In the garden is an avenue of lime-trees about one hundred and sixty feet long. In the summer it forms a deliciously shady walk; in rainy weather it is a clean and pleasant promenade, for it has a paved pathway in it. The north end of the avenue terminates in a large semicircular stone seat mounted on a stone base one step higher than the pathway. The seat has no florid decorative carving on it to arouse hostility or provoke criticism. It is just a plain seat of simple Roman type, roomy and comfortable to sit on. Behind the seat curves a semicircle of thirteen cypress-trees screening the north winds. Again, behind the cypress-trees is an interesting old stone wall about twenty feet high, forming the boundary of the garden. Above the wall, rising in gentle slope, is the south shoulder of the hill, on the hill-top sits Fiesole, the famous Etruscan city of history and legend. The slope is covered with olives and vines, forming a mantle grey and green with its leafy fringe dropping on our garden wall.
This great retaining wall is old as the villa which was purchased by Domenico Mori in 1475. The history of the house earlier than this date is lost in the mist of antiquity. The ancient wall is a feature in the garden, for on two sides it towers like a cliff, forming a charming background to the scene. It has weathered beautifully with the ages, and is an immense stretch of canvas for the display of masses of colour. In places it is bleached silvery-grey, and elsewhere the tinted lichen mottle it with saffron and orange and brown, and every delectable shade and tone which Time, the great decorator, with loving hand, imparts to old stone. It looks warm and gay and friendly, and grows a rock-garden of its own, for wild flowers bloom in its cracks and crannies and red valerian flames upon its heights, side by side with golden broom. Ivy clothes it in parts, and most mysteriously so, for years back the plants were cut off their roots, and the ivy now exists only on nourishment drawn from the wall, and it exists vigorously on the meagre diet the wall supplies. When the sunshine pours down upon its hoary time-worn face, the old wall is transfigured into a thing of triple splendour, for its colours glow and blaze with spiritual fervour imparting that artistic touch of nature which is the happy gift of garden plaisance.
Deeply set in the wall is the ruin of a small shrine. Once upon a time this shrine was the home of the Madonna, but now no Madonna occupies the niche. Some pious ancestor of the house implored gracious protection of the Mother of Jesus on behalf of his vines and olives, fruits and flowers, and he set up her Ladyship's sheltered image in the little vaulted temple on the wall as guardian of the crops, hoping that fat harvest would follow his devotion to Our Lady of Plenty. The vacant shrine is desolate and crumbling and mossy now, and so is the sentimental faith of those ancient days. It was a hallowed sentiment in its way, this worship of the Madonna. Men lived up to it, and felt happy in their prayers to the Lady of Heaven. Nowadays men win good harvests on more scientific lines. They put trust in deep ploughing and artificial manure rather than in prayers and oblations to the Mother of God.
The personal intervention of the Deity in the affairs of men strikes a homely note in the world's domestic management, and brings the Heavenly Father in close touch with His earthly family; but the dear God's blessing is level-handed, and favours His children, bad or good, who work the hardest, and add intelligence to their toil.
VI
THE LURE OF THE MONTELUPO PLATE
My friend Federico wandering through Tuscany on one of those delightful excursions that he loves, passing from town to town and village to village picking up "old things" en route, called at a dealer's shop in Bagni di Lucca. In the miscellaneous collection of antiquities there offered for sale he found nothing to please him. To console him in the hour of disappointment, the little dealer, named Grosso, said: "I know of a beautiful Montelupo plate that will take your fancy. Come with me; it is away up the hills, a pleasant ride for us. Give me a few francs for my trouble, and you can buy the plate." So they took a vettura and rode up the mountains in quest of the Montelupo plate. After an hour's delightful drive they stopped at a contadino's cottage on the roadside, and there, boldly on view to the passer-by and stuck on the weather-beaten front of the cottage over the doorway, was the Montelupo plate, the very heart's desire of the two adventurers. It was a brave plate, round as the sun and about thirteen inches in diameter. In the centre of it, painted in flaming colours, trotted a soldier on horseback with drawn sword in hand, but no painted foeman visible into which to bury the thirsty blade. The interior of the plate surrounding the warrior was a mass of rich deep orange ground; the colour much esteemed by collectors of this rural pottery. The contadinos in Tuscany once owned numerous specimens of these rustic dishes, which were used daily by them in their homes as common household crockery. They were nothing thought of in those far-off days of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. They were made for the peasants' service, and if a plate was broken another was bought for half a franc in the next market town. The day came when the supply stopped and the plates could not be replaced. Some other novelty in kitchenware had the run of the market, and nobody wanted Montelupo plates.
Fashion set in about twenty years ago to collect this crude, curious, neglected pottery, so grotesque and humorous in design and coarse in workmanship, but when reposing against the wall of a well-lit room certainly showy and decorative for all time. They carry amusing and picturesque subjects, comical or satirical in treatment. Not very artistic, but cleverly and freely drawn with a few bold lines to catch the peasant's sense of humour, which was easily tickled. The plates revel in brightness and colour. Colour holds the eye and courts our admiration, and fancy prices rule the market.
The rarest plates to find are those burlesquing the Churchman. The soldier, the farmer, and the serving-maid took the joke kindly, but the plates in which the monk was caricatured offended the Church dignitaries, and these specimens were bought up mysteriously, quickly destroyed, and now cannot be found.
When the fashion set in, wandering dealers and touring collectors made haste to buy. They spread themselves over the country; knocked at cottage doors in out-of-the-way places in Tuscany, begged a glass of milk, admired the plates on the kitchen dresser, and offered to buy at a few francs apiece. The contadino soon found he had something good, and the price rose to ten francs each. Still the plates were admired by tired travellers resting in out-of-the-way cottages drinking a glass of milk. The price rose incontinently to twenty, thirty, fifty francs, until the peasants discovered a gold-mine in their old kitchen crockery, and now their stock is sold out. To-day the plates are found only in the hands of dealers, and good specimens command prices anywhere between a hundred and two hundred and fifty francs each.