VENICE. THE GRAND CANAL. MORE ITALIAN YESTERDAYS BY MRS. HUGH FRASER AUTHOR OF “ITALIAN YESTERDAYS,” “A DIPLOMATIST’S WIFE IN JAPAN,” “A DIPLOMATIST’S WIFE IN MANY LANDS,” “FURTHER REMINISCENCES OF A DIPLOMATIST’S WIFE,” ETC., ETC. WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTRATIONS IN PHOTOGRAVURE LONDON HUTCHINSON & CO. PATERNOSTER ROW 1915 CHAPTER I SAINTS OF THE CHURCH A Friend in Rome—A story of two ways of loving—Aglaë and Boniface—Become Christians—A new life—Boniface endures terrible tortures—Martyrdom—D

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 hap

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

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

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

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

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 w

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 hostil

We had chosen Castel Gandolfo for our summer quarters and had spent two or three 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 very 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 stretchin

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 allurem

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 saddle-bags were full. One can imagine him, pushing bac

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. QUEEN JOAN OF NAPLES. The elder of the two daughters born to Charles, Duke of Calabria, and Marie of Valois—both of whom had predeceased their

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

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 comp

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

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

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

Let us return 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 tha

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 sy