Legends Of Florence Part 1

Legends of Florence.

by Charles G.o.dfrey Leland.

PREFACE

This book consists almost entirely of legends or traditions of a varied character, referring to places and buildings in Florence, such as the Cathedral and Campanile, the Signoria, the Bargello, the different city gates, ancient towers and bridges, palaces, crosses, and fountains, noted corners, odd by-ways, and many churches. To all of these there are tales, or at least anecdotes attached, which will be found as entertaining to the general reader as they will be interesting, not to say valuable, to the folklorist and the student of social history; but here I must leave the work to speak for itself.

I originally intended that this should be entirely a collection of relics of ancient mythology, with superst.i.tions and sorceries, witchcraft and incantations, or what may be called occult folk-lore, of which my work on "Etruscan-Roman Remains in Popular Tradition" consists, and of which I have enough additional material to make a large volume. But having resolved to add to it local legends, and give them the preference, I found that the latter so abounded, and were so easily collected by an expert, that I was obliged to cast out my occult folk-lore, piece by piece, if I ever hoped to get into the port of publication, according to terms with the underwriters, following the principle laid down by the ill.u.s.trious Poggio, that in a storm the heaviest things must go overboard first, he ill.u.s.trating the idea with the story of the Florentine, who, having heard this from the captain when at sea in a tempest, at once threw his wife into the raging billows-_perche non haveva cosa piu grave di lei_-because there was nought on earth which weighed on him so heavily.

There are several very excellent and pleasant works on Old Florence, such as that portion devoted to it in the "Cities of Central Italy," by A. J.

C. Hare; the "Walks about Florence," by the Sisters Horner; "Florentine Life," by Scaife; and the more recent and admirable book by Leader Scott, which are all-I say it advisedly-indispensable for those who would really know something about a place which is unusually opulent in ancient, adventurous, or artistic a.s.sociations. My book is, however, _entirely_ different from these, and all which are exclusively taken from authentic records and books. My tales are, with a few exceptions, derived directly or indirectly from the people themselves-having been recorded in the local dialect-the exceptions being a few anecdotes racy of the soil, taken from antique jest-books and such bygone halfpenny literature as belonged to the mult.i.tude, and had its origin among them. These I could not, indeed, well omit, as they every one refer to some peculiar place in Florence. To these I must add several which remained obscurely in my memory, but which I did not record at the time of hearing or reading, not having then the intention of publishing such a book.

It has been well observed by Wordsworth that minor local legends sink more deeply into the soul than greater histories, as is proved by the fact that romantic folk-lore spreads far and wide over the world, completely distancing in the race the records of mighty men and their deeds. The magic of Washington Irving has cast over the Catskills and the Hudson, by means of such tales, an indescribable fascination, even as Scott made of all Scotland a fairyland; for it is indisputable that a strange story, or one of wild or quaint adventure, or even of humour, goes further to fix a place in our memory than anything else can do.

Therefore I have great hope that these fairy-tales of Florence, and strange fables of its fountains, palaces, and public places-as they are truly gathered from old wives, and bear in themselves unmistakable evidences of antiquity-will be of real use in impressing on many memories much which is worth retaining, and which would otherwise have been forgotten.

The manner in which these stories were collected was as follows:-In the year 1886 I made the acquaintance in Florence of a woman who was not only skilled in fortune-telling, but who inherited as a family gift from generations, skill in witchcraft-that is, a knowledge of mystical cures, the relieving people who were bewitched, the making amulets, and who had withal a memory stocked with a literally incredible number of tales and names of spirits, with the invocations to them, and strange rites and charms. She was a native of the Romagna Toscana, where there still lurks in the recesses of the mountains much antique Etrusco-Roman heathenism, though it is disappearing very rapidly. Maddalena-such was her name-soon began to communicate to me all her lore. She could read and write, but beyond this never gave the least indication of having opened a book of any kind; albeit she had an immense library of folk-lore in her brain.

When she could not recall a tale or incantation, she would go about among her extensive number of friends, and being perfectly familiar with every dialect, whether Neapolitan, Bolognese, Florentine, or Venetian, and the ways and manners of the poor, and especially of witches, who are the great repositories of legends, became in time wonderfully well skilled as a collector. Now, as the proverb says, "Take a thief to catch a thief,"

so I found that to take a witch to catch witches, or detect their secrets, was an infallible means to acquire the arcana of sorcery. It was in this manner that I gathered a great part of the lore given in my "Etruscan-Roman Remains." I however collected enough, in all conscience, from other sources, and verified it all sufficiently from cla.s.sic writers, to fully test the honesty of my authorities.

The witches in Italy form a cla.s.s who are the repositories of all the folk-lore; but, what is not at all generally known, they also keep as strict secrets an _immense_ number of legends of their own, which have nothing in common with the nursery or popular tales, such as are commonly collected and published. The real witch-story is very often only a frame, so to speak, the real picture within it being the _arcanum_ of a long _scongiurazione_ or incantation, and what ingredients were used to work the charm. I have given numbers of these real witch-tales in my "Etruscan-Roman Remains," and a few, such as "Orpheus and Eurydice,"

"Intialo," and "Il Moschone," in this work.

Lady Vere de Vere, who has investigated witchcraft as it exists in the Italian Tyrol, in an admirable article in _La Rivista_ of Rome (June 1894)-which article has the only demerit of being too brief-tells us that "the Community of Italian Witches is regulated by laws, traditions, and customs of the most secret kind, possessing special recipes for sorcery,"

which is perfectly true. Having been free of the community for years, I can speak from experience. The more occult and singular of their secrets are naturally not of a nature to be published, any more than are those of the Voodoos. Some of the milder sort may be found in the story of the "Moscone, or Great Fly," in this work. The great secret for scholars is, however, that these pagans and heretics, who are the last who cling to a heathen creed out-worn in Europe-these outcast children of the Cainites, Ultra-Taborites, and similar ancient worshippers of the devil, are really the ones who possess the most valuable stores of folk-lore, that is to say, such as ill.u.s.trate the first origins of the religious Idea, its development, and specially the evolution of the Opposition or Protestant principle.

As regards the many legends in this book which do not ill.u.s.trate such serious research, it is but natural that witches, who love and live in the Curious, should have preserved more even of them than other people, and it was accordingly among her colleagues of the mystic spell that Maddalena found tales which would have been long sought for elsewhere, of which this book is a most convincing proof in itself; for while I had resolved on second thought to make it one of simple local tales, there still hangs over most-even of these-a dim, unholy air of sorcery, a witch _aura_, a lurid light, a something eerie and uncanny, a restless hankering for the broom and the supernatural. Those tales are Maddalena's every line-I pray thee, reader, not to make them mine. The spirit will always speak.

Very different, indeed, from these are the contributions of Marietta Pery, the _improvvisatrice_, though even she in good faith, and not for fun, had a horseshoe for luck; which, however, being of an artistic turn, she had elegantly gilded, and also, like a true Italian, wore an amulet.

She, too, knew many fairy tales, but they were chiefly such as may be found among the _Racconti delle Fate_, and the variants which are now so liberally published. She had, however, a rare, I may almost say a refined, taste in these, as the poems which I have given indicate.

I must also express my obligations to Miss Roma Lister, a lady born in Italy of English parentage, who is an accomplished folk-lorist and collector, as was shown by her paper on the _Legends of the Castelli Romani_, read at the first meeting of the Italian Folk-Lore Society, founded by Count Angelo de Gubernatis, the learned and accomplished Oriental scholar, and editor of _La Rivista_. I would here say that her researches in the vicinity of Rome have gone far to corroborate what I published in the "Etruscan-Roman Remains." I must also thank Miss Teresa Wyndham for sundry kind a.s.sistances, when I was ill in Siena.

There is no city in the world where, within such narrow limit, Art, Nature, and History have done so much to make a place beautiful and interesting as Florence. It is one where we feel that there has been vivid and varied _life_-life such as was led by Benvenuto Cellini and a thousand like him-and we long more than elsewhere to enter into it, and know how those men in quaint and picturesque garb thought and felt four hundred years ago. Now, as at the present day politics and news do not enter into our habits of thought more than goblins, spirits of fountains and bridges, legends of palaces and towers, and quaint jests of friar or squire, did into those of the olden time, I cannot help believing that this book will be not only entertaining, but useful to all who would study the spirit of history thoroughly. The folk-lore of the future has a far higher mission than has as yet been dreamed for it; it is destined to revive for us the inner sentiment or habitual and peculiar life of man as he was in the olden time more perfectly than it has been achieved by fiction. This will be done by bringing before the reader the facts or _phenomena_ of that life itself in more vivid and familiar form.

Admitting this, the reader can hardly fail to see that the writer who gathers up with pains whatever he can collect of such materials as this book contains does at least some slight service to Science.

And to conclude-with the thing to which I would specially call attention-I distinctly state that (as will be very evident to the critical reader) there are in this book, especially in the second series, which I hope to bring out later, certain tales, or anecdotes, or jests, which are either based on a very slight foundation of tradition-often a mere hint-or have been so "written up" by a runaway pen-and mine is an "awful bolter"-that the second-rate folk-lorist, whose forte consists not in finding facts but faults, may say in truth, as one of his kind did in America: "Mr. Leland is throughout inaccurate." In these numerous instances, which are only "folk-lore" run wild, as Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow, and Heine's G.o.ds in Exile are legend, I have, I hope, preserved a certain _spirit_ of truth, though I have _sans mercy_ sacrificed the letter, even as the redcap goblins, which haunt old houses, are said to be the ghosts of infants sacrificed by witches, or slain by their mothers, in order to make _folletti_ or imps of them.

Now as for this reconstructing Hercules from a foot, instead of giving the fragment, at which few would have glanced, the success consists in the skill attained, and the approbation of the reader. And with this frank admission, that in a certain number of these tales the utmost liberty has been taken, I conclude.

CHARLES G.o.dFREY LELAND.

FLORENCE, _April_ 6, 1894.

THE THREE HORNS OF MESSER GUICCIARDINI

"More plenty than the fabled horn Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting."

-KEATS, _The Earlier Version of_ "_Hyperion_."

"Prosperity is often our worst enemy, making us vicious, frivolous, and insolent, so that to bear it well is a better test of a man than to endure adversity."-GICCIARDINI, _Maxims_, No. 64.

I did not know when I first read and translated the following story, which was obtained for me and written out by Maddalena, that it had any reference to the celebrated historian and moralist, Guicciardini. How I did so forms the subject of a somewhat singular little incident, which I will subsequently relate.

LE TRE CORNE.

"There was an elderly man, a very good, kind-hearted, wise person, who was gentle and gay with every one, and much beloved by his servants, because they always found him _buono ed allegro_-pleasant and jolly. And often when with them while they were at their work, he would say, '_Felice voi poveri_!'-'Oh, how lucky you are to be poor!' And they would reply to him, singing in the old Tuscan fashion, because they knew it pleased him:

"'O caro Signor, you have gold in store, With all to divert yourself; Your bees make honey, you've plenty of money, And victuals upon the shelf: A palace you have, and rich attire, And everything to your heart's desire.'

"Then he would reply merrily:

"'My dear good folk, because you are poor You are my friends, and all the more, For the poor are polite to all they see, And therefore blessed be Poverty!'

"Then a second servant sang:

"'Oh bello gentile mio Signor', Your praise of poverty 'd soon be o'er If you yourself for a time were poor; For nothing to eat, and water to drink, Isn't so nice as you seem to think, And a lord who lives in luxury Don't know the pressure of poverty.'

"Then all would laugh, and the jolly old lord would sing in his turn:

"'O charo servitor', Tu parli tanto bene, Ma il tuo parlar A me non mi conviene.' . . .

"'My boy, you answer well, But with false implication; For what to me you tell Has no true application; How oft I heard you say (You know 'tis true, you sinner!) "I am half-starved to-day, How I'll enjoy my dinner!"

Your hunger gives you health And causes great delight, While I with all my wealth Have not an appet.i.te.'

"Then another servant sang, laughing:

"'Dear master, proverbs say, I have heard them from my birth, That of all frightful beasts Which walk upon the earth, Until we reach the bier, Wherever man may be, There's nothing which we fear So much as poverty.'

"And so one evening as they were merrily improvising and throwing _stornelli_ at one another in this fashion, the Signore went to his street-door, and there beheld three ladies of stately form; for though they were veiled and dressed in the plainest black long robes, it was evident that they were of high rank. Therefore the old lord saluted them courteously, and seeing that they were strangers, asked them whither they were going. But he had first of all had them politely escorted by his servants into his best reception-room. {3a}

"And the one who appeared to be the chief replied:

"'Truly we know not where we shall lodge, for in all Florence there is, I trow, not a soul who, knowing who we are would receive us.'

"'And who art thou, lady?' asked the Signore. And she replied:

"'Io mi chiamo, e sono, La Poverta in persona, E queste due donzelle, Sono le mie sorelle, Chi voi non conoscete La Fame e la Sete!'

"'I am one whom all throw curse on.

I am Poverty in person; Of these ladies here, the younger Is my sister, known as Hunger, And the third, who's not the worst, Is dreaded still by all as Thirst.'

"'Blessed be the hour in which ye entered my house!' cried the Signore, delighted. 'Make yourselves at home, rest and be at ease as long as you like-_sempre sarei benglieto_.'