""Well I ween it may be true That afar in fairyland Great artists still pursue That which in life they knew, And practise still, with ever bettering hand, Sculpture and painting, all that charm can bring, While by them all departed poets sing.""
THE APPARITION OF DANTE
"Musa profonda dei Toscani, il Dante, Il n.o.bil cittadin, nostro Alighieri, Alla filosofia ricco e brillante Purg il linguaggio e corred i pensieri; E nell" opera sua fatto gigante A Campaldino nei primi guerrieri; Lui il Purgatorio, Paradiso e Inferno Fenomeno terren, poeta eterno!"
-_Le Statue disotto gli Ufizi in Fireneze_. _Ottave improvisate da Giuseppe Moroni detto Il Nicchieri_ (_Iliterato_). Florence, 1892.
It has been boldly a.s.serted by writers who should know better, that there are no ghosts in Italy, possibly because the two only words in the language for such beings are the equivocal ones of _spirito_ or spirit, and _spettro_ or spectre-or _specter_, as the Websterians write it-which is of itself appalling as a terrific spell. But the truth is that there is no kind of _spuk_, goblin, elf, fairy, gnome, or ouphe known to all the North of Europe which was not at home in Italy since old Etruscan days, and ghosts, though they do not make themselves common, are by no means as rare as eclipses. For, as may be read in my "Etruscan Roman Legends," people who will look through a stone with a hole in it can behold no end of _revenants_, or returners, in any churchyard, and on fine nights the seer can see them swarming in the streets of Florence.
Giotto is in the campanile as a gentle ghost with the fairy lamb, and Dante, ever benevolent, is all about town, as appears from the following, which was unexpectedly bestowed on me:
LO SPIRITO DI DANTE ALIGHIERI.
"When any one is pa.s.sionately fond of poetry, he should sit by night on the _panchina_ {63} in the piazza or square of Santa Croce or in other places (_i.e._, those haunted by Dante), and having read his poetry, p.r.o.nounce the following:
""Dante, che eri La gran poeta, Siei morto, ma vero, Il tuo spirito E sempre rimasto, Sempre per nostro Nostro aiuto.
""Ti chiamo, ti prego!
E ti scongiuro!
A voler aiutarmi.
Questa poesia Voglio imparare; Di piu ancora, Non voglio soltanto Imparar la a cantare, Ma voglio imparare Di mia testa Poter le scrivere, E cosi venire Un bravo poeta."
""Thou Dante, who wert Such a great poet, Art dead, but thy spirit Is truly yet with us, Here and to aid us.
""I call thee, I pray thee, And I conjure thee!
Give me a.s.sistance!
I would learn perfectly All of this poetry.
And yet, moreover, I would not only Learn it to sing it, But I would learn too How I may truly From my head write it, And become really An excellent poet!"
"And then a form of a man will approach from around the statue (_da canto_), advancing gently-_piano-piano_-to the causeway, and will sit on it like any ordinary person, and begin to read the book, and the young man who has invoked the poet will not fail to obtain his wish. And the one who has come from the statue is no other indeed than Dante himself.
"And it is said that if in any public place of resort or inn (_bettola_) any poet sings the poems of Dante, he is always present among those who listen, appearing as a gentleman or poor man-_secondo il locale_-according to the place.
"Thus the spirit of Dante enters everywhere without being seen.
"If his poems be in the house of any person who takes no pleasure in them, the spirit of the poet torments him in his bed (in dreams) until the works are taken away."
There is a simplicity and directness in this tradition, as here told, which proves the faith of the narrator. Washington Irving found that the good people of East Cheap had become so familiar with Shakespearian comedy as to verily believe that Falstaff and Prince Hal and Dame Quickly had all lived, and still haunted the scenes of their former revels; and in like manner the Florentine has followed the traditions of olden time so closely and lovingly, that all the magnates of the olden time live for him literally at the present day. This is in a great measure due to the fact that statues of all the celebrities of the past are in the most public places, and that there are many common traditions to the effect that all statues at certain times walk about or are animated.
One of the commonest halfpenny or _soldo_ pamphlets to be found on the stand of all open-air dealers in ballads-as, for instance, in the Uffizzi-is a collection of poems on the statues around that building, which of itself indicates the interest in the past, and the knowledge of poets and artists possessed by the common people. For the poorest of them are not only familiar with the names, and more or less with the works, of Orcagna, Buonarotti, Dante, Giotto, Da Vinci, Raffaelle, Galileo, Machiavelli, and many more, but these by their counterfeit presentments have entered into their lives and live. Men who are so impressioned make but one bold step over the border into the fairyland of faith while the more cultured are discussing it.
I do not, with some writers, believe that a familiarity with a few names of men whose statues are always before them, and from whose works the town half lives, indicates an indescribably high culture or more refined nature in a man, but I think it is very natural for him to make legends on them. There are three other incantations given in another chapter, the object of which, like this to Dante, is to become a poet.
"From which we learn that in the fairy faith," writes Flaxius, with ever-ready pen, "that poets risen to spirits still inspire, even in person, neophytes to song.
""Life is a slate of action, and the store Of all events is aggregated there That variegate the eternal universe; Death is a gate of dreariness and gloom, That leads to azure isles and beaming skies . . .
Therefore, O spirit, fearlessly bear on.""
LEGENDS OF LA CERTOSA
""Now when ye moone like a golden flowre, In ye sky above doth bloome, Ile lett doune a basket in that houre, And pull ye upp to my roome, And give mee a kisse if "tis yes," he cryed; Ye mayden would nothing refuse; But held upp hir lippes- Oh I would I had beene Just thenn in that friar"s shoos."
If we pa.s.s the Porta Romana, and keep on for three miles, we shall arrive at the old Carthusian convent of La Certosa in Val d"Ema. Soon after pa.s.sing "the village of Galluzzo, where the stream is crossed, we come to an ancient gateway surmounted by a statue of Saint Laurence, _through which no female could enter_ except by permission of the archbishop, and out which no monk could pa.s.s." At least, it is so stated in a justly famous English guide-book, though it does not explain how any "female"
could enter the saint, nor whether the female in question belonged to the human species, or was fish, flesh, or red-herring. I should, however, incline to believe the latter is meant, as "herring" is a popular synonym for a loose fish.
The Certosa was designed and built in the old Italian Gothic style by Andrea Orcagna, it having been founded in the middle of the fourteenth century by Niccol Acciajuoli, who was of a great Florentine family, from whom a portion of the Lung Arno is named. The building is on a picturesque hill, 400 feet above the union of the brooks called the Ema and the Greve, the whole forming a charming view of a castled monastery of the Middle Ages.
There is always, among the few monks who have been allowed to remain, an English or Irish brother, to act as cicerone to British or American visitors, and show them the interesting tombs in the crypt or subterranean church, and the beautiful chapels and celebrated frescoes in the church. These were painted by Poccetti, and I am told that among them there is one which commemorates or was suggested by the following legend, which I leave the reader to verify, not having done so myself, though I have visited the convent, which inst.i.tution is, however, popularly more distinguished-like many other monasteries-as a distillery of holy cordial than for aught else:
AL CONVENTO DELLA CERTOSA.
"There was in this convent a friar called Il Beato Dyonisio, who was so holy and such a marvellous doctor of medicine, that he was known as the Frate Miraculoso or Miraculous Brother.
"And when any of the fraternity fell ill, this good medico would go to them and say, "Truly thou hast great need of a powerful remedy, O my brother, and may it heal and purify thy soul as well as thy body!" {67} And it always befell that when he had uttered this conjuration that the patient recovered; and this was specially the case if after it they confessed their sins with great devoutness.
"Brother Dyonisio tasted no food save bread and water; he slept on the bare floor of his cell, in which there was no object to be seen save a scourge with great knots; he never took off his garments, and was always ready to attend any one taken ill.
"The other brothers of the convent were, however, all jolly monks, being of the kind who wear the tunic as a tonic to give them a better-or bitter-relish for secular delights, holding that it is far preferable to have a great deal of pleasure for a little penitence than _per poco piacer gran penitenza_-much penitence for very little pleasure. In short, they were just at the other end of the rope away from Brother Dyonisio, inasmuch as they ate chickens, _bistecche_ or beef-steaks, and drank the best wine, even on fast-days-_giorni di vigiglia_-and slept in the best of beds; yes, living like lords, and never bothering themselves with any kind of penance, as all friars should do.
"Now there was among these monks one who was a great _bestemmiatore_, a man of evil words and wicked ways, who had led a criminal life in the world, and only taken refuge in the disguise of a monk in the convent to escape the hand of justice. Brother Dyonisio knew all this, but said nothing; nay, he even exorcised away a devil whom he saw was always invisibly at the sinner"s elbow, awaiting a chance to catch him by the hair; but the Beato Dyonisio was too much for him, and kept the devil ever far away.
"And this was the way he did it:
"It happened one evening that this _finto frate_, or mock monk or feigned friar, took it into his head, out of pure mischief, and because it was specially forbidden, to introduce a _donna di mala vita_, or a girl of no holy life, into the convent to grace a festival, and so arranged with divers other scapegraces that the damsel should be drawn up in a basket.
"And sure enough there came next morning to the outer gate a fresh and jolly black-eyed _contadina_, who asked the mock monk whether he would give her anything in charity. And the _finto frate_ answering sang:
""You shall have the best of meat, Anything you like to eat, Cutlets, macaroni, chickens, Every kind of dainty pickings.
Pasticcie and fegatelli, Salame and mortadelle, With good wine, if you are clever, For a very trifling favour!"
"To which the girl replied:
""Here I am, as here you see!
What would"st thou, holy man, with me?"
"The friar answered:
""When thou hear"st the hoots and howls At midnight of the dogs and owls, And when all men are sunk in sleep, And only witches watch do keep, Come "neath the window unto me, And there thou wilt a basket see Hung by a rope as from a shelf, And in that basket stow thyself, And I alone will draw thee up, Then with us thou shalt gaily sup."