This museum also contains a buxom angel of stucco known as the “Genius of Bourbonism.” In the good old days it used to ornament the town hall, fronting the entrance; but now, degraded to a museum curiosity, it presents to the public its back of ample proportions, and the curator intimated that he considered this attitude quite appropriate—historically speaking, of course. Furthermore, they have carted hither, from the Chamber of Deputies in Rome, the chair once occupied by Ruggiero Bonghi. Dear Bonghi! From a sense of duty he used to visit a certain dull and pompous house in the capital and forthwith fall asleep on the nearest sofa; he slept sometimes for two hours at a stretch, while all the other visitors were solemnly marched to the spot to observe him—behold the great Bonghi: he slumbers! There is a statue erected to him here, and a street has likewise been named after another celebrity, Giovanni Bovio. If I informed the townsmen of my former acquaintance with these two heroes, they would perhaps put up a marble tablet commemorating the fact. For the place is infected with the patriotic disease of monumentomania. The drawback is that with every change of administration the streets are re-baptized and the statues shifted to make room for new favourites; so the civic landmarks come and go, with the swiftness of a cinematograph.
Frederick II also has his street, and so has Pietro Giannone. This smacks of anti-clericalism. But to judge by the number of priests and the daily hordes of devout and dirty pilgrims that pour into the town from the fanatical fastnesses of the Abruzzi—picturesque, I suppose we should call them—the country is sufficiently orthodox. Every self-respecting family, they tell me, has its pet priest, who lives on them in return for spiritual consolations.
There was a religious festival some nights ago in honour of Saint Espedito. No one could tell me more about this holy man than that he was a kind of pilgrim-warrior, and that his cult here is of recent date; it was imported or manufactured some four years ago by a rich merchant who, tired of the old local saints, built a church in honour of this new one, and thereby enrolled him among the city gods.
Lion of Lucera
On this occasion the square was seething with people: few women, and the men mostly in dark clothes; we are already under Moorish and Spanish influences. A young boy addressed me with the polite question whether I could tell him the precise number of the population of London.
That depended, I said, on what one described as London. There was what they called greater London——
It depended! That was what he had always been given to understand. . . . And how did I like Lucera? Rather a dull little place, was it not? Nothing like Paris, of course. Still, if I could delay my departure for some days longer, they would have the trial of a man who had murdered three people: it might be quite good fun. He was informed that they hanged such persons in England, as they used to do hereabouts; it seemed rather barbaric, because, naturally, nobody is ever responsible for his actions; but in England, no doubt——
That is the normal attitude of these folks towards us and our institutions. We are savages, hopeless savages; but a little savagery, after all, is quite endurable. Everything is endurable if you have lots of money, like these English.