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diff --git a/44212-0.txt b/44212-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..96e0fa1 --- /dev/null +++ b/44212-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9273 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44212 *** + +Every attempt has been made to replicate the original book as printed. +Some typographical errors have been corrected. A list follows the +text. No attempt has been made to correct or normalize the printed +accentuation or spelling of French and Italian names or words. Some +illustration-markings have been moved from mid-paragraph for ease of +reading. (etext transcriber's note) + + + + + Italian Highways and Byways From a Motor Car + + + _WORKS OF_ + + _FRANCIS MILTOUN_ + +_Rambles on the Riviera_ $2.50 + +_Rambles in Normandy_ 2.50 + +_Rambles in Brittany_ 2.50 + +_The Cathedrals and Churches of the Rhine_ 2.50 + +_The Cathedrals of Northern France_ 2.50 + +_The Cathedrals of Southern France_ 2.50 + +_In the Land of Mosques and Minarets_ 3.00 + +_Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine and +the Loire Country_ 3.00 + +_Castles and Chateaux of Old Navarre and +the Basque Provinces_ 3.00 + +_Italian Highways and Byways from a +Motor Car_ 3.00 + +_The Automobilist Abroad_ _net_ 3.00 + + _Postage Extra_ + + _L. C. PAGE & COMPANY_ + + _New England Building, Boston, Mass._ + +[Illustration: In Bologna] + + + + + Italian Highways and + Byways from a Motor Car + + BY FRANCIS MILTOUN + + _O. N. I._ + + Author of "Castles and Chateaux of Old Touraine," "Castles and + Chateaux of Old Navarre," "In the Land of Mosques and + Minarets," etc. + + _With Pictures_ + + BY BLANCHE MCMANUS + + [Illustration] + + BOSTON + L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + 1909 + + _Copyright, 1909_ + BY L. C. PAGE & COMPANY + (INCORPORATED) + + _All rights reserved_ + + First Impression, May, 1909 + + Electrotyped and Printed at + THE COLONIAL PRESS: + C. H. Simonds & Co., Boston, U.S.A. + + + + +[Illustration: _Contents_] + + +CHAPTER PAGE + +I. THE WAY ABOUT ITALY 1 + +II. OF ITALIAN MEN AND MANNERS 23 + +III. CHIANTI AND MACARONI 41 + +IV. ITALIAN ROADS AND ROUTES 60 + +V. IN LIGURIA 81 + +VI. THE RIVIERA DI LEVANTE 108 + +VII. ON TUSCAN ROADS 124 + +VIII. FLORENTINE BACKGROUNDS 144 + +IX. THE ROAD TO ROME 164 + +X. THE CAMPAGNA AND BEYOND 181 + +XI. LA BELLA NAPOLI 196 + +XII. THE BEAUTIFUL BAY OF NAPLES 207 + +XIII. ACROSS UMBRIA TO THE ADRIATIC 225 + +XIV. BY ADRIATIC'S SHORE 237 + +XV. ON THE VIA ÆMILIA 260 + +XVI. I VENETIA 277 + +XVII. THROUGH ITALIAN LAKELAND 309 + +XVIII. MILAN AND THE PLAINS OF LOMBARDY 333 + +XIX. TURIN AND THE ALPINE GATEWAYS 346 + +XX. FROM THE ITALIAN LAKES TO THE RIVIERA 360 + +INDEX 371 + + + + +[Illustration: _List of_ Illustrations] + + + PAGE + +IN BOLOGNA (_See page_ 266) _Frontispiece_ + +MAP OF ITALY _facing_ 2 + +ITALY IN THE XVIII CENTURY (map) 24 + +BARBERINO DI MUGELLO _facing_ 26 + +A CHIANTI SELLER _facing_ 32 + +A WAYSIDE TRATTORIA _facing_ 42 + +ROAD MAP OF NORTH ITALY _facing_ 72 + +ITALIAN ROAD SIGNS 77 + +PROFILE ROAD MAP, BOLOGNA--FLORENCE 79 + +PALAZZO DORIA, GENOA _facing_ 100 + +GENOA (map) 101 + +SUN DIAL, GENOA 106 + +RAPALLO _facing_ 110 + +RAPALLO AND ITS GULF (map) 111 + +LUCCA (arms) 122 + +ON A TUSCAN HIGHWAY _facing_ 124 + +FLORENCE AND ITS PALACES (map) 134 + +TORCH-HOLDERS, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE 136 + +PALAZZO VECCHIO, FLORENCE _facing_ 136 + +A LANTERN, PALAZZO STROZZI, FLORENCE 137 + +SAN GIMIGNANO _facing_ 138 + +VOLTERRA (map) 140 + +VILLA PALMIERI (diagram) 148 + +FIESOLE 150 + +PALAZZO DELLA SIGNORIA, SIENA _facing_ 164 + +ORVIETO _facing_ 168 + +ARMS OF VARIOUS PAPAL FAMILIES 172 + +CASTLE OF SANT'ANGELO, ROME _facing_ 174 + +PALAZZO VATICANO (diagram) 175 + +THE BORGIA WINDOW, ROME _facing_ 176 + +PAPAL ARMS OF CAESAR BORGIA 177 + +ARMS OF A MEDICIS PRELATE 178 + +VILLA MEDICI, ROME _facing_ 178 + +SUBIACO _facing_ 190 + +VILLA D'ESTE, TIVOLI _facing_ 192 + +HADRIAN'S VILLA (diagram) 194 + +NAPLES (diagram) 196 + +CASTELLO DELL'OVO, NAPLES _facing_ 202 + +THE BAY OF NAPLES (map) 208 + +ISCHIA _facing_ 212 + +LAVA BEDS OF VESUVIAS (map) 213 + +THE EXCAVATIONS OF POMPEII (diagram) 216 + +THE ENVIRONS OF POMPEII _facing_ 218 + +ASSISI (arms) 228 + +ASSISI: ITS WALLS, CASTLE, AND CHURCH (diagram) 229 + +ARCHITECTURAL DETAIL, PERUGIA _facing_ 230 + +PALAZZO DUCALE, URBINO _facing_ 232 + +BRINDISI; THE TERMINAL COLUMN OF THE APPIAN WAY 240 + +TRAJAN'S ARCH, ANCONA _facing_ 242 + +CASTEL MALATESTA, RIMINI _facing_ 244 + +PALAZZO DI TEODORICO, RAVENNA _facing_ 248 + +COLUMN TO GASTON DE FOIX, RAVENNA 249 + +THE MADONNA OF CHIOGGIA 252 + +BORGIA ARMS 254 + +FERRARA _facing_ 254 + +CASA DEL PETRARCA, ARQUA 259 + +BOLOGNA (diagram) 267 + +THE LEANING TOWERS OF BOLOGNA _facing_ 268 + +PARMA (arms) 272 + +PIACENZA (diagram) 275 + +PADUA (arms) 278 + +IN PADUA _facing_ 280 + +PALACES OF THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE (diagram) 289 + +THE SO-CALLED "HOUSE OF DESDEMONA," VENICE _facing_ 290 + +ASOLO 296 + +VICENZA (diagram) 300 + +VICENZA _facing_ 302 + +SEAL OF VERONA 304 + +PALLAZZO DUCAL, MANTUA 311 + +ON THE LAGO DI GARDA _facing_ 314 + +CASTLE OF BRESCIA _facing_ 316 + +BERGAMO _facing_ 318 + +THE ITALIAN LAKES (map) 319 + +ON THE LAGO DI COMO _facing_ 322 + +CADENABBIA 324 + +ON THE LAGO DI MAGGIORE _facing_ 326 + +ORTA _facing_ 330 + +A LOMBARD FÊTE _facing_ 334 + +THE ANCIENT CASTLE OF MILAN _facing_ 338 + +THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY 345 + +PALAZZO MADONNA, TURIN _facing_ 346 + +ON THE STRADA, MONCENISIO _facing_ 350 + +CASTLE OF FÉNIS _facing_ 358 + + + + + Italian Highways and Byways + + From a Motor Car + + + + +CHAPTER I + +THE WAY ABOUT ITALY + + +One travels in Italy chiefly in search of the picturesque, but in +Florence, Rome, Naples, Venice or Milan, and in the larger towns lying +between, there is, in spite of the romantic association of great names, +little that appeals to one in a personal sense. One admires what Ruskin, +Hare or Symonds tells one to admire, gets a smattering of the romantic +history of the great families of the palaces and villas of Rome and +Florence, but absorbs little or nothing of the genuine feudal traditions +of the background regions away from the well-worn roads. + +Along the highways and byways runs the itinerary of the author and +illustrator of this book, and they have thus been able to view many of +the beauties and charms of the countryside which have been unknown to +most travellers in Italy in these days of the modern railway. + +_Alla Campagna_ was our watchword as we set out to pass as many of our +Italian days and nights as possible in places little celebrated in +popular annals, a better way of knowing Italy than one will ever know it +when viewed simply from the Vatican steps or Frascati's gardens. + +The palaces and villas of Rome, Florence and Venice are known to most +European travellers--as they know Capri, Vesuvius or Amalfi; but of the +grim castles of Ancona, of Rimini and Ravenna, and of the classic charms +of Taormina or of Sarazza they know considerably less; and still less of +Monte Cristo's Island, of Elba, of Otranto, and of the little +hidden-away mountain towns of the Alps of Piedmont and the Val d'Aoste. + +The automobile, as a means of getting about, has opened up many old and +half-used byways, and the automobile traveller of to-day may confidently +assert that he has come to know the countryside of a beloved land as it +was not even possible for his grandfathers to know it. + +The Italian tour may be made as a conducted tour, as an educative tour, +as a mere butterfly tour (as it often has been), or as a honeymoon +trip, but the reason for its making is always the same; the fact that +Italy is a soft, fair, romantic land where many things have existed, and +still exist, that may be found nowhere else on earth. + +The romance of travel and the process of gathering legends and tales of +local manners and customs is in no way spoiled because of modern means +of travel. Many a hitherto unexploited locality, with as worthy a +monumental shrine as many more celebrated, will now become accessible, +perhaps even well known. + +The pilgrim goes to Italy because of his devotion to religion, or to art +or architecture, and, since this is the reason for his going, it is this +reason, too, which has caused the making of more travel books on Italy +than on all other continental countries combined. There are some who +affect only "old masters" or literary shrines, others who crave palaces +or villas, and yet others who haunt the roulette tables of Monte Carlo, +Biarritz, or some exclusive Club in the "Eternal City." European travel +is all things to all men. + +The pilgrims that come to Italy in increasing numbers each year are not +all born and bred of artistic tastes, but the expedition soon brings a +glimmer of it to the most sordid soul that ever took his amusements +apart from his edification, and therein lies the secret of pleasurable +travel for all classes. The automobilist should bear this in mind and +not eat up the roadway through Æmilia at sixty miles an hour simply +because it is possible. There are things to see en route, though none of +your speeding friends have ever mentioned them. Get acquainted with them +yourself and pass the information on to the next. That is what the +automobile is doing for modern travel--more than the stage or the +railway ever did, and more than the aeroplane ever will! + +One does not forget the American who went home to the "Far West" and +recalled Rome as the city where he bought an alleged panama hat (made +probably at Leghorn). He is no myth. One sees his like every day. He who +hurried his daughter away from the dim outlined aisles of Milan's Gothic +wonder to see the new electric light works and the model tramway station +was one of these, but he was the better for having done a round of the +cathedrals of Italy, even if he did get a hazy idea of them mixed up +with his practical observations on street-lighting and transportation. + +Superficial Italian itineraries have been made often, and their +chronicles set down. They are still being made, and chronicled, but the +makers of guide books have, as yet, catered but little to the class of +leisurely travellers, a class who would like to know where some of these +unexploited monuments exist; where these unfamiliar histories and +legends may be heard, and how they may all be arrived at, absorbed and +digested. The people of the countryside, too, are usually more +interesting than those of the towns. One has only to compare the Italian +peasant and his picturesque life with the top-hatted and frock-coated +Roman of to-day to arrive quickly to a conclusion as to which is typical +of his surroundings. The Medicis, the Borgias, and the Colonnas have +gone, and to find the real romantic Italian and his manner of life one +has to hunt him in the small towns. + +The modern traveller in Italy by road will do well to recall the +conditions which met the traveller of past days. The mere recollection +of a few names and dates will enable the automobilist to classify his +impressions on the road in a more definite and satisfying manner than if +he took no cognizance of the pilgrims who have gone before. + +Chaucer set out ostensibly for Genoa in 1373 and incidentally met +Petrarch at Padua and talked shop. A monk named Felix, from Ulm on the +banks of the Danube, en route for Jerusalem, stopped off at Venice and +wrote things down about it in his diary, which he called a "faithful +description." Albrecht Durer visited Venice in 1505 and made friends +with many there, and from Venice went to Bologna and Ferrara. An English +crusading knight in the same century "took in" Italy en route to the +Holy Land, entering the country via Chambéry and Aiguebelle--the most +delightful gateway even to-day. Automobilists should work this itinerary +out on some diagrammatic road map. Martin Luther, "with some business to +transact with the Pope's Vicar," passed through Milan, Pavia, Bologna +and Florence on his way to Rome, and Rabelais in 1532 followed in the +train of Cardinal du Bellay, and his account of how he "saw the Pope" is +interesting reading in these days when even personally-conducted +tourists look forward to the same thing. Joachim du Bellay's "visions of +Rome" are good poetry, but as he was partisan to his own beloved _Loire +gaulois_, to the disparagement of the _Tiber latin_, their topographical +worth is somewhat discounted. + +Sir Philip Sidney was in Padua and Venice in 1573, and he brought back a +portrait of himself painted in the latter city by Paul Veronese, as +tourists to-day carry away wine glasses with their initials embossed on +them. The sentiment is the same, but taste was better in the old days. + +Rubens was at Venice in 1600, and there are those who say that +Shakespeare got his local colour "on the spot." Mr. Sidney Lee says no! + +Back to the land, as Dante, Petrarch, even Horace and Virgil, have said. +Dante the wayfarer was a mighty traveller, and so was Petrach. Horace +and Virgil took their viewpoints from the Roman capital, but they penned +faithful pictures which in setting and colouring have, in but few +instances, changed unto this day. + +Dante is believed to have been in Rome when the first sentence was +passed upon him, and from the Eternal City one can follow his +journeyings northward by easy stages to Siena and Arezzo, to the Alps, +to Padua, on the Aemilian Way, his wandering on Roman roads, his flight +by sea to Marseilles, again at Verona and finally at Ravenna, the last +refuge. + +This was an Italian itinerary worth the doing. Why should we modern +travellers not take some historical personage and follow his (or her) +footsteps from the cradle to the grave? To follow in the footsteps of +Jeanne d'Arc, of Dante Alighieri, or of Petrarch and his Laura--though +their ways were widely divergent--or of Henri IV, François I, or Charles +V, would add a zest and reason for being to an automobile tour of Europe +which no twenty-four hour record from London to Monte Carlo, or eighteen +hours from Naples to Geneva could possibly have. + +There is another class of travellers who will prefer to wax solemn over +the notorious journey to Italy of Alfred de Musset and Georges Sand. It +was a most romantic trip, as the world knows. De Musset even had to ask +his mother's consent to make it. The past mistress of eloquence appeared +at once on the maternal threshold and promised to look after the young +man--like a mother. + +De Musset's brother saw the pair off "on a misty melancholy evening," +and noted amongst other dark omens, that "the coach in which the +travellers took their seats was the thirteenth to leave the yard," but +for the life of us we cannot share his solemnity. The travellers met +Stendhal at Lyons. After supper "he was very merry, got rather drunk and +danced round the table in his big topboots." In Florence they could not +make up their minds whether to go to Rome or to Venice, and settled the +matter by the toss of a coin. Is it possible to care much for the +fortunes of two such heedless cynics? + +It is such itineraries as have here been outlined, the picking up of +more or less indistinct trails and following them a while, that gives +that peculiar charm to Italian travel. Not the dreamy, idling mood that +the sentimentalists would have us adopt, but a burning feverishness that +hardly allows one to linger before any individual shrine. Rather one is +pushed from behind and drawn from in front to an ever unreachable goal. +One never finishes his Italian travels. Once the habit is formed, it +becomes a disease. We care not that Cimabue is no longer considered to +be throned the painter of the celebrated Madonna in Santa Maria Novella, +or that Andrea del Sarto and his wife are no longer Andrea del Sarto and +his wife, so long as we can weave together a fabric which pleases us, +regardless of the new criticism,--or the old, for that matter. + +We used to go to the places marked on our railway tickets, and "stopped +off" only as the regulations allowed. Now we go where fancy wills and +stop off where the vagaries of our automobile force us to. And we get +more notions of Italy into our heads in six weeks than could otherwise +be acquired in six months. + +One need not go so very far afield to get away from the conventional in +Italy. Even that strip of coastline running from Menton in France to +Reggio in Calabria is replete with unknown, or at least unexploited, +little corners, which have a wealth of picturesque and romantic charm, +and as noble and impressive architectural monuments as one may find in +the peninsula. + +_Com è bella_, say the French honeymoon couples as they enter Italy via +the Milan Express over the Simplon; _com è bella_, say one and all who +have trod or ridden the highways and byways up and down and across +Italy; _com è bella_ is the pæan of every one who has made the Italian +round, whether they have been frequenters of the great cities and towns, +or have struck out across country for themselves and found some +creeper-clad ruin, or a villa in some ideally romantic situation which +the makers of guide-books never heard of, or have failed to mention. All +this is possible to the traveller by road in Italy, and one's only +unpleasant memories are of the _buona mano_ of the brigands of hotel +servants which infest the large cities and towns--about the only +brigands one meets in Italy to-day. + +The real Italy, the old Italy, still exists, though half hidden by the +wall of progress built up by young liberty-loving Italy since the days +of Garibaldi; but one has to step aside and look for the old régime. It +cannot always be discovered from the window of a railway carriage or a +hotel omnibus, though it is often brought into much plainer view from +the cushions of an automobile. "Motor Cars and the Genus Loci" was a +very good title indeed for an article which recently appeared in a +quarterly review. The writer ingeniously discovered--as some of the rest +of us have also--the real mission of the automobile. It takes us into +the heart of the life of a country instead of forcing us to travel in a +prison van on iron rails. + +Let the tourist in Italy "do"--and "do" as thoroughly as he likes--the +galleries of Rome, Florence, Siena, and Venice, but let him not neglect +the more appealing and far more natural uncontaminated beauties of the +countryside and the smaller towns, such as Caserta, Arezzo, Lucca, +Montepulciana, Barberino in Mugello and Ancona, and as many others as +fit well into his itinerary from the Alps to Ætna or from Reggio to +Ragusa. They lack much of the popular renown that the great centres +possess, but they still have an aspect of the reality of the life of +mediævalism which is difficult to trace when surrounded by all the +up-to-date and supposedly necessitous things which are burying Rome's +ruins deeper than they have ever yet been buried. It is difficult indeed +to imagine what old Rome was like, with Frascati given over to "hunt +parties" and the hotel drawing rooms replete with Hungarian orchestras. +It is difficult, indeed! + +Italy is a vast kinetoscope of heterogeneous sights and scenes and +memories and traditions such as exist on no other part of the earth's +surface. Of this there is no doubt, and yet each for himself may find +something new, whether it is a supposed "secret of the Vatican" or an +unheard of or forgotten romance of an Italian villa. This is the _genus +loci_ of Italy, the charm of Italy, the unresistible lodestone which +draws tens of thousands and perhaps hundreds of thousands thither each +year, from England and America. Italy is the most romantic touring +ground in all the world, and, though its highways and byways are not the +equal in surface of the "good roads" of France, they are, _in good +weather_, considerably better than the automobilist from overseas is +used to at home. At one place we found fifty kilometres of the worst +road we had ever seen in Italy immediately followed by a like stretch +of the best. The writer does not profess to be able to explain the +anomaly. In general the roads in the mountains are better than those at +low level, so one should plan his itineraries accordingly. + +The towns and cities of Italy are very well known to all well-read +persons, but of the countryside and its manners and customs this is not +so true. Modern painters have limned the outlines of San Marco at Venice +and the Castle of St. Angelo at Rome, on countless canvases, and +pictures of the "Grand Canal" and of "Vesuvius in Eruption" are familiar +enough; but paintings of the little hill towns, the wayside shrines, the +olive and orange groves, and vineyards, or a sketch of some quaint +roadside albergo made whilst the automobile was temporarily held up by a +tire blow out, is quite as interesting and not so common. There is many +a pine-clad slope, convent-crowned hill-top and castled crag in Italy as +interesting as the more famous, historic sites. + +To appreciate Italy one must know it from all sides and in all its +moods. The hurried itinerary which comprises getting off the ship at +Naples, doing the satellite resorts and "sights" which fringe Naples +Bay, and so on to Rome, Florence and Venice, and thence across +Switzerland, France and home is too frequently a reality. The +automobilist may have a better time of it if he will but be rational; +but, for the hurried flight above outlined, he should leave his +automobile at home and make the trip by "train de luxe." It would be +less costly and he would see quite as much of Italy--perhaps more. The +leisurely automobile traveller who rolls gently in and out of hitherto +unheard of little towns and villages is in another class and learns +something of a beloved land and the life of the people that the hurried +tourist will never suspect. + +The genuine vagabond traveller, even though he may be a lover of art and +architecture, and knows just how bad Canova's lions really are, is quite +as much concerned with the question as to why Italians drink wine red +instead of white, or why the sunny Sicilian will do more quarrelling and +less shovelling of dirt on a railroad or a canal job than his northern +brother. It is interesting, too, to learn something--by stumbling upon +it as we did--about Carrara marble, Leghorn hats and macaroni, which +used to form the bulk of the cargoes of ships sailing from Italian ports +to those of the United States. The Canovas, like the Botticellis, are +always there--it is forbidden to export art treasures from Italy, so +one can always return to confirm his suspicions--but the marble has +found its competitor elsewhere, Leghorn hats are now made in far larger +quantities in Philadelphia, and the macaroni sent out from Brooklyn in a +month would keep all Italy from starvation for a year. + +The Italian picture and its framing is like no other, whether one +commences with the snow-crested Alps of Piedmont and finishes with Bella +Napoli and its dazzling blue, or whether he finishes with the Queen of +the Adriatic and begins with Capri. It is always Italy. The same is not +true of France. Provence might, at times, and in parts, be taken for +Spain, Algeria or Corsica; Brittany for Ireland and Lorraine for +Germany. On the contrary Piedmont, in Italy, is nothing at all like +neighbouring Dauphiné or Savoie, nor is Liguria like Nice. + +As for the disadvantages of Italian travel, they do undoubtedly exist, +as well for the automobilist as for him who travels by rail. In the +first place, in spite of the picturesque charm of the Italian +countryside, the roads are, as a whole, not by any means the equal of +those of the rest of Europe--always, of course, excepting Spain. They +are far better indeed in Algeria and Tunisia. Hotel expenses are double +what they are in France for the same sort of accommodation--for the +automobilist at any rate. Garage accommodation is seldom, if ever, to be +found in the hotel, at least not of a satisfactory kind, and when found +costs anywhere from two to three, or even five, francs a night. Gasoline +and oil are held at inflated figures, though no one seems to know who +gets all the profit that comes from the fourteen to eighteen francs +which the Italian garage keeper or grocer or druggist takes for the +usual five gallons. + +With this information as a forewarning the stranger automobilist in +Italy will meet with no undue surprises except that bad weather, if he +happens to strike a spell, will considerably affect a journey that would +otherwise have proved enjoyable. + +The climate of Italy is far from being uniform. It is not all orange +groves and palm trees. Throughout Piedmont and Lombardy snow and frost +are the frequent accompaniments of winter. On the other hand the summers +are hot and prolific in thunder storms. In Venetia, thanks to the +influence of the Adriatic, the climate is more equable. In the centre, +Tuscany has a more nearly regular climate. From Naples south, one +encounters almost a North African temperature, and the south wind of the +desert, the _sirocco_, here blows as it does in Algeria and Tunisia, +though tempered somewhat by having crossed the Mediterranean. + +There are a hundred and twenty-five varieties of mosquitoes in Italy, +but with most of them their singing is worse than their stinging. The +Pontine Marches have long been the worst breeding places for mosquitoes +known to a suffering world. The mosquitoes of this region were supposed +to have been transmitters of malaria, so one day some Italian physicians +caught a good round batch of them and sent them up into a little village +in the Apennines whose inhabitants had never known malaria. Straightway +the whole population began to shake with the ague. That settled it, the +mosquito was a breeder of disease. + +The topography of Italy is of an extraordinary variety. The plains and +wastes of Calabria are the very antitheses of that semi-circular +mountain rampart of the Alps which defines the northern frontier or of +the great solid mass of the Apennines in Central Italy. Italy by no +means covers the vast extent of territory that the stranger at first +presupposes. From the northern frontier of Lombardy to the toe of the +Calabrian boot is considerable of a stretch to be sure, but for all that +the actual area is quite restricted, when compared with that of other +great continental powers. This is all the more reason for the +automobilist to go comfortably along and not speed up at every town and +village he comes to. + +The automobilist in Italy should make three vows before crossing the +frontier. The first not to attempt to see everything; the second to +review some of the things he has already seen or heard of; and the third +to leave the beaten track at least once and launch out for himself and +try to discover something that none of his friends have ever seen. + +The beaten track in Italy is not by any means an uninteresting +itinerary, and there is no really unbeaten track any more. What one can +do, and does, if he is imbued with the proper spirit of travel, is to +cover as much little-travelled ground as his instincts prompt him. +Between Florence and Rome and between Rome and Naples there is quite as +much to interest even the conventional traveller as in those cities +themselves, if he only knows where to look for it and knows the purport +of all the remarkable and frequent historical monuments continually +springing into view. Obscure villages, with good country inns where the +arrival of foreigners is an event, are quite as likely to offer +pleasurable sensations as those to be had at the six, eight or ten franc +a day pension of the cities. + +The landscape motives for the artist, to be found in Italy, are the most +varied of any country on earth. It is a wide range indeed from the +vineyard covered hillsides of Vicenza to the more grandiose country +around Bologna, to the dead-water lagoons before Venice is reached, to +the rocky coasts of Calabria, or to the chestnut groves of Ætna and the +Roman Campagna. + +The travelling American or Englishman is himself responsible for many of +the inconveniences to which he is subjected in Italy. The Italian may +know how to read his own class distinctions, but all Americans are alike +to him. Englishmen, as a rule, know the language better and they get on +better--very little. The Frenchman and the German have very little +trouble. They have less false pride than we. + +The American who comes to Italy in an automobile represents untold +wealth to the simple Italian; those who drive in two horse carriages and +stop at big hotels are classed in the same category. One may scarcely +buy anything in a decent shop, or enter an ambitious looking café, but +that the hangers-on outside mark him for a millionaire, while, if he is +so foolish as to fling handfuls of _soldi_ to an indiscriminate crowd of +ragamuffins from the balcony of his hotel, he will be pestered half to +death as long as he stays in the neighbourhood. And he deserves what he +gets! There is a way to counteract all this but each must learn it for +himself. There is no set formula. + +Beggars are importunate in certain places in Italy be-ridden of +tourists, but after all no more so than elsewhere, and the travelling +public, as much as anything else, conduces to the continued existence of +the plague. If Italy had to choose between suppressing beggars or +foregoing the privilege of having strangers from overseas coming to view +her monuments she would very soon choose the former. If the beggars +could not make a living at their little game they too would stop of +their own accord. The question resolves itself into a strictly personal +one. If it pleases you to throw pennies from your balcony, your carriage +or your automobile to a gathered assembly of curious, do so! It is the +chief means of proving, to many, that they are superior to "foreigners!" +The little-travelled person does this everywhere,--on the terrace of +Shepheard's at Cairo, on the boulevard café terraces at Algiers, from +the deck of his ship at Port Said, from the tables even of the Café de +la Paix;--so why should he not do it at Naples, at Venice, at Rome? For +no reason in the world, except that it's a nuisance to other travellers, +decidedly an objectionable practice to hotel, restaurant and shop +keepers, and a cause of great annoyance and trouble to police and civic +authorities. The following pages have been written and illustrated as a +truthful record of what two indefatigable automobile travellers have +seen and felt. + +We were dutifully ravished by the splendours of the Venetian palaces, +and duly impressed by the massiveness of Sant'Angelo; but we were more +pleased by far in coming unexpectedly upon the Castle of Fénis in the +Valle d'Aoste, one of the finest of all feudal fortresses; or the Castle +of Rimini sitting grim and sad in the Adriatic plain; or the Villa +Cesarini outside of Perugia, which no one has ever reckoned as a +wonder-work of architecture, but which all the same shows all of the +best of Italian villa elements. + +Our taste has been catholic, and the impressions set forth herein are +our own. Others might have preferred to admire some splendid church +whilst we were speculating as to some great barbican gateway or watch +tower. A saintly shrine might have for some more appeal than a hillside +fortified _Rocca_; and again some convent nunnery might have a +fascination that a rare old Renaissance house, now turned into a +macaroni factory, or a wine press, might not. + + + + +CHAPTER II + +OF ITALIAN MEN AND MANNERS + + +Italian politics have ever been a game of intrigue, and of the +exploiting of personal ambition. It was so in the days of the Popes; it +is so in these days of premiers. The pilots of the ships of state have +never had a more perilous passage to navigate than when manoeuvring in +the waters of Italian politics. + +There is great and jealous rivalry between the cities of Italy. The +Roman hates the Piedmontese and the Neapolitan and the Bolognese, and +they all hate the Roman,--capital though Rome is of Church and State. + +[Illustration: ITALY In The XVIII Century] + +The Evolution of Nationality has ever been an interesting subject to the +stranger in a strange land. When the national spirit at last arose Italy +had reached modern times and become modern instead of mediæval. National +character is born of environment, but nationalism is born only of +unassailable unity, a thorough absorbing of a love of country. The +inhabitant of Rouen, the ancient Norman capital, is first, last and all +the time a Norman, but he is also French; and the dweller in Rome or +Milan is as much an Italian as the Neapolitan, though one and all +jealously put the Campagna, Piedmont, or the Kingdom of Naples before +the Italian boot as a geographical division. Sometimes the same idea is +carried into politics, but not often. Political warfare in Italy is +mostly confined to the unquenchable prejudices existing between the +Quirinal and the Vatican, a sort of _inter urban_ warfare, which has +very little of the aspect of an international question, except as some +new-come diplomat disturbs the existing order of things. The Italian has +a fondness for the Frenchman, and the French nation. At least the +Italian politician has, or professes to have, when he says to his +constituency: "I wish always for happy peaceful relations with France +... but I don't forget Magenta and Solferino." + +The Italians of the north are the emigrating Italians, and make one of +the best classes of labourers, when transplanted to a foreign soil. The +steamship recruiting agents placard every little background village of +Tuscany and Lombardy with the attractions of New York, Chicago, New +Orleans and Buenos Ayres, and a hundred or so _lire_ paid into the +agent's coffers does the rest. + +Calabria and Sicily are less productive. The sunny Sicilian always wants +to take his gaudily-painted farm cart with him, and as there is no +economic place for such a useless thing in America, he contents himself +with a twenty-hour sea voyage to Tunisia where he can easily get back +home again with his cart, if he doesn't like it. + +Every Italian peasant, man, woman and child, knows America. You may not +pass the night at Barberino di Mugello, may not stop for a glass of wine +at the _Osteria_ on the Futa Pass, or for a repast at some classically +named _borgo_ on the Voie Æmilia but that you will set up longings in +the heart of the natives who stand around in shoals and gaze at your +automobile. + +They all have relatives in America, in New York, New Orleans or Cripple +Creek, or perhaps Brazil or the Argentine, and, since money comes +regularly once or twice a year, and since thousands of touring Americans +climb about the rocks at Capri or drive fire-spouting automobiles up +through the Casentino, they know the new world as a land of dollars, and +dream of the day when they will be able to pick them up in the streets +paved with gold. That is a fairy-tale of America that still lives in +Italy. + +[Illustration: Barberino di Mugello] + +Besides emigrating to foreign lands, the Italian peasant moves about his +own country to an astonishing extent, often working in the country in +summer, and in the towns the rest of the time as a labourer, or artisan. +The typical Italian of the poorer class is of course the peasant of the +countryside, for it is a notable fact that the labourer of the cities is +as likely to be of one nationality as another. Different sections of +Italy have each their distinct classes of country folk. There are +landowners, tenants, others who work their land on shares, mere +labourers and again simple farming folk who hire others to aid them in +their work. + +The _braccianti_, or farm labourers, are worthy fellows and seemingly as +intelligent workers as their class elsewhere. In Calabria they are +probably less accomplished than in the region of the great areas of +worked land in central Italy and the valley of the Po. + +The _mezzadria_ system of working land on shares is found all over +Italy. On a certain prearranged basis of working, the landlord and +tenant divide the produce of the farm. There are, accordingly, no +starving Italians, a living seemingly being assured the worker in the +soil. In Ireland where it is rental pure and simple, and foreclosure and +eviction if the rent is not promptly paid, the reverse is the case. +Landlordism of even the paternal kind--if there is such a thing--is +bad, but co-operation between landlord and tenant seems to work well in +Italy. It probably would elsewhere. + +The average Italian small farm, or _podere_, worked only by the family, +is a very unambitious affair, but it produces a livelihood. The house is +nothing of the vine-clad Kent or Surrey order, and the principal +apartment is the kitchen. One or two bedrooms complete its appointments, +with a stone terrace in front of the door as it sits cosily backed up +against some pleasant hillside. + +There are few gimcracks and dust-harbouring rubbish within, and what +simple furniture there is is clean--above all the bed-linen. The stable +is a building apart, and there is usually some sort of an out-house +devoted to wine-pressing and the like. + +A kitchen garden and an orchard are near by, and farther afield the +larger area of workable land. A thousand or twelve hundred lire a year +of ready money passing through the hands of the head of the family will +keep father, mother and two children going, besides which there is the +"living," the major part of the eatables and drinkables coming off the +property itself. + +The Italians are as cleanly in their mode of life as the people of any +other nation in similar walks. Let us not be prejudiced against the +Italian, but make some allowance for surrounding conditions. In the +twelfth century in Italy the grossness and uncleanliness were +incredible, and the manners laid down for behaviour at table make us +thankful that we have forks, pocket-handkerchiefs, soap and other +blessings! But then, where were we in the twelfth century! + +No branch of Italian farming is carried on on a very magnificent scale. +In America the harvests are worked with mechanical reapers; in England +it is done with sickle and flail or out of date patterns of American +machines, but in Italy the peasant still works with the agricultural +implements of Bible times, and works as hard to raise and harvest one +bushel of wheat as a Kansas farmer does to grow, harvest and market six. +The American farmer has become a financier; the Italian is still in the +bread-winning stage. Five hundred labourers in Dakota, of all +nationalities under the sun, be it remarked, on the Dalrymple farm, cut +more wheat than any five thousand peasants in Europe. The peasant of +Europe is chiefly in the stage of begging the Lord for his daily bread, +but as soon as he gets out west in America, he buys store things, +automatic pianos and automobile buggies. No wonder he emigrates! + +The Italian peasant doesn't live so badly as many think, though true it +is that meat is rare enough on his table. He eats something more than a +greasy rag and an olive, as the well-fed Briton would have us believe; +and something more than macaroni, as the American fondly thinks. For one +thing, he has his eternal _minestra_, a good, thick soup of many things +which Anglo-Saxons would hardly know how to turn into as wholesome and +nourishing a broth; meat of any kind, always what the French call _pate +d'Italie_, and herbs of the field. The macaroni, the olives, the cheese +and the wine--always the wine--come after. Not bad that; considerably +better than corned beef and pie, and far, far better than boiled mutton +and cauliflower as a steady diet! Britons and Americans should wake up +and learn something about gastronomy. + +The general expenses of middle-class domestic town life in Italy are +lower than in most other countries, and the necessities for outlay are +smaller. The Italian, even comfortably off in the working class, is less +inclined to spend money on luxurious trivialities than most of us. He +prefers to save or invest his surplus. One takes central Italy as +typical because, if it is not the most prosperous, considered from an +industrial point of view, it is still the region endowed with the +greatest natural wealth. By this is meant that the conditions of life +are there the easiest and most comfortable. + +A middle class town family with an income of six or seven thousand lire +spends very little on rent to begin with; pretence based upon the size +of the front door knob cuts no figure in the Italian code of pride. This +family will live in a flat, not in a _villini_ as separate town houses +are called. One sixth of the family income will go for rent, and though +the apartment may be bare and grim and lack actual luxury it will +possess amplitude, ten or twelve rooms, and be near the centre of the +town. This applies in the smaller cities of from twenty to fifty +thousand inhabitants. With very little modification the same will apply +in Rome or Naples, and, with perhaps none at all, at Florence. + +The all important servant question would seem to be more easily solved +in Italy than elsewhere, but it is commonly the custom to treat Italian +servants as one of the family--so far as certain intimacies and +affections go--though, perhaps this of itself has some unanticipated +objections. The Italian servants have the reputation of becoming like +feudal retainers; that is, they "stay on the job," and from eight to +twenty-five lire a month pays their wages. In reality they become almost +personal or body servants, for in few Italian cities, and certainly not +in Italian towns, are they obliged to occupy themselves with the +slogging work of the London slavey, or the New York chore-woman. An +Italian servant, be she young or old, however, has a seeming disregard +for a uniform or badge of servitude, and is often rather sloppy in +appearance. She is, for that, all the more picturesque since, if untidy, +she is not apt to be loathsomely dirty in her apparel or her manner of +working. + +[Illustration: A Chianti Seller] + +The Italian of all ranks is content with two meals a day, as indeed we +all ought to be. The continental morning coffee and roll, or more likely +a sweet cake, is universal here, though sometimes the roll is omitted. +Lunch is comparatively a light meal, and dinner at six or seven is +simply an amplified lunch. The chianti of Tuscany is the usual wine +drunk at all meals, or a substitute for it less good, though all red +wine in Italy seems to be good, cheap and pure. Adulteration is +apparently too costly a process. Wine and biscuits take the place of +afternoon tea--and with advantage. The wine commonly used _en +famille_ is seldom bought at more than 1.50 lira the flagon of two and a +half litres, and can be had for half that price. Sugar and salt are +heavily taxed, and though that may be a small matter with regard to salt +it is something of an item with sugar. + +Wood is almost entirely the fuel for cooking and heating, and the latter +is very inefficient coming often from simple braziers or _scaldini_ +filled with embers and set about where they are supposed to do the most +good. If one does not expire from the cold before the last spark has +departed from the already dying embers when they are brought in, he +orders another and keeps it warm by enveloping it as much as possible +with his person. Italian heating arrangements are certainly more +economical than those in Britain, but are even less efficient, as most +of the caloric value of wood and coal goes up the chimney with the +smoke. The American system of steam heat--on the "_chauffage centrale_" +plan--will some day strike Europe, and then the householder will buy his +heat on the water, gas and electric light plan. Till then southern +Europe will freeze in winter. + +In Rome and Florence it is a very difficult proceeding to be able to +control enough heat--by any means whatever--to properly warm an +apartment in winter. If the apartment has no chimney, and many haven't +in the living rooms, one perforce falls back again on the classic +_scaldini_ placed in the middle of the room and fired up with charcoal. +Then you huddle around it like Indians in a wigwam and, if you don't +take a short route into eternity by asphyxiation, your extremities +ultimately begin to warm up; when they begin to get chilly again you +recommence the firing up. This is more than difficult; it is +inconvenient and annoying. + +The manners and customs of the Italians of the great cities differ +greatly from those of the towns and villages, and those of the Romans +differ greatly from those of the inhabitants of Milan, Turin or Genoa. +The Roman, for instance, hates rain--and he has his share of it too--and +accordingly is more often seen with an umbrella than without one. +Brigands are supposedly the only Italians who don't own an umbrella, +though why the distinction is so apparent a mere dweller beyond the +frontier cannot answer. + +In Rome, in Naples, and in all the cities and large towns of Italy, the +population rises early, but they don't get down to business as speedily +as they might. The Italian has not, however, a prejudice against new +ideas, and the Italian cities and large towns are certainly very much +up-to-date. Italians are at heart democrats, and rank and title have +little effect upon them. + +The Italian government still gives scant consideration to savings banks, +but legalizes, authorizes and sometimes backs up lotteries. At all times +it controls them. This is one of the inconsistencies of the tunes played +by the political machine in modern Italy. Anglo-Saxons may bribe and +graft; but they do not countenance lotteries, which are the greatest +thieving institutions ever invented by the ingenuity of man, in that +they _do_ rob the _poor_. It is the _poor_ almost entirely who support +them. The rich have bridge, baccarat, Monte Carlo and the Stock +Exchange. + +It may be bad for the public, this legalized gambling, but all gambling +is bad, and certainly state-controlled lotteries are no worse than +licensed or unlicensed pool-rooms and bucket shops, winked-at +dice-throwing in bar rooms, or crap games on every corner. + +The Italian administration received the enormous total of 74,400,000 +lire for lottery tickets in 1906, and of this sum 35,000,000 lire were +returned in prizes, and 6,500,000 went for expenses. A fine net profit +of 33,000,000 lire, all of which, save what stuck to the fingers of the +bureaucracy in passing through, went to reduce taxation which would +otherwise be levied. + +The Italian plays the lottery with the enthusiastic excitement of a too +shallow and too confident brain. + +Various combinations of figures seem possible of success to the Italian +who at the weekend puts some bauble in pawn with the hope that something +will come his way. After the drawing, before the Sunday dawns, he is +quite another person, considerably less confident of anything to happen +in the future, and as downcast as a sunny Italian can be. + +This passion for drawing lots is something born in him; even if +lotteries were not legalized, he would still play _lotto_ in secret, for +in enthusiasm for games of chance, he rivals the Spaniard. + +But Italy is not the country of illiterates that the stranger +presupposes. Campania is the province where one finds the largest number +of lettered, and Basilicate the least. + +Military service begins and is compulsory for all male Italians at the +age of twenty. It lasts for nineteen years, of which three only are in +active service. The next five or six in the reserve, the next three or +four in the Militia and the next seven in the "territorial" Militia, or +landguard. + +Conscription also applies to the naval service for the term of twelve +years. + +The military element, which one meets all over Italy, is astonishingly +resplendent in colours and plentiful in numbers. At most, among +hundreds, perhaps thousands, of officers of all ranks, there can hardly +be more than a few score of privates. It is either this or the officers +keep continually on the move in order to create an illusion of numbers! + +Class distinctions, in all military grades, and in all lands, are very +marked, but in Italy the obeisance of a private before the slightest +loose end of gold braid is very marked. The Italian private doesn't seem +to mark distinctions among the official world beyond the sight of gold +braid. A steamboat captain, or a hall porter in some palatial hotel +would quite stun him. + +The Italian gendarmes are a picturesque and resplendent detail of every +gathering of folk in city, town or village. On a _festa_ they shine more +grandly than at other times, and the privilege of being arrested by such +a gorgeous policeman must be accounted as something of a social +distinction. The holding up of an automobilist by one of these gentry +is an affair which is regulated with as much pomp and circumstance as +the crowning of a king. The writer knows!! + +Just how far the Italian's criminal instincts are more developed than +those of other races and climes has no place here, but is it not fair to +suppose that the half a million of Italians--mostly of the lower +classes--who form a part of the population of cosmopolitan New York are +of a baser instinct than any half million living together on the +peninsula? Probably they are; the Italian on his native shore does not +strike us as a very villainous individual. + +But he is usually a lively person; there is nothing calm and sedentary +about him; though he has neither the grace of the Gascon, the joy of the +Kelt, or the pretence of the Provençal, he does not seem wicked or +criminal, and those who habitually carry dirks and daggers and play in +Black Hand dramas live for the most part across the seas. + +The Italian secret societies are supposed hot beds of crime, and many of +them certainly exist, though they do not practise their rites in the +full limelight of publicity as they do in America. + +The Neapolitan Camarra is the best organized of all the Italian secret +societies. It is divided, military-like, into companies, and is +recruited, also in military fashion, to make up for those who have died +or been "replaced." + +The origin of secret societies will probably never be known. Italy was +badly prepared to gather the fruits to be derived from the French +Revolution, and it is possible that then the activity of the Carbonari, +Italy's most popular secret society, began. The Mafia is more ancient +and has a direct ancestry for nearly a thousand years. + +A hundred and twenty-five years ago the seed of secret dissatisfaction +had already been spread for years through Italy. The names of the +societies were many. Some of them were called the Protectori +Republicani, the Adelfi, the Spilla Nera, the Fortezza, the Speranza, +the Fratelli, and a dozen other names. On the surface the code of the +Carbonari reads fairly enough, but there is nothing to show that any +attempt was made to stamp out perhaps the most generally honoured of the +traditions of Naples--that of homicide. + +The long political blight of the centuries, the curse of feudalism, the +rottenness of ignorance and superstition, had eaten out nearly every +vestige of political and self-respecting spirit. After the restoration +of the Bourbons the influences of the secret societies in Southern Italy +were manifested by the large increase of murders. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +CHIANTI AND MACARONI + +_A Chapter for Travellers by Road or Rail_ + + +The hotels of Italy are dear or not, according to whether one patronizes +a certain class of establishment. At Trouville, at Aix-les-Bains in +France, at Cernobbio in the Italian Lake region, or on the Quai +Parthenope at Naples, there is little difference in price or quality, +and the cuisine is always French. + +The automobilist who demands garage accommodation as well will not +always find it in the big city hotel in Italy. He may patronize the F. +I. A. T. Garages in Rome, Naples, Genoa, Milan, Florence, Venice, Turin +and Padua and find the best of accommodation and fair prices. For a +demonstration of this he may compare what he gets and what he pays for +it at Pisa--where a F. I. A. T. garage is wanting--and note the +difference. + +The real Italian hotel, outside the great centres, has less of a +clientèle of snobs and _malades imaginaires_ than one finds in +France--in the Pyrenees or on the Riviera, or in Switzerland among the +Alps, and accordingly there is always accommodation to be found that is +in a class between the resplendent gold-lace and silver-gilt +establishments of the resorts and working-men's lodging houses. True +there is the same class of establishment existing in the smaller cities +in France, but the small towns of France are not yet as much "travelled" +by strangers as are those of Italy, and hence the difference to be +remarked. + +The real Italian hotels, not the tourist establishments, will cater for +one at about one half the price demanded by even the second order of +tourist hotels, and the Italian landlord shows no disrespect towards a +client who would know his price beforehand--and he will usually make it +favourable at the first demand, for fear you will "shop around" and +finally go elsewhere. + +[Illustration: A Wayside Trattoria] + +The automobile here, as everywhere, tends to elevate prices, but much +depends on the individual attitude of the traveller. A convincing air of +independence and knowledge on the part of the automobilist, _as he +arrives_, will speedily put him en rapport with the Italian landlord. +Look as wise as possible and always ask the price beforehand--even +while your motor is still chugging away. That never fails to bring +things to a just and proper relation. + +It is at Florence, and in the environs of Naples, of all the great +tourist centres, that one finds the best fare at the most favourable +prices, but certainly at Rome and Venice, in the great hotels, it is far +less attractive and a great deal dearer, delightful though it may be to +sojourn in a palace of other days. + +The Italian wayside inns, or _trattoria_, are not all bad; neither are +they all good. The average is better than it has usually been given the +credit of being, and the automobile is doing much here, as in France, +towards a general improvement. A dozen automobiles, with a score or more +of people aboard, may come and go in a day to a little inn in some +picturesque framing on a main road, say that between Siena and Rome via +Orvieto, or to Finale Marina or Varazze in Liguria, to one carriage and +pair with two persons and a driver. Accordingly, this means increased +prosperity for the inn-holder, and he would be a dull wit indeed if he +didn't see it. He does see it in France, with a very clear vision; in +Italy, with a point of view very little dimmed; in Switzerland, when the +governmental authorities will let him; and in England, when the country +boniface comes anywhere near to being the intelligent person that his +continental compeer finds himself. This is truth, plain, unvarnished +truth, just as the writer has found it. Others may have their own ideas +about the subject, but this is the record of one man's experiences, and +presumably of some others. + +The chief disadvantages of the hotel of the small Italian town are its +often crowded and incomplete accessories, and its proximity to a stable +of braying donkeys, bellowing cows, or an industrious blacksmith who +begins before sun-up to pound out the same metallic ring that his +confrères do all over the world. There is nothing especially Italian +about a blacksmith's shop in Italy. All blacksmith interiors are the +same whether painted by "Old Crome," Eastman Johnson or Jean François +Millet. + +The idiosyncrasies of the inns of the small Italian towns do not +necessarily preclude their offering good wholesome fare to the +traveller, and this in spite of the fact that not every one likes his +salad with garlic in liberal doses or his macaroni smothered in oil. +Each, however, is better than steak smothered in onions or potatoes +fried in lard; any "hygienist" will tell you that. + +The trouble with most foreigners in Italy, when they begin to talk about +the rancid oil and other strange tasting native products, is that they +have not previously known the real thing. Olive oil, real olive oil, +tastes like--well, like olive oil. The other kinds, those we are mostly +used to elsewhere, taste like cotton seed or peanut oil, which is +probably what they are. One need not blame the Italian for this, though +when he himself eats of it, or gives it you to eat, it is the genuine +article. You may eat it or not, according as you may like it or not, but +the Italian isn't trying to poison you or work off anything on your +stomach half so bad as the rancid bacon one sometimes gets in Germany or +the kippers of two seasons ago that appear all over England in the small +towns. + +As before intimated, the chief trouble with the small hotels in Italy is +their deficiencies, but the Touring Club Italiano in Italy, like the +Touring Club de France in France, is doing heroic work in educating the +country inn-keeper. Why should not some similar institution do the same +thing in England and America? How many American country hotels, in towns +of three or five thousand people, in say Georgia or Missouri, would get +up, for the chance traveller who dropped in on them unexpectedly, a +satisfactory meal? Not many, the writer fancies. + +There is, all over Europe, a desire on the part of the small or large +hotel keeper to furnish meals out of hours, and often at no increase in +price. The automobilist appreciates this, and has come to learn in Italy +that the old Italian proverb "_chi tardi arriva mal alloggia_" is +entirely a myth of the guide books of a couple of generations ago. A +cold bird, a dish of macaroni, a salad and a flask of wine will try no +inn-keeper's capabilities, even with no notice beforehand. The Italian +would seemingly prefer to serve meals in this fashion than at the +_tavola rotonda_, which is the Italian's way of referring to a _table +d'hôte_. If you have doubts as to your Italian Boniface treating you +right as to price (after you have eaten of his fare) arrange things +beforehand a _prezzo fisso_ and you will be safe. + +As for wine, the cheapest is often as good as the best in the small +towns, and is commonly included in the _prezzo fisso_, or should be. +It's for you to see that you get it on that basis of reckoning. + +The _padrona_ of an Italian country inn is very democratic; he believes +in equality and fraternity, and whether you come in a sixty-horse +Mercédès or on donkey-back he sits you down in a room with a mixed crew +of his countrymen and pays no more attention to you than if you were one +of them. That is, he doesn't exploit you as does the Swiss, he doesn't +overcharge you, and he doesn't try to tempt your palate with poor +imitation of the bacon and eggs of old England, or the tenderloins of +America. He gives you simply the fare of the country and lets it go at +that. + +Of Italian inns, it may be truly said the day has passed when the +traveller wished he was a horse in order that he might eat their food; +oats being good everywhere. + +The fare of the great Italian cities, at least that of the hotels +frequented by tourists, has very little that is _national_ about it. To +find these one has to go elsewhere, to the small Italian hotels in the +large towns, along with the priests and the soldiers, or keep to the +byways. + +The _polenta_, or corn-meal bread, and the _companatico_, sardines, +anchovies or herrings which are worked over into a paste and spread on +it butter-wise, is everywhere found, and it is good. No _osteria_ or +_trattoria_ by the roadside, but will give you this on short order if +you do not seek anything more substantial. The _minestra_, or cabbage +soup--it may not be cabbage at all, but it looks it--a sort of "_omnium +gatherum_" soup--is warming and filling. _Polenta_, _companatico_, +_minestra_ and a salad, with _fromaggio_ to wind up with, and red wine +to drink, ought not to cost more than a lira, or a lira and a half at +the most wherever found. You won't want to continue the same fare for +dinner the same day, perhaps, but it works well for luncheon. + +Pay no charges for attendance. No one does anyway, but tourists of +convention. Let the _buono mano_ to the waiter who serves you be the +sole largess that you distribute, save to the man-of-all-work who brings +you water for the thirsty maw of your automobile, or to the amiable, +sunshiny individual who lugs your baggage up and down to and from your +room. This is quite enough, heaven knows, according to our democratic +ideas. At any rate, pay only those who serve you, in Italy, as +elsewhere, and don't merely tip to impress the waiter with your +importance. He won't see it that way. + +The Italian _albergo_, or hotel of the small town, is apt to be poorly +and meanly furnished, even in what may be called "public rooms," though, +indeed, there are frequently no public rooms in many more or less +pretentious Italian inns. If there ever is a salon or reception room it +is furnished scantily with a rough, uncomfortable sofa covered with a +gunny sack, a small square of fibre carpeting (if indeed it has any +covering whatever to its chilly tile or stone floor), and a few rush +covered chairs. Usually there is no chimney, but there is always a +stuffy lambrequined curtain at each window, almost obliterating any rays +of light which may filter feebly through. In general the average +reception room of any Italian albergo (except those great joint-stock +affairs of the large cities which adopt the word hotel) is an +uncomfortable and unwholesome apartment. One regrets to say this but it +is so. + +Beds in Italian hotels are often "queer," but they are surprisingly and +comfortably clean, considering their antiquity. Every one who has +observed the Italian in his home, in Italy or in some stranger land, +even in a crowded New York tenement, knows that the Italian sets great +store by his sleeping arrangements and their proper care. It is an +ever-to-be-praised and emulated fact that the common people of +continental Europe are more frequently "luxurious" with regard to their +beds and bed linen than is commonly supposed. They may eat off of an +oilcloth (which by some vague conjecture they call "American cloth") +covered table, may dip their fingers deep in the _polenta_ and throw +bones on the tile or brick floor to the dogs and cats edging about their +feet, but the _draps_ of their beds are real, rough old linen, not the +ninety-nine-cent-store kind of the complete house-furnishing +establishments. + +The tiled floor of the average Italian house, and of the kitchens and +dining room of many an Italian inn, is the ever at hand receptacle of +much refuse food that elsewhere is relegated to the garbage barrel. +Between meals, and bright and early in the morning, everything is +flushed out with as generous a supply of water as is used by the Dutch +_housvrou_ in washing down the front steps. Result: the microbes don't +rest behind, as they do on our own carpeted dining rooms, a despicable +custom which is "growing" with the hotel keepers of England and America. +Another idol shattered! + +What you don't find in the small Italian hotels are baths, nor in many +large ones either. When you do find a _baignoir_ in Europe (except those +of the very latest fashion) it is a poor, shallow affair with a plug +that pulls up to let the water out, but with no means of getting it in +except to pour it in from buckets. This is a fault, sure enough, and +it's not the American's idea of a bath tub at all, though it seems to +suit well enough the Englishman en tour. + +France is, undoubtedly, the land of good cooks _par excellence_, but the +Italian of all ranks is more of a gourmet than he is usually accounted. +There may be some of his tribe that live on bread and cheese, but if he +isn't outrageously poor he usually eats well, devotes much time to the +preparing and cooking of his meals, and considerably more to the eating +of them. The Italian's cooking utensils are many and varied and above +all picturesque, and his table ware invariably well conditioned and +cleanly. Let this opinion (one man's only, again let it be remembered) +be recorded as a protest against the universally condemned _dirty_ +Italian, who _supposedly_ eats cats and dogs, as the Chinaman +_supposedly_ eats rats and mice. We are not above reproach ourselves; we +eat mushrooms, frog legs and some other things besides which are +certainly not cleanly or healthful. + +More than one Italian inn owes its present day prosperity to the travel +by road which frequently stops before its doors. Twenty-five years ago, +indeed much less, the _vetturino_ deposited his load of sentimental +travellers, accompanied perhaps by a courier, at many a miserable +wayside _osteria_, which fell far short of what it should be. To-day +this has all changed for the better. + +Tourists of all nationalities and all ranks make Italy their playground +to-day, as indeed they have for generations. There is no diminution in +their numbers. English minor dignitaries of the church jostle Pa and Ma +and the girls from the Far West, and Germans, fiercely and wondrously +clad, peer around corners and across lagoons with field glasses of a +size and power suited to a Polar Expedition. Everybody is "doing" +everything, as though their very lives depended upon their absorbing as +much as possible of local colour, and that as speedily as possible. It +will all be down in the bill, and they mean to have what they are paying +for. This is one phase of Italian travel that is unlovely, but it is the +phase that one sees in the great tourist hotels and in the chief tourist +cities, not elsewhere. + +To best know Italian fare as also Italian manners and customs, one must +avoid the restaurants and trattoria asterisked by Baedeker and search +others out for himself; they will most likely be as good, much cheaper, +more characteristic of the country and one will not be eternally +pestered to eat beefsteak, ham and saurkraut, or to drink _paleale_ or +whiskey. Instead, he will get macaroni in all shapes and sizes, and +tomato sauce and cheese over everything, to say nothing of rice, +artichokes and onions now and again, and oil, of the olive brand, in +nearly every _plat_. If you don't like these things, of course, there is +no need going where they are. Stick to the beefsteak and _paleale_ then! +Romantic, sentimental Italy is disappearing, the Italians are becoming +practical and matter of fact; it is only those with memories of +Browning, Byron, Shelley, Leopold Robert and Boeklin that would have +Italy sentimental anyway. + +Maximilien Mission, a Protestant refugee from France in 1688, had +something to say of the inns at Venice, which is interesting reading +to-day. He says:--"There are some good inns at Venice; the 'Louvre,' the +'White Lyon,' the 'Arms of France;' the first entertains you for eight +livres (lire) per day, the other two somewhat cheaper, but you must +always remember to bargain for everything that you have. A gondola costs +something less than a livre (lire) an hour, or for a superior looking +craft seven or eight livres a day." + +This is about the price of the Venetian water craft when hired to-day, +two centuries and more after. The hotel prices too are about what one +pays to-day in the smaller inns of the cities and in those of the towns. +All over Italy, even on the shores of the Bay of Naples, crowded as they +are with tourists of all nationalities and all ranks, one finds isolated +little Italian inns, backed up against a hillside or crowning some rocky +promontory, where one may live in peace and plenitude for six or seven +francs a day. And one is not condemned to eating only the national +macaroni either. Frankly, the Neapolitan restaurateur often scruples as +much to put macaroni before his stranger guests as does the Bavarian +inn-keeper to offer sausage at each repast. Some of us regret that this +is so, but since macaroni in some form or other can always be had in +Italy, and sausages in Germany, for the asking, no great inconvenience +is caused. + +Macaroni is the national dish of Italy, and very good it is too, though +by no means does one have to live off it as many suppose. +Notwithstanding, macaroni goes with Italy, as do crackers with cheese. +There are more shapes and sizes of macaroni than there are beggars in +Naples. + +The long, hollow pipe stem, known as Neapolitan, and the vermicelli, +which isn't hollow, but is as long as a shoe string, are the leading +varieties. Tiny grains, stars, letters of the alphabet and extraordinary +animals that never came out of any ark are also fashioned out of the +same _pasta_, or again you get it in sheets as big as a good sized +handkerchief, or in piping of a diameter of an inch, or more. + +The Romans kneaded their flour by means of a stone cylinder called a +_maccaro_. The name macaroni is supposed to have been derived from this +origin. + +Naples is the centre of the macaroni industry, but it is made all over +the world. That made in Brooklyn would be as good as that made in Naples +if it was made of Russian wheat instead of that from Dakota. As it is +now made it is decidedly inferior to the Italian variety. By contrast, +that made in Tunis is as good as the Naples variety. Russian wheat +again! + +A macaroni factory looks, from the outside, like a place devoted to +making rope. Inside it feels like an inferno. It doesn't pay to get too +well acquainted with the process of making macaroni. + +The flour paste is run out of little tubes, or rolled out by big +rollers, or cut out by little dies, thus taking its desired forms. The +long, stringy macaroni is taken outside and hung up to dry like clothes +on a line, except that it is hung on poles. The workmen are lightly and +innocently clad, and the workshops themselves are kept at as high a +temperature as the stoke-room of a liner. Whether this is really +necessary or not, the writer does not know, but he feels sure that some +genius will, some day, evolve a process which will do away with hand +labour in the making of macaroni. It will be mixed by machinery, baked +by electricity and loaded up on cars and steamships by the same power. + +The street macaroni merchants of Naples sell the long ropy kind to all +comers, and at a very small price one can get a "filling" meal. You get +it served on a dish, but without knives, forks or chop sticks. You eat +it with your fingers and your mouth. + +The meat is tough in Italy, often enough. There is no doubt about that. +But it is usually a great deal better than it is given credit for being. +The day is past, if it ever existed, when the Anglo-Saxon traveller was +forced to quit Italy "because he could not live without good meat." This +was the classic complaint of the innocents abroad of other days, whether +they hailed from Kensington or Kalamazoo. They should never have left +those superlatively excellent places. The food and Mazzini were the +sole topics of travel talk once, but to-day it is more a question of +whether one can get his railway connection at some hitherto unheard of +little junction, or whether the road via this river valley or that +mountain pass is as good as the main road. These are the things that +really matter to the traveller, not whether he has got to sleep in a +four poster in a bedroom with a tile or marble floor, or eat macaroni +and ravioli when he might have--if he were at home--his beloved "ham" +and blood-red beefsteaks. + +The Italian waiter is usually a sunny, confiding person, something after +the style of the negro, and, like his dark-skinned brother, often +incompetent beyond a certain point. You like him for what he is though, +almost as good a thing in his line as the French garçon, in that he is +obliging and a great deal better than the mutton-chopped, bewhiskered +nonentity who shuffles about behind your chair in England with his +expectant palm forever outstretched. + +The Italian _camerière_, or waiter, takes a pride in his profession--as +far as he knows it, and quite loses sight of its commercial +possibilities in the technicalities of his craft, and his seeming desire +only to please. _Subito momento_ is his ever ready phrase, though often +it seems as though he might have replied _never_. + +Seated in some roadside or seashore _trattoria_ one pounds on the bare +table for the _camerière_, orders another "Torino," pays his reckoning +and is off again. Nothing extraordinarily amusing has happened the +while, but the mere lolling about on a terrace of a café overlooking the +lapping Mediterranean waves at one's feet is one of the things that one +comes to Italy for, and one is content for the nonce never to recur to +palazzos, villas, cathedrals, or picture galleries. There have been too +many travellers in past times--and they exist to-day--who do not seek to +fill the gaps between a round of churches and art galleries, save to +rush back to some palace hotel and eat the same kind of a dinner that +they would in London, Paris or New York--a little worse cooked and +served to be sure. It's the country and its people that impress one most +in a land not his own. Why do so many omit these "attractions?" + +The _buona mano_ is everywhere in evidence in Italy, but the Italian +himself seems to understand how to handle the question better than +strangers. The Italian guest at a hotel is fairly lavish with the +quantity of his tips, but each is minute, and for a small service he +pays a small fee. We who like to impress the waiter--for we all do, +though we fancy we don't--will often pay as much to a waiter for +bringing us a drink as the price of the drink. Not so the Italian; and +that's the difference. + +Ten per cent, on the bill at a hotel is always a lavish fee, and five +would be ample, though now and again the head waiter may look askance at +his share. Follow the Italian's own system then, give everybody who +serves you something, however little, and give to those only, and then +their little jealousies between each other will take the odium off +you--if you really care what a waiter thinks about you anyway, which of +course you shouldn't. + +These little disbursements are everywhere present in Italy. One pays a +franc to enter a museum, a picture gallery or a great library, and one +tips his cabman as he does elsewhere, and a dozen francs spent in riding +about on Venetian gondolas for a day incurs the implied liability for +another two francs as well. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +ITALIAN ROADS AND ROUTES + + +The cordiality of the Italian for the stranger within his gates is +undeniable, but the automobilist would appreciate this more if the Latin +would keep his great highways (a tradition left by the Romans of old, +the finest road-builders the world has ever known) in better condition. + +Italy, next to France, is an ideal touring ground for the automobilist. +The Italian population everywhere seems to understand the tourist and +his general wants and, above all, his motive for coming thither, and +whether one journeys by the railway, by automobile or by the more humble +bicycle, he finds a genial reception everywhere, though coupled with it +is always an abounding curiosity which is at times annoying. The native +is lenient with you and painstaking to the extreme if you do not speak +his language, and will struggle with lean scraps of English, French and +German in his effort to understand your wants. + +Admirably surveyed and usually very well graded, some of the most +important of the north and south thoroughfares in Italy have been lately +so sadly neglected that the briefest spell of bad weather makes them all +but impassable. + +There is one stretch between Bologna and Imola of thirty-two kilometres, +straightaway and perfectly flat. It is a good road or a bad road, +according as one sees it after six weeks of good weather or after a ten +days' rainy spell. It is at once the best and worst of its kind, but it +is badly kept up and for that reason may be taken as a representative +Italian road. The mountain roads up back of the lake region and over the +Alpine passes, in time of snow and ice and rain--if they are not +actually buried under--are thoroughly good roads. They are built on +different lines. Road-building is a national affair in Italy as it is in +France, but the central power does not ramify its forces in all +directions as it does across the border. There is only one kind of +road-building worth taking into consideration, and that is national +road-building. It is not enough that Massachusetts should build good +roads and have them degenerate into mere wagon tracks when they get to +the State border, or that the good roads of Middlesex should become mere +sloughs as soon as they come within the domain of the London County +Council. Italy is slack and incompetent with regard to her +road-building, but England and America are considerably worse at the +present writing. + +Entering Italy by the Riviera gateway one leaves the good roads of +France behind him at Menton and, between Grimaldi, where he passes the +Italian dogana and its formalities, and Ventimiglia, or at least San +Remo, twenty-five kilometres away, punctures his tires one, three or +five times over a kilometre stretch of unrolled stone bristling with +flints, whereas in France a side path would have been left on which the +automobilist might pass comfortably. + +It isn't the Italian's inability to handle the good roads question as +successfully as the French; it is his woefully incompetent, careless, +unthinking way of doing things. This is not saying that good roads do +not exist in Italy. Far from it. But the good road in Italy suddenly +descends into a bad road for a dozen kilometres and as abruptly becomes +a good road again, and this without apparent reason. Lack of unity of +purpose on the part of individual road-building bodies is what does it. + +Road-building throughout Italy never rose to the height that it did in +France. The Romans were great exploiters beyond the frontiers and often +left things at home to shuffle along as best they might whilst their +greatest energies were spent abroad. + +One well defined Roman road of antiquity (aside from the tracings of the +great trunk lines like the Appian or Æmilian Ways) is well known to all +automobilists entering Naples via Posilippo. It runs through a tunnel, +alongside a hooting, puffing tram and loose-wheeled iron-tired carts all +in a deafening uproar. + +This marvellous tunnelled road by the sea, with glimpses of daylight now +and then, but mostly as dark as the cavern through which flowed the +Styx, is the legitimate successor of an engineering work of the time of +Augustus. In Nero's reign, Seneca, the historian, wrote of it as a +narrow, gloomy pass, and mediæval superstition claimed it as the work of +necromancy, since the hand of man never could have achieved it. The +foundation of the roadway is well authenticated by history however. In +1442 Alphonso I, the Spaniard, widened and heightened the gallery, and +Don Pedro of Toledo a century later paved it with good solid blocks of +granite which were renewed again by Charles III in 1754. Here is a good +road that has endured for centuries. We should do as well to-day. + +There are, of course, countless other short lengths of highway, coming +down from historic times, left in Italy, but the Roman _viae_ with which +we have become familiar in the classical geographies and histories of +our schooldays are now replaced by modern thoroughfares which, however, +in many cases, follow, or frequently cut in on, the old itineraries. Of +these old Roman Ways that most readily traced, and of the greatest +possible interest to the automobilist who would do something a little +different from what his fellows have done, is the Via Æmilia. + +With Bologna as its central station, the ancient Via Æmilia, begun by +the Consul Marcus Æmilius Lepidus, continues towards Cisalpine Gaul the +Via Flamina leading out from Rome. It is a delightfully varied itinerary +that one covers in following up this old Roman road from Placentia +(Piacenza) to Ariminum (Rimini), and should indeed be followed leisurely +from end to end if one would experience something of the spirit of olden +times, which one can hardly do if travelling by schedule and stopping +only at the places lettered large on the maps. + +The following are the ancient and modern place-names on this itinerary: + + Placentia (Piacenza) + Florentia (Firenzuola) + Fidentia (Borgo S. Donnino) + Parma (Parma) + Tannetum (Taneto) + Regium Lepidi (Reggio) + Mutina (Modena) + Forum Gallorum (near Castel Franco) + Bononia (Bologna) + Claterna (Quaderna) + Forum Cornelii (Imola) + Faventia (Faenza) + Forum Livii (Forli) + Forum Populii (Forlimpopoli) + Caesena (Cesena) + Ad Confluentes (near Savignamo) + Ariminum (Rimini) + +Connecting with the Via Æmilia another important Roman road ran from the +valley of the Casentino across the Apennines to Piacenza. It was the +route traced by a part of the itinerary of Dante in the "Divina +Commedia," and as such it is a historic highway with which the least +sentimentally inclined might be glad to make acquaintance. + +Another itinerary, perhaps better known to the automobilist, is that +which follows the Ligurian coast from Nice to Spezia, continuing thence +to Rome by the Via Aurelia. This coast road of Liguria passed through +Nice to Luna on the Gulf of Spezia, the towns en route being as +follows:-- + + Varium fl. The Var (river) + Nicæ Nice + Cemenelium Cimiez, back of Nice + Portus Herculis Monoeci Monaco + Albium Intermelium Ventimiglia + Albium Ingaunum Albenga + Vada Sabbata Vado, near Savona + Genua Genoa + Portus Delphini Portofino + Tigullia Tregesco, near Sestri + Segesta Sestri + Portus Veneris Porto Venere + Portus Erici Lerici + +The chief of these great Roman roadways of old whose itineraries can be +traced to-day are: + + Via Æmilia The most celebrated of N. Italy + Via Æmilia-Scauri Built long after the original Via Æmelia + Via Ameria From Rome to Amelia + Via Appia Of which the main trunk line ran from Rome to Capua + Via Aquilla + Via Ardentina + Via Aurelia From Rome to Pisa + Via Cassia + Via Flaminia The Great North Road of the Romans + Via Latina One of the most ancient of Roman roads + Via Laurentia + Via Ostiensis From Rome to Ostia + Via Salaria Leading from Rome through the valley of the Tiber + Via Valeria From the Tiber to the Adriatic at Ancona + +These ancient Roman roads were at their best in Campania and Etruria. +Campania was traversed by the Appian Way, the greatest highway of the +Romans, though indeed its original construction by Appius Claudius only +extended to Capua. The great highroads proceeding from Rome crossed +Etruria almost to the full extent; the Via Aurelia, from Rome to Pisa +and Luna; the Via Cassia and the Via Clodia. + +The great Roman roads were marked with division stones or bornes every +thousand paces, practically a kilometre and a half, a little more than +our own mile. These mile-stones of Roman times, many of which are still +above ground (_milliarii lapides_), were sometimes round and sometimes +square, and were entirely bare of capitals, being mere stone posts +usually standing on a squared base of a somewhat larger area. + +A graven inscription bore in Latin the name of the Consul or Emperor +under whom each stone was set up and a numerical indication as well. + +Caius Gracchus, away back in the second century before Christ, was the +inventor of these aids to travel. The automobilist appreciates the +development of this accessory next to good roads themselves, and if he +stops to think a minute he will see that the old Romans were the +inventors of many things which he fondly thinks are modern. + +The automobilist in Italy has, it will be inferred, cause to regret the +absence of the fine roads of France once and again, and he will regret +it whenever he wallows into a six inch deep rut and finds himself not +able to pull up or out, whilst the drivers of ten yoke ox-teams, drawing +a block of Carrara marble as big as a house, call down the imprecations +of all the saints in the calendar on his head. It's not the +automobilist's fault, such an occurrence, nor the ox-driver's either; +but for fifty kilometres after leaving Spezia, and until Lucca and +Livorno are reached, this is what may happen every half hour, and you +have no recourse except to accept the situation with fortitude and +revile the administration for allowing a roadway to wear down to such a +state, or for not providing a parallel thoroughfare so as to divide the +different classes of traffic. There is no such disgracefully used and +kept highway in Europe as this stretch between Spezia and Lucca, and +one must of necessity pass over it going from Genoa to Pisa unless he +strikes inland through the mountainous country just beyond Spezia, by +the Strada di Reggio for a détour of a hundred kilometres or more, +coming back to the sea level road at Lucca. + +Throughout the peninsula the inland roads are better as to surface than +those by the coast, though by no means are they more attractive to the +tourist by road. This is best exemplified by a comparison of the inland +and shore roads, each of them more or less direct, between Florence and +Rome. + +The great Strada di grande Communicazione from Florence to Rome +(something less than three hundred kilometres all told, a mere mouthful +for a modern automobile) runs straight through the heart of old Siena, +entering the city by the Porta Camollia and leaving by the Porta Romana, +two kilometres of treacherous, narrow thoroughfare, though readily +enough traced because it is in a bee-line. The details are here given as +being typical of what the automobilist may expect to find in the smaller +Italian cities. There are, in Italy, none of those unexpected +right-angle turns that one comes upon so often in French towns, at least +not so many of them, and there are no cork-screw thoroughfares though +many have the "rainbow curve," to borrow Mark Twain's expression. + +On through Chiusi, Orvieto and Viterbo runs the highroad direct to the +gates of Rome, for the most part a fair road, but rising and falling +from one level to another in trying fashion to one who would set a +steady pace. + +It is with respect to the grades on Italian roads, too, that one remarks +a falling off from French standards. North of Florence, in the valley of +the Mugello, we, having left the well-worn roads in search of something +out of the common, found a bit of seventeen per cent. grade. This was +negotiated readily enough, since it was of brief extent, but another +rise of twenty-five per cent. (it looked forty-five from the cushions of +a low-hung car) followed and on this we could do nothing. Fortunately +there was a way around, as there usually is in Europe, so nothing was +lost but time, and we benefited by the acquisition of some knowledge +concerning various things which we did not before possess. And we were +content, for that was what we came for anyway. + +From Florence south, by the less direct road via Arezzo, Perugia and +Terni, there is another surprisingly sudden rise but likewise brief. It +is on this same road that one remarks from a great distance the towers +of Spoleto piercing the sky at a seemingly enormous height, while the +background mountain road over the Passo della Somma rises six hundred +and thirty metres and tries the courage of every automobilist passing +this way. + +To achieve many of these Italian hill-towns one does not often rise +abruptly but rather almost imperceptibly, but here, in ten kilometres, +say half a dozen miles, the Strada di grande Communicazione rises a +thousand feet, and that is considerable for a road supposedly laid out +by military strategists. + +As a contrast to these hilly, switch-back roads running inland from the +north to the south may be compared that running from Rome to Naples, not +the route usually followed via Vallombrosa and Frosinone, but that via +Velletri, Terracina and Gaeta. Here the highroad is nearly flat, though +truth to tell of none too good surface, all the way to Naples. +Practically it is as good a road as that which runs inland and offers to +any who choose to pass that way certain delights that most other +travellers in Italy know not of. + +At Cisterna di Roma, forty-eight kilometres from Rome, one is in the +midst of the Pontine Marshes it is true, and it is also more or less of +a marvel that a decent road could have been built here at all. From this +point of view it is interesting to the automobilist who has a hobby of +studying the road-building systems of the countries through which he +travels. Of the Pontine Marshes themselves it is certain that they are +not salubrious, and malaria is most prevalent near them. Appius +Claudius, in 312 B. C., tried to drain the marsh and so did Cæsar, +Augustus and Theodoric after him, and the Popes Boniface VIII, Martinus +V and Sixtus V, but the morass is still there in spite of the fact that +a company calling itself Ufficio della Bonificazione delle Paludi +Pontine is to-day working continuously at the same problem. + +Putting these various classes of Italian roads aside for the moment +there remains but one other variety to consider, that of the mountain +roads of the high Alpine valleys and those crossing the Oberland and, +further east, those in communication with the Austrian Tyrol. On the +west these converge on Milan and Turin via the region of the lakes and +the valleys of Aosta and Susa, and in the centre and east give +communication from Brescia, Verona and Venice with West Germany and +Austria. + +[Illustration: Road Map of North Italy] + +These are the best planned and best kept roads in Italy, take them by +and large. The most celebrated are those leading from Turin into France; +via Susa and the Col du Mont Genevre to Briançon, and via Mont Cenis to +Modane and Grenoble; via the Val d'Aosta and the Petit Saint Bernard to +Albertville in France, or via the Grand Saint Bernard to Switzerland. + +Just north of the Lago di Maggiore, accessible either from Como or from +Milan direct via Arona, is the famous road over the Simplon Pass, at an +elevation of 2,008 metres above the sea. By this road, the best road in +all Italy, without question, one enters or leaves the kingdom by the +gateway of Domodossola. + +On entering Italy by this route one passes the last rock-cut gallery +near Crevola and, by a high-built viaduct, thirty metres or more above +the bed of the river, it crosses the Diveria. Soon the vineyards and all +the signs of the insect life of the southland meet the eye. Italy has at +last been reached, no more eternal snow and ice, no more peaked +rooftops, the whole region now flattens out into the Lombard plain. +Domodossola has all the ear-marks of the Italian's manner of life and +building of houses, albeit that the town itself has no splendid +monuments. + +Another entrance to the Italian lake region through the mountain barrier +beyond is by the road over the San Bernardino Pass and Bellinzona. The +San Bernardino Pass is not to be confounded with those of the Grand and +Petit Saint Bernard. The present roadway dates from 1822, when it was +built by the engineer Pocobelle, at the joint expense of the Sardinian +and Grisons governments. Its chief object was to connect Genoa and Turin +directly with Switzerland and west Germany. The pass crosses the +Rheinwald at a height of 2,063 metres. + +This passage across the Alps was known to the ancient Romans, and down +to the fifteenth century it was known as the Vogelberg. A mission +brother, Bernardino of Siena, preaching the gospel in the high valleys, +erected a chapel here which gave the pass the name which it bears +to-day. + +In part the road tunnels through the hillsides, in part runs along a +shelf beside the precipice, and here and there crosses a mountain +torrent by some massive bridge of masonry. + +Like most of the mountain roads leading into Italy from Switzerland and +Germany the southern slope descends more abruptly than that on the +north. The coach driver may trot his horses down hill, though, so well +has the descent been engineered, and the automobilist may rush things +with considerably more safety here than on the better known routes. + +Another celebrated gateway into Italy is that over the Splugen Pass from +Coire (in Italian nomenclature: Colmo dell'Orso). It was completed by +the Austrian government in 1823 to compete with the new-made road a few +kilometres to the west over the Bernardino which favoured Switzerland +and Germany and took no consideration whatever of the interests of +Austria. The summit of the Splugen Pass is 2,117 metres above sea-level +and on a narrow ridge near by runs for six kilometres the boundary +between Switzerland and Italy. + +Entering Italy by the Splugen Pass one finds the _dogana_ a dull, ugly +group of buildings just below the first series of facets which drop down +from the crest. It is as lonesome and gloomy a place of residence as one +can possibly conceive as existing on the earth's surface. One forgets +entirely that it is very nearly the heart of civilized Europe; there is +nothing within view to suggest it in the least, not a scrap of +vegetation, not a silvery streak of water, not a habitation even that +might not be as appropriately set upon a shelf of rock by the side of +Hecla. + +The French army under Maréchal Macdonald crossed the pass in 1800 when +but a mere trail existed, but with a loss of a hundred men and as many +horses. + +Of late years the passage of the Col has been rendered the easier by the +cutting of two long galleries. Another engineering work of note is met a +little farther on in the Gorge of San Giacomo, a work completed by Carlo +Donegani in the reign of the Emperor Francis II, and, just beyond, the +boiling torrent of the Liro is spanned by a daring bridge of masonry. + +Road signs in Italy are not as good or as frequent as one finds in +France, but where they exist they are at least serviceable. The Roman +milestone of old has ceased to serve its purpose, though solitary +examples still exist, and their place is taken by the governmental +"bornes" and the placards posted at the initiation of the Touring Club +and various automobile organizations in certain parts, particularly in +the north. + +The signboards of the Touring Club Italiano are distinctly good as far +as they go, but they are infrequent. + +All hotels and garages affiliated with the club hang out a +characteristic and ever welcome sign, and there one is sure of finding +the best welcome and the best accommodations for man and his modern +beast of burden, the mechanical horses of iron and bronze harnessed to +his luxurious tonneau or limousine. + +[Illustration: Italian Road Signs] + +With regard to road maps for Italy there exist certain governmental maps +like those of the Ordnance Survey in England or of the État Major in +France, but they are practically useless for the automobilist, and are +only interesting from a topographic sense. + +Taride, the French map publisher, issues a cheap series of Italian road +maps, covering the entire peninsula in three sheets printed in three +colours, with main roads marked plainly in red. They are easily read and +clear and have the advantage of being cheap, the three sheets costing +but a franc each, but one suspects that they were not composed entirely +from first hand, well-authenticated, recent sources of information. +Little discrepancies such as just where a railway crosses a road, etc., +etc., are frequently to be noted. This is perhaps a small matter, but +the genuine vagabond tourist, whether he is plodding along on foot or +rolling smoothly on his five inch pneumatics, likes to know his exact +whereabouts at every step of the way. On the whole the Italian "Taride" +maps are fairly satisfactory, and they are much more easily read than +the more elaborate series in fifty-six sheets on a scale of 1-1,250,000 +issued by the Touring Club Italiano, or the thirty-five sheets of the +Carta Stradale d'Italia Sistema Becherel-Marieni, which by reason of the +number of sheets alone are in no way as convenient as the three sheet +map. + +The Becherel-Marieni maps are, however, beautifully printed and have a +system of marking localities where one finds supplies of gasoline, a +mechanician or a garage which is very useful to the automobilist, +besides giving warning of all hills and, with some attempt at precision, +also marking the good, mediocre and bad roads. This is important but, as +the writer has so often found that a good road of yesterday has become a +bad road of to-day, and will be perhaps a worse one to-morrow, he +realizes that the fluctuating quality of Italian roads prevents any +genius of a map-maker from doing his best. These maps in seven colours +are perhaps the best works of their kind in Italy, at least ranking with +the Touring Club maps, and completely cover the country, whereas the +other series is not as yet wholly complete. + +[Illustration: Profile Road Map, Bologna--Florence] + +Membership in the great Touring Club Italiano is almost a necessity for +one who would enjoy his Italian tour to the full. The "Annuario," giving +information as to hotels and garages and miniature plans of all the +cities and principal towns--presented gratis to members--is all but +indispensable, while the three pocket volumes entitled Strade di Grande +Communicazione, with the kilometric distances between all Italian places +except the merest hamlets and the profile elevations (miniature maps, +hundreds of them) of the great highways are a boon and a blessing to one +who would know the easiest and least hilly road between two points. The +accompanying diagram explains this better than words. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +IN LIGURIA + + +The most ravishingly beautiful entrance into Italy is by the road along +the Mediterranean shore. The French Riviera and its gilded pleasures, +its great hotels, its _chic_ resorts and its entrancing combination of +seascape and landscape are known to all classes of travellers, but at +Menton, almost on the frontier, one is within arm's reach of things +Italian, where life is less feverish, in strong contrast to the French +atmosphere which envelops everything to the west of the great white +triangle painted on the cliff above the Pont Saint Louis and marking the +boundary between the two great Latin countries. + +The "Route Internationale," leading from France to Italy, crosses a deep +ravine by the Pont Saint Louis with the railway running close beside. + +Not so very long ago there was a unity of speech and manners among the +inhabitants of Menton and the neighbouring Italian towns of Grimaldi, +Mortola and Ventimiglia, but little by little the Ravine of Saint Louis +has become a hostile frontier, where the custom house officials of +France and Italy regard each other, if not as enemies, at least as +aliens. The two peoples are, however, of the same race and have the same +historic traditions. + +It was just here, on passing the frontier, that we asked a deep-eyed, +sun-burnt young girl of eighteen or twenty if she was an Italian, +thinking perhaps she might be a Niçoise, who, among the world's +beautiful women, occupy a very high place. She replied in +French-Italian: "Oui, aussi bien Venitienne!" This was strange, for most +Venetians, since Titian set the style for them, have been blondes. + +A château of the Grimaldi family crowns the porphyry height just to the +eastward of the Italian frontier, and below is the Italian _Dogana_, +where the automobilist and other travellers by road go through the +formalities made necessary by governmental red tape. Red tape is all +right in the right place, but it should be cut off in proper lengths, so +that officials need not be obliged to quibble over a few soldi while +individuals lose a dozen francs or more in valuable time. + +This matter of customs formalities at Grimaldi is only an incident. The +automobilist's troubles really commence at a little shack in Menton, on +French soil, just before the Pont Saint Louis is crossed. Here he has +his "passavant" made out, an official taking a lot of valuable time to +decide whether the cushions of your automobile are red, orange or brown. +You stick out for orange because they were that colour when you bought +the outfit, but the representative of the law sticks out too--he for +red. The result is, you compromise on brown, and hope that the other +customs guardian on duty at the frontier post by which you will enter +France again will be blessed with the same sense of colour-blindness as +was his fellow of Menton. Once this formality gone through--and you pay +only two sous for the documents--you have no trouble getting back into +France again by whichever frontier town you pass. There are no duties to +pay and no disputes, so really one cannot complain. It is for his +benefit anyway that the "passavant" describing the peculiarities of +automobile is issued. + +At the Grimaldi _Dogana_ on entering Italy you are made to pay duty on +what little gasoline you may have in your tanks, even for as little as a +litre. Presumably you pass your machine through the Italian customs +with one of the "triptyches" issued by any of the great automobile clubs +or touring associations, as otherwise you have to put down gold, and a +thousand or fifteen hundred francs in gold one does not usually carry +around loose in his pocket. We passed through readily enough, but a poor +non-French, non-Italian speaking American who followed in our +wheel-tracks had not made his preparations beforehand, and French +banknotes didn't look good enough to the Italian customs official, and a +day was lost accordingly while the poor unfortunate rolled back down +hill to Menton and sought to turn the notes into gold. The banks having +just closed he was not able to do this as readily as he thought he +might, and it was well on after sunrise that he followed our trail--and +never caught up with us all the way to Grosetto. + +Mortola is the first town of note that one passes on entering Italian +soil, but beyond its aspect, so alien to that of the small town in +France, it is not worthy of remark. + +Ventimiglia comes next, where the traveller by rail goes through equally +annoying customs formalities to those experienced by the traveller by +road at Grimaldi. These are not apt to be so costly, as the customs +officials take him at his word, graciously chalk his luggage and pass +him on. The Guardie-Finanze, or customs officer, of Italy is a genteel +looking young person with a bowler hat, topped with a feather cockade. +He is even as gay and picturesque as the "carabinieri reales," though he +is a mere plebeian among the noblesse of soldierdom. + +The Vintimille of the French, or the Ventimiglia of the Italians, was +the ancient Intemilium of the Romans. To-day, on the left bank of the +Roja, is a new city made up of the attributes of a great railway and +frontier station and a numerous assemblage of alberghi, hotels, +restaurants and the like. + +Ventimiglia is not unlovely, neither is it lovely in a picturesque +romantic sense. Its site is charming, on the banks of the tumbling Roja +at the base of the Alps of Piedmont, just where they plunge, from a +height of a thousand or twelve hundred metres, down into the lapping +Mediterranean waves. + +Ventimiglia is, practically, the frontier town of Piedmont, and it was +fought for by all the warring houses of these parts in the middle ages. +The Genoese held it for a time, then the Counts of Provence and the Duke +of Savoy. It was a game of give-and-take all round, and in the mêlée +most of the town's mediæval monuments have disappeared. + +Across the Nervia, to the north, is Monte Appio, one of the chief spurs +of the Maritime Alps in Italy. On a jutting crag of rock, in plain view +from the town below, is an ancient Roman _castellum_. Two fragmentary +towers alone remain, and as a ruin, even, it is beneath consideration. +One only notices it in passing and recalls the more magnificent Tower of +Augustus at La Turbie, high above Monte Carlo's rock, and still in plain +view of Ventimiglia--with a good glass. + +A fine relic of the Dorias--that great family of great Genoese--is still +to be seen in picturesque ruin at Dolce Acqua, a few miles further up +the valley of the torrent. + +Bordighera is the first of the Italian Riviera winter stations for +invalids. That describes it perfectly. Its surroundings are delightful +enough, but there is little that is attractive about the place itself. +The automobilist will have no trouble finding his way through the town +if he keeps straight on but drives carefully and avoids the invalids and +baby carriages. + +It was a sailor of Bordighera who gave the order to "wet the ropes"--an +old seafaring trick, known the world over--when the obelisk on the +Piazza san Pietro at Rome, erected by Sixte-Quint, was tottering on its +base. In return for the service he asked the favour of the Pope that his +native town should have the honour of supplying the churches of Rome +with their greenery on Palm Sunday. The supplying of palm branches and +the exploiting of semi-invalids are the chief industries of Bordighera. + +San Remo is very like Bordighera, except that it is an improvement on +it. The quarter where the great hotels are found looks like all towns of +its class, but the old town with its narrow canyon-like streets, its +buttressed roofs and walls, still breathes of the mediæval spirit. It is +as crowded a quarter, where dwell men, women and children,--seemingly +children mostly,--as can be found east of Grand, Canal or Hester +Streets, in down-town New York. The automobile tourist will not care +much for San Remo unless he is hungry, in which case the Hotel de Paris +will cater for him a little better than any other of the town's resort +hotels. + +The road continues close beside the sea, as it has since Fréjus in the +Var was passed, sweeping around bold promontories on a shelf of rock, +tunnelling through some mountain spur, dipping down to sea-level here +and rising three or five hundred metres ten kilometres further on. + +This delightfully disposed road by the sea may well be reviled by the +automobilist because of the fact that every half dozen kilometres or so +it crosses the railway at the same level. These level crossings are +about as dangerous as the American variety; in a way more so. They are +barred simply by a great swinging tree-trunk, which, of all things, +swings outwards and across the road when not in use. Even when closed +this bar is so placed that an automobile at speed could well enough slip +beneath it, and the passengers who were not thrown out and killed by +this operation surely would be by the train which would probably come +along before they could pick themselves up. + +These railway barriers are almost always closed, whether a train is due +or not, and it is commonly said that they are only opened for the +automobilist on the payment of a few soldi. This, the writer knows to be +calumny. It is conceivable that the circumstance has been met with, and +it is conceivable that, in many more instances, stranger automobilists +have scattered coin in their wake which led to the development of the +practice, but all the same one need not, should not, in fact, +countenance any such practice of blackmail. The mere fact that these +obstructions are there is enough of a penance for the automobilist, who +in ten hours of running will certainly lose one or two hours waiting for +the gates to be opened. + +These Italian coast line vistas are quite the most savagely beautiful of +any along the Mediterranean. We rave over the strip dominated by La +Turbie and Monte Carlo's rock, and over the Corniche d'Or of the Estérel +in France, but really there is nothing quite so primitive and unspoiled +in its beauty as this less-known itinerary. The background mountains +rise, grim, behind, and beneath. At the bottom of the cliff, a hundred +metres below the road on which you ride, break the soapy waves of the +sea. Gulls circle about uttering their shrill cries, an eagle soars +above, and far below a fisherman pushes lazily at his oar in the +conventional stand-up Mediterranean fashion, or a red-brown +latteen-rigged fishing boat darts in or out of some half-hidden bay or +_calanque_. The whole poetic ensemble is hard to beat, and yet this part +of the average Italian journey is usually rolled off in express trains, +with never a stop between the frontier and Genoa, most of the time +passing through the fifty rock-cut tunnels which allow the railway +access to these parts. To see this wonderful strip of coast line at its +best it must be seen from the highroad. + +At Arma, as the road runs along at the water's very edge, is an old +square donjon tower, reminding one of those great keeps of England and +of Foulque's Nerra in Normandy. Its history is lost in oblivion, but it +is a landmark to be noted. + +Porto Maurizio is the very ideal of a small Mediterranean sea-port. It +is a hill-top town too, in that it crowns a promontory jutting seawards, +forming a sheltering harbour for its busy coming and going of small-fry +shipping. + +Olive oil and a sweet white wine, like that of Cyprus, grown on the +hillsides roundabout, form the chief of the merchandise sent out from +the little port; but the whole town bears a prosperous well-kept air +that makes one regret that it had not a battery of "sights," in order +that one might linger a while in so pleasant a place. Porto Maurizio's +church is a remarkably vast and handsome building. + +Oneglia, the birthplace of the great Genoese admiral, Andrea Doria, lies +just beyond. Wine in skins, hung up on rafters to mellow, seems to be +Oneglia's substitute for wine cellars, but otherwise the hurried +traveller at Oneglia remarks nothing but that it is a "resort" with big +hotels and big gardens and many guests lolling about killing time. The +older part of the town, with the wine skins, is decidedly the most +interesting feature. + +At Marina-Andora is the ruin of an old castle with a ghostly legend to +it to add an attraction it might not otherwise have. A Papal Nuncio was +one day murdered here within its walls and "in extremis" the prelate +called down curses upon the surrounding country, praying that it might +wither and dry up. It must have been an efficacious imprecation as the +country roundabout looks like a desert waste. Not an olive nor an orange +grove is in sight and only a few scrubby vineyards dot the landscape. + +At the Capo delle Melle, a dozen kilometres beyond, it all changes and +the land blossoms again, though truth to tell both the wine and olive +products have the reputation of falling off in quality as one goes +further east. + +Alassio is a now well-developed Italian seaside resort. The Italians and +the Germans fill it to overflowing at all seasons of the year, and +prices are mounting skywards with a rapidity which would do credit to +Monte Carlo itself. There is a considerable fishing and coastwise trade +at Alassio which along the quais endows it with a certain +picturesqueness, and the chief hotel is quartered in a seventeenth +century palazzo, formerly belonging to the Marchese Durante. Alassio +took its name from Alassia, a daughter of Otho the Great, who, fleeing +from the paternal roof, came here with her lover long years ago. This +was the beginning of the development of Alassio as a Mediterranean +resort. And the Germans have been coming in increasing numbers ever +since. + +Off shore is the isle of Gallinaria. It has a circular tower on it, and +a legend goes with it that the name of the island is derived from a +species of hens and chickens which were bred here. The connection seems +a little vague, but for the sake of variation, it is here given. + +Here and there as the road winds along the coast some vine-clad ruin of +a castle tower is passed, and the background foot-hills of the Alps are +peopled with toy villages and towns like Switzerland itself. + +Albenga is primarily a great big overgrown coast town of to-day, but was +formerly the ancient metropolis of a minor political division of +Liguria, and the one time ally of Carthage. Evidences of this fallen +pride of place are not wanting in Albenga to-day. There are innumerable +great brick and stone towers, now often built into some surrounding +structure. Three may be remarked as landmarks of the town's great civic +and military glory of the past: the Torre de Marchese Malespina, the +Torre dei Guelfi, and another, unnamed, built up into the present Casa +del Commune. + +Albenga is not a resort, since it has the reputation of being an +unhealthful place, but probably this is not so as there is no particular +squalidness to be noticed, save that incident to the workaday affairs of +factories, workshops and shipping. The inhabitants of the neighbouring +towns profess to recognize the native of Albenga at a glance when they +hail him with the remark: "Hai faccia di Albenga."--"You have the +Albenga face." This is probably local jealousy only, and is not really +contempt. + +A short way out from Albenga is the Ponte Lungo, an old Roman bridge of +the time of the Emperor Honorius. Savona, the largest place between the +frontier and Genoa, is still fifty kilometres to the eastward, but +midway between it and Albenga is Finale Marina, a town of one main +street, two enormous painted churches, an imposing fortification wall, a +palm-planted promenade and a municipal palace bearing, over its portal, +the arms of a visiting Spanish monarch who ruled here temporarily in the +fifteenth century. + +The Castello Gavone, on a hillside above the town and back from the +coast, is a ruin, but its picturesque outer walls, with diamond-cut +stone facets, like those of the great round tower of Milan or of +Tantallon Castle in Scotland, are quite remarkable. + +Finale Marina's Albergo Grimaldi is housed in an old château of some +noble of the days when the town was the capital of a Marquisate. Not +much changed is the old château, except to put new wine in the old +bottles and new linen on the antique beds. To be sure there are electric +push-buttons in the chambers, but as they are useless they can hardly be +taken into consideration. + +The Albergo Grimaldi has scant accommodation for automobiles. Three +might range themselves along the wall in the lower corridor, and would +indeed be well enough housed, though in no sense is there the least +semblance of a garage. You pay nothing additional for this, and that's +something in Italy where automobiles--in the small towns--are still +regarded as mechanical curiosities and their occupants as fanatics with +more money than good sense. The Italian country population is by no +means hostile to the automobilist, but their good nature, even, is often +exasperating. + +Finale Marina is the best stopping place between Menton and Genoa if one +is travelling by road, and would avoid the resorts. + +Noli, just beyond the Capo di Noli, is an unimportant small town; +nevertheless it is the proud possessor of a collection of ruined walls +and towers which would be a pride to any mediæval "borgo." Noli, like +Albenga, was once the chief town of a little political division; but +to-day it is a complete nonentity. + +In bright sunshine, from the road winding over the Capo di Noli, one may +see the smoke of Genoa's chimneys and shipping rising, cloud-like, on +the horizon far away to the eastward, and may even descry that classic +landmark, the great lighthouse called "La Lanterna" at the end of the +mole jutting out between San Pier d'Arena and Genoa. + +A castle-crowned rocky islet, the Isola dei Bergeggi, lies close off +shore beneath the Capo di Vado, itself crowned with a seventeenth +century fortress cut out of the very rock. + +Still following the rocky coastline, one draws slowly up on Savona. +Savona is backed up by olive gardens and pine-clad hills, while above, +away from the coast, roll the first foot-hills of the Apennines, their +nearby slopes and crests dotted, here and there, with some grim fortress +of to-day or a watch tower of mediæval times. The Alps are now dwindling +into the Apennines, but the change is hardly perceptible. + +Above the roofs and chimneys of the town itself rises an old tower of +masonry on which is perched a colossal madonna, a venerated shrine of +the Ligurian sailor-folk. It bears an inscription which seems to scan +equally well in school-book Latin or colloquial Italian. + + "In mare irato, in subita procella + Invoco te, nostra benigna stella." + +Mago, the Carthaginian, made Savona a refuge after his sack of Genoa. +The Genoese, in turn, came along and blocked up the port out of sheer +jealousy, lest it might become a commercial rival of Genoa itself. + +The bay of Savona is delightful, even Wordsworth, who mostly sang of +lakes and larks, remarked it, though in no way is it superior in beauty +to a score of other indentations in the Mediterranean coastline from +Marseilles around to Naples. + +The automobilist will best remember Savona for its exceedingly bad +exits and entrances, and the clean and unencumbered streets in the town +itself. Here are great wide park-like thoroughfares flagged with flat +smooth stones which are a dream to the automobilist. There never were +such superbly laid paving blocks as one finds in Savona. + +As one leaves Savona he actually begins to sense the smoke and +activities of Genoa in his nostrils, albeit they are a good fifty +kilometres away as yet; around a half a dozen jutting barrier capes, and +across innumerable railway tracks. + +Varazze is not a stopping point on many travellers' Italian journeyings +and, to state it frankly, perhaps, for the majority, it is not worth +visiting. It is a sort of overflow Sunday resort for the people of +Genoa, in that each of its two hotels have dining accommodation for a +hundred people or more. Aside from this it is endowed with a certain +quaint picturesqueness. It has a palm-tree-lined quay which borders a +string of ship-building yards where the wooden walls of Genoa's +commerce-carrying craft were formerly built in large numbers, and where, +to-day, a remnant of this industry is still carried on. Great +long-horned white oxen haul timber through the crooked streets and +along the quays, and there is ever a smell of tar and the sound of +sawing and hammering. An artist with pen or brush will like Varazze +better than any other class of traveller. The automobilist will have all +he can manage in dodging the ox teams and their great trundling loads of +timber. + +There is a fragment of a ruined castle near by on the outskirts of the +town, and farther away, back in the hills, is a monastery called "Il +Deserto," and properly enough named it is. It was founded by a lady of +the Pallavicini family who as a recompense--it is to be +presumed--insisted on being represented in the painted altar-piece as +the Madonna, though clad in mediæval Genoese dress. What vanity! + +Cogoletto, practically a Genoese suburb, claims to be the birth place of +Columbus. Perhaps indeed it is so, as his father Dominico was known to +be a property owner near Genoa. Savona, Oneglia and Genoa itself all +have memories of the family, so the discoverer was of Ligurian parentage +without doubt. + +"Sestri-Ponente! Cornigliano-Ligure! San Pier d'Arena!" (with its Villa +Serra and its Babylonian-like gardens) cry out the railway employees at +each stop of the Genoa-bound train; and the same names roll up on the +automobilist's road map with a like persistency. Each class of +traveller wonders why Genoa is not reached more quickly, and the +automobilist, for the last dozen kilometres, has been cursed with a most +exasperating, always-in-the-way tramway, with innumerable carts, badly +paved roads and much mud. The approaches to almost all great cities are +equally vile; Genoa is no exception and the traffic in the city--and in +all the built up suburbs--_keeps to the left_, a local custom which is +inexplicable since in the open country it goes to the right. + +Voltri is a long drawn-out, uninteresting, waterside town with more +chimneys belching smoke and cinders in strong contrast to the pine-clad +background hills, in which nestle the suburban villas of the Doria, the +Galliera and the Brignole families of other days. + +Pegli is but a continuation of Voltri, Genoa La Superba is still a dozen +kilometres away. Pegli is a resort of some importance and its chief +attraction is the Villa Pallavicini, with a labyrinth of grottoes, +subterranean lakes, cement moulded rocks, Chinese pagodas and the like. +It is not lovely, but is commonly reckoned a sight worth stopping off to +see. The Italians call this hodge podge "a ferocity of invention." The +phrase is worthy of perpetuation. + +The Palazzo Pallavicini was the suburban residence of the banker of the +Court of Rome, but he was a sort of renegade financier, for he went off +to England with the churchly funds and became an English country +gentleman, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. His "past" was known, for +some poet-historian of the time branded him with the following +couplet:-- + + "Sir Horatio Palvasene, + Who robbed the Pope to pay the Queen." + +The Villa Doria at Pegli was a work of Canzio built for one of the +richest merchants of Genoa in the days of Charles V. It was, like its +contemporaries, a gorgeous establishment, but in popular fancy it enjoys +not a whit of the enthusiasm bestowed upon the stagy, tricky bric-à-brac +and stucco Villa Pallavicini. + +The entrance to "Genoa la Superba" by road from the west is a sorry +spectacle, a grim, crowded thoroughfare decidedly workaday and none too +cleanly. From San Pier d'Arena one comes immediately within the confines +of Genoa itself, just after circling the western port and passing the +sky-piercing "La Lanterna," one of the most ancient lighthouses extant, +dating from 1547. + +[Illustration: _Palazzo Doria, Genoa_] + +Genoa is neglected or ignored by most travellers and searchers after the +picturesque in Italy. This is a mistake, for Genoa's park of Acquasola, +the gardens of the Villa Rosazza and of the Villa de Negroni, and the +terraces of the Palazzo Doria offer as enchanting a series of panoramas +as those of Rome or Florence, and quite different, in that they have +always the vista of the blue Mediterranean as a background. + +[Illustration: Map Genoa] + +Genoa is a bizarre combination of the old and the new, of the mountain +and the plain, of great docks and wharves, and of streets of stairs +rising almost vertically. + +The general effect of Genoa is as if everything in it had been piled one +on top of another until finally it had to spread out at the base. +Enormous caserns fringe the heights and great barracks line the wharves, +while in between, and here, there and everywhere, are great and +venerable palaces and churches of marble, many of them built in layers +of black and white stone, indicating that they were built by the commune +in mediæval days, or by one of the four great families of Doria, +Grimaldi, Spinola or Fieschi, the only ones who had the privilege of +using it. + +Genoa's labyrinth of twisting, climbing streets and alleys are all but +impracticable for wheeled traffic, and, for that reason, strangers, who +do not walk "en tour" as much as they ought, save in the corridors of +picture galleries and the aisles of churches, know not Genoa save its +main arteries--nor ever will, unless they change their tactics. + +The automobile is only useful in Genoa in getting in and out of town, +and even that is accomplished with fear and trembling by the most +cold-blooded chauffeur that ever lived. What with the vile roads, the +magnificent distances and the ceaseless irresponsible traffic of carts +and drays, tramways and what not, Genoa is indeed, of all other cities +on earth, in need of a boulevard for the new traffic. To get to your +hotel at the further end of the town as you make your entrance by the +road circling the base of "La Lanterna," can only be likened to a trip +down Broadway in New York at four o'clock in the afternoon. That would +not be pleasure; neither is getting in and out of Genoa at any time +between five in the morning and seven at night. + +To what degenerate depths these great palaces of the Genoa of other days +have fallen only the curious and inquisitive are likely to know. One +into which we penetrated--looking for something which wasn't there--was +a veritable hive of industry, and as cosmopolitan as Babylon. It was +near the Bourse and one entered marble halls by a marble staircase, +flanked by a marble balustrade and finished off with newel posts +supported by marble lions. The great entrance hall was surrounded by a +colonnade of svelt marble columns, and in the centre ascended a +monumental marble staircase. Two marble fountains played in an inner +courtyard, which was paved with marble flags, and a statue, also marble, +in a niche faced the great doorway. + +On the first floor were more marble columns and a frescoed vaulting. +From the corridors opened a battery of doors into offices of all sorts +of industrial enterprises, from one given to exploiting a new +combustible to another which was financing a rubber plantation in +Abyssinia. A chestnut-roaster was perambulating the corridors with his +stock in trade, furnace all alight, and a brown-robed monk was begging +his daily bread. + +On the next floor, up another marble staircase, were still other +business offices,--shipping firms, wine-factors and one Guiseppe +Bellini, representing an American factory, whose output of agricultural +machinery is found in all four quarters of the globe. Breakfast foods +were there, too, and there was a big lithograph of a Fall River Line +Steamer on the walls. A whole city of merchants and agents were +cloistered here in the five stories of this one-time ducal abode. + +Up under the roof was a photographer and an artist's studio, where a +long-haired Italian (Signor something or other, the sign read) painted +the bluest of blue sky pictures, and the most fiery Vesuvian eruptions, +to sell to tourists through the medium of the hotel porters of the town +below. + +Thus it was that an antique shrine of gallantry and romance had become +the temple of twentieth century commerce. The noble arms, with a +heraldic angel still to be seen over the entrance doorway, count for +nothing to-day, but exist as a vivid reminder of a glorious past. In +1500 the palace was the shrine of an artistic nobility; to-day it is a +temple of chicanery. + +The new part of Genoa imitates Milan, as Milan imitates Paris. The +galleries or arcades of Milan, Genoa and Naples, full of shops, cafés +and restaurants, would be admirable institutions in a more northerly +clime, where the sun is less strong and rain more frequent. Here their +glass roofs radiate an insufferable heat, which only in the coldest and +most intemperate months is at all bearable. Nevertheless these arcades +are an amusing and characteristic feature of the large Italian cities. + +Hotels in Genoa for the automobilist are of all ranks and at all prices. +Bertolini's has garage accommodation for twenty-five automobiles, and +charges two francs and a half to four francs a night for the +accommodation, which is dear or not accordingly as you may feel. + +The Albergo Unione, on the Palazzo Campetto, has no garage (you will +have to seek out the F. I. A. T. garage a mile or more away), but you +get something that is thoroughly Italian and very well appointed too, +at most reasonable prices. + +The Genoese suburban villas are a part of Genoa itself, in that they +were built and inhabited by nobles of the city. + +[Illustration: Sun Dial, Genoa] + +To the east of Genoa, at Albaro, is a collection of villas which comes +upon one as a great surprise. + +In reality they are suburban palaces, with here and there more modest +villas, and again mere modest dwellings. All are surrounded with hedges +of aloes, vines, olive and orange groves, and the effect is of the +country. + +In the Villa del Paradiso Lord Byron was once a guest. Its loggia was a +favourite lounging place, and the whole aspect of the villa and its +grounds is as paradisal as one has any right to expect to find on earth. + +The Villa Cambiaso was built in 1557 by Alessi from designs, it is +commonly said, of the great Michael Angelo. The ancient Sardinian +Palazzo Imperiali is also here, and is popularly known as the Albero +d'Oro. + +A dozen miles to the east the gardens of the Villa de Franchi extend +down, stair by stair, and fountain by fountain, to the Mediterranean +rocks. The villa is a typical terrace-house, long, and almost dwarfish +on the front, where the "piano nobile" is also the ground floor; but on +the side facing the sea it is a story higher, and of stately +proportions, and is flanked by widely extending wings. It is the typical +Ligurian coast villa, one of a species which has set the copy for many +other seacoast villas and grounds. + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +THE RIVIERA DI LEVANTE + + +The gorgeous panorama of coast scenery continues east of Genoa as it has +obtained for some three hundred kilometres to the west. In fact the road +through Nervi and Recco is finer, if anything, and more hilly, though +less precipitous, than that portion immediately to the westward of +Genoa. + +Between Genoa and Spezia the railway passes through fifty tunnels. The +traveller by the high road has decidedly the best of it, but there are +always those level crossings to take into consideration though fewer of +them. + +Nervi is a place of German hotels, much beer and an unaccommodating tram +line. The Grand Hotel gives access to the gardens of the villa of the +Marchese Gropollo, and this of itself is an attraction that Nervi's +other rather tawdry inns lack. + +Recco is an attractive and populous town, but has no monuments of note. + +The highroad here climbs up the mountain of Portofino where the +promontory joins the mainland, and drops down the other side to Rapallo, +Santa Margherita, Cervara and Portofino. High up on the mountain cape is +the Monastery of San Fruttoso, a picturesque and solitary conventual +establishment in whose chapel are many tombs of the Dorias, all with +good Gothic sculptures. In the convent of Cervara, en route to the +village of Portofino on the east side of the cape, François I, just +after he lost "all save honour" at the battle of Pavia, was imprisoned +previous to his voyage to Spain in the galleys which were to carry him a +captive to the domain of Charles Quint. + +The roads along here are quite the best of the whole extent of the +eastern and western Italian Rivieras. They are encumbered with a new +class of traffic not met with further west. Up over the mountain of +Portofino winds the road in genuine mountain fashion though beautifully +graded and kept. At almost any turning one is likely to meet a great +lumbering char-a-banc crowded with tourists, with five, six or eight +horses caparisoned like a circus pageant, with bells around their necks, +pheasants' feathers bobbing in their top-knots, and a lusty Ligurian on +the hindermost seat blowing a coaching horn for all he is worth. This +is the Italian and German pleasure seeker's way of amusing himself. He +likes it, the rest of us don't! + +Santa Margherita is now a full-blown resort with great hotels, +bathing-machines and all the usual attributes of a place of its class. +Lace-making and coral-fishing are the occupations of the inhabitants who +do not live off of exploiting the tourists. Both products are made here +(and in Belgium and Birmingham) in the imitation varieties, so one had +best beware. + +If one doesn't speak Italian, German will answer in all these resorts of +the Levantine Riviera, quite as well as French or English. The +"Tea-Shop" and "American Bar" signs here give way to those of "Munich" +and "Pilsner." + +The village of Portofino itself is delightful; a quaint little fishing +port surrounded by tree-clad hills running to the water's edge. There is +a Hôtel Splendide, once a villa of the accepted Ligurian order, and a +less pretentious, more characteristic, Albergo Delfino lower down on the +quay. The arms of the little port are a spouting dolphin as befits its +seafaring aspect, so the Albergo Delfino certainly ought to have the +preference for this reason if no other. + +[Illustration: Rapallo] + +On the cliff road running around the promontory from Portofino to +Rapallo are a half a dozen more or less modern villas of questionable +architecture, but of imposing proportions, and one and all delightfully +disposed. + +[Illustration: Map Rapallo and its Gulf] + +The Villa Pagana is the property of the Marchese Spinola, and the Castel +Paraggi, the property of a gentleman prosaically named Brown, is +theatrically and delightfully disposed, though bizarre in form. + +Rapallo, at the head of the bay, is a continuation of what has gone +before. There are great hotels and pensions, and many of them. Its +campaniles and church towers set off the framing of Rapallo +delightfully. The Hôtel de l'Europe has more than once been the abode +of Queen Margherita of Italy, and most of the notables who pass this +way. The hotel curiously enough seems none the worse for it; it is good, +reasonable in price and conveniently situated on the quay, overlooking a +picturesque granite tower built up from a foundation sunk in the waters +of the Mediterranean. The Corsair Dragutte, a buccaneer of romantic +days, came along and plundered these Ligurian towns as often as he felt +like it. Frequently they paid no attention to his visits, save to give +up what blackmail and tribute he demanded; but Rapallo built this tower +as a sort of watch tower or fortress. It is an admirable example of a +sentinel watch tower, and might well be classed as a diminutive +fortress-château. + +From Rapallo to Chiavari the coast road winds and rises and falls with +wonderful variety between villa gardens and vineyards. On the slopes +above are dotted tiny dwellings, and church towers point skywards in +most unexpected places. + +The chief architectural attributes of Chiavari are its arcaded house +fronts, a queer blend of round and pointed arches, and columns of all +orders. The effect is undeniably good. The town was one of the most +important in the old Genoese Republic, save the capital itself. + +The towers scattered here and there through the town and in the +neighbourhood are all feudal relics, albeit they are fragmentary. The +Castle which the native points out with pride is neither very +magnificent nor very elegant, but is indicative of the style of building +of the feudal time in these parts. Decidedly the best things of Chiavari +are its house fronts, and some crazy old streets running back from the +main thoroughfares. There are some slate quarries in the neighbourhood +and a ten foot slab, larger than the top of a billiard table, can be cut +if occasion requires. The church of San Salvatore near Lavagna, where +the quarries are, was founded by Pope Innocent IV in 1243. + +Lavagna, near by, has a Palazzo Rosso, in that it is built of a reddish +stone, though that is not its official name. It was an appanage of the +Fieschi family, who owned to Popes, Cardinals and soldiers in the +gallant days of the Genoese Republic. Sestri-Levante, a half a dozen +kilometres beyond Chiavari, is the last of the Riviera resorts. It is a +mere strip of villa and hotel-lined roadway with a delightful water +front and a charming and idyllic background. + +Spezia is reached only by climbing a lengthy mountain road up over the +Pass of the Bracco; sixty kilometres in all from Sestri to Spezia. The +highroad now leaves the coast to wind around inland over the lower +slopes of the Apennines. The railway itself follows the shore. + +It is a finely graded road with entrancing far-away vistas of the sea, +the distant snow-capped summits of the mountains to the north and, off +southward, the more gently rising Tuscan hills. + +After having climbed some twenty-one hundred feet above the sea, the +highroad runs down through the valley of the Vara, until finally at +Spezia, Italy's great marine arsenal, one comes again to the +Mediterranean shore. + +Just before Spezia is reached, snuggled close in a little bay, is +Vernazza--where the wine comes from, at least, the wine the praises of +which were sung by Boccaccio "as the paragon of wines." Wine is still a +product of the region, but its quality may not be what it once was. + +Spezia is a snug, conservative and exclusive military and naval town. +The gold-lace and blue-cloth individuals of the "service" dominate +everything, even to the waiters in the hotels and cafés. No one else has +a show. + +The Hotel Croix de Malte (with a French name be it observed) is the +chic hotel of Spezia, with prices on a corresponding scale, and no +garage. The Albergo Italia, equally well situated, a typical Italian +house of its class, is more modest in its prices and better as to its +food. It has no garage either, but under the circumstances, that of +itself is no drawback. Across the street, in a vacant store, you may +lodge your automobile for two francs a night, or for one franc if you +tell the ambitious and obliging little man who runs it that he demands +too much. He is really the best thing we found in Spezia. We had run out +of gasoline in entering the city, the long run down hill flattened out +into a plain just before the town was reached, but he accommodatingly +sent out a five gallon tin ("original package" goods from Philadelphia) +and would take no increase in price for his trouble. Such a thing in the +automobile line ought to be encouraged. We pay "through the nose," as +the French say, often enough as it is. + +Spezia's suburban villas are a natural outcome of its environment, but +they are all modern and have, none of them, the flavour of historic +romanticism about them. + +An ancient castle tower on the hills above Spezia is about the only +feudal ruin near by. The viper, the device of the Viscontis, is still +graven above its entrance door to recall the fact that the device of the +Milanese nobles was a viper, and that their natures, too, took after +that of the unlovely thing. The Viper of Milan and the Viscontis is a +worthy cage companion to the hedgehog of François I. + +Spezia's gulf is all that Spezia is not; romantic, lovely and varied. It +was described in ancient times by Strabo, the geographer, and by +Persius. Little of its topographical surroundings or climatic attributes +have changed since that day. + +The road down the coast from Spezia is marked on the maps as perfectly +flat, but within a dozen kilometres, before Arcola is reached, is as +stiff a couple of hair-pin turns as one will remember ever having come +across suddenly in his travels. They are not formidable hills, perhaps, +but they are surprising, and since one has to drop down again +immediately to sea level they seem entirely unnecessary. + +The river Magra which enters the sea just east of Spezia divided the +Genoese territory from that of Tuscany. + + "Macra che per cammin corto + Lo Gonovese parta dal Toscano." + --_Dante_, "Paradisio." + +Sarzana is not a tourist point, but the traveller by road will not be in +a hurry to pass it by. It has, curiously enough, an Albergo della Nuova +York, built on the fortification walls of feudal days. It is not for +this, though, that one lingers at Sarzana. The Bonapartes were +originally descended from Sarzana ancestry. It was proven by +contemporary documents that a certain Buonaparte, a notary, lived here +in 1264. Supposedly, it was this limb of the law who became the chief of +the Corsican family. + +The old feudal castle of Sarzana, with its round tower, its moat and its +later Renaissance gateway is the very ideal of mouldy mediævalism. + +From Sarzana, it is, figuratively speaking, but a step to Carrara and +Massa, the centres of the marble industry. Of all the materials the +artist requires, none is so much sought after as the pure white marble +of Carrara. The sculptured marble of Carrara goes out into the world +from thousands of ateliers to thousands of resting places but it all +comes from this great white mountainside in the Apennines which has made +the region famous and rich. This little Tuscan town of Carrara owes its +all to its, seemingly, inexhaustible stores of milk-white, fine-grained +marbles. More especially is the marble of Carrara in demand for +statuary; but in all the finer forms of carven stone it finds its place +supreme. + +Men and beasts, oxen, horses and mules, and carts of all shapes and +sizes, make the vicinity of Carrara the centre of an uproar that would +be maddening if one had to live in it; but it is all very interesting to +the stranger, and speaks more loudly than words of the importance of the +great industry of the neighbourhood. + +All around are great heaps--mountains almost--of broken, splintered +marble; the débris merely of the great blocks which have, in times past, +been quarried and sent to all quarters of the earth. + +The quarries of Carrara have been worked ever since the Roman epoch, and +the tufted hillsides round about have been burrowed to their bowels in +taking out this untold wealth which, without exaggeration, has been as +great as that of many mines of gold. + +Quite twenty per cent. of the population work at the industry, and five +hundred men are actually engaged in hewing out and slicing off the great +blocks. Ten thousand, at least, find their livelihood dependent upon the +industry, and two hundred thousand tons is a normal annual output; in +price, valued at from 150 to 1,500 francs the cubic metre. + +At Massa one joins the main road again running south by the shore. One +never hears of the conventional tourist stopping at Massa; but we found +the Hotel Massa and its dinner in the garden worth the taking and agreed +that the Château, in base rococo style, (now the public administrative +buildings), a curiosity worth seeing. Massa has a Napoleonic memory +hanging over it, too, in that it was once the residence of the Little +Corporal's sister. Massa's Castello, high above all else in the town, is +grim, lofty and spectacular though to be viewed only from without. Massa +is worth making a note of, even by the hurried traveller. + +Since leaving Sarzana the high road has become worse and worse, until in +the vicinity of Carrara and Massa it is almost indescribably bad. There +is no such stretch of bad road in Europe as this awful fifty kilometres, +for it continues all the way to Lucca and Livorno. The vast amount of +traffic drawn by ten head of oxen at a time is what does it of course, +and as there is no way around one has to go through it, though it's a +heart-breaking job to one that cares anything for his automobile. + +Pietrasanta, eight kilometres farther on, was, for us, an undiscovered +beauty spot and historic shrine; at least, none of us had ever heard of +it till we passed the portals. Now we know that the walls, through which +we passed, were the same that the blood-thirsty, battling Lorenzo di +Medici besieged in 1482; and that the ancient bronze font in the +Baptistery was the work of Donatello. We were glad that Massa and +Pietrasanta were counted in, as they should be by everyone passing this +way, even though they did take up half a day's time--all on account of +the awful road--part of which time, however, you are eating that +excellent lunch in the garden of the Hotel Massa. That time will not be +lost anyway, one must eat somewhere. + +Eight kilometres beyond Massa is Viareggio, an unlovely, incipient +seaside resort for dwellers in the Tuscan towns; but a historic spot +nevertheless, and interesting from that viewpoint at any rate. + +Viareggio has no villas or palaces of note, and its chief associations +for the traveller lie in its memories of Shelley and Ouida, the Marquise +de la Ramée. There is a monument, erected to Shelley in 1894, +commemorating the fact that he was drowned here, in the Tyrrhenian Sea, +and his body consumed by fire, on the shore. + +It was in the village of Massarosa, near Viareggio, that that +much-abused and very abusive old lady, Ouida, the Marquis de la Ramée, +died in January, 1908. Since 1877 she had made Italy her home, and for +years she had lived here alone, not in poverty or misery, for she had a +"civil pension" which was more than sufficient to keep the wolf from the +door. She died miserable and alone however. Ouida was a more real, more +charitable person than she was given credit for being. She didn't like +the English, and Americans she liked still less, but she loved the +Italians. Whose business was it then if she chose to live among them, +with her unkempt and unwholesome-looking dogs and her slatternly +maid-of-all-work? Ouida, as she herself said, did not hate humanity; she +hated society; and she had more courage than some of the rest of us in +that she would have nothing to do with it. + +The vineyards lying back of Viareggio may not be the most luxuriant in +Italy, but they blossom abundantly enough. + +Lucca is thirty-five kilometres from Viareggio and the road still +bad--on to Livorno, turning to the right instead of the left at +Viareggio, it is worse. + +Lucca has a right to its claim as one of the most ancient cities of +Tuscany, for it is one of the least up-to-date of Italian cities. When +Florence was still sunk in its marsh Lucca was already old, and filled +with a commercial importance which to-day finds its echo in the +distribution of the Lucca olive oil of trade which one may buy at +Vancouver, Johannesburg or Rio. Indeed the label on the bottle of olive +oil is the only reminiscence many have of Lucca. + +[Illustration: LUCCA] + +The decadence came to Lucca in due time and it degenerated sadly, about +its last magnificent ray being that shot out when Napoleon gave the +city to his sister Eliza Bacciochi, with the title of Princess of Lucca. +She was a real benefactress to the country, but with the fall of +Napoleon all his satellites were snuffed out, too, and then the benign +influences of the Princess Eliza were forgotten and ignored. + +Southwest from Lucca, with Pisa lying between, is the great port of +Leghorn, whence are shipped the marbles of Carrara, the oil of Lucca, +the wines of Chianti and the Leghorn hats and braids of all Tuscany. +These four things keep Livorno going. + +Leghorn is as modern as Lucca is antiquated and is the most cosmopolitan +of all Italian cities. + +When Philip III expelled the Moors from Spain Cosmo II, Duke of Livorno, +invited two thousand of them to come to his Dukedom. + +Montesquieu remarked upon this conglomerate population, and approved of +it apparently, as he called the founding and populating of the city the +master work of the Medici dynasty. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +ON TUSCAN ROADS + + +The valley of the Arno, as the river flows through the heart of Tuscany +from its source high in the hills just south of Monte Falterona, is the +most romantic region in all Italy. It is the borderland between the +south and the north, and, as it was a battle-ground between Guelph and +Ghibellines, so too is it the common ground where the blood of the +northerner and southerner mingles to-day. + +As great rivers go, the Arno is neither grand nor magnificent, but, +though its proportions are not great, its banks are lined with historic +and artistic ruins, from the old fortress at Marina di Pisa to Poppi, +the ancient capital of the Casentino, perched so quaintly upon its +river-washed rock. + +Pisa, Leghorn and Lucca are a triumvirate of Tuscan towns which should +be viewed and considered collectively. One should not be included in +an itinerary without the others, though indeed they have little in +common, save the memories of the past. + +[Illustration: ON A TUSCAN HIGHWAY + +Blanche McManus + +1908] + +Pisa is another of these dead cities of Europe, like Bruges, Leyden, and +Rothenburg. Once ardent and lively in every activity of life, its +population now has sunk into a state of lethargy. Industry and commerce, +and the men who should busy themselves therewith, are in the background, +hidden behind a barrier of bureaucracy. Pisa, a town of twenty-six +thousand inhabitants, has a tribunal of nine civil judges, a criminal +court presided over by sixty-three more, and a "roll" of more than half +a hundred notaries. Then there is a service of Domains, of Registry and +of Public Debt; besides an array of functionaries in charge of +seminaries, orphan asylums, schools and colleges. All these belong to +the state. + +Pisa, sitting distant and proud on the banks of the Arno, enjoys a +softer climate than most of the coast cities or interior towns of +central Italy. The Tyrrhenian Sea is but a gulf of the Mediterranean, +but just where it bathes the shore about the mouth of the Arno, it has a +higher temperature than most northern Mediterranean waters. + +Pisa is more of a sanitarium than it is a gay watering place however. +The city is, in fact, like its celebrated leaning tower, half tottering +on the brink of its grave. Commerce and industry are far from active and +its streets are half deserted; many of them are literally grass-grown +and all the others are paved with great flat clean-swept flags, a +delight for the automobilist, whose chief experience of pavements has +been in France and Belgium. + +The entrance to Pisa by road from the north is one of the most pleasing +of that of any Italian city. For the last half dozen kilometres the road +steadily improves until it becomes one of the best as it circles around +that wonderful triumvirate of architectural splendours, the Duomo, the +Baptistery and the tottering Torre. The group is one of the scenic +surprises of Italy, and the automobilist has decidedly the best +opportunity of experiencing the emotions it awakes, for he does not have +to come out from town (for the monuments are some ways from the centre) +to see it. It is the first impression that the traveller by road gets of +Pisa and of its architectural wonders, as he draws suddenly upon it from +the slough-like road through which he has literally ploughed his way for +many kilometres. And it is an impression he will never forget. + +All along the banks of the Arno, as it flows through Pisa, are dotted +here and there palaces of Renaissance days. One is now a dependence of a +hotel; another has been appropriated by the post office; others are +turned into banks and offices; but there are still some as well ordered +and livable as in their best days. + +The Palazzo Agostini on the Lung' Arno, its façade ornamented with terra +cotta medallions, is now a part of the Hotel Nettuno which, as well as +any other of Pisa's hotels, cares for the automobilist in a satisfactory +manner. Its garage accommodations are abominably confined, and to get in +and out one takes a considerable risk of damaging his mud-guards, +otherwise they are satisfactory, though one pays two francs a night for +them, which one should not be obliged to do. Here is another point where +France is superior to Italy as an automobile touring ground. + +Pisa and its palaces are a delight from every point of view, though +indeed none of the edifices are very grand, or even luxurious. They +strike a middle course however, and are indicative of the solid comfort +and content in which their original owners must have lived at Pisa in +latter Renaissance times. + +Pisa's Campo Santo is the most famous example of graveyard design and +building in all the world. It is calm and dignified, but stupendous and +startling in its immensity. + +From Pisa to Florence by road, following the valley of the Arno, one +passes through the typical Tuscan countryside, although the hill-country +lies either to one side or the other. It is the accessible route +however, and the one usually claimed by the local garage and hotel +keepers to be one of the best of Italian roads. It is and it isn't; it +all depends upon the time of the year, the fact that the road may +recently have been repaired or not, and the state of the weather. We +went over it in a rain which had been falling steadily for three days +and found it very bad, though unquestionably it would have been much +more comfortable going in dry weather. It is the approved route between +the two cities however, and unless one is going directly down the coast +to Rome, via Grosseto, Pisa is the best place from which to commence the +inland détour. + +Cascina, a dozen kilometres away, was the scene of a sanguinary defeat +of the Pisans by the Florentines on the feast of San Vittorio in 1364, +and each year the event is celebrated by the inhabitants. It seems +singular that a people should seek to perpetuate the memory of a +defeat, but perhaps the original inhabitants sympathized with Florence +rather than with Pisa. + +Pontedera is a big country town at the juncture of the Era and the Arno. +It has no monuments and no history worth remarking, but is indicative of +the prosperity of the country round about. Pontedera has no hotel with +garage accommodations, and if you get caught in a thunder storm, as we +did, you will have to grin and bear it and plug along. + +San Miniato de Tedeschi rises on its hill top a few kilometres farther +on in an imposing manner. It is the most conspicuous thing in the +landscape for a wide radius. Francesco Sforza was born here, and +Frederic II made it the seat of the Imperial vicarage. San Miniato is a +hill town of the very first rank, and like others of the same +class--Fiesole, Colle and Volterra--(though its hill-top site may have +nothing to do with this) it had the privilege of conferring nobility on +plebeians. The Grand Duke of Tuscany in the nineteenth century +accordingly made "an English gentleman of Hebrew extraction"--so history +reads--the Marquis of San Miniato. At any rate it was probably as good a +title as is usually conferred on any one, and served its soi-disant +owner well enough for a crest for his note paper or automobile door. +One wonders what the gentleman took for his motto. History does not say. + +Empoli is a thriving town, engaged principally in killing fowls and +sending them to the Florence market, plaiting straw to be made into +hats, and covering chianti bottles with the same material. + +The Ghibellines would have made Empoli their capital in 1260, after +their meeting or "parliament" here. It was proposed too, that Florence +should be razed. One man only, Farinata degli Uberti, opposed it. +"Never," said he, "will I consent that our beloved city, which our +enemies have spared, shall be destroyed or insulted by our own hands." + +The old palace in which the Ghibelline parliament met still stands on +the Piazza del Mercato. + +No automobilist who "happens" on Empoli will ever want to see it again, +on account of the indignities which will be heaped on his automobile, +though the Albergo Guippone, run by a mother and son in most competent, +but astonishing, fashion, is the real thing. The food and cooking are +extraordinarily good, and the house itself new and cleanly. You eat at a +big round table, with a great long-necked bottle of chianti swung on a +balance in the centre. It must hold at least two gallons, and, without +the well-sweep arrangement for pouring out its contents, you would go +dry. The wine served is as good as the rest of the fare offered. The +fault with Empoli's hotel is that there is no garage and the proprietors +recommend no one as competent to house your automobile, saying you can +take your choice of any one of a half a dozen renters of _stallagio_ +near by. They are all bad doubtless; but the one we tried, who permitted +us to put the automobile in an uncovered dirty hole with horses, donkeys +and pigs, took--yes, took, that's the word--two lire for the service! If +you do go to Empoli keep away from this ignorant, unprogressive +individual. + +North of Empoli, on the direct road from Lucca to Florence, are Pistoja +and Prato. + +Pistoja is one of the daintiest of Tuscan cities, but not many of the +habitués of Florence know it, at least not as they know Pisa or Siena. + +Its past is closely intermingled with Florentine and Italian history, +and indeed has been most interesting. Practically it is a little +mountain city, though lying quite at the base of the Apennines, just +before they flatten out into the seashore plain. Its country people, in +town for a market-day, are chiefly people of the hills, shepherds and +the like, but their speech is Tuscan, the purest speech of Italy, the +nearest that is left us to the speech of Boccaccio's day. + +Pistoja's old walls and ramparts are not the least of its crumbling +glories. They are a relic of the Medicis and the arms and crests of this +family are still seen carved over several of the entrance gates. One has +only to glance upward as he drives his automobile noisily through some +mediæval gateway to have memories of the days when cavalcades of lords +and ladies passed over the same road on horseback or in state coaches. + +All is primitive and unworldly at Pistoja, but there is no ruinous +decay, though here and there a transformed or rebuilt palace has been +turned into some institution or even a workshop. + +Prato, a near neighbour of Pistoja on the road to Florence, is also a +fine relic of an old walled Tuscan town. Aside from this its specialty +is churches, which are numerous, curious and beautiful, but except for +the opportunity for viewing them the lover of the romantic and +picturesque will not want to linger long within the city. + +Between Empoli and Florence is seen at a distance the Villa Ambrogiana; +a transformation by Ferdinand I of an old castle of the Ardinghelli; +its towers and pinnacles still well preserved, but the whole forming a +hybrid, uncouth structure. + +Further on at Montelupo there is a castle, now in ruins, built and +fortified by the Florentines in 1203. It owes its name, Montelupo, to +the adoption of the word _lupo_, wolf, by the Florentines when they +sought to destroy a neighbouring clan called the Capraja (_capra_, +goat). + +Signa is reached after crossing the Arno for the first time. The city +walls, towers and pinnacles, with their battlements and machicolations, +are still as they were when the Florentines caused them to be erected to +guard the high road leading to their city. + +Suburban sights, in the shape of modern villas, market gardens and what +not, announce the approach to Florence, which is entered by a broad +straight road, the Strada Pisana, running beneath the Porta S. Frediano. +Instinctively one asks for the Lung' Arno that he may get his bearings, +and then straightway makes for his hotel or pension. + +[Illustration: FLORENCE and its PALACES] + +Hotels for the automobilist in Florence are numerous. The Automobile +Club de France vouches for the Palace Hotel, where you pay two francs +and a half for garage, and for the Grand Hotel de la Ville with no +garage. The writer prefers the Hotel Helvetia, or better yet the Hotel +Porta Rossa, a genuine Italian _albergo_, patronized only by such +strangers as come upon it unawares. It is very good, reasonable in +price, and you may put your automobile in the _remissa_, which houses +the hotel omnibus, for a franc a night. It is convenient to have your +automobile close at hand instead of at the F. I. A. T. garage a mile or +more away, and the hotel itself is most central, directly to the rear of +the Strozzi Palace. + +"What sort of city is this Florence?" asked Boniface VIII, amazed at the +splendour of the Florentine procession sent to Rome to honour his +jubilee. No one was found ready with an answer, but at last a Cardinal +timidly remarked, "Your Holiness, the City of Florence is a good city." +"Nonsense," replied the Pope, "she is far away the greatest of all +cities! She feeds, clothes and governs us all.... She and her people are +the fifth element of the universe." + +One comes to Florence for pictures and palaces, and, for as long or +short a time as fancy suggests, the automobile and the chauffeur, if you +have one, take a needed repose. Your automobile safely housed, your +chauffeur will most likely be found, when wanted, at the Reininghaus on +the Piazza Vittorio-Emanuel drinking German beer and reading "Puck" or +"Judge" or "Punch" or "Le Rire." This is a café with more foreign +papers, one thinks, than any other on earth. + +[Illustration: TORCH-HOLDERS PALAZZO STROZZI] + +[Illustration: A LANTERN PALAZZO STROZZI] + +[Illustration: Palazzo Vecchio, Florence] + +Down through the heart of Tuscany, and through the Chianti district, +runs the highroad from Florence to Rome, via Siena. It is a delightful +itinerary, whether made by road or rail, and, whether one's motive is +the admiration and contemplation of art or architecture, or the sampling +of the chianti, en route, the journey through the Tuscan Apennines will +ever remain as a most fragrant memory. It is a lovely country of +vineyards and wheatfields, intermingled, and, here and there, clumps of +mulberry trees, and always great yoked oxen and _contadini_ working, +walking or sleeping. + +These, indeed, are the general characteristics of all the countryside of +central Italy, but here they are superlatively idyllic. The simple life +must be very nearly at its best here, for the almost unalterable fare of +bread and cheese and wine, which the peasants, by the roadside, seem +always to be munching and drinking, is not conducive to grossness of +thought or action. + +From Florence to Rome there are three principal roads favoured by +automobilists: that via Siena and Grosseto, 332 kilometres; via Siena, +Orvieto and Viterbo, 325 kilometres; and via Arezzo, Perugia and Terni, +308 kilometres. They are all equally interesting, but the latter two are +hilly throughout and the former, in rainy weather, is apt to be bad as +to surface. + +The towers of Tuscany might well be made the interesting subject of an +entire book. Some of them, existing to-day, date from the Etruscans, +many centuries before Christ, and Dionysius wrote that the Etruscans +were called Tyrrhene or Turreno because they inhabited towers, or strong +places--_Typeie_. + +In the twelfth century, local laws, throughout Tuscany, reduced all +towers to a height of fifty _braccia_. Pisa, Siena and Florence in +the past had several hundred towers, but Volterra and San Gimignano +in the Val d'Elsa are the only remarkable collections still grouped +after the original manner. "San Gimignano delle belle Torri" is a +classic phrase and has inspired many chapters in books and many magazine +articles. + +[Illustration: _San Gimignano_] + +Massimo d'Azeglio, whose opinions most people who write books on Italy +exploit as their own, said, with reason, that San Gimignano was as +extraordinary a relic of the past as Pompeii. Of all the fifty odd +towers of the city, none is more imposing than that of the Palazzo +Publico, rising up above the very apartment, where, in the thirteenth +century, Dante was received when he was sent from Florence to parley +with the Guelphs of San Gimignano. + +San Gimignano's Palazzo del Commune dates from 1298, but its tower was +an afterthought, built a century later. This tower of the Palazzo del +Commune is, perhaps, the best preserved of all the "belle torri" of the +city. + +[Illustration: VOLTERRA] + +San Gimignano and Volterra are much alike, though the latter's strong +point lies more in its fortification walls. Volterra and its Etruscan +lore and pottery have ever been a source of pride among Italian +antiquarians. The Etruscans of old must have been passionately fond of +pottery, for, so plentifully were the environs of Volterra strewn with +broken pitchers, that one suspects that each square yard must have +contained a well. Some one called the Etruscans lunatics, who were shut +up in Volterra and allowed to pursue their craze for pottery in peace; +but they were harmless lunatics, who devoted themselves to the arts of +peace, rather than those of war. The alabaster bric-à-brac trade and +traffic still exists, and provides a livelihood for a large part of the +population of the city; but thousands of Tuscans, many of them from +Volterra, doubtless, have deserted their former arts for the pleasure +of dragging a hand organ from street to street, in London and New York, +and gathering soldi by ministering to the pleasures of the populace. It +is easy for the superior person to sneer at the hand organ, as he +sneers, by the way, at the phonograph and the pianola, but dull alleys +and mean streets are brightened by the music of the itinerant Italian. + +"It is a vision of the moyen-age," wrote Paul Bourget when he first saw +Volterra's Etruscan walls. High up on its rocky plateau sits Volterra, +protected by its walls and gorges and ravines, in almost impregnable +fashion. + +With this incentive no automobilist north or southbound should omit San +Gimignano or Volterra from his itinerary. They are but a few kilometres +off the main road, from Poggibonzi via Val d'Elsa between Siena and +Florence. + +On a height overlooking Volterra, just over the Romitorio, and almost +within sight of San Gimignano's towers, Campanello, the celebrated +brigand, was captured, a quarter of a century ago. He had quartered +himself upon an unsuspecting, though unwilling, peasant, as was the +fashion with brigands of the time, and, through a "faux pas," offended a +youth who was in love with one of his host's daughters. This was his +undoing. The youth informed the local authorities; and Campanello led +away himself by the blind passion of love, fell precipitately into the +trap which the injured youth had helped to set. + +Thus ended another brigand's tale, which in these days are growing fewer +and fewer. One has to go to Corsica or Sardinia to experience the +sensation of being held up, or to the Paris boulevards where _apaches_ +still reign, or to the east end of London. + +Going south from Florence by this road the automobilist has simply to +ask his way via the "Strada per Siena;" after Siena it is the "Strada +per Roma;" and so on from one great town to another. In finding one's +way out of town the plan is simple, easily remembered and efficient; +there are no false and confusing directions such as one frequently gets +in France. You are either on the Via This or That which ultimately leads +to the Strada of the same name, or you are not. Start right and you +can't miss the road in Italy. + +Among all the secondary cities of Italy, none equals Siena in romantic +appeal. Its site is most picturesque, its climate is salubrious, and it +has an entirely mediæval stamp so far as the arrangement of its palaces +is concerned. Siena possesses something unique in church architecture, +as might be expected of a city which once contained sixty places of +worship, a special patois, and women of surpassing beauty. More than by +anything else, Siena is brought to mind by the recollection of that +Saint Catherine, who, according to Pope Pius II, made all who approached +her better for her presence. + +The railway and its appurtenances, automobiles and their belongings, the +electric light and the telegraph, are almost the only signs of modernity +in Siena to-day. The rest is of the middle ages, and the chief +characters who stand out to-day are not the political personages of our +time; but Bianca Capello and Marie de Medici and Charles V, who of all +other aliens is best remembered of Siena, because of the Holbein +reproduction of his face and figure which he presented to its citizens. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +FLORENTINE BACKGROUNDS + + +The hills and valleys around Florence offer delightful promenades by +road to the automobilist as well as to those who have not the means at +hand of going so far afield. A commercial enterprise is exploiting them +by means of a great _char-a-banc_, or "sightseeing" automobile, which +detracts from the sentiments and emotions which might otherwise be +evoked, and at the same time annoys the driver of a private automobile, +for the reason that this public conveyance often crowds him on a narrow +road and prevents his passing. However, this is better than being +obstructed, as in former days, by a string of forty lazy cabs and their +drivers. + +The round to Fiesole, San Miniato, Vallombrosa, and on through the +Casentino of romantic memory is delightful and may be made in a day or a +week, as one's fancy dictates. + +The new road from Florence to Fiesole, that is the road made in the +mid-nineteenth century, was not a piece of jobbery or graft, but was +paid for by patents of nobility given by the municipality of Fiesole to +those who furnished the means. This was in the days when a Grand Duke +ruled Tuscany and monarchical institutions found favour. + +Fiesole had its Libro d'Oro, and inscribed thereon as noble any +individual who would pay the required price. From fifteen hundred lire +upward was the price for which marquises, counts and barons were created +in Florence's patrician suburb. + +Coming out from Florence by another gateway, through the Porta San +Gallo, runs the Fiesole highway. A landmark, which can be readily +pointed out by anyone, is the villa once possessed by Walter Savage +Landor and inhabited by him for nearly thirty years. Here the famous men +of letters of the middle years of the last century visited him. Here he +revelled amid memories of Boccaccio and wrote the Pentameron. There is +talk of buying the place and consecrating it to his memory. + +All the way from Florence to Fiesole the roads are lined with typical +Florentine villas and country houses. The Villa at Poggio Cajano was +built by Lorenzo the Magnificent, who employed Giuliano da San Gallo as +his architect. In 1587 Francesco I died within its walls, and the +profligate Bianca Capello, whose history had best stay buried, also died +here on the following day. Their brother Ferdinand was responsible for +their taking off, as they had already prepared to put him out of the way +by the administration of a dose of poison. He stood over them, with +dagger drawn, and made them eat their own poisoned viands. + +The Villa Petraja was a strong-hold of the Brunelleschi family which +defended itself ably against the Pisans and the marauders of Sir John +Hawkwood in 1364, when that rollicking rascal sold his services to the +enemies of Florence. The old tower of the castle, as it then was, still +remains, but the major portion of the present structure dates from quite +modern times. + +The Villa Medici in Careggi was built by Cosimo Pater from the designs +of Michelozzi, and though no longer royal it is to-day practically +unchanged in general outline. It, too, was one of the favourite +residences of Lorenzo the Magnificent, and the conclaves of the famous +Platonic Academy were held here on the seventh of November, the +anniversary of the date of the birth and death of Plato. Here died both +Cosimo and Lorenzo, the latter on the eighth of April, 1492, just after +his celebrated interview with Savonarola. The Orsi family came into +possession of the villa later on, then "an English gentleman" and then a +certain Signor Segré. + +Between Careggi and Fiesole, and on towards Vallombrosa, the villas and +palatial country houses of the Florentines are scattered as thickly as +the leaves of the famous vale itself. + +The Villa Salviati is a fine sixteenth century work with a blood-red +memory of the middle ages, at one time the property of the singer Mario, +remembered by a former generation. The Villa Rinuccini has its grounds +laid out in the style of an English formal garden, and the Villa +Guadagni was once the home of the historian, Bartolommeo della Scala. + +Of all the Florentine suburban villas none has a tithe of the popular +romantic interest possessed by the Villa Palmieri. The Villa Palmieri is +best seen from its approach by the highroad, up hill, from Florence. At +the right of the iron gate, the _cancello_, runs the old road to +Fiesole. Upward still the road runs, through the _cancello_, through a +wind-break of trees and around to the north façade by which one enters. +The entire south side of the house is in the form of a loggia, with a +great wide terrace in front, below which is the sloping garden with its +palm trees and azaleas. + +[Illustration: VILLA PALMIERI] + +The Villa Palmieri and its gardens are somewhat the worse for stress of +time; and the wind and the hot sun have burned up the shrubs and trees +since the days when Zocchi the draughtsman made that series of formal +drawings of Italian gardens, that of the Villa Palmieri among the +number, which are so useful to the compilers of books on Italian villas +and gardens. + +Fiesole sits proudly on its height a thousand feet above the level of +the sea. The following anonymous lines--"newspaper verse" they may be +contemptuously described by some--make as admirable a pen picture of +the little town as it were possible to reproduce. + + "A little town on a far off hill-- + (Fiesole, Fiesole!) + Mossy walls that defy Time's will, + Olive groves in the sun a-thrill + Thickets of roses where thrushes trill + Winds that quiver and then are still-- + Fiesole, Fiesole!" + +Fiesole forms an irregular ground plan, rising and falling on the +unequal ground upon which it is built. The long and almost unbroken line +of Cyclopean walls towards the north is the portion which has suffered +least from time or violence. The huge stones of which the Etruscan wall +is composed are somewhat irregular in shape and unequal in size, seldom +assuming a polygonal form. This Cyclopean construction varies with the +geological nature of the rock employed. In all the Etruscan and Pelasgic +towns it is found that, when sandstone was used, the form of the stones +has been that of the parallelopipedon or nearly so, as at Fiesole and +Cortona; whereas, when limestone was the subjacent rock, the polygonal +construction alone is found, as at Cosa and Segni. This same observation +will be found to apply to every part of the world, and in a marked +degree to the Cyclopean constructions of Greece and Asia Minor, and +even to the far-distant edifices raised by the Peruvian Incas. Sometimes +the pieces of rock are dovetailed into each other; others stand joint +above joint; but, however placed, the face, or outward front, is +perfectly smooth. No projection, or work advancing beyond the line of +the wall, appears in the remains of the original structure. + +[Illustration: FIESOLE] + +Fiesole is a built-up fabric in all its parts; its foundation is +architecture, and its churches, palaces and villas are mere +protuberances extending out from a concrete whole. Fiesole is one of the +most remarkably built towns above ground. + +Fiesole's great charm lies in its surrounding and ingredient elements; +in the palaces and villas of the hilltops always in plain view, and in +its massive construction of walls, rather than in its specific +monuments, though indeed its Duomo possesses a crudity and rudeness of +constructive and decorative elements which marks it as a distinct, if +barbarous, Romanesque style. + +The views from Fiesole's height are peculiarly fine. On the north is the +valley of the Mugello, and just below is the Villa of Scipione Ammirato, +the Florentine historian. Towards the south, the view commands the +central Val d'Arno, from its eastern extremity to the gorge of the +Gonfolina, by which it communicates with the Val d'Arno di Sotto, with +Florence as the main object in the rich landscape below. + +The following is a mediæval point of view as conceived by a Renaissance +historian. He wrote it of Lorenzo the Magnificent, but the emotions it +describes may as well become the possession of plebeian travellers of +to-day. + +"Lorenzo ever retained a predilection for his country house just below +Fiesole, and the terrace still remains which was his favourite walk. +Pleasant gardens and walks bordered by cypresses add to the beauty of +the spot, from which a splendid view of Florence encircled by its +amphitheatre of mountains is obtained." + +"In a villa overhanging the towers of Florence, on the steep slopes of +that lofty hill crowned by the mother city, the ancient Fiesole, in +gardens which Tully might have envied, with Ficino, Landino, and +Politian at his side, he delighted his hours of leisure with the +beautiful visions of Platonic philosophy, for which the summer stillness +of an Italian sky appears the most congenial accompaniment." + +This is the twentieth century, but those of mood and mind may experience +the same as did Lorenzo di Medici four hundred years ago. The hills and +vales, the Arno and the City of the Lily, with its domes and towers, +have little changed during the many passing years. + +Out from Florence by the Porta alla Croce runs the road to Vallombrosa, +which may be reached also from Fiesole without entering Florence by +taking the road leading over the Ponte a Mensola. Just beyond +Pontassieve, some twenty kilometres distant, the road to Vallombrosa +leaves the Arezzo highway and plunges boldly into the heart of the +Apennines. + +Of Vallombrosa Lamartine said: "Abbey monumental, the Grande Chartreuse +of Italy built on the summit of the Apennines behind a rocky rampart, +protected by precipices at every turn, by torrents of rushing water and +by dark, dank forests of fir-pines." The description is good to-day, +and, while the ways of access are many, including even a _funiculaire_ +from Pontassieve to Vallombrosa, to approach the sainted pile in the +true and reverend spirit of the pilgrim one should make his way by the +winding mountain road--even if he has to walk. Indeed, walking is the +way to do it; the horses hereabouts are more inert than vigorous; they +mislead one; they start out bravely, but, if they don't fall by the +wayside, they come home limping. But for the fact that the road uphill +to Vallombrosa is none too good as to surface and the turns are many and +sharp, it is accessible enough by automobile. + +Various granges, hermitages and convent walls are passed en route. At +Sant'Ellero was a Benedictine nunnery belonging to the monks of +Vallombrosa in the thirteenth century, and in its donjon tower--a queer +adjunct for a nunnery by the way--a band of fleeing Ghibellines were +besieged by a horde of Guelphs in 1267. + +Domini and Saltino mark various stages in the ascent from the valley. Up +to this latter point indeed one may come by the _funiculaire_, but that +is not the true pilgrim way. + +Up to within a couple of kilometres of the summit chestnuts, oaks, and +beech are seen, justifying Milton's simile, the accuracy of which has +been called in question on the ground that the forest consisted entirely +of fir. + + "Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks + In Vallombrosa, where the Etrurian shades, + High overarch'd, embower." + +Four miles beyond Paterno, after passing through a fine forest of pines, +the traveller arrives at the Santuario of Vallombrosa: + + "Cosi fu nominata una badia, + Ricca e bella ne men religiosa + E cortese a chiunque vi venia." + --_Orl. Fur. can. 22, st. 36._ + +Among the remarkable men who have been monks of Vallombrosa, was Guido +Aretino, who was a member of this house when he first became known as a +writer upon music (about A. D. 1020). After having visited Rome twice, +upon the invitation of two succeeding popes, he was prevailed upon by +the abbot of a monastery at Ferrara to settle there. Some writers have +ascribed to this Guido the invention of counterpoint, which is scarcely +less absurd than ascribing the invention of a language to any +individual. However, it is pretty certain that he was the first person +to use, or to recommend the use of "lines" and "spaces" for musical +notation. + +High above the convent of Vallombrosa itself rises Il Paradisino (1,036 +metres) with a small hermitage, while Monte Secchieta is higher still, +1,447 metres. Vallombrosa, its convent and its hermitages are in the +midst of solitude, as indeed a retreat, pious or otherwise, should be. +If only some of us who are more worldly than a monk would go into a +retreat occasionally and commune with solitude awhile, what a +clarifying of ideas one would experience! + +Back of Vallombrosa and the Paradisino the upper valley of the Arno +circles around through Arezzo, Bibbiena and Poppi and rises just under +the brow of Monte Falterona which, in its very uppermost reaches, forms +a part of the Casentino. + +From Pontassieve where one branches off for Vallombrosa one may descend +on Arezzo either by Poppi-Bibbiena or Montevarchi, say seventy +kilometres either way. + +The Casentino and the Valley of the Arno form one of the most +romantically unspoiled tracts in Italy, although modern civilization is +crowding in on all sides. The memories of Saint Francis, La Verna, Saint +Romuald the Camaldoli and Dante and the great array of Renaissance +splendours of its towns and villages, will live for ever. + +Here took place some of the severest conflicts in the civil wars of the +Guelphs and Ghibellines, and in numerous ruins of castles and hill-forts +are retained memorials of the many struggles. + +Just where the Arno traverses the plain of Campaldino was the scene of a +celebrated battle on the 11th of June, 1289. The Aretines, who formed +the chief portion of the Ghibelline party, were routed with a loss of +1,700 men killed, and 2,000 taken prisoners. Among the former was the +celebrated Guglielmino Ubertini, Bishop of Arezzo, who fell fighting +desperately in the thickest of the fray, having rallied his troops upon +the bridge at Poppi, half a mile further on. Dante was present at this +battle, being then twenty-four years old, and serving in the Guelph +cavalry. + +The Casentino is the most opulent district in all the region of the +Apennines. Six centuries ago the Counts Palatine of Tuscany held it; +then came the Popes, and then Dante and his followers. The chronicles of +the Casentino are most fascinating reading, particularly those concerned +with the Counts of Guidi. + +Guidoguerra IV, Count Palatine of Tuscany in the early thirteenth +century, was a sort of Robin Hood, except that he was not an outlaw. He +made a road near the home of the monks of Camaldoli, and intruded armed +men into their solitude, "and worse still, play actors and women," where +all women had been forbidden: moreover, he had all the oxen of the monks +driven off. He played pranks on the minstrels and buffoons who came to +his palace. One minstrel, named Malanotte, he compelled to spend a bad +night on the rooftop in the snow; another, Maldecorpo, had to lie and +sizzle between two fires; while a third, Abbas, he tonsured by pulling +out his hair. + +Literally translated Casentino means "the valley enclosed." It is a most +romantic region, and the praises of its mountain walls and chestnut +woods have been sung by all sojourners there, ever since Dante set the +fashion. + +The life of the peasant of the Casentino to-day is much the same as in +Dante's time, and his pleasures and sorrows are expressed in much the +same manner as of old. Strange folksongs and dances, strange dramas of +courtship, and strange religious ceremonies all find place here in this +unspoiled little forest tract between Florence and Arezzo; along whose +silent paths one may wander for hours and come across no one but a few +contented charcoal-burners who know nothing beyond their own woods. + +On the lower levels, the highway leading from Florence to Perugia and +Foligno rolls along, as silent as it was in mediæval times. It is by no +means a dull monotonous road, though containing fewer historic places +than the road by Siena or Viterbo. It is an alternative route from north +to south; and the most direct one into the heart of Umbria. + +On arriving from Florence by the highroad one passes through the long +main street of Montevarchi, threading his way carefully to avoid, if +possible, the dogs and ducks which run riot everywhere. + +A great fertile plain stretches out on each side of the Arno, the +railway sounding the only modern note to be heard, save the honk! honk! +(the French say _coin_, _coin_, which is better) of an occasional +passing automobile. + +Up and down the hills ox teams plough furrows as straight as on the +level, and the general view is pastoral until one strikes the forests +neighbouring upon Arezzo, eighty kilometres from Florence. + +Here all is savage and primeval. Here was many a brigand's haunt in the +old days, but the Government has wiped out the roving banditti; and +to-day the greatest discomfort which would result from a hold-up would +be a demand for a cigar, or a box of matches. At Palazzaccio, a mere +hamlet en route, was the hiding place of the once notorious brigand +Spadolino; a sort of stage hero, who affected to rob the rich for the +benefit of the poor--a kind of socialism which was never successful. +Robin Hood tried it, so did Macaire, Gaspard de Besse and Robert le +Diable and they all came to timely capture. + +Spadolino one day stopped a carriage near Palazzaccio, cut the throats +of its occupants and gave their gold to a poor miller, Giacomo by name, +who wanted ninety _francesconi_ to pay his rent. This was the last +cunning trick of Spadolino, for he was soon captured and hung at the +Porta Santa Croce at Florence, as a warning to his kind. + +Not every hurried traveller who flies by express train from Florence to +Rome puts foot to earth and makes acquaintance with Arezzo. The +automobilist does better, he stops here, for one reason or another, and +he sees things and learns things hitherto unknown to him. + +Arezzo should not be omitted from the itinerary of any pilgrim to Italy. +It was one of the twelve cities of the Etruscan federation, and made +peace with Rome in 310 A. D. and for ever remained its ally. + +The Flaminian Way, built by the Consul Flaminius in 187 B. C., between +Aretium (Arezzo) and Bononia (Bologna), is still traceable in the +neighbourhood. + +Petrarch is Arezzo's deity, and his birthplace is to be found to-day on +the Via del Orto. On the occasion of the great fête given in 1904 in +honour of the six hundredth anniversary of his birth, the municipality +made this place a historic monument. + +Vasari, who as a biographer has been very useful to makers of books on +art, was also born at Arezzo in 1512. His house is a landmark. Local +guides miscall it a palace, but in reality it is a very humble edifice; +not at all palatial. + +The Palazzo Pretoria at Arezzo has one of the most bizarre façades +extant, albeit its decorative and cypher panels add no great +architectural beauty. + +Arezzo's cathedral is about the saddest, ugliest religious edifice in +Italy. Within is the tomb of Pope Gregory X. + +Poppi and Bibbiena are the two chief towns of the upper valley. Each is +blissfully unaware of the world that has gone before, and has little in +common with the life of to-day, save such intimacy as is brought by the +railroad train, as it screeches along in the valley between them half a +dozen times a day. + +Poppi sits on a high table rock, its feet washed by the flowing Arno. +The town itself is dead or sleeping; but most of its houses are frankly +modern, in that they are well kept and freshly painted or whitewashed. + +The only old building in Poppi, not in ruins, is its castle, occupying +the highest part of the rock; a place of some strength before the use of +heavy guns. It was built by Lapo in 1230, and bears a family +resemblance to the Palazzo Vecchio at Florence. The court-yard contains +some curious architecture, and a staircase celebrated for the skill +shown in its construction. It resembles that in the Bargello at +Florence, and leads to a chapel containing frescoes which, according to +Vasari, are by Spinello Aretino. + +Poppi is a good point from which to explore the western slopes of +Vallombrosa or Monte Secchieta. The landlord and the local guides will +lead one up through the celebrated groves at a fixed price "tutto +compreso," and, if you are liberal with your tip, will open a bottle of +"vino santo" for you. Could hospitality and fair dealing go further? + +Bibbiena, the native town of Francesco Berni, and of the Cardinal +Bibbiena, who was the patron of Raphael, has many of the characteristics +of Poppi, in point of site and surroundings. It is the point of +departure for the convent of La Verna, built by St. Francis of Assisi in +1215; situated high on a shoulder of rugged rock. The highest point of +the mountain, on which it stands, is called La Penna, the "rock" or +"divide" between the valleys of the Arno and the Tiber. To the eastward +are seen Umbria and the mountains of Perugia; on the west, the valley of +the Casentino and the chain of the Prato Magno; to the northward is the +source of the Arno, and to the northeast, that of the Tiber. + +To the east, just where the Casentino, by means of the cross road +connecting with the Via Æmilia, held its line of communication with the +Adriatic, is the Romagna, a district where feudal strife and warfare +were rampant throughout the middle ages. From its story it would seem as +though the region never had a tranquil moment. + +The chain of little towns of the Romagna is full of souvenirs of the +days when seigneuries were carved out of pontifical lands by the sword +of some rebel who flaunted the temporal power of the church. These were +strictly personal properties, and their owners owed territorial +allegiance to the Pope no more than they did to the descendants of the +Emperors. + +Rex Romanorum as a doctrine was dead for ever. Guelph and Ghibelline +held these little seigneuries, turn by turn, and from the Adriatic to +the Gulf of Spezia there was almost constant warfare, sometimes petty, +sometimes great. It was warfare, too, between families, between people +of the same race, the most bloody, disastrous and sad of all warfare. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +THE ROAD TO ROME + + +Siena, crowning its precipitous hillside, stands, to-day, unchanged from +what it was in the days of the Triumvirate. Church tower and castle wall +jut out into a vague mystery of silhouetted outline, whether viewed by +daylight or moonlight. The great gates of the ramparts still guard the +approach on all sides, and the Porta Camollia of to-day is the same +through which the sons of Remus entered when fleeing from their scheming +Uncle, Romulus. + +Siena's Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is a landmark. Dante called it "a great +square where men live gloriously free," though then it was simply _the_ +Piazza; and the picture is true to-day, in a different sense. In former +days it was a bloody "mis-en-scène" for intrigue and jealousy; but, +to-day, simply the centre of the life and movement of a prosperous, +thriving, though less romantic city of thirty thousand souls. + +[Illustration: _Palazzo della Signoria, Siena_] + +This great Piazza is rounded off by a halo of magnificent feudal +palaces, whose very names are romantic. + +All about Siena's squares and street corners are innumerable gurgling, +spouting fountains, many of them artistically and monumentally +beautiful, and a few even dating from the glorious days of old. + +Dante sang of Siena's famous fountains which, in truth, form a galaxy of +artistic accessories of life hardly to be equalled in any other city of +Siena's class. Leaving that "noble extravagance in marble," Siena's +Cathedral, and its churches quite apart, the city ranks as one of the +most interesting tourist points of Italy. + +Siena has still left a relic of mediævalism in the revival of its +ancient horse racing festa, when its great Piazza Vittorio Emanuele is +built up and barricaded like a circus of Roman times. Chariot races, +gladiatorial combats and bull fights, all had their partisans among +municipalities, but Siena's choice was horse racing. And each year, "Il +Palio," on July the 2nd and on August the 16th, becomes a great popular +amusement of the Sienese. It is most interesting, and still +picturesquely mediæval in costuming and setting; and is a civic +function and fête a great deal more artistically done--as goes without +saying--than the Guy Fawkes celebrations of London, or the fourth of +July "horribles" in America. For the thoroughly genuine and artistic +pageant Anglo Saxons have to go to Italy. There is nothing to be learned +from the Mardi-Gras celebrations of Paris nor the carnivals of the Cote +d'Azur. + +Some one has said that Siena sits on the border land between idyllic +Tuscany and the great central Italian plain. Literally this is so. It +marks the distinction between the grave and the gay so far as manners +and customs and conditions of life go. On the north are the charming, +smiling hills and vales, bright with villas, groves and vines; whilst to +the south, towards Rome and the Campagna, all is of an austerity of +present day fact and past tradition. Indeed, the landscape would be +stern and repellent, were it not picturesquely savage. + +Straight runs the highroad to Rome via Viterbo, or makes a détour via +Montepulciano and Orvieto. At Asinalunga, Garibaldi was arrested by +government spies, by the order of the monarch to whom he had presented +the sovereignty of Naples. Such is official ingratitude, ofttimes! The +town itself is unworthy of remark, save for that incident of history. + +By the direct road the mountains of Orvieto and Montepulciano rise +grimly to the left. The towns bearing the same names are charming enough +from the artistic point of view, but are not usually reckoned tourist +sights. + +Montepulciano is commonly thought of slight interest, but it is the very +ideal of an unspoiled mediæval town, with a half dozen palazzo façades, +which might make the name and fame of some modern scene painter if he +would copy them. + +Chiusi, on the direct road, lies embedded in a circle of hills and +surrounded by orange groves. It is nothing more nor less than a +glorified graveyard, but is unique in its class. Lars Porsena of Clusium +comes down to us as a memory of school-time days, and for that reason, +if no other, we consider it our duty to visit the Etruscan tombs of +Clusium, the modern Chiusi. + +There are three distinct tiers, or shelves, of these ancient tombs, and +interesting enough they are to all, but only the antiquary will have any +real passion for them, so most of us are glad enough to spin our way by +road another fifty odd kilometres to Orvieto. + +Four kilometres of a precipitous hill climb leads from the lower road up +into Orvieto, zig-zagging all the way. It is the same bit of roadway up +which the Popes fled in the middle ages when hard pressed by their +enemies. Clement VII, one of the unhappy Medici, fled here after the +sinning Connétable Bourbon attempted the sacking of Rome; and a +sheltering stronghold he found it. + +This Papal city of refuge is, to-day, a more or less squalid place, with +here and there a note of something more splendid. On the whole Orvieto's +charm is not so much in the grandeur of its monuments as in their +character. The cathedral is reckoned one of the great Gothic shrines of +Italy, and that, indeed, is the chief reason for most of the tourist +travel. The few mediæval palaces that Orvieto possesses are very +splendid, though they, one and all, suffer from their cramped +surroundings. + +[Illustration: _Orvieto_] + +The Hotel Belle Arti, to-day, with a garage for automobiles, was the +ancient Palazzo Bisenzi. It had a reputation among travellers, of a +decade or a generation ago, of being a broken-down palace and a worse +hotel. If one wants to dwell in marble halls and sleep where royal heads +have slept, one can do all this, at Orvieto, for eight or nine lire a +day. + +One enters Viterbo, forty-seven kilometres from Orvieto, by the highroad +to Rome. The little town preserves much of its mediæval +characteristics to-day, though, indeed, it is a progressive, busy place, +of something like twenty thousand souls, most of whom, appear to be +engaged in the wine industry. On the Piazza Fontana is a magnificent +Gothic fountain dating from the thirteenth century, and the Municipio, +on the Piazza del Plebiscito, is of a contemporary period, with a fine +fountained court-yard. + +In the environs of Viterbo is a splendid palace, built by Vignola for +the Cardinal Farnese, nephew of the Pope Paul III. In form it was a +great square mass with its angles reinforced by square towers, with a +circular court within, surrounded by an arcade by which one entered the +various apartments. It was, perhaps, the most originally conceived work +of its particular epoch of Renaissance times; and all the master minds +and hands of the builders of the day seem to have had more or less to do +with it. These Italians of the Renaissance were inventors of nothing; +but their daring and ingenuity in combining ideas taken, bodily, from +those of antiquity, made more successful and happy combinations than +those of the architects of to-day, who build theatres after the models +of Venetian palaces, and add a Moorish minaret; or railway stations on +the plan of the Parthenon, and put a campanile in the middle, like the +chimney of a blast furnace. The Italian campanile was a bell-tower, to +be sure, but it had nothing in common with the minaret of the east, nor +the church spire of the Gothic builder in northern climes. + +From Siena the coast road to Rome, practically the same distance as the +inland route, is one of surprising contrast. It approaches the coast at +Grosseto, seventy kilometres from Siena, and thence, all the way to +Rome, skirts the lapping waves of the Tyrrhenian Sea. Off shore is Elba, +with its Napoleonic memories, and the Island of Monte Cristo which is +considered usually a myth, but which exists in the real to-day, as it +did when Dumas romanced (sic) about it. A long pull of a hundred +kilometres over a flat country, half land, half water, brings one to +Civita-Vecchia, eighty kilometres from the Eternal City itself. + +Civita-Vecchia is a watering-place without historical interest, where +the Romans come to make a seaside holiday. Hotels of all ranks are here, +and garage accommodations as well. The Italian mail boats for Sardinia +leave daily, if one is inclined to make a side trip to that land of +brigandage and the evil-eye, which are reputed a little worse than the +Corsican or Sicilian varieties. + +One enters the heart of Rome by the Porta Cavalleggeri and crosses the +Ponte S. Angelo to get his bearings. + +The hotels of Rome are like those of Florence. One must hunt his abiding +place out for himself, according to his likes and dislikes. The +Grand-Hotel and the Hotel de la Minerve are vouched for by the Touring +Club, and the former has garage accommodation. At either of these modern +establishments you get the fare of Paris, Vienna, London and New York, +and very little that is Italian. You may even bathe in porcelain tubs +installed by a London plumber and drink cocktails mixed by an expert +from Broadway. + +This makes one long for the days when a former generation ate in a +famous eating house which stood at the southeast corner of the Square +Saint Eustace. It was the resort of artists and men of letters and the +_plats_ that it served were famous the world over. + +The Romans' pride in Rome is as conventional as it is ancient. They +promptly took sides when the "Italians" entered their beloved city in +1870. The priests, the higher prelates, and the papal nobility were "for +the Pope," but the great middle class, the common people, were for the +"Italians." Traditions die hard in Rome, and many an old resident will +tell tales to-day of the blessings of a Papal Government, which formerly +forbade the discussion of religion or politics in public places, and +"contaminating" books and newspapers were stopped at the _frontier_. +Even a non-smoker was considered a protestor against the Papacy, because +to smoke was to be a supporter of the Papal Government's revenue from +the tobacco trade. + +[Illustration: BARBERINI COLONNA ORSINI BORGIA MEDICIS + +ARMS OF VARIOUS PAPAL FAMILIES + +CONTI PAMFILI ALDOBRANDINI FARNESE] + +Rome without the _forestieri_, or strangers, would lose considerable of +its present day prosperity. Rome exploits strangers; there is no doubt +about that; that is almost its sole industry. As Henri Taine said: +"Rome is nothing but a shop which sells bric-à-brac." He might have +added: "with a branch establishment which furnishes food and lodging." + +The Roman population, as Roman, is now entirely absorbed by "the +Italian." No more are the _contadini_, the peasants of the Campagna, or +the bearded mountaineers of the Sabine hills, different from their +brothers of Tuscany or Lombardy; their physiognomies have become the +same. The monks and seminarists and priests and prelates are still +there, but only by sufferance, like ourselves. They are no more Romans +than are we. Tourists in knickerbockers, awe-struck before the art +treasures of the Vatican, and cassocked priests on pilgrimage are +everywhere in the city of the Cæsars and the Popes. The venerable Bede +was half right only in his prophecy. + + "While stands the Coliseum, Rome shall stand; + When falls the Coliseum, Rome shall fall; + And when Rome falls--the world!" + +Rome is still there, and many of its monuments, fragmentary though they +be. + +The difference in the grade (ground level) of modern Rome, as compared +with that of antiquity, a difference of from sixty to seventy feet, may +still be expected to give up finds to the industrious pick and shovel +properly and intelligently handled. The archæological stratum is +estimated as nine miles square. + +Rome is a much worked-over field, but the desecrations of the middle +ages were hardly less disastrous to its "antiquities" than the new +municipality's transformations. Some day the seven hills will be +levelled, and boulevards and public gardens laid out and trees planted +in the Forum; then where will be the Rome of the Cæsars? "Rome, Unhappy +City!" some one has said, and truly; not for its past, but for its +present. Whatever the fascination of Rome may be it is not born of first +impressions; the new quarters are painfully new and the streets are +unpicturesque and the Tiber is dirty, muddy and ill-smelling. Byron in +his day thought differently, for he sang: "the most living crystal that +was e'er." Should he come back again he would sing another song. These +elements find their proper places in the city's ensemble after a time, +but at first they are a disappointment. + +[Illustration: _Castle of Sant'Angelo, Rome_] + +Next to Saint Peter's, the Vatican and the Colosseum, the Castle of +Sant'Angelo is Rome's most popular monument. It has been a fortress for +a thousand years. For a thousand years a guard has been posted at its +gateway. + +[Illustration: PALAZZO VATICANO] + +The ruin of men which has passed within its walls is too lengthy a +chronicle to recount here. Lorenzo Colonna, of all others, shed his +blood most nobly. Because he would not say "Long live the Orsini," he +was led to the block, a new block ready made for this special purpose, +and having delivered himself in Latin of the words: "Lord, into Thy +hands I commend my spirit," gave up his life in the last quarter of the +fifteenth century, "on the last day of June when the people of Rome were +celebrating the festivity of the decapitation of Saint Paul the +Apostle." This was four centuries and more ago, but the circling walls +and the dull, damp corridors of the Castel Sant'Angelo still echo the +terror and suffering which formerly went on within them. It is the very +epitome of the character of the structure. Its architecture and its +history are in grim accord. + +Within the great round tower of Sant'Angelo was imprisoned the unnatural +Catherine Sforza while the Borgias were besieging her city. + +The Castel of Sant'Angelo and the bridge of the same name are so called +in honour of an Angel who descended before Saint Gregory the Great and +saved Rome from a pest which threatened to decimate it. + +Close to the bridge of Sant'Angelo, just opposite Nona's Tower, once +stood the "Lion Inn," kept by the lovely Vanozza de Catanei, the mother +of Cæsar, Gandia and Lucrezia Borgia. She was an inn-keeper of repute, +according to history, and her career was most momentus. The automobilist +wonders if this inn were not a purveyor of good cheer as satisfactory as +the great establishments with French, English and German names which +cater for tourists to-day. + +[Illustration: _The Borgia Window, Rome_] + +The Villa Medici just within the walls, and the Villa Borghese just +without, form a group which tourists usually _do_ as a morning's +sight seeing. They do too much! Anyway one doesn't need to take his +automobile from its garage for the excursion, so these classic villas +are only mentioned here. + +[Illustration: Papal Arms of Caesar Borgia] + +To describe and illustrate the Villa Medici one must have the magic pen +of a Virgil and the palette of a Poussin and a Claude Lorrain. In +antiquity the site was known as the Collis Hortorum, the Hillside of +Gardens. Lucullus, Prince of Voluptuousness, and Messaline, the Empress +of debauch, there celebrated their fêtes of luxury and passion, and it +became in time even a picnic ground for holiday making Romans. + +[Illustration: Arms of a Medicis Prelate] + +The Villa Medici was originally built for Cardinal Ricci in 1540, but by +the end of the century had come into the hands of Cardinal Alessandro di +Medici. The Tuscan Grand Dukes owned it a century or so later on, and it +was finally sold to the French to house the academy of arts founded +at Rome by Louis XV. + +[Illustration: _Villa Medici, Rome_] + +It is useless for a modern writer to attempt to describe the quiet charm +of the surroundings of the Villa Borghese, the nearest of the great +country houses to the centre of Rome. Many have tried to do so, but few +have succeeded. Better far that one should point the way thither, make a +personal observation or two and then onward to Tivoli, Albano or +Frascati. + +One word on the Forum ere leaving. Not even the most restless +automobilist neglects a stroll about the Forum, no matter how often he +may have been here before, though its palaces of antiquity have little +more than their outline foundations to tell their story to-day. + +Commendatore Boni, who has charge of the excavations, brought to light +recently a curiously inscribed stone tablet, which, owing to the archaic +Latin it contained, he found it impossible to read. A number of learned +Latinists and archæologists soon gathered about him. This is what they +read: + + QUE + STAELA VI + A + DEGLIA SINI + +While some declared that "_que_" was an enclitic conjunction, and that +therefore the inscription must be incomplete, others asserted that the +word was an abbreviation of "_queo_," and that the inscription might be +read: "I am able to gaze upon the star without pain." + +While the dispute was on, a peasant of the Campagna passed by. He +approached and asked the reason of the crowd. He was told, and gazing at +the inscription for several minutes he read slowly: + +"Questa e la via degli asini" ("This is the way of asses."). + +And the Latinists, the archæologists, and the other savants crept +quietly away, while the Commendatore in good, modern Tuscan made some +remarks unprintable and untranslatable. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +THE CAMPAGNA AND BEYOND + + +The environs of Rome--those parts not given over to fox-hunting and +horse-racing, importations which have been absorbed by the latter day +Roman from the _forestieri_--still retain most of their characteristics +of historic times. The Campagna is still the Campagna; the Alban Hills +are still classic ground, and Tivoli and Frascati--in spite of the +modernisms which have, here and there, crept in--are still the romantic +Tivoli and Frascati of the ages long gone by. + +The surrounding hills of Rome are, really, what give it its charm. The +city is strong in contrast from every aspect, modernity nudging and +crowding antiquity. Rome itself is not lovely, only superbly and +majestically overpowering in its complexity. + +The Rome of romantic times went as far afield as Otricoli, Ostia, Tivoli +and Albano, and, on the east, these outposts were further encircled by +a girdle of villas, gardens and vineyards too numerous to plot on any +map that was ever made. + +Such is the charm of Rome; not its ruined temples, fountains and statues +alone; nor yet its great churches and palaces, and above all not the +view of the Colosseum lit up by coloured fires, but Rome the city and +the Campagna. + +There is no question that the Roman Campagna is a sad, dreary land +without a parallel in the well populated centres of Europe. Said +Chateaubriand: "It possesses a silence and solitude so vast that even +the echoes of the tumults of the past enacted upon its soil are lost in +the very expansiveness of the flat marshy plain." + +Balzac too wrote in the same vein: "Imagine something of the desolation +of the country of Tyre and Babylon and you will have a picture of the +sadness and lonesomeness of this vast, wide, thinly populated region." + +The similes of Balzac and of Chateaubriand hold good to-day. Long horned +cattle and crows are the chief living things--and mosquitoes. One can't +forget the mosquitoes. + +Here and there a jagged stump of a pier of a Roman aqueduct pushes up +through the herb-grown soil, perhaps even an arch or two, or three or +five; but hardly a tangible remembrance of the work of the hand of man +is left to-day, to indicate the myriads of comers and goers who once +passed over its famous Appian Way. The Appian Way is still there, loose +ended fragments joined up here and there with a modern roadway which has +become its successor, and there is a very appreciable traffic, such as +it is, on the main lines of roadway north and south; but east and west +and round about, save for a few squalid huts and droves of cattle, sheep +and goats, a wayside inn, a fountain beneath a cypress and a few sleepy, +dusty hamlets and villages, there is nothing to indicate a progressive +modern existence. All is as dead and dull as it was when Rome first +decayed. + +Out from Rome, a couple of leagues on the Via Campagna, on the right +bank of the Tiber, one comes to the sad relic of La Magliana, the +hunting lodge of the Renaissance Popes. The evolution of the name of +this country house comes from a corruption of the patronymic of the +original owners of the land, the family of Manlian, who were farmers in +390 B. C. + +The road out from Rome, by the crumbling Circus Maxentius, the lone +fragments of Aqueduct, and the moss-grown tomb of Cecilia Metellag, +runs for a dozen kilometres at a dead level, to rise in the next dozen +or so to a height of four hundred and sixty odd metres just beyond +Albano, when it descends and then rises again to Velletri ultimately to +flatten out and continue along practically at sea-level all the way to +Cassino, a hundred and ninety kilometres from Rome. The classification +given to this road by the Touring Club Italiano is "mediocre e +polveroso," and one need not be a deep student of the language to evolve +its meaning. + +A little farther away, but still within sight of the Eternal City, just +before coming to Albano, is Castel Gandolfo, a Papal stronghold since +the middle ages. Urban VIII built a Papal palace here, and the +seigniorial château, since transformed into a convent, was a sort of +summer habitation of the Popes. The status of the little city of two +thousand souls is peculiar. It enjoys extra-territorial rights which +were granted to the papal powers by the new order of things which came +into being in 1871. A zone of loveliness surrounds the site which +overlooks, on one side, the dazzling little Albano Lake and, on the +other, stretches off across the Campagna to the shores of the +Mediterranean. + +Just beyond Castel Gandolfo is Albano, still showing vestiges of the +city of Domitian, which, in turn, was built upon the ruins of that of +Pompey. Albano's fortifications rank as the most perfect examples of +their class in all Italy. They tell a story of many epochs; they are all +massive, and are largely built in rough polygonal masonry. Towers, +turrets and temples are all here at Albano. Still the town is not ranked +as one of the tourist sights. + +The Albano Lake is another one of those mysterious bodies of water +without source or outlet. It occupies the crater of an extinct volcano, +so some day it may disappear as quickly as it came. Concerning its +origin the following local legend is here related: "Where the lake now +lies there stood once a great city. Here, when Jesus Christ came to +Italy, he begged alms. None took compassion on Him but an old woman who +gave Him some meal. He then bade her leave the city: she obeyed; the +city instantly sank and the lake rose in its place." + +This legend is probably founded on some vague recollection or tradition +of the fall of the city of Veii, which was so flourishing a state at the +time of the foundation of Rome, and possessed so many attractions, that +it became a question whether Rome itself should not be abandoned for +Veii. The lake of Albano is intimately connected with the siege of Veii +and no place has more vivid memories of ancient Roman history. + +Here, overlooking the lake, once rose Alba Longa, the mother city of +Rome, built by Ascanius, the son of Æneas, who named it after the white +sow which gave birth to the prodigious number of thirty young. + +On the shore of the lake, opposite Albano, is Rocca di Papa. The convent +of the Passionist Fathers at Rocca di Papa, (the city itself being the +one-time residence of the Anti-pope John) was built by Cardinal York, +the last of the Stuarts, of materials taken from an ancient temple on +the shores of Lake Albano. + +Rocca di Papa is a most picturesque little hilltop village. Its +sugar-loaf cone is crowned with an old castle of the Colonnas which +remained their possession until 1487, when the Orsini in their turn took +possession. + +Frascati, on the Via Tusculum, about opposite Castel Gandolfo, as this +historic roadway parallels that of Claudius Appius, was Rome's patrician +suburb, and to-day is the resort of nine-tenths of the excursionists out +from Rome for a day or an afternoon. + +Frascati, the villa suburb, and Tivoli alike depend upon their sylvan +charms to set off the beauties of their palaces and villas. It was ever +the custom among the princely Italian families--the Farnese, the +Borghese, and the Medici--to lavish their wealth on the laying out of +the grounds quite as much as on the building of their palaces. + +Frascati's villas and palaces cannot be catalogued here. One and all are +the outgrowth of an ancient Roman pleasure house of the ninth century, +and followed after as a natural course of events, the chief attraction +of the place being the wild-wood site (_frasche_), really a country +faubourg of Rome itself. + +The Popes and Cardinals favoured the spot for their country houses, and +the nobles followed in their train. The chief of Frascati's +architectural glories are the Villa Conti, its fountains and its +gardens; the Villa Aldobrandini of the Cardinal of that name, the nephew +of Pope Clement VIII; and the Villa Tusculana, or Villa Ruffinella, of +the sixteenth century, but afterwards the property of Lucien Bonaparte +and the scene of one of Washington Irving's little known sketches, "The +Adventure of an Artist." The Villa Falconieri at Frascati, built by the +Cardinal Ruffini in the sixteenth century, formerly belonged to a long +line of Counts and Cardinals, but the hand of the German, which is +grasping everything in sight, in all quarters of the globe, that other +people by lack of foresight do not seem to care for, has acquired it as +a home for "convalescent" German artists. Perhaps the omnific German +Emperor seeks to rival the functions of the Villa Medici with his Villa +Falconieri. He calls it a hospital, but it has studios, lecture rooms +and what not. What it all means no one seems to know. + +Minor villas are found dotted all over Frascati's hills, with charming +vistas opening out here and there in surprising manner. Not all are +magnificently grand, few are superlatively excellent according to the +highest æsthetic standards, but all are of the satisfying, gratifying +quality that the layman will ever accept as something better than his +own conceptions would lead up to. That is the chief pleasure of +contemplation, after all. + +Above Frascati itself lies Tusculum, founded, says tradition, by a son +of Ulysses, the birthplace of Cato and a one time residence of Cicero. +This would seem enough fame for any small town hardly important enough +to have its name marked on the map, and certainly not noted down in many +of the itineraries for automobile tourists which cross Italy in every +direction. More than this, Tusculum has the ruins of an ancient castle, +one day belonging to a race of fire-eating, quarrelsome counts who +leagued themselves with any one who had a cause, just or unjust, for +which to fight. Fighting was their trade, but Frederic I in 1167 beat +them at their own game and razed their castle and its town of allies +huddled about its walls. That is why Tusculum has not become a tourist +resort to-day, but the ruin is still there and one can imagine a +different destiny had fate, or a stronger hand, had full sway. + +From Albano, another cross road, via Velletri to Valmontone, leads in +twenty odd kilometres to Palestrina, whence one may continue his way to +Subiaco and thence to Tivoli and enter Rome again via the Porta San +Lorenzo, having made a round of perhaps a hundred and fifty kilometres +of as varied a stretch of Italian roadway as could possibly be found. +The gamut of scenic and architectural joys runs all the way from those +of the sea level Campagna and its monumental remains to the verdure and +romance of the Alban and Sabine Hills and the splendours of the memories +of the Villa of Hadrian at Tivoli. + +Lying well back from the Alban hills is Palestrina, the greatest +stronghold of the Colonnas and where a branch of the family still +maintains a country house. The cradle of this great family, which gave +so many popes to Rome, and an inspiration and a divinity to +Michelangelo, was a village near Palestrina. It had a Corinthian column +rising in its _piazza_ and from it the Colonna took their family arms. +It is found on all documents relating to their history; on tapestries, +furniture and medals in many museums and in many wood carvings in old +Roman churches. + +Palestrina, too, has memories of Michelangelo. The treasures of +masterpieces left by him are scattered all over Italy to keep fresh the +memory of his name and fame. + +Subiaco should be made a stopping place on every automobilist's +itinerary out from Rome. Some wit has said that any one living in a +place ending with o was bound to be unhappy. He had in mind one or two +sad romances of Subiaco, though for all that one can hardly see what the +letters of its name have got to do with it. Subiaco has for long been +the haunt of artists and others in search of the picturesque, but not +the general run of tourists. + +[Illustration: _Subiaco_] + +Subiaco is still primitive in most things, and this in spite of the fact +that a railway has been built through it in recent years. In feudal +times the town could hardly have been more primitive than now, in +fact the only thing that ever woke it from lethargy was a little game of +warfare, sometimes with disaster for the inhabitants and sometimes for +the other side. + +The castle of the ruling baron sat high upon the height. What is left of +it is there to-day, but its capture has been made easier with the march +of progress. Down from the castle walls slopes the town, its happy, +unprogressive people as somnolent as of yore. + +Subiaco is one of the most accessible and conveniently situated hill +towns of Italy, if any would seek it out. Nero first exploited Subiaco +when he built a villa here, as he did in other likely spots round about. +Nero built up and he burned down and he fiddled all the while. He was +decidedly a capricious character. History or legend says that Nero's cup +of cheer was struck from his hand by lightning one day when he was +drinking the wine of Subiaco here at his hillside villa. He escaped +miraculously, but he got a good scare, though it is not recorded that he +signed the pledge! + +Subiaco's humble inn, "The Partridge," is typical of its class +throughout Italy. It is in no sense a very comfortably installed +establishment, but it is better, far better, than the same class of inn +in England and America, and above all its cooking is better. A fowl and +a salad and a bottle of wine and some gorgonzola are just a little +better at "La Pernice" than the writer remembers to have eaten elsewhere +under similar conditions. + +Tourists now come by dozens by road and rail to Subiaco--with a +preponderance of arrivals by road--whereas a few years ago only a few +venturesome artists and other lovers of the open knew its charms. Some +day of course this charm will be gone, but it is still lingering on and, +if you do not put on too great a pretense, you will get the same good +cheer at five francs a day at "The Partridge" whether you arrive in a +Mercédès or come as the artist does, white umbrella and canvases slung +across your back. The proprietor of "La Pernice" has not as yet +succumbed to exploiting his clients. + +From Subiaco back to Rome via Tivoli is seventy kilometres and all down +hill. + +One can have no complete idea of Roman life without an acquaintance with +the villas and palaces of Frascati and Tivoli. Tivoli was the summer +resort of the old Romans. Mecenate, Horace, Catullus and Hadrian built +villas there and enjoyed it, though in a later day it was reviled thus: + +[Illustration: _Villa d'Este, Tivoli_] + + Tivoli di mal conforto--O piove, o tira vento, o suona a morto! + +Tivoli may be said to have received its boom under the Roman nobles of +the Augustan age who came here and set the fashion of the place as a +country residence. Things prospered beyond expectations, it would seem, +land agents being modest in those days, and by the time of Hadrian +reached their luxurious climax. + +Pope Pius II founded Tivoli's citadel on the site of an already ruined +amphitheatre in 1460. The Villa d'Este at Tivoli, built by the Cardinal +Ippolito d'Este in 1549, is usually considered the most typical suburban +villa in Italy. The house itself is an enormous pile, on one side being +three stories higher than on the other. It is a terrace house in every +sense of the word. Statuary, originally dug up from Hadrian's villa, +once embellished the house and grounds to a greater extent than now, but +under the régime of late years many of these pieces have disappeared. +Where? The palace itself is comparatively a modest, dignified though +extensive structure, the views from its higher terraces stretching out +far over the distant _campagna_. + +Hadrian's Villa, with its magnificent grounds, occupies an area of vast +extent. According to Spartian, Hadrian, in the second century B. C., +built this marvel of architecture and landscape gardening according to a +fond and luxurious fancy which would have been inconceivable by any +other who lived at his time. All its great extent of buildings have +suffered the stress of time, and some even have entirely disappeared, as +a considerable part of the later monuments of Tivoli were built up from +their stones. Many of its art treasures were removed to distant points, +many found their ways into public and private museums, and many have +even been transported to foreign lands. The Italian government has now +stopped all this by purchasing the site and making of it a national +monument. + +[Illustration: HADRIAN'S VILLA] + +With Hadrian's Villa is connected a sad remembrance. Piranesi, that +accomplished and erratic draughtsman whose etchings and drawings of +Roman monuments have delighted an admiring world, died as a result of +overwork in connection with a series of measured drawings he was making +of this great memorial of Rome's globe-trotting Emperor. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +LA BELLA NAPOLI + +[Illustration: Naples (diagram)] + + +South from Rome the highroad to Naples, and on down into Calabria, at +first follows the old Appian Way, built by Appius Claudius in 312 B. C. +It is a historic highway if there ever was one, from its commencement at +Rome's ancient Porta Capuana (now the Porta San Sebastiano) to Capua. +As historic ground it has been excavated and the soil turned over many, +many times until it would seem as though nothing would be left to +discover. Enough has been found and piled up by the roadside to make the +thoroughfare a continuous "sight" for many kilometres. Great churches, +tombs, vineyards, cypress-wind-breaks and the arches of the Claudian +aqueducts line its length, and if the automobilist is so minded he can +easily put in a day doing the first twenty kilometres. + +Velletri, thirty-six kilometres from Rome, is the first town of +importance after passing Albano, practically suburban Rome. + +Cisterna di Roma, a dozen kilometres further on, is a typical hill top +town overlooking the Pontine Marshes below. + +Terracina, on the coast, sixty-two kilometres beyond Velletri, is the +border town between the north and the south, practically the limit +between the extent of the Papal power and that of the kingdom of Naples. + +Terracina sits at sea-level, and in all probability it is none too +healthy an abode, though ten thousand souls call it home and seem +content. It has a sea-view that would make the reputation of a resort, +and the French and Italian Touring Clubs recommend the Hotel Royal, +while the local druggist sells gasoline and oil to automobile tourists +at fair rates--for Italy. + +At Formia one may turn off the direct road and in half a dozen +kilometres come to the coast again at Gaeta. The road from Formia runs +through a picture paradise, and an unspoilt one, considering it from the +artist's point of view. Little more shall be said, though indeed it is +not as at Sorrento or Capri, but quite as good in its way, and the +Albergo della Quercia, at Formia, is not as yet overrun with a clientèle +of any sort. This is an artists' sketching ground that is some day going +to be exploited by some one; perhaps by the artist who made the pictures +of this book. Who knows? + +Over another fragment of the Appian Way the highroad now continues +towards Naples via Capua. + +At Capua the road plunges immediately into a maze of narrow streets and +one's only assurance of being able to find his exit from the town is by +employing a gamin to sit on the running board and shout _destra_ or +_sinistra_ at each turning until the open country is again reached at +the dividing of the roads leading to Caserta and Naples respectively. + +The highroad from Capua into Naples covers thirty kilometres of as good, +or bad, roadway as is usually found on entering a great city where the +numerous manifest industries serve to furnish a traffic movement which +is not conducive to the upkeep of good roads. It is a good road, though, +in parts, but the nearer you get to "la bella Napoli" the worse it +becomes, as bad, almost, as the roads in and out of Marseilles or Genoa, +and they are about the worst that exist for automobilists to revile. + +By either Averso or Caserta one enters Naples by the rift in the hills +lying back of the observatory, and finally by the tram-lined Strada +Forvia, always descending, until practically at sea-level one finds a +garage close beside the Hotel Royal et des Étrangers and lodges himself +in that excellent hostelry. This is one way of doing it; there are of +course others. + +The man that first said "_Vedi Napoli e poi mori!_" didn't know what he +was talking about. No one will want to die after seeing Naples. He will +want to live the longer and come again, if not for Naples itself then +for its surroundings, for Pompeii, Herculaneum, Sorrento, Capri, Amalfi, +Vesuvius and Ischia. Naples itself will be a good place at which to +leave one's extra luggage and to use as a mail address. + +The history of Naples is vast, and its present and historic past is +most interesting, but for all that Naples without its environs would be +as naught. + +The local proverb of old: + + "When Salerno has its port + Naples will be mort (dead)," + +has no reason for being any more, for Naples' future as a Mediterranean +seaport is assured by the indefatigable German who has recently made it +a port of call for a half a dozen lines of German steamers. Britain may +rule the waves, but the German is fast absorbing the profitable end of +the carrying trade. + +Naples is a crowded, uncomfortable city, for within a circumference of +scarce sixteen kilometres is huddled a population of considerably more +than half a million souls. + +Naples' chief charms are its site, and its magnificently scenic +background, not its monuments or its people. + +"The lazzaroni," remarked Montesquieu of the Neapolitan "won't-works," +"pass their time in the middle of the street." This observation was made +many, many years ago, but it is equally true to-day. + +Naples is not the only Italian city where one sees men live without +apparent means of existence, but it is here most to be remarked. On the +quays and on the promenades you see men and women without work, and +apparently without ambition to look for it save to exploit strangers. On +the steps of the churches you see men and women without legs, arms or +eyes, and infants _sans chemises_, and they, too, live by the same idle +occupation of asking for alms. + +Everywhere at Naples, before your hotel, crowded around your carriage or +automobile, or paddling around in boats just over your steamer's side, +are hoards of beggars of all sorts and conditions of poverty and +probity. The beggar population of Naples is doubtless of no greater +proportions than in Genoa, or even Rome, but it is more in evidence and +more insistent. There are singing beggars, lame, halt and blind beggars, +whining beggars, swimming beggars, diving beggars, flower-selling +beggars and just plain _beggars_. Give to one and you will have to give +to all--or stand the consequences, which may be serious or not according +to circumstances. Don't disburse sterilized charity, then, but keep +hard-hearted. + +Naples' chief sights for the tourists are its museum, its great domed +galleries and their cafés and restaurants, its Castello dell'Ovo and the +Castel del Carmine. + +The Castello dell'Ovo is out in the sea, at the end of a tiny bridge or +breakwater, running from the Pizzofalcone, one of the slopes of the +background hills of Naples running down to sea-level. + +As a fortress the Castello dell'Ovo is outranked to-day by the least +efficient in any land, but one of the Spanish Viceroys, in 1532, Don +Pedro of Toledo, thought it a stronghold of prime importance, due +entirely to its oval shape, which it preserves unto to-day. It is +unique, in form at any rate. + +Charles VIII of France, on his memorable Italian journeyings--when he +discovered (sic) the Renaissance architecture of Italy and brought it +back home with him--dismantled the castle and left it in its now +barrack-like condition, shorn of any great distinction save the oval +shape of its donjon. One is bound to remark this noble monument as it is +from its quay that one embarks on the cranky, little, wobbling steamboat +which bears one to Capri. Lucullus, who had some reputation as a good +liver, once had a villa here on the very quay which surrounds the +Castello. + +Opposite the Villa del Popolo (near the Porta del Carmine), the People's +Park as we should call it, is a vast, forbidding, unlovely structure. + +[Illustration: _Castello dell'Ovo, Naples_] + +It was built in 1484 by Ferdinand I, but during Masaniello's little +disturbance it became a stronghold of the people. To-day it serves as a +barracks--and of course as a military prison; all nondescript buildings +in Italy may be safely classed as military prisons, though indeed the +Italian soldiery do not look an unruly lot. + +It is well to recall here that Masaniello, who gave his name to an opera +as well as being a patriot of the most rabid, though revolutionary, +type, failed of his ambition and died through sheer inability to keep +awake and sufficiently free from anxiety to carry out his plans. +Masaniello lost his head toward the end and got untrustworthy, but this +was far from justifying either his murder or the infamous treatment of +his body immediately after death by the very mob that the day before had +adored him. His headless trunk was dragged for several hours through the +mud, and was flung at nightfall, like the body of a mad dog, into the +city ditch. Next day, through a revulsion of feeling, he was canonized! +His corpse was picked out of the ditch, arrayed in royal robes, and +buried magnificently in the cathedral. His fisherman's dress was rent +into shreds to be preserved by the crowd as relics; the door of his hut +was pulled off its hinges by a mob of women, and cut into small pieces +to be carved into images and made into caskets; while the very ground he +had walked on was collected in small phials and sold for its weight in +gold to be worn next the heart as an amulet. + +The "Villas" of Naples are often mere _maisons bourgeoises_ of modern +date. Many of them might well be in Brixton so far as their +architectural charms go. + +Over in the Posilippo quarter, a delightful situation indeed, are +innumerable flat-topped, whitewashed villas, so-called, entirely +unlovely, all things considered. One of these, the Villa Rendel, was +once inhabited by Garibaldi, as a tablet on its wall announces. + +Garibaldi and the part that he and his red shirt played are not yet +forgotten. Apropos of this there is a famous lawsuit still in the +Italian courts, wherein the Garibaldian Colonel Cornacci, in accord with +Ricciotti Garibaldi, son of the general, makes the following claim +against the Italian government: + +I. All the "_tresor_" (gold and silver) of the house of Bourbon. + +II. Eleven millions of ducats taken from the Garibaldian government at +Naples. + +III. The Bourbon museum now incorporated with the National Museum. + +IV. The Palace of Caserta and its park. + +V. The Palace Farnese at Rome. + +VI. The Palace and Villa Farnese at Caprarola at Naples. + +VII. Two Villas at Naples, Capodimonte and La Favorita. + +This is the balance sheet discrepancy resulting from the war of 1860 +which the Garibaldian heirs claim is theirs by rights. It's a mere +bagatelle of course! One wonders why the Italian government don't settle +it at once and be done with it! + +Naples is the birth-place of Polichinelle, as Paris is of Pierrot, two +figures of fancy which will never die out in literature or art, a tender +expression of sentiment quite worthy of being kept alive. + +The Neapolitan, en fête, is quite the equal in gayety and +irresponsibility of the inhabitant of Seville or Montmartre. The +processionings of any big Italian town are a thing which, once seen, +will always be remembered. At Naples they seem a bit more gorgeous and +spontaneous in their gayety than elsewhere, with rugs and banners +floating in the air from every balcony, and flowers falling from every +hand. It is every man's carnival, the celebration at Naples. + +Leading out to the west, back of Posilippo, is the Strada di +Piedigrotta, which is continued as the Grotto Nuovo di Posilipo, and +through which runs a tramway, all kinds of animal-drawn wheeled traffic, +and automobiles with open exhausts. All this comports little with the +fact that the ancient tunnelled road along here was one of the marvels +of engineering in the time of Augustus and that it led to Virgil's tomb. +This supposed tomb of Virgil is questioned by archæologists, but that +doesn't much matter for the rest of us. We know that Virgil himself has +said that it was here that he composed the "Georgics" and the "Æneid," +and it might well have been his last resting-place too. + +"Addio, mia bella Napoli! Addio!" + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +THE BEAUTIFUL BAY OF NAPLES + + +"See Naples and die" is all very well for a sentiment, but when we first +saw it, many years ago, it was under a grim, grey sky, and its shore +front was washed by a milky-green fury of a sea. + +Fortunately it is not always thus; indeed it is seldom so. On that +occasion Vesuvius was invisible, and Posilippo in dim relief. What a +contrast to things as they usually are! Still, Naples and its Bay are no +phenomenal wonders. Suppress the point of view, the focus of Virgil, of +Horace, of Tiberius and of Nero, and the view of "Alger la Blanche," or +of Marseilles and its headlands, is quite as beautiful. And the Bay of +Naples is not so beautifully blue either; the Bai de la Ciotat in +Maritime Province is often the same colour, and has a nearby range of +jutting, jagged, foam-lashed promontories that are all that Capri +is--all but the grotto. + +[Illustration: THE BAY OF NAPLES] + +The Bay of Naples has its moods, and there are times when its blueness +is more apparent than at others; in short there are times when it looks +more beautiful than at others, and then one is apt to think its charms +superlative. + +The praises of the ravishing beauty of the Bay of Naples have been sung +by the poets and told in prose ever since the art of writing travel +impressions has been known, but though the half may not have been told +it were futile to reiterate what one may see for himself if he will only +come and look. "A piece of heaven fallen to earth," Sannazar has said, +and certainly no one can hope to describe it with more glowing praise. + +For the artist the whole Neapolitan coastline, and background as well, +is a riot of rainbow colouring such as can hardly be found elsewhere +except in the Orient. It is not only that the Bay of Naples is blue, but +the greys and drabs of the ash and cinders of Vesuvius seem to +accentuate all the brilliant reds and yellows and greens of the foliage +and housetops, not forgetting the shipping of the little ports and the +costuming of land-lubbers and sailor-men, and of course the women. The +Italian women, young or old, are possessed of about the loveliest +colouring of any of the fair women of the twentieth century portrait +gallery. + +The environs of Naples have two plagues which, when they rise in their +wrath, can scarcely be avoided. One is the sirocco, that dry, stiff wind +which blows along the Mediterranean coast in summer, coming from the +African shore and the desert beyond, and the much worse, or at least +more dreaded, _aria cattiva_, which is supposed to blow the sulphurous +gases and cinders of Vesuvius down the population's throats, and does to +a certain extent. + +Out beyond Posilippo, which itself is properly enough bound up with the +life of Naples, lies Pouzzoles. The excursion is usually made in half a +day by carriage, and automobilists have been known to do it in half an +hour. The former method is preferable, though the automobilist is free +from the rapacious Neapolitan cab driver and that's a good deal in +favour of the new locomotion. If only automobilists as a class wouldn't +be in such a hurry! + +Pouzzoles has no splendid palaces but it has the remains of a former +temple of Augustus in the shape of twelve magnificent Corinthian +columns, built into the Cathedral of Saint Procule, and some remains of +another shrine dedicated to Serapis. There are also the ruins of +Cicero's villa at Baies, a little further on. Mont Gauro, where the +"rough Falernian" wine, whose praises were sung by Walter de Mapes, +comes from, shelters the little village on one side and Mont Nuovo on +the other, this last a mountain or hillock of perhaps a hundred and +fifty metres in height, which grew up in a night as a result of a +sixteenth century earthquake. + +The Lake of Averno is nearby, a tiny body of water whose name and fame +are celebrated afar, but which as a lake, properly considered, hardly +ranks in size with the average mill-pond. With a depth of some thirty +odd metres and a circumference of three kilometres its charms were +sufficient to attract Hannibal thither to sacrifice to Pluto, and Virgil +there laid the "Descent into Purgatory." Agrippa, with an indomitable +energy and the help of twenty thousand slaves, made it into a port great +enough to shelter the Roman fleet. At Baies there is a magnificent +feudal work in the form of a fortress-château of Pedro of Toledo (1538). + +At the tiny port of Torregaveta, just beyond, one takes ship for Procida +and Ischia, two islands often neglected in making the round of Naples +Bay. + +Procida, off shore three or four kilometres, and with a length of about +the same, has a population of fifteen thousand, most of whom rent boats +to visitors. Competition here being fierce, prices are reasonable--anything +you like to pay, provided you can clinch the bargain beforehand. + +Ischia is twice the size of Procida, twice the distance from the +mainland and has twice the population of the latter. One might say, too, +that it is twice as interesting. It is a vast pyramid of rock dominated +by a château-fort dating from 1450. It looks almost unreal in its +impressiveness, and since it is of volcanic growth the island may some +day disappear as suddenly as it came. Such is the fear of most of the +population. + +A quick round south from Naples can be made by following the itinerary +below. It can be done in a day or a week, but in the former case one +must be content with a cinematographic reminiscence. + + Naples--Portici 4.8 Kilometres + Resina--Herculaneum 6.3 " + Torre del Greco 9.4 " + Torre Anunziata 16.6 " + Castellamare 24.5 " + Sorrento 42.9 " + Meta--Positano 59.8 " + Amalfi 70.1 " + Salerno 94.7 " + Naples 144.6 " + +[Illustration: _Ischia_] + +[Illustration: LAVA BEDS OF VESUVIUS] + +Some one has said that Vesuvius was a vicious boil on the neck of +Naples. There is not much sentiment in the expression and little +delicacy, but there is much truth in it. Still, if it were not for +Vesuvius much of the charm and character of the Bay of Naples and its +_cadre_ would be gone for ever. + +All around the base of the great cone are a flock of little half-baked, +lava-burned villages, as sad as an Esquimaux settlement in the great +lone land. This is the way they strike one as places to live in, though +the artist folk find them picturesque enough, it is true, and a poet of +the Dante type would probably get as much inspiration here as did +Alighieri from the Inferno. + +It has been remarked before now that Italy is a birdless land. The +Renaissance poets sang differently, but judging from the country +immediately neighbouring upon Vesuvius, and Calabria to the southward, +one is inclined to join forces with the first mentioned authority. Not +even a carrion crow could make a living in some parts of southern Italy. + +So desolate and lone is this sparsely populated region towards the south +that it is about the only part of Italy where one may hope to encounter +the brigand of romance and fiction. + +The thing is not unheard of to-day, but what brigands are left are +presumably kidnappers for political purposes who wreak their vengeance +on some official. The stranger tourist goes free. He is only robbed by +the hotel keepers and their employees who think more of _buona mano_ +than anything else. A recent account (1907), in an Italian journal, +tells of the adventures of the master of ceremonies at Victor Emmanuel's +court who was captured by bandits and imprisoned in a cave in that +_terra incognita_ back of Vesuvius away from the coast. + +Newspaper accounts are often at variance with the facts, but these made +thrilling reading. One account said that the kidnappers tore out the +Marquis's teeth, one by one, in order to force him to write a letter +asking for ransom. As he still refused, lights were held to the soles of +his naked feet. + +The Marquis was lured from Naples to the neighbourhood of a grotto in +the direction of Vesuvius, where he was seized by the brigand's +confederates. + +"I was seized unexpectedly from behind," said the Marquis in his +version, "and after a sharp struggle with my unseen assailants was +carried down into the grotto with Herculanean force and tightly bound. + +"Then, liberating my right arm, the brigands fetched a lamp and writing +materials, covering their faces with masks. Threatening me with instant +death, the chief forced me to write a letter to my friends demanding +that money be sent me forthwith. At the same time he took from me all my +valuables and then disappeared, leaving me a prisoner with a guard +before the entrance of my cave." + +The adventure ended harmlessly enough, and whether it was all a dream or +not of course nobody but the Marquis knows. At any rate it has quite a +mediæval ring to it. + +[Illustration: THE EXCAVATIONS OF POMPEII] + +Pompeii is remarkable, but it is disappointing. All that is of real +interest has been removed to the Naples museum. Without its Forum and +its magnificent temples and Vesuvius as a _toile de fond_ Pompeii would +be a dreary place indeed to any but an archæologist. It is a waste of +time to view any restored historic monument where modern house painters +have refurbished the old half-obliterated frescoes. The famous Cave +Canem, too, the only mosaic that remains intact, has been twice removed +from its original emplacement. Yes, Pompeii is a disappointment! It is +too much of a show-place! + +The most notable observation to be made with regard to the admirable +architectural details of Pompeii is that they are all on a diminutive +scale. The colonnade of the Forum, for instance, could never be carried +out on the magnificent scale of the Roman Forum, and indeed, when modern +architects have attempted to reproduce the façade of a tiny pagan +temple, as in the Église de la Madeleine, or the Palais Bourbon at +Paris, they have failed miserably. + +The rival claims of the Hotel Suisse and the Hotel Diomede at Pompeii +(to say nothing of that of the Albergo del Sol opposite the entrance to +the Amphitheatre) make it difficult for the stranger to decide upon +which to bestow his patronage. + +The artists go to the Albergo del Sol, which is rough and uncomfortable +enough from many points of view, and the tourists of convention go to +one of the other two, where they are "exploited" a bit but get more +attention. At any one of these hotels one can hire a horse to climb up +the cone of Vesuvius, if one thinks he would like such rude sport, and +prices are anything he will pay, about five or six francs, though it +costs another two francs for a guide and another two francs for the +ragamuffin who follows after and holds the horses while you explore the +crater. If the latter was blacking boots in New York, even for a +padrone, at five cents a shine, he would make more money and be counted +out of the robber class. As it is he is a rank impostor and +needless--provided you have the courage to refuse his services. + +The contrast between Herculaneum and Pompeii is notable. Herculaneum was +buried under thirty metres of liquid lava, but Pompeii was buried only +roof-high under cinders. Herculaneum will some day be uncovered to the +extent of Pompeii, and then it is probable the world will have new +marvels at which to wonder. + +The rewards from the excavation of Herculaneum may well be commensurate +with the toil. It was an infinitely more important place than Pompeii, +which was only a little country town without libraries or particularly +wealthy inhabitants. Herculaneum, on the other hand, was the summer +resort of wealthy Romans, who spent their lives in adorning their +beautiful villas with the choicest work of Greek art. Pliny said that +they had a mania for collecting Greek silver and other works of art, and +at prices that would even make the wealthiest art connoisseurs of +to-day pause for thought. Agrippina, among others, had her villa here. +Herculaneum remains intact and undespoiled, as it was more than eighteen +centuries ago. + +[Illustration: _The Environs of Pompeii_ + +STABIAE · SARNVS-FLV · SVRRENTVM · CAPREÆ · PORTVS + +POMPEIANA] + +From Pompeii to Sorrento via Castellamare is twenty-five kilometres. + +Sorrento is, in summer, a bathing place for such of the Neapolitan +high-life population as are not able to get far away from home. One +properly enough attaches no importance whatever to the gay life of the +boulevards, the cafés and the restaurants of Naples. It is the same +thing as at Rome, Paris and London over again with all its silly +flaneries, but here at Sorrento, or across the peninsula at Amalfi, life +is less feverish and one may stroll about or indeed live free and +tranquil from care in hotels, less luxurious no doubt than those of the +Quai Parthenope, but offering a sufficient degree of comfort to make +them agreeable to the most exacting. + +The real winter birds of passage only alight here for a period of three +or four weeks in January or February. After that it is delightful, +except for the short period when it is given up to the crowd of tourists +which invariably comes at Easter. + +Sorrento is the great centre for all the charming region bordering upon +the southern shore of the Bay of Naples. It is at once the city and the +country. Its hotels are delightfully disposed amid flowering gardens or +on a terrace overlooking the escarpments of the rock-bound coast. Six or +seven francs a day, or eight or ten, according to the class of +establishment one patronizes, and one finds the best of simple fare and +comfort. Eight days or a fortnight one may roam about the neighbourhood +at Sorrento, from Sant Agatha on a nearby height to Sejano Castellamare, +Positano, Amalfi and finally Capri. There is hardly such a range of +charming little towns and townlets to be found elsewhere in all the +world. + +Except for its restricted little business quarter the houses and villas +of Sorrento are disposed on the best of "garden city" plans. Again a +plague on a beauty spot must be admitted: mosquitoes will all but devour +you here between mid-August and the end of October. The only safe-guard +is to paint yourself with iodine, but the cure is as bad as the +complaint. + +The traveller in Italy learns of course to beware of coral, of white, +pink and milky coloured coral. We had been afraid to even look at such +ever since we had seen it being made by the ton in Belgium--and good +looking "coral" it was. + +Once the artist bought a string of the real thing at Tabarka in Tunisia, +and once a friend who was with us on the Riviera di Ponente bought a +necklet of what was called coral, at an outrageous price, of a wily +boatman. It all went up in smoke (accompanied by a vile smell) +ultimately, though fortunately it was not on the owner's neck at the +time. It was an injudicious mixture of gun-cotton, nitroglycerine or +what not. It wasn't coral; that was evident. + +Now, when we walk out at Sorrento, no Graziella, her shoulders +scintillating with ropes of coral, beguiles us into buying any of her +family heirlooms. To sum up: the coral which is sold to tourists is +often false; that which is fished up before your eyes from the sea is +always so. Beware of the coral of Sorrento or Capri. + +The trip to Capri is of course included in every one's itinerary in +these parts, and for that reason it is not omitted here, though indeed +the famous grotto over which the sentimentally inclined so love to rave +has little more charm than the same thing represented on the stage. This +at any rate is one man's opinion. It is most conveniently reached by +boat from Sorrento. + +The famous retreat of Augustus and the scene of the debauches of +Tiberius will ever have an attraction for the globe-trotter, even though +its romance is mostly fictitious. One may gather any opinions he +chooses, and, provided he gathers them on the spot and makes them up out +of his own imaginings, he will be content with Capri's grotto; only he +mustn't take the guide-books too seriously. + +The Blue Grotto's goddess is Amphitrite, and if any one catches a +glimpse of her traditional scanty draperies swishing around a corner, +let him not be misguided into following her into her retreat. If he does +the sea is guaranteed to rise and close the orifice so that he may not +get out again as soon as he might wish. + +In that case one must wait till the wind, which has veered suddenly from +east to west, comes about again and blows from the south. Without +bringing Amphitrite into the matter at all it sometimes happens that +visitors entering the grotto for a pleasant half hour may be obliged to +stay there two, three or even five days. The boatmen-guides, providing +for such emergencies, carry with them a certain quantity of _biscotti_ +with which to sustain their victims. As for fresh water it trickles +through into the grotto in several places in a sufficient quantity to +allay any apprehensions as to dying of thirst. One might well blame the +Capri guides for not calling the visitor's attention to these things. +But if one is reproached he simply answers: "_Ma che_! _eccelenza_, if +we should call attention to this thing, half the would-be visitors would +balk at the first step, and that would be bad for our business." + +Alexandre Dumas tells of how on a visit to Capri in 1835 the fisherman +was pointed out to him who had ten years earlier re-discovered the Blue +Grotto of Augustus' time, whilst searching for mussels among the rocks. +He went at once to the authorities on the island and told them of his +discovery and asked for the privilege of exploiting visitors. This +discoverer of a new underground world was able by means of graft, or +other means, to put the thing through and lived in ease ever after, +through his ability to levy a toll on other guides to whom he farmed out +his privilege. + +Quite the best of Capri is above ground, the isle itself, set like a gem +in the waters of the Mediterranean. The very natural symphonic colouring +of the rocks and hillsides and rooftops of its houses, and indeed the +costuming of its very people, make it very beautiful. + +For Amalfi, Salerno and Pæstum the automobilist must retrace his way +from Sorrento to Castellamare, when, in thirty kilometres, he may gain +Amalfi, and, in another twenty-five, Salerno. Pæstum and its temples, to +many the chief things of interest in Italy, the land of noble monuments, +lie forty kilometres away from Salerno. The automobilist, to add this to +his excursion out from Naples, is debarred from making the round in a +day, even if he would. It is worth doing however; that goes without +saying, though the attempt is not made here of purveying guide-book or +historical information. If you don't know anything about Pæstum, or care +anything about it, then leave it out and get back to Naples as quickly +as you can, and so on out of the country at the same rate of speed. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +ACROSS UMBRIA TO THE ADRIATIC + + +The mountain district of Umbria, a country of clear outlines against +pale blue skies, is one of the most charming in the peninsula though not +the most grandly scenic. + +The highway from Rome to Ancona, across Umbria, follows the itinerary of +one of the most ancient of Roman roads, the Via Valeria. The railway, +too, follows almost in the same track, though each leaves the Imperial +City, itself, by the great trunk line via Salaria and the Valley of the +Tiber. + +Terni is the great junction from which radiate various other lines of +communication to all parts of the kingdom. Terni is, practically, the +geographical centre of Italy. It is a bustling manufacturing town and, +supposedly, the Interamna where Tacitus was born. + +From Terni one reaches Naples, via Avezzano in 257 kilometres; Rome, via +Civita Castellana in 94 kilometres; Florence via Perugia and Arezzo in +256 kilometres and Ancona, on the shores of the Adriatic, via Foligno in +209 kilometres. All of these roads run the gamut from high to low levels +and, though in no sense to be classed as mountain roads, are +sufficiently trying to even a modern automobile to be classed as +difficult. + +The Cascades of Terni used to be one of the stock sights of tourists, a +generation ago, but, truth to tell, they are not remarkable natural +beauties, and, indeed, are too apparently artificial to be admired. +Moreover one is too much "exploited" in the neighbourhood to enjoy his +visit. It costs half a lira to enter by this gate, and to leave by that +road; to cross this bridge, or descend into that cavern; and troops of +children beg soldi of you at every turn. The thing is not worth doing. + +Spoleto, twenty-six kilometres away, is somewhat more interesting. It is +famous for the fine relics, which still exist, of its more magnificent +days, when, 242 B. C., it was named Spoletium. + +The towers of Spoleto, like those of San Gimignano and Volterra, are its +chief glory; civic, secular and churchly towers, all blending into one +hazy mass of grim, militant power. The Franciscan convent, on the +uppermost height, seems to guard all the towers below, as a shepherd +guards his flock, or a mother hen her chickens. + +In 1499 the equivocal, enigmatic Lucrezia Borgia came to inhabit the +castle of Spoleto. The fair but unholy Lucrezia was a wandering, +restless being who liked apparently to be continually on the move. + +Here, in the fortress of Spoleto, Lucrezia Borgia, coming straight from +the Vatican, held for a brief year the seals of the state in her frail +hands, her father at the time being governor. + +The aspect of this grim fortress-château, grim but livable, as one knows +from the historical accounts, is to-day, so far as outlines are +concerned, just as it was five centuries ago. It is grandiose, severe +and majestic, and is dominant in all the landscape round about, not even +its mountain background dwarfing its proportions. The military defence +was that portion lying lowest down in the valley, while the residence of +the governor was in the upper portion. One reads the history of three +distinct epochs in its architecture, the Gothic of the fifteenth +century, that of the sixteenth, and the later interpolated Renaissance +decorations. + +Through Foligno and Assisi runs the road to Perugia. Assisi is a much +visited shrine, but Foligno is remembered by most of those who have +travelled that way only as a grimy railway junction. + +[Illustration: ASSISI] + +Assisi, the little Umbrian hill town, is deservedly the popular shrine +that it is. Assisi is a religious shrine, but its skyline silhouette is +more like that which properly belongs to a warlike stronghold. The city +of St. Francis is loved by men of all creeds who recall the story of the +holy man who, with poverty as a garment, trod his long way, singing, +talking to the birds and succouring all who were sore or heavy laden. + +Immense antiquity is suggested by everything round about, from the +tombs of the Etruscan Necropolis, dating from 150 B.C., down to the +triple-storied convent church of San Francesco of 1230 and the Basilica +of Santa Maria degli Angeli of 1509. + +[Illustration: ASSISI ITS WALLS CASTLE & CHURCH] + +The now secularized convent and its triple church have all the +characteristics of a mediæval fortress when viewed from afar. + +The town itself owes most, if not all, of its fame to its beloved San +Francesco. His birthplace has disappeared and its site occupied by the +Chiesa Nuova, but a part of it has been built into the church, making it +another shrine of the holy man who did so much good to his fellows +during his life, and to his native town in these late days by bringing +tens, nay, even hundreds, of thousands of tourists thither to spend +their money on local guides, cabmen and inn-keepers. A sordid point of +view some may think. But is it? What would Assisi be without the +tourists? Still wooing the Lady Poverty, there's no doubt about that. +What would Venice be without the tourists? Not what it is to-day. No +indeed. It is dead and dull enough even now at certain seasons. It would +become so for all time without the strangers. + +Perugia is the big town of Umbria. To-day it boasts of twenty odd +thousand souls, but in the days when it struggled against papal control +it was even more populous. Its history is one long drawn out tale of +revolt and submission in turn, from the days when it first submitted to +the Romans in 310 B. C. until it threw its fate in with that of the +other states of Victor Emmanuel in 1860. + +If ever a city was blood-baptized that honour is Perugia's. It has not a +crooked old street nor gate nor fountain nor piazza or palazzo but what +is gory with bloody memories. + +Perugia was a dominant mediæval influence all through the neighbourhood +and levied tribute on all her vassal cities and towns. Foligno's walls +and ramparts had fallen and the people of Perugia came and carted off +the stone for their own needs; Arezzo stripped her churches and +palaces to provide the marbles for Perugia's cathedral. + +[Illustration: _Architectural Detail, Perugia_] + +Perugia's oxen are famous in literature and art, but they have almost +become a memory, though an occasional one may be seen standing in the +market place or a yoke working in the nearby fields. Electric cars haul +passengers and freight about the city at a death-dealing pace, and the +ox as a beast of burden is out-distanced and out-classed. + +The ancient civilization is represented at Perugia by a remarkable +series of old fortification walls, still admirably conserved, a +kilometre or more from the centre of town, a necropolis of ten chambers, +and an antique Roman arch of Augustus. + +Perugia's lode star for travellers has ever been the fact that it was +the centre of the school of Umbrian painters. This is not saying that it +has no architecture worth mentioning, for the reverse is the case. + +Out from Perugia by the Porta di Elce, on the Cortona road, one passes a +couple of imposing edifices. One, from a distance, looks grandly +romantic and mediæval, but is only a base modern reproduction in cement +and timber--and for all the writer knows, steel beams as well--of an +ancient feudal castle. The other is less grand, less luxurious possibly, +but is the very ideal of an Italian country house, habitable to-day, but +surrounded with all the romantic flavour of mediævalism. It is still +called the Villa of the Cardinal by virtue of the fact that Cardinal +Fulvio della Corgna built it in 1580. Locally, it is also known as the +Villa Umberto, and it belongs to, and is inhabited by, the family of +Commendatore Ferdinando Cesaroni. Architecturally, perhaps, the villa is +not a great work, but it is marvellously satisfying to the eye by reason +of its disposition and its outlook. + +Gubbio, thirty-nine kilometres away by road, is not readily accessible +by rail from Perugia, though on the direct line from Arezzo, Ancona and +Foligno. + +The automobilist may reach Gubbio from Perugia in less time than the +rail-tied traveller may check his baggage and take his place in the +train. + +Not many include Gubbio in their Italian tours. Its Etruscan lore and +relics have been made the subject of volumes, but little has been done +to set forth its charms for the Italian pilgrim who would seek to get +away from the herding crowds of the great cities and towns. + +[Illustration: _Palazzo Ducale, Urbino_] + +Gubbio's ducal palace is moss grown and weedy, so far as its rooftop and +courtyard are concerned, but it is a very warm and lively old fabric +nevertheless, and those that love historic old shrines will find much +here that they will often not discover in a well restored, highly +furbished monument kept frankly as a show-place for throngs of trippers +who cannot tell old bronze from new copper, or wrought iron from _font_. + +The hurly-burly of twentieth century life has not yet reached Gubbio, +and that is why it presents itself to the visitor within its walls in +such agreeable fashion. + +Off in the Marches, sixty-five kilometres from Gubbio, is the little +town of Urbino. It has a Palazzo Ducale most remarkable in its +architecture and its emplacement. It was begun in 1648 by Frederigo di +Montefeltro, on the site of a former palace of a century before. The +apartments within are not merely the halls of a museum, but are +remarkably interesting and livable mediæval apartments, and to-day are +much as they were in the days of the gallant dukes, one of whom, +Guidobaldo II, was a poet himself and a patron of letters who gave his +protection to the last Italian poet whose fame was European--Torquato +Tasso. + +Urbino, too, was the birthplace of him whom we know familiarly as +Raphael, though curiously enough the local museum contains but a single +example of his work, and that a drawing of "Moses in the Bulrushes." + +Urbino's chief "sight," though it is not beautiful in itself, is the +birthplace of Raphael, situated in a little street running off from near +the ducal palace, a street which mounts heavenward so steeply that it +was formerly called the Via del Monte. The authorities, in an effort to +keep up with popular taste, have recently changed the name to Via +Raffaello. + +It is a mean, simple and grim looking little house, not at all beautiful +according to palatial standards. On the 6th of April, 1483, its fame +began, but pilgrims have only in recent years come to bow down before +it. Nevertheless popes and prelates and princes came here to sit to the +"painter of Urbino" and have left an added distinction to the house. +Muzio Oddi, the celebrated architect and mathematician, caused to be +graven the following on its façade:-- + + "Ludet in humanis divina potentia rebus + Et saepe in parvis claudre magna solet." + +A tablet marks the house plainly. It will not be possible to miss it. + +Urbino sits high above the surrounding valley, twelve or fifteen hundred +feet above sea level. A coach of doubtful antiquity formerly made the +same journey as that covered by the railway and deposited its mixed +freight of travellers and inhabitants in one of the most splendid of the +Renaissance cities of Italy. Now, the automobile brings many more +tourists than ever before came by coach, or railway even, and +accordingly Urbino will undoubtedly become better known. + +The court of Urbino in the sixteenth century was one of the most refined +and learned of the courts of Italy, and therefore of the world. Coryat +in his "Crudities," of the seventeenth century, remarks a difference +between English and Italian manners. + +"I observed a custom in all those Italian cities and towns through which +I passed, that is not used in any other country that I saw in my +travels; neither do I think that any other nation of Christendom doth +use it, but only Italy. The Italian, and also most strangers that are +commorant in Italy, do always at their meals use a little fork when they +cut their meat." Is it that the fork came to earth as a seventeenth +century Italian innovation? + +Urbino's Albergo Italia merits the sign of the crossed knife and fork, +the Automobile Club's endorsement of good food. + +One of the classic figures of mediæval Urbino was Oddantonio, of the +great house of Montefeltro, who, succeeding to the dukedom at the age of +fifteen, fell under the ill control of the brilliant, but corrupt, +Sigismondo Malatesta, of Rimini. + +Thirty five kilometres east of Urbino lies the blue Adriatic, perhaps +the most beautiful of all the Italian seas. The descent from four +hundred metres at Urbino to sea level is gradual and easy, but it is a +steady fall that is bound to be remarked by travellers by road, with the +sea in sight for the major part of the way. + +One comes to the Adriatic shore at Pesaro, midway on the coast between +Ravenna and Ancona. North and south, from the Venetian boundary to the +rocky, sparse-populated shores of Calabria, flanking upon the Ionian +sea, is a wonderland of little-travelled highroad, all of it a historic +itinerary, though indeed the road is none of the best. To the jaded +traveller, tired of stock sights and scenes, the covering of this coast +road from Venice to Brindisi would be a journey worth the making, but it +should not be done hurriedly. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +BY ADRIATIC'S SHORE + + +The Italian shore of the Adriatic is a terra incognita to most +travellers in Italy, save those who take ship for the east at Brindisi, +and even they arrive from Calais, Paris or Ostende by express train +without break of journey en route. + +The following table gives the kilometric distances of this shore road by +the Adriatic, through the coast towns from Otranto in Pouilles to +Chioggia in Venetia. The itinerary has, perhaps, never been made in its +entirety by any stranger automobilist, but the writer has seen enough to +make him want to cover its entire length. + + Population Kilometres + Otranto 22,266 0 + Lecce 2,333 40.4 + Brindisi 16,719 80 + Monopoli 7,620 151 + Bari 58,266 193.3 + Barletta 31,194 248.2 + Manfredonia 8,324 330 + Foggia 14,067 368.4 + +Here the road leaves the coast but joins again at Ortona. + + Isernia 7,687 526.7 + Ortona 6,366 673.5 + Pescara 2,612 694.3 + Ancona 28,577 849.7 + Pesaro 12,547 909.7 + Rimini 10,838 945.3 + Ravenna 18,571 995.3 + Ferrara 28,814 1,068.7 + Chioggia 20,381 1,160.5 + +The above are the cold figures as worked out from the Road Books, Maps +and Profiles of the Touring Club Italiano. The whole forms a rather +lengthy itinerary but, in part, it is within the power of every +automobilist in Italy to make, as he crosses Umbria from Rome to the +Adriatic, by including that portion of the route between Ancona and +Chioggia. This cuts the distance to the more reasonable figure of a +little more than three hundred kilometres. + +Taranto, Otranto and Bari are mere place names for which most do not +even know where to look on the map. Conditions of life were not easy or +luxurious here in the outposts of the western empire, and the influx of +alien Greek and Turk and Jew has ever tended to change the Italian +colouring to one almost Oriental in tone and brilliance. + +Brindisi has usually been considered a mere way station on the +traveller's itinerary, where he changes train for boat. But it is more +than that. It was the ancient Brentesion of the Greeks, indeed it was +the gateway of all intercourse between the peninsula and the Greece of +the mainland and the islands of Ægina. + +Virgil died here on his return from Greece in 19 B.C., and for that +reason alone it at once takes rank as one of the world's great literary +shrines. But who ever heard of a literary pilgrim coming here! + +Brindisi's Castello, built by Ferdinand II and Charles V, still +overlooks the harbour and, though it performs no more the functions of a +fortress, it is an imposing and admirable mediæval monument. + +Near the harbour is a svelt Greek column with a highly sculptured +capital and an inscription to the memory of a Byzantine ruler who built +up the city anew in the tenth century, after it had fallen prey to the +Saracens. This column, too, supposedly marks the termination of the +Appian Way, which started from Rome's Forum and wandered across the +Campagna and on to this eastern outpost. + +[Illustration: Brindisi; The Terminal Column of the Appian Way] + +Bari, like Brindisi, was an ancient seaport. Horace sang its praises, or +rather the praises of its fish, as did Petrarch of the carp at Vaucluse, +and the town was one of the most ancient bishoprics in Italy. + +From the tenth to the fourteenth century the fate of the town was ever +in the balance, changing its allegiance from one seigneur to another, +who, for the moment, happened to be the more masterful. In the +fourteenth century it became an independent Duchy, and in 1558 was +united with the kingdom of Naples. + +Bari's Castello was built in 1160 and, like that at Brindisi, is of that +grim militant aspect which bespeaks, if not deeds of romance, at least +those of valour. + +In the Piazza Mercanto is a great bronze lion wearing an exaggerated +dog-collar on which is inscribed the "Custos Justitiæ," the heraldic +motto and device of the city. + +Manfredonia, Termoli, Ortona and Pescara are all of them charming +Adriatic towns, each and all possessed of vivid reminders of the days of +the corsairs, adventurers and pirate Saracen hordes. Their battlemented +walls and castles still exist in the real, and little of twentieth +century progress has, as yet, made its mark upon them. Mythology, +history and romance have here combined. + +Ancona is not included in every one's Italian itinerary. This is the +more to be regretted in that it is very accessible, not only by road but +by rail from Ravenna or Perugia, or by sea, in eight or ten hours, from +Venice. The city of fifty thousand inhabitants, with a Ghetto of six +thousand Jews, is beautifully situated on an amphitheatre of hills +overlooking the Adriatic. The mole which encloses its harbour supports +two triumphal arches, making a sort of monumental water-gate unequalled +by anything similar in all the world. One of these arches was erected by +the Roman Senate in 122, to the honour of Trajan, and the other in +honour of Pope Clement XII in 1740. + +Trajan undoubtedly deserved the honour. It was he who was the first to +hold that "it was better a thousand guilty persons should escape than +that one innocent person should be condemned." When he appointed +Subarranus Captain of the Guard, he presented him, according to custom, +with a drawn sword, saying, as he handed it, these memorable words: +"_Pro me, si merear, in me_" ("Use this sword for me: If I deserve it, +against me"). It is good to know that men like these may have +memorial arches as well as mere cut-throat conquerors. + +[Illustration: _Trajan's Arch, Ancona_] + +Every student of Italian architecture knows Piranesi's drawing of the +famous Trajan arch at Ancona. It was more truthful than many of his +drawings of Roman antiquities, and might indeed have been made in these +latter years, for little is changed on Ancona's seafront. + +There is at Ancona a memory of Filippo Lippi, a monkish draughtsman of +great ability, a contemporary of the better known Fra Angelico. + +Once he set out on the blue waters of the Adriatic, from the very steps +below the Arch of Trajan where the waves lap to-day, for a little sail. +Like many people who make excursions in boats, he was unskilful, and +worse, for, drifting out to sea, he was in due time picked up by a +Barbary pirate and next put foot on shore in Africa. He drew the pirate +chief's portrait on the wall of his prison, and in spite of the +interdiction of the Koran, the Moor was pleased and gave the Fra his +liberty forthwith, taking him back to within sight of Trajan's arch, +when he was precipitately put over side and made to swim ashore, the +pirate returning from whence he came. + +Senegallia, between Ancona and Pesaro, was an appanage of the Dukes of +Urbino. It is an enchanting, unworldly little town, even to-day, its +great protecting walls pierced by six gateways, the same through which a +whole hierarchy of conquerors passed in the long ago. It is a place of +dreams, if one is given to that sort of thing. The Mediæval Palazzo +Communal is still in evidence, and the little creek-like harbour is full +of wobbly little boats with painted masts and sails, all most quaint. +Behind are the gentle slopes of vine-clad hills shutting out the western +world beyond. + +Pesaro, the ancient Pisaurum, is the capital of the united provinces of +Pesaro and Urbino. The Malatesta, the Sforza and the Rovere families all +ruled its destinies in their time, and the little capital came to be a +literary and art centre which, in a small way, rivalled its more opulent +compeers. + +Pesaro's ducal palace is, in a way, a monument to the Queen Lucrezia +Borgia, as is the rude fortress of the walls a memory of Giovanni +Sforza, her first husband. At the age of twenty-six, Giovanni married +the daughter of Alessandro Borgia, who was but thirteen, and brought his +bride forthwith, blessed with the Papal benediction, to this bijou of a +palace where fêtes and merrymakings of a most prodigal sort went on +for many nights and days. + +[Illustration: _Castel Malatesta, Rimini_] + +Back to the coast and one comes to Rimini, the southern terminus of the +Via Æmilia. Rimini's Arco d'Augusto was erected as a memorial to the +great Augustus in 27 B. C. The Ponte d'Augusto, too, is a monument of +the times, which date back nearly nineteen centuries. It was begun in +the last year of the life of Augustus. + +The Palazzo del Comune contains the municipal picture-gallery, and +before it stands a bronze statue of Pope Paul V, but the greatest +interest lies in the contemplation of the now ruined and dilapidated +Castel Malatesta. Its walls are grim and sturdy still, but it is nothing +but a hollow mockery of a castle to-day, as it has been relegated to use +as a prison and stripped of all its luxurious belongings of the days of +the Malatesta. The family arms in cut stone still appear above the +portal. + +The chief figure of Rimini's old time portrait gallery was the famous +Lord of Rimini, Sigismondo Malatesta, a man of exquisite taste, a patron +of the arts, a sincere lover of beauty. + +From Rimini to Ravenna, still within sight of the Adriatic's waves, is +some fifty kilometres by road or rail, through a low, marshy, +unwholesome-looking region, half aquatic, half terrestrial. + +La Pineta, or the Pine Forest, the same whose praises were sung by +Dante, Boccaccio, Dryden and Byron, and which supplied the timber for +the Venetian ships of the Republic's heyday is in full view from +Ravenna's walls. + +Boccaccio made the Pineta the scene of his singular tale, "Nostagio +degli Onesti"; the incidents of which, ending in the amorous conversion +of the ladies of Ravenna, have been made familiar to the English reader +by Dryden's adoption of them in his "Theodore and Honoria." + + "Where the last Cæsarean fortress stood, + Evergreen forest! which Boccaccio's lore + And Dryden's lay made haunted ground." + +Ravenna sits grim and proud in the very midst of wide, flat, marshy +plains across which straight arrow-like roads roll out seemingly +interminable kilometres to the joy of the automobilist and the despair +of the traveller with a hired hack. The region between Ravenna and the +sea is literally half land, half water, marshes partitioned off by +canals and pools stretching away in every direction. It is lone and +strange, but it is not sad and above all is most impressive. Turn out +of any of Ravenna's great gates and the aspect is invariably the same. +Great ox-carts, peasants in the fields and, far away, the brown sails of +the Adriatic fishing boats are the only punctuating notes of a landscape +which is anything but gay and lively. It is as Holland under a mediæval +sun, for mostly the sun shines brilliantly here, which it does not in +the Low Countries. Ravenna was the ancient capital of the Occidental +Roman Empire, but to-day, in its marshy site, the city is in anything +but the proud estate it once occupied. The aspect of the whole city is +as weird and strange as that of its site. It is of far too great an area +for the few thousand pallid mortals who live there. It has ever been a +theatre of crime, disaster and disappointment, but its very walls and +gateways echo a mysterious and penetrating charm. It possesses, even +to-day, though more or less in fragments it is true, many structures +dating from the fifth to the eighth centuries, though of its old Palace +of the Cæsars but a few crumbled stones remain. Ravenna is the home of +the classic typical Christian architecture which went out broadcast +through Europe in the middle ages. The Palace of Theodoric hardly exists +as a ruin, but some poor ugly stone piers are commonly granted the +dignity of once having belonged to it, as well as an ancient wall of +brick. + +Theodoric's tomb is in La Rotonda, a kilometre or more from Ravenna in +the midst of a vineyard. The earliest portrait in Ravenna's great +gallery of notables is that of Theodoric, an art-loving ruler, an +enlightened administrator, with simple, devout ideas, and a habit of +nightly vigils. Ravenna was to him a world, a rich golden world, +polished yet primitive. + +Aside from its magnificent churches, Ravenna's monuments are not many or +great. + +There is Theodoric's Palace before mentioned, the Archiepiscopal Palace, +a restored work of the sixteenth century, and the Palazzo Governativo +built in the eighteenth century, with many splendid fragments--columns +and the like--of an earlier period incorporated therein. + +On the Piazza Vittorio Emanuele are two great granite columns, erected +in 1484 by the Venetians, and some fragments of a colonnade or loggia +which may be a part of the Hall of Justice of Theodoric's time. + +[Illustration: _Palazzo di Teodorico, Ravenna_] + +[Illustration: Column to Gaston de Foix, Ravenna] + +The tomb of Dante is near the church of San Francesco. It is an uncouth +shrine which covers the poet's remains, but it ranks high among +those of its class from more sincere motives than those which usually +induce one to rave over more pompous and more splendid charms. + + "_Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar_," + +sang Byron. + +Northward from Ravenna, but in roundabout fashion whether one goes by +road or rail is Comacchio. Comacchio is four kilometres from the +Adriatic and forty-four from Ferrara. Ariosto called the inhabitants:-- + + ".... _gente desiosa + Che il mar si turbi e sieno i venti atroci_," + +but this need not deter the seeker after new sensations from going there +to see them catch eels on a wholesale plan, and handle them afterwards +in a manner of cleanliness and with a rapidity which is truly +marvellous. + +They are caught by wholesale, and a _tagliatore_ armed with a +useful-looking hatchet called a _manarino_ chops them into pieces called +_morelli_. After this the eels are cooked on a great open-fire spit and +finally packed in boiling oil, like the little fishes of the Breton +coast, and ultimately sold and served as _hors d'oeuvres_ in Italian +restaurants the world over. North of Comacchio on the shore of a +Venetian lagoon is Chioggia. + +Chioggia has no great architectural or historical monuments, but is as +paintable as Venice itself; indeed, it is a little brother to Venice, +but lacking its splendour and great palaces. Its quay-side Madonna is +venerated by all the fishing folk round about. + +Venice early conquered Chioggia and in turn the Genoese came along and +took it from their rival in 1379, though the Venetians within the year +got it back again. With such a fate ever hanging over it, Chioggia had +not great encouragement to build great palaces and so its inhabitants +turned to fishing and have always kept at it. + +Unless one is crossing direct from Florence to Venice, by the Futa Pass +and Bologna, Ferrara, as a stopping place on one's Italian itinerary, is +best reached from Ravenna. The road is flat, generally well-conditioned +and covers a matter of seventy kilometres, mostly within sight of the +sea or lagoons, more like Holland even than the country through which +one has recently passed. + +[Illustration: _The Madonna of Chioggia_] + +Of all the romantic Renaissance shrines of Italy none have a more +potent attraction than Ferrara. + +The Ferrara of the Middle Ages, like the Ferrara of to-day, is a +paradox. No Italian State of similar power and magnificence ever exerted +such disproportionate influence upon mediæval Italy; no city in United +Italy in which are so combined the fascinating treasures of the past and +modern political and industrial enterprise is so ignored by the casual +traveller. Once the strongest post on the frontier of the Papal States, +the seat of the House of Este, the abiding place of Torquato Tasso and +Ludovico Ariosto, and the final marital home of Lucrezia Borgia, the +golden period of its sixteenth century magnificence has sunk into an +isolation unheeded by contingent development, and its inhabitants have +shrunken to a bare third of their former numbers. + +The ducal family of Este lived the life of the times to the limit of +their powers. They, one and all, inherited a taste for crimes of various +shades, just as they inherited the love of art. Alfonso, Duke of +Ferrara, had no profound moral sense in spite of his finer instincts, +and was so "liberal minded" that he shocked Bayard, the "_chevalier sans +peur et sans reproche_," into crossing himself "more than ten times" as +an antidote, when he first came into the ducal presence. + +[Illustration: _From a frieze in the Palazzo, at Ferrara_] + +Ferrara's castello or castel vecchio, which is better known as its ducal +château, is a remarkable specimen of military architecture. On Saint +Michael's Day, 1385, its first stones were put in place by Bartolina di +Novara, and the ardour of the workmen was so great that at the end of +sixteen months the work was completed as it is to-day, with its +towers, its doubly thick walls, and all its brutal force. + +[Illustration: _Ferrara_] + +A fosse surrounds the edifice, and two gateways only give access to the +interior. Under Alphonso I certain embellishments were added to the old +castle, bringing it up to the times in luxurious decorative details and +the like. The rude feudal castle now became virtually a residential +château. The crenelated battlements were transformed into mere parapets, +the _chemins de ronde_ into terraces and hanging gardens. + +Pictures and frescoes were at this time added liberally, and, though +to-day many of these have been dispersed to the four corners of Europe, +enough remain to indicate the importance of these new embellishments. + +The cachots or dungeon cells still exist, and are regarded--by the +guardian--as one of the chief "sights." Some others may think +differently. + +The house of Ariosto is one of Ferrara's most popular attractions, +though indeed it is not remarkable architecturally. Ariosto was one of +the brilliant figures of the Ferrara court, but his house was modest and +bare, as is remarked by a tablet which it bore in the poet's time, and +on which was carved in Latin: "My house is small but was built for my +own convenience and entirely with my own money." How many householders +of to-day can say the same? + +In the hospital in the southern quarter of the town is still to be seen +the prison cell commonly assigned to Tasso. On the walls are scribbled +the names of Lord Byron and Casimir Delavigne and Lamartine's verses on +Tasso, and over the door runs the inscription-- + + +---------------------------------------------+ + | "INGRESSO ALLA PRIGIONE DI TORQUATO TASSO." | + +---------------------------------------------+ + +For seven years and more Tasso lived within these four narrow walls. + + "Ferrara! in thy wide and grass-grown streets + Whose symmetry was not for solitude, + There seems as 'twere a curse upon the seats + Of former sovereigns, and the antique brood + Of Este.... + + * * * * * + + And Tasso is their glory and their shame." + "_Childe Harold._" + +Closely bound with Ferrara and the fortunes of the family of Este is the +town of that name midway between Ferrara and Padua at the foot of the +Euganean Hills. The ancestral residence of the family of Este is here, +but in a more or less ruinous state to-day. + +The "Rocca" or Castle of Este was erected in 1343 by Ulbertino Carrara, +and repaired by the Scaligers during their temporary possession of it. +It is a noble dungeon tower, with frowning embrasures and battlements, +and stands at least upon the site of the original fortress. Alberto Azzo +(born 996) was the more immediate founder of the house here on the death +of the Emperor Henry III. The ancestry of Alberto may be traced in +history to Bonifazio, Duke or Marquis of Tuscany, in 811. Poetry carries +it much higher. The magician, in the vision of the enchanted shield, +enables Rinaldo to behold Caius Attius as his remote ancestor:-- + + "Mostragli Caio allor, ch'a strane genti + Va prima in preda il gia inclinato Impero, + Prendere il fren de' popoli volenti, + E farsi d'Este il Principe primiero; + E a lui ricoverarsi i men potenti + Vicini, a cui Rettor facea mestiero, + Poscia, quando ripassi il varco noto, + A gli inviti d'Honorio il fero Goto." + --_Orlando Furioso._ + +Guelph, Duke of Bavaria (succeeded 1071), from whom all the branches of +the House of Brunswick are descended, was the son of Alberto Azzo, +Marquis of Este, by his first wife, Cunegunda, a princess of the Suabian +line. + +Fulco I, Marquis of Italy and Lord of Este, the son of Alberto Azzo by +his second wife, Garisenda, daughter of Herbert, Count of Maine, was the +founder of the Italian branch from which the Dukes of Ferrara and Modena +descended, the male line of which became extinct at the end of the last +century. The Duke of Modena, who was deposed in the mid-nineteenth +century, represented the house of Este in the female line,--his +grandmother, Maria Beatrix, having been the last descendant of the +Italian branch. Este continued in the possession of the descendants of +Alberto until 1294, when it fell an easy conquest to the Carraras. +Successively a dependency of Padua and of the Verona Scaligers, it +passed to Venice in 1405, retaining its local government and municipal +institutions. + +Near Este is Arqua, where Petrarch died in 1374. It has been a literary +shrine since 1650, for a chronicler of that time remarks it as one of +the things to come to Italy to see. The house is still to be seen, and +the sarcophagus containing his remains and an inscription beginning-- + + "_Frigida Francisci lopis hic tegit ossa Petrarce_" + +is before the tiny church of this little frequented and little exploited +village. + +[Illustration: Casa del Petrarca, Arqua] + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +ON THE VIA ÆMILIA + + +The Via Æmilia of antiquity is a wonder to-day, or would be if it were +kept in a little better repair. As it is, it is as good a road as any +"good road" in Italy, and straight as an arrow, as it runs boldly from +the Adriatic at Rimini to Piacenza, through the ancient States of +Bologna, Modena and Parma. + +No automobilist who ever rolls off its length of 262 kilometres will +class it as inferior to any other Italian road of its class. + +The following categorical mention of the cities and towns on this great +Roman way presents their varied charms in a sufficient number, surely, +to make the hurried north or southbound traveller think it worth while +to zigzag about a bit, in going from Florence to Venice, in order to +visit them all. + +The first place of note after leaving Rimini is Cesana--"She whose flank +is washed by Savio's wave," Dante wrote. + +Cesana is full of reminders of the profligate Cæsar Borgia. The library +of Cesana was famous in mediæval times and held its head high among the +city's other glories. Above all was the famous Rocca of Cesana, a +fortress château of great strength in days when feudal lords needed a +warren into which they might run and hide at every league. + +The Palazzo Publico is a square, sturdy, none too lovely building with +some notable pictures within, and a statue of Pius VII, who was a native +of the place. + +In the stirring times of the pontificate of Gregorius XI, the Avignon +Pope sent a cut-throat Cardinal into Italy at the head of a band of +soldiery who entered and pillaged Cesana in 1377. His cry at the head of +his troops was ever: "Blood! more blood! Kill! Kill! Kill!" A nice sort +of a man for a Cardinal Prince of the Church! + +The highroad between Cesana and Rimini passes through the valley of the +Rubicon. Mule tracks, sloping hills and olive groves are the chief +characteristics of this vale, the spot where Cæsar apocryphally crossed +the Rubicon. Historians up to Montesquieu's time seemed to take it for +granted, but latterly it has been denied. + +Forli and Imola were the principal towns of Romagna, the patrimony of +Catherine Sforza and Girolamo Riario, nephew of Pope Sixtus IV. When the +new married pair first came to their little State from Rome the +Renaissance was at its height, and the ambitious bride sought, so far as +possible, to surround herself with its splendours. Their reign in the +east was not happy; Girolamo proved a tyrant, and was promptly +assassinated by his followers, leaving Catherine and her five children +completely in the power of his murderers, who made her give up her +claims to her little kingdom. She consented, or pretended to consent. +She conspired with the Governor of the fortress, Tommaso Feo, and +appeared on its ramparts dressed as a warrior. She refused to surrender, +and when it was recalled that she had left her children behind as +hostages she cruelly replied: "In time I shall have others." Catherine +Sforza was a bloodthirsty vixen, surely. + +Forli was Catherine Sforza's own city, and her defence of it against the +Borgias was one of the celebrated sieges of history. She held out two +years, and then only gave in because she was betrayed. Her very reason +of warring with the Borgias reflects greatly on her credit. She refused +simply to allow her son to marry the aging Lucrezia; "not so much on +account of her age," said Catherine, "as her morals." Princely marriages +are often carried out on different lines to-day. + +Almost within sight of Forli is Faënza, a city which was under the +domination of the Manfredi when Cæsar Borgia took it into his head to +move against it. A young prince by the name of Astor III, but eighteen +years of age, beloved by all for his amiability, grace and youth, held +its future in his hands. When the key of Faënza, Brisighella, fell to +the Borgia's captain of artillery in the early days of November in 1500, +the emperor-like Cæsar himself came forward and took command. He offered +life to the dwellers within the walls if they would surrender, but they +would have none of it, for, as the Borgia wrote in a letter to the Duc +d'Urbino, dated from "the pontifical camp before Faënza," a "dramatic +defence was made by the citizens of the town." This "dramatic defence" +was such that it compelled Borgia and his papal soldiers to go into +winter quarters. The struggle was the longest that Borgia had yet +undertaken in his campaigns, and the women of Faënza, as did Catherine +Sforza at Forli, covered themselves with glory. + +A daughter of a soldier of the garrison, Diamante Jovelli, put herself +at the head of a band of Amazons who took entire charge of the +commissariat, the handling of the munitions of war, and served as +sentinels, repairing the walls even when breached--rough work for women. +"The women of Faënza have saved the honour of Italy," wrote Isabella +d'Este in 1501 to her husband, the Duke of Mantua, and Cæsar Borgia +himself committed himself to paper with the following words: "Would that +I had an entire army of the women of Faënza." The city fell in due time, +and the crafty Cæsar honoured the gallant Manfredi, "crowned with the +laurels of valour and misfortune," by allowing him "a guard of honour +and all his proper dignities." Later the Borgia repented of his +generosity, and sent the young and gallant prince to Rome, and +imprisoned him in the Castle of Sant'Angelo for a year. + +Faënza is a very ancient town, and less populous to-day than it was +fifty years ago, when also it was less populous than it was five hundred +years ago. + +Imola, the seventh place of importance on the Æmilian itinerary counting +from Rimini, was the ancient Forum Cornelii, but by Charlemagne's time +it had already become known by its present name. In the middle ages +Imola's geographical position, midway between Bologna and Romagna, made +it an important acquisition in the contests for power. It was +successfully held by many different chiefs, and was united to the States +of the Church under Julius II. As one of the stations on the Æmilian +Way, it was a place of some importance; it is mentioned by Cicero, and +by Martial:-- + + "Si veneris unde requiret, + Æmiliæ dices de regione viæ. + Si quibus in terris, qua simus in urbe rogabit, + Corneli referas me, licet, esse Foro." + +The fortress château of Imola was almost identical in form with that of +Forli, quadrilateral with four great towers at the angles, and a +crenelated battlement at the skyline. + +Cæsar Borgia brought this fortress to ignoble surrender in 1499, but +since the fortress was then quite independent of the city he had still +another task before him before the inhabitants actually came within his +powers. A fortnight after the capture of the fortress the city itself +fell. Imola was a part of the marriage _dot_ of Catherine Sforza, who +confided its defence to Dionigi di Naldo while she busied herself at +Forli, where she reigned as widow and inheritor of Riario Sforza. + +On towards Bologna one passes Castel San Pietro, a thirteenth century +fortified town still sleeping its dull time away since no war or rumours +of war give it concern. Quaderna, even less progressive and important +to-day than its neighbour, was the important station of Claternum in the +days when traffic on the great Æmilian way was greater than now. + +Bologna's towers and domes loom large on the horizon as one draws up on +this great capital from any direction. Bologna, because of its easy +access, is one of the popular tourist points of Italy, and for that +reason it is omitted from nobody's itinerary, though most hurried +travellers remember the _mortadella_ better than they do the cathedral, +which in truth is nothing very fine so far as architectural masterpieces +go. + +The roads in and out of Bologna are quite the best to be found +neighbouring upon a large city in Italy. They shall not be described +further, the mere statement that this is so should be taken as +sufficient praise. + +The streets within the gates too, though paved, are splendidly straight +and smooth, though encumbered at one or two awkward corners with tram +tracks. + +The visitor to Bologna may take his ease at the Hotel Brun, quite the +most _distinguished_ hotel in all Italy, not even excepting Daniellis or +the Grand at Venice, each of them a palazzo of long ago. + +[Illustration: BOLOGNA (diagram)] + +The Hotel Brun is a red brick palace of imposing presence, with a +delightful courtyard where you may stable your automobile along side of +those of most of the touring nobility of Europe at a cost of two and a +half francs a night. The hotel in spite of this is excellent in every +way. + +Bologna is surrounded by a city wall pierced by twelve gateways and thus +well preserves its mediæval effect in spite of its theatres, cafés and +restaurants, which are decidedly modern and unlovely. + +Bologna when it was conquered by the Gauls took the name of Bononia. +Under Charlemagne it became a free city and had for its device the +equivalent of the word Liberty. + +Bologna, the ancient city, proud in the middle ages and independent +always, has ever been the cradle of disturbing factions, a revolutionary +precursor of new ideas, and has been sold and sold again by first one +Judas and then another. + +Bologna is, taking its history, its present day prosperity and its still +existing mediæval monuments into consideration, the most impressive and +imposing of all the secondary cities of Italy, indeed in many of the +things that impress the traveller it is ahead, far ahead, of Florence. + +Paul Van Herle, a fifteenth century Dutchman, first called the city +_Bologna la Grassa_ because of the opulency of the good things of the +table which might be had here. Its wines and its grapes are superlative, +and its _mortadella_, or Bologna sausage, is, to many, a delicacy +without an equal. + +[Illustration: _The Leaning Towers of Bologna_] + +Bologna seems to have a specialty of leaning towers, though the school +histories and geographies always use that of Pisa to illustrate those +architectural curiosities. Their histories are very romantic, and the +mere fact that they are out of perpendicular takes nothing away from +their charm. The two leaning brick towers of Bologna's Piazza di Porta +Ravegnana, the Torri Asinelli and the Torri Gorisenda, the first nearly +a hundred metres in height and the latter about half that height, are +two of the most remarkable structures ever erected by the hand of man. + +The Asinelli tower was built in 1109, and its neighbour, which never +achieved its completion, in the following year. + +From Bologna to Modena is thirty-two kilometres and midway is Castel +Franco or Forte Urbano, as it is variously known. It was formerly the +Forum Gallorum of the Romans and still has its _castel_ little changed +from what it was in the days when Urban VIII built it. + +Modena is mostly confounded by hurried travellers with Modane, though +the latter is merely a railway junction where one is tumbled out in the +middle of the night to make his peace with railway and customs +officials. + +Modena's Palazzo Ducale, now the Palazzo Reale, was and is a vast, gaudy +construction, not lovely but overpowering with a certain crude grandeur. +A military school has now turned it to practical use. It never could +have been good for much else. A picture gallery and Cæsar d'Este's +famous library are quartered in the Albergo Arti, built by the Duke +Francesco III in the seventeenth century. + +The library _Biblioteca Estense_ was brought from Ferrara in 1598 by +Cæsar d'Este on his expulsion by Clement VIII. It contained 100,000 +volumes and 3,000 MSS. Three of the most learned men in Italy during the +last century--Zaccaria, Tiraboschi and Muratori--were its librarians. +Amongst the treasures were a gospel of the third century, a Dante with +miniature of the fourteenth century, a collection of several hundred +Provençal poems, etc. + +Modena was the birthplace of Mary of Modena, the fascinating princess +who became the Italian Queen of the English people, the consort of James +II. She was an Italian Princess of the house of Este. Her mother was the +Duchess Laura of Modena, daughter of Count Martinozzi and Margaret +Mazarini, cousin of the great Cardinal Mazarin, and she was married, +under his auspices, at the Chapel Royal of Compiègne, in 1655, by proxy, +to Alfonso d'Este, hereditary Prince, and afterwards Duke Alfonso IV of +Modena. + +When Lord Peterborough, the envoy of the Duke of York, was shown the +portrait of the Princess Mary he saw "a young Creature about Fourteen +years of Age; but such a light of Beauty, such Characters of Ingenuity +and Goodness as it surprised him, and fixt upon his Phancy that he had +found his Mistress, and the Fortune of England." He made every effort to +meet her personally, but in vain; so he was introduced, "by means such +as might seem accidental," to the Abbé Rizzini, who was employed at +Paris to negotiate the interests of the House of Este. This man +attributed "many excellencies to Mary of Modena, yet he endeavoured to +make them useless" to them by saying that she and her mother wished that +she might take the veil. It was later learned that obstacles were put in +the Duke of York's way until he announced his willingness to become a +Roman Catholic. + +Reggio in Æmilia, passed on the road to Parma, is a snug little town, +supposedly the birthplace of Ariosto. A house so marked compels popular +admiration, but again it is possible that he was born within the +citadel, since razed. + +[Illustration: PARMA] + +The Duchies of Parma and Modena counted little in the political balance +in their day, but the fêtes and spectacles of their courts were +frequently brilliant. + +The Duchy of Parma and of Piacenza was created in 1545 by the Pope Paul +III for his son Pietro Farnese. Little of Parma's mediæval character +remains to-day. The town is said to have been called Parma from its +similarity to the form of a shield. But the torrent Parma, which runs +through the city, crossed by three bridges, besides the railway bridge, +most probably gave its name to the city which arose upon the banks. When +the city was under the authority of the Popes it was represented by a +female figure sitting on a pile of shields, and holding a figure of +Victory, with the inscription of _Parma aurea_. Let the heraldic +students figure out any solution of the incident that they please, or +are able. + +The Via Æmilia divides the city, by means of the Strada Mæstra, into two +very nearly equal parts. Parma, like Modena and Lucca, has changed its +fortification walls into boulevards, called "Stradone," which are the +favourite rendezvous for Parmesan high society when it goes out for a +stroll. + +Near Parma is Canossa, the site of an old fortified town, one day of +considerable importance, but now decayed beyond hope. Here the Emperor +Henry IV, bareheaded and barefooted, supplicated Pope Gregory V in 1077, +an incident of history not yet forgotten by the annalists of church and +state. + +Soon after leaving Parma the Roman road crosses the river Taro, the +boundary frontier which shut off the Gaulish from the Ligurian tribes. +The Brothers of the Bridge here built a great work of masonry in 1170, +obtaining money for the expense of the work by begging from the +travellers passing to and fro on the Æmilian Way. In time this old +bridge was carried away, and for centuries a ferry boat served the +purpose, until, in fact, the present structure came into being. + +Borgo San Donino, some twenty kilometres beyond the Taro, marks the +shrine of San Donino, a soldier in the army of Maximilian who became a +Christian and refused to worship as commanded by his Emperor. For this +he was put to death on this spot, and for ever after Borgo San Donino +has been one of the most frequented places of pilgrimage in Italy. + +Fiorenzuola, still on the Via Æmilia, a dozen kilometres farther on, has +still an old tower to which hang fragments of an enormous chain by which +criminals once were bound and swung aloft. + +All through this fertile, abundant region through which runs the famous +Roman Road are numerous little _borgos_, or villages, bearing names +famous in the history of Italy and its contemporary minor states. + +Piacenza was founded by the Gauls and was afterwards by the Romans named +Placentia. It has ever prospered, though its career has been fraught +more than once with danger of extinction. By the tenth century its great +trading fair was famous throughout Europe. + +[Illustration: PIACENZA] + +Piacenza is full of palaces, statues and monuments which merit the +consideration of all serious minded persons, but the automobilist who +has made the last fifty kilometres of the Via Æmilia in the rain--and +how much it does rain in Italy only one who has travelled there by road +for weeks really appreciates--is first concerned as to where he may lay +his head and house his car free from harm. + +The Grand Hotel San Marco answers his needs well enough and has the +endorsement of the Touring Club de France as well as that of the +Italian Touring Club, but it is ridiculous that one is obliged to pay in +a smug little Italian town of thirty-five thousand inhabitants five +francs a night for housing his automobile. + +Piacenza is on the direct road to the Italian Lakes via Milan, from +which it is distant seventy kilometres. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +IN VENETIA + + +The mainland background of Venice, in its most comprehensive sense the +region lying north of the Po and south and west of the Austrian +frontier, is not a much-travelled region by any class of tourists in +Italy. The traveller by rail usually comes up from Bologna and Florence +and, with a stop at Padua, makes for Venice forthwith and leaves for the +Italian lake region, stopping en route at Verona. The automobilist too +often does the thing even more precipitately, by taking Padua and Verona +flying, or at least while he is stopping to replenish the inner man or +the inner claims of his automobile. Certain readers of this book who may +perhaps have done the thing a little more thoroughly may claim that this +is an exaggeration, and so far as it applies to their particular case it +may be, but the writer honestly believes that it fits astonishingly well +with the majority of Italian itineraries in these parts. He bases this +on the fact that he has seen tourists in droves in Padua and Verona, and +he has not seen one in Este, Monselice, Battaglia, or even in Vicenza, +Treviso, Asolo or Udine. + +[Illustration: PADUA] + +Verona, Vicenza and Padua were the capitals of three of the eight +ancient provinces of Venezia. + +Padua is built in the midst of a vast plain which merits being called +Italian-Flanders. In everything but climate it is like a section of the +Low Countries, and the city, with its domes and towers, looms up over +the low-lying plain, faint and ghostly from afar, like a mirage of the +desert. + +Canals and fortress walls enclose the city even to-day, and the nearer +one approaches, until one actually sees it from within the walls, the +less and less Padua becomes like Italy. The greatest interest of Padua +centres undoubtedly in its church of Sant'Antonio, dedicated to the +pious companion of Francis of Assisi; after that the University which +numbered among its masters Erasmus, Mantius and Galileo, and among its +students Dante, Tasso and Petrarch. Padua is intimately associated with +the name of Petrarch by reason of his having been a student here. +Petrarch died before Chaucer's time, but the Florentine's fame had gone +afield and from the "Clerk's Tale" one recalls the following: + + "Lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk, + Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete, + Highte this clerk, whose rethorike sweet + Enlumined al Itaille of poetrye." + +Padua in spite of its low lying situation is monumental at every turn. +They had courage, the old builders, to plant great buildings down in the +morass, and faith to believe they would last as long as they have. + +On Padua's great Piazzas--there are three of them, one leading out of +the other--rise the chief civic buildings of mediæval times. The Loggia +del Consiglio is an astonishingly ample Renaissance work of an early +period, access to its great hall being by a monumental exterior +stairway. An ancient column, with a San Marco lion is immediately in +front. + +The Palazzo Capitano, with its sky piercing clock tower of the +fourteenth century, was formerly the residence of the Venetian Governor, +and the Palazzo della Ragione, known as Il Salone, contains one of the +vastest single roofed apartments known. There is a long unobstructed +corridor in the mosque of Saint Sophia at Constantinople which holds the +record in its line, but the Salone of Padua, built in 1420, is +pre-eminent in superficial area. + +The ancient Palace of the Carrera, tyrants of Padua, is one of the +things that burn themselves in the mind from the sheer inability of one +to overlook them. When one sees the colossal frescoes of the Entrance +Hall one repeats unconsciously the dictum of Victor Hugo over Madame +Dorval--the beautiful Madame Dorval: _Je ne veux pas mourir_. + +It is the fashion to quote Dante and Byron and Shelley in Italy, but a +little of Alfred de Musset is a cheerful relief. Here are some of his +lines on Padua: + +[Illustration: In Padua] + + "Padoue est un fort bel endroit + Où de très-grands docteurs en droit + On fait merveille; + Mais j'aime mieux la polenta + Qu'on mange aux bords de la Brenta + Sous un treille." + +The Albergo Fanti-Stella d'Oro at Padua is all sufficient as a tourist +hotel, but lacks a good deal of what a hotel for automobilists should +be. There is accommodation for one's automobile in the coach house, but +it evidently is a separately owned concern, for when you come to take +your auto out you will be followed like a thief when you try to explain +that you prefer to pay the garage charges when you pay your hotel bill. +You may eat _à la carte_ in the hotel restaurant at any hour, and you +may have a room across the way in the annex, a better room and for a +smaller price than you can have at the Albergo itself. Altogether this +opera bouffe hotel is neither bad nor good, and most confusing as to its +personnel and their conduct. They need to have a "Who's Who," printed in +German, French and English to put into the hands of each guest on +arrival. + +The automobilist has not yet reached Venice. The nearest that he may +come to it is to Mestre, where he may garage his automobile in any one +of half a dozen palatial establishments especially devoted to the +purpose. Mestre, of absolutely no rank whatever as a city of art or +architecture or sights for the tourist, has more automobile garages than +any other city in Italy. + +The splendour of Venice is undeniable, whether one takes note of its +unique architecture or of its remarkable site. Men with courage to build +gilded and marble palaces on a half submerged chain of isles scarce +above the level of the sea do not live to-day. How well these early +builders planned is evinced by the fact that Venice the magnificent +exists to-day as it always has existed--all but the Campanile. The fall +of this shows what may happen some day to the rest of this regal city. +When? No one knows. Men conquered the morass in the first instance. Can +they hold it in subjection into eternity? + +Venice with all its gorgeousness is just the least bit _triste_. + +Not a tree worthy of the name, not a garden or a farm yard, not a cart +or a horse--and not an automobile is to be found within its purlieus. +One is as if in prison. A watery barrier surrounds one on every side. +The sea, always the sea, mostly mirror-like or gently lapping its waves +at your very feet--and black gondolas everywhere. Yes, Venice is +gorgeous, if you like, but how sad it is also! + +The greatness of Venice dates from the time of the fourth crusade and +the taking of Constantinople. It was then that the Venetian ships became +the chief carriers between the east and the west; its vessels exported +the surplus wealth of the Lombard plain, and brought in return not only +the timber and stone of Istria and Dalmatia, but the manufactured wares +of Christian Constantinople, wines of the Greek isles, and the Oriental +silks, carpets, and spices of Mohammedan Egypt, Arabia and Bagdad. + +There used to be an old time saying at Venice that if the Isthmus of +Suez were pierced with a canal the glory of Venice would once more shine +on the commercial world as well as shed its radiance over those who live +in the sphere of art. The Suez Canal has come, but prophets are not +infallible, and the present maritime glory of the Adriatic lies with +Trieste and Fiume, with Venice a shadowy fifth or sixth in the whole of +Italy. + +It is an historic fact that may well be repeated here, that Venice, more +than any other city of Italy, has ever been noted for its passion for +amusements and unconventional pleasures. "For quite half of the year," +said Montesquieu, "everybody wears a masque; manners are very free and +the passion for gaming immense." A more vivid description of all this +Venetian disregard for convention may be found in the memoirs of the +Venetian adventurer Casanova. + +The visitor to Venice must seek out for himself the things that interest +him, with the aid of his guide-book, his hotel porter or his gondolier. +Not all its splendours can be pointed out here; the record of the author +and artist is a personal record; others if they will may choose a +different itinerary. + +The greatest fascination of all in Venice is undoubtedly the gondola, +though the motor boat is pushing it hard for a place, and there be those +matter-of-fact hurried tourists who prefer the practicality of the +latter to the simplicity and romance of the former. The gondola still +reigns however, and probably always will. It's an asset for drawing +tourists as potent as the lions or horses of San Marco or the pigeons of +the Piazzas. + +The Venetian cannot step without his door without taking a gondola, for +his promenade on the Grand Canal, to cross to the Lido, or to go to +church when he marries and when he dies. The gondola is as much a part +of the daily life of the Venetian as is the street car or the omnibus +elsewhere. + +Though it doesn't look it, the gondola is the most manageable craft +propelled by man. It snakes in and out of crooked waterways and comes to +a landing with far less fuss than anything ever pushed by steam or +gasoline. All the same they are not as swift, though their pace is +astonishing when one considers their bulk and weight. + +It has been the fashion to laud the sweet idealism of the gondola and +all that appertains thereto, not forgetting the gondolier, but when one +has heard that backwater sailor's cajoleries and cadences beneath his +window for most of the long night one's views in the morning will be +considerably modified. "Cousin of my dog!" the gondolier will call his +gondola, "Owl!" "Idiot!" "Sheriff of the Devil!" "Silly Ass!" "Miscreant +of Rhodes!" and "Bag of Bones." Such epithets shouted full and strong, +if only to an inanimate gondola, will take a good deal of idealism out +of nature. + +With the Venetian palaces and churches and canals rank in popular +interest its great piazzas. The importance of these great open spaces in +the daily life of the people of the island city cannot be +overestimated. Gaiety, noise and life are the characteristics of each, +whether one is at San Marco or on the Rialto. + +Gastronomical delights in Italy are largely of one's own choosing. At +Venice, where, of Italian cities, the tourist is most largely catered +to, one may fare well or ill. + +It's a great experience to sit at one of the little tables at Florian's, +or at the Aurora on the opposite side of the Piazza of San Marco, and +leisurely enjoy the spectacle spread out before one. At any time of the +day or night it is the most burning, feverish spot in all the Venetian +archipelago, though at midday, it is true, the sun-baked Piazza is +deserted, even by the pigeons. + +In the afternoon, as the shadows lengthen, and a slim suspicion of a +sea-breeze wafts in from the lagunes, it is fairyland, peopled, if not +with fairyfolk, at least with as conglomerate a horde as may be seen in +Europe. As a performance the piece were almost worthy of its setting; it +is a burlesque and a comedy of manners in one. If only you are "out of +season," when the English and Americans and Germans are still by their +own firesides, and the cast of characters is made up of the peoples of +the south and east, the comedy is all the more amusing, and you sip its +charms as you sip your coffee and forget that such a personage as +Baedeker ever existed. Usually tourists come to the Piazza, after they +have done the surrounding stock sights, to buy two soldi-worth of maize +and feed the pigeons. They would do better to watch the passing show +from the vantage point of a little table at Florian's. + +Besides its treasures of art and architecture, one of the sights of +Venice is Florian's, celebrated for a hundred and fifty years. The +specialty of Florian's is the _sabaion doro_, made with the yellow of an +egg and a small glass of Malaga. It is not bad, but it is a ladies' +drink, for it is sweet. The _sorbets_, the café turc' and the vanilla +chocolates of the establishment, with the aforementioned golden +concoction, have placed it in the very front rank among establishments +of its class. It remains open, or did a few years ago, all night. At +five o'clock each morning, as the daylight gun went off from the +fortress of the Lido, Florian's put up its shutters, only to open just +before midday. + +The names of the great who have gathered within the walls of this famous +café, and left memories behind them, would fill a long roster. +Chateaubriand, Manzoni, Byron, Cimarosa, Canova, Léopold-Robert, Alfred +de Musset, Balzac and others, many, many others. And many have left +behind written souvenirs of their visit. + +One thing the stranger to Venice will remark, and that is that here, as +much as in any other place in Italy, one is pestered nearly to +distraction with the little "extras" of their hotel bills, of the +too-importunate guides, of door-openers and door shutters, of guardians +of all ranks, of men and boys who call your gondola for you, and of +mendicant ragamuffins by profession, or merely because occasion offered +and you looked like an "easy mark." It is the one blight on Venice. + +The modest inns of other days have given way to the demands of a more +exacting clientèle, but those who would follow Alfred de Musset and +George Sand from the Palace of the Doges to the Hotel Danieli will have +no trouble in getting a lodging in that hostelry. Or they may prefer to +follow the footsteps of Chateaubriand (who in truth was anticipating a +rendezvous with the Duchesse de Berry) to the neighbouring Hotel de +l'Europe. + +[Illustration: PALACES _of the GRAND CANAL_ VENICE] + +Venice's Grand Canal is naturally the chief delight of the visiting +stranger. The Canalazzo is from fifty to seventy metres wide with a +length of three kilometres. A hundred and fifty or more palaces line +its banks, most of them bearing famous names of history. Shopkeepers and +manufacturers of various sorts occupy many of them, but they are still +capable of staggering any otherwise blasé curiosity-seekers. The +accompanying map with these palaces plainly marked should serve its +purpose better than quires of printed pages. + +Shakespeare's "Jew of Venice" was no myth, whatever the shadowy +existence of Juliet and Desdemona may have been. Venice in the middle +ages had its Ghetto (a word which in Hebrew means "cut off" or "shut +off") where the Jews herded together and wore scarlet mantles in public +that they might be known and recognized by faith and profession. The +principal character of "The Merchant of Venice" was a very real entity, +and Shakespeare, believing the saying of Tacitus, wrote him down +truthfully as a man scrupulously faithful to his engagements, charitable +to others of his race, but filled with an invincible hatred towards all +other men. + +[Illustration: _The So-called "House of Desdemona," Venice_] + +Another Venetian type, not wholly disappeared to-day, is that of the +Venetian blonde of Titian, Veronese and Giorgione, a type of feminine +beauty unknown elsewhere. Italians are commonly brunettes, and indeed +perhaps the Venetians were of the same _teint_ one day. In the +Library of San Marco is a parchment of Cæsar Vecelli, a Cousin of +Titian, coming from the collections of the patrician Nani. It describes +how there were built at Venice many house tops with sun parlours or +_terrazi_. To these _terrazi_ the women of the city of the Doges, who +would bleach their hair by natural means, would repair and let the sun +do its work. + +Casanova, too, remarked the feminine beauties of the Queen of the +Adriatic. He said of one of them: "I am content indeed to find so +beautiful a creature. I do not conceive how so ravishing a creature +could have lived so long in Venice without having married ere now." + +As night draws down, the scene at Venice changes manifestly from what it +was in the garish sunlight of day. It becomes softer and more fairylike. +Across the Piazzetta the rosy flush still glints from the tower of the +island San Giorgio, though in the immediate neighbourhood day has +practically blackened into night. A sunset gun sounds from seaward and +here and there lights twinkle out when, in the magic of a very short +twilight, another scene is set, a more wonderful, more fairylike scene +than before, with a coming and going of firefly gondolas and boats, a +streaming of arcs and incandescents on shore, and in the midst of it +all a brass band arrives in front of San Marco and begins to bray +ragtime waltzes and serenades. The note may be a false one, but it +reiterates the fact that one may sit before his table at Florian's all +through the livelong day and night and see and hear the whole gamut of +joyousness played as it is nowhere else. The townfolk, the strangers +from the hotels, and sailor folk from the Lido and the Guiadecca all +mingle in a seemingly inextricable maze. These last are the most +picturesque note as to costuming and colouring in all Venice to-day. + +The fishermen of the Guiadecca, swarthy hued and scarlet-capped, and +with heavy hoops of gold hanging from their ears, stroll about the +piazza as is their right, mingling with tourists and the "real +Venetians." All move about in lively measure like an operatic chorus, +but with a much more graceful and less conscious gait. + +Night on the Piazza or the Piazzetta is not the least of Venice's +charms. + +The background hills bordering upon the Venetian plain are a very +interesting corner of northern Italy. Throughout this region souvenirs +are not wanting of the glorious days of the Venetian Republic. + +For her own protection Venice conquered the surrounding mainland as she +was laying the foundations of the island metropolis. Treviso fell to her +permanently in 1339, and Udine in 1420, as did later many other towns to +the south. From this time forth the lion of San Marco reared its head +from its pedestal in the market place of each of these allied towns. +Some five thousand square miles of Dalmatia came to Venice at this time +and thenceforth her position was assured. Venice was occupied by the +French in 1797 when Napoleon overthrew the Republic. It was the first +time the city had ever been occupied by an enemy. It was given to +Austria by a succeeding treaty, but later in 1805 was made over +definitely to Italy. + +Treviso, on the highroad from Venice to Vienna, is a great overgrown +burg which lives chiefly in the historic past of the days when first it +became a bishop's see and was known as Trovisium, the capital of the +province of the same name. + +A story is current of Treviso that once the people, to celebrate one of +the infrequent intervals of peace, had summoned all the neighbouring +populations to a splendid festival. Among other amusements they had +provided a mimic castle of wood, adorned in the most sumptuous manner. +Within this castle were stationed the twelve most beautiful ladies of +Padua, with their attendant maidens, loaded down with all kinds of +flowers and fruits. The chosen youths of the neighbouring cities +advanced in bands to attack the fortress defended by such a garrison. +The ladies made a long and vigorous defence. But finally a band of +Venetians pressed forward through the rain of projectiles, breached the +walls, and planted on them the banner of San Marco. The youth of Padua, +inflamed at this sight, pressed forward in turn to force their way +inside the fortifications. The two bands were crushed together in the +breach; angry words arose; from words both parties came to blows; the +Paduans proved the stronger and in the struggle seized on the banner of +San Marco and tore it to shreds. With difficulty the Trevisans restored +order and drove both parties out of the town. The Venetians flew to arms +to demand satisfaction for the outrage to their flag. The Government of +Padua refused it. Hence a war between the two cities, in which the +Paduans were worsted. + +From Treviso to Belluno, and thence by the Ampesso Pass, is one of the +gateways leading from the Italian plain into Austria. Feltre, en route, +has a fine old "Rocca," or castle, with a square donjon tower. + +En route to Belluno one should, if he comes this way at all, branch off +to Asolo. Among the many hundreds of visitors to Venice who formerly +climbed to the top of the Campanile of San Marco in order to enjoy the +wonderful panorama of the Venetian plain and mountains which it affords, +few, probably, recall the distant little city of Asolo which the guide +pointed out to them, unless, indeed, they happen to be familiar with +Robert Browning's poems, in which case they will, perhaps, wish to make +a pilgrimage out into these background hills the poet loved so well: "My +Asolo," as he called it in the introduction to the last volume of his +poems, "Asolando," written during his stay there in 1889. A trip among +the Asolan Hills will well repay not only the lover of poetry, but also +the artist and the ordinary traveller with a liking for quiet, +picturesque spots off the ordinary beaten track. + +[Illustration: ASOLO] + +The Albergo Asolo, in the main street, offers clean and characteristic +accommodation with charges to correspond. One turns off to Asolo from +Cornuda, a station on the Belluno line, or by road from the same place. +The imposing ruined Rocca is well worthy of a visit for the sake of +the extensive view obtainable from the hill on which it stands. On a +clear day the towers of Venice can be seen without a glass, and on every +side the view is remarkably fine. To the north, beyond the nearer range +of mountains, are visible several peaks in the Primiero group of +Dolomites--the Sasso del Mur, Sagron, and others. Another good point of +view is the belfry tower of the old Castello which was the residence of +Queen Cornaro, the deposed Queen of Cyprus, whose gay court made the +name of Asolo famous at the end of the fifteenth century. + +From Treviso the road to Udine passes Conegliano, with a fine castle of +imposing proportions and a Triumphal Arch erected in the nineteenth +century to the Emperor of Austria. + +Pordenone, ten kilometres farther on, is the old Portus Naonis of the +Romans. This is almost its sole claim to fame, except that "Il +Pordenone," a celebrated fifteenth century artist, was born here. + +Codroipo, actually a place of no importance to-day, takes its name from +the crossing of two celebrated Roman roads of antiquity. Codroipo, by a +vague etymological sequence, is supposed to have the same meaning as +carrefour in French, i.e. _quadrivium_. + +At Campo Formico, just before Udine is reached, Bonaparte and the +Emperor of Austria signed the treaty, in October, 1797, by which Venice +was so shamefully sacrificed by the French general to Austria. It was +one of the deepest blots in the political history of Napoleon. The mean +house in which this disastrous treaty was concluded is still pointed +out. + +It was in the Villa Passarino, near Udine, that this infamous treaty saw +the light. Its gardens to-day are of the mixed formal and landscape +variety, and great renown belongs to it because of the prominence of the +Manins, its early owners. Borghetti restored the fabric in 1763, and it +remains to-day a far more satisfactory structure to look at than many +which are architecturally entitled to rank on a higher plane. Cypress +and oak form the greater part of the verdure of the gardens. + +Udine, of the picturesque name, is a city of twenty thousand +inhabitants, once the capital of Friuli, and still surrounded by its +ancient walls. In the centre is the castle, now a prison, built in 1517 +by Giovanni Fontana on the height chosen by Attila to view the burning +of Aquileja. Udine presents many features of resemblance in its +buildings to the mother city, to whose rule it was so long subjected: +it has its grand square, its Palazzo Publico, (1457)--a fine Gothic +building on pointed arches instead of the Doge's palace--the two +columns, the winged lion of San Marco, and a campanile with two figures +to strike the hours. Udine is indeed a little Venice, all but the canals +and quays and the Adriatic's waves. + +South of Udine, on the marshy shore of the same series of lagoons which +surround Venice itself, is Aquileja. Aquileja was in ancient times one +of the most important provincial cities of Rome, and one of the chief +bulwarks of Italy. Augustus often resided here, and its population was +then estimated at 100,000. It was taken by Attila in 452, and reduced to +ashes by that ferocious barbarian. It contains at present about 1,500 +inhabitants, and even they have a hard time clinging to the shreds of +life left them by a climate that is pestilential and damp. + +From Venice and Treviso the Strada di Grande Communicazione runs to +Vicenza and Verona, the former 63 kilometres from Treviso and the latter +50 kilometres farther on. At Vicenza the highroad is joined by another +trunk-line from Padua, 32 kilometres to the southwest. All of these +roads are practically flat and are good roads in good weather and bad +roads--O! how bad!--in bad weather. + +[Illustration: VICENZA] + +Few strangers stop off at Vicenza, on the line from Verona to Venice. +Vicenza, then, is not lettered large in the guide books, and has only +appeared of late in the public prints because of being the home of the +romancer, Antonio Fogazzora. This makes it a literary shrine at all +events, so we stopped to look it over. It was more than this; we first +saw Vicenza by moonlight, and its silhouettes and shadows were as grimly +ancient as if seen in a dream. Daylight discovered other charms. There +were warm, lovable old Renaissance house fronts everywhere, with +overhanging tiled roofs and advanced grilled balconies; and there was +the Piazza dei Signori and its surrounding houses, almost entirely the +work of the architect Palladio. + +The Municipio itself was not a dead, dull thing in drab stone, but with +a warm red tower, brought entire, it is said, from Venice, along with +two columns of the façade which are borne aloft on two sculptured lions. + +Vicenza, the neglected tourist point, was offering much, and we were +glad we came. + +Vicenza, more than any other of the little frequented tourist cities of +Italy, may be counted as _the_ city of palaces. They are of two +non-contemporary styles, the Venetian semi-gothic of a good era, and +Palladio's classical copies, also good of their kind, particularly so +when seen here in their natural environment. + +In the Corso is a curious monumental structure called the Casa di +Palladio, built it is said by the great architect for his own use. He +had need for it as his work here was great and long in completion. It +is something more than a mere architect's office or bureau; it is in +fact a palace. + +One of the most curious buildings in the city, and certainly one of the +most remarkable with which the name of Palladio is connected, is the +Teatro Olimpico. Contrary to the architect's manner of working, the +edifice has no façade, being entirely surrounded by houses. It was begun +in 1580, but in consequence of his death almost immediately afterwards +it was completed by his son, Scilla. + +The scenery, which is fixed, represents the side of a species of piazza, +from which diverge streets of real elevation, but diminishing in size as +they recede in the perspective. A great effect of distance is obtained, +especially in the middle avenue. Daylight, however, by which a traveller +usually sees it, is injurious to the effect. + +Palladio's architectural ideas went abroad even to England and many a +"stately home" in Britain to-day is a more or less faithful copy of a +Vicenza sixteenth century palazzo. + +[Illustration: _Vicenza_] + +The Rotonda Capra, now in ruins, so well known as Palladio's villa, was +copied by Lord Burlington and planted squat down on the banks of the +Thames at Chiswick. It loses considerably by transportation; it were +decidedly more effective at the base of Monte Berico in Venezia. + +Palladio himself is buried in the local Campo Santo. His grave should +become an art lover's shrine, but no one has ever been known to worship +at it. + +Between Vicenza and Verona runs a charming highway, strewn with villas +of a highly interesting if not superlatively grand architectural order. + +A dozen or fifteen kilometres from Vicenza are the two castles of +Montecchio, the strongholds of the family of the name celebrated by +Shakespere as one of the rivals of the Capulets. + +At the Bridge of Arcole is an obelisk in commemoration of the battle +when Napoleon went against the Austrians after his check at Caldiero. + +Soave, a little further on, is an old walled town as mediæval in its +looks and doings as it was when its great gates and towers and its +castle fortress on the height were built six centuries ago. + +Verona is reached in thirty kilometres and has a sentimental, romantic +interest beyond that possessed by any of the secondary cities of Italy. +It has not the great wealth of notable architectural splendours of many +other places, but what there is is superlatively grand, the structures +surrounding the Piazza Erbe and the Piazza dei Signori, for instance; +the old Ponte di Castel Vecchio; the great Roman Arena; and even the +Albergo all'Accademia, where one is remarkably well cared for in a fine +old mediæval palace with a monumental gateway, and an iron and carved +stone well in the courtyard. + +[Illustration: _Seal of Verona_] + +The glory and sentiment which overshadowed the Verona of another day +have passed, and now the noise of electric trams and the hoot of +automobile horns awaken the echoes in the same thoroughfares where one +day trampled the feet of warring hosts. + + "The glory of the Scaliger has passed, + The Capuletti and Montague are naught:" + +Instead we have the modern note sounding over all, and, if it is true +that the "fair Juliet sleeps in old Verona's town" hers must be a +disturbed sleep. The romance of Juliet Capulet and Romeo Montague was +real enough; that is, there was a real romance of the sort, and there +were real Capulets and Montagues. Just where the scene of this +particular romance was laid one is not so sure. + +The "House of Juliet" at Verona, one of the stock sights of the guide +books, is of more than doubtful authenticity. Certainly, to begin with, +it does not comport in the least with the dignified marble palace and +its halls with which the stage-carpenter has built up the settings of +Shakespere's drama or Gounod's opera. Perhaps they embroidered too much. +Of course they did! + +In 1905 the "Juliet House" was in danger of collapsing. As it is +nothing more than a picturesque old house, such as northern Italy +abounds in, perhaps it would not have mattered much had it fallen. It is +no more Juliet's house than Juliet's tomb is the tomb of Juliet. This +indeed has latterly been adjudged a mere water-trough. No house, it is +asserted, in Verona to-day can be declared with certainty as the house +of a Montague or a Capulet. Henry James points the moral of all this in +"The Custodians," and whether we can always make head and tail out of +his dialogues or not, his judgments are always sound. + +In Verona the very gutters are of white marble. Balustrades, +window-sills and hitching posts are all of white or coloured marbles. +Verona is luxurious, if not magnificent, and its architecture is +marvellously interesting and beautiful, though frequently rising to no +great rank. + +The great Roman Arena, so admirably preserved, is surrounded by the +Piazza Vittorio Emanuele. The contrast between yesterday and to-day at +Verona is everywhere to be remarked. Its old Arena and the Visconti +gateway seen by moonlight look as ancient as anything on earth, but the +cafés with their tables set out right across the Piazza, with a band +playing on a temporary platform, set up on trestles in the middle, and +electric trams swishing around the corner, are as modern as Earl's Court +or Coney Island, without however many of their drawbacks. + +Verona is a city of marble and coloured stone, of terraces and cypresses +and all the Italian accessories which stagecraft has borrowed for its +Shakesperean settings. The cypresses planted around the outskirts of +Verona are said to be the oldest in Europe, but that is doubtful. They +are, some of them, perhaps four hundred years old, but on the shores of +the Etang de Berre, in old Provence, is a group of these same trees, +less lean, greater of girth and denser of foliage. Surely these must +have five hundred years to their credit according to Verona standards. + +Verona is one of the cities of celebrated art where the authorities +control one's desire to dig about with a view to discovering buried +antiquities, even in one's own cellar or garden; much less may one sell +an old chimney pot or urn. + +Recently a Signor and Signora Castello, who owned an ancient house in +Via del Seminario, sold the magnificent red marble portals and two +balconies without permission from the Government. They were fined two +thousand five hundred lire each, and ordered to replace the objects of +art. + +After a long chase the Verona police discovered the articles in a +warehouse where they had been temporarily deposited previous to shipping +them abroad. + +The balconies are of the same epoch as the famous one said to have been +the scene of the meeting of Romeo and Juliet. "American collectors keep +off" is the sign the Verona police would probably put up if they dared. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THROUGH ITALIAN LAKELAND + + +The lake region of the north is perhaps the most romantic in all Italy; +certainly its memories have much appeal to the sentimentally inclined. +Indeed the tourists are so passionately fond of the Italian lakeland +that they leave it no "close" season, but are everywhere to be remarked, +from Peschiera on the east to Orta on the west. Seemingly they are all +honeymoon couples and seek seclusion, and are therefore less offensive +than the general run of conducted parties which now "do" the Italian +round for a ten pound note from London, or the same thing from New York +for a couple of hundred dollars. + +It is the fashion to revile the automobilist as a hurried traveller, but +he at least gets a sniff of the countryside en route which the others do +not. + +Coming from the east through Verona, the traveller by road might do +worse than make a detour of a hundred kilometres out and back to +Mantua. + +Mantua, on the banks of the Mincio, sits like a water-surrounded town of +the Low Countries. Mantua, above all, is a place of war, one of the +strongest in North Italy, forming with Verona, Legnago and Peschiera the +famous "Quadrilatera." Mantua has at least a tenth part of its +population made up of Jews. It sits partly surrounded by an artificial +lake formed by the Mincio, and the marsh land to the south can be +flooded, if it is deemed advisable, in case of siege. A great walled +enclosure, a series of fortified dykes, and a collection of detached +forts roundabout, put Mantua in a class quite by itself. It is a +melancholy, unlovely place from an æsthetic standpoint, but picturesque +in a certain crude way. The ancient Palazzo Gonzague of the Dukes of +Mantua, now known as the Corte Reale, is one of the most ambitious +edifices of its class in Italy. The view of the Palazzo Ducale at +Mantua, with the rising background of roofs, towers and domes, as seen +from the further end of the cobble-stone paved bridge over the Mincio, +is delightful. Artists do not like it as a general rule because of the +ugly straight line of the bridge, and the "camera fiend" makes a +hopeless mess of it, unless he seeks an hour or more for a "point of +view;" but for all that the scene is as quaint and beautiful a +composition as one can get of unspoiled mediævalism in these progressive +times, when usually telegraph poles and tram cars project themselves +into focus whether or no. There is nothing of the kind here. + +[Illustration: PALAZZO DUCAL MANTUA] + +The road from Mantua to Cremona, following the banks of the Mincio, +still preserves its Virgilian aspect. _Mantua væ miseræ nimium vicina +Cremonæ._ From this one infers that it is a bad road, and in truth it is +very bad; automobilists will not like it. Cremona's tower is seen from +afar, like the sailors' beacon from the sea. It is one of the most hardy +and the most renowned Gothic towers of Italy and has a height +approximating a hundred and twenty odd metres, say a little less than +four hundred feet. + +Neighbouring upon this great Torrazo is the Palazzo Gonfaloneri, dating +from 1292. These two monuments, together with the magnificent Romanesque +Lombard Cathedral of the twelfth century, and the Casa Stradivari--where +he who gave his name to a violin lived--are Mantua's chief "things to +see." If the traveller can include Mantua in his itinerary, which truth +to tell is not easy without doubling on one's tracks, he should do so. + +Travellers coming westward from Venice and passing Verona, hastening to +the Italian and Swiss lakes, usually give that region lying between +Verona and Como little heed. Naples, Rome, Florence, Venice and then +Switzerland and the Rhine is still too often the itinerary of hurried +papas and fond mamas. Even if the automobilist does not drop down on +Mantua and Cremona he should take things leisurely through the lake +region and stop en route as often as fancy wills. The Lago di Garda is +the most easterly of the Italian Lakes and the largest. + +It is of great depth, 350 metres or more, is sixty odd kilometres in +length, and in places a third as wide. It is a product of the rivers and +torrents flowing down from the mountains of the Italian Tyrol. The +sudden storms which frequently come up to ruffle its bosom were +celebrated by some lines of Virgil and his example has been followed by +every other traveller ever caught in one of these storms. "_Fluctibus et +fremitu assurgens_" sang the bard, and the words still echo down through +time. + +Peschiera and Desenzano are the principal ports at the southern end of +the lake, and each in its way is trying to be a "resort." The environs +are charming and the towns themselves interesting enough, though chiefly +from the point of view of the artist. The seeker after the gaieties and +pleasures of the great watering places will find nothing of the sort +here. + +Between Peschiera and Desenzano juts out the promontory of Sermione. A +village is entered by a drawbridge and a mediæval gate on the south. On +the opposite side is a fortified wall that separates it from the +northerly portion of the island, and through which opens the only gate +in that direction. The old castle, in the form of a quadrangle, with a +high square tower, was entered on the north by a drawbridge. This +entrance is still well preserved, as well as its small port or +_darsena_, surrounded by crenelated battlements; but the principal +entrance is now on the side of the village, by a gate over which are +shields bearing the arms of the Scaligers. It is one of the most +imposingly militant of all the castles of north Italy. Only that of +Fénis in the Val d'Aoste is more so. + +Riva, at the Austrian end of the lake of Garda, has its drawbacks but it +occupies a wonderful site nevertheless. + +While Northern Tyrol is still wrapped in the white mantle of winter's +snow, and winter sports of every description furnish great amusement for +old and young, the lovely Lake of Garda is already beginning to show +signs of spring. All along the lake the great "_stanzoni_," or +lemon-houses for sheltering the lemon trees in winter, are, even in +January, often filled with blossoms. + +[Illustration: _On the Lago di Garda_] + +The best time to visit Riva is from February to June, and from the +middle of August to the end of October, but Riva at all times will be a +surprise and a delight to those who do not mind a _régime_ table d'hôte, +as the doctors have it, and the fact that everybody round about appears +to be a semi-invalid. + +To Brescia from the foot of the Lake of Garda is a matter of twenty odd +kilometres, through a greatly varied nearby landscape, set off here and +there by vistas of the azure of the distant lake, the Alps of Tyrol and +the nearer Bergamese mountains. + +"_Bologna la Grassa_" and "_Brescia Armata_" are two nick-names by which +the respective cities are known up and down Italy. Brescia, like most +Italian towns, is built on a hill top and is castle-crowned as becomes a +mediæval burg. Brescia's castle is an exceptionally strongly fortified +feudal monument. _Brescia Armata_ took its name from the fact that it +was ever armed against its enemies, which in the good old days every +Italian city was or it was of no account whatever. Brescia's enemies +could never have made much headway when attacking this hill-top +fortress, and must have contented themselves with sacking the cities of +the surrounding plain. To-day firearms in great quantities are made +here, and thus the city is still entitled to be called _Brescia +Armata_. + +Brescia's market place is more thickly covered with great, squat, +mushroom umbrellas than that of any other city of its size in Italy. + +Brescia is dear to the French because of its wraith of a mediæval +castle, once so vigorously defended by the Chevalier Bayard, that famous +knight _sans peur et sans reproche_. + +A bastioned wall surrounds the gay little Lombard city in the genuine +romance fashion, albeit there is to-day very little romance in Brescia, +which lives mostly by the exploitation of its textile and metal +industries. + +Brescia housefronts are as gaily decorated as those of Nuremberg, many +of them at least. It is a remarkable feature of Brescia's domestic +architecture. + +The castle or citadel itself was built by the Viscontis in the +fourteenth century on the summit of a hill overlooking the town. The +Venetians strengthened it and again the Austrians. General Haynau +bombarded the low-lying city round about in barbarous fashion, so much +so that the memory of it caused him to be chased from London some years +later, when he was sent there as Ambassador. + +[Illustration: _Castle of Brescia_] + +The men of Brescia seem to have a passion for wearing a great Capucin +shoulder cloak, which looks very Spanish. It is most picturesque, and is +one of the characteristic things seen in all Brescia's public places, +_caffés_ and restaurants, and is worn by all those classes whom a +discerning traveller once described as men who work hard at doing +nothing, for Brescia's street corners are never vacant and her _caffés_ +never empty. + +Between Brescia and Bergamo is the Lake of Iseo; the fourth in size of +the north Italian lakes. The vegetation of its shores is purely Italian +and vineyards and olive groves abound. A fringe of old castle towers, of +walls, palaces and villas surround it, all blended together with a +historic web and woof of mediævalism and romance. + +From Brescia to Bergamo runs one of the best national highroads in +Italy. The automobilist will appreciate this and will want to push on to +the end. He would do better to break it midway and drop down on the road +to Martinengo, a detour of twenty kilometres only, passing the great +Castle of Malpaga built by the celebrated Bartolommeo Colleoni, an +edifice which gives a more complete idea of unspoiled, unrestored +residence of a mediæval Italian nobleman than any other extant. + +Bergamo is a strange combination of the new and the old. The upper and +lower towns--for it is built on a rise of the Bergamon Alps--have +nothing in common with each other. In the lower town there are great +hotels, shops, and even a vast factory which turns out a celebrated make +of automobiles. In the upper town there are market-men and women, with +chickens, vegetables and fruit to sell, all spread out under an imposing +array of great mushroom umbrellas only second to those of the market +place at Brescia. + +Bergamo's chief architectural monuments are its churches, but its +ancient Broletto, or castle, of not very pure Gothic, but with a most +original façade, is worth them all put together in its appeal to one +with an eye for the picturesque. Its tower is a remarkably firm, solid +and yet withal graceful sentinel of dignity and power. + +[Illustration: _Bergamo_] + +Bergamo's great fair of Saint Alexander, held every year in August, was +once the rival of those great trading fairs of Leipzig and Beaucaire. Of +late it is of less importance, but holds somewhat to its ancient +traditions. Certainly it filled the Albergo Capello d'Oro to such an +extent that it was doubtful for a time if we could find a place. A sight +of our mud-covered automobile and of our generally bedraggled +appearance--for it had rained again, though that of itself is nothing +remarkable in Italy, and we had "mud-larked it" for the last fifty +kilometres,--caused somebody's conscience to smite him and find us +shelter. + +[Illustration: Map The Italian Lakes] + +Beyond Bergamo one enters the classic Italian Lake region, that which +has usually been seen through a honeymoon perspective, a honeymoon that +is long-lasting, as it invariably is in Italy as some of us know. All +through this lakeland of north Italy is an unbroken succession of charms +which certainly, from the sentimental and romantic point, has no equal +in Italy, or out of it in the same area. + +The whole battery of little cities, towns, and townlets which surround +Lakes Como, Varese, Lugano and Maggiore are delightful from all points. +Theirs is a unique variety of charm which comports with the tranquil +mood, not at all the same as that possessed by the average scorching +automobilist who reads as he runs, and wishes to eat and drink and +absorb his romantic and historic lore in the same up-to-date fashion. +Not that the region is unsuited to automobile travel. Not at all, the +roads thereabouts are quite the best in Italy, and the towns themselves +picturesquely charming, if often lacking in ruined monuments of +mediævalism of the first rank. All of it is historic ground, and filled +with echoes of fact and fancy which still reverberate from its hills and +through its vales. + +Not all of these lake-side towns can be catalogued here, no more than +are all included in the average itinerary, but from Lecco, at the +southern end of the Lecco arm of the Lago di Como, to Orta on the Lago +d'Orta will be found myriads of scenic surprises, dotted here and there +with quaint waterside towns, the lakes themselves being punctuated with +great white winged barques, with here and there the not unpicturesque +coil of smoke belching into the clear sky from a cranky, fussy little +steamboat. + +One most often approaches the lake district from the east, via Lecco on +the eastern arm of Lake Como, or as it is locally called the Lago di +Lecco. Lecco itself is of no importance. Its site is its all-in-all, but +that is delightful. Between Lecco and Milan the highway crosses the Adda +by a magnificent bridge of ten arches built by Azzo Visconti in 1335. +Very few of the works of the old bridge-builders bear so ancient a date +as this. From Lecco to Monza the highroad skirts the Brianza, as the +last Alpine foot-hills are called before the mountains flatten out into +the Lombard Plain. At Arcore is the villa of the Adda family with a +modern chapel. + +One can go north from Lecco to Bellaggio by steamer, when he will arrive +in the very heart of lakeland, or he may go directly west by the +highroad to Como and take his point of departure from there. The Lake of +Como was the Lacus Larius of the Romans and the Lari Maxime of Virgil. +It is a hundred and ninety metres above sea level and among all other of +the Swiss and Italian lakes holds the palm for the beauty of its +surroundings. + +At Nesso is the Villa Pliniana, built in 1570. It is not named for +Pliny, but because of a nearby spring mentioned in his writings. +Pliny's villa was actually at Lenno, in a dull gloomy site and he +properly enough called the villa Tragedia. + +Como, the city, is ancient, for the younger Pliny, who was born in the +ancient _municipium_ of Comum, asserts that it was then a "flourishing +state." It does not enter actively into history, however, after the fall +of the Roman Empire, until 1107, when it became an independent city. It +remained a republic for two centuries and then it fell under the +dominion of the Visconti since which time its fate has ever been bound +up with that of Milan. + +The Broletto or municipal palace is curiously built of black and white +marble courses, patched here and there with red. It is interesting, but +bizarre, and of no recognized architectural style save that it is a +reminder of the taste of the people of the Lombard Republics with +respect to their civic architecture in the thirteenth century. Como's +Duomo is, on the contrary, a celebrated and remarkably beautiful +structure. The distinction made between the taste in ecclesiastical and +civic architecture of the time can but be remarked. + +[Illustration: _On the Lago di Como_] + +The military architecture of Como, as indicated by the gates in its old +city wall, was of a high order. The Porta della Torre, the chief of +the gates remaining, and leading out to the Milan road, rises five +stories in air. + +The Palazzo Giovio is now the local museum. Paolo Giovio built the +crudely ornate edifice, and began the collection of antiquities and +relics which it now contains. Above Como, but outside the city, rises a +curious lofty tower called the Bardello. It may have been built as one +of the defences of the Lombard Kings, or it may not, but at any rate +there is no doubt that it witnessed the rise and fall of the Milanese +dynasties from the first. Como, one of the first cities to assert its +independence, was the first to lose it. Prisoners of state were put into +iron cages and stowed away in the Bardello--like animals or birds in a +live stock show. They were all tagged and numbered and were fed at +infrequent, uncertain hours. Not many lived out their terms; mostly they +died, some of hunger, some eaten up by vermin and more than one by +having dashed their brains out on the iron bars of their cages. + +All about Como are little lake settlements peopled with villas and +hotels where many a mediæval and modern romance has been lived in the +real. It is all very delightful, but in truth all is stagey. + +[Illustration: Cadenabbia] + +At Cadenabbia is the Villa Carlotta, named for Charlotte the Duchess of +Saxe-Meiningen. Its structural elements build up into something +imposing, if not in the best of taste, and its gardens are of the +conventionally artificial kind which look as though they might be part +of a stage setting. + +Bellaggio, on the eastern shore of the lake, is a place of large hotels, +no history of remark, and the site of the villa Serbelloni, with which +the proprietor of one of the hotels seems to have some special +arrangement, in that he passes visitors to and fro from his +establishment to the villa in genuine showman fashion. Beyond its site, +which is entrancingly lovely, it has no appeal whatever from either the +architectural or the landscape gardening point of view. + +Mennagio, Belluno and Varenna are in the same category and are tourist +show places only. Gravadona is different in that it has two remarkably +beautiful churches, which can be omitted from no consideration of +Italian church architecture, and the Palazzo de Pero, built in 1586 for +Cardinal Gallio which, with its four angle-towers, is more like a +fortress than a prelate's residence. + +Near Gravadona is the outline of an ancient highway known as the Strada +Regina. Supposedly it was made centuries and centuries ago by +Theodolinda, Queen of the Lombards, and must be one of the oldest roads +in existence. + +The Lago di Lugano is the most irregular of all the Italian Lakes. In +part it lies in Lombardy and in part within the Swiss canton of Ticino. +Its scenery is quite distinct from that of the other Italian lakes, not +more beautiful perhaps, but less prolifically surrounded by that +sub-tropical verdure which is characteristic of Garda and Como. In the +northeasterly portion, around Porlezza, the precipitous outlines of the +mountains round about lend an almost savage aspect. + +Lugano itself is very near the Swiss border but is thoroughly Italian, +with deep arcaded streets, and here and there a Renaissance façade such +as can be found nowhere out of Italy. + +The Lago di Varese is the smallest of all the lakes. In the +neighbourhood is produced a great deal of silk, and a species of easily +worked marble or alabaster called Marmo Majolica. Varese itself, while +not destitute of monuments of architectural worth, is more noticeably a +place of modern villas, most of which are occupied by wealthy Milanese. + +[Illustration: _On the Lago di Maggiore_] + +From Varese to Laveno on the Lago di Maggiore is a matter of fifty +kilometres, and here one comes to the most famous, if not the most +beautiful, of all the lakes. + +The whole range of towns circling this daintily environed lake have an +almost inexpressible charm, and its islands--the Borromean Islands--are +superlatively beautiful. + +Baveno, on the mainland, and its villas, modern though they are, is a +charming place, and Stresa, a little further to the south, is even more +delightfully disposed. All about the Italian lakeland are the modern +villa residences of distinguished Milanese, Turinese and Genoese +families. + +Arona is at the southern end of the lake. Above this town is a colossal +statue of San Carlo Borromeo, the head, hands and feet being cast in +bronze, the remainder being fabricated of beaten copper. + +The famous Borromean Islands in the Lago di Maggiore number four: Isola +Bella, Isola Madre, Isola San Giovanni and Isola dei Piscatori, of which +the three former belong to the Borromean family, whilst the latter is +divided among small proprietors. + +The vast Palazzo of Isola Bella was a conception of an ancestor of the +present family in 1671. The great fabric, with its terraces, gardens and +grottoes, is an exotic thing of the first importance. It is idyllically +picturesque, but withal inartistic from many points of view. The +contrast of all this semi-tropical luxuriousness with its snow-capped +Alpine background is not its least remarkable feature. It has been +called "fairylike," "a caprice of grandiose ideas," and "enchanted," and +these words describe it well enough. It looks unreal, as if one saw it +in a dream. Certainly its wonderful panoramic background and foreground +are not equalled elsewhere and no garden carpet of formal flowerbeds +ever made so beautifully disposed a platform on which to stand and +marvel. The architect of it all made no allowance apparently for the +natural setting, but overloaded his immediate foreground with all things +that suggested themselves to his imaginative mind. Somehow or other he +didn't spoil things as much as he might have done. The setting is +theatrical and so are the accessories; all is splendidly spectacular, +and, since this is its classification, no one can cavil. What other +effect could be produced where ten staired terraces tumble down one on +another in a veritable cascade simply as a decorative accessory to a +monumental edifice and not as a thing of utility? + +On Isola Madre is another vast structure surrounded by tropical and +semi-tropical trees, flowers and shrubs. A chapel contains many of the +tombs of the Borromeo family. + +The Isola dei Piscatori is the artists' paradise of these parts. It +lacks the "prettiness" of the other islands but gains in "character" as +artists call that picturesqueness which often is unsuspected and unseen +by the masses. + +Going back to history, here is what happened once on the Isola Bella: It +is a warm June night. The mauve summits of the Simplon and the _reflets_ +of the mirrored lake throw back a penetrating shimmer to the view. +Coming from Baveno, and holding straight its course for Isola Bella, is +a gently moving bark. It is the year 1800, and on the stern seat of the +boat sits the First Consul, who was once the Little Corporal and +afterwards became Napoleon I. + +The French army had freed the Alps, some days before. Over the passes of +Mont Cenis, of the Simplon, of Saint Bernard, and Saint Gothard they had +come, soon to form in battle line on the plains of Piedmont. Moncey was +at the gates of Milan, Lannes held the passage of the Po. The First +Consul, arriving on the shores of the Lago di Maggiore, decided to pass +the night in the Castle of Isola Bella, alone on this enchanting isle, +with his thoughts and his plans. Bonaparte jumped first from the boat as +it grated on the sands and was received by a grotesquely attired +major-domo, in the name of the Counts of Borromeo, the sovereign princes +of this tiny archipelago. + +In the seigneurial chamber, of which the furniture comprised a great +four poster dating from the time of the Medicis, a massive round table, +its top laid in mosaic, some chairs and a terrestrial globe, Napoleon +shook off the dust of travel forthwith: but he did not seek repose. On +the mosaic table-top Napoleon unfolded a great map of Italy, and with +forehead in his hands gazed attentively at its tracings, soliloquizing +thus: "Yes, Italy is reconquered already; the Austrian army cannot +escape me. Fifteen days will suffice to efface the disasters of two +years. The Austrian army is already in retreat; its rear guard has +become its advance guard. The tricolour of France will yet float on the +shores of the Adriatic. I shall march on Rome. I will chase the hateful +Bourbons from the Kingdom of Naples for ever. Europe will tremble at the +echo of my footsteps." + +[Illustration: _Orta_] + +Finally the twilight faded; back of the mountains of Lugano shone a +brilliant star. Napoleon thought it his star of destiny. To the wide +open window came the First Consul for a breath of the sweet night air. +It acted like champagne. He turned back into the room; he kicked over +the terrestrial globe of the Borromeo; he threw the map of Italy to the +floor. "What is Italy!" he cried, "a mere nothing! Bah! it's hardly +worth the conquering. Certainly not worth more than a few weeks. But I +will leave the memory of my name behind. And then--and then Saint Jean +d'Acre, the Orient, the Indies. _Allons_, we will follow the route of +Tamerlane! Poland will come to life again, Moscow, St. Petersburg ..." +and then he dreamed. + +And that is what passed one night in the Palazzo Borromeo a little more +than a hundred years ago. + +From the shores of the Lago di Maggiore to Orta, on the lake of that +name, is a short dozen kilometres from either Arona or Baveno. At Orta +the traveller may take his ease at an humble inn and from its broad +balcony overhanging the lake enjoy emotions which he will not experience +at every halting place. + +Orta's Municipio, or Town hall, dominating its tiny Piazza is +unspeakably lovely though indeed it is a hybrid blend of the +architecture of Germany and Italy. It might as well be in Nuremberg, in +Bavaria or Barberino in Tuscany for all it looks like anything else in +Piedmont. + +Out in the lake glitters--glitters is the word--Isola San Giulio, its +graceful campanile and ancient stone buildings hung with crimson +creepers and mirrored in the clear blue depths. About this island there +hangs a legend. The story goes that no one could be found ready to ferry +the apostle Julius across to the chosen site of his mission in the year +1500. According to popular rumour the isle was haunted by dragons and +venomous reptiles that none dared face. Not to be deterred from his +purpose, the holy man spread his cloak upon the water, and floated +quickly and quietly across. Nor did the miracle end here, for, as with +St. Patrick of Ireland, the unclean monsters, acknowledging his power, +retired to a far-away mountain, leaving the saint unmolested to carry on +his labours, which were continued after his death by faithful friends. +This is the story as it is told on the spot. + +The island was held as an outpost against invasions for many years, and +for long witnessed the hopeless struggles of a brave woman, Villa, wife +of King Berenger of Lombardy, who was besieged there by the Emperor Otho +the Great. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +MILAN AND THE PLAINS OF LOMBARDY + + +The great artichoke of Lombardy, whose petals have fallen one by one +before its enemies of Piedmont, is now much circumscribed in area +compared with its former estate. + +From Como to Mantua and from Brescia to Pavia, in short the district of +Milan as it is locally known to-day, is the only political entity which +has been preserved intact. Tortona, Novara, Alessandria and Asti have +become alienated entirely, and for most travellers Milan is Lombardy and +Lombardy is Milan. To-day the dividing line in the minds of most is +decidedly vague. + +Lombardy is the region of all Italy most prolific in signs of modernity +and prosperity, and, with Torino, Milan shares the honour of being the +centre of automobilism in Italy. The roads here, take them all in all, +are of the best, though not always well conditioned. That from Milan to +Como can be very, very good and six months later degenerate into +something equally as bad. The roads of these parts have an enormous +traffic over them and it is for this reason, as much as anything, that +their maintenance is difficult and variable. For the greater part they +are all at a general level, except of course in entering or leaving +certain cities and towns of the hills and on the direct roads leading to +the mountain passes back of Torino, or the roads crossing the lake +region and entering Switzerland or the Oberland. + +Lombardy in times past, and to-day to some extent, possessed a dialect +or patois quite distinct from the Franco-Italian mélange of Piedmont, or +the pure Italian of Tuscany. The Lombard, more than all other dialects +of Italy, has a decided German flavour which, considering that the +Lombard crown was worn by a German head, is not remarkable. In +time--after the Guelph-Ghibelline feud--Lombardy was divided into many +distinct camps which in turn became recognized principalities. + +The Viscontis ruled the territory for the most part up to 1447, when the +condottière Francesco Sforza developed that despotism which brought +infamy on his head and State, a condition of affairs which the Pope +described as conducive to the greatest possible horrors. + +[Illustration: A Lombard Fête] + +Lombardy has ever been considered the real paradise and land of riches +of all Italy, and even now, in a certain luxuriousness of attitude +towards life, it lives up to its repudiation of the days of the +dominating Visconti and Sforza. + +Milan is to-day the luxurious capital of Lombardy, as was Pavia in the +past. At one time, be it recalled, Milan was a Duchy in its own right. +Years of despotism at the hands of a man of genius made Milan a great +city and the intellectual capital of Italy. Milanese art and +architecture of the fifteenth century reached a great height. It was +then, too, that the Milanese metal workers became celebrated, and it was +a real distinction for a knight to be clad in the armour of Milan. + + "Well was he armed from head to heel + In mail and plate of Milan steel." + +Milan has a history of the past, but paradoxically Milan is entirely +modern, for it struggled to its death against Pavia, the city of five +hundred and twenty-five towers, and was born again as it now is. One +should enter Milan in as happy a mood as did Evelyn who "passynge by +Lodi came to a grete citty famous for a cheese little short of the best +Parmesan." It was a queer mood to have as one was coming under Milan's +spell, and the sculptured and Gothic glories of the Cathedral, as it +stands in completion to-day, are quite likely to add to, rather than +detract from, any preconceived idea of the glories of the city and its +treasures. + +Milan is one of the most princely cities of Europe, and lies in the +centre of a region flowing with milk and honey. In Evelyn's time it had +a hundred churches, seventy monasteries and forty thousand inhabitants. +To-day its churches and monasteries are not so many, but it has a +population of half a million souls. + +The comment of the usual tourist is invariably: "There is so little to +see in Milan." Well, perhaps so! It depends upon how hard you look for +it. Milan is a very progressive up-to-date sort of city, but its storied +past has been most momentous, and historic monuments are by no means +wanting. Milan is modern in its general aspect, it is true, and has +little for the unexpert in antiquarian lore, but all the same it has +three magic lode stones; its luxuriously flamboyant Gothic Duomo; its +Ambrosian Library and its Palace of arts and sciences, La Brera. + +Tourists may forget the two latter and what they contain, but they will +not forget the former, nor the Arch of Triumph built as a guide post by +Napoleon on his march across Europe, or the Galleria Victor-Emmanuel, +"as wide as a street and as tall as a Cathedral," a great arcade with +shops, cafés, restaurants and the like. + +There is the Scala opera house, too, which ranks high among its kind. + +Milan's "eighth wonder of the world," its great Cathedral, is the chef +d'oeuvre of the guide books. Details of its magnitude and splendours +are there duly set forth. Milan's Cathedral has long sheltered a dubious +statue of St. Bartholomew, and tourists have so long raved over it that +the authorities have caused to be graven on its base: "I am not the work +of Praxiteles but of Marcus Agrates." Now the throngs cease to admire, +and late experts condemn the work utterly. Such is the follow-my-leader +idea in art likes and dislikes! And such is the ephemeral nature of an +artist's reputation! + +The Palazzo Reale occupies the site of the Palazzo di Corte of the +Visconti and the Sforza of the fourteenth century, "one of the finest +palaces of its time," it is recorded. The Palazzo of to-day is a poor, +mean thing architecturally, although the residence of the King to-day +when he visits Milan. The Archiepiscopal Palace of the sixteenth +century is perhaps the finest domestic establishment of its class and +epoch in Milan. + +Milan's Castello, the ancient castle of Milan, was the ancient ducal +castle, built by Galeazzo Visconti II in 1358, to keep the Milanese in +subjection. It was demolished after his death, but rebuilt with +increased strength by Gian Galeazzo. On the death of the Duke Filippo +Maria, the Milanese rose (1447), and, having proclaimed the "Aurea +respublica Ambrosiana," destroyed the castle. It was rebuilt (1452) by +Francesco Sforza, "for the ornament (he said) of the city and its safety +against enemies." This building, completed in 1476, is the one now +standing. In the interior is a keep, where the dukes often resided. +Philip II added extensive modern fortifications, and caused to be pulled +down all the neighbouring towers which overlooked them. The castle was +taken by the French in 1796, and again in 1800, when Napoleon ordered +the fortifications to be razed. It has since been converted into a +barrack. Of the round towers at the angles, those towards the north have +been replaced by modern brick ones, while the two towards the city, +formed of massive granite blocks, remain. During the vice-royalty of +Eugene Beauharnais, a Doric gateway of granite, with a portico, or +line of arches, now filled up, on each side, and in the same style, was +erected on the northwest side; between each arch is a medallion +containing the bas-relief portrait of some illustrious Italian military +commander. + +[Illustration: _The Ancient Castle of Milan_] + +The Napoleonic arch, the Arco della Pace, is a remarkably interesting +civic monument, a reproduction of a temporary affair first built of wood +and canvas in 1806. Now it stands, a comparatively modern work to be +sure, but of splendid design and proportions, built of white marble, and +elaborately decorated with sculptures all at the expense of Napoleon, +who, on his march of migratory conquest, deigned to devote 200,000 +francs to the purpose. + +Milan's hotels are of all sorts and conditions, but with a decided +tendency towards the good, as is fitting in so opulent a country. +Bertolini's Hotel Europe takes a high rank, at corresponding charges, as +for instance four francs for a "box" for your automobile. The Touring +Club Italiano endorses the Albergo del Cervo, where you pay nothing for +garage and may eat as bountifully as you will of things Italian, real +Italian, at from two to three francs a meal. One of the most amusing +things to do in Milan is to lunch or dine in one of the great glass +covered galleries near the cathedral, and one feasts well indeed for the +matter of four francs, with another couple of francs for a bottle of +Asti. These great restaurants of the galleries may lack a certain aspect +of the next-to-the-soil Italian restaurants, but they do show a phase of +another class of Italian life and here "Young Italy" may be seen taking +his midday meal and ordering English or German beer or Scotch or +American whiskey. He shuns the Italian items on the bill of fare and +orders only exotics. You on the contrary will do the reverse. + +Pavia, thirty odd kilometres south of Milan, was ever a rival of the +greater city of to-day. Pavia is a tourist point, but only because it is +on the direct road from Milan. + +Pavia was the Lombard capital from 572 to 774. Its old walls and +ramparts remain, in part, to-day and the whole aspect of the town is one +of a certain mediævalism which comports little with the modernity of its +neighbour, Milan, which has so far outgrown its little brother. + +Pavia's Certosa, on the road from Milan to Pavia, is its chief +architectural splendour. Of that there is no doubt. It is the most +gorgeously endowed and most splendid monastery in all the world, founded +in 1396 by one of the Visconti as an atonement to his conscience for +having murdered his uncle and father-in-law. + +A Venetian, Bernardo da Venezia, was probably the architect of the +Certosa, and brick work and superimposed marble slabs and tablets all +combine in an elegance which marks the Certosa of Pavia as +characteristic of the most distinctive Lombard manner of building of its +epoch. + +Within the city itself still stands the grim Castello, built on the site +of the palace of the Lombard kings. The present building, however, was +begun in 1460 and completed in 1469. It formed an ample quadrangle, +flanked by four towers, two of which alone remain. The inner court was +surrounded by a double cloister, or loggia; in the upper one the arches +were filled in by the most delicate tracery in brickwork. The whole was +crowned by beautiful forked battlements. In the towers were deposited +the treasures of literature and art which Gian Galeazzo had +collected:--ancient armour; upwards of 1,000 MSS., which Petrarch had +assisted in selecting; and many natural curiosities. All these Visconti +collections were carried to France in 1499 by Louis XII and nothing was +left but the bare walls. One side of the palace or castle was demolished +during the siege by Lautrec in 1527; but in other respects it continued +perfect, though deserted, till 1796, when it was again put into a state +of defence by the French. They took off the roof and covered the +vaultings with earth; and when the rains came on in autumn, the weight +broke down the vaultings, and ruined a great part of the edifice. It has +since been fitted up as a military barracks. The great ruined gateway, +once entered by a drawbridge crossing the fosse, is still the most +imposing single detail, and the great quadrangle, with its fourteenth +century arcades and windows, "a medley of Gothic and Bramantesque," is +striking, although the marble and terra-cotta ornaments are much +dilapidated. + +François I's famous mot: "all is lost save honour," uttered after the +eventful battle of Pavia, will go down with that other remark of his: +"Oh, God, but thou hast made me pay dear for my crown," as the two most +apropos sayings of Renaissance times. + +One has to look carefully "under the walls of Pavia," to-day for any +historical evidence of the fatal day of François I when he lost his +"all, save honour." Du Bellay has painted the picture so well that in +spite of the fact that four hundred years have rolled by, it seems +unlikely that even the most superficial traveller should not find some +historic stones upon which to build his suppositions. + +Pavia's great University flowered in 1362, and owes much to the generous +impulses of Galeas II, who founded its chairs of civic and canonical +law, medicine, physics and logic. Galeas II was a great educator, but he +was versatile, for he invented a system of torture which would keep a +political prisoner alive for forty days and yet kill him at the end of +forty-one. + +If one returns to Milan via the Bridge of Lodi he will have made a +hundred kilometre round of classic Lombard scenery. It possesses no +elements of topographic grandeur but is rich and prosperous looking, and +replete with historic memory, every kilometre of it. + +Lodi has evolved its name from the ancient Laus of the Romans, another +evidence of the oblique transformation of Latin into the modern dialect. +The men of Lodi were ever rivals of the Milanese, but it is to +Napoleon's celebrated engagement at the Bridge of Lodi that it owes its +fame in the popular mind. + +Above Lodi, the River Adda circles and boils away in a sort of whirlpool +rapid, which Leonardo da Vinci, setting his palette and brushes aside, +set about to control by a dam and a series of sluices. How well he +succeeded may be imagined by recalling the fact that the Italian Edison +Company in recent years availed themselves of the foundation of his plan +in their successful attempt to turn running water into electricity. + +The panorama to the north of Milan is grandiose in every particular. On +the horizon the Alpine chain lies clear-cut against the sky, the Viso, +Grand Paradise, Mont Blanc, Splugen and other peaks descending in one +slope after another, one foothill after another, until all opens out +into the great plain of Lombardy. + +North of Milan, towards Como and the Alpine background, is Monza. Lady +Morgan called Monza dreary and silent, but her judgments were not always +sound; she depended too much upon moods and hers were many. + +Monza's Broletto was built by Frederick Barbarossa, or it was a part of +a palace built by that monarch. Italian Gothic of an unmistakable local +cast is its style and the effect is heightened by the _ringhiera_ +between the windows of the south side. + +In Monza's Cathedral--an antique interior with a Gothic exterior, by the +way--is the celebrated Iron Crown of Lombardy with which the German +Emperors of Lombardy were crowned. Charles V, Napoleon and Ferdinand I +also made use of the same historic bauble which is not of much +splendour. It costs a five franc fee to see it, and the sight is not +worth the price of admission. + +[Illustration: THE IRON CROWN OF LOMBARDY] + +From Milan to Domodossola, leaving Italy via the Simplon Pass, is 177 +kilometres, or, via Bellinzona and the Splugen, 207 kilometres with +mediocre roads until the lake region is reached, when they improve +decidedly, being of the very best as they ascend the mountain valleys. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +TURIN AND THE ALPINE GATEWAYS + + +The mountains of Piedmont are of the same variety as those of +Switzerland and Savoy. They form the highland background to Turin which +gives it its magnificent and incomparable framing. + +Turin, or Torino, was the old capital of the Duchy of Savoy, then of the +Kingdom of Sardinia, up to 1864, and to-day is the chief city of +Piedmont. + +Turin is laid out in great rectangular blocks, with long straight +streets, and it is brilliant and beautiful as modern cities go, but +there is not much that is romantic about it, save an occasional +historical memory perpetuated by some public monument. + +[Illustration: _Palazzo Madonna, Turin_] + +Turin at the time of the founding of the kingdom of Sardinia, which +included also the domain of the house of Savoy, contained but 75,000 +inhabitants. Said Montesquieu, who visited it in 1728: "It is the most +beautiful city in the world." De Brosseo, a few years later, declared +it to be "the finest city in Italy, by the proper alignment of its +streets, the regularity of its buildings, and the beauty of its +squares." From this point of view the same holds true to-day, but it is +not sympathetic and winsome in the least, and it is not for the +contemplation of straight streets, square, box-like buildings or formal +public garden plots that one comes to Italy. + +Turin's monumental memories are by no means non-existent or unclassed, +but they are almost overpowered by the modern note which rings so loudly +in one's ears and flashes so vividly in one's eyes. + +Of them all the Palazzo Madonna has the greatest appeal. It was +originally a thirteenth century construction of the Montferrats, but was +added to at various times until well along in the eighteenth century, +when it became the palace of Madonna Reale, the widow of Charles +Emmanuel II. All its value from an architectural point of view is in its +exterior aspect, but its trim twelve-sided towers have a real +distinction that a heavier, more clumsy donjon often lacks. + +The Palazzo Carignano is a fanciful invention of an architect, Guarni by +name, who in 1680 had no very clear idea as to what a consistent and +pleasing architectural conception should be. This palace's sole reason +to be remembered is that it was the residence of King Carlo-Alberto. +To-day Guarni's original façade has been covered by a non-contemporary +colonnade, with columns and statues of a certain impressive presence, +which would be considered handsome if it were some degrees finer in +workmanship, for the conception was certainly on becoming general lines. + +The Palazzo Valentino, built in 1633 by Christine of France, the +daughter of Henri IV and Marie de Medici, and wife of Vittorio Amedeo +II, is now devoted to the usages of an educational institution. It is on +the classic French chateau order and is as out of place in Italy as the +Italian Renaissance architecture is in England. + +On the Piazza Castello rises Turin's old castle of the fourteenth +century, built of brick, and, though moss-grown, it is hardly a ruin. + +The Palazzo Reale, built in 1678 on the north side of the Piazza, is +severe and simple as to exterior, but luxurious enough within by reason +of the collections which it houses. + +In the armory of Turin's royal palace is the full suit of armour worn by +Duke Emanuele-Filiberto on the occasion of the battle of St. Quentin, +and made by his own hand. He was an armourer, a silversmith and a worker +in fine metals beyond compare. In peace he was a craftsman without an +equal; in war he was the same kind of a fighter. + +Another armour suit is of gigantic proportions. Who its owner was +history and the catalogue fail to state. The breast-plate bears a ducal +coronet and the letter F. The suit contains enough metal to armour plate +a small battle ship. For the more sentimentally inclined there is a +cabinet of delicately fashioned stilettos, which we have always fondly +believed were the national arms of Italy. These particular stilettos +were taken from fair ladies after they had made away with their lovers +when they came to be a nuisance. Fickle women! + +Turin is one of the many places on the map of Europe famous for a +specialty in the eating line. This time it is chocolate. Let not any one +think that all chocolate comes from Aiguebelle or Royat. The bread of +Turin, "_grissini_," is also in a class by itself. It is made in long +sticks about the diameter of a pipe stem, and you eat yards of it with +your _minestra_ and between courses. + +The puppet show or marionette theatres of Turin have ever been famous, +indeed the _fantoccini_ theatre had its origin in Piedmont. The buffon +Gianduja was of Piedmontese birth, as was Arlequino of Bergamo. + +Around Turin are various suburban neighbourhoods with historic memories +and some palace and villa remains which might well be noted. + +The Vigna della Regina, or the Queen's Vineyard, is the name given to a +once royal residence, now a girls' school. The house was built in 1650 +by Cardinal Maurice of Savoy. Another one of the nearby sights, not +usually "taken in," is the natural garden (an undefiled landscape +garden) arranged in the sixteenth century by the Duke of Savoy, Emanuele +Filiberto. + +King Carlo Felice had a country house called the Castello d'Aglie to the +north of the city. It is remarkable for nothing but the pure air of the +neighbourhood, and that abounds everywhere in these parts. + +[Illustration: On the Strada, Moncenisio] + +At Rivoli, a few kilometres out on the Mont Cenis road, is a clumsily +built, half finished mass of buildings, planned by Vittorio Amedeo II. +in the eighteenth century as a royal residence to which he some day +might return if he ever got tired of playing abdicator. He occupied +it surely enough, in due course, but as a prisoner, not as a ruler. He +was a well-meaning monarch, and through him the house of Savoy obtained +Sardinia, but he made awful blunders at times, or at least one, for +ultimately he landed in prison where he died in 1732. + +Six leagues from Turin is the little garrison town of Pinerolo. A heap +of stones on the mountain marks the site of a chateau where were once +imprisoned the man of the Iron Mask, Lauzun, the political prisoner of +history, and Fouquet, the money-grabbing minister of Louis XIV. + +Lauzun and his personal history make interesting reading for one versed +in things Italian and French. He made a famous _mot_ when being +transported to his mountain prison. He was requested from time to time +to descend from his carriage, whenever by chance it had got stuck in the +mud or wedged between offending rocks. With much apology he was begged +to descend. "Oh! this is nothing; these little misfortunes of travel are +nothing of moment compared to the object of my journey." Other prisoners +may have put things similarly, but hardly with the same grace of +diction. + +Let no automobilist, on leaving Turin, come out by way of Pinerolo +unless he is prepared for a detour of a hundred kilometres, a rise of +2,000 metres and a drop down again to 1,300 metres at Cesana Tarinese, +where he strikes the main road over the Col de Mont Cenis to Modane in +France, or via the Col de Mont Genevre to Briançon. The direct road from +Turin is via Rivoli and Suse. + +Not every traveller in Italy knows the half-hidden out-of-the-way Val +d'Aoste, the obvious gateway from Turin to the north via the Col du +Saint Bernard. Travellers by rail rush through via the Simplon or Mont +Cenis and know not the delights and joys which possess the traveller by +road as he plunges into the heart of the Alps through the gateway of the +Val d'Aoste. + +The Val d'Aoste, less than a hundred kilometres, all counted, has more +scenic and architectural surprises than any similar strip in Europe, but +it is not a _piste_ to be raced over by the scorching automobilist at +sixty miles an hour. On the contrary it can not be done with +satisfaction in less than a day, even by the most blasé of tourists. The +railway also ascends the valley as far as Aoste, and one may cross over +by coach into France or Switzerland by either the Col du Petit Saint +Bernard or the Col du Grand Saint Bernard. It is worth doing! + +The whole Val d'Aoste is one great reminder of feudal days and feudal +ways. Curiously enough, too, in this part of Piedmont the aspect is as +much French as Italian, and so too is the speech of the people. At +Courmayer, for instance, the street and shop signs are all in French, +and _'om_ the diminutive of _homme_ replaces the Italian _uomo_; _cheur_ +stands for _coeur_ and _sita_ for _cité_ and _citta_. This patois is +universal through the upper valleys, and if one has any familiarity with +the patois of Provence it will not be found so very strange. French, +however, is very commonly understood throughout Piedmont, more so than +elsewhere in north Italy, where, for a fact, a German will find his way +about much more readily than a Frenchman. + +One blemish lies all over the Val d'Aoste. It was greatly to be remarked +by travellers of two or three generations ago and is still in evidence +if one looks for it, though actually it is decreasing. Large numbers of +the population are of the afflicted class known as _Cretins_, and many +more suffer from _goitre_. It is claimed that these diseases come from a +squalid filthiness, but the lie is given to this theory by the fact that +there is no apparent filthiness. The diseases are evidently hereditary, +and at some time anterior to their appearance here they were already +known elsewhere. They are then results of an extraneous condition of +affairs imported and developed here in this smiling valley through the +heedlessness of some one. There are certain neighbourhoods, as at +Courmayer and Ivrea, where they do not exist at all, but in other +localities, and for a radius of ten kilometres roundabout, they are most +prevalent. + +The southern gateway to the Val d'Aoste is the snug little mountain of +Ivrea, 50 kilometres from Turin. The cheese and butter of the Italian +Alps, known throughout the European market as Beurre de Milan, is mostly +produced in this neighbourhood, and the ten thousand souls who live here +draw almost their entire livelihood from these products. Ivrea has an +old Castle of imposing, though somewhat degenerate, presence. It has +been badly disfigured in the restorations of later years, but two of its +numerous brick towers of old still retain their crenelated battlements. +The place itself is of great antiquity, and Strabon has put it on record +that 3,600 of the inhabitants of the Val d'Aoste were once sold en bloc +in the streets of Ivrea by Terentius Varro, their captor. + +The Val d'Aoste, from Ivrea to Courmayer, about one hundred kilometres, +will some day come to its own as a popular touring ground, but that time +is not yet. When the time comes any who will may know all the delights +of Switzerland's high valleys without suffering from the manifest +drawback of overexploitation. One doesn't necessarily want to drink beer +before every waterfall or listen to a yoedel in every cavern. What is +more to the point is that one may here find simple, unobtrusive +attention on the part of hotel keepers and that at a price in keeping +with the surroundings. This you get in the Val d'Aoste and throughout +the Alps of Piedmont, Dauphiny and Savoy. + +Up high in the Val d'Aoste lies a battery of little Alpine townlets +scarce known even by name, though possessed of a momentous history and +often of architectural monuments marvellously imposing in their grandeur +and beauty. + +Near Pont Saint Martin, high above the torrent of the Doire, is the +picturesque feudal castle of Montalto, a name famous in Italian annals +of the middle ages. + +Over the river Lys, at Pont Saint Martin, there is a Roman bridge; a +modern iron one crosses it side by side, but the advantages, from an +æsthetic and utilitarian view-point, as well, are all in favour of the +former. A ruined castle crowns the height above Pont Saint Martin and a +few kilometres below, at Donnas, is an ancient Roman mile stone still +bearing the uneffaced inscription XXXII M. P. + +This whole region abounds in Napoleonic souvenirs. Fort Bard, the key to +the valley, garrisoned by only eight hundred Austrians, gave Bonaparte a +check which he almost despaired of overcoming. The Little Corporal's +ingenuity pulled him through, however. He sent out a patrol which laid +the streets of the little village below the fort with straw and his army +passed unobserved in the night as if slippered with felt. But for this, +the Battle of Marengo, one of the most brilliant of French feats of +arms, might never have been fought. + +Bard, the fort and the village, is now ignored by the high road which, +by a cut-off, avoids the steep climb in and out of the place. + +Unheard of by most travellers in Italy, and entirely unknown to others, +Verrex in the Val d'Aoste possesses a ravishing architectural surprise +in the shape of a feudal castle on a hillside overlooking the town. It +is of the square keep, or donjon, variety, and played an important part +in the warlike times of the past. + +The chateau of Issogne near by, built by the Prior Geor. Challant, less +of a castle and more of a country house, is an admirable fifteenth +century domestic establishment still habitable, and inhabited, to-day. + +All up and down the valley are relics of the engineering skill of the +great Roman road and bridge builders. The road over Mont Jovet, a sheer +cut down into the roof of a mountain, was theirs; so were the bridges at +Chatillon and Pont Saint Martin, and another at Salassiens. At the Pont +d'Ael is a Roman aqueduct. + +Chatillon, like Verrex, is not marked in big letters on many maps, but +it belongs in every architect lover's Italian itinerary. Its two bridges +of olden time are veritable wonder works. Its chateau Ussel, a ruin of +the fourteenth century, is still glorious under its coat of mail of moss +and ivy, while the Castle of Count Christian d'Entréves is of the kind +seen by most people only in picture books. + +At Fénis is a magnificent feudal battlemented castle with donjon tower, +a _chemin ronde_ and a barbican so awe-inspiring as to seem unreal. With +Verrex and Issogne, near by, Fénis completes a trio of chateaux-forts +built by the overlords of the name of Challant who possessed feudal +rights throughout all the Val d'Aoste. + +Aimon de Challant built the castle of Fénis in 1330. Virtually it was, +and is, a regular fortress, with as complete a system of defence as +ever princely stronghold had. At once a sumptuous seigneurial residence +and a seemingly impregnable fortress, it is one of the most remarkable +works of its class above ground. + +Aoste is a little Italian mountain town far more French than Italian +from many points of view. It is of great antiquity and was the Augusta +Prætoria of various Roman itineraries. + +Like most Roman cities Aoste was laid out on the rectangular +parallelogram plan, an aspect which it still retains. + +Aoste's triumphal arch, its city gate and walls, and its ancient towers +all lend a quaint aspect of mediævalism which the twentieth century--so +far as it has gone--has entirely failed to contaminate. + +For lovers of English church history it will be a pleasure to recall +that Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury in the eleventh century, was born +at Aoste. Another churchly memory at Aoste is a tablet inscribed with +the particulars of the flight of Calvin from his refuge here in 1541. + +[Illustration: _Castle of Fénis_] + +Saint Bernard, who has given his name to two neighbouring mountain +passes and to a breed of dogs, was Archbishop of Aoste in his time. His +perilous journeys in crossing the Alps, going and coming to and from his +missions of good, led to his founding the celebrated hospice on the +nearby mountain pass which bears his name. The convent of the Great St. +Bernard is the highest habited point in Europe. + +From Aoste to the Hospice of the Grand Saint Bernard is twenty-six +kilometres, with a rise of nearly 2,000 metres and a fall of a like +amount to Martigny in Switzerland. The percentage of rise is +considerably greater than the route leading into France by the Little +Saint Bernard, which falls short of the former by three hundred metres, +but the road is rather better. By far the easiest route from Turin into +France is via the Col de Mont Cenis to Modane; but a modern automobile +will not quarrel seriously with any of these save one or two short, ugly +bits of from fifteen to seventeen per cent. They are pretty stiff; +there's no doubt about that, and with a motor whose horse power is +enfeebled by the rarefied atmosphere at these elevations the driver is +likely to meet with some surprises. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +FROM THE ITALIAN LAKES TO THE RIVIERA + + +There is one delightful crossing of Italy which is not often made either +by the automobilist or the traveller by rail. We found it a delightful +itinerary, though in no respect did it leave the beaten track of well +worn roads; simply it was a hitherto unthought of combination of +highroads and byroads which led from Como, on the shores of its mountain +lake, to Nice, the head centre of the Riviera, just across the Italian +border in France, entering that land of good cooks and good roads +(better cooks and better roads than are found in Italy, please remember) +via the Col de Tende and the Custom House of San Dalmazzo. + +The itinerary covers a length of 365 kilometres and all of it is over +passably good roads, the crossing of the frontier and the Lower Alps at +the Col de Tende being at a lower level than any other of the +Franco-Italian mountain passes, although we encountered snow on the +heights even in the month of May. + +This route is a pleasant variation from the usual entrance and exit from +Italy which the automobilist coming from the south generally makes via +one of the high Alpine valleys. If one is bound Parisward the itinerary +is lengthened by perhaps five hundred kilometres, but if one has not +entered Italy by the Cote d'Azur and the Riviera gateway the thing is +decidedly worth the doing. + +Como itself is the head centre for this part of the lake region, but we +used it only as a "pointe de départ." Cernobbio is far and away the best +idling place on the Lago di Como and is getting to be the rival of +Aix-les-Bains in France, already the most frequently visited automobile +centre in Europe. + +From Cernobbio to Como, swinging around the foot of the lake, is but a +short six kilometres, and from the latter place the Milan road leaves by +the old barbican gate and winds upwards steadily for a dozen kilometres, +crossing the railway line a half a dozen times before Milan is reached. + +The detour to Monza was made between Como and Milan, a lengthening of +the direct route by perhaps a dozen kilometres, and the Strada +Militaire, which joins with the Bergamo-Milan road, was followed into +the Lombard capital through the Porto Orientale. The direct road, the +post road from Como, enters the city by the Porta Nuova. There seems to +be nothing to choose between the two routes, save that to-day one may be +good and the other bad as to surface and six months later the reverse be +the case. + +On entering Milan one circles around the Foro Bonaparte and leaves the +city by the Porta Magenta for Turin. Magenta, twenty-five kilometres; +Novara, forty-six kilometres; so runs the itinerary, and all of it at +the dead level of from 120 to 150 metres above the sea. + +We were stoned at Novara and promptly made a complaint to the +authorities through the medium of the proprietor of the Hotel de la +Ville, where we had a most gorgeous repast for the rather high price of +five francs a head. It was worth it, though, in spite of the fact that +we garaged the automobile in the dining room where we ate. We got +satisfaction, too, for the stoning by the sight of half a dozen small +boys being hauled up to the justice, accompanied by their frightened +parents. The outcome we are not aware of, but doubtless the hotel +proprietor insisted that his clients should not be driven out of town in +this manner, and, though probably no serious punishment was inflicted, +somebody undoubtedly got a well-needed fright. + +The road still continues towards Turin perfectly flat for a matter of a +hundred kilometres beyond Novara, the glistening mountain background +drawing closer and closer until one realizes to the full just why Turin +and Milan are such splendid cities, an effect produced as much by their +incomparable sites as by their fine modern buildings, their great +avenues and boulevards, and their historic traditions. + +This borderland between Lombardy and Piedmont forms the very flower of +present day Italy. The diarist Evelyn remarked all this in a more +appreciative manner than any writer before or since. + +He wrote: "We dined at Marignano near Milan, a _grette cittie_ famous +for a cheese a little short of the best Parmeggiano, where we met half a +dozen suspicious cavaliers who yet did us no harm. Then passing through +a continuous garden we went on with exceeding pleasure, for this is the +Paradise of Lombardy, the highways as even and straight as a cord, the +fields to a vast extent planted with fruit, and vines climbing every +tree planted at equal distances one from the other; likewise there is +an abundance of mulberry trees and much corn." + +To arrive on the Riviera from Turin one leaves the roads leading to the +high Alpine valleys behind. Directly north from Turin runs the highroad +which ultimately debouches into the Val d'Aosta and the Saint Bernard +Passes; to the west, those leading through Pinerolo and the Col de +Sestrières and Susa and the Cols of Mont Genèvre and Mont Cenis. + +Just out of Turin on the road to Cuneo (which is perhaps more often +called by its French name, Coni, for you are now heading straight for +the frontier, a matter of but a half a hundred kilometres beyond) is +Moncalieri, the possessor of a royal chateau where was born, in 1904, +Prince Humbert of Piedmont, the present heir to the Italian throne. + +When Italy's present Queen Helena sojourned here after the birth of her +son she took her promenades abroad _en automobile_ and so came to be a +partisan of the new form of locomotion as already had the dowager Queen +before her. The latter may properly enough be called the automobiling +monarch of Europe for she is heard of to-day at Aix-les-Bains, to-morrow +at Paris or Trouville and the week after at Pallanza or Cadennabia, and +in turn in Spain, at Marienbad, Ostend, Biarritz or Nice, and she always +travels by road, and at a good pace, too. + +This up-to-date queen's predilection for the automobile in preference to +the state coach of other days or the plebeian railway has doubtless had +much to do with the development of the automobile industry in Italy. It +has, too, made the gateway into Italy from the Riviera over the Col de +Tende the good mountain road that it is. Those who pass this way--and +it's the only way worth considering from the South of France to the +Italian Lakes--will have cause to bless Italy's automobiling queen. The +chiefs of state of Italy, France and Germany know how to encourage +automobilism and all that pertains thereto better than those of +Republican America or Monarchial Britain. + +Carignano, twelve kilometres beyond Moncalieri, is famous for its silk +industry and its beautiful women. We saw nothing of the former, but the +latter certainly merit the encomium which has been bestowed upon them +ever since the Chevalier Bayard remarked the _gentilezza_ and beauty of +the widow Bianca Montferrat, and fought for her in a tournament +centuries ago. + +Carmagnola, a half a dozen kilometres off the direct road, just beyond +Carignano, takes much the same rank as the latter place. Neither are +tourist points to the slightest degree, but each is delightfully +unworldly and give one glimpses of native life that one may find only in +the untravelled _hinterland_ of a well known country. The peasant folk +of Carmagnola are as picturesque and gay in their costume and manner of +life as one can possibly expect to see in these days when manners and +customs are changing before the new order of things. Here is the home of +the celebrated Dance of the Carmagnole, a gyrating, whirling, +dervish-like fury of a dance which makes a peasant girl of the country +look more charming than ever as she swishes and swirls her yards of gold +or silver neck beads in a most dazzling fashion. The French Revolution +borrowed the "Carmagnole" for its own unspeakable orgies, by what right +no one knows, for there is nothing outré about it when seen in its +native land. Possibly some alien Savoyards, who may have joined their +forces with the Marseilles Batallion, may have brought it to France with +their light luggage--proverbially light, for the Savoyard has the +reputation of always travelling with a bundle on a stick. Would that we +touring automobilists could, or would, travel lighter than we do! + +Racconigi, a half a dozen kilometres farther on, has another royal +chateau, and, passing Saluzza, through the arch erected in memory of the +marriage of Victor Amedeo and Christine of France, one arrives at Cuneo +in thirty kilometres more. From Carmagnola to Cuneo direct, by +Savigliano, is practically the same distance, but the other route is +perhaps the more picturesque. + +At Cuneo one has attained an elevation of some five hundred and +thirty-five metres above sea level, the rise thence to the Col de Tende +being eight hundred metres more, that is to say the pass is crossed at +an elevation not exceeding 1,300 metres. + +Cuneo's Albergo Barra di Ferro (a new name to us for a hotel) +accommodates one for the price of five francs a day and upwards, and +gives a discount of ten per cent. to members of the Touring Club +Italiano. These prices will certainly not disturb any one who can afford +to supply a prodigal automobile with tires at the present high prices. + +We climbed up from Cuneo to the Col, a matter of thirty-three kilometres +of a very easy rise, in something less than a couple of hours, the last +six kilometres, the steepest portion, averaging but a five per cent. +grade. + +On leaving Cuneo the road ascends very gradually, running along the +valley of the Vermagnana to the foot of the Col where it begins to mount +in earnest. Below is the great plain of Piedmont watered by the Po and +its tributary rivers, while above rises the mass of the Maritime Alps, +with Mount Viso as its crowning peak, nearly four thousand metres high. +It is a veritable Alpine road but not at all difficult of ascent. About +midway on the height one remarks the attempt to cut a tunnel and thereby +shorten the route, an attempt which was abandoned long years ago. From +the crest, the Col itself, one gets a view ranging from Mont Viso to +Mont Rosa in the north and on the south even to the blue waters of the +Mediterranean. For fully a third of the year, and often nearer half, the +Col de Tende is cursed with bad weather and is often impassable for +wheeled traffic in spite of the fact of its comparatively low elevation. +The wind storms here are very violent. + +From Tende the road winds down into the low French levels, and in this +portion takes rank as one of the earliest of Alpine roads, it having +been built by Carlo Emanuele I in 1591. + +Down through the valley of the Torrent of the Roya glides the mountain +road and, passing San Dalmazzo and numerous rock villages, a distinct +feature of these parts, in sixteen kilometres reaches Breil, the first +place of note on French territory. + +We had our "triptych" signed at the Italian dogana fifteen kilometres +beyond the brow of the mountain, at San Dalmazzo di Tenda, crossing on +to French soil three kilometres farther on. The French douane is at +Breil, at the sixty-sixth kilometre stone beyond Cuneo, and at an +elevation of less than three hundred metres above the sea. Here we +delayed long enough to have the douaniers check off the number of the +motor, the colour of the body work, the colour of the cushions and +numerous other incidentals in order that the French government might not +be mulcted a sou. "Everything in order. Allons! partez;" said the gold +braided official, and again we were in France. + +At Breil the road divides, one portion, following still the valley of +the Roya, slopes down to Ventimiglia in twenty kilometres, the other, in +forty kilometres, arriving at Nice via the valley of the Paillon. + +It is not all down hill after Breil for, before Sospel is reached, +seventeen kilometres away, one crosses another mountain crest by a +fairly steep ascent and again, after Sospel, it rises to the Col di +Braus--this time over the best of French roads--to an elevation of over +one thousand metres. + +From Sospel a spur road leads direct to Menton but the Grande Route +leads straight on to Nice, shortly after to blend in with the old Route +d'Italie, linking up Paris with the Italian-Mediterranean frontier, a +straight away "good road," the dream of the automobilist, for a matter +of 1,086 kilometres. + +THE END. + + + + +Index + + +Abbey at Vallombrosa, 153 + +Acquasola, Park of, 101 + +Ad Confluentis, 65 + +Adda (Family of), 321 + +Adelphi, The (Secret Society), 39 + +Adriatic Sea, 16, 67, 163, 236, 237, 260, 283 + +Æmilia, 4, 271 + +Ætna, 11, 19 + +Agrippa, 211 + +Aiguebell, 6, 349 + +Albergo (See also Hotel), 48, 49 + All'Accademia, 304 + Arti, 270 + Asolo, 295 + Barra di Ferro, 367 + Capello d'Oro, 318 + del Cervo, 339 + Delfino, 110 + della Nuova York, 117 + della Quercia, 198 + del Sol, 217 + Fanti-Stella d'Oro, 281 + Grimaldi, 94 + Guippone, 130 + Italia, 115 + Italia (at Urbino), 235 + Unione, 105 + +Alassio, 91, 92 + +Alba Longa, 186 + +Alban Hills, 181, 189 + +Albano, 179, 181, 184, 185, 189, 197 + +Albano Lake, 184, 185, 186 + +Albaro, 106 + +Albenga, 66, 92, 93, 95 + +Albero d'Oro (See Palazzo Imperiali) + +Albium Ingaunum, 66 + Intermelium, 66 + +Alessandria, 333 + +Algeria, 15, 17 + +Alps, 7, 12, 17 + +Alps of Piedmont, 2, 15, 85 + +Amalfi, 2, 212, 219, 220, 224 + +Ambrosian Library, 336 + +Amelia, 66 + +Ampesso Pass, 294 + +Ancona, 2, 11, 67, 225, 226, 236, 238, 242, 243 + +Aosta, Valley of, 72 + +Aoste, 352, 358, 359 + +Apennines, The, 17, 65, 96, 117 + +Appian Way (See Via Appia) + +Aquileja, 299 + +Arch of Triumph, 336 + +Arco d'Augusto, 245 + +Arcola, 116 + +Arcore, 321 + +Aretino, Guido, 155 + +Aretium, 160 + +Arezzo, 7, 11, 70, 138, 153, 156, 159, 160, 161, 231 + +Ariminum, 64, 65 + +Ariosto, 253, 255, 271 + +Arma, 90 + +Arno, The (River), 124, 125, 127, 159, 160, 163 + +Arno, Valley of the, 124, 156 + +Arona, 73, 327, 332 + +Asinalunga, 166 + +Asolo, 295, 297 + +Assisi, 228, 230 + +Asti, 333 + +Augustus, Tower of, 86 + +Averso, 199 + +Avezzano, 225, 226 + +Azeglio, Massimo d', 139 + + +Bacciochi, Eliza (Princess of Lucca), 123 + +Baies, 211 + +Baptistery, The, of Pisa, 126 + +Barberino di Mugello, 11, 26 + +Bargello, at Florence, 162 + +Bari, 237, 238, 241 + +Barletta, 238 + +Basilicate, Province of, 36 + +Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli, 229 + +Baveno, 327 + +Bay of Naples, 13, 54, 207, 209, 211, 213, 220 + +Bellagio, 321, 325 + +Bellay, Cardinal du Joachim, 6 + +Bellinzona, 345 + +Belluno, 294, 295, 325 + +Bergamo, 317, 318, 319, 350 + +Bernadino, 75 + +Bertolini, 105 + +Biarritz, 3 + +Bibbiena, 156, 161, 162 + +"Blue Grotto," 223 + +Bologna, 6, 19, 61, 65, 160, 251, 265-269, 277 + +Bononia, 65, 160, 268 + +Bordighera, 86, 87 + +Borghese, Family of, 187 + +Borgia (Family of), 5, 176, 227, 244, 253, 261, 262, 263, 264 + +Borgo San Donino, 65, 274 + +Borromean Islands, 327 + +Botticelli, 14 + +Bourbons, 40 + +Breil, 369 + +Brescia, 72, 315, 317, 318, 333 + +Brescia Armata, 315, 316 + +Briançon, 73 + +Bridge of Arcole, 303 + +Brindisi, 236, 237, 239, 241 + +Brisighella, 263 + +Broletto of Bergamo, 318 + +Brunelleschi, Family of, 146 + +Brunswick, Family of, 257 + +Buonaparte, a notary, 117 + + +Cadenabbia, 325 + +Caesena, 65 + +Calabria, 10, 17, 18, 19, 25, 27, 196, 214 + +Campagna, 19, 166, 173, 180, 181, 182, 184, 189 + +Campaldino, Plain of, 156 + +Campanello (Brigand) 141, 142 + +Campania, Province, 36, 67 + +Campanile, The, 282 + +Campanile of San Marco, 295 + +Campo Formico, 298 + +Campo Santo of Pisa, 127 + +Canalazzo at Venice, 288 + +Canossa, 273 + +Canova, 14 + +Capo delle Melle, 91 + +Capodimonte, 205 + +Capo di Noli, 95 + +Capo di Vado, 95 + +Capri, 2, 15, 26, 198, 202, 207, 220, 221, 222, 223 + +Capua, 66, 197, 198 + +Carbonari, The, 39 + +Careggi, 146, 147 + +Carignano, 365, 366 + +Carmagnola, 366 + +Carrara, 117, 119 + +Casa del Commune, 93 + +Casa di Palladio, 301 + +Casa Stradivari, 312 + +Casentino, 26, 65, 124, 144, 156, 157, 158, 162, 163 + +Caserta, 11, 198, 199 + +Castellamare, 212, 219, 224 + +Cassino, 184 + +Cascades of Terni, 226 + +Cascina, 128 + +Castles + Castel del Carmine, 201 + Castel Franco, 65, 269 + Castel Gandolfo, 185, 186 + Castel Malatesta, 245 + Castel Paraggi, 111 + Castello dell'Ovo, 201, 202 + Castello Gavone, 94 + Castello of Ferrara, 254 + Castello of Massa, 119 + Castle of Fénis, 21 + Castle of Malpaga, 318 + Castle of Rimini, 21 + Castle of Sant Angelo, 13, 174 176, 264 + +Cathedral of Saint Procule, 210 + +Cemenelium, 66 + +Cernobbio, 41, 361 + +Certosa at Pavia, 340, 341 + +Cervara, 109 + +Cesana, 260, 261 + +Cesana Tarinese, 352 + +Cesena, 65 + +Chambéry, 6 + +Chatillon, 357 + +Chaucer, 5, 279 + +Chiavari, 112, 113 + +Chioggia, 237, 238, 251 + +Chiusi, 70, 167 + +Church of Sant'Antonio, 279 + +Cimabue, 9 + +Cimiez, 66 + +Circus Maxentius, 183 + +Cisalpine Gaul, 64 + +Cisterna di Roma, 71, 197 + +Civita Castellana, 225 + +Civita-Vecchi, 170 + +Claterna, 65 + +Clusium, Tombs of, 167 + +Codroipo, 297 + +Cogoletto, 98 + +Coire, 75 + +Col de Sestrières, 364 + de Tend, 360, 365, 367, 368 + du Grand St. Bernard, 73, 352, 364 + du Mont Genevre, 73, 364 + du Petit Saint Bernard, 73, 352, 364 + Mont Cenis, 364 + +Colosseum (Rome), 174 + +Colmo dell'Orso, 75 + +Colonna, Family of, 5, 189, 190 + +Comacchio, 250, 251 + +Communicazione, Strada di grande, 69, 71 + +Como, 73, 322, 323, 326, 333, 360, 361 + +Conegliano, 297 + +Convent of the Great St. Bernard, 359 + +Cornudo, 295 + +Corte Reale, 310 + +Cortona, 149 + +Cosa, 149 + +Cote d'Azur, 361 + +Courmayer, 353, 354 + +Cremona, 311, 312 + +Crevola, 73 + +Cuneo, 364, 367, 368, 369 + + +Dalmatia, 293 + +Dante, 7, 156, 157, 158, 164, 165, 248, 260, 270, 279, 280 + +Del Sarto, Andrea, 9 + +Desenzano, 313 + +Diveria, 73 + +Dogana (Custom House), 62 + +Dolce Acqua, 86 + +Domini, 154 + +Domodossola, 73, 345 + +Donatello, 120 + +Donegani, Carlo, 76 + +Donnas, 356 + +Doria, Andrea, 90, 102, 109 + +Duomo + of Como, 322 + of Fiesole, 151 + of Milan, 336 + of Pisa, 126 + +Durer, Albrecht, 6 + + +Elba, 2 + +Empoli, 130, 131, 132 + +Este (Family of), 253, 256, 258, 264, 270, 271 + +Este, Village of, 256, 258 + +Etruria, 67 + + +Faenza, 65 + +Faënza, 263, 264 + +Farnese, Family of, 187 + +Faventia, 65 + +Felix, 6 + +Feltre, 294 + +Fénis, 357 + +Ferrara, 6, 238, 251, 253-256 + +Fidentia, 65 + +Fieschi (Family of), 102, 113 + +Fiesole, 144, 145, 147, 148, 151-153 + +F. I. A. F. (Garages), 41, 105 + +Finale Marina, 43, 93-95 + +Fiorenzuola, 274 + +Firenzuola, 65 + +Fiume, 283 + +Florian's, 286, 287, 292 + +Florence, 1, 2, 6, 8, 11, 13, 18, 31, 41, 43, 69, 70, 101, 122, 128, + 132, 133, 135, 138, 141, 142, 144, 145, 147, 152, 153, 158, 159, 160, + 171, 226, 250, 251, 260, 268, 277, 312 + +Florentia, 65 + +Foggia, 238 + +Forli, 65, 262, 263 + +Foligno, 158, 226, 228, 230 + +Forlimpopoli, 65 + +Formia, 198 + +Forte Urbano, 269 + +Fortezza, The (Secret Society), 39 + +Forum Cornelii, 65, 264 + Forum Gallorum, 65, 269 + Forum Livii, 65 + Forum Populii, 65 + +Fractelli, The (Secret Society), 39 + +Frascati, 2, 12, 179, 181, 186, 187, 188, 192 + +Frosinone, 71 + +Futa Pass, 26, 251 + + +Gaeta, 71, 198 + +Galleria Victor-Emmanuel, 337 + +Gallinaria, Isle of, 92 + +Garda, 326 + +Garibaldi, 166, 204 + +Geneva, 8 + +Genna, 66 + +Genoa, 5, 34, 41, 66, 69, 74, 89, 93, 95-99, 102, 103, 105, 106, 108, 201 + +Gonfolina, Gorge of, 152 + +Grenoble, 73 + +Grimaldi, 62, 82, 83, 84 + +Grand Hotel (Nervi), 108 + +Grand-Hotel (Rome), 171 + +Grand Hotel San Marco, 275 + +Grand Hotel (Venice), 267 + +Grand Saint Bernard (See Col du Grand St. Bernard) + +Gravadona, 325 + +Grimaldi, Family of, 102 + +Gropollo, Marchese, 108 + +Grosseto, 128, 138, 169 + +Grotto Nuovo di Posilipo, 206 + +Guardie-Finanze (Custom officer), 85 + +Gubbio, 232 + +Guiadecca, 292 + +Guidi, Counts of, 157 + +Gulf of Spezia, 66 + + +Hotel + Belle Arti, 168 + Brun, 267 + Croix de Malte, 114 + Danielli, 267, 288 + de la Minerve, 171 + de la Ville (Florence), 135 + de la Ville (Novana), 362 + de l'Europe (Rampallo), 111 + de l'Europe (Venice), 288 + Diomede, 217 + Europe (Milan), 339 + Helvetia, 135 + Massa, 119 + Palace, 133 + Porta Rossa, 135 + Royal, 197 + Royal et des Étrangers, 199 + Splendide, 110 + Suisse, 217 + +Herculaneum, 212, 218, 219 + + +Il Deserto, 98 + +Il Paradisino (Mountain), 155 + +Il Salone, 280 + +Imola, 61, 65, 262, 264, 265 + +Intemillium, 85 + +Ionian Sea, 236 + +Ischia, 211, 212 + +Isernia, 238 + +Isola dei Bergeggi, 95 + +Issogne, 357 + +Ivrea, 354 + + +La Brera at Milan, 336 + +La Favorita, 205 + +Lago di Como, 320, 321, 361 + +Lago di Garda, 313, 314, 315 + +Lago di Lugano, 320, 326 + +Lago di Maggiore, 73, 320, 326, 329, 331 + +Lago d'Orta, 320 + +Lago di Varese, 326 + +Lake of Averno, 211 + +Lake of Iseo, 317 + +Lake Varese, 320 + +"La Lanterna," 95, 103 + +La Magliana, 183 + +La Pineta, 246 + +Lavagua, 113 + +Laveno, 326 + +La Verna, Convent of, 162 + +Lecce, 237 + +Lecco, 320, 321 + +Leghorn, 4, 15, 123 + +Legnago, 310 + +Lido, The, 292 + +Liguria, 15, 43, 65, 66, 92, 96, 107 + +Lion Inn, 176 + +Liro, The, 76 + +Livorno, 68, 119, 121, 123 + +Livorno, Duke of, 123 + +Lodi, 343 + +Lombardy, 16, 17, 25, 73, 173, 332-335, 362, 363 + +Lorenzo the Magnificent, 145, 146, 152 + +Lotto, 36 + +Lucca, 11, 68, 69, 119, 121, 122, 123, 273 + +Lugano, 326 + +Luna, 66, 67 + +Luther, Martin, 6 + + +Mafia, The (Secret Society), 39 + +Magenta, 362 + +Magra (the River), 116 + +Malatesta (Family of), 245 + +Manfredonia, 238, 241 + +Mantua, 310, 311, 312, 333 + +Marina-Andora, 91 + +Marina di Pisa, 124 + +Martinengo, 317 + +Masaniello, 203 + +Massa, 117, 119 + +Massarosa, 121 + +Medici (Family of), 5, 120, 123, 132, 168, 187, 348 + +Mediterranean Sea, 17, 184 + +Mennagio, 325 + +Menton, 10, 81, 82, 83, 84, 95 + +Mestre, 281, 282 + +Meta, 212 + +Milan, 1, 4, 6, 34, 41, 72, 73, 105, 276, 321, 322, 333, 335-340, 343, + 344, 345, 361, 362, 363 + +Milan Express, 10 + +Minestra, 30 + +Modane, 73, 269, 359 + +Modena, 65, 269, 270 + +Monaco, 66 + +Monopoli, 237 + +Mont Cenis, 73, 350, 352 + +Mont Appio, 86 + +Monte Berico, 303 + +Monte Carlo, 3 + +Monte Cristo's Island, 2 + +Monte Falterona, 124, 156 + +Montelupo, 133 + +Montepulciana, 11, 166, 167 + +Monte Secchieta, 155, 162 + +Montevarchi, 156, 159 + +Mont Gauro, 211 + +Mont Nuovo, 211 + +Monza, 321, 344, 361 + +Mortola, 82, 84 + +Mugello, Valley of, 70, 151 + +Musset, Alfred de, 8, 280, 287, 288 + +Mutina, 65 + + +Naples, 1, 8, 13, 15, 17, 18, 21, 31, 34, 41, 43, 55, 63, 71, 105, 196, + 197, 198, 199, 200, 201, 205, 207, 210, 212, 213, 219, 224, 225, 312 + +Neapolitan Camarra, The (Secret Society), 38 + +Nervi, 108 + +Nervia, The, 86 + +Nesso, 321 + +Nicæ, 66 + +Nice, 65, 66, 370 + +Noli, 95 + +Nona's Tower, 176 + +Novara, 333, 362, 363 + + +Oneglia, 90, 98 + +Orta, 309, 320, 331 + +Ortona, 238, 241 + +Otranto, 2, 237 + +Orvieto, 70, 138, 166, 167, 168 + +Osteria, 26 + +Ostia, 66, 181 + +Otricoli, 181 + +Ouida, Marquise de la Ramée, 120, 121 + + +Padua, 5, 6, 7, 41, 278-281, 294 + +Pæstum, 224 + +Palace of the Caesars, 247 + +Palace of the Carrera, 280 + +Palace of Caserta, 205 + +Palace of the Doges, 288 + +Palace Farnese, 205 + +Palace of Theodoric, 247 + +Palazzaccio, 159, 160 + +Palazza Publico (Cesana), 261 + +Palazzos (See also Palaces) + Agostini, 127 + Bisenzi, 168 + Campetto, 105 + Capitano, 280 + Carignano, 347 + Communal, 244 + Del Comune, 139, 245 + Dorio, 101 + Ducale, 270, 310 + Gonfaloneri, 312 + Gonzague, 310 + Imperali, 107 + Isola Bella, 327 + Pretoria, 161 + Publico, 139 + Reale (Milan), 337 + Reale (Modena), 270 + Reale (Turin), 348 + Rosso, 113 + Valentino, 348 + Vecchio, 162 + +Palestrina, 189, 190 + +Parma, 65 + +Parma, Duchy of, 272, 273 + +Passo della Somma, 71 + +Pater, Cosimo, 146 + +Paterno, 154 + +Pavia, 6, 333, 335, 340, 342, 343 + +Pegli, 99 + +Perugia, 21, 70, 138, 158, 162, 226, 228, 230, 231 + +Pesaro, 244 + +Pescara, 238, 241 + +Peschiera, 309, 310, 313 + +Petit Saint Bernard (See Col du Petit Saint Bernard) + +Petrarch, 5, 160, 258, 279, 341 + +Piacenza, 64, 65, 260, 272, 274, 275, 276 + +Piazzas + Castello, 348 + Dei Signori, 301, 304 + Del Mercato, 130 + Del Plebiscito, 169 + Di Porta Ravegnana, 269 + Erbe, 304 + Fontana, 169 + Mercanto, 241 + San Marco, 286 + San Pietro, 87 + Vittorio Emanuel (Florence), 136 + Vittorio Emanuele (Ravenna), 248 + Vittorio Emanuele (Siena), 164, 165 + Vittorio Emanuele (Verona), 306 + +Piedmont, 15, 16, 346, 350, 353, 355, 363 + +Pietrasanta, 119 + +Pinerola, 351, 364 + +Pisa, 41, 66, 67, 69, 125-128 + +Pistoja, 131, 132 + +Placentia, 64, 65, 274 + +Pliny, 321, 322 + +Poggibonzi, 141 + +Pompeii, 216, 217, 218 + +Pompey, 185 + +Pontassieve, 153, 156 + +Ponte a Mensola, 153 + +Ponte d'Augusto, 245 + +Pontedera, 129 + +Ponte di Castel Vecchio, 304 + +Ponte Lungo, 93 + +Ponte S. Angelo, 171 + +Pontine Marches (See Pontine Marshes) + +Pontine Marshes, 17, 72, 197 + +Pont Saint Louis, 81, 83 + +Pont Saint Martin, 355-357 + +Pouzzoles, 210 + +Poppi, 124, 156, 157, 161, 162 + +Poppi-Bibbiena, 156 + +Pordenone, 297 + +Porlezza, 326 + +Porta alla Croce, 153 + Camollia, 69, 164 + Capuana, 196 + Cavalleggeri, 171 + della Torre, 323 + di Elce, 231 + Romana, 69 + San Lorenzo, 189 + San Gallo, 145 + San Sebastiano, 197 + Santa Croce, 160 + S. Frediano, 133 + +Portici, 212 + +Portofino, 66, 109, 110, 111 + +Porto Maurizio, 90 + +Porto Venere, 66 + +Portus Erici, 66 + +Portus Delphini, 66 + +Portus Herculis Monoeci, 66 + +Portus Veneris, 66 + +Posilippo, 63, 204, 206, 207, 210 + +Prato, 131, 132 + +Procida, 211, 212 + +Protectori Republicana (Secret Society), 39 + + +Quaderna, 65 + +Quai Parthenope, 41 + + +Rabelais, 6 + +Racconigi, 367 + +Ragusa, 11 + +Rapallo, 109, 111, 112 + +Raphael, 234 + +Ravenna, 2, 7, 236, 238, 245-248, 250, 251 + +Ravine of St. Louis, 82 + +Recco, 108 + +Reggio, 10, 11, 65, 271 + +Reggio, Strada de, 69 + +Regium Lepidi, 65 + +Reininghaus, The, 136 + +Resina, 212 + +Rheinwald, The, 74 + +Rimini, 2, 64, 65, 238, 245, 260, 261, 264 + +Riva, 314, 315 + +Riviera di Levante, 108 + +Rivoli, 350 + +Rocca di Papa, 186 + +Rocca of Cesana, 261 + +Roja, The, 85 + +Romagna, The, 163, 265 + +Roman Arena, 304, 306 + +Roman Forum, 179, 217 + +Rome, 1, 2, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 18, 21, 31, 34, 41, 43, 65, 66, 67, 69, + 70, 71, 101, 138, 160, 166, 168, 170, 171, 172, 173, 179, 181, 182, + 183, 186, 189, 192, 197, 201, 225, 238, 312 + +Rotonda Capra, 302 + +"Route Internationale," 81 + +Royat, 349 + +Rubens, 7 + + +Sabine Hills, 189 + +Saint Peter's, 174 + +Salerno, 213, 224 + +Saltino, 154 + +Saluzza, 367 + +San Dalmazzo, 360, 369 + +Sardinia, 170 + +Sand, Georges, 8, 288 + +San Francesco, Church of, 229, 248 + +San Fruttoso, Monastery of, 109 + +San Gallo, Giuliano da (architect), 145 + +San Giacomo, Gorge of, 76 + +San Gimignano, 139, 141 + +San Giorgio, 291 + +San Marco, 13, 284, 286, 287, 291-293 + +San Miniato de Tedeschi, 129, 144 + +San Pier d'Arena, 95 + +San Salvatore, Church of, 113 + +San Remo, 62, 87 + +Santa Margherita, 109, 110 + +Santa Maria Novella, 9 + +Sant'Angelo, 21 + +Sant'Ellero, 154 + +Santuario of Vallombrosa, 154 + +Sarazza, 2 + +Sarzana, 117, 119 + +Savigliano, 367 + +Savignamo, 65 + +Savona, 66, 93, 95-98 + +Scaldini, 33, 34 + +Segni, 149 + +Senegallia, 244 + +Sermione, 313 + +Sestri, 66 + +Sestri-Levante, 113 + +Sicily, 25 + +Sidney, Sir Philip, 6 + +Siena, 7, 11, 43, 69, 138, 141-143, 158, 164-166, 170 + +Signa, 133 + +Simplon Pass, 10, 73, 345, 352 + +Soave, 303 + +Somma, Passo della, 71 + +Sorrento, 198, 212, 219-222, 224 + +Sospel, 370 + +Speranza, The, 39 + +Spezia, 65, 68, 108, 114-116 + +Spezia, Gulf of, 66, 116, 163 + +Spilla Nera, The (Secret Society), 39 + +Spinola, Family of, 102 + +Splugen Pass, 75 + +Spoleto, 71, 226 + +St. Francis of Assisi, 162, 279 + +Strada di grande Communicazione, 71, 299 + +Strada di Piedigrotta, 206 + Forvia, 199 + Militaire, 361 + Piasana, 133 + per Roma, 142 + Regina, 325 + per Siena, 142 + +Strozzi Palace, 135 + +Stresa, 327 + +Subiaco, 189, 190, 191, 192 + +Susa, Valley of, 72, 73 + + +Taneto, 65 + +Taormina, 2 + +Taride (Maps), 77, 78 + +Taro River, 273, 274 + +Tasso, Torquato, 233, 253, 256 + +Taunetum, 65 + +Termoli, 241 + +Terni, 70, 138, 225 + +Terracina, 71, 197 + +Tiber, Valley of, 67 + +Tigullia, 66 + +Tivoli, 179, 181, 189, 192, 193, 194 + +Torre Anunziata, 212 + +Torre dei Guelfi, 93 + +Torre del Greco, 212 + +Torre de Marchese Malespina, 93 + +Torregaveta, 211 + +Torre, The, of Pisa, 126 + +Torri Asinelli, 269 + +Torri Gorisenda, 269 + +Tortona, 333 + +Touring Club Italiano, 78, 80 + +Towers of Tuscany, 138 + +Trattoria (Italian Wayside Inn), 43, 47, 52 + +Trajan, 242 + +Tregesco, 66 + +Treviso, 293, 294, 297, 299 + +Trieste, 283 + +Tunisia, 16, 17, 26 + +Turin, 34, 41, 72-74, 346-352, 359, 362-364 + +Tuscany, 16, 25, 122, 124, 334 + +Tusculum, 188, 189 + +Tyrrhenian Sea, 120, 125, 170 + + +Ubertini, Guglielmino (Bishop of Arezzo), 157 + +Udine, 293, 297-299 + +Ulm, 6 + +Umbria, 162, 225, 238 + +Urbino, 233-235 + + +Vada Sabbata, 66 + +Vado, 66 + +Val d'Aoste, 2, 21, 73, 314, 352-357, 364 (See also Valley of) + +Val d'Elsa, 139, 141 + +Val d'Arno, 152 + +Val d'Arno di Sotto, 152 + +Valley of Aosta, 72 + +Valley of Susa, 72 + +Valley of the Tiber, 225 + +Vallombrosa, 71, 144, 147, 153-156, 162 + +Valmontone, 189 + +Var, The (River), 66 + +Varazze, 43, 97, 98 + +Varenna, 325 + +Varese, 326 + +Varium fl., 66 + +Vatican, The, 173, 174, 227 + +Veii, 186 + +Venetia, 16 + +Venice, 1, 2, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 19, 21, 41, 43, 53, 72, 230, 236, 251, + 258, 260, 277, 281-284, 286, 288, 290, 292-298, 299, 312 + +Ventimiglia, 66, 82, 86, 369 + +Velletri, 71, 184, 189, 197 + +Vernazza, 114 + +Verona, 7, 72, 300, 303, 305-310, 312 + +Veronese, Paul, 7 + +Verrex, 356, 357 + +Vesuvius, 2 + +Via Æmilia, 7, 63-66, 163, 245, 260, 266, 273-275 + Æmilia-Scauri, 66 + Ameria, 66 + Appia, 66, 67, 183, 196, 198, 239 + Acquilla, 66 + Ardentina, 66 + Aurelia, 65-67 + Campagna, 183 + Cassia, 66, 67 + Clodia, 67 + del Orto, 160 + Flamina, 64 (See also via Flaminia) + Flaminia, 66, 160 + Latina, 66 + Laurentia, 66 + Ostiensis, 66 + Salaria, 66, 67 + Tusculum, 186 + Valeria, 67, 225 + +Viareggio, 120, 121 + +Vicenza, 19, 300, 301, 303 + +Vigna della Regina, 350 + +Villas + Aldobrandini, 187 + Ambrogiana, 132 + Borghese, 176, 179 + Cambria, 107 + of the Cardinal, 232 + Cesarini, 2 + of Cicero at Baies, 210 + Conti, 187 + Doria, 100, 101 + d'Este, 193 + Falconieri, 187, 188 + de Franchi, 107 + Guadagui, 147 + of Hadrian, 189, 193, 194 + Medici, 146, 176, 178, 188 + Negroni, 101 + Pagana, 111 + del Paradiso, 106 + del Popolo, 202 + Paladio, 302 + Pallavicini, 99 + Palmieri, 147, 148 + Passarino, 298 + Pagana, 111 + Petraja, 146 + Pliniana, 321 + at Poggio Cajano, 145 + Rendel, 204 + Rinuccini, 147 + Rosazza, 101 + Ruffinella, 187 + Salviate, 147 + Scipione Ammirato, 151 + Tusculana, 187 + +Villini, 31 + +Vintimille (See Ventimiglia), 85 + +Virgil, 206, 211, 239 + +Viterbo, 70, 138, 158, 166, 168, 169 + +Vogelberg, 74 + +Voie Æmilia, 26 + +Volterra, 139, 140, 141 + +Voltri, 99 + + +Zocchi, the draughtsman, 148 + + * * * * * + +Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber: + +Britanny=> Brittany {pg 15} + +dignataries=> dignitaries {pg 52} + +Via Æmelia-Scauri=> Via Æmilia-Scauri {pg 66} + +It architecture=> Its architecture {pg 176} + +made way with their lovers=> made away with their lovers {pg 349} + +Briancon=> Briançon {pg 352} + +Chambery, 6=> Chambéry, 6 {pg index} + +Castle of Fenis, 21=> Castle of Fénis, 21 {index} + +Nicae=> Nicæ {index} + +Paestum, 224=> Pæstum, 224 {index} + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Italian Highways and Byways from a +Motor Car, by Francis Miltoun + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44212 *** diff --git a/44212-h.zip b/44212-h.zip Binary files differdeleted file mode 100644 index 6f7da2a..0000000 --- a/44212-h.zip +++ /dev/null diff --git a/44212-h/44212-h.htm b/44212-h/44212-h.htm index 9ca0e7c..25378af 100644 --- a/44212-h/44212-h.htm +++ b/44212-h/44212-h.htm @@ -3,7 +3,7 @@ <html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" lang="en" xml:lang="en"> <head> <link rel="coverpage" href="images/cover.jpg" /> -<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta 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