The story of the fly is told in almost all the collections. The reader will bear in mind the following frank and full admission, of which all critics are invited to make the worst, that in many cases I had already narrated these Virgilian tales to my collector, as I did here—a course which it is simply impossible to avoid where one is collecting in a speciality. If you want fairy-tales, take whatever the gods may send, but if you require nothing but legends of Red Cap, you must specify, and show samples of the wares demanded. But it may here be observed, that after I had communicated these tales, they all returned to me with important changes. In the older legends the fly made by Virgil is manifestly—like the leech which he also fabricated—simply an amulet or talisman formed under the influence of the planets, or by astrology. In the version which I give there is an altogether different, far more ancient and mysterious motive power described. This is the direct aid of Moscone, the King of the Flies, suggestive of Baal tse Bul, or Beelzebub himself. The reader may find a chapter on this mystical being, who is also the god of news, in the “Legends of Florence,” Part II. According to my story, the Golden Fly is not a talisman made by planetary influences, but a tribute of respect to a demon, which he demands shall be set up in Saint Peter’s. Here the witch, ever inimical to orthodox faith, appears in black and white—so true is it, as I have before remarked, that even where my assistant has been asked to re-tell a tale, it always returned with darker and stranger colouring, which gave it an interest far greater than existed in the simple narrative. The tale of the fly, as a mere amulet, is of almost no importance whatever, beyond its being an insignificant variant; but as a legend of the chief of the flies, or Beelzebub, claiming honour and a place in the great Christian Church, it is of extraordinary novelty.
Amber, in which insects are often found, especially small flies or midges, was anciently regarded as a gem, and is classed as one in the Tesoro delle Goie. Trattato curioso, Venice, 1676.
It may be observed that something like this story of the gem with an insect in it occurs not only in the early legends of Virgil, but also in the oldest novelle, as may be seen in Roscoe’s “Italian Novelists.” In fact, there is probably not one of the old Neapolitan Virgilian stories which is not, like this, of Oriental origin.
THE COLUMNS OF VIRGIL AND HIS THREE WONDERFUL STATUES.
“En sic meum opus ago,
Ut Romæ fecit imago
Quam sculpsit Virgilius,
Quæ manifestare suevit
Fures, sed cæsa quievit
Et os clausit digito.”De Corrupto Ecclesiæ Statu: XVIth Century. Virgilius the Sorcerer (1892).
The reader who is familiar with “The Legends of Florence” will remember that, in the second series of that work, [49] there are several tales referring to the Red Pillars of the Baptistery, of which, as Murray’s “Guide Book” states, “at each side of the eastern entrance of the Battisterio di San Giovanni there is a shaft of red porphyry, presented by the Pisans in 1117.” To which I added:
“Other accounts state that the Florentines attached immense value to these columns, and that once when there was to be a grand division of plunder between Florence and Pisa, the people of the former city preferred to take them, instead of a large sum of money, or something which was apparently far more valuable. And the Pisans parted from them most unwillingly, and to deprive them of value passed them through a fire. Which is all unintelligible nonsense, but which becomes clear when we read further.
“I had spoken of this to Mr. W. de Morgan, the distinguished scholar, artist, and discoverer in ceramics, when he informed me that he had found, in the ‘Cronaca Pisana’ of Gardo, a passage which clearly explains the whole. It is as follows:
“In the year 1016, the Pisans brought the gates of wood which are in the Duomo, and a small column, which is in the façade, or above the gate of the Duomo. There are also at the chief entrance two columns, about two fathoms each in length, of a reddish colour, and it is said that whoever sees them is sure in that day not to be betrayed. And these two columns which were so beautiful had been so enchanted by the Saracens, [50a] that when a theft had been committed the face of the thief could be seen reflected in them. And when they had scorched them they sent them to Florence, after which time the pillars lost their power; whence came the saying, Fiorentini ciechi, or ‘blind Florentines.’ [50b]
“Unto which was added, Pisani traditori, or ‘treacherous Pisans.’ Those pillars were, in fact, magic mirrors which had acquired their power by certain ceremonies performed when they were first polished, and which were lost.”
A German writer on witchcraft, Peter Goldschmidt, states that there was once in olden time in Constantinople a certain Peter Corsa, who, by looking in two polished stones or magic mirrors, beheld in them proof that his wife, then far away, was unfaithful to him. It is possible, or probable, that this refers to the same pillars, before they had been brought to Pisa, even as the column of the Medicis in the Piazza Annunciata was sent from the East to Florence.
What renders this the more probable is the following passage by Comparetti, given in his “Virgilio nel Medio Evo”:
“In a History of the Pisans, written in French in the fifteenth century and existing in manuscript in Berne, there is mention of two columns made by Virgil, and which were then in the cathedral of Pisa, on the tops of which one could see the likeness of anyone who had stolen or fornicated.” See De Sinner, “Catal. Codicum MSS. Bibl. Bernensis,” II., p. 129; Du Meril, “Mélanges,” p. 472.