Far away among the Sabine hills, right up the valley of the Teverone, as
the Romans now-a-days call the stream which once bore the name of Anio,
hard by the mountain frontier-land of Naples, lies the little town of
Subiaco. I am not aware that of itself this out-of-the-world nook
possesses much claim to notice. Antiquarians, indeed, visit it to search
after the traces of a palace, where Nero may or may not have dwelt.
Students of ecclesiastical lore make pilgrimages thereto, to behold the
famous convent of the Santo Speco, the home of the Benedictine order. In
summer-time the artists in Rome wander out here to take shelter from the
burning heat of the flat Campagna land, and to sketch the wild Salvator
Rosa scenery which hems in the town on every side. I cannot say,
however, that it was love of antiquities or divinity, or even scenery,
which led my steps Subiaco-wards. The motive of my journey was of a less
elevated and more matter-of-fact character. Some few days beforehand a
yellow play-bill-looking placard caught my eye as I strolled down the
Corso. A perusal of its contents informed me, that on the approaching
feast-day of St Benedict there was to be held at Subiaco the great annual
_Festa e fiera_. Many and various were the attractions offered. There
was to be a horse-race, a _tombola_, or open lottery, an illumination,
display of fire-works, high mass, and, more than all, a public
procession, in which the sacred image of San Benedetto was to be carried
from the convent to the town. Such a bill of fare was irresistible, even
had there not been added to it the desire to escape from the close muggy
climate of Rome into the fresh mountain-air,--a desire whose intensity
nothing but a long residence here can enable one to appreciate.
Subiaco is some forty odd miles from Rome, and amongst the petty towns of
the Papal States is a place of some small importance. The means,
however, of communication with the metropolis are of the scantiest. Two
or three times a week a sort of Italian _eil-wagen_, a funereal and
tumble-down, flea-ridden coach, with windows boarded up so high that,
when seated, you cannot see out of them, and closed hermetically, after
Italian fashion, shambles along at jog-trot pace between the two towns,
and takes a livelong day, from early morning to late at night, to perform
the journey. Other public mode of transit there is none; and therefore,
not having patience for the diligence, I had to travel in a private
conveyance, and if there had been any one else going from the fair to
Rome, which there was not, they must perforce have done the same. As to
the details of the journey, and the scenery through which you pass, are
they not written in the book of Murray, wherein whoso likes may read
them? It is enough for me to note one or two facts which tell their own
story. Throughout the forty and odd miles of the road I traversed, I
never passed through a single village or town, with the exception of
Tivoli; and between that town and Rome, a distance of some twenty miles,
never even caught sight of one. After Tivoli, when the road enters the
mountains, there are a dozen small towns or so, all perched on the
summits of high hills, under which the road winds in passing. Detached
houses or cottages there are, as a rule, none--certainly not half a dozen
in all--the whole way along. There was little appearance of traffic
anywhere. A few rough carts, loaded with charcoal or wood for the Roman
markets; strings of mules, almost buried beneath high piles of brushwood,
which were swung pannier-wise across their backs; and a score of peasant-
farmers mounted on shaggy cart-horses, and jogging towards the fair,
constituted the way-bill of the road. The mountain slopes were
apparently altogether barren, or at any rate uncultivated. In the plain
of the valley, bearing traces of recent inundation from the brook-torrent
which ran alongside the road in strange zig-zag windings, were a number
of poorly tilled fields, half covered with stones. The season was
backward, and I could see no trace of anything but hard, fruitless
labour; and the peasants, who were working listlessly, seemed unequal to
the labour of cultivating such unprofitable lands. Personally the men
were a vigorous race enough, but the traces of the malaria fever, the
sunken features and livid complexion, were painfully common; their dress
too was worn ragged and meagre, while the boys working in the fields
constantly left their work to beg as I passed by, a fact which,
considering how little frequented this district is by travellers, struck
me unpleasantly. With my English recollections of what going to the fair
used to be, I looked but in vain for farmers' carts or holiday-dressed
foot-folk going towards Subiaco. I did not meet one carriage of any
description, except the diligence without a passenger, and could not have
guessed, from the few knots of peasants I passed, that there was anything
unusual going on in what I suppose I might call the county town of the
district.
By the time I reached Subiaco, the first day of the fair was at its
height. The topography of the place is of the simplest description,--a
narrow street running up a steep hill, with a small market-place; on the
summit stands a church; half a dozen _cul-de-sac_ alleys on the right,
terminated by the wall that hems in the river at their feet; a long
series of broken steps on the left, leading to a dilapidated castle,
where the Legate ought to reside, but does not; such are the main
features of the town. In fact, if you fancy Snow Hill, Holborn, shrunk
to about a quarter of its width, all its houses reduced to much such a
condition as that gaunt corner-building which for years past has excited
my ungratified curiosity; Newgate gaol replaced by the facade of a dingy
Italian church; the dimensions of the locale considerably diminished; and
a small section of the dark alleys between the prison and Farringdon
Street, bounded by the Fleet-ditch uncovered; you will have a very fair
impression of the town of Subiaco.
The fair, such as it was, was confined to this High Street and to the
little square at its head. The street was filled with people, chiefly
men, bartering at the doors of the un-windowed shops. A very small crowd
would fill so small a place, but I think there could hardly have been
less than a thousand persons. Cutlery and hosiery of the rudest kind
seemed to be the great articles of commerce. There were, of course, an
office of the Pontifical Lottery, which was always crammed, an itinerant
vendor of quack medicines and a few scattered stalls (not a single booth
by the way), where shoes and caps and pots and pans and the "wonderful
adventures of St Balaam" were sold by hucksters of Jewish physiognomy.
Lean, black-bristled pigs ran at every step between your legs, and young
kids, slung across their owners' shoulders with their heads downwards,
bleated piteously. The only sights of a private description were a
series of deformed beggars, drawn in go-carts, and wriggling with the
most hideous contortions; but the fat woman, and the infant with two
heads, and the learned dog, whom I had seen in all parts of Europe, were
nowhere to be found. There was not even an organ boy or a hurdy-gurdy.
Music, alas! like prophecy, has no honour in its own country. The crowd
was of a very humble description; the number of bonnets or hats visible
might be counted on one's fingers, and the fancy peasant costumes of
which Subiaco is said to be the great rendezvous, were scarcely more in
number. There was very little animation apparent of any kind, very
little of gesticulation, or still less of shouting; indeed the crowd, to
do them justice, were perfectly quiet and orderly, for a holiday crowd
almost painfully so. The party to which I belonged, and which consisted
of four Englishmen, all more or less attired in those outlandish costumes
which none but Englishmen ever wear, and no Englishman ever dreams of
wearing in his own country, excited no comment whatever, and scarcely
attracted a passing glance. Fancy what the effect would be of four
bloused and bearded Frenchmen strolling arm-in-arm through a village wake
in an out-of-the-way English county? By the time I had strolled through
the fair, the guns, or rather two most dilapidated old fowling-pieces,
were firing as a signal for the race. The horses were the same as those
run at the Carnival races in Rome, and as the only difference was, that
the course, besides being over hard slippery stones, was also up a steep
hill-street, and the race therefore somewhat more cruel, I did not wait
to see the end, but wandered up the valley to hear the vespers at the
convent of the Santo Speco. I should have been sorry to have missed the
service. Through a number of winding passages, up flights of narrow
steps, and by terrace-ledges cut from the rock, over which I passed, and
overhanging the river-side, I came to a vault-like chapel with low
Saracenic arches and quaint old, dark recesses, and a dim shadowy air of
mystery. Round the candle-lighted altar, standing out brightly from
amidst the darkness, knelt in every posture some seventy monks; and ever
and anon the dreary nasal chanting ceased, and a strain of real music
burst from out the hidden choir, rising and dying fitfully. The whole
scene was beautiful enough; but,--what a pity there should be a "but" in
everything,--when you came to look on the scene in the light of a
service, the charm passed away. There were plenty of performers but no
audience; the congregation consisted of four peasant-women, two men, and
a child in arms. The town below was crowded. The service was one of the
chief ones in the year, but somehow or other the people stopped away.
When the music was over, I was shown through the convent. There were, as
usual, the stock marvels: a hole through which you looked and beheld
a--shall I call it sacred?--picture of Satan with horns and hoof
complete; a small plot of ground, where used to grow the thorns on which
St Benedict was wont to roll himself in order to quench the desires of
manhood, and where now grow the roses into which St Francis transformed
the said thorns, in honour of his brother saint. The monk who showed me
the building talked much about the misery of the surrounding poor. At
the convent's foot lies a little wood of dark green ilexes, of almost
unknown age, valued on account of some tradition about St Benedict, and
perhaps still more as forming a kind of oasis on the barren, bare
mountain-side. Armed guards have to be placed at night around this wood,
to save it from the depredations of the peasantry; every tree belonging
to the convent and not guarded was sure to be cut down. No one, so my
informant told me, would believe the sums of money the convent had spent
of late on charity, and how for this purpose even their daily supplies of
food had been curtailed; but alas! it was only like pouring water into a
sieve, for the people were poorer than ever. I own that when the old
priest pointed out the number of churches and convents you could see in
the valley below, and spoke, with regret, of the time when there were
twelve convents round Subiaco alone, I felt that the cause of this
hopeless misery was not far to seek, though hard to remedy.
On my way homewards to the town I beheld the half dozen sky-rockets which
composed the display of fire-works, and also the two rows of oil-lamps on
the cornices over the church-door, which formed the brilliant
illuminations. Neither sight seemed to collect much crowd or create much
excitement. As the dusk came on the streets emptied fast, and by night-
time the town was almost deserted; and, except that the wine-shops were
still filled with a few hardened topers, every sign of the fair had
vanished. There was not even a trace of drunkenness apparent. The next
morning the same scene was repeated with little difference, save that the
crowd was rather greater, and a band of military music played in the
market-place. About noon the holy procession was seen coming down the
winding road which leads from the convent to the town. I had taken up my
position on a roadside bank, and enjoyed a perfect view. There were a
number of shabby flags and banners preceded by a hundred able-bodied men
dressed in dirty-white surplices, rather dirtier than the colour of their
faces. A crowd of ragged choristers followed swinging incense-pots,
droning an unintelligible chant, and fighting with each other. Then came
a troop of monks and scholars with bare heads and downcast eyes. All
these walked in twos and twos, and carried a few crucifixes raised aloft.
The monks were succeeded by a pewter-looking bust, which, I suppose, was
a likeness of St Benedict, and the bust was followed by a mule, on which,
in a snuff-coloured coat, black tights, white neckcloth, and a
beef-eater's hat, the whole sheltered beneath a green carriage umbrella,
rode His Excellency the Governor of the district. Behind him walked his
secretary, the Syndic of Subiaco, four gendarmes, and three broken-down,
old livery-clad beadles, who carried the umbrellas of these high
dignitaries. In truth, had it not been for the unutterable shabbiness of
the whole affair, I could have fancied I saw the market scene in
"Martha," and "The Last Rose of Summer" seemed to ring unbidden in my
ears. Not a score of un-official spectators accompanied the procession
from the convent, and the interest caused by it appeared but small; the
devotion absolutely none. The fact which struck me most throughout was
the utter apathy of the people. Not a person in the place I spoke to--and
I asked several--had any notion who the governor was. The nearest
approach that I got to an answer was from one of the old beadles, who
replied to my question, "Chi sa?" "E una roba da lontano;" and with this
explanation that the governor was "a thing that came from a distance," I
was obliged to rest satisfied. When the procession reached the town the
band joined in, the governor got off his mule, room was made for our
party in the rank behind him, I suppose, as "distinguished foreigners;"
and so with banners flying, crosses nodding, drums beating, priests and
choristers chanting, we marched in a body into the church, where the
female portion of the crowd and all the beggars followed us. I had now,
however, had enough of the "humours of the fair," and left the town
without waiting to try my luck at the _tombola_, which was to come off
directly High Mass was over.