The history of the Casentino illustrates the sequence of these changes. Few rocky heights but are crowned by the ruins of a stronghold, few upland expanses but preserve the remembrance of an ancient monastery. The word badia, the ancient term for monastery, survives in a number of local names, such as Badia a Tega, Badia a Prataglia. These monasteries went through stormy experiences towards the close of the tenth century, and all owing to the high-handed manner in which their patrons dealt with them. The Church was defiled by iniquity of traffic. On the one side laymen sold Church property and privileges, simony in the wider sense of the word. On the other, ecclesiastics themselves traded in benefices, simony in its narrower sense.
One of the important movements set on foot to oppose this evil is associated with the name of St Romuald, and through him with the Casentino, where the monastery of Camaldoli most directly embodied and most religiously preserved the spirit of one of Christianity’s most zealous champions. Camaldoli in the course of centuries has attracted visitors of many tempers from many countries. In Dante’s estimation Romuald was so important a person that he pictured him in Paradise as one of the chosen two whom St Benedict pointed out to him by name.
Among those whom the fame of Romuald brought to the Casentino was St Francis of Assisi. On his journey he passed La Verna, that solitary mountain height in the Apennines which appeared to him as a chosen spot for meditation. Many visitors come to see La Verna in the Casentino who come there to see nothing else, especially of late years, since a less prejudiced view of the saints has helped to restore the importance of St Francis on a wider basis than that of a purely devotional interest.
But not only the votaries of St Francis find a shrine at which to pay homage in the Casentino. Since the publication of the Voyages Dantesques by Ampère, every student of Dante longs to wander among these hills, for here the poet stayed at different periods of his life, and here his admirers are especially able to appreciate those occasional references to the beauties of nature, which are as manna in the wilderness among the terrible descriptions of Hell and Purgatory. In the Casentino Dante fought in his youth, hither he came in his manhood to stay with the Counts Guidi when Florence had closed her gates to him. And again the revived study of Dante’s works during the Renaissance was directly associated with the Casentino. Cristofero Landini, who first published a commentary on Dante, was from there; and Bandini, who wrote a famous work on the revival of learning in Italy, describes this revival in connection with Landini, and prefaces his work by an account of the numerous distinguished men to whom the Casentino gave birth.
Thus on the very point of entering the Casentino were we made to pause and call to remembrance some of those periods which associated the district with so much that is worthy of recollection. If knowledge be the wing wherewith we fly to heaven, it is also the key wherewith to unlock the treasures of this earth. And it seemed the more needful to recall the distinguishing features of the past as the different periods gained in importance when seen on a wider historical background. But discursiveness too has its limits. Wisely were the words spoken, “a time to break down and a time to build up.” It so happened that we had each brought a copy of Dante, though books are not a pleasant burden on a walking tour. But the trouble of carrying them was well repaid by the enjoyment we derived from studying them during the evening hours while in the land in which we were so frequently reminded of the poet.
II
Bibbiena and Cardinal Bibbiena
“Bibbiena ‘che una terra è sopr’ Arno molto amena.”
(Berni: Orlando Innamorato, 3, 7, 1.)
The town of Bibbiena boasts of no special architecture and of no great works of art, but it has all the characteristic charm of a Tuscan hill city. Looked at from without, the remains of its great walls and the substructure of its buildings suggest line upon line of successive ages of builders; within, there are the usual open spaces and narrow streets, with sudden changes from dazzling sunlight to dim coolness. Apparently the town has not spread since it was dismantled at the beginning of the sixteenth century; its limits are still marked by the remains of its walls. And, as in all walled cities, its buildings, churches, palaces, dwelling-houses and store-houses stand shoulder to shoulder, the more important buildings stretching to greater height and overlooking the less important ones.
On ordinary days the town was quiet enough. Few people were seen abroad and the noise of a vehicle was an event. But inside the houses
