Marietta

Front matter

DAVSNPORT DUNN

A MAN OF OUR DAY.

2 VOLS.

Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. — Up to Town to see the Landlord — in Tuscany . . 1 II. — The Ponte Vecchio 15

III. — The Palazzo Lunakdi . 28

Chapter I

TJP TO TOWN TO SEE THE LANDLORD. IN TUSCANY.

A SPECIAL beauty, and a character peculiarly its own, was held in the days of Dante to mark the Tuscan valley of the Casentino ; and its rich woods and abundant waters have still the same charm which they possessed five centuries ago, intensified by the glorifying halo which the genius of the world-poet has thrown around the spot. The " Casentino" is the name of that part of the upper valley of the Arno which lies between its source in the flank of Falterona — that stalwart bulwark of the main chain of the Apennine — and the point where the river, sweeping round the base of a long and lofty spur of the mountains called the Prato Magno, begins to shape its course towards Florence in a direction almost exactly the reverse of that in which it has been previously running. And this far jutting spur of the Apennine, which thus lies between the upper and the lower valleys of the river for a distance of about twenty -five miles, is in fact but the prolongation of the huge mass of Falterona itself. So that to come out of the Casentino to Florence, it is necessary to cross the neck of this high ground, striking the river again in its lower course, some twelve miles above the capital ; unless, indeed, the traveller prefer to follow the entire devious course of the Arno, which would make Jiis journey, from the centre of the Casentino to

B

MARIETTA.

Florence, some seveBty or eighty miles, wliereas by the excellent road across the mountains, the distance is not above forty.

It was by this latter road that farmer Carlo Palli, and his son, Giovanni, were travelhng up to the capital on a May morning, in one of the earlier years of this century. Farmer Palli, I have said, because the familiar idea associated with that title conveys to an English reader, most readily, an adequate picture of the outward man and social status of the wealthy Oasentino agriculturist. But, strictly speaking, Signor Palli was not a farmer, but a " Fattore," or agent, or land-steward. He cultivated and entirely managed the large estates of the Marchese Ferdinando Perini, but he did not farm any part of them ; that relationship between landlord and cultivator being unknown in the Oasentino, as in most of the other parts of Tuscany.

The estates, which had been acquired by the father of the present marquis during the time of the French occupation, — for the Perini were quite new men, turned up to the top of Fortune's wheel by some of the rapid and strange whirls characteristic of that period, — were situated not far from Poppi ; the picturesque little town which, perched with its old castle on the top of an entirely isolated rock, in the very middle of the valley of the Oasentino, seems to be the natural capital of the rich and smihng district beneath and around it.

The residence of the Fattore was raised a little above the level of the rich plains on the last slope of the mountain enclosing the valley. It consisted of a stern and melancholy looking square old feudal fortress tower, around which a confused crowd of barns, and stables, and outhouses, and pigsties seemed to be performing a debraille dance, in mockery of the grey and gloomy senior in the centre of them ; — a picturesque dwelling enough, and looking, as seen from a distance in the valley, more like a village than a single habitation. As Quer-

ceto — for that was the name of Signor Palli's homestead was

only a few miles from Poppi, and therefore situated in the very middle and most fertile part of the Oasentino, it is clear that he had about twelve miles to travel before reaching the bottom of the long and steep ascent, which climbs the mountain rido-e above described.

UP TO TOWN. — IN TUSCANY.

Tlie Fattore, and his son, had started from home with the earliest light of the J\Iay morning, and it was not more than half-past fix wlien they began to ascend the first of these zigza^^s, by which the well-engineered road winds its way np the steep side of the Apennine. They had done the twelve miles in somewhat less than an hour and a half, and the active, ^vellfed, and well-groomed pony which drew the hght calessino, in which they travehed, settled himself to his work against the collar, and stepped out as freshly and willingly as if he wore but at the commencement of his day's journey. An excellent and most useful race of animals are these nimble and fine-limbed, yet hardy and enduring little Tuscan ponies ; and the traveller who can succeed in emancipating himself from the laws and customs laid down for the forwarding of gentlemen tourists on their way, sufficiently to secure one of them and a calessino, instead of a vetturino with his regulation cumbrous carriage, with its two or four meagre horses, may calculate on leaving the " leathern convenience" at least half a day's journey behind him in four-and-twenty hours. But he must content himself with such a carriage as that in which Carlo Palli and his sturdy son are now coming up the hill. It consists of as light a jjair of shafts, springs, and wheels as can be put together with sufficient strength to support a backless seat, just sufficient for two persons, fixed about fourteen or fifteen inches above the axle. Sometimes this simple vehicle has a light floor for the feet of the sitters ; but more frequently the place of this is supplied by a network of rope for greater lightness. Neither the carriage itself nor the seat has any back, but the latter is generally made of great width, and supphed with a thick cushion, so as to resemble very much the seat in a Venetian gondola. There are many less comfortable seats in this world than that of a Tuscan calessino the reader may rest assured.

Had it been otherwise, indeed, it may be safely assumed that Signor Palh, the wealthy Fattore of Querceto, would have found some other means of conveying his portly person to the capital. But he felt not the least temptation to abandon the traditional calessino, the favourite means of locomotion with Tuscans of all classes. But calessini, like other things, may be made to indicate very clearly the standing and social condition

B 2

MARIETTA.

of their possessors ; and that of Signor Palli was point device in every respect. The handsome little pony's harness was highly ornate. A long red worsted tassel hung on each side of his head. Every portion of the harness was studded with largeheaded brass nails, as bright as rubbing could make them. The narrow httle saddle, on which the shafts hung, rose into a peak nine inches high, similarly ornamented. The reins were of bright red worsted cord, half an inch in diameter. The body of the little carriage itself was not painted, but of the natural colour of the wood highly varnished ; and the broad amplycushioned seat was covered with a very handsome and gaycoloured bit of new-looking Brussels carpet. Very evidently to all Tuscan eyes the calessino of a well-to-do Fattore !

And the appearance of the occupants of the carriage was equally indicative of their being first-class specimens of their kind. The father might be about five-and-forty, and the son some twenty years of age ; and they were so strikingly alike, that the only difference between them seemed to be the greater width, breadth, and circumference of the former. Face, shoulders, chest, stomach, hands, feet, had been developed into at least fifty per cent, of increased horizontal extension in the case of the senior. But they were the same middle height ; they had the same ruddy bronzed hue of health in their round faces, the same short stiff black hair, the same large round bright brown eyes and briUiant teeth ; which, together with franklooking, well-formed mouths, and firm broad chins, entitled both of them to be considered unquestionably handsome men ; and the same genial, good-humoured expression of countenance — human types, in short, as wholly unlike that which forms the popular English notion of an Italian as could well be ; unlike also to the population of the cities and of the other parts of Italy, but very common among the rural classes in Tuscany.

Later in the day, when they have doffed their upper wrappings, such differences of costume as become the different stages they have reached on their life-journey may be remarked. But now, as they begin to mount the hill, both still sitting in the carriage, instead of getting down to warm themselves and ease the good little horse (for they are Tuscans and not Englishmen), the likeness of the two figures is completed by perfect similarity

UP TO TOWN. — IN TUSCANY.

of dress. For the daybreak hours are still cold in the Casentino, the climate of which is considerably more rigorous than that of the lower valley of the Arno ; and father and son are both muffled to the eyes in huge chocolate -coloured great-coats, turned up and seamed with green, and garnished with high collars of black sheepskin.

" The seasons have never been the same they used to be, ever since the French dogs came into Tuscany, — may apoplexies catch them!" said the father, as the good httle horse subsided into a walk, when he began to feel the hill. " I wish I may never cross the Consuma again, if it is not as cold this May morning as if it were January I"

" It is freshish," replied his son, palling up the fur collar of his coat around his ears. " But / was on the Consuma" (the highest point of the pass over the mountain is so called) "at four o'clock in the morning last January, and the hairs on my lip were so many icicles, per Bacco ! They say the seasons are changing ; but I for my part do not think the French have anything to do with the matter."

" Changing I " grumbled the senior ; " I should think they were I altro ! * Why, when I was your age, we used to harvest in the Casentino at the time thev do in the Valdarno now-adays."

" Have a cigar ?" rejoined his son, rummaging in the pocket of his great-coat for a twist of paper containing a dozen or so of the long, slender, black cigars made of German-grown tobacco, and supplied at something under a farthing apiece, by a paternal Government, to its people, by every class of whom they are consumed in incredible quantities. " Have a cigar ? " said the young man, thinking, apparently, that the readiest mode of proving to his sire that the world was not yet gone altogether to the bad. " Here, I will give you a light," he added, as he drew a match unprotected by any box from his waistcoat pocket, and proceeded to light it, holding the flame within the hollow of his two hands, used lantern -wise, in a manner that must have scorched any palms less hard than horn.

* Altro. " Other." The sense of this ever-recurring Italian expression 19, "other than," or "more than, that;" aud is equivalent to "1 should think so ! " " You may eay that ! " &c.

MARIETTA.

So the burly Fattore, who, as soon as the pony had begun to walk instead of trotting, had tied the reins to the iron rod that formed the side of the carriage seat, and sat with his arms folded across his broad chest, accepted the propitiatory offering ; the young man lighted another cigar for himself, and they pursued their way up the zig-zag road between the chestnut woods, for a while in silence.

It is a singularly pretty bit of road, that gradual ascent from out of the Casentino to the high and bleak range of country which separates it from the Valdarno. The two valleys are strikingly different in the character of their scenery. In the upper valley, more closely confined and by higher mountains, the chestnut on the lower slopes, and the beech and pine on the higher flanks of the mountains, give the tone of colouring to the landscape, instead of the olive which, by its predominance, imparts the pervading grey tint so peculiarly characteristic of the scenery around Florence. The prevailing colour of the soil too in the Casentino is red, instead of the pale marl and stone tints of the Valdarno. The characteristic cypresses, which make so remarkable a feature in the remembrance of every visitor to Florence, are almost entirely absent from the landscape of the Casentino ; and, in a word, the greater abundance of water, the greater prevalence of rain, and the colder climate, combine to give to the higher valley a greener, more pastoral, and less markedly southern character than that of the storied environs of Florence. To northern eyes, which have not yet acquired a feeling for the altogether peculiar and somewhat colourless beauties of Florentine landscape, the scenery of the Casentino would appear by far the more beautiful of the two singularly contrasted valleys. And, indeed, if the outward eye only be consulted, if memory and association be allowed no voice in the appreciation, the Casentino greenery and pine-clad mountaintops must, perhaps, be allowed to eclipse the grey world and purple-hazed hills of the " Flower of Cities " on the Arno.

Before their cigars were finished, the Fattore and his son were emerging from the dusk and the shelter of the chestnu*, woods into the broad morning light and shelterless bleakness of the upper part of the hill, and the sun was rising in grand splendour over the tops of the main chain of the Apennine.

UP TO TOWN. — IN TUSCANY.

" I say, Babbo," * quoth Giovanni, suddenly, " I shall have to sit upon the wheel presently. You should not take above three-quarters of the seat ! "

" Three-quarters ! figliuolo mio !" returned his father, with a great haw-haw ; " if the saints give me grace to go on for the next five years as I have for the last, I shall certainly need the whole calessino to myself. To God be the praise ! But, ]\Iadonna Santa ! I am as empty as a friar's wallet, when he starts from his convent. Wait till I get my breakfast, and then see about sitting on the wheel ! "

" We'll be at the Oonsuma in less than an hour now," said the young man, " and then we will see whether old Auntf .Vssunta has got a juicy ham from the oak woods round Prato Vecchio in prime cut."

" And if she has not one in the primest cut, she shall cut a fresh one, per Bacco ! "

" And the pretty Ninetta shall fry us such a platter of rashei's."

" Good ! And you won't poke your nose too close over the fire as she is doing it ; do you hear, figliuolo mio ! Aha I you thought I did not see, the last time we came over from Florence ! Set a thief to catch a thief! It won't do, ]Sranni,:j: my boy. Ilemember, we have other fish to fry in that pan than any that can be caught on the top of the Oonsuma ! "

" Yes ! I know all about it, Babbo ! Your heart is set on making a match between me and cousin Laura; but don't you set too much store on what, so far as I can see, there's little chance of. Laura won't look at me, as I have told you, and mother too, before now. Bat as for little Ninetta there, at the Oonsuma, I never thought about her half a minute after she was out of my sight, pretty girl as she is."

" That is all very well. But as for Laura, — we shall see I we shall see, hamhuio mio ! But what about the wine ? " he added suddenly, turning to a more immediately pressing matter ;

* " Papa," or " daddy," rather ; the universally used familiar address of a Tuscan son of any age or class to his father.

t The Tusraii familiar phrase in speaking of an old woman ; — mother so and 80, as we sliould say.

T Short for Giovanni.

MARIETTA.

" I cannot drink Aunt Assunta's vat -washings, you know, perdinci ! " *

" Possess thy soul in peace, my father," returned the young man ; " I have a flask of excellent Pomino, very carefully secured under the seat here. It is some of that which Tonino, the Bishop's Fattore, sent us as a present two years ago.")" I hope the Bishop drinks as good."

" That, it seems to me, is truly too much to hope, my son," repHed the jolly Fattore, with a sly chuckle. " 'Twere odd indeed if a Fattore did not know the choicest barrel, and odder still if, knowing it, he did not prefer it for his own use. I suspect friend Tonino of no such stupidity ; nor do I think he would send me aught save the best. And right glad shall I be to have a flask of it for breakfast this cold morning. Bravo, figliuolo mio ! Good boy ! If you steal a kiss from Ninetta while she is frying the ham, I won't look; always understanding, mind you, that the remembrance of it is to last no longer than you spoke of just now."

And by this time the steepest part of the ascent had been climbed ; and the pony, unadmonished save by a word, started off at a brisk trot, and soon brought the travellers to a stand before the low-arched doorway of a long, low, whitewashed building, in which Assunta Dei and her pretty daughter received travellers, at the Consuma.

It was not long before the pony was comfortably enjoying his mess of meal in the stable, and the Fattore and his son were seated opposite each other, with a smoking pile of rashers, and the flask of Pomino between them. We will not inquire too anxiously into all that may have passed during their preparation in the frying-pan. It was undoubtedly natural enough that Nanni should get as close to the fire as he could after his cold drive ; and his father was quite as good as his word ; for he was

* Perdinci is a sort of euphuism used by those who scruple to say " Per Dio." It is elliptical for " Perdinci Bacco." And it has been suggested that the word was originally a corruption of " Per Dionisio Bacco." Se non e vero, e ben trovato.

f The small farm, which produces this choice wine, belongs to the Bishop of Fiesola, and is situated in the valley Just under the Consuma on the right hand of our travellers.

UP TO TOWN. — IN TUSCANY.

busily engaged in inspecting the ham, from which Aunt Assunta was cutting the rashers, and insisting, with very perfect knowledge of the subject, in directing her knife to select the choicest portions of the joint.

For awhile the two travellers were wholly occupied with tue business of "restoring" themselves after their cold morning drive. But when this had been satisfactorily accomplished, two-thirds of the generous Pomino still remained in the flask. For the legal contents of a Tuscan flask, be it known, are seven pounds' weight of wine, or, in words conveying a more definite idea to an English mind, somewhere about half a gallon. And the two Casentino rustics, though as sober men as any teetotalers, had no idea of leaving a drop of the precious liquor behind them. They were in no wise pressed for time ; for they did not intend to reach Florence that night. The good little nag would have done the journey, but it would have been rather too long a one for him ; and comfortable Carlo Palli had no notion of overworking either man or beast. Besides, the Fattore rather liked the opportunity of supping and passing the evening with his old friend the parish priest of San Clementi at Pelago, a little town about twelve miles from Florence. It was his usual custom to do so, on his visits to the capital. The journey was thus made an easy one, and the arrangement was pleasant to all parties concerned, the pony included. Besides, as the Fattore said, "What is the use of tiring oneself? Surely we have every reason to think, blessed be the Madonna, that to-morrow will be as good a day as to-day." So the farmer and his son had plenty of time to finish their flask of wine at leisure, while the pony rested after his morning's stage.

" Nanni, my son," began the Fattore, as they sat with the flask between them, " to do thee justice, I don't know a boy just out of his teens with a better judgment in the matter of a flask of Chianti or Pomino than thou hast ; but truly in some things thou art little better than a gaby."

"May bel" replied Nanni, in no wise nettled; "this wine is the right thing any how. I am safe to know that. As for the other things, I suppose I am as you say, for cousin Laura told me exactly the same thing the last time I was in Florence."

MARIETTA.

" Humpli ! She did, did she ? And thereupon thou ehowedst thy wisdom by concluding that the girl will none of thee ! Now listen to me, figliuolo mio. If the noble and wealthy Marchese, my respected master, had a son of thy inches, and as much of a gaby, we will say, as thou, dost thou think that Laura would say him nay ?"

" How can I tell ?" returned Nanni; " I would say no ill ot Laura. But titles and riches do dazzle girls, we all know."

" Don't talk to me about titles," answered his father ; " they are coin that can buy very little now-a-days, in the Tuscan market at least. But if my brother Beppe had to choose for his daughter between his nephew Nanni Palli on the one hand, and the Marchese Perini's heir on the other, I know which he would choose. But then elderly jewellers, who have done a good trade in money lending for the last ten years, are not apt, I suppose, to be dazzled, as thou sayest, by wealth."

"I should have thought uncle Beppe a man to look sharply after the main chance, I confess," said Nanni ; " and that is why I can't think, that in such a case as you suppose, he would choose as you say."

" Can't think ! Then thank the saints that thou hast got a father who can think for thee. Now listen ; for it's about time that thou shouldst know which stone the cat lies under. Thou knowest the fat lowland meadows of the Stagneto, I suppose ?"

" Altro ! All along the bank of the river from the Fossa del Prato to the chapel of San Simone. I should think so. The best land on the estate."

" Much the best," said the Fattore, smacking his lips as he set his glass down with a ring after a long draught ; " I am glad thou knowest that much. Well ! the Stagneto meadows will be found to stand in the registrar's books, not in the name of the noble Marchese Perini, but in that of one Carlo Palli, a hard-working old fellow, tolerably well known in tliose parts."

" You don't mean that you have bought the Stagneto ?" asked his son.

" Bought the land and paid the hard cash seven years ago. Dost thou chance to remember the Vigna del Vescovo, and the

UP TO TOWN. — IN TUSCANY.

tillage land stretching away behind it up to the edge of the chestnut wood '?"

" To be sure. I set aside half a dozen barrels of last year's vintage off the Vigna del Vescovo for home use only yesterday. The best wine on the property."

" Very right, my boy. Who has so good a right to the best as the owner ? The Vigna del Vescovo, and the corn lands behind it, and the wood behind them, changed hands some live years since. They are mine now."

" Why ! father, it is half the estate I " cried Nanni, opening his large handsome brown eyes to their widest extent.

" Well," said his father, " if you add the home close and the old house which I bought last year, I suppose it is about half, — about half; and the best half certainly."

" Then, after all," rejoined Nanni, " my father's heir, and the Marchese's heir, whoever he may be, might seem to Uncle Beppe not so vei-y different in point of expectations."

" That don't quite follow, Nanni, I think ! There's the title, you know ! " said his father, with a sudden affectation of humility. " Still, I take it, brother Beppe, if 1 know him, would be apt to think more about the title-deeds to the other half of the lands. And do you know, between you and me, I have a strong idea that Beppe Palli, the jeweller, on the Ponte Vecchio, has some very special knowledge respecting those same title-deeds."

" What should he know about them ? He is no lawyer," said Nanni, altogether mystified.

" Sly own idea is that they are in his own strong box, in the iron safe let into the wall in the little room behind the shop on the pier of the bridge," returned the Fattore, drily.

" Why should they be there ? What for ? I don't understand," asked the young man, innocently.

" Why, ijerdinci Bacco ! thou art a gaby after all, figliuolo mio" returned his father. " Did you ever know a man to ruin himself half, and then stop ? Do you suppose such an animal as Perini, who could spend all the money in Rome, but never earn a penny, who is no more good on earth than a stoat, and deserves nailing to a barn door, just as much, do you suppose that such a man could come to any end except beggary ?

Che, che ! * If Carlo Palli owns one half of the Perini estates, Beppe Palli owns the other half ; or may do so, as soon as he thinks fit to foreclose."

"And the padrone asked Nanni, with a little touch of anxiety in his voice.

"Padrone !" echoed the Fattore, with such a sneer as only an Itahan can put into a single word ; " Padrone ! The Marchese Perini is a beggar, I tell you — or but little better, at this hour."

" But, father," returned Nanni, hesitatingly and timidly, " are not you afraid that is, will not people say that the Marchese was ruined, if not hi/ being in your hands, at least while he was in your hands and in Uncle Beppe's ?"

" People will say," and as he spoke the farmer raised his head and shoulders from their easy slouch over the table into a fiercely erect attitude, while his jolly round face assumed an expression of which it might have been supposed incapable, and his eye gleamed with passion, — " People will say, Giovanni Palli, that the worthless man was rained because he was worthless ;

. . that he was born to be ruined, and all the saints could not have saved him from it ; that the land should belong

to those who can and will work on it, and manage it, and not to ignorant gamblers, incapable of even learning the produce of an acre of vineyard, or the day's work of a yoke of oxen. Thej' will say, that the fool Perini has gone the way they are all going, the whole kit of them up there in Florence, turning night into day, and too idle to visit their own estates from year's end to year's end. The land is going from the Signorini to the Fattori, and all right it should ! Why, is it not the same thing all round ? Look at Borini, the Fattore of the Guadi estates there below Arezzo ! Look at old Ambrosio Tani in the Ohianti I Look at our friends Bastiano Barbani, and his brother Giacomo, in the Valdarno here below us ! Is not the same thing going on all over Tuscany ? And right it should ! . So now," he added, relapsing into his attitude and manner of easy bonhommie, " finish the flask, give me another cigar, tell Assunta

* "What! what!" an exclamation for ever in the mouth of a Tuscan, and generally equivalent to " Pooh ! pooh !"

UP TO TOWN. — IN TUSCANY.

to give us some coffee, go and look after the pony, and don't talk or think any more nonsense about the Marchese, . or