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‘THE BOOK OF ITALY
_ Under the Auspices of HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELENA
OF ITALY. Edited by RAFFAELLO PICCOLI, D.Lite.,
* Lecturer in Italian at the University of Cambridge. With
an Introduction by VISCOUNT BRYCE
HEAD OF A NEAPOLITAN BOY
John Si Sargent, R.A.
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Published for the PRO ITALIA COMMITTEE by
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., Adelphi Terrace, London»
| i ed
Prob
THE BOOK OF ITALY
Under the Auspices of HER MAJESTY QUEEN ELENA
OF ITALY. Edited by RAFFAELLO PICCOLT, D.Litt.,
Lecturer in Italian at the University of Cambridge. With
_an Introduction by VISCOUNT BRYCE
Published for the PRO ITALIA COMMITTEE by
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD., Adelphi Terrace, London
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At
PRO ITALIA
Committee in aid of the Italian Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families
in the United Kingdom and of the Italian Red Cross
Under the patronage of
HIS EXCELLENCY THE ITALIAN AMBASSADOR
MARCHESE IMPERIALI
PATRONS
Txus PRIME MINISTER
Tue Ricur Hon, Taz LORD MAYOR OF
LONDON
Tae Ricut Hon, Tut LORD PROVOST OF
EDINBURGH
Tas Duce or NEWCASTLE
Tue Duxe or SUTHERLAND
Tue Marguess or CREWE, K.G,
Tue Eart CURZON or Kepresron, K.G.
Tue Ear, KITCHENER or Kuartoum, K.G,
Tue Eart or ALBEMARLE
Tae Eart or ROSEBERY, K.G., K.T.
Tue Eart or DONOUGHMORE
Tue Eart BRASSEY, G.C.B.
Tue Viscount BRYCE
Lorpj HOWARD DE WALDEN
Lorpv FARQUHAR
Lorpv ARMSTRONG
Lorpv WEARDALE
Lorp MERSEY
Lorpv MOULTON
Lorpy READING
Tue Ricut Hon, Sim EDWARD GREY, K.G.
Tue Ricut Hon, Sir JAMES RENNELL RODD
G.C,V.O., C.B., P.C.
Tue Ricut Hon, D, LLOYD GEORGE, M.P.
Tue Hon, HARRY LAWSON, M.P.
Tae Ricut Hon. Srrm ALBERT SPICER, P.C,
Str ROBERT HADFIELD
Sir FREDERICK ROBERTSON
Str HERBERT TREE
CommenpatorE RICHARD BAGOT
ALFRED DE ROTHSCHILD, Esq.
LEOPOLD DE ROTHSCHILD, Esg.
T. FISHER UNWIN, Esg.
Cc, ERIC HAMBRO, Esg.
PATRONESSES
H.S.H. Tut Princess or MONACO
Tue Ducugss or NORFOLK
Tse Ducuess or SOMERSET
Tue Ducuress or DEVONSHIRE
Tue Ducness or MARLBOROUGH
CANDIDA, Marcuiongess or TWEEDDALE
Tue Marcuiongess or LANSDOWNE
Tue Marcuionsss or CREWE
Tue Countess or PEMBROKE anp MONT-
GOMERY
ADELE, Counrzss CADOGAN
Tse Countgss or GRANARD
Taz Countess or ARRAN
Tue Countess or MEXBOROUGH
CORA, Countess or STRAFFORD
Tus Lapy EDMUND TALBOT
Tuz Lapy RANDOLPH CHURCHILL
Tas Lapy MURIEL PAGET
Tux Lapy NORTHCLIFFE
Tue Hon, Mrs, RONALD GREVILLE
Lapy LISTER KAYE
Lapy (ARTHUR) PAGET
Lapy SLADE
Lapy LOWTHER
Mrs, ROBERT CRAWSHAY
Mrs, ARTHUR JAMES
Mrs. LEO DE ROTHSCHILD
Mrs, BISCHOFFSHEIM
Mrs. ARTHUR HARTER
Mrs, GRANET
Mrs. HARRISON CRIPPS
Mrs, EMILE MOND
Mrs, EDWARD SASSOON
Mrs, L, D. CUNLIFFE
Mrs, HENRY LOFTUS
Mrs, COBDEN UNWIN
Miss MUNDELLA
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
CHAIRMAN
MARCHESE A. FAA DI BRUNO
Royal Italian Consul
CAV. UFF. ROBERTO ALLATINI CAV. UGO CASALI
CAV. ARRIGO BOCCHI ANTONIO CIPPICO
CAV. UFF. ENRICO CANZIANI CAV. GIMO COSTA
COMM. PAOLO POLENGHI
Hon. Treasurer
CAV. AUGUSTO ODDENINO
Hon, Secretary
CONTE DE LA FELD
12 WATERLOO PLACE
REGENT STREET
Lonpon, S.W.
PREFACE
THE chief aim of this book is to help the Italian
Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Families in the United King-
dom, and the Italian Red Cross, for which the Pro
Italia Committee of London has already appealed.
in many forms, and with most encouraging results,
to the unbounded generosity of the British public.
But, by means of this new form of appeal, a further
end is served, which though outside the scope of
mere work of public assistance, is not outside that
of Caritas in the widest meaning of the word.
If the present crisis, according to the most earnest
hopes of our countries at war, is to produce some
good for the world at large and promote the
advancement of mankind, the main aspect of
such a benefit from the war should surely be a
closer intimacy, fostered by knowledge and under-
standing, among the nations which are now united
by community of ideals and of sufferings. ‘The
first idea of The Book of Italy was therefore that
of a symposium, at which British and Italian writers,
artists, and musicians should meet, and interchange
their gifts expressing the soul and mutual love
of the two nations. But it soon appeared that
insuperable difficulties, of a merely material order,
would prevent us from making the Italian part of
the book truly representative of modern Italian life
and thought, while the quick and large response
Vii
Preface
that our appeal for contributions obtained in this
country induced us to build it up in the fashion
of a purely British home, where the few Italian
contributors and the single French one should figure
as passing guests, and the Editor fill the humble post
of a master of the ceremonies.
The book, when thus conceived, if I rightly
interpret the intentions of its contributors, bears
witness to the fact that the knowledge and love of
Italian things, traditional in this country since the
time of Chaucer, through Shakespeare, Milton, and
Shelley, and warming the heart of every Italian with
pride and gratitude, is as deep and widespread and
heartfelt in the present generation as ever before.
Such knowledge and love, together with our own
ancient attachment to and admiration for the institu-
tions and achievements of Great Britain, will give
the strongest foundations to the new pact of alliance
between the two peoples, and to what this pact,
in which France and Russia join hands with us in
the same indomitable spirit, means for the future
of civilisation.
The heartiest thanks of the Pro Italia Com-
mittee and of the Editor are due to all who have
generously helped towards the success of the enter-
prise; and first and foremost to Her Gracious
Majesty Queen Elena of Italy, who has consented
that the book should appear under Her auspices,
just as everything in Italy that makes the horrors
of war less unbearable and kindles a flame of love
in the very heart of Death is now under the auspices
of this true ‘‘ Donna d’Italia.”
Our thanks are due also to the British and
Vili
Preface
Italian Cabinet Ministers for their significant mes-
sages ; to the writers, artists, and musicians whose
works appear in this book; to the Italian Ambas-
sador, Marchese Imperiali, and to the Italian
Consul, Marchese Faa di Bruno, who have assisted
us by all the means in their power ; to Count William
de la Feld, whose association with me in the pro-
duction of this book will remain among the dearest
recollections of my life in this country ; to Signor
Enrico Canziani, who collected the greatest part of
the illustrations, and supervised the work of repro-
duction; to Senatore Luca Beltrami, to whose
kindness we owe the reproduction of Leonardo’s
Sala delle Assi, which adorns the end-paper; to
Mr. 'T. Fisher Unwin, who came spontaneously to
our help, and has brought to this noble undertaking
all his valuable experience, his old love of Italy, and
his just pride as a publisher ; to Mr. W. H. Dircks
and Mr. R. Cobden-Sanderson, of Messrs. T. Fisher
Unwin Ltd., who have greatly eased the task of the
Editor by their eager and intelligent collaboration ;
and last, but not least, for all sort of help and
advice, to my friends Jim Barnes, Edward J. Dent,
Harold Monro, Antonio Cippico, and Arundel del Re.
RAFFAELLO PICCOLI.
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CONTENTS
PREFACE .
INTRODUCTION
MESSAGES .
The Editor
. . Viscount Bryce
H. H. Asquith
Sir Edward Grey
Antonio Salandva
Austen Chamberlain
Ferdinando Martini
LE SCUOLE DELLA DANTE ALIGHIERI IN
LONDRA . Hae
Paolo Boselli
FOR THE SCHOOLS OF THE rr DANTE ALIGHIERI 8
SOCIETY IN LONDON.
. Translation by ‘‘ A Friend of Italy”
MY MEMORIES OF ITALY, 1851-1915
Frederic Harrison
THE PRESCIENCE OF COUNT CAVOUR
ITALY THE REDEEMER
ITALY AND GERMANY: A CONTRAST °
LETTRE D’UN FRANCAIS A UN ITALIEN
Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco
Newman Howard
A. Clutton Brock
Paul Sabatier
LETTER TO AN ITALIAN FRIEND _ Translation by Barrett Wendell
MODERN ITALY AND GREECE:
ITALY AND THE GERMAN PROFESSORS
MAGNA PARENS . . ‘
THE DEMON OF WAR
THE INDIFFERENT STARS
HEREAFTER . ;
CONFESSIO AMANTIS .
ITALIAN MORNING
THE CAMPAGNA .
VARENNA .
LA VERDE
ARIETTA . ‘
LITTLE SONG ‘
THE LAND OF MUSIC
GIORNO DEI MORTI .
VIGILIA . , “
THE VIGIL .
ELEGY FOR B.H.W. thoes)
A CONTRAST Sir James Frazer
G. K. Chesterton
Gilbert Murray
‘Sir Wiliam B. Richmond
Alfred Sutro
W. L. Courtney
‘ Louts N. Parker
Eden Phillpotts
Edward Hutton
J. Walter West
Robert Hichens
‘ . S. di Giacomo
_ Buabieaia by Harold Monro
Edward J. Dent
‘ R D. H. Lawrence
¢ ‘ Grazia Deledda
Translation by Adeline Lister Kaye
. , : - Harold Monro
Contents
THE SMILING SOLDIERS . ' . Magdeleine Cotta ver Mehr
THE ITALIAN RED CROSS ‘ , Andrea Galante
(Tvanslation by William de la Feld.)
SWEETWILLIAM . . : . Lady Frazer
THE POET AND THE STOCKBROKER . ; . Barry Pain
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ITALY . e ; Estella Canziant
DONNA ROSA : ; A } . ‘ Sir J. Rennell Rodd
GONDOLAS . : ; i : ‘ ; ‘ Lord Dunsany
NIGHT. ; ‘ ‘ ‘ . Wilfrid W. Gibson
TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO ‘ : . . John Galsworthy
NOTTI VENEZIANE . ; , ; , ‘ Arthur Symons
A TUSCAN EPISODE . ‘ ‘ . Richard Bagot
WHERE THE MOUNTAINS MEET THE PLAINS Margaret Vaughan
A FINE ITALIAN GENTLEMAN OF THE OLD
SCHOOL . : ‘ ; = i . . « Thomas Okey
A VISIT TO GARIBALDI : é , Jane Cobden Unwin
SOME LESSONS FROM THE VENETIAN ARSENAL Albert Bail
AN HISTORICAL PARALLEL, 1350-1915 . . Horatio F. Brown
LEONARDO DA VINCI AND CESARE BORGIA _ Lwca Beltrami
(Tvanslation by ‘‘ Hardelot.’’ )
SHAKESPEARE AND THE ITALIAN NOVEL Sir Sidney Lee
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SINGER OF UNITED
ITALY. ; “ ; ; : ; . Edmund G. Gardner
NEGLECTED PISA A A M , 3 i Helen Zimmern
THE LIGHTS OF FLORENCE . i ‘ . Philip H. Wicksteed
THE SONG OF ITALY a . , ‘ . Ernest Rhys
OUR WARRIORS DEAD . | 3 ui H. E. Hamilton King
MUSIC
AVANTI, SAVOIA! ‘ ; - ; . Sir Charles V. Stanford
SICILIANA 4 , : 3 : . Sty Alexander C. Mackenzie
ANIMA MIA . > ; 4 ; Francesco Paolo Tosti
BATHING IN THE RIVER : ; . Pietro Reggio
(Edited by E. J. Dent.)
AVE MARIA ., ’ ‘ : : . Countess Vanden Heuwwel
PAGE
145
149
154
161
165
17I
173
176
177
181
183
189
194
200
202
209
214
225
238
245
250
262
272
19
99
172
232
268
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
COLOUR
PAGE
HEAD OF A NEAPOLITAN BOY : John S. Sargent, R.A. Frontispiece
IL LIDO, VENICE . ‘ ; ‘ . John Lavery, A.R.A. 40
WINTER IN THE FOREST, CAMPAGNA ROMANA
Comm. Aristide Sartovio (Rome) 108
(By Rind permission of the Fine Art Society Lid.)
TAORMINA, SICILY ; ; : . Arthur Hacker, R.A. 116
RIVA SAN SEBASTIANO, VENICE A . Henry Woods, R.A. 174
PALAZZO DEI CAMERLENGHI, VENICE Frank Brangwyn, R.A. 208
BLACK AND WHITE
DANTE AT THE TOMB OF POPE ANASTASIO
(Inferno, Canto XI). . > ; ‘ . Charles Ricketis I
SAN GIMIGNANO . ; ; Andrew F. Affleck, R.E. 12
(By kind permission of wee. Alfred Bell & Co.)
ARCO D’ARAGONA, NAPLES ‘ - David Donald 24
(By kind permission of Messrs. Alfred Bell & Co. )
A HERO OF WORK . ‘ ; Leonardo Bistolfi (Turin) 36
ASSISI . mn ‘ F. Cadogan Cowper, A.R. A. 50
(By Rind dwialaldis of Fredevich M. Fry, Esgq., C.V.O.)
DOLORE . : : . ¥ : . Emtlio Quadrelli (Milan) 60
FISHWIVES. , : ‘ ‘ . Augustus John 66
MICHELANGIOLO AT WORK , ‘ -. Robert Spence, R.E. 72
THE ARCH OF TITUS, ROME
Senatore Luca Beltvamt, Hon. Mem. R.I.B.A. (Milan) 78
PALACE OF SEPTIMIUS SEVERUS, ROME
Robert Anning Bell, A.R.A. 84
THE DEMON OF WAR Sir William B. Richmond, K.C.B., R.A. 86
MIDNIGHT IN ITALY . ; . FF. Cayley Robinson, A.R.W.S. 94
xiii
List of Illustrations
UNDER THE ITALIAN SUN, VILLA D’ESTE, ROME
PAGE
Siv Edward Poynter, Bart., K.C.V.0., P.R.A. 100
VARENNA, LAKE OF COMO ; : J. Walter West, RW.S. 110
STRADIVARIUS ‘ " J. Seymour Lucas, R.A. 124
(By kind permission of Marios: William E. Hill & Son)
CORPUS DOMINI PROCESSION, COMO ; Edwin Bale, R.I. 131
UNTO THEIR DESIRED HAVEN . Sir George Frampton, R.A. 142
THE TARGET 4 5 ; . . Giuseppe Mentessi (Milan) 150
ORTA, LAKE OF ORTA ; : iG - Graham Petvie, RI. 158
AARON, PALAZZO DELL’ ARCIVESCOVADO, MILAN
| Estella Canziant 166
VESPERS, ST. MARK’S, VENICE. : Charles J. Watson, R.E. 182
RHEIMS . , ‘ ‘ Domingo Motta (Genoa) 188
A SOUTHERLY GALE, POSITANO W. Russell Flint, A.R.W.S. 194
TRENT. ‘ . . Str Charles Archibald Nicholson, Bart. 200
SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE, MILAN’ A.N. Prentice, F.R.I.B.A. 214
PASSPORT OF LEONARDO DA VINCI: Am i BorGIA’S LETTER
PATENT) ; > ‘ ‘ 220
STUDIES OF THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS AND
OF FLYING MACHINES . ; p ‘ Leonardo da Vinct 224
From the Codex Atlanticus.
1. Flying machine. 4. Details of the wing.
2. Mechanism for the movement E: Movement of a wing.
of birds’ wings. 6. Diagram of the track of a bird’s
3. Details of the wing. flight. ;
A ‘LADY “OF FLORENCE 82 aso 8 Byam Shaw, A.R.W.S. 226
FRUIT PICKERS . ‘ ‘ : _ Charles H. Shannon, A.R.A. 232
FLORENCE , P t , Lovat Fraser 240
COUNTRY IN ITALY, LUNIGIANA The Hon. Walter James, R.E. 246
PONTE VECCHIO, FLORENCE . . Sty Evnest George, A.R.A. 258
VICTORY ' Pero : : . Edoardo Rubino (Turin) 266
HEAD OF THE DAVID. b . Michelangiolo Buonarroti On Cover
CEILING OF THE SALA DELLE ASSI, CASTELLO
SFORZESCO, MILAN . a ». «+ Leonardo da Vinci End-papers
XIV
INTRODUCTION
SOMEONE has said that to every educated man Italy
comes next in his affections to his own country: it ©
is this second Fatherland. From Italy light first
broke upon Europe after the long night of the
Dark Ages. In Italy the eleventh century gave
birth to the first universities and the first industrial
republics. In Italy arose the first great poet of
the modern world, the poet who gave to the mind
of the Middle Ages its highest expression and yet
was himself also universal, a poet speaking to and
for all mankind by the depth of his thought and
the splendour of his imagination, a poet who stands
beside Homer, Virgil, and Shakespeare as an un-
dying force in the intellectual life of our race. In
Italy the arts first revived, and during three cen-
turies works were produced in painting and in
sculpture which have never since been equalled.
We in Britain gladly acknowledge the special
debt we owe to the poets and painters and archi-
tects of Italy from whom our own poets, painters,
and architects have so often drawn inspiration.
Every young Englishman who loves history and art
makes Italy the goal of his first pilgrimage. Milton,
Shelley, say Browning are a few out of many of
our famous writers who have lived in Italy or
drawn their inspiration from it, and no small part
of English literature has been devoted to the eluci-
XV
—
Introduction
dation of Italian antiquity and the history of
Italian art.
Seventy years ago there was added to these old
relations of admiration and affection which had
united the two countries a new bond whose strength
time has tested. It was that of sympathy with the
Italian people in their efforts to secure political
unity and liberty. In those days South Italy and
Sicily lay prostrate under a domestic tyrant, and
the greater part of North Italy was ruled by a
harsh and oppressive foreign Power. In those days
the heart of all that was best in Britain went
out to the Italian patriots who were striving to
set their country free. Palmerston and Gladstone,
at that time opposed to one another in home
politics, were both earnest supporters of the
cause of Italian freedom. I am old enough to
remember the passionate sympathy which was felt
by British Liberals in 1848 and 1849 with the
risings in Milan and Florence and Bologna, with
the magnificent defences of Venice by Manin and of
Rome by Garibaldi. The men of the Risorgimento
were honoured in England as a noble band, valiant
in the field, patient and dignified in exile, always
faithful to their lofty ideals. Mazzini had found
refuge in London. There I knew him—a great
man and a great teacher, whose words and very
look were full of inspiration. Aurelio Safi had
obtained a post as teacher in Oxford University,
and some of us young men, ardent lovers of Italy,
who were studying there in 1860, gathered funds
which we entrusted to him to help to equip the
famous Thousand whom he was then proceeding to
xvl
Introduction
join at the call of Garibaldi. Garibaldi himself was
the favourite hero of the British masses, and I
vividly recall the reception they gave him in 1864
when he came to London. The enthusiasm which
the people showed as they surged around the car-
riage that bore him along the streets, his clear blue
eyes roving over the crowd, was such as had never
before been shown at the welcome of any other
visitor, and has never been shown with equal
fervour since. When all Italy, except Rome and
Venice, was set free in 1859-60, when the freedom
of Venice followed in 1866 and that of Rome in
1870, the British people rejoiced with the Italians.
Never since have we ceased to feel the warmest
interest in the fortunes of the Italian kingdom and
the sincerest respect for the gallant and loyal
House of Savoy. Whatever changes might occur
in the relations of the European Powers to one
another, it was always felt that between Britain
and Italy there could be nothing but friendship.
Now the armies of Britain and of Italy find
themselves engaged in the same cause ; and, while
Italians read of the steady valour of British and
French troops in the trenches of Northern France,
we read of and admire the daring with which Italian
Alpini have been scaling rocky pinnacles hitherto
deemed inaccessible, and traversing fields of per-
petual snow, to secure control of those passes
whose possession by Austria threatened the safety
of the Lombard and Venetian plains. British and
Italian soldiers stand side by side with one another
and with the soldiers of republican France, brothers
in arms, comrades in a righteous cause.
B XVil
Introduction
What is it that has brought Italy into this strife ?
Partly her sympathy for, and her sense of duty to,
those Italians who dwell in lands too long blighted
by Hapsburg tyranny, lands where everything
Italian was disparaged or persecuted. But there was
also another cause. ‘The heart of the Italian people
has felt that great principles are involved in this
war. ‘hey saw the Serbs, a small but valiant
nation, exposed to an attack, twice before averted
by the action of Italian statesmen, when they re-
fused to surrender their independence to Austrian
threats. They saw Belgium invaded because, in
trying to preserve that neutrality which was the
corner-stone of her national existence, she would
not yield a passage to German troops. Still later,
they read with indignation of the cruelties perpetrated
by the invading army both in Belgium and in
France. A thrill of horror ran through them when
the news came of the drowning of eleven hundred
innocent non-combatants on board the Lwusttania, a
crime then unheard of in war, but since many times
repeated, and last against the Italian steamer Ancona.
These things have made them realise that graver
issues than even those which affect Italia Irredenta
have come to be at stake. The interests of all man-
kind are involved when a great State openly avows
its contempt for treaty obligations, and makes its
military advantage the only measure of its inter-
national duty. |
The Italian people and the British people are
alike in setting up for themselves higher ideals than
those of war and conquest. The civilisation they
prize is one directed to peaceful ends by peaceful
XVIli
Introduction
means. Neither of them seeks to impose its own
type upon other peoples. They desire a world in
which nations, small as well as great, may live in
friendship side by side, exchanging freely—and the
more freely the better—the products of their in-
dustries, each developing its own gifts in its own
way, each willing to learn and to teach, each hold-
ing fast to the belief that progress comes not by
force, but by the accumulation of knowledge and
the exercise of constructive thought. Both have
hoped that the peace of Europe might be preserved.
England was occupied with domestic reforms de-
signed to benefit the masses of her people, and
she was unwilling to believe that a great nation
akin to her in blood, and whose many services
to learning, literature, and science she admired,
was meditating unprovoked assaults on her neigh-
bours. Italy had long distrusted that unscrupulous
dynastic selfishness and ingrained dislike of liberty
which has characterised the house of Hapsburg ever
since the days of the Emperor Ferdinand the Second,
and she saw with alarm the grip which German
finance was trying to tighten upon Italian commerce
and industries. But Italy too had not thought of
drawing the sword afresh. She had just emerged
from a tedious and costly war, and desired to restore
prosperity to the long-neglected regions of Africa
for which she had accepted responsibility. It was
not till the Austrian attack on Serbia and the German
attack on Belgium had revealed the lawless and ruth-
less spirit that animated both these empires, and had
shown that they aimed at nothing less than a military
domination of Europe, that England and Italy felt
xix
Introduction
they must take up arms. Duty called them to
defend Right against Might. All the best tradi-
tions of their past summoned them to the struggle
on behalf of Freedom and Justice.
Freedom and Justice—these were the watch-
words of the heroes of the Risorgimento, the noblest
group of patriots that Europe had seen for two
centuries. With these watchwords on their lips
the soldiers of Italy go forth to battle. The spirit
of these patriots burns in the soul of Italy, from
the Alpine snows to the shores of that Sicily which
Rome once saved from Carthage. It nerves the
watrior’s arm; it consecrates the sacrifices which
every household in the nation is making, and is
ready to go on making till victory is achieved. The
great Italians of the past, however divided in their
lives, would all be united now, could they return to
watch this conflict, more terrible than any the world
has ever seen before. Victor Emanuel and Cavour,
Minghetti and Manin, Garibaldi and Mazzini, would
all approve a war waged by the land they loved
for Freedom and Humanity.
BRYCE.
XX
MESSAGES
The admiration and affection which every
Englishman feels for Italy have been quickened
during the past six months in which our two
Nations have been comrades in arms. No words
of mine are necessary to express the value which
we attach to this comradeship. It is a pledge of
the community of ideas and aspirations to which
our long and unclouded friendship bears witness,
and from our northern island we once more salute
our Ally, and pray that victory and glory may
attend her arms.
H. H. Asquitu.
Italy takes a foremost place among the lands from
which the world has learnt the lessons of beauty
and the arts of civilisation. In casting her sword
into the scales she has proved true to herself and
to her glorious traditions, and she renders surer
and swifter the triumph of freedom, justice, and
humanity, for which the peoples of the British
Empire and their Allies are fighting.
Ek. GREY.
xxl
Messages
Ib PRESIDENTE
DEL
CONSIGLIO DEL MINISTRI
XXii
Messa ges
(Translation)
Since to our generation Fate has assigned the
tremendous and sublime task of accomplishing the
ideal of a great Italy, which the heroes of the Risor-
gimento could not see achieved, let us accept this
task with unconquerable resolution, and be prepared
to give to our Mother Country the whole of ourselves
—what we are, and what we have.
A. SALANDRA.
No nation followed with greater sympathy the
struggle of Italy for unity and freedom than did
the English people. Your heroes were our heroes,
and we recognised in their work kindred thoughts
and aims. Every Englishman must rejoice that at
this hour, when the liberty of Europe is at stake,
and the binding obligations both of international
treaties and the moral law are trampled under foot
by a military and despotic Government, Italy and
England stand united in the cause of freedom and
of law.
AUSTEN CHAMBERLAIN.
XXIll
Messages
Nella storia del nostro risorgimento politico ora
il nome di qualche Inglese si ricorda, ora qualche
benefizio che dalla Inghilterra ci venne. Foscolo,
primo ad aprire in tempi di serviti: la desolata via
degli esigli, trova a Londra decorosi sostegni alle
necessita della vita e conforto di illustre amicizie ;
Mazzini, ne’ giorni dell’ apostolato preparatore,
affetti ospitali che eromperanno piu tardi in fervore
di entusiasmi salutando in Garibaldi l’eroe della
redenzione.
Col sospiro della speranza invocano il nostro
rinnovamento civile i poeti: dalle finestre di Casa
Guidi vola il canto di Elisabetta Browning, mentre
Roberto afferma impresso nel proprio cuore con
indelebili cifre il nome d’Italia: Italia! terra
onde balzo pit terribile e aleggio verso pit sublimi
altezze il genio di Shelley, e che in un silenzioso
angolo di Roma accolse e custodi le membra giovi-
nette di Keats.
Auguri e voti: ajuteranno a tradurli in fausta
realta gli uomini di stato: Palmerston, Russell,
Gladstone ; e, minore nella fama non nello zelo
cordiale, Sir James Hudson, l’amico e in giorni
solenni il collaboratore di Camillo Cavour.
Questi vincoli sacri uniscono nelle pagine della
storia gia scritta i due popoli; la pagina nuova
dira le battaglie insieme combattute per la civilta e
la liberta del mondo e le comuni ardue ma sicure
vittorie.
MARTINI.
RoMA, oftobre 1915.
XXIV
Messages |
(Translation)
Many a time in the history of our political
resurrection an English name occurs, a service
rendered to us by England is recorded. Foscolo,
who first opened in the days of bondage the desolate
path of exile, finds in London honourable means of
subsistence and the comfort of distinguished friend-
ships. Mazzini, the apostle, in the days of. pre-
paration, encounters love and hospitality that will
later develop into the fervid enthusiasm which
hailed in Garibaldi the hero of,our redemption.
With yearnings of hope the poets invoke our
Civic renovation; the song of Elizabeth Browning
rises from the windows of Casa Guidi, while
Robert Browning asserts that the name of Italy
is indelibly engraved in his heart: Italy, the land
from which Shelley’s genius rose more powerfully
soaring towards loftier regions, and which received
and treasured up in a silent corner of Rome the
youthful remains of Keats.
Such the omens and wishes that were later to
be happily fulfilled with the help of statesmen like
Palmerston, Russell, Gladstone, and of one who,
though not their equal in fame, nevertheless emu-
lated them in cordiality and zeal: Sir James Hudson,
the friend and, in momentous days, the coadjutor
of Cavour.
Those sacred ties unite our two peoples in the
pages of history which have already been written :
the new page will tell of the battles fought side by
side for the freedom and civilisation of the world,
and of the arduous but unfailing common victories.
MarTINI.
RoME, October 1915.
XXV
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DANTE AT THE TOMB .OF POPE ANASTASIO
(Inferno, Canto XI)
Charles Ricketts
THE BOOK OF ITALY
LE SCUOLE DELLA DANTE
ALIGHIERI IN LONDRA
[The author of this essay, His Excellency Paolo Boselli,
is the President of the “‘ Societ2 Dante Alightert,” an associa-
tion for the defence and propagation of the Italian language,
especially among the Italians outside the frontiers of Italy. —
THE Epiror.]
Reco fervidamente il bacio della Dante Alighieri al
volume che serra nelle sue pagine il cuore di due
popoli liberi e anelanti ad ogni gloria della civilta.
La Dante ansiosamente, senza tregua, fidente
sempre, sempre vigile e pronta, precorse questo
giorno di redenzione italica, che € giorno di al-
leanza fra i paesi nostri.
Altri vacillavano e si smarrivano, noi perseve-
rammo. Cosi si tenne accesa la lampada che a
Ravenna risplende. Cosi vinse la difesa di quella
lingua nostra che ebbe in Inghilterra, meglio che
fra qualsivoglia altra gente di Europa, dotti cultori
e graziose alunne.
Lo disse, il 20 Novembre 1860, Giuseppe Gari-
baldi alle donne inglesi: ‘Oh Albione! nelle
Vicissitudini inseparabili dalla razza umana, I’Italia
ti considerera come sorella.’”’ Questa parentela non
€ stretta né sciolta dall’ opera dei Governi: dessa
I
The Book of Italy
é tale che si alimenta di idealita, avvince le anime,
procede immutabile come il genio delle Nazioni.
Fu Dante in Inghilterra? Peregrino egli da
Parigi fra i Britanni, come Giovanni Boccaccio
narrava ? Guglielmo Gladstone, negli ultimi tempi
ancora della sua vita, tornava ad asseverarlo con
appassionata dottrina. Non si adducono certe le
prove. Ma io spontaneamente ravviso Dante in
Oxford a ricercarvi le memorie di Ruggero Bacone,
pochi anni innanzi scomparso dopo i lunghi pati-
menti sofferti per la liberta della ragione umana:
Ruggero Bacone diede al primo periodo del Medio
Evo grande luce di scienza indagatrice ed ardita:
Alighieri tutto il Medio Evo sublimemente illu-
mino, rispecchio e chiuse.
Nel nome di Dante I’Italia raggiunge ora strenua-
mente “‘i termini suoi,’’ e, pit: che mai, sorella
dell’ Inghilterra, insieme con essa combatte e mira
all’ avvenire.
Riusci lo Shakespeare a ravvivare di cosi italiani
colori le cronache nostre, penetrd il Macaulay cosi
acutamente nel secolo, nel pensiero, nel voto
nazionale di Macchiavelli, perché é retaggio della
gente britanna e della gente italiana una favilla di
comune idealita.
Si additano mai agli alunni di codeste Scuole
della Dante, che tanto giovano per l’intimita spiri-
tuale dei due popoli, le case dove Ugo Foscolo, ora
solitario sconsolato e sdegnoso, ora incauto nelle
consuetudini della vita, penso, scrisse, vaticino,
s’illuse e sperd ?- In codeste case egli diede mente
e cuore al poema immortale, se pure troppo
immaginosamente lo interpreto. Da codeste case
2
Le Scuole della Dante Alighieri
uscirono le folgori della sua eloquenza, la verita
dei suoi ammonimenti, le invocazioni ispiratrici
per la redenzione dell’ Italia, sospiro dell’ anima
sua, che, fino dalla prima giovinezza, s’era fatta
tutta italiana nelle scuole italianissime della Dal-
mazia.
Conducete, conducete i fanciulli e le fanciulle
delle nostre Scuole per le vie di codesta Citta ed
essi apprendano come in Londra, perfino nei
vaganti e fortuiti convegni, si formod il primo ordito
dell’ Italia nuova.
In Londra Giuseppe Mazzini, con genio italiano
e con genio inglese, mirabilmente uso la mente e la
penna, e per I’Italia una invincibilmente opero,
allietato dalla simpatia delle gentili amiche e degli
incliti lettori, suffragato dal consenso di uomini
eminenti, di uomini pari a quel Stansfeld che getto
il potere anziche tradire l’amicizia dell’ esule italiano.
Narrate ai nostri fanciulli e alle fanciulle nostre
come l’ospitalita inglese fu gloriosa al Panizzi.
Rammemorate Francesco Crispi che, traendo la
vita a frusto a frusto, raccoglieva le testimonianze
storiche e politiche per la rivendicazione italiana
e pensava le audacie per unificare la patria, e della
patria unificata antivedeva le prossime vittorie e le
lontane, suggellando nei propositi suoi la perpetua
amista, che egli in ogni tempo affermo, tra Londra
e Roma.
Fate risuonare nelle nostre Scuole i canti di
Gabriele Rossetti e, fra la commozione vibrante
degli alunni, rievocate la memoria di Colei che fu
consorte dell’ ammiraglio Graham Moore, e raccolse
a salvamento il poeta unitario del 1821, scampan-
Cc 3
The Book of Italy
dolo dalla triste sorte che in Napoli gli sovrastava :
onde costi egli conforto misticamente la sua musa
ed ebbe cattedra nel Collegio del Re e frequenza ed
applausi di ascoltatori: e fantasie dantesche: e
poi generazioni celebri nei vagheggiamenti del
l’arte.
Giovanni Ruffini, intanto, propagava la lingua
italiana fra le alunne leggiadre e idealizzava il
Dottor Antonio.
Ma nella storia ideale dei due popoli sorge
eccelsa la figura di Vittorio Alfieri; di lui che
ritempro con rinnovato stampo l’anima italiana, di
lui donde scaturirono 1 nuovi, generosi ardimenti :
onorato negli insigni marmi di Santa Croce dalla
Donna inglese “‘ degnamente amata.”’
Tutta Europa aveva trascorsa Vittorio Alfieri
come forsennato corridore, nulla incontrando che
scuotesse il suo intelletto, nulla che svegliasse in lui
i propositi onde poi tanto sielevo. Pervenne Vittorio
Alfieri in Inghilterra ; “le doti vere ed uniche di
codesto fortunato e libero paese gli rapirono l’animo
a bella prima,” e senti “ gli effetti divini ”’ dei suoi
ordinamenti, della sua pubblica felicita; e allora
intese la vocazione che lo fece immortale e che
formo gli italiani del Risorgimento.
Se mi ricercaste di consiglio intorno ai ritratti
da porsi nelle vostre Scuole, io vi esorterei ad
appendere, prossimi a Dante, Vittorio Alfieri e
Guglielmo Gladstone e, seguitando, Lord Byron e
Giuseppe Mazzini.
Politicamente l’anima inglese fu sempre propizia
alla risurrezione italiana, anche allora quando si
oscurava il favore della Reggia e del Governo.
4
Le Scuole della Dante Alighieri
Forse dopo la caduta di Napoleone gli italiani
fallirono non assecondando gli eccitamenti inglesi.
Ma vero é che nel Congresso di Vienna Lord
Castlereagh si adopero pertinacemente ad incatenare
’Italia nella pi dura e perversa soggezione sotto il
dominio dell’ Austria. Prevalse allora la politica
estremamente superba ed acerba che Lord Rosebery
cosi fieramente colpi ragionando di Napoleone.
Contro quella politica non indugio a levarsi l’elo-
quenza di Giorgio Canning: nella moderna In-
ghilterra i vieti pregiudizi presto trascorrono e il
grido della liberta sempre si avanza dominatore.
Ci opprimeva la politica del Congresso di Vienna ;
ma poco stando Lord Byron poetava sfolgorante e
innamorato in Italia: adoperava la propria arte a
vantaggio delle aspirazioni italiane; scuoteva la
fiamma onde divampo la letteratura del Guerrazzi
a suscitare nelle nuove generazioni italiane un
impetuoso, inestinguibile, mirabile ardore, e il
canto del giovine Aroldo, rivolto all’ Italia, raggiante
di italiano entusiasmo, prorompeva dall’ animo del
poeta.
Di poi il genio dello Shelley predilesse egli pure
la Musa dell’ italianita.
Ma io dico che, accanto all’ immagine di
Dante, i nostri alunni debbono scorgere quella di
Guglielmo Gladstone. Giova trasportarli ai cieli
della Divina Commedia? Una stupenda scrittura
di Guglielmo Gladstone porge ad essi le penne.
Piace che si innoltrino dessi nel pensiero e nelle
opere di Giacomo Leopardi? Una preclara scrit-
tura di Guglielmo Gladstone vale ad erudirli. Deve
diffondersi nelle aule della Dante la fama degli
5
The Book of Italy
scrittori che meglio illustrarono ai tempi nostri
’Italia? Quante pagine di Guglielmo Gladstone
si addicono all’ uopo luminosamente !
E noi che siamo vindici e propagatori della
lingua italiana celebriamo nel Gladstone il maestro
che meravigliosamente ne seppe ogni bellezza ed
efficacemente ne volle allargare il culto costi, dove
a lui quella lingua nostra gia in tanto fiore allorché
me Baretti la introduceva schietta, sciolta,
arguta nelle aule dell’ Accademia di Londra, pareva
che dalla seconda meta del secolo scorso in poi
volgesse a declinazione. |
Per verita il Gladstone é uno dei principi della
Societa nostra, della Dante Alighieri. Annoveria-
molo in essa con singolare riverenza.
Ma pit e pit altri ricordi di Guglielmo Gladstone
debbono sempre ravvivarsi e glorificarsi. Egli ab-
batté nella coscienza del mondo civile l’empia
tirannide di Napoli; egli spezzo le catene di Carlo
Poerio, di Michele Pironti, di Luigi Settembrini, di
Sigismondo Castromediano, dei patriotti aspramente
tormentati nelle galere borboniche ; egli nel 1859
oppose a viso aperto la vera anima inglese contro
la politica che piegavasi verso l’Austria e incuoro,
nel memorabile colloquio di Torino, il Conte di
Cavour; egli nei primi eventi del Regno d'Italia
Si profferse fautore dei nostri diritti e campione delle
opere nostre; egli volle ardentemente l’Italia una
e sovrana in Roma e tale in Roma splendidamente
la esalto: e fino a tanto che i miracoli dell’ elo-
quenza avranno lustro, emergeranno 1 discorsi che
per l’Italia egli pronunzid (dal 1862 al 1864) in
quella aula sacra alla liberta, dove le fortune d’Italia
6
Le Scuole della Dante A lighiert
ebbero auspici insigni, nella nobile schiera degli
amici nostri, tratto tratto, il Palmerston, e, costante-
mente, John Russell, l’amico nostro efficace, il
consorte della nostra salda ed alacre amica.
L’epopea popolare del nostro risorgimento si
impersona in Giuseppe Garibaldi. Rappresentiamo,
eleviamo nelle scuole della Dante in Londra |’eroe
che segnalo “la condotta cavalleresca dell’ Inghil-
terra in un momento di prova e di pericolo.”’
A me talenterebbe risuscitare in un quadro i
giorni del 1864, quando Garibaldi percorse, come in
trionfo, le vie affollate della magnifica Citta, e tante,
tante migliaia d’inglesi si accalcarono, intorno a lui,
nel Palazzo di Cristallo, ad affrettare la liberazione
di Venezia e di Roma, e un entusiasmo incom-
parabile inebrio 1 cuori che si votavano a lui, e dal
Principe di Galles agli affaticati lavoratori tutti
animo una festa mai pil. veduta, che fu festa
memorabilmente italiana.
Ma un altro quadro io vorrei nelle Scuole della
Dante in Londra. Effigiamo Garibaldi in mezzo ad
una corona di donne inglesi, di quelle donne che
egli saluto, ~ collaboratrici nelle opere di reden-
zione,” di ‘quelle donne “ che lo seguirono ispira-
trici da Marsala al Volturno.” Ivi si avanzino le
Duchesse di Sutherland e la cristianissima gli porga
ancora, con favella di persuasione, il nuovo testa-
mento; e Emma Roberts tenga l’una mano sul
cuore che non muto e dispieghi nell’ altra le lettere
ammonitrici nelle quali il giudizio sagace emulava
la aperta sincerita ; e Maria Seely ravvivi le rimem-
branze dell’ ospitalita che nell’ isola di Wight
delizid Vintrepido duce; e sia con esse Carolina
7
The Book of Italy
Phillipson ; e non manchi, no, Giulia Salis Schwabe
che fu dalla sua prima giovinezza tutta inglese e
manchesteriana; ella, la risanatrice del ferito al
Varignano, la propiziatrice di Caprera; ella, che
amo Il’Italia nell’ intimita di Riccardo Cobden, il
messaggiero onde all’ alba del nostro risorgimento
si accordarono le speranze italiane nell’ Italia divisa,
il propagatore delle idee onde tanta esca provenne
all’ opera riformatrice dell’ amico suo, il Conte di
Cavour: ella, la Giulia Salis Schwabe, che lesse
amorosamente nell’ anima napoletana e dono—a
benefizio di Napoli e in esempio all’ Italia—l’Asilo
froebeliano, testimonio della sua mente iniziatrice,
pegno della sua missione educatrice.
Ma sento lo sprone che dal passato mi chiama
all’ avvenire. Sempre all’ avvenire mirino le Scuole
della Dante. La lingua che difendemmo nella
Italia irredenta, l’Italia tutta redenta difendera
dovunque siano italiani ospiti fortunati o peregrini
faticanti fuori della patria. Fatela risuonare la
lingua nostra, con nobili accenti e con propositi
generosi, in codesto paese dove tutto cid che e
nobile e generoso rifulge.
Avanti, avanti! é la divisa dell’ Italia nuova nel
corso delle idee, nei prodigi del lavoro, nella ele-
vazione dei lavoratori.
Tutto cid che circonda in Inghilterra 1 figli
nostri, é promessa di avanzamento civile.
Carlo Cattaneo affermd che “in Inghilterra il
progresso dai tempi di Cesare ai nostri € moto
accelerato con legge costante, tanto nelle cose
materiali, quanto nelle morali.”
In Inghilterra primamente si ando divulgando
8
Le Scuole della Dante Alighieri
a grado a grado il misterio del potere che altrove,
per pit: secoli, rimase l’arcano dei pochi imperanti
e si formd costi quel reggimento politico esemplare
che sostituiva agli sbalzi delle rivoluzioni violente le
durevoli conquiste delle evoluzioni riformatrici.
La riforma del 1832 inauguro l’éra delle estese
partecipazioni popolari alla sovranita politica. Il
libero scambio non solamente operO come rinno-
vazione economica e sociale, ma si svolse eziandio
come irradiazione di fede liberale e di senno fraterno
fra tutte le genti.
Il classicismo della liberta si connaturo incredibil-
mente colle pit ardite ricostituzioni sociali. Dove
Vordinamento della proprieta pil si ammantava di
privilegi, e pil oggi si trasforma beneficamente.
Con simile spirito liberale e progressivo mosse
gli andamenti suoi quel Piemonte, italico pro-
pugnatore, che il Conte Derby, nel 1859, anche in
mezzo alle suggestioni austriache, salutava “glorioso.”’
Camillo Cavour, che a quel Piemonte e all’ Italia
risorta segnd le vie, dichiarava nel Parlamento:
“ Dall’ Inghilterra ho attinto la maggior parte delle
cognizioni politiche che mi hanno guidato ; venero
’Inghilterra come la rocca dove la liberta ha trovato
e potrebbe ancora trovare rifugio inespugnabile ;
come ministro e come scrittore ho sempre prediletta
Valleanza coll’ Inghilterra ”’ (9 febbraio 1859).
Gia Lord Clarendon aveva detto, nell’ asserire
l’alleanza col Piemonte per la guerra della Crimea :
‘“‘’Tutto cid che vale a legare pit strettamente i due
paesi é accolto in Inghilterra come un sentimento
che si approssima all’ entusiasmo.”’
La presente alleanza condurra l’Inghilterra e
9
The Book of Italy
l’Italia ad instaurare concordemente un novello
ordine tra le Nazioni, mentre piglieranno atteggia-
menti nuovi le finanze degli Stati, le legislazioni
economiche e sociali, i rannodamenti commerciali.
Dalla guerra moderna il popolo inglese, “ il
cui suolo non fu mai calpestato da eserciti nemici,”
é tratto pi addentro nelle vicende del consorzio
internazionale.
L’Inghilterra insegno nel mondo delle colonie
quel reggimento liberale, la cui sapienza appieno si
manifesta oggidi che le colonie inglesi partecipano
unanimi e gagliarde ai cimenti per la madre patria.
Sara l’Inghilterra, ne abbiamo altissima fede,
nel mondo delle Nazioni indipendenti, sostenitrice
potente del principio di nazionalita. Obliandolo
ancora, male si ricomporrebbero gli Stati: al di fuori
di esso non fu mai giusta alcuna pace, ne, al di fuori
di esso, pace alcuna sarebbe duratura.
L’avvenire deve recare, a gloria della civilta, a
benefizio dell’ umanita, la federazione delle libere
Nazioni. Il! pensiero popolare, che sale e vince,
la acclama e la otterra.
Ne sia questa formidabile guerra la preparazione
feconda. Il trionfo del principio di nazionalita, la
federazione delle libere Nazioni invocarono, pre-
cursori italici ed esuli sulla terra inglese, Giuseppe
Mazzini e Francesco Crispi.
La loro idea non si spegne, la loro voce non tace
fra la gente britanna e fra la gente italiana.
PAOLO BOSELLI.
RoMA, 20 settembre 1915.
ie)
FOR THE SCHOOLS OF THE “ DANTE
ALIGHIERI” SOCIETY IN LONDON
IT is with the warmest sympathy that in the name
of the “‘ Dante Alighieri” Society I hail this volume,
which holds in its pages the heart of two free peoples,
both equally fervent in their love of all the ideals
of civilisation.
The “ Dante Alighieri,’ ever confident, ever
vigilant and in arms, eagerly anticipated this day
of Italian redemption, this day of alliance between
our two countries.
Others may have wavered or gone astray, but
we persevered. We thus kept burning the light
that shines forth from Ravenna, and succeeded’ in
upholding our language in the unredeemed lands of
Italy, that language which numbers in England,
more than in any other country in Europe, so many
proficient scholars and ardent lovers.
Garibaldi, addressing the women of England
in November 1860, said: “O Britain, in all the
vicissitudes inherent to the human race, Italy will
look upon thee as her sister!’ Such a natural
bond Governments have no power either to tighten
or loosen ; it is rooted in ideals, it links together
the very souls of nations, it perpetuates itself im-
mutably.
Was Dante ever in England? Did he ever
travel there from Paris, as we read in Boccaccio ?
II
The Book of Italy
W. E. Gladstone, in the last days of his life, repeated
the contention, adding to it the enthusiastic support
of his deep learning. But there is no real evidence
to prove it. However, I love to figure to myself
Dante at Oxford in search of the relics of Roger
Bacon, who only a few years earlier had died of his
prolonged sufferings for the freedom of the human
intellect. Roger Bacon gave to the first period of
the Middle Ages the great light of his bold scientific
investigations ; Dante illuminated, mirrored, and
enclosed in his sublime poem the whole of the
Middle Ages.
In the name of Dante, Italy i is NOW striving for
her own natural boundaries, ‘ ‘1 termini suoi,’”’ and,
England’s sister now more than ever, she fights
with her, aiming at the future.
If Shakespeare succeeded in reproducing our
chronicles with colours so truly Italian, if Macaulay
was able to penetrate so thoroughly the times, the
mind, the national aspirations of Machiavelli, the
reason is to be found in the genius of ideality, which
is the common inheritance of the British and Italian
peoples.
Are the pupils of the ‘‘ Dante Alighieri ”’ schools
in London, which render such good service in
fostering the spiritual intimacy between the two
nations—are these pupils ever shown the houses in
which Foscolo, at times a disconsolate, scornful
voluntary recluse, at times reckless and extravagant,
meditated, wrote, prophesied, dreamt, and hoped ?
It was there he gave his soul and heart to the study
of the Divine Comedy, in the interpretation of
which he may perhaps sometimes have given way
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to his fiery imagination. There, too, he composed
his inspiring exhortations for the redemption of
Italy, that most cherished of the aspirations of his
soul from his earliest youth. May the pupils of
our schools in their rambles through the great
British metropolis also learn that in London was
laid the first warp of the renovation of Italy. For
it was in London that Mazzini, whose genius em-
bodied the highest characteristics of the English
and Italian minds, relentlessly worked for the attain-
ment of his ideal of a unified Italy, comforted by the
sympathy of devoted friends and followers, and
encouraged by the support of eminent statesmen
such as Mr. Stansfeld, who resigned his seat in
the Cabinet rather than betray the friendship of
the Italian exile.
May, again, the children in our schools learn
how Sir Anthony Panizzi owed his fame to British
hospitality, and how Crispi, the constant promoter
of Anglo-Italian friendship, while going through the
hardships of banishment, collected in England the
historical and political evidence for the vindication
of the rights of Italy, at the same time constantly
preparing for resolute action of which he foresaw
the future victories. Again, may they learn how
Rossetti, who in 1821 had been saved from death in
Naples through the devotion of an Englishwoman,
found in London the necessary leisure for the
continuation of his poetical and critical pursuits,
and became the founder of a family of English poets
and artists ; finally, how Giovanni Ruffini helped to
spread the knowledge of Italian and wrote his
famous Dotior Antonio.
a3
The Book of Italy
But the most important character in the history
of the spiritual relations of the two countries is that
of Vittorio Alfieri, who, after having aimlessly
wandered over the whole of Europe, went to England,
where he was “‘ immediately struck by the genuine
and rare qualities of that free and happy country.”
His admiration for her public institutions was the
main source of those elevated doctrines which
contributed so much to form the political conscience
of the Italians of the Risorgzmento.
If I were asked what portraits should adorn the
walls of the ‘‘ Dante Alighieri” schools, I would
strongly advise, next to Dante’s, those of Vittorio
Alfieri, Lord Byron, and then Gladstone and Maz-
zini. At a time when Italy was more than ever
politically oppressed, in consequence of the decisions
of the Congress of Vienna, Lord Byron, inspired by
his ardent love for our country, kindled the flame
which, through the writings of his devotee, F. D.
Guerrazzi, contributed so much to raise and main-
tain the enthusiasm of the new Italian generations.
The canto of Childe Harold consecrated to Italy is
the most vivid document of the Italian feelings of
the English poet, feelings shared by the genius of
his contemporary P. B. Shelley.
And in addition to the portrait of Dante, I should
like to set before the eyes of our pupils the image
of William Ewart Gladstone. Nothing could better
acquaint them with the soaring genius of the Divine
Poet, or with the mind and works of Leopardi, or
with the most eminent modern writers on Italy,
than some of Gladstone’s essays. We whose aim
it is to uphold and diffuse the Italian tongue, we
4
Schools of the “Dante Alighieri”
honour in Gladstone the scholar marvellously versed
in all its beauties, who successfully spread the study
of our language in England, where since the middle
of the nineteenth century he seemed to think it was
neglected. His name should therefore be prominent
in our Society.
But many other considerations should induce
us to revive and exalt the memory of Gladstone.
In a scathing indictment he denounced to the
civilised world the iniquitous tyranny of the Bour-
bons, tearing thus asunder the chains that tortured
Poerio and other patriots in the dungeons of Naples.
He openly opposed the Austrian leanings of the
British Cabinet in 1859, and encouraged Count
Cavour in the memorable interview at ‘Turin. He
was the champion of our rights and the defender
of our achievements during the first; years of the
kingdom of Italy, and ardently wished a united
Italy, her own mistress in Rome. His speeches in
defence of Italy in the years 1862-64, uttered in that
temple of Liberty in which the cause of our country
had such eminent advocates as Lord Palmerston,
and our still more valuable friend, Lord John
Russell, the husband of our staunch and active
sympathiser, will live as long as miracles wrought
by sheer eloquence are held in honour.
Garibaldi, in our people’s mind, is the personifica-
tion of the epic of the Risorgimento. Let us then
depict in our schools in London the hero who drew
attention to “ the chivalrous action of England in a
moment of difficulty and peril.”” I should also love
to revive in a picture the days of 1864, when Gari-
baldi drove in triumph through the crowded streets
15
The Book of Italy
of London, and when thousands and thousands i
British, thronging round him, from the Prince of
Wales ner: to the humblest workmaiti: enthusiastic-
ally hailed the future liberator of Venice and Rome.
But there is still another picture which I should
like to see there, Garibaldi surrounded by the
women of England, those women whom he greeted
as “‘ his associates in the work of redemption,” and
who “ followed and inspired him from Marsala to
the Volturno ” : the Duchess of Sutherland present-
ing» him with the New Testament, Emma Roberts,
Mary Seely, his hostess in the Isle of Wight, Caroline
Phillipson, and last, not least, Julia Salis Schwabe,
an Englishwoman from her earliest youth, who
nursed his wounds at the fort of Varignano and
comforted him at Caprera. ‘This last one was the
friend of Richard Cobden, he himself a lover of
Italy, whose tenets were adopted by Cavour in his
work of reform.
But the memories of the past induce me to turn
my eyes to the future. May the “ Dante Alighieri ”
Schools always look to the future. The language we
upheld in unredeemed Italy may our fully redeemed
country always diffuse wherever Italians are to be
found, and may this language ever convey noble
and generous thoughts to that country where all
that is noble and generous is specially revered.
Forward! ever forward! Such is the motto of
New Italy, in its thoughts, in its deeds, in its social
reforms. All that surrounds our children in Eng-
land is a guarantee of civilisation and progress.
Cattaneo said: “‘In England progress is since
Czesar’s time the constant law in moral as well as in
16
Schools of the “Dante Alighier1”
material things.’”’ In England the mystery of power,
which in other countries remained for many cen-
turies the secret of the dominating few, belonged
from the earliest times to the people, giving rise to
that model of political institutions which substituted
violence and revolution with the lasting conquests
of evolution and reform. ‘The Reform Bill in 1832
inaugurated the era of ampler participation by the
people in political power. Free trade not only
wrought an economical and social renovation, but
developed into a manifestation of faith in liberty
and mutual love among all peoples. ‘The classical
idea of freedom blended wonderfully with the
boldest social innovations, and it was thus possible
for the very country where landed property was
more than elsewhere effectively protected by pri-
vilege, to reform its institutions with a view of
extending their benefits to the community at large.
Similar to England in the spirit of freedom and
progress was the kingdom of Piedmont, that citadel
of Italian Unity to which Lord Derby in 18509,
in spite of Austria’s blandishments, applied the
epithet of “‘ glorious.” Cavour, who was the lead-
ing spirit both of Piedmont and of New Italy in the
decisive years of the Risorgimento, declared in Par-
liament: ‘‘ From England I have derived the
greatest part of that political knowledge which has
always guided me; I worship England as the
stronghold where freedom has found, and will always
find, an impregnable refuge ; as minister and poli-
tical writer I have always cherished an alliance with
England” (Feb. 9, 1859). And Lord Clarendon
had already said, when announcing the alliance with
a |
The Book of Italy
Piedmont for the Crimean War: “ All that contri-
butes to bind our countries more closely, England
welcomes with a feeling akin to enthusiasm.”
The present alliance will enable England and
Italy to establish a new order among nations and
to give novel features to their finances, their econo-
mical and social legislation, and their commercial
intercourse. At the same time this war will bring
the people of England, whose soil has never been
trampled upon by an armed foe, into closer touch
with the vicissitudes of international life.
England has taught the world the free govern-
ment of colonies, and the wisdom of her system is
now proved by the unanimous and gallant response
of all the Overseas Dominions to the call of the
Mother Country.
And England will always be, we have no doubt,
amongst the independent nations of the world, the
great upholder of the principle of nationality. If
that principle were again ignored, no peace could be
lasting. ‘The future must bring to us for the glory
of civilisation, and for the benefit of humanity, the
Federation of Free Nations. Such is the will of all
peoples, and they will make it prevail.
May this formidable war engender the triumph
of the principle of nationality and the federation of
free nations. Two Italian precursors, both exiles
on British soil, Mazzini and Crispi, invoked those
principles, and their idea will not die; the echo of
their voices will ever ring in British and Italian hearts.
RoE, September 20, 1915. PAOLO BOSELLI.
Translated by ‘‘ A Friend of Italy.”
18
AVANTI, SAVOIA
CHARLES V. STANFORD
G. CARDUCCI.
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20
MY MEMORIES OF ITALY, 1851-1915
In these days of Italy’s great part in the World-War,
I often recur in thought to my memories of the
‘soldiers and patriots whom I saw, heard, and talked
with in the Risorgimenio ; during the war and the
agitations of 1859-60-61 ; when Italy, after fifty years
of battles, struggles, and of martyrdom, was at last
made—or let us say to-day—very nearly made. It
is fifty-five years ago, but I remember, as if it were
yesterday, Vittorio Emanuele II, Ricasoli, Farini,
Minghetti, Carlo Poerio, Marchese Pepoli, Mamiani,
and the Provisional Governments of the Duchies.
I had correspondence with Count Cavour, I had
long conversations with Mazzini, I saw Garibaldi
in his red shirt at the head of his troop ; I have
heard him address a great meeting ; and I was with
him when widows brought their fatherless children
for him to bless them, which he did as simply and
as devoutly as any saint might have done.
As my thoughts go back over more than half a
century to my own personal intercourse with the
immortal Makers of Italy, I often ask myself to-day
what would be the feelings, the hopes, and the
counsels of these unforgotten patriots, martyrs, and
heroes. My memories of them, how they looked,
how they spoke, and how their inspirations worked
may interest and hearten their successors to-day.
I was bred up Italianissimo. In 1850, whilst a
21
The Book of Italy
student at Oxford, I read Dante with Count Aurelio
Safh of Forli, who, with Mazzini, was one of the
Triumvirs in the defence of Rome in 1849. Saffi
introduced me to Mazzini in London, Campanella
of Milan, Pianciani and other soldiers and exiled
comrades. I subscribed to a Republican journal ;
and indeed sixty-five years ago I was as much in
touch with the nationalist movement as if it were
my own fatherland.
In 1851 I first passed under the ineffable radi-
ance of the sky of Italy. I heard the native tongue
of the people at home. In 1853 I travelled to
Florence, where I had friends and introductions in
the time of the Grand Duke and met the poet
Browning, then residing in the city. When war
broke out in 1859, I shared the enthusiasm of the
Brownings ; and after sundry appeals to the English
Press, I resolved to see the work myself, and, armed
with various introductions from the Liberal Press
and Government of the day, I spent the autumn of
1859 in Turin, Genoa, Leghorn, Florence and
Tuscany, Romagna, Bologna, Modena, Parma and
Milan.
In each centre I was properly accredited to the
provisional rulers, but I had also private and nation-
alist introductions ; and having a perfectly free
hand, I sent off my impressions to several English
journals. In 1865 I spent the autumn in Rome in
the days of Pio Nono and the French occupation,
and I had various acquaintances in more than one
party. In scores of later travels I have visited every
part of Italy, from the Alpine passes to Brindisi and
Syracuse. And I have had the advantage of know-
22,
My Memories of Italy, 1851-1915
ing representative men of almost every school, or
class, or profession in the peninsula. For sixty-
five years I have been in correspondence or in
intercourse with journalists, politicians, men of
letters, and patriots of Italy. And I hold it import-
ant—such being the versatility and originality of
the Italian genius—that to know Italy truly, one
must be in touch with all the various parties, ele-
ments, ideas, couches sociales of that most complex
nationality—must avoid all tendency to what is
narrow, one-sided, or exclusive.
Now, I desire to bear witness that, in the Revival
and Unity of Italy from 1849-1870 the hearts of
liberal Englishmen were as deeply stirred in sym-
pathy with the cause as if it had been their own
country and future at stake. Only those behind
the scenes ever knew how much Palmerston, Rus-
sell, Sir James Hudson, and Gladstone supported
Cavour and Rattazzi. Only those in touch with the
revolutionary enthusiasts knew the passionate ad-
miration of unofficial, unorthodox, and adventurous
Englishmen for Garibaldi, Mazzini, even for Orsini.
Italy, under the consummate audacity of Cavour,
had been our ally with France in the Crimea. But
quite apart from that, and with our growing sus-
picion of the third Napoleon, the heart of true and
living England was stirred by the character of
Victor Emanuel II, of his generals and statesmen,
by Cavour, La Marmora, d’Azeglio, Bixio, Cialdini,
as well as by that of Garibaldi, Mazzini, and the
hot-heads of La Giovane Italia.
Nothing like it has been known in our insular
and cold-blooded country since the wave of enthu-
23
The Book of Italy
siasm for the French uprising of 1789. When
Garibaldi came to London in 1864, our people went
mad over him. I shall never forget the scene in
the streets. Nothing like it has ever been seen
since. The Whig Ministers feared to let the re-
publican hero go about the north. Dukes, soldiers,
sailors, politicians, and people all joined in the
excitement. He was welcomed as no foreign visitor
has ever been welcomed before or since—as no
Englishman in our age has ever been received.
To see the Red Shirt, with the sweet, calm, un-
earthly look of the man, gently beaming on the
roaring mob in Trafalgar Square, or, it may be,
almost embraced by fine ladies and dandies in a
ducal palace—this was like a vision of some being
beyond this sublunary earth. When he entered the
room where we stood to meet him, to me it seemed
as if some historic hero, familiar to us in portraits,
had stepped down from the frame, and returned to
life. Our poets, Tennyson, the Brownings, orators
like Gladstone, aristocrats like Sutherland, radicals,
and revolutionists, felt in the hermit of Caprera
something that was not so much a soldier and a
man, but was rather the Soul of Italy. This sense ~
of inspiration was shared by hardened politicians,
by cultured society, and by passionate reformers.
From 1848 to 1870 the cause of Italian Independence
—of Italian Unity—represented to Englishmen of all
schools and parties the cause of European peace
and welfare. It happens that, during those middle
years of the nineteenth century—the middle years
of my own life—I was in touch with both sides of
English opinion, both the parliamentary, minis-
24
Sor ma ay,
a
ARCO D’ARAGONA, NAPLES
David Donald
(By kind permission of Messrs. Alfred Bell & Co.)
My Memories of Italy, 1851-1915
terial, and official world, and also with the Press,
the leaders and the thinkers of the people, their
hopes, their aspirations, and their passion for reform.
I will not believe that in the forty-five years
since the kingdom was finally seated in Rome, the
sympathy of Liberal England has grown cooler.
We understood and have never resented the policy
which drove Italy into the Triplice. We have never
taken advantage of her adventures when she took
lines of her own, with which we could have no
interest and no sympathy. When she hesitated so
long before she saw her hand free to join ours, we
did nothing to increase her difficulties, nor to
criticise her action. We respected her famous
maxim, [Jialia fara da sé; and we did nothing to
force her hand, for we were satisfied that she was
not, and could not be, hostile, even if she were com-
pelled by circumstances to be neutral. And now
that she has joined the Three Allies, and is display-
ing her ancient valour and genius in so many a
bloody field and amid such tremendous precipices,
Englishmen welcome her achievements with all the
pride they feel for their own sons, for French,
Russians, and Serbs ; for all who are battling with
the secular enemy and oppressor of Italy—the
historic Tedesco. We who during the year 1914
stood side by side with France in a grapple for life
and death were too much absorbed by it to repeat
all our ardent transports of 1860. But we feel the
cause to be the same to-day. And we grasp the
hand of every Italian hero to-day with the same
honour that we felt for Cavour, Garibaldi, and
Mazzini.
25
The Book of Italy
I spent, as I say, the autumn of 1865 in Rome
in the days of Pio Nono and the full reign of papal
rule under the French bayonets. It is only we of
the Old Guard who can fully realise the enormous
changes that in fifty years have passed over the
Eternal City—changes, material, zesthetic, poetic,
political, and spiritual. I was then myself in my
thirty-fifth year, and had spent my life as a publicist,
a scholar, and an antiquarian, so that I must be
now amongst the few living Englishmen who knew
and studied Rome in the age of the Vatican domi-
nion—Rome with the habits and débris of the
Middle Ages untouched, with all the historic ruins,
and the squalor, and the romance, and the devotional
traditions of past ages undisturbed—Rome as it
was seen by Byron, and Goethe, and Madame de
Staél, and Hawthorne, and Ruskin, and Browning
—aye, and by the travellers, the poets, the painters
of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, as it
was painted by Claude Lorraine, Salvator Rosa, and
Piranesi.
I am myself a staunch modernist, a Nationalist,
a confident believer in the future of Italian civili-
sation, and in the proud resurrection and splendour
of the Eternal City. But I am weak enough to
feel a passing sigh of regret as I recall the Rome of
fifty years ago, its Campo Vaccino, with all its foun-
tains and its shady trees, and its mysterious
mounds and the confused débris of two thousand
years. Market was held, stalls of rural produce
were set up, the white bullocks lay grazing at rest,
wild herdsmen from the Campagna tended their
cattle and their wagons on the plain of the Forum,
26
My Memories of Italy, 1851-1915
some fifty feet above the Via Sacra, and the temples
and altars now excavated and open to view. The
Capitol and the Palatine and Esquiline lay as they
had done since Orsinis and Colonnas had ceased to
fight and make fortresses of the tombs of their
ancestors. The altars of the Martyrs still stood in
the festooned circle of the Colosseum, as yet un-
opened to the ghastly chambers underground.
The Pope in his glory and the Cardinals and
Prelates in all their picturesque pomp were seen in
the streets, in the myriad churches and chapels,
and in the summer palaces for villeggiatura in the
lonely hillsides around. Monks, mendicants, and
models hung about every street corner; the city
was barely lit and ill-guarded at night ; outside the
ancient walls not a single modern building existed,
the Campagna was a dream of the Old World—a
vast mausoleum—a revelation of the Fabii, the
Scipios, the Czsars. I once told a Cardinal-Arch-
bishop that at times I felt at Rome more truly con-
servative than the Sacred College. In my hall at
home I have hung a collection of Pianesi’s wonderful
engravings to remind me of what I saw fifty years
ago. And I never pass them without feeling what
a cost has been paid for the brilliant and aspiring
city we see to-day—the new capital of United Italy
—destined, we trust, to another two thousand years
of glory—yet to come in after ages.
FREDERIC HARRISON.
27
THE PRESCIENCE OF COUNT |
CAVOUR
IN response to the request to write some pages for
The Book of Italy, 1 am sure that nothing I could
offer would be of so much interest and value as
a few passages culled here and there from the
speeches and letters of the greatest Italian statesman,
Count Cavour, which reveal both his life-long
sympathy and admiration for England, and also his
extraordinary clear-sightedness. In 1855 he pointed
out that England had begun all her wars with
forces not in proportion to her real strength:
“The history of all the wars in which England has
taken part shows us that at the outset she had the —
worst of it, but the disasters suffered, the reverses
encountered, instead of disheartening her, had the
effect of inciting her to greater efforts and greater
sacrifices, and while her adversaries, after having
had some successes, began to lose courage and
exhaust their forces, with the progress of the war she
went on gaining in strength and in the means of
attack. ‘This is what happened in the great war of
the French Revolution. In 1792 and in 1793 the
English only met with defeats; their means were
small in comparison with the other Allies, but the
other Allies wore themselves out, instead of which
the English developed their forces more and more
the longer the war lasted, and they reached such
28
The Presctence of Count Cavour
a point that in 1814, if I am not mistaken, they had
four hundred thousand men in their pay. What
happened to them in Europe has happened to them
several times in India. Almost all the first under-
takings attempted there by the English turned out
badly ; it was only after a thorough mishap that
the East India Company sent forth sufficient means
to carry out the proposed plan. Everyone remem-
bers, perhaps, the expedition to Cabul, attempted
in 1839, which resulted in the destruction of an
entire corps d’armée. Out of fourteen or fifteen
thousand men only four officers, I think, returned
home.” (A voice: “Only one man, who was a
doctor.””) “ Well, after this great disaster, which
is almost without a parallel, many people prophesied
the destruction of the English power in India,
thinking that its last hour had rung. But far from
this prediction being fulfilled, the year after, the
English returned to Cabul with more than twice
the number of men; and what happened in the last
century in the wars of the French revolution, what
has happened now at Cabul, will, I believe, also
happen in the Crimea. I am therefore convinced
that we may hope to find our Allies on the field
of battle stronger and more powerful than they
ever were before.”
On another occasion Cavour said: ‘“ The
English people have many great virtues, among
which patriotism is pre-eminent. The Englishman
judges every question from a national standpoint,
and when he judges that the interest of England is
at stake, all other considerations lose their weight.”
Again, “When her interests are involved in a
29
The Book of Italy
cause, England promotes and sustains it with a
tenacity and an energy which till now no other
people has known how to equal.’’ As early as
1837, Cavour wrote: ‘I have entire faith in the
good sense of the English people, and in the energy
of the ruling classes.’’ And twenty years later he
declared that he was not one of those who believed
England not to be in a condition to make war; a
belief which in 1914 contributed more than any-
thing else to the outbreak of the European con-
flagration. Cavour knew better: “I believe, on
the contrary,” he said, “‘ that if there arose a cause
with which her national interests and her amour
propre were bound up, she would be ready to
support it, sword in hand, with more fire and vigour
than she has ever displayed.”’
This deep and acute observer remarked that
“ British patriotism begins to transform itself, and
to become less exclusive and egotistical; it no
longer holds that English prosperity depends on
diminishing that of other states, but seeks, rather,
to establish international bonds founded on hum-
anity and justice.”
In one of his great speeches in the old Chamber
of Deputies at Turin, the cradle of Italian liberties,
where a few, though I fear too few, Englishmen have
gone to look with reverence at the seat so long
occupied by the maker of Italy as we see her now,
Cavour made a profession of faith with regard to
England which it is certain he would repeat, were he
living, without altering a word :
‘No one in this Chamber attaches more import-
ance to the opinions of English statesmen than |
30
The Prescience of Count Cavour
do. From my youth upwards I have been used
to respect that country as being the source of the
greater part of the political knowledge which has
guided my career; I value and respect England as
one of the first Powers of the world; I venerate
her as the rock on which liberty has found, and
may find again, an impregnable refuge. In so far
as it was possible, I have always preferred an
alliance with England to any other.”
It has to be remembered that Cavour did not
_ pronounce these words, and others like them, before
an audience of naturally-approving Englishmen.
He did make one speech in England—it was his
“maiden speech ’’—and being a very young man,
and never a very ready speaker, he was a good deal
embarrassed when called upon to deliver it. I
think it was at a dinner of the Royal Geographical
Society. But his speeches in the Sardinian Cham-
ber were meant entirely for his own countrymen ;
certainly he never imagined that extracts from
them would be given in an English Book of Italy
in the year 1916, though it would have surprised
him little to find the Italy of his making ranged on
the side of England and her brave Allies—indeed,
it would have surprised him infinitely not to have
found her there! But Cavour’s speeches were
meant for his own countrymen alone, and they
were meant not to obtain applause—he cared nothing
for that—but to convince. I will not say that any
among his hearers disliked England—was there ever
an Italian who did so ?—but a large number disliked
and mistrusted English statesmen, and the ideal of
a constitutional monarchy on the British pattern,
31
The Book of Italy
with its lack of romance, its concessions to human
imperfections, failed to satisfy the dreamers of
sublime dreams. ‘These last placed their hopes
elsewhere, and looked for help and for an example,
not to England, whose free institutions formed the
great bulwark against revolution, but to the coun-
tries which were then plunging one after the other
into the revolutionary vortex towards which their
despotic governments drove them. I speak of the
autumn of 1848, and of a memorable sitting in the
Chamber of Deputies at Turin, to which Senator
F. Ruffini, the greatest Italian authority now on
Cavour, has lately dedicated an interesting study.
The Radicals in the Chamber hoped in the risings
at Vienna and in the assistance which was to be
expected from the noble Hungarian nation, from the
Slavs of Bohemia and Croatia—lastly from “ liberal
and learned Germany,’’ which was then lifting the
curtain on the vision of an United Empire at the
Frankfort Parliament.
Cavour rose to answer deputy Brofferio,- the
eloquent speaker who was the mouthpiece of the
Piedmontese Radicals, and, without preparation of
any kind, he delivered what must be held to be
the most prescient speech ever pronounced by a
statesman. Vienna? when, after the revolution of
the previous March, the Viennese hoped to obtain
liberal concessions from their sovereign, the very
same students who had fought on the barricades,
went willingly to fight against their struggling
brothers in Italy. Hungary? ‘The Magyars, de-
voted to their own liberties, cruelly oppressed the
Slavs under their rule. All that had happened in
32
The Prescience of Count Cavour
that part of Europe was only “the prelude to a
terrible war of races, the war of Germanism against
Slavism ! ”
After predicting, in passing, that the revolution
in France, which had also inspired so many hopes
in Italy, “ would have for its final result, Louis
Napoleon on the throne,” Cavour went on to
consider what of good there was to be expected
from the new transformation of “‘ liberal and learned
Germany.” For the passage just quoted relating to
the Austrian Empire I have to thank Senator Ruffini,
as I had either not noticed its significance or had
forgotten it. But I believe I was the first to call
particular attention to the following prophetic words
uttered in the autumn of the year 1848."
“England feels a singular jealousy of that new
Germanic Power which has constituted itself at
Frankfort with outlooks of extreme ambition.
Scarcely born, Germanism threatens to disturb the
European equilibrium : already it reveals thoughts
of preponderance and usurpation. The Diet of
Frankfort does not conceal its design to extend its
dominion to the shores of the North Sea, to invade
Holland by treaties or by force, in order to become
a maritime Power, and contest on the seas the
empire wielded by England. if
On showing this prophecy in a detached form
to one who is a master rather than a student of
English political history, he expressed the doubt
1 J referred to this forecast in; a letter to the Saturday Review in
January 1898, and again in my small book on Cavour, and finally, after
it had been so surprisingly verified, in an appendix to a new edition of
La Liberazione d Italia, published at Milan last June.
33
The Book of Italy
whether the nascent schemes of the Frankfort
Parliament were realised in the England of that day,
or, at any rate, whether they produced the effect,
which Cavour went on to say was natural, of causing
the new German Empire to be regarded in England
with strong feelings of suspicion. But Cavour was
the last person to make an assertion not fully
justified by facts. He read the English papers, and
he states positively that they were full of articles in
which the prospect of the German peril was openly
discussed. More than that, he pointed to the acts
of the English Government, which threatened war
with Prussia and Germany on behalf of “‘ oppressed
Denmark,” if mediation were not accepted on the
question of Schleswig. The moral he drew from
it all was, that England was bound in the long run
to uphold Italian aspirations. ‘The Austrian Empire
would either become a Slav Power or be absorbed
in Germany. The separation of Italy from Austria
would in the end become the best means for resist-
ing the ambitious policy of a rival Empire—the
Germany of to-day !
EVELYN MARTINENGO CESARESCO.
34
ITALY THE REDEEMER
ImMoRTAL Italy, our angel of the dawn,
When Tyranny had multiplied his man-brute spawn,
And for a thousand years the blood-prints of his
hoof
Were graves of liberty, yet freedom found a roof :
Islets you sowed, like little stars of living light
Phosphorent of the sun, while that Cimmerian
Night
Wrought ravine, all the treasuries of art adust,
No culture save of carnage and the ‘Teuton lust.
Angel of Dawn, your cloistral sentries of the sky
Held tryst for Love until, with white robes sweeping
by,
You sath the song-birds, and from out his black
abyss
Embruted Man gazed alp-ward, and the fastnesses
Glowed ; for your hands were busy with the Day’s
Re-birth ;
You clothed with mystery and magic all the
earth ;
You loosed the bonds of science, broke our prison
bars,
And sang the Love that moves the sun and the
other stars.
E 35
The Book of Italy
As roses wrought of light, as Thebes of moving song,
Our arts, our state you conjured, and the twain
grew strong,
And cast about the man-brute Minotaur a chain.
But now his hoof-blow stunned us: he is loose
again,
Devouring man and maid. Gloom falls : we wake,
we rise:
Faithful you stand beside us, angel of the skies,
Co-sentinel with us of the celestial springs,
Beating the Night off with imperishable wings.
* * J * ¥* *%
There was one, vowed to hold inviolate his ward,
Ravished her while she slept, then slew her with his
sword :
We heard him whimper that his friend of honest
days
Discarded, now discards, and walks her separate
ways.
March, Italy, with the angels, let the miscreant lie :
You feared not for your fate, you live who dared
to die
Champion of faith and freedom, mother of light
and law—_
You march not with the Brute whose god is in his
maw. |
A world there was intent to strengthen and assuage,
To learn of mother earth, and build the brighter
age :
A stealthy smithy forged engines of agony
To crash the fabric down and subjugate the free.
36
(u24n [) Yfjojstg Opavuoa Tt
MUOM HO OWAH V
Italy the Redeemer
A trustful folk I knew: ‘‘ He thinks no harm,”
they said ;
“Free of our lands and trades, for him our board
is spread ;
The cut-throat creed is gone with monsters of the
slime.”’—
The blow fell as they spoke. He gloried in his
crime.
But Italy and the angels watched and did not fail ;
Die will she rather than the Minotaur prevail.
He is the tumid Ego’s obscene gospeller,
Braggart of brutal force, hell’s mightiest minister,
Breaker of bonds and bounds, fulfilled of lust and
lies,
The engineer of anguish, fed on groans and sighs :
His meat is served when millions writhe in mortal
pain,
He laughs—a hundred millions will not smile again.
Lest he prevail and leave no good in life beside
The sweet and holy death of the tyrannicide,
She barters ease for anguish to redeem her folk
Who know, as once she knew, the man-brute
Teuton’s yoke,
The shame, the ruthless gag, the screw extortionate,
Wives wronged and sisters, whom ‘twas death to
vindicate ;
Nor for these only, but for all the race of men,
Else sheep and milch-kine for the man - brute
Teuton’s pen.
37
The Book of Italy
This was the holiest war since time and earth
began,
The war to free from sepulture the Risen Man ;
See, Garibaldi beckons ; yonder is Calvary !
There’s woe in all the land, and sorrow on the
sea ;
All lesser causes droop, but one large hope remains—
To save from utter loss our hard-wrung human
gains,
Hurl back the new dark age, and, ere our day be
gone, |
Reach forth with dying hands to pass the pure
light on.
* * * * * *
A vasty stage I saw ; thereon a tragic king,
Cruel, forsworn, a Judas, mad and menacing
Like Macbeth when his sins turned all the seas to
blood :
Kaiser Enslaver he, the hell-king. Round him
stood
Czar Liberator, second of the immortal name,
Albert the Good, whose glory is the Teuton’s shame,
The folk-king of the waves twice fifty years kept
free,
Victor, Redeemer of eternal Italy !
And one that bears no wand, no coronal, but
seems |
The spirit Liberty herself, the Maid of Dreams ;
All white her raiment, and her banner lilies wave
White as the souls of those who die, like her, to
save
38
Wy taly the Redeemer
Freedom ; for she is France made perfect by dis-
tress,
Joan, sister of heaven’s own Carpenter, sweet
shepherdess ;
Nor hell, nor all hell’s Teutons, shall destroy her
shrine ;
For they are living death, and she is life divine.
The hell-king called on God, and labyrinths of
lies
Vomited man-brutes, and the world was full of
cries,
Dolour, and rage; for, lo, the loosened Minotaur,
Whom ‘forty years he nourished. And his hooves
were four—
Treachery, arrogance, and cruelty and lust,
To trick, shame, terrify, and trample lives to dust :
This thing of blood and iron by the oe
shod,
This foul and horned beast, this Totem, was his
god.
Another God we worship ; He that fights for us,
Making staunch friends of stalwart foes, whom,
chivalrous,
We fought; and fighting, clothed, sustained, and
visited
The babes and wives of those by whom our blood
was shed,
And in the hour of conquest gave the foe our hand,
To reign as brothers in the same God-given land :
So may He lead us back to where His fountains well
As victors, God with us—Victor Emmanuel.
39
The Book of Italy
For though the Man-Brute nails the sai world
to a cross,
Still radiant we behold through tears of pain and
loss
Italy shining mid the darkness of the earth,
Once more the angel by the tomb of Love’s Re-
birth
Who rolls away the stone to free the Risen Man,
Singing the song of life God made when time
began,
The song of valiant souls that tend their prison
bars,
The song of Love that moves the sun and the other
stars.
NEWMAN Howarb.
40
- id ‘tise aula co ale
1 Saber. |
Who rolls away the stone to free the
*
| The — "of valiant souls that, tend te
1% Pas By eile see PRT Si eee sa 2. ‘aie “i ie tC
Shes.
Rix Ae ENS ater, Sha _
ITALY AND GERMANY
A CONTRAST —
IraLy has a peculiar charm for all foreigners, even
when they are not aware of its nature or cause.
It is not merely the charm of beautiful country or
delightful people—though it may be that there is
no country so beautiful and no people so delightful.
It is that, while the towns of Italy are all Italian,
they are also all individual with the intense in-
dividuality of men of genius or works of art. Each
one is a different world from the other, as if its
inhabitants had consciously made it to express
themselves, whereas many towns in England and
other’ countries seem to have grown through an
economic accident. They are circumstances to
which the people who live in them are subdued ;
but in Italy towns great and small are not merely
circumstances. They are to towns elsewhere what
poetry is to ordinary speech. In them the spirit
has been master, and has expressed itself through
the material.
~ And this is so because the fate of Italy in the
past has been peculiar, both in its glory and in its
misfortune. When elsewhere in the dark ages
civilisation was lost in a barbarous equality, out of
which nations grew, in Italy there remained cities
that never were reduced to this equality, but kept
the memory of the world alive within their walls,
AI
The Book of Italy
and with it the freedom and the hope of the world.
In the words of Shelley :
“ Many a warrior-peopled citadel,
Like rocks which fire lifts out of the flat deep,
Arose in sacred Italy,
Frowning o’er the tempestuous sea
Of kings and priests and slaves, in tower-crowned majesty ;
That multitudinous anarchy did sweep,
And burst around their walls like idle foam,
Whilst from the human spirit’s deepest deep
Strange melody with love and awe struck dumb
Dissonant arms.”
Yet, when Shelley wrote this in Italy, the towered
cities which he loved had lost their freedom, and
seemed to live only in memory.
It is the long tragedy of history that, whereas
the mind of man grows finest in little states, and
does in them best express all the intensity of the
human spirit, there also comes a time when the
larger, grosser and more inert states have learnt
from them enough of civilisation to overcome their
spiritual superiority with brute force. So it was
with Greece ; and so again it was with Italy. For
centuries the little city-states taught the world out
of the fulness of their own knowledge and power.
Each city was to its citizens a hundred times more
than any medizval country could be to its inhabi-
tants. They kept the very idea of patriotism alive
with the idea of freedom; for freedom was their
peculiar treasure, guarded within the walls of their
own city ; and they made their city, as it were, a
beautiful casket in which to guard it. Other men
might like the countryside in which they were born,
42
Italy and Germany
but it did not belong to them as Florence belonged
to the Florentine. It did not express their love
and power, nor were they moved to beautify it with
labours beyond what were needed to win their daily
bread. If they fought, it was in a quarrel they
did not understand ; but the Florentine fought for
his own city, and, when he walked its streets, he
saw those great men who made it famous through
the world. It was not merely an idea to him, but
a fact always close to him in its beauty, always to be
made more beautiful with his labours—a fact so
concrete and so dear that he could not think or
feel beyond it. And so it was with the other cities ;
and they remained city-states, each with its own
passionate and narrow patriotism, while the nations
round gained knowledge and power from them,
until they began to turn greedy eyes upon their
teachers. Italy united would have been safe against
the Spaniards, and French, and Germans; but
Italians had too fierce a love, each of his own city,
to unite. They first in the modern world knew
what patriotism was, and with it freedom; but it
was so intense that they could not enlarge it; and
therefore they lost their freedom, city by city, and
without even the glory of one common struggle
for it.
They lost it almost unawares ; and then gradually
their minds were prepared in adversity for that
hope which, in their freedom and happiness, they
had never even wished to entertain—the hope of
United Italy. We do not know when it first began
as a dream, or when it changed from a dream into
a hope. Perhaps it was at that very moment when
43
The Book of Italy
the last republics died; or perhaps it grew into
power at the Congress of Verona, concerning which
Byron addressed Italy in bitter words:
‘Crowd to the theatre with loyal rage,
The comedy is not upon the stage ;
The show is rich in ribandry and stars,
Thou gaze upon it through thy dungeon bars;
Clap thy permitted palms, kind Italy,
For thus much still thy fettered hands are free.”
What an English poet said then aloud must have
been felt more keenly in many Italian hearts. ‘There
were nations all round growing more conscious of |
themselves after the war of the nations; but Italy
was not a nation, and no one, but a poet or two,
called her one. She was only the tourists’ country
and the curator of her own past. If she would be
quiet and show her treasures to the world, she
would not be treated ill by her masters; but she
must not force them to take her seriously.
She did force them to take her seriously ; and
the freeing of Italy was the greatest triumph of the
spirit in the modern world. For it was the spirit
of Italy that freed her ; and even if she had great
allies, it was her spirit that won them. And when
her freedom was accomplished, and with it her
unity, men might well believe that the victory was
won for national freedom once for all, and that
nothing remained but to make that victory else-
where and inevitably complete.
Yet in that same year another national unity
was accomplished, a unity no- less natural and law-
ful, which was to involve a new danger to national
44
Italy and Germany
freedom all over the world. Men did not know it
at the time. ‘They did not see that while the unity
of Italy was in freedom, the unity of Germany was
in the willing slavery of a people who, because they
were themselves content not to be free, would in
time surely threaten the freedom of other nations.
In the unity of Italy there remained the memory
of all those lovely city-states, for the cities them-
selves remained and kept the love of their citizens ;
and so their common freedom was, and remains, a
complex and harmonious thing, aiming at no uni-
formity and ever ready to sacrifice the proper
diversity of freedom to power. ‘The task for Italy,
her highest ambition, which she has always kept
before herself, is to solve that old problem which
has never been solved before—to preserve the
diversity and energy and spiritual intensity of the
city-state within a larger unity powerful enough
to defend itself against all attacks from without.
But that was not the task which Germany’set her-
self, the ambition which slowly possessed her with
her greedy power. At the very outset of her unity,
obtained in a war of conquest, she submitted herself
to the predominance of Prussia, because Prussia,
she believed, could teach her to be powerful. She
gave away her freedom for a great price; and it
was inevitable, as we see now, that she should try
to exact that price from the world.
It was not unity in diversity that she desired,
but uniformity for the sake of power. She deli-
berately refused that higher idea of a nation without
which unity itself would have been to Italy too costly,
and chose rather an idea as old as Assyria, the
45
The Book of Italy
sacrifice of all inner richness to outward power ;
and it was all the worse because she had so much
inner richness to sacrifice. In a generation the old
diverse, musical, philosophical Germany was changed
into a machine, conscious of its own purpose—
morbidly conscious, indeed—because of all the
sacrifices it had made, but with a purpose entirely
mechanical. And so it was certain that, when the
trial of strength came at last, the two lately united
nations would be found on opposite sides. The
alliance which held them together for a time was
purely artificial, Germany was the link between
Italy and her ancient oppressor; it was Germany
indeed who seemed to secure her from the attempted
revenge of that oppressor; but all the while, un-
known to her and to the world, Germany was
becoming a more dangerous enemy to the common
freedom of Europe than Austria herself had ever
been or had ever hoped to be.
And as the threat of Germany began to reveal
itself, her alliance with Italy grew of necessity
more and more formal, as it was more and more
against nature. ‘The old oppressor, Austria, had
become Germany’s vassal ; and there was nothing
for Italy but to become either her enemy or her
vassal too. This grew every day more plain in the
years just before the war, and Italy did not need
to nerve herself up to a decision when that was
necessary. ‘The decision possessed her like a pas-
sion; and she turned to her sister nations of the
west because they were her sisters in mind and
purpose, and joined to her by a tie stronger even
than the tie of blood, If Italy had fought for the
46
Italy and Germany
German cause, if even she had remained neutral,
she would have belied the very hopes in which she
was reborn. She would have been no longer the
Italy of the city-states and all their great children,
not the Italy of Mazzini and Garibaldi, but a mock-
Germany who had sold her own soul without even
a chance of getting the price for it.
The German statesmen profess indignation at
the treachery of Italy; but in their hearts they
cannot feel it. For, apart from the fact that for
them there is no such thing as treachery, they knew
that for years there had been no interchange of
confidence between Germany and Italy. They
never told Italy that they meant an attack upon the
liberties of the world. ‘They were afraid to tell
her that, because they knew that she was an ally,
not an accomplice like their vassal Austria. And
they knew that she could not be an accomplice
because of her character and past history and
present aims. If one is a partner in honest business
with a man, one is not therefore bound to assist
him in a burglary. And if one discovers that he is
a burglar, there is nothing to be done but to dis-
solve the partnership and to assist justice against
him. That was the course Italy took when the
German power was at its height. It could not be
said of her that she turned against her old ally
in the hour of defeat. ‘The moment at which she
made war was the moment at which the pressure
of her popular will became irresistible. In all the
negotiations before, that will was only becoming
conscious of itself. Italy knew at last that she could
47
The Book of Italy
not consent to a German victory. She is a part
of Europe ; before she was a nation, she did more
to make Europe what it is than any nation ; and she
became a nation because the Europe which she had
helped to make was Europe. How then could she
sit still and watch the unmaking of Europe? It
was impossible, and we knew it from the first.
We waited for the inevitable day; and when it
came, we were glad to have our sister with us.
But we had loved her too much before ever to
doubt her.
A. CLUTTON BROCK.
LETTRE D’'UN FRANCAIS A UN
ITALIEN
[This letter was addressed by Paul Sabatier to Professor
Mariano Falcinelli, of Assisi, President of the ‘‘ Société inter-
nationale des Etudes Franciscaines,” of which M. Sabatier
himself is the Honorary President. It was written immediately
after the intervention of Italy —TuE Ep1rTor.]
28 Mai.
CHER ET EXCELLENT PRESIDENT ,—
Vous avez senti, n’est-ce pas, qu’en ces
journées historiques ma pensée vole sans cesse vers
vous avec une inexprimable émotion? Nos campagnes,
apparemment muettes depuis dix mois, et qui sem-
blaient n’avoir pas songé a féter méme la victoire
de la Marne, hier ont tout a coup pavoisé; et les
plus reculés de nos villages se sont ornés d’une
multitude de drapeaux aux couleurs de I’Italie. Je
voudrais étre poete pour vous dire, chers amis
d’Assise, quelle sorte de joie vient de nous donner
votre noble et grande Patrie.
Chez beaucoup de nos vieillards cévenois j’ai
senti le contentement, tout simple et naturel,
d’hommes qui, par leurs enfants, ont fait de grands
sacrifices, dont toute l’énergie s’est tendue en un
magnifique effort, et qui voient arriver, pour com-
battre les mémes batailles, une armée jeune, belle,
enthousiaste.
Mais ce concours matériel est loin d’étre tout ce
49
The Book of Italy
que nous vous devons. Et ici je crains bien que la
langue ne me fasse défaut pour exprimer ce que
je sens si bien en moi, ce que j’ai senti si vive-
ment chez beaucoup d’autres. Dans cette guerre
que le peuple de France croyait impossible, et a
laquelle on 1l’a brusquement contraint, il s’est re-
dressé avec une énergie qu’il ne se soupconnait pas,
—et dont personne ne le savait capable, — pour
une idée, ou plutét pour Vidée. [1 lui a semblé qu’il
représentait l’effort moral, l’4me vivante, [esprit
méme de la création menacé par des forces maté-
rielles et brutales. Il a lutté d’instinct, avec une foi
indomptable, sans songer a se préoccuper des suc-
ces ou des revers.
La sécurité de sa foi, la netteté de son devoir ne
dépendent pas des circonstances. Mais quelle n’est
pas l’ardeur de son entrain quand il voit d’autres
peuples se lever a l’appel de la méme idee. Il
n’avait jamais pu doubter de la victoire, parce qu’en
doubter efit été le suicide du divin en lui ; cependant,
de cette certitude mystique du triomphe a la vue du
triomphe, encore difficile, mais tout prochain, il y
a loin. Or, eette distance, c’est vous, amis et freres
d’Italie, qui nous avez permis de la franchir d’un
bond.
Tout cela est fort complexe et pourtant je m’as-
sure que nous nous comprenons. II] y a quelques
mois, dans un élan d’horreur contre les atrocités
dont le récit parvenait jusqu’a vous et de pitié
pour tant de milliers d’innocentes victimes, vous
aviez souhaité la paix et tenté un effort dans ce
sens. Et voila que cette guerre devient la votre,
comme elle était la nétre. Ou plutdt, vous avez
5°
ASSISI
F. Cadogan Cowper, A.R.A.
(By kind permission of Frederick M. Fry, Esq., C.V.O.)
Lettre d’un Francais a un Italien
faite votre. Nous, nous y avions été entrainés de
vive force; et rien au monde ne pouvait éloigner
Pépreuve de nous, — sauf la trahison ou la lache
abdication,—vous, vous l’avez faite vétre, par un
acte de volonté réfléchie auquel toute la nation a
collaboré. Pendant plus que neuf mois vous avez vu
jour aprés jour ce qu'il en coiite de se défendre
contre l’Allemagne. Deux petits-fils de Garibaldi, et
autour d’eux une foule de vos concitoyens, sont
tombés, la-bas, dans |’Argonne, inoubliables héros
auxquels tous les cceurs bien nés du monde entier
ont tressé des couronnes. Leurs compagnons de
gloire et de labeur vous ont raconté ce que sont
les carnages de la guerre moderne. Et voila que
ces corps a corps gigantesques que vous maudissiez
naguere, que vous auriez voulu arréter, vous vous
y jetez a votre tour avec une male énergie. Et dans
cette décision, qui semble au premier abord contre-
dire votre effort pacifique d’il y a quelques mois,
vous trouvez, j’en suis sir, une immense joie et
comme une délivrance.
Si d’autres que vous lisent ces lignes, peut-étre
jugeront-ils étrange que des amis de la paix soient
heureux d’une déclaration de guerre! Et pourtant
il en est ainsi, n’est-il pas vrai? C’est que, si nous y
regardons bien, |’Italie a été amenée a ce pas déci-
sif par des forces mystérieuses qui ne se pésent ni
ne se comptent ; mais qui, en de rares heures de
’nistoire, renversent tout pour créer une ére nou-
velle.
Je n’aurai pas l’impertinence de dire que les
pourparlers diplomatiques ne furent qu’une sorte
de vain cérémonial. Ils ont été sinceéres, et je sais
F 51
The Book of Italy
l’immense valeur intellectuelle et morale de Son-
nino; mais dans les salons de la ‘“‘ Consulta,” entre
lui et son interlocuteur, passait l’4me latine. Et
l’ame latine vient de remporter une de ses plus
grandes victoires historiques.
Le monde entier suspendait sa respiration pour
voir ce qui allait se passer. L’émotion de la France
était plus anxieuse encore: c’était un peu celle de
la jeune fille qui aime, qui aime de toutes ses
forces, qui croit étre aimée et qui cependant n’a
pas encore le droit de parler de son noble et idéal
amour. Et alors, elle attend ; et dans son attente il
y a, a la fois, émotion et sécurité ; car il lui semble
que son amour est conforme a la nature des choses
etalavie. Il est a la fois trés vif et tres pur. Il est
inspiré par un grand réve de collaboration efficace
a une ceuvre idéale.
Et la France chaque matin levait les yeux vers
Rome, et aussi vers tant d’autres de vos cités qui
comptent plus dans l’histoire que Berlin et Vienne
réunies ; et des signes qui aux autres ne disaient
rien, faisaient battre son cceur plus fort. Lorsque
les restes des Garibaldi quitterent nos tranchées,
elle les suivit, non comme on suit des cercueils,
mais comme on suit les reliques de glorieux mar-
tyrs qui ont eu la joie de rendre témoignage a la
vérité et dont la mort change le cours des choses.
Les funérailles de Bruno et de Costante montrerent
que le cceur de I’Italie battait a l’unisson de celui
de la France: puisque l’union des ames était si
éclatante, l’autre ne pouvait tarder.
52
Lettre dun Francais a un Italien
3 juin.
Tels sont, chers amis d’Assise, les sentiments qui
ont donné aux piéces diplomatiques par lesquelles
votre pays s’est joint au ndtre, une base et une
portée que jamais, au cours des siécles, n’avaient
eues des arrangements internationaux: jamais
peuple civilisé n’a été tenté de considérer les
traités comme des chiffons de papier, mais les plus
importantes conventions ne s’occupent d’ordinaire
que de questions matérielles. Cette fois le travail
des chancelleries a été précédé, inspiré et dominé,
on peut le dire, par des explosions de- sentiments
qui feront que les forces les plus vives de chacun
de nos peuples travailleront ensemble, s’>harmonise-
ront, s’intensifieront et arriveront dans un prochain
avenir a une hauteur de vues digne de préparer
une civilisation nouvelle.
Ce n’est pas le hasard qui a fait que Slaves,
Anglo-Saxons et Latins, nous nous trouvons unis
en un effort commun contre la force brutale et que
le nom d’Entente lui a été donné. Cette appella-
tion nouvelle indique une cohésion morale inspirée
par l’intelligence et le cceur, et ow les stipulations
matérielles ne sont guére que les premieres pierres
milliaires d’un chemin qui se prolonge au dela de
ce que nous pouvons voir et prévoir.
Notre viatique au moment ot nous partons tous,
la main dans la main, pour cette épopée nouvelle
n’est pas un sentiment de haine. Nous avons eu
horreur des atrocités allemandes, de ce hideux mili-
tarisme organisé avec une si redoubtable méthode,
et qui semble avoir fait disparaitre des consciences
la distinction du bien et du mal; nous avons frémi
53
The Book of Italy
et nous eussions été tentés, si c’etit été possible, de
douter de Dieu et de la vérité, en voyant la gros-
siére hypocrisie qui profane les deux plus nobles
efforts de l’humanité: la religion et la science;
mais notre instinct optimiste a repris bien vite le
dessus. Nous avons avec nous les forces profondes,
les forces vraies ; celles qui ont pu étre mises en
échec provisoirement au cours de l’histoire, mais
qui, 4 travers toutes les difficultés, ne cessent pour-
tant pas de grandir: le droit, la justice, la liberté,
la vie, l’amour.
C’est a ce triomphe que nous nous sommes
‘donnés, et non pas a la réalisation de réves sangui-
naires. Quand la Germanie aura été enchainée et
placée dans l’impossibilité absolue de mettre de
nouveau ses voisins en péril, nous aurons vis-a-vis
d’elle des devoirs précis. Nous n’abandonnons pas
les démoniaques et les déments, méme les plus
dangereux ; mais apres les avoir réduits a |’impuis-
sance nous guettons les instants de lucidité pour
tacher d’éveiller en eux la conscience. Nous ferons
de méme pour nos ennemis d’aujourd’hui, sans
trop compter sur leur guérison a bref délai: d’une
part, en garde contre le véritable génie de simula-
tion dont sont souvent capables les aliénés ; d’autre
part, fermement décidés a faire vis-a-vis a? eux tout
notre devoir de membres de |’humanité.
C’est ainsi que cette guerre, plus atroce que’ ce
que l’imagination aurait pu supposer, prend, vue
de nos lignes, un caractéere d’effort moral.
Pardonnez-moi de vous retenir si longtemps, car
tout cela, vous le savez, mais j’ai éprouvé le besoin
de venir en parler avec vous, d’en réver avec vous,
54
Lettre dun Francais a un I talten
comme on réve d’une musique qu’on entend tous
les jours, dont on ne se lasse jamais, et dans la
répétition de laquelle on trouve un aliment spiri-
tuel toujours ancien, toujours nouveau.
Et puis, il faut bien nous avouer que tous les
dangers qui nous menacent ne sont pas la-bas, au
dela de la derniére ligne occupée par nos soldats.
Les idées allemandes se sont infiltrées partout et
il a pu y avoir ¢a et 1a quelques-uns de nos jeunes
gens qui, un instant, se sont laissé séduire par la
théorie du surhomme et de la force créant le droit.
En faisant appel aux passions les plus brutales,
l’Allemagne a réveillé des instincts qui somnolent
en chacun de nous, que de longs siécles de civili-
sation avaient presque éliminés, mais contre le
retour desquels il faut nous prémunir. Fatalement
nous sommes tentés de répondre a nos adversaires
sur le terrain méme ou ils nous attaquent, et avec
les moyens qu’ils emploient. C’est la que notre
patriotisme devra s’élever 4 une hauteur de vues
non encore atteinte par l’humanité et dont l’histoire
du passé ne nous fournit pas d’exemple.
Vaincre nos ennemis sur les champs de bataille,
les réduire 4 merci, n’est en effet pas la seule tache
qui s'impose. Quand celle-la sera couronnée d’un
plein succés, il s’en présentera une autre, non
moins nécessaire, non moins difficile, et qu ‘il faut
prévoir dés maintenant: je veux parler de la lutte
qu'il s’agira d’engager dans nos divers pays et
dans nos propres cceurs contre les idées et les
méthodes de |’Allemagne. Ni les hommes d’église,
ni les hommes de science n’ont su chez nos ennemis
voir a quelles monstruosités morales et politiques
| 55
The Book of Italy
les conduisait une fausse conception de l’amour de
la patrie.
Deutschland iiber alles !
Quelques générations ont suffi durant lesquelles
toutes les voix artistiques, religieuses et scienti-
fiques ont enseigné cela, pour fausser les idées et
le coeur de ce pays et en faire non seulement un
redoubtable danger pour ses voisins de l’Europe,
mais un péril moral pour la civilisation tout en-
tiere.
Voila ce qu’il ne faut pas perdre de vue un seul
instant, et puisque opinion publique des nations
alliées est restée pure, puisqu’elle sent que le vrai
culte de la patrie trouve sa consécration dans
l’amour de la vérité, de la justice, du droit et de la
liberté, veillons pieusement sur ces germes d’idéa-
lisme en nous et autour de nous, pour les déve-
lopper, et faire qu’au lendemain du cataclysme
européen, ils soient plus vigoureux que jamais.
Nous ne pouvons pas tout, mais nous pouvons
quelque chose pour que les divines clartés prennent
chaque jour plus d’éclat. Nous allons délivrer al
Serbie et la Belgique, les provinces Irredente et
l’Alsace-Lorraine, ressusciter la Pologne ; dans cet
effort nous aurons avec nous toutes les forces vives
de ’humanité, non seulement pour applaudir et ad-
mirer, mais obligées en quelque sorte de se trouver
en communion d’idées avec nous et solidaires de
ce que nous ferons. L’Entente s’élargira encore
et la paix européenne sera établie sur des bases
qu’elle n’a jamais eues. Si au contraire nous suc-
combions a la tentation de nous venger de nos
56
Lettre d’un Francais a un Italien
ennemis en employant contre eux leurs propres
armes, en nous inspirant de leurs méthodes, en
créant de nouveaux pays irredenti ou de nouvelles
Alsaces, notre victoire serait précaire et la paix
mal assurée.
Ces bases morales de |’Entente doivent étre gra-
vées en caractéres ineffacables sur nos drapeaux
afin d’ écarter de notre chemin l’adhésion de qui-
conque n’a pas cet idéal et méditerait d’utiliser
notre supériorité matérielle pour des entreprises
contre le droit ou la liberté des autres.
Il serait singuliérement dangereux de ne pas nous
rendre compte de |’immensité de la tache que nous
avons entreprise. Ni nos fils, ni nos petits-fils n’en
verront la fin. La déroute du militarisme prussien
et l’abaissement de l’orgueil germanique ne sera
qu’un point de départ. Il faudra bientét déterminer
les causes, établir les responsabilités: et alors on
s’apercevra que les crimes qui ont fait trembler
d’étonnement et d’indignation le monde entier sont
la suite naturelle et pas trés lointaine d’erreurs
morales. L’aveuglement scientifique des princes de
la critique et de la science allemandes qui ont signé
le manifeste des 93, absence de tout sursaut de
conscience, de pitié ou d’amour chez les cardinaux
et les évéques, aussi bien que chez les pasteurs
protestants et les aumO6niers qui ont assisté a des
massacres et 4 des profanations qu’on n’ose racon-
ter, tout cela découle de l’erreur qui consiste a
diviniser la patrie, 4 voir dans ses intéréts—méme
les plus matériels—les fins suprémes.
L’erreur allemande guette tous les peuples, elle
nous guettera surtout quand nous serons penchés
57
The Book of Italy
pieusement sur nos patries respectives pour en
panser les blessures.
Si aprés la victoire sur les champs de bataille
nous n/’arrivions pas a remporter la victoire spiri-
tuelle et a réintégrer l’idéal a la place qui lui con-
vient, l’héroisme de nos soldats n’aurait fait que
reculer la catastrophe de quelques années.
Le culte de la force et de la matiere que l’Alle-
magne a érigé en religion d’Etat n’a laissé aucun
autre peuple tout a fait indemne. Puisque nous
nous sommes levés tous ensemble pour arréter sa
marche triomphale, rendons-nous bien compte de
l’effort gigantesque qui nous est demandé. Désor-
mais, nous sommes les représentants de |’ascension
humaine vers la vérité et vers la sainteté et toutes
les émotions, toutes les ardeurs, toutes les espé-
rances dont tressaillit le coeur de Francois d’Assise
doivent faire tressaillir les notres.
La mission qui s’impose a nous est de restaurer
le temple des idées éternelles: “‘ Vade, Francisce, et
repara domum meam quae tota, ut cernis, destruitur.”
A cette ceuvre, qui ne consistera ni a renverser le
passé ni a le répéter, mais a l’accomplir et a donner
a la civilisation morale et spirituelle une vigueur
analogue a celle des progres accomplis dans le
domaine matériel, viendra collaborer lélite du
monde entier; mais vous ne trouverez pas éton-
nant, j’espére, que les autres membres de |’Entente
se tournent avec confiance vers I’Italie et se rap-
pellent qu’elle n’est pas seulement la terre classique
de l’art et du soleil, mais celle aussi de la sainteté.
Et nous, franciscanisants d’au dela des Alpes, qui
sommes vos fréres, vos admirateurs et vos obligés,
58
Lettre d’un Francais a un Italien
un peu plus encore que le reste de nos compa-
triotes, nous savons 4 n’en pas douter que le sol de
l’Ombrie n’a pas perdu sa fertilité et que la terre
qui donna au monde saint Benoit, saint Francois,
sainte Claire, fr. Egide, fr. Léon et tant d’autres,
saura nous donner encore les serviteurs de l’idéal
apres lesquels nous soupirons: ‘‘ Rorate, coeli, desuper
et nubes pluant justum.”
Il] me serait doux de penser, chers amis d’Assise,
que vous ne m’en voudrez pas de cette trop longue
lettre, et qu’elle ne vous semblera pas trop indigne
d’étre lue sur le sol béni ot naquit le Patriarche de
la démocratie chrétienne, le Précurseur d’une ére
nouvelle. Je n’ai pu m’empécher de venir causer
avec vous en cette heure grave entre toutes, per-
suadé que, concitoyens du plus grand des rénova-
teurs spirituels qui aient existé depuis le Christ,
vous avez saisi toute l’ampleur de la tache qui
incombe ‘a l’Europe nouvelle et que la petite ville
chantée par Dante réalisera la prophétie de |’im-
mortel poete : :
“ , . Chi d’esso loco fa parole
non dica Ascesi, che direbbe corto,
ma Oriente, se proprio dir vuole.”
Votre dévoué et heureux concitoyen,
PAUL SABATIER.
x8
LETTER TO AN ITALIAN FRIEND
May 28.
DEAR AND EXCELLENT PRESIDENT,—You have surely
felt, in these historic days, how my thoughts fly
straight to you with inexpressible eagerness. Our
French country-side, seemingly silent for ten
months, and which appeared never to have thought
of celebrating the victory of the Marne, was stirred
yesterday to the full depths of its being ; ; and our
most remote villages were bright with a thousand
flags displaying the colours of Italy.
I wish I were a poet, so that I might fitly tell
you, dear ftiends of Assisi, what manner of joy has
been given us now by your noble and great country.
From many an old man of our Cevennes I have
felt the satisfaction, simple and natural, which
comes to those who, after the supreme sacrifice
they have made in the giving up of their well-
beloved sons—after concentrating their energies in
this one supreme effort—at last see arising to fight
the same battles a new army, young, beautiful,
alive with enthusiasm. But this material aid is
far from being all that we owe you. And here I
fear that my tongue will falter when I try to tell
you what I feel so deeply in my own heart, and
what I feel so profoundly moving the hearts of so
many others.
In this war, which the people of France had
60
(uvj~) WjasponG orm
HYOTOR
Letter to an Italian Friend
thought impossible, and to which they found them-
selves called without a moment’s warning, they
have shown an energy surprising to themselves, a
strength of which no one knew them capable, in
their devotion to an ideal—or, better still, to the
greatest of ideals.
To themselves they seem to stand for moral
effort, for the living soul, for the very spirit of
creation threatened by material, brute force. They
have fought instinctively with unconquerable faith,
without a thought of whether, for the moment,
successes shall come or repulses.
The firmness of their faith, their clear and
distinct perception of duty have nothing to do
with mere circumstance. Yet how their ardour
flames anew, when they see other peoples answer
the call of the same ideal !
They had never really doubted that victory
must be theirs in the end, for such a doubt would
have been a suicide of the spirit; but between
this mystic certitude of triumph and its actual
achievement—hard, even though it be not far away
—there is a road to travel.
To-day we owe to you, friends and brothers of
Italy, the swift, sure sense that we have almost
accomplished the journey. All this may seem
complex ; but I am sure that we understand one
another. A few months ago, in an outburst of
horror at the atrocities of which the story had
come to you, and of pity for the thousands on
thousands of innocent sufferers, you longed for
peace, and tried hard to preserve it. And to-day
this war is yours, too, just as it was ours,
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The Book of Italy
Or rather, you have made it yours. We were
forced into it. Nothing in the world could have
spared us this trial except treason, or base sub-
mission. You, on the other hand, have made it
yours by a deliberate act of your national will, in
which your whole nation has joined together.
Through more than nine months you saw, day by
day, what it costs to make a stand against the
onslaught of Germany. ‘Two grandsons of Gari-
baldi, and with them a swarm of your fellow-country-
men, have already fallen there, in the Argonne,
deathless heroes for whom every. honest heart in
the whole world has woven a wreath. Their living
fellows in glory, and in battle, have told you what
manner of thing the carnage is in modern war.
And here, in this gigantic struggle to the death
which you deplored, so little while ago, and did
your best to stop, you have yourselves joined with
the full vigour of manhood. And in this decision,
which at! first glance may appear inconsistent with
your effort for peace of those few months ago, you
feel, I am certain, the joy of a great enfranchise-
ment. If foreigners should read these lines they
may perhaps find it strange that true lovers of
peace should be glad of a declaration of war.
And, indeed, it is so. It has happened, if we
perceive things aright, because Italy has been im-
pelled to this decisive step by mysterious forces,
beyond the scope of weighing or of counting, such
as in those rare moments of history which are great
bring all things crashing down, so that out of the
ruin there may be shaped a new era.
It is not that I believe the attempts of diplomacy
62 |
Letter to an Italian Friend
to have been hollow shams. They were sincere.
I, for one, fully recognise the measureless moral
and intellectual worth of Sonnino, but between
him and his interlocutor, in the very depth of their
council-chamber, there swept the spirit of the
Latin race. And, at this moment, that spirit of
the Latin race has won a victory which shall count
among the greatest in its history.
The whole world held its breath, as it waited
to see what should happen. ‘The anxiety of France
was deepest of all. It had a character all its own ;
it was what a young girl might feel, who loves with
all her heart, who believes that she is loved, and
yet has not heard the word which should let her
speak out her love, in all the nobility of its ideal.
So she waits; and in her waiting she is anxious
and yet undoubting ; for to her such love as hers
seems a part of nature and of life. It is at once
flaming, yet utterly pure ; its inspiration is a noble
dream that human beings can work together to-
wards an end that shall not be of the flesh.
So, day after day, France cast its eyes on Rome,
and on those other cities of yours which count
more, each by herself, in the history of mankind
than Berlin and Vienna rolled into one. And signs
which to others might have meant nothing, made
the heart of France beat stronger.
When the bodies of the two Garibaldis left our
trenches, France followed them not as one might
follow a funeral procession, but as the relics of
martyrs are followed who have had the glory and
the joy of bearing witness to the truth, and whose
death has changed the course of things to come.
63
The Book of Italy
The funeral rites of Bruno and of Costante proved
that the heart of Italy was beating in unison with
the heart of France; when union of spirits is so
close, the rest must follow soon.
June 3.
Such, dear friends of Assisi, are the feelings
which give the diplomatic papers now uniting your
country with ours a depth and a scope such as in
all the course of the ages no international documents
have ever had before.
There has never been a time, to be sure, when
any civilised people has been even tempted to
regard treaties as scraps of paper. But even the
most important diplomatic documents are generally
concerned only with material affairs. ‘This time
the work of the Chanceries was preceded, was
inspired, was controlled, if one may use the term,
by an outburst of emotion in which the most vital
forces which inspired both of our peoples seemed
bound to work together, in harmony with crescent
power, until in the end they should rise together
to a height whence together they could plan the
civilisation of the future.
It is by no mere chance that the Allies—Slavs,
Anglo-Saxons, and Latins—who are making in
common their great effort to resist mere brute
force, have been apt to call their own alliance by
the name of Entente, or Understanding. This new
term implies that their cohesion is moral, that it
is inspired at once by the intellect and by the heart,
that material conditions are not the milestones in the
road which we mean to travel, and that we shall tread
this road together so long as we can see or foresee.
64
Letter to an I. talian Friend
| Our watchword, at this moment in which we
are starting, hand in hand, on this new path of
glory, has in it no tinge of hatred. We abhor the
atrocities of the Germans, of their hateful militarism
organised with so terrific a system that it seems to
have blurred out of its conscience any distinction
between good and evil. We have shuddered, and
had it been possible, we might have been tempted
to doubt the being of God and of ‘Truth, when we
saw their coarse hypocrisy profane the two noblest
forces in humanity—religion and science. But our
instinctive spirit of hope soon took the lead of us
again. We have on our side the deep forces, and
the true: those which in the course of history
have now and then been threatened for a while,
but which through all troubles and perils have
never ceased to struggle forward into ever greater
growth : the forces of right, of justice, of freedom,
of life, of love.
It is for the triumph of these that we are striving,
and not for dreams of bloodshed.
When Germany shall at last be shackled, and
put where she can no longer endanger those about
her, we shall have duties towards her. We do not
abandon those who are possessed of devils, nor the
mad, however dangerous they be, but after we have
placed them where they can do no more harm we
watch for the lucid interval wherein we may perhaps
reawaken them to consciousness and conscience.
So we shall do for our enemies of to-day, with no
undue hope that their cure can come in any short
space of time, on our guard against the genius for
dissimulation which we know to bea part of madness,
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The Book of Italy
but firmly determined to do for them all which we
owe them as fellow-members.of the human race.
So this war, more atrocious than any which
imagination could have conceived beforehand, takes
on, when seen from where we ourselves stand now,
the character of a moral crusade.
Forgive me for dwelling so long on what you
all know already. I have felt the need of speaking
of it to you, of dreaming of it with you, as one
dreams of some music, heard every day, yet never
cloying, in the notes of which there is exhaustless
food for the spirit, for ever old yet for ever new.
And then it must be admitted that all the
dangers which threaten us are not on the further
side of the lines defended by oursoldiers. German
ideas have soaked in everywhere, and here and
there our own youth are seduced for the while
by the theories of Superman, and of Might makes
Right.
By appealing to our most animal passions,
Germany has aroused instincts dormant in us all,
almost subdued by centuries of civilisation, but still
so strong that we must guard against their resurrec-
tion. We are almost, fatally tempted to meet our
enemy on his own ground, and to fight him with
his own weapons. Here our patriotism ‘must rise
to a height not yet attained by mere humanity,
unexampled in the history of the past.
To conquer our foes in battle, to make them sue
for terms of peace, is nowise our only duty. When
that is crowned with full success, another will be
before us, for which we must begin to make ready
even now. I mean the strife which we must wage,
66
n &
Hos
=> Ss
Rr ie
=
ete
a Be
Sees
t
Letter to an Italian Friend
in our own countries and in our own hearts, against
the ideals and the methods of Germany.
Neither the men of God there nor the men of
learning can perceive to-day the moral and political
enormities to which they have been led by a mis-
taken notion of the love they owe their Fatherland.
A few generations, during which every artistic,
every scientific, and every religious voice has taught
untruth to the heads and the hearts of Germany,
have sufficed to make that country not only a peril
to all its neighbours in Europe, but a moral peril
to all civilisation.
That is what we must not forget for a single
instant. Even though in the allied countries public
opinion still be pure, even though in them patriotism
still be consecrated by love of truth and of justice,
of right and of liberty, we must ever cherish these
germs of idealism in ourselves and in those about
us, to the end that on the morrow of this European
cataclysm they shall be stronger than ever.
We cannot all do everything, but we can each
do his own part, that the glory of God shall shine
day by day with new brightness.
We have started to free Servia and Belgium, to
redeem Alsace and Lorraine, to revive Poland:
in this attempt we have with us all the energies of
humanity, not only admiring us and urging us on,
but as it were bound to find themselves in com-
munion with our spirit, fellow-workers in that
which we shall achieve.
The Entente—the Understanding—shall grow
wider still, and the peace of Europe shall base itself
on foundations unknown of old. But if, on the
G 67
The Book of Italy
other hand, we yield to the temptation of taking
vengeance on our enemies, wielding against them
their own weapons, inspiring our own spirits with
their methods, making anew countries which shall
claim redemption, repeating the story of Alsace, our
victory shall be for only a little while, and our peace
shall have no security but the sword.
The moral foundations of the Entente—of the
Understanding—must be so stamped in our stan-
dards that they shall forbid the joining with us of
any who should plan to make use of our moral
superiority to limit or to modify the rights and the
liberties of others. {
It would be terribly dangerous not to realise
how vast a task we have undertaken. Neither our
children nor our children’s children shall see its
end. The overthrow of Prussian militarism, the
humbling of German pride, will be only the begin-
ning. Then we must go on to determine the causes,
to fix the responsibility. Then we shall prove
clearly that the crimes which have filled the whole
trembling world with amazement and wrath are the
natural and immediate results of moral mistakes.
The scientific blindness of those leaders of
German criticism and science who signed the
manifesto of the Ninety-three, the want of any
gleam of conscience, of pity, or of love among their
cardinals and bishops, as well as among their
salaried Protestant clergy, who have calmly looked
on at massacres and sacrileges too horrible for
words, all spring from the error which makes a
deity of the Fatherland, and sees in its interests,
even of the most earthly kind, a supreme end to
68
Letter to an Italian Friend
strive for. These German pitfalls will endanger
all peoples, but most of all ourselves, now at war,
when the time shall come for us pitifully to care
for our own countries, and to do what we may to
heal their wounds.
If after victory on the field of battle, we fail to
win spiritual victory, and to place ideals where they
truly should be, the heroism of our soldiers will
have done no more than postpone our own catas-
trophe for a few years.
The worship of might and of matter which
Germany has erected into a State religion has left
no nation quite free from its allurements. Since we
are all now arisen together to oppose its triumphal
progress, let us be well aware of the gigantic task
we are called on todo. At this moment we embody
the rise of all humanity toward truth and holiness ;
and all the strivings, all the fervours, all the hopes
which leaped in the heart of Francis of Assisi should
leap in ours.
The mission imposed on us is to rebuild the
temple of the ideals which are everlasting : “‘ Vade,
Francisce, et repara domum meam quae tota, ut cernis,
destruitur.”’ 7
In this work, which shall consist neither in
destroying the past nor in restoring it, but in ful-
filling it and in giving to the new moral and spiritual
civilisation a strength comparable with that already
achieved in material things, the chosen people of
the whole world must work together. Yet you
will not find it strange, I hope, if the other members
of the Entente—of the Understanding—turn them-
selves in full faith towards Italy, reminding them-
69
The Book of Italy
selves that Italy is the classic land not only. of art
and of sunshine, but equally of saintliness.
And we lovers of the spirit of Francis from
beyond the Alps, we who are your brethren and
your grateful admirers, we—even more than our
fellow-countrymen— are certain that the soil of
Umbria has not lost its richness, and that the land
which gave the world Saint Benedict, Saint Francis,
Saint Clara, Brother Giles, Brother Leo, and so
many more, shall give birth still to devotees of
the great ideal, in following whose footsteps we may
breathe out the words: “ Rorate, coeli, desuper et
nubes pluant justum.”
It will be pleasant to think, dear friends of
Assisi, that this too long letter of mine will not vex
you, and that it may seem to you not too unworthy
of a reading on that sacred soil where the Patriarch
of Christian Democracy was born, the forerunner
of a new dispensation. I have not come to speak
in your midst in this most solemn of times, for I
am persuaded that you, fellow-citizens of the
greatest of all the refreshers of the soul who have
come into being since Christ, have already under-
stood the vastness of the account to which the new
Europe shall be called; and that the little city,
whereof Dante sung, shall bring to pass the prophecy
of the deathless poet :
“. . . Chi d’esso loco fa parole
non dica Ascesi, che direbbe corto,
ma Oriente, se proprio dir vuole.”
Your most loving and happy fellow-citizen,
PAUL SABATIER.
Translated by Professor Barrett Wendell.
70
MODERN ITALY AND GREECE
A CONTRAST
A THOUGHTFUL traveller in Greece and Italy can
hardly fail to be struck by the paucity of relics of
the Middle Ages in the one country, and their
frequency in the other. In Greece he may journey
for hours or even days together, without seeing any
work of man’s hand to remind him of the two thou-
sand years or more which divide the stately remains
of ancient temples and palaces and fortresses from the
mean cottages of the modern peasantry. A few—
a very few—fine Byzantine churches, with their
mosaics and eikons, the mouldering ruins of Vene-
tian castles, and monasteries which contrast by
their squalor and poverty with the natural beauty
of their surroundings, are almost the only monu-
ments bequeathed to modern Greece by the cen-
turies which have enriched modern Italy in profusion
with all the splendour of medizval architecture and
sculpture and painting. And it is not merely the
rarity, but the style of the remains of the Middle
Ages which impresses the mind of a traveller in
Greek lands with a melancholy sense of artistic and
national decay. He contrasts the stiff grotesque
figures and narrow limitations of Byzantine art with
the noble freedom and variety of ancient Greek
sculpture ; he turns from the rude masonry of the
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The Book of Italy
Venetian castles, their rough little stones hastily
huddled together without order, to contrast with
it the massive solidity and beautiful symmetry of
ancient Greek fortifications, where the great blocks
are hewn and squared to a nicety and laid together
in such exact order that it is frequently difficult
to detect the joinings. Yet these magnificent
walls often mark the sites of little towns which
played an insignificant part in Greek history,
and of which even the names are in many
cases forgotten. .Few things can testify more elo-
quently to the populousness and wealth, as well as
to the patriotism, the energy, and the skill of those
tiny Greek communities, than the ruined but still
splendid walls and towers by which they sought to
guard their liberty ; few things can set in a stronger
light the decline of modern by comparison with
ancient Greece. It is almost as if in the history of
the country the Middle Ages had been blotted out,
or as if from the reign of Justinian to the War of
Liberation the land had been destitute of human
inhabitants or tenanted only by flocks and herds
under the charge of a few wandering shepherds and
herdsmen.
The causes of this long period of intellectual
and moral stagnation, or rather retrogression, are
no doubt many and various. By the crushing weight
of her financial oppression, Rome at once drained
the material resources and sapped the vital energies
of the people, while at the same time her world-
wide dominion, powerfully seconded by the teach-
ings of a cosmopolitan religion, dissolved the ties
of purely local patriotism and broke the spring of
72
MICHELANGIOLO AT WORK
Robert Spence, R.E.
Modern Italy and Greece
those civic virtues which that patriotism had fos-
tered. On the nation, thus impoverished and en-
feebled, there fell like an incubus the long blight of
the Turkish dominion, which completed the work
of degradation and decay. While the Turk as a
man appears to have many good qualities, which
win him the esteem of those who know him, the
Turks as a people are to all intents as unprogressive
as their own sheep and oxen. They may discard
the turban for the fez, the yataghan for the bayonet,
the bow and arrow for the rifle and the machine gun,
but in the frame of their minds and the circle of
their ideas they are what their forefathers were,
when their hordes emerged from the deserts of
Central Asia and trampled under foot the last
surviving relics of the Byzantine Empire. In the
centuries which have elapsed since they established
their alien rule on European soil, have they con-
tributed anything to European literature or science
or art? Have they produced a single man who is
known to the world at large for anything but the
wars he waged or the massacres he ordered ?_ Since
the advance of their victorious arms ceased to be
a menace to European civilisation, Turkey has
served only as a makeweight in European politics,
to be thrown from time to time into the scales by
unscrupulous statesmen in order to trim the balance
of power or to incline it in their own favour.
It is one of the many blessings of Italy that she
has never been subject to the rule of these Asiatic
barbarians, that the Turk has never gained even a
foothold on her soil. True, she has bowed her
neck to the yoke of many northern invaders from
73
The Book of Italy !
the days of the Goths onward, but barbarous as
have been many of her conquerors, they have been at
least more or less akin to her in race and language,
and some of them have contributed to the glories
of Italian art, and probably also of Italian literature.
Certainly these invasions have never for any long
period together interrupted the course of native
Italian genius. The fall of the Roman Empire was
followed by the rise of the: separate Italian states,
each with its active municipal life, its industries and
commerce, its local art and literature. And in
Italy the darkness of the Middle Ages was a prelude
to the splendid dawn of the Renaissance. The
sun of ancient learning which set on Constantinople
rose again on Rome; the fall of the Byzantine
Empire scattered the dying embers of Greek scholar-
ship and blew them up into fresh fire in Italy,
which handed them on to the West. Hence Italy,
unlike Greece, is crowded with monuments of the
Middle Ages, of the Renaissance, and of the fruitful
centuries which have elapsed since that mighty
awakening of the European mind ; it is haunted by
' the memories of the great men who in every depart-
ment of human activity have illuminatedand en-
riched not only their country, but mankind by the
energy of their character, the range of their know-
ledge, the originality of their ideas, the light and
fire of their imagination. The busy marts, the
great libraries, the magnificent churches, the stately
palaces, the glowing canvases, the breathing sculp-
tures in bronze and marble which adorn Italian
cities, are only the most obvious, because'the out-
ward and visible evidence of that inward spiritual
74
Modern Italy and Greece
life, so potent, so varied, so abundant, which has
animated the Italian people uninterruptedly from
antiquity till now. What a debt does not the world
owe to Italian merchants and explorers, to Italian
artists and craftsmen, to Italian poets and musicians,
to Italian scholars and thinkers! Contrast the
amazing fertility of the Italian genius in medizval
and modern times with the almost absolute sterility
of the Greek in the same period. Since the final
separation of the Eastern from the Western Empire,
what has Greece contributed to the sum of human
thought, to the progress of human knowledge, to
the improvement of human society? If we except
the legislation of Justinian, which was rather a
codification of old Roman law than a fresh contri-
bution to jurisprudence, the Byzantine Empire pro-
duced nothing of value for the general amelioration
of our race; it gave birth to no single great writer
or philosopher or artist whose influence extended
far beyond the limits of his native land, and whose
name the world will not willingly let die. And
the same blight which sterilised the Greek genius
through the Byzantine period persisted under the
Turkish dominion, and has continued with little
change from the War of Liberation to the present
day. In literature, in science, in art, the map of
modern Greece might almost be a blank for all
that the country has contributed to the higher
departments of thought, to the noblest activities of
the human mind.
In these, as well as in the sphere of politics, Greece
has been far outstripped by her ancient rival, and
lives, like Spain, for the world at large chiefly in the
75
The Book of Italy
memory of her glorious past. Of the three great
southern peninsulas which were touched by the
early beams of civilisation while the rest of Europe
was still plunged in heathen darkness, Italy alone
has kept the sacred fire burning on her altars from
then till now. Naturally one of the most beautiful
countries on earth, she is historically perhaps the
most interesting of all, by reason of the long un-
broken development which links her present to her
past. She is the golden bridge across which we
can‘ still travel in thought back through the night
of the Middle Ages to the sunset glory of the
antique world ; she is like one of her own ancient
aqueducts which still brings to the heart of the
Eternal City a current of living water from the
purple mountains that loom, faint and dim as
dreams, on the far horizon. Hinc lucem et pocula
sacra.
J. G. FRAZER.
ITALY AND THE GERMAN
PROFESSORS
BISMARCK is said to have observed that Italy was
only a geographical expression. If he did, the
remark is merely interesting as proving that even
the most practical German is only a pedant. ‘That
is, he is a person radically and incurably incom-
petent to grasp the real truth about anything. He
is, indeed, a person all of whose expressions are
merely geographical expressions. ‘To him the atlas
is more actual than the earth. Bismarck was much
more of a failure than a success ; and even that in
which he succeeded has now come near to destruc-
tion in forty years. With everything else he failed,
and failed in a peculiar way ; not merely by under-
rating his enemy, but by ignoring him. He would
not see that the Pope was the Pope, or that the
Poles were the Poles. In such cases he did not
fall on his enemy like an enemy ; he fell over him
—like a hassock. And his careful and brutal intelli-
gence would certainly be quite bewildered if he
saw the mountains of dead upon the Carso and the
assaults in the cracks of the Alps, in which his
geographical expression is now expressing itself.
In a highly helpless publication called The Con-
tinental Times, written by Germans for Americans,
or rather (to speak more strictly) written by idiots
for idiots, there was a passage threatening St. Mark’s
77
The Book of Italy
and the other monuments of Italian art and piety
with destruction out of the sky. It attempted to
justify the course of action by a curious argument
drawn from the fact that the Italians had already
taken certain precautions to protect them. The
argument would seem to be that a man is not to
blame for being a burglar, so long as somebody
else entertained a strong suspicion that he was a
burglar. Such subtleties, however, need not de-
tain us; for I only mention The Continental Times
because it further decorated its defence with a fine
flourish of contempt for “tourists *—who were
apparently the only people who were interested in
the existence of Italy. It is true that travellers are
sometimes to be found beside the grave of Dante
or the monument of the Medici; and that tlhiese
are often Teutons. It is true that Italy provides
the tombs, while Germany provides the tourists ;
but it has been alleged by some that the tombs
do not look at the tourists, while the tourists do
look at the tombs. There will be a good many
graves in Germany before this business is over ;
but none of us will go to see them.
The attitude of the German towards the history
of Italy is suitable to the simple mind from which
it sprang. It consists in saying that all great Italians
were not legitimate Italians, but illegitimate Ger-
mans. Anonymous German mercenaries of unpre-
cedented profligacy and omnipresent industry are
conceived as having provided families for Italians
of every status and social type. It is quite gravely
asserted that the irresistible charms of some beery
captain from the camps of Westphalia or the Rhine-
78
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oy
On
for
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ARCH OF TITUS, ROME
Senatore Luca Beltrami, Hon. Mem. R.I.B.A. (Milan)
ion I
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Italy and the German Professors
land must afford the true explanation of the subtlety
of the Monna Lisa or the silvery sketches of Raphael.
The supporters of such a theory are not disturbed
by the reflection that it would be just as easy to sing
the glory of Africa, by alleging that an escaped negro
must have been the father of Dickens or ‘Tennyson ;
and that the incident would be infinitely more
probable in the case of Emerson or Poe. ‘They are
not easily disturbed. The absence of evidence is
to the dry and deductive Latin an obstacle, but to
the creative ‘Teuton an opportunity. Besides, the
German professors do not wholly disdain to offer
evidence, like gods condescending to work an occa-
sional miracle fitted for the frailty of men. Need-
less to say, their evidence, when they do give it, is
as crushing as any miracle. Thus, Herr Woltmann
actually saw the photograph of a picture of a crowd
which contains a head which is said to have been
meant for Benvenuto Cellini. And “ to judge from
the photograph, the eyes are light in colour, pre-
sumably blue, as blue eyes alone are wont to give in
photography so light a reflex.” There is a piece of
patient German research for you! There is nothing
like going to the original authorities. And if some-
body thought somebody had painted Cellini’s eyes
as blue, then they were blue ; and if they were blue
his father was a German and his mother an un-
desirable person. Or again, Herr Woltmann found
out, by similarly close and laborious researches,
that Michael Angelo’s name was Buonarotti. And
he says, “‘ Corresponding names are Macarodt,
Ostereth, Leonard.’ If you or I had a son called
Leonard, we should not perhaps fully realise that we
79
The Book of Italy
had called him Macarodt; or if we had been so
misguided as to call our dog Ostereth, we should
scarcely be surprised if he did not answer to the
name of Buonarotti. But when we have added to
this the fact that Michael Angelo was “ of well-
built body, sinewy and bony rather than fleshy
and fat, sound, more than anything else, both by
nature, by bodily exercise, and by abstinence, though
as a child he was weakly and subject to fits,’ we
feel somehow led on, we know not how, to a soul-
moving and mysterious conviction that Michael
Angelo was a German. The same principle ‘is
applied to Leonardo da Vinci, whose mother was
‘‘a robust and sound stamp of humanity,” and
therefore of German humanity; and to Raphael,
who “ in his youth had light blond hair and bluish
eyes, but with advancing age hair and eyes assumed
a somewhat darker shading;” a transition quite
unknown outside the Germanies.
I have given some examples of this singular
style in Italian history, because it is very largely
upon towers of such trash that the whole huge
edifice of Prussian scholarly prestige is erected.
But it is still worth asking why it is that Italy has
been so specially the playground of German pedants,
as of German pleasure-seekers. After all, even
such a lunatic as Woltmann would be a little bit
staggered by the task of appropriating all the great
men of a more settled and less varied nation. It is
true that Mr. Houston Chamberlain calls Pascal
“the true Germanic Lorrainer,” and that Pascal
was no more German than Houston Chamberlain
himself, It is true that the German critics seem to
80
Italy and the German Professors
treat Shakespeare as a German poet—that is, as
something very like a madman. But a faint sense
of the comic might creep even into the German
mind if, let us say, all the dramatists of the Eliza-
bethan age, or all the orators of the French Revolu-
tion, were similarly proved to have been Germans.
When we have reflected upon what is the reality
behind this fantastic difference of treatment, we
shall have partially discovered the great romance of
modern Italy.
So far from its being the fact that wandering
Germans have founded all the greatness of Italy,
the truth is that wandering Italians have very largely
founded the greatness that is to be discovered every-
where else. An Italian carried the French Revolu-
tion to its triumph over all the tyrannies of the
world. An Italian carried the first ship of Spain
to the new worlds which were to become the
Spanish Empire. Again and again, in every corner
of Europe, you will find the laying out of a garden
or the erection of an observatory, a type of lyric, or
a use of electricity ; and if you ask for the name to
which it is owing, you will be answered in the
Italian tongue. ‘That flaming figure who was to
our own immediate English fathers something almost
dearer and more national than their own country,
that figure in the red romantic shirt which: filled
with shouting the London streets, was typical of
the country he recreated in a manner that extended
beyond its borders. Garibaldi was not only Italian
in his valour, his swiftness, his strong loves, and his
impetuous and unconscious dignity. He was, as it
were, Italian in his omnipresence ; in that restless
81
The Book of Italy
ubiquity which sent him, now to fight under the
suns of South America, now to plead in London
for the plundered fields of Denmark, now to take
his station under the last tricolour of France that
floated in the Terrible Year. And the meaning of
modern Italy, of United Italy, of Italy a Nation, is
this: It means that all these torrid streams of brain
and blood that have everywhere turned so many
mills, and borne so many ships of mankind, will
now flow together to one end, and that their own.
The Napoleon of the future will lead Italian armies.
The Columbus of the future will-lead Italian ships.
And the world will see again the volcano and the
harvest of the Italian soul, and the reinvigoration
of that ancient and universal vine whose root is in
Rome.
G. K. CHESTERTON.
82
MAGNA PARENS
I oONcE knew an old Italian painter, a Roman
Republican, who had fought for Italian Unity and
lived to see it accomplished. Yet, when one spoke
of the success of the Risorgimento, and the great
achievements of the new Italy in every high branch
of human endeavour, the old man frowned. He was
dissatisfied ; the cabals, the politicians, the slipshod
management of public works, the absorption of
the people in money-getting and petty cares. . .
** But all this,” we told him, “‘ could be said, and
is said, against every country in the world. Are you
disappointed because Italy has a King instead of a
Republic ?”’ “No,” he said. “We have a King -
who is much-too good for us. It is that we have
not suffered enough.” “‘ Not suffered? But you
were talking just now of the hardship of the peasants’
lives, of the heavy taxes... .” “‘ That is not what
I call suffering,” he would answer. “ We suffered
under the Austrians and the Bourbons ; we suffered
in the long struggle for our freedom. But it was
not enough to purify us. We are a materialist
nation; a materialist nation, like all the others!
. . . Taxes, earthquakes, poverty, quarrelling among
ourselves—all that is no good. We need more
suffering of the old Risorgimento sort, suffering for a
Cause, where each man works and dies, not for him-
self, but for Italy and Humanity.”
H 83
The Book of Italy
I like to think how my friend’s severe old face
would have softened and lit up if he had lived to
see the doings of 1915. If he could have seen >
Italy standing for a time at the cross-roads, with
every excuse for remaining passive for ever; and
then, deliberately and almost with one voice, de-
ciding, in spite of all obstacles, for the road of
sacrifice which is also the road of honour. On one
side lay ease and comfort, material advantage and
apparent safety, or at least a long postponement
of the time of peril. It needed only that Italy
should forget her ideals and be content, let freedom
and public faith be destroyed to right and to left
of her, and then, when all was safe, make friends
with the conqueror. And on the other side lay
every sort of danger, every hardship and suffering
and the certainty of deaths innumerable, a long
struggle and a doubtful issue ; only, whatever the
end might be, Italy would stand in her true place
among the great nations ; the sons and the mothers
of Italy would have given their lives and their
hearts to a cause greater than themselves.
The world in these years is deciding a tremendous
issue, and no one yet knows which side will prevail.
It is not merely one nation against another ; it is
one religion against another. For the salvation of
Germany herself, or what is best in her, depends on
the victory of her enemies. The end must be
either the establishment of common freedom for
all nations, of good faith and honesty and human
kindliness, ‘and all that we have hitherto considered
holy among men; or else of a new form of Evil
enthroned, a new tyranny such as pamanity has
84
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never seen, the rule of the war-machine and the
poison-gas, and of men who make it part of their
ideal to be as inhuman as the one and as treacherous
as the other.
Almost all nations know by this time what the
issue is. Some, no doubt, for reasons good or bad,
still hesitate. ‘Their weakness, their exposed posi-
tion, their mixed population, or their peculiar
scruples, lead them still to remain outside the con-
flict, to forgive. offences against themselves, and
condone crimes against others, in the hope of pre-
serving amiable relations with both sides. They
are the best judges in their own case, and we wish
them all prosperity. Let them by all means pre-
serve their safety if they cannot also preserve their
full honour. But for Italy there was only one
road, and that a hard and uphill road, if she was to
be her true self, the Italy of Garibaldi and Mazzini
and Victor Emmanuel, of Dante and Virgil; the
MacGna Parens ViruM ; the Torchbearer of nations,
who awakened the modern world from its slumber
and keeps alive the great beacon of republican
Rome. It is the road of sacrifice and of freedom ;
may it be also the road of victory !
GILBERT MURRAY.
September 7, 1915.
THE DEMON OF WAR
THE Demon of War suffers, as he has caused
millions to suffer. ‘There is no pity for him, Justice
has done her work, Christ the Crucified has not
shed His blood for this monster. He, the Prince
of Peace, bears no love for the son of Satan.
Upon the edge of the flaming pit there stand
some of the wise men of immortal memory, men
whose lives and works have guided the progress of
true civilisation into the noblest regions of thought.
High-minded Homer; God’s messenger from
Sinai, patient Moses; truthful Socrates; the
highest in subtle intellect, Aristotle ; sweetest of
Roman singers, Virgil ; grave patriot, Dante.
These Princes of real culture see that Justice
has been done, that the would-be destroyer of
Liberty has received the punishment for unfor-
givable crimes.
I dedicate this design to the great Italian people
who won their liberty, and are fighting for an Ideal.
W. B. RICHMOND.
September 21, 1915. |
86
OF WAR
THE DEMON
Sir William B. Richmond
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THE INDIFFERENT STARS
ONE wonders, as he gazes at them shining brightly
in the sky, as tranquil as though peace still brooded
over the earth. Beneath them sail the Zeppelins,
hurling bombs that dismember women and children,
bombs that fall alike on cathedral, church, and syna-
gogue, bombs that kill the little ones to whom God
has just granted life. In the empyrean, set in their
eternal places, the stars shine on.
A hundred years hence—fifty, nay, even twenty-
five—all that is happening to-day will be recorded
in cold black and white, will have ceased to be a
memory, will have become a mere stilted diary of
fact. Kaisers, generals, admirals, statesmen, will be
dust that mingles with the other dust, fragments
of nothingness in the vast silence. In five years,
tourists will go in char-a-bancs to the scenes of
dreadful slaughter, will eat sandwiches and empty
flasks where to-day men are dying in _ their
thousands. Fields will be tilled again that now are
rocky burial-grounds; tears will have dried, the
dead will be forgotten. The dead will lie in their
graves, the living will go about their daily affairs ;
men and women will marry and beget children,
who, in their turn, will gaze at the stars and die.
Do these things matter, to the stars ?
The Grand Rabbi of Lyons was helping to carry
a wounded soldier to the ambulance when another,
87
The Book of Italy
who was dying, mistook him for a Catholic priest,
and prayed for absolution. The Rabbi rushed in
search of a crucifix, found one, and pressed it to the
dying man’s lips, murmuring words of comfort.
And then a shell came, and they died together, and
went to the one God whom they both worshipped.
The Rabbi was a good man, but this was surely
the most sublime act of all his life—and in doing
it he was killed. Why not? Is it not well to die
when one has performed his sublimest act? And
the war has brought us nearer to the sublime. . . .
Up above, somewhere, perhaps, the order was
given. To us, creatures of an hour, it seems in-
credible that so vast a catastrophe should not have
had its extra-human warrant. As the betinselled
Lord of Potsdam stood there, hesitating in his palace,
was there not the finger of God that moved the
clock ? He who has allowed plague and earth-
quake, dreadful shipwreck, cholera, yellow fever—
surely He has also allowed this war! Not the God
you pray to, Kaiser—but the God of all mankind
and all eternity. The soul of man had become
thick and clogged, perhaps—it needed cleansing.
Men knew too much, and cared too little. The
Scheme of Things, desiring the better, has plunged
the world into the melting-pot, to fashion it anew.
And if some millions die a year or two before they
would have died, if havoc stalks across the lives of
those who yet remain—does all this matter to the
Scheme of Things ?
It is better to believe that than to tell oneself
that there is no God. Better to turn one’s eyes
from the reeking, mourning earth, and raise them
88
The Indifferent Stars
up on high, and say, It is Thy will. Nor will those
who believe this pray for victory, but for tranquil
acquiescence only, and for power to do the right.
To Him above there are no Allies and no enemy,
but only souls of men. Do frontiers concern the
Maker of the Universe, the Evolver of Suns? But
the soul of man is as important as a million suns ;
and it is the soul of man that will emerge triumph-
ant from this war.
“GOTT MIT UNS!” cries the German. No. He
has yet to learn. Darkness has crept over him; he
clamours and shouts in vain. The material con-
quest will come later, when the lands he has won
are wrested from him, his own territory invaded,
and terms of peace dictated to him in his capital.
But even to-day he is overwhelmed. For the war
has brought him nothing, has gained him nothing.
In his mad passion for victory, he has damned his
soul; he has been unjust and cruel. ‘Treachery
and useless slaughter, foul betrayal and slimy arti-
fice—he has craved God’s help for these. The
night creeps over Germany—the night that comes
from the darkness of mind.
And yet the stars shine on, over Germany as
over Belgium, the land of magnificent sacrifice and
undying heroism. In the deep#blue sky of Italy,
over the fair fields of France, in the great spaces of
Russia, above the Zeppelin-haunted coasts of Eng-
land, all men raise their eyes to the stars—we, the
Allies, as they, the foe. And the stars, that have
seen this earth begin, as they will see it end, per-
form their allotted task in the harmony of the
spheres. So shall we, in our degree, do what we
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The Book of Italy
have to do. First, conquer, and then learn.
Learn the lesson that the war will have taught
us, that will have been written in the life-blood of
thousands of heroes—the lesson that there must be
an end to indifference and selfishness, of nations
as of individuals, and that there can be no peace
in the world till all the peoples of the world are free.
ALFRED SUTRO.
go
HEREAFTER
Eacu one will fashion heaven as he may
Of joy or laughter at his soul’s behest,
Or painless sleep, if painless sleep be best,
In sweet fruition of God’s holiday ;
Nay, some have dreamt of love and war’s array,
Storm-driven battle, lances set in rest,
White limbs, white arms, to beating bosoms
prest,
And all that maddens life, prolonged alway.
I know not, I. I only crave for peace,
Peace which this world to our sick hearts denies ;
When all the baser springs of life which move
Men’s souls to envy, spite, mistrust, may cease ;
When each may be himself without disguise,
And find his brother worthy of his love.
W. L. CourTNEY.
gO!
CONFESSIO AMANTIS
JusT as, in the course of a long life, I have been
able to watch Germany, once a pleasant country
inhabited by easy-going dreamers whose visions
took concrete shape in Faust, the Ninth Symphony, ©
or Parsifal, change into a nation of vulgar parvenus
filled with blood-lust, whose imaginings reek with
horrors, and whose deeds form a catalogue of
unmentionable crimes, so I have been privileged—
by way of compensation, perhaps—to see the swift
transformation of Italy from a restless sleeper,
shaken by dreams of unity and freedom, into a
kingdom seething with young enthusiasms, eager
to be the first in civilised progress, and, above all,
burning with patriotism. I stood, a very small
boy, in the Piazza at Venice when the band of the
Austrian garrison played, and no Venetian, for all
his love of music, would listen; I knelt in Rome,
to be blessed by gentle Pio Nono when he was both
temporal and spiritual sovereign. Venice was dead,
and Rome was dead ; the country was overrun with
outlaws ; the great cities—Milan, Turin, ‘Genoa,
Bologna, Florence—were paralysed; their streets half
empty, their palaces deserted: beautiful, yes—how
could any Italian city ever be anything but beautiful ?
—but beautiful with the beauty of a lovely woman
wasting away in silent sorrow. ‘This was the Italy of
the smaller fry of writing people. Not the Italy
g2
Confessto Amantis
]
of Byron or Swinburne, but of the essayists, the
criticasters, the stylists who could not understand
that great art is the outcome of great commercial
prosperity, of great national activity. They seemed
to think that St. Mark’s was built by idle fisher-
folk engrossed in nothing but its building. They
seemed not to understand that before St. Mark’s
could be built a wealthy and vigorous community
had to be organised. ‘They went through Italy
thinking they could sum it up in a well-turned
phrase, and with that phrase they achieved a modest
glory at suburban tea-parties. They owned Italy, and
if an Italian city dared look after its drainage, they
raised despairing hands to heaven, jabbered about
sacrilege, and wrote tothe Times. Italy was the bric-
a-brac shop of the world. ‘The world shed elegant
tears over it, sentimentalised it, apostrophised it in
anemic verse, and even more anemic prose, not for
what it was, but for what it had been, and spoke of
it as we speak of a beautiful, half-witted child, who
must be admired for its beauty and pitied for its
infirmity.
The old Italy exists. It is still the land of
beauty and of romance; the land of antiquity,
where the dust on the highway is the dust of
temples, perhaps the dust of Czsar himself. It is
still the epitome of the world’s history; the land
from which all others have derived their civilisation,
their art, their literature, and their music. While all
the rest of the world was wearing woad and fight-
ing with clubs and flint arrows, Italy went clad in
purple, built St. Mark’s, and painted its houses in
fresco. When all the world ate with its fingers,
93
The Book of Italy
Italy used forks. ‘There was, one may say, never
a period of uncivilisation in Italy from the day
when Pius Aeneas landed on her shores. Now
all this ancient civilisation, this matured wisdom,
this vast experience of life, has burst into new
blossom. Upon their passionate love of the past
the Italians have grafted an equally passionate
eagerness for the present, an equally passionate
striving towards the future. Yet even now the
Italian spirit is pre-eminently the spirit of poetry,
but of poetry transmuted into action, Is not the
man who imagined wireless telegraphy a poet?
The Italians are the scientists, the engineers, the
mathematicians of the world. ‘They have levelled
the Alps; they have annihilated space ; they are the
road builders, the bridge builders, the builders of
improbable roads in Switzerland, of unimaginable
bridges, attributed to the devil because only the
devil or an Italian could have thought of them.
They are the indefatigable toilers who accomplish
more in a day on a handful of maize than six of us
could compass on six beefsteaks and six pots of
stout. Whenever a thing has to be done which
it is manifestly impossible to do, the Italians are
called in to do it, and it is done with asmile. ‘Their
soldiers carry cannon up perpendicular precipices,
singing ‘‘ La Donna é mobile” the while. Their
cavalry ride down perpendicular precipices, and
pluck Edelweiss on the way; in the midst of this
toil their hearts will glow like hot coals at the call
of their poets—and their poets fling their messages
from an aeroplane.
Italy’s heart is the heart of chivalry. She could
94
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Confessio Amantis
have won all she wanted by sitting with her hands
folded and watching the internecine struggle around
her. She might have waited to strike until her
enemy had received her death-blow. But, no.
*“ Louvain ” and “ Lusitania’ were trumpet-calls,
and Italy did not stop to ask whether the moment
were well chosen, or her interference expedient.
She blazed up with a sacred anger, and, led by her
hero king, and comforted by her saintly queen,
she rushed into the fight for the good ‘cause: let
come what might.
It is good to know that among the weary nations
there is one nation filled with the ardour of youth,
striving after an ideal without counting the cost,
ready to spend her blood in the cause of humanity.
The Italy we all love for her beauty, her amenities,
her hospitality, is also the Italy whose self-sacri-
ficing heroism we admire without stint. Hvviva
P Itaha !
Louis N. PARKER.
95
ITALIAN MORNING
THE hearth of dawn is burning on the sea,
Night’s purple pales, and swift the pallor turns
To amber and to amaranth; light yearns
Along the liquid dark. In raiment free,
Wrought of wind-shotten flame, on golden arms,
Morning, the Mother, lifts her babe and charms
The young day’s wondering eyes with Italy.
He sees the jewelled turmoil of the shore,
The cornice and the cavern of each wave,
The wakened deep, where flashing sun-stars pave
The pathless places, and the hollow, hoar,
Old billows beating out on shell and sand
Their song, that stilleth not since sea and land
Were parted, in the primal time of yore.
Above the beach, by terraces that still
Twine upward, where low cliffs betray the light,
A town of many turrets—grey and white—
Springs clustered close, as though one only will
That dreamed in pearl and opal, here had brought
This glimmering wonder of incarnate thought, —
Like a dim rainbow arching on the hill.
All checked and dappled, the vibrating light
Rides on an aureole of waxing fire,
By arch and arboured roof, by dome and spire,
Along the fleeting watches of the night.
Morning doth jewel every shrine; the wells
Glitter with wide, wet mouths ; and little bells
Shrill from the campanile’s rosy height.
96
Italian Morning
Beyond, the fringes of the mountain bare
For vine and citron; all the terraced earth
Smiles like a bride beneath her bloom veil. Mirth
Of silver-petalled cherry, almond, pear
Rains on the roses; and the olive mills
Darken the river with their wine-red rills.
The great reed’s silky whisper rises there.
Beheld afar, the villages elate,
In garb of lavender and buff and blue,
Spattered with rust and russet and the hue
Of honey, wake and shine. By ruined gate
The laden branches of the lemon fall
And over faded tiles and mossy wall
Spring aigrettes of the golden-fruited date.
Aloft the far-flung orchards thinly float
Their smoke upon the mountains. In a cloud
The dim, innumerable olives shroud
With misty jade each bosomed hill remote.
The wrinkled, lion-coloured earth they fold
In crumpled undulations, like an old
Grey coverlet dragged to an ancient throat.
And where they cease upon the slopes, anew
Earth lifts aloft her tawny, lean-ribbed breast
In precipice and pinnacle, all dressed
With myrtle, mastic, rosemary, and rue,
For fragrant girdles round the upper world.
And twinkling down are lonely torrents hurled
In threads of fire against the shadowy blue.
97
The Book of Italy
Follow the far-flung, closely-knitted pelts
Of forest pines that throng the higher steep
And clasp and cling and never fail to keep
The mighty mould beneath them. Cloudy belts,
Red on the ridge and purple in the glen,
Circle each crag and hide from every ken
Their lifted foreheads, where the morning melts.
The billows of the still white cumuli
Float in thin ripples, and the sunrise spreads
With many a loop of fire about the heads
Of solemn mountains, where they lift on high
And spire upon their silent canopy,
And join the silver-feathered, sapphire sea,
Unto the silver-feathered, sapphire sky.
A blessing to thy borders, land of light !
Spirit of man, brave as the morning, found
His charter sanctified on this good ground
When Liberty fore-glowed along the night.
Then heroes sang her glad epiphany,
And eagle legions soared aloft to dye
Their feathers in the dawning of her might.
Oh, by the morn upon thine inland sea,
By waves and hills that roll and lights that rove,
To finger foam and forest with pure love,
Forget not thine immortal history.
By the wide dayspring on thy crowns of snow
And by the beacon of thine own heart’s glow,
Again be fearless and again be free.
EDEN PHILLPOTTs.
98
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106
THE CAMPAGNA
In the midst of this appalling catastrophe, when 1 in
the evening of the day I turn, as it were for con>
solation, to all I have known and loved in Europe,
and above all to Italy, of all those beloved landscapes
from which I am an exile, it is the Campagna which
most often comes back into my mind, the Cam-
pagna in which Rome lies like a ship in the midst
of the sea.
That immense and universal thing alone seems
able to face what has befallen us. You may find
there always all that is in your heart. It has, too,
the indefinite beauty of all supernatural things ;
and if you speak of it you must speak of it in images,
with vague words of beauty and mystery and love,
as of a place seen in a vision, as the English speak
of the sea. For as the sea is the secret of England,
so the Campagna is the secret of Rome ; it haunts
the City, and the mystery and largeness of its silence
are the springs of her immortality. All the great
ways lead to it at last, and it surges against every
gate.
All unaware of this world of inviolate silence,
which guards the Eternal City as no other city
was ever guarded, you catch sight of it first, perhaps
at evening from the Pincio, or in the early morning
from the Janiculum, or at noonday from the bizarre
portals of S. Giovanni in Laterano, or at sunset
107
The Book of Italy
from the quietness of the Aventine. From wher-
ever you first see it, it calls you instantly in its
solemn immensity, its vast indwelling strength, its
ruined splendour, across which the broken arches
of the aqueducts stagger still, and the vague white
roads lined with empty and rifled tombs wander
aimlessly, losing themselves in the silence and vast-
ness that only the mountains may contain. And it
is the mountains which hem in the Campagna, the
most beautiful mountains in the world.
Though it were without history or renown and
man had given it no name, this unbroken wilderness
would yet hold us by reason of the splendour of its
form, its vastness and silence, the breadth of its
undulations, the transparency of its light, the beauty
of its colour, the nobility of the mountains which
contain it. But seeing that it is the cradle of our
history, and that its name is Latium—to look upon
it rouses within us much the same emotion as that
with which, after long absence, we look upon our
home. Nothing that man has dared to do or to
think, no sorrow he has suffered, nor passion he has
endured or conquered, his profoundest desires, his
most tenacious hate, his most splendid domination,
his most marvellous love, nothing that is his, is a
stranger here. Of all those forces and energies, it is
a monument, the grandest and the most terrible, the
monument of man—a vast graveyard.
It is this we come to realise at last, as day after
day, week after week, we pass along that ancient
Appian Way, between the crumbling tombs. Here
and there we may find them still, the likeness of our
brother carved in relief, some thought of his about
108
from Mig quietness ee the pal tine. From w
ever you first see it, it calls you instantly
solemn immensity, its vast indwelling stren
ruined splendour, across which the broken arches
of the aqueducts stagger still, and the vague - white
roads lined with empty and rifled tombs * mex 086
aimlessly, losing themselves in the silence and vast-
ness that only the mountains may contain. Andit
is the mountains which hem in the Campagna,
most beautiful mountains in the world. |
Though it were without history or renown and.
man had given it no name, this unbroken wilderness,
would yet hold us by reason of the of Bes
form, its vastness and silence, the oF
undulati ions the trans icy of its light, the | auty
of its colour, tHe hh 7 : id y
contain it. But 4éeiigoens Rem. the cradle of our
history, and that its name is Latium-~to look upon
it rouses within us much the same emotion as that
with which, after long absence, we look upon our
home. Nothing that man has dared to do or to
think, no sorrow he has suffered, nor passion he has
endured or conquered, his profoundest desires, his _
most tenacious hate, his most splendid domination, Aa
his most marvellous love, nothing that is his, ea
stranger here. Of all those forces and energies, it is —
a monument, the grandest amd the most terrible, the
monument of man—a vast graveyard. a
It is this we come to realise at last, as day after
day, week after week, we pass along that ancient _
Appian Way, between the crumbling tombs. Here —
and there we may find them still, the likeness of our —
brother carved in relief, some thought of his baants
108 i
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The Campagna
it all, a few Latin words, part of an inscription,
half hidden with the grass and the flowers. And as
night overtakes us on that marvellous road, when
the splendour of sunset is faded, and the stars
one by one have scattered the heavens with hope,
our thoughts turn almost in self-defence in that
solemn stillness, from death to resurrection. In the
immense silence that nothing may break the
imagination sinks beneath the lonely majesty of
that desert, littered with the monsters of old for-
gotten religions, full of the dead things of Paganism
and Christianity, the bones of saints, the mighty
trunks of forgotten gods.
What more is there to come out of that vast
grave, that marvellous solitude °
Epwarp HuTTON.
109
VARENNA—LAKE COMO
April 20th
From orchards of silver the wryneck is calling,
Is calling his mate, who is now overdue ;
From the high campanile, mid cypresses soaring,
The bells of Varenna ring out through the blue.
Oh bells of Varenna, continue your ringing ;
The leaves are not stirring, the breeze has gone
down :
You alone are of silver, sweet bells of Varenna,
The silvery olives have darkened to brown.
The bells have ceased ringing, and silence has fallen
Upon the grey roofs of the little old town,
But far o’er the water, the boatmen are singing
To their labouring oars as they ply up and down.
The voice of the oarsman, in far away echoes,
Has fainted and died in the shadowy blue,
But still from the olives the wryneck is calling,
Is calling his mate, who is now overdue.
J. W. W.
Note.—The Wryneck (cuckoo’s mate) arrives in April about the same
time as the cuckoo.
“The Parish Church of Varenna possesses a singularly musical peal of
bells, which are said to be largely composed of silver.”” Guide Book.
IIo
VARENNA, LAKE OF COMO
J. Walter West, R.W.S.
“LA VERDE”
I
“Ecco la Verde!” remarked the Sindaco of Mon-
tagneta to Don Piddu, the chemist, as Miss Fanny
Green, tall, angular, and fifty if she was a day, walked
by and took her way down the Corso, nodding, and
smiling out of her long pale face to the Sicilians
who stood at their shop doors, or enjoyed the air
of evening seated on chairs set out upon the pave-
ment.
‘She is a good creature,” he added. “ Thin
as a bit of macaroni, but with a beautiful heart.
Ma-donna ! ”
He cleared his throat thunderously and spat
upon the floor, then drew his shawl more closely
over his shoulders.
The chemist, a dark man with a long nose,
stared after Miss Fanny.
“ — una grande millionaria!’’ he remarked re-
spectfully.
And his eyes became mysterious, as if they peeped
into Aladdin’s cave.
“Si, si!” returned the Sindaco. “ They say
her property in England is magnificent—a castle, a
true castle. All is ready for her; the beds made,
the fires lighted, the kettle boiling for tea. But
she will never go back.”’
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The Book of Italy
*“ No,” murmured Don Piddu. ‘“ La Verde will
never go back. She is too fond of Montagneta.”’
II
When Miss Fanny Green was well over forty
something happened in her life. A distant relative
had the grace to seek a better world unexpectedly,
and to leave Miss Fanny—so she was called in the
Kentish village where she had lived till that moment
on two hundred a year—a fortune bringing in two
hundred a month. She was alone in the world ;
she had never travelled abroad; but she had
always been fond of languages and a voracious
reader of books of adventure.
“If I should ever travel!’ she had sometimes
thought, as she sat alone in her neat cottage—the
“true castle’ of the Sindaco—which looked out
on the village green.
And she had dreamed—till the pollarded elms by
the roadside turned into palm trees, till the pond
covered with duckweed became a mirage-lake trem-
bling on an enchanted horizon, and the path between
the blackberry bushes beyond it a way leading into
some tropical paradise.
In truth Miss Fanny was a dreamer beset with
the dreamer’s longing for happiness, and when, at
well over forty, she found herself almost rich, her
dreams caught her by the hand, and cried to her with
elfin voices, “‘ Away! Away!” She blushed. For
a moment she was bewildered and felt almost guilty
and sought to resist. But something independent
whispered to her, ‘“ Why not ? ”’
112
“Ta verde”
And so it came about that one morning the
village people found Yew Cottage shuttered and
locked.
“* Wherever’s Miss Fanny ? ” they asked.
And from the post office came the tremendous
answer :
‘““ Miss Fanny’s took it in her head to go off to
Italy.”
i Italy! Whatever should Miss Fanny do in
Italy at her age ?”’
But the only reply to this inquiry was the equi-
valent in English of “ Chi lo sa?”
Ill
Something led Miss Fanny on farther even than
Italy, though in Italy she first heard the beating of
the divine wings. When at evening she listened to
the songs of the boatmen:under the garden wall of
Villa D’Este, when the chiming of the Venice bells
trembled to her over the golden waters of the
laguna morta, when she watched from the Pincio
the dying light upon Monte Mario, and saw Capri,
like a siren, rising out of the mists of dawn, she
knew that the world of her dreams was but the
vision of a reality. And the South enticed her.
For as she went South she felt as if she were draw-
ing nearer and nearer to the home of the Golden
Sprite. She crossed over the sea into Sicily ; she
arrived in Montagneta, and she said to herself :
** It is here.”
She came to Montagneta to stay for a week.
Now she had lived there for years. She was an
113
The Book of Italy
institution in the lovely hill villaze which looked
upon Etna and the sea. No longer Miss Fanny,
she had become “ La Verde.”
This title had come to her from Pancrazio, the
waiter at the hotel where she had stayed before she
took a house. |
Pancrazio had inquired her name.
“Miss Fanny Green.”’
“* Meesi Grinni ? ”’
““ Green—Verde,” she had explained. ‘“ Green
is the English for Verde.”
“‘ La Signorina Verde ?.”
ée¢ Si | 93
And from that moment Miss Fanny had had a
new name.
IV
One day, after Miss Fanny had lived in Mon-
tagneta rather more than five years, a_ tragedy
occurred. Don Marco, the doctor, a stout young
man just over thirty, who wore an immense mous-
tache, and swaggered from the hips in walking,
abruptly proposed to her.
She was greatly taken aback, was indeed almost
frightened by this quite new experience. No man
had ever said he loved her before, and Don Marco
behaved like a volcano. Without even a preliminary
grumble of warning he suddenly let loose a lava-
stream of burning words, and his protestations
rose, like flame and smoke, to the heavens.
Miss Fanny refused him. She wasn’t a fool,
and she looked upon Don Marco as almost a boy,
in spite of the enormous moustache. She refused
114
<a - erdée’’
him very quietly, and reasonably, and_ kindly,
thanking him for the compliment he had paid her,
and hoping that he would not deprive her of his
ministrations when she had a slight cold, or was
afflicted with a sick headache.
But when he was gone she retired to her bedroom
from the eager solicitude of her devoted Sicilian
servants (who of course knew all that had happened),
and she cried a little. Not that she wanted to
marry Don Marco! But he had found such elo-
quence in the heat of his desire ; his large eyes had
emitted such yellow gleams; such sonorous tones
had rolled out of his ample throat! He had been
like Caruso and a fiery furnace fused together.
And—it was the very first time !
Any woman would have been shaken.
Miss Fanny sought for the bottle of eau de
Cologne.
That night in the Piazza it was known—* La
Verde non vuole marito.”’
V
Years slipped by. Miss Fanny still lived at
Montagneta. She never visited England, for she
had yielded her heart to the land of her adoption,
to the land which had given her the truth of some
of her dreams. In the great heats of summer she
went high up into the mountains, to Castro Gio-
vanni, where Persephone wandered and was carried
away, and where one may see children with silver-
coloured eyes. All the rest of each year she passed
at Montagneta. She still looked unmistakably
K II5
The Book of Italy
English, but she had learnt to speak Sicilian as well
as Italian; she ate Sicilian dishes and she loved
Sicilian ways. At the neighbouring village fairs
she was generally to be seen mounted upon her
donkey, Napoleone. She laid money upon the
painted wooden lap of San Giorgio when he held
court at Castel Mola; on mild and balmy evenings
peasant boys often danced the tarantella upon her
terrace ; two or three times a year the village
‘‘ musics ’—there were two of them and the rivalry
between them was bitter—serenaded her and received
handsome contributions to their funds ; in Carnival
time she “ assisted ’”’ at the Veglioni in a box; on
Christmas Eve she threw flowers to “ the Bambino ”
as He went by in procession, laid a brand upon
the bonfire which was lighted in His honour, and
heard the Pastorale at midnight in the Duomo.
“La Verde @ una vera Siciliana!” said the
people of Montagneta.
And many of them really cared for her, because
she loved them as they were, and did not wish to
change them. For the people of Sicily are quick
to read the characters and the hearts of those who
come among them, and they give affection only in
return for affection! The thin Englishwoman like
a bit of macaroni had found the way to their hearts.
She respected their ways, and did not wish to
impose hers upon them.
‘““E veramente una donna distinta, una donna per
bene | ” was said of her by all in Montagneta.
Even Don Marco, long since married to a dark
little lady with a nice little dot from Catania—even
Don Marco subscribed to the general opinion. He
116 |
Baas
bie pause
ast
i
%.
ane
er
be Book of lial ae
lish, but she had learnt to ¢ mae
as Italian; she ate Sicilian didide tnd ste ed
Sicilian ways. At the neighbouring lines 1 fwix
she was generally to be seen mounted upon fee
donkey, Napoleone. She laid money upon
painted wooden lap of San Giorgio when he
court at Castel Mola; on mild and balmy evenings
peasant boys often danced the tarantella opin |
terrace ; two or three times a year the village
‘ musics ”’—there were two of them and the rivalry me a
between them was bitter-—serenaded her and ved
handsome contributions to their funds ; in Carnival — by
time she “ assisted ” at the Veghoni in a box ; on a
Christmas Eve she threw flowers to “ the Bambino ” a
as He went by in procession, laid a brand upon —
the bonfire which was = re in His honour, and
heard the PastoraltA9F Wldn kin the Duomo.
“La Verde &4itta!*dend Biciliana |” said the
people of Montagneta. Tee
And many of them really cared for her, oe a |
she loved them as they were, and did not wish oil 2
change them. For the people of Sicil oa
to read the characters and the hearts age es those yor oe
come among them, and they give affection only in | ~
return for affection! The thin Englishwoman like ==.
a bit of macaroni had found the way to their hearts. >
She respected their ways, and did not wish wo ae
impose hers upon them. . (eae
‘E veramente una donna distinta, una donna pee Ae
_bene |” was said of her by all in a:
Even Don Marco, long since married to a dark «(07
little lady with a nice little dot'from Catunla—even =|
Den Marco subscribed to the general opimion. He |
reds tte
ee te
a
<<
et eRe oe
F are . ai . r Sy <a
bes LORBRGP IS can PT “i Pals Wore ine ee eS Mei mais
_° if
4
“La * erde.”’
had asked “ La Verde ”’ to stand godmother to his
first child, and she had, almost eagerly, consented.
Although she had never regretted having refused
the volcanic doctor, she still felt grateful to him for
having clamoured to her to be his wife. She still
remembered some of the florid adjectives he had
lavished upon her attractions and her virtues. She
still occasionally thought of the episode of the
eau de Cologne.
You see she had not had many tumultuous
episodes in her life, even though now she dwelt
within sight of the slopes of Etna.
VI
One day a terror rushed into Miss Fanny’s life.
England declared war upon Germany. If Italy
should join in with the Central Powers! Miss
Fanny turned faint at the thought. Suddenly she
realised exactly what Sicily and the Sicilians had
been meaning to her through many years. They
had been meaning happiness. If she should be-—
come by force of circumstances technically their
enemy! If she should have to give them up |!
All Montagneta came to assure her that every
Italian and Sicilian detested Austria. The Sindaco
himself appeared in her drawing-room wrapped in
his shawl, and said impressively to “‘ La Verde’”’:
“‘ I have come to reassure you, Signorina. This
is what our country thinks of Austria and of Ger-
many.”
He arose with dignity, went to the window and
tried to open it, but failed. Solemnly beckoning to
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The Book of Italy
Miss Fanny, he procured her perplexed assistance.
The window at length gave way upon Etna and the
Ionian sea.
“‘Observe what my country thinks of your
enemies, distinguished Signorina,”’ he said sono-
rously.
And he expectorated with massive force in the
direction of Northern Africa.
Nevertheless Miss Fanny continued in her terror.
She felt that if Italy were ever to fight against
England it would be the death of her. She lost
flesh, and became more like a bit of macaroni than
ever, while Biilow in Rome intrigued and Giolitti
pulled numberless wires. Her looks went from
bad to worse ; at night she could not sleep; her
appetite failed.
And then at last a poet came to Rome and spoke
to Italy. He spoke to “ the people,” and the people
heard. He spoke to the soul of the people, for he
knew that Italy had a soul, and the soul of the
people answered. He summoned Italy to hard-
ship, to suffering, to blood, to tears, to bereavements,
and to sacrifices, in the cause of the liberty of nations,
in the cause of humanity against bestiality.
And Italy answered as by fire.
On the day when Italy marched towards the
frontiers, in the evening many Sicilians of Montag-
neta made their way to the house of “ La Verde.”
Upon the terrace a long table was set out with
bottles of wine and many glasses. Miss Fanny wore
a handsome dress of blue silk, with the Italian
colours pinned in the front by the side of a small
ne pig Jack. Her usually pale face was flushed, but
Il
°° Ta FKerde”
all her English self-consciousness had dropped from
her. She was feeling too intensely to be self-con-
scious. And when the glasses were filled, to the
delighted astonishment of her excited and enthu-
siastic neighbours, she struck one bony hand on
the table for silence, and, having obtained it, she
told them what she thought of them and of their
country.
She told them that to her Italy—which included
Sicily—stood for the land of happiness, and of
dreams come as true as dreams ever come in this
world. She expressed, and almost with eloquence,
what thousands of English men and women think
about Italy and the people whom Garibaldi once
led to victory. And she ended by saying that
Italy called to the English not merely because it
‘was a land of sunshine, of song, of art and of
beauty, but because it was the land of “ The
Thousand,” the land with a soul of fire.
That night, when the little gathering dispersed,
and made its way home in the darkness, the Sindaco
announced emphatically,
“La Verde é un grand’ oratore ! ”’
And from all sides eager Sicilian voices rose up
in the night,
** Davvero !« ‘La Verde é un grand’ oratore !| ”
ROBERT HICHENS.
11g
ARIETTA
STAMMO int’ alisto e chiove,
nun pare cchii ’a staggione,
ma nun mme fa ’mpressione,
anze mme place.
Mme piace st’ aria fresca
ca p’ ’a fenesta trase
e€ ca mme pare quase
aria ’e ll’ autunno:
mme place si p’ ’a strata,
addo nun passa gente,
io sento sulamente
parla ddoje voce... .
Malincunia, tu forse,
tu mme |’ ’é fatta ama.
E tu resuscita,
tu ’a faie, stasera.
S. pI GIacomo.
NAPOLI, Agosto 1915.
120
LITTLE SONG
It is August. There’s a little rain.
The summer may be over, as it seems.
What does it matter? I am happy so.
I like the little cool breeze blowing in,
Here at the window, blowing in my face.
It is the autumn wind. I am content.
I am contented if I only hear
Two single voices in the empty street.
Melancholy—was it melancholy
That made me love her first? ...
And you, Melancholy, you create her now
again to-night.
S. DI GIACOMO.
Paraphrase by Harold Monro.
121
THE LAND OF MUSIC
E 16 a m’dmanda :—Ci piace il Trovatore ?
Mo al m’al dis int un mod tott arrabé.
Io ci arispondo franca:—Sissignore,
A vagh mata per ql’ opera che 1é!
A. TESTONI, J Sonetti della Sgnera Cattareina.
Bologna, 1904.
THIRTY years ago those whom it was my duty to
respect used to tell me that Italy was ‘The Land of
Music. They said it in a way that admitted of no
contradiction ; one could as soon think of doubting
that London was the capital of England. Italian
music was represented for me at that time by “ La
donna é mobile,” as arranged for small hands in
Hemy’s Pianoforte Tutor ; and as my later musical
education, like that of everybody else in those
days, progressed from Beethoven to Bach, and
from Bach to Brahms, with a certain amount of
Wagner, I grew up curiously ignorant of even the
most hackneyed Italian tunes. But I cherished a
vague faith in the doctrine instilled into me in
childhood, and the few examples of Italian music
that impressed themselves on my youthful memory
—the page’s song from Un Ballo in Maschera, sung
by a lady when I was about fourteen, a Rossini
overture played as a pianoforte duet, the discovery
of a copy of Mefistofele just before I left school—
gave me a strange hankering after it as a sort of
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The Land of Music
forbidden fruit, the more delicious because I knew
so little of it.
Many English music-lovers, I imagine, must have
experienced the same disappointments as I did
when I first pursued Italian music on its native soil.
We enter an Italian cathedral expecting the sub-
dued voluntary, the level intoning, the sweet-voiced
choir, all that goes to make up the discreet seemli-
ness of an Anglican service, and hear instead boys
who seem to have been trained as vendors of news-
papers, harsh and perfunctory bawling of plainsong,
with an organ that and squeals crashes like that of
a steam merry-go-round. Concerts are few and far
between, and the audience inclined to behave more
as if it was at a circus than at a programme of
classical music. How well I remember a perform-
ance of the Choral Symphony at Naples—the first
ever given there! The great cadenza for the four
solo voices, ending pianissimo on a high B for the
soprano, was a prolonged and agonising scream ;
then, before the orchestra could pick up the allegro
after the pause, the whole audience burst into
shouts of “ Bravo! bravo! bis! bis! bis!” lasting
some five minutes, after which we had the cadenza
over again.
It is not by these things that we must judge of
Italian music. We must not expect to find in
Italy the same sort of music under the same con-
ditions that we are accustomed to in our own
country. We must forget our national prejudices ;
we must keep our ears open, and pick up music
wherever we can. ‘To most English people, music
is something external to themselves. It is part of
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The Book of Italy
“culture,” like a knowledge of French, an accom-
plishment, a thing to be bought, a thing to learn, or,
it may be, a thing to find provided, like hassocks
and hymn-books. In this time of war I am con-
stantly being told that music is a luxury, one of the
things that people will give up when increased taxes
enforce economy. |
Italians could no more give up music than they
could give up breathing. Considered by the stan-
dards of what we in England call “ musical people,”
their judgments of music are much less critical
than ours—that is to say, they are not so willing to
weigh the merits and demerits of a composer or
performer dispassionately and intellectually. Their
audiences have the reputation of being critical,
because they are often hard to please; but they
are not really critical—they are extremely sensitive,
and extremely outspoken. English travellers often
think that hissing is common in Italian opera-houses.
What they take for a sign of disapproval is really
nothing more than a demand for silence, the equi-
valent of our “sh!” Italian disapproval, when it
does find vent, takes a more terrifying form. You
perceive it first, not as a sound, but as a sort of
collective shudder ; then it may become a murmur,
rising toa cry of “ Uh! bestia!” or even to whistling
on door-keys. But such demonstrations are not
really very common. Besides, it must not be for-
gotten that demonstrations of pleasure are equally
violent, and much more frequent.
To understand what music means to Italians, we
must take into consideration the music of the less-
educated classes, the music which in England would
124
‘KH ‘svn anowmhas
SOIYVAIGVULs
The Land of Music
be either negligible or merely annoying. In Italy it
is neither ; indeed it is often much more delightful
than the music which professes to be high-class,
just as cucina casalinga is always better than the
cosmopolitan cookery of expensive hotels. Not that
there is anything in Italy corresponding to the folk-
song cult which has recently been so remarkable
and so important a feature of English music. Only
a very little has been done in Italy towards the
systematic record of real folk-song. ‘The Neapolitan
songs, of which “ Funiculi, funicula”’ is the best-
known example, are of quite recent growth,and indeed
the festival of Piedigrotta, for which they are com-
posed in hundreds every year, does not date back,
at least as a musical event, much further than the
days of Donizetti. ‘The real songs of the peasantry
are generally of much more primitive character, so
primitive, in fact, that the modern musician has
great difficulty in noting them down.
Take no notice of the people who sing the
vulgarities of twenty years ago—English and Viennese
as well as Neapolitan—outside the big hotels at
Naples or in a boat decked with Chinese lanterns on
the Grand Canal. But if you walk up to Monte Pincio,
instead of driving, you may come across the blind
man with a harmonium, who plays “‘ Casta diva ”’ and
“Ah! che la morte” with a real sense of phrasing.
Go and have supper at one of the humble restaurants
near Sant’ Agnese, and listen to a street piano,
which, if it does not play an air of Verdi, will give
you an old-fashioned waltz or polka dressed up
with a really clever accompaniment instead of the
stupid scales of our English instruments. The
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The Book of Italy
tune will have been properly arranged by a musician
who knows his business, and the instrument itself
will have a quality of tone that is positively pleasing,
unless by some evil chance that horrible invention
of Naples, the mandoline attachment, forces its
strident tone upon the ear. Guitar-players appear
everywhere, I need hardly say, and I confess that
it is rare to find a good one who can accompany a
song with a reasonable bass. It is perhaps in the
provincial towns that you will hear the most curious
and often attractive combinations. Dr. Burney,
who travelled in Italy in search of music about
1770, notes the performance of the bravi orbi at
Bologna, and I have often derived great pleasure
from blind musicians there and in Parma.
But the most remarkable street music that I
ever heard was at Verona, some fifteen years ago.
The performer was a tall and dignified old man with
a long white beard, who accompanied himself with
great skill onthe guitar. ‘To one coming fresh from a
winter in Germany, as I did, saturated with Wagner,
it was a revelation to hear him sing all the classical
Italian tenor songs—the Count’s serenade from
Il Barbiere, “‘ Spirto gentil” from La Favortta,
‘““Dai campi, dai prati”’ from Mefistofele. The
tenore robusto airs of Verdi were rather beyond his
strength, but his execution of the more lyrical
type of song was a lesson in the purest art of bel
canto. He was evidently so complete an artist that
it would have been discourteous to ask any question
as to his past history. The waiter at a café told
me that his name was Maurelli, and I asked a
musical friend in Florence if he had ever heard of
126
The Land of Music
him. ‘“‘ Maurelli? but of course I have heard him.
I knew him when he was singing at the Pergola.
He was one of our greatest tenors. And now you
tell me that, at the age of seventy, he is singing in
the streets of Verona !”’
I went back to Verona a year later, attracted
more, I think, by the hopes of hearing old Maurelli
again than by any of the architectural wonders
of the town. I searched for him in vain, and nobody
could give me news of him. ‘Two years later I read
in a newspaper that he had died in Verdi’s House of
Rest for destitute musicians.
. It was from old Maurelli more than from anyone
else that I learnt to appreciate the real beauty of
Italian music. Ifyou go to La Scala or the Costanzi
you may hear admirable performances of Mezster-
singer or Salome ; but if you want to hear real
Italian music you must go to some humble little
theatre in a back street, where you can get a box
for two francs, to hear J/ Barbiere or Lucia di Lam-
mermoor. You need not even pay your twenty-
five centimes admission ; for you can do almost as
well in the piazza, be it Piazza Colonna or Piazza
San Marco. A good Italian military or municipal
band is unrivalled, and even if you can get nothing
better than the band of some casual Orfanotrofio or
Ricreatorio, you may be sure that it will always
play good music. Here is perhaps the best proof
of Italian musicianship ; the music provided gratis
for the humblest of the people, the music which the
humblest of the people evidently enjoy, as you can
see by their rapt silence as they cluster round the
band-stand, is invariably of sterling quality. ‘The
127
The Book of Italy
programmes are mainly drawn from the national
classics : you may sometimes hear a whole act of
Verdi or Boito played from beginning to end, with
so expressive a delivery of the recitatives that you
can almost think you hear the words. But you will
hear Beethoven, Wagner, Brahms, and even Bach
as well; incredible as it may seem, | once heard
Bach’s G minor organ fugue played by a band in
the Piazza Colonna on a stifling August evening when
there was hardly a soul in Rome who could afford
the railway fare to Ladispoli or Anzio. It was not
only played: it was applauded, it was positively
encored.
Verdi’s early operas were so closely associated
with the movement for Italian liberty—everyone
remembers the interpretation of Evviva VERDI as
Evviva Vittorio Emanuele, Re D’ Italia !—that people
have sometimes supposed his success to be due
merely to his expression of popular patriotism.
This is unjust, and may be disproved by the fact
that Verdi’s most popular operas—Rigoletto, Il Tro-
vatore, La Traviata—belong to a later period, |
and although composed before 1859, have no speci-
fically patriotic allusions such as distinguished J
Lombardi, for instance. Verdi’s greatness needs no
bolstering up with sentimental associations. He
was accepted as the singer of united Italy not merely
because of the words he set, but because of the
irresistible appeal of his melodies. And their appeal
was irresistible, because it was made to a funda-
mentally musical people. Dante is credited with
having given the Italians a common language. But
the musicians of Italy many centuries ago contri-
128
The Land of Music
buted their share towards united Italy, when national
drama such as we had in England would have been
impossible south of the Alps, owing to differences of
dialect. The opera brought Venice, Florence, and
Naples together even in the seventeenth century.
Goldoni and Alfieri, great as they are, are obscure
names compared with Verdi and Rossini. It is
opera that represents the soul of Italy ; and that is
why, while Dante stands for Italy at Trent, the
Italians of ‘Trieste have symbolised their national
aspirations in the figure of Verdi.
The musical quality of a country is not to be
assessed solely by the great musicians which it may
have produced in the past. We shall be much
safer in judging by the general standard of music
amongst the humbler classes. If ability to sing
correctly at sight is an appropriate test, England
would probably stand a good deal higher than Italy.
But a knowledge of reading and writing is not
the whole of education, as we learn when we listen
in amazement to the natural elegance of phrase
which is the birthright of every unlettered Tuscan
peasant. We can sing at sight in England, but is
the stuff we sing worth the paper on which it is
printed ? Italy prints less for popular consumption,
and even then prints abominably ; indeed at Naples
there is still a large trade in manuscript music, not
altogether in accordance, I imagine, with the law of
copyright. But all Italy sings, if only by ear, and
what is more important, all Italy is saturated with
its musical classics. The vulgarities of the music-
halls have no significance in this connexion; the
attraction of the chanteuse does not lie in her song,
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The Book of Italy
or even in her voice. Modern composers may
experiment in “ international opera ’”’ with a view
to success in America or in London as being worth
more financially than they can expect from Milan
or Rome. These are only passing phases of an
activity commercial rather than artistic. The real
Italy is the land of Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti, and
Verdi.
EDWARD J. DENT.
130
CORPUS DOMINI PROCESSION, COMO
Edwin Bale, R.I.
GIORNO DEI MORTI
ALONG the avenue of cypresses,
All in their scarlet capes, and surplices
Of linen, go the chanting choristers,
The priests in gold and black, the villagers.
And all along the path to the cemetery
The dark, round heads of the men crowd silently,
And black-scarved faces of women-folk, wistfully
Watch at the banner of death, at the mystery...
And at the foot of a grave a father stands
With sunk, bowed head, and forgotten, folded
hands ;
And by the side of a grave a woman kneels
With still, rapt face, and neither hears nor feels
The coming of the many villagers
Along the avenue of cypresses, *
The chanting of the scarlet choristers,
The candle-flames beside the surplices.
D. H. LAWRENCE,
GARGNANO, 1913.
L 13]
VIGILIA
Ix ritorno del contadino, a quell’ ora insolita,
prima del tramonto, turbo la servetta: tanto piu
ch’ egli le sembro pallido e preoccupato. Si fece
da parte, riparandosi dietro il portoncino aperto,
mentre |’ uomo faceva entrare nel cortiletto prima
uno poi |’ altro dei suoi buoi gravi e neri, cosi grossi
che occuparono tutto il breve spazio lasciando
appena il passaggio lungo il muro; poi chiuse,
mentr’ egli legava le bestie e dopo averle spinte
una verso |’ altra, si lasciava cader seduto, un po’
affranto, sulla pietra davanti alla porta della casetta ;
e gli fu tosto accanto, accovacciandosi per terra col
suo istintivo atteggiamento di schiava.
— Malato, siete? — domando, guardandolo di
sotto in su.
Egli teneva le mani rugose come artigli aperte
sulle ginocchia; il suo viso olivastro, dorato dalla
barbetta rossiccia, pareva indurito da un pensiero
fisso e triste; e anche gli occhi di solito maliziosi
erano vaghi e immobili come quelli di un uccello
malato.
— Malato sono — affermd — e d’ un male che
fa morire.
Lei balzo in ginocchio mettendogli sulle mani le
sue piccole mani brune ; e sembrava cosi spaven-
tata che egli sorrise, con tutti 1 suoi denti bianchi :
un sorriso che aveva pero qualche cosa di ringhioso.
132
Vigilia
— Ascoltami — disse — é venuto un tale da me,
questo mezzogiorno, mentre guardavo il mio fru-
mento ; fratello di uno col quale ho fatto il soldato.
Ebbene, mi disse che questa notte scorsa, a mez-
zanotte in punto, suo fratello ha ricevuto ordine di
presentarsi subito al Comando militare, ed é stato
immediatamente vestito da soldato e mandato lon-
tano, per la guerra che scoppiera fragiorni. Ebbene,
ragazzina mia, questa notte sara forse la mia volta.
— E questa la malattia? — disse lei ridendo ;
ma il viso di lui era ritornato duro, triste, e lei si
lascid ricader seduta sui calcagni mormorando :
— Si puod morire, in guerra.
— Si pud morire. Ma questo non importa: é
nulla. Morire si deve, una volta o |’ altra. I] ma-
lanno é che io ho il frumento da raccogliere, i buoi
a cui badare. Non ho nessuno. ‘Tu sei ancora
cosi giovine. ‘Ti avessi almeno sposata prima.
Adesso, se voglio lasciare a te la roba, bisogna
che faccia testamento.
— Io non voglio nulla. Voglio solo che voi
tornate. E perché dovete andare, voi? Non ci
sono gia, i soldati? Non andate. Perché non vi
nascondete ?
— Tu sei un’ idiota, — grido lui respingendola.
Taci, almeno! E lei tacque, fissando con gli occhi
spauriti la porta chiusa come se il nemico ignoto
col quale il suo uomo doveva combattere fosse gia
li fuori e tentasse d’ invadere la piccola casa per
portarsi via i buoi, il frumento, la cassa, e ammazzare
il padrone. In fondo, pero, le rimaneva accesa la
lampada della vita: la speranza.
— Non tutti muoiono, in guerra, — disse solle-
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vandosi. — Eppoi voi siete svelto e vi salverete.
Ne avete passate tante.
Anche lui era certo di salvarsi ; ne aveva passate
tante, sempre in guerra con uomini e cose, e si era
salvato sempre, dai suoi nemici, dai ladri, dai ban-
diti, dalle insolazioni, dalla malaria, dal fulmine e
dalla tarantola: perché non doveva salvarsi in
guerra ?
Digrigno i denti.
— Lo voglio masticare come carne di cane, il
nemico : giacché mi vuole mi avra !
E si alzo, si strinse la cintura come stesse per par-
tire ; poi entro nella piccola cucina e guardo attorno
ogni oggetto, sali la scaletta di legno, ando nella
camera da letto.
La ragazza lo seguiva, silenziosa e flessuosa come
un gattino.
La camera era vasta, bassa, con una cassa antica
di legno nero, scolpita, col letto di legno ove era
morta pochi mesi avanti Ja moglie del contadino. Al
ricordo della moglie morta egli si fece piu triste:
fosse almeno vissuta ancora lei, egli sarebbe partito
sicuro della sua roba. Della serva si fidava fino a
un certo punto, sebbene la sapeva fedele come un
cane. Ma era cosi ragazza! Lontano lui poteva
anche mettersi a far |’ amore con un altro. La
guardo. Ella s’ era accovacciata davanti alla cassa,
con le mani giunte sul grembo. Pareva adorasse il
cuore, il pesce, la colomba, gli astri e la croce incisi
sulla cassa: pareva pregasse come davanti a un
sarcofago ; ed era davvero il sarcofago con dentro
tutti i suoi antenati quella cassa istoriata coi simboli
dell’ amore, della fede, del dolore.
134
%
‘ iF
F igilia
Fgli sospiro. Trasse la chiave della cassa, la
guardo, sospiro ancora. Aveva giurato di non con-
segnarla a nessuno, se non si sposava una seconda
volta. E la ragazza lo sapeva, e arrossi di gioia e
di pena quando egli le gettd la chiave in grembo.
Solo allora intese che egli doveva partire davvero
e forse mai pit tornare. Si alzo e disse :
— Vi giuro che nulla manchera di casa vostra.
Come lasciate troverete.
Allora egli |’ afferrd e comincid a baciarla, con
gli occhi che gli scintillavano un po’ cattivi un
po’ dolci.
— Cosa deve mancare se tutto é tuo? Che io
torni o non torni tutto é tuo, tortora !
— E vostro, é vostro, — ripeteva lei, a occhi chiusi,
ubbriacata dai baci di lui. E gli si abbandonava
con fede perché sentiva che egli, consegnandole la
chiave della cassa della prima moglie, |’ aveva gia
sposata.
Dopo, ridiscesero nel cortiletto; sedettero di
nuovo, lui sulla pietra, con le mani sulle ginocchia, il
viso e gli occhi schiariti : lei accovacciata per terra.
— Cosi avrai un figlio, — disse lui, con accento
malizioso. — Cosi, se io non torno la popolazione
non diminuisce : e tu baderai alla mia roba per lui.
Oh, che fai adesso, donna ?
Ella piangeva, d’ un tratto fatta donna davvero ;
ma egli le strappo il grembiale dagli occhi, le diede
un colpo alle spalle ed ella trasali e si raddrizzd. Ed
egli le mise una mano sulla testa e comincid a darle
istruzioni precise sul come far mietere e raccogliere
il frumento, e a chi consegnare i buoi e come pagare
le imposte. Poi tacquero. Il tramonto mandava
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The Book of Italy
gill per gli alti muri del cortiletto un chiarore violaceo
che dava ai grandi buoi neri immobili un riflesso
di bronzo. E quei due tacevano, aspettando il
carabiniere con |’ ordine del Comando militare come
un essere misterioso con un ordine del destino.
GRAZIA DELEDDA.
136
THE VIGIL
THE return of the peasant at that unusual hour,
before sunset, troubled the little servant-girl—all the
more as he seemed pale and preoccupied. She
drew out of the way, taking refuge behind the open
gateway, while he drove into the courtyard, one
after the other, his sedate, black oxen, so large that
they took up nearly the whole space, hardly leaving
room along the wall; then, when he had fastened
up the beasts, after having pushed them together,
and when he had sunk down rather weariedly on
the stone by the door of the hut, she closed the
gates and was immediately by his side, crouching
on the ground in her instinctive attitude of a
slave.
“Ts it ill you are?” she asked, looking up at
him.
He sat with his hands, wrinkled and like out-
spread claws, on his knees; his olive-tinted face,
aureated by his ruddy beard, seemed immobilised
by some fixed, sad thought ; even his eyes, which
usually had a malicious look, were vacant and set
like those of a bird that was sick.
* Aye, ill,” he asserted, “and of an ill that
kills.”
She sprang on to her knees and placed her little
brown hands on his; she seemed so frightened
that he smiled, showing all his white teeth—a smile,
though, that was something of a snarl.
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“Hear me,” he said ; “‘ there came to me one this
mid-day while I was watching my corn, brother of
one who was a soldier with me. Well, he told me
that last night, on the point of midnight, his
brother received an order to present himself at once
to the Military Authority, and he was immediately
dressed as a soldier, and sent far away for the war
that will break out in a few days. Well, little girl, . .
this night maybe it will be my turn.”
“You’re ill of this, is it?”’ said she, laughing ;
but the look on his face had become once more hard
and sad, and she sank back on her heels as she
murmured : “‘ One can be killed at war.”
“One can be killed. But that does not matter ;
it’s nothing. One must die, one time or another.
The misery is that I have the corn to gather in
and my oxen to mind. I have no one. You are
still so young. Had I married you sooner. Now
if I want to leave the things to you I shall have to
make my will.”
“I don’t want nothing. I want you only to
come back. And why must you go—you? Isn't
there all the soldiers already? Don’t go! Why
don’t you hide ? ”’
“You are an idiot,’ he said, pushing her away
from him. ‘‘ Keep quiet, at least ! ”’
And she kept quiet, fixing with her scared eyes
the closed door, as if the unknown enemy with
whom her man was to fight was already out there,
and was attempting to invade the little house, to
carry off the cattle, the corn, the chest, and to
murder the patron. In her innermost, though,
there remained lit the lamp of life—hope.
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The Vigil
“All are not killed in war,” she said, raising
herself. “‘'Then you are quick and will escape.
You have saved yourself so often.”
He too was sure of escape. He had saved him-
self so often; always at war with men and things,
and he had always escaped, from his enemies, from
thieves, bandits, sunstroke, malaria, lightning and
from the tarantula. Why was he not to escape in
war?
He gnashed his teeth.
“Til chew him: like dog’s meat—the enemy :
since he wants me, he shall have me! ”’
He rose up and tightened his belt as if about
to start; then stepped into the little kitchen and
looked around at each object, went up the little
wooden steps and into the bedroom.
The girl followed him as silent and lissom as
a Cat.
The room was spacious and low, and contained
an ancient chest of black carved wood, and the
wooden bed where the wife of the peasant had died
a few months back. At the thought of his dead
wife he became even sadder: had she but still
been alive he would have felt sure of his belongings.
He trusted the servant-girl to a certain extent,
although he knew her to be faithful as a dog. But
she was sucha child! With him far away she might
make love with another. He looked at her. She
was crouched in front of the chest with her hands
folded in her lap. She seemed to be adoring the
heart, the fish, the dove, the stars, and the cross
carved on the chest; she seemed to be praying
as if in front of a sarcophagus—and it was, in fact,
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a sarcophagus, having within something of all his
ancestors, that chest ornamented with the symbol
of love, faith and pain.
He sighed. He drew out the key of the chest,
looked at it, and sighed again. He had sworn to
consign it to no one if he did not marry a second
time. And the girl knew it, and blushed with joy
and grief when he threw the key in her lap.
Then, only, she understood that he must go
and perhaps never come back. She stood up, and
said
‘““T swear that nothing shall be missed from
your house. As you leave it, you will find it.”
He then laid hold of her and began to kiss
her, while his eyes flashed a bit wickedly, a bit
tenderly.
‘““ What can be missed if it is all yours? If I
come back or not it is all yours, little dove.”
‘“ It is yours ; it is yours,’”’ she repeated, with her
eyes closed, intoxicated by his kisses. And she
yielded to him in faith, for she felt that in consign-
ing her the keys of his first wife’s chest he had
already married her.
Later, they went down into the little yard;
they again sat down—he on the stone with his hands
on his knees, but with a more relieved look in
his eyes and on his face; she crouched on the
ground.
“Thus youll have a son,” he said, with a
malicious inflection in his tone. ‘‘ Thus, if I do
not return, the population won’t diminish, and
you ll mind my belongings for him. Ah, what are
you doing there, woman ? ”
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The Vigil
She was weeping, having all of a sudden become
a woman; but he tore the apron from her eyes,
gave her a slap on the back. She started and
straightened herself. And he, placing a hand on
her head, began giving her precise instructions how
to reap and gather the corn, to whom consign the
cattle, and how to pay the taxes. Then they were
silent. Over the high walls of the little yard the
violet shades of the dusk seemed to turn the large,
black, motionless oxen to bronze. And the two
remained silent, awaiting the carabiniere with an
order from the Military Authority as some mys-
terious being with an order from destiny.
GRAZIA DELEDDA.
Translated by Adeline Lister Kaye.
141
ELEGY FOR B.H.W. (1915)
I
I CALL you, and I call you. Oh, come home,
You lonely creature. Curséd be the clown
Who plugged you with that lead, and knocked you
down.
Stand up again and laugh, you wandering friend.
Say, as you would, “ It’s just a little hole :
It will soon mend.”
Walk now into the room. Come! Come! Come!
Come !
Come! We will laugh together all the night
(When I have poured you out a glass or two).
Sit down. Our mutual mirth will reach its height
When we remember how they called you dead ;
And [I shall ask you how it felt, and you :—
“Oh nothing !—Just a tumble. Rather hot
The feeling in my side, and then my head
A trifle dizzy—but I’m back again.
I lay there rather long, and I’ve still got
(When I think of it) just a little pain.”
I]
I know the way you stumbled. Once you slid,
And landed on your side. I noticed then
A trick of falling ; some peculiar glide,
A curious movement, not like other men,
142
‘VY ‘uojduvay assoayn *f[ ss
NHAVH CGHuISHad MIFHL OLNO
Elegy for B. H.W. (1915)
—But did your mouth drop open? Did your breath
Hurt you? What sort of feeling quickly came
When you discovered that it might be death ?
—And what will happen if I shout your name ?
Perhaps you may be there behind that door ;
And, if I raise my voice a little more,
You'll swing it open. I don’t know how thick
The black partition is between us two.
You may be there—almost there—coming quick—
Listen! ‘The door-bell rang! Perhaps it’s you. ...
You’re in the room. You’re sitting in that chair.
You are !—I will go down. It was the bell.
You may be waiting at the door as well.
And what a shout I'll give if you are there !
—They’ve rigged you in your uniform to-day :
You take a momentary martial stand,
Then step inside, and hold me out your hand,
And laugh in that old solitary way.
You don’t know why you did it . . . All this while
You’ve slaved and sweated. Now you’re very
strong ...
And so you tell me with a knowing smile :
*““ We’re going off to Flanders before long.”
I thought you’ld come back with an ugly hole
Below your thigh,
And ask for sympathy, and wander lame.
I thought you’ld be the same
Rambling companion, without self-control .. .
I never thought you’ld die.
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IIT
Now let us both forget this brief affair.
Let us begin our friendship all again.
I’m going down to meet you on the stair.
Come! Come !—for I can see you, plain.
How strange! A moment I did think you dead.
How foolish of me!
... Friend! Friend! Are you dumb?
Why are you pale? Why do you hang your head ?
You see me? Here’s my hand. Why don’t you
come ?
Don’t make me angry. You are there I know.
Is not my house your house? There is a bed
Upstairs. You’re tired. Lie down (you must).
Come home.
Some men are killed—not you. Be as you were.
And yet—somehow it’s dark down all the stair.
I’m looking in the street. . . . You are not there.
HaroLtp Monro.
144
“THE SMILING SOLDIERS”
My month’s tour on the Trentino and Cadore front
has left me the impression of a harmonious whole,
where every detail of the complicated machinery
at work is accomplished thoroughly, serenely, and
confidently both by officers and men.
I can see them now in their smart, serviceable
grey-green uniforms, with their dark, vivid faces,
and their bright black eyes as they come and
go, some riding or walking, others building huts,
chopping wood, mending their clothes—the sunny
Italian smile always on their lips.
They have invaded the solitary grandeur of
these mountain passes, undaunted by the obstacles
which Nature has placed in their way to keep her
solitude undisturbed ; undismayed by the lack of
roads, the snows, the wind, the rain, they have
brought with them up here the sun and warmth of
their homes, and the life and radiance of their
cheerful, ever-ready smile. The beauty of the
scenery is not lost on them either; perhaps as a
compensation to the grim horrors of war, the Powers
that be have conceded to the little grey-green
Italian soldier the privilege to fight his battles in
these beautiful surroundings, knowing how keenly
susceptible he is to anything that appeals to his
innate sense of beauty. Be this as it may, at any
rate he is sensible to the grandeur and beauty that
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he sees; it helps him, and keeps his cheerful spirit
alive. Often have I heard the soldiers commenting
enthusiastically on the glorious mountain scenery.
The keen mountain air exhilarates them; the
knowledge that they are fighting to restore to ‘Ttaly
what was hers makes them absolutely confident of
success, so they smile, and they sing as they work ;
thus do the sons of that land from which has come
all the beauty and the art of the world, beautify
and uplift even the dull routine of warfare.
The Italian soldier is sober, both in eating and
in drinking. He has not many wants—a piece of
bread and fruit, and, when he can get it, some of
his beloved macaroni, that is all he needs. He is
wiry, hardy, and enduring, notwithstanding this
simple fare. He is also very handy and ingenious,
and finds a way out of unexpected difficulties, as
in the case of the remedy that he invented in an
encampment which I saw.
It was in a heavily-wooded forest, the orott
was muddy and damp, no ray of sunlight getting
through the thick foliage. So in a few hours,
platforms were built well above the ground, the
little white tents were placed on them, nestling
snugly amongst the thick branches; and from afar
one could think that an immense flock of huge .
white birds were taking a rest on the green-topped
trees. Up there the soldiers had air, light, and sun-
shine, and they were happy and could smile once
more.
Another ingeniously built camp was the one I
saw on a bare rocky hillside. The tents were placed
irregularly apart from one another, so that, seen
146
“The Smiling Soldiers”
from some distance, they looked like big round
boulders practically undistinguishable from the grey
rocks of the mountain.
This was done in one of our very advanced
positions in Val d’Ampola, where the enemy could
through field-glasses practically see every detail on
our side, and the work had to be done at night.
The Val d’Ampola is sacred ground for us; it
was there that Garibaldi and his handful of men
won a victory over the Austrians in 1866. The
men of 1915 know this, and they are proud to feel
that to-day, after all these years, they are again tread-
ing the same road, this time, please God, to keep it
for ever.
My last memory of Val d’Ampola is one that,
more than any words can do, typifies the spirit of
cheerfulness that prevails amongst our soldiers.
Near the mountain stream that rushes down the
narrow valley, our men have built with tree branches
a little “pergola” about four or five feet wide,
they have placed in it a rustic bench and table,
and during their leisure time they sit there, discuss
the war, and talk about their distant homes. A big
square signboard has been nailed on a post near
the entrance, and on it, in uneven order, is written
in awkward, ill-formed letters, “‘ All’ Osteria del
Buon Umore.”’
That is how our men understand their war— the
guerra santa,” as they call it. ‘They fight it willingly,
cheerfully, smilingly. They have not gone into it
lightly ; they know full well the greatness of the
task before them, the many hardships and the
weary days they will have to face ; they realise all
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this, but yet they smile and sing as they work, for
they went willingly into this great enterprise, and
when at last they come to meet their long-lost
brothers of ‘Trento and ‘Trieste, they want to greet
them with joy and laughter in their hearts, and
bring to them all the warmth and the light and the
radiance of the gentle smile of their common mother
Italy.
That is why I want henceforth our soldiers to
be called by all “‘the smiling soldiers,” for in their
smile is their strength, and by their smiling courage
will they gain their victory !
MAGDELEINE COTTA VER MEHR.
148
THE ITALIAN RED CROSS
ON the blood-stained field of Solferino, during the
second war for the unification of Italy, Henri
Dunant, the Swiss philanthropist, conceived the
idea of a voluntary association having for its object
the ministering to the sufferings of the wounded in
war; and in the year 1862 the inspired pages of
his Souvenirs de Solferino sent forth to the world
the heartrending cry of the wounded on the fields
of battle.
But prior to him, a Neapolitan physician,
Ferdinando Palasciano, at the siege of Messina in
1848, by boldly replying to the Bourbonic General
Filangieri, who threatened to shoot him, “A
wounded man is no longer an enemy ! ”’ had already
had a clear and accurate vision of the legal and
humane principle of rendering aid to the wounded
in war.
In a paper which he read in the year 1861 to
the Accademia Pontaniana of Naples, and which
was later to acquire historical importance, Palas-
ciano said: ‘‘ It should be incumbent on belligerent
powers to reciprocally recognise the principle of the
neutrality of wounded and sick combatants until
they are cured, and the powers should also respec-
tively adopt the principle of the unlimited increase
of medical and nursing staffs for the whole duration
of the war.”
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The Book of Italy
Indefatigably persevering in his propaganda, in
the year 1862, in another paper he even more de-
finitely set forth his idea that the principle of the
neutrality of the wounded combatant should be
adopted as the result of a stipulated agreement “‘ in
an International Congress, or by mutual and special
consent of the belligerent powers in the act of their
declaration of war.”
On August 22, 1864, the International Conference
at Geneva, by establishing the *‘ Red Cross,” sanc-
tioned the principles upheld by Palasciano, Dunant,
and Arrault, as well as that work of voluntary aid
to the) wounded to which Florence Nightingale,
who had hailed the landing of the Italian Bersa-
glieri at Balaclava, had so nobly devoted her life.
Ferdinando Palasciano’s conception, which corro-
borated the principle of the Italian jurist of the
Renaissance, Hostilitas cum nullo tollet obliga-
tionem naturalem, was thus blended with Florence
Nightingale’s ideals under the safeguard of the
Red Cross. ‘The ratification of the Geneva Con-
vention by the powers gave to that covenant its
character of a true and essential international law.
Thus only fifty years ago, after so many centuries
of wars and treaties, due provision was made for
the wounded by an international agreement.
Since the year 1864 the Italian Red Cross has
been associated with each one of New Italy’s
triumphs, with every one of her misfortunes. We
thus ‘find it in the war of 1866, then at Montero-
tondo and Mentana in 1867, with the expedition
to Erythrea in 1895, again with the Italian troops in
China and in Candia, and finally in our Libyan War.
150
TARGET
THE
Giuseppe Mentesst (Milan)
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The Italian Red Cross
Conscious of its mission, the Italian Red Cross
provided assistance and supplies for the Franco-
Prussian War of 1870, to the British in the Trans-
vaal, to Spain, to Japan, and in Morocco, Greece,
and Montenegro, not circumscribing its work to
war alone, but extending it to public calamities and
to the reclaiming of malarial regions.
The anti-malarial campaigns in the Campagna
Romana and in Sicily will remain among its most
splendid records, as will also the assistance it ren-
dered on several occasions, viz., the earthquake
in Calabria in 1905, the eruptions of Vesuvius in
1906, the earthquakes at Reggio and Messina in
1908, the cholera epidemic in 1910-11. In every
one of the long series of public calamities during
which Italy in her severe trials affirmed the manli-
ness and tenacity of her race, the Italian Red Cross
plied her task, symbolising as it were the. national
spirit.
And now, in this fourth war for the unification
of Italy, which was to reveal to the world so many
hidden treasures of strength, bravery, and spirit
of self-sacrifice of the Italian people, the Italian
Red Cross has once more proved itself equal to
its high calling by the efficiency of its personnel
and of its services, and by the self-abnegation of
its motives.
The canteens, the first aid and dressing
stations along the railway lines afforded relief to
the soldiers during the anxious period of concen-
tration at the front; later, hospital trains, river
ambulances and the Venice lagoon ambulances were
mobilised, while field hospitals and mountain ambu-
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The Book of Italy
lances were despatched to the firing line. All the
most modern and perfect appliances were put to
use for the great charitable work. Motor-ambulance
units of the Red Cross went through the war zone
for the. rapid conveyance of the wounded, store-
houses were established along the advanced lines,
and staff depots all over the kingdom. The whole
service was quickly expanded and made to meet
the new requirements.
Thus the Italian Red Cross, enrolled with the
Army Medical Service (Sanita Militare), which is
always true to the traditions of. its reorganiser,
Senator Riberi, and in conjunction with the Cross
of Malta, the glorious remnant of the Hospitaller
Orders of the Middle Ages, has attained complete
efficiency for its work of valid assistance to the
Italian Army.
All over Italy Red Cross territorial hospitals
have come into being, equipped with the latest im-
provements in hospital gear suggested by science ;
an army of nurses, having at their head H.R.H.
the Duchess Elena of Aosta, has been raised, who
all fulfil their merciful duties with a deep feeling
of disinterestedness and self-denial ; moreover, the
whole administration and all the different services
have been admirably organised.
By means of an active propaganda the Italian
Red Cross has everywhere strengthened the ranks
of its trained staff, thus truly and adequately in-
terpreting the solicitude and gratitude of Italy
towards her sons, who against enormous difficulties
are so bravely doing their duty to their country.
It is a real competition of noble energies that
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The Italian Red Cross
the Red Cross has stirred up and made subservient
to its noble ends.
Thus the great institution, of which Florence
Nightingale and Ferdinando Palasciano were the
pioneers, has now, in the hour of Italy’s supreme
ordeal, found a worthy scope for the earnest accom-
plishment of its work and the achievement of its
aims.
The lamp of Florence Nightingale, who was
born in Florence, and to whose memory a monu-
ment rises in Santa Croce by the side of our greatest
men, is the symbol of mercy of the Red Cross.
The work of Florence Nightingale was not done
in vain for Italy.
ANDREA GALANTE.
Translated by William De la Feld.
153
SWEETWILLIAM
A CHILD’S STORY
IT was a hot evening in September. ‘Two children,
a boy and a girl, were alone in the old wainscoted
room of an ancient market town. ‘T’hey were very
quiet, almost sad, as children are wont to be after
romping all day and when bedtime is drawing near.
Dusk was stealing in; the lamplighter had gone on
his rounds; the blue, green, and red lights were
shining most beautifully in their huge vases at the
chemist’s, across the road.
Mary loved to watch the lamplighter every
evening, and the bright colours of the shop opposite
her own house had been like friends to her ever
since she could toddle up to the window. Just
now she was flattening her face against the casement, ,
drumming a slow tune on the pane with her small
chubby hand. A feeling of great loneliness, even
of fear, came over her—she did not know why, for
her brother George was sitting on the table quite
close to her. He was trying to read in the quick
fading light; his beautiful young face was grave,
the white brow under the golden hair was puckered.
The whole house was mysteriously silent. Little
Mary could stand that silence no longer.
** What are you reading, George ? ”’
The boy put down with a light sigh the printed
card he was holding.
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Sweetwilliam
‘‘ Iam studying the Scouts’ laws, Mary.”
“But you are a Scout yourself, George; don’t
you know your own laws?”
“Not all of them, at least not the new ones,
now that we are at war.”
That horrid war ! ”
“You don’t know what war means, Mary ; ; no
little girl understands anything at all about it.’
“T am a big girl now, and I know quite well
what war is.’
** What is it, then ? ”’
“It is .. . it is everything and everybody
being different.”
“You talk nonsense, Mary, and bad grammar
too.”
“IT don’t. Everything zs different ; everybody is
different.”
“Is Father different ? ”
“Most different.”
‘““ But he is at the front, and you have not seen
him for a year?”
“That’s exactly why he is different. He was
always here before, he always came in after the
lamplighter had passed, and he carried me on his
back, and he laughed, and I laughed and shouted,
and Mother laughed, and everyone laughed. Is it
not different now? ‘The house is so dull, so quiet.”
“* Of course ; but Father is just the same, I know,
though he is not here. Fathers never change. Only
boys and girls change, because they grow.’
“ Well, Mother is quite, quite different now,’
said Mary with a little sob in her voice.
“I don’t see any change in Mother.”’
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The Book of Italy
‘Don’t you, George? She was so pretty before ;
now she is not pretty at all. She always told me
lovely tales every day about the Magic Prince and
the Ugly Mouse, and about the dreadful robbers in
the dark cave by the sea. Now she never tells me
any exciting stories. She sits all day long, knitting,
in the window, and watching for the telegraph-boy
or for the post-woman. Her eyes are red—they
were blue before . . . she is quite changed. George,
come a little nearer to me; I want to whisper a
secret into your ear.”
‘‘ T hate secrets—they are so silly.”
‘This one is not silly, and it is just one—only
one: I think, George, that Mother does not love
us any more, not since the war began.”
_ “ What rubbish! Mothers don’t change; they
change even less than fathers. But we ought not to
expect stories about robbers and mice and princes
in war-time. Grown-up people have other things
to think about than that ; they are busy and anxious.”
‘That horrid, horrid war! All was so very
jolly before! George, I want to tell you another
secret.”
‘‘ Another ? You said * just one. |
‘Only one more; it is about Nurse. She is
different too; she never scolds now, and she never
pulls my hair when she combs it.”’
** What more do you want?”
‘*T want her to love me, I want her to talk to
me, I want her to play with me; but she reads the
newspapers all day long, and at night, when I have
said my prayers, and when she thinks I am asleep,
and when I only half open one of my eyes, Nurse
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9 99
Sweetwilliam
reads an old and very dirty letter. She cries, and
her nose gets red, as red as the red glass at the
chemist’s; and I cannot go to sleep because she
sighs so loudly. Before the war she used to sing
and to bring me my dolls to say good-night to them,
and she was such a dear, jolly nurse.”
“ Well, your dolls have not changed, have they ? ”
‘““ Most changed. They are now hospital nurses,
or post-women, or tramway-women.”’
‘“‘ And before the war ? ”
“ They were lovely, fashionable ladies: with
long trains and jewels and hats with big feathers.
One of them was a Russian—she was a dancer, called
Palowna ; she had a very short skirt of all colours,
quite shiny, and flowers in her hair. Now she is
called Nurse Jones of the Red Cross Society. It is
so dull! Before the war my dolls all slept under
blankets in their little beds beside mine.”
“And now?”
‘““ Now they sleep under little silk flags—the
national flags of all the countries which fight for
England. I keep changing them every day, but
to-night I put the Italian flag on top of the others.”’
«6 Why g??
‘“ Because it is very pretty; it is green, white,
and red. We bought it in the street yesterday. So
you see that I am quite right, George, that war
changes everybody and everything.”
“ Am I changed ? ”
“Most changed. You were a nice little boy
before, and a very nice bigger brother to me. And
now you are not a real, real brother; you forget
me. for hours and hours and days. You are only a
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The Book of Italy
Scout, you only think of war and ships and aircraft
and guns, and you keep drawing these ugly for-
tresses and submarines. I hate the war, which
changes everybody and everything except my pet
robin in our back garden.”
“The robin is just the same, is he ? ”
“He is, and he is not. I had to change his
name. He was called Sweetwilliam before the war,
and:he always flew to the open window when I
called him in that way.”
** And now ?”’ |
** Now he is called Garibaldi,. because he has
a red waistcoat. You know, Garibaldi was an
Italian hero in a scarlet shirt. When the war broke
out, you were away, George, and as you were away,
you cannot remember. It was very strange. One
day, soon after Father went to the front, I offered a
little cheese to the robin, as I do every morning.
He loves’cheese, and always takes it out of my hand.
That day I called him, as I always did, *‘ Sweet-
william,’ but he would not come. He perched on
a branch near the window, and I could see he was
very hungry. He is always hungry when it is cold
weather, and when he has small children, because
he gives half of the cheese to his children and eats
half himself.”
* Well 2”
‘Well, he hopped about wildly from branch to
branch. I held out the cheese so long that my
fingers were quite blue. I called him over and
over again by his very own name. He would not
come, he would not take anything out of my hand ;
he turned his head away, as if he was sick, and then
158
‘TH ‘atajad wvyvay
VINO AO AMVT ‘VLUO
Sweetwilliam
he got quite angry and ruffled his feathers and
screamed and flew away.”
** Did he come back ? ”
“Yes ; but not all that day. I was so sad, so
lonely, as sad and lonely as I am to-night—I don’t
know exactly why. Then next day I told Uncle
Fred all about it at breakfast. Uncle Fred knows
much about birds, but he was in a great hurry,
because he was going to Belgium, and he only
laughed and laughed loudly. Then he said, ‘ Well
done, little patriotic robin!’ and as he kissed me
good-bye, he said: ‘Mary, you should christen
your bird Garibaldi;’ and he told me about the
Italian soldier who was so good, so brave, and so
true, and who wore a red shirt. Next day I opened
the window, and I shouted: ‘ Garibaldi, Garibaldi,’
and the robin came at once. He was very, very
pleased, and he ate quite a lot from my hand.
Nurse said it was French cheese, and since then he
takes it every day. He has two children now, a
boy and a girl—brother and sister like you and me;
and I have called them Joffre and Joffrette—pretty
names I saw in Nurse’s horrid paper. .\. .”
“Listen, Mary. There is a regiment coming
—do you hear the band? The soldiers are in the
street. I want to be a soldier too.”
“* And leave me all alone ? ”
“‘ I must defend England, and Mother, and you.”
** But you are only a boy ‘ie
“Even a boy can help.”
Before Mary could turn round, George had left
oe room, and had joined the soldiers in the street
elow.
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The old house was very still. It was almost
dark now; the music of the drums and fifes had
died away in the distance; no sound was heard
excepting the sobs of a very lonely little girl; and
in the back garden a robin was chirping his young
ones to sleep in their nest.
LILLY FRAZER.
160
THE POET AND THE STOCK-
BROKER
THERE were two men who had been friends at
school together and afterwards at Cambridge ; and
the friendship continued when life called them in
different directions, for one became a poet and, by
his cerebral output, earned a sufficiency, but the
other, going about his father’s business, became
a stockbroker and amassed real wealth; so that
the poet could, and did, say, “ Dine with me
at the Restaurant Quelquechose in Soho,” and the
stockbroker replied, ‘“ ‘Thanks, old man; I should
like it. Just one condition, though—if you pay for
the dinner, you must let me pay for the wine.”
And to this the poet agreed. Incidentally, one may
add that the bill for the dinner was five shillings,
and the bill for the wine was thirty-five.
And afterwards they went to the poet’s chambers
in one of the old inns of London. This was partly
because, in recompense for their sorrows, it is given
to poets who live in old places to make the best
coffee in the world, such as stockbrokers, with many
to serve them, may not hope to attain, and partly
because these rooms gave facilities for private talk,
and partly because of certain licensing restrictions.
There, in the quiet (though so near to the roar of
London), these two men smoked rich cigars, about
four inches over life-size, and provided by the stock-
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The Book of Italy
broker. And the poet proposed that, using the
agency of the stockbroker, he should buy a very
large quantity of a certain stock for an immediate
rise, and so become really wealthy.
To this the stockbroker replied that his firm
did not do that class of business. He said, further,
that the speculation was insane, and told what fate
awaited weak bulls. And then he added that the
poet did not need wealth. He might think he did,
but he was mistaken. For the materials of poetry
were sorrows, and sunsets, and the love of women,
and these things were without money and without
price.
And then the poet tried to speak the truth. And
as this did not happen every day, I here put his
words on record. Whether they be erroneous or
not, you who read shall judge.
*““'You’d be all right, old man, if there were no
other people in the world. The one reason why I
want money is to buy the opinion of other people,
and to shelter me from the terrible effects of having
anything to do with other people. As it is, almost
all the money I spend is spent, quite cheerfully, to
buy opinion. I cannot conceive that, if there were
no other people, I should ever have bought a safety-
razor or a trousers-press. So far as the climate
allowed, I should not wear clothes at all. I should
never dine, in the accepted sense of the term. I
should never read—few really creative minds care
much about reading—they would sooner be doing
their own work. I should not, as at present, be fool
enough to buy needless furniture, pictures, and
books, to pay rent for a place to store them in, and
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The Poet and the Stockbroker
to pay again for an old woman to come in and keep
them clean—which, by the way, the blighter doesn’t.
I should rarely have recourse to alcohol, or coffee,
or other stimulants— which are necessary now,
directly or indirectly, from the friction of inter-
course with other people. You cannot concieve
how little I really need. You speak of sorrows,
sunsets, and the love of women. My dear chap,
you forget that you are speaking to a poet, or you
forget what the word means. Sorrows? I make
them in my own factory. Sunsets? Nature limps
miserably miles behind our best colourists. ‘The
love of women? If the women are real, that love
is never without its price. But think of the golden
power of imagination. I have held Helen of Troy
in my arms, I have climbed up to Juliet’s balcony,
Lady Hamilton has stepped from a Romney picture
to dance with me. Listen, my portly stockbroker,
whose income-tax by far exceeds my income. You
sit there, with your fat old fingers, crooked round
the glass, and you think you see before you an old
friend who is a poor devil of a scribbler. Why,
you’re looking at a man who has kissed Aphrodite
on the mouth.
“You are also looking at a pretty mean specimen
of the common worm. When I leave your house
after dinner, I tell the footman to get me a taxi.
I could perfectly well walk, but I do not want the
footman to think badly of me. I once spent far
more than I could afford on a fur coat, not to keep
me warm, but in order that other people should
think me richer than I was. At this moment I
want a good motor-car, to a lesser extent for the
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The Book of Italy
pleasure of driving and to take me about, and to
a far greater extent in order that other people may
know that I have a good motor-car. Pretty vulgar,
isn’t it?
“* Yes, but it’s not my vulgarity ; it’s the vulgarity
of the other people. One pays something to be a poet.
One pays for it by an excessive, hypertrophied,
damnable sensitiveness. I cannot live in a hostile
atmosphere. I don’t know that I want admiration,
but I cannot tolerate contempt. If other people
have vulgar standards—and they nearly all have—
then I must conform to vulgar standards. There
are plenty of people whom I despise, but there is
not one person on the earth whose good opinion
and good will I would not make sacrifices to get.
If I met an imbecile Aztec pauper, I should try to
impress him.
‘So you see my point. I don’t care about money,
and don’t want anything, if I may be alone. But
because other people do care for money, and do
think that one wants many things, and could never
understand me, I am driven to falsify myself. Be-
cause I am a poet, I must also be a worm, and a
snob, and a bounder.”’
And at this the stockbroker, after observing that
worms did not bound, turned the conversation,
justifiably, to a discussion of the Balkan Crisis.
Barry PAIN.
164
IN THE MOUNTAINS OF ITALY
LOOKING towards the long range of snow-covered
mountains from Lombardy, one wonders what
strange secrets are shrouded in their mists. They
are ever-changing—one moment all is hidden be-
neath heavy storm-clouds, then a_ snow-peak,
flushed by the rising sun, gleams out, and gradually
the clouds roll away in weird fantastic shapes like
wandering spirits. The mountains change from
grey and purple to the loveliest blue, the peaks lose
their terrifying aspect, and in their tranquillity tempt
one to explore their wildness.
In the plains the peasants often go to their
work singing, and are communicative and eager to
talk; but in the mountains they become silent,
for they are much alone—sometimes in the high
pasture-land for weeks at a time without seeing a
human being. ‘They watch the storms and sun-
sets, and grow most observant of nature, and
living in these surroundings it is not surprising
to find they have such vivid imaginations. But it
is not until one has gained their confidence that
they will talk of their beliefs and fears—and then
one realises what a great part these play in their
lives.
When near a glacier, every peasant will tell how
they have seen the “ cours,” the strange procession
of the spirits of the dead winding through the
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The Book of Italy
mountains on their way to the glacier singing the
‘‘ Miserere.”’ For a penance they have to pick out
steps in the ice with a pin, so that at last they may
pass from purgatory to paradise. The peasants
even say that they have walked along by the side
of these weird companies, and have seen the shining
halos round their heads and hands.
Sometimes they describe the spirits as being
dressed in ordinary clothes and carrying bundles
wrapped in white tied to staves held on their
shoulders, and when they speak it is so low that
their conversation cannot be understood.
Two girls I knew, said they walked along with
the procession to see if they could recognise any-
one. At last the younger girl said to her sister :
‘“‘ Let us-turn our lantern on their faces, perchance
we may see some one we know.”’ When the lantern
was flashed, the spirit said: “We go our road
without disturbing you; you go your road without
disturbing us,” and two by two the spirits passed
on in silence. |
Other peasants say these companies are led by
living flames, or by the ghost of the wickedest one
very richly dressed, who when he comes to a
precipice has to bend down his body, which is
miraculously lengthened out to reach the other
side, thus forming a bridge over which the other
spirits can pass. Children, they say, often mistake
these phantoms for human beings carrying lights,
and when they have asked for one, they have been
given something luminous which in the morning
has turned out to be the phosphorescent bone of
the spirit’s little finger. Until the child returns the
166
AARON, PALAZZO DELL’ ARCIVESCOVADO, MILAN
Estella Canziant
In the Mountains of Italy
luminous bone, the spirit is forced to go weeping
at the end of the procession, for otherwise he
will have no light to guide him on his way to
Paradise.
If there is a queerly-shaped rock it is certain to
have some legend connected with it. An old shep-
herd told the following story about a boulder at a
place called Piantalor. A hunter named Gebbe
went off hunting one night ; he walked all day into
the higher mountains, arriving at Piantalor in the
evening, and lay down to sleep on the rock. In the
middle of the night he was awakened by the flare
of a burning pine-tree, which was so brilliant that
it lighted up the grass and moss even in the sur-
rounding valleys. Seated on every stone near where
he lay, he saw the shadowy figures of beautiful
maidens. At first all was silent save for the sound
of the burning wood. Then one by one the girls
burst into song, singing as they rose and danced :
“O del Cielo gran Regina
Tu sei degna d’ogni amor ;
La beltade tua divina,
Chi non ama, non ha cuor.”
As each phantom glided by with her flowing
veil, Gebbe thought she was going to seize him,
and was very frightened. At last the flame died
down, and there was nothing left except a column
of smoke rising to heaven. His fear subsided, and
he watched the singers rise and follow their leader,
who touched the mysterious stone, which opened,
revealing a cavern with a staircase descending into
the depths of the earth. The spirits went down the
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The Book of Italy
stairway, and when the last had disappeared, shut
the cavern with such a crash that it shook the whole
earth. Who knows whether the cavern contains
immense riches, and will its mystery ever be
fathomed ?
In every district there is a strong belief in
witches, and in their evil spells, especially over
children. Sometimes a baby is said to have been
snatched from its cradle, and a witch-baby put in
its place. This changeling is always naughty, is
often very ugly and cannot speak. After years of
trouble the mother will by chance put eggs and
polenta to roast on the hearth, and this so excites
the witch-baby that it cries out: “In all the hun-
dreds of years that I have lived, I have never seen
so many eggs and so much polenta before.’”’ The
peasant then knows that he is a witch-child, and has
lived hundreds of years. She thereupon seizes him
and beats him, until his cries bring his own witch-
mother, who snatches him away, returning the
human baby to its parents. .
A peasant living in a little lonely village told
the following story : A tinker once strolled into the
house of two witches, mother and daughter. He
did a day’s work for them, and asked if he might
rest the night there. As he was dozing off to sleep
he overheard the following conversation: ‘“‘ A baby
was born to the tinker last night—shall we take it
from him?” The witches agreed to do this. They
greased themselves with some ointment out of a
pot, and flew away, calling out: ‘‘ High and low,
carry me out of the reach of shrubs, branches, and
trees.”” The tinker then greased himself with some
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In the Mountains of Italy
of the same ointment, and called out: “‘ Carry me
one hour sooner.” In his anxiety to save his
baby he forgot the other words, and he arrived home
torn and bleeding in his rush through the bushes.
He lay down and watched his child, and soon a
black cat appeared, who stretched out a paw to
seize the infant. The tinker was ready with an
old sword, and, aiming well, he cut off the cat’s
paw. Once more the witches uttered their magic
words and flew back home, followed by the
tinker. °
Next morning, when he asked to be paid for his
day’s work, the old mother counted out the money
with her left hand. The tinker insisted that it
should be done with the right. He then saw that
she only had a stump, and drawing the cat’s paw
from his pocket, he found to his amazement that it
fitted exactly.
Besides legends, there are numerous songs and
proverbs which the peasants sing and teach their
children. What could be more charming than the
following cradle-song ?
I I
Fa la nina, (Sleep, my little one,
Fa la nana, Sleep, little one,
T’ses le gioja Thou art the joy
D’tua mama. - Of thy mother.
II II
Fa la nina, | Sleep, my little one,
Fa la nana, Sleep, little one,
T’ses la gioja Thou art the joy
To papa. Of thy father.)
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The Book of Italy
What could give better advice than these two
proverbs ?
“ Chi a la pasienssa cun el fil,
A l’a pasienssa cun el mari”
(“ Who has patience with the thread,
Has patience with the husband ” ;
and : “Chi lA paura dél cauld dl’ista
A chérpa d’fam an tl’invern”’
(“ He who fears the heat of summer,
Will die of hunger in the winter ’’).
But it is only when wandering from valley to
valley, entering into the lives of the peasants, work-
ing with them, nursing their babies whilst the
mothers attend to their duties, that gradually one
sees how endless and varied are their ideas. Every
plant is known for its value as a medicine. If one
gathers a bunch of flowers for the sake of their
beauty, the first question asked is: “‘ For what sick-
ness art thou going to use them ? ”’
The real time for stories and song is in the
evenings, when the family with their goats and cows
have come down from the mountains, and are
gathered together in the stable. The door is shut
to keep in the warmth, and the mother of the family
warms the soup over a fire smouldering between
a few stones in the middle of the floor. Through
the smoke and gloom the faces of the peasants peer
forth strange and gnome-like. The silence is only
broken by the cows chewing the cud ; the chickens
fluttering up to roost on the rough wooden beds.
When snuff has been offered and accepted by host and
guest alike, it is then, and only then, that the reserve
of the peasant is broken and the evening is passed in
story, song, and game.
eta 5 EsTELLA CANZIANI.
170
DONNA ROSA
Rose of the south, whose young fair face
Has borrowed all the rose’s grace,
Straight as a lance, you aptly claim
The heritage of Manfred’s name :
Slight as its shaft—to me you seem
To glide from out some old-world dream,
Some rare and unensanguined page
Of story from the middle-age ;
The princess of some castled isle
Who earned a ransom with a smile,
Or held at bay man’s brute offence
Disarmed before her innocence.
Still, though you grace our graceless days
And meet me in romanceless ways,
I see across your eyes’ dark glance
The flashing of the Suabian’s lance,
And through the smile of your young mouth
Immortal roses of the south.
RENNELL Ropp.
171
ANIMA MIA
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172
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GON DOLAS
THERE is no creature in the world so proud as a
gondola, unless perhaps it be a camel in his own
desert, or in the market-place of some desert-
bordering city. Possibly this seems so because we
only see him in his own ancient town, stabled under-
neath palatial porticoes in the Grand Canal, or
prowling silently down little secret ways where
ever and anon an old green door aswing in a wall
of marble suggests some mystery that the gondola
knows. I cannot say how he would appear to us
if we saw him on the Thames—whether he would
go drifting under the bridges as the barges do,
wearing the weary air of some captive pent in
Babylon, or whether, even though a slave, his pride
would not desert him, and he would go by, though
piled up high with merchandise, still wearing that
lofty, haughty air of his and standing out jet black,
even against London, an alien fierce and notable,
so that some Venetian by chance beholding him
would burst into song. I think it is more likely
that on being transported his timbers would rot
asunder, and that when they launched him he
would instantly sink, dying as was the custom of
barbarian kings destined for some triumph of old
Rome ; and his soul would go home by the long
ways of the sea, round Cape ‘Tarifa, through the
Mediterranean, and up the Adriatic to the Lido,
and into Venice with the rise of the tide.
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The Book of Italy
Certainly, seen in his own land, the bearing of a
gondola is magnificent. Easily moved. to anger,
they are splendid even in their wrath. Nothing
else dares to dispute with them the right of the
ways of Venice except the steamers on the Grand
Canal. When these go by, the gondolas stand
absolutely motionless at their moorings with their
disdainful heads in air. But a moment after-
wards their fury vents itself. They toss their
stately heads and stamp on the water; they, the
descendants of the old sea-horses, whose crests they
bear to-day, to be disturbed by the snorts of a
modern ship made out of machinery without a
soul! And they jostle and quarrel with one another
in their fury, and the gondoliers awake from sleep
and swear, and for a long time there is anger among
the gondolas.
In spring and summer, as soon as the night has
fallen, lanterns are lit on rafts out in the open
lagoon, and men and women sing, and then from
the palaces whereby they are stabled, and from little
alleys and by-ways of the sea the nodding gondolas
come one by one, peering toward the lights. And
more and more lide quietly in, all nodding as they
come, and draw themselves up in rows all round
the music, like great wise moths that some beautiful
candle has lured out of the night, who are content
to watch it without ruin. And gathered there
around the music and lights, their shapely heads
lift slowly sleepily up, and fall again in rhythm to
the faint echo of the throb of the pulse of the
Adriatic elate with some far-off storm.
No two gondolas are alike. You tell them by
174
The Book. of I realy
| Certainly, seen in his own land, the bearing of a ee
gondola is magnificent. Easily moved to anger,
they are splendid even in their wrath.
else dares to dispute with them the. right of the
ways of Venice except the steamers on the Grand
Canal. When these go by, the gondolas stand =
absolutely motionless at their moorings with their
disdainful heads in air. But a moment after-
wards their fury vents itself. ‘They toss their .—
stately heads and stamp on the water; they, the __
descendants of the old sea-horses, whose crests they’ 4
bear to-day, to be disturbed by the snorts of a
modern ship made out of machinery without a
soul! And they jostle and quarrel ried one another
in their fury, and np .aneres awake from sleep
the goncolag s&s? SBRAGrANG, Vice” “OBES MONE
In spring and seren Kont 4s“soon as the night has ee
fallen, lanterns are lit on rafts out in the eae
lagoon, and men and women sing, and then from A
the palaces whereby they are stabled, and from little
alleys and by-ways of the sea the nodding gondolas
come one by one; peering toward the ight a
more and more glide quietly in, all as they
come, and draw themselves up in rows all round
the music, like great wise mothe that some beautiful
candle has lured out of the , who are content
to watch it without ruin. ‘ gathered there
around the music and lights, their "chiapelg heads
lift slowly sleepily up, and fall again im rhythm to 89
the faint echo of the throb of the pulse of the >
Adriatic elate with some far-off storm. i.
No two gondoles are alike. You tell them by
174
; es N
eee eer:
- cans a”
PAP ar!
¢ al ‘I
ie Bao eA aged ders cee
Bes ale pakke
aps Re ga toe S28
4 =o “ . ay ‘i
Gondolas
their faces as one tells men, and the steel face of
every gondola differs from every other in Venice.
I am fond of the gondolas. I know that he
great steamships whom the gondolas despise, and
who hate the gondolas, can move much faster than
any one of them, if one must needs be in a hurry.
I know that the whole system under which the
gondolas exist is an artificial one. I know that
the Adriatic will one day sweep away the mud-
banks and whelm Venice, and that not one gondola
will ever weather that storm.
Nevertheless I love the gondolas. For they
have in their hearts the pride of the old sea-horses,
and theirs is the grace of princely bygone times.
And they have carried me into their favourite haunts,
to and fro through little darkening ways, where
strange faces peer from little windows and songs
_ begin to arise, when the sunset, unseen from the
waterways, is turning the palaces into haunts of
-faery in which dwelt the princes of Once-upon-
a-time and the people of Over-the-hills-and-far-
away. 7
All this the bats know, who the whole day long
hang silent under marmorean eaves, but at sunset
drop head downwards from their homes, when all
the bugles speak in foreign tongues, and the great
alien vessels furl their flags, and the bats pass up
and down and to and fro and know all the ways
of Venice.
DUNSANY.
i f
NIGHT
Vesuvius, purple under purple skies
Beyond the purple, still, unrippling sea ;
Sheer amber lightning, streaming ceaselessly
From heaven to earth, dazzling bewildered eyes
With all the terror of beauty: thus day dies
That dawned in blue, unclouded innocency ;
And thus we look our last on Italy,
That soon, obscured by night, behind us lies.
And night descends on us, tempestuous night,
Night, torn with terror, as we sail the deep,
And like a cataract down a mountain-steep
Pours, loud with thunder, that red perilous fire .. .
Yet shall the dawn, O land of our desire,
Show thee again, re-orient, crowned with light !
WILFRID WILSON GIBSON.
176
TRE CIME DI LAVAREDO
Most of us who have lived a good long time have
found some part of the world to look on as the
happy hunting-ground of our spirits, the place most
blessed by memory. And within that sacred circle
there will be some spot above all others, enchanted.
Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Drei Zinnen! You
three rock mountains above Misurina of the Italian
Tyrol—how many times have we not climbed up,
to lie on your high, stony slopes, steeping our eyes
in wild form and colour, wherefrom even a dull
spirit must take wings and soar a little. Width of
thought is surely born, in some sort, of majestic
sights—cloud forms, and a burning sky, rock pin-
nacles, and wandering, deep-down valleys, the grey-
violet shadows on the hills, the frozen serenity of
far snows. All the outspread miracle there lies fan-
shaped to the south, south-east, south-west, having
the southern warmth, that something which so
makes the heart rejoice the moment one passes
over and looks southward from any mountain.
What traveller does not feel strange loveliness steal
up into his soul from southern slopes? Domo-
dossola below the Simplon; Val d’Aosta beyond
the Matterhorn ; Bormio beneath the Stelvio ; and
many another holy place. It is not merely charm and
mellowness—the south can be savage as the north—
it is some added poignancy of form and colour, and
a look of being blessed.
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The Book of Italy
Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Music comes drifting
up your slopes, from pasture far down enough to
give magic to the cow-bells.
And now, up where but three years ago we
watched a little white cow licking its herd’s sprained
hand, they are fighting to the death. Batteries must
be adorning that steep forcella running from the
refuge hut. A new kind of thunder reverberates,
in whose roar. the stones that were for ever falling
will have lost their voices. And the beasts—the grey,
the dun, the white, mild-eyed—their pasture below
must be a desert! Even the goats surely have
gone. Or do they and their young masters attend
placidly on these new mysteries, just pricking their
ears now and again at some too raucous clap and
clatter of guns?
If men are being killed up there, let them be buried
in their tracks! Out of their bodies on the lower
slopes a few more flowers will spring—gentian,
mountain dandelion, alpen rose; round the peaks
they will be grateful food for root of edelweiss.
And may their spiritt—if men have such after
death—stay up there on those wild heights! No-
where else could they have such pure, free flitting
space! Friend-spirit, foe-spirit, they will fight no
more, but on the winter nights in comradeship
haunt about the frozen hills, where no shred of man
or beast or bird or plant is left, till Spring comes
again.
To fight up here, where Nature has designed
one vast demonstration of her own fierce untame-
ness, of all the stubborn face she opposes to the
arts of man! What irony! Up in this wild,
178
Tre Cime dt Lavaredo
stony citadel, among these rock minarets and red-
and - gold - stained bastions, above ravines remote
from man—up here, where in winter all is ice, and
even in summer no green thing, grows; on these
invincible outposts of an Earth subdued by incal-
culable human toil throughout a million years ;
among these.sublime unconquered monuments, re-
minding man of labour and peril infinite in his
long death-grip with Nature—up here man_ has
fellow-man by the throat. Yea! It is irony com-
plete! Nor the less perfect, in that each soldier on
these heights who in duty clubs his fellow-Christian’s
brains out, or sends forth the shell that shall mingle
his body with the rock rubble and the edelweiss,
and sets up a little cross, perhaps, to the departed
soul, is a true hero, holding his life in his hand
throwing it down grandly for his country’s honour.
Verily we are strange animals, we men—little
walking magazines of too great vitality! Out of
our sheer rampancy comes War; as though super-
fluity of vital fluid were for ever accumulating, to
free ourselves of which we have found as yet no
better way than this. Shall we never learn to
spend the surplus of our vital force in efforts of
salvation, rather than destruction? If the moun-
tains cannot teach us, and the wide night skies above
them, sparkling with other worlds, then nothing
will. For—on mountains and beneath such skies,
man feels at his greatest, flies far in fancy, dreams
of nobility; yet does he perceive what a puny
midget of a creature walks on his two feet, glad of
any little help he can get or give, avid of goodwill
from any living thing. In loneliness up here he
O 179
~
The Book of Italy
would soon be frozen and starved, or slip to death.
His tiny strength, his feeble cunning, should avail
him but short span. Unroped to other men, he is
but a sigh in the night, a cross of bleaching lime in
the sunlight... .
Tre Cime di Lavaredo! Golden sounds of a
golden speech! When, if ever, we see your beloved
rocks again, that will be your only name ; no longer
will the words Drei Zinnen compete for you. .. .
And will you know the difference? As of old,
gigantic—silent, or, desolately, in the loosening rains
and heat casting down your stones—you will lift
up your black defiance in the clear mountain nights,
your grandeur to the sun by day.
Once we saw you with the young moon flying
toward, like a white swallow, like an arrow aimed at
your hearts, as it might be in duel between bright
swiftness and dark strength. The moon was van-
quished—for she flew into you that stood unmoved.
Tre Cime di Lavaredo! You will outlast the
race of men upon this earth. When we, quarrel-
some midget heroes that we be, are all frozen from
this planet, you will be there, whitened for ever
from head to foot. Only, you will have no name
—neither of north nor south !
JOHN GALSWORTHY.
Sepiember 3, 1915.
180
NOTTI VENEZIANE
Sogno Veneziano
I sLepT in Venice. The bright windy day
Merged into night, along the Zattere,
Over the long Giudecca luminous.
The night was bright and windy ; and ’twas thus
I fell asleep and let the moonlight fall
Across my face, and scatter on the wall ;
And thus I came into the moonlight spell.
I dreamed ; and in my dream a darkness fell
Upon the land and water, and the night
Poured like a flood across the infinite.
Then, as I dreamed, the billowy darkness broke
At some soft, slow, insinuating stroke,
And lo! a little core of light began
To waken softly, and its rays out-ran,
And, by insensible degrees, increased
Into the semblance of a phantom East ;
And the whole night gathered and overflowed,
Flood upon flood, until a shining road
Of level water lay out endlessly
Into the outer reaches of the sea.
I floated forth lightly upon it, and
Suddenly, round me, there was no more land,
But rioting from the depths of the sea’s caves,
The shining floor broke into hollow waves,
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The Book of Italy
And rocked the house about me, and drove me on
Into the night of waters. Land was gone,
The whole live Earth shrank like a startled snail
Into the shell of heaped-up waters, pale
As moonlight in the moonlight, and now curled
Under and over and round about the world.
And the waves drew me, and the treacherous night
Into the circle of its infinite
Would fain have sucked me, and I saw the moon
Laughing an evil laugh, and the stars swoon
Into an ecstasy of merriment.
Then, knowing I was wholly lost, I sent
A great cry shouting up into the sky,
And leapt upright, and with an echoing cry
Over my head I heard the waters hiss ;
And I fell slowly down the sheer abyss,
Age after endless age of such intense
And unimaginably sharp suspense,
That soul and body parted at the stroke ;
And with the utter anguish I awoke,
And saw the night grow softly into day
Outside my windows on the Zattere.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
182
TE ey Naam 9 —
ae
ae
VESPERS, ST. MARK’S, VENICE
Charles J. Watson, R.E,
A TUSCAN EPISODE
THE two sat looking at me with that wistful, plead-
ing expression in their eyes that most of us have
seen in the eyes of a suffering animal which knows
its pain, but would seek also to know from us the
reason why that pain should have come to it. It
is a look which we hate to see in the eyes of any
stricken creature; in those of a stricken human
being it is well-nigh intolerable, because it brings
home to us our own impotence toYanswer the
greatest question of all. We know that if we could
answer this question satisfactorily, or even plausibly,
whether to man or beast, we should be the wisest
of all mortals, sharing our knowledge with the
angels alone.
It was difficult to believe, as I walked through
the vineyards and campi that morning in late
summer, that the world lay groaning under the
scourge of war. Peace and tranquillity seemed to
be writ large on the face of the smiling ‘Tuscan
landscape. ‘The dew still lingered on the grapes,
and on the banks. of the vineyards gay with wild
geranium and starred here and there with the
autumn crocus. There was no sound in the still
air save the shrilling of grasshoppers, the occasional
lowing of great, white oxen, and, every now and
then, a snatch of song from some concealed con-
tadino working on the fields down in the valley.
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The Book of Italy
The contrast between the world as God intended it
to be, and the world as man was making it, seemed
to be brought into a sharper relief than ever by a
sermon which was being preached by Nature her-
self, the greatest of all teachers. The incredible,
unutterable folly and wickedness of man, delibe-
rately planning and seeking his own misery and
destruction, needed no deeper or more ironical
condemnation than that conveyed by Nature speak-
ing in her own clear language that summer morning.
And the pity of it was that she was speaking the
same language and teaching the same divine doctrine
not only here in these peaceful Tuscan hills and
valleys, but also within a stone’s throw of trenches
and battle-fields where twenty centuries of vaunted
Christian civilisation were being undone, and the
doctrines of Christ denied and trampled under
foot—speaking, alas! to those who, having ears, hear
not, and whose understanding is blunted by the
lust for power and blood.
Perhaps it was the sudden snatches of stornellt,
which ceased almost as soon as begun, which made
me realise that the sorrows of war lay much closer
to the tranquil, pastoral scene around me than
might be suspected. To one unacquainted with
the Tuscan country, these snatches of song at once
dying away into silence would have conveyed little
or no significance—a peasant singing to himself,
and too lazy to sing—nothing more. But to one
knowing Tuscany, these spiritless snatches of stor-
nelli spoke of a shadow brooding over the usual
Tuscan light-heartedness, the shadow of war ever
creeping closer and closer, and stealthily enveloping
184
A Tuscan Episode
the land. In ordinary times the stornello would
have been taken up by other young peasant voices.
It would not have dropped into silence as though
the singer’s mind were occupied by other thoughts
than love or a malicious desire to prendere in giro his
neighbour—thoughts too grave to find their utter-
ance in song. Indeed, the singer on this occasion
must have known very well that there were none
to take up his refrain or to challenge his sentiments ;
those who would have been prompt to do so at other
times were now far away, fighting the hated Aus-
trians. Half-way on the rough track leading down
into one of the innumerable little valleys in the
Pisan hills, a peasant’s house and out-buildings
nestled beneath a group of plane-trees. It was
here that I was bent, for I had heard the evening
before that to this cottage one of those fatal letters
had come, announcing to the contadino and his
wife the fall of the elder of their two sons in an
assault on one of the mountain positions occupied
by the Austrian troops. The second boy, luckily
for the parents, was still a child. But with the
fallen lad had gone, as I well knew, the main support
of the family, for the father had for long been
in ill-health, and could do but little work on the
poder. What comfort could one bring to such a
home as this? ‘To others, stricken in a similar way,
it would, no doubt, have been customary to dwell
upon the honour and glory of having given a son
to the cause of Ja Patria ; to have pointed out that
the sacrifice had not been made in vain; to have
attempted consolation by suggesting that this was
a grief which was daily visiting thousands of other
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The Book of Italy
parents and families; to have offered, in short,
any one of those stock platitudes which are usually
deemed to be consolatory and also fitting in similar
circumstances, with occasional allusions to resig-
nation to the will of God thrown in. I had scarcely .
entered the dwelling before it became evident to me
that, even had I any desire to offer consolatory
platitudes, this was neither the time nor the com-
pany in which to utter them. Something, I know
not what, made me realise that silence was the best
sympathy I could offer to the contadino and his
wife, who, for several minutes after my entrance,
stood and looked at me with that unuttered question
in their weary but patient eyes; and in silence I
held their brown hands, knowing that neither I
nor any man living had the knowledge, or the right,
to answer their dumb appeal.
“I know that Italo was everything to you,” I
said presently, for the silence grew intolerable,
“but you must remember that you have Sandro
left. ‘They will not take him, you know, for he
will be a figho unico, and by the time he is eligible
for military service he will be able to show that he
is the sole support of his parents.”’
“Italo was everything to us—everything, you
understand, signoria—a good lad, one can say no
more than that. But, signorta, you are standing,”
and the father drew a chair towards me. ‘“ Yes,”
he continued, “the letter came yesterday, to the
sindaco, and they sent it down here. ‘They say
Italo has died for la Patria, and that we should be
proud of him. Ma, veda, signoria, we were always
proud of him. It did not need Ja Patria to make us
186 :
A Tuscan Episode
that, and what can the dead do to make us proud
of them any more? And now the land will suffer,
and the beasts, for Italo was no vagabondo ; he
worked, signoria, and he had learned from books,
too—not like me, who am ignorant. Sometimes,
when the winter came, he would go away and work
at other things, but always he sent us his earnings,
for he was a good son.”
For a moment I felt an unpleasing sense of a
certain sordidness betraying itself. I wished that
the father of the fallen lad had not alluded to
material matters. I turned to the mother. ‘“ You
must try to have courage,” I said, compelled to
descend to platitudes ; “Italo did his duty to you
both in his life, and in his death he did his duty
to his country—so even though he is no longer
here, you should continue always to be proud of
him.’’ Without answering, Italo’s mother went to
a table and, unlocking a drawer, produced a card,
which she handed to me.
““A money order!” I said, as I took it from
her.
‘* Signoria, yes—a vagha. It came yesterday
morning—only a few hours before they sent us the
letter from the municipio. You see? he sends us
nearly two months of his pay—you can read what *
he has written on the side of the card. Sixty dre,
he can have kept very little for himself. But our
Italo is always like that!’ Unconsciously, prob-
ably, she used the present tense, and the fact that
she did so seemed to bring the dead lad strangely
near to us.
“It is the last vagha he will send us,’
b
said
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The Book of Italy
the contadino ; “and he has sent many, signoria
—yes, many. When he was away at Livorno, or
at Florence, nearly every fortnight he would send
us the most of what he earned; but this vaglia
—well, it is the last he will send, stcuro !/ ”
“The money will be useful, ” replied, ReTAAE
a little dryly.
“The money ?”’ repeated the contadino—* what
money ? ”
“Why, the money of the vagha!—you will
change it, of course, at the post-office ? ”’
The father and mother both looked at me.
‘No, signoria,” they exclaimed in the same breath.
“No; the post-office would take the vagha away
from us, and, capisce, this bit of paper was the last
he wrote upon to us. No—the post-office may
keep the money.”
And soon afterwards I left them. It seemed to
me that they were better alone with their dead.
But as I left them, I saw that the question in their
eyes remained unanswered, and that it would remain
so until God should see fit to answer it. Also, I
was bitterly ashamed of myself for having made
the observation regarding the utility of sixty lre,
and for having suspected sordidness where there
was nothing but love.
RICHARD BAGOT.
188
RHEIMS
Domingo Motta (Genoa)
WHERE THE MOUNTAINS MEET
THE PLAINS
THROUGH the blank horror of this war, many of
us no doubt have prayed, even unconsciously, that
the beauty of Italy might be spared for the refresh-
ment of a world, beaten and bruised, lacerated and
despoiled, as our world is to-day. We have prayed
that the murky river of wrong and bitter pain—the
cruel, the unimaginable material forces which one
nation has let loose on neighbour nations for their
destruction—might still be stayed. We have longed
that it should not pollute yet one other of the
gracious lands of Europe: that it should not touch
Italy—that land more crowded with the artistic
achievement of man than any land on earth.
Morally, we have not wished that her new-formed
people should escape the agonising struggle; but
artistically, yes, we have longed for an escape.
And our hearts these months have crept back surely
to the old loved places ; some have travelled here,
some have gone therein memory. For myself, my
thoughts have lingered most on the south side of
the Alps which guard them, rather than amidst the
palaces and cities of the plains.
¥* * * * * *
As the news of June leaked into our papers, a
poignant memory of girlhood returned to me, and
189
The Book of Italy
round it seemed to focus all the mustering of the
brave Italian armies. It was the memory of a May
evening in 1888. I had spent that spring with my
father * in our little house upon the Zattere at Venice.
My brain was soaked with the art of Venice—my
heart filled with rare new friendships and experi-
ences. We were to travel back to our Swiss home
by way of Pieve di Cadore and Cortina, one of the
great highways which lead from Italy into Austria.
Our first night was spent in the little town of Lon-
garone. It was late in the afternoon. The heat
of the day had been intense, but the inn to which
we came, with all its large palatial rooms, felt curi-
ously cool and sleepy. I remember how I rested in
the shade of a great salone ; sitting on one of those
wide settees peculiar to old Italian inns, my feet
cooled by the scagliola floor on which water had
been lately sprinkled. Then the sun went down
outside, and I threw the ES wooden shutters
open.
It is nearly thirty years ago, but the scene is
vivid in my memory. Below was the main street
of the little town, and beyond it the walled-in
mountain torrent ; immediately opposite was some
fantastic, possibly a quite modern, palace, with a
frieze of pomegranates and of fleur-de- lis, painted
in white and brown, below its roofs. The street
ended abruptly ; the road wound up the hillside
to the left. Then suddenly, in the hush of the
sunset, a little band of Bersaglieri ran quickly up
the street, and up the road and away into the first
gaunt crags of the mountains up beyond. My
[} John Addington Symonds.—TueE Eprror. ]
190 |
Where the Mountains meet the Plains
father came from his room and told me how the
Bersaglieri always run into action and are never
allowed to walk. We went out on the iron balcony,
and we watched them up the mountain road till
they disappeared amongst the shadows of the rocks.
But long after we ceased to see their gay cocks’
feathers and white gaiters, we could hear the shrill
call of their bugles as they wound up the mountain-
side.
And I remember how, later, my father and I
ourselves walked up the street, and the road to the
mountain ; and how we came in the evening to a
green meadow, where grew abundantly the white
spirza with feathery blossom, and amongst it, here
and there, like torches amongst fair ladies, the
splendid orange tiger-lily. Below us lay the brown
roofs of the little town ; above us towered the Alps
—those amazing natural ramparts which guard the
Lombard cities from the cruelties of the North,
and which have broken, though they could not
stay, the force of so many Northern invasions.
* * * * * *
I shall never forget that meadow. I shall never
forget the Bersaglieri. I have wandered much since
then amidst the pleasant cities of the plain—Milan,
Bergamo, Brescia, Vicenza, Verona, Padua, and
many others. I have crossed the next great natural
rampart of the Apennines, and come to Florence
and the gentle hills and towns of Umbria; and
thence again I have passed to Rome and Naples,
and those more fearful cities of the South. All
the treasures of man’s creative mind are here con-
IgI
The Book of Italy
tained—jewels set in a hundred natural crowns. I
have read the history of these places, and thought
and pondered on the whence and wherefore of their
unparalleled loveliness, and on the genius of that
strange mixed people who created them. ‘Turning
over the old chronicles, I have read of their wars
—the fierce, fantastic wars of all the separate cities
—cities which may be said to have arisen from the
very blood of their citizens. What a gay and gallant
clash of swords was theirs, after all—at least by
comparison with modern methods. Hand to hand
fights they were—things of the miraculous incon-
sequence of children’s quarrels !
And what a wealthy heritage we have gained
from all that curious jumbled history. For whilst
the blood of the young men coursed through the
piazzas, whilst citizens poured stones and boiling
oil on the heads of the approaching hordes, up in
some quiet room of an old palace, or down by the
altars of a new-built church or chapel, men who were
passionately acquainted with Beauty in all her forms,
would set their easels up, or hang their mighty can-
vases ; and there, through all the noise and stress,
would sit the whole day through, painting their placid
pictures, cutting their golden marbles—creating just
because of, or in spite of the wrong and turmoil,
those pictures and those sunny marble garlands
which we may pray for power to make, in vain.
* * * * *% *
Yes, they are very good to think about, the cities
of Italy. But always, in memory, I myself come
back to the delightful unfrequented places where
192
Where the Mountains meet the Plains
the mountains meet the plains, and where the
spirit, rather than the achievement of the Italians,
seems to me most to linger. When exhausted by
the purposeless and often hideous crowd of red-
brick English villas, I still can close my eyes and
can remember, how somewhere, for miles on count-
less miles, the great Alps roll, down to the great
plains. I can see the granite boulders at Chiavenna,
with the fantastic curves of the chestnut trees which
spring above them ; the sparkling mountain streams,
the delicate green pastures where snowflakes and
narcissus grow in spring. I can see the shimmer
of lilac crocus round the tall barocco churches in
September ; the slender campaniles with their bells
against the sky ; and the wayside shrines with poor,
but passionate, paintings of our Lord. And women
I can see, beautiful as Titian’s women, with copper
pails or baskets on their heads ; and children, brown
and lithe as fawns, dancing on autumn afternoons
around the white ash of their chestnut fires, in
woods where the traveller rarely goes, but where
the Bersaglieri mustered this summer of dread and
war.
MarGARET VAUGHAN.
193
A FINE ITALIAN GENTLEMAN OF
THE OLD SCHOOL
A REMINISCENCE OF SOUTHERN ITALY
Towarps the close of the last century the writer
of these lines, investigating the: social and economic
situation of South Italy, alighted at a small wayside
station in Old Calabria, in the far-away heel of the
boot of Italy—a remote spot unvisited by the tourist,
unknown even to the travelling Italian. It was
before the days of State railways, and the infir-
mities of the way-and-weather-worn first-class car-
riage in which he travelled needed first aid with
hammer and nails before it was in a condition to
leave Lecce.
Comparisons are sometimes made between Eng-
lish and Continental standards of hospitality, to the
detriment of the latter. The writer can truly say
that, possessing no other credential than a brief,
formal introduction, he was welcomed with a cor-
diality, a courtesy and delicacy of manner that
formed the prelude to a lifelong friendship. ‘‘ Here,”
said his genial host, “‘is your room where you can
quietly write ; such are the hours of our repasts ;
my sons will drive you about and assist you in your
inquiries.” It was a large palazzo, with lofty rooms
and painted ceilings, a private chapel, a loggia, and
charming garden with vine and orange, and a
194
‘SMA V 9M passny *M
ONVLISOd ‘ATVD AINAHLNOS V
A Fine Italian Gentleman
classic exhedra at the end containing a bust of
Dante, with the inscription Non surse il secondo.
A patriarchal household, with pensioners and depen-
dents not a few, its mistress the Baronessa, a stately
Italian gentlewoman of rare charm and matronly
sympathy.
Much has been written of the evils and deficiencies
of the Italian south; of absenteeism, of illiteracy,
of poverty, of, corruption, of laziness. Laziness !
When the Southern Italian is he who, among all
European labourers, will perform the _ greatest
amount of efficient work for the smallest pay ; who
will cross the ocean to reap one harvest on the
burning plains of Argentina, and return to reap an-
other under the fiery sun of South Italy.
Truly in those days, before remedial legislation
and emigration to America, with its consequent
influx of money, its contact with a higher standard
of living, had brought about the relative economic
improvement now everywhere visible, material exist-
ence was low enough compared with Western
standards. And what a land it was that met the
traveller’s gaze as he rolled along in the roomy
ancestral berlina from the railway station to his
destination! A vast, torrid, stony plain, curiously
Eastern in aspect, with its low, flat-roofed houses,
and here and there a palm tree lifting its tall fronds
over the scene—a land significantly known as the
Sassonia, where the bare bones of mother earth
protruded, gaunt and sterile, through her scant,
tattered vesture of soil. Meagre harvests of barley,
fig, and olive were wrested from her novercal breast
—the local plough in use, a prehistoric, unshod
P 195
The Book of Italy
wooden implement drawn by one or two cows,
which could be hired, cows and all, for 1s. 3d.a day,
or 2s. 6d. at seed-time. Owing to devastating attacks
of the musca olearia on the olive crop, wages were
as low as 8d. a day for men; 4d. for women.
A primitive folk they! Did the family need
new boots or shoes? The shoemaker would instal
himself in your house, and for a wage of tod. a day
work up your own material. In the village of
C—— the only baker’s oven was the property of
the parish priest. Every two or three months the
peasant would prepare for a grand baking; he
would bring his loaves of barley meal and some
fuel, paying for the use of the oven in kind by leaving
a quota of the batch. Let a word be here said
for the parish priest of the south as the writer
knew him. Passing rich on £32 a year, he usually
contrived to house and feed a poor relation—a grand-
parent, a nephew, a niece—and yet have to spare for
outside charity. Truly a padre to his flock, he was
welcomed in every home; children kissed his hand,
and their elders asked his blessing. In education
far below the standard of the parroco of the more
prosperous north, he was frequently the only
educated man in his parish. In every crisis of a
villager’s life; in contests with the hydra-headed
local bureaucracy or the fisc, a marriage, a death
(and succession duty is payable i in Italy on inherit-
ances as low as £4 sterling), he would be packed off
on a donkey to the nearest town to see the business
through. Often drawn from the peasant class, he
retains the peasant’s passion for land. One such —
I well remember, who, after showing me with pride
196
A Fine Italian Gentleman
his well-cultivated orchard, asked, ‘‘ What did we
growin England ? Olives?” “ No.” “ Oranges?”
“No.” “Lemons?” “No.” ‘ Nespoli?” “No.”
“Grapes?” “No; not out of doors.” ‘“‘ What
did we grow?” “Well, cherries, apples, pears,
plums.” Then, with a look of pitying scorn, he
exclaimed, ““ Mache! Poveropaese! Povero paese !”’
Equally admirable too the devotion of the village
schoolmaster. At S——, teaching classes in three
standards in one poor, bare room, I found a heroic
pedagogue with a similar stipend of {£32 a year
valiantly educating the few children whose parents
could afford to forego the two or three soldi they
might otherwise earn in the fields, and generously
giving his evenings to offer the elements of a higher
education to the still fewer lads who were able to
attend. The education of the village girls was
entrusted to sisters of the Order of St. Vincent and
St. Paul—gentle, devoted creatures—they too, full of
enthusiasm. The children, sweet, dark-eyed things
sang in full, rich voices, time being set by castanets.
Under such conditions, then, lived Barone ——
di C——,, a cultured aristocrat of high lineage bearing
a name famous in Italian annals, a fine example of
the southern gentleman of the old school. Like so
many absentee Baroni of the south, he might have
existed in self-indulgent ease at Naples or Rome.
But noblesse oblige. Choosing rather a life of service,
he devoted his rare intelligence, his artistic sym-
pathies, his frugal means—for the Baroni of the
south are but poor compared with the English
gentry—to the material elevation of his people,
achieving a great work in a narrow sphere. Pos-
197
The Book of Italy
sessing a lofty ideal of the functions of a landed
aristocracy, he sought by careful experiment and
personal example to improve agricultural methods.
After thirty years of indefatigable efforts and dis-
appointments, he succeeded in wresting the con-
cession from Rome of a local railway, whose inaugura-
tion he was not permitted to see. The Barone di
C—— is said by the author of his funeral oration to
have been the last of that company of gentiluomini
umanistt that so long honoured the Terra d’Otranto.
Certainly no other Italian correspondent of the
present writer possessed in equal degree the lost
art of letter-writing. His epistles were written in a
precise, neat, and comely script which gave expres-
sion to a mind rich in knowledge and steeped in
the writings of the great stylists of the past.
But what most impressed the present writer,
and became a revelation to him, was the native
dignity and absence of servility among the common
people, and the intellectual atmosphere he breathed
in this far-away corner of Southern Italy. How
different the standard from our own gross concep-
tion of entertainment, where eating and drinking
form the inevitable concomitants of social inter-
course! After the frugal evening meal, open house
was kept for any neighbour who cared to drop in
for a chat—the schoolmaster; Monsignor B——,
my host’s brother, a tall, ascetic figure of the Manning
type; a local officer, or other literate acquaintance.
During the writer’s brief stay, conversation ran on
Darwinism, on Cardinal Newman and the Tracta-
rian movement—for Monsignor had translated the
Dream of Gerontius—local antiquities ; agricultural
198
“A Fine Italian Gentleman
methods and markets; the talk always maintained
with easy good-fellowship. No refreshment other
than mental was offered or expected; no trace of
social inequality apparent. This admirable note of
intellectuality has recently been emphasized by an
author who has a wide range of knowledge of South
Italian life. Referring to this old province of the
peninsula, Mr. Norman Douglas remarks:’* “ ‘The
number of monographs dealing with every one of
these little Italian towns is a ceaseless source of
surprise. Look below the surface, and you will
find in all of them an undercurrent of keen spiri-
tuality, a nucleus of half a dozen widely-read and
thoughtful men who foster the best traditions of
the mind. You will not find them at the Town
Council or the Caffe. No newspapers command their
labours ; no millionaires or learned societies come
to their assistance ; and though typography is cheap,
they often stint themselves of the necessaries of life
in order to produce those treatises of calm research.”
Thus has it availed amid the thunders of a world
at war to catch the whisperings of a still small voice
recalling a life of faithful service, of duties nearest
at hand nobly performed? These are they who
turn aside from the strident ambitions, the petty
personalities, the bitterness of political factions.
They are not heard of abroad; they are not re-
ceived at courts; no honours decorate their breasts.
But they are the salt that keeps a nation sweet ;
the wholesome, purifying life-blood of a great
people. Happy the land that nurtures them!
1 Qld Calabria.
‘THOMAS OKRY.
199
A VISIT TO GARIBALDI
‘‘ ALLA gentile Miss Cobden. G. Garibaldi’”’ stands
at the foot of a photograph which is one of my most
cherished possessions. ‘he photograph represents
Garibaldi seated ; around his shoulders is wrapped
an Algerian burnous, and on his head is a smoking
cap. With this photograph before me I recall very
vividly to my memory the visit to him in 1875 in
the modest apartment of his son in Rome.
Garibaldi had been the hero of my youthful
days. In my childhood I had the privilege of
seeing a lock of his hair sent by him to my sister
Kate, in reply to her ardent appeal to Garibaldi
himself! and over my desk in our Sussex school-
room had hung a coloured print of the hero of the
Resurrection of Italy, standing with drawn sword
on a hilltop—a silhouette against a bright blue
Italian sky—leading the Thousand to victory.
In 1875 I was in Rome for the first time, and
one day without warning, and without preparation,
the gates of our hotel—Hotel Costanzi—were flung
wide open, and into the courtyard dashed an open
carriage drawn by two horses, and within it sat
General Garibaldi. He had, I think, come un-
expectedly to Rome on a visit to his son, Menotti,
his first visit, I believe, to Rome as the capital of
United Italy. Though his visit was unheralded, the
crowd about his carriage, as he drove from the
200
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A Visit to Garibaldi
station, was so great that it was found necessary to
take refuge within the gates of the Costanzi Hotel.
And from the carriage Garibaldi was carried to a
balcony from where he spoke to the people gathered
in multitudes below. He spoke, I remember, of
Freedom, and of their beloved Italy, and the streets
echoed with their wivas! At the hotel was my
father’s old friend, T. B. Potter, M.P. for Rochdale,
whose enthusiasm for Garibaldi was so great that
in 1864 he brought to Caprera from England a
yacht as a gift to the General, and by him I was
taken, with his son Richard, to visit Garibaldi.
We drove to a modest house in a quiet street
in Rome, and we climbed the three flights of stairs
to his son’s apartment. There in a small room,
seated beside a desk, surrounded by his wife and
two young children, sat General Garibaldi—in all
the simplicity of greatness.
We were not fluent in Italian, and I believe
Garibaldi knew little French, but in parting I tried
to express to him my feeling that both he and my
father had been fellow-workers in the great and
sublime cause of Liberty. ‘Then, as we left, with
fingers stiff and knotted with rheumatism—as those
of our Sussex labourers—he wrote beneath his
photograph :
‘* Alla gentile Miss Cobden. G. Garibaldi.”
And now ‘to-day the soldiers of the Alpini tell
us the spirit of Garibaldi is there with them among
the snow-clad mountains, and he will, they say,
surely lead them to victory.
JANE COBDEN UNWIN.
201
SOME LESSONS FROM THE
VENETIAN ARSENAL
In the present European conflict the problem of the
industrial organisation for war is the one which is en-
gaging public attention to an unprecedented degree.
By many it is regarded as an altogether new develop-
ment, arising out of modern and more scientific
conditions of warfare ; but, though these may have
accentuated its importance, the efficiency of the
industrial organisation has always, since mankind
has emerged from barbarism, been a main element
in securing victory. ‘The workshop has always been
of first importance in the successful conduct of
war, and it is only the fact that it does not lend
itself to picturesque literary treatment that has
prevented the historians of the old school from giving
proper attention to it. They have found it easier
to interest their readers in the brave deeds of warriors,
and in the character and cunning of their leaders,
than in the more commonplace labour of the artificers
who wrought the weapons by which victory was
achieved.
One of the chapters of history in which the
importance of the industrial organisation for war
can best be studied is that of the maritime supremacy
of Venice, which persisted for nearly eight centuries,
in spite of the fact that many of the wars which it
202
Lessons from the Venetian Arsenal
waged were most disastrous. Rarely have there been
more disastrous naval defeats than that in 1298
at Curzola, or than that in 1354 at Sapienza, where
every vessel of the Venetian fleet was captured.
But in spite of these, and many other severe defeats,
Venice always managed, within a comparatively
short time, to recover completely the command
of the sea, which was of vital necessity to her exist-
ence. This power of recuperation cannot be ex-
plained by superior strategy or seamanship. The
Venetian system, which aimed at keeping down
the really strong man, was not specially favourable
to the production of genius, and, in their long his-
tory, the Venetian fleets had, as might well be
supposed, their ordinary share of efficient and
inefficient commanders. ‘The seamanship was good,
but it would be hazardous to say that it was superior
to that of some of the rivals, notably the Genoese.
Nor can the power of recuperation be ascribed to
advantages given by nature. On the contrary, in
the essential materials for naval construction,
timber, iron, and hemp, Venice was at a disadvantage
when compared not only with the Byzantine and
Turkish empires, with their endless resources, but
also with the Italian rivals of Amalfi, Pisa, and Genoa.
These coast towns possessed considerable mainland
territories, containing good local supplies of timber,
whereas Venice was separated from the mainland,
and in the first five centuries of its history acquired
thereon no permanent foothold. It had to obtain all
its supplies by sea, and these supplies were often
liable to interruption, in the earlier centuries, by the
Dalmatian pirates, who found shelter in the number-
203
The Book of Italy
less islands of their coast, and in later periods on
those occasions when, after naval defeats such as
those we have mentioned, Venice lost temporarily
the command of the sea.
The persistence of the maritime supremacy of
Venice can only be ascribed to the superior efficiency _
of its industrial organisation for war, which was
specially fostered by legislation subordinating the
private to the public interests of the community.
It is difficult in a short paper to describe adequately
an organisation which underwent many changes in
the long history of the Republic, but taking the
early part of the fifteenth century as that when
Venice was most powerful, we find it, at that epoch,
laid down by law that all ships, whether belonging
to the State or to private owners, had in their con-
struction to comply strictly to standard measure-
ments. Practically all ships were state-owned, as,
though private owners were tolerated as long as
they complied with the Government regulations,
they were not encouraged. All ships were required
to be not merely uniform in measurements and
type, but absolutely identical in all particulars. At
some periods of Venetian history a choice was
allowed between two or three approved types, but
in the period we are discussing, only one type, which
was found most suitable for both commercial and
fighting purposes, was permitted. Several advan-
tages resulted from this complete uniformity in
construction. The first was the complete converti-
bility of her mercantile marine and navy, which
enabled the fighting forces of the Republic to be
rapidly expanded in case of emergency. Economi-
204
Lessons from the Venetian Arsenal
cally this was quite sound. ‘The Venetian mer-
chantmen did the carrying trade of Europe, and on
the outbreak of war their occupation was gone. It
was obviously a well-thought-out system which at
once converted them into men-of-war, instead of
keeping them idle in port. At the first moment of
peace the State let out the ships to the highest
bidder at auction, so that they could at once resume
their mercantile functions. The uniformity of con-
struction had also a distinct tactical advantage,
inasmuch as ships of identical burden and rig
would all behave similarly in varying conditions of
weather, and the squadrons could be relied on to
keep together. ‘This was equally important in peace
time, as the sea was never free from pirates, and the
merchantmen had to sail in fleets under convoy.
The standardisation of all parts of a ship enabled it
to be constructed or put together with great rapidity
and accuracy. It is recorded that in two hours,
while Henry the Third of France was dining in the
great hall of the Arsenal, a galley, of which the
keel. and ribs alone were in position, was entirely
completed, equipped, and launched in his presence.
This was an exceptional feat, and the galley was no
doubt intended only for the calm waters of the
lagoons, but it is a historical fact that, in the hun-
dred days before the battle of Lepanto, a galley left
the Arsenal each day ready for battle. A similar
advantage was gained in refitting and repairing
vessels, the Venetian consuls in the various ports
being provided from the Arsenal of Venice with a
supply of standard masts, rudders, shrouds, and other
fittings, which enabled them to meet all demands
205
The Book of Italy
promptly and accurately. The most important re-
sult of this standardisation of all parts of which a
galley was composed was that specialised training
could be given in the manufacture of each part,
leading to that minute subdivision of labour which
is the first necessity of intensive industry. In the
Middle Ages the Arsenal of Venice was famed
throughout the world as the most perfect beehive
of industry known in those days, and was visited
by monarchs and other distinguished travellers.
All parts of a vessel, the masts and yards, the
anchors, screws, locks, keys, and -rivets, as well as
sails and ropes, were made there from start to finish.
The Arsenal never employed less than ten thousand,
and at times as many as sixteen thousand workmen,
figures which, in those days, could not be equalled
elsewhere. It was not merely a dockyard for naval
construction, but the centre of the whole industrial
organisation for war, and was so organised as to
be able to supply at all times all naval wants without
recourse to the assistance of any other institution,
Venetian or foreign. ‘The duties of the adminis-
trators, the provveditort all’ Arsenale, included
everything appertaining to naval construction, the
training of seamen, the supervision of the work-
men, armament, the purchase of materials, pro-
visions, contracts, and storekeeping. Later on a
special department supervised the artillery, and a
permanent committee was created for testing and
examining inventions submitted to them by Vene-
tians and foreigners. It is on record that among
those who sent in models was Leonardo da Vinci.
The most interesting department was that of the
206
Lessons from the Venetian Arsenal
provision and storekeeping of timber and hemp.
As we have stated, the Republic started at an obvious
initial disadvantage in having no local supplies of
timber, but, in the course of time, the necessity to
have recourse to foreign supplies was turned into a
real gain, inasmuch as it gave a much wider power
of selection, and enabled qualities of timber to
be obtained continuously which were far superior
to what any locally restricted supply could have
given. Timber was brought to the Arsenal from
Istria, Dalmatia, Albania, and even from Germany,
and on its receipt was at once cut into solid beams,
measured, stamped with the Winged Lion as State
property, and then immersed in a deep sea-water
basin near the Lido, where it was kept soaking for
ten years, by which time it became impervious to
warping influences. If not immediately required, it
was then stored in immense warehouses, which still
exist, and the State held thus ready for use for all
emergencies a larger supply of seasoned timber of
high quality than was at the command of any of its
rivals.
In the earlier days of the Republic hemp was
imported from the East, but later on it was success-
fully grown on the territories acquired on the main-
land, especially in what is now the province of
Padua. ‘To secure an ample supply, the State not
only imported large quantities on its own account,
but opened at the Arsenal warehouses where private
individuals could store hemp of a certain grade
without charge, the only consideration being the
right of the State to pre-emption in the case of
national emergency. |
207
The Book of Italy
We find, as a consequence of these well-thought-
out methods, the curious result that, though Venice
started with disadvantages in obtaining supplies of
timber and hemp, it was to her superiority in these
materials that her rivals ascribed her supremacy
at sea. According to a Spanish author of the early
seventeenth century, the cordage of Venice had a
life half as long again as that of Spain, and this was
not due so much to superiority in grade as to
improved methods of preparation and spinning.
We see that even in the Middle Ages the work-
shop was of primary importance in the conduct
of war, and the industrial organisation of the Vene-
tian Republic deserves careful study. All systems
have their defects, and in the writer’s opinion the
rigid stereotyping of the shape and measurement of
ships made it difficult for Venice to adapt itself to
the gradual improvement in naval construction
which took place after the discovery of the New
World. Not that Venice was backward in invent-
ing new types, but the change involved in the sub-
stitution of new and continually altering types was
unsuitable to the system in force, and the complaint
of the inferiority of Venetian ships is a common
one in the history of the decadence of the Republic.
ALBERT BALL.
208
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_ seventeenth century, the cordage of Venice had
of war, and the industrial isation of I eye
, ae ke a ee ee) ee
PORE AE EUAN ore eT a
We find, as a “consequence sa aes le ne gt t~
out methods, the curious result that, though Veni
started. with ‘disadvantages in obtaining si
_ timmber and hemp, it was to her superiority
materials that her rivals aseribed her supr : nacy
at sea. According to a Spanish author of the ea
life half as long again as that of S Spain, and this wan
not due so much to superiority im grade as i ay
improved methods of preparation and spinning.
We see that even in the Middle Ages the wo rk-
o ii, ie
shop was of primary importance in the conduct
tian Republic deserves — study. All
have their rs and in en beer
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the gradual ArerboWeteete Ry naval c |
which took place the discovery wy
World. Not that Venice was backward i in inv ent
ing new types, but the change involved in ‘the suk
stitution of new and continually altering types : was
unsuitable to the system in force, and the complain
of the inferiority of Venetian ships is a common
one in the history of the decadence of the Repu
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AN HISTORICAL PARALLEL
1350-1915
HisTorIcaL parallels, though interesting and curious,
cannot safely be pressed too closely in the hope of
acquiring rules and lessons for future guidance.
History does not repeat itself, as the experiment
can be repeated in the laboratory to demonstrate a
conclusion. And yet no one can fail to be struck
by certain resemblances, not merely between his-
torical personages, but also between crises in national
history. :
The Italian peninsula, one of the centres in
Europe where the human spirit has shown itself
most fully and most frequently in process of develop-
ment, is peculiarly rich in such analogies. Roughly
speaking, from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century,
Italy, with her numerous independent States, was
the focus and field of European diplomacy, owing,
first of all, to the wealth, widespread commerce, and
rivalry of her component parts, which made the
possession of Milan or the fate of Florence a matter
of universal European importance, and, secondly,
at a later period, to the fact that her plains and
cities became the battle-field of wider interests,
which developed with the growth of European
States after the close of the Quattrocento.
During the earlier period of internal struggle
209
The Book of Italy
and rivalry between the various States, it is natural
that we should find, in miniature, a series of situa-
tions which in many ways resemble situations that
were subsequently developed on the wider field
of European politics; and not merely situations,
but also principles and doctrines of Statecraft, be-
gotten and exemplified in the microcosm of Italian
politics. The fundamental principles of the balance
of power were worked out in the insistent tendency
towards antagonistic alliances based on and governed
by geographical and commercial conditions. The
doctrine of buffer-States, and the inherent dangers
to which they were exposed, was illustrated in the
long struggle between Venice, the Scaligeri, the
Carraresi of Padua, and the Visconti of Milan ;
even the modern theory of “‘ sea-power ’’ seems to
have been divined and implicitly laid down in
Paolo Sarpi’s maxim, “Chi pud venire per mare
non é lontano”’ (whoever can reach you by sea is
not really far away).
Among the many historical parallels furnished by
the microcosm of medizval and Renaissance Italy,
the rivalry between Genoa and Venice in the
fourteenth century bears a striking resemblance to the
situation between two of the great powers engaged
in the war now raging. The rival republics chal-
lenged each other for supremacy in the field of
Eastern trade comprised within the basin of the
Black Sea, much as Germany and Britain are now
at grips largely, if not chiefly, for dominating in-
fluence in Asia Minor. The possession of Tenedos
in the one case, and of the ‘Tigris and Euphrates
delta in the other, was the key to the situation. The
210
An H1storical Parallel -
decision was sought in fields far removed from the
bone of contention. The struggle was for very life.
In the earlier example it was dragged on through a
series of campaigns ending in the overthrow of
Genoa, when the war of Chioggia closed trium-
phantly for Venice in 1380.
The history of this struggle is rendered pecu-
liarly interesting for us, because about the middle
of its long-drawn course it came under the obser-
vation and criticism of that great humanist, that
man of wide worldly-wisdom and sympathy com-
bined with supreme literary accomplishment, Fran-
cesco Petrarch, poet and diplomat, who in his
letters to the Venetian Doge, Andrea Dandolo,
soldier and chronicler of his native city, sums up
with impartial perspicuity the probable issue of the
struggle between two such distinguished members
of the Italian group of States.
Petrarch opens an impassioned appeal for peace
by stating that Venice and Genoa seemed to have
been so placed by Nature as to render a clash unlikely
and unnecessary. Genoa looked west to the ‘Tyr-
rhenian Sea, Venice east, down the waterway of the
Adriatic to the Levant ; why not divide and rule?
But the fair dream of the poet-diplomat was shattered
by the facts. The East was the source of wealth ;
both powers desired supremacy there. And so it
come about that “latens bellum nunquam non
defuit’’; for years a suppressed or latent warfare,
really a war of the pocket, the “‘ war before the war,”’
as it has been called in the present case, had been
waged between the rival States, preluding an inevit-
able rupture into patent and actual war. ‘‘ And
Q 21
The Book of Italy
now,” says Petrarch, ‘these two powerful peoples,
these two flourishing States, these two eyes, as it
were, of Italy, have flown to! arms, and certain it is
that Italy must perish if you thus turn your con-
quering swords against each other’s breast. The foes
of Italy will rejoice over our self-sought calamities,
though they will have no just cause for pluming
themselves on their gains. ‘The overweening, head-
strong counsels of youth, that it is which fills me
with profoundest alarm. And what must be the
end of this war, whether you win or lose? Only
this, that of the two eyes of Italy one must be
dimmed, the other put out. (Necesse est ut unum
e duobus Italie luminibus extinguatur, obscuretur
alterum.) Between such foes what hope of aught
but a blood-draining victory? And is all our
wealth and all our garnering to pass into the hands
of others? Remember that war cannot be kept
within bounds at our pleasure ; it is a contagious
disease that easily infects its neighbourhood. (Suis in
finibus non stat bellum, nempe contagiosa res est
et quz facile serpat in proximos.) What I say to
one of you I say to both.” :
So Petrarch—‘* pareva sognatore e fu profeta ”’
—in words of wisdom and prophecy, which fell
on deaf ears. The Doge replied in terms of
the soldier and the statesman. With a compliment
he brushes aside the appeal of abstract wisdom.
‘“‘ Such a noble effusion could only have sprung from
a pure and noble heart. Your praise of peace is
beyond praise ; nevertheless, the prosecution of a
just war such as ours is argument for comfort, not
for blame, Is patience under injuries a virtue?
212
An Hustorical Parallel
We have always been taught that laws human and
divine forbid us to let the wicked live or to allow
perfidy to go unpunished. ‘The iniquities of Genoa
drove us, unwilling and reluctant, into war, as all
the world well knows. And now our foes have
rendered the sea dangerous for themselves, the
whole world hostile, and every single State their
foe. (Mare sibi reddiderunt infestum, terrarum
orbem exosum et inimicas singulas nationes.)”’
Could words more truly describe the present situa-
tion?
Horatio F. Brown.
213
LEONARDO ‘DA VINCI. AND
CESARE BORGIA
SEVERAL of Leonardo da Vinci’s biographers refer
to the personal relations of the artist with Cesare
Borgia, generally called Il Valentino, in the years
1501-2, and do not refrain from assigning special
importance to that intercourse which according to
them lasted some time. But even if there is little
occasion to wonder, allowing for the conditions of the
times, that Leonardo should have met II Valentino
in his peregrinations through Italy after the down-
fall of Ludovico il Moro, this fact does not lessen
our aversion to the idea that Leonardo should have
been for long in the service of the man who was
the personification of guile, violence, and murder. ©
It may be, therefore, worth our while to restore
this episode in the lives of Leonardo and Borgia
to its due proportions.
It is quite conceivable that Il Valentino, on the
point of consolidating the Duchy of Romagna, the
possession of which he owed to his audacity and
treachery, should in the year 1502 have turned his
eyes to Leonardo. ‘Twenty years before that date
the artist had already offered his services to the
Duke of Milan, asserting his experience in military
science with words which might be deemed pre-
suming, were they not justified by hundreds
of drawings and sketches contained in_ the
Codici Vinciani, and bearing upon the art of war.
214
MILAN
Ke -Grozie .
-
SANTA MARIA DELLE GRAZIE, MILAN
A. N. Prentice, F.R.I.B.A.
et
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Leonardo da Vinci and Cesare Borgia
Indeed, Leonardo studied ‘not only the arms of
antiquity described by Volturio and those of the
Middle Ages, which he improved and brought to
perfection, but, being faced by the quite recent
and radical innovation caused by fire-arms, he
made notes of his inventions and improvements,
both for offence and defence, which anticipated
the advance in military science for some centuries to
come. In the days when II Valentino had cast his
eyes on Leonardo, the latter had studied a scheme
to stem the newly threatened Turkish invasion
across the Isonzo; and at the same time, with a
view of fighting the Mussulman fleet which con-
stituted a danger to the Gulf of Venice, he con-
ceived and planned submarine boats to sink the
Turkish galleys. For the Turks, emboldened by
their victory of the Zonchio, had dared to raid the
country west of the Isonzo, and after having burnt
132 villages and towns, invaded Friuli and even
threatened Vicenza.
It was the boast of Venice that she could resist
against her enemies by sea and by land for ten
years with a monthly expenditure of 300,000
ducats. Leonardo betook himself to the imperilled
frontier, and speedily laid down a vast defensive
plan, based on the principle of obstructing the
massed advance of the Turks by establishing a
movable dam across the river, and thus flooding
the plains along the Isonzo; for “ per qualunque
parte di terraferma vi passino 1 turchi alle parti dt
la Italia, al fine conviene capitino al detto fiume.’’*
* “ By whatsoever way the Turks should choose to come to Italy over
land, they must in the end reach the said river,”
215
The Book of Italy
In the midst of the panic that had beset the
population, Leonardo embarked on another enter-
prise: that of planning and constructing a device
in order to approach the Turkish galleys under
water, “‘ per rompere 1 navili in fondo e sommergerli
con li omint che vi son dentro.” He first plans an
apparatus by means of which it should be possible
to sink under water, leaving above the surface only
“la bocca della canna onde alitare.”* He then
contemplates to free the apparatus from this only
connection with the air, making it quite independent
for a length of time of at least four hours, indeed
as long as a man could remain in it without food.
Together with the technical notes of this apparatus,
studied in its minutest details,’ are intermingled
not only cautions for the strictest secrecy to be
observed during its construction, but even the
transactions to ensure due compensation for the
enterprise “* senza alcuna eccezione.”’ *
We may discern a consideration of an elevated
moral character, truly worthy of that powerful
mind, in the very determination of secrecy, not
limited only to an obvious reason of tactics against
the enemy, but inspired by a feeling of humanity.
Indeed, Leonardo studies with the hope of being
able “‘ to smash the ships in the keel and sink them
with the men that are inside ” because it is neces-
sary for the defence “ delle nostre parti italiche,” *
1 “To smash the ships in the keel and sink them with the men that
are inside.”
2 “The mouth of the pipe to breathe through.”
$ See Codex Atlanticus, fol. 7, 237, 333, 346, 377; Leicester MS., fol.
22; British Museum MS., fol. 81.
4 “ Without any saving clauses.”’
5 “ Of our Italian lands.”
216
Leonardo da Vinci and Cesare Borgia
for the ultimate fate of Venice; but at the same
time he remarks: “ Il mio modo di star sotto l’acqua,
quanto io posso star senza mangiare, questo non
pubblico e divolgo, per le male nature delli omint, i
quali userebbero li assassinamenti ne’ fondi det mart.’ *
Does it not seem as if we were reading a lesson
of morality addressed to the \barbarity of the pre-
sent day which so cynically exceeds the harsh
necessities of warfare ?
It was after he had completed these studies that
Leonardo da Vinci in the latter half of the year
1502 made a journey to Romagna along the Adriatic
coast. Brief entries in Codex L at the Institut
de France enable us to follow his itinerary. On
July 30th Leonardo was at Urbino, and two days
later at Pesaro; on August 8th at Rimini. At
Cesena he stopped from the t1oth to the 15th of
that month; at the beginning of September he was
at Porto Cesenatico. The small Codex in which
Leonardo entered his various notes does not
contain any further items concerning him _ per-
sonally from September 1502 to March 1503, at
which time the artist had returned to Florence to
undertake the painting of The Batile of Anghiari
for the Hall of the Grand Council.
Father Guglielmo della Valle in the edition of
Vasari’s Vite, published in Siena in 1793, produced
an inedited document to prove that this journey of
Leonardo to Romagna was in connection with a
mission with which he had been entrusted by
i “ My device to remain under water as long as I can without food, I
do not publish nor divulge, because of the evil nature of men, who would
make use of it to commit murder at the bottom of the seas.”
217
The Book of Italy
Duke Valentino to inspect the fortresses of the
latter’s dominions. The document in question was
a Letter Patent by which Cesare Borgia conferred
on Leonardo, in his capacity of General Engineer,
the most unlimited powers for the fulfilment of his
task. Father della Valle published this important
document on the strength of a copy taken at the
instigation of the Secretary to the Government of
Maria Theresa, De Pagave, by the notary Consonni
from the original vellum then preserved in the
Melzi Archives at Milan. Other students of Leo-
nardo recopied that Letter Patent, but Giuseppe
Bossi, in the year 1810, in his work on Leonardo’s
Cenacolo had already announced that the original
vellum “‘ had been lost in quite recent times.”’
For more than a hundred years the numerous
researches of students were fruitless. Gustavo
Uzielli (+ 1911), who ardently devoted himself to
the study of Leonardo, and brought to light a large
quantity of inedited documents now preserved in
the Raccolta Vinciana in the Castello Sforzesco,
could not account for the disappearance of the
precious vellum so soon after its importance for
Vincian studies had been made known.
It will therefore afford special satisfaction to
hear that the original document, after more than
a hundred years, has been found. The fact that
Father della Valle’s copy had come to him from De
Pagave, to whom are due several papers on art
concerning Lombardy, which still lie unpublished
in the Archives of the Counts Melzi, fostered the
belief that the original of the Letter Patent was
preserved in those Archives. It is instead in the
218
Leonardo da Vinci and Cesare Bor gta
Archives of the Ducal House of Melzi in Milan
that the document has been quite recently redis-
covered among other papers and vellums on different
subjects and of secondary importance. I owe to
the gracious concession of Her Excellency the
Duchess Joséphine Melzi d’Eril Barbo the possi-
bility of presenting here a photographic reproduc-
tion of the Letter Patent, not only for the benefit
of Vincian studies, but also as a contribution in
keeping with the noble aims of this book.
The name of Melzi enables us to establish how
this vellum came to us. In fact, it was young
Francesco G. Melzi who from Amboise, on June 1,
1519, announced to the Vinci family the death of
Leonardo; he had accompanied the old artist in
his voluntary exile to France, and had assisted him
up to his last moments. ‘The circumstance that
Leonardo appointed him his heir explains how it
was that Melzi brought back to Lombardy with
Vinci’s manuscripts the vellum of I] Valentino.
The Letter Patent runs thus: Cesar Borgia
de Francia Det Gratia Dux Romandiole Valentieque,
Princeps Hadrie, Dominus Plumbini etc. Ac Sancte
Romane Ecclesie Confalonerius et Capitaneus Gene-
ralis. Ad Tutti nostri Locotenenti, Castellani, Capt-
tany, Conducteri, Official, Soldati et Subditi; A
i quali de questa peruerra notitia ; Commettemo et
Commandamo che al nostro Prestantissimo et Dilec-
tissimo Familiare Architecto et Ingengero Generale
Leonardo Vinci dessa ostensore ; el quale de nostra
Commussione ha da considerare li Lochi et Forteze
de li Stati nostri ; Ad cio che secundo la loro exi-
gentia et suo tudicio posstamo prouederli Debiano
219
The Book of Italy
dare per tutto passo libero da qualunque publico
pagamento per se, et l sot Amuchevole recepto et
lassarli uedere, mesurare, et bene extimare quanto
uorra; Et ad questo effecto, Commandare homini
ad sua requisitione, et prestarl qualunque adiuto
adsistentia, et Hauore recercara, Volendo che dello-
pere da farse neli nostri Domini Qualunque Ingen-
gero sia astrecto conferire con lu, et con el parere
suo conformarse ; Ne de questo presuma alcuno fare
lo contrario per quanto l sia charo non incorrere in la
nostra Indignatione» Datum Papte die Decimo octavo
Augustit, Anno Domini Maullesimo Quingentesimo
Secundo Ducatus Vero Nostri Romandiole Secundo.
CESAR
Mandatus Ill” Domini Ducts
AGAPYTUS.
BERALDINUS. F. Martius.
The vellum, folded as a letter, bears the seal of
the Duke on the written side and the papal seal of
Alessandro Borgia on the back.
We shall now briefly relate the circumstances
in which the mission was given to Leonardo by
Valentino.
1 «To all our Lieutenants, Castellains, Captains, Condottieri, Officers,
Soldiers and Subjects, to whom these presents may be known, we commit
and command that to our Most Excellent and Most Beloved Private Archi-
tect and General Engineer Leonardo Vinci, bearer of the same, and who has
our Commission to survey the holds and fortresses of our States, in order
that according to their exigencies and his judgment we may equip them, they
are to give free pass, exempt from all public toll to himself and his company,
and friendly reception ; and to allow him to see, measure and estimate all
he may wish. And to this effect they shall order men on his requisition
and lend him all the help, assistance and favours he may request, it being our
wish that for all works to be donein our Dominions any engineer becompelled
to consult him and to conform to his opinion ; and to this may none presume
to act in opposition, if it be his pleasure not to incur our indignation.”
220
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Leonardo da Vinci and Cesare Borgta
The power of Cesare Borgia had suddenly
asserted itself in the latter years of the fifteenth
century, owing its origin both to the protection of
Pope Alessandro Borgia and to his marriage with
the sister of the King of Navarre. Placed thus in
condition to satisfy his unbounded personal ambi-
tion, and at the same time to be of service to the,
French cause in Italy, Il Valentino had succeeded
through violence, intrigue, and treachery in securing
for himself the Duchy of Romagna, not meeting
with any resistance except from Caterina Sforza.
This woman manfully sustained the siege of the
Citadel of Forli, and only surrendered when reduced
to the last extremity, thus becoming the heroine of
the sole glorious military episode that redeemed
the close of the fifteenth century. Il Valentino also
consolidated his power by forcing upon the House
of Este the marriage of his sister Lucrezia Borgia
to Alfonso, eldest son of the Duke of Ferrara.
Furthermore, when Louis XII in the summer of
1502 again crossed the Alps and entered Milan
on the 28th of June, Il Valentino seized the oppor-
tunity to strengthen his position against the recri-
minations of his principal victims, the Duke of
Urbino and Giovanni Sforza. The King of France
greeted and entertained [1 Valentino with marked
familiarity in the Castello Sforzesco, as we gather
from a confidential letter dated August 8, 1502,
from Niccolé da Correggio to Isabella d’Este:
“ Sabato sera giunse qui il Duca Valentino, venuto
per staffetta ; la ch”* Maesta lo accolse et abbracctod
con molta alegreza et lo meno in Castello, dove lo
fece allogiare ne la camera piu propinqua a la sua,
221
The Book of Italy
et lui stesso sollecité la cena et ordino diverse vivande,
et per quella sera per tre o quatro volte i ando alla
camera fin in camisa, quando doveva entrare in lecto.
Et ha voluto che el vestisse de le camise, zupponi
et habitt suot, perché il Duca Valentino non ha
carraggt come de cavalcature. In summa pi non
st potria fare a fiolo, né a fratello.”
All these special marks of deference prove the
importance that Louis XII attached to the friend-
ship of I] Valentino, whom he considered a blind tool
for his object of strengthening French rule, and as
a sort of vedette placed between the Pope and the
Venetian Republic. ‘To consolidate by every pos-
sible means Borgia’s power with a view of getting
rid of him at the right moment, was for the King
of France the most elementary policy. ‘Therefore
I] Valentino’s resolve to order an inspection of the
fortresses of his State as a preliminary measure for
their defence was probably the immediate conse-
quence of the meeting with the King of France at
Milan. That meeting took place on the 6th of
August, and on the 18th of the same month II
Valentino, proceeding in the company of Louis XII,
who was on his way to Genoa, forwarded from
Pavia the Letter Patent to his General Engineer.
In those days Leonardo was at Cesena, and the
* “Saturday evening the Duke Valentino arrived here, having come by
estafette ; His gracious Majesty very cheerfully greeted and embraced him
and conducted him to the Castle, where he gave him the room nearest to
his own, he himself speeding supper and ordering several courses, and that
evening three or four times he went to the room even in his nightshirt
when he was going to bed. And he insisted on giving the Duke his own
shirts and gowns and clothes to wear, the Duke Valentino not having as
many waggons as he has horses. In one word, one could not do more for
a son or a brother.”
222
Leonardo da Vinct and Cesare Borgta
first entry that refers to his successive peregrinations
is precisely the one concerning the Port of Cesenatico,
dated September 6th, where I Valentino’s decree of
the 18th August probably reached him. Leonardo’s
notes on the Port of Cesenatico may consequently
be in connection with his appointment. That Port
had strategical importance for Cesare Borgia, as
it had later when under Napoleonic rule it was
bombarded by the British fleet, and again in 1849
during the march of Garibaldi to help Venice out
of her perilous plight.
The fact of not finding other entries in Codex L
which refer to Il Valentino’s commission justifies the
doubt as to whether Leonardo actually fulfilled it.
It may be presumed that in October of that same
year Leonardo was at Imola, where I Valentino had
at the time been obliged to barricade himself owing to
a revolt of his troops. ‘The interesting topographical
sketch of the town drawn by Leonardo in his own
hand—still extant—might lend a colour to that
theory. But the lack of positive proofs compels us
to conclude that Leonardo was not slow in breaking
off all his engagements with the adventurer at the
time when the latter was resuming his profligate
vocation by crushing the insurrection of Urbino,
sacking Sinigaglia, seizing Perugia, and besieging
Siena. Before Il Valentino’s star was on the wane
in consequence of the death of Pope Alexander VI,
Leonardo was already in Florence deeply absorbed
in his studies for the cartoon of The Battle of
Anghiari.
Thus the relations between I] Valentino and Leo-
nardo, the theme of elaborate variations by several
223
The Book of Italy
writers tending to place the artist for two years at
the unrestricted service of the man who has passed
into history for his acts of violence and cruelty,
fail to stand the test of facts. Il Valentino’s Letter
Patent seems to be more than anything the out-
come of his endeavour to seeure prestige for him-
self by making use of Leonardo’s name. But as
much as the artist rose in the public estimation not
only for his incomparable talent but also for the
rectitude of his life, so did the power and the
reputation of Cesare Borgia decline: an instance of
the frailty and inefficiency of all that is based on
violence and on contempt of humanity, justice, and
loftiness of purpose.
The man who only a few months previously,
on the completion of his studies for a submarine
boat which was to perforate the keel of enemy
ships, declared that he did not wish to publish the
details of his invention lest it should be misused for
foul deeds instead of being employed in the fair
conduct of war, that man could certainly not be in
the service of him who in January 1503, after provid-
ing Paolo Orsini, Vitellozzo Gravina, and Oliverotto
da Fermo with a safe-conduct to come and confer
with him in Sinigaglia, embraced them at the gate of
the town and received them in his house only to have
them treacherously put in chains and beheaded.
Luca BELTRAMI.
Translated by ‘‘ Hardelot.”
[The reproductions of Leonardo’s sketches relating to the study of the
flight of birds and of flying machines, from the Codex Atlanticus, appended
to this article, have been kindly lent to us by Senatore Luca Beltrami.—
THE EDITOR. 1
224
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STUDIES OF THE FLIGHT OF BIRDS AND OF FLYING MACHINES
From the “ Codex Atlanticus,’” Leonardo da Vinct
1. Flying machine. 4. Details of the wing.
2. Mechanism for the movement of 5. Movement of a wing.
birds’ wings. 6. Diagram of the track of a bird’s
3- Details of the wing. flight.
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SHAKESPEARE AND THE ITALIAN
NOVEL
Ir is familiar knowledge that Shakespeare hewed
many of his plays out of Italian stories. ‘The most
superficial studies of his plots show him to be
beyond doubt a close student of a very distinctive
species of literature which is peculiarly characteristic
of Renaissance Italy. Boccaccio, of Florence, the
herald of the new Italian movement in many of
its directions, may be reckoned to have rendered
his most conspicuous service to the amenities of
civilisation by his creation of the art of the short
story. In musical language, which eliminated once
~and for all the crudities of the old Tuscan dialect,
Boccaccio pictured, with a softly glowing serenity,
experiences of love and life of which he had read
or heard or seen. He treats human nature with a
frankness which often shocks the prudish. He is
prone to dwell with a cheerful irony on the infideli-
ties of husbands and wives. Yet he is a master of
pathos as well as of gaiety, and blends varied
ingredients harmoniously. Boccaccio the novelist
founded in Italy a long-lived school, and though
none of his scholars equalled his own powers, many
who were especially active in the sixteenth century
caught some touch of his vivacity. Bandello, a
Lombard, who was a bishop 1 in the south of France
at the time of Shakespeare’s birth, turned into lively
225
The Book of Italy
fiction of Boccaccio’s type episodes in the social
life of his day. Although he lacked his master’s
gift of style Bandello excelled Boccaccio in lubricity.
Another sixteenth-century Italian novelist, Giraldi
Cinthio, of the cultured city of Ferrara, also enjoyed
a wide reputation in his day. In his methods,
merits, and demerits he may be linked with Ban-
dello. The Italian novel, indeed, engaged almost
as much energy in Renaissance Italy as the drama
subsequently engaged in Elizabethan or Jacobean
England. It found readers, not in Italy alone, but,
either in the original or in translation, in all countries
of Western Europe. Imitations as well as trans-
lations soon abounded in France, Spain, and ulti-
mately in England.
The Italian novel rendered the English drama
the practical service of supplying it with a treasury
of plots, and Shakespeare, like all the fellow-drama-
tists of his time, welcomed with enthusiasm such
practical help. Most, but not all, the Italian stories
which he employed were ready to his hand in his
own language or in French. His indebtedness to
Italy is not, however, greatly reduced thereby. ‘The
English and French renderings at his command,
though differing among themselves in efficiency,
were usually literal. Their temper was _ little
changed. In whatever shape Shakespeare gained
access to them, the main stories of All’s Well that
Ends Well and Cymbeline, of which Helena and
Imogen are the respective heroines, remain the ripe
fruit of Boccaccio’s invention. Bandello is the
parent of the leading episodes of Romeo and Fulet
and Much Ado about Nothing. Cinthio was the
226
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Shakespeare and the Italian Novel
first to tell the tragic adventure of Isabella in
Measure for Measure, and the tragic trials of Othello
and Desdemona. Even where Shakespeare seeks
his plots in romances of English authorship, as in
As You Like It and The Winter’s Tale, the Italian
influence is not wholly absent; for the English
novelists commonly marched along the Italian road ;
they rarely travelled far from it.
The Italian fable, it goes without saying, formed
as a rule the mere basis of Shakespeare’s dramatic
structure. Having studied the Italian tale and
examined its dramatic possibilities, Shakespeare
altered and transmuted it with the utmost freedom
as his dramatic spirit moved him. It is by his
changes rather than by his literal transferences that
the greatness of his faculty, the breadth of his
intuitive grasp of human passion and sentiment,
may best be gauged.
Yet the scenes of his chief comedies and of
many tragedies rarely leave Italy. The episodes are
assigned to Venice or Verona, to Milan or Mantua,
to Florence or Padua. He rarely takes the names
of his characters from the Italian novels of his
immediate study. He rechristens his dramatis per-
sonae, but the new designations are no less Italian
than the old. It is curious to observe that, when
in As You Like It Shakespeare is dramatising a piece
of English fiction by his fellow-countryman, Thomas
Lodge, he rejects Lodge’s amorphous name of
Rosader for his hero and substitutes a name so
rooted in the traditions of Italian literature as
Orlando. I think it provable that Shakespeare’s
Orlando, the hero of As You Like It, was deliberately
R 227
The Book of Italy
christened after the Orlando of Ariosto’s great
Italian epic. Shakespeare’s Italian nomenclature
may not always suggest quite so much as that ; but
it invariably proclaims him the pupil of an Italian
school, paying homage to his masters.
At times Shakespeare’s choice of Italian plot
sets his work in the full tide of the Italian literary
stream. The story of Romeo and Juliet, which
Bandello first told to Europe, was made familiar to
Italy by earlier pens. The tale, which has a right
to be reckoned a national legend of Italy, was the
theme of Shakespeare’s earliest venture in tragedy
of the great romantic kind. In his dramatic treat-
ment of it, he gave indubitable promise of his
glorious fertility and power. Manifold are the
original touches of poetry, insight, and humour in
Shakespeare’s version of the Italian novel. Yet
who can deny the Italian glow which lives in
Shakespeare’s radiant picture of youthful love ?
The play of Twelfth Night is cast in a very ©
different mould from that of Romeo and fulet.
Everybody knows the main plot, how a girl is dis-
guised as a page ; and how, while her master moves
her love, she is sent by him to plead his suit with a
proud beauty, who on her part is fascinated by the
supposed boy. The fable is a fantasy of which all
the elements are dyed in Italian colours. Bandello,
although he gave the story its European vogue, was,
as in the case of Romeo and Fuliet, but one of its
Italian narrators. No English alchemy could free
the sensitive and intricate amours of their Italian
note. Shakespeare’s play, in spite of his mani-
pulation of the Italian plot, and his fusion with it
228
Shakespeare and the Italian Novel
of much original comic episode, echoes the strains
which Boccaccio’s youths and maidens voiced in
the garden overlooking Florence at the dawn of
the Italian Renaissance. What atmosphere save
that of sensuous Florence does Duke Orsino breathe
when in the first speech of the play he makes lan-
guorous appeal to the musicians :
“ That strain again ! it had a dying fall:
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour.”
Shakespeare’s tragedy of Othello, the best con-
structed of all his tragic dramas, presents life in its
sternest aspect and passion in its fiercest guise.
Yet it is based as directly as Romeo and Fuliet
and Twelfth Night on Italian foundations; and,
unlike the other Italian stories whence Shakespeare
drew his plots, the fable of Othello is not known to
_have circulated out of Italy, or rather out of the
Italian language, before Shakespeare handled it.
The author of the story of Shakespeare’s tragedy of
Othello is the sixteenth-century novelist, Cinthio of
Ferrara. Some of his tales had been rendered into
French, and at least one into English. Before
Shakespeare wrote Othello he had himself made
a first draft on Cinthio’s store of fiction. The plot
of Measure for Measure was of Cinthio’s devising ;
but that painful Italian story was ready to Shake-
speare’s hand in an English version.. Not so the
little novel of the Moor of Venice. In the Italian
alone was that tragic history to be studied. In
adapting the incidents to his purposes, Shakespeare
229
Uy
The Book of Italy
here if anywhere exerted all his powers. With
magical subtlety he invests the character of Othello
with passionate intensity, of which the Italian
novelist knew little. Iago is transformed by the
English dramatist from the conventional Italian
criminal of Cinthio’s page into the profoundest of
all portraits of hypocrisy and intellectual villainy.
At every point Shakespeare has lifted the theme
high above the melodramatic level on which the
Italian had left it. New subsidiary characters are
added. ‘The catastrophe is wholly reconstructed.
The master spirit is everywhere at work with
magnificent energy. Yet Cinthio’s guidance is not
to be disparaged. His story holds the sparks which
Shakespeare’s genius fanned into brilliant flame.
Shakespeare’s indebtedness to Italy has many
parallels in the history of English poetry. Chaucer,
Shakespeare’s greatest poetic predecessor, was an
admiring disciple of the work of both Dante and
Boccaccio. Milton, Shakespeare’s successor on the
throne’ of English poetry, was an appreciative and
grateful student in many Italian poetic schools.
When we leap a century and face the great revival,
of which Byron and Shelley were two exponents,
we meet in English poetry with a passionate devotion
to Italy, which was accentuated by Italy’s con-
temporary suffering and oppression. ‘The Brownings
bore on high the same torch until it reached the
hand of Swinburne, who was stirred by Italy’s past
and present fortune to his noblest poetic utterances.
Swinburne was profoundly sympathetic with Italy
in her manful struggles for liberty and unity, and
230
Shakespeare and the Italian Novel
he greeted exultingly her restoration to a place
among the great nations. He saw in the colours of
her flag, green and white and red, symbols of hope
and light and life. Had he lived to be with us
to-day, we may say with confidence that he would
have applied to Italy at this moment his own words
of earlier date :
“« She feels her ancient breath and the old blood
Move in her immortal veins.”
Swinburne’s poems on Italy worthily pursue a
great tradition of English poetry. ‘The Italian alle-
giance of Shakespeare, emperor of English poets,
gives that tradition its most dazzling glory.
SIDNEY LEE.
231
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Music by
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Words by
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Bathing in the River
PiETRO REGGIO was one of the numerous Italian
musicians who settled in England in the seven-
teenth century. Born at Genoa, -he was in the
service of Christina, Queen of Sweden, during her
residence in Rome, but came to England before
1677. He published a book of songs in 1680,
from which the song here printed is taken. The
words are from Abraham Cowley’s book, The
Mistress, or several copies of Love-Verses (1668) ;
the original song has six stanzas, of which Reggio
has set the first and third. Reggio lived mostly at
Oxford, where he enjoyed a considerable reputation.
He is supposed to be identical with a musician
mentioned by Pepys as the “slovenly and ugly
fellow, Signor Pedro, who sings Italian songs to
the theorbo most neatly ” (Diary, July 22, 1664).
He died in 1685. |
EpwarpD J. DENT.
237
A FOURTEENTH-CENTURY SINGER
OF UNITED ITALY
AT the beginning of the tenth century, an other-
wise unknown Italian poet, in the stirring Latin
lines of the Carmen mutinense, summoned his fellow-
citizens to arms, to keep vigilant watch and ward
over the ramparts of Modena. It is a splendid
poem, in which reminiscences of the classical tra-
ditions of Rome blend with the religious faith of
mediaeval Italy into a new national utterance, of
which the echoes float proudly and confidently
across the walls in defiance of the Hungarian
invaders. |
But, in the centuries that followed, the shadow
of the Holy Roman Empire lay over the national
life of Italy. In the eyes of the Italians, the ‘Teutons
were “ barbarians.’”’ ‘here is documentary evid-
ence that the men of Milan and her allied cities,
who, on May 29, 1176, defeated Frederick Barba-
rossa at the battle of Legnano, believed in an Italy
as their common motherland over and above the
communes for which they ostensibly fought. Never-
theless, those German kings, who at intervals
descended the Alps and laid waste the Italian fields
as they forced their way to Rome to receive the
imperial crown, were regarded by Italian nobles
and burghers alike as the source of law, their rightful
suzerains, the true successors of Cesar and Augustus
238
“A Fourteenth-Century Singer
no less than of Charlemagne and the Othos. In
Carducci’s famous poem, Su i campi di Marengo,
we may read how, on the night of Easter Eve, 1175,
Frederick finds himself hemmed in by the army of
the Lombard League, and the burghers are already
raising the cry of victory. As the Alps appear in —
the dawn, the German Cesar bids his standard-
bearer display the sacred sign, the imperial eagle,
in the face of the League, and the herald announce :
“The Roman Emperor is passing, the heir of the
divine Julius, the successor of Trajan ” :
“ Deh come allegri e rapidi si sparsero gli squilli
De le trombe teutoniche fra il Tanaro ed il Po,
Quando in cospetto a l’aquila gli animi ed i vessilli
D’Italia s’inchinarono e Cesare passo.” }
Dante attempted to establish a national language,
“to create a form worthy of representing the
national idea,” as Mazzini so finely said of him.
He already saw Italy, although divided in body,
“united by the gracious light of reason.”* But
the old conception of the Holy Roman Empire,
however idealised, still rules the politics of the
Divina Commedia ; although the poet may well
have hoped that the Veltro, the Deliverer whose
coming he announced, who would make Rome the
true capital of the world, might be realised in the
person of an Italian prince, under whom the Em-
pire itself would be once more Italian and Roman
in fact, as it was still Roman in name. It has been
1 “Ah, how joyously and rapidly the blasts rang out of the German
trumpets between the Tanaro and the Po, when in the sight of the eagle
the minds and the banners of Italy bowed down, and Cesar passed on.”
2 De Vulgari Eloquentia, i. 18.
239
The Book of Italy
said that the italianita of Petrarch is one of his
finest and most salient characteristics. His famous
canzone, Italia mia, conceives of Italy as one nation,
and declares that Italian arms can still achieve her
destinies : |
“ Vertu contra furore
Prendera l’arme ; e fia ’l combatter corto ;
Ché l’antiquo valore
Ne l’italici cor non é ancor morto.” !
But the nationalism of Petrarch, though ardent,
is vague and indefinite ; he has no settled conviction
as to the form in which the national peace is to be
secured, the aspirations of the Italians to be actual-
ised. It is on the lips of a lesser man, one who
was by comparison a minor poet, that the true voice
of the nation made itself heard with no uncertain
sound.
Fazio degli Uberti was a great-grandson of that
Farinata whom Dante saw in the Inferno rising
indomitable from his fiery tomb. Born in exile
from Florence in the first decade of the fourteenth
century, Fazio was a Ghibelline or imperialist, like
the rest of his house. He had begun by exhorting
Ludwig of Bavaria to come and revive the dead
Ghibelline cause, to avenge Manfred and Conradin.?
But he speedily outgrows this crude imperialism of
an earlier epoch. In a famous canzone, Quella
virtu che ’l terzo cielo infonde? he prays love to give
him grace to recite in defence of Italy what he has
1 “Virtue will take arms against fury; and the combat will be short ;
for the ancient valour is not yet dead in Italian hearts.”
2 Liriche, ed. Renier, canz. xi.
3 Tbid., canz. xii.
240
FLORENCE
Lovat Fraser.
A Fourteenth-Century Singer
heard in vision from a white-haired Lady who told
him that she was alma Roma. She has appeared to
him in a dream, stately in aspect, but clad in mourn-
ing attire, poor and in need, surrounded by the
ghosts of the mighty heroes of antiquity. She is
abandoned by all who should aid her. Her Senate
has mangled her with its own hands; the gate is
barred against her, and reason shut out, whilst
pride, envy, and avarice guard the threshold. She
looks to the north, and there is none but the
Emperor, Charles of Luxemburg, who has deserted
her ; to the south, and there is only Apulia (under
Queen Giovanna), upon which the wrath of God
is falling. So far, we have not got beyond the
mediaeval sphere of ideas; but now the poem
takes a new intonation :
‘‘Perd surgi gridando, figliuol mio ;
Desta gl’ Italiani addormentati.
Di’ lor, come a figliuoli, il miojdisio,
Ch’ e’ sempre fur compagni de’ mie’ nati ;
Non sien pigri né ingrati.
A pormi nel gran seggio, ond’ io caseai,
Un sol modo ciitveggo, e quel dirai.
O figliuol mio, da quanta crudel guerra
Tutti insieme verremo a dolcie pace,
Se Italia soggiace
A'un solo re, che ’1 mio voler consente !
Di che seguitera inmantenente
Che ogni pensier rio di tirannia
Al tutto spento fia
Per la succession perpetuale.
241
The Book of Italy
Or vedi la grandezza, dove sale
Questa, ch’ é donna dell’ altre province,
Se ’l suo peccato stesso nolla vince.
Canzon mia, cierca il talian giardino,
Chiuso d’ intorno dal suo proprio mare,
E piu la non passare.”’!
Here, in a poem written about 1366, we have
for the first time the conception, definitely and
clearly expressed, of a united Italian kingdom,
ruled by a hereditary line of Italian kings. Never-
theless, Fazio still conceives of Italy as dependent
upon the Empire, inasmuch as this new king is to
receive the investiture from the Emperor. There
remains the further step of utterly repudiating the
imperial authority, and, in the disgust caused by
the conduct of Charles during his second Italian
expedition in 1368, Fazio takes this final step. In
his canzone, Dz quel possi tu ber che bevve Crasso,
“Of that potion mayst thou drink that Crassus
drank,’’? he brings the Italian nation herself upon
the scene to rebuke the degenerate Cesar :
1 “Rise then, my son, and cry aloud; awaken the slumbering Italians
. . . Tell them, as my children, my desire, for they were ever companions
of my offspring: let them not be sluggish nor ungrateful. To restore me
to the great seat whence I have fallen, I see one only way, and that will I
tell. . . . O my son, from how cruel a war we shall all together come to
sweet peace, if Italy be subject to one sole king according to my will. . . .
From which will straightway follow that every evil thought of tyranny will
be utterly quenched by the perpetual succession. . . . Now see the great-
ness to which she will ascend, who is Lady of all other provinces, if
her own sin overcome her not. . . . My song, search through the Italian
garden, closed round with its own sea, and pass not beyond.”
2 Liriche, ed. cit., canz. xiv.
242
!
A Fourteenth-Century Singer
« Sappi ch’ i’ sono Italia, che ti parlo,
Di Luzinborgo ignominoso Carlo.
O d@’ Aquisgrana maladetta paglia,
O di Melano sventurato ferro,
O di Roma ancor !’ oro, il qual te erro
Ha come imperadore incoronato !
Chi vorra pit che ’! sia
Venuto dalla Magna in le mie parti,
Vedendo te aver tese tue arti
Con tor danari, e gir con essi a casa ?
Tu dunque, Giove, perché ’] santo ucciello.. ..
Da questo Carlo quarto
Imperador nol togli e dalle!mani
Degli altri lurchi moderni germani,
Che d’ aquila uno allocco n’ hanno fatto ?
E rendil si disfatto
Ancora a’ miei Latini e a’ Romani.” 3
It may reasonably be argued that, from the day
when the barbarian conqueror dethroned the last
of the old Roman Emperors in the West, to that on
which the second Victor Emanuel first assumed the
crown of the Italian kingdom, there was never a
time when Italy was a mere “ geographical expres-
sion,” or when, somewhere or other in the utterances
+ “Know that I am Italy who speak to thee, of Luxemburg thou
ignominious Charles. . . . O cursed glitter of Aachen, O hapless iron of
Milan, and eke the gold of Rome that has crowned thee Emperor. . . .
Who will again desire one to come from Germany into my realms, after
seeing thee use thy arts to extort money and return with it to thy home?
. . » O Jove on high, why dost not take the holy bird from this fourth
Charles Emperor and from the hands of the other guzzling modern Ger-
mans, who from an eagle have made it an owl, and give it back, thus
defaced, again to my Italians and to the Romans?”
s 243
The Book of Italy
of her sons, a trace of the national idea might not be
discerned. But it is in the poetry of this Florentine
exile, of whose life practically nothing is known,
that the national aspirations first ring out with such
dramatic vividness, a century and a half before
the burning eloquence of the closing chapter of the
Principe of Machiavelli.
EDMUND G. GARDNER.
244
NEGLECTED PISA
Tourists are like sheep; where one goes, another
goes. Also, tourism has its unwritten laws rarely
disregarded. Of these one lays down that the city
of Pisa and its sights can be adequately seen between
two trains. How did this stepmotherly fashion of
treating one of the most ancient and not least
interesting of Italian cities arise? The laws of
tourism have no logical foundations. But the fact
remains, and even the more intelligent obey this
behest. Howells, for some reason quite unexplained,
goes so far as to label this attractively languorous city
as “‘ Pitiless Pisa.”” And the inhabitants, accepting
this tourist decree, have laid themselves out to
assist it; the cabs and touts know to a second how
to steer the traveller from main sight to main sight
within the given interval, the hotels think it unneces-
sary to vary their menu, since if the traveller should
stay one night he will not stay two. And yet it
was not thus in the days of Byron, Shelley, and Leigh
Hunt, who abode here for months. But then there
were no trains or motors, and hurry and rush had
not yet invaded the world.
Whatever the cause, when some while ago I
went to Pisa and answered the astonished hdtelier
that I proposed to stay a week or more in his house,
he looked me over rather dubiously, as though
doubtful of my sanity.
245
The Book of Italy
Well, my previsions were justified, and I found
my week so all too short that I shall shortly return
to continue my sight-seeing. In point of fact, the
famous Leaning ‘’ower, which everyone goes to
Pisa to see, is one of the least of Pisa’s attractions,
beyond its interest as a problem in geometrical
engineering and the wonder that it excites that it
should remain standing despite its perilous seem-
ing list, which, as Dickens remarked, “ certainly
leans as much as the most sanguine tourist could
desire.” But architecturally, artistically, it is not
the most beautiful of Italy’s many beautiful cam-
panili; its rows upon rows of columns, widening
from floor to roof, grow somewhat monotonous to
the eye that regards them long and often (which,
however, the hurried tourist never does). It is
characteristic of the Pisan style at its worst, with its
over-ornateness and the monotony aroused to mind
and eye from the multiplicity of identical details.
Obviously, I would not belittle the so-called
Four Fabrics, that great group of the Leaning
Tower, the Duomo, the Baptistery, and Campo
Santo, which in their splendid isolation, “ fortunate
in their solitude and their society,”’ stand in a wide
space of greensward a little aside from the city,
and are truly, as Rogers sings,
‘‘ Four such as nowhere on the earth are seen
Assembled,”
and whether seen in sunlight or, better yet, by moon-
light, diffuse a peculiar opalescent radiance. But
what I wish to insist on is that, however much
this great group is the concentrated and concrete
246
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Neglected Pisa
expression of the Pisan mind, and illustrates to
perfection the modification she imposed on the
Tuscan-Romanesque style by her love of splendour
and of detail, so that the Pisan style has come to
have a distinct meaning of its own, there are other
objects of great artistic interest to be seen in and
round Pisa which neither the lover of beauty, the
student of art, or the historian can afford to neglect.
I will not dwell upon the Arno, wider, more
rapid here than at Florence, dividing the city in
a noble sweep, whose beautiful curve a fifteenth-
century Florentine compared to the arch of a cross-
bow ; upon the bridges, four in number, that span it,
bound up as they are with Pisan history and Pisan
customs ; upon the wide, silent streets, flanked by
dignified palaces or medizval houses, all more or
less repeating the Pisan arcaded style. Nor will
I dwell on Leghorn, twenty minutes distant, Pisa’s
trade rival and supplanter; on the fortress of La
Verruca, that once guarded Pisan independence ; on
the fine Charterhouse of Calci, whose white build-
ings, set against a green hillside, form a landmark
for miles around ; nor even on Cascina, a tiny walled
township, once subject to the Republic, and so small
that its walls can be circumvented in less than ten
minutes, while containing within these walls every
feature of a real fortified township, with moat,
towers, gates, and a citadel.
But I would like to speak of S. Piero a Grado, the
first Christian church in Pisa, raised according to
legend by S. Peter himself, close to the ancient
port, then not yet silted up, when driven ashore
by contrary winds, and styled a Gradus Arnensis on
247
The Book of Italy
this account. Though this vast basilica, which 1 rises,
a noble landmark, above the plain a few miles from
Pisa, has been in the course of time altered, white-
washed, plastered, even so the original Lombard
style is marked and very different, in its austere
simplicity, from the elaborations of the Duomo.
In every respect an interesting basilica, built almost
entirely of ancient materials, for its antique columns,
stolen no doubt from Pagan temples, of Greek and
Oriental marble and granite, are of every style, the
capitals rarely fitting the pillars where chance has
placed them. At each end there is an apse. The
impressive edifice, which lies at lower level than
the road, is entered by a single door on the north,
which side is also the more ornate, Moorish majolica
plates of rich colour and fine design being inserted
between the blind arches, while here and there
fragments of classical sculpture and broken Roman
inscriptions and milestones have served as building
materials for its flanks and its tall, dignified campanile.
Further, the whole nave is decorated with three
tiers of fourteenth-century frescoes attributed to
Giunta Pisano—below, a series of Popes; in the centre,
the histories of S. Peter and S. Paul ; above, a series
of angels quaintly peeping from open or half-open
windows—too much and too badly restored to be
valuable as works of art, but imparting a pleasant,
warm, harmonious colouring to the interior.
Ancient temples have evidently, indeed, had to
give their heavy quota to the building of Pisan
Christian churches. A characteristic example is
S. Michele in Borgo, transformed from a temple
to Mars after designs by Niccolo Pisano, and still
248
Neglected Pisa
owning its ancient granite columns. Huddled among
the houses of Pisa’s Borgo, her busy shopping street,
only its facade is visible from outside, a gothicised
copy of the Duomo’s. Built upon the ruins and
with part of the material of a temple to eat is
S. Andrea Forisportae, interesting to Dante students
as the church where was buried the poet-statesman
and friend of the Swabian Emperor Frederick II,
Pier della Vigna—
“‘T am he who both the keys had in keeping
Of Frederick’s heart ”—
falsely accused of treachery to his imperial master,
arrested in S. Miniato dei Tedeschi, and conducted
ignominiously round on a mule through the streets
of Pisa, in whose prison he dashed out his brains
rather than live disgraced and humiliated.
Not far off—in shrunken Pisa nothing is far off—
stands S. Francesco, one of those gaunt, bare churches
consisting of a single nave, raised by the Preaching
Friars and founded at the personal instigation of
the poor little man of Assisi himself when visiting
Pisa. Many faded frescoes decorate the chapels of
the choir, the sacristy, the chapter-house, but its
chief interest is the spot where Count Ugolino della
Gheradesca and his sons were buried, the irons still
on their limbs after the gruesome death in the Tower
of Famine, so graphically told by Dante:
‘‘T saw the three fall one by one... .
And three days called them after they were dead,
Then hunger did what sorrow could not do.”
The tomb is close under the tall elegant campanile,
which must be seen from the inside of the church
249
The Book of Italy
to appreciate its uniqueness, for it is only partly
planted on the earth, but chiefly supported on two
brackets springing out of the side transept. It is
attributed to one of the Pisanos; and to them also
is assigned another unique campanile, far more
lovely than the more familiar Leaning ‘Tower, and
also out of the perpendicular, for those to whom its
list is its chief attraction. I refer to the octagonal
tower of S. Niccolo. Its exterior has solidly pan-
elled' arches surmounted by an open loggia and
ends in a pyramid. Its interior, too, presents a
remarkable architectural feat, copied by Bramante
and San Gallo. The easily-graded staircase is so
contrived “‘ that the spectator at the foot sees those
who go up, those ascending see those below, while
he who stands midway can see both those above
and below,” as Vasari puts it. ‘These Pisani were
unquestionable all-round geniuses.
To another Pisano, probably Andrea, is due that
tiny, exquisite, fantastically lovely gem, the fisher-
men’s’ shrine, S. Maria della Spina, where the
mariners stayed their boats to invoke the Virgin’s
blessing ere quitting Pisa, and which harbours,
tradition says, a fragment of the Crown of Thorns,
whence its name. But this little shrine, with its
exuberance of ornament, its canopies, its statues,
perched on the wall of the embankment, is known
even to the between-trains tourist. He has some-
times a moment, too, for S. Stefano, the conventual
church of Cosimo I’s Order of S. Stefano, founded
to harry the Turk, ever Italy’s secular foe, whose
pirates infested the Mediterranean and plundered the
coasts of Tuscany. The single nave is decorated with
250
Neglected Pisa
Turkish trophies won by the knights, many coloured
and often lovely silken banners, scimitars, lamps,
and richly-carved galley poops. It is these trophies
that inspired d’Annunzio’s Canzoni d’Oltremare,
composed during the Turkish-Libyan war, inciting
the Italians of to-day to emulate the deeds of their
forbears and make an end in Europe of the Ottoman.
The stately pile, standing in a_ lime-shaded
square on the south bank of the Arno, is after the
Duomo architecturally the most perfect church.
As it stands it dates from the twelfth century, but it
claims to have been founded by Charlemagne. Its
Pisan-Romanesque facade is perchance more lovely
than the Duomo, because less ornate and more
reticent. It consists of five closed arches, two
circular and two pointed, the entrance being through
the central one, and over these arches rise two tiers
of pillars, twisted, plain, and fluted, of vari-coloured
marbles, in the true Pisan style, supporting open
galleries ending in a gable. The side walls are
panelled with lovely marbles of every hue—blue,
white, black, and rose-coloured. ‘The interior has
suffered at the restorer’s hand, the restorer of that
destructive epoch the eighteenth century, for the
modern Italian restorers are, as a rule, artists, and
preserve everything they can. Of the many art
treasures it once possessed, the chief survivor is now
at the Museum, a quaint, curious work by Bruno di
Giovanni that represents S. Ursula in the act of
saving the city of Pisa from one of the many floods
that have done so much injury to the city in the past,
and still often injure the low-lying lands about it.
Both Pisa, a sturdy matron, and the girlish Ursula,
251
The Book of Italy
are arrayed in royal mantles blazoned all over with the
Ghibelline eagle ; the turbulent Arno, crowned with
many kinds of fish, is seen to retreat at the saint’s
command. Hidden away in the erstwhile cloister
of the church, and only to be seen from a window
of the Canonica, if the surly old waiting-maid of the
Prior is willing, is a curious little heptagonal chapel
with a high-pointed roof not unlike the cloisters of
S. Stephen at Westminster. It is said to contain
the skull of the Sicilian martyr, S. Agatha. Why
her head is here, seeing she had no connection with
Pisa, directly or indirectly, does not appear.
Two other greater saints, however, are more
closely bound up with the city. They are S. Cathe-
rine of Siena and S. Thomas Aquinas. It was
when staying for some months at Pisa during one
of her various visits, endeavouring to keep the city
faithful to the papal sway, and preaching the crusade
that was never carried out, that in the ancient church
of S. Cristina, now modernised out of all knowledge,
5S. Catherine, praying before the crucifix painted
by Giunta Pisano, and now preserved in her oratory
at Siena, received the stigmata as S. Francis had
received it at La Verna. It was during one of these
visits to Pisa that the yearly festival of the Giuoco
del Ponte occurred. This game, not so long discarded
by the Pisans, was a rather rough affair, a sort of
mock battle played on the Ponte del Mezzo between
the north and south sides of the city, who cudgelled
each other with wide flat bludgeons generally painted
and inscribed with vainglorious mottoes. Each
faction also carried gay banners bearing their de-
vices, banners now preserved in the Museo Civico,
252
Neglected Pisa
together with a model of the game and an engraving
showing Mr. George King and his illustrious lady,
Isabella, Countess of Lanesborough, watching the
game from a boat with an English flag flying from
its prow. The noise of the drums and trumpets
and the clashing of the combatants’ wooden weapons
disturbed S. Catherine at her devotions. She was
divinely enjoined not to be afraid, and told the
source of the commotion. Whereupon she prayed
that never for all time to come might any evil happen
by reason of the game to him who played it. Which
thing was granted to her by Divine mercy. So
runs the legend. And a proof that her prayers were
heard is found in the fact that the first and only
accident that was fatal did not happen till 1765.
The church of S. Catherine of Alexandria is also
connected with the Sienese saint, for into this
Dominican convent church she would often glide
quietly to pray. Situated in a large tree-shaded
piazza, S. Caterina is an attractive object with its
fine facade, once again repeating an adaptation of
that of the Duomo, tier rising above tier of trefoil
arcades. ‘The border of heads round the windows
are curious, and the whole is carved in white marble.
The inside, being intended for a preaching church,
is plain and devoid of aisles, so that the sound can
travel unimpeded. And here preached and taught
from a cathedra, reverently preserved under glass,
that greatest Dominican doctor, S. Thomas Aquinas.
Here, too, is preserved the interesting picture by
Traini, one of the few painters Pisa has produced,
the Glorification of S. Thomas Aquinas, a pic-
ture artistically and historically of rare importance.
253
The Book of Italy
S. Thomas, a colossal figure, with features~ taken
from life—the broad and rather heavy face, the fine
ample brow, the mild, thoughtful expression—is
enthroned with a golden globe in the centre of the
panel. Above his head is the Christ in a mandorla,
and from Him proceed rays of light that fall on the
head of S. Thomas, and from him again emanate
through the Universe. On the saint’s right hand
stands Plato, holding open his Timeus ; on the left
Aristotle, pointing to his Ethics ; Moses, S. Paul, the
four Evangelists are seen above, each with his book.
Under 8. Thomas lie prostrate the three arch-heretics
—Arius, Sabellius, and Averrhoes—with their books
torn, while in the lower part of the picture a crowd
of ecclesiastics look up to the saint.
So much, very roughly and rapidly, for the so-
called minor sights of Pisa. On the major I have not
space to dwell, and they are too familiar, “‘ the labour
of an age in piled stone.”’ Less familiar again and
deserving of several visits is the Museo Civico, which
the between-trains visitor has not time to see—a vast
collection of rooms containing many pictures and
sculptured treasures removed from decrepit churches
and dismantled convents. Here, too,ina damp, dark
room of an outer cloister of S. Francesco, is housed
a rare treasure, which it is much to be hoped the
Italian Government may see its way to restoring
to its ancient home. I refer to the remains of
Giovanni Pisano’s splendid pulpit, made for the
Duomo in 1392, and broken by the great fire of 1595.
So much of it is intact that it should not be difficult
for some skilful Italian architect-sculptor to recom-
pose it, as Boito did Donatello’s altar at Padua or
254
Neglected Pisa
Castellucci the della Robbia singing gallery at Flor-
ence. ‘The nine panels that surrounded the upper
part of the pulpit are magnificent testimony to
Giovanni’s dramatic power, and are intact, as is the
central support, a lovely pillar encircled by the
Three Graces, as well as the two side columns, alle-
gorical figures of Pisa and Good Government.
One of the single figures, a S. Michael, is an exquisite
thing, as exquisite as one may ever hope to behold,
and worthy to take place beside that other Christian
knight, the chivalrous S. George of Donatello.
Indeed, we latter-day travellers can still truth-
fully echo Rutilius’ description of Pisa as—
“‘ Wondrous the aspect of the place.”
HELEN ZIMMERN.
255
THE LIGHTS OF FLORENCE
TWENTY years ago I saw Florence with the eye of
sense for the first time, though to my “ mind’s
eye’ the old city, within the first circuit, which
was ‘“‘ancient’’ even in Dante’s time (the area
still contains much of what brings the perpetual
stream of pilgrims to Florence), was more familiar
than almost any other city space in the world.
We entered (my wife and I) on foot, between
ten and eleven at night, having walked the last seven
or eight miles of the way down along the old moun-
tain road that runs direct from Bologna, just west
of Fiesole. We chose this approach because I had
a fancy that my first sight of Florence should be
from the Uccellatoio, whence Dante tells us that
in his day the splendour of “ the great city on the
fair stream,” first breaking upon the astonished
gaze of the traveller, outvied the glories of Rome
as seen from Monte Mario. So we had made our
plans accordingly. |
Florence was the goal of our pilgrimage, but we
had spent a few memorable days in Northern Italy
on our way. One night we spent in Milan, one in
Verona, two in Padua, one in Venice, and two in
Ravenna. The apparent folly and the actual wisdom
of this race through city after city (which was
absolutely counter to all our theories and convic-
tions) seem to me, to this day, equally incredible.
256
The Lights of Florence
It appears so foolish to have planned so much.
But then it was so wise to attempt so little, in the
way of specific sight-seeing, in each city. For we
never hurried, and we never came away from any-
thing till we had got as much out of it as we could
take in at a first view. We never came away from
anything because “ we really must see ” something
else. So in Milan we saw—nothing. In Verona
we saw the Amphitheatre—and Verona! In Padua
we saw the Giottos in the Arena Chapel. In Venice
we saw the opalescent light on the lagoons, we
breathed the ozone, we saw the great panorama
from the top of the Campanile, we felt the lurch
of the gondola—and the golden glory of San Marco
came into our lives never to depart.1 Ravenna was
more of a revelation than any other city. ‘The period
stretching from the fourth to the sixth centuries,
that I had always thought of, or rather felt towards,
as a kind of waste land, so far as any significance to
human civilisation goes, opened up vista after vista.
What if the lost history of Arianism could be re-
covered! What if we could know the whole life
of that age in which the great system of Roman
Law—the most august instrument for the regulation
of normal human relations that has ever been forged
1 What must Constantinople have been in the early years of the
thirteenth century! :The Venetians who joined the Fourth Crusade under
Dandolo, knew San Marco in all its comparatively youthful glory, but
they were one and all stupefied by the unimaginable splendour of Byzan-
tium. The historian Ville-Hardouin was in their company, and I sup-
pose his record would have meant nothing very particular to me if I had
read it before I had had.the opportunity of learning what the Venetian
standard of splendour was likely to be. But now the very name of
Byzantium seems to stretch the conception of earthly splendour beyond
the dreams of oriental fable.
257
The Book of Italy
by man—was matured and perfected! What en-
larged conceptions of art, and of the inexhaustible
variety and beauty of the many phases and render-
ings of the Christian faith and hope, would be
ours! Ravenna is still there just to give us a hint
of the lights that once shone in the depths of
what we still call the “dark” ages. And we saw
the Pineta, too—Dante’s Pineta, which gave him
images for his description of the Garden of Eden.
Nowhere indeed was he nearer to us than in
Ravenna.’ :
And now we were to call a halt in this wild race,
for we intended to make a stay in Florence. And
we wanted to see her first from the Uccellatoio.
So we took the light railway from Ravenna to Forli,
and then turned north-west on the main line
towards Bologna, got out at Faenza, and took the
little Apennine railway, to climb and bore the
mountains till we could strike the direct mountain
road from Bologna, a little above Florence. It was
a wonderful journey. Now a great city spread
itself upon an upland plain, and now the weird
forms of desolate clay hills and rocks vindicated the
realistic accuracy of the artists (whom we had always
credited hitherto with the extreme of childlike
naiveté of imagination) in their depicting of the
scenes in which the “ Fathers of the Wilderness ”’
exchanged friendships with ravens, hinds, or lions.
When we came to Vaglia we left our train and took
lunch at a little inn, where we should have had
meagre fare if we had not brought some provisions
1 Though we soon found that the local hero of Ravenna was neither
Dante, nor Theodoric, nor Justinian, nor Belisarius—but Byron.
258
‘FUR ‘ass0ay SQUAT ALS
HONANOTA ‘OIHOOHA ALNOd
The Lights of Florence
from Ravenna. They gave us a pat of butter,
however, and it was so white (being made, I suppose,
from goat milk) that it made the plates and the
spotless cloth look blue. I understood why Dante
describes the heraldic shield of a certain usurer as
bearing a “ goose whiter than butter,” and when
I got home I persuaded a certain translator of the
Comedy, who had substituted “ curd ” for “‘ butter ”’
in his version, to let Dante have his way in the
next edition of his volume.
My wife was no great pedestrian, even twenty
years ago, so we were glad to come across a peasant
who was driving his eggs to the market in a donkey
cart, and who cheerfully added the “ signora ”’ to
his load, while I walked by his side, holding such
converse as the Tower of Babel still leaves possible
under such circumstances: When he stopped to
bait, we parted from him, with mutual satisfaction
as to terms, and pursued our way on foot.
The unwarned traveller by this road would see
neither the Uccellatoio nor Florence. For when
you have just passed, on your left, the tangle of
byways that throws a net round the mountain
village of Pratolino, the present road cuts inside a
little ridge on a spur of Monte Morello, and so
escapes a stiff rise up to the Uccellatoio—and
misses the view of Florence! And the city, as a
whole, is never seen if ‘you miss it here. But we
were forearmed. ‘The very friend who had not
dared to trust the British public with Dante’s “‘ white
butter” (though I am sure he knew all about it
himself, for what he does not know about Italy is
hardly worth finding out) had told us what to do.
T 259
The ‘Book of Italy
So we forked off to the right from the present high-
way, and, keeping the old road of Dante’s day,
climbed the ascent to the Outlook. But black care
was already seated on our hearts ; for we had mis-
calculated our time, and at first we feared, and then
dismally acknowledged that we knew, that night
would have fallen before we came in view of
Florence. And so it was. We reached the spot,
and all in a moment, as we turned a corner of the
hill, there gleamed up out of the valley, like a cloud
of fire-flies, the lights of Florence, still some miles
distant. ‘Tired travellers are apt to be over-nice as
to accommodation (unless indeed they are dog-
tired, which we were not as yet), and there seemed
no remotest chance of finding any quarters at the
Uccellatoio that I could in conscience ask my wife
to accept, with a view to recovering in the morning
the chance we had lost at night. So with a pang
we relinquished the dream of years; but after all
we were too rich to repine, and we tried to console
ourselves with the idea that this “ first view ”’ craze
was only a fancy, and had a strong flavour of senti-
mentality about it; and that we should have many
other opportunities of looking down upon Florence
from the Uccellatoio. As a matter of fact, neither
of us has ever been there again.
So on we trudged, expecting soon to find some
conveyance, perhaps a tram. But we were dis-
appointed. ‘Through 'Trespiano (which Dante seems
to wish were still the northern boundary of the
Florentine territory, as it was in the good old times)
on into the outskirts of Florence herself we went,
through interminable stretches of the modern city,
260
CO ——— — — ss eS TL
The Lights of Florence
till suddenly, after just one moment of confusion,
caused by a sight of San Lorenzo, we found our-
selves right on the area of Cacciaguida’s* Florence
—and mine. There was the Baptistery, the trans-
formed ‘Temple of Mars, according to Florentine
tradition, the Cathedral of Cacciaguida’s day, and
Dante’s “‘ mio bel San Giovanni,” where he was
baptized, and where he vainly hoped that his recon-
ciled City might crown him as a poet when once he
had completed the Paradiso. And there were the
bronze doors, “‘ worthy to be the gates of Paradise,”
added in the Renaissance times. Hard by was Giotto’s
Tower, and the great Duomo, of which Dante saw
the foundations, but no more. It seemed only a
few steps (but this I was prepared for) to the
Loggia dei Lanzi and the Palazzo Vecchio, and
then to the Ponte Vecchio—all actually here “ if
anywhere.”’ ‘Then a turn to the right, a pause on
the Ponte Santa Trinita, as the moon rose over San
Miniato and the Arno twinkled under her beams,
and in a few moments we were groping our way in
pitch darkness up the “ well” of an old palace,
now a hospitable pension, where we lay down with
thankful hearts to sleep in Florence, and henceforth
for a season to measure our hours by the boom of
the great bell that still floods the air of Florence
with its mellow wealth of sound, from the height of
Giotto’s Campanile, and is still a living presence
in our hearts.
Puitip H. WICKSTEED.
1 Cacciaguida was Dante’s great-great-grandfather. In the Paradiso
his spirit describes the Florence of his day, with its noble simplicity, to
Dante, and also foretells his exile.
261
THE SONG OF ITALY
SoME words that Mazzini wrote in 1853 recall the
old compact between England and Italy—words,
as it happens, not unlike some addressed to his
own people by an English writer the other day.
“Tell the English people,” said Mazzini, “ that
their actual duty is war—war, in order to ascertain
whether Europe is to be given up defenceless to
the successive encroachments of despotism, or to be
God’s Europe—free, orderly, and peacefully progres-
sive. War; to solve once for all the problem of ages:
whether man is to be a passive slave trampled upon
by brutal organised force, or a free agent !...”
These words were paraphrased afterwards in
the countersign that Swinburne gave in the poem
from which the present title is taken. ‘‘ Let the
flags of the other nations that have denied liberty
fade,” he says:
“ Let England’s, if it float not for men free,
Fall, and forget the sea ;
Let France’s, if it shadow a hateful head,
Drop as a leaf drops dead!”
But for the flag of Italy :
“ Thine, let the wind that can, by sea or land,
Wrest from thy banner hand: /
Die they in whom dies freedom, die and cease,
Though the world weep for these ;
Live thou and love and lift when these lie dead
The green and white and red !”
262
The Song of Italy
This was in a time of danger to the freedom of
Europe, for whose light Mazzini taught him to watch
with eager looks. And when afterwards, in his
Songs before Sunrise, he made himself the trumpet
of the new dawn, as he conceived it, the pages
were dedicated to the regenerator of Italy in lines
memorable for their ardent homage. This later
book contains the most fervid of all the interpella-
tions of Italy in his poetry. Indeed, the spirit of
revolt it expresses is one to appeal to us now that
a New Revolution in Europe is stirring our blood
—now lifting and now drooping the colours :
“Italy, what of the night ?
Ah, child, child, it is long!
Moonbeam and starbeam and song
Leave it dumb now and dark.
Yet I perceive on the height,
Eastward, not now very far,
A song too loud for the lark,
A light too strong for a star.”
And when it is a question of the effect of Italy
at large upon the imagination of England, we see
that this poet is not a solitary devotee by any means.
He is one of a tradition, lyrical and artistic, freely
borrowing, and not always able to repay. For our
custom of using Italian loans in poetry began
in good earnest with Chaucer, whose Canterbury
Tales went to the Teseide of Boccaccio for the
“ Knight’s Tale,” and to the end of the Decameron
for the ‘“‘ Clerk’s Tale ’”’—the tale of Griselda,
which in its original form Petrarch said no one
could read without tears. It is in his setting of i
203
The Book of Italy
tale that Chaucer refers to Petrarch, and uses for
the first time, in English, the term of “ poet laureate ”’ :
“ Fraunces Petrark, the laureat poete,
Highte this clerk, whos rethorique swete
Enlumynd al Ytail of poetrie . . .”
Leaving Chaucer, who visited Ytail in 13—, we pass
by Gower and his verse, as we might pass on the
way, to turn to Sir Thomas Wyatt. He brought
another subtle current of the Latin romance move-
ment into the broad English stream.
Enough to mention his debt to poets and
versifiers like Serafino Comino. Wyatt’s sonnet
declaring how “The Lover forsaketh his Unkinde
Love,” which begins :
“ My heart I gave thee; not to do it pain,
But to preserve .. .”
was adapted from two of that writer’s strambotit.
And afterwards Sir Philip Sidney, another poet
with Italian relations, took a cue from Wyatt’s sonnet
for his famous song :
“My true love hath my heart, and I have his.”
Such are the intricacies of the lyric pedigree, that
derives its branches from a Latin romance-stock.
With Wyatt and Surrey it was a new kind of
amoristic melody that they learnt, and with Milton
it was the use of the harmonic overtones that he
gained from Italy and the South. One must slip
some centuries to come now to Byron and Shelley.
Needless to say, Byron’s Italy was not Shelley’s ;
but in “ Beppo” and the ‘“‘ Ode to Venice,” where
he laments over her decay, he shows himself a true
264
The Song of Italy
devotee. The ‘‘ Prophecy of Dante,” again, contains
two eloquent detachable passages. One is on the
language and the land :
‘* We can have but one Country, and even yet
Thou’rt mine—my bones shall be within thy breast,
My soul within thy language, which once set
With our old Roman sway in the wide West ;
But I will make another tongue arise
As lofty and more sweet...”
The other is an apostrophe to Italy (with which his
editor compares a page in the Purgatorio); it is
there Byron calls on the men of Italy—‘‘ Romans
who dare not die ”’
“Sons of the conquerors who overthrew
Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie
The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew,
Are the Alps weaker than Thermopyle ?”
The “‘ Prophecy,” to quote Mr. E. Hartley Coleridge,
was written before “‘ Byron took up the cause of
Italian independence or threw in his lot with the
Carbonari.”’ It was in 1820 he wrote to Murray,
and spoke of a coming storm: “ There is THAT brew-
ing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security
of communication.” He adds: “I have lived long
enough among them (the Italians) to feel more for
them as a nation than for any other people in
existence; but they want Union. I was afraid
they wanted principle too; and now we have
learnt how their unity and their principle have
waxed and strengthened together.”
One might write a long chapter on Byron’s
Italian pages, and a longer still on Shelley’s. For
265
The Book of Italy
the heart of Shelley led him to love Italy with the
noblest love any foreign poet has given the land. It
is to be traced in his poems and his letters alike. With
a passage from his prose and one from his verse,
these reminders of what Italy has been to England
may end. ‘The first is from a letter, written like
Byron’s, as quoted above, in 1820. Its radiantly
phrased Roman passages come home to us anew,
now that the triumphs and horrors of war again
shake the very fabric of Europe: ;
“It is built of the finest marble, and the outline
of the reliefs is in many parts as perfect as if just
finished. Four Corinthian fluted columns support,
on each side, a bold entablature, whose bases are
loaded with reliefs of captives in every attitude of
humiliation and slavery. ‘The compartments above
express, in bolder relief, the enjoyment of success ;
the conqueror’ on his throne, or in his chariot, or
nodding over the crushed multitudes, who writhe
under his horse’s hoofs, as those below express the
torture and abjectness of defeat. There are three
arches, whose roofs are panelled with fretwork,
and their sides adorned with similar reliefs. The
keystone of these arches is supported each by two
winged figures of Victory, whose hair floats on the
wind of their own speed, and whose arms are out-
stretched, bearing trophies, as if impatient to meet.
They look, as it were, borne from the subject ex-
tremities of the earth, on the breath which is the
exhalation of that battle and desolation, which
it is their mission to commemorate. Never were
monuments so completely fitted to the purpose
for which they were designed, of expressing that
266
VICTORY
Edoardo Rubino (Turin)
The Song of Italy
mixture of energy and error which is called a
triumph.
“‘T walk forth in the purple and golden light of
an Italian evening, and return by star or moon light,
through this scene. The elms are just budding,
and the warm spring winds bring unknown odours,
all sweet from the country. I see the radiant Orion
through the mighty columns of the Temple of
Concord, and the mellow fading light softens down
the modern buildings of the Capitol, the only ones
that interfere with the sublime desolation of the
scene.”
The other is a mere verse fragment, written in
1819 :
‘“‘ As the sunrise to the night,
As the north wind to the clouds,
As the earthquake’s fiery flight,
Ruining mountain solitudes,—
Everlasting Italy,
Be those hopes and fears on thee!”
On that note, the symphony of the old and new
Italy as found in English verse—telling how radiant
the southern light she has reflected on our northern
coasts, how splendid the idea she has given us of
a region devoted to liberty, and congenial in all
her elements to art !—may pause.
ERNEST RHYS.
267
AVE MARIA
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271
OUR WARRIORS DEAD
Ye have gone up unto the altar of God,
O glorious Dead !
With white souls mounting from the fields ye trod,
The fields blood-red.
To God who giveth you the joy of youth,
Your youth ye gave,
With all youth’s joy, and hope, and generous truth,
The world to save.
God, who distinguisheth between the nations,
Has chosen you
To stand His champions through all generations
Twixt false and true.
He has brought you to His holy hill, and set you,
Living, a beacon light ;
And, falling in the darkness, He has let you
Shine as the stars in night.
And ye, triumphant over death and fear,
Through unimagined hell
Flashed forward in your heavenly ardours clear,
And fought, and cheered, and fell.
272
Our Warriors Dead
You have died for us, your sweet lives you have
given
For ours, outworn and sad,
Oh, we call you back, we need you, but high
Heaven
To keep you is too glad.
H. E. Hamitton KInc.
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