Hill towns of Italy

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Preface

CenTRAL [rary is the most interesting country in the world. It includes not merely Rome, that made on her seven hills for twenty centuries the history of the Aryan race, and Florence, the beautiful reviver of the race’s energies and accomplishments; but it includes also that wonderful region of mountains extending between those cities for one hundred and fifty miles, reaching from the Mediterranean to the Adriatic. On the lofty summits of those Apennines were perched the hundred cities of the Etruscans before Rome was founded, disseminating a high civilization, controlling by their powerful confederation the peninsula of Italy and the waters of the sea ; behind their battlements only rested the remains of civilization when the Empire of Rome had fallen ; in their churches and monasteries flickered the feeble light of learning through the ensuing dark ages, first beginning to glow again when these hill towns threw off the yoke of Frank and German to constitute themselves free and independ-

Viil PREFACE ent republics, — republics whose citizens displayed such valor, endurance, and patriotism that the world has not yet ceased to wonder. Then upon these mountain-tops was born that wonderful Renaissance of Religion, Humanity, Science, Literature, and Art, which dispelled the darkness of the Middle Ages, lifted the mind of man from its thralls, and spread to Rome and France and England, to give us the civilization that we have to-day. The hill towns did not merely give birth to the Renaissance; they bound it into the very ‘fibres of their bodies and the principles of their existence. In due time they reflected the lives of Dante, Perugino, and Saint Francis of Assisi. To-day thei work for humanity is long since done; they sit upon their crags far above the shining rails that carry modern commerce, mostly deserted and crumbling to decay.

What field is there on the broad earth carrying such enticement to the traveler as this? It is not only the cradle of our civilization, but there is no other field so replete with historical associations of every age. There is nowhere else such picturesqueness of scenery, — the natural and the man-made side by side, intermixed through a host of centuries. Here is beauty also, the purest and the original beauty of the art of

PREFACE 1x the Renaissance, in the lines of countless palaces, in the glowing colors of the canvases of the early masters. And here is natural beauty, in the lovely plains which the mountains hold within their grasp, —the wondrous, golden plain of Umbria, the fertile table-land of Etruria, the luxuriant Valle di Chiana, the pastoral valleys of the upper Tiber and the Arno.

Why, then, has this field been so neglected by travelers? A sojourn of a spring and summer among'st the hill towns has given me a probable answer: it must have been because of their comparative inaccessibility, their lack of the comforts of modern life, and the necessity in visiting them of having a knowledge of their language. Their neglect by writers must have the same reason, but it is more strange. In preparing for my wanderings I was able to find but a few works bearing on the mountain cities, and these were either learned treatises such as Dennis’s “ Cities and Sepulchres of Etruria,’ or chance essays upon Perugia, Assisi, and Siena. It was this lack of a comprehensive book upon the hill towns which induced me to give to the public these memoirs of travel, records of individual experience, offered in order to draw the attention of those who go abroad tothe wonderful cities of the

B x PREFACE

Apennines, and in the hope that those who stay at home may be able to see them, at least faintly, through my eyes. The field is too vast to dig far beneath the surface in any one place; the objects of interest are too infinite to mention them all. Mayhap I have particularmed too much as it is; but my object has been to be specific enough to aid a little those who go in person.

To many the space devoted to the sphere of art will be wearisome ; but, as I have shown, it is impossible to speak of the hill towns without speaking of the works of the Renaissance that are bound into their lives. The lines of their palaces are their dress; the glowing tones of the old masters are the color of their existence. I have tried to avoid profuseness and technicality, and to mention simply enough of the artistic history of a place to put the reader en rapport with its life and appearance; and just enough of the characteristics of the chief painters and their works in the hill towns to show the difference between the Umbrian, Sienese, and Florentine schools, and to indicate the distinctive traits of the masters themselves.

KH. R. W.

Rocuzster, N. Y., October 4, 1903.

VIII. . THRASYMENE TO SAN QUIRICO .— 208 . SIENA : : : : : : . 240

Contents

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SOUTHERN ETRURIA . : : mS mt

- VITERBO AND ITS ENVIRONS : 28 - MONTEFIASCONE, BOLSENA, AND

Chapter I Southern Etruria

Ir was the most perfect of Italian spring mornings as the little train crept slowly upward on the Campagna towards the Cimminian Hills. The vast dome of St. Peter’s receded gradually toward the east, and Rome with her thousand towers and housetops sank below the Janiculum Hill. The Campagna undulated gently here, north of the Tiber, unlike its barren level to the south; and every vale and swell was covered with the fresh green verdure of growing crops and budding orchards. Spring wheat spread itself knee high, meadows of hay glistened with a myriad of daisies, and countless acres of fruit trees displayed their new-born leaves. It was like the Campagna of old, when Latium filled it with husbandry and made it one great garden; when the Htruscans descended from their mountains and made it slave for them ; when Veii flourished as a mighty commonwealth, when villages and cities dotted the landscape, — and Rome was an infant colony.

At last I was going to visit that great Etruria, against whose might the Latins founded Rome as a bulwark on the Tiber; Etruria, whose thousand cities waxed rich and powerful before the days of Romulus; who possessed arts and civilization from which Latium was glad to learn; who conquered the Latins north of the Tiber and sacked Rome herself; who covered the sea with her ships, and gloried in the riches of Syria and Egypt. I thought of this as the little train puffed upwards, and of how many years I had desired to penetrate the Cimminian Hills, which for so long held off Rome from the heart of Etruria. In those fastnesses lay, I knew, the ruins of her ancient cities, untouched for two thousand years, and the strange medieval towns which ofttime rose upon their sites.

Upon the smiling Campagna in this beautiful April morning it was very difficult to realize that here Rome and Etruria struggled so long for the mastery; that over yonder lay the insignificant ruins of once mighty Veu. Only one or two villages appeared in the distance, lying in dun-colored spots upon their hillsides. As we left Rome farther behind, the farms and villas gradually disappeared; the smile left the country. But the glorious blue vault of heaven remained as blue, and the Sabine Mountains continued to loom across the Campagna, with their snow peaks in the rear. The fields became barren, covered with a short brown grass, and smoothed themselves out to greater vistas as we mounted the hills which inclose the Lake of Bracciano. Soon there appeared to the southeast only a vast level plam, uncovered by trees, desolate, riven here and there by fissures and ravines; from it there arose a solitary mound in the far distance, soaring beautifully toward the sky, topped by a cupola. It was the dome of St. Peter’s, all that there was of Rome, seen for the last time. It made me sad to think of the happy hours spent there, and the friends beneath its shadow, whom I was leaving behind.

I turned away and looked forward for a happier sight, a sight of Bracciano on its hill above the lake. It was to be my first stopping-place. Bracciano bears no remains of Etruria; it is strictly medieval, and is to be seen for its great castle of the Orsini. Here the Orsini came in the fifteenth century when driven by the Colonna from a captured stronghold, and erected a castle so huge and impregnable that the Colonna were unable afterwards to take it. These wars of the great families of medizeval Rome were much like wars between states. The Orsini, the Colonna, the Frangipani, the Corsini, had their palatial strongholds in Rome itself, and erected about the country on their estates fortified residences which they attacked and captured from each other in turn. Most of these edifices have crumbled away or been demolished ; this of Bracciano was never sacked in battle, and has been singularly preserved in modern times.

I looked eagerly for a glimpse of its towers as we approached the lake, and was soon rewarded by a view remarkable for its loveliness. Through an opening in the hills Bracciano appeared, upon its hill, clustermg about the gigantic pile of towers and parapets which constitute the castle, — houses clambering white up the rock, roof-tops mounting, yellow with lichen-grown tiles, to the gray walls of the fortress; these soaring ponderously to machicolated parapet and tower-head.. Beyond, the deep blue waters of the lake, far beneath.

After luncheon at an albergo of the true Italian country style, I walked down and up, through the winding narrow streets of the old town, to the castle walls, where permission to enter was graciously given by the custodian. The family of the Odeschalchi, who have possessed the castle for the past century and more, were fortunately absent in Rome. They purchased it from the Orsini upon the wane of the fortunes of that great family, who had shone resplendent in the history of Rome for six hundred years.

The entrance to the castle, cut from the solid rock, winds to the left, encircling the subterranean apartments, and emerges to the right upon the courtyard which faces the lake. From the

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j Prermerwenpquaenepererer en rereer seen men ns) 3 Piet wet teases Ke saraty wall of the courtyard I looked down a vast precipice to the shore. The fall was sheer for a hundred feet. Below that spread olive groves and vineyards, the vines just mounting upon tripodshaped stakes, and throwing up bright young shoots. Above me rose the main facade of the building for another hundred feet, to the projecting parapets. Huge round towers dominated each end of the facade, with the entrance in the southern one. Before me stretched the Lake of Bracciano, in all its peerless beauty, deep blue under the rays of the noonday sun. Gentle wooded hills bordered its round outline, lighter in color at the base with the fresh green of cultivation. Opposite, five miles away, sat Trevignano upon its rock, thrusting a huge donjon tower towards the sky, bathing its gray feet in the blue profundity of the water. To the nght similarly sat Anguillara, dominated by its ruined castle. In the far distance loomed the peaks of the Sabine Mountains, bleak and gray. I can recall no lake view superior to this in beauty, unless it be that from Bellagio on Lago di Como.

In the inner courtyard of the castle, — fronted on one side by a two-storied loggia, on another by a quaint covered stairway —I found the keeper, who conducted me through the interior. Opening upon the front courtyard, facing the lake, was the old hall of justice, with lofty wooden ceiling and a semi-royal throne covered with a silken canopy, where the Orsini sat for centuries to judge their dependents. I passed through a long series of medieval apartments which are still used by the Odeschalchi, — bedrooms, livingrooms, reception-rooms, — all alike in their great stone fireplaces, recessed windows with stone benches on each side of the recess, and furniture several centuries old. All of the beds were fourposted, and elaborately though rudely carved in bas-reliefs. Many ancient wooden coffers were seen, great and small, carved, filled with intarsia work or covered with hammered silver. Most interesting of all was the ancient kitchen. As we | proceeded to this by dark passages which wound in and out, and up and down, with light from an occasional window deep-set in a six-foot wall and strongly barred, I ceased to wonder at Sir Walter Scott’s so great desire to visit this castle that he proceeded hither before he had seen Rome. The remembrance of his descriptions of medieval chambers and corridors, dungeons and_battlements, in “ Ivanhoe” and “The Talisman,” was brought vividly back.

In the kitchen was a great three-arched recess, against and in the walls of which were built the brick ovens. Above them hung a vast array of ancient copper utensils, of every size and shape, dinted each in a hundred places, but still shining warmly. The custodian announced that they were still used, also the ovens, after an existence of four hundred years.

When I left Bracciano it was to mount still farther toward the old Cimminian Hills. Bracciano and its lake le on the great slope which descends from the mountains to the Campagna ; on this slope also lie the old Etruscan towns of Sutri, Nepi, and Civita Castellana. The hills proper begin to rise quite suddenly from the table-land at about the location of Ronciglione. The little railroad, which was put through but a few years ago, sends off a short branch line from Capranica, which climbs eastward amongst the foothills to Ronciglione.

As we rolled slowly along, I noticed that the character of the vegetation had become wholly northern. Already we were at an elevation of 1300 feet above the sea level, and only deciduous trees and shrubs were to be seen, and these but just leaved. The palms and the cacti were left behind.

It was dusk when I arrived at the station of Ronciglione, and, seeing no town in the neighborhood, was obliged to intrust myself to a villainous looking vetturino. However, he conveyed me safely to the village a kilometre distant, and to its better inn, which looked forlornly upon the street through its smgle room upon the ground floor. This room was used for all purposes, —a living and dining room for the family of the proprietor and any chance guests, a café for the public, and a promenade for the villagers, including cats and dogs. It had bare wooden tables, rush-seated chairs, a low-beamed ceiling, and rough tiled floor. I soon found this to be the general character of the public or dining room in all Etruscan country inns. During din-

ner the villagers came in and walked about with their hats on, smoking, and the dogs and cats ran between my legs.

This pedestrianism of the townsfolk was more alarming, however, at night. Without any cessation, during all the hours of darkness, they marched up and down the main street beneath my window, shouting and laughing in loud — tones, and singing in chorus. With the first break of day the donkeys began to click their sharp heels over the stones, and bray with vigor. I gave up all thought of sleep and set out to examine the town. I found it perched, like every Ktruscan city, above a deep ravine. ‘The walls of the first houses served to continue the precipice; above them mounted the others, tier on tier, topped by the dome of the cathedral and the towers of a ruined castle. The walls were of a monotone, a dull brownish gray, volcanic rock darkened by centuries of sun and rain. The roofs were quite yellow, so overgrown with lichen are the ancient tiles. Far below splashed a little stream, falling over the ruins of a mill.

Ronciglione, however, is but a stopping-place from which to visit Caprarola and the ancient towns of Sutri, Nepi, and Civita Castellana. Beyond its picturesque situation it is uninteresting. So I closed a bargain with my villainous-looking vetturino to have him and his horse at my service by the day, and set out at once for Sutri, which lies five miles to the south upon the tableland. No friend would have had the fortitude to recognize me, as I jolted along in this extraordinary vehicle. Its age could not be less than a hundred years, and all remains of paint had vanished a lifetime ago. It was broken, patched, and dirty, and rolled from one side to the other on very small wheels, surely of oval shape. The spavined horse jerked it along by a pair of ropes. The brigand on the front seat, with great boots, wide-brimmed felt hat, a huge whip, and a cast in his eye, completed the turnout, — which was the best that Ronciglione could provide.

As we turned a corner a wide view of the great table-land below burst suddenly upon us. Level as a floor it seemed, but to my surprise beautifully covered with verdure, stretching off to the south indefinitely, and to gigantic Soracte on the east. Soracte rose sheer from the plain to its vast height, like a mighty lion crouching with curved back and bristling head for a spring towards the Campagna. Its isolation gave it awesomeness. Beyond it stretched the level valley of the Tiber to the Sabine Mountains, dim and gray in the background. I realized at last

LOE HILL TOWNS OF ITALY the reason for Soracte’s fame through all the pages of history, and the stories and legends which cling to its mighty sides.

But the lovely green verdure of the plain was a great surprise. I think that every student of Ktrurian and Roman history must learn to associate this country south of the Cimminian Hills with bleakness and barrenness, — picture it a repetition of the southern Campagna, intersected by huge ravines. But here was a country as fair and softly green as England. As we jolted downwards and across it, I found myself in a road like an English lane, lined on both sides by | thick, beautiful hawthorn hedges just putting forth their delicate white flowers. Over the hedges leaned trees of every northern type, fair with their new-born leaves. The trees spread themselves here and there over the meadows, which were closely cultivated, some freshly tilled, some with growing wheat knee high, others showing recently cut hay. Often the road ran through a cutin the rock for some distance, but always the bushes leaned over the banks and hung down the sides, bearing luxuriantly that beautiful yellow wildflower known to us as broom, which the natives call dalmaggio.

I could not realize that this luxuriance of verdure was Etruria, until we turned suddenly into a vast ravine with precipitous rocky sides and a streamlet gurgling far below. It is curious how these chasms intersect the whole country, showing no traces of existence till one comes to the very edge of the bank. Otherwise it is level, or but very gently rolling.

And the vast age of Etruria, —its great history, its once dense population and extensive cities, — what was there in this fertile farm land to suggest it? Nothing, until we came to a ravine or the side of a cliff, and saw the holes gaping here and there in the rock, — desolated tombs of the ancients, —and until we saw before us Sutri upon a slight hill, dominated by its cathedral tower. We crossed the ravine from which its sides rise so grimly, by a bridge of modern construction, and climbed the main street between dark, gaunt, old houses, passing through a frowning gateway in the wall. An impression of vast, vast age descended immediately upon me. The walls of the buildings were of ancient volcanic stone, blackened and furrowed in spite of its hardness by the centuries. Little windows looked darkly out, many of them heavily barred. Narrow side streets led winding downward toward the ravine on each side, passing through archways like tunnels. Dark-visaged men slouched about in the costume of my driver. Women peered out of gloomy doorways, with infants closely wrapped in swaddling clothes.

The scene was brighter when we emerged upon the piazza,—a widening of the main street.

The sun cast in his warm rays, illuminating the fountain in the centre and a medieval archway with three bells hung above it in the open. Here I left my vettura; and as I walked on through the principal street, narrowed again to gloominess, I thought, — “This, then, 1s ancient Sutrium, perched unchanged above its ravine — Sutrium so faithful to Rome after its early capture from the HKtruscans, which underwent so many sieges and sacks from both sides ; Sutrium, the birthplace of Pontius Pilate.” A house is pointed out as having been Pilate’s. However unreliable this tradition, no doubt the house of his nativity 2s still standing, somewhere in the town.

I emerged from the southern gate, intact as built by the Romans, and walked down the road, which the ravine on the west circles around to meet. The cliff forming the further side of the ravine is perforated with hundreds of ancient tombs, where the Etruscans of pre-Roman period were buried, — long since opened and despoiled. Here was to be found the celebrated church of Madonna del Porto, cut by unknown early Christians from the interior of the cliff. Searching about beneath the shadow of the great ilexes which fringe the cliff above and droop their graceful boughs down the sides, I found an orifice closed by a modern wooden door. Pushing this open I stood in a rock-hewn chamber of small size, having benches at two sides where once reposed the dead. To the left an archway disclosed to view the most extraordinary place of worship that I shall ever see. A narrow, low nave led up to an altar twenty paces distant; on each hand was an aisle, separated from the nave by eight square pillars. Continuous benches lined each side of the nave and the aisles. All was roughly hewn from the solid rock, — nave, aisles, pillars, benches. Windows pierced through the left-hand wall illumined dimly this ancient church, and showed the arched roof green with the damp of ages.

No one knows whose hands, with untiring devotion, cut out this marvel. It must have been done under severe persecution, when Christians were forbidden to worship within the town. I turned from the place with a sigh for the sufferings of the faithful in those terrible days.

A little farther down the road a passage cut in the cliff led to the old Roman amphitheatre, or more properly Etruscan; for this probably was cut from the rock before a single such construction stood in Rome. From the passage I saw it lying before me, vast, and so overgrown with vegetation as to be almost hidden. Deep grass filled the arena completely. But the outline of all the rows of seats, with their stairways, was clearly discernible, and the dark openings of the vomitories. Truly this was as great a work as building a pyramid, — to hew this gigantic opening out of the solid cliff, to cart away the mountain of stone thus excavated, and to shape the benches, steps, corridors, arena, inclosing wall, vomitories, and subterranean passages for gladiators and beasts.

It made me realize how great was Sutrium once upon a time,—how great was Ktruria. Only a large and rich population could afford such a work, and carry it out.

The next excursion was to a more modern relic of past ages, —such a one as at Bracciano,— , the palace of the Farnese at Caprarola. This the Farnese built a century or two later than the castle of the Orsini, when the barbarism of the Middle Ages had finally given way to the Renaissance, and it ceased to be necessary to make every dwelling as strong as a dungeon. Consequently the construction of the Farnese partook more of the nature of a Roman palace.

Caprarola lies a little farther up on the hills than Ronciglione — five miles to the north. Thither I proceeded with my antediluvian vehicle, which never seemed to break down, and my brigand driver, who never showed any of the qualities of a brigand. In fact, he was quite an agreeable person. We crawled up the slopes, passing continually the omnipresent donkey, which does all the work of the country. A horse is very rarely seen, likewise a four-wheeled vehicle. Occasionally we met a heavy two-wheeled cart, with the little donkey in the shafts; but nearly always he was plodding along with a peasant, or a great load of produce, on his back. Sometimes he carried two huge water-barrels or half a dozen wine-kegs slung to his sides with ropes. I saw one transporting thus over a dozen building stones, one of which a man could hardly lift. ~ When Caprarola came to view I saw it mounting the hillside above us in one long’ street, leading up to the Palazzo at the summit. The power and beauty of the position selected by the Farnese was at once apparent. The Palazzo faced down upon us, over the town, and over the whole country beyond, displaying a most pleasing Renaissance fagade which rose above a great double flight of steps at the head of the street. I left my vettura at the bottom of the steep hill, feeling pity for the antiquated animal, and climbed the long straight incline between dingy, mouldering, crumbling old houses to the palace steps. Mounting these I found myself on a terrace from which rose another stairway to the doors; and from the top of this second stairway the view was magnificent. It ranged down the long dark street of the town, over the yellow roofs, and across the great fertile plain below to an indefinite distance. Soracte dominated the whole scene with his majesty. Light clouds drifting in the sky threw here and there over the smiling fields and patches of wood a caressing shadow. To the southeast a pile of dun-colored buildings surmounted by two or three towers denoted Nepi, sleeping in the plain. Further off, on the flank of Soracte himself, lay Civita Castel- Jana.

Caprarola Palace was erected by Vignola, and is really his chef d’ceuvre. It is in the form of a pentagon, with sham bastions at the angles. The main facade is graceful and pleasing purely from the nice proportion of opening to the solid shown in the size and placing of the windows, and the elegant, well-adjusted cornice. Itis three-storied ; pilasters stand upon the string-courses of the second and third stories. The windows of the ground floor are heavily barred with projecting grilles. Within I found a beautiful circular cortile, arcaded, with heavy balustrades and double columns. For the purity of this and for the truly wonderful beauty of the staircase Vignola deserves great credit. This staircase ascends spirally, at the southwest bastion, to the roof of the palace. Light drops down the well which it forms, and illuminates softly the graceful double columns which carry it upward, and the rich balustrade and cornices.

The great halls of the second story are covered with frescoes by the brothers Zuccari, interesting more for their significance than their beauty.

CAPRAROLA PALACE

Now and then a figure is found of true power and execution. The pictures portray the striking incidents in the history of the Farnese, and apostrophize their strength and glory. One is very interesting for its portraits, illustrating the marriage of Orazio Farnese with Diane, daughter of Henri II. of France, and containing the figures, besides the contracting parties and King Henri, of Henry of Navarre, Catherine de Medici, the Due de Guise, Prince de Condé, Madame de Montpensier, Mademoiselle de Rohan, and many others. — The palace backs upon a very pretty garden, entered by a bridge over the moat, where ‘shady avenues lead from the bright sunlight beneath ilexes and cypresses.

I drove back to Ronciglione feeling that I envied the members of the Caserta family, who now own the palace; I envied them those beautiful flowery gardens and that marvelous view. And yet they come but once in several years to occupy it, in the month of October, as is the way of most Roman families with their country places.

The next day it rained, and I was shut up all the morning in my dismal little inn, with the dogs and the cats and all insects that crawl or fly or leap. It brightened for a while after lunch, and I instantly sent for my vettura and started for Civita Castellana, determined to escape from the company. By the time we had descended the hills to the plain the rain came down again. So we plodded along through it, up and down the gentle swells of the ground, passed through Nepi like a dream, seeing but a vague outline of buildings in the downpour, and arrived at Civita in three hours. Civité was as primitive as Ronciglione, except for the possession of a few buildings plastered without in modern Italian fashion. The only room that I could procure in the place was in a private house, for the little inn was filled with soldiers; I felt that in these archaic surrounding’s I should be glad to have shelter at all.