Old Calabria

Norman Douglas

Informations

• Publié par: anko
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 24
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Project Gutenberg eBook of Old Calabria, by Norman Douglas Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the header without written permission. Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. **Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** **eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** *****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** Title: Old Calabria Author: Norman Douglas Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7385] [This file was first posted on April 23, 2003] [Most recently updated: May 4, 2003] Edition: 10 Language: English Character set encoding: iso-8859-1 *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, OLD CALABRIA *** Eric Eldred Tower at Manfredonia OLD CALABRIA BY NORMAN DOUGLAS CONTENTS PAGE I. SARACEN LUCERA I II. MANFRED'S TOWN 10 III. THE ANGEL OF MANFREDONIA 17 IV. CAVE-WORSHIP 23 V. LAND OF HORACE 31 VI. AT VENOSA 37 VII. THE BANDUSIAN FOUNT 41 VIII. TILLERS OF THE SOIL 47 IX. MOVING SOUTHWARDS 62 X. THE FLYING MONK 71 XI. BY THE INLAND SEA 77 XII. MOLLE TARENTUM 87 XIII. INTO THE JUNGLE 95 XIV. DRAGONS 100 XV. BYZANTINISM 105 XVI. REPOSING AT CASTROVILLARI 117 XVII. OLD MORANO 128 XVIII. AFRICAN INTRUDERS 134 XIX. UPLANDS OF POLLINO 142 XX. A MOUNTAIN FESTIVAL 151 XXI. MILTON IN CALABRIA l60 XXII. THE "GREEK " SILA 172 XXIII. ALBANIANS AND THEIR COLLEGE 181 XXIV. AN ALBANIAN SEER 188 XXV. SCRAMBLING TO LONGOBUCCO 193 XXVI. AMONG THE BRUTTIANS 202 XXVII. CALABRIAN BRIGANDAGE • 211 XXVIII. THE GREATER SILA 217 XXIX. CHAOS 228 XXX. THE SKIRTS OF MONTALTO 240 v Contents PAGE XXXI. SOUTHERN SAINTLINESS 247 XXXII. ASPROMONTE, THE CLOUD-GATHERER 269 XXXIII. MUSOLINO AND THE LAW 2J5 XXXIV. MALARIA 281 XXXV. CAULONIA TO SERRA 288 XXXVI. MEMORIES OF GISSING 296 XXXVII. COTRONE 303 XXXVIII. THE SAGE OF CROTON 309 XXXIX. MIDDAY AT PETELIA 314 XL. THE COLUMN 318 INDEX 323 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TOWER AT MANFREDONIA Frontispiece LION OF LUCERA Facing page 4 AT SIPONTUM 30 RUIN OF TRINITÀ : EAST FRONT 38 ROMAN ALTAR 40 NORMAN CAPITAL AT VENOSA 42 SOLE RELIC OF OLD TARAS 66 FISHING AT TARANTO 68 BY THE INLAND SEA 78 FOUNTAINS OF GALAESUS 80 TARANTO : THE LAST PALM 84 BUFFALO AT POLICORO 98 THE SINNO RIVER 102 CHAPEL OF SAINT MARK 112 SHOEING A COW 120 MORANO 130 AN OLD SHEPHERD 132 THE SARACENIC TYPE 136 PEAK OF POLLINO IN JUNE 144 CALABRIAN COWS 148 THE VALLEY OF GAUDOLINO 156 SAN DEMETRIO CORONE l82 THE TRIONTO VALLEY 198 LONGOBUCCO 204 GATEWAY AT CATANZARO 224 IN THE CEMETERY OF REGGIO 220 TIRIOLO 228 EFFECTS OF DEFORESTATION 286 OLD SOVERATO 294 THE MODERN AESARUS 298 CEMETERY OF COTRONE 300 ROMAN MASONRY AT CAPO COLONNA 32O OLD CALABRIA I SARACEN LUCERA I FIND it hard to sum up in one word the character of Lucera--the effect it produces on the mind; one sees so many towns that the freshness of their images becomes blurred. The houses are low but not undignified; the streets regular and clean; there is electric light and somewhat indifferent accommodation for travellers; an infinity of barbers and chemists. Nothing remarkable in all this. Yet the character is there, if one could but seize upon it, since every place has its genius. Perhaps it lies in a certain feeling of aloofness that never leaves one here. We are on a hill--a mere wave of ground; a kind of spur, rather, rising up from, the south--quite an absurd little hill, but sufficiently high to dominate the wide Apulian plain. And the nakedness of the land stimulates this aerial sense. There are some trees in the "Belvedere" or public garden that lies on the highest part of the spur and affords a fine view north and eastwards. But the greater part were only planted a few years ago, and those stretches of brown earth, those half-finished walks and straggling pigmy shrubs, give the place a crude and embryonic appearance. One thinks that the designers might have done more in the way of variety; there are no conifers excepting a few cryptomerias and yews which will all be dead in a couple of years, and as for those yuccas, beloved of Italian municipalities, they will have grown more dyspeptic-looking than ever. None the less, the garden will be a pleasant spot when the ilex shall have grown higher; even now it is the favourite evening walk of the citizens. Altogether, these public parks, which are now being planted all over south Italy, testify to renascent taste; they and the burial-places are often the only spots where the deafened and light-bedazzled stranger may find a little green 2 Old Calabria content; the content, respectively, of L'Allegro and Il Penseroso. So the cemetery of Lucera, with its ordered walks drowned in the shade of cypress--roses and gleaming marble monuments in between--is a charming retreat, not only for the dead. The Belvedere, however, is not my promenade. My promenade lies yonder, on the other side of the valley, where the grave old Suabian castle sits on its emerald slope. It does not frown; it reposes firmly, with an air of tranquil and assured domination; "it has found its place," as an Italian observed to me. Long before Frederick Barbarossa made it the centre of his southern dominions, long before the Romans had their fortress on the site, this eminence must have been regarded as the key of Apulia. All round the outside of those turreted walls (they are nearly a mile in circumference; the enclosure, they say, held sixty thousand people) there runs a level space. This is my promenade, at all hours of the day. Falcons are fluttering with wild cries overhead; down below, a long unimpeded vista of velvety green, flecked by a few trees and sullen streamlets and white farmhouses--the whole vision framed in a ring of distant Apennines. The volcanic cone of Mount Vulture, land of Horace, can be detected on clear days; it tempts me to explore those regions. But eastward rises up the promontory of Mount Gargano, and on the summit of its nearest hill one perceives a cheerful building, some village or convent, that beckons imperiously across the intervening lowlands. Yonder lies the venerable shrine of the archangel Michael, and Manfred's town. . . . This castle being a national monument, they have appointed a custodian to take charge of it; a worthless old fellow, full of untruthful information which he imparts with the hushed and conscience-stricken air of a man who is selling State secrets. "That corner tower, sir, is the King's tower. It was built by the King." "But you said just now that it was the Queen's tower." "So it is. The Queen--she built it." "What Queen?" "What Queen? Why, the Queen--the Queen the German professor was talking about three years ago. But I must show you some skulls which we found (sotto voce) in a subterranean crypt. They used to throw the poor dead folk in here by hundreds; and under the Bourbons the criminals were hanged here, thousands of them. The blessed times! And this tower is the Queen's tower." "But you called it the King's tower just now." Saracen Lucera 3 "Just so. That is because the King built it." "What King?" "Ah, sir, how can I remember the names of all those gentlemen? I haven't so much as set eyes on them! But I must now show you some round sling-stones which we excavated (sotto voce) in a subterranean crypt----" One or two relics from this castle are preserved in the small municipal museum, founded about five years ago. Here are also a respectable collection of coins, a few prehistoric flints from Gargano, some quaint early bronze figurines and mutilated busts of Roman celebrities carved in marble or the recalcitrant local limestone. A dignified old lion--one of a pair (the other was stolen) that adorned the tomb of Aurelius, prastor of the Roman Colony of Luceria--has sought a refuge here, as well as many inscriptions, lamps, vases, and a miscellaneous collection of modern rubbish. A plaster cast of a Mussulman funereal stone, found near Foggia, will attract your eye; contrasted with the fulsome epitaphs of contemporary Christianity, it breathes a spirit of noble resignation:-"In the name of Allah, the Merciful, the Compassionate. May God show kindness to Mahomet and his kinsfolk, fostering them by his favours! This is the tomb of the captain Jacchia Albosasso. God be merciful to him. He passed away towards noon on Saturday in the five days of the month Moharram of the year 745 (5th April, 1348). May Allah likewise show mercy to him who reads." One cannot be at Lucera without thinking of that colony of twenty thousand Saracens, the escort of Frederick and his son, who lived here for nearly eighty years, and sheltered Manfred in his hour of danger. The chronicler Spinelli* has preserved an anecdote which shows Manfred's infatuation for these loyal aliens. In the year 1252 and in the sovereign's presence, a Saracen official gave a blow to a Neapolitan knight--a blow which was immediately returned; there was a tumult, and the upshot of it was that the Italian was condemned to lose his hand; all that the Neapolitan nobles could obtain from Manfred was that his left hand should be amputated instead of his right; the Arab, the cause of all, was merely relieved of his office. Nowadays, all * These journals are now admitted to have been manufactured in the sixteenth century by the historian Costanze for certain genealogical purposes of his own. Professor Bernhard! doubted their authenticity in 1869, and his doubts have been confirmed by Capasse. 4 Old Calabria memory of Saracens has been sw