Legends Of Florence Part 7

"Now as surely as that time and straw ripen medlars, as the saying is, just so surely will it come to pa.s.s that a woman will tell a secret, even to her own shame. And so it befell this lady, who told it as a great mystery to her mother, who at once imparted it under oath to all her dear friends, who swore all their friends on all their salvations not to breathe a word of it to anybody, who all confessed it to the priests.

How much farther it went G.o.d knows, but by the time the whole town knew it, which was in one day of twenty-four hours, or ere the next morning, the bride had become a frog who lived in the spring, and the bridegroom a boar who every day went to drink at the water, and when there said:

"'Lady Frog! lo, I am here!

He to whom thou once wert dear.

We are in this sad condition, Not by avarice or ambition, Nor by evil or by wrong, But 'cause thou could'st not hold thy tongue; For be she shallow, be she deep, No woman can a secret keep; Which all should think upon who see The monument which here will be.'

"So it came to pa.s.s either that the boar turned into the great bronze _maiale_ which now stands in the market-place, or else the people raised it in remembrance of the story-_chi sa_-but there it is to this day.

"As for the Signora Frog, she comforted herself by making a great noise and telling the tale at the top of her voice, having her brains in her tongue-_il cervello nella lingua_, as they say of those who talk well yet have but small sense. And that which you hear frogs croaking all night long is nothing but this story which I have told you of their ancestress and the bronze boar."

This is, in one form or the other, a widely spread tale. As the voice of the frog has a strange resemblance to that of man, there being legends referring to it in every language, and as there is a bold and forward expression in its eyes, {50} it was anciently regarded as a human being who was metamorphosed for being too impudent and loquacious, as appears by the legend of "Latona and the Lycian Boors" (Ovid, _Metamorph._, vi.

340). The general resemblance of the form of a frog to that of man greatly contributed to create such fables.

The cla.s.sic ancient original of this boar may be seen in the Uffizzi Gallery. As the small image of a pig carried by ladies ensures that they will soon be, as the Germans say, "in blessed circ.u.mstances," or _enceinte_ (which was all one with luck in old times), so the image of the boar is supposed to be favourable to those ladies who desire olive branches. From all which it appears that in ancient times swine were more highly honoured than at present, or, as Sh.e.l.ley sings:

"We pigs Were blest as nightingales on myrtle sprigs, Or gra.s.shoppers that live on noon-day dew."

THE FAIRY OF THE CAMPANILE, OR THE TOWER OF GIOTTO

"Bella di fronte e infino alle Calcagna, Con un corredo n.o.bile e civile, In te risiede una cupola magna E superbo di Giotto il Campanile."-_Giuseppe Moroni_.

"Round as the O of Giotto, d'ye see?

Which means as well done as a thing can be."-_Proverb_.

Many have wondered how it came to pa.s.s that Virgil lived in tradition not as a poet but as sorcerer. But the reason for it is clear when we find that in Florence every man who ever had a genius for anything owed it to magic, or specially to the favour of some protecting fairy or _folletto_, spirit or G.o.d. Is a girl musical? Giacinto or Hyacinth, the favourite of Apollo, has given her music lessons in her dreams. For the orthodox there are Catholic saints with a specialty, from venerable Simeon, who looks after luck in lotteries, to the ever-blessed Antony, who attends to everything, and Saint Anna, _nee_ Lucina, who inspires nurses. And where the saints fail, the _folletti_, according to the witches, take their place and do the work far better. Therefore, as I shall in another place set forth, Dante and Michel Angelo have pa.s.sed into the marvellous mythology of goblins. With them is included Giotto, as appears by the following legend of "The Goblin of the Bell-Tower of Giotto."

IL FOLLETTO DEL CAMPANILE DI GIOTTO.

"Giotto was a shepherd, and every day when he went forth to pasture his herd there was one little lamb who always kept near him, and appeared to be longing to talk to him like a Christian.

"Now this lamb always laid down on a certain stone which was fast in the ground (_ma.s.so_); and Giotto, who loved the lamb, to please it, lay down also on the same stone.

"After a short time the lamb died, and when dying said:

"'Giotto, cosa non far ti Se mi senti parlarti, Ti voglio tanto bene E dove andrai, Io ti seguiro sempre In forma di folletto, E col mio volere Tu verrai un bravo scultore E insegne disegnatore.'

"'Giotto, be not astonished That I thus speak to thee; I have such love for thee, Wherever thou shalt go I will follow thee always In the form of a fairy, And through my favour Thou shalt become a great sculptor And artist.'

"And so it came to pa.s.s that Giotto was an able sculptor by the aid of the lamb, and all that he did was due to the lamb which helped him.

"And when he died, the spirit of the lamb remained in the form of a _folletto_ or fairy in the campanile, and it is still often seen there, always with the spirit of Giotto. Even in death their souls could not be separate.

"When any one desires to ascend the tower, and his or her heart fails in mounting the steps (_e che ha paura di salire_), the fairy below says:

"'Vade, vade, Signora!

La vade su salgha, Non abbia paura, Ci sono io sotto.'

"'Go on, go on, Signora, Go up the stairs-oh go!

Be not afraid, my lady!

For I am here below.'

"Then the visitor hearing this believes it is one of the guides employed (_inpiegati_), or one of the gentlemen or ladies who are ascending after.

And often when half-way up there comes a great puff of wind which blows up their skirts (_fa gonfiare le sottane_) which causes great laughter, and they think that this is only a common thing, and do not perceive that it does not happen to others.

"And it is said that this fairy appears by night in the Piazza del Duomo, or Cathedral Square, in different forms."

The reason why Giotto is so popularly known as having been a shepherd is that on the central tablet of the tower or campanile, facing the street, there is a bas-relief of a man seated in a tent with sheep before him, and this is naturally supposed to represent the builder or Giotto himself, since it fills the most prominent place. In a very popular halfpenny chapbook, ent.i.tled "The Statues under the Uffizzi in Florence, Octaves improvised by Giuseppe Moroni, called _Il Niccheri_ or the Illiterate," I find the following:

GIOTTO.

"Voi di Mugello, nato dell' interno, Giotto felice, la da' Vespignano Prodigiose pitture in ogni esterno A Brescia, a Roma, Firenze e Milano, Nelle pietre, ne' marmi nel quaderno, L'archittetura al popolo italiano.

Da non trovare paragone simile, Vi basti, per esempio, il campanile."

"Thou of Mugello, born in Italy, Happy Giotto, gav'st to Vespignan Great pictures which on every front we see At Brescia, Rome, in Florence and Milan, In stone, in marble, and in poetry, And architecture, all Italian.

Nothing surpa.s.sed thy wondrous art and power, Take for example, then, our great bell-tower."

The fact that this is taken from a very popular halfpenny work indicates the remarkable familiarity with such a name as that of Giotto among the people.

THE GOBLIN OF THE TOWER BELLA TRINITA, OR THE PORTA SAN NICCOLO

"They do not speak as mortals speak, Nor sing as others sing; Their words are gleams of starry light, Their songs the glow of sunset light, Or meteors on the wing."

I once begun a book-the ending and publishing of it are in the dim and remote future, and perhaps in the limbo of all things unfinished. It was or is "The Experiences of Flaxius the Immortal," a sage who dwells for ever in the world, chiefly to observe the evolution of all things absurd, grotesque, quaint, illogical-in short, of all that is strictly human.

And on him I bestowed a Florentine legend which is perhaps of great antiquity, since there is a hint in it of an ancient Hebrew work by Rabbi ben Mozeltoff or the learned Gedauler Chamar-I forget which-besides being found in poetic form in my own great work on Confucius.

That money is the life of man, and that treasure buried in the earth is a sin to its possessor, forms the subject of one of Christ's parables. The same is true of all talent unemployed, badly directed, or not developed at all. The turning-point of evolution and of progressive civilisation will be when public opinion and state interests require that every man shall employ what talent he has, and every mere idler be treated as a defaulter or criminal. From this truly Christian point of view the many tales of ghosts who walk in agony because of buried gold are strangely instructive.

FLAXIUS AND THE ROSE.

"Midnight was ringing from the cloister of San Miniato in Florence on the hill above, and Flaxius sat by the Arno down below, on the bank by the square grey tower of other days, known as the Niccol, or _Torre delta Trinita_, because there are in it three arches. . . .

"It was midnight in mid-winter, and a full moon poured forth all its light over Florence as if it would fain preserve it in amber, and over the olive groves as if they had become moss agates. . . .

["'Or I,' quoth Flaxius, 'a fly in hock.']

"Yes, it was a clear, cold, Tuscan night, and as the last peal of bells went out into eternity and faded in the irrevocable, thousands of spirits of the departed began to appear, thronging like fireflies through the streets, visiting their ancient haunts and homes, greeting, gossiping, arranging their affairs just as the peasants do on Friday in the great place of the Signoria, as they have done for centuries.