Legends of Florence: Collected from the People, First Series

by Charles Godfrey Leland

Transcribed from the 1895 David Nutt edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

Legends of Florence
Collected from the People

And Re-told
by
Charles Godfrey Leland
(Hans Breitmann)

First Series

LONDON: DAVID NUTT
270–71 STRAND
1895

Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co.
At the Ballantyne Press

PREFACE

This book consists almost entirely of legends or traditions of a varied character, referring to places and buildings in Florence, such as the Cathedral and Campanile, the Signoria, the Bargello, the different city gates, ancient towers and bridges, palaces, crosses, and fountains, noted corners, odd by-ways, and many churches. To all of these there are tales, or at least anecdotes attached, which will be found as entertaining to the general reader as they will be interesting, not to say valuable, to the folklorist and the student of social history; but here I must leave the work to speak for itself.

I originally intended that this should be entirely a collection of relics of ancient mythology, with superstitions and sorceries, witchcraft and incantations, or what may be called occult folk-lore, of which my work on “Etruscan-Roman Remains in Popular Tradition” consists, and of which I have enough additional material to make a large volume. But having resolved to add to it local legends, and give them the preference, I found that the latter so abounded, and were so easily collected by an expert, that I was obliged to cast out my occult folk-lore, piece by piece, if I ever hoped to get into the port of publication, according to terms with the underwriters, following the principle laid down by the illustrious Poggio,

that in a storm the heaviest things must go overboard first, he illustrating the idea with the story of the Florentine, who, having heard this from the captain when at sea in a tempest, at once threw his wife into the raging billows—perche non haveva cosa più grave di lei—because there was nought on earth which weighed on him so heavily.

There are several very excellent and pleasant works on Old Florence, such as that portion devoted to it in the “Cities of Central Italy,” by A. J. C. Hare; the “Walks about Florence,” by the Sisters Horner; “Florentine Life,” by Scaife; and the more recent and admirable book by Leader Scott, which are all—I say it advisedly—indispensable for those who would really know something about a place which is unusually opulent in ancient, adventurous, or artistic associations. My book is, however, entirely different from these, and all which are exclusively taken from authentic records and books. My tales are, with a few exceptions, derived directly or indirectly from the people themselves—having been recorded in the local dialect—the exceptions being a few anecdotes racy of the soil, taken from antique jest-books and such bygone halfpenny literature as belonged to the multitude, and had its origin among them. These I could not, indeed, well omit, as they every one refer to some peculiar place in Florence. To these I must add several which remained obscurely in my memory, but which I did not record at the time of hearing or reading, not having then the intention of publishing such a book.

It has been well observed by Wordsworth that minor local legends sink more deeply into the soul than greater

histories, as is proved by the fact that romantic folk-lore spreads far and wide over the world, completely distancing in the race the records of mighty men and their deeds. The magic of Washington Irving has cast over the Catskills and the Hudson, by means of such tales, an indescribable fascination, even as Scott made of all Scotland a fairyland; for it is indisputable that a strange story, or one of wild or quaint adventure, or even of humour, goes further to fix a place in our memory than anything else can do. Therefore I have great hope that these fairy-tales of Florence, and strange fables of its fountains, palaces, and public places—as they are truly gathered from old wives, and bear in themselves unmistakable evidences of antiquity—will be of real use in impressing on many memories much which is worth retaining, and which would otherwise have been forgotten.

The manner in which these stories were collected was as follows:—In the year 1886 I made the acquaintance in Florence of a woman who was not only skilled in fortune-telling, but who inherited as a family gift from generations, skill in witchcraft—that is, a knowledge of mystical cures, the relieving people who were bewitched, the making amulets, and who had withal a memory stocked with a literally incredible number of tales and names of spirits, with the invocations to them, and strange rites and charms. She was a native of the Romagna Toscana, where there still lurks in the recesses of the mountains much antique Etrusco-Roman heathenism, though it is disappearing very rapidly. Maddalena—such was her name—soon began to communicate to me all her lore.

She could read and write, but beyond this never gave the least indication of having opened a book of any kind; albeit she had an immense library of folk-lore in her brain. When she could not recall a tale or incantation, she would go about among her extensive number of friends, and being perfectly familiar with every dialect, whether Neapolitan, Bolognese, Florentine, or Venetian, and the ways and manners of the poor, and especially of witches, who are the great repositories of legends, became in time wonderfully well skilled as a collector. Now, as the proverb says, “Take a thief to catch a thief,” so I found that to take a witch to catch witches, or detect their secrets, was an infallible means to acquire the arcana of sorcery. It was in this manner that I gathered a great part of the lore given in my “Etruscan-Roman Remains.” I however collected enough, in all conscience, from other sources, and verified it all sufficiently from classic writers, to fully test the honesty of my authorities.

The witches in Italy form a class who are the repositories of all the folk-lore; but, what is not at all generally known, they also keep as strict secrets an immense number of legends of their own, which have nothing in common with the nursery or popular tales, such as are commonly collected and published. The real witch-story is very often only a frame, so to speak, the real picture within it being the arcanum of a long scongiurazione or incantation, and what ingredients were used to work the charm. I have given numbers of these real witch-tales in my “Etruscan-Roman Remains,” and a few, such as “Orpheus and Eurydice,” “Intialo,” and “Il Moschone,” in this work.

Lady Vere de Vere, who has investigated witchcraft as

it exists in the Italian Tyrol, in an admirable article in La Rivista of Rome (June 1894)—which article has the only demerit of being too brief—tells us that “the Community of Italian Witches is regulated by laws, traditions, and customs of the most secret kind, possessing special recipes for sorcery,” which is perfectly true. Having been free of the community for years, I can speak from experience. The more occult and singular of their secrets are naturally not of a nature to be published, any more than are those of the Voodoos. Some of the milder sort may be found in the story of the “Moscone, or Great Fly,” in this work. The great secret for scholars is, however, that these pagans and heretics, who are the last who cling to a heathen creed out-worn in Europe—these outcast children of the Cainites, Ultra-Taborites, and similar ancient worshippers of the devil, are really the ones who possess the most valuable stores of folk-lore, that is to say, such as illustrate the first origins of the religious Idea, its development, and specially the evolution of the Opposition or Protestant principle.

As regards the many legends in this book which do not illustrate such serious research, it is but natural that witches, who love and live in the Curious, should have preserved more even of them than other people, and it was accordingly among her colleagues of the mystic spell that Maddalena found tales which would have been long sought for elsewhere, of which this book is a most convincing proof in itself; for while I had resolved on second thought to make it one of simple local tales, there still hangs over most—even of these—a dim, unholy air of sorcery, a witch aura, a lurid light, a something eerie

and uncanny, a restless hankering for the broom and the supernatural. Those tales are Maddalena’s every line—I pray thee, reader, not to make them mine. The spirit will always speak.

Very different, indeed, from these are the contributions of Marietta Pery, the improvvisatrice, though even she in good faith, and not for fun, had a horseshoe for luck; which, however, being of an artistic turn, she had elegantly gilded, and also, like a true Italian, wore an amulet. She, too, knew many fairy tales, but they were chiefly such as may be found among the Racconti delle Fate, and the variants which are now so liberally published. She had, however, a rare, I may almost say a refined, taste in these, as the poems which I have given indicate.

I must also express my obligations to Miss Roma Lister, a lady born in Italy of English parentage, who is an accomplished folk-lorist and collector, as was shown by her paper on the Legends of the Castelli Romani, read at the first meeting of the Italian Folk-Lore Society, founded by Count Angelo de Gubernatis, the learned and accomplished Oriental scholar, and editor of La Rivista. I would here say that her researches in the vicinity of Rome have gone far to corroborate what I published in the “Etruscan-Roman Remains.” I must also thank Miss Teresa Wyndham for sundry kind assistances, when I was ill in Siena.

There is no city in the world where, within such narrow limit, Art, Nature, and History have done so much to make a place beautiful and interesting as Florence. It is one where we feel that there has been vivid and varied life—life such as was led by Benvenuto Cellini and a

thousand like him—and we long more than elsewhere to enter into it, and know how those men in quaint and picturesque garb thought and felt four hundred years ago. Now, as at the present day politics and news do not enter into our habits of thought more than goblins, spirits of fountains and bridges, legends of palaces and towers, and quaint jests of friar or squire, did into those of the olden time, I cannot help believing that this book will be not only entertaining, but useful to all who would study the spirit of history thoroughly. The folk-lore of the future has a far higher mission than has as yet been dreamed for it; it is destined to revive for us the inner sentiment or habitual and peculiar life of man as he was in the olden time more perfectly than it has been achieved by fiction. This will be done by bringing before the reader the facts or phenomena of that life itself in more vivid and familiar form. Admitting this, the reader can hardly fail to see that the writer who gathers up with pains whatever he can collect of such materials as this book contains does at least some slight service to Science.

And to conclude—with the thing to which I would specially call attention—I distinctly state that (as will be very evident to the critical reader) there are in this book, especially in the second series, which I hope to bring out later, certain tales, or anecdotes, or jests, which are either based on a very slight foundation of tradition—often a mere hint—or have been so “written up” by a runaway pen—and mine is an “awful bolter”—that the second-rate folk-lorist, whose forte consists not in finding facts but faults, may say in truth, as one of his kind did in America: “Mr. Leland is throughout

inaccurate.” In these numerous instances, which are only “folk-lore” run wild, as Rip Van Winkle, Sleepy Hollow, and Heine’s Gods in Exile are legend, I have, I hope, preserved a certain spirit of truth, though I have sans mercy sacrificed the letter, even as the redcap goblins, which haunt old houses, are said to be the ghosts of infants sacrificed by witches, or slain by their mothers, in order to make folletti or imps of them.

Now as for this reconstructing Hercules from a foot, instead of giving the fragment, at which few would have glanced, the success consists in the skill attained, and the approbation of the reader. And with this frank admission, that in a certain number of these tales the utmost liberty has been taken, I conclude.

CHARLES GODFREY LELAND.

Florence, April 6, 1894.

CONTENTS

	page
The Three Horns of Messer Guicciardini	[1]
The Pills of the Medici	[6]
Furicchia, or the Egg-Woman of the Mercato Vecchio	[11]
The Lanterns of the Strozzi Palace	[17]
The Goblin of La Via Del Corno	[21]
Frate Giocondo, the Monk of Santa Maria Novella	[26]
The Legend of the Croce al Trebbio	[31]
The Two Fairies of the Well	[36]
The Story of the Via Delle Serve Smarrite	[41]
The Bronze Boar of the Mercato Nuovo	[47]
The Fairy of the Campanile, or the Tower of Giotto	[51]
The Goblin of the Tower Della Trinita, or the Porta San Niccolo	[54]
The Ghost of Michel Angelo	[59]
The Apparition of Dante	[62]
Legends of La Certosa	[66]
Legends of the Bridges in Florence	[74]
The Bashful Lover	[85]
La Fortuna	[87]
The Story of the Unfinished Palace	[91]
The Devil of the Mercato Vecchio	[98]
Seeing that All was Right	[107]
The Enchanted Cow of La Via Vacchereccia	[109]
The Witch of the Porta Alla Croce	[114]
The Column of Cosimo, or Della Santa Trinita	[118]
Legends of Or’ San Michele	[122]
The Witch of the Arno	[132]
Stories of San Miniato	[141]
The Frair’s Head of Santa Maria Maggiore—The Lady who Confessed for Everybody—Holy Relics	[149]
Biancone, the Giant Statue in the Signoria	[152]
The Red Goblin of the Bargello	[160]
Legends of San Lorenzo	[167]
Legends of the Piazza San Biagio	[174]
The Spirit of the Porta San Gallo	[176]
Story of the Podestà who was Long on his Journey	[179]
Legends of the Boboli Gardens: the Old Gardener, and the Two Statues and the Fairy	[184]
How La Via Della Mosca got its Name	[188]
The Roman Vase	[194]
The Unfortunate Priest	[201]
The Mysterious Fig-Tree	[205]
Il Palazzo Feroni	[211]
La Via Delle Belle Donne	[219]
The Wizard with Red Teeth	[221]
Orpheus and Eurydice	[225]
Intialo: the Spirit of the Haunting Shadow	[237]
Cain and his Worshippers	[254]

THE THREE HORNS OF MESSER GUICCIARDINI

“More plenty than the fabled horn
Thrice emptied could pour forth at banqueting.”

—Keats, The Earlier Version of “Hyperion.”

“Prosperity is often our worst enemy, making us vicious, frivolous, and insolent, so that to bear it well is a better test of a man than to endure adversity.”—Gicciardini, Maxims, No. 64.

I did not know when I first read and translated the following story, which was obtained for me and written out by Maddalena, that it had any reference to the celebrated historian and moralist, Guicciardini. How I did so forms the subject of a somewhat singular little incident, which I will subsequently relate.

Le Tre Corne.

“There was an elderly man, a very good, kind-hearted, wise person, who was gentle and gay with every one, and much beloved by his servants, because they always found him buono ed allegro—pleasant and jolly. And often when with them while they were at their work, he would say, ‘Felice voi poveri!’—‘Oh, how lucky you are to be poor!’ And they would reply to him, singing in the old Tuscan fashion, because they knew it pleased him:

“‘O caro Signor, you have gold in store,
With all to divert yourself;
Your bees make honey, you’ve plenty of money,
And victuals upon the shelf:
A palace you have, and rich attire,
And everything to your heart’s desire.’

“Then he would reply merrily:

“‘My dear good folk, because you are poor
You are my friends, and all the more,
For the poor are polite to all they see,
And therefore blessed be Poverty!’

“Then a second servant sang:

“‘Oh bello gentile mio Signor’,
Your praise of poverty ’d soon be o’er
If you yourself for a time were poor;
For nothing to eat, and water to drink,
Isn’t so nice as you seem to think,
And a lord who lives in luxury
Don’t know the pressure of poverty.’

“Then all would laugh, and the jolly old lord would sing in his turn:

“‘O charo servitor’,
Tu parli tanto bene,
Ma il tuo parlar
A me non mi conviene.’ . . .

“‘My boy, you answer well,
But with false implication;
For what to me you tell
Has no true application;
How oft I heard you say
(You know ’tis true, you sinner!)
“I am half-starved to-day,
How I’ll enjoy my dinner!”
Your hunger gives you health
And causes great delight,
While I with all my wealth
Have not an appetite.’

“Then another servant sang, laughing:

“‘Dear master, proverbs say,
I have heard them from my birth,
That of all frightful beasts
Which walk upon the earth,
Until we reach the bier,
Wherever man may be,
There’s nothing which we fear
So much as poverty.’

“And so one evening as they were merrily improvising and throwing stornelli at one another in this fashion, the Signore went to his street-door, and there beheld three ladies of stately form; for though they were veiled and dressed in the plainest black long robes, it was evident that they were of high rank. Therefore the old lord saluted them courteously, and seeing

that they were strangers, asked them whither they were going. But he had first of all had them politely escorted by his servants into his best reception-room. [3a]

“And the one who appeared to be the chief replied:

“‘Truly we know not where we shall lodge, for in all Florence there is, I trow, not a soul who, knowing who we are would receive us.’

“‘And who art thou, lady?’ asked the Signore. And she replied:

“‘Io mi chiamo, e sono,
La Poverta in persona,
E queste due donzelle,
Sono le mie sorelle,
Chi voi non conoscete
La Fame e la Sete!’

“‘I am one whom all throw curse on.
I am Poverty in person;
Of these ladies here, the younger
Is my sister, known as Hunger,
And the third, who’s not the worst,
Is dreaded still by all as Thirst.’

“‘Blessed be the hour in which ye entered my house!’ cried the Signore, delighted. ‘Make yourselves at home, rest and be at ease as long as you like—sempre sarei benglieto.’

“‘And why are you so well disposed towards me?’ inquired Poverty.

“‘Because, lady, I am, I trust, sufficiently wise with years and experience to know that everything must not be judged from the surface. Great and good art thou, since but for thee the devil a beggar in the world would ever move a finger to do the least work, and we should all be in mouldy green misery. Well hath it been said that ‘Need makes the old woman trot,’ [3b] and likewise that Poverta non guasta gentilezza—‘Poverty doth not degrade true nobility,’ as I can perceive by thy manner, O noble lady. Thou, Poverty, art the mother of Industry, and grandmother of Wealth, Health, and Art; thou makest all men work; but for thee there would be no harvests, yea, all the fine things in the world are due to Want.’

“‘And I?’ said Dame Hunger. ‘Dost thou also love me?’

“‘Si, Dio ti benedicha!’ replied the Signore. ‘La fame ghastiga il ghiotto’—‘Hunger corrects gluttony.

“‘Hunger causes our delight,
For it gives us appetite;
For dainties without hunger sent
Form a double punishment.’

‘Hunger is the best sauce.’ Thou makest men bold, for chane affamato non prezza bastone—a hungry dog fears no stick. Thou makest the happiness of every feast.’

“‘Ed io, Signore?’ said Thirst. ‘Hast thou also a good word for me?’

“‘A Dio, grazie! God be praised that thou art. For without thee I should have no wine. Nor do men speak in pity of any one when they say in a wine-shop, “He is thirsty enough to drink up the Arno.” I remember a Venetian who once said, coming to a feast, “I would not take five gold zecchini for this thirst which I now have.” And to sum it all up, I find that poverty with want to urge it is better than wealth without power to enjoy, and, taking one with another, the poor are honester and have better hearts than the rich.’

“‘Truly thou art great,’ replied Poverty. ‘Gentile, buono, e galantuomo a parlare—gentle, good, and noble in thy speech. In such wise thou wilt ever be rich, for as thou art rich thou art good and charitable. And thou hast well said that Plenty comes from us, and it is we who truly own the horn of plenty; and therefore take from me this horn as a gift, and while thou livest be as rich as thou art good and wise!’

“‘And I,’ said Hunger, ‘give thee another, and while it is thine thou shalt never want either a good appetite nor the means to gratify it. For thou hast seen the truth that I was not created to starve men to death, but to keep them from starving.’

“‘And I,’ said Thirst, ‘give thee a third horn of plenty; that is, plenty of wine and temperate desire—e buon pro vi faccia. Much good may it do you!’

“Saying this they vanished, and he would have thought it all a dream but for the three horns which they left behind them. So he had a long life and a happy, and in gratitude to his benefactresses he placed on his shield three horns, as men may see them to this day.”

When I received this legend, I did not know that the

three horns on a shield form the coat of arms of Messer Guicciardini, the historian, nor had I ever seen them. It happened by pure chance I went one day with my wife and Miss Roma Lister, who is devoted to folk-lore, to make my first visit to Sir John Edgar at his home, the celebrated old mediæval palazzo, the Villa Guicciardini, Via Montugli.

On the way we passed the Church of the Annunciata, and while driving by I remarked that there were on its wall, among many shields, several which had on them a single hunting-horn, but that I had never seen three together, but had heard of such a device, and was very anxious to find it, and learn to what family it belonged.

What was my astonishment, on arriving at the villa or palazzo, at beholding on the wall in the court a large shield bearing the three horns. Sir John Edgar informed me that it was the shield of the Guicciardini family, who at one time inhabited the mansion. I related to him the story, and he said, “I should think that tale had been invented by some one who knew Guicciardini, the author, very well, for it is perfectly inspired with the spirit of his writings. It depicts the man himself as I have conceived him.”

Then we went into the library, where my host showed me Fenton’s translation of the “History” of Guicciardini and his “Maxims” in Italian, remarking that the one which I have placed as motto to this chapter was in fact an epitome of the whole legend.

I should observe, what did not before occur to me, that the family palace of the Guicciardini is in the Via Guicciardini, nearly opposite to the house of Machiavelli, and that it is there that the fairies probably called, if it was in the winter-time.

THE PILLS OF THE MEDICI

“When I upon a time was somewhat ill,
Then every man did press on me a cure;
And when my wife departed, all of them
Came crowding round, commending me a spouse;
But now my ass is dead, not one of them
Has offered me another—devil a one!”—Spanish Jests.

“Tu vai cercando il mal, come fanno i Medici”—“Thou goest about seeking evil, even as the Medici do, and of thee and of them it may be said, Anagyram commoves.”—Italian Proverbs, a.d. 1618.

The higher a tree grows, the more do petty animals burrow into its roots, and displace the dirt to show how it grew in lowly earth; and so it is with great families, who never want for such investigators, as appears by the following tale, which refers to the origin of the Medicis, yet which is withal rather merry than malicious.

D’uno Medico che curava gli Asini.

“It was long ago—so long, Signore Carlo, that the oldest olive-tree in Tuscany had not been planted, and when wolves sometimes came across the Ponte Vecchio into the town to look into the shop-windows, and ghosts and witches were as common by night as Christians by day, that there was a man in Florence who hated work, and who had observed, early as the age was, that those who laboured the least were the best paid. And he was always repeating to himself:

“‘Con arte e con inganno,
Si vive mezzo l’anno,
Con inganno, e con arte,
Si vive l’altra parte.’

“Or in English:

“‘With tricks and cleverness, ’tis clear,
A man can live six months i’ the year,
And then with cleverness and tricks
He’ll live as well the other six.’

“Now having come across a recipe for making pills which were guaranteed to cure everything, he resolved to set up for an universal doctor, and that with nothing but the pills to aid. So he went forth from Florence, wandering from one village to another, selling his pills, curing some people, and getting, as often happens, fame far beyond his deserts, so that the peasants began to believe he could remedy all earthly ills.

“And at last one day a stupid contadino, who had lost his ass, went to the doctor and asked him whether by his art and learning he could recover for him the missing animal. Whereupon the doctor gave him six pills at a quattrino (a farthing) each, and bade him wander forth thinking intently all the time on the delinquent donkey, and, to perfect the spell, to walk in all the devious ways and little travelled tracks, solitary by-paths, and lonely sentieri, ever repeating solemnly, ‘Asino mio! asino mio! Tu che amo come un zio!’

“‘Oh my ass! my ass! my ass!
Whom I loved like an uncle,
Alas! alas!’

“And having done this for three days, it came to pass, and no great wonder either, that he found Signore Somaro (or Don Key) comfortably feasting in a dark lane on thistles. After which he praised to the skies the virtue of the wonderful pills, by means of which one could find strayed cattle. And from this dated the doctor’s success, so that he grew rich and founded the family of the Medici, who, in commemoration of this their great ancestor, put the six pills into their shield, as you may see all over Florence to this day.”

There is given in the “Facezie” a story which may be intended as a jest on this family. It is as follows:

“It happened once that a certain doctor or medico, who was by no means wanting in temerita or bold self-conceit, was sent as ambassador to Giovanna la Superba, or Joanna the Proud, Queen of Naples. And this Florentine Medico having heard many tales of the gallantries of the royal lady, thought he would try the chance, and thereby greatly please himself, and also the better advance his political aims. Therefore, at the first interview, he told her that he was charged with a secret mission, which could only be confided to her ‘between four eyes,’ or in private. So he was taken by her into a room, where he bluntly made a proposal of love. [8]

“Then the Queen, not in the least discomposed, looking straight at him, asked if that was one of the questions or demands with which he had been charged by the Florentines. At which he blushed like a beet and had no more to say, having learned that a bold beggar deserves a stern refusal.”

The name of the Medici naturally gave rise to many jests, and one of these is narrated of Gonella, a famous farceur. It is as follows:

“One morning, at the table of the Grand Duke Lorenzo, there was a discussion as to the number and proportion of those who followed different trades and callings, one declaring that there were more clothmakers, another more priests than any others, till at last the host asked Gonella his opinion.

“‘I am sure,’ said Gonella, ‘that there are more doctors than any other kind of people—e non accade dubitarne—and there is no use in doubting it.’

“‘Little do you know about it,’ replied the Duke, ‘if you do not know that in all this city there are only two or three accredited physicians.’

“‘With how little knowledge,’ answered Gonella, ‘can a state be governed. It seems, O Excellency, that you have so much to do that you do not know what is in your city, nor what the citizens do.’ And the result of the debate was a bet, and Gonella took every bet offered, his stakes being small and the others great—A quattrino e quattrino si fa il fiorino—Farthings to farthings one by one make a pound when all is done.

“The next morning Gonella, having well wrapped up his throat and face in woollen stuff, stood, looking pitifully enough, at the door of the Duomo, and every one who passed asked him what was the matter, to which he replied, ‘All my teeth ache terribly.’ And everybody offered him an infallible remedy, which he noted down, and with it the name of him who gave it. And then going about town, he made out during the day a list of three hundred prescribers, with as many prescriptions.

“And last of all he went to the palace at the hour of supper, and the Grand Duke seeing him so wrapped up, asked the cause, and hearing that it was toothache, also prescribed a sovereign remedy, and Gonella put it with the name of the Duke at the head of the list. And going home, he had the whole fairly engrossed, and the next day, returning to the palace, was reminded of his bets. Whereupon he produced the paper, and great was the laughter which it caused, since it appeared by it that all the first citizens and nobles of Florence were physicians, and that the Grand Duke himself was their first Medico. So it was generally admitted that Gonella had won, and they paid him the money, with which he made merry for many days.”

This tale has been retold by many a writer, but by none better than by an American feuilletoniste, who improved it by giving a number of the prescriptions commended. Truly it has been well said that at forty years of age every man is either a fool or a physician.

I have another legend of the Medici, in which it is declared that their armorial symbol is a key, and in which they are spoken of as wicked and cruel. It is as follows:

I Medici.

“The Palazzo Medici is situated in the Borgo degli Albizzi, and this palace is called by the people I Visacchi (i.e., figures or faces), because there are to be seen in it many figures of people who were when alive all witches and wizards, but who now live a life in death in stone.

“The arms of the Medici bear a great key, and it is said that this was a sorcerer’s or magic key, which belonged to the master of all the wizards or to the queen of the witches.

“And being ever evil at heart and cruelly wicked, the old Medici sought restlessly every opportunity to do wrong, which was greatly aided by the queen of the witches herself, who entered the family, and allied herself to one of it; others say she was its first ancestress. And that being on her death-bed, she called her husband, or son, or the family, and said:

“‘Take this key, and when I am dead, open a certain door in the cellar, which, through secret passages, leads to an enchanted garden, in which you will find all the books and apparatus needed to acquire great skill in sorcery, and thus thou canst do all the evil and enjoy all the crime that a great ruler can desire; spare not man in thy vengeance, nor woman in thy passion; he lives best who wishes for most and gets what he wants.’

“Thus it came to pass that the Medici became such villains, and why they bear a key.”

Villains they may have been, but they were not so deficient in moral dignity as a friend of mine, who, observing that one of the pills in their scutcheon is blue, remarked that they were the first to take a blue pill.

Since the above was written I have collected many more, and indeed far more interesting and amusing legends of the Medici; especially several referring to Lorenzo the Magnificent, which are not given by any writer that I am aware of. These will appear, I trust, in a second series.

“A race which was the reflex of an age
So strange, so flashed with glory, so bestarred
With splendid deeds, so flushed with rainbow hues,
That one forgot the dark abyss of night
Which covered it at last when all was o’er.
Take all that’s evil and unto it add
All that is glorious, and the result
Will be, in one brief word, the Medici.”

FURICCHIA, OR THE EGG-WOMAN OF THE MERCATO VECCHIO

“Est anus inferno, vel formidanda barathro,
Saga diu magicis usa magisteriis,
Hæc inhians ova gallina matre creatis.
Obsipat assueto pharmaca mixta cibo,
Pharmaca queis quæcunque semel gallina voratis,
Ova decem pariat bis deciesque decem.”

Steuccius, cited by P. Goldschmidt,
Verworffener Hexen und Zauberadvocat. Hamburg, 1705.

“E un figliuolo della gallina bianca.”—Old Proverb.

The Mercato Vecchio was fertile in local traditions, and one of these is as follows:

Legend of the Lanterns.

“There was in the Old Market of Florence an old house with a small shop in it, and over the door was the figure or bas-relief of a pretty hen, to show that eggs were sold there.

“All the neighbours were puzzled to know how the woman who kept this shop could sell so many eggs as she did, or whence she obtained them, for she was never seen in the market buying any, nor were they brought to her; whence they concluded that she was a witch and an egg-maker, and this scandal was especially spread by her rivals in business. But others found her a very good person, of kindly manner, and it was noted in time that she not only did a great deal of good in charity, and that her eggs were not only always fresh and warm, but that many persons who had drunk them when ill had been at once relieved, and recovered in consequence. And the name of this egg-wife was Furicchia.

“Now there was an old lady who had gone down in the world or become poor, and she too had set up a shop to sell eggs, but did not succeed, chiefly because everybody went to Furicchia. And this made the former more intent than ever to discover the secret, and she at once went to work to find it out.

“Every morning early, when Furicchia rose, she went out of doors, and then the hen carved over the door came down as a beautiful white fowl, who told her all the slanders and gossip which people spread about her, and what effort was being made to discover her secret. And one day it said:

“‘There is the Signora who was once rich and who is now poor, and who has sworn to find out thy secret how thou canst have so many eggs to sell, since no one sees thee buy any, and how it comes that invalids and bewitched children are at once cured by the virtue of those eggs. So she hopes to bring thee to death, and to get all thy trade.

“‘But, dear Furicchia, this shall never be, because I will save thee. I well remember how, when I was a little chicken, and the poultry dealer had bought me, and was about to wring my neck—b’r’r’r!—I shudder when I think of it!—when thou didst save my life, and I will ever be grateful to thee, and care for thy fortune.

“‘Now I will tell thee what to do. Thou shalt to-morrow take a pot and fill it with good wine and certain drugs, and boil them well, and leave it all hot in thy room, and then go forth, and for the rest I will provide. Addio, Furicchia!’ And saying this, the hen went back into her accustomed place.

“So the next morning, Furicchia, having left the wine boiling, went forth at ten o’clock, and she was hardly gone ere the Signora, her rival, entered the place and called for the mistress, but got no answer. Then she went into the house, but saw nothing more than a vast quantity of eggs, and all the while she heard the hen singing or clucking:

“‘Coccodé! Dear me!
Where can Furicchia be?
Coccodé! Furicchia mine!
Bring me quick some warm red wine!
Coccodé! Three eggs I have laid!
Coccodé! Now six for your trade.
Coccodé! Now there are nine,
Bring me quickly the warm red wine!
Coccodé! Take them away;
Many more for thee will I lay,
And thou wilt be a lady grand,
As fine as any in all the land;
And should it happen that any one
Drinks of this wine as I have done,
Eggs like me she will surely lay;
That is the secret, that is the way.
Coccodé! Coccodé!’

“Now the Signora heard all this, and knew not whence the song came, but she found the pot of hot wine and drank it nearly all, but had not time to finish it nor to escape before Furicchia returned. And the latter began to scold her visitor for taking such liberty, to which the Signora replied, ‘Furicchia, I came in here to buy an egg, and being shivering with cold, and seeing this hot wine, I drank it, meaning indeed to pay for it.’ But Furicchia replied, ‘Get thee gone; thou hast only come here to spy out my secret, and much good may it do thee!’

“The Signora went home, when she begun to feel great pain, and also, in spite of herself, to cluck like a hen, to the amazement of everybody, and then sang:

“‘Coccodé! Che mal di corpo!
Coccodé! Voglio fa l’uovo!
E se l’uova non faro,
Di dolore moriro.’

“‘Coccodé! What a pain in my leg!
Coccodé! I must lay an egg!
And if my eggs I cannot lay,
I shall surely die to-day.’

“Then she began to lay eggs indeed—tante, tante—till they nearly filled all the room, and truly her friends were aghast at such a sight, never having heard of such a thing before; but she replied, ‘Keep quiet; it is a secret. I have found out how Furicchia gets her eggs, and we shall be as rich as she.’ And having laid her eggs, nothing would do but she must needs hatch them, and all the time for many days she sat and sat, clucking like a hen—coccodé! coccodé!—and pecking at crusts like a hen, for she would not eat in any other way. And so she sat and shrivelled up until she became a hen indeed, and was never anything else, and died one. But when the eggs hatched, there came from them not chicks, but mice, which ran away into the cellar, and so ends the story.”

This story greatly resembles one given by Peter Goldschmidt in “The Witches’ and Sorcerers’ Advocate Overthrown,” published at Hamburg in 1705, and to the same as sung in Latin song by a certain Steuccius. The Italian tale is, however, far better told in every respect, the only point in common being that a certain witch laid

eggs by means of a potion, which produced the same effect on a man. It is the well-managed play of curiosity, gratitude, and character which make Furicchia so entertaining, and there is nothing in the heavy German tale like the “Song of the Hen,” or Coccodé, which is a masterpiece of a juvenile lyric. The clucking and pecking at crusts of the old woman, as she gradually passes into a hen, is well imagined, and also the finale of the chickens turned to mice, who all run away. One could make of it a play for the nursery or the stage.

The Mercato Vecchio, in which the egg-wife dwelt, was a place of common resort in the olden time, “when there was giving and taking of talk on topics temporal:”

“Where the good news fleetly flew,
And the bad news ever true,
Softly whispered, loudly told,
Scalding hot or freezing cold.” [14]

This place is recalled by a story which is indeed to be found in the facetiæ of the Florentine Poggio, yet which holds its own to this day in popular tale-telling. It is as follows:

“It happened once when Florence was at war with the Duke of Milan, that a law was passed making it death for any one to speak in any way of peace. Now there was a certain Bernardo Manetti, a man di ingegno vivacissimo, or an extremely ready wit, who being one day in the Mercato Vecchio to buy something or other (it being the custom of the Florentines of those times to go in person to purchase their daily food), was much annoyed by one of those begging friars who go about the roads, alla questua, collecting alms, and who stand at street-corners imploring charity. And this brazen beggar, accosting Bernardo, said to him:

“‘Pax vobiscum! Peace be unto you!’

“‘A chi parlasti di pace?—How darest thou speak to me of peace, thou traitor and enemy to Florence?’ cried Bernardo in well-assumed anger. ‘Dost thou not know that by public decree thou may’st lose thy shaven head for mentioning the word? And thou darest ask me for alms here in the open market-place, thou traitor to thy country and thy God! Apage, Satanas—avaunt!—begone! lest I be seen talking to thee and taken for a conspirator myself! Pax indeed—pack off with you, ere I hand you over to the torturers!’

“And so he rid himself of that importunate beggar.”

Apropos of the egg-wife, if chickens are apropos to eggs, there is a merry tale of a certain priest, which will, I think, amuse the reader. Like all good folk, the Florentines make fun of their neighbours, among whom are of course included the people of Arezzo, and tell of them this story:

“Long long ago, a certain Bishop Angelico convoked a Synod at Arezzo, summoning every priest in his diocese to be present; and knowing that many had slipped into very slovenly habits as regarded the sacerdotal uniform, made it a stern and strict order that every one should appear in cappa e cotta,’ [15] or in cloak and robe.

“Now there was a priest who, though he kept a well-filled cellar, and a pretty servant-maid, and a fine poultry-yard, had none of these clerical vestments, and knew not where to borrow them for the occasion; so he was in great distress and stavasi molto afflitto in casa sua—sat in deep affliction in his home. And his maid, who was a bright and clever girl, seeing him so cast down, asked him the cause of his grief, to which he replied that the Bishop had summoned him to appear at the Synod in cappa e cotta.

“‘Oh, nonsense!’ replied the good girl. ‘Is that all? My dear master, you do not pronounce the words quite correctly, or else they have been badly reported to you. It is not cappa e cotta which the Bishop requires, for assuredly he has plenty of such clothes, but capponi cotti, ‘good roast capons,’ such as all bishops love, and which he knows he can get better from the country priests than from anybody. And grazie a Dio! there is nobody in all Tuscany has better poultry than ours, and I will take good care that you give the Bishop of the very best.’

“Now the priest being persuaded by the maid, really made his appearance at the Council bearing in a dish well covered with a napkin four of the finest roasted capons ever seen. And with these he advanced in pleno concilo, in full assembly before the Bishop. The great man looked severely at the priest, and said:

“‘Where are thy cappa e cotta?’

“‘Excellenza, behold them!’ said the good man, uncovering the dish. ‘And though I say it, no better capponi cotte can be had in all our country.’

“The Bishop and all round him gazed with breathless admiration on the fowls, so plump, so delicious, so exquisitely roasted, with lemons ranged round them. It was just the hungry time of day, and, in short, the priest had made a blessed happy blunder, and one which was greatly admired. There was general applause.

“‘Figlio mio!’ said the Bishop with a smile, ‘take my blessing! Thou alone of all the ministers of our diocese didst rightly understand the spirit and meaning of an episcopal edict.’”

THE LANTERNS OF THE STROZZI PALACE

“And what this man did was, as the proverb says, mostrare altrui lucciole per laterne—made him believe that fire-flies were lanterns—which means to deceive any one.”—Italian Proverbs.

As all visitors to Florence will have their attention called to the Strozzi Palace, and its rings and lanterns, the following will probably prove to them to be of interest:

“The campanelle, or great iron rings, which are on the Strozzi Palace, were the result of rivalry with the Pitti family.

“The Strozzi built their palace first, and then the Pitti said that it would only fill a corner of their own far greater building. And when the latter was finished, the Strozzi, to be even with them, placed those magnificent campanelle at the four corners, and then the great lanterns which are so exquisitely worked, and these were made by Niccolò il Grosso, a very ingenious but also very poor man, who, having begun the work, could not finish it for want of money.

“One morning when this Niccolo was sitting on the stone bench of the palace, there came by an old man who was carrying some onions, and the artist begged a few of these to eat with his bread, telling him he had no money. But the old man said, ‘Take them, and welcome, for a free gift, Niccolò. Truly, it pains me to see an excellent artist like thee starving for want of proper patronage. Now I will lend thee a round sum, which thou canst repay me when thou art in better luck.’

“‘But tell me,’ inquired Niccolò, greatly amazed, ‘how dost thou know who I am?’

“The old man replied, ‘I know thee, and that thou hast great genius (una gran testa), and I find thee utterly poor and unable to finish the Strozzi lanterns.

“‘Now I wish to do thee a service. Go, with these onions in thine hand, and stand there in the street till the Lords Strozzi go forth, and see thee with the vegetables, and then they will ask thee why thou dost not finish the lanterns. And then thou shalt reply, “Signori, because I must sell onions, not being able otherwise to finish the lanterns, for truly all my art does not give me bread.” Then they will give thee money, and after that return to me.’

“So it happened as the old man said: the Signori Strozzi, when they came forth, found Niccolò their artist selling onions, and gave him a good sum of money, and with that he went back to the old man. And they gave him a great sum indeed, for he was to make the lanterns all of solid gold, so that the palace might be far finer than the Pitti.

“The old man said, ‘Never mind paying me, but put an onion in your pocket and study it.’ And this he did, hence it comes that the tops of the lanterns are like onion sprouts. And Niccolò seeing that he lived in a hard and cruel world, in order to be even with it, made the lanterns of iron, though the work which he put upon it was like jewellery, so fine was it, and then gilded the iron and passed the lanterns off on the Signori Strozzi for solid gold, and was soon heard of as being very far away from Florence, in company with the good old man who had put him up to the little game (bel giuoco).

“But people say that after all the Strozzi were not so badly cheated, for those onion-top lanterns could not have been bought even in their time for their weight in gold, and that they are worth much more now.”

It is needless to say that this ingenious tale owes its origin to the iron lanterns having been at one time gilt. These famous works of art have been copied far and wide: had the Strozzi family taken out and renewed the copyright for design on them, they might have found that the gold was a very good investment, especially in these times, when a thing of beauty brings in cash for ever. One of the latest and prettiest devices, to be seen in many shops, is a small iron night-lamp in imitation of these Strozzi lanterns.

The im-moral, or at least the concluding sentence of the tale is, “E così Niccolò se ne fuggi a tasche piene—And so Niccolò fled with his pockets full of money.” I spare the reader reflections on the history of many bankers in

Florence and Rome, who during the past two years followed his example.

What is extremely interesting and original in this legend is the declaration that Niccolò took the idea of the long and very singular points on the lanterns from an onion. It recalls the story of the acanthus leaf and the basket which suggested the Ionic capital. It was understood by the narrator that the old man who gave “the tips” to Niccolò was a wizard.

There was much more meaning attached to the lanterns and rings, such as Niccolò made, than is generally known, as appears by the following extract:

“Among the striking features of the Florentine palaces are the handsome ornaments of bronze or wrought-iron which adorn the façades of many of them. These were called fanali or lumière, and were not, as one would naturally suppose, ornaments that a man might place on his house according to his individual taste, but they were the visible testimony of the public recognition of great deeds. On festive occasions, these fanali were provided with great pitch torches, whose crackling flames gave a merry aspect to the whole neighbourhood. Amerigo Vespucci addressed the account of one of his voyages to the Gonfaloniere Piero Soderini, with whom he had formerly been on intimate terms, and the latter procured a decree of the Republic, in accordance with which fanali were sent to the family palace of the Vespucci, and kept burning day and night for three days.

“The most beautiful of all the Florentine fanali . . . are those which adorn the corners of the famous Strozzi Palace. They are of wrought-iron, and were made by a smith who enjoyed a local celebrity, not only on account of his masterly work, but also because he carried on his business on a strictly cash basis; nay, went further, and refused to work for any one who did not prepay, in part at least, for his order. Thus he received the name of Caparra, or Earnest-money.”—Florentine Life, by W. B. Scaife, p. 58.

There is one thing in this legend which alone would seem to guarantee its being an authentic or old tradition.

In it Niccolò appears as a man who is eminently grasping, and who takes care to get his money in advance. And he was in reality so noted for this, that, as Scaife declares, he went further than dealing on a cash basis—and so got the nickname of Caparra, or the Pledge—so well did he know the value of cash. Il martel d’argento rompe le porte di ferro, or—

“A hammer of silver, as we see,
Breaks the iron gates of poverty.”

THE GOBLIN OF LA VIA DEL CORNO

“Oh for one blast of that dread horn,
On Fontarabian echoes borne,
When Roland brave and Olivier,
And every paladin and peer
At Roncesvalles died.”—Walter Scott.

“The Korrigan who ever wears a horn.”

The Via del Corno is a narrow street passing from the Via del Leone. I have found the following story in reference to the origin of its name, which, if not authentic, is at least amusing and original:

La Via del Corno.

“There was in what is now known as the Via del Corno an ancient palace, which a long time ago was inhabited only by a certain gentleman and a goblin. [21]

“Nor had he any servants, because of all who came, none remained more than one day for fear of the folletto. And as this spread far and wide, people kept away from the Via del Corno after dark; but as this also kept away thieves, and the goblin did all the house-work, the master was all the better pleased. Only on one point did the two differ, and that was the point of morality. Here the goblin was extremely strict, and drew the line distinctly. Several times, as was the custom in those wicked days, the Signore attempted to introduce a lady-friend to the palazzo, but the goblin all night long, when not busied in pulling the sheets from the fair sinner, was industriously occupied in strewing nettles or burrs under her, or tickling the soles of her feet with a pen; and then anon,

when, sinking to sleep, she hoped for some remission of the tease, he would begin to play interminable airs on a horn. It is true that he played beautifully, like no earthly musician, but even enchanting airs may be annoying when they prevent sleep.

“Nor did the lord fare the better, even when, inspired by higher motives, he ‘would a-wooing go.’ For one lady or another had heard of the goblin, and when they had not, it always happened that by some mysterious means or other the match was broken off.

“Meantime the life led by the Signore was rather peculiar, as he slept nearly all day, sallied forth for an hour or two to exercise, go to a barber’s, make his small purchases, or hear the news, supped at a trattoria, and then returning home, sat all night listening to the goblin as he played divinely on the horn, or blew it himself, which he did extremely well, toped and hob-nobbed with his familiar, who was a great critic of wine, and, as the proverb says, ‘Buon vino fiaba lunga—Good wine, long tales’—they told one another no end of merry and marvellous stories; and as il vin fa cantare, it makes man sing, they also sang duets, solos, and glees. And when the weather was ill, or chilly, or rainy, or too hot, they cured it with Chianti, according to a medical prescription laid down in sundry rare old works:

“Nebbia, nebbia, mattutina,
Che ti levi la mattina?
Questa tazza di buon vino,
Fatta d’una marzamina,
Contra te sia medecina!’

“‘Cloudy sky i’ the morning early,
What will make you vanish fairly?
Ah! this goblet of good wine,
Essence of the blessed vine,
Shall be for thee a medicine!’

“Then they played chess, cards, cribbage, drole, écarté, Pope Joan, bo, brag, casino, thirty-one, put, snip-snap-snorem, lift-em-up, tear-the-rag, smoke, blind-hookey, bless-your-grand-mother, Polish-bank, seven-up, beggar-my-neighbour, patience, old-maid, fright, baccarat, belle-en-chemise, bang-up, howling-Moses, bluff, swindle-Dick, go-it-rags, ombre or keep-dark, morelles, go-bang, goose, dominoes, loto, morra or push-pin. And when extra hands were wanted they came, but all that came were only fairy hands, short at the wrist, the goblin

remarking that it saved wine not to have mouths, et cetera. Then they had long and curious and exceedingly weighty debates as to the laws of the games and fair play, not forgetting meanwhile to sample all the various wines ever sung by Redi. [23] So they got on, the Signore realising that one near friend is worth a hundred distant relations.

“Now it befell one night that the goblin, having seen the Signore take off a pint of good old strong Barolo very neatly and carefully, without taking breath or winking, exclaimed with a long, deep sigh:

“‘Thou art a gallant fellow, a right true boon companion, and it grieves me to the heart to think that thou art doomed to be drowned to-morrow.’

“‘Oh you be—doctored!’ replied the Signore. ‘There isn’t water enough in the Arno now to drown a duck, unless she held her head under in a half-pint puddle.’

“The goblin went to the window, took a look at the stars, whistled and said:

“‘As I expected, it is written that you are to be drowned to-morrow, unless you carry this horn of mine hung to your neck all day.

“‘Quando ti trovi nel pericolo,
Suona questo corno piccolo,
E tu sarai salvato,
Non sarai affogato!’

“‘If thou find’st thyself forlorn,
Blow aloud this little horn,
And thou wilt be safe and sound,
For with it thou’lt not be drowned.’

“Saying this, he solemnly handed the horn to the cavalier, drank off a goblet of muscato, wiped his lips, bowed a ceremonious good-night, and, as was his wont, vanished with dignity up the chimney.

“The gentleman was more troubled by this prediction than he liked to admit. I need not say that the next day he did not go near the Arno, though it was as dry as a bone; nay, he kept out of a bath, and was almost afraid to wash his face.

“At last he got the fancy that some enemies or villains would burst into his lonely house, bind him hand and foot carry him far away, and drown him in some lonely stream, or

perhaps in the sea. He remembered just such a case. We all remember just such cases when we don’t want to. That was it, decidedly.

“Then he had a happy thought. There was a little hiding-chamber, centuries old, in the palazzo, known only to himself, with a concealed door. He would go and hide there. He shouted for joy, and when he entered the room, he leaped with a great bound from the threshold of the door, down and over three or four steps, into the middle of the little room.

“Now he did not know that in the cantina or cellar below this hiding-place there was an immense tino, or vat, containing hundreds of barrels of wine, such as are used to hold the rough wine ere it is drawn off and ‘made;’ nor that the floor was extremely decayed, so that when he came down on it with a bounce, it gave way, and he found himself in the cellar over head and ears in wine.

“And, truly, for a minute he deemed that he was drowning in earnest. And the sides of the vat were so high that he could not climb out. But while swimming and struggling for life, he caught between his thumb and finger at a nail in the side, and to this he held, crying as loud as he could shout for aid. But no one came, and he was just beginning to despair, when he thought of the horn!

“It still hung from his neck, and pouring out the wine, he blew on it, and there came forth such a tremendous, appalling, and unearthly blast as he of himself could never have blown. It rang far and wide all over Florence, it was heard beyond Fiesole, it wakened the dead in old Etrurian graves, for an instant, to think they had been called by Tinia to meet the eleven gods; it caused all the folletti, fate, diavoli, strege, and maliardi to stop for an instant their deviltries or delights. For it was the Great Blast of the Horn of the Fairies, which only plays second fiddle to the last trump. [24]

“And at that sound all Florence came running to see what was the matter. The Grand Duke and his household came; the Council of the Eight burst their bonds, and left the Palazzo Vecchio; everybody came, and they fished out the Signore, and listened with awe to his tale. The priests said that the goblin was San Zenobio, the more liberal swore it was Crescenzio, the people held to plain San Antonino. The Signore became a great man.

“‘My son,’ said the goblin to him in confidence the following evening, ‘as they sat over their wine,’ (here I follow the text of Maddalena), ‘this is our last night together. Thou art saved, and I have fulfilled my duty to thee. Once I, too, was a man like thee, and in that life thou didst save mine by rescuing me from assassins. And I swore to watch over thee in every peril, and bring thee to a happy end.’

“‘Il momenta e arrivato;
Addio, Via del Corno!
Addio, palazzo, addio!
Addio, padrone, nel altro mondo!’

“‘The final hour has come for me;
Street of the Horn, farewell to thee!
Farewell, O palace, farewell, O street!
My lord, in another world we’ll meet.’

“Then the goblin told the Signore that he would ere long contract a happy marriage, and that it was for this that he had hitherto kept him from forming alliances which would have prevented it; and that if in future he should ever be in great need of assistance, to sound the horn, and he would come to him, but that this must always be in the palace alone after midnight. And having said this he vanished.

“The Signore grieved for a long time at the loss of his goblin friend, but he married happily, as had been predicted, and his life was long and prosperous. So he put the horn in his shield, and you may see it to this day on the Church of Santa Maria Novella. And so it was that the Via del Corno got its name.”

“From which we may learn,” saith Flaxius, “that wherever a man is appointed to be on a certain day, there will the man be found. Therefore do thou, O reader, so manage it that wherever thou art appointed to be, thou canst get well out of it. For even Fate smiles when it desires to do so.”

FRATE GIOCONDO, THE MONK OF SANTA MARIA NOVELLA

“In illo tempore—no—in diebus illis, che i frati sogliono percorrere il contado delle terre e delle città per far proviste alla barba degli scimuniti d’ogni genere pappatorio, vale dir di grano, formentone, legumi, mosto, cacio, olio, canape, lino, uova et cetera—un certo fra Zeffiro, se ne gira alla volta d’un villagio e tenevagli compagnia il suo ciucarello che carica gia a doppio sacchetto.”—L’Asino e il suo Frate, Racconti Piacevoli, 1864,

“Und sie war gar sehr erstannet über die Adresse und List dieses Münchleins.”—Lustige Thaten des Kloster-bruders Hannes von Lehnin, a.d. 1589.

“Monachus in claustro
Non valet ova dua,
Sed extra—bene valet triginta.”—Rabelais.

Among the monks of Santa Maria Novella in ancient days was one known as Frate Giocondo, who was truly of the kind who are of little use at home, or at any steady or reputable calling, but who was profitable enough when scouring the country on the loose, blarneying and begging from the good wives, giving counsel to the peasants, and profitable advice, while he ate their chickens and drank their wine, chucking all the pretty girls under their chins, or sub silentio, and making himself sociable, edifying, amusing, or holy—according to circumstances. Of whom it could be truly said:

“Monaco in convento
Non vale niente,
Ma fuori vale venti.”

“Monk in monastery
Is not worth a cherry;
But abroad when sent, he
Often is worth twenty.”

As a preaching friar of Saint Dominic, truly Brother Giocondo was not a success, but as a beggar he beat

all the Zoccoloni out of Rome, [27] and that is saying a great deal. For there never was a friar with such an oiled and honeyed tongue, with which he could flatter and wheedle, tell legends of the saints, witches, or goblins by the hour, give all the gossip going; nor was he above selling his collections, or trading donkeys, or taking a hand at a game of cards, or singing to a lute, or even fiddling to a dance—so that, being a great, burly, handsome, merry-eyed knave, he got on marvellously well in the world, his jests being reported even in Siena.

Now one evening he was returning home to Santa Maria Novella dalla cercha, “from the quest,” and found himself still a few miles from Florence. And good fortune had favoured him marvellously that day, for his ass bore two panniers which were ben carichi d’ogni sorta di grazia di Dio—“stuffed full with all sorts of mercies of God,” such as bags of wheat, maize, wheat-meal, chickens, oil, cheese, butter, wine, truffles, onions, geese, turnips, sausages, bread, ducks; in short, Signore, as I said, there was ogni sorta di grazia di Dio, and enough to support a poor family for a month.

Now, darkness coming on, and rain falling, the Friar stopped at a lonely house, where he neither knew the people nor was known to them, and begged for a night’s lodging. The master of the place was a well-to-do person, but a great knave, and no sooner had he perceived that the monk had such a plentiful stock of provisions, than he saw his way to give all his neighbours a splendid feast at no expense to himself, at which he could not fail to relieve some of his guests of their money.

Now this rogue had a daughter who was scaltra e bene affilata—shrewd and sharp as a razor, one who could teach cats to see in the dark, and who had grown to villainy from her babyhood, even as a reed shoots upwards.

And she only caught a wink from her good father, which glanced off on to the load of the friar’s donkey, to understand the whole game, and what was expected of her.

You must know, Signore Carlo, that the wench was very good-looking—bad wine in a silver cup, pretty to look at, but vile to sup—and had all the sweet, innocent, simple look of a saint, and she made up to Frate Giocondo like a kitten to a child, which he took in no wise amiss, being used to such conquests. And who so flattering and fawning as they all were on Brother Giocondo; how they laughed at his jests, and seemed to be in the last agonies of delight; but winked at one another withal, for there were six lusty brothers or cousins in the family, who, in case of need, did the heavy dragging out, or advanced the last argument with clubs.

By-and-by, as the night wore on, the black-eyed baggage stole away and hid herself in the room allotted to the Friar, though with no intention to break the seventh—but that against stealing—as you will see. For when the good Giocondo went to bed, which he did in full dress, he knew not that she was there. And as soon as he began to snore, she tapped gently on the wall three times, and then went and laid herself down softly by the Friar, who did not awake. At which all the band came bursting in with torches and staves, and began to beat the victim, reviling and cursing him for having deluded the poor child, so that there was a fearful fracasso—a great riot—but they left the door open, through which the pious Giocondo bolted, and none pursued, as they had already secured his provisions.

Now Giocondo shrewdly noted this, and at once understood that he had been as shrewdly robbed, and that by such a trick as left no door open to return and claim his property. So he quietly mounted his ass and rode away, and returning to the convent, thought it all over, till he

came to a device to revenge himself. For he was one of those who was never bit by a wolf but what he had his skin.

So he let a long time pass by, and then went to work. First of all he got two jars, and paid a contadino to catch for him as many living vipers as would fill them both, saying it was for the apothecary of his convent to make teriaca or Venetian treacle, which is a cure for serpents’ bites. And then he disguised himself like a lord’s messenger, darkening his face, and putting on long curling locks, with a bold impudent air, with cloak and feather, sword and dagger; truly no one would ever have known him. And in this guise he went again to the Albergo de’ Ladri, or Thieves’ Den, asking once more for lodging, which was cheerfully granted.

Now the part which he played, and that to perfection, was that of a foolish gasconading servant; nor had he been long in the house ere he informed his host in confidence that he served a great lord who was in love with a married lady in Florence, and to win her good graces had sent her two jars full of honey or conserves, but that there was in each a hundred crowns in gold, of which he was to privately inform the lady, lest her husband should suspect the truth; adding artfully, “But i’ faith, if I were to steal the whole myself and run away, my lord would never pursue me, so fearful is he lest the thing should be found out; and even if I were to be robbed, one could do nothing.”

And as he said this he saw the knave give a wink to his daughter, and knew very well what it meant, but pretended to take no notice of it. So all went as before, and the girl stole into his room and hid herself. But he, who was prepared for everything, when he retired took from his pocket two or three large screws and a screwdriver, and closed the great strong door so that it would resist a hard assault, and left the window open so that he could easily escape, and so went to bed.

Then the girl, when she thought he was asleep, gave the signal, and the thieves tried to burst in, but could not. And Friar Giocondo, jumping up, gave the girl such a beating as she had never heard of, abusing her all the time as a song to the accompaniment of the thrashing, till at last, when he saw they were really coming in, he jumped through the window, ran to the stable, and finding there a fine horse, saddled it in haste and rode away like the wind.

The thieves were so intent on the jars that they paid no heed to anything else, not even to the girl, who was raging mad at her father for having exposed her to such danger. So they got two deep plates, and opened both jars at once to pour the honey out, when lo! there came swarming forth the vipers, hissing, and squirming, and darting out their tongues like so many devils. At which sight they all fled in fear, the girl first, nor did she stop till she got to Fiesole, where, in great terror, she (fearing for her soul) told the whole story to everybody and the monks.

The thief went to the stable, but found his horse gone, and so had to content himself with Giocondo’s donkey, on which, fearing the pursuit of justice, he rode away, to be hanged somewhere else. And the Abbot of Santa Maria Novella cheerfully absolved Brother Giocondo for stealing the horse—and accepted it as a graceful gift, or in recompense for the load of provisions which had been lost.

“Thus ’twas with all of them it sped,
And the Abbot came out one horse ahead!”

THE LEGEND OF THE CROCE AL TREBBIO

“The bell in the Bargello called the Montanara obtained the name of the Campana delle Arme because it was the signal for citizens to lay aside their weapons and retire home.”—Hare’s “Cities of Central Italy.”

“Where towers are crushed, and temples fair unfold
A new magnificence that vies with old,
Firm in its pristine majesty hath stood
A votive column.”—Wordsworth, “Pillar of Trajan.”

Very near to the Church of Santa Maria Novella is the small piazza or open place of the Croce al Trebbio. This is a column with a crucifix, the whole being of beautiful proportions and of a strikingly romantic character. It is said to have been raised to commemorate a victory of “that sanguinary fanatic Saint Peter Martyr” over the Paterini. “The Croce al Trebbio,” says Leader Scott, “of the year 1244, is a work of the Pisan school, but whether it is by Niccolò or Giovanni Pisani, who were in Florence about that epoch, there is nothing to show. There was [31] a curious Latin inscription in Gothic letters, which began: Sanctus Ambrosius cum Sancto Zenobio propter grande mysterium hanc crucem—and went on to say that it was reconstructed by the bishops of Florence and of Aquileia in August 1308. It is evident that the connection of the cross with Saint Peter Martyr is mere conjecture, the Italian authorities say che si crede, ‘believed’ to be erected on the spot where a victory was gained over the Paterini. If this were so, where is the mystery referred to in the inscription?”

The legend, which was after long inquiry recovered by my collector, distinctly describes the reconstruction of the

cross, and as certainly sets forth a mysterium magnum with an apparition of the Virgin on this very spot, which would have assuredly caused a pillar, if not a church, to be erected in the thirteenth century. The story of this mystery is as follows:

La Croce al Trebeio.

“Where the Croce al Trebbio now stands, was in very old times a great palace occupied by one of the most ancient families of Florence. And when it died out, there came into the house three families, but none could remain there, being so terrified with fearful sounds and an apparition.

“It was the custom in those days in Florence to ring a bell at ten o’clock at night, which was a signal for every citizen to go home at once; therefore, after that hour no one was seen in the streets except police guards, military patrols, and riotous young men, whom the former aimed at arresting. It often happened that such irregular folk took refuge in the old palazzo, but if they remained there one night, they had enough of it, and never returned, so great was the horror which they were sure to feel.

“The first occurrence which gave the place a bad name was as follows: Some time after the death of the last of the old line of Signori who had occupied the palace, and the three families spoken of had come into it, on the first night at midnight they heard some one put a key in the house-door, open the same with great noise, and come storming and swearing up the stairs into the great dining-hall. Then there entered a tall and magnificently dressed gentleman, of very handsome and distinguished appearance, but his face was deadly pale, his eyes had a terrible gleam, and it seemed as if a light bluish flame flickered and crept about him, ever rising and vanishing like small serpents.

“And entering, he began to scold and blaspheme in a diabolical manner, as if at servants whom he was accustomed to have promptly at his call, saying, ‘Birbanti di servitori—you scoundrelly waiters—you have not got supper ready for me, nor laid the tables.’ Saying this, he seized on plates and glasses, and dashing them down violently, broke them in mad rage. Then he entered the best bedroom in the house, where some one lay asleep, and this man he maltreated and hurled forth, saying that the bed was his own.

“And if after that any one dared to sleep in the old palazzo, he was found there dead in the morning, or else lived but a few days. So it came to pass that no one would inhabit it; nay, all the houses round about began to be deserted, and the whole neighbourhood regarded it as a pest. And from all this they were relieved by a marvellously strange occurrence and a great miracle.

“There was a gentleman who was very pious, honourable, and brave, a good man at every point, but wretchedly poor, so that he with his eight children and wife had all been turned into the street, because he could not pay his rent.

“Then in his distress he went to the city council and begged for some kind of relief or employment; and they being much concerned at the time about the haunted palazzo, knowing him to be a man who would face the devil, with little to fear on account of his integrity, proposed to him to occupy the building, adding that he and his family should every day be supplied with food and wine gratis, and that if, as was generally supposed, there was hidden treasure in the palace, and he could find it, he should be welcome to keep it.

“To which this brave man willingly assented, and at once went his way to the haunted palace. But while on the road he obtained olive sprigs, salt, and frankincense, also certain images of saints, and then with much holy water sprinkled all the rooms, stairs, and cellars, praying withal. [33]

“And the first night there was again heard the grating of the key in the lock, the crash of the door, the rapid heavy footfall, and the spirit appeared with the waving plume of flame on his splendid beretta or cap, when suddenly he was checked and could go no farther, because the hall had been blessed, yes, and thoroughly. Then the spectre began to bellow and roar, and utter whistling screams and all horrible sounds, worse than a wild beast.

“But the new master of the house did not let fear overcome him in the least, and the next day he renewed the sprinkling and blessing, and finding there was a chapel in the palace, he called in a priest, who there read a mass for the soul of the ghost, so that he might rest in peace.

“Now there was a beautiful little garden attached to the

palace, and the children of the new tenant were delighted to play in it.

“And in the middle of the garden they found a cross with a Christ on it, and the cross had been shattered. But the children took the pieces and carried them one by one into the chamber where no one dared to sleep, and there they put them piously together, and dressed a little altar before it, and began to sing hymns.

“But while they were thus singing in their simple devotion, wishing to aid their father, there was a knock at the door, and a lady entered whose face was concealed in a veil, but who seemed to be weeping as she beheld them, and she said, ‘Children, keep ever as you are; always be good and love God, and He will love you!’

“Then she continued, ‘The master of this house was a gambler and a blasphemer; when he lost money at gambling he would return home and beat this image of Christ, till one night, being in a mad rage, he broke it and threw it into the garden.’

“‘But soon after that he fell ill, and knowing that he was dying, he buried all his treasure in the garden. Love God, and you shall find it. So he died, blaspheming and condemned. Love God, and He will love you!’ And saying this, she vanished.

“The children, all astonished, ran to their father and mother, and told them that a beautiful lady had visited them, and what she had said.

“Then they said to the children, ‘You must indeed be always good, for that Lady who spoke to you was the Holy Virgin, who will always protect you.’ And then the father called in a priest to say midnight mass at the time when the spirit would appear. And he came, and said, ‘I am he who broke the cross, and for that I was damned!’ Then the priest began to sprinkle holy water, with exorcisms, when all at once the accursed one disappeared in a tremendous, over-whelming crash of thunder, and the whole palace fell to gravel and dust—there was not left one stone standing on the other, save the cross which the children had repaired, which rose alone in the middle of the garden.

“Then the next day the good man dug away the rubbish by the cross, and when this was removed, they found a mass of charcoal, and under this the treasure.

“Then the Signore, grown rich, had, to commemorate this,

a beautiful column built, on which he placed the cross, and this is known to this day as the Croce al Trebbio, or the Crucifix of the Cross-roads.”

If the Croce al Trebbio really commemorates one of the most iniquitous massacres which ever disgraced even the Church, then to find this tender and graceful little tale springing up from it, reminds me of what I once heard of a violet which was found growing in the Far West, and blooming in an Indian’s skull. The conception of the children playing at worshipping, and yet half-worshipping, is very Italian. I have seen little boys and girls thus rig up a small chapel in the streets of Rome, and go through the mass and other ceremonies with intense interest.

It may also be observed that in this, as in many other legends, charcoal is found over a hidden treasure. The folk-lore of coal in connection with money is so extensive and varied, that one could write on it a small book. I believe that the two are synonyms in all canting jargons or “slanguages.”

“Hence probably came,” remarks Flaxius, “the saying, ‘To haul one over the coals,’ meaning to go over money-accounts with any one who has cause to dread the ordeal. Truly ’tis but a conjecture, yet I remember that in my youth it was generally applied to such investigations.

“‘And so ’twas held in early Christian time
That glowing coals were a sure test of truth
And holy innocence, as was full proved
By Santa Agnatesis of the Franks,
And fair Lupita of the Irish isle.’”

Since writing the foregoing I have found the whole of the ancient inscription of the cross, as it was preserved by two chroniclers. This will be found in another chapter.

THE TWO FAIRIES OF THE WELL
a legend of the via calzaioli

“When looking down into a well,
You’ll see a fairy, so they tell,
Although she constantly appears
With your own face instead of hers;
And if you cry aloud, you’ll hear
Her voice in the ringing echo clear;
Thus every one unto himself
May be a fairy, or an elf.”

“And truly those nymphs and fairies who inhabit wells, or are found in springs and fountains, can predict or know what is to take place, as may be read in Pausanias, and this power they derive from their habitat, or, as Creuzer declares (Symbolik, part iv. 72), they are called Muses, inasmuch as they dwell in Hippocrene and Aganippe, the inspiring springs of the Muses.”—On the Mysteries of Water. Friedrich (Symbolik).

Long after Christianity had come in, there were many places in the vast edifice of society whence the old heathen deities refused to go out, and there are even yet nooks and corners in the mountains where they receive a kind of sorcerer’s worship as folletti. A trace of this lingering in a faith outworn, in nymphs, dryads, and fata, is found in the following story:

Le Due Ninfe del Pozzo.

“There once lived in Florence a young nobleman, who had grown up putting great faith in fate, ninfe, and similar spirits, believing that they were friendly, and brought good fortune to those who showed them respect. Now there was in his palazzo in the Via Calzaioli, at the corner of the Condotta, a very old well or fountain, on which were ancient and worn images, and in which there was a marvellous echo, and it was said that two nymphs had their home in it. And the Signore,

believing in them, often cast into the spring wine or flowers, uttering a prayer to them, and at table he would always cast a little wine into water, or sprinkle water on the ground to do them honour.

“One day he had with him at table two friends, who ridiculed him when he did this, and still more when he sang a song praising nymphs and fairies, in answer to their remarks. Whereupon one said to him:

“‘Truly, I would like to see
An example, if ’t may be,
How a fairy in a fountain,
Or a goblin of the mountain,
Or a nymph of stream or wood,
Ever did one any good;
For such fays of air or river,
One might wait, I ween, for ever,
And if even such things be,
They are devils all to me.’

“Then the young Signore, being somewhat angered, replied:

“‘In the wood and by the stream,
Not in reverie or dream,
Where the ancient oak-trees blow,
And the murmuring torrents flow,
Men whose wisdom none condemn
Oft have met and talked with them.
Demons for you they may be,
But are angels unto me.’

“To which his friend sang in reply, laughing:

“‘Only prove that they exist,
And we will no more resist;
Let them come before we go,
With ha! ha! ha! and ho! ho! ho!’

“And as they sang this, they heard a peal of silvery laughter without, or, as it seemed, actually singing in the hall and making a chorus with their voices. And at the instant a servant came and said that two very beautiful ladies were without, who begged the young Signore to come to them immediately, and that it was on a matter of life and death.

“So he rose and stepped outside, but he had hardly crossed the threshold before the stone ceiling of the hall fell in with a tremendous crash, and just where the young Signore had sat was a great stone weighing many quintale or hundredweights, so that it was plain that if he had not been called away, in

an instant more he would have been crushed like a fly under a hammer. As for his two friends, they had broken arms and cut faces, bearing marks in memory of the day to the end of their lives.

“When the young Signore was without the door and looked for the ladies, they were gone, and a little boy, who was the only person present, declared that he had seen them, that they were wonderfully beautiful, and that, merrily laughing, they had jumped or gone down into the well.

“Therefore it was generally believed by all who heard the tale that it was the Fairies of the Well, or Fonte, who thus saved the life of the young Signore, who from that day honoured them more devoutly than ever; nor did his friends any longer doubt that there are spirits of air or earth, who, when treated with pious reverence, can confer benefits on their worshippers.

“‘For there are fairies all around
Everywhere, and elves abound
Even in our homes unseen:
They go wherever we have been,
And often by the fireside sit,
A-laughing gaily at our wit;
And when the ringing echo falls
Back from the ceiling or the walls,
’Tis not our voices to us thrown
In a reflection, but their own;
For they are near at every turn,
As he who watches soon may learn.’

“And the young Signore, to do honour to the fairies, because they had saved his life, put them one on either side of his coat-of-arms, as you may see by the shield which is on the house at the corner of the Via Calzaioli.”

The authenticity of this legend, is more than doubtful, because it exists elsewhere, as I have read it, being unable to give my authority; but unless my memory deceives me, it goes back to classic times, and may be found in some such work as that of Philostratus de Vita Apollonii or Grosius. Neither am I well assured, to judge from the source whence I had it, that it is current among the people, though no great measure of credulity is here required, since it may be laid down as a rule, with

rarest exception, that there is no old Roman tale of the kind which may not be unearthed with pains and patience among old Tuscan peasant women. However, the shield is still on the corner of the Via Calzaioli, albeit one of the nymphs on it has been knocked or worn away. Thus even fates must yield in time to fate.

I have in a note to another legend spoken of the instinct which seems to lead children or grown people to associate wells with indwelling fairies, to hear a voice in the echo, and see a face in the reflection in the still water. Keats has beautifully expressed it in “Endymion”:

“Some mouldered steps lead into this cool cell
Far as the slabbed margin of a well,
Whose patient level peeps its crystal eye
Right upward through the bushes to the sky. . . .
Upon a day when thus I watched . . . behold!
A wonder fair as any I have told—
The same bright face I tasted in my sleep
Smiling in the clear well. My heart did leap
Through the cool depth. . . .
Or ’tis the cell of Echo, where she sits
And babbles thorough silence till her wits
Are gone in tender madness, and anon
Faints into sleep, with many a dying tone.”

“In which tale,” writes the immortal Flaxius, “there is a pretty allegory. Few there are who know why truth is said to be at the bottom of a well; but this I can indeed declare to you. For as a mirror was above all things an emblem of truth, because it shows all things exactly as they are, so the water in a well was, as many traditions prove, considered as a mirror, because looking into it we see our face, which we of course most commonly see in a glass, and this disk of shining water resembles in every way a hand-mirror. And for this reason a mirror was also regarded as expressing life itself, for which reason people so greatly fear to break them. So in the Latin, Velut in speculo, and in the Italian, Vero come un specchio—‘True as a mirror,’ we have the same idea. And a poet has written, ‘Mirrored as in a well,’ and many have re-echoed the same pretty fancy.

“Which reminds me that in the Oberpfalz or Upper Palatinate maidens were wont to go to a well by moonlight, and if on looking therein they saw their own faces, they believed

that they would soon be happily married. But if a cloud darkened the moon and they saw nothing, then they would die old maids. But luckiest of all was it if they fancied they saw a man’s face, for this would be the future husband himself.

“Now it befell that a certain youth near Heidelberg fell into a well, or put himself there, when a certain maid whom he loved, came and looked in, and believing that she saw the face of her destined spouse, went away in full faith that the fairy of the well had taken his form, and so she married him. Which, if it be not true, is ben trovato.

“Truth is always represented, be it remembered, as holding a mirror.

“And note also that the hand-mirror and the well were strangely connected in ancient times, as appears by Pausanias, who states that before a certain temple of Ceres hung a speculum, which, after it had been immersed in a neighbouring well or spring, showed invalids by reflection whether they would live or die. And with all this, the holding a mirror to the mouth of an insensible person to tell whether the breath was still in the body, seemed also to make it an indicator of life.”

“Thus in life all things do pass,
As it were, in magic glass.”

THE STORY OF THE VIA DELLE SERVE SMARRITE

“We all do know the usual way
In which our handmaids go astray,
But in this tale the situation
Has a peculiar variation;
How an old wizard—strange occurrence!
Deluded all the girls in Florence,
(It needs no magic now to do it),
And how the maidens made him rue it,
For having seized on him and stripped him,
They tied him up and soundly whipped him.”

The author of “The Cities of Central Italy,” speaking of Siena, says that “In its heart, where its different hill-promontories unite, is the Piazza del Campo, lately—with the time-serving which disgraces every town in Italy—called Vittorio Emanuele.” And with the stupidity and bad taste which seems to characterise all municipal governments in this respect all the world over, that of Florence has changed most of the old names of this kind, and in order to render the confusion more complete, has put the new names just over the old ones, with the simple addition of the word Gia or “formerly.” Whence came the legend current in the Anglo-American colony, that a newly arrived young lady, not as yet beyond the second lesson in Ollendorff, being asked where she lived, answered in Gia Street. She forgot the rest of the name.

One of these gaping gias is the Via del Parlascio gia Via delle Serve Smarrite, or the street of the maidservants strayed away or gone astray. Now Florence is famous for its pretty servant-girls, and if I may believe a halfpenny work, entitled “Seven Charming Florentine

Domestics,” now before me, which is racy of the soil—or dirt—and appears to be written from life [as accurate portraits of all the fascinating seven are given], I opine that the damsel of this class who had never been, I do not say a wife, but a waif and a stray, must be a phenomenal rarity. Therefore it was suggested to me that it was formerly in very ancient times the custom to send all such stray cattle to the pound, that is, to dwell in this street as a kind of Ghetto. But the folly of this measure soon became apparent when it was found that one might as well try to get all the cats in Tuscany into a hand-basket, or all its flies—or fleas—under one tumbler, as try to make a comprehensive menagerie of these valuable animals, who were, however, by no means curiosities. So the attempt was abandoned, and thenceforth the maidens were allowed to stray wherever they pleased, but under some slight supervision; whence it was said of them that they were le lucertole chi cominciano a sentir il sole—“fireflies which begin to see the sun”—a proverb which the learned and genial Orlando Peschetti (1618) explains as being applicable to those who, having been in prison and then set free, are still watched, but which appears to me rather to refer to the suspected who are “shadowed” before they are arrested.

But in due time I received from good authority an ancient legend of the Via delle Serve Smarrite, in which the origin of the name is explained as follows:

Via delle Serve Smarrite.

“There was long ago, in what was afterwards called the Via delle Serve Smarrite, or Stray Maid-Servants’ Street, a very ancient and immensely large house, which was generally supposed to be vacant, and in which no one cared to dwell, or even approach, since there were dreadful tales of evil deeds done in it, and reports that it was a gathering-place for witches, goblins, and diavoli. The clanking of chains and peals of horrid laughter rung from its chambers at midnight, blue and

green fires gleamed from its windows, and everybody all around had heard from somebody else that the nightmares had there their special nest, from which they sailed forth to afflict all Florence.

“Yet all this was a trick which was often played in those days, when gente non dabbene or evil folk and outlaws wanted to keep a house to themselves, and there were no newspapers to publish every mystery. For there were a great many who went in there, but few who ever came out, and these were all young and pretty servant-maids. And the way it was managed was this. When such girls were sent to the market to buy provisions, they always met there or elsewhere an old woman who pretended to be extremely pious, [43] who, by using many arts and making small gifts, and above all by subtle flatteries, persuaded them that service was only fit for gentaccia or the dregs of the people, and that, beautiful and graceful as they were, they needed only live like ladies for a little time at ease, and they would soon be fit to marry some Signore, and that she herself would thus maintain them, hoping they would pay her well for it all when once married. And I need not say that the trick generally succeeded.

“The house to which they were led was ugly and repulsive outside, but within there were beautiful rooms of all kinds, magnificently furnished, and the new-comers were promptly bathed, elegantly attired, and jewelled from head to foot, and instead of serving, had maids given them as attendants, and everything conceivable was done to make their life as pleasant and demoralising among themselves as possible. But in due time they found out that a certain Signore was lord of the house and of themselves, and that he gradually led them into the strangest and most terrible orgies, and finally into witchcraft, after which one disappeared mysteriously after the other, none knew whither, but as there were always fresh arrivals to take their places, nobody heeded it.

“However, this mournful disappearance of pretty servant-maids became at last so frequent and was so mysterious, that it began to be much talked about. Now there was a certain gentleman, a man himself of great authority and intelligence, who had heard of these vanishments and hoped to find out their cause. And one night at a very late hour, when he was passing by the mysterious house, he heard from it now and

then sounds like groans mingled with the clanking of chains, and saw red and blue and green lights at the windows, but by keeping still he also distinguished the sound of music and girls’ voices laughing and singing; and stealing near in the darkness, and fearing no devils, he contrived to climb up to a window, and pulling aside a curtain, peeped in, when he beheld plainly enough a great many beautiful women in scant array, or a real dance of witches, and being marvellously attracted by the sight of so many charms so liberally displayed, he naturally desired to enter the gay party.

“And here chance favoured him beyond all hope; for on going to the door, he found an old woman about to enter, to whom he gave a gold piece, and begged her to tell him the true story of the house, and whether he could enter it. But what was his amazement to find in her his old foster-mother of the country, whom he had not seen for many years, and who loved him dearly.

“And she, being pressed, told him the whole story of the house, wherein she was a servant, but that she had grown deadly tired of such evil ways, and seeing such sin as went on there, though she was well paid, and said if he would only give her a home, she would reveal all to justice. And she added that for the present he could freely join the girls who were dancing, as the wizard, their master, was away that night.

“But when he entered, he was amazed at the splendour of the rooms and the beauty of the women. Now among these he found one who truly enchanted him, and entering into conversation with her, found that she would gladly escape with him, and that many others were inclined to leave, but dare not show it for fear of the master.

“Then the Signore, addressing all the girls, told them that in a few hours the guards or police would, by his orders, be in the house, and advised them to at once seize on all the valuables on which they could lay their hands, and pack up their bundles and depart, and that he himself would write for every one a free pass to let her go with the property. And truly he had hardly spoken ere there began such a plundering and pillaging, sacking and spoliation, as it would have done your heart good to see, and which was like the taking of a rich town, only that the marauders were all maidens. Here was one rolling up silver spoons, cups, anything she could get, in a shawl; there another filling a bag with jewellery, and a silver ladle sticking out of her bosom or back; anon a couple of Venuses fighting

for a splendid garment, while a superb Hebe ravished a golden goblet, and an enchanting Vesta, if not a vestal, appropriated most appropriately a silver lamp. Some pulled down the curtains, others rolled up the costly Venetian rugs; they drank wine when they were thirsty, and quarrelled and laughed and shrieked, as a parcel of wild servant-girls in a mad frolic might be expected to do. It was a fine sight—‘one worthy of a great artist or De Goncourt,’ notes Flaxius.

“When lo! all at once there was an awful and simultaneous shriek as the door opened, and the Domine—I mean the headmaster, wizard, or sultan—entered, gazing like an astonished demon on the scene before his eyes. In a voice of thunder he asked the meaning of the scene, when he found himself confronted by the intruding Signore, before whom his heart run away like water when he recognised in him a man having very great authority, with the police at his back.

“Now, servant-maids, however pretty they may be, are mostly contadine with powerful muscles and mighty arms, and with one accord they rushed on their late master, and soon overpowered him. Then he was securely bound with silken curtain ropes, and the new Signore, taking his place at a great table, bade all the damsels range themselves at the sides in solemn council, for the offender was now to be tried, condemned, and punished too, should he be found guilty.

“The trial was indeed one of peculiar interest, and the testimony adduced would have made the fortune of a French novelist, but space (if nothing else) prohibits my giving it. Suffice it to say that the wizard was found guilty of taking unto himself an undue share of pretty hand-maidens, a great sin considering the number of gallant soldiers and other bachelors who were thereby defrauded of their dues. But as he had neither murdered nor stolen, it was decided to let him go and carry on his games in some less Christian town, on condition that he would divide what money he had in the house among the poor girls whom he had so cruelly cajoled.

“And as this last sentence was plaintively pronounced, there was a deep and beautiful sigh uttered by all the victims, followed by three cheers. The master’s strong-box was at once hunted up, and its contents shared, and indeed they were so considerable that the maidens one and all soon married nobly and lived happily.”

The written story, with a pleasing instinct of Italian

thrift, adds that the conquering Signore purchased the property, in fact, the whole street, at a very low figure, before the facts became known, and gave the place the name of the Via delle Serve Smarrite, as it is still called by the people, despite its new official christening.

“Ye may break, ye may ruin the flask if ye will,
But the scent of the brandy will hang round it still.”

THE BRONZE BOAR OF THE MERCATO NUOVO

“Now among the Greeks, as with the Northern races, the boar was the special type of male generation, even as the frog expressed that of the female sex. And therefore images of the boar were set in public places that fertility might be developed among women, for which reason they also wear, as among the Arabs, necklaces of silver frogs.”—Notes on Symbolism.

In front of the Mercato Nuovo, built by Cosimo I., stands a bronze copy of an ancient boar, now in the Uffizzi Gallery. It was cast by Pietro Tacca, and is now a fountain. The popular legend in relation to it is as follows:

“In the market-place of Florence, which is called Il Porcellino, because there is in it a fountain with a swine, there was anciently only a spring of water and a pool, in which were many frogs, water-lizards, shell-snails, and slugs. These were round about, but in the spring itself was a frog who was confined there because she had revealed that her lover was a boar.

“This boar was the son of a rich lord, who, being married for a very long time, had no children, and for this reason made his wife very unhappy, saying that she was a useless creature, and that if she could not bear a son she had better pack up and be off with herself, which she endured despairingly and weeping continually, praying to the saints and giving alms withal, all to bring forth an heir, and all in vain.

“One day she saw a drove of pigs go by her palace, and among them were many sows and many more very little pigs. Now among these, or at hand, was a fata or witch-spirit. [47] And the lady seeing this said in the bitterness of her heart, ‘So the very pigs have offspring and I none. I would I were as

they are, and could do as they do, and bring forth as they bring forth, and so escape all this suffering!’

“And the fairy heard this, and took her at her word; and, as you will see, she cut her cloth without measuring it first, from which came a sad misfit. And soon after she was ill, and this being told to her husband, he replied, ‘Good news, and may she soon be gone!’ but he changed his tone when he heard that he was to have an heir. Then he flew to her and begged her pardon, and made great rejoicings.

“Truly there was horror and sorrow when in due time the lady, instead of a human child, brought forth a boar-pig. Yet the parents were so possessed with the joy of having any kind of offspring that they ended by making a great pet of the creature, who was, however, human in his ways, and could in time talk with grace and ease. [48a] And when he grew older he began to run after the girls, and they to run away from him, screaming as if the devil had sent him for them.

“There lived near the palace a beautiful but very poor girl, and with her the young Boar fell desperately in love. So he asked her parents for her hand; but they, poor as they were, laughed at him, saying that their daughter should never marry a swine. But the young lady had well perceived that this was no common or lazy pig, such as never gets a ripe pear—porco pigro non mangia pere mature—as he had shown by wooing her; and, secondly, because she was poor and ambitious, and daring enough to do anything to become rich and great. [48b]

“Now she surmised that there were eggs under the chopped straw in this basket, or more in the youth than people supposed; and she was quite right, for on the bridal night he not only unclothed himself of silk and purple and fine linen, but also doffed his very skin or boar’s hide, and appeared as beautiful as a Saint Sebastian freshly painted.

“Then he said to her, ‘Be not astonished to find me good-looking at the rate of thirty sous to a franc, nor deem thyself over-paid, for if we had not wedded, truly I should have gone on pigging it to the end of my days, having been doomed—like many men—to be a beast so long as I was a bachelor, or

till a beautiful maid would marry me. Yet there is a condition attached to this, which is, that I can only be a man as thou seest me by night, for I must be a boar by day. And shouldst thou ever betray this secret to any one, or if it be found out, then I shall again be a boar all the time for life, and thou turn into a frog because of too much talking.

“Now as surely as that time and straw ripen medlars, as the saying is, just so surely will it come to pass that a woman will tell a secret, even to her own shame. And so it befell this lady, who told it as a great mystery to her mother, who at once imparted it under oath to all her dear friends, who swore all their friends on all their salvations not to breathe a word of it to anybody, who all confessed it to the priests. How much farther it went God knows, but by the time the whole town knew it, which was in one day of twenty-four hours, or ere the next morning, the bride had become a frog who lived in the spring, and the bridegroom a boar who every day went to drink at the water, and when there said:

“‘Lady Frog! lo, I am here!
He to whom thou once wert dear.
We are in this sad condition,
Not by avarice or ambition,
Nor by evil or by wrong,
But ’cause thou could’st not hold thy tongue;
For be she shallow, be she deep,
No woman can a secret keep;
Which all should think upon who see
The monument which here will be.’

“So it came to pass either that the boar turned into the great bronze maiale which now stands in the market-place, or else the people raised it in remembrance of the story—chi sa—but there it is to this day.

“As for the Signora Frog, she comforted herself by making a great noise and telling the tale at the top of her voice, having her brains in her tongue—il cervello nella lingua, as they say of those who talk well yet have but small sense. And that which you hear frogs croaking all night long is nothing but this story which I have told you of their ancestress and the bronze boar.”

This is, in one form or the other, a widely spread tale. As the voice of the frog has a strange resemblance to that of man, there being legends referring to it in every

language, and as there is a bold and forward expression in its eyes, [50] it was anciently regarded as a human being who was metamorphosed for being too impudent and loquacious, as appears by the legend of “Latona and the Lycian Boors” (Ovid, Metamorph., vi. 340). The general resemblance of the form of a frog to that of man greatly contributed to create such fables.

The classic ancient original of this boar may be seen in the Uffizzi Gallery. As the small image of a pig carried by ladies ensures that they will soon be, as the Germans say, “in blessed circumstances,” or enceinte (which was all one with luck in old times), so the image of the boar is supposed to be favourable to those ladies who desire olive branches. From all which it appears that in ancient times swine were more highly honoured than at present, or, as Shelley sings:

“We pigs
Were blest as nightingales on myrtle sprigs,
Or grasshoppers that live on noon-day dew.”

THE FAIRY OF THE CAMPANILE, OR THE TOWER OF GIOTTO

“Bella di fronte e infino alle Calcagna,
Con un corredo nobile e civile,
In te risiede una cupola magna
E superbo di Giotto il Campanile.”—Giuseppe Moroni.

“Round as the O of Giotto, d’ye see?
Which means as well done as a thing can be.”—Proverb.

Many have wondered how it came to pass that Virgil lived in tradition not as a poet but as sorcerer. But the reason for it is clear when we find that in Florence every man who ever had a genius for anything owed it to magic, or specially to the favour of some protecting fairy or folletto, spirit or god. Is a girl musical? Giacinto or Hyacinth, the favourite of Apollo, has given her music lessons in her dreams. For the orthodox there are Catholic saints with a specialty, from venerable Simeon, who looks after luck in lotteries, to the ever-blessed Antony, who attends to everything, and Saint Anna, née Lucina, who inspires nurses. And where the saints fail, the folletti, according to the witches, take their place and do the work far better. Therefore, as I shall in another place set forth, Dante and Michel Angelo have passed into the marvellous mythology of goblins. With them is included Giotto, as appears by the following legend of “The Goblin of the Bell-Tower of Giotto.”

Il Folletto del Campanile di Giotto.

“Giotto was a shepherd, and every day when he went forth to pasture his herd there was one little lamb who always kept

near him, and appeared to be longing to talk to him like a Christian.

“Now this lamb always laid down on a certain stone which was fast in the ground (masso); and Giotto, who loved the lamb, to please it, lay down also on the same stone.

“After a short time the lamb died, and when dying said:

“‘Giotto, cosa non far ti
Se mi senti parlarti,
Ti voglio tanto bene
E dove andrai,
Io ti seguiro sempre
In forma di folletto,
E col mio volere
Tu verrai un bravo scultore
E insegne disegnatore.’

“‘Giotto, be not astonished
That I thus speak to thee;
I have such love for thee,
Wherever thou shalt go
I will follow thee always
In the form of a fairy,
And through my favour
Thou shalt become a great sculptor
And artist.’

“And so it came to pass that Giotto was an able sculptor by the aid of the lamb, and all that he did was due to the lamb which helped him.

“And when he died, the spirit of the lamb remained in the form of a folletto or fairy in the campanile, and it is still often seen there, always with the spirit of Giotto. Even in death their souls could not be separate.

“When any one desires to ascend the tower, and his or her heart fails in mounting the steps (e che ha paura di salire), the fairy below says:

“‘Vade, vade, Signora!
La vade su salgha,
Non abbia paura,
Ci sono io sotto.’

“‘Go on, go on, Signora,
Go up the stairs—oh go!
Be not afraid, my lady!
For I am here below.’

“Then the visitor hearing this believes it is one of the guides employed (inpiegati), or one of the gentlemen or ladies

who are ascending after. And often when half-way up there comes a great puff of wind which blows up their skirts (fa gonfiare le sottane) which causes great laughter, and they think that this is only a common thing, and do not perceive that it does not happen to others.

“And it is said that this fairy appears by night in the Piazza del Duomo, or Cathedral Square, in different forms.”

The reason why Giotto is so popularly known as having been a shepherd is that on the central tablet of the tower or campanile, facing the street, there is a bas-relief of a man seated in a tent with sheep before him, and this is naturally supposed to represent the builder or Giotto himself, since it fills the most prominent place. In a very popular halfpenny chapbook, entitled “The Statues under the Uffizzi in Florence, Octaves improvised by Giuseppe Moroni, called Il Niccheri or the Illiterate,” I find the following:

Giotto.

“Voi di Mugello, nato dell’ interno,
Giotto felice, la da’ Vespignano
Prodigiose pitture in ogni esterno
A Brescia, a Roma, Firenze e Milano,
Nelle pietre, ne’ marmi nel quaderno,
L’archittetura al popolo italiano.
Da non trovare paragone simile,
Vi basti, per esempio, il campanile.”

“Thou of Mugello, born in Italy,
Happy Giotto, gav’st to Vespignan
Great pictures which on every front we see
At Brescia, Rome, in Florence and Milan,
In stone, in marble, and in poetry,
And architecture, all Italian.
Nothing surpassed thy wondrous art and power,
Take for example, then, our great bell-tower.”

The fact that this is taken from a very popular halfpenny work indicates the remarkable familiarity with such a name as that of Giotto among the people.

THE GOBLIN OF THE TOWER BELLA TRINITA, OR THE PORTA SAN NICCOLO

“They do not speak as mortals speak,
Nor sing as others sing;
Their words are gleams of starry light,
Their songs the glow of sunset light,
Or meteors on the wing.”

I once begun a book—the ending and publishing of it are in the dim and remote future, and perhaps in the limbo of all things unfinished. It was or is “The Experiences of Flaxius the Immortal,” a sage who dwells for ever in the world, chiefly to observe the evolution of all things absurd, grotesque, quaint, illogical—in short, of all that is strictly human. And on him I bestowed a Florentine legend which is perhaps of great antiquity, since there is a hint in it of an ancient Hebrew work by Rabbi ben Mozeltoff or the learned Gedauler Chamar—I forget which—besides being found in poetic form in my own great work on Confucius.

That money is the life of man, and that treasure buried in the earth is a sin to its possessor, forms the subject of one of Christ’s parables. The same is true of all talent unemployed, badly directed, or not developed at all. The turning-point of evolution and of progressive civilisation will be when public opinion and state interests require that every man shall employ what talent he has, and every mere idler be treated as a defaulter or criminal. From this truly Christian point of view the many tales of ghosts who walk in agony because of buried gold are strangely instructive.

Flaxius and the Rose.

“Midnight was ringing from the cloister of San Miniato in Florence on the hill above, and Flaxius sat by the Arno down below, on the bank by the square grey tower of other days, known as the Niccolò, or Torre delta Trinità, because there are in it three arches. . . .

“It was midnight in mid-winter, and a full moon poured forth all its light over Florence as if it would fain preserve it in amber, and over the olive groves as if they had become moss agates. . . .

[“‘Or I,’ quoth Flaxius, ‘a fly in hock.’]

“Yes, it was a clear, cold, Tuscan night, and as the last peal of bells went out into eternity and faded in the irrevocable, thousands of spirits of the departed began to appear, thronging like fireflies through the streets, visiting their ancient haunts and homes, greeting, gossiping, arranging their affairs just as the peasants do on Friday in the great place of the Signoria, as they have done for centuries.

“Flaxius looked at the rolling river which went rushing by at his feet, and said:

“‘Arno mio, you are in a tremendous hurry to get to the sea, and all the more so because you have just had an accessit—a remittance of rain from the mountain-banks. Buon pro vi faccia—much good may it do you! So every shopman hurries to become a great merchant when he gets some money, and every farmer a signore, and every signore a great lord, and every great lord a ruler at court and over all the land—prorsum et sursum. And when they get there—or when you get to the sea—then ye are all swallowed up in greater lives, interests, and actions, and so the rivers run for ever on, larger yet ever seeming less unto yourselves. And so—ad altiora tendunt omnes—the flower-edged torrent and the Florentine.’ . . .

“When he suddenly heard above his head a spirit voice, clear, sweet and strange, ringing, not in words, but tones of unearthly music—of which languages there are many among the Unearthlies, all being wordless songs or airs suggesting speech, and yet conveying ideas far more rapidly. It was the Goblin of the Tower calling to him of the tower next beyond on the farther hill, and he said:

“‘How many ghosts there are out to-night!’

“‘Yes; it is a fine night for ghosting. Moonlight is mid-summer

for them, poor souls! But I say, brother, who is yonder frate, the dark monk-spectre who always haunts your tower, lingering here and there about it? What is the spell upon that spirito?’

“‘He is one to be pitied,’ replied the Goblin of the Trinità. ‘He was a good fellow while he lived, but a little too fond of money. He was afflicted with what doctors called, when I was young in Rome, the amor sceleratus habendi. So it came to pass that he died leaving a treasure—mille aureos—a thousand gold crowns buried in my tower unknown to any one, and for that he must walk the earth until some one living wins the money.’

“Flaxius pricked up his ears. He understood all that the spirits said, but they had no idea that the man in a scholar’s robe who sat below knew Goblinese.

“‘What must a mortal do to get the gold?’ inquired the second goblin.

“‘Truly he must do what is well-nigh impossible,’ replied the Elf of the Tower; ‘for he must, without magic aid—note that—bring to me here in this month of January a fresh full-blown rose.’

“The voices were silent; a cloud passed over the face of the moon; the river rushed and roared on; Flaxius sat in a Vandyke-brown study, thinking how he could obtain peace and repose for the ghostly monk, and also get the pecuniam.

“‘Here is,’ he thought, ‘aliquid laborare—something to be worked out. Now is the time, and here is a chance—ingirlandarsi di lauro—to win the laurel wreath. A rose in January! What a pity that it is not four hundred years later, when people will have green-houses, and blue-nosed vagabonds will be selling red roses all the winter long in the Tornabuoni! Truly it is sometimes inconvenient to be in advance of or behind the age.

“‘Eureka! I have it,’ he at last exclaimed, ‘by the neck and tail. I will spogliar la tesoria—rob the treasury and spoil the Egyptian—si non in errore versatus sum—unless I am stupendously mistaken. Monk! thy weird will soon be dreed—thy penance prophesied will soon be o’er.’

“Saying this he went into the city. And there the next day, going to a fair dame of his acquaintance, who excelled all the ladies of all Italy in ingenious needlework, he had made of silk a rose; and so deftly was it done, that had it been put on a bush, you would have sworn that a nightingale would have sung to it, or bee have sought to ravish it.

“Then going to a Venetian perfumer’s, the wise Flaxius had his flower well scented with best attar of roses from Constantinople, and when midnight struck he was at the tower once more calling to the goblin.

“‘Che vuoi? What dost thou seek?’ cried the Elf.

“‘The treasure of the monk!’

“‘Bene! Give me a rose.’

“‘Ecco! There it is,’ replied Flaxius, extending it.

“‘Non facit—it won’t do,’ answered the goblin (thinking Flaxius to be a monk). ‘It is a sham rose artificially coloured, murice tincta est.’

“‘Smell it,’ replied Flaxius calmly.

“‘The smell is all right, I admit,’ answered the guardian of the gold. ‘The perfume is delicious;’ here he sniffed at it deeply, being, like all his kind, enraptured with perfume, ‘and that much of it is, I grant, the real thing.’

“‘Now tell me,’ inquired Flaxius, ‘truly—religiosè testimonium dicere—by thy great ancestress Diana and her sister-double Herodias and her Nine Cats, by the Moon and the eternal Shadow, Endamone, and the word which Bergoia whispered into the ear of the Ox, and the Lamia whom thou lovest—what is it makes a man? Is it his soul or his body?’

“‘Man of mystery and master of the hidden lore,’ replied the awe-struck goblin, ‘it is his soul.’

“‘And is not the perfume of the rose its soul—that which breathes its life, in which it speaks to fairies or to men? Is not the voice in song or sweetened words the perfume of the spirit, ever true? Is not—’

“‘I give it up,’ replied the goblin. ‘The priest may turn in now for a long, long nap. Here, take his gold, and ne gioire tutto d’allegrezza—may you have a merry time with it. There is a great deal of good drinking in a thousand crowns; and if you ever try to ludere latrunculis vel aleis, or shake the bones or dice, I promise you three sixes. By the way, I’ll just keep this rose to remember you by. Addio—a rivederlei!’

“So the bedesman slept amid his ashes cold, and the good Flaxius, who was a stout carl for the nonce, with a broad back and a great beard, returned, bearing a mighty sack of ancient gold, which stood him in good stead for many a day. And the goblin is still there in the tower.”

“Hæc fabula docet,” wrote Flaxius as he revised the proof with a red-lead pencil, for which he had paid a penny in the Calzolaio. “This tale teaches that in this life there is naught

which hath not its ideal side or inner soul, which may raise us to higher reflection or greater profit, if we will but seek it. The lower the man the lower he looks, but it is all to his loss in the end. Now every chapter in this book, O my son—or daughter—may seem to thee only a rose of silk, yet do not stop at that, but try to find therein a perfume. For thou art thyself, I doubt not, such a rose, even if thy threads (as in most of us) be somewhat worn, torn, or faded, yet with a soul far better than many deem who see thee only afar off. And this my book is written for the perfume, not the silk of my reader. And there is no person who is better than what the world deems him or her to be who will not find in it marvellous comfort, solace, and satisfaction.”

Thus wrote Flaxius.

Since I penned the foregoing from memory, I have found the Italian text or original, which had been mislaid for years. In it the tale is succinctly told within the compass of forty lines, and ends with these words:

“‘Take the treasure, and give me the rose!’

“And so the spirit gave him the treasure and took the rose, and the poor man went home enriched, and the priest to sleep in peace—fra gli eterni—among the eternals.”

I ought, of course, to have given scientifically only the text word for word, but litera scripta manet—what is written remains, and Flaxius is an old friend of mine, and I greatly desired to introduce him to my readers. And I doubt not that the reviewers will tell me if I have sinned!

“Do a good deed, or aught that’s fit,
You never again may hear of it;
But make a slip, all will detect it,
And every friend at once correct it!”

THE GHOST OF MICHEL ANGELO

“If I believed that spirits ne’er
Return to earth once more,
And that there’s naught unto them dear
In the life they loved before;
Then truly it would seem to me,
However fate has sped,
For souls there’s no eternity,
And they and all are dead.”

It must have struck every one who has read the life of Michel Angelo, that he was, like King James the First of England, “nae great gillravager after the girls,” or was far from being susceptible to love—in which he formed a great contrast to Raphael, and indeed to most of the Men of his Time—or any other. This appears to have impressed the people of Italy as something even more singular than his works, for which reason he appears in popular tradition as a good enough goblin, not without cheerfulness and song, but as one given to tormenting enamoured couples and teasing lady artists, whom he subsequently compliments with a gift. The legend is as follows:

Lo Spirito di Michele Angiolo Buonarotti.

“The spirit of Michel Angelo is seen mostly by night, in woods or groves. The good man appears as he did in life, come era prima, ever walking among trees singing poetry. He amuses himself very much by teasing lovers—a dare noia agli amoretti—and when he finds a pair who have hidden themselves under leaves and boughs to make love, he waits till they think they are well concealed, and then begins to sing. And the two feel a spell upon them when they hear his voice, and can neither advance nor retreat.

“Then all at once opening the leafy covert, he bursts into a peal of laughter; and the charm being broken, they fly in fear, because they think they are discovered, and it is all nothing but the spirit of Michel Angelo Buonarotti.

“When some lady-artist goes to sketch or paint, be it al piazzale, in open places, or among the woods, it is his delight to get behind, and cause her to blunder, scrawl, and daub (fare degli scarabocchi). And when the artist is angered, she will hear a loud peal of laughter; and if this irritates her still more, she will hear a song, and yet not perceive the singer. And when at last in alarm she catches up her sketch, all scrawled and spoiled, and takes to flight, she will hear the song following her, and yet if she turns her head she will see no one pursuing. The voice and melody are always beautiful. But it is marvellously lucky to have this happen to an artist, for when she gets home and looks at her sketch, she finds that it is neither scrawled nor daubed, but most exquisitely executed in the style of Michel Angelo.”

It is marvellous how the teasing faun or Silvanus of the Romans has survived in Tuscany. I have found him in many forms, under many names, and this is the last. But why it should be Michel Angelo, I cannot imagine, unless it be that his face and stump nose, so familiar to the people, are indeed like that of the faun. The dii sylvestres, with all their endless mischief, riotry, and revelry, were good fellows, and the concluding and rather startling touch that the great artist in the end always bestows a valuable picture on his victim is really godlike—in a small way.

It is remarkable as a coincidence, that Michel Angelo was himself during life terribly annoyed and disturbed by people prying and speering about him while painting—especially by Pope Leo—for whom he nevertheless painted very good pictures. It would almost seem as if there were an echo of the event in the legend. Legend is the echo of history.

“This legend,” remarks Flaxius, “may give a valuable hint to collectors. Many people are aware that there are in existence

great numbers of sketchings and etchings attributed to Michel Angelo, Dürer, Raphael, Marc Antonio, and many more, which were certainly executed long since those brothers of the paint or pencil passed away. May it not be that the departed still carry on their ancient callings by the aid of new and marvellous processes to us as yet unknown, or by what may be called ‘pneumato-gravure’? Who knows?—’tis a great idea, my masters;—let us pass on or legit unto another legend!

“‘Well I ween it may be true
That afar in fairyland
Great artists still pursue
That which in life they knew,
And practise still, with ever bettering hand,
Sculpture and painting, all that charm can bring,
While by them all departed poets sing.’”

THE APPARITION OF DANTE

“Musa profonda dei Toscani, il Dante,
Il nobil cittadin, nostro Alighieri,
Alla filosofia ricco e brillante
Purgò il linguaggio e corredò i pensieri;
E nell’ opera sua fatto gigante
A Campaldino nei primi guerrieri;
Lui il Purgatorio, Paradiso e Inferno
Fenomeno terren, poeta eterno!”

—Le Statue disotto gli Ufizi in Fireneze. Ottave improvisate da Giuseppe Moroni detto Il Nicchieri (Iliterato). Florence, 1892.

It has been boldly asserted by writers who should know better, that there are no ghosts in Italy, possibly because the two only words in the language for such beings are the equivocal ones of spirito or spirit, and spettro or spectre—or specter, as the Websterians write it—which is of itself appalling as a terrific spell. But the truth is that there is no kind of spuk, goblin, elf, fairy, gnome, or ouphe known to all the North of Europe which was not at home in Italy since old Etruscan days, and ghosts, though they do not make themselves common, are by no means as rare as eclipses. For, as may be read in my “Etruscan Roman Legends,” people who will look through a stone with a hole in it can behold no end of revenants, or returners, in any churchyard, and on fine nights the seer can see them swarming in the streets of Florence. Giotto is in the campanile as a gentle ghost with the fairy lamb, and Dante, ever benevolent, is all about town, as appears from the following, which was unexpectedly bestowed on me:

Lo Spirito di Dante Alighieri.

“When any one is passionately fond of poetry, he should sit by night on the panchina [63] in the piazza or square of Santa Croce or in other places (i.e., those haunted by Dante), and having read his poetry, pronounce the following:

“‘Dante, che eri
La gran poeta,
Siei morto, ma vero,
Il tuo spirito
E sempre rimasto,
Sempre per nostro
Nostro aiuto.

“‘Ti chiamo, ti prego!
E ti scongiuro!
A voler aiutarmi.
Questa poesia
Voglio imparare;
Di più ancora,
Non voglio soltanto
Imparar la a cantare,
Ma voglio imparare
Di mia testa
Poter le scrivere,
E cosi venire
Un bravo poeta.”

“‘Thou Dante, who wert
Such a great poet,
Art dead, but thy spirit
Is truly yet with us,
Here and to aid us.

“‘I call thee, I pray thee,
And I conjure thee!
Give me assistance!
I would learn perfectly
All of this poetry.
And yet, moreover,
I would not only
Learn it to sing it,
But I would learn too
How I may truly
From my head write it,
And become really
An excellent poet!’

“And then a form of a man will approach from around the statue (da canto), advancing gently—piano-piano—to the

causeway, and will sit on it like any ordinary person, and begin to read the book, and the young man who has invoked the poet will not fail to obtain his wish. And the one who has come from the statue is no other indeed than Dante himself.

“And it is said that if in any public place of resort or inn (bettola) any poet sings the poems of Dante, he is always present among those who listen, appearing as a gentleman or poor man—secondo il locale—according to the place.

“Thus the spirit of Dante enters everywhere without being seen.

“If his poems be in the house of any person who takes no pleasure in them, the spirit of the poet torments him in his bed (in dreams) until the works are taken away.”

There is a simplicity and directness in this tradition, as here told, which proves the faith of the narrator. Washington Irving found that the good people of East Cheap had become so familiar with Shakespearian comedy as to verily believe that Falstaff and Prince Hal and Dame Quickly had all lived, and still haunted the scenes of their former revels; and in like manner the Florentine has followed the traditions of olden time so closely and lovingly, that all the magnates of the olden time live for him literally at the present day. This is in a great measure due to the fact that statues of all the celebrities of the past are in the most public places, and that there are many common traditions to the effect that all statues at certain times walk about or are animated.

One of the commonest halfpenny or soldo pamphlets to be found on the stand of all open-air dealers in ballads—as, for instance, in the Uffizzi—is a collection of poems on the statues around that building, which of itself indicates the interest in the past, and the knowledge of poets and artists possessed by the common people. For the poorest of them are not only familiar with the names, and more or less with the works, of Orcagna, Buonarotti, Dante, Giotto, Da Vinci, Raffaelle, Galileo, Machiavelli,

and many more, but these by their counterfeit presentments have entered into their lives and live. Men who are so impressioned make but one bold step over the border into the fairyland of faith while the more cultured are discussing it.

I do not, with some writers, believe that a familiarity with a few names of men whose statues are always before them, and from whose works the town half lives, indicates an indescribably high culture or more refined nature in a man, but I think it is very natural for him to make legends on them. There are three other incantations given in another chapter, the object of which, like this to Dante, is to become a poet.

“From which we learn that in the fairy faith,” writes Flaxius, with ever-ready pen, “that poets risen to spirits still inspire, even in person, neophytes to song.

“‘Life is a slate of action, and the store
Of all events is aggregated there
That variegate the eternal universe;
Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom,
That leads to azure isles and beaming skies . . .
Therefore, O spirit, fearlessly bear on.’”

LEGENDS OF LA CERTOSA

“‘Now when ye moone like a golden flowre,
In ye sky above doth bloome,
Ile lett doune a basket in that houre,
And pull ye upp to my roome,
And give mee a kisse if ’tis yes,’ he cryed;
Ye mayden would nothing refuse;
But held upp hir lippes—
Oh I would I had beene
Just thenn in that friar’s shoos.”

If we pass the Porta Romana, and keep on for three miles, we shall arrive at the old Carthusian convent of La Certosa in Val d’Ema. Soon after passing “the village of Galluzzo, where the stream is crossed, we come to an ancient gateway surmounted by a statue of Saint Laurence, through which no female could enter except by permission of the archbishop, and out which no monk could pass.” At least, it is so stated in a justly famous English guide-book, though it does not explain how any “female” could enter the saint, nor whether the female in question belonged to the human species, or was fish, flesh, or red-herring. I should, however, incline to believe the latter is meant, as “herring” is a popular synonym for a loose fish.

The Certosa was designed and built in the old Italian Gothic style by Andrea Orcagna, it having been founded in the middle of the fourteenth century by Niccolò Acciajuoli, who was of a great Florentine family, from whom a portion of the Lung Arno is named. The building is on a picturesque hill, 400 feet above the union of the brooks called the Ema and the Greve, the whole forming

a charming view of a castled monastery of the Middle Ages.

There is always, among the few monks who have been allowed to remain, an English or Irish brother, to act as cicerone to British or American visitors, and show them the interesting tombs in the crypt or subterranean church, and the beautiful chapels and celebrated frescoes in the church. These were painted by Poccetti, and I am told that among them there is one which commemorates or was suggested by the following legend, which I leave the reader to verify, not having done so myself, though I have visited the convent, which institution is, however, popularly more distinguished—like many other monasteries—as a distillery of holy cordial than for aught else:

Al Convento della Certosa.

“There was in this convent a friar called Il Beato Dyonisio, who was so holy and such a marvellous doctor of medicine, that he was known as the Frate Miraculoso or Miraculous Brother.

“And when any of the fraternity fell ill, this good medico would go to them and say, ‘Truly thou hast great need of a powerful remedy, O my brother, and may it heal and purify thy soul as well as thy body!’ [67] And it always befell that when he had uttered this conjuration that the patient recovered; and this was specially the case if after it they confessed their sins with great devoutness.

“Brother Dyonisio tasted no food save bread and water; he slept on the bare floor of his cell, in which there was no object to be seen save a scourge with great knots; he never took off his garments, and was always ready to attend any one taken ill.

“The other brothers of the convent were, however, all jolly monks, being of the kind who wear the tunic as a tonic to give them a better—or bitter—relish for secular delights, holding that it is far preferable to have a great deal of pleasure for a little penitence than per poco piacer gran penitenza—much

penitence for very little pleasure. In short, they were just at the other end of the rope away from Brother Dyonisio, inasmuch as they ate chickens, bistecche or beef-steaks, and drank the best wine, even on fast-days—giorni di vigiglia—and slept in the best of beds; yes, living like lords, and never bothering themselves with any kind of penance, as all friars should do.

“Now there was among these monks one who was a great bestemmiatore, a man of evil words and wicked ways, who had led a criminal life in the world, and only taken refuge in the disguise of a monk in the convent to escape the hand of justice. Brother Dyonisio knew all this, but said nothing; nay, he even exorcised away a devil whom he saw was always invisibly at the sinner’s elbow, awaiting a chance to catch him by the hair; but the Beato Dyonisio was too much for him, and kept the devil ever far away.

“And this was the way he did it:

“It happened one evening that this finto frate, or mock monk or feigned friar, took it into his head, out of pure mischief, and because it was specially forbidden, to introduce a donna di mala vita, or a girl of no holy life, into the convent to grace a festival, and so arranged with divers other scapegraces that the damsel should be drawn up in a basket.

“And sure enough there came next morning to the outer gate a fresh and jolly black-eyed contadina, who asked the mock monk whether he would give her anything in charity. And the finto frate answering sang:

“‘You shall have the best of meat,
Anything you like to eat,
Cutlets, macaroni, chickens,
Every kind of dainty pickings.
Pasticcie and fegatelli,
Salamé and mortadelle,
With good wine, if you are clever,
For a very trifling favour!’

“To which the girl replied:

“‘Here I am, as here you see!
What would’st thou, holy man, with me?’

“The friar answered:

“‘When thou hear’st the hoots and howls
At midnight of the dogs and owls,
And when all men are sunk in sleep,
And only witches watch do keep,
Come ’neath the window unto me,
And there thou wilt a basket see
Hung by a rope as from a shelf,
And in that basket stow thyself,
And I alone will draw thee up,
Then with us thou shalt gaily sup.’

“But the girl replied, as if in fear:

“‘But if the rope should break away,
Oh, then there’d be the devil to pay,
Oh, holy father, first for thee—
But most especially for me!
For if by evil luck I’d cracked your
Connecting cord, my limbs I’d fracture!’

“The friar sang:

“‘The rope is good, as it is long,
The basket’s tough, my arms are strong,
Have thou no fear upon that score,
T’as hoisted many a maid before;
For often such a basket-full
Did I into a convent pull,
And many more I trust will I
Draw safely up before I die.’

“And at midnight the girl was there walking beneath the windows awaiting the hour to rise—Ascensionem expectans—truly not to heaven, nor from any great liking for the monks, but for a great fondness for roast-chickens and good wine, having in her mind’s eye such a supper as she had never before enjoyed, and something to carry home with her.

“So at last there was a rustling sound above, as a window softly opened, and a great basket came vibrating down below; and the damsel, well assured, got into it like a hen into her nest, while the lusty friar above began to draw like an artist.

“Now the Beato frate Dyonisio, knowing all that passed round about by virtue of his holy omniscience, determined to make manifest to the monks that things not adapted to piety led them into the path of eternal punishment.

“Therefore, just as the basket-full of girl touched the window of the convent, it happened by the virtue of the holy Dyonisio that the rope broke and the damsel came with a capi tombola somerset or first-class tumble into the street; but as she, poor soul, had only sinned for a supper, which she greatly needed and seldom got, she was quit for a good fright, since no other harm happened to her.

“But it was far otherwise with the wicked monk, who had only come into that holy monastery to stir up sin; for he, leaning too far over at the instant, fell with an awful howl to the ground, where he roared so with pain that all the other monks came running to see what was the matter. And they found him indeed, more dead than alive, terribly bruised, yet in greater agony of mind than of body, saying that Satan had tempted him, and that he would fain confess to the Beato Dyonisio, who alone could save him.

“Then the good monk tended him, and so exhorted him that he left his evil ways and became a worthy servant of God, and the devil ceased to tempt him. And in due time Brother Dyonisio died, and as a saint they interred him in the crypt under the convent, and the morning after his burial a beautiful flower was found growing from his tomb, and so they sainted him.

“The fall of the girl was a scandal and cause of laughter for all Florence, so that from that day the monks never ventured more to draw up damsels in baskets.”

This story is so widely spread in many forms, that the reader can hardly have failed to have heard it; in fact, there are few colleges where it has not happened that a basket has not been used for such smuggling. One of the most amusing instances is of a damsel in New Haven, or Cambridge, Massachusetts, who was very forgetful. One day she said to a friend, “You have no idea how wicked some girls are. The other morning early—I mean late at night—I was going by the college when I saw a girl being drawn up in a basket by some students, when all at once the rope broke—and down I came.”

In Germany, as in the East, the tale is told of a wooer who is drawn up half-way in a basket and then let remain for everybody to behold. In Uhland’s Old Ballads there is one to this effect of Heinrich Corrade der Schreiber im Korbe. Tales on this theme at least need not be regarded as strictly traditional.

There is another little legend attached to La Certosa which owes its small interest to being told of a man who

was one of the Joe Millers of Italy in the days of the Medici. It is a curious fact that humorists do most abound and are most popular in great epochs of culture.

Domenico Barlacchi was a banditore—herald or public crier—of Florence, commonly known as Il Barlacchia, who lived in the time of Lorenzo de’ Medici, and who, being molto piacevole e faceto, or pleasing and facetious, as I am assured by an ancient yellow jest-book of 1636 now before me, became, like Piovano Arlotto and Gonella, one of the famous wits of his time. It is worth noting, though it will be no news to any folk-lorist, that in these flying leaves, or fleeting collections of facetiæ, there are many more indications of familiar old Florentine life than are to be gleaned from the formal histories which are most cited by writers who endeavour to illustrate it.

“One morning Barlacchia, with other boon companions, went to La Certosa, three miles distant from Florence, [71] where, having heard mass, they were taken over the convent by one of the friars, who showed them the convent and cells. Of which Barlacchia said ’twas all very fine, but that he would like to see the wine-cellar—sentendosi egli hauer sete—as he felt great thirst sadly stealing over him.

“To which the friar replied that he would gladly show them that part of the convent, but that unfortunately the Decano who kept the keys was absent. [Decano, dean or deacon, may be rendered roughly in English as a dog, or literally of a dog or currish.] To which Barlacchia replied, ‘Truly I am sorry for it, and I wish you were all de’ cani or dogs!’

Times have changed, and whether this tale brought about the reform I cannot say, but it is certain that the good monks at present, without waiting to be asked, generally offer a glass of their famous cordial to visitors. Tastes may differ, but to mine, when it is old, the green Certosa, though far cheaper, is superior to Chartreuse.

Another tale of Barlacchia, which has a certain theological affinity with this story, is as follows:

“A great illness once befell Barlacchia, so that it was rumoured all over Florence that he was dead, and great was the grieving thereover. But having recovered, by the grace of God, he went from his house to the palace of the Grand Duke, who said to him:

“‘Ha! art thou alive, Barlacchia? We all heard that thou wert dead.’

“‘Signore, it is true,’ was his reply. ‘I was indeed in the other world, but they sent me back again, and that for a mere trifle, which you forgot to give me.’

“‘And what was that?’ asked the Duke.

“‘I knocked,’ resumed Barlacchia, ‘at the gate of heaven, and they asked me who I was, what I had done in the world, and whether I had left any landed property. To which I replied no, never having begged for anything. So they sent me off, saying that they did not want any such poor devils about them—non volevano là simile dapochi. And therefore, illustrious Signore, I make so bold as to ask that you would kindly give me some small estate, so that another time I may not be turned away.’

“Which so pleased the magnificent and liberal Lorenzo that he bestowed on Barlacchia a podere or farm.

“Now for a long time after this illness, Barlacchia was very pale and haggard, so that everybody who met him (and he was well known to everybody) said, ‘Barlacchia, mind the rules’—meaning the rules of health; or else, ‘Barlacchia, look to yourself;’ or regolati! or guardatevi!—till at last he became tired with answering them. So he got several small wooden rules or rulers, such as writers use to draw lines, and hung them by a cord to his neck, and with them a little mirror, and when any one said ‘Regolati’—‘mind the rules,’ he made no reply, but looked at the sticks, and when they cried ‘Guardatevi!’ he regarded himself in the mirror, and so they were answered.”

This agrees with the sketch of Lorenzo as given by Oscar Browning in his admirable “Age of the Condottieri,” a short history of Mediæval Italy from 1409 to 1530:

“Lorenzo was a bad man of business; he spent such large sums on himself that he deserved the appellation of the Magnificent. He reduced himself to poverty by his extravagance; he alienated his fellow-citizens by his lust . . . and was shameless in the promotion of his private favourites.”

Yet with all this he was popular, and left a legendary fame in which generosity rivals a love of adventure. I have collected many traditions never as yet published relating to him, and in all he appears as a bon prince.

“But verily when I consider that what made a gallant lord four hundred years ago would be looked after now by the Lord Chancellor and the law courts with a sharp stick, I must needs,” writes Flaxius, “exclaim with Spenser sweet:

“‘Me seemes the world is run quite out of square,
For that which all men once did Vertue call,
Is now called Vice, and that which Vice was hight
Is now hight Vertue, and so used of all;
Right now is wrong, and wrong that was, is right,
As all things else in time are changed quight.’”

LEGENDS OF THE BRIDGES IN FLORENCE

“I stood upon a bridge and heard
The water rushing by,
And as I thought, to every word
The water made reply.

I looked into the deep river,
I looked so still and long,
Until I saw the elfin shades
Pass by in many a throng.

They came and went like starry dreams,
For ever moving on,
As darkness takes the starry beams
Unnoted till they’re gone.”

There is something in a bridge, and especially in an old one, which has been time-worn and mossed into harmony with surrounding nature, which has always seemed peculiarly poetical or strange to men. Hence so many legends of devil’s bridges, and it is rather amusing when we reflect how, as Pontifex, he is thus identified with the head of the Church. Thus I once, when attending law lectures in Heidelberg in 1847, heard Professor Mittermaier say, that those who used the saying of “the divine right of kings” as an argument reminded him of the peasants who assumed that every old bridge was built by the devil. It is, however, simply the arch, which in any form is always graceful, and the stream passing through it like a living thing, which forms the artistic attraction or charm of such structures. I have mentioned in my “Memoirs” that Ralph Waldo Emerson was once impressed by a remark, the first time I met him, to the effect that a vase in a room had the effect of a bridge

in a landscape—at least, he recalled it at once when I met him twenty years later.

The most distinguished bridge, from a legendary point of view, in Europe, was that of Saint John Nepomuc in Prague—recently washed away owing to stupid neglect; the government of the city probably not supporting, like the king in the opera-bouffe of “Barbe Bleu,” a commissioner of bridges. The most picturesque work of the kind which I recall is that of the Ponte Maddalena—also a devil’s bridge—at the Bagni di Lucca. That Florence is not wanting in legends for its bridges appears from the following:

The Spirit of the Ponte Vecchio or Old Bridge.

“He who passes after midnight on the Ponte Vecchio can always see a form which acts as guard, sometimes looking like a beggar, sometimes like a guardia di sicurezza, or one of the regular watchmen, and indeed appearing in many varied forms, but generally as that of a watchman, and always leaning on the bridge.

“And if the passer-by asks him any such questions as these: ‘Chi siei?’—‘Cosa fai?’—‘Dove abiti?’—‘Ma vien’ con me?’ That is: ‘Who are you?’—‘What dost thou do?’—‘Where is your home?’—‘Wilt with me come?’—he seems unable to utter anything; but if you ask him, ‘Who am I?’ it seems to delight him, and he bursts into a peal of laughter which is marvellously loud and ringing, so that the people in the shops waking up cry, ‘There is the goblin of the Ponte Vecchio at his jests again!’ For he is a merry sprite, and then they go to sleep, feeling peaceably assured that he will watch over them as of yore.

“And this he really does for those who are faithful unto him. And those who believe in spirits should say sincerely:

“‘Spirito del Ponte Vecchio,
Guardami la mia bottega!
Guardami dagli ladroni!
Guardami anche dalla strega!’

“‘Spirit of the ancient bridge!
Guard my shop and all my riches,
From the thieves who prowl by night,
And especially from witches!’

“Then the goblin ever keeps guard for them. And should it ever come to pass that thieves break into a shop which he protects, he lets them work away till they are about to leave, when he begins to scream ‘Al ladro! al ladro!’ and follows them till they are taken.

“But when the police have taken the thief, and he is brought up to be interrogated, and there is a call for the individual who was witness (quando le guardie vanno per interrogare l’individuo che si e trovato presente), lo and behold he has always disappeared.

“And at times, when the weather is bad, he prowls about the bridge in the form of a cat or of a he-goat, and should any very profane, abusive rascal (bestemmiatore) come along, the spirit as a goat will go before, running nimbly, when all at once the latter sinks into the earth, from which flames play forth, to the great terror of the sinner, while the goblin vanishes laughing.”

I have very little doubt that this guardian spirit of the bridge is the same as Teramo, i.e., Hermes Mercury, who is believed in the Toscana Romana to betray thieves when they commit murder. But Mercury was also a classic guardian of bridges.

This merry goblin of the Ponte Vecchio has a colleague not far away in the Spirito del Ponte alla Carraia, the legend of which is as follows. And here I would note, once for all, that in almost every case these tales were written out for me in order to secure the greater accuracy, which did not however always ensure it, since even Miss Roma Lister, who is to the manor or manner born, often had with me great trouble in deciphering the script. For verily it seems to be a decree of destiny that everything traditional shall be involved, when not in Egyptian or Himaritic, or Carthaginian or Norse-Runic, at least in some diabolical dialect, so anxious is the Spirit of the past to hide from man the things long passed away.

Al Ponte alla Carraia.

“By the Arno, or under the Bridge alla Carraia, there lived once a certain Marocchio, [77a] a bestemmiatore, or blasphemer, for he cursed bitterly when he gained but little, being truly a marocchio, much attached to money. Even in dying he still swore. And Marocchio had sold himself to the devil, and hidden his money under a stone in the arch of the bridge. Yet though he had very poor relations and friends, he confided nothing to them, and left niente a nessuno, ‘nothing to nobody.’ Whence it came that after his death he had no rest or peace, because his treasure remained undiscovered.

“Yet where the money lay concealed there was seen every night the form of a goat which cast forth flames, and running along before those who passed by, suddenly sunk into the ground, disappearing in a great flash of fire.

“And when the renaioli or sand-diggers, [77b] thinking it was a real goat, would catch it by the hair, it cast forth fire, so that many of them died of fright. And it often overthrew their boats and made all the mischief possible.

“Then certain people thinking that all this indicated a hidden treasure, sought to find it, but in vain; till at last one who was più furbo, or shrewder than the rest, observed that one day, when the wind was worse than usual, raising skirts and carrying away caps and hats, there was a goat in all the hurly-burly, and that this animal vanished at a certain spot. ‘There I ween,’ he said, ‘lies money hid!’ And knowing that midnight is the proper time or occasion (cagione di nascosto tesoro) for buried hoards, he came at the hour, and finding the habitual goat (il solito chaprone), he addressed him thus:

“‘If thou art a blessed soul, then go thy way in peace, and God be with thee. But if thou sufferest from buried treasure, then teach me how I, without any fear, may take thy store, then thou mayst go in peace! And if thou art in torment for a treasure, show me the spot, and I will take it home, and then thou’lt be at peace and grieve no more.’

“Then the goat jumped on the spot where the money was hidden and sank as usual out of sight in fire.

“So the next day the young man went there and dug till he discovered the gold, and the spirit of Marocchio was relieved. But to this hour the goat is seen now and then walking in his old haunt, where he sinks into the ground at the same place.”

The legend of a goat haunting a bridge is probably derived from the custom of sacrificing an animal to new buildings or erections. These were originally human sacrifices, for which, in later times, the animals were substituted. Hence the legends of the devil having been defrauded out of a promised soul by driving a goat or cat over the bridge as a first crosser. The spirits of the Ponte Vecchio and Ponte alla Carraia clearly indicate this origin.

The next legend on this subject is that of the Ponte alle Grazie, which was built by Capo, the fellow-pupil of Arnolfo, under the direction of Rubaconte, who filled the office of Podestà in 1235. Five hundred years are quite time enough to attract traditions in a country where they spring up in five; and when I inquired whether there was any special story attached to the Ponte alle Grazie, I was soon supplied with the following:

Le Ponte alle Grazie.

“When one passes under a bridge, or in halls of great palaces, or the vault of a church, or among high rocks, if he calls aloud, he will hear what is called the echo of his voice.

“Yet it is really not his own voice which he hears, but the mocking voices of spirits, the reason being that they are confined to these places, and therefore we do not hear them in the open air, where they are free. But we can hear them clearly in great places enclosed, as, for instance, under vaults, and far oftener in the country, because in limited spaces their voices are confined and not lost. And these are the voices of people who were merry and jovial while on earth, and who now take delight a rifare il verso, to re-echo a strain.

“But under the Ponte alle Grazie we hear the cry of the spirit of a girl. She was very beautiful, and had grown up from infancy in constant companionship with a youth of the neighbourhood, and so from liking as children they went on to loving at a more advanced age, with greater fondness and with deeper passion.

“And it went so far that at last the girl found herself with child, and then she was in great trouble, not knowing how to hide this from her parents. Sta beccata da una serpe, as the proverb is; ‘she had been stung by a serpent,’ and now began to feel the poison. But the youth was faithful and true, and promised to marry her as soon as he could possibly arrange matters. So she was quieted for a time.

“But she had a vilely false friend, and a most intimate one, in a girl who, being a witch, or of that kind, hated her bitterly at heart, albeit she knew well portare bene la maschera, how to wear the mask.

“Now the poor girl told this false friend that she was enceinte, and that her lover would marry her; and the dear friend took her, as the saying is, a trip to Volterra, during which a man was treated like a prince and robbed or murdered at the end. For she insinuated that the marriage might fail, and meantime she, the friend, would consult witches and fate, who would get her out of her troubles and make all right as sure as the Angelus. And the false friend went to the witches, but she took them a lock of hair from the head of the lover to conjure away his love and work harm. And knowing what the bridal dress would be, she made herself one like it in every detail. And she so directed that the bride on the wedding morning shut herself up in a room and see no one till she should be sent for.

“The bride-to-be passed the morning in great anxiety, and while waiting there received a large bouquet of orange-flowers as a gift from her friend. And these she had perfumed with a witch-powder. And the bride having inhaled the scent, fell into a deep sleep, or rather trance, during which she was delivered of a babe, and knew nothing of it. Now the people in the house hearing the child cry, ran into the room, and some one ran to the bridegroom, who was just going to be married to the false friend, who had by aid of the witches put on a face and a false seeming, the very counterpart of her he loved.

“Then the unfortunate girl hearing that her betrothed was

being married, and maddened by shame and grief, rushed in her bride’s dress through the streets, and coming to the Bridge delle Grazie, the river being high, threw herself into it and was drowned; still holding the bouquet of orange-blossoms in her hand, she was carried on the torrent into death.

“Then the young man, who had discovered the cheat, and whose heart was broken, said, ‘As we were one in life, so we will be in death,’ and threw himself into the Arno from the same place whence she had plunged, and like her was drowned. And the echo from the bridge is the sound of their voices, or of hers. Perhaps she answers to the girls and he to the men; anyhow they are always there, like the hymns in a church.”

There is a special interest in the first two paragraphs of this story, as indicating how a person who believes in spirits, and is quite ignorant of natural philosophy, explains phenomena. It is precisely in this manner that most early science was confused with superstition; and there is more of it still existing than even the learned are aware of.

I know not whether echoes are more remarkable in and about Florence than elsewhere, but they are certainly specially noticed in the local folk-lore, and there are among the witches invocations to echoes, voices of the wind, and similar sounds. One of the most remarkable echoes which I ever heard is in the well of the Villa Guicciardini, now belonging to Sir John Edgar. It is very accurate in repeating every sound in a manner so suggestive of a mocking goblin, that one can easily believe that a peasant would never doubt that it was caused by another being. It renders laughter again with a singularly strange and original effect. Even when standing by or talking near this mystic fount, the echo from time to time cast back scraps of phrases and murmurs, as if joining in the conversation. It is worth observing (vide the story of the Three Horns) that this villa once belonged to—and is, as a matter of course, haunted by the ghost of—Messer Guicciardini, the great writer, who

was himself a faithful echo of the history of his country, and of the wisdom of the ancients. Thus into things do things repeat themselves, and souls still live in what surrounded them. I have not seen this mystic well noticed in any of the Florentine guide-books of any kind, but its goblin is as well worthy an interview as many better known characters. Yea, it may be that he is the soul of Guicciardini himself, but when I was there I forgot to ask him if it were so?

I can, however, inform the reader as to the incantation which is needed to call to the spirit of the well to settle this question. Take a copy of his “Maxims” and read them through; then drink off one glass of wine to the health of the author, and, bending over the well, distinctly cry—“Sei Messer Guicciardini, di cosi?”—strongly accentuating the last syllable. And if the reply be in the affirmative, you may draw your own conclusions. For those who are not Italianate, it will do quite as well if they cry, “Guicciardini? No or yes?” For even this echo is not equal to the Irish one, which to “How do you do?” replied, “Pretty well, I thank you!”

There is a very good story of the Ponte alle Grazie, anciently known as the Rubaconte, from the Podestà in whose year of office it was built, told originally by Sachetti in his Novelle and Manni, Veglie Piacevoli, who drew it indeed from Venetian or Neapolitan-Oriental sources, and which is best told by Leader Scott in “The Echoes of Old Florence.” It still lives among the people, and is briefly as follows, in another form:

The Origin of the Ponte alle Grazie.

“There was once in Florence a Podestà or chief magistrate named Rubaconte, and he had been chosen in the year 1236, nor had he been long in office when a man called Bagnai, because he kept a public bath, was brought before him on the charge of murder.

“And Bagnai, telling his tale, said: ‘This is the very truth—ne favola ne canzone di tavola—for I was crossing the river on the little bridge with a hand-rail by the Palazzo Mozzi, when there came riding over it a company of gentlemen. And it befell that I was knocked over the bridge, and fell on a man below who was washing his feet in the Arno, and lo! the man was killed by my dropping on him.’

“Now to the Podestà this was neither eggs nor milk, as the saying is, and he could at first no more conclude on it than if one had asked him, ‘Chi nacque prima—l’uovo o la gallina?’ ‘Which was born first—the hen or the egg?’ For on one side the bagnajolo was innocent, and on the other the dead man’s relations cried for vengeance. But after going from one side of his brain to the other for five minutes, he saw ‘from here to the mountain,’ and said:

“‘Now I have listened to ye both, and this is a case where one must—

“‘Non giudicar per legge ni per carte,
Se non ascolti l’un e l’altra parte.’

“‘Judge not by law-books nor by chart,
But look with care to either part.’

“‘And as it is said, “Berta must drink from her own bottle,” so I decree that the bagnaio shall go and wash his feet in the Arno, sitting in the same place, and that he who is the first of his accusers shall fall from the bridge on his neck, and so kill him.’

“And truly this settled the question, and it was agreed that the Podestà was piu savio de gli statuti—wiser even than the law itself.

“But then Rubaconte did an even wiser thing, for he determined to have a new bridge built in place of the old one, and hence came the Ponte alle Grazie, ‘of which he himself laid the first foundation-stone, and carried the first basket of mortar, with all due civic ceremony, in 1236.’ [82]

“But as it is said, ‘he who has drunk once will drink again,’ it came to pass that Bagnai had to appear once more as accused before the Podestà. One day he met a man whose donkey had fallen and could not rise. ’Twas on the Ponte Vecchio.

“The owner seized the donkey by the head, Bagnai caught him by the tail, and pulled so hard that the tail came off!

“Then the contadino or asinaio had Bagnai brought before the Podestà, and claimed damages for his injured animal. And Rubaconte decided that Bagnai should keep the ass in his stable, and feed him well—until the tail had grown again.

“As may be supposed, the asinaio preferred to keep his ass himself, and go no farther in the case.”

This ancient tale recalls that of Zito, the German magician conjuror, whose leg was pulled off. It is pretty evident that the donkey’s tail had been glued on for the occasion.

I may here add something relative to the folk-lore of bridges, which is not without interest. I once asked a witch in Florence if such a being as a spirit of the water or one of bridges and streams existed; and she replied:

“Yes, there is a spirit of the water as there is of fire, and everything else. They are rarely seen, but you can make them appear. How? Oh, easily enough, but you must remember that they are capricious, and appear in many delusive forms. [83]

“And this is the way to see them. You must go at twilight and look over a bridge, or it will do if it be in the daytime in the woods at a smooth stream or a dark pool—che sia un poco oscuro—and pronounce the incantation, and throw a handful or a few drops of its water into the water itself. And then you must look long and patiently, always thinking of it for several days, when, poco à poco, you will see dim shapes passing by in the water, at first one or two, then more and more, and if you remain quiet they will come in great numbers, and show you what you want to know. But if you tell any one what you have seen, they will never appear again, and it will be well for you should nothing worse happen.

“There was a young man at Civitella in the Romagna Toscana, and he was in great need of money. He had lost an uncle who was believed to have left a treasure buried somewhere, but no one knew where it was. Now this nephew was a reserved, solitary youth, always by himself in lone places,

among ruins or in the woods—un poco streghon—a bit of a wizard, and he learned this secret of looking into streams or lakes, till at last, whenever he pleased, he could see swarms of all kinds of figures sweeping along in the water.

“And one evening he thus saw, as in a glass, the form of his uncle who had died, and in surprise he called out ‘Zio mio!’—‘My uncle!’ Then the uncle stopped, and the youth said, ‘Didst thou but know how I am suffering from poverty!’ When he at once beheld in the water his home and the wood near it, and a path, and the form of his uncle passed along the path to a lonely place where there was a great stone. Then the uncle pointed to the stone and vanished. The next day the young man went there, and under the stone he found a great bag of gold—and I hope that the same may happen to all of us!

“‘He who has sheep has wool in store;
He who has mills hath plenty of flour;
He who hath land hath these at call;
He who has money has got them all.’”

THE BASHFUL LOVER
a legend of the chiesa santa lucia in the via de’ bardi

“She never told her love—oh no!
For she was mild and meek,
And his for her he dared not show,
Because he hadn’t the cheek.
’Tis pity this should e’er be past,
For, to judge by what all men say,
’Twere best such difference should last
Unto our dying day.”

All who have visited Florence have noticed the Church of Santa Lucia in the Via de’ Bardi, from the figure of the patron with two angels over the door in Lucca della Robbia ware. Of this place of worship there is in a jest-book a droll story, which the reader may recall when he enters the building.

“A young Florentine once fell desperately in love with a beautiful lady of unsullied character and ready wit, and so followed her about wherever she went; but he being sadly lacking in wit and sense, at all four corners, never got the nearer to her acquaintance, though he told all his friends how irresistible he would be, and what a conquest he would make, if he could only once get a chance to speak to her. Yet as this lady prized ready wit and graceful address in a man above all things, it will be seen that his chance was thin as a strip of paper.

“But one festa the lady went to the Church of Santa Lucia in the Via dei Bardi, and one of the friends of the slow-witted one said to him, ‘Now is the lucky hour and blooming chance for you. Go up and speak to her when she approaches the font to take holy water.’

“Now the lover had prepared a fine speech for the lady, which he had indeed already rehearsed many times to his friends with great applause; but when it came to utter it to the lady a great and awful fear fell on him, the words vanished—vanished from his memory, and he was dumb as a dead ass. Then his friend poking him in the ribs, whispered in his ear, ‘But say something, man, no matter what!’

“So with a gasp he brought out at last, ‘Signora, I would fain be your humble servant.’

“To which the lady, smiling, replied, ‘Well, I have already in my house plenty of humble servants, and indeed only too many to sweep the rooms and wash the dishes, and there is really no place for another. . . .’

“And the young man turned aside with sickness in his heart. His wooing for that holiday was o’er.”

This may be matched with the story of a bashful New England lover of the olden time, for there are none such now-a-days:—

“I don’t know how I ever got courage to do it; but one evening I went courting Miss Almira Chapin.

“And when she came in, I sat for half-an-hour, and dared not say a word. At last I made a desperate dash and got out, ‘Things are looking very green out of doors, Miss Almira.’

“And she answered, ‘Seems to me they’re looking a great deal greener in doors this evening.’

“That extinguished me, and I retreated. And when I was outside I burst into tears.”

LA FORTUNA
a legend of the via de’ cerchi

“One day Good Luck came to my home,
I begged of her to stay.
‘There’s no one loves you more than I,
Oh, rest with me for aye,’
‘It may not be; it may not be,
I rest with no one long,’ said she.”

—“Witch Ballads,” by C. G. Leland.

The manner in which many of the gods in exile still live in Italy is very fully illustrated by the following story:

“It is a hard thing sometimes now-a-days for a family to pass for noble if they are poor, or only poor relations. But it was easy in the old time, Signore Carlo, easy as drinking good Chianti. A signore had only to put his shield with something carved on it over his window, and he was all right. He was noble senza dubbio.

“Now the nobles had their own noble stories as to what these noble pictures in stone meant, but the ignoble people often had another story just as good. Coarse woollen cloth wears as well as silk. Now you may see on an old palazzo in the Via de’ Cerchi, and indeed in several other places, a shield with three rings. But people call them three wheels. And this is the story about the three wheels.”

La Fortuna.

“There was a man, tanto buono, as good as could be, who lived in squalid misery. He had a wife and two children, one blind and another storpia or crippled, and so ugly, both—non si dice—beyond telling!

“This poor man in despair often wept, and then he would repeat:

“‘The wheel of Fortune turns, they say,
But for me it turns the other way;
I work with good-will, but do what I may,
I have only bad luck from day to day.’

“‘Yes, little to eat and less to wear, and two poor girls, one blind and one lame. People say that Fortune is blind herself, and cannot walk, but she does not bless those who are like her, that is sure!’ And so he wailed and wept, till it was time to go forth to seek work to gain their daily bread. And a hard time he had of it.

“Now it happened that very late one night, or very early one morning, as one may say, between dark and dawn, he went to the forest to cut wood. When having called to Fortune as was his wont—Ai! what was his surprise to see—tutta ad un tratto—all at once, before his eyes, a gleam of light, and raising his head, he beheld a lady of enchanting beauty passing along rapidly, and yet not walking—on a rolling ball—e ciondolava le gambe—moving her limbs—I cannot say feet, for she had none. In place of them were two wheels, and these wheels, as they turned, threw off flowers from which there came delicious perfume.

“The poor man uttered a sigh of relief seeing this, and said:

“‘Beautiful lady, believe me when I say that I have invoked thee every day. Thou art the Lady of the Wheels of Fortune, and had I known how beautiful thou art, I would have worshipped thee for thy beauty alone. Even thy very name is beautiful to utter, though I have never been able to couple it with mine, for one may see that I am not one of the fortunate. Yet, though thou art mine enemy, give me, I pray, just a little of the luck which flies from thy wheel!

“‘Yet do not believe, I pray, that I am envious of those who are thy favourites, nor that because thou art my enemy that I am thine, for if thou dost not deem that I am worthy, assuredly I do not deserve thy grace, nor will I, like many, say that Fortune is not beautiful, for having seen thee, I can now praise thee more than ever.’

“‘I do not cast my favours always on those who deserve them,’ replied Fortune, ‘yet this time my wheel shall assist thee. But tell me, thou man of honesty and without envy, which wouldst thou prefer—to be fortunate in all things thyself alone, or to give instead as much good luck to two men as miserable as thou art? If thou wilt gain the prize for

thyself alone, turn and pluck one of these flowers! If for others, then take two.’

“The poor man replied: ‘It is far better, lady, to raise two families to prosperity than one. As for me, I can work, and I thank God and thee that I can do so much good to so many, although I do not profit by it myself;’ and saying this, he advanced and plucked two flowers.

“Fortune smiled. ‘Thou must have heard,’ she said, ‘that where I spend, I am lavish and extravagant, and assuredly thou knowest the saying that “Three is the lucky number,” or nine. Now I make it a rule that when I relieve families, I always do it by threes—la spando à tre famiglie—so do thou go and pluck a flower for thyself!’

“Then the poor man, hearing this, went to the wheels, and let them turn till a very large fine flower came forth, and seized it, whereat Fortune smiled, and said:

“‘I always favour the bold. Now go and sit on yonder bench till some one comes.’ And saying this, she vanished.

“There came two very poor woodcutters whom he knew well. One had two sons, another a son and a daughter, and one and all were as poor and miserable as could be.

“‘What has come over thee, that thou art looking so handsome and young,’ said one amazed, as he came up.

“‘And what fine clothes!’ remarked the second.

“‘It shall be so anon for ye both,’ replied the favourite of Fortune; ‘only take these flowers and guard them well.’

“Si, Signore, they sat down on the bench three beggars, and they rose three fine cavaliers, in velvet and satin, with gold-mounted swords, and found their horses and attendants waiting. And when they got home, they did not know their wives or children, nor were they known unto them, and it was an hour before all was got right. Then all went with them as if it were oiled. The first man found a great treasure the very first day in his cellar—in fine, they all grew rich, and the three sons married the three girls, and they all put the three wheels on their scudi. One of the wheels is the ball on which Fortune rolled along, and the other two are her feet; or else the three men each took a wheel to himself. Anyhow, there they are, pick and choose, Signore—chi ha piú cervello, l’usi!—let him who has brains, brain!

“Now, it is a saying that ogni fior non fa frutto—every blossom doth not bear a fruit—but the flowers of Fortune bear fruit enough to make up for the short crop elsewhere.

“But there is some sense and use in such stories as these, Signore, after all; for a poor devil who half believes—and very often quite believes in them—gets a great deal of hope and comfort out of them. They make him trust that luck or fairies or something will give him a good turn yet some day—chi sa?—and so he hopes, and truly, as they say that no pretty girl is ever quite poor, so no man who hopes is ever really broken—grazie, Signore! I hope to tell you another story before long.”

There is something in the making Fortune with two heels for feet which suggests a memory of skate-rollers.

I once published an article in the Ethnologische Monatsheft of Budapest, which set forth more fully the idea expressed in this tale, that the popular or fairy tale is a source of comfort, or a Bible to the poor, for it always teaches the frequently delusive, but always cheering lesson that good-luck or fortune may turn up some day, even for the most unfortunate. The Scripture promises happiness for the poorest, or indeed specially for the poorest in the next life; the fairy tale teaches that Cinderella, the despised, and the youngest, humblest of the three, will win fortune while here on earth. It inspires hope, which is a great secret of happiness and success.

To which the learned Flaxius annotates:

“It hath escaped the author—as it hath indeed all mankind—that as the first syllable of Fortuna is fort (Latin fortis), so the true beginning of luck is strength; and if we are to understand by una, ‘one’ or ‘only,’ we may even believe that the name means strength alone or vigorous will, in accordance with which the ancients declared that ‘Fortune favours the bold,’ and also Fortuna contentionis studiosa est—‘Fortune delights in strife.’ Therefore she is ever fleeting in this world. Fortuna simul cum moribus immutatur, as Boethius hath it.”

THE STORY OF THE UNFINISHED PALACE
a legend of the via del proconsolo

“‘Yes, you have cheated me,’ howled the devil to the architect. ‘But I lay a curse upon your work. It shall never be finished.’”—Snow and Planche’s “Legends of the Rhine.”

All great and ancient buildings which were never finished have a legend referring to their incompleteness. There was one relative to the Cathedral of Cologne, which may be found in Planche’s “Legends of the Rhine,” and as there is a palazzo non finito in Florence, I at once scented an old story; nor was I disappointed, it being unearthed in due time, and written out for me as follows:

Il Palazzo non Finito.

“On the corner of the Via del Proconsole and the Borgo degli Albizzi there is an unfinished palace.

“The great Signore Alessandro Strozzi had a friend who, when dying, confided to him the care of his only son. And it was a troublesome task, for the youth was of a strange temper. And a vast property was left to the young man, his father imploring him not to waste it, and to live in friendship with his guardian.

“But his father had hardly closed his eyes in death before this youth began to act wildly, and above all things to gamble terribly. And as the saying is, Il diavolo ha parte in ogni giuoco—‘The devil has a hand in every game,’ so he soon brought himself into company with the gamester. Now, as you have heard, ’tis la lingua o la bocca e quella che fa il giuoco.

“‘Every game, as it is sung,
Is won by mouth, or else by tongue.’

“So this devil or imp by smooth talk succeeded in deceiving

the young heir, and leading him into a compact by which he was to achieve for the Signore all the work which might be required of him for a hundred years, no matter what it was, and then the heir must forfeit his soul.

“For some time the young man was satisfied with always winning at gambling. Yes, he ruined scores, hundreds, and piled up gold till he got sick of the sight of cards. You know the saying, ‘When the belly is full the eyes are tired,’ and ‘A crammed dove hates to fly.’

“So for a while he kept the devil busy, bringing him a girl here, and building him a tower there, sending him to India for diamonds, or setting him at work to keep off storm and hail from his vineyards, which the devil found hard work enough, I promise you, Signore, for then he had to fight other devils and witches. Then he put him at a harder job. There was a ghost of a stregone or wizard who haunted his palazzo. Now such ghosts are the hardest to lay.

“‘E niente, Signore,’ said the devil. ‘E vi passarebbe un carro di fieno. ’Tis nothing, my lord; one could drive a cartload of hay through it.’ [92] But the devil had a devil of a time to lay that ghost! There was clanking of chains and howling, and il diavolo scatenato all night long ere it was done.

“‘E finito, Signore,’ said the devil in the morning. But he looked so worn-out and tired, that the young man began to think.

“And he thought, ‘This devil of mine is not quite so clever as I supposed.’ And it is a fact that it was only a diavolino—a small devil who had thought the young man was a fool—in which he was mistaken. A man may have un ramo di pazzo come l’olmo di Fiesole—‘be a bit of a fool,’ but ‘a fool and a sage together can beat a clever man,’ as the saying is, and both were in this boy’s brain, for he came of wizard blood. So he reflected, ‘Perhaps I can cheat this devil after all.’ And he did it.

“Moreover, this devil being foolish, had begun to be too officious and consequential. He was continually annoying the Signore by asking for more work, even when he did not want it, as if to make a show of his immense ability and insatiable activity. Finally, beginning to believe in his own power, he

began to appear far too frequently, uncalled, rising up from behind chairs abruptly in his own diabolical form, in order to inspire fear; but the young lad had not been born in Carnival to be afraid of a mask, as the saying is, and all this only made him resolve to send his attendant packing.

“‘Chi ha pazienza, cugino,
Ha i tordi grassi a un quattrino.’

“‘He who hath patience, mind me, cousin,
May buy fat larks a farthing a dozen.’

“Now, amid all these dealings, the young signore had contrived to fall in love with the daughter of his guardian, Alessandro Strozzi, and also to win her affections; but he observed one day when he went to see her, having the diavolino invisible by his side, the attendant spirit suddenly jibbed or balked, like a horse which stops before the door, and refused to go farther. For there was a Madonna painted on the outside, and the devil said:

“‘I see a virgin form divine,
And virgins are not in my line;
I’m not especially devout:
Go thou within—I’ll wait without!’

“And the young man observing that his devil was devilishly afraid of holy water, made a note of it for future use. And having asked the Signore Alessandro Strozzi for the hand of his daughter, the great lord consented, but made it a condition that the youth should build for his bride a palace on the corner of the Via del Proconsolo and the Borgo degli Albizzi, and it must be ready within a year. This he said because in his heart he did not like the match, yet for his daughter’s love he put this form upon it, and he hoped that ere the time would be out something might happen to prevent the marriage. In fin che v’è fiato v’è speranza—while there is breath, Signore, there is hope.

“Now the young man having resolved to finish with his devil for good and all, began to give him great hope in divers ways. And one day he said to the imp:

“‘Truly thou hast great power, but I have a mind to make a great final game with thee. Ogni bel giuoco vuol durar poco—no good game should last long, and let us play this compact of ours out. If thou canst build for me a palace at the corner of the Via del Proconsolo and the Borgo degli Albizzi, and

finish it in every detail exactly as I shall order it, then will I be thine, and thou need’st do no more work for me. And if thou canst not complete it to my taste, then our compact will be all smoke, and we two past acquaintances.’

“Now it is said that to cook an egg to a turn, make a dog’s bed to suit him exactly, or teach a Florentine a trick, sono trè cose difficilé—are three very difficult things to do, and this contract for building the palace on time with indefinite ornaments made the devil shake in his shoes. However, he knew that ‘Pippo found out how to stand an egg on its end,’ [94] and where there’s a will there’s a way, especially when you have ‘all hell to back you up’—tutto l’inferno a spalleggiarvi.

“So he built and built away, with one gang of devils disguised as workmen by day, and another, invisible, by night, and everybody was amazed to see how the palace rose like weeds after a rain; for, as the saying is, mala herba presto cresce—‘ill weeds grow apace,’ and this had the devil to water it.

“Till at last one day, when the six months were nearly up, the imp said to the master:

“‘Ebbene, Signore, it is getting to the time for you to tell me how you would like to have the palace decorated. Thus far everything has been done exactly as you directed.’

“‘Ah yes, I see—all done but the finishing. Well, it may be a little hard, but I promise you, on the word of a gentleman (tra galant’ uomini una parola e un instrumento), that I will not ask you to do anything which cannot be executed even by the artists of this city.’

“Now the devil was delighted to hear this (for he was afraid he might be called on to work miracles unheard of), and so replied:

“‘Top! what man has done the devil can do. I’ll risk the trick if you swear that men can work it.’

“‘I swear!’

“‘And what is the finish?’

“‘Oh, very easy. My wife who is to be is of a very pious turn, and I want to please her. Firstly, all the work must be equal in execution to the best by the greatest masters—painting, sculpture, and gilding.’

“‘Agreed.’

“‘Secondly, the subjects. Over the front door—bisogna mettermi Gesu Cristo onnipotente unitamente a Maria e il suo divin figlio, Padre, Figlio e Spirito Santo—that is, the Holy Family and Trinity, the Virgin and Child.’

“‘Wha—wha—what’s that?’ stammered the devil, aghast. ‘It isn’t fair play—not according to the game.’

“‘On every door,’ continued the young man, raising his voice, and looking severely at the devil, ‘the same subject is to be repeated on a thick gold ground, all the ultramarine to be of the very best quality, washed in holy water.’

“‘Ugh! ugh! ugh!’ wailed the devil.

“‘The roof is to be covered with the images of saints as pinnacles, and, by the way, wherever you have a blank space, outside on the walls or inside, including ceilings—just cover it with the same subjects—the Temptation of Saint Antony or Saint—’

“‘Oh, go to the devil with your saints and gold grounds!’ roared the imp. ‘Truly I have lost this game; fishing with a golden hook is a fool’s business. There is the compact!’

“It was night—deep, dark night—there came a blinding flash of light—an awful crash of indescribable unearthly sound, like a thunder-voice. The imp, taking the form of a civetta or small owl, vanished through the window in the storm-wind and rain, wailing, ‘Mai finito!’

“And it is said that to this day the small owl still perches by night on the roof of the palace, wailing wearily—‘Unfinished! unfinished!’”

In no country in the world has unscrupulous vigorous intellect been so admired as in Italy, the land of the Borgias and Machiavellis. In the rest of Europe man finds a master in the devil; in Italy he aims at becoming the devil’s master. This is developed boldly in the legend of “Intialo,” to which I have devoted another chapter, and it appears as markedly in this. The idea of having an attendant demon, whom the master, in the consciousness of superior intellect, despises, knowing that he will crush him when he will, is not to be found, I believe, in a single German, French, or any other legend not Italian.

If this be so, it is a conception well deserving study, as illustrating the subtle and powerful Italian intellect as it was first analysed by Macaulay, and is now popularly understood by such writers as Scaife. [96] It is indeed a most unholy and unchristian conception, since it is quite at war with the orthodox theology of the Church, as of Calvin and Luther, which makes the devil the grand master of mankind, and irresistible except where man is saved by a special miracle or grace.

And it may also be noted from such traditions that folk-lore, when it shall have risen to a sense of its true dignity and power, will not limit itself to collecting variants of fairy tales to prove the routes of races over the earth, but rise to illustrating the characteristic, and even the æsthetic, developments of different stocks. That we are now laying the basis for this is evident.

Though the devil dared not depict lives and legends of the saints upon the palace, he did not neglect to put his own ugly likeness there, repeated above the four front windows in a perfectly appalling Gothic style, which contrasts oddly with the later and severe character of the stately building. These faces are fiendish enough to have suggested the story.

It may here be mentioned that it was in the middle of the Borgo degli Albizzi, near this palace, that that indefatigable corpse-reviver and worker of miracles, San Zenobio, raised from the dead the child of a noble and rich French lady. “Then in that place there was put a pillar of white marble in the middle of the street, as a token of a great miracle.”

“Hæc fabula docet—this fable teaches,” adds Flaxius the immortal, “that there was never yet anything left incomplete by neglect or incapacity or poverty, be it in buildings or in that higher structure, man himself, but what it was attributed to the devil. If it had not been for the devil, what fine fellows, what charming creatures, we would all have been to be sure! The devil alone inspires us to sin; we would never have dreamed of it. Whence I conclude that the devil is dearer to man, and a greater benefactor, than all the saints and several deities thrown in, because he serves as a scudaway scapegoat, and excellent excuse for the sins of all the orthodox of all time. How horrible it would be were we all made unto ourselves distinctly responsible for our sins—our unfinished palaces, our good resolutions broken; and how very pleasant it is that it is all the devil’s fault, and not our own! Oh my friends, did I believe as ye do—which I don’t—I would long ago have raised altars and churches to the devil, wherein I would praise him daily as the one who in spirit and in truth takes upon himself the sins of all the world, bearing the burden of our iniquities. For saying which thing, but in other words, the best Christian of his age, Bishop Agobard, was hunted down well-nigh to death. Thus endeth a great lesson!”

THE DEVIL OF THE MERCATO VECCHIO

“Have I not the magic wand, by means of which, having first invoked the spirit Odeken, one can enter the elfin castle? Is not this a fine trot on the devil’s crupper? Here it is—one of the palaces erected by rivals of the Romans. Let us enter, for I hold a hand of glory to which all doors open. Let us enter, hic et nunc, the palace fair. . . . Here it was once on a Sabato of the Carnival that there entered four graceful youths of noble air.”—Arlecchino alle Nozze di Cana.

I very naturally made inquiry as to whether there was not a legend of the celebrated bronze devil made by Giovanni di Bologna, which remained until lately in the Mercato Vecchio, and I obtained the following, which is, from intrinsic evidence, extremely curious and ancient.

Il Diavolo alla Cavolaia.

“On the corner of the Palace Cavolaia there were anciently four devils of iron. [98] These were once four gentlemen who, being wonderfully intimate, had made a strange compact, swearing fidelity and love among themselves to death, agreeing also that if they married, their wives and children and property should be all in common.

“When such vows and oaths are uttered, the saints may pass them by, but the devils hear them; they hear them in hell, and they laugh and cry, ‘These are men who will some day be like us, and here for ever!’ Such sin as that is like a root which, once planted, may be let alone—the longer it is in the ground, the more it grows. Terra non avvilisce oro—earth does not spoil gold, but even virtue, like friendship, may grow into a great vice when it grows too much.

“As it happened in this case. Well, the four friends were invited to a great festa in that fatal palace of the Cavolaia, and they all went. And they danced and diverted themselves

with great and beautiful ladies in splendour and luxury. As the four were all singularly handsome and greatly admired, the ladies came con grandi tueletti—in their best array, sfarzose per essere corteggiate—making themselves magnificent to be courted by these gentlemen, and so they looked at one another with jealous eyes, and indeed many a girl there would have gladly been wife to them all, or wished that the four were one, while the married dames wished that they could fare i sposamenti—be loved by one or all. People were wicked in those days!

“But what was their surprise—and a fearful surprise it was—when, after all their gaiety, they heard at three o’clock in the morning the sound of a bell which they had never heard before, and then divine music and singing, and there entered a lady of such superhuman beauty as held them enchanted and speechless. Now it was known that, by the strict rules of that palace, the festa must soon close, and there was only time for one more dance, and it was sworn among these friends that every lady who danced with one of them, must dance with all in succession. Truly they now repented of their oath, for she was so beautiful.

“But the lady advancing, pointed out one of the four, and said, ‘I will dance with him alone.’

“The young signore would have refused, but he felt himself obliged, despite himself, to obey her, and when they had danced, she suddenly disappeared, leaving all amazed.

“And when they had recovered from the spell which had been upon them, they said that as she had come in with the dawn and vanished with the day, it must have been the Beautiful Alba, the enchanting queen of the fairies.

“The festa lasted for three days, and every night at the same hour the beautiful Alba reappeared, enchanting all so wonderfully, that even the ladies forgot their jealousy, and were as much fascinated by her as were the men.

“Now of the four friends, three sternly reproached the other for breaking his oath, they being themselves madly in love; but he replied, and truly, that he had been compelled by some power which he could not resist to obey her. But that, as a man of honour, so far as he could, he would comply with the common oath which bound them.

“Then they declared that he should ask her if she loved him, and if she assented, that he should inform her of their oath, and that she must share her love with all or none—altrimenti non avrebbe mai potuta sposarla.

“Which he did in good faith, and she answered, ‘Hadst thou loved me sincerely and fully, thou wouldst have broken that vile oath; and yet it is creditable to thee that, as a man of honour, thou wilt not break thy word. Therefore thou shalt be mine, but not till after a long and bitter punishment. Now I ask thy friends and thee, if to be mine they are willing to take the form of demons and bear it openly before all men.’

“And when he proposed it to his friends, he found them so madly in love with the lady that they, thinking she meant some disguise, declared that to be hers they would willingly wear any form, however terrible.

“And the fair Alba, having heard them, said, ‘Yes, ye shall indeed be mine; more than that I do not promise. Now meet me to-morrow at the Canto dei Diavoli—at the Devil’s Corner!’

“And they gazed at her astonished, never having heard of such a place. But she replied, ‘Go into the street and your feet shall guide you, and truly it will be a great surprise.’

“And they laughed among themselves, saying, ‘The surprise will be that she will consent to become a wife to us all.’

“But when they came to the corner, in the night, what was their amazement to see on it four figures of devils indeed, and Alba, who said, ‘Now ye are indeed mine, but as for my being yours, that is another matter.’

“Then touching each one, she also touched a devil, and said, ‘This is thy form; enter into it. Three of ye shall ever remain as such. As for this fourth youth, he shall be with ye for a year, and then, set free, shall live with me in human form. And from midnight till three in the morning ye also may be as ye were, and go to the Palazzo Cavolaia, and dance and be merry with the rest, but through the day become devils again.’

“And so it came to pass. After a year the image of the chosen lover disappeared; and then one of the three was stolen, and then another, till only one remained.”

There is some confusion in the conclusion of this story, which I have sought to correct. The exact words are, “For many years all four remained, till one was stolen away, and that was the image of the young man who pleased the beautiful Alba, who thus relieved him of the spell.” But as there has been always only one devil on

the corner, I cannot otherwise reconcile the story with the fact.

I have said that this tale is ancient from intrinsic evidence. Such extravagant alliances of friendship as is here described were actually common in the Middle Ages; they existed in England even till the time of Queen Elizabeth. In “Shakespeare and his Friends,” or in the “Youth of Shakespeare”—I forget which—two young men are represented as fighting a duel because each declared that he loved the other most. There was no insane folly of sentiment which was not developed in those days. But this is so foreign to modern ideas, that I think it could only have existed in tradition to these our times.

There were also during the Middle Ages strange heretical sects, among whom such communism existed, like the polyandria of the ancient Hindoos. There may be a trace of it in this story.

Alba, Albina, or Bellaria, appear in several Tuscan traditions. They are forms of the Etruscan Alpan, the fairy of the Dawn, a sub-form of Venus, the spirit of Light and Flowers, described in my work on “Etruscan Roman Traditions.” It may be remarked as an ingenious touch in the tale, that she always appears at the first dawn, or at three o’clock, and vanishes with broad day. This distinguishes her from the witches and evil spirits, who always come at midnight and vanish at three o’clock.

The readiness with which the young men consented to assume the forms of demons is easily explained. They understood that it meant only a disguise, and it was very common in the Middle Ages for lovers to wear something strange in honour of their mistresses. The dress of a devil would only seem a joke to the habitués of the Cavolaia. It may be also borne in mind that in other tales of Florence it is distinctly stated that spirits confined in statues, columns, et cetera, only inhabit them “as bees live in hives.” They appear to sleep in them by

day, and come out at night. So in India the saint or demon only comes into the relic or image from time to time, or when invoked.

After I had written the foregoing, I was so fortunate as to receive from Maddalena yet another legend of the bronze imp of Giovanni di Bologna, which tale she had unearthed in the purlieus of the Mercato Vecchio. I have often met her when thus employed, always in the old part of the town, amid towering old buildings bearing shields of the Middle Ages, or in dusky vicoli and chiassi, and when asked what she was doing, ’twas ever the same reply, “Ma, Signore Carlo, there’s an old woman—or somebody—lives here who knows a story.” And then I knew that there was going to be a long colloquy in dialect which would appal any one who only knew choice Italian, the end of which would be the recovery, perhaps from half-a-dozen vecchie, of a legend like the following, of which I would premise that it was not translated by me, but by Miss Roma Lister, who knew Maddalena, having taken lessons from her in the sublime art of battezare le carte, or telling fortunes by cards, and other branches of the black art. And having received the manuscript, which was unusually illegible and troublesome, I asked Miss Lister to kindly transcribe it, but with great kindness she translated the whole, only begging me to mention that it is given with the most scrupulous accuracy, word for word, from the original, so far as the difference of language permitted.

Il Diavolino del Canto de’ Diavoli.
The Imp of the Devil’s Corner and the Pious Fairy.

“There was once a pious fairy who employed all her time in going about the streets of Florence in the shape of a woman, preaching moral sermons for the good of her hearers, and singing so sweetly that all who heard her voice fell in love with her. Even the women forgot to be jealous, so charming was her

voice, and dames and damsels followed her about, trying to learn her manner of singing.

“Now the fairy had converted so many folk from their evil ways, that a certain devil or imp—who also had much business in Florence about that time—became jealous of the intruder, and swore to avenge himself; but it appears that there was as much love as hate in the fiend’s mind, for the fairy’s beautiful voice had worked its charm even when the hearer was a devil. Now, besides being an imp of superior intelligence, he was also an accomplished ventriloquist (or one who could imitate strange voices as if sounding afar or in any place); so one day while the pious fairy in the form of a beautiful maiden held forth to an admiring audience, two voices were heard in the street, one here, another there, and the first sang:

“‘Senti o bella una parola,
Te la dico a te sola,
Qui nessun ci puo’l sentire
Una cosa ti vuo dire;
Se la senti la stemperona,
L’a un voce da buffona
Tiene in mano la corona. [103]
Per fare credere a questo o quella,
Che l’e sempre una verginella.’

“‘Hear, O lovely maid, a word,
Only to thyself I’d bear it,
For it must not be o’erheard,
Least of all should the preacher hear it.
’Tis that, while seeming pious, she,
Holding in hand a rosary,
Her talk is all hypocrisy,
To make believe to simple ears,
That still the maiden wreath she wears.’

“Then another voice answered:

“‘La risposta ti vuo dare,
Senza farti aspettare;
Ora di un bell’ affare,
Te la voglio raccontare,
Quella donna che sta a cantare,
E una Strega di queste contrade,
Che va da questo e quello,
A cantarle indovinello,
A chi racconta: Voi siete
Buona donna affezionata.
Al vostro marito, ma non sapete,
Cie’ di voi un ’altra appasionata.’

“‘Friends, you’ll not have long to wait
For what I’m going to relate;
And it is a pretty story
Which I am going to lay before ye.
That dame who singing there you see
Is a witch of this our Tuscany,
Who up and down the city flies,
Deceiving people with her lies,
Saying to one: The truth to tell,
I know you love your husband well;
But you will find, on close inspection,
Another has his fond affection.’

“In short, the imp, by changing his voice artfully, and singing his ribald songs everywhere, managed in the end to persuade people that the fairy was no better than she should be, and a common mischief-maker and disturber of domestic peace. So the husbands, becoming jealous, began to quarrel with their wives, and then to swear at the witch who led them astray or put false suspicion into their minds.

“But it happened that the fairy was in high favour with a great saint, and going to him, she told all her troubles and the wicked things which were said of her, and besought him to free her good name from the slanders which the imp of darkness had spread abroad (l’aveva chalugnato).

“Then the saint, very angry, changed the devil into a bronze figure (mascherone, an architectural ornament), but first compelled him to go about to all who had been influenced by his slanders, and undo the mischief which he had made, and finally to make a full confession in public of everything, including his designs on the beautiful fairy, and how he hoped by compromising her to lead her to share his fate.

“Truly the imp cut but a sorry figure when compelled to thus stand up in the Old Market place at the corner of the Palazzo Cavolaia before a vast multitude and avow all his dirty little tricks; but he contrived withal to so artfully represent his passionate love for the fairy, and to turn all his sins to that account, that many had compassion on him, so that indeed among the people, in time, no one ever spoke ill of the doppio povero diavolo, or doubly poor devil, for they said he was to be pitied since he had no love on earth and was shut out of heaven.

“Nor did he quite lose his power, for it was said that after he had been confined in the bronze image, if any one spoke ill of him or said, ‘This is a devil, and as a devil he can never enter Paradise,’ then the imp would persecute that man with

strange voices and sounds until such time as the offender should betake himself to the Palazzo della Cavolaia, and there, standing before the bronze image, should ask his pardon.

“And if it pleased the Diavolino, he forgave them, and they had peace; but if it did not, they were pursued by the double mocking voice which made dialogue or sang duets over all their sins and follies and disgraces. And whether they stayed at home or went abroad, the voices were ever about them, crying aloud or tittering and whispering or hissing, so that they had no rest by day or night; and this is what befell all who spoke ill of the Diavolino del Canto dei Diavoli.”

The saint mentioned in this story was certainly Pietro Martire or Peter the Martyrer, better deserving the name of murderer, who, preaching at the very corner where the bronze imp was afterwards placed, declared that he beheld the devil, and promptly exorcised him. There can be little doubt that the image was placed there to commemorate this probably “pious fraud.”

It is only since I wrote all this that I learned that there were formerly two of these devils, one having been stolen not many years ago. This verifies to some extent the consistency of the author of the legend, “The Devil of the Mercato Vecchio,” who says there were four.

There is a very amusing and curious trait of character manifested in the conclusion of this story which might escape the reader’s attention were it not indicated. It is the vindication of the “puir deil,” and the very evident desire to prove that he was led astray by love, and that even the higher spirit could not take away all his power. Here I recognise beyond all question the witch, the fortune-teller and sorceress, who prefers Cain to Abel, and sings invocations to the former, and to Diana as the dark queen of the Strege, and always takes sides with the heretic and sinner and magian and goblin. It is the last working of the true spirit of ancient heathenism, for the fortune-tellers, and especially those of the mountains, all come of families who have been regarded as enemies

by the Church during all the Middle Ages, and who are probably real and direct descendants of Canidia and her contemporaries, for where this thing is in a family it never dies out. I have a great many traditions in which the hand of the heathen witch and the worship of “him who has been wronged” and banished to darkness, is as evident as it is here.

“Which indeed seems to show,” comments the learned Flaxius, “that if the devil is never quite so black as he is painted, yet, on the other hand, he is so far from being of a pure white—as the jolly George Sand boys, such as Heine and Co., thought—that it is hard to make him out of any lighter hue than mud and verdigris mixed. In medio tutissimus ibis. ’Tis also to be especially noted, that in this legend—as in Shelley’s poem—the Devil appears as a meddling wretch who is interested in small things, and above all, as given to gossip:

“The Devil sat down in London town
Before earth’s morning ray,
With a favourite imp he began to chat,
On religion, and scandal, and this and that,
Until the dawn of day.”

SEEING THAT ALL WAS RIGHT
a legend of the porta a san nicolò

“God keep us from the devil’s lackies,
Who are the aggravating jackies,
Who to the letter execute
An order and exactly do’t,
Or else, with fancy free and bold,
Do twice as much as they are told,
And when reproved, cry bravely, ‘Oh!
I thought you’d like it so and so.’
From all such, wheresoe’er they be,
Libera nos, Domine!’

The Porta a San Nicolò in Florence is, among other legends, associated with a jest played by the famous Barlacchia on a friend, the story of which runs as follows:

“It is an old saying that la porta di dietro è quella che ruba la casa (it is the back gate which robs a house), and it was going back to the gate of San Nicolò which robbed a man of all his patience. This man had gone with Barlacchia the jester from Florence to Val d’Arno, and on returning they had stopped in the plain of Ripolo, where the friend was obliged to delay for a time, while Barlacchia went on. Now it was so late that although Barlacchia was certain to reach the Porto a San Nicolò in time to enter, it was doubtful whether the one who came later could do so unless a word should be spoken in advance to the guard, who for friendship or a fee would sit up and let the late-comer in. Therefore the friend said to the jester, ‘Di gratia facesse sostenere la porta’—‘See that the gate is all right,’ or that all is right at the bridge—meaning, of course, that he should make it right with the guardian to let him in.

“And when Barlacchia came to the gate, he indeed asked the officer in charge se questi si sostengo—whether it was all right, and if it stood firmly, and was in no danger of falling, affirming that he was making special inquiry at request of a

friend who was commissioner of the city gates and bridges, and obtained a paper certifying that the gate was in excellent condition, after which he went home.

“Trotting along on his mule came the friend, who, believing that Barlacchia had made it all right with the guard, had not hurried. But he found it was all wrong, and that ‘a great mistake had been made somewhere,’ as the eel said when he was thrown into boiling hot oil instead of cold water. For he found the gate locked and nobody to let him in, so that in a great rage he was obliged to go back to an inn which was distinguished for nothing but its badness, dove stette con gran disagio quella notte (where he passed the night in great discomfort).

“And when morning came, he passed the gate, but stopped and asked whether Barlacchia had been there the night before. To which the guard answered, ‘Yes,’ and that he had been very particular in his inquiries as to whether the doors were firm on their hinges, and if the foundations were secure; on hearing which, the man saw that he had been sold, [108] and going to the Piazza Signoria, and meeting Barlacchia, gli disse rilevata villania, let him have abuse in bold relief and large proportion, saying that it was infamous to snipe his equal in all things and better in most, in such a low-flung manner, unbecoming a half-grown chimney-sweep, and that if he did not respect himself too much to use improper or strong language, he would say that Barlacchia was a dastardly blackguard and a son of a priest. To which Barlacchia remonstrated that he had performed to perfection exactly what he had promised to do, yea, a punto, to the very letter.

“Now by this time half Florence had assembled, and being delighted beyond all measure at this racy dispute, insisted on forming a street-court and settling the question alla fresca. And when the evidence was taken, and all the facts, which long in darkness lay, were brought full clearly to the light of day, there was such a roaring of laughter and clapping of lands that you would have sworn the Guelfs and Ghibellines had got at it again full swing. But the verdict was that Barlacchia was acquitted without a stain on his character.

“Hæc fabula docet,” comments Flaxius, “that there be others besides Tyll Eulenspiegel who make mischief by fulfilling laws too literally. And there are no people in this world who contrive to break the Spirit of Christianity so much as those who follow it simply to the Letter.”

THE ENCHANTED COW OF LA VIA VACCHERECCIA

“On Dunmore Heath I also slewe
A monstrous wild and cruell beaste
Called the Dun Cow of Dunmore plaine,
Who many people had opprest.”

—Guy, Earl of Warwick.

The Via Vacchereccia is a very short street leading from the Signoria to the Via Por San Maria. Vaccherricia, also Vacchereccia, means a cow, and is also applied scornfully to a bad woman. The following legend was given to me as accounting for the name of the place. A well-known Vienna beerhouse-restaurant, Gilli and Letta’s, has contributed much of late years to make this street known, and it was on its site that, at some time in “the fabled past,” the building stood in which dwelt the witch who figures in the story.

La Via Vacchereccia.

“There lived long ago in the Via Vacchereccia a poor girl, who was, however, so beautiful and graceful, and sweet in her manner, that it seemed to be a marvel that she belonged to the people, and still more that she was the daughter of the woman who was believed to be her mother, for the latter was as ugly as she was wicked, brutal, and cruel before all the world, and a witch in secret, a creature without heart or humanity.

“Nor was the beautiful Artemisia—such being the name of the girl—in reality her daughter, for the old woman had stolen her from her parents, who were noble and wealthy, when she was a babe, and had brought her up, hoping that when grown she could make money out of her in some evil way, and live

upon her. But, as sometimes happens, it seemed as if some benevolent power watched over the poor child, for all the evil words and worse example of the witch had no effect on her whatever.

“Now it happened that Artemisia in time attracted the attention and love of a young gentleman, who, while of moderate estate, was by no means rich; and he had learned to know her through his mother, an admirable lady, who had often employed Artemisia, and been impressed by her beauty and goodness. So it happened that the mother favoured the son’s suit, and as Artemisia loved the young man, it seemed as if her sufferings would soon be at an end, for be it observed that the witch treated the maid at all times with extraordinary cruelty.

“But it did not suit the views of the old woman at all that the girl on whom she reckoned to bring in much money from great protectors, and whom she was wont to call the cow from whom she would yet draw support, should settle down into the wife of a small noble of moderate means. So she not only scornfully rejected the suit, but scolded and beat Artemisia with even greater wickedness than ever.

“But there are times when the gentlest natures (especially when supported by good principles and truly good blood) will not give way to any oppression, however cruel, and Artemisia, feeling keenly that the marriage was most advantageous for her, and a great honour, and that her whole heart had been wisely given, for once turned on the old woman and defied her, threatening to appeal to the law, and showing that she knew so much that was wicked in her life that the witch became as much frightened as she was enraged, well knowing that an investigation by justice would bring her to the bonfire. So, inspired by the devil, she turned the girl into a cow, and shut her up in a stable in the courtyard of the house, where she went every day two or three times to beat and torture her victim in the most fiendish manner.

“Meanwhile the disappearance of Artemisia had excited much talk and suspicion, as it followed immediately after the refusal of the old woman to give her daughter to the young gentleman. And he indeed was in sad case and great suffering, but after a while, recovering himself, he began to wonder whether the maid was not after all confined in the Via Vacchereccia. And as love doubles all our senses and makes the deaf hear, and, according to the proverb, ‘he who finds it in his heart

will feel spurs in his flanks,’ so this young man, hearing the old woman spoken of as a witch, began to wonder whether she might not be one in truth, and whether Artemisia might not have been confinata or enchanted into some form of an animal, and so imprisoned.

“And, full of this thought, he went by night to the house, where there was an opening like a window or portal in the courtyard, and began to sing:

“‘Batte le dodici a una campana,
Si sente appena dalla lontana.

“‘Se almeno la voce potessi sentire,
Della mia bella che tanto deve soffrire.’

“‘Midnight is striking, I hear it afar,
High in the heaven shines many a star.

“‘And oh that the voice of the one I could hear,
Who suffers so sadly—the love I hold dear.

“‘Oh stars, if you’re looking with pity on me,
I pray you the maid from affliction to free!’

“As he sang this, he heard a cow lowing in the courtyard, and as his mind was full of the idea of enchantment, his attention was attracted to it. Then he sang:

“‘If enchanted here you be,
Low, but gently, one, two, three!
Low in answer unto me,
And a rescue soon you’ll see.’

“Then the cow lowed three times, very softly, and the young man, delighted, put to her other questions, and being very shrewd, he so managed it as to extract with only yea and nay all the story. Having learned all this, he reflected that to beat a terrier ’tis well to take a bulldog, and after much inquiry, he found that there dwelt in Arezzo a great sorcerer, but a man of noble character, and was, moreover, astonished to learn from his mother that this gran mago had been a friend of his father.

“And being well received by the wise man, and having told his story, the sage replied:

“‘Evil indeed is the woman of whom you speak—a black witch of low degree, who has been allowed, as all of her kind are, to complete her measure of sin, in order that she may receive her full measure of punishment. For all things may

be forgiven, but not cruelty, and she has lived on the sufferings of others. Yet her power is of a petty kind, and such as any priest can crush.

“‘Go to the stable when she shall be absent, and I will provide that she shall be away all to-morrow. Then bind verbena on the cow’s horns, and hang a crucifix over the door, and sprinkle all the floor with holy water and incense, and sing to the cow:

“‘The witch is not thy mother in truth,
She stole thee in thy early youth,
She has deserved thy bitterest hate,
Then fear not to retaliate;
And when she comes to thee again,
Then rush at her with might and main;
She has heaped on thee many a scorn,
Repay it with thy pointed horn.’

“‘And note that there is a halter on the cow’s neck, and this is the charm which gives her the form of a cow, but it cannot be removed except in a church by the priest.’

“And to this he added other advice, which was duly followed.

“Then the next day the young man went to the stable, and did all that the wise man had bid, and hiding near, awaited the return of the witch. Nor had he indeed long to wait, for the witch, who was evidently in a great rage at something, and bore a cruel-looking stick with an iron goad on the end, rushed to the courtyard and into the stable, but fell flat on the floor, being overcome by the holy water. And the cow, whose halter had been untied from the post, turned on her with fury, and tossed and gored her, and trampled on her till she was senseless, and then ran full speed, guided by the young man, to the Baptistery, into which she entered, and where there was a priest awaiting her. And the priest sprinkled her with holy water, and took the halter from her neck, and she was disenchanted, and became once more the beautiful Artemisia.

“And this done, the young man took the halter, and hurrying back to the stable, put it about the neck of the witch, who at once became a cow without horns, or such as are called ‘the devil’s own.’ And as she, maddened with rage, rushed forth, attacking everybody, all the town was soon after her with staves, pikes, and all their dogs, and so they hunted her down through the Uffizzi and along Lung’ Arno, all roaring and screaming and barking, out into the country, for she gave them a long run and a good chase, till they came to a gate of a

podere, over which was a Saint Antony, who, indignant that she dared pass under him, descended from his niche, and gave her a tremendous blow with his staff between the horns, or where they would have been if she had possessed them. Whereupon the earth opened and swallowed her up, amid a fearful flashing of fire, and a smell which was even worse than that of the streets of Siena in summer-time—which is often so fearful that the poorer natives commonly carry fennel (as people do perfumed vinaigrettes in other places) to sniff at, as a relief from the horrible odour.

“And when all this was done, the mago revealed to the maiden that her parents, who were still living, were very great and wealthy people, so that there was soon a grand reunion, a general recognition, and a happy marriage.

“‘Maidens, beware lest witches catch you;
Think of the Via Vacchereccia;
And tourists dining in the same,
Note how the street once got its name.’”

THE WITCH OF THE PORTA ALLA CROCE

“If any secret should sacred be,
Though it guarded the life of a family,
And any woman be there about,
She will die but what she will find it out;
And though it hurried her soul to—well—
That secret she must immediately tell.”

—Sage Stuffing for Young Ducks.

There are in Italy, as elsewhere, families to whom a fatality or tradition is attached. The following is a curious legend of the kind:

La Fattuchiera della Porta alla Croce.

“There was a very old Florentine family which lived in a castle in the country. The elder or head of this family had always one room in which no one was ever allowed to enter. There he passed hours alone every day, and woe to any one who dared disturb him while there. And this had been the case for generations, and no one had ever found out what the secret was. This was, of course, a great vexation to the ladies of the family—perche la donna e sempre churiosa—women being always inquisitive.

“And most inquisitive of all was a niece of the old man, who had got it into her head that the secret was simply a great treasure which she might obtain. Therefore she resolved to consult with a certain witch, who would tell her what it was, and how she could enter the mysterious room. This sorceress lived hard by the Porta alla Croce, for there are always many witches in that quarter.

“The witch, who was a very large tall woman, made the niece go with her to an isolated small house, and thence along a path, the lady in advance. While so doing, the latter turned her head to look behind her, and at that instant heard the cry of a civetta or small owl. The witch exclaimed, ‘My dear

lady, what you wish for will hardly be granted; I fear there is a great disaster awaiting you.’

“Then they went into a field, and the fortune-teller produced a goblet of coloured glass, and called to the swallow, which is a bird of good omen, and to the small owl, which forebodes evil, and said, ‘Whichever shall alight first on the edge of this cup will be a sign to you of success or failure.’

“But the first which came and sat upon the cup was the owl.

“Then the witch said, ‘What there is in that room I cannot reveal, for it disturbs my soul far too much. But I know that the number of that room is thirteen, and you can infer for yourself what that portends; and more I cannot tell you, save that you should be extremely careful and keep a cheerful heart—otherwise there is great trouble awaiting you.’

“But the lady returned home in a great rage at her disappointment, and all the more resolved to enter the room. Then all the family finding this out, reproached her, and urged her not to be so distracted; and she, being obstinate, only became the more determined; for she was furious that she could not force an old man to reveal a secret which had been handed down for many generations, and which could only be confided to one, or to the eldest, when the old man should die.

“And at last her evil will or mania attained such command over her, that she resolved to kill all the family one by one, till the succession of the secret should come to her. And so, after boiling deadly herbs with care, she made a strong subtle poison. And by this means she put to death her parents, brothers and sisters, aunts and all the family, without remorse, so resolved was she to master the secret.

“The last to perish was her grandfather, and calling her to his bedside he said, ‘We have all died by thy hand; we who never did thee any harm; and thou hast felt no remorse. This thou didst to gain a treasure, and bitterly wilt thou be disappointed. Thy punishment will begin when thou shalt learn what the thing was so long hidden: truly there was sorrow enough therein, without the misery which thou hast added to it. That which thou wilt find in the chamber is a skull—the skull of our earliest ancestor, which must always be given to the care of the eldest descendant, and I now give it to thee. And this thou must do. Go every morning at seven o clock into the room and close the windows. Then light

four candles before the skull. In front of it there lies a great book in which is written the history of all our family, my life and thine; and see that thou do this with care, or woe be unto thee!’

“Therewith the old man died, and scarcely had he departed ere she called an old woman who was allied and devoted to the family, and in a rage told her all the secret. The old woman reproved her, saying that she would bring punishment on herself. But, without heeding this, the lady ran to the chamber, entered, and seeing the skull, gave it a kick and hurled it from the window, far below.

“But a minute after she heard a rattling sound, and looking at the window, there the skull was grinning at her. Again she threw it down, and again it returned, and was with her wherever she went; day after day, waking or sleeping, the skull was always before her eyes.

“At last fear came over her, and then horror, and she said to the old woman, ‘Let us go to some place far, far away, and bury the skull. Perhaps it will rest in its grave.’ The old woman tried to dissuade her, and they went to a lonely spot at a great distance, and there they dug long and deep.

“Dug till a great hole was made, and the lady standing on the edge dropped the skull into it. Then the hole spread into a great pit, flame rose from it—the edge crumbled away—the guilty woman fell into the fire, and the earth closed over it all, and there was no trace left of her.

“The skull returned to the castle and to its room; people say it is there to this day. The old woman returned too, and being the last remote relation, entered into possession of the property.”

There is perhaps not one well-educated person in society in England who has not had the opportunity to remark how very much any old family can succeed in being notorious if it can only once make it known that it has an hereditary secret. Novels will be written on it, every member of it will be pointed out everywhere, and people who do not know the name of a sovereign in Europe can tell you all about it and them. And the number is not small of those who consider themselves immensely greater because they have in some way mastered something which

they are expected to keep concealed. I could almost believe that this “’orrible tale” was composed as a satire on family secrets. But I believe that she who told it firmly believed it. Credo quia absurdum would not be well understood among humble folk in Italy.

“To this I may add,” writes Flaxius, “that there is an English legend of a certain skull which always returned to a certain window in a tower. Apropos of which there is a poem called The Student and the Head in ‘Hans Breitmann in Germany’ (London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1895), prefaced by a remark to the effect that the subject is so extensive as to deserve a book—instancing the head of the physician Douban in the ‘Arabian Nights,’ with that of Orpheus, which spoke to Cyrus, and that of the priest of Jupiter, and another described by Trallianus, and the marvellously preserved head of a saint in Olaf Tryggvason’s Saga, and the Witch’s Head of Rider Haggard, with many more, not to speak of the talking Teraphim heads, and Friar Bacon’s bust. With which a thoroughly exhaustive list should include the caput mortuum of the alchemists

“‘And the dead-heads of the Press.’”

THE COLUMN OF COSIMO, OR DELLA SANTA TRINITA

“Columna Florentina.—Prope Sanctæ Trinitatis ædem ingens et sublimis columna erecta, cujus in fastigio extat justitia. Eam erexit Cosmus Magnus Dux, cui per urbem deambulanti, illic de victoria renunciatum fuit quam Malignani Marchio in Senarum finibus anno 1555 contra Petrum Strozium obtinuit.”—Templum Naturæ Historicum, Darmstadt, 1611.

“Vesti una Colonna,
Le par una donna.”—Italian Proverb.

The central spot of Florence is the grand column of granite which stands in the middle of the Piazza di Santa Trinità, in the Via Tornabuoni, opposite the Palazzo Feroni. It was brought from the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, and erected in 1564 by Cosimo I., “in commemoration of the surrender of Siena in 1554, and of the destruction of the last liberties of Florence by the victory at Monte Murlo, 1537, over those whom his tyranny had driven into exile, headed by Filippo and Piero Strozzi. It is surmounted by a statue of ‘Justice’ in porphyry, by Ferruci,” says Murray’s Guide-Book—the Italian declares it to be by Taddi, adding that the column was from the Baths of Antoninus, and was a gift to Cosimo I. from Pius IV.

There is a popular legend that once on a time a poor girl was arrested in Florence for having stolen a chain, a bracelet, or some such article of jewellery of immense value. She was thrown into prison, but though there was collateral or indirect evidence to prove her guilt, the stolen article could not be found. Gossip and rumour constituted ample grounds for indictment and trial, and torture did the rest in the pious times when it was generally taught and believed that Providence would always rescue the innocent, and that everybody who came to grief on the gallows had deserved it for something or other at some time, and that it was all right.

So the girl was executed, and almost forgotten. When a long time after, some workman or other was sent up to the

top of the column of the Piazza Trinità, and there found that a jackdaw or magpie had built a nest in the balance or scales held by Justice, and in it was the missing jewel.

This is an Italian form of “The Maid and the Magpie,” known the world over from ancient times. The scales suggest a droll German story. There was in front of a certain palace or town-hall, where all criminals were tried, a statue of Justice holding a pair of scales, and these were not cast solid, but were a bonâ fide pair of balances. And certain low thieves having been arrested with booty—whatever it was—it was discovered that they had divided it among themselves very accurately, even to the ounce. At which the magistrate greatly marvelling, asked them how they could have done it so well, since it had appeared that they had not been in any house between the period of the theft and their arrest. Whereupon one replied: “Very easily, your Honour, for, to be honourable, honest, and just as possible, we weighed the goods in the scales of Justice itself, here on the front of the Rath-haus.”

It is for every reason more probable that the bird which stole the jewel of the column was a jackdaw than a magpie, and it is certainly fitter that it should have been thus in Florence. “It is well known,” says Oken in his “Natural History” (7 B. Part I. 347), “that the jackdaw steals glittering objects, and carries them to its nest.” Hence the ancient legend of Arne, who so greatly loved gold, that she sold her native isle Siphnos to Minos, and was for that turned by the gods into a daw (Ovid’s “Metamorphoses,” vii. 466). As a mischief-making, thieving, and chattering bird of black colour, the jackdaw was naturally considered evil, and witches, or their imps, often assumed its form. In fact, the only really good or pious bird of the kind on record known to me, is the jackdaw of Rheims sung by Ingoldsby Barham.

According to Kornmannus, the column was placed where it now stands, because Cosimo was in the Piazza Trinità when he heard the news of the surrender of Siena.

After I had written the foregoing legend, I found the following:

La Colonna di Santa Trinità.

“The pillar di Santa Trinità was in times a meeting-place for fairies (Fate), whither they went afoot or in their

carriages. At the base of the column there was a great stone, and there they exchanged greetings or consulted about their affairs. They were all great ladies, of kindly disposition. And when it came that any one was cast into the city prison, they inquired into the affair, and then a fate would go as a magistrate in disguise and question the accused. Now they always knew whether any one spoke the truth, and if the prisoner did so, and was deserving mercy, they delivered him; but if he lied, they left him to be hanged, with a buon pro vi faccia!—Much good may it do you!

“Of evenings they assembled round the rock at the foot of the column in a great company, and had great merriment and love-making. Then in the crowd a couple would descend, or one after another into their vaults below, and then come again, often taking with them mortals who were their friends or favourites.

“Their chief was a matron who always held a pair of scales. Now when they were to judge the fate of any one, they took with great care the earth from one of his footprints, and weighed it most scrupulously, for thereby they could tell whether in his life he had done more good or evil, and it was thus that they settled the fate of all the accused in the prisons.

“And it often came to pass that when prisoners were young and handsome, these fate or fairy-witches took them from their cells in the prison through subterranean ways to their vaults under the Trinità, and passed the time merrily enough, for all was magnificent there.

“But woe unto those, no matter how handsome they might be, who betrayed the secrets and the love of the fate. Verily they had their reward, and a fine long repentance with it, for they were all turned into cats or mice, and condemned to live in the cellars and subterranean passages of the old Ghetto, which is now destroyed—and a nasty place it was. In its time people often wondered that there were so many cats there, but the truth is that they were all people who had been enchanted by those who were called in olden time le Gran Dame di Firenze—the Great Ladies of Florence.

“And the image holding the scales is called la Giustizia, but it really represents the Matrona, or Queen of the Fate, who of old exercised such strict justice with her scales in Florence.”

This is, I am confident, a tradition of great antiquity, for all its elements are of a very ancient or singularly

witch-like nature. In it the fate are found in their most natural form, as fates, weighing justice and dealing out rewards and punishments. Justice herself appears naïvely and amusingly to the witches as Queen of the Fate, who are indeed all spirits who have been good witches in a previous life.

What is most mystical and peculiarly classic Italian is the belief that the earth on which a human being has trod can be used wherewith to conjure him. This subject is treated elsewhere in my “Etruscan Roman Traditions.”

The great stone at the base of the column was a kind of palladium of the city of Florence. There are brief notices of it in many works. It would be curious if it still exists somewhere and can be identified.

“A great palladium, whose virtues lie
In undefined remote antiquity;
A god unformed, who sleeps within a stone,
Which sculptor’s hand as yet has never known;
Brought in past ages from some unknown shore;
Our fathers worshipped it—we know no more.”

LEGENDS OF OR’ SAN MICHELE

“The spirit of Antiquity, enshrined
In sumptuous buildings, vocal in sweet song,
In pictures speaking with heroic tongue,
And with devout solemnities entwined.”

—Wordsworth, “Bruges.”

Or’ San Michele is a very beautiful church in the Italian Gothic style in the Via Calzaioli. It was originally a market or stable below and a barn or granary above, whence some derive its name from Horreum Sancti Michaelis, and others from the Italian Orto, a garden, a term also applied to a church-congregation. “The statues and decorations on the exterior are among the best productions of the Florentine school of sculpture.” As that of Saint Eloy or San Eligio, the blacksmith, with great pincers at an anvil, in a sculpture representing a horse being shod, is the most conspicuous on the façade, the people have naturally concluded that the church was originally a stable or smithy. The legend of the place is as follows:

La Chiesa Or’ San Michele.

“This was originally a stable and coach-house (rimessa), and there was a hayloft above. Every night the horses were heard to neigh, and in the morning they were found all curried and well managed, and no one knew who did it; but none of the grooms ever shed any tears over it that ever I heard of.

“Now, the master of the place had a son, a priest named Michele, who was so holy that he worked many miracles, so that all began to call him a saint. And after he died he appeared to his parents in a dream, and told them that the stable and barn should be transformed into a church, and that he would read mass therein thrice a day.

“But his parents wished to have him buried under the altar of a church which was on their estate in the country, but the saint did not wish to be buried there.

“One day one of the grooms of the stable found that a horse could not move a foot, so he ran to call the manescalco, or blacksmith, who led the horse to his forge. And when he took the hoof to examine it, lo! it came off at the joint and remained in his hand. Then the smith said that the horse should be killed, because he was now worthless. But the horse struck his stump on the hoof, and the latter joined itself to his leg as firmly as ever it had been. But in doing this the old shoe fell off, whence it comes to this day that whoever finds an old horse-shoe gets luck with it.

“When the smith had shod the horse anew, he tried to lead it back into the stable, but it refused to enter. Then it was plain that this was a miracle worked by San Michele. So they removed all the horses and hay from the building, and made of it the fine church which is now called La Chiesa di Or’ San Michele.”

There is a vast mass of tradition extant relative to the Horse, enough to make a large volume, and in it there is a great deal which is so nearly allied to this story as to establish its antiquity. Karl Blind has found an old Norse spell, in which, by the aid of Balder and Odin, the lameness of a horse’s ankle or pastern joint can be cured. There is another version of this story, which runs as follows:

The Smith and Saint Peter.

“It is a good thing in this world to be bold and have a good opinion of one’s self; yes, and to hold your head high—but not so high as to bend over backwards—else that may happen to you which befell the celebrated cock of Aspromonte.”

“And what happened to him?”

“Only this, Signore—he was so cocky, and bent his head so far backwards, that his spurs ran into his eyes and blinded him. Now, the cock reminds me of Saint Peter, and too much cheek of the ferrajo spacciato, or the saucy smith, who wanted to equal him.

“It happened once that the Lord and Saint Peter came to

a forge, and the smith was about to lead a horse from the stable to the anvil to shoe him. Saint Peter said:

“‘Thou hast boasted that thou art the best smith in the world, and canst work such wonders in shoeing as man never beheld. Canst thou not shoe this horse without taking him to the forge?’

“‘Neither thou, nor I, nor any man can do it,’ replied the smith.

“Saint Peter took the hoof in his left hand, gave it a rap with the side of his right across the joint, and the hoof fell off. Then Saint Peter carried it to the anvil, fastened a new shoe on it, returned and put it on the horse again, who stamped with it as if nothing had happened.

“Now the smith, like all boasters, was a great fool, and he only thought that this was something which he had not learned before, and so cried boldly, ‘Oh, that is only the Bolognese manner of taking hoofs off and putting them on—we do it much better here in Florence!’ So he seized the horse’s hoof, and with one blow of a hatchet cut it off.

“‘And now put it on again,’ said Saint Peter. The smith tried, but it would not stick.

“‘The horse is bleeding to death rapidly,’ remarked the Saint.

“‘I believe,’ said the smith ruefully, ‘that I am a fool in folio.’

“‘Più matto che un granchio—as crazy as a crawfish,’ solemnly added one of his assistants.

“‘Pazzo a bandiera—as wild and witless as a flapping flag,’ quoth another.

“‘Matto di sette cotte—an idiot seven times baked,’ chimed in Saint Peter.

“‘A campanile—a church bell-tower of a fool,’ contributed his wife, who had just come in.

“The poor horse continued to bleed.

“‘You are like the mouse,’ added a neighbour, ‘who thought because he had dipped the end of his tail in the meal, that he owned and could run the mill.’

“‘The Florentine method of shoeing horses,’ remarked Saint Peter gravely, ‘does not appear to be invariably successful. I think that we had better recur to mine.’ And with this he put the hoof to the ankle, and presto! the miracle was wrought again. That is the story. In most cases, Signore, un pazzo gitta una pietra nel pozzo—a fool rolls a rock into a well which it requires a hundred wise men to get out again. This time a single sage

sufficed. But for that you must have the Lord at your back, as Saint Peter had.”

“Why do they say, as foolish as a crawfish or lobster?” I inquired.

“Because, Signore, the granchio, be he lobster or crawfish, carries his head in the scarsella, which is a hole in his belly. Men who have their brains in their bellies—or gluttons—are generally foolish. But what is the use of boasting of our wisdom? He who has neither poor men nor fools among his relations was born of the lightning or of thunder.”

There is another story current among the people, though it is in print, but as it is a merry one, belonging truly enough to the folk-lore of Florence, I give it as it runs:

“You have heard of Piovano Arlotto, who made this our town so lively long ago. It was rich then, indeed. There are more flowers than florins in Florence now: ogni fior non fa frutto—all flowers do not bear fruit.

“Well, it happened one day that Piovano, having heard a good story from Piero di Cosimo de’ Medicis, answered with another. Now the tale which Messer Piero di Cosimo told was this:

“Once there lived in Florence a poor shoemaker, who went every morning to the Church of San Michele Berteldi—some say it was at San Bartolommeo, and maybe at both, for a good story or a big lie is at home anywhere.

“Well, he used to pray before a John the Baptist in wood, or it may have been cast in plaster, or moulded in wax, which was on the altar. One morning he prayed scalding hot, and the chierico—a boy who waits on the priest, who was a young rascal, like all of his kind—overheard him say: ‘Oh, Saint John, I pray thee make known to me two things. One is whether my wife is good and true to me, and the other what will become of my only son.’

“Then the mass-boy, who had hidden himself behind the altar, replied in a soft, slow, strange voice: ‘Know, my son, that because thou hast long been so devout to me, thou shalt be listened unto. Return hither to-morrow, and thou wilt be answered; and now go in peace.’

“And the shoemaker, having heard this, verily believed that Saint John had spoken to him, and went his way with great

rejoicing. So, bright and early the next morning, he was in the church, and said: ‘Saint John, I await thy reply.’

“Then the mass-boy, who was hidden as before, replied: ‘Oh, my son, I am sorry to say that thy wife is no better than she should be—ha fatto fallo con più d’uno—and everybody in Florence except thee knows it.’

“‘And my son?’ gasped the shoemaker.

“‘He will be hung,’ replied the voice.

“The shoemaker rose and departed abruptly. In the middle of the church he paused, and, without a sign of the cross, and putting on his cap, he cried: ‘What sort of a Saint John are you, anyhow?’

“‘Saint John the Baptist,’ replied the voice.

“‘Sia col malanno e con la mala Pasque che Iddio ti dia!—Then may the Lord give you a bad year and a miserable Easter-tide! You never utter aught save evil, and it was for thy evil tongue that Herod cut thy head off—and served thee right! I do not believe a word of all which thou hast told me. I have been coming here every day for twenty-five years, and never asked thee for anything before; but I will make one more vow to thee, and that is—never to see thy face again.’

“And when Messer Cosimo had ended, Piovano Arlotto replied:

“‘One good turn deserves another. It is not many years ago since a poor farsettajo, or doublet-maker, lived in Florence, his shop being close to the Oratorio di Orto San Michele, [126] and every morning he went to worship in the church, and lit a candle before a picture representing Christ as a child disputing with the Doctors, while his mother enters seeking him.

“‘And after he had done this daily for more than twenty-five years, it happened that his little son, while looking on at a game of ball, had a tile fall on his head, which wounded him terribly. The doctors being called in, despaired.

“‘The next morning the poor tailor went to his devotions in Or’ San Michele, bearing this time, instead of a farthing taper, a great wax-candle; and kneeling, he spoke thus: “Dolce Signor mio Gesù Cristo, I beg thee to restore my son to health. Thou knowest that I have worshipped thee here for twenty-five years, and never asked for anything before, and thou thyself can best bear witness to it. This my son is all my happiness on earth, and he was also most devoted to thee.

Should he be taken away, I would die in despair, and so I commend myself to three!”

“‘Then he departed, and coming home, learned that his son had died.

“‘The next morning, in grief and anger, he entered Orto San Michele, and, without any candle, he went directly to the picture, and, without kneeling, broke forth in these words: “Io ti disgrazio—I dislike, disown, and despise thee, and will return here no more. Five-and-twenty years have I worshipped thee and never asked for anything before, and now thou dost refuse me my request. If I had only gone to the great crucifix there, I daresay I should have got all I wanted; but this is what comes of trusting to a mere child, for, as the proverb says, Chi s’impaccia con fanciulli, con fanciulli si ritrova—he who troubles himself with children will himself be treated as a child.’”

It is worth remarking, as regards the tone and character of this tale, that such freedom was commonest when people were most devout. The most sceptical critics generally agree that these stories of Piovano Arlotto are authentic, having been dictated by him, and that he had a very exceptional character in his age for morality, honesty, and truth. He himself declared, without being contradicted, that he was the only priest of whom he knew who did not keep a mistress; and yet this story is simply an average specimen of the two hundred connected with his name, and that they in turn are identical in character with all the popular wit and humour of the time.

Regarding the image of the Holy Blacksmith, Saint Eligius or Eloi, the authors of “Walks in Florence” say that it is attributed to Nanni di Banco, and is meagre and stiff, but has dignity, which accords admirably with the character of most saints, or their ideals. It is evident that the bon roi Dagobert was considered as the type of all that was free and easy—

“Le bon roi Dagobert
Mettait son culotte a l’envers.”

Therefore he is contrasted with the very dignified Saint Eloy, who was (like the breeches) quite the reverse, declining to lend the monarch two sous, which Dagobert had ascertained were in the holy man’s possession. “The bas-relief below,” continue the critics cited, “is more certainly by the hand of Nanni. It records a miracle of Saint Eloy, who one day, when shoeing a restive horse which was possessed by a demon, and was kicking and plunging, cut off the animal’s leg to fasten the shoe, and having completed his task, made the sign of the cross and restored the severed limb.” I regret to say that this was written without careful reference to the original. It was not the leg of the horse which was severed, nor a limb, but only the hoof at the pastern joint.

There is yet another explanation of this bas-relief, which I have somewhere read, but cannot now recall—more’s the pity, because it is the true one, as I remember, and one accounting for the presence of the female saint who is standing by, evidently invisibly. Perhaps some reader who knows Number Four will send it to me for a next edition.

It is worth noting that there is in Innsbruck, on the left bank of the Inn, a blacksmith’s shop, on the front of which is a very interesting bas-relief of the fourteenth or fifteenth century, representing Saint Peter or Eligius with the horse in a smithy.

There is another statue on the exterior of this church, that of Saint Philip, by the sculptor Nanni de Banco, concerning which and whom I find an anecdote in the Facetie Diverse, a.d. 1636:

“Now, it befell in adorning the church of Or’ San Michele in Florence, that I Consoli d’Arte (Art Directors of Florence) wanting a certain statue, wished to have it executed by Donatello, a most excellent sculptor; but as he asked fifty scudi, which was indeed a very moderate price for such statues as he made, they, thinking it too dear, refused him, and gave it to a sculptor mediocre e mulo—indifferent and mongrel—who had been a pupil of Donatello; nor did they ask him the price, supposing it would be, of course, less. Who, having done his best, asked for the work eighty scudi. Then the Directors in anger explained to him that Donatello, a first-class sculptor, had only asked fifty; but as he refused to abate a single quattrino, saying that he would rather keep the statue, the question was referred to Donatello himself, who at once said they should pay the man seventy scudi. But when they reminded him that he himself had only asked fifty, he very courteously replied, ‘Certainly, and being a master of the art, I should have executed it in less than a month, but that poor fellow, who was hardly fit to be my pupil, has been more than half a year making it.’

“By which shrewd argument he not only reproached them for their meanness and his rival for incapacity, but also vindicated himself as an artist.”

This is the story as popularly known. In it Nanni is called Giovanni, and it is not true that he was an unworthy, inferior sculptor, for he was truly great. There is another legend of Or’ San Michele, which is thus given by Pascarel, who, however, like most writers on Florence, is so extravagantly splendid or “gushing” in his description of everything, that untravelled readers who peruse his pages in good faith must needs believe that in every church and palazzo there is a degree of picturesque magnificence, compared to which the Pandemonium of Milton, or even the Celestial City itself as seen by Saint John, is a mere cheap Dissenting chapel. According to him, Or’ San Michele is by right “a world’s wonder, and a gift so perfect to the whole world, that, passing it, one should need say (or be compelled to pronounce) a prayer for Taddeo’s soul.” Which is like the dentist in Paris, who proclaimed in 1847 that it was—

“Presque une crime
De ne pas crier, ‘Vive Fattet!’”

The legend, as told by this writer, and cited by Hare, is as follows:

“Surely nowhere in the world is the rugged, changeless, mountain force of hewn stone piled against the sky, and the luxuriant, dream-like poetic delicacy of stone carven and shaped into leafage and loveliness, more perfectly blended and made one than where San Michele rises out of the dim, many-coloured, twisting streets, in its mass of ebon darkness and of silvery light.

“The other day, under the walls of it, I stood and looked at its Saint George, where he leans upon his shield, so calm, so young, with his bared head and his quiet eyes.

“‘That is our Donatello’s,’ said a Florentine beside me—a man of the people, who drove a horse for hire in the public ways, and who paused, cracking his whip, to tell this tale to me. ‘Donatello did that, and it killed him. Do you not know? When he had done that Saint George he showed it to his master. And the master said, “It wants one thing only.” Now this saying our Donatello took gravely to heart, chiefly because his master would never explain where the fault lay; and so much did it hurt him, that he fell ill of it, and came nigh to death. Then he called his master to him. “Dear and great one, do tell me before I die,” he said, “what is the one thing my statue lacks?” The master smiled and said: “Only speech.” “Then I die happy,” said our Donatello. And he—died—indeed, that hour.’

“Now I cannot say that the pretty story is true—it is not in the least true; Donatello died when he was eighty-three, in the Street of the Melon, and it was he himself who cried, ‘Speak then—speak!’ to his statue, as it was carried through the city. But whether true or false, this fact is surely true, that it is well—nobly and purely well—with a people when the men amongst it who ply for hire on its public ways think caressingly of a sculptor dead five hundred years ago, and tell such a tale, standing idly in the noonday sun, feeling the beauty and the pathos of it all.”

Truly, in a town half of whose income is derived from art-hunting tourists, and where every vagabond offers himself, in consequence, as a cicerone, it is no sign that “all is well—nobly and purely well—with a people,” because a coachman who had been asked which was Donatello’s Saint George by about five hundred English “fares,” and nearly as many American young ladies—of

whom many of the latter told him all they knew about it—should have picked up such a tale. In fact, while I have been amazed at the incredible amount of legend, superstitious traditions, and incantations existing among the people, I have been struck by their great ignorance of art, and all pertaining to it; of which, were it worth while, I could cite convincing and amusing instances.

“But as regards a vast proportion of the ‘sweet and light’ writing on the Renaissance and on Italy which is at present fashionable,” writes Flaxius, “I am reminded of the ‘esthetic axe’ems’ of an American writer, the first of which were:

“‘Art is a big thing. Always bust into teers wen you see a pictur.’

“‘Bildins and churches arn’t of no account unless they drive you clean out of your census.’”

THE WITCH OF THE ARNO

“Il spirito usci dal fiume a un tratto,
E venne come Dio l’aveva fatto,
E presentando come un cortegiano
Alla donna gentil la destra mano,
‘Scusate,’ disse si io vengo avanti
E se vi do la mano sensa guanti.”—Paranti.

The following, as a French book of fables says, is “a poem, or rather prose rhymed:”

“Two pretty maids one morning sat by the rushing stream. It murmured glittering in the sun; it seemed to sing as on it run, enchanting while a wantoning, as in a merry dream.

“Said one unto the other: ‘I wish, and all in truth, that the glorious dancing river were as fine and brave a youth. Its voice is like an angel’s, its drops of light like eyes so bright are beautiful I wis. Oh, ne’er before, on sea or shore, did I love aught like this.’

“A voice came from the river: ‘For a love thou hast chosen me; henceforward, sweet, for ever thine own love I will be. Wherever there is water, of Florence the fairest daughter, by night or day or far away, thou’lt find me close by thee.’

“She saw bright eyes a shining in dewdrops on her path—she returned unto the palace, she entered in a bath. ‘How the water doth caress me; ’tis embracing me, I vow! M’abbracia, mi baccia—my lover has me now. Since fate has really willed it, then to my fate I bow.’

“Seven years have come and vanished, seven years of perfect bliss. Whenever she washed in water, she felt her lover’s kiss. She washed full oft, I ween; ’twas plain to be seen there was no maid in Florence who kept herself so clean.

“Little by little, as summer makes frogs croak in a ditch, there spread about a rumour that the damsel was a witch. They showed her scanty mercies; with cruelty extreme, with blows and bitter curses, they cast her in the stream. ‘If she be innocent, she’ll sink, so hurl her from the Arno’s brink; if guilty, she will swim!’

“Up rose from the sparkling river a youth who was fair to see. ‘I have loved thee, and for ever thine own I’ll truly be.’ He took her in his arms; she felt no more alarms. ‘Farewell to you all!’ sang she; ‘a fish cannot drown in the water; now I am a fish, you know—the Arno’s loving daughter. Per sempre addio!’”

The foregoing is not literal, nor do I know that it is strictly “traditional;” it is a mere short tale or anecdote which I met with, and put into irregular metre to suit the sound of a rushing stream. I take the liberty of adding to it another water-poem of my own, which has become, if not “popular,” at least a halfpenny broadside sold at divers street-stands by old women, the history whereof is as follows:—I had written several ballads in Italian in imitation of the simplest old-fashioned lyrics, and was anxious to know if I had really succeeded in coming down to the level of the people, for this is a very difficult thing to do in any language. When I showed them to Marietta Pery, she expressed it as her candid opinion that they were really very nice indeed, and that I ought for once in my life to come before the public as a poet. And as I, fired by literary ambition, at last consented to appear in this rôle, Marietta took a ballad, and going to E. Ducci, 32 Via Pilastri, who is the Catnach of Florence (I advise collectors of the really curious to buy his soldo publications), made an arrangement whereby my song should appear as a broadside, the lady strictly conditioning that from among his blocks Signore Ducci should find a ship and a flying bird to grace the head and the end of the lyric. But as he had no bird, she took great credit to herself that for five francs she not only got a hundred copies, but also had specially engraved for the work and inserted an object which appears as flying to the right hand of the ship. The song was as follows:

LA BELLA STREGA.
Nuova Canzonetta di Charles Godfrey Leland.

Era una bella strega
Che si bagnava alla riva;
Vennero i pirati
Lei presero captiva.

Il vento era in poppa
Sull’ onde la nave ballò
La donna lacrimante
Al capitan parlò.

“O Signor capitano!
O Capitano del mar!
Darò cento ducati,
Se tu mi lasci andar.”

“Non prenderò cento ducati,
Tu costi molto più
Io ti vendrò al Sultano,”
Disse il Capitano,
“Per mille zecchini d’oro
Vi stimi troppo giù.”

“Non vuoi i cento ducati
Ebben tu non gli avrai,
Ho un’ amante amato
Non mi abbandona mai.”

Essa sedè sul ponte
Principiò a cantar,
“Vieni il mio amante,”
Da lontano il vento
Si mette a mugghiar.

Forte e più forte
La tempesta ruggio,
Gridava il capitano:
“Io credo che il tuo amante
E il vento che corre innante,
Ovvero il diavolo.”

Forte e più forte
La procella urlò,
“Sono rocce davanti,
E il vento vien di dietro
Benvenuto sei tu mio amante!”
La bella donna cantò.

“Vattene al tuo amante
All’ inferno a cantar!”
Disse il Capitano
E gettò la donna fuori,
Della nave nel mar.

Ma come un gabbiano
Sull’ onde essa voló.
“O mio Capitano,
Non sarai appiccato,
Ma sarai annegato:
Per sempre addio!”

The Beautiful Witch.

A pretty witch was bathing
In the sea one summer day;
There came a ship with pirates,
Who carried her away.

The ship due course was keeping
On the waves as they rose and broke;
The lovely lady, weeping,
Thus to the captain spoke:

“O Signor Capitano!
O captain of the sea!
I’ll give you a hundred ducats
If you will set me free.”

“I will not take a hundred,
You’re worth much more, you know;
I will sell you to the Sultan
For a hundred gold sequins;
You set yourself far too low.”

“You will not take a hundred—
Oh well! then let them be,
But I have a faithful lover,
Who, as you may discover,
Will never abandon me.”

Upon the windlass sitting,
The lady began to sing:
“Oh, come to me, my lover!”
From afar a breeze just rising
In the rigging began to ring.

Louder and ever louder
The wind began to blow:
Said the captain, “I think your lover
Is the squall which is coming over,
Or the devil who has us in tow.”

Stronger and ever stronger
The tempest roared and rang,
“There are rocks ahead and the wind dead aft,
Thank you, my love,” the lady laughed;
And loud to the wind she sang.

“Oh, go with your cursèd lover,
To the devil to sing for me!”
Thus cried the angry rover,
And threw the lady over
Into the raging sea.

But changing to a seagull,
Over the waves she flew:
“Oh captain, captain mine,” sung she,
“You will not swing on the gallows-tree,
For you shall drown in the foaming sea—
Oh captain, for ever adieu!”

I must in honesty admit that this my début as an Italian poet was not noticed in any of the reviews—possibly because I did not send it to them—and there were no indications that anybody considered that a new Dante had arisen in the land. It is true, as Marietta told me with much delight, that the printer, or his foreman, had declared it was a very good song indeed; but then he was an interested party. And Marietta also kindly praised it to the skies (after she had corrected it); but then Marietta was herself a far better poet than I can ever hope to be, and could afford to be generous.

The reader will pardon me if I avail myself of the opportunity to give another Italian ballad which I wrote on a theme which I also picked up in Florence.