“Eccellenza, shall I tell you the truth? I have tuns of wine which I shall sell for Chianti. All you forestieri know that name and demand that wine. The real wine of Chianti would not supply the town of Lucca. Chianti is a small paese; its wine is good, who shall deny it? but not so good as that which you will honor me by trying!”
I held out for a glass of the “Americano”; it tastes rather like the unfermented grape juice we have at home.
Lucca at last! a dear, queer, delightful old town with ramparts and fortifications in fine preservation. It has a delicious slumberous quality: its glorious days are in the past; its mediæval walls effectually shut out the rustle and bustle of to-day. My earliest childish impressions concerning Lucca centre about certain long thin glass bottles bearing the words “Sublime Oil of Lucca,” always in evidence at home when there was to be a dinner party. Cross German Mary, the swarthy culinary goddess of our youth, used to hold one of those deceitful bottles gingerly in a clawlike hand, letting the sublime liquid trickle drop by drop into the yellow mixing-bowl wherein she compounded salad dressing such as I have not since tasted. Later in life I was once delayed by a crowd on State Street, Chicago, outside a wholesale warehouse on which was written in large letters “Cotton Seed Oil.” I had to wait for a moment while a crate full of spick and span new empty bottles with fresh gold labels bearing the familiar legend “Sublime Oil of Lucca” was carried into the warehouse! Can you solve me that mystery?
During our first dinner in Lucca, I inevitably demanded “un poco di quest’olio sublimo.”
“Ecco lo quà, Signora (behold it here, lady),” said the fat waiter, offering a familiar straw-covered flask of oil, just like those we have in Rome. Sublime Oil of Lucca in long, thin, deceitful bottles is not to be had in Lucca!
My second impression of the town is connected with another cook, the excellent Pompilia: she was born here and first went out to service with a great lady who lived in Florence in the winter, and at Bagni di Lucca in the summer. I have often been made to feel my inferiority to that lady, and enjoyed a certain revenge in refusing to drive out to see Bagni di Lucca, whose fine hotels and bath establishment do not tempt us. We prefer Lucca and the “Universe,” a queer old caravansary, whose limitations we endure in that transcendental spirit with which Margaret Fuller accepted the larger universe. The hotel has been a palace of some importance: our bedroom is of the size and character of the stage of Covent Garden Theatre, when set for the last act of Othello. The gloomy majesty of the furniture is quite appalling; the two stupendous beds could easily accommodate the whole family of children at Orton House.
The first day we drove out into the neighboring country, where we found the same joyous harvest atmosphere we left in the Abruzzi. The town of Lucca is mellow with another harvest, the great art harvest of the renaissance; pictures and marbles that strike us fresh and strong from the dead hands that made them, not too familiar like the more famous works of Florence and Venice. We never before knew much of Matteo Civitalis, the statuary; he is now our loving friend for life. Fra Bartolomeo, the Lucca painter, we already knew, though not so intimately as now. We have put in some days of hard sightseeing. Did I say hard? no, splendid, soul inspiring. I feel as if I had put my lips to the fountain of life, and drawn deep draughts of inspiration. There are great churches, grim St. Romano and San Michele, the cathedral with its precious jewel, the tomb of Ilaria del Carretto, one of the most lovely monuments of the renaissance. As we lingered near the tomb the old sacristan approached; he eyed us anxiously before speaking.
“The signori are interested in sculpture?” We said that we were. “If their excellences have time, I will gladly show them what the church contains of interest to the amateur.”
How often he must have been snubbed and hurried by breathless tourists!
“A thousand thanks. We have come to Lucca partly to see the cathedral of St. Martino; figure to yourself if we have time!”