza, sanitary arrangements are unknown.

No words descriptive of wretchedness can portray the utter degradation of the peasantry in these southern provinces, or the way in which large famihes are huddled together, with their pigs and fowls, eternally unwashed, and covered with vermin, to which in time they become impervious, Uke the beasts them- selves, iluch of this misery is due to the immense size of the great farms latifundia , which are worked in gangs under an overseer, and to the absenteeism of the landlords, for the villeg- giatura of the noble Neapohtan famihes is hke the vie de Catn- pagne under Louis XV.

Their vast domains are managed by fattori or rented by mercanti di campagna, the sole intermediaries between the proprietors and the peasantry, of whom they used to be as much the cruel oppressors as were the slave-owners in South America. The artist who travels in Calabria should be provided with letters of introduction from Naples to the agents for some of the great houses.

There is comparatively little danger from brigands anywhere in Italy now, but there is a general transmitted feeling of insecurity in the south, and it is still the custom in Calabria for lonely country houses to be prepared for a state of siege, while no Italian gentleman ventures to go out unarmed and unattended, and, on returning to his country villa, is always met at the railway station by armed servants, with horses which fail not to have pistols on their holsters.

Witness the exaggerated sentiment of hero-worship evinced in the trial of Musolino in A pedestrian foreigner is still apt to feel, especially in Calabria, as if every man’s hand was against him, and, if he travels in desolate places, entertains though needlessly still as much dread of a stealthy pistol or stiletto, as of the fury of the sheep-dogs, from whom the fate of Actaeon seems constantly impending.

It does not do to run from these latter : the sight of a man picking up a stone is usually sufficient to keep them at bay. It is illustrative of the way in which the southern or agricul- tural provinces have always lagged behind the rest of Italy, that, even in Naples itself, the use of glass only became common in , about the same time that the popular Father Rocco first succeeded in getting the streets lighted after a certain fashion, by turning the devotion of the people to account, and persuading them to keep innumerable lamps before images of the saints in the public thoroughfares.

In Southern Italy all other religion is lost in the worship of the Madonna, but if the Calabrese do not get what they want, they will punish their Madonna by shutting her up in her shrine as if she were in prison ; they will deprive her of their accustomed offerings ; and tliey will expostulate with her as with a living person, or as Caligula did with Jupiter Capitohnus.

As ” divina mater,” the Madonna occupies the place once filled by Cybele, yet ” Madonnaccia fritta ” is only one of many undescribable terms of contempt and fury which it is common to hurl at a Madonna who is supposed to have misbehaved herself. The popular saints — Antonio, Nicola, Agata, or Rosaha — are also alternately extolled or reviled, adored or cursed, by the faithful, as if they belonged to the domestic circle, and in proportion as they are supposed to exert themselves for the benefit of their admirers.

These familiarities are seen at their full height on the festival of S. Gennaro, when the people fill the cathedral of Naples with groans at their favourite saint, and call him every abominable name they can think of if his blood delays to liquefy, but implore his forgiveness with tears, and shower the most endearing appellations upon him when the annual ” miracle ” is at length accomphshed. In the lower orders, people usually keep a regular account with heaven, by way of calculating how long their residence in purgatory is likely to be.

Very primitive are the habits of domestic life in the South, where almost everything is conducted in public or in the open air. She is nowise dismayed at the sohtude around her, or the distance from home, but, as in some of the Caucasian tribes, deUvers herself of her infant, which she folds up in her apron, and, after a little rest, carries back to her cottage.

It is a proverb much in use, ” Che una serva Calabrese piu ama far un figho che un bucato ” ; i. WTien a Neapolitan woman sneezes, all the bystanders wish her ” figlii maschi ” — sons. But if the wife of a small peasant proprietor gives birth to a daughter, it is the custom to plant at once a row of poplar- trees, which will be ready to cut down and produce her dowry seventeen years after.

It is funny to see NeapoUtan children cry ; they always go to the wall for it — to their ” waihng-place ” — perhaps, a relic of Saracenic rule. The old customs and even the old proverbs have been dying out rapidly in Naples, together with the old religion, and the old streets, since the change of government ; but the classical student will be interested to find how many customs and superstitions, which are mentioned by the Latin authors, still continue to survive. The few Church festas permitted are not what they used to be, and chiefly consist in days spent in idleness and firing of miniature cannon.

But Neapohtans, who love eating more than any other people, never forget that each festival has its appropriate dainty. As carpe diem is always the fashion, they will sell even their clothes ajid beds to buy the orthodox feast at Christmas, and they make susanielli and striiffoli of flour, oil, and honey, such as the Romans offered to Janus, and eat ” the cake of S. Martino,” because to that saint they pray for abundance. During the Carnival from came vale — farewell to flesh , all the extravagances of the national character are seen in fullest excess, throwing into greater solemnity Holy Week, when there is a general impression that no one ought to enjoy themselves at all, especially on Good Friday.

Under the Bour- bons, no horse or carriage whatever was allowed in the streets of Naples from 12 on Holy Thursday to 10 a. But, in the Neapolitan States, a certain solemnity used actually to pervade every Friday — ” Allegrezza di venerdi, pianto di domenica,” was a well-known proverb.

At Easter, all servants give colnri — painted eggs — to their masters. At La Majuna May i doors and windows are decorated with green boughs, arboscelli di maggio, or garlands, banderuole, of flowers. Luca October 18 it is an absolute necessity to eat coccia — wheat boiled with chestnuts and milk.

The popular dishes themselves are still often those of classical times. The small figs introduced by L. Vitellius, uncle of the emperor, are still dried in the old fashion, and called cottate. Of South Italian superstitions the most prominent is that of the Jettatura, or Evil Eye, which has been handed down from classical times. Thus Virgil says : ” Nescio quis teneros oculus mihi fascinat agnos ” ; Eclog. Children wear bits of rock-salt round their necks, and women a httle silver frog, with the same intention.

Some burn incense mixed with the palms blessed at Easter ; the use of the palm in averting danger being mentioned by Pliny. But the most popular antidote is a little coral hand with one finger stretched out — the hand of S.

Gennaro — with which the shops of Naples abound. These charms are especially in request whenever Vesuvius is in a state of eruption. If the case is alarming, half the population may be seen kneeling in the streets ; processions of clergy and monks carry the Blessed Sacrament, or even the relics of S.

Gennaro himself, to the scene of danger ; the air resounds with litanies ; never was there a people in such an agonised state of repentance for their sins, but immediately the danger is over, all are laughing, singing, dancing, quarrelling, gambling, cursing, fighting, as before, or, further, are rushing to the lotteries in order to secure lucky numbers.

Gennaro and oppose its miraculous influence to the threats of the blazing volcano ; this would undoubtedly have ended in a very serious sedition if Father Rocco had not slept forth, and, after reproaching them bitterly with the affront they were about to put upon the saint by attending his relics with torches taken from mercenary hands, ordered them all to go home and provide themselves with wax tapers ; the crowd dispersed, and proper measures were taken to prevent its gathering again.

The treatment of the dead shows the character of this idolatrous and self-seeking people in its saddest aspect. When the funeral of a friend passes, a Neapolitan will exclaim with characteristic selfishness, “Salute a noi ” — “Health to ourselves” — without thought of the departed. Most of the middle classes belong, as in ancient times, to a congregazione or buricd-club. Amongst the poor, when any member of a family has expired, it is the custom for the oldest person present to recapitulate the virtues of the dead.

Then, if there is a widow, she repeats the words. All the duties of the family, however, end at the house, and heccamorti , or hired mourners, carry the corpse to the ” pauper pits ” of the Campo Santo Vecchio, to be hurled into the common ” grave of the day ” : sometimes it is accom- panied by a number of old women, paid to howl as mourners — the praeficae of the ancients.

At the burial of an Archbishop of Naples four hundred friars attended with wax lights, but some thieves let loose a mad ox among them and in the confusion ran away with the candles.

Fields are still covered with cerintha and lupin — the “tristis lupinus ” — and the peasants stiU, in cloudy weather, tell the hour by the position of this flower, which, like the sunflower, turns, as PUny describes, with the sun. The wood of the plough is still elm — ” Et corvi fonnam accepit nlmos aratri ” ; Georg. L The artist will find few subjects attractive to his pencil, which are not architectural, after leaving Amalfi and Paestum ; but RocceUa, Scilla, and the forests of Pietra Pennata are exceptions.

To the historian and antiquarian a tour through the Southern Provinces must always be of extreme interest. A journey undertaken with a camera for the sole purpose of tracing the gradual victory of Benedictine Lombardic over Byzantine art in Apulia, would bring rich reward. Whether considered in dimensions, outline, or constructive peculiarities, their churches will not bear a moment’s comparison with those of the north ; but in elegance of detail they often surpass purely Gothic build- ing to such a degree as to become to some extent as worthy of study as their more ambitious rivals.

Their great interest in the eyes of the student consists in their forming a link between the Eastern and Western worlds, and thus joining together two styles which we have hitherto been in the habit of considering as having no point of contact. The Greek iconoclastic feeling prevailed to such an extent in the south as entirely to prevent the introduction of the human form, either in bas-reliefs or in single figures ; but the architects indemnified themselves for this by the introduction of lions, elephants, and monsters of all sorts, to an extent foimd nowhere else, and by the lavish employment of sculptured foliage and richly carved frets and mouldings and a bold system of bracketing, which gave to the style as much richness as can be desired, often combined into great beauty of detail.

Angelo ; of noble castles at Avezzano, Naples, Melfi, Lucera, Lago Pesole, Castel del Monte, and Oria ; of countless exquisitely beautiful tombs, pulpits, thrones, paschal candelabra, and other works of sculpture at Aquila, Salerno, Ravello, and in the churches of Naples. Besides these, the great palace of Caserta will claim attention from the architect, being almost the only modern building of importance in Southern Italy, though, while the Bourbon sovereigns took little trouble for the advancement of their kingdom, their care for their own comfort is evinced by the number of palaces built by them.

No kingdom of the size had so many royal residences. Sommer, of Naples, and Signer R. Moscioni, of Rome, for permission to use certain of their photographs for the illustration of this work.

Frosinone Albergo Garibaldi , inhabitants. A beautifu place ft. It is two miles from the station on the Rome-Naples Une, and seven south of Feren tino. It looks over the vale of the Sacco and across to the Monti Lepini and the Hemican mountains. It belonged to the redoubtable Volsci, whom the Romans deprived here of a portion of their territory for inciting the Hemicans to rebel. It became a miUtary colony, and suffered at the hands alternately of BeUsarius and Vitiges, but prospered in the Middle Ages until, in , the French sacked and burned it.

A few relics of a Roman amphitheatre alone witness to its antiquity. Its interest Ues in its beauty of position, its fertihty, and the charming costume of its women. From here the road due north travels to Alatri see Days near Rome , and thence, via Collepardo, to the beautiful Certosa di Trisulti. On the north side are to be seen remains of polygonal walls and the ancient acropolis. One tower of the mediaeval castle remains. From the highest point, called Civita, is obtained a superb panoramic view over the valleys of the Sacco and Cosa.

The breviary of S. Louis of Toulouse, brother of King Robert of Naples, is among the treasures shown by the sacristan. Saloma is the tomb of Francesca Leni, of Arpino, and there is a majolica -tiled pavement.

Excursions to the Abbey of Casamari four hours ; Bauco two hours. About a mile from the village of CoUepardo by a path which turns left before enter- ing it is the strange hole called II Pozzo di Santulla, a pit in the rock recalling the Latomiae of Syracuse, about yards round and feet deep, hung with vast stalactites, and fringed at the top with weird ilex guide, 5 lire. The Pozzo, says tradi- tion, was once a vast threshing-floor, on which the people im- piously threshed corn upon the fcsta of the Assumption, when the outraged Madonna caused it to sink into the earth, with all who were upon it, and it remains to this day a memorial of her wrath.

Beyond Santulla the majestic character of the scenery increases. The path winds round a chaos of great rocks, and descends into a deep gorge, whence it mounts again to the final isolated plateau of Trisulti, close under the snows, and overlooking a splendid ravine.

Here is a wood of old oaks carpeted with lilies, and beyond it Alpine pastures, sheeted in spring with mountain crocus and iris. Only the booming of a bell through these solemn mountain solitudes tells the traveller that he is near the monastery, until he is close upon it, and then a mass of white buildings, overtopped by a church, reveals itself on the edge of a great rocky platform.

The interior of the monastery is modernised, but its well-kept courts, garden, and curious fountains, have a beauty of their own, in the Carthusian fashion. Moreover, the magnificent bald ridges look down into them over the roofs. AU seems peaceful with these silent white brethren! The church, built in by Innccent HI. It is lined with precious marbles. In the sacristy is a good picture by the Cavalier e d’Arpino, and on either side of the church are two large pictures by the modern artist Balbi of Alatri, one representing Moses striking the rock, the other the same miracle as performed by S.

Over the high altar is a fresco of the sending out the first Carthusian monks to colonise Trisulti. The terrace beyond the little garden, with its formal box-edges, leads to the spezerla, decorated by Balbi, where many herbal medicines, and excellent liqueurs and perfumes are made by the monks.

The country people come hither from a great distance to receive gratuitous medicine and advice, and in all respects the monks are considered the best friends and helpers of the poor of the neighbouring villages in sickness or trouble. May and June are good months for visiting it. A little path turning to the left outside the gateway of Trisulti gives the best view of the monastic buildings, and continues through the forest to the Gothic chapel and cell of S.

Domenico Loricato, who first collected a number of hermits around him on this spot, and built a chapel which he dedicated to S. Bartholo- mew. A stony path winds by zigzags into the abyss of the Cosa. Here the scenery is magnificent : the gorge is very narrow, only wide enough to contain the stream and the path by its side, and on the left rises a tremendous precipice, in the face of which yawns the cavern.

It is best to take the precau- tion of ordering what is called an “illumination” on the way to Trisulti, and one costing five Ure is the best to ask for, as producing the degree of light which is enough to show, but not to annihilate, the effect of darkness. Attended by a troop of boys, we descend into the earth by a wide path Uke a hillside, and then ascend by a narrower rocky way through the darkness, lighted by glaring torches.

Suddenly we find ourselves on the edge of a chasm, something Uke the Pozzo di Santulla, with a kind of rock-altar rising in the midst, blazing with fire, and throwing a ghastly glare on the wondering faces overlooking the edge of the abyss, and on the sides of the tremendous columns of stalactite which rise from the ground to the roof Uke a vast natural cathedral, and seem to faU again in showers of petrified fountains.

Sir R. Hoare says that ” the large vaulted roof, spacious halls, fantastic columns and pyramids, imitating rustic, yet unequaUed, architecture, present a fairy palace which rivals the most gorgeous descriptions of romance. Casamari, almost washed by the Amaseno, which is crossed by a ferry iraghelto , now a Trappist abbey, was originally Bene- dictine, and in 1 1 5 1 Cistercian.

It more resembles a fortress than a convent, and is a national monument Uke Monte Cassino. The foundation-stone of its Gothic church was laid in The entramce through a round-arched central portal, carried on six lateral shafts, leads into nave and aisles of six bays, with side altars. The west front has a good rose-window between two lancets. At the fifth pair of piers a screen of wrought iron separates the monastic portions of the church from the lay.

The floor is decorated with tiles bearing the Barberini bees. The soft cream-Uke tone of the travertine, with which it is built, is remarkably fresh. The choir contains a ” tribuna ” made after the manner of a small temple in the Corinihian style, and of fine marble. The transepts have eastern chapels. The Cloister, surrounded by Lombard arcades carried on coupled columns of varjing design, is entered from the proces- sional door of the south aisle, and the usual Cistercian arrange- ment of the domestic buildings ensues.

The chapter-house, infirmary, and dormitories are shown by the courtesy of the Prior. The site is supposed to be identifiable with Cereatae, which claims equally with Arpino to be the birthplace of Caius Marius.

The long row of store-sheds before the piazza of the monastery serves for shops during the fair held here on the feast of S. From Casamari can be reached Monte S. CinelU , inhabitants ; said to have originated in the refugees from Cereatae, and formerly a fief of the Marchese di Pescara. The Piazza, ” II Belvedere,” on tliree sides commands magnificent prospects. To the north-west rises with two of its towers the Rocca Ducale.

The chapel was formerly the prison, where S. Thomas Aquinas was confined by order of his mother and brothers in order to prevent his adopting the ecclesiastical career, and from it he escaped to Monte Cassino. Maria della Valle is said to be constructed after a design by Bramante. It contains a good wooden statue of the Virgin sixteenth century. Monte Pedicino can be visited in four hours. Ceccano, ft. Locanda Anelli , inhabitants, on the side of a hill overlooking a deep glen and the valley of the Sacco.

The upper town was girdled with walls by Pope Silverius. The newer town below is much resorted to by visitors in the hot season. Woollen and paper factories are the chief sources of in- dustry. On the left of the Sacco, two miles south of Ceccano, is the site of Fabrateria Vetus, a Volscian city made into a Roman colonia. In ancient days the Sacco bore the name of Trerus. Amaseno, a fief of Colonna, with a castle, can be visited from here. Ceprano buffet at the station , inhabitants, on the right bank of the Liris.

The town is three kilometres from the line. Paschal II. Here, fifty years later, Manfred was betrayed by his troops cf. Dante, Inferno, Cto. Near it, on high ground, was situated the Oscan Fregellae, destroyed b.

It arose again under the name of Vic us Cipri. Fondi, on the Via Appia, may be reached from Terracina, or from Ceprano by a very beautiful mountain road descending near Lenola. It is a picturesque walled town in the province of Caserta, and but eleven miles from Terracina, overlooking the Lago di Fondi and the Gulf of Terracina. It was a municipium in B. The castle of the Caetani, with many towers, and flamboyant windows, adjoins the cathe- dral. The latter has a fine portal with the usual lions and a fifteenth-century tomb of Onorato Caetani, Lord of Fondi.

The episcopal throne is of the thirteenth century, and decorated with mosaic Cosmatesque. Prignano in , a fact especially annoying to the latter, who was a Neapolitan. Maxia contains a Cosmatesque pulpit and a Madonna by Silvestro dei Buoni, Her servants were mercilessly massacred, but she escaped in her night-dress from a window, and took refuge in the mountains. The Turks again sacked Fondi in The famous Caecuban vine Horace, Ode i.

Sperlonga is a fishing village, finely situated on a head- land, and a resort of the ancient Romans. Suetonius and Tacitus tell how Sejanus, the powerful, but iU-fated, Chancellor of Tiberius, saved his master’s life, when, at a banquet given in one of the decorated caves here, large stones fell from the vault and buried some of the suite as well as Sejanus, who hurled his body and arms over Tiberius, so as to shelter him.

The guard excavated both, and Tiberius journeyed on to Capua in order to dedicate a temple there. The Grotta di Tiberio is shown a kilometre beyond the village south. Leaving Fondi by the Via Appia south-east the road mounts gradually amid beautiful wild scenen.

Andrea, by a pass to Itri ft. The Inn of Terracina, has perpetuated the interest in him. The French pursued Pezza remorselessly, and having driven him to Sicily, and offered large rewards for his capture, he was discovered to them at Baronisi, near Palermo, in , and shot.

In earlier days Alarco Sciarra, a robber baron, promised Tasso a safe conduct through the region. Alter leaving Itri the road winds down to Formia, H. Formia is so exquisitely situated that Ischia and most of the promontories of the Bay of Naples can be surveyed from it.

The Villa Caposele a. His Queen, Maria of Bavaria, heroically held it for four months in until the Sardinian fleet, on February 23, received the surrender. Hither, in November , Pius IX. From the Piazza a path leads to the summit of the promontorj’, which is crowned by the Torre d’ Orlando, being actually the tomb of Lucius Munatius Plancus, the founder of Lugdunum Lyons in the reign of Augustus.

In the town surrendered to a Spanish fleet under Gonsalvo da Cordova, and in it held out for six months against Massena. The Duomo, S. Erasmo, has a thirteenth-century tower, and behind its high altar is preserved a banner presented by Pius V. Peter and Paul. In front, rising from four lions, stands a sculptured Gothic column. The railway from Formia passes to Sparanise on the Naples- Rome route, near the coast. Minturno ft.

The town occupied both banks of the river and was made a colonia by Cajsar. Here Gonsalvo da Cordova gained his final triumph over the French Decem- ber 27, Near S.

Agata the road passes in sight of Sessa Aurunca ft. The Duomo twelfth century contains a remarkable ambone pulpit , and paschal candelabra. Beyond, on the right, rises Monte Massico ft. Close behind it stand the polygonal walls of the ancient ” quiet country town ” of Juvenal Albergo di Liris, Roma. In modem days the learned Cardinal Baronius i was born here.

It gives a ducal title to the Buoncompagni family. It is a prosperous place and admirably situated for excursions ; but it is more attractive for the costume and beauty of its women. Italian costume reaches its climax here ; and the festival of S.

Restituta May 27 affords the best occasion for studying it. At Isola, ft. Albergo Meglio , on the road to Arpino, occur the beautiful Falls of the Liris. The cascade tumbles in a mass of water, encircled by smaller streams, from beneath an old castle, almost into the midst of the town. The colour is glorious, and the iris more vivid than at Temi. Between it and Sora, on an island Insula Arpinas in the Fibreno, and close to its junction with the Liris, stands the convent of S.

This island belonged first to Cicero, and then to SiUus Italicus. Through the trees overhanging the waters are exquisite mountain-views ; and among the vegetation lie fragments and capitals of columns. The Roman bridge across the Liris, Ponte di Cicerone, remains. Arpino, ft. Albergo della Pace , the birthplace of Cicero, bears for its municipal banner the letters M. He constantly alludes to his native town and describes the people there as rustic and simple, and with all the virtues of rugged mountaineers.

It stands upon two hills ; one summit, the higher one, called Civita- Vecchia, occupies the ancient site of Volscian Arpinum, and retains its polygonal walls. The inscriptions let into the walls of various buildings tell of the ancient industry of woollen manu- facture and dyeing.

Mercurius Lanarius had a temple here supposed to have occupied the site of the Church of Sta. Maria di Civita. The ancient pavement hard by witnesses to the wheels of primitive waggons. The round towers along the walls are of the fifteenth century. The large square tower in the citadel was occupied by Ladislaus, King of Naples, on his way to Rome, Arce, below the old castle of Rocca d’Arce, commands wonderful views.

It occupies the site of Arx Volsciorum, with polygonal walls and other remains. Atina, on the road from Sora to Cassino, is a mediaeval hill- town.

Near it, on another point of the mountain, are the polygonal remains of its Volscian predecessor, reputed to have been founded by Saturn : ” Atina potens,” and it is mentioned as a snowy spot by Silius Italicus : ” Monte nivoso I,.

Elia, is never to be forgotten. The village of Rocca Secca, three miles from the line, is not inviting, and sits on its bare flank of mountain, with little visible means of subsistence. Above it are the ruins of the castle in which Thomas Aquinas it is said by some saw the light.

A few miles further we reach Aquino, ft. Strabo speaks of it as chief among the Volscian cities. Dolabella was put to death here. The town was de- stroyed by the Lombards, whereupon the inhabitants took refuge at Castro Cielo, on the top of the mountain. Thence after a tims they descended to Palazzuolo, where their descendants probably exist stiU.

The circuit of ancient Aquinum is now filled with vineyards and gardens, amid which gigantic fragments of ruin appear at intervals. The desolate suburban Church of S. Maria Libera is approached by an immense flight of marble steps, once the approach to a temple.

The walls are encrusted with fragments of ancient carving. Glorious friezes of acanthus in the highest relief surround the great door. A mosaic of the twelfth century represents the Virgin and Child, and below, on either side, is a sarcophagus, with a female head projecting from it, one in- scribed ” Ottolina,” the other ” Maria.

Thomas Aquinas. The interior of the church was curious, having six pillars on one side of the nave and only three on the other ; since ignorant mania for uniformity has destroyed its interest. Close to the church is a beautiful httle Triumphal Arch, with Corinthian columns. A mill-stream has been diverted through it, and it stands reflected in the clear water, which falls below it in a series of miniature cascades. Passing a succession of Roman fragments, we reach the ruined Church of S. Tommaso, in which are several beautiful fragments of frieze from local temples.

Lorenzo, a Roman gateway in perfect preservation, by which we enter the circuit of the ancient city, passing through the still existing hne of old walls. Farther down the Via Latina is a succession of buildings in ruins — a theatre ; some colossal blocks, shown as having belonged to a temple of Diana, and now called S.

Maria Madda- lena ; and a huge mass of wall, beheved to have belonged to a temple of Ceres, afterwards converted into the beisihca of S. Pietro Vetere. AH the ruins are embedded in vineyards and gardens. Returning through the Arco S. Lorenzo, and follow- ing the little stream in the valley, we find a strange old church supported upon open arches, through which there occur most picturesque views of the present town, scrambling along the edge of tufa rocks, crested and overhung by fig-trees.

The mediasval city, which arose under the powerful Counts of Aquino, is the oldest bishopric in the Roman Church. Its bishops sign ecclesiastical documents immediately after the archbishops, and the whole cathedral chapter of Aquino have stiU the right to wear mitres and full episcopal robes. His grandfather married the sister of the Emperor Frederick L, and he was therefore great-nephew of that prince.

It has been the custom to say he was born at Rocca Secca, which, however, was never more than a mere ” fortezza ” of the Counts of Aquino, but never used by them as a residence ; and all uncertainty has been cleared up by the recent discovery of a letter of the saint in the archives of Monte Cassino, sajdng that he was coming to seek the blessing of the Abbot Bernard before setting out upon a journey, and that he intended to visit his birthplace at Aquino on the way.

Here the youngest sister of S. Thomas was killed by a flash of lightning, while sleeping in the room with him and her nurse. At five j’ears S. Thomas was sent to school at Monte Cassino, but at twelve his masters declared themselves unable to teach him any more.

Domenico at Naples. His mother, the Countess Teodora, tried to prevent his taking the final vows, and he fled from her toward Paris. Here his mother met him, and finding her entreaties vain, shut him up, and allowed him to see no one but his two sisters, whose exhortations she hoped would bend him to her will. On the contrary, he converted his sisters, and, after two years’ imprisonment, one of them let him down from a window, and he was received by some Dominicans, and pro- nounced the final vows.

Gradually S. Thomas became the greatest theological teacher and writer of his time. When he refused a bishopric, the Pope made him always attend his person, and thus his lectures were given in the different towns of papal residence — Rome, Viterbo, Orvieto, Fondi, and Perugia.

The crowning work of S. Thomas was the Summa Theologia — the science of the Christian religion ; but to ordinary readers he is perhaps less known by his theology than by his hymns, of which ” Pange Lingua” and ” Tantum Ergo ” are the most celebrated.

Near Aquino is the mountain castle of Loreto, which belonged to the parents of S. It is surrounded by a portico of fluted [Pg 48] columns, and in the area around it are two altars, and many ceppi for statues; and a little chapel of white stucco, as hard as stone, of the most exquisite proportion; its panels are adorned with figures in bas-relief, slightly indicated, but of a workmanship the most delicate and perfect that can be conceived.

They are Egyptian subjects, executed by a Greek artist, who has harmonized all the unnatural extravagances of the original conception into the supernatural loveliness of his country’s genius. They scarcely touch the ground with their feet, and their wind-uplifted robes seem in the place of wings. The temple in the midst raised on a high platform, and approached by steps, was decorated with exquisite paintings, some of which we saw in the museum at Portici.

It is small, of the same materials as the chapel, with a pavement of mosaic, and fluted Ionic columns of white stucco, so white that it dazzles you to look at it. Thence through the other porticos and labyrinths of walls and columns for I can not hope to detail everything to you , we came to the Forum. This is a large square, surrounded by lofty porticos of fluted columns, some broken, some entire, their entablatures strewed under them.

The temple of Jupiter, of Venus, and another temple, the Tribunal, and the Hall of Public Justice, with their forest of lofty columns, surround the Forum. Two pedestals or altars of an enormous size for, whether they supported equestrian statues, or were the altars of the temple of Venus, before which they stand, the guide could not tell , occupy the lower end of the [Pg 49] Forum.

At the upper end, supported on an elevated platform, stands the temple of Jupiter. Under the colonnade of its portico we sat and pulled out our oranges, and figs, and bread, and medlars sorry fare, you will say , and rested to eat.

Here was a magnificent spectacle. Above and between the multitudinous shafts of the sun-shining columns was seen the sea, reflecting the purple heaven of noon above it, and supporting, as it were, on its line the dark lofty mountains of Sorrento, of a blue inexpressibly deep, and tinged toward their summits with streaks of new-fallen snow.

Between was one small green island. To the right was Capreae, Inarime, Prochyta, and Misenum. Behind was the single summit of Vesuvius, rolling forth volumes of thick white smoke, whose foam-like column was sometimes darted into the clear dark sky, and fell in little streaks along the wind.

Between Vesuvius and the nearer mountains, as through a chasm, was seen the main line of the loftiest Apennines, to the east. The day was radiant and warm. Every now and then we heard the subterranean thunder of Vesuvius; its distant deep peals seemed to shake the very air and light of day, which interpenetrated our frames with the sullen and tremendous sound. This sound was what the Greeks beheld Pompeii, you know, was a Greek city. They lived in harmony with nature; and the interstices of their incomparable columns were portals, as it were, to admit the spirit of beauty which animates this glorious universe to visit those whom it inspired.

If such is Pompeii, [Pg 50] what was Athens? What scene was exhibited from the Acropolis, the Parthenon, and the temples of Hercules, and Theseus, and the Winds? From the Forum we went to another public place; a triangular portico, half enclosing the ruins of an enormous temple. It is built on the edge of the hill overlooking the sea. That black point is the temple. In the apex of the triangle stands an altar and a fountain, and before the altar once stood the statue of the builder of the portico.

Returning hence, and following the consular road, we came to the eastern gate of the city. The walls are of an enormous strength, and enclose a space of three miles.

On each side of the road beyond the gate are built the tombs. How unlike ours! They seem not so much hiding-places for that which must decay, as voluptuous chambers for immortal spirits. They are of marble, radiantly white; and two, especially beautiful, are loaded with exquisite bas-reliefs. On the stucco-wall that encloses them are little emblematic figures, of a relief exceedingly low, of dead and dying animals, and little winged genii, and female forms bending in groups in some funereal office.

The high reliefs represent, one a nautical subject, and the other a Bacchanalian one. Within the cell stand the cinerary urns, sometimes one, sometimes more.

It is said that paintings were found within, which are now, as has been everything movable in Pompeii, removed, [Pg 51] and scattered about in royal museums. These tombs were the most impressive things of all.

The wild woods surround them on either side; and along the broad stones of the paved road which divides them, you hear the late leaves of autumn shiver and rustle in the stream of the inconstant wind, as it were, like the step of ghosts. The radiance and magnificence of these dwellings of the dead, the white freshness of the scarcely-finished marble, the impassioned or imaginative life of the figures which adorn them, contrast strangely with the simplicity of the houses of those who were living when Vesuvius overwhelmed them.

I have forgotten the amphitheater, which is of great magnitude, tho much inferior to the Coliseum. I now understand why the Greeks were such great poets; and, above all, I can account, it seems to me, for the harmony, the unity, the perfection, the uniform excellence, of all their works of art.

They lived in a perpetual commerce with external nature, and nourished themselves upon the spirit of its forms. Their theaters were all open to the mountains and the sky. Their columns, the ideal types of a sacred forest, with its roof of interwoven tracery, admitted the light and wind; the odor and the freshness of the country penetrated the cities. Their temples were mostly upaithric; and the flying clouds, the stars, or the deep sky, were seen above.

I had been half afraid to go to Verona, lest it should at all put me out of conceit with Romeo and Juliet. But, I was no sooner come into the old Market-place, than the misgiving vanished. It is so fanciful, quaint, and picturesque a place, formed by such an extraordinary and rich variety of fantastic buildings, that there could be nothing better at the core of even this romantic town; scene of one of the most romantic and beautiful of stories.

It was natural enough, to go straight from the Market-place, to the House of the Capulets, now degenerated into a most miserable little inn. Noisy vetturini and muddy market-carts were disputing possession of the yard, which was ankle-deep in dirt, with a brood of splashed and bespattered geese; and there was a grim-visaged dog, viciously panting in a doorway, who would certainly have had Romeo by the leg, the moment he put it over the wall, if he had existed and been at large in those times.

The orchard fell into other hands, and was parted off many years ago; but there used to be one attached to the [Pg 53] house—or at all events there may have been—and the Hat Cappello , the ancient cognizance of the family, may still be seen, carved in stone, over the gateway of the yard.

The geese, the market-carts, their drivers, and the dog, were somewhat in the way of the story, it must be confessed; and it would have been pleasanter to have found the house empty, and to have been able to walk through the disused rooms. But the Hat was unspeakably comfortable; and the place where the garden used to be, hardly less so. Besides, the house is a distrustful, jealous-looking house as one would desire to see, tho of a very moderate size.

So I was quite satisfied with it, as the veritable mansion of old Capulet, and was correspondingly grateful in my acknowledgments to an extremely unsentimental middle-aged lady, the Padrona of the Hotel, who was lounging on the threshold looking at the geese. From Juliet’s home, to Juliet’s tomb, is a transition as natural to the visitor, as to fair Juliet herself, or to the proudest Juliet that ever has taught the torches to burn bright in any time. It was a pleasure, rather than a disappointment, that Juliet’s resting-place was forgotten.

However consolatory it may have been to Yorick’s Ghost, to hear the feet upon the pavement overhead, and, twenty times a day, the repetition of his name, it is better for Juliet to lie out of the track of tourists, and to have no visitors but such as come to graves in spring-rain, and sweet air, and sunshine.

Pleasant Verona! With its beautiful old palaces, and charming country in the distance, seen from terrace walks, and stately, balustraded galleries. With its Roman gates, still spanning the fair street, and casting, on the sunlight of to-day, the shade of fifteen hundred years ago.

With its marble-fitted churches, lofty towers, rich architecture, and quaint old quiet thoroughfares, where shouts of Montagues and Capulets once resounded. And made Verona’s ancient citizens Cast by their grave, beseeming ornaments, To wield old partisans. With its fast-rushing river, picturesque old bridge, great castle, waving cypresses, and prospect so delightful, and so cheerful!

So well preserved, and carefully maintained, that every row of seats is there, unbroken. Over cer [Pg 55] tain of the arches, the old Roman numerals may yet be seen; and there are corridors, and staircases, and subterranean passages for beasts, and winding ways, above ground and below, as when the fierce thousands hurried in and out, intent upon the bloody shows of the arena.

Nestling in some of the shadows and hollow places of the walls, now, are smiths with their forges, and a few small dealers of one kind or other; and there are green weeds, and leaves, and grass, upon the parapet. But little else is greatly changed. When I had traversed all about it, with great interest, and had gone up to the topmost round of seats, and turning from the lovely panorama closed in by the distant Alps, looked down into the building, it seemed to lie before me like the inside of a prodigious hat of plaited straw, with an enormously broad brim and a shallow crown; the plaits being represented by the four-and-forty rows of seats.

The comparison is a homely and fantastic one, in sober remembrance and on paper, but it was irresistibly suggested at the moment, nevertheless. Padua is an ancient city and exhibits a rather respectable appearance against the horizon with its bell-turrets, its domes, and its old walls upon [Pg 56] which myriads of lizards run and frisk in the sun.

Situated near a center which attracts life to itself, Padua is a dead city with an almost deserted air.

Its streets, bordered by two rows of low arcades, in nowise recall the elegant and charming architecture of Venice. The heavy, massive structures have a serious, somewhat crabbed aspect, and its somber porticos in the lower stories of the houses resemble black mouths which yawn with ennui. We were conducted to a big inn, established probably in some ancient palace, and whose great halls, dishonored by vulgar uses, had formerly seen better company.

It was a real journey to go from the vestibule to our room by a host of stairways and corridors; a map of Ariadne’s thread would have been needed to find one’s way back. Our windows opened upon a very pleasant view; a river flows at the foot of the wall—the Brenta or the Bacchiglione, I know not which, for both water Padua.

The banks of this watercourse were adorned with old houses and long walls, and trees, too, overhung the banks; some rather picturesque rows of piles, from which the fishermen cast their lines with that patience characteristic of them in all countries; huts with nets and linen hanging from the windows to dry, formed under the sun’s rays a very pretty subject for a water-color. Nothing could be more monumentally classic. There are nothing but pillars, columnets, ovolos, and palm leaves of the Percier and Fontain kind, the whole very fine and lavish of [Pg 57] marble.

What was most curious was some immense maps forming a tapestry and representing the different divisions of the world on an enormous scale. This somewhat pedantic decoration gives to the hall an academic air; and one is surprized not to see a chair in place of the bar, with a professor in his gown in place of a dispenser of lemonade.

The University of Padua was formerly famous. In the thirteenth century eighteen thousand young men, a whole people of scholars, followed the lessons of the learned professors, among whom later Galileo figured, one of whose bones is preserved there as a relic, a relic of a martyr who suffered for the truth. He is the “genius loci,” the Saint venerated above all others.

He used to perform not less than thirty miracles each day, if Casanova [17] is to be believed. Such a performance fairly earned for him his surname of Thaumaturge, but this prodigious zeal has fallen off greatly. Nevertheless, the reputation of the saint has not suffered, and so many masses are paid for at his altar that the number of the priests of the cathedral and of days in the year are not sufficient. To liquidate the accounts, the Pope has granted permission, at the end of the year, for masses to be said, each, one [Pg 58] of which is of the value of a thousand; in this fashion Saint Anthony is saved from being bankrupt to his faithful devotees.

On the place which adjoins the cathedral, a beautiful equestrian statue by Donatello, in bronze, rises to view, the first which had been cast since the days of antiquity, representing a leader of banditti: Gattamelata, a brigand who surely did not deserve that honor. But the artist has given him a superb bearing and a spirited figure with his baton of a Roman emperor, and it is entirely sufficient One thing which must not be neglected in passing through Padua is a visit to the old Church of the Arena, situated at the rear of a garden of luxuriant vegetation, where it would certainly not be conjectured to be located unless one were advised of the fact.

It is entirely painted in its interior by Giotto. Not a single column, not a single rib, nor architectural division interrupts that vast tapestry of frescoes. The general aspect is soft, azure, starry, like a beautiful, calm sky; ultramarine dominates; thirty compartments of large dimensions, indicated by simple lines, contain the life of the Virgin and of her Divine Son in all their details; they might be called illustrations in miniature of a gigantic missal.

Below these compositions of the purest religious feeling, a painted plinth shows the seven deadly sins symbolized in an ingenious manner, and other allegorical figures of a very good style; a Paradise and a Hell, subjects which [Pg 59] greatly imprest the minds of the artists of that epoch, complete this marvelous whole.

There are in these paintings weird and touching details; children issue from their little coffins to mount to Paradise with a joyous ardor, and launch themselves forth to go to play upon the blossoming turf of the celestial garden; others stretch forth their hands to their half-resurrected mothers.

The remark may also be made that all the devils and vices are obese, while the angels and virtues are thin and slender. The painter wishes to mark the preponderance of matter in the one class and of spirit in the other.

Ferrara rises solitary in the midst of a flat country more rich than picturesque. When one enters it by the broad street which leads to the square, the aspect of the city is imposing and monumental. A palace with a grand staircase occupies a corner of this vast square; it might be a court-house or a town hall, for people of all classes were entering and departing through its wide doors The castle of the ancient dukes of Ferrara, which is to be found a little farther on, has a fine feudal aspect.

It is a vast collection of towers joined together by high walls crowned [Pg 60] with a battlement forming a cornice, and which emerge from a great moat full of water, over which one enters by a protected bridge. The castle, built wholly of brick or of stones reddened by the sun, has a vermilion tint which deprives it of its imposing effect. It is too much like a decoration of a melodrama. It was in this castle that the famous Lucretia Borgia lived, whom Victor Hugo has made such a monster for us, and whom Ariosto depicts as a model of chastity, grace and virtue; that blonde Lucretia who wrote letters breathing the purest love, and some of whose hair, fine as silk and shining as gold, Byron possest.

It was there that the dramas of Tasso and Ariosto and Guarini were played; there that those brilliant orgies took place, mingled with poisonings and assassinations, which characterized that learned and artistic, refined and criminal, period of Italy.

It is the custom to pay a pious visit to the problematical dungeon in which Tasso, mad with love and grief, passed so many years, according to the poetic legend which grew up concerning his misfortune. We did not have time to spare and we regretted it very little. This dungeon, a perfectly correct sketch of which we have before our eyes, consists only of four walls, ceiled by a low arch. At the back is to be seen a window grated by heavy bars and a door with big bolts.

It is quite unlikely that in this obscure hole, tapestried with cobwebs, Tasso could have worked and retouched his poem, composed sonnets, and occupied himself with small details of toilet, [Pg 61] such as the quality of the velvet of his cap and the silk of his stockings, and with kitchen details, such as with what kind of sugar he ought to powder his salad, that which he had not being fine enough for his liking.

Neither did we see the house of Ariosto, another required pilgrimage. The life of Ferrara is concentrated on the Plaza Nuova, in front of the church and in the neighborhood of the castle. Life has not yet abandoned this heart of the city; but in proportion as one moves away from it, it becomes more feeble, paralysis begins, death gains; silence, solitude, and grass invade the streets; one feels that one is wandering about a Thebes peopled with ghosts of the past and from which the living have evaporated like water which has dried up.

There is nothing more sad than to see the corpse of a dead city slowly falling into dust in the sun and rain. One at least buries human bodies. On emerging from the second tunnel, [20] beyond a wild and narrow gorge, there lies suddenly before us, as in a gorgeous fairyland or in the landscape of a dream, the blue expanse of Lake Lugano, with its setting of green meadows and purple mountains, with the many-colored village spires, and the great white fronts of the hotels and villas.

Oh, what a wonderful picture! We feel as if we were going down into an enchanted garden that has been hidden by the great snowy walls of the Alps. The air is full of the perfume of roses and jessamine. The hedges are in flower, butterflies are dancing, insects are humming, birds are singing. Up above, in the mountain, is snow, ice, winter, and silence; here there is sunshine, life, joy, love—all the living delights of spring and summer.

Golden harvests are shining on the plains, and the lake in the distance is like a piece of the sky brought down to earth. Lugano is already Italy, not only because of the richness of the soil and the magnificence of the vegetation, but also as regards the language, the manners, and the picturesque costumes.

In each valley the dress is different; in one place the women wear a short skirt, an [Pg 63] apron held in by a girdle, and a bright colored bodice; in another they wear a cap above which is a large shady hat; in the Val Maroblio they have a woolen dress not very different from that of the Capuchins.

The men have not the square figure, the slow, heavy walk of the people of Basle and Lucerne; they are brisk, vigorous, easy; and the women have something of the wavy suppleness of vine branches twining among the trees. These people have the happy, childlike joyousness, the frank good-nature, of those who live in the open air, who do not shut themselves up in their houses, but grow freely like the flowers under the strong, glowing sunshine. At every street corner sellers are sitting behind baskets of extraordinary vegetables and magnificent fruit; and under the arcades that run along the houses, big grocers in shirt sleeves come at intervals to their shop doors to take breath, like hippopotami coming out of the water for the same purpose.

In this town, ultramontane in its piety, the bells of churches and convents are sounding all day long, and women are seen going to make their evening prayer together in the nearest chapel. After sunset the little tables that are all over the great square are surrounded by an entire population of men and women. The waiters, in black vests and leather slippers, a corner of their apron tucked up in their belt, run with the speed of kangaroos, carrying on metal plates syrups of every shade, ices, sweets in red, yellow, or green pyramids.

Between seven and nine o’clock the whole society of Lugano defiles before you. There are lawyers with their wives, doctors with their daughters, bankers, professors, merchants, public officials, with whom are sometimes misted stout, comfortable, jovial-looking canons, wrapping themselves in the bitter smoke of a regalia, as in a cloud of incense.

We have been to Como, looking for a house. This lake exceeds anything I ever beheld in beauty, with the exception of the arbutus islands of Killarney. It is long and narrow, and has the appearance of a mighty river winding among the mountains and the forests. We sailed from the town of Como to a tract of country called the Tremezina, and saw the various aspects presented by that part of the lake. The mountains between Como and that village, or rather cluster of villages, are covered on high with chestnut forests the eating chestnuts, on which the inhabitants of the country subsist in time of scarcity , which sometimes [Pg 65] descend to the very verge of the lake, overhanging it with their hoary branches.

But usually the immediate border of this shore is composed of laurel-trees, and bay, and myrtle, and wild fig-trees, and olives which grow in the crevices of the rocks, and overhang the caverns, and shadow the deep glens, which are filled with the flashing light of the waterfalls.

Other flowering shrubs, which I can not name, grow there also. On high, the towers of village churches are seen white among the dark forests. Beyond, on the opposite shore, which faces the south, the mountains descend less precipitously to the lake, and altho they are much higher, and some covered with perpetual snow, there intervenes between them and the lake a range of lower hills, which have glens and rifts opening to the other, such as I should fancy the abysses of Ida or Parnassus.

Here are plantations of olive, and orange, and lemon trees, which are now so loaded with fruit, that there is more fruit than leaves—and vineyards. This shore of the lake is one continued village, and the Milanese nobility have their villas here. The union of culture and the untameable profusion and loveliness of nature is here so close, that the line where they are divided can hardly be discovered. But the finest scenery is that of the Villa Pliniana; so called from a fountain which ebbs and flows every three hours, described by the younger Pliny, which is in the courtyard.

This house, which was once a magnificent palace, and is now half in ruins, we are endeavoring to [Pg 66] procure. It is built upon terraces raised from the bottom of the lake, together with its garden, at the foot of a semicircular precipice, overshadowed by profound forests of chestnut.

The scene from the colonnade is the most extraordinary, at once, and the most lovely that eye ever beheld. On one side is the mountain, and immediately over you are clusters of cypress-trees, of an astonishing height, which seem to pierce the sky.

Above you, from among the clouds, as it were, descends a waterfall of immense size, broken by the woody rocks into a thousand channels to the lake. On the other side is seen the blue extent of the lake and the mountains, speckled with sails and spires. The apartments of the Pliniana are immensely large, but ill-furnished and antique. The terraces, which overlook the lake, and conduct under the shade of such immense laurel-trees as deserve the epithet of Pythian, are most delightful.

The picture of the promontory of Bellagio is so beautiful as a whole that the traveler had better stand off for awhile to admire it at a distance and at his leisure. Indeed it is a question whether the lasting impressions [Pg 67] which we treasure of Bellagio are not, after all, those derived from across the lake, from the shore-fronts of Tremezzo, Cadenabbia, Menaggio, or Varenna.

A colossal, conquering geological lion appears to have come up from the south in times immemorial, bound for the north, and finding further progress stopt by the great sheet of water in front of him, seems to have halted and to be now crouching there with his noble head between his paws and his eyes fixt on the snow-covered Alps.

The big white house on the lion’s neck is the Villa Serbelloni, now used as the annex of a hotel, and the park of noble trees belonging to the villa forms the lion’s mane. Hotels, both large and small, line the quay at the water’s edge; then comes a break in the houses, and stately Villa Melzi is seen to stand off at one side.

Villa Trotti gleams from among its bowers farther south; on the slope Villa Trivulzio, formerly Poldi, shows bravely, and Villa Giulia has cut for itself a wide prospect over both arms of the lake. At the back of this lion couchant, in the middle ground, sheer mountain walls tower protectingly, culminating in Monte Grigna.

The picture varies from hour to hour, from day to day, and from season to season. Its color-scheme changes with wind and sun, its sparkle comes and goes from sunrise to sunset; only its form remains untouched through the night and lives to delight us another day.

As the evening wears on, lights appear one by one on the quay of Bellagio, until there is a line of fire along the base of the dark [Pg 68] peninsula.

The hotel windows catch the glare, the villas light their storied corridors, and presently Bellagio, all aglow, presents the spectacle of a Venetian night mirrored in the lake. By this time the mountains have turned black and the sky has faded. It grows so still on the water that the tinkle of a little Italian band reaches across the lake to Cadenabbia, a laugh rings out into the quiet air from one of the merry little rowboats, and even the slight clatter made by the fishermen, in putting their boats to rights for the night and in carrying their nets indoors, can be distinguished as one of many indications that the day is done.

When we land at Bellagio by daylight, we find it to be very much of a bazaar of souvenirs along the water-front, and everybody determined to carry away a keepsake. There is so much to buy—ornamental olive wood and tortoise-shell articles, Como blankets, lace, and what may be described in general terms as modern antiquities.

These abound from shop to shop; even English groceries are available. Bellagio’s principal street is suddenly converted at its northern end into a delightful arcade, after the arrangement which constitutes a characteristic charm of the villages and smaller towns on the Italian lakes; moreover, the vista up its side street is distinctly original.

This mounts steeply from the waterside, like the streets of Algiers, is narrow and constructed in long steps to break the incline. The town and republic of St. Marino stands on the top of a very high and craggy mountain. It is generally hid among the clouds, and lay under snow when I saw it, though it was clear and warm weather in all the country about it.

There is not a spring or fountain, that I could hear of, in the whole dominions; but they are always well provided with huge cisterns and reservoirs of rain and snow water. The wine that grows on the sides of their mountain is extraordinarily good, much better than any I met with on the cold side of the Apennines.

This mountain, and a few neighboring hillocks that lie scattered about the bottom of it, is the whole circuit of these dominions. They have what they call three castles, three convents, and five churches and can reckon about five thousand souls in their community. Marino was its founder, a Dalmatian by birth, and by trade a mason. He was employed above thirteen hundred years ago in the reparation of Rimini, and after he had finished his work, retired to this solitary mountain, as finding it very proper for the life of a hermit, which he led in the [Pg 70] greatest rigors and austerities of religion.

He had not been long here before he wrought a reputed miracle, which, joined with his extraordinary sanctity, gained him so great an esteem, that the princess of the country made him a present of the mountain, to dispose of at his own discretion.

His reputation quickly peopled it, and gave rise to the republic which calls itself after his name. So that the commonwealth of Marino may boast, at least, of a nobler original than that of Rome, the one having been at first an asylum for robbers and murderers, and the other a resort of persons eminent for their piety and devotion.

The best of their churches is dedicated to the saint, and holds his ashes. His statue stands over the high altar, with the figure of a mountain in its hands, crowned with three castles, which is likewise the arms of the commonwealth. They attribute to his protection the long duration of their state, and look on him as the greatest saint next the blessed virgin.

I saw in their statute-book a law against such as speak disrespectfully of him, who are to be punished in the same manner as those convicted of blasphemy. This petty republic has now lasted thirteen hundred years, [25] while all the other states of Italy have several times changed their masters and forms of government. Their whole history is comprised in two purchases, which they made of a neighboring prince, and in a war in [Pg 71] which they assisted the pope against a lord of Rimini.

In the year they bought a castle in the neighborhood, as they did another in the year The papers of the conditions are preserved in their archives, where it is very remarkable that the name of the agent for the commonwealth, of the seller, of the notary, and the witnesses, are the same in both the instruments, tho drawn up at seventy years’ distance from each other. Nor can it be any mistake in the date, because the popes’ and emperors’ names, with the year of their respective reigns, are both punctually set down.

About two hundred and ninety years after this they assisted Pope Pius the Second against one of the Malatestas, who was then, lord of Rimini; and when they had helped to conquer him, received from the pope, as a reward for their assistance, four little castles. This they represent as the flourishing time of the commonwealth, when their dominions reached half-way up a neighboring hill; but at present they are reduced to their old extent The chief officers of the commonwealth are the two capitaneos, who have such a power as the old Roman consuls had, but are chosen every six months.

I talked with some that had been capitaneos six or seven times, tho the office is never to be continued to the same persons twice successively. The third officer is the commissary, who judges in all civil and criminal matters. But because the many alliances, friendships, and intermarriages, as well as the personal feuds and animosities, that happen among [Pg 72] so small a people might obstruct the course of justice, if one of their own number had the distribution of it, they have always a foreigner for this employ, whom they choose for three years, and maintain out of the public stock.

He must be a doctor of law, and a man of known integrity. He is joined in commission with the capitaneos, and acts something like the recorder of London under the lord mayor.

The commonwealth of Genoa was forced to make use of a foreign judge for many years, while their republic was torn into the divisions of Guelphs and Ghibelines.

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