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LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET
[Illustration: _View of Genoa, from the Terrace of the
Acquasola._]
Randolph Caldecott’s
Sketches of North Italian Folk.
Special Issue of 400 Copies
COLOURED BY HAND.
Each Numbered,
this Copy being No 339
PICKERING AND CHATTO,
LONDON.
NORTH ITALIAN FOLK
Sketches of Town and Country Life
BY
MRS COMYNS CARR
_ILLUSTRATED BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT_
London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1878
[_All rights reserved_]
PREFACE.
Italy—about which so much has been written—political, geographical,
social, pontifical, poetical—Italy is my theme. But not the Italy
of popes and priests and controversies, of civic struggles and new
kingdoms, nor the Italy of tourists or guide-books, of fame and
fashion, nor even the Italy of art and artists. The folk about whom my
gossip shall be are folk who, living or dead, have made the best part
of Italy these many years gone by. They are those who, unwittingly,
inherit most of the poetry for which their nation, long ago, won its
fame; on them—innocent of lore and reading though they, most of them,
be—has fallen something that recalls the great names of their own
great men of the past. They are of the people. To them rather than to
others in the land belong the freedom and freshness, the grace and
good-heartedness, the frank honesty that finds a place even beside
worldly-wise prudence, the simple and courteous dignity which the
educated classes have not always been able to maintain. No one who has
lived long beside them could have failed to learn the grace of their
ways, the humour of their rustic simplicity; no one who has grown
up in their midst could ever forget their pleasant faces and quaint
enthusiasms, their friendly greetings, their frank speech and emphatic
opinions.
I, who thus learned to know them in days gone by, can, at all events,
never so forget; and I am fain now to set down some memory of those
sun-lit scenes of the past, for friends whose lot has never been cast,
as mine was, among them. My sketches will not always be portraits of
living people or existing things, but they will always be sketches of
things or friends that have been: recollections vignetted in the past,
rather than photographs taken on the spot. And so, if anyone should
discover aught that is inaccurate towards the present, let him go back
a space upon the steps of time and live away fifteen years beside the
country housekeeper or _la Pettinatrice_, in the Signor Prevosto’s
company or with the village sempstress. For to these will I go for a
verdict, and to these—not my _readers_, because they will not read what
I have written, but my staunch supporters always—to the people of the
Riviera and the Apennines I now dedicate ‘North Italian Folk.’
ALICE CARR.
CONTENTS
Part One.
_ON THE RIVIERA._
PAGE
GENOA 3
MARTEDÌ GRASSO (_Shrove Tuesday_) 9
LA FIORAJA (_The Flower Girl_) 20
LA FESTA DELLE PALME 28
HOLY WEEK AND EASTER FEASTS (_I Sepolcri_) 39
LA FANTESCA (_The Servant Wench_) 46
IL NEGOZIANTE (_The Shopman_) 57
LA PETTINATRICE (_The Hairdresser_) 67
FISHER-FOLK 77
SANTA MARGHERITA 87
THE LACE WEAVER 97
IL MANENTE (_The Husbandman_) 106
LA DONNA DI CASA (_The Country Housekeeper_) 116
BATHING TIME 125
Part Two.
_IN THE APENNINES.
PAGE
THE MOUNTAINS 137
AT THE CHESTNUT HARVEST 156
UNDER THE CHERRY TREES (_The Bridal_) 165
THE PARISH PRIEST 175
THE PRIEST’S SERVING MAID 185
IL SIGNOR CAPPELLANO 191
SWEEPING THE CHURCH 200
THE VILLAGE SEMPSTRESS 208
THE VILLAGE DAMSEL 217
THE VILLAGE SWAIN 231
THE LOVE-LETTER 240
LA CRESIMA (_The Confirmation Day_) 252
IN VILLEGGIATURA (_Town Folk in the Country_) 263
Conclusion.
IL CORPUS DOMINI (_The Procession_) 275
FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
VIEW OF GENOA, FROM THE TERRACE OF THE ACQUASOLA _Frontispiece_
THE FLOWER GIRL _To face p._ 24
THE LACE WEAVER „ 98
THE HUSBANDMAN „ 114
GOSSIP „ 170
THE PARISH PRIEST „ 182
IL SIGNOR CAPPELLANO „ 194
THE VILLAGE SEMPSTRESS „ 210
THE LOVE-LETTER „ 246
IN VILLEGGIATURA „ 266
HALF-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE CARNIVAL 15
ON-LOOKERS AT THE PROCESSION OF PALMS 37
MARKETING 44
THE SERVANT WENCH 49
SHOPMAN AND PURCHASER 62
LA PETTINATRICE IN AN OMNIBUS 70
PAOLO AT SEA 81
VIEW OF SANTA MARGHERITA 89
THE MARQUIS AND HIS HOUSEKEEPER 122
FLIRTATION AT PEGLI 131
IN THE FIELDS AT SAVIGNONE 142
GATHERING THE CHESTNUTS 161
THE PRIEST’S SERVANT ADMINISTERING A REPROOF 188
BIANCA DECORATES THE ALTAR AND SNUBS THE UNDER PRIEST 202
NETTINA RETURNING FROM THE WELL 226
THE VILLAGE SWAIN AT A BARGAIN 237
VIRGINIA GOES TO CONFIRMATION 259
THE PROCESSION OF THE CORPUS DOMINI 279
Part One
_On the Riviera_
Genoa.
Spring returns. In northern lands, where much work is done and living
is hard, our skies are yet grey and the winds blow keen while the
earth is hard with the late frosts. Yet almond blossoms bloom sweetly
in scant little gardens or beside the bleak walls of town houses, and
spring begins to bud even in the lands where spring’s struggle is the
longest, and as I watch her oncoming and rejoice in her tender-toned
early flowers, I must needs remember the home where her life is the
fairest and merriest, and her sunlight the stronger to play and be
played with. It is the Mediterranean that I call to mind, her winds
and waves and sails and rocks, her shores, towers, villages, groves—the
light and colour on her kindly people’s life. And most of all, as the
sunshine grows and the air gets whiter, memory paints again for me that
whitest, but not newest of towns, where winds and waves and groves and
all are fair, the city of marble—_la Superba_—Genoa, the Queen of the
Riviera. Genoa, no longer the great republic, no longer the city of
much merchandise and wealth, but Genoa, the city of palaces still.
Who is there that has seen her from off the waves of her own
Mediterranean, and looked upon her as she climbs the slopes on every
side, gorgeous in her towers, her domes and cupolas, her terraces and
gardens, quietly lying within the great amphitheatre of her hills—who
could fail to acknowledge that she is the city of palaces still? Above
and around her stand her fortifications, gaunt and grey upon the soft
sky, like sentinels upon the tops of the green and barren mountains,
while half way down, the hills begin to be dotted with villas and
terraces, and, as they creep towards the sea, grow white with palaces
and _campanili_, that multiply upon their sides until they become the
great town itself, where whiteness is all around in stone and marble.
In the streets there is marble, for it is fashioned into churches
and colonnades; and upon the water’s brink there is marble still that
has taken the shape of terraces and loggias. There is no end to the
whiteness, for the air is white too on these early spring days, yet
there is no lack of colour as well; it lurks in the sunshine, it lives
on the earth and the sky, is dashed along the public ways in dresses of
the people, and over the harbour in curious hues of sails and flags,
red and green and yellow, that the weather has mellowed into harmony.
The sky is heavy with colour, in the March air that is keen and
sun-steeped. Genoa, with her crooked and narrow streets and her curious
nooks, with her picturesque piazzas and her sumptuous churches, of her
would I write as I dream of flowers and Eastertide.
The light is everywhere, and everywhere there is something to remember.
In crooked, winding ways that climb hills and go down again in steps,
and thread dark passages and cross bright piazzas, in ways where winds
can be icy cold and suns scarce reach, there are still things whereon
memory rests fondly, amongst quaint shops and stalls of fruit-sellers,
and fish and flower and green-markets, in hurrying or loitering
people, beneath dingy doorways, up dusty stairs, on solemn or gaudy
house-fronts. Down upon the wharfs and along the moles where the green
waters of the port are not always fragrant as they lap on to time-worn
marble steps, there are more things fair to think of in crowding boats
and quaint, noisy boatmen, in flapping amber sails of strange fishing
smacks, in fine-framed men and women whose shrill voices quarrel and
joke, and whose faces and figures bring more colour to the sketch—even
something perchance of gala days when stately vessels sailed into
the harbour, vessels that were thickly manned and royally freighted,
so that flags must needs wave from ships and skiffs and steamers on
the water, and, on land, from turret and terrace, while bouquets were
flung and floated, and royal salutes were fired. And from the broader
of old streets, where palaces flank the way and are sumptuous with
façade and arch and stair, from straight and new streets down which
the _Tramontana_ can blow grimly enough if the sun can shine also,
from loggias on hills that look towards the sunrise, from the walls
of tall ramparts that hang over the waves and see the best glory of
the sunsets, from every open place, from every nook and corner, more
recollections crowd around the first picture of the city’s whole. The
steep _salite_ that are paved with red bricks up the middle, the dark
cypress standing against churches, the scent of limes and acacias,
the growth of arbutus and horse-chestnut, all come telling some little
story of the past. Yet, perhaps, most of all, Genoa’s gardens recall
the best of Genoa’s life, because they are the most bound up with her
holiday life—with her Saints and fasts and feast days—for the Ligurians
make merry on most of these occasions, and the Acquasola is the way
to and from many a sanctuary. And Genoa is full of gardens. Private
gardens upon the hill-sides or upon terraces that appear suddenly in
the streets, where flowers grow in boxes, and orange and oleander trees
bloom in pots as in the free earth—gardens that are open to the public
but are none the less rich in all that nature can lavish, gardens that
spring at unexpected turns in the town’s heart to break the monotony
of the palaces. Some of them have restaurants in their midst, and
there, among Japanese medlar-trees with great fibrous leaves, beneath
acanthus and willow and magnolia trees, people dine or sip coffee and
ices in the company of marble nymphs and heroes, of shivering cupids
who toss the water from stone fountains. But the public promenade is
the garden that tells most about the town people’s public life, for
to the _Acquasola_ people are wont to go to walk and drive, and meet
their acquaintance, and show off new dresses and new equipages. It
is the place in which to spend a holiday afternoon. The broad walks
are crowded with people, who wander beneath acacia and arbutus trees;
fine ladies with attendant cavaliers, mothers of the middle class
chaperoning their marriageable daughters, fathers carrying their
children that the women may have leisure to enjoy the _festa_ dress and
the _festa_ scene; along the drive and the sycamore and horse-chestnut
avenues carriages roll smoothly with gay people. Flower-vendors are
there, and men and women with _Madonnette_ to sell, or filbert-strings
or iced-drinks and wafers. Sometimes a group saunters away to the
higher gardens, where the paths wind upward, till they reach a terrace
with flowers and palms and trees from foreign lands. The whole town
lies spread beneath; towers and palaces and domes seem to grow softer
of outline as evening lights creep around. In the far foreground lies
the great valley of the Bisagno, where troops have camped—Zouaves and
Africans in gorgeous dress. It is a long stretch of dusty road and arid
river-bed, but from the Acquasola none of this is to be seen, and there
is only an impression of green country far away, with palaces lying on
the slopes of Albaro’s hill, and a knowledge of sea beyond. Behind the
rising ground runs the town’s great aqueduct, that is built through
glens and copses when once it has left the city’s first outskirts. And
to your right is the harbour again, with ships and flags and masts, and
beyond the harbour a waste of Mediterranean neither blue nor grey nor
white, that, in the doubtful light, will seem neither land nor water,
lying out towards the sunset, where dim clouds hold Riviera mountains
in their midst.
Martedì Grasso.
Shrove Tuesday.
Of all the _festas_ we used to have—glorious days when the sun might
shine as fiercely as it liked and we were only the better pleased,
since it was a sin to work outright, but only a venial fault to keep
one’s shops open a little, and to forget about going to mass—of all
those most comfortable saints and Virgins, how few, alas! have they
left us now! One can count the strict day off one’s fingers. ‘_Per
Bacco_, ’tis a disgrace truly,’ mutter the old men and women who have
been wont to consider a week where there were not three holidays at
least, one really God-forsaken and cursed by the Evil Eye of luck! But,
‘well, well, days are changed, and Providence can’t expect us to give
all that time to religion when it’s all we can do to make way against
the bad times, and keep a roof over our heads,’ say the young men
who have wives and growing children, and the women whose piety would
not be at all equal to the giving up two francs for a day’s ironing,
merely because the Virgin chose to institute a rite, or some strange
saint had seen fit to die! ’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any
good! Perhaps the greater half of the population are better pleased
than not. The days of the _dolce far niente_ are pretty well over, in
the north of Italy, at all events, and every man must keep pace with
his neighbours. So we let the old people grumble, the half of whose
portion it is the duty of sons and daughters to provide, and the rising
generation are content. Only when somebody wants to tell a story about
Italian _festas_, he finds that the throng which used to be so goodly
has grown small indeed, and that, if he must needs be faithful to the
present, his choice is very limited, and the colours on his palate
must also be only by half so brilliant as they used to be in the old
days. For where are the gorgeous trappings, the stately pageants with
which Mother Church was wont to send out her saints and her relics?
Alas, for the wild days of mirth and folly, for the glittering sights,
for the colours of street-pictures, we have grown too cynical and too
worldly-wise for such nonsense now! So, we who regret them a little—old
people or travellers that come only to marvel, modern Italy says—we are
fain to go back a step or two into the days when the sun’s glamour off
the Mediterranean could still bring colours into boldest relief against
dark backgrounds, could search out gloomy corners, and deck streets and
people in holiday garb, making mad with its glitter and its warmth the
reckless brains of an untutored Southern nation.
Time ago there was Carnival really as it should be, along the highways
and byways, and in the public halls and the private homes of Genoa—not
a Carnival so rich and so splendid as the Carnival of Rome, for Genoa
merchants have always been close-handed, and even her populace has had
a name long past in other Italian districts for shrewd economy; not
a Carnival so studied and so lengthened as the Carnival of Milan, for
Milan is a city privileged of Mother Church, and can keep up her frolic
when other towns have been three days shrouded in ashes and penitence;
still a Carnival no way to be despised as a means of enjoyment, even
of unmeasured madness and merriment for those to whom such things come
easily. And such things used to come very easily to many people in the
days that we, mourners of better Carnivals, can call to mind.
Holy Week, called _la settimana grassa_, is past. Lent moves forward
apace with gloomy garments, with sack-cloth and ashes, and calls to
prayer and penitence! Come, let us make good use of this last day of
reprieve! For it is Martedì Grasso, and with to-morrow’s sun dawns
Ash-Wednesday!
The picture is in shade as the morning breaks, for there are faint
clouds overhead—after all, it is only February—and the sun has only
half its strength, and only a grey colour for silver glory to shed
over the Mediterranean, and off the Mediterranean, up on to the green
hills and marble terraces of the town. The sea is not blue but white,
beneath these pearl-grey clouds, that let the sun through as through a
veil, but it is calm, the limpid waves of it lapping gently on to the
knotted and slimy rocks of the coast. There is but little to complain
of in the weather, and before the midday meal has been eaten, before
even the most impatient of spectators or the maddest of masqueraders
have begun to line the sides of the streets where the _Corso_ will
pass—our sun has made his way as usual through all obstacles, and makes
the sky and the sea blue, the streets and the people bright with his
gladdening warmth. The highways begin to swarm with people that press
and pour in from the hundred little yards and colonnades and alleys of
which the old city has so many; they are men and women of the peasantry
from without the walls, of the smaller tradesmen, from within—the
people who, in all nations, would rather stand breathless for hours
in a throng than miss the exultation of giving the first shout for
the first rumour of a pageant’s approach. The women of this crowd
are mostly conspicuous for dark red and blue gowns of stout homespun
linen, called in the neighbourhood _bordato_, or for gowns of brilliant
coloured calicoes gaily-flowered in pattern, for kerchiefs of still
gaudier hue, orange and crimson, for massive and curiously wrought gold
ornaments—they are the _contadine_, and as yet the tradesmen’s wives
are but a handful. You will know these, as they push their way into the
medley, by their cunningly built hair that is smoothed into a perfect
mirror of glossiness, and coiled and twisted and piled into a marvel
of structure; mark them by their worsted dress also, and by the silken
jacket after a Paris _mode_ of some years back, or the cashmere shawl
in place of the gaudy kerchief about their shoulders.
The Piazza San Lorenzo or of the Cathedral, the Piazza before the Ducal
Palace and Sant’Ambrogio, have both seen something of the crowd as the
people pressed up from the heart of the city to reach the more open
thoroughfares; the Piazza San Domenico where the Opera House stands,
and where of early mornings these same men and women are wont to come
buying and selling at market, has also been a gangway for the mob, but
none of these places see the best of the Carnival, for the cream of
the _Corso_ is down the Vie Nuove and Nuovissime. So the people fight
their way from Piazza S. Domenico, down the Via Carlo Felice, to the
Piazza delle Fontane Amorose, for here the Carnival will soon begin in
good earnest. The balconies of the Spinola Palace, of the Pallavicini,
Brignole, Serra, Durazzo, and of all the palaces down these chiefest,
beautiful streets, have been decked with crimson hangings and cushions,
with gold and green and amber trappings, curious heir-looms that
for centuries perhaps have been kept for such occasions. Baskets of
flowers, stocks, violets, heartsease, camellias red and white, and
everything that commonly blooms here in the winter time, are placed
ready for gallants and ladies soon to shower on the masqueraders
beneath. The air is a little cold, but the sun shines, the sky is blue,
faces and colours wake to merriest life.
The first of the merry-makers has appeared. He is a buffoon, with
tawdry costume and hideous mask, he is of the people and comes along
on foot, hurling jests and poisonous comfits around him, but all the
more the people are amused; they hoot and cheer, and so he passes down
the ranks. He is quickly followed by another mask, also of the people,
but this one drives a donkey in a small cart; he is ill-dressed with
a purpose, he screams, he gesticulates, he is evidently the caricature
of some pet grievance, for the mob cry aloud for joy. But this is not
the _Corso_; this would not content even the populace—great things are
coming. Ladies of the nobility—beautiful, with hair dressed after the
French fashion, and silken garments and graciously-smiling faces—begin
to fill the balconies. They nod and laugh and pose gracefully to their
attendant gallants, then they rise in their seats to pose and laugh
again for other gallants who are in the masquerading throng beneath,
and upon whom they will shower comfits and flowers and smiles alike,
to get comfits and flowers in return. For the _Corso_ is all alive now.
It is four o’clock, and past. On the lower ranges of balconies, windows
of offices and less important houses, the ladies of the merchant class
are airing themselves likewise in scarce less costly array, to get what
attention they may from masqueraders in their own set; while servant
wenches and shop-girls, who aspire to no post at a window and are
proud in the possession of a black silk apron, a _pezzotto_ veil, and
a little gold for ornament, parade the street happily on the arm or
in search of a lover. The air is laden with colour, and every turn of
the beautiful winding street flashes out some new bit of it, in waving
banner, fluttering drapery, or passing throng.
[Illustration: THE CARNIVAL.]
The great car of the afternoon is coming. Most of the cars have been
out before at the Sunday _Corso_, but this one has reserved itself
for the last of the Carnival—it is the feature of this Martedì Grasso.
People shout along the street, and heads are all turned one way from
out the windows. It is in sight—a ship amid wavy billows of blue silk
for sea; it sways as the car moves. ‘’Tis truly natural,’ yells the
mob, and cheers. The ship’s bulwarks are of silver, its sails of rosy
silk and golden tinsel; its masts are manned with sailors in handsome
garb, whose masks counterfeit handsome faces. It is pronounced a
wonderful success. From the balconies flowery missiles fly swiftly, to
light daintily where they will—most often where the fair marks-women
themselves will _not_! And the handsome sailors pelt back again, pelt
on all sides, pelt the ladies with flowers, the children with comfits,
the mob with _coriandoli_, that, being made only of flour, burst as
they fall, to sprinkle their prey with a white storm of dust. It is a
scene of the maddest, merriest confusion. But the sailors have been
recognised by balcony ladies, pelted by mob admirers, appreciated
by all: the ship moves on to give place to some other part of the
pageant. Carriages follow closely on one another between the lines of
the crowd; they are all filled with masqueraders—boys in clown dress,
in Masaniello dress, as harlequins, as marquises; little girls as
shepherdesses, as vivandières, powdered countesses; fathers and mothers
in dominoes for escort. Out of every carriage somebody pelts and cheers
to be cheered again, and now and then comes a more elaborate car, on
which the mob are scarce restrained from falling for very excitement.
Afternoon wears away into evening; bouquets, that have loaded the air
with colour and perfume, are trampled now under foot; the _coriandoli_
bags are empty in the maskers’ cars; their supply of comfits is
exhausted—not so the spirits of men and women, whether of nobles and
gentle-folk at the windows, or of shop-girls and _contadini_ below. If
it is too dark to see the maskers, and to pelt in the streets—since
Government no longer allows the _mocoletti_ lights, which it used to
be our fun to put out for one another as darkness deepened—are there
not still the _Veglioni_ to come, and shall we not dance if we may not
pelt? Surely: for is not to-day the last of the Carnival? So, as the
night hours lengthen, and just before they begin to grow short again,
the streets, that were quieter for an hour, begin to live again with
bustle. In carriage or on foot, all classes of people are going to
the masked balls of the theatre. _Marchese_, in the boxes which are
their family’s heritage at the opera, to look down on the gay scene of
masked dancers in the amphitheatre beneath, and to receive the visits
of dominoed gallants with whom their jests are both broad and lively;
men and women of the lower orders to entertainments in their own
set, or even to the amphitheatre of the Opera House itself, where the
highest nobility has been known not too proud, in dominoes, gallantly
to address many a prettily masked servant wench: for of the nobles
only the men may fitly descend into the masked ball-room, just as the
_Marchese_ are free to receive who they will into their boxes, and to
thrust and parry with the masked intruder as best they may. ‘Ah, in
truth it is delightful to be noble and to possess a box at the Opera,’
sighs many a merchant’s lady, because for love or money you cannot
otherwise procure one for the night of the great _Veglione_. And so,
dancing and flirting and jesting, the hours grow old again into day,
the gas-lights burn yellow in the grey light of morning, the paint
and the powder have lost their excellence, the dresses are marred and
tarnished. But are spirits grown weary, is merriment spent, though the
Last of the Carnival is dead, and the sun has risen on Ash-Wednesday?
‘Ah—everything is changed,’ moans out some old lady of the old school;
‘so used the Martedì Grasso to be in my young days, or even a few years
ago, but now—_non c’è Carnevale_!’
La Fioraja.
The Flower Girl.
Sunshine is full on this picture even as it first climbs the horizon of
our memory: full on the shifting Mediterranean, that is bluer for its
presence, full on the white walls of new houses, on the yellow shutters
of old palaces inland, strong amid fleeting clouds that are the whiter
for its power, fitful on these girl-faces, that shine the merrier for
its sake. Because the wind has blown cold from the mountains these
three days past—the sharp _Tramontana_ that sweeps down the northward
valleys to blight the budding trees, to whirl the dust in clouds, to
lash the sea’s water into bristling crests—and if the cheering sun
shine not, we, who must ofttimes meet the wind’s greeting at street
corners, and shiver out the daylight hours beneath palace porticoes,
shall have but a sorry time of it indeed! For even the flowers that
make our livelihood have a hard fight and a poor success of it in this
weather. ‘One must have patience!’ Only ’tis pity the enemy could not
just have waited till a little further into Lent, when good Catholics
having had their fill of amusement, see fit to waken conscience to
a little necessary obedience and expiation: when camellias could
therefore no longer fetch so good a price! For so early in the Church’s
penance season as this, society makes Carnival still in her private
homes; we are grown lax about fasts nowadays, as we have grown wisely
cynical over feasts and processions, and who would drown merriment
to wear sackcloth forty days long, unless it were with a much surer
hope of reward than modern Romanists think prudent to believe? No, no;
the last Lenten week, when there is plenty of excitement in mission
preaching, _sepolcri_ and masses—when Easter’s sun, moreover, begins
already to lighten the horizon before us, the six days of Holy Week
make up the sum of all the fasts we do in our enlightened generation!
Let the camellias bloom fair yet awhile, and we will pray the Madonna
to keep the _Tramontana_ back for another month, say the flower-girls!
Rosina is the favourite of all the _fioraje_ of the Carlo Felice, and
that is the favourite flower street of Genoa. When the sun shines as
bright as it does to-day, out of a sky that is as blue in the cold, and
when it lies with a great sheet of light on the square flag-stones of
the Piazza S. Domenico, Rosina’s face is as the sunlight itself that
can be friendly even in an air so hard as this is with _Tramontana_.
And it is merriment that pays, that wins the loved jest from lowly
swains, the soft compliment from gracious _signori_, that sells
the camellias, and adds many a mite on to a bargain! Who cares for
a pathetic face and a wistful gaze? Such cunning arts are only for
‘_marchesine_’ and ladies who can afford powder; we of the people had
best trust to a healthy frame and a kindling eye, and to the jests
and smiles of a light heart, for _our_ conquests! Truly, it is in this
wise that Rosina has come to be ‘_la bella dei Portici_,’ and it is by
simple and lighthearted devices that have made many a gallant think of
her as the reflection of this cold, bright sunshine itself, that our
flower-girl can keep so many and such fragrant bouquets on her stall
in the gateway and such a goodly hoard of soiled old _soldi_ in her
pocket. To-day, heedless of the cruel _Tramontana_, she has been up
with the kindly sun’s return, and in her garden among the camellias.
All the buds that bore any promise for immediate use were nipped off
at the very flower and thrown into the common basket, and when the
round of the camellia grove had been made Rosina went on her knees
to pluck the purple heartsease, to strip the beds where bloom the
pale Neapolitan violets, and then on her tip-toes, with upstretched,
graceful arm, to tear down the ‘_fiorellin d’oro_’ from the wall, to
break the blossom of the Judas tree. All the time the wind was sharp,
the sky darkly blue; and the sun had no warmth till Rosina had been
awhile in the stock garden and had spoiled the straight stalks of their
gaudy flowers, mixing into this basket a handful of striving carnations
and a share of sweetly-scented myrtle twigs, besides large-veined and
dark-hued medlar leaves, wherewith to build the outer frame of her
stiff bouquets. Poor flower season! It is past, and is not come again,
but we have our glory still at Genoa, in the camellias, as people have
in no other town—thank the Virgin!
[Illustration: _The Flower Girl._
So she sits, with flowers close around her—red and
yellow tulips, festive-looking camellias—to set off the
strongly-coloured portrait of herself; and as she sits she
picks the heads of blossoms from baskets at her feet.]
So the early morning is gone, and Rosina is at her post beneath the
Carlo Felice door-way. The sun has outstripped the east wind in power
by this time, and for those who walk within its hearty radiance, and
avoid the northward corners of streets—for those who, like our Rosina,
sit within reach of its rays in some sheltered corner, the _Tramontana_
matters but little. Indeed, Rosina forgot long ago how she had
grumbled at the cold in those early hours after dawn in her Villa delle
Peschiere, forgot it as she came down the narrow way of the Salita Sta.
Trinità, when you might have seen her tall and buxom figure swaying
gently on its firm, broad hips, erect as a reed, and as a reed pliant
to circumstance, while on her head and in one downward-pointed hand
she carried baskets of flower-material, and on her curved left arm bore
the child of some busy mother. Truly, she is a girl of much presence,
as indeed all the lads of the town do allow! For all the youth of
the town knows Rosina who sits all day in the portico of the Palazzo
Spinola, via Carlo Felice! It is not for nothing that she has that tall
and massive figure, those heavy coils of bright, black hair with the
broad waves, that smooth skin with the faint fresh colour, those even
rows of white teeth that appear so often when the merry smile parts her
rosy lips! She knows how to use all the fair gifts of nature, and best
of all how to make use of two saucy black eyes in the trade which she
plies daily so well—for who sells so many flowers as Rosina? Watch her
now at work. Her striking person sits framed in an old gateway, round
whose margin a graceful design of fruits and flowers in low relief—sad,
neglected memory of days long fled—lies yellow upon yellow marble.
Above her head, over the palace portal, another bas-relief, black with
age, serves her for canopy; but this one is of fighting men and horses,
and passionate of expression. Beneath her feet, a black and white
pavement stretches back into the gloom of the court, that finishes
in a scantly grass-grown yard whose almond trees will not be rosy
with blossom till the last of Lent. And the background is varied by
the flowering plants and shrubs of Rosina’s stock in pots, while away
in the dimness, the soiled staircase—of marble, like everything else
architectural—winds up to the first, and then higher and higher to the
fifth floor of Palazzo Spinola. So she sits—with flowers close around
her, red and yellow tulips, festive-looking camellias, to set off the
strongly-coloured portrait of herself, and as she sits she picks the
heads of blossoms from baskets at her feet, to open and bend the poor
petals of them at her will, and to wire them for her bouquets. See one
with pink carnations in a cross on a field of white! It is as large as
a small-sized table and quite even in its flatness—it is for the Church
of San Luca. And here another, smaller and choicer of flowers, but
scarce less stiff in appearance; it is white with violets around, and
has been ordered by the Marchesa Pallavicini. Rosina is weaving more
posies as she converses in loud tones with the old woman behind and
glances up now and then to the street’s opposite side where wayfarers
grow hourly thicker on the pavement and where, in another portico,
old but not as beautiful as her own, an aged man has already begun
to roast chestnuts. There is a _fiorista_, maker of false flowers, on
the first-floor of the opposite house—she has nothing picturesque to
show as our _fioraja_ has; but, alas, modern Italy thinks far more of
la Signora Raffo’s trade than it does of our Rosina’s! She herself is
of the same opinion for the matter of that, and no one can praise a
perfect flower of hers so much to her mind as by saying it is like a
false one.
‘To-night is the ball of la Marchesa Del Mele. I sell all that I have
in flowers before twelve o’clock, you will see,’ calls Rosina in her
loud brave voice to the porter’s wife who sweeps the staircase behind;
‘gracious! your honour did make me jump,’ adds she quickly to the
polished and perfumed _signore_ who now darkens the sunlight in the
portico. ‘Indeed!’ laughs the young man. ‘No, no, you don’t make me
believe I catch you unawares, _bella_—you, who have eyes at the back
of your head as sharp as those two bright ones in front! Well, well,’
as Rosina laughs to show her pearly teeth, ‘we all know you! But now
give me a flower—one for myself—a knot of violets, emblems of thine own
fair modesty;’ il Marchese del D—— (for it is he) laughs as he says
this, looking at Rosina. ‘Shame!’ remonstrates the damsel, bending
over her flowers to choose out the _mazzetto di viole_, but the blush
does not rise to her smooth cheek, and she only says, presenting the
flowers, ‘_Il signor marchese_ will buy something for his lady of
to-night?’ ‘Surely, make me a thing of taste, all white with violets,
and we will agree to-morrow for the price. With pretty girls one
makes no bargain!’ And the _marchese_ goes, only to leave the field
for other gallant butterflies and purchasers who all agree that ‘with
pretty girls one makes no bargain.’ Truly, Rosina’s free, fair face
is worth many _soldi_ to her purse! The day grows—it is time to eat
maccaroni in the porter’s lodge, while little Tonietta keeps watch
beside the flower-stall. And when the sun is near to setting in the
early afternoon and the _Tramontana_ blows chiller than ever, a man
passes down the staircase, out of the many that have passed up and down
this day, who calls the blush for the first time to the cheek of our
_fioraja_. He also is a perfumed youth, but he is no _marchese_—only
the son of Ricardi who keeps the manufactory for pianos upstairs. He
stands a long time beside Rosina’s chair while her swift fingers twine
bouquets for the ball of to-night; fast they talk, and merrily laugh
and broadly jest, till Rosina’s saucy glances are well-nigh quelled,
and she is forced to blush a bit and remonstrate—till the gas-lights
are burning in the streets, moreover, and it is time for the flowers
to go home to their purchasers. Then _la fioraja_ sweeps up the faded
blossoms and the broken stalks on her square of marble pavement, and
with them she sweeps away all the dead jests and forgotten words of
to-day, all the love-making and the banter. Gathering together her
baskets she climbs the Salita S. Trinità once more, to remember little
else at the top but the sum of those gains that she counts over so
proudly.
La Festa delle Palme.
There are no consistencies to uphold in Italy, no conventionalities
to overcome, and festa-making revels in true glory among the
pleasure-loving natures, that are soft and fiery, mad and merry, all
at one time. No fickle chances disturb the course of fasts and feasts;
the Roman Church holds her sway above all else, self-sufficient and
serene; and the people have learnt to love the old days and seasons by
this time, and are nothing loth to lend their aid to the pageant. Yet
even were her children deaf to the call, the Church would still put
up her pictures, nor alter one jot of her proceedings because of their
indifference. Amid all that is false and hollow the system has its good
side, as most systems have; the Roman Church binds the people together
with her festivals, even if they scoff at them now and then, and to her
we owe the beauty of the broad lights and shades that are thus cast
over the nation as a whole. Seasons change and come again (now days
of joy, now days of woe) bringing each some brightly-painted symbol
of ancient tradition, some well-worn mystery that has had its hold for
ages on the imaginative mind of the people; symbols and mysteries work
their way as of old, the days that are gone are linked to the days
that are, so that, in their festas, the people of Italy are one nation
from end to end of the land. They may not believe very clearly—many do
not pretend to believe at all—but they find a zest none the less eager
for that, in each of the seasons as it comes, with its mysteries to
be marvelled at, and its duties to be done. It is _festa_, and _festa_
garb must be donned, _festa_ bells must sound. The people put on their
bright colours, and are merry with a matter-of-course and yet a true
merriment, as though they caught the light-heartedness reflected from
their blues and reds and yellows. And when gala days are over, and Lent
is to be met, they put aside their carnival and eat ‘_magro_’ almost as
contentedly!
Carnival over, the pranks of the masqueraders are followed closely
by Lent’s fastings, and these would perhaps scarcely be borne so
patiently, were it not for the solace that can be seen throughout the
forty days in the distance. That solace is the Feast of the Palms,
with the strange week of mixed penance and excitement, of gay sights
interwoven with sorry dirges, that ushers in the Eastertide.
In days when people all go abroad, and can criticise and scan for
themselves, talk about these things would seem almost superfluous
were it not for those spots that lie beyond the range of the stream
of travellers rushing on year after year towards the great capital,
and that can yet show, within their capacity, as fair and joyous a
festival as any that reigns supreme at St. Peter’s, or flaunts its
gaudy pageant along the streets of Rome. Little roadside nooks there
are upon the shores of the Mediterranean, or among the clefts of the
Apennines—places still unspoiled and unmolested by the foreigners,
with their levelling influence—where perhaps the festival will be even
quainter than in any of the towns. Here and there, on the lip of little
dainty bays that secretly lie along the coast, palm-trees flourish in
the fertile soil, with the soft and sultry breath of African deserts
blowing gently upon them from across the Mediterranean. Sometimes they
stand alone in their grace, growing up erect and sudden from out the
moist hot earth, with arched and slender branches that are set around
their heads and that droop gently with the weight of tapering leaves.
Sometimes they grow in knots along the shore, or in little plantations
that stretch upward towards the hills. The pale-blue sky is spread
above the pale-blue sea, and above the deeper-coloured earth, and the
palm-trees stand up quietly against it, with frail outlines clearly
traced in the keen air.
All along the Riviera, whether in towns or villages, there is _festa_
for Passion-week and Easter. In rain as in sunshine, processions march
forth beneath weather-worn banners to worship familiar relics, and
bells chime gaily, and fresh veils and kerchiefs are pulled out to
deck pious or laughing faces, while the palms are blessed and the Holy
Sepulchre is built up around the altar.
And yet it is not the Cornice villages, nor the sunny groves where the
palms have their birth, that I remember at this season most willingly.
Again, the crooked ways of Genoa, her gorgeous churches and ample
piazzas, are the things that rise before me as the Easter time comes
back once more.
The Festival of Palms seems always to have been one of the dearest
of gala-days to the hearts of the Genoese people. Spring is then at
hand, that will bring flowers and fruits and warm days. Passion-week is
close on the festival’s joy, and there is woe to be met ere the Easter
sun can dawn, so the people make merry for Palm Sunday and for many
days before. Upon the first days of the preceding week those branches
are gathered from the sunny plantations of Bordighera, that are to
be plaited and adorned and consecrated in the churches, that they may
wither out a whole year above the bed of some peasant woman or child.
Not such a fair life, perhaps, as the life of those sister branches
that flourish and wave and grow green again in the pale sunshine and
the cool night-breezes of the shores; but the same blue sky of Italy is
overhead, and beneath it even the yellow boughs on a whitewashed wall
have their fitting grace.
On Monday the market of San Domenico begins to be filled with peasants
who bring palms from the Riviera, and by Wednesday the long leaves
are ready bleached to be fashioned into the wonted curious shapes;
for they may not remain green as nature bade them. By some process
handed down from past generations they are dyed of a faintly yellow
colour, that they may the better last unshrivelled from Eastertide to
Eastertide again for sacred guards and memories. The market-place,
always a wondrous scene of confusion and vociferation, is now more
perturbed than ever. The palms are set up in queer water-tubs, whence
they are taken one by one to be rapidly transformed into fantastic
shapes beneath the swift hands of girls who have grown deft in the
art of flower-weaving for which Genoa is specially famous. The women
split the slender fibres asunder, and then braid them together again
and build them up in a strange medley of loops and bows, from whose
midst one spray of the natural leaves is allowed to wave; at last they
fasten little patches of gold-leaf upon the plaits, and stick a bit
of olive-branch coquettishly on one side. The making of the _palme_
is a true example of Italian taste, that loves nothing so well in its
natural as in its artificial state. Flowers grow with little tending
and have beauty enough; magnolias and pomegranates, camellia and
oleander trees, bloom each in turn throughout the land, and never fail
in their perfection, and still the people have no higher praise for the
fairest blossoms of their glens and their gardens than the words, ‘They
are as good as false ones!’
As the days wear on—Thursday, Friday, Saturday—customers grow frequent
on the market-places, and inevitable vociferations wax more eager as
the sale progresses:
‘That palm there, with the golden leaf—how much, good woman?’
‘Forty-three _soldi_.’
‘Holy Virgin, you would rob the Lord Almighty himself! I will give you
thirty-five!’
‘Not for the world. I would sooner present it myself to San Lorenzo.’
And so the bargaining goes on for, perhaps, half-an-hour, until the
prize is carried off for some two or three centimes more than the first
sum offered by the purchaser. No Genoese marketer would dream of buying
at the price demanded, nor a seller of asking at first the price he
means to take at last.
In the _Via dé Orefici_, or the Goldsmiths’ Street, there are also
booths set up, and the palm-plaiting is going on vigorously. This
street is narrow, too narrow to be one of the main thoroughfares;
but it is also one of the most picturesque of the town. Most of the
jewellers’ shops have no plate-glass windows, they stand out into the
street, as it were, because the frames in which the gold-work is set
are fixed to the outer walls; and the shops themselves are freely open
to the passers, their glittering display of gold and silver filigree
making the way brightly gorgeous with a character that is quite
peculiar. There is no room for booths in the _Via dé Orefici_, but in a
little piazza close by, called the _Piazza di Campetto_, the buying and
selling of the palms go on busily. Throngs of people stream out thence
into the narrow streets around, where palaces stand up stately on
either side and, through a strip of blue sky above, the sun looks down
furtively upon dark and winding ways that are bright now with colour
and alive with hurrying folk. They are alive and strong and busy, yet
even in their bustle and merriment they seem like some picture of the
old life in those by-gone days when the lordly palaces and winding
streets first grew into being.
As the night draws on, the workers kindle rough pine torches, whose
fierce uneven light flares and flickers across the piazza and upon the
faces of near bystanders; the sky looks black then overhead, and there
are black shadows side by side with the red glare. The sale of palms
must cease early on the Sunday morning, so that by Saturday night the
holders of booths are well pleased to have their stock nearly disposed
of. At all events the palms must be ready plaited to be set in the
large market before sunrise to-morrow, because by eight o’clock the
Piazza S. Domenico must be clear, even of marketers who have left their
purchase to the last minute before church time.
Masses are being sung betimes, and the churches will be crowded long
before the great service of the day at eleven o’clock. The streets
are full to overflowing. Through the great _Piazza delle Fontane
Amorose_ the people flock in a strange medley, each class in special
attire. There are women of the merchant class, complacent in new spring
dresses, who wear their fresh muslin _pezzotti_ after the new mode,
the better to display their cunningly-plaited hair and ornaments of
finely-wrought gold. There are servant-girls who have not much gold
to show, but whose tresses are even more prettily arranged: and these
smooth their black-silk aprons with an air of superiority as they
note the factory girls, who have theirs only of woollen stuff. There
are people of the gentry, who wear silk dresses and bonnets of Paris
fashion, as they think, but these do not appear to much advantage on
a day like this. Then there are peasant women, whose gorgeous red and
orange-coloured kerchiefs serve better than all the rest to paint the
streets over with brilliant tone; their ornaments are of massive gold
moulded into ancient forms, the scarves that drape their heads and
shoulders of many colours grotesquely designed, and of thicker material
than the town-women’s muslin _pezzotti_; they call the thick scarf
_mezzaro_.