with eyes of brown velvet, Angela found a gay red and yellow bandana
which she insisted that the _contadina_ should try on. The effect
was so charming that Zelphine took the girl's picture on the spot,
to her evident delight. Nothing but a brush and colors, the latter
well mixed with the atmospheric transparency of Perugia, could give
you any idea of the lovely effect of the girl's soft, dark eyes and
the peach-like bloom of her cheeks, both enhanced by the brilliant
head-dress. Then the signorina must try on a kerchief. "Ecco! ecco!"
Carefully selecting one of dark blue with a yellow border, with
many exclamations and more gestures the deft peasant fingers removed
Angela's hat, and adjusted the kerchief over her golden crescent of
hair. I must confess that the bandana became Angela well enough to
excuse the chorus of admiring expressions that arose from a circle of
voluble crones gathered around us. "Bella donna! Bella signorina!" was
heard on all sides. Some of the women pressed near Angela to kiss her
hand, saying that she looked like the pictures of the Madonna over
there in the cathedral. The child was a little frightened, and drew
closer to me for protection. Zelphine cleverly diverted the attention
of the group by taking Angela and the pretty young Rosa Maria across
the piazza to the large door of the old Palazzo del Podestà, to take
their photographs against this fine background. Nothing could have been
more charming than the blonde and brunette heads and graceful girlish
figures against the old palace gateway. After taking two or three
pictures Zelphine thanked Rosa Maria, pressing a silver coin into her
hand; upon which she, with charming ingenuousness, intimated that she
would take it as a wedding-gift, and, beckoning to a handsome young
peasant whom we had noticed standing over in the shadow of the statue
of Giuseppe Garibaldi, she presented him to us with smiles, blushes,
and courtesies. Then, as we gathered from the few words that we could
understand and by the pair standing hand in hand before Zelphine,
Umbrian etiquette demanded that she should take a photograph of the
_fidanzati_ together, which congenial task Zelphine set about with
alacrity before shyness should overcome the happy couple.
We all hope that the pictures may prove a success, as copies are to
be sent to Rosa Maria and Battista, whose names we have in full, their
address being the Central Post Office of Perugia, where they are always
to be found on market-days.
The groom elect was so manly and gentle and the little bride so
sweet and confiding that they both won our hearts. We left them with
good wishes on our part and _molte, molte grazie_ on theirs. These
expressions were in view of our small contributions toward a little
household soon to be established over near Spello. Angela, in a sudden
enthusiasm over this charming picture of young love, unfastened a
pretty chain that she wears around her neck, and linked it about that
of Rosa Maria. We shall long remember the lovers as we left them,
standing hand in hand on the sunlit Piazza Garibaldi under the shadow
of the ancient Gateway of Justice, and they, I am sure, will never
forget the _forestieri_, above all the _bella signorina_. They will
show their children the pictures and tell them they were taken on the
old piazza; and, to be quite foreign in my prophecy, I am certain that
they will name their first daughter Angela.
From this "charming bit of local color," as Zelphine catalogues our
little adventure, we returned to Rosa Maria's booth, now presided
over by her mother, and bought many other bits of local color in the
form of kerchiefs--Angela more than any of us. As she succumbed to
the temptation of each one, she excused herself by saying, "These
people are so poor, Margaret!" or "That gay red one will make a fine
bandana for old Susan!" or "This will cover the little table in my
morning-room." As we are travelling with only dress-suit-cases, which
are crowded with the bare necessities of life, I know not how we are
to dispose of these new possessions, to which Zelphine has added a
number of books about Perugia and Assisi. She is still lugging around
the beloved Narcissus, from Pompeii, because she will trust him to no
trunk.
After our delightfully vagrant forenoon and a substantial breakfast,
for which we were quite ready, we decided to dedicate the afternoon to
tombs. We had intended to visit the famous Etruscan tombs on our way
to Assisi, driving thither after the conventional fashion of Perugian
tourists, but, hearing from some of our countrymen who sit near us
at the table d'hôte that there are two or three fairly good inns in
Assisi, we have decided to go there by rail to-morrow, and thus have a
Sunday in the good company of the blessed St. Francis.
Angela flatly refused to go on the afternoon expedition, saying
that she had taken a full course on tombs in Rome and would have no
more of them, so Zelphine and I drove alone to the ancient Etruscan
Necropolis of Perugia, a drive of not over an hour from the Porta
Romana. These tomb chambers of the Volumnii are most interesting,
with their portrait figures in terra-cotta and carvings of sun-gods
and dolphins, quite different from anything we have seen except in
Orvieto, and, as Angela says, we have had experience in tombs. Zelphine
and I were much impressed by the fact that these massive stone tombs
of the third century B.C. should have been buried under the earth
until the middle of the last century, when a peasant discovered them
while ploughing. Another story is that the tombs were unearthed when
the new road was being made, but Zelphine and I prefer the tale about
the peasant ploughing. After all, it matters little which tradition we
adopt; the wonder remains that these richly adorned sarcophagi still
testify to the wealth and artistic ability of the Etruscans of more
than twenty-five centuries ago.
So much history lies underground in this land of the past that we do
well to tread softly lest we be, at any moment, walking over graves,
pagan or Christian; and yet these devout Italians are far less jealous
of the desecrating foot of the stranger than the "heathen Chinee."
When we returned from our drive we found Angela in the gayest of moods,
having evidently enjoyed her respite from sight-seeing. She had met
some American acquaintances, and had afternoon tea with Mrs. Allen and
her fascinating children in the charming hall at the Brufani, where one
may sit under the shade of palm-trees all the year round.
May 1st.
Our modest luggage is in the hall in charge of several porters and
_facchini_, and while we wait for the cab that is to take us to the
station, I jot down a few impressions before they are dimmed or quite
swept away by the interests of our next stopping-place. One should
really have two or three days in an absolutely dull and unattractive
place, if such a spot is to be found in Italy, after each one of these
entrancing cities and towns. Our minds are steeped with the beauties
and associations of Perugia, and now Assisi will overwhelm us with its
own charm.
Our way this morning was down the Via Marzia and the great stone steps
of San Ercolano, by the church of the same name, which is built against
the Etruscan wall. I wondered why Hercules should have been canonized;
but we learned afterwards that this curious octagonal church was built
in honor of Perugia's patron saint, the heroic Bishop Ercolano, who
defended his city against the Goths thirteen hundred years ago. From
the Church of San Ercolano we passed on to the Corso Cavour and the
Church of San Domenico, which has the distinction of possessing the
largest Gothic window in Italy. Here also is one of the most beautiful
tombs we have seen anywhere, that of Pope Benedict XI. This fine
monument, designed by Giovanni Pisano, represents Benedict asleep,
guarded by two angels. Above the face and figure, which are lovely in
their perfect repose, is a lofty canopy supported by graceful spiral
columns. Bits of the fine mosaic with which this tomb was once enriched
are to be found here and there, the greater part having been carried
off by Napoleon's soldiers, who seem to have played much the same rôle
in the destruction and sacking of Italian churches as that enacted by
Cromwell's army in England. Indeed I never before realized the ruthless
manner in which the French army ravaged this land of beauty and art; we
hear so much less of its depredations than of those of the Roundheads.
Zelphine, who, for some unaccountable reason, includes the conqueror of
Europe among her heroes, undertook to defend him, while Angela, who,
perhaps with more justice, reckons Cromwell among hers, resented my
mentioning the French and English soldiers in the same breath, which
led to an animated discussion, in the midst of which we passed through
the beautiful and richly decorated Porta San Pietro, and so on to the
old Benedictine monastery, which is now used for a very practical
purpose, that of an institute for experimental agriculture. Seeing
large bunches of millet and other cereals over the fine old doors, we
thought we had made a mistake, but some peasants at work on the road
assured us that San Pietro was just beyond.
After passing through the agricultural school we crossed the courtyard,
and entered the great doorway of beautiful carved stone-work, and so
found ourselves in the basilica, which, with its flat, elaborately
decorated ceiling, its high altar adorned with lapis lazuli, agate,
and other colored stones, and its many columns of granite and marble,
is wonderfully rich in depth and harmony of color. Around the sides
of the church are a number of large paintings by Vassilacchi, two by
Guido Reni, and some charming little paintings by Sassoferrato. But the
crowning glory of the basilica, the great Perugino of the Assumption,
has been carried off to France, although the five saints that once
surrounded it still hover above the altar.
The exquisitely carved choir-stalls of San Pietro, attributed to
Raphael, are the most beautiful that we have seen anywhere. The lovely
traceries, the infinite variety of faces and figures, the quaint
masks interspersed with carvings of beasts, birds, and flowers, could
only have been designed by an artist of delicate fancy and marvellous
genius.
The verger opened the great doors at the back of the church, thus
disclosing a noble panorama of distant hills and fertile valleys.
On the opposite side of the road is the Giardino del Frontone, and
beyond, the Porta San Costanzo, inside of which is a church of the
same name, dedicated to the patron saint of all Perugian lovers. Here
many happy couples are to be seen wending their way along the hillside
park, to gain the blessing of the unlovely Byzantine Madonna who
presides over the marble doorway of San Costanzo. Beyond the garden
and the church lies the wide-spread Umbrian plain, girt about by the
ample belt of the Apennines. Off to the north and west are Cortona and
Siena, with Lago Trasimeno between, quite near, although shut off from
us by a screen of green hills. To the south, following the windings of
the Tiber, lies Rome, where our hearts still linger, and to the east,
so near that we can see the twinkling of their lights at night, are
Foligno and Spello and Assisi, which last, we are told, we shall end by
loving more than any other spot in Italy.
XIII
A SUNDAY IN ASSISI
ASSISI, Saturday Evening, May 1st.
As we first beheld Assisi from the railroad station at sunset, the
delicate mauve pink of her towers and walls glowed with a more rosy
hue and it seemed as if the old town for a brief moment must have worn
something of the grace of her long-vanished youth.
On one side of the station is the little village of the plain, Santa
Maria degli Angeli, with the church from which it takes its name,
so christened by St. Francis in memory of the angelic visions here
granted him. On the other side of the road, across a sweep of green
meadows, is the town, built upon terraces half-way up the hill, Mount
Subasio towering beyond it to a height of over three thousand feet
above the sea-level. The crowning glory of Assisi is the great basilica
of San Francesco, with its remarkable substructure--a vast colonnaded
monastery standing guard over the happy valley beneath.
Our approach was by winding roads bordered by hedges, with fields
beyond green as England and bright as Italy alone, all abloom to-day
with poppies and buttercups. Up and up the shining way climbed the
shabby _vettura_ with its lean horse, until we seemed to be getting
near the blue of the sky, so close does the arch of heaven lean to
these hill towns of Italy.
We all felt that we had left the world of to-day far behind us when we
drove through the ancient Porta San Francesco, so entirely does Assisi
belong to the past. Here where everything is ancient one ceases to
make comparisons, and it seemed no more remarkable to find a Temple of
Minerva standing beside twelfth-century buildings, than that we three
twentieth-century Americans should be driving about these old streets,
hearing the _vetturino_ talk about St. Francis as if he had lived but
yesterday.
You really must not expect an ordinary letter of to-day from this
place, where we are so absolutely dominated by the twelfth century.
Zelphine, who is in a state of rapture and quite lifted above the
ordinary affairs of life, is probably writing a poem at this moment,
having been incited thereto by the history of Assisi's celebrated
poet, Propertius, which she has just read to us from a charming little
book which she found in Perugia. The story runs thus: Propertius, who
was a contemporary of Virgil and Horace, relinquished the congenial
atmosphere of Rome and the friendly companionship of the author of the
"Metamorphoses" for the love of his Umbrian birthplace, where the Muse
had first visited him. Recognized in his own day as the leader of a new
school of poetry, Propertius appreciated his own powers sufficiently to
write of himself in connection with his native town: "Ancient Umbria
gave thee birth, from a noted household. Do I mistake, or do I touch
rightly the region of your home, where misty Mevania stands among the
dews of the hill-girt plain, and the waters of the Umbrian lake grow
warm the summer through, and where on the summit of mounting Asis
rise the walls to which genius has added glory?" His own genius! And
yet, to prove to us that he was not wanting in modesty, Propertius has
placed this charming compliment in the mouth of a soothsayer. If this
is all familiar to you, O most learned, it is so fresh to me that you
must allow me to repeat it, because it reveals once more the truth of
the Scriptures--that a prophet is not without honor save in his own
country. Propertius would not have been forced to sing his own praises
if his contemporaries had sung them in the right key.
The little inn at which we are stopping, with its bare, stone floors
and whitewashed walls, is quite primitive enough to have suited St.
Francis and his brothers. We are told that there is another and larger
hotel, which is more modern in its appointments.
"The idea of caring for a modern hotel or anything modern in Assisi!"
exclaimed Zelphine, walking with me toward the window of one of the
rooms offered us.
A single glance out of that window decided us to stay. The Albergo
Giotto is built on a cliff, and literally overhangs the valley. From
our windows we look out upon green slopes billowing beneath us until
they break away into the long reaches of the plain, where the dome of
St. Mary of the Angels stands out against the sky.
HOTEL GIOTTO, ASSISI, Sunday, May 2d.
A May-day in Assisi!--could anything be more delightful?
Last night, after dinner, or supper, or whatever the nondescript meal
is called which was served to us in the chilly _salle à manger_, a
little lady, unmistakably American and evidently fresh from a study
of the hotel register, joined us, and asked Zelphine if she were Miss
Vernon, and did she happen to know Dr. Vernon of New York? Zelphine,
who adores her brother, Dr. Vernon, and is immensely proud of him, was
quite ready to fall upon the little lady's neck when she found that
she was one of his admiring patients, and we all adopted her at once,
she, Miss Horner by name, being alone and glad to be adopted, as lonely
women usually are in remote places.
I spoke to a bright-faced girl who sat on my right at table, and after
some conversation learned that she had come from an old Pennsylvania
town in which we have many friends and acquaintances. Miss Morris is
also alone, and we have adopted her. Angela says that our party is
growing too rapidly, and that we really must stop attaching waifs and
strays, even if their precious lives have been saved by our brothers,
and their social status established by the most irreproachable
visiting-lists. Angela may be right; but after all we found it so
cheering to gather around the table in the reading-room and talk over
friends at home that we quite forgot that we had intended to spend this
evening in storing our minds with the history and traditions of Assisi.
As I was drifting away into dreamland to the sound of some sweet,
distant bells (the bells are always ringing in Assisi), Zelphine
called in to me from her room, "Do you think there is a spot on the
habitable globe where one would not be likely to meet some person
who had known some one who had met a friend of our friends?" With
this puzzle floating through my mind, rather hazily I confess, I fell
asleep, soothed by a pleasant sense of the smallness of the world and
the friendliness of the inhabitants thereof.
This morning we banished from our minds all irrelevant present-century
associations, and have spent our Sunday in the goodly company of the
early Franciscans. An enthusiastic party of five, for even Angela has
succumbed to the influences of Assisi, we made our way to the Church of
San Francesco, which we approached across a wide piazza framed on both
sides by long arcades. Through the great Gothic portal, with its rich
carvings, we passed into the twilight beauty of the lower church, for
even on a bright May morning the light in this vast basilica is "dim
and religious." The arches of the nave and chapel are richly decorated,
as you will see from the pictures that I send you; but it was not until
we reached the south end of the eastern transept that we realized the
full beauty of these decorations, whose color glowed like jewels in the
light that reached them from three windows in the far apse. Over the
vaulting above the high altar are the wonderful frescoes of Giotto. In
one of the most beautiful of these paintings the artist has represented
the marriage of Francis with Lady Poverty. The cold, pale bride, her
white robe torn by the acacia thorns around her, draws away from her
lover as if to warn him of the trials and hardships that are in store
for him who links his life with hers. She, who, as Dante says,
"slighted and obscure,
Thousand and hundred years and more remain'd
Without a single suitor, till he came,"
is now crowned with love and honor by the adoring Francis. Dante's face
appears among the many representative and mythological spectators who
are gathered around the altar, where Christ himself gives the hand of
the saint to the Lady Poverty, while the angels above rejoice over the
holy marriage. A wonderful conception is this, rich in color and in
devotional feeling, worthy of the hand and mind of the realistic and
imaginative Giotto.
After studying the four symbolic compositions above the high altar we
turned to Cimabue's work in the western transept, of which in many
places only the lovely lines remain, as much of the color has faded
out. If only something could be done to save the noble, sincere work of
those who are now recognized as early masters and regenerators of art!
The colors are fading so fast from the walls of San Francesco that very
soon these valuable frescoes will be lost to the world.
As we turned to enter the sacristy, from which a stairway leads to the
upper church, Miss Morris called our attention to a very interesting
fresco of the Madonna and Child near the door of the sacristy. In this
charming little painting the Madonna, instead of gazing upon the Child
with adoring love or placid content, as in so many pictures, looks into
his uplifted face with a wondering, questioning look in her eyes. Miss
Morris, who is not only an artist of some merit but an investigator of
no mean order, stood before the painting and looked her questions, upon
which our guide explained, partly in English and more in Italian, that
in this picture, by Lorenzetti, the Bambino is represented as speaking
for the first time. The figures are a bit stiff and wooden, but the
face of St. Francis, on the left, is full of devotional feeling, and
there is something indescribably touching in the attitude of the Child
as he turns lovingly and confidingly toward his mother, with words upon
his baby lips that all Christendom would gladly hear. We missed Miss
Morris an hour later, when we were crossing the piazza, and found that
she had returned to the little fresco, drawn to it by an irresistible
fascination.
From a narrow winding stairway we stepped into the lofty, spacious
upper church, lighted by large, three-storied Gothic windows which
flood the interior with sunshine. Here in twenty-eight great frescoes,
executed by the pupils of Giotto, more or less faded and in some places
badly restored, we followed the life of St. Francis from the early days
when he is represented as giving his cloak to a beggar to his final
parting with his brothers.
When we at last emerged from the upper church and made our way down
the outside stairway to the piazza, the scene which met our eyes
seemed strangely modern and bizarre to us whose minds were filled
with thoughts of St. Francis and his holy life. All along the side
of the piazza were long tables filled with relics, rosaries, and
the ubiquitous postal-card, which represents everything, real or
imaginable, that has been seen or could be seen in Assisi. Old women
and little girls were spreading out their wares under the very shadow
of the sanctuary, and we, noticing the pinched, careworn faces of
the women and the poor, scanty clothing of the pretty little girls
who helped them, could not grudge them the limited revenue that comes
to them from their Sunday sales. The little money that reaches these
Assisian peasants is chiefly from tourists, and from a lace-making
industry that has recently been established here. Miss Morris says
that these old women were intoxicated with delight over the brilliancy
of their financial prospects when they were told that they could make
ten cents a day by lacework, if they plied their needles and shuttles
industriously. Does not everything in life depend upon the point of
view?
When we finally turned from the piazza, we accepted the eagerly offered
guidance of a lad of fourteen or fifteen, who led us through steep,
narrow streets and under heavy stone arches to the Chiesa Nuova.
Within the walls of this so-called new church is the house of the
once prosperous cloth-merchant Pietro Bernardone, the home in which
St. Francis spent his early years. A peasant woman unlocked a heavy
wooden door and showed us with reverent pride the stable in which
St. Francis was born, and our young guide spelled out with care the
inscription upon one side of the church wall which records that here
the Madonna Pica, the mother of Francis, had a vision of the future
greatness of her long-desired son. The sacristan opened the door of
a cell in the wall where Francis was confined by his father in the
hope of disenchanting his son with his chosen bride, the Lady Poverty,
and perhaps, as Angela suggested, to punish him for having taken good
cloth from the paternal storehouse and given it to the Church. Zelphine
was shocked at the idea of any one thinking that St. Francis could
ever have done anything wrong; but as the gift of cloth figures quite
prominently in the narrative and involves a nice question in ethics, we
discussed the question, with some warmth, on our way to the Church of
Santa Chiara, which is at the eastern end of the town.
This church, handsome as it is, with its pink and white stone, vast
flying buttresses, and beautiful rose-window, interested us far less
than Santa Chiara's convent, the San Damiano, which we visited later
in the morning. We all regretted that we had gone down into the crypt
at Santa Chiara to see the tomb of the founder of the Poor Clares and
the friend of St. Francis. We would so much rather think of the gentle
abbess at San Damiano than lying under a glass case in the dark crypt,
the once beautiful face, which is quite clearly outlined against her
veil, darkened by time and no longer beautiful. We turned hastily from
the crypt, and were glad to be again in the open air and under the blue
sky wending our way to Clare's hillside convent, which is only second
in interest to the basilica of San Francesco.