Scenes and shrines in Tuscany

Front matter

I by the

ONTARIO LEGISLATIVE LIBRARY

All rights reserved

Part I

I. FIRST EXPERIENCES ..... 9 II. IN THE FLORENTINE STREETS . . . 29

III. MAFALDA ...... 53

IV. A TUSCAN SPRING ... .67 V. THE HARVEST ..... 80

VI. A VISIT TO DARIO ... .92

VII. A COUNTRY SUNDAY . . . .106

VIII. THE VINTAGE . . . . .122

IX. A RIDE IN TUSCANY . 135

X. A MUSHROOM HUNT . 14?

XI. THE PINE-CONE GATHERING . . i$7

Part II

XII. THE HAPPY PILGRIM . . . .169

XIII. AT CORNACCHINO . . . . .184

XIV. THE DELECTABLE MOUNTAIN . . .201

CONTENTS

PAGE

XV. A DAY WITH THE SONS OF ST. FRANCIS . 213

XVI. THE GREEN CATHEDRAL . . 226

Part III

XVII. THE CRESIMA . . . . .235

XVIII. EASTER IN FLORENCE .... 246

XIX. "THE DAY OF THE DEAD" . . .263

XX. IN AND OUT OF THE CHURCHES . . .271

XXI. AT THE SHRINE OF MADONNA . . . 279

XXII. A SERMON ...... 285

XXIII. OLD MADONNAS ..... 290

PRELUDE

IT was on a day which now seems very far in the distance that I, a pilgrim, guided by fortunate chance, following in the wake of Barbarians, Kings and Emperors, of Papal trains, Imperial troops, French armies, and the hordes of modern tourists led by Messrs. Cook & Gaze, passed the great mountain gates which bar the way to Italy, the enchanted land of my childish imaginings, the Mecca of my dreams.

Day after day had flashed by in a bewildering succession of new impressions. Brussels, Cologne, Strasburg, Lucerne, had all added to my store of memories; Lake and Mountain and River had, by their swiftlychanging, ever- varied loveliness, almost wearied me with delight.

At last the Alpine peaks and the great Lombard plain were left behind us. The mellow afternoon light brightened to a sunset of orange and crimson, a golden radiance which died very slowly to rose and purple as the train swung through the Pistoiese hills. Shadows gathered in the valleys, in the winding depths of which a stream of water shone here and there lita a silver thread. The crests of the mountains, the little white churches, and old convents and " castelli " which crowned them, were luminous and golden in the lucid evening air.

At a wayside station some black-eyed children sold small, roughly-twisted baskets, decorated with Spanish chestnut leaves and filled with grapes and apples. Italians have the knack of serving the simplest food with grace, of adding charm to the smallest acts of life, and the daintiness of the baskets was a fitting accompaniment to the beauty of the fruit.

I ate my grapes, watching the sunset, the full moon rolling up beyond Pistoia, and the lights which began to shine out from convent and village. And as I listened to the unintelligible chatter around me, to the Ave Maria ringing from old belfries nestling in the valleys or perched on the mountain spurs, I thought of the noise in Piccadilly, — (had I really been there a few days or a hundred years ago ?) — and, looking at the fat priest muttering over his breviary in the opposite corner of the carriage, and the guard who smelt of garlic, I felt that this was really Italy, and that, in spite of the garlic, which is anathema to me, it was indeed good to be here.

The train jolted on through swiftly alternating moonlight and tunnels. The solemn mountains, the lonely country, were left behind. The rail ran between rows of suburban houses, green-shuttered and unromantic ; ran on and on, then stopped. Certainly it looked little like what my imagination had pictured, and yet the dull, badly-lit station, tumultuous with shouting porters and aggrieved tourists bewailing lost luggage, was indeed Florence, — Florence the Beautiful, the birthplace of Dante, the City of Flowers, the goal of a thousand precious hopes.

Ah yes, it is very long now since I entered upon the

PRELUDE 3

" Vita Nuova." In actual time it may not be so, but the calendar is a poor means of measuring the great experiences of life, and there are times when for emotions and experiences a day may be as a thousand years.

I loved Florence from the first morning, as, I think, all must do who come to her ; and could not weary of wandering up and down, dreaming of Dante and Beatrice, and those ancient cavaliers and ladies who had " intelletto d^amore " : of gazing up at her belfries and cupolas and palaces, lingering in her old quiet churches, watching the people who thronged her busy streets.

Surely no city in the world has the charm which she has. In her very name there is magic, and no other can be quite so fair and lovable as she. How wonderful she must have been in the old days, before they loosed the girdle of her walls, and raised hideous buildings in her ancient centre : before the coming of the Capital modernised her, and the tourists came to cheapen her holy places and the treasures of her art ! Yet even now, amid all her modern industries and interests, Florence has something lofty about her; and as in the old days, when, though she suffered much from foes without and faction within, she spent her money for mighty ends and aspired nobly, she still possesses in her age an inalienable dignity, not forgetting — how could she ? — the splendours of her youth.

Everywhere Florence offers beauty of the past or of the present. Of the past, in her old buildings, her sanctuaries, the galleries which have made her a shrine of art to which the whole world turns. Of the present, in the paradise of quiet round hills and olive gardens which surround her, the river which she spans with her four ancient bridges, the flowers which ever remind one of her flowery name.

Never shall I forget her as I saw her in one June dawning after a night of storm.

Towards four o'clock the thunder died away in the distance, and as I looked out from my window, the grey light was stealing along the valley, and torn masses of white cloud lay among the hills. The river was in flood, and the swirling torrents of brown water rushed down under the bridges, roaring like some tameless and infuriated beast. The mountains were purple, almost black, and the jagged clouds hung low above them, but in the midst, serene and unshaken, rose the great tower of the Palazzo Vecchio, dominating the still city, and, in the silence and cool which followed the sultry, troubled night, the birds began to sing.

And is it not, in a sense, ever thus that we think of Florence ? fronting, after the turbulence and stress of her splendid past, the dawn of the future, with steadfast brows, untroubled by the lightnings which come and go, or the thunder which rumbles around her, while she herself, whatever men may do far down in her streets, is dreaming, profoundly silent, in the blue air which is above men's reach. All night she communes with the stars, and in the morning the sun greets her from beyond Vallombrosa, and at evening salutes her as he stoops behind the western hills ; and at that salutation she burns like a golden city, transfigured by his magic, and pales but slowly as the night comes down.

Ah yes, she is beautiful exceedingly, the Queen among cities, the king's daughter, adorned as a bride ; glorious without and within.

So many have written about Florence that to add to this making of books seems half presumption ; yet can love ever presume ? and if I write of her it is because I

PRELUDE 5

love her, and that Italy of which she is a daughter, with a passion which has its roots far back in childhood, which came to me by just inheritance and is enshrined in my heart as a sacred and very precious thing. And if many have written of Florence, does not each look with different eyes, perceiving, indeed, that, and that only, which he has learned to see? Do we not each receive different impressions, coming, as we do, from such varied preparation ; finding, in the scenes before us, the realisation of such different dreams ?

Of the travellers who come to Italy there are many who have wearied all their days for her : to whom the journey is the granting of a supreme desire, the realisation of a lifetime's hopes.

If to these, when the golden days are over, my little book may bring back some faint vision of a blessed reality, setting before them familiar scenes, and scenes perhaps unfamiliar, since, to the chance wayfarer, the country life and the intimate details are, for lack of leisure, a little hard of attainment ; — if this book may be to them something into which they may read their dreams, in which they may revive their visions, then, indeed, it will not have been written in vain.

One whose touch upon my life has ever been a benediction once wrote, " I was reminded of a fancy, which may not be wholly a fancy after all, which occurs somewhere in John Inglesant; that the original sweetness in the famous violins is not due so much to the skill of the maker or the virtue of the material as to the music which has vibrated through them ; the inspiration and passion of the musicians, which have rearranged their very molecules (as a magnet arranges steel filings), and I think it sometimes happens that we fill a favourite book in that way with associations and thrills of feeling which make it an enchanted thing. In any case that is the happiest way to read a book : never afterwards does it wholly lose the value we gave it, and, so reading, one thinks of Uhland's poem of 4 The Ferry ' :—

'Take, O boatman, thrice thy fee, — Take — I give it willingly ; For, invisible to thee, Spirits twain have crossed with me.'"

Perhaps I dare hardly hope that this book of mine should come so close to anyone; and yet, who knows? Since the violin which voices all our passions and most precious memories is, of itself, but wood and catgut, so the printed lines of a page may be the string on which we thread our memories, the pasteboard covers but the screen we hold up to shut the world out while we dream.

Another class of tourists there is whom I watch, I own, in amazement, wondering why they come to Italy, since the tastes they manifest would find more gratification at Brighton, if not on Hampstead Heath when Bank Holiday comes round. They hasten through galleries and churches, ruled by their watches, dictated to by the guide-books in their hands. Their methods are so sketchy (from choice and not necessity), that few cities have sufficient attractions to detain them many hours, and one of them has been known to ask if three days was too much to give to Rome ! Such come to Florence, — sometimes even spend long times here, — but never, I venture to say, do they see her as she is.

It was lately my fortune — or misfortune? — to follow such a couple round the Uffizi. They were obviously bride and bridegroom, their appearance proved them of the rich and leisured class. They paused before a

PRELUDE 7

martyrdom of St. Laurence, and the husband sought information of his wife, who was quick to supply it.

" You want to know what this is ? Why, that poor chap, what's-his-name ? — one of those old saints, who was martyred, — put on a gridiron like a mutton chop ! "

So they disposed of St. Laurence, and, wandering on, stopped again before Piero di Cosirno's strange, whimsical dream of " Perseus," where it was the bride who trusted for enlightenment to the classical learning supposed to be got in public schools.

It was, however, but a broken reed to which she trusted, for all the response was, " Oh, I forget that old yarn, it's nothing much anyway. Come along, aren't we nearly at the end ? " And as they passed on, I heard his question, "Do you really like these old daubs?" and the candid answer, " Well, honestly, now I am getting used to them I don't mind them as much as I did at first ! "

Yes, Florence herself, as well as her galleries, needs opened eyes, an illuminated vision; and without these none shall see her, for, when she chooses, she can draw her modern life across her face as a veil, and all that the careless see of her may be her shops and her tea-rooms, her tram-systems and electric lights and huge hotels.

Yet, although in Florence and all the great cities, life is already less gay and beautiful and leisured, over-run as they are by tourists, their picturesque places too often spoiled by the action of enlightened municipalities, by modern squares and statues and the raising of monster hotels, there is yet a wealth of loveliness in them ; and at certain times in them, as in the country, and in tiny, forgotten mountain- towns, one may still look Italy in the face and feel the spell, sweet and potent, of this ancient land.

Among the people themselves there survives a world of song and legend and quaint custom and picturesque life when one can get at it ; and, living among them, listening daily to their musical speech, watching their faces, noting their courteous ways, I have learnt to love them, and would fain have some record of this fellowship, these good days, to carry with me into the far-off years of age.

Did not Browning write —

" Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it Italy, Such lovers old are I and she, So it always was, shall ever be"?

And though I have no desire to pose as a second Queen Mary, I, too, have Italy engraved upon my heart, and it is because I love her that I have tried to write this book.

I have not succeeded, ah no ! for there are things too beautiful for the telling : what is loveliest is elusive, and will not be caught even by long patience and much search ; and it is no learning which I have tried to set down, but only that simple daily life, those small happenings, which in Italy are ever picturesque.

Well, if my book should make itself friends, so much the better, but if good fortune do not follow my efforts, at least that best fortune is mine which has lain in the writing of it, the living of it, the garnering of happy memories in it, — and this joy no man taketh from me.

Part 1 I First Experiences

IT was half-past six on a November evening when I arrived at the Costantini door. The cab had dashed through one street after another, some brightly lighted, some dark and narrow, until, before an old " palazzo," the driver pulled up short.

I got down and rang the bell, expecting to see immediately a welcoming face before me, but instead there was a click, the door opened, apparently of its own accord and without human agency, revealing Egyptian darkness into which it needed no small valour to advance.

I looked questioningly at the driver, but he seemed to see nothing unnatural ; indeed, he was whistling gaily as he unloaded my boxes ; so, timid and hesitating, feigning a courage which I did not feel, I stepped inside.

It was pitch dark, and I stumbled along, my hand on the wall, feeling that this was a poor reception, and that we managed things better in England ; until my foot struck against a step, and I paused, uncertain what to do. Before and behind me was the same impenetrable gloom : should I do better to advance or to retreat ?

At that moment a yellow flicker in the distance announced the approach of a taper, and when, in answer to the invariable question " Chi e ? " (Who is it ?), I, not knowing the pass-word " Amici " (friends), responded " La Signorina Inglese," the little servant, screaming the news to an unseen enquirer above, lighted me by a candle-end up many stairs, unilluminated through all their twisting length (from which doors opened in every direction into the various "quartieri" into which the rambling old house was divided), until we finally reached the topmost storey, the door was shut, and the Costantini family received me into their midst.

When a friend had suggested that I should enter a Florentine family as a boarder, so that I might " pick up the language,'1 I assented gladly, delighted by this opportunity, in a city so full of English and Americans, of getting an insight into real Italian life.

I certainly had it !

Anything more unlike an English family of similar social position it would be hard to imagine. Italians of the upper classes have, through intercourse with the foreign colony, and through travelling, become to a certain extent cosmopolitan, worn off the outer points of difference between other nations and themselves ; but the Costantini were untouched by any foreign influence : they were typical, and therefore interesting, and I was burning with eagerness to see what this " new life " should be.

They all gathered around to look at me ; the three daughters chattering like magpies, Signor Costantini pouring out, with many courtly bows, what I knew to be words of welcome, but which my tired brain refused to grasp. The little Italian I knew evaded me in these trying moments, and, though anxious to be agreeable, I was fairly confounded for lack of words.

The family, perceiving that I was tired, made signs of showing me my bedroom, to which I responded with an enthusiastic " Si, si, si ! " and the eldest daughter, whom I afterwards came to know as "Bianca," conducted me across a stone passage, up two steps and into my room.

I looked around in dismay. A definite idea of what awaited me I had never tried to form, but perhaps at the back of my mind lingered some dim vision of a cosy little place, bright with firelight, curtained and carpeted against the November cold.

This illusion, if it existed, was dispelled immediately. The room was very large and very cold ; the one candle seemed only to accentuate the gloom. The frescoed ceiling was lofty, the floor of green and black " terazzo " — painted and varnished brick — was icy cold. Almost all Italian houses, except in those of very rich people where " parquetry " is popular, have floors of this terazzo, which is delightfully cool and clean in summer but bitterly cold in winter unless well carpeted ; and this my room was not.

One mat of two feet square stood beside the bed, and, ah ! how well I came to know that mat on frosty mornings, when, standing upon it, I used, with a skill born of necessity, to slide it beneath my feet from bath to cupboard and from dressing-table to trunk.

Above the bed hung a crucifix, and a dark painting of the "Mater Dolorosa" upon the opposite wall. On a stand by the bed stood a decanter and goblet of turquoise blue glass, in case I should be thirsty in the night.

The one familiar sight in the room was my luggage, containing all my household gods. I precipitated myself upon it. Was it all there ? No, it was not ! The hat-box was missing and must be traced at once ! — but how ?

Of Bianca, who stood watching me, I requested in French the immediate arrival of the box. She shook her head : if she knew no English she knew almost as little French.

I was in a parlous state. My phrase-book was in the hat-box, and, like poor Norfolk, "my tongue's use was to me no more than an unstringed viol."

Perhaps, dreadful thought, the cabman had gone off with my property ; was retreating farther and farther, while I had no words in which to state my wrongs ! Never had the shining black form seemed so desirable, its contents so precious, as in this moment of doubt.

Certainly it was a dilemma, but somehow or other I meant to penetrate Bianca's brain ; so, advancing to the large box, I measured it in dumb show with my hands this way and that, indicating its length and breadth to her, and patting it with an impressive " Si, si ! "

Bianca nodded, a little bewildered. I wished her to understand that the trunk was there ? Certainly ! she had understood : it was too large to be overlooked.

But the pantomime was not played out yet. With dramatic gesture I indicated the dimensions of a box much smaller, and, shaking my head sorrowfully, pointed to the empty space beside the trunk with an emphatic " No, no, no ! "

At last I had succeeded. Bianca's whole face brightened with intelligence : she poured out a flood of rapid words, clasped her hands fervently, and vanished ; to reappear in a moment hugging the symmetrical form of the truant hat-box in her arms.

When she had left me I examined the great cold room in detail.

The bed was nice, for Italians are exquisitely particular about their bed-linen, and, indeed, about all their " Biancheria." There was a commodious cupboard, well supplied with "gruccie" — the wooden shoulder- pieces which tailors use for hanging coats on, and of which an Italian wardrobe offers dozens, so that every blouse and jacket may hang upon its own. The hot water, for which I had asked with the help of the dictionary, was on the floor in a straw-covered " fiasco," and I afterwards learned that these flasks are invaluable for chemical experiments, to such an extent can they resist the heat.

Three doors opened out of my room in different directions, and, when ready, I tried the first, candle in hand; but, seeing a vast, ghostly -looking " salotto," hastily retired. The opposite door revealed a bedroom as large and chilly as my own ; the third proved to be that by which I had come in.

As I opened it, all was dark and silent as the grave. Opposite was the room in which the family had received me ; the door was open, but it was deserted, and, like the passage, shrouded in gloom.

No glimmer of light appeared in any direction, and my spirits went down to zero, for I was tired with long travelling, alone, and apparently condemned to dwell in darkness and icy cold. If all the future were to be like this, how was I to face it? I called, tentatively, " Signoriria ! " There was no answer, and my voice died away in what seemed to be immeasurable space.

Then, for the first time, I was afraid. I longed to escape. I was frightened by the thought of the black, twisting stairs which separated me from the outer world ; for I was ignorant of Italian houses, and so did not know that the common staircase shared by many families was the most natural thing in the world. I was frightened by the darkness and silence, the great empty rooms, the passage which wandered off into Heaven knew what black and awful places. All the stories I had ever read of the haunted palaces of old Italian cities, of girls decoyed and assassinated under plausible pretexts, recurred to me. I dared not call again, for the sound of my own voice seemed to accentuate the loneliness ; I dared not explore the passage, for who knew where it led ? Cold, hungry, exhausted, homesick and frightened, I sat down at last on the stone steps of my bedroom and gave myself up to grief.

It may have been ten minutes, it may have been half an hour, when a light appeared in the distance, and with rapture I beheld Bianca advancing down the passage, lamp in hand. In an instant I sprang to my feet, and descended the steps with a smile of welcome. Never, by my fault, should an Italian have grounds for calling the English a faint-hearted race.

Bianca, happily unconscious of the agony I had passed through, intimated by signs that my supper was ready, and led me to a large room, where I was quickly established at the table with a plate of maccaroni before me and a dim oil-lamp above my head.

The regular family meal being over, I ate in solitary state, but not without an audience, as the whole family reappeared and gathered round me, watching with profound attention every movement, and pouring out a flood of conversation to which I tried to respond intelligently by the alternate — though, I fear, often misplaced — use of "No "and "Si."

What, I wonder, did I not deny or assent to on that first evening ? I may have affirmed that in England the Ministers of the out-going Cabinet expiated their errors on the scaffold, and denied that I ever heard of Dante, whose name was mentioned several times by Signer

Costantini in a speech intended, I believe, to welcome me to the city of the poet.

My maccaroni was followed by a steak cooked in oil ; cheese, and apples, accompanied by red country wine; the whole concluded by a glass of sticky liqueur set upon a plate, but filled so generously that Signer Costantini, seeing my dilemma, took the plate with a courtly bow, and, on it, raised the brimming glass to my lips. But I was too tired to be very hungry, the attention concentrated upon my doings, and the bewildering, uncomprehensible chatter made me nervous, and I was only too glad to go to bed.

In my absence I found that a curious hillock had arisen in the midst of the counterpane, and, on turning back the clothes, discovered a framework of laths, like a large dish-cover, in the centre of which hung a clay pot full of hot ashes, — an ingenious substitute for an English warming-pan ; and when I had set this " trabicolo " on the floor, and taken its place between the warm sheets, the heat was so delightful after the cold I had lately suffered, that I forgot my troubles and had not long to wait for the sleep which is the panacea for every ill.

Early next morning I was awakened by the cheerful jingling of the bells of the country carts going by to market. The very sound told me I was in Italy, and, running to the window, I watched them passing far below in the narrow street.

Horses and mules, of various sizes, were harnessed three abreast, wearing scarlet blankets, or costumes made of old carpet, to protect them from the chilly morning air. The horns rising on their backs were studded with brass nails, and they were profusely decorated with scraps of coloured cloth and looking-glass to ward off the evil eye.

I dressed hastily, for the cold was not conducive to dawdling, and went to breakfast alone in the sittingroom, the family habit being to eat in an irregular way in the mornings, taking their coffee and bread in their own rooms or any place convenient, and meeting for a formal meal at twelve o'clock.

Only two regular meals a day are served in most Italian households, one at midday or a little later, and one at seven at night ; and though tea among the upper classes has become almost as popular as with the English, it is a luxury of which people like the Costantini do not dream.

The terrors which had possessed me on the previous night had vanished with the darkness, and my spirits rose as I looked out at the blue frosty sky, the sunny hills and river, and heard the cheerful sound of bells from the churches, and the voice of a greengrocer proclaiming the freshness of his carrots in the streets below.

It was still chilly, but I had the consoling companionship of a " scaldino," which mitigated, if it could not dispel, the cold.

The scaldino, upon the perpetual presence of which the family were punctilious, was an earthenware pot with an arched handle, costing about three halfpence, filled with charcoal embers ; and was always placed under my feet at table that I might not feel the chill of the uncarpeted stone floor. Wherever I went in the house I bore it with me, and it was the kindly habit of the girls to seize it from me and stir the smouldering ashes with a hairpin from their own heads to stimulate the warmth.

The scaldini are in Italy a regular domestic institution ; everywhere they are to be seen in the hands of the people in the streets. The beggars at the church doors, the market sellers, the servants hurrying on errands, all carry them, and in fireless households they afford the only warmth.

A scaldino is a quaint article, and pleases tourists, but it is a poor substitute for a fire when the Tramontana sweeps over the mountains ; and as, although each room boasted a small fireplace, no spark ever appeared in any one, I suffered ' fearfully from the cold that winter, and used gladly to escape on to the sunny Lung' Arno to shake off, by brisk walking, the numbness which had settled on me in the house.