Chapter XVII: Part 17

Several contemporary writers cited by Tosti tell, however, that Benedict XI., Boniface's successor, died of poison believed to have been administered by Sciarra Colonna at the instigation of Philippe le Bel. But unfortunately for the tradition in the text Moroni [xiv. 283], who also mentions this, adds that Sciarra Colonna died in exile as he deserved. The two Cardinals Colonna, however, who had been exiled with the rest of the family, were reinstated by Benedict XI., and Clement V. in 1305 restored the other members of it to their possessions in the Roman States, where they made themselves obnoxious enough during the Papal residence at Avignon, and were as hostile to Rienzi as they had ever been to the Popes.

[278] Donna Olimpia Pamfili, nata Maidalchini, wife of the brother of Innocent X.

[279] Cancellieri Mercato, § ix. note 7.

[280] He had not, however, been originally intended for the Church; had been General of the Pontifical forces before he was Cardinal, and was only in Deacon's orders.

[281] His simplicity was the subject of many contemporary mots and anecdotes; e.g. at the time of his elevation to the purple the Pasquin statue had been temporarily lost to view by a hoarding put up for the erection of a neighbouring palace; 'Marforio' was supposed to express his condolence for the eclipse of his rival in the following distich:

'Non piangere Pasquino
Chè sarà tuo compagno Maidalchino.'

His want of capacity seems however to have been compensated by his goodness of heart.

[282] Cancellieri Mercato, § viii. As I have been desirous to put nothing in the text but what has reached myself by verbal tradition, I will add some no less interesting details collected by Cancellieri, in this place.

It was at her house in Piazza Navona that Bernini was rehabilitated in his character of first sculptor and architect of his time. 'Papa Pamfili,' though only the son of a tailor, (A certain Niccolo Caferri was much ridiculed for the spirit of adulation with which he pretended to trace up Innocent X.'s genealogy to Pamphilus, king of Doris, 300 years before the birth of Rome. But the Pope himself was so little ashamed of his origin that Cancellieri tells us he took a piece of cloth for one of his armorial bearings in memory of it.) was yet a patron of art. Highly famed under Urban VIII. the preceding Pontiff, Bernini had been misrepresented by his rivals to Innocent. In an unpublished Diary of Giacinto Gigli, Cancellieri finds that he was taken so seriously ill on St. Peter's Day, 1641 (This date, however, must be incorrect, as Innocent X. only began to reign in 1644. This grandiose Campanile is described at length, and a plate of it given in Fontana, 'Descrizione del tempio Vaticano,' p. 262, et seq. It was 360 ft. in height.) that his life was for some time despaired of, in consequence of his Campanile--a specimen one of two he had designed for St. Peter's--being disapproved by the Pope and ordered to be taken down. Another cognate tradition he gives from a MS. Diary of Valerio is, that in digging the foundations for this tower a 'canale d'acqua' was discovered deeper than the bed of the Tiber and wide enough to go on it in a boat; Mgr. Costaguti, maggiordomo of his Holiness, told me about it himself, and he had had himself let down to see it. As it had a sandy bottom, it washed away the foundations of the tower, and rendered it impossible to leave it standing. The water came from Anguillara' (on Lake Bracciano, about 28 miles) 'and the Pope had the old conduit reconstructed and used the water for many fountains in imitation of Sixtus V. (He does not specify what pope, and the wording used seems to imply Innocent X., but this aqueduct is always ascribed to Paul V., twenty years earlier, and is called the Acqua Paola.) He goes on to add an extraordinary account of a Dragon quite of the legendary type, that was found in charge of this water, and was killed, not by a hero or a knight, but, by the labourers working at the conduit.

It was Innocent X.'s ambition to remove the great obelisk (since called 'Obelisco Pamfilio') which lay in three pieces in the Circo di Massenzio, near the Appian Way, and to set it up in Piazza Navona. Bernini being, as I have said, in disfavour, other architects were commissioned to offer designs for the work; but the Pope was not satisfied with any of them, and the matter stood over. Meantime Piombino (Niccolò Ludovisi) who had married a niece of the Pope's, and who was a great friend of Bernini, privately instructed him to send him a model of what he would suggest for the purpose, saying he wanted it for his own satisfaction, lest Bernini should refuse the unauthorised competition. Bernini then produced the elaborate conception which has been so warmly extolled by some and so hastily blamed by others, but which cannot be judged without a prolonged study of all the poetical allegories and conceits it was his intention to embody.

The Pope went to the house of Donna Olimpia in Piazza Navona to dine after the Procession to the Minerva on the Annunciation, (Described in Cancellieri, 'Descrizione delle Cappelle Ponteficie,' cap. x.) and she placed the model in a room through which the Pope must pass after dinner. It did not fail to arrest his notice, and he was so much struck with it that he spent half an hour examining it in detail and listening to the explanation of its emblematical devices. At last he exclaimed, 'It can be by no other hand than Bernini's! and he must be employed in spite of all that may be said against him!' From that time Bernini was once more all that he had been before in Rome (Mercato, § ix.). When Innocent saw the great work completed, and the water of the four rivers for the first time gushing from it, he declared to Bernini he had given him pleasure great enough to add ten years to his life; and he sent over to Donna Olimpia for a hundred 'Doppie' (In Melchiorri's table of Roman moneys he gives the value (in 1758, a hundred years later) of a doppio as 4 scudi 40 bajocchi; and of a doppia at 6 scudi, 42 bajocchi. It appears to be the latter the Pope sent for.) to distribute among the workmen. Subsequently he had a medal struck with the inscription Agonalium cruore abluto Aqua Vergine, in allusion to the games of which Piazza Navona is supposed (Dyer says it was the Stadium of Domitian, and Becker, that there is no proof it was ever a circus.) to have been the scene, and the 'Vergine' aqueduct from which the fountains were supplied. 'Papa Pamfili' also restored St. John Lateran, and undertook many other works, but was somewhat hampered by the discontent of the people at the expense, expressed in the following pasquinades:

'Noi volemo altro che guglie e fontane:
Pane volemo, pane! pane! pane!'

and

'Ut lapides isti panes fiant!'

To return to Donna Olimpia. One of the pasquinades on her preserved in Cancellieri from Gigli's diary, refers to an accusation against her, that she had been very liberal both to religious communities and to the people until her brother-in-law (Cancellieri calls Innocent her cognato, and cognato in common conversation now is used for a cousin. Bazzarini explains it as 'any relationship by marriage.') was made Pope, and that when that object was attained she ceased her bounty. Pasquin wrote upon this, 'Donna Olimpia fuerat olim pia, nunc impia.'

Another declared that the said brother-in-law 'Olympiam potius quam Olympum respicere videbatur,' an accusation he declares to have been invented solely for the sake of punning, and without any truth, on faith of the character given him by his biographers, and of the fact that he was more than seventy-one when raised to the Papacy, and so deformed and ugly that Guido put his portrait under the feet of the archangel in his famous picture of St. Michael. (Mercato, Appendix, n. 4 to N. x.) She was, however, sometimes inexcusable in her haughty caprices, as, for instance, when she invited five and twenty Roman ladies to see a pageant, and then asked only eight of them to sit down to table with her, leaving the remainder 'mortificate alle finestre;' and frequently more free than choice in her mots. Her grandchildren seem to have inherited this freedom of speech; Gigli (quoted by Cancellieri, Mercato § xvi. and xx.) records in his Diary that the eldest of them, Giambattista, being asked one day by the Pope, who took great notice of him, if he had seen St. Agnese in Piazza Navona, which he was then building, replied (though only seven years old), 'I have not seen it yet; but you, if you don't make haste, won't live to see it completed.' It would seem to have been a popular prophecy which the child had caught up, and it so happens that the event bore it out.

There is nothing, however, which shows the heartless character of Donna Olimpia more glaringly than her refusal to pay a farthing to bury the Pope, alleging she was 'only a poor widow!' and this, though the Pope had not only 'favoured her so much as to endanger his reputation,' (MS. life of his successor Alex. VII. by Card. Pallavicini, quoted by Novaes: Storia de' Sommi Pontefici, x. 61.) but had handed to her all his disposable property on his deathbed. Donna Olimpia so utterly abandoned his body that it was carried down into a lumber-room where workmen kept their tools, and one poor labourer had the charity to buy a tallow candle to burn beside it, and another paid some one to watch it, to keep the mice off which abounded there. Finally, a Mgr. Scotti, his maggiordomo, paid for a coffin of 'albuccio,' (Nothing better than deal, I believe.) and a former maggiordomo, whom he had dispossessed, gave five scudi (returning good for evil) to pay the expenses of burying him. It was not till twelve years later that he had a fitting funeral in S. Maria dell' Anima.

When a few months after Innocent's death Donna Olimpia endeavoured to put herself on her old footing at the Vatican Court, by sending a valuable present of some gold vases to Alexander VII., that Pope testified his appreciation of her by returning her offering; adding the message that she was not to take the trouble to visit his palace, as it was no place for women. (Mercato, § xxi.) There was subsequently some angry correspondence between her and this Pope concerning the delays occasioned by her parsimony in completing the church in Piazza Navona, and the consequent obstruction of the Piazza, a great inconvenience to the public on account of its use as a market-place. Finally he banished her from Rome, fixing her residence at Orvieto, where she fell a victim to the plague two years after.

Her palace in Piazza Navona became in 1695 the residence of Lord Castlemaine, ambassador of James II. to the Holy See. He had an ox roasted whole before it, and other bounties distributed to the people on occasion of the birth of 'The Pretender.'

[283] An argument worthy to take rank beside the famous one of 'Mrs. Brown' concerning Noah's Ark.

[284] I said this, really thinking at the moment there was such a statue surmounting the apex of the pediment of the façade; but it afterwards came to mind and I have since verified it on the spot, that the statues on the pediment represent the twelve Apostles with Christ in the centre, and there is no female figure there. Among the numerous statues of saints surmounting the colonnade, are a small proportion of female saints, but no one at all prominent.

[285] The Marescotti were a noble family of Bologna, the second city of the Pontifical Dominions; there were two cardinals of the name.

[286] 'Il buon uomo di loro padre.'

[287] 'Faceva il diavolo,' lit. 'raised the devil.'

[288] 'In quei tempi antichi ubbedirono le figlie, capisce.' 'Capisce,' lit. 'understand,' equivalent to 'you see.'

[289] 'Puzza--puzza di peccato!' Lit. 'It stinks--it stinks of sin.' (See n. 5, p. 13.)

[290] I give the story, as near as possible, in the words which the pious faith of the narrator prompted her to use. The success of the final results of a measure may prove that what seemed tyranny was really prudent foresight; the contemporary views of parental responsibility must also be taken into account. But it is impossible for the modern English mind to sympathise readily with so violent an interference with natural instincts.

[291] 'A mano, a mano.'

[292] 'Catenella,' lit. 'little chain,' an instrument of penance worn by some persons on the arm or waist.

[293] The following are briefly the authentic particulars of her life from Moroni, xxx. 194. She was daughter of Marc Antonio Mariscotti and Ottavia Orsini, born in 1535, and baptised by the name of Clarice. Although brought up in the fear of God and led to appreciate holiness, her youth was passed in worldliness and vanity. Her younger sister having been asked in marriage before her, she was so much vexed and annoyed that she became insupportable at home, on which account her father proposed to her to become a nun in the convent of S. Bernardino at Viterbo, where she had been educated, and she adapted herself to his counsel, though without any personal inclination for it. At the end of her noviciate she made her father arrange that she should have a room of her own magnificently furnished. Sister Giacinta lived ten years thus a religious in name but not in mind. Nevertheless she was not without virtue, for she was always obedient to her superior as she had been to her parents; and her modesty, purity, and respect for holy things was observed by all. A serious illness was to her the call of grace; having given up to the abbess of the convent all the things that had been brought in for her use by special privilege, she devoted herself to severe penance and continual meditation. On occasion of a contagious disease with which Viterbo was afflicted, she gave abundant proof of her charity towards her neighbour, for she founded two societies, the object of one of which was to collect assistance for the convalescent and those who had fallen into reduced circumstances; the other to support a hospital built to receive the sick. These two societies, which she called 'Oblates of Mary,' still continue (the date of Moroni's work is 1845) in full activity.

[294] The statue called by this name was not originally found in its present situation. The shop of the tailor Pasquino was in the Via in Parione, a turning out of the Via del Governo Vecchio, some little distance off, nor was it discovered at all till after Pasquino's death. At his time it was buried unperceived in the pavement of the street, and the inequalities of its outline afforded stepping-stones by means of which passengers picked their way through the puddles! Cancellieri (Mercato, appendix, N. iii.)] quotes a passage from a certain Tibaldeo di Ferrara, quoted in a book, his dissertation concerning the author of which is too long to quote. This Tibaldeo, however, says, 'as the street was being repaired, and I had the shop that was Pasquino's made level, the trunk of a statue, probably of a gladiator, was found, and the people immediately gave it his name.' He, however, quotes from other writers mention of other sites for its discovery mostly somewhat nearer to the present situation. The site of the present Palazzo Braschi was then occupied by the so-called Torre Orsini, a building of a very different ground-plan. Cancellieri quotes from more than one MS. diary that at the time the Marquis de Créquy came to Rome as ambassador of Louis XIII. in 1633, the Palazzo de' Orsini, where he was lodged, was designated as 'sopra Pasquino.' And again from another MS. diary, that in 1728, when the palace was bought by the Duca di Bracciano-Odoscalchi, the same designation remained in use. In the Diary of Cracas, under date March 19, 1791, is an entry detailing the care with which the Pasquino statue was removed to a pedestal prepared for it in front of Palazzo Pamfili during the completion of the contiguous portion of the Palazzo Braschi, and its restoration is duly entered on the 14th March of the same year. (There is clearly a typographical error about one of these dates, which could doubtless be corrected by reference to 'Notizie delle due famose statue di un fiume e di Patroclo dette volgarmente di Marforio e di Pasquino,' by the same author, Rome, 1789, which I have not been able to see. Moroni, vi. 99, gives 1791 as the year in which it was bought by Duke Braschi, the nephew of Pius VI. while the Pope was in exile in France, and the completion by the rebuilding must, therefore, have been some years later.

The date of its discovery is told in the following inscription by the cardinal inhabiting Torre Orsini at the time, and who saved it from destruction:--

Oliverii Caraffa
Beneficio hic sum
Anno Salvati Mundi--MDI.)

It was Adrian VI. (not Alexander VI. as Murray has it), who proposed to throw it into the Tiber. Adrian VI. was a victim of pasquinades for two reasons,--the first, because born at Utrecht and tutor of Charles V., and afterwards viceroy in Spain, during all Charles' absence in Germany Rome feared at his election that he would set up the Papal See in Spain; and it is not altogether impossible that the popular satires may have had some influence in deciding him on the contrary to repair immediately to Rome,--the second, because he was an energetic and unsparing reformer; and those who were touched by his measures were just those who could afford to pay the hire of the tongues of popular wags.

Nor was it only during his life that he was the subject of such criticisms. When his rigorous reign was suddenly brought to a close after he had worn the tiara but twenty months, on the door of his physician was posted this satire, 'Liberatori Patriæ S.P.Q.R.' (Giovio; Vit. Hadr. VI.); and his tomb in St. Peter's, between that of Pius II. and Pius III., was disgraced with this epitaph: 'Hic jacet impius inter Pios,' till some years later, when his body was removed to a worthier monument in S. Maria del Anima.

[295] I have not been able to make out the origin of this name. It is possibly, a mere combination of Cecco, short for Francesco, and a family name, or the name of the village of which he was native which I do not recognise.

[296] 'Nei tempi di prima.'

[297] It is very likely Cècingùlo was some generations older even than the narrator's 'papa.' I have thought it worth while to put this much about him on record, as he was doubtless one of those who have given the local colouring to these very tales. The old women whose heads are their storehouse, as they repeat them over the spinning-wheel, say them with no further alteration than want of memory or want of apprehension necessarily occasions. It is the professional wag who, sitting in the midst of the vegetable market amid a peasant audience, will ascribe to a cicoriaro the acts of a paladin, and insert 'a casino in the Campagna' in the place of an oriental palace. I have met various people who had heard as much as the above about Cècingùlo, but no more.

[298] 'Lo Sposalizio di Sor Cassandro.' For 'Sor' see p. 194.

[299] The 'Via di Panìco' is so called, according to Rufini, because on a bit of ancient sculpture built into the wall of one of the houses where it had been dug up as is so commonly done in Rome, the people thought they saw the likeness of some ears of millet, panìco, and birds pecking them.

[300] Just as at Oxford, men say 'the High' and 'the Corn,' &c, it is very common in Rome to use the name of a street omitting the word Via.

[301] 'Friggitoria,' an open shop where all manner of fried dishes very popular among the lower classes, and varying according to the time of year, are made and sold; three or four or more enormous pans of oil and of lard are kept boiling, and at one season fish, at another rice-balls, at another artichokes, &c. &c, always previously dipped into light batter, are cooked therein to a bright gold colour. On St. Joseph's Day, as it always falls in Lent, a meagre festa-dish is made of balls of batter fried in oil, in as universal request as our pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. A writer in the 'Giovedi' mentions two popular traditions on the connexion between the 'frittelle' or 'frittatelli' and St. Joseph. One is that St. Joseph was wont to make such a dish for his meal by frying them with the shavings from his bench, in the same dangerous way that you may see those of his trade heating their glue in any carpenter's shop in Rome. The other, that on occasion of the Visitation, the B. Virgin and St. Elizabeth remained so long in ecstatic conversation that the dinner was forgotten, and St. Joseph took the liberty allowed to so near a relation of possessing himself of a frying-pan and preparing a dish of 'frittelle.'

The writer already quoted narrates in another paper that the 'friggitori' formerly plied their trade in the open air, but one day a cat escaping from the attentions of an admirer she did not choose to encourage, sprang from a low roof adjoining, right into the frying-pan of a 'friggitore' full as it was of boiling oil and spluttering 'frittelle'; the cat overturned the frying-pan, setting herself on fire, and carrying a panic together with a stream of flaming oil into the midst of the crowd in waiting for their 'frittelle.' Since that day the 'friggitore' fries under cover, though still in open shops.

[302] Great part of the fun of the story consisted of jokes upon these technicalities which it would be too tedious to reproduce and explain.

[303] 'Brutto vecchiaccio!' ugly, horrid old man.

[304] 'Bella e ricca quanto il sole.'

[305] 'Mosca' and 'neo' both mean either a mole or a patch.

[306] 'Sicario,' hired assassin.

[307] 'I Matrimonio del Signor Cajusse.' This story, it will be seen, is altogether disconnected with the other of the same name at p. 158-69, and it is curious so similar a title should be appended to so dissimilar a story. It has not half the humour of Mr. Campbell's 'Baillie Lunnain,' No. xvii. b. Vol. i., but is sufficiently like to pair off against it. It is also observable for representing exactly the proceeding of the 'Marquis di Carabas' in 'Puss in Boots.'

[308] 'Mercante di Campagna,' see n. 2, p. 154.

[309] 'Tenuta,' a farm; a holding.

[310] 'Merenda,' see n. 7, p. 155.

[311] This story, again, is perhaps more curious for the sake of the repetition of the name of Lattanzio, in so different a story as that at p. 155, than for its contents. There is doubtless a reason why this name should come into this sort of use as with that of 'Cajusse,' but I have not as yet been able to meet with it.

[312] '21 o'clock,' three hours before the Ave.

[313] 'Gisbuse' are high boots of unblackened leather reaching up to the thighs, worn by sportsmen about Rome.

[314] 'Viva!' or 'Evviva!' is a not very uncommon, though rather old-fashioned, mode of hearty greeting.

[315] 'Curiale,' a lawyer, a pleader.

[316] 'Scimmia,' a monkey. In England we usually speak of a cat as of feminine gender, and in Germany the custom is so strong that the well-known riddle pronounces the 'Kater' (tom cat) 'keine Katze' (no cat), while in France, Spain and Italy the normal cat is masculine. In Italian, on the other hand, the monkey is always spoken of in the feminine gender; it becomes noteworthy in this instance when we consider the termination of the story. 'Bellacuccia,' 'dear little pretty one.'

[317] I do not know at what period the transfer took place, but in the edition of 1725, of Panciroli's book on Rome, the church is named as built and served by the 'Eremiti scalsi di S. Agostino,' corroborating this part of the story.

[318] 'Fatato.'

[319] 'You know what a "selvaggio" is, I suppose?' asked the narrator. 'Yes; a wild man,' I answered, thinking of the German myths. 'No, they weren't altogether men, they were those creatures there used to be in old times, half men with legs like goats, but they walked on two legs, and had heads and arms like men.' After this description, I thought I might take the license of adopting the title for a word incidentally used by the narrator in telling the story. The shepherds and goatherds about Rome with their goatskin leggings covering leg and thigh, readily suggest to the eye how the idea of a satyr may have first arisen.

[320] 'Appassionata,' 'of a broken heart.'

[321] 'Ferraiuola,' the light cloak with a shoulderpiece which priests wear out of doors in Rome in summer. It was formerly worn by others besides priests.

[322] Sgramfia, or granfa or gramfia, is a claw of a beast, or of a bird of prey, most often used for the latter. I hardly know how this came to be ascribed to a satyr, unless she meant simply that his nails were rather strongly developed.

[323] Bazzarini gives 'salvatico' as synonymous with 'satiro.'

[324] 'Mi volete bene,' literally, only 'do you wish me well?' but the accepted form of saying, 'do you love me?' when therefore the girl says the words at last she is supposed to make a sort of compromise by means of which she saves the prince and her own good taste at the same time.

[325] Though I believe there is no rule or ground for the distinction, in conversational language, 'fratello' is used for 'brother,' and 'frate' for 'monk' (as 'sorella' usually means any sister and 'suora' a nun). 'Frate,' again, is usually, though not by any rule, or exclusively, reserved for the mendicant Franciscans. A Capuchin is called 'padre cappucino,' and a Dominican, generally, a 'padre domenicano.'

[326] 'Laico.'

[327] 'Guercino.' There is no very definitely expressed distinction in Italian in the way of saying weak-sighted, or one-eyed, or squinting; 'guercio' is used to express all. The termination 'ino' here is not an actual diminutive, but means 'he who is one-eyed,' or 'he who is weak-sighted,' or 'he who squints,' with an implied expression of sympathy (see Note 5, p. 379). In this case the conclusion shows that 'one-eyed' was intended.

[328] 'Posate,' plural of 'posata,' knife, fork, and spoon.

[329] 'Ecco servito, Excellenza.' 'It is all done as you desire.'

[330] The poor, badly fed themselves, delight to dilate on a description of good living, just as dreaming of eating is said to arise from a condition of hunger. I have not added a word here in the text to those of the narrator of the story, and her enumeration is a very fair rendering of the usual repertory of a Roman innkeeper. Broth or thin soup ('minestra'); a dish of boiled meat ('lesso'), of 'arrosto,' that is, grilled or baked, and of 'fritto' (fried) is the regular course: 'gallinaccio spezzato' is a turkey cut up in joints and served with various sauces, and is much more esteemed than if cooked whole, a rather unusual dish; 'frittata,' omelette; 'crescione,' watercresses.

[331] 'Beato a te, Francesco.'

[332] 'Born,' an Italianism for 'laid.'

[333] 'Fritto dorato.' Romans, though not eminent in the culinary art, fry admirably. They always succeed in making their fried dishes a rich golden colour, and they ordinarily express a fried dish by the two words together, 'fritto dorato.'

[334] 'Beato a te, Francesco,
Che quando morirai
Un occhio serrerai
E l'altro no!'

[335] The merit of this story consists much in the mode of telling. The narrator should be able to imitate the peculiar tone to which the 'Preface' is sung, and to supply the corresponding notes for the additional insertion. It was very effectively done by the person who told it to me.

[336] 'Asino o porco.'

[337] 'Padre Guardiano' is the ordinary title of the Superior in Franciscan convents.

[338] 'Zicherte! Zacherte!'

[339] 'I sette Villani.'

[340] 'Un po' di mistuanza.' 'Mistuanza' is a word in use among the poor for a mixture of herbs of which they make a kind of poor salad.

[341] 'Un po' di bove, un po' di porchi, un po' di galline.'

'Un po' (un poco) a little. The effect of the story depended a good deal on the tones of voice in which it was told. The deprecatory tone of the penitent as he says, 'un po' di bove,' &c., and the horror of the priest as he cries out, 'Signori della mistuanza!'

This same story in quite another dress was told me one evening in Aldershot Camp; and as it is a very curious instance of the migration of myths, I give the home version.

It would seem that in Aldershot lingo, or in the lingo of a certain regiment once stationed there, to 'kill a fox' means to get drunk. Possibly the expression was acquired during the Peninsular war, as 'tomar una zorrilla' has an equivalent meaning in Spanish. The story was this. Once during the brief holiday of the chaplain of the regiment, a French priest who knew a little English took his place. At confession the chief fault of which, according to the story, the men accused themselves was that they had 'killed a fox,' an expression perfectly well understood by their own pastor. The good French priest, however, instead of being shocked at finding how often men got drunk, was highly edified at the angelic simplicity of these Angles, who showed so much contrition for having indulged in the innocent pastime--in France, not even an offence among sportsmen--of having killed a fox.

At last there came one of a more humorous turn of mind than the rest, and the surnois air with which he pronounced the expression revealed to the good Frenchman that the words meant something more than they said.

'Vat mean you ven you say, "kill de fox?"' now inquired the Frenchman of his penitent with fear and trembling. And the blunt soldier had no sooner expounded the slang than the bewildered foreigner threw open the front wicket of the confessional and cried aloud:

'Come back! all you dat have killed de foxes! Come back! come back!'

[342] 'L'uccelletto,' the little bird.

[343] 'Terrino,' a high earthen dish with a cover, probably the origin of our 'tureen,' almost the only kind of Italian dish that ever has a cover.

[344] 'Il Diavolo che prese Moglie.'

[345] 'Il Capo diavolo.'

[346] 'Il più bravo.'

[347] Witches were generally accused of communicating with the Devil, going to midnight meetings with him, &c., by means of ointments. See 'Del Rio,' lib. ii. Q. xvi. p. 81, col. 1, C., and lib. iii. P. 1, 2, ii. p. 155, col. 1, B., &c., &c.

[348] 'La Regina e la Triparola;' 'Triparola,' female tripe-seller.

[349] 'Vicolo,' a narrow dirty street.

[350] 'Due gocciette d'acqua,' two little drops of water, the Roman equivalent for 'as like as two peas.'

[351] 'Triparolo,' a male tripe-seller.

[352] 'Un bajocco di tripa-gatto,' the worst part of the tripe, sold for cats' and dogs' meat.

[353] 'La Regina Cattiva.'

[354] 'La Sposa Cece,' the simple wife. 'Cece' among the common people seems to mean pretty nearly the same as 'tonto,' 'silly,' 'idiotic;' in this place more exactly 'simple' or 'half-witted.'

[355] It is a characteristic of the Roman people that as a rule they never call people by their names; the 'casato' or married name, and the 'cognome' or family name, are used indifferently when such a name is called in request at all, by married people. If they must give a name to a stranger it is always the Christian name that comes first to their lips; among themselves, however, it is seldom the genuine name that is used. They have some 'sopranome' or nick-name for everybody, or at least a shortening of the Christian name, as 'Checca' and 'Checco' for Francesca and Francesco; 'Pippo' for Filippo; 'Pepe' for Giuseppe; 'Cola' for Niccola; 'Maso' for Tomaso; 'Teta' for Teresa; 'Lalla' for Adelaide; 'Lina' for Carolina; 'Tuta' for Geltrude; the abbreviations for Giovanni are innumerable.

But what they most love to designate people by is a description of their persons. When you come home from your walk, your servant does not tell you Mr. and Mrs. So-and-so have called, but it will be 'Quel signore vecchio ingobbato' (that old hump-backed kind of gentleman), if he be the least grey and high-shouldered, however young he may be; or 'Quel bel giovane alto' (that tall, handsome, young gentleman), whatever his age, if he be only bien conservé. Then 'Quella signora alta, secca, che veste di lutto' (that tall thin lady dressed in mourning). 'Quella signora bella bionda, giovane' (that lady, pretty, fair, young). Or 'Quello che porta il brillante' (he who wears a brilliant), because the same friend happened to have a diamond stud in his cravat one day; or 'Quella contessa che veste di cilestro,' because the lady happened once to wear a blue dress, and so on, with all manner of signs and tokens which it may take you half-an-hour to recognise a person by, if you ever make it out at all. Or, if there is no distinctive mark of the kind to seize upon, it will be 'Quel signore,' or 'quella signora di Palazzo,' or 'Via,' or 'Piazza' So-and-so. And this not from the difficulty of catching a foreign name, because it is still more in vogue when designating their own people; if you are asking for the address of a servant, a tailor, a dressmaker, &c., it is in vain you try to make them out by the name, you must do your best to describe them, and then they will break out with an exclamation hitting it off for themselves: 'Ah! si, quel scimunito' (that silly-looking fellow); 'quel gobbo' (that high-shouldered fellow--lit. 'hunchbacked'); 'quella strega' (that ugly old woman, cunning woman--lit. 'witch'); 'quella bella giovane alta' (that tall handsome girl); 'quella donna bassetta' (that short little woman), for with their descriptions as with their names they must super-add a diminutive or a qualification, and 'basso' (short) is pretty sure to be rendered by 'bassetto,' 'piccola' (little) by 'piccinina,' 'vecchio' (old) by 'vecchietto.' 'Quella scimia' or 'scimietta' (that old woman, or that little old woman who looks like a monkey). 'Quella donna anziana' (that respectable old woman). 'Quella donniciuola' (that nasty little old woman, contemptible old woman). 'Quel ragazzino, tanto carino, tanto caruccio' (that nice boy, that very nice boy). 'Quel vecchietto' (that nice old man); and in this way the hero of this story is designated as 'The man who has a daughter to marry.'

[356] 'Boccione,' a large coarse glass bottle commonly used in Rome for carrying wine. When it is covered with twisted rushes--like the oil-flasks that come to England--it is called a 'damigiana,' a young lady, a little lady.

[357] 'Mettetevelo addietro.' Lit. 'Put it behind you,' a way of saying 'Never mind it,' 'don't care about it.' But the woman is supposed to be so foolish that she understands it literally.

[358] The Italian custom of the newly married couples continuing to live with the parents of one or other of them is here brought in.

[359] 'Tegame,' a flat earthen pan much in vogue in Roman kitchens; 'ova in tegame' is a favourite and not a bad dish. A little fresh butter is oiled, and the eggs are dropped into it as for poaching, and very slowly cooked in it; when scarcely set they are reckoned done.

[360] Such notions are not altogether so impossible as they seem. I myself heard a very intelligent little boy one day say to his mother, 'Mama, I should so like to see a horse's egg.' 'A horse's egg, my dear--there are no such things,' was the reply of course. 'Oh yes, there must be,' rejoined the child, 'because I've heard Pa several times talk about finding a mare's nest.'

[361] 'Uovo,' by the way, is a word with which great liberties are taken. The correct singular is 'uovo' and the plural 'uova,' but it is very common to make the plural in 'i' and also to say 'uova' for the singular, and 'uove' for plural, while the initial 'u' is most usually dropped out.

[362] 'Brodo' is beef-tea or clear broth with nothing in it; broth with vermicelli or anything else in it is 'minestra;' 'zuppa,' which sounds most like 'soup,' is rather 'sop,' and when applied to broth, means strictly only broth with bread in it, from 'inzuppare,' to steep, soak, or sop; but it is also used for broth with anything else in it besides bread, but never without anything in it.

[363] 'La Donna Mattarella.' 'Matto' is simply 'mad,' with the diminutive 'ella' it comes to mean 'slightly mad,' 'simple.'

[364] 'Il Tonto.'

[365] 'Chiodacci;' 'chiodi,' nails; 'chiodacci,' old rusty nails.

[366] 'La Ragazza Golosa;' 'goloso' means, in particular, greedy of nice things.

[367] 'Codiche di presciúto.'

[368] 'Mercante di Campagna.' See Note 2, p. 154.

[369] 'Voi pensate a voi ed io penso a me!' 'Pensare' is much used in Rome in the sense of 'to attend to,' 'to provide for.'

[370] 'Guèrcia,' see Note 3 to 'The Two Friars;' in this case squinting seems intended.

[371] 'La Figlia Ghiotta.' 'Ghiotta' and 'golosa' have much the same meaning.

[372] 'Compare-lupo' (lit. had a wolf for godfather); 'compare' for 'compadre,' godfather, gossip. Lycanthropy had an important place in the mediæval as in the earlier mythologies; witches were often accused of turning people into wolves by the use of their ointments. Our 'Little Red Riding Hood' is connected with it, and several in the German and Tirolese Stories, but it is too wide a subject to enter upon here.

[373] 'Il Vecchio Avaro.' (The Avaricious Old Man.)

[374] 'Che campasse d'aria,' who should subsist on air.

[375] 'Abbi pazienza,' have patience; equivalent to 'please,' 'pray excuse me,' &c.

[376] 'Trattoria,' an eating-house, but one where, as a rule, dinners are sent out.

[377] 'Giovedi grasso,' Thursday in Carneval week, a day of a little extra feasting.

[378] 'La Vecchia Avara.' This story was told in emulation of the last, otherwise it is hardly worth reproducing. The only merit of the story consisted in the liveliness of the pantomime with which the words of the third wife were rendered. To the poor, however, such a story is a treasure, as it tells of the condign punishment of an oppressor; and there are few of them who have not some experience of what it is to be trampled on.

[379] According to the local custom prevailing among all classes, of married sons and daughters continuing to live in the same house with their parents.

[380] 'Dispensa,' store-room.

[381] 'Pizza,' a cake; 'ricotta,' curds of sheep's milk.

[382] 'Il Poverello del Cece.' The termination of the word 'Poverello' is one of those which determine the sentiment of the speaker in a way it is impossible to put into English. We use 'poor' (e.g. joined to the name of a deceased friend) to express sympathy and endearment; if we put 'poor' in this sense before the expression 'povero,' 'a poor man,' 'poverello,' 'a poor poor man,' we have the nearest rendering. Dante calls St. Francis, apostle of voluntary poverty, 'Quel poverel' di Dio.' It is the common expression in Rome for a beggar. The 'Poverello' in this story, however, was not one that merited much compassion.

[383] 'Cece,' vetch, produces a very large pea in the south of Europe, and provides a staple article of food much liked among the lower orders. In Italy it is mostly eaten plain boiled, often cold, or else in soup and stews. All day long men go about the streets in Rome selling them (plain boiled) in wooden pails. Boys buy a handful as they would cherries, and eat them as they go along. In Spain, where it bears the name of 'garbanzo,' the favourite mode of cooking it is stewed in oil, with a large quantity of red pepper.

[384] 'Coratella,' nice little heart.

[385] 'O la vitella,
O la zitella.'

'Vitella,' a calf; 'zitella,' an unmarried person.

[386] 'Berretta,' (also written 'biretta') is used for any kind of cap worn by men or boys. It would appear that no kind of head-covering except a hood to the cloak, enabling the wearer to cover the head, or leave it bare at pleasure, was in common use in Italy before the sixteenth century, though the 'berretta' is mentioned in documents as part of ecclesiastical, particularly of the pontifical, dress, as early as the tenth century. The round 'berretta' coming to be commonly used by the people, their superiors adopted the quadrated form, which, with some modifications, is that still adopted by the Catholic clergy. Graduates and doctors were privileged to wear it, hence its use by Doctor Grillo; and though monks generally are not, some of those engaged in preaching and teaching have a special permission to do so. The Superior of the Theatine Convent of Naples alone, among all superiors of nuns, has the privilege of wearing the 'berretta.' Orsola Benincasa, the founder, was called to Rome that the Pope (Gregory XIII., 1576) might examine whether the reputation she had acquired for learning and piety was well founded. Not only was the Pope well satisfied with her, but St. Philip Neri also gave her many tokens of approval, and, among others, in his playful way, put his 'berretta' on her head. This honour has been commemorated by her successors retaining its use.

[387] 'Vale più un oncia di fortuna che una libbra di sapere.'

[388] 'Un saccentuzze.'

[389] 'Garbatezza.'

[390] 'Sassata,' in Italian, has a more terrible significance than 'stone-throwing,' in English, conveys. The art of throwing and slinging stones with dexterity and accuracy of aim would seem to have been as favourite a pastime among the peasantry in Italy and Spain as archery among our own. For the purposes of the present volume, it needs only to allude to the Roman development of the practice. P. Bresciani, who has taken more pains than any writer of the present age in illustrating the local customs of Rome, tells us the 'sassate' continued a favourite diversion of the youth of Rome almost down to our own day, and it was only by the most strenuous and vigorous measures that Cardinal Consalvi was enabled to put an end to it; being impelled thereto by the barbarous tone of feeling it engendered, and the frequent casualties resulting from it. The most idle and dissolute raggamuffins of the Monti and Trastevere quarters were among the most dexterous of marksmen. Whenever they aimed a throw, 'fosse di fionda o fosse di soprammano' (whether from a sling or from the hand) they were sure to hit the mark; so that any one of them might have written, like the Greek archer on his arrow, 'for the right eye of Philip,' on his 'ciotto.' ('Ciotto' is a stone such as would be used for throwing from a sling, and thus 'ciottolo' means equally a road made with rough stones and a 'sassata.' What is more to our present purpose is, that 'ciotto' means also 'lame,' suggesting how often persons may have been lamed by 'sassate'). It is said that in the Balearic islands, it was the custom for mothers to tie the meals of their children to a branch of a tree, and none got anything to eat till he had hit the string with a stone, and thus they were trained to 'fiondeggiare' (to throw from a sling) perfectly. The Roman raggamuffins, instead of their food, used to have for their mark the features of donna Lucrezia and Marforio, and they 'ciottolavanle' (pelted them) with stones from far and near. At other times their aim would be directed against a tuft of herbage dangling down from the arches of the aqueducts of Nero or Claudius, nor would they rest from their aiming till they had rooted it out with their stones. Their highest ambition was to direct a stone right through one of the small window-openings in the loftiest range at the Coliseum. After such practice, we may well believe the stones fell true when they had a living adversary before them.

'And as it is the evil custom of the sons of Adam to strive one against the other, and for the excitement of contention every village loves to keep up warfare with its next neighbouring village, so the "Rioni" of Rome delighted in trials of skill one against the other. Thus on every holiday a hundred or two of Montegiani and Trasteverini were to be found arrayed against each other, and all arranged in due order of battle, with its skirmishers and reconnoitring parties, its van-guard and rear-guard. One side would take the Aventine for its base of operations, and another the Palatine....' After describing very graphically the tactics in vogue, our author goes on to say, 'The adults of both factions stood by the while and backed up the boys, and often the strife which had begun as boys' pastime ended in serious maiming of grown up men. Hence, not a holiday passed but some mother had to mourn over a son brought home to her with a broken head or an eye knocked out; or some wife over a husband riddled (sforacchiato) with wounds....' Hence it was that Cardinal Consalvi, as we have seen, put an end to such rough play.

[391] 'Quella,' in the original, lends itself better to the purposed misunderstanding of the story, meaning 'that one,' 'such an one as that!' in the feminine gender; and the master would think the servant said it in contempt because he spoke of a miller's daughter.

[392] 'La Buona Grazia del Gobbo.'

[393] 'In mezzo alla strada.'

[394] 'Good Grace,' also the 'good favour,' the 'good graces.'

[395] 'Cortile,' inner court of palaces and houses that are built in a quadrangle.

[396] 'Saccoccia di polenta.' 'Polenta' is a porridge made of Indian corn meal, which makes a staple article of food of the Italian peasantry. It is, however, used for the meal of which the porridge is going to be made, though that is more usually called 'formentone,' or 'grano turco.' 'Saccroccia di polenta' would be a large pouch in which poor country labourers carry a provision of meal, when going out to work in the Campagna. The girl takes Giuditta's bag in the picture for such a 'saccoccia' as she had been used to see.

[397] 'Tramezzo.'

[398] 'Pupazza,' a doll, a stuffed figure.

[399] 'Mi date la vostra buona grazia,' a common expression of no particular meaning; a compliment, equivalent to, 'We part good friends,' 'Give me your good favour.'

[400] In a wine country the idea of wine being almost a necessity of existence occurs more readily than in England, where, however general its use, it is still a luxury.

[401] 'Era stufa,' a way of saying, she was 'worn out,' 'wearied out.'

[402] 'Palazzo.'

[403] 'Credenziere,' confidential servant.

[404] 'Aia,' upper nurse, nursery governess.

[405] 'Combinazione.'

[406] 'E così fece' (and thus he did) is another of the expressions in universal use in Rome in tale-telling, forming a sort of refrain.

[407] 'I sposi Felici.'

[408] 'Esempio,' see preface. 'Esempiuccio,' a termination of endearment, meaning in this place 'a nice "esempio".'

[409] 'Vecchiaccia,' bad old woman.

[410] 'Forma di formaggio,' a whole cheese. 'Cacio,' the proper word for cheese, is almost entirely superseded by 'formaggio,' which comes from 'forma,' the press or mould in which it is made.

[411] 'Una Camera di Locanda.'

[412] 'Combinazione.'

[413] 'Credenziere.'

[414] 'Un ora di notte'; an hour after the evening 'Ave.'

[415] 'Il Gatto della Contessa.'

[416] 'Il gatto non dissi niente, ma guardava con certi occhi grossi, grossi, fissi.'

[417] 'Strozzato,' throttled; killed by wounding the strozzo, throat.

[418] 'E questo è un fatto vero, sa; perchè il gatto è traditore sempre. Il cane e fedele si, ma il gatto è traditore.'

[419] 'Perchè litigano sempre i Cani ed i Gatti.'

[420] 'Dàlli! Dàlli ai cani!'

[421] 'Contes Populaires des anciens Bretons, précédés d'un Essai sur l'origine des Epopées chevaleresques de la Table Ronde.' Par Th. de la Villemarqué. Paris et Leipzig, 1842.