"The pillar di Santa Trinita was in times a meeting-place for fairies
(_Fate_), whither they went afoot or in their carriages. At the base of
the column there was a great stone, and there they exchanged greetings or
consulted about their affairs. They were all great ladies, of kindly
disposition. And when it came that any one was cast into the city
prison, they inquired into the affair, and then a _fate_ would go as a
magistrate in disguise and question the accused. Now they always knew
whether any one spoke the truth, and if the prisoner did so, and was
deserving mercy, they delivered him; but if he lied, they left him to be
hanged, with a _buon pro vi faccia_!--Much good may it do you!
"Of evenings they assembled round the rock at the foot of the column in a
great company, and had great merriment and love-making. Then in the
crowd a couple would descend, or one after another into their vaults
below, and then come again, often taking with them mortals who were their
friends or favourites.
"Their chief was a matron who always held a pair of scales. Now when
they were to judge the fate of any one, they took with great care the
earth from one of his footprints, and weighed it most scrupulously, for
thereby they could tell whether in his life he had done more good or
evil, and it was thus that they settled the fate of all the accused in
the prisons.
"And it often came to pass that when prisoners were young and handsome,
these _fate_ or fairy-witches took them from their cells in the prison
through subterranean ways to their vaults under the Trinita, and passed
the time merrily enough, for all was magnificent there.
"But woe unto those, no matter how handsome they might be, who betrayed
the secrets and the love of the _fate_. Verily they had their reward,
and a fine long repentance with it, for they were all turned into cats or
mice, and condemned to live in the cellars and subterranean passages of
the old Ghetto, which is now destroyed--and a nasty place it was. In its
time people often wondered that there were so many cats there, but the
truth is that they were all people who had been enchanted by those who
were called in olden time _le Gran Dame di Firenze_--the Great Ladies of
Florence.
"And the image holding the scales is called _la Giustizia_, but it really
represents the Matrona, or Queen of the Fate, who of old exercised such
strict justice with her scales in Florence."
* * * * *
This is, I am confident, a tradition of great antiquity, for all its
elements are of a very ancient or singularly witch-like nature. In it
the _fate_ are found in their most natural form, as _fates_, weighing
justice and dealing out rewards and punishments. Justice herself appears
naively and amusingly to the witches as Queen of the _Fate_, who are
indeed all spirits who have been good witches in a previous life.
What is most mystical and peculiarly classic Italian is the belief that
the earth on which a human being has trod can be used wherewith to
conjure him. This subject is treated elsewhere in my "Etruscan Roman
Traditions."
The great stone at the base of the column was a kind of palladium of the
city of Florence. There are brief notices of it in many works. It would
be curious if it still exists somewhere and can be identified.
"A great palladium, whose virtues lie
In undefined remote antiquity;
A god unformed, who sleeps within a stone,
Which sculptor's hand as yet has never known;
Brought in past ages from some unknown shore;
Our fathers worshipped it--we know no more."