Legends Of Florence Part 10

"But the girl replied, as if in fear:

"'But if the rope should break away, Oh, then there'd be the devil to pay, Oh, holy father, first for thee- But most especially for me!

For if by evil luck I'd cracked your Connecting cord, my limbs I'd fracture!'

"The friar sang:

"'The rope is good, as it is long, The basket's tough, my arms are strong, Have thou no fear upon that score, T'as hoisted many a maid before; For often such a basket-full Did I into a convent pull, And many more I trust will I Draw safely up before I die.'

"And at midnight the girl was there walking beneath the windows awaiting the hour to rise-_Ascensionem expectans_-truly not to heaven, nor from any great liking for the monks, but for a great fondness for roast-chickens and good wine, having in her mind's eye such a supper as she had never before enjoyed, and something to carry home with her.

"So at last there was a rustling sound above, as a window softly opened, and a great basket came vibrating down below; and the damsel, well a.s.sured, got into it like a hen into her nest, while the l.u.s.ty friar above began to draw like an artist.

"Now the _Beato frate_ Dyonisio, knowing all that pa.s.sed round about by virtue of his holy omniscience, determined to make manifest to the monks that things not adapted to piety led them into the path of eternal punishment.

"Therefore, just as the basket-full of girl touched the window of the convent, it happened by the virtue of the holy Dyonisio that the rope broke and the damsel came with a _capi tombola_ somerset or first-cla.s.s tumble into the street; but as she, poor soul, had only sinned for a supper, which she greatly needed and seldom got, she was quit for a good fright, since no other harm happened to her.

"But it was far otherwise with the wicked monk, who had only come into that holy monastery to stir up sin; for he, leaning too far over at the instant, fell with an awful howl to the ground, where he roared so with pain that all the other monks came running to see what was the matter.

And they found him indeed, more dead than alive, terribly bruised, yet in greater agony of mind than of body, saying that Satan had tempted him, and that he would fain confess to the Beato Dyonisio, who alone could save him.

"Then the good monk tended him, and so exhorted him that he left his evil ways and became a worthy servant of G.o.d, and the devil ceased to tempt him. And in due time Brother Dyonisio died, and as a saint they interred him in the crypt under the convent, and the morning after his burial a beautiful flower was found growing from his tomb, and so they sainted him.

"The fall of the girl was a scandal and cause of laughter for all Florence, so that from that day the monks never ventured more to draw up damsels in baskets."

This story is so widely spread in many forms, that the reader can hardly have failed to have heard it; in fact, there are few colleges where it has not happened that a basket has not been used for such smuggling. One of the most amusing instances is of a damsel in New Haven, or Cambridge, Ma.s.sachusetts, who was very forgetful. One day she said to a friend, "You have no idea how wicked some girls are. The other morning early-I mean late at night-I was going by the college when I saw a girl being drawn up in a basket by some students, when all at once the rope broke-_and down I came_."

In Germany, as in the East, the tale is told of a wooer who is drawn up half-way in a basket and then let remain for everybody to behold. In Uhland's Old Ballads there is one to this effect of Heinrich Corrade der Schreiber im Korbe. Tales on this theme at least need not be regarded as strictly traditional.

There is another little legend attached to La Certosa which owes its small interest to being told of a man who was one of the Joe Millers of Italy in the days of the Medici. It is a curious fact that humorists do most abound and are most popular in great epochs of culture.

Domenico Barlacchi was a _banditore_-herald or public crier-of Florence, commonly known as Il Barlacchia, who lived in the time of Lorenzo de'

Medici, and who, being _molto piacevole e faceto_, or pleasing and facetious, as I am a.s.sured by an ancient yellow jest-book of 1636 now before me, became, like Piovano Arlotto and Gonella, one of the famous wits of his time. It is worth noting, though it will be no news to any folk-lorist, that in these flying leaves, or fleeting collections of facetiae, there are many more indications of familiar old Florentine life than are to be gleaned from the formal histories which are most cited by writers who endeavour to ill.u.s.trate it.

"One morning Barlacchia, with other boon companions, went to La Certosa, three miles distant from Florence, {71} where, having heard ma.s.s, they were taken over the convent by one of the friars, who showed them the convent and cells. Of which Barlacchia said 'twas all very fine, but that he would like to see the wine-cellar-_sentendosi egli hauer sete_-as he felt great thirst sadly stealing over him.

"To which the friar replied that he would gladly show them that part of the convent, but that unfortunately the Decano who kept the keys was absent. [_Decano_, dean or deacon, may be rendered roughly in English as a dog, or literally of a dog or currish.] To which Barlacchia replied, 'Truly I am sorry for it, and I wish you were all _de' cani_ or dogs!'

Times have changed, and whether this tale brought about the reform I cannot say, but it is certain that the good monks at present, without waiting to be asked, generally offer a gla.s.s of their famous cordial to visitors. Tastes may differ, but to mine, when it is old, the green Certosa, though far cheaper, is superior to Chartreuse.

Another tale of Barlacchia, which has a certain theological affinity with this story, is as follows:

"A great illness once befell Barlacchia, so that it was rumoured all over Florence that he was dead, and great was the grieving thereover.

But having recovered, by the grace of G.o.d, he went from his house to the palace of the Grand Duke, who said to him:

"'Ha! art thou alive, Barlacchia? We all heard that thou wert dead.'

"'Signore, it is true,' was his reply. 'I was indeed in the other world, but they sent me back again, and that for a mere trifle, which you forgot to give me.'

"'And what was that?' asked the Duke.

"'I knocked,' resumed Barlacchia, 'at the gate of heaven, and they asked me who I was, what I had done in the world, and whether I had left any landed property. To which I replied no, never having begged for anything. So they sent me off, saying that they did not want any such poor devils about them-_non volevano la simile dapochi_. And therefore, ill.u.s.trious Signore, I make so bold as to ask that you would kindly give me some small estate, so that another time I may not be turned away.'

"Which so pleased the magnificent and liberal Lorenzo that he bestowed on Barlacchia a _podere_ or farm.

"Now for a long time after this illness, Barlacchia was very pale and haggard, so that everybody who met him (and he was well known to everybody) said, 'Barlacchia, _mind the rules_'-meaning the rules of health; or else, 'Barlacchia, look to yourself;' or _regolati_! or _guardatevi_!-till at last he became tired with answering them. So he got several small wooden rules or rulers, such as writers use to draw lines, and hung them by a cord to his neck, and with them a little mirror, and when any one said '_Regolati_'-'mind the rules,'

he made no reply, but looked at the sticks, and when they cried '_Guardatevi_!' he regarded himself in the mirror, and so they were answered."

This agrees with the sketch of Lorenzo as given by Oscar Browning in his admirable "Age of the Condottieri," a short history of Mediaeval Italy from 1409 to 1530:

"Lorenzo was a bad man of business; he spent such large sums on himself that he deserved the appellation of the Magnificent. He reduced himself to poverty by his extravagance; he alienated his fellow-citizens by his l.u.s.t . . . and was shameless in the promotion of his private favourites."

Yet with all this he was popular, and left a legendary fame in which generosity rivals a love of adventure. I have collected many traditions never as yet published relating to him, and in all he appears as a _bon prince_.

"But verily when I consider that what made a gallant lord four hundred years ago would be looked after now by the Lord Chancellor and the law courts with a sharp stick, I must needs," writes Flaxius, "exclaim with Spenser sweet:

"'Me seemes the world is run quite out of square, For that which all men once did Vertue call, Is now called Vice, and that which Vice was hight Is now hight Vertue, and so used of all; Right now is wrong, and wrong that was, is right, As all things else in time are changed quight.'"

LEGENDS OF THE BRIDGES IN FLORENCE

"I stood upon a bridge and heard The water rushing by, And as I thought, to every word The water made reply.

I looked into the deep river, I looked so still and long, Until I saw the elfin shades Pa.s.s by in many a throng.

They came and went like starry dreams, For ever moving on, As darkness takes the starry beams Unnoted till they're gone."

There is something in a bridge, and especially in an old one, which has been time-worn and mossed into harmony with surrounding nature, which has always seemed peculiarly poetical or strange to men. Hence so many legends of devil's bridges, and it is rather amusing when we reflect how, as Pontifex, he is thus identified with the head of the Church. Thus I once, when attending law lectures in Heidelberg in 1847, heard Professor Mittermaier say, that those who used the saying of "the divine right of kings" as an argument reminded him of the peasants who a.s.sumed that every old bridge was built by the devil. It is, however, simply the arch, which in any form is always graceful, and the stream pa.s.sing through it like a living thing, which forms the artistic attraction or charm of such structures. I have mentioned in my "Memoirs" that Ralph Waldo Emerson was once impressed by a remark, the first time I met him, to the effect that a vase in a room had the effect of a bridge in a landscape-at least, he recalled it at once when I met him twenty years later.

The most distinguished bridge, from a legendary point of view, in Europe, was that of Saint John Nepomuc in Prague-recently washed away owing to stupid neglect; the government of the city probably not supporting, like the king in the opera-bouffe of "Barbe Bleu," a commissioner of bridges.

The most picturesque work of the kind which I recall is that of the Ponte Maddalena-also a devil's bridge-at the Bagni di Lucca. That Florence is not wanting in legends for its bridges appears from the following:

THE SPIRIT OF THE PONTE VECCHIO OR OLD BRIDGE.

"He who pa.s.ses after midnight on the Ponte Vecchio can always see a form which acts as guard, sometimes looking like a beggar, sometimes like a _guardia di sicurezza_, or one of the regular watchmen, and indeed appearing in many varied forms, but generally as that of a watchman, and always leaning on the bridge.

"And if the pa.s.ser-by asks him any such questions as these: 'Chi siei?'-'Cosa fai?'-'Dove abiti?'-'Ma vien' con me?' That is: 'Who are you?'-'What dost thou do?'-'Where is your home?'-'Wilt with me come?'-he seems unable to utter anything; but if you ask him, 'Who am I?' it seems to delight him, and he bursts into a peal of laughter which is marvellously loud and ringing, so that the people in the shops waking up cry, 'There is the goblin of the Ponte Vecchio at his jests again!' For he is a merry sprite, and then they go to sleep, feeling peaceably a.s.sured that he will watch over them as of yore.

"And this he really does for those who are faithful unto him. And those who believe in spirits should say sincerely:

"'Spirito del Ponte Vecchio, Guardami la mia bottega!

Guardami dagli ladroni!

Guardami anche dalla strega!'

"'Spirit of the ancient bridge!

Guard my shop and all my riches, From the thieves who prowl by night, And especially from witches!'