More Italian Yesterdays

by Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Seen from the Campagna, the Albans seem to be a range running east and west, thrown up to make a frame and background for Rome; but travel down the Liris and you will realize that all we see from Rome, Monte Cavo and his lesser brethren, with their scores of white towns, is simply the culmination of a long branch of the Apennines, set up like a screen between the central range and the fever-haunted sea-board called Maremma. When about two-thirds of the distance to Naples is accomplished the range rises in the isolated peak of Rocca Monfina to the height of nearly 4,000 feet and becomes merged in the central Apennines once more. The railway runs through now, but it is still a wild, remote country, very feudal in its ways, with half-ruined castles on every point of vantage, scowling down on a land that needs them no longer, where fighting has ceased, and the good soil that has had its way for centuries has brought forth those stores of corn and wine and oil which seem to be South Italy’s inalienable dower.

From Palestrina, looking down on that September evening, the bursting richness of it all seemed almost incredible. Right at the foot of the hills a deep abandoned watercourse was a golden river of standing corn, bordered far on either side with dense greenery fringing off into vineyards so teeming with fruit that seen from above it was like a great mantle of dark amethyst patterned here and there, where the white grapes grew, with jade. The woody slopes of the Sabines sank into the rich carpet, and rose, away to the north, in stormy outlines, now softened into dreamy rose and lilac, against the clear evening sky.

As the sun sank, even the cold silver of the olive trees, standing tier above tier on their shallow terraces, took on the flush, as if bathed in wine, and the darker foliage of oak and chestnut burned with sombre yet vivid intensity. Then the sun touched the sea—lingered, a ball of living crimson, for an instant, and plunged out of sight. One star hung its new-born silver against the paling west; another and another answered it, till all the dying blue overhead was pierced and patterned with the faint sparklets in their eternal dance. Then from behind the wall of peaks a broad fan of misty silver was thrown up against the sky, growing, spreading, washing purple and crimson to one untinted sheen; another moment, and the harvest moon heaved a golden shoulder over the crags, rolled up, rounded itself, and hung, a great honey-coloured globe, flooding the hills and the Campagna and the distant sea with calm all-embracing effulgence.

At the time of my first visit to Palestrina I was still sufficiently attracted by the Middle Ages to find much romance in the struggles of the Colonnas and their contemporaries, struggles which dragged the harrow over the vast Temple of Fortune, reputed the biggest in the world, threw its stones one upon another, and left the place merely a beautiful tomb. Since then, I confess, my interest has died away. I can feel no sympathy with the noble cut-throats—Sciarras, Colonnas, Orsinis, whose deeds are written in blood over every page of the time. I used to weep over the sufferings they inflicted on Boniface VIII, but, apart from the outrage on his sacred office, which can never be condoned, one cannot help feeling that he deserved something of what he got, and that in spite of his high courage and notable intellect, he had treated those his enemies very basely and cruelly.

His election in 1217 had been bitterly opposed by two Colonna Cardinals, Giacomo and Pietro, who were furious at the thought that the Papal chair should be filled by one of the Gaetanis of Anagni, the hereditary rivals and enemies of their own family. The election went through, in spite of them, and they, fearing the new Pope’s wrath, fled to Palestrina, taking every member of the family with them. This was an open declaration of war, and the Pope realized that there would be no peace for his realm till they were subdued. With truly mediæval promptitude he at once confiscated all their estates and called on all good Christians to take up arms against them. Their other strongholds fell one by one into his hands, but Palestrina, with its tremendous defences and commanding position, resisted every attack of the besiegers. It seemed impregnable.

Then Pope Boniface remembered that the most victorious and ruthless leader of the day, Guido de Montefeltro, was down on his knees in a convent at Ancona, praying to be forgiven some of his deeds of blood before death should call him to judgment. He commanded him to leave his retreat and come to give his advice as to the reduction of Palestrina. Very unwillingly the old soldier obeyed, and returned to that world which he had left just in time to save his wicked soul. He went and looked at the Colonna fortress, examined the defences with the eye of an expert, and returned to the Pope, who was at Rieti. He told him that there was no hope of taking Palestrina by force of arms. “What, then, am I to do?” cried Boniface. Guido knew, but was unwilling to say. The Pope insisted on his giving his opinion, and the crafty old fighter proffered the counsel for which Dante, with some justice, put him in Malebolge—“Prometter lungo e tenere corto!” “Promise much—fulfil little,” it would run in English.

Boniface instantly acted on the advice. The Colonnas were promised full forgiveness. They thought it wise to accept and submit. In all the habiliments of mourning repentance they issued from the stronghold they were never to see again, and came in a body to Rieti. The Pope received them, pronounced their crimes against himself forgiven, and kept them at Rieti as his guests. But prudence, as he apprehended it, forbade that he should leave that eyrie and refuge of rebellion standing for them to fly to the next time they picked a quarrel with him. So, while they were sunning themselves in his favour in the mountain city of the south, he secretly dispatched a faithful friend, Ranieri, the Bishop of Pisa, to wipe Palestrina off the face of the earth. Nothing was to be spared except the cathedral. And very thoroughly did Ranieri do his work. Every vestige of the fortress and palace and the big town which had grown up with them was destroyed, “a plough was driven over the ruins, the ground was sown with salt, and even the famous marble staircase of a hundred steps, up which people could ride their horses into the palace,” was swept away.

Then the Colonnas, landless, homeless, penniless, understood how much the Pope’s forgiveness was worth, and they fled from his domains to nurse their wrongs and wait for revenge.

That came in good, or rather, very evil time, and Boniface paid in full during the awful days at Anagni, days so dreadful that one quarrels with Dante for not regarding them as sufficient expiation for the harassed Pontiff’s one great sin. He was driven into a quarrel with Philippe le Bel, the King of France, and Sciarra Colonna, the head of the proscribed house, caught at the chance, and offered his services to the French. In company with their leader, William de Nogaret, he broke into Anagni, Boniface’s own city where he had taken refuge, and, but for the opposition of Nogaret, he would, apparently, have murdered his great enemy on the spot.

Here Boniface showed all the valour of his race and place. He prepared to meet death with the dignity of a priest and the courage of a soldier. “If I am to die, I will die like a Pope,” he said. Every friend, every Cardinal and chaplain and courtier fled as the shout of “A Colonna, a Colonna,” rose from the lower streets of the mountain town. Not a soul was left in the palace but the Pope. He put on his pontifical vestments, placed the tiara on his head, and mounted his throne, where he sat like a statue, awaiting certain death.