0- ,^ />/»-2^ •^ -^ o 0^ AV c"" '^■^^ "-i-^ A^^ s^' " X ^^uU^-'^ ,^^ =!, * \' V h^J' :^f/'^, oX o 0^ 'y- ^'■ ." .^^ ^^■ ^ rt^ ^ .0 ^^^^ X^^ ^^ ^0 O^ '- -1^,^^ .0- ^M -^-^.x' .-«. %'^ ■\ .'^-".~ ,0 <30 \\ ^ i^ ,ier/r?9^ ^^^ * . ^ ^,^.^ V ,N^^ ^ * . H ^ XS-'^ , -5 (• ^'^'''^' ■^^ ,0 ■' s\^^ '- .\vi Vw= 0^ ^^"" ' ', \^ A -0^ v^"' '., '^r 5,\' * sr<^^ " * o. Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2010 with funding from The Library of Congress http://www.archive.org/details/italyofitaliansOOzimm The Italy of the Italians By Helen Zimmern Author of *' Schopenhauer, his Life and Philosophy,' " Lessing, his Life and Works," " The Epic of Kings," etc., etc. NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 153-157 Fifth Avenue 1906 Italy, my Italy I Queen Mary's saying serves for me {When fortune's malice Lost her Calais), Open my heart and you will see Graved inside of it, " Italy.'* Such lovers old are I and she. So it always was, so shall ever be I ^/ /:i3 FOREWORD Since that memorable year, 1870, Italy has, happily, ceased to be "a geographical expression," as Prince Metternich contemptuously phrased it. Nevertheless, though thousands of travellers over-run her fair borders in the course of each year, in ever increasing numbers, to the greater proportion she still remains little else than a geographical expression, and her citizens are regarded either as the staffage to a lovely landscape or as the custodians of her artistic treasures. These travellers, too, seldom know the language of the land and hence are apt to get their information from guides, hotel porters, cabmen, and others the like. As a result they may see towns and museums but they get little or no idea of Italy's real life and civilization. Few stop even to wonder what are the impulses, the aims, the hopes, the ambitions that cause the heart of this land to pulsate with energy, that virtue on which her greatest poet, Dante, laid such stress. Few enquire what is her present position in the world of European thought. What she gave us in the past, how, together with Greece, we owe her all our culture, is familiar enough. Less familiar, on the other hand, is her contribution to the modern move- ment, her bequest to the fabrics of contemporary science, art, literature, and philosophy. It is the aim of this book to give a popular reply to such questions as many an intelligent traveller would fain put, but which he is hindered from pronouncing by his scant knowledge of the language. It does not pretend to be either learned or exhaustive. It only desires to excite an intelligent curiosity in the hope of inducing its readers to prosecute studies on their own behalf in such sections of the vast theme as particularly appeal to their individual sympathies. And here I must take occasion to acknowledge my grateful iv Italy of the Italians thanks to those who have generously supphed me with information, and especially I would mention Professor Giuseppe Signorini, the late Signor Alfredo Bona, Marchese Ridolfo Peruzzi, Conte Giorgio Mannini, Commendatore Guido Biagi, and Mr. George Gregory Smith. I also acknowledge the permission accorded by the editors of the Cornhill Magazine and the Fortnightly Review to reprint portions of my own articles. My affectionate thanks are also due to my cousin, Mr. Alfred E. Zimmern, of New CoUege, Oxford, for kind advice, encouragement, and assistance in proof reading. HELEN ZIMMERN. Palazzo Buondelmonti, Florence, August 1, 1906. CONTENTS CHAP. PAGE I. THE KING .... 1 II. THE PRESS . ... . 27 III. LITERATURE .... . 38 IV. THE PAINTERS . 77 V. SCULPTURE AND ARCHITECTURE . 115 VI. PLAYHOUSES, PLAYERS AND PLAYS . 141 VII. SCIENCE AND INVENTIONS 163 VIII. PHILOSOPHY .... 175 IX. AGRARIAN ITALY 197 X. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 220 XI. UNDERGROUND ITALY 236 XII. MUSIC 243 XIII. ITALY AT PLAY . . . . . 258 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PASS Frontispiece. — their majesties the king and queen OF ITALY AND THEIR CHILDREN. HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF ITALY facing 12 '' HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN WITH THE PRINCESSES facing 18 EXTERIOR OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES . . 20^ INTERIOR OF THE ITALIAN PARLIAMENT . 22" PIAZZA COLONNA 34 GIOSUE CARDUCCI . 38 MATILDE SERAO 64 A GROUP OF MODELS .... 76 A STREET SCENE IN SOUTHERN ITALY 90 THE GRAND CANAL, VENICE 108 SCULPTORS AT WORK .... 132 THE SCALA THEATRE, MILAN 142 ERMETE ZACCONI 152/ ELENORA DUSE 154^ ENRICO FERRI 190/ AN OLD SHEPHERD OF THE ROMAN CAMPAGNA . 206 A WOMAN-BUILDER AND BRICKLAYER 210 A ROMAN WINE CART .... 212 TRANSPORTING HEMP .... 218 WOMEN AT WORK 228 A PEDLAR 232' THE CAPITOL AND FORUM 236/ viii Italy of the Italians PAGE MILAN CATHEDRAL, PIAZZA AND GALLERY . . . 242 LORENZO PEROSI 244 PIETRO MASCAGNI . . . . . . . 248 NEAPOLITAN STREET TYPES AT THE FBSTA OF PIBDIGROTTA 254 DRAWING OF THE LOTTO . . . . . . 258 PREPARATIONS FOR A TOMBOLA . . . . . 264 PALIO OF SIENA 268 A GAME OF PALLONB 274 / The Italy of the Italians CHAPTER I THE KING It is told on excellent authority that Queen Victoria, whose long experience of men and things had made her a keen observer, picked out the Prince of Naples The King, from among all the heirs to European monarchies as the most promising and able. Time has justified the old Queen's prophecy. There sits no wiser, keener, more cultured or more modern sovereign on any throne ; none who more thoroughly identifies himself with his country or better understands its needs. And all the King does is done so quietly and unobtrusively, without fireworks of phrase or parade of action, that even in Italy it has taken a little while to find out and gauge the new sovereign's value. Still, when he ascended the throne with the new century but a few months begun, it was instinctively hoped, if not felt, that a new and better era was dawning for Itsdy, and a great wave of hope greeted his advent. In order to understand the fuU reason for this it is needful to cast a bird's-eye glance over Italian politics. At the time of King Humbert's murder (July 29th, 1900) P*^ti*" there were unmistakable signs in the air of the near approach of a catastrophe in Italian domestic affairs. A malign influence was leading the various rapidly succeeding Ministries, each and all devoid of a definite programme, along a road of injudicious acts at the end of which 2 ^ Italy of the Italians loomed the downfall of the Monarchy. The murderer Bresci by his dastardly act saved the monarchical principle in Italy and secured the dynasty to the House of Savoy. King Humbert was no self asserting monarch, it may even be said that he was too constitutional for a young country like Italy where political principles have not yet become fixed. For a strong personality can make itself felt even under the constitutional curb, as witness Humbert's own father, Victor Emmanuel II and our King Edward VII. Before the corpse of the King, a good-hearted man if not a wise sovereign, before the blood thus wantonly shed, the various political parties stood dismayed and felt it was necessary to draw together and act in patriotic concert ere it became too late. For, as they suddenly perceived, now that their eyes were opened, if the wranglings of political parties and the preachings of extremists were to result in the abolition of the monarchy, the result would have been civil war, a fresh dismemberment of Italy, and renewed foreign intervention. Beyond question the errors of the Italian Government since the too early death of Cavour, the only Italian statesman endowed with real practical aptitude, have Defects of the \yQQj^ many and great. The fact is that (jov6rnnicnt. Italy was made too quickly, the revolution was too suddenly successful : there had not been enough time to allow of the training of free-born citizens. As the patriot Massimo d'Azeglio said, " Italy is made, we must now make the Italians." It would, of course, be absurd to expect a young nation like Italy to have stable arrangements, or precise aims such as pertain to nations that can count centuries of life. Rather, if we look at what Italy was little more than fifty years ago, we have reason to be astonished at the striking advance she has made in so short a time and may well place high hopes upon a people who have given proof of such exuberant and recuperative vitality. The troubles under which Italy groans are of two-fold The King 3 nature, or rather the one is the result of the other. In a land for centuries broken up into petty states no sense of cohesion could exist. Provincialism is rampant and Want of corrodes all the various sections of public Cohesion. ^ life. But instead of taking into account these sectional differences and utilizing them as helpful factors, instead of keeping alive the autonomous character of these various provinces, the Italian statesmen who had made Italy looked around them for an example to copy for the framing of their administrative and executive power, and most unluckily hit upon France as their model. Now, France has for long been autonomous, her people love system and uniformity and are essentially logical. The keynote to the Italian character, on the other hand, is individualism, and all the past glories of the land, whether as cities, or petty states, sprang from that fact. Then, suddenly, without previous preparation or training, these were all squeezed into one mould. -* The administrative system, for instance, included the institution in each government department of a Prefect, an The Prefect anomalous and, to British ideas, most and the mischievous functionary who resides in the Municipality, chief city of a province as the representative of the government, holding office during their pleasure and exercising a pressure and a surveillance on the local func- tionaries with whom he has nothing in common. Thus the cities at once come under a divided rule, that of the Municipality and that of the Prefect, often with unfortunate results. In the same way authority over the police is divided and there are two sorts, municipal and governmental, and these by no means work into each other's hands — often quite the contrary. But, while copying the French administrative arrangement, Italy, unfortunately, did not copy its tributary system of taxation. Instead, they took a little from this country, a little from that, with hopeless results ; this is noteworthy in their 4 Italy of the Italians adoption of the English Income Tax, which is in no respects a toll suited to the Italian temperament. Long years of mis-rule and oppression have made the Italians secretive and mistrustful of all governments, the truth where it can be is carefully hidden, and the public treasury suffers. No Italian thinks it wrong to cheat the Government, quite the contrary. " Fatta la legge, pensata la malizia," says Taxation ^ proverb, which means to all intents and purposes that when a law is made the means to circumvent it must also be provided. Nor is this to be wondered at when we learn that the Income Tax, for example, is most arbitrarily assessed, not on a man's income but according to its nature and source, varying from 10 to 20 per cent., and that even the pettiest salaries must contribute their quota. Land pays an exorbitantly high tax, from 30 to even 50 per cent., and consequently rarely yields more than 3 per cent. And almost worse than the taxes themselves is the way they are collected and assigned. The citizen is hampered and vexed at every point, all initiative is damped, industries are strangled while but half- fledged, and time, that precious commercial commodity, is wasted with a criminal disregard of the interests of others. To speak only of the most familiar, every-day matters, when I get the paper telling me that my house- taxes are due and what they amount to, I am not able, as in England, to pay the tax gatherer at the door and have done with it. I must go in person or send a servant between given hours to a given place. Even if my messenger arrives there two hours before the time assigned, a long queue is standing before the closed guichet. When that is opened each man in turn comes up, but as interminable sheets of writing must be filled and also much friendly con- versation exchanged, it is highly probable that my messenger will return after some weary hours spent standing in a crowd to find that the office hours were over, and the guichet closed ere ever he could hand in his dole. No cheques are accepted in payment, the money may not be sent by postal order, but The King 5 must be paid cash down, and in person. As a facility it is permitted to pay the local taxes in five instalments, and Italians will five times a year submit uncomplainingly to this corvee. Needless to say, foreigners prefer to pay in the lump, to the constant amazement of the people, who always remark : " But if you should die before the year is out you will have made a present to the Government " ; never comprehending that we foreigners would rather run that risk and give the Government a few needless pence than have our time wasted in this wise. The fiscal policy of Italy also weighs heavily upon its hygiene. The heavy tax on salt, which is a Government monopoly, puts its use almost out of reach The Salt Tax. of the poorer class, and deprives the agricul- turist of the power to give this most needful aliment to his beasts. And to such extremes is this salt monopoly carried that it is not possible when staying at the seaside to take home a bucket of sea-water in order to take a bath, except with a written permission from the authorities, to obtain which is, of course, a matter of time and expense. The Government is so afraid lest the people might, by evapora- tion, procure for themselves a little rough salt that even the loneliest bits of the coast are patrolled by finance ofl&cers. Here again, as in the case of the town octroi, one asks, Can it possibly pay ? The tax on sugar, too, is an unfortunate one, especially nowadays that the nutritive value of sugar for the young is recognised. So dear is this commodity that ^Tobacco** it is a current Anglo-Italian joke to ask strangers whether they take their tea with or without " gold." But for this fiscal burden Italy might drive a thriving trade in jams and marmalades. Instead, the Italian fruit crops are exported to Switzerland, a land where sugar is cheap and which, therefore, reaps the profit. Yet another unwise restriction concerns tobacco. The preparation and sale of this is also a Government monopoly, consequently 6 Italy of the Italians though whole districts of the South are admirably suited for the cultivation of this plant it is strictly forbidden to grow it, and even in private gardens not more than three plants are allowed. And where it is grown, under Government super- vision, every kaf is counted. Shops, usually small but very numerous, bearing the superscription " Sale, Tabacchi e Francobolli," (salt, tobacco, and stamps), are familiar features of Italian streets. In these ways, by a short-sighted and narrow-minded fiscal policy, the Italian exchequer loses vast sums that it might gain. It is a constant cause of complaint Fiscaj'^PoHcv ^^^* large sums are absorbed by the Army, and, indeed, this Army is one of the Socialist stalking horses. Yet in sober fact the absurd illogical fiscal system is far more costly and damaging to the finances of the land. And this unwisdom goes through every branch of the Administration. This is the reason, for instance, that there are so few companies in Italy. Apart from the fact that the profound mutual mistrust which is so deep-rooted in the Italian character, makes them work badly together, it is not possible for companies to hide their profits ; these must, of necessity, be made public, and it is too easy for the tax- gatherer to squeeze the life out of the enterprise before it has taken a fair hold. Such few companies as exist are apt to have their chief seat outside the confines, say at Lugano, which would be Italian except for a geographical accident. It is in ways such as these that the exchequer is circumvented. Because of these same vexatious fiscal laws Italians often find it cheaper and simpler to let their capital lie idle than to employ it only to come in contact with these greedy vultures. That commerce and industry have of late years advanced by leaps and bounds in the face of these restrictions, shows how rich the land might be if a more modern, just and reasonable system of taxation were introduced. Yet another irksome restriction is the requirement that The King ' 7 every trifling public document must be written on stamped paper of varying value and that only a small portion of the paper may be written on ; each fresh sheet, Irksome ^^ course, means new outlay, and a blot or an erasure invalidates the sheet. This same objection to erasures applies even to the common-place telegraph form. If you change your wording you must take a fresh form or initial the change. At every unexpected moment the public comes in contact with bureaucratic pedantry. Here, again, France and Germany have served as models. Foreigners are constantly coming into contact with these little vexations. If, for example, your purse is stolen or a cab knocks you down, you must state your name, your age, your address, your father's name, whether he be living or dead, and your mother's maiden cognomen, before the police can attend to your grievance. Yet, despite these passing absurdities, Italy is without exception the freest land on the Continent, and the one in which the ordinary foreigner comes least into contact with the police regulations, which render a sojourn in Germany, for example, so mixed a blessing. Industry is hampered by a tariff at the frontier. But these are not the only hindrances to free trade. The mediaeval Octroi is still a living institution in Italy, The Octroi confining the town barriers and closed gates. At each of these stand a small army of officials, local and governmental, who poke their fingers into every basket and bundle, harry the peasants and delay the traveller whether he wdk or drive, or ride in tram or 'bus. If you live in a villa outside the gate and wish to take your table to be mended by the carpenter, you must pay duty on bringing in your own used property, or you must sign so many papers and go through so many formalities in order to get exemption that again you prefer to give the Government the few pence. For this Octroi tax really entails only pence. It weighs very gravely, nevertheless, upon the peasant who 8 Italy of the Italians brings in his market produce for sale and has perhaps to take it back unsold, and, of course, it raises the price of all comes- tibles. Everyone who can cheats the Octroi or helps others to cheat. No market woman in a tram with a basket full of, say, eggs or grapes will find any fine lady who refuses to let it stand under her skirts while the gate is passed and the Octroi men walk through the vehicle. It must surely cost the State more to keep up this staff of Custom ofl&cers at each town gate than they take in cash from this irksome impost. And in its incidence one comes in contact again with the curious pedantry that lurks in the Italian character. In vain, for instance, did a party of tourists who had bought a little bottle of Chartreuse outside the gates of Florence and incautiously held it in their laps offer to pay 50 c, even a franc rather than the 4 c. that proved to be the custom dues, provided they were not detained as they feared to lose their train. It was useless : the bottle had to be weighed, appraised, the endless papers had to be written out and signed and countersigned. AU this writing involves an enormous waste of time and energy in all departments of public life. Even at the railway the name of stations has constantly to be Unpractical inserted in ink on the tickets, and as the box Administration, offices are not open all the time, like in prac- tical Switzerland, but only a short time before the train is scheduled to start, the delay and confusion en- gendered is great. And, again, as blotting-paper is as yet a commodity unknown in Italian official life and all papers are sanded over, a further dawdle occurs in strewing this unwonted material over the written words and re-collecting it in the saucers. This same curious want of practical ability in administrative matters makes itself felt in many spheres. It is the more curious that this should also exist in the domain of banking when we remember that it was Italians who, in the Middle Ages, were Europe's bankers, and that Italian banking terms The King 9 are still current the world over. Ink, paper and pens must really be a considerable item in Italian public expenditure. Again, what precious time is wasted in the law courts from the fact that there is no such thing as an official steno- grapher. If you are called as a witness into an Italian court your exact words are not taken down, but the presiding magis- trate dictates a synopsis of your statements to a scribe sitting beside him, who transcribes it with great deliberation. The consequence is that not your own words but the official's personal impression of your testimony is recorded, and what loophole this leaves for confusion and misapprehension need not be dwelt on. All these flaws would, of course, have to be altered by law, and here, again, the obstructive element is the intense central- ization. For, as the judicial and administrative life is bound up with the executive, and governments change with bewilder- ing rapidity, there is continual vacillation and a want of firm ground in all departments, which is a grievous hindrance to the progress of the country, a source of grave weakness to public life. All Italian public life has its outcome in Parliament. The deputies play a leading part in all work and initiative, and of every business arrangement, both legal and ^^^^'Life"*^*^^ illegal. Yet despite this fact, Italian Par- liamentary life is somewhat of a chaos. Political parties can hardly be said to exist, for the old well- marked parties who made United Italy are submerged and the modern divisions which take their place are not genuine parties but factions actuated by a selfish struggle for office, too often dominated by time-servers and place-hunters, among whom corruption is rife and rampant. Were we to judge of Italy from what we see from behind the scenes in the Chamber of Deputies our esteem for the land would be lowered. But, happily, the land is better than its Parliament, and its weaknesses are only too fully realized. The saying that every country has the government it deserves is only ?— (3395) 10 Italy of the Italians applicable here in so far that the Italian is lazy about going to the polling booths and thus allows the wire pullers to obtain the upper hand and get their candidates returned. Nor are Italians wholly to be blamed for this inertia. Elections are too apt to be manipulated by the Prefects put in on purpose and by others who wish to secure the return of the Government nominee, and it may lead to petty annoy- ances to oppose the dominant current. It is true that in private or in public, at caf6s or in trains, Italians will talk endlessly upon public affairs and will curse and criticise their Government to any extent. But when it comes to going to the polling booths abstainers are but too numerous, and in all other ways, too, none lift a finger to remedy the defects they deplore. I except, of course, the Socialists, who comprehend the value of association, and it is herein that their strength resides. At first the Right and Left were well-marked parties somewhat corresponding to our Liberals and Conservatives, though these Conservatives would have been Political classed as Liberals in England, since the one really Conservative element, the Catholic, was excluded from voting by the Papal veto ; this has been so ever since the Papacy refused to recognise the changed conditions and withdrew, like Achilles, with its henchmen from the fray. It was first Depretis, then Crispi who lowered the standard of Parliamentary morality, and when Crispi's " swelled head " finally brought disaster on the land this morality was so relaxed and the faith of the country in Parliamentary government so weakened that it was possible for him to be succeeded by the unscrupulous Giolitti, who was deeply involved in the bank scandals and an advocate of political corruption. He again was succeeded by others of more or less repute. For in Italy Ministries spring up like mushrooms and rise and fall, recompose and reconstruct themselves with such frequency that the whole system has got discredited, and it is often difficult to keep up with its vagaries. King Humbert, as I said before, was in a measure The King 11 to blame for this. His father had bequeathed him a far stronger kingdom than he passed on to his son. ^e was far too easy-going, too good-natured, and, what was worse, too much out of touch with his people, and surrounded by a system so hampered by red tape that he never had a chance of hearing the truth. Though a lion in courage physically, he was mentally timid, and was not fitted to clear out the Augean stable which his Parliament had created. Hence his death, deplorable as it was, permitted a thorough change of front. The young King, like a clever surgeon, at once cut deep into the gangrene of decay. He who had hitherto been an un- known quantity, as to whose nature men who were not behind the scenes speculated vastly, showed a determination, a knowledge, an energy, and a rectitude that instantly commanded respect and attention. Victor Emmanuel Gennaro, now King of Italy with the title of Victor Emmanuel HI, was born at Naples on November 11th, 1869. His infancy was spent at Court, ^King Victor ^j^gj-g j^g ^^s brought up and educated under the immediate and intelligent supervision of his mother, Queen Margherita, one of the most cultured of Italy's noble ladies. He was trained from the first to love simplicity and virtue, and since he inherited much more of his grandfather's energetic and self-willed character than of the weak and too kindly temperament of his father, he showed, even from a child, that when it should be his turn to reign he would not prove to be the useless, dumb, and obsequious symbol of a particular form of political govern- ment, but would show himself a man before whose will the will of others would need to bend, and if need be, break. Of his childhood various anecdotes are told, which, even when declared to be apocr5^hcJ, remain as proof that the people cared little for, and were distrustful of, the " little prince." In very deed, in some of these boyish escapades the man peeped through, and showed not only the outline, but almost the whole being of the man who, when he had scarcely 12 Italy of the Italians ascended the throne, frankly forbade his Ministers to spend their evenings at the caf6 or club, giving them to understand that since the work that is expected of them is great, they should not be able to find time to waste in such frivolous diversions. King Humbert, to whom the too haughty character of his son caused secret disquiet, often, perhaps with more frequency than justice, put the Prince of Naples under arrest. During these days of confinement the young man meditated deeply, pondered plans of campaign, and threw himself with ardour into the study of history, of which he has always been a profound and eager student. He also devoted even more attention to the acquisition of medals and coins, collected by him since his earliest boyhood, which has made of him one of the most expert numismatists in Europe. Meanwhile, between physical exercises and hard study, his mind and body acquired shape and strength ; consequently, though neither tall and muscular like his father and grandfather, Victor Emmanuel HI is robust like all his race. He can sit for hours in the saddle without feeling the least fatigue or discomfort ; he can remain for long periods without taking food. It is true that his present good health and vigour were acquired by painful measures, and it is not unknown in Italy that the young prince might have become consumptive had not the King, his father, changed the severe curriculum of studies just in time, and given his son permission to travel, and leave his tutors and masters for months together. The voyages the young prince took during those years of ill-health, besides affording him a vast amount of information, by which he amply profited, completely restored his health, though he to this day has the outward appearance of frailty, and is undersized in stature. It has been said that Victor Emmanuel III much resembles the German Emperor. A wide application must, in this case, be given to the word " resembles." Victor Emmanuel has revealed himself as a man of clear conceptions and iron will, but the Itahan constitution does not afford Photo by Flli. D, Alessandri, Rome HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF ITALY The King 13^ him the power of making and unmaking possessed by his august cousin, nor is it at all likely that he would wish to pose as a vice-God on earth. A Comparison j^ one phase of his character, but in GermlJl Emperor, only one, Victor Emmanuel truly seems to resemble WilUam of Hohenzollern, and that is in his supreme strength of will. On ascending the throne, the first words he uttered were words that announced his firmness, words that caused hope to spring once more in the hearts of the Italian people. In fact, the one thing which has struck all Italians is that Victor Emmanuel III has from the first shown himself intelligent. For some reason unexplained the Life as people had grown to believe him a fool. The Crown Prince. ^ tr o ,,.,i tj^j^ixt-t j reason may be sought m the fact that he lived in much retirement and never caused the public to talk of him or of his deeds. In these days, when all the small fry of literature and art, and, still more, of politics, are ever trying to draw the eyes of the public upon themselves, and keep beating the big drum of self-advertisement, to let it be known that they also exi§t in the world, this young man, who might easily have won applause, playing as he did oije of the chief rdles in the comedy of life, persisted in remaining behind the scenes, occupied in his private studies, and in the latter years absorbed in the love of his young and beautiful wife. In Italy, where all know that Queen Margherita exerted as much influence on the Government as King Humbert himself — an influence, however, not applied with a proper knowledge of social conditions — it seemed strange that the Crown Prince should take so little interest in public affairs as to allow the King's weakness and the incapacity and stupidity of his Ministers to endanger and compromise his crown. No explanation of this phenomenon was forthcoming, except by concluding that the Prince was an imbecile. It is true that when the ambitious improvidence of Francesco Crispi led the Italian soldiery under the orders of General 14 Italy of the Italians Baratieri to the dire defeat of " Abba Carima," Prince Victor Emmanuel, in the presence of the King, his father, burst into vehement abuse of the hapless Minister, reproaching him with the defeat, and at the same time cast in his face the other senseless and ugly deeds performed by his political allies. But as the King, after the outburst, once more consigned his son to arrest, the Prince speedily re-entered the shadow from which he had but an instant emerged at a moment of over- whelming disgust, and once more he seemed to exist for nothing else than his studies, his travels, his numismatic col- lection. He thus furnished a noble example of a respectful son, loving his father more than the throne which might one day be his. He also at the same time took the stand of a man who intended to keep his hands free to act in his own way on the day when he should be called by the course of events to rule over Italy. And, in fact, when the tragedy of Monza forced him to take up his father's burden, his Character ^j.g|. ^qj-(Js ^gj-e those of a man not bound by as King. ,1111 the past, of a man who would and could renew the sorely shaken structure of Italian political life. Victor Emmanuel Ill's first words inspired the con- fidence that he could and would take as monarch the place he must occupy if Italian monarchy was to be saved from the breakers of civil war. A thorough and intelligent study of social science has made of this young man a king ripe to govern new generations in this new age. He is not burdened with antiquated notions which see ruin in every reform, or an enemy of public institutions in every friend of new social and political theories. As a soldier and head of the Army he feels the imperious necessity of maintain- ing it as a sound, strong and faithful defender of the public institutions and of the fatherland. But as a citizen and head of his subjects he also understands their urgent needs, and feels that scope must be given to new energy, and to fresh social arrangements, by means of speedy reforms, which shall be logical, and prudent, and yet profound, and The King 15 set a limit to the overwhelming fury of the extreme parties, which would drag the country into desperate struggles, fruitless of result, and fatal to all prosperity. The King never passes a day without reading the papers of the Extreme parties' factions, often making notes and comments with his own hand. In the same way he occupies himself with everything that emanates from the groups of the Parliament- ary Opposition. An indefatigable worker, he has insisted, to the no small amazement and consternation of his subordi- nates, from the first day of his power, that all decrees that require his signature shall be presented to him at least three days beforehand, in order that he may supervise, study and control everything before giving to any act, even the most insignificant, the sanction of his approval and sign manual. Accustomed from childhood to search out for himself the truth of things, as soon as he ascended the throne he desired to see how the directors of charitable institutions fulfilled their trusts, and during his retired stay in Naples during the first weeks of mourning, some deeds are quoted which well reveal his character, showing that he knows both how to punish and reward those who harm or those who benefit his country. Here are the facts. One morning he arrived very early and very unexpectedly at one of the principal hospitals of Naples. He entered, passed through the passages, visited the ^he P^ople**^ dispensing room, the consulting office, the kitchen, and in fact inspected the whole establishment. Finding it was not attended to as it should be, he used harsh words to the director. " The poor are not to be treated thus." The director endeavoured to make excuses and defend himself. Victor Emmanuel looked at him, said nothing, and went out. " His silence," said a spectator, " was harsher than his words." Another day he descended unexpectedly among the palace guards. He inspected their quarters, visited the soldiers, tasted their food, and praised their good order. He evinced his satisfaction 16 Italy of the Italians and let it be known to the person responsible that he might be proud of such well-merited praise. On another occasion a courageous and intelligent railway pointsman saved from certain disaster a train just entering a station. The railway company gave the man a niggardly reward. The King, unable to make the company understand in any other way the meanness of their behaviour, himself sent to the pointsman a sum much larger than that presented by the company. The railway company then tried to remedy the matter, but it was too late, and they were put to shame. Some time ago the King appeared in his favourite unexpected way in a dockyard. He questioned the workmen, visited a ship in the course of construction, took accurate note of everything noteworthy that presented itself, and praised and blamed where praise and blame seemed merited. This, in short, is one of the ways in which Victor Emmanuel interprets his kingly mission. And since truly in Italy there is much to blame, and since no words are so efficacious as the words of the King, the people who know this perceive at last that His Lofty their sovereign is not what they had taken of Duty. him for during the long years of retirement and oblivion. Hence Italy as a nation has fixed her last and greatest hope upon him, and he in turn has already inspired his people with respect and esteem. An upright man, with a lofty conception of the duties imposed by a throne, he wishes all other men to do their duty, from the highest to the lowest, in all spheres of government, in all classes, in all groups and associations of the nation. " In Italy," he said in one of his first speeches, " no man does his duty. From the highest to the lowest the laissez faire and laxity are complete. Now it is to the accomplish- ment of their several duties that all without distinction must be called. I begin with myself, and am trying to do my duty conscientiously and with love. This must serve as an example and a spur to others. My Ministers must help me The King 17 in everything. They must not promise except that which they can certainly maintain ; they must not create illusions. Whoever fulfils his duty, braving every danger, even death, I shall consider the best citizen." (Severe words these, but, unfortunately, not unmerited.) Victor Emmanuel has long been accustomed to do his duty. Just as he knew and understood his obligations as Crown Prince, as subject, as son, and scrupulously performed them, so now as King he knows how much weightier these duties are, but has deter- mined to accomplish them all. He wishes to know everything that occurs in his realm ; he wishes to discuss everything with his Ministers, and this because he intends to give to all the acts of his reign his personal impress, so that Italy may through his example and his decision and purpose hold once more the high place among the nations to which she is entitled by her historic past. And, fortunately, he is well supported in his home. There is probably not a more happily married man in all Europe than the King of Italy, a man who cares more sincerely for a quiet, domestic life, and who is blessed in his wife and his three bonnie babes, the youngest of whom to the joy of the nation is a boy — Prince Humbert of Piedmont, as he is styled to recall the name and title borne by his grandfather. It may be said in a sense that Queen Elena was not born in the purple, and indeed when the Prince of Naples' deter- mined choice was first known, some few Queen Elena, aristocrats, including the Duchess of Aosta, whose husband was Heir Presumptive, failing issue from the Prince of Naples, made some caustic references to her relatively humble origin. For the little mountain principality of Montenegro is ruled over by a descendant of one of those mountain chiefs who distinguished himself in the constant warfare waged by this Highland people against their traditional and life-long enemies — the Turks. A rude, simple, stony land, where patriarchal manners and customs still obtain, the Princess had been inured to a plain, homely 18 Italy of the Italians existence since her childhood, and though part of her education was given to her outside the rocky fastnesses of her home and amid Russian Court circles, as she had been destined for the Czar, she nevertheless had acquired all the civic virtues that distinguish her family. A fine musician on the violin, a lover of art and poetry, she writes a little herself in her native Servian tongue. A good walker, rider, and sportswoman, tall, and physically strong, she reveals in every action and movement her chaste, proud, mountain ancestry. The couple met first at the Venice Exhibition of 1895, and at once the Prince of Naples determined that Elena of Montenegro should be his bride. When opposition was made by Crispi for political reasons, he told his parents that if he did not marry Elena he would marry no other princess. Fortunately, King Humbert overbore the Minister's objections by declaring that he approved of the choice and that the Princess was the descendant of a brave race that had fought for liberty. " The house of Montenegro," he said, " like my own house, is synonymous with liberty." In October, 1896, the marriage was solemnized in Rome after the Princess had formally abjured the Greek Catholic faith in favour of the Roman Catholic form. Since that time she has been her husband's right hand and comfort. But all she does is done quietly, unobtrusively. Both husband and wife avoid all show and pomp whenever this is possible. Indeed, Italians complain that they lead too quiet and retired a life, and do not receive or show themselves enough. When passing through a city they continually request that the money that would have been spent in entertaining them should be given to the poor instead. For their charity is boundless. Indeed, the Queen's chief interest, outside of her family, is centred in the amelioration of the condition of the people, and especially in schools and charities for children. Like the King, she is an enthusiastic motorist, and in this way they are often able to appear unexpectedly in distant places Photo bv Guigoni & Bossi, Milan HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN WITH THE PRINCESSES The King 19 and to see with their own eyes whether matters are properly conducted. Were the King but an autocrat, as even the most Liberal cannot help wishing at times, how much faster reforms might be effected ! In that case Italy would attain more speedily to that high place among the nations to which she is inevitably tending. But he has to reckon with and to work with the Chamber. The Italian Parliament consists of two Chambers, an Upper and a Lower House ; the former is styled the Senate, the latter the House of Deputies. The number The Italian ^j Senators is unlimited and they are nomi- Parhament. , tj-- /• i-r -^^ ■, nated by the Kmg for life. They are chosen from men distinguished for State and other services, men who pay over 3,000 lire annually in taxes, and men who have three times been elected Deputies. They receive no salary, they meet rarely, and it may frankly be stated that their influence is slight. The House of Deputies, or the Chamber, as it is more commonly called, consists of 508 members, whose only qualification is that they must be Italian subjects and not less than thirty years of age. They, too, are unpaid, but, like the Senators, enjoy the privilege of free passes on all the trains and steamers of the realm. When elected, a deputy is given a gold medal about the size of a sovereign which he generally wears on his watch chain, and this serves as his pass. Each Parliament is supposed to last five years, but rarely attains that age. Every male subject who can read and write and pays 20 francs in direct taxation is qualified as an elector. The Kingdom is divided into electoral districts. The ofi&cial expenses are paid by the Commune, but the personal by the candidate himself. Bribery is forbidden by law, but occurs nevertheless in various forms. It does not, however, attain to such proportions as in England before the days of the Reform Bill of 1832. It is needful to remember this ere casting the Pharisaical stone. A very unfortunate institution, also copied from France, 20 Italy of the Italians is the second ballot, which results in putting great power into the hands of the minority, as owing to it they can dispose of their votes to whichever party they ^^B n^T"*^ please. This puerile, but in its effects most mischievous, invention is based upon the theory that it does not suffice for a man to have the largest number of votes but he must have a number equal to the half as much again as have been cast for his adversary. If this is not attained, a fresh election must take place. This not only prolongs the electoral agitation and disturbs the land, but opens the door for a number of undesirable expedients in order to obtain the missing votes. It was to this practice of a second ballot that Emile OUivier attributed the rapid downfall of the Third Empire. The Deputy elected, he takes his seat at Montecitorio, a seventeenth-century palace built by Bernini for the Ludovisi family and once the headquarters of the Papal ^^D ^°t"^^ °* Law Courts. Its semi-circular inner courtyard has been converted into the auditorium and is only a wooden erection. Again and again has it been pronounced unsafe, and the project ventilated of erecting a building specially designed to meet modern requirements. The seats are arranged in fan shape, as in an antique theatre, flights of steps breaking the sections into divisions. Each member has his own place with a desk in front in which he can keep his papers ; this seat he retains during the whole life of the Parliament for which he is elected. As plans of the House can be bought, a stranger can thus at once ascertain the name of a member. The President who is elected by the House for one session only, holds a purely honorary office and receives no salary, neither has he any robes of office. When he wants to call the House to order he rings a small hand-bell, but if a tumult of Southern words is raging his efforts in this respect are often ludicrously ineffectual. He sits in the centre of a slightly raised platform, and just below level with the floor, sit the Ministers in gilt armchairs before Photo by elms. Aheniacar, Naples EXTERIOR OF THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES The King 21 a long table. The general public are admitted to the various Tribunes that run round the semi-circular space. That reserved for ladies is not screened off as in our own House of Commons. The House meets daily at 2 p.m., and usually rises at 6.30, but it may sit as late as 10 p.m. If business is pressing it may even sit on Sundays. When a session opens the members are sworn in in a body. The President reads the oath, " I swear to be faithful to the King and to be faithful to all the laws of the State for the good of the King and the country," and the members answer " I swear." An easy and friendly tone obtains among the Deputies. They call each other " Tu " (Thou), always a sign of intimacy in Italy, even if they are strangers, as though to mark their solidarity. They are constantly on the move in the body of the House, talking with friends and foes. Still, despite all this friendly intercourse great attention is paid to outer forms. Onorevole (Honourable) is always prefixed to their names in public address, even when such scenes are raging as unfortunately at times disgrace Continental Parliaments. No time-limit is placed upon the speeches of members. If a speaker be a favourite he is generally surrounded by friends and admirers who interrupt his words with their applause. It is most unfortunate that the Italian Parliament is largely recruited from among lawyers and professional men and that there is such a marked absence of merchants, Class of manufacturers, and even of landed proprie- tors. Even the working class send lawyers as their representatives. And since these men love to hear themselves talk and are rhetoricians by nature and training, much valuable time is wasted in mere words spoken to impress those at a distance, and practical matters are neglected or but indifferently understood by these men of the pen and the office. Indeed, a member is often chosen because of his fluent speech and brilliant phrases, no matter how empty of ideas, rather than for his programme. Italians, like all Latins, are enamoured of words for their own sake. The 22 Italy of the Italians cause for this may, however, be sought in their innate artistic and aesthetic sense and their fundamental idealism. Even were these men more practical, the proverbially short minis- terial life hinders great political and social projects from being studied and carried into effect. Both Ministers and Deputies dissipate too much of their force in forming little intriguing coteries. An ex-Minister once said that c"b ^1 *"*^ Italian Ministers were condemned like acro- bats to spend their strength in keeping their balance " on the tight rope," and hence lost their sense of freedom of motion for a more energetic and wider outlook. Party feeling over-rides patriotism, as is so often the case in Parliamentary countries, an evil which, according to Lord Rosebery, is growing in England. Intrigues and cabals to get one man in rather than another, a motion excluded or accepted, obscure the political sense of the members, and a lofty, disinterested patriotism, like that of the Japanese, becomes a rarity. And yet it was just the Italians who, at the time of their Risorgimento, possessed it in an eminent degree. It is a pity that for a while it seems to be engulfed in the party spirit. But political genius is not dead in Italy ; it is only temporarily overlaid. And yet, paradoxical though it may sound, while condemn- ing party feeling, one would like to see more of it in Italy, but of a healthier kind ; for party here so far rather means cliques and factions. The people have not yet properly grasped that constitutional government means party govern- ment, and that if there were organised parties in the land Parliament would be organised of its own accord, and would be liberated from the petty groups that compose it, and, united by no other ties but those of self-interest or friendship, are for ever dancing a chassez croisez hither and thither without higher purpose or aim. It is the Socialists, despite their impracticable Utopian doctrines, who have shown themselves of late years the The King 23 purest and most upright section of Italian politicians. To their influence and to the fact that they and they alone understand the value of organisation The Aims of jg j^ ^^^ ^j^^^ parties are slowly beginning to harden into more shape and are no longer quite so gelatinous. It is possible, too, that now since the advent of an enlightened and tolerant Pope^ the prohibi- tion to Catholics to vote for the Parliament of the Usurper, as Pius IX described the King of Italy, will be removed and so a healthy Conservative party will be formed that will act as a wholesome brake upon theorists and doctrinaires and encourage the formation of a real Liberal party, such as Italy had of old ; these large divisions would then act and interact for the good of the whole country, which should after all be the ultimate aim of all party struggles. This ultimate aim had of recent years been entirely overlooked, and hence the people came to believe that there was an intimate and insoluble connection between politicians and speculators, both bent on exploiting the country, and both often expecting some return from the Government for doing some of its work and that not always of the highest nature. The return in question may be only a ribbon or a title. Victor Emmanuel II used to say " A cavalier's cross or a cigar is a thing one can refuse to no one." Indeed, an ex-Premier once remarked that " Italy is governed by decorations." Knights and Knight- Commanders (Cavalieri and Commendatori) are as plentiful as blackberries, and the titles have ceased to be a distinctton. " The organisation of the Italian State," says a poignant Italian critic, " is one great clientele and the peasants get no help because they are not part of the clientele." '• A Deputy," said one, in speaking of his mandate, " has to find posts for people, secure verdicts for his supporters, alike in civil and criminal cases, help others to pass their examination or get pensions, promote or oppose public or private contracts, get convicts released, civil servants punished or removed, obtain roads and bridges for his constituency." 24 Italy of the Italians No wonder that yet another Deputy said in open Chamber that the Government was the spring and source of all the corruption of the land. Of course, we must not take all this too literally. Italians, like Englishmen, are given to sharp self-criticism. Corruption is an evil plant that does not flourish only on Italian soil. For an example we need only look across the Atlantic at the United States where things are done on a scale that puts all other nations to the blush. But the better-thinking Italians resent that their land, united at such cost of tears and blood and sacrifice, should fall the victim of exploiters and sink into the noisome slough. And this is the reason why so many of the best join the Socialist ranks ; The Socialists, for the Socialists have shown themselves fearless in exposing some of the worst scandals and many of their proposed economic reforms are admirable and necessary. So far, too, there have been few time-servers in their ranks. Turati, their leader, whose organ is the Critica Sociale, is a man of high character. Enrico Ferri, too, madcap though he be, a political Don Quixote, who sometimes runs up against wind-mills, is irreproachable in all respects, and the same applies to Pantaleoni, to Colajanni, and others. Owing to confusion and anomaly among the old parties, the Socialists, by a curious accident, have become the upholders of constitutional right. The Critica Sociale, wrote a keen political observer, " has endowed almost all of us with a social conscience." For it is quite true, as a member of the Chamber has admitted, that "it is the Socialists who have forced Parliament and the country to attend to princ pies and to forget personalities." No wonder that many persons hold that the future of Italian Parliamentary life lies with the Socialists. The only other coherent and compact party which under- stands the value of combination is that of the Clericals, whose influence so far is negative but who, like the Socialists, are the foes of the existent state of things. It is much to be The King 25 hoped that the new Pope's truly liberal patriotism will put a stop to the anomaly of a clergy openly opposing the State and the Sovereign. The office of a Deputy, despite its privileges, is no bed of roses. It is apt, indeed, to become an agency for the satisfac- tion of the local interests and private affairs The Office of ^j ^j^g various voters in his district. Of this Deputy. -11 I once had ocular proof, nor do I think had I not seen it I could have credited what proportions are assumed by' this abuse. It happened that on the occasion of an opening of Parliament b}/ King Humbert I was invited to attend, and a Deputy friend, to avoid the crush, indicated to me a back door beside which at a given hour I should find him waiting. I arrived in due time before what I thought the right door, and waited and waited. The time passed by. I heard the trumpet blowing the Royal fanfare. I realized the King had entered the House, and still no Deputy. So I ventured to open the door. Inside I found a most motley crowd, men and women, old and young, children, and even priests. After a time I noticed that each sent word by an usher that they wished to see the Onorevole So-and-So, who after a while either promptly appeared, or sent some message that seemed to satisfy the applicant. I grew amused and watched on. The opening of Parliament I could imagine. This I could not. After a time I realized what was going on arour d me. Here were the clients of old Rome who followed the patricians in a changed garb, but with unchanged demands. And what demands ? Impossible to imagine them, so naive were some, of such colossal impudence were others. One old woman asked that her Deputy should let her son off his examinations, another asked that a schoolmistress should be transferred or dismissed, as she was not kind to her child. The applicants for bureaucratic posts, no matter how small, were countless. When I had had enough I thought I would try the trick myself. I called for my Deputy friend and promptly did he appear. It was all a misunderstanding. I 3— (239 ) 26 Italy of the Italians had mistaken the door. But his vexation that I should have seen thus behind the scenes was great. He need not have been so distressed. It was easy enough for me to grasp that the cause for all this must be sought in the imperfect political education of the people and that most of these demands, at least the most puerile, came either from the still backward south or from simple country folk — although truth compels me to state that all Italians, no matter of what class, still look upon the State as a good milch cow, who must render them some return for the money spent in taxes or for the material sacrifices endured for the sake of Unity. Institutions are reformed from within, not from without. When the Italian citizen is better educated politically, then the Parliament, too, will take higher rank. Italy will then return to her own highest level and the sons who have proved so little worthy of their fathers who made the land will be avenged in their grandsons. Upon its oncoming younger generation Italy can look with pride and confidence. ' ' Time, ' ' says an Italian proverb, " is a perfect gentleman," and many of the defects we deplore can and will yield to his pressure. CHAPTER II THE PRESS The moods of a, nation are revealed more fully in its news- papers than in its literature. This is as true of Italy as of any other land. If the Fourth Estate, The Italians as 3,5 regards its human representatives, is not Readers. *^^ power in Italy that it is in France or in England, its products are nevertheless of wide and far-reaching influence. Further, there does not exist in Italy a " reptile press " such as was the shameful outcome of Prince Bismarck's influence upon German journal- ism. The Italians are a great newspaper-reading population. A proof of this can be seen, for example, any evening at the cafes, or even in the theatres during the entr'actes, when the papers are hawked for sale and eagerly purchased. For in Italy, almost without exception, our ordinary custom is reversed, and newspapers are published late in the afternoon or evening. . The streets of the larger cities between 8 and 10 at night resound with the shouts of third editions, some of these of papers that would seem never to have had a first or second issue. To observe the excited demeanour of the vendors one would imagine that events of world-shaking import had occurred. More probably it is nothing else but a murder or, better still, an emotional drama, that so agitates this rushing, hurrying mob who fall over one another as they rush out of the newspaper offices where they have received the journals fresh and damp from the press, or from the railway stations where they have arrived by train, carried by a special arrangement with the company as what is called fuori sacco (outside of the mail bags), and ready done up into packets to distribute to the various newsagents. Indeed, the whole affair is managed with a lightning rapidity, such as is not usually displayed with things Italian. More amusing 28 Italy of the Italians even than in the large centres is the spectacle a small place presents on the arrival of the newspaper train or boat. The whole population seems to gravitate towards the platform or the pier, and hardly have the parcels been dealt out than every man's face is hidden by a printed sheet. The Italians, like the Athenians of old, are lovers of the news. As a proof I may mention that Italy takes the fourth place in Europe in the number of its newspapers. It boasts of 1,400, of which 170 are dailies. And of what nature are these Italian journals ? The English tourist, accustomed to his native Brobdignagian broadsheets, is apt contemptuously to dismiss Characteristics them as " halfpenny rags that contain no Journals. news." They make a great mistake. It is true that these papers without exception only cost five centimes (one halfpenny) ; it is true that as a rule they consist of only one sheet of which the whole last page is usually devoted to advertisements ; nevertheless they are, taken as a whole, far from despicable, and some are of really remarkable merit and high literary standard. They may enjoy printing highly coloured accounts of crimes with great copiousness of detail ; on the other hand, they never debase themselves to manufacture in their offices news calculated to disturb the world's peace. Italy is not a rich country, the science of advertisement is still ill-understood and in its infancy, hence the papers cannot afford to be larger in volume ; but if they give less in bulk than the English and American Gazettes, what they do give is by no means always worthless. Italy can boast of some papers whose leaders even that magno organo, the Times, does not disdain to quote. Naturally and necessarily political journals of real import- ance can only live in the great centres of Rome and Milan — in Rome because it is the political capital, The Political jj^ Milan because it is the industrial centre Press* of the land. Before 1870 when Rome was taken over by the Italians only three newspapers were The Press 29 published there and these were all clerical and organs of the Vatican. Only one has survived the Osservatore Romano, which exists in order to promulgate Vatican decrees and to break lances with the papers of the new regime, such as the Roman papers, the Tribuna, the Giornale d'ltalia, the Patria, or that mouthpiece of the Italian proletariat, the Avanti. The Tribuna is usually Ministerial, whatever Ministry happens to be in office, and as Ministries succeed one another with great rapidity in Italy, its colour is somewhat of the chameleon character. It is usually extremely well-informed as to foreign affairs, and has some excellent correspondents and contribu- tors. The Giornale d'ltalia, a late comer in the field, is politic- ally rather of a Liberal-Conservative nature. Its chief attraction, however, consists in the literary and scientific articles, one of which is published almost daily and which take a wide range over all departments of human thought and activity. There is a charm, a freshness, a modern agility about the journal that has assured it an instant success. The Avanti, the organ of the Socialists, is maintained by the clever device of a permanent subscription fund, to which the smallest contributions are welcome. Thus the members of the party, who, like Socialists all the world over, are well organised and compact, on happy or sad occasions send some lires or centimes to this fund as their obol with remarks such as " In memory of my dear defunct brother and comrade XX," or "The result of a bet among companions," or "As a cry of protest," or " To attest to our solidarity," and what not beside. This journal, of which the hot-headed but able scientist, Enrico Ferri. is one of the editors, is continually being suppressed for a couple of days, but it re- issues as sprightly and combative as ever. Whatever occurs of evil in the world — strikes, insurrections, revolutions and such like, finds its repercussion in the office of the Avanti. Instantly the police appears at its door some " comrades " are put into preventive confinement, fines are imposed, and the circulation for the day is perhaps suspended, Fgf 30 Italy of the Italians though a large measure of freedom of the Press exists, such as was unknown under the sway of Popes and Grand Dukes and petty sovereigns, still a certain police Police supervision of newspapers continues, and a Supervision . , , , i j i_ of Newspapers, journal can be suppressed or suspended by order of the Prefects, though by a recent law it can no longer be sequestrated. This is really a somewhat clumsy and antiquated proceeding which usually defeats its own purpose, as in these days of rapid printing and diffusion a large number of copies have generally gone forth ere the police order arrives for their suppression. It is this anomalous state of things that has created a curious figure of Italian newspaper life, the gerente responsabile. This is a man of straw, more often than not an illiterate person, whose name is appended at the foot of the newspaper as the responsible authority. If the paper is sued it is he who has to appear, not the editor or the writer of the incriminated article, and if there is any imprisonment to sit out it is he who goes into goal. As a rule a gerente responsabile is paid so much a day when he does not go to prison ; if he goes there he lives at the expense of the State. This is certainly one way and an original one of earning a livelihood. In the Avanti this post is no sinecure. In high-class papers, such as, for example, the Corriere delta Sera, the gerente never has to sit out a term of punishment and the post is greatly coveted. The Corriere delta Sera, a Milanese paper, is about the best in Italy. It is An Independent committed to no political party, is absolutely independent, and has never accepted a Government subsidy or a bribe. It numbers among its writers senators, deputies, scientists and literati and it has excellent correspondents in the various European capitals. Its war correspondents, A. Rossi and L. Barzini, are un- equalled and unrivalled for quickness of observation (an Italian gift) and graphic presentation. Indeed, Barzini could make many a special correspondent look to his laurels. Thus, thanks to his smartness and pliability of circumstances, The Press 31 he was, with the exception of Reuter's representative, the only journahst present at the historic and notable battle of Mukden in the late Russo-Japanese War. Another Milanese paper which, like the Corriere delta Sera, circulates through the whole of the land, is the Secolo, the organ of the Radical party. Its general tone and literary merits are not up to the level of the Corriere delta Sera, but it deserves mention for its persistent upholding of the standard of international peace. There are other local papers, too, which are meritorious, such as the Resio del Cartino of Bologna, the Giornate di Sicitia of Palermo, the Gazetta di Venezia of Venice, provincial j^^^ -^ would be tedious to enumerate their mere titles. Every city, too, possesses a local paper of a certain sensational stamp, of which the Messaggero of Rome is a typical example. This paper has been called " the official organ of the murdered, the throttled and the suicides." It is always well served with information of this kind, since it gives fifty centimes, after verification, to the person who first brings it such ghastly news. Hence it is not uncommon in the streets of Rome if people see a crowd before a house or an excitement in the road for them to pass by without asking its cause. "No matter," they will say, " we shall read it all later in the Messaggero." For specially sensational crimes extra editions are issued and greedily devoured. The reporting of such items is done in a manner that is peculiar to Italy, flowery, detailed, minute. And this applies to aU papers, even to the best, though the Messaggero carries off the palm in this line. I can best give my readers an idea of how it is done by printing an Italian skit on the subject, a skit which, incredible as it may appear, is really hardly exaggerated. " Yesterday at 4*7 seconds the cry of an elderly woman was heard issuing from the house no. 526 of the alley del Mancino, and to be precise, from that third window of the second floor that has sun blinds and was repainted in dark green 32 Italy of the Italians a few days ago by Tobias Castracani, who has a wife, Ersilia, who is a shirtmaker in via del Burro no. 440, and a son Alberto, who is in the second elementary class Reoortinc Stvie ^^ ^^^ ^^^ Priorato, a school ably directed by Professor Alessandro Maccheroni, who studied in Florence, and whose old mother, Maria Maccheroni Conditi, still lives with a brother who studies architecture, aged 26, tall, fair-moustached, and having a wart on his left cheek, rather nearer the nose than the eye. " Hurriedly we ascended the steps of which there were fifty-six, and very badly kept, and indeed we are surprised that the landlord. Baron Bartolomeo Colleffe, who is still young, does not have them attended to ; it seems to be also the fault of his steward, Aristide Camorrini, who lives in via della Polveriera, letter Z, with an unmarried sister, but who two years ago was engaged to Terenzio Alchermese, living in via della Statuto no. 501, with his brothers Amedeo, Bertoldo, Tommaso, nicknamed the Moor, and his sisters Cammilla and Gertrudea, a fine tall girl, and Teresa," and so forth and so on. In such reporting there comes out the curious pedantic strain that is a notable characteristic of the Italian character, and seems to harmonize so ill with their ^ Cr'tV m quickness of wit and rapidity of observation. It is this that makes them so fond of those purely academic discussions that also find an echo in their papers, and gives a peculiar tone to their criticism, even if the wording, the superlatives and the richly coloured adjectives makes it sound redundant to English ears. For in spite of these defects, the standard of literary and dramatic criticism is really elevated, approaching rather the French than the English model. The political leaders, too, are often excellent — well-argued, well-studied, well-informed, of breadth of statesmanship and vision and, curiously enough in this domain, of terseness of expression. Many an Italian journal- ist has passed from the newspaper office to a Deputy's seat in the Chamber, and even to the armchair of a Minister. The Press 33 Neither journalism nor belles letires are lucrative professions in Italy. Everything of a literary nature is most inadequately remunerated. Thus, an Italian novel rarely sells more, if as much as, three thousand copies, of which the net profit is perhaps 1,000 francs (;^40) if it be by a popular author. The same applies to journalism. The men who embrace this profession really do so for love, and many do so love it. The Italian likes to express his exuberance of thought by word and by pen. But were other proof required that the Fourth Estate has come to take its place in Italy also, this would be furnished by the sumptuous quarters owned by Press^of°ItaJ*'^ *^^ Associated Press of Italy in the Piazza Colonna of Rome. Membership to this costs twenty-four francs a year, and election is by ballot under cer- tain professional restrictions. A member is entitled to various privileges ; beside the use of this building as a club-house or a resort, he gets reduction at specified shops, there are a number of doctors and lawyers who serve him gratis, there is an Old Age or Accident Pension Fund, and, further, the State concedes him annually a liberal number of journeys upon the railways or the State steamers at 50 per cent, reduction. In the Palace, that is the headquarters of this trades' union, are fine reception rooms, reading rooms in which papers from all parts of the globe can be perused, and a good reference library. Strangers passing through Rome easily secure the privilege of a temporary membership, for the Associated Press desires above all to be friendly and cosmopolitan in tone. Its President is usually a man notable in journalism or politics. Altogether Rome is the best place in which to realise what a privileged position has been obtained by the Italian Press. For them is reserved the best gallery in Ah'"?^* Parliament, where the inmates will often talk and dispute so loudly that the President of the Chamber cannot fail to hear, and not infrequently he will even reply to remarks he cannot pretend to be inaudible, 34 Italy of the Italians with some witty word or pacificatory joke. In this newspaper tribune sits one lady, Signora Maria Calvini, though the female journalist is still a rare apparition in Italy. She is a militant Socialist, who writes reports of the Chamber, and also lectures to propagate feminine emancipation. Her special mission concerns the protection and legal rights of women and children, which in Italy are still in a somewhat primitive condition ; for example, no married woman can draw or sign a cheque on her own account, even if the money be her own. Her evidence is not accepted in a law court without her husband, and other mediaeval restrictions of the same kind. At Aragno's, the most chic caf6 in Rome, which is close to the Chamber, the Associated Press Palace, the Post and the Telegraph, the table reserved to the pressmen is noticeable for the loud excited talk of those who sit at it, drowning that of all the other guests. The Press is clearly privileged, and no consideration seems to be expected from it. At the Telegraph and Post Office the Government has put aside a special room, for the convenience of journalists where they can write and wire at their ease and which furnishes them with a species of club. Families and householders as a rule subscribe for their daily papers. Such subscriptions cost less than buying the paper separately, despite the fact that in that case ^b"scribeJs ^^^y ^^^ ^^^^ through the Post ; for the Post, by a special arrangement with the papers, carries their matter at a cost that is infinitesimal. Indeed, dear though letter postage still is in Italy, the postage for all printed matter is very trifling and far cheaper than in England. Moreover Italy has other postal arrangements that England could copy with advantage, such as the convenient method of money-order cards and the cash-on-delivery system. To subscribers the newspapers ol^er every New Year a gift that may consist of a book, a picture, a piece of furniture, a case of liqueurs. It is difficult to understand how with their cheap subscriptions they can make this pay. No births or marriages < u Y. o K ■Tl O W K-1 < o u Ul Pi s The Press 35 are announced in the Italian papers, only deaths. The sanctity of the home is jealously respected. Hence we meet with no interviews except such as concern politics, no man's house is described, no society ladies figure, there is no lifting of the veils ol privacy. An Italian would be pained and scandalized if the picture of his wife or mother or sister occupied a full page in a public journal. The Agenzia Stefani is the Renter of Italy. No newspaper has wires of its own because the Government exercises a censorship over all news. For the same Press Agencies, cause, too, obstacles are put in the way of telephonic extensions and the officials of the Ministry of the Interior have the right of listening to telephonic conversations whenever they deem it advisable. Some of the larger papers have now instituted telephonic commu- nication with Paris and get their news in this way. This includes extracts from the English papers, especially from the Times, so that the evening editions will bring all the latest information published by the French and English Press that morning. It is interesting to note the difference of outlook assumed by certain questions from the difference of geographical position from that of England. Noticeable, too, is the circumstance that far less interest is shown in sport or in mere money-making. Comic papers corresponding to our aristocratic Punch Italy has none. She has some humorous sheets and exceed- ingly witty they are at times, but refinement "-y «*«-(* T.yy, lViWk<4,^X Literature 39 revolutionary character. The standard-bearer of this revolt was Giosue Carducci, the first, as he is still the greatest, of the poet-thinkers of the third Italy. And here a word may not be amiss to explain this expression " the third Italy," which meets us at every turn. It was Carducci who first employed it, thereby " "^t^l ^^"^ intending to convey the idea of a free Italy, of an Italy that proceeds upon its path towards happier destinies. The first Italy was held to be that which had given birth to the grandeur of ancient Rome, whence the eagles issued forth that conquered the whole of the known world. The second was that which the barbarians over-ran and subdued, which was partitioned among the stranger or involved in internecine warfare. The third is that which all the poets from Dante and Petrarch onwards yearned to behold, the Italy of the Italians renewed, re-born in art, literature, statecraft, in every manifestation of mental life. Giosue Carducci, to whose initia- Giosue ^j^g jg ^jyg ^jjjg ^g^gi ^jj^ far-reaching change that has, in a comparatively short time, come over the face of Italian literature, is still living, though he has recently resigned, on the score of ill-health, the Chair of Literature he held so many years at the University of Bologna. A rugged, uncompromising and somewhat churlish nature, who has not known how to make himself personally beloved, he was nevertheless revered as a teacher, and his scholastic influence has been deep and extended. Born in 1835 in a humble home not far from the site of Shelley's funeral pyre, under the shadow of the Carrara Alps, his child- hood was passed in the country, within sight of the deep blue Mediterranean. Here he learnt to love nature, and indeed he learnt little else for a while, so that he was held somewhat of a dunce, for as he tells himself in a lovely poem concerning his childhood, his chief occupations were bird-nesting and throwing stones at the dark, austere cypress trees. It has well been asked whether this was a preparation for the stones he was 40 Italy of the Italians to throw later on with his ringing verse and weighty prose at the men he deemed worthy of his disdain ? When, however, he entered the University he took to reading hard ; but he also played as hard, and his student pranks became proverbial. Already he was a pagan by inclination, a lover of Horace, and a follower of the Latin's light-hearted creed, and Horace has remained his favourite poet ; like that poet, too, he has loved the good wine of his native land, ii, unlike his model, he has not devoted his verse to chanting its I. til ^*cf^"* °' praises. Coupled with these affections was an ardent love of his country, and this love he has kept untarnished and intact until this day. From the first Carducci instinctively understood that the breath of life had vanished from the literature of his day and he wished, as he expressed it, that men should not divert them- selves with corpses. He felt that the moribund spiril of Romanticism must be combated at all costs and he therefore turned, as every Italian must turn by hereditary bias, towards the classics, and threw himself into what he designated as " a cold bath of erudition," studying assiduously first the Greeks, then the Latins, and then the Italian Mediaeval and Renaissance classics, and only in the end touching the more modern writers among whom the German Heine especially exerted a profound influence. It was in this wise that this " armour-bearer of the classics," as he styles himself, " who had lived among the phantoms of an ancient age," became himself a classic poet. No wonder, therefore, that his first poems were aggressive in form, and subversive in spirit. He is no epic poet who narrates objectively and only what he has seen or heard. Carducci can only write what he feels and feels deeply, and when he sings, as he does often, of historical events that have a great attraction for him — on which account he has also been styled " the " H'^t^°**' °^ P°^* °^ history " — he does so not in the spirit of a bard who calmly narrates the facts, but rather he deals with the impression that the incident has Literature 41 made upon his own soul. And at the dawn of his artistic life his mental attitude towards his compatriots and towards the Italian Government was one of disdain. He was an ardent lover of freedom, a militant Republican, and in his songs he exalted such political rebels as Garibaldi and Mazzini, and cursed from the depths of his heart the shifty and decep- tive policy of Pope Pius IX. He was the singer of no faction, as little as he was the adherent of any political party. His aims were high and ideal, and he wept to see his beloved land the sport of the political quacks and time-serving oppor- tunists who had succeeded to the heroes of the national re-birth. In these early poems, eloquent, eager and sincere though they be, there is a violence of expression that some- times leads him into errors of taste. In those days, however, he was but little read and scarcely known outside the literary clique of Bologna. But in 1865 he made all Italy thrill with amazement, coupled in clerical circles with horror, by the publication of his famous " Hymn to Satan," that impassioned ode which it is said he wrote at one sitting, in a white heat of inspiration. At first, as might well be expected, this " war-song of pagan- ism " was misunderstood and looked upon as a wholly irreverent, not to say, blasphemous utterance. When it came to be explained, however, and Carducci's cryptic meaning made clear, the intellectual world recognised that this was no mere irreverent vituperation. The Hymn was intended as the expression of a revolt against asceticism and mysticism, against the authority of the Church and the obscurantism of the priests. Satan does not stand here for the Semitic spirit of evil. He embodies the revolt in favour of classicism, the desire for intellectual freedom ; and though the poem undoubtedly assails Christianity, or, to be more accurate, the Mediaeval Church, it does so in no ribald spirit of license. Satan is here invoked merely as the undying, unconquerable spirit of freedom and progress. He is the herald of that return to Nature and love of Nature which has been one 4— (2395) 42 Italy of the Italians • ' of the chief motive forces in the new school of Italian literature, and must, therefore, be reckoned with. The present revival of Italian literature is due to a re-awakening of the same spirit that produced the Italian Renaissance, and we know how wide and deep and far-reaching were its consequences. Italy has already twice led the van of civilization in Europe. Will she do it yet again and a third time ? These insurrectionary poems were followed by more tranquil ones, but though Carducci's art grew more serene, and hence more beautiful, never did he strive to curry for popularity, and nowhere does he hesitate, whether in his concise verse, or his grand and adamantine prose, to flay the sickly poetasters of his day, regardless whether these be foes or friends. Once again he roused general interest and fierce discussion when he issued the first series of his famous lyrics which he gave forth with the collective " Odi Barbari." title of " Odi Barbari," a title that sounded strange indeed to characterize most exqui- sitely polished verse. The qualifying word needs a little explanation. With these Odes Carducci introduced into the Italian Parnassus a new form of metre, that has since been almost universally adopted by the younger men. He was weary of the old facile metres to which the Italian language lends itself so easily that they became almost mechanical. He also considered that these much-used forms had lost their freshness, and hence could not give vigour and tone to modern modes of thought. In reality this new departure was but a return to antiquity, a use of the metres employed not only by Horace and Catullus, but also by the earlier Greeks, in which quantity furnished the rhythm. Carducci's originality consisted in the fact that he recognised that quantity produces no echo to our modern ears, and that he strove, and with success, to produce the same effect by means of accent whether of word or verse. He wrote : Literature 43 " I hate the accustomed verse. Lazily it falls in with the taste of the crowd, And pulseless in its feeble embraces Lies down and sleeps. For me that vigilant strophe Which leaps with the plaudits and rhythmic stamp of the chorus Like a bird caught in its flight, which Turns and gives battle. The Odi Barbari are so termed because they would so sound to the ears and judgment of the Greeks and Romans, although composed in the metrical forms belonging to the lyrical poetry of those nations, and because they will, too truly, so sound to very many Italians, although they are composed and harmonised in Italian verses and accents. This perhaps rather dull explanation is needful, for without the key most English readers would think that modern Italian poetry was not poetry at all, at least not according to the recognised English models. Thus, once again the Italians have initiated a new literary departure, though, of course, Carducci's bold experiment was at first derided and combated. But, in the end, opposition gave place to admiration, and later on to imitation. It was after the third volume of the Odi Barbari saw the light that Carducci became converted from Republican to monarchical ideas. This conversion raised a A Convert to storm of indignation at the time among his Ideas. older friends, the more so as it was attributed, and perhaps not incorrectly, to the fascination exercised over the already elderly poet by the winning smiles of Queen Margherita, an eager admirer of the poet's verse. It was held as a reproach that he who had glorified the French Revolution in twelve sonnets of statuesque strength, entitled " Ca Ira," should bow the knee to Royalty. Carducci bore this abuse with the same serene indifference with which he bears praise or blame, and though he now votes with the monarchical party he has never become a courtier in any sense of the term. 44 Italy of the Italians With the pubHcation of " Rime e Ritmi " Carducci closed his poetic career, a worthy finale containing some of his finest verse. In a brief Farewell appended to the Complete volume he says that as the stars are setting Carducci 's Works. ^^^ him into the sea of the unfathomable, so likewise songs are dying out from within his heart. This renunciation of further literary effort has per- mitted the publication of a final edition of his prose and poetic works, revised by himself and therefore standard. They are clearly printed in two volumes on thin India paper, at a small cost, and well deserve to be acquired by those who can read the originals. For those who cannot a fair idea of their character may be gathered from a selection translated by Frank Sewell. Briefly, it may be stated that the sentiments that inspire and animate all Carducci's writings are an intense veneration for the poets of Greece and Rome with whom he feels himself in intellectual sympathy, a profound love of Nature, such as the ancients felt and which we moderns characterize as pagan, a love, that is, of external nature, devoid of a search after such mystic meanings as are lent to it by the Northern mind, a love, too, for all that ministers to purely sensuous pleasure, and as a third factor the Hellenic instinct of form, and a repulsion against all that is supernatural and against what he would define as the Gothic spirit. It would be idle to contend that Carducci is popular, though unquestionably he is the greatest and prof oundest con- temporary Italian poet. For this he is too Italy's Debt to erudite and often too obscure, and his themes Carducci. , r i i i i too, are rarely of a popular character, and rarely treat of that chief theme of poets, Love, But he is universally respected, and Italy is justly proud of him, and none are found to deny that it is to him that she owes her present literary revival, that it is owing to his example and influence that the third Italy already boasts a long and noble roll-call of illustrious names. Next in literary importance to Carducci, though widely Literature 45 different in character and achievement, indeed only meeting upon the common ground of Hellenism, is the Gabnele younger, more popular, and perhaps, outside of Italy, more widely known writer, Gabriele d' Annunzio. A poet, a play-writer, a novelist, he has achieved distinction and fame in all three departments, nor would it be easy to say in which he has reaped the proudest laurels, though it may be asserted that in all and above all else, even when writing prose, d'Annunzio is a true poet. A pity that he has not put his muse to such noble uses as has Carducci, that the serpent trail of eroticism too often defiles it, that his outlook on life is sometimes base and sensual, his ideas unclean, and his paganism epicurean. Until comparatively recently fierce controversies waged about d'Annunzio's name, and lavish praise alternated with equally lavish blame. But to-day after he has given forth the latest fruits of his intellect, it is idle to deny that d'Annunzio is a great artist. Even the adversaries of yester- day admit so much. It is equally idle to deny that he is no moralist, and that his works are not for the " young person." But these two points, and especially the latter, are, after all, not the standard of artistic merit. His domain is life as seen under its material and intellectual aspects, and he does not pretend to gloss over or minimize what are to him realities. D'Annunzio's career, which has been as rapid as it is brilliant, began at the early age of fourteen, when still a schoolboy, by the publication of " Primo Earlier Works yero," followed at 16 by " Canto Nuovo." of d Annunzio. "^ Both books instantly attracted attention, and, like Byron, D'Annunzio awoke one morning to find himself famous. This fact is the more curious because as a child he hated poetry, and when being set at school to write 50 lines on the subject of Thermopylae, he only succeeded after much pain and grief in turning out three, though now he is only too prolific. In his case, truly, the child was not the father of the man. His first books already showed his 46 Italy of the Italians metrical aptitude and wonderful verbal dexterity. In 1883 there followed " Intermezzo di Rime." This book, in which he gave vent to his insatiable thirst after life and love, might be dismissed as a youthful aphrodisiacal utterance, were it not also something deeper and more significant. With its publication D'Annunzio at one bound became the leader of a school that has had a vast influence upon modern Italian literature, a school whose characteristics, to use his own words, " were the abuse of colour, the employment of unusual expressions and a great audacity in erotic description." At about this time D'Annunzio, who was born at Pescara, in the Abruzzi, beside that Adriatic whose salt sea savour sounds in his pages, removed to Rome, ^"^Rom? °* ^^^^^ ^^ frequented that high society in which love is only a form of sport. In Rome, too, he could contemplate the art and poetry of the past, yet curiously enough the Eternal City did not enlarge his horizon and enrich his personality, but only inspired works in which he expanded his voluptuous fantasy. Hence it was not the Rome of the Caesars that held him spellbound, but the Rome of the Popes, with its sumptuous villas, its highly ornate churches, its ever-murmuring caressing fountains. The pages of " Libro delle Vergini " and " San Panteleone " teem with pathological and cruel spectacles. Our author here shows traces of Zola's sway, but the side of Zola which most appeals to him is that seen in " La Faute de I'Abbe Mouret." It was inevitable, too, that since the naturalistic school was then at its apex, he should be touched by its spirit ; but it was merely an imitation of a tendency, since his own artistic personality was always uppermost, with its peculiar merits and its defects. Some of the tales in " San Panteleone " are, however, direct imitations of Maupassant, though even here the imitation is more apparent than real, since the art and method of treatment are so different. It was during the period of D'Annunzio's Roman sojourn (1886-1893) that he wrote " Sotteo," "La Chimera," "Le Literature 47 Elegie Romane," " II Poema Paradisiaco," in the sphere of poetry, and the novels, " Giovanni Episcopo " and "L'lnno- cente." "Sotteo" displays his study of ancient bards both in versification and in the manner in which he wove conceits and poetic garlands for the women he loved. In " Elegie Romane" breathes the whole amplitude of the Roman Campagna with its fiery sunsets, its oppressive solitudes. Similar sentiments are roused by " Poema Paradisiaco," but here there pre- dominates besides a sense of sadness, the satiety of exhausted passion. Small wonder that many of these productions were attacked on the score of immorality. D'Annunzio had wandered too far from the Latin sobriety of Carducci. Never- theless he declaimed against realist verse. He asserted that the essence of poetry was mystery and that poets should give to mankind the record of things they have never seen. " I hold," he wrote, " that the poetry of the future will have all the mystery and suggestiveness of great music. In lyric poetry the essential element is not the word, it is the music ; it is not the word as letter but the word as sound and rhythm." But excessive adulation and his really phenomenal early triumphs had a little turned D'Annunzio's head, and small wonder. This passing phase of sensual Longer Novels, satiety led to what he described as a con- valescence of the soul, and to render this the more complete he returned for a while to live among his Abruzzi mountains and beside the sea that he has always loved so ardently because of its fierce freedom and its mystic suggestiveness. Here he turned to writing longer novels, of which the first, " II Piacere," again offended against good taste by its frank voluptuousness, but nevertheless contained some splendid passages of description expressed in the lavish luxury of phrase, the extravagance of dictum and imagery that is his keynote and which fatigues after a while because of its too uniform splendour. The hero, Andrea Sperelli, like the protagonist of most of his romances, is the incarnation of his own curious complex and degenerate Ego. In 48 Italy of the Italians " Giovanni Episcopo " and " L'Innocente " can be found traces of that Russian literature which was just then in the ascendant in Italy. The fundamental thesis of both books is similar, and once more lascivious sentiment dominates, mingled with morbid pathos and vivid landscape pictures. In truth D'Annunzio resembles that Marchesa di Monferrato of whom Boccaccio speaks, who knew how to make an in- finitude of dishes, but though they had different names and looked differently they were all chicken. In " II Trionfo della Morte," pubhshed in dellJ'MMte ^^^^' ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^ influence of Nietzsche. Already in 1892 D'Annunzio had published an article in which he announced to the Italian world his discovery of this German philosopher, adding, how- ever, that he himself had long been a follower of these theories without knowing their origin. The " Trionfo della Morte " is certainly D'Annunzio's strongest novel, not because of its plot, which is of the slightest, but for its exotic and artistic treatment. The hero, Giorgio Aurispa, is as usual an incarnation of the writer under another aspect. Again, descriptions of rare beauty abound, especially that of a pilgrimage to the sanctuary of Casalbordino, which has become almost a classic. The influence of the Frenchman Barres, together with that of Nietzsche, can be found in the " Vergine delle Roccie," another book of unpleasant central purpose, leaving a bad aesthetic taste behind it. Blood, carnage, and lust are invoked and panegyrized with nauseous reiteration, while the main thesis, supposed to be founded upon Nietzsche, is an absolute perversion of the chief con- tentions of that philosopher. And yet again what redeeming descriptions of old Italian villas, of secluded gardens, of floral wealth. If, to be paradoxical, we could have D'Annunzio's novels without his plots and personages, how splendid they would be ! The language, too, of what exquisite harmony, even if at times it is too redundant, too prolix, for D'Annunzio becomes intoxicated with the sound of his own splendid diction. Literature 49 Up to this point D'Annunzio had shown himself as a voluptuous artist who fashioned for himself an environment adapted to his artistic egoism. Reading his Patriotic works no one would apprehend that he could also be a great patriotic poet. But his artistic soul and complex personality has more proxies than that of Dr. Jekyll. He who delights in epicurean ease, who appears the incarnation of a decadent, suddenly showed himself endowed with virile vigour, putting forth a series of inspiring Odes that appealed to Italy's most manly feelings. In these " Odi Navali " he chanted the glories of those huge battleships which Italy was the first to construct, of those agile and insidious torpedoes that can wound to death these marine Colossi. This was followed, with that wonderful prolific rapidity that is his, by the "Canzone di Garibaldi," wherein is celebrated the great Italian hero. Here figure neither the Italian people nor those ideas that conduced to Italy's resur- rection. The first section treats of war, the second is an idyll. The Garibaldian heroes are brought in with fine pictorial effects and certain episodes are of potent and en- chanting force. The idyllic note is furnished by Garibaldi's return to the island of Caprera, bringing naught with him as a recompense for having bestowed a free fatherland on the Italians, save a sack of grain. In this " Canzone " D'Annunzio has revived the lassa or monorhyme habitual to the chanson de gesie, which deriving from the Carlovingian cycle, came into Italy in the latter half of the fifteenth century. A painful book, even to D'Annunzio's warmest adherents, was the novel " II Fuoco," for its veil of disguise was too thin not to permit of a comprehension as to the A Painful Book, original of the great actress described therein with a lack of tenderness and good taste that offended the more, as all the world knew how deeply the writer was indebted to this lady. Learned discussions concerning Venetian art, fine impressions of the lagoons, subtle fantasies, 50 Italy of the Italians did not suffice to redeem this book from the charge of Use friendship. It is a rehef to turn away to the two volumes of " Laudi/' wherein D'Annunzio has touched his high-water mark. The first is a complete poem dealing with a voyage taken to that land of Hellas, which is sacred to the writer as the cradle of civilization, and his return to Rome, where he finds a quiet, undisturbed asylum in the Sistine Chapel, wherein he hopes to recover faith in himself. In the end, however, in order to touch the apex of wisdom, he quits even this for the desert where he recovers self-mastery in solitude and learns to comprehend that harmony of life which man has tarnished. Thus, as ever, D'Annunzio can write nothing purely objective. Sooner or later his own person must come to the fore. Nevertheless, the poem is no sentimental journey, no search for a deeper soul such as the " Divina Commedia." It rather resembles Heine's '^^'praS'st! °^ " Germania." And because in this book D'Annunzio lauds all things, because he has known how to enjoy all things he has named it " Laudi." But it is the second volume that constitutes his grandest attainment, and which will survive when his unpleasanter works are consigned to Limbo, rescuing thence only for some prose Anthology many of the magnificent natural descriptions. This second " Laudi " is divided into two books of which one is dedicated to " Electra " and the other to " Halcyon." In " Electra " D'Annunzio strives to temper the souls of his compatriots towards loftier idealisms than those of the daily petty squabbles of party politics. He exalts the grand prophetic soul of Dante and then apostrophizes the young King and asks him, he who is so sincerely thoughtful concern- ing the destinies of his kingdom, whether he is acquainted with all the beauty and the power that is the heritage of the Italian soil. He lauds the potent Italian cities, he recalls their ancient grandeur, their civic virtues, he also speaks of Trieste that beckons to its parent from across the Italian seas ; he breaks into strains of indignation and fury against those Literature 51 who have lowered Italy in the eyes of the nations by vile and shameful transactions. He glorifies the proud soul of Giosu6 Carducci. This section is written in the severe, restricted metre of Petrarch's " Canzone " ; it lends itself less to diffuse- ness than " Terza Rima," and in its perfection of form and noble aims represents a high stage of artistic development. In the book " Halcyon," the poet, after having sung and lauded the Italian heroes, turns to earth and Nature and praises them. He here gathers together all the impressions made on his soul at sight of these beauties. Matter and manner are here blended with taste and perception into a soft and liquid harmony that makes us regret the more that D'Annunzio's Muse does not always soar in these Parnassian heights. His soul, though it has remained pagan, is here suffused with a new breath of purity and therefore this is the only one of his books which can be unrestrictedly praised. Unfortunately, his plays, despite their lyric beauty, prove that a love for the gory, for license, for the gross, the abnormal, has not been eliminated from his nature. The Plays of g^^ here, too, his influence has been far- reaching and revolutionary. Here, too, he has striven after that richness of speech which distinguishes his novels and poems, whereby he has recalled the writers of his land to the fountain head of their language, the four- teenth-century poets, thereby enlarging and ennobling speech while rendering it, it must be confessed, just because of this enhanced wealth, more difficult of comprehension to the foreigner. It was in 1896 that D'Annunzio first came forward as a play- writer with his " Dreams of the Seasons," novel in theatrical method but revolving round the favourite D'Annunzian motives, plays rather adapted to reading than to performance. The " Gioconda " was more dramatic, and since it was first interpreted by the Duse for whom it was written and whose beautiful hands were, so to speak, the heroines of the piece, it quickly met with favour. Here at 52 Italy of the Italians least, though an unpleasant incident is not lacking, D'Annunzio expounds a fine central purpose, the extolling of the power of pain as a great moral regenerator. The heroine, Silvia Settela, to save the masterpiece of sculpture that her husband has wrought, loses both her hands while preventing its fall, those hands which were her beauty and her glory. Deeply touching is the scene at the end where, owing to her mutilation, she cannot give her little child the embrace it craves from its mother. His next play, " La Gloria," was less successful ; indeed, on its first appearance it was hissed off the boards. It was intended to be a political and at the same time other ^Dramas ^ symbolical drama, and rather fell between two stools. It aimed at revealing the persistent fever that bids the multitude ever clamour for something new. After this attempt to deal with modern Parliamentary life D'Annunzio took a leap back into mediaeval times and wrote his poetic tragedy " of dream and crime," " Paolo e Francesca," in which he does not follow the develop- ment of the tale as told in Dante's immortal lines. In diction it has all D'Annunzio's richly- coloured splendour and sonorous harmony, its erudition reproduces faithfully the manners and environment of the epoch, but for pure human pathos it falls far below the telling of that sorrowful tale of love and woe in Dante's eight pregnant lines. In "La Figlia di Jorio " and " La Fiaccola sotto il Moggio," both weird and gruesome productions, D'Annunzio deals with the customs and charac- ter of his wild, untutored Abruzzese and Neapolitan country folk, and both on this account lend themselves to picturesque scenic effects. Picturesque, too, if less dramatic, and once again marred by an unpleasant episode which was obviously introduced as a challenge to common morality, as it is in no sense an integral necessity to the action, is " La Citta Morta." As a reading play it has passages of great lyrical beauty, as an acted play it drags a little for lack of constructive action. D'Annunzio's design was to compose a modern drama on the Literature 53 lines of ancient tragedy, imagining circumstances to-day that reproduce the Fate of the Greeks. But modem ideas and ethics are not Greek ideas and ethics, and however much we may strive to do so, we cannot really reproduce or cause others to feel the mental atmosphere of a civilization that has vanished. Certainly, despite his grave failings, his moral twist, D'Annunzio's influence has been great and also beneficial. What he has done for the theatre can be ,^***"* °^, shown perhaps more clearly when I deal Influence. ^^^^ *^i^ phase of Italy's mental life ; but there is another branch in which also he has made a big revolution, and that is in the matter of the manu- facture of his books. He has insisted on fine type, hand-made paper, artistic binding, and first-class illustrations, so that the outside as well as the inside of book or play may be a work of art. And this delicate tribute to intellectual pro- duction has, thanks to his example, become so universal that the poor paper and cheap printing of the past has almost become extinct and every book of any merit that is issued is more or less an edition-de-luxe, an edition-de-luxe, too, issued at a moderate price accessible to all purses. He has been the William Morris of Italy, and, like Morris, has revived the old founts of type, the good old patterns of binding, though, of course, being Italian, these take on a Renaissance, and not a Gothic character. It is some years now since D'Annunzio left his native Abruzzi and settled himself in the pretty little Tuscan vil- lage of Settignano, near Florence, living in a house that he has adapted and furnished in fifteenth- century style. He loves the mystic and soft serenity of the Tuscan landscape, with its grey-green olives and dark green cypresses, its climbing vines— and to this landscape he has penned some lovely verses. That Carducci and D'Annunzio both became objects of imitation goes without saying, and many of their followers are by no means despicable poets. Minor poets, too, 54 Italy of the Italians Italy has by the score, and melodious and delicate works spring from their lyre. The language itself, with its fluent vowels, its rich harmonies, its swell- Lesser Poets, ing cadence, lends itself to versification, and few Italians, no matter of what class, but can turn out graceful verse even at a moment's notice. Indeed, improvisation is a gift among high and low, and many an uncultured peasant who can neither read nor write, will pro- nounce as though by inspiration stanzas and ballads that can be put down direct to paper and are perfect in all respects. I have myself been present when an illiterate peasant, dressed as Father Christmas, handed out to each person of a large company the gift designed for him or her, of whose contents and destination he knew nothing until at the very moment of presentation, accompanying each parcel with a neatly- phrased and appropriate couplet, and even a sonnet. This, coupled with the perfectly courteous manners of the pea- santry, especially in the ancient realm of Etruria, is yet another proof of the ingrained and inherited culture of this ancient people. And the peasant, too, has found his bard and modern exponent. The only one of the Italian Parnassus who can really stand worthily beside Carducci and Giovanni D'Annunzio, and whose influence is as deep and broad, is Giovanni Pascoli. He may be defined as Italy's living Georgic poet, a direct descendant in Apollo of Virgil, not Virgil the extoller of " pious Aeneas," but Virgil, the singer of the beauties of Nature, that were to him also an inexhaustible fountain of inspiration. As yet Pascoli is little known outside his native land, per- chance because the nature of his gifts is not of a kind calculated to provoke polemics. But he is, nevertheless, a true poet by the grace of God. His songs have nothing in common with the pastoral poetry of the imaginary Arcadies that were so fashionable at one time ; they derive their impetus direct from the soil and are not seen athwart conventions and Literature 55 artifices. And in his case, too, the life explains the artist. Giovanni Pascoli was born in 1855 in the Life xn the Romagna, a province which to this day pre- serves a marked individuality. Indeed, indi- viduality is a curious and notable feature — all parts of Italy and districts and cities have almost the idiosyncrasies of human beings. " Romagna the sturdy " is the name of Pascoli's country, and certainly its inhabitants have ever been distinguished for their strength and martial spirit. To this day the Romagnoli are hospitable and fearless, just as they were when they sheltered Dante from the wrath of Florence. Their generous, deeply religious spirit is quickly moved at the sight of sorrow, and the weak appeal to their innate chivalry. And beside these traits and a hot-bloodedness that drives them into acts of vendetta, there exists a certain mystic and intangible susceptibility in these strong souls, a species of intuition of a Fate against which man cannot fight. Hence they accept silently all that life brings to them, and do not kick against the pricks. This sensibility very naturally leads them to Nature, and indeed nowhere else in Italy do even the great nobles live so close to the soil as here, enjoying the simple pleasures she can offer. Such was the mental and moral environment into which Pascoli was bom. His father was a humble factor whose murder by an unknown hand for causes never discovered, when the boy was twelve, cast a shade of tragedy over his life, and made him at one fell blow the head of a large family of children. The catastrophe broke the mother's heart and she died soon after, but not before three of her children had preceded her. The survivors, Pascoli and two sisters, clung the more closely together, and have so clung to this day, for Pascoli has never married, and probably never will. These heavy blows of fortune made him a poet. The memory of these deaths throbs through his verse, his sorrow is ever to the fore, but it is a resigned sorrow ; he does not quarrel with his Creator, he has not lost his faith. " Myricae" 56 Italy of the Italians was the title of his first book, given to the world many years after his poems had already circula- FirsnBook *^^ ^^ ■^^^* ^^^^S his friends. He defined them as mere windfalls, the fruit from the tree he hoped would come later. To Pascoli's great surprise the book met with success. Its simple character, its love of Nature, were a relief after the hot passions sung by the poets of the D'Annunzian school or the classicisms of Carducci's followers. The dominant note in this and in Pascoli's sub- sequent volumes is an invitation to love life and to bless it, since life despite all is beautiful, and it would be still more so if we did not so often spoil it wilfully for ourselves and others. Let us then gather gratefully the little herbs (Myricae) that grow beside our paths and enjoy their fragrance so fully as to exclude any desire for more potent odours. Thus Pascoli by his verse unwittingly destroyed a con- ception that has ever been deeply rooted in the Italian mind, and this is that poetry, in order to be poetical. Optimism and jnust either find its themes and its inspiration Ideahsm. . , , , • , n- t • m the past or take rhetorical flights into an imaginary and impossible Future. The present, the poets contended, is unpoetical. It was reserved to Pascoli to destroy a prejudice in the Italian mind, which in England had long been overcome by the Lake school and their followers. Pascoli's attention is centred on the present and he sings of it as he sees it, or if he deals with the future he regards it as the sphinx that awaits man at the end of his pre-ordained course, there to bestow on him the key to life's enigma. Pascoli, in short, is a serene optimist who has struck a new and well-defined note of idealism as opposed to the current Italian realism. There is a sixteenth- century classicism about his verse, though it is at the same time attentively modern in its aspirations and its humanitarianism. And yet another curious feature. Although he deals with family affections, Pascoli never writes of love in the sexual sense. Quite recently he has been elected to fill the Chair of Literature Literature 57 at Bologna left vacant by the retirement of Carducci, but in the vacation months Pascoli continues to reside in the Tuscan country-side, and above all it is Barga that he loves, a little hill-hamlet, enclosed in chestnut woods, which, despite its size, can boast a Romanesque Cathedral, and many other reminiscences of art. It is curious that novel-writing has so far, except the notable examples named, been the weakest branch of the literary revival, while poetry has been its The Place of the strongest. This is no encyclopaedia, and it Novel in the ° , t j. j. xt. Literary Revival, would be wearisome merely to enumerate the many men and also the few women who have distinguished themselves in this line. But it is certainly to be regretted that in the matter of novel-writing current Italian literature is not stronger, for themes should not be lacking, and above all it would be well to follow in the tracks laid down by Verga and deal with the very marked differences of national character that are to be found in a land where divergencies of temperament and customs are so marked as to seem at times almost impossible, when we remember that the whole country is living under one law. Between, say, Piedmont and Calabria there is a gulf fixed that repre- sents at least some five centuries of culture. One of the few who have written such regional tales is the Sardinian, Grazia Deledda. In her tales and novels the Grazia Deledda. protagonist, so to speak, is her native isle with its strange, half-savage population, speaking a weird dialect, a mixture of Spanish, Latin, and Italian, a country where the vendetta and brigandage still flourish, and where only 80 per cent, of the inhabitants can read or write. There is a rugged touch, an acrid rural savour about her work that perhaps constitutes its attraction for our jaded palates, for it must in all honesty be admitted that apart from the novelty and curious attractiveness of the milieu as works of narrative art, the merit of G. Deledda's books is not of the first order. It is, therefore, the more to 3— (2395) 58 Italy of the Italians be deplored that since her marriage with an Italian bureaucrat and her settlement in Rome she should have abandoned her own lines and have attempted to write a novel dealing with a world of which she has not sufficient knowledge. It is to be hoped that she will recognise her error and return in thought to her attractive and little-known rocky island and give the world another book such as " Anime Oneste," pictur- ing the quiet family life of a petty burgher in Sardinia, or one like " Elias Portolu," in which the struggles between love and a religious vocation in a passionate, strong peasant nature is depicted with real force. Very wisely G. Deledda does not carry the use of dialect to extremes ; her books are therefore readable for foreigners. An author whom foreigners can also read with ease, as his style is limpid and he avoids the archaisms of the D'Annunzian school, is Salvatore Farina, Salvatore ^j^q Yias, perhaps a little incongruously, been called the Italian Dickens. Farina's books are always pure in theme and intention, he exalts family life and honest work, he possesses a gentle humour and a genial kindliness, and when he instructs and admonishes he does not do so in a pedagogic spirit. His book " Mio Figlio," the life-story of a youth from babyhood to manhood, is a gem in its special line, and is also interesting and instructive for the side-lights it casts upon the course of daily life led by middle-class Italian families of the north. Of a different type is Gerolamo Rovetta, whose romances, besides the usual social themes modelled on French examples, are incisive indictments of the course of (^rolamo public events in Italy. The colours are laid on with a heavy hand, and we hope that much is an exaggeration. Still, such works cannot but be helpful to a young nation. Of these books the most notable is " Barconda " and " Mater Dolorosa." He has also written some stirring plays dealing with Italian history during the time of the Austrian occupation. Literature 59 A lively dialogue and rapid action distinguishes the works of Francesco de Roberto, who would be noteworthy could he liberate himself from the themes of illicit d^^R^b^^T ^°^^* ^^ ^^ strange that while in other European countries the fact that the passion of love does not form the only element of romance and motive force of action, indeed in the life of man is growing to be more and more incidental and of passing moment, Italian writers are still more or less hide-bound in this convention. They do not take into account the vast extension of the sphere of human interests. It is but fair, perhaps, to add that in Italy, where as yet political, social and philanthropic life does not play the preponderating part it does in England, these questions and problems assume disproportionate proportions. But it is for these reasons that, with the exceptions noted, Italian novels do not present great attrac- tions for foreign readers. They give them little that is new or original. The local novel, the novel of manners, is certainly not yet acclimatized in Italy. It would almost seem as if the writing of long and carefully-thought-out romances, as distinguished from short tales, in which in the past they so excelled, was alien to the genius of the Italian people. This monotonous restriction of theme to a single passion is certainly to be regretted. Perhaps it is a Latin failing. It has been well pointed out that the English novel lives by character, the French by situation. This accusation might sound severe were it not so amply compensated for in the domain of poetry and the drama. Here the Italians are strong and original, and Novelists here, curiously enough, where one would most expect it, love is not the predominant theme. Italy has living poets who do not sing of love, and dramatists who have comprehended the dramatic staleness of the theme. Indeed, to return for a while to the poets, it is hard to know which to speak of and which we can afford to omit. Their work almost without exception has the merit 60 Italy of the Italians of being individual and expressive of the personality of the writer. To those who can read Itahan a volume by Eugenia Levi, " I Nostri Poeti Viventi," is to be highly commended ; for those who cannot, a volume entitled " Italian Lyrists of To-day," by G. A. Greene. In modern Italy, in contradistinction to other lands, literature can show no dominant school or tendency. Every writer has his own artistic ideal and promulgates it without fear. The various aspects of literary art are, therefore, represented by the various writers. Beside the best-known men there stand a whole array of really excellent poets. It has been contended that man liberates himself intellectually by either dreaming of vice or of virtue, and by rendering real to himself the one or the other. Foremost among those attracted by a dream of vice, but who nevertheless have given a new impetus to Italian literature, st^'^h'tf stands Olindo Guerrini, better known by his pseudonym of Lorenzo Stecchetti. He pos- sesses a spontaneous poetic vein and a delicacy of workman- ship. He might have become a great singer despite his exaggerated cynicism and his Bohemian pose, had he not disgusted the public by audacious immoralities. Still, his " La Nuova Polemica " and " Postuma " will live, for they contain poems that are masterpieces in their lines, even though they are scarcely adapted for family reading. The instant attention that the first volume, " Postuma," met with, was in part, but only in part, due to a literary trick. Guerrini pretended that these poems, which he published in 1877, were scattered verse left by a dead cousin who desired as his last request that his works might see the light. The em- bittered literary controversy they provoked was remarkable even in a land where such academic discussions are conducted with fierce ardour. And so, too, was their influence. His followers and imitators were legion, some by no means of despicable merit. As opposed to Stecchetti, as a man whose ideal is virtue Literature 61 rather than vice, stands Antonio Fogazzaro, the leader of a spiritual reaction. To judge him aright it Ideals of must be remembered that he is not only a Fogazzaro. P^^^ ^^^ ^ novelist, but that he has evolved for himself a system of religious, metaphysical, aesthetic and political ideas and ideals. He is so fervently Catholic as to believe in Papal infallibility : yet at the same time he is animated by a sincere desire to conciliate confhcting creeds and social aims. Thus, he holds that the Darwinian theories can be used for the conciliation of faith with science. While not opposed to the natural expression of passion, he endeavours to keep sensuality in check and by idealising emotion to bring it closer to his conception of spiritual life. In politics he holds with the Christian Democrats : he desires to see the Church animated by a patriotism that should unite the wealthier classes with the poorer. Aesthetically, he holds that art should tend towards ethics, like Ruskin, and is opposed to art for arts' own sake. He has been called a " Paladin of the spirit." Certainly the spirit that animates him is scarcely one that the Italian character comprehends or loves. It is too Northern and mystic for their clear-cut logical intelligences, which incline little to dreaming. The first of his books to attract notice was " Malombra," a tale in which spiritualism played a large part, an entirely new note at the time in Italian literature. ^*^* d D tv^* ^^ ^^ written half in a credulous, half in a medical spirit, and was the first word that penetrated across the Alps of that Theosophic and occult propaganda which is now finding a few followers in the Peninsula. It was succeeded by " Daniele Cortis," designed to deal with the writer's views concerning conflicts between love and duty, which for the first time in modern Italian literature upheld the doctrine that, despite the Papal veto, a man could be a good Catholic and serve his country in the Chamber. In " Piccolo Mondo Moderno " this same thesis of love versus duty recurs under a different name and changed 62 Italy of the Italians social conditions. The relations between the lovers is some- what amusingly summed up in a scene where the woman puts up her mouth to be kissed but at the same time prudently keeps her finger on the button of the electric bell. This novel besides being a story, is also something of a tractate on marriage and the relations of the sexes as regarded by Theol- ogy, a form of romance not much liked in Italy, where thesis novels and sermonizing romances are but scantily appreciated. It would not be possible to imagine an Italian " Robert Elsmere " or " John Inglesant." The Italian likes his pleasures pure and unmixed, and the intrusion of theological speculations and ethical discussions affords him little pleasure. "II Mistero del Poeta" was much too nebulous and senti- mental for Italian taste, but pleased greatly when published in German. Indeed, it reads rather like a German tale for young ladies. Fogazzaro's strongest work is unquestionably his " Piccolo Mondo Antico." Finely con- Fogazzaro's ceived and developed is the contrast between " husband and wife, she a woman devoid of faith, but of high moral force, and endowed with a great sentiment of justice ; he a fervent believer, but impressionable and weak. The action is laid during the wars of Italy's political resurrection, which permits of some fine descriptions of scenery. Misfortune and evil persecute the couple, Franco and Luisa, bringing into ever sharper relief the contrasts of their fundamental Ego. When their only little girl dies, drowned almost before their eyes, this sorrow proves the touchstone of their respective souls. Luisa, the strong, loses all vigour of character and becomes almost demented, while Franco shows an energy which none believed him to possess. In Franco is symbolized the type of the believer, generally weak, but who in supreme moments extracts energy from his faith. " Piccolo Mondo Antico " has some affinities with Manzoni's famous " Promessi Sposi." Here, too, the essential essence of justice and of rebellion is placed in juxtaposition. In this novel Fogazzaro shows, as elsewhere too, that he Literature 63 possesses a gently comic vein, thus often creating situations of exquisite humour. His latest work " II Santo," a sequel to " Piccolo Mondo Maderno," has drawn down upon him the condemnation of the Church of Rome, which has placed the book upon the Index. Fogazzaro in this novel deals at great length with current ecclesiastical problems, advo- cating a change and purification of methods. He has also once more emphasized, what he holds to be a crying need for Italy, namely that the civil and ecclesiastical authorities should no longer stand in antagonistic attitudes towards each other, but should work in harmony for the common welfare. In his poems, as in his prose works, he is the bard of hope and faith. " Miranda " is a romance in verse, but he has also written simple lyrics, republished as a collection, poems in which form on which Italians lay so much stress, is perhaps a little neglected, but which are dominated by a delicacy of touch and sentiment and also by a love of Nature, in a Northern rather than a Southern sense, that is to say, a manner of treating Nature subjectively rather than objectively. He is a profound believer, and Nature is both vivified and made mystical to him by its ever-present suggestion of an unknown influence above and outside her. Indeed, Fogazzaro is a north Italian, and this makes itself felt in all he writes. His home is near to those Italian lakes he loves so well and of which he writes so much, and his ideals are northern rather than southern. For in Italy, owing to its geographical conformation this regionalism is a factor that has to be reckoned with in all manifestations of intellectual life. To turn from the mystical Fogazzaro to the realist Giovanni Verga is to pass from a dim religious twilight to the fierce glory of a Southern sun. Verga runs a rich Giovanni Verga. kaleidoscope of brilliant colours before our eyes. The subject matter of his earlier novels is trivial, and had he only written these he would not have attained to his present high position. They deal with the spasms of sensual love in conflict with social conditions. His 64 Italy of the Italians heroines are all lascivious, fantastic creatures of insatiable desire, and the men who love them are of the hot-blooded Southern temperament. In this period of Verga's develop- ment he was subjected to the influence of the French. His own art was not yet ripe, although he was already an expert in rendering all the varied aspects of passion. In 1882 he took a higher flight. Realism was claiming him for its own : and with this change begins the best period of his art. But his realism is different from that of Zola or Maupassant. He is one of those in whom realism is a merit, since he employed it to present the vivid impressions made by his native Sicily. With the fidelity of a dispassionate observer, and the skill of a rare artist, he brings before us the men and women of that exquisite but unhappy island, still suffering from the results of centuries of mis-rule, and unrolls a series of tragic or piteous tales of long-nurtured or sudden love passions, of love, of ferocity, of vengeance, of struggles and contests of every kind. These tales, " Vita dei SicminLife Campi " and " Novelle Rusticana," dealing with the manners and humours of Sicilian existsnce, told with brevity, with illuminating lightning flashes of insight, will survive as valuable documents for the social history of Sicily even after the conditions they depict have yielded to progress. Each is a little masterpiece in its own line and one, " Cavalleria Rusticana," is familiar all the world over because of its musical setting by Pietro Mascagni. These Sicilian peasant tales form an interesting contrast to George Sand's idyllic pictures of the life of the Berri rustics. Nor did Verga rest content to deal with his native compatriots in such comparatively brief compass. He also began a sequence of romances that were to treat in complexity of the local conditions. " I Vinti " was to be the comprehensive title of a series, planned on the lines of the " Rougon Macquart." It was to deal with the weak who had fallen by life's wayside, men who had lost courage, who bowed their heads passively and fatalistically. Its central thesis is that Photo by Giacomo Bivgi, Florence MATILDE SERAO Literature 65 mankind is not divided into the traditional classes but only into victors and vanquished, that all must either be hammer or anvil. This idea is not new in literature, but it has not been treated quite in Verga's manner and certainly not in Verga's milieu. The first of the series was " Malavoglia," narrating the misfortunes pursuing a family of poor fishermen. It was followed by " Mastro Don Gesualdo," a vigorous picture of the new bourgeoisie that is arising in Sicily, that classic land of nobles and peasants, where until recently there was no middle-class. It traces the social ascent of a man of the people and the decadence of a noble house, who had become his victims. Both novels are penetrated with a potent spirit of justice, and are so really remarkable that it is deeply to be deplored that they met with so little financial success, that the author abandoned their continuation and returned instead to the more profitable but less valuable descriptions of the Milanese fashionable Milanese Tales, world to live amid which he has deserted the pyramidal shadow of his native Etna. But whether writing these less characteristic tales, or those treating of the Golden Isle, Verga is ever a realist whose realism has a healthy character. His human beings are sympathetically presented, even when they are miserable or vile. We feel he does not despair of his fellow men, that misery and oppression cannot and will not for ever be their portion. Yet another follower of the realist school and far more influenced by French examples is Matilde Serao, a Greek by birth and maternal ancestry, a Neapolitan on Matilde Serao. the paternal side and by residence and educa- tion. Her father lived by his wits, chiefly as a journeyman journalist, and hence the surroundings amid which her youth were passed acquainted her with much misery, with many sorry expedients, with the moral and social atmosphere of the Neapolitan lower middle class and of the populace that crowds in its narrow, fetid alleys. Endowed with keen powers of observation and a quick, limpid and living 66 Italy of the Italians intelligence, she understands how to transcribe with precision and freshness the sentiments and impressions provoked by her circumstances. Full of tender indulgence towards the unfortunate, she sympathises with their sufferings ; above all she has a profound comprehension of the Italian woman, especially of the southern woman, with her quick response to all manifestations of love. Thus her art reflects the true Neapolitan environment, which is a strange compound of transports and sentiment. In her descriptive parts she is minute to a fault but also so true and graphic that in her case prolixity becomes almost a virtue. Her career commenced in a newspaper office, where she revealed her rare powers by writing short sketches of Neapol- itan life. They were followed by "II Romanzo delle FanciuUe," in which were exposed all the petty but none the less poignant life-dramas of a whole succession of girls of different social classes. Rather of the same "Fantasia." character are the longer novels, " Fantasia" and " Cuore Infermo." The former is a story of that pathological nature beloved by a certain section of the modern school. Here we have to do with one of those nervous, hysterical, sentimental, and yet cold-blooded creatures, which to our shame be it spoken, are a type of our age and a special outcome of our civilization. Lucia, the heroine, is closely related to Madame Bovary, with whom she shares both religious ecstasy and moral weakness. Like Madame Bovary, she is a mistress in the art of posing to herself and the world, and lets herself be misled by her own fantasies. In short, she is a person whose responsibility for her actions we should be almost inclined to question. The action is laid in a Neapolitan convent-school, which gives the author an opportunity of showing up some of the worst sides of the Church educational system. The action, as it develops, could perhaps have occurred only in the hot-blooded South, but it is no reproach to the writer to say this, for it proves how thoroughly she understands the temperament of her own Literature 67 people. It is not the least of Matilde Serao's merits that she is devoid of prejudices, and that she treats each psychological problem as it presents itself from an entirely im.partial stand- point. On the other hand, she never defends immorality. On the contrary, she plainly demonstrates the errors into which man falls when he strays from the straight paths of virtue. Hence her tales are more efficacious than many a sermon, and far better than the purposely moral tale in which the reader is ever aware of the uplifted forefinger of the Mentor. That her processes of analysis of the human soul are almost microscopic in their minuteness "Cuore^ she has shown also in " Cuore Infermo." The book lays bare before us a living, palpitat- ing human heart, a heart that is ill morally and physically, and the kernel of the story is flavoured by the combats and counter-combats of this heart in its physical and psychical aspects, in which the emotions of the one are fatal to the well-being of the other, and one has ultimately of necessity to destroy the other. In the end love conquers prudence with the result that the heroine, who fought against all deeper feelings and emotions, in order to preserve her physical heart intact, succumbs to her hereditary malady of heart-disease after some brief weeks of wedded happiness. This somewhat pathological narrative is related as a tense psychological study, a delicate and powerful piece of workmanship, which curiously enough outside of Italy has not met with the full recognition it deserves, when less valuable romances by the same writer have met with the honour of translation into almost every civilized language. The story is saved from being too painful by the most exquisite subtlety and delicacy of handling. In " La Conquista di Roma " the writer graphic- ally makes manifest the curious fascination that a huge city exercises. A man who has lived in the „^,.^^°V^,°! distant wilds of the Basilicata, and is full of Political Life. . , , . , , ^^ , ardent ideals, is elected Deputy and goes up to the capital in the confidence that he will become a great 68 Italy of the Italians moral force in the Chamber, without taking into account that potent defensive weapon of indifference, which guards every metropolis against similar ambitions. All too soon he is disillusioned, and an unfortunate love-affair combined with his political self-deception routs him entirely ; saddened and disheartened he hands in his resignation and returns to vegetate in his native province. Had the element of illicit love been omitted, and his disillusionment been made to spring solely from his political fiasco, the book would have been more convincing ; for, as it is, we may incline to think that had he not been led away by his passions, his earnest patriot- ism might have obtained for him a place, even if not so high a place as his ambition dreamed. But had this element of love, and especially illicit love, been omitted, it would not have been a novel by Matilde Serao, or, for the matter of that, an Italian novel, for the sensuous and sensual element exerts what is, to Northern ideas, an unduly preponderating part in Italian life and thought. In yet another book, " La Vita di Riccardo Joanna," is demonstrated the terrible Tale f attraction exerted by journalism and the Journalism and tumultuous vari-coloured and fatiguing life the Lottery led by those who exercise this profession, °° ^' especially in Italy, where the Fourth Estate is heavily worked, poorly remunerated, and held in small social esteem. In "II Paese di Cucagna " Matilde Serao treats of the Lotto and all that terrible Government gambling institution means for Italy, and above all for Naples and the poorer South. We see and hear the dense multitude that assembles every Saturday at two o'clock before the lottery booths, where the numbers drawn are posted up, rejoicing, imprecating, blaspheming, for or against their fate, caressing or cursing the magicians or witch doctors who have suggested to them good or bad numbers on which to play and stake their little all. It is this book which Paul Bourget caused his wife to translate, himself writing an introduction for the French public. He praises the writer's wonderful power of Literature 69 reproducing the very atmosphere that envelopes her characters, so that some of her pages can be placed beside those of that master of this art, the Russian Dostojewsky. In lauding her splendid capacity of causing masses to live in her pages he compares certain portions to the closely-packed multitudes seen in the frescoes by the fifteenth-century masters, such as Ghirland9.jo and Benozzo Gozzoli. Matilde Serao is so fertile that it is not possible in our limits to deal with all her books. Recently she deviated somewhat from naturalism, perchance due to A Departure Fogazzaro's influence, and has produced Naturalism, works in which a hybrid and rather maudlin mysticism predominates. To this departure we owe " II Paese di Gesu," the record of a visit paid to Palestine in fulfilment of a vow made to the Madonna, and a few works of like import and small value. But this phase has not proved of long duration, for Matilde Serao has recently published a novel of the old type, " Suor Giovanna della Croce," whose purpose is to arouse sympathy for the nuns whom the suppression of convents has thrown helpless onto the world. But Matilde Serao is remarkable in yet another respect: she is not only a first-class journalist, A Brilliant ^^^ ^-^e is the first and only woman in Italy who has founded and runs successfully a daily political paper. This paper, " II Mattino," is published at Naples, and as a rule supports the Government in power. Among women writers Matilde Serao undoubtedly takes the first place, and she alone has conquered the prejudice felt by the Italian public against female writers. Special and local reasons account for this prejudice, which is being slowly overcome as women become better educated and give proof of power, but which will fight hard, and perchance never entirely die out in a land where woman is looked upon as a man's toy, and has few social and civil rights. For these causes, too, there is no literature, properly so-called, for young girls. Only sickly, feeble, falsely sentimental rubbish is 70 Italy of the Italians penned for their perusal. Literature for children is also a strangely neglected branch. This explains the great success achieved by De Amicis' "Cuore," a book for boys about boys, which most healthy-minded Anglo-Saxon lads would, we fear, dismiss with the term " Twaddle." Indeed, to a Northern mind it is not easy to comprehend the great de AirUds success that Edmondo de Amicis has achieved. A young officer of barely 20 when the new Italian State was in course of formation, it was natural that he should have become enamoured of the Army, the symbol and hope of the nation that was taking birth. Hence his first productions dealt with this theme and achieved instant success. Already in these first books, " Vita Militare," " Ricordi," and " Novelle," was manifest De Amicis' tendency to teach and preach. They aimed at showing that the Army and the nation should be united and that the heart of man is not sterilized by discipline. In these as in all his subsequent books his facility of speech often degenerated into prolixity. Clever and graphic descriptions are their main characteristics. From military tales De Amicis turned to travels, and here again his powers of minute obseryation stood him in good stead, but his observation rarely penetrates the surface, he does not illuminate, he does not make us understand the deeper meaning of a people and a landscape. He is essentially a delineator of mediocre intelligence whose defects are hidden by an elegant, easy style. In a book two volumes in length, entitled " Gli Amici," he unrolls a series of various types of friends, moralizing concerning them. This same tendency to over-minute description of minutiae pervades " II Romanzo di un Maestro," in which the difficulties of an elementary schoolmaster's life in Italian hamlets are presented with much truth. In " Sull' Oceano," too, he moralizes concerning the increase of Italian emigration, but without touching the real, deeper causes that provoke this exodus, and without entering upon the politico-economic questions that must be envisaged to treat adequately of this terrible social sore. In 1891 Literature 71 De Amicis, who had hitherto been a moderate Liberal, sud- denly became a convert to Socialism, and thereupon wrote a number of pamphlets to propagate his new creed. But here, too, all his reasoning was superficial and he dealt with none of the scientific problems that Socialism presents. To this period belongs " La Carrozza di Tutti," a diary of twelve months' study of men and women met daily in an omnibus. His last book, like all his works, has gone into many editions, a sign that he hits the taste of a large section of his countrymen. It is called " L'Idioma Gentile." In it he advocates, and rightly, that the Italians should cultivate their lovely language with greater care and should not allow it to become defaced with Gallicisms and provincialisms. But here again where his theme is good, his method of treatment is intolerably diffuse. Briefly, De Amicis is an intellectual bourgeois, with all the merits and the defects of that social class. A word must still be said of the woman singer whose sudden advent on the lyrical horizon created a stir that re-echoed even outside the confines of Italy. Ada ^Ad ^"n ^^ °^ Negri, a little elementary school teacher in a tiny North Italian mountain hamlet, surprised the world by her volume " Fatality," in which she sings with simple spontaneity of the sorrows and miseries of the workers of the soil and the factory hands. The metres are not always perfect, the fundamental ideas not new, but an accent of sincerity, of deep pathos, of sympathetic com- prehension, pervades each poem. The same applies to her second volume, " Tempeste," in which the grinding, squalid lives of the poor were presented with incisive force. Verses written under such peculiar circumstances aroused interest for their author. She was transferred to a better-paying city school, and finally married a rich factory-owner, and was able to put her benevolent theories into practice. For a long while after her marriage her Muse was silent. Finally, however, she put forth a new volume called " Maternita," in which the joys and sorrows of motherhood are treated of 72 Italy of the Italians with a woman's deep intuition and delicate hand. Whether she will do much more, the future alone can show. Ada Negri's lyre has but few strings, but those it'has ring true and command attention. Another of the younger writers of whom on his first appear- ance on the literary horizon John Addington Symonds prophesied great things, is E. A. Butti. His B °tt "^ novels,, few in number, deal with psychological problems, but what renders him chiefly interesting is the fact that he is in the vanguard of that idealistic movement of which the new century is witnessing an inception in Italy, and which it is to be hoped will prove the death-knell of that school of uncleanness and lubricity of which D'Annunzio is the leader. Indeed were I asked to define in a sentence the trend of the latest thought in Italy, I should say that it is marked by a breath of that new Idealism that is making itself felt more or less in the literatures of all European countries. And these new ideals are manifesting themselves not only in letters but in Art, in Science, and in Life. E. A. Butti is still not so widely known as he deserves to be, yet every new work from his pen arouses the keenest discussion, a fact that in itself proves that he is alive and touches life at its most vital point. An indomitable wrestler, a convinced believer, he advances his views with the un- daunted conviction of an Apostle, and slowly but surely he is gaining a following. Every new work of his is a war-cry which always arouses respect even if it does not win universal applause. His first novel, " L'Autome," was already in the nature of a challenge. Its hero is one of those dilettante of life and art of which our era furnishes but too many examples, a neurotic whose actions are determined rather by his nervous impulses than by his reason or his principles. It was followed by " L'Anima," and in the interval of writing the two books it is evident that the author has wakened to the fact that all on this earth cannot be explained by science and materialism. The very title. The Soul, proves this. The hero is a scientist Literature 73 and a materialist by conviction. A terrible illness forces him to revise his creed. He says "It is a narrow, dark prison without a door of egress to which science would fain confine us. It is impossible it should content Mankind, it is im- possible that Man should struggle, suffer and sacrifice himself in the mere expectation of Death, . . . Truth, absolute Truth, begins precisely where our wisdom ends." The spiritual evolution of a thinker spirit who loses his faith in Matter and finds that Positivism is a limited and superficial theory, that the world cannot begin and end at the confines of human experience, is more than a work of art ; it is a sign of the times. The succeeding novel, " L'Incantesimo," is a demonstration of those contrasts and contradictions so often seen in the lives of superior men. After this book Butti turned his attention to the stage and in the section that treats of the theatre we shall meet with him again. Many and many names of excellent writers of verse and prose spring to my memory, but this chapter is not intended to be all-embracing. It only wishes to furnish Bjography gome idea of the character and trend of and History. • . , modern Italian literary thought. Of critical studies, of biographies, of histories there is no lack, but few if any of these books can be said to attain to the dignity of pure literature, few if any are of that enduring type that would cause them to be read for their own sake apart from their themes. It is a curious fact, that hardly seems to fit in with the Italian temperament, that the more serious writers develop a pedantry of style and treatment such as we should rather look for among the learned Germans than among the more light-hearted and artistic: Italians. To exiguous details of their national story vast tomes are dedica- ted. Undue stress is laid upon matters of secondary import- ance, there is none of that light handling and comprehensive generalization peculiar to the French. They are apt to look at matters too much in detail and not enough in the mass. They confound the secondary with the essential, 6— (2395) 74 Italy of the Italians and lack individuality of touch and thought. Hence these products belong rather to the category of books of reference. Their authors are diligent, painstaking, sensible, but as a rule their power of synthesis is slender and their work will live rather as furnishing material for other craftsmen than for its own intrinsic merits. In all branches of social life organization and generalization are weak points with the Italians. It is curious to note how this defect makes itself felt also in those literary departments in which great and permanent work might be achieved. An exception to this censure is to be met with in the volume dealing with " Young Europe," written by the brilliant young criminal anthropolo- gist, Guglielmo Ferrero, who is also now issuing a History of Rome (now being translated into English), where a notable departure is made from conventional historic methods. In literature for the young, Italy lags far behind and cannot compare with England or America or Germany. It would almost seem as though the Latin mind could ^° Youn"^ *^® not, after maturity, regain its childish simplicity, for in France and Spain, too, children's literature is feebly represented. The few books that do exist in Italian are of a sickly sentimentality or assume a didactic character. " Pinocchio," by C. Collodi, and delightfully illustrated by C. Mazzanti (translated into English under the title " The Story of a Puppet ") stands almost alone as a child classic. We find here none of those tales that inculcate a love of animals, such as are so common in England, if we except " Una famiglia di Topi," by Contessa Lara (Eva Cattermole Macini), herself more English than Italian. On the other hand, a branch in which Italian literature is strong is dialect poetry. For though Tuscan, itself once only a dialect until Dante consecrated it as the Dialect Poetry, spoken and written literary speech, is the official Italian of letters and life, each province still preserves its special methods of speech, which in some Literature 75 cases are so far removed from written Italian that it is impos- sible not only for a foreigner but also for a native to understand them. Neapolitan, with its curious admixture of consonants, which in print almost look like Welsh ; Genoese, with its Spanish- Arabic forms ; Milanese with its clipped words and witty locutions may be given as examples. Each dialect seems to render the characteristics of the province in which it is spoken. All of them are still spoken, and not only by the people but by all classes of society. Many Italians have to learn their own language just like any foreigner and speak it with some hesitation, scarcely as though it were their mother tongue. A true artist on these lines is Cesare Pascarella who has narrated in a series of most witty sonnets in the Roman dialect the history of the discovery of America by Columbus. A natural gaiety and graceful satire distinguish the verses of Augusto Sindici, also a Roman, whose verses embody the legends of the Campagna. Excellent, too, are two Neapolitans, Salvatore di Giacomo, whose poems are imbued with the curious melancholy that runs through the Neapolitan character, and Ferdinand Russo, who, by contrast, shows forth their merry and witty side. In the Pisan dialect Renato Fucini has enshrined many of his experiences as school inspector, experiences that he has also told with inimit- able verse and good humour in his short tales of Tuscan life, Alfredo Testoni reflects the briskness of the Bolognese tem- perament, and Barbarani the heavy melancholy of Verona, touched already by the sombreness of the north. I have given a rapid, almost kaleidoscopic survey of modern Italian literature. Amid so much diversity there is only one point of unity and that is the inborn love Love of Form ^f ^^^ Italian writers for form and finish. It and rinisn. . . . has been said that what is not clear is not French : it can be added that what is not refined is not Italian. This tendency to artistic perfection may conceal some dangers, but it at least preserves Literature from that writing down to the taste of the mass that is so deplorable 76 Italy of the Italians a feature of our democratic age. Literature in Italy seeks to elevate and draw its readers into serener and more classic spheres. It knows no slang, it tolerates no bad grammar, it exacts much from itself but it also demands something from its readers. And thus, despite all the deficiencies that have been pointed out, it is a power in the land and contributes to its mental elevation. CHAPTER IV THE PAINTERS There are certain stock phrases with which the tourist comes ready armed to Italy, and one runs " There is no modern Italian art." The date named at which this Modern ^^^ came to an end, whether with the Venetian Tiepolo, or with Michel Angelo, depends upon the art critic upon whom the speaker pins his blind faith, whether he be called Ruskin, Morelli, or some of the minor lights. Now, this stock phrase, like most parrot utterances, is both absurd and incorrect. It is true that art, like all else, was at a low ebb during the storm and stress period of the nation's political resurrection, but what the people who repeat this sentence ad nauseam forget is that this was thirty odd years, that is, a whole generation ago, and that in the meanwhile Italians have had time to learn and to reassert themselves in the domain in which they once held undisputed sway. Of course, modem Italian art has nothing in common with the ancients. That must at once be realized and understood. On the other hand, in what other land is this the case ? Do we not all adapt ourselves to the demands and requirements of our time. Why, therefore, ask from Italians that which would be an anachronism and an absurdity ? Is it not rather to their credit that they have striven to strike out fresh path- ways and do not attempt to walk in the footsteps of their glorious ancestors ? Yet, once again, the tourist is unfair. The six International Art Exhibitions that have been held in Venice every other year since 1895 have admirably served to show the world how and where Italy stands. They have also been useful to the Italians as helping them to measure 78 Italy of the Italians themselves against their foreign rivals with excellent and healthful results. It is true that if we judged from the local exhibitions and the shop windows some fifteen or twenty years ago the aspect of modern Italian art was discouraging. A \A^ntmg in school of clever painters had adopted a style of subject which, though taking and pictorial, was debased and trivial. The revels of soldiers and the rabble generally, the orgies of friars in the cellars of convents among huge tuns of wine, that made dark and mys- terious backgrounds, and other such devices, occupied their time and their often brilliant talents. The powerful realism which made the work of the Dutch painters in something of the same line of subject immortal, was wanting in the work of the Italians. Their soldiers, peasants, friars, and inn- servants were not real creatures to the manner born. They were rather models dressed up to represent such personages and wanting in the one indispensable quality of art that is to last, namely, reality. But this phase, though it still survives somewhat, since it has been proved to find a sale among a certain class of tourists, is happily on the wane, and even while it was at its height better things were being executed, though less ostentatiously and with less pecuniary success. And here it is necessary at once to state that the regionalism, the provincialism, that is so fatal an element in Italian politics, also exists in the realms of art ; the Provincialism Venetian Art Exhibitions have, indeed, rather Art Exhibitions, emphasized than discouraged this by assigning special rooms to each province for its exhibi- tion. This is the more regrettable because signs are not lacking that these distinctions are in many respects about to disappear and to be merged into a renovated modern Italian art that shall hold high its banner of idealism, proving that in this domain too the sons are not so wholly unworthy of their sires as ignorant or prejudiced critics would hjive us believe, The Painters 79 For the moment, therefore, it is more convenient to follow the accepted divisions, the more so as undoubtedly each region has its characteristic local colour, that has by no means yet been obliterated ; though from all these, when fused together, there does emerge a note that may be said to adumbrate a national character. The revival of modern Italian art began at about the same epoch in Naples, Lombardy, and Tuscany. It was, however, curiously enough in Naples, still under the The Influence of dominion of the miserable Bourbon kings, ^MorenL° that there arose the man who fought poor and single-handed against the three prime articles of artistic faith held in that age of political despotism, pedantry, servility and bigotry. Domenico Morelli has lately passed over to the great majority, but his influence remains. With one accord he will be named as the leader of the Southern school. He is not only the man who has given it its direction, but he has also modified not a little all the other Italian schools. His name is known through all the length and breadth of the Peninsula, and there are partisans for and against his art to whom his very name is the signal for a hot combat, after the manner of the Guelph and Ghibelline. But it is the modern spirit that has conquered. It is, perhaps, well here to point out at once that the Neapolitan school of art has at all periods held traditions diverse from those that obtain in the rest ^^"^ Schoof'^^ of Italy. Probably the admixture of Greek blood in its population, the free life of the Abruzzi districts, the wild and romantic scenery of Calabria have conduced to this. Certainly there has always existed in this school much of the wild romanticism of southern brio, southern light-heartedness and gaiety and southern warmth and colour. Witnesses to the truth of this statement are Salvator Rosa, Luca Giordano, and Ribera, those fiery and audacious intelligences who placed imagination and tone above form. Something of this spirit survives in their 80 Italy of the Italians descendants and in no place is Italian art to-day more alive and active than in the city of enchantment that lies beside the lovely island-guarded, volcano -flanked gulf. Often extrav- agant in its exuberant fantasy, unfinished in its creative impetuosity, Neapolitan art nevertheless sings, dances and laughs in a bacchanalian orgy of colour and pleasure, of fervid sunshine and perfume that accords well with its cradle and its surroundings. Diverse in its forms of manifestation, one identical note distinguishes it, namely, colour, splendid, true and potent. To these traditions Morelli proved true. Colour and light were his chief modes of expression and hence his works lend themselves ill to reproduction. He was one M^*^^U^ °^ of the few artists, too, who fully recognised that Art, in order to be truly wide and great must go hand in hand with literature which supplies it with food for thought and fancy. It was the poets, but above all the English Byron, who inspired the pictures of his youth. It was the Bible that was the inspiration of all his later and finest work. Italian Art, above all other, found its source of inspiration in the sacred writings, and its pictures were some of the most potent auxiliaries of religion. With the decline of faith there was also a decline of Art, and now that we have entered another era. Art finds that the new ideals of humanity do not lend themselves sympathetically to its mode of expression ; we lament, and not without reason, that it wanders aimlessly without ideals or thoughts. Hence it was Morelli who recalled Art to sacred themes, and in so doing he has not, like English and French painters, followed in the beaten track ; instead, availing himself of the researches of modern criticism, of enlarged historical knowledge, he has succeeded instead in reproducing the Bible under a new aspect. His is no conventional treatment, as will be readily understood when I say that in Italy he is regarded as the Renan and Strauss of sacred Art. Following in the paths indicated by modern exegetical literature, he has striven not The Painters 81 to destroy, but to re-interpret the Gospel story in a manner no less poetical, no less divine, than that of his predecessors, but in a manner that has its roots in modern life. And surely it is right that artists should follow in the new paths opened out to them by science and history. True, Th^ophile Gautier lays it down as an axiom, " En Art il n'y a pas de progrds." Not progress perhaps, but may it not be possible to produce a condition as good as the old, and since it is the feeling of the time that calls it forth, in that respect better, as more fitted to our comprehension. Or would he establish it as our duty merely to re-copy the work already done, to put forth servile imitations and vapid reproductions of old-world feelings and conceptions ? As Byron was the ideal of the youth Morelli, so the Gospel was the ideal of the man. He searched the New Testament deeply, sympathetically, critically, and thought intimately into the times and the life of Jesus. From the day that he first commenced this study it was his high aspiration to illustrate it by his paintings, but it was some time ere he held himself sufficiently ripe. When Morelli first presented the Mother of the Redeemer under a human form, his picture created a vast sensation, not only among Art circles, but among the ^" faithful. This Madonna, they readily saw. Madonna. ^^^ unlike to those of Raphael or Fra Bartolomeo ; she had little affinity with German or Byzantine Virgins, none with those of Botticelli and otTier great Italians. Morelli alone could claim this beautiful Hebrew woman, in whose veins ran warm Southern blood, as a direct descendant from his Madonna of the Assump- tion. At one blow the artist had broken down the chains of tradition, and this because he had followed history, not ecclesiastical legend ; and so his Virgin was maid again in lieu of a fleshless, soulless being. Here, humanised, was seen the Rosa Mystica of Heaven as a young, proud, loving mother, earthy, and yet not wholly of the earth, neither she nor her 82 Italy of the Italians babe. It was divinity and humanity fused into one, and, at first, and even to this day, the critics have failed to follow Morelli's recondite fancies or do full justice to his poetical conception. Thus, in the " Salve Regina," the Virgin presses her baby to her breast and closes her eyes in very ecstasy of happiness. The outer world has nothing to reveal to her vision ; her joy is all within, and she seeks to taste it unimpeded by impressions from without. The idea was perhaps too subtle for pictorial expression, and suited alone for literary exposition. Indeed, Morelli not unfrequently sins in this respect against the laws laid down by Lessing in his •' Laocoon." Incapable of understanding, however, a large body of critics declared that the Virgin was asleep, and only the more delicate-souled apprehended what the artist had sought to express. All, however, concurred in praising the Child, who uprises secure and firm from the maternal embrace, while in His eyes flash signs of that potency, that divine charity and yearning which is the eternal beauty of the babe in Raphael's " San Sisto " Virgin, and which expresses here and there that this infant, more than a mere human child, is wrapt in thoughts that triumph above maternal caresses. It has been said that many of Morelli's pictures should be set to music rather than described. They touch just that borderland of the indefinite that is the domain of music, and which escapes under the clumsier touches of literature and Art. One of Morelli's finest as well as most characteristic works is the " Assumption " he has painted for the roof of the Royal Chapel at Naples. In this picture his Morelli's mode of thought and execution can be Assumption. ° admirably studied. It was no easy task to treat this often- treated theme, and yet now that it is finished it reminds us of no school, no era, no previous representation. Before beginning upon the canvas Morelli read through the dreary waste of schoolman polemics, in which was discussed with all gravity, much ingenuity, some erudition, great The Painters 83 tediousness, and considerable length, the apparently important theological question, what was the colour of the dress worn by the Virgin on the occasion of the Assumption ? When interrogated why he read such dull, stupid stuff, Morelli replied that he found by this means the mental atmosphere he required to put him into the proper frame of mind to conceive his picture. The work, as it now stands, is very large, indeed the artist's largest, and the principal figures are half the size of life. It is interesting to note how very few colours are employed in the composition. This was done designedly by the artist, who thought thus to give his work a more religious character. But few though these colours are, they are employed with such consummate skill that they never become monotonous. While painting the work, Morelli relates that he ever strove to keep before his mind the address to God, attributed by the Orientalist father, St. John of Damascus, to Mary at the Assumption, " Meum corpus tibi trado non terrae : salvum fac a corruptione in quo tibi placuit habitare." Truly, Christ and the Virgin are Morelli's favourite themes, and he has presented them again and again under various forms. Mary, except in the Assumption, is Favourite always the mother. Of exquisite loveliness Themes of the . r t j j • ■ x i n j Painter. ^^ leelmg and design is a water-colour called " Da Scala d'Oro," in which the divine young Hebrew joyously descends the inlaid golden stairs of the Temple, holding on high her babe, who seems to crow with childish glee in the rapid movement, although his prematurely pensive face and his attitude of outstretched arms, adumbrat- ing his future instrument of martyrdom, reveals the Redeemer of the world. It is a long, narrow, upright picture, painted on a gold ground, in which great distance is produced by the sight of the ever-receding stairs. Here we have to do rather with the " Mater amabilis." Jesus we behold in different moments of His earthly sojourn. We see Him walking on the waters ; we witness His entry 84 Italy of the Italians into the large square atrium where the daughter of J aims is laid out for dead, with the women mourners crouching around her ; we see Him standing under the shadow of an Eastern porch, in front of an open space flooded with fierce sunlight, bidding the woman taken in adultery depart in peace and sin no more, telling those that stand around and feel them- selves guiltless to cast the first stone. Nowhere is there the remotest resemblance to former treatments of these well-worn themes, and not only is Morelli's conception original, but it carries with it that force of conviction which makes us feel that thus, and thus only, could the scene have really occurred. One of his most peculiar talents is a strong intuition of places and types he has never seen — so strong as to amaze those persons who come from the countries Strong Intuition whence the subjects are taken. Thus, for of PI3.C6S siriQ Types. example, the picture of " Jesus tempted of the Devil." Here is the vast, arid, sulphur- ous, stony plain of Judsea as it actually exists, with nought but volcanic erratic blocks to break its monotony of barren- ness • the wilderness truly. The lurid light of the desert pervades the canvas, a light that can glimmer but dimly through the mist and dust of this dreary place, allegorising the sterility of the light of mere earth unillumined by higher influences. The background of the scene is void of anything living save four vultures that cower upon a distant rock hoping for prey. In the foreground appear the protagonists of the great drama, enacting the contending forces of Ahriman and Ormuzd, of good and evil, that still rend the world, and will rend it, until the last day of its existence. But no picture ever limned by Morelli has created the sensation produced by his " Temptation of St. Anthony," which, on its exhibition at Paris, was for Scenes from weeks the talk of this aesthetic town. What Christian . , . , . . , , , . History. ^^ ^° subtle, so ongmal, and so modern m Morelli's treatment of this by no means unhackneyed theme of the temptation of the founder The Painters 85 of monasticism, is that the temptation arises from within the man's own breast, and is not brought to him from without. The temptations suffered by St. Anthony were the hallucinations of his own imagination, aroused in him by abstinence and privation from all the joys of the fiesh. As an Italian critic has well pointed out, Morelli has in a manner traversed the whole gamut of the history of Christianity. In his " Conversion of St. Paul " he reminded us how, in the person of this apostle, Christianity took doctrinal shape, and the Old Testament, the old civilization, retreated before the new. In " St. Anthony " we see that faith has touched the sublimest heights of sacrifice and is about to descend into prejudice. The whole range of the artist's work presents a reasoned series. No wonder the Neapolitan artists look up to him as their leader and that his influence for good and for evil has been potent. If Morelli was the first among Neapolitan artists to eman- cipate himself from sterile traditions of every form and kind, he found a follower and successor in Francesco The Art of Paolo Michetti, who has left him far behind Francesco Paolo • ,t_ . • • r. • • tj. r • j Michetti. ^^ "^^e strivmg after origmality of view and treatment. Influenced in a measure by Morelli, more perhaps by the Spaniard Fortuny, with his gipsy wildness and strangeness, Michetti is withal an artist of no common type whose manner and development are too personal and individual to be cramped into any school designation or marked off with any pedantic label. It is more than probable that his influence has not been wholly to the good upon modern Italian painting ; it is possible that he is rather the outcome of an Art arrived at maturity, an Art that loves to allow itself caprices and fantasies, than of a tendency that is fecund and robust. That he is not a good all-round artist, that he is a better colourist than draughtsman, that he is audacious at times to the point of impertinence, all this and more may be urged against him, but when the worst is said, there remains a painter whose work is hors ligne, and whom it is as impossible 86 Italy of the Italians to ignore as it is impossible to withhold admiration from the marvellous works that emanate from his brain and brush. It is only a " paradisaical pandemonium," as an Italian writer aptly calls Naples, that could produce a genius so bizarre, so complex and apparently incoherent. His Complex g^ j-j^,]^^ g^ facile, and so strange. For some years the name of Michetti sounded to Italian ears as the expression of everything that is new, unexpected, hair-brained, and extravagant. His name is synonymous with brilliant stuffs and dazzling flesh tints, conjoined to shadows of dark cobalt ; of clashing tones designedly sought out ; of delicious child faces patiently caressed by a cunning brush ; of full-bodied women inundated in an atmosphere of sun and heat ; of landscapes created in the brain of the artist, where trees cast no shade, or shades are cast by trees outside the canvas ; in short, synonymous for Tiepolesque hardihood and Japanese ingenuity ; for strange and unusual frames ; for a carnival of comic personages ; for peasant idyls scorched by a Southern sun ; all this pervaded by a youthful freshness of power, an^ artistic good-humour that tells of an artist unburdened by thought, but rich in strength and creative ability. It has been said that most artists have their eyes in their brain ; of Michetti it might be said that he has his brain in his eyes. Francesco Paolo Michetti was born in 1851 at Chieti, in the Abruzzi Mountains, that Italian district which to this day the newer civilization has not touched, where ^'^? f^-^u^S^^ Catholicism has but veneered the ancient of Michetti. . paganism, where progress is a word of unknown meaning, and personal liberty unesteemed. His art education was received at Naples, but he also travelled, visiting Paris and even London — though that nebulous city could not hold for long an artist to whom sunshine, not to say daylight, is the first requisite. So at last he returned to his native Abruzzi, where he resides to this day, and here he painted and paints the strangely curious works inspired by The Painters 87 the life of the Abruzzi peasants, his art, like their lives, dividing itself between church festivals and the free out-door existence of the woods and fields. On this account his pictures are interesting and valuable as human documents. His secular scenes should be supplemented by the foreign spectator with the works of his compatriot and ardent admirer, the writer, Gabriele D'Annunzio. They would then better comprehend his Abruzzi pastorals in which there pulsates all the untutored, sensuous, fiery, passionate blood of these Southerners. What a tragedy in colour is, for example, " La Figlia di Jorio," which inspired D'Annunzio's play of the same name ; the peasant maiden who slinks along with downcast eyes and shame-faced attitude upon the field-path that is skirted by idling, reclining peasants, who jeer and gibe at her as she goes by ! The picture that revealed the full strength of his powers, and which made his fame, was the " Corpus Domini Procession at Chieti," exhibited in the Naples Exhibition ^Pktufi"*^ in 1876. The work roused an indescribable sensation. It burst upon the Art world like an effect of fireworks ; it attracted and amazed at the same time. Here was a creation both original and potent, that could be placed in no category as yet known, either for idea or treatment, for the picture is painted in oil, water-colour, and guazzo. It was certainly in no wise academic ; it might be classed as impressionist — but even here Michetti follows no school, but gives his individual impression solely. Now that out-door religious demonstrations are forbidden in the towns of Italy, only those who have had the good fortune to spend early summer in the country districts may have seen one of the impressive and picturesque Corpus Domini pro- cessions — processions concerning whose deeper meaning and purpose not even the most devout Catholic can furnish an explanation. Michetti's picture, in which the ripe colour, the full voluptuousness of the South has free play, furnishes some clue perchance to the query. It is just as pagan as 88 Italy of the Italians anything we could hope to see by putting on Hans Andersen's " Goloshes of Happiness," wishing ourselves back into the heyday of Greek life, and assisting at one of the national festivals. Here in the Abruzzi we are almost in Magna Graecia, and the paganism of those days can scarcely be said to be effaced. The astuteness of the Catholic Church has merely laid a varnish over ancient ceremonies by giving a different name to external ordinances that, to all intents and purposes, are the same as those practised some two thousand years ago, when man was younger and the world more gay. After the great and widespread success Michetti had achieved with his large " Corpus Domini " picture, he con- tinued to work with renewed fervour and zeal, '^^^M* h^tt^ °^ throwing into his labour all his juvenile strength, all the impetuousness of his Southern nature. He burned with the desire to produce, ever to produce, to fix on canvas the number and variety of impres- sions of sea, sky, air, and earth, which were daily brought before his vision at his beauteous Italian home, that in- exhaustible fount of artistic loveliness. Working in such hot haste, in a manner so careless, more anxious to preserve an impression than to complete a picture, it is quite natural that his ardour and fantasy at times overcame his judgment, and caused him to put forth now and again works that, for auda- city and wilfulness, display the slipshod draughtsmanship of the most oulre school of impressionism. All these tenden- cies, however, in the case of Michetti, were combined with a truer sense of beauty, a richer faculty for colour, than falls to the lot of most impressionists, who seem to see nothing but dirty greys and greens in nature and Art. Michetti's impressionist pictures rather resemble the chef d'oeuvre of which Balzac speaks, which having mounted to the brain of the artist who created it, in the end shipwrecks him in the undecipherable — a shipwreck from which he only saves a foot most admirably painted, as token of what the whole figure had been before the intoxication of the artist with his own The Painters 89 work had overturned his artistic and critical faculty. But, happily, caprice, though it is the guiding star of this Southern nature, does not often lead him into these baroque vagaries. Another picture of his, as famous as the Corpus Domini procession, is " II Voto." It represents a number of peasant men and women who, to carry out a vow •' II Voto." made either at their own instigati