Lippincott's Magazine, December, 1885

by Various

As she opened the windows and looked across the ravine to the gray rocks beyond, the scene was so peaceful, such a reproachful commentary upon the troubled night, that she concluded to keep silent about it. And then, since neither her friends nor the coffee presented themselves, she set to work to examine the engravings. The first one her eye fell upon made her start, look again, and finally climb up on the bed and lift it off the rusty nail, covering herself with dust in the operation, and carry it to the window. "Yes," she said finally, after having examined it and the text, a mixture of Latin and old Italian, very thoroughly, "it is the same, the very same: this discovery would compensate for a whole series of nights such as I have just been through." And, putting it down, she ran to her travelling-bag and drew from its depths a very small painting on copper, and compared them. Hearing just then her friends at the door, she ran to open it with both pictures in her hands. "What do you think? I have made a discovery. Look! My picture on copper, which Pippo in Siena found in the little dark antiquary-shop after his brother's death and sold to me for sixty cents, is the same as this old engraving of the famous Annunciation picture in the Church of the Santissima Annunziata in Florence, which is only unveiled in times of national calamity. You know, the people believe it was painted by angels. Here, you see, the text says it was revered in 1252, the artist being unknown. I knew the original of my picture must be very old, for Mary is saying in this Latin scroll coming out of her mouth, 'Behold, the servant of the Lord,' and only the earliest painters, unable to express their idea by the vivacity of their figures, made their mission apparent by the scrolls coming from their mouths." They were still examining the engraving, when the padre came to take coffee with them and to ask if they would go down to mass, which would commence in a few minutes. There was only time for him to say that he hoped the owls had not disturbed them, adding, as they were on their way to the church, "They are our bane, devouring the chickens and keeping us awake. It is a never-ending, but perhaps needful, discipline."

Fra Lorenzo was officiating at the altar as they entered the large church, before a small number of peasants, the women making a picturesque group in their light flowered bodices and their red petticoats visible from beneath their tucked-up gowns, and their gay cotton handkerchiefs knotted about their heads, since no woman's head may be uncovered in the Catholic Church.

The padre came soon to escort them about the church, and "to show them what little had been left," he said, pointing to the empty chapels. They found enough, however, to fill them with admiration in dear, good Fra Giovanni of Verona's marqueterie-work in the backs of the stalls, which extended the whole length of the long church, as is customary in monasteries where the monks are the sole participants at the holy offices. "While Fra Giovanni was here as one of our order," the padre explained, "he finished the stalls which are now in the cathedral of Siena. They were taken from us in 1813. After we were allowed to come back, we asked to have our stalls replaced by those in a monastery in Siena which was being torn down, and so these stalls were sent us: they are by Fra Giovanni's own hand. He has never been equalled in this kind of work, for which he invented the staining of the woods to produce light and shade, and perfected the perspective which Brunelleschi invented while resting from his labors on the Florentine dome. The different Italian cities on the hill-sides, the vistas down the long streets, with palaces and churches on either side, half-open missals, Biblical musical instruments, rolls of manuscript music, birds in gay plumage, all perfectly represented in minute pieces of wood, excite the wonder of every one whose privilege it is to examine them at leisure."

As on their way to the cloister they passed through the sacristy, once heaped with vessels of gold and silver, embroidered vestures, ivory and ebony sculptures, and splendid illuminated missals, now bare and empty, the padre said sorrowfully, "Only the walls are left to the guardianship of these feeble hands, which must soon give up their trust." When, however, they emerged into the cloister he brightened up, saying, "Here you will have enough to occupy you the whole month;" and the two artists of the party drew a breath of satisfaction at finding themselves at last before the object of their pilgrimage,—the frescos of Signorelli and Sodoma, representing scenes in the life of St. Benedict, which they were going to copy. They walked slowly found the four sides, lingering where Signorelli's deeper sentiment gave them cause for study. He was called to Monte Oliveto first, and painted only one wall. It was only after three years that the young unknown Bazzi was summoned, and in an incredibly short time he completed the other three with his fanciful creations, as graceful and airy as his character was light and frivolous. His beautiful faces and figures came from his heart; his brain had little to do with his work, as, without the evidence of sight of it, the name given to him by the public—Sodoma, meaning arch-fool—would indicate. Signorelli, on the contrary, had his ideal in his brain, and labored to reproduce it; and his efforts are graver and more elevated. It is to be lamented that his mineral paints have changed their colors in many places from white to black, and that his green trees have become blue.

The padre had studied these frescos so thoroughly as to discover that Sodoma had sometimes spent only three days on a fresco, by tracing the joinings where the fresh plaster had been applied, which had to be finished before it dried. This gifted, careless painter had the habit of scratching out his heads, if they did not please him, with the handle of his brush; and thus some of them appear to us in the nineteenth century, four hundred years after.

They spent the rest of the day here. Fra Lorenzo joined them at dinner, and in the evening they walked with the padre beyond the tower to see the spires of the Siena cathedral through the lovely poisonous blue mist. On the way back they stopped in the tangled, overgrown garden at the foot of the tower, which had once been filled with rare medicinal plants, and peeped into the deserted pharmacy in the lower story, where the shelves were still filled with rare old pottery jars with the three mounts and cross and olive-branches upon them. "I am the only physician now," said the padre, "and must have my medicines nearer home." In walking over the rocks the visitors noticed, to their surprise, that, instead of being barren, they were covered with the thick growth of a short plant, which, like the chameleon, had made itself invisible by turning gray like the rock. In answer to their inquiries they learned that it was the absinthe plant, belonging to the same family as the Swiss plant from which the liquor is made that is eating up the brains of the French nation; but here it forms the harmless food of the sheep, and from their milk the famous creta cheese is made,—"called creta from the rock, which means in English chalk, I think," continued the padre. "You have noticed its pungent taste at table, have you not?" The ladies hastened to repair their omission, for it is so celebrated that they ought to have said something about it. After age has hardened and mellowed it, no cheese in Italy is so highly esteemed.

They went, too, to see how the young eucalyptus-trees were flourishing,—the object of the padre's great solicitude. "We cannot sleep with our windows open, on account of the bad air, and I have been corresponding with the Father Trappists in the Roman Campagna about the cultivation of these trees as a purifier, and am most anxious as to the result. If I could reduce the fever among the poor people about here, I should be more content to leave them when my summons comes."

The owls were flying above them in the cypresses as they neared the convent, and came swooping down above their heads as the padre imitated their melancholy hoot. Seeing Beppo in the distance, he called to him to go for the guns. Whether owls merit to be the symbol of wisdom or no, they flew away in ever wider circles as soon as the guns and dogs appeared, and could not be decoyed back. The last rays of light lit up the gun-barrels as the party went in at the heavy door: the clashing sound of the bolt and chains, the yelping of the dogs, the guns glistening in the glimmer of light which came in through the cloister, made a scene which must often have had its counterparts in the feudal keeps of the Middle Ages, when the robber knights returned with their booty.

After supper they went to see a marvel of concealed treasure stored away in one of the upper cells,—priestly robes and altar-cloths shimmering in gold and silver: some of these robes were more beautiful than any they had seen in the treasuries of Rome. Pure gold they were, wrought in emblems of divinity. "These are presents to the monastery from our family," said Fra Lorenzo. "These simpler ones, embroidered with the silk flowers, are Fra Giorgio's work. He is now away from the convent, and I am sorry he cannot hear you admire his robes." It was midnight before the glittering heap was folded away, and the night which followed was one of sound repose.

Next morning the signora was leaning over the brink of the ivy-crowned well, trying to reach a spray twined thick with moss that grew in a crevice of the stones just beyond her reach. "Signora," a low voice said, "you ought not to lean so far: you might fall in, and the water is very deep. What is it you want? Let me get it for you." And Fra Lorenzo, following her direction, drew up the spray sparkling with moisture.