Wanderings in Corsica: Its History and Its Heroes. Vol. 2 of 2

by Ferdinand Gregorovius

The Malaspinas built the village of Speloncato. Subsequently to the year 1019, five counts of this house had come to Corsica—Guglielmo, Ugo, Rinaldo, Isuardo, and Alberto Rufo. The family is spread in numerous branches over the Italian countries.

In later times the democratic constitution of the Terra del Commune deprived the barons of their power in Balagna. The Corsican popular assemblies (veduta) were frequently held here, in the Field of Campiolo. At one of these vedutas, the brave Renuccio della Rocca displayed a degree of heroic fortitude which deserves our admiration. Filippini narrates the incident. Renuccio was in the act of addressing the assembly, when his son, a youth of fourteen, who chanced to be riding over the field, was hurled by his startled horse upon the point of the lance carried by a squire who rode behind him. The dying youth was brought to his father. But Renuccio, with unaltered mien, continued in his speech to rouse his countrymen to insurrection against Genoa. This Spartan self-command, the heroism of Gaffori, the heroism of Leoni of Balagna before the tower of Nonza, always remind me of the manly firmness of Xenophon. The news that his son Gryllus had fallen in battle, came to Xenophon when he was engaged in offering sacrifice. The father, overcome at first by the sudden intelligence, took the sacrificial wreath from his head; but when he was told that his son had fallen bravely fighting, he immediately replaced it, and calmly continued his act of worship. Indeed, these stout-hearted Corsicans seem more Spartan than the Spartans themselves.

I found in Balagna a great many fields of grain already cut—a beautiful sight in Corsican regions. Everywhere, especially in the vicinity of the villages, are the most luxuriant and magnificent groves of chestnut, walnut, and almond trees, gardens of oranges and citrons, and wood on wood of olives. The excellent road keeps close by the foot of the mountains, and from all points the traveller enjoys the finest views towards the sea or into the hills. The largest villages of Balagna are Muro and Belgodere; the latter of which owes its name to its beautiful situation. Belgodere might be a sanctuary of Pallas, it lies embosomed in such luxuriant groves of her favourite tree.

It is said that there is no district throughout the whole of Italy where the olive attains such a size as it does in the Balagna. The thickness of its stem, its abundance of branches, and the quantity of fruit it produces, are equally astonishing. It is mighty as a beech, and in the heat of noon you rest cool under its shelter. The olive is a tree that one cannot but love. It has not the imposing magnificence of the oak or the plane; its bole, its grayish green, long, narrow leaves, remind us of our own homely willow; but it is laden with riches—with the very fat of the earth, and it is associated with all the poetry of human culture. Sitting under a gray olive by the sea-strand, we are transported to the sacred, sunny East, where our fancy has been at home ever since we turned over the leaves of the picture-Bible, and heard a mother's stories of the Mount of Olives at Jerusalem. How often have we imagined to ourselves those olive-groves! Then, again, in the whispering of its branches, we hear the wisdom of Minerva, and the poetry of the Hellenes, and are borne away to the land of Homer, of Pindar, of Æschylus, to the Muses and gods of Olympus. The olive is thus doubly dear to us as at once a Christian and a Hellenic tree; its branch is more precious than that of the laurel, it is the beautiful symbol of prosperity and peace, and a man's first prayer to the immortal gods should be: Send into my life the green olive-branch. They send us all kinds of them, the laurel-branch, the myrtle-branch; and they send also the cypress-bough; with humility be the award received.

There are various species of olives in the Balagna—the Sabine (Sabinacci), the Saracen (Saraceni), and the Genoese (Genovesi);—named according to their descent, like noble families of Signori. The third family is the most common. It is ascribed to the Genoese, who, during the government of Agostino Doria, compelled the Corsicans to plant olives in great numbers. This is therefore at least one beautiful and peaceful memorial of Genoese rule in Corsica. When the olive was first introduced into Corsica, I am unable to say. One of the complaints in the epigram of Seneca is, that the gift of Pallas does not exist on the island. Yet it appears to me hardly credible that the olive was not cultivated on the island before Seneca's time. The Corsican olives have at present the reputation of resisting better than all others the changes of the weather; the great Humboldt awards them this praise. They require little attention. The oldest branches are cut off to strengthen the tree, the soil about its roots is loosened, and manure is laid round the trunk. The olives are collected when they fall off. Twenty pounds of olives produce five pounds of clear oil. This is put into large jars, in which it stands till the month of May. The olive-tree yields abundantly every three years.

The birds come and carry away the olive kernels to the four winds of heaven, scattering them over the face of the country. The island thus becomes covered with wild olive-bushes, which flourish lustily on mountain and in valley, waiting to be improved. In the year 1820, an attempt was made to count them, and their number was said to be twelve millions. The richest olive-districts at the present time in Corsica are Balagna, Nebbio, and the country round Bonifazio.

We left the province of Balagna at the village of Novella. At this point the road bends into the mountainous interior, and for hours the Diligenza rolls on through narrow valleys, and between barren rocky hills, not a hamlet in sight, till we reach Ponte alla Leccia in the valley of the Golo, where the principal highways of Corsica, from Calvi, from Ajaccio, and from Bastia, meet. You now drive along the Golo, through a pleasant valley. To the right lies the pastoral district of Niolo, the present canton of Calacuccia—a remarkable region, encircled by lofty mountains, in which lie the two lakes of Neno and Ereno. The district forms a natural stronghold, for it opens only at four points, towards Vico, Venaco, Calvi, and Corte. A steep road, called the Scala di Santa Regina, leads to Corte. In Niolo live the strongest men in Corsica, patriarchal shepherds, who have faithfully preserved the customs of their forefathers.

There are many remarkable places on the road to Corte, as for example, Soveria, the home of the brave family of the Cervoni. It was Thomas Cervoni who rescued Pasquale Paoli at the cloister of Alando, when he was besieged there by the furious Matra. The reader will remember that Cervoni, who was at feud with Paoli, had his weapons put into his hands by his own mother, who, threatening to curse him if he refused to obey her, drove him from the house to rescue his foe. Cervoni hastened to the besieged convent, and Matra was slain. It is no ordinary pleasure to wander through a country like this island of Corsica, where there is not a city or village, a mountain or valley, which is not associated with some deed of heroism.

Cervoni's son was the talented general, who, as officer at Toulon, won his first laurels along with Napoleon. He distinguished himself at Lodi; in the year 1799, he was commandant of Rome. It was he who announced to Pope Pius VI. that his power was at an end, and that he must leave Rome. Cervoni made his name terrible in that city, as is evinced by an incident related by Valery. He once in the Tuileries stepped up to Pope Pius VII. at the head of the Generals, and complimented him. His fine voice and beautiful Italian pronunciation astonished the Pope, and he said a great many flattering things to Cervoni. The latter hereupon remarked: "Santo padre, sono quasi Italiano." "Oh!" "Sono Corso." "Oh! oh!" "Sono Cervoni!" "Oh! oh! oh!" and at the mention of the dreadful name the Pope receded horror-stricken to the fireplace. In the year 1809, a cannon-ball carried away the head of Marshal Cervoni at Regensburg.

Near Soveria stands Alando, famous as connected with the name of Sambucuccio, the ancient legislator and Lycurgus of the Corsicans, and founder of their democratic constitution. The scarcely distinguishable ruins of his castle are shown upon a rock. In 1466, four hundred years later than Sambucuccio, one of his descendants was vicegerent of the Corsican nation. Some of the Caporali resided in this quarter, in the neighbouring Omessa. Originating as tribunes of the people, and intended in the democratic system of Sambucuccio to defend the rights of the communes, they succumbed in the course of time to a malady that never fails to undermine and destroy the wisest human arrangements—ambition and the love of self-aggrandizement, and became like the seigniors, the most oppressive petty tyrants. In Filippini's time, we find that historian still complaining that the Caporali were the most dreadful scourges of Corsica.