13
‘Then there’s the ——’ (another rich family). ‘They got their money by confiscation of another[15] family, generations ago. That’s why they’re so charitable. What they give away in charity to the poor is immense; but it is because they know how the money came into the family, and they want to make amends for their ancestors.’
[These treasure stories are common everywhere. In Tirol, especially, they abound, and are of two kinds. First, concerning treasure hidden in the earth, arising out of the metal mines that were formerly worked there, and the carbuncles which are still found; and the second, precisely like these, of money walled-up in old houses and castles. A countryman, who saw me sketching the old ruin of Monte Rufiano, on a height not far from the banks of Lake Thrasimene, told me a story about it, just like a Tirolese story, of treasure hidden ever so deep under it, and guarded by twelve spectres, who went about, carrying torches in procession, on a Good Friday.
Senhor de Saraiva tells me there is a great variety of such stories in Portugal, where the treasures are generally said to have been hidden by the Moors, and are supposed to be buried under a gigantic depth of rock. A place was once pointed out to him, where there were said to be two enormous jars, one full of gold, and the other of boiling pitch. If, in digging, a man came upon the right one, he would be rich enough to buy up the whole world; but if, by ill luck, his spade first reached the other, the pitch would overflow and destroy everyone on the face of the earth; so that no one dared to make the attempt. The people believe that such localities may be revealed to them in dreams. But they must dream the same dream three nights running, and not tell it to anyone. If they tell it, they will find the money all turned to charcoal. Brick boxes of charcoal have frequently been found buried under Roman boundary stones in Portugal, and in this, he thinks, lies the origin of this latter fancy.
It is remarkable how many odds and ends of history remain laid up in the memories of the Roman people, like the majolica vases and point-lace in their houses. A great favourite with them is the story of Beatrice Cenci, which they tell, under the name of ‘La bella Cenci,’ with more or less exaggeration of detail.
‘Do you know the story of “Sciarra Colonna?”’ said an old woman, who seemed scarcely a person likely to know much about such matters.]
[1] ‘Ma che!’ is a very strong and indignant form of ‘No!’ about equivalent to ‘What are you thinking of?’ ‘How can you?’ In Tuscany they say, ‘Che! Che!’ [↑]
[2] ‘Fantasimi,’ for ‘fantasmi,’ apparitions. [↑]
[4] ‘Il fantasimo di S. Giovanni.’ [↑]
[5] ‘Cacciatore’ is a huntsman or sportsman of any kind; but in Rome it designates especially a man of a roving and adventurous class whose occupation in life is to shoot game for the market according to the various seasons, as there are large tracts of country where game is not preserved. [↑]
[6] ‘Falcaccio,’ a horrid, great hawk. [↑]
[7] Cancellieri (Mercato, § xvi.) mentions the actual finding of such a treasure; or at least of ‘thousands of pieces of gold money, in a hole leading to a drain of the fountain in Piazza Madama, on May 30, 1652, by a boy who had accidentally dropped a toy into this hole.’ One such fact would afford substance to a multitude of such fictions: though they doubtless had their origin in the discovery of mineral wealth. [↑]
[8] See conversation at the end of the ‘Serpe bianca.’ Further details of a similar nature were given me in connection with a number of brigand stories which I have in MS. [↑]
[9] ‘Monti,’ Rione Monti, the most populous district in Rome. [↑]
[10] ‘Papetto,’ equal to two pauls; about three halfpence more than a (silver) lira or franc. In use in Rome until the monetary convention with France in 1868. [↑]
[11] ‘Cataletto,’ a kind of large roomy coffin, with a hollow wagonheaded lid, in which dead or wounded persons are carried. [↑]
[12] ‘Barretta’ or ‘bara,’ is the bier on which the ‘cataletto’ is carried; but it is most often made all in one, and either word is used for either, as also ‘feretro.’ ‘Aver la bocca sulla bara,’ is ‘to have one foot in the grave.’ [↑]
[13] ‘Paino,’ see n. 3, p. 264. [↑]
[14] It must be a very quaint condition of mind which can imagine that a fortune of something like three millions sterling can be quietly removed in secret in gold coin from a cellar to a bedroom in the small hours of the night. But then to persons like the narrator a few pieces of gold seem a fortune. [↑]
[15] I do not give the names because, though the tradition is probably true enough of somebody, the particular names introduced were decidedly incorrect historically. [↑]