""SSSib^R DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 1949 Cascade near Paradisino. SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA BY VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON HI Author of " Como : A World's Shrine " "Florence: Lily of the Arno" " Genoa: City of Columbus," etc. NEW YORK THE A. S. BARNES COMPANY 1911 Copyright, 1911, By VIRGINIA W. JOHNSON CONTENTS CHAPTEE PAGE I A Tot Train 7 II An Old Road 13 III The Shepherd Boy 21 IV The Open Aie 26 V Summer Life 38 VI A Soothsayer 47 VII Night in the Apennines 52 VIII The Saint 57 IX The Flock 72 X A White Poppy 87 XI Visitors to Vallombrosa 92 i The Musician 92 ii Dante in the Casentino 98 in The Painter 118 iv The Puritan 129 XII Mountain Wheat 141 XIII Springs of Water . 147 XIV A Baby Tree 152 XV Out-of-door Sleep 156 XVI A Cobbler 161 XVII An Old Woman 169 XVIII The Guide 176 XIX The Forest Guard 190 XX News 198 XXI The Hay Maker 203 XXII Afternoon Light 209 XXIII Winter Sleep 212 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Cascade near Paradisino Frontispiece page Cog-wheel Railway 8 Chopeland Spring of St. John Gualberto 18 A Flock of Sheep on the Meadows 24 The Sacred Beech Tree 42 Interior of the Church 58 St. John Gualberto in the Church 70 College of Forestry 86 Wood near Vallombrosa 112 View of the Meadows . . 136 Fountain of Camarlinghi 150 The Eock of Saltino 170 Cutting Down Fir Trees 190 Panorama of the Institute and Hotel Paradisino . . 210 Summer Days at Vallombrosa A TOT TRAIN Is there nothing new under the sun, dear reader? The globe is fairly mapped out in circular tours, and threaded over all seas by steamers. Weary of tunnels, crowded stations, and long hours of delay, spent in contemplation of piles of luggage, have you ever taken a journey on the miniature railway to the regions of paradise? At the outset let us infer that you are bored with summer resorts, from Norway and the German baths to Lucerne and the Maloja Pass, and chance to sojourn in the City of Flowers in late springtime. Turn away from shrines of art, and take train for an hour's transit, by Pontas- sieve to San Ellero. Quit the Roman line, and descend at the rural, vine-decked station, cross the platform, and gain the other track of the Sal tino, Vallombrosa railway. Lo ! a shining coil of iron snake, furnished with steel teeth, winds up among the hills while the train waits below, con sisting of one carriage and a tiny locomotive. How droll it is ! Surely the sense of humor, ever 7 8 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA latent in the human breast, is aroused by the toy apparatus. Either you have entered the domain of Lilliput, and are about to consort with gnomes and elves, or you are transformed again to a child, and the excursion is only a make-believe holiday. Salute the engine, if you are an Ameri can. There pauses the locomotive, sturdy and valiant, ready to drag, or push, the tourist to the crag of the Saltino far above. The whim of "a foreign gentleman" traced the railway, and had the locomotive built at the Baldwin Works of Philadelphia. Bless the generosity of the "for eign gentleman!" His memory should be kept green by his fellow creatures for the benefit he has bestowed on them. He ranks among the benefactors who have planted trees on the high way, or pierced wells in arid spots for those who come after. The miniature railway has rendered easy transition from the hot and dusty valleys to the pure and refreshing atmosphere of the hills. The locomotive resembles a black ram, as, stout and squat of form, it pushes the Pullman car before it with its head — ram fashion — away from the San Ellero station, between meadows and slopes, with farms and hamlets visible on either side, and a range of mountains extending to the horizon, steeped in a soft violet haze of heat. "Be not afraid," the little engine seems to pant, attacking the first ascent pugnaciously. "I am here, with all sorts of screws, plates, and valves in my mechanism for possible accident. A TOY TRAIN 9 The line is the old-fashioned cog-wheel system, in case I should get a bit cranky, hanging over the giddy abyss. Now we are off!" Choose a day of fine weather. The sky is blue, a gentle breeze fans the face, sunshine sparkles on the foliage along the route, olive trees brush the windows, paths open temptingly leading to wooded dells among the ferns, and a tangled wealth of vines. An isolated mill rises on a ledge. A ruined tower suggests the dismantled stronghold of the Middle Ages, where knight, statesman, or poet may have lived and died. If one could only halt and explore each by-way! Wanton fingers may snatch at some blooming spray in passing. Every available patch is planted with iris, the green stalk cut close to the ground, which furnishes the fragrant orris-root of commerce. Here is iris, fairest among the fair, armed with goldenrod, and winged with celestial azure, ever the muse haunting sylvan spots remote from crowded towns. Stern economy looks to selling and getting gain from the delicately scented root, but in the spring twilight the lower slopes of the Pratomagno mountain still fly the white lily emblem of Flor ence, in memory of Buonconte, unmindful of the lament of Dante that the tint should be changed to the red of a turbulent century. The locomotive emits a shrill whistle. Never was so tiny a train seen, unless in a toy shop. In its way a journey on this miniature railway is 10 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA quite apart from other experiences. Here is no abrupt pitch of the Funicular of Pilatus, the Rigi, the Burgenstock, with vista of glacier and eternal snow, but only a gentle and leisurely wending up ward between green banks, now brushing the copse on either side, and again emerging on a vast expanse of country, framed by the serrated peaks of Carrara. The very halting places have a whimsical aspect. Smart station houses, painted pink and saffron hues, mark these locali ties. There is no throng of attendant vehicles, or curious spectators. Save for the hissing and fuming of the engine, there would be a perfect quiet. The fowls peck about in the farm-yard adjacent to the track. A dilapidated stable, a group of picturesque houses of contadini, with roofs of russet-tinted tiles, and broken steps fa miliar in etchings, extend along the slope. Fili- berti is a town, with a cobble-paved street lead ing to an ancient archway and square beyond, suggestive of the serfdom of feudal lord, or mo nastic proprietor of by-gone centuries. All is tranquil. The train will arrive at the summit sometime. There is no haste about anything. Neither a lightning express, or a direttissimo from Rome will dash into the "toy train," in disastrous collision, if delay occurs. The guard delivers a message to a neighbor. A smutty in dividual approaches around a corner carrying some sort of kettle wherewith to anoint and lu bricate the engine for a final tug up to the desti- A TOY TRAIN 11 nation on the summit of the cliff nine hundred and eighty metres above sea level. Passengers are few. A matron dutifully es corts her family hither, young people carrying kodaks, and lawn-tennis raquets, after a winter season at Florence, and before retiring to the villa for the autumn. Several burly and bearded tour ists study their red guide-books. A lady from India, or Malta, with a fatigued complexion, gazes down on the Vai d'Arno. A beautiful, sulky nurse (balia), with silver pins, and a wreath of yellow ribbons on her head, holding a fair baby, wrapped in laces, in the service of a noble, is guarded by a vigilant footman. Children from a convent, or communal school below, with books and satchels, step off at the first little station. A country housewife with a sun-bronzed face, re turning from town, with baskets and parcels, is met by her household at the gateway of a hot road. The rear platform is loaded with luggage, the huge boxes dragged to such resorts, contain ing the varied toilettes of the Italian ladies, in tent on floating about in gossamer tissues, as rival sylphs and angels. The old guard, clad in uniform, stands on the front platform, with a group of civilians, as the train curves into a dell, scented with fresh grass, violets, sweetbriar, and nespoli. The old guard is host on the front platform, urbane in manner, and explains to a civil engineer the trend of the line over rock and solid foundation, the travers- 12 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA ing obliquely of the torrent Vicano, by means of a bridge with metallic supports, the curves, here and there, and the causeway above the ditch of the Pignone. The group of listeners smoke strong cigars, and discuss the system Siemens-Martin in the adapta tion of steel teeth. A sceptical Swiss already hints at electricity instead. The locomotive gives a final shriek, and gains the goal, the station of Saltino, built on the ledge of cliff above the out spread Vai d'Arno, which extends in a gulf of blue mist, dappled with green and silvery tones of light and shadow, framed by encircling hills. The American Baldwin engine salutes Vallom brosa. A responsive note is echoed back from India, Burma, Queensland, and New South Wales to the Rocky Mountains. The mighty work wrought by man out of ore, and beaten into shape with the strokes of Thors hammer; of cylinder, fine ribbed rods, and timely, responsive valves, ready to grasp great tasks, unite in their own song of iron of the ancient Kalevala, on the sum mer day in the realm of the dreamy Casentino with the "toy train." II AN OLD ROAD The hospitality of Vallombrosa has been re nowned for centuries. Ariosto extolled it. The old road begins at Pontassieve, and the town may deserve a passing glance. Situated at the confluence of the rivers Arno and the Sieve, con siderable importance was derived from being the highway leading over the Apennines to Forli. The road turns from the railway station, crosses the Sieve by a bridge, and winds up among the hills. This pathway to the heights has been climbed by pilgrims of the great human family for eight hundred years. The span of man's life is marked by the road. To dim tradition belong the first fishermen who made their way through the tan gled woods, and down precipitous ravines from the Adriatic shore; the countrymen who sought fruit, fungus, and small game in lonely haunts above ; the bands of soldiery intent on surprising an enemy in the Casentino, by a detour; or the robber chief who fashioned some deserted Roman tower into a stronghold, and preyed on simple folk. History dates from the time when the monks 13 14 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA smoothed a way to chapel and oratory for prayer at the monastery in a sheltered nook midway up the Pratomagno mountain. The pilgrims of our day are of one creed in a longing to enjoy the open air in all the delicate freshness of spring, the balmy warmth of sum mer, the keen breath of autumn. Surely of all the modern theories concerning health, medical, gymnastic, or energetic exercise, the keynote of the twentieth century will be the open air cure for the robust, the indolent, the dejected and nervous alike. Thus by the ancient gateway of Pontassieve, Vallombrosa invites all such to ascend the road. Now a turn of the way opens on a vista of dis tant peaks, sapphire blue, arid ridges, and softly blended slopes of vivid green, realm of the pome granate, fig, mulberry, and vine in the direction of the Chianti hills, and the Sienese territory. The road tends upward, affording glimpses of Alpine solitude ; here and there, patches of grain, sprouting lupin, tufts of yellowish juniper, groves of oak, belts of chestnut trees, and far above summits russet in tone from the scanty vegetation. White blossoms of the gumcistus star the turf, and the orange lily decks the woods in June, while myrtle and clematis abound in July. A welcome of this old thoroughfare to the visitor is extended by overhanging banks, fragrant with wild rose, broom, purple pansy, and gladiolus. AN OLD ROAD 15 Birds sing in the thickets, busied about their own affairs of the season. Gushing fountains of liv ing waters abound, flowing in glistening threads of moisture amidst a wealth of verdure, or treas ured, as symbolical in some chapel shrine dedi cated to the Madonna and a favorite saint. Let humanity, like good metal, be tempered in fresh water. Man's need in periodic thirst is here supplied. The pilgrim who accepts the rite of drinking a cup of fresh water, in a devout sense, pauses at the spring of San Giovanni Gualberto, as earlier races settled on the banks of the Euphrates, the Nile, or the Tigris. The road trends on, and the journey is pursued in an even more leisurely mode than in scaling the face of the cliff on the "toy train." The sound of the bells on the ears of the horses makes a dreamy rhythm to the movement of progress in harmony with the meditations of the lover of solitude in the woods, communion with the breeze, fellowship with the birds. A turn to the right discloses the village of Pelago. Several miles further on the monastery farm of Paterno, now a portion of the government school of agri culture, is reached. The hamlet of Tosi is be yond. To si was once included in the possession of the Vallombrosan monks, and is still the pic turesque beggar at the gates of the Badia. The dole of charity of a bowl of soup, and a piece of bread, from the monastic kitchen is no longer be- 16 SUMMER DAYS AT V ALL.UlVL.t>KUO.a. stowed on this vassal. Tosi still begs a coin of the summer visitor, while the women implore all cast-off raiment with a keen inspection of the apparel worn, not conducive to sylvan medita tions. The vehicle passes on, to the jingling note of the horses' bells, from fields and rocky ledges to the shade of majestic trees, rising in serried ranks on acclivities, planted centuries ago by the Bene dictine order. The old Florentine citizen makes the pilgrim age in the family carriage. Intent on gaining the height of Vallombrosa, he drinks a cup of black coffee at an early hour, and departs from the town mansion in the vicinity of the Duomo, in herited from generations of ancestors, the mas sive portal studded with iron knobs to withstand a siege ; a carved scutcheon of the Arte of the city on the corner, cortile, garden, and lofty rooms adorned with faded frescoes, and drives through the Porta alia Croce to the dusty highway beyond. He ascends the old road. The span of his days is marked by these excursions. The route has many souvenirs. When he was a boy he enjoyed a pic nic holiday, journeying in a basket furnished with chairs, fastened on an ox sledge, the treggie of mountain excursions. In youth he climbed to Paterno and Tosi, and thence rode a donkey up the steep and stony path to the left, traversing undergrowth of bushes, grassy spaces, and woods to the Badia. He may sigh: AN OLD ROAD 17 "Mneas, Tullus, Aucus, all have gone before Are shades and dust! — no morel That Heaven to this day's sun will add another day Who shall presume to say?" The old Florentine exchanges greetings with all the courtesy of the Tuscan patrician. He halts to drink at the spring of San Giovanni Gualberto as an annual rite. Perhaps he hopes it will prove the fountain of restored youth. The occupant of the next vehicle wending up the road, a light carriage with linen curtains, drawn by one horse, may be the Roman matron who has travelled all night from Rome to Pon tassieve, and hired a conveyance thence to her destination while her liege lord seeks the springs of Montecatini. She is a fat bourgeoise, affable, and richly attired. She keeps her heavy travel ling bag carefully concealed in the bottom of the vehicle. The air-cure of these hills has an aspect of solemnity to the Roman matron. She must take exercise to counteract corpulency, induced by much puff paste and dolce eating, the remain der of the year. She is to be seen trotting, early and late, with a serious, not to say dolorous mien, as if still under the inexorable espionage of the family doctor at home. A third conveyance contains a young English clergyman from the Riviera, with his invalid wife, and baby. Infancy laughs over the cup of fresh water from the saint's spring, and the nose- 18 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA gay of wild flowers gathered by the father, while the mother looks on with a wan smile. Never did fading human flower have more need of the cool freshness of Paradisino than this one! The automobiles thread the way in ever in creasing numbers. An ancient cross stands at the beginning of a fir-grove, erected in stern warning that no woman should pass the boundary of monastic se clusion. Lo ! A chariot load of gay damsels ap proaches, and frivolity waves a fan in mockery and defiance of the sacred emblem. Femininity has invaded, nay, overwhelmed these precincts. A troop of girls, bearing loads of branches on their heads, come down through the wood, and gaze at these daughters of pleasure with envy. The scene is as old as the history of the world. Poverty clothing the supple beauty of maiden hood in rags ever contemplates, with wonder and dawning discontent, sisters in silken apparel, and sparkling jewels; laughter and snatches of song on rosy lips. All the fruits of temptation and delusion of the town goblin market are outspread before their dazzled eyes, the nectarine, pome granate, and citron, full of delicious pulp and honey nectar of deceit and fraud. "Come and buy of our wares, oh, rustic maidens," the gob lins pipe, under the very shadow of the old stone cross of Vallombrosa. The bells of the church tower resound on the sunny air. It has been truly said by a native Chapel and Spring of St. John Gualberto. AN OLD ROAD 19 author that Italy, from the Alps to the Ionian Sea, has a characteristic variety of types, each province, contrada, and city differing from the other. The church bells of Vallombrosa have an especial charm which touches the human soul. The sudden clang surging from all the brazen throats in unison startles the echoes of a per vading stillness, urging a devout countryside to prayer in remembrance of some saint of the cal endar, then ebbs away in prolonged silvery rip ples to the mellow note of a single, dominating bell, dying to silence again. The memory of the founder speaks to all listeners, but the bells are still more the voice of the hills. The wide, paved avenue, the old stradone, bordered with lime trees, is gained. The group of stately buildings is visible at the end. The gate is open, the high wall and causeway are intact, marking the limits of the moat and tower. A border of box hedge flanks the court to the portal of the vast Badia, with facade of innumerable windows, interior cloister, and church. Above the main door the bust of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo, as hon ored guest, in his day, gazes down on the stu dents. In the atrium a similar portrait of Maria Louisa, Regent of Etruria, records the visit of the lady to the monastery. The outward aspect of the imposing pile is intact. The School of Forestry, established here by the Italian Gov ernment, has adapted cloistral seclusion to the practical uses of museum and library, converted 20 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA a chapel into a hall of fencing and transformed the refectory to other requirements, while the huge kitchen, suggestive of clerical banquets, is unchanged. The sheltered nook is open to the western sun, enclosed by the heights on the east, south, and north, with an oval sweep of meadow, and a glimpse of country beyond the belt of trees on the margin of ravine. Forests rise to the sum mit of the Pratomagno, fir, oak, and beech, with the Paradisino, a former oratory and cluster of cells, now converted into a modern hotel, perched on a crag three hundred feet above the Badia. Opposite the church is situated the first guest house for visitors, including women, the "Fores teria," now a crowded resort. Here is the vale renowned in every land, and linked with the memory of Milton's radiant pres ence in youth, by Mrs. Browning. "He sang of Eden's paradise, and smiled Eemembering Vallombrosa. Therefore is The place divine to English man and child. ' ' Such is the salutation, still, of that holy man St. John Gualberto to his sanctuary, given mel ody in the voice of the church bells. A more powerful and mysterious presence speaks to all comers by the old road : Nature, the magna mater, receives in her ample embrace the puny offspring of the human race. HI THE SHEPHERD BOY A shepherd boy stands beneath the spreading boughs of an old chestnut tree. He is a country lad, lithe and vigorous of form, with a brown face, a good-humored smile, and dusky locks, ruf fled by the wind. He is clad in a ragged jacket, faded by rough weather, and a dilapidated hat is pushed on the back of his head. The sheep feed around him, nibbling the scanty herbage. Occasionally they sniff, hopefully, at his open palm for a grain of salt from his loose pocket. To the stranger he is still a suggestive figure of the scene, in his rustic simplicity, humble, even most commonplace, kin to all the goatherds, and keepers of pigs and geese in the land. As a type he is as old as the centuries, from the Chaldean hosts watching their flocks by night to the Bucolic folk of Theocritus, in his Idyls, and Virgil's Man tuan rural swains. Spring dances over the Vai d' Arno, with her attendant maidens crowned with roses, sowing purple and scarlet anemones in her path. Al mond, peach, and cherry blossoms have made bowers of bloom about the lad, and budding si 22 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA sprays of tender green foliage clothe the slopes. At his feet stretched meadows, patches of grain, hedges of whitethorn, holly, and nespoli, while lilacs, daisies, and violets grow near the dusty highway. On the heights the sacred beech tree of the chapel of San Giovanni Gualberto, il faggio Santo, has put forth leaves the first of the Val lombrosan woods, according to tradition. Every rill has grown tumultuous with melting snow and ice of the Apennine peaks. "The rivulets that from the, verdant hills, Of Casentino descend to Arno's ways Soft'ning and fresh'ning all the banks between." To laugh and sing in the very exuberance of life belongs to the shepherd. Is not the year, also, young? Winter cold and hunger are past, the wailing of the winds sweeping over the forest echoed by the signs of the old people as they cower near the smoky fire of fagots on the do mestic hearth. Boyhood can stretch robust limbs in a bath of golden sunshine. The shepherd is not one of those tragic figures of Italian child hood, crushed by poverty and crime, so fre quently portrayed by modern writers. Health courses in his veins, and his mood is inconse quent. His career has been marked from the cradle, according to the verse of Politian con cerning his race, by the usual elements of his sphere. THE SHEPHERD BOY 23 " We dwell in a cabin with the father and mother beneath a little roof, whither we return at evening from the flowery meadow where we have pastured our sheep." The seasons bring many festivals in saints days, from January to December, in the juvenile calendar of the year. Boyish hunger, and its gratification is the leading feature. The As sumption of mid-August at Vallombrosa is in separable, to his mind, with feasting on brigidini, made of flour, and flavored with anise seed. The Madonna of September has many dolce, if one has soldi to spare. Such holidays may be sup plemented by rural gatherings at the harvesting of the maize (gran turco), the vintage when every house of the countryside is scented with the wine- must, hoarded in the cellars, picking and drying of the chestnuts later. At Christmas the shep herd lad, as the youngest member of the family, will approach the hearth, and address the fire thus: "Good fire, warm the old, the infirm, and the feet of orphans during the winter. Shed thy light and heat in all poor dwellings ! Do not at tack in anger the stables, and the haystacks of the laborers, or the vessels where sailors are buf feted by the tempest." This boy cannot boast of a place among the rustic heroes of the theater, as a Shepherd Fido, nor strut across the stage of pastoral lyrics, in spired by a Lorenzo the Magnificent. He is a son of Tuscany, linked with the famous poetical 24 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA names of Vallombrosa, the Vai d'Arno, and the Casentino. The world changes in modern de velopment, but the traveller muses, even in a passing train, on the lad's career. What will be his future? He may grow to manhood untouched by all the restless impulses of transition, like his family, clinging as semi-beggars to the skirts of plenty. Still more probably he will set forth, fired by curiosity and ambition, in search of ad- Ventures, get speedily caught in the snares of the fowler of town purlieus among young thieves and vagabonds, drift to such seaports as Genoa and Leghorn, eager to emigrate, and go to the galleys, murder-stained in a brawl, instead. A fig for gloomy prophecies on the spring day ! The shepherd sings a stomello under the gnarled branches of the old chestnut tree, and the birds twitter response from the hazel bushes. "L'Vc- cello che vola," pipes the lad. The words of Lorenzo of Ghiberti recur to the mind. "In a village of Etruria painting took her rise. In 1276 Giotto di Bordone was born at Colle in the Commune of Vespigniano, Vai Mu- gello, fourteen miles from Florence, where he kept his father's flocks on the grassy slopes of the hills. New generations repeat the familiar tale of how Master Cimabue came riding along, one day, saw the boy drawing his own sheep on a stone, boy-fashion, with a bit of chalk, or flint, noted in a quick glance the cleverness of the por trait, and took him to his studio, where the youth A Flock of Sheep on the Meadows. THE SHEPHERD BOY 25 served the usual apprenticeship, of the Florentine workshop (bottega), by grinding colors for some six years. Will our shepherd prove another Giotto, and the horseman ascending the road discern merit in a sketch idly drawn by the lad under the chest nut tree? What if he is destined to go forth from the precincts of Vallombrosa to slily add a fly to a canvas in the studio for Master Cimabue to gravely attempt to brush off? The jest still causes a smile of Giotto 's regret that he had never given even a cup of broth to the animal furnish ing bristles for his brushes, when a pig ran against him in the Via Cocomero. Who knows if this peasant of the twentieth century may not rise to the fulfillment of genius, adorn a church, like that of Assisi, with a pictorial history of St. Francis, making a slight grimace over an espousal of Poverty in rags, which is still a marked characteristic of Giotto's countrymen, or lavish the skill of a founder of a new school in Art on a chapel of the Arena at Padua? His dreams may shape a Shepherd's Tower, the Flor ence Campanile, with a chronicle of humanity traced on the marble. He sings blithely on the spring morning : "A bird that flies away." IV THE OPEN AIR Let the climber rise with the birds at Vallom brosa on a summer morning, and scale the height known as the Secchieta. At this season the birds are early abroad, indeed their matins are piped in liquid notes of praise to the Creator at four o'clock, when stars pale, and the sky begins to wear exquisite transparent tints of daffodil and chrysophase. The climber may allow himself grace of time over his bath and breakfast. Italy has ever cherished faith in hydropathy wherever a mountain nook affords the requisite glacial waters. Who has not seen on the Alpine border of Piedmont the cadaverous lady shiver ing in the sunshine, not from cheerful, matu tinal ablutions, but a doleful treatment of pack ing in wet sheets for hours, similar to damping the household linen? At Vallombrosa the at tempt has failed. The monks set an early ex ample by holding the feet in icy fountains, and otherwise freezing their poor members in severe penance. Charles Lamb affirmed that the water- cure was neither new nor wonderful, but as old as the deluge, which, in his opinion, killed more than it cured. If the climber is a stalwart alpinist elsewhere, 26 THE OPEN AILl 27 raiment may be light and flexible in this sum mer world, and shoes not furnished with nails. Neither need one carry knapsack, and ice-axe for cliffs, glaciers, and dolomite chimneys. A few sandwiches in the pocket, or the bag slung over the shoulder, should suffice on an Arcadian ram ble. Discard wine bottle and cognac flask for a draught from a spring, bubbling forth amidst the ferns. Buy a handful of fruit of the children, the strawberries and raspberries culled at dawn on distant slopes. The path ascends to the south, and branches, that on the left crossing the Fosso dei Brusciati (the Damned), or trending to the right permits a scramble along the Vicano, without crossing, and, striking a track which diverges to the road of Monte Risalda. Thus the crest is gained. The mild beauty of the July morning may tempt the visitor to choose the shortest way, and five o'clock in the morning find him already far above the Badia towers, and the roof of Paradi sino. The dewy freshness of the hills instils a subtle essence of crystalline exhilaration into all his members. He inhales, with full lungs, the pure atmosphere of the Apennines, esteemed by Catullus and Pliny, as the hill man breathes the diamond air of his native Himalayas. Mere curi osity to explore fresh haunts, and a longing for free movement after the cramping inaction of town life gradually acquires the expansion of an ardent desire to go higher. The watchword 28 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Excelsior is on his lips, and beats in all his veins in unison. The firs clothe the acclivity, rising in slender columns rank above rank, and seeming about to topple over the rocks on the highway. The life of a tree may be studied at leisure in this zone of sombre darkness and fragrance. Timber does not grow over night, says the proverb. Here monastic memories linger and environ the soli tary wanderer. Why was the ditch christened of the burned, or the damned, unless as designating unhappy souls amidst the flames of purgatory to some fasting penitent? The path is steep and rough, with loose stones, a tangled mantle of ivy covering the ground, here and there, bushes, and vine roots thwarting more often than aiding progress. The flowers accom pany the visitor at every step, yellow stars, tiny pink sprays, white disks on nodding stalks in patches of bloom and sweetness. The climber loiters, in spite of a warning that the ascending sun will soon shine in his eyes, over the rampart of encircling hills, and lights the pipe of medita tion as he seats himself on a stump. White but terflies flicker through the gloom in a mazy dance. A shaft of golden sunshine slants athwart the branches and tree trunks, making an amber dust in which tiny insects, with gauzy wings, live their brief hour. Yonder on a distant track oxen descend nimbly and safely, dragging a huge log, trophy of winter THE OPEN AIR 29 hewing in the forest. The lumber will be sent toppling down the main road, piled on a wagon, and guided by a horse to the haunts of trade. One of the problems of time is here presented to the climber, if his thoughts turn on a much dis cussed topic of the day. Timber cutting is the tangled root in the path to catch the foot. Coun tries and population would seem to have been al ways intent on the destruction of woods, whether in the tillage of soil essential to the maintenance of life, or the defining of State boundaries. Mod ern sentiment deplores the thinning of sylvan glades. The greed of coining money from a sale of noble monarchs of the mountain side is se verely condemned. The forest of Antium on the sea coast, comprising oak, myrtle, ilex, and box, was sold to the French before the Revolution, whereby the air of Rome is affected to this day. France felled her woods at an early date, with barren hills resulting, in the interests of cereal cultivation and farms. Posterity reaps the re sult in annual ruin and disaster of inundation from water courses, unrestrained by the trees and rocks. Do not Aragon and Castile suffer floods, owing to the wholesale sweeping away of timber on the slopes of the Pyrenees? Fuel for the smelting of copper and iron ore tells its own tale in all the Alpine range. England and Holland began to use anthracite, soft coal and peat. An Italian nobleman, the Marchese Giustiniani, who travelled abroad to enjoy the world, in his own 30 SUMMER JJAYS AT VALJUUM-tSKOSA carriage, in 1606, saw people warming themselves by burning a black stone which came from Liege. At the close of the seventeenth century Piedmont was nearly denuded when the torrents rushed un checked down the Vai di Susa, and the Po and the Pellice threatened the Vai d' Aosta. The flanks of the Maritime Alps, as well as the Giulia and Pennine chain reveal the same disastrous re sult in barren ridge and stony waste. Reckless wood cutting in Carinthia, the Ampezzo, and Conegliano, with the river Zelline descending the mountain chain of Lonenzola, and of Farra prove a similar result, while the Porenta and the Adige menace the territory of Belluno, Trent, and the Tyrol. On the summer morning the climber is in sym pathy with the grove of firs, and would spare the axe, in theory, save for the thinning out process essential to the health and ventilation of the sap lings. His mood must be in harmony with his surroundings. To his ear the rustling murmur of a passing breeze in the tree tops becomes the lament of the species over speedy annihilation of change. Pliny's veneration for the groves re curs to his mind. He repeats: Nee magis auro fulgentia atque ebore simulacra, quam lucos, et in us silentia ipsa adoramus. Shadowy monasticism weaves a spell about him in the ensuing silence. The monks whose skill and care planted and fostered these trees were not lacking in thrift in their day. They built THE OPEN AIJl 31 their own saw-mills. They sold timber like other proprietors, the chestnut, beech, and pine valua ble for building purposes, the cypress for doors, the mariner's compass, and window frames, and oak for watercraft, beams, and shutters of houses. The tall column of the fir (abete) is ever the most suggestive in the growth of the hillside. Each stem may yet bend to the wave, as the mast of a vessel, or furnish the four resinous planks of a humble coffin. The poet Carducci wished his dust consigned to the keeping of the coffin of fir wood. Vallombrosa is a model of the superiority in forest culture of the Benedictine order. The warnings of sheer destruction in despolia tion are ever the same. Padre Soldani in his Guida Storica urges the salvation of the woods of Italy from ruin. He states: "I shall never rest content until I see the preservation of the forests taken in hand by the supreme power of the Government." The oxen drag down another log. The climber sighs, involuntarily, and re sumes his way. Above is a belt of beech trees, the roots clothed in club mosses and lichens. The spirits become more animated in this higher range. The veil ing obscurity of the conifers induces tranquil revery, not unmingled with melancholy. It fur nishes the oppressive calm, "the brown horror of the woods" to certain temperaments. The realm of the beech has an especial witchery of entice- 32 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBRUSA ment, as if every nook of ravine and dell held some revelation of surprise in a higher range than the firs, or the wide spreading belts of chest nut down all the distant slopes. The invisible population of air, wood, and water greet the in truder in the very wind fanning his face with its wing. How readily the frequenter of such re treats may prove an innovator, a follower of stray lights, heavenly beacons, will-o-the-wisp theories, and be pronounced a fool, or a madman afterwards, as often as a sage. Swift messen gers flit from dim recesses of foliage, the ghostly echo of voices, blended of bird notes, and mere memories, issue from the austere and pervading quiet, shadowy faces are limned on distant laby rinths of rock and steep banks, for a moment, and vanish in the waving of a bough overhead. A murmur reaches the ear: "Remain with us. Be one of us. To pause a while will refresh and strengthen for the great battle of life." Such in fluences lure the solitary rambler to stray further to the left hand, along the ridge, find a path in tersecting the dense woods, dwarf beech under brush, and green pasture, and gain the very summit of the Pratomagno instead of pursuing the original way to the lower crest of the Sec- chieta. From the top bleak peaks, deep gorges, and the course of the Arno, separating the Vai di Chiana from the Valle Tiberina, in one direc tion, to Florence, Siena, and a hint of Mediter ranean in the other are visible. THE OPEN AIR 33 Is he a botanist? The hill fairies coax him to climb the ladder of the flower kingdom, from the pink and blue hepatica, with purple stamens, of the fields, in varieties multiplying on sunny slopes, grassy banks, and the brink of ravines, to violet periwinkle, thorn, convolulus, cyclamen, ame thyst tinted heath, thistle, orchids, and inter lacing vines. Beware of those gnomes and elves of Nature, the funghi, red, balefully spotted, marked with odd designs, assuming curious toad stool shapes, now of a sponge, a cap, an umbrella, or again a pipe. These evil products induce thirst, convulsions, and delirium in the unwary. Search for unexpected treasures at hazard. Birds migrating southward from Russia and western Germany over the Rhetian Alps, or the Splugen, Bernina, and St. Gothard may have sown from height to height, aided by the winds, geranium, ranunculus, and chrsyanthemum on the very snow line. The Swede and the Pole may visit Vallom brosa each season. Why not discern relationship between the patches of lichens clothing masses of rock with the reindeer food of Siberia and Lap land as readily as to find Silene acaulis growing on Monte Rosa at an altitude of thirty-eight hun dred metres ? Ferns nod and sway in every rocky fissure, pathway, and glade. The fragile species boasts kinship with Asplenium viride of the Alps, Crystoperis fragilis, down to Allosorus crispus in masses of curled fronds amidst the stones, the fine Pol calcareum, luxuriant in rough debris, 34 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA dryopteris, holly fern, or Asplenium ruta- muraria on old walls. Is he a musician? Apart from the crowd, let him choose for companionship Schumann, seek ing ideals of melody on Lake Garda, and at Ver- bano, a Viotti striving to receive in his own soul ' ' the voice of the mountains " ; a Weber formulat ing the chorus of Freischiitz from the rippling cadence of forest leaves ; a Rossini musing on the theme of William Tell, while the august shade of a Beethoven strays afar to mere personality in the depths of the trees, attentive to the shep herd's pastoral pipe; or a Mendelssohn awaits winter storms for the weird tumult of a Walpur- gis Night. Is he a poet? Follow the lead of the great guide Dante to salute the horizon and vast pano rama of Monte Titano, Amiata, Mugello, or the Romagna, ascend with Petrarch from thought to thought with height above height; join Victor Hugo in listening to the language of the hills; and try on the summit, with Goethe, the earth be neath the feet, to attain vicinity to the spirits of the air in all their eternal purity. Is he an artist? Michel Angelo must have gazed at these crags, in his career, and evolved the majestic forms of a Last Judgment, or a Moses out of Nature's rugged lineaments, as at Carrara, and Leonardo da Vinci have mused here over distance, half-tones, and melting tints as outspread from the Pratomagno. THE OPEN AIR 35 Is he philosopher or scientist? Let him take seemingly impenetrable problems, and solve per plexing theories in the region of upper air. These works offer a refreshing calmness of solitude for meditation, wherein to wrestle with religious doubts, and the failings of humanity. Every tor ment possible to the soul has been expiated here. The forest has a cure for all maladies. Ah, the plein air cure is enough, for one day of careless happiness, when a "summer mood" runs riot. Resisting all temptations to turn aside, the climber pursues his way. The open space of ridge is easily gained in some fifty minutes of steady locomotion. The Secchieta is an arid span of naked slopes, where no tree grows because of the bleak exposure to the winds. The spot was named Mount Tabor by the Vallombrosan Order, as is mentioned in a document of Count Guido of Poppi in 1068. The open air! Surely this is to be the cure of wretched humanity in the future. Spurn phar macy and hospital, if possible, and gain some ac clivity to inhale the resinous fragrance of trees, and the breath of flowers. The miracle of life is here unfolded; medical authority propounds the surprising fact that few people even know how to breathe. At Vallombrosa instruction in the ac complishment would be superfluous. Who does not here experience the lightness of the senses, the exaltation of mood, designated by dry and pessimistic criticism as "enthusiasm," pausing in 36 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA such places as the Secchieta? His destination at tained, the climber flings himself prone on the ground. Nature asserts supremacy over his whole being, whether in the heedless gaiety of youth, or the more sedate reveries of maturity. He wishes to banish thought and remembrance: to exist is sufficient. He grasps the right to live in a supreme, even a divine sense. The shackles of responsibility, duty, all social obligations, are cast off in an intoxication of sheer inconsequence. Oh, to forget the past, and ward off the dreaded future! The very lightness of atmosphere grad ually induces gaiety, a cheerful mood. What if a sun-cure were established up here, similar to that in Austria, where patients bask in grass- woven huts? Far below the countryside is outspread, the blooming Casentino, with all its famous and familiar memories and legends, while in the rear the chain of Apennine from Liguria and the Mo- denese territory extends through Tuscany. The Falterona is barred from sight, at this point, by the intervening mass of the Pratomagno. If the risen sun is not already too hot the spot induces castle building. The bald ridge of the Secchieta affords a fine prospect of heights in the vicinity. Yonder is the Monte Cimone, a melting line of the Chianti hills, the boundaries of Sienese and Pisan landmarks, while the Libro Aperto, and the Corno alle Scale stretch westward, and the Monte della Verna to the north. THE OPEN AIR 37 The descent may be made by a detour of hours in duration if the road to Romitorio is taken, and Vallombrosa reached by the way of Monte Por- cellaio. An uninterrupted prospect of the Vai d'Arno is obtained by seeking the Piano della Ma- cinaia, instead, to the Buca del Lupo, and the Poggio delle Ghirlande. The climber returns to his quarters long before nightfall. SUMMER LIFE Summer days on the heights of Tuscany sig nify a soft pulsation of idle hours, when to exist is enough — a mere element of the sunshine, the deep shadow, and the wandering breeze. The summer is a volume of which each day is a page. Possibly it is even more a pocket-diary such as a past generation used for pressing a flower on mountain journeys. Vallombrosa has many such souvenirs. These acquire, on winter evenings, the value of living pictures to the ob server because of the leisure to notice types, and the expansive blandness of mood in most tem peraments induced by the pure atmosphere. Gov ernment officials, with their families, strangers resident in Rome and Florence, and tourists seek these woods, for a brief season, and take wing once more. The venerable Minister of State arrived at Vallombrosa in July weather. His advent, an nounced by all the journals of the country, was marked by much ceremony and bustle, from the railway station on the cliff of Saltino to the por tal of the stately old Badia, where a flag hung over the casements of the apartment assigned to guests. The students of the Forest School were 38 SUMMER LIFE 39 drawn up at the gates, in full uniform, and the band of an adjacent town, Pontassieve or Reg- gello, enlivened the hills with strains of the Royal March. Thus the eminent functionary of State, a patriot, who formulated the code of laws for Italy, earned repose in a brief sojourn on the heights after the fatigues of the Roman season. A continuous movement of vehicles on the roads, banquets, and receptions, with much oratory ensued. Now the Pratomagno, like all mountains, ac tually belongs to the native population. Govern ments and man may create laws, and exercise au thority on the earth, even proving sadly tyranni cal, on occasion, but the myriads of little people laugh in their sleeve, and pursue their own way. Life is the first principle, and obeyed by these tiny atoms of movement and instinct. If the ob server shares the opinion of Benjamin Franklin, when he wrote to Madame Brillon in 1778, that animals inferior to man have their own language, and talk together with vivacity, this underworld of Vallombrosa may have discussed its own wise ideas of government, whether monarchical, or re publican, as a happy people, on the whole, with few public calamities to deplore during the past winter. The grasshopper race keep the first festival of the year, without as much as by your leave de manded of human authority, whether Royal cara- biniere, stalking about in cocked hats, or forest 40 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA guards. When the grass of the meadow has been cut the fete begins, and is kept up as long as cricket-folk can skip, jump, and scrape a sharply accentuated tune with the wing cases. The mor tal who walks on the closely cropped turf arouses a brisk multitude that whirrs in the air, and alights on the garments of the intruder, but soon weary of mere investigation of another species, as a matter of curiosity, and leap off once more. These "darlings of the summertide," clad in ar mor of frosted silver, transparent olive tints, or sober dun color present an endless variety of form, size and ornamentation. The band playing under the windows of the illustrious guest in the monas tery with a valiant braying of trumpets, and beat ing of drums has an odd resemblance in uniform of green and russet, yellow stripes, and nodding plumes, to the insect population. The grasshop pers form their own band. What elan and spirit inspire the tiny host! There is no lagging of bored participants here. The feast spread is the dew, the nectar of the grasses and flowers, and the wine of sunshine. They are absorbed in their own revelry. Here is one clad in a sober jacket, born to command, a leader by nature. It climbs a stalk of withered stubble, and plainly exhorts the com pany, waving a feeler: "You young fellows march down to the left corner of the meadow, and you others wheel about to the right, and join the fiddlers," it rasps shrilly. By the time the speech is over the listeners have SUMMER LIFE 41 skipped and flown out of range, and the orator trots nimbly to a sheltered tuft of clover to escape a passing foot. The foot is that of a baby clad in a white shoe, but it might suffice to crush a body. "Don't bother!" retorts a black cricket, coming out of a hole in the turf for a breath of fresh air. Spiders at Vallombrosa are ideal, as a phase of summer life. Grim and gray ogres, known to be cannibals and murderers, may lurk in the dusty labyrinth of web about cellar windows and dark crevices of walls, but Nature decks perfect work when she bids tiny acrobats spin down from the branches of the trees bordering the sunny glades. A crab-shaped, minute creature, lemon tinted, swinging on a silky rope, lands on a sleeve; a green gem trots over a feminine shoulder ; count less coral red, bronze, and black atoms sway in mid air. These babies are from the cocoons spun by the mother spider aloft in the tree. They set forth in the world to solve that terrible problem of the survival of the fittest, in a microscopic fashion, about which the learned Minister may cogitate in the wider fields of emigration, or agri cultural and labor questions. Yonder mustard colored spider, with eccentric markings of black and white, could alight on the brim of the great law-giver's hat, and salute him. Instead the breeze readily sweeps away all the insects. The mole father did not pay his respects to the Minister. The mole residence is situated on 42 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the rough dip of ancient road leading from the fountain of the Camarlinghi to the white highway of Saltino. The place is shady, full of stones, roots, and unkempt weeds about the trunks of trees on either side. We christen it Mole Avenue. It is a truly delightful spot to live in, from a mole standpoint. Talpa Europea was far too busy about his own affairs to notice new comers, although his velvet coat was beautifully lustrous and soft, and quite good enough to wear to any reception. This worthy parent may be often met on Mole Avenue. The chances are that he tumbled down the bank, scurried across the road, and hid under a tuft of broad leaves just as the carriage of state drove past from the station. To lift the weeds with the tip of an inquisitive umbrella, or cane, discloses the hole of the mole home. The animal, on such occasions, is apt to be flurried, stands on its head, essays to dig frantically, here and there, until blundering on the doorway it swiftly vanishes. Galleries are bored beneath the roots on Mole Avenue and lead to the nest by tortuous passages, and other tunnels diverge thence for purposes of flight, to reach water, and to search for food. The central chamber is lined with clean grass. Much hard work is expended on lifting the soil in little heaps to give air to this domestic citadel. Alas! The excellent parents have earned a bad name the world over for this custom of ventila tion. The Sacred Beech Tree. SUMMER LIFE 43 "Hillocks green and soft Raised by the mole, the miner of the soil. He, not unlike the great ones of mankind, Disfigures earth, and, plotting in the dark, Toils much to earn a monumental pile, That may record the mischief he has done. ' ' Such was human prejudice before Darwin! Depend upon it the mole father found the nurs lings sharp set on the auspicious day of which we speak. The infant moles did not clamor to wear pink sashes, and hats decked with feathers, to sally forth, and gaze at the Minister, with the crowd, as Italian children would have done, but they did clamor for snails, grubs, and earthworms, if their elders prefer toads, mice, and frogs. The mole father is certainly not a politician, but he believes in capital punishment to a fierce extent, and snaps off the head of every small serpent and mousekin he meets. The mole couples found col onies in the Alps, and are of most ancient lineage. The squirrel springs through the tree-tops of the grove, light, graceful, almost a shadow. The legend may still appertain to the pretty creature, among rustics, that when it reaches water, pond or river, the furry tail is elevated, as a sail, and the owner passes over safely. The species ranges down from the Alps, building a round house amidst the leaves, tapestried with moss, and obeys the instinct of hoarding provisions. At Vallom brosa the squirrel (scojattoli) had no use for the distinguished functionary of State, as it climbed 44 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA nimbly, or for mankind in general, except to keep out of range of gun and trap. In this sentiment of indifference there is sheer ingratitude, for the squirrel shows the influence of civilisation. As man has advanced from a diet of acorns and mil let to bread, so the animal is disposed to neglect worms, pine kernels, and arbutus fruit in favor of the barley and rye cultivated by the peasant on the margin of woods. The toad population did not care a straw about the coming of the Min ister. If they were just toads they were not of necessity toadies! The young ones happened to be hopping through a quadrille on the flat stone of a broken wall, all mouldy and dilapidated, when the train blew a shrill whistle over the hills. The spot was moist, dark, and muddy, near an aban doned mill. Suddenly an approaching footstep interrupted the revelry, and the tiny batrachians jumped off right and left, leaving one panting with fatigue, and regarding all the world with goggle eyes. The attitude of this infant — not an inch in length yet so perfect in toad symmetry- was proud. It could not, from some hurt, or would not run away, so it paused on the stone, and mused on the greatness of its family. Why not? Was a descendant of the toad that wore a fabulous jewel in its head, or of those ancestors reputed alive after being embedded in glacial clay and Nilotic alluvium for some twenty thousand years to cringe before any earthly authority of to-day? SUMMER LIFE 45 In Tuscany, Liguria, and the Abruzzi the viper awakens from a long period of lethargy down in the ground, and yawns, — if vipers do yawn. An other summer dawned for the reptile at Vallom brosa. The species haunting the meadow was an Arab, with everyone's hand against it, and re sponsive hiss and sting in readiness. Its career is apt to be short and dramatic. After the long fasting of winter no doubt an agreeable sensation of hunger sends the viper forth in search of liz ards, mice, toads, and frogs. Young vipers are born, in number from twelve to twenty-five, an in teresting and venomous family, harmless until the fourteenth day. These prey on their neighbors, and are, in turn, eaten. The Minister was not greeted by the viper on his entrance into the monastery — by good fortune. The dragon fly in burnished armor, hovered on jewelled wings over the basin, where aquatic plants unfold, and the water gushes down from the side of the moat. Myriads of flies and gnats skim the surface, frogs croak around the margin, and all the spinners and weavers work at their task to preserve life for future generations, with reference to rain, tempests, and snow calculated to wreck hopes. The gate of the Badia is a stone's throw distant, and all these mysteries of minute existence go on undisturbed. Beware, wee folk, and show a trifle more re spect for your betters. What if the Minister should find your indifference too airy and im- 46 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA pertinent, and make another code of Laws for the mountain side? In the middle ages animals were judged with much solemnity, on occasion, with suitable for mula of accusation and defense. According to Gaspar Bailly certain mice were charged before the magistracy, with devastating the diocese of Auteuil. A clever advocate, named Chessanee, gained renown for pleading the case. In 1499 an ox gored a boy at Nancy, and was condemned to death. At Worms a hive was burned because the bees had stung an august per son. In 1565 a decree was issued at Cadore that any animal injuring the woods should suffer the extreme penalty of execution. VI A SOOTHSAYER The wanderer moved slowly up the road, bor dered by lofty trees, on the side of the ravine along the grassy slope which flanks the monastery. He was a worn and bent figure, with white beard and thin locks, clad in rags the hue of moss, foli age, and mouldy stones. He was not a daily sup pliant for alms from a neighboring village, but a stranger journeying over mountain paths, or coming by one of the mountain routes from San Miniato in Alpe, Croce Rossa, Pian degli Ste- faniere, and the Casentino to the Lago road. He asked no dole of charity, and invoked no reward of the Madonna, or the Saints. He carried an empty sack over his shoulder, and his shoes broken and dilapidated, showed the mire of many a league. The Calvary to Paradisino begins with this rough way on the brow of the hill, and presents Vallombrosa in a most picturesque aspect of monasticism, with the group of buildings, church towers and boundary walls, seen in profile below the wooded hill. White oxen drag trees down this path, attached to chains. Here and there logs are piled up. A monarch of firs lies prone, often, with the bark untouched, and the base tilted high 47 48 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA revealing the concentric rings of growth and age in the solid timber. The old man toiled up the gradual ascent, and paused at the bridge spanning the ravine of the stream the Vicano. This torrent, mute in mid summer, dwindled to a mere thread of water glis tening between the rocky ledges of deep gorges bordered by grasses, ferns, bushes, flowers, and tall fir trees, making a gulf of black shadow, awakens in early spring with the melting snows. In April bare twigs and dead leaves of the pre vious season yield place, with the last traces of ice, to the soft coloring of the almond blossom, apple, peach, and cherry follow, even while the hedges still show gray tangles of bryony. The brook quits the source, verging on cloudland of rapid changes in light and shade, fleecy vapors of the atmosphere, stretches of bare ground suc ceeded by budding foliage of beech, oak, maple, or elm, and leaps down the mountain side to life and action. At the bridge of the Calvary the accumulated waters form a tumultuous cascade, filling the air with spray, and the thunder of a monotonous note, as it surges down the steep channel, ultimately reaching the Sieve in the val ley, as a not inconsiderable tributary to swell the Arno current. The Vallombrosan monks gathered the flowing stream in ponds, or basins, to turn the wheels for grinding grain, and the saw-mills. Truly, the streams that turn the mill- clappers of the world arise in solitary places. On A SOOTHSAYER 49 the further bank, approached by a little path, is the chapel of San Torello, sheltered by overhang ing, rocky heights. The vagrant paused, leaning on his staff, and contemplated the channel of the torrent, and the little chapel with a roof of reddish-brown tiles, and a grated portal. ' ' The mortuary chapel, ' ' he soliloquised : "La morte n'e sovra le spalle." (Death is al ways looking over the shoulder.) He turned to the left, and climbed the abrupt road, as inexorable as a stairway, of paved blocks, with a ridge of rounded coping, at intervals, as a rest, and square holes for sockets that once sup ported rude crosses on the outer edge over the precipice. Chapels mark the stations of this pil grimage. These shrines embowered in venerable trees of the hillside, covered with moss and vines, and approached by this Via Crucis, are full of a mysterious charm of memories. The souvenirs of time in the passing of years, nay, of centuries, are the lights and shadows interwoven about the rude carvings, frescoes, and fading emblems of the path. The wanderer was not devout in bearing. He made no genuflection before an altar, nor crossed himself at the stations. He scarcely glanced at the Sasso de San Giovanni Gualberto, and was seemingly ignorant, or indifferent, to the legends of the spot treasured by the faithful. His wrinkled visage wore a transient smile of mock- 50 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA ery. Thus he arrived at the summit, with the last chapel on the ledge, and a flight of steps lead ing up to the bastion of the Paradisino. Every life has its Via Crucis, followed with flagging strength and failing breath! How often the penitential way is a self-inflicted hardship accepted blindly, heedlessly, and without fore thought, taking false for true, and true for false. The old man could have followed the broad avenue Milton, instead, and spared himself fatigue. He rested at the base of a tree in silent meditation. The wood bent over him from the crag above, and surrounded him with shadowy depths of sombre green. He became a part of Nature's solitude. His raiment and form were indistinguishable from the plants, and mould, and mossy boulders about him. Even the lichens and grayish filaments of parasitic growth on adjacent fir trunks resembled beard and locks of hair straggling over his shoulders. His gaze became fixed, as if his thoughts strayed into problems of dreams beyond the veil of bluish shade of inter lacing balsamic boughs. Who was he? Was he a wizard, a descendant of Tuscan soothsayer, or an Etruscan augur looking into futurity. Was he a survivor of the middle ages, capable of weaving spells in the forest by casting a stone in a pool, and raising storms for the countryside. A sound reached his ear which had never before awakened the echoes of Vallombrosa, the whiz zing, pumping, panting of machinery. The old A SOOTHSAYER 51 man rose to his feet, and peered down on the Lago road through the foliage leaning on his staff. The first automobile darted past, as if on the wings of the wind in the direction of Lago, and speedily returned. This motor-car had de parted from the gates of Florence, guided by a prince, and reached Vallombrosa in one hour and fifteen minutes. Such was the glorious record displayed to an enlightened world. The face of the venerable spectator remained impassive, betraying neither surprise nor inter est. One might infer that he anticipated the ar rival of the strange machine, latest triumph of craftmanship. Lucan described the Paduan, or Euganian Seer, who beheld as in a vision, seated on his native hills, the battle of Pharsalia. At length the old man made a gesture, as of putting aside the spectacle, and murmured in a low tone : "Quel che e adesso vostra, era mio una volta. Si, era mio." (That which is now yours was once mine. Yes, it was mine.) VII NIGHT IN THE APENNINES VAiiOMBRosA wore an aspect of calm serenity and remoteness from all the bustle and turmoil of daily life on the eleventh of July, the eve of the festival of St. John Gualberto. The pure twilight, redolent of the balsamic fragrance of the woods breathed forth on the air, yielded to sud den darkness almost palpable in intensity. The lowlands sank into obscurity, a zone of trees girdled the vale, and a rampart of mountains rose on the sky. The group of buildings of the monas tery was faintly outlined on the masses of ver dure, pierced by the dim light of a casement here and there, while Paradisino gleamed white on a crag of rock above. Summer pulsed on the earth in the myriad voices of night. The cricket folk made a concert, monotonous and incessant, in the ground; the tree-frogs hummed down the avenue (the stradone), and from every pool, basin, and stream the frogs' chorus added their note. Oc casionally a fire-fly, like a gem, flew about the laurel and rose bushes, and settled on a leaf. The bats skimmed and fluttered in search of moths and other insects before going to rest un- NIGHT IN THE APENNINES 53 der the tiles of the roofs. As night deepened the owls added a weird note to the shrilling, piping, and gurgling sounds. Such drumming, fiddling, and piping as went on around the waterfall, and in the ravines ! To quote Novalis, the herbs are the daughters, and the animals the sons of Earth, the great mother. Further afield the little, nocturnal ani mals and reptiles ventured forth in their own fashion. The hare sought a garden patch to nib ble a cabbage leaf if obtainable, listening timor ously. Martins and weasels essayed to prey on mice, moles, or fowls, lurking in some abandoned chapel. A blotting shadow proved to be an har assed owl parent, with a clamorous brood of nestlings in an adjacent tree, flitting on velvet wings in search of other nestling and eggs, or nimble mice scurrying across the path. The yel low eyes gleamed with the keen interrogation: "Is there even a stray toad about? The children are so dreadfully hungry in the mountain air. ' ' Nature reveals multitudinous forms of life in the sultry July night. Man was the mute spec tator of the majestic scene, as spirit-endowed brother of the great family of creation's children. The mood of the flesh might be heavy, inert, dim and low, a mere lengthening out of leaden hours of existence. Thoughts were neither good nor bad— the restless comrades of day — each the frivolous, vexing foe of the other. On the range of Apennine was shed an atmosphere of peaceful 54 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA quietude above crowds and the tumult of sheer noise, Vallombrosa became a separate sphere of shadow, yet was gradually girdled by a zone of light, as the constellations and planets shone forth in the vast firmament of the heavens. Assuredly wakeful human kind responds to the powerful influence of such hours. Night is here the poet if day is the artist. Vistas stretch be fore the mind into the infinite. In a Pantheisti cal sense Nature clothes all in the mystical gar ment of the soul of the Universe, and the veiled spirit of the observer responds in awe and hu mility, without intermediary of word or symbol. Our planet sinks into insignificance beneath the dome of sky. Galileo is reputed to have studied here in early years in the college established by the Vallom brosa Order, and been removed to the University of Pisa in the fear that he would be attracted to the religious life. Did he seek to penetrate the subtle mysteries of the unknown, on this spot, gazing at the heavens in rapt contemplation? Will some Galileo of the next century smile at our ignorance, and respond to the beckoning stars, having intelligence of their inhabitants? The sky that hides itself in the garish efful gence of day is revealed in serene splendour at night. Hours passed in lagging drowsiness, and the air was without a ruffling breath. There was a moment of suspense and expectation. What had NIGHT IN THE APENNINES 55 happened? The hills gained a wan medium of distinct outline of bleak cliff and rock. The stars above an adjacent peak seemed to pulsate and scintillate in a paler lustre of ether. A hush fell on the clamor of the wee folk. The crickets ceased to chirp, the frogs and tree-toads took a nap, the owls vanished with a final hooting cry. The falcon passing through the wood might be a descendant of the friendly bird that tapped at the window of the cell to awaken St. Francis of Assisi at La Verna. Milton once more touched the human imagination with his magical wand. The first mortal stood alone on the grass of Eden, and answered with adoring thought the gaze of the vaulted sky. Day was dawning. Light in all the power of universality, intangible yet benefi cent, was near. Flowers began to show their color, here a spot of golden yellow in the turf, and there a spray of white blossoms on a branch. "When of old the sons of morning sung, While the Creator great His constellations set, And the well-balanced world On hinges hung." At Vallombrosa did a draped and hooded figure kneel in the shadow of the woods before the altar of each dismantled chapel, clasping a crucifix? The morning prayer at dawn was murmured by the flowing waters of the hillside, and the leaves responded to spectral penitents. 56 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA "Hail, holy Light, offspring of Heaven's first born, Or of the eternal coeternal beam, May I express thee unblamed? Since God is light." A ripple of melody awoke among the blackbirds and chaffinches in all the thickets, pierced by the harsh call of a hawk. Far down the path a group of villagers chanted responses to a Canticle sung by a young girl. The beam that runs eight times around the world in a second touched and glori fied the old monastery buildings. At five o'clock the bells of the church tower rang their earliest chime of announcement that the festival of St. John Gualberto had once more recurred with the summer season. VIII THE SAINT Many years ago a man looked down from the slopes of Vallombrosa on the Arno flowing below. The river was like the current of his own life. His span of existence seems to have been limited to Florence. The man is known in religious and secular history as St. John Gualberto. To the former element he is still the monastic shepherd in an evil world of the tenth and eleventh cen turies to whose fold the timid and wayward sheep flocked. To the latter portion of the community he affords a most attractive study of his time. Passing generations should reverence his memory for his mission on earth. He taught his fellow creatures to forgive an enemy. "He that cannot forgive others, breaks the bridge over which he must pass, himself, for every man has need to be forgiven." In art St. John Gualberto is portrayed wrapped in the gray robe of his Order with a mild, ascetic, beardless face, carrying a cross and a crutch. He was born in the year 985, according to the ancient records. His father was a rich and pow erful cavalier, Gualberto dei Visdomini, lord of Petro jo in the Vai di Pes a, and connected by 57 58 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA lineage with Ugo, Marchese of Tuscany. Gio vanni had an elder brother, Ugo, by name, who is gravely described by priestly chroniclers as head strong and haughty, much spoiled by his fond parents, as are modern Florentine boys. In his ebullitions of petulance he readily made enemies. The cradle of the Saint was the Fiorenza of the Primo Cerchio. The town had narrow limits. A first nucleus of settlement formed a rectangle with a frontage on the Arno of four hundred yards, extending from the site of the Ponte Santa Trinita to half-way between the Ponte Vecchio, and the present bridge of the Grazie, and six hun dred meters to the north. Such was the Roman Castrum, or colony, founded when the ancient Romans traced here a camp on the river bank, and then a Campidoglio on the site of the Mer- cato Vecchio, and the church of Santa Maria, and built the temple of Mars of black and white marble, with eight sides. These Roman soldiers christened the spot a little Rome, and afterwards Floria for the lillies and other flowers blooming in the surrounding meadows. The walls were built of baked brick by Cneius Pompeius. The early inhabitants were Etruscan and Roman sub jects, the buildings rude, but the energetic char acter of the ruling power was manifested by es tablishing aqueducts to bring water from Quinto and Sesto, as well as Monte Morello, for baths of the quarter known as the Via de' Terme to this day. Such is the oft-repeated tale. Interior of the Church. THE, SAINT 59 When Giovanni Gualberto, the Saint, was born, another era had dawned, yet the boundaries of the town had not materially altered. It was still : "Fiorenza, dentro della cerchia antica." Totila, the Ostrogoth, as the scourge of God, had brought the destruction of invasion to the Arno valley. Vandal, Lombard, and French armies succeeded, so that Italy "the most beauti ful land in the world" was left in disorder and poverty, robbed and pillaged by barbarians. The tenth century witnessed changes in the gathering together of an Italian nationality under the in fluence of a Lombard League, the ambition of suc cessive Popes, and the rulers of cities, all imbued with the spirit of rivalry. Among the princes of noble blood in Italy were Berengarius, Duke of Friuli and Verona, and Guido, Duke of Spoleto, while Charles the Fat, was designated as King of France and Italy. The inhabitants of Florence of mean condition had long been supplemented by nobles of the Teutonic and Lombard armies. These made their homes on suburban property, as the feudal castle and villa still testify in adja cent villages. To such rank belonged the family of the Saint. The nobility, middle class, and lower order (popolo minuto) must have taken form, the first causes of Florentine character in future development of ambition, hatred, diplo matic subtlety, and open turbulence of republi canism. No doubt the young Gualberto esteemed his native place as a center of civilisation, even 60 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA waxing wicked in church and state, ready for the vials of heaven to be unsealed and poured forth, especially after religion had taken possession of a naturally sensitive and delicate conscience. The earliest shield of the city was red and white, with the half-moon of Fiesole quartered. The town had four gates, and four suburbs (borghi). To Gualberto, at least, the Etruscan Athens of future centuries already boasted of market-place (piazze), and streets of the Jasmine, the Orange, the Lily, the Pink, as well as of Pur gatory, Limbo, and the Crucifixion, together with a corner of the Swallows, or the Loggie of grain and flour. His career affords a theme for medi tation at that remote date. His father gave him a good education, according to the standard of the day, and had him trained in all manly exer cises to shape him for cavalier or soldier. Pre sumably he enjoyed at Florence the right of the nobleman to wear armour, be caparisoned as a knight from crest to housings, and escorted by men-at-arms, or esquires, if he actually belonged to the Visdomini. This powerful family had a postern gate on the Piazza del Duoma, and erected a church of San Michele, which was demolished for the building of the Cathedral. The present San Michele on the Via de' Servi was then con structed, which entitled the Visdomini to receive viands on festivals from the Bishop's table. The childhood of St. John Gualberto is obscure. The church of San Piero Maggiore is stated to THE SAINT 61 have been the only sanctuary of the city not guilty of simony in his day. How many times he may have entered the precincts in a serious boyhood ! The origin of San Piero Maggiore is of the most remote antiquity. If not the first church of Flor ence it was, at least, the first Basilica. De voutly trained in all outward observances did the boy partake of a goose at All Saints; a lamb at the Resurrection of our Lord; on the festival of St. Sebastian blessed bread (a panellino) ; and give to the altar on the Purification of the Virgin a wax candle of six ounces, as was customary? Evidently he was born a child of grace as his future course developed. He holds a distin guished rank, among the Florentine youth, gifted in the arts, poetry, and music. When Gualberto was eighteen years of age his brother Ugo was killed in a quarrel. Despair and wrath overwhelmed the proud father at the wrong; crushing grief bowed the fond mother. The adversary does not shine in history, yet may deserve a good word of posterity. He is un hesitatingly pronounced a wretch, a miscreant, for slaying brother Ugo. The chances are that the matter was a quarrel of jealousy, or bad tem per, between equals. Games of hazard, the ancient equivalent of cards and dice, would have readily produced such a result. The base deed may have been the stealthy revenge of a menial. One early writer infers a difference as to the tenure of property. How vividly the scene of removing 62 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA a neighbor's landmarks in the eleventh century rises before the mind; a Gualberto seizing an olive plantation on a margin of land, or the ad versary, gentle or simple, laying claim to a vine yard, or a ditch! On Giovanni, the younger son, fell the burden of the deed. He was sent forth by his father to seek the foe, and avenge the murder by slaying him. The weeping mother would seem not to have detained him. Maddened by trouble, the lad sought the guilty one, but failed to find him. Surely the monk, clad in his gray robe, whose wan lineaments showed that he had outlived the world and its conflicts, gazed down on the Arno from the height of Vallombrosa, and recalled a Good Friday which was to shape his future. The Borgo S. Apostoli, with the baths, was the most luxurious and animated quarter of the town. The Ponte Vecchio was the only bridge, at that date, leading to the south side of the Arno, with the lowest classes of the population gathered in the houses which formed a rampart along the river in the Borgo Podigliano. Beyond were scattered habitations and gardens. Gualberto was returning at evening to his father's country house on horseback with an armed escort, by the path leading up to San Miniato del Monte, when he came upon his enemy unexpectedly. The en counter was sudden and startling. The youth was a mounted St. George prepared to cut down evil. The foe deserves some consideration for his THE SAINT 63 conduct in peril. He was unarmed, and made no attempt to escape. Possibly remorse and regret on this Good Friday unnerved him. He knelt, spread out his arms in the form of a cross, and begged to be forgiven as Christ crucified forgave. Gualberto hesitated, touched with pity, dis mounted, raised the suppliant to his feet, em braced, and bade him go in peace. Such was the sacrifice, the lightning flash of revelation descending from Heaven, the swift change of nature of the avenger. He climbed the path, bordered with cypress trees, to the church, and knelt in doubt and tears at the first shrine of the Via Crucis, a tabernacle surmounted by a cross. This was the famous crucifixion of ancient Greek, or Byzantine design, now kept in the church of Santa Trinita. Had he done wrong to spare the guilty one, according to the standard of honor of the time ? Had he saved his own soul by with holding his hand from the cowardly deed of smit ing an unarmed man? Then to his rapt vision, at least, the Christ on the Cross seemed to bow the head in approval of his conduct. According to the nice adjustment of etiquette of that remote century the adversary must be slain, a life for a life. The spiritual nature of the youth discerned only brutal murder in the deed. "Nobility of soul is more than nobility of birth," said St. Theresa. The sequel is familiar to all. Gualberto turned away from the world, shocked and sickened, and 64 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the haughty father lost two sons. The youth of eighteen entered the Benedictine monastery of San Miniato, and professed a religious life. In 1007 Gualberto departed from this convent, dis satisfied with the rule, to seek other and more spiritual influences in the seclusion of the hills. He emerges from shadow as an interesting figure of history. We are enjoined by a French phi losopher to study without impatience, and even with admiration the great example of the men who were saints. Gualberto visited various monasteries in Tus cany. He was modest as to any personal prec edence. He failed to find the benefit he sought. The contemplative seclusion of the cloister did not suffice for his need. The laxity and greed of the clergy repelled him. A personal acquaint ance with St. Romualdo at Camaldoli is sugges tive, if doubtful. These two monastic shepherds were destined to stand together before their con temporaries and posterity. St. Romualdo was a noble cavalier of Ravenna, born in 956, who aban doned society to seek a mountain retreat of soli tude. He believed that he was destined to found a new institution of monasticism. Gualberto seems to have displayed no such ambition. He abode in the Monastery of St. Ellero until at tracted by the high mountain which protects Flor ence on the East, abounding with fresh waters, and known as Acquabella, or Acquabuona. This land belonged to the Monastery of St. Ellero. THE SAINT 65 The legend that the beech tree bent its branches to shelter the saint on the first night of his pil grimage furnishes a pleasing phase of sylvan lore at Vallombrosa. He came upon a little oratory formed of boards and boughs, and two cells. He met the monks Paul and William, whom he had previously known in the Monastery of San Miniato. These had sought a wilderness here to learn wisdom among the hills, and live as anchorites. Gualberto de cided to join them, and fix his abode of vigil and prayer in this sheltered nook. They sought to dwell together in fasting and contemplation. Thus Gualberto gave himself up to devotion, meditating on the Cross, the temptation, and the agony of Gethsemane of his Master, whose promise was ever: "I forgive thee all that debt." The greater the pain of the true penitent the greater the gain. A supreme aspiration was to be rid of the poor disdained body and its senses, or, to wholly destroy the phenomenal world being impossible, to soar in thought above both, and watch until the current was stayed. If Gual berto, like Tolstoi, found church and Christianity not working together for the same end he did not seek to create a new creed, but strove to purify the existing one. After the calamities of centuries his aim, in supplication and expiation, was to make religion console and sustain. The human race demanded 66 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the healing of sorrows. Heaven was the real country and not the earth. Who knows if he wrestled with his own doubts, until he breathed in the balmy stillness of the trees a confirmation that the kingdom of God bestowed on humanity consisted of Peace? When the angelus rang did he bend the knee, after the manner of the Coptic priest, no longer oppressed by the weight of sin and failure, and live absolutely pure in the hour of the angelus ? The fame of the hermits could not long remain concealed in the forest of the Acquabella. Tid ings of their sanctity spread through the country, and reached the town. Other penitents quitted the haunts of men, and flocked to this retreat. Soon the number of cells were increased, and the oratory enlarged for the accommodation of the new comers. The discipline was severe, consist ing of vigils, scourging, and exposure to fatigue and cold. The fasting was almost continuous, with a Lenten abstinence from meat during the year, and a frequent diet of bread, salt, and water. Gualberto supported life on herbs and roots, with spring water, until remonstrated with by his fol lowers. Novices were subjected to the most hu miliating ordeals to test their zeal. In addition they were required to prostrate themselves on the ground for several days, in silence, and meditate on the Passion. A religious order was then constituted, with a superior, and laws, Gualberto was unanimously THE SAINT 67 chosen for the head. In his humility he hesitated to assume such responsibility, as he had already refused to take precedence at San Miniato, and in the Monastery of St. Ellero. The monks and certain devout citizens besought him to consent. The Abbess Itta of the convent of St. Ellero, who bestowed on the hermits books, food, and money, added her entreaties. Gualberto finally yielded to these supplications, and the new congregation of Vallombrosa was founded in 1015. The esteem in which the institution was held was demon strated by the bishops, especially by the prelate of Fiesole, in whose diocese the Acquabella was situated. The Emperor Henry II of Germany, called the Saint, travelled by Florence to Rome to be crowned by Benedict VIII. He sent gifts to Vallombrosa, and the Bishop of Paterbona, in his suite, to consecrate the altar of the new ora tory. Women were generous patrons. The Ab bess Itta continued to be a benefactress of the monks and gave to Gualberto in 1039 much prop erty of her own feudal patrimony, an act con firmed by the Emperor Conrad II. The Empress Cunegunda sent Vallombrosa sacred adornments for the sanctuary. In 1068, by a public Act, writ ten in the Monastery of Rosano, on the Arno, Count Guido of Poppi, and the Countess Ermel- lina gave the Monte Taborra, now known as the Secchieta, to Vallombrosa as already mentioned. Pious persons followed these edifying ex amples, and made donations so that in a brief 68 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA space of time the foundation became enriched with many possessions, and enjoyed ample privi leges accorded by princes, and the papacy. The cells made of boards and branches were swept away, and the monastery built, with a church annexed, under the name of a Badia of Santa Maria, and then the Badia of Vallombrosa, when the Bishop of Paterbona returned to bless two new altars. Gualberto evinced energy, intelligence, and be nevolence in regulating the affairs of the flock. His ability in government was recognised by ec clesiastical authority. When the Council of Flor ence was held in 1055 the Pontiff Victor H ap proved of the Vallombrosan order, and confirmed Gualberto as Abbot General in supreme authority. From that date he is stated to have manifested more vigor in fulfilling his duties as the confra ternity increased. He bestowed benefits on all classes of people. He severely reprimanded a novice for giving property to a convent, to the robbery of his own family, and tore up the deed of gift. He denounced the Archbishop of Flor ence, Pietro of Pavia, of simony, which aroused tumults, an attack by soldiers on San Salvi at Settimo, and the curious ordeal of passing through fire unharmed, assumed by Pietro Aldobrandini, afterwards Cardinal and Bishop of Albano, for the honor of the fraternity. The Pope Leo IX made a pilgrimage to Passaguano at the foot of Vallombrosa to hold converse with Gualberto. THE SAINT 69 The Saint set the example of daily labor by tilling the ground in feeble old age. He fed the poor even to emptying the store-houses of the cloister. His demeanor was mild and meek. He gave to his flock living waters, and the symbolical bread of life, according to the code of his day. He died at the Monastery of San Salvi in 1073, repeating the Psalm: My soul thirsteth for God. He was canonised twelve years after his de cease. Four monasteries had been established at the time of his death. His sphere was narrow. St. Ambrose has been compared to a river flow ing through a city, refreshing all, and St. Augus tine to a lake reflecting the world in breeze and storm. St. John Gualberto, and St. Romualdo were the two reformers of Italy, who rose three centuries after St. Benedict, when discipline had declined. The great Umbrian movement of Francis of Assisi, and the founding of the Mendicant orders were of a later century. Also, the Mystics, the psychological crisis of divine grace, human fee bleness, Calvinistic predestination, and the Porte- Royale agitations concerning the separation of the church of Christ developed in the future. The Saint of Vallombrosa holds a place in the niche of time. The July day was sunny and calm, and every fern-draped nook sent forth the fragrance of leaf and blossom, as incense to the Saint's memory. 70 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA The festival was not animated. Country folk came up the road to pray in the church. Rustic vehicles brought ladies and children from villas of the neighborhood to attend mass. The tall man, whose advent marks a saint's day, appeared betimes, and spread his wares on the ground be side the road. The store consisted of toy bas kets, platters, vases, and pans of brown pottery. A few mendicants whined, a dejected peddler dis played coral and silver chains, a booth or two had been erected, and several tables, draped with red cloth, exhibited piles of cakes, trinkets, and a lottery wheel. A boy carried a basket of unripe pears, and a young Carabiniere tested the fruit, jesting with the vendor. The day passed tranquilly. At the hour of sunset the bells rang, and the organ swelled forth from the church for the last mass. As the har mony lapsed to silence once more an echo of the choir of the first monks seemed to take up the note breathed from these ancient walls. They in toned at evening their Qui Habitat, the ninety- first Psalm: He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Al mighty. The western sky flushed to rose, with the ho rizon of a golden and crimson effulgence, where the great ball of a sun had sunk. San Giovanni Gualberto, in his gray robe, again stood at the gate of his Monastery, his gaze uplifted in mem- 3 O THE SAINT 71 ory of the Good Friday when he forgave his enemy. On his right hand was the Cardinal Benedict, and on the left the bearded patriarch, St. Benedict, as depicted by Perugino. Michael, the Archangel, resplendent in strength and beauty, the sunset colors reflected on his half-furled pin ions, still hovered near, as patron of the Vallom brosan order, and guardian of souls, and watched the heights, with drawn sword, through the dark ness of night. IX THE FLOCK The flock was not scattered by the death of the Saint. The order expanded, became enriched, and mingled with public affairs. The successor of Gualberto was Don Rodolfo, named the Great. The first series of Abbots extended from 1015 to 1514. The congregation is considered to have attained its greatest development in 1107, under the rule of the Superior General San Bernardo of the Uberti, Cardinal and Bishop of Parma. The superiors became subsequently elected for a term of four years instead of for life. In time the monks were admitted to the Senate of Flor ence, and given the title of Counts of Monte Verde and Gualdo. They were held in such pub lic consideration that they were entrusted with delicate diplomatic missions by the Papacy and Civic authorities. In 1311 the Abbot of Vallombrosa was sum moned to the Council at Vienne by the circular of Pope Clement V issued to suppress the Templars. The fraternity was enlarged by liberal donations during these years. The famous Countess Ma tilda of Tuscany bestowed many estates on the monastery of Acqua-Bella. A worthy citizen of 72 THE FLOCK 73 the name of Manfredi added other farms, while the Countess Emilia of Poppi confirmed the gift of Maguale, Melosa, and Pagiano, made by her ancestors. The Abbess Agnes gave rich gifts to the Badia. In the year 1189 Alberto Aldobran dini of Quona, and his wife Caterina, conceded to the monks absolute possession of the Mount Taborra, and the villages of Tosi and Pelago. Vallambrosa was enlarged in 1225, and cells built around the church. In this century the hos tility of the Guelph and Ghibelline factions, pre viously nurtured in secret, was manifested in open violence. Pope Gregory IX sought to erect a barrier against the tide of political evils, and restore peace to Florence by appointing the Cardinal Beccaria, Abbot General of Vallom brosa, his Legate. The Guelph party, represent ing the people, suspected Beccaria of favoring the Ghibellines as delegates of the nobility and had him beheaded as he entered the city. Dante wrote : "If thou should' st questioned be, Who else was there, Thou hast beside thee him of Beccaria. Of whom the gorget Florence slit asunder." In worldly affairs the flock of Gualberto was called upon to defend their own from depreda tion, like other wealthy proprietors, in the lapse of time. Communes and Seigneurs wished to 74 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA tamper with their claims. The Abbot Ruggero Buondelmonte in 1290, was constrained to resort to arms to retain lands belonging to the monas tery of Passignano usurped by citizens. This energetic prelate further obtained a decree of the Signory of Florence, empowering his vicars to hold their rights in the castles of the surround ing districts. In 1340 the Abbot Benedetto built the Villa of Pitiana as well as a strong tower to protect pre cious objects, and other riches, from the sacking and pillage of the time. Martin V accorded the General of the Vallombrosan order the title of Marchese of Caneto. The Abbot Don Placido was created Secretary of the Florentine Republic in 1340, and was commissioned to confer with Eugenius IV on important matters. The ancient convent of Monte Senario was founded in these days of strife and faction by the Florentine noble St. Philip Benitius, who strove to establish peace, charity, and forgiveness between the Guelphs and Ghibellines. The most brilliant and prominent figure among the superiors of Vallombrosa was the Abbot Don Biagio Milanese. He embellished the sanctuary, and had cast two great bells which weighed, re spectively, 4000 Florentine pounds, and 2000 pounds. These were sold on the suppression of the convent in 1808. The tradition lingers among the hills that these bells went to America. Where do they ring in memory of Vallombrosa? Possi- THE FLOCK 75 bly on the Atlantic or Pacific shores of South America. Don Biagio had a reliquary of silver made to contain the arm of San Giovanni Gualberto, and ordered the famous work of Perugino, the great picture of the Assumption, which was transferred to Florence in the time of the suppression of the religious orders. He instituted the school of the Badia in the form of a university. Another link in this chain of events was the demolition wrought by a band of soldiers of the army of Charles V in 1529, when many precious documents and codicils were destroyed. The fine tower flanking the enclosure on the East, was then erected for purposes of defense, and to contain the riches of the fraternity. The rule of authority was absolute. The Ab bot was empowered to punish, incarcerate, and bring to trial refractory brothers and insubordi nate vassals. The administration of Justice was usually mild and persuasive rather than one of severity. The fragments of meals in the refec tory were distributed to the needy at the convent gates. Bread was given to a thousand poor dur ing the week. Loans were advanced to peasants on grain until the harvest. Hospitality was a duty, and extended to all classes of visitors for three days in the Foresteria. The most pleasing feature of these Monastic orders, to the writer, was the superiority to all surroundings in medical knowledge. Vallom- 76 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA brosa had a hospital, and dispensed remedies. No doubt the Speziale (pharmacy clerk) made long journeys through the country to carry medi cine to the sick, as did the Camaldolesi. The records state that from the year 1750 to 1753 two hundred and twenty thousand, seven hundred and sixty-one loaves of bread were dis tributed to the poor, while work was given to la borers on the different estates. The library was extensive, consisting of sa cred books, manuscripts of the fifteenth century, adorned with miniatures, learned tomes, and ancient and modern philosophies. Such Archives as escaped the devastation of the French army have been removed to Florence by the Italian government. The sphere of the Vallombrosan order has ever been local, and limited to the Arno valley, Tus cany, and Florence. Their place at Rome was obscure. Traces of them exist in their church of Santa Prassede and the adjacent Benedictine con vent. The mundane form of the flock may be thus briefly defined. They belong to the sanctu ary of the hills of famous memories. We must follow them among the trees, and the overhang ing rocks of the slopes of the Pratomagno, and muse on their career during the long hours of the summer day. If the leafy thickets, with the wind rustling through the branches, and the stream whispering among the stones of the channel could weave tales we might divine the individuahty of THE FLOCK 77 each recluse who came here to save his soul in imitation of the founder. Were there black, as well as white, among the sheep? Did they pass their time in monastic se clusion in prayer, meditation, and fold their hands over their gray robes to pace the path, weighing the enigma of life to the end? The footprints left by them would rather prove that they were often spurred by the torments of longing and re gret for the world abandoned, and tempted to paroxysms of violence by the delirium of imagina tion. The example of Gualberto was ever before their eyes in the rocky fissure on the road to Para disino, where the hillside opened to shield him on one occasion, from the Devil swooping down the height to seize him, and falling over the bank, headlong, instead. How readily men, saints or sinners, faint with fasting and wasting vigils, might behold a demon in the toppling tree, as it crashes over, caught in the whirlwind of storms, and discover a miracle in their own escape by crouching under a projecting ledge ! Their creed in coming hither was obedience to superiors, a community of life and property, concord among brothers, and love of one's neighbor. In the twi light atmosphere of the green leaves we discern traces of them here and there. The constitution of Vallombrosa was rigid, as strict Benedictines, yet certain monks withdrew to separate cells. Don Biagio Milanese built 78 SUMMER DAYS Ax v Al/±jum.b.ku»A such a retreat on the left side of Paradisino, while the Padre Giovan Maria Canigiani, General Superior, and afterwards Bishop of Ippona, con structed another adjacent to the Badia. These modest cabins had an oratory, dedicated to the Madonna, a spring of fresh water, and a tiny patch of garden. Here the recluse sought to fight the enemy alone. Did he succeed? We know that the night was peopled with shapes of terror, prowling around the fragile shelter, to the stoutest hearts in these solitudes. The stealthy fox and fam ished wolf of past centuries were akin to dragons, vampires, and other fabulous beasts in the esti mation of the monks. No doubt the cat tribe, as depicted by Japanese art, assumed gigantic pro portions to the troubled vision of timid devotees at midnight, peering forth from gloomy nooks, and over chasms with eyes of fire. Such her mits aspired to the perfect stillness, disdain of action, detachment from terrestrial interests of the Mystics. A plenitude of divine mercy must refresh them, and they strive to become purified of pride, love, and all the pleasures of life in soli tude. The Benedictine ideal of perfection was to move through existence with cold serenity, neither sad nor smiling, as mortals already half-buried in the tomb, without father, mother, or kindred. The Emperor Otto I said to his Barons, after visiting the shrine of St. Nilus at Grotta Fer- rata: THE FLOCK I 79 " These men are truly citizens of Heaven, they live under their tents as strangers on the earth." The oratory of Paradisino was given the name after the Padre Pietro Migliorotti of Poppi be held a vision on the spot of the Christ of the Apocalypse, King, and Supreme Priest, ascending to the celestial Jerusalem. John of the Cells was assuredly the most in teresting of these followers of Gualberto. This monk held intercourse with the outside world. He was sent by Catherine of Siena to preach in the Italian cities, with her confessor the Frate Raimondo, while the brother Jacopo was de spatched to Sardinia, by this ruling woman. John of the Cells rebuked the enthusiasm of the public mind concerning the Crusades. His voice reaches the ear even now emanating from the depths of the Vallombrosan woods as a key-note of spirituality: "Is not Christ ever in the midst of us in the Sacrament without seeking his sep ulcher?" In the passing years many of the penitents may have believed that the angel stood in the path be fore them, like Joachim di Flora, and proffered the mysterious chalice of all knowledge to drink. Their refrain was ever: "0 beata soUtudo! 0 sola beatitudo!" Behold in full noonday another, and more hu man phase, of development of the flock in those who obeyed the injunction to labor with their hands, and improve the education of the world. 80 SUMMER DAYS AT VALlJUM±5rJU»A. The Vallombrosans have left a record to this day of their work, as skilful agriculturists, scholars, and large proprietors. True to the Benedictine rule they promoted learning, chemistry, and the fine arts, transcribed manuscripts, and illumi nated missals. Possibly they had among their number a Theophilus, the Monk, a Friar Bacon, or an Albertus Magnus. The farm of Paterno down the road, where the fraternity withdrew in winter, was admirably cul tivated, with dairies, a sheepfold, and piggeries on an extensive scale. They may have sent their herds to the Maremma in winter as did the Camaldolesi. Forest planting was their supreme task. They sold much timber for building purposes. A mill once stood on the bank of the Vicano where the monks ground their own grain. They were prac tical farmers, and rode horses, or mules, as stewards, to superintend the sowing and harvest ing of vassals. Certain robust brothers went shooting over their preserves in autumn with guns and dogs. The English monk Henry Hugford is much praised by all authorities. He lived at Paradi sino in the eighteenth century. He perfected the use of scagliosa which became so universally adopted in Italy for the pavement of floors, vesti bules, and columns of public edifices. He took the scaligiolo, a chalk known at Bo logna, cooked it in a furnace until it became white, THE FLOCK i 81 sifted the lighter particles like flour, mixed the substance with glutin to a paste, or fluid, and added colors. The first coating was rubbed with pumice and hot iron, then wax applied, and a final polish imparted by a felt. Boiling oil served the same end. The artistic whim had full scope in designing geographical charts, musical instru ments, playing cards and figures in rhomboidal patterns and crosses. The Vallombrosans were botanists and gar deners. The Padre Tozzi studied the birds, in sects, fungus, and grasses of the region, and at tained distinction! The monks planted at one date, 40,300 beech trees, and had expended on their orchards, vineyards, and fields 2,477 scudi. They extracted from the nut an oil valuable in medicine. In the Apennines the harvest ripens in Septem ber, and falls in October and November, fifteen days before the chestnut, when the squirrels and swine feast on the mast. The frugal monks taught the peasant to eat the nut, which is deli cate, like the almond. Also, they used the kernel of the pine cone, the pinnochi, to mix with bread sometimes, or dried, to serve with lamb, in the mode of Lucca. Olive oil was treasured by these monastic farmers as having many uses, to burn in lamps, to dress wool and cure skins, make soap, and em ploy in manufacture. A patch of fine potatoes of the hills growing 82 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA beside the road has an especial significance for the American. The vigorous tuber inspires a sentiment of benevolence as a gift of the New World to hungry Europe. Fain would the Anglo- Saxon palate partake of the homely vegetable, planted in the shadow of the Badia for the healthy appetite of youth in the Government Forest school, even as a symbolical rite! Some two hundred years ago Padre Vitale Maggazino of Vallombrosa sowed the potato here, as de scribed in a work on Tuscan Agriculture, printed in 1623. Vallombrosa thus claims the honor of an introduction into Italy of the root. The Car melite Scalzi also claimed to have brought it from Spain and Portugal. Solanum, tuberosum early flourished on the slopes of the Pratomagno, as described by Fiaschi, the Florentine merchant, who had vis ited Quito and Peru : ' ' They sow a certain plant, which they call Patatta, with a large root, and the said root they cook under the ashes." One won ders if the Italian eyed the new food suspiciously, finding it insipid and uninteresting as he does to day. Possibly Padre Maggazino was constrained to coax hunger, as did Monsieur Parmentier in France, by placing guards to watch the precious plant from being rifled or stolen ; a measure which raised it in public estimation. To seek the sites of thrifty industry of the monastic fraternity here is a curious experience for the summer tourist. A group of picturesque THE FLOCK 83 stone buildings of diverse dimensions and hues, yellow, warm pink, red, and gray tending to mouldy black, stand on the brink of a ravine near the monastery. These were formerly maga zines, ice-cellars with low-spreading roofs, and traces of broad paved routes athwart the path, with a ridged margin for sledges to carry ice and provisions in winter. The little pond beyond the moat was one of the preserves for rearing trout. The ancient saw-mill in the hollow of the glade below is disused, as a water power. On the bank of green turf another mill has been converted into a laundry, where feminine finery, and the be- ruffled gear of children, pinafores, and petticoats flutter on the lines in defiance of monasticism. The aspect of the locality has a creepy sugges- tiveness of lizards, toads, and generations of lurk ing scorpions, centipedes, and tarantula emerging from dusky corners and crannies of mildewed ma sonry. The musty smell of the dust of centuries is exhaled from apertures, and the heavily grated casements, obscured by masses of cobweb. All day the girls of the wash house sing stornelli, as they suspend the linen in the pure breeze, or co quet with the students. The door of a weather-stained stable stands open, and at noon a pair of mild-eyed oxen, re leased from dragging logs since dawn, are en gulfed in the black interior, or a weary mule early abroad, enters to escape the flies of the highway, and take a nap in cool darkness. 84 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Bread of Vallombrosa, whether accepted as spiritual, or human food, is excellent. The baker reigns in a half -dilapidated, small building, with a second story, like a tower, moss-stained, and of a russet hue. Never had bakery more odd sur roundings! A ravine yawns in the rear, and sombre fir-trees meet above the roof. The baker is a power. He smiles affably, pausing in the doorway, if you commend his loaf, and replies: "It is made of the good grain of the country, Signora." The structure vibrates with the humming of a machine for sifting flour, by day, while night is rendered luminous by the flame of his furnace, and the ray of his lantern. "Give us this day our daily bread." Such is the homely repetition of the earlier formula of Dante: "Da oggi a noi la cotidiana manna." When the Franciscans received St. Louis to a dinner (maigre) on the eve of Pentecost, they did not proffer a dry crust, and water of the spring, but regaled the monarch with most noble wine, lampreys, ecrivisse, eels, and other fish most sumptuously served. In their sphere the Vallom- brosans waxed luxurious in a similar fashion, as the centuries passed. We may indulge in a Bar- mecidal feast, as their guest, seated on a log of the old saw-mill. Imagine the meal spread in the Refectory. The food is the produce of their own property, from the ham of the land of "pure blood"; the THE FLOCK . 85 soup, (minestra) of a regenerating strength, boiled fowl not a month old; a fritto varied and appetising, and stewed veal with fresh peas, to a roast of the Casentino, salad of twenty-four hours, cheese, and wine of Stia. To-day the monastery stands unchanged, even by restoration. The church is open for religious services, even in winter, with a chime of melodi ous bells; the fine tower of the sixteenth century invites the artist and amateur photographer to reproduce the outline. In 1808, on the suppression of the religious or ders, the monks of Vallombrosa were obliged to abandon the vast pile to dilapidation and decay. The Grand Duke of Tuscany restored the Broth ers in 1817. The monastery was closed anew in 1866, and three priests left in charge of the church. All objects of value were transferred to the museums and archives of Florence. A gov ernment college for the study of selviculture was organised here in 1870. On the ninth of August of the year 1908, the General of the Vallombrosan order of Benedic tines died at Rome, and was placed in his church of Santa Prassede. At Vallombrosa in the soft summer twilight of the evening hour of August tenth, the bells of the monastery acquired a modulation seldom heard: the tolling of a funeral knell. The hills rose about the sheltered nook in darkening shadow, and the modern stir of vigorous, young life in the 86 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Forest School was put aside, for the moment, by the right of the early owners of the place. The moon shone down quietly, silvering the tops of the trees, and revealing the outline in sharp re lief of the ancient moat. The following morning, at ten o'clock, a requiem mass was celebrated in the church, with all the pomp of ceremonial of such occasions. A catafalque, erected in the nave, was surmounted by a Cardinal's hat, and flanked by a standard banner of black velvet and gold, and large wax candles in massive silver candle sticks of the high altar. The service terminated, young priests extin guished the candles, and the bells tolled a final knell. Outside a few ladies lingered in the vesti bule, and a beggar crouched in the entrance. A gray cat sat on the steps, and washed its face with one paw unconcernedly. Then a group of students issued forth from another portal, with green tin cans slung over the shoulder prepared for a botanising excursion. Life resumed an ordinary routine. College of Forestry. A WHITE POPPY Early and late on a summer day the white poppy nods a greeting, swayed by the wind, to the passer by the boundary wall, as if desirous to attract attention. Why not? Flowers, like human beings, in our time, long to win applause before their audience. To be conspicuous, to challenge criticism, if not admiration, to astonish by prowess at games, horsemanship, or gymnas tics, finds an equivalent, possibly, in plant com placency in all the feats of hybrid cultivation of skilful gardening with roses, carnations, and chrysanthemums spreading variegated petal toil ettes at a flower show. The white poppy has no claim to such distinc tion either in color, form, or perfume. Its ances tors came from Asia, Egypt, and the Peloponnesus centuries ago. Here the species has only medic inal uses in the extraction of an oil. Opium is not sought in the chalice of the flower of quiet tones from white to gray, veined with crimson. Papavero, in quei di non senta oblio. The intruder must seek the emblem of sleep in the old garden in the rear of the monastery, en closed by hedge and wall, with a mediaeval gate, 87 88 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA flanked by worn pillars, surmounted by stone balls, stained with mildew. The air here is red olent of sweet-briar and syringa bushes. In one corner of the enclosure is a pavilion with a red, pointed roof. A tangled wealth of vines, blossom ing sprays, and a growth of dwarf larch and spruce trees mark the limit of the rough road be tween the garden, and the hill clothed with dense wood. On the steep bank across the path is a small building, once chapel, or shrine, receptacle of tools and other implements of husbandry, charming to the eye of the artist, with dilapidated, tinted walls, ochre, and salmon pink in patches, and tiled roof, where grasses and ferns have taken root as a parapet. In the opposite direc tion extend terraces carefully cultivated, margin of seedlings and slips, growing in ranks like tiny soldiers, botanical treasures sheltered under glass, or in sheds, and rare conifers from all quar ters of the globe. This is the sphere of the white poppy. The gardener who tends valuable nurslings glances with indifference at the emblem of somnolency in a corner. Why is it thriving within these pre cincts instead of beside the highway, or in a ditch? He shrugs his shoulders. The poppy was not planted, but just sows its own seeds from year to year, and remains. Such is the explana tion. The lesson taught by the poppy blooming under the gray stone wall fulfills the admirable German adage which enjoins one well placed not A WHITE POPPY 89 to move an inch. The adaptation of the maxim by the poppy in a botanical garden is: "Remain in a sunny and sheltered nook, and live out your day if the gardener of disaster and oppression does not uproot and cast you away." The poppy is a memory. It belongs to monas ticism. To contemplate the modest plant is to conjure up a vision of box-bordered walks, and a fragrant growth of myrtle, hyssop, and medic inal herbs, with monks moving about, training and weeding the beds, inspired with the zeal of study in addition to manual labor. The tran quil beauty of solitude, and a wholesome well- being of gathering fruit of the harvest apper tained to the Benedictine Order. The poppy an cestry dwelt in brotherhood, whether monocotyle don, or dicotyledon. The monastic sphere was of the closet, and the herbarium, but the influ ences of Goethe and Linnaeus must have reached these limits in time. Botanical amenities were exchanged with all the world. Who does not envy the charming trait common to botanists of different lands, even to fraternising, without for mal introduction, over bulb, flower, or seed. The gardens of Vallombrosa were doubtless en riched from such centres as the Orto of Santa Maria. Novella, or the Semplice of San Marco at Florence, where throve species from Africa, Ceylon, Leyden, Paris, or Amsterdam. Still more curious and interesting were the gifts ex changed by princes. In 1711 Gian Gastone de' 90 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Medeci received boxes from Prague, containing a ring, set with seven stones, and a relic of St. John Nepomuc, together with a portion of the crown of Santa Brigida, kegs of conserves and fruits ; and bags of seeds of German barley. The Abbot Falugi, Don Biagio Biagi, and Don Bruno Tozzi were botanists among the monks of Vallombrosa. The plantation on a sunny slope, with paths, rockwork, and a pool, where blooms a water lily (nenuphar) is christened for the lat ter the Arboreto Tozzi. Also, on the height in the direction of the Croce Rossa a belt of firs is known as the Sezione Tozzi. When the sun is high the white poppy whispers secrets of earlier years to the lilies bordering the next path, and the tall stalks of digitalis in flower. The lilies know all about the matter. In conventual symbolism of the religious orders was not the lily associated with the Apostles? Floral nomenclature once belonged to this realm. Tussilago fragrans was known as "Shepherd of the Madonna" in commemoration of the shep herds who awaited the birth of Christ. The Snowdrop was dedicated to Our Lady of Febru ary, Candlemas, as the daffodil was the Lent Lily, Cardamine pratensis belonged to Lady Day, and Galium cruciatum to Holy Cross Day. Herb Margaret blossomed on the anniversary of that saint ; Iris was the emblem of St. Louis ; Clematis vitalba made a Virgin's Bower, as Monk's Hood, Friar's Cowl, St. Peter's Hood, St. John's Wort, A WHITE POPPY 91 or Flos Jovis (God's Flower), have decked the spot. The white poppy gathers about it an atmos phere of dreams, a tender and pensive melan choly of reminiscence in the folding together of petals when its day is over for another year. The church of Santa Trinita at Florence be longs to the Vallombrosan Order. The brothers still sheltered in the curious, ancient cloister and chapter house opening on the dark Via Parione at the side — a bit of old Florence, with its columns and arches, and heavy portals — visit Vallombrosa annually to gather herbs and simples wherewith to compound in their phar macy balsams, elixirs, and unguents for the faith ful. A pious Italian lady proffered the writer a tiny box containing a digestive pill to be taken before supper, made of aloes and myrrh by the Padre Rimbotti of Santa Trinita in 1780. Assuredly if ailing mortal needs a digestive pill such a remedy of Vallombrosa would suggest aromatic gum, glistening like jewels in the sunshine, and dripping down the trunks of stately fir trees, dark and bitter honey made by the brown bees, and wild flowers of the hillside. XI VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA I. THE musician The Musician walked in the shade of the hill side absorbed in his own meditations. He wore the garb of a Benedictine monk. His face must have been calm and tranquil in expression, for he is mentioned in early chronicles as of a genial disposition, and modest as to his own powers withal. He was Guido of Arezzo, who gave a name to the seven notes of music, and formulated the modern method of notation. His personality and presence in the fraternity of Vallombrosa are held by a slight thread of tradition, scarcely more than mere conjecture. Guido of Arezzo sojourned with the Vallom- brosans for a time, sharing their devotions and penances, and passed on. Perhaps he was a soul apart from his kind. His record is brief. Far back in the eleventh century he had taken orders as a Benedictine, and entered the monastery of Pompona at Ravenna. A lack of concord in this retreat and a disagreement with the prior led Guido to quit the place. He is stated to have vis ited several rehgious communities of Tuscany, 92 VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 93 and among others Vallombrosa, then in an early stage of development. He tarried at Arezzo: hence the name by which he is known— Guido d' Arezzo. Was he born in the district? He was called to Rome by the Pope John XIX and loaded with honors for his recognised musical abilities. The Pontifical court would seem to have been a brilliant sphere for him, but he did not remain to reap such fame. Either Rome was distaste ful to him, or he pleaded the usual excuses of ill- health in the climate. He returned to Pompona eventually, where he was reconciled to the prior. He died at the Camaldoli of Avellana. The Musician did not belong to the world. Down the long vista of centuries, like one of the aisles of Vallombrosan woods, his presence is discernible, for a moment, as a sunbeam pene trates the shade between the trunks of the trees. Is he only a memory, an echo here ? Why should his sojourn be legendary? Let us firmly adhere to the belief that he once walked yonder, ponder ing on the musical scheme which rendered him famous for all time. The school is a fit one wherein to attune thought and mood. The trees, fir, pine, and cypress made their concert of swaying branches above his head. Flowing springs of water repeated the rhythm in a soft monotone. A bird paused to take up the theme, as it alighted on a twig, and flew away again. The flowering plants on which his san daled foot pressed shed forth fragrance, as in- 94 SUMMER i/Aiis at v-ax»L(UM±}itUi5A cense in this dark temple of Nature. In the most secluded paths, and remote dells meditation may have taken definite form with Guido of Arezzo. Music, as an ideal sentiment, has ever been innate in man. The mysterious impulse to ex press his emotion in song and speech renders him akin to all life. Guido, the monk, listened to the wind rustling through the thickets because song preceded instrumentation. He discerned in such delicate, aerial melody the aspirations of humanity from the earliest times, as inscribed in the Books of the Veda, invoking aid in the sacrifice of ani mals, to make the rain fall, or to obscure the sun, and the Hebrew Psalms of David and Saul rather than in the seven-corded harp of Brahma, or the Egyptian Tortoise shell, with strings. He was in structed in the ancient theories of scales. He knew that the Greeks held Music and Astronomy as sisters, and the lyre as the symbol of the universe representing the elements of consonance and dissonance corresponding to the signs of the Zodiac. He was not the Father of Music, but he essayed to furnish an adaptation of a new and practical method. Ubaldo, the Benedictine, who was born at Tour nay in Flanders in 840, had attempted a similar reform, before Guido of Arezzo, but without com plete success. Did our Musician muse, as he walked, on the early Christian rites of the catacombs, which suc ceeded the music of the Roman banquets, taken VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 95 from the Hebrew Psalms, the Magnificat, the Canticles of Simeon, and the three youths cast into the fiery furnace, all blending with the in fluences of the Greek converts to whom the Good Shepherd was still Mercury? The first harmonies of the church era were pagan in form and beauty, and Hebrew in sanctity and elevation. No doubt the murmur of the woods and the waters brought to his ear the anthem, or the psalm in form of emphatic decla mation, with rise and fall of tone, and final me lodious cadence established by Bishop Hilarius of Poitiers in 350, or the song of the oriental ritual, as adopted by St. Clement of Alessandria, St. Basil, and Pope Sylvester. All Nature awakened imagination, in fitful movement, and lapses to silence. Surely the north wind blowing over the Bologna Pass from Lombardy to Vallombrosa brought the full ca dence of the Ambrogian Chaunt in a Te Deum destined to raise the spirit of the people, crushed by the calamities of war and invasion, and further perturbed by the great schism of Arian- ism ! Surely the south wind, sweeping up to Val lombrosa from Rome, over the Chianti hills, was filled with the psalmody of Pope Gregory, of 590, emanating from the very throne of St. Peter, breathing of the sorrows, the beating of breast, and scattering of ashes of sinners, when the book of anthems was attached to church altars with chains ! Guido of Arezzo must have still moved 96 SUMMER JUAYS AT VALJbUMrJliUSA between these two great forces of devotion which so long divided the world, in his day, the Am- brosan liturgy, syllabic and based on prosody and metre, and the Gregorian, metrical, with a return to the independent melody. The monk sought to solve a problem for his gen eration. Notation being the act of recording any thing by marks, figures, or characters in algebra and arithmetic, the expression of numbers and quantities by signs, or a particular method of employing symbols and abbreviations, he ar ranged a scale differing from all previous ones in having one note lower, sol, lacking to the first octave. The system was founded on the hexachord (four tones and a semi-tone), and the Greek tetrachord was abandoned. This scale of Guido's was based on the hexachord. It was divided into six hexachords, in each of which fourth. It was thus arranged: The natural, do, re, mi, fa, sol, la. The hard, sol, la, si, do, re, mi. The soft, fa, sol, la, si, do, re. For the gamut, or time, put in practise by Guido, the denomination of the tones, with the syllables ut, re, mi, fa, sol, la, must be understood. These syllables were used in the first of the six verses ascribed to Paul, the Deacon. "Thou see'st that this symphony begins in its six divisions with six diverse tones," wrote Guido to the Frate Michele. "He who has learned the VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 97 principle, therefore, of each division in such a manner as to know how to find it with security can perceive these six tones according to their quality whenever he encounters them." The importance of the syllable did not consist in the erroneous idea of substituting the ancient Gregorian letters, but the position of every tone in the system, and its relation to the others. Having the note of each hexachord the same name corresponded with the original hexachord, the semitone between the mi, and the fa. Guido employed colors in his musical notation, adding the lines of red, green, and yellow. Who shall say that the seven notes did not then acquire colors of imagination, vision, motive, and composition far beyond the written scale of the inventor? To religious music, kept on the high pedestal of severe dogma and ritual must succeed all the phases of modern harmony, rhythm, and instrumentation. Guido d' Arezzo had great fame through the middle ages. A cheerful life is what the Muses love. "The way of the philosopher is not mine," he wrote. "I seek that which shall be useful in the church, and to advance youth." He went his way in peace fully recognised for his merits by his fellows. Ah, Guido d' Arezzo, ascended so long ago to the celestial heights of your aspirations, is it vouchsafed you to listen to the musicians who came after, owing instruction to you? 98 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA II. DANTE IN THE CASENTINO The visitor to the famous countryside of en circling hills, who gazes east from the Ponte Vec chio of Florence, on a summer day, needs no other guide than the august shade of the poet and patriot Dante Alighiere. He beckons the stranger to follow his verse along the heights of the Casentino. The ancient castle of Porciano rises against the sky. This stronghold of the Counts Guidi is situ ated a few miles from the source of the Arno. Country folk cherish the tradition that Dante was imprisoned in the tower, by the noble Seigneur, as a dangerous rebel, during the period of uncer tainty as to his recall, after banishment from Florence. Rustic fancy in the Casentino may indulge in dreams of winding stairway, dismantled halls and crooked passages as haunted by the specters of nobles brooding on tragedy and revenge, robbers, and concealed fugitives. Shrubbery and vines choke the masses of crumbling masonry, and the storms of centuries wail around the empty cham bers, and arches. All is suggestive on the spot of the date when fortress castles stood on sur rounding heights; Romena, Bibbiena, Chiusi, Fronzola, Castelfocognano, Poppi, or San Nic colo, now a center of a group of poor hovels, smoke blackened, where a crone cooks the family pot of polenta on the empty, monumental hearth VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 99 of a state apartment once rich with hangings, standards of weapons, wrought vessels, and ori- flamme. A fragment of wall overgrown with thistles, nettles, and rank weeds, or an isolated turret, haunt of the falcon and the owl through out the countryside are usually ascribed to the Devil, and fiends of a baleful influence on mor tals, the restless ghosts of sorcerers, or wicked ladies of the past, with flowing tresses, eyes launching yellow flames, and evil smiles. At the bidding of any visitor an august shade glides through the dusk, and pauses at the base of the dungeons of Porciano. He repeats to us, as to preceding generations : "Lascia dir le gente Sta come torre fermo, che non crolla. Giammai la cima per soffiar di vento." ("Be as a tower, that, firmly set, Shakes not its top for any blast that blotvs.") Behold the man of stern and aquiline features standing beside the old tower at the melancholy hour of evening, absorbed in reveries, with the silence of the hills about him and enjoining hu manity to remain firm like the ancient stronghold, and not be blown upon, and overthrown by the idle speech of the world. The warning is ad dressed to all the sons of men, and in every con dition of life. When Dante actually halted here, in life, he 100 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA had advanced, step by step, in his career, and the future of long years of exile was shrouded from him, like a dark and impenetrable curtain. In May, 1265, he was born in the ancient quarter of Florence, on the site of the narrow house still dedicated to his memory. His noble lady mother dreamed that her son was born under a laurel tree, on a green meadow, fresh from a flowing fountain near by, and the child fed on the berries of the tree. A studious youth ensued under the tuition of Brunetto Latini, and other scholars. He was instructed in Latin, philosophy, and theology. He was proficient in music, poetry, and painting. He is reputed to have turned to a religious life, at one time, and even to have entered the order of the Frati Minori, but laid aside the robe on reconsideration. He married Gemma Donati in 1290. He was drawn into the political questions of his day, as a well-born gentleman, with a place in society, and many friends of his own age. How to es cape such responsibilities in the feuds of Guelph and Ghibelline? Young Alighiere speedily made his mark for eloquence and address, and was entrusted with missions to foreign courts as a fitting Floren tine representative. Military training must have been a part of his education, for he served in the cavalry, as is inferred, at the battle of Cam- paldino in 1289. In 1300 he was elected to the VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 101 high office of Prior of Florence when the Guelphs divided into two parties, Black and White. Corso Donati led the Neri, and Dante favored the Bi anchi, although in earlier contentions, as Prior, he had advised an impartial banishment of the heads of both factions. Neri prevailed, and in 1302 condemned Dante, and many others, to per petual banishment, and confiscation of estate on the charge of peculation. Boccaccio protests that the Poet would have lived for study in seclusion, and was inspired by no ambition to earn the empty honors of munic ipal office holding, but love of the Republic in spired him with ardent patriotism. Public faith and trust in him was the general sentiment of his fellow citizens. Then arose the quarrels and divisions of party "through per versity." Fortune, the great enemy of all hap piness, began to roll Dante on her wheel. At one moment he was at the summit of the rule of the city, and the next, not only cast down but chased away. Oh, ungrateful country ! Thus wrote Boc caccio. Pausing at the tower of the Castle of Porciano, in life, signified that Dante had wandered outside the gates of Florence with other exiles, fleeing from pursuit when in danger, hiding, and possi bly suffering imprisonment. The hope of being recalled and reinstated was not quenched in his breast. "Midway upon the journey of our Life." Already he could look back on the confused 102 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA scheme of events in which his lot had been in volved. Uguccione della Faggiola, the kindly giant of a powerful lord, and mighty eater, had befriended the poet in a first banishment, as well as the Seig neur Malespma of Liguria. After the revolt of the Lombard cities in 1311, he returned from Parma to the Castle of Porciano in anticipation of regaining his home. His reception is believed to have been inhospitable if Count Guido did not actually incarcerate him in the tower for a season. From the historical standpoint a study of the greatest poet between the Augustan age and Shakespeare, at this juncture of his career, is ever interesting. He could have said of himself: "I of that city was which to the Baptist Changed its first patron." How narrow the sphere ! How intense the loy alty of spirit! Beyond the walls of Florence all was exile, whether the Casentino, the Romagna, Verona, or Paris. Not only the sheepfold of the baptistery, but the winding streets, little squares, and separate parishes, so readily barricaded with the serragli, by rival families, nay, the very bick erings over the right of way still noticeable in the fussy citizen at the intrusion of vehicle and bi cycle, as when the mounted cavalier thrust out his spurs unduly in riding past, were dear to this illustrious fugitive, and rendered life not worth living elsewhere. VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 103 There was Roman blood in the veins of the burly citizen, who would not brook insult, as of descent from the foreign knights settled on the lands and fiefs of the vicinity, in the supercihous disdain of the cavalier, to be traced to this day. The order of government of such mediaeval towns cannot have been irksome to Dante. The attachment of the citizen of Italian cities was as rigorous as that of the serf to his glebe. Groups, parishes, quarters, the corporation of trades, all public affairs, and private hberty were regulated by municipal law. In the twelfth century the number of priests and candles to attend a funeral were ordained by authority. The jewels and stuffs to be worn were nice questions of adjust ment. The quantity of fig and almond trees to be planted on a property was stipulated; the privileges of snaring birds and fishing were limited, and the surplus wheat of a harvest was appropriated by the commune. Bankers, no taries, money-changers, and silk merchants were held by rigid rules, as well as the lower grades of wool-carders, and butchers. Dante, as a descendant of the Knight Caccia- guida, and the associate of poets, was now forced to abandon home and friends for the sorrowful vicissitudes of exile. Was the narrow house on the dark street, at the angle of the tiny Piazza San Martino, the scene of conjugal disturbances as thwarting the reveries of the Vita Nuova, and interrupting the 104 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA composition of canzone, and verse which were speedily caught up by the populace in song? A certain amount of contemporary apology ex ists for having accepted Madonna Gemma Donati as a shrew, or a termagant, who rendered Dante unhappy, in contrast with the influence of that symbolical and ideal lady Beatrice already as cended to the realms of Paradise. Boccaccio, as a bachelor and free lance of society, is held re sponsible by some authors, for imparting this coloring to the hampered estate of the married man. Can the narrow mansion have been the scene of frivolous feminine gaiety in contrast with grave studies? Is it possible that such chambers were filled to overflowing with vest ments, ornaments, and luxuries with dread re sults in the milliner's bills of that date? Madonna Gemma stands forth on the back ground of the years as keeping together her household, probably under the protection of kin dred in those precarious times. Certainly the wife had coffers, for she sent his papers to a place of safety in a chest, thereby preserving his thoughts as an heirloom for the world. The poor lady Gemma gathered the remnant of her fortune, and supported her family discreetly. The proud reticence of the poet as to his own relatives still presents him in a position of dig nity. In the Convito he disapproves of speaking of oneself. The description of Leonardo Aretino applied to this date in his earthly career: VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 105 "He possessed a mediocre patrimony, sufficient to live honorably. He owned houses in Florence adjoining those of Messer. Gieri de' Bello, lands at Camerata, the Piano de' Ripoli, and the Pia- centina. He was a man of average stature, agreeable aspect, and full of gravity. He spoke rarely and slowly, but his replies were subtle. ' ' The pulse of life beat strongly in the veins of the haughty Florentine when he sojourned there on the height in the Castle of Porciano. Had the Whites triumphed in the struggle of the hour in the city government would he not, as Prior, have sternly banished the Blacks, in turn? He is said to have written the famous letter to Henry of Luxembourg from this stronghold, in which he entreated the Emperor to come to Flor ence, as the Ghibelline chief, and punish all of fenders. The remarkable phase of Italian state craft in seeking foreign intervention is here mani fested even by such patriots as Dante and Dino Compagni alike. In the sequence of events the poet was crushed by the failure of Henry of Lux embourg, and the death of the Emperor the fol lowing year. Dante sent forth the leaflet of a canzone written in the Apennines as an adieu: "Perhaps thou wilt visit Florence, my native city, which, destitute of love and pity, keeps me far away from her." Country folk believe that if not held prisoner in the tower, by Count Guido, he dwelt here medi- 106 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA tating in congenial seclusion on his work. The sighs and laments of the condemned souls already reached him from the depths below, on this moun tain of Purgatory, while he had not, as yet, climbed to the heights of Paradise. The lassi tude of exile fell heavily on him. Destiny was shaping him to other uses than sharing in the combat of faction in the streets of Florence. He spurned the overtures made in 1311, owing to the terms of pardon employed. His name was coupled with the unworthy Sal- terelli in the misuse of public funds, termed Ba- ratteria. Dante was required to pay a heavy fine, and confess his guilt. War ravaged all Italy. Feudalism and liberty contended for supremacy in rival republics. Henceforth Dante must wander, pondering on the four gates of life, or dreaming of moulding the national tongue in studies of the Genoese, Bo- lognese, and Tuscan dialects, and further aspir ing to the completion of the Divina Commedia, as a bridge between the past and the future. A gulf of time divides the living man from the phantom presence at base of the tower of Por ciano. To the twentieth century his human per sonality fades away like the mists brooding over the Casentino, and he is poet, prophet, and phi losopher in the grandeur of lofty thought, and the ideal of virtue. This halting ground becomes most suggestive to posterity. Dante feeds hu manity, irrespective of nationality, with the VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 107 laurel berries of poetry from the tree of his mother's dream. Each pilgrim, English, Ger man, French, or Scandinavian, who frequents the Vai d' Arno is free to make fresh researches in the career of genius, develop some new phase to his own satisfaction, and gather his little harvest of a fresh combination of ideas. There he stands, Ruskin's central man of the world, in represent ing the balance of imagination combined with moral and intellectual faculties. To the frequenter of Vallombrosa Dante is the great guide to the mountain range, and the sites mentioned by him are still memorable. Doubt less he was familiar with the country and en virons of Florence in boyhood. Who does not recall his words in observing a contadino tracing a new path through the dense wood of a hill side? "I saw the place in the side] of a hill, or mountain, in Tuscany, which is called Falterona, where the most humble peasant of all the country, whilst digging, found more than a bushel of the finest Santelena silver, which had awaited him, perhaps, for more than a thousand years." He indicates the course of the Arno in the well known vein of description. Yonder rises the dark ridge of La Verna. "The rugged rock between the sources Of the Tiber and Arno." Further up on the Apennine is the spring : 108 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA "II fiumcel che Nasce in Falterona." Thence the course of the stream is traced in the satirical mood of Guido del Duca of Bret- tinoro, and Rinieri da Calboli of Romagna, the two spirits in Purgatory: "There stretches through the midst of Tuscany I straight began, a brooklet, whose well-head Springs up in Falterona, with his race Not satisfied, when he some hundred miles Hath measured. From his banks bring I this frame." The other addressing the Poet says : "Thou dost speak of Amo's wave." The bitterness of reproach finds full scope in the fresh utterance: "'Tis fitting well the name Should perish of that vale, for frovn\ the source, Where teems so plenteously the Alpine steep Maimed of Pelorus, (that doth scarcely pass Beyond that limit), even to the point Where unto ocean is restored what heaven Drains from the exhausted store for all earth's streams Throughout the space is virtue worried down. As 'twere a snake, by all, for mortal foe Or through disastrous influence on the place, Or else distortion of misguided wills That custom goads to evil: whence in those, VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 109 The dwellers in that miserable vale, Nature is so transform' d, it seems as they Had shared of Circe's feeding. Midst brute swine, Worthier of acorns than of other food Created for man's use, he shapeth first His obscure way, the sloping onward finds Cure, snarlers more in spite than power, from, whom He turns with scorn aside still journeying down, By how much more the curst and luckless foss Swells out to largeness, e'en so much it finds Dogs turning into wolves." Thus Dante designates the inhabitants of Cas entino as swine, the Florentines as wolves, and the Pisans as foxes. The exile mourns: "Ah, slavish Italy! Thou Inn of grief, Vessel without a pilot in loud storm, Lady no longer of fair provinces." Another familiar phase is more spirited and patriotic in the glimpse of the Castle of Bibbiena, refuge of fugitives through the centuries. A de lineation in the Inferno might well serve as a reminiscence of the locality with the river flow ing onward from Porciano to Pratovecchio and Stia, and the bridge over the Arno where the last of the Counts Guidi surrendered to the Floren tines in 1440 : "At foot Of a magnificent Castle we arrived, Seven times with lofty walls begirt, and round. Defended by a pleasant stream." 110 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Under the poet's guidance the battlefield of Campaldino becomes obscured with dust and showers of arrows on another day of St. Barna bas, as in the year 1289, with the Florentine army drawn up, and the Guelphs of Tuscany, and the Seigneurs of the free cities Siena, Pistoja, Lucca, and Bologna. Buonconti was at the head of the Aretini for the Bishops, and the French General of Charles II of Anjou commanded the Florentines. The latter soldiery had marched through the Casentino by bad roads, and, reaching Bibbiena, been ranged for an encounter. The curious cus tom of selecting a number of warriors for combat was observed, and Vieri de' Cerchi chose twelve spearmen. The captain of war sent forward the lancers and shield-bearers, with their device of a red lily on a white ground. "What walls are those?" demanded the doughty Bishop of Arezzo. He was told that they were the shield bearers of the enemy. At the same time Mangiadori de' Samminiato ad dressed his forces: "It is the custom in Tuscany to charge; to day resist." The Aretini attacked the hostile camp, and the combat waxed fierce and rude, like all civil war. The Florentine hne bent and yielded, the Are tine foot soldiers crept under the horse, and cut them down. Corso Donati led a brigade of Pis toja. Ultimately the Florentines turned on the VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 111 enemy in rash pursuit, and were victorious. The Bishop of Arezzo was smitten low, as well as Amerigo de Narbonne, Guglielmo de Pazzi, Luccio di Montefeltri and Buonconti. Count Guido quitted the field before the termination of the engagement. The echo of that June day is still audible: "I was of Montefeltro, and am Buonconti; Giovanna, nor none other, cares for me; Hence among these I go with downcast front And I to him: 'What violence, or what chance, Led thee to stray so far from Campaldino, That never has thy sepulture been known?' 'Oh,' he replied, 'at Casentino' s foot A river crosses named Archidno, born Above the Hermitage in Apennine.' " He fled, pierced through the throat, staining the plain with his blood, until he fell, with sight lost, calling on Mary, and, tenantless, his flesh remained. "God's Angel took me up, and he of hell Shouted: '0 thou from heaven, why dost thou rob me? Thou bearest away the eternal part of him, For one poor, little tear." , The body was found near the outlet of the Ar- chiano, and thrown into the Arno. The Castle of Romena is weird in the hour of twilight. The muffled blows of the forger's ham- 112 SUMMER DAYS AT VAL.LUM±J.KU«A mer, beating the gold, seems to reverberate faintly through subterranean chambers. The thirst of Messer Adamo is never quenched. His lament is: "When living, full supply ¦ Ne'er lack'd me of what most I coveted; One drop of water now, alas! I crave. The rills that glitter down the grassy slope Of Casentino, making fresh and soft The banks whereby they glide to Arno's stream Stand ever in my view." He continues in dolorous strain : "There is Bomena where I counterfeited The currency imprinted with the Baptist." Justice of the middle ages seized Adam of Brescia for adulterating the gold money, as the accomplice of the Counts Guidi, in 1280, and he was burned alive at Stia. The Arno flowing on is denned in certain graphic touches, until the poet beholds in the distance the Famine Tower of Pisa, such time as Uglino della Gherardesca gnaws the skull of the Archbishop in the realm of torments, and the limit is gained where: "From their deep foundation rise Capraia and Gorgona, and dam up The mouth of Arno." Wood near Vallombrosa. VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 113 The charm of following the great guide through the Vai d'Arno and the Casentino is unfailing. Nature assumes fresh beauties and riper meaning in all the varying phases of light and shadow, night and day, and the changing seasons, at his bidding. He must have been an alert and vigorous climber and rambler in youth, for his own moods and memories of familiar scenes are reflected in his verse. He urges in Canto XXIV of the Inferno: "Vp! Be bold! Vanquish fatigue by energy of mind!" Again he might be ascending the Pratomagno instead of the sides of Malebolge: "Upward we took our way along the crag, Which jagged was and narrow, and difficult." Or he followed the Cbusuma Pass thus : "Better with breath than I did feel myself And said: 'Go on for I am strong and bold.' " Is not this line the dawn over the Vai d'Arno? "Io vidi gia nel cominciar del giorno La parte oriental tutta rosata." Even more typical of the region is the long afternoon : 114 SUMMER juAiS at vAxiijuiviJ^iiuSA "When he who all the world illuminates Out of our hemisphere so far descends That on all sides the daylight is consumed, The heaven that 'erst by him alone was kindled Doth suddenly reveal itself again." The twilight is thus depicted : "Now was the day departing, and the air, Imbrowned with shadows." Brooding obscurity of storm, or heat, are here presaged : "Thereafter, when the day was spent, the valley From Pratomagno to the great yoke covered With fog." In the picture of early spring the grumbling peasants of the hamlets of the Vai d'Arno from Reggello, Campiglioni, San Miniato in Alpe, Me- tato, and the Pian degli Stefanieri, even to the Croce Rossa, as the gateway to the Casentino, readily chant a chorus of discontent taken from the Inferno: ('In that part of the youthful year wherein The Sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers, And now the nights draw, near to half the day, What time the hoar-frost copies on the ground. The outward semblance of her sister white, But little lasts the temper of her pen, The husbandman, whose forage faileth him, VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 115 Rises, and looks, and seeth the champaign All gleaming white, whereat he beats his flank, Returns in-doors, and up and. down laments, Like a poor wretch who knows not what to do; Then he returns, and hope revives again, Seeing the world has changed its countenance In little time, and takes his shepherd's crook, And forth the little lambs to pasture drives." The Shepherd of Maremma guides his charge to cooler heights weary "Of Valdichiana in the sultry time Twixt July and September." Apprehensive as well: "As underneath the scourge of the fierce dog-star that lays bare the fields, Shifting from brake to brake the lizard seems A flash of lightning, if he thwart the road. He climbs among the peaks with the midsum mer: "The goats, who have been swift and venturesome Upon the mountain tops ere they were fed, Hushed in the shadow, while the sun is hot. Watched by the herdsman who upon his staff Is leaning And as the shepherd lodging out of doors Passes the night beside his quiet flock." Six centuries after these lines were written, at 116 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the close of August, when treacherous storms may sweep along the hills, a woolly company trot over the narrow causeway near the Badia of Vallombrosa, and are granted hospitality on the great meadow in imitation of St. John Gual berto, to nibble the grass, and rest under the stars. In the morning they are gone on the jour ney back to Maremma. The Poet mused on the Tuscan summer in such themes as these: "Through the celestial forest, whose thick shade, With lively greenness the new springing day Alltemper'd, eager now to roam, and search Its limits round, forthwith I left the bank; Along the champaign leisurely my way Pursuing, o'er the\ ground, that on all sides Delicious odors breathed." "Qual lodoletta che in aere si Spazia, Prima cantando, e poi tace contenta Dell ultima dolcezza che la sazia: E come giga, ed arpa in tempra tesa Di molte corde fan dolce tintinno." Dante in the Casentino is here symbolical: "If thou believe not, think upon the grain, For by its seed each herb is recognised." The soul of Dante purified by the wave reminds one of the fern clothed glens of the Pratomagno, after a shower: "Rifatto si, come piante novelle Rinnovellate di novella fronda." VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 117 This description is characteristic of the coun try: "Quale i fioretti, dal notturno gelo Chinati e chinsi, poiche il sol gl' imbianco Si drizzan tutti aperti in loro stele." Or this line : "As on the brink of water in a ditch The frogs stand only with their muzzles out." The advance of the season is depicted thus : "As when the north blows from his mild cheek A blast that scours the sky." The swallows are alert: "Like as the birds, that winter near the Nile, In squared regiment direct their course, Then stretch themselves in file for speedier flight." The visitor to Camaldoli, the Abetone, or Val lombrosa, must recognize a midnight experience: "Broke the deep slumber in my brain a crash Of heavy thunder, that I shook myself, As one by main force roused." The clouds are massed in rosy peaks above the Falterona in the hours of afternoon. 118 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA "Behold," Cried Beatrice, "the triumphal hosts Of Christ, and all the harvest gathered in Made ripe by these revolving spheres." In the twilight the great Epic poet of all time pauses near the foundations of the Castle of Por ciano, and warns humanity to: "Be as a tower, that, firmly set, Shakes not its top for any blast that blows." The warm light fades, and once more is audible: "The vesper bell from far That seems to mourn for the expiring day." This melody links together the passing years and centuries in the Vai d'Arno, from the glow: ing portrait of beauty: "Love said to me: 'This lady's name is Spring.' " "Come d'autumno si levan le foglie L'una appresso dell' altra." III. THE PAINTER A little boy, refined and delicate of feature, with flowing hair, was among the spectators. Never were richer surroundings offered to the gaze of a sensitive child. The scene was the palace of Urbino, and the lad, Raffaele Sanzio, at the age of six years. VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 119 Count Federigo of Montefeltro, the soldier, statesman, and friend of savants and artists had retired from war to embellish the city of Urbino,// picturesquely situated on a height. His ambi tion to convert the castle into a palace which should surpass all in Italy had been realised. Count Federigo had died, and Duke Guidobaldo succeeded. The latter gave a festival in the court of the palace to the town-folk. Wrestling matches, pageants, and games were followed by mythological dances. Raphael was perched in a place of observation, and already noted the grouping of animated figures, ladies and cour tiers acting as gracious hosts, and warmly patri otic citizens responding as loyal subjects, with the setting of architecture noble in proportion and sumptuous in detail of carved stone, a mar ble stairway leading to apartments encrusted with mosaic and wrought in marqueterie. The boy observed with an awakening imagination, and insight superior to his companions. Beyond the roofs of Urbino the horizon widened, framed by the chain of Apennine rising in sharp peaks on the sky, Monte Nerone, and the rocky masses of Monte San Simone to the south and west, and in the far distance the crag whence the Tiber flows to the Mediterranean, Monte Catria crowned by the convent of San Albertino, and the Monte del Cavallo, esteemed the most symmetrical of the Apennines, and renowned for its horses. The boundary of Umbria, and the Marches of 120 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Ancona, San Marino, and the Adriatic stretch to the horizon. Lanzi affirms: "Nature and fortune seemed to unite in lavishing their favors on this artist, the first in investing him with the rarest gifts of genius, the other in adding to these a singular combination of propitious circum stances. If climate have any influence on genius, I know of no happier spot that could have been chosen." Raphael was born at Urbino in 1483. / A glance at his childhood is ever interwoven with tradition. As his place in the world was unique, posterity crowns him the modern Apelles in pow erful work combined with grace. His cradle was modest, yet budding talent, Hke a rare plant easily crushed, or thwarted in the germ, by op position, was fostered by the wise and tender , care of his father, Giovanni Sanzio. The] homely, everyday lives of the great Italian paint ers are always interesting. Giovanni Sanzio was a conscientious artist of the fifteenth century, but mediocre in coloring, and who adapted his draperies after the manner of Mantegna. The dry decision of criticism is that he lacked the charm of Perugino, and the vigor of Luca Sig norelli. He possessed a poetical gift which ledj him to spin many verses in honor of his prince on the model of the Divina Commedia. This ex cellent citizen pursued his way in life while Italy waged war, each state striving to outwit a neigh bor, and invading armies swept over the land. He executed orders of the studio and the work- VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 121 shop, painting such pictures as the Virgin and Saints, and the Annunciation for Pesaro, or Sini- gaglia, as well as gilding angels of wood, and can delabra for the Confraternity of the Corpus Domine of Urbino. The sums of money paid for such labors, by religious communities and magis trates may still be found in quaint records of the time. He married a gentle maiden, Magia, daughter of Battista Ciarla, merchant of Urbino, in 1482. The union was one of harmony and devotion. The amiability of the young wife and mother seems to have lingered in the imagination of the artists, father and son, as the type of sweet and saintly womanhood. The infancy of Raph ael, amidst such influence, was nurtured by this delicate mother, and watched over by the father, who bequeathed to future generations the earliest portraits of the wonder child, from the dimpled babe on his mother's knee to the boy angel beside the Madonna in the fresco at Cagli. The image of his youthful grace is familiar to all lands. Baby hood, and the child at the age of six years, were delineated by his parent. The study at nine years was equally the task of Giovanni Sanzio. The portrait of twelve, turned to the left, wear ing a black cap, a brown vestment, with a white shirt visible at the neck, is by Timoteo Viti. Raphael, himself, wrought the adolescence of fifteen now in the Louvre. He is the eternal refutation of the theory, which seems to be generally accepted without comment, 122 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA that genius, if masculine, must appertain to rugged features, and a crabbed temper, often, and, if feminine, to an equine profile, or plain physiognomy, as inseparable to mental gifts. Why? Raphael and Leonardo da Vinci possessed beauty, combined with remarkable talents, and won esteem by their serene superiority. Did not classical poetesses fascinate by personal charms? Did not the learned female lecturer of the medi aeval university require to veil her perfect fea tures that the wisdom of her discourse should not be impaired by her loveliness? In 1491, Magia died. The widower was incon solable in his grief, and the fledgling thrust forth from the down-lined nest of maternal love. Gio vanni Sanzio married again to ensure a peaceful home. The step-mother proved ignoble, selfish, and quarrelsome. Young Raffaelo, emerging from infancy, dis played precocious ability for art, according to Vasari. He studied with his father, and assisted him in designs. The fame of the father was soon obscured by the genius of the son. He was taught Latin by Venturini when domiciled at Ur bino. Giovanni Sanzio died in 1494, leaving his brother Don Bartolomeo, guardian of the boy. The student went to Perugia, and entered the atelier of Maestro Perugino, where he associated with Pinturrichio, and other comrades. Among his designs of this period were Jesus caressing St. John, and St. Martin mounted, which already VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 123 demonstrated a marvelous facility. He aided in a Resurrection of Christ for the church of the Franciscans at Perugia, now in the Vatican. Traces of his skill have been discerned in other altar-pieces of Perugino's great workshop of scholars. Raphael returned to Urbino in 1499, owing to family discords so characteristic of the domestic relations of young painters, placed at the head ' of the household by the death of the father, when mere boys. The stepmother of Raphael is stig matised as a greedy, ignorant, and bad-tempered woman in contrast with the noble qualities of the lad. The present century is critical in historical questions of the past. The matron of Urbino, Raphael's stepmother, wrangling over her income and household affairs, may yet be proved a crea ture maligned in the fervor of partisanship with genius. An indifference to scarcity of provi sions, a meditative aloofness from rent and fuel must have belonged to a scholar who dreamed of the Sistine Madonna, or A School of Athens. His uncle sympathised with the orphan, and the latter clung to him with affection as a second father. The arrows of mean envy, jealousy, and revenge glided harmless from the shield of this young knight through his career. At the begin ning he had no other aim than to earn his bread, and support the family. The court of Urbino was much impoverished. The rule of the Borgia under Pope Alexander VI 124 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA had smitten the Adriatic principality, and the ambitious Valentino, Cesar Borgia, usurped the dominion of the rightful Duke, who was forced to fly before such a redoubtable and unscrupu lous adversary. In 1504, Guidobaldo was re stored to his place amidst the acclamations of his loyal subjects. Raphael obtained no work. Indeed, Urbino possesses few of his pictures. He painted the church banner of the Trinity for Citta di Cas tello. He returned to Perugia, and labored on large and small designs. Charming heads of cherubs, such as people his canvas, began to peep out of the clouds. The young cavalier asleep under a laurel tree, watched over by allegorical figures, was executed at this period. Quitting Perugia he filled an order for the Franciscans of Citta di Castello. The "St. George and St. Michael" of the Louvre, "Christ in the Garden of Olives," and many little pictures date from this period. His sketch-book, or portfolio, was filled with portraits of statesmen, scholars, poets, and princes, studies of the noble company of the Palace of Urbino, from the day when he first ob served them, a child of six years, at the court pageant. History now casts a doubt on his visiting Siena, and assisting Pinturrichio in the series of the Libreria of the Cathedral, while conced ing that the fellow artist borrowed an element of his harmony of design. Why be matter-of- VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 125 fact in reviewing Raffaelo? We prefer to con template him as the wonder child of the most attractive of all fairy tales. If he sojourned at Siena he naturally sought Florence from the neighboring town. Contradictory opinions have ever prevailed as to his movements in these early years. Pausing at Urbino, and gazing at the rampart of Apennines let us follow the clue held by Mrs. Jameson, at least, that he crossed the hills to reach the great art school of Florence, and paused at Vallombrosa, where his master Perugino was engaged on his famous altar picture of the Ma donna for the church. Raphael bade farewell to his native place. He carried with him a letter to the Gonfaloniere Pietro Soderini of Florence from the Duchess Joanna della Rovere, sister of the Duke of Urbino. This epistle is a model of feminine good breeding and benevolence. "Very magnificent and powerful Seigneur whom I honor as a father. He who presents this letter is Raphael, a young painter of Urbino endowed with a fine talent for his art. He has decided to remain some time in Florence to perfect his studies. He is dear to me, as was his father, who possessed good qualities. The son is a modest young man of distinguished manners, whom I hope will attain perfection." Let us believe that Raphael crossed the Apen nines to Vallombrosa on his way to Florence. He departed in that case, either by the Furio 126 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA Pass, or that of the Bocca Trabaria, gaining upper ranges of chestnut groves and pine, prob ably mounted on mule or horse. There can have been no diligence, or vetturino, in that day, to add a steed at a steep acclivity. He may have often rambled in these haunts, if he worked at Citta di Castello. He had ac companied his father, at the age of nine years, when Giovanni Sanzio introduced the child's portrait in the fresco at Cagli, a town of the thirteenth century on the ancient Via Flaminia. Roman engineers, emulative of the work of Trajan along the Danube, made here a road across the Apennines, by order of Diocletian, hewing a tunnel through the rocks for a passage of the Flaminian Way. Did Raphael pass this majestic portal, at the beginning of his career, to gain the cities of the Arno and the Tiber? If so, Mother Nature received him, fanning his brow with the pure air of the heights, while the Adri atic Sea wafted a long adieu in the soft breeze. He was the hero, bearing aloft his banner of Excelsior, scaling the steep path by day. At night he was the cavalier asleep under the laurel tree, guarded by fame and fortune, winged shapes of glory. His imagination was kindled by all novel subjects of delicate beauty and rustic strength. The Holy Family was grouped at every turn of the mountain road. The babies laughed, little St. John, the angelic hosts, and the mild young mothers smiled, while St. Joseph VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 127 leaned on his staff in the background, a patri arch of such towns as San Angelo in Vado, Ur bania, Cantiano, or La Schieggia. Bearded prophets and philosophers of massive dignity and regular features must have paused to return his greeting near Roman bridge, and temple ruins, as well as shepherds and stalwart mountaineers. Youth climbed beside him with supple agility suggestive- of the figures in the Incendio di Borgo. His finger touched the chords of the great harp of human expression in the intercourse of fear, hope, passion, and anger, guided by his own intense sympathy of per ception. Thus the painter reached Vallombrosa by one of the roads from Arezzo and Bibbiena, and was made welcome by the monks, fed, and lodged. With his usual perseverance of application and industry for which Michelangelo commended him, while detracting from the innate inspiration of a rival, he executed the portraits of the two Val- lombrosans, Don Blasius, General of the order, and Don Balthazar, the Abbot. These heads were intended for each side of a large picture. Strangers visiting Florence admire them as af fording a fresh revelation of powerful modeling, and severely characteristic execution in tempera, on wood, of a system of brown gray in the shad ows, red in the half-tints, and white in the lumi nous parts, all vigorous in tone. Don Blasius, the Superior, is a good and insignificant old man of 128 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA a florid type. Don Balthazar, turned to the left, has a brown skin, is a trifle ascetic and thin, and his lineaments are thoughtful. Raphael or Perugino? Authority affirms that a quality of merit and a masterly touch are discernible in these fine heads which did not belong to the elder master. Such is the souvenir of the labors of youth at Vallombrosa on a summer day. Still more interesting is the suggestion that Raphael designed here the "Madonna del Car dellino," owned by Lorenzo Nasi. His model might have been one iof the girl mothers who come from hamlets of the vicinity to the church, and pause to rest, seated on the low stone wall. Of all the gracious Madonnas depicted by this incomparable genius that of the singing bird is assuredly the most touching in its simplicity, and profound sentiment, not for the sweetness and purity of the mother as much as the divine sig nificance of the Christ child. Who fails to note the stretching forth of the tiny hand in protec tion of the captive held in the mother's lap, while roguish St. John bends his curly head to tease the goldfinch? The expression of the chubby face of the infant Jesus has a mysterious solem nity and dignity, not of this world, in the act. The sanctity of the holy child appertains to the symbolism of Vallombrosa. At the age of twenty-one Raphael paused a moment, in the shadow of the great trees, with VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 129 the future before him. Florence awaited him, with the work of Massaccio outspread on the wall of the church of the Carmine, and the fraternity of artists, Ghirlandajo, San Gallo, and Cronaca ready to welcome him. Instructed in perspective by Perugino, he imparted his knowledge to Fra Bartolomeo, who taught him, in turn, the devel opment of a larger manner, luminous tones of coloring, and the modeling of draperies. Raph ael imitated new styles, and adopted all excel lencies, preparatory to journeying on to Rome. To-day the light falls through the large win dow of the Academy on the faces of the two monks, and the Christ child stretches a hand in divine protection over the goldfinch on his moth er's knee in the picture of the Tribune of the Uffizi to chide us if we doubt that Raphael once crossed the mountains from Urbino to Vallom brosa. IV. THE PURITAN Vallombrosa would lack an essential feature of interest to the Anglo-Saxon without the remi niscence of the Puritan John Milton, and his re puted visit to this retreat in the seventeenth cen tury. His allusion to the spot in "Paradise Lost" is worthy of consideration. No more noble image can be presented to the visitor than the young traveler, charmed with all the associations of Italy as a scholar and poet. Strolling on the Viale Milton, on a summer day, 130 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA his memory is fresh. Did he ever walk here, and dream of future achievement? His personal at tractions, like those of Raphael, ensured fre quent portraiture in boyhoods He described himself in many works with a dignified confi dence. His reasons are given thus: "In order that the good and learned men among neighbor ing nations may not be induced by calumnies to alter the favorable opinions they have formed of me, but may be persuaded I am not one who ever disgraced beauty of sentiment by deformity of conduct." His auburn hair was long, his features symmetrical, his demeanor modest and composed. Adam is deemed his own portrait: "His fair, large front, and eye sublime declared Absolute rule, and hyacinthine locks Round from his parted forelock manly hung Clustering, but not beneath his shoulders broad." The thread of the poet's life to the date of his visit to Florence ran in a familiar vein. His ancestry was good, the Miltons of Milton in Ox fordshire, who lost their cause in the civil wars of York and Lancaster, and had their property confiscated. The grandfather, John Milton, Ranger of the forest of Shotover near Halton, was a Roman Catholic. He placed his son at Christ Church, Oxford, where youth espoused the doctrines of the Reformation, and was dis inherited. On leaving college, the latter went to London, became a scrivener, or notary, in Bread VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 131 Street, married, and had two sons, and a daugh ter. The poet, the eldest, was born in 1608. The father, esteemed as a man of blameless character, and much ability, fostered the early love of literature manifested by the lad. The future poet went to Cambridge, intended for the church, by his parent, but changed his own views at college. How characteristic of the Puritan were his reasons! Clerical obligations would too much coerce his free will and conscience, and to subscribe to the Articles was to subscribe slave. He composed the Hymn of the Nativity before leaving the university. Ever an arduous worker, he was a Latin scholar prior to enter ing college, and severe and systematic study laid the foundation of his fame. He stated: "It is ever my way to suffer no impediment, no love of ease, no avocation whatever to chill the ardor, to break the continuity, or to divert the comple tion of my literary pursuits." He left the University in 1632, where he had been known as "the lady" for his delicate beauty. He read all great Greek and Latin authors. Be tween the ages of twenty-three and twenty-eight he wrote "Arcades," "Comus," "L'Allegro," "H Penseroso," and "Lycidas," at his father's residence of Horton. In 1638, after the death of his mother, he de parted on his journey to Italy, with one servant. He was furnished with letters from Henry Wot ton, British Ambassador at Venice to Lord Scud- 132 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA amore, Ambassador of King Charles at Paris, as well as recommendations to English merchants along the route. Milton sojourned a few days at Paris. How graphic the glimpse of the French capital in his journals! The Academie Fran caise had been established two years. The Dauphin was just born, inspiring hope in an op pressed people. The Cid of Corneille had been represented, and Descartes had published his "Discours." Richelieu still ruled. Milton gained the Mediterranean shore by way of Marseilles, then took ship at Nice for Genoa, Leghorn, Pisa, and Florence. He remained in the latter city for two months, charmed with "the elegance of its dialect, its genius, and its taste. ' ' He visited Galileo at his villa, where the great man was spending his last years under the espionage of the Inquisition. Milton made ac quaintance with the pupils Castelli, Torricelli, Cassini, and Malpighi. Florentine society wel comed the young stranger with a warmth flatter ing to his amour-propre. He was pronounced a prodigy of learning, while he astonished all by his beauty, coming from a foggy realm beyond the Alpine boundary, where a general ignorance prevailed of a somber tinge, and the people must be ugly in contrast with classical Italy, even of the decadence. The easy affability of the liberal patricians of Florence did not even question his religious opinions. The Medeci had passed, but left an influence in the cultivation of letters. VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 133 Tassoni and Marini, poets of the decadence, were dead, and art had suffered a dangerous crisis during which Bologna gathered the work of the rival schools of Italy in a harmonious col lection. Bernini adorned Rome in sculpture. Milton in this sphere of the Seicentisti sought only the land of the Muses. He was presented to the Academies of the Scogliati, Apatisti, Hu- moristi, Ordinati, and Lincei, where the pleas ures of conversation, critical debate, and esprit abounded. Milton wrote at this time: "I contracted an in timacy with many persons of rank and learning, and was a constant attendant at their literary parties, a practice which prevails, and tends so much to the diffusion of knowledge, and the preservation of friendship. No time will ever abolish the agreeable recollections which I cher ish of Jacopo Gaddi, Carolo Dati, Frescobaldo, Culterello, Bonomathai, Clementillo Francisco and others." If the young man's nature expanded in this delightful atmosphere of culture, and caressing flattery of appreciation, he was not deceived as to the corruption of Italian literary dilettantism of the day. His Protestantism spoke when he affirmed, later, that he took God to witness his dwelling apart from vice, and with the thought ever present in his mind that he could escape the scrutiny of man, but not the regard of his Creator. The conscience of the Puritan made 134 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA no appeal for the intercession of the Madonna, and the Saints in weak indulgence of sinful pleasure. He went to Siena and Rome. The attitude of society was reserved. Apparently the faith of his grandfather did not sway Milton in the Eter nal City. He showed disdain of Italian super stition, and openly defended his own rehgious convictions when required to do so. He held in small esteem the "Fathers of the Church." "The prelates trace their pedigree back to Adam," he said. "Why do they not revert to Lucifer who was the first of prelates?" The phase of his fondness for music is a lighter touch in the Italian journey. At Rome he enjoyed the singing of Leonora Baroni, famous before the time of opera, who entranced all listeners, in cluding the Sacred College, accompanied on the lute by her mother, or sister. The Latin stan dard of half-malicious pleasantry, suspecting sentiment in the stranger, when subjected to the spell of the beauty of their women, may have originated the libels, later, which stung the pride of the poet. He wrote "Canzone" in Italian, ad dressed to an ideal lady Beatrice, or Laura, which were inscribed to the singer, or other fair ones. He visited Naples, and made a friend of Mauso, Marquis of Villa, a noble gentleman who had protected and buried Torquato Tasso, and Marini in his time. Here the halcyon dream of youth was rudely VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 135 dispelled. A trumpet note reached the ear of Milton in the voice of Hampden, calling the Eng lish people to the defense of their menaced liber ties. The traveler retraced his steps to Rome, where he had been warned that English Jesuits were plotting to consign him to the Inquisition for the boldness of his views of the Reformed religion, but he suffered no molestation. He re turned to Florence, and spent two months. He must put aside his lyre for the stern battle of life, and share the struggle of his time in re ligious controversy, study, and pohtics. The woods of Vallombrosa guard their secrets well. Did he muse in the shade of the great poem he hoped to yet achieve, at some future day, that would live, and raise the literary stan dard of his country by its stately imagery? Whether to adopt the Epic form of Homer, Vir gil, and Tasso? Whether to take the rules of Aristotle ; the book of Job, the Apocalypse of St. John, or the divine pastoral drama of the Scrip tures in the Song of Solomon as models? He in tended to follow the example of Ariosto, con trary to the advice of Bembo, and "fix all the in dustry and art he could unite in adorning his native tongue." That he succeeded in this aim the centuries have proved. According to Ma caulay he brought the mechanism of language to an exquisite degree of perfection. He sojourned at Lucca, crossed the Apennines to Bologna, Ferrara, and Venice. At the latter 136 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA port he put on board ship the books and music collected during his stay in Italy. From Verona he journeyed to Milan and Geneva. He re turned to England in 1639, took a house in Aldersgate Street, with a garden, and educated his nephews. Dissension and violence over whelmed the country which he had quitted in out ward peace, and found with the firebrand of civil war kindled. "It is a quarrelsome age," quoth Oliver Cromwell. Milton was inevitably drawn into the vortex of public agitation, as an honor able man and a patriot. He stated in the preface to "Reason of Church Government" that he en gaged in polemical and political controversy only from a painful sense of duty. Puritanism dom inated public opinions in extreme limits of Bap tists, Quakers, Presbyterianism, Independents, or Perfectionists, in the name of a leader, united against Romanism. Excesses resulted in this new order of emancipation of the human will and thought, such as fasting and penitence, in one votary, and awaiting the immediate advent of the Messiah, in another. Milton held his head high in these disturbances. Macaulay deemed the poet neither Puritan, Cavalier, or Free thinker, but embodying the traits of each blended in harmony. The studies of his school embraced the whole range of ancient and modern learning, with as tronomy and mathematics. He read the oriental tongues, Syriao and Chaldean, and the Hebrew View of the Meadows. VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 137 Bible, daily, as well as French and Italian. In Greek literature he was fond of Homer, Plato, Euripides, Zenophon, and Demosthenes; in Latin, Ovid and Sallust; Shakespeare, Spenser, and Cowley in English; and Dante and Tasso in Italian. The four Latin authors on husbandry, Cato, Varro, Columella, and Palladius, were favorites with him; Celsus, Pliny, and Vitruvius on architecture; the stratagems of Frontenac, and the philosophical poets Lucretius and Man lius. Nor did he fail to acquaint his pupils with Hesiod, Dionysius, Oppian, Quintus, Calaber, Plutarch, Zenophon, and Polyaenus in Greek. His diet was spare, and he worked late. Alas ! The midnight oil was consumed by him since twelve years of age. If the illumination of that date was not more adequate than the brass, or bronze lamp of three wicks, the lucerna, used by Dante to repeat the sad history of Ugolino of the Hunger Tower, as told him by the fair chatel- laine of the Castle of Bibbiena, small wonder that eyesight was early darkened for Milton. He became inevitably involved in religious questions, treatises on Dissent and Episcopacy. He married his first wife, who left him after a month. His discourse on "Divorce" resulted, a standpoint qualified by a subsequent reconcilia tion and return of the young woman. He wrote on "Christian Doctrine," a treatise on the Ref ormation, and had controversies with Bishop Hall and Bishop Usher. In 1651 he made his 138 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA celebrated reply to the learned Salmasius on the beheading of Charles I, "Defensio pro Populo Anglicano," which aroused Europe, and cost him eyesight. He became totally blind in 1652 from paralysis of the optic nerve, induced by gout. Consider the heroism of this great man! "It is not so wretched to be blind as to be incapable of enduring blindness. ' ' In intellectual grandeur he has been compared to a rock in the midst of a country of mediocrity, not arid, yet severe and isolated among men. Once more he reverted to his early ambition, and took up his lyre, weav ing a mighty theme of melody to which the world has listened ever since. Hopes were shattered, aspirations had crumbled to the dust of regrets and disappointment, fortunes were crippled by the Restoration, and all the petty discords of domestic affairs jarred on a sensitive tempera ment: he turned his thoughts heavenward. "His studies and meditations were an habit ual prayer," said Johnson. His work became the most religious of books, placing faith on a safe and simple basis to future generations. As such it holds a place in the household of Prot estant Germany, receives a tribute of homage from intellectual France, and is treasured on lonely farms of America. Who knows how much the enshrinement of Vallombrosa in the pages has to do with an interest in Italy? The plan of "Paradise Lost" was vast, comprising a de- VISITORS TO VALLOMBROSA 139 scription of the ancestry of the human race, the fall of the angels, and man's disobedience. "Vallombrosa is divine to every English speak ing man and child," because of association with the poet, who made allusion to the sanctuary among the hills in the greatest poem of the lan guage. Milton's reference to the spot is curious. If he smiled "remembering Vallombrosa" it must have been as a souvenir of youth, when his eyes were bright, and life before him. No such image is conveyed in the poem. The sylvan re treat does not appertain to Eden, a region of fruits and flowers, where the first pair wandered amidst docile animals, but to the terrific chaos of Book I, when Satan had fallen into a burn ing lake. The much repeated line is thus : "He scarce had ceas'd, when the superior fiend Was moving tow'rd the shore his pond'rous shield, Ethereal temper, massy, large, and round, Behind, him cast: the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the moon, whose orb Through optic glass the Tuscan artist views At evening, from the top of Fesole, Or in Vol d'Arno, to descry new lands Rivers, or mountains, in her spotty globe." "His legions, angel forms, who lay entranc'd Thick as autumnal leaves that strew the brooks In Vallombrosa." The scene is one of a baleful grandeur. The 140 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA yellow and russet leaves of the chestnut and beech strewing the ground are compared to the fiends of Hell awaiting orders from their chief to rise and form phalanxes to go forth, and work evil on the earth. Leaves, as signifying multitudes, were employed by Homer and Virgil. Did Mil ton visit Vallombrosa in the autumn? Was he on the heights early or late, when the sky was obscured with the heavy, swirling vapor of scir- rocco, the dust rising in clouds from the valleys, and the wind blowing fitfully in hot gusts? The statement of his nephew is further suggestive: "His vein never happily flowed but from the au tumnal to the vernal equinox." He praised spring, however. "Paradise Lost" was pub lished in 1667. Milton died in 1674. How long ago the barriers of human choice of creed between John Milton, the Puritan, and St. John Gualberto, John of the Cells, or Guido of Arezzo, were swept away! XII MOUNTAIN WHEAT A patch of wheat was sown on the border of the large meadow, one season, as an experiment of cultivation at an elevated altitude. Surely the precious grain brought by the Phoenicians to Marseilles before the Romans penetrated Gaul cannot be expected to thrive in Italy on a higher slope than Vallombrosa. As the days passed interest centered in the belt of delicate green. To the American desirous of living in the open air the charm of observing the patch of wheat is out of all proportion to its dimensions. Thought flies over the Atlantic ocean to the world's granary, the great West, and the leagues of harvest fields ripening under the summer sun. Optimism reigned over Vallombrosa, at this early hour, and humanity was responsive in thought and movement. The work of sunshine went on, the heat vapors gathered up in clouds to descend as rain, the night dews dissolved slowly, and chlorophyll matured in the subtle processes of vegetable green matter forming in plant cells. Mountain wheat ripened on the margin of a fir 141 142 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA grove, with an undulating expanse of meadow beyond, framed in an amphitheater of hills : such is the picture to be treasured as a souvenir for winter storms, "pouring heaven into the shut house of life." The patch of grain sprang up in a belt of thick set, delicate green stalks, terminating in feathery tops, fresh, suggestive yet indeterminate, as if a rude hailstorm would ruthlessly cut down and destroy, leaving no trace. Gradually, as August opened, the emerald hue merged to light yellow. A noonday came when the surface of the whole plot became blanched to white. Then the uni form straw color deepened to ochre, gold, amber, and topaz in brittle, half -withered stem and leaf, and bearded ears of brown kernels within the sheaf. Here was the fulfillment of rich fruition, ripe for the sickle. The idle spectator was only like the Spanish botanist Cavanilles, who saw the grass grow by placing the horizontal micrometer on the stem of an agave. We are told that Bcehme never cared for Nature until he walked in the country, and discovered that plants can speak. Then the daisies prattled to him and the cowslips collo- quised. At Vallombrosa, the sun poured a flood of light on the field, and the sultry heat shrivelled the stems to dry straw. The miracle of growth de veloped in color and sweetness, by day, and the pallid moonbeams touched the swaying tips of MOUNTAIN WHEAT 143 the heads with a weird gleam at night. To lin ger of a morning on the border of the fir wood afforded a study of the play of sunshine over the surface, interwoven with shadows, by the breeze, as reflections are broken in water. A red poppy grew in the midst of the wheat, and white daisies clustered along the rim, interspersed with tiny pansies. The most fretful and refractory child may be lured to an absorbed interest in gather ing a nosegay of these flowers, the piccoli pen- siere of native babyhood, les petits pensees of the cosmopolitan infant. Indeed children of a larger growth could not better while away long hours under the open sky than in searching for a four-leaved clover in the grass. The trophy of fortune, the symbol of good luck, beckons mockingly, alluringly, bringing the seeker earth ward in closer proximity with laborious popula tions, buzzing, humming, and uttering jerky, creaking, chirping sounds in a little world. A horned black beetle crept over hill and dale to gain the field of wheat, a yellow wasp flew across the surface, and two copper-tinted butterflies fluttered in mazy circles over the full ears. A cricket, straw-colored like the harvest field, ap proached the thickets. If a new fairy tale could be told on the theme it would be all about a prince grasshopper that dwelt in a golden land, which formed a vast realm. A family party of excursionists rambled through the woods, and a small boy, carrying the 144 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA green case of a botanist, slung it by the cord at tached to the branch of a tree, and waded into the wheat to pluck a blade, which was proudly consigned to the box, as a trophy. That boy de serves to yet suffer hunger for the act of van dalism. A silvery creature, moth or butterfly, clung to an amber-tinted stalk. Carefully re moved by a friendly hand, to the shade of a bush, the insect adhered firmly to a leaf, in turn. In stead of seeking concealment and repose from the garish noonday amidst the screen of foliage the insect began to vibrate, as if to cleanse and prepare the frame for further effort. Then en sued the most marvelous skirt dance. The body, barred with velvety black and orange, remained inactive, while the wings of an exquisite, jewelled lace texture, opened, pulsated, waved, and closed in rapid and graceful evolutions, as a transpar ent drapery. After a brief rest the insect darted out over the sunlit wheat, rose high in the air, and slanted into the fir grove to fulfill devel opment. The harvest was ripe on August fifth. The fact was made evident by the arrival of the reap ers, two men, and two women. These were Ar cadian in their method of work. They cut the grain in a circle in the midst of the plot, by grasp ing a handful of stalks, and sweeping the small sickle around the roots. Gathered into sheaves these mowings were piled in a stack to dry. The workers stood in golden grain up to the knee, MOUNTAIN WHEAT 145 the men in salient outline, wearing old felt hats, brown and faded raiment, and dark, tawny faces, the women more richly colored on cheek and lip, in gowns of blue and red, with orange hued hand kerchiefs tied over their heads. French painters could have portrayed them in endless variety of pose, bending to their task beneath a sky grown pale with excess of light and heat. At noon the group rested near a lime tree on the meadow, and ate their frugal meal. One of the women went to the spring with a glass flask, and lingered over the task of filling it at the bubbling rill. This version of the harvest of Theocritus, when the peasants had cut the grain with the reaping hook, which fell in swaths about them, was most meager. No maid Cibale appeared bringing a large basket of dinner to enjoy seated on the ground. Days succeeded each other at Vallombrosa, hours of a pulseless calm suddenly stirred by a fitful breeze, when dust rose in eddying columns from the valleys, and lightning gleamed on the horizon at night. The task of the reapers went on, the brown figure of a man visible over a rim of golden yellow plumes, a woman in bright blue and red — a great flower. The rest of midday under the lime tree was enlivened by gossip and laughter. On the tenth of August the wind of earlier hours fell to a gentle breeze, redolent of leaves and herbs, while opaque vapor filled the lower 146 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA ranges in the direction of Bologna. Thunder re verberated among the distant crags. The harvest had reached another phase. Boards formed a threshing floor on the meadow, with a primitive and clumsy chopping apparatus, worked by a handle, on the margin. The sheaf was beaten against the railing, the kernels in the ear rattled down into a trough receptacle, and the remaining straw, cut off, was added to the increasing pile at the side. At that very hour the thunderbolt fell from the clouds on another field further down the moun tain side, and smote the men and women engaged in an identical task. The patch of mountain wheat at Vallombrosa yielded a few handsful. How many loaves, or rolls, (pannini) will the harvest grant to the baker? XIII SPRINGS OF WATER When you visit Vallombrosa on a summer day, dear reader, do not fail to perform the rite of drinking water at springs gushing forth from the sources of the hills in an arid land, now rendered more parched by the displacement of strata and subsoil in frequent earthquakes. Hence the re freshment at Vallombrosa of the melodies sung perpetually in the ripple and splash of flowing water, mingling with the rustle of the winds through the fir-trees of the slopes so soothing to the ear, even as the crystal pure liquid reaches the eager and parched lips of child and man alike. All pilgrims from the hot and dusty val ley world below are brothers when they gain the founts of these sylvan shades. Creeds are merged in one humanitarian sentiment, be these wayfarers Hebrew or Gentile: their welcome is divinely benignant and Biblical. "He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them." The refrain of the hermits still lingers for the weary worldling on the spot. "Come il cervo desidera le fontane di acqua, cosi ti desidera, 0 Dio, I' anima mia." 147 148 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA In a fairy dell bubbles forth the spring of the Acquabella, where St. John Gualberto is reputed to have paused to quench his thirst when he sought a hermit's seclusion in the hills centuries ago. Religious austerity does not overshadow the spot in midsummer. An ancient boundary of moss-stained stone wall forms an amphitheater in the wood, which slopes down from the Saltino road to lower ranges and villages. The water flows out of the boundary coping, and falls into an ancient basin with a rippling cadence, scarcely audible above the murmur of the leaves. Quaff the cup of idleness and reverie even on an excursion of midday. Toast the Sant Ozio, beato far nulla of the Italian poet, in this haunt, so accessible yet so remote. Yonder the tele graph threads a way down the old paved roads, through the fir trees, past boundary shrines and crosses. "The pulse of the world" here braves winter hurricanes and landslide. Drink only to Sant Ozio in the clear rill of Acquabella. A path leads to open country inland, with green heights visible above, and blue mists of distant peaks of Apennine. Mother earth begins to use the sun in the ravines to boil her kettles, as radio-activity, and make raspberry and black berry syrup of twig, leaf, and blossom, and ri pening fruit. The path is bordered with flowers, tiny pink wild geranium, purple thistle, blue stabia, and yellow Star-of-Bethlehem, where grasshoppers cluster. SPRINGS OF WATER 149 Visit the fountain of St. Catherine, where the mules drink at the trough, the basin of the Cam- erlenghi (the Chamberlains), the runnel of St. Girolamo, and the spring of St. John Gualberto, down the road. Follow the cliff to the Lago, on an afternoon of early September. A dreamy stillness pervades all nature in the harmony of earth and sky, undisturbed by the chirping of tardy crickets in the stubble of the fields, and the drowsy hum of wasps hovering near the ground. The pure air is scented with wild-briar, camomile, the gum on the bark of pine trees, freshly hewn logs, and distinct zones of fungus, blended with the dried leaves of every ravine in the advanced season. The Lago road wends along, with a wide expanse of country outspread below, and the mountain crag looming above. The waterfall drips down the black rocks, fil tering through the interlacing roots, bracken fronds, mosses, and ivy of the woods. This spring is a foaming cascade in spring and au tumn, then a crystal wheel revolving over the crag of basaltic ledges, and seldom fails utterly in August heat to yield a cooling rill to the weary son of toil dragging stone and timber, or the dusty wayfarer coming from the Consuma Pass, who holds his hand beneath the trickling drops. No saint's name, with a suitable frame of medi aeval legend, attaches to the spot, but the bounty of earth and heaven is represented in the water, twinkling in a rainbow prism of reflections, as 150 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA if responsive to the laughter of a group of little girls, carrying home loaves of bread from the shop to remote hamlets, and pausing to clamber about the slippery stones of the margin to sport with the limpid spray. Hold the little cup to the source until it brims over, mindful that the Danube, the Bosphorus, and even the river Spree are low, as well as Alpine streams, in a year of drought. A flock of sheep straggles along the road, com ing from the heights. The ewes are hke rounded cushions of thick wool, after the summer pastur age. The shepherd carries a sick lamb in his arms, and two worthy, white dogs patrol the ranks. The touching symbolism of the shepherd and his flock, so commonplace to the peasant, is still an element of the memories of this sanctuary of the hills to the stranger. Beyond the cascade the grandfather of all adders lies stretched dead on the road, the baleful beauty of markings in dark, tortoise-shell pattern still fresh and vivid, while the head has been crushed by the first moun taineer's heavy shoe. The spring of Paradisino sings canticles in sub dued tones, as it flows into the basin of the arched bastion of rock, surmounted by a metal cross. A snowy pigeon flies over from the tiled roof of the house, once an oratory, and drinks at the rill, then circles back to tell the feathered colony of the roof how dehcious is a sip of water. A gray and mottled brother pigeon flits, in turn, to the Fountain of Camarlinghi. SPRINGS OF WATER 151 fount. These are Pliny's Doves, alighting on the rim of the basin. The spring of Paradisino sings canticles through the years and centuries, chaunting of the famous Vallombrosan preacher, John-of-the- Cells, and other pious monks who spent their hours in prayer and meditation here. The forest encloses this shrine, and a stern rampart of rock, all tufted with brown mosses and delicate ferns, where lizards dart into the crevices. Pilgrims from many lands pause on a summer day to drink. The stout woman, in white, who holds a silver mounted cup under the runnel comes from Buenos Ayres to Italy on a holiday. The bevy of young men and maidens in worn bi cycle raiment are workers of the Salvation Army. The quiet woman, wrapped in a cloak, who laves her hands in the basin, is a missionary from China. The Spring is guardian of the spot. XIV A BABY TREE In mild weather take a camp stool, and a book — not to read! — and stroll up the broad, modern road leading to Paradisino. The aim is to live out-of-doors until nightfall. Skirting the boun dary of the garden of the Institute follow the narrow, ancient way in the rear, which turns in a steep and stony fashion up the ravine. A large cross surmounts the slope, where the avenue is gained once more, Opposite the path to the sa cred beech tree and chapel. Place the camp stool on this ancient mule path, and look around the spot at leisure. A flood of sunshine permeates the dusky depths of the dell and adjacent hillside with a tide of bronze gold light on foliage and moss. In one direction the realm of valleys outspread is visible, with the pic turesque roofs, parapets, and towers of the mon astery buildings below, and in the other the fir trees tower to a majestic height in solemn and gloomy grandeur. A balmy fragrance is exhaled from the depths of the foliage, the plants, and the gum oozing from the bark of the trees. The eye notes the veriest trifles, a flower bell swaying on the brink of the ravine, or a bevy of gauzy- winged 152 A BABY TREE 153 insects circling in a shaft of sunbeams intersect ing the tree trunks. From contemplation of the grandeur of a rocky mass, jutting out of an over hanging bank on the right hand, and the encir cling grove, the observer turns to immediate en vironment in the infinitely little. Beside the path is a miniature garden not larger than the palm of one's hand, situated on top of a tiny stone, apparently, and with a fir- tree growing amidst fern, thyme, and moss. Here is a world entirely absorbed in its own affairs of growth and development. This mon arch of the forest is most nobly placed at the summit of a cliff, and is surrounded by a tangled wealth of vegetation. Stoop and scan the field closely. A baby tree, not more than an inch in height, holds up its head bravely. A fern frond, or two, scarcely more defined than thread fila ments flank the fir, and microscopic trumpets and stars of flowerlets cluster at the base. A wee plant above boasts of two ripe strawberries, which add a spot of vivid color to the brown and gray tints, and faint purple bloom of the margin. Na ture has lavished the resources of her decorative arts on this paradise, in golden dustings of leaf surface and stem, in irregular markings, and odd mottlings of twig and capsule relieved by pale green. Invisible insects dwell in the moss as in a thick wood. Carabus and Cicri alpei may be found. To turn a loose stone adjacent possibly reveals an ant city, with galleries, bridges, and 154 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA thoroughfares. Does not the history of life be gin with the mosses and lichens? Consider, for a moment, the baby tree. It is a fir, the abete. It has planted itself, so to speak, and intends to make its own way. The old moat below the boundary wall of the Badia has been converted into a cradle and nursery for infant trees. In this sunny and sheltered nook pines are reared from the seed. The fir on the mule path has not demanded a share of these favors in company with pampered nurslings. If it is an orphan, it is not a foundling. In the month of August large cones, still green and full of liquid gummy moisture that serves to nourish the germ in the ground, began to drop from the lofty trees, open, and disintegrate to re lease each seed. Such an embryo found a refuge in the soil of the mountain road in October, and was covered snugly with snow by late autumn. Winter is the nurse of these seedlings. The seed gave birth to the tiny saplings and perished, having fulfilled its destiny and produced its har vest. The baby tree grows with all the vitality of a hidden hfe, as the rivulet, flowing down the adjacent ravine, with a gentle murmur, perse veres in spite of all obstacles of pebbles and mud in taking its course to the valley below. The tree will endure for fifty, or one hundred years, if spared such calamities as having the meddlesome fingers of gardener and student transplant it, the hoof of a donkey crush, or the clumsy move- A BABY TREE 155 ments of a pedestrian, equivalent to earthquake and avalanche, overturn. May it brave all dan gers and stand intact. The wicked white butterfly flutters innocently through the glen, and will deposit eggs in the branches if possible. Other enemies, like evil habits and principles will tamper with its fair strength and beauty. Certain caterpillars de velop wings and gnaw their way out through the trunk only after four years of seclusion. Alas ! Insects deposit eggs at the roots, and in sidious foes feed in the cells of the wood. Ivy, borage, lichen, and velvet patches of moss will enfeeble and indicate a bad state of health in the fir. Favored by those great physicians of the forest, sun, wind, rain, and snow, in proving victorious over these hampering obstacles to a superb development, the baby tree will yet tower among its brothers of the hillside long after the mortal observer is dust. XV OUT-OF-DOOR SLEEP The sleepless one is the drooping leaf of hu manity, the embodiment of unrest and disquiet of spirit. The desert of existence becomes marked out with certain localities as oases of refreshment where sound slumber was enjoyed. The pitiable wreck of eternal possibilities passes on. Every body prescribes a remedy, from carrying a pil low of dried hops, drinking camomile or poppy tea, floating in a boat on the current of an im aginary river, to the latest deadly narcotic com pounded by modern chemistry. Medical skill uses cocaine, morphine, chloroform, and other anaesthetics: Nature has the open air cure. Ever a wanderer, the sleepless one reached the glades of Vallombrosa, by chance, and in the morning hours slung the hammock of ease in the grove, on the margin of meadow. Time was when the monks struggled with sleep in their solitude. Wearied, bruised, spent with oraison, vigil, and labor, their worn frame of body demanded only to sink into the profound repose of oblivion. No doubt the craving for such rest was a temptation of the Evil One. The physician regards the body as a temple made by 156 OUT-OF-DOOR SLEEP 157 God, instead of the cenobite's poor slave of peni tence. The pampered mortal of our day wears such a charm, wrought in gold and silver, as the God Hypnos, with wings of the nighthawk at tached to the head. In vain ! Ah, how grateful and refreshing was the shade of the wood to the Sleepless One! The rhyth mical swaying of the hammock was soothing. The feeble occupant sighed with Themistocles : Give me the art of forgetfulness. The warm air, scented with the hay on adjacent slopes, the wild flowers clothing ravines in waves of bloom, yel low, pink, and white, fanned the brow with a soft, persuasive touch, like the undulations of a plumy fan. The garish, noisy world with all its strife and tumult fell back into the valley, ebbed away imperceptibly to the horizon of sea limit. A sense of rest gradually mastered the members, crisped muscles relaxed, and stiffened limbs be came supple in the mild atmosphere. The fa tigued eyes closed on "the doors of day." Was it sleep, or reverie? Under such circumstances slumber is a light robe easily shaken off. The fir trees rose like the columns of a temple, straight and smooth, to the canopy of foliage far above. Trees of lesser growth swayed and rip pled on adjacent knolls. Here were the needle wood, Nadelholz, and the leaf wood Taubholz, of German forest culture in friendly juxtaposition. If the sleepless one happened to be of Teutonic origin the fact was interesting in remembrance 158 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA of the Hartz Mountains, the Black Forest, and Thuringia. The stillness was blissful to sensi tive ears. Gradually the sleepless one became aware, in a somnolent fashion, of the delicate gradation of such quiet, the silence which aroused a listening faculty to particular vibrations, the drowsy hum of insects, the note of a bird, the thin, sharp articulation of a peasant's flint, whet ting his scythe. The hammock swayed in unison with the light breeze, and the murmur of the leaves. Then a dim consciousness predominated of being an intruder on a sylvan conclave. The trees were talking together in a monotone, con fiding secrets to each other, challenging opinions in a higher key from remote paths, as the wind rose, and lapsing again to long intervals of im mobility. The firs kept together in serried ranks, after their fashion, a select family group. Possibly they aroused hostility amidst plebeian and gre garious shrubbery, for this reserve, as in hu manity. The patriarch of these giants solilo quised on the past, and the changes on the earth, after the manner of patriarchs. They spoke of the woods about Leronia and Cere, the groves of Etruscan Bolsena or Tivoli, sacred to the wor ship of Diana and Alcides, in their time, and the Tiber banks before Rome was built. The plane trees, planted on either side of the Stradone made response in remembrance of their birthplace in Asia and the Levant, early brought to the Ionian OUT-OF-DOOR SLEEP 159 Sea and Sicily by the Romans, and welcome to all nations as spreading an umbrella of broad leaves in August weather. A row of the Ice landic mountain ash on the road above, with tufts of feathery foliage, and clusters of scarlet berries asserted the antiquity of the Scandi navian Valkyrie. The ash was disposed to vaunt its own uses among plants in proving the inno cence, or guilt, of a culprit, as does the mandrake in France and Germany. The human eavesdropper was impelled to make an involuntary demand: "Tell me if you can sleep." "We dream sometimes," replied the firs, after a pause. A solitary yew, gnarled and twisted, grew on the brink of a ravine. It swayed slowly, moved by some imperceptible current of air, and mur mured of Iggdrasil, the tree of universal life, growth, and inspiration in the sap of the Teu tonic mythology. "Do you claim descent from a tree in common with the human race?" demanded the yew. The Sleepless One found response unnecessary. All was fragmentary, confused, inconsequent, and fantastic. The beech laid a wager with the oak that the latter would be first stricken by light ning in a storm. The black walnut on the bank, slender and vigorous, a stranger from the State of Virginia, easily acclimated, offered its wood for carving out furniture to all comers in a prac- 160 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA tical American way. The maple, birch, willow, alder, and larch made an inarticulate whispering. The lower shrubs gossiped together, exchanging housewifely confidences. The sorbo (wild med lar) told of its flowers in May, and fruit in No vember. The sumac extolled the color of its own dye for domestic uses. The poplar leaves sang a melody. Then a murmur ran through the grove of firs, like a melodious sigh, and the canopy of green overhead resumed the theme of the woods having been first the seat of sylvan powers, of nymphs, and fauns, and savage men, who emanated from stubborn oak. The hammock poised motionless, the occupant was inert. Noon had come. "Our life is not a dream, but it may become a dream, and, perhaps, ought to become one, ' ' said Novalis. XVI A COBBLER The white road winds up the hill to Paradisino, with a green knoll rising on one side, and the ridge of the Villa Medeci on the other. Below is the old hotel, and the monastery buildings, form ing a group dear to artist and photographer, of outer boundary, and the tower of the sixteenth century, with a projecting coping. At an angle of. the knoll, flanking the garden enclosure of the botanist Tozzi, is a little shrine, draped with ivy, and embedded in grass and a tangle of wild flowers, with a modern statuette of St. John Gualberto in an archway, over the rill of water gushing into a basin. This figure should be, instead, San Crispino d' Assisi. The cobbler works here all day. He comes in July. Whence comes he? From one of the neighboring hamlets, inspired by ambition to seek a wider sphere than his little shop, and re turning home at nightfall? From a dusty street of Pontassieve, or even a suburb of Florence, making a summer holiday as his betters seek the sea, and the mineral springs of Montecatini, San Casciano, or Salsa Maggiore? He is a toil-worn, 161 162 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA bent man, with a dusky and solemn visage, shel tered by a shabby hat of black felt, and a taci turn bearing. His stock in trade consists of a small table covered with a blue cotton cloth full of tools, a rush-seated chair, a basket placed on the ground, and an array of muddy, disreputable boots and shoes to be repaired. The dingy craft of cob bler acquires ever a picturesque aspect in south ern lands as associated with the open air, for the worker sits in the doorway, at least, of the dark est aperture, stooping to his task. How effective is his setting, often, in Italy. Richard Voss de scribes one who made his stall in the tomb of Lucullus at Tusculum. The humble cobbler, the ciabottino, pays no rent at Vallombrosa to the flowers, the trees overhead, the sunshine, and the wandering breeze, as he plies his needle. He is not much of a gos sip, and seldom laughs, but nothing escapes his sharp glance. Indeed his post of observation is unequalled. Among the groups of passing strangers he instinctively inspects the foot gear, with the appreciation of the artist all the more keen that he deals with sorry wrecks of patched leather belonging to hostler, carter, porter, or woodcutter. Not for him are the pointed and varnished morning shoe of the club frequenter, the silken boot of the town bred lady, the fairy slipper of childhood ! A COBBLER 163 All day groups linger near the cobbler, beg gars, vendors, pedestrians. Vehicles pass on the road, the omnibus from the station of Saltino, heaped with luggage on the roof, carriages, and little country carts. The gray oxen toil along, now dragging logs from the heights, or attached to a conveyance of the neighborhood, with a tree trunk still clothed in bark for the pole, rude wheels, and a platform holding several straw chairs, as primitive as the Scharrette of Indo- China, the spokes formed of three pieces of wood in a triangle. Again the oxen pass, with a rhyth mical motion, attached to a sledge, freighted with fragrant green branches of larch, pine, and fir, to be converted into bundles of brushwood (fas- cinotti) for winter fuel. If the cobbler arrives early at his post he may observe the oxen slowly ascending the Stradone, government road, dragging a wagon, filled with straw, holding enormous glass receptacles (bot- tiglione) of red wine for daily use. The early rays of the sun glorified this humble car of Bac chus. The automobiles pass. Two nuns in black mantles pass along the wall of the Badia in the direction of the tower. They impart by their presence a transient reminiscence of monasticism. The cobbler shares many a feast, in a Barme- cidal fashion, at the Villa Medeci opposite, when a long table is spread on the grassy bank, with much bustle, and a party of country folk par take of a meal. The men are in their shirt 164 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA sleeves, for the most part, and the buxom women bareheaded. The jests, the speeches, the songs amidst general hilarity reach his ear, and pro voke a smile on his dark face. Several Roman ladies stroll along the thor oughfare, enter the enclosure of the hotel terrace, and take tea at a table under the lime trees. Their superb beauty of the Juno type is enhanced by rich apparel, and most fantastic hats adjusted on their black hair with apparent carelessness. Did the cobbler ever drink a cup of tea, the leaf of preference, affording a grateful stimulant to so large a portion of the globe, from Holy Mother Russia to Japan, China, and the Anglo-Saxon race? Would he not make a grimace over it? A cat may look at a king, however. The old gentleman is wheeled out in a chair on the terrace. The house cat strolls along the mar gin of bushes flanking the meadow. Suddenly the animal pauses as if turned to stone. An intruder has entered the enclosure, and gazes around with an ingratiating manner. The house cat advances menacingly, and says as plainly as a cat possibly can: "Now, then! Where are you coming? There is no room for you here. Be off !" The intruder hesitates, reflects a moment, and stiffens from surprise and indignation to defiance. "This seems a nice terrace," it responds. "Who are you to prevent my staying if I choose?" In turn the house cat wavers, glances askance A COBBLER 165 at the fence, and with a final inspection of the intruder says: "Oh, of course, if you must remain, we shall have to know you." The old gentleman laughs softly. "A study of life," he muses. The most interesting event of the day to the cobbler is the arrival of the local carter, the barrociajo. The heavy wagon comes up the stradone, piled high with boxes, bags, and bas kets, and the worthy horse, decked with bits of brass on his harness, jingling bells, and red worsted tassels dangling over his ears, is helped by mules, and even a yoke of oxen on occasion. The vehicle has been on the road from the city gates in the cool hours of night, with resting places, en route, for master and beast. The car rier, or procaccia, is a rural type still to be found in Tuscany. Honest, brave and good, he follows the road carrying furniture, letters, money, and delivering messages, a friend of all the world. The profession of carter has descended for gen erations, probably for centuries, from father to son. At Vallombrosa, the huge giant, with an easy gait, and a smile of good humor, sleeves rolled up from muscular arms of the mountaineer, is still an important factor as a link with the world below. The cobbler watches the wagon arrive, and the carter carries his baskets to the kitchen door of 166 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the hotel, confers with the authorities within, and scores his own account on the side of the house. The kitchen door serves as a slate, or a black board to this big schoolboy. In the late after noon the carter (barrociajo), having made his founds of Saltino, draws up his wagon on the lower road, beside the stone wall previous to de scending to Florence once more. The cobbler notes the departure. Who so deft as the carrier in exchanging books of the Vieusseux library for fresh volumes, in such delicate shopping for ladies as the conveyance of bottles from the phar macy, gloves, haberdashery of all sorts, and con fectionery? A small son, growing up in his image, and imitating even the paternal gestures, attends him, like a diligent satellite, and Alcides. A knife-grinder occasionally shares the knoll, a patriarch, with a gray beard, who sharpened the knives, if not the wits, of the community, then goes his way. A donkey stands in the shade near the cobbler. They are acquaintances, but exchange few ameni ties. The animal has long flapping ears, and the sagacious eye of a ciucco, grown hoary in much serving in this market-place, waiting for hire, to take ladies on an excursion. The donkey knows as much as a christian. It is still called Arri, as in the time of Dante. A first owner may have fulfilled all the requirements of the adage that with straw, water, and a stick an ass can be fashioned into a Solomon. "Con la paglia, A COBBLER 167 coll' acqua, e col bastone Puo cavarsi da un cinoco un Salomone." If the cobbler were only another donkey it would gossip with him a bit. No doubt it is familiar with the lore contained in the vol ume of Padre Gian Francesco Scottoni, the dia logue between an ox and an ass, with their friends. The quadruped waits near the cobbler while the owner lounges over to the wine shop. Oc casionally the donkey strays down the path to the spring of San Girolamo framed in the stone en closure below the high road. Then the animal wanders along the meadow, nibbling a young shoot, or leaf, sniffing at the box, and taking a nip of a white rose on a bush. Judge if the excellent beast is at home at Val lombrosa! The great festival of mid August, the Assumption of the Madonna, is celebrated by hard work. The whole family of women and children, with their baskets and bundles tied in handkerchiefs, must be dragged hither at an early hour, when the crowd surges over the meadow, the slopes, and all the surrounding paths in a tumult of noise and life. The cobbler puts aside his work, and joins the throng around booths, lottery wheels, the piles of cakes, and bread, and sugar plums, or the fires where fowls are roasted on the spit, and pots bubbling with hot oil. He enters the church, where the rehcs are exposed, listens to the music 168 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA of the band, then inspects the merry-go-round on the grass. The donkey is tethered on the great meadow with kindred of every size and description of scrubby coat, and thin flank. From an asinine standpoint, the world is rendered melodious by a clamorous braying from dawn to sunset. The amiable Hungarian gentleman goes about, and gives to each sorry ciucco a piece of white bread. The festa over, and only the debris of broken flasks, litter, and charred ground remaining, the donkey waits on the knoll to be hired. The cob bler once more waxes his thread, and taps a worn sole with his little hammer. The road brings customers to both man and animal. XVH AN OLD WOMAN When was the Golden Age? What is the Golden Age? The old Rosa asked herself the question, in her own fashion, as she came down the path. The sky was clear, the sunshine dazzling, and the air as pure as crystal, with the life of the hills in it. She had been far that day, gathering up all she could find of the summer gifts of Nature. Now she returned by the Cascina Nuova, and the Buca del Lupo, pausing to fill her basket on the slopes, where grew heath, broom, and wild briar. She peered for a moment, far down on Gram, with its olives and vines, San Donato, St. Agata, Fronzano, and Pitiana. The tinkle of the bells of the cattle, and the note from church towers were borne to her ear. Then she resumed her way down through the grove with a bundle of green branches on her head, to the road in the rear of the houses of Saltino. Here she de posited her burden on the bank, and seated her self to rest. The majestic panorama was outspread before her, with the cliff of Saltino commanding the Arno valley from Montevarchi in one direction to Florence in the other. She was unmoved by 169 170 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the familiar prospect. She gazed at the villas on the slope with the curiosity of the rustic. The little, modern chalets with carved wood ornamentation about door and casement had inmates. Children and dogs ran in and out of tiny gardens. How did these gentry live? Evi dently existence for them was a perpetual holi day. The road wound along bordered by this settlement, with hotels, and larger buildings on the brink below. Across the road was a spacious villa, with parapets, galleries, archways, and a balcony enclosed in glass. This habitation was a true Palace of Aladdin to old Rosa. Born the most humble daughter of the moun tain side, she lost herself in dreams of dwelling in these chambers, visible through the open win dows, shaded by silken curtains, in feasting on unfamiliar delicacies at the table in the tes- selated porch spread with fine linen and silver, and even slumbering late in a bed which could be no less soft than down, when the sun was al ready high, oblivious of harvest work, milking the goats, guarding the pigs in the beech wood while the animals fed on the mast, visiting a sick neighbor, or going to church at the warning of the Ave Maria. The ideal of such a setting was not lacking for a lady emerged on the terrace. She was young, blooming, and clad in soft raiment. She embodied Botticelli's Primavera, and still more Dante's Spring. The Rock of Saltino. AN OLD WOMAN 171 The old woman, seated on the bank, spanned the gulf of time, as she gazed at this radiant im age. Possibly she beheld herself in some swift, feminine intuition, as in a mirror, or through a mist, like the blue haze enveloping the distant hills. It was her right, as born one of Beauty's daughters. The revelation was without sharp acrimony of regret, for her nature was mild and amiable, but the brown face, hooded in a shabby shawl, had still traces of harmonious lines. Her hair was once lustrous and abundant, and of the same hue as the lady's tresses, which were fas tened with jewelled pins. Her dark eyes had been as limpid, and, yes, her form as slight, erect, and supple. "Madonna!" sighed Rosa, rising, and lifting the bundle of branches to balance on her head once more. The enigma of the Golden Age presented itself to her mind in some inarticulate way. She un derstood, without being aware of it, that the reign of Saturn had been a period of perpetual Spring, simplicity of manners prevailed, and wild beasts lived peaceably with other an imals. Her lines had fallen on the succeed ing periods of silver, brass, and iron. Socialism and Anarchism had failed to establish equality. She trudged along the road, shaded by woods on either side. Groups of children, with their nurses, were scattered about under evergreen branches, in Lilliputian frocks, furbelows of em- 172 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA broidery and ruffles, and large bonnets, framing dimpled, cherubic countenances like the sheath of certain flowers. Old Rosa regarded them with a pang of jealousy. Were not her own grand children, clad in rags, equally pretty? A ped dler toiled up the path, with a case on his back, and tried to lure the maids to buy his wares. The water carriers brought barrels and flasks from the fountains for Saltino. Rosa reached the spring of Santa Caterina, and the highway, where she turned in the direc tion of Saltino, and took the path to the right skirting the Hotel Acquabella leading to Viguale. From Viguale she struck the paved route (mulat- tiera) called Ertone which leads to Filiberti. Following a northeast turn she came to the Plan degli Alberi, after traversing the carriage road, and arrived at the chapel and spring of San Gio vanni Gualberto. This source has flowed for many years, and was treasured on this spot in 1529, as the inscription records. The Abbot Averardo Niccolini decorated the shrine. Mass was celebrated in the little chapel, and the cate chism explained to women, at a date when these daughters of Eve were not allowed to approach near the cloister. Their feelings were further soothed by a distribution of bread. Rosa cast down her load on the ground, entered the chapel, knelt on the step, and prayed. She had often done so before. To-day she brushed away a tear as she resumed her walk homeward. At a bend AN OLD WOMAN 173 of the road she found her husband Adamo seated on the wall, with his basket and staff, waiting for her. The old couple regarded each other with satisfaction. "Ah! There you are, amico," said Rosa. "Welcome!" retorted Adamo. Rosa, the beauty of her village, had married the excellent Adamo, the choice of her parents. She was not a maiden to fan dangerous jeal ousies by idle coquetry. The worthy couple had passed through life, sober and industrious, with out strife, and now children and grandchildren surrounded them. The older sons had left the nest from time to time. The children gleaned the harvest of the year on the heights, the wild strawberries, raspberries, mushrooms, blackber ries, thistles, and nosegays of pinks and corn flowers. The boys gathered up the crumbs of household service by running on errands, and carrying water in the season. Rosa pondered on the Golden Age. She ques tioned her helpmate in the words of the poet: "Sai tu, sai tu che sia L'Eta che d'oro chiamonof Latte i fiume scorrevano, E frutti davan gli alberi Senza voler cultura. L'Eta che d'oro chiamonof" In English the lines would run thus: 174 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA "Knowest thou, knowest thou what was The Age they called golden? The rivers flowed with milk, The trees yielded fruit Without being cultivated." Adamo responded with masculine firmness: "Tu m'ami, io t'amo: incognita N'e ad ambo gelosia L'Eta dell' oro e nostra." "Lungo e I'inverno e rigido Ma son pur le ore care Quelli di stare in giolito Raccolti al focolare!" "I love you, you love me, unknown, Neither have jealousy The Age of Gold is ours." "Long and severe is the winter But the hours are precious To those able to remain Gathered around the hearth." That evening when the household slept the old Rosa trimmed the lamp burning before a tiny shrine of the Madonna. "Salve! Regina della Misericordia," she mur mured. Then she gazed up at the cliff of Saltino, where AN OLD WOMAN 175 lights sparkled in the villa which was a Palace of Aladdin to the old woman. Will the Age of Gold return on the earth, when the stars and planets have performed their ap pointed circuit around the Heavens? XVIII THE GUIDE He was an interesting type of the mountaineer. In remembrance he will live as a lean and wiry man of medium height, with the easy carriage of the climber, and a gait readily changed to fleet running. His features were sharp, his blue eyes keen, sun and wind had tanned his thin cheeks to the semblance of leather, while his hair and bristling moustache were tinged with gray. He wore little gold rings in his ears, like a sailor. He was a guide who had traversed the Casen tino for half a century. He was a local oracle, shrewd, loquacious, endowed with Latin vivacity, and of vast experience. There may have been a touch of authority in his intercourse with the men of his village, but his demeanor was pacific, on the whole, else he would not have attained a mature age. The women and children listened spellbound to his discourse, beside the domestic hearth, when he ate his coarse bread, or portion of beans. Doubtless he described the strangers, with a sprinkling of Attic salt, who visited Val lombrosa. At home the Guide was the village story-teller, kindred of those who animate the German spin- 176 THE GUIDE 177 ning-room, and the circle of Norse-folk, or the Highland fishermen. Actor, mimic, or philoso pher, he rehearsed scenes to the delight of his audience. Proverbial sayings tripped off his tongue, possibly unloosened by a little wine, em ployed to illustrate a case in point. Again he mused, in silence, following out the destinies of other lives, those who dwelt at Rome and Flor ence, or journeyed to Paris and London, in his own fashion, withdrawn from snow and storm beneath his own roof, as insects creep into crev ices of stone walls and rocks. Was he the hap pier for such reflections, in comparisons, or ren dered gloomy and envious by his pinched lot? The mountaineer has thick shoes, and subtle brains, according to the familiar adage. To a patron his countenance was frank and ingratiating, neither servile or unduly familiar, adapting himself to such a customer with re markable tact. He was all things to all men, and turned an honest penny as he could. The nick name he bore through life signified the Dodger. The Italian facility of bestowing sobriquets, such as has brought the artist Guercino down through the centuries as the Squinter, was equally apt in the case of the Guide. Certainly he resembled the species rodent, weasel, or rat, in nimble dex terity of avoiding obstacles, and discreetly ab senting himself, on occasion, as the animals would hide out of reach. He had kept his head on his shoulders in a long and varied career, and bore 178 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA traces of no sinister wound made by pistol, or knife. On the other hand he enjoyed a good reputation for probity, and had ever escaped col lision with forest guard, or carabinieri. Sov ereign rulers, great financiers, ministers of state, require foresight, courage, and diplomatic policy : so did the Guide in his modest sphere. Freedom from harm in rural life meant to the guide avoid ing the net of the fowler, such as snare the birds, by not seeing, or hearing too much on lonely paths, leading across to the Adriatic shore, on one side, or the Mediterranean on the other, es pecially during his earlier years, before govern ment rule prevailed over this property. As a philosopher he would shrug his shoulders and exclaim : "Eh! II dolce e misto all amaro. (The sweet is mingled with the bitter.) Weary after a rough walk, with no mancia (tip) he sighed: "II povero dipende dal ricco." (The poor depend on the rich.) He verified his nickname, with a droll grimace : "Meglio di sdrucciolare coi piede che colla lin gua." (Better to slip with the feet than with the tongue.) The summer was his nut to crack. On an idle day he sat on the wall, eating a crust of bread, and discussed the tracing out of a new road, or path, with a group of men. Again he fetched from his village a small basket of salad (radic- chio), and a fresh egg, at an early hour, con- THE GUIDE 179 signed to the hotel porter for a hungry maid or nurse. Possibly the next morning he would dis appear on the five days' excursion to Camaldoli, and the Casentino, with a party. How frequently in all the years of his career, from early youth to manhood and age, had he accompanied the foreign lady on the route to Monteminajo! The ramble to this region (pae- setto) of the Casentino has a varied charm. The way leads to tranquil solitude, remote from roads traversed by diligence, or other vehicles, in the midst of chestnut woods and some cultivated land. To reach the spot without much aimless wandering about the services of the Guide are desirable, if not necessary. Along the crest of the hill by the Croce Vecchia, and the Piano degli Stefaniere, past the watershed of the Prato magno mountain, the pedestrian descends by the stream of the Scheggia, and in another hour reaches a group of hovels, and the church of Monteminajo. The edifice, built of rough ma sonry, has three naves and a portico, and boasts of having been erected by Countess Matilda. A castle rises on the height above, notable for the cistern, and the ruins of ancient walls. Midway on the path is a quaint tabernacle containing a terra cotta bas relief of the Della Robbia School. The Guide was host here, doing the honors of the rustic osteria, commending the eggs served, the cheese, the Casentino pig, in guise of ham, and the flask of Pomino wine. He hinted of a 180 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA dish of tordi (thrushes) in their season, and of dehcious trout, fried, as obtainable, on occasion. Monteminajo is of very remote origin. In the twelfth century the strongly fortified castle be longed to the Counts Guidi when they ruled over the Casentino, as is shown in certain concessions, made by the Emperors Henry VI and Frederick II. In the year 1212 the place was donated to the monks of Vallombrosa, with the surrounding land and pasturage to the summit of the Alp. The castle passed to the jurisdiction of the Flor entine Repubhc in 1359. The visitor may meditate long on this page of mediaeval history, castle, church, and scattered habitations before returning to Vallombrosa, by way of Cardeto, instead of taking the Consuma Pass. The guide leads the Biologist, Geologist, and Anthropologist to dark caverns of gorges and hillside, once tenanted by hermits, and haunted later by deserters, robbers, or even escaped crim inals. These learned visitors seek traces of sub marine formation of coral and shell, fossil bones of the mammoth and other animals, fragments of skull and jaw of prehistoric man, silex weapons, and bronze implements. The Arno valley has proved rich in such remains, especially in the vicinity of Arezzo and Montevarchi. Ah ! Here the pilgrims of science may grovel, so to speak, on hands and knees in mysterious recesses, half anticipating the discovery of a true grotto of the THE GUIDE 181 Troglodyte, and a welcome from- an august shade. In turn, the Guide peers about. Possibly he re calls the fugitives who have lurked in these dens, even within his ken. He crosses himself, fur tively, with a slight shudder. If observed by his companions, and interrogated jestingly, as to notable brigands he shakes his head, gazing in the direction of La Verna. In the day of Francis of Assisi there were evil men around, and the Saint converted the famous masnadiero, Lupo, so that he was known as Brother Agnello (lamb). Poet and orator frequently employ his services to visit the cradle of the Arno, as a feat of senti ment rather than of actual valor. In preference to taking train from St. Ellero to Stia, and thence following the rugged way, these depart from Val lombrosa by the bridle path which traverses the upper range of hills, and reach the village of Consuma in two hours. Thence they continue to Camaldoli by crossing the Monte Consuma for three miles, with the Arno valley outspread be low, visit the castle of Romena, Pratovecchio, and Moggiona, and rest at the famous Abbey in the valley surrounded by forest. Next day they climb the Prato al Soglio, and stand on the sum mit of a ridge, with Forli and the Adriatic to the Northeast, and westward the chain of the Pratomagno and Vallombrosa, with the valley of the lower Arno stretching to the Maremma of Pisa and Leghorn ; the Mediterranean in the dis tance. 182 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA The goal of the Monte Falterona rises before such pedestrians. The poetical spirit stirs in the pilgrimage, with a sense of freedom and de light in this high range of mountains between two seas. Had not Dante already traced the river's course in the Fourteenth Canto of the "Purga torio"? Yonder is La Vernia across intervening gorges and slopes if approached from above, and I'Appenino, "the rugged rock between the sources of Tiber and Arno." Eastward the lofty Sassi di Simone define the boundary of the Tuscan Ro magna in the direction of the Republic of San Marino, while northeast the fount of the Tiber wells up behind the Fumajolo. The walk is rough and toilsome. The Falterona gained, ex cursionists find naked and bleak eminences amidst a debris of rocks, and masses of gravel to the spring of the river sung through so many cen turies. Never was historical site more ineffec tive, unless for grandeur of Nature in height and surroundings. The Arno is born on the flanks of the Falter ona at the altitude of 4250 feet. The little cup of pure water is sheltered by branches of the beech tree which alone affords shade at this elevation. The charcoal burners have scattered twigs and boughs in the vicinity. Destined to rule, the in fant stream brims over its cradle in the first threads of moisture, timid yet full of curiosity to behold the world beyond the rocky waters of Fal terona, and flows along the first ridge to the de- THE GUIDE 183 cline. Here is the little rill, pure and limpid, which persists in following its course in spite of obstacles, passing Porciano and Poppi, the battle field of Campoldino, and the convent of Certo- mondo, built to commemorate the Ghibelline vic tory of 1289. The source of the Tiber is more attractive. The melted snows trickle amidst shrubs, beech, millefoil, and brambles, gathering volume to reach Rome. The poet arrives at the Arno cradle, dips his finger in the water, and sprinkles his brow. He repeats aloud: "Qui figli entrambi dello stesso fonte II Tebro, e I' Arno empion la limpida urna, i E per diverse vie poscia dal monte Scendono e I'ouda chiara e taciturna Quella rivolge alia citta latina Questo d' Etruria alia cilta reina." The Guide is in his element at such moments. He traces the course of the Arno with his finger ; the country outspread like a map. Behold the lower slopes, denuded of woods, for the most part, the river descending to profound depths. Behold the track of tributary streams, with all the sec ondary network of rills on the left side of Arno, while the right is bathed by alpestrine torrents contemporaneously. The Cors alone, a former haunt of bears and wolves on the Monte Fattuc- 184 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA chio receives the waters of Frassineta, Correzzi, and Tiguano, in one direction, and of the Valle Santa, Monte Silvestro, and Alvernia on the other side, and the united volume irrigates the valley, reaching the Arno below Montecchio. The Solano, the Agua, the Ambra, with the rivulets of Vitereta, Borro, and Gattaia from Monte Anciolina, Cagnola, and the Pratomagno mountain, pay a yearly tribute. The Ambra brings to Arno the waters of Ambrella, Mont. Fretri, Imbuto, Rio Torto, Castel Nuovo di Mont Alto, and Borro with the wealth of Lusiguano and Rimaggio. Beyond the Arellano, so fa mous in the history of the hatreds of men, which once disturbed all Italy, asserts a voice, then the Sieve, fed by the Vicano, and other vassals, ever ready to sweep down on Florence, and pursue their way to Pisa, and the sea. Thus the three valleys of the Arno bask in summer calm, or are agitated by autumn storms. The Guide waxes eloquent on the subject of Arno, as a main artery traversing the land, and the tributaries a network of veins spreading over the surrounding hills. Oh, these brigands ! How wicked they are in bursting their bonds, and rush ing down slopes with such an impetuous force, to join the riot of waters, as to bring rocks, trees, stones, and calcareous masses to hamper the main current, and form deposits along the banks. The Ambra has an evil name, as having changed the course of the Arno by collecting matter in the THE GUIDE 185 pianura of Borro, calcareous deposits from the mountains dividing the upper Vai d'Arno from the Casentino, especially since the woods were cut down in 1630 and 1700. The inundation of 1762 which destroyed houses, harvest fields, fruit trees, and even drowned men was owing to this affluent. The Archiano, born near the cliffs of Camaldoli, has swept onward a vast amount of peat and lig nite, once kindled by burning heaps of leaves near Poppi, Camaggio, and Campomaggiore. The de posit was on fire for three years, and dried up adjacent springs of water flowing from the moun tains. This disaster occurred in 1781. The great lords of Castles through the land, Pope Boniface IX, or the Tarlati, Seigneurs of the Apennines from Umbria to the Lamone, might rule their property, but could not restrain the rivers. The Guide describes with dramatic effect the monk of Vallombrosa, who in a vision, or a dream, beheld a whirlwind rise from the Adriatic, heavy cloud masses pierced by lightning, with demon legions fighting, while vapors gathered over the vaUeys, presaging woe to the earth. Fulfillment came in the great flood of 1333. The very gates of the sky were opened, the land became covered with water, and Florence was nearly submerged, with bridges crumbling, houses toppling over into the Arno, the foundations sapped, and the walls broken down. Living creatures dropped into the tide, and were borne off by the seething waste of turbid, tawny waves, while prayers and lamenta- 186 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA tions resounded from town and country, men's hearts failing them that the end of the world had come. "Ah! The fire sometimes pardons, but the water — never ! ' ' quoth the Guide, standing on the ledge of the Falterona on a summer day. In a more cheerful vein, he makes a gesture in the direction of the sea. In the year 1704 two monks of Vallombrosa set sail from Florence on a botanical voyage to Pisa, and the Mediterranean. They paused to examine the plants growing on either bank. The navicello was steered past Signa, with its memories of Castracane and Gale azzo Visconti of Milan ; past Montelupo and Cap- raja, noted for strong castles in the time of the Florentine communes; skirted the villa Ambro- giana, residence of the sovereigns of Tuscany un der the Grand Duke Ferdinand I, further em bellished by Alberti, the Vitruvius of such resi dences, for Cosimo III, with avenues, grottoes, rare plants, and animals; Empoli, esteemed for fine fruit, and nearly annihilated by the inunda tion of 1333; Fucecchio on the hill, the Grand Duke Leopold I having drained surrounding marshes and stagnant waters; Montopoli and Pontedera, and thence to Pisa. Here the voyag ing monks remained for eight days, visiting the Semplice (botanical garden), after which they went on to gather the algae of the littoral near Leghorn. The Guide is familiar with every turn of the THE GUIDE 187 Apennines from Monte Acuto, rising near the Fal terona, and winding towards the south, formmg the chain of the Pratomagno, Piano della Macin- aja, overlooking the upper Vai d'Arno; every flowering meadow; the beech woods of Massa al Monte, and Massa al Ragnino ; the Croce del Bel videre, and the narrow vale leading to. the build ings of San Antonio, surrounded by heights of rock, with abundant waters. Possibly he is on the alert to discover hidden treasures. Italy offers this fascinating quest to her children from the Alps to Sicily. If the peas ant mentioned by Dante found a heap of silver in a cavity on the Falterona, why should not the Guide in a hole of the Pratomagno ? Many times magic numbers, phases of the moon, dream por tents may have led to digging in certain spots to testing the solidity of walls, to exploring ditch and cave for traces of coffer and vase. From relics of a classical period, Etruscan and Roman, to the booty of soldiery, Spanish or French, pass ing through the land, the timid hiding of treas ures of the church by monks threatened with pil lage, or the abandoned hoard of some robber chief, to the careless loss of modern visitors of purse, trinket, and coin, the charm of expectation never ceases for the mountaineer. "It is good weather for the grapes," is the only commendation of a fine morning vouchsafed by the Guide. He becomes more critical of the seasons with 188 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the passing years. The night is too cold, and the wind usually in the wrong quarter. He gleans his meagre harvest as he can. He organises the picnics to the Secchietta, with attendant mules, donkeys, and treggie drawn by oxen, the Monte Risala, or the Poggio alle Ghirlande, when the young ladies make afternoon tea under the trees. He is the natural protector of the children if only in teaching rustics. Each season the old man assists at the festa given by the nuns of the Order of St. Catherine, the Mantellate in black veils and cream-colored robes, when they bring a bevy of young girls to spread a feast on the meadow. The scene of beauty and tranquillity is a kindergarten girls' heaven, according to the French cynic, where they should disport them selves with fleecy lambs, and play on harps. Daily bread acquires ever a symbolical value at the picnic of innocence. Pannetone of Milan be come cakes of Paradise, almond meringue of Siena pastry of Gilead, a Genoese sponge for tress, wreathed in pink and white sugar flowers, food of Jericho, while chocolate bon-bons, Torone of Cremona, and crystallised fruits appertain to the land of Promise, and the Saints. When September comes, with the south wind sapping energy the Guide carries an invalid, a stout person wrapped in rugs and shawls, along the slope in his portan-tina. The party pauses to rest beside the road. The Guide pushes back his hat. His brown face is flushed and wrinkled, and THE GUIDE 189 the little gold ear-rings in his ears glisten. "I am nearly as old as he," says the Guide with an in flection of weariness in his voice. The burden of his three score years and ten weigh upon him. The summit of the Pratomagno represents the peak of life, even if the intervening slopes and ridges are the days of labor, and sorrow, and often bitter experience. XIX THE FOREST GUARD The Shepherd of Vallombrosa, in a modern sense, is the Forest Guard. He supervises all regulations, defends all boundaries, fosters the young plantations of ravines and upper slopes, watches day and night, and notes the wreck of storms in hail, snow, and tempestuous winds to hasten the repair wrought by damage. If the Guide deftly avoids collisions with his fellows, in his day, on mountain paths, the Guard does not allow encroachment, but firmly holds in check of the law petty pilfering and ruthless marauding alike. He is a picturesque personality. He pos sesses courage in danger and presence of mind in accident, or disaster. His vigilance is unrelax- ing, and his frame muscular and vigorous to en dure fatigue of work and climbing. Compared with the forest rangers of other countries his sphere is a miniature section of mountain terri tory. He scarcely claims equality with the early keepers of the forests of Epping, Hainault, Es sex, or Waltham in the matter of holding wood land not too deep in timber, defining the track of Royal deer, or controlling packs of greyhound, and other dogs of sport. Assuredly the Garde- 190 Cutting down Fir Trees. THE FOREST GUARD 191 bois of France has more responsibilities in the Jura and Pyrenees, and the German Forster a wider jurisdiction in the Harz mountains, Black Forest, or Thuringia. In all questions of pro fessional zeal he is kindred with these guardians, tending the nursery of seedlings, strengthening partition fence, and handling axe and pruning knife in all departments of Selviculture. He is not forced to confront Bruin in the snow, prob ably, and rarely encounters a famished wolf. Hares, rabbits, squirrels, and little rodents haunt his kingdom. He has an intimate acquaintance with the birds. He knows the nest of the rock pigeons in the tall fir trees, where they coo all day in response to the breeze rustling through the grove. He is acquainted with the wren residence, built in a safe crevice of the wall, which consists of a globe-shaped chamber, thatched with moss, and lined with down. The myriad sounds of na ture reach his ear from afar, the note of the fal con, the curious cat-like mewing of the owl, the starling, reputed to respectfully follow the saga cious crows in avoiding gunpowder and other danger, the song of the chaffinch, the lark, thrush, and quail, trapped by boys. He observes the signs of the seasons in the building of nests high, or low, for spring snows, or the insistent croak ing of frogs, as announcing a break of weather. Possibly this forest guardian could give the crow vocabulary in thirty-seven notes, indicating an ger, love, jealousy, and calls of command as read- 192 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA ily as the naturalist of northern Italy, who studied bird talk for two winters at the expense of cold hands and feet. The Guard is familiar with the song of the tom-tit, and could follow the twenty couplets of the nightingale. The gold-finch of the hills could not deceive him by mimicking the ca dence and call of a neighbor, the wren, or the thrush by imitating several musical instruments, or the starling capable of mocking the chatter of the sparrows, the twitter of the swallows, the cackle of fowls, and even the creaking of a rusty weather cock. No doubt this mimicry of the birds takes form here, as in other countries, the carol of the lark assuming with the French the words Adieu-Dieu, the greeting to the Shakespearian witches being to-whit, to-whoo, and the enquiry of the owl in the wood of Waterton who are you? For our Italian Forest Guard the phrasing of the blackbird is supposed to be: "Cattina, porta il caffe." During the spring and summer months this tu mult of melody reverberates perpetually about him, on his round of duty, and mingles with the coloring of sky and earth, as it were, in the pale roseate glow of river bank and crag, in the flutter of life chirping on the elms, warbling amidst the hedges, flapping and pecking at the nut trees, the shriek of the magpie in the fields, and the distant note of the falcon on the heights dominating all. September announces autumn to him by the prep arations of the excellent swallow mother in train- THE FOREST GUARD 193 ing the young brood for the long winter journey South. The Forest Guard is a tall man of a mus cular, supple form, with a good face, firm fea tures, brown in hue from exposure to sun and wind, and a keen eye. He is clad in blue cotton, and wears stout, laced shoes. He wields a long staff, with a curved end. On occasions of cere mony and holidays he has a military bearing, with top boots, a short sword, and much gold embroid ery on his jacket. He has four comrades in the service of Vallombrosa. One sojourns at Metato, another on the side of Tosi, a third at Porcherie (a local corruption of Bifolcheria, the forked roads, or place of husbandry where were the stalls of the oxen in monastic times), and the fourth at the Institute, while he mounts guard on the fur ther flank of the hills. He is the servant of na ture as much as of the government. His mission is to protect, foster, and nourish the plantations destined for other generations, in opposition to the ruthless destruction of manifold forces tran spiring elsewhere. He needs no chronometer, or compass. The hour is indicated to his experi enced interrogation by the starry heavens, remote from the clock of the Badia, at night, and the shining of the sun on the slopes of certain hills by day. The course of the clouds mark for him the latest caprice of the winds, rising over the Arno valley, or advancing from the barrier of the Apen nines. Certain shrubs and plants, growing at his feet, serve as barometer, or hygrometer, if he 194 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA studies them. Animals, birds, and reptiles are unerring clerks of the weather and season, in their way. He knows every rood of property of the state, and, possibly, the structure in growth of each tree, the hoary giants ready to be felled for valuable timber, and the ravines where the sap lings will soon require more ventilation by thin ning their ranks. The woods, denominated secu lar because they contain no sacred spring, chapel, or hermitage, are under his care. The abetina Caranti, flanking the Saltino road, was planted in 1872 by the forestal administration. The groves Ellena, Berti, and Victor Emanuel thrive. The Guard works in more remote places, among the beech trees of the Capanna della Massa al Monte, the Pineta Miraglia, and the plantations of Metato. He may have assisted in reclothing Monte Risala with beech to the crest. His foot steps lead him to Cocoluzzo, the abetina del De- cano, and the Cascina Vecchia, enclosed in steep heights, or the Croce Rossa, the Romitorio (hermitage) of Macinajo. The great trees that have endured many storms salute him. The streams making a way down the ravines lapse and murmur to him from dawn to evening. He keeps many a lonely vigil. Like all guardians of the hills he comprehends a mysterious language of solitude. "Chi ha salute e ricco." (He who has health is rich.) The Forest Guard breathes the pure air with vigorous lungs. Does he realise that he enjoys THE FOREST GUARD 195 the very boon of existence in the clear atmos phere? Do his thoughts ever turn to the men on the lower ranges of earth, state linked with state to the limit of foggy north, whose lot it is to delve in mines, to herd together in potteries and inhale the pulverised clay particles, or breathe the file- maker's environment of atoms of steel and iron, all the workers in glass, zinc, brass, and cotton spinning, pent down under roof, chimney, and wall, smoke swathed, soot, and mud begrimed? Association with his fellows, professors, students, gardeners, and laborers is a normal condition of the season. Many a time he encounters the charcoal man descending the rough way with a pack of leading horse, mules, and donkeys. He visits the shel tered spots where the charcoal is made, or cooked. The ancient method employed in Tuscany before innovations were introduced from France, Bel gium, and America, consisted of forming a circu lar piazza with the sohd soil prepared to support the long staves of a central chimney. The tree trunks are gathered in this space, the wood cut and distributed in different lengths to build up in three platforms, and form a crown of pyramid to heat equally around the chimney. The whole is usually covered over with little branches and green twigs, and stacked with sods of earth. A bundle of fagots is lighted and introduced into the mouth of the chimney by means of an iron bar. This pot-au-feu of the woods begins to 196 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA warm. Pieces of fuel are added, and the process lasts for five or six days. What will be the fire of the domestic hearth of the future? How long will the charcoal man bring his store of smutty bags on pack mules down the mountain roads before he is superseded by gas, petroleum, and electricity as charging the household kettle? True, the Etruscans and Ro mans required charcoal for culinary purposes and braziers. During the middle ages at Florence the Via del Fuoco of the town was the deposit of fuel for the sons of the hills. Within the writer's ken the patriarchal rumor circulated in the Arno capital, a severe winter, that the supply of car- bone was scarce in the shops because the charcoal men were prevented by snow from descending the mountains. Seated by his fireside on winter nights the For est Guard may ponder, in some sort, on those ages of man when a first state of communism pre vailed with an equality of rights in the fruits of the earth, succeeded by a second era when the ser pent was given its venom, and the wolf hunger to devour, in self-defense, while humanity was forced to work in the development of industries. He muses over his pipe that now all is different ; the earth has been conquered, and people absorbed, little by little, into societies for a common end. That day he had prevented an old man from col lecting more brushwood in a certain locality, and driven off a boy with a goat from vicinity to some THE FOREST GUARD 197 tender saplings. His sphere of duty is to foster and protect the growth of the mountain side. Fire has ever been the dreaded foe of Vallom brosa. The Forest Guard watches for smoulder ing smoke, or leaping flame in his domain, kindled by the match of the vagrant, a picnic kettle, or a hunter's camp on the distant margin of the Con suma Pass. Day and night his glance scans the serried ranks of trees, the dry bushes, and vines withered by summer drought, and the hot blast of scirrocco sweeping over from the Adriatic. As the fire burneth a wood, and as the flame setteth the mountains on fire. The Forest Guard watches and waits, while mortals sleep, and the groves of Vallombrosa still stand. NEWS For many years an eccentric figure was wel comed at Vallombrosa in the newsvendor. He was a small, quaint, twisted creature, neither dwarf nor hunchback, with an odd face dark as mahogany in hue, not unlike the gnomes carved on walking sticks, and pipe bowls in the Tyrol. His apparel was faded and shabby to the extent of a semblance of patched rags, or a covering of forest debris fashioned out of moss and foliage. He has disappeared. The visitor refrains from enquiry as to his fate, preferring to believe, that winter storms have blown bim away, like a with ered leaf. Possibly he was a sort of sylvan crea ture appertaining to the spirits of mountains and forests, and has gone elsewhere. At least he was very human in his ability to sell the news. Pos sibly the lime-trees on the terrace, bordering the highway, know his fate, as they sway in the sum mer breeze, and shed down the dried leaves which support seed and bud, as if in a boat. Vallom brosa has no treasures of fragrance in branch, blossom, and grass, elaborated by the sunshine in 198 NEWS 199 the laboratory of nature, more delightful than the flowering of this row of familiar trees. Here all may Unger unter den Linden. The first philan thropist who planted the tree in towns has as suredly been rewarded by attaining heaven. Here the gnome-like mannikm, the giornalista, sorted his sheets. He would urge the purchase of a review on the guileless foreigner, for an article it did not contain, without as much as winking. He piped shrilly dread tidings of strikes, street conflicts, and railway disaster, as he hastened along the road. "Killed and wounded?" inter rogated a great lady, seated under the lime trees. "Si dice, Signora." (They say so). Thus re sponded the bearer of tidings from the outside world. To quote the Tuscan adage the frequent ers of the spot are alert for "news as fresh as the coin of the mint. ' ' In this respect the human mind has not changed materially in the centuries. The lively intelligence of the citizens of Athens thirsted for the latest information of mundane affairs in classical times. Italy boasts of first founding gazeteering among civilised nations. Townfolk were by no means only supplied with gossip of public affairs in the market-place, on the stone bench flanking palace walls, or at the bar ber's shop. Archives of the Trecento are re puted to contain sheets of current news of differ ent countries. According to the historian Mura tori Giovanni Villani, dwelling in France, copied the Gazzette of Florence. Orators were requested 200 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA to contribute, and citizens sojourning in other lands to furnish items. The collection of such matter, and transmission by "masters of the post" and carriers were expensive. Leaflets of news were first known as avvisi (notices), and then as gazzettes. The price was a Vene tian coin, the gazzetta, equivalent to the Tuscan crazia. Tradition has it that Venice took the lead in 1536. Pope Pius V and Gregory XITJO mentioned in Bulls the arte nuova. The craft of gazeteer began in 1550, highly spiced with curiosity, mal ice, and lies. Alas! A vein of asserting auda cious falsehoods, playing on public credulity, one day, only to contradict a statement the next was an early characteristic of publication. Rome took precedence with a weekly issue which was sent to Genoa, Venice, and Milan. In turn Genoa and MUan had their own sheets. Venice and Genoa, as the two seaports, dealt much with mari^- time affairs, the orient, and the German Empire. Rome, as the center of the civilised world, gave bulletins1 of the health of the Pontiff, and the de cease of illustrious persons. The end of the Cenci family was briefly mentioned in a number of 1599. Another announced the execution of Giordano Bruno thus: "Thursday was burned alive in the Campo di Fiore that Frate of St. Dominic of Nola, a pernicious heretic of unre strained tongue, who would not listen to any com forters, or advisers. He was kept in captivity NEWS 201 for twelve years, as a prisoner of the Holy office, from which he had been liberated another time." Avoisi of Rome, February 19th, 1600. Sensationalism early prevailed. On April 5th, 1608, the statement was made: "The bells of Loreto rang, and a column of fire was seen in the sky. Non si crede." (It is not believed.) In 1597 printing was employed. Venice long preferred hand work. Genoa issued the Sincero in 1648, equivalent to Truth. Modena edited the Messenger in 1757. Under the patronage of the Grand Duke Pietro Leopoldo Tuscany enjoyed a Gazzetta Patria, and a Gazzetta Universale in 1766. Parma, Bologna, Naples, and Forli read their own journals. At Vallombrosa the post and the giomalista (news boy) bring the daily food eagerly discussed by all. Rome holds precedence in tidings govern mental, parliamentary, and pontifical, furnished by the radical Tribuna, the cosmopolitan Italie, the Fanfulla, or Voce della Verita. The Floren tine claims a Nazione, or a Fieramosca. Milan furnishes the enterprising Corriere della Sera. (Evening Courier). These organs fairly repre sent the interests of Italy. For the rest a Max Nordau may ever be unnerved and depressed by details of the suicide of a poet, an earthquake, a murder to be unravelled for morbid youth to dwell upon, a devastating cyclone. If the phlegmatic reader is undismayed there remains a comet trav elling towards the earth at the rate of three mil- 202 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA lion miles a day. Mountain folk scan the heavens apprehensively, adhering to ancient superstitions. Comets bring good and bad weather, wind, or a fine harvest? Who knows? News as fresh as the coin of the mint. XXI THE HAY MAKER He stood on the slope of meadow one late af ternoon of July, raking together the scanty har vest of a second grass cutting of that summer sea son. Yes, the gleaning was meagre enough, he admitted if questioned about the matter. The year had been variable. Snow had fallen on these heights in April. Sudden heat had smitten the land in May, and the grass of the great meadow been withered by the fierce sun's rays. What would you have? (Che vuolef) One does as one can in this world! The hay makers stood in clear outline against the sky — had the artist seated yonder before his easel, studying a clump of trees, silvery in tints as the wind swept over them— noticed this humble son of toil. He was a little, shrivelled old man, seemingly feeble, and clad in rags. His thin face, wrinkled, and with deep furrows across the brow, was tanned to bronze by exposure to sun and wind, and framed in straggling locks, while a gray moustache shaded the lips. Below him stretched the slopes of lower hills down to the Vai d'Arno, with scattered towns. Before him the vast meadow extended in softly 203 204 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA rounded knolls, studded with clumps of trees, here and there, and nodding plumes of little flowerlets, pink and white, up to the margin of the group of buildings of the monastery erected centuries ago in the sheltered nook of the Vallombrosa, with the dial of the clock on the church tower visible through the foliage of the sycamore and lime trees. Above him extended the ampitheatre of wooded heights rising in ridges to the summit of the Pratomagno. The zone of verdure encircling his field of toil, chestnut in blososm on the lower crags of the gulf of green, a sombre belt of fir plantation beyond, and then a close growing mass of beech wood. The former oratory of Paradisino stands out on a crag far above. The little chapel of the masso del Diavolo shines white on the ledge of the Lago road to the Consuma. Along the margin of the boundary wall the Government highway is visible with the house of the inspector, the Villino Demaniale. Assuredly a humble hay maker never had a more beautiful environment. Assuredly a mountain meadow was never more caressed by sun and wind, sport of the tempest, home of countless insects, and little creatures, moles, mice, lizards, and even snakes. The dome of sky overshadows it in depths of serene blue from sunrise to star-sown night. The clouds make of the smoothly undulating upland a play ground of capricious mood, now casting sweeping shadows on the grass, as obscuring the sunshine, again drifting down in mist, a veil of silvery va- THE HAY MAKER 205 por, from the heights to envelope the boundaries of hedges and shrubbery, or rising from the val leys in delicate white spirals, eddies, wreaths to storm the open space and blot out the landscape in rain. Over all brooded a peaceful stillness full of the richness of life of flowers, bird notes, fragrant pine odors peculiar to the spot, which is the bene diction of all nature. The monks who once planted and reaped here with industry and sagac ity have passed away, but Mother Earth still reigns majestic and serene. The old hay maker raked the dried wisps of grass together in heaps to gather in bundles. The span of his years is measured by the task from boyhood to old age. He is a native of the village of Tosi, just below the slope, and has never quitted the place. A group of children played about him, the hu man flowers from the towns of every season. What generations of pretty, vivacious infancy the old haymaker has seen in his time! They tum bled in the mounds of hay with shouts of laughter. The nurse reproved them gently. "Let them roll in the hay," interposed the la borer. "Ah! They are young." (Sono gio- vane.) A baby, already nimble on little legs encased in pink stockings, started on a mission from a stout parent seated on a bench over the grass to give the hay maker a penny. 206 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA "I have worked since four o'clock this morn ing," he sighed, slipping the coin into his pocket. The stranger accosted him after watching the process of making the hay into bales, and binding each neatly with chestnut branches. "Where do you store the crop?" "All is carried down to Tosi," he replied. "The hay belongs to the convent." All the problems of modern changes reached the old man, as he raked hay. The monastery had been converted into a school of Forestry. The woods and land are Government property. A national flag unfurled on the Inspector's house indicates the visit of a minister of agriculture. The trumpet note of the automobile perpetually resounds, huge chariots, red, yellow, and white coming and going over the Consuma Pass from CamaldoU. The hay belonged to the convent, (convento). Son of the soil he was still a vassal of the monastery, as his ancestors had been, till ing the ground, sowing, reaping, hewing timber, or building. He was contented with his lot. He would not quit the spot, or his native hamlet for any enticements of the great world beyond the mountain slopes. As a child, one of five, without a mother, he had been taken from his bed at one o'clock of summer nights, by the grandmother, to join the villagers in seeking the heights to glean the harvest of strawberries and raspberries to seU all day to the frequenters of the hotels. In boy hood he gathered faggots, searched for that treas- THE HAY MAKEK 207 ure of the mountains, the fungus, in the pine woods, and upland pastures, borne thence by men in baskets, covered with leaves, to the markets, or aided the women, furnished with hand scythes, in cutting the bracken and brushwood to bind in sheaves for the burthen on their heads in descend ing steep paths. He helped in mending the roads, and boundary walls, and guided donkeys with loaded paniers. In adolescence he aided to lift the hewn timber, left to season during the winter far up the steep mulattiera of Romitorio on the heavy wagons, by rolling and turning the log deftly into place on the load of other trees, with a stone for a pivot to tilt down the Government road to Pontassieve, held back, rather than dragged, by a horse. Stalwart manhood attained he felled the trees, and led the white oxen down tracks, sure-footed and nimble, dragging the logs. The church clock, mellow and distinct, struck the hour of six in a tolling cadence, awakening the echoes of the unfolding hills. This note was the Angelus of the old hay maker. He sought the ad jacent spring of the Camerlengi, and drank. " Ah ! We have blessed springs at Vallombrosa, ' ' he said, holding his brown hands under the rill as it flowed into the stone basin. The water is so fresh and pure ! San Giovanni Gualberto of holy memory, gave these sor gente (sources) to us." Then he took his way homeward to his abode, a hovel in the little hamlet of Tosi, once the prop erty of the Vallombrosan order, down through 208 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA the dark wood of majestic fir trees that made long aisles of gloom and fragrance along the slope. The hay maker's meagre supper awaited him on the domestic hearth. The poor have always hun ger, says the Italian proverb. A crimson glow of the sun, setting beyond lower ranges of hills, the Vai d'Arno, Florence, and the sea, flooded the sky, and tinged the walls of the old monastery. The upper mountain world awaited the silence of the star-lit night. XXII AFTERNOON LIGHT The Creator, by his spirit, has garnished the heavens of Tuscany in the closing days of sum mer. The sky is outspread in calm and serene beauty to the horizon of depths beyond depths of white mists melting to tints of pearl and rose. To the true sun worshiper the day has been a baptism of new life in the rarefied ether of the heights. All spectators of such a scene may read ily share the creed, for the hour, of the Santheal hill tribe of India, and credit that the sun made the world, not the visible orb, but the Invisible One. The large meadow shows the wear of daily life at a crowded resort. The whole expanse is parched by drought, disfigured by ugly patches of cinders and charred sticks, after the fires of the festa, sown with sharp stones, briars1, and stubble. The mire of the world soils the retreat of Nature and leaves unsightly traces. Down on the margin of the fir-grove the wheat has long been gathered, but the tremulous rays of afternoon light touch softly the dry stems with a transient glory of sanctification of the fulfillment of harvest. In the lower ranges of fields a vision of Ceres might pass, crowned with ripened ears of grain. Here 209 210 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA in the shrine of the Monastic Shepherd it signifies the bread of the sacrament, broken by Christ. Day wanes with a tender transparence of radi ance, like the farewell of summer lingering on the sanctuaries. Trees are transfigured in the pure atmosphere, and masses of verdure gather every hue of richness, steeped in golden haze, the green of limes, the changeful ripples of sunshine on a group of poplars, vaporous white, touched with silver, in the morning, and deepening to blue mist in the evening. An amphitheatre of beech about Paradisino already is changing to tones of russet and yellow. Perfect tranquillity broods over the spot. The sun rose a fiery ball above the eastern peaks, banishing the morning star which still gleamed, like a crystal sphere, after the other planets had faded, and the whole mountain ranges were clearly defined like pinnacles of Jasper on a firmament of palest azure. Now the giant had run his course, rejoicing in his might, and in the west beyond the Arno valley "pillowed his chin upon an orient wave. ' ' The exquisite medium of light embraces the land, and enshrines this vale. The shadows gather over the hollows in grada tions so evanescent and delicate as to resemble violet and blue shadings rather than distinct gloom. Summer has sown the last flower in the sward, the autumn crocus, a twisted spiral of white silk, tipped with mauve, or with shell-like petals unfolded. To the meadow of Vallombrosa this fresh flower, springing up late, is what the Panorama of the Institute and Hotel Paradisino. AFTERNOON LIGHT 211 hyacinth was to the Gauls, the marguerite to Nu- mancia, the periwinkle to Illyria. The church clock has gone wrong, and is mute. If society owes timekeeping to the Babylonian, in the divi sion of the hour into sixty minutes, one is tempted in the open air to check the pulse of the watch, and suffer the waning light to mark the approach of night. The crowd and noise have ebbed away to silence once more with the close of summer. Pausing on the meadow the spectator may believe with Emerson, that the day of days, the great day in the feast of life is that in which the inward eye opens to the unity of things. XXHI WINTER SLEEP Summer days are over. The writer has lingered late on the heights to watch the fall of the leaf, when all the richness of coloring and fragrance of woods and fields blend. A pilgrim arrived in the early freshness of June, approach to this temple of Nature was made through a field of cloth-of- gold of the broom, succeeded by the willow-like fireweed growing in pink plumes on every waste, and with gulfs below of chestnut trees in blossom. At Vallombrosa the flowers keep a calendar of the months, and make botanists, if not poets, of every visitor. Certain trees welcome the writer with the fa miliarity of" an old acquaintance. The fragile copper beech, planted by a German musician, still braves winter on the limit of the boundary wall of the Badia garden. The group of silver pop lars still rise above the hedge; the maple of the knoll is black in outline of feathery tracery on the fiery sunset sky of another summer; the row of mountain ash beside the road deck their slender branches with clusters of red berries ; the smoke bush, growing in the moat, beside the trout tower, 212 WINTER SLEEP 213 once more spreads exquisite creamy wreaths. Artistic perception must ever be keenly respon sive here to line, and pattern, and sheer fantasy of foliage. On a June morning the two Franciscan monks have descended the steep via Crucis, with bags on their shoulders, and passed to pray at the chapel of San Giovanni midway, after their quest through the country to beg a little wool at the shearing of the flocks for the winter weaving of their monastery. The rains of mid-October have fallen in abun dance, the pioggie ottobrini, to the satisfaction of the agriculturist, and the contadini have sown the winter grain on hill and valley. The first shot of the sportsman had echoed among the hills. The harvest of fungus had been gathered, files of mules passing, laden with baskets, covered with leaves, while men, women, and children busied themselves in the pine woods, and every copse, poking with long canes amidst the leaves in fear of wasps and snakes. Lower ranges of countryside reveal withered vineyards, with the grapes gathered, unkempt farms and hamlets, with a litter of straw and hay about steps and archways, and garden patches with pumpkins and gourds. The mountains have changed in every gradation of hue, copper merg ing to brown, russet flecked with gold, and a per vading glow of crimson in tangled vines, growth of low shrubbery, and stubble of the waste places. 214 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA The beech has made a zone of tawny tint, the plane trees have strewn thick masses of leaves on the stradone, and the chestnut formed belts of vivid yellow, crisped to dun, the evergreen fir and larch were a sombre background for these gaudy emblems of decay. St. Martin's summer has brooded over the land, somnolent and languid, the mists of early morning paling to white gauze over the lowlands, and gain ing the hues of amber and purple vapor in the hol lows of the hills. A sort of enchantment seems to hold the land in a soft hush of indolent repose. Copse, ridge, and thicket are redolent of the scent of ferns, resinous wood, and dried plants. The bracken grows luxuriantly about old chestnut trees, and turns to gold. At such moments all mortals long for a means of ideal interpretation of life in light and shade of thought, in the sum mer and winter pulsations of joy and sorrow. Where, if not at Vallombrosa, with a faint outline of Florence domes and towers visible in the dis tance, may be realised the acute gamut furnished by architectural lines that the Great Masters painted singing, and that poetry, suave and flexi ble, is melody? Vallombrosa is passing away. The Institute of Forestry will be closed, and the field of study become a branch of the education of Florence colleges. The ancient Monastery, with another year, is to be fashioned into a mod ern hotel, or hydropathic establishment. Fare well to the stately pile, with the sunshine of een- WINTER SLEEP 215 turies shining on the facade, where the architect might trace excellencies, and defects, as the por trait painter discerns lines of thought, character istic wrinkles, and scars of time on the human countenance. The Abbey (Badia) has not lacked a picturesque phase in the modern, secular occu pation of the Institute after religious use had been suppressed. Linen fluttered in a small case ment of an upper bastion, revealing housewifely cares of the German helpmate of a Professor. At another angle the wail of an infant was audible after the peal of church bells had subsided, and the shrill notes of a trumpet, giving warning of the breakfast hour of the students had ceased. Plants spring up on the belfry ledge, high above the roofs, sown by the wind and the birds, plumes and tufts of grasses, flecked by a yellow or pink flower. On the East side a balcony of twisted ironwork in the gray wall holds pots and boxes of blossoming geranium and mignonette. How curious the other extremity of the building, which flanks the slope of meadow, rough masonry broken by little turrets with tiled roofs, cornices, and a quaint variety of windows of every form and size, from the deep embrasure, heavily barred, of the sacristy, to narrow, oblique open ings of a larder casement, also grated, as if for Feudal days. The suggestive iron stove pipe, with a cap, protrudes from the walls of upper floors, tenanted by teachers and their families. Time has dealt gently with the vast pile, shel- 216 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA tered in this vale-ombrosa, mellowing harsh sur face and outline by tones of warm color in the red and chrome of half -effaced washes on par tition boundary and tower. Vallombrosa is pass ing! The spirit of modern improvement is astir in the very air. The toiling carts bring hewn stone and bricks to the heights for building purposes, disputing the highway at all hours. Heaps of mortar, and debris of tiles and beams abound. Crowds of workmen, given bread by the sweat of the brow, toil in the sun. Who disputes the right? Build, build, hammer, and saw unceasingly! Such is the key-note of Italy in the hands of the capitalist. Now the electric light flashes through the shad owy avenues of stately trees, with weird effect over the meadows and hills. The wanderer in the open air of summer days sighs involuntarily, and shrinks aside, Uke the bats and the owls of these once primeval solitudes. Yes, Vallombrosa is passing away! When December dawns the mountain world sleeps. The repose of Nature is not unduly bleak and rugged in comparison with Alpine glacier crags, but possesses its own phases of severity. Thus the Pratomagno, with Vallombrosa shel tered midway on its flank, is deserted and silent. Many years have seen the students of the Forest School depart for their homes in November, the teachers and their families following, while the WINTER SLEEP 217 Inspector remained in the modern house built for him by the roadside. The Forest Guards, the gardeners, the hewers of timber, and the clergy of neighboring parishes, with a few resident pro fessors, comprised the remaining population. The inhabitants of the spot pursue their own way independent of man, as at other periods of the year. The swallows flit with the punctuality of old travellers. They no longer perform aerial '.Giannutri before passing over to Africa. Ac cording to Linnaeus the female bird is the bold pioneer of the starlings in seeking the shores of Sicily. Reed-birds, larks, thrushes, chaffinches, linnets, water wagtaUs, jays, nut-hatch, and jack daws have migrated. The tom-tits fly on, or pause to rifle the hives in winter. Goldfinch and other small birds linger in the fields, or journey further every three or four years. A forlorn lit tle company of sparrow gleaners pick up the bounty of the year, here and there. In the realm of plants, capsules, ripened to maturity, have burst, and seeds flown forth, valerian, euphorbia, wild cucumber, or dittany. The urn of the poppy has shed the opium grains on the ground. Burrs, thorns, and tiny scizzors nip and cling to the gar ments of hunter and shepherds, or hold to the wool of sheep, dogs, and the hide of oxen to be carried to other localities, and found colonies. The seeds are emigrants the world over, and set forth with their own gossamer balloons of down, dandelion-wise, or gain a free pass, slily, hidden 218 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA in the freight van of woolly coats of man and animals. Even snakes have been conveyed to Buenos Ayres and Montevideo from Italy. In exchange sea-holly from Canada, used to pack merchandise on ships, thrown out at Genoa, has taken root over the land. Insects creep into fis sures of the wall to seek spores, larvae, and crys- alides. The frog and the country mouse prepare for a long nap in some sheltered nook. The toads are true Indian Fakirs for abstinence, and can survive in icy retreats. The vipers take refuge in holes abandoned by the moles and mice. The bats, and small weaselfolk can subsist on acorns, and the kernels of nuts and seeds in a time of lethargy. This under world ever set the example of charitable hospitality to the monks of Vallom brosa. The ant-hill is said to take in certain humble brown and green beetles, the emerald green rose bug, the lady-bird, and other tramps without roof, or bed. Also, the bees, most vigi lant of sentinels, receive into the hive, without molestation beggars, such as a famished wasp in sorry plight. Higher up on the Apennines other birds have quadrilles to teach the young genera tion a mastery of flight, or hold councils together, but have gone in long files beyond the horizon. Another year repeats the refrain : "Swallow, swallow, flying, flying South." The rock pigeons left Italy in October, travers- WINTER SLEEP 219 ing valleys and mountains, gathering on Monte Circello, and Monte Argentaro, then resting on the little isles of the Mediterranean, Giglio, and invited the sportsman, the fig-pecker, (codirosso) of the cliffs, perchance pheasant and partridge amidst clumps of broom and rhododendron, while the eagle soars forth from the eyrie, strewn with the bones of marmots and foxes. Moss and lichen clothe the peaks and marguerites, sassafras, ran unculus, campanula, and myosotis may be picked near the snow limit. Christmas has its flower in the hellebore. Few wayfarers linger on the road, or cross the paths from the Adriatic to the Medi terranean. Nut gatherers have sought other mar kets. A class of peddler long haunted these moun tain regions in winter, furnished with a small stock of pins, needles, tapes, and cotton for knit- ting. This rustic merchant called himself II Bat- tello, (the boat), and paused at lonely hovels half buried in snow, with the greeting: "Here is II Battello, women ! ' ' He was welcomed by the housewife, with much chaffering in trade. Money, even in copper coin, seldom came to his purse. He took his pay, chiefly, in eggs. Sometimes he stumbled into a ditch, benumbed by cold and fatigue, and smashed the eggs. Again he returned to the village os- teria, after a prosperous day which entitled him to order a supper of polenta, with onions shredded into it, and a whole herring. The changes of the year have been fulfilled, spring, summer and au- 220 SUMMER DAYS AT VALLOMBROSA tunm, and are crowned by the hoarfrost defining flowers of crystal on grass and twig with fragUe tracery. The first plumy flakes of snow fall in soft ob livion.