The Col Fiorito of the Apennines.—A race for a good breakfast.
Tolentino.—Macerata.—Reconati.—Loretto: The _Santa Casa_, or
Shrine.—Infirmary: Designs by Raphael.—Ancona.—Sinigaglia.—Castle at
La Catolica.—Scenery near the Adriatic.—Rimini.—Procession for
rain.—San Marino.—The Rubicon.—Cesena.—Forli.—Napoleon and his
roads.—Faenza.—Imola.—Country from Ancona to Bologna.
The day was just dawning as we drove through the gate of Foligno. Until
now we had merely skirmished with the outposts of the Apennines; but
here we were compelled to cross the great ridges, as had been done in
the year 1828, between Bologna and Florence. All eyes looked curiously
ahead, as, having passed some distance into a gorge by the side of a
stream, we began to ascend a winding road where the nakedness of the
hills permitted us to see a mile or two in advance; for every body was
anxious to know whether any of the great flight were likely to take the
same direction as ourselves. Nothing was seen, and we went our way
rejoicing.
This passage of the Apennines is called the Col Fiorito, and although
the road is good, and the mountains are not Alpine, the ascent is long
and sharp. We alighted and walked two or three miles before we gained
the summit of the pass. Before we reached the top, however, I gave a
look behind us, and was half amused and more vexed at seeing the eternal
yellow chariot and three horses of the _Grognon_ toiling its way up
after us, perhaps a league in our rear! It appeared as if the man had
come this way expressly to bring matters _à l’outrance_.
This sight quickened our movements, for it was understood that
breakfast, which every body was in a good humour to enjoy, must be had
in a poor mountain hamlet, or delayed until afternoon. Luckily, when we
took this alarm, we had little more climbing to do, and our road was
nearly all descent to the village; whereas our pursuers would be obliged
still to walk an hour before they could break into a trot. This made the
betting in our favour, “Lombard street to a china orange.”
In an hour we were at the inn door. A boy was put on a horse and
despatched for milk, for you may have wine in Italy when you cannot get
milk. Lucie was sent into the kitchen with a biggin, (not the cup, but
the coffee-pot,) and in twenty minutes every body was at table, and,
literally, every eatable in the house, bread excepted, was devoured. I
had been informed that two roasted fowls might be had at a sort of
eating-house in the village, and these were also secured, and eaten, by
way of precaution against a rescue.
Breakfast over, we left the inn and were about to walk ahead of the
carriages, as the chariot and three came rolling down the declivity into
the village. Seeing us apparently in possession, the _Grognon_ thrust
out his head, gave a growl and an order, and the equipage moved proudly
on, as if it disdained stopping. We followed, telling the servants they
would find us on the road below. To our surprise, at the bottom of the
hamlet we met the _Grognon_ and his party on foot, walking sulkily back
towards the inn, with the manner of people humbled by misfortune, and
yet not totally above indignation. The last house was the eating-house
in question, and stopping to inquire, we discovered that he had heard of
the two roasted fowls, in Foligno probably, and finding us at the inn,
had pushed on to seize these devoted birds, which, alas! were already
eaten. Necessity has no law, and this gallant man was compelled to
subdue his stomach, lest his stomach should subdue him. We sympathized
with his situation, precisely as the well-fed and contented are apt to
sympathize with the unlucky and hungry; or, in other words, we
determined that, in an extremity, one might breakfast even on bread. W——
affirmed that the man was rightly served;—“Let him take a fourth horse,
instead of compelling three to drag that heavy chariot up these
mountains, if he wish to eat chickens.”
The road was beautiful the remainder of the day. It had at first a sort
of camera-lucida wildness about it; a boldness that was quite pleasing,
though in miniature, after the grandeur of the Alps; and as the day drew
towards a close, we rolled, by a gradual and almost imperceptible
descent, into a lovely region, affluent in towns, villas, hamlets, and
all the other appliances of civilized life. This was in the March of
Ancona, and our day’s work terminated at Tolentino, a place celebrated
for one of Napoleon’s early negotiations.
Tolentino stands on an insulated hill, in the midst of a beautiful but
broken country, and it struck us as a place more important as lying near
this pass, than from any other cause. The Serra valle, a gorge in the
road above, has a reputation, but it is not of Swiss frightfulness.
Earlier in the spring and in winter, however, the passage of the Col
Fiorito is a matter of more gravity. Starvation was the only danger on
this occasion. We watched impatiently the arrival of the _Grognon_, but
he disdained entering within the walls of Tolentino that night.
The fine country continued next day, the road being principally a
descent until we rose another eminence, and stopped at Macerata. This
was once the capital of the March, and the Adriatic became visible from
the inn, a silvery belt in the horizon, distant some eight or ten
leagues. All the towns in this district appear to be built on isolated
hills, that once admitted of being strongly fortified. As other hills
are all around them, however, the circumstance is of little use as
against modern warfare. Of these towns, we passed two after breakfast,
one of which, Reconati, stands on a ridge, the ascent to and descent
from which were like _Montagnes Russes_.
About three in the afternoon we came to the foot of another ridge, that
runs at right angles to the coast of the Adriatic, from which it might
be distant a league. The ascent was longer and easier than that of
Reconati: and having overcome it, we found ourselves in a village of a
single long street, that was terminated by a pretty good square and a
large church, with other ecclesiastical edifices, of pretty good
architecture, and which were tolerably spacious even for the States of
the Church. These were the village and the celebrated shrine of Loretto,
a spot that formerly filled a place in the Christian world second only
to Jerusalem.
The books say Loretto contains five thousand souls: my eyes would reduce
this number one half, but it may be true nevertheless. It is simply, not
to say meanly, built, the ecclesiastical edifices excepted; and, as at
Einsiedeln, in Schwytz, most of the small houses are either inns, or
shops for the sale of rosaries and other similar accessories of Catholic
worship. We took rooms—no _Grognon_ near—ordered dinner, and went forth
to see sights.
The church of Loretto is of better architecture than that of Einsiedeln,
but scarcely so large. Its riches and construction are Italian, which it
would be hardly fair to the latter to put in competition with those of
the Cantons. It stands at the head of the square, and on its left
stretches a large pile, which I believe is the palace of a bishop, and a
library; and partly facing the church are other buildings connected with
the establishment, for many ecclesiastics are kept here to do the
service of the shrine. There are many chapels within the church, and
some of them are curious by their associations.
The _Santa Casa_ itself, or the shrine, as you most probably know, is
affirmed to be the house of Joseph. It stands near the centre of the
church, which has been erected around it, of course as an honourable
canopy. The house is also cased externally with Carrara marble, wrought
beautifully, after designs of Bramante. It is ornamented with sculpture,
that represents scenes from the history of the Mother of Christ. The
original wall, which is exposed in the interior, where little is
concealed, is of brick, pieces of stone being intermixed, as was much
practised formerly in Europe, whatever may have been the case in
Palestine. It is fair to presume it was a general usage. The image of
the Virgin, which is separated from those within the house by a grating,
is said to be made of the cedar of Lebanon, and it wears a triple crown.
It is gorgeously attired, bears a figure of the Child in one arm, and
has the bronzed, mysterious countenance that it is common to find about
all the more renowned altars of Mary. There is a small fire-place and a
solitary window. By the latter the angel is said to have entered at the
Annunciation. The dimensions of the house of Joseph are about thirty
feet long, fourteen wide, and near twenty high. If there ever was an
upper room, no traces of it remain.
The history of this shrine, as it is given in a little book sold on the
spot, is virtually as follows:—The house, of course, was originally
built in Nazareth, where Jesus was reared. In 1291, angels raised it
from its foundations and transported it to Dalmatia. Here it remained
between four and five years, when it was transferred to Italy by the
same means. It was first placed in a wood near Reconati, on the land of
a lady named Laureta; whence the present name of Loretto. The road to it
being much infested by robbers, the angels again removed it a short
distance, leaving it on the property of two brothers. These brothers
quarrelled and fought about the profits of the pilgrims, who began to
frequent the shrine in throngs, and both were killed: whereupon the
house was finally removed to its present site.
Various physical proofs are alleged in support of this history. The
house in Nazareth is said to have disappeared, and the foundation to
have remained. This foundation and the house, it is affirmed, correspond
as to fractures, materials, and dimensions; and, I believe, some
geological proof is also adduced, in connexion with the materials.
What is one to think of such a history? Do they who promulgate it
believe it themselves; or is it a mere fiction invented to
deceive?—_Can_ it be true? Certainly it might, as well as that this
earth could be created, and continue to roll on in its orbit.—_Is_ it
true? That is certainly a great deal more than I shall presume to
affirm, or even to believe, accompanied with circumstances of so little
dignity, and facts so little worthy of such a display of Divine
power.—Do the people themselves, they who frequent the shrine, believe
it? Of that I should think there is little doubt, as respects the great
majority.—I cannot express to you the feelings with which I saw my
fellow-creatures kneeling at this shrine, and manifesting every sign of
a devout reliance on the truth of this extraordinary legend. One woman,
a well-dressed and respectable female to all appearances, was buried in
the recess of the fire-place, where she remained kneeling, nearly an
hour, without motion!
Loretto is no longer much frequented by pilgrims from a distance.
Formerly, the treasury had the reputation of being immensely rich, and a
garrison was maintained in the place to guard it. There are, even now,
the remains of military defences around the church, which stands at a
point where the rock falls away rapidly towards the Adriatic. It has
been said, the popes availed themselves of these riches at different
times; and it is pretty certain most of them have disappeared since the
period of the French invasion. The French bear the opprobrium of having
despoiled the shrine; but it is quite as probable that they were
anticipated; for who that knew their career in Upper Italy would have
waited, on such an occasion, until the enemy was at the gate? Little
remains; though we saw some things of price in the treasury, several of
which were quite recent gifts from royal personages.
There is an infirmary for the pilgrims annexed to the establishment, and
I went into it to see some designs of Raphael’s that were painted on the
jars and other vessels which held the medicines. They are extraordinary
things in their way, and prove that the divinity of the school of
Raphael is not the divinity of an anchorite. These gallipots, and the
house near the _Porta del Popola_ at Rome, exhibit the author of the
Transfiguration, very much as Ovid betrays his taste in the
Metamorphoses, and Juvenal his in his Satires.
We passed the night at Loretto, where we purchased sundry rosaries made
of shells from the adjoining coast, candles, _agnus dei_, and other
memorials of the place, all of which were properly authenticated by a
certificate.
I cannot discover how far the Church of Rome at this day attaches
importance to belief in the history of the Santa Casa. It is not now,
and probably never was, a matter essential to communion with the
Catholic Church, though it certainly did receive support from the head
of the Church at one time. So far as I can discover, intelligent
Catholics, especially those out of Italy, wish to overlook this shrine,
which, they say, may be believed in, or not, as one credits or
discredits any other legend of ancient date. Its history is not sacred,
and it is not obligatory to put faith in it. Certainly, I should say,
that the more enlightened Catholics, even here, regard the whole account
with distrust: for he who really believed that God had made such a
manifestation of his will, would scarcely hesitate about worshiping at
the shrine, if he worshiped at all, since the building would not have
been transferred by a miracle without a motive. It is fair, then, to
suppose that few among the intelligent now put any faith in the
tradition; for it is certain few of that class continue to make
pilgrimages to the spot. The time will probably come when shrine and
legend will be abandoned together.
The next day’s work was short, carrying us only to Ancona. The road was
through a pleasing country, and some of the views, especially towards
the mountains, were exceedingly beautiful. The eastern faces of the
Apennines, like the southern faces of the Alps, appear to be more
precipitous than those of the reverse side. The summit of the range was
now white with snow, while the entire foreground offered an exquisite
picture of verdure and sunny fertility, imparting to the view,
notwithstanding the principal elements were the same, peculiarities that
were not often observable among the Swiss peaks. There was a warmth in
the tints, a softness that, though it left the brilliancy, destroyed the
chill of the summits, and, all together, a gentleness of atmosphere and
a calm about this landscape, that I do not remember to have ever
witnessed in Switzerland, except on the Italian side of the mountains.
Ancona is only some sixteen or eighteen miles from Loretto. We got in,
therefore, early, and had an opportunity to examine the place. The port
is formed, in part, by the bluff against the side of which the town is
principally built, aided by a mole of considerable extent. A part of
this mole is very ancient, for there is an arch on it, which was raised
in honour of Trajan, though it is vulgarly called the Arch of Augustus.
Another arch, farther advanced, shows that the popes have greatly added
to the work. The harbour is pretty and safe, but it appears to want
water. Here we first stood on the shores of the Adriatic. The colour of
this sea is less beautiful than that of the Mediterranean; its waters
having a stronger resemblance to those of our own coast than to those of
the neighbouring sea.
The view was fine from the promontory above the town; but I looked in
vain for the opposite coast of Dalmatia. There is a cathedral on this
height, and in it a picture of great merit by Guercino, an artist little
appreciated by those who have not visited the States of the Church. This
town is pretty well fortified, and seems intended for a military post of
some importance.
On leaving Ancona next morning, we commenced a journey of some twenty or
thirty leagues, nearly every part of which was within a mile or two of
the Adriatic, and much of it so near as to give us constant views of
that sea. The first stage was to Sinigaglia, a pretty little town with a
sort of a port; for all the places along the shore have some pretension
to be considered sea-ports, although the coast is a low sandy beach,
almost without points, or bays, or head-lands: a small creek has usually
sufficed to commence a harbour, and by means of excavations, and perhaps
of a small mole at the outlet, to prevent the accumulation of sands by
the south winds, the thing has usually been effected. Some of the
connexions of the family of Bonaparte reside in or near Sinigaglia,
which has many good houses in its vicinity.
We passed the night at Fano, a town of several thousand souls, in which
there are some respectable Roman remains, though of the later periods of
the empire. The next morning we went to La Catolica, a small and
insignificant place, to breakfast; passing Pesaro, a place of more
importance, without stopping.
We saw the remains of a considerable castle near La Catolica, which had
once belonged to the Dukes of Urbino, and is even now, I believe, kept
up as a sort of fortress of the pope’s. It was rather a striking
structure of the sort for Italy; this country not being at all
remarkable for buildings of this nature. One reads of moated castles
among the Apennines in Mrs. Radcliffe’s novels; but I have not yet seen
an edifice in all Italy that would at all justify her descriptions. Such
things may be, but none of them have lain in my path. With the exception
of the Castel Guelfo, near Modena, and the regular forts and citadels, I
do not remember to have seen a moated building in the whole country.
Some of the castles on the heights are gloriously picturesque, it is
true, of which that of Ischia is a striking example; but, on the whole,
I should say few parts of Europe have so little embellishment in this
way as Italy. The Romans do not appear to have built in the castellated
form at all, it being a fashion of the middle ages; and during the
latter period, most of the fastnesses of this part of the world were
made out of the ruins of Roman works. At all events, after passing near
two years in Italy, and traversing it from Nice to Naples, and from
Naples to this point, I have not seen the castles of the romances at
all.
The English novels in general, more particularly those written a few
years since, give very false notions of the state of the Continental
society; as, indeed, do those of the Continent give false notions of
that of the English. Nothing, for instance, can be more outrageously
absurd than Richardson’s story of Clementina, in Sir Charles Grandison,
which betrays an entire ignorance of Italian usages. But Richardson
evidently knew very little of the better classes of his own country; for
though lords and ladies in his time may have worn wigs and hoops, they
were not the arrant coxcombs and formalists he has made them.
This morning, walking ahead of the carriages, we amused ourselves for
several hours on the beach. I felt what wanderers we had truly become,
when I beheld the children I had seen gathering shells on the coast of
America, on the shores of the Mediterranean, and those of the North Sea,
now amusing themselves in the same way on the beach of the Adriatic. We
quitted the duchy of Urbino and entered the Romagna, as it is called,
near La Catolica.
The scenery improved as we advanced, the mountains drawing nearer to the
coast, and the foreground becoming undulating and verdant.—We had the
sea always on our right, and seized every good occasion to stroll on its
beach. Our day’s works were easy, the towns lying at convenient
distances asunder, and, what rendered this part of the journey more
pleasant, not a travelling vehicle of any sort was met on the road: even
the _Grognon_ had vanished, a defeated man.
The second night from Ancona we slept at Rimini. At this town the
Emilian and Flaminian Ways joined each other; for we had followed, most
of the distance from Rome, the great route of the ancients between the
capital of the world and Cis-Alpine Gaul. Here is still a triumphal arch
in honour of Augustus, and a bridge as old, or nearly as old, as his
age. They show a tribune, also, from which it is said Cæsar harangued
the people the morning after he had passed the Rubicon! There was, at
least, something manly in the audacity of this tradition.
At Rimini we witnessed a ceremony that a two years’ residence in Italy
had never before given us an opportunity of seeing. There had been a
long drought; and a procession, in which hundreds of the peasants from
the adjoining country appeared, was made to implore rain at different
shrines. A Madonna of repute was borne in front, and great devoutness
and faith were manifested by those who followed. There is probably no
essential difference between these prayers and those of our own Church
for a similar favour; though the formalities observed on this occasion
were singularly addressed to the senses. I was amused by observing that
the clouds looked dark and menacing over the Apennines, and that these
ceremonies were commenced under good omens. And yet it did not rain! I
do not know, after all, that we are to consider these ceremonies as
possessing more virtue in the eyes of the Catholics than our Church
prayers possess in our own: it is but another form of petition.
Not far from Rimini is a high mountain that stands insulated from the
great range of the Apennines. It is irregular in form, and a small town
is seen near its summit, while, all together, it appears rather more
cultivated and peopled than is common for the hills. This is San Marino,
the oldest republic of Christendom. It had been my intention to visit
the place, but indisposition prevented me. The territory includes the
mountain and a small hilly district at its base, with a population of
about five thousand souls. I was told at Rome by one who had ruled the
Romagna, that this little community betrayed a good deal of jealousy of
its independence, and that its government was believed to be very justly
administered. Of course, such a State exists only by sufferance: the
pope can, at any moment, imprison the whole community, by forbidding
them to trespass on his States. At this point the Grand Duchy of Tuscany
extends to the summits of the Apennines, coming within a very few
leagues of the Adriatic.
It is a matter of dispute where the Rubicon really is. The inhabitants
of Rimini say it is the Marcochia, the small river that is spanned by
the ancient bridge I have mentioned; while those of Savignano claim the
honour for the Pisatello, a still smaller stream that runs near their
place. I believe the prevalent opinion is in favour of the latter; and
there is certainly a monument near the road to say as much. The first,
notwithstanding, is the most plausible-_looking_ stream for a boundary,
as it runs nearly in a direct line across the narrow neck of land that
lies between the mountains and the sea. These things are often
arbitrary; but, were any one to reason coolly on probabilities, I think
he would select the Marcochia for the Rubicon. As the great roads
commenced and terminated at this point, it renders it still more likely
that this was the Rubicon. Emilius or Flaminius would be more likely to
commence such works at a frontier, than at a few miles distant. _Au
reste_, I am too ignorant of the learned part of the question to give an
opinion.
The stream that commonly passes for the Rubicon (the Pisatello) is a
mere rivulet that certainly offered to Cæsar no other obstacle than that
of the prohibition, as it might be forded with dry knees. We
breakfasted, the day we left Rimini, at Cesena. This is the country of
the Malatesta family; and the place contains some works of the middle
ages, that are still in tolerable condition. We had now diverged from
the sea, and were fairly on the great plain of Lombardy, though still in
the Romagna. The road ran nearly parallel with the mountains, which here
quitted the Adriatic to cross to the other sea, leaving the whole of the
wide country between their bases and those of the Alps, in the vast
plain of which I have already spoken. We slept at Forli, a town of some
size, and which we found neat and convenient. At all these places we
amused ourselves with looking at pictures, cathedrals, and ruins; but
none are of sufficient note to call for an especial mention of them. Our
stages were short, and the road from Ancona to Bologna was almost
without hills.—Forli was the Forum Livii of the ancients, and, of
course, was on the Emilian Way, which pursued nearly, if not precisely,
the route of the modern road. All these great highways are kept in
excellent repair; and it is not easy to find any country in Europe that
has better post-routes than Italy. Indeed, most of Europe is well off in
this particular; France, perhaps, ranking among the least favoured
countries in this respect, notwithstanding all the praises that have
been lavished on Napoleon because he caused an inlet to be made, here
and there, into his conquered provinces. It is true, Italy owes the
Emperor much in this respect; but the motive is too apparent to render
his benefactions fit themes for eulogium. A man who left the roads
between his own capital and its nearest towns in a condition to break
half the carriage-wheels that pass over them, is to be distrusted when
he constructs a garden-path across the Alps. This conduct reminds one of
those zealots who are for converting the heathen, and who neglect their
own neighbourhoods. In the one case, it is the love of excitement and a
morbid zeal; while in the other, however, it was a cool and selfish
calculation.
We had passed Faenza next day without stopping, having become wearied
with seeing towns of ten and twenty thousand souls. This place is known
for its pottery wares; whence the French word _faïence_. At Imola we
breakfasted. This was another of the Forums (that of Cornelius;) and the
town is said to lie on the verge of the plain of Lombardy, though in
truth this plain ought to commence at Rimini, if not at Ancona. Here the
poplars began to show themselves; though this tree is much more abundant
in France than in the country from which it has derived its American
name. Indeed, I am not sure one did not see more poplars in America
twenty years ago than are now seen here; though every body seems as
anxious to be rid of the tree to-day, as our fathers were to procure
them. It is said at home, that the dead naked tops which are so common
in the poplar, are owing to there not being a sufficient intermingling
of the sexes; but the same peculiarities are observed in Europe.—From
Imola we drove to Bologna, which we reached in good season.
The distance between Ancona and Bologna is one hundred and thirty-five
miles, which we had passed in four easy days’ work, with scarcely a
hillock on the whole road, with the exception of a little broken ground
between Sinigaglia and Pesaro. Most of the country was beautiful; and
the Apennines the whole time relieved the monotony of a plain. In its
way, it has proved to be one of the pleasantest journeys we have yet
made in all Europe.