MARKET DAY IN PERUGIA
Perugia, on its lofty hilltop, was reached by the two travellers before
the sun had quite kissed away the early freshness of the morning. Since
midnight, there had been a heavy, rain, bringing infinite refreshment to
the scene of verdure and fertility amid which this ancient civilization
stands; insomuch that Kenyon loitered, when they came to the gray city
wall, and was loath to give up the prospect of the sunny wilderness that
lay below. It was as green as England, and bright as Italy alone. There
was all the wide valley, sweeping down and spreading away on all sides
from the weed grown ramparts, and bounded afar by mountains, which lay
asleep in the sun, with thin mists and silvery clouds floating about
their heads by way of morning dreams.
“It lacks still two hours of noon,” said the sculptor to his friend, as
they stood under the arch of the gateway, waiting for their passports
to be examined; “will you come with me to see some admirable frescos by
Perugino? There is a hall in the Exchange, of no great magnitude, but
covered with what must have been--at the time it was painted--such
magnificence and beauty as the world had not elsewhere to show.”
“It depresses me to look at old frescos,” responded the Count; “it is a
pain, yet not enough of a pain to answer as a penance.”
“Will you look at some pictures by Fra Angelico in the Church of San
Domenico?” asked Kenyon; “they are full of religious sincerity, When
one studies them faithfully, it is like holding a conversation about
heavenly things with a tender and devout-minded man.”
“You have shown me some of Fra Angelico’s pictures, I remember,”
answered Donatello; “his angels look as if they had never taken a flight
out of heaven; and his saints seem to have been born saints, and always
to have lived so. Young maidens, and all innocent persons, I doubt not,
may find great delight and profit in looking at such holy pictures. But
they are not for me.”
“Your criticism, I fancy, has great moral depth,” replied Kenyon; “and
I see in it the reason why Hilda so highly appreciates Fra Angelico’s
pictures. Well; we will let all such matters pass for to-day, and stroll
about this fine old city till noon.”
They wandered to and fro, accordingly, and lost themselves among the
strange, precipitate passages, which, in Perugia, are called streets,
Some of them are like caverns, being arched all over, and plunging down
abruptly towards an unknown darkness; which, when you have fathomed
its depths, admits you to a daylight that you scarcely hoped to behold
again. Here they met shabby men, and the careworn wives and mothers
of the people, some of whom guided children in leading strings through
those dim and antique thoroughfares, where a hundred generations had
passed before the little feet of to-day began to tread them. Thence they
climbed upward again, and came to the level plateau, on the summit of
the hill, where are situated the grand piazza and the principal public
edifices.
It happened to be market day in Perugia. The great square, therefore,
presented a far more vivacious spectacle than would have been witnessed
in it at any other time of the week, though not so lively as to overcome
the gray solemnity of the architectural portion of the scene. In the
shadow of the cathedral and other old Gothic structures--seeking shelter
from the sunshine that fell across the rest of the piazza--was a crowd
of people, engaged as buyers or sellers in the petty traffic of a
country fair. Dealers had erected booths and stalls on the pavement,
and overspread them with scanty awnings, beneath which they stood,
vociferously crying their merchandise; such as shoes, hats and caps,
yarn stockings, cheap jewelry and cutlery, books, chiefly little volumes
of a religious Character, and a few French novels; toys, tinware,
old iron, cloth, rosaries of beads, crucifixes, cakes, biscuits,
sugar-plums, and innumerable little odds and ends, which we see no
object in advertising. Baskets of grapes, figs, and pears stood on the
ground. Donkeys, bearing panniers stuffed out with kitchen vegetables,
and requiring an ample roadway, roughly shouldered aside the throng.
Crowded as the square was, a juggler found room to spread out a white
cloth upon the pavement, and cover it with cups, plates, balls, cards,
w the whole material of his magic, in short,--wherewith he proceeded to
work miracles under the noonday sun. An organ grinder at one point, and
a clarion and a flute at another, accomplished what their could towards
filling the wide space with tuneful noise, Their small uproar,
however, was nearly drowned by the multitudinous voices of the people,
bargaining, quarrelling, laughing, and babbling copiously at random;
for the briskness of the mountain atmosphere, or some other cause, made
everybody so loquacious, that more words were wasted in Perugia on this
one market day, than the noisiest piazza of Rome would utter in a month.
Through all this petty tumult, which kept beguiling one’s eyes and upper
strata of thought, it was delightful to catch glimpses of the grand
old architecture that stood around the square. The life of the
flitting moment, existing in the antique shell of an age gone by, has a
fascination which we do not find in either the past or present, taken by
themselves. It might seem irreverent to make the gray cathedral and
the tall, time-worn palaces echo back the exuberant vociferation of the
market; but they did so, and caused the sound to assume a kind of
poetic rhythm, and themselves looked only the more majestic for their
condescension.
On one side, there was an immense edifice devoted to public purposes,
with an antique gallery, and a range of arched and stone-mullioned
windows, running along its front; and by way of entrance it had a
central Gothic arch, elaborately wreathed around with sculptured
semicircles, within which the spectator was aware of a stately and
impressive gloom. Though merely the municipal council-house and exchange
of a decayed country town, this structure was worthy to have held in
one portion of it the parliament hall of a nation, and in the other, the
state apartments of its ruler. On another side of the square rose the
mediaeval front of the cathedral, where the imagination of a Gothic
architect had long ago flowered out indestructibly, in the first place,
a grand design, and then covering it with such abundant detail of
ornament, that the magnitude of the work seemed less a miracle than its
minuteness. You would suppose that he must have softened the stone
into wax, until his most delicate fancies were modelled in the pliant
material, and then had hardened it into stone again. The whole was a
vast, black-letter page of the richest and quaintest poetry. In fit
keeping with all this old magnificence was a great marble fountain,
where again the Gothic imagination showed its overflow and gratuity of
device in the manifold sculptures which it lavished as freely as the
water did its shifting shapes.
Besides the two venerable structures which we have described, there were
lofty palaces, perhaps of as old a date, rising story above Story, and
adorned with balconies, whence, hundreds of years ago, the princely
occupants had been accustomed to gaze down at the sports, business, and
popular assemblages of the piazza. And, beyond all question, they thus
witnessed the erection of a bronze statue, which, three centuries since,
was placed on the pedestal that it still occupies.
“I never come to Perugia,” said Kenyon, “without spending as much time
as I can spare in studying yonder statue of Pope Julius the Third. Those
sculptors of the Middle Age have fitter lessons for the professors of
my art than we can find in the Grecian masterpieces. They belong to our
Christian civilization; and, being earnest works, they always express
something which we do not get from the antique. Will you look at it?”
“Willingly,” replied the Count, “for I see, even so far off, that the
statue is bestowing a benediction, and there is a feeling in my heart
that I may be permitted to share it.”
Remembering the similar idea which Miriam a short time before had
expressed, the sculptor smiled hopefully at the coincidence. They made
their way through the throng of the market place, and approached close
to the iron railing that protected the pedestal of the statue.
It was the figure of a pope, arrayed in his pontifical robes, and
crowned with the tiara. He sat in a bronze chair, elevated high above
the pavement, and seemed to take kindly yet authoritative cognizance
of the busy scene which was at that moment passing before his eye. His
right hand was raised and spread abroad, as if in the act of shedding
forth a benediction, which every man--so broad, so wise, and so serenely
affectionate was the bronze pope’s regard--might hope to feel quietly
descending upon the need, or the distress, that he had closest at his
heart. The statue had life and observation in it, as well as patriarchal
majesty. An imaginative spectator could not but be impressed with
the idea that this benignly awful representative of divine and human
authority might rise from his brazen chair, should any great public
exigency demand his interposition, and encourage or restrain the people
by his gesture, or even by prophetic utterances worthy of so grand a
presence.
And in the long, calm intervals, amid the quiet lapse of ages, the
pontiff watched the daily turmoil around his seat, listening with
majestic patience to the market cries, and all the petty uproar that
awoke the echoes of the stately old piazza. He was the enduring friend
of these men, and of their forefathers and children, the familiar face
of generations.
“The pope’s blessing, methinks, has fallen upon you,” observed the
sculptor, looking at his friend.
In truth, Donatello’s countenance indicated a healthier spirit than
while he was brooding in his melancholy tower. The change of scene, the
breaking up of custom, the fresh flow of incidents, the sense of being
homeless, and therefore free, had done something for our poor Faun;
these circumstances had at least promoted a reaction, which might else
have been slower in its progress. Then, no doubt, the bright day, the
gay spectacle of the market place, and the sympathetic exhilaration
of so many people’s cheerfulness, had each their suitable effect on a
temper naturally prone to be glad. Perhaps, too, he was magnetically
conscious of a presence that formerly sufficed to make him happy. Be the
cause what it might, Donatello’s eyes shone with a serene and hopeful
expression while looking upward at the bronze pope, to whose widely
diffused blessing, it may be, he attributed all this good influence.
“Yes, my dear friend,” said he, in reply to the sculptor’s remark, “I
feel the blessing upon my spirit.”
“It is wonderful,” said Kenyon, with a smile, “wonderful and delightful
to think how long a good man’s beneficence may be potent, even after his
death. How great, then, must have been the efficacy of this excellent
pontiff’s blessing while he was alive!”
“I have heard,” remarked the Count, “that there was a brazen image set
up in the wilderness, the sight of which healed the Israelites of their
poisonous and rankling wounds. If it be the Blessed Virgin’s pleasure,
why should not this holy image before us do me equal good? A wound has
long been rankling in my soul, and filling it with poison.”
“I did wrong to smile,” answered Kenyon. “It is not for me to limit
Providence in its operations on man’s spirit.”
While they stood talking, the clock in the neighboring cathedral told
the hour, with twelve reverberating strokes, which it flung down upon
the crowded market place, as if warning one and all to take advantage
of the bronze pontiff’s benediction, or of Heaven’s blessing, however
proffered, before the opportunity were lost.
“High noon,” said the sculptor. “It is Miriam’s hour!”