us back to Milan. There is yet a little while to rest tired eyes and
strained spirits among the willows and poplars by the monastery wall.
Through that grey-green leafage, young with early spring, the pinnacles
of the Certosa leap like flames into the sky. The rice-fields are
under water, far and wide, shining like burnished gold beneath the
level light now near to sundown. Frogs are croaking; those persistent
frogs whom the muses have ordained to sing for aye in spite of Bion
and all tuneful poets dead. We sit and watch the water snakes, the
busy rats, the hundred creatures swarming in the fat, well watered
soil. Nightingales here and there, newcomers, tune their timid April
song. But, strangest of all sounds in such a place, my comrade from
the Grisons jodels forth an Alpine cowherd’s melody--_Auf den Alpen
droben ist ein herrliches Leben!_
Did the echoes of Gian Galeazzo’s convent ever wake to such a tune as
this before?
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Perhaps in the choice of the abbot’s cheer, there was some occult
reference to the verse of Solomon’s Song: “Stay me with flagons,
comfort me with apples.”
[2] “On the 14th day of April, 1374, there were found, in this church
of the first martyr St. Stefano, two hundred and more bodies of holy
martyrs, by the venerable priest, Matthew Fradello, incumbent of the
church.”
[3] “The women, even as far back as 1100, wore dresses of blue,
with mantles on the shoulder, which clothed them before and
behind.”--Sansovino. It would be difficult to imagine a dress more
modest and beautiful.
[4]
“Whom Eve destroyed, the pious Virgin Mary redeemed;
All praise her, who rejoice in the Grace of Christ.”
[5] The embroidered skullcap of Constance of Aragon, wife of Frederick
II, in the sacristy of the Cathedral at Palermo, is made of gold thread
thickly studded with pearls and jewels--rough sapphires and carbuncles,
among which may be noted a red cornelian engraved in Arabic with this
sentence, “In Christ, God, I put my hope.”
[6] Matteo of Ajello induced William to found an archbishopric at
Monreale in order to spite his rival Offamilio.
[7] Nearly all cities have their own distinctive colour. That of Venice
is a pearly white, suggestive of every hue in delicate abeyance, and
that of Florence is a sober brown. Palermo displays a rich yellow ochre
passing at the deepest into orange, and at the lightest into primrose.
This is the tone of the soil, of sun-stained marble, and of the rough
ashlar masonry of the chief buildings. Palermo has none of the glaring
whiteness of Naples, nor yet of that parti-coloured gradation of tints,
which adds gaiety to the grandeur of Genoa.
[8] Of these numerous versions of the story, made in 1635, one is
in English, one in Lowland Scotch, containing all the peculiarities
of diction with which every one is so familiar from the nearly
contemporary conversations of King James I, in _The Fortunes of
Nigel_; showing clearly that at that time these two dialects of
English were regarded as two distinct languages, each unintelligible to
the speaker of the other.
[9] See an elaborate and conclusive Essay on the origin of the story
of the Holy House of Loretto, which appeared in the _Christian
Remembrancer_, April, 1855.
[10] The pictures at Ara Cœli and Sta. Maria Maggiore both claim to
be that carried by St. Gregory in this procession. The song of the
angels is annually commemorated on St. Mark’s Day, when the clergy pass
by in procession to St. Peter’s, and the Franciscans of Ara Cœli and
the canons of Sta. Maria Maggiore, halting here, chaunt the antiphon,
_Regina cœli, lætare_.
[11] By Jacopo Turrita, the restorer of the mosaic.
[12] 1602.
[13] 1260.
Transcriber’s Notes:
1. Obvious printers’, punctuation and spelling errors have been
corrected silently.
2. Where hyphenation is in doubt, it has been retained as in the
original.
3. Some hyphenated and non-hyphenated versions of the same words have
been retained as in the original.
4. Italics are shown as _xxx_.