Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 26, September, 1880

In 1419, when they piled the stones of that wall, Christopher Columbus was not born, yet the basilica of St. Francis had been built more than one hundred and fifty years; and on such a June day as this the Asisinati leaned from their windows to see a Corpus Domini procession come up the street, just as they were now doing. It came through the fragrant silence and clear shadow like a vision. I could not restrain an exclamation of surprise and delight, for I had not dreamed of anything so beautiful. The procession would have been striking anywhere, but shut in as it was between the soft gray of the opposite stone houses, with the green-sprinkled street beneath and the glorious blue above, it was as wonderful as if, looking down into clear deeps of water, one should see the passing of some pageant of an enchanted city buried deep in the crystalline waves centuries ago. There was nothing here but the procession, leisurely occupying the whole street, treading out faint odors without raising a particle of dust. The crowd that in other places always obscures and spoils such a display here followed on behind. The leisureliness of an Italian religious procession is something delicious, as well as the way they have of forming hollow squares and leaving the middle of the street sacred to the grander dignities.

The members of the different societies wore long robes of red, blue or of gray trimmed with red, and had small three-cornered pieces of the material of the robe suspended by a string at the back of the neck, to be drawn up over the head if necessary. The arms of the societies were embroidered on the breast or shoulder, and each one had its great painted banner of Madonna or saint and a magnificent crucifix with a veil as rich as gold, silver, silk and embroidery could make it. There were the white camicie half covering the brown robes of long-bearded, bare-ankled Cappuccini, and sheets of silver and gold in the vestments of the other clergy.

Presently the canopy borne over the Host appeared, with the incense-bearers walking backward before it and swinging out faint clouds of smoke: the voices of the choir grew audible, singing the Pange lingua, and everybody knelt. In a few minutes all was over.

There was a fair in connection with this feast, the most notable part of which was dishes of all sorts set on tables or spread on the grass of the pleasant piazza of St. Peter's, the Benedictine church, with no roof over but the sky. The brown and yellow-green earthenware for kitchen use would have delighted any housekeeper. We bought some tiny saucepans with covers, and capable of holding a small teacupful, for a cent each. Italian housekeepers make great use of earthen saucepans and jars for cooking. One scarcely ever sees tin—iron almost never. In rich houses copper is much used, but brown ware is seen everywhere.

The next notable festa, and the great feast of Asisi, is the Pardon, called variously the Pardon of Asisi, the Pardon of St. Francis and the Porziuncola.

In the old times, and particularly when this indulgence could be obtained only in Asisi, the concourse of people was so great that there were not roofs to cover them, and many slept in the open air. But since the favor has been extended to other churches, as well as from other reasons, the number is greatly diminished, and consists chiefly of people in villeggiatura near by and of a few hundred Neapolitan peasants, who with undiminished fervor come to obtain the Pardon, and whose singular performance, called gran ruota (the great wheel), everybody goes to see.

The Catholic reader will know that this Pardon can be obtained only from vespers of the first to vespers of the second day of August, and that while in every other church communion is a necessary condition, it is sufficient to merely pass through the chapel of the Porziuncola, for which St. Francis obtained the indulgence from Pope Honorius.

There is a large fair in connection with this festa—merchandise of all sorts in the piazza and corso, and a cattle-fair in the upper part of the town. The long white road stretching from Asisi to Santa Maria degli Angeli in the plain was quite black with contadini coming up with their goods in the early dawn, and a sound of hoofs and of many feet told that the procession was passing the house. There were carts full of produce, men leading white and dove-colored cattle, and women with large round baskets on their heads. These baskets contained live fowl. In one a large melancholy turkey meditated on his approaching fate: in another, two of lighter disposition swung their long necks about and viewed the scene. One of these baskets was as pretty as the blackbird pie of famous memory. In it sat eight chickens of an age to make their début on the platter, all settled into a fluffy, soft-gray cushion, out of which their little heads and necks and half-raised wings peeped and turned and fluttered in a manner that testified to the agitation of their spirits. The woman carrying this basket would have made a pretty caryatid, chickens and all, so straight was she, so robust her shoulders and so full and regular the oval of her face.

The cattle were superb—some immensely large, others delicately small, and all with such long, slim, pointed horns as made one shrink. Those strong, high-lifted heads carried their weapons like unsheathed scymitars. Red cords were twined across their foreheads from horn to horn, and red tassels swung beside their faces. This procession passed in almost entire silence, with only a pattering of hoofs that sounded like heavy rain.

Presently appeared a light wagon in which sat alone a large fleshy woman, who had quite the expression of one making a triumphal entry into the city. Her black hair was elaborately dressed in braids fastened with gold pins and in short curls on the forehead, and was lightly covered with a black lace veil. Her dress was a sky-blue silk, with a lace shawl carefully draped over the wide shoulders. Her hands were loaded with rings and her neck with gold chains, and a large medallion swung over two large brooches. There was a smile of conscious superiority on her coarsely-handsome face as she glanced over the contadini, who humbly made way for her. A small, meek, well-dressed man who walked beside the wagon seemed to be the proprietor of its occupant, and to be somewhat oppressed by his good fortune. There was no room for him in the wagon. It occurred to me that this might be an avatar of the old woman of Banbury Cross.

The crowd thinned away like rain that from a heavy shower falls only in scattered drops, and I was about turning from the window when my eyes fell upon a beautiful bit of color across the way, standing out, as so much Italian color does, against the background of a gray stone wall. It was an odd, slim cone, something over five feet high, made of grass and clover sprinkled through with burning poppies. I was just thinking that this verdure must be fastened to a pole set into the ground when it began to move. The fresh, long grass waved, the poppies glowed like live coals when blown upon, two slim brown feet and ankles appeared under the green fringe, and the dimpled elbow of a slim brown arm peeped out above. Nothing else human was visible as this figure walked away up the street toward the fair. Poor Ruth! She had neither cows, pigs nor chickens, but she came with such riches as she could glean at the roadside from bountiful Nature, clothed and covered from the top of her invisible head down to her well-turned ankles in a garment as fair as fancy could weave.

Later, Count B– came to take me to the cattle-fair, where we found the upper piazza all a drift of shaded snow at one side with cows and oxen, and at the other a shining chestnut-color with horses and donkeys. We walked among these creatures, my companion warding away from me their long horns and telling me some little items of bovine character which may be known the world over, but which were new to me. Some cattle are women-haters, he said, and in a country where women have so much to do with the cattle that was a great defect. The buyer detected the flaw in this way: he passed his hand slowly down the creature's back from the neck to the tail: then a woman would do the same. If the animal made any difference between the two or looked round at the woman, he would not buy. They try them also when they are eating in the stall. If the animal looks round when it is eating at the person who is approaching, it is ill-natured.

We went then to see the old theatre, where plays used to be performed on great occasions. It was a large circle of stone wall, a miniature of the old amphi-theatre of the Roman Forum, with the sky for a roof. But now a vegetable-garden grows where the spectacle once was seen, and along the walls where the audience sat and gazed deep-hued wallflowers bloom and delicate jasmine-vines hang out their white stars.

Farther on is an old city-gate, which, unfortunately, was to be torn down to make way for a new road. Those gates are veritable pictures, with their beautiful round arches and the niche with its fresco underneath. This porta preserved perfectly in the crimson stone the smooth slide down which the suspended gate slipped at night or in times of danger.

Returning through the piazza, I saw the balcony of a public building draped with red satin, and a flag hung out in it. While this flag was out, Count B– said, no creature which was sold could be returned to the seller, no matter what flaw might be discovered in it after the bargain was concluded. It was then the time to get rid of women-hating cows and oxen and "made-up" horses.

In the afternoon we went to the church of St. Francis to see the piccola ruota of the Neapolitan peasants, which is apparently a rehearsal for the gran ruota to be performed in the Porziuncola the day following. These people were all gone, when we reached the church, to follow a relic-bearing procession of Franciscans to the little chapel built over the spot where St. Francis was born, and the spectators took advantage of the opportunity to range themselves about the walls and wherever they could find places. We were scarcely in the seats offered us in the choir when a murmur of subdued exclamations, a trampling of many feet and a cloud of dust that filled the vestibule announced the return of the procession. The gates of the iron grating which shut off the chancel and transepts from the nave were opened to admit the monks with their relic, and closed immediately to exclude the crowd. After the short function was ended they were again opened, and the crowd rushed in and began to run around the altar.

These people were all poor: many were old and had to be held up and helped along by a younger person at either side. The women wore handkerchiefs on their heads, and many wore those sandals made of a piece of leather tied up over the foot with strings which give these peasants their popular name of sciusciari, an imitative word derived from the scuffling sound of the sandals in walking. They hurried eagerly on, hustling each other, murmuring prayers and ejaculations, and seemed quite unconscious of the crowd of persons who had come there to stare, perhaps to laugh, at them. The Asisinati looked on without taking any part, and with a curiosity not unmingled with contempt. "The Neapolitans are so material!" they say.

These repeated circlings of the altar, I was told, are intended as so many visits, each time they go round having the value of a visit. Many of these people seek the Pardon not only for themselves, but for friends who are unable to come. The absent confess and communicate at their parish church at home, and unite their intention with that of the person who makes the visit for them.

My padrona di casa told me an anecdote in illustration of this materialism of the Neapolitans, which the Asisinati are anxious not to be thought to share: On the first of August several years before, she said, when the church of St. Francis was full of people waiting around the confessionals, a man at one of them was observed to be disputing with the priest inside. Pressed so closely as they were, many might excuse themselves for being aware that the penitent was refusing to agree to the penance imposed by the priest, who consequently declined to give him absolution. The priest cut the dispute short by closing the wicket and addressing himself to the penitent at the other side. The man left his place and wandered disconsolately about the church, followed by many curious eyes, for not to listen in silent submission to the penance imposed by the priest is a rare scandal. After a while he seemed to have resolved on a compromise, but it was no longer possible to obtain his place in advance of the crowd, where each one waited his turn. He took a post, therefore, directly opposite the front of the confessional, as near as he could get, but with half the width of the nave between, and waited till the priest should be visible. The moment came when the confessor, turning from one penitent to another, was seen from the front. The man leaned eagerly forward, and throwing out his right hand with three fingers extended, as if playing morra, called out, "Quello del casotiello, volete farlo per tre?" ("You in the confessional there, will you do it for three?") (These peasants call the confessional casotiello.) Whether the bargain related to a number of prayers to be said, a number of visits or of masses, does not concern us.

The next afternoon we went down to Santa Maria degli Angeli in the plain, the very penetralia of the Pardon. Those who have visited this church know that the little chapel of the Porziuncola, which is enclosed in its midst like the heart in a body, has two doors—one at the lower end, the other at the upper right corner. It is very dim except when its altar is blazing with candles and its hanging lamps lighted. As we have already said, a visit to this chapel or merely passing through it, for a person who has confessed, satisfies the outward conditions of the Pardon.

In the gran ruota which we were about to witness the Neapolitans entered in an unbroken line at the lower door, passed out without stopping at the upper, ran down the side-aisle of the church and out of the door, in again at the great door, up the nave, and again through the chapel, repeating this over and over for fifteen or twenty minutes. While they make the wheel no one else enters the chapel: all are spectators.

It was for these poor people the supreme moment. They had come from afar at an expense which they could ill afford; they had endured fatigue, perhaps hunger; and they had been mocked at. But, so far, they had accomplished their task. They had confessed their sins with all the fervor and sincerity of which they were capable, had visited the birthplace, the home, the basilica and the distant mountain-retreat of St. Francis, and they had gathered the miraculous yellow fennel-flowers of the mountain. Now they were to receive the Pardon. The chains of hell had fallen from them in confession: at the moment of entering the chapel the bonds of Purgatory would also be loosened, and if they should drop dead there, or die before having committed another sin, they would fly straight to heaven as larks into the morning sky. No passing from a miserable present to a miserable Purgatory, but unimaginable bliss in an instant. Their ideal bliss might not be the highest which the human mind is capable of conceiving, but it was the highest that they could conceive, and their souls strained blindly upward to that point where imagination faints against the thrilling cord with which the body holds the spirit in tether. To these people heaven was not a mere theological expression, a vague place which might or might not be: it was as real as the bay and the sky of Naples and the smoking volcano that nursed for ever their sense of unknown terrors. It was as real as the poppies in their grass and the oranges ripening on their trees. Maria Santissima, in her white robe and the blue mantle where they could count the creases, was there, with ever the vision of a Babe in her arms, and Gesù, the arms of whose cross should fall into folds of a glorious garment about his naked crucified form, in sleeves to his hands, in folds about his feet and raised into a crown about his head. Into this blessed company no earthly pain could enter to destroy their delights. Cold and hunger and the dagger's point could never find them more, nor sickness rack them, nor betrayal set their blood in a poisoned flame, nor earthquakes chill them with terror. Lying in that heavenly sunshine, with fruit-laden boughs within reach and heaps of gold beside them if they should wish for it, they could laugh at Vesuvius licking in vain with its fiery tongue toward them, and at the black clouds heavy with hail that would spread ruin over the fields far away from these celestial vineyards and the waving grain of Paradise.

Exalted by such visions, what to them were the gazing crowd and their own rags and squalor? They entered the Porziuncola singing: they came out at the side-door transfigured, and silent except for some breathless "Maria!" or "Gesù!" Their arms were thrown upward, their glowing black eyes were upraised, their thin swarthy faces burned with a vivid scarlet, their white teeth glittered between the parted lips. Round and round they went like a great water-wheel that revolves in sun and shadow, and the spray it tossed up as it issued from the Porziuncola was rapture, the fiery spray of the soul.

At last all remained outside the chapel, making two long lines from either side the door down the nave to the open air, their faces ever toward the chapel. Then they began to sing in voices as clear and sweet as a chorus of birds. Not a harsh note was there. They sang some hymn that had come down to them from other generations as the robins and the bobo-links drop their songs down to future nestlings, and ever a long-drawn note stretched bright and steady from one stanza to another. So singing, they stepped slowly backward, always gazing steadily at the lighted altar of the Porziuncola, visible through the door, and, stepping backward and singing, they slowly drew themselves out of the church, and the Pardon for them was over.

But though Asisi is not without its notable sights, the chief pleasures there are quiet ones. A walk down through the olive trees to the dry bed of the torrent Tescio will please one who is accustomed to rivers which never leave their beds. One strays among the rocks and pebbles that the rushing waters have brought down from the mountains, and stands dryshod under the arches of the bridges, with something of the feeling excited by visiting a deserted house; with the difference that the Undine people are sure to come rushing down from the mountains again some day. There one searches out charming little nooks which would make the loveliest of pictures. There was one in the Via del Terz' Ordine which was a sweet bit of color. Two rows of stone houses facing on other streets turn their backs to this, and shade it to a soft twilight, till it seems a corridor with a high blue ceiling rather than a street. There it lies forgotten. No one passes through it or looks into it. In one spot the tall houses are separated by a rod or so of high garden-wall with an arch in the middle of it, and under the arch is a door. Over this arch climbs a rose-vine with dropping clusters of tiny pink roses that lean on the stone, hang down into the shadow or lift and melt into the liquid, dazzling blue of the sky. Except the roses and the sky all is a gray shadow. It reminds one of some lovely picture of the Madonna with clustering cherub faces about her head, and you think it would not be discordant with the scene if a miraculous figure should steal into sight under that arch. It is one of the charms of Italy that it can always fitly frame whatever picture your imagination may paint.

One finds a pleasant and cultivated society there too. One of my most highly-esteemed visitors was the canonico priore of the cathedral, whose father had been an officer in the guard of the First Napoleon. A pious and dignified elderly man, this prelate is not too grave to be sometimes amusing as well as instructive. In his youth he had the privilege of being intimate with Cardinal Mezzofanti, who apparently took a fancy to the young Locatelli—"Tommassino" he called him, which is a musical way of saying Tommy. At length he offered to give him lessons in Greek. Full of proud delight at such a privilege, the student went with his books for the first lesson, and was most kindly received.

"Listen, Tommassino!" the cardinal said, turning over the leaves of a great folio. "Here is a magnificent passage of St. Chrysostom's;" and he read it out enthusiastically in fine, sonorous Greek.

"But I do not understand what it means," said the pupil.

"To be sure;" and the savant at once translated the passage into musical Italian, and pointed out its beauties of thought and expression. And so on, passage after passage, but never a word of grammar.

Another time it was another of the Fathers or a heathen poet or a chapter from the Bible read, translated and commented upon; but never from first to last did Tommassino learn to conjugate a verb or form a sentence from his learned professor.

"Mezzofanti," the prior said, "was as good as he was learned. He lived simply, would not have been known from a common priest by his dress in the street, and visited the sick like a parish priest."

Just at the foot of the hill on which Asisi is built a farm-school was established a few years ago, the first director being the Benedictine abate Lisi, a nobleman by birth and a farmer-monk by choice. His death a year or two ago was deeply regretted. To this establishment boys are sent, instead of to prison, after their first conviction for an offence against the law. We saw this school on a former visit to Asisi, and were much amused to see the tall, raw-boned abate stride about in his long black robe, which some of his motions threatened to rend from top to bottom. Clergymen habituated to the wearing of the long robe acquire, little by little, a restrained step and carriage, somewhat like a woman's, so that in ordinary masculine dress they may be discovered by their walk: one would say that they walk like women dressed in men's garments. The free stride in a narrow petticoat is almost comical.

On this occasion we had a new exemplification of the almost incredible riches of Italy, for the abate Lisi's house was crowded with objects dug up in digging cellars and drains and in cultivating the farm, though there had been no intention to excavate and the owner was rather embarrassed than otherwise by the riches he had acquired. Ancient coins of many different nations, fragments of exquisite architectural carving, statuary and household utensils, loaded shelves, tables and drawers. Italy would seem to be wrought of such like a coral-reef, down to its very foundations in the deep.

The abate had no utopian ideas concerning his work, though he heartily devoted his life to it. "These boys," he said, "will go out contadini—still thieves, if you will—but they will limit themselves to stealing a third out of their master's portion of the produce."

In Asisi we learned to understand what we may call atmospheric politics, and it confirmed our former opinion that the Italian people do not care a fig who governs them if only they are well fed. When they are hungry they rebel, and the only freedom they covet is freedom from the pangs of hunger. They are equally well pleased with the pope or with "Vittorio," as they called him, if their simple meal is always within reach; and if on feast-days they can have a chicken, red wine instead of white, and a dolce, their contentment rises to enthusiasm.

A drought or a destructive rain is therefore to be feared by any government, especially if there be malcontents to make use of it. There was quite a severe drought in Asisi last summer, and loud and deep were the imprecations we heard against the government. As the vines withered and the corn shrank, so withered and shrank the king and his ministers in the esteem of these poor people. Count Bindangoli told me that they very much feared some democratic demonstration, and that they were anxiously looking forward to the winter. In vain for weeks we looked over to Perugia for rain (rain comes to Asisi only from that direction). In vain were prayers in the churches, processions and promises. We saw the gray showers sail around the horizon, heard their far-off thunders, saw the lightning zigzag down through the slanting torrents, and almost saw the hills grow green under them. The only tempests we had were those we saw brooding on the brows of scowling contadini. They talked openly of a republic, they were sick of the devouring taxes, they regretted the papacy: there was certainly danger of some "scompiglio," my padrone di casa assured me.