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THAT branch of the lake of Como, which extends towards the south, is enclosed by two unbroken chains of mountains, which, as they advance and recede, diversify its shores with numerous bays and inlets.

Suddenly the lake contracts itself, and takes the course and form of a river, between a promontory on the right, and a wide open shore on the opposite side. The bridge which there joins the two banks seems to render this transformation more sensible to the eye, and marks the point where the lake ends, and the Adda again begins — soon to resume the name of the lake, where the banks receding afresh, allow the water to extend and spread itself in new gulfs and bays.

The open country, bordering the lake, formed of the alluvial deposits of three great torrents, reclines upon the roots of two contiguous mountains, one named San Martino, the other, in the Lombard dialect, Il Resegone, because of its many peaks seen in profile, which in truth resemble the teeth of a saw so much so, that no one at first sight, viewing it in front (as, for example, from the northem bastions of Milan), could fail to distinguish it by this simple description, from the other mountains of more obscure name and ordinary form in that long and vast chain. For a considerable distance the country rises with a gentle and continuous ascent; after wards it is broken into bill and dale, terraces and elevated plains, formed by the intertwining of the roots of the two mountains, and the action of the waters. The shore itself, intersected by the torrents, consists for the most part of gravel and large flints ; the rest of the plain, of fields and vineyards, interspersed with towns, villages, and hamlets: other parts are clothed with woods, extending far up the mountain.

Lecco, the principal of these towns, giving its name to the territory, is at a short distance from the bridge, and so close upon the shore, that, when the waters are high, it seems to stand in the lake itself. A large town even now, it promises soon to become a city. At the time the events happened which we undertake to recount, this town, already of considerable importance, was also a place of defence, and for that reason had the honour of lodging a commander, and the advantage of possessing a fixed garrison of Spanish soldiers, who taught modesty to the damsels and matrons of the country ; bestowed from time to time marks of their favour on the shoulder of a husband or a father ; and never failed, in autumn, to disperse themselves in the vineyards, to thin the grapes, and lighten for the peasant the labours of the vintage.

From one to the other of these towns, from the heights to the lake, from one height to another, down through the little valleys which lay between, there ran many narrow lanes or mule-paths, (and they still exist), one while abrupt and steep, another level, another pleasantly sloping, in most places  enclosed by walls built of large flints, and clothed here and there with ancient ivy, which, eating with its roots into the cement, usurps its place, and binds together the wall it renders verdant.

For some distance these lanes are hidden, and as it were buried between the walls, so that the passenger, looking upwards, can see nothing but the sky and the peaks of some neighbouring mountain: in other places they are terraced: sometimes they skirt the edge of a plain, or project from the face of a declivity, like a long staircase, upheld by walls which flank the hillsides like bastions, but in the pathway rise only the height of a parapet — and here the eye of the traveller can range over varied and most beautiful prospects.

On one side he commands the azure surface of the lake, and the inverted image of the rural banks reflected in the placid wave ; on the other, the Adda, scarcely escaped from the arches of the bridge, expands itself anew into a little lake, then is again contracted, and prolongs to the horizon its bright windings ; upward, — the massive piles of the mountains, overhanging the head of the gazel: ; below, — the cultivated terrace, the champaign, the bridge ; opposite,— the further bank of the lake, and, rising from it, the mountain boundary.

Along one of these narrow lanes, in the evening of the 7th of November, in the year 1628, Don Abbondio, curate of one of the towns alluded to above, was leisurely returning home from a walk. He was quietly repeating his office, and now and then, between one psalm and another, he would shut the breviary upon the fore-finger of his right band, keeping it there for a mark; then, putting both his hands behind his back, the right (with the closed book) in the palm of the left, he pursued his way with downcast eyes, kicking, from time to time, towards the wall the flints which lay as stumbling-blocks in the path.

Thus he gave more undisturbed audience to the idle thoughts which had come to tempt his spirit, while his lips repeated, of their own accord, his evening prayers. Escaping from these thoughts, he raised his eyes to the mountain which rose opposite; and mechanically gazed on the gleaming of the scarcely set sun, which, making its way through the clefts of the opposite mountain, was thrown upon the projecting peaks in large unequal masses of rose-coloured light. The breviary open again, and another portion recited, he reached a turn, where he always used to raise his eyes and look forward; and so he did to-day. After the turn, the road ran straight forward about sixty yards, and then divided into two lanes, Y fashion — the right hand path ascended towards the mountain, and led to the parsonage: the left branch descended through the valley to a torrent: and on this side the walls were not higher than about two feet.

The inner walls of the two ways, instead of meeting so as to form an angle, ended in a little chapel, on which were depicted certain figures, long, waving, and terminating in a point. These, in the intention of the artist, and to the eyes of the neighbouring inhabitants, represented flames. Alternately with the flames were other figures — indescribable, meant for souls in purgatory, souls and flames of brick-colour on a grey ground enlivened with patches of the natural wall, where the plaster was gone.

The curate, having turned the corner, and looked forward, as was his custom, towards the chapel, beheld an unexpected sight, and one he would not willingly bave seen. Two men, one opposite the other, were stationed at the confluence, so to say, of the two ways : one of them was sitting across the low wall, with one leg dangling on the outer side, and the other supporting him in the path: his companion was standing up, leaning against the wall, with his arms crossed on his breast.

Their dress, their carriage, and so much of their expression as could be distinguished at the distante at which the curate stood, left no doubt about their condition. Each had a green net on his head, which fell upon the left shoulder, and ended in a large tassel. Their long hair, appearing in one large lock upon the forehead: on the upper lip two long mustachios, curled at the end : their doublets, confìned by bright leathern girdles, from which hung a brace of pistols: a little horn of powder, dangling round their necks, and falling on their breasts like a necklace: on the right side of their large and loose pantaloons, a pocket, and from the pocket the handle of a dagger: a sword hanging on the left, with a large basket-hilt of brass, carved in cipher, polished and gleaming: — all, at a glance, discovered them to be individuals of the species bravo.

That the two described above were on the lookout for some one, was but too evident; but what more alarmed Don Abbondio was, that he was assured by certain signs that he was the person expected; for, the moment he appeared, they exchanged glances, raising their heads with a movement which plainly expressed that both at once had exclaimed, ‘ Here’s our man ! ‘ He who bestrode the wall got up, and brought his other leg into the path: his companion left leaning on the wall, and both began to walk towards him.

Don Abbondio, keeping the breviary open before him, as if reading, directed his glance forward to watch their movements. He saw them advancing straight towards him: multitudes of thoughts, all at once, crowded upon him ; with quick anxiety he asked himself, whether any pathway to the right or left lay between him and the bravoes; and quickly came the answer, — no.

He made a hasty examination, to discover whether he had offended some great man, some vindictive neighbour; but even in this moment of alarm, the consoling testimony of conscience somewhat reassured him.

Meanwhile the bravoes drew near, eyeing him fixedly. He put the fore finger and middle finger of his left hand up to his collar, as if to settle it, and running the two fingers round his neck he turned his head backwards at the same time, twisting his mouth in the same direction, and looked out of the corner of his eyes as far as he could, to see whether any one was coming; but he saw no one.

He cast a glance over the low wall into the fields — no one ; another, more subdued, along the path forward — no one but the bravoes. What is to be done? turn back? It is to late. Run? It was the same as to say, follow me, or worse. Since he could not escape the danger, he went to meet it.

These moments of uncertainty were already so painful, he desired only to shorten them. He quickened his pace, recited a verse in a louder tone, composed his face to a tranquil and careless expression, as well as he could, used every effort to have a smile ready; and when he found himself in the presence of the two good men, exclaiming mentally, ‘ here we are I ‘ he stood still.

‘ Signor Curato ! ‘ said one, staring in his face.

‘ Who commands me ? ‘ quickly answered Don Abbondio, raising his eyes from the hook, and holding it open in both hands.

‘You intend,’ continued the other, with the threatening angry brow of one who has caught an inferior committing some grievous fault, ‘ you intend, to-morrow, to marry Renzo Tramaglino and Lucia Mondella ! ‘

‘That is . . .’ replied Don Abbondio, with a quivering voice, — ‘That is . . . You, gentlemen, are men of the world, and know well how these things go. A poor curate has nothing to do with them. They patch up their little treaties between themselves, and then . . . then, they come to us, as one goes to the bank to make a demand; and we . . . we are servants of the community.’

‘Mark well,’ said the bravo, in a lower voice but with a solemn tone of command, ‘ this marriage is not to be performed, not to-morrow, nor ever.’

‘But, gentlemen,’ replied Don Abbondio, with the soothing, mild tone of one who would persuade an impatient man, ‘ be so kind as put yourselves in my place. If the thing depended on me . . . you see plainly that it is no advantage to me . . .’

‘Come, come’, interrupted the bravo; ‘ if the thing were to be decided by prating, you might soon put our heads in a poke. We know nothing about it, and we don’ t want to know more. A warned man . . . you understand.’

‘ But gentlemen like you are too just, too reasonable . . .’

‘ But,’ (this time the other companion broke in, who had not hitherto spoken) — ‘but the marriage is not to be performed, or . . . ‘ here a great oath — ‘ or he who performs it will never repent, because he shall have no time for it . . .’ another oath.

‘ Silence, silence,’ replied the first orator : ‘ the Signor Curato knows the way of the world, and we are good sort of men, who don’t wish to do him any harm, if he will act like a wise man. Signor Curato, the Illustrious Signor Don Rodrigo, our master, sends his kind respects.’

To the mind of Don Abbondio this name was like the lightning flash in a storm at night, which, illuminating for a moment and confusing all objects, increases the terror. As by instinct he made a low bow, and said, ‘ If yuu could suggest . . .’

‘ 0h! suggest is for you who know Latin,’ again interrupted the bravo, with a smile between awkwardness and ferocity; ‘ it is all very well for you. But, above all, let not a word be whispered about this notice that we have given you for your good, or . . . Eheml . . . it will be the same as marrying them. — Well, what will your Reverence that we say for you to the Illustrious Signor Don Rodrigo ? ‘

‘ My respects.’

‘ Be clear. Signor Curato.’

‘ . . . Disposed . * . always disposed to obedience.’

And having said these words, he did not himself well know  whether he had given a promise, or whether he had  only sent an ordinary compliment. The bravoes took it, and showed that they took it, in the more serious meaning.

‘Very well — good evening, Signor Curato,’ said one of  them, leading his companion away.

To read the complete and unabridged text: Alessandro Manzoni, I promessi sposi (The betrothed), italian-to-english translation, New York, Collier & son, 1909: http://www.archive.org/details/ipromessisposib05manzgoog

Pisa, once the capital of a republic, the rival of Genoa and Venice, now bears much the same relation to Florence, as Pavia does to Milan, exhibiting, to use Addison’s expression,’ the shell of a great city.’ Its origin stretches far back into the fabulous age of history. According to a tradition recorded by Strabo, it owed its foundation to some of the followers of Nestor, in their wanderings after the fall of Troy. That it received its present name from Greek colonists, can scarcely be doubted; nor is it improbable, that the ancient capital of Elis in the Olympian plain, was the mother city of the Etrurian Pisa. Both cities might, indeed, take their name from their situation ; and Pisae (as the name was generally written) may have simply denoted the meadows of the Arno.[From the Greek pisos= a marsh or meadow]. The Portus Pisanus was at the mouth of that river. There it was that Scipio landed his army, when returning from the mouths of the Rhone, to oppose Hannibal in Italy; and its harhour was much frequented by the Romans in their intercouse with Sardinia, Gaul, and Spain. Pisa became a colony A. u. c. 572. Strabo speaks of it as having been in former times an important naval station : in his day, it was still a flourishing commercial town, from which were exported large supplies of timber for ship-building, costly marbles, wine, and wheat.

The rise of Pisa, as a commercial republic, appears to have been contemporaneous with that of Genoa and Lucca ; but it soon disappears from history. In 1298, the fleet of the Pisans was destroyed by the Genoese, and the Tuscan navy never recovered from the effects of this calamity. Subsequent wars with Florence weakened the State; but the city sustained a long siege, and was taken by the Florentines, only through the treachery of Gambacorta, the captain-general of the Pisans. This occurred in 1406; from which period, its history is lost in that of Tuscany.

The university of Pisa dates from 1339. For some time after the city became subject to Florence, its schools were suffered to languish ; but in 1472, its university was re-established under the auspices of Lorenzo de’ Medici. War and pestilence again occasioned it to decline; till, in 1543, it was revived by Cosmo I. ; and under his successors, it rose to considerable celebrity. Its botanic garden was formed in 1544, only nine years after that of Padua. Its anatomical theatre, established about the same time, is said to have been the first in Europe. It has also an observatory. Though long posterior to Bologna, Pisa was the second school of law in Italy; and its library of 40,000 volumes is full of civil and canonical law, as well as of polemics, metaphysics, the works of the Fathers, and the acts of councils. Among its professors in the seventeenth century were, Galileo, Toricelli, Redi, Malpighi, Borelli, and Castelli, all natives of Italy, but not of Pisa; also, Thomas Dempster, Finch, the Anatomist, and Gronovius. What is highly remarkable, the exclusive spirit which has prevailed in all other universities, is here unknown. No religion is proscribed, all degrees, except in divinity and canon-law, being open to heretics and Jews, with whom this city seems always to have abounded.

Pisa is very beautifully situated on both banks of the Arno, sheltered from the north by a range of hills, and open to rich plains on the south. The river, which is wider here than at Florence, is embanked with stone quays ; and a broad street, the boast of the Pisans, extends along it on each side. The walls are nearly five miles in circuit. In the days of its power, it was ‘ celebrated for the strength of its fortifications, its patrician towers, its profusion of marble, and its grave magnificence.

The state of society at Pisa is represented as more relaxed, in point of religion and morals, than at Florence. There is less superstition, but its absence is supplied by nothing better than infidelity and indifference. ‘ Among the higher ranks of society here,’ says Mr. Simond, ‘ I believe, from all I have heard and seen, that idleness, ignorance, and profligacy form the general character. Every day, I hear disgusting stories of meanness and dirty art in every transaction of life. Foreigners cannot hire a house, or make a bargain of any sort, without being cheated. The theatre belongs to a company of noble Pisans: they manage it themselves, and some of them even play in the orchestra. It is their common practice to ask twice as much at the door from an unsuspecting stranger, as they would ask from a native. The nobles meet the middle class in mixed society, but do not admit them to their casini. Most of the ladies whom we met in mixed parties, were attended by gentlemen pointed out to us as their cavalieri serventi. I was told, that the number of women notorious in this way might amount to one-fourth. Attempts are sometimes made by the natives to parry the condemnation of this infamous custom, by the shallow pretext of pure platonicism, and by referring to fashions and customs in other countries, which are at variance with Italian delicacy or etiquette, yet which are deemed compatible with good morals. Such apologies cannot, however, disguise the prevailing laxity of manners, which is in part the cause, and partly the effect of the system ; and Mr. Forsyth’s remark is not less just, than pithy, that the ‘ connexion is generally ludicrous where it is not wicked.’

The road from Pisa to Lucca, winding along at the foot of the mountains, leads to the picturesque village of Ripa Fratta, the Tuscan boundary. A ruined Gothic fortress, said to have been erected by the Countess Matilda, crowns a rocky eminence at one end of the village, which is situated on the banks of the small but rapid Serchio. A mile further, the traveller enters the Lucchese territory. On passing the frontier, a change of national feature may be observed, and a costume distinct from the Pisan. ‘ All the women,’ says Forsyth, ‘ were slip-shod ; their dress precisely alike, the colour scarlet.’ On entering and on leaving this petty State, the traveller has to submit to all the formalities of a search from the doganieri, or must purchase an exemption from the annoyance.

The Dutchy of Lucca comprises a territory of 54 square geographical leagues, containing, besides the capital, one town: Via Reggio, the only port possessed by the Government of Lucca, or rather the only place on the shore, for it cannot be called a port.

The revenue of the State is estimated less than that of many an English nobleman ; and the whole area is considerably smaller than the county of Hertford, but with a denser population. It is, in fact, by far the most populous and best cultivated district of Italy. Addison gives a very favourable representation of its general aspect at the commencement of the eighteenth century, when it still boasted of the name and independence of a Republic. ‘ It is very pleasant,’ he says, ‘ to see how the small territories of this little Republic are cultivated to the best advantage, so that one cannot find the least spot of ground that is not made to contribute its utmost to its owner. In all the inhabitants, there appears an air of cheerfulness and plenty, not often to be met with in those of the countries which lie about them. It is pleasant to hear the discourse of the common people of Lucca, who are firmly persuaded that one Lucchese can beat five Florentines, who are grown low-spirited, as they pretend, by the Great Duke’s oppressions, and have nothing worth fighting for. They say, they can bring into the field twenty or thirty thousand fighting men, all ready to sacrifice their lives for their liberty. They have quantity of arms and ammunition, but few horse. It must be owned, these people are more happy, at least in imagination, than their neighbours, because they think themselves so ; though such a chimerical happiness is not peculiar to republicans, for we find the subjects of the most absolute prince in Europe, are as proud of their monarch, as the Lucchese are of being subject to none.

Lucca dates its political independence from the death of the Countess Matilda in 1115; but it has, at different periods, been subject to the Florentines, the Pisans, and foreign potentates. Lewis of Bavaria erected it into a dutchy about 1316. In 1330, together with Milan, Pavia, Parma, and Modena, it acknowledged for its sovereign the King of Bohemia ; but his dominion in Italy was of short duration. To so low an ebb were the fortunes of Lucca reduced in the fourteenth century, that the sovereignty of it was put up to auction by a troop of German deserters, and bought by Gherardino Spinola of Genoa.

‘ The first private wars among the free cities of Italy, broke out in Tuscany, between Pisa and Lucca. ‘ Tyrant never attacked tyrant with more exterminating fury,’ remarks Mr. Forsyth, ‘ than these republics, the hypocrites of liberty, fought for mutual inthralment.’ In the history of their rise, their civil contests, and their fall, the Tuscan commonwealths exhibit a remarkable analogy to that of the States of ancient Greece. ‘ In both countries,’ continues this elegant writer, ‘ the Republics emerged from small principalities ; they shook off the yoke by similar means ; and they ended in a common lord who united them all. In both, we shall find a crowded population and a narrow territory ; in both, a public magnificence disproportionate to their power; in both, the same nursing love of literature and the arts, the same nice and fastidious taste, the same ambitious and excluding purity of language. “Viewed as republics, the Tuscans and the Greeks were equally turbulent within their walls, and equally vain of figuring among foreign sovereigns ; always jealous of their political independence, but often negligent of their civil freedom; for ever shifting their alliances abroad, or undulating between ill-balanced factions at home. In such alternations of power, the patricians became imperious, the commons blood-thirsty, and both so opposite, that nothing but an enemy at the gates could unite them. But in no point is the parallel so striking as in their hereditary hatred of each other.

In 1805, Lucca was constituted a principality by Napoleon, over which he placed Pascal Bac- ciochi, who had married his sister. The Princess, Mr. Williams tells us, ‘ was greatly beloved. Roads, bridges, and many other improvements, were made at her command; and the principality of Lucca became a paradise.’ In 1813, it was invaded by the Austrians, and Bacciochi was expelled. In 1815, it was again converted into a dutchy by the Congress of Vienna, and granted as an indemnity to the Ex-Queen of Etruria . By the same august Partitioners of Europe, its eventual annexation to Tuscany was provided for; an arrangement which, how unpalatable soever to the Lucchese, can scarcely be a just matter of regret, its nominal independence being of little or no positive advantage.

In Italy, every city has its characteristic title; and that of Lucca is not the least honourable: Lucca I’ Industriosa. The Lucchese are said to have been the first people who introduced into Italy the silk-trade, by the cultivation of the silk-worm. As early as 1319, according to Denina, the trade flourished among them, and the mulberry-tree had become an object of public care. The Lucca oil has been reckoned the best in Europe. And as the Lucchese bear the character of being the most industrious people of southern Italy, and the most skilful husbandmen, they are said to be also distinguished by their probity, and by a stronger sense of religion than their neighbours. The peasantry of the mountains, in particular, are characterized by their honesty and cheerful industry. Like the inhabitants of many other parts of the Apennines, they live chiefly upon chestnut bread ; and when the crop fails, they are exposed to dreadful privations.

M. Sismondi, in his valuable ‘ Picture of Tuscan Agriculture,’ represents the peasantry of Tuscany in general, especially those of the hills, as in a very depressed and wretched condition, annually consuming the whole produce of their industry, and never thinking of laying up a provision for a bad year. ‘ In the State of Lucca,’ he continues, ‘ where the condition of the peasants is still harder, where they have for their labour only the third of the oil-harvest, instead of the half, (as elsewhere,) and where the rate at which they are to sell their other commodities to their master, is most commonly fixed below the market price, the cultivators receive no advance from the proprietors ; but the Republic itself has established a bank, which furnishes them every week the grain they want, placing it to their account, without interest; so that the State whose laws are, on the one hand, so little in their favour, appears to be, on the other, incessantly occupied with providing for their subsistence, and ever ready to make sacrifices for their support. This bank is an absolute illusion to the Lucchese peasants. Their masters, who have established it, find it turn to good account; but it is still more useful to the Government, which holds by this means in absolute dependence all the country people, and ensures their obedience, not merely by fear, but also by affection. Yet, the politician, on turning his eyes to the Tuscan peasants, their neighbours, sees that the latter are more fairly dealed with, every year, at the time of harvest; that, in the season of want, they require neither interest nor protection to obtain advances from their masters ; and that the pretended munificence of the Republic towards its own people, is merely a restitution of what is their due.

‘ By means of this circulation of small debts and annual re-imbursements, a numerous population lead a cheerful life without solicitude, although without ever losing sight of their last morsel of bread. Every day, the husbandman is reduced to buy the day’s provision. Very rarely is he found in ‘possession of a reserve of corn; still more rarely, of oil or of wine. The former has been sold in the press, and the latter in the tub. Never has he any provision of salt meat, butter, cheese, or vegetables. All their kitchen utensils are of earthenware ; and their whole furniture consists of a table and some wooden chairs, one or two chests, and an indifferent bedstead, on which the father and mother sleep with their feet in one direction, and the children with their feet against the head-board. Thus, when the division under General Vatrain ravaged, in 1799, the districts of the Val di Nievola, the peasantry derived this advantage from their indigence, that when they had concealed their clothes and the gold trinkets of their women, they had scarcely any thing left to lose.

The mountaineers, who depend almost entirely upon the cultivation of the chestnut, are represented as being, however, in better circumstances than the peasantry of the hills and plains. The greater part of them, M. Sismondi says, are proprietors of their forests, not sharing the produce with any master, or paying any rent. Where the mountains are rented, the landlord receives two-thirds of the chestnuts collected, and half of the other crops. Mr. Forsyth speaks of the depressed condition of the peasantry, ‘ who must render up to their landlord two-thirds of the produce, and submit to whatever price he may fix on the remainder.’

The inhabitants of the districts of Pontito and Shiappa are in particular distinguished by their robust and healthy appearance, notwithstanding that they subsist chiefly on chestnut flour, and by the beautiful complexion and regular features of the women. This last circumstance is the more remarkable, as during great part of the year, like the Comasque women, they have to sustain the whole burden of domestic labour, while their husbands, fathers, and brothers descend into the Tuscan Maremma and the States of the Church, in search of harvest work. Of the labourers who venture to pass the summer in those pestilential districts, very few escape disease ; but these mountaineers seldom venture into the Maremma till after the first rains of October have purified the air, and return in May, or, at latest, as soon as the June crop has been reaped. The money which they never fail to bring back from these expeditions, they employ in improving their little possessions.

As long as the Republics of Italy preserved their liberty,’ continues M. Sismondi, ‘ commerce and agriculture advanced with equal steps towards a prosperity ever on the increase, notwithstanding their wars and revolutions. But, when wealth had consummated the corruption of morals, and introduced tyranny, a pestilential influence seemed to give the death-blow to all the resources of the State. Manufactures were extinguished together with the spirit of emulation ; commerce was dried up at its source; while contagion, traversing the provinces, laid the husbandmen in the grave, and annihilated the rising generation, by inspiring parents with horror at the idea of bringing up their children to slavery and suffering. All Italy fell to ruin.

It is not agriculture, remarks M. Sismondi, that has ever enriched Italy. It was not to agriculture, but to freedom and commerce, that the Italian Republics owed their wealth and magnificence. ‘ Agriculture can augment capital, and become a source of national wealth, only when the peasantry are accumulating property ; and this can take place only where they are at once cultivators and proprietors. Such is the explanation which the able and learned Historian of the Italian Republics gives of the present fallen condition of the nation; and such the instructive lesson it suggests. On comparing these observations with the historical reflections of Mr. Forsyth, above cited, on the rise and fall of the Tuscan Republics, the reader will have both sides of the subject; and if his admiration of their polity and internal condition should be somewhat lessened, by perceiving how opposed they were to the national improvement, he will not the less regret that the traces of their mutual animosity alone survive, while the public spirit which animated and ennobled them, seems to have fled for ever. Italy, on ceasing to be commercial, ceased to be free.

To read the complete and unabridged text: Josiah Conder, Italy, Vol. III, London, Duncan, 1831: http://books.google.it/books?id=CmMbJ_NGMSkC&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

In this procession I recognized the sacred office of the Brothers of the Misericordia, one of the earliest institutions of priestly charity ; and perhaps the only national trait of ancient Florence which now remains. The principles of this order are founded on the basis of universal benevolence. A pure and primitive simplicity marks every feature and act of this fraternity, who, in silence and in solitude, fulfill their sacred and unostentatious offices.

The gloom with which their solemn duties invest them, receives new and mournful impressions, from the tradition which connects its origin with the history of the great plague in 1348, celebrated by Boccaccio in his Decameron. They relate that many portentous omens predicted this awful visitation. A dead crow foil from the air, and three boys, at whose feet it had dropped, tossed it towards each other in play. These three boys died, and soon after the plague broke out, and in its fearful ravages desolated the city. During its continuance, a few individals, firm in purpose and strong in piety , self-devoted , attended on the sick and dying, and the survivors of these chosen few, afterwards taking the monastic habits and order of Brothers of the Misericordia, assumed for life the performance of those services, which in the hour of anguish and sorrow they had voluntarily fulfilled.

Their small church is situated close to the Duomo, the House of God; but all is sad and solemn in the aspect of this institution. It was built shortly after the plague, and was raised on the margin of the gulph dug to receive the dead. A black dress, in which the brethren are attired from head to foot, entirely covers the person and conceals the face. The brother, whether of noble or of lowly birth , is equally undistinguished and unknown, and their duties are performed, and charities dispensed, to the noble or the beggar, with the same indiscriminating ceremonies.

A few tapers on the altar, and at the shrine of the Virgin , burn night and day , throwing a dim and feeble light around. Six of the brethren watch continually; and medical aid is always in readiness. Divine worship is performed by them in the morning and in the evening, assisted by those individuals whom piety or sorrow may have brought to mingle among them. On the floor are arranged biers, palls, torches, and dresses. The sick are taken to the hospitals, the dead are conveyed to their last home, and the unclaimed brought to their church on a bier, covered by a pall.

They are summoned to their duties by the solemn tolling of their deep-toned bell, which, when heard in the dead and silent hour of the night, falls on the ear with dismal and appalling sound.

Another office of the Brethren of the Misericordia is to visit the prisons, and prepare the condemned for death. Once a-year, on Good-Friday, this duty is publicly performed. Twelve brethren of the order, and twelve penitents, form the procession, bearing the head of St John on a car, and the image of a dead Christ, covered with black crape. The procession is preceded by solemn music, and closed by a long train of priests clothed in black.

In this institution the numbers are unlimited forming a wide extended circle, which may embrace members from every city, acknowledging the same faith, bound by one uniting, but secret and mysterious tye.

Seventy two of the brethren (says Padre Richa) were selected as directors of the Institution, chosen from different classes. Namely to Prelates, twenty unbeneficed clergymen, four gentlemen, and 28 artificers; from whom are taken twelve every fuor months as officiating members, six styled Captains, and six denominated Counsellors. To these were added a hundred and five bretheren called « Giornanti » seven each day being in readiness to attend, either by a summons or at the sound of their great Bell.

They are not of necessity individually known to each other, but can render themselves intelligible by certain signs and words, in any circumstances requiring communication.

Their vow enjoins them to be ready, night or day, at the call of sudden calamity—to attend those overtaken by sickness, accident, or assault. A certain number of them are in rotation employed in asking charity, a service which they are obliged to perform barefooted, and in a silent appeal, the rules strictly forbidding the use of speech, when engaged in any duty.

Their call is never left unanswered , every individual making an offering, were it only of the smallest copper piece, as it is money supposed to be lent to pray for departed souls. This peculiar order, for there are others not greatly dissimilar, possesses a privilege of great magnitude, extended only once in every year, and to one single person.

An individual of their body becoming amenable to the laws of his country, in virtue of this privilege, may claim exemption from the penalty, receiving his life at the prayer of his brethren. This ceremony , when it occurs, is performed with every circumstance of pomp and solemnity.

The order, habited in the dress of the ancient priests, carry branches of palm in token of peace, and, accompanied by all the imposing grandeur of the church, present themselves in front of the palace of the Grand Duke, when the Sovereign Prince condescends to deliver the act of grace. They next proceed to the President of the Tribunal of Supreme Power. This officer, in person, leads the way, conducting them to the prison, into which they enter, and there receiving their liberated brother , they invest him in the dress of their order, and crowning him with laurel, conduct him home in triumph.

No fixed period is enjoined for the fulfilment of the vow taken by this order. Many in the highest sphere have sought expiation of sins, by assuming it for a longer or shorter time, proportioned to the measure of their crime, or to the sensitive state of their consciences. Princes, Cardinals, and even Popes, have been numbered among their penitents, and have joined in their vows and services.

Text from: John Bell, Observations on Italy, Naples, Fibreno for John Rodwell, 1835. To read the 2 Bell’s volumes on Italy: http://books.google.it/books?id=Q6ahxfVpT64C&printsec=titlepage&source=gbs_v2_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Pasquino! how often do we meet this name in the history of modern Italy. The owner of this great name was a tailor, a fellow of much wit and humour. Wherever he appeared with his red broad face and the knowing twinkle of his black eyes, he was surrounded by a listening crowd whom he delighted with his jests; for, in addition to an incomparable gift of cracking a joke, he possessed the accomplishment of making faces which enforced the comical effect of his stories. Id a short time his name was considered indispensible to add point and grace to every witty concetto engendered at Rome, and this privilege continued to be attached to it even after poor Pasquino’s death. The people soon found a proper heir to his name. An old mutilated statue had been dug up opposite to the palace of Torres, and erected close by the late jester’s house. This statue raised a spirit of antiquarian curiosity among the scholars of Rome. According to some it was an Alexander, and according to others a Hercules, but the people cut the matter short by calling it Pasquino, to the honour and everlasting remembrance of the poor tailor. This marble Pasquino was in the practice of passing off his jests not only against bis neighbours, but even against the oppression of the great nobility, the depravity of the clergy and of the government itself. Whoever conceived a good idea made at once Pasquino the bearer of it to the world by writing his epigram above the neck of the statue, or upon the wall overhanging it. Some time afterwards people felt the want of an additional personage.

Not far from Pasquiuo lay another mutilated statue representing a god or an emperor. The scholars thought it was a Jupiter, but the people made him a cousin of Pasquino’s; called him Marforio the questioner, and thus began the jest of query and answer. ” Well, cousin,” asked Marforio, ” what made the clergy order the new fast day?” Pasquino answered: ” To the honour of the new tax; as the people are starving the Vatican thought to make a virtue of necessity.”

” You look very vulgar, Pasquino, why do you appear in the street with a dirty shirt?” “My washer-woman has been made a princess;” replied the censor, reflecting on the character of the Pope’s sister who, before being created a princess, was nothing else than a washer-woman. Sixtus ordered the erection of several public fountains. The next day Pasquino produced a parody of the decree beginning: 8. Q. Pontifex Maximus,—the holy father remained long in possession of this nickname. Sixtus however, vexed at this impudence, and desirous to find out and punish the offender, did not venture to remove Pasquino the favourite of the people, their modern censor and last representative of the democratical opposition. But all at once the smaller concetti were discontinued, and every question of Marforio’s was answered in verses, the powerful language of which apparently belonged to one and the same graphic pen. Important questions were agitated in this way; the government was addressed in the name of reason and justice, and the people were admonished of their rights. The two statues were thus in reality converted into two civic tribunes. The people gathered in crowds round the mute orators of this new forwu. and on’two or three occasions had abused and maltreated the Shirr! who came to remove the satirical libels in which the Pope waa by n« means spared, and of which copies were everywhere circulated.

Sixtus in his eagerness to discover the author of the epigrams made a proclamation in the’ streets, offering 2000 pistoles as a reward to him who should produce the guilty person, but no one appeared. II’- next order was to seize all poets in Rome, or those at least who were reputed to have a turn for poetry, and to lodge them during the pleasure of his Holiness in the tower of St. Augelo. To judge by the number of prisoners, one Would never have suspected that the ” Eternal City” had nourished so many votaries of the muses in her maternal lap. Some protested loudly against the intended honour, others botr- cvcr were too happy to get into prison, and have their vanity thus agreeably flattered even at the expeuce of their freedom. Among the latter was Pandolfo Norsini who, thanks to his secretary, was a clever poetaster. His heart swelled with pride to be supposed capable of giving birth to poetry, that was at once so bold and effective.—Sixtus the fifth, however, was not a man to be trifled with, and dearly had they to pay who wished to enact tho part of the ancient Roman, “patriotic and stern.” He was determined to have the guilty man in his power. Accordingly gentle means of meekness and religion were applied to in the first instance. The prisoners, after an examination before the judge, were bound over to the confessor, but still the secret was unre- vealed. Sixtus went himself to the castle of St. Angelo, ordered the prisoners into his presence, but withheld his blessing. He admonished them to name the madman who had ventured to violate the double authority and power conferred upon him by God and man, as the successor of” St. Peter and the chosen one of the Emperors. He is among you, said he; if you know him, name him, and the gates of your prison will be thrown open. You are silent. Well, let the offender come forward and declare himself, and I promise to spare his life and make him a donation of 2000 pistoles besides.

Sixtus continued for some time in an attitude of composure which contrasted curiously with the anxious expression of his keen grey eyes; surveying calmly, but with glances that pierced to the quick, the trembIing victims who stood overawed in the presence of the irritated priest, and as each met the portentous lightnings, down he sunk on his knees, and made the sign of the cross. While all remained silent t In- priest appeared to be wrapt in momentary reflection, and removing bis hand from his face which he had covered for a moment, all were struck with the sudden change in his countenance. His half sunken eyes and closely pressed lips might have led one to suppose a gay idea liad given his thoughts another turn, but soon his features lost all marks of either satisfaction or anger, and nothing remained but the humble and resigned countenance of the former cardinal Montalto. His eyes had lost their former lustre, and with a voice faltering and low he murmured these words: ” My children, it is in the power of God Almighty alone to penetrate into the thoughts of man,—he alone reads the human heart. But I, the humble servant of the servants of God, I can discover the truth only through human means—to-morrow then the rack will do its work.”

On the following day marched through the streets of Rome the myrmidons of the rack : they walked two by two, the instruments of torture in their hands, their eyes tilled with pride, and joy beaming in their countenance ; for they were to perform, on this occasion, in the presence of the holy father himself. Consternation and fear preceded them ; and the silent crowd that followed, terror-struck and dismayed, stopped in front of the Palace Quirinal;—a young man alone, rushing through the dense crowd, overtook with a hasty step the torturers and entered the large colonnade before them.

The Pope was at that time presiding at the great ecclesiastical council of absolution. Near him, at the right and left, were seated on lower chairs the cardinal treasurer, the cardinal chancellor, and the cardinal vicar, and further down the rest of the cardinals in full dress and at their feet their train-bearers with the soutana and the silk gown. In the back ground stood the prelates, dirines and laymen, ready to kindle and shed forth the light of their learning whenever the Pope’s pleasure should demand it. The business of the day had proceeded some length, when three smart strokes were applied to the door, and the chamberlain entered clothed in his gown and surplice, and winding his way cautiously behind the spiritual lords stepped up to the Pope and whispered a few words into his ear. Sixtus rose, ” Princes of the Church and Prelates,” said he, addressing the congregation, let us now terminate the work of absolution and bulls; I beg your advice in an affair of no less importance, and by mine own authority I declare and constitute you a Consulta. A stranger has offered to reveal to me the name of the author of the Pasquinades levelled against me. He is at the door, let him come in. As to the prisoners now under accusation, the cardinal vicar will, in my name and place, preside at the torture with which it is my pleasure immediately to begin. The more ways and means there are to get at the truth, the better.”

The informer was conducted into the hall; he was the same young nan who had hastened into the palace before the servants of the torture. In his countenance was no trace of the brand which indicates the low and vulgar soul of the informer, but virtue and a sound rigour of mind were impressed on it in indelible characters. The most experienced physiognomist would have been unable to detect in this noble face the expression of disorderly desires, but on the contrary might have discovered the evidence of deep feelings and a lofty soul. It was not with, out a feeling of embarrassment and fear that he presented himself to the assembly. By the direction of the chamberlain he made a low reverence on entering the hall, a second when in the middle of the floor, and bowed his knee when permitted to approach the Pope. Sixtus gave him the apostolic blessing, ordered, as customary, a chap- let to be presented to him, and commenced the enquiry by asking him —” What is your name ?” He mentioned it ” What is your occupation ?” The young man hesitating to reply, a prelate said—”He is ananuensis of Signor Paudolfo Norsini, my neighbour.” ” Well,” said the Pope to the chamberlain, “let Signor Pandolfo be put to the question.” ” Stop,” said the informer, ” I am here for no other purpose than to spare my master and the other accused persons the pain of the rack which none of them has deserved, for the guilty person is before you. I am he !” At the same time he opened a bundle of papers ; ” here are Satires, Epigrams, exclusively my own work ; here are the original papers; passages altered and improved with my own hand : no soul was acquainted with my secret; I myself fixed the Pasquinades to the statue. I speak nothing but truth, so help me God. I know not whether I have acted wisely, but having doomed myself to be judged by man, I shall submit to the consequences of an action, the honour or the shame of which I will share with none.”

Sixtus the fifth, the most implacable and remorseless of all priests, did not disdain the pleasure of keeping his victims trembling in his grasp. Accomplished in the art of dissimulation, be knew how to conceal the most irksome vexation; and we need not be surprised if, after describing the enormity of the crime in a laboured speech full of fine sentences, he succeeded in kindling in the breast of the unfortunate young man a spark of hope with no other intention than to render more painful the blow he was about to inflict. He had pledged his most sacred word, that if the guilty should name himself, not only should he receive the reward of 2000 pistoles, but that his life also should not in the least degree be endangered. As for the 2000 pistoles our poet refused them, but his life he accepted it as a boon; prepared to lose it, he received it back with heartfelt delight. Life is sweet at the age of twenty-three; it is doubly sweet when poetry touches all around us with its magic wand, and every object breathes the language of love, and all flushes with life, when we still trust the word of man, on the face of woman. His life, which be felt as given to him a second time by the hand of God was for him boon which filled his heart with the utmost exultations of jov. Tears of joy rushed down his cheeks, and his proud heart was subdued in gratitude and repentance. Noble and generous youth I couldst thou believe in the sincere forgiveness of a priest ? Looking with secret remorse on the late productions of his satirical pen, he was about to bend his knees in thanksgiving, when Sixtus uttered his terrible sentence. ” I have promised you life, but never impunity. To spare the head of a libeller or of a murderer, and thus allow them to do more mischief, would be to act in the teeth of humanity and justice. Is it enough to have broken the pen or the dagger ? Were they the true instruments in the perpetration of the crime ? Are there not other pens and daggers to be had? No! the spirit, the mind alone is the criminal. You may deprive the wretch of his liberty, but are you sure that the wicked fruit of the mind will not break forth through the walls of a dungeon. Therefore the body must not be incarcerated, but the spirit. Is that your opinion ?” A few heads bowed assent; but the Pope, sure of his red-caps’ submission, did not pay any attention to it, and went on: ” Thus then we pass our irrevocable sentence:—that tongue which spoke against us slanderous and damnable words shall be cut out with the knife; the hand which wrote them down, and the hand which was instrumental in posting them up, shall be both cut away, and nailed on Pasquino’s statue. Thus the spirit of this man, his spirit sweltering with poison, shall henceforth become a weapon harmless to all but himself.”

Sixtus rose; the cardinals in silent horror gazed on the terrible man whom they had elected their chief, and in the distant part of the hall, prelates and divines whispered to one another; some glancing timidly on the poet, others doubting whether legal forms had been infringed, or whether the execution would be public. The officiating chamberlain ran through the hall in all directions, delivering and receiving messages; and in the meanwhile the tale of woe and horror had transpired abroad. The condemned stood motionless as if entranced. A cold perspiration ran down his forehead, while his limbs were quivering. One while he cast round a glance, struggling, as it were, to awake from a heavy dream. He clasped his hands and touched the chaplet with his lips, while his whole frame was convulsed: but suddenly grasping his light cloak which lay on his shoulders, he wrapped himself up with the fearful looks of a man who is ready to receive the pointed dagger in his breast. Sixtus was just in the act of descending from the Estrada to leave the assembly, when a piercing shriek, a woman’s voice, was repeatedly beard through the palace. This moanful, heart-rending voice instilled a shuddering into the hearts of all present. Sixtus himself was struck and stopt at the first utterance of the shriek-; the unhappy youth lifted up his head, a fearful paleness overspread his countenance; be listened for some time to this voice, which becoming fainter died gradually away; now it was heard no more. His foot struck furiously the ground, he raised his hand towards the Pope, as if commanding him to stop. He darted towards him a glance in which rage and contempt were mingled, indicating to all who could read it, that now he would fling his curse on the cruel hoary man; but the fearful battle of his feelings had subdued his powers; his quivering lips refused to give utterance to one word. Sixtus, the cardinals respectfully following behind, walked out with a firm composed step; and the wretched youth, overpowered by the raging tempest in his breast, fell senseless into the arms of the executioner. -

Text from “ H. Nachot, Pasquino and Marforio” in The Border magazine, Nov 1831-Dec 1832, Vol. I, Berwick, Whittacker and Co. (London), 1833. To read the original text: http://books.google.it/books?id=Cq5PAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA275&dq=pasquino+and+marforio&lr=&as_brr=1&ei=mZ-SSvj5C5iwMu6vsaMH#v=onepage&q=&f=false

It is one of the sad features of the growth of modern civilisation that all the peoples of the world grow so much alike. It becomes each year more and more difficult to find contrasts by travel. National costumes, local peasant customs and habits rapidly disappear, and the peoples of the most remote countries make it their ideal to imitate as closely as possible the standards set up by Western civilisation, and arrive at a hotch-potch of drabness adapted from Great Britain, America, France, and Germany. They are imitative in dress, in food, and in demeanour. To-day the Chinese peasants and labourers are cutting off their pigtails and adopting the cloth cap of the Lancashire industrials. When they adopt, too, the shoddy tweed suit, and their richer compatriots begin to patronise pseudo-French cookery, the world’s last great stronghold of strangeness will have surrendered, and the traveller in the search of the picturesque among peoples will have to penetrate far into the wilds of Central Africa or voyage to the plateau of Thibet.

In the course of a great deal of travel I have encountered only two places which seemed to be making a stand against the flood of uniformity. Both were in the South Seas: one was Fiji, a British colony which seemed impervious to modernism ; the other Honolulu, where American civilisation, in its most blatant and aggressive form, serves only to accentuate, to give an air of added grotesquerie to the Hawaiian national life. The ice-cream soda of New York asserts itself ; but, side by side, with it is sold dried devil-fish ; and the dried devil-fish gives the predominant note. The uniform of American statesmanship — a frock-coat with a slouch hat (worn by American colonists and native dandies alike) — uplifts the standard of modern civilisation in the streets traversed by electric trams ; but there show also in those streets languorous Hawaiians garlanded with wreaths of the native flowers; and again the native note predominates. Lately,during a tour of the Balkan States and of Turkey, I was sadly disappointed to find the citizen of Belgrade and Sofia hanging up his ” boxer ” hat in restaurants, where he ate just such dishes as the cheaper eating-places of London, New York, or Paris supply ; and to discover that the Turk — the fiery Turk of my imagination, with an Arab steed and a Circassian harem — was ordinarily a very commonplace monogamous person in a slop suit, devoted exceedingly to the consumption of lollipops of Scottish manufacture and English tinned meats and biscuits.

It is easy to understand how misconceptions grow about foreign cities and places. We judge those countries which we have not seen mostly by the ” news ” which the journals print about them ; and ” news ” represents, not the normal of a community, but its eccentricity. The normal is not ” news,” and is therefore not sent abroad ; the departures from the normal, which are ” news,” the foreigner hears about. Unless, in coming to his judgments, he makes full allowance for the fact that ” news ” is the extraordinary and not the ordinary life of a community, he is apt to get to some strange conclusions. I have often encountered, for instance, people arriving in Australia expecting to see big, rough towns, the streets crowded with picturesque diggers and infested with snakes ; and to meet on the wharf rough bushmen, who insist, willy-nilly, on putting the stranger to trial by ordeal of buck- jumper. These things are the abnormalities, the picturesque departures from the conventional in life, and they go abroad far in advance of any correct views of the general average of a country’s customs. To give another example, in New York you do not at once meet confidence-men with gold bricks for sale at the Central Station ; the ” grafting ” politician is not obvious at first ; and you need have no fear of tobacco -juice being discharged on to your garments by the free and independent Yankee, just to show his ” gold-darned Republicanism.”

And in London the West End streets are not paraded by a magnificent nobility giving public expression to their disdain of the ” lower classes.” Some untravelled people seriously expect to encounter great national abnormalities when they at last take a voyage abroad to some foreign city. They have been misled by the newspapers, the business of which is to stress the abnormal. ” If a dog bites a man,” said a famous New York editor to a ” cub ” reporter, ” that is not news. If a man bites a dog that is news.” That expresses completely the spirit in which the records of our day are chronicled.

It is quite likely that many people who visit Italy for the first time arrive expecting to encounter at the outset a national life which is partly comic opera, partly wild melodrama ; peasants in gay costumes filling the streets with music ; Mafiaists and Camorraists lurking in every lane with bloodthirsty stilettoes ; picturesquely staged elopements proceeding from secretive-looking villas, and so on, so on. Alas ! it is not so. Not to any noticeable extent. Even the banditti are fading out of the national perspective since they put taximeters on the cabs.

But the big cities of Italy, so far as their populations are concerned, are very much like the other big cities of Europe and America. Fashion, the demands of progress, the spread of industrialism, all help to this result. It is the fashion for women to dress as they do in Paris, men as they do in London. It is a sign of progress to make oneself indistinguishable from the peoples of richer lands. It is the penalty of factories that the factory ” hand ” becomes like the factory ” hand ” of other lands, a drab and commonplace figure.

Too many of the leaders of the people are not content to preach of the glorious past as an incentive to the Italy of to-day to develop on her own lines a great future. They set up as standards of imitation rather than as reasons of emulation the more powerful, the richer nations of the North. Italy — they preach — to justify herself, must follow Germany in this, England in that, America in some other thing. It would be better, in my judgment, to let the Italian people develop, more slowly and with less of a Japanese spirit of imitation, their own particular national ideals. As it is the patriotism of a people still poor in material resources is strained to breaking point in the effort to keep the pace with richer rivals, to follow in whose footsteps there is no real necessity ; and a charming national character is spoilt by being disguised.

Texts and pictures are from “Frank Fox, Italy”, London, A. and C. Black, 1918. To read the original and unabridged text: http://www.archive.org/details/italyfrankfox00foxf