Our reiterated admiration evidently enchanted the trio; in fact, it was altogether with the most amiable feelings, and with mutual thanks and protestations, we took our leave, the politeness of our entertainer and Don Antonio leading them to give us their company in visiting the bishop's palace and the Farmacea, or pharmacy of the Santa Casa, the last renowned for its collection of majolica, consisting of three hundred vases coloured from designs by Raphael and his pupils.
No adventures befell us in these perambulations, except that we were more beset and pestered than before, if possible, by the beggars, who followed us in troops, and for whom I learned, with astonishment, no alms-house or refuge of any kind existed. Concluding our sight-seeing with another visit to the Santa Casa, there remained but time for a hasty dinner, ere we set out on our return to Ancona—the state of the neighbourhood, as we were repeatedly reminded, necessitating our departure in broad day-light.
The usual scene of clamour, begging, imprecations, and blessings attended our exist from Loretto, a place which presents the strongest contrast of wealth and poverty it has ever been my lot to witness, or entered my imagination to conceive.
CHAPTER XXVI.
Visit to the Carmelites at Jesi—Our joyous reception—The Casino and Theatre—Infractions of Convent Discipline—The Dinner near the Sacristy—In company with the Friars we visit some Nuns.
A few days after my excursion to Loretto, I had my last glimpse of real scenes and life in the Marches, in a visit to Jesi, a small city of great antiquity, about twenty miles distant from Ancona. The circumstances that led us thither hinged upon the acquaintance of my uncle's family with an Irish priest who belonged to a convent of Carmelites in that place. Father O'Grady was a jovial, burly personage, with a round bullet-head, an athletic frame, and a stentorian voice, that always reminded me of the holy clerk of Copmanhurst in Ivanhoe. His great delight in his occasional visits to Ancona, where he always lodged in a monastery of the same order, was to be invited to our house to have “a raal English dhinner,” as he termed it, which he dolorously contrasted with the fare provided by the cook at the Jesi convent. Once, too, the provincial of the order, a fine, dignified old man of seventy-five, with a silvery fringe of hair, and regular, impressive features, like one of Perugino's saints, came to dine with us, attended by another monk, a certain Padre Forenzo, as well as Father O'Grady—both of them very much subdued in his presence. Our Hibernian friend, however, always protested himself indemnified for this restraint, by his gratification at the approval the entertainment drew from his superior, who, as the spring advanced, was urgent that we should test the hospitality of Jesi in return.
Some English travelling friends, waiting for the steamer to Trieste, were comprised in this invitation, which my uncle, though not without some sighs at the long hours of conversazione, and making the amiable with the brotherhood, which lay before him, was coaxed into accepting; and a beautiful morning in the latter part of June saw the two families in motion.
After following the high road towards Senigallia along the curve of the bay for some miles, the way to Jesi turns inland in a westward direction. Long rows of mulberry-trees, connected by ample festoons of vines; cornfields nearly ripe for the sickle, interspersed with plantations of young maize, beans, and olives, equally indicated the fertility of the country and its staple productions. Less hilly and romantic than the scenery near Loretto, it still had no lack of beauty; a background of mountains was never wanting, and gifted with that marvellous brightness and diversity of colouring peculiar to this clime, the landscape rarely sank into monotony.
Jesi is an interesting little town, of some 5000 inhabitants, tracing its origin to an indefinite number of centuries before the foundation of Rome, and famed in the middle ages as the birthplace of Frederick II., the great emperor of Germany, whose constant wars with the Roman pontiffs and encouragement of literature, render his memory very popular amongst Italian writers. A thriving trade in silk has preserved it from the squalid misery discernible in most of the inland towns of the Marche; and it can boast of some palaces in tolerable preservation, a casino, a very pretty theatre, and several churches, that of the Carmelites being amongst the principal.
Father O'Grady, radiant with joy, was awaiting us in the street, to show us the way to the hotel where we were to take up our quarters—for within the cloister itself no woman may set her foot—until two rooms adjoining the church and sacristy were prepared for the day's festivities. They had been up since daybreak, the good man said, but “the last touch was still wanting.”