2
‘Many a time a simple exterior is a useful weapon; but when a man who is really simple pretends to be clever he is soon found out. For another time there had been a pasquinade which so vexed the Government that the Pope declared whoever would acknowledge himself the author of it should have his life spared and five hundred scudi reward.
‘One day a simple-looking rustic came to the Vatican, and said he was come to own himself the author of the pasquinade. As such he was shown in to the Pope.
‘“So you are the author of this pasquinade, are you, good man?”
‘“Yes, Your Holiness, I wrote it,” answered the fellow.
‘“You are quite sure you wrote it?”
‘“Oh, yes, Your Holiness, quite sure.”
‘“Take him and give him the five hundred scudi,” said the Pope.
‘An acute Monsignore, who felt convinced the man could not be the author of the clever satire, could not refrain from interposing officially when he found the Pope really seemed to be taken in.
‘“They have their orders,” said the Pope, who was no less discerning than he.
‘A chamberlain took the man into a room where five hundred scudi lay counted on the table, and at the same time put on a pair of handcuffs.
‘“Halloa now! What is this? It was announced that the man who owned himself the author of the Pasquinade should have his life free and five hundred scudi.”
‘“All right; no one is going to touch your life, and there are the five hundred scudi. But you couldn’t imagine that the man who wrote that satire would be allowed to go free about Rome. That was self-evident—there was no need to say it.”
‘“Oh, but I never wrote a word of it, upon my honour,” exclaimed the countryman.
‘“I thought not,” said the Pope, who had come in to amuse himself with the fellow’s confusion. “Now go, and another time don’t pretend to any worse sins than your own.”’
[The ‘Pasquino’ statue was not only the receptacle of the invectives of the vulgar, it often served also to mark the triumphs of the great. The first time it was put to this use was in 1571, on occasion of the triumph of M. A. Colonna, when the parts wanting were restored, and it was clad in shining armour. On various occasions, as a new pope went in procession from the Vatican to perform the ceremony called ‘taking possession’ of St. John Lateran, it was similarly risanato del suo stroppio ordinario (healed of the usual lameness of its members), and made to bear a sword, a balance, a cornucopia, and other emblematical devices, which are given at great length by Cancellieri.
The opinions of Winkelman, and others, concerning the great artistic merits both of this statue and that called ‘Marforio,’ do not belong to our present aspect of it. Sprenger, ‘Roma nuova,’ says that besides these two there was another statue which used to take part in this satirical converse, namely, that of the Water-seller, with his barrel (commemorative of a well-known, though humble character), opposite the Church of S. Marcello, in the Corso, which the present rulers, ignorant of Roman traditions, removed. The Romans, however, clamoured against its destruction, and it is now replaced round the corner, up the Via Lata.]
[1] The statue called by this name was not originally found in its present situation. The shop of the tailor Pasquino was in the Via in Parione, a turning out of the Via del Governo Vecchio, some little distance off, nor was it discovered at all till after Pasquino’s death. At his time it was buried unperceived in the pavement of the street, and the inequalities of its outline afforded stepping-stones by means of which passengers picked their way through the puddles! Cancellieri (Mercato, appendix, N. iii.)] quotes a passage from a certain Tibaldeo di Ferrara, quoted in a book, his dissertation concerning the author of which is too long to quote. This Tibaldeo, however, says, ‘as the street was being repaired, and I had the shop that was Pasquino’s made level, the trunk of a statue, probably of a gladiator, was found, and the people immediately gave it his name.’ He, however, quotes from other writers mention of other sites for its discovery mostly somewhat nearer to the present situation. The site of the present Palazzo Braschi was then occupied by the so-called Torre Orsini, a building of a very different ground-plan. Cancellieri quotes from more than one MS. diary that at the time the Marquis de Créquy came to Rome as ambassador of Louis XIII. in 1633, the Palazzo de’ Orsini, where he was lodged, was designated as ‘sopra Pasquino.’ And again from another MS. diary, that in 1728, when the palace was bought by the Duca di Bracciano-Odoscalchi, the same designation remained in use. In the Diary of Cracas, under date March 19, 1791, is an entry detailing the care with which the Pasquino statue was removed to a pedestal prepared for it in front of Palazzo Pamfili during the completion of the contiguous portion of the Palazzo Braschi, and its restoration is duly entered on the 14th March of the same year.[2]
It was Adrian VI. (not Alexander VI. as Murray has it), who proposed to throw it into the Tiber. Adrian VI. was a victim of pasquinades for two reasons,—the first, because born at Utrecht and tutor of Charles V., and afterwards viceroy in Spain, during all Charles’ absence in Germany Rome feared at his election that he would set up the Papal See in Spain; and it is not altogether impossible that the popular satires may have had some influence in deciding him on the contrary to repair immediately to Rome,—the second, because he was an energetic and unsparing reformer; and those who were touched by his measures were just those who could afford to pay the hire of the tongues of popular wags.
Nor was it only during his life that he was the subject of such criticisms. When his rigorous reign was suddenly brought to a close after he had worn the tiara but twenty months, on the door of his physician was posted this satire, ‘Liberatori Patriæ S.P.Q.R.’[3]; and his tomb in St. Peter’s, between that of Pius II. and Pius III., was disgraced with this epitaph: ‘Hic jacet impius inter Pios,’ till some years later, when his body was removed to a worthier monument in S. Maria del Anima. [↑]
[2] There is clearly a typographical error about one of these dates, which could doubtless be corrected by reference to ‘Notizie delle due famose statue di un fiume e di Patroclo dette volgarmente di Marforio e di Pasquino,’ by the same author, Rome, 1789, which I have not been able to see. Moroni, vi. 99, gives 1791 as the year in which it was bought by Duke Braschi, the nephew of Pius VI. while the Pope was in exile in France, and the completion by the rebuilding must, therefore, have been some years later.
The date of its discovery is told in the following inscription by the cardinal inhabiting Torre Orsini at the time, and who saved it from destruction:—
Oliverii Caraffa
Beneficio hic sum
Anno Salvati Mundi—MDI. [↑]
[3] Giovio; Vit. Hadr. VI. [↑]
CÈCINGÙLO.
‘There was one who would have done much better for you than Pasquino; that was Cècingùlo,[1] at least that’s the nickname people gave him. There was no end to the number of stories he could tell.
‘In days gone by,[2] he used to sit in Piazza Navona of an evening when people had left work and had time to listen, and he would pour them out by the hour. Now and then he stopped, and went round with his hat, and there were few who did not spare him a bajocco.’
‘Did you ever hear him yourself?’
‘No; it was before my time, but my father has heard him many’s the time, and many of the stories I have told you are the tales of Cècingùlo. How often I have said to him, “Tell me one of Cècingùlo’s tales, papa!”’[3]
[1] I have not been able to make out the origin of this name. It is possibly, a mere combination of Cecco, short for Francesco, and a family name, or the name of the village of which he was native which I do not recognise. [↑]
[3] It is very likely Cècingùlo was some generations older even than the narrator’s ‘papa.’ I have thought it worth while to put this much about him on record, as he was doubtless one of those who have given the local colouring to these very tales. The old women whose heads are their storehouse, as they repeat them over the spinning-wheel, say them with no further alteration than want of memory or want of apprehension necessarily occasions. It is the professional wag who, sitting in the midst of the vegetable market amid a peasant audience, will ascribe to a cicoriaro the acts of a paladin, and insert ‘a casino in the Campagna’ in the place of an oriental palace. I have met various people who had heard as much as the above about Cècingùlo, but no more. [↑]
THE WOOING OF CASSANDRO.[1]
‘Did you ever hear of Sor Cassandro?’
‘No, never.’
‘Do you know where Panìco is?’
‘I know the Via di Panìco[2] which leads down to Ponte S. Angelo.’
‘Very well; at the end of Panìco[3] there is a frying-shop,[4] which, many years ago, was kept by an old man with a comely daughter. Both were well known all over the Rione.
‘One day there came an old gentleman, with a wig and tights, and a comical old-fashioned dress altogether, and said to the shopkeeper—
‘“I’ve observed that daughter of yours many days as I have passed by, and should like to make her my wife.”
‘“It’s a great honour for me, Sor Cassandro, that you should talk of such a thing,” answered the old man; and he said “Sor Cassandro” like that because everybody knew old Sor Cassandro with his wig, and his gold-knobbed stick, and his tights, and his old-fashioned gait. “But,” he added, as a knowing way of getting out of it, “you see it wouldn’t do for a friggitora to marry a gentleman; a friggitora must marry a friggitore.”
‘“I don’t know that that need be a bar,” replied Sor Cassandro.
‘“You don’t understand me, Sor Cassandro,” pursued the man.
‘“Yes, I understand perfectly,” answered the other. “You mean that if she must marry a friggitore, I must become a friggitore.”
‘“You a friggitore, Sor Cassandro! That would never do. How could you so demean yourself?”
‘“Love makes all sweet,” responded Sor Cassandro. “You’ve only to show me what to do and I’ll do it as well as anyone.”
‘The friggitore was something of a wag, and the idea of the prim little Sor Cassandro turned into a journeyman friggitore tickled his fancy, and he let him follow his bent.
‘The next morning Sor Cassandro was at Panìco as soon as the shop was open. They gave him a white jacket and a large white apron, and put a white cap on his head, with a carnation stuck in it. And the whole neighbourhood gathered round the shop to see Sor Cassandro turned into a friggitore. The work of the shop was increased tenfold, and it was well there was an extra hand to help at it.
‘Sor Cassandro was very patient, and adapted himself to his work surprisingly well, and though the master fryer took a pleasure in ordering him about, he submitted to all with good grace, and not only did he make him do the frying and serving out to perfection, but he even taught him to clip his words and leave off using any expression that seemed inappropriate to his new station.[5]
‘There was no denying that Sor Cassandro had become a perfect friggitore, and no exception could be taken to him on that score. As soon as he felt himself perfect he did not fail to renew his suit.
‘The father was puzzled what objection to make next. He knew, however, that Sor Cassandro was very miserly, so he said, “You’ve made yourself a friggitore to please me, now you must do something to please the girl. Suppose you bring her some trinkets, if you can spare the price of them.”
‘“Oh, anything for love!” answered Sor Cassandro; and the next day he brought a pair of earrings.
‘“How did she like my earrings?” he whispered next night to her father.
‘“Oh, pretty well!” replied the father. “You might try something more in that style.”
‘The next day he brought her a necklace, the next day a shawl, and after that he brought fifty scudi to buy clothes such as a girl should have when she’s going to be married.
‘After all this he asked for the girl herself.
‘“You must take her,” said the father, and Sor Cassandro went to take her. But she was a sprightly, impulsive girl, and the moment he came near her she screamed out—
‘“Get away, horrid old man!”[6] and wouldn’t let him approach her.
‘“Leave her alone to-night, and try to-morrow. I’ll try to bring her round in the meantime.”
‘Sor Cassandro came next day; but the girl was more violent than ever, and would say nothing but “Get away, horrid old man!”
‘Finding this went on day after day without amendment, Sor Cassandro indignantly asked for his presents back.
‘“You shall have them!” cried the girl, and the clothes she tore up to rags, and the trinkets she broke to atoms and threw them all at him.
‘But for the rest of his life, wherever he went, the boys cried after him, “Sor Cassandro, la friggitora! Sor Cassandro, la friggitora!”’
[1] ‘Lo Sposalizio di Sor Cassandro.’ For ‘Sor’ see p. 194. [↑]
[2] The ‘Via di Panìco’ is so called, according to Rufini, because on a bit of ancient sculpture built into the wall of one of the houses where it had been dug up as is so commonly done in Rome, the people thought they saw the likeness of some ears of millet, panìco, and birds pecking them. [↑]
[3] Just as at Oxford, men say ‘the High’ and ‘the Corn,’ &c, it is very common in Rome to use the name of a street omitting the word Via. [↑]
[4] ‘Friggitoria,’ an open shop where all manner of fried dishes very popular among the lower classes, and varying according to the time of year, are made and sold; three or four or more enormous pans of oil and of lard are kept boiling, and at one season fish, at another rice-balls, at another artichokes, &c. &c, always previously dipped into light batter, are cooked therein to a bright gold colour. On St. Joseph’s Day, as it always falls in Lent, a meagre festa-dish is made of balls of batter fried in oil, in as universal request as our pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. A writer in the ‘Giovedi’ mentions two popular traditions on the connexion between the ‘frittelle’ or ‘frittatelli’ and St. Joseph. One is that St. Joseph was wont to make such a dish for his meal by frying them with the shavings from his bench, in the same dangerous way that you may see those of his trade heating their glue in any carpenter’s shop in Rome. The other, that on occasion of the Visitation, the B. Virgin and St. Elizabeth remained so long in ecstatic conversation that the dinner was forgotten, and St. Joseph took the liberty allowed to so near a relation of possessing himself of a frying-pan and preparing a dish of ‘frittelle.’
The writer already quoted narrates in another paper that the ‘friggitori’ formerly plied their trade in the open air, but one day a cat escaping from the attentions of an admirer she did not choose to encourage, sprang from a low roof adjoining, right into the frying-pan of a ‘friggitore’ full as it was of boiling oil and spluttering ‘frittelle’; the cat overturned the frying-pan, setting herself on fire, and carrying a panic together with a stream of flaming oil into the midst of the crowd in waiting for their ‘frittelle.’ Since that day the ‘friggitore’ fries under cover, though still in open shops. [↑]
[5] Great part of the fun of the story consisted of jokes upon these technicalities which it would be too tedious to reproduce and explain. [↑]
[6] ‘Brutto vecchiaccio!’ ugly, horrid old man. [↑]
I COCORNI.
This story of Sor Cassandro led to others of the same nature, but without sufficient interest in the detail to put in print, though they seemed to illustrate the fact that an imaginative people will rapidly turn the most ordinary circumstances into a myth. For instance, one concerned a family named Cocorni, who seem to have been nothing more than successful grocers, the Twinings of Rome, and here is a specimen of the language used about them:—‘When his daughter was old enough to marry, Cocorni would hear of no proposal for her. “No,” said he; “no one marries my daughter but he who comes in a carriage and four to fetch her.” And it really did happen that one came in a carriage and four and took her away;’ as if it were such a great matter that it implied something supernatural.
THE BEAUTIFUL ENGLISHWOMAN.
There was a beautiful Englishwoman here once, beautiful and rich as the sun.[1] Heads without number were turned by her: but she would have nothing to say to anyone who wanted to marry her. Some defect she found in all. She was very accomplished, as well as rich and beautiful, and she drew a picture, and said ‘When one comes who is like this I will marry him; but no one else.’ Some time after a friend came to her, and said:
‘There is So-and-so, he is exactly like the portrait you have drawn, and is dying to see you.’
‘Is he really like it?’ she inquired.
‘To me he seems exactly like it; and I don’t see he has any defect at all, except that he has one tooth a little green.’
‘Then I won’t have anything to say to him.’
‘But, if he is exactly like the portrait you have drawn?’
‘He can’t be, or he wouldn’t have any defect.’
‘But he is exactly like it, and so you must see him; if it’s only for curiosity.’
‘Well, for curiosity, then, I’ll see him; but don’t let him build any hopes upon it.’
The friend arranged that they should meet at a ball, and the one was as well pleased as the other; but not wishing to seem to yield too soon, she said:
‘Do you know, I don’t like that green tooth you’ve got.’
And he, not to appear too easy either, answered:
‘And, do you know, I don’t like that patch[2] you have on your face.’
The next time they met, neither he had a green tooth, nor had she a patch; for, you know, a patch can be put on and taken off at pleasure, and this happened a long long while ago, in the days when they wore such things.
She then said:
‘If you’ve put in a false tooth I’ll have nothing to say to you.’
‘No,’ answered he; ‘you have taken off your patch; and I’ve taken off my green tooth.’
‘How could you do that?’ she asked.
‘Oh! it was only a leaf I put on to see if you were really as particular as you seemed to be.’
As they were desperately in love with each other, the next thing was to arrange the marriage secretly. His father had a great title, and would never have consented to his marrying her, because she had none. But she had money enough for both; so they contrived a secret marriage. And then they bought a villa some way off, and lived there.
For thirteen years they lived devoted to each other, and full of happiness; and two children were born to them, a boy and a girl. It was only after thirteen years that the father discovered where the son was, and when he did, he sent for an assassin,[3] and giving him plenty of money, told him to go and by some device or other to bring him to him and get through the affair. The assassin took a carriage and dressed like a man of some importance, and said that some chief man or other in the Government had sent for him to speak to him. The husband suspected nothing, and went with him. As it was night he could not see which way they drove, and thus he delivered his son to his father, who kept him shut up in his palace.
The assassin went back to the villa, and by giving each of the servants fifty scudi apiece, got access to the wife, and murdered her, and then took the children to the grandfather’s palace.
‘Papa, that man killed mama,’ said the little boy, as soon as he saw his father.
The husband seized the man, and made him confess it.
‘Then now you must kill him who hired you to do it,’ he exclaimed. ‘As you have done the one, you must do the other. He who ordered my wife to be killed is no father to me.’
So the assassin went in and killed the father, but when he came out the husband was ready for him, and he said:
‘Now your turn has come,’ and he shot him dead.
[I have not had the opportunity of sifting this story, but it manifestly contains the usual popular exaggerations.]
[1] ‘Bella e ricca quanto il sole.’ [↑]
[2] ‘Mosca’ and ‘neo’ both mean either a mole or a patch. [↑]
[3] ‘Sicario,’ hired assassin. [↑]
THE ENGLISHMAN.
[That a rich Englishman should fall in love with a beautiful but poor Roman girl, and marry her, is no impossible incident, and may have happened more than once; but it is very curious to watch how it has passed into the mythology of the people.
The idea of a ‘Gran Signore’ coming on a visit from a land where all are rich is the first fantastic element of the tradition. The idea that all English people are rich is very common among the Roman lower classes, and is not an unnatural fancy for people to take up who have seen no specimens of the creature but such as are rich. There is one old woman whom I have never been able to disabuse of the idea. I shall never forget the blank astonishment with which she repeated my words the first time I broke it to her that there were poor people in England, and she has never thoroughly grasped it.
‘Io pensava che in Inghilterra tutti erano ricchi—tutti ricchi—’ (I thought everyone—everyone in England was rich) she always says, as if in spite of me she thought so still.
That such an one should be won by the charms of a beautiful Roman girl, and should carry her off to that unknown land bright with gold but devoid of sun, and that in the end the fogs and the Protestantism should prove unendurable to the child of the South, are not bad materials for a fairy story.
I have met with such stories several times.
One old woman assured me, that when she was a child her father had let an apartment to the very man, and that he took the room for a month, and though he spontaneously offered ten times as high a price as the owner could ever have asked, he never slept there. He had secretly married a Roman girl who was imprisoned for breaking the law by marrying a Protestant, and he opened her prison doors with his ‘wand,’ that is, he bribed the jailer to admit him to pass all his time in prison with her; ultimately he carried her off to England, but she soon died there.
Another pointed out to me a shop where in former days had been a butcher, whose daughter had charmed a rich Englishman, who carried her off to his own country, and married her there. But this was a very tetra (sad, gloomy) story, for after many years she came back looking like the ghost of herself. She had gone away a blooming girl, the pride and the admiration of the whole neighbourhood; she came back prematurely grey, hollow-eyed, and thin as a skeleton.
She said it was the climate had disagreed with her, and further than that she would say nothing. But who knows what she may not have had to go through!
Bresciani has made the same tradition the groundwork of one of his most interesting romances.]
THE MARRIAGE OF SIGNOR CAJUSSE.[1]
There was a rich farmer[2] who had one only daughter, and she was to be his heiress. She fell in love with a count who had no money—at least only ten scudi a month. When he went to the farmer to ask her in marriage he would not hear of the alliance, and sent him away.
But the girl and he were bent on the marriage, and this is how they brought it about. The girl had a thousand scudi of her own; half of this she gave to him, and said: ‘Go over a certain tract of the Campagna and visit all the peasants about, and give five piastres to one and ten to another according to their degree, that they may say when they are asked that they all belong to Signor Cajusse. Then take papa round to hear what they say, and he will think you are a great proprietor, and will let us marry.’
Signor Cajusse, for such was his name, took the money and did as she told him, and then hired a carriage and came to her father, and said: ‘You are quite mistaken in thinking I’m too poor to marry your daughter; come and take a drive with me, and I will show you what a great man I am.’
So the farmer got into his carriage, and he drove him round to all the peasants he had bribed. First they stopped at a farm.[3]
‘Good morning, Signor Cajusse,’ said the tenant, who had been duly primed, bowing down to the ground; and then he began to tell him about his crops, as if he had been really proprietor.
After this he proposed to walk a little way, and all the labourers left their work and flocked after him, crying, ‘Good day, Signor Cajusse; health to you and long life, and may God prosper you!’ and they tried to kiss his hand.
Further along they came to a villa where Cajusse had ascertained that the real proprietor would not come that day. Here he went straight up to the casino, where the servant in charge, who had been also duly bribed, received him with all the honours due to a master.
‘Welcome, Signor Cajusse,’ he said, and opened the doors and shutters and set the chairs.
‘Bring a little of that fine eight-year-old wine,’ ordered Cajusse; ‘we have brought a packet of biscuits, and will have some luncheon.’[4]
‘Very good, Signor Cajusse,’ replied the servant respectfully, and shortly after brought in a bottle of wine handed to him for the purpose by Cajusse the day before. When they had drunk they took a stroll round the place, and wherever they turned the labourers all had a greeting and a blessing for Signor Cajusse.
When the merchant saw all this he hardly knew how to forgive himself for having run the risk of losing such a son-in-law. He was all smiles and civility as they drove home, and the next day was as anxious to hurry on the match as he had been before to put it off. As all were equally in a hurry to have it, of course it was not long before it was celebrated. With the girl’s remaining five hundred scudi a handsome apartment was hired to satisfy appearances before the parents, and for a few days they lived on what was left over.
They sat counting their last two or three scudi. ‘What is to be done now?’ said Cajusse; ‘that will soon be spent, and then how are we to live?’
‘I’ll set it right,’ answered the bride. ‘Now we’re married that’s all that signifies. Now it’s done they can’t help it.’
So she went to her mother and told her all, and the good woman, knowing the thing could not be altered, talked over the father; and he gave them something to live upon and found a place for Cajusse, and they were very happy.
[1] ‘I Matrimonio del Signor Cajusse.’ This story, it will be seen, is altogether disconnected with the other of the same name at p. 158–69, and it is curious so similar a title should be appended to so dissimilar a story. It has not half the humour of Mr. Campbell’s ‘Baillie Lunnain,’ No. xvii. b. Vol. i., but is sufficiently like to pair off against it. It is also observable for representing exactly the proceeding of the ‘Marquis di Carabas’ in ‘Puss in Boots.’ [↑]
[2] ‘Mercante di Campagna,’ see n. 2, p. 154. [↑]
[3] ‘Tenuta,’ a farm; a holding. [↑]
[4] ‘Merenda,’ see n. 7, p. 155. [↑]
THE DAUGHTER OF COUNT LATTANZIO.[1]
Count Lattanzio had a daughter who was in love with a lawyer, but the count was not at all inclined to let her marry beneath her station, and he took all the pains imaginable to prevent them from meeting; so much so that he scarcely left her out of his sight. One day he was obliged to go to his vineyard outside the gates, and before he left he gave strict injunctions to his servant to let no one in till he came back at 21 o’clock.[2]
It was an hour before 21 o’clock, and there was a knock at the door.
‘Is the Count Lattanzio in?’
‘No, he won’t be in just yet.’
‘Ah, I know, he won’t be in till 21 o’clock; he said I was to wait. I’m come to measure him for a pair of new boots.[3]
‘If he told you to wait I suppose you must,’ said the servant; ‘otherwise he had told me not to let anyone in.’ And as he showed him in he thought he was a rather gentlemanly bootmaker.
Soon after there was another knock.
‘Is the Count Lattanzio in?’
‘No, he won’t be in for some time yet.’
‘Ah, never mind; he said I was to wait if he hadn’t come in. I’m the tailor, come to measure him for a new suit.’
‘If he said you were to wait I suppose you must,’ answered the servant; ‘but it’s very odd he should have told you so, as he particularly told me to let no one in.’ However, he showed him in also. Directly after there came another knock.
‘Is the Count Lattanzio at home?’
‘No, he won’t be in for some time yet.’
‘Never mind; I’m the lawyer engaged in his cause before the courts. He said I was to wait if he wasn’t in.’
But the servant began to get alarmed at having to disobey orders so many times, and he thought he would make a stand.
‘I’m very sorry,’ he said, ‘but master said I wasn’t to show anyone in.’
‘What! when I’ve come here with my two clerks, on particular business of the greatest importance to your master, do you suppose I’m going away again like that, fellow?’
The servant was so amazed by his imperative manner that he let him in, too.
Twenty-one o’clock came at last, and with it Count Lattanzio. Having given orders that no one should be let in, of course he expected to find no one. What was his astonishment, therefore, when, as he opened the drawing-room door, a loud cry of ‘Long live Count Lattanzio!’[4] uttered by several voices, met his ear.
The shoemaker was the bridegroom, the tailor the best man, the lawyer and his two clerks were the notary and his witnesses. The marriage articles had been duly drawn up and signed, and as the parties were of age there was no rescinding the contract.
Count Lattanzio sent away the servant for not attending to orders; but that made no difference—the deed was done.
[1] This story, again, is perhaps more curious for the sake of the repetition of the name of Lattanzio, in so different a story as that at p. 155, than for its contents. There is doubtless a reason why this name should come into this sort of use as with that of ‘Cajusse,’ but I have not as yet been able to meet with it. [↑]
[2] ‘21 o’clock,’ three hours before the Ave. [↑]
[3] ‘Gisbuse’ are high boots of unblackened leather reaching up to the thighs, worn by sportsmen about Rome. [↑]
[4] ‘Viva!’ or ‘Evviva!’ is a not very uncommon, though rather old-fashioned, mode of hearty greeting. [↑]
BELLACUCCIA.
There was once a pleader[1] who sat writing in his room all day whenever he was not in court.
One day as he so sat there came in at the window a large monkey, and began whisking about the room. The lawyer, pleased with the antics of the monkey, called it scimmia bellacuccia,[2] and caressed and fed it. By-and-by he had to go out on his business, and though he was in some fear of the pranks the monkey might be up to in his absence, he had taken such a fancy to it that he did not like to send it away, and at last left it alone in his apartment.
When he came home, instead of the monkey having been at any mischievous pranks, the whole suite of rooms was put in beautiful order, and out of very scanty materials in the cupboard an excellent dinner was cooked and laid ready.
‘Scimmia bellacuccia! is this your doing!’ said the lawyer, and the monkey nodded assent.
‘Then you are a precious monkey, indeed,’ he replied, and he called it to him and fed it, and gave it part of the dinner.
The next day the monkey did the work of the house, and the lawyer sent away his servant because he had no further need for one, the monkey did all much better and in a more intelligent way.
All went well for a time, when one day the lawyer had occasion to visit a friar he knew at St. Nicolò da Tolentino, for in those days there were friars[3] there instead of nuns as now. He did not fail to tell him of the treasure he had found in his bellacuccia, as he called his monkey.
‘Don’t let yourself be deceived, friend!’ exclaimed the friar. ‘This is no monkey; it is not in the nature of a monkey to do thus.’
‘Come and see it yourself,’ said the lawyer. ‘You will find I have over-stated nothing of what it can do and does every day.’
Some days after this the friar came, having taken care to provide himself with his stole and a stoup of holy water. Directly he came into the lawyer’s apartment he put on his stole and sprinkled the holy water.
The monkey no sooner saw the shadow of his habit than it took to flight, and, after scrambling all round the room to get away from the sight of him, finally hid itself under the bed.
‘You see!’ said the friar to the lawyer.
But the lawyer cried, ‘Here bellacuccia; come here!’ and as the monkey was by habit very docile and obedient, when he had said ‘bellacuccia’ a great many times, it at last forced itself to come to him, but stealthily and warily, showing great fear of the monk.
When it had got quite close to the lawyer, and he was holding it, the friar once more put on his stole, sprinkled it with holy water and exorcised it.
Instantly bellacuccia burst away from the lawyer, and, clambering up to the window, broke away through the upper panes and disappeared, leaving a smoke and a smell of brimstone behind. But it was really a man who had been put under a spell by evil arts,[4] and when thus released by the monk’s exorcism he went and became a monk, I forget in what order, but I know it was one of those who dress in white.
[1] ‘Curiale,’ a lawyer, a pleader. [↑]
[2] ‘Scimmia,’ a monkey. In England we usually speak of a cat as of feminine gender, and in Germany the custom is so strong that the well-known riddle pronounces the ‘Kater’ (tom cat) ‘keine Katze’ (no cat), while in France, Spain and Italy the normal cat is masculine. In Italian, on the other hand, the monkey is always spoken of in the feminine gender; it becomes noteworthy in this instance when we consider the termination of the story. ‘Bellacuccia,’ ‘dear little pretty one.’ [↑]
[3] I do not know at what period the transfer took place, but in the edition of 1725, of Panciroli’s book on Rome, the church is named as built and served by the ‘Eremiti scalsi di S. Agostino,’ corroborating this part of the story. [↑]