The Italians Part 1

The Italians.

by Frances Elliot.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

LUCCA.

We are at Lucca. It is the 13th of September, 1870--the anniversary of the festival of the Volto Santo--a notable day, both in city, suburb, and province. Lucca dearly loves its festivals--no city more; and of all the festivals of the year that of the Volto Santo best. Now the Volto Santo (_Anglice_, Holy Countenance) is a miraculous crucifix, which hangs, as may be seen, all by itself in a gorgeous chapel--more like a paG.o.da than a chapel, and more like a glorified bird-cage than either--built expressly for it among the stout Lombard pillars in the nave of the cathedral. The crucifix is of cedar-wood, very black, and very ugly, and it was carved by Nicodemus; of this fact no orthodox Catholic entertains a doubt. But on what authority I cannot tell, nor why, nor how, the Holy Countenance reached the snug little city of Lucca, except by flying through the air like the Loretto house, or springing out of the earth like the Madonna of Feltri. But here it is, and here it has been for many a long year; and here it will remain as a miraculous relic, bringing with it blessings and immunities innumerable to the grateful city.

What a glorious morning it is! The sun rose without a cloud. Now there is a golden haze hanging over the plain, and glints as of living flame on the flanks of the mountains. From all sides crowds are pressing toward Lucca. Before six o'clock every high-road is alive. Down from the highest mountain-top of Pizzorna, overlooking Florence and its vine-garlanded campagna, comes the hermit, brown-draped, in hood and mantle; staff in hand, he trudges along the dusty road. And down, too, from his native lair among the pigs and the poultry, comes the black-eyed, black-skinned, matted-haired urchin, who makes mud pies under the tufted ilex-trees at Ponte a Moriano, and swears at the hermit.

They come! they come! From mountain-sides bordering the broad road along the Serchio--mountains dotted with bright homesteads, each gleaming out of its own cypress-grove, olive-patch, canebrake, and vine-arbor, under which the children play--they come from solitary hovels, hung up, as it were, in mid-air, over gloomy ravines, scored and furrowed with red earth, down which dark torrents dash and spray.

They come! they come! these Tuscan peasants, a trifle too fond of holiday-keeping, like their betters--but what would you have? The land is fertile, and corn and wine and oil and rosy flowering almonds grow almost as of themselves. They come--tens and tens of miles away, from out the deep shadows of primeval chestnut-woods, clothing the flanks of rugged Apennines with emerald draperies. They come--through parting rocks, bordering nameless streams--cool, delicious waters, over which bend fig, peach, and plum, delicate ferns and unknown flowers. They come--from hamlets and little burghs, gathered beside lush pastures, where tiny rivulets trickle over fresh turf and fragrant herbs, lulling the ear with softest echoes.

They come--dark-eyed mothers and smiling daughters, decked with gold pins, flapping Leghorn hats, lace veils or snowy handkerchiefs gathered about their heads, coral beads, and golden crosses as big as shields, upon their necks--escorted by lover, husband, or father--a flower behind his ear, a slouch hat on his head, a jacket thrown over one arm, every man shouldering a red umbrella, although to doubt the weather to-day is absolute sacrilege!

Carts clatter by every moment, drawn by swift Maremma nags, gay with bra.s.s harness, tinkling bells, and ta.s.sels of crimson on reins and frontlet.

The carts are laden with peasants (nine, perhaps, ranged three abreast)--treason to the gallant animal that, tossing its little head, bravely struggles with the cruel load. A priest is stuck in bodkin among his flock--a priest who leers and jests between pinches of snuff, and who, save for his seedy black coat, knee-breeches, worsted stockings, shoe-buckles, clerical hat, and smoothly-shaven chin, is rougher than a peasant himself.

Riders on Elba ponies, with heavy cloaks (for the early morning, spite of its glories, is chill), spur by, adding to the dust raised by the carts.

Genteel flies and hired carriages with two horses, and hood and foot-board--pa.s.s, repa.s.s, and out-race each other. These flies and carriages are crammed with bailiffs from the neighboring villas, shopkeepers, farmers, and small proprietors. Donkeys, too, there are in plenty, carrying men bigger than themselves (under protest, be it observed, for here, as in all countries, your donkey, though marked for persecution, suffers neither willingly nor in silence). Begging friars, tanned like red Indians, glide by, hot and grimy (thank Heaven! not many now, for "New Italy" has sacked most of the convent rookeries and dispersed the rooks), with wallets on their shoulders, to carry back such plunder as can be secured, to far-off convents and lonely churches, folded up tightly in forest fastnesses.

All are hurrying onward with what haste they may, to reach the city of Lucca, while broad shadows from the tall mountains on either hand still fall athwart the roads, and cool morning air breathes up from the rushing Serchio.

The Serchio--a n.o.ble river, yet willful as a mountain-torrent--flows round the embattled walls of Lucca, and falls into the Mediterranean below Pisa. It is calm now, on this day of the great festival, sweeping serenely by rocky capes, and rounding into fragrant bays, where overarching boughs droop and feather. But there is a sullen look about its current, that tells how wicked it can be, this Serchio, lashed into madness by winter storms, and the overflowing of the water-gates above, among the high Apennines--at the Abbetone at San Marcello, or at windy, ice-bound Pracchia.

How fair are thy banks, O mountain-bordered Serchio! How verdant with near wood and neighboring forest! How gay with cottage groups--open-galleried and garlanded with bunches of golden maize and vine-branches--all laughing in the sun! The wine-shops, too, along the road, how tempting, with snowy table-cloths spread upon dressers under shady arbors of lemon--trees; pleasant odors from the fry cooking in the stove, mixing with the perfume of the waxy flowers! Dear to the nostrils of the pa.s.sers-by are these odors. They snuff them up--onions, fat, and macaroni, with delight. They can scarcely resist stopping once for all here, instead of waiting for their journey's end to eat at Lucca.

But the b.u.t.terflies--and they are many--are wiser in their generation.

The b.u.t.terflies have a festival of their own to-day. They do not wait for any city. They are fixed to no spot. They can hold their festival anywhere under the blue sky, in the broad sunshine.

See how they dance among the flowers! Be it spikes of wild-lavender, or yellow down within the Canterbury bell, or horn of purple cyclamens, or calyx of snowy myrtle, the soft bosom of tall lilies or glowing petals of red cloves--nothing comes amiss to the b.u.t.terflies.

They are citizens of the world, and can feast wherever fancy leads them.

Meanwhile, on comes the crowd, nearer and nearer to the city of their pilgrimage, laughing, singing, talking, smoking. Your Italian peasant must sleep or smoke, excepting when he plays at _morra_ (one, two, three, and away!). Then he puts his pipe into his pocket. The women are conversing in deep voices, in the _patois_ of the various villages. The men, more silent, search out who is fairest--to lead her on the way, to kneel beside her at the shrine, and, most prized of all, to conduct her home. Each village has its belle, each belle her circle of admirers. Belles and beaux all have their own particular plan of diversion for the day. For is it not a great day? And is it not stipulated in many of the marriage contracts among the mountain tribes that the husband must, under a money penalty, conduct his wife to the festival of the Holy Countenance once at least in four years?

The programme is this: First, they enter the cathedral, kneel at the glistening shrine of the black crucifix, kiss its golden slipper, and hear ma.s.s. Then they will grasp such goods as the G.o.ds provide them, in street, _cafe_, eating-house, or day theatre; make purchases in the shops and booths, and stroll upon the ramparts. Later, when the sun sinks westward over the mountains, and the deep canopy of twilight falls, they will return by the way that they have come, until the coming year.

Within the city, from before daybreak, church-bells--and Lucca abounds in belfries fretted tier upon tier, with galleries of delicate marble colonnettes, all ablaze in the sunshine--have pealed out merrily.

Every church-door, draped with gold tissue and silken stuffs, more or less splendid, is thrown wide open. Every shop is closed, save _cafes_, hotels, and tobacco-shops (where, by command of the King of New Italy, infamous cigars are sold). Eating-tables are spread at the corners of the streets and under the trees in the piazza, benches are ranged everywhere where benches can stand. The streets are filling every moment as fresh mult.i.tudes press through the city gates--those grand old gates, where the marble lions of Lucca keep guard, looking toward the mountains.

For a carriage to pa.s.s anywhere in the streets would be impossible, so tightly are flapping Leghorn hats, and veils, snowy handkerchiefs, and red caps and brigand hats, packed together. Bells ring, and there are waftings of military music borne through the air. Trumpet-calls at the different barracks answer to each other. Cannons are fired. Each man, woman, and child shouts, screams, and laughs. All down the dark, cavernous streets, in the great piazza, at the sindaco's, at college, at club, public offices, and hotels, at the grand old palaces, untouched since the middle ages--the glory of the city--at every house, great and small--flutter gaudy draperies; crimson, amber, violet, and gold, according to purse and condition, either of richest brocade, or of Eastern stuffs wrought in gold and needle-work, or--the family carpet or bed-furniture hung out for show. Banners wave from every house-top and tower, the Italian tricolor and the Savoy cross, white, on a red ground; flowers and garlands are wreathed on the fronts of the stern old walls. If peasants, and shopkeepers, and monks, priests, beggars, and _hoi polloi_ generally, possess the pavement, overhead every balcony, gallery, terrace, and cas.e.m.e.nt, is filled with company, representatives of the historic families of Lucca, the Manfredi, Possenti, Navascoes, Bernardini, dal Portico, Bocella, Manzi, da Gia, Orsetti, Ruspoli--feudal names dear to native ears. The n.o.ble marquis, or his excellency the count, lord of broad acres on the plains, or princ.i.p.alities in the mountains, or of h.o.a.rded wealth at the National Bank--is he not Lucchese also to the backbone?

And does he not delight in the festival as keenly as that half-naked beggar, who rattles his box for alms, with a broad grin on his dirty face?

Resplendent are the ladies in the balconies, dressed in their best--like bands of fluttering ribbon stretched across the sombre-fronted palaces; aristocratic daughters, and dainty consorts.

They are not chary of their charms. They laugh, fan themselves, lean over sculptured bal.u.s.trades, and eye the crowded streets, talking with lip and fan, eye and gesture.

In the long, narrow street of San Simone, behind the cathedral of San Martino, stand the two Guinigi Palaces. They are face to face. One is ditto of the other. Each is in the florid style of Venetian-Gothic, dating from the beginning of the fourteenth century. Both were built by Paolo Guinigi, head of the ill.u.s.trious house of that name, for forty years general and tyrant of the Republic of Lucca. Both palaces bear his arms, graven on marble tablets beside the entrance. Both are of brick, now dulled and mellowed into a reddish white. Both have walls of enormous thickness. The windows of the upper stories--quadruple cas.e.m.e.nts divided, Venetian-like, by twisted pillarettes richly carved--are faced and mullioned with marble.

The lower windows (mere square apertures) are barred with iron. The arched portals opening to the streets are low, dark, and narrow. The inner courts gloomy, damp, and prison-like. Bra.s.s ornaments, sockets, rings, and torch-holders of iron, sculptured emblems, crests, and cognizances in colored marble, are let into the outer walls. In all else, ornamentation is made subservient to defense. These are city fortresses rather than ancestral palaces. They were constructed to resist either attack or siege.

Rising out of the overhanging roof (supported on wooden rafters) of the largest and most stately of the two palaces, where twenty-three groups of cl.u.s.tered cas.e.m.e.nts, linked by slender pillars, extend in a line along a single story--rises a mediaeval tower of defense of many stories. Each story is pierced by loop-holes for firing into the street below. On the machicolated summit is a square platform, where in the course of many peaceful ages a bay-tree has come to grow of a goodly size. About this bay-tree tangled weeds and tufted gra.s.ses wave in the wind. Below, here and there, patches of blackened moss or yellow lichen, a branch of mistletoe or a bunch of fern, break the lines of the mediaeval brickwork. Sprays of wild-ivy cling to the empty loop-holes, through which the blue sky peeps.

The lesser of the two palaces--the one on the right hand as you ascend the street of San Simone coming from the cathedral--is more decorated to-day than any other in Lucca. A heavy sea of Leghorn hats and black veils, with male accompaniments, is crowded beneath. They stare upward and murmur with delight. Gold and silver stuffs, satin and taffeta, striped brocades, and rich embroideries, flutter from the cl.u.s.tered cas.e.m.e.nt up to the overhanging roof. There are many flags (one with a coat-of-arms, amber and purple on a gold ground) blazing in the sunshine. The grim brick facade is festooned with wreaths of freshly-plucked roses. Before the low-arched entrance on the pavement there is a carpet of flower-petals fashioned into a monogram, bearing the letters "M.N." Just within the entrance stands a porter, leaning on a gold staff, as immovable in aspect as are the mediaeval walls that close in behind him. A badge or baldric is pa.s.sed across his chest; he is otherwise so enveloped with gold-lace, embroidery, b.u.t.tons, trencher, and c.o.c.ked-hat, that the whole inner man is absorbed, not to say invisible. Beside him, in the livery of the house, tall valets grin, lounge, and ogle the pa.s.sers-by (wearers of Leghorn hats, and veils, and white head-gear generally). This particular Guinigi Palace belongs to Count Mario n.o.bili. He bought it of the Marchesa Guinigi, who lives opposite. n.o.bili is the richest young man in Lucca. No one calls upon him for help in vain; but, let it be added, no one offends him with impunity. When n.o.bili first came to Lucca, the old families looked coldly at him, his n.o.bility being of very recent date. It was bestowed on his father, a successful banker--some said usurer, some said worse--by the Grand-duke Leopold, for substantial a.s.sistance toward his pet hobby--the magnificent road that zigzags up the mountain-side to Fiesole from Florence.

But young n.o.bili soon conquered Lucchese prejudice. Now he is well received by all--_all_ save the Marchesa Guinigi. She was, and is at this time, still irreconcilable. n.o.bili stands in the central window of his palace. He leans out over the street, a cigar in his mouth.

A servant beside him flings down from time to time some silver coin among Leghorn hats and the beggars, who scramble for it on the pavement. n.o.bili's eyes beam as the populace look up and cheer him: "Long live Count n.o.bili! Evviva!" He takes off his hat and bows; more silver coin comes clattering down on the pavement; there are fresh evvivas, fresh bows, and more scramblers cover the street. "No one like n.o.bili," the people say; "so affable, so open-handed--yes, and so clever, too, for has he not traveled, and does he not know the world?"

Beside Count n.o.bili some _jeunesse doree_ of his own age (sons of the best houses in Lucca) also lean over the Venetian cas.e.m.e.nts. Like the liveried giants at the entrance, these laugh, ogle, chaff, and criticise the wearers of Leghorn hats, black veils, and white head-gear, freely. They smoke, and drink _liqueurs_ and sherbet, and crack sugar-plums out of crystal cup on silver plates, set on embossed trays placed beside them.

The profession of these young men is idleness. They excel in it. Let us pause for a moment and ask what they do--this _jeunesse doree_, to whom the sacred mission is committed of regenerating an heroic people?

They could teach Ovid "the art of love." It comes to them in the air they breathe. They do not love their neighbor as themselves, but they love their neighbor's wives. Nothing is holy to them. "All for love, and the world well lost," is their motto. They can smile in their best friend's face, weep with him, rejoice with him, eat with him, drink with him, and--betray him; they do this every day, and do it well.

They can also lie artistically, dressing up imaginary details with great skill, gamble and sing, swear, and talk scandal. They can lead a graceful, dissolute, _far niente_ life, loll in carriages, and be whirled round for hours, say the Florence Cascine, the Roman Pincio, and the park at Milan--smoking the while, and raising their hats to the ladies. They can trot a well-broken horse--not too fresh, on a hard road, and are wonderful in ruining his legs. A very few can drive what they call a _stage_ (_Anglice_, drag) with grave and well-educated wheelers, on a very straight road--such as do this are looked upon as heroes--shoot a hare sitting, also tom-t.i.ts and sparrows. But they can neither hunt, nor fish, nor row. They are ready of tongue and easy of offense. They can fight duels (with swords), generally a harmless exercise. They can dance. They can hold strong opinions on subjects on which they are cra.s.sly ignorant, and yield neither to fact nor argument where their mediaeval usages are concerned. All this the golden youths of Young Italy can do, and do it well.

Yet from such stuff as this are to come the future ministers, prefects, deputies, financiers, diplomatists, and senators, who are to regenerate the world's old mistress! Alas, poor Italy!

The Guinigi Palace opposite forms a striking contrast to Count n.o.bili's abode. It is as silent as the grave. Every shutter is closed.

The great wooden door to the street is locked; a heavy chain is drawn across it. The Marchesa Guinigi has strictly commanded that it should be so. She will have nothing to do with the festival of the Holy Countenance. She will take no part in it whatever. Indeed, she has come to Lucca on purpose to see that her orders are obeyed to the very letter, else that rascal of a secretary might have hung out something in spite of her. The marchesa, who has been for many years a widow, and is absolute possessor of the palace and lands, calls herself a liberal. But she is in practice the most thorough-going aristocrat alive. In one respect she is a liberal. She despises priests, laughs at miracles, and detests festivals. "A loss of time, and, if of time, of money," she says. If the peasants and the people complain of the taxes, and won't work six days in the week, "Let them starve," says the marchesa--"let them starve; so much the better!"

In her opinion, the legend of the Holy Countenance is a lie, got up by priests for money; so she comes into the city from Corellia, and shuts up her palace, publicly to show her opinion. As far as she is concerned, she believes neither in St. Nicodemus nor in idleness.

A good deal of this, be it said, _en pa.s.sant_, is sheer obstinacy. The marchesa is obstinate to folly, and full of contradictions. Besides, there is another powerful motive that influences her--she hates Count n.o.bili. Not that he has ever done any thing personally to offend her; of this he is incapable--indeed, he has his own reasons for desiring pa.s.sionately to be on good terms with her--but he has, in her opinion, injured her by purchasing the second Guinigi Palace. That she should have been obliged to sell one of her ancestral palaces at all is to her a bitter misfortune; but that any one connected with trade should possess what had been inherited generation after generation by the Guinigi, is intolerable.

That a _parvenu_, the son of a banker, should live opposite to her, that he should abound in money, which he flings about recklessly, while she can with difficulty eke out the slender rents from the greatly-reduced patrimony of the Guinigi, is more than she can bear.

His popularity and his liberality (and she cannot come to Lucca without hearing of both), even that comely young face of his, which she sees when she pa.s.ses the club on the way to her afternoon drive on the ramparts, are dire offenses in her eyes. Whatever Count n.o.bili does, she (the Marchesa Guinigi) will do the reverse. He has opened his house for the festival. Hers shall be closed. She is thoroughly exceptional, however, in such conduct. Every one in Lucca save herself, rich and poor, n.o.ble and villain, join heart and soul in the national festival. Every one lays aside on this auspicious day differences of politics, family feuds, and social animosities. Even enemies join hands and kneel side by side at the same altar. It is the mediaeval "G.o.d's truce" celebrated in the nineteenth century.

It is now eleven o'clock. A great deal of sausage and garlic, washed down by new wine and light beer, has been by this time consumed in eating-shops and on street tables; much coffee, _liqueurs_, cake, and bonbons, inside the palaces.

Suddenly all the church-bells, which have rung out since daybreak like mad, stop; only the deep-toned cathedral-bell booms out from its snowy campanile in half-minute strokes. There is an instant lull, the din and clatter of the streets cease, the crowd surges, separates, and disappears, the palace windows and balconies empty themselves, the street forms are vacant. The procession in honor of the Holy Countenance is forming; every one has rushed off to the cathedral.

CHAPTER II.

THE CATHEDRAL OF LUCCA.