prevailed. We wandered round the old red walls, seeking to find
an entrance, and since there was no one to say us nay, we went
into the cool white monastery. How still and desolate it was! Our
footsteps ringing on the flags dismayed us, and when we pealed the
bell it echoed like derisive laughter down the empty corridor.
Truly the spirit of the place has taken flight, now that the
white-robed brethren no longer dwell in their inheritance. Not more
than three monks live here to-day; and these, they told us rather
sadly, as _custodes_ only, for their order is suppressed nearly
everywhere, and the state has made a national monument of their
treasures. So the ancient law that to him that hath shall be given,
and from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which
he hath, is fulfilled. And I will confess at once that from the
sentimental point of view my sympathies are all with the monks, for
they are one of our most picturesque links with the past, and it
was with their own hands that they sowed this harvest which another
reaps.[12]
So there are only ghosts to people the deserted cells and chapels
and refectories of Mount Olivet to-day. Time and the hand of man
have robbed this sanctuary. Everywhere the eye sees frescoes
fading from the walls; and Napoleon, who never saw any harm in
robbing Peter to pay Paul, stole some of the exquisite intarsia
stalls of the convent church to enrich the cathedral of Siena.
Only in the great cloister, where Signorelli and Sodoma painted
the life and miracles of St. Benedict, is the imagination fired.
What does it matter that the story has been often told? That we
have conned it in a hundred other frescoes? It is like the magic
stories of our youth, which gained an added joy by repetition,
because no two people ever told them quite the same. Here we could
find inhabitants for all those empty cells; here we could fill
the pleasant groves with white-cowled monks who knelt in prayer
below the cypresses, or paced the shady avenues in meditation;
here we could picture Bernardo himself, building his abbey, and
see him sitting in the old refectory with Patrizi, and Ambrogio
Piccolomini, and the other nobles who followed him into the
wilderness. 'The series forms, in fact, a painted _novella_
of monastic life; its petty jealousies, its petty trials, its
tribulations and temptations, and its indescribably petty
miracles.'[13]
And then, because it was long after mezzogiorno, and we were to
sleep at Chiusi that night, we went back to the magic cypress-woods
to eat our lunch and rest before we drove to Asciano. Our coachmen
had prepared a place for us, which they explained was _molto
arioso_ for so warm a day, on a terraced slope in the wide avenue
of cypresses leading from the monastery church to the little chapel
which contains the cell of Bernardo. The bank was carpeted with
pine-needles, and the air was fragrant with the scent of crushed
thyme. We lunched excellently well off wine and bread, figs and
peaches; and our smiling drivers brought us a great _fiasco_ of
sparkling ice-cold water--an acceptable addition to the meal, for
we were thirsty, and good spring water is not found everywhere in
Italy. And then we pillowed our heads on the soft bank, and lay in
silence, entangled in a flickering web of sun and shadow.
Surely it was an enchanted wood of cypresses that summer afternoon!
As I drowsed I dreamt that I saw a boy come idly through the trees
singing to his lute. His eyes were heavy-lidded, and long black
love-locks lay on his shoulders. He was dressed fantastically in
scarlet stockings, a silken cap, and a gay cloak, which evidently
pleased him well, for at times he plucked at it and pulled it
closely round him to admire its folds. A monkey with a gilded chain
was on his shoulder, and a badger walked solemnly at his heels.
Who could he be? I wondered. He was too gay and worldly to have
thoughts of entering the Brotherhood, and as he drew nearer I could
hear that his song was in the praise of love. Some poet of the
Renaissance, perhaps, whose lord was resting in the monastery.
He drew nearer still, till I thought he must have seen me; and
then, as though he was a little weary of his song, he dropped his
lute and pillowed his gracious young head upon the flowery bank and
drifted into sleep, lulled by the fragrance of the warm pine-woods.
It seemed to me as if he dreamed, for he stirred, and turned his
face away.
Was it I who dreamt the rest?
I saw a lady moving towards him across the flowers as lightly as a
butterfly upon the wing. Fair of face and form was she, fashioned
very lightly, full of airy grace; with child-like laughter on her
lips and a half-defiant, wholly-alluring challenge in her tender
eyes. Her dress was blue and of so light a texture that it rippled
from her rosy limbs like water, and scarce bruised the flowers. As
she ventured near she laughed, and wantoned with some golden fruit.
The sunshine and the breeze, greatly daring, played in her filmy
yellow hair and fashioned the tender blue of her robe into little
wings. Half a child was she, and half a woman, full of the joy of
living and the joy of beautiful things; the very spirit of an azure
butterfly who flutters through a summer day, dancing from sheer
delight.
Who could have dreamt that I should find her here, on this bleak
hillside, in this austere old house? These baked clay cliffs and
desolations should have driven her away to gay Siena long ago, even
if she outstayed the bitter winds which thrash the stone-pines
round the forsaken monastery in winter.
She was standing by the poet now, and smiling down at him, pouting
a little because he did not wake. Who could resist her, this happy
butterfly fashioned so beautifully for love on a golden summer day?
A pine-cone fell into my lap and startled me. I moved. And in a
flash the spell was broken. They had vanished, the beauteous lady
and the sleeping boy whose dreams had conjured her. The yellow
sunlight was slanting in between the cypresses, and from the
stables came the sound of horses being harnessed. It was already
time to go.
And yet they say that Benedict sent her away with harsh words and
admonitions.
And the youth who dreamed was not a poet but a painter; his name
was Sodoma. You may see her picture in the cloister, and his own
as well, in the gay clothes of which he was so proud, for they
were part-payment for his work, and had belonged to a gentleman of
Lombardy who took the monastic habit.
But it is still a miracle to me that I should have met her on this
bare hillside.
CHIUSI
Night had fallen when we reached Chiusi Junction. A full-blown
harvest moon hung over the station-yard like a yellow lamp. It
was late, and the lights of Chiusi were a twinkling bunch of
fire-flies on a distant hill. We dined at the excellent station
buffet, resolved not to spoil the propitious hour by arriving in
an unknown city tired and hungry; and afterwards we climbed up to
our mysterious destination at leisure, in the glory of a late moon,
with the night insects singing by the dusky roadside.
They are among the little joys of Italy these late arrivals, on
breathless summer nights, at hill-towns whose features you have
only glimpsed heretofore from the windows of a flying train. A fig
for the discomforts that you risk! They add a touch of salt to
the adventure. The inn you stumble on may be the worst of all bad
inns; the dinner will of course be long-delayed; and if you have
inadvertently walked in upon a festa it may be difficult to find
a place whereon to lay your head. But reckon against these things
the charm of mystery--the complete sense of satisfaction with which
you watch the ruby tail-lights of your train slipping away into
the night, and hear the lessening roar of its engine till your
last link with the familiar world is severed, and you are face to
face with the unknown. And lastly, remember the joy with which you
discover a new world in the morning.
We started in a vettura which was never meant to carry passengers
as well as luggage, but before long we slipped out one by one, for
we were only going at a snail's pace up the long hill which leads
from Chiusi station to Chiusi town, and we could see nothing of
the magic of the night, half-buried in boxes, and with the stars
shut out by tarpaulin. The driver did not notice, but the horses
quickened their pace with the lightened burden, and soon we were
left to find our own way up the hillside. It was not difficult.
The bright moonlight, which flooded the plain below, turned the
road into a band of silver, whose whiteness was barred by the
shadows of giant cypresses towering black against the night. The
chanting of the frogs and the song of the night cricket almost
drowned the jangling bells of our vettura, and high above us we
could see Chiusi, no longer a bunch of fire-flies, but a ghostly
grey hill-city already wrapt in slumber, with a frowning rocca, and
grim old walls. Its silence was a little desolate as we drew near,
and it was a relief to see the hospitable yellow lights of the Leon
d'Oro outside the Porta Romana, giving us a homely welcome into the
mysterious moonlit town.
[Illustration: CITTÀ DELLA PIEVE FROM CHIUSI.]
I woke early in the morning. It needed but a glance to tell me that
I was back in Umbria. Nowhere else are the dimpled valleys so full
of beauty, or the blue hills so softly moulded; and nowhere else
is that pellucid sky, or that strange clarity of atmosphere which
inspired the landscapes of the Umbrian Quattrocento artists. It was
as though I looked straight into the heart of one of Perugino's
sacred pictures. There was the soft green valley melting in the
distance into the azure folds of mountains; there were the slender
trees cleaving the luminous air; there were the towered cities
crowning the hills; there was the clear pale sky, the spaciousness,
the holiness which Perugino and his school immortalised. But, after
all, this rich plain, from which the waters of an inland sea have
long ago receded, is peculiarly the land of Perugino. Is not that
rose-red city on the crest of the wooded hill which bounds the
southern horizon of Chiusi, Città della Pieve, the town which gave
him birth? I half expected to see a band of saints walking in the
vineyards, or to find Madonna sitting by the roadside with the
Infant Christ. But another artist had usurped the landscape. Below
my window was a peasant ploughing in his olive-garden. He sang as
he bent forward to throw his weight on the wooden shaft, and his
clothes were as blue as the heavens at mid-day. Two milk-white oxen
moved slowly before him under the tender grey of the olives, and as
they passed they left behind them shining furrows of freshly-turned
earth. It was a poem of labour, as delicate in colour as a
tone-etching, an inspiration for Millet with the poetry of life in
his veins, or for the subtle Corot.
Chiusi, the Clusium of Lars Porsena, the great Etruscan Prince who
championed the Tarquinii after they were expelled from Rome, is a
little self-contained city with an affectation of placing cypresses
at becoming angles. She is rather a coquette this old town. She
is not unconscious of the picturesqueness of her position as she
rises above the shimmering olives which veil her hillsides; she
knows the value of cypress spires when they soar above the bastions
of ancient walls; she deliberately sets herself out to charm the
stranger by filling the gardens of her _trattorie_ with flowering
gourds and purple morning-glories. Her picturesque old cathedral
has been so cleverly redecorated throughout with painted mosaics,
that when we first stepped down into the cool dark nave we were
deceived, and gasped to see such jewels outside Ravenna; and she
has built herself a delightful museum, in the form of a classic
temple, to house her Etruscan treasures.
I think she has never ceased to congratulate herself upon giving
the lie to Dante's ill-omened prophecy, when he quoted her as an
example of a city falling into decay--
'Mark Luni, Urbisaglia mark,
How they are gone, and after them how go
Chiusi and Sinigaglia; and 't will seem
No longer new or strange to thee to hear,
That families fail when cities have their end.'[14]
She may well have seemed a city doomed to him as he rode in haste
through the pestilent marshes of the Val di Chiana, and saw her
desolate towers above him stark against the evening sky, as he
hurried from Rome to Siena to meet his fellow exiles and learn the
story of his fall.
For eight centuries or more Chiusi was a plague spot, and the
vapours of the maremma were more powerful to guard her from
invaders than the strongest walls. So she has fewer mediaeval
palaces, and fewer towers than other hill-cities, and these were
long ago given to neighbouring churches to hang their bells in,
and the ancient Rocca is a garden with a farm-house in its keep.
I have a tender spot in my heart for Chiusi. She is a happy town.
In herself she is not very picturesque: her houses are the plain,
white-washed, green-shuttered homes of modern Italy; there are
few traces of her ancient greatness to be seen except the scanty
Etruscan foundations of her mediaeval fortifications, a quantity of
_cippi_ and reliefs built into walls, and the labyrinth of ancient
sewers which honey-combs the hill.[15] And in comparison with the
other cities of Umbria she contains nothing of the Middle Ages,
certainly nothing Gothic, if we except the exquisite illuminated
missals and psalters by Bindo Fiorentino and Girolamo da Cremona,
which are kept in the sacristy of the cathedral, and which came
originally from the monastery of Monte Oliveto. To the antiquary
she is of the highest interest, for she marks the site of Clusium,
one of the five Etruscan towns which combined against the first of
the Tarquins, and of the earlier Camars, which may have been a city
of the more ancient Umbrians. Her history shows her to have been
one of the oldest and most powerful cities of the Etruscan League;
and the country for miles round her walls has yielded, and still
yields, a rich harvest of antiquities from scattered tombs. There
is a slope to the east of the city which is called 'The Field of
the Jewellers,' because so many _scarabaei_ have been discovered
there by the chance furrow of a plough.
[Illustration: ETRUSCAN CINERARY URNS.]
But I am no antiquary. It is not for me to discuss the possible
site of that improbable mausoleum of Lars Porsena with its
labyrinth and pyramids and windbells, which Varro described
as glibly as Herodotus did the marvels of the labyrinth of
Crocodilopolis. I have not seen the great necropolis of Poggio
Gajella on the hill to the north of Chiusi, which Dennis tells us
is a hive of tombs. To me the charm of Chiusi does not lie in her
antiquity, though like every one else who visits her I have spent
happy hours in her sunny museum, poring over inscriptions and
sarcophagi, and cinerary urns and household implements, and all the
strange paraphernalia of a vanished race which have been garnered
from the fields of Clusium. Nor are the painted tombs of Etruria
as much to me as the wonderful beauty of the olive-gardens through
which we walked to find them, in the golden sunset or the clear
cool dawn.
There are many tombs scattered round the hill of Chiusi. Some of
them empty caves hollowed out of the rock, half full of water,
abandoned to moths and bats; and others which have been opened
and closed up again because the damp and thieves have robbed them
of all interest. A few of the best are kept under lock and key to
preserve them from wanton destruction, but even these are slipping
reluctantly back to oblivion.
Such an one is the Tombe del Colle Casuccini, which is to be found
in an olive-grove to the south-east of the town. It is hollowed in
the rock, and is approached by a levelled path cut in the slope
of the hill. The earth around is full of iris plumes and slender
field flowers; there is a weather-beaten cippus over the lintel,
and a solitary stone-pine which stretches out its branches as
though Nature sought to render homage to the dead by yielding them
a royal canopy. We had lingered so long in the silver olive-gardens
that it was almost the hour of sunset when we reached the tomb. A
melancholy evening wind moaned in the branches of the pine-tree,
and rustled in the flowering yews which guarded the entrance of the
passage.
Up and down the hillside we could see the peasants returning from
their work in the fields, and the whole world was caught in the
sudden glory of the setting sun. A woman came towards us with the
key of the tomb; she had a baby in her arms, and on her head a
great mottled pitcher, green and gold, full of spring water. The
sunlight wove a halo round her till she seemed as radiant as one of
Pinturicchio's Madonnas.
The great doors of travertine groaned as they swung slowly open
on their stone pivots, and a scorpion fled from the light. Dennis
says, 'There can be no doubt of the antiquity of these doors; it is
manifest in their very arrangement; for the lintel is a huge mass
of rock buried beneath a weight of superincumbent earth, and must
have been laid _after_ the slabs were in their place.'
This sepulchre, like most Etruscan tombs of importance, is divided
into several chambers. Its roof is curiously coffered, and was
at one time painted red and black. But it is the wall paintings
which are of supreme interest here. Unlike the other tombs of
Chiusi the sandstone walls have been whitened, and even so the
figures are hardly distinguishable. But look close. It is worth
the trouble, for as your candlelight drives the shadows back, the
story of an ancient world unfolds itself. Here, to the right, three
charioteers urge their archaic steeds to the winning-post; here
are the wrestlers; here the musicians with their doublepipes and
lutes, and here a dancing girl. On the other wall you can trace
the progress of a banquet, and see the languid youths of Etruria
reclining on couches, toying with wreaths and flowers, and holding
out their _paterae_ for the hurrying slaves to fill with wine.
But they are very faded. They are a world of shadows; they
vanish with the months. Another generation will look for them in
vain; then the athletes will no longer run their silent races to
eternity, the music will be hushed, and the feet of the dancers
stilled. And then, I suppose, the wonderful old doors will be taken
away, and the angry scorpions will be left in possession. If you
would see these ghosts, come soon. For if you come ten years after,
perchance you will find nothing on the cold stone walls; their
pictures will have gone the way of all the other antique graces
which have been lost in Time's devouring maw!
In Italy, especially in the small cities, you have to bow to local
convention. In Chiusi it takes the form of Etruscan tombs. Every
one from tiny children to the oldest inhabitant volunteers to be
your guide. A stranger would say that the Tomb of the Monkey or
the Deposito del Gran Duca were topics of burning interest in the
town, for the people will not rest until they are assured that he
has visited them. It was for this reason that the sunrise next
morning found us on our way to the Tomba della Scimmia, which lies
a mile or so to the north-east of Chiusi. At first we followed
the highroad where the gay painted ox-carts of Clusium, with their
picturesque high-curved shafts, were already rolling up the hill.
But our way soon turned off into a rough path which dipped down
into the chilly sweetness of the olive-gardens. The sun had not
yet risen high enough to penetrate these dewy hollows, but as we
re-emerged from them and breasted the little oak-clad hills beyond,
it slanted between the branches and made a halo round some young
peasant girls, barefoot and with uncovered heads, who were carrying
great pitchers of water to their cottages from an Artesian well.
We dipped into more valleys and circled other hills, plucking the
ripe blackberries as we passed, and gathering the flowers which
made a tangle round our feet. The only people that we met were
peasants at work below their olives, and every one of them gave us
a smiling _buon giorno a loro_ as we passed. Presently we came out
upon a wooded cliff and saw Chiusi, with her fair white houses and
her grey ivied rocca, across the valley to our right, and on our
left the little lakes of Montepulciano and Chiusi, like opals in
the dawn. Umbria again! The flowers at our feet, the glint of water
in the wide green valley, the purple hills, the soft blue sky, the
breadth and depth, the holiness and peace of mystic Umbria.
[Illustration: CHIUSI: THE PALACE OF THE BISHOP.]
The Tomb of the Monkey owes its name to the painted monkey chained
to a tree in the midst of the athletes who wrestle and ride and box
and perform their Pyrrhic dances round the walls. It is approached
by a deep cut in the tufa, in the style of the mummy shafts of
Egypt, but the steps which lead down to the door, and the door
itself, are modern. By the help of our guttering candles we were
able to decipher the solitary spectator who sits, like Nefertari
in her rock-hewn tomb of Thebes, with foot on stool and umbrella
over head, gazing into eternity. But we did not stay there long. It
was too cold. The damp had eaten almost everything away. Down in
the chill dark of the tomb we knew that the wrestlers, their naked
red bodies fading into the tufa, wrestled continuously, and the
chariots drove silently into the shadows before the solemn audience
of one.
But up above we could hear the bells of Chiusi on the warm,
scented air. And there were the wind, the limpid sunlight, the
song of birds, the wooded hills and valleys, the yellow earth
with its flowers and its trails of bramble covered with shining
fruits--everything of warmth and sweetness and pleasure to the
eye and ear. In the plain below we could see the little blue lake
of Chiusi, called lovingly of the people, the 'chiaro di Chiusi,'
which in the olden days was yearly espoused with a ring by the
chief magistrate of the town, in the same manner as the Doge of
Venice wedded the Adriatic. And beside it the towers of Béccati
Questo and Béccati Quest'altro, which were put up in the fifteenth
century by the rival provinces of Siena and Perugia, still shout
defiance to each other across the valley.
After all, it was for her old-world charm that we loved Chiusi--the
simple pastoral beauty of her _contado_, her forges glowing at
night in deep caverns below her walls, her Bishop's palace with
its ancient _cippi_, and its flowering agaves and cypresses. And
most of all we loved the lichen-covered boy in the fountain of the
Piazza del Duomo. For he was like the spirit of eternal youth,
keeping the soul of things alive in this city of tombs. There
were gold fish in the green shallows round his feet, the water
spouted from his forehead, his arms were outstretched and his face
upturned, as though he sang in rapture to the sun.
For it was in such little things as these that we found the
hidden secret of Italy's charm. These little towns like Chiusi,
perched each one on its hill, are sometimes commonplace enough
in themselves, even though their foundations are inscribed by
the years that have passed; but they look across valleys of
unimaginable beauty to the mountains; they have genii singing in
their springs; and the lives of their people have the classic
simplicity of an older, unspoilt world.
HANNIBAL'S THRASYMENE
'Yea! sometimes on the instant all seems plain,
The simple sun could tell us, or the rain,
The world caught dreaming with a look of heaven
Seems on a sudden tip-toe to explain.'
'THE RUBAIYAT,' Le Gallienne's translation.
We came to Passignano from Chiusi, because we could not resist the
beauty of Thrasymene. Most travellers in Italy only view it with
passing admiration as they fly by in the express which takes them
from Florence to Rome and Naples. It is to them merely another
lovely incident in their journey through a landscape of surpassing
beauty. Perchance they refer to their Baedekers, and find that it
was the scene of Hannibal's great victory over Flaminius, and in a
few minutes more their train is in Chiusi Junction, and the lake
is lost behind the Umbrian hills. Others, who visit Perugia and
Assisi, see more of its beauties, for when they leave the main line
at Chiusi they have to make a semi-circular tour of the lake; and
even from Terontola, the junction for Florence and Perugia, the
line runs for miles along the lake-side, and crosses the actual
site of Hannibal's battle-field.
Twice already, in the last month, we had traversed it, on the
journey from Cortona to Perugia, and again on our way to Siena.
Coming back we could no more resist it. Our intention had been to
go straight from Chiusi to Assisi, but at Terontola the little
philosopher put in a special plea for Thrasymene. He has a passion
for lakes and rivers; no landscape is complete for him without them.