The road from Gubbio, immediately after leaving the city, enters a
narrow Alpine ravine, where a thin stream dashes over dark, red rocks,
and pendent saxifrages wave to the winds. The carriage in which we
travelled at the end of May, one morning, had two horses, which our
driver soon supplemented with a couple of white oxen. Slowly and
toilsomely we ascended between the flanks of barren hills--gaunt masses
of crimson and grey crag, clothed at their summits with short turf and
scanty pasture. The pass leads first to the little town of Scheggia, and
is called the Monte Calvo, or bald mountain. At Scheggia, it joins the
great Flaminian Way, or North road of the Roman armies. At the top there
is a fine view over the conical hills that dominate Gubbio, and, far
away, to noble mountains above the Furlo and the Foligno line of railway
to Ancona. Range rises over range, crossing at unexpected angles,
breaking into sudden precipices, and stretching out long,
exquisitely-modelled outlines, as only Apennines can do, in silvery
sobriety of colours toned by clearest air. Every square piece of this
austere, wild landscape forms a varied picture, whereof the composition
is due to subtle arrangements of lines always delicate; and these lines
seem somehow to have been determined in their beauty by the vast
antiquity of the mountain system, as though they all had taken time to
choose their place and wear down into harmony. The effect of tempered
sadness was heightened for us by stormy lights and dun clouds, high in
air, rolling vapours and flying shadows, over all the prospect, tinted
in ethereal grisaille.
After Scheggia, one enters a land of meadow and oak-trees. This is the
sacred central tract of Jupiter Apenninus, whose fane--
Delubra Jovis saxoque minantes
Apenninigenis cultae pastoribus arae
--once rose behind us on the bald Iguvian summits. A second little pass
leads from this region to the Adriatic side of the Italian water-shed,
and the road now follows the Barano downward toward the sea. The valley
is fairly green with woods, where misletoe may here and there be seen on
boughs of oak, and rich with cornfields. Cagli is the chief town of the
district, and here they show one of the best pictures left to us by
Raphael's father, Giovanni Santi. It is a Madonna, attended by S. Peter,
S. Francis, S. Dominic, S. John, and two angels. One of the angels is
traditionally supposed to have been painted from the boy Raphael, and
the face has something which reminds us of his portraits. The whole
composition, excellent in modelling, harmonious in grouping, soberly but
strongly coloured, with a peculiar blending of dignity and sweetness,
grace and vigour, makes one wonder why Santi thought it necessary to
send his son from his own workshop to study under Perugino. He was
himself a master of his art, and this, perhaps the most agreeable of his
paintings, has a masculine sincerity which is absent from at least the
later works of Perugino.
Some miles beyond Cagli, the real pass of the Furlo begins. It owes its
name to a narrow tunnel bored by Vespasian in the solid rock, where
limestone crags descend on the Barano. The Romans called this gallery
Petra Pertusa, or Intercisa, or more familiarly Forulus, whence comes
the modern name. Indeed, the stations on the old Flaminian Way are still
well marked by Latin designations; for Cagli is the ancient Calles, and
Fossombrone is Forum Sempronii, and Fano the Fanum Fortunae. Vespasian
commemorated this early achievement in engineering by an inscription
carved on the living stone, which still remains; and Claudian, when he
sang the journey of his Emperor Honorius from Rimini to Rome, speaks
thus of what was even then an object of astonishment to travellers:--
Laetior hinc fano recipit fortuna vetusto,
Despiciturque vagus praerupta valle Metaurus,
Qua mons arte patens vivo se perforat arcu
Admittitque viam sectae per viscera rupis.
The Forulus itself may now be matched, on any Alpine pass, by several
tunnels of far mightier dimensions; for it is narrow, and does not
extend more than 126 feet in length. But it occupies a fine position at
the end of a really imposing ravine. The whole Furlo Pass might, without
too much exaggeration, be described as a kind of Cheddar on the scale of
the Via Mala. The limestone rocks, which rise on either hand above the
gorge to an enormous height, are noble in form and solemn, like a
succession of gigantic portals, with stupendous flanking obelisks and
pyramids. Some of these crag-masses rival the fantastic cliffs of Capri,
and all consist of that southern mountain limestone which changes from
pale yellow to blue grey and dusky orange. A river roars precipitately
through the pass, and the road-sides wave with many sorts of
campanulas--a profusion of azure and purple bells upon the hard white
stone. Of Roman remains there is still enough (in the way of Roman
bridges and bits of broken masonry) to please an antiquary's eye. But
the lover of nature will dwell chiefly on the picturesque qualities of
this historic gorge, so alien to the general character of Italian
scenery, and yet so remote from anything to which Swiss travelling
accustoms one.
The Furlo breaks out into a richer land of mighty oaks and waving
cornfields, a fat pastoral country, not unlike Devonshire in detail,
with green uplands, and wild-rose tangled hedgerows, and much running
water, and abundance of summer flowers. At a point above Fossombrone,
the Barano joins the Metauro, and here one has a glimpse of far-away
Urbino, high upon its mountain eyrie. It is so rare, in spite of
immemorial belief, to find in Italy a wilderness of wild flowers, that I
feel inclined to make a list of those I saw from our carriage windows as
we rolled down lazily along the road to Fossombrone. Broom, and cytisus,
and hawthorn mingled with roses, gladiolus, and saintfoil. There were
orchises, and clematis, and privet, and wild-vine, vetches of all hues,
red poppies, sky-blue cornflowers, and lilac pimpernel. In the rougher
hedges, dogwood, honeysuckle, pyracanth, and acacia made a network of
white bloom and blushes. Milk-worts of all bright and tender tints
combined with borage, iris, hawkweeds, harebells, crimson clover, thyme,
red snapdragon, golden asters, and dreamy love-in-a-mist, to weave a
marvellous carpet such as the looms of Shiraz or of Cashmere never
spread. Rarely have I gazed on Flora in such riot, such luxuriance, such
self-abandonment to joy. The air was filled with fragrances. Songs of
cuckoos and nightingales echoed from the copses on the hill-sides. The
sun was out, and dancing over all the landscape.
After all this, Fano was very restful in the quiet sunset. It has a
sandy stretch of shore, on which the long, green-yellow rollers of the
Adriatic broke into creamy foam, beneath the waning saffron light over
Pesaro and the rosy rising of a full moon. This Adriatic sea carries an
English mind home to many a little watering-place upon our coast. In
colour and the shape of waves it resembles our Channel.
The seashore is Fano's great attraction; but the town has many churches,
and some creditable pictures, as well as Roman antiquities. Giovanni
Santi may here be seen almost as well as at Cagli; and of Perugino there
is one truly magnificent altar-piece--lunette, great centre panel, and
predella--dusty in its present condition, but splendidly painted, and
happily not yet restored or cleaned. It is worth journeying to Fano to
see this. Still better would the journey be worth the traveller's while
if he could be sure to witness such a game of _Pallone_ as we chanced
upon in the Via dell'Arco di Augusto--lads and grown-men, tightly girt,
in shirt sleeves, driving the great ball aloft into the air with
cunning bias and calculation of projecting house-eaves. I do not
understand the game; but it was clearly played something after the
manner of our football, that is to say, with sides, and front and back
players so arranged as to cover the greatest number of angles of
incidence on either wall.
Fano still remembers that it is the Fane of Fortune. On the fountain in
the market-place stands a bronze Fortuna, slim and airy, offering her
veil to catch the wind. May she long shower health and prosperity upon
the modern watering-place of which she is the patron saint!