Again has the sea fallen back; Caesarea has utterly perished_Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 8 Italy, Sicily, and Greece, Part Two

survives only in one venerable church; the famous pine forest has grown

up between the third haven and the now distant Hadriatic. Out of all

this grew the momentary greatness of Ravenna. The city, girded with the

three fold zone of marshes, causeways, and strong walls, became the

impregnable shelter of the later Emperors; and the earliest Teutonic

Kings naturally fixt their royal seat in the city of their Imperial

predecessors. When this immediate need had passed away, the city

naturally fell into insignificance, and it plays hardly any part in the

history of Medieval Italy. Hence it is that the city is crowded with the

monuments of an age which has left hardly any monuments elsewhere.

In Britain, indeed, if Dr. Merivale be right in the date which he gives

to the great Northern wall, we have a wonderful relic of those times;

but it is the work, not of the architect, but of the military engineers.

In other parts of Europe also works of this date are found here and

there; but nowhere save at Ravenna is there a whole city, so to speak,

made up of them. Nowhere but at Ravenna can we find, thickly scattered

around us, the churches, the tombs, perhaps the palaces, of the last

Roman and the first Teutonic rulers of Italy. In the Old and in the New

Rome, and in Milan also, works of the same date exist; but either they

do not form the chief objects of the city, or they have lost their

character and position through later changes. If Ravenna boasts of the

tombs of Honorius and Theodoric, Milan boasts also, truly or falsely, of

the tombs of Stilicho and Athaulf. But at Milan we have to seek for the

so-called tomb of Athaulf in a side-chapel of a church which has lost

all ancient character, and the so-called tomb of Stilicho, tho placed in

the most venerable church of the city, stands in a strange position as

the support of a pulpit.

At Ravenna, on the other hand, the mighty mausoleum of Theodoric, and

the chapel which contains the tombs of Galla Placidia, her brother, and

her second husband, are among the best known and best preserved

monuments of the city. Ravenna, in the days of its Exarchs, could never

have dared to set up its own St. Vital as a rival to Imperial St.

Sophia. But at St. Sophia, changed into the temple of another faith, the

most characteristic ornaments have been hidden or torn away, while at

St. Vital Hebrew patriarchs and Christian saints, and the Imperial forms

of Justinian and his strangely-chosen Empress, still look down, as they

did thirteen hundred years back, upon the altars of Christian worship.

Ravenna, in short, seems, as it were, to have been preserved all but

untouched to keep up the memory of the days which were alike Roman,

Christian, and Imperial.

BENEDICTINE SUBIACO[31]

BY AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

One of the excellent mountain roads constructed by Pius IX. leads

through a wild district from Olevano to Subiaco. A few miles before

reaching Subiaco we skirt a lake, probably one of the Simbrivii Lacus

which Nero is believed to have made by damming up the Anio. Here he

fished for trout with a golden net, and here he built the mountain villa

which he called Sublaqueum--a name which still exists in Subiaco.

Four centuries after the valley had witnessed the orgies of Nero, a

young patrician of the family of the Anicii-Benedictus, or "the blessed

one," being only fourteen at the time, fled from the seductions of the

capital to the rocks of Mentorella, but, being followed thither, sought

a more complete solitude in a cave above the falls of the Anio. Here he

lived unknown to any except the hermit Romanus, who daily let down food

to him, half of his own loaf, by a cord from the top of the cliff. At

length the hiding-place was revealed to the village priest in a vision,

and pilgrims flocked from all quarters to the valley. Through the

disciples who gathered around Benedict, this desolate ravine became the

cradle of monastic life in the West, and twelve monasteries rose amid

its peaks under the Benedictine rule....

Nothing can exceed the solemn grandeur of the situation of the convent

dedicated to St. Scholastica, the sainted sister of St. Benedict, which

was founded in the fifth century, and which, till quite lately, included

as many as sixteen towns and villages among its possessions. The scenery

becomes more romantic and savage at every step as we ascend the winding

path after leaving St. Scholastica, till a small gate admits us to the

famous immemorial Ilex Grove of St. Benedict, which is said to date from

the fifth century, and which has never been profaned by ax or hatchet.

Beyond it the path narrows, and a steep winding stair, just wide enough

to admit one person at a time, leads to the platform before the second

convent, which up to that moment is entirely concealed. Its name, Sacro

Speco, commemorates the holy cave of St. Benedict.

At the portal, the thrilling interest of the place is suggested by the

inscription--"Here is the patriarchal cradle of the monks of the West

Order of St. Benedict." The entrance corridor, built on arches over the

abyss, has frescoes of four sainted popes, and ends in an ante-chamber

with beautiful Umbrian frescoes, and a painted statue of St. Benedict.

Here we enter the all-glorious church of 1116, completely covered with

ancient frescoes. A number of smaller chapels, hewn out of the rock, are

dedicated to the sainted followers of the founder. Some of the paintings

are by the rare Umbrian master Concioli. A staircase in front of the

high altar leads to the lower church. At the foot of the first flight of

steps, above the charter of 1213, setting forth all its privileges, is

the frescoed figure of Innocent III., who first raised Subiaco into an

abbacy; in the same fresco is represented Abbot John of Tagliacozzo,

under whom (1217-1277) many of the paintings were executed.

On the second landing, the figure of Benedict faces us on a window with

his finger on his lips, imposing silence. On the left is the coro, on

the right the cave where Benedict is said to have passed three years in

darkness. A statue by Raggi commemorates his presence here; a basket is

a memorial of that lowered with his food by St. Romanus; an ancient bell

is shown as that which rang to announce its approach. As we descend the

Scala Santa trodden by the feet of Benedict, and ascended by the monks

upon their knees, the solemn beauty of the place increases at every

step. On the right is a powerful fresco of Death mowing down the young

and sparing the old; on the left, the Preacher shows the young and

thoughtless the three states to which the body is reduced after death.

Lastly, we reach the Holy of Holies, the second cave, in which Benedict

laid down the rule of his order, making its basis the twelve degrees of

humility. Here also an inscription enumerates the wonderful series of

saints, who, issuing from Subiaco, founded the Benedictine Order

throughout the world.

ETRUSCAN VOLTERRA[32]

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

For several miles before reaching Volterra, our attention was fixt by

the extraordinary aspect of the country through which we were passing.

The road gradually ascended, and we found ourselves among deep ravines

and steep, high, broken banks, principally of clay, barren, and in most

places wholly bare of herbage, a scene of complete desolation, were it

not for a cottage here and there perched upon the heights, a few sheep

attended by a boy and a dog grazing on the brink of one of the

precipices, or a solitary patch of bright green wheat in some spot where

the rains had not yet carried away the vegetable mold.

In the midst of this desolate tract, which is, however, here and there

interspersed with fertile spots, rises the mountain on which Volterra is

situated, where the inhabitants breathe a pure and keen atmosphere,

almost perpetually cool, and only die of pleurisies and apoplexies;

while below, on the banks of the Cecina, which in full sight winds its

way to the sea, they die of fevers. One of the ravines of which I have

spoken--the "balza," they call it at Volterra--has plowed a deep chasm

on the north side of this mountain, and is every year rapidly

approaching the city on its summit. I stood on its edge and looked down

a bank of soft, red earth five hundred feet in height. A few rods in

front of me I saw where a road had crossed the spot in which the gulf

now yawned; the tracks of the last year's carriages were seen reaching

to the edge on both sides. The ruins of a convent were close at hand,

the inmates of which, two or three years since, had been removed by the

Government to the town for safety....

The antiquities of Volterra consist of an Etruscan burial-ground, in

which the tombs still remain, pieces of the old and incredibly massive

Etruscan wall, including a far larger circuit than the present city, two

Etruscan gates of immemorial antiquity, older, doubtless, than any thing

at Rome, built of enormous stones, one of them serving even yet as an

entrance to the town, and a multitude of cinerary vessels, mostly of

alabaster, sculptured with numerous figures in "alto relievo." These

figures are sometimes allegorical representations, and sometimes embody

the fables of the Greek mythology. Among them are many in the most

perfect style of Grecian art, the subjects of which are taken from the

poems of Homer; groups representing the besiegers of Troy and its

defenders, or Ulysses with his companions and his ships. I gazed with

exceeding delight on these works of forgotten artists, who had the

verses of Homer by heart--works just drawn from the tombs where they had

been buried for thousands of years, and looking as if fresh from the

chisel.

THE PAESTUM OF THE GREEKS[33]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

Few buildings are more familiar than the temples of Paestum; yet the

moment when the traveler first comes in sight of works of untouched

Hellenic skill is one which is simply overwhelming. Suddenly, by the

side of a dreary road, in a spot backed indeed by noble mountains, but

having no charm of its own, we come on these works, unrivaled on our

side of the Hadriatic and the Messenian strait, standing in all their

solitary grandeur, shattered indeed, but far more perfect than the mass

of ruined buildings of later days. The feeling of being brought near to

Hellenic days and Hellenic men, of standing face to face with the

fathers of the world's civilization, is one which can never pass away.

Descriptions, pictures, models, all fail; they give us the outward form;

they can not give us the true life.

The thought comes upon us that we have passed away from that Roman world

out of which our own world has sprung into that earlier and fresher and

brighter world by which Rome and ourselves have been so deeply

influenced, but out of which neither the Roman nor the modern world can

be said to spring. There is the true Doric in its earliest form, in all

its unmixed and simple majesty. The ground is strewed with shells and

covered with acanthus-leaves; but no shell had suggested the Ionic

volute, no acanthus-leaf had suggested the Corinthian foliage. The vast

columns, with the sudden tapering, the overhanging capitals, the stern,

square abacus, all betoken the infancy of art. But it is an infancy like

that of their own Hêraklês; the strength which clutched the serpent in

his cradle is there in every stone. Later improvements, the improvements

of Attic skill, may have added grace; the perfection of art may be found

in the city which the vote of the divine Assembly decreed to Athênê; but

for the sense of power, of simplicity without rudeness, the city of

Poseidon holds her own. Unlike in every detail, there is in these

wonderful works of early Greek art a spirit akin to some of the great

churches of Romanesque date, simple, massive, unadorned, like the

Poseidônian Doric.

And they show, too, how far the ancient architects were from any slavish

bondage to those minute rules which moderns have invented for them. In

each of the three temples of Paestum differences both of detail and of

arrangement may be marked, differences partly of age, but also partly of

taste. And some other thoughts are brought forcibly upon the mind. Here

indeed we feel that the wonders of Hellenic architecture are things to

kindle our admiration, even our reverence; but that, as the expression

of a state of things which has wholly passed away, nothing can be less

fit for reproduction in modern times.

And again, we may be sure that the admiration and reverence which they

may awaken in the mind of the mere classical purist is cold beside that

which they kindle in the mind which can give them their true place in

the history of art. The temples of Paestum are great and noble from any

point of view. But they become greater and nobler as we run over the

successive steps in the long series by which their massive columns and

entablatures grew into the tall clusters and soaring arches of

Westminster and Amiens.

VII

SICILIAN SCENES

PALERMO[34]

BY WILL S. MONROE

While not one of the original Hellenic city-states, Palermo has a superb

location on the northern shores of the central island of the central

sea; its harbor is guarded by the two picturesque cliffs and the fertile

plain that forms the "compagne" is hemmed in by a semicircular cord of

rugged mountains. "Perhaps there are few spots upon the surface of the

globe more beautiful than Palermo," writes Arthur Symonds. "The hills on

either hand descend upon the sea with long-drawn delicately broken

outlines, so delicately tinted with aerial hues at early dawn or beneath

the blue light of a full moon the panorama seems to be some fabric of

fancy, that must fade away, 'like shapes of clouds we form,' to nothing.

Within the cradle of these hills, and close upon the tideless water,

lies the city. Behind and around on every side stretches the famous

Conco d'Oro, or golden shell, a plain of marvelous fertility, so called

because of its richness and also because of its shape; for it tapers to

a fine point where the mountains meet, and spreads abroad, where they

diverge, like a cornucopia. The whole of this long vega is a garden,

thick with olive-groves and orange trees, with orchards of nespole and

palms and almonds, with fig-trees and locust-trees, with judas-trees

that blush in spring, and with flowers as multitudinously brilliant as

the fretwork of sunset clouds."

During the days of Phoenician and Carthagenian supremacy Palermo was a

busy mart--a great clearing-house for the commerce of the island and

that part of the Mediterranean. But during the days of the Saracens it

became not only a very busy city but also a very beautiful city. The

Arabian poets extolled its charms in terms that sound to us exceedingly

extravagant. One of them wrote: "Oh how beautiful is the lakelet of the

twin palms and the island where the spacious palace stands. The limpid

waters of the double springs resemble liquid pearls, and their basin is

a sea; you would say that the branches of the trees stretched down to

see the fishes in the pool and smile at them. The great fishes in those

clear waters, and the birds among the gardens tune their songs. The ripe

oranges of the island are like fire that burns on boughs of emerald; the

pale lemon reminds me of a lover who has passed the night in weeping for

his absent darling. The two palms may be compared to lovers who have

gained an inaccessible retreat against their enemies, or raise

themselves erect in pride to confound the murmurs and the ill thoughts

of jealous men. O palms of two lakelets of Palermo, ceaseless,

undisturbed, and plenteous days for ever keep your freshness."

With the coming of the Normans Palermo enjoyed even greater prosperity

than had been experienced under the liberal rule of the Saracens. This

was the most brilliant period in the history of the city. The population

was even more mixed than during Moslem supremacy. Besides the Greeks,

Normans, Saracens, and Hebrews, there were commercial colonies of Slavs,

Venetians, Lombardians, Catalans, and Pisans.

The most interesting public monuments at Palermo date from the Norman

period; and while many of the buildings are strikingly Saracenic in

character and recall similar structures erected by the Arabs in Spain,

it will be remembered that the Normans brought no trained architects to

the island, but employed the Arabs, Greeks, and Hebrews who had already

been in the service of the Saracen emirs. But the Arab influence in

architecture was dominant, and it survived well into the fourteenth

century.

GIRGENTI[35]

BY EDWARD A. FREEMAN

The reported luxury of the Sikeliot cities in this age is, in the

double-edged saying of Empedocles, connected with one of their noblest

tastes. They built their houses as if they were going to live for ever.

And if their houses, how much more their temples and other public

buildings? In some of the Sikeliot cities, this was the most brilliant

time of architectural splendor. At Syracuse indeed the greatest

buildings which remain to tell their own story belong either to an

earlier or to a later time. It is the theater alone, as in its first

estate a probable work of the first Hierôn, which at all connects itself

with our present time. But at Akragas[36] and at Selinous the greatest

of the existing buildings belong to the days of republican freedom and

independence. At Akragas what the tyrant began the democracy went on

with. The series of temples that line the southern wall are due to an

impulse which began under Thêrôn and went on to the days of the

Carthaginian siege.

Of the greatest among them, the temple of Olympian Zeus, this is

literally true. There can be little doubt that it was begun as one of

the thank-offerings after the victory of Himera, and it is certain that

at the coming of Hannibal and Hamilkôn it was still so far imperfect

that the roof was not yet added. It was therefore in building during a

time of more than seventy years, years which take in the whole of the

brilliant days of Akragantine freedom and well-being.

To the same period also belong the other temples in the lower city,

temples which abide above ground either standing or in ruins, while the

older temples in the akropolis have to be looked for underneath

buildings of later ages. It was a grand conception to line the southern

wall, the wall most open to the attacks of mortal enemies, with this

wonderful series of holy places of the divine protectors of the city. It

was a conception due, we may believe, in the first instance, to Thêrôn,

but which the democracy fully entered into and carried out. The two best

preserved of the range stand to the east; one indeed occupies the

southeastern corner of the fortified enclosure.

Next in order to the west comes the temple which bears a name not

unlikely, but altogether impossible and unmeaning, the so-called temple

of Concord. No reasonable guess can be made at its pagan dedication; in

the fifteenth century of our era it followed the far earlier precedent

of the temples in the akropolis. It became the church of Saint Gregory,

not of any of the great pontiffs and doctors of the Church, but of the

local bishop whose full description as Saint Gregory of the Turnips can

hardly be written without a smile. The peristyle was walled up, and

arches were cut through the walls of the cella, exactly as in the great

church of Syracuse. Saint Gregory of Girgenti plays no such part in the

world's history as was played by the Panagia of Syracuse; we may

therefore be more inclined to extend some mercy to the Bourbon king who

set free the columns as we now see them. When he had gone so far, one

might even wish that he had gone on to wall up the arches. In each of

the former states of the building there was a solid wall somewhere to

give shelter from the blasts which sweep round this exposed spot. As the

building now stands, it is, after the Athenian house of Theseus and

Saint George, the best preserved Greek temple in being. Like its fellow

to the east, it is a building of moderate size, of the middle stage of

Doric, with columns less massive than those of Syracuse and Corinth,

less slender than those of Nemea.

Again to the west stood a temple of greater size, nearly ranging in

scale with the Athenian Parthenon, which is assigned, with far more of

likelihood than the other names, to Hêraklês. Save one patched-up column

standing amid the general ruin, it has, in the language of the prophet,

become heaps. All that is left is a mass of huge stones, among which we

can see the mighty columns, fallen, each in its place, overthrown, it is

clear, by no hand of man but by those powers of the nether world whose

sway is felt in every corner of Sicilian soil.

These three temples form a continuous range along the eastern part of

the southern wall of the city. To the west of them, parted from them by

a gate, which, in Roman times at least, bore, as at Constantinople and

Spalato, the name of Golden, rose the mightiest work of Akragantine

splendor and devotion, the great Olympieion itself. Of this gigantic

building, the vastest Greek temple in Europe, we happily have somewhat

full descriptions from men who had looked at it, if not in the days of

its full glory, yet at least when it was a house standing up, and not a

ruin. As it now lies, a few fragments of wall still standing amid

confused heaps of fallen stones, of broken columns and capitals, no

building kindles a more earnest desire to see it as it stood in the days

of its perfection.

[Illustration: CITY AND BAY OF NAPLES WITH VESUVIUS IN THE DISTANCE

Courtesy International Mercantile Marine Co.]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF THESEUS AT ATHENS]

[Illustration: PALERMO, SICILY, FROM THE SEA

Courtesy L. C. Page & Co.]

[Illustration: GREEK THEATER AT SEGESTA, SICILY]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF CONCORD, GIRGENTI, SICILY]

[Illustration: TEMPLE OF JUNO AT GIRGENTI, SICILY]

[Illustration: AMPHITHEATER AT SYRACUSE, SICILY]

[Illustration: GREEK TEMPLE AT SEGESTA, SICILY

Courtesy L. C. Page & Co.]

[Illustration: HARBOR OF SYRACUSE, SICILY

Courtesy L. C. Page & Co.]

[Illustration: THE SO-CALLED "SHIP OF ULYSSES" OFF CORFU