Chapter I: HAD left Clementina and the little ones behind me, and had moved

further up among the Apennines to a village which, perched on a low hill, overlooks the river and the winding valley. The summits of the mountains all around rise bare and scarped from dark pine and ash woods, while their bases are clothed with chestnuts. Many a long line of soldiers have the villagers seen marching up the valley on the other side of the river which flows at their feet: for the pass is an important one, being the high road from Tuscany into the Modenese. Napoleon III. and Victor Emmanuel rode through it side by side, and old men still relate how the village turned out to salute Emperor and King as they went by. The great Napoleon lives too, in the recollection of the country people, for he drew many soldiers from all the districts round for his “Summer Excursion to Moscow.” One cannot vouch, however, for the historical exactitude of some of the stories concerning him. One old woman, for instance, whose husband had saved himself on the ill-fated expedition by cutting open a horse and getting inside it, firmly believed that _le petit Caporal_ had perished miserably at Moscow, pickled in a barrel of salt!

Nor are more ancient historical associations wanting. At a very little distance lies the village of Gavinana where the lion-hearted Francesco Ferruccio, trying to burst through the mountains from Pisa to the relief of Florence, was betrayed in 1530 to the Prince of Orange. Captured in the battle which ensued, and carried, covered with wounds which must have been fatal, into the market-place before the Imperialist leader, he was there stabbed to death in cold blood, and expired with the exclamation:—“It is a noble thing to kill a dead man!”

In still more ancient times Catiline passed up the valley when trying to force the Apennines; and the public square bears the name of Piazza Catilina in honour of the monster whom Sallust took so much pains to delineate.

Legends of classical Italian literature, too, still linger here. An inn in the village is called the “Cappel d’Orlando”—(Orlando’s Hat)—after Ariosto’s famous hero; and a conical-shaped hill on the other side of the valley bears the same name. I asked one of my peasant acquaintances why it was so called, and who Orlando was. The answer was amusing as showing the country conception of the temper and achievements of a knight-errant:—

“Orlando,” said the woman, “was a warrior, who rode about looking for someone to fight with. When he came to the top of that hill, he reined in his horse so violently to avoid falling over the precipice that the animal’s hoof sank deep into the rock, and the print can still be seen. He took a tremendous leap from the top of the hill down into the village below, but he left his hat behind him. It was afterwards found, and the place was then called Cappel d’Orlando.”

Another informant evidently attributed to Orlando the time-annihilating hat for which Carlyle sighs so vainly; for she added to the original story a rider, saying that Orlando, after his marvellous leap, went to Gavinana and was killed fighting against Ferruccio.

Remembrances of an older classical literature than Ariosto abound also. The Muses, Helicon, Troy, are common words among these peasants, whether in speech or in song.

As is mostly the case in Tuscany, the country people are devout; that is to say, they go to mass on Sundays, firmly believe in miracles, and miracle-working images, and are fond of walking in procession. The church of Cutigliano, the village in which I was staying, rejoices in the possession of the entire skeletons of two saints, and of two valuable palladiums—a Madonna which preserves the place from epidemics, and a crucifix which regulates the supply of rain.

On the Feast of the Madonnina, the first of the palladiums is carried in state through the village, the peasants flocking in from all the hamlets near to join in the procession and chant their Ave Marias. The figure is of wood, highly painted, dressed in light blue robes, ornamented with tinsel, and with rings and rosaries on the outstretched hands.

“Did you see my nosegay right in front?” said my landlady that evening. “It was the best there. I love that Madonnina; she saved us from the cholera and from diphtheria. They came right to the foot of the hill, but did not touch us.”

“And it was the Madonnina that saved you?” I asked.

“Of course. We took her in procession through the village, and where she passed there was no illness. It’s like the uncovering of the crucifix.”

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, don’t you know? There’s a crucifix in the church; and when it rains and rains, and the chestnuts are spoiling, we uncover it, and then the rain stops at once.”

“Why does it stop when you uncover the crucifix?” I rejoined.

“Oh, Gesú likes it to be uncovered.”

“Then why don’t you keep it always uncovered?”

“Well, it’s not the uncovering, but the candles and prayers and incense that Gesú likes.”

“Then Gesú must be vain,” remarked the woman’s husband, who is something of a heretic, “and the Church says that vanity is a sin.”

Each village in the valley has its own special saint, whose feast is the great event of the year, and is observed with more honour than any other festival. Brass bands are borrowed from other villages which are fortunate (or unfortunate) enough to possess them, and the peasants flock in new dresses and bright kerchiefs to walk in procession, pray to the saint, eat, drink, and dance. These feasts are sometimes the occasion of amusing outcrops of the old pagan spirit. Last year, for example, there was a quarrel between the inhabitants of this village, and those of another, further down the valley. When Saint Celestina’s day came round, therefore, our people determined to spite their enemies, who honoured Saint Celestina as their special protector. Brass bands were borrowed, fireworks bought, a huge balloon manufactured, a ball arranged for the evening; no pains were spared, in fact, to render the feast so attractive that even the protection of the saint herself could not draw visitors to fill the purses of her legitimate worshippers.

“But what must the saint have thought of all that?” I said, as my informant was gloating over the clever revenge.

“The saint? Oh, she must have been delighted; she had such special honour that year.”

Who can say that paganism is dead in this 19th century? Images, too, and small cushion-like hearts blessed by the priest on that special day, are supposed to be of peculiar efficacy against evil. Without the latter, the so-called _benediction_, no mother will dress her child.

I once asked how the young women were chosen who carry the banner of the Madonna in the procession.

“Oh, they’re chosen by lot,” was the answer.

“Then it’s no particular honour, no reward for specially good character,” I remarked.

“But of course it is. God makes the lot fall on the one whom He specially wishes; it’s the greatest honour a girl can have.”

On St. Nicholas’ Day, everyone flocks to a little village called Il Melo (The Apple-tree), which worships the saint as its guardian. The village is perched right on the ridge of a chain of hills, bowered in apple-trees and surrounded by chestnut woods. It consists of eight houses (including the _canonica_ or priest’s house), and a delightfully clean whitewashed church. Outside the church is a large cross of black wood, which the more rigorous kiss before entering; for it was left them, long years back, as the story goes, by a saint-like friar who journeyed through the land preaching to the people.

The Feast of St. Nicholas occurring shortly before I left Tuscany, I resolved to see what was to be seen, and passed the previous night at a farm-house, which, lying higher than my village, was somewhat nearer to the scene of action. A magnificent thunder-storm rendered sleep impossible, and lit up the surrounding hills with wondrous beauty. The next morning was bright and fresh with dripping leaves and mist-wreathed hills, and I started early for the Melo with a peasant friend and my landlord’s son. Our party was soon materially increased, however, for we emerged from the chestnut woods on to the road just as a band of men, with three horses, bound for the same village, were passing the farm-house. They were charcoal burners, and the horses were those poor thin beasts which make their way along impossible roads up and down the mountains, loaded with two great sacks of charcoal. Everything was changed to-day, however. The men were not “in black,” as _Punch_ has it. They wore clean shirts, and bright ties, and carried their best coats flung over their arms. The horses, also, no longer carried charcoal: a single sack, knobbly with parcels for various farm-houses, or with things to be sold at the fair, lay across the pack-saddle, and was tied down with a rope.

“Get up, Signorina,” said my friends. “It’s a long way to the Melo, and you’ll be tired.”

“This last horse is quite safe,” said the man, “and there’s nothing that can hurt in the sack.”

It certainly did not look inviting, but I determined to try, nevertheless. So the horse was made to stand by a stone wall, and up I got; on the wrong side, of course—there was no help for that.

The road was like all hillside roads; now up, now down, now of large slippery stones, now of loose rolling small ones; and when the horse took to making glissades down the former and catching his feet in the latter, I did not find a knobbly charcoal sack, without pommel, stirrup, or bridle, the most pleasant of pleasant seats. However I held on bravely by the wooden front of the pack-saddle, and saved my legs if I exercised my arms and back. A curious procession we must have made, winding through the woods to the music of a concertina with which one of the men intended to provide for the dancing.

When we reached the Melo we found that we were among the first arrivals. In the one street there were two stalls covered with brightly-coloured cakes and sweets; a basket of villainous-looking pears sold by a villainous-looking man; a couple of baskets of figs; and a couple of men with steel-yards selling peculiar wafer-like cakes known as _cialde_. Visitors had not arrived yet, however, and to pass the time we sauntered into the church where mass was going on. Towards the end, a man brought round the collection-box and a plate of bits of round baked dough. My companion took two or three of these, putting his penny into the bag at the same time, and handed me a couple.

“What are they?” I asked.

“St. Nicholas’ bread. They have been blessed by the priest. Put one of them outside the window when it rains, and no hail will come. Keep them in your bedroom and you’ll never be ill.”

The village was beginning to look more lively now, for it was getting near eleven, the time for high mass. The peasant women were resplendent in new dresses made for the occasion; some of them even indulged in velvet trimming and dress-improvers, to the undisguised admiration of the swains, and the envy of their less fortunate sisters. They all wore their gayest kerchiefs, generally of fine silk, tied tightly over their well-pomaded hair. Many of the younger women, too, had huge bows of common ribbon, tinsel flowers, and paper lace, boldly displayed in the very middle of the chest. It would have been impossible to wear them at the neck, of course, for they would have been partly hidden by the chin and the kerchief ends. The young men evidently considered grey the correct thing to wear; but they enlivened it by sticking jauntily into their hat-bands flowers and sprays of tinsel of the most amazing forms and colours. Of course everybody talked to everybody, and I was closely questioned by one old woman after another, as to my nationality, family, occupation, etc., etc.

High mass over, the crowd was speedily sucked in by the various houses, and the most important part of the day’s business, the feasting, began. My landlord took us to the house of one of his friends, a keen sportsman who had just returned from the low-lands of the Maremma to settle again in his native place. The phrase “Nature’s gentleman,” has grown too commonplace for use nowadays; but it is the only expression which gives an exact description of our host. He was a tall, finely-built man, small-flanked, broad-chested, with grey, bushy hair, thinnish brown face, aquiline nose, bright intelligent brown eyes, and a peculiar grace in every movement. One of his two daughters (hard-working girls, both of them) had all his classical ease of motion, and a winning suavity and urbanity of voice and manner, that made one envy the clowns she was addressing. The blood of some superior race seemed to reveal itself also in the fine figure, clean-cut features, and wide intelligent grey eyes shaded by thick black hair, of the youngest son.

Our host told us stories of the Maremma. He had once been a thriving farmer there, so he said, but American competition was proving too much for Italian agriculture, burdened as this last is with heavy taxes; and in the last years of his stay there it had not paid him even to reap the crops: he had let them lie rotting on the ground. He told us, too, of the terrible fever, and the terrible remedies by which it used to be combated. He had had as many as fifty leeches on the pit of his stomach at once, in one bad attack. Then he and my landlord began to relate tales of the experiences of their common shooting expeditions in past times, and our host fell on an incident of quite mediæval colouring. He was travelling once with a friend and his wife, he said, in the days before railroads. His friend was taken ill on the road, and on their arrival at the inn where they intended to pass the night, asked for some broth.

“Certainly not,” was the answer; “no broth on Friday or Saturday at my house, however ill you are.”

So the poor man said, Well, he would go to bed, and see what rest would do for him. To his horror he found he was to be separated from his wife, who was assigned a room on the opposite side of the inn. He rebelled, saying he was ill and wanted her care; but mine host was inexorable; to-day was Friday, he repeated, and on that day it was the rule, in his house, that the men should sleep on one side and the women on the other.

There were about a dozen people at table with us. The men ate with their hats on, and began by asking for a “very little” of everything. Then the hostesses (the two pretty daughters) would press them, would push meat on their plates by force, would fill their glasses with a struggle, and beg them not to make _complimenti_. They finished by doing full justice to the fare. It was indeed such as to invite justice, being well-cooked, well-served, and with all the appointments of the table clean if very rough. The profusion was truly barbaric. There were seven courses, with fruit and excellent coffee, served after the fashion of the place in glasses, to finish off with. I entertain to this day an astonished admiration for those simple peasant women, who cooked all that dinner without help, who yet found time to go to mass and take a short walk in the village in their best clothes, and who did the honours of their table with such inborn grace, without haste, or flurry, or bustle.

We had scarcely finished dinner when a little girl came to ask me if I would care to hear some improvisation. My companion and I went into a house close by and found a small party assembled round a bright-eyed, good-looking woman. She was said to have “raised the glass a little”—a Tuscan euphemism for having been somewhat assiduous at the wine-flask. She had not drunk enough to make her foolish, but just sufficient to make her sing. And sing she did; _stornello_ after _stornello_, composing words and music as she went on; singing with that curious monotonous drawl at the end of the verses, which all visitors to Tuscany know so well. She had a fine voice, and could become quite dramatic on occasion, as when she was describing the thunder-storm of the night before, and how she had awaked to find her bed soaked by the rain. She had to sing in church afterwards, however, and wanted to save her voice; so we left her and wandered into the fields till it was time for mass and procession.

After these were over I sat down at the door of one of the houses to watch the crowd surging on the little open space which served as piazza. Everybody was pushing, laughing, joking, and getting very hot in the blazing sun and the dust. Near me a small acquaintance of mine was shouting himself black over a basket of figs which he was selling, if I remember rightly at ten a halfpenny; further on, the villainous-looking pear-seller was alternately crying his ware and devouring it before the eyes of the people, to prove how good it was; “lying pears” (_pere bugiarde_) the kind is called in Italian, but it was not the pears but the man that lied. The dominant voice, however, was that of one of the “_cialde_” sellers. Upright against the corner of the last house, steelyard in hand, this man had adopted a kind of recitative which pierced the shouts of the others by its more musical intonation:—

“_An’iamo Giovinotti! An’iamo Giovinotti! da quelle buone cialde, O—— h._”[4]

Many of the people went off to a meadow near, to dance to the music of the concertina, and we, tired, hot and dusty, set out on our walk home through the cool, fresh chestnut woods.

A WEDDING IN THE PISTOIESE

BEPPE was the eldest son in a little farm-house hidden among the chestnut woods that clothe the Tuscan Apennines above Pistoia. His younger brother, Sandro, was already married, and it was decided that Beppe, too, must take a wife. Another daughter-in-law was wanted in the house. There really were not enough hands, now that wood must be stacked, fields dug, and fodder prepared ready for the winter. Moreover the chestnut harvest was approaching, and too many girls must be hired unless there were someone else in the family to help with the work. So Beppe, resigning himself to his fate with all the stolidity that breathed from his broad, square-cut shoulders and short bull-neck, set to work to find someone to court. His choice fell on a highly-coloured, energetic woman, well known through all the country-side as an indefatigable worker. He bought her a fairing, had the banns published, and married her in three weeks.

I had been passing a few days in the farm-house, and now received most pressing invitations to be present at the wedding. The guests were first to assemble, at about eight o’clock, in the bride’s house; then after a slight refreshment, _rinfresco_, to go all together to the church in the village hard by, and thence to return to the Cavi, Beppe’s home, to dinner at about midday.

The bride lived some miles away, in a little hamlet perched nearly on the top of the mountain-ridge. The roads were in many places mere mule-tracks through the wood, and it was doubtful if I could get a donkey.

“Come to the Cavi, Signorina,” said Beppe; “sleep there, and come out with us next morning. I’m sure my bride won’t be jealous.”

I hardly supposed she would; still, I did not accept the invitation.

At five o’clock, therefore, on the eventful morning, a donkey, which had been with some difficulty procured for the occasion, was led round to our door by a boy who boasted the romantic name of Poeta, and off we set: my landlord with his gun across his shoulder; his son, in all the glory of black clothes, bright tie, and heavy watch-chain; a peasant woman who had constituted herself my companion, and myself.

We wound higher and higher in the ever-freshening morning air, between hedges gay with autumn berries, until, just below the Cavi, we halted to await the arrival of the bridegroom and his family. First of all they were not dressed—their new clothes tried them, it appeared—and then the bridegroom had forgotten the ring, and must go back across the fields to get it.

We waited for him by a little lonely shrine under a chestnut-tree. The woods which clothed the slopes of the opposite mountains were still hushed in the cold grey-blue of early dawn. Suddenly the scarped precipices and lonely peaks above them were illuminated, as though from within, by wondrous rose-coloured fire, and hung there like some great glowing amethyst between the cold sky above and the cold woods below. Then, as we continued to gaze, the glorious hope was transformed, and merged into the common life of the new day.

Joined at last by the bridegroom, we had a long but most picturesque expedition up a torrent bed, through rocks and woods of infinite variety. The jokes that enlivened it were hearty, if not too refined. They were the sort of jokes Shakespeare’s clowns might have made; and, indeed, it often seemed as if the characters of some old play were come to life, and were moving and talking around me.

The bride’s house was reached a few minutes after eight o’clock. It was a small one-storied cottage at the farther end of a higgledy-piggledy hamlet. At the foot of the steps which led up to the door stood a man with a remarkably fine white beard, holding a thick stick in his hand. This was the Guardian of the Bride, and he resolutely refused to let anyone enter. A loud altercation arose; Beppe opened his big green umbrella, and, spinning it round above his head, tried to push by; my landlord tried to force his way with his gun; but it was not till pantomime and dialogue had grown fast and furious that the guardian gave the word, and the bride appeared framed in the dark doorway above us. Her rosy face was shadowed by her white bridal kerchief, and in her hands she carried bunches of flowers, which she smilingly distributed by way of welcome.

The door opened straight into the kitchen, where the _rinfresco_ was laid. When my eyes grew accustomed to the darkness, and my ears to the sound of many voices, I found myself surrounded by a crowd of women, who were questioning me, as usual, on my most intimate personal affairs. “Are you married or single?” was the first and all-important question. “Where do you come from?” “When are you going back to England?” The questions followed each other fast and thick, as the women looked at me with strange curiosity written in their eyes. I very soon managed to turn the conversation on to their own family affairs, however; and taking into my lap a delicate, fair-haired child, who looked slight and flower-like indeed in that smoke-browned room and among those sunburnt faces, set them talking with much gesticulation and great volubility of feeling about the little thing’s illness. They were afraid she would have been lame. “But she’s better now, and will grow into a strong woman yet, _se Dio vuole_,” they ended, as, smiling down upon her, they turned away to give their attention to the business of the day.

The whole party, some forty in number, now proceeded to the _rinfresco_. On the coarse, clean table-cloth lay great hunks of excellent brown, home-made bread, each piece about the size of an ordinary loaf. These were eaten with slices of raw ham about a quarter of an inch thick. After the bread and ham appeared huge pieces of _schiacciata_, a country cake made of the ordinary dark flour, flavoured with anise, and put to rise like bread. After the _schiacciata_, small cheeses were produced, and, lastly, piles of wafer-like biscuits (_cialde_). Meanwhile drinking had been going on freely. In the middle of the table stood two gigantic bottles of country wine, while smaller flasks were passed merrily about. When full justice had been done to the wine, a light liqueur called _rinfresco_ was drunk out of small glasses, as well as another liqueur, the reverse of light, consisting, we are told, of rum and gin, or rum and brandy.

After everyone had thus turned this “slight refreshment” into a hearty meal, the whole party set out for the church, which was at Rivoreta, a village some little distance off. I was walking ahead with my peasant companion and one of the men. This man had been carefully provided with halfpennies, as to the use of which I was hazarding various surmises. We had not gone many steps before we found the road barred by a rope, over which were hung the brightest of coloured kerchiefs.

“What is that for?” I asked.

“They have made the barrier,” was the answer; “the bride must pay to go through.”

So the man who was with us, the bride’s forerunner, paid a halfpenny, the rope dropped and on we went. This was repeated several times, the barriers forming charming streaks of colour under the overarching trees and against the grey stone of the cottages, until the bride had finally passed from the little hamlet where she had lived her maiden life.

In due time we reached the church, and the ecclesiastical ceremony was performed. As for the civil marriage, the peasant mind still regards that as a superfluity which can be gone through or not, according to the convenience of the parties concerned.

I was much struck here by the good feeling shown by this ignorant, illiterate bride. Beppe’s father and hers had had some hot words on the subject of the dowry, and the former had sworn that he would not be present at the wedding. Being an obstinate old man he stuck to his word, though he could not resist the temptation of accompanying the party. Near the bride’s hamlet he began to complain of a bad foot, sat down by the roadside, and absolutely refused to go farther. At the church door he placed himself on a stone under the trees, and no amount of persuasion would induce him to enter the sacred building. This incident cast a gloom over the whole proceedings, but the bride was not to be daunted. When she and Beppe, now man and wife, came out of the church, she went straight up to him, took his two hands in hers, kissed him, and looking pleadingly up at him, called him by the pretty Italian name “Babbo.” The old man was mollified, and walked back much more cheerfully than he had come; though we have since heard that his vindictive obstinacy (a strongly marked trait in the peasant character) was by no means conquered, and that much ill-will exists between the two families.

Rivoreta is a delightfully clean, breezy hamlet, consisting of about half a dozen houses, a whitewashed church, and an airy _canonica_, opening on to a small piazza, paved with white cobble stones. The snowy whiteness of the buildings and the pavement, throwing up the bright colours of the women’s kerchiefs and dresses, the whole shut in by embowering chestnuts, formed a picture not likely to be soon forgotten.

The ceremony over, the guests repaired to the one wine-shop of the place to consume more wine and rum; and as this and the priest’s breakfast (for Don Tito was going with us) took some time, it was getting late ere the long procession started for the Cavi. First went two women with large round baskets on their heads; this was the bride’s trousseau. The bride and bridegroom should have followed next; but as the donkey resolutely refused to play second fiddle, and the way was long, etiquette was thrown to the winds, and we moved on in a merry, haphazard crowd. As soon as the meadow that lies between the woods and the Cavi was reached, however, the bride and bridegroom headed the procession, both with hanging heads; he sheepishly playing with the cheap watch-chain he had bought at the fair, she trying to carry off her embarrassment by smiles, making heroic efforts to be natural in her words and movements.

Beppe’s mother was “discovered” watching at the door of the farm-house. She now came running across the field with outstretched arms, according to prescribed custom, welcomed her new daughter-in-law with a kiss on both cheeks, and led her into her new home.

It was now midday. A man-cook and a woman-cook had been hired from the village below and were already hard at work, but the tables had been put before the house on the threshing-floor, and were in the sun; besides, there was not enough room at them, for more guests had come than were expected, and numbered altogether quite fifty. So everyone set to work to help, the tables were carried behind the house on to the grass in the fretwork of light and shade under the chestnut-trees; planks were added to make them longer, and before long everything was ready for dinner. I should not like to say of how many courses that dinner consisted, nor how much the peasants ate and drank, but I know that, of everything that was provided, there was not a crumb of bread left.

The bride and bridegroom were of course placed at the head of the table. She tried to assume an air of indifference; he to make up for his want of appetite and to prime himself to face the assembled company, by assiduity at the wine-flask. Signs, in fact, were not wanting that, however much the marriage may have been originally one of convenience, the passion which sleeps in blood warmed by Italian sun and enriched by the odours of the forest, had been thoroughly roused by the events of the day and the pungent jests of the guests.

I was placed next to the bridegroom, between him and the sharp-faced, humorous-looking priest, and from this coign of vantage could survey all the table. Our friend with the white beard distinguished himself especially; continually interrupting himself, however, to cry “_Viva gli Sposi!_” Then the whole company would clap their hands and cry “_Evviva gli Sposi_” in their turn; only there were some who complained that Il Rosso (the man had been red-haired originally) seemed to have a spite against them, and always called the _Evvivas_ just when they had their glasses in their hands.

But he was sly, this Rosso. He would call “_Viva gli Sposi_,” and set the whole table clapping vigorously, and then add as an after-thought, “and the one who married them,” or, “and the one next the _padre_”; whereupon Don Tito or myself would have suddenly to leave off clapping, drop our eyes with all due modesty, and thank the assembled company.

Towards the end of the dinner Il Rosso began to hum.

“Will he improvise?” I asked the priest.

“No doubt he will, both he and his father are noted for it; but not yet, he has not raised the glass often enough.”

After a little while, however, Il Rosso, feeling himself sufficiently well primed, came to the head of the table. Silence was proclaimed, and he sung a _stornello_ in honour of the bride and bridegroom, wishing them the usual good things of this life; children to help them with their work, and plenty to eat and drink. He was followed by a little excitable woman with a strident voice, much admired by her audience, who had already sung once at the bride’s house during the _rinfresco_. Her one form of dramatic action consisted in thumping the table with her closed fist.

Dinner being over, a few of the favoured guests were invited into the parlour to take coffee—coffee with rum in it, that is; black coffee alone is not approved of. The rest lounged about the fields and chestnut woods for a time, but by about five most of them were on their way home. They all came and shook hands most heartily as they went away, with a:—“Do come and see me”; for they are most hospitable people, and would beg you to share their last crust of bread with them. “_Vuol favorire_” is the phrase you hear from child or grandmother, if you happen to drop in on them while they are eating.

The guests, having cows and heifers to be seen to before nightfall, set out home through the cool of the chestnut woods; and we, with our donkey and its poetical driver, quietly dropped down the rock-paved road, past the acacia hedges to the village below. The beauty of rock, forest, and torrent had passed into our souls, and I thought wonderingly of the strange mixture of the idyllic and the realistic in the scenes of which this nature had been the setting; of the frankness mingled with reserve, open-heartedness with shrewdness, hospitality with a tendency to critical carping that form the characteristics of this most attractive peasant population.[5]

OLIVE-OIL MAKING NEAR FLORENCE

THE sky, “stripped to its depths by the awakening North,” is of that peculiarly limpid clearness which only the _tramontana_ brings with it; the sun’s rays, penetrating with their full force through the pure, dry atmosphere, are as warm and genial as those of Eastertide. Yet it is mid-winter, and we are going to witness a thoroughly winter occupation; the making of the olive-oil in a villa at a little distance out of Florence.

Leaving the tram at the foot of the hill, we climb for about three-quarters of an hour through vineyards in which the fresh green of the springing wheat contrasts hopefully with the knotted, bare vine branches. The slopes around us are clothed with olives, whose grey-green is thrown into relief by the austere rows of cypresses in the distance, and the spreading tops of the pine-trees on the further hills.

At last, on a ridge between two valleys, we sight the square twelfth-century tower of the villa in question; the remainder of the building dates from the fourteenth century. The heavy grating of the lower windows, the picturesque archway leading to the square, paved courtyard, the little garden on one side, with its olive-tree bending over the grey wall towards the road below—all breathe an almost cloistered quietness. _Parva domus magna quies_,[6] runs the legend sculptured in black letters on grey marble over the house door.

Nothing clashes in this villa. The present proprietor, with his antiquarian and artistic tastes, and his love of Latin inscriptions, has produced a rare welding of past with present. On one side of the entrance gate, for instance (whose columns, be it noticed, are crowned with two bombs, probably French, from Elba), another inscription, unearthed during the excavation of some Roman villa, offers rest to those who are justly indignant at the world’s perfidy:

jovi hospitali
sacrum
o quisquis es dummodo honestus
si forte
pessimos fugis propinquos
inimicorum
solitaria succedens domo
quiesce.[7]

The same pessimistic note is struck by a third inscription over the archway before mentioned. There we find, writ large, the following Elban motto:

Amici, nemici;
Parenti, serpenti;
Cugini, assassini;
Fratelli, coltelli.[8]

We owe it to the owner to add that, like most people who rail against mankind in general, he is very tender-hearted to mankind in particular.

Passing from the brilliancy of the outer air, we stumble through a low doorway, over which, on the usual grey marble, stands printed _Frantoio_ (crushing-house), and find ourselves in the hot, heavy atmosphere of the oil-making room. We distinguish a low, broad archway dividing the room into two parts, and at the further end a small twinkling light; while nearer the entrance a lamp, swung from the roof, enables us, after a little practice, to make out the objects around us. The whole place is pervaded by a grey steam, sweetish yet piquant, of the peculiar odour of the undried olive.

So great is the heat that the peasants are working without coats, and we, too, are glad enough to lay aside our winter wraps. Looming white through the steam, the first object that attracts our attention is the ox that patiently turns the great stone crushing wheel. Round and round he goes, triturating the dead oak leaves that make his path soft, while the olives, continually poured into the circular concavity in which the wheel moves, are quickly reduced, stone and all, to a dark-looking pulp. The whiteness of the steam and of the ox, the creature’s lustrous eyes as they catch the light, the dark olives pouring into the trough, the peasants dimly visible, make up a scene likely to remain impressed for a long while on the memory.

As soon as the crushing process is over and the ox led back to his stall, a number of flat, circular baskets are brought, made of rope-work, and open above and below. The lower openings having been closed for the moment, by drawing a rope, the baskets are filled with the pulp and piled one above another in the press. Now begins the second part of the operation, which costs the peasants a considerable amount of exertion.

We had noticed, near the archway, a tall pole, with a rope round it, pierced by a crosspiece, and turning on a swivel. This rope having been wound round the beam that works the press, and again round another upright on the further side of the press, four peasants set to work at the crossbar. Again and again is the press-bar drawn to the further upright, let go, and drawn back again, while the oil flows in an invisible stream through the pipe that leads to its destined receptacle, which is concealed under the floor beneath a trap-door. Every now and then the men stop and sit down on stones or on a heap of unused baskets to mop the perspiration which streams from them in that warm sweet atmosphere. It was during one of these pauses that they drew my attention to the advantages of the system on which they were working. In other villas, they said, the press-beam was wound towards the peasants, and sometimes broke under the pressure and injured them; but their _padrone_ had invented a method of winding it away from them, thus freeing them from all danger in case of a breakage.

Meanwhile, at the further end of the room, by the dim yellow light of the twinkling lamp we had already noticed, another man is busy shovelling a rich dark-brown substance into bins against the wall. This is the so-called _sansa_, the olive pulp from which the oil has been expressed. “It goes down to Galluzzo (the township at the foot of the hill),” said the man, in answer to my enquiries. “There they treat it with sulphuric acid, and get machine-oil out of it.”

At last the pulp in the network baskets is pressed dry, the press is unscrewed, the fresh _sansa_ shaken out ready to be shovelled into the bins, and the various utensils that have been used plunged into the boiling water of the cauldron that steams in one corner of the room. The trap-door is now raised, and the oil carried across the yard to another room, the walls of which are lined with huge red terra-cotta vessels kept carefully closed. Into one of these the oil is poured and left to settle, _sansa_ being heaped well up round the vessel to maintain a high temperature within. When the oil is finally poured off it is of a lovely golden colour, as clear and transparent as water. But it is not destined to reach the public in this Arcadian state. Scarcely has it left the hands of the peasants, before it is manipulated and adulterated to such an extent that even in Florence pure olive oil is almost unobtainable. Cotton oil, colza oil, etc., are mixed with it, rendering it absolutely hurtful to the consumer. The Italian government has offered prizes for the discovery of a method of exposing the adulteration. At present no more certain way has been found than that of Professor Bechi, a well-known Italian chemist. He treats the oil in question with nitrate of silver, and judges of the adulteration by the resulting coloration.

And now, business being over for this week, we are free to go and sup with our peasant acquaintances. Crossing a second courtyard, round which stand houses and stables for the donkeys and oxen (Italians do not work with horses), we pass under a second archway and enter our friend Ciuffi’s picturesque kitchen. The rough, uneven stone floor, that looks as though it might have been washed last year, the stout nondescript table, the chairs loaded up with every kind of extraneous matter, the picture of the Madonna with the tiny lamp burning before it, the rows of gaudy crockery over the sink, the cat purring contentedly in the chimney-corner—all these are illuminated, harmonized, almost glorified, by the caressing light of the huge wood fire, whose flames dance and crackle under the great projecting chimney. And beside the fire sits Ciuffi’s youngest daughter Armida, a girl of that fair, refined type that occasionally asserts itself startlingly among these black-haired, swarthy-complexioned peasants. She is sitting holding the frying-pan over the fire, but the menial occupation is forgotten as we watch the delicate poise of the head and stretch of the arm, the exquisite Greek profile, the lustrous dark eyes gazing dreamily into the fire, the fair wavy hair coiled into a knot at the back, and the soft pink of the common little cotton kerchief, which, tied with the point under the chin, is thrown up by the dark dress, and sets off the spring of the graceful neck.

And when, the rough white cloth being spread in the visitor’s honour, the family cluster round the mediæval oil-lamp that makes a little ruddy blot in the darkness beyond, we are more than ever struck at the wonderful ease and good-breeding displayed in word and movement by these peasants who do the hardest work and live the roughest of lives. The women especially have something indescribably lady-like about them, as they sit eating contentedly, perhaps without any plate, or pass from one to another one of the pocket-knives which are the only cutting implements on the table; or, it may be, question “my man,” as to the length of time that will be needed on the morrow to gather in the olives from a certain part of the _podere_. The more one has to do with these Tuscan peasants the more constrained does one feel to adopt the cant phrase, and call them emphatically Nature’s aristocracy.

A TUSCAN FARMHOUSE

OF all my experiences among the Tuscan peasants of the Pistoiese, none, perhaps, was more thoroughly characteristic than a three days’ visit at a farm-house just above the village I was staying in. I had just returned from the woods with my hammock, and was feeling rather listless in the absence of my peasant companion, when the farmer’s wife, who happened to be in the village that day, said to me, half joking, half in earnest:—

“Come home with me to the Cavi, Signorina; come and sleep there to-night.”

I jumped at the proposal, borrowed a big kerchief from my landlady, put a few things into it in the most approved peasant fashion, and we started off together.

I had already been to this farm with some friends for a picnic. On that day the people were threshing and treading the straw; and the stone-paved _aia_ or threshing-floor before the house was bright with the corn, and resonant with the sound of the flail. Then, when the sun’s rays were less strong—for the peasants only thresh in the bright sunlight—two cows and a donkey were produced, and led round and round, knee-deep in the straw, to break it up for their winter food. I had been much struck at the time by the extreme primitiveness of the labour, though I could not help confessing that the swinging flails, yellow corn, and lazily moving animals formed a very much more picturesque contrast to the low grey stone house, and the blackness of its three open doorways, than any threshing-machine could have done.

Nothing of the kind was going on, however, when my hostess and I emerged from the chestnut woods on this cool September evening. The farmer, just back from his digging in the fields,—there are no ploughs,—was taking a meditative walk in front of the house.

He came forward to meet us, accompanied by his two dogs, and welcomed us with much hospitable grace. One of his sons was near him, watching the two cows graze, and at the same time lazily stripping chestnut leaves for the creatures’ fodder off a heap of boughs he had cut. While I was chatting to father and son, my hostess disappeared, and presently came down again, dressed in an old petticoat, chemise, and untidy slippers. She took up a basket of potatoes, and we both set to work to scrape and slice some of them for supper—town people could not possibly eat potatoes baked in their skins, she thought. As we chatted she suddenly exclaimed:—

“See how nice it is to live in the country, Signorina!”

“Why?” I asked, curious to hear what poetical thought had been seething in her brain.

“Well, in the village, you see, you have to wear a dress, and go all clean and tidy, with boots on, too; but here one can go about so nice and dirty.”

She had evidently expressed her inmost soul, for she repeated, looking round at the blue hills, and inhaling the cool, fragrant air:—“So nice and dirty one can be here.”

By this time it was getting towards twenty-four o’clock. Twenty-four o’clock is a movable hour, and depends solely on the sun. In the height of summer it is at eight o’clock, and then retrogrades by a quarter of an hour at a time till it reaches five, when it begins to advance again. At the end of September, when I left, _le venti quattro_ were at half-past six. The peasants’ supper-time is regulated by this sliding-scale, much to the disturbance of the appetite of those who are accustomed to eat by the clock and not by the sun.

“Now come and help me cook the supper,” said my hostess, as we moved towards the house. “See how many fine drawing-rooms I have,” she continued, with a smile.

With that she threw open the first room, and we entered the _metato_. This is the drying room and storehouse for the chestnuts. The floor is of earth, stamped hard. Above one’s head, stretching from one side of the room to the other, and forming a sort of ceiling, are narrow strips of wood, laid loosely side by side. On these the chestnuts are piled just as they come from the woods, and the heat and smoke of the fires which are lighted on the floor beneath, penetrating through the interstices, dry the chestnuts and split the shells. From the _metato_ we passed through a door on the right into the second “drawing-room,” the kitchen. This, as usual, was a large, low, raftered room, with a small window and a big hearth. This kitchen boasted a chimney, however, which carried away, at any rate, part of the smoke; and, more wonderful still, there was at the back a tiny scullery, with sink and plate-racks. For my host was a rich man; not only actual possessor of his farm, but owner of another _podere_ higher up on the mountain-side. Passing to the right again, and crossing a small entrance-hall, now full of sacks of grain, we entered the drawing-room _par excellence_, the room in which the family have their meals. This room was nearly filled up by the huge wooden table; but there was still room for a large cupboard with glass doors, behind which the best crockery was displayed, while on the walls hung bad portraits, offered for my careful inspection, of various members of the family. A dozen low wooden steps led from the sacks of grain to the upper regions. These consisted of four bedrooms, the plank floors of which gaped so widely that one could see and hear everything that went on below. Everywhere, in _metato_, kitchen, hall, parlour, and bedrooms, were coloured prints of the Madonna or of some saint; and each bedroom contained, in addition, a little glass box, enclosing a wax baby, surrounded by tinsel flowers. For this is a devout family, fond of processions and tapers. The mother lights a lamp before an image of the Madonna every Saturday; and she told me, with delight, how she had prayed to a certain saint when her daughter’s baby was born, intimating that that was why the child was such a fine one.

Our business lay now, however, in the kitchen. It was already getting dark, but a fire was blazing brightly on the hearth, with a copper-lined cauldron suspended over it from a chain in the chimney.

“We are going to have _maccheroni_ this evening,” said my hostess. “I rolled them out before I left home this morning. But we must cut them first,” she added, as she produced the long strips of home-made unbaked paste.

We accordingly cut them into pieces about an inch square, and then, taking a pile in our hands, threw them one by one into the boiling salt and water of the cauldron. While they were cooking we made the tomato sauce, and the farmer grated the cheese; and by the time these were ready, and the table laid, the _maccheroni_ could be taken off the fire.

It was now quite dark, the only light came from the dancing flames; and the whole family, including the broad-shouldered shepherdess, assembled in the kitchen to watch the progress of events. By the side of the fire sat the daughter-in-law, a beautiful, fair-haired, refined-looking woman, unswaddling her baby; in the middle of the floor, lighted from the right by the fire, my little grey-haired hostess was kneeling in front of the cauldron and fishing up the _maccheroni_, which she put in layers into a huge red earthern pipkin; and on the other side of the cauldron was the farmer with the tomato sauce, some of which he poured into the pipkin as each layer was completed, adding cheese, pepper and salt. Then there were the two sons, Beppe, low-built and square-cut, and Sandro, the baby’s father, more slender, more courteous in manner, but also more lazy; and lastly, two dogs and two cats who prowled on the outside of the group, in eager expectation of their supper.

The _maccheroni_ being now all transferred to the pipkin, the water was given to the dogs and cats, and we went into the parlour to eat. Needless to say there was no dressing for dinner. The men came in their hats and shirt-sleeves, the women in their bright kerchiefs. Yet certain rules of etiquette were strictly observed. The system of _complimenti_, for instance, was carried to an extent that seemed ridiculous to English eyes. The mother would fill the son’s plate, he would declare he could not eat so much, she would continue to press him, he to refuse, until the voices grew quite loud and excited. When it came to serving the shepherdess, things came almost to a good-natured quarrel. She was a low-built, broad-shouldered, broad-backed girl of about fifteen, of almost gigantic strength, who strode along in her hob-nailed shoes as though she had the seven-leagued boots on. I was evidently a great novelty to her, for she could scarcely eat for looking at me, and presently set the table in a roar of laughter by coming out with a:—“No, thank you,” instead of the usual blank “No.” Opposite to me sat Sandro with his wife and baby. Charming indeed was it to see the way in which the young fellow fondled and nursed the little one. When he came home from the fields, the first thing he did was to take it in his arms, and sit down on the doorstep in the sunlight; at supper-time he neglected himself to play with it and feed it. There is a great fund of kindness in the Italian character, crossed, however, by a vein of strange hard cruelty, arising perhaps from a remarkable want of dramatic imagination. Sandro and his wife sat side by side according to old-established custom. When a son marries, his housekeeping amounts to this: a double-bed and a large cupboard are put into the biggest bedroom, and husband and wife sit next each other at table. If there are several married sons, all the families live together until the quarrels are so intolerable as to drive them apart.

After supper, at about a quarter past eight, all the family went to bed. Three of the four bedrooms opened out of each other, and in the smallest of these three, the middle one, was a single bed in which the shepherdess usually slept. This was now reserved for me. The bed, the Madonna, and a rickety chest of drawers, were the only furniture considered necessary. In the room on the right slept Beppe and Sandro; in that on the left, which one entered through a doorway guiltless of a door, were the shepherdess and Sandro’s wife, Maria. Everyone was in bed in half a minute; for it was summer-time, and they “slept like beasts,” as my hostess put it, without even saying their rosary. “Good-night,” called out Beppe and Sandro. “Good-night,” answered everyone else, and then there was silence till between four and five next morning.

It was hardly dawn when Sandro’s voice was heard:—“Emilia, Emilia.” The shepherdess gave a grunt, tumbled on to the floor, and a moment later strode fully dressed across my room, clamped downstairs and went out. Maria slept longer, for the baby had kept her awake. As a matter of fact, the little thing could scarcely be expected to sleep, for it had been kept under the bedclothes all day. Italian peasant-babies have not a very pleasant life of it. In the morning they are tightly swaddled, put into bed under a wooden frame, and entirely covered with the clothes. There they lie in the dark, sleeping or screaming till about midday when they are taken up, reswaddled, fed, and put to bed again till the evening. Then the same process is repeated, and they are expected to sleep all night. This particular baby was washed about twice a week, if indeed the term “washing” can be applied to the operation. The mother sits down by the fire, and puts a glass of wine by her. She then fills her mouth with wine, puts it out into her hand, and rubs the baby, which screams violently.

At about eight o’clock the men came in from the fields, the cauldron was suspended from the chain, water was boiled, and my host set to work to make the _polenta_. The maize flour is added gradually to the boiling water until the mixture is so thick that none but a strong man can stir it. Then it is turned out on to a board kept for the purpose, cut into slices with a string, and eaten smoking hot with cheese. There are no plates, of course; all stand round and help themselves. Maize flour, chestnut flour, lentils, cheese, and beans, are the staple food of the peasants, with now and then a fowl to celebrate some specially great _festa_. Milk they never seem to drink, butter they rarely make; they use their dairy produce exclusively for cheese.

These Tuscan peasants may be called an industrious race; that is to say, they are never entirely idle. At the same time they do not work in such a way as to make it tiring to watch them; they take things very easily. A strong, well-built man, for instance, will be contentedly stripping chestnut-leaves off the branches for the cows, or leaning against a tree watching the animals feed. In another part of the field a woman will be taking advantage of the gusts of wind to _folare_ her grain, that is, to complete the winnowing of it. She spreads a sheet on the ground, empties a sack of corn on to one corner of it, fills a heavy wooden tray with the grain, puts it on her head, and turns to catch the wind. As soon as she feels a gust—_folata_—she lets the corn fall in a narrow trickling stream on to the sheet; the chaff is blown away in the descent, and the winnowing is completed. The very poor have a terribly hard time of it, however, for they do the work of mules and donkeys, carrying great loads of wood on their backs for many miles over the hills; and no one thinks of mending or making roads for them. An old woman I was once talking to told me of the huge burdens she used to carry in her youth.

“The roads were bad then,” she said, but added naïvely, “they are better now; they were mended for the horses.”

But to return to my hosts. On Sunday morning, the day being a _festa_, the house received its weekly apology for a sweep, the women put on dresses and kerchiefs, and went so far as to comb their hair, and we started for the village, to go to Mass. It was very picturesque to watch the parties of rosy, healthy peasant women as they came along the road, in their bright aprons and head-gear. In one party was Beppe’s intended bride.

“Come to Rivoreta, and see me married, Signorina,” said she. “Do come.”

And with many promises that I would do so if possible, I took leave of my kind friends.[9]

THE FLORENTINE CALCIO: GAME OF KICK

WE may not approve of the manner in which Italy is living in her Past, and celebrating centenaries when she ought to be setting her face strenuously towards the Future; nevertheless, we must confess that the Florentine fêtes a year or two back presented one historical spectacle that was distinctly worth the trouble of reviving. We refer to the mediæval game known as _Calcio_, or Kick, which is interesting to English and American youths as bearing at least a superficial likeness to Football. At the time of the fêtes it was indeed spoken of as the Football of Florence; but it differs from Football in two ways that are eminently characteristic of Italian character: it is more complicated and more spectacular.

To begin with, there were twenty-seven actual players needed on each side, besides trumpeters, drummers, standard-bearers, referees, and a ball-thrower. Of the twenty-seven players, fifteen, divided into three equal companies, were placed face to face with the enemy in the front of the battle, and bore the brunt of the strife. They were called Runners (_Corridori_) or Fronts (_Innanzi_).

Behind the three battalions of Runners were placed in loose order, extending across the whole breadth of the field, five Spoilers (_Sconciatori_), so called because their business was to spoil the game for the Runners of the opposite side.

The Spoilers were supported by four Front Hitters (_Datori innanzi_); and these again by three Back Hitters (_Datori indietro_). These Datori may be spoken of as Half-backs and Backs.

The favourite Calcio ground in Florence was the square before the church and convent of Santa Croce. Here the great costume matches (_Calcio a livrea_) were held, as well as the ordinary games (not in costume) which enlivened the cold afternoons during Carnival time. A description of one of the costume matches at once makes clear the fundamental difference between Calcio and Football.

The field was 100 metres long by 50 broad, enclosed top and bottom by a palisade, on the left by a ditch, on the right by a low wall. Along the wall were erected stands for the more honourable spectators and for the umpires. At each end of the field was a tent round which stood the referees, standard-bearers, etc., of their respective sides, together with showily dressed halberdiers, who were also stationed at intervals round the field.

The spectators being assembled, the umpires and, perhaps, some foreign potentate or his ambassador, seated in the stand above the wall, the grand march in of the players commenced. It was a procession of picked men from the noblest Florentine families. For the Calcio was an aristocratic game. It was not to be played “by any kind of scum: not by artisans nor servants nor ignoble nor infamous men; but by honoured soldier men of noble birth, gentlemen, and princes.” The ages of the players ranged from eighteen to forty-five, and they were all well-built, athletic men. They wore light shoes, long hose, doublet and cap, and their costumes were of the most splendid material—velvet, silk, cloth of gold or silver—for were not the brightest eyes of the city to watch the game? Not only did each side have its own colours, but the players had also to be dressed in the same material.

The march was opened by the trumpeters and drummers. Then came the Runners, going in couples, and chequer fashion: a red, say, behind a white, and _vice versâ_. The Runners were followed by nine more drummers preceding the standard-bearers, each dressed in the colours and bearing the flag of his side. Finally appeared the Spoilers, the Half-Backs bearing the ball, and the Backs.

After making the round of the field the procession, at the sound of a single trumpet-blast, split up into its component parts. Trumpeters, drummers, referees, standard-bearers, placed themselves at the tents of their respective sides; the Runners divided up into their companies of five and faced each other in the centre of the field; the Spoilers placed themselves at a distance of 13½ metres behind the Runners and 9 metres from each other; the Half-backs 10½ metres behind the Spoilers and 12 metres from each other; the Backs again 10½ metres in the rear of the Half-backs and 17½ metres from each other.

A second trumpet blast, and the serving-men retired from the field; a third, and the game began.

The Ball-bearer (_Pallaio_), in a parti-coloured dress formed of the colours of both sides, threw the ball with great force against a marble sign let into the middle of the wall on the right-hand side of the field. It rebounded between the two ranks of the Runners, who immediately rushed towards it, acting, however, not independently, but in their companies.

The company of Runners which had possessed itself of the ball began, of course, to work it with their feet towards the opposite goal. Now came the turn of the Spoilers, of whom the two nearest left their stations and ran obliquely at the advancing Runners, hustling them and endeavouring to get the ball from them and pass it to their own Runners, who were hovering near.

The Runners and the Spoilers worked the ball forward with their feet; the Hitters (Half-backs and Backs) were allowed, nay, as their name implies encouraged, to use their hands.

If the Runners succeeded in taking the ball past the Spoilers, they had to face the onset of two Half-backs, who, if they got the ball, would probably pitch it clear over the heads of the players to the Half-back on the opposite side. This was considered very diverting play, and was much appreciated by the onlookers.

Having pierced the lines of the Spoilers and Half-backs, the Runners found themselves opposed by one of the Backs. The Backs were the strongest men on the field, as, being placed so far apart, they were obliged to act separately.

The ball was generally knocked, not kicked, over the goal. When this happened the two sides changed places on the field; the winning side marching to its new position with flag unfurled and waving, the losers with furled flag and lowered staff.

Such is a diagram—a mere diagram, though a correct one—of the Florentine _Calcio_. Its connection with Football evidently lies, to adapt an expression from the vocabulary of folk-lore, in the fundamental formula: to send a ball through a goal without the aid of an instrument. But this formula developed differently in England and in Florence. The traditions of the Florentines were military. Their youths were trained to war from boyhood upward: they were accustomed to act in bands. Has anyone ever noticed the truly military spirit in which Dante continually combines the souls into bands, _schiere_, moving and acting in unison? The remembrance of the disposition of the Roman army, too, with its close and extended ranks, still lingered amongst them. Add to this that they were a thoroughly artistic people, devoted to spectacular effects and cunning in the planning of them, and we at once perceive the cause of the radical difference between this most interesting game of ancient Florence and the English Football.

Those were the times when Florentines penetrated either as merchants or exiles, and generally as both combined, into all parts of the Peninsula and of Europe; and they took their games with them. Matteo Strozzi’s sons, one of whom was Filippo, the famous founder of the great Strozzi Palace, more than once beg their mother to put balls in with linen, etc., which she constantly despatched from Florence to her exiled family, these balls being probably for the most energetic game of _Pallone_, still played throughout Tuscany.

They took the _Calcio_ with them too, just as the English take their football, cricket or tennis. Thus Tommaso Rinuccini, living at Lyons, writes in his memoirs that: “When Henry III., King of Poland, after the death of Charles IX. his brother, left Poland for France in 1575 to take possession of the kingdom, he passed through Lyons in France. And the Florentines living in that city played before him a _Calcio_, in which all the Florentine nobles took part, as it was their custom to do. And they sent Pierantonio Bandini and Pierfrancesco Rinuccini, two extremely handsome gentlemen and tall, both Florentines (who were the standard-bearers in the _Calcio_), to invite his Majesty, in the name of their native city, to be present at the celebration. King Henry accepted the invitation and was a spectator of the game. When he spoke to them before they left his presence he asked whether all Florentines were as tall and handsome as they.”

It would be, indeed, well for the physical development of modern Florentines should the _Calcio_ enter again into the ordinary life of the youth of the city.

ELBA

A MONTH IN ELBA