ON THE VIA ÆMILIA
The Via Æmilia of antiquity is a wonder to-day, or would be if it were
kept in a little better repair. As it is, it is as good a road as any
"good road" in Italy, and straight as an arrow, as it runs boldly from
the Adriatic at Rimini to Piacenza, through the ancient States of
Bologna, Modena and Parma.
No automobilist who ever rolls off its length of 262 kilometres will
class it as inferior to any other Italian road of its class.
The following categorical mention of the cities and towns on this great
Roman way presents their varied charms in a sufficient number, surely,
to make the hurried north or southbound traveller think it worth while
to zigzag about a bit, in going from Florence to Venice, in order to
visit them all.
The first place of note after leaving Rimini is Cesana--"She whose flank
is washed by Savio's wave," Dante wrote.
Cesana is full of reminders of the profligate Cæsar Borgia. The library
of Cesana was famous in mediæval times and held its head high among the
city's other glories. Above all was the famous Rocca of Cesana, a
fortress château of great strength in days when feudal lords needed a
warren into which they might run and hide at every league.
The Palazzo Publico is a square, sturdy, none too lovely building with
some notable pictures within, and a statue of Pius VII, who was a native
of the place.
In the stirring times of the pontificate of Gregorius XI, the Avignon
Pope sent a cut-throat Cardinal into Italy at the head of a band of
soldiery who entered and pillaged Cesana in 1377. His cry at the head of
his troops was ever: "Blood! more blood! Kill! Kill! Kill!" A nice sort
of a man for a Cardinal Prince of the Church!
The highroad between Cesana and Rimini passes through the valley of the
Rubicon. Mule tracks, sloping hills and olive groves are the chief
characteristics of this vale, the spot where Cæsar apocryphally crossed
the Rubicon. Historians up to Montesquieu's time seemed to take it for
granted, but latterly it has been denied.
Forli and Imola were the principal towns of Romagna, the patrimony of
Catherine Sforza and Girolamo Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. When the
new married pair first came to their little State from Rome the
Renaissance was at its height, and the ambitious bride sought, so far as
possible, to surround herself with its splendours. Their reign in the
east was not happy; Girolamo proved a tyrant, and was promptly
assassinated by his followers, leaving Catherine and her five children
completely in the power of his murderers, who made her give up her
claims to her little kingdom. She consented, or pretended to consent.
She conspired with the Governor of the fortress, Tommaso Feo, and
appeared on its ramparts dressed as a warrior. She refused to surrender,
and when it was recalled that she had left her children behind as
hostages she cruelly replied: "In time I shall have others." Catherine
Sforza was a bloodthirsty vixen, surely.
Forli was Catherine Sforza's own city, and her defence of it against the
Borgias was one of the celebrated sieges of history. She held out two
years, and then only gave in because she was betrayed. Her very reason
of warring with the Borgias reflects greatly on her credit. She refused
simply to allow her son to marry the aging Lucrezia; "not so much on
account of her age," said Catherine, "as her morals." Princely marriages
are often carried out on different lines to-day.
Almost within sight of Forli is Faënza, a city which was under the
domination of the Manfredi when Cæsar Borgia took it into his head to
move against it. A young prince by the name of Astor III, but eighteen
years of age, beloved by all for his amiability, grace and youth, held
its future in his hands. When the key of Faënza, Brisighella, fell to
the Borgia's captain of artillery in the early days of November in 1500,
the emperor-like Cæsar himself came forward and took command. He offered
life to the dwellers within the walls if they would surrender, but they
would have none of it, for, as the Borgia wrote in a letter to the Duc
d'Urbino, dated from "the pontifical camp before Faënza," a "dramatic
defence was made by the citizens of the town." This "dramatic defence"
was such that it compelled Borgia and his papal soldiers to go into
winter quarters. The struggle was the longest that Borgia had yet
undertaken in his campaigns, and the women of Faënza, as did Catherine
Sforza at Forli, covered themselves with glory.
A daughter of a soldier of the garrison, Diamante Jovelli, put herself
at the head of a band of Amazons who took entire charge of the
commissariat, the handling of the munitions of war, and served as
sentinels, repairing the walls even when breached--rough work for women.
"The women of Faënza have saved the honour of Italy," wrote Isabella
d'Este in 1501 to her husband, the Duke of Mantua, and Cæsar Borgia
himself committed himself to paper with the following words: "Would that
I had an entire army of the women of Faënza." The city fell in due time,
and the crafty Cæsar honoured the gallant Manfredi, "crowned with the
laurels of valour and misfortune," by allowing him "a guard of honour
and all his proper dignities." Later the Borgia repented of his
generosity, and sent the young and gallant prince to Rome, and
imprisoned him in the Castle of Sant'Angelo for a year.
Faënza is a very ancient town, and less populous to-day than it was
fifty years ago, when also it was less populous than it was five hundred
years ago.
Imola, the seventh place of importance on the Æmilian itinerary counting
from Rimini, was the ancient Forum Cornelii, but by Charlemagne's time
it had already become known by its present name. In the middle ages
Imola's geographical position, midway between Bologna and Romagna, made
it an important acquisition in the contests for power. It was
successfully held by many different chiefs, and was united to the States
of the Church under Julius II. As one of the stations on the Æmilian
Way, it was a place of some importance; it is mentioned by Cicero, and
by Martial:--
"Si veneris unde requiret,
Æmiliæ dices de regione viæ.
Si quibus in terris, qua simus in urbe rogabit,
Corneli referas me, licet, esse Foro."
The fortress château of Imola was almost identical in form with that of
Forli, quadrilateral with four great towers at the angles, and a
crenelated battlement at the skyline.
Cæsar Borgia brought this fortress to ignoble surrender in 1499, but
since the fortress was then quite independent of the city he had still
another task before him before the inhabitants actually came within his
powers. A fortnight after the capture of the fortress the city itself
fell. Imola was a part of the marriage _dot_ of Catherine Sforza, who
confided its defence to Dionigi di Naldo while she busied herself at
Forli, where she reigned as widow and inheritor of Riario Sforza.
On towards Bologna one passes Castel San Pietro, a thirteenth century
fortified town still sleeping its dull time away since no war or rumours
of war give it concern. Quaderna, even less progressive and important
to-day than its neighbour, was the important station of Claternum in the
days when traffic on the great Æmilian way was greater than now.
Bologna's towers and domes loom large on the horizon as one draws up on
this great capital from any direction. Bologna, because of its easy
access, is one of the popular tourist points of Italy, and for that
reason it is omitted from nobody's itinerary, though most hurried
travellers remember the _mortadella_ better than they do the cathedral,
which in truth is nothing very fine so far as architectural masterpieces
go.
The roads in and out of Bologna are quite the best to be found
neighbouring upon a large city in Italy. They shall not be described
further, the mere statement that this is so should be taken as
sufficient praise.
The streets within the gates too, though paved, are splendidly straight
and smooth, though encumbered at one or two awkward corners with tram
tracks.
The visitor to Bologna may take his ease at the Hotel Brun, quite the
most _distinguished_ hotel in all Italy, not even excepting Daniellis or
the Grand at Venice, each of them a palazzo of long ago.
[Illustration: BOLOGNA (diagram)]
The Hotel Brun is a red brick palace of imposing presence, with a
delightful courtyard where you may stable your automobile along side of
those of most of the touring nobility of Europe at a cost of two and a
half francs a night. The hotel in spite of this is excellent in every
way.
Bologna is surrounded by a city wall pierced by twelve gateways and thus
well preserves its mediæval effect in spite of its theatres, cafés and
restaurants, which are decidedly modern and unlovely.
Bologna when it was conquered by the Gauls took the name of Bononia.
Under Charlemagne it became a free city and had for its device the
equivalent of the word Liberty.
Bologna, the ancient city, proud in the middle ages and independent
always, has ever been the cradle of disturbing factions, a revolutionary
precursor of new ideas, and has been sold and sold again by first one
Judas and then another.
Bologna is, taking its history, its present day prosperity and its still
existing mediæval monuments into consideration, the most impressive and
imposing of all the secondary cities of Italy, indeed in many of the
things that impress the traveller it is ahead, far ahead, of Florence.
Paul Van Herle, a fifteenth century Dutchman, first called the city
_Bologna la Grassa_ because of the opulency of the good things of the
table which might be had here. Its wines and its grapes are superlative,
and its _mortadella_, or Bologna sausage, is, to many, a delicacy
without an equal.
[Illustration: _The Leaning Towers of Bologna_]
Bologna seems to have a specialty of leaning towers, though the school
histories and geographies always use that of Pisa to illustrate those
architectural curiosities. Their histories are very romantic, and the
mere fact that they are out of perpendicular takes nothing away from
their charm. The two leaning brick towers of Bologna's Piazza di Porta
Ravegnana, the Torri Asinelli and the Torri Gorisenda, the first nearly
a hundred metres in height and the latter about half that height, are
two of the most remarkable structures ever erected by the hand of man.
The Asinelli tower was built in 1109, and its neighbour, which never
achieved its completion, in the following year.
From Bologna to Modena is thirty-two kilometres and midway is Castel
Franco or Forte Urbano, as it is variously known. It was formerly the
Forum Gallorum of the Romans and still has its _castel_ little changed
from what it was in the days when Urban VIII built it.
Modena is mostly confounded by hurried travellers with Modane, though
the latter is merely a railway junction where one is tumbled out in the
middle of the night to make his peace with railway and customs
officials.
Modena's Palazzo Ducale, now the Palazzo Reale, was and is a vast, gaudy
construction, not lovely but overpowering with a certain crude grandeur.
A military school has now turned it to practical use. It never could
have been good for much else. A picture gallery and Cæsar d'Este's
famous library are quartered in the Albergo Arti, built by the Duke
Francesco III in the seventeenth century.
The library _Biblioteca Estense_ was brought from Ferrara in 1598 by
Cæsar d'Este on his expulsion by Clement VIII. It contained 100,000
volumes and 3,000 MSS. Three of the most learned men in Italy during the
last century--Zaccaria, Tiraboschi and Muratori--were its librarians.
Amongst the treasures were a gospel of the third century, a Dante with
miniature of the fourteenth century, a collection of several hundred
Provençal poems, etc.
Modena was the birthplace of Mary of Modena, the fascinating princess
who became the Italian Queen of the English people, the consort of James
II. She was an Italian Princess of the house of Este. Her mother was the
Duchess Laura of Modena, daughter of Count Martinozzi and Margaret
Mazarini, cousin of the great Cardinal Mazarin, and she was married,
under his auspices, at the Chapel Royal of Compiègne, in 1655, by proxy,
to Alfonso d'Este, hereditary Prince, and afterwards Duke Alfonso IV of
Modena.
When Lord Peterborough, the envoy of the Duke of York, was shown the
portrait of the Princess Mary he saw "a young Creature about Fourteen
years of Age; but such a light of Beauty, such Characters of Ingenuity
and Goodness as it surprised him, and fixt upon his Phancy that he had
found his Mistress, and the Fortune of England." He made every effort to
meet her personally, but in vain; so he was introduced, "by means such
as might seem accidental," to the Abbé Rizzini, who was employed at
Paris to negotiate the interests of the House of Este. This man
attributed "many excellencies to Mary of Modena, yet he endeavoured to
make them useless" to them by saying that she and her mother wished that
she might take the veil. It was later learned that obstacles were put in
the Duke of York's way until he announced his willingness to become a
Roman Catholic.
Reggio in Æmilia, passed on the road to Parma, is a snug little town,
supposedly the birthplace of Ariosto. A house so marked compels popular
admiration, but again it is possible that he was born within the
citadel, since razed.
[Illustration: PARMA]
The Duchies of Parma and Modena counted little in the political balance
in their day, but the fêtes and spectacles of their courts were
frequently brilliant.
The Duchy of Parma and of Piacenza was created in 1545 by the Pope Paul
III for his son Pietro Farnese. Little of Parma's mediæval character
remains to-day. The town is said to have been called Parma from its
similarity to the form of a shield. But the torrent Parma, which runs
through the city, crossed by three bridges, besides the railway bridge,
most probably gave its name to the city which arose upon the banks. When
the city was under the authority of the Popes it was represented by a
female figure sitting on a pile of shields, and holding a figure of
Victory, with the inscription of _Parma aurea_. Let the heraldic
students figure out any solution of the incident that they please, or
are able.
The Via Æmilia divides the city, by means of the Strada Mæstra, into two
very nearly equal parts. Parma, like Modena and Lucca, has changed its
fortification walls into boulevards, called "Stradone," which are the
favourite rendezvous for Parmesan high society when it goes out for a
stroll.
Near Parma is Canossa, the site of an old fortified town, one day of
considerable importance, but now decayed beyond hope. Here the Emperor
Henry IV, bareheaded and barefooted, supplicated Pope Gregory V in 1077,
an incident of history not yet forgotten by the annalists of church and
state.
Soon after leaving Parma the Roman road crosses the river Taro, the
boundary frontier which shut off the Gaulish from the Ligurian tribes.
The Brothers of the Bridge here built a great work of masonry in 1170,
obtaining money for the expense of the work by begging from the
travellers passing to and fro on the Æmilian Way. In time this old
bridge was carried away, and for centuries a ferry boat served the
purpose, until, in fact, the present structure came into being.
Borgo San Donino, some twenty kilometres beyond the Taro, marks the
shrine of San Donino, a soldier in the army of Maximilian who became a
Christian and refused to worship as commanded by his Emperor. For this
he was put to death on this spot, and for ever after Borgo San Donino
has been one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage in Italy.
Fiorenzuola, still on the Via Æmilia, a dozen kilometres farther on, has
still an old tower to which hang fragments of an enormous chain by which
criminals once were bound and swung aloft.
All through this fertile, abundant region through which runs the famous
Roman Road are numerous little _borgos_, or villages, bearing names
famous in the history of Italy and its contemporary minor states.
Piacenza was founded by the Gauls and was afterwards by the Romans named
Placentia. It has ever prospered, though its career has been fraught
more than once with danger of extinction. By the tenth century its great
trading fair was famous throughout Europe.
[Illustration: PIACENZA]
Piacenza is full of palaces, statues and monuments which merit the
consideration of all serious minded persons, but the automobilist who
has made the last fifty kilometres of the Via Æmilia in the rain--and
how much it does rain in Italy only one who has travelled there by road
for weeks really appreciates--is first concerned as to where he may lay
his head and house his car free from harm.
The Grand Hotel San Marco answers his needs well enough and has the
endorsement of the Touring Club de France as well as that of the
Italian Touring Club, but it is ridiculous that one is obliged to pay in
a smug little Italian town of thirty-five thousand inhabitants five
francs a night for housing his automobile.
Piacenza is on the direct road to the Italian Lakes via Milan, from
which it is distant seventy kilometres.