Chapter I: Part 1

LONDON: PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
AND PARLIAMENT STREET

Randolph Caldecott’s

Sketches of North Italian Folk.

Special Issue of 400 Copies
COLOURED BY HAND.

Each Numbered,
this Copy being No 339

PICKERING AND CHATTO,
LONDON.

NORTH ITALIAN FOLK

Sketches of Town and Country Life

BY
MRS COMYNS CARR

_ILLUSTRATED BY RANDOLPH CALDECOTT_

London
CHATTO AND WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1878

[_All rights reserved_]

PREFACE.

Italy—about which so much has been written—political, geographical, social, pontifical, poetical—Italy is my theme. But not the Italy of popes and priests and controversies, of civic struggles and new kingdoms, nor the Italy of tourists or guide-books, of fame and fashion, nor even the Italy of art and artists. The folk about whom my gossip shall be are folk who, living or dead, have made the best part of Italy these many years gone by. They are those who, unwittingly, inherit most of the poetry for which their nation, long ago, won its fame; on them—innocent of lore and reading though they, most of them, be—has fallen something that recalls the great names of their own great men of the past. They are of the people. To them rather than to others in the land belong the freedom and freshness, the grace and good-heartedness, the frank honesty that finds a place even beside worldly-wise prudence, the simple and courteous dignity which the educated classes have not always been able to maintain. No one who has lived long beside them could have failed to learn the grace of their ways, the humour of their rustic simplicity; no one who has grown up in their midst could ever forget their pleasant faces and quaint enthusiasms, their friendly greetings, their frank speech and emphatic opinions.

I, who thus learned to know them in days gone by, can, at all events, never so forget; and I am fain now to set down some memory of those sun-lit scenes of the past, for friends whose lot has never been cast, as mine was, among them. My sketches will not always be portraits of living people or existing things, but they will always be sketches of things or friends that have been: recollections vignetted in the past, rather than photographs taken on the spot. And so, if anyone should discover aught that is inaccurate towards the present, let him go back a space upon the steps of time and live away fifteen years beside the country housekeeper or _la Pettinatrice_, in the Signor Prevosto’s company or with the village sempstress. For to these will I go for a verdict, and to these—not my _readers_, because they will not read what I have written, but my staunch supporters always—to the people of the Riviera and the Apennines I now dedicate ‘North Italian Folk.’

ALICE CARR.

CONTENTS

Part One.
_ON THE RIVIERA._

PAGE
GENOA 3
MARTEDÌ GRASSO (_Shrove Tuesday_) 9
LA FIORAJA (_The Flower Girl_) 20
LA FESTA DELLE PALME 28
HOLY WEEK AND EASTER FEASTS (_I Sepolcri_) 39
LA FANTESCA (_The Servant Wench_) 46
IL NEGOZIANTE (_The Shopman_) 57
LA PETTINATRICE (_The Hairdresser_) 67
FISHER-FOLK 77
SANTA MARGHERITA 87
THE LACE WEAVER 97
IL MANENTE (_The Husbandman_) 106
LA DONNA DI CASA (_The Country Housekeeper_) 116
BATHING TIME 125

Part Two.
_IN THE APENNINES.
PAGE
THE MOUNTAINS 137
AT THE CHESTNUT HARVEST 156
UNDER THE CHERRY TREES (_The Bridal_) 165
THE PARISH PRIEST 175
THE PRIEST’S SERVING MAID 185
IL SIGNOR CAPPELLANO 191
SWEEPING THE CHURCH 200
THE VILLAGE SEMPSTRESS 208
THE VILLAGE DAMSEL 217
THE VILLAGE SWAIN 231
THE LOVE-LETTER 240
LA CRESIMA (_The Confirmation Day_) 252
IN VILLEGGIATURA (_Town Folk in the Country_) 263

Conclusion.

IL CORPUS DOMINI (_The Procession_) 275

FULL-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

VIEW OF GENOA, FROM THE TERRACE OF THE ACQUASOLA _Frontispiece_
THE FLOWER GIRL _To face p._ 24
THE LACE WEAVER „ 98
THE HUSBANDMAN „ 114
GOSSIP „ 170
THE PARISH PRIEST „ 182
IL SIGNOR CAPPELLANO „ 194
THE VILLAGE SEMPSTRESS „ 210
THE LOVE-LETTER „ 246
IN VILLEGGIATURA „ 266

HALF-PAGE ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE
THE CARNIVAL 15
ON-LOOKERS AT THE PROCESSION OF PALMS 37
MARKETING 44
THE SERVANT WENCH 49
SHOPMAN AND PURCHASER 62
LA PETTINATRICE IN AN OMNIBUS 70
PAOLO AT SEA 81
VIEW OF SANTA MARGHERITA 89
THE MARQUIS AND HIS HOUSEKEEPER 122
FLIRTATION AT PEGLI 131
IN THE FIELDS AT SAVIGNONE 142
GATHERING THE CHESTNUTS 161
THE PRIEST’S SERVANT ADMINISTERING A REPROOF 188
BIANCA DECORATES THE ALTAR AND SNUBS THE UNDER PRIEST 202
NETTINA RETURNING FROM THE WELL 226
THE VILLAGE SWAIN AT A BARGAIN 237
VIRGINIA GOES TO CONFIRMATION 259
THE PROCESSION OF THE CORPUS DOMINI 279

Part One

_On the Riviera_

Genoa.

Spring returns. In northern lands, where much work is done and living is hard, our skies are yet grey and the winds blow keen while the earth is hard with the late frosts. Yet almond blossoms bloom sweetly in scant little gardens or beside the bleak walls of town houses, and spring begins to bud even in the lands where spring’s struggle is the longest, and as I watch her oncoming and rejoice in her tender-toned early flowers, I must needs remember the home where her life is the fairest and merriest, and her sunlight the stronger to play and be played with. It is the Mediterranean that I call to mind, her winds and waves and sails and rocks, her shores, towers, villages, groves—the light and colour on her kindly people’s life. And most of all, as the sunshine grows and the air gets whiter, memory paints again for me that whitest, but not newest of towns, where winds and waves and groves and all are fair, the city of marble—_la Superba_—Genoa, the Queen of the Riviera. Genoa, no longer the great republic, no longer the city of much merchandise and wealth, but Genoa, the city of palaces still.

Who is there that has seen her from off the waves of her own Mediterranean, and looked upon her as she climbs the slopes on every side, gorgeous in her towers, her domes and cupolas, her terraces and gardens, quietly lying within the great amphitheatre of her hills—who could fail to acknowledge that she is the city of palaces still? Above and around her stand her fortifications, gaunt and grey upon the soft sky, like sentinels upon the tops of the green and barren mountains, while half way down, the hills begin to be dotted with villas and terraces, and, as they creep towards the sea, grow white with palaces and _campanili_, that multiply upon their sides until they become the great town itself, where whiteness is all around in stone and marble. In the streets there is marble, for it is fashioned into churches and colonnades; and upon the water’s brink there is marble still that has taken the shape of terraces and loggias. There is no end to the whiteness, for the air is white too on these early spring days, yet there is no lack of colour as well; it lurks in the sunshine, it lives on the earth and the sky, is dashed along the public ways in dresses of the people, and over the harbour in curious hues of sails and flags, red and green and yellow, that the weather has mellowed into harmony. The sky is heavy with colour, in the March air that is keen and sun-steeped. Genoa, with her crooked and narrow streets and her curious nooks, with her picturesque piazzas and her sumptuous churches, of her would I write as I dream of flowers and Eastertide.

The light is everywhere, and everywhere there is something to remember. In crooked, winding ways that climb hills and go down again in steps, and thread dark passages and cross bright piazzas, in ways where winds can be icy cold and suns scarce reach, there are still things whereon memory rests fondly, amongst quaint shops and stalls of fruit-sellers, and fish and flower and green-markets, in hurrying or loitering people, beneath dingy doorways, up dusty stairs, on solemn or gaudy house-fronts. Down upon the wharfs and along the moles where the green waters of the port are not always fragrant as they lap on to time-worn marble steps, there are more things fair to think of in crowding boats and quaint, noisy boatmen, in flapping amber sails of strange fishing smacks, in fine-framed men and women whose shrill voices quarrel and joke, and whose faces and figures bring more colour to the sketch—even something perchance of gala days when stately vessels sailed into the harbour, vessels that were thickly manned and royally freighted, so that flags must needs wave from ships and skiffs and steamers on the water, and, on land, from turret and terrace, while bouquets were flung and floated, and royal salutes were fired. And from the broader of old streets, where palaces flank the way and are sumptuous with façade and arch and stair, from straight and new streets down which the _Tramontana_ can blow grimly enough if the sun can shine also, from loggias on hills that look towards the sunrise, from the walls of tall ramparts that hang over the waves and see the best glory of the sunsets, from every open place, from every nook and corner, more recollections crowd around the first picture of the city’s whole. The steep _salite_ that are paved with red bricks up the middle, the dark cypress standing against churches, the scent of limes and acacias, the growth of arbutus and horse-chestnut, all come telling some little story of the past. Yet, perhaps, most of all, Genoa’s gardens recall the best of Genoa’s life, because they are the most bound up with her holiday life—with her Saints and fasts and feast days—for the Ligurians make merry on most of these occasions, and the Acquasola is the way to and from many a sanctuary. And Genoa is full of gardens. Private gardens upon the hill-sides or upon terraces that appear suddenly in the streets, where flowers grow in boxes, and orange and oleander trees bloom in pots as in the free earth—gardens that are open to the public but are none the less rich in all that nature can lavish, gardens that spring at unexpected turns in the town’s heart to break the monotony of the palaces. Some of them have restaurants in their midst, and there, among Japanese medlar-trees with great fibrous leaves, beneath acanthus and willow and magnolia trees, people dine or sip coffee and ices in the company of marble nymphs and heroes, of shivering cupids who toss the water from stone fountains. But the public promenade is the garden that tells most about the town people’s public life, for to the _Acquasola_ people are wont to go to walk and drive, and meet their acquaintance, and show off new dresses and new equipages. It is the place in which to spend a holiday afternoon. The broad walks are crowded with people, who wander beneath acacia and arbutus trees; fine ladies with attendant cavaliers, mothers of the middle class chaperoning their marriageable daughters, fathers carrying their children that the women may have leisure to enjoy the _festa_ dress and the _festa_ scene; along the drive and the sycamore and horse-chestnut avenues carriages roll smoothly with gay people. Flower-vendors are there, and men and women with _Madonnette_ to sell, or filbert-strings or iced-drinks and wafers. Sometimes a group saunters away to the higher gardens, where the paths wind upward, till they reach a terrace with flowers and palms and trees from foreign lands. The whole town lies spread beneath; towers and palaces and domes seem to grow softer of outline as evening lights creep around. In the far foreground lies the great valley of the Bisagno, where troops have camped—Zouaves and Africans in gorgeous dress. It is a long stretch of dusty road and arid river-bed, but from the Acquasola none of this is to be seen, and there is only an impression of green country far away, with palaces lying on the slopes of Albaro’s hill, and a knowledge of sea beyond. Behind the rising ground runs the town’s great aqueduct, that is built through glens and copses when once it has left the city’s first outskirts. And to your right is the harbour again, with ships and flags and masts, and beyond the harbour a waste of Mediterranean neither blue nor grey nor white, that, in the doubtful light, will seem neither land nor water, lying out towards the sunset, where dim clouds hold Riviera mountains in their midst.

Martedì Grasso.

Shrove Tuesday.

Of all the _festas_ we used to have—glorious days when the sun might shine as fiercely as it liked and we were only the better pleased, since it was a sin to work outright, but only a venial fault to keep one’s shops open a little, and to forget about going to mass—of all those most comfortable saints and Virgins, how few, alas! have they left us now! One can count the strict day off one’s fingers. ‘_Per Bacco_, ’tis a disgrace truly,’ mutter the old men and women who have been wont to consider a week where there were not three holidays at least, one really God-forsaken and cursed by the Evil Eye of luck! But, ‘well, well, days are changed, and Providence can’t expect us to give all that time to religion when it’s all we can do to make way against the bad times, and keep a roof over our heads,’ say the young men who have wives and growing children, and the women whose piety would not be at all equal to the giving up two francs for a day’s ironing, merely because the Virgin chose to institute a rite, or some strange saint had seen fit to die! ’Tis an ill wind that blows nobody any good! Perhaps the greater half of the population are better pleased than not. The days of the _dolce far niente_ are pretty well over, in the north of Italy, at all events, and every man must keep pace with his neighbours. So we let the old people grumble, the half of whose portion it is the duty of sons and daughters to provide, and the rising generation are content. Only when somebody wants to tell a story about Italian _festas_, he finds that the throng which used to be so goodly has grown small indeed, and that, if he must needs be faithful to the present, his choice is very limited, and the colours on his palate must also be only by half so brilliant as they used to be in the old days. For where are the gorgeous trappings, the stately pageants with which Mother Church was wont to send out her saints and her relics? Alas, for the wild days of mirth and folly, for the glittering sights, for the colours of street-pictures, we have grown too cynical and too worldly-wise for such nonsense now! So, we who regret them a little—old people or travellers that come only to marvel, modern Italy says—we are fain to go back a step or two into the days when the sun’s glamour off the Mediterranean could still bring colours into boldest relief against dark backgrounds, could search out gloomy corners, and deck streets and people in holiday garb, making mad with its glitter and its warmth the reckless brains of an untutored Southern nation.

Time ago there was Carnival really as it should be, along the highways and byways, and in the public halls and the private homes of Genoa—not a Carnival so rich and so splendid as the Carnival of Rome, for Genoa merchants have always been close-handed, and even her populace has had a name long past in other Italian districts for shrewd economy; not a Carnival so studied and so lengthened as the Carnival of Milan, for Milan is a city privileged of Mother Church, and can keep up her frolic when other towns have been three days shrouded in ashes and penitence; still a Carnival no way to be despised as a means of enjoyment, even of unmeasured madness and merriment for those to whom such things come easily. And such things used to come very easily to many people in the days that we, mourners of better Carnivals, can call to mind.

Holy Week, called _la settimana grassa_, is past. Lent moves forward apace with gloomy garments, with sack-cloth and ashes, and calls to prayer and penitence! Come, let us make good use of this last day of reprieve! For it is Martedì Grasso, and with to-morrow’s sun dawns Ash-Wednesday!

The picture is in shade as the morning breaks, for there are faint clouds overhead—after all, it is only February—and the sun has only half its strength, and only a grey colour for silver glory to shed over the Mediterranean, and off the Mediterranean, up on to the green hills and marble terraces of the town. The sea is not blue but white, beneath these pearl-grey clouds, that let the sun through as through a veil, but it is calm, the limpid waves of it lapping gently on to the knotted and slimy rocks of the coast. There is but little to complain of in the weather, and before the midday meal has been eaten, before even the most impatient of spectators or the maddest of masqueraders have begun to line the sides of the streets where the _Corso_ will pass—our sun has made his way as usual through all obstacles, and makes the sky and the sea blue, the streets and the people bright with his gladdening warmth. The highways begin to swarm with people that press and pour in from the hundred little yards and colonnades and alleys of which the old city has so many; they are men and women of the peasantry from without the walls, of the smaller tradesmen, from within—the people who, in all nations, would rather stand breathless for hours in a throng than miss the exultation of giving the first shout for the first rumour of a pageant’s approach. The women of this crowd are mostly conspicuous for dark red and blue gowns of stout homespun linen, called in the neighbourhood _bordato_, or for gowns of brilliant coloured calicoes gaily-flowered in pattern, for kerchiefs of still gaudier hue, orange and crimson, for massive and curiously wrought gold ornaments—they are the _contadine_, and as yet the tradesmen’s wives are but a handful. You will know these, as they push their way into the medley, by their cunningly built hair that is smoothed into a perfect mirror of glossiness, and coiled and twisted and piled into a marvel of structure; mark them by their worsted dress also, and by the silken jacket after a Paris _mode_ of some years back, or the cashmere shawl in place of the gaudy kerchief about their shoulders.

The Piazza San Lorenzo or of the Cathedral, the Piazza before the Ducal Palace and Sant’Ambrogio, have both seen something of the crowd as the people pressed up from the heart of the city to reach the more open thoroughfares; the Piazza San Domenico where the Opera House stands, and where of early mornings these same men and women are wont to come buying and selling at market, has also been a gangway for the mob, but none of these places see the best of the Carnival, for the cream of the _Corso_ is down the Vie Nuove and Nuovissime. So the people fight their way from Piazza S. Domenico, down the Via Carlo Felice, to the Piazza delle Fontane Amorose, for here the Carnival will soon begin in good earnest. The balconies of the Spinola Palace, of the Pallavicini, Brignole, Serra, Durazzo, and of all the palaces down these chiefest, beautiful streets, have been decked with crimson hangings and cushions, with gold and green and amber trappings, curious heir-looms that for centuries perhaps have been kept for such occasions. Baskets of flowers, stocks, violets, heartsease, camellias red and white, and everything that commonly blooms here in the winter time, are placed ready for gallants and ladies soon to shower on the masqueraders beneath. The air is a little cold, but the sun shines, the sky is blue, faces and colours wake to merriest life.

The first of the merry-makers has appeared. He is a buffoon, with tawdry costume and hideous mask, he is of the people and comes along on foot, hurling jests and poisonous comfits around him, but all the more the people are amused; they hoot and cheer, and so he passes down the ranks. He is quickly followed by another mask, also of the people, but this one drives a donkey in a small cart; he is ill-dressed with a purpose, he screams, he gesticulates, he is evidently the caricature of some pet grievance, for the mob cry aloud for joy. But this is not the _Corso_; this would not content even the populace—great things are coming. Ladies of the nobility—beautiful, with hair dressed after the French fashion, and silken garments and graciously-smiling faces—begin to fill the balconies. They nod and laugh and pose gracefully to their attendant gallants, then they rise in their seats to pose and laugh again for other gallants who are in the masquerading throng beneath, and upon whom they will shower comfits and flowers and smiles alike, to get comfits and flowers in return. For the _Corso_ is all alive now. It is four o’clock, and past. On the lower ranges of balconies, windows of offices and less important houses, the ladies of the merchant class are airing themselves likewise in scarce less costly array, to get what attention they may from masqueraders in their own set; while servant wenches and shop-girls, who aspire to no post at a window and are proud in the possession of a black silk apron, a _pezzotto_ veil, and a little gold for ornament, parade the street happily on the arm or in search of a lover. The air is laden with colour, and every turn of the beautiful winding street flashes out some new bit of it, in waving banner, fluttering drapery, or passing throng.

The great car of the afternoon is coming. Most of the cars have been out before at the Sunday _Corso_, but this one has reserved itself for the last of the Carnival—it is the feature of this Martedì Grasso. People shout along the street, and heads are all turned one way from out the windows. It is in sight—a ship amid wavy billows of blue silk for sea; it sways as the car moves. ‘’Tis truly natural,’ yells the mob, and cheers. The ship’s bulwarks are of silver, its sails of rosy silk and golden tinsel; its masts are manned with sailors in handsome garb, whose masks counterfeit handsome faces. It is pronounced a wonderful success. From the balconies flowery missiles fly swiftly, to light daintily where they will—most often where the fair marks-women themselves will _not_! And the handsome sailors pelt back again, pelt on all sides, pelt the ladies with flowers, the children with comfits, the mob with _coriandoli_, that, being made only of flour, burst as they fall, to sprinkle their prey with a white storm of dust. It is a scene of the maddest, merriest confusion. But the sailors have been recognised by balcony ladies, pelted by mob admirers, appreciated by all: the ship moves on to give place to some other part of the pageant. Carriages follow closely on one another between the lines of the crowd; they are all filled with masqueraders—boys in clown dress, in Masaniello dress, as harlequins, as marquises; little girls as shepherdesses, as vivandières, powdered countesses; fathers and mothers in dominoes for escort. Out of every carriage somebody pelts and cheers to be cheered again, and now and then comes a more elaborate car, on which the mob are scarce restrained from falling for very excitement. Afternoon wears away into evening; bouquets, that have loaded the air with colour and perfume, are trampled now under foot; the _coriandoli_ bags are empty in the maskers’ cars; their supply of comfits is exhausted—not so the spirits of men and women, whether of nobles and gentle-folk at the windows, or of shop-girls and _contadini_ below. If it is too dark to see the maskers, and to pelt in the streets—since Government no longer allows the _mocoletti_ lights, which it used to be our fun to put out for one another as darkness deepened—are there not still the _Veglioni_ to come, and shall we not dance if we may not pelt? Surely: for is not to-day the last of the Carnival? So, as the night hours lengthen, and just before they begin to grow short again, the streets, that were quieter for an hour, begin to live again with bustle. In carriage or on foot, all classes of people are going to the masked balls of the theatre. _Marchese_, in the boxes which are their family’s heritage at the opera, to look down on the gay scene of masked dancers in the amphitheatre beneath, and to receive the visits of dominoed gallants with whom their jests are both broad and lively; men and women of the lower orders to entertainments in their own set, or even to the amphitheatre of the Opera House itself, where the highest nobility has been known not too proud, in dominoes, gallantly to address many a prettily masked servant wench: for of the nobles only the men may fitly descend into the masked ball-room, just as the _Marchese_ are free to receive who they will into their boxes, and to thrust and parry with the masked intruder as best they may. ‘Ah, in truth it is delightful to be noble and to possess a box at the Opera,’ sighs many a merchant’s lady, because for love or money you cannot otherwise procure one for the night of the great _Veglione_. And so, dancing and flirting and jesting, the hours grow old again into day, the gas-lights burn yellow in the grey light of morning, the paint and the powder have lost their excellence, the dresses are marred and tarnished. But are spirits grown weary, is merriment spent, though the Last of the Carnival is dead, and the sun has risen on Ash-Wednesday? ‘Ah—everything is changed,’ moans out some old lady of the old school; ‘so used the Martedì Grasso to be in my young days, or even a few years ago, but now—_non c’è Carnevale_!’

La Fioraja.

The Flower Girl.

Sunshine is full on this picture even as it first climbs the horizon of our memory: full on the shifting Mediterranean, that is bluer for its presence, full on the white walls of new houses, on the yellow shutters of old palaces inland, strong amid fleeting clouds that are the whiter for its power, fitful on these girl-faces, that shine the merrier for its sake. Because the wind has blown cold from the mountains these three days past—the sharp _Tramontana_ that sweeps down the northward valleys to blight the budding trees, to whirl the dust in clouds, to lash the sea’s water into bristling crests—and if the cheering sun shine not, we, who must ofttimes meet the wind’s greeting at street corners, and shiver out the daylight hours beneath palace porticoes, shall have but a sorry time of it indeed! For even the flowers that make our livelihood have a hard fight and a poor success of it in this weather. ‘One must have patience!’ Only ’tis pity the enemy could not just have waited till a little further into Lent, when good Catholics having had their fill of amusement, see fit to waken conscience to a little necessary obedience and expiation: when camellias could therefore no longer fetch so good a price! For so early in the Church’s penance season as this, society makes Carnival still in her private homes; we are grown lax about fasts nowadays, as we have grown wisely cynical over feasts and processions, and who would drown merriment to wear sackcloth forty days long, unless it were with a much surer hope of reward than modern Romanists think prudent to believe? No, no; the last Lenten week, when there is plenty of excitement in mission preaching, _sepolcri_ and masses—when Easter’s sun, moreover, begins already to lighten the horizon before us, the six days of Holy Week make up the sum of all the fasts we do in our enlightened generation! Let the camellias bloom fair yet awhile, and we will pray the Madonna to keep the _Tramontana_ back for another month, say the flower-girls!

Rosina is the favourite of all the _fioraje_ of the Carlo Felice, and that is the favourite flower street of Genoa. When the sun shines as bright as it does to-day, out of a sky that is as blue in the cold, and when it lies with a great sheet of light on the square flag-stones of the Piazza S. Domenico, Rosina’s face is as the sunlight itself that can be friendly even in an air so hard as this is with _Tramontana_. And it is merriment that pays, that wins the loved jest from lowly swains, the soft compliment from gracious _signori_, that sells the camellias, and adds many a mite on to a bargain! Who cares for a pathetic face and a wistful gaze? Such cunning arts are only for ‘_marchesine_’ and ladies who can afford powder; we of the people had best trust to a healthy frame and a kindling eye, and to the jests and smiles of a light heart, for _our_ conquests! Truly, it is in this wise that Rosina has come to be ‘_la bella dei Portici_,’ and it is by simple and lighthearted devices that have made many a gallant think of her as the reflection of this cold, bright sunshine itself, that our flower-girl can keep so many and such fragrant bouquets on her stall in the gateway and such a goodly hoard of soiled old _soldi_ in her pocket. To-day, heedless of the cruel _Tramontana_, she has been up with the kindly sun’s return, and in her garden among the camellias. All the buds that bore any promise for immediate use were nipped off at the very flower and thrown into the common basket, and when the round of the camellia grove had been made Rosina went on her knees to pluck the purple heartsease, to strip the beds where bloom the pale Neapolitan violets, and then on her tip-toes, with upstretched, graceful arm, to tear down the ‘_fiorellin d’oro_’ from the wall, to break the blossom of the Judas tree. All the time the wind was sharp, the sky darkly blue; and the sun had no warmth till Rosina had been awhile in the stock garden and had spoiled the straight stalks of their gaudy flowers, mixing into this basket a handful of striving carnations and a share of sweetly-scented myrtle twigs, besides large-veined and dark-hued medlar leaves, wherewith to build the outer frame of her stiff bouquets. Poor flower season! It is past, and is not come again, but we have our glory still at Genoa, in the camellias, as people have in no other town—thank the Virgin!

So she sits, with flowers close around her—red and
yellow tulips, festive-looking camellias—to set off the
strongly-coloured portrait of herself; and as she sits she
picks the heads of blossoms from baskets at her feet.]

So the early morning is gone, and Rosina is at her post beneath the Carlo Felice door-way. The sun has outstripped the east wind in power by this time, and for those who walk within its hearty radiance, and avoid the northward corners of streets—for those who, like our Rosina, sit within reach of its rays in some sheltered corner, the _Tramontana_ matters but little. Indeed, Rosina forgot long ago how she had grumbled at the cold in those early hours after dawn in her Villa delle Peschiere, forgot it as she came down the narrow way of the Salita Sta. Trinità, when you might have seen her tall and buxom figure swaying gently on its firm, broad hips, erect as a reed, and as a reed pliant to circumstance, while on her head and in one downward-pointed hand she carried baskets of flower-material, and on her curved left arm bore the child of some busy mother. Truly, she is a girl of much presence, as indeed all the lads of the town do allow! For all the youth of the town knows Rosina who sits all day in the portico of the Palazzo Spinola, via Carlo Felice! It is not for nothing that she has that tall and massive figure, those heavy coils of bright, black hair with the broad waves, that smooth skin with the faint fresh colour, those even rows of white teeth that appear so often when the merry smile parts her rosy lips! She knows how to use all the fair gifts of nature, and best of all how to make use of two saucy black eyes in the trade which she plies daily so well—for who sells so many flowers as Rosina? Watch her now at work. Her striking person sits framed in an old gateway, round whose margin a graceful design of fruits and flowers in low relief—sad, neglected memory of days long fled—lies yellow upon yellow marble. Above her head, over the palace portal, another bas-relief, black with age, serves her for canopy; but this one is of fighting men and horses, and passionate of expression. Beneath her feet, a black and white pavement stretches back into the gloom of the court, that finishes in a scantly grass-grown yard whose almond trees will not be rosy with blossom till the last of Lent. And the background is varied by the flowering plants and shrubs of Rosina’s stock in pots, while away in the dimness, the soiled staircase—of marble, like everything else architectural—winds up to the first, and then higher and higher to the fifth floor of Palazzo Spinola. So she sits—with flowers close around her, red and yellow tulips, festive-looking camellias, to set off the strongly-coloured portrait of herself, and as she sits she picks the heads of blossoms from baskets at her feet, to open and bend the poor petals of them at her will, and to wire them for her bouquets. See one with pink carnations in a cross on a field of white! It is as large as a small-sized table and quite even in its flatness—it is for the Church of San Luca. And here another, smaller and choicer of flowers, but scarce less stiff in appearance; it is white with violets around, and has been ordered by the Marchesa Pallavicini. Rosina is weaving more posies as she converses in loud tones with the old woman behind and glances up now and then to the street’s opposite side where wayfarers grow hourly thicker on the pavement and where, in another portico, old but not as beautiful as her own, an aged man has already begun to roast chestnuts. There is a _fiorista_, maker of false flowers, on the first-floor of the opposite house—she has nothing picturesque to show as our _fioraja_ has; but, alas, modern Italy thinks far more of la Signora Raffo’s trade than it does of our Rosina’s! She herself is of the same opinion for the matter of that, and no one can praise a perfect flower of hers so much to her mind as by saying it is like a false one.

‘To-night is the ball of la Marchesa Del Mele. I sell all that I have in flowers before twelve o’clock, you will see,’ calls Rosina in her loud brave voice to the porter’s wife who sweeps the staircase behind; ‘gracious! your honour did make me jump,’ adds she quickly to the polished and perfumed _signore_ who now darkens the sunlight in the portico. ‘Indeed!’ laughs the young man. ‘No, no, you don’t make me believe I catch you unawares, _bella_—you, who have eyes at the back of your head as sharp as those two bright ones in front! Well, well,’ as Rosina laughs to show her pearly teeth, ‘we all know you! But now give me a flower—one for myself—a knot of violets, emblems of thine own fair modesty;’ il Marchese del D—— (for it is he) laughs as he says this, looking at Rosina. ‘Shame!’ remonstrates the damsel, bending over her flowers to choose out the _mazzetto di viole_, but the blush does not rise to her smooth cheek, and she only says, presenting the flowers, ‘_Il signor marchese_ will buy something for his lady of to-night?’ ‘Surely, make me a thing of taste, all white with violets, and we will agree to-morrow for the price. With pretty girls one makes no bargain!’ And the _marchese_ goes, only to leave the field for other gallant butterflies and purchasers who all agree that ‘with pretty girls one makes no bargain.’ Truly, Rosina’s free, fair face is worth many _soldi_ to her purse! The day grows—it is time to eat maccaroni in the porter’s lodge, while little Tonietta keeps watch beside the flower-stall. And when the sun is near to setting in the early afternoon and the _Tramontana_ blows chiller than ever, a man passes down the staircase, out of the many that have passed up and down this day, who calls the blush for the first time to the cheek of our _fioraja_. He also is a perfumed youth, but he is no _marchese_—only the son of Ricardi who keeps the manufactory for pianos upstairs. He stands a long time beside Rosina’s chair while her swift fingers twine bouquets for the ball of to-night; fast they talk, and merrily laugh and broadly jest, till Rosina’s saucy glances are well-nigh quelled, and she is forced to blush a bit and remonstrate—till the gas-lights are burning in the streets, moreover, and it is time for the flowers to go home to their purchasers. Then _la fioraja_ sweeps up the faded blossoms and the broken stalks on her square of marble pavement, and with them she sweeps away all the dead jests and forgotten words of to-day, all the love-making and the banter. Gathering together her baskets she climbs the Salita S. Trinità once more, to remember little else at the top but the sum of those gains that she counts over so proudly.

La Festa delle Palme.

There are no consistencies to uphold in Italy, no conventionalities to overcome, and festa-making revels in true glory among the pleasure-loving natures, that are soft and fiery, mad and merry, all at one time. No fickle chances disturb the course of fasts and feasts; the Roman Church holds her sway above all else, self-sufficient and serene; and the people have learnt to love the old days and seasons by this time, and are nothing loth to lend their aid to the pageant. Yet even were her children deaf to the call, the Church would still put up her pictures, nor alter one jot of her proceedings because of their indifference. Amid all that is false and hollow the system has its good side, as most systems have; the Roman Church binds the people together with her festivals, even if they scoff at them now and then, and to her we owe the beauty of the broad lights and shades that are thus cast over the nation as a whole. Seasons change and come again (now days of joy, now days of woe) bringing each some brightly-painted symbol of ancient tradition, some well-worn mystery that has had its hold for ages on the imaginative mind of the people; symbols and mysteries work their way as of old, the days that are gone are linked to the days that are, so that, in their festas, the people of Italy are one nation from end to end of the land. They may not believe very clearly—many do not pretend to believe at all—but they find a zest none the less eager for that, in each of the seasons as it comes, with its mysteries to be marvelled at, and its duties to be done. It is _festa_, and _festa_ garb must be donned, _festa_ bells must sound. The people put on their bright colours, and are merry with a matter-of-course and yet a true merriment, as though they caught the light-heartedness reflected from their blues and reds and yellows. And when gala days are over, and Lent is to be met, they put aside their carnival and eat ‘_magro_’ almost as contentedly!

Carnival over, the pranks of the masqueraders are followed closely by Lent’s fastings, and these would perhaps scarcely be borne so patiently, were it not for the solace that can be seen throughout the forty days in the distance. That solace is the Feast of the Palms, with the strange week of mixed penance and excitement, of gay sights interwoven with sorry dirges, that ushers in the Eastertide.

In days when people all go abroad, and can criticise and scan for themselves, talk about these things would seem almost superfluous were it not for those spots that lie beyond the range of the stream of travellers rushing on year after year towards the great capital, and that can yet show, within their capacity, as fair and joyous a festival as any that reigns supreme at St. Peter’s, or flaunts its gaudy pageant along the streets of Rome. Little roadside nooks there are upon the shores of the Mediterranean, or among the clefts of the Apennines—places still unspoiled and unmolested by the foreigners, with their levelling influence—where perhaps the festival will be even quainter than in any of the towns. Here and there, on the lip of little dainty bays that secretly lie along the coast, palm-trees flourish in the fertile soil, with the soft and sultry breath of African deserts blowing gently upon them from across the Mediterranean. Sometimes they stand alone in their grace, growing up erect and sudden from out the moist hot earth, with arched and slender branches that are set around their heads and that droop gently with the weight of tapering leaves. Sometimes they grow in knots along the shore, or in little plantations that stretch upward towards the hills. The pale-blue sky is spread above the pale-blue sea, and above the deeper-coloured earth, and the palm-trees stand up quietly against it, with frail outlines clearly traced in the keen air.

All along the Riviera, whether in towns or villages, there is _festa_ for Passion-week and Easter. In rain as in sunshine, processions march forth beneath weather-worn banners to worship familiar relics, and bells chime gaily, and fresh veils and kerchiefs are pulled out to deck pious or laughing faces, while the palms are blessed and the Holy Sepulchre is built up around the altar.

And yet it is not the Cornice villages, nor the sunny groves where the palms have their birth, that I remember at this season most willingly. Again, the crooked ways of Genoa, her gorgeous churches and ample piazzas, are the things that rise before me as the Easter time comes back once more.

The Festival of Palms seems always to have been one of the dearest of gala-days to the hearts of the Genoese people. Spring is then at hand, that will bring flowers and fruits and warm days. Passion-week is close on the festival’s joy, and there is woe to be met ere the Easter sun can dawn, so the people make merry for Palm Sunday and for many days before. Upon the first days of the preceding week those branches are gathered from the sunny plantations of Bordighera, that are to be plaited and adorned and consecrated in the churches, that they may wither out a whole year above the bed of some peasant woman or child. Not such a fair life, perhaps, as the life of those sister branches that flourish and wave and grow green again in the pale sunshine and the cool night-breezes of the shores; but the same blue sky of Italy is overhead, and beneath it even the yellow boughs on a whitewashed wall have their fitting grace.

On Monday the market of San Domenico begins to be filled with peasants who bring palms from the Riviera, and by Wednesday the long leaves are ready bleached to be fashioned into the wonted curious shapes; for they may not remain green as nature bade them. By some process handed down from past generations they are dyed of a faintly yellow colour, that they may the better last unshrivelled from Eastertide to Eastertide again for sacred guards and memories. The market-place, always a wondrous scene of confusion and vociferation, is now more perturbed than ever. The palms are set up in queer water-tubs, whence they are taken one by one to be rapidly transformed into fantastic shapes beneath the swift hands of girls who have grown deft in the art of flower-weaving for which Genoa is specially famous. The women split the slender fibres asunder, and then braid them together again and build them up in a strange medley of loops and bows, from whose midst one spray of the natural leaves is allowed to wave; at last they fasten little patches of gold-leaf upon the plaits, and stick a bit of olive-branch coquettishly on one side. The making of the _palme_ is a true example of Italian taste, that loves nothing so well in its natural as in its artificial state. Flowers grow with little tending and have beauty enough; magnolias and pomegranates, camellia and oleander trees, bloom each in turn throughout the land, and never fail in their perfection, and still the people have no higher praise for the fairest blossoms of their glens and their gardens than the words, ‘They are as good as false ones!’

As the days wear on—Thursday, Friday, Saturday—customers grow frequent on the market-places, and inevitable vociferations wax more eager as the sale progresses:

‘That palm there, with the golden leaf—how much, good woman?’

‘Forty-three _soldi_.’

‘Holy Virgin, you would rob the Lord Almighty himself! I will give you thirty-five!’

‘Not for the world. I would sooner present it myself to San Lorenzo.’

And so the bargaining goes on for, perhaps, half-an-hour, until the prize is carried off for some two or three centimes more than the first sum offered by the purchaser. No Genoese marketer would dream of buying at the price demanded, nor a seller of asking at first the price he means to take at last.

In the _Via dé Orefici_, or the Goldsmiths’ Street, there are also booths set up, and the palm-plaiting is going on vigorously. This street is narrow, too narrow to be one of the main thoroughfares; but it is also one of the most picturesque of the town. Most of the jewellers’ shops have no plate-glass windows, they stand out into the street, as it were, because the frames in which the gold-work is set are fixed to the outer walls; and the shops themselves are freely open to the passers, their glittering display of gold and silver filigree making the way brightly gorgeous with a character that is quite peculiar. There is no room for booths in the _Via dé Orefici_, but in a little piazza close by, called the _Piazza di Campetto_, the buying and selling of the palms go on busily. Throngs of people stream out thence into the narrow streets around, where palaces stand up stately on either side and, through a strip of blue sky above, the sun looks down furtively upon dark and winding ways that are bright now with colour and alive with hurrying folk. They are alive and strong and busy, yet even in their bustle and merriment they seem like some picture of the old life in those by-gone days when the lordly palaces and winding streets first grew into being.

As the night draws on, the workers kindle rough pine torches, whose fierce uneven light flares and flickers across the piazza and upon the faces of near bystanders; the sky looks black then overhead, and there are black shadows side by side with the red glare. The sale of palms must cease early on the Sunday morning, so that by Saturday night the holders of booths are well pleased to have their stock nearly disposed of. At all events the palms must be ready plaited to be set in the large market before sunrise to-morrow, because by eight o’clock the Piazza S. Domenico must be clear, even of marketers who have left their purchase to the last minute before church time.

Masses are being sung betimes, and the churches will be crowded long before the great service of the day at eleven o’clock. The streets are full to overflowing. Through the great _Piazza delle Fontane Amorose_ the people flock in a strange medley, each class in special attire. There are women of the merchant class, complacent in new spring dresses, who wear their fresh muslin _pezzotti_ after the new mode, the better to display their cunningly-plaited hair and ornaments of finely-wrought gold. There are servant-girls who have not much gold to show, but whose tresses are even more prettily arranged: and these smooth their black-silk aprons with an air of superiority as they note the factory girls, who have theirs only of woollen stuff. There are people of the gentry, who wear silk dresses and bonnets of Paris fashion, as they think, but these do not appear to much advantage on a day like this. Then there are peasant women, whose gorgeous red and orange-coloured kerchiefs serve better than all the rest to paint the streets over with brilliant tone; their ornaments are of massive gold moulded into ancient forms, the scarves that drape their heads and shoulders of many colours grotesquely designed, and of thicker material than the town-women’s muslin _pezzotti_; they call the thick scarf _mezzaro_.

The crowds wend their way through the town to the different churches, and now before the ducal palace they begin to grow denser than ever, for this is the way to the cathedral, where the Archbishop of Genoa is to bless the palms himself, at high mass. The great steps of the Duomo are covered with the multitude; the people press up them between the carven lions, through the beautiful gateways, and stand thickly packed beneath the central arch, where St. Laurence lies stretched on the torturing irons, and still other people are fighting their way through the piazza, and keep pouring in from the back streets. Boys and girls, men and women, mothers with swaddled infants, children that can barely walk alone and that have to be perched on the great lions which flank the steps of the Duomo, that they may have a chance of a sight of the procession; old women with ugly faces, who seem to be the more devout for their ugliness; men, of whom many make but a poor show even of outward respect;—all are jostled together upon the steps and in the entrances; and within the church’s aisles more people again are moving.

The chanting and preaching begin within, varied now and then by the rise and fall of barely suppressed voices throughout the nave. Then the procession comes forth—banners and images, and crowds of children bearing their white palms. The priest’s monotone continues within, and the procession outside makes answer. Its flag-bearers knock upon the gates of the church, and then the palms and the banners enter again. There is more of the ceremony, but even the people attend but sparingly to it. The crowd lingers awhile; some kneel on the steps to pray, some enter the cathedral as best they can for benediction; many more wait about outside and talk and laugh and gesticulate, but when mass is done, mothers and fathers claim their children from out the procession, and the multitudes disperse quietly.

The day’s afternoon is spent in the public ways and the public gardens. Perfect enjoyment for an Italian is the enjoyment of idleness, and he wears it with a graceful sort of sincerity. Day sinks into darkness, but the caffès are still open. The fire must not die out too soon, since with the morrow fasting must begin again.

So, amid laughter and jollity, _La festa delle Palme_ sinks away with everything else that is gone into the past things of the year.

Holy Week and Easter Feasts. I Sepolcri.

The Palms are blessed and done with, fasting has begun, for even the first week-days of the _Settimana Santa_ are ‘_giorni magri_,’ though few folks pretend to practise any self-denial until the last three days of the week. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday pass without much ado. The preacher-monks harangue congregations in churches, upon highways and market-places, pouring forth strange prognostications and fiery words, often of the most grotesque. But the _Frati predicatori_ are as nothing in the eyes of the populace compared with the sights and wonders that begin to multiply on Maundy Thursday. It is the day of the _Santo Sepolcro_.

People throng the churches; a pilgrimage to one or more of them is considered a sacred and a necessary duty. The Duomo is crowded. Worshippers tread the aisles of _Sant’Ambrogio_, that church which is famous to travellers for its Rubens, but to the inartistic natives for its ashes of St. John, and at this season for its magnificence of camellias: they kneel at its confessionals and bow before its altars and pray before its Christs and Virgins.