|
The following rooms of the museum, from Room X., contain
various
mediæval and renaissance works. The only point we would
mention
here is the case which holds the bones of the mighty man
of
Perugia: Braccio Fortebraccio di Montone.
There they lie,
bare and grim before us. Poor bones, insulted by a
Pope, buried and then
unburied, and now laid out for any man to
look at! There is a note of
pathos in the sight, which the
inscription does not
lessen.
HOSPES LEGE ET LUGE.
Perusiæ natum Montonium me
exulem excepit.
Mars patriam Umbriam et Capuam mihi subegit.
Roma
paruit Italia theatrum spectator orbis fuit.
At Aquila cadentem risit
quem patria lugens brevi hac urna tegit.
Eheu! Mars extulit, Mors
substulit.
Abi.
A portrait of Braccio hangs
above his coffin--a strong pugnacious
countenance, differing quite from
his other portrait in the
Confraternita di San Francesco. On the
opposite wall is a picture
of Niccolo Piccinino.
To close these
notes on the museum we would mention another private
museum in Perugia full
of extraordinary interest; that of Professore
Giuseppe Bellucci, in the Via
Cavour.
* * * * *
Prof. Bellucci
has made a special study of the people who preceded the
Etruscans in Umbria,
and, after years of careful search and
indefatigable energy, has accumulated
a grand collection of objects
belonging to the stone age, and to the earliest
settlers on the hills.
Arrow heads, battleaxes from Trasimene, pottery and
ornaments of
infinite variety, are carefully stored and arranged in the top
rooms of
one of the most charming of the old Perugian palaces; also a
surprising
collection of amulets against witches and the evil eye, of which
Prof.
Bellucci has made a special study. This museum can be visited by
anyone
who is interested in the subject, and its owner is always willing
to
show it.[107]
THE TOMB OF THE VOLUMNII.
About three
miles from Perugia, down at the foot of one of the last
hills which fall into
the valley of the Tiber, a mysterious necropolis
of _Perusia Etrusca_ was
discovered many years ago on the property of
Count Baglioni. It was a big
necropolis full of innumerable urns of more
or less artistic interest, and
the land about the hill seemed
honeycombed with small vaults holding their
respective sarcophagi and
ashes.
Some time later--so tradition tells
us--whilst a peasant was driving his
oxen over a field in this same place one
of the oxen fell forward. When
the man came up to see what had happened, he
found that the creature
had stumbled through the stones of a great arch which
covered a
hitherto unsuspected subterranean passage.[108]
When the
hole thus made was examined it was found to be in truth a steep
staircase cut
in the tufa and covered over by a travertine vaulting. It
led steeply down to
a huge door of travertine, and when this was opened,
the wonderful tomb,
belonging to the private family of the Volumnii, was
disclosed. Unfortunately
the ox was not the first person to open up this
extraordinary place. The
earth and dust of centuries had, it is true,
fallen in upon it, but in the
Roman times it had been already ransacked
for its possible treasures.
Beautiful and extraordinary as the place is,
haunted by the silent grandeur
and mystery of the dead, it is not quite
complete, and many of the urns are
missing in its first compartments.
Still, as Dennis says, "it is one of the
most remarkable in Etruria....
To enter the tomb," he continues was to him
"like enchantment, not
reality, or rather it was the realization of the
pictures of
subterranean palaces and spell-bound men, which youthful fancy
had drawn
from the Arabian Nights, but which had long been cast aside into
the
lumber room of the memory, now to be suddenly restored....
The
impressions received in this tomb first directed my attention to
the
antiquities of Etruria," Dennis adds, and many people will echo
his
words.
* * * * *
Leaving the
dust and the sunlight, the green trees and the sunny banks
of the outside
Umbrian world, we plunge down a narrow staircase and
through the tall doorway
of travertine into the darkness of the
Etruscan sepulchre, and find ourselves
in a dim, low vestibule with
stone seats round it, small chambers branching
off to right and left,
and one large chamber at the end. Strange and
fascinating heads look
down upon us from the ceiling, marvellous little
deities, suspended by
many leaden chains, hang silent, as though they
dreamed, above our
heads. Weird serpents' heads pierce through the walls and
seem to hiss
at us; and in the dim light of the candles we realize a whole
new world
of wonderful and deep set imagery, combining with that solid sense
of
comfortable respectability peculiar to the race of men who lie
here.
The tomb of the Volumnii has a strong and a convincing
individuality. In
this fact consists its charm. The necropolis was built for
one family.
The clear cut inscription on the door post at the entrance points
to
this, the name repeated again and again upon the tomb proves it yet
more
forcibly.[109]
To get a first and full impression of the place it
is well to sit down
on one of the low stone seats which run round the walls
of the
vestibule. These benches were probably used by members of the family
in
the peculiar fashion of the Etruscans. We hear that in order to
bring
themselves nearer to the dead and to communicate with the Spirit
of
Death, they would come to the sepulchres at night-fall and sleep
beside
the urns of their dead friends--their brothers, wives, their children
or
their lovers--and there receive visions from the souls which
always
hovered near the place where the body was buried. Members of
the
Volumnii family who were courageous enough, or peaceful enough in
their
own souls to do this thing, must have received strong and
convincing
visions from surroundings so unearthly and mysterious.
A
great round disk, the sun probably, guards the entrance door of
the
vestibule. It seems to rise up out of the sea; two dolphins plunge
head
foremost into the waves beneath it; and under these, above the
left
lintel of the door, a great wing stretches, one knows not whence
or
whither, into the darkness all around it.
On the opposite wall, and
guarding the tomb, is another great disk
covered with scales, or as some say
laurel leaves, and a splendid head
in its centre. The face is grandly moulded
and belongs to the best
period of Etruscan art, when the souls of the artists
were probably
steeped in the art of Greece. The expression is calm, pure, and
full of
strength. It is probably meant to represent the God Numa, though
some
imagine it to be Apollo himself. Below it are two busts which
are
supposed to be portraits of Apollo in his two qualities of shepherd
and
of poet; and guarding the disk, two great scimitars with birds
perched
over them. (It is imagined that the Etruscans shared the Greek
belief
about birds sympathising in the death of mortals. The flight and ways
of
birds, certainly formed a large part of their religion, but in
this
case nothing can be actually proved). Vermiglioli having
studied
various other points in the necropolis, suggests that the Volumnii
were
a race of warriors and that the scimitars were a symbol of their
warlike
ways.
Passing through this second doorway one stands in the
actual presence of
some members of the family of the Volumnii. There they sit
together on
their beautiful stuccoed urns: "each on a snow-white couch" says
Dennis,
"with garlanded brow, torque-decorated neck, and goblet in
hand--_a
petrifaction of conviviality_--in solemn mockery of the pleasures
to
which for ages on ages they have bidden adieu."[110]
They are
surprisingly real, this family, and they sit there now, just
exactly as they
were sitting two thousand years or more ago.[111] The
figures and the
sarcophagi are made of terra-cotta covered by a dead
white stucco which gives
them a singularly modern look. Each sarcophagus
has the head of a Medusa on
it, but of a marvellously fair Medusa, a
creature to adore, a woman to
attract, a creature incapable of inspiring
aught save
admiration.[112]
The sarcophagus in the centre of the group appears to
have belonged to
Aruns Volumnius the head of the family. It is the most
heavily decorated
of the set. Aruns lies on a well-draped couch. Two
mysterious
figures--Furies, but attractive Furies--guard his urn. They are
a
splendid piece of work, and have naturally enough been compared with
the
work of Michelangelo; there is something muscular about them, and
their
pose
[Illustration: TOMB OF ARUNS VOLUMNIUS]
is tragic,
like that which the sculptor of the Renaissance delighted to
give to his
figures. Unfortunately the fresco, which was perfect when
the tomb was
opened, has fallen to bits in the damp air which enters
through the open
door. To Aruns' left his daughter sits on her urn, to
his right his son, and
next to his son the beautiful young wife Veilia,
or Velia. One could write a
romance about Veilia. The beauty of her
profile haunts one like a dream. Was
she an Etruscan or some woodland
creature? Surely the dull and conventional
gentleman to whom she was
early married bored her into a decline? Certain it
is that she died
young, and that the sculptor who made this portrait of her,
loved and
understood the beauty of her human face, and drew it in as
faithfully as
he had drawn the dull one of her husband and his family. All
the other
portraits have the usual respectable Etruscan stamp upon them.
Veilia
alone has a touch of the divine.
One beautiful little
sarcophagus in the group differs from all around
it. It is exquisite in all
its detail and built in the form of a temple
with doors and Corinthian
columns, pent roof, and exquisite tracery upon
its walls. (The inscriptions
upon it are written both in Roman and
Etruscan characters; but although this
sounds like a delightful
dictionary they do not appear to coincide.) Four
exquisite sphinxes and
a little frieze of lions' heads guard the roof; heavy
garlands of fruit
and flowers hang from the skulls of oxen on the panels; and
birds and
butterflies--symbols of the immortality of the human
soul--are
marvellously carved about them.
* *
* * *
The remaining cells have each some beautiful and
interesting thing in
them, but the main historical interest is passed after
the chambers of
the Volumnii urns; and the most beautiful things to note are
the heads
of the Gorgons or Medusas carved in the tufa of the ceilings. Some
say
that these heads are portraits of the family. Their eyes and teeth
are
painted white. They seem to stare at one with calm kind eyes which
have
looked into the centuries and realised the futility of human
things.
* * * * *
To the present
writers the Medusa of the Etruscan people is its
greatest and its most
attractive study. She is always grand, beautiful
and mysterious; the material
and conventional aspects of the Etruscan
race vanish and fly before her
steady gaze, and in the Volumnian tomb
she reigns
supreme.
CHAPTER XII
_In Umbria_
L'Apennin
est franchi, et les collines moderees, les riches plaines
bien encadrees
commencent a se deployer et a s'ordonner comme sur
l'autre versant. Ca
et la une ville en tas sur une montagne, sorte
de mole arrendi, est un
ornement du paysage, comme on en trouve
dans les tableaux de Poussin et
de Claude. C'est l'Apennin, avec
ses bandes de contre-forts allonges
dans une peninsule etroite, qui
donne a tout le paysage italien son
caractere; point de longs
fleuves ni de grandes plaines: des vallees
limitees, de nobles
formes, beaucoup de roc et beaucoup de soleil, les
aliments et les
sensations correspondantes; combien de traits de
l'individu et de
l'histoire imprimes par ce
caractere!
H. TAINE, _Voyage en
Italie_.
We cannot study the history of a single town without
acquiring a certain
knowledge of the towns around it, for the character of
one set of people
was formed and influenced by that of another, and the land
on which
cities are built is often in itself an explanation of their past. In
no
country perhaps are these facts more strongly marked than in
Umbria,
where even the smallest hamlet is perched upon a high hill-side
as
though to provoke attention, and where the larger cities glare at
each
other from commanding eminences, seeming, even in this
peaceful
nineteenth century, to challenge one another by the mere aspect of
their
mighty walls.
We cannot stay long in Perugia without getting its
surrounding landscape
stamped upon our minds. That circle of small cities so
distinctly seen:
Assisi, Spello, Foligno to the east, Montefalco, Trevi,
Bettona, and
Torgiano to the south, and Citta della Pieve westwards, all of
them
perched upon their separate hill-top around the bed of the now
vanished
lake (see chapter i.), excite one's fancy and one's longing, at
first
perhaps unconsciously, and later with an irresistible
persistence.
Finally we are driven to pack our trunks and wander out amongst
them.
* * * * *
From a practical
point of view, travelling in Umbria, even in its most
remote villages, is
made extremely easy. The inhabitants are friendly
and courteous, and utterly
unspoiled by tourists. The inns are clean,
the main roads excellent; prices
reasonable, and carriages, with few
exceptions, good. From a romantic or
artistic point of view, nothing can
excel the charm of such travelling. We
are weary of hearing the stated
fact that every town in Italy is worth the
visiting; but, however
hackneyed the remark, we must make it once again in
the case of the
towns around Perugia. Each has an individual charm, a long
and carefully
recorded history. We exclude Assisi, for that town is a study
in itself,
a thing above and apart. Assisi may be called the Jerusalem of
Italy;
its connection with one of the greatest Saints of the Catholic world
has
made its churches monuments of art and history, a centre for
pilgrims
and for painters throughout a period of nearly seven hundred years;
and
quite apart from its history as a town (the walls of Assisi date back
to
400 B.C.) this presence or possession of the saints has excited a
whole
literature of art and of devotion.
But besides the towns we have
mentioned above, there are a host of other
cities very near: Gubbio, Arezzo,
Citta di Castello, Terni, Spoleto,
Narni, Orvieto, Chiusi, Cortona and many
others less or better known.
It is the diversity and contrast of these towns
which charms one, but
space forbids that we should offer anything beyond a
few small
travelling notes concerning one or two of
them.
GUBBIO.
The road to Gubbio from Perugia leads over a
mountain pass as wild, and
as forbidding in its aspect, as that of any in the
Alps. Leaving the
broad and wooded valley of the Tiber it winds in long
fantastic
wind-swept curves across the spines of the lower Apennines, then
plunges
somewhat suddenly down into the smiling fields and oak woods of
the
valley under Gubbio. The position of the town is most remarkable.
It
looks out on a smiling peaceful valley, but is backed by a
terrific
mountain gorge which would serve as an iron breastplate in the time
of
siege. Gubbio is a small brown-coloured town, compact and perfect in
its
parts; it has never changed since the middle ages. A fine Roman
theatre,
a mysterious Roman mausoleum, fallen asleep on the cornfields
outside
the city walls, tell of her early prime, but the character of the
place,
as we see it now, is purely mediæval. The people themselves have
the
spirit of their ancestors; the worship, which is almost like a
fetish
worship, of their patron Saint Ubaldo is as passionate in its
intensity
to-day as it was seven hundred years ago, when Barbarossa
threatened to
destroy the town.[113] There is scarcely a single new building
in
Gubbio. The great weaving-looms in the piazza are a relic of the
city's
commerce in the Middle Ages, and the exquisite line of the palace of
her
rulers, Palazzo dei Consoli, with the slim bell tower soaring up
against
the barren outline of the gorge, lives in one's memory long after
many
other points of Umbrian cities are forgotten.
Gubbio's bell tower
and Gubbio's Madonna are points which we remember
with delight. Almost every
Umbrian city has its local painter. Nelli is
the painter of Gubbio and the
gem of all his works has been left on the
actual wall for which it first was
painted. It was icy wintry weather,
although the month was May, when we
arrived at Gubbio, but in the fields
all round it the flax shone grey and
blue like a lagune. Had Nelli seen
such flax fields when he painted his
Madonna's and his angels' gowns?
The stuffs he gave them were as blue, as
pure, as all these flowers put
together.[114]
SPELLO.
Early
one morning we left Perugia and passed along the plain to Spello.
We found it
in a halo of May sunlight. There was nothing grim or
forbidding, nothing
Etruscan about the smiling little town; the sunlight
and the air crept into
the heart of its streets and seemed to linger
there. Yet these were narrow
and steep and made for war and not for
peace or comfort, just like the
streets of Perugia. Their character
indeed is so purely mediæval and
untouched, that the chains which
guarded them at nightfall are even left
hanging in one place to the
walls.
Right away from the town amongst
the olive trees we came to the convent
of S. Girolamo. There in the back of
the choir is the little fresco of
the Marriage of the Virgin by
Pinturicchio--faint in colour and fragile
in outline, but charming in its
composition.
Pinturicchio is the painter of Spello; there is much of his
work in the
churches. He came there to paint for Troilo, one of the Baglioni,
lords
of Spello. Hence he was called to Siena to do his well-known series
of
frescoes for the Piccolomini. A whole chapel in S. Maria Maggiore
is
covered with his works, and he has put his own portrait amongst
them
with a string of beads, a brush and palette hanging from it.
The
artist's face is thin and melancholy, but the frescoes round it
are
large in line and treatment and some of the best specimens of
his
religious work. There they stand mouldering mysteriously in the
dim
light of the little old church for which this master made them
four
hundred years ago. We lingered long before them, then passed back
into
the sunlit street and drove away through the gate of the town with
the
Roman senators above it and out across the hot dry plain to the city
of
Foligno.[115]
FOLIGNO.[116]
Sunk, as it were, in a broad
basin of plain, through which the quiet
waters of Clitumnus drain slowly to
the Tiber, is the city of
Foligno--that city which Perugia so detested, so
offended in the past.
The town has all the character of the towns of the
plain. Driving
through its straight and even streets we felt as though we
were in
Lombardy, in Padua or Ferrara. There were Lombard lions in the porch
and
Lombard beasts around the arch of the Duomo. The houses were all
shut
up, square, silent, cool, preparing, as it seemed, for summer heat
and
dust, and infinite hours of afternoon. The place was flat and
drowsy,
but we liked it and studied in its churches with
delight.
* * * * *
Niccolo Alunno
is the painter of Foligno. Some of his work is scattered
through the
churches, and more is gathered together in the small
Pinacoteca together with
that of other early Umbrian masters. Very gold
and brown the frescoes seemed,
very sober and religious in their
sentiment. Here one could study the Umbrian
school, apart from the
Peruginesque, and it struck us that the art of the
first Umbrian
painters was a natural, and (if one may say so in this age of
critics)
an inspired one, which sprang straight up from the soil about the
feet
of the painters, and was only influenced at certain purely
decorative
points by the teaching of the Florentines. The angels were the
Umbrian
children, well groomed, well fed, and wholly unaffected.
Neither
Paganism nor Christianity had very much to do with them. When
Perugino's
ripened influence came in, they weakened as garden flowers weaken,
in
their power of appeal through pure simplicity. The first faces
of
Umbrian saints and angels were simple like the Umbrian
dog-rose.
Perugino turned them into garden roses. Both in their way were
fair, but
the former flowers seemed nearer the divine than those which had
been
trained and cultivated.
It is not possible to mention here all
the pictures of Foligno. There
are two fine Alunnos in S. Niccolo; and a
rather surprising Mantegna
with the colour of brown wine--colour of passion
and pain, which clashes
with the Perugino just beside it--on the chapel of
the Nunziatella. The
Palazzo Communale is covered with the work of Nelli, but
one feels that
the painter who so loved what was gay and rich and beautiful
(see his
picture at Gubbio) wanted a lot more gold and ultramarine than
his
patron allowed him when painting the ceiling of this
chapel.
Before leaving Foligno we went into the church of S. Maria infra
Portas.
It is so old, this little low basilica, that it has sunk quite deep
into
the soil around it. Inside are many faded frescoes, brown and gold,
and
full of almost painful early sentiment. As we stood among them in
the
dusk, a blackbird poured a flood of freshest song in through the
door
from the light of the courtyard. "How your bird sings!" we said to
the
custode. "Yes," said the man; "he sings all day; but whether for love
or
rage I cannot tell." ... And it struck us that no Umbrian of a
hill
town, or no Perugian anyway, would have made this profoundly
melancholy
statement about a tame bird's
song.
MONTEFALCO
The road from Foligno to Montefalco leads all
along the flat at first,
through the peaceful vale of the Clitumnus.
Sometimes we crossed the
water and saw the reeds and rushes growing, and felt
the cool fresh
breath of the enchanted stream. Then passing under a
mediæval
watch-tower we left the flat land and began the steep ascent
to
Montefalco.
The town stands on a hill in the very heart of Umbria,
and hence it is
called by the people the _ringhiera d'Umbria_. We saw it "on
a day of
many days," and it struck us that this was the site of the city of
our
dreams--the best, the fairest we had ever met in travel. The sun was
low
as we drove through the gates. Far below us and around us stretched
the
Umbrian landscape, the bed of the old Umbrian lake: long green waves
of
blue and green, seething in the heated air of the May
afternoon.[117]
The town felt very quiet and deserted. The grass grew
everywhere through
the stones of its piazza. In silence the children played,
in silence the
women sat at their doors, the place had fallen asleep. But
once the city
knew prosperity, and many painters climbed the steep roads from
the
plain below, and came to Montefalco to leave some impress of their
art
upon the walls of chapels and of churches. Hither came Benozzo
Gozzoli
in 1449, and here he painted many of his early frescoes. What
brought
the splendid Florentine to the tiny town we wondered? He came in
the
very prime of his youth, and they say that he did so, simply because
he
was connected with the Dominicans of the place. Certainly he
settled
here for seven years or so, did good work, and spread the influence
of
Florence throughout the minds of the rising Umbrian masters.
Benozzo's
early work at Montefalco is fresh, raw, naive. It lacks the finish
and
the gilded ornaments of the Riccardi chapel, but in exchange it holds
a
certain simple and religious sentiment which is lacking in his
later
frescoes. The best of his paintings are in the church of
S.
Francesco,[118] and there are several other good pictures of the
Umbrian
painters here--a fine Tiberio d'Assisi and some things by Melanzio.
In
one of the latter, a portrait of the painter by himself--a tall,
slim
youth with long light hair and earnest face full of quiet thought
and
strength. Melanzio is the painter of Montefalco, and luckily his work
is
well preserved in many of the churches. The little frieze of
angels
playing with carnations above the left hand altar as one enters
the
church of the Illuminata, is one of the most fascinating bits of
detail
that we have ever seen.
* * * *
*
Before leaving Montefalco we drove out to the convent of S.
Fortunato,
which lies to the east of the town. There were pictures there--of
these
we remember little; but the lanes which led to the convent we
never
shall forget. They were warm deep lanes and the hedges above were
full
of dog-roses and honeysuckle, the light inside was green and blue
like
the landscape down upon the plain. The lanes of Montefalco were
as
beautiful a vision as we have ever seen. Like the frescoes of
Melanzio
they had the colour of a tropic butterfly, and like the flight
of
butterflies they hover in our memory.
FOLIGNO TO
SPOLETO.
In the very height of the midday we left Foligno and took the
road to
Spoleto. It is a fine broad road, passing along the site of the
old
Flaminian Way, grand, dusty, white, with a feeling that Rome is at
the
end of it, and Umbria but a little land to be passed quickly by. As
we
trundled along in our clumsy landau dragged by a pair of
miserable
horses, we thought of all the popes, the emperors and legions,
who,
going south or northwards, had passed in this direction. The dust
flew
up and almost choked us; it was the week of the wild roses, and
the
hedges were all aglow with their delicious blossoms, their petals
bent
wide back as though to catch the very essence of the sunlight on
their
golden stamens. We left the main road a little below Trevi, and
driving
through fields and oak woods, passed up the hills by a steep short
cut
which leads to the town above. This road cannot be recommended
to
travellers unless they go on foot; our poor little city horses
struggled
painfully over the sand and pebbles of the numerous streams it
crosses.
But what a stretch of country for the artist! Everywhere the
poppies
were in flower--a shimmer of pure cadmiums and carmines under the
oaks
and the olives. After about an hour's climb we came out suddenly on
the
broad bastions of the road which runs from Trevi to the convent of
S.
Martino.
TREVI.
The tiny town of Trevi is a familiar
object to all who pass along the
line to Rome. It stands, as one expects all
Umbrian towns to stand, a
crown of buildings closely packed upon a little
hill-top. The city felt
bare and baked when we entered it, and we left it
soon to wander round
its bastion-road; a thing which was fairer far than all
the pictures in
the churches.[119] Long we sat in the grasses, tracing out
the landmarks
in the heat mist far below us: Montefalco in the foreground,
Perugia
behind it, Assisi and Spello a little to the right, and, sunk in
the
broad plain of the Clitumnus, just as Raphael painted them four
hundred
years ago, the houses and the towers of Foligno.
THE
TEMPLE OF CLITUMNUS.
"Hinc albi, Clitumne, greges, et maxima
taurus
Victima, saepe tuo perfusi flumine sacro,
Romanos ad
templa Deum duxere triumphos."
Georg. ii.
146.
Barely three miles from Trevi, just off the dusty road, in the
burning
heat of a brewing storm, we came to the Temple of Clitumnus.
This
marvellously romantic spot needs no description of ours, for the
tiny
temple seems to hold the very essence of what is best in pagan art
and
worship, and its praises have been sung by classic poets throughout
the
course of centuries.[120]
[Illustration: THE TEMPLE OF
CLITUMNUS]
With the following stanzas passing through one's mind, one may
linger
very long and pleasantly down by the water's edge, and dragging
one's
hands in the cool stream, and looking towards the temple up above,
dream
golden dreams of river gods and hamadryads as well as of "milk
white
steer."
"But thou, Clitumnus! in thy sweetest wave
Of the most living crystal that was e'er
The haunt of river nymph, to
gaze and lave
Her limbs where nothing hid them, thou dost rear
Thy grassy banks whereon the milk-white steer
Grazes; the purest god
of gentle waters!
And most serene of aspect, and most clear;
Surely that stream was unprofaned by slaughters--
A mirror and a bath
for Beauty's youngest daughters!
"And on thy happy shore a Temple
still,
Of small and delicate proportion, keeps,
Upon a mild
declivity of hill,
Its memory of thee; beneath it sweeps
Thy
current's calmness; oft from out it leaps
The finny darter with the
glittering scales,
Who dwells and revels in thy glassy deeps;
While, chance, some scattered water-lily sails
Down where the
shallower wave still tells its bubbling tales.
"Pass not unblest the
Genius of the place!
If through the air a zephyr more serene
Win to the brow, 'tis his; and if ye trace
Along his margin a more
eloquent green,
If on the heart the freshness of the scene
Sprinkle its coolness, and from the dry dust
Of weary life a moment lave
it clean
With Nature's baptism,--'tis to him ye must
Pay
orisons for this suspension of disgust."
See "Childe Harold's
Pilgrimage," Canto IV., stanza lxvi., etc.
SPOLETO.
Late in
the light of a thundery evening we drove into the town of
Spoleto. As our
weary horses dragged us through the city gates, and up
and under the walls of
the silent town, a sort of terror and of gloom
possessed our spirits. Here
was something new and big and strange. What
did it mean? Gradually we became
accustomed to the spirit of the place,
and seemed to realise the reason of
its grim impression.
For days we had been steeped in Umbrian landscape as
one expects to know
it nowadays, in gentle fields, in lanes, and hills and
sunny
pastures--in those same things which gave to the Umbrian saints
and
painters the spirit of peace. Spoleto had none of these. Spoleto
is
purely Umbrian, as far as geography goes, she was at one time the
head
of Umbrian matters, but the town was always independent, a thing
apart,
or rather, perhaps, influenced by the influence of larger rules
and
kingdoms. Hers is a stirring history,[121] and the sense of her wars
and
of her dukes lives on within her stones, and is stamped upon her
houses
and her church walls. There was a smell of dukes and cardinals,
of
pomposity and vastness, even in the rooms of our inn[122]; and the
very
landscape round seemed throttled by the passing of imperial people.
It
was as though a great emperor had taken a peasant girl and dressed
her
up in gorgeous clothes and given her a splendid palace for a home.
The
girl (the gentle spirit of Umbria) withered, but the palace built
for
her remained, and the best thing about it--its grand supply of
freshest
water from the hills above, brought down in great Roman
aqueducts--has
never been removed.
As we pondered these things we
remembered the brown roofs and the square
of S. Lorenzo at Perugia, and we
thought them better than all the
grandeur of imperial powers stuffed into a
narrow creek of the Umbrian
hills.
Yet Spoleto is a place which
excites a strong and lasting fascination.
Its situation is magnificent. The
citadel of Theodoric soars above it: a
mighty block of masonry; at its feet
the Duomo and the town, and at its
back the towering crags, covered here and
there with a dense growth of
ilex, box, and oak. Town and mountain are
divided by a deep gorge, but
this is spanned by the Roman aqueduct, 266 feet
in height, and the most
remarkable point of the whole town. To get a full
impression of Spoleto
one should cross the aqueduct and walk or ride to Monte
Luco, a convent
built immediately above the city, in the midst of the ilex
woods.
Thence, on a broad bastion, outside the cell where S. Francis came
to
pray, one's eye wanders over a magnificent stretch of plain and hill
and
river, backed by a land of barren mountain tops and gorges.
* * * * *
Very few treasures of art are left in
the town itself, and these are as
bruised, as scattered, and unsatisfactory
as those of any city whose
history is one of fighting and perpetual sieges
rather than of artists
or of fame. Lo Spagna lived at Spoleto, and worked
there largely; but
the gentle style of his colouring, the peace and often
affectation of
his figures seems out of place on the altars of half barbaric
or barocco
churches. Everywhere there are bits of Roman building picked up
and
stuck about on pavements and facades: a painful mixture, lacking
care
and order. Several of the churches have good Lombard fronts; the
Chiesa
del Crocifisso is built from the ruins of a Roman temple, but the
place
is only a pain to see in its dilapidation.
The Duomo is a really
impressive building, with a splendid Lombard
front--a broad balcony supported
by columns, and eight rose windows
above it. The roof of the choir is painted
by Filippo Lippi.
Filippo Lippi died at Spoleto in 1489. He was poisoned,
some say, this
Florentine monk, because of his loves with an Umbrian lady.
Lorenzo de'
Medici tried to get his body back that they might bury it in
Florence,
but the Spoletans refused, pleading that they possessed so few
objects
of interest of their own that they must needs keep the bones of
this
great painter for an ornament. So Lorenzo caused his tomb to be built
in
the cathedral of Spoleto. As we turned from the long Latin
inscription
written above it we felt that Browning's lines would have served
the
purpose just as well, and much more shortly:
"_Flower o' the
clove,_
_All the Latin I construe is, 'amo' I
love!_"
NARNI.
Leaving Trevi and its cataracts to the left we
passed in the train to
Narni. We came there for an hour, we stayed a whole
day and a night,
fascinated by the marvellous view which met us from the
windows of the
inn.[123] Part of the city of Narni is built immediately upon
the steep
crags which overhang the gorge of the Nar. From this side the
position
of the city may be practically called inaccessible, and over it
our
windows looked. We had seen the Umbrian plains and valleys, we had
seen
Spoleto; Narni again was a fresh surprise, it seemed to represent to
us
the Umbrian Alps. The place has a tempestuous history. There is
a
certain beaten look about its walls which reminded us of Perugia,
and,
indeed, the cities are alike in many ways. Both were practically in
the
power of the Popes whilst considering themselves as
independent
republics, both fostering perpetual feuds between the
neighbouring
cities.[124] But whereas Perugia has kept an ample record of her
past,
that of Narni is almost obliterated. Through a piece of misguided
policy
she laid herself open to a horrible siege in 1527 (see pamphlet
by
Giuseppe Terrenzi). The Bourbons entered the town, sacked the
houses,
butchered her inhabitants, destroyed her considerable treasures of
art,
and finally, made an end of nearly all her archives.
* * * * *
In Narni, however, we did not look for
art. We came there almost
unexpectedly, and unexpectedly we stayed, wandering
through its streets,
discovering with delight the rare and lovely bits of
Lombard tracery on
house and church door, and passing in and out between the
Roman
gateways.[125] At night we sat in the quiet rooms
[Illustration:
NARNI (WITH ANGELO INN IN FOREGROUND)]
of the Angelo inn, and listened to
the nightingales which sang with
their habitual vehemence deep in the ilex
woods across the river Nar.
They had sung, no doubt, in just this fashion
hundreds of years ago,
when the Bourbons broke into the town and half
destroyed her people.
ORVIETO.
In the dull light of coming
rain we turned our backs on Narni and took
the train for Orte. We left the
sun at the same time as we left the
green and wooded hills and valleys. The
rain came down in sheets at
Orte; and we found ourselves in the deadly
land--the land of grey
volcanic strata, bare like a bone, in the valley of
the Paglia. Dreary
enough was the outlook when we came to Orvieto. The city
seemed as
though it had been drenched in the ink of a wounded sepia; the
streets
were black and foul, the houses low and closely packed; walls
without
towers, dwindled and decayed rather than bombarded, and people
with
fever-stricken faces huddled in the square.
*
* * * *
Heavy drenching rain of spring. Under the
darkness of the clouds,
soaring high as a glorious vision above the miserable
houses--a peacock
in a hen-coop, a miracle of marbles and mosaics--the Duomo
of
Orvieto!... No one who has ever seen the building can forget it, for
it
is like a great surprise; it startles and astounds one in the midst
of
the decay around it. Here, if anywhere in Umbria, the power of the
Pope
or of the Church was sealed on the rebellious souls of its
inhabitants;
here to commemorate a dubious miracle men made a dream in
stone.[126] To
describe its splendours were in this small sketch a mere
impertinence.
But if we wish to see what is perhaps the finest bit of Gothic
work in
Italy, if we wish to learn the power of Signorelli's painting, it
is
certain that we must come hither and study at Orvieto.
* * * * *
As we turned our back on the cathedral
we wondered what it was about her
people which had allowed them to foster
such a mighty piece of purest
art throughout a turbulent history. Certainly
the popes had power in the
city.[127] They made it a mighty church, they made
for it an almost
mightier well! When Clement VII. fled from Rome in 1527 he
took refuge
in Orvieto, and, haunted by the fear of drought in case of
siege,
conceived the extraordinary idea of building a colossal well, for
which
purpose he employed the same architect as Paul III. employed to
build
his fortress at Perugia.
Signorelli painted a picture of the
Inferno for Orvieto, Sangallo built
for it an Inferno in bricks! Feathery
mosses, sombre ferns have grown
across the inside walls of the great _pozzo_
(which was built on a scale
to suit a train of ascending and descending
elephants); they seemed to
seethe like sulphurous smoke in the dark and fetid
air and we hurried
from it gladly into the rain of the
street....
CHIUSI.
From Orvieto we went to Chiusi. The rain
went with us too, and of the
town itself we saw but little, only all around
us in the dense woods, in
the silent soaking air of night, the nightingales
were singing their
piercing penetrating songs of love and May. The air was
full of the
strong sweet voices and of the scent of growing leaves, of
privet, and
wet earth. Chiusi is a centre of interest to students of
Etruscan
history, and although the little town exports its treasures to
every
museum in Europe its own is full of beauties still. We lingered
long
among them, fascinated by the goblin birds which are perched upon
the
vases and the pent roof of the tombs, fascinated by the excellence
and
the variety of the greater part of all the objects in the cases.
The
rain poured pitilessly upon the streets of Chiusi; it swept in
sheets
across the lake and over the towers of Montepulciano, and we
abandoned
all hopes of going to the tombs themselves and drove away across
the
marshes and up the wooded hills to Citta della
Pieve.[128]
CITTA DELLA PIEVE.
... "j'etais tout de meme
persuade que Citta della Pieve reste la ville
la plus merveilleuse de
l'Ombrie," says M. Broussole; and we ourselves
in many ways agreed with him.
The charm of the town consists firstly, in
its situation, and secondly, in
its association. It commands wide views
northwards over the lakes of Chiusi
and of Trasimene, and southwards
towards Rome. The hill on which it stands is
densely wooded, there is
perpetual peace in its streets, it is the
birth-place of Pietro
Perugino and contains some faint fair bits of the
master's later work.
All day we wandered through the town, and when the
evening came we found
ourselves at service in the church of Santa Maria dei
Servi.
* * * * *
It was May, the
month of Mary. The people from the town came pouring in
for benediction. They
were nearly all of them very poor people, the men
haggard with perpetual
labour in the fields,[129] quiet and eager even
when very old; the girls
fair, slim, colourless, their shawls too well
defining the slender slope of
their thin shoulders; the children brown
and fascinating, and the older women
lost in prayer. (We have noticed
that the veriest hags in Umbria seem to pray
as though they fully
realised the sins of their forefathers, and felt the
present generation
needed all their prayers.) Peace and poverty were the two
things which
were stamped most clearly on the faces of the congregation. The
priests
themselves looked poor and worn, shorn of their fat homes
and
privileges. There were not many candles on the altar and these
they
lighted slowly one by one. Then they begun to sing a long low
wailing
chaunt in praise of Mary.
It had thundered and rained since
morning. The day died out in an orange
glow which filtered through the hedges
on the road outside and fell
through the door of the church, gilding, as
though with the softness of
a vision, the groups of tired people. It rested
with a wonderful
radiance on the faded fresco above the chapel where we
sat.[130]
In all the country round, it would have been difficult to find
a scene
more steeped in the spirit of pastoral Umbria than this one:
the
half-ruined church, the graceful tired people, the thin priests, and
the
faded fresco of Perugino; the whole saved from squalor by the
splendour
of the sunlight on the land outside the door.
We opened a
book which we had carried with us on our journey and read
the following
lines:
"Oh! qui nous delivrera du mal de science! N'est-ce point
folie
d'avoir etouffe a grand peine tous les meilleurs instincts de
notre
etre, pour obeir a la mode du jour et nous faire une ame
critique!
Adieu les beaux enthousiasmes! On n'ose plus aimer la
verite
d'aujourd'hui depuis qu'on ne sait jamais qu'elle sera celle
de
demain! Il y, a des erreurs dont on ne peut se consoler.
Quelle
pitie de s'etre prosterne tant de fois avec toutes les
tendresses
de son ame croyante devant un escalier vermoulu que des
moines
trompeurs exhibaient depuis des siecles comme ayant abrite
la
sainte penitence d'un saint Alexis qui n'a jamais existe! Ne
donnons plus jamais notre coeur a la verite! Promenons sur les
choses et
les hommes l'eternel sourire de notre indifference
moqueuse. C'est la
qu' est le plaisir et le charme de la saine
critique. Tout sera parfait
quand les histoires commenceront et
finiront par ce gai refrain _Chi lo
sa_."[131]
* * * * *
_Chi lo
sa._--The words brought up before our eyes a host of images:
hedges and
fields, woods and plains, green with the green of the
May-time: white roads
and poppy fields, the oak woods under Trevi, the
ilex groves of Spoleto, the
long low lines of shining Trasimene, the
marshy shores of Chiusi; and still
more fair and more romantic, the cool
green stream of the Clitumnus flowing
beneath the pagan temple of a
Roman river god.... That was the vision we had
learned to love and know,
with no attempt to criticise, and it was all
composed of natural things.
Dimly in the past we saw another vision: our
study at Perugia. Piles and
piles of manuscripts were there; books and maps,
and guides, pamphlets,
chronicles and histories--the records of men's doings,
one and all.
* * * * *
What about
all this history, these interminable records of building and
of quarrelling,
of burying and strife? What in fact about all these
Perugian
P's:--_Persecuzione_, _Protezione_, _Processione_; Popes,
people, painters,
and _Priori_? What had all these persons done to touch
or trammel permanently
the eternal smile of Umbrian nature through which
we had been passing? Surely
there were lovers who, amongst the savage
bands of men who skirmished down
the hill across the plains in order to
insult or to offend their neighbours,
stopped to snatch a white rose
from the hedges where they grew in thousands?
And there were women,
young and pure and peaceful, ignorant of the Pope,
indifferent to the
Baglioni, who waited for them in their homes--women with
the faces of
Bonfigli's angels, Bonfigli's roses, maybe, twisted in their
hair?... |
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