Chapter 38

It is quite another sort of beauty we see when, passing through the deserted, quiet streets, we come to S. Frediano, just within the Porta S. Maria, on the north side of the city. Begun by Perharlt, the Lombard, in 671, with the stones of the amphitheatre, whose ruins are still to be seen hard by, it stood without the city till the great wall was built in the twelfth century, the apse being set where formerly the great door had stood, and the marvellously impressive fagade taking the place of the old apse. Ruined though it be by time and restoration, that mosaic of Our Lord amid the Apostles and Angels still surprises us with a sudden glory, while the Campanile that rises still where of old the door stood is one of the most beautiful in Italy. Within, the church has suffered too from change and restoration. Once of basilical form, it is now spoiled by the chapels that thrust themselves into the nave, but cannot altogether hide the nobility of those ancient pillars or the simplicity of the roof. A few beautiful ancient things may still be found there. The font, for instance, with its rude sculptures, that has been forsaken for a later work by Niccolò Civitali, the nephew of Matteo; the Assumption, carved in wood by that master behind the pulpit; the lovely reliefs of Madonna and Child with Saints, by Jacopo della Quercia, in the Cappella del Sacramento; or the great stone which, as it is said, S. Frediano, that Irishman, lifted into a cart.

But it is not of S. Frediano we think in this dark and splendid place, though the stone of his miracle lies before us, but of little S. Zita, patron of housemaids, little S. Zita of Lucca, born in 1211. "Anziani di Santa Zita," the devil calls the elders of Lucca in the eighth circle of Hell; but in her day, indeed, she had no such fame as that. She was born at Montesegradi, a village of the Lucchese, and was put to service at twelve years of age, in the family of the Fantinelli, whose house was close to this church, where now she has a chapel to herself at the west end of the south aisle, with a fine Annunciation of the della Robbia. To think of it!--but in those days it was different; it would puzzle Our Lord to find a S. Zita among our housemaids of to-day. For hear and consider well the virtues of this pearl above price, whose daughters, alas! are so sadly to seek while she dusts the Apostles' chairs in heaven. She was persuaded that labour was according to the will of God, nor did she ever harbour any complaint under contradictions, poverty, hardships; still less did she ever entertain the least idle, inordinate, or worldly desire! She blessed God for placing her in a station where she was ever busy, and where she must perpetually submit her will to that of others. "She was even very sensible of the advantages of her state, which afforded all necessaries of life without engaging her in anxious cares, ... she obeyed her master and mistress in all things, ... she rose always hours before the rest of the family, ... she took care to hear Mass every morning before she was called upon by the duties of her station, in which she employed the whole day with such diligence and fidelity that she seemed to be carried to them on wings, and studied to anticipate them!" Is it any wonder her fellow-servants hated her, called her modesty simplicity, her want of spirit servility? Ah, we know that spirit, we know that pride, S. Zita, and for those wings that bore you, for that thoughtfulness and care, S. Zita, we should be willing to pay you quite an inordinate wage! Nor would your mistress to-day be prepossessed against you as yours was, neither would your master be "passionate," and he would see you, S. Zita, without "transports of rage." Your biographer tells us that it is not to be conceived how much you had continually to suffer in that situation. Unjustly despised, overburdened, reviled, and often beaten, you never repined nor lost patience, but always preserved the same sweetness in your countenance, and abated nothing of your application to your duties. Moreover, you were willing to respect your fellow-servants as your superiors. And if you were sent on a commission a mile or two, in the greatest storms, you set out without delay, executed your business punctually, and returned often almost drowned, without showing any sign of murmuring. And at last, S. Zita, they found you out, they began to treat you better, they even thought so well of you that a single word from you would often suffice to check the greatest transports of your master's rage; and you would cast yourself at the feet of that terrific man, to appease him in favour of others. And all these and more were your virgin virtues, lost, gone, forgotten out of mind, by a world that dreams of no heavenly housemaid save in Lucca where you lived, and where they still keep your April festa, and lay their nosegays on your grave.

So I passed in Lucca from church to church, finding here the body of a little saint, there the tomb of a soldier, or the monument of some dear dead woman. In S. Francesco, that desecrated great mausoleum that lies at the end of the Via di S. Francesco not far from the garden tower of Paolo Guinigi, I came upon the humble grave of Castruccio Castracani. In S. Romano, at the other end of the city behind the Palazzo Provinciale, it was the shrine of that S. Romano who was the gaoler of S. Lorenzo I found, a tomb with the delicate flowerlike body of the murdered saint carved there in gilded alabaster by Matteo Civitali.

It is chiefly Civitali's work you seek in the Museo in Palazzo Provinciale, for, fine as the work of Bartolommeo is in two pictures to be found there, it is for something more of the country than that you are to come to Lucca. There, in a Madonna Assunta carved in wood and plaster, and daintily painted as it seems he loved to do, you have perhaps the most charming work that has come from his bottega. He was not a great sculptor, but he had seen the vineyards round about, he had wandered in the little woods at the city gates, he had watched the dawn run down the valleys, and the wind that plays with the olives was his friend. He has loved all that is delicate and lovely, the wings of angels, the hands of children, the long blown hair of St. John in his Death of the Virgin, the eyelids that have fallen over the eyes. He is full of grace, and his virtues seem to me to be just those which Lucca herself possesses. Hidden away between the mountains, between the plains and the sea, she achieved nothing, or almost nothing. Castracani for a moment forced her into the pell-mell of awakened Italy, but with his death, and certainly with the fall of the House of Guinigi, she returned to herself, to her own quiet heart, which was enough for her. This one sculptor is almost her sole contribution to Italian art, but she was content that his works should scatter her ways, and that hidden away in her churches his shy flowers should blossom. Civitali and S. Zita, they are the two typical Lucchesi; they sum up a city composed of such as Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife, whom Van Eyck painted, that great bourgeoisie which made Italy without knowing it, and, unconcerned while the great men and the rabble fought in the wars or lost their lives in a petty revolution, were eager only to be let alone, that they might continue their labour and gather in wealth. And of them history is silent, for they made her.

FOOTNOTES:

[144] See p. 94 et seq.

[145] This coining of money was as much as to prove that he had a sort of sovereign right over their territory.

XXX. OVER THE GARFAGNANA

So in the long August days, that are so fierce in the city, I sought once more the hills, the hills that are full of songs, those songs which in Italy have grown with the flowers and are full of just their wistful beauty, their expectancy and sweetness.

"Fiorin di grano, Lasciatemi cantar, chè allegra sono, Ho rifatto la pace col mio damo."

There in the Garfagnana, as I wandered up past Castelnuovo to the little village of Piazza al Serchio, and then through the hills to Fivizanno, that wonderful old town in a cup of the mountains, I heard the whole drama of love sung by the "vaghe montanine pastorelle" in the chestnut woods or on the high lawns where summer is an eternal spring.

"O rosa! O rosa! O rosa gentillina! Quanto bella t'ha fatta la tua mamma! T'ha fatto bella, poi t'ha messo un fiore; T'ha messo alla finestra a far l'amore. T'ha fatto bella e t'ha messo una rosa: T'ha messo alla finestra a far la sposa."

sings the young man one morning as he passes the cottage of his beloved, and she, scarcely fourteen, goes to her mother, weeping perhaps--

"Mamma, se non mi date il mio Beppino, Vo' andar pel mondo, e mai più vo' tornare. Se lo vedessi quanto gli è bellino, O mamma, vi farebbe innamorare. E' porta un giubboncin di tre colori, E si chiama Beppino Ruba--cori: E' porta un giubboncin rosso incarnato, E si chiama Beppino innamorato: E' porta un giubboncin di mezza lana; Quest' è Beppino, ed io son la sua dama."

Then the _damo_ comes to serenade his mistress--

"Vengo di notte e vengo appassionato, Vengo nell'ora del tuo bel dormire. Se ti risveglio, faccio un gran peccato Perchè non dormo, e manco fo dormire. Se ti risveglio, un gran peccato faccio: Amor non dorme, e manco dormir lascia."

And she, who doubtless has heard it all in her little bed, sings on the morrow--

"Oh, quanto tempo l'ho desiderato Un damo aver che fosse sonatore! Eccolo qua che Dio me l'ha mandato Tutto coperto di rose e viole; Eccolo qua che vien pianin pianino, A capo basso, e suona il violino."

Then they sing of Saturday and Sunday--

"Quando sara sabato sera, quando? Quando sara domenica mattina, Che vedrò l'amor mio spasseggiando, Che vedrò quella faccia pellegrina, Che vedrò quel bel volto, e quel bel viso, O fior d'arancio côlto in paradiso! Che vedrò quel bel viso e quel bel volto, O fior d'arancio in paradiso côlto!"

So all the summer long they play at love; but with October Beppino must go to the Maremma with the herds, and she thinks over this as the time draws near--

"E quando io penso a quelle tante miglia, E che voi, amor mio, l'avete a fare, Nelle mie vene il sangue si rappiglia, Tutti li sensi miei sento mancare; E li sento mancare a poco a poco, Come la cera in sull'ardente foco: E li sento mancare a dramma, a dramma, Come la cera in sull'ardente fiamma."

Or again, with half a sob--

"Come volete faccia che non pianga Sapendo che da voi devo partire? E tu bello in Maremma ed io 'n montagna! Chesta partenza mi farà morire...."

And at last she watches him depart, winding down the long roads--

"E vedo e vedo e non vedo chi voglio, Vedo le foglie di lontan tremare. E vedo lo mio amore in su quel poggio, E al piano mai lo vedo calare. O poggio traditor, che ne farete? O vivo o morto me lo renderete. O poggio traditor, che ne farai? O vivo o morto me lo renderai."

Then she dreams of sending a letter in verses, which recall, how closely, the Swallow song of "The Princess"--

"O Rondinella che passi monti e colli, Se trovi l'amor mio, digli che venga; E digli: son rimasta in questi poggi Come rimane la smarrita agnella. E digli: son rimasta senza nimo Come l'albero secco senza 'l cimo. E digli: son rimasta senza damo, Come l'albero secco senza il ramo. E digli: son rimasta abbandonata Come l'erbetta secca in sulle prata."

At length she sends a letter with the help of the village scrivener, and in time gets an answer--

"Salutatemi, bella, lo scrivano; Non lo conosco e non so chi si sia. A me mi pare un poeta sovrano Tanto gli è sperto nella poesia ..."

Signor Tigri in his excellent collection of _Canti Toscani_, from which I have quoted, gives some examples too of these letters and their replies, but they are too long to set down here.

With spring the lover returns. You may see the girls watching for the lads any day of spring in those high far woods through which the roads wind down to the plains.

"Eccomi, bella, che son già venuto Che li sospiri tuoi m'hanno chiamato, E tu credevi d'avermi perduto, Dal ben che ti volevo son tornato. Quando son morto, mi farai un gran pianto; Dirai: è morto chi mi amava tanto! Quando son morto, un gran pianto farai, Padrona del mio cor sempre sarai."

Then in the early summer days the promises are given, and long and long before autumn the good priest marries Beppino to his Annuziatina, and doubtless they live happy ever after in those quiet and holy places.

It is into this country of happiness you come, a happiness so vaguely musical, when, leaving Lucca in the summer heat, you climb into the Garfagnana. For to your right Bagni di Lucca lies under Barga, with its church and great pulpit; and indeed, the first town you enter is Borgo a Mozzano by Serchio; then, following still the river, you come to Gallicano, and then by a short steep road to Castelnuovo di Garfagnana at the foot of the great pass. The mountains have clustered round you, bare and threatening, and though you be still in the woods it is their tragic nudity you see all day long, full of the disastrous gestures of death, that can never change or be modified or recalled. It is under these lonely and desolate peaks that the road winds to Piazza al Serchio.

Castelnuovo is a little city caught in a bend of Serchio, which it spans by a fantastic high bridge that leaps across the shrunken torrent. A mere huddle of mediaeval streets and piazzas in an amphitheatre of mountains, its one claim on our notice is that here is a good inn, kept by a strange tragical sort of man with a beautiful wife, the only sunshine in that forbidding place. She lies there like a jewel among the inhuman rocks, and Serchio for ever whispers her name. Here too, doubtless, came Ariosto, most serene of poets, when in 1522 he was sent to suppress an insurrection in the Garfagnana. But even Ariosto will not keep you long in Castelnuovo, since she whom he would certainly have sung, and whose name you will find in his poem, cannot hold you there. So you follow the country road up stream, a laughing, leaping torrent in September, full of stones longing for rain, towards Camporgiano.

It is very early in the morning maybe, as you climb out of the shadow and receive suddenly the kiss of the morning sun over a shoulder of the great mountains, a kiss like the kiss of the beloved. From the village of Piazza al Serchio, where the inn is rough truly but _pulito_, it is a climb of some six chilometri into the pass, where you leave the river, then the road, always winding about the hills, runs level for four miles, and at last drops for five miles into Fivizzano. All the way the mountains stand over you frighteningly motionless and threatening, till the woods of Fivizzano, that magical town, hide you in their shadow, and evening comes as you climb the last hill that ends in the Piazza before the door of the inn.

Here are hospitality, kindness, and a welcome; you will get a great room for your rest, and the salone of the palace, for palace it is, for your sojourn, and an old-fashioned host whose pleasure is your comfort, who is, as it were, a daily miracle. He it will be who will make your bed in the chamber where Grand Duke Leopold slept, he will wait upon you at dinner as though you were the Duke's Grace herself, and if your sojourn be long he will make you happy, and if your stay be short you will go with regret. For his pride is your delight, and he, unlike too many more famous Tuscans, has not forgotten the past. Certainly he thinks it not altogether without glory, for he has carved in marble over your bed one of those things which befell in his father's time. Here it is--

"Qui stette per tre giorni Nel Settembre del MDCCCXXXII Leopoldo Il Granduca di Toscana E i fratelli Cojari da Fivizzano L'imagine dell' Ottimo Principi vi possero Perchè rimanesse ai posteri memoria Che la loro casa fu nobilitata Dalle presenza dell' ospite augusto."

But nature had ennobled the House of Cojari already. There all day long in the pleasant heat the fountain of Cosimo in plays in the Piazza outside your window, cooling your room with its song. And, indeed, in all Tuscany it would be hard to find a place more delightful or more lovely in which to spend the long summer that is so loath to go here in the south. Too soon, too soon the road called me from those meadows and shadowy ways, the never-ending whisper of the woods, the sound of streams, the song of the mountain shepherd girls, the quiet ways of the hills.

It was an hour after sunrise when I set out for Fosdinovo of the Malaspina, for Sarzana, for Spezia, for England. The way lies over the rivers Aulella and Bardine, through Soliero in the valley, through Ceserano of the hills. Thence by a way steep and dangerous I came into the valley of Bardine, only to mount again to Tendola and at last to Foce Cuccù, where on all sides the valleys filled with woods fell away from me, and suddenly at a turning of the way I spied out Fosdinovo, lordly still on its bastion of rock, guarding Val di Magra, looking towards Luna and the sea.

Little more than an eyrie for eagles, Fosdinovo is an almost perfect fortress of the Middle Age. It glowers in the sun like a threat over the ways that now are so quiet, where only the bullocks dragging the marble from Carrara pass all day long from Massa to Spezia, from the valley to the sea.

It was thence for the first time for many months I looked on a land that was not Tuscany. Already autumn was come in that high place; a flutter of leaves and the wind of the mountains made a sad music round about the old walls, which had heard the voice of Castruccio Castracani, whose gates he had opened by force. And then, as I sat there above the woods towards evening, from some bird passing overhead there fell a tiny feather, whiter than snow, that came straight into my hand. Was it a bird, or my angel, whose beautiful, anxious wings trembled lest I should fall in a land less simple than this?

INDEX

Adeodatus Agostino di Duccio Alberti, Leon Albertinelli Alessi, Galeazzo Angelico, Beato Apuan Alps Arcola Arnolfo di Cambio Arnolfo Fiorentino Avenza

Bagni di Lucca Baldovinetti Bandinelli Barga Bartolommeo, Frate Bellini, Giovanni Benedetto da Maiano Benedetto da Rovezzano Benozzo, Gozzoli Bertoldo di Giovanni Bibbiena Biduino Boccaccio Bonannus Borgo a Mozzano Borgo S. Lorenzo Botticelli Bracco, Passo di Brunellesco Buggiano Byron

Calci Camaldoli Camogli Campaldino Capraja Carpaccio Carrara S. Andrea Quarries Cascina Casentino Bibbiena Camaldoli Campaldino Campo Lombardo Castel Castagnajo Falterona La Verna Poppi Porciano Pratovecchio Romena Stia The way to Vallombrosella Vallucciole Castagno Castagno, Andrea del Castel del Bosco Castelfranco Castelnuovo di Garfagnana Castelnuovo di Magra Castracani, Castruccio Cellini, Benvenuto Cervara Chiavari Children in Italy Cimabue Cino da Pistoja Ciuffagni Civitali, Matteo Columbus Consuma Pass Corbignano Correggio Corsica Country Life, Love of Crusades

Dante Desiderio da Settignano Dicomano Donatello Doria, the Duccio of Siena

Empoli Evelyn's approach to Genoa

Faggiuola, Uguccione della Falterona Ferrucci, Andrea Fiesole S. Ansano Badia S. Domenico Duomo S. Francesco Palazzo Pretorio Scavi The way to View from Fivizzano Florence Albizzi, the S. Antonino Beata Villana Boboli gardens Bocca degli Abati Bridges Buondelmonti Campaldino Campanile, the Capponi, Piero Charles VIII. in Churches-- S. Ambrogio SS. Annunziata SS. Apostoli S. Appolonia Badia Baptistery Carmine S. Caterina Chiostro dello Scalzo S. Croce Chapels Choir Cloisters Museo Sacristy S. Donato a Torri Duomo Best aspect of Character of Nave, aspect of S. Felice S. Frediano in Castello S. Jacopo S. Lorenzo Laurentian library New Sacristy Old Sacristy S. Lucia sul Prato S. Marco S. Maria degli Angioli S. Maria degli Innocenti S. Maria Maddalena de' Pazzi S. Maria Novella Chapels Façade S. Miniato Misericordia Ognissanti S. Onofrio Or San Michele S. Piero Maggiore S. Piero Scheraggio S. Salvatore S. Salvi S. Simone S. Spirito S. Stefano S. Trinità Corso Donati Duke of Athens Farinata degli Uberti Gates-- Porta Alla Croce S. Frediano S. Giorgio S. Miniato S. Niccola Romana Guilds Humiliati Laudesi Liberty in Florence Loggia de' Lanzi Lung'Arno Marsilio Ficino Medici, the-- Alessandro Cosimo Cosimo I. Ferdinando II. Gian Gastone Giovanni Giovanni di Bicci Giulio Guiliano Ippolito Lorenzino Lorenzo Piero Piero the exile Salvestro Mercato Nuovo Montaperti Monte Senario Museums-- Accademia Bargello, the Opera del Duomo Pitti Palace Uffizi The curse of Neri and Bianchi Niccolò Uzzano Oltr'Arno Ospedale degli Innocenti Palazzi-- Albizzi Altoviti Antinori Bargello, _see_ Museums Bartolini Salimbeni Buondelmonte Corsini Davanzati Falconieri, _see_ Opera del Duomo, under Museums Frescobaldi Guadagni Nonfinito Pazzi del Podestà, _see_ Bargello Riccardi Cappella Ricasoli Spini Strozzi Torrigiani Uffizi, _see_ under Museums Uguccione Vecchio Pazzi Piazzas-- SS. Annunziata S. Croce Duomo Limbo S. Lorenzo S. Maria Novella S. Piero Signoria S. Trinità Vittorio Emanuele Pico della Mirandola Pitti, the family of Savonarola Soderini Streets-- delle Belle Donne Borgo Allegri Borgo degli Albizzi Borgo SS. Apostoli Borgo S. Jacopo Borgo S. Lorenzo Calzaioli Cerretani Corso Lambertesca Maggio Por S. Maria Porta Rossa Proconsolo dei Serpi Tornabuoni Viale dei Colli Foce La (di Spezia) Foce La (di Carrara) Fosdinovo