Camaldoli is a pearl among the many pearls of the Casentino. I have seen it in spring-time only; the Italians tell you that it is even more beautiful in summer, when its shady chestnut groves and dark pine forest give a sense of restored energy and renewed vigour to those who come here from the arid plains of Tuscany and the blinding heat of the streets of Florence. Camaldoli may be conveniently reached by a good driving road or by paths from the east or the west. We decided on striking into the former of these two paths, and on a genial day we bid adieu to Bibbiena, descending first and then mounting with the driving road which afterwards followed an even ridge for several miles.
The views from this ridge were extensive and varied. In the distance the panorama of the hills was slowly unfolding. Nearer at hand our attention was caught now by a peach-tree with its purple blossoms, then by a cherry-tree, its downy white branches swaying with the breeze. We passed several country-houses, always somewhat removed from the road and always flanked by a group of dark cypresses, which sometimes extended into an avenue down the slope of the hill. These old country-houses of Tuscany consist of a dwelling-house and a farm, which sometimes stand a little way apart, the dwelling-house marked by a look of greater trimness and reserve; sometimes they are brought closer together with an increased look of orderliness to the one and of homeliness to the other. Both houses are built of stone,
CAMALDOLI (CASENTINO)
usually two storeys high. And both are covered with red rough-tiled roofs that lie flat and broad over the entire dwelling and project on all sides into wide eaves.
We passed through Camprena, a posto which also had its peculiarity. The houses neither fronted the street nor stood at right angles to it, a want of arrangement not accounted for by any apparent irregularity of the ground. Such an Italian village has none of the neat clustering of its English or German namesake. There is no village church standing aloof to watch over the entrance and exit from life of suffering humanity; no village green with ancient oak suggesting a living protection to rights and liberties; no well-appointed inn betokening the love of an evening’s good cheer. The houses have come together anyhow, and few are the attempts made to brighten a portico or a window with a row of flower-pots. Sometimes the house itself is washed over with pink or yellow, but there is never a scrap of flower-garden to add a bright spot of colour to its surroundings.
Further along the road lay Soci, a place which went through stormy experiences in the early Middle Ages. Remains of its own castle walls and remains of the castles of Gressa and Marciano, which frown from heights above and beyond it, recall the times when might made havoc with right. At one time the Prince Bishop of Arezzo owned the place and made it over to the monks of Camaldoli. But, apparently on account of its insecurity, they parted with it to one of the Counts Guidi in exchange for rights of ownership at Bagno on the further side of the Apennines. However, the Guidi did not long remain in possession of the castle; they lost it to their enemies, the Tarlati of Pietramala.
Soci is now a growing centre of industry, and boasts of several factories. The high chimney of one of these figures is the attractive feature on the local picture post card. The thought often arises in these days at what a terrible cost to itself mankind is securing greater cheapness in goods—raising the standard of comfort, as economists put it; the thought was brought home in this outlying district. For the men and women we met in other parts of the district were robust in health and decently, if poorly, clad; the children were chubby, well-fed and full of buoyancy. But in places like Soci a blight seemed to have fallen on mankind. Men and women, girls and boys, all had the same look of mixed listlessness and craving, and the children were pale and neglected. No doubt here, as elsewhere, the people who flocked to the factories were impatient of the restraints and the penury of home; they escaped from the toil of home, but they did so at the cost of the home’s regularity of habit. Stranded in a strange place, bound by no responsibilities but those they chose to recognise, these men and women soon fell into irregular ways and formed illicit connections, with a consequent loss of physique to themselves and a deterioration of the race in a couple of generations.
Beyond Soci the mountains began to draw closer together. The road followed the river Archiano, which flowed in a narrower bed and assumed the character of a torrent. Only the land that was near the river was brought under cultivation. The slopes above were covered with a thin scrub of stunted oaks bearing only the sere foliage of last year’s growth. These mountains were chiefly of a brown mud-rock that had crumbled away along the water-courses, or else, undermined by them, had fallen in masses of soft earth, forming the gentler slopes. Side-valleys opened and closed as we passed onwards. The characteristics of the plain were disappearing more and more. We were entering the region of the Apennines.