Old Calabria

I. SARACEN LUCERA II. MANFRED’S TOWN III. THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA IV. CAVE-WORSHIP V. LAND OF HORACE VI. AT VENOSA VII. THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT VIII. TILLERS OF THE SOIL IX. MOVING...

From this window I look into the little harbour whose beach is dotted with fishing-boats. Some twenty or thirty sailing-vessels are riding at anchor; in the early morning they u...

It was barely midday. Yet I was already surfeited with the angelic metropolis, and my thoughts began to turn in the direction of Manfredonia once more. At a corner of the street...

The country around must have looked different in olden days. Horace describes it as covered with forests, and from a manuscript of the early seventeenth century which has lately...

Such was Horace’s point of view. The fruitful fields and their hardy brood of tillers appealed to him;[1] the ocean and snowy Alps were beyond the range of his affections. His l...

Green is a little better known, but still chiefly connected with things not out of doors, as a green handkerchief. The reason may be that this tint is too common in nature to be...

It was not long ere I discovered that there was another bed in this den, opposite my own; and judging by certain undulatory and saltatory movements within, it was occupied. Pres...

But his most remarkable flights took place at Fossombrone, where once “detaching himself in swiftest manner from the altar with a cry like thunder, he went, like lightning, gyra...

“And in favour of my contention that hair should be worn short nowadays, I need only cite the case of His Majesty the King, whose august head, we all know, is clipped like that...

[2] Nor is there any of the fashionable _verde_ _antico,_ and this points in the same direction. Corsi says nothing as to the date of its introduction, and I have not read the t...

So the dragon has grown into a subterranean monster, who peers up from his dark abode wherever he can—out of fountains or caverns whence fountains issue. It stands to reason tha...

The lives of some of these Greco-Calabrian hermits are valuable documents. In the _Vitae Sanctorum Siculorum_ of O. Caietanus (1657) the student will find a Latin translation of...

They have begun in earnest. The swoon of summer is upon the land, the grass is cut, cicadas are chirping overhead. Despite its height of a thousand feet, Castrovillari must be b...

The whole country is full of Saracen memories. The name of Morano, they say, is derived from _moro_,[1] a Moor; and in its little piazza—an irregular and picturesque spot, shade...

The ominous name “Torre di Guardia” (tower of outlook)—a cliff whence the sea was scanned for the appearance of Turkish vessels—survives all over the south. Barbarossa, too, has...

This solitary fane is perched, like an eagle’s nest, on the edge of a cliff overhanging the Frida torrent. Owing to this fact, and to its great elevation, the views inland are w...

The matter is still unsettled, and in view of the number of recent scholars who have interested themselves in it, one is really surprised that no notice has yet been taken of an...

Milton no doubt kept on hand many loose passages of poetry, both original and borrowed, ready to be worked up into larger pieces; all poets are smothered in odd scraps of verse...

The two churches of Vaccarizza, dark and unclean structures, stand side by side, and I was shown through them by their respective priests, Greek and Catholic, who walked arm in...

Disgusted with the clamorous and intriguing bustle of Naples, he retired, at the early age of 34, to his natal village of Macchia, throwing over one or two offers of lucrative w...

Evening was closing in, and I had traversed the stream so often and stumbled so long amid this chaos of roaring waters and weirdly-tinted rocks, that I began to wonder whether t...

That these inhabitants of the Sila are Bruttians may be inferred from the superior position occupied by their women-folk, who are quite differently treated to those of the lowla...

The Ampollina valley lies high; here, in the dewy grass, I enjoyed what I well knew would be my last shiver for some time to come; then moved for a few miles on the further bank...

At last! At last, after an interminable diet of hard bread, onions and goat’s cheese, I was to enjoy the complicated menu mapped out weeks beforehand, after elaborate considerat...

If a titanic blade had sheared through the _palazzo_ lengthwise, the thing could not have been done more neatly. The whole interior had gone down, save a portion of the rooms ab...

The engulfing of the saints by the Mother of God is due also to political reasons. The Vatican, once centralized in its policy, began to be disquieted by the persistent survival...

In wonder-working capacities these saints were all put in the shade by the Calabrian Francesco di Paola, who raised fifteen persons from the dead in his boyhood. He used to perf...

Fully to appreciate their attitude as opposed to ours, we must also remember that the south Italian does not trouble himself about the objective truth of any miracle whatever; h...

Speak to the wisest judges of the horrors of cellular confinement such as Musolino was enduring up to a short time ago, as opposed to capital punishment, and you will learn that...

These Calabrian conditions are only part of a general change of climate which seems to have taken place all over Italy; a change to which Columella refers when, quoting Saserna,...

It is now rebuilt on modern lines and not much of the original structure remains upright. I wandered about the precincts in the company of two white-robed French monks, endeavou...

By far the best part of all such papers is the richly-tinted personal column, wherein lovers communicate with each other, or endeavour to do so. I read it conscientiously from b...

It is an easy day’s excursion from Cotrone to Strongoli, which is supposed to lie on the site of that ancient, much-besieged town. It sits upon a hill-top, and the diligence whi...

Calabria, used to include Apulia, 89; its great men and natural attractions, 93; wild animals, 94; its inns, 106; race-character of natives, 109; their hardiness, 209; their phi...

Peasantry, oppressed by taxes, 35; their virtues and vices, 47; break-up of patriarchal habits, 48, 53; their anthropomorphic language, 50; defective colour-sense, 51-52; their...