Through the Casentino with Hints for the Traveller

by Lina Eckenstein

SITUATION OF LA VERNA

across the mountains into the valley of the Tiber skirts the Penna, which stands isolated, massive, and beetle-browed, among the loftier but less commanding heights of the Apennines. It is the “rough rock between the Tiber and the Arno,” as Dante has called it, a rock which commands a prospect without bounds. For the mountains of Tuscany, the plains of Romagna, and the rugged uplands of Umbria are all within sight, fading away in the blue distance that embraces the Tyrrhenian sea on one side and the Adriatic on the other. Quite apart from its historical associations, the spot, with its lofty beeches and pines, has many attractions; the near distance and the far outlook are both equally beautiful.

It was on a warm, sunny morning that we descended the hill of Bibbiena. Beyond the church of the Madonna del Sasso, the road mounted a ridge, and then descended and crossed the river Corsalone. Then began the steep, steady ascent of the Apennines. It was a beautiful day. The heights were lost in the morning haze, the air was laden with the vague perfume of spring growth. There is an Italian proverb which says that April calls up the flowers and May rejoices in their colours. As it was, the sun all around was at work softening sheath and leaf and bud. The hedge-rows were veiled in tenderest green, while here and there they were white with the flaky blossoms of the blackthorn. Violets, primroses, celandine and dark blue bell-hyacinths shone among the verdure of the roadside. Down by the river the fields were green with corn and waving herbage; further up the brown earth sloping away from the road was planted with trees, their trunks wedded to the stems of the vine. In these parts the vines are trained up pollard trees, over the stunted tops of which their branches are spread. These branches are then tightly wound round each other, two and two, tied together and their ends turned downwards. As we passed along, men were training and binding the vine, singing snatches of a song that ended with a minor cadence. From the hanging ends of the vine the shining sap was dropping, recalling the Italian simile of piangere a vite tagliata.

VINE CULTIVATION (CASENTINO)

In our progress we passed several roadside shrines, but we found them despoiled of their original contents. We afterwards found that all the open-air shrines of the Casentino have been dealt with in the same manner. In some a rude print or a small china figure has been substituted for the older object of reverence; oftener the niche is empty and the structure is falling to ruin.

For several miles our road was through land that had been brought under cultivation. Then it ascended through a wood, and beyond this we reached the uneven grassland of the mountains. The genial warmth of the lowland and the unchecked influence of spring were left behind. The grass on the hillocks was green, but in the hollows it was brown and sodden, as though the numerous patches of snow had only just shrunk away from it. Only here and there, close to the edge of the snow, purple crocuses were bursting through the soft mould of the rifts in the greensward. The silence of mountain solitude reigned undisturbed except for the sound of trickling, dripping water.

The plateau, at the end of which the convent of La Verna stands, is visible from afar. It was between one and two in the afternoon when we left the main road and soon afterwards reached the little inn that stands on the confines of the monastic property. Within its walls, at the foot of the rock, which is here almost perpendicular, a small chapel commemorates the spot where St Francis and his companions paused to rest before scaling the height. “And immediately flocks of birds came from all parts,” the legend tells us, “and with singing and beating of their wings they showed the greatest joy and gladness, and surrounded St Francis in such a manner that some perched on his head, some on his shoulders, some on his arms and some on his legs, and some around his feet. His companions marvelled, but St Francis, all joyful in his spirit, said to them—I see that it is pleasing to our Lord that we live in this solitary mountain, since so much joy is shown at our arrival by our little sisters and brothers, the birds.”

This incident in the legend of the saint illustrates one of the most lovable traits in his character—the sense of religious fellowship which united him to whatever claimed his attention in nature. The beasts of the earth, and the birds of the air, fire and water, the wind, the sun, the moon and the clouds—he felt the impress of the divine spirit in every one of them. In the happiest and in the most trying hours of his life he was ever ready to recognise the beneficence of the divine purpose in everything around him. It was this attitude of mind which enabled him not to shrink when the red-hot iron was drawn across his temple in the hope of saving his eye-sight. It was this attitude of mind which inspired him to compose the Canticle of the Sun, a hymn which in its simple framing and passionate utterances bears the stamp of the religious fervour of a new era.

The personality and influence of St Francis have great attractions under whatever aspect they be viewed. He is the representative of a new development of Christianity—of the period when the bearings of Christian teaching on the concerns of daily and domestic life were first realised, and when the masses of the laity ceased to look upon Christianity as a cult, and began to feel it as a living faith by which conduct could be regulated. It is in this sense that Ruskin, speaking of St Francis, says that it was he who taught men how to behave. By example chiefly. For the bearing of the man who would be guided solely by Christian love and charity had an irresistible charm for those who saw him, and the tidings of his influence, carried beyond the confines of his district by enthusiastic followers, acted as the breath by which latent emotional cravings were everywhere fanned into ardent devotion to the needs of suffering mankind.