43 chapters
16 hour read
Selected Chapters
43 chapters
ITALIAN YESTERDAYS VOL. I
ITALIAN YESTERDAYS VOL. I
ITALIAN YESTERDAYS BY MRS. HUGH FRASER Author of “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Japan,” “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands,” “Reminiscences of a Diplomatist’s Wife,” etc. VOL. I NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1913 Copyright, 1913, by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published November, 1913 CHAPTER I PAGE Impressions of Early Rome 1 Romance and Companionship of the Past—Rome the Supremely Beloved—Pictures and Legends of Her Origin—Migration of the Alban Shepherds—Romulus and Remus—Etruria’s Civilisation—Whole
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
It has not been easy to find a title for the collection of memories, personal and otherwise, which this book contains, but I hope that the reader will feel that in calling it “Italian Yesterdays,” I have honestly tried to describe its contents. Recollections of my own experiences have found a place beside the stories and legends of saints and sinners long passed away from the land where they played their parts,—some virtuous, some infamous, but all notable and worth remembering for the glory or
2 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I IMPRESSIONS OF EARLY ROME
CHAPTER I IMPRESSIONS OF EARLY ROME
It has always seemed to me that one of the most perfect experiences within the grasp of mortals would be that of a child brought up in seclusion by an adored parent, only known to its heart and mind as such—and to find, on reaching maturity and coming out into the world, that the beloved one was the ruler of a mighty empire, venerated and feared by millions of men. How that knowledge would transfigure and ennoble the memories of childhood, of the protecting companionship bestowed, the being rock
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II REMINISCENCES OF MODERN ROME
CHAPTER II REMINISCENCES OF MODERN ROME
It is time to take breath. So far, we have been living over in mind the joys and sorrows of certain dwellers near the Appian Way, but every true story, however fair and fine, seems to run like crystal beads strung on a dark thread. The shadow of possible tragedy is behind all things human, and even the happiest tales of old leave one with a little pang at heart for the black hour of death which came to all the actors in them sooner or later. One turns with relief to the things that people wrongl
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III LAST DAYS OF THE APOSTLES
CHAPTER III LAST DAYS OF THE APOSTLES
The perusal of the histories of Rome, both ancient and modern, inspires the reader with amazement, when he realises that, despite countless invasions, destructions, and changes, certain apparently obscure landmarks of events which took place in the city during the first century after Christ, still exist, uneffaced and unforgotten. Yet so it is, particularly in regard to those connected with the sojourn of St. Peter in Rome. The devout pilgrim may visit them to-day with as little doubt as to thei
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV ROMAN YESTERDAYS
CHAPTER IV ROMAN YESTERDAYS
Few things in the records of the past are stranger than the variations of attitude of the Roman Emperors (barring some hæmatomaniacs like Nero) towards Christianity during the first three or four centuries of our era, quite apart from the moral attributes of the Emperors themselves. One feels, through the edicts, the bored irritation of the rulers at having to trouble themselves at all about a few low-born individuals led away, as was believed, by a crazy illusion about another world, a life aft
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V A FEUDAL VILLA
CHAPTER V A FEUDAL VILLA
The recollection of the artists’ festival brings to my mind some festivals of other times, remembered by very few persons now alive. Next to those connected with the great religious anniversaries, the ones most appreciated by the Romans were, I think, the lavish entertainments given by Prince Borghese in his villa to celebrate the vintage, in October. The Villa Borghese, as every one knows, is a great pleasure park just outside the Porta del Popolo, but those who see it as it is now, exploited f
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI A CHURCH PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER VI A CHURCH PILGRIMAGE
From things of the recent past let us turn for a moment to follow a pilgrimage which the Church makes during the seven days following the Feast of the Apostles in June and in the course of which she draws our attention to the seven spots in the Eternal City most closely connected with their glorious end. These spots had been for long centuries points of attraction to the Christians who flocked Rome-wards from all over the world at that time of year, but it was not till 1743 that Benedict XIV, Pr
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII THE LATER EMPERORS
CHAPTER VII THE LATER EMPERORS
The second day of July, if we follow out our proposed seven days’ pilgrimage, brings us to a spot in the Corso which so hums and stirs with modern life that it is difficult for the imagination to connect it with antiquity at all. Not that the Corso itself has the appearance of a modern street by any means. Narrow and anything but straight, with great palaces and mean buildings crowding promiscuously and set as close together as possible—princely houses flanked by humble shops—with cross streets
32 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE
CHAPTER VIII THE END OF THE PILGRIMAGE
The sixth day of July closes the Octave of the 29th of June with a magnificent function, attended by the whole College of Cardinals, in the Church of St. John Lateran, the outpost of the Eternal City on its southern side. The Basilica faces in that direction and is the last building within the city walls, which still raise their crenellated barrier of Roman masonry between it and the Campagna beyond. This, the real approach to the Church, is very beautiful. The portico is surmounted by statues o
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX ST. CECILIA
CHAPTER IX ST. CECILIA
Time passes on; madmen and sages, dolts and fighters succeed one another on the Imperial Throne, and try to hold together such rags of the Purple as are left to them; one and all agree in looking upon Christianity as a pestilential fad, to be stamped out by any means that come to hand. Some institute official persecutions, some merely leave the governors of cities and provinces to deal with the pest according to their own ideas. Even the most careless or the most indulgent never revoke the ancie
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X MARTYRDOM OF ST. CECILIA
CHAPTER X MARTYRDOM OF ST. CECILIA
And Cecilia? While the first chapter of the glorious tragedy was being enacted before the tribunal of Almachius, she had been immersed in fervent prayer for those she loved, asking not that their lives should be spared, but that their faith should be strengthened and that they might come triumphantly through their ordeal. Valerianus, through some Christian friend, immediately informed her of all that was taking place. Still she waited and prayed. The officer charged with carrying out the command
34 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI THE CHURCH UNDER CONSTANTINE
CHAPTER XI THE CHURCH UNDER CONSTANTINE
“And the Church had peace!” Those few words are all that are used to describe the overwhelming relief of the world when Constantine caused his great edict to be proclaimed throughout the Empire. “Let none henceforth dare to molest the Christians in the exercise of their religion or in the building of Temples to God.” The frightful persecution under Diocletian, more cruel and bloody than all that had preceded it, had been continued by his successor Galerius, [22] and was still active, still a liv
24 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII STORY OF ALARIC
CHAPTER XII STORY OF ALARIC
When Edmond Rostand, the truest poet of our latter day, wrote his “Princesse Lointaine,” he embodied the most ideal passion of the human heart, the desire of beauty unseen. The Eternal City has again and again inspired a like overmastering longing; it has been called by other names—ambition, revenge, desire of conquest—but the primal sentiment, in the most notable cases at least, reveals itself as an imperative craving to behold and possess the highest. In the saints the aspiration leaps from ea
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII THE SPHINX OF FRENCH HISTORY
CHAPTER XIII THE SPHINX OF FRENCH HISTORY
It is a far cry, geographically speaking, from Rome to the vast, alluvial plain of Lombardo-Venezia, that most bloodstained, perhaps, of all the districts of the earth; for, if Flanders has been called the cock-pit of Europe, the immense lowlands of upper Italy may with equal justice lay claim to the title of the battlefield of the old world. Scarcely a parish of it, from Rivoli in the west, to Aquileia in the east, but has, at one time or another—and, in many instances, not once but again and a
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV TRUTH OF THE IRON MASK
CHAPTER XIV TRUTH OF THE IRON MASK
And so the truth came to light. The Duchess-Regent of Savoy wrote, herself, to Louis XIV, to tell him that Mattioli had shown her the documents relating to the negotiations for Casale, and that she had in her possession copies of them. Her minister, Signor Trucci, had had an interview with Mattioli on the subject at Turin. It afterwards transpired, through Mattioli’s own admission to Catinat, that he had betrayed the whole affair to the Conde de Melgar, the Spanish Governor of Milan, and that Me
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV A “CAUSE CÉLÈBRE”
CHAPTER XV A “CAUSE CÉLÈBRE”
The name of that same Duchess-Regent of Savoy, Maria Baptista of Nemours, the cause of Mattioli’s downfall in 1679, had figured in connection with another and now long forgotten “cause célèbre” some few years earlier, in 1672—the drama of crime and of justice known to legal annalists as the “Defrêne Case.” Towards the year 1670 there was living in Paris a young man of the name of Pierre Hennequin, Marquis Defrêne. Of his antecedents I have no knowledge, but, by all accounts, he was related to ma
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI EUSTOCHIA
CHAPTER XVI EUSTOCHIA
The story of her, who was baptised by the name of Lucrezia Bellini and is now revered by the Church under that of Eustochia, which she assumed on becoming a Benedictine nun, in the year 1461, is one of the very strangest that even the Italian Quattrocento has to show. For it is the story of a child of sin who was tormented all her days by the Adversary of mankind, and who was yet a saint. In these, our own latter days, when the world at large is recovering somewhat from the prolonged epidemic of
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII A SKETCH OF VERONA
CHAPTER XVII A SKETCH OF VERONA
Almost every ancient Italian town possesses some distinctive attribute of its own, whether of pure beauty or grandeur or sanctity; or, else, of mere gentle charm, gladsome or melancholy, such as Sorrento or Ravenna; but of them all perhaps the most richly endowed—Rome itself alone excepted—with stirring memories of the men and their deeds, good and bad, of bygone ages, is the city of Verona. One of the earliest—and very possibly, too, one of the best—representations of Verona is to my mind that
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII THE BRAVI OF VENICE
CHAPTER XVIII THE BRAVI OF VENICE
Of all subjects connected with old Venice, in the popular mind, that of her criminal administration is one of the most fascinating by reason of the endless traditions of mystery and terror with which it is fraught, and, of all historical executives, the Venetian “Signori di Notte”—the Lords of the Night—appeal the most irresistibly to the normal curiosity inherent in most people. The very notion of the nocturnal jurisdiction implied by the title of that famous Board carries with it a suggestion
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIX LEGENDARY VENICE
CHAPTER XIX LEGENDARY VENICE
There is hardly a street or a building in Venice that cannot flower with some whisper of legend, if the soil of its story be but cultivated with determination; but a house-to-house search would involve the labour of years; and, though the pursuit of legend is doubtless an enthralling business, yet life is a small package, and it is difficult enough to find a room in it for all that it has to contain. Still, if I am fortunate enough to lead some, through the lure of the legend, to the serious stu
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XX A DOGE’S LIFE
CHAPTER XX A DOGE’S LIFE
The son of that Doge who rowed after the corsairs and helped to recover the brides, wrote a fiery and bloody chapter in the history of Venice—and died in the writing. He began early in life to plot against his father, who, feeling the weight of age and responsibility pressing hard upon him, allowed his son to sit beside him and help him in the business of ruling the State. No sooner did the former feel the sceptre in his hands than he began to plot against the parent who had permitted him to han
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXI “THE WEDDING OF THE SEA”
CHAPTER XXI “THE WEDDING OF THE SEA”
The origin of the ceremony known as the wedding of the sea dates from the reign of Pietro Orseolo, the son of that Pietro who left the world for the cloister, after two years of, to him, extremely unsympathetic labour. The old gentleman had prophesied the boy’s rise to his father’s plane, during one of the former’s very few visits to him, in these words: “I know that they will make you Doge, and I know that you will prosper.” The prophecy was more than fulfilled, for young Pietro proved to be a
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XXII WAR WITH GENOA
CHAPTER XXII WAR WITH GENOA
It has been told how, after the assassination of the Doge Saundo IV, the mob, in a state of ungovernable fury, set fire to the ducal palace, and how this fire, spreading, injured many noble buildings including St. Mark’s itself. Orseolo, it may be remembered, left the world within two years of his election, and the repairs were finished under Vital Falier. Then, to the dismay of the Doge and everybody else, it was discovered that the original resting-place of the Holy Apostle had been forgotten;
27 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ITALIAN YESTERDAYS VOL. II
ITALIAN YESTERDAYS VOL. II
ITALIAN YESTERDAYS BY MRS. HUGH FRASER Author of “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Japan,” “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Many Lands,” “Reminiscences of a Diplomatist’s Wife,” etc. VOL. II NEW YORK DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY 1913 Copyright, 1913, by DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY Published November, 1913 CHAPTER I PAGE Saints of the Church 1 A Friend in Rome—A Story of Two Ways of Loving—Aglaë and Boniface—Become Christians—A New Life—Boniface Endures Terrible Tortures—Martyrdom—Death of Aglaë—Church of St. Boniface—Alexi
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER I SAINTS OF THE CHURCH
CHAPTER I SAINTS OF THE CHURCH
It was my good fortune, many years ago, to make friends with a woman whose name was as beautiful as her mind—Mary Grace. We met in another hemisphere, under the Southern Cross, and for many days lived together in Chile’s one little paradise, Viña del Mar. There, in shady patios trellised with jessamine and bougainvillea, we talked of the impossible—of meeting in Rome and going together to the holy places and making better acquaintance with the Saints. Two or three years later the impossible happ
19 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER II FOUNDER OF MONASTICISM
CHAPTER II FOUNDER OF MONASTICISM
In the heart of the Sabines, where the Nar breaks out from the rock near the mountain called the Lioness, there has been since very early times a little town, too inaccessible to tempt the spoiler and the invader, too sturdy and independent to serve long as a footstool for mediæval tyrants. It was well fortified, however, and the ancient walls encircle it still, in good repair, as witnesses to its immunity from the fate that has annihilated so many other little old cities, its neighbours. Nature
30 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER III ST. GREGORY THE GREAT
CHAPTER III ST. GREGORY THE GREAT
Three years before St. Benedict and his sister Scholastica passed away, there was born, in a palace on the Cœlian Hill, a child who was christened Gregory, a name which signified “Vigilant.” His lineage was exceedingly illustrious, his parents belonging to the great old Gens Anicia, a family of nobles which had been respected and honoured ever since the days of the Republic, and in which, to use the words of a chronicler of Gregory’s time, “the men seemed all to have been born Consuls, and the w
19 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IV MEMORIES OF THE PANTHEON
CHAPTER IV MEMORIES OF THE PANTHEON
If you stand before San Pietro in Montorio and look down from the spot where St. Peter was crucified, you will see, rounding up in the low-lying heart of the city, a dome, white, huge, uncrowned, standing out from the darker buildings round it like an enormous mother-of-pearl shell, softly iridescent, yet, when storm is in the air, taking on a grey and deathlike hue. That is the Pantheon, and thus it has stood, reflecting every mood of the Roman sky, since the days of Hadrian, who became Emperor
23 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER V EARLY LIFE OF FATHER MASTAI
CHAPTER V EARLY LIFE OF FATHER MASTAI
Nearly a hundred years have passed since the day when the young priest who was to be the best loved and the worst hated man in Europe said his first Mass, and Time’s heavy wings have already blurred his memory in their flight, to a fading outline for the present generation. Very few now know anything about his early years, and in the story of them the finger of God is so clear that it seems to be worth while to make a brief record of the steps by which he was prepared for the burdens and honours
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VI POPE PIUS IX
CHAPTER VI POPE PIUS IX
After his return from Chile, Father Giovanni Maria Mastai was appointed Director of the Ospizio di San Michele, a position which could not be called a great advancement in the eyes of the world, but which carried with it a most weighty burden of responsibility. Some idea of this charge can be grasped when we explain that the so-called “Hospital” embraced six separate large establishments: namely, an orphanage for boys, another for girls, both containing complete schools for general education as
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VII CAPTIVITY OF POPE PIUS VII
CHAPTER VII CAPTIVITY OF POPE PIUS VII
One beautiful evening of early summer in the year 1810, the packet-boat plying between Genoa and Savona reached the latter port after a fair but exciting passage; for, albeit the sea was scarcely ruffled by the breeze—which in itself was barely sufficient to fill the sails—yet during the whole of the voyage from Genoa a couple of British frigates had accompanied the packet-boat, keeping however, much to the surprise of the voyagers, at a considerable distance and without manifesting any hostile
30 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER VIII IN SABINA
CHAPTER VIII IN SABINA
We had chosen Castel Gandolfo for our summer quarters and had spent two delightful months in the Villa Brazzà, situated on the lower edge of the town, which climbed up the gentle slope behind, and having for ourselves the open view of all the Campagna below us, before. The house did not look large from the road, but very little of it showed itself to the road at all. When one had passed under the arched “portone,” one found a great rambling residence with a long terraced wing stretching down int
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER IX PEOPLE OF THE HILLS
CHAPTER IX PEOPLE OF THE HILLS
How much our Italy of Rome and Naples owes to the Apennines! How gratefully should lovers of romance and history regard that mighty chain that runs, an inland sea of crag and peak, forest and ravine, between shore and shore! Physically and morally, it is the backbone of the country, the fortress of tradition, the nurse of what our modern cant calls, “Plain living and high thinking.” Its hard, yet beneficent, climate, with sharp delimitations of season, its passes so obdurate to the tainting allu
28 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER X A STORY OF VENICE
CHAPTER X A STORY OF VENICE
Here is a story of Venice. In the early part of the Fifteenth Century a Northern soldier, riding home through the sweet-smelling summer twilight, dreaming in all probability of some dusky-eyed maiden of the border states, stopped by the side of a field to look about him for a shelter for the night. That he would be welcome at any inn, he was sure, for he was returning from the wars to spend his not very hard-earned prize money, of which his saddlebags were full. One can imagine him, pushing back
25 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XI QUEEN JOAN OF NAPLES
CHAPTER XI QUEEN JOAN OF NAPLES
Of all feminine sinners known to history, Joan of Anjou, Queen of Naples and of Jerusalem, affords, perhaps, the most conspicuous example of the perils attendant upon what are known as “marriages of State”—that is to say, marriages brought about for reasons of State and without reference to the personal inclinations of the contracting parties themselves. The elder of the two daughters born to Charles, Duke of Calabria and Marie of Valois—both of whom had predeceased their father and father-in-la
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XII A MEDIÆVAL NIGHTMARE
CHAPTER XII A MEDIÆVAL NIGHTMARE
To judge from the sequence of events, it would appear almost certain that, in his amazing marriage with Princess Maria, Charles of Durazzo must have had the assistance—or, at least, the tacit approval—of Andrew of Hungary; and that, in return for this, Charles had promised Andrew that he would take his part and support him against the faction of the Queen. Certain it is, at all events, that, immediately after the marriage of Charles and Maria, the party of Andrew, his Hungarian barons and soldie
33 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIII THE VAMPIRE-MONARCH FROM HUNGARY
CHAPTER XIII THE VAMPIRE-MONARCH FROM HUNGARY
This detestable butchery, strictly in accord with the criminal procedure of the day, was but the beginning of a reign of terror in the city and realm of Naples. The murder of Andrew of Hungary was soon no more than a pretext to serve Charles of Durazzo for ridding himself of all persons who, in any way, dared to manifest their disapproval of his assumption of the Dictatorship of the Kingdom or to murmur against his unbearable tyranny. Nor was it long before Louis of Taranto, who by now had compl
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XIV END OF JOAN’S CAREER
CHAPTER XIV END OF JOAN’S CAREER
In those days of the King of Hungary’s assize in Naples, Queen Joan reached her county of Provence and began to travel across it from Nice, where she had landed, towards Avignon. On coming to the town of Aix, however, to her astonishment and perplexity, her journey was interrupted by the townspeople, who, albeit they received her with every mark of respect, yet set a guard about the castle of the place, the Château d’Arnaud, in which she stayed; and refused to let her issue thence until, as they
22 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XV NAPLES UNDER MURAT
CHAPTER XV NAPLES UNDER MURAT
The fairest and, in some respects, the wickedest spot on the face of the earth is that wonder city, that broods by the “tideless, dolorous, midland sea,” Vesuvius, smoking like some monstrous chimney of hell behind her, the deep blue, translucent glory of the sea like a drift of Our Blessed Lady’s mantle before. Travelling round that bay and on around the point towards Calabria, hardly a dreamy mile goes by that some of the history of thousands of years ago does not present itself. It has been t
46 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVI MURAT’S LAST DAYS
CHAPTER XVI MURAT’S LAST DAYS
No sooner was Caroline on board than the city broke out again and anarchy reigned, until the Austrians sent in some troops in answer to the frantic appeals of the magistrates, and these, with the British marines, set upon the mob, killing a hundred or more of the worst of them before order was restored. The riot and the subsequent slaughter had apparently no effect upon the people’s feelings, for on the very next day they illuminated the city gorgeously and the sound of their merriment could be
20 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVII ITALIAN SEAS
CHAPTER XVII ITALIAN SEAS
Let us come back to happier themes! Many and enchanting books have been written about Italian cities and Italian country, but none about our Italian seas. People who look at the map may think this a limited subject; there is the Mediterranean and there is the Adriatic, what more can be said? Amici miei , to a sea-lover there are as many seas as ports; the dear salt water and the sunrise and the sunset know it, and have a separate caress for each. They make—or fit into—the thousand moods of mind
33 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CHAPTER XVIII SOUTHERN SHORES
CHAPTER XVIII SOUTHERN SHORES
The real life of the Adriatic coast seems to diminish visibly when one leaves Venice and drops down towards Ravenna; it has been drawn away inland to busy cities that turn their backs on the sea, and the sea itself has sullenly withdrawn, leaving ancient ports empty and useless, like stranded wrecks that will never feel the leap of the waves beneath their keels again. One should visit Ravenna either in the heyday of irrepressible youth or much later in life when twilight is companionable and sym
15 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter